The Pentagon just admitted that the August 29th Kabul air strike did not kill a single ISIS target. All 10 people killed were completely innocent, including 7 young children and two allies who worked with American and other international forces.
The content of the announcement comes as no surprise to anyone, but I’m honestly a little shocked that they actually admitted to it all rather than just sweeping it under the rug and pretending like none of it ever happened. That’s way more the speed of this administration, to be honest.
The completely incompetent and untrustworthy Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said in a lengthy statement,
“On behalf of the men and women of the Department of Defense, I offer my deepest condolences to surviving family members of those who were killed, including Mr. Ahmadi, and to the staff of Nutrition and Education International, Mr. Ahmadi’s employer. We now know that there was no connection between Mr. Ahmadi and ISIS-Khorasan, that his activities on that day were completely harmless and not at all related to the imminent threat we believed we faced, and that Mr. Ahmadi was just as innocent a victim as were the others tragically killed. We apologize, and we will endeavor to learn from this horrible mistake. We owe that to the victims and their loved ones, to the American people and to ourselves.”
You know what else you owe to the American people, Secretary Austin? Answers and accountability. You owe us that.
Where did the intel come from that led to such a disastrous mistake? From the Taliban, by chance? From the people you gave a kill list? Who obtained that intel? Who did not properly vet it? Who made the deadly decision based on the bad intel?
And who’s going to be fired for this historic catastrophe?
Because so far, the only people who have been fired are upstanding soldiers who have spoken out demanding accountability for such epic failures in leadership.
Speaking of incompetent leadership (and treason and military coups), General Mark Milley previously called it a “righteous strike.” After the report, however, he changed his tune to be appropriately apologetic, saying,
“In a dynamic high threat environment, the commanders on the ground had appropriate authority and had reasonable certainty that the target was valid but after deeper post strike analysis our conclusion is that innocent civilians were killed. This is a horrible tragedy of war and it’s heart-wrenching and we are committed to being fully transparent about this incident.”
Well, that’s hilarious. He says he’s committed to being fully transparent about an incident that would reflect very poorly on an administration that is already in hot water over 8 months of continuous disaster and failure? And we’re supposed to believe that, especially after he bragged to authors and reporters about committing literal treason by undermining the sitting President by conspiring with the enemy, and engaging in a military coup to usurp the power of the sitting President?
Yeah, I don’t believe a single word that comes out of Milley’s mouth. And certainly not about something we already knows reflects poorly on the disastrous administration of which he is a part. And even more certainly not when he’s an admitted traitor to the country.
This announcement and these apologies are meaningless unless they take accountability for their epic failures.
So where’s the accountability?