State Department Spokesperson Ned Price briefed reporters on the Biden administration's diplomatic efforts to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies from Kabul, and he had an interesting way of characterizing the Taliban checkpoints and violence that has obstructed those seeking to evacuate the country.
"We're aware of congestion around the airport," Price explained before again saying there was nothing the U.S. government could do to help the citizens behind Taliban lines safely reach Hamid Karzai International Airport.
The State Department's message to Americans stranded behind Taliban lines in Kabul: "We're aware of congestion around the airport."
— Spencer Brown (@itsSpencerBrown) August 19, 2021
Yes, "congestion" is the word they went with. pic.twitter.com/2wt3pdzhtk
Congestion — a strange way to describe fanatical terrorists who have been chanting "death to America," beating women and children, and potentially killing as many as a dozen individuals in recent days — doesn't begin to describe the situation Americans and others trying to flee Afghanistan currently face.
DEVELOPING: Reports emerge of Taliban fighters beating women and children at a checkpoint in Kabul.
— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 18, 2021
Taliban officials deny their fighters have been involved in this sort of violence, blaming the injuries on men impersonating the Taliban. https://t.co/cbc0tgbI8V
two scenes out of Kabul tonight show soldiers using riot munitions at an airport gate. evacuees, including U.S. citizens and Afghans with visas, are enduring chaos with the Taliban beating people behind them and troops firing tear gas ahead of them. pic.twitter.com/luPUgOHxKy
— Alejandro Alvarez (@aletweetsnews) August 18, 2021
Price cited the 6,000 people at Kabul's airport who have been processed and are awaiting planes right now as evidence that individuals are able to make it through Taliban lines to relative safety at the airport. Echoing explanations given by the Pentagon, Price insisted that "we don't have the resources to go beyond the airport compound."
When asked whether the United States would work with other friendly countries to find, secure, and transport U.S. citizens to the airport in Kabul, Price didn't have an answer. Instead, he bristled at the question and said "no country has more capability inside of Afghanistan than the United States."
Yet military forces from other countries — including France — are going out into Kabul to rescue their citizens and usher them safely to the airport to be evacuated, as Guy and others pointed out today.
US officials say the most powerful nation on earth lacks capacity to extend operations into Kabul to collect stranded citizens & people we have a duty to protect. But the UK & French governments are reportedly doing exactly that. But we can’t? We can. We are choosing not to. Why?
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) August 19, 2021
Again, the contradiction points to an unwillingness on the part of President Biden to order our most-capable special forces to secure Americans and get them out of Afghanistan.
British and French Special Forces units are making gun runs through Kabul to rescue and evacuate their trapped citizens while our senior Pentagon officials say we lack the capability to do so. We don’t lack the capability — we lack the political will.
— Alex Plitsas ???? (@alexplitsas) August 19, 2021
Price explained that the administration is "going to do as much as we can for as long as we can" to achieve President Biden's "first priority," which is "the safe repatriation of the American people." Yet all Price could point to as action was to say that the State Department "sent a message to all American citizens who had expressed an interest in repatriation."
A message saying come to the airport a day after the U.S. embassy in Kabul warned citizens the government could not guarantee safe passage doesn't sound like an administration doing "as much as we can" to rescue stranded citizens of an unknown number. Price said, again, that the State Department is "not in a position to give a number" on how many Americans are stranded awaiting repatriation. "I just can't put a firm number on it."
Price said the State Department hopes to have 20 flights depart Kabul tonight, but departing flights mean little to the Americans who are stuck without a safe path to the airport as the Biden administration leaves them stranded.