US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired General Christopher Donahue, a decorated four-star officer, reportedly after becoming fixated on a widely circulated photograph he mistakenly believed was a "selfie". The image, showing Donahue boarding the final US military flight out of Afghanistan in August 2021, had gone viral online, and senior Pentagon officials say Hegseth's preoccupation with the picture contributed to the general's dismissal despite his standing as a highly respected, "once-in-a-generation" military leader.

The photograph was actually taken by an army photographer using a mobile phone and night-vision equipment at 11.59pm on 30 August 2021, one minute before the deadline for the US withdrawal, capturing Donahue as the last service member to leave in keeping with military tradition. It came just days after an ISIS suicide bomber killed 13 American service members and at least 170 Afghans at Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport, an attack Donald Trump later branded "the most embarrassing moment in the history of the United States". Donahue had returned to Kabul in mid-August to broker an uneasy working arrangement with a Taliban commander to help secure the airport against the Islamic State threat, and had warned of the risk of an attack at Abbey Gate days before the bombing occurred.