Western Standard - DOCUMENTARY： Abandoned But Not Forgotten By Canada’s Generals

00:00:00.000 Afghans saved Canadian lives, and then they were

00:00:29.980 abandoned. Interpreters and other Afghan workers stood with the Canadian Armed

00:00:35.360 Forces on NATO-led missions in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. Without

00:00:43.060 any combat training or combat experience, these interpreters walked

00:00:48.400 shoulder to shoulder with Canadian and other NATO soldiers in the battlefields

00:00:54.700 for years. They believed a promise that Canada would protect them from a mutual

00:00:59.800 enemy, the Taliban. The Canadian government broke that promise. In August

00:01:06.340 2021, the US withdrew the last of the Allied forces that invaded Afghanistan

00:01:12.020 20 years earlier. The Afghan National Army collapsed. The Islamic extremist

00:01:18.700 Taliban seized control. Thousands of Afghans and their families who had at

00:01:24.040 at great risk, proven loyal to Canada, remain trapped behind enemy lines. Hiding in terror,

00:01:32.160 hunted by revenge-thirsty Taliban that view them as traitors. Reports of rapes, abductions, 0.53

00:01:38.480 hangings, imprisonment, torture, starvation, home invasions, and executions seep out.

00:01:47.720 94% of more than 10,000 who worked alongside Canada wait in dire straits for the Canadian

00:01:55.320 government to show mercy.

00:01:57.860 Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada hinders approval of special visas to immigrate

00:02:03.800 to Canada.

00:02:05.380 It won't waiver from an onerous, unrealistic, bureaucratic paperwork process.

00:02:11.600 It demands security checks for Afghans already well vetted by the military they worked with.

00:02:17.960 It won't remedy biometric processing problems.

00:02:21.340 The response from the government of Canada has been dithering, it has been slow, it has

00:02:27.840 been incoherent, and quite frankly, now that it's no longer front page, it lacks any sort

00:02:34.320 of energy or enthusiasm to actually produce tangible results.

00:02:39.720 Fortunately, Canada has compassionate men and women.

00:02:43.560 In their retirement, distinguished Canadian military generals and officers refuse to abandon

00:02:49.480 allies and friends.

00:02:51.380 They volunteer their time, work feverishly against incredible odds, managing to get

00:02:57.140 precious few Afghans to safety.

00:03:00.280 Months of calls, letters, and pleas to the Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers urging

00:03:06.360 action have been ignored.

00:03:08.360 enough, they say. They've united to urge the government to just come up with a plan to save

00:03:15.020 lives, to salvage any semblance of honor for a disgraced Canada. I was the first commander of

00:03:21.740 the UN mission in Sarajevo. I'm going to address an equally serious subject right now. And for me,

00:03:30.600 it's painful because I never ever thought I would feel this ashamed of my country.

00:03:37.100 and I can't just blame the current government because the rest of us let them get away with

00:03:42.820 abandoning tens of thousands of brave Afghans and their families who risked their lives working for

00:03:50.440 us during the war there. We should all hang our heads in shame as thousands of them are left to

00:03:57.980 their fate while our politicians and bureaucrats dither about immigration rules. Fortunately a small 0.65

00:04:05.980 group of our veterans of all ranks have refused to be part of our shame and with donated public 0.98

00:04:12.460 support are doing the dangerous work in afghanistan hiding thousands of individuals and

00:04:18.380 families and getting them out of the country to safety now without the money to continue

00:04:26.220 their requests for modest government funding continues to fall on deaf ears here in ottawa

00:04:34.380 our government preferring to give millions of dollars to an ineffective United Nations.

00:04:42.940 Meanwhile, the Afghans who risked their lives for us and believed our promises

00:04:49.500 await their fate. Shame. Shame on us all. 1.00

00:04:55.500 On the heels of 9-11, Canada joined a multinational U.S.-led military coalition

00:05:01.420 that invaded Afghanistan. They toppled the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate. The Taliban

00:05:08.300 mounted a formidable insurgency using guerrilla warfare tactics. Afghans shared a goal with

00:05:15.500 allied forces to crush the Taliban, designated global terrorists offering sanctuary to other

00:05:22.460 terrorists, brutal oppressors of Afghanistan's most vulnerable women and children. As a matter

00:05:29.100 In fact, we lost a few of those, unfortunately, those interpreters and those that work with us on the ground.

00:05:36.900 Afghans who chose to stand with Canada have a lot to do with why many heroic Canadian soldiers ordered into that war-ravaged, rugged terrain made at home.

00:05:47.920 We owe them, and we have a moral obligation, to help them in their time of need.

00:05:52.640 That need exploded last August when U.S. President Joe Biden abruptly ordered the withdrawal of U.S. armed forces.

00:06:00.900 They left in defeat.

00:06:02.500 We have an obligation, even though we failed in this experiment, to bring them here and resettle them in Canada. 0.93

00:06:09.720 Despite tremendous sacrifice of blood and treasure, Afghanistan didn't transition into a just society as planned. 0.98

00:06:16.980 Under the Taliban's new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Central South Asian country rapidly returned to bad old habits, an abyss of unforgiving archaic laws. 0.93

00:06:31.460 Women must cover themselves, little girls are sold in marriage to old men, and allies to Canada are hunted. 0.84

00:06:39.300 These allies, struggling to survive each day, merely get promises and platitudes from Canada.

00:06:47.300 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government promised to rescue 20,000, then 40,000.

