Source: Breitbart
Between Americans being forced to swim through raw sewage and the Taliban blocking pregnant women outside the Kabul airport, President Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan was a living nightmare that is far from over, according to one U.S. Marine who aided in the operation.
Speaking with the Washington Examiner, retired Marine intelligence officer Lt. Col. Jonathon Myers recalled his “exhaustive effort to get American citizens and green card holders connected with Marines ” out of Afghanistan before the August 31 deadline. According to Myers, there was no possible way to pull all Americans out of the country due to the Biden administration’s gross mismanagement.
“Within that last 12 hours, I had four buses of American citizens outside the gate,” Myers said. “They were mostly pregnant women and babies, including a child with spina bifida, just all packed together waiting at the gate.”
Farzia, 28, who lost her husband in Baghlan one week ago to fighting by the Taliban sits with her children, Subhan, 5, and Ismael ,2, in a tent at a makeshift IDP camp in Share-e-Naw park to various mosques and schools on August 12, 2021 in Kabul, Afghanistan. People displaced by the Taliban advancing are flooding into the Kabul capital to escape the Taliban takeover of their provinces. (Bronstein/Getty)
Though the women arrived at the gate after Myers and his team gave the Taliban a “big bribe,” the women were turned away when an aid organization failed to meet them with rosters.
“They got to the gate, and there was an aid organization that was supposed to meet us with representatives, with the rosters, and to tell the Taliban to expect them,” he said.
“I, in panic mode, called, and called, and called all my Marine networks, I got the number for one of the top commanders down there explained the situation and we got in a big argument when he told me the Taliban makes the calls down here,” Myers added.
The women reportedly “never got out.”
A Marine with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response-Central Command (SPMAGTF-CR-CC) lifts an evacuee during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 26. U.S. service members are assisting the Department of State with an orderly drawdown of designated personnel in Afghanistan. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Samuel Ruiz).
In what particularly harrowing situation, Myers recalled having a 17-year-old U.S. citizen swim through a canal of raw sewage due to the overwhelming crowds jamming up the entry points.
“The fact of the matter is, we could not get anybody through that wall. We could not get anybody through the wall,” he said.
“I even resorted to sending American citizens down to a certain spot. Then I would send them an overhead photo of where they needed to be to meet our network of Marines,” he added.
That spot happened to be the location of a sewage canal where one 17-year-old boy had no choice but to swim across.
“So, he went to that spot and he stood there,” said Myers. “And then, I coordinated with the Marines inside the wire. When they saw him, he ran and jumped into the sewage canal, full of feces, swam across it, run up, showed his passport, and they pulled him over the wall.”
“He was a U.S. citizen. That’s how desperate we were to get people over the wall,” he emphasized.
Myers expressed frustration with the White House for calling the evacuation a “success” when the situation told (and still tells) a much different story:
They were lying. So many times over the last week, I’ve seen people lie. I literally have stranded Americans calling me and begging me all day long, and at night, and sending me emails saying, ‘We’re stranded. We have blue passports. We’ve been stuck over here. The Taliban is shooting at us.
I sent one American family through the middle of the night on the phone, guiding them through the city, because I had heard that they might be able to get in through this one entry. And the Taliban started shooting at them with automatic weapons, and they were hiding under cars.
This was four blue passports with kids.
Working with two other retired Marines, Katy Garroway of Maryland and Rico Reyes of Texas, Myers has continued the effort to evacuate people from Afghanistan, though he did not reveal any particulars of their operation for security purposes.
