Local Opinion: Slaughter continues in Afghanistan

Last August the world watched the horrific evacuation of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. It was a humanitarian disaster that continues today.

A month ago, the world watched as Vladimir Putin encircled Ukraine, virtually unopposed. The humanitarian disaster that resulted also continues today. The invasion of Ukraine has rendered Afghanistan yesterday’s news.

Ukraine and the human pain being inflicted by Putin deserves all of the media coverage it is getting. That we sat and watched the invasion unfold in slow motion and shied away from a confrontation in defense of a free people is appalling. And yet, every day people are being slaughtered by the Taliban in Afghanistan. That is not yesterday’s news to any of the families involved.

More than 75,000 Afghani refugees were brought to the United States. Most have been sent to local jurisdictions, leaving resettlement agencies and cities to sort out housing, food, transportation, education and other provisions. In Tucson we have received roughly 700 refugees. I have spoken with dozens of them. Each tells the same story; family and loved ones are stuck in Afghanistan. And they are being murdered daily.

Under the current Taliban regime, girls are not allowed to attend school beyond grade 6. Females are not allowed outdoors unless they are in full cover burka. And females are not allowed outdoors without a male companion. Widows are therefore relegated to starvation. And all women and girls are relegated back to second-class status under Taliban rule. That is what we left behind.

Under the current Taliban regime, anybody who was remotely associated with the United States is subjected to public beatings, family members are shot in front of loved ones, homes are ransacked, people are abducted without trace, and women are taken into forced marriages with Talibs. That is what we left behind.

Journalists are Taliban targets. Anybody associated with the former judicial system is a target of the Taliban. Public safety and military are targets. With the shattered economy, people are starving and homes without fuel for heat result in people freezing to death. This is every day in Afghanistan — in the wake of our departure.

Our refugee resettlement process was dismantled under the previous administration. We reduced the cap on the number of refugees we would receive to 18,000, the lowest in the history of our program. The new cap is six times that number. There is insufficient staff to process the refugees who were fortunate enough to end up on U.S. soil. Refugees who are here are largely stuck in hotels, unemployed and struggling with language, education and cultural issues. They are also struggling with the trauma they experienced during the botched evacuation, and with the trauma they continue to experience when they receive daily updates from loved ones who were left behind.

If the process of resettlement is broken domestically, extracting people from the slaughterhouse that Afghanistan has become has proven next to impossible. People cannot safely leave their homes, and yet our process requires them to cross international borders to apply for certain forms of visas to come to the United States. Visa requirements have been waived for many countries — not for Afghanistan. Since the last two weeks of August, the U.S. exit from Afghanistan has resulted in the death of thousands of people whose only crime was supporting our efforts prior to our leaving.

The people in Ukraine deserved a more robust response to the obvious threat Putin posed prior to the invasion. Now our allies in Eastern Europe wonder if they’re next in line. The people who allied themselves with us in Afghanistan don’t have to wonder. They have become next in line for Taliban atrocities. That’s every day’s news now. It may be out of the news cycle, but it remains a burden our federal structure owns and must address.