U.S. generals ran cover for Taliban, despite violent attacks during bungled withdrawal

Milley (Chairman of Joint Chiefs), McKenzie (CENTCOM), Austin (SecDef), and others repeatedly testified in 2021 that the Taliban had not attacked U.S. or NATO forces after the Doha Agreement.
Evidence shows otherwise:
- Taliban fired rockets at coalition/U.S. bases in Khost, Kandahar, and Bagram in March–May 2021.
- Taliban themselves claimed responsibility for these attacks in public statements.
- Pentagon’s own inspector general confirmed “limited” Taliban attacks on coalition bases.
Public statements by Milley, McKenzie, Austin, and others directly contradicted both intelligence and open-source reporting.

When confronted later, Milley and McKenzie shifted language:
- Claimed Taliban didn’t carry out “lethal” attacks, even though they admitted “some” small indirect fire incidents.
- McKenzie even said in 2024 that the Taliban had “scrupulously” upheld their no-attack pledge.
This rhetorical shift reframed the Doha Agreement provision to mean “no lethal attacks,” rather than “no attacks.”

McKenzie, Milley, Austin, Blinken, Sullivan, and NSC officials repeatedly described Taliban behavior during the evacuation at HKIA as “pragmatic” and “businesslike.”
In reality:
- Taliban beat Americans and confiscated passports.
- U.S. citizens were sometimes blocked from entering HKIA.
- Afghan allies were beaten, harassed, or executed in full view of U.S. Marines.
HFAC’s 2023 final report did not mention these “businesslike” claims by top U.S. officials.

Early May 2021: Pentagon spokesman John Kirby acknowledged small “harassing attacks” but downplayed them as having no impact on the retrograde.
Austin privately admitted to Congress that Americans had been beaten by Taliban guards but insisted they were “exceptions.”
Biden publicly contradicted evidence by claiming no Americans had been blocked from reaching the airport.

Marines reported watching Taliban beat, execute, and shoot civilians at Taliban-controlled checkpoints near HKIA.
Rules of Engagement (ROE) restricted intervention unless Americans were directly targeted.
State Dept. officials, including Jayne Howell, confirmed seeing Taliban fire on crowds and beat civilians.
ARCENT investigation acknowledged Taliban used “excessive force,” but U.S. command limited engagement to avoid escalation.

HFAC’s GOP-led final report (2023) documented Taliban attacks but omitted the fact that Milley, McKenzie, and Austin falsely denied those attacks.
HFAC also excluded any mention of the repeated “businesslike” characterization of the Taliban by U.S. military and administration officials.
The article’s author (and ex-HFAC investigator) quit in protest over what he described as deliberate omissions from the committee’s final report.

Milley: pardoned by Biden in Jan 2025; now at Princeton & JPMorgan.
McKenzie: not pardoned; currently Executive Director of the Global and National Security Institute at University of South Florida.

Deception and narrative control: Senior military and administration officials knowingly misrepresented Taliban actions in 2021.
Word games: Officials redefined “attacks” to mean “lethal attacks” in order to defend their earlier false claims.
Media and Congress complicity: Despite evidence, much of the press and the HFAC report failed to confront these contradictions.
Moral failure at HKIA: U.S. troops were forced to stand by as Taliban beat and executed civilians, due to restrictive ROE and policy decisions.
Historical record distortion: By omitting critical facts, both government officials and congressional investigators contributed to a sanitized version of events.

US PRESS CORPS ONLINE