Biden's 'Insane' Story About Afghans Who Helped U.S. Doesn't Fly
By: Scott Bixby (MSN)
Delusional.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
One day after the Taliban seized control of the Afghan government, the Biden administration found itself struggling to explain why local allies like interpreters, drivers, security guards and fixers had been left behind.
© Provided by The Daily Beast Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Photos Getty
The Biden administration's justification—that many of the Afghans who had risked their lives to aid the U.S. military actually wanted to stay—left aid workers, refugee advocates and members of Congress gobsmacked.
The truth, those advocates have told The Daily Beast, is simple and stark: that they simply can't pay for it.
"We don't know of any SIV recipients that wanted to stay in Afghanistan," said James Miervaldis, chairman of No One Left Behind, a group that works to aid Afghan and Iraqi interpreters as they resettle in the United States. "The reason they haven't quote-unquote 'exercised the right' is because they don't have the money."
That fact was wholly absent from President Joe Biden's speech on Monday, when he attributed the lack of evacuation to some kind of hopeful, last-ditch Afghan nationalism.
"I know that there are concerns about why we did not begin evacuating Afghan civilians sooner," Biden said in a speech on Monday that largely laid the blame for the fall of Afghanistan at the feet of the country's own security forces. "Part of the answer is some of the Afghans did not want to leave earlier, still hopeful for their country. And part of it was because the Afghan government and its supporters discouraged us from organizing a mass exodus to avoid triggering, as they said, 'a crisis of confidence.'"
Advocates, members of Congress, and nonprofit organizations that work on behalf of translators and interpreters in conflict zones were baffled by the president's contention, telling The Daily Beast that they had never encountered any successful SIV applicants who turned down a chance to leave the country—thereby escaping potentially deadly retribution from the Taliban—voluntarily.
"The administration's claim that many Afghans did not want to leave the country earlier is inconsistent with our experience," said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, who said that the Afghans her organization was working with were "desperate" to leave Afghanistan and were being blocked by a visa backlog that now tops nearly 70,000 applicants.
"Since the moment that we announced we were fully withdrawing, I have not heard of a single human being that was like, 'Oh no, I want to stay and hedge my bets with the Taliban,'" said one congressional aide whose boss has been lobbying the administration to bring SIV applicants to safety. "That's insane."
© Provided by The Daily Beast Thousands mobbed the airport in Kabul as the Taliban took over, desperate to flee Afghanistan. Wakil Koshar/AFP via Getty
There are an estimated 18,000 Afghans seeking a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV), which is provided to Afghan nationals who worked on behalf of the U.S. government in Afghanistan or served as interpreters for American military personnel. Of those who have been granted the visa, only half were able to exercise their right to come to the United States before the Afghan government collapsed—mostly, advocates say, because most of them just can't afford to leave.
Under normal circumstances, once successful applicants for an SIV receive their visas from the U.S. embassy for themselves and their family, they either purchase airline tickets for a commercial flight out of Afghanistan. But those flights can cost upwards of $2,000 per ticket, in a country where the median household income is barely $4,100 per year. Even for a lone SIV applicant, the price of safety is often out of reach. For a family of five, it's nearly impossible to leave without obtaining a loan—meaning that even upon reaching safety in the United States, they are burdened with enormous debt.
Even American citizens are being stuck with an extraordinary bill upon being airlifted out of Afghanistan. On Aug. 14, as Kabul fell to the Taliban, the State Department's Overseas Security Advisory Council released a security alert informing Americans abroad that "repatriation flights are not free, and passengers will be required to sign a promissory loan agreement and may not be eligible to renew their U.S. passports until the loan is repaid."
For successful SIV applicants who cannot afford commercial flights—all of which have now been grounded anyway—they must apply for a seat on flights organized by the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations affiliate that provides migration services for refugees and displaced peoples. That process, Miervaldis said, can take up to five months—and that was before Afghanistan's government collapsed.
"I guess it's not enough for this administration to blame Afghans for losing the country because they just didn't want it badly enough," another congressional aide said caustically. "Now we have to blame people we fucking left there for us leaving them, too."
