Trump’s Own Military Advisors Praise Biden For ‘Finishing’ Afghanistan Withdrawal: ‘Bravo! Well Done!’

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Amid nonstop criticism from former President Donald Trump and conservative media outlets that the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan was a geopolitical disaster that will forever tarnish America’s global standing and should prompt the resignation or impeachment of President Joe Biden, there are some who are praising the administration: Trump’s former military advisors.

ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl reached out to a handful of Trump’s key advisors on Afghanistan, who praised Biden for completing the mission, and also shed insight what can charitably be called inconsistencies between Trump’s stance in office and his harsh criticism of Biden’s withdrawal. Karl’s report features a number of on-the-record quotes and details that put Trump’s plan in stark relief compared to Biden’s withdrawal.

Karl reports:

In fact, while Trump and Pompeo have taken their shots at Biden, some of the key players Trump tapped to carry out his planned withdrawal are actually praising Biden for finishing a job they say Trump started.

“The fact is this was the Trump-Biden withdrawal,” said William Ruger, tapped by Trump to be U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan in September 2020.

Picking Ruger was one of several personnel moves Trump made during his final months in office to put in place a team committed to one of his top policy goals: a complete U.S. military withdrawal. When the Pentagon announced the last U.S. troops had departed just before Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline, Ruger tweeted a one-word response: “Finally.”

In reporting for a forthcoming book, Betrayal: The Final Chapter of the Trump Show, Karl notes that Trump blasted Biden in an Aug. 22 statement that claimed the current president gave “enemies all around the world a great and lasting victory when he unexpectedly and inexplicably removed our great soldiers from Afghanistan before taking out our U.S. citizens and allies, along with abandoning many billions of dollars of highest-grade Military equipment.”

As Karl then points out, Trump “had had no plan to do anything differently.”

Further, one of the biggest criticisms Biden has faced from the right has focused on the poorly handled evacuation of Afghan allies. But the number of Afghan refugees who have been airlifted out is well over 100,000.

Karl points out that “Trump had no real plan to help those Afghans who had worked alongside U.S. forces.” (That comment is supported by the Kurdish allies abandoned by Trump following his hasty order to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria.)

Karl also reminds readers of Trump’s abrupt call to remove all U.S. military personnel from Afghanistan by January 12th, just 8 days before he was to leave office, an order that was put together by Col. Douglas MacGregor and signed by the 45th president on November 11th.

“Donald Trump wanted out,” MacGregor told Karl. “It was no secret plan. No misleading agenda. He wanted out.”

Trump had installed MacGregor in April of 2020 after watching him on Fox News argue for an Afghanistan withdrawal, and he summarily put together a plan. But Karl reports that Trump’s hasty withdrawal order “horrified top military leaders, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and CENTCOM commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie.”

Some may be surprised to learn that MacGregor had glowing words for Biden’s effort. “I am not critical of President Biden’s decision. And if you listen to his speech, he said, ‘I ended the war.’ Bravo! Well done! Get out! This has been an enormous waste of time, money, resources and blood,” MacGregor told ABC News after Biden’s speech on Tuesday. “So the president is 100 percent correct.”

Karl concludes his report by sharing MacGregor’s argument that leaving in January as he had planned would have been safer as it would have avoided the fighting season in Afghanistan. He also pointedly does not blame Biden for the details of the withdrawal, but rather the military leadership who put them together, both of whom were appointed by Trump.

He also believes the Taliban would have been much less aggressive with Trump in office, fearing how he would react. But he does not blame Biden for the chaos of the withdrawal.

“I’m glad President Biden made the decision. He is not responsible for the details of the withdrawal,” MacGregor said. “That is the job primarily of the secretary of defense — and General McKenzie and General Milley certainly should have been involved.”

And, as MacGregor pointed out, two of the three people responsible — Milley and McKenzie — were appointed by Donald Trump.

While conservative media has gone all in on blasting Biden for the manner in which the withdrawal was planned and executed, Karl makes a convincing argument that it would likely have gone no differently under the Trump administration, and provides insights from Trump’s advisors to make that point.

Read the full piece at ABC News.