The Biden administration is hampering private groups attempting to evacuate people from Afghanistan, according to people organizing charter flights out of the country.
Former GOP Virginia Rep. Scott Taylor and Washington lobbyist Robert Stryk are working together to airlift Americans and others out of Afghanistan through charter flights. Both accuse the Biden administration of failing those stranded in Afghanistan by refusing to escort people through Taliban checkpoints and into Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Stryk’s lobbying firm was paid in 2017 by the now-ousted Afghan government for “US Government affairs and commercial sector advice. Executive Branch and Legislative Branch Engagement; Defense consultation; strategic advice pertaining to extremism/terrorism; and promotion of democracy and foreign direct investment.”
“What I am witnessing every day is the very best and the very worst of America,” Stryk told the Foundation. “I have seen the humanity of private citizens who are contacting me and pledging their time, monies, and in some cases their lives to bring our citizens and these Afghan patriots out of harm’s way, while at the time personally experiencing the Biden administration’s abject failure to protect its citizens and those Afghans that fought and worked alongside of us.”
“It’s morally reprehensible,” he added. “It’s been the U.S. private sector who has stepped in to save the blood and treasure the Biden administration is leaving behind.”
Taylor, a former Navy SEAL, said that the Biden administration’s lack of action was “frustrating” and “a massive f*** up.”
The Biden administration is working with NATO forces to airlift people out of Taliban hotspots using helicopters to shuttle people to the airport, according to The Wall Street Journal. Still, teams of people carrying out private operations to evacuate people from Afghanistan are running into barriers, and Taliban checkpoints have stopped Americans as well as Afghans from entering the airport on the ground.
Biden’s refusal to extend his self-imposed deadline to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan has set off a frenzy among private groups attempted to extract as many people as possible from the country.
“It’s total chaos,” University of Colorado law professor Warren Binford, who has worked on evacuation efforts, told the Journal. “What’s happening is that we’re seeing a massive underground railroad operation where, instead of running for decades, it’s literally running for a matter of hours or days.”
As The Daily Wire reported:
Private flights, being organized to bypass the Biden administration’s pullout, are also facing “growing obstacles,” according to the The Wall Street Journal, and chartered planes, designed to rescue Americans and their allies trapped in Kabul are “flying out of Kabul with hundreds of empty seats.”
On Tuesday, the Taliban “issued an edict saying only foreigners will be able to access the airport for evacuation,” the Daily Mail reported. “A spokesperson for the group ordered locals to return home. Roads in the city have been blocked in a bid to stop Afghans from leaving.”