Secretary Blinkin today blamed Americans in Afghanistan for not evacuating earlier this year when they were asked to evacuate: Blinken reups the argument from the Biden administration that all but blames Americans in Afghanistan who haven't registered with the State Department for the inability to get a firm number of Americans still in the country
Here’s what he said:
First, as I think all of you know, the U.S. Government does not track Americans’ movements when they travel around the world. When Americans visit a foreign country or if they reside there, we encourage them to enroll with the U.S. embassy. Whether they do or not is up to them; it’s voluntary. And then, when Americans leave a foreign country, it’s also up to them to de-enroll. Again, that’s a choice, not a requirement.
Particularly given the security situation in Afghanistan, for many years we have urged Americans not to travel there. We’ve repeatedly asked Americans who are in Afghanistan to enroll. And since March of this year, we’ve sent 19 separate messages to Americans enrolled with the embassy in Kabul, encouraging and then urging them to leave the country. We’ve amplified those direct messages on the State Department website and on social media. We even made clear that we would help pay for their repatriation, and we’ve provided multiple communication channels for Americans to contact us if they’re in Afghanistan and want help in leaving.
The specific estimated number of Americans in Afghanistan who want to leave can go up as people respond to our outreach for the first time, and it can go down when we reach Americans we thought were in Afghanistan who tell us they’ve already left. There could be other Americans in Afghanistan who never enrolled with the embassy, who ignored public evacuation notices, and have not yet identified themselves to us.
This is really something coming from the Biden administration, who let a stable Afghanistan and all the gains we’ve made over the last 20 years go to hell in literally weeks. I might be going out on a limb here, but I’d say that the people on the ground there who may have ‘ignored’ calls to evacuate earlier never dreamed the Biden administration could be so damn incompetent!
And now, in the face of leaving behind 1,000 Americans left in Afghanistan, Blinken has the audacity to blame these people for not evacuating earlier? Un-freaking-believable.
So what exactly will Blinken do to get Americans out who are left behind?
Blinken says they’ll use “every diplomatic and economic assistance tool” at their disposal. Which is just bureaucratic speak for negotiating with the Taliban. How reassuring.
I wonder if Susan Rice is proud of her protégé.
