John Kirby: ‘No Use in Responding’ to Vets Criticizing Biden’s Afghanistan Withdrawal
“A ‘handful’ of vets indeed and all of one stripe.” In other words, they don’t support Biden-Harris so screw them.
White House National Security Council communications adviser John Kirby needs to check who is in the email chain before responding.
Kirby sent an email meant for White House staffers but didn’t see that Fox News Digital was in the chain.
Kirby said it’s “no use” to respond to veterans critical of President Joe Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal:
“Obviously no use in responding. A ‘handful’ of vets indeed and all of one stripe,” Kirby said in a “reply all” email chain Wednesday afternoon that appeared to be intended for White House staffers, but which also included Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital had reached out to the White House earlier Wednesday afternoon regarding critical comments from four veterans, including Florida Rep. Cory Mills, who blasted Kirby for his Monday press conference that they said provided “cover” for the Biden administration’s 2021 withdrawal.
Included in that initial reachout were quotes from the four veterans, and Fox News Digital asked the White House if it had any comment to include on the vets’ blistering criticisms of Kirby and the White House’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. The email chain was forwarded to White House staffers on the National Security Council, before Kirby replied to all on the chain that there’s “no use in responding.”
Kirby’s message was sent in error, with him following up with a Fox News Digital reporter, “Clearly, I didn’t realize you were on the chain.” Kirby sent the email while traveling with President Biden on the anniversary of 9/11.
The four veterans blasted Kirby for “deflecting” blame to Donald Trump, especially since a report from the House Republicans disputed “Biden’s claims that his hands were tied to an agreement made under former President Trump’s administration for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan under an established deadline in 2021.”
The Biden administration had no plan to help Americans and allies in Afghanistan.
“The bottom line is that the Biden-Harris administration chose politics over strategy, and Kirby, who I wouldn’t trust to guard my grocery list, is now trying to cover for them,” Florida Republican Rep. Millstold Fox News.
Biden did not have to abide by the deadlines because top leaders told them “that the Taliban were already in violation of the conditions of the Doha agreement and, therefore, the U.S. was not obligated to leave.”
Even NATO allies disagreed with the timing. Col. Seth Krummrich, chief of staff for Special Operations Command, told the committee that Biden was going to leave Afghanistan no matter what:
The committee also found NATO allies had expressed their vehement opposition to the U.S. decision to withdraw. The British Chief of the Defense staff warned that “withdrawal under these circumstances would be perceived as a strategic victory for the Taliban.”
Biden kept on Zalmay Khalilzad, a Trump appointee who negotiated the agreement, as special representative to Afghanistan – a signal that the new administration endorsed the deal.
At the Taliban’s demand, Khalilzad had shut out the Afghan government from the talks – a major blow to President Ashraf Ghani’s government.
When Trump left office, some 2,500 U.S. troops remained in Afghanistan. Biden himself was determined to draw that number to zero no matter what, according to Col. Seth Krummrich, chief of staff for Special Operations Command, who told the committee, “The president decided we’re going to leave, and he’s not listening to anybody.”
Then-State Dept. spokesperson Ned Price admitted in testimony the Doha agreement was “immaterial” to Biden’s decision to withdraw.
The withdrawal led to the death of 13 soldiers:
- Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo
- Sgt. Nicole L. Gee
- Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover
- Cpl. Hunter Lopez
- Cpl. Daegan W. Page
- Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez
- Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza
- Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz
- Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum
- Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola
- Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui
- Navy Corpsman Maxton W. Soviak
- Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss
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Comments
Kirby has thrown away his credibility to Join Moe and Larry. Curly could go to the WH and perhaps stop speading propaganda, misinformation and extreme bias.
The Senate must approve all officer appointments to the military. Constitution, Art. II, sections 2, 3. For most officers (1st, 2d lieutenants. captains, major), the approval is done en masse. But for the “brass” (like the scrambled egg visor wearers) approval is individualized, sometimes involving hearings.
Kirby, believe it or not (based on his lick-spittle subservience to the Deep State), “rose” to the rank of a two-star admiral !!!
And his toadying to leftists therefore makes him an oath breaker. Nothing but a reprehensible shill for despots and tyrants.
