{"id":680682,"date":"2021-08-24T17:20:46","date_gmt":"2021-08-24T21:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=680682"},"modified":"2021-08-24T17:20:48","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T21:20:48","slug":"exclusive-abysmal-failure-at-the-strategic-level-gen-kellogg-slams-bidens-handling-of-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-abysmal-failure-at-the-strategic-level-gen-kellogg-slams-bidens-handling-of-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: \u2018Abysmal Failure At The Strategic Level\u2019 \u2014 Gen. Kellogg Slams Biden\u2019s Handling Of Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fexclusive-abysmal-failure-at-the-strategic-level-gen-kellogg-slams-bidens-handling-of-afghanistan%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=680682&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Screen-ShotYoutubeSen.-Marsha-BlackburnDaily-Caller-Obtained-e1629836566283.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn will release an interview Tuesday with Gen. Keith Kellogg where he slams the way President Joe Biden has handled the withdraw of troops and American citizens in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>The Daily Caller first obtained the video where Blackburn talks to Kellogg about the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/08\/16\/kevin-mccarthy-biden-admin-investigated-amid-afghanistan-collapse\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal<\/a> after the Taliban retook the country in a matter of days.&nbsp;In the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9en6eGXwAtc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">interview<\/a>, which is for her Facebook TV show called \u201cUnmuted With Marsha,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/06\/18\/kellogg-overton-olidort-america-first-policy-institute-covid-19-china\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kellogg<\/a> says there has been a lack of decision-making from the administration and mentioned his lack of trust with decisions that have been made out of the Pentagon.<\/p>\n<p>The interview comes as news broke that Biden would not extend the Aug. 31 Afghanistan withdrawal deadline, despite many Americans needing to be evacuated and allies urging Biden to extend it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s an abysmal failure at the strategic level. That\u2019s what the American people should be concerned about. It\u2019s a lack of decision making, it\u2019s a lack of really seeing what the problem is going forward, and it\u2019s a lack of seeing what is going on on the ground and what\u2019s happening here in Washington, D.C., at the leadership level,\u201d Kellogg said in the interview.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy concern is this Senator: What\u2019s happening right now, it\u2019s almost like they think it\u2019s going to go away and ignore it. They did it at the border, and have now done it with Afghanistan, and they\u2019re kind of saying, \u2018well maybe if we just keep ignoring it, talk about something else out there, it\u2019ll eventually go away.\u2019 I think Americans need to be concerned right now, we\u2019re seeing a real lack of what I call command and control decision making at the most senior levels,\u201d Kellogg continued. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/08\/24\/mitch-mcconnell-joe-biden-handling-afghanistan-greatest-foreign-policy-disasters-us-history\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">(RELATED: McConnell Rips Biden\u2019s Handling Of Afghanistan As \u2018One Of The Greatest Foreign Policy Disasters\u2019 In US History)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt starts with the president, goes down to the vice president, who\u2019s now in the air now 12 hours away, and should be right there next to the president. he didn\u2019t collect his security team, up at Camp David, you look at the National Security Advisor who doesn\u2019t seem to be engaged, I question now the decisions that came out of the Pentagon, either from the Secretary of Defense or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs as well, and questions need to be raised with Secretary of State Tony Blinken. I think two of those areas were accomplishing what they intended to do, but the third area here in DC, the strategic decision making and planning is lacking,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WATCH:&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Unmuted with Marsha: Special Guest General Keith Kellogg\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9en6eGXwAtc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p>Blackburn agreed with Kellogg\u2019s assessment and then mentioned her work on the Senate armed services committee, saying they are trying to find out about the next steps and that they have thousands of names of Americans who are still over in Afghanistan.<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/07\/22\/marsha-blackburn-interview-former-nba-player-royce-white-china-treatment-uyghur-muslims\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">(RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Blackburn To Release Interview With Former NBA Player Royce White About China\u2019s Treatment Of Uyghurs)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI agree with you on that it just seems that there is this real lack of transparency around what they\u2019re doing. Those of us on the Senate armed services committee find out about the next steps and generally about what we\u2019re hearing in the media; the briefings are partial, the briefs are incomplete. they do not have detail, we have got several hundred cases that we are working on, names that we have forwarded over to the Pentagon, thousands of names of people that are there that are either citizens are working with an NGO, or working as a missionary, or maybe they are our guides, interpreters or that worked with the embassy, or they worked with the US company,\u201d Blackburn said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey know that if they don\u2019t get out, they\u2019ll be killed. But one of the things that has interested me is that this lack of transparency is not only to us, it is to our allies: they have questioned what the president is seeking to do,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n<p>Kellogg then explained his concerns with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki\u2019s comments in a press conference last week, where he said she was asked if Biden had talked to any of our foreign allies, to which she said he had not. Kellogg said the comments were \u201cstunning\u201d to him. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/07\/22\/marsha-blackburn-interview-former-nba-player-royce-white-china-treatment-uyghur-muslims\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">(RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Blackburn To Release Interview With Former NBA Player Royce White About China\u2019s Treatment Of Uyghurs)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, my concern was when, in the press conference last week, Senator, the press secretary was asked when we talked to our foreign leaders and they came to realize he hadn\u2019t talked to any of them. It was only after that when he picked up the phone and called Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It is stunning to me, shocking is not an understatement, that he didn\u2019t pick up and call members of the NATO alliance. The reason why that\u2019s important, that he didn\u2019t talk to them and I was concerned about it. Here you have, let\u2019s use Germany: He didn\u2019t call Chancellor Merkel, the Germans have fought alongside US forces in Afghanistan for almost 20 years. They\u2019ve had losses,\u201d Kellogg said.<\/p>\n<p>He also mentioned his work with former President Donald Trump, saying he would never have done something like this.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou mean to tell me, the president can\u2019t pick up the phone and call him and say to him, \u2018this is what\u2019s happening\u2019 and register concern? I will tell you, I know this for a fact because I spent 1,461 days in the white house. If in doubt, the president of the United States would pick up the phone, then President Trump, and call a world leader. There were times we actually had to back him off a little bit. There was a time he wanted to call Prime Minister Abe of Japan, who was sick. I said \u2018Sir you can\u2019t call him\u2019 and he said \u2018why?\u2019 And I said, \u2018because it\u2019s three in the morning, give the guy a break and let him get some sleep going forward!\u201d Kellogg continued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut he (Biden) didn\u2019t even make these phone calls, and that\u2019s a real concern. But the concern was created when you saw the picture of Biden up at camp David by himself, he didn\u2019t have his national security team around him. I will tell you this, Senator, for a fact: When we had a crisis, everybody collapsed in the sit room, everybody collapsed in on the president, we\u2019re there to give him the best recommendations and best advice out there. I know the allies are concerned about it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Around 3,800 Americans <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/08\/24\/americans-evacuated-afghanistan-white-house-several-thousand-remain\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">have been evacuated from Afghanistan since July 29<\/a>, with an estimated 8,000 still remaining in the country, an official with direct knowledge of the situation told the Daily Caller on Tuesday. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/08\/24\/americans-evacuated-afghanistan-white-house-several-thousand-remain\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">(RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Internal Numbers Show White House Poised To Leave Several Thousand Americans Behind Enemy Lines In Afghanistan)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The official explained to the Caller that it seems \u201cdoubtful we are going to bring in 8,000 more Americans\u201d between now and Biden\u2019s Aug. 31 deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn will release an interview Tuesday with Gen. Keith Kellogg where he slams the way President Joe Biden has handled the withdraw of troops and American citizens &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-680682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}