The Media Cynically and Shamefully Buried the Testimony of Afghanistan’s Gold Star Families

If there’s a single moment that changed the trajectory of Joe Biden’s presidency, it was his administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Following in the careless footsteps of his predecessor, Biden pledged early in his tenure to pull all U.S. military personnel out of the country. Bizarrely, he chose September 11, 2021 as the deadline, handing a massive propaganda victory to the Taliban by selecting the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks for the de facto transfer of power back to the terror group.

After the Taliban launched a major, successful offensive to capitalize on the U.S.’s decision, Biden moved the deadline up to the end of August. The capital city of Kabul nevertheless fell to the Taliban on August 15, and the ensuing chaos resulted in the mass abandonment of American citizens and allies.

It also paved the way for a suicide bomber to kill 13 U.S. service members and and 170 Afghan civilians at the Kabul airport on August 26. The damage, in terms of both lives lost and reputational harm, made the withdrawal and its aftermath one of the biggest stories of the year.

On Monday, the families of the service members who died in the airport attack testified before a congressional forum in California. It was a heart-wrenching event.

They testified that they had been lied to. “I was told to my face he died on impact. That’s not true. The only reason that I know this is because witnesses told me the truth,” recalled one grieving mother.

Another said that she hoped that the mistakes that led to her son’s death would be “owned up to.”

“We do not want a partial truth or a truth told in a book release or when information is declassified 20, 30 or 40 years from now,” she added.

A father lamented that his son had been sacrificed like a “pawn” in order to meet Biden’s deadline. A mother recounted Biden’s suggestion that he understood how he felt because he brought his son Beau Biden “home in a flag-draped coffin.” A Navy veteran, Beau Biden died after a battle with cancer, not suddenly in the line of duty.

A mother-in-law to the deceased Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee expressed outrage over the Biden administration’s celebration of the withdrawal. On August 31, 2021, less than a week after the suicide bombing, Biden delivered a speech deeming the evacuation an “extraordinary success.” National Security Council Director of Strategic Communications John Kirby, meanwhile, has professed to be “proud” of the withdrawal.

Given the importance of the subject matter and emotional weight of the testimony, one might expect the media to provide considerable coverage of the event.

Yet of all the major networks and cable news channels, Fox News was the only one to provide any meaningful coverage of the event at all.

How can this be explained?

The answer is obvious: Decision makers at the other outlets felt that the testimony and allegations therein would be too much of a political liability for Biden.

After all, the Afghanistan withdrawal has proven to be the single most damaging event of Biden’s presidency. Prior to it, Biden was still enjoying the honeymoon phase of his presidency and widespread support from the electorate. On August 1, 2021, nearly 8% more Americans approved than disapproved of Biden’s job performance. A month later, his approval rating was underwater by 4%.

59% of voters disapproved of the way the withdrawal was conducted and of that majority, a whopping 40% said they “strongly” disapproved — nearly as many as (41%) that said they approved at all.

The cynicism of these networks’ decision to bury the testimony is breathtaking. No doubt some will object that Fox’s had an outsized interest in covering the forum because of its audience’s disdain for Biden. There’s little doubt that Fox had a pecuniary interest in giving it airtime.

But the fact remains that this was doubtlessly worthy of coverage. The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has been one of the most important events of the last several years, with far-reaching implications on the domestic political scene and broader geostrategic landscape.

The loved ones of those Americans who died during it are the only voices that the deceased have left.

By ignoring their words in an effort to protect the president’s political prospects, the media is not only doing its audience a disservice, but dishonoring dead heroes.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.