The outlook for Afghanistan looks grim

It is strange that the U.S.A. did not let their allies know long beforehand that they were going to withdraw their troops, so that they secretly could already have started to evacuate people who had helped them in the previous years.

Now we face a drama, the thousands of people left behind in the hands of the Taliban. Several journalists in Afghanistan could hear as well witness Taliban fighters going door-to-door and hunting down a list of interpreters and others who have supported and helped countries like the U.S.A., the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Great-Britain and Canada during the long, drawn-out Afghan war.

Coming closer to the end-day we can hear several voices, who talked incognito in front of the cameras about the danger which has come over their families. Not only their life but also the life of their family is now in jeopardy as well. The people that were working with the ex-pats who could not escape are feeling great fear.

With Canadian military personnel in Kabul scrambling to get Canadians and Afghan refugees out before American troops leave on Aug. 31, government officials vying for re-election made promises on Wednesday that they will continue to support Afghans who want to leave.

For his part, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau said the government will do

“absolutely everything we can”

to rescue as many people as possible before that deadline.

“But once this evacuation phase is done, we’re not stopping our work,”

he told reporters in Surrey, B.C.

“We’re going to continue with the international community to put pressure on the Taliban to ensure that people can leave the country. We will continue to work with neighbours and partners in the region to get more and more people to safety.”

At an official government update on Wednesday the 25th, Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau told reporters Canada will be “maintaining communication” with those who want to leave the country.

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Articles to read:

1. The Taliban are promising they’ve changed. Be ‘highly skeptical,’ experts say
2. Countries scramble to evacuate Afghans as Aug. 31 deadline approaches
3. Trudeau says Kabul evacuations to end ‘in coming days’ as Biden defies pleas to extend
4. ‘Probably impossible’ to ensure safety of Afghans once Canada, U.S. leave Kabul: experts
5. Canada offers ‘path to protection’ for Afghan interpreters amid ‘critical’ situation
6. Afghan man pleads for refugee status after helping Canada during war
7. ‘We are desperate’: The frightening new reality faced by the women of Afghanistan

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Preceding

1. Taliban conquest of Afghanistan a clock to turn back years
2. Worse Than Saigon
3. Afghanistan: international community statement
4. Afghan Notes: Jason Florio, August 2000
5. Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan back with a bang
6. Afghan filmmaker Sahraa Karimi
7. Afghanistan — What It Tells You
8. A reminder to what could happen to Christians in Afghanistan
9. Moving heaven and earth to get every last American in Afghanistan back to American soil
10. Expecting the E.U. to stand in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan
11. The Fall of Kabul: The Return of the Taliban
12. Afghan mums throw their babies over barbed wire fences and beg British soldiers to take them to safety
13. Northern Virginia welcomes Afghan refugees
14. Early warnings of the coming attack
15. Afghanistan – A full-scale humanitarian crisis
16. Not an Afghan thing, it’s a humanitarian crisis

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Additional reading

1. How the Taliban Began – Afghanistan 1994-97 – John Simpson’s Journal (and how different are they now, really?)
2. Afghanistan – ‘An Anatomy of Reporting’; Twenty-Five Years On: 1996-2021.
3. A vision of a very different future for Kandahar culture
4. ISIS on the rise again as US troops are sent home
5. Facing an other ISIS branch
6. A human drama set in Afghanistan
7. Spanish green berets assisting at Kabul airport in the repatriation of civilian personnel from Afghanistan