Allow me to point out that “Rear” Admiral Kirby is shilling for an administration that oversaw the death of 13 ENLISTED personnel.
A worthless officer who deserves to be fragged in a war zone for failure to protect those he swore to protect. It’s one thing to send troops into battle with the chance of death. It’s quite another to walk away from the battlefield leaving others to die.
A rear echelon paper pusher of the highest degree, and a worthless piece of shit.
Explains a lot about the current state of the U.S. Navy.
Two problems
1. He’s their commander in chief (good discipline and order and all that)
2. Vets get no special say.
A vet who thinks it was stupid but holds his tongue is a better soldier. That’s what all that drill is supposed to achieve. It’s not a good civilian trait but it’s a good military trait.
Saying in addition “I’m a vet and …” just compounds the betrayal. It’s like whistleblower status being claimed.
There was no big scandal, just something that didn’t work out well.
Of course, you missed the issue to spount low IQ nonsense. NOTHING to do with stolen valor. What an assinine connotation. Vets have every right to speak when they are no longer serving. Or should they give up their First Amendment rights? One vet is a Representative, but he should shut up because how dare someone criticize a WH mouthpiece caught doing something underhanded.
Stolen valor? I don’t see where that came from.
Vets have every right to speak on anything but not as a vet.
Not only low IQs make mistakes. Should have read, “NOTHING to do with whistleblower status.”
Vets have every right to speak as THEY see fit. And speaking “as a vet” only gets reprisals from the likes of Kirby and you, who seeks to dictate what is permitted. Low IQ.
Well that’s the thing. You don’t get to say charging the machine gun nest sounds like a bad idea when it comes up. That’s the drill with all those flag etiquette rules. Yours is not to reason why.
If the commander in chief is no longer your boss, you can say anything you want but not as a vet. Or you can, but it’s bad behavior. You can’t count on the military anymore, and maybe the military gets the idea that it can’t count on the military anymore either. It’s a sort of sabotage.
You are no authority on what people should say AFTER they return to civilian life and become vets. Who made you general? Will you next suggest a court-martial because they are betraying the military that you pretend owes them nothing.
I gave you the argument for it. It stands on its own or it doesn’t.
Respect for the military depends on respect for the military, especially internal respect.
“Respect for the military depends on respect for the military.”
Harris could not have said it better!
The argument fails because it is preposterous and, frankly, it’s anti-American to propose to forbid criticism for the reasons mentioned.
If you say f the commander in chief as a vet, it suggests you thought that way in the military, which implies that the military is not reliable. An order is given and it isn’t followed. The military itself notices what you say. “Maybe I should be thinking that too.”
Say anything you want but not “I am a vet and f the commander in chief.” Just as an ordinary citizen “f the commander in chief.”
“If you say f the commander in chief as a vet, it suggests you thought that way in the military, which implies that the military is not reliable.”
More low IQ nonsense assuming to know what a vet thought while serving. Ridiculous to the max.
Why don’t YOU say it as an ordinary citizen and stop trying to control what veterans express, as civilians who ARE veterans.
By the way, Milley was IN the military when he did exactly what you criticize. He received got a book deal.
Done with your silly “arguments” that are more an exercise to pretend you know more than you actually do.
“I gave you the argument for it. It stands on its own or it doesn’t.”
Aaaand….It doesn’t.
Stupid argument.
I can say anything I want, but can’t mention that I’m a veteran (and, therefore have some experience with the subject that may lend additional credibility to my position)?
Sorry, stupid isn’t strong enough. That’s a flat out retarded argument.
“Vets have every right to speak on anything but not as a vet.”
What an absolutely stupid and foolish thing to say.
Jesus H. Christ. Tell me you never served without telling me you never served.
Get help.
You are literally insane.
” just something that didn’t work out well.” Unf**king believable And spewing this on 9/11 “when somebody did something.”
What didn’t work out well was mostly the complete and absolutely immediate collapse of opposition to the Taliban. The 13 deaths is just publicity standing in for it as a bad thing. It avoids cultural judging.
“The 13 deaths is just publicity standing in for it as a bad thing. It avoids cultural judging.”
This disgraceful statement is a slap in the face of the 13 families that now have an empty place at the dinner table. It’s a slap in the face of any family that has lost a warrior in these endless wars.
