SAN DIEGO: Is there anything Gen. Milley won’t defend about the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan? The Pentagon Joint Chief abandons a veritable war chest to America’s enemy, empowering a Taliban conglomerate of terrorists. As Americans hide in fear, the State Department gives their names and locations in Kabul to the Taliban to be more easily found. Milley assigns security to our 20-year enemy, and the Taliban allows a suicide bomber to kill 13 Americans, wounding dozens more. Add the resultant deaths of the Afghans. Who can forget the images? The bloodied bodies laying in the water. The children being lifted by their mothers, high over barbed wire. Then there is the death of Zemari Ahmadi and members of his family. Innocents, one and all.
As a top military leader, Milley defends all of this with his denial of truth and wrongdoing, his justifications and silence.
A US military drone bound for Zemari Ahmadi, an aide worker, and his family.
The Pentagon without proof greenlighted this last terrible act of war. The Pentagon first blaming ISIS for the airport attack, then dishonorably claiming they had the intel to strike back. It looks like a new set of Rules of Engagement based on ‘finding a target, any target.’ The axiom of ‘don’t shoot until you see a tangible threat’ no longer mattered for Ahmadi and his kids.
With no knowledge of the man and misread surveillance, Milley labeled him an “imminent threat” and sent in an MQ-9 Reaper Drone. Ahmadi was an aide worker who traveled the streets of Kabul, not as a terrorist, but a rescuer bringing food and water to the hungry.
Zemari Ahmadi delivering food to the hungry in Kabul – NYT video screenshot
A recent New York Times (NYT) video reveals how Zemari Ahmadi’s life ended with a 20 lb. hellfire missile.
The U.S. dropped the missile after he parked his white Toyota sedan in a small courtyard of his family home, after a day’s humanitarian work. Children surrounded the car according to his brother, a common ‘welcome home’ for Zemari, loved by many.
Romal Ahmadi said, “All victims were part of my family – my brother, my nephews, my children.”
The NYT pieced together the security camera footage from Zemari Ahmadi’s office, showing clearly his work with the NGO. Furthermore, interviews with more than a dozen of Ahmadi’s colleagues and family members confirm his non-threatening identity.
How could Milley be so wrong?
Gen. Milley, State Dept. Secretary Blinken and Biden continue to justify and defend the murder of Ahmadi and his family. Their shocking actions are starkly uncharacteristic of former presidents and military leadership. U.S. Camp Leatherneck at Bastion served as a massive military operations hub during the war. When Obama drew down in 2014, not a scrap of U.S. metal was left at Camp Bastion. Bagram Air Base remained operational as several thousand troops remained in-country. There were no sudden gaps in protection, leaving Americans and allies stranded.
Biden chose to do things different than Trump outlined – people and equipment first, then the troops who watched overall. A conditions-based order of business that would have prevented the Afghanistan withdrawal nightmare.
Defense Secretary Austin admits lacking the ability to help Americans safely leave. Then and now. How many are still trapped? No one knows for sure. Blinken never knows the head count. Or he just doesn’t say.
Somebody gave the Taliban terrorist network control over airport security and the evacuations became mired in chaos in confusion.
Afghanistan’s Karzai airport was a perfect breeding ground for a suicide bomb strike. As a result, 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans died.
Begging the question of whether Milley is so desensitized to Americans and Afghans dying by violence that a few more don’t matter?
Well, American lives matter. Innocent Afghan lives matter. To their families, mothers, fathers, friends. Both societies are strong on family unity; all lives matter.
Former presidents, military leaders did their homework.
Trump killed terrorist leaders like Qasem Soleimani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi without first handing them intelligence or the names of in-country Americans. Or liaising with terrorist leaders. These takedowns broke apart ISIS and Iranian-backed proxy terror cells in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Military greats of the Afghanistan war (pre-Biden) knew the Taliban were in with other terrorist groups and individual Islamic fighters that came in from a lot of places. All taking their best shot at killing American troops.
Serious military commanders studied the Pashtun warrior culture. They exhibited a show of force. Refusing to mess around with the Taliban and friends. They were firm in their mission, directing U.S. troops to meet them all with unforgiving strength and ‘righteous’ strikes.
Today, the U.S. military under Milley cooperates with a 20-year malevolent enemy. Forming ‘working’ alliances with the historically violent Taliban. The Pentagon acting out of fear of some unknown rather than knowledge. Not only in how the withdrawal was facilitated, leading to dozens, if not hundreds of deaths.
But also in the killing of an Afghan family who were innocents.
Zemari Ahmadi and some of the boys in his family killed by the U.S. NYT Video Screenshot
From the NYT video on the killing of the Ahmadi family.
Gen Milley said, “The procedures were correctly followed and it was a righteous strike.”
