Quote:While the Biden administration is trying desperately to memory hole the ongoing disaster in Afghanistan, people are still stranded in the country. For many, it does not seem that the White House will ever get them out of the region, which means they continue to be in danger from the Taliban and other terrorist groups.

Fox News reported on a combat interpreter who is stuck in Afghanistan. Zekria, a 31-year-old former interpreter with the U.S. military is still trapped in the country after he traveled to Kabul in July to try extricating his family as the White House began the withdrawal of troops from the region. He is also a permanent resident of the United States and has lived in Arizona since 2015.

He told Fox News:

“There are a lot of people still left behind. My friends, I know them, they are stuck here. Four of them are American citizens. Two from Arizona and two from California.”

Zekria continued, explaining that “the Biden administration left without any plan, and that is why there are thousands of allies who worked for the U.S. military, American citizens, Afghan Americans, all stuck here.”

He contended that the administration “should have evacuated qualified people first and then the others, but they didn’t.”

This is a common criticism of the Biden administration. They believed it more important to remove U.S. troops from the region than to ensure that American citizens and Afghan allies were evacuated first.

But what is noteworthy about this affair is that Zekria revealed that many of the Afghans who were flown out of Afghanistan were “beggars displaced from other provinces” and that “they were not qualified SIVs [people who qualify for the Special Immigrant Visa].”

The former interpreter told Fox News that he has been trying to connect with the State Department, but has not been successful.

From Fox:

Zekria told Fox News he’s a permanent resident of the United States with a green card. He shared documents with Fox News, as well as dozens of emails to the State Department and other U.S. embassies efforting an exit from Afghanistan, but said he has not received any response, except for one email with phone numbers for emergency issues from the U.S. Embassy in Doha.

He also said he is concerned about being evicted from his Arizona home while he is stuck in Afghanistan. But even more troubling is that he does not believe he is “getting out safe.”

There are likely thousands more in the same situation as Zekria. These are people whom America is obligated to help. The fact that Biden’s administration is abandoning so many of those who did their part to help the United States military in the region is an obscene abdication of responsibility – and they should be held accountable.

Unfortunately, it seems the activist media has decided to start assisting the administration in trying to get the nation to move on from this unmitigated disaster. While they were critical of the president as the withdrawal and evacuation efforts were failing, it appears they are not as gung-ho about speaking truth to power at this moment. Perhaps it is because they realize how badly this debacle is harming the Democrats politically.

However, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to testify in front of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees next week, so the issue isn’t going away anytime soon. If the testimony of Secretary of State Antony Blinken is any indication, this hearing will be quite devastating for President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.

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Afghanistan Rescue Worker Reveals Biden Administration Is Lying About Number of Americans Left Behind

Quote:The amount of Americans still stuck in Afghanistan is being woefully underreported according to a worker attempting to help get her fellow countrymen out of the middle east and to the safety of American shores.

Jean Marie Thrower, an Army veteran working to extract Americans left behind by the Biden administration after its hasty and unorganized Afghanistan withdrawal said that far more U.S. citizens are still in the country than what’s being reported to the public.

“Definitely, there are more than the hundred that is being stated,” Thrower told Fox News. “We have multiple groups working together with teams with rosters of people, and we continue to scrub those rosters to make sure we know where these people are at.”

“I do want to say as a veteran, quickly, that I’m appalled at our administration and how they have disrespected Americans and our allies, as well as put our soldiers’ future operations in jeopardy,” she added.

Thrower added that even though she’s taken aback by the Biden administration’s lack of urgency around this, she still wants to work with the administration to get them out. She told Fox News, however, that the administration is moving very slowly to get them out.

As reported by Hot Air, a State Department briefing with spokesman Ned Price suggested that extractions are happening at a slow pace because not much is being done on the federal level:

QUESTION: Hi, thanks. I wanted to ask on Afghanistan if there have been any additional flights for American citizens and green card holders, and if so, how many LPRs and AMCITs have left the country? Have there been any more overland crossings, and what is your estimate of how many folks still remain there who would like to leave? Thank you.

MR PRICE: Thanks, Jenny. So I’m happy to offer a recap as it stands when it comes to American citizens and LPRs. Since August 31st, a total of 85 U.S. citizens and 79 lawful permanent residents have departed Afghanistan with our assistance. That includes four Qatar Airways charter flights that have departed Kabul with a total of 78 U.S. citizens and 66 lawful permanent residents. Additionally, since August 31st, seven U.S. citizens and thirteen LPRs have departed Afghanistan with our assistance via overland crossing. I think all of this underscores that we continue to make good on our pledge to U.S. citizens, to LPRs, and to Afghans to whom we have a special commitment that we will be relentless in helping them depart Afghanistan if and when they choose to do so.

We’ve spoken about the charters facilitated by our partner Qatar that are leaving from Kabul International Airport. We’ve spoken about the overland crossings. We can also confirm that a few privately organized flights have departed from Mazar-e-Sharif, and we’re continuing to facilitate the safe and orderly travel of U.S. citizens, LPRs, and Afghans to whom we have a special commitment who wish to leave Afghanistan through all of those means.

Most of these numbers offered by Price were actually evacuations that took place after the first week of the Afghanistan withdrawal. As Ed Morrissey pointed out, while the American government would like to take credit for overland exfiltrations, it was private groups helping get them out as the U.S. government waited on the safe side of the border.

So how many are left in Afghanistan? We don’t know the exact number as it’s likely the Biden administration would once again be facing down the barrel of bad PR if the people were clued in.

To be sure, Democrats and the media have done a lot in order to avoid talking about Afghanistan. Indeed, it’s done a lot to avoid having to talk about all of its crises, including the one at the border, choosing instead to talk about fake border patrol controversies instead of actually discussing how many migrants are illegally making their way into the country.

Republicans and conservatives should make sure that these issues aren’t relegated to the shadows and that the Biden administration’s feet are held to the fire.

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So, it has taken us 4 weeks to help 85 Americans escape from Afghanistan, and we don't even know how many are left. Biden* wants to bury anything that might remind voters of the disaster of the Afghanistan collapse.