From Military.com:
“The Complicated and Messy Task of
Trying to Aid Afghans Following the Return of the Taliban”
(In this Aug. 21, 2021, image
provided by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. airmen and U.S. Marines guide evacuees
aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III in support of the Afghanistan
evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.)
Images of Afghans clinging to the
landing gear of an American cargo plane rocked the world as the Taliban closed
in on Kabul and two decades of fighting in Afghanistan ended for U.S. troops. The
desperate effort to get those who had helped American forces out of the country
continues, with veterans pressuring Congress to help carry on the evacuation
and to provide legal protections and added funding to help those who made it
out and have been living in the U.S. under the threat of deportation.
But for many of those seeking U.S.
help, the question of aid is largely tied to documentation. Can they prove they
worked with U.S. forces? Do they have letters from commanders? The U.S.
presence in Afghanistan wasn't orderly, leaving many without the bureaucratic
stamp of approval they'd need to get help. "The guys who did the most in
the beginning and did the most work toward the vision of a viable Afghanistan
were never brought into the system," said Justin Sapp, who was the first
U.S. Special Forces soldier behind Taliban lines in 2001. Sapp is one of the
founders of Badger Six, a group that financially supports roughly 30 families
who are in hiding throughout Central Asia, utilizing the Hawala network and
Western Union to send funds while the families await the U.S. visa process. "The
23-year-old Afghan commando has all of the badges and credentials under the new
system, but the older guys don't have that," he said. "If it hadn't
been for us [Badger Six] and the CIA, those guys would be out of luck."
In total, more than 1.3 million
Afghans have fled to neighboring countries, with only a little over 6,000
returning to Afghanistan in 2022. That means many of those who helped U.S.
forces, fearing the retaliation they would face if they stayed behind from Taliban
forces that had delivered death threats for years, are scattered in pockets of
refugees in a handful of countries. Refugee groups have been trying to aid
those who have fled, with Badger Six turning to direct cash payments to try to
help Afghans who may have slipped through the U.S. evacuation process. Sapp
says that the group has a vigorous vetting process, which helps keep the number
of families it supports small. All applications are reviewed, in part, by the
former personal doctor to Northern Alliance Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, who Sapp
says uses his personal network to verify claims.
Getting aid into Afghanistan for
those who haven't made it out is fraught, though desperately needed. The
disastrous 2021 American withdrawal from Afghanistan has been followed by a
catastrophic humanitarian crisis, as an economy largely reliant on foreign aid
deals saw assistance slashed. By 2022, 9 out of 10 families could not afford
enough food, with Afghans fleeing by the thousands. Aid is still flowing to
Afghanistan, albeit at a much diminished scale. The United States has
contributed more than $1.1 billion since 2021, making it the largest donor to
Afghanistan. Much of the aid money has reportedly been withheld from those in
need and repurposed by the Taliban to solidify the group's claim to power.
In its 2022 Humanitarian Response
Plan, the United Nations said that Afghanistan needed $4.4 billion to help an
estimated 22 million residents -- roughly 55% of the country's population. In
2023, that request rose to $4.6 billion to aid 28 million people, the
single-largest country appeal ever, according to a recent U.N. Security Council
briefing by Roza Otunbayeva. Afghanistan has long been reliant on outside aid,
with ostensibly its entire economy contributed by donors as recently as 2009.
By 2020, that reliance had waned slightly, down to 43% of gross domestic
product, but the Taliban takeover has put that critical pipeline in jeopardy. "The
Taliban's draconian edicts have alienated the biggest donors, leading to
widespread fears that 2023 donations will be cut back," said Graeme Smith,
senior consultant for the International Crisis Group. " In the context of
what the U.N. calls the biggest humanitarian disaster in the world, those
cutbacks could be deadly."
Badger Six recently held an event
where former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency George Tenet was the
keynote speaker. When asked what the responsibility of the U.S. is to Afghan
refugees, Tenet responded, "I think we owe them the belief of hope. What
the Afghans did for us was to help us ensure that it [another terrorist attack]
didn't happen here for 21 years. There's a reason we didn't get hit
again."
(General Faqir Jawzjani is credited
with recovering the body of the first U.S. casualty in Afghanistan war, CIA
officer Johnny Micheal Spann)
Also in attendance at the event was
Gen. Faqir Jawzjani, former commissioner of Afghan National Police in Jawzjan
Province, Afghanistan. Jawzjani played a key role in the initial U.S. military
efforts in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Jawzjani fled Afghanistan in 2021
with the help of Badger Six, and now lives in New Jersey. "We lost our
hope when we saw Americans leaving and Taliban taking control of
Afghanistan," he said. Things changed with the opportunities afforded him
from the aid he's received. "Suddenly, the hand of friends came to me to
help me. The start of a new life for me started on that date. I felt like I was
born from my mother again.
^ Sadly, the World has stopped paying
attention to Afghanistan, the Evacuees and those being tortured and murdered by
the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Biden and most of the World promised that they
would help those Afghans that worked for them in the 20 year long War and are
not being hunted down and punished by the Taliban.
We are failing on our promises and
people are dying because of our failure. ^
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