Afghan interpreters left behind to translate cries for help
By Bad Lawyer
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration defended leaving roughly 26,000 Afghan interpreters behind as the Afghan government falls to the Taliban as a strategic decision on Monday, with officials claiming the failure to evacuate translators was not an oversight but rather a deliberate move due to an ongoing need for translation of cries for help in Pashto to English.
“You don’t think we knew how quickly the Afghan government would crumble as soon as we left?” said White House spokesman Jen Psaki. “But if we don’t have bodies on the ground that can translate things like ‘beheading’, ‘sex slave’, ‘death to America’, and ‘oh God please help us’, how else would we keep our eye on these Taliban guys?”
Many critics questioned whether the decision was actually strategic, or simply an attempt to whitewash the administration’s failure to secure visas and safe passage for the thousands of interpreters that risked their lives to assist American forces before leaving the country in the dead of night.
“I know they keep telling me my visa is on the way and just to continue to send increasingly desperate messages with egregious examples of Taliban horrors to fill the American news cycle,” said Abdul Ghafoori, an interpreter who served with U.S. Special forces in Afghanistan for the last 14 years and has nine letters of recommendation from American military officers who dated the paperwork wrong.
“But I am really starting to get suspicious. Their last response was an automatic out-of-office reply.”
When questioned further on the plan to evacuate the remaining interpreters once the cries for help subsided, the administration was quick to allay concerns.
“America will not fail these brave men and women,” said President Joe Biden. “I promise to bring every last interpreter who is no longer hopeful for their country to the United States.”
White House officials denied a recent shipment of body bags to the Kabul airport was in any way related.