The inability to pay for a flight out of Afghanistan, advocates said angrily, is not the same as choosing to stay—and is certainly different from doing so out of misplaced confidence that the Afghan central government would be able to beat back the Taliban.
"The administration did nothing," said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a member of the bipartisan working group that has been trying to persuade the administration to create an evacuation plan for months. "Now they're trying to blame everybody but themselves when the only people that they have to blame is themselves."
© Provided by The Daily Beast Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) says the Biden administration is "trying to blame everybody but themselves when the only people that they have to blame is themselves." Kevin Dietsch/Getty
Over the course of several days, the White House repeatedly declined to provide the number of successful SIV applicants who it claims turned down the opportunity to leave Afghanistan because they believed that the now-collapsed government would protect them, although White House press secretary Jen Psaki doubled down on the president's assertion that many SIV applicants chose to remain in the country rather than leave for safety.
"Of the initial numbers of SIV applicants that were granted visas, there was a good chunk of that number who did not take advantage of those visas and depart," Psaki told reporters on Tuesday, adding that while that didn't change the government's obligation to protect those Afghans from a vengeful Taliban, it was "an important component of the story of the last six months."
© Provided by The Daily Beast White House press secretary Jen Psaki doubled down on the president's assertion that many SIV applicants chose to remain in the country rather than leave for safety. Anna Moneymaker/Getty
In the days since Biden first pushed the "still hopeful" message, the administration has tentatively retreated from that argument, instead emphasizing that a large-scale evacuation of the estimated 18,000 SIV applicants and their 53,000 family members could have further destabilized a tottering Afghan government, leading to an even swifter collapse.
"There was a concern that if we moved too quickly that it would undermine the confidence of the Afghan government and it would lead to a collapse even faster," Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said during a State Department press briefing on Wednesday. "I appreciate that in hindsight people are saying: 'Why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that? Why didn't you do this?'… The focus now today is getting all those SIVs out. We are working day and night to make that happen."
The administration's primary concern, Sherman said, is in getting SIV applicants and American citizens out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible. In a briefing with reporters on Thursday, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby noted that since August 14, the United States has evacuated 7,000 noncombatants, with roughly 2,000 of those having been airlifted out over the previous 24 hours.
But refugee advocates note that many of America's NATO allies had begun evacuating their own interpreters and vulnerable Afghans months before the United States' withdrawal kickstarted the government's collapse, with no apparent "crisis of confidence" that hastened the country's fall into Taliban hands.
"Germany was the first—one month, maybe two months before everything went bad, saying 'Hey we're gonna evacuate 300 interpreters and staff.' Italy had more people, and they flew their people out. Then Britain came along and said 'Hey we're gonna move as many interpreters out as possible," said Miervaldis. "NATO allies started this process earlier and the question is, why hasn't the United States jumped on that effort, or followed their lead?"
"Our administration didn't listen to their own DOD, their own IC and both Republicans and Democrats in Congress who have been warning for months about growing threats to our Afghan partners," said McCaul. "I am grateful to our NATO allies who are doing all they can to get these people to safety and hope they continue to do so. But we cannot place the full weight of this burden on our NATO allies."
International organizations that advocate on behalf of interpreters in conflict zones have called on the United States to bear most of the burden in rescuing Afghan allies from the crisis that the United States itself created. Growing political opposition to increasing refugee admissions, however, has forced those groups to reach out to Western allies to bridge the gap between Afghan need for safe haven and American willingness to provide it.
"The legislation for the SIV program has always been bipartisan; however, its implementation is too dependent on the political winds, even aside from its inherent dysfunctionalities," said
Maya Hess, founder and CEO of Red T., a nonprofit that works to protect translators and interpreters in conflict zones. "We hope that the U.S. (and other NATO member states) will step up and honor their commitments."
A lot of his shit doesn't fly.
Can we try to remember that history is not composed of isolated events ...
Can we try to remember that the current administration is responsible for their actions or lack thereof?
Some of us try to take in the broader view of history as it unfolds and not just aim at its current trials and tribulations.
In what way does your "broader view" justify Biden lying?
