Republicans block promotion of generally involved in Afghanistan withdrawal | US military

US general photographed as last US soldier to leave Afghanistan sees promotion blocked by lone Republican senator, multiple outlets reported.

The move comes mid-separate reports that the incoming Trump administration is considering military tribunals, for offenses including treason, for officers involved in the evacuation.

Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue, 55, is Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the US Army in Europe. On Thursday, his name was missing from a list of nearly 1,000 promotions approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The senator who reportedly put a “hold” on Donahue’s promotion, Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, did not comment. Citing a Senate aide, Military.com said Donald Trump’s transition team requested the move.

A Pentagon spokesman said: “Lieutenant Gen Donahue is a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point and has served his country for more than 30 years.

“His appointment comes at an extremely critical time in the European region. We urge the Senate to confirm all of our highly qualified nominees. Holding on to our nominees undermines our military readiness.”

The US withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, almost 20 years after invading in response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The withdrawal proved costly: A US drone strike killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children, while a suicide bomb at Kabul airport killed 13 Americans and more than 170 Afghans.

At the end of the operation, Donahue was seen in a photo taken through a night vision deviceaboard the last flight out. When he commanded the 82nd Airborne Division, he was a highly decorated two-star general. The promotion now held up in Washington would earn him a fourth star, the highest rank in the peacetime Army.

Mullin, 47, is one former plumber and cage fighter who ran for Congress in 2013 and won a Senate seat in 2022. He was famously combative, and in September 2021 he caused controversy by attempting to enter Afghanistan on a private mission to rescue American citizens and Afghans working with the United States as as the Taliban forces advanced.

“I’m not Rambo,” Mullin was moved to say. “Never pretended to be Rambo … I’m the low man on the totem pole. And I understood that.”

He added: “Did we help get Americans out of Afghanistan? Yes … Am I extremely disappointed in how we (the United States) left Americans behind? … That would be an understatement.”

Trump set the American evacuation in motion. In February 2020, his administration and the Taliban agreed that US forces would leave by May 1 of the following year. After losing the 2020 election to Biden, Trump ordered the rapid withdrawal of all troops, but was blocked by senior officials. Instead, the United States quickly began reducing its presence.

In April 2021, Biden announced that all US troops would leave Afghanistan by September 11 of that year, the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Referring to Trump’s deal with the Taliban, he said: “We will not rush to the end. We will do it responsibly, deliberately and safely.”

Trump in the first place sought credit to start “the move out of Afghanistan,” but changed his tune after the evacuation proved chaotic. At home, amid controversy over the bombing of Kabul airport and Biden’s interaction with grieving families, the withdrawal became a political football.

Although a US Central Command review found the bombing to be unavoidable, Trump this year used the third anniversary of the attack to requirements he would have overseen a withdrawal “with dignity and strength”. He also accused Biden and Kamala Harris, the vice president-turned-Trump rival for the White House, of overseeing “the most embarrassing day in our country’s history” and causing the “collapse of American credibility and respect around the world”.

Pete Hegseth, the military veteran and Fox News host Trump has nominated for Secretary of Defense called Afghanistan’s withdrawal a “humiliating retreat” and accused the generals who oversaw it of lying, mismanagement, violating their oaths and “disgrace(ing) our troops and our nation”.

News of Mullin’s blocking of a promotion for Lt. Gen. Donahue caused a stir in Washington, especially given a recent NBC report who said Trump’s transition staff was taking “very serious” steps toward “establishing a commission to investigate” the withdrawal.

Such measures, NBC said, included “gathering information about who was directly involved in decision-making for the military, how it was carried out, and whether the military leaders might be eligible for charges as serious as treason”.

That echoed comments made before the election of Mark Milley, the retired Army general who was Trump’s last chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As reported by author Bob Woodward, Milley fears that with Trump back in power, retired senior military figures could be called back into uniform to face court-martial.