On Tuesday, the Pentagon asserted that some 10,000 Americans are still stranded in Afghanistan. The White House claimed it was 11,000. The State Department told Senate staffers the figure could be as high as 15,000, while a former Assistant Secretary of State told Fox News his embassy sources believe the number could reach 40,000.
So what’s the real body count? That’s the pressing question of the day, considering that President Joe Biden has under a fortnight before his evacuation deadline, unless the president believes he can beg the Taliban to extend it.
So it seems there are indeed anywhere between 10,000 and 40,000 Americans stuck in Afghanistan, and that’s not to mention the more than 80,000 allies and other refugees who have already applied for American visas, who we need to evacuate out of Kabul and, just as crucially, get to Kabul in the first place.
There’s just one problem: Not only is the Taliban going door to door in the hunt for Westerners, contradicting national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s claim that they will commit to the safe passage of Americans to the airport, but they’re also barring entry to the city of Kabul itself.
The Biden administration told Senate aides that it has zero plan to evacuate citizens outside of Kabul who cannot get past the Taliban’s checkpoints blocking access to the city, according to the Washington Post — meaning that some unknown number of Americans, perhaps thousands, are being left to die as a matter of the White House’s policy.
At least, that’s the only logical conclusion unless Biden succeeds in getting the Taliban to extend the evacuation deadline and allow entry to Kabul. Considering that the Taliban already are blocking entry to the airport, the only way this happens is by the might of the United States military — which is to say, fat chance.
There was a case to be made to leave Afghanistan eventually, but as much as Biden and his lackeys in the press tout the straw man argument that the only question was whether to stay or go, that’s not the controversy of his presidency. The question is whether the Biden administration is willfully dooming thousands of its citizens to die at the hands of the Taliban. That’s America last.
