Majority of Interpreters, Other U.S. Visa Applicants Were Left Behind in Afghanistan, Official Says - WSJ https://t.co/bkJtPxo4Kz

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 1, 2021

NBC: U.S. official: 'Majority' of Afghan allies who applied for special visas left behind in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON A senior State Department official said Wednesday that it appeared a "majority" of Afghans who had worked for the U.S. military and applied for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) had not been successfully evacuated and remained in Afghanistan.

The Biden administration has said that more than 120,000 people in total were evacuated by U.S. and coalition aircraft from July through the final U.S. withdrawal, a number that includes Americans and other nationalities as well as Afghans. On Tuesday, based on the initial figures then available from the Pentagon, NBC News reported that 8,500 Afghan allies had been evacuated.

"I don't have an estimate for you on the numbers of SIVs and family members who are still there,'' said the senior official, who was in Kabul for the evacuation. 'But I would say it's the majority of them, just based on anecdotal information about the populations we were able to support."

120,000 Taliban were the recipients of the airlift....now they destroy whatever they see over here

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In the weeks leading up to President Biden's Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, a secretive and highly secure compound used by the Central Intelligence Agency became a hub for clandestine evacuations before parts of it were deliberately destroyed, an investigation by The New York Times found.

The C.I.A. had used part of the compound called Eagle Base to train Afghan counterterrorism units. Another section the C.I.A.'s first detention center in Afghanistan, known as the Salt Pit was where a U.S. government report found that the agency had carried out torture on detainees. Structures in both Eagle Base and the Salt Pit were demolished to prevent the Taliban from seizing sensitive materials.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/world/asia/cia-afghanistan-evacuations-demolitions.html

'Everybody screwed up': Blame game begins over turbulent U.S. exit from Afghanistan

"Finger-pointing is an ugly Washington sport ... in this case, fingers could be pointed in all directions and probably be right in each case," said Dan Fried, a former senior U.S. diplomat now at the Atlantic Council think
tank.

"A failure like this is collective. Everybody screwed up," Fried added.

The Taliban’a commander of Kabul airport tells us US troops let their service dogs free as they evacuated.

The dogs are being rounded up, and the Taliban plans to, in an ironic twist, put them back into service for the Islamic Emirate.

(No, they weren’t sentenced to death) pic.twitter.com/0tmGqwB9lp

— Murad Gazdiev (@MuradGazdiev) September 1, 2021

BornAgain said:

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120,000 Taliban were the recipients of the airlift....now they destroy whatever they see over here

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There are a few hundred thousand allies remaining who will be recipients of what the Taliban has in store for them.

"We don't know if we left them behind yet."

"You can't get them all out in five minutes," Lemon huffed at the people outraged that Biden abandoned Americans. Attacking those people further, he suggested they were being hysterical and added: "We don't know if we left them behind yet." pic.twitter.com/43LPKaYGHB

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) September 2, 2021

Jacques Strap said:

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"We don't know if we left them behind yet."

"You can't get them all out in five minutes," Lemon huffed at the people outraged that Biden abandoned Americans. Attacking those people further, he suggested they were being hysterical and added: "We don't know if we left them behind yet." pic.twitter.com/43LPKaYGHB

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) September 2, 2021

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we got to pass the law so we can read it!

5 minutes? You had months to plan and a couple weeks to scramble after failing to plan..

4th and Inches said:

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Jacques Strap said:

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"We don't know if we left them behind yet."

"You can't get them all out in five minutes," Lemon huffed at the people outraged that Biden abandoned Americans. Attacking those people further, he suggested they were being hysterical and added: "We don't know if we left them behind yet." pic.twitter.com/43LPKaYGHB

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) September 2, 2021

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we got to pass the law so we can read it!

5 minutes? You had months to plan and a couple weeks to scramble after failing to plan..

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We don't even wonder how Foxnews doubles up on CNN's ratings.

Exclusive: Before Afghan collapse, Biden pressed Ghani to 'change perception'

Wow, the President of the United States had a call with a foreign leader where POTUS asked the leader to lie on his behalf, and promised military assistance if he did as he was told. Do I have that right?

— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) September 1, 2021

Biden: 'F__k THAT, we don't have to worry about that.'

