American Citizens Are Still Trapped in Afghanistan

“It’s heartbreaking to see that, with all this, what’s going on, no one heard us, that we are in danger and we need to be saved,” Sara stated on the call with Cuomo. “It’s just heartbreaking. I don’t know — I just don’t even know what to say to you. Whoever was trying to help me and support me, even they did not tell me that the flight is — this was the last flight. So I still had hope that we would leave.”

There are over 150 American citizens still on the ground in Afghanistan.

Sara continued ““I don’t know anymore what to believe anymore. I don’t believe in anybody anymore because they’ve been fooling me for [the] past ten days. Back and forth. Back and forth. Stories after stories,” Sara said. “I know I have a group of people who [are] supporting me and helping me, and they’re working very hard for me to leave this country… And I don’t know what to believe anymore. I am completely speechless. I don’t know what to say, but I just can’t believe no one told me that this was the last flight.”

Is Sara, actual name redacted for security, safe, are the people that she has taken in to her home safe? No. This was supposed to be an orderly exit out of Afghanistan. But it was the opposite of orderly. You know that we have significant problems when leaders can not even leave a long-time planned out situation properly.

We all knew that an exit was going to take place. Anyone who had any common sense would know that installed local leadership never stands strong. One could look at Iraq post Hussein, one could look at other countries like Libya post the Great Arab Spring and see how quality of life has declined and has become more chaotic.

But this isn’t about other countries, it is about the United States of America.

The United States of America is supposed to be strong and robust. It is supposed to take care of its citizens that are abroad. Further, it should be able to do that for those that are in war zones like Afghanistan. After all, the United States of America has a military or defense budget that exceeds that that of Russia and a few other nations combined. It should have the resources, the smarts, the know-how, and more to handle an EXIT out of a country where it has been for over 18 years.

Still, it looks like the United States of America is failing when it comes to the bare minimum.

When you are an American citizen pleading with reporters to help you find your way back to the United States as an American citizen, something has gone terribly wrong. Again, at the very least the leaders of this nation should be able to extract its people from areas that could pose great danger to these people.

Chris Cuomo had a talk with an American citizen still in Afghanistan. The call revolved around uncertainty. It revolved around getting the heck out of dodge but wondering how.

The Evacuations Are Done – The Last Plane Left

If the evacuations are done and the our military leadership is already stating that the long and drawn out twenty year war is now over, then we are calling it a day and moving on? While we all know that the war is only starting for a variety of reasons (primarily because if you went into a country to establish a democracy and then it reverts right back to square one, it becomes a danger zone, an area of further chaos).

We are likely to see more variants of ISIS than of COVID-19.

You can not say that the war is over when we still have American citizens in that part of the world. You can not have those with ideas of freedom, democracy, liberty, and other fundamental American values present in Afghanistan and merely call it a day.

This is not a situation similar to that of Daniel Pearl or that of James Foley.

This is war. Everyone who signed up to translate and work with the military, whether they were American citizens or locals who provided significant aid during the past twenty years, they all had implicit assurances that they would be able to trust in American leadership to do what needed to be done in an orderly exit. When going to war, you know that there will be risks, but you also know that with proper planning, due diligence, and the right deals, that you should be safe.

There were deals, planning did take place in the previous admin, a gradual transition out of the country was in play. Indeed, there was a different government in play in Afghanistan, President Ghani, the Taliban did (to some extent) keep in line with their agreement and did scale back on their attacks.

There is no ifs, ands, or buts about it, the current admin did a bad job, a really bad job of getting out of a country and accounting for all of its people.

How Do You Deal Through Diplomacy?

President Biden and team want to deal through diplomacy. But what does that mean? Our goal is simple, get our people out of there, we don’t want to have to trade something for that. We have already traded weapons, ammunition, state-of-the-art technology and more. This is not about furthering another initiative, this about getting people out of Afghanistan. That is all.