How the U.S. Can Still Save Allied Afghans Left Behind
America has worked with hostile countries in the past to get our friends out of harm’s way. It can do so again.
Congressional hearings began this week addressing U.S. Afghanistan policy, focusing on the chaotic evacuation and leaving behind of up to a quarter million Afghans (and their family members) who had worked for us. President Biden and administration officials are under heavy political fire for having “abandoned” these people.
In my article this week in Washington Monthly, “How the U.S. Can Still Save Allied Afghans Left Behind,” I posit that “it’s not true that the United States has abandoned them; it’s way too early to make such a determination. These friends and allies of America can still be resettled safely in the coming months and years.”
I make the following points:
We successfully helped hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and Cubans escape repressive regimes over the years.
There is no reason we can’t do the same with Afghans. We hammered out orderly resettlement programs with the Vietnamese and Cubans even though our relations were hostile and we did not recognize their governments diplomatically.
The Orderly Departure Program allowed Vietnamese to safely leave for resettlement abroad. Between 1980 and 1997, the ODP resettled 623,509 Vietnamese in other countries; 458,367 of these came to the United States. Many, if not most, of those we had “abandoned” in 1975 were among them. The U.S. eventually owned up to its moral obligations.
The U.S. and Cuba agreed in 1994 and 1995 to normalize migration. A key provision involved the U.S. accepting no fewer than 20,000 migrants annually through normal processing in Havana
Though the United States does not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, we can still seek to negotiate a migration accord with them. Doing so would confer neither approval nor diplomatic recognition.
We should therefore seek to negotiate an orderly resettlement program with the Taliban.
Evacuating at-risk allies is a mission the United States is well equipped to carry out. It is our moral obligation. We have done it before—and we can do it again.
I spent much of my Foreign Service career on Indochina and Afghanistan and to a lesser extent on Cuba. Refugee issues featured prominently in all three. I interviewed Vietnamese, Lao, Cambodians and Cubans regarding their claims of persecution to qualify for admission to the United States as refugees. I served in each of those Southeast Asian countries as well as Thailand. I met with Cuban military officers monthly at the boundary of the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo to coordinate on various matters, including refugees. And I traveled throughout the island to meet with Cubans who had been repatriated to ascertain whether they were being persecuted. As Senior Country Officer for Afghanistan, I worked on political issues in Washington, and did stints in Pakistan, where I dealt first-hand with displaced Afghans.
Hence, my particular diplomatic career did not involve much in the way of tuxedos, fancy soirees and fine dining. I got to distinguish the firing of an AK-47 vs an M-16, came to appreciate meals-ready-to-eat, knew how to deal with amebic dysentery, enjoyed riding in Blackhawk over rickety Russian choppers, and acquired skills in negotiating with guerrilla fighters. I can tell you that Cuban military officers can be quite congenial, that “The Line” at Guantanamo is not quite as depicted in “A Few Good Men” - though there are guard towers and mine fields on the Cuban side and, finally, that the U.S. government is staffed mostly with dedicated, exceedingly talented Americans as well as not a few self-absorbed nincompoops.
Making feelers to the Taliban on negotiating an agreement for safe, organized departure of Afghans should be done sooner rather than later. Of course, things would need to stabilize more inside the country. Also, raw emotions in Washington will need to abate as well. Security for consular and immigration officers would need to be ironclad. Meantime, the NSC should task agencies to solicit lists of names from federal agencies and NGO’s of Afghans who worked for them. These names would then be collated into a master list.
Would the Taliban be interested? It’s hard to say. In the case of Vietnam and Cuba, their rulers were glad to be rid of citizens they distrusted. But they also suffered a brain drain, something that must be on the minds of Kabul’s new rulers. But there is no reason not to try.
Taliban spokesmen have been signaling they want diplomatic relations with Washington and a staffed U.S. embassy. The Taliban coordinated closely with U.S. military and civilian officials in allowing American citizens and some 125,000 Afghans to leave the country. The U.S. negotiated (fruitlessly) for years with Taliban representatives in Qatar on a peace deal, and CIA director William Burns met with them in Kabul during the evacuation. We therefore already know more or less with whom we would be dealing and how to negotiate with them.
So, we can sit on our blisters for years while those we left behind suffer for their association with us, or, as in the cases of Vietnam and Cuba, we can follow a quintessentially pragmatic approach to fulfill our moral obligation to those who trusted and helped us over two decades.