At the beginning of a new “ MasterClass ” on diplomacy with Condoleezza Rice and the late Madeleine Albright, Rice explains that “some people have even said, ‘The diplomat lies for their country.’”

Soon afterward, Albright makes similar remarks: “There are some incredible definitions of diplomacy, which is, it gives you the capability to go and lie for your country.”

If this is in fact what diplomacy is all about — and presumably Rice and Albright would be in a position to know — this MasterClass shows that they are both incredibly committed diplomats .

Albright, who died earlier this year , was America’s first female secretary of state, serving during the Bill Clinton administration. Rice was the second, during the administration of George W. Bush.

The lies are just as boring as the parts that are true.

It’s not all lies, of course. The entire Rice/Albright video lasts almost 3.5 hours, the same length as the extended DVD version of “The Fellowship of the Ring.” Most of the time, the two emit a quiet murmur of mind-obliterating platitudes, accompanied by what seems to be the music from C-SPAN and stock footage of a chessboard. For instance, Albright tells us that “Americans didn’t recognize well enough how fragile democracy was, but at the same time how resilient democracy was,” which is somehow both banal and incomprehensible.

In fact, the lies are just as boring as the parts that are true. You might assume Rice and Albright would mislead viewers in cunning, complex ways that would require extensive effort to refute. Instead, they both just straightforwardly deny reality.

All in all, watching the languorous, dull-but-accurate parts is like being forced to eat eight gallons of stale banana pudding. Then the lies are like a batch of botulism mixed in. By the end, you will definitely feel ill, but you can only ascribe it to the entire experience, rather than being able to narrow it down to one specific cause.

Explicating all of Rice and Albright’s deceptions would require an article that would take longer to read than the running time of the MasterClass itself. So let’s just hit the highlights.

The cruelest segment of the video, as measured by the chasm between the promised content and what’s actually delivered, is called “Learning From Failed Decisions.” The text below this title claims that Rice will share “her mistakes on 9/11 and Iraq.”

However, it turns out the only mistake Rice made was believing her incompetent underlings. “I was in two situations,” she begins, “where the intelligence turned out in one case to be lacking, and in another case to be wrong.”

The first, of course, is the 9/11 attacks. On September 11, 2001, Rice was Bush’s national security adviser — i.e., arguably the person most responsible in the U.S. government for addressing any threats of terrorism. Here’s her explanation for how she and her colleagues missed what was going on:

All that the intelligence reports were saying … was, something big is going to happen. “There will be a wedding,” which was terrorist code for some kind of attack. But all of the intelligence actually pointed to something happening outside of the country.

When I heard Rice say this, my brain seized up and ground to a confused halt. My thought process went something like:

I —
Wha
HOW?!?!?!?
where am i. have i slipped into an alternate universe where up is down & the sky is green & giraffes sing hit duets with taylor swift?

This was because — although it may be fading from living memory — the most famous moment of Condoleezza Rice’s life occurred in 2004, when she acknowledged in front of the 9/11 Commission that the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus warned Bush that an Al Qaeda attack might be imminent inside America . Here, watch it for yourself:

That’s right: The presidential daily brief delivered to Bush on August 6, 2001, one month before the 9/11 attacks, was headlined “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” You can read the whole thing here . The very first sentence states, “Bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the U.S.” Later, the brief warns that “FBI information … indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings.”

So here, Rice put essentially no effort into her deceit. But what she says next is somehow even worse:

We had a pretty bright wall between what the FBI could do and what the CIA could do. They didn’t talk to each other. So just to give an example — probably by now everybody knows the case of [Zacarias] Moussaoui, who was the flight student in Arizona who only wanted to learn to fly one way. That might have been a signal. He was known to the FBI. He was not known to the CIA.

Almost everything about this is inaccurate. Rice is correct that Moussaoui was a member of Al Qaeda who came to the U.S. and attended flight school, where he did behave in peculiar ways. However, he did not go to flight school in Arizona, as Rice says; it was in Oklahoma and Minnesota. It’s not the case that he “only wanted to fly one way.” (According a report by the Justice Department inspector general, “Media reports later incorrectly reported that Moussaoui had stated that he did not want to learn to take off or land a plane.”)

Most importantly, whatever wall prevented some information from passing between the FBI and the CIA, it did not stop Moussaoui from being caught. His behavior was so suspicious that he was in fact arrested on August 16, 2001, and (according to the same Justice Department report) the FBI then discussed the case with the CIA. Moussaoui was in prison on September 11. The bulk of the evidence also suggests that he was not part of the 9/11 plot, and was in the U.S. to conduct a subsequent attack. The horrible irony about Moussaoui and information sharing is that Al Qaeda didn’t know he’d been apprehended until after September 11. According to the 9/11 Commission report, if Osama bin Laden had been aware of it beforehand, he might have called off the operation.

What’s going on here? The most likely explanation is that Rice is thinking of Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two of the five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon. The CIA knew that al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi were in the U.S. but did not immediately and fully share this information with the FBI.

In other words, Rice can’t be bothered to remember the most basic facts when coming up with excuses for herself. That’s the level of contempt she has for us.

In other words, Rice can’t be bothered to remember the most basic facts when coming up with excuses for herself. That’s the level of contempt she has for us. She says the government’s failure to stop 9/11 still “haunts” her, but she’s not haunted enough to go back and read a few Wikipedia articles.

Then there’s the Iraq War. “Every intelligence agency in the world,” Rice tells us, “including the Russians, for instance, believed that [Saddam Hussein] was reconstituting his weapons of mass destruction.”

Let’s again recall the documented past. Here’s what Russian President Vladimir Putin said in October 2002 while standing next to British Prime Minister Tony Blair:

Russia does not have in its possession any trustworthy data that supports the existence of nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we have not received any such information from our partners as yet.

Blair obviously heard and understood this, because he responded, “There may be a difference of perspective about weapons of mass destruction, there is one certain way to find out and that is to let the [United Nations] inspectors back in to do their job.”

You’d also hope Rice would be interested enough in this issue to know by now what top CIA analysts believed. The head of Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center, the division at the agency tasked with investigating Iraq’s purported WMD, told a friend just before the war that he anticipated that the U.S. would find “not much, if anything.”

Finally, by putting the blame on “intelligence” for the disastrous decisions of the Bush administration, Rice is engaging in a kind of meta-dishonesty, no matter what the intelligence was. One of Rice’s predecessors as secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, explained this cogently in a book with the same title as this MasterClass, “Diplomacy”:

What political leaders decide, intelligence services tend to seek to justify. Popular literature and films often depict the opposite — policymakers as the helpless tools of intelligence experts. In the real world, intelligence assessments more often follow than guide policy decisions.

Albright’s performance is just as shabby. At one point, she describes her pre-secretary of state role during Clinton’s first term as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Iraq had been under severe sanctions since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The sanctions were then extended after the Gulf War in 1991 as leverage to force Iraq to disclose and destroy all of its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs. “It was my job to make sure all of the [sanctions] resolutions were carried out,” Albright tells us.

The problem here is that Albright herself later explicitly explained that the U.S. would defy the relevant U.N. resolutions. Security Council Resolution 687 declared that once Iraq had been disarmed, the sanctions “shall have no further force or effect.” But just after Albright became secretary of state in 1997, she said this in a speech at Georgetown University on U.S policy toward Iraq :

We do not agree with the nations who argue that, if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted.

In other words, it didn’t matter what the U.N. resolutions said: The sanctions would remain indefinitely.

Albright’s adamantine commitment to the sanctions regime led to her being questioned about it on “60 Minutes,” when she infamously declared that the suffering sanctions imposed on Iraqis was “ worth it .”

Incredibly enough, Albright also doesn’t voice any second thoughts now that we know Iraq had destroyed all of its banned weapons in 1991 . By 1995, the Iraqi regime had been forced to hand over the last remnants of its WMD programs, the paper documentation. In other words, everything about the policy Albright carried out was based on a bogus premise. But she makes no mention of this at all.

A smaller but intriguing falsehood comes when Albright looks straight into the camera and says, “It had never occurred to me that I could be secretary of state.” This is obviously ridiculous on its face; no one rises to that level without making prodigious efforts to do so. Albright shouldn’t be criticized for this particular lie — as she puts it, “The word ‘ambitious’ is something that men say lovingly or proudly to other men, but if they call a woman ambitious, it’s supposed to be derogatory.” But it’s preposterous for her to claim she somehow became secretary of state by accident — especially because her efforts involved such gruesome realpolitik .

Her campaign to secure the position kicked into high gear as soon as Clinton was reelected on November 5, 1996. One stratagem in particular raised her stock in the White House: Her successful termination of the career of then-U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

The previous August, Israel had bombed a U.N. peacekeeping compound in Lebanon, killing 106 civilians taking shelter there. The U.N. investigated and, much to the anger of Israel and the U.S., found that it was “unlikely” that the compound had not been knowingly targeted.

While Boutros-Ghali’s term was about to expire, he was popular and was expected to be reappointed. Albright plotted to stop this in order to punish him for the U.N.’s distasteful description of Israel’s actions.

A few weeks after Clinton won, Albright had a private dinner with Boutros-Ghali and urged him to voluntarily step down, promising him a foundation to run in Switzerland. He declined. Two days later on November 19, the U.N. Security Council voted 14-1 to give Boutros-Ghali a second term. The lone “no” vote was cast by Albright, and since the U.S. holds a veto on the Security Council, the resolution failed. The New York Times said, attributing the perspective to an anonymous American official, that “hostility toward the United States had never been so palpable.”

But this was irrelevant to Albright, whose priorities lay elsewhere. As Richard Clarke, then a National Security Council official, later wrote , “Clinton was impressed that we [had] managed to oust Boutros-Ghali. … The entire operation had strengthened Albright’s hand in the competition to be Secretary of State in the second Clinton administration.”

All this said, it’s unfair to claim that Rice and Albright never come up with anything that’s interesting and true. Both of them do so once. Surprisingly, neither anomaly occurs when they reflect on their trailblazing status at the top of the State Department. This suggests that they are diplomatically holding back, given that they must have crossed paths with some extraordinarily awful men.

For Rice’s part, she tells an extremely charming story about her parents, and how when she was 4, they started holding elections for president of the family, complete with secret ballots. Rice won, and was reelected over and over, since her mother always voted for her and there were no term limits.

Albright’s father was a Czech diplomat and academic (who actually inspired Rice when he had her as a student at the University of Denver). Albright explains that in Czechoslovakia and Europe generally, diplomacy was purely a province of society’s elites. So, she says, he was pleasantly surprised when teaching in America to run into his students working as waiters or at gas stations.

The MasterClass website features many other videos — starring people like musician John Legend, filmmaker James Cameron, and screenwriter/producer Shonda Rhimes — but none of them deliver the same sense of spiritual desolation as Rice and Albright. Of course, none of the other “masters” are skilled practitioners of U.S. foreign policy.

The post Condoleezza Rice and Madeleine Albright Conduct a MasterClass on the Banal Horror of U.S. Foreign Policy appeared first on The Intercept .

Marked as enemies of the new Taliban regime by his work with Westerners and his family’s Hazara ethnicity, Hamid, his wife, their 8-year-old daughter, and their new baby move furtively from place to place, living under assumed names. Their year in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan echoes Hamid’s own war-torn childhood as he tries to guarantee his daughter’s future. Suddenly, an escape route opens: Will they finally make it out?

Transcript

Hamid: After the crowd subsided, we leave the scene in clothes full of dirt and blood and bare feet.

Summia Tora: That’s Hamid, the man I tried and failed to help leave Afghanistan last year . After the suicide attack at the Kabul airport last summer, Hamid and his family went back home. They huddled there, keeping their heads down. They kept using the nicknames Hamid had come up with when the Taliban took control. I’m not using their real names because they are still in danger.

Hamid’s wife, Jamila, has a master’s degree in sociology. She was pregnant when the government collapsed. And then there was their daughter Eliza, who was just outside the blast radius of the bomb that killed more than 180 people at the airport.

Hamid: As a father, everyone hopes for their children, the first thing is to be safe. And then they should have access to at least basic life facilities. Like, the first thing is education. Good nutrition. We cannot provide the basic needs. When we cannot provide it today, so the future, it worries us the most.

Summia Tora: On December 2, 2021, Hamid got an email from Geres, the French NGO where he’d worked for four years.

Hamid: “France does not wish to expand its reception capacity for political asylum. It is therefore with great sadness that we have to acknowledge that we cannot, today and without the support of France, help you to leave Afghanistan.”

Summia Tora : So how did you feel, knowing all of this and receiving a rejection letter?

Hamid: Hopeless. I lost the only option I had in my life to get out of this country. So I missed it. I missed the only hope for myself, for my family, for my kids.

[Theme music]

Summia Tora: I’m Summia Tora, a human rights advocate. This is No Way Home , a production of The Intercept and New America.

In this four-part series, you’ve been hearing stories that were found, developed, and reported by Afghans like me , who have been forced into exile. Our stories reflect what we saw with our own eyes and what we and other Afghans have experienced firsthand since the U.S. military pulled out, the Afghan government collapsed, and the Taliban took over last summer.

This is Episode Four: “Getting Out Alive.”

[Theme music ends]

Like everyone, Hamid and Jamila knew the Taliban’s history of denying basic rights to girls and women. It was one of the main reasons they risked their lives trying to leave last August.

Jamila (translated voiceover): You know, it all happened so suddenly. There were fights in the provinces, and you would hear about it on Facebook that this province or that province has fallen. In that moment, the first thing I remembered was my daughter. I looked at her, and she was sleeping, and then I cried intensely and said, “My daughter’s future is over and ruined.”

Summia Tora: But something else was even more threatening to Hamid and his family. They are Hazaras, an ethnic minority that has faced decades of discrimination in Afghanistan. Hiding is difficult: Their ethnicity is clear from his and his family’s facial features and their accents, and they practice Shia Islam in a place that is mainly Sunni.

Hamid was born in Kabul and spent his early childhood in a mainly Hazara neighborhood called Dasht-e-Barchi. That’s where he and his family lived last year, when the U.S.-backed government fell.

Hamid: I went to school until two grades in Dasht-e-Barchi, in west of Kabul. So I felt that it was obvious for everyone that like other people, except Hazaras, they had a good life. They had access to more facilities in their lives. They had cars, they had bicycles, they had motorcycles — all these things that most of the Hazaras didn’t have at that time.

Summia Tora: Hamid was 8 years old when the Soviet-backed Afghan government collapsed — the same age his own daughter, Eliza, is now.

When the mujahedeen factions that had been fighting the Soviets with backing from the U.S., Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and other countries took Kabul, each group seized control of a different part of the city, and they began fighting each other. The country fell into civil war.

The mujahedeen factions were dominated by different ethnic groups. A Hazara faction called Hezb-e-Wahdat-e-Islami controlled Dasht-e-Barchi. Hamid and his family spent about six months in Dasht-e-Barchi, while the mujahedeen fired artillery at each other, destroying Kabul’s buildings and killing many civilians. Then his parents decided to take the family to Bamiyan, a mountainous province north of Kabul that is known as the Hazara homeland.

Hamid: So when we left Kabul for Bamiyan, it was a very tough time. All the roads linked to Bamiyan were closed at that time, and everyone was detained and questioned.

Summia Tora: Bamiyan has remained relatively peaceful over decades of war. But getting there was hazardous.

Hamid: So when we were going in this route and passing these route, we were questioned. We were insulted, like Hazaras, for our features and our faces. And all the kids were, everywhere that the kids were around the street and when we were crossing, they were shouting at us and laughing.

So many checkpoints were on the road and stopped our car many times and asking, “Who are you? Where you going?” And even they made us to pay them some money to allow them to cross the road.

Summia Tora: The Taliban’s leaders grew up fighting the Soviets, and the group came to power for the first time in 1996 by defeating other mujahedeen factions.

One of their most notorious acts, in 2001, was to destroy the giant 5th-century Buddhas carved into the mountains in Bamiyan. The Taliban blew up the towering sculptures with rockets, tank shells, and dynamite. When the Taliban took over Afghanistan last summer, some said they had changed. But much remained the same — including their attitude toward Hazaras.

Last July , the Taliban killed nine Hazara men in Ghazni, a province southeast of Kabul. In August, just after the Taliban gained control of the country, Amnesty documented another massacre in the central province of Daykundi. The Taliban killed 13 Hazaras there, including a 17-year-old girl.

Around the same time, some Taliban decapitated a statue of renowned Hazara leader, Abdul Ali Mazari, in Bamiyan city, the capital of the province that Hamid had fled to as a boy.

Rabia Khan: Mazari was actually killed by the Taliban in 1995 when he went to meet them for peace talks. So I think, symbolically, the fact that you are destroying a statue of an important political leader for the Hazaras kind of shows what your intentions are and the direction of your rule on what it means for these people going forward.