You mask your ignorance in a cloud of cynicism, and it fools exactly no one.
Which is why each one of your posts gets ratio’ed and you get taken to the woodshed.
You are, apparently, some sort of physicist or “intellectual,” from what I understand.
It’s just as likely that you’re just on the spectrum.
At any rate, just f**king stop with this garbage.
I’ll do my part by no longer responding to you, and I’ll start praying that WordPress comes up with a “Block” function.
I’m pointing out brainwashing. The 13 were doing soldier functions and they died doing it, along with about 800 others in active service that year. What’s special about those 13 is, to the audience for it, they were Biden’s fault, as if the other 800 weren’t. He’s commander in chief, everything is his fault.
As Patton said, your job isn’t to die for your country, your job is to make the other poor bastard die for his country.
The honor, actually, isn’t in being killed but in going when called. If you get killed, you get sympathy but not additional honor. You already had the honor.
Did you look at your watch in between words?
Biden has no humanity either.
Dear God, do you eat with that mouth of yours?
You never served, and you have sunken to a new low.
The Vet’s speaking out now did hold their tongue while in uniform and they should have. They are now civilians and can say anything they want.
Jesus, rhhardin. You really have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to anything involving the military whether behavior while in unform, when out of uniform at end of enlistment or National Cemeteries. You should stop showing your ignorance.
No, it wasn’t just something that didn’t work out well.
Its failure was completely predictable and was predicted. Biden simply didn’t care.
Trump would not have proceeded with the withdrawal under those circumstances. Even if the Taliban had been sticking to their side of the bargain (which they weren’t), no agreement is binding when it is contrary to the national interest. Trump knows that and would have acted accordingly. Biden was determined to cut and run no matter what, purely for domestic political advantage.
This is perhaps the biggest pile of steaming crap you have we’ve produced here.
1. The ‘rule’ you cite Article 88 of the UCMJ applies to members of the Armed Forces.
2. Veterans’ are by definition not currently serving in the armed forces. You could have narrowed the application to Veterans of Afghanistan Campaign during GWOT, some of which are.still serving, but you chose not to do so.
Article 88 doesn’t apply to Veterans. Criticism by Veterans is perfectly legal and if they are making good faith arguments are completely ethical as well. No Veteran,. No Citizen, heck no Active Duty service member owes blind allegiance to any political figure. Members swear to support and defend the Constitution.
Veterans have an added level of knowledge re milky affairs and foreign affairs. This is particularly true for those who deployed to combat zones and/or are themselves Combat Veterans. They understand all too well the impact of policy failures b/c they were dealing with the results of those failures.
Why you would make an argument that Veterans should or mist stay silent lest they break some invisible code only you seem to see is beyond me, it is stupidity of Galactic proportions.
It lacks legal authority over veterans. Nevertheless it is subversive of good order and discipline, something that that veteran is willing to do for his own purposes.
The brainwashing is that veterans are good and true, which itself piggybacks on that good order and discipline reputation. They’re not, except maybe those who keep silent – orders are orders.
In a private capacity, not as a veteran, you’re not trading for credibility on the good and true meme that the military needs, and can say anything you want. But then you’re just a guy.
Call it using stolen virtue, virtue in the military sense, when you’re no longer in the military sense virtuous.
Your underlying premise, that the current military/civil leadership of DoD is doing ‘good’, is unsupported. As is the stated premise that that Veterans or AD members are morally obliged to remain silent out of misguided notions of loyalty.
Legally only AD members or reservists in Uniform are obliged to refrain from negative public comments. Morally no one is.
Where the hell did you get this notion you are spouting?
The moral component always comes from something you do affecting who you yourself are. If you disparage the commander in chief speaking as someone who possesses military virtue, which is the thing that you’re trading on – I am good and true in the military sense – you undermine yourself because you’re obviously not good and true in the military sense. Technically that self-affecting effect is the domain of morality.
Nope, the premise of your argument is flawed. Your argument rests on an unproven presumption that whatever policy/mission the DoD and it’s civilian masters seek to implement is an automatic good that will not harm the Nation, the DoD or the particular service branch b/c it is asinine, unethical or illegal.
