Dead Drop: September 17

AFGHANISTAN, ALL OVER BUT THE SHOUTING:  Now that the ‘official’ U.S. presence in Afghanistan is over (at least for the moment) all that is left is the finger pointing, recriminations and “whataboutism.”  Secretary of State Antony Blinken endured two trips to the Congressional woodshed this week about what many feel was a bungled pullout. John F. Kennedy once said that, “Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.” In this case, there seems to be no shortage of people who wish to assign parentage to members of the opposing party. So, let the recriminations begin.  Politico reports that the House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Rep. Mike McCaul (R, TX) has hired Ryan Browne (who until very recently was a CNN Pentagon correspondent) to assist in the investigation of the administration’s handling of the Afghan withdrawal.  “It is crucial we discover what led to the chaos of the emergency evacuation and examine the administration’s failed efforts to evacuate all American citizens, green card holders, local allies and other vulnerable Afghans fearing reprisals from the Taliban,” Browne said in a statement obtained by Politico.

NEVER FORGET….UMM…AH…  We’ve been warning you for a month or more about the ton of 9/11 retrospectives lined up.  This past weekend was wall-to-wall with retrospectives.  We saw so many that they all blend together in our mind. We asked our readers to let us know which documentaries got things right – and which ones got things wrong.  For the most part, you forgot to do that too.  One person with dramatic recollections of the events of twenty years ago is former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell – who just posted the first of two episodes of his “Intelligence Matters” podcast laying out the path to 9/11.   Morell was with President Bush on 9/11 and with President Obama the day Osama bin Laden met his maker –so he has some unique insights.