The shame of America： Biden's abomination in Afghanistan lives on
Summary
On August 17th, 2011, Jason Jones stepped up to the plate and did something that no one else would dare to do: rescue a woman trapped in the Taliban's clutches in Afghanistan. In the process, he became a hero. And now, a year later, we re celebrating the anniversary of that day.
Transcript
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Thanks to LifeFunder, we were able to keep 30,000 people alive through the winter with
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their only source of food and heat was the Vulnerable People Project.
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And these were Christians and other minorities that were extremely vulnerable.
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If Biden would have said in early July that it's not looking good and we need all American
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citizens to get out of the country now, how many lives, how many American lives would
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Anybody who was at the LifeSite Gala on August 17th would remember one of the stars of the
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And the reason why is very special because, do you remember, it was a year ago now that
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the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan, leaving allies and even U.S. citizens in lurch, unable
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to get out, scared for their lives and rightfully so.
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And he did so with the help of so many of you fans of LifeSite News because we ran something
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You know that we have this platform, this GoFundMe alternative called LifeFunder that
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Well, I think originally Jason thought it might be a little bit of a help, but you guys came
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Jason's still doing this work and we need to help him some more.
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So at LifeFunder.com, you can help at LifeFunder.com slash extra mile.
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You can still help to help Jason Jones in this effort.
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What an awesome thing you did for us at the gala.
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There are people raving about it all over the place.
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But before we get into all of that, let's begin as we always do with the sign of the
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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
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But boy, to finally get to embrace you after more than two and a half years of being away,
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I did send John Candy and a crew to go try to stop you, but somehow you evaded them.
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We're experiencing an anniversary right now, not a good anniversary, but an anniversary
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of something that launched you into almost like a new life.
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Tell us what happened and what we're remembering right now.
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And it's a privilege to be able to talk to your folks because it was LifeSite News,
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LifeFunder, and your donors that really stepped up.
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In early August of last year, in this very office, my home office, you can see behind
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me, I was battling with COVID pneumonia, laying on my couch, and I got a phone message from
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a friend of mine who was actually an actress, Jennifer Cadena, who's the co-founder of Movie
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And she had asked if I could help rescue her friend's mother-in-law.
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Her friend and her husband, her friend's husband, made an anti-Taliban documentary.
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So as they saw Afghanistan beginning to fall, and as the Taliban was getting closer and closer
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to Kabul, she asked if I could help rescue her friend's mother.
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And so I set out to try to find a path out for my friend's mom.
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And but by the end of that first day, in early August of last year, I had about 12 more phone
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calls, a Marine captain, some Christian pastors, and others.
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And so I just tried to build out a plan, leveraging my relationships in the U.S.
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government and for some and in other large nonprofits to find seats on planes for these
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But by the end of the first week, word had spread that I was successfully getting folks
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And just me on this couch behind me in this laptop, I'd fielded over a thousand requests
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from pastors, from Army Green Berets, from Marines, folks just trying to get out their
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interpreters or Christian leaders and their families and others.
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And it really began to become what I thought was going to be a very simple project of not
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simple, but a small, just a project of getting out a few friends or friends of a few friends.
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It blew up into really what became a new full time part, you know, mission for my organization
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What we do traditionally, as you know, is we run influence campaigns to defend the vulnerable
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from genocide, war, defending the child in the womb.
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We run influence campaigns using celebrities or politicians or media, getting legislation
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introduced, trying to form policy, but sort of doing direct evacuations from a country that's
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But why I am so grateful to talk to your audience is somebody from your team contacts
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I was, they were like, hey, we're putting together a life funder for you.
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And I felt like the last thing I needed right now was a chore.
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I had all the tasks in the world in front of me.
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And I thought, oh, this could maybe raise us a couple of thousand dollars and this will
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But as Afghanistan continued to collapse and I was focused on building out overland routes
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to get Christian leaders and their families and others out of Afghanistan as the airport
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became inaccessible and then eventually closed.
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In just a matter of a few weeks, I didn't even look over at the life funder.
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And it raised over a half of a million dollars.
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And what this allowed us to do is when a lot of these large groups that got a lot of
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We were being very quiet about what we were doing.
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And we were building overland routes into all of the neighboring countries just to keep
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people alive and get them out as soon as possible.
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A lot of interpreters were captured, beheaded, hung.
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A lot of people on our list before we could evacuate them were murdered.
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But what had happened is thanks to LifeFunder, we were leveraging our relationships with big
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organizations and with government agencies and getting our folks onto other people's planes.
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But what LifeFunder allowed us to do now was to really build an underground railroad.
