Carlson: 'If You Fire Mark Milley for Killing a Bunch of Kids Unintentionally and Then Lying About It, Maybe the Accountability Chain Will Start'

Politics September 18 2021

Friday, Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson began his program with a shot at the Biden administration for a drone strike that Pentagon brass now acknowledge killed civilians.

Carlson hammered Milley for claims that he sought to share information with the Taliban and that strike. He suggested the accountability process would begin with the termination of Gen. Mark Milley’s tenure as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Transcript as follows:

CARLSON: As American forces were pulling out of Afghanistan this summer, Mark Milley the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff announced a new and highly innovative Intelligence partnership. The Pentagon, Milley explained would begin sharing classified information with the Taliban. Yes, the Taliban, the bearded religious extremists in man pajamas that for 20 years, we’ve been told pose a major threat to us in the United States. But no longer, they are our partners now.

The Biden administration really explained was even open to coordinating with the Taliban on counterterrorism strikes against our new enemy, a shadowy group that may or may not actually exist called ISIS-K.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. MARK MILLEY, CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: We don’t know what the future of the Taliban is, but I can tell you from personal experience that this is a ruthless group from the past and whether or not they change remains to be seen.

And as far as our dealings with them at that airfield or in the past year or so in war, you do what you must in order to reduce risk to mission and force, not what you necessarily want to do.

QUESTION: Any possibility of coordination against ISIS-K with them, do you think?

MILLEY: It’s possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Because when you’re fighting ISIS-K, no holds are barred.

So the first of Milley’s coordinated attacks against ISIS-K arrived three weeks ago. It was August 29th. That was just days after 13 American servicemen were killed in a bombing at the Kabul Airport, a date you remember well.

At the time, even Democrats were pointing out the obvious, Joe Biden is senile and totally incompetent. So, the administration at that moment desperately needed something to prove they are not senile and incompetent, they are instead decisive and strong. And what better way to do that than to kill people.

So that day, the U.S. military bombed a white Toyota in a residential complex not far from the Kabul Airport. The White House touted that strike as a demonstration of our over the horizon military capabilities in Afghanistan particularly against ISIS-K.

Now, Mark Milley who is pretty young to be senile, but often seems like it strongly agreed this was a good thing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MILLEY: At this point, we think that the procedures were correctly followed and it was a righteous strike.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Did we say good thing? We meant righteous. That was a righteous strike, and everyone in Washington agreed. One unnamed U.S. Defense official described the attack to our Jennifer Griffin this way quote: “Multiple suicide bombers inside the vehicle struck by U.S. drone today in Kabul. Significant explosives in the vehicle led to secondary explosions. Bombers belonged to ISIS-K and they were en route to Kabul Airport.” End quote.

So it was perfect. All the bad people were dead. All those ISIS-K operatives and virtually every news organization in the country parroted this account. They were grateful to give poor old Joe Biden credit for something.

“The Washington Post” assigned five reporters to the story and they dug deep, they concluded — they concluded that Biden’s drone attack had hit quote, “An Islamic state target.”

On television where there’s mostly no reporting at all, they just read the paper and repeat it, not a single person seemed very skeptical of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our ability to demonstrate effectively that we can strike such targets once the Intelligence cues them up, we can strike them from outside Afghan borders, which is a critical element of the Biden plan once we withdraw.

So this over the horizon capability was demonstrated. I thought it was effective.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You called this strike remarkable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a realization of what President Biden calls the over the horizon strategy.

FRANK FIGLIUZZI, FORMER F.B.I. ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR COUNTERINTELLIGENCE: The military event today is so much more than just a single drone strike. It is a projection of power. It is a message from the United States government that even though we’re leaving, we’re not done with counterterrorism operations.

Even though we’re going to have to do this as they say over the horizon from remote locations and it’s going to be far more challenging, we can still do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So keep in mind, every single one of the people you just saw speaking knew nothing — literally nothing about this drone strike other than what they read on Twitter. They were totally ignorant, and that did not prevent them, as it never does from trying to sound totally authoritative.