They said Ahmadi was a facilitator for the Islamic state and they assumed his car was packed with explosives. The NYT report tells a much different version from Milley. Casting not only doubts but also creating disgust for Milley’s tale of ‘unrighteous’ deception.
“What was interpreted as a suspicious move for a terrorist appears to be just an average day in Ahmadi’s life. What the military saw him loading into his car were water canisters he was bringing home to his family,” says NYT while showing surveillance footage tracking Ahmadi.
The Pentagon repeatedly claimed for days after that the missile set off additional explosions and this “likely killed the civilians in the courtyard.”
“Significant secondary explosions in the targeted vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material,” states Maj. William Taylor.
Three Weapons experts who later examined the scene of the drone blast tell a different story.
The car was full of water canisters.
The three concur it was indicative of a hellfire missile. They said there is no evidence of a large secondary explosion. No collapsing or blown-out walls. Including next to the trunk allegedly carrying explosives. No signs that a second car parked in the courtyard was overturned by a large blast. No destroyed vegetation. At the very least, a second explosion would have melted the water canisters on the porch above the Toyota.
Screenshot from NYT Video of Zemari Ahmadi bombing showing that there was no secondary explosion. Courtesy NYT
Present in the wreckage were containers identical to the ones Ahmadi and his colleagues filled with water and loaded in his car. Although the Pentagon said the drone team watched the car all day, a senior official said, “They weren’t aware of any of water containers.” How is that possible?
All matches what eyewitnesses told the New York Times, “that a single missile exploded and triggered a large fire.”
Then how did Milley decide the car was packed with explosives?
Hardly a profile for a terrorist, Zemari Ahmadi was an Afghan electrical engineer by trade. For 14 years, Ahmadi worked for the Kabul office of Nutrition and Education International (NEI). It’s a California-based Non-governmental Organization (NGO) that has eleven soybean processing plants in Afghanistan to fight malnutrition. A call to California may have been enough to stop this horrific killing.
“On most days, Ahmadi drove his colleagues to work in a company white Toyota Corolla and used the car to “distribute the NGO’s food to Afghans displaced by the war,” reports NYT.
It looks like the Pentagon was desperate to designate a ‘terrorist target’ to offset handing off Kabul airport security, resulting in American and Afghan casualties. At no time has Milley demanded answers from the Taliban that let a suicide bomber through the checkpoints.
“The Biden Administration is signaling the possibility of future cooperation with the Taliban. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said the United States would consider sharing intelligence with the Taliban to target Islamic State fighters,” says Center for Security Policy.
The Taliban are Islamic state fighters, Gen. Milley.
Their goal is to replace the Afghan democratic government with an Islamic state operating according to a strict Salafi Muslim interpretation of sharia under the Afghan Taliban. This includes suppression and abuse of women and children, beheadings under Taliban absolute law, and more human torture and abuses.
This admin cares more about the welfare of terrorists than Afghan civilians, like Zemari Ahmadi.
Clearly showcased in the series of repugnant, if not treasonous, acts they have committed related to a humiliating surrender. Furthermore, Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium. The illicit drug trade is a key source of revenue for the Taliban inside Afghanistan. They promise no more opium production, but that is a lie. Opium fuels their jihad.
The Taliban network needs no help or money from the U.S. as some officials pandering to the terrorists claim. Yet they will receive more pallets of cash from Biden. (Biden to Send $64M to Taliban Before Getting All Americans Out –Front Page magazine)
When true alliances are un-American.
Will Milley account for the untold millions, billions? in U.S. weaponry the associated Taliban, al Qaeda, Haqqani, and ISIS networks now own?
For use against not only the Afghans but the U.S. and our ‘allies’ – those we can salvage. Biden and his ‘men’ hope the memories of Afghanistan will fade. That’s not going to happen. Consorting with terrorists will be used to judge America as a friend or enemy.
The deaths of Ahmadi’s family tears at the guts of caring Americans.
For hundreds of thousands of service members who fought the Taliban network for Afghans like the Ahmadi’s, Biden, Milley, Austin, Blinken have tarnished their brave battles. They all know it and will not forget.
Blinken tells the press he does not know (a recurring statement throughout the withdrawal) who Ahmadi was.
He’s waiting for the investigation for answers. Without a U.S. presence in-country, how will he get them?
“The U.S. military has only acknowledged three civilian deaths from the strike with an investigation underway. They have also admitted knowing nothing about Ahmadi before killing him,” says NYT.
Why send a Reaper drone to kill, before absolute verification? Americans want to know.
The NYT tried to gain evidence of explosives or intelligence of the Islamic state tie but to no avail. The morning after the U.S. killed Ahmadi and family – six of them children, the real Islamic State launched rockets at the airport.
The vehicle they used was a white Toyota.
“Everything that hasn’t been destroyed is the Taliban’s now,” one U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
A military man of honor would have resigned by now with so many grievances under his watch. When will America win back its honor, the lifeblood of ‘the free’?
