“I just spoke by phone with an Afghan who worked on a US base in Afghanistan for 17 YEARS. Speaks perfect English. Has all his papers. But he was left behind. He’s in hiding. He’s lost everything. He loves Americans.” Journalist Emily Miller posted this heartbreaking Twitter text just before America’s commander-in-chief pulled out all U.S. forces from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Sadly, it is one of many desperate cries for help, despite the clear implication from the Biden administration that most of those still in Afghanistan chose to remain.
The airwaves of Fox News are littered with personal pleas from students who attended American University and are now in hiding – waiting for that inevitable knock on the door from the Taliban. Trapped and frantic, these young people despair of life itself. They are the human refuse of the Biden administration’s hasty, ill-conceived, and poorly executed exit from Afghanistan. Still, there is hope on the horizon as private entities ramp up efforts to rescue these forgotten souls or at least die trying.
Honor, Courage, Commitment
The U.S. Armed Forces have always conducted themselves according to the creed “leave no man behind.” Widely interpreted as applying to the recovery of wounded or killed military members, this maxim carries another meaning in the hearts of those who have honorably served this nation. Elite soldiers are now expanding their motto to rescue not just brothers in arms, but the civilians who served and supported the U.S. during its occupation of Afghanistan. Under the looming threat of Taliban violence, an all-volunteer Special Ops organization known as the Pineapple Express has already ferried some 500 Afghan assets to safety.
Operation Recovery is diligently working to extract those desperate to come to America. Its website reads, “The members of Task Force Pineapple will continue to work in the shadows, so we may be the light to those still in the darkness. We will never stop, ‘Honoring the Promise!’ De Oppresso Liber!”
(Photo by Liz Lynch/Getty Images)
These Afghanistan veterans are conducting multiple covert operations to free those likely to face the Taliban chopping block. Army Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann, a retired Green Beret commander who led one successful extraction, told ABC News the rescue operation was akin to a “Jason Bourne” thriller. Mann explained the situation to Business Insider: “Dozens of high-risk individuals, families with small children, orphans, and pregnant women, were secretly moved through the streets of Kabul throughout the night and up to just seconds before ISIS detonated a bomb into the huddled mass of Afghans seeking safety and freedom.”
Former Special Operations forces and retired CIA personnel coordinated the daring escape by using an encrypted chatroom with GPS pin drops to ferret people from one staging point to another. Undaunted by the risk and magnitude of such a clandestine maneuver, amid rugged terrain and without intelligence assets at their fingertips, these men are willing to risk life and limb to clean up the mess in Afghanistan left by Biden & Company. According to former Green Beret Zac Lois, the operation is constructed on principles used by the historic Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad network. However, time is the enemy now since U.S. officials handed over the identities of Americans and allies to the Taliban.
Another private covert rescue enterprise at work in Afghanistan is The Nazarene Fund, led by conservatives Glenn Beck and Tim Ballard. Its focus is to help persecuted Christians get out of the war-torn nation now under the control of the Taliban. British politician Lord David Alton of Liverpool tweeted out the following about Beck’s operation:
“As the world abandons Afghan minorities to the Taliban, Glenn Beck — emulating Oscar Schindler — did something about it, putting into practice the injunction to ‘Rescue those who are being taken away to death … and those stumbling to the slaughter.’ Heroic.”
As late as Tuesday morning, Aug. 31, after official U.S. forces were airlifted off the tarmac at Hamid Karzai Airport in Kabul, journalist Miller posted in her newsletter, “This war is not over just because Pres. Biden pulled the troops today.” And indeed, as predicted by Liberty Nation, it is not. Courageous Americans, who exemplify the indomitable spirit and honor of the United States, are on the ground in Afghanistan doing what the president would not or could not do: leave no man behind.
Semper Fidelis.
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Read more from Leesa K. Donner.