Summia Tora: That’s Rabia Khan , an academic in the U.K. who did her doctoral research on the Hazara community. In the late 1800s, Khan told me, Hazaras had their own self-governing region in the central part of the country, an area known as Hazarajat. But at the end of the 19th century, the Hazaras’ circumstances suddenly — and drastically — changed.

Rabia Khan: The rhetoric of religion was used to justify a really horrific and severe war against the Hazaras, which started around 1890 and lasted for several years. And then in that time, countless Hazaras were massacred. And many Hazara women were raped.

Summia Tora: Many were forced to flee to Iran and the part of British-occupied India that is now Pakistan. In the 1920s, a new Afghan king outlawed slavery — but for Hazaras, the practice continued.

Rabia Khan: They were the cheapest slaves in Kabul. So what we see in the earliest 20th century is, although the war has ended for some time, perception of Hazaras as the slave class and having a low social status is something very prevalent in the wider society. So that’s something very widespread in the early to even mid-20th century, and that perception you can even say it persists to this day when we started to see more Hazara visibility in more recent years.

Summia Tora: The 1990s, when Hamid was growing up, was a pivotal period for Hazaras in Afghanistan.

Rabia Khan: And again, they’d be mocked and ridiculed for their appearance. So even the word “Hazara” was used as a pejorative. Not only in the 1990s, but even now “Hazara” is used as a pejorative by some people. And that there are even specific racial slurs that are used in reference to Hazaras only and not other ethnic communities. The most common one that came up in my interactions and discussions was with the Hazara community was a racial slur, which I won’t say in Persian, but the translation in English is “rat eater.”

Summia Tora: After the United States forced the Taliban from power in 2001, Hazaras welcomed the new Western-backed government and embraced opportunities, particularly for education. They routinely scored at the top of the national university entrance exams, and Hazara-majority areas recorded among the highest voter turnout in elections. Many went to work for Western NGOs and the government. But with that progress came risks.

Rabia Khan: So you see this very strange situation unfold post-2001, in terms of visibility and representation, but how that’s also almost a threat for the community. Because in having this heightened visibility, there’s now this perception that “Hazaras are now a threat, so something needs to be done about that.”

Summia Tora: I thought of the story my dad had told me about the killing of Hazaras in northern Afghanistan. My parents left Afghanistan in the 1990s to escape persecution and give my siblings and me a better life. That’s what Hamid wanted for his kids, and especially for his daughter, Eliza.

Eliza: I am 8 years old.

Summia Tora: Aww.

Summia Tora (in Dari): What subjects do you like to study?

Eliza (in Dari): I like Dari and math subjects.

Summia Tora (in Dari): Why do you like Dari and math?

Hiding and Surviving

Summia Tora: After we failed to get Hamid and his family out of Afghanistan, I kept in touch with him through my colleagues at Dosti Network, an organization I founded last year to help Afghans get aid and support, and to leave the country if necessary. But after the U.S. pulled out, many countries refused to help more Afghans evacuate.

Hamid worked for a French nonprofit organization, Geres, which focuses on climate and the environment.

Michael: The French government, I think, turned their backs on a lot of the civil society workers that they funded through their programs. Which is a shame because if you really think about it, it’s like the whole idea of trying to build up Afghanistan really was the idea that you tell people not to, say, pick up guns and fight through politics.

Summia Tora: That’s the American I’m calling Michael, who worked with Hamid and tried to help him and his family leave last year.

Michael: The whole idea of having a peaceful civil society was what NATO was trying to push, right? To build up this country. You can’t just say that it’s just the military members that were the ones that were at risk here. It was actually a lot of the civilian and civil society workers who were really a critical part to any kind of Afghanistan that would be peaceful and would actually be built under the principles that NATO was trying to achieve.

Summia Tora: On March 24, I sent Hamid a text message to find out how he was doing and if he was still in Kabul.

NBC : A missile striking an industrial park in western Ukraine [explosion]. A helicopter assault on an airport outside of Kyiv, close intense fighting. And there are civilian casualties.

Summia Tora: The war in Ukraine had started a month earlier. Europe, Canada, the U.K., and the U.S. had welcomed thousands of Ukrainian refugees, while Afghans still had to jump through hoops and fill out endless forms. Hamid sent me a voice memo while standing in line at the passport office.

Hamid (Dari translated): Salam, Summia Jan, I hope you are doing well. Sorry for the delay in responding, as I was standing in the passport line.

Summia Tora: Hamid told me that he was still in Kabul, and that he and Jamila recently had a baby boy. Hamid was trying to get their travel documents in order when Afghanistan suddenly burst into the news again.

Ari Shapiro (NPR) : Three blasts rocked the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Tuesday. They appeared to target schools, and six people were killed.

Summia Tora: On April 19, a school called Abdul Rahim Shahid — known for its students’ educational achievements — was attacked. Hamid had studied there himself years earlier.

Hamid: The recent attack in Abdul Rahim Shahid high school. It reportedly killed about 200 schoolchildren. This attack also was called the series of ISIS attacks that targeted Hazara Shia ethnicities in west of Kabul, particularly schoolchildren in this area.

Summia Tora: Dasht-e-Barchi had gained a reputation as a place where Hazaras could get a good education for their kids and lift their families out of poverty. But since 2015, deadly attacks like these had grown common.

Rabia Khan: That status and reputation of the area really changed post-2001, because there were so many targeted attacks against Hazaras there. Although there have been great achievements, and the community has really worked hard to lift themselves out of their previous circumstances, there were outside elements that made it very hard to just live a normal life as a Hazara in Kabul since 2001.

Summia Tora: Bombings were occurring so frequently the shock of them wore off.

Hamid (in Dari) : Whenever there is a bomb incident and you find out, you are shocked, but when it keeps repeating often, you either become courageous, you don’t feel scared, or you try not to think about it because you know it will happen again.

Summia Tora: Hamid would try to find out who was killed, how many people were injured, if any of the victims were family members. There were times where he was close — 500 meters from a targeted school. Bomb attacks had become a part of everyday life for them.

So far, the Taliban has allowed education for girls up to sixth grade in schools that are segregated by sex. But Hamid and Jamila moved often to avoid being found by the Taliban, and they were too scared to send Eliza to school most days because of the threat of violence. After the attack at Shahid school, Hamid decided he’d had enough. He would take his family to Bamiyan.

So this past May, they fled Kabul and made their way north. Bamiyan was familiar, but it was far from the life Hamid and Jamila had imagined for themselves and their children.

Jamila (translated voiceover): We don’t have hope; we don’t have motivation. We are always thinking about how can we leave. We don’t feel free. Even now, when I am at home and my head is not covered, I constantly make sure the curtains are closed so that the Taliban don’t see and send [the Ministry for the] Propagation of Virtue to inspect. “Why is this woman walking around at home without her head covered?” I have no interest in going out. I am at home all day.

Summia Tora: Hamid had managed to renew his and his family’s passports and to get one for his son. But they still couldn’t leave.

Hamid: Having a passport is one side of the matter. The visa to leave the country is another side of the problem. So it is the only two countries we have, Iran and Pakistan, they give us visas. So if we go to Iran or Pakistan, we cannot accommodate. We don’t have, like, our expenses to live there. That is why we prefer to be here under the Taliban rule.

Summia Tora: In Bamiyan, Hamid registered Eliza for school. But like Jamila, he felt lost.

Hamid: Staying in Afghanistan, it is also scary here. And also everything is unknown. We don’t know what happens next. What is waiting for us? We don’t know, days and nights, what will happen, what our future would be. What should we do, which way we should follow to reach to our goal or to at least to stay safe. And it is a kind of advice for myself just to be patient. It is the only option right now.

A Door Opens

Summia Tora: Last month, I messaged Hamid to see how he was doing. He replied with amazing news: He and his family had made it to Pakistan. I reached him by phone there on August 15, exactly a year after Kabul fell to the Taliban.

Summia Tora: Hello? It’s great to hear that you’ve heard back about your P-2 application. I had completely forgotten that you had applied for that. Would it be possible if you could share about the process of the P-2 application for the U.S.?

Hamid: When I received the approval for my P-2 application for the U.S. program, I got so happy. It was a cheerful moment sharing this good news with my wife and my little kid.

Summia Tora: A few months after the final U.S. withdrawal last year, Hamid had applied to come to the United States through what’s known as the Priority 2, or P-2, program. It’s a visa program for Afghans who worked as employees, contractors, or interpreters for U.S. and NATO forces, for U.S.-funded programs or projects, or for U.S.-based media organizations and NGOs. I knew Hamid had worked for Geres. But it turns out he’d also worked for an Afghan NGO that was funded by the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

On August 2, about a year after he applied, he got an email from the U.S. government saying that he and his family met the eligibility requirements for the program.

Hamid: When I received the approval for my P-2 application, actually it was in the morning. When I shared this good news with my wife, she suddenly stood up. She got so happy to express her feelings by shaking her hands and head to dance. And she got so hopeful, and also she got surprised. She was hopeful that we would be able to leave this country finally.

Summia Tora: Hamid and his family drove from Bamiyan to Kabul and then took a taxi to the Pakistani border. The crossing was hot and crowded, and Hamid worried that his kids might get sick or overheated. But after 12 hours, they made it.

They stayed in a hotel for a couple of nights in Islamabad, then found a house to rent. The U.S. makes Afghans go to a third country to await the next stage in their immigration process. Hamid and Jamila don’t speak Urdu, and they don’t have visas that allow them to work in Pakistan.

Summia Tora : Do you have any thoughts about living in Pakistan and how long you’d be able to live there because you have to wait for a couple of months until the P-2 process moves forward?

Hamid: Our concern is the unemployment for refugees. For sure, I’m looking for a job for myself and my wife too. And in Pakistan, particularly in Islamabad, it is very difficult to find a proper job. And also it is very low-paid job that does not cover the family expenses and it is very difficult to afford.

Summia Tora: Leaving Afghanistan, as anyone who’s done it knows, comes with its own difficulties. Just ask my father.

Summia Tora: So you are now in Virginia. What is it like living there?

Sayed Tora: Living there have some benefits, and some it’s good. On the other side, it’s hard to live in USA. You have to work. You miss your friends, family. Now you can speak, but [laughs] there are no people to listen to you. [laughs] This is the difference. [laughs]

Summia Tora: My father is safe, but his life isn’t the same, and it never will be. And it never will be for Hamid and his family.

Summia Tora: Does getting this email and now moving to Pakistan, waiting for this process of P-2 — is it giving you hope about being able to have a future that you hope for, for yourself and for your family?

Hamid: Actually it is not very certain that I can move to U.S. one day because I am right now in the third country. So I hope so, that it will happen one day to go to U.S. It is the only chance I have right now. And I hope so it will happen one day.

[Credits]

Summia Tora: No Way Home is a production of The Intercept and New America’s Afghanistan Observatory Scholars program.

This episode was written and reported by me, Summia Tora.

Our executive producer and editor is Vanessa Gezari.

Supervising producer and editor is Laura Flynn.

Candace Rondeaux is the director of Future Frontlines Program-New America and project editor.

Ali Yawar Adili, is the Afghanistan Observatory Project Coordinator.

Laura Flynn and Jose Olivares produced this episode.

Rick Kwan mixed this episode.

Zach Young composed our theme music.

Legal review by David Bralow.

Fact checking by Emily Schneider.

Awista Ayub is the director and project manager of New America’s Fellows Program.

Voiceover in this episode by Humaira Rahbin.

To learn more, visit theintercept.com where you can find transcripts and show art.

Philipp Hubert is our visual designer and Nara Shin our copy editor.

Roger Hodge is editor-in-chief of The Intercept.

If you want to give us feedback or have any questions, email us at podcasts@theintercept.com.

Thanks, so much, for listening.

The post No Way Home, Episode Four: Getting Out Alive appeared first on The Intercept .

In March 2018, the U.S. government decided that five Yemeni men were so dangerous that there was only one solution: They needed to die. After a U.S. military commander gave the final sign-off, a missile ripped through their SUV, near the village of Al Uqla, and tossed the car into the air. Three of the men were killed instantly. Another died days later in a local hospital. The only survivor was Adel Al Manthari.

Al Manthari’s body was ravaged. His entire left side was burned. His right hip was fractured and his left hand sustained catastrophic injuries to its blood vessels, nerves, and tendons. Despite multiple surgeries and nine months of medical treatment after the strike, he was permanently disabled. The severe burns left his skin vulnerable to infection, and his body has regularly been covered in bed sores due to his limited mobility.

The U.S. military claimed that Adel Al Manthari and the others in the vehicle were “terrorist” from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula , but independent inquiries said otherwise. There is no evidence to suggest that the United States ever reinvestigated the strike. And every day for the past four years, Al Manthari has paid the price for America’s shoot-first-ask-no-questions-later system of remote warfare. The irreparable damage to his body left Al Manthari unable to walk or work, robbing him of dignity and causing his daughters — ages 8 and 14 at the time of the strike — to drop out of school to help care for him. The psychological impact of the strike has been profound, leaving Al Manthari traumatized and in need of treatment. And the financial impact has been ruinous.

Repeated surgeries and medical treatment plunged his family into debt and the bills have never ceased. While the U.S. has millions of dollars in funds earmarked for civilian victims of U.S. attacks, the military ignored pleas on Al Manthari’s behalf, leaving the 56-year-old to rely on a GoFundMe campaign earlier this year to save his life. But he’s back on the brink again, with more surgeries and bills, and, in an unusual move, his family agreed to share these new bills with The Intercept to provide itemized — and visceral — evidence of the financial as well as human cost of the U.S. attacking an innocent man and refusing to pay so much as a dime for his medical treatment.

Al Manthari, who is receiving treatment in Egypt, now needs six weeks of hospitalization to recover from a hip replacement ($6,266.32), a skin graft operation on his left hand and arm ($7,000.00), and at least three physical therapy sessions a week for six months ($892.95), according to Reprieve, an international human rights organization that is representing him. The total cost of these treatments is close to $23,000, which includes hospitalization and medications; fees for a surgeon, doctors, and nurses; six months of rent for an apartment in Cairo for Al Manthari and his two adult sons, who are his main caretakers now; utilities; and transport to and from physical therapy. Once again, Al Manthari’s health and well-being rests with a crowdfunding campaign .

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

“It is appalling that innocent people, civilians who have no connection to armed groups, are left to fend for themselves,” said Aisha Dennis, project manager on extrajudicial executions at Reprieve. “It is heartening that ordinary people, particularly Americans, have stepped in to support Mr. Al Manthari where their government has failed. But it is not — it must not be — their job to do this. It is the duty of the people dropping the bombs, in this case the U.S. government, to face the wreckage they are causing to families and communities and address it with humanity.”

Reparations Are Rare

Al Manthari’s case highlights the seldom seen devastation to the lives of drone strike survivors and their families, especially those who live in areas outside formal war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

From Libya to Somalia , Syria to Yemen , the United States has left a trail of broken bodies and shattered families. Secret Pentagon investigations have shown that Hellfire missiles are often far more effective at killing people than the United States is at targeting the “right” ones . But every so often, an innocent person living in the backlands of an African or Middle Eastern nation survives a drone attack.

Since at least World War I, the U.S. military has been paying compensation for harm to civilians . During the Vietnam War, solatia payments, as they are called, were a means for the military to make reparations for civilian injuries or deaths without having to admit guilt. In 1968, for example, the going rate for adult lives was $33. Children merited half that.

At the beginning of the forever wars, activist Marla Ruzicka became a tireless advocate for war victims, founding the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (now the Center for Civilians in Conflict , or CIVIC) to advocate on their behalf and, with the assistance of Sen. Patrick Leahy , D-Vt., helped to secure tens of millions of dollars from the U.S. government for Afghans and Iraqis harmed by U.S. military operations .

Between 2003 and 2006, the Defense Department paid out more than $30 million in solatia and condolence payments to “Iraqi and Afghan civilians who are killed, injured, or incur property damage as a result of U.S. or coalition forces’ actions during combat,” according to the Government Accountability Office. But in more recent years, the sums paid out have plummeted. From 2015 to 2019, for example, the U.S. paid just $2 million to civilians in Afghanistan.

In 2005, after Ruzicka was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq, a U.S. Agency for International Development program was renamed the Marla Ruzicka Iraqi War Victims Fund and began paying out tens of millions of dollars. But while the program was intended to provide assistance to Iraqis who suffered damages, injury, or death due to U.S. or coalition forces’ actions , experts say it was repurposed into a more general use fund for economic development, such as promoting local businesses and youth entrepreneurship. USAID was unable to provide statistics on just how much money was paid out under the program or what percentage went to victims of U.S. attacks. A spokesperson would only speak off the record, which The Intercept declined to do.

Payouts under various compensation, solatia, and battle damage schemes have also varied widely — from $124 to $50,000 , for example — for a civilian killed in Afghanistan. Basim Razzo , who survived a 2015 airstrike in Iraq that killed his wife, daughter, and two other family members and destroyed two homes he valued at $500,000 , was offered a “condolence payment” of $15,000, which an Army attorney said was the capped limit. Razzo rejected it as “ an insult .” But after Italian aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto was killed by a U.S. drone strike that same year while being held hostage by Al Qaeda, the U.S. paid his family $1.3 million as a “donation in the memory” of their son.

