With the United States’ two-decade-long military mission in Afghanistan finally coming to an end, one of its top generals has expressed “pain and anger” over the situation in the country now overrun by Taliban insurgents. “When we see what has unfolded over the last 20 years and over the last 20 days, that creates pain and anger,” said General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Wednesday. “And mine comes from 242 of my soldiers killed in action over 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Milley added, however, that as a “professional soldier,” he would keep his pain and anger in check and focus on the mission at hand.
Many of the Biden administration’s critics, including former US President Donald Trump, several Republican leaders, and even Chinese and Russian officials, have criticised the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was completed on Tuesday morning, as “hasty” and “chaotic.”
The rapid takeover of Afghanistan by Taliban came amid the US withdrawal, and many considered it a “tactical mistake” to leave the war-torn nation at the mercy of the militants. “Afghanistan under Biden was not a withdrawal, it was a surrender,” Trump had said, adding that leaving people behind for death is an “unforgivable dereliction of duty, which will go down in infamy.”
One of Biden’s top military generals has now expressed his displeasure with the administration’s decision to end Afghanistan’s longest war in a chaotic and messy manner. “I have all the same emotions as the secretary, and I’m sure anyone who served does as well,” General Milley said. “And I was in charge of troops. And I didn’t grow up to be a four-star general. I’ve walked patrols and been blown up, shot at, RPG’d, and a variety of other things. My anguish and pain stem from the same place as those grieving families and soldiers on the ground.”
The terror attack on Kabul airport, which killed 13 US service members, including 10 Marines, many of whom were barely in their twenties, exacerbated the “mess” that the Biden administration had made over the Afghanistan withdrawal, critics say.
On Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd J Austin III paid tribute to those who died in Afghanistan during the war. “Our forces risked their lives to save the lives of others, and 13 of our best paid the ultimate price,” he said, adding that the administration has managed to evacuate around 6,000 Americans and over 124,000 civilians from Afghanistan.
