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While Biden brags about dropping sky-high gas prices by two pennies, France has oragnized the rescue of 258 people from Afghanistan.
It comes down to a question of priorities, really.
There has been no effort by the Biden/Harris administration to extricate the large number of Americans trapped in Afghanistan. The reason should be obvious: If they can’t admit the failure, they can’t execute a solution, and they aren’t willing to admit that their August airlift was a failure.
If anyone was left behind it’s because they didn’t WANT to be part of the airlift, and they ignored calls to leave earlier. It’s their own fault, really, don’t blame Blinken, Milley, or especially Biden/Harris.
We have heard stories from multiple sources of instances where heroic effort has been made to secret people out to neighboring neutral nations only to have the Biden administration refuse to grant the necessary diplomatic permissions for them to be received in those countries.
That’s embarrassing in contrast to what we are seeing by Macron’s government in this recent rescue effort.
France has carried out an evacuation mission in Afghanistan, taking 258 Afghans as well as 11 French, some 60 Dutch nationals and an unspecified number of people linked to them out of the country, a French foreign ministry spokeswoman said on Friday.
The operation was organized with help from Qatar, a ministry statement said.
Evacuees included Afghans who were at risk such as journalists as well as people with links to France including civilian workers who were employed by the French army. Since Sept. 10, 110 French people and 396 Afghans have been evacuated from Afghanistan on 10 flights organized with the help of Qatar, the statement added. —Jerusalem Post
What do we know about Americans — and those who have worked with us — still trapped in Afghanistan? We know that we ‘don’t have a good accounting’ of how many there are, and we know that the military will not be playing a role in getting them out. Notice how even this story from November implies that most family members who are still there have chosen to stay there.
On Thursday, more than two months after the U.S. military withdrew completely from Afghanistan, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl issued a memo asking any U.S. military personnel and DOD civilians with immediate family members who need help leaving Afghanistan to email his office.
…There are still several dozen immediate family members of U.S. service members in Afghanistan, according to defense officials. Those include children, sisters and brothers, and parents. There are well over 100 extended family members still in Afghanistan, but it’s not clear how many of them want to leave the country, the officials said.It took two months for that memo to go out, did it? And when it had, it indicated that the military was making a push to make an accounting for who was still trapped there. —NBC
Two months is a hell of a long time to have family members trapped under the control of a terrorist regime with scores to settle, doncha think? It continues…
The official said once the information is consolidated, the Pentagon will work with the State Department to extract family members who want to leave. The U.S. military will not have a role in actually getting the people out of the country, the official said.
The Pentagon does not have a good accounting of how many DOD civilians still have immediate family members in Afghanistan, the officials said.–NBC
So how many do we think are still trapped under a hostile regime, with no way to come home? Well, about a month ago, the working number was 14,000 people.
“Isn’t the operating assumption about 14,000?” Republican Rep. Chris Smith asked Brian McKeon, deputy secretary of state for management and resources, at a hearing on Wednesday, referring to the figure briefed in private.
The State Department believes as many as 14,000 U.S. legal permanent residents remain in Afghanistan, Foreign Policy has learned, as the agency faces increasing scrutiny from Congress about the status of U.S. citizens and green card holders that are still stranded in the Taliban-controlled country.
The finding, disclosed by a congressional aide familiar with the matter, has been transmitted by the State Department to aides on Capitol Hill in private, but officials demurred on revealing the figure when questioned by Republican lawmakers on Wednesday, insisting the agency doesn’t track the figure. —ForeignPolicy
Do you remember the lie Blinken told us at the end of the airlift? It was a ‘Big Lie’, to use a phrase the corporate media has fallen in love with. Audacious, really.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken put the number of Americans left behind at under 200, “likely closer to 100,” and said the State Department would keep working to get them out. He praised the military-led evacuation as heroic and historic and said the U.S. diplomatic presence would shift to Doha, Qatar. — AP
Closer to 100? That’s weird.
How does Blinken explain the 8,000 or so people who have been evacuated by independent groups in the time since he got that number all the way down to a hundred or so?
In September, the Taliban started to allow some charter flights to leave the country with American citizens, U.S. residents and visa holders, as well as people from other countries and Afghans with proper travel documents. Private organizations with names such as Allied Airlift 21 and Task Force Argo have reported getting charter flights out with hundreds of people. The State Department has chartered flights and says it has evacuated 435 American citizens and 325 people with permanent U.S. resident status — green card holders — since Aug. 30.
People involved in these efforts estimate the total number evacuated at perhaps about 8,000. It’s limited for many reasons, including the fact that people are in hiding or have destroyed or lost personal documents when the Taliban took. Applying for an immigrant visa to the U.S. at this point is difficult because the American Embassy has closed; Qatar recently agreed to handle some consular services for the U.S. —Stripes
Others may have forgotten about how Biden and his cabinet have failed those left behind in Afghanistan. But here at ClashDaily, we have not.
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