So I follow Matt Zeller on Twitter, and he tweeted out this graphic a short time ago. Zeller is a war vet who ran for Congress in NY-29 as a Democrat, and he appears on MSNBC a fair amount (judging from his feed). He tweets stuff like this:
Where did that 250K number come from? The numbers I’ve seen on the SIV program are ~100K. I’m all for evacuating everyone who helped us, but from what I’ve seen, people like Zeller have set Biden up for failure because they never wanted us to leave. Sample quote: “I really worry that it might now be open season on the United States if we can let the Taliban push us around.” Well, sorry, but the Taliban won and we lost. Winners push losers around.
Zeller has a legitimate interest in getting interpreters out of Afghanistan — he’s been advocating for them for years. But he’s the kind of advocate who steps on his own advocacy by bundling in a bunch of overheated rhetoric on his feed and having what appears to be an unrealistic goal for the number of allies that we need to evacuate. Again, not to belabor the point, we lost, our Potemkin regime folded, and now we have to make the best of it.
I fully recognize I’m not the expert on Afghanistan around here, so if someone has a reliable source for 250K, please post it in the comments.
raven
The Boss!
raven
Just wait till we fuck around after the 31st and some GI’s get killed.
MisterForkbeard
When I saw this graphic, the “what? Where does that 100k number come from?” is the first thing that came to mind.
Likewise, I was under the impression that we were going with 100k from potential SIV applicants. So where does the extra 150k come from – soldiers and their families? Educators? Etc.
raven
@MisterForkbeard: It won’t matter how many we get out, the screaming and bitching is comin.
Wapiti
@raven: I wouldn’t be surprised if this was tied off on the 30th, just so some madman/idiot doesn’t attack us on the 31st.
JPL
Last night Adam mentioned that they are changing the parameter. I even heard an Afghan say that if an American knocked on your door and you opened it, you should be allowed to leave. Geez.. Over twently years I bet a lot of doors were knocked on.
Baud
The numbers keep going up, up, up….
I blame inflation.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@raven: Zeller is clearly tired of coming out on the losing end.
Baud
@raven:
Yep. If nothing else, Biden deserves our support for taking the hit.
Urza
Can’t evacuate the whole damn country. If we as a nation actually cared to do that we’ve had 20 years and lots of death and other bad situations that would have made it a good idea for all 20 of those years. Yesterday the number I saw was 80k with Americans and Afghans. Tacking on another 170k worth of what? If its not clearly defined by now, more than a year and a half after TFG surrendered to the Taliban, then there’s not a whole lot we can do about it with 6 days to go.
Let the whiners hire Erik Prince to airlift the rest out on their own dime.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Why doesn’t Zeller bat for the fences and make it a nice round million. The man lacks vision, worst goal post moving ever!
Jerry
Digital Dunkirk? What the fuck does that even mean? /r*
*rhetorical question
Barney
For clarification, which figures, if any, are US-only, and which international? For instance, is 100k the number intended to be granted American visas under the American SIV program, is the 87,900 so far those destined only for the US, or people of any nationality, including Afghans destined for other countries – and could the 250k be ‘for all countries’, including nationals returning to their countries?|
TriassicSands
I just heard phony serious person Senator Ben Sasse interviewed on NPR. He set unattainable perfection as the minimum standard for evacuation success. Since it was on NPR, there was zero push back from Steve Inskeep.
sab
Just wait until they start bitching about 100,000 plus immigrants from that Moslem country that Biden let in.
Chetan Murthy
@Jerry: even though rhetorical, just wanna check: you know that there are yutzes claiming they’re doing all the heavy lifting to get these refugees out, b/c they’re banging on doors at the State Dept, etc, to get their visas in order, yes? As if the soldiers and others on the ground in Kabul, Qatar, Germany, and elsewhere, and the pilots, are …. extras on the movie set ? That’s where this “digital dunkirk” thing comes from — the 101st Keyboard Kommandos, Human Rights Division.
Lyrebird
@raven: You speak from experience, me only from watching and reading. Seems like there will be someone tragically caught on the wrong side no matter whether we wrap up today, tomorrow, or whenever.
I don’t want to step on other’s very real concerns. I do want the media to bleeping recognize that the Biden admin and our military have evacuated TEN TIMES the number of allies etc we were able to evacuate from VN. 10 times. and growing. flippin amazing.
Urza
@Lyrebird: 10x with no American deaths (as of yet).
The Moar You Know
The only way that Biden’s not going to be used as a pinata for “failure to get everyone out” is if we literally relocated all five million residents of Afghanistan. Which ain’t happening
ETA: I read most of the European news and they’re really quite upset about our leaving. “What will happen to the poor Afghans?” No law says they can’t waltz in there and take our place. I can’t help but notice nobody’s volunteering for that.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Jerry: It means, “These people saw the movie, so are now the experts and like the word digital”
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
Domestic actors are the only people who are going to use this opportunity to beat up in the US.
sab
@TriassicSands: NPR is really outdoing itself this week. Glad I forgot to pledge.
When Sarah Chayse left NPR to set up NGOs in Afghanistan she was replaced with Steve Inskeep, the Andrew Jackson fan.
Scuffletuffle
Sooo, how many Americans and allies did TFG get out after signing his deal with the Taliban?
Taken4Granite
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: Do we have any idea who the guy is that he met last night and agreed to do a favor for?
Ruckus
I recognize that we’ve been there for 20 yrs and were not going to not need help of the locals. But what is the most number of people we’ve had in the country, 50K? and that’s created a local force of 250K needed to do what?
