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[Order David Horowitz’s new book, America Betrayed, HERE.]
The U.S. military’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 was a moment of profound embarrassment and a source of deep demoralization for many veterans.
In the recent presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, Trump said the U.S. military’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August of 2021 was “the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country.”
As a veteran of brutal combat in Afghanistan, I felt the same. The decision to withdraw not only tarnished the U.S.’s global image but also deeply impacted the morale of the finest fighting force in the world.
According to an August 2021 study by Pew Research, at the time of the evacuation, 54% of Americans said the decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan was the right one. Around four-in-ten Americans (42%) said the decision was the wrong one.
In the same survey, 69% of U.S. adults agreed that the U.S. “mostly failed” in achieving its goals in Afghanistan.
I disagree. We didn’t mostly fail; we utterly failed our military in so many ways.
Thirteen service members were killed in that mockery of our military three years ago. And, as predicted, the radical, violent Taliban recaptured the capital of Kabul in just 10 days.
At a congressional hearing, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, called the withdrawal from Afghanistan a “strategic failure.” In this heated hearing, Milley also said U.S. military presence in Afghanistan helped protect Americans from future terror attacks.
Then-Congressman Mike Rogers of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee at the time, called the withdrawal an “unmitigated disaster.”
“It will go down in history as one of the greatest failures of American leadership,” Rogers said.
I deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan multiple times and spent many difficult days and long nights in that cursed country. But my most harrowing experience by far came when my unit came under siege in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley–known as “The Valley of Death” because so many Americans lost their lives there. We were actually there to shut down a U.S. base, but when the enemy emerged from the valley in wave after wave, we fought for our lives for the next 72 hours straight.
Our nation sent our best women and men to free Afghanistan from the grip of tyranny. Many of them did not come home. All of those lives lost and blood spilt now seems in vain.
In that pivotal presidential debate–which led to Biden’s own disastrous withdrawal from seeking a second term–the President falsely claimed our military is the “finest in the world,” and “no one thinks we’re weak.” Biden couldn’t be more wrong about the strength, and reports say otherwise.
Let’s look at the evidence.
Despite claims of a strong military, evidence points to significant issues. In 2024, the U.S. military is expected to have a record low in recruitment, with the smallest active-duty force since 1940. In 2023, only the Marine Corps and the Space Force met their recruiting goals despite increasing bonuses and relaxing standards.
Reports indicate that the U.S. struggles to retain service members for various reasons. Many top leaders are merely waiting out their enlistments and contracts. Too many in our officer corps and senior enlisted ranks are just trying to finish their careers to secure benefits.
Mountains of evidence show that our military is weak, at least weaker than that during the last administration.
In January, the Heritage Foundation released a report and said, “the Active Component of the U.S. military is two-thirds the size it should be, operates equipment that is older than it should be, and is burdened by readiness levels that are more problematic than they should be.”
We have record levels of suicide among service members across the board. Twenty-two veterans a day end their lives. Recently, the Pentagon reported that U.S. soldiers are almost 9 times more likely to die by suicide than by enemy fire.
Many non-profit organizations, like SOF Missions, have served active duty and veterans left behind by leadership. Teams of dedicated medical and mental health experts–empowered by donors–step in and provide free medical care to veterans due to the overburdened and mismanaged Veterans Affairs Department, working to prevent suicide and striving to provide tools which build resilience and help troops reintegrate into civilian life.
Our military heroes need hope now more than ever. Since the collapse of Afghanistan, the active duty and veteran community have been in disarray. Today, more than ever, they need leadership that will rebuild our military, preserve the future of our American veterans and be ready to respond to international actors threatening a new war in the Middle East.
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Dr. Damon Friedman is a decorated veteran of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel in special operations. He is the recipient of the Spirit of Hope Award from the Secretary of Defense, chairman of the Veterans Service Alliance and founder of SOF Missions.
Americas worst enemies is the UN and DNC as well as Antifa, BLM and CFR
DNC UN UNWRA ANTIFA CHAZ SPAZ BLM CAIR CFR
America’s WORST ENEMIES
Let’s not forget CCP, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Republic of Iran, Houthis (Yemen), N. Korea, Russia/Putin, Venezuela/Maduro, Cuba, Mexican Cartels (all). The list has only grown stronger and longer since the Dem’s Nov 2020 coup d’état installed Biden and his regime.