00:06:53.300 The Canadian government has, over the past many weeks, been focused on bringing Afghans to Canada,

00:07:00.300 on resettling Afghan refugees, on making sure all those who have fought alongside Canadians

00:07:06.300 Canadians for a better future Afghanistan remain safe and protected. We will continue

00:07:11.620 as we have continued to work with partner organizations, with veterans groups, with Canadians from

00:07:17.240 coast to coast to coast on resettling up to 20,000 Afghan refugees. The challenge right

00:07:25.560 now is the situation on the ground. We are there, we are working with our allies to ensure

00:07:33.380 that we are bringing as many people out of Afghanistan as possible. 0.99

00:07:37.200 Of course, much depends on the safety and security situation on the ground, and we are

00:07:43.140 doing absolutely everything we can to bring people to safety and to ensure that our allies

00:07:49.520 do the same.

00:07:50.940 Because we are talking about resettlement, we need to know who these people are as they

00:07:55.420 get on the planes, but we have indicated that we are looking forward to accepting as many

00:08:02.300 Afghan refugees as possible. The 20,000, 21,000 number is one that we've been talking about.

00:08:09.400 But we know there may be a need to do more. And what we've seen from Canadians, like we

00:08:13.480 saw with the Syrian refugees back in 2015, Canadians are willing to open their hearts,

00:08:19.800 their homes, their communities to welcome people fleeing from violence. Just as we saw

00:08:26.140 what happened under a Conservative government around Syrian refugees, it was the Liberals

00:08:31.160 that welcomed in 40,000 Syrian refugees that have made a huge contribution over these past

00:08:38.100 five, six years to Canadian society.

00:08:40.800 We will be there to do exactly the same for Afghans, particularly given the level of connection

00:08:46.340 and sacrifice that so many Canadians have made for the benefit of Afghan people.

00:08:51.040 I have been assured by immigration officials that every flexibility is being given to enable

00:08:58.000 people who can't fill things out online to be able to transmit their information.

00:09:02.760 There are phone calls, there are ways of reaching out to people to help them on this, and indeed

00:09:08.240 people we have begun to engage with, they will continue to be our clients, our focus

00:09:16.560 over the coming months, whether they remain in Kabul, whether they make their way to a

00:09:21.480 safe third country outside, we will continue to work with them in order to bring them to

00:09:26.220 Canada and to ensure that it's done in as efficient, as rapid and safe a way as possible.

00:09:31.420 To date, about 9,000 Afghans have been brought to Canada. A fraction of those are Afghan allies

00:09:39.100 already vetted because of their history with the Canadian forces.

00:09:43.980 Three former task force commanders of the ground campaign in Afghanistan, retired Major Generals

00:09:50.780 Dean Milner, Dave Fraser and Dennis Thompson formed the Afghanistan Strategic Evacuation Team.

00:10:00.300 ACID oversees several groups that managed to extricate 3,000 Afghan interpreters

00:10:06.060 and relatives over the past year. After months of working doggedly, one group, the Veterans

00:10:12.300 Transition Network, cited utter exhaustion and frustration with the IRCC and announced an end

00:10:19.740 to efforts to help Afghans. Ali Haderi is one of the lucky ones they recently brought to Canada.

00:10:28.300 Back in 2001 when OAF began, Afghans believed that it would be a long-term support to build

00:10:36.460 Afghanistan and we were very optimistic of a non-violent future. Many Afghans accepted the

00:10:45.900 risk and step in to support NATO presence in various fields. One of the most important fields

00:10:54.540 was language interpretation that was done by young Afghans who had sufficient language skills. 0.54

00:11:03.660 Without any combat training or combat experience, these interpreters walked

00:11:10.060 shoulder to shoulder with Canadian and other NATO soldiers in the battlefields for years.

00:11:18.060 Unfortunately, some of them lost their lives on the battlefield or were targeted by Taliban

00:11:26.620 while on vacation because Taliban believed that these interpreters are eyes and ears for the 0.78

00:11:34.540 foreign invaders some of them got lucky and got evacuated by the help of governments and

00:11:42.220 veterans communities but now after the so-called collapse of the afghan government majority of them

00:11:51.180 are stranded in afghanistan with no security and no source of income living in anxiety

00:11:59.900 and in most cases they are facing anger because they had to leave their house and family behind, running and hiding.

00:12:09.220 I hope that Canada and also other NATO member countries put more efforts into helping those Afghans

00:12:19.360 who stood beside NATO when NATO needed them.

00:12:24.300 Assad alone has identified 10,000 waiting in Afghanistan to be rescued.

00:12:29.020 It relied on $3 million in private Canadian donations to get Afghans out and to keep 1,760 Afghans in safe houses at $20,000 per day.

00:12:43.660 Donations dried up, the money ran out.

00:12:46.720 In January, the Afghans were sent back on the street.

00:12:50.460 The federal government refused and continues to refuse to fund safe houses.

00:12:56.020 Immigration Minister Sean Fraser has been missing in action.

00:13:01.020 He hasn't bothered to meet with the retired generals leading this uphill battle to save lives.

00:13:06.020 I served in the forces for 38 years.

00:13:09.020 A good part of that was focused on the war in Afghanistan.

00:13:14.020 I spent a couple years over there and I was the last commanding officer or last commander in Kandahar during the war fighting portion.

00:13:24.020 I was also the last Canadian in Afghanistan in 2014, when we