Afghanistan withdrawal also haunts Trump, according to a general who worked for him

Foreign policy is not likely citizens’ most important concern, yet it is hot on the campaign trail this week with the presidential race. 
 
A new White House tell-all by former Trump aide Cliff Sims has sparked a new round of criticism about Trump’s method of handling the office of President to his country’s army, from military generals who once worked with the Republican president. 
 
Trump, however, has been equally critical of the Biden administration — and particularly, Kamala Harris — for the messy withdrawal of the U. S. forces from Afghanistan, although the plan for it was developed during the Trump administration. 
 
‘Competitive sycophancy’ 
 
The new narrative about Trump’s presidency at the White House is from Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster who served in Trump administration as national security adviser. McMaster, however, unlike other ex- Trump’s generals, has not voiced his direct criticism of the man he used to work for, prior to leaving the WH. 
 
On “Anderson Cooper 360,” McMaster said Trump is partially to blame for the Afghanistan withdrawal for his talks with Taliban wherein he forced Afghanistan to free thousands of Taliban fighters from jail. 
 
“In the series of negotiation and concession to the Taliban what happened was flushing the Afghans down the drain while leaving the scene,” he said. 
 
In a scathing and well-observer study of his tenure in the government during the Trump administration, McMaster describes the meeting in the Oval Office as the practices of currying favor with the president by telling him things like, “You are always right” or, “No one has ever been treated as poorly as you have been by the media. ” Trump, on the other hand, would throw out outrageous ideas such as, “Why do not we drop 
 
A series of generals prophecies on Trump 
 
Place this account alongside other generals who have publicly provided inside accounts of the madness of the Trump White House: retired Marine General John Kelly who was Trump’s chief of staff; retired Marine General James Mattis who was Trump’s defense secretary; and General Mark Milley who was Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 
 
And on top of it, on Monday more than 200 Republican who used to work for the Bushes, McCain or Romney signed the letter calling other party members to vote for Harris for president. 
 
Some of the signatories are former George H. W. Bush chief of staff, Jean Becker; former McCain chiefs of staff, Mark Salter and Christopher Koch; and former Vice President Mike Pence’s homeland security adviser, Olivia Troye. 
 
However, Trump is referring to the failure in Joe Biden Administration while claiming for another term to the White House. 
 
Afghanistan has the Biden and Harris Administration in its grip 
 
Although politics were not directly discussed at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on Monday when Trump spoke on the three-year anniversary of the deaths of 13 American service members in Afghanistan, the lives of those fallen service members are often referenced by Trump on the campaign trail. 
 
Some of the relatives of some the fallen soldiers spoke at the Republican National Convention in July, and they joined in berating Biden. 
 
Appearing on CNN on Monday from Fort Liberty, North Carolina, Paula Knauss Selph, the mother of the fallen Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Christian Knauss, was highly critical of Biden. 
 
“This administration has tried to sweep it under the rug and that’s not going to work for this nation,” she said, explaining that Harris has “equal responsibility as Joe Biden. ’ 
 
More than 100 Afghans and the service members in 2021 suicided bombing near Abbey Gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul at the conclusion of the two decades of direct American military intervention in Afghanistan. 
 
Taliban now has control over Afghanistan. 
 
Last of all, to pull out US service members was the decision of Biden and this he did when he was in power. Well, the Republicans including Trump have taken the disorganised and lethal pullout as an internal US political debate against Biden and in the process Harris who has replaced Biden to fight against Trump in November. 
 
Later at a rally in Virginia where he presented at the cemetery, Trump stated, the people were murdered, in what has been deemed as the worst episode in American history in Afghanistan because the country had an incompetent president with incompetent human beings running the country, and every single one of them should have been fired. 
 
Another purge 
 
At a National Guard conference in Detroit later in the day, Trump swore to replace every officer from the Pentagon who he said was involved in the process. 
 
At the same time, commenting on 13 American deaths, Harris said: – I grieve and pay homage to them. The senator also applauded Biden for making ‘the brave and correct choice to conclude America’s longest conflict. 
 
Well, this is not entirely true as it often turns out that the truth is even more complex. 
 
However, Trump himself also pledged to bring the US troops out of Afghanistan during his stay in the White House. His administration put into motion the drums for the final withdrawal by concluding and signing a collaboration deal with the Taliban in 2020 that aimed at trimming down the number of the US service members stationed in Afghanistan. 
 
Following Trump’s loss of the presidency, he dismissed his defense secretary at that time, Mark Esper, and removed many leaders at the pentagon as well as attempted to increase the speed of US withdrawals from both Afghanistan and Europe. 
 
Covid made Biden reverse a rather significant drawdown in service members across Europe and while he delayed by just a few months Trump’s withdrawal from Afghanistan the conditions on the ground were much worse for the US at this time and the Taliban gained much ground quickly.

Promising to end wars 
 
As much as Trump decries Harris and Biden for the Afghanistan pullout, he has also vowed to be the president who will end all wars. 
 
Trump accused Harris and the Minnesota Gov. , and her running mate Tim Walz of seeking endless wars at the National Guard conference. 
 
He also got an endorsement of Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democrat congresswoman from Hawaii who served in Iraq as a part of Army National Guard and who also ran for presidency in 2020 as a Democrat. Gabbard, who recently switched her party affiliation to independent, endorsed Trump saying that he did not initiate any new wars during his administration — an observation similar to the one Vance made in his recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal which stated that the best thing about Trump’s presidency was his foreign policy. 
 
Vance is now Trump’s running mate and by extension [The choice is a sign that Republicans in general have moved away from actually aiding the promotion of democracy in other countries. 
 
Thus, it is beyond doubt that Afghanistan withdrawal was a failure. Problems in the handling of these cases were found in both the Biden and Trump administrations, according to an official After Action Review report from the State Department). 
 
Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee have also commenced their investigation and it is expected to be even more critical of the Biden administration – although an investigator recently resigned from that exercise claiming that Republicans on the committee were not willing to attribute any blame with the US military including General Milley.