On the menu today: Veterans groups contend that many more Americans are stranded in Afghanistan than the “about 100” figure from Secretary of State Antony Blinken; the administration still cannot say how many U.S. green-card holders remain in Taliban-controlled territories; the Taliban begins executing pregnant women for working with the previous regime; and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin concedes that without U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan, “It will be more difficult to identify and engage threats that emanate from the region.”
Blinken’s Evasive Afghanistan Answers
To hear Secretary of State Antony Blinken tell it, there are no American hostages in Afghanistan. In his account, the lack of Americans leaving the country in the past week is just due to a routine disagreement about paperwork and visas that is leading to delays:
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday the Taliban had been reminded in recent hours that the international community is holding the group to its commitment to let anyone with valid travel papers leave Afghanistan if they choose.
Speaking during a visit to Qatar, Blinken said the number of U.S. citizens, including dual nationals, believed to still be in Afghanistan is about 100. He said the State Department is in direct contact with them, with case managers assigned to each one to make sure those who want to leave can do so.
He said in the past 24 hours the Taliban had upheld its commitment in the case of a family of four Americans who had safely left Afghanistan using an overland route. A senior State Department official said Monday the Taliban was aware of the crossing, without specifying which country the Americans entered.
According to Reuters, Blinken said today that, “We are not aware of anyone being held on an aircraft or any hostage like situation at Mazar-i-Sharif. So, we have to work through the different requirements and that’s exactly what we are doing.”
On Sunday, White House chief of staff Ron Klain dodged the question of how many Americans had been allowed to leave the country since the U.S. forces departed. The fact that Blinken is citing the case of a family of four suggests that American departures from Afghanistan are now few and far between.
Regarding the family of four that Blinken mentioned, a group of veterans using private donations got the mother and three children out of the country, and those veterans accused the U.S. State Department of attempting to take credit for their work. Cory Mills told Fox News that, “The fact that they’re spinning this, trying to take 100 percent credit when they didn’t track this family, when they placated this family, when the mother, who was under extreme stress and extreme pressure, reached out to the State Department multiple times and got no help.”
The account of the woman, identified only as Mariam, is harrowing: “The final time Mariam tried to enter the airport, a Taliban fighter pointed a pistol at her head and warned her not to come back. Shortly after that, Taliban fighters asked Kabul locals who knew Miriam how they could find her. Mills’ team rushed to get her and the children out of the city and into a safehouse.” Mills said that the Taliban closed the border checkpoint shortly after Miriam escaped.
The Taliban actions described above do not sound anything like “letting anyone with valid travel papers leave Afghanistan if they choose.”
This weekend, Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, appeared on Fox News Sunday and contended that the administration was undercounting the number of Americans still in Afghanistan. “I’ve been given the answer in the classified space but it’s in the hundreds. We have hundreds of American citizens left behind enemy lines in Afghanistan as I speak. And also, very sadly, the interpreters who worked with our special forces, almost all of them were left behind and were not let in the gates at the airport at [Hamid Karzai International] to get out.” Speaking Sunday morning, McCaul said that “zero” Americans had left the country since U.S. troops departed.
McCaul’s estimate aligns with that of veteran-led rescue groups, who point out that the administration simply isn’t saying much of anything about U.S. green-card holders who are still in Afghanistan:
Veteran-led rescue groups say the Biden administration’s estimate that no more than 200 U.S. citizens were left behind in Afghanistan is too low and also overlooks hundreds of other people they consider to be equally American: permanent legal residents with green cards.
Some groups say they continue to be contacted by American citizens in Afghanistan who did not register with the U.S. Embassy before it closed and by others not included in previous counts because they expressed misgivings about leaving loved ones behind.
As for green card holders, they have lived in the U.S. for years, paid taxes, become part of their communities and often have children who are U.S. citizens. Yet the administration says it does not have an estimate on the number of such permanent residents who are in Afghanistan and desperately trying to escape Taliban rule.
“The fear is that nobody is looking for them,” said Howard Shen, spokesman for the Cajon Valley Union School District in the San Diego area that is in contact with one such family who says they cannot get out.
“They are thousands of miles away under an oppressive regime and we’re leaving them behind,” he said. “That’s not right.”
