Is Afghanistan the Next Killing Field?

America’s abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan portends a humanitarian disaster of unknown proportions.

Sam Faddis, a former CIA field operations officer, summarized the appalling situation in Afghanistan in a bulletin put out some days ago. He concluded that because of the policies being put into place in that country, the watching world may be looking at another version of the killing fields:

“Folks, for those of you trying to help get people out of Afghanistan. Here is assessment based on information coming out of policy circles and from sources on the ground. Biden is hard over that we will have the last military personnel out of Kabul airport NLT 31 August. We may be gone before then. Drawdown could begin within next 72 hours.

“This is not conditions-based. Biden has already disregarded all sound military advice. We can expect him to continue to do so. Anybody not out by the time the last plane leaves gets cut away. “On the ground in Kabul all processing of Afghans has effectively stopped. Only AmCits being moved. People are finally realizing on the ground that this administration really will do things that are unthinkable.”

Faddis adds that consensus assessment of on-the-ground intelligence is that the Panjshir Valley, traditionally a stronghold of resistance for over one hundred years, will probably be overrun, though it may hold for a while. Any Afghan who hopes to get out will not find haven in the valley but will need to get across the border.

He concluded: “After we are gone, the plan is apparently to take down the internet, expel foreign journalists and begin the Afghan version of the killing fields.”

The term “killing fields” refers to the disastrous power vacuum created in Cambodia in the 1970s. That vacuum was filled by Pol Pot, the communist leader of the Khmer Rouge regime. He rapidly put in a plan that included the arrest and butchering of those he suspected of connections hostile to his regime. A quarter of the Cambodian people -- more than a million -- died, either by execution or lack of medical care and food.

A similar power vacuum has been created by the Biden administration’s deliberate policy of abandoning Americans left behind in Afghanistan. Those who have assisted America in any way are also without recourse.

Further, a vast supply of military equipment is being left behind, armaments that will assuredly be used by the Taliban and their allies against Americans and their sympathizers.

Historians recall the equipment left behind at Dunkirk was repurposed by the Wehrmacht and used against Russian in Operation Barbarossa. That effort saw the use of Einsatzgruppen to "cleanse" newly occupied territory of "undesirable" elements.

It is possible history will repeat itself.

Already, reports of the Taliban Einsatzgruppen searching door to door for Christians with phones having Bible apps have surfaced. Terrorists attacked Kabul airport where refugees from the Taliban wrath to come have been holed up. Thirteen U.S. Marines and nearly 200 Afghanis have been killed. Many more have been wounded.

Worryingly, as Politico reports, the Biden administration has given the Taliban a list of people it purportedly wishes for them to escort out of the country. The article reports the response of an anonymous defense official: “Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list…It’s just appalling and shocking and makes you feel unclean.”

How long will it be before the globe is treated to videos of Americans being beheaded by the Taliban because the newly emboldened and empowered terrorists’ demands are not met? Do we recall the beheading of orange-jump-suited Coptic Christians by a like-minded group? Do we remember the pilot who was caged and burned alive by ISIS?

Meanwhile, America has as its head a commander in chief who to all appearances has abandoned his own people and former allies, Afghani and European alike, to an enemy determined to annihilate them—yes, to commit genocide.

It’s important that Americans be grateful for the behind-the-scenes efforts of operation Pineapple Express, whose leaders’ efforts at creating rescue missions have been as heroic as those who led the Underground Railroad or the French Resistance. But the laudable actions of the Pineapple Express also make it stunningly apparent that the man who is supposed to put United States’ government and military resources to work in rescue efforts is missing in action.

Biden has been pretty much deaf to the repeated warnings and pleas of Americans in Afghanistan and stubbornly resistant to putting into effect the withdrawal plan of his predecessor in the White House, a plan that included countermeasures if Americans were harmed. To all appearances, he has been more interested in cooperating with the Taliban and its backers.

In sum, this administration’s policies may be setting up the complete collapse of Afghanistan, thus offering millions up on a silver platter to whomever has the power to annihilate them. Some forty million people, most of whom are Muslim, may be delivered not just to the Taliban, but perhaps eventually to a country whose leaders are experts in the genocide of religious groups--a country that has had years of practice in eliminating Muslim Uighurs, Chinese Christians and other indigestible anomalies not conforming to Chairman Xi’s program of total Sinicization. If, as some suspect, China increases its presence in the country, Afghanistan’s Uighur Muslims are expressing the fear they will be treated as their compatriots in China are treated.

Meanwhile, Biden is articulating the equivalent of Cain’s response to the death of his brother Abel: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

The answer?

Yes. Yes, you are the protector and keeper of Americans here and in Afghanistan. At least you are supposed to be. As the commander in chief, you swore to protect your own people and to stand with America’s allies.

There is a name for leaders who refuse to protect or who hand over their own countrymen and women to an enemy. That word is traitor.

Because traitors endangered entire peoples, leaving them to be slaughtered or enslaved, the poet Alighieri Dante reserved for them the ninth bolgia—the very lowest circle of Hell.

While we must withhold judgment concerning the eternal fate of the current administration, it is time to hold them to account for their present treasonable actions.

Be it by demanding resignations, impeachment proceedings, or court-martials, none should escape the punishment genocidal war crimes deserve.

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Fay Voshell holds a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, which awarded her the prize for excellence in systematic theology. Her thoughts have appeared in many online magazines. She has been a regular contributor to American Thinker for a decade. She may be reached at fvoshell@yahoo.com

Image: Paul Mannix, via Flickr // CC BY 2.0

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Wednesday, September 1, 2021