Could supplying the Taliban with a vast stockpile of armaments and ammunition as occurred over the last two months be construed as treason? I have no training in law but it seems it cannot, unless the act was deliberate. Intent is a key element in any act of treason. If the transfer of potentially well over a billion dollars of materiel was lost in defeat, the victor has earned the spoils. The same question could be asked about the capture or death of soldiers and civilians and the same answer should apply.

An undetermined amount of supplies and armaments, including aircraft, bombs and other explosives, ended up in the possession of the Taliban when the Afghan soldiers surrendered. When the US closed the Bagram air field, the Taliban began an aggressive campaign to conquer provinces. They fell rapidly. The sudden closure of the one military complex that provided dramatic military superiority was seen as an act of betrayal, according to news reports. It left the Afghan military both vulnerable and hopeless. (The psychological impact may have been made worse by the US giving the enemy a date-certain for withdrawal from the country but no warning to allies about abandoning Bagram.)

As the provinces fell, US leaders made a willful and conscious decision to value the departure date more than the security of the military equipment that was falling into the hands of the enemy.

Later, when Kabul fell sooner than anticipated, President Biden valued the departure date and troop levels higher than the lives and freedom of the hundreds of thousands who found themselves suddenly surrounded by Taliban. He did not delay the date or change the plan despite the dramatic tactical changes. Good generals make decisions based on active circumstances.. Politicians do not share the same propensity.

The question then arises, what was President Biden’s motivation to value that date above the lives and freedom of American soldiers, civilians and at-risk Afghans; to value that date above the harm of arming a force opposed to western values wherever they exist? Since that date had nothing to do with ending US presence in Afghanistan, it cannot be anything other than either personal credit and aggrandizement or gaining strategic partisan political power, unless I’m missing something.

Intent is a key element in treason. The experts in law can argue over whether the motives of the President and his advisors who do most of the thinking were pure or corrupt.