I refer you to the first rule of holes: stop digging deeper.
Fûck off. I didn’t relinquish my constitutional rights just because I am a veteran.
I have every right to question the actions of this administration and to point out when veterans are affected.
Otherwise, we veterans would be at the mercy of those who refused to wear the uniform. Some of which were draft dodgers.
You can say anything you want, preferably with a good argument but you take what you get these days. Just not as a veteran, or anyway without undermining yourself and the military.
Just because you say I am undermining the military does not mean I am doing so.
As both a retiree, and a veteran that comes with that retiree status, I am no longer under orders from anyone. That is, unless the military chooses to recall me to active duty to court martial me for a violation of the UCMJ.
But that still does not make me relinquish my Constitutional rights. I merely had to keep my mouth shut while wearing the uniform so that I didn’t affect good order and discipline. But I didn’t have to keep my mouth shut. I followed orders and executed those orders to the best of my ability.
But as a Chief, I managed up, not down. If I had a problem, I spoke to my superiors and didn’t whine to my subordinates. I have been in shouting matches with senior officers behind closed doors. But once we came to consensus or I was given a direct order, not one member of my staff heard me say, “Sorry Airman, the general said I have to do this.”
Once we came to a resolution, that resolution became mine and mine alone, and I telegraphed that to my enlisted staff.
There is a major problem with the oath soldiers take when they go in. It literally contradicts itself. You can’t swear allegiance to the President but still uphold a duty to the Constitution. Prior to the Civil War they were not required to swear oath to the President. The Constitution requires all of us to blow the whistle if there is wrongdoing. In this case, they should speak out because the same weapons they left behind have now been proven to have literally killed our soldiers and also allies soldiers.
We don’t swear allegiance to the President. Our oath is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to obey the orders of the President of the United States and the officers appointed over us.
The President in the role of commander in chief may issue orders through the leadership, but no one can issue orders that are illegal.
Orders are not the same as allegiance.
I support all of that and it’s what I called military virtue. People are rightly proud of it.
I’m saying that you can’t _trade on_ that virtue when speaking as a vet as a civilian. Particularly as it shows it’s a virtue you no longer have. You can speak like anybody else as anybody else, using what they use, an argument.
Kirby is a disgusting sh*tweasel. He’s a perfect Biden toadie.
By tomorrow there will be 51 “intel professionals” who will swear up and down that this has all the hallmarks of a Russian propaganda email.
Kirby:
1. What’s our position on vets? We don’t respond to vets.
2. That reminds mind me. We’re low on canon fodder. We need more people to join.
Vets?
Let them eat cake.
Typical world. After we are done killing vets and the survivors return home, it’s “dogs and soldiers keep off the grass.”
He fearful of the day when veterans have had enough of being treated as second class citizens. Hint. We have in fact unalived people.
fair enough
so why does the gop respond to the communistnazis of the left and continue to give them aid in their welfare state agenda!!!?!?!?
One thing I have not heard addressed, is why the equipment that had to be left behind was not deactivated/destroyed. As a retired military trainer, I know that military personnel have a duty to destroy such assets if they are in danger of being overrun or a base/post abandoned. I used to instruct basic firearm classes that included a section on how to destroy firearms and vehicles to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. It’s not difficult, it doesn’t take long, but on a large scale (a whole base being overrun) it MUST be ordered by a command authority.
There is no reason one truck with a mounted .50 caliber machinegun couldn’t have made one pass down the flightline and disabled every single aircraft that was left behind with a burst of shots to each engine. Small arms, from handguns to medium machineguns, can be permanently disabled with a single strike from a sledgehammer or large rock on the receiver. Larger guns can be dumped into a pit and destroyed with a demolition charge and the remnants burned with a fuel fire, as can bulk ammunition.
I know the troops and their NCOs would have asked about destroying this stuff, so someone had to DECIDE to leave it intact. I want to know who made that call, and why they haven’t been court-martialed.
Correct.
Buyout Biden and his merry bunch of bootlickers didn’t permit it.
A vet who is not on AD can say whatever he/she wants to. Everything else said about this is stupid. As a vet I can express myself in any manner I wish. That is protected by the first amendment.