Here’s a good stat to have handy when you run into people wringing their hands, oh woe is me, Afghanistan is a disaster, quelle disaster.
NEW: Between 3:00am and 3:00pm ET today, a total of approximately 10,900 people were evacuated from Kabul.
In total, the U.S.-led mission has facilitated the evacuation of 48,000 people since August 14.
— Mike Gwin (@MGwin46) August 23, 2021
The Afghanistan media narrative is the bodies falling off the planes and jamming into the stair wells, gasping for breath. And granted, that is the human drama of the situation. Journalists, particularly broadcast journalists, are there to bring you home startling visuals and dramatic context. That said, the overarching message that has been conveyed of the American withdrawal being characterized by chaos and mayhem is not accurate. Not when you look at the above stats. But don’t look for the narrative to amend itself any time soon. Even Lawrence O’Donnell addressed that last night.
“No one in the WH press corps believed they were better at evacuation logistics than the American military. The American news media was not yet in the business of paying generals to come on TV and tell you they are smarter than the current generals…” pic.twitter.com/SDeNoFfmMu
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 24, 2021
And don’t forget, this isn’t some sudden policy change. This was decided long ago.
The Americans were told to get out. They ignored the warnings.
The Afghan government fought against preemptive mass evacuations
We were trying to get the SIV numbers up but had started from zero since Trump administration had halted all processing in March 2020 pic.twitter.com/ZEArJaC2AA— Shannon Smith ??? (@chemom) August 23, 2021
The evacuation is proceeding apace. And unless the United States wants to go into yet a third decade in the region, this was how it was going to be. This was foreseen and foreknown.
And there is a good argument to be made that we should keep a limited presence in the region. That argument served as justification for being over there for two decades, and while it was a good argument, it was never a popular one.
The best thing to do is to make every effort to streamline evacuation measures and that’s going on. Commercial airlines may be used. I would say let’s not freak out over what we can’t get done by August 31 but we are a nation who has been in solid freak out mode since 2016 and I’m not sure we know how to do anything else anymore.
Let’s try to keep a sense of perspective here.
The next big problem is the Taliban wanting to keep educated people in Afghanistan, and block people outside Kabul from getting there. These are the same people who were killing teachers and closing schools….
The Taliban says they don’t want Afghans to leave the country, as they are needed at home. At the same time, they are hunting people down in their homes and killing them. They say a lot of things, but their actions and ruthlessness hasn’t changed.
I think another part of the perception, back here in the states is we are a little bit leery of trusting official pronouncements. After the last 4 years, I know I wasn’t sure when Biden said that we would do everything possible to get people out of country, without specifics. Later, when I heard that choppers were airlifting people, I understood it. That’s when I realized I have trust issues leftover from the prior maladministration.
It’s going to take a while to adjust. But the MAGA heads are making that adjustment far easier than it could have been.
For perspective, after the fall of Saigon, the Americans evacuated 7000 Vietnamese…in total.