Report: Trump Preparing Treason Charges for U.S. Military Over Afghan Exit

Date: 18 November 2024 - 21:41

News ID: ۱۳۳۷۱۵

WASHINGTON (NBC News) – U.S.
President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is compiling a list of military officers to be court-martialed for their role in the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
The effort is being spearheaded by Matt Flynn, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for counternarcotics, the network reported on Sunday, citing a U.S. official and an anonymous “person familiar with the plan”.
According to these sources, Flynn will lead a commission examining how the U.S. got into the two-decade war in the first place, and how the withdrawal was carried out.
“They’re taking it very seriously,” the second source said, adding, “They want to set an example.”
The first source noted that some commanders may be recalled to active duty to face charges. According to the network’s sources, charges as serious as treason are being considered.
Trump struck a deal with the Taliban in 2020, agreeing to pull the U.S.’ roughly 13,000 troops out of Afghanistan within a year and free 5,000 Taliban prisoners if the Afghan fighters stood down and let the withdrawal proceed peacefully.
After President Joe Biden pushed the withdrawal date back by three months, the Taliban considered the agreement broken and embarked on a lightning-fast reconquest of Afghanistan.
As the militants closed in on Kabul, Biden hurriedly withdrew U.S. forces, leaving some civilian workers stranded and tens of billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment in Taliban hands.
The withdrawal culminated in a suicide bombing at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, which killed 13 American troops and 170 civilians.
Trump has repeatedly referred to the withdrawal as a “humiliation” and “the most embarrassing day in the history of our country”.
His nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has used similar language to castigate the military brass in charge of the operation.
“These generals lied. They mismanaged. They violated their oath. They failed. They disgraced our troops, and our nation. They got people killed, unnecessarily,” he wrote this year in his book, ‘The War on Warriors’. “And, to this moment, they keep their jobs. Worse, they continue to actively erode our military,” he added.