Former Green Beret: 'Moral injury' suffered in Afghanistan exit that Biden admin is trying to 'move past'
Lt. Col. Scott Mann worked with Task Force Pineapple on evacuations
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A retired Green Beret commander who helped facilitate evacuations out of Afghanistan one year ago is now accusing the Biden administration of trying to sidestep the "moral injury" inflicted on "our people, our veterans, [and] our volunteers."
Lt. Col. Scott Mann, who was part of the group called Task Force Pineapple, made the comments to the Daily Mail on Monday as the Taliban in Kabul celebrated their 1-year anniversary of taking over Afghanistan’s capital.
In an interview, Mann claimed hundreds of people like Afghan commandos who helped the U.S. during the war, who weren’t able to escape, are still trapped there and that the U.S. State Department has "no visible interest" in helping them, according to the website.
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Taliban fighters hold their weapons as they celebrate one year since they seized the Afghan capital, Kabul, in front of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Monday, Aug. 15. (AP/Ebrahim Noroozi)
"When I look at the moral injury that's happened to our people, our veterans, our volunteers, and the national security impacts of this abandonment at every level, it really makes me — I really want to see some accountability," Mann said. "I feel like the Biden administration has really tried to just move past this."
"I would be lying if I didn't, you know — I still feel a very deep sense of betrayal," Mann told the outlet.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Evacuees wait to board a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 23. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Isaiah Campbell)
"I feel like our institutional leaders — not only did they dropped the ball on the — and this includes military leaders too, senior leaders — dropped the ball on the withdrawal, but just the wholesale abandonment of our partner force, particularly our Special Operations partners and the [Afghan National Mine Removal Group], and then just turning the page like it never happened," he also said.
Afghan people climb atop a plane as they wait at the Kabul airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021, after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan's 20-year war, as thousands of people mobbed the city's airport trying to flee the group's feared hardline brand of Islamist rule. ((Photo by Wakil Kohsar / AFP) (Photo by WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images))
Mann went on to say that "our active duty and former senior leaders are not stepping forward to address this moral injury."
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"Where are the generals? Where are the Pentagon leaders, the Special Operations senior leaders stepping forward and saying, ‘Okay, we clearly have a problem here. There's a massive moral injury that has been inflicted on our population. We're going to own this and we're going to start working on it,’" Mann told the Daily Mail. "Do you hear any of that? You don't hear any of it."