Now I also look at Vietnam as an example. How many people did we take with us? How many people were punished (from minor to their lives) for helping the US? The Taliban won, we are leaving, and taking the people that helped us with them. That sounds like a pretty good win for them. Do we or they think that anyone left is going to be killed on the spot, considering how fast the people that were for sure helping them, the defeated “government” have already left? I’m sure that there are some who haven’t/aren’t leaving who would be better off, but over twice as many as we’ve thought would be the number? I’ve never been there, I have no more knowledge than any of the rest of us, but the numbers being bandied about 2 1/2 times more that we’ve been told seems like pure made up bullshit, pulled right out of someone’s ass.
burnspbesq
It makes sense for the Taliban to leave us to do this mission without interference and evac as many folks as we want. Pretty much everyone we’re likely to evac is a potential problem if they stay around; the Taliban would feel it necessary to monitor, imprison, or kill them. So it’s win-win, and the Taliban are smart enough to realize that.
Tractarian
80,000 people evacuated in 10 days. Zero American casualties. Overall, it’s an impressive operation.
And, it’s good news for those in the media who squirm at the thought of even slightly ratcheting down the American military footprint anywhere in the world. After all, this could be the prototype for an alternative type of foreign adventure!
Why invade to effectuate regime change (thereby necessitating an inevitably embarrassing withdrawal), when you can just airlift entire cities out of harm’s way?
raven
@Lyrebird: I’d love it if it doesn’t happen.
Ruckus
@Scuffletuffle:
I believe that is an easy number to do the math and arrive at. ZERO. Because any higher number than zero would mean that he had some thought about anyone else but himself.
And if he hasn’t done that in 70+ yrs, he ain’t doing it now.
And he didn’t.
EdTheRed
I really love the Levon Helm tweak of that verse:
Now I been lookin’ for a job but it’s hard to find
There’s winners and there’s losers, and I’m south of the line
Well I’m tired of comin’ out on the losin’ end
But I talked to a man last night, gonna do a little favor for him
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
So you are saying that the Taliban are smarter than a lot of our press corp? Sounds about right.
And BTW I agree with you….
Robert Sneddon
@The Moar You Know:
ETA:
Uh, they’re already there…
France: 70 soldiers killed in combat.
Germany : 59 soldiers killed in combat.
Norway: 10 solders killed in combat.
Portugal: 2 soldiers killed in combat.
UK: 404 soldiers killed in combat.
The UK has sent about 600 troops to help with the evacuation of the remaining British forces and diplomatic people, NGO staff etc.
James E Powell
@burnspbesq:
I’m kind of curious whether the Taliban have grown enough to realize that as long as they aren’t messing with Americans or sheltering terrorists who do, the USA is content to let them have their little Islamo-Fascist country.
Gravenstone
@The Moar You Know: Sounds like the humanitarian version of “let’s you and him fight”.
Another Scott
https://www.wartimeallies.co/ seems to be their website.
At the moment they say “83,731 SIVs and their families remain in Afghanistan, to face certain death by the Taliban.”
Nothing hysterical there. (groucho-roll-eyes.gif)
They apparently took 87,857 (their August 14 number) and multiplied it by ~ 3 to get 250,000.
Maybe one of them is misremembering the old software bidding saw – “Take the estimated time, double it, then move to the next time unit.” (So e.g. 2 weeks becomes 4 months.)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Cheers,
Scott.
Ken
Ah. So there might be a useful role for people with spare time. Contact the State Dept. and ask that such calls be forwarded to your line, and spend hours chatting with each caller and “taking down” the important information they have. That way the people at State who can actually process visas and otherwise be useful won’t be wasting their time.
Ken
They may have learned from the example set by several countries in southwest Asia. Though I hope they didn’t notice that they can even get away with a little sheltering of terrorists if they have oil.
smintheus
In June we were told that an estimated 70,000 Afghans (including family members) were trying to obtain visas in fear of what the US/NATO withdrawal could bring.
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-guam-government-and-politics-fc45df629a6e3b7b0c3d24cc8a4f4fca
kindness
Even the ‘liberals’ (no they aren’t) in the media and politics find it easy to beat up on Democrats because (looks at notes)….then conservatives will join hands with us and sing Kumbaya and maybe vote Democratic next time (they won’t do that either but….).
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus:
I think we evacuated something on the order of 100k. 300k ended up in re-education camps and another million took to the sea.
catclub
@Baud:
Mayonaise inflation is a thing, now. Although the numbers are kind of slippery.
catclub
But how many were airlifted out of Saigon after it fell? That was the point Ed O’Donnell was making. NOBODY has ever done that well.
steve g
@burnspbesq: There is also the matter of the financial resources of Afghanistan. Currently the US controls them, and the Taliban would very much like to have them. We have significant leverage.
oldster
This Zeller asswipe is going to need a fleet of C5’s just to help him move the goalposts that far.
Mormo
@oldster:
This is way too much. Mr. Zeller is and has been a passionate & good-faith advocate/activist for helping people the best ways he can figure out. This is greatly different from someone whose primary interest is in bad-faith American politics (narratives, goalposts, etc.). We have too many of those jerks in this world and not enough Matt Zellers. His activism may be politically inconvenient but he’s no Republican or Republican-enabler.
Philbert
Perhaps Trump with his money and his private jets could help move a few. Nah.
Doug R
@Robert Sneddon:
https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/this-has-all-been-for-nothing-veterans-and-family-of-those-killed-in-afghanistan-respond-to-taliban-takeover-1.5550713