mollyfamwatAfter 17 year of war and with Afghanistan’s government struggling to hold territory, the US military has found a new ally: technology. The United States Armed Forces are increasingly turning to AI as they find it more effective than human ground troops in fighting off Taliban insurgents.
The “afghanistan news” is a story about the Americans who are stuck in Afghanistan. The article goes on to say that they have been stuck for over a year and that no one knows when they will be released.
In Texas, a U.S. special immigrant visa holder keeps his family’s passports.
photo credit: Reuters/Callaghan O’Hare
Do you remember Afghanistan? The White House would want us to forget, but the Americans and Afghan comrades who remain stuck in Afghanistan need greater attention.
According to the State Department, “since August 31, the United States has personally supported 479 American citizens and 450 legal permanent residents” in leaving Afghanistan and relocating to the United States with their immediate families.
President Biden believed that just 100 to 200 Americans remained “with some desire to withdraw” when the US finished its retreat. “There were those that wanted—determined they wanted to depart since then,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last week.
“We are now in contact with fewer than a dozen U.S. citizens who want to leave Afghanistan, are ready to go, and have the required travel papers,” State said. Given all of the qualifiers tied to the number, this may be theoretically correct.
However, according to a source informed on the situation, at the end of November, State was monitoring 126 Americans remained in Afghanistan, with five on the verge of departing. Will the majority of them choose to stay as the nation continues to deteriorate under Taliban control, with tales of dire economic shortages and hunger?
Although private groups and congressional offices have complemented the administration’s efforts, insiders on Capitol Hill say the work has been made more difficult by the administration’s lack of openness. Accurate data has been difficult to come by. When information is given, it usually focuses on good data such as total repatriations and relocations rather than those who are left behind.
Consider America’s Afghan friends who have been abandoned. According to the Wall Street Journal, 29,000 people have applied for the Special Immigrant Visa program, which allows Afghans who collaborated with Americans during the war to come to the United States. Not all of these candidates, who may have a right to join them because of their direct relatives, will be accepted.
However, more than 33,000 applications and qualified family members have already passed the verification process. They should be allowed to leave Afghanistan right once, but the Journal noted that “the evacuation of those who currently qualify for flights might take until far into 2022.”
Rep. Michael McCaul praises the State and Homeland Security departments for their efforts. “However, the State Department’s and White House’s senior brass seem to be doing all they can to overlook the fatal calamity they caused,” he said in a statement. “By refusing to cooperate with us on a thorough and full inquiry, congressional Democrats are assisting them.”
“There’s no limit on our efforts to aid remaining U.S. citizens & Afghan partners who chose to depart to do so,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted on Aug. 25. The White House, on the other hand, made it significantly more difficult by setting an August 31 deadline for evacuating soldiers and diplomats from the nation without first planning to evacuate all Americans, residents, and friends.
In the next congressional elections, promising a thorough investigation of the Afghan pullout debacle would be a good GOP campaign pledge.
The best and worst of the week from Kim Strassel, Jason Riley, and Dan Henninger in the Journal Editorial Report. Images courtesy of Getty Images Mark Kelly’s composite
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The print version of the December 20, 2021, was published.
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The “who are the 15,000 american citizens in afghanistan” is a question that many people have been asking. The number of Americans stuck in Afghanistan has been rising over the past few years.
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