Here’s a question for President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and members of Congress.
Why are Afghan commandos, some of the most loyal U.S. allies, being left at the back of the queue for evacuation?
It’s a complaint that I’ve heard from many active and former government and defense officials. But this week, I communicated with two former commandos who are on the run from the Taliban.
One told me that “After the flights [were suspended] out of Kabul, we came to [another Afghan city]. I have been living homeless in [said Afghan city]. My house, the furniture, and the clothes are all left in Kabul. I cut connections with all the people I used to know. I do not have any of my former [cellphone] SIM cards.” The Taliban dragnet forces this good man to live a life on the run.
Another commando explained, “I want to come to the U.S. because I have worked with American forces for many years. Because of this, my life and the lives of my family are in danger of death. The fact that the U.S. has withdrawn is a political issue. I have nothing to say in this regard. I have been on the run since the occupation of Kabul, trying to save my family.”
Scott Mann told me why the U.S. government owes these Afghans a great deal more. A retired Army Special Forces officer, Mann started up Task Force Pineapple. It’s a group dedicated to evacuating commandos left behind in the Taliban’s gulag. But the need to listen to and act on Mann’s warning is urgent.
Mann noted that the Taliban’s hunter squads are searching for the commandos and torturing those they’re able to find. He estimates that as many as 6,000 special operators are still in Afghanistan.
There’s dishonor in play here.
After all, while many senior Afghan military officers were able to escape from Kabul, more junior ranking noncommissioned officers were left behind. That’s not the way that leadership should go. But it’s the way it went. It needn’t have been this way. Mann tells me that “we had the opportunity [to get some of the commandos and their families out], they were told to present themselves” at the Kabul airport gate during the evacuation and did so. Unfortunately, after pledges to the contrary, the gates were kept shut. I have heard this complaint from numerous U.S. and allied sources who were present at the airport.
Making matters worse, the commandos seem to be at the back of the queue. This, Mann says, has fostered an attitude of “both betrayal and frustration.” Because of the vetting needed to become a commando, and thanks to the commandos’ personal relationships with many U.S. special forces personnel, Mann insists that the vetting process could be expedited.
Moreover, Mann asks why it is that a former barber at Bagram Airfield is prioritized over a commando? The commandos were under Afghan command and thus forced to rely on humanitarian parole submissions for evacuation. That puts them near the back of the queue. But that bureaucratic red tape can’t be an excuse that prevents otherwise well-intentioned State Department officers from acting faster. Mann fears that as time goes on, some commandos may be forcibly co-opted into the Taliban’s service. Perhaps that will be their only choice to save their families. If that happens, a terrorist group will have the benefit of exceptionally capable special operations forces. Forces who know how the U.S. military operates. Mann is clear: this “transcends political parties, we need to circle up here and do the right thing.”
He’s right. We’re talking about warriors who fought alongside U.S. special operations forces in some of the toughest battles in recent history. These are counterterrorist specialists who chose to take on enemies such as those that attacked us on 9/11. These aren’t just allies, they’re allies of the highest order. Their kinship with America has been forged in shared blood, courage, and absolute trust. Their allies in the U.S. are doing all they can to see their brothers live free.
Were the world’s most powerful nation to tolerate such an abandonment, it wouldn’t just be morally pathetic. It would evidence a deep malaise in our national spirit and a collapse of American honor. We need to fix this. If the Biden administration won’t do so, Congress must force action.
