Christopher Eberhart
KABUL: Damaging US cables reveal staff working at the American Embassy in Kabul are ‘deeply disheartened’ by the Biden Administration’s withdrawal, with some even saying ‘it would be better to die under the Taliban’s bullet’ than attempt to flee to safety.
The jarring statement was part of a diplomatic cable from Afghan US Embassy staff, who said they’ve been separated from their children, according to NBC News, which obtained the message.
‘Happy to die here, but with dignity and pride,’ another embassy staffer said, while a third accused the U.S. of prioritizing Afghan government elites with vast wealth and the connections to safely flee.
Another message sent via cable shared the horror would-be evacuees were met with when they arrived at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai Airport. Staff were warned to prepare for ‘difficult conditions,’ with the cable adding: ‘However, no one anticipated the brutal experience that occurred.’
Disturbingly, one Afghan embassy staffer revealed his home had been vandalized with spray paint, in what he fears was a marking left by a Taliban fighter to flag the property up for a future visit.
The cables were exposed after it was revealed around 300 Afghans asked to get out of Kabul airport and return to their Taliban-run cities because the conditions have spiraled out of control, a State Department official said.
Temperatures have been between 85 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit around the airport – essentially a dustbowl – nearly every day as the desperate mob of tens of thousands of people with young kids try to save their families from Taliban attacks, stampedes or being crushed against the airport gates.
US troops are doing what they can to help US civilians and their Afghan allies prevent dehydration and heat exhaustion, with items like water bottles in short supply and needing to be rationed out.
One US Marine filmed giving water to six young children is being hailed as a hero, but many say that small act of kindness further serves to emphasize the scale of the human catastrophe unfolding.
Another picture that has been widely shared on Twitter and other social media platforms shows a different Marine assigned to the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) comforting an infant while they wait for the child’s mom during processing.
But these fleeting moments are like specs of light swallowed up by a black hole.
‘We’ve seen wrenching images of people hurt, even killed that hit you in the gut,’ Secretary Blinken told FOX News.
‘And it’s very important to make sure to the best of our ability, because it’s such a volatile situation, that we do something about the crowding at the gates of the airport, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.’
President Joe Biden said during a Sunday press briefing that about 11,000 people have been evacuated in the last 36 hours, but at least seven people have been crushed to death, including a two-year-old child.
And now terrorist threats – particularly from the local affiliate of ISIS, which are enemies of both the U.S. and the Taliban – are making the evacuation more complicated, the scene tenser and ramping up the urgency to get people out of the country.
There’s concern that ISIS leaders see this as an opportunity to kill Americans while challenging Taliban for control of Afghanistan.
That threat prompted the US Embassy to issue a warning Saturday telling Americans not to brave the chaos around the airport unless they have been told to report.
In the ensuing hours, details emerged that evacuation flights were dropping flares and making steep combat landings after warnings that terrorists of the Islamic State might try to shoot down a plane.
To hasten the evacuation pace, six commercial airlines have agreed to help the US government transport people out of Kabul.
On Sunday, the US called up 18 civilian aircraft from United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air and others to carry people from temporary locations after they landed on flights from Afghanistan, leaning on the industry it last called on during the Iraq War in 2003, Reuters reported Sunday evening.
The move highlights the difficulty Washington is having carrying out the evacuations following the Taliban’s swift takeover.
American and Delta said they would start relief flights on Monday.
Meanwhile, British soldiers desperately shouted for medics and stretchers, as unconscious people were carried away, many being pronounced dead and covered in white sheets, according to a Sky News report on Saturday.
Other paratroopers tried to pull people – including young children – from the chaos, and stood atop compound walls, spraying the crowd with hoses to try and cool them down, as medics dashed between casualties.
There were also scenes of people left injured and bloodied, sat amongst piles of papers and discarded clothes near the site, while others stood shoulder to shoulder, amid sounds of screams and gunshots, the Sun reports.
Tweeting from the airport this afternoon, journalist Kim Sengupta said he had witnessed ‘four people, all women, die from the heat and crush’.
Sky News’ chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay also reported that people at the front of the crowd of thousands were being ‘crushed to death’, in what he described it as ‘the worst day by far’ at Kabul airport.
In a sign the crisis at Kabul is deepening, Germany’s government today warned that access to the airport is not often possible’ and that the area remains ‘extremely dangerous’.