While the United States provided compensation to significant numbers of Iraqis and Afghans affected by ground combat and, in certain cases, airstrikes in the first half of the so-called war on terror, more recent victims of drone attacks or the air war against Islamic State have rarely received reparations, experts say. Even those whose civilian casualty allegations have been deemed “credible” by the United States are seldom compensated.

Resorting to GoFundMe

Earlier this year, Adel Al Manthari’s feet and legs blackened due to restricted blood flow, and his doctor said he was at imminent risk of developing gangrene. Unable to access the required medical care in Yemen, his family needed to get him to Egypt and, as is common in the region, pay in advance for medical care. For his treatment at Cairo’s Kasr al-Aini Hospital, according to documents provided to The Intercept by Reprieve, Al Manthari paid for admission fees ($327.96); an initial surgery on his leg ulcers ($322.58), two separate bills for hospital service fees ($913.98); a biopsy ($48.39); a skin graft operation to replace burned skin, reduce swelling, and begin to restore movement to his legs ($1,129.03); a gastric sleeve surgery to facilitate his hip replacement ($2,741.94); the costs of a hospital bed, follow-up care from nurses and consultants, blood tests, X-rays, scans, and medications ($7,795.68); three weekly physical therapy sessions to prepare for his hip replacement operation ($1,075.27); a hip prosthetic ($4,838.71); a hip replacement operation ($1,612.90); and a wheelchair and folding walker ($261.10), among other expenses.

The total cost exceeded $21,000. The average per capita income in Yemen is around $2,200 .

Al Manthari was in danger of losing his legs and possibly his life, both of which ended up dependent on a GoFundMe campaign that had stalled at around $8,700. Media attention , largely from The Intercept, helped spur the generosity of strangers who donated enough money for Al Manthari to pay for the surgeries he needed to keep his legs and stave off death. But that was hardly the end of the medical care that the Yemeni drone strike survivor requires. He faces a lifetime of medical bills that the U.S. government is, thus far, unwilling to pay or even acknowledge.

The exact status of Al Manthari’s plea for U.S. reparations is unclear. In 2018, CENTCOM announced that it was aware of civilian casualty reports stemming from the March 29, 2018 attack that injured him and was conducting a “ credibility assessment .” Asked about the results four years later, CENTCOM spokesperson Lt. Col. Karen Roxberry told The Intercept, “We are not able to provide responses on this.” Investigations by the Associated Press and the Yemen-based group Mwatana for Human Rights both determined that the U.S. had attacked only civilians.

In March, Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., asked Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to open a new investigation into the airstrike that disabled Al Manthari, as well as 11 other U.S. attacks in Yemen. The Pentagon did not respond to repeated requests for comment on what actions, if any, Austin has taken in response to the request. In a letter to Murphy and Warren shared with The Intercept, Colin H. Kahl, the Pentagon’s top policy official, did not even address the issue of new investigations.

“It’s tragic and shameful that covering the costs of medical care for people bombed by the U.S. has fallen on crowdsourcing.

“It’s really important that they look back at these cases from the last five or 10 years — especially in theaters of war, like Yemen, where they have made few acknowledgements of civilian harm,” said Joanna Naples-Mitchell, a human rights attorney and director of the nonprofit Zomia Center ’s Redress Program, which assists survivors of U.S. airstrikes to submit requests for amends. “You can count on one hand the cases in which they’ve offered condolence payments in the air wars against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.”

The U.S. has conducted more than 91,000 airstrikes across seven major conflict zones and killed as many as 48,308 civilians , according to a 2021 analysis by Airwars, a U.K.-based airstrike monitoring group. But only a tiny fraction have received any type of reparations. In 2020, Congress began providing the Defense Department $3 million each year to pay for deaths, injuries, or damages resulting from U.S. or allied military actions, but in the time since, the U.S. has not announced a single ex gratia payment, leaving victims like Al Manthari to fend for themselves.

“It’s tragic and shameful that covering the costs of medical care for people bombed by the U.S. has fallen on crowdsourcing,” Naples-Mitchell said. “Payments would be a drop in the bucket for the U.S. military, but there is clearly no system to help people. It’s even unclear that allocated funding, like the USAID Marla Fund, is currently being used for that purpose.”

“Under Review”

As Al Manthari’s health deteriorated in the spring, Reprieve repeatedly reached out to the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command, sending them detailed evidence about his case while requesting assistance with a medical evacuation to Egypt and financial aid for urgent medical care. On September 14, while this story was being reported and five months after Reprieve first reached out, CENTCOM finally responded, noting that the documents were “under review” to “determine if the information changes the assessment of the strike.” Reprieve was, however, met with silence from Austin; Anna Williams, the Pentagon’s senior adviser for civilian protection; and Cara Negrette, the Defense Department’s director for international humanitarian policy.

Negrette and Williams declined to speak to The Intercept. Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. César Santiago asked that questions be sent in writing. Those questions, submitted on May 17, have still not been answered.

The Pentagon appears to be dodging responsibility on many fronts. On May 26, Santiago told The Intercept that Negrette and Williams personally told him that they had never received any communications from Reprieve. “But they welcome any communications from Reprieve regarding this case,” Santiago said. “You can provide my email and I will facilitate communications with Ms. Negrette.”

On June 1, Reprieve forwarded to Negrette and Williams four messages it had sent in April, including Al Manthari’s documents, and copied this reporter and Santiago. “As the matter is urgent, I look forward to your prompt confirmation of receipt and reply,” Reprieve’s June email said. This reporter followed up as well and was told in a June 6 email from Santiago, “I forwarded and provided the information to the appropriate office.” More than three months later, according to Dennis at Reprieve, the organization has yet to hear from Austin, Negrette, Williams, or Santiago.

Reprieve also reached out to Caroline Krass , the general counsel of the Department of Defense. This reporter was CC’d on the message, which Krass read, according to a return receipt, on June 1. But Krass, said Dennis, never responded to Reprieve either.

“It’s been a difficult and frustrating process. We contacted CENTCOM back on April 13, then on the first of June, the 7th of June, the 13th of July. When we finally were able to speak to someone by phone, we were told that the email was likely being blocked because it was coming from a .org.uk email address,” said Dennis. “If we, as a U.S. legal action charity, cannot get a substantive response from CENTCOM, what hope do civilians harmed by U.S. drone strikes living in Somalia, Syria, or Afghanistan have to access accountability?”

While there is a formalized mechanism to contact CENTCOM concerning civilian harm allegations and millions of dollars set aside for victims, the Pentagon lacks a formal procedure in place to file claims for compensation. “There is no officially articulated process,” said Naples-Mitchell, who is currently representing more than a dozen victims of civilian casualty incidents acknowledged by the U.S. military. “When I spoke with a CENTCOM lawyer, he was very clear that they did not want the public to have the perception that there is an official process. They also shy away from using the word ‘claims’ because, I think, they are concerned that it suggests some sort of a legal application.”

“If we, as a U.S. legal action charity, cannot get a substantive response from CENTCOM, what hope do civilians harmed by U.S. drone strikes living in Somalia, Syria, or Afghanistan have to access accountability?”

Experts are hopeful that the Pentagon’s new Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan , or CHMR-AP — which provides a blueprint for improving how the Pentagon addresses civilian harm — will be an impetus for the Defense Department to remake its broken claims and compensation programs. But experts say the CHMR-AP is light on the question of accountability. Austin has also publicly stated that the Pentagon has no intention of reinvestigating past civilian harm incidents.

“The new DoD Action Plan includes some important steps towards remedying these policy failures, including improving investigation processes, recognizing the importance of amends to those harmed, and establishing a diverse menu of response options, from acknowledgements to condolence payments to the provision of medical care,” said Annie Shiel, senior adviser for U.S. policy and advocacy at CIVIC. “But even if implemented effectively, it’s unclear what difference those changes will make to someone like Adel Al Manthari, since the CHMR-AP doesn’t include a clear commitment to looking back at the many past cases of civilian harm that have gone under-investigated, unacknowledged, and without amends.”

Dennis also welcomes the CHMR-AP, with caveats, calling for increased congressional oversight of civilian casualty issues — precisely what a new congressional Protection of Civilians in Conflict Caucus has pledged to do — as well as workable mechanisms for reporting civilian harm; deadlines for responding to complaints; genuine investigations, including site visits and witness interviews (which are rarely conducted); details about how disciplinary measures and individual criminal liability will be handled; and protections for whistleblowers. “If we see all of this, we might begin to see some semblance of accountability,” Dennis said.

In the four years since the Al Uqla airstrike, Al Manthari has been largely immobile and easy to find. Asked if the fact that the U.S. military has taken no further action against a man previously deemed too dangerous to live was a tacit admission that Al Manthari is — as two independent investigations found — innocent of any terrorist ties, a U.S. military spokesperson demurred. “I’ll follow up with policy,” he said on June 6. “I’ll get back to you.” He never did.

Maimed by a U.S. drone strike and abandoned to the cruel fate of crowdfunding, Al Manthari is again dependent on the kindness of strangers to get him through his next round of surgeries and follow-up care. And there’s no certainty that he, or the other victims suffering in America’s far-flung war zones of the last 20-plus years, will ever see the money owed to them for their losses, injuries, pain, and suffering.

“There are likely thousands of cases like Adel Al Manthari’s — victims and survivors of devastating civilian harm, still waiting for any kind of acknowledgement or amends from the U.S. government,” said Shiel. “Far too many cases have been erroneously dismissed despite painstaking research from human rights groups and journalists. And even when the U.S. government confirms it caused civilian casualties, it has rarely made ex gratia payments or other amends. … The result is that civil society groups and journalists have had to fill this gap, from conducting rigorous investigations the government should be doing, to setting up crowdfunding campaigns to support victims. That’s just not how accountability is supposed to work.”

The post Drone Debt: U.S. Refuses to Help Wounded Survivor of Wrongful Attack in Yemen appeared first on The Intercept .

Maryam Barak, an Afghan journalist, made it to Italy with her family last summer. In Rome, she met Qader Kazimizada, another newly arrived Afghan who is helping refugees find community in an alien place.

Transcript

Qader Kazimizada: Come ti chiami?

Nargis: Nargis.

Qader Kazimizada: No, you have to complete it. Io mi chiamo —

Nargis: I o mi chiamo Nargis.

Qader Kazimizada: Quanti anni hai?

Nargis: Sette anni.

Qader Kazimizada: Complete it: Io ho sette anni. OK, very good. Da dove sei?

Maryam Barak: Qader Kazimizada is playing with his 7-year-old daughter, Nargis, in their temporary home, a spacious apartment in central Rome. They have been living in Italy for about a year, and the children are learning the language.

They’re picking it up more easily than their parents, who fled Afghanistan after Kabul fell to the Taliban. Qader and his family made it out and ended up in Rome, where they are trying to start a new life, in a new country and a new culture.

[Theme music]

Maryam Barak: From The Intercept and New America, this is No Way Home . In this four-part series, you’ll hear stories that were found, developed, and reported by Afghans like me , who have been forced into exile. Our stories reflect what we saw with our own eyes and what we and other Afghans have experienced firsthand since the U.S. military pulled out, the Afghan government collapsed, and the Taliban took over last summer.

This is Episode Three: “Born Again.”

[Theme music ends]

Maryam Barak: I’m Maryam Barak, an Afghan journalist.

I left my home, my identity, and everything on August 23, 2021. But still, I consider myself more fortunate than many other Afghan refugees: I am with my family in Italy.

What I’m about to tell you is a different kind of Afghan refugee story. It isn’t about the struggle to get out of Kabul or a dramatic life-and-death journey. Instead, it’s about adapting to life in a new country, about finding hope — despite all we have left behind. These quieter stories are just as common; they are stories of resilience.

I met Qader Kazimizada as I was also trying to learn Italian and integrate into this new society. Qader already spoke English when he arrived in Italy with his family last fall, but he struggled to learn Italian. He soon realized that other Afghan refugees were having the same problem. He created a WhatsApp group to communicate with them.

Qader Kazimizada: So I created a group, and called them. “Are you ready? Do you need my help? I want to have a class for you.” They were surprised and really felt very happy: “Oh, that is wonderful, please! That is good.”

Maryam Barak: Despite the fact that he himself was just beginning to learn Italian, Qader began teaching Afghan refugees what he had learned in his own classes, offering both support with the language and a sense of community. He taught the classes in languages Afghans could understand, like Persian.

Back in Afghanistan, Qader worked as a finance officer for Jesuit Refugee Services, an international nongovernmental organization that at the time provided education, vocational training, and emergency services to people in Afghanistan. Qader had been worried about the worsening security situation in the country, but like many others, he thought he and his family would be safe in Kabul, the country’s cosmopolitan capital.

Sitting in his living room in Rome, with his children playing near him, Qader told me about the day everything changed: August 15, 2021. He was at his office in Kabul when he learned that the Taliban had entered the city. He grabbed his laptop and immediately rushed home. When he got there, he realized the Taliban were already in his neighborhood. Suddenly, the lines of people rushing to the airport made sense.

Qader Kazimizada: They have entered, and there are many people, many people, many young boys. They are clicking pictures with the Taliban.

Maryam Barak: Working for a Catholic organization put Qader in danger . Leaving Afghanistan suddenly seemed like the only way to save his family. When the government collapsed, he started contacting every foreigner he had ever met, asking for help. Eventually, Jesuit Refugee Services said they could evacuate Qader, his wife, and two kids, Nargis and Firdaws.

But they couldn’t take everyone. Qader would have to leave his parents and siblings behind. He and his wife took their 7-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son to the airport. The Italian government agreed to take in the group. With no notice, Qader and his family were now headed to Rome.

Qader Kazimizada: We didn’t have even any choice. There was no choice because at that moment, the only thing important was to get out from Kabul.

Maryam Barak: When Qader and his family arrived in Italy, they spent two weeks in a hotel, quarantining because of pandemic-related restrictions. Then they were sent to a camp for refugees and migrants in Vibo Valentia, a city in the south of the country. The camp was crowded and isolated, and Qader’s wife and children struggled.

Qader Kazimizada: It was not a good place for the family. We were four families among 18 single refugees from Africa, from Pakistan, from different parts of Africa. And also we were not provided the keys, and there we had no actual privacy.

Maryam Barak: Qader didn’t feel it was safe for his family.

Qader Kazimizada: They were drinking, shouting, fighting during the night at the corridor. I was always awake and standing behind the door, in order to avoid if they come at the door, because my family is here, my wife is here, my children are here. They will be scared.

Maryam Barak: With the help of his former employer, Qader was eventually able to move his family out of the refugee camp and into an apartment in Rome, one of several homes made available to Afghan refugees through Italian charity organizations.

That’s where we’re sitting. It’s April 2022, and Qader’s wife Habiba, who is nine months pregnant with their third child, plays with the kids. Qader’s daughter is attending an Italian school and loves her new home.

Qader Kazimizada: Fortunately, she found Italy very nice. And now she’s very happy.

Maryam Barak: And she is going to school?

Qader Kazimizada: She is going to school. She has found many, many friends. She goes to her friends’ houses. They are inviting her in order to play, to do homework together. Yesterday, one of these families took her to the sea. And she was very happy. She went with them.

Maryam Barak: The Italian government evacuated 5,000 Afghans after August 15. Like other refugees resettling in Italy, they were given food and accommodations. Once they receive official refugee status, they begin the “r eception and integration” process, including Italian language classes and employment training.

The Italian government is paying for Qader’s apartment, and he receives about 380 euros a month for food and other expenses for his family of four, as well as a transit pass. Through the program, he has also started learning Italian.

In Afghanistan, Qader mostly spoke English at work to communicate with colleagues from around the world. He thought that would be enough to get by in Italy too. But he soon learned that was not the case at all.

Qader Kazimizada: It was something that really surprised me, oh my God, it is something that it is a little difficult, but anyhow I will cope with later. It was difficult, only the language, because many were not speaking in English, only Italiano. While we didn’t know anything in Italiano.

Maryam Barak: Not speaking the language was a huge challenge for him, particularly as he needed help to navigate his new city.

Qader Kazimizada: I asked two police officers in English, “Where can I get bus 75 to go to Monteverde? They did not speak English, and they got very angry, said, “Qui Italia, Italia.” And now I understand that they were saying, “Where is this?” And asked me, “Where [are we]? Italia, Italia. Italiano, italiano.” And this was, for me, OK, no problem. I said, “Thank you.” I knew only one word: grazie.

Maryam Barak: From then on, Qader became more serious about his Italian lessons.

In Italy, several refugee NGOs offer language classes, but a challenge for many Afghans learning Italian is that their teachers often rely on English as an intermediary language, which some Afghans don’t speak. As Qader continued his lessons and started studying more, it dawned on him that many Afghans would face even greater challenges than he did picking up the language.

