We briefly mentioned this story in a post last week about Afghanistan, where the Taliban is brutalizing women and mercilessly punishing its enemies. Throughout the rushed, disastrous American withdrawal, the Biden administration effectively treated this terrorist organization as a partner, even praising ongoing discussions with their emissaries as "professional." Late in the chaotic retreat, the Taliban reportedly offered the US full control over the security situation in Kabul until the deadline – and the Biden administration rejected the offer. They chose to put the Taliban in charge of securing the capital city, with our soldiers presiding over the absolute, panicked mess at the airport. We all recall the tragic and infuriating results of that decision, including a lethal suicide bombing that killed 13 Americans.
That bombing, I'll remind you, was perpetrated by a hardened jihadist who was released when the Taliban 'liberated' Bagram Air Force Base, which had been abandoned, in yet another consequential move by the Biden braintrust. In response to the attack, the United States acted on wrong intelligence and accidentally droned innocent people to death, including children. And we've now heard from the man the Taliban placed in charge of security in Kabul when Biden ceded the task to them. He's a hardcore terrorist with a multimillion-dollar US bounty on his head. One wonders if this terrorist running the show on 'security,' and on whose watch our people were killed, will personally reward the family of the bomber who did the killing. Because that's the regime's new official policy:
The Taliban have promised plots of land to relatives of suicide bombers who attacked U.S. and Afghan soldiers, in a provocative gesture that seems to run counter to their efforts to court international support. The Taliban’s acting interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, offered the reward to dozens of family members of bombers gathered at a Kabul hotel, Interior Ministry spokesman Saeed Khosty tweeted on Tuesday. Addressing the gathering Monday evening, Haqqani praised the sacrifices of “martyrs and fedayeen,” referring to fighters killed in suicide attacks, Khosty tweeted. Haqqani called them “heroes of Islam and the country,” according to the spokesman. At the end of the meeting, he distributed 10,000 afghanis ($112) per family and promised each a plot of land. Khosty posted photos of Haqqani, his face blurred, embracing the relatives in a packed auditorium...The promise of rewards for suicide bombings signals conflicting approaches within the Taliban leadership...The Taliban cannot afford to alienate the U.S., which froze billions of dollars in Afghan assets in U.S. accounts in line with international sanctions protocols.
That's some sentence from the Associated Press: "The Taliban cannot afford to alienate the US." This was written in an article that is literally about the Taliban announcing financial rewards for murdering Americans. Speaking of Americans, we highlighted last week how the Biden administration has now admitted that their publicly-stated numbers on US citizens trapped in Afghanistan were not accurate. The RNC reviews the record:
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- August 30: Secretary of State Antony Blinken: “We believe there are still a small number of Americans –under 200 and likely closer to 100– who remain in Afghanistan and want to leave.”
- August 31: Biden: “Now we believe that about 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan with some intention to leave.”
- September 5: Chief of Staff Ron Klain: “We believe it'saround 100.We're in touch with all of them.”
- September 10: State Department Deputy Spokesperson Jalina Porter: “So again, the situation on the ground is really fluid, and 100 is the number that we have for U.S. citizens.”
- September 13: Blinken: “As of the end of last week, we had about 100 Americans citizens in Afghanistan who had told us that they wished to leave the country.”
- September 27: A Senior State Department Official said there were only “100 American citizens and lawful permanent residents in Afghanistan who are ready to leave.”
- September 28: Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin: “There are currently fewer than100 American citizens who want to depart and are ready to leave.”
Their new claim is that they're actually in touch with 363 US citizens, roughly half of whom want out, and that hundreds more have escaped Afghanistan after the deadline. That math isn't anywhere close to "about 100." Also, why should the new math be believed, when they stuck with the bogus number for weeks? President Biden promised to evacuate US allies from Afghanistan. He failed. He explicitly pledged that American troops would not leave Afghan soil until all Americans were out. Hundreds of US citizens and thousands of legal permanent residents remain – by the administration's own new, updated admission. I'll leave you with two reports from CBS News' Catherine Herridge. First, consider the hoops the State Department is requiring Afghan SIV applicants to jump through, even after they've been abandoned. Second, this is why some Americans are getting out of Afghanistan, despite the Biden administration. This story also helps explain the seemingly-bizarre phenomenon of Americans who supposedly don't 'wish' to leave Taliban-held Afghanistan. Some face impossible choices:
Via I-Unit @CBSNews An American mother faced a painful choice — escape from Afghanisan with her US-born child — but only if she left her Afghan mother and siblings behind...until volunteers overcame bureaucratic blocks the State Dept. apparently could not. pic.twitter.com/ZqQtJTWSyA
— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) October 23, 2021
"We have no way out. We don't know what to do," said Angela, who asked that her real name not be used for security reasons. Then a group of American strangers banded together and volunteered their time and expertise to get around bureaucratic blocks. "Angela might not have that much time. Her family might not have that much time," said Army Veteran Brian Kinsella, who first heard about Angela in August while volunteering at a temporary evacuation operation based out of a Washington, D.C., hotel...Spotty WiFi in Afghanistan cut short the CBS News interview with Angela at the beginning of October as she said all she had left was hope and faith. "God can hear us," Angela said. "He will support us. He will get us to a safer place." Recently, all the pieces fell into place after another group of volunteers came together and scrambled a flight out of Afghanistan. The flight was not funded by the U.S. government. Angela and her family flew to a country in the Middle East where her mother and siblings, with their paperwork filed, can now be vetted by the State Department and Homeland Security.
Thank God we have committed people working on their own time, with their own resources, to maintain some semblance of honor. It's a disgrace that any of this is necessary.
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