On Wednesday, the 23rd anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, White House National Security Council adviser John Kirby accidentally hit “Reply All” in an email, adding Fox News to the email chain. The email had a message that downplayed a group of veterans who criticized President Joe Biden’s handling of the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal.  

Kirby’s response to the veterans’ concerns? “Obviously, no use in responding. A ‘handful’ of vets indeed and all of one stripe.” 

The incident started with an email inquiry from Fox News that included harsh criticisms of the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal from four veterans. Those veterans were Republican Rep. Cory Mills from Florida; Chad Robichaux, a former Force Recon Marine who served in Afghanistan; Mark Geist, an author and Marine veteran who fought in the 2012 Battle of Benghazi, and Stuart Scheller, an author and former Marine who was court-martialed for publicly criticizing U.S. military leadership over the withdrawal. 

Earlier this week, Republican Rep. Mike McCaul of Texas, who leads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, released a report on the controversial withdrawal. The report criticized the Biden administration for handling it and for trying to avoid taking responsibility afterward. 

The report starts by reminding people that President Joe Biden pushed to leave the Vietnam War when he was a senator in the 1970s. It claims that both the Vietnam and Afghanistan withdrawals show a pattern of abandoning allies. The report also disagrees with Biden’s claim that he had to follow the agreement former President Trump made with the Taliban for the U.S. to leave Afghanistan. 

Top leaders told President Biden and Vice President Harris that the Taliban had already broken the rules of the Doha agreement, so the U.S. didn’t have to leave. The report also showed that NATO allies strongly opposed the U.S. decision to withdraw. The British Chief of Defense warned that leaving would be a victory for the Taliban. 

When Trump left office, about 2,500 U.S. troops were still in Afghanistan. According to Col. Seth Krummrich, chief of staff for Special Operations Command, President Biden was set on bringing that number down to zero, no matter what.  

The report found that the U.S. didn’t order the evacuation until August 15, when the Taliban entered Kabul. There weren’t enough troops to start the evacuation until August 19. Even though there weren’t enough military planes for the job, foreign planes weren’t allowed to help until August 20.  

The former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ross Wilson, left the embassy before his staff. He was sick with COVID-19 but had someone else take his test so he could leave.  

The report found that local embassy workers were not a priority for evacuation, with many being turned away from the embassy and airport in tears. On the day the Taliban took over, the only advice from the U.S. was for people to stay put until they received notification to leave. Because the National Security Council didn’t give clear rules on who should be evacuated or who was “at risk,” the State Department evacuated thousands without proper paperwork. 

The report found that the Taliban got access to $57 million in U.S. funds, along with $7 billion in abandoned U.S. weapons. A NATO report showed that the Taliban was using U.S. military biometric devices to track down Afghan allies who worked with the U.S. In the first six months after the Taliban took control, about 500 former Afghan government officials and security forces were either killed or went missing. 

In June 2024, the Department of Homeland Security found over 400 people from Central Asia who illegally crossed the U.S. southern border with the help of a smuggling group connected to ISIS. The U.S. has arrested more than 150 of these individuals. That same month, the FBI arrested eight people linked to ISIS-K who had crossed the southern border. 

But the most shocking revelation was yet to come. Veteran Mark Geist said that they left Afghanistan because they wanted to fund the war in Ukraine. The Biden administration knew that Americans wouldn’t want to be involved in two wars at the same time. 

Kirby’s dismissal of veteran concerns is shocking but not surprising. He summarized the Biden administration’s approach to those who question its policies in just a few words. “No use responding” to those of “one stripe.” Those who question Biden have no place in his America.