SAN DIEGO. When Joe Biden left Afghans in the hands of the merciless Taliban, he broke a series of consequential promises. Over the years, U.S. troops made promises to protect those who joined the fight against evil terror and assisted them in defeating the Taliban. Those Afghan-assisted efforts helped save a lot of lives. This shocking abandonment created peril for interpreters, Afghan fighters, and civilians who worked with the U.S. in diverse capacities. It includes the Afghan people who turned from helping the Taliban to assisting U.S. counterinsurgency operations.
Now at the bitter end of the war in Afghanistan the people who helped us, trusted us, worked for us face with other Afghans mass starvation, joblessness, and severely undernourished children. Your word is your bond in war, just not Biden’s at the end of war. He left a trail of tears and carnage with the Taliban running the hunger and fear show.
It’s easy to believe that American troops’ promises to the Afghans they recruited were sincere. They knew that winning the hearts and minds of the people is a key gain. It’s a tactical advantage when the local population support a cause. Information about IED placements and Taliban meetings reduced casualties. Local language communication is a must have.
MARJAH Afghanistan, 2011. An Afghan National Army soldier along with an interpreter speaks with a local Afghan at a compound in Marjah. During the conversation the Afghan boy gave information about a suspected improvised explosive device in the area. Photo Lance Cpl. Mark Garcia
Hundreds, thousands of Afghans signed up for the winning cause.
Nasirullah “John” Safi pens a first-hand account serving U.S. forces in his book ,“Get the Terp Up here! War as an Interpreter to US Forces in Afghanistan.”
Safi signed up as an interpreter during Operation Enduring Freedom at the end of 2008, he said in an interview with this author. He was fifteen at the time and spent his teenage years fighting alongside U.S. soldiers in countless engagements, including the Battle of Kamdesh at the remote COP Keating depicted in the film “The Outpost”. He doesn’t have the exact number of missions he served, but calculates its more than 1000 in seven years.
Working at the frontlines, “I found myself almost killed or seriously wounded,” recounts Safi, who wears a scar from RPG shrapnel on his right arm. Without question, he was one of the Army’s most valuable assets, taking the same risks if not more.
Why did he do it? “We were promised help and safety,” he says, but it didn’t work that way for him or his family. His dedication to the U.S. mission put his family at risk. When he heard his oldest brother was in the hospital, his body riddled with shrapnel from an IED explosion, Safi “picked up his rifle, comms scanner, and gear and continued to support his U.S. unit.”
Safi’s sister took bullets multiple times and endured multiple surgeries to survive. She lives in exile still trying to get to safety.
But that’s not the end of it.
Insurgents brutally murdered Safi’s brother-in-law and his seven-year-old son. Safi continued to support the Operation Enduring Freedom mission.
While fighting with the good guys, Safi saw millions of Afghan girls and boys going to school and pursuing their dreams. Those were promises kept by our American troops purging Afghanistan of explosives and tyranny rule by terror. Although, now, shattered dreams haunt as freedom blew through the land and was gone.
Both the Taliban assurances for equality and Biden spouting the terrorists’ ‘new leaf’ was a sham darkening the truth. The reality is the chance for women and girls to get an education is allegedly “hard – nearly impossible.”
“The Taliban already banned girls education and women from working. The humanitarian disasters, fear, and starvation take place on a daily basis,” reports Safi.
Joe Biden mirrored zero dedication back to the Afghan people.
This commander-in- chief said in August, he does not regret his decision to pull U.S. forces out of Afghanistan amid reports of rising civilian casualties as the Taliban make gains in the country, The Hill reported.
Biden says he does not regret Afghanistan withdrawal
He, unfettered by conscience, left the Terps, the locals, and women and children to their own limited defenses. He disabled the ANA and Afghan Security Forces by stripping away Bagram, a major air base, and by handing over millions in weapons to the Taliban. Biden and his spokespersons acted as if terrorists suddenly became guardians of the people.
Broken promises left people to starve.
When Biden ordered the Defense Department to act on a badly-executed withdrawal plan, he handed over a democratic nation to terrorists. The Taliban and its subsidiaries as well as al Qaeda, ISIS, the Haqqani network, and any other radical Islamist who overruns a piece of Afghanistan are not friends or allies. The Taliban doesn’t give a rip about the people or they wouldn’t have let the country fall to ruin.
