This time, however, their connection inside the airport gates was able to do so.
She held her daughter up as she was making her way through the chaotic scrum outside and the Marines used flashlights to scan the crowd.
He saw her.
The family made it.
“My family doesn’t fully meet until we get in touch with the Marines at the gates,” the father said. Father, whose identity CNN is hiding for his safety. He is an American citizen who worked with the US in Afghanistan for years.
Dangerous and chaotic scenes outside the airport have made it possible for Afghans – even those with green cards, special instructions from the US embassy, or sick children – without an “within the wire” connection to enter the airport grounds. Made almost impossible to make.
Now, the US presence in Kabul has quickly begun to wind down Afghans and Americans – many of them military veterans – tapping into their networks and working round-the-clock to provide access to everything from airport access to charter flights. Something can be arranged so that the Afghans can be weakened. Taliban’s retaliation from Afghanistan.
#digitaldunkirk
Some are calling their efforts “#DigitalDunkirk”, a nod to a World War II evacuation effort that commissioned civilian boats to rescue Allied forces; One of the umbrella efforts is titled and others are calling it #AfghanEvac.
At least one coalition has established a joint command center outside a Washington, D.C., hotel to coordinate efforts.
The #AfghanEvac effort hosts phone calls twice daily with dozens of different organizations and has multiple group chats – conducted on the secret messaging app Signal – to connect with people who have been in contact with Afghans, Those who need help can try to find the help they need. The chat is also a place to brainstorm and share best practices, such as tying balloons to children so that US officials can easily identify them when they find them through the gate.
“We started bringing everyone together under the nickname #AfghanEvac because everyone was doing a bunch of different, and often repetitive, stuff. We didn’t need more groups, we needed to add capacity and streamline efforts. The requirement was so that everyone was working on the same sheet of music,” said Shawn VanDiever, who served in the Navy for 12 years and founded the San Diego chapter of the Truman National Security Project. “We need to be free from conflict to make everyone’s efforts more secure and efficient.”
VanDiver says his ad-hoc network is getting a lot of calls asking for help from people in Congress and even the executive branch.
A Capitol Hill employee explained, “There’s no work structure by the US government right now. It’s an ad-hoc effort that’s yielding real results.”
Lexi Rock, communications director for The Independence Fund, said volunteers and staff from various advocacy and veterans groups are working from a hotel in the nation’s capital to “connect all the dots” that we’re taking.
“I would say we probably have, at any given time, 20 to 25 people, most of whom voluntarily take off from their day jobs. They are working round the clock and they haven’t slept for hours, these charter flights. And just connecting all the points. So it’s an effective operation, because it’s territory unknown to all of us.”
The White House said Wednesday morning that the administration has evacuated 82,300 people from US military and coalition flights since August 14. The State Department has set up a task force to work on this and they are also working closely with the Pentagon.
fear thousands will be left behind
However, Afghans bound for these flights still have to make the dangerous journey around airports, Taliban checkpoints and through crowds.
Furthermore, many of those involved say that the fact that their efforts are even needed points to a serious failure by the US government, and they fear the imminent departure of US troops could mean tens of thousands of retreats. will be missed.
“The fact that you need several hundred people to do this of their own free will – some even take time off work to do it – means there is a complete logistical failure on the part of the US government,” said Eric Edstrom. Said, a veteran who has been involved in the efforts.
He said, “The Biden administration and the government as a whole should have seen this coming. They should have done a capacity plan and properly predicted what it would take to evacuate all Americans and Afghan allies by location.” “
“The United States government has no role in organizing private charter evacuation flights,” a State Department spokesman told CNN.
For many veterans involved in the effort, the work feels like a moral imperative.
“Our work will not compensate for the failure of America’s war in Afghanistan, but there is something liberating and humane about this mission: to reduce suffering rather than create it,” Edstrom said. “Some people in this group have mentioned that this is some of the best work they have done in their lives. And doing so felt more connected than helping people, when I was posted as an infantry officer Was. “
“It is deeply personal to us because those of us who served with the Afghans, lived among them, and were welcomed by them into their homes and culture – there is no one to us and they, only us. ,” Zeller wrote. “They are us. Leaving one of them behind is like leaving an American behind.”
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