'BUSINESSLIKE AND PROFESSIONAL'
According to the White House, this is... . . . who do this
The Gold Star mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan said it is “horribly blasphemous” that the White House referred to the Taliban as “businesslike and professional” and said the Biden administration must be “living in the ‘Twilight Zone’ ” to have referred to the brutal regime that way in a release on Thursday.
In the statement, the White House announced that a jet carrying evacuees had arrived in Qatar from Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) outside Kabul and thanked the extremist group for its cooperation in allowing the flight to depart.
“They have shown flexibility, and they have been businesslike and professional in our dealings with them in this effort. This is a positive first step,” the statement from National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne said about the Taliban.
“Wow, the first word that comes to mind . . . was blasphemous, horribly blasphemous,” Jill Stephenson told The Post. “To call the Taliban that — it’s absolutely disgusting. And it’s coming from the White House.”
Stephenson’s son, Ben Kopp, an Army Ranger, was wounded in a firefight with Taliban forces on July 10, 2009, and died eight days later at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside DC.
“Especially given the circumstance of why it’s even happening in the first place, why are we even negotiating with terrorists?” she said. “That makes me shake my head.”
Asked what she would say to the White House, Stephenson, of Bentonville, Ark., was careful about choosing her words, adding that whatever she said “would not be very nice.”
“As a Gold Star mother and as a voice that represents so many families who have paid the ultimate price for our freedom, and especially those of us whose loved ones took their last breath in Afghanistan, it’s embarrassing. It’s completely embarrassing. It’s disappointing. It’s disgusting. It’s unbelievable.
“It’s like living in the ‘Twilight Zone,’ ” Stephenson said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki was grilled at the White House briefing about why the Taliban was called “businesslike and professional” and tried to dodge on the phrasing.
“I would note that in that statement what we were announcing was the fact that a Qatari Airlines flight successfully landed in Qatar with American citizens, legal permanent residents, and Afghans on board who joined us in our fight, over the last several years,” Psaki said.
“We wanted to note that the Taliban was cooperative in facilitating the departure of these American citizens and legal permanent residents from HKIA. We promised we would get American citizens out, we promised we would get legal permanent residents out, we promised we would press the Taliban to get them out, and that’s exactly what we did,” she continued.
But Fox News’ Peter Doocy pressed and questioned how the White House could call the Taliban “professional” when the jihadist group’s acting interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is on the FBI’s most wanted list.
“The Taliban is businesslike and professional?” he wondered. “Their interior minister has been on an FBI wanted poster, he’s got a $10 million bounty on his head. What’s the business?”
Psaki again evaded the line of questioning.
“We are here to celebrate the return of American citizens who wanted to leave Afghanistan, of legal permanent residents, of Afghans who fought by our side to Qatar . . . and in order to get those people out, we had to work with some members of the Taliban, to press them and to work in a businesslike manner, to get them out, that is what we were standing in the statement,” she said.
Doocy asked what “positive first step” meant.
“Towards getting additional people out who want to leave Afghanistan,” Paski responded.
The chartered flight took about 200 Americans and other Westerners out of Kabul, and marks the first large departure of US citizens out of the country since American troops pulled out of the Taliban-controlled nation at the end of August.
Two Afghan journalists were left severely battered and bruised after being beaten by Taliban fighters for covering a women’s protest in Kabul.
Photographer Nematullah Naqdi and reporter Taqi Daryabi revealed their horrific injuries, including severe welts and bruising to their backs and legs, Thursday.
They say they were beaten with batons, electrical cables and whips after being detained for several hours by Taliban fighters a day earlier.
“One of the Taliban put his foot on my head, crushed my face against the concrete. They kicked me in the head . . . I thought they were going to kill me,” Naqdi told Agence France-Presse.
When he asked why they were being beaten, Naqdi said he was told: “You are lucky you weren’t beheaded.”
The pair, who work for Afghan outlet Etilaat Roz, were covering the protest on Wednesday outside a Kabul police station that called for an end to Taliban violations of women and girls.
Naqdi said a Taliban fighter immediately tried to grab his camera when he started taking photos.
The photographer said the Taliban were rounding up anyone filming or taking photos.
Both Naqdi and Daryabi say they were taken to a nearby police station where the beatings unfolded.
They were released after several hours, Naqdi and Daryabi said.
Dozens of Afghan reporters have reportedly been beaten or accosted in recent weeks — despite the Taliban’s claims they’ll uphold press freedoms under the new regime.