Afghan interpreter tells Trey Gowdy: Afghanistan is worse than before 9/11
August marked the one-year anniversary of American troop withdrawal from the country.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Afghan interpreter Jamil Hassan appeared on "Sunday Night in America" to discuss the state of his home country after being forced to flee from it last year.
August marks the one-year anniversary of President Biden’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, leading to the fall of the country to Taliban forces. Although Biden previously insisted that U.S. military would stay in the country until all American and Afghan allies were evacuated, hundreds of Americans and thousands of Afghanistan allies were left stranded after the troops left.
Hassan, who was one of many Afghan allies evacuated through the Kabul airport, lamented to host Trey Gowdy that he has felt betrayed by Biden and his decision to abandon the country.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Evacuees wait to board a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 23, 2021. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Isaiah Campbell)
"Most of those promises were broken by President Biden’s decision to withdraw all forces from Afghanistan. I did not think myself being here, being interviewed on Fox News, I was hopeful for my future in my own country, serving my own people. But unfortunately, because of the decision made by President Biden, here I am with hundreds of thousands of my fellow citizens leaving their country, starting life from scratch here and across the world. And tens of thousands of them still at refugee camps in Pakistan and the UAE, and Qatar and even Ukraine. Their lives are destroyed. Their hopes are destroyed. Our country is destroyed. Everything that we have achieved in the past 20 years, because of the presence of international community, they are all gone," Hassan said.
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"There is no explanation to this. This is just a crystal-clear mistake. This decision should not have been made in the first place," he added.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}During the evacuation at Kabul airport, suicide bombers killed 183 people, including 13 U.S. service members. In retaliation, the U.S. launched two drone strikes against suspected ISIS-K terrorists, killing 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children.
Hassan recounted his own experiences leaving his country, speculating that many had felt the same.
A U.S. Marine pulls an infant over a fence of barbed wire during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 19, 2021. (Omar Haidiri/AFP via Getty Images)
"When I was on a C-17 as it lifted off Kabul airport, I had this deep sorrow in my heart. Everyone was asleep and started to fall asleep, but I couldn’t sleep because I thought I was losing something big, something that I cannot gain back. And still, I am thinking that either the last 20 years of the life that I spent in democracy, in happiness and in peace, was it a dream or is this a dream, and I will wake up one day and things will be normal as they were last year and in the past 20 years. That is the feeling I can express," Hassan said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In regard to Afghanistan now, Hassan argued that the country had "backwarded a hundred years" and continues to be ignored by the U.S.
"It is not even the Afghanistan of before 9/11. It’s worse than that, because despite that they know the realities of the facts about Afghanistan, what the people achieve, they turn a blind eye onto all of them. Worst of that is that the entire world has forgotten Afghanistan. Not only because of the war in Ukraine but because they do not want to hear about it. For instance, President Biden multiple times made it clear he doesn’t want to hear anything about Afghanistan. And he should hear about it," he said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Hassan also warned that this could have further worse implications worldwide, especially in Ukraine and Taiwan.
Taliban fighters hold their weapons as they celebrate one year since they seized the Afghan capital, Kabul, in front of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 15, 2022. (AP/Ebrahim Noroozi)
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"Because this is the catastrophe, the disaster that he brought on not only my country and my people but also on Ukrainians. Right after America and its allies left Afghanistan, that gave an incentive to Russia to attack Ukraine. And God knows what next, we’re following the news about Taiwan, China threatening Taiwan security. And the outcome of this chaotic withdrawal for Americans and for America is that the world does not trust America as an ally anymore. Look at Japan, at South Korea, Middle East countries, do they think that the United States will stay with them, will stand alongside them? I am sure they don’t think so. They are looking for other allies," Hassan closed.