Yes, it's good we’re leaving Afghanistan. But no, it's not true "nobody predicted" the evacuation debacle. We were right to fight back against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, after they murdered 3,000 of us in 9/11. But it’s bad that we stayed there for an extended occupation. But Biden was warned, repeatedly, for MONTHS, by everyone from ordinary troops, to top generals, to Hillary Clinton, that this collapse was coming, and that he MUST plan in advance to evacuate the Afghan interpreters who helped our troops. Those interpreters, according to intelligence officer Matt Zeller of No One Left Behind (he said this over the last few days on MSNBC) gave us their biometric data (so sorry, Tucker Carlson, they’re already “vetted”). The Taliban, says Zeller, is now using that data to target them.
These are the Afghan interpreters who helped our troops, at risk to their own lives, of which there are a good 19,000 who have applied to come here (again, according to Zeller), each of whom comes with about four other family members. Total: about 88,000 that need to come here. As shown above, he was warned MONTHS ago that this was coming. He did almost nothing until THIS WEEK (that is the Department of Defense, announcing some of the first flights out, a few days ago; I was corrected by one poster when I said he did “nothing,” because he did get 2,000 SIV applicants out before this week. However, that’s too close to nothing for my blood, since there are tens of thousands who served our country, who need to escape, and who are being threatened with murder. We need to treat ALL of them as if they’re US troops. But instead, President Biden shut down Bagram and all the other bases besides Kabul Airport, even though those Afghan helpers of our country are all over Afghanistan. This indicates to me that he never planned to evacuate most of them, and I hate to say it, it makes it seem he didn’t even care. He needs to expand this to a country-wide effort to get them from all of Afghanistan.)
What these poor people go through trying to get to Kabul Airport is insane. And even once they get to the gates, we’re making it almost impossible for them to get through. Orb Marine Major Schueman, here, and the saga he went through, getting his interpreter to the gates of Bagram airbase (he was on the phone with Zak, the interpreter, guiding him, and also on the phone with troops inside the base, directing them to get Zak). It took him MULTIPLE days even to get Zak from the outer gates to an airplane. These people are going through this even if they have the email from the government saying to let them through.
”But the Taliban won’t let us expand the effort!” According to troops such as Matt Zeller, this is not true at all, the Taliban know what we’re trying to do with the evacuation, and they’d rather let us do it for a couple of weeks and be done with us than try to go to war again to stop it. So they will let us do it—if Biden takes the initiative to get it done.
“But after Vietnam, we didn’t take anybody! We just left them all!” Nope. Wrong. We took 110,000 Vietnamese over to the US, and President Ford appointed a competent czar or two to get it done. I don’t believe Biden is more inept than Ford.
Please: write to the White House. Here is the White House communication website. There is no time. Please tell President Biden respectfully to expand this evacuation effort to ALL of Afghanistan, coordinating with the Taliban to let it happen, and get ALL of the Afghans who helped us out.
If you don’t want to—God only knows why you wouldn’t want to, since you know these people will get murdered if President Biden doesn’t feel this urgency and expand this effort—but still care about the people who the Taliban is murdering, you can either donate to one of the efforts helping those people directly, or donate to Doctors without Borders. But I hope you write the White House.
Before this week, President Biden had only gotten out a couple of thousand of these people. I see no evidence he planned to do anything to help the rest, before this week’s massive public outcry against his handling of the evacuations (especially since he closed all our bases around the country before even bothering to get any of our helpers out). He’s increased the number of flights; that’s good. But he needs to expand this effort, ideally to transit these murder targets from all over Afghanistan onto those planes to safety—US vets have offered to help do so themselves, as I’ve seen them interviewed, over these last weeks—or, at the very least, expand to get to the people OUTSIDE THE PERIMETER of Kabul Airport, where the people are actually lining up to leave. We can’t stay hunkered down within the airport perimeter without reaching out to get them; Major Schueman’s story shows that that isn’t working.