People discovered the Biden quote in Richard Holbrooke’s diaries only this year. I latched onto it as soon as I read it, and included it in a piece for @dcexaminer last year. Worth staring at the quote again today, as it’s all there. https://t.co/Ip8MU2CJAW pic.twitter.com/BvAZcz2vLz

— Damir Marusic (@dmarusic) September 1, 2021

Tree of Life synagogue disputes Biden's claim he visited after massacre https://t.co/vv5rRw9OWA pic.twitter.com/oK9BW03igl

— New York Post (@nypost) September 2, 2021

Amazing people still watch cnn

BornAgain said:

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Amazing people still watch cnn

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got to do something at the airport with all the flight delays

Jacques Strap said:

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"We don't know if we left them behind yet."

"You can't get them all out in five minutes," Lemon huffed at the people outraged that Biden abandoned Americans. Attacking those people further, he suggested they were being hysterical and added: "We don't know if we left them behind yet." pic.twitter.com/43LPKaYGHB

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) September 2, 2021

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Cuomo is right. Lemon is a naive Lemon.

jupiter said:

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"The exit from Afghanistan may seem like a failure. But it can also be seen as a display of power." | Commentary from David Frum of @TheAtlantic https://t.co/pWJ8sf3KwR pic.twitter.com/l3hgMN9w0T

— Defense One (@DefenseOne) September 1, 2021

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He's right. No other nation on earth could have mobilized so much airlift so quickly and A) supported it logistically and B) defended it militarily. Awe inspiring capability.

The key word there is "capability." We got plenty of that.

What we lack is the WILL to use it effectively.

Doesn't matter how strong you are, if you aren't willing to flex muscles & impose WILL when necessary.

Our departure from Afghanistan demonstrated a lack of willpower. That invites opponents to advance with bayonets.

Every nation on earth knows they are no match for us. But it doesn't matter if we don't know how to use power, or worse, are unwilling to use it.

If Taliban and ISIS are sworn enemies, why did the Taliban release thousands of ISIS prisoners from the prisons at Bagram air base instead of of executing them?

This is yet another example of how much ignorance there is within the U.S. establishment on these issues. The idea that al Qaeda would attack the Taliban now, and the U.S. should help the Taliban, is bonkers. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are blood brothers. They won the war together. https://t.co/4hkWrldPaW

— Thomas Joscelyn (@thomasjoscelyn) September 2, 2021

Pentagon says 'thousands' of ISIS-K prisoners released by Talibanhttps://t.co/iptPsoKC1g

— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 27, 2021

Gunfire and beatings: Congressional offices get harrowing reports from Afghanistan evacuees and trapped citizens

September 02, 2021 06:30 AM

Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon's Deputy chief of staff Felix Ungerman, a retired Air Force colonel, has worked cases since Kabul fell to the Taliban. Earlier this week, he was on the phone with a U.S. citizen in Kabul reporting to a citizen's access point, which he had tried to access for days. Then, the Taliban started to fire.

"He goes, 'Oh my god, he's shooting.' And I said, 'Please get away from there, go get to safety,'" Ungerman said. "His phone cut off while I could hear gunshots going off, and I couldn't get in touch with him again. I tried calling his cellphone every couple of hours to see if I could get him, tried an email, sent him a text message. And it wasn't until [Tuesday] morning that he actually texted me back and said, 'Yeah, I'm OK, but now what do I do?' I'm like, 'You get to somewhere safe, and you stay there until we can our government can offer some solutions to help you.'"

Another citizen he worked with heeded the U.S. Embassy's recommendation earlier this year to make plans to leave the country on a commercial flight, but she booked a ticket for the first week of September not expecting the country would fall to the Taliban weeks before her departure date. She didn't think she could get to Kabul safely as a single woman. Now, she doesn't know what to do or how to leave.

California Republican Rep. Mike Garcia's office worked with an Afghan-American mother and her citizen children who were blocked at a checkpoint. She sent a video sitting in a car in the dark, holding up their four blue passports, and asking what she can do as a young child called for "mama" in the background.

"This is why you don't rely on the Taliban to be the ones monitoring the checkpoints," said Garcia, a former Navy pilot.

One Afghan-American citizen who worked with Bacon's office said the Taliban "were creating as much problem as they could." After the State Department told him to go to the Interior Ministry, he encountered a Taliban guard and explained he was told to go there.

"He told me, 'Go and tell the State Department to f*** themselves.'"