I have not attempted to justify him, save your spitballs for when I do.
Some of us prefer to take the broader view of history from a different perspective and minimize the current trials and tribulations.
Apparently..... it's rather pathetic to watch especially after the TDS driven frenzy during the last administration.
No doubt. They're not doing a very good job of it though.
In case you have not noticed, 1/2 the country is into its 7th month of BDS frenzy.
Don't sell your selves short, you're just getting up to helter-skelter speed.
I have, although I don't think it's half of the country nor do I think it's unjustified. But when the HDS sets in.....lookout
Both political parties have their assorted loons Tex, in that regard neither one is better than the other.
No doubt
There is no BDS. Biden has screwed the pooch more in the last seven months than any other president I can remember.
The border is a disaster area.
Afghanistan is in utter chaos.
Gas prices are up
Inflation is growing
Violent crime is on the rise.
Well it's certainly been a political football since 1948
Has been for 3,000 years
Again, but when it goes down it's never a credit to a Dem POTUS is it? Be honest...
When it went up during Trumps "greatest economy ever" were you here complaining" I don't remember it,
Funny thing about that. 2020 is the last year that complete statistics are available for and I'm pretty sure it
stated that murders were up 25% and violent crimes 20%.
And I am sure that Joseph R Biden was not the President, right?
The Democrats have done everything possible to make the border a disaster area. They fought Trump tooth and nail on every security proposal. Biden invited illegal aliens to come to the country and tore up diplomatic agreements designed to process them away from the border. You can't throw your hands up about the border when the Democratic party has actively worked to make it a disaster.
Has been for 3,000 years
It wasn't six months ago.
hen it went up during Trumps "greatest economy ever" were you here complaining" I don't remember it,
What a disingenuous answer. Do you think anyone is ignorant to understand the difference between inflation in line with the central bank forecast, and inflation that hasn't been seen since in more than a decade?
Generally I have no tolerance for sentences which start out "The Democrats" or "The Republicans" because
what follows is just partisan nonsense
12 months after the Trump Administration cut a deal with the Taliban and excluded the elected government?
Really you are going to hang your hat on that brain fart?
Two things.
Please don't insult Arkpdx by answering for him, I believe he is far more capable of speaking for himself than you are.
What I think is that you gaslight us with how intelligent you think you are while writing incoherent sentences without checking your own spelling and grammar.
That's the definition of hubris.
Funny, you would have to go back to that time to find a period that the border has been this bad. The Democrats had no problem demonizing Trump during his border crisis; didn't hear you claiming it was just political football then.
I haven't heard one damn person blame Joe Biden for Afghanistan government or military failing. He is to blame for failing to read the signs and getting all US citizens and our Afghan allies safely before the fall. It is his fucked up withdrawal and evacuation plan. And he damn well is to blame for trying to charge them money for their evacuation! What a fucking tool!
Don't remember a single Democrat ever cutting Bush Jr any slack when gas prices went up during his administration. Nor do I remember any Democrats crediting Trump when gas prices were low during his.
Taken a look at the rate of inflation?
Funny, I don't think Trump was president 13 years ago. But don't let little thing like facts get in the way of your anemic defense of Joe Biden.
Funny thing about that. You do realize that the majority of violent crimes were carried out by leftist Brown Shirts rioting across the US? The spikes in murders happened mostly in Democratic bastions of stupidity? Coupled with the left's moronic defund the police movement- which was actually tried and failed miserably in Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis. Trump is responsible for none of that. Also, if it wasn't a growing problem in 2021 Biden wouldn't be so damn worried about it!
You are correct, and it is well deserved!
Then you missed all of the comments where I pointed out that in 1942 we officially invited seasonal migrant farm
workers to stay year round under the Bracero Program which was supposed to end after the war.
5 million came, hundreds of thousands married and had children on US Soil. Ironically starting in the 1948 the
US Government began expelling expelling 4 million Mexicans and Mexican American even while the Bracero Program
continued to recruit other Mexicans to fill seasonal agricultural shortages on the West Coast.
That question cuts both ways, my advice is not to vote for Trump again.
