What’s Happening in Afghanistan is a Tragedy

Christine Flowers on Aug 16, 2021

The same thing was happening in Afghanistan. And while our government has made some relatively feeble efforts to support these individuals, like creating a visa classification which would allow them to immigrate, very few have made it to the U.S. And of those who did get visas, the vast majority have left their families behind because of administrative red tape.

Biden has said that he wants to prioritize the removal of these brave men and women, and that’s all well and good for the cameras. But by drawing down the troops, he has helped fuel the onslaught of a terrorist organization that is stronger, more resilient and deadlier than ISIS, al-Qaida, or the many fundamentalist splinter groups around the world.

In the next months, I will be meeting with other asylum clients who are refugees from Taliban cruelty. I will do everything that I can to make sure that they, the lucky ones who made it out, don’t ever have to go back into the maelstrom. I may be successful, and I may not be.

But when I look into their eyes, I will see the others who are not there before me, the ones that stand behind them and who are still in that blighted place left open and vulnerable to the ravages of war and terror.

And I will be ashamed, knowing the reason for it.

Christine Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times, and can be reached at cflowers1961@gmail.com.