Joe Biden said, back in August, that, as far as he could recall, his military advisers did not recommend to him that we should keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. Yesterday, top generals, including Gen. Kenneth "Frank" McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, testified before Congress that they recommended that exact thing to President Biden.1
Obviously, I could see Donald Trump doing something like this. That is one of the reasons he needed to lose last November. But Joe Biden wasn’t supposed to do this kind of thing. He was supposed to be better than former President Trump.
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1 Let me also say I agree with what General Mark Miley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said as to why he did not resign with respect to the Afghanistan withdrawal, even though President Biden disregarded his advice (here and here):
“Senator, as a senior military officer, resigning is a really serious thing. It's a political act if I'm resigning in protest. My job is to provide advice – my statutory responsibility is to provide legal advice or best military advice to the president. And that's my legal requirement. That's what the law is.
The President doesn't have to agree with that advice, he doesn't have to make those decisions just because we're generals, and it would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice is not taken. This country doesn't want generals figuring out what orders we're going to accept and do or not. That's not our job. The principle of civilian control of the military is absolute – it's critical to this republic.
In addition to that, just from a personal standpoint, you know my dad didn't get a choice to resign at Iwo Jima. And those kids there at Abbey Gate, they don't get a choice to resign, and I'm not going to turn my back on them. I'm not gonna resign. They can't resign, so I'm not going to resign. There's no way.
If the orders are illegal, we're in a different place, but if the orders are legal, from civilian authority, I intend to carry them out.”
This is quite right.
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