Qader Kazimizada: W e are learning Italiano, trying to get integrated with the people, with Italian people. How they can manage to learn Italian, while they have no English background?

Maryam Barak: Qader was particularly worried about two Afghan families he knew who had a hard time settling in.

Qader Kazimizada: So I thought better to start a class for them. Because I knew English, so I was trying to do self-study. Then I thought, “OK, I can teach them!”

Finding Hope Through Teaching Others

Maryam Barak: Qader started teaching other Afghan refugees what he had learned in his own classes. His wife and children also joined his lessons.

Qader Kazimizada: I told them that I will explain everything in Persian, and I will teach you very slowly. They said, “Yeah, that’s good.”

Maryam Barak: Word spread fast, and the number of participants increased day by day. He shared an open Zoom link, and as the classes continued, more Afghans called in from all around Italy. Then at a gathering organized by the Afghan community in Rome, Afghans introduced him as an Italian teacher.

Qader Kazimizada: They said that Qader is an Italian teacher. And everyone was shocked! “How can it be possible?” I said, yeah, this is my motivation — that I can help. I help Afghan families as much as possible, but I have learned I can pass it to them, so they feel comfortable. They can learn a little bit, if not a lot, at least few things they can learn. It could be a basic step for them.

Maryam Barak: Inspired by Qader’s work, others jumped in to help, including Sitara, an Iranian refugee who had been living in Italy for several years. Because of privacy, she only wanted to use her first name.

Qader Kazimizada: She came to me, said that “I’m really impressed by what you said, and I’m really interested to help you, if you want my help.” I said, “That is wonderful! I appreciate anyone who can help me. Welcome.”

So she explained, “I used to teach in Iran, at a university, Italian for one year or one year and a half.” She said, “Here also I have a class teaching others, so maybe I can help you.” I said, “That is wonderful, please!”

Maryam Barak: In 2015, Sitara had traveled to Afghanistan to film a documentary. She fell in love with the country and realized there was a huge disconnect between the reality of Afghan life and the ways in which the country was often portrayed by the international media.

Sitara (translated voiceover): A country where we have always heard of war and terrorism, adversity, misery and extremism — here I met really lovely people. People [in] civil society who had tried to work on culture and art. I met them in person, up close. The efforts and struggles they, especially women, especially artists, had been making. There were poets, poetry nights, film festivals, and women filmmakers. It was all very strange to me, and it was an image that would not be transferred outside Afghanistan.

Maryam Barak: After the collapse of the Afghan government, Sitara wanted to help Afghan refugees. When she met Qader, she thought this was the opportunity she had been looking for. So she started teaching Italian, using Persian as a go-between.

Sitara (translated voiceover): The level of students, their age, their family situation, from where in Afghanistan they came, their background, and where they live now are different as night and day. It’s very different. Because we have a link open to people who want to introduce it to their friends, and we welcome all of them. And the door is open to all with a condition, the only condition. These classes are completely free and charitable: Be present and study.

Maryam Barak: Sitara, a refugee herself, can relate to the challenges her students face.

Sitara (translated voiceover) : I may say migration is like being born again, or I may say it is a kind of death. That is, you die from a human being you were, from everything you had, from your previous life, and are born in a new world — especially when it is not self-imposed migration and it’s forced. In the case of Afghans, it happened overnight. They are still in shock, and I am sure that they are still digesting, processing the psychological consequences of what happened, the volume of violence that was inflicted on them, and the fear and horror that was imposed [on them].

Maryam Barak: Qader’s Italian classes have helped him not only to learn and teach the language, but also to find a purpose in his new life, and a way to remain connected to other Afghans and build community. The classes also helped him overcome some of the emotional challenges that often accompany becoming a refugee — including a bout of depression in his first weeks after arriving in Italy. In those early days, he would walk around Rome by himself, trying to make sense of his new life.

Qader Kazimizada: I experienced depression in the beginning, so I was always thinking how to come out of that depression. Sometimes I used to go to Gianicolo, even during the night after 10 [p.m.] to walk and just see Rome, come back and sometimes get engaged with other things with my lessons.

Maryam Barak: Afghan migrants from all over Italy are joining Qader’s classes today.

Mohammad Tahir is one of them. He lives in Ancona, a port city on the Adriatic Sea. Mohammad Tahir and his wife can’t read and write, so they worried that would make learning a new language even harder. Not speaking Italian made them feel cut off from their new community.

Mohammad Tahir (translated voiceover): There is a supermarket here that issues cards and where we go for shopping. At the counter when they count and tell us the amount of money, we just give the card [to pay]. When my children are with me, it’s a bit better. For me it is very hard, and my blood pressure goes up. When you cannot speak [the language], you feel dumb and it is very hard to bear.

Maryam Barak: For the first five months in Italy, Mohammad Tahir’s family did not have access to language classes. But now they’re taking weekly lessons from native Italian speakers, and three of their children have started school. They also call into Qader’s Zoom classes for additional practice. This is Tahir’s wife, Latifa:

Latifa Tahir (translated voiceover): Now it’s very good. Our anxiety has decreased significantly. In the past, when our electricity was gone, we could not tell our neighbors, who are all Italians, [that we didn’t have power]. We remained without electricity even for two days. We ate dinner in front of the telephone light. We could not turn on the central heating that had been out of commission and went through much trouble.

Maryam Barak: Recently, I sat in on one of Qader’s Zoom classes. The lesson began with him greeting his students in Italian.

Qader Kazimizada: Ciao buona sera. Ciao a tutti, come state?

Ali Hussain: Bene grazie.

Qader Kazimizada: OK, OK.

Student: Bene grazie.

Qader: Come sta, Murtaza? Murtaza, come sta?

Murtaza: Bene.

Maryam Barak: The students I met in Qader’s class deeply appreciate his efforts. And Qader is happy to be helping people cope with the stress and anxiety that comes from leaving behind their country and adjusting to a whole new culture and language.

He recalls a recent memory from class.

Qader Kazimizada: During the class, the teacher asked him in Dari, in Persian, [say], “We have eaten dinner, and we have done our dinner.” Then, immediately, a little boy, he said, “Abbiamo, I think like that?” And another phrase, he said, “Abbiamo mangiato.” For me, immediately, without any thinking, I really got happy that, oh, thank God, I have done something. And this is what the fruit is: They are learning.

Maryam Barak: Qader knows that learning Italian is only the first of many challenges ahead for him and fellow Afghans. For now, he is focused on finding a job, so that he can take care of his family in Italy and back in Afghanistan.

Qader Kazimizada: I am ready [for] any job, but in fact, this is important for me, the job which has a little more payment. [laughs] Now the first priority is this: At least I can stand on my feet. I can support my family here, and I can support my family there, if I can bring them here. I’m also thinking about starting maybe a small business, maybe cafe, coffee shop, restaurant, or whatever.

Maryam Barak: The Italian classes he runs have helped him envision a future for himself and his family here. Qader hopes helping others can help him chart his own path in this new home.

Qader Kazimizada : I have been always thinking that I am a human being. I have to be — how to say? — I have to be a person who can at least help others, not harm others. I know that today, many, many people are harmed by each other. So I was always thinking that I have to be like this: My path has to be very defined, very clear that I have to help others if I can.

[Credits]

Maryam Barak: Next time on No Way Home.

Hamid : About staying in Afghanistan it is also scary here. Everything is unknown. We don’t know what happens next. What is waiting for us? We don’t know, days and nights, what will happen, what our future would be. What should we do, which way we should follow to reach to our goal or to at least to stay safe.

Maryam Barak: No Way Home is a production of The Intercept and New America’s Afghanistan Observatory Scholars program.

This episode was written and reported by me, Maryam Barak.

Our executive producer and editor is Vanessa Gezari.

Alice Speri also edited this story.

Supervising producer is Laura Flynn.

Candace Rondeaux is the director of Future Frontlines Program-New America and project editor.

Ali Yawar Adili is the Afghanistan Observatory Project Coordinator.

Jose Olivares helped with production.

Rick Kwan mixed this episode.

Zach Young composed our theme music.

Legal review by David Bralow.

Fact checking by Emily Schneider .

Awista Ayub is the director and project manager of New America’s Fellows Program.

Voiceovers by Humaira Rahbin and Mir Miri.

To learn more, visit theintercept.com where you can find transcripts and art of the show.

Philipp Hubert is our visual designer and Nara Shin our copy editor.

Roger Hodge is editor-in-chief of The Intercept.

If you want to give us feedback or have any questions, email us at podcasts@theintercept.com.

Thanks, so much, for listening.

The post No Way Home, Episode Three: Born Again appeared first on The Intercept .

As the Taliban claimed territory last summer, Mir Abdullah Miri and his cousin Aziz both planned to flee their homes in Herat, a city in western Afghanistan. Mir, an educational researcher, made it to the Afghan capital and tried to get on a flight, while Aziz, a cellphone programmer, decided to cross into Iran on foot with his wife and two young children, hoping to reach relatives in Germany. After Aziz and his family set off through Afghanistan’s southern desert, Mir was left to untangle the mystery of what really happened to them in that desolate wilderness, where thousands of Afghans have risked their lives in search of a way out.

Transcript

A quick warning: This episode includes descriptions of a traumatic experience. Please listen at your discretion.

Leila (translated voiceover) : I couldn’t walk. My toenails were completely ripped off. All my toenails were torn off on the way. I felt it myself. I couldn’t sit down to take off my shoes, but I could feel that my toenails were coming off.

I had to take care of my children. I had fallen in several places, and my eyes were closed. All I could hear was my daughter and son crying.

Mir Abdullah Miri: When the Taliban seized Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, Leila’s husband, Aziz, quickly started planning the family’s exit from the country. Their attempt to leave would irreversibly change their lives — and mine.

Leila (translated voiceover): I don’t know who had given me water. It was a stranger. One of them offered to carry my daughter, but I didn’t trust them. I was worried he might take my daughter and run away or something.

[Theme music]

Mir Abdullah Miri: This is No Way Home , a production of The Intercept and New America.

In this four-part series you’ll hear stories that were found, developed, and reported by Afghans like me , who have been forced into exile.

Our stories reflect what we saw with our own eyes and what we and our families have experienced firsthand since the U.S. military pulled out, the Afghan government collapsed, and the Taliban took over last summer.

This is Episode Two: “The Desert of Death.”

[Theme music ends]

Mir Abdullah Miri: My name is Mir Abdullah Miri. I’m an educational researcher living in the U.K. Around this time last year, I was still in Afghanistan, fighting to get out. And so was my cousin, Aziz.

The last time I saw Aziz, he was standing in front of the cellphone store where he worked in Herat, the third largest city in Afghanistan. Located in the western part of the country, the city has been home to many renowned poets, writers, and artists. A jewel along the Silk Road, Herat has long been coveted by conquerors and occupiers.

[Sounds of gunfire]

In July of 2021, Taliban fighters were intensifying their attacks in Herat. This was about a month before they would take control of the capital, Kabul.

That day in front of the cellphone store, Aziz and I had a short conversation. He told me about his plans to leave the country and settle in Germany. He had an uncle and cousin there. His wife, Leila, said Aziz wanted a better life for their kids.

Leila (translated voiceover): He would say, “I don’t like raising my son here. My son should go and study somewhere he deserves.” Because our son knew the English alphabet and was smart.

Aziz: Ice.

Amir: Ice.

Aziz: Ice.

Amir: Ice.

Aziz: Cream.

Amir: Cream.

Aziz: Ice cream.

Amir: Ice cream.

Aziz: Cookie ice cream.

Leila: Aziz would say, “He is a waste here. I want to raise my son somewhere he deserves.”

Mir Abdullah Miri: Aziz wanted to raise his children somewhere where they could go to school, play, and have fun. But getting to Germany was going to be more difficult for Aziz and his family than I realized the last time I saw him.

For reasons that will become apparent, I’m using pseudonyms for all of the subjects in this story.

Leila (translated voiceover): Both Aziz and I had passports. Our passports had expired. Our son and newborn daughter didn’t have a passport.

Mir Abdullah Miri: The original plan was to get to Germany through Iran, then Turkey. But because Aziz and his family didn’t have passports or proper travel documents, their options for getting there were limited.

[Sounds from passport office]

Following the collapse of the government, Afghanistan’s passport offices were flooded with people. They were forced to close because of malfunctioning biometric equipment, leaving thousands of Afghans stranded.

Leila (translated voiceover): Aziz would say, “I can’t afford to go illegally from Islam Qala border. I will go from Nimroz with my uncle because he has taken this route before.”

Mir Abdullah Miri: Islam Qala is a town in Afghanistan on the border with Iran. It’s much closer to Herat than Nimroz, but also more heavily patrolled .

Nimroz, a province in the southwestern part of Afghanistan, borders Iran and Pakistan. It’s a well-known smuggling hub , where drugs, people, money, and more are trafficked between borders.

Leila (translated voiceover): I think he would not have taken this illegal route if the passport office had been open.

Mir Abdullah Miri: To make the journey, Aziz sold his laptop. He learned from relatives that his uncle Ahmad wanted to go to Iran, so he would come along too. Leila’s dad knew a smuggler in Herat who could help them get there.

The day Aziz decided to leave the country, he wrote on Facebook, “Goodbye Afghanistan, Goodbye Herat.”

That same day, Aziz visited his aunt to say goodbye and ask for her blessing. They waited to hear from the smuggler.

Leila (translated voiceover): We were supposed to exactly go at 4 o’clock on Friday. Our bags were packed in the morning. We were ready to go, but it did not happen, and the smuggler called us and said that we would go tomorrow. The next day, again, it did not happen and was delayed to the next day, which was Sunday, when he called and told us that on Monday at 4:00 p.m., he would definitely move us from Herat to Nimroz.

Mir Abdullah Miri: On Monday, August 30, 2021, two weeks after the Afghan government had collapsed and the Taliban had taken control of the country, Aziz posted on Facebook: “O God, send blessings upon Muhammad and the Progeny of Muhammad.” Perhaps a sign that he was nervous about the journey ahead.

The Journey Begins

[Sounds of the Herat bus terminal]

Mir Abdullah Miri: Later that day, Aziz, his wife, their 3-year-old son, and infant daughter, and his uncle, along with his wife and their baby, went to the Herat bus terminal.

Leila: We only had taken one extra set of clothes, because I had a little daughter who was a newborn. So I took a small bag with medicines and syrups for my son because he had dust allergies, and formula milk, boiled water, and a baby bottle for my daughter. I knew that there might not be water and food available during this trip, and I may not be able to breastfeed my daughter.

Mir Abdullah Miri: The smuggler was supposed to take Aziz’s family across the border, but they only had about a third of what they needed in cash to pay him. They also needed money to cover travel expenses like food, lodging, and transportation along the way.

They told the smuggler they would pay the rest when they arrived in Iran. They set off to Nimroz to meet the smuggler.

[Sounds of crowds in Nimroz]

Leila (translated voiceover): Once we arrived in Nimroz, all the crossing points were closed. It was very crowded in Nimroz. There was no car that we could take. We stayed there four nights. After four nights, I told Aziz that it was not possible: “Now that it is impossible to go, let’s return home.” He told me that he would not return even if he died during this journey.

Mir Abdullah Miri: Fearing life under the Taliban and economic collapse, hundreds of thousands of people across the country have tried to flee. Although the desert and mountainous terrain is treacherous, Nimroz is easier for people to cross into Iran illegally.

Hotels were packed. The deserts and mountains were crowded with people. Everyone wanted to leave. While they were waiting for the smuggler, Leila and Aziz got into an argument.

Leila (translated voiceover): I told him that we have our house; we have everything. We don’t care if others leave. Let’s return. Aziz said, “Had I known you are like this, I wouldn’t have married you.” He even told me, “Even if I get killed, I won’t return home. Bury me in Iran next to my father’s grave if I die. I won’t return to Afghanistan.”

Mir Abdullah Miri: Migration from Afghanistan rose in the months before the Afghan government fell to the Taliban.

VOA : The number of Afghans crossing the border illegally has increased by 30 to 40 percent since May, when international forces began withdrawing from Afghanistan and the Taliban increased its attacks.

Mir Abdullah Miri: The number of people trying to leave was still high at the end of August last year.

Afghans make up one of the largest refugee populations in the world. Over 2 million Afghan refugees are registered in Iran and Pakistan, which together are home to about three-quarters of Afghan refugees. At least 1,500 Afghans have lost their lives on migration routes across Asia and Europe since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration ; most of those deaths occurred while crossing into Iran.

Since there is so little official data on the deaths of migrants, the actual figure is probably much higher. Most of these deaths occur along the Afghanistan-Iran route that Aziz and his family chose.

Afghan refugees have had devastating experiences in Iran. In May 2020, 23 Afghan migrants who were trying to cross the border to Iran drowned in the Harirud River after Iranian border guards beat them and forced them to jump into the water. A month later, Iranian police shot at a car carrying Afghan migrants. The car burst into flames ; three people died.

