Lest we forget – Joe Biden’s horrific exit from Afghanistan left hundreds (reliable sources say thousands) of Americans and 100,000 Afghan allies (who risked all for the American military and diplomatic communities). They remain there now – suffering, trapped in a Taliban hell of Mr. Biden’s making.
Lest we forget – We promised not to leave these Americans, or any of our 100,000 Afghan allies, behind. Said Biden August 19, “we’re gonna stay to get them out.” Did not need saying, but was it done? No.
Lest we forget – Prior to fleeing the Taliban, inside sources confide Biden’s State Department gave the Taliban a complete list of Afghans who had worked for the US Government. We were there for 20 years. Why give up that list? “To help get them out.” Naïve, stupid, cowardly, indefensible, unforgivable.
Lest we forget – An organized departure, aggregating Americans and allied Afghans, was possible at the US-run Bagram Air Force Base. Biden’s team gave away that secure, two-runway airport to the Taliban. Why? Fear, hurry, indifference to American and allied lives, domestic politics. Indefensible.
Lest we forget – Afghan families loyal to our military and State Department are now tortured and killed daily, compliments of Mr. Biden, Mr. Austin, Mr. Milley, Mr. Blinken, Mr. Sullivan, and Ms. Harris. They have borne no accountability – or even contrition – for what they did. Women and girls are ritually being kidnapped, raped, married into terror, forsaken. Men are tortured, butchered. Unforgivable.
Lest we forget – America is an avowedly, historically, determinedly moral nation – so our word was trusted. We lost an annual average of 10 military personnel in the past five years while keeping the peace, educating girls and boys to respect the law, aspire, learn to lead. All that disappeared in a blink.
One friend, an American former special operator, decorated, courageous, compassionate, emailed recently to say friends and their families were being dragged into the streets, raped, hacked up in the town square. Where is the US State Department, US Military, US moral fiber, courage, conscience?
Another friend showed me her texts, emails, and videos of what is happening – right up to yesterday. She was a US military nurse and teacher for years in Afghanistan. Years ago, her young students – as many girls as boys – thrilled to learn and to learn about America. They strived, believed, aspired.
Today, they are in hiding, hunted down, beaten. The boys are young men, trying to get their families out, still devoted to American ideals, which they learned from us. Daily, they suffer, stay in the shadows, pray, hope, and wonder what happened to America.
Daily, they watch Taliban and ISIS-K contingents engage in battles near Kabul, massive smoke plumes bursting from their videos. The Taliban are ramping up persecution, torture, hunt-and-kill missions.
Wrote one American ally inside, who has survived: “The Taliban came to a wedding last night. They broke all the musical instruments and beat the men and took the singer and others …,” adding, “They took military power, nothing can be done, we are currently captives ….”
Wrote another last week: “The Taliban came and beat all the people,” and while he and two relatives escaped, “they beat me … I spent the whole night in the gardens of our village until they left … The Taliban took eight people with them.” These are America’s allies, those who risked all to an affiliate. Mr. Biden – and your whole team – what do you say to them? You promised safety; you delivered hell.
As if a perfect mirror reflection of what should have happened, many Afghans who surged the Kabul airport were unvetted, terrified, but not affiliated with the West. They scrambled aboard overpacked planes as Biden’s military and State personnel fled the Taliban in fear. While the masses were not vetted, the truly loyal ones were left behind. And the Biden team claims an interest in morality and justice?
So, where are we now? In denial. The US media is pretending the Afghan exit was a success, that the word “Afghanistan” is in rearview, that we are back to COVID news. Reality is elsewhere. Terror will reach us again from Afghanistan because Biden gave that country back to terrorists.
And right now, what was stable is now a living hell. Biden and his team are personally responsible for these ongoing killings, rapes, tortures, slavery, defiled and decimated dreams, unforgivable abandonment of American allies, girls, women, boys, men, let alone Americans still trapped. They ignore the savagery they introduced, the pain they continue to inflict, the price of cowardice, lies, fear, and vanity.
Let me pull back. In 1785, a 42-year-old lawyer – who had penned a weighty document nine years earlier – wrote a small volume on liberty, morality, and justice. As president, he would later confront and convincingly beat the brutal, Islamic Barbary pirates, refusing to pay their ransom, deploying US Marines and fortified Navy to Tripoli, a victory still memorialized in the US Marines’ Hymn.
But in 1785, he was concerned about what our new nation stood for, and he knew – above all else – it must stand for the moral right, not flinch, eventually bring the bow spirit around, hold a moral bearing.
That young man was Thomas Jefferson, and in that volume, he wrote: “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just – that his justice cannot sleep forever.” Today, once again, we should tremble for our country, for our moral fiber, for the kind of leadership that would abandon innocents – Americans and thousands of American allies – to evil. A just God knows what we have done.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.