Sen Cardin Want Pentagon Refugee Programs Extended for Women and LGBT
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BALTIMORE — U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., wants the Biden administration and Pentagon to focus on getting Afghan refugees — including women, those in LGBTQ community and religious and ethnic minorities — out of the country after the Taliban victory and Saigon-like collapse of Kabul.
“Today, our mission is to get U.S. personnel out of the country as quickly and safely as possible. Our primary mission is to protect American citizens. We also are working to evacuate those who risked their lives to help us and the Afghan government. I have urged the Biden administration to find extraordinary ways around the normal bureaucracy to enable more people to leave more quickly,” Cardin said in a statement on Monday.
Cardin also wants Biden to expand refugee programs for Afghans fleeing the Taliban which promises to impose Sharia Law and is expected to rollback rights for women, girls and others.
The Maryland Democrat wants U.S. refugees programs to be expanded “to include women, the LGBTQI+ community, and ethnic and religious minorities, regardless of a previous affiliation with the U.S. government.”
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the fall of the American-backed government and military after the end of American air support and chaotic scenes in Kabul blindsided the Pentagon, intelligence agencies and White House. The U.S. abruptly closed air bases in Afghanistan in July shocking Afghan authorities. The remote Asian country — which is home to a significant heroin trade and opium production — is now under Taliban control.
The Afghanistan War stretched across four administrations, enjoyed bipartisan support in Washington and cost $2 trillion and more than 240,000 lives.
Cardin defended Biden and aimed more blame on the Republican Bush and Trump administrations for the lengthy war.
“President Joe Biden is cleaning up a mess left by three presidents before him. George W. Bush failed to complete the mission in Afghanistan and diverted resources to a new mission in Iraq unrelated to 9/11.
President Barack Obama wanted to pull troops out, but couldn’t find a way. President Donald Trump announced a withdrawal, invited the Taliban to Camp David on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary and cut secret deals with them leading directly to what we are seeing in Afghanistan today,” Cardin said.
Critics of Biden’s handling of the U.S. exit from Afghanistan counter that the problem is not about the need to end the two-decade war in a remote land that rebuffed occupations from other empires — including the Soviet Union, Alexander the Great and the British Empire.
“Biden defenders (are) trying to twist the Afghanistan debacle into a debate about the decision to leave. The issue isn’t that we left. The issue is how we left,” said U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
The administration including — Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Pentagon spokesman John Kirby — continue to defend recent statements that have been proven wrong.
Biden said in July there would not be a Saigon-like evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Kabul. Kirby said Friday that the Afghan capital was not under “imminent threat” and Blinken said in June a Taliban takeover is not something that would happen from “a Friday to a Monday.”
Those statements have not aged well with the quick fall of Kabul, helicopters evacuating the now abandoned American embassy and anarchy at the Afghan capital’s airport.
Cardin said the U.S. “has a moral responsibility to accept any Afghan seeking refuge that it can. The U.S. government should facilitate evacuation flights for all vulnerable groups in Afghanistan who seek asylum and safe haven in the United States or beyond. All applicants for these visas should be evacuated immediately and not forced to wait in harm’s way while the application process proceeds.”
Biden issued an executive order Monday night putting another $500 million toward Afghan refugee resettlement efforts.
Biden’s order allocates “$500 million from the United States Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund for the purpose of meeting unexpected urgent refugee and migration needs of refugees, victims of conflict, and other persons at risk as a result of the situation in Afghanistan, including applicants for Special Immigrant Visas.”
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