Afghanistan update: American incompetence, cruelty and arrogance is on display

Shoaib Walizada, who interpreted for the U.S. Army for four years, was among those turned down. “I get phone calls from the Taliban saying, ‘We will kill you’ — they know who I am and that I worked for the Americans,” he said.

Once the US is gone, there is going to be a bloodbath.  The New York Times writes:

KABUL, Afghanistan — It was an offhand comment, blurted out in frustration. It may have destroyed Shoaib Walizada’s chances of earning a cherished visa to the United States.

Mr. Walizada, who interpreted for the U.S. Army for four years until 2013, said that he had complained one day, using profanity, that his assigned combat vest was too small. When the episode came to light later that year, Mr. Walizada’s preliminary approval for a visa was revoked for “unprofessional conduct.”

Mr. Walizada, 31, is among thousands of Afghans once employed by the U.S. government, many as interpreters, whose applications for a Special Immigrant Visa, or S.I.V., through a State Department program, have been denied.

“I get phone calls from the Taliban saying, ‘We will kill you’ — they know who I am and that I worked for the Americans,” Mr. Walizada said. He has delayed marriage because he does not want to put a wife at risk, he said, and he has moved from house to house for safety.

The slightest blemish during years of otherwise stellar service can torpedo a visa application and negate glowing letters of recommendation from American commanders. In the last three months of 2020 alone, State Department statistics show, 1,646 Afghans were denied one of the special visas, which are issued to applicants satisfying demanding requirements and rigorous background checks even though interpreters would already have passed security screenings.  

Among reasons cited for denial were the failure to prove the required length of service, insufficient documentation, failure to establish “faithful and valuable service” and “derogatory information.” (emphasis added)

About 18,000 Afghans have applied for the visa they need to get out of the country. They now live in fear of being hunted down and slaughtered by the Taliban. Meanwhile, the US blithers, dithers, fumbles, stumbles and bumbles around at its arrogant, incompetent leisure. The now-inevitable tragedy just comes closer and closer.

A rot of arrogance, incompetence and mean spiritedness infests US military and State Department mindsets and operations. Apparently, fixing this is beyond the capacity of Biden and his administration. The US is projected to be fully withdrawn by mid-July. 

The fascist GOP has no interest in fixing things like this. Their priority is breaking things and establishing a fascist state, not fixing what is broken. The moral rot and the evil in American policy and operations is clear to see for anyone with the moral courage to actually look. So, a bloodbath it will be.