It is almost as if there were a hidden agenda. Western governments assert concern for the Afghans that worked for them or the UN-supported Kabul government, while making sure that very few arrive on their shores to arouse anti-immigrant feeling. Chris Bryant MP on yesterday's Sunday Supplement expressed his anger that the transport of Afghans in danger had not started nine months ago when President Trump concluded a withdrawal deal with the Taliban behind the back not only of the official government but also his NATO allies and the EU nations which were contributing to nation-building in the country. I am just as angry and would put the start date for rescue of translators and contractors even further back, to the date when the combat mission ended and the first threats to our Afghan friends arose. What Priti Patel and her civil servants secure in the Home Office failed to take on board was that the security services based in the capital had - and still have - little control over what happens in the provinces. So local activists were inspired by the pullout of troops starting in 2011 to seek retribution as they saw it.
At the weekend we learned that the UK embassy staff left the building without bothering to shred the contact details of Afghans in authentic danger. And on the radio today the BBC's Lyse Doucet cast doubt on the US official story that a drone strike had taken out a suicide bomber about to travel to Kabul airport. From interviews of neighbours, she gathered that what the armed drone had destroyed was a car bearing ten members of a family with documents which would entitle them to settle in a Western country. Ms Doucet is not naïve nor a supporter of Islamic extremists, so one should give more credit to her report than to a US Defense Department media release.
No comments:
Post a Comment