Love the editing Ronin,
Apparently the next lines didn't fit you agenda, huh?
Rare honesty from the NYPost should be lauded, not left on the floor of the "editing room"..
For a "broader view" veteran British senior soldiers say the scene outside the airport is the worst thing they've seen in their entire careers.
But, per Biden, you can just walk up to the airport and fly home if you want to.
[deleted]
Wait, never mind... US Embassy in Afghanistan tells citizens to stay away from airport (nypost.com)
Taunting? Are you saying I can't consider you a reputable source?
Please, for the sake of my computer monitors stop posting pictures of Joe Biden's constipated face! Every time I see it I want to put my fist through it! My monitor is worth far more than the worthless POS in the WH. My monitors thank you for taking their safety into account far more than Joe Biden is taking the safety of US citizens and the Aghans that supported us.
Of course after reading this I did hit my monitor. I guess there is no escaping the fuckup that is Joe Biden. Maybe I should send the bill for a new monitor to Hunter Biden; who is very used to paying for his father's expenses.
Are we supposed to stupidly believe that the Ashraf Ghani government was not included in the planning to withdraw military forces? The United States was not planning to withdraw diplomatic personnel; planning only involved withdrawing military forces. The United States embassy was expected to continue operating after the military left. Only the US military was leaving Afghanistan; the US diplomatic mission was going to continue. That little bit of news has been consistently ignored.
The United States was planning to withdraw from Afghanistan the same way that the United States withdrew from Iraq. And the military withdrawal from Iraq was a success because the Iraqi government continued to function and did not collapse. The United States maintained a diplomatic presence in Iraq and that was the plan for Afghanistan.
The Ashraf Ghani government collapsed at a critical point in the military withdrawal. The collapse of the Afghan government was timed perfectly to maximize chaos. That's why there was a last minute scramble to evacuate the embassy and destroy records. The United States was not planning to close the embassy. That's also why there were no plans to extract Afghan-American citizens or Afghan support personnel. The United States had included Ashraf Ghani and the Afghan government in the planning so when the Afghan government collapsed the entire withdrawal plan collapsed.
The lesson learned is don't trust Afghans. So don't trust Afghan wheedling and whining in the press. What Afghans say cannot be relied upon. Afghans will tell us what we want to hear but, make no mistake, Afghans will lie as readily as telling the truth.
If you are correct then there has been a long-term failure of US officials PotUS on down, for multiple administrations, to recognize the inability / lack of will of the Afghan government to sustain itself.
Serious question (not sarcasm): how is it possible for our system (government and military operations) to be unaware of this and to engage in withdrawal plans that do not provide a contingency for the likely collapse of the Afghan government?
Planning for the complete and utter collapse of the Afghan government (likely in cooperation with the Taliban and Pakistan government) would have been an entirely different mission. That would have required withdrawal of military, diplomatic, and humanitarian personnel; a complete and total withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan. That's very different than the US withdrawal from Iraq.
A complete and total withdrawal of all US personnel would have required deploying an additional 20 to 40 thousand troops to Afghanistan. Those troops would have been necessary to establish a secure perimeter around Kabul as vulnerable assets and personnel were extracted. That would include coalition assets and personnel. And it would have been necessary to use the Kabul airport because Kabul is where the vulnerable personnel are located.
A withdrawal under attack or threat of attack means the fighting forces are the last to leave. As the fighting force begins to withdraw then the correct tactic is to drive refugees into the enemy lines. Burn Kabul as the troops retreat to the extraction area. Own the sky and area bomb Kabul. Kabul becomes a kill zone. It's a very nasty business. The United States could have gotten everyone out quickly and efficiently but it would not have been pretty to watch.
I do not buy that. It would be a sensible contingency plan for the withdrawal given that the collapse of the Afghan government was not an unlikely possibility.
Assuming you did not just make that up, let's presume you are correct for the sake of this comment. Then that is what we should have done. Bottom line is that one sets an objective (total withdrawal of troops and the safe continuation of US facilities such as the embassy) and then one takes the steps necessary to ensure success.
What we are seeing right now is not 'pretty'.
