On Wednesday, Britain’s foreign secretary (its equivalent of secretary of state) offered a ludicrous excuse for why Britain had abandoned Afghan guards responsible for protecting its former embassy in Kabul.
Testifying before Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Dominic Raab was asked by Labour parliamentarian Neil Coyle why the guards had been left behind. Raab explained that “the buses arranged to collect them, to take them to the airport, weren’t given permission to enter [Kabul’s airport]. And that is, I’m afraid, a reflection of conditions on the ground.”
This is a distinctly unacceptable response. Indeed, were the relevant circumstances not so serious, Raab’s words would make for a superb sketch from the British political satire The Thick of It. Adding to that sketch would be Raab’s confirmation that the embassy portrait of Queen Elizabeth II was destroyed so it did not fall into Taliban hands.
Regardless, the failing here was, as Coyle suggested, one of paperwork. An avoidable failure, then, for which someone should bear the consequences.
Considering the close, if sometimes tense, cooperation between the British and U.S. military forces involved in the evacuation from Kabul’s airport, there is no credible reason the buses couldn’t have gained access. Yes, the security situation following last Thursday’s ISIS-K suicide bombing was severe. Yes, U.S. military personnel had cause to take a more protective stance. But if the buses were stuck at a U.S. protected gate, a British official should have walked over to an American colleague. As happened many times during the evacuation, steps could then have been taken to escort the guards inside the airport.
Instead, the guards have been abandoned to the mercy of a Taliban emirate that despises them.
From the Taliban’s perspective, these guards are traitors responsible for a betrayal of both Afghanistan and God. They chose to disregard their obligations of faith and instead guard the occupiers. Considering that the Taliban are now going door to door executing their former enemies, ignoring President Joe Biden’s pledge that they would now be nice to people because they want United Nations party invites, the “buses got stuck” is not an adequate excuse.
Parliament should do its job and find out who was responsible for this terrible betrayal. The least that British officials could have done was to fill out the requisite paperwork in order to rescue those who risked their lives to protect Britons.