McCaul broke some news on the program when he revealed that, “We have six airplanes at Mazar Sharif Airport, six airplanes with American citizens on them as I speak, also with these interpreters, and the Taliban is holding them hostage for demands right now. They — we — the state has cleared these flights and the Taliban will not let them leave the airport.”
Some of the details of McCaul’s account were verified by the director of a relief organization, speaking to NPR:
Multiple planes meant to ferry hundreds of people who say they are fearful of life under the Taliban’s rule, including American citizens and green card holders, spent another day parked on an airstrip in northern Afghanistan Monday.
Marina LeGree, executive director of Ascend, a non-profit that teaches young Afghan women leadership through mountaineering and other athletics, told NPR’s Jackie Northam that several Afghans affiliated with her group remained stuck. LeGree said that was in addition to more than 600 others, including at least 19 American citizens and two U.S. green card holders.
Among the hundreds of stranded travelers were members of nongovernmental organizations, journalists and women at risk, according to LeGree.
LeGree, from her home in Italy, said these travelers had now spent seven days in anticipation of clearance to take off, taking up residence near the airport in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. . . .
But the [U.S. State] department also said that it discourages chartered airplanes because — with no more of its personnel left on the ground in Afghanistan — it could not properly confirm the planes’ passenger manifests.
One of the complications that the administration’s statements choose to ignore is that the Taliban is not a particularly coherent, disciplined, or coordinated governing force. An assurance from one Taliban leader about safe passage may not filter down to the men in their late teens with M4 rifles at any particular checkpoint. Even if the Taliban wanted to keep their promises about safe passage — an extremely debatable contention — they may not be capable of keeping it; there are simply too many hot-tempered, heavily armed young men who are enjoying their newfound power over everyone they encounter.
Some longtime Biden allies are starting to criticize his administration. Connecticut Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal declared on Twitter Monday that:
My staff and I have worked night and day to secure the safe passage of two planes waiting in Mazar-e Sharif to take American citizens, at-risk Afghan allies, and their families to safety. . . . I haven’t yet spoken publicly about these efforts because we worried that heightened attention would only escalate tensions & put these people at even greater risk of being targeted. I have been deeply frustrated, even furious, at our government’s delay & inaction. There will be plenty of time to seek accountability for the inexcusable bureaucratic red tape that stranded so many of our Afghan allies. For now, my singular focus remains getting these planes in the air & safely to our airbase in Doha, where they have already been cleared to land. I expect the White House & State Department to do everything in their power — absolutely everything — to make this happen. These are Americans citizens and Afghans who risked everything for our country. We cannot leave them behind.
CNN still has enough sources on the ground to give us a sense of how the new, more moderate Taliban are operating:
The Taliban murdered a pregnant policewoman in front of her family on Saturday night, according to her son. Her death, in the central Afghanistan province of Ghor, adds to mounting concerns about the repression of women under the Taliban’s rule.
The victim’s full name was Negar Masoomi, her sister told CNN. Her killing was also confirmed to CNN by a local journalist in Ghor, who said she worked in Ghor prison and was eight months pregnant when she died.
The Taliban told CNN they were not involved in her death, but have launched an investigation.
Video obtained by CNN showed her son Mohammad Hanif giving his account of the murder, saying that the Taliban came inside the house where his family lives, then took himself and his brothers outside and tied them up.
“They killed our mother before our eyes. They killed her with a knife,” Hanif said.
In Doha, Blinken was joined by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who made a curious comment during the press conference, admitting that there is “no question that it will be more difficult to identify and engage threats that emanate from the region.” That is the opposite of what President Biden assured when defending his drawdown decision.
On July 8, Biden said, “Our military and intelligence leaders are confident they have the capabilities to protect the homeland and our interests from any resurgent terrorist challenge emerging or emanating from Afghanistan. We are developing a counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct threats to the United States in the region, and act quickly and decisively if needed.”
Was anything Joe Biden said in that July 8 press conference true?
ADDENDUM: The Associated Press reports that, “After a torrent of crises, President Joe Biden is hoping to turn the page on an unrelenting summer and refocus his presidency this fall around his core economic agenda.”
It’s time to “turn the page” on Afghanistan!