华盛顿-总统乔·拜登当他试图解释为什么阿富汗首都绝望的平民因战争而陷入困境和危险时,他忽略了自己政府的失败塔利班因为美国迅速撤离。
拜登周一坚称“责任在我”,但他在很大程度上指责阿富汗人造成了喀布尔机场的混乱疏散,并承认没有任何失误。
一看他这番话:
拜登:“我知道有人担心我们为什么不尽快开始撤离阿富汗平民。部分原因是一些阿富汗人不想早些离开,仍然对他们的国家抱有希望。部分原因是阿富汗政府及其支持者阻止我们组织大规模流亡,以避免引发他们所说的信任危机。”
事实:这是一个误导性的解释,绕过了美国未能预测和准备阿富汗政府的迅速倒台。
虽然一些阿富汗人可能想留在他们的国家,直到闪电塔利班接管过去几天很多没有。截至上个月,美国积压了18000名阿富汗翻译和其他人的签证申请,他们认为自己因与美国人合作而受到塔利班的威胁。
许多人等了几年美国才处理完他们的签证申请。非政府组织抱怨说,美国继续坚持其密集的文书工作流程,这需要数年时间、成捆的文件,并且经常反复尝试。
周日,美国国务院为这些阿富汗人申请特别签证的收件箱已经满了,以至于在一天的某个时候都拒绝了他们。
周一深夜,目击者描述说,数百人被困在试图将他们推出喀布尔机场的美国部队和试图将他们关在里面的塔利班部队之间。
早些时候,成千上万的人涌入机场和停机坪,疯狂地试图逃离塔利班,一些人甚至在军用飞机起飞时紧紧抓住它,摔死了。美国官员说,至少有7人在混乱中丧生。
AP FACT CHECK: Biden skirts US failures in Afghan mayhem
WASHINGTON -- PresidentJoe Bidenignored his own administration's failures when he tried to explain why desperate civilians in Afghanistan's capital have been left stranded and in danger from theTalibanbecause of the swift U.S. departure.
While asserting “the buck stops with me,” Biden on Monday blamed Afghans in large measure for the chaotic evacuation at Kabul's airport and conceded no missteps.
A look at his remarks:
BIDEN: “I know there are concerns about why we did not begin evacuating Afghan civilians sooner. Part of the answer is some of the Afghans did not want to leave earlier, still hopeful for their country. Part of it because the Afghan government and its supporters discouraged us from organizing a mass exodus to avoid triggering, as they said, a crisis of confidence.”
THE FACTS: This is a misleading explanation that skirts the U.S. failure to anticipate and prepare for the rapid fall of the Afghan government.
While some Afghans may have wanted to stay in their country until the lightning Taliban takeover of the last several days plenty didn't. The United States as of last month had a visa application backlog of 18,000 Afghan translators and others who believed themselves to be in danger from the Taliban for their work with the Americans.
Many had waited years for the U.S. to finish processing their visa applications. Non-government organizations complained that the U.S. continued to cling to its intensive paperwork process that requires years, bundles of documents and often repeated tries to work through.
On Sunday, the State Department inbox for applications for those special visas for those Afghans was so full that it rejected them for some part of the day.
Late Monday night, witnesses described hundreds of people trapped between U.S. forces trying to push them out of the Kabul airport and Taliban forces trying to keep them in.
Thousands crammed the airport and tarmac earlier in a frantic rush to escape the Taliban, some clinging to a military jet even as it took off, falling to their deaths. U.S. officials said at least seven people died in the chaos.