And no, I’m not “trying to attack President Biden.” I voted for him. I LOVE him. Needless to say, I’m still overjoyed that that worthless piece of garbage Tr*mp isn’t in office anymore. It breaks my heart to see that President Biden sat on this for so many months, and never bothered to do anything for all but 1/40th of the people who served our country; I don’t want to conclude that he just doesn’t care about them because they’re not US citizens yet. But what else can I conclude, since he was warned so many months ago, repeatedly, and never made any plan to evacuate them? And since he closed all our bases before he bothered to do so? If any of you can’t see anything past Biden’s public image, what it does to the midterm polls, or some other political concern you have, please: put that aside for a couple of weeks and listen to the voices of the people who are going to be murdered if we don’t act. “Why are the American soldiers forgetting about us?” they ask, tears in their eyes. “Please help,” he tearfully pleads, as he says he’s being threatened with being beheaded. They are who’s important. Not some stupid political point-scoring. If you’re mad at me, that’s okay, but don’t tell me anything in the comments that you wouldn’t tell those Afghanis to their face, as you tell them “this is why I’m not going to bother trying to expand the effort to save you.”
Regardless, I can’t read Biden’s mind, only his actions. His actions were to save almost none of these Afghani helpers until this week, and then to save many more once a public outcry came up. President Biden is now beginning to respond to our public pressure; it’s too late for some, but we may still be able to save most of those helpers. Please, please write today to urge him to expand the effort. Bring ALL these people home, from EVERYWHERE in Afghanistan, all 88,000 Afghanis who helped serve our country. Thank you.
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Hat-tip to poster xaxnar, who suggested I write a diary. We’ve been arguing furiously for a day or two about this, and we had disagreed strongly, but I appreciate his or her positive suggestion. S/he said:
“Let me see if I can summarize your arguments here:
- You support getting out of Afghanistan, but…
- President Biden should have known how quickly the country would collapse.
- President Biden should have started evacuating the 80,000+ Afghans and their families in direct danger months ago.
- President Biden should not have completed withdrawal until that was complete.
- President Biden should now treat every Afghan in that number as though they were American citizens and do everything possible to get them out of the country wherever they may be.
- President Biden was planning to abandon them and will abandon them unless every possible pressure is brought to bear.
- President Biden has only taken the limited actions he has because he was embarrassed into it.
- US Troops are prepared to do whatever it takes to accomplish this mission.
- The Taliban are happy to let us extract 80,000+ Afghans plus their families and will allow it to happen unhindered.
- This all must happen immediately.
- President Biden is... responsible for screwing this up so badly.
- President Biden as commander in chief bears total responsibility for this.”
I think that was a fair summation of what I had said, except for one last point, which I deleted, and except for the word “criminally” where the “...” now is. (I don’t think mass negligent homicide by US presidents is usually punished in the Hague, so I wanted to delete the word, so as not to bring legal issues into it.) Thanks to xaxnar.
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Update: upon reflection, I think the following compromise should satisfy everyone who cares about the Afghanis who helped us, who are to be murdered, no matter whether you think Biden handled this badly, well, or perfectly:
Some think Biden’s handled this all very well; some think he’s fumbled the evacuation so far.
But both sides who care about saving these people can find something to agree on:
If you think he’s handled it splendidly, please write him using the White House communications website, linked here, and say, “President Biden, I want to thank you for working urgently to save all the Afghan interpreters and their families who risked their lives and helped our troops. I agree with you that they all are heroes, whose suffering as they escape is a tragedy, and whose sacrifice helping our troops and saving our troops’ lives is immeasurable, and I want to thank you for all the tireless work you’re doing to bring every one of them home. Please keep treating them as people with lives every bit as valuable as our troops’ lives are. Thank you.”
And if you don’t think he’s handled it well, please write him using the White House communications website, linked here, and say, “President Biden, I want to plead with you to work urgently to save all the Afghan interpreters and their families who risked their lives and helped our troops. They all are heroes, whose suffering as they escape is a tragedy, and whose sacrifice helping our troops and saving our troops’ lives is immeasurable, and I want to urge you to do everything you possibly can to bring every one of them home. Please treat them as people with lives every bit as valuable as our troops’ lives are. Thank you.”
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Update 2: In addition to writing President Biden either to praise what you feel is his good handling of the evacuation of these Afghanis and their families who served our country, please consider donating to miles4migrants.org. There’s a misconception around that there are Afghanis among them who are “choosing not to come, even though they can.” The fact is that actually, their problem is most often not that they “don’t want to come” or are choosing not to—it’s that they don’t have the money to come, that’s all.
Hat-tip to this great DailyKos poster, who posted about it:
www.dailykos.com/…
And here’s where you can find miles4migrants.org. You pledge to donate your frequent-flyer miles, and then they get back to you when a refugee around the world is paired with your pledge. This organization is for refugees all over the world, not only Afghanis, but I encourage those of you who are moved by the suffering of these Afghanis to donate your miles to them. Thank you again.