Up to 15,000 Americans were still in Afghanistan when the Taliban took over. Over 1,000 are likely still there. But with a few exceptions such as Fox News, the media have lost interest in chronicling what happened to those Americans. Some local news sources are still covering their plight, though.
There are at least 43 Connecticut residents still trapped in Afghanistan, according to an NBC station in Connecticut. “Their school teachers are calling me asking me where are the students. The 10-year-old student from New Haven who is stuck in Kabul is sending me voicemail messages,” Chris George, executive director of IRIS said. “They’re running out of food and yes, they are running out of hope,” George said.
38 students from Sacramento are also trapped in Afghanistan. “There are dozens of Sacramento-area families still in the country, according to the San Juan Unified School District. Recently, three families — including seven students — made it back to the U.S. But about 38 students are still there.”
The Biden administration failed Americans in Afghanistan, but perhaps not as badly as it failed our Afghan interpreters and other allies. The U.S. gave the names of Afghan allies to the Taliban, and evicted 50-100 Afghan allies from a plane in order to make space for a useless war trophy (an inoperable Toyota pickup). That left people stranded in Afghanistan, where they could be tortured and killed by the Taliban.
Meanwhile, the Biden Administration brought to the U.S. 124,000 Afghans between July 14 and August 31. The vast majority of these Afghans never worked for the U.S. and were not in danger of being killed if they remained in Afghanistan.
The U.S. left more than 2,000 armored vehicles and dozens of aircraft to the Taliban, notes Reuters. That includes U.S.-supplied Humvees and Black Hawk helicopters. In their abrupt and disorganized departure, U.S. troops left behind billions of dollars worth of military equipment that was seized by the Taliban. “Billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars going to Islamist extremists, thanks to the administration’s hasty withdrawal,” noted Julian Röpcke. “Now every Taliban fighter gets his own Ford, Toyota, humvee” or armored personnel carrier.
The Biden administration consistently made false claims during the fall of Afghanistan. In July, President Biden claimed that “the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.” But less than a month later, the Taliban had seized control of almost all of Afghanistan, including the capital city and the presidential palace.
Biden wrongly claimed that “there’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of the embassy of the United States from Afghanistan.” But people fled in helicopters as the Taliban closed in on our embassy, in what has been called “Joe Biden’s Saigon.”
“Rarely has an American president’s predictions been so wrong, so fast, so convincingly as President Biden on Afghanistan,” notes liberal-leaning publication Axios.
In August, Politico reported that “U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies…The decision to provide specific names to the Taliban, which has a history of brutally murdering Afghans who collaborated with the U.S. and other coalition forces during the conflict, has angered lawmakers and military officials.” Politico quoted a defense official saying that “Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list.” Indeed, the “Taliban has gone door-to-door in search of Afghan interpreters and others who helped U.S. and Western forces.”
