The DoD, CYA, And The “Accountability For Afghanistan” Blame Game

President Joe Biden walks with Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III upon arrival at the Pentagon, with Vice President Kamala Harris and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 2021. (DoD photo by Lisa Ferdinando)

As a preamble to hearings in the United States Senate where very serious senators will furrow their brows and unleash the best rhetoric their staffers can prep for them for the cameras, the Department of Defense engaged in that oldest of Washington traditions of making sure their side of the story got out to friendly outlets first. NBC News, citing “three senior defense officials,” lays out an Afghanistan withdraw that was a military trying its best with a White House that was not on the same page:

The episode illustrates the confusion and danger that marked the end of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, with Biden administration officials and U.S. commanders struggling to cope with the speed of the Afghan government’s collapse. Before events spun out of control, however, White House and State Department officials were not interested in hearing the military’s plan for a possible evacuation of vulnerable Afghan allies, according to the three senior defense officials. Two other senior administration officials disputed that.

How the administration and the U.S. military managed the withdrawal will be the focus of a high-stakes congressional hearing Tuesday, when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, and McKenzie will appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee for the first time since America’s exit from Afghanistan.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have blasted the Biden administration over the chaotic withdrawal and vowed a full accounting.

There will not be a full accounting. The U.S. Senate is far too busy with other matters and stocked with elected officials that run the gamut from incompetent to so covetous of their forthcoming campaigns for the White House they can’t be bothered with functioning as a U.S. Senator. The hearing room dais is a place for performative promos to camera quickly cut for fundraising ads and social media hits, not serious inquiry of the machinations of America’s systemic 20 year failure in Afghanistan. The White House has laid out its own position repeatedly that they couldn’t do anything different than what they did, which they were forced to do, but they did a historic job with the thing they had to do because they had to because of the last guy, but the buck stops here. If that sounds more like three card monte than accountable leadership, welcome to governance in the United States of America in 2021.

As for the highest levels of the United States military, they are going to run a very old play in their well-established playbook: leak out just enough to shift the blame onto the administration to friendly media outlets, while toeing the line of good order and discipline in public, and falling back on “just following orders” or “the best intelligence we had” when things get too warm under questioning. Generals don’t become generals without being very good at politics, and they are never better being politicos than when it comes time to hand out accountability.

There are three ways that the United States military traditionally hands out accountability for something so embarrassing it can’t just be swept under the rug or assuaged behind closed doors. One is everyone involved in the chain of command gets in an equal amount of trouble, giving the veneer of accountability while actually spreading it out thinly so as not to permanently harm anyone’s careers going forward. Then there is the scapegoat method, where a singular entity or group is identified — rightly or wrongly — and becomes the sin eater for the good of the uniform, the protection of those below them, and most importantly the absolution of any wrongdoing by those above them.

What we are going to get under the banner of “accountability for Afghanistan” is the third option: nothing. No one is going to be held accountable. There will be hearings, and studies, and investigations, and clutching of pearls, and bellowing of senators, and admonitions of commentators; but the end result on the ledger sheet of fault is going to be a big fat nothing. This is because accountability, like many things in politics, always winds up taking the path of least resistance. Consider the gang of area yutes rounded up by a teacher to find out which one actually made that mess. If none of them confess there is not going to be any further action other than hollow threats about bulls, horns, and so forth. Safety in groups, you see, and without someone of integrity breaking the phalanx of “not my fault” from within, the uniform status quo wins.

We know there will be no accountability from the system that made this mess in the first place because accountability would mean actually dealing with that very system. There were no resignations, no firings, not one in year after year of systemic, cascading failure to stop what everyone in the rooms those decisions are made in knew would be the ultimate result. That no one on the civilian side used their designated legal authority to challenge it, and no one from the military side threw their rank on the table and demand it stop or they were out, means the system is bigger than the two sides charged with wielding it. The evidence we have coming out of the Afghanistan conflict is the bedrock principle of American defense, the elected civilian control and oversight of a professional military, has become just one more unmanageable, unaccountable, and untouchable branch of bloated bureaucratic government by the design of the people within and benefiting from it. Just blaming the president, or the generals, or the congress, or the last president (or the one before that) without seeing the whole picture misses the consensual relationship that procreated this fiasco in the first place.

Now there is something a serious United States Senate should be investigating and doing something about. But they wont. They don’t see  “accountability for Afghanistan” as much of a problem, but one where the solution is putting themselves in charge of the whole ungodly mess. Why do that icky work of bettering the machine when it is far easier to just jockey for position and get to drive the machine yourself for your own fame and glory? Forget managing the American decline, our elected leaders are fighting over who gets to sit in the drivers seat and smash the accelerator harder than their predecessor.

In the meantime, in the timeframe between the complacency of now and the cliff of destruction our government is careening towards at some future date, nobody does a dog and pony show quite like the United State military. The “accountability for Afghanistan” one is going to be an all-timer of parading before panels, performing the narrative for cameras, of using long speeches and big words to say nothing of consequence. After Vietnam, the military soul searched and retooled, did the hard things, remade itself into the most lethal, capable force the world has ever seen. So far in the aftermath of a need for “accountability for Afghanistan,” this version of the American military hierarchy is digging in, covering up, and hoping not to get too much dirt on their pristine uniforms in the process. The civilian oversight is content to authorize the shovels, and help them brush off the dust lest their own political fortunes become smudged. The current commander in chief needs a flow chart to explain where the buck does and does not stop with him, and is content to move on to the next thing with the dust cloud and American apathy as cover.

Enjoy the dog and pony show our elected and selected betters are performing for us, and understand this is what they think of us, the American people. This very American exercise in performative CYA is all the accountability they think they owe us, a barely veiled gesture of contempt the rabble would dare question their power, decision-making, and positions. And if we the people seal clap, or more likely just not pay attention enough to demand better, or only send an angry tweet before being distracted again, they are right and it’s all the “accountability for Afghanistan” we deserve. That is all the accountability we’ll ever get for anything, and less and less of even that in the future.