[Sounds from the streets of Qom, Iran]

Aziz had grown up in Qom, Iran. His parents had migrated there during the Afghan civil war in the 1990s. When Aziz was 7, his dad died in a traffic accident. At the time, Aziz’s mom was only 20 years old, left to raise three kids. To make ends meet, she cleaned their neighbors’ houses. As a kid, Aziz would work half a day and go to school the other half. After finishing high school, he was no longer eligible for free education in Iran.

In 2008, seven years after the U.S. military arrived in Afghanistan, Aziz and his family moved to Herat. It took Aziz a few years to get used to living in Afghanistan. He started working as a software programmer at a cellphone store. Leila and Aziz married in 2015. A few years later, he got his bachelor’s degree in computer science.

Aziz grew to love Herat. He used to call himself Aziz HRT — short for Herat — a nickname he chose to show his regard for his new home. Even his Facebook pictures had the caption “Aziz HRT.” For several years, Aziz lived a normal life in Herat, until insecurity and conflict in the country increased, leading many Afghans to flee their homes.

As the economy weakened, Aziz struggled to make ends meet. He began thinking about getting a new job or a part-time job, but he didn’t succeed because almost everyone had a similar problem.

[Sounds from Nimroz]

Mir Abdullah Miri: Back in Nimroz, Leila and Aziz were growing impatient. They still hadn’t heard from the smuggler. They had no information about their border crossing or know what to expect.

When they finally got a hold of the smuggler the next day, he told them to keep waiting. Aziz, Ahmad, and their wives and children were sharing a space with five other families.

Leila (translated voiceover): It is a place where you cannot make a call, and no one helps you [if you] cry out of pain.

Mir Abdullah Miri: Leila described their time in Nimroz.

Leila (translated voiceover): We lived on fruits like melon and watermelon. During the four nights in Nimroz, in our initial place, we could make calls and were in contact. The internet also worked but not properly. We were told to hide our phones. I even took my marriage ring off my finger. I was told to hide my ring because we would be chased.

From Smuggler to Smuggler

Mir Abdullah Miri: After four days and no progress, Aziz found a new smuggler, Khalil, with the help of a family friend.

It’s not hard to find a smuggler in Nimroz who will agree to take you across the border for the right price.

Leila (translated voiceover): The smuggler said, “It’s up to you. You have a choice to make: All border crossings are closed, except Kalagan, which requires four hours of walking.”

Mir Abdullah Miri: Khalil, the new smuggler Aziz found, warned that the only route open to them was not safe for a family with two young children. But Aziz insisted.

Leila (translated voiceover): It was Friday, and the smuggler himself moved us to a new lodging place. He didn’t charge us for the place, but he charged us for the food. The food was like what you’d cook for a small child. And because the food is not enough, the child won’t get full. He would charge us 200 Afghani per person for that food.

Mir Abdullah Miri: It was very expensive for them, and the accommodations were sparse.

Leila (translated voiceover): The new place was inside the city. It was inside the city but in the backstreets. It was a ruined house and had two floors. Married people were on one floor; singles were on the other floor. The women and children were on one side of the room, and the men — whether their husbands, brothers, and everyone else — were on the other side of the room. There was only a curtain between men and women.

Mir Abdullah Miri: Before I continue, let me explain how smugglers work in this part of the country.

Smuggling networks work with sarafs : basically freelance financial agents. The sarafs act as intermediaries between smugglers and migrants. Migrants usually pay the sarafs in advance, but the money is only handed over to the smuggler once the client has reached his destination.

Migrants are usually divided into groups of 5 to 10. They rely on their guides for information about the geography and length of the trip. Throughout the journey, they’re passed from one smuggler to another, all part of the same network.

The new smuggler gave them a phone number and told them to use it if they got lost. Khalil told them that they were now Abdullah Kaj’s people, another smuggler. He told them what to expect from the journey.

Leila (translated voiceover): He told us to put the phone number in each child’s pocket, so they could be found in case they were lost along the way.

Mir Abdullah Miri: By rickshaws, the smuggler took Leila, Aziz, their two children, his uncle, and his uncle’s family to a place where another set of smugglers would meet them.

Leila (translated voiceover): The weather was unbearably hot. We were in a desert. It was not in our control. We didn’t have the choice to decide [when to go and how to go]. When you say “smuggling,” it’s clear from its name. It’s not for you to say. You have to bear it.

All the children were crying; even my son and my daughter were crying. I didn’t know how to calm them.

Mir Abdullah Miri: In the desert, they arrived to find pickup trucks and cars.

Leila (translated voiceover): The cars were not that comfortable to sit in. They were worn-out Toyotas. It was me, my two children, my uncle’s wife, two other women — who were our distant relatives — with a child each, plus the bags we had. We were crammed into the second row of the cabin with difficulty. The men had to sit on the back of the truck.

Mir Abdullah Miri: After about nine hours, they were dropped off near a tent in the desert in Pakistan. About an hour later, another car drove them through the desert and hills.

Leila (translated voiceover): Around 2:00 to 2:30 am, I had a Nokia phone with myself, and I was able to check the time. He stopped near a hill and told us to rest there, and they would move us again at 5:00 a.m. There were so many people sleeping there who had arrived earlier. There were cars and one tent there. They were all migrants. When we stopped there, the vehicle remained with us and the guy went somewhere else. There, my daughter was crying a lot and did not take anything. I mean, I couldn’t sleep from 2:30 am — when we arrived there — until 5:00 am until they moved us.

There, it was full of sand, thorns, and thistles. Because we were so bone-tired and exhausted, we laid down there without even thinking if it was sand, rock, clumps of earth, or whatever. My son didn’t eat at all during the way. Whatever I give him, he would throw up. He would even throw up a drop of water I give him.

Mir Abdullah Miri: The next morning, they left at 5:00 a.m. The driver spoke Balochi on the phone, a language spoken in the region they were passing through between Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

It is known as Dasht-e Margo, or the Desert of Death. Leila and Aziz didn’t realize this.

Four hours later, they were dropped off at a site with little shade, just a few palm trees and no water.

Leila (translated voiceover): After an hour, two cars came. They asked, “Who are Abdullah Kaj’s people?”

Mir Abdullah Miri: That’s the smuggler.

Leila (translated voiceover): “We are,” we said. The men raised their hands. The smugglers said that the men would go in one car and the women in another.

Mir Abdullah Miri: Aziz didn’t want the families separated. He insisted on being able to travel together with his wife and children.

Leila (translated voiceover): The smuggler told Aziz, “Wait here. Once you’re burnt in the sun here until the evening, then you will regret it.”

Mir Abdullah Miri: And so they were left in the desert.

Leila (translated voiceover): But we didn’t know that the weather would get that hot under those palm trees.

Mir Abdullah Miri: Every few hours, they would change places, chasing the shade of the palm trees. Finally, about eight hours later, a pickup truck pulled up, and people crowded around it. Aziz and his family were allowed in. They were put on the back of the pickup truck.

Leila (translated voiceover): The driver would drive so fast. He told us to hold fast. If anything like the bags, our kids, or ourselves fall, he would not stop for us to take our kids because there are patrol cars all around us.

Mir Abdullah Miri: Along the way, each family had to pay people at different checkpoints.

Leila (translated voiceover): Most of our money was spent paying the Taliban and the Baloch tribespeople along the way. They would take money from everyone, both families and singles. Those who did not have money, they would hit them.

Mir Abdullah Miri: Leila shared a story about a young man traveling with them.

Leila (translated voiceover): He gave his bag and his phone to us to hide because the poor man said, “These are all I had. Hide them because I have nothing else, and I might end up hungry and thirsty.” When the Taliban searched and couldn’t find anything, they hit him as much as they could.

Mir Abdullah Miri: Around midnight, they arrived at a place called Abbas Hostel, where they would be staying for the night. It had no roof — so they huddled under the desert sky.

Leila (translated voiceover): It wasn’t a hostel. It was a big compound with four walls and two doors. I should tell you, it was like a moat. It was water and dirt. There was no place to sit. We finally decided to sit next to a toilet on the dry ground, in the dirt. We had no option except to sit there. There, we ate no food and drank no water — nothing.

Mir Abdullah Miri: The next stop was at the mountains on the Pakistan-Iran border. By that point, two nights had passed since they had left Nimroz. They reached the mountains in the evening and were told to rest for two hours. They had a long walk ahead.

Leila (translated voiceover): Once he dropped us off there, we walked a few steps. We sat at the top of the mountain. Aziz was too tired to sit. He lay there on the rocks. Our son was also lying there, next to his dad.

There was no one we could buy food or water from. We had taken only some dried bread with us since we knew that dried bread doesn’t go bad easily.

[Sounds of motorbikes]

Mir Abdullah Miri: A few smugglers on motorbikes showed up at 9:00 p.m. and divided the group in two and assigned each to a different smuggler: “Mojib Baloch” and “Asmaan.” Aziz and his family were told that Asmaan would be their smuggler.

They were told to shout “Asmaan! Asmaan!” whenever they were lost, since the route was dark and crowded.

Leila (translated voiceover): All of us had to walk. It was too dark to see anything. In fact, we couldn’t see ahead of us. Our small mobile phone had a light, but the smuggler even told us to [keep it] off because if police patrols saw it, they would follow and find us.

The smuggler was on a motorbike, and he would himself go two, three mountains ahead of us and stand on the top of a mountain and signal us with his big light, asking us to follow him. He told us if we didn’t follow him, we would be left behind.

Mir Abdullah Miri: Aziz had a backpack and carried his 3-year-old son, Amir. Leila carried their baby daughter in her arms. Aziz and Leila walked together, holding hands.

Leila (translated voiceover): My son was crying a lot. As Aziz walked, he would put Amir down, held his hand, and asked him to follow him. Within minutes, he’d put him back on his shoulder. I held my daughter’s hand. Amir would cry a lot and say things like, “Daddy, I’m sleepy. Daddy, I’m hungry. Daddy, I’m dying.” His daddy was silent.

Mir Abdullah Miri: They hadn’t walked more than 30 minutes before Aziz couldn’t go any further.

Leila (translated voiceover): Once Aziz couldn’t walk, in the dark, a man approached us and offered to carry our bags because my son was crying a lot and my daughter had also started crying at this point. We even stopped and sat down to rest in a few places. But the guy took our bag and soon disappeared with our water and food.

Mir Abdullah Miri: Leila called for their uncle, Ahmad. The route was crowded with donkeys and motorbikes that typically smuggled gas, but since nearly all the borders were now closed, the business of smuggling humans was booming.

Aziz was in pain.

Leila (translated voiceover): Aziz would moan and cry “Aakh, aakh.” [expression of pain]

Mir Abdullah Miri: They stopped a man on a motorbike to ask about taking the family the rest of the way.

Leila (translated voiceover): The motorbiker looked very scary. Aziz talked to the motorbiker and asked how much he would take us. The guy said, “400,000 tomans per person.” Aziz said, “I don’t mind. It’s me, my wife, and my children.”

Mir Abdullah Miri: Aziz agreed to pay the fee, which was around 1,200 Afghani or $14, but they needed to make it down the steep mountain first. Uncle Ahmad helped Aziz down. Leila and the rest of the family followed closely.

Leila (translated voiceover): When the motorbiker stopped there, he would shout out, “Amir? Leila? Amir? Leila?” I would reply, “We are here. We are here.” He was worried about us a lot.

Mir Abdullah Miri: Once they reached the bottom of the mountain, Aziz sat on the ground in pain and even more exhausted.

Leila (translated voiceover): He was conscious, but he couldn’t find people to help him get on the motorbike. I implored some people to get him on the motorbike. Six people put him on the motorbike.

Mir Abdullah Miri: Ahmad would accompany Aziz on the motorbike with the smuggler. Leila was left with the children and her uncle Ahmad’s family. The plan was to meet at the next hostel in Iran.

Leila was growing tired too, now carrying her two children on her own. After two and a half hours, the motorbike driver came back alone. He told Leila that they took Aziz to the hospital.

Leila (translated voiceover): I got worried and I asked, “What has happened that you took him to the hospital?” “His blood pressure had gone up,” he replied.

He lied to me.

Mir Abdullah Miri: The smuggler had come back to take her and the children down the mountain. Initially, she refused to go with him. But she was so tired, she ultimately gave in.

Leila (translated voiceover): The smuggler forced my son on his motorbike. Then I sat on his motorbike with my daughter. I was crying and asking him, “Where did you take my husband?” “We took him to hospital. Now I will take you there,” he replied. My son was crying a lot. He would tell my son to stop crying, as he would take us to his dad.

Mir Abdullah Miri: The smuggler didn’t take them to the hospital as he had promised. He took them here and there, Leila said it felt like he was stalling.

They had crossed the border into Iran. But it would be awhile before she would see their Uncle Ahmad again.

Leila (translated voiceover): Suddenly I saw Uncle Ahmad from behind us.

Mir Abdullah Miri: Ahmad told Leila that he would take her to see Aziz. He took her to Zahedan, a city in Iran. Once there, Ahmad told her, Aziz was in a hospital in Afghanistan. So they would need to return.

Leila was overwhelmed, anxious, and frustrated. She had been told so many contradictory things about Aziz. No one was giving her clear answers. Her children were crying, and she cried with them, begging others to tell her what happened to her husband.

In order to get back to Afghanistan, they had to turn themselves into the authorities in Zahedan. Because they didn’t have the proper travel documents and crossed into Iran illegally, they had to be deported back home.

After spending a few days and nights in Iran, they were deported to Afghanistan on September 12, 2021.

No Clear Answers

I was sitting in a Kabul hotel when I received a call from my brother, Omid. My family and I had received word that the U.K. government would evacuate us. I was told that I was eligible to be relocated to England because I was working as a trainer with the British Council. But chaos at the airport, and then the suicide bombing, grounded commercial flights.

Omid told me that Aziz was missing after trying to cross the Afghanistan-Iran border. Together we began trying to find Aziz.

Omid, who lives in Herat, had an Iranian visa. He set off to look for Aziz in Iran. Ahmad had told Omid that he wasn’t sure if Aziz was still alive. Ahmad had told other relatives that Aziz was in Khash, a city in Iran.

But while searching for Aziz, Omid learned that his body was actually in a hospital in Saravan, a city in southeastern Iran, 100 miles away from Khash. The hospital staff told Omid that Aziz’s body had been discovered by villagers in Saravan, which wasn’t far from where he was supposed to meet Leila.

Aziz’s body had been in the desert for a couple of days before it was taken to the hospital on September 9, 2021, they told Omid. According to the hospital report, Aziz died of three things: the first, being hit by a hard object; the second, head injuries and concussions; and the third, a cerebral hemorrhage. His brain was bleeding. When Omid saw Aziz’s body, he noticed that his clothes were torn.

Aziz’s death remains a mystery. What happened to him? Did he fall? Was he pushed? Was he beaten? Did he suffer a heart attack? Did anyone help him, or did they leave him behind? Did he have time to realize what was happening? Was he alone when he died? And why was Ahmad giving conflicting stories?

I’ve talked to those who were directly or indirectly involved in this trip and who had information about Aziz and his decision to leave the country. We all have tried retracing Aziz’s steps.

When I asked Ahmad what happened to Aziz, he revealed more than he had told Leila:

Ahmad (translated voiceover): Finally, as we approached the hostel, I saw Aziz have three hiccups on the motorbike, like someone who was breathing his last breaths. I took him to the hostel. When I took him to the hostel, I put him on my lap and called him nephew, nephew, breathe, breathe, but he didn’t breathe at all.

There were 3 to 4 people in the hostel. I asked them to check him, he is my nephew, why he is not breathing. I was pushing his chest to help him breathe, but nothing helped; he couldn’t breathe.

A guy at the hostel told me Aziz had died. May he rest in peace.

I was told not to tell Leila about Aziz’s death because if she cried, all the travelers would be fucked up.

Mir Abdullah Miri: Meaning it could put them all in danger of being captured by the police.

Ahmad (translated voiceover): I asked the smuggler what happened to my nephew. He told me, “We took him to the hospital to give electric shock, we took him to the morgue.”

Mir Abdullah Miri: Leila doesn’t understand why Ahmad wouldn’t tell anyone what really happened. When they got back to Herat, everyone would ask Ahmad to tell them everything, and according to Leila, Ahmad would say, “This was everything.”

She has her own theories.

Leila (translated voiceover): I think Aziz fell off the mountain because Ahmad was so frail, and as he was helping Aziz get off the motorbike, he must have fallen.

Mir Abdullah Miri: The mystery surrounding Aziz’s death has torn our family apart. We’ve all been left to speculate about what actually happened and whether anyone could have helped Aziz or saved him.

Illegal migration is a difficult decision. Many uncertainties await the traveler. The journey becomes even harder when you start from a war-torn country like Afghanistan, at a moment when power is shifting, when many people are terrified and running for the exits.

