Marine Officer Relieved of Duty for Criticizing Leaders Over Afghanistan

The Marine officer who recorded a viral video criticizing senior military and civilian leaders for their failure in Afghanistan said Friday he had been relieved of duty.

In a statement published on Facebook, Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller said he was “relieved for cause based on lack of trust and confidence as of 14:30 today” and added, “My chain of command is doing exactly what I would do … if I were in their shoes. I appreciate the opportunities [Advanced Infantry Training Battalion] Command provided.”

Scheller, a 17-year Marine Corps veteran, published a video on Thursday that quickly went viral for taking aim at leaders for the situation in Kabul. “You can see open-source reporting that there was an explosion and some people were killed,” Scheller explained in his message. “I know through my inside channels that one of the people that was killed was someone that I have a personal relationship with. I won’t go into more detail because the families are still being notified.

“I’m not making this video because it’s potentially an emotional time,” Scheller said. “I’m making it because I have a growing discontent and contempt for my perceived ineptitude at the foreign policy level and I want to specifically ask some questions to some of my senior leaders.” He added, “I’m not saying we’ve got to be in Afghanistan forever, but I am saying: Did any of you throw your rank on the table and say, ‘Hey, it’s a bad idea to evacuate Bagram Airfield, a strategic airbase, before we evacuate everyone’? Did anyone do that? And when you didn’t think to do that, did anyone raise their hand and say, ‘We completely messed this up?'”

He also said he was willing to accept any consequences he faced for speaking out. “I have been fighting for 17 years,” Scheller said. “I am willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders, ‘I demand accountability.'”