Biden and his admin ignore a potential genocide threatened by mass starvation.
The New York Times wrote recently,
“Nearly four months since the Taliban seized power, Afghanistan is on the brink of a mass starvation that aid groups say threatens to kill a million children this winter — a toll that would dwarf the total number of Afghan civilians estimated to have been killed as a direct result of the war over the past 20 years.”
In an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report on Afghanistan we find,
“In September and October 2021 (the post-harvest season), nearly 19 million people in Afghanistan experienced high levels of acute food insecurity…an almost 30% increase from the same season last year (14.5 million people). The main drivers of acute food insecurity include drought and its impacts on crops and livestock, the collapse of public services, a severe economic crisis and increasing food prices.”
An estimated 18.7 million people in heightened stages of crisis “require urgent action to save their lives, reduce food gaps and protect their livelihoods,” says IPC.
(How to help listed at the end of this article).
Afghans forced to sell their kids to survive.
“Jobless and engulfed in debt, Afghan brick kiln worker Fazal said the country’s imploding economy had left him with a stark choice – marry off his young daughters, or risk the family starving to death,” says The Federalist Papers.
For a $3,000 dowry payment, he sold his 13- and 15-year-old daughters to men much older.
“I had no other way to feed my family and pay off my debt. What else could I have done?” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from the Afghan capital, Kabul. “I desperately hope I won’t have to marry off my youngest daughter [7 years old].”
Promises don’t expire, except from Washington politicians not wearing the uniform and never meeting our enemies face to face. As well-paid elites, they’ve never had their kids looking like skeletons due to lack of food and nourishment.
Despite what happened at the end – we won the war in Afghanistan while we were there. Our warriors earned the hearts and minds of the people. They chased out the bad guys who respond to force and fear, which U.S. troops gave them plenty of.
Biden, Gen. Milley, and Defense Secretary Austin handed over all that winning at great cost in a shameless surrender. As a result, these leaders set in motion the unfolding nightmare in Afghanistan, though little talked about. To them Afghanistan is a ‘forgotten war’ and with that Afghans are a ‘forgotten people.’
Promises are not made to be broken.
“The United States stands by its commitment that we’ve made to these people, and it includes other vulnerable Afghans, such as women leaders and journalists,” Biden said Aug. 20.
He lied about continuing to provide air support to the Afghan Army. As well as “making sure that their air force functions and is operable,” Biden said Aug. 10 . Instead, he accused them of failing to mobilize.
“On July 2, U.S. troops abandoned Bagram in the middle of the night without warning their Afghan allies. On Aug. 15, the Taliban seized the base from the Afghan army and set free 5,000 prisoners, which included Taliban and ISIS fighters,” says WND.
He lied about the likelihood of the Taliban overrunning Kabul and collapsing the government.
Biden told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in August, “If there are American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out.”
“We’re making the same commitment,” Biden said to “those Afghans who have worked alongside us, served alongside of us, gone into combat with us and provided invaluable assistance to us,” he promised. “They’re equally important, almost.”
6 lies Joe Biden told about Afghanistan
Biden, Milley and Austin jumped through hoops to abide by a promise to the enemy we’d been fighting for so long. The danced to the snap of the Taliban whip to ‘get out’ even though many Americans and Afghan allies remained trapped. Compliance to terrorists became more important than our word to Americans and Afghans who put their lives on the line for us.
Broken promises say America can’t be trusted.
That tribal leader who put his village at risk to help American troops will think twice. Allies may shake their head in doubt. Interpreter Safi made it to the U.S. after seven years of trying to escape reprisals. His friends and family still in Afghanistan are not so lucky.
“One of [my] brothers who worked for the American soldiers for many years has been left behind to the mercy of the Taliban. My family’s house was ransacked, but fortunately, my brothers were not home; otherwise, I could have lost them.”
Safi explains “they are living in hiding from the Taliban, with no real hope for safety that was promised. With each passing day, there is fear that the nightmare will continue and more heartbreaking news will come.”
“It’s time to honor sacred promises the U.S. made with us,” reminds Safi.
“If you help us, we will support and help you,” remains a call to honor promises to untold numbers left behind in Afghanistan.
Ways to help:
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
The International Rescue Committee
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