Afghanistan has had confusing policies to prevent or discourage the use of smugglers. Only recently has the Taliban ordered a ban on migration from Nimroz to Iran. But it’s been reported that those who pay bribes to the Taliban border guards can continue their journey.

Leila (translated voiceover): Aziz was someone who loved his family. He loved his children. He always said, “Leaving home is like leaving your soul.” When he left home, he indeed left his soul behind.

Mir Abdullah Miri: Since Aziz passed away, his family has been struggling. Leila and her children live with Aziz’s mom and brother. They don’t have any source of income and rely on the little money Aziz’s brother gives them to cover living costs.

Leila: When Aziz died, my daughter was two and half months old. I had to pay for diapers, medicine, and doctors. Once we got back, I had to spend a lot on my kids’ health. My son has a blood infection. Even now, if he gets a microbe in his body, we have to pay a lot for his treatment.

Mir Abdullah Miri: Leila worries about the future of her children.

Leila (translated voiceover): All the dreams Aziz and I had as a couple were buried. Now, the only dream I have is for my children to get educated in a good place.

Mir Abdullah Miri: When I talked to Leila about this, she fought back tears.

Leila (translated voiceover): I just want from my God that whatever good or bad memories I had here in Afghanistan, I leave them in Afghanistan. I even just want to be somewhere where I can put up a tent, where I can live with my children, because there are no good memories left for us from Afghanistan. And even today my son cried for about an hour, saying, “Mommy, I want to see my dad’s clothes. Open dad’s closet so I can see my dad’s clothes.”

Mir Abdullah Miri: She worries about the trauma her son, Amir, still carries. He’s scared all the time. When he’s sleeping, even when Leila is next to him, he wakes up and cries, “Where’s my mommy?”

Leila (translated voiceover): Every night when he goes to bed, he does not fall asleep until he recalls those days. He says, “Mommy, when I grow up, I won’t take you to the mountains. I’m afraid of mountains.”

[Credits]

Mir Abdullah Miri: Next time on No Way Home.

Maryam Barak: What I’m about to tell you is a different kind of Afghan refugee story. It isn’t about the struggle to get out of Kabul or a dramatic life-and-death journey. Instead, it’s about adapting to life in a new country, about finding hope — despite all we have left behind.

Qader Kazimizada: We didn’t even have any choice. There was no choice, because at that moment, the only thing was important was to get out from Kabul.

They were drinking, shouting, fighting during the night at the corridor. I was always awake and standing behind the door in order to avoid if they come at the door, because my family is here, my wife is here, my children are here. They will be scared.

We are learning Italiano, trying to get integrated with the people, with Italian people.

Mir Abdullah Miri: No Way Home is a production of The Intercept and New America’s Afghanistan Observatory Scholars program.

This episode was written and reported by me, Mir Abdullah Miri.

Our executive producer and editor is Vanessa Gezari.

Supervising producer and editor is Laura Flynn.

Candace Rondeaux is the director of Future Frontlines Program-New America and project editor.

Ali Yawar Adili is the Afghanistan Observatory project coordinator.

Jose Olivares helped with production.

Rick Kwan mixed this episode.

Zach Young composed our theme music.

Legal review by David Bralow.

Fact checking by Emily Schneider.

Awista Ayub is the director and project manager of New America’s Fellows Program.

Voiceovers by Humaira Rahbin and Ali Yawar Adili.

To learn more, visit theintercept.com where you can find transcripts and art of the show. Philipp Hubert is our visual designer and Nara Shin our copy editor.

Roger Hodge is editor-in-chief of The Intercept.

If you want to give us feedback or have any questions, email us at podcasts@theintercept.com.

Thanks, so much, for listening.

The post No Way Home, Episode Two: The Desert of Death appeared first on The Intercept .

E arly on the morning of August 15, 2021, Shershah Ahmadi was struggling to find a ride home. In Foroshgah, one of the busiest open-air bazaars in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, crowds swarmed around money-changers and lined up at banks as people scrambled to lay their hands on the cash they would need to escape the coming Taliban onslaught. Every taxi and bus looked packed. Suddenly, Ahmadi’s phone buzzed as the WhatsApp group he shared with several dozen other pilots in the Afghan Air Force’s Special Mission Wing lit up.

Ahmadi’s boss, Special Mission Wing Cmdr. Gen. Hamidullah Ziarmal, was ordering him and the other pilots to get to Hamid Karzai International Airport immediately. On any other day, Ahmadi wouldn’t have thought twice. After eight years in the Afghan Air Force, responding to a direct order from a superior officer was as natural as breathing.

But on that day — the day the Taliban streamed into the heart of Kabul and plunged the city into chaos — every move Ahmadi made seemed like a fateful choice between his family and his country.

He understood well what was being asked of him. If he followed the order, there was a good chance that he might never see his wife and 3-year-old daughter again. If he disobeyed, he could be considered absent without leave and insubordinate for failing to heed a direct command. Flouting the order to muster at the airport could also mean that millions of dollars’ worth of helicopters and airplanes paid for by U.S. taxpayers would fall into the hands of the Taliban. Either way, Ahmadi’s life might soon be at risk.

Shershah Ahmadi is not his real name. In exchange for speaking frankly to The Intercept, the former Afghan Air Force pilot asked to be identified by a pseudonym because he fears retaliation and potential complications to his visa status, and that of his family, in the United States.

Born and raised in Kabul, Ahmadi had enrolled in Afghanistan’s National Military Academy in 2008, when he was 17, at a time when the Taliban’s hold on territory was mostly confined to the south and east of the country. Thirteen years later, as they returned to power, he was one of dozens of Afghan pilots whose decisions would have consequences for Afghanistan’s security, as well as that of other countries in the region and the U.S.

Today, more than a quarter of the former Afghan Air Force fleet is in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and the status of the aircraft has become a critical sticking point in a three-way diplomatic dispute between the Taliban regime and its northern neighbors. The decision many Afghan pilots made to fly military aircraft across the country’s northern borders last August has effectively blocked any near-term chance that the Taliban can fully secure the country’s rough and mountainous terrain. But the status of the Afghan air fleet is far from resolved, and Taliban leaders have said that they are determined to reconstitute the country’s military.

Maj. Gen. Yasin Zia, Afghanistan’s former chief of Army staff, said that he and Afghan Air Force commanders were left with few options after former President Ashraf Ghani surreptitiously fled the country last August. In an interview with The Intercept last month, Zia explained that only the Air Force’s Special Mission Wing remained relatively intact. The SMW, established in the summer of 2012, had at least 18 Mi-17 helicopters and five UH-60 Black Hawks; the fleet also included 16 PC-12 single-engine fixed-wing cargo planes, providing Afghan forces with assault, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. “The president had fled, and the defense minister was escaping,” Zia said. “The chain of command no longer existed among the forces.”

Zia, who also served as Afghanistan’s acting minister of defense from March to June 2021, now leads an anti-Taliban resistance force. He told The Intercept that he, Ziarmal, and Afghan Air Force Cmdr. Gen. Fahim Ramin ordered Ahmadi and the other Afghan pilots to fly the country’s aircraft across the border to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan last August.

“I made the decision based on two main reasons,” Zia said. “To save the lives of the pilots who had fought the Taliban and who were left alone — this was the least I could do for my colleagues as a veteran Army officer. And to keep the Air Force fleet from falling into the hands of the Taliban. Imagine if the Taliban had gotten those aircraft — how they would have been used against the people resisting them today in Andarab, Panjshir, and other parts of the country.”

Zia’s account, which was backed up by interviews with three Afghan Air Force pilots and two former Afghan security officials, suggests that the United States, which had invested billions in the Afghan Air Force over more than a decade, had no plan in place to prevent the Taliban from gaining control of the aircraft, highly trained pilots, and other support staff if the republic collapsed. A team of U.S. military personnel hastily located and destroyed dozens of aircraft in the Kabul airport two days after the country fell to the Taliban.

In response to questions for this story, a Pentagon spokesperson said that the U.S. military planned to back the Afghan security forces it had built. “Senior U.S. officials repeatedly informed the Ghani government and [Afghan security forces] that the U.S. intended to continue to provide critical support to the Afghan Air Force, including salaries, maintenance, logistics, pilot training, likely through contracting and from outside of Afghanistan,” Lt. Col. Rob Lodewick, the Pentagon’s Afghanistan spokesperson, told The Intercept in an email.

The U.S. “continued to fly missions in support” of Afghan operations “into early August” of last year, Lodewick added, but he did not say what happened between early August and the middle of that month, when the Taliban took control of Kabul — a critical period in the war. Former Afghan security officials and pilots told The Intercept that U.S. air support had stopped by the time the Taliban were advancing toward Kabul. Even experts working for the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction noted that by mid-August of last year, “U.S. forces had withdrawn; even ‘over-the-horizon’ U.S. air support had ceased — and the Afghan Air Force (AAF), a crucial part of a security force that the United States had spent two decades and $90 billion building and supporting, was nowhere in evidence.”

Lodewick, however, doubled down on the Biden administration’s refrain that Afghans’ “lack of a will to fight” led to their defeat by the Taliban.

“They had the people. They had the equipment. They had the training. They had the support,” Lodewick wrote. “Long-term commitments such as these, however, can only accomplish so much if beneficiary forces are not willing to stand and fight. One needs only to look at the current situation in Ukraine for an example of what an equipped, trained and resilient force is truly capable of achieving.”

Still reeling from the swift turn of events in Kabul, Ahmadi had reached a terrifying crossroads. There in the market bazaar in Foroshgah, the world clanged noisily around him. Cars honked. Shopkeepers slammed their windows and locked their doors. Police and soldiers surreptitiously slipped out of their uniforms while civilians whizzed by shouting into their cellphones. Time was running faster than Ahmadi’s thoughts. He had to decide to return to his family or follow the orders of a military that was crumbling by the hour.

Afghan Boots, Foreign Wings

Ahmadi’s dilemma was not a new one. Afghanistan’s military history is replete with stories about pilots who either helped would-be rulers secure power in Kabul or spirited them to safety when their political strategies failed. King Amanullah Khan first established the Afghan Air Force in 1921 with aircraft donated by the Soviet Union, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

In the decade following the 1979 Soviet invasion, the Afghan fleet grew to 500 aircraft, all Soviet-made. After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, infighting between mujahideen factions backed by the United States destroyed most of the planes and helicopters. But some of the aircraft survived. When the Taliban took power the first time around in 1996, they did so with the help of about two dozen Soviet-made Mi-21 helicopter gunships that they had captured during battles with forces loyal to the late Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud and the government of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani.

But then, as now, the aircraft quickly fell into disrepair; the Taliban’s pariah status meant that they could not import parts or rely on the highly skilled labor and expertise of foreign military advisers to maintain the air fleet. Then, as now, Termez International Airport in neighboring Uzbekistan briefly served as a way station for Afghan pilots who flew over the border when the Taliban seized control of Kabul. In at least one case after the Taliban took the capital in 1996, the Uzbek government turned over an aircraft to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan Uzbek warlord and leader of one of the most notorious jihadist factions of the 1980s and ’90s. The Taliban still had the upper hand, albeit with a small air force, including about 20 Soviet-made fighter jets.

In the first 10 years after U.S. troops swooped into the country following Al Qaeda’s attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, American and NATO jet fighters, helicopters, and drones dominated the Afghan skies. Yet it wasn’t until nearly a decade later that the United States began to substantially invest in building the Afghan Air Force.

Afghanistan’s first post-Taliban defense minister, Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, was a vocal advocate for building the new Afghan military along the lines of NATO nations. His obsession with American-made F-16 jet fighters was a regular talking point whenever he met with Pentagon officials. It was an expensive proposition: Even under the best circumstances, the cost of operating the Lockheed Martin-made F-16 Falcon would be about $8,000 an hour, according to at least one estimate .

Beyond the financial barriers, there was the practical challenge of setting up a permanent U.S. training and equipment mission. It wasn’t until 2005, four years after U.S. and allied Afghan forces routed the Taliban, that then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered the establishment of a dedicated command structure for the U.S.-led mission to train and equip Afghan security forces. But that entity did not turn to building up the Afghan Air Force until two years later.

There were other problems as well. In Washington, a major political transition was underway between the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, who sent thousands of American troops surging into Afghanistan in a renewed attempt to pacify it. It was only in 2009, as resurgent Taliban forces swept from their southern redoubts ever closer to Afghanistan’s heartland around Kabul, that Afghan pilots could begin providing air support to the country’s ground troops — and then only with help from American military advisers.

Corruption affected everything from fleet maintenance to fuel suppliers, flight performance, and capacity-building. For instance, Afghan officials often awarded training slots based on patronage and family relations, according to a 2019 report by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR.

Another challenge was a string of “green-on-blue” attacks in which Afghan soldiers attacked their U.S. and NATO counterparts. A turning point came in April 2011, when an Afghan Air Force pilot fatally shot nine Americans at the air base command headquarters in Kabul. An inquiry led by the U.S Air Force Office of Special Investigations indicated that some American military advisers on base at the time believed that the shooter, Col. Ahmed Gul, had been secretly recruited by the Taliban to infiltrate the Air Force.

The massacre of the American advisers to the Afghan Air Force was one of the deadliest of its kind. It changed the way the Pentagon provided air support to Afghan forces, former Lt. Gen. Sami Sadat, the last commander of the Afghan National Army Special Operations Command, told The Intercept.

“Before 2008, the U.S. Army had quite casual rules of engagement with the Afghan Army. At that time, we did not have the green-on-blue attacks, and the risk for the U.S. and Afghan soldiers working together was very limited,” Sadat, who now lives in the U.K. and runs a security firm, recalled in an interview in July. “It was after 2008 that the green-on-blue matter increased, and the partnership between the U.S. and Afghan officers became difficult due to the huge risk.”

While some Afghan military officials lobbied for a NATO-style air regiment, others argued that sticking with Warsaw Pact equipment was more pragmatic. In the end, the Pentagon split the difference, despite concerns about the costs and risks of relying on foreign suppliers like Russia and Ukraine.

In 2013, the U.S. said it would pay $572 million to Rosoboronexport , the export wing of Russia’s state-owned arms company, Rostec, for 30 Russian-built Mi-17 military helicopters. But the Pentagon canceled the deal after a furor erupted in Congress over the purchase of Russian aircraft at a time when the U.S. was pressing Russia to stop supplying Syria with weapons. After the U.S. sanctioned Russia over its annexation of Crimea and military incursion in eastern Ukraine in 2014, the Pentagon stopped supplying Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters to Kabul altogether.

In 2016, the Obama administration ordered a halt to all dealings with Russian arms manufacturers , including Rostec. A year later, the Pentagon began transitioning the Afghan Air Force from Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters to the U.S.-made Black Hawk attack helicopter. It was a jarring change for most Afghan Air Force pilots, who had decades of experience flying and fixing Russian aircraft. Black Hawks were notoriously difficult to maintain and couldn’t operate as well at high altitudes .

The U.S. ban on Russian weaponry and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, meanwhile, also made it next to impossible for the Afghan Air Force to repair and maintain its remaining Russian-made aircraft. Russia objected to the scheduled overhaul of the Mi-17s by Ukrainian companies, calling the deal “illegal.” Russian companies also accused Motor Sich and Aviakon, the two Ukrainian firms contracted by the U.S. to repair the Afghan aircraft, of poor oversight and of endangering the lives of American and Afghan soldiers.

This was the story of the Afghan Air Force under the Americans: Suspicion, mistrust, start, stop, start again, and reset the strategy. By July 2021, according to a May SIGAR report , the Afghan Air Force had 131 usable aircraft and another 31 in various states of disrepair.

Abandoned and Afraid

In January 2021, eight months before Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, SIGAR warned the Defense Department in a classified report that the Afghan Air Force would collapse without continued U.S. training and maintenance.

The report came as Afghan security forces sustained increasing casualties amid an aggressive Taliban offensive. Battlefield medical evacuation missions that had been critical to the Afghan military’s continued capabilities grew far more challenging. A year after the Taliban takeover, interviews with more than a dozen former Afghan military and government officials and Western diplomats confirm what many Afghan pilots like Ahmadi already knew: The Afghan Air Force was struggling to stay alive in those final weeks and was wholly unprepared to hold the line against the Taliban when President Joe Biden decided to move forward with the Doha agreement that his predecessor Donald Trump had negotiated.

By July 2021, a month before the Taliban surged into Kabul, one in five Afghan aircraft were out of service, according to Reuters . Meanwhile, an estimated 60 percent of Afghanistan’s UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were grounded with no plan by the Afghan or U.S. governments to fix them, according to a senior Afghan Army officer interviewed by SIGAR. As the Taliban advanced in the summer of 2021, most of the 17,000 support contractors were withdrawn from the country.

“The system wouldn’t have collapsed if the logistical support that was promised by the U.S. military continued.”

