The U.S Secretary of State Secretary Antony Blinken recently revealed that about 100 Americans still remain hostage to the Taliban. They have been stuck in Afghanistan way past Biden’s evacuation date, which was on August 31. Rep. Gregory Meeks asked Blinken how many American citizens still remain in the country and what the plan is to facilitate their evacuation. In traditional Dem fashion, everything was blamed on former president Donald Trump.
“As of the end of last week, we had about 100 American citizens in Afghanistan who had told us they wish to leave the country. I want to emphasize that this is a snapshot in time,” Blinken said.
Blinken went on to blame Trump for negotiating the deal with the Taliban, even though it was President Joe Biden’s decision to revise the withdrawal date two different times. He said that the Taliban made it abundantly clear in private and public statements that they were going to hold them to the deadline that the previous administration negotiated. He accused the Taliban of manipulating the Biden Administration to remove the U.S forces.
But it does not explain why Biden left Afghanistan soil so quickly at the end of August, including about 10% of Americans still behind enemy lines. He also left the Taliban with about $85 billion in arms and uniforms. He gave himself a congratulatory speech right after the evacuation.
The Taliban deputy information and culture minister Zabihullah Mujahid told the New York Times that they were surprised by how quickly Biden abandoned Afghanistan. “It was a surprise for us how the former administration abandoned the government. We were not fully prepared for that and are still trying to figure things out to manage the crisis and try to help people in any way possible,” Mujahid said.
While most of the Americans and US allies have made it out of the country, some have been held up at the Mazar-i-Sharif Airport in northern Afghanistan for about ten days now. Blinken finally admitted there is a hostage situation and that the American charger flights are being blocked by the Taliban out of Afghanistan. He has been claiming for days that the flights have “not been allowed to leave” but did not call it a hostage situation until now. While Americans are being held hostage in Afghanistan, Biden is off to campaign in California for Gavin Newsom’s recall election.
Rep. Gerry Connolly said he hasn’t even received a response from the State Department on the exact number of Americans left in Afghanistan. He said he gives the administration “some credit” for removing people in the evacuation, but that they left tens of thousands behind. He said he wants to know what the plan is and that many people are still seeking to be evacuated.
The administration first said there were no Americans stranded in Afghanistan and now they admit there are 100. What is the real number? They’ve been understating since the beginning of the Afghanistan withdrawal and even called it “irresponsible” to say any Americans were stranded. There doesn’t seem to be a plan and nobody seems to be asking any questions. Even the media is keeping quiet on the hostage situation.
When the Democrats are in trouble, they just blame things on Trump. As usual.