He eventually got into the Kabul airport after taking a big risk outside the gate during a firefight, in which guards shot at peoples' feet to disperse the crowd.

"Where we were successful is where we weren't necessarily beholden or waiting on the State Department," Garcia said. "In fact, all of our successes we ended up getting roughly 97 folks out successfully these were all folks that we were able to do so through our own channels and folks on the ground there that were supporting mostly American citizens and SIV's who otherwise would have been stopped by the bureaucracy, frankly, by the State Department."

"Everybody run away," he said. It was the day after the ISIS-K bombing at Abbey Gate. "I know it was stupid, but I took just my chance. I ran towards the soldiers. I had my passport in my hand shouting that I'm an American citizen."

"Where we were successful is where we weren't necessarily beholden or waiting on the State Department," Garcia said. "In fact, all of our successes we ended up getting roughly 97 folks out successfully these were all folks that we were able to do so through our own channels and folks on the ground there that were supporting mostly American citizens and SIV's who otherwise would have been stopped by the bureaucracy, frankly, by the State Department."

Joe Biden Is Lying To Americans About Afghanistan

Regrettably, recent events confirm that the president's deceptions and misstatements are intentional and driven by political motives. This was confirmed by multiple events, some the very next day after the previous article published.

The first confirming event was in President Biden's own words. Biden verified that lying about success in Afghanistan is part of his political strategy.

In a bombshell report on Aug. 31, Reuters reported on an audio recording of a July 23 call between Biden and then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. It released a transcript. In the call, Biden stated, "I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things aren't going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban."

Biden then gave Ghani his marching orders: "And there is a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture." His own words condemn the president: "Whether it is true or not" As the indispensable Mollie Hemingway noted on Fox News on Sept. 2, "What this phone call shows is that the withdrawal was, like so many other parts of the war, communicated to the American public with lies." Indeed it was.

But this was even worse. Again, Hemingway: "While the previous president was impeached over a phone call and accused of a quid pro quo, here you actually have a president asking someone to lie on his behalf and conditioning military aid on part of those lies."

Biden knew Afghanistan was facing an existential crisis: Ghani confirmed disaster was looming if he did not receive stepped-up American aid: "We are facing a full-scale invasion, composed of Taliban, full Pakistani planning and logistical support, and at least 10-15,000 international terrorists, predominantly Pakistanis thrown into this, so that dimension needs to be taken account of." Ghani also emphasized that continued air support was essential.

Knowing he had the leverage, Biden made clear that continued U.S. military support would be forthcoming only if he was given a plan to project that "different picture."

Jacques Strap said:

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Joe Biden Is Lying To Americans About Afghanistan

Regrettably, recent events confirm that the president's deceptions and misstatements are intentional and driven by political motives. This was confirmed by multiple events, some the very next day after the previous article published.

The first confirming event was in President Biden's own words. Biden verified that lying about success in Afghanistan is part of his political strategy.

In a bombshell report on Aug. 31, Reuters reported on an audio recording of a July 23 call between Biden and then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. It released a transcript. In the call, Biden stated, "I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things aren't going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban."

Biden then gave Ghani his marching orders: "And there is a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture." His own words condemn the president: "Whether it is true or not" As the indispensable Mollie Hemingway noted on Fox News on Sept. 2, "What this phone call shows is that the withdrawal was, like so many other parts of the war, communicated to the American public with lies." Indeed it was.

But this was even worse. Again, Hemingway: "While the previous president was impeached over a phone call and accused of a quid pro quo, here you actually have a president asking someone to lie on his behalf and conditioning military aid on part of those lies."

Biden knew Afghanistan was facing an existential crisis: Ghani confirmed disaster was looming if he did not receive stepped-up American aid: "We are facing a full-scale invasion, composed of Taliban, full Pakistani planning and logistical support, and at least 10-15,000 international terrorists, predominantly Pakistanis thrown into this, so that dimension needs to be taken account of." Ghani also emphasized that continued air support was essential.

Knowing he had the leverage, Biden made clear that continued U.S. military support would be forthcoming only if he was given a plan to project that "different picture."

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Joe has a runnin history of doing things like this

BornAgain said:

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Amazing people still watch cnn

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Well people read Pravda until the fall of the Soviet Union....if nothing else just so they could see what the communist ruling class was thinking.

Same reason to watch CNN or read the New York Times...find out what our liberal ruling regime is thinking.