That’s our news coverage.

Soon however, a few people started to ask the obvious questions. For example, who exactly had the U.S. military killed? When asked, the Defense Department wouldn’t say. Oh, that might have been a tip.

DoD also would show no proof of those secondary explosions, the explosions that proved the vehicle was being driven by ISIS-K-suicide bombers. Instead, Mark Milley just assured the country those secondary explosions were real, they happened. We know, and the rest of us need to take his word for it.

That was exactly the line from The Pentagon’s top flak, known liar, John Kirby.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Two quick questions, if I may. On the strike against the vehicle, do you — the Central Command talked about secondary explosions I think in that, but do you actually have visual evidence that there were secondary explosions? Are you convinced that there were because that seems to be one of the potential contributing factors to civilian casualties?

So do you — are you certain there were secondary explosions?

REAR ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY (RET.) PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: Yes.

QUESTION: Can you — I just have a follow-up on a different part of this. Can you say how you’re sure?

KIRBY: No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Oh, liar. Not the first time, not the 50th time. Are you sure there were secondary explosions? Yes. How do you know for sure? I’m not going to tell you. And he never did.

Neither John Kirby nor anyone else at The Pentagon ever corrected that story, but “The New York Times” did, to their rare credit.

More than a week ago, “The New York Times” ran a piece revealing with video evidence that the Biden administration’s drones did not actually kill anyone from ISIS-K, whoever they are, assuming they exist. The drone killed a civilian aid worker and a car full of kids.

There were no bombs in the Toyota, they had bottles of water, which are very different from bombs in that they don’t explode, even secondarily.

Finally this afternoon, the Biden administration was forced to stop lying. So here’s General Kenneth McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. KENNETH MCKENZIE, JR., COMMANDER, CENTCOM: When we thoroughly review the findings of the investigation and the supporting analysis by interagency partners, I am now convinced that as many as 10 civilians including up to seven children were tragically killed in that strike.

Moreover, we now assess that it is unlikely that the vehicle and those who died were associated with ISIS-K or were a direct threat to U.S. forces.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Okay. After consulting with our interagency partners, all of whom get “The New York Times” delivered at home, we are admitting that we lied to you for weeks about what we actually did. It was not ISIS-K. There were no suicide bombers. There were no secondary explosions. It was kids and water bottles.

In his remarks today, most tellingly, General McKenzie declined to announce any consequences for this, either for the killing of children or for the lying about it for weeks. Now why is that? We think we know.

Back on September 1st, Mark Milley explained that the drone strike of August 29th wasn’t out of the ordinary, in fact, it followed the very same procedures as every other drone strike over the last 20 years in Afghanistan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MILLEY: We had very good intelligence that ISIS-K was preparing a specific type vehicle at a specific type location. We monitored that through various means, and all of the engagement criteria were being met. We went through the same level of rigor that we’ve done for years and we took a strike.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Oh, we had very good Intelligence. Luckily, the same kind of Intelligence that led us to believe that German educated Saudis would never fly airplanes into the World Trade Centers or The Pentagon or a field in Pennsylvania. The Intelligence that told us the Berlin Wall wasn’t about to fall, the Intelligence had told us it was fine to give up Bagram Air Base because Kabul was safe. The government would stand that Intelligence.

So the drone strike of August 29th that killed a car full of children underwent and we’re quoting, “The same level of rigor that we have done for years.” Well, that’s not very reassuring, is it?

But you will not find a more revealing statement about our Pentagon leaders. It explains why no one has been punished for this disaster.

If you fire Mark Milley for killing a bunch of kids unintentionally and then lying about it, maybe the accountability chain will start. Maybe they don’t want to fire whoever left hundreds of American citizens behind in Afghanistan and lied about that. So you can’t start firing people just because they’re terrible at their jobs, obviously. So you can’t fire anyone. That’s the rule.