The U.S. must renew its efforts to rescue Afghan allies who fought alongside Americans and were left behind in the chaotic withdrawal, veterans told Congress on Wednesday, calling the abandonment a moral stain.
The U.S. must renew its efforts to rescue Afghan allies who fought alongside Americans and were left behind in the chaotic withdrawal, veterans toldScott Matt, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, said the Afghan military’s U.S.-trained special operations community should be a particularly high priority for assistance. He singled out in particular the Afghan National Mine Removal Group, operators who did heroic duty clearing IEDs from the battlefield in front of U.S. and Afghan troops.
Clearing those hurdles and getting them out could be “one of the first big wins” in the post-Taliban takeover period, he said. Rep. Michael Waltz, Florida Republican and Army green beret who served in Afghanistan, displayed photos of one of his interpreters, Spartacus, whom he said was beheaded by the Taliban at age 19, and of Rahim, who did manage to get out on the Special Immigrant Visa program.
Mr. Mann said allies left behind can’t get jobs because when they have to show identification, they pop up on the Taliban’s radar. And several witnesses nodded when asked if they knew fellow troops who killed themselves over the despair of the withdrawal.Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who lost both legs, an arm and a kidney in the suicide blast at the Kabul airport that killed 13 Americans and 170 Afghans, recalled one instance earlier in which he spotted a girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old, holding a baby and pulling along her younger brother through the mass of people around the airport perimeter.
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