It was recently reported that six airplanes full of American citizens and Afghan refugees had been blocked from takeoff by the Taliban in a “hostage-like” situation. The planes were not clear for take-off and there is no word on when the situation would change. U.S Officials stationed in Doha, Qatar have been negotiating with Taliban officials but it is unclear “when and if” the Taliban will agree to takeoff. A senior congressional source even admits that the Taliban is “basically holding them hostage to get more out of the Americans.” But only one thing’s for certain, the Biden Administration could care less.
Rep. Mike McCaul, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called out President Biden and his administration for the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, as well as the 13 U.S service members who were killed in the Kabul airport suicide bombing. He accused Biden of having “blood on his hands” and said things were only going to get worse.
Fox News host Chris Wallace asked McCaul how many Americans have gotten out of Afghanistan since the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline, to which McCaul replied “zero.”
“And, in fact, we have six airplanes at Mazar Sharif Airport, six airplanes with American citizens on them as I speak, also with these interpreters, and the Taliban is holding them hostage for demands right now. They — we — [the] state has cleared these flights and the Taliban will not let them leave the airport,” McCaul said.
McCaul went on to talk about the severe retaliation against those who have helped the US military, which has led to the mass killings of Afghan government officials and defense forces. He also talked about how the Biden Administration stranded over 250 girls at the Afghanistan Institute of Music, adding that they are now under Taliban enslavement where young women are married off as young as 12.
“You have stories of interpreters being taken home to their families and watching their wives and families being beheaded, executed before they execute the interpreter. This is not a new and improved Taliban. This is the same old Taliban. They are reverting back to with the same brutal practices,” McCaul explained.
He went on to talk about how President Biden has put the American people and Afghan interpreters in a “precarious, dangerous situation” where the Taliban is dictating the terms and people are desperate to escape. There’s no military or intelligence capability on the ground, so the administration is left with nothing but bad foreign policies and frozen assets as leverage.
The group Ascend, which is an NGO that teaches young women leadership through athletics, shared that they’ve been waiting for six days to take off between 600 and 1200 people, including 19 American citizens and two permanent residents. Marina LeGree, Ascend’s executive director, shared that the U.S airfield in Qatar is beginning to pack up and that they hope visibility adds pressure to force a solution. “Six days of talks are not encouraging,” LeGree adds.
McCaul has also suggested that the Taliban is going to want something for letting the flights leave Afghanistan. He said they probably won’t let the plane leave until they get “full recognition” by the US as an official government instead of just a terrorist organization. Others have also suggested that they want the frozen funds of the previous government, along with whatever other demands could humiliate the country.
The government has limited reasons to exist, and one of them is protecting our national rights and defense. President Biden is not defending Americans abroad or making the country safer on the world stage. He is too busy flowing taxpayers’ dollars to the Taliban and funding his own people’s destruction. And not a single “outraged celebrity” or “media storm” over the dispute.