Also, funny joke from the USSR:

[The main Communist newspaper and the main Soviet newspaper, Pravda and Izvestia, meant "the truth" and "the news" respectively, a popular saying was "there's no truth in Pravda and no news in Izvestia]

4th and Inches said:

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Jacques Strap said:

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Joe Biden Is Lying To Americans About Afghanistan

Regrettably, recent events confirm that the president's deceptions and misstatements are intentional and driven by political motives. This was confirmed by multiple events, some the very next day after the previous article published.

The first confirming event was in President Biden's own words. Biden verified that lying about success in Afghanistan is part of his political strategy.

In a bombshell report on Aug. 31, Reuters reported on an audio recording of a July 23 call between Biden and then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. It released a transcript. In the call, Biden stated, "I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things aren't going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban."

Biden then gave Ghani his marching orders: "And there is a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture." His own words condemn the president: "Whether it is true or not" As the indispensable Mollie Hemingway noted on Fox News on Sept. 2, "What this phone call shows is that the withdrawal was, like so many other parts of the war, communicated to the American public with lies." Indeed it was.

But this was even worse. Again, Hemingway: "While the previous president was impeached over a phone call and accused of a quid pro quo, here you actually have a president asking someone to lie on his behalf and conditioning military aid on part of those lies."

Biden knew Afghanistan was facing an existential crisis: Ghani confirmed disaster was looming if he did not receive stepped-up American aid: "We are facing a full-scale invasion, composed of Taliban, full Pakistani planning and logistical support, and at least 10-15,000 international terrorists, predominantly Pakistanis thrown into this, so that dimension needs to be taken account of." Ghani also emphasized that continued air support was essential.

Knowing he had the leverage, Biden made clear that continued U.S. military support would be forthcoming only if he was given a plan to project that "different picture."

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Joe has a runnin history of doing things like this

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Yep.

MUST WATCH: Here's Joe Biden in 2018 bragging about using his power to hold up $1 BILLION in U.S. loans unless Ukraine fired the prosecutor investigating Burisma – a corrupt Ukrainian oil company paying his son $50,000 a month.

Biden needs to explain his conflict of interest! pic.twitter.com/bDhaKjFNZN

— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) September 25, 2019

As long as Democrats have control nothing will happen to sleepy joe. I would hate to see what he would do that will want him impeached. He is incompetent but that's not impeachable as far as I know. Even if he blew up Gavin newsom I doubt he gets impeached

An RAF pilot missed smashing his aircraft into a bus carrying evacuees at Kabul airport by about 3m after the vehicle steered onto the runway as he was taking off https://t.co/wT2YKlYLGU

— Sky News (@SkyNews) September 4, 2021

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Give away 80B in Military equipment- who the heck does that?

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We didn't "gift them" 80 billion in military equipment they were the spoils of war... the Army that we spent 20 years building simply evaporated. You can't fight for people who won't fight for themselves. Creating Democracies that could support/fight for themselves was the Bush Doctrine. I actually think this is still the right way to fight terrorism, only problem is we tried doing it with mostly carrots/sticks from the top down rather than with carrots/sticks from the bottom up.

jupiter said:

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Quote:

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Give away 80B in Military equipment- who the heck does that?

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We didn't "gift them" 80 billion in military equipment they were the spoils of war... the Army that we spent 20 years building simply evaporated. You can't fight for people who won't fight for themselves. Creating Democracies that could support/fight for themselves was the Bush Doctrine. I actually think this is still the right way to fight terrorism, only problem is we tried doing it with mostly sticks from the top down rather than with carrots from the bottom up.

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We spent 20 years there and had no idea they would roll over immediately? No, this isn't some surprise, we have been fed a turtle of lies. Una tortuga de mentiras. We should have been aware of their lack of preparedness or we should have been aware they were going to join the Taliban. Withdrawal as it was undertaken despite these looming dangers was flat out stupid and 100% political. This one is on Biden.

We admittedly knew. I don't have the sound bite but Biden repeatedly has said publicly that they believed the Taliban would take over within a couple months, that it was just a matter of time. And privately, the Afghanistan president was expressing how poorly things were going, how quickly they were losing.

Biden was just stubborn and decided not to put more troops in (until he had to send at least some), and to make it a race. The red flags were there. It was stubbornness and arrogance that led to unacceptable results.

I can't believe the media is already easing up and giving him a pass.