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And as winter approached and the railroad was sort of our routes were becoming very dangerous
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and very expensive, we decided to cease evacuations to the winter and to begin to feed these Christian
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These minority communities like the Hazara were having food directed away from them.
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The UN had predicted over a million deaths last winter.
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But thanks to LifeFunder, we were able to keep 30,000 people alive through the winter with it.
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Their only source of food and heat was the Vulnerable People Project.
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And these were Christians and other minorities that were extremely vulnerable.
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This also included American citizens that were in hiding.
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We were able to get the last American citizens on our list out shortly before Christmas.
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The funds to do that had also come from LifeFunder.
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And so 100% of the funds that came in from LifeFunder went directly to mission.
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We were locally sourcing our food from neighboring countries.
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We were partnering with Afghan anti-Taliban tribes and communities to facilitate our evacuations
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So our little organization together with LifeFunder, we probably distributed more food than the World
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And as far as we can see, we're really the only organization that never had our evacuation
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If there was an SIV, and that's an Afghan who was vulnerable because they fought alongside
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the United States, so their special immigrant visa qualified.
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When we had SIVs that were in imminent danger, at no point were we ever not able to evacuate
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There were months where we completely bankrupted our organization.
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You know, a lot of these big groups with lots of funds.
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They thought we had tens of millions of dollars because they saw the impact that we had on
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But it was because we're a very lean organization.
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All of our work in Afghanistan was facilitated by Afghan partners.
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All this funds was raised really by the grace of LifeSite News, LifeFunder, and your donors.
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We're very, very proud to have helped you do what you do.
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Tell us what you're doing now and what the needs are now.
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You know, I was thinking what our Lord told us is if someone compels you to go a mile with
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them, and I really love that the word is compelled.
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Someone compels you, not asks you, not suggests, not cajoles, compels you to go a mile with them.
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The Vulnerable People Project felt compelled to rescue people who were made vulnerable because
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of they were my co-religionists, they were fellow Christians, or because they fought shoulder
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to shoulder with Americans in the war on terror.
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I felt that I had no choice, that I had to do all I could to rescue them in the fact that
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We thought it would be simple, get them across the border, and then we were done.
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But of course, to be a Christian in Pakistan isn't much better than being a Christian in
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We have to find countries to permanently resettle them.
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So we're calling phase two this year, extra mile.
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We felt compelled to go one mile last year, and we're going to go the extra mile.
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One of the things that I personally said to every Afghan that contacted our organization,
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whether it be a Christian, a Hazara, or an SIV who was made vulnerable for their service
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to the United States, I told them that they were going to be okay and that we would be
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And I said that because that's what I learned in the Army.
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As an infantryman, when you come across a wounded soldier, a wounded buddy, a cohort, you
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put your hand on their shoulders, you comfort them, and you tell them they're going to be
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And we were telling this to people, John Henry, as I'm talking to them, people around them
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And we're telling them they're going to be okay.
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And I'm glad I said that because I feel like that was a contract.
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I'm now obligated to be with them until they are safe.
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It's very expensive to resettle one immigrant because the United States is not keeping its
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In fact, our diplomatic liaison, we're opening up an office in Rome because we found that
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countries in Europe have been better partners in resettling these Afghans who are made vulnerable
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by their service to the United States or because they're Christians than our government
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But it's $50,000 over 18 months to resettle a refugee.
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We have hundreds of SIVs in safe houses across Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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And as you can imagine, it's very challenging for them.
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And mentally and emotionally and spiritually, it's becoming very hard for them after now a
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And then we have the brutal winter that's going to be bearing down upon us with food shortages
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And those Afghan Christians and Hazaras are looking at famine.
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Right now, this summer, already in the summer, 50% of Afghanistan is facing severe hunger.
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So we're anticipating millions of Afghans dying this winter.
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One of the things that we discovered, we built this ship at sea.
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We discovered that not only do we have to rescue those SIVs, those Afghan soldiers who fought
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shoulder to shoulder with our men and women in uniform, but that there are a million orphans
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So many of the families we're supporting in Afghanistan were orphaned because the fathers
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and husbands, so many widows and orphans in Afghanistan right now because of the way we left
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So many of the police officers and the Afghan police officers and soldiers were captured
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And now their children and their wives are starving to death.
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And last year, as this was all unfolding, one Bible verse kept ringing in my head,
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And I just thought that these were our friends.
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These were the friends that fought the worst terrorists in the world with us.
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And, you know, as a former infantryman, the Ranger Creed, my favorite stanza is never will
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I leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy.
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And under no circumstances will I embarrass my country.
