WASHINGTON — Alleged Nationwide Guard assault terrorist Rahmanullah Lakanwal betrayed the Individuals who labored arduous to save lots of him and numerous different Afghans from the Taliban and provides them a brand new life within the US, the pinnacle of a gaggle that has rescued quite a few Afghans informed The Publish.
Shawn VanDiver, founder and president of #AfghanEvac, a US nonprofit run by American veterans serving to to evacuate and resettle Afghan allies within the US mentioned one man’s monstrous actions at the moment are hurting all Afghans who risked their lives for the US in its 20-year battle — and the shockwaves are hitting the Individuals who helped them discover security.
“He betrayed all people who helped him,” VanDiver mentioned Thursday. “He betrayed his household. He betrayed each American that helped him get right here. He betrayed the US authorities. And he deserves to be held absolutely accountable.”
“However Afghan households didn’t do that,” he added, pushing again in opposition to assaults on different Afghans who’ve been resettled within the US.
Individuals throughout the nation stepped up starting in August 2021, when Afghans fled the Taliban takeover. Volunteers offered rides to driving courses, helped navigate paperwork, discovered jobs, and in lots of circumstances opened their properties to households with nowhere to go, Van Diver mentioned.
Now, Individuals who helped settle Afghan allies within the US are the topic of some on-line rage for his or her efforts serving to 1000’s of innocents resettle in America, VanDiver mentioned.
“One deranged man taking insane motion doesn’t make a neighborhood,” he mentioned.
He added that some political voices are dashing to make use of the tragedy to vilify Afghan evacuees broadly — an final result he says performs straight into the attacker’s fingers.
“Folks pushing this narrative are doing the shooter’s job for him,” he mentioned. “If he had been born in Missouri, no person can be punishing all of Missouri.”
The Afghan neighborhood and the volunteers who supported them at the moment are terrified they’ll be blamed for one thing that they had no half in, he mentioned.
“They really feel like they’re being focused. They’re being marked for one thing they didn’t do,” the advocate mentioned. “They gave a lot out of their hearts to assist wartime allies. Now they’re scared and grieving.”
Many volunteers worry the years they spent serving to Afghan interpreters, drivers, and different wartime companions — folks the US promised to guard — will now be erased by a single attacker’s actions.
Observe the most recent on the Nationwide Guard taking pictures in Washington, DC:
“It’s like within the army, the place one particular person screws up and the entire platoon will get punished,” the advocate mentioned. “There’s no good cause to do that apart from to go after folks they didn’t need right here within the first place.”
He argued that the present vetting system labored — and that real safety comes from regulation enforcement and intelligence work, not blanket suspicion.
“Individuals are most secure after we stand with our allies, not in opposition to them,” he mentioned. “Afghan households are our neighbors, classmates, coworkers. They deserve dignity and reality, not fear-mongering.”
Regardless of the vitriol, many Individuals who helped resettle Afghan allies are persevering with their work, although they’re shaken by the political firestorm now engulfing them, he mentioned.
For now, volunteers and Afghan households are united in grief.
“They’re as mad as we’re. They’re petrified of being blamed for one thing that they had nothing to do with,” he mentioned.
VanDiver argued that 1000’s of households got here right here searching for security and stood by the U.S. as wartime companions — and one man’s betrayal doesn’t erase that.
“This particular person alone is accountable for his crime,” the advocate mentioned. “Not Afghan households. Not the volunteers. And never the neighborhood that believed in him.”