America’s worst enemies by far occupy the White House and US Capitol.
Per Wikipedia: “There were 2,402 United States military deaths in the War in Afghanistan, which lasted from October 2001 to August 2021. 1,921 of these deaths were the result of hostile action. 20,713 American servicemembers were also wounded in action during the war. ”
How many of the wounded and killed were because if Iran supplied IEDs?
Is it any wonder why recruitment is way down?
Is it any wonder why veterans with military age kids are strongly advising their kids NOT to go into the military?
We “elected” a burned out addled demented crook in 2020 and we act surprised when he cuts and runs leaving $80B in brand new equipment on the Bagram tarmac to be sold or parceled out to enemies all over the world.
Anyone see a pattern here?
Democrats go into S. Viet Nam in 1964. 10 years later, after the Democrats in Congress lose interest we abandon S, Viet Nam to the Communists.
Post 9-11 Democrats and Republicans are all for going into Afghanistan. 20 years later Democrats lose interest and Pedo Joe pulls the troops but leaves all of the equipment. That alone was grounds for impeachment.
Yu have got to be kidding. The siege in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley resulted because the United State did not unleash the full power of the modern conventional weapons at our disposal and kill all of the combatant’s.
This has and is still causing blow back on US military bases who try to recruit ‘deployers’ – contractors who work overseas at OCONUS installations.
After the contractors and their families were abandoned in Afghanistan in 2021, any inquiry by fellow associates on US bases were shut down when asked if or any plans to help them were in consideration.
This is magnitudes worse than what happened in Saigon. It is a disgrace and I hope no one honors any draft notice when Harris signs the bipartisan Draft Reinstatement Act in 2025 (according to a statement by a NSC member).
The youth in America can kick start taking this nation back big time by starving the government of the cannon fodder they need for their endless wars.
Hello Dr. Friedman. Have you ever read Kipling’s poem Tommy Atkins? You can find it here: https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_tommy.htm. Don’t the same rules apply to this day?
In fact, have things got worse down the centuries, in that leaders who started wars at least used to lead their men from the front.?
The start of this was the withdrawal of US personnel from Bagram AB in June 2021. With NO notification given to the Afghan forces, which left the base open to looting and lose of some 3k Al Queda terrorists imprisoned there.
Since WWII we have not won any wars. We have frivolously squandered the lives of our military soldiers, asking for their trust in the decisions of their Commander in Chief, the President of the United States and those military personnel advisors to the President and Congress on military incursions represented to be in the interests of our national security. And so our young men, legally conscripted for military service by our draft until January 1973 and subsequently through voluntary enrollment (men and women) have become the most well-trained combat personnel in the world except that they are passively set up for failure and death.. These brave, patriotic, men and women, from all branches of our military and special forces have been nefariously and maliciously turned into the worlds’ cannon fodder to support the greed and avarice of those among our citizenry and government more concerned with profits and power.
Eisenhower also had this to say:
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
The misplaced power through corrupt, submissive pandering and endless equivocation to foreign nations has taken the morale of our military into a terror-laden swamp of greased palms, subversive weapons smuggling and money laundering into and out of countries for whom freedom is non-existent and the rulers are flagrantly using the United States in achieving their authoritarian rule by any means necessary. It is this immoral two-way street that configures our military personnel into a twilight zone where losing for them is winning for the governments on both sides of the “conflict” filling their pockets with money and then leaving our soldiers to endure professional humiliation, the horrendous medical injuries, PTSD, and untimely deaths.
To say that it is enraging, for them and our country is to erroneously quantify a quiet suffering among these warriors with the hearts of lions, further stomping upon those for whom their love and bravery in defense of our country is one of our greatest gifts. We, as a nation, should be so ashamed.
The most shocking catastrophe in the whole debacle was we left Bagram Air Force Base. Huge and absolutely ESSENTIAL It was a key to projecting force into the middle of the Asian and middle east land mass, had the longest runways in the world and the loss of Bagram was China’s greatest military victory over the U.S. in twenty years.
Hello. Great job. I did not imagine this. This is a impressive story. Thanks!