One alternative would have been to negotiate with the Taliban in recognition that the Afghan government would collapse.
There isn't any contingency. The United States was withdrawing military forces. Either the Afghan government steps up to replace US forces, or the Taliban agrees to a peaceful withdrawal, or the United States washes its hands of Afghanistan and withdraws completely and totally. Those are the only three options no matter how nuanced the details.
The United States cannot ensure the safety of people within Afghanistan AND withdraw US fighting forces. Someone has to replace US troops as they leave.
Since the withdrawal plan fell apart because the government of Ashraf Ghani collapsed, Joe Biden has been required to deploy more troops to Afghanistan. That's because the Afghan government isn't there to replace US forces and provide security.
Biden has shown through his response that planning for the collapse of the Afghan government would haver required deploying more troops. Yes, my estimate of 20 to 40 thousand is just my estimate. But Biden has already confirmed more troops were needed before the final withdrawal to plan for the potential collapse of the Ghani government.
Not enough troops. The US doesn't have a sufficiently large force to secure the airport AND go into Kabul to extract people. A small contingent of special forces may be able to extract one to twenty at a time but the estimate is that more than 10,000 remain to be extracted. That's beyond the capability of special forces. Special forces sniping Taliban targets of opportunity will only piss them off and make the situation worse. The Taliban are known for reprisals.
At this point it would be necessary to force the Taliban to fall back en masse to clear the streets for movement of a large number of people. Or, alternatively, secure an agreement with the Taliban (legitimizing their government) to allow people to move to the airport for extraction.
Of course there is. The most obvious is to keep military forces there in sufficient numbers to keep all desired airports safe and operational, to have everyone pre-cleared for travel, to have evacuation plans for a more orderly exit, etc.
I do not buy the notion that the USA military in incapable of securing the safe, orderly passage of civilian personnel and then engage in a layered withdrawal of military forces while leaving sufficient forces behind to maintain the US embassy, etc.
And we then should have done that. Temporary deployment to achieve a successful, safe withdrawal. That, after all, was the objective.
Correct. See above.
The military force remaining in Afghanistan was 2.500 troops. The US military is quite capable of securing the airport, the embassy, and Kabul at large provided there are enough troops.
The plan was to withdraw the remaining force of 2.500 troops. The plan was not to evacuate the embassy and extract all Afghan-American citizens and Afghan support personnel. Obviously the planning was for only a military withdrawal similar to the withdrawal from Iraq.
The embassy was supposed to continue operating with a security force just as other embassies. The embassy manages visa requests and passport issues. Evacuating the embassy did not expedite the process; that greatly increased the chaos.
Agreed. The overriding question is why that wasn't done. If the troops had been deployed and not needed, the political fallout would have been significantly less than the political fallout of a FUBAR withdrawal. The gripes over too many troops being deployed and not needed would have faded pretty quickly. Now the lack of troops and ensuing chaos are defining legacies that won't fade.
Keep in mind that the State Department and the embassy play an important role in assessing the stability of a government. Diplomatic advice is just as important in planning as is military advice. If the plan was only to withdraw military forces then that diplomatic advice may not have been given enough attention. The military can assess the fighting capability of Afghan forces but the diplomatic corps is supposed to make political assessments.
In short, they did not have a contingency plan for a fall of the Afghan government. Which is what I has concerned me. It is disturbing that such a failure of planning can take place in our nation.
Yup.
Well, if Trump's agreement with the Taliban had been adhered to the US would have been out by May 1st and this would be over. What would have ensued from that timetable can not be imagined.
Regardless of who's timetable is used , as soon as it was clear that the taliban was on the move and breaking the agreement made, troop withdrawal should have stopped and Ben reversed. I am confident that that is exactly what Trump would have donr
Apparently you have not read nor understand the agreement Pompeo made with the Taliban at Doha.
If the Taliban violated any part of that agreement, which they appearantly have done, then the agreement is null and void and we should have gone back in and cleaned them out.
Whatever. Check history of Abdul Baradar. Did Trump hand over Afghanistan to the Taliban for benefit or because of prior agreements made at Helsinki?