From News Nation:
“‘We will get you home’: Biden
pledges help for Americans in Afghanistan”
President Joe Biden is pledging
to Americans still trapped in Afghanistan: “We will get you home.” Biden’s
comments at a White House news conference Friday come as the U.S. government
struggles to ramp up a massive airlift clearing Americans and other foreigners
and vulnerable Afghans through the Kabul airport, rescuing them from a Taliban
takeover of the country. Biden is facing criticism for a chaotic and often
violent scene outside the airport as crowds struggle to reach safety inside. He
called the past week “heartbreaking,” but insisted his administration was
working hard to smooth and speed the evacuations. “I don’t think anyone of us
can see these pictures and not feel that pain on a human level,” Biden said,
but “now I’m focused on getting this job done.”
Evacuation flights at the Kabul
airport had stopped for several hours on Friday because of a backup at a
transit point for the refugees, a U.S. airbase in Qatar, U.S. officials said.
However, a resumption was ordered in the afternoon, Washington time. As many as
three flights out of Kabul were expected in the next few hours, going to
Bahrain and carrying perhaps 1,500 evacuees in all, said an official, speaking
on condition of anonymity to discuss military.
In Washington, some veterans in
Congress were calling on the Biden administration to extend a security
perimeter beyond the Kabul airport so more Afghans can make it to the airport
for evacuation. They also want Biden to make clear an Aug. 31 deadline for
withdrawing U.S. troops is not a firm one.
The deadline “is contributing to the chaos and the panic at the airport
because you have Afghans who think that they have 10 days to get out of this
country or that door is closing forever,” said Rep. Peter Meijer, R-Mich., who
served in Iraq and also worked in Afghanistan to help aid workers provide
humanitarian relief.
Tens of thousands of people
remain to be evacuated ahead of the United States’ Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw
its troops from the country, although the pace had picked up overnight. A
defense official said about 5,700 people, including about 250 Americans, were
flown out of Kabul aboard 16 C-17 transport planes. On each of the previous two
days, about 2,000 people were airlifted. With desperate crowds thronging
Kabul’s airport, and Taliban fighters ringing its perimeter, the U.S.
government renewed its advisory to Americans and others that it could not
guarantee safe passage for any of those desperately seeking seats on the planes
inside. The advisory captured some of the pandemonia, and what many Afghans and
foreigners see as their life-and-death struggle to get inside. It said: “We are
processing people at multiple gates. Due to large crowds and security concerns,
gates may open or close without notice. Please use your best judgment and
attempt to enter the airport at any gate that is open.”
While Biden has previously blamed
Afghans for the U.S. failure to get out more allies ahead of this month’s
sudden Taliban takeover, U.S. officials told The Associated Press that American
diplomats had formally urged weeks ago that the Biden administration ramp up
evacuation efforts. In July, more than 20 diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in
Kabul registered their concerns that the evacuation of Afghans who had worked
for America was not proceeding quickly enough. In a cable sent through the
State Department’s dissent channel, a time-honored method for foreign service
officers to register opposition to administration policies, the diplomats said
the situation on the ground was dire, that the Taliban would likely seize
control of the capital within months of the Aug. 31 pullout, and urged the
Biden administration to immediately begin a concerted evacuation effort. That’s
according to officials familiar with the document who spoke on condition of
anonymity to discuss the internal debate.
Biden has said that the chaos
that unfolded as part of the withdrawal was inevitable as the nearly 20-year
war came to an end. He said he was following the advice of Afghanistan’s
U.S.-backed president, Ashraf Ghani, in not earlier expanding U.S. efforts to
fly out translators and other Afghans in danger for the past work with
Americans. Ghani fled the country last weekend as the Taliban seized the
capital. Biden also said that many at-risk Afghan allies had not wanted to
leave the country. But refugee groups point to yearslong backlogs of
applications from thousands of those Afghans for visas that would let them take
refuge in the United States. The administration has also portrayed its
contingency planning as successful after the Afghan government fell much faster
than publicly anticipated by administration officials. Yet the White House
received clear warnings that the situation was deteriorating rapidly before the
current evacuation push.
The Kabul airport has been the
focus of intense international efforts to get out foreigners, Afghan allies and
other Afghans most at risk of reprisal from the Taliban insurgents. With the
Taliban controlling the Afghan capital, including the airport’s outer
perimeter, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that U.S.
citizens are able to reach the airport, but were often met by large crowds at
the airport gates. On Thursday, Taliban militants fired into the air to try to
control the crowds gathered at the airport’s blast walls. Men, women and
children fled. U.S. Navy fighter jets flew overhead, a standard military
precaution but also a reminder to the Taliban that the U.S. has firepower to
respond to a combat crisis. Sullivan acknowledged that there is the possibility
of a hostage situation or terrorist attack, even though the government has been
in contact to assure safe passage for U.S. citizens. The administration has
committed to ensuring that all Americans can leave, even if that means staying
past the August deadline. “This is a risky operation,” Sullivan told NBC News
Thursday. “We can’t count on anything.” There is no firm figure of the number
of people — Americans, Afghans or others — who are in need of evacuation as the
process is almost entirely self-selecting.
The State Department says that
when it ordered its nonessential embassy staff to leave Kabul in April after
Biden’s withdrawal announcement, fewer than 4,000 Americans had registered for
security updates. The actual number, including dual U.S.-Afghan citizens along
with family members, is likely much higher, with estimates ranging from 11,000
to 15,000. Refugee advocates estimate about 100,000 Afghan allies and family
members also are appealing for seats on the U.S. airlift. Compounding the
uncertainty, the U.S. government has no way to track how many registered
Americans may have left Afghanistan already. Some may have returned to the
United States but others may have gone to third countries. Although Afghanistan
had been a hotspot for the coronavirus pandemic, the State Department said
Thursday that evacuees are not required to get negative COVID-19 results. Additional
American troops continued to arrive at the airport to safeguard and run the
U.S. part of the evacuation. As of Thursday, there were about 5,200, including
Marines who specialize in evacuation coordination and an Air Force unit that
specializes in emergency airport operations. Biden has authorized a total
deployment of about 6,000.
^ I watched Biden's Conference on
the Fall of Afghanistan. He clearly doesn't have a grasp on reality. He's
switching his story during the Conference, he seems confused and he is just
plain lying.
He says American Citizens and
Afghanis who worked for us can get through the Taliban Checkpoints to the Kabul
Airport. That is a 100% lie.
The reality and his rhetoric are
miles from each other.
He definitely is a
Commander-in-Failure.
Anyone (American or our Allies)
that now believes anything he says is only falling for his lies. ^
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