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Well, last year, Joe Biden embarrassed our country.
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And now their children and their wives are starving to death.
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And it wasn't an abandonment that was what might have been pre-planned.
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But he swore up and down, did he not, that he wouldn't do that.
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In fact, we're going to play a couple of those clips right now.
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This is Joe Biden promising to do the right thing.
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Mr. President, do you trust the Taliban, Mr. President?
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Is the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?
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Your own intelligence community has assessed that the Afghan government will likely collapse.
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Can you please clarify what they have told you about whether that will happen or not?
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If I can just get you to comment on that, because those were promises made and obviously promises
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Because the first time he went on television and said, Afghanistan will not fall to the Taliban.
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You know, and then within five weeks of those statements, there were helicopters on roofs and
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When Biden said that the first time in July 7th, 85% of Afghanistan's districts had already
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I have talked to special forces soldiers who told me that in July, they were already doing
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joint patrols with the Taliban and handing the country over.
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This is what I was told by special forces soldiers, active duty Green Berets.
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And so they knew in July, the game was over, that Afghanistan was going to be handed over
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So when Biden said that, you know, the problem is not only that we didn't get American citizens
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I mean, I'm sure there are still American citizens there in hiding.
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There were hundreds to thousands of U.S. citizens there.
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We had Americans on our list until Christmas, around Christmastime, in country, in hiding.
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In August, there were family members asking us to rescue their family.
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And their family would tell us, American citizens would tell us, Biden said Afghanistan is not
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Within days of those calls, many of the people we lost, we can never communicate with again.
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So if Biden would have said in early July that it's not looking good and we need all American
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citizens to get out of the country now, how many lives, how many American lives would
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Our Afghan ground director who runs our ground operations, Prince Wafa, was an American citizen
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who didn't get home from Afghanistan until in December.
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Prince Wafa had to sneak into the country to rescue his own wife because the State Department
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She couldn't even get in a meeting at the embassy.
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Prince Wafa snuck into the country on August 15th.
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He grew out his beard, snuck in the country, went to get his wife, ended up being stuck
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there, saw me on EWTN News Nightly, reached out to me, and then our organization was able
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to partner with him to facilitate his evacuation and get him back to the United States with
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So when Biden lied, what he did is he let steam out of the kettle.
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So a lot of Americans and a lot of the SIVs didn't recognize how important it was that
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So on August 26th of last year, a bomb blast went off at Abbey Gate that killed 13 Americans,
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12 Marines, and one Navy corpsman, and also 170 Afghans killed and countless wounded.
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We know John Henry now about the bomb at Abbey Gate.
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I was really hesitant to tell this something, but I've been saying it.
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I just thought it wasn't prudent for me to share this with the media.
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I was told on August 25th to get everyone away from the Abbey Gate, there was a terrorist
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And so we were able to get some folks away from that gate, including an interpreter with
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his pregnant wife and their three-year-old child, hours before the bomb blast went off.
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Well, I always wondered how our friends had this information about Abbey Gate.
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The CIA had told the Marines to watch this terrorist, said that there was this terrorist,
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And for 72 hours at least before the bomb went off, they had eyes on this guy.
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So the CIA was aware of the terrorist that ended up detonating the bomb, and they killed
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You couldn't imagine a withdrawal from a country that was more disgraceful, more thoughtless to
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the lives of U.S. servicemen and women, more thoughtless to the sacrifice made by countless
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Americans over the past 20 years, not to mention the treasure, not only the blood, but the treasure
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that the American people poured into that country, the trust that the Afghans placed in us.
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You cannot think of a more disgraceful exit than what happened on August 30th of 2021.
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And I think it was the most shameful day in history.
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Of course, it's better that an injustice be done to you than you inflict an injustice on others.
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And 9-11, Pearl Harbor, we had an injustice inflicted on us.
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But the U.S. government, the Biden administration, not only inflicted an injustice on the people
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of Afghanistan, all those veterans who sacrificed years of their lives and many gave the ultimate
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sacrifice, all of that was just spit on by the Biden administration.
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And then now countless Christians and friends and allies of ours are living in hiding, and
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Just a quick note before we return, if you would like to stay up to date on LifeSite's
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coverage of the latest life, family, and culture news, subscribe to one of our many newsletters
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And if you'd like to help us bring our truth-telling coverage to millions around the world, please
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consider making a one-time or monthly donation at give.lifesitenews.com.
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I'd love you to just recount, if you could, one story, one that touches your heart and
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one that you've seen the fulfillment of with one of the families or people that you've rescued.