“The system wouldn’t have collapsed if the logistical support that was promised by the U.S. military continued,” Sadat told The Intercept. “For instance, when the first province fell to the Taliban, in the entire [Afghan Air Force] there was only one laser-guided missile.” (Lodewick, the Pentagon spokesperson, declined to comment on supply levels without “knowing the specific airframe or munition being referenced … nor a specific date window” but said that the Afghan Air Force “had a significant number [of] aerial munitions in its inventory,” including “a small number of GBU-58 laser-guided bombs which afforded the AAF precision strike capabilities from their A-29 aircraft.”)

The pace of the Taliban advance surprised many Afghan pilots interviewed for this story, including Ahmadi. The Afghan Air Force’s three major airfields in the western city of Herat, the southern city of Kandahar, and the northern city of Mazar-i Sharif fell like dominoes to the Taliban on August 12, 13, and 14, respectively, leaving some Afghan Air Force pilots and staff scrambling to get to Kabul, while others flew their aircraft to neighboring Uzbekistan.

“In the last year preceding the Taliban takeover, the military turned into defense mode and only in the last few weeks were allowed to launch attacks,” Ahmadi recalled. “By that time, the Taliban had already made major territorial advancements.”

Choosing Flight

On August 15, 2021, the situation grew more tense by the hour as rumors spread about the Taliban’s advance into the capital. Ahmadi, convinced by the growing chaos around him and the urging of his commanders, turned and started running toward the airport.

He was one of dozens who heeded the order to quickly muster at the Afghan Air Force’s operational headquarters at the main airport in Kabul. Once there, at around 11 a.m., he found a number of his colleagues in uniform, standing near their aircraft.

A few hours later, news broke that Ghani and his aides had flown out of the country. At the Air Force headquarters, panic set in. Ghani’s departure meant the end of everything. Days after his escape, on August 18, Ghani posted a video on his Facebook page in which he said that he’d left the country to avoid bloodshed. The former Afghan president, who is now in the United Arab Emirates, stands accused of taking millions of dollars in cash, though a recent report by SIGAR indicates that Ghani and his entourage may have taken only around $500,000 with them.

Ahmadi looked around at his fellow pilots as they absorbed the news that the country’s commander in chief, the man who by law held their fate and that of 38 million Afghans in his hands, had abandoned his post. In an instant, all their years of hard work seemed to evaporate.

Ahmadi picked up his phone to call his wife, an engineer and civil servant. He tried to keep his voice calm as he told her that he did not know where he would end up or whether he would see her and their daughter again anytime soon. His wife had burned all of Ahmadi’s military service documents and his uniform and buried his service weapons in their backyard garden. Ahmadi could not stop thinking about what would happen if the Taliban came knocking on the door of their family home in Kabul after he had flown over the border, leaving his wife and daughter behind.

Ahmadi boarded a PC-12 surveillance plane with eight other Afghan Air Force staff. His boss, Ziarmal, and Zia, the former chief of Army staff, ordered Ahmadi to fly to Uzbekistan, where Ghani and other senior officials of his government had landed only hours earlier. The U.S. military controlled the Kabul airport at the time, meaning that American air traffic controllers would have been aware of the Afghan pilots’ flight routings.

But Uzbek officials on the ground, overwhelmed by an influx of hundreds of Afghan military personnel, refused to grant Ahmadi entry to Termez International Airport, he said. The government of Uzbekistan did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Ahmadi was forced to turn back to Kabul and refuel before preparing to fly out again near midnight on August 15. By then the Taliban had consolidated control over most of the Afghan capital, but following a tenuous deal struck with U.S. officials in Doha, they had largely stayed outside the airport.

Ahmadi thought about how at least seven of his colleagues had reportedly been killed after Taliban squads hunted them down in their homes. That’s when he made up his mind to go to Tajikistan. He contacted Tajik authorities, asking if he could land; they said yes.

Ahmadi felt a rush of relief when he touched down hours later at Bokhtar International Airport in southern Tajikistan with eight staff members of the Afghan Air Force onboard. Nearly 143 Afghan pilots and Air Force personnel, who flew in on three planes and two helicopters, reportedly landed at Bokhtar in the early hours of August 16. As Ahmadi disembarked from his plane, he thought that the worst was over. But the feeling was short-lived. Once the Afghan pilots were on the ground, Tajik authorities confiscated their mobile phones and other belongings and transferred them to a dormitory at Naser Khosrow University.

Ahmadi said that Tajik officials soon came to him with a demand: Join the “resistance forces,” a group of armed men, including some members of the former Afghan Army, who were fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan’s northern Panjshir province near the Tajik border under the command of Ahmad Massoud. The son of the legendary mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, who fought the Soviets and the Taliban before he was assassinated by Al Qaeda in 2001, the younger Massoud had openly called for the U.S. and NATO to arm his fighters, known as the National Resistance Front, or NRF. But there weren’t many takers among U.S. officials, and some Afghan pilots were equally skeptical about joining the resistance.

Exhausted and disillusioned, Ahmadi and most of his colleagues could not imagine getting into another war and returning to the hell they had just fled. Suddenly, the Tajik government’s warm reception for the Afghan pilots turned chilly. After refusing to fight for the resistance forces, Ahmadi and his fellow pilots were transferred to a sanitarium on the outskirts of Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, where they had to go down to a nearby river for drinking water. Tajik authorities had seized their cellphones, meaning that they had no way to contact their families back home. Ahmadi’s story lines up with similar reports published in the days and weeks after the U.S. withdrawal.

The Tajik government did not respond to requests for comment, but Zia, the former chief of Army staff, denies that the Afghan pilots in Tajikistan were pressured into joining the NRF. Most of the aircraft flown into Tajikistan were fixed-wing planes like Ahmadi’s, Zia told The Intercept, and would have been useless in mountainous Panjshir province, where there were few suitable landing zones. “Pushing the pilots to join the resistance forces was not demanded by the Tajik government nor by the resistance leadership,” Zia said, adding that a number of pilots in Tajikistan aspired to join the resistance forces and had talked about it with their colleagues.

The only thing that kept Ahmadi sane during his days in Tajikistan were surreptitious calls to his wife on a cellphone that one of the pilots had somehow managed to hide from the Tajik authorities. Eventually, the pilots used the phone to call their old U.S. military advisers and ask for help in securing their release and safe passage out of Tajikistan. Ahmadi and his colleagues were ultimately evacuated and flown to the UAE with help from officials at the U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe, he said. Three months later, in April, Ahmadi was allowed to emigrate to the U.S.

A Double Betrayal

In the days leading up to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, videos and photos of the Taliban flying U.S.-made Black Hawk helicopters cropped up on social media. At the time, the Taliban claimed to have captured more than 100 Russian-made combat helicopters. But the makeup of the Taliban’s air fleet remains unclear. Taliban representatives did not respond to requests for comment from The Intercept. Without a fully functioning air force, the Taliban cannot suppress ongoing resistance in the north or fend off what the White House calls “ over-the-horizon ” attacks, like the drone strike that killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul in late July.

While there is always a chance that Pakistan, Iran, China, or even Russia might consider helping the Taliban replace the aircraft that Afghan pilots flew out of the country last year, doing so would not be without risks. Since the United States has sanctioned most of the Taliban’s key leaders, any move by another country to materially assist the current Afghan government would raise the prospect of additional U.S. sanctions on the Taliban’s suppliers.

In the months since Ahmadi settled in the United States, the Taliban have continued to fixate on rebuilding the Afghan Air Force, calling on former Afghan pilots to return to service, promising that they would be granted amnesty. But those guarantees ring hollow to Ahmadi and many of his fellow pilots. Since the Taliban’s declaration of general amnesty for Afghan security forces, hundreds of former government officials and Afghan soldiers have been forcibly disappeared and assassinated, according to Human Rights Watch .

Meanwhile, an estimated 4,300 former Afghan Air Force staff, including 33 pilots , have joined the Taliban. Some of those pilots have since been captured by National Resistance Front forces. In a video taped by the NRF and posted on YouTube in June, one Afghan pilot said that he was captured by the group while on a mission to provide Taliban forces with tents and other supplies. The pilot also said that he had served the Afghan Air Force for 33 years irrespective of the ruling political regime. More recently, the Islamic State’s Afghanistan affiliate claimed responsibility for an assault on Taliban vehicles in Herat and an IED attack in Kabul that killed two Taliban military pilots.

Ahmadi and the pilots who helped keep Afghan aircraft out of the Taliban’s hands are now grappling with a double betrayal: Let down by their Western allies after years of joint warfare, they sacrificed the safety of their families for a government that abandoned them.

Today Ahmadi lives in New Jersey, sharing a one-bedroom apartment with an Afghan Air Force colleague. A federal program for refugees covers his rent, utilities, some transportation, and other costs for up to eight months, but Ahmadi is desperate to supplement his income.

“I have a family who I haven’t been able to send a penny to since I left Afghanistan,” he told The Intercept. “I hope that when people and authorities in the U.S. read this story, they understand what we are going through and they will hopefully help me reunite with my family.”

He spends his days searching Google for aviation jobs — flight attendant, flight operations, ground crew — and filling out applications. Having lost the career he spent his life building, he hopes to fly again someday. While he’s grateful to be in the United States, he remains concerned about his wife and daughter, now 4. They have moved twice since Ahmadi left to ensure their safety.

“My daughter no longer speaks to her father on the phone as easily,” Ahmadi’s wife told The Intercept. “It’s as if she doesn’t recognize him anymore.”

The post When the Taliban Took Kabul, an Afghan Pilot Had to Choose Between His Family and His Country appeared first on The Intercept .

Since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February, the U.S. government has pumped more money and weapons into supporting the Ukrainian military than it sent in 2020 to Afghanistan, Israel, and Egypt combined — surpassing in a matter of months three of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid in history.

Keeping track of the numbers is challenging. Since the war started, U.S. officials have announced a flurry of initiatives aimed at supporting Ukrainian defense efforts while keeping short of a more direct involvement in the conflict. On Thursday, on a surprise visit to Kyiv, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new $675 million package of U.S. military equipment as well as a $2.2 billion “long-term” investment to bolster the security of Ukraine and 17 of its neighbor countries. Weeks earlier, President Joe Biden unveiled a $3 billion aid package, the largest yet, symbolically choosing Ukraine’s Independence Day for the announcement. The administration noted on that occasion that the total military assistance committed to Ukraine this year had reached $12.9 billion , more than $15.5 billion since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. And this month, Biden also asked Congress to authorize an additional $13.7 billion for Ukraine, including money for equipment and intelligence.

Because the assistance is drawn from a variety of sources — and because it’s not always easy to distinguish between aid that’s been authorized, pledged, or delivered — some analysts estimate the true figure of the U.S. commitment to Ukraine is much higher: up to $40 billion in security assistance, or $110 million a day over the last year. What is clear is that the volume and speed of the assistance headed to Ukraine is unprecedented, and that legislators and observers are struggling to keep up.

“There is a range of funding sources, including Presidential Drawdown Authority, Foreign Military Financing, and the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative,” Ari Tolany, U.S. program manager at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, told The Intercept. “It’s been tricky to trace what materiel is coming from where.”

Analysts estimate that Ukraine, already the largest recipient of U.S. security assistance in Europe since 2014, is well on track to become the largest recipient of U.S. security assistance of the century altogether. From World War II Britain to South Vietnam, to the more recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. government has long conducted foreign policy by supporting, and in some cases building up from scratch, the military capabilities of its allies — often with mixed results. Before the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan last year — two decades after they were ousted from power — the U.S. government spent some $73 billion in military aid to Afghanistan, in addition to billions more it spent on the country’s reconstruction and the $837 billion it spent going to war there. Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II: $146 billion in military assistance and missile defense funding.

There is little precedent for the breakneck pace and scale of U.S. spending on Ukraine. “It’s more than the peak it paid to Afghanistan by a long shot and many times more than aid to Israel,” William Hartung, director of the arms and security program at the Center for International Policy, told The Intercept. “And it’s somewhat unique that they’ve been arming a country where there are two nation states at war.”

The most recent U.S. military assistance announcements also marked a significant shift in the scope of the U.S. commitment to Ukraine. Earlier packages ­mostly involved the Defense Department drawing from preexisting stock to quickly equip Ukrainian forces in the face of urgent need — to the tune of $8.6 billion worth of equipment over the last year. The $675 million drawdown announced by Blinken this week marked the 20th time the administration invoked this authority to support Ukrainian defense. The $3 billion package announced by Biden last month, however, involves new contracts with defense manufacturers to produce equipment that will be delivered to Ukraine over months and years, in order to, according to officials, “build the enduring strength of their forces to ensure the continued freedom and independence of the Ukrainian people.”

In other words, as Under Secretary of Defense for Public Policy Colin Kahl put it , this aid is not intended to support Ukraine in “today’s fight” but “for years to come.”

“It’s not like the U.S. is expressing much confidence in its diplomatic skills to end the conflict, rather than just trying to outlast Putin.”

The relentless stream of funding announcements, in the absence of any public discussion of what the U.S. is doing to seek an end to the conflict , has signaled to critics a recognition that there is no end in sight to the war, and that the U.S. is committed to supporting Ukrainian defense efforts for the long haul rather than pursue a negotiated end to it.

“The U.S. is really preparing for a long war. … It’s actually preparing for endless war in Ukraine,” said Stephen Semler, co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute, a grassroots-funded U.S. foreign policy think tank that has been tracking the assistance. “They’re saying, ‘We’re only doing this long-term approach because Putin is the one insisting on doing so.’ And that could be right — but at the same time, it’s not like the U.S. is expressing much confidence in its diplomatic skills to end the conflict, rather than just trying to outlast Putin.”

A spokesperson for the State Department wrote in an email to The Intercept that the U.S. is the largest provider of security assistance to Ukraine and has “quickly provided an historic levels [sic] of weapons and equipment that Ukraine’s forces have been using effectively to defend their democracy against Russia’s unprovoked war.”

“Diplomacy is the only way to end this conflict, but Russia has shown no signs that it is willing to seriously engage in negotiations,” the spokesperson added. “We remain committed to supporting a diplomatic settlement and we are currently focused on strengthening Ukraine’s hand as much as possible on the battlefield so that when the time comes, Ukraine has as much leverage as possible at the negotiating table.”

The Defense Department and the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which works to further U.S. defense and foreign policy goals by building foreign partners’ capacity, did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment.

Bubble in Washington

The quick succession of aid announcements and Biden’s request for Congress to authorize an additional $13.7 billion for Ukraine this month have begun to raise questions among legislators. But so far, most of those who have expressed concern about the scale and pace of the aid have focused on calling for enough oversight mechanisms to make sure the weapons are accounted for and don’t end up in the wrong hands , rather than questioning whether the administration should send the aid in the first place, or so much of it so quickly. “At least in the U.S., there’s been very little public criticism of security assistance on the whole,” said Tolany, of Center for Civilians in Conflict.

That’s in part because of the gravity of Russian actions in Ukraine, including widespread evidence of war crimes ; the lack of a coherent vision for alternatives to military support for Ukraine, including from European allies; and the Biden administration’s determination to keep U.S. support for Ukraine a material one rather than one involving direct engagement, such as a no-fly zone or American troops on the ground, particularly after a disastrous exit from Afghanistan last year. Questioning U.S. security assistance for Ukraine is seen by many as a controversial stance.

“There’s kind of a bubble in Washington; the conventional wisdom is, give Ukraine almost anything it needs to fight back against Russia,” said Hartung, of Center for International Policy. He noted that a “line” drawn early on by the Biden administration to avoid Russian escalation and potential nuclear threats — like the exclusion of long-range missiles that can reach into Russia — seemed to be slowly moving. “There seems to be an upper limit, but it seems to be getting higher, what they’re willing to send.”

Ultimately, however, much of the debate in the U.S. lacks a long-term vision, Hartung believes.

“There’s not a lot of support in official circles for trying to push for some kind of negotiated settlement to the war,” he said. The U.S. position, he added, has been “defending Ukraine.” But there’s little clarity about how the assistance is shaping the conflict. “It just a one-liner almost. And not much analysis of, well, does that work? What are the consequences on the ground? Is it going to prolong the war? That stuff is not in the mainstream discussion, and I think there needs to be more debate about that.”

Tracking the Weapons

In the absence of more scrutiny of the Biden administration’s end goals in Ukraine, much of the debate in recent months has focused on ensuring that the U.S. can keep track of the security assistance it sends there. Earlier this summer, the Defense Department’s Office of the Inspector General raised concerns about the “ transparency and traceability ” of funds devoted to Ukraine after Congress rushed to allocate multiple rounds of additional assistance in response to the invasion. The office has been filled on an acting basis for many months — in itself a reason for concern.

The inspector general’s warning came after legislators last spring authorized the U.S. government to devote more than $40 billion to responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine through support — ranging from defense equipment to refugee assistance — involving more than half a dozen U.S. agencies. The most recent $3 billion package is part of more than $6 billion approved under that bill for the Defense Department’s special Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative , which supplements conventional avenues through which the U.S. is also boosting Ukrainian military capabilities and those of other “countries impacted by the situation in Ukraine.”

