Kaine statement on Afghanistan
Today, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), released the following statement on Afghanistan:
“What we are seeing unfold in Afghanistan is devastating. At this time, we must do everything we can to prioritize the evacuation of U.S. personnel, Afghan partners, journalists, women leaders, activists, human rights defenders, and others. I am in close communication with the Administration and our allies on the ground to ensure their safety and quick removal.”
“Keeping our nation safe is critically important. The U.S. went into Afghanistan in 2001 to defeat those who attacked the U.S. on 9/11, and 10 years later, we found and killed Osama bin Laden. We stayed an additional decade to help train Afghan security forces and create conditions for a more stable future in that country. While I believe it is now time to bring our troops home, we must continue working to maintain humanitarian and diplomatic support for Afghanistan to ensure the country does not again become a safe haven for al-Qaeda.”
As a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, Senator Kaine has often emphasized the importance of protecting the Afghans who put themselves at risk to advance U.S. objectives. Senator Kaine has been a longtime supporter of the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, which enables Afghans who risked their lives supporting the U.S. to escape dangers they face due to their service to our nation. Kaine is a cosponsor of the bipartisan Afghan Allies Protection Act, much of which was included in the $2.1 billion security spending package passed on July 29, 2021.
August 19, 2021 @ 3:38 pm
Dear Senator Kaine,
I am writing this email with the hope that it may make it to your daily reading of constituents’ correspondence.
I may have been one of the very few Afghanistani born Americans who stood in support of the US Armed forces going into Afghanistan. I was hoping that our presence in that God-forsaken country will shine some light and drag it to the 21st century. I supported the Military mission and proudly supported the “Nation Building” efforts. But, unfortunately for us and the people of Afghanistan, from the start, we took a wrong turn. We trusted those who had a separate agenda outside the official US policies and began misdirecting them, with a very nationalistic and sectarian mindset, into the wrong channels. Our leaders trusted Zalmai Khalilzad and he created a new Afghanistan in his own image, duplicitous, conniving, and of course self-serving. He and his friends Hamed Karzi, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, Jalali, and the rest brought us to where we are now. We have left and are leaving Afghanistan, not with our heads held high and we owe this to Zalmai.
Throughout these twenty years, with all the corruption, both within the government of Afghanistan and the “Military-Industrial Complex” in the US, it has been the people of Afghanistan who have suffered, and therein, most of all, the Hazara ethnic group. They have been the target of suicide bombings, terrorist attacks, kidnapping, target killings, and ethnic cleansing. They were systematically removed from the government, military, and security forces. Rebuilding and reconstructions both intentionally and unintentionally bypassed them. While the Hazara built, to the most part, without international support and used them, others used their IEDs to destroy roads, schools, and hospitals built for them. The list is long and I am not here to blame anyone else at this time.
My fear, as all ethnic Hazaras, is the eventual reversion of the Taliban to their original and ethnoreligious fundamental ideology. The ideology of pure Pashtoon Wahabi/Daiwbandi fundamentalism, where all others are considered infidels and subject to conversion or death. Hazaras may be forcefully converted to any religion, but their ethnicity is a different matter. Our people are in danger of being massacred. As I write this, I hear that our intellectuals, artists, filmmakers, writers, educators, human rights activists, formal officials, formal military officers, and personnel are all targets. We need protection, especially for the aforementioned groups, either within Afghanistan or outside. I am pleading to you and your colleagues in the halls of the US Congress to help us. We are desperate, we have no place to go and no one to ask for help. We may the single most people who are blamed and/or persecuted due to no fault of our own, but the sharing faith with the rogue Iranian regime. Our people suffer indignity and discrimination under the ethnoreligious fascist regime in Iran and get massacred in Afghanistan. Please help us.