Stuck Behind Enemy Lines: The US Hostages in Kabul
Michael Goodwin highlights the disastrous decisions made by President Biden, leading to our humiliating exit from Afghanistan (“Plane truth of Biden’s botch,” Sept. 8).
The ill-thought out plan to abandon Bagram Air Base without any provision for removing or protecting our prized military equipment undoubtedly hastened the takeover by the Taliban, the ensuing chaos and unnecessary deaths of 13 of our brave, young, dedicated servicemen.
There is no end to the disasters in Afghanistan. Now we have chartered planes with American citizens and Afghan allies that are not allowed to leave the airport.
We need to reset the country back to our glory days of defending freedom as we did in both world wars and stop promoting terrorist tyranny.
A.J. Linn Manhattan
Biden continues to lie to us about the hostage situation in Afghanistan.
It is getting to be quite apparent that the only thing the Biden administration can do is lie as much as possible to get away from the disgrace of the Afghan withdrawal. After all, poll numbers are more important than American lives.
Is this who we want as our president? He should resign before it is too late for all of us. Richard Ketay
Newark, NJ
Call it what you want, but when you block anyone from leaving a country, they’re a hostage.
That is exactly what the Taliban is doing in Afghanistan now. They are holding American citizens and other people from leaving the country, and you can thank Biden and his administration for allowing this.
It common sense that the Taliban want more from the United States before they release these hostages. The Taliban will stop at nothing to get what they want, and they know how easy they can manipulate Biden.
Biden and his administration have opened up a can of worms.
Rob Johann, Queens
Biden seems to think that his cowardly withdrawal from Kabul was a tremendous success. But now the Taliban brazenly use captured American armaments while they keep US citizens hostage.
He obviously never heard of the old axiom: “To the victors belong the spoils.” The Taliban won, Joe, and it’s all on you. Michael Quane
South Hempstead
American citizens who wanted to leave Afghanistan were, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, being held back because they don’t have the proper documents.
But every day, thousands of illegal immigrants are streaming across our southern border and being allowed to enter our country without documentation.
So, here’s a solution: Just take anyone who wants to escape Afghanistan and dump them into Mexico and leave them there. They should have no problem finding their way back home.
We have dangerous fools running our country. Dennis Ricupero
Port Chester
Talking of Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, Peggy Noonan says, “This isn’t how we do things” (“Biden, Burdened,” PostScript, Sept. 5).
What she means is this isn’t how we’re supposed to do things. We’re the leader of the free world, we’re the dominant military and economic power — and we just put our tail between our legs and crawled out of Afghanistan like a scalded dog.
In the process, we left $83 billion in military equipment behind to be used against us by a group of rag-tag terrorists that want us all dead.
We left American civilians and Afghan allies behind to whatever fate the Taliban savages decide to impose on them, and we left our reputation in the mud and our NATO allies despondent. And worse, we’ve emboldened our enemies. Steve Heitner
Middle Island
We’re still scratching our heads over the fact that the military were evacuated from Afghanistan prior to the civilians.
It’s like sending the cavalry home prior to the fort being attacked. Why does Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin still have a job? James Evans
Worcester, Mass.