In recent months, legislators have sought to impose some oversight on that massive influx of assistance, including through half a dozen proposed amendments to the defense budget that would introduce measures like congressional reporting requirements, regular briefings to defense and foreign affairs committees, reassurances that weapons would not be provided to extremist groups, and efforts to prevent the illicit distribution of weapons. A number of Republicans have also called for the establishment of a special inspector general tasked with monitoring assistance to Ukraine, and earlier this year, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., single-handedly held up passage of the $40 billion aid package over a similar demand. So far, however, efforts to more robustly monitor the aid have taken second place to getting the aid to Ukraine urgently — a priority that critics note is no longer justified as the latest aid packages signal a much longer-term effort, with plenty of time for better tracking.

In fact, the challenge of tracking where military assistance ends up, and how it is used, is hardly a new one for the U.S. But the sheer scale and speed of the assistance being sent to Ukraine has observers concerned that existing monitoring mechanisms, already riddled with problems, won’t be able to keep up. In recent conflicts, the U.S. lost track of tens of thousands of rifles and pistols it bought for Iraqi security forces, and tens of thousands more pieces of equipment were lost in Afghanistan , frequently ending up in the hands of the Taliban, who loved to display them. Elsewhere, foreign forces who were trained and equipped by the U.S. for “counterterrorism” purposes regularly used their increased capabilities to fight in conflicts unrelated to U.S. security goals, sometimes committing widespread human rights abuses in the process.

U.S. officials’ efforts to track the weapons distributed through security assistance programs across the world have often focused on developing countries — with major recipients like Israel facing little scrutiny even when U.S.-provided equipment was connected to serious violations, including against U.S. citizens . But even in those countries where end-use monitoring is in place, the offices tasked with the job are chronically understaffed. That has raised the alarm about the number of weapons flooding Ukraine in recent months, particularly as Ukraine has historically been a hub in the illicit arms trade, with weapons smuggled through Ukraine ending up in conflicts from Afghanistan to West Africa.

The State Department spokesperson wrote to The Intercept that the administration takes the risk of diversion and illicit proliferation “very seriously.”

“We are actively engaging with the Government of Ukraine to ensure accountability of assistance, even amidst the challenging conflict environment in which it is operating. Despite Russia’s steady drumbeat of false allegations, we see Ukraine’s frontline units effectively utilizing security assistance at large scale every day on the battlefield as they defend their country against Russia’s aggression,” the spokesperson wrote, citing the Ukrainian authorities’ recent announcement of a new commission to strengthen monitoring of donated military equipment. “We will not approve transfers if we assess that a recipient will be unable to adequately secure U.S. origin materiel consistent with the provisions of the underlying agreements supporting the sale or transfer of such equipment.”

Ultimately, critics warn, flooding Ukraine with weapons faster than officials can monitor them presents risks whose full impact won’t be known for years. And while most agree there is a moral imperative to support Ukrainian defense against Russia’s aggression, they note that sending military assistance alone, and boosting military spending across the board, only sets the stage for more conflict.

“If the U.S. is going to send weapons to Ukraine, it has to be in the service of ending the conflict as quickly as possible to prevent further bloodshed.”

“If the U.S. is going to send weapons to Ukraine, it has to be in the service of ending the conflict as quickly as possible to prevent further bloodshed. … There has to be ruthless pursuit of diplomatic engagement, and the Biden administration hasn’t signaled that it’s interested in diplomacy,” said Semler, who also noted that while Ukraine aid is a fraction of the U.S. defense budget, the endless trickle of military assistance risks drumming up support for a broader increase for military spending that is already at historic levels .

“They say, ‘Ukraine needs help, that’s money for us,’ and then, ‘The overall budget needs increasing, because look at Putin, Poland is next, Finland is next, the U.S. has to be prepared,” he added, referring to defense officials. “There’s a moral case for sending weapons [to Ukraine], but as a practical matter, in terms of actually ending the conflict, I just don’t see the effort going in.”

The post U.S. Military Aid to Ukraine Grows to Historic Proportions — Along With Risks appeared first on The Intercept .

One April afternoon in Tokyo, the U.S. president made a welcome promise to reduce his military’s presence in Okinawa. Three U.S. service members had raped and murdered a 12-year-old Okinawan girl the previous September, and enraged locals had spent months protesting the Japanese prefecture’s dense network of U.S. bases.

“When the Prime Minister asked us to consider the concerns of the people of Okinawa and I became acquainted with them, as a result of some of the unfortunate incidents that you know well about,” said President Bill Clinton, standing side by side with Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, in the April 1996 speech, “it bothered me that these matters had not been resolved before now, before this time.” His administration agreed to close the Futenma Air Station, a major Marine Corps base in the populous Okinawan city of Ginowan, within five to seven years.

On Tuesday evening in Washington, 87 Okinawan and international civil society groups will send a letter to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, urging the Democratic Congress under President Joe Biden to at last close the base. It has been more than 26 years since Clinton promised a swift end to the Futenma Air Station, and the Japanese and U.S. governments have spent the decades pushing environmentally destructive plans for construction and moving goalposts for their completion. As the years dragged on, the likely timeline for Futenma’s closure pushed from the original 2001-03 estimates to 2025, to 2035, to 2040, to — as the letter’s authors argue — realistically, never.

While Okinawan civilians wait, Futenma remains open, and the Marines stationed there continue to make their presence violently known. The surrounding area has seen a military helicopter crash at Okinawa International University and a piece of one fall onto the grounds of Futenma No. 2 elementary school. Ginowan and other Okinawan towns have been found with polluted water from toxic military firefighting foam and fuel pipelines . And Futenma, though the focal point of the push for closure, is far from the only U.S. base causing problems: Okinawa, with a land mass about two-thirds the size of Rhode Island, has 32 U.S. military installations.

The catch is that the closure is not really a closure; it’s a relocation. In the U.S. and Japanese governments’ eyes, the new base project, called the Futenma Replacement Facility, or FRF, must be completed before Futenma can close. In order to complete it, the Japanese government must dump landfill — sourced from at-times-controversial locations across Japan and Okinawa — into Henoko-Oura Bay, an area of unique biological diversity about 26 miles from Futenma. “From an engineering perspective,” the letter argues, “there is no prospect that its defining feature,” an airport landing strip, “will ever be constructed.” Following a geological survey conducted by the Japanese government, the seafloor for which the airplane runway is destined was deemed “soft as mayonnaise.”

Signed by 52 organizations from Okinawa and Japan and 35 from abroad, including the Asia Pacific American Labor Alliance, the Center for Biological Diversity, and CODEPINK, the letter comes at a time of heightened tensions between Western-aligned powers and China over Taiwan’s autonomy. Due to its close proximity to Taiwan, Okinawa — whose U.S. military installations occupy 15 percent of the main island’s existing land — is considered a key strategic location. Expanding the land to put a new base there is, supposedly, crucial to countering China; simply paring down to 31 is out of the question.

“Okinawa was very important to Taiwan’s history, and to the notion of kind of constraining or containing China,” James Lin, a historian of modern Taiwan at the University of Washington, told The Intercept. “So I imagine that if there’s any kind of conflict that Okinawa would be very much involved.”

In March, the government of Japan declared Okinawa a “combat zone” in the event of a Taiwan contingency.

Last month, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi told the press that five Chinese ballistic test missiles had landed in Japan’s “exclusive economic zone” for the first time ever. The missiles, sent in response to a controversial visit to Taipei by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, reportedly landed in the waters southwest of Hateruma: one of Okinawa Prefecture’s southernmost islands, almost 300 miles from the main island and about half that distance from Taiwan.

In just over a month since, China has conducted a slew of military exercises and imposed economic sanctions on Taiwan, buzzing drones and planes through Taiwanese airspace and banning imports and exports of various fruits, fish, and sand as an ever-expanding list of U.S. officials made trips to the island.

The list of high-profile fellow visitors has included Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.; Reps. John Garamendi, D-Calif.; Don Beyer, D-Va.; Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif.; Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, R-American Samoa; and Republican governors Eric Holcomb of Indiana and Doug Ducey of Arizona. The congressional delegations are relatively popular in Taiwan, said Lin, though Pelosi’s visit “was actually quite dangerous and had significant repercussions for Taiwan, in terms of economic sanctions, in terms of the missile tests.”

“The increasing tensions between U.S. and China have made many of us in Okinawa extremely uncomfortable living here,” Hideki Yoshikawa, the director of the Okinawa Environmental Justice Project and the letter’s lead author, wrote in an email to The Intercept. While he tries not to be an alarmist or emphasize worst-case scenarios, Yoshikawa said, “what has been taking place in Ukraine since Feb. this year has certainly made us think about the worst.”

The dynamic between Japan and Okinawa in many ways parallels the relationship the United States has with Hawaii. Like that Pacific archipelago, Okinawa was once ruled by a local monarchy, known in Okinawa’s case as the Ryukyu Kingdom. Imperial Japan and China struggled for control over the Ryukyus, which traded with both empires for centuries, until Japan annexed it in 1879. Japan’s successful colonization made the island chain that became Okinawa the country’s youngest prefecture, akin to a U.S. state. Some Ryukyuans now organize for designation as an Indigenous people — which the United Nations has recommended that Japan grant — but the Japanese government still refuses to recognize them.

In the wake of World War II, Japan formally gave up both its military and its southernmost prefecture: A new peace mandate in the constitution barred it from possessing an army with the capacity for offense, and the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco put Okinawa under U.S. civil administration. Just over 20 years later, the islands reverted to Japanese control, with the condition that the U.S. could maintain military occupation at a network of bases — intended as a “strategic deterrent” against China and a protective stopgap for Japan. Now, as tensions strain over Taiwan, Okinawa stands to end up in the crosshairs.

“If a military conflict between the two super powers (U.S. and China), with Japan involved, becomes a reality, either by plan or by accident, I expect, missiles will fly from China (or its war ships and planes) to hit U.S. bases and Japanese Self-Defense Forces bases in Okinawa,” Yoshikawa told The Intercept.

The United States did tap its forces in Okinawa amid an earlier high-pressure episode concerning Taiwan: During the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis , the Clinton administration ordered a fleet of U.S. battleships to sail from Okinawa through the strait in response to a series of Chinese missile tests. Occurring between 1995 and 1996 — with its climax just before the promised Futenma base closure — it was hailed as “the biggest display of US military power in Asia since the Vietnam War” by the BBC.

Last month, on the heels of the various U.S. congressional trips and the resultant Chinese show of force, two U.S. naval ships again sailed through the Taiwan Strait. The hawks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies have termed the current situation “The Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis.”

“The Japanese government is intensifying its efforts to frame the FRF project in the narrative of deterrence against threats from neighboring countries,” Yoshikawa and his co-signatories write in their letter. But “with rising awareness of the soft seafloor issues and with the very feasibility of the FRF construction in serious question, the Government’s arguments about deterrence and strategy are unconvincing.”

The original proposal for the facility would have required the government to fill the bay — home to more than 5,000 aquatic species, including the critically endangered Okinawa dugong, rare blue coral colonies, and dozens of new crustacean species discovered in 2009 alone — with dirt. The current proposal requires so-called ground reinforcement work, or the driving of compacted sand pillars into the seafloor to fortify its slushy consistency and support the base.

“Despite the seafloor reinforcement work being a significant revision to the original plan, the Okinawa Defense Bureau has not adequately reassessed the safety and feasibility of base construction,” the letter states. As a result, Denny Tamaki, the governor of Okinawa prefecture — who faces a reelection contest largely focused on the base issue on September 11 — has repeatedly denied requests to approve permits for the base’s construction. The Japanese government has repeatedly overridden him.

The letter also asks the U.S. government to compel the Department of Defense to disclose when, exactly, it learned of the seafloor issue and release its own reports. The Japanese government didn’t acknowledge the problem until 2019, despite the fact that a Japanese geological survey discovered it in 2015. When the surveyors tested the force required to drive a spike into the seafloor, they found “that instead of being driven into the soil with a hammer, the testing spike sank of its own weight.”

At the Center for Strategic and International Studies, generally known for beating the drums of war and not for urging restraint, Mark Cancian wrote in 2020 of the FRF project: “It appears unlikely that [the base construction] will ever be completed.”

Appealing to the Armed Services Committee’s presumed desire to strengthen U.S. military strategy, the letter finds it “regrettable that a bill proposed in June 2020 by the Readiness Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, which would request the DoD to study the soft seafloor issues, was not adopted into the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act.” At the time, Tamaki had recently met with legislators in Washington, and the Readiness Subcommittee’s version of the NDAA would reportedly have compelled the Defense Department to study the seafloor both for its soft consistency and the presence of earthquake fault lines. But it never appeared in the final NDAA. The office of Rep. John Garamendi, the Readiness Subcommittee’s chair, did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.

“We would be used as human shields for military bases, not the other way around.”

Yoshikawa hopes that, assuming environmental preservation is not enough, the sheer incompetency of the FRF project will allow U.S. lawmakers to see that its strategic advantage is overpromised.

“Clearly, building yet another giant U.S. base in Okinawa does not decrease, but rather increases, the likelihood of attack,” the letter argues in its concluding notes.

Yoshikawa pointed out that the articles of the Geneva Convention, which seek to protect civilian populations amid military conflicts, would prove useless in Okinawa: The physical proximity between the bases and civil society would make the convention’s protections difficult, if not impossible, to enforce.

“We would be used as human shields for military bases, not the other way around,” Yoshikawa said. “We don’t want to be used and we don’t want our seas, forests, lands and skies to be used in the conflicts of states.”

The post As Taiwan Tensions Build, Concerned Okinawans Push for U.S. Military Base Closure appeared first on The Intercept .

Donald Trump is a murderous cult leader who incited the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, hoping that his supporters would kill his own vice president, Mike Pence, and as many members of Congress as possible so that he could become a dictator.

That was the inescapable conclusion from Thursday night’s chilling prime-time, nationally televised hearing of the House January 6 committee. The committee combined a wide range of evidence and testimony to reveal a timeline of the insurrection, showing how Trump eagerly sent his mob to the Capitol and then refused for hours to call them off when they broke into the building. Instead, he wanted to join and lead them.

On January 6, Trump was not much different from Jim Jones at Jonestown, as he urged his rabid followers to kill American democracy.

Trump controlled the insurrection, and he could easily have stopped his cult members from attacking the Capitol, the hearing revealed. But he didn’t want to stop them. For months, he had tried everything to overturn the 2020 election and failed, so now he was willing to try assassination.

Some of the most damning evidence presented during the hearing was audio of insurrectionist leaders and video from inside the Capitol, showing how the rioters were keyed into every Trump tweet in real time and were eager to do his bidding. The evidence showed that the insurrectionists believed — indeed, knew — that they were following Trump’s orders.

As soon as the insurrection began, Trump’s family members and White House aides, along with leading members of Congress, tried to get him to call off the mob — because they all knew that it was his mob and that he could call them off if he chose to do so. That fact alone is damning evidence that should be used to prove his leadership of the insurrection in a criminal investigation by the Justice Department.

But Trump refused to listen to any of them. “The mob was accomplishing [Trump’s] purpose,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, said during Thursday’s hearing.

In fact, Trump did not lift a finger to try to stop the insurrection during its most critical hours, the committee revealed. He didn’t call anyone in the government — not at the Pentagon, or the Justice Department, or the Department of Homeland Security — for help gaining control over the violent crisis at the Capitol. Testimony by former Trump aides and others, including Gen. Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, showed that Trump did nothing except call Republican senators to try to get them to refuse to certify the election. “You’re the commander in chief. You’ve got an assault going on on the Capitol of the United States of America, and there’s nothing? No call? Nothing? Zero?” Milley told the committee in disbelief.

It was finally Pence, not Trump, who ordered the military to send the National Guard to the Capitol, Milley said in audio of his testimony played during Thursday night’s hearing.

Pence’s role as the presiding officer during the congressional certification of the election on January 6 made him a target for Trump and the mob, and his Secret Service detail feared for their own lives, the committee revealed. An unidentified White House aide who was listening to radio traffic from the Secret Service told the committee that agents were calling their families to say goodbye. Trump showed no remorse for the danger in which he had put his own vice president, telling a White House staffer later that day that Pence had let him down by refusing to block the congressional certification.

It was hours after the insurrection began — and only after it was clearly starting to lose momentum — that Trump grudgingly made a half-hearted statement urging his supporters to go home.

The next day, the president showed no remorse. The committee played previously unseen video outtakes from the public statement he made on January 7, showing that he refused to say that the election was over and struggled about whether to say his followers had done anything wrong.

There was just one light moment in the hearing about the darkest day in modern American history: The committee showed video footage of Sen. Josh Hawley running for his life through the halls of Congress just after he was photographed outside the Capitol raising his fist in support of the mob.

The post The Cult of Donald Trump appeared first on The Intercept .