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So one story is, I was in my home office here in Texas, and a young Afghan woman was released
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from a refugee camp because her pregnancy was so problematic that the doctors at the camp
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And they just let this young couple into America out.
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And they went to Austin because they had Afghan relatives there.
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And this woman had a very serious problem pregnancy.
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And I'm imagining she probably didn't know what she was going to do with this pregnancy.
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And she ended up at a pregnancy center, pro-life counseling, pregnancy counseling center.
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And the director of the pregnancy center saw me either on LifeSite News or EWTN.
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And she reached out to me, thinking I lived in Hawaii, not knowing I lived just an hour away,
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She is despairing and depressed and broken and doesn't even want to live anymore because
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her one-year-old child was separated from her and her husband when the bomb blast went
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She had been with her mother, her husband, and the mother was holding the baby.
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And when the bomb went off and the crowds got pushed in different ways, grandma and baby
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And mommy, the mom and dad, were pulled into the airport by military police.
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And they were literally pulled onto the airport and huddled on a plane to land in the United
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States, hoping that their grandma and baby made it as well, but didn't.
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By this point, they were in communication with grandma.
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They didn't have heat and they didn't have money for fuel, for coal or kerosene or for
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And I was able to jump in my car, go to Austin, meet with the pregnancy center director and
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And not only was the Vulnerable People Project able to pay for their housing and give them
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a food allowance here in the United States, within hours of meeting the couple, we had four
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months of food, baby formula, coal, kerosene, and baby wipes, everything grandma would need
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And we were able to, in the past eight weeks, after a very long, hard struggle, able to get
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the baby brought out of Afghanistan to the United States, on the way to the United States.
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And what I love about this story is it's really the pro-life movement working together.
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You have a pro-life pregnancy center in Austin, caring for the vulnerable women of Austin.
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And here, an Afghan refugee walks through the door.
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She sees me on Catholic television or LifeSite News and reaches out to me.
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And then together, thanks to LifeSite News, EWTN, this pregnancy center, and my organization,
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And the baby was eventually reunited with his family here in the United States.
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And to me, that is what the Catholic Apostolate, to me, is best summarized by the Pieta, where
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Our Lady has the second person of the Trinity resting dead across her lap, Jesus Christ.
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And what we are to do is to be with our Lord at the cross.
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And the best way to do that is to serve the most vulnerable people in the world.
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And of course, the child in the womb is extremely vulnerable.
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And this young Afghan woman's child in the womb was vulnerable.
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And together, these Catholic apostolates and a pro-life apostolate came together to care
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for them across the globe, really, to me, is one of my favorite stories.
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And another one that I'll keep it in our tribe is Sister Deirdre Byrne, who I did not know,
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and she gave, but I knew her from that wonder, I didn't know her personally, she gave that
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wonderful opening prayer to Trump's convention last 2020, where she said, I'm not only pro-life,
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Well, Congressman Chris Smith's office told her she had some doctors that she served with,
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because she's also a surgeon and retired officer in the Army.
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She had to get some of her former surgeons that she served with out of Afghanistan.
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And Congressman Chris Smith put her in touch with our organization.
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And we were able to bring them food and coal and move them to a safe house immediately.
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And within three weeks of first contact, we were able to evacuate them out of the country.
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And again, there we have Sister Byrne, Deirdre Byrne's thanks, and thanks to LifeSite News
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and LifeFunder, we were able to save these 13 doctors' lives.
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We rescued a girl who was, her mother died and her stepfather sold her as a Taliban bride.
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We were able to literally snatch her from the Taliban and to get her to safety.
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So many pastors, so many Christian families were involved in rescuing a Catholic religious order,
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But John Henry, thanks to LifeSite News and LifeFunder, this happened.
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Most organizations have left, and when these organizations leave, they hand to us their
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And so for us, every month, we have more and more people piled on to our organization's
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We're rescuing people, resettling people, but as more and more organizations close up shop,
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we have more and more responsibilities every month.
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And John Henry, we will be with our Afghan allies.
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We will be with the Christians of Afghanistan until they are safe.
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And if that means that this Afghan relief program is something that VPP will have to build out
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So many of them are losing hope and they're despairing.
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But I just, and I know they listen to these programs I'm on, and I just want them to know
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My team works all day, every day to ensure their safety.
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There are so many organizations right now that have lost the faith.
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And your funding of those organizations has to stop.
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But there are actually really good organizations to fund.
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And Jason Jones's Vulnerable People Project is, as you can hear, doing incredible, life-saving work.
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Go to lifefunder.com slash extra mile and please donate generously.
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And to see more like this, be sure to hit the subscribe button below to get all the latest
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