CLAY: We bring in now James Miervaldis, who knows a lot about this process in terms of what’s going on. James, appreciate you joining us here. What can you tell us about the situation in Afghanistan based on your knowledge?
JAMES: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I think your listeners can hear how hoarse I am. We’ve been on no sleep the last eight days, ever since everything went south, and inundated with calls and messages from Afghans on the ground. We’re actually FaceTiming with a U.S. citizen who is protecting families in a place — we’re not gonna say where, but, yeah. That’s overseas in Afghanistan. This is a complete and utter tragedy and failure. So, right now, the gate issue is still the major problem of getting people into the airport. But inside the airport, you have a humanitarian crisis. You have people who are… (chuckles) There’s no water. There’s no A/C. You really have a very serious situation all caused by the United States.
BUCK: James, you know, you’re the chairman of No One Left Behind, an organization that has been working for years to prevent, essentially, what is happening here, right? You’ve been trying to get translators to America, Afghan translators to America as promised by the defense department. But it seems like there’s been a long time for the Biden administration, for any administration to get this right. Did they just have no process in place whatsoever for the exfiltration of both Americans and Afghans who wre promised safe harbor? How could this have happened, James? That’s what we just can’t seem to wrap our heads around.
JAMES: Sure. Yeah. So we’ve been around for… No One Left Behind has been around for eight years, right? And we’ve been in three administrations, seven Congresses, seven secretaries of defense, and five secretaries of state. So there’s a lot of blame to go around. But this law started under President Obama and what is not being reported according to the State Department’s only resettlements numbers President Trump brought in more Afghan SIVs than President Obama did in eight years.
So, again, these are people who are the best examples of legal, merit-based immigration. They followed the law, which is a 14-step process. It’s interagency process. Buck, I know you’re familiar with that. But the problem was no one was ever in charge of overseeing it or had the authority to cross over between the State Department, DHS, U.S. (garbled), the intelligence community, DOD.
There’s no super-SES that could do any of this stuff so the process itself was a deterrent. But just to get to this level on this evacuation, it’s very clear that this was an afterthought about taking care of our American citizens and our allies. We tried. We tried talking to the new administration right in January to say, “Hey, look, if you’re serious about getting out of Afghanistan, you gotta take care of our allies.” They were very cognitive and aware of it. They just chose not to do anything about it.
CLAY: James, when you hear that Jen Psaki says no one is stranded in Afghanistan, one part, what is your answer there? And second part of this: What are the odds that we’re going to be able to get everybody out by August 31st based on the conversations and the stories that you’re hearing?
JAMES: Well, love for her to talk to the young woman we just FaceTimed with. She’s a (garbled). She’s a U.S. citizen who hails from Lawrenceville, New Jersey. And she’s scared to death, hiding with sheltering families somewhere. I don’t want to be specific. But yeah. No, within the last hour we just had that conversation. Jen said a number of things. The biggest issue I had that she brought a couple, say two months ago.
BUCK: James, it’s Buck again. And thank you for being here with us. James Miervaldis for everybody that’s on the line is the chairman of No One Left Behind and knows very well exactly what the situation is on the ground and how people are struggling who are supposed to, based on U.S. promises and U.S. laws and regulations, be able to get out of the country.
What could be done now? Is there anything, James, that you are trying to get the word out about in the terms of the processes, the resources, just the bureaucracy involved in processing and then exfiltrating people out of Afghanistan that needs to be done? Essentially, if we could get you a few minutes in the Oval Office with Biden — assuming he’d listen — what would you tell him?
CLAY: (chuckles)
JAMES: Well, we lost leverage to dictate any of the terms. So this die is cast, the decision has been made. So how do we do anything? What can we do to help those that are gonna get stranded after the 31st? And the answer is, please tell me if you think this is wrong, but we really need the Taliban to keep the airport open. I think it’s in their best interests.
I think the Chinese, the Russians were the first few to recognize this new government. The Taliban has to govern. They have to function. We just saw their statement that they don’t want Afghans going to the airport, ’cause they want to use their smarts and their brains to help build Afghanistan. Well, they gotta figure out what they want because if they’re gonna go around killing people, they’re not gonna get that brain power and everything’s gonna be go back to where it was in the nineties.
So with that, we really need the airport functioning. We need commercial flights being able to come in. Whether that’s another country managing the airport, the air traffic control, whatever, that really needs to happen, at least for the next 60 days and what we can… We can fly out as many people as possible. Actually, Buck, to that point we had a donor reach out to us saying, “Why is this taking so long?
“Why don’t I just fly these people out on Turkish Airways or Emirates?” We said, “You know what? You’re right.” These families all have SIV. They were waiting for what evacuation flight they’d be on. They didn’t hear anything, which caused nor confusion and anxiety so we just started putting them on planes.
It takes $10,000 to fly a family, and we were ready to fly up a hundred families out of Afghanistan when the airports shut down. So, we’re standing by to restart that program. We’ll fly up to 500 families out. That’s what we think, based on Joe Biden’s numbers and timeline, which, by the way — or, President Biden, excuse me. By the way, his numbers and timeline have never added up. So even over the conversation the last two months, there’s just been more questions than answers about this whole thing.
BUCK: James, just want to also ask you about what you’re hearing from those who are on the ground here. There seems to be discussion in this country as to, “Is this Taliban going to be markedly different even in just the short term, let’s say the next few months from the Taliban that we came to know as the close allies and defenders of Al-Qaeda leading up to and after 9/11?” Is your expectation…? I mean, I’ve just gotta ask you, James. Is your expectation that Afghans left behind in this process, if we don’t get them out, who worked with Americans, are they going to be tracked down, found, and we can expect the worst from this Taliban?
CLAY: That’s pretty straightforward. You, James… I appreciate all the work you guys are doing, by the way. You were just laying out how long you thought it might take to get everybody out. When you hear the Biden administration basically acquiescing to an August 31st deadline, what is Afghanistan going to look like on September 1st for purposes of your job in terms of still trying to get people out?
JAMES: Yes. So, art of the possible, right? And it all comes back to the airport. So if the airport is still viable, then we’re standing by, we’re working with a number of different groups on charter aircraft. We’ve already secured agreements. We are just waiting for permission. So, does that permission come from the Taliban?
This is gonna be really tough to explain on our security clearance forms but, look, we’re ready to do what we need to do to get flights and get our people out. We have a list right now of 1,200 SIVs — not including family members — who are hiding around Kabul who are not inside the airport. So, they are left behind at this moment and we’re sharing lists; we’re trying to do the right thing. We’re doing as much as we humanly possibly can, but it is become increasingly difficult to get any success out of here.
BUCK: James, we really appreciate you joining us. Please keep us up to date on how these efforts are coming along. If there’s any way we can help and get the word out more, perhaps even share ideas about how to make this process run better than it is with those who can actually implement it, we’ll do that.
JAMES: Yeah.
BUCK: Thank you, first of all, for your service, and thanks for your work as chairman of No One Left Behind. We appreciate it.
JAMES: Yeah, thank you, guys. Really appreciate your time. If your listeners want to, please visit SaveOurAllies.org.
BUCK: SaveOurAllies.org. James, thanks so much.
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