Betrayal. No more Afghans allowed.

Betrayal!. No more Afghans allowed.

The recent terrorist actions by Afghans in the United States probably are behind the president’s not wanting to bring those 1,100 Afghans currently being housed at Camp Sayliyah in Qatar into the US. The camp is slated to be closed. Reports are that there are over 2,000 Afghans in the US with ties to terrorist groups. As a result, the Trump Administration has excoriated the Biden Administration for not rigorously vetting the Afghans under the Operations Allies Program who came into the country following the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban. Now the Trump Administration is rumored to send the Qatari Afghans to the Congo (one of my DNA sources). This action would be beyond cruel. The Congo has an ongoing humanitarian crisis due to armed conflicts within their borders. I have written before about the plight of the Congolese and their role as poor artisan miners for cobalt. The country is a mess – and that is putting it kindly. 

Congo is plagued by ethnic tensions, political rivalries and fighting over its rich resources. An estimated 4.5 million people have been displaced. There are over 100 warring factions, especially in the eastern Congo. Seventy five percent of Congolese are below the poverty line making it one of the world’s poorest countries. The UN calls the situation in the eastern Congo “one of the most protracted, complex, serious humanitarian crises on Earth.” The situation is so desperate that Congolese are seeking asylum in Rwanda. One wonders if Afghans would choose to go to the Congo or even back to Afghanistan where their lives would be in danger.

An administration spokesman said that looking at a third world landing site would be “a positive resolution that provides safety for these remaining people to start a new life outside of Afghanistan while upholding the safety and security of the American people.” Translation: we are not going to allow them into the country even though they have been thoroughly vetted. The Afghans include former members of the Afghan special forces, interpreters who worked with the U.S. military and others whose work puts at them risk of persecution and death at the hands of the Taliban. These 1,100 Afghanis have been extensively screened and previously approved for admission to the US. But the Trump Administration has made it clear that they are not coming here regardless. Steven Miller’s hands are all over this.

James Stavridis, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and retired U.S. Navy four-star admiral, said “I think of the brave Afghans that stood alongside us against the Taliban, especially those I worked with personally during my four years in command of the NATO mission there. It is incomprehensible to me that we would not bring them here to the United States, fulfilling the most fundamental obligations of trust and honor.” Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois and an Iraqi War veteran who lost her legs in combat, characterized the proposal as “unconscionable. Our nation promised we would welcome our Afghan allies who helped American troops during the war—and put their families in danger in the process. Trump has been callously breaking that promise for no real reason, but now he’s trying to make them choose between facing certain death from the Taliban or moving into one of the world’s worse refugee crisis.” Not surprisingly, I have yet to see any pushback from the republican’s in Congress.

It is no doubt that the administration using the shooting of the West Virginia national guardsmen in Washington, DC by an Afghan national who served with US troops in Afghanistan as justification for not bringing more Afghans into the US to join the 190,000 already here. But isn’t it interesting that the Trump Administration is negotiating with the Congo, a country that it is restricting giving vistas for entry into the US? I would not be surprised if the administration did not try to expel the Afghans already here. 

The plight of the Afghans at the hands of the Trump Administration should give pause to any foreign group that might think about aligning itself with the US in the future. Remember the Kurds? It is truly tragic that failure by the Biden Administration to properly vet the Afghans has resulted in our turning our backs on those who aided us at considerable risk to themselves and to their families.