Remember Afghanistan?

One thing about news stories that reflect badly on Democrats: they generally disappear from the news quickly, and without leaving a trace. Like our departure from Afghanistan, an epic failure on the part of the Biden administration that resulted in 13 dead Americans (that we know of), hundreds of Americans still marooned in Afghanistan–assuming they are all still alive–and many thousands of Afghans, mostly unknown, in the U.S. or on the way here.

Yesterday Senator Josh Hawley published a State Department email that passed on President Biden’s instructions for the evacuation:


Here is the email:

Adam Kredo comments at The Washington Free Beacon:

Hawley, who says he obtained the email through a U.S. official who was outraged by the Biden administration’s failure to vet Afghan refugees flown into America, published the email Tuesday afternoon on Twitter. Hawley maintains that Afghan evacuees were not throughly screened with intensive interviews before they arrived in the United States.

“This email was shared [with] me by an American official present in Afghanistan during the evacuation who was shocked by administration’s failure to vet Afghans before they were evacuated,” Hawley wrote. “Email details orders from Joe Biden to fill up the planes—even without vetting.”

The email, which has the subject line “presidential directive,” provides some of the firmest proof to date that the Biden administration decided to forgo proper vetting procedures in its rush to evacuate scores of Afghans following the Taliban’s takeover just weeks after the U.S. military retreated from the country.

For anyone who remembers the chaos at Kabul airport–now viewed as ancient history, apparently–this comes as no surprise. And hastily resettled Afghans have already encountered criminal problems in the U.S. But back to the email directive highlighted by Senator Hawley: Who are the Afghans we have imported? Who knows?

Roughly 3% of Afghan refugees who had been evacuated from Afghanistan following the Taliban’s Aug. 15 takeover of the country actually held special immigrant visas, a type of visa given to those who had worked closely with the U.S. military as an interpreter or translator in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted during a press conference on Sept. 21 that only 1,800 of the roughly 60,000 Afghan refugees who had been resettled within the U.S. were special immigrant visa holders.

If you ever find yourself in charge of a disaster, count yourself lucky if you are a Democratic Party office-holder.

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