You see, it wasn't that the effort to evacuate Americans and their loyal Afghanistan allies quickly fell into chaos due to poor planning, intelligence failures, wholly inadequate resources, and the stubborn insistence of sticking to artificial deadlines that resulted in one of the most shameful episodes in American history.
No, that's not it at all.
The problem was people noticed.
Don't you just hate it when people facing near-certain death start hassling you about saving them?
Rear Adm. Peter Vasely called the outreach a "distraction" that "created competition for already stressed resources." His comments appear in sworn testimony provided for a U.S. Army investigation of the Aug. 26 suicide bombing that killed an estimated 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. service members outside Kabul's international airport.
You see, with resources stretched, you have to make decisions about who you save and who you don't, and that's a call best left to Vasely and not, you know, the people facing the prospect of certain death or the people who love them.
The declassified report, spanning 2,000 pages and comprising dozens of interviews with military officials, was obtained by The Washington Post through a Freedom of Information Act request.
This was not a voluntary admission. This had to be pried out of the Pentagon.
It contains the most detailed official account to date of the 17-day evacuation, hastily orchestrated as the Taliban swept into Afghanistan's capital Aug. 15, and reveals that military leaders had deep misgivings about the Biden administration's management of the crisis.
The complete lack of confidence in the evacuation led all the way to the Pope, and even the person most close to Biden: his home health aide.
The Army's lead investigator, Brig. Gen. Lance Curtis, asked Vasely whether reports were true that Pope Francis and first lady Jill Biden had requested help on behalf of specific people who remained in harm's way.
"That's accurate," Vasely responded.
But that wasn't all.
Vasely said that social media exacerbated the problem, broadening the "aperture of ambition" to the point that people even campaigned for the military to rescue specific dogs.
Yes, those without influence and power turned to the only outlet they had to have their voices heard.
By the way, that "aperture of ambition" was supposed to include, at a minimum, American citizens.
Vasely told investigators that by Aug. 22 or 23, "it was clear we weren't going to get all Americans out"
If only people would have used Instagram a little less, maybe they could have fulfilled the president's pledge, one he made right around the same time it had clearly become hopeless.
In Washington, Biden pledged in a news conference on Aug. 22 that no American who wanted to leave would be left behind. "I will say again today [what] I have said before: Any American who wants to get home will get home," the president said.
Next time the government fails miserably, try to keep your yap shut about it, okay?
It upsets them.
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