Senate confirms promotion for general who oversaw Afghanistan pull out after previous delay

Lieut-Gen. Christopher Donahue was the commander of the 82nd Airborne when US forces left Afghanistan and also left billions of dollars of military hardware to the Taliban. The Senate agreed to his promotion after at least one of its members finally dropped his reservations about it, Politico reported.

Donahue's file was not part of a bundle of files relating to hundreds of military promotions that the Senate approved just before the Thanksgiving break, demonstrating that there was opposition to it from the upper chamber. Some media outlets identified the source of that opposition as Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), who has been a constant and vociferous critic of Biden’s botched retreat from Afghanistan. Mullin is believed to have stalled the Donahue’s promotion.

Now serving as the commandant of the Army’s 18 Airborne Corps, Donahue was the CO of the storied 82 Airborne that was tasked with occupying the Hamid Karzai International Airport and using the airfield to evacuate Americans and Afghans from Kabul – an operation that did not go well and is remembered for swarms of desperate Afghan refugees hanging on to the sides of massive US Air Force aircraft.

Donahue was hailed as the last American military member to leave Kabul and a picture of the warrior pulling himself into a transport aircraft at the end of the evacuation operation was widely seen around the world when the Biden administration was looking for some good news.

President-elect Donald Trump has rarely missed an opportunity to eviscerate Biden and everyone associated with the withdrawal and has called it “the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country.” The death of 13 US military personnel at the airport’s Abbey Gate is often cited as the nadir of the operation.

Trump has threatened to fire senior officers responsible for the withdrawal and there are reports that the president-elect is preparing a list of all senior officers associated with the operation and assessing whether they should be subject to court martial proceedings. Trump has promised to create a “warrior board” of retired generals to help defeat wokeism in the US military.