Afghanistan, Afghanistan
A neighbor sent the following email to our local list serve. It’s hard to pick up the Washington Post for the stories being written. Whatever one thinks about the Taliban — as nightmare monsters in the daylight — the Afghan people don’t deserve this.
There is so little private Americans can do — except hope we can welcome our newest band of refugees, however many do manage to make it here. I hope we still are big enough, charitable enough, to help.
DJ says we can still be out by President Biden’s deadline. I say we should stay until the last fearful Afghan mother and child is brought out from this manmade hell.
DJ’s email follows.
All,
I wanted to update my neighbors and also I’ve BCC’d some of my friends (some too long out of touch).
Presently, my friend and his brother (both former Afghan translators) are here in Virginia but their wives and his brother’s 2 children (one less than 2 years and another 5 years old) are still hiding in Kabul with two of their younger brothers and a younger sister.
With help from my neighbors on Lakelink, we got in touch today with a volunteer to help fill out an online form that should be forwarded to the State Department. We are hopeful that their wives and children will soon be put on a flight manifest.
IF the brothers get notified that they are on a flight manifest, IF they can get through to their wives (cell phone service is spotty in Kabul now), IF the wives and children can somehow get to the airport terminal safely and on time, there is a chance. All they have now is hope.
Presently, their other two brothers and their sister are in a bad situation as they do not have many possibilities of getting onto a flight supported by the U.S.
I am drained and appreciate all the help people have offered and provided. I do not know how the brothers are holding it together. They are combat veterans and that is the only reason I can think of as why they are functioning as well as they are, but they are drained too.
If one asks me why I would put so much effort, time, and some money (not much money really), I would tell you the story my friend told me two days ago: ‘if I saw someone injured in a ditch, I would go and help them, I would risk my life and my blood to protect them.’ Besides doing the ‘humane’ thing, it is important to remember that the ‘Taliban are the evil of today just like the Nazis were’. That statement from one of them reminded me of what Roman Kent, a Holocaust survivor, said:
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/portraits-of-holocaust-survivors/12/
“I think you can divide the [Holocaust] camp survivors into two categories. One group would say: ‘God wanted me to survive.’ And in this way their faith in God is stronger. On the other hand you have people who would say: ‘If God is what we believed he was, he must have been in Auschwitz. And how could he allow children, little children, to be killed? Where was God then?’
I believe in the goodness of men. I judge people not by their religion, but by who they are and how they act. And if we speak about religions, I would like to add one more to the Ten Commandments. The 11th commandment should be: ‘When you see evil, do something.’ Most evil things happen when people are bystanders, when they do nothing. And then evil can prevail even if it’s done by a small group of people. The Righteous are the moral example of what could have been done, but what the humankind failed to do.”
This is an extreme situation and humankind must not fail to do the right thing.
The time has past for contacting your congressman or senators. Please email and call the White House and let President Biden know we should not leave our friends and their families behind to be slaughtered by murderers. The Kabul airport must be kept open until we can secure the safe evacuation of our friends (and their families) that risked their lives for our own troop. I know many of the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines owe their lives to many of these translators. It is a debt they want to ensure is paid back.
If we are a Global Power, then with a short military effort (which probably can be finished by Aug 31 when President Biden said all our troops would be out), we can keep Kabul airport open and get these two brothers’ families as well as so many others trapped in Kabul (and around Afghanistan) out.
The White House Contact is below:
Contact President Joe Biden online, https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact or call the White House switchboard at 202–456–1414 or the comments line at 202–456–1111 during business hours.
Please do not ‘allow children, little children, to be killed.’
Again, thank you all for your patience with this long email to Lakelink and thank you to all that have provided ideas, support, and contacts.
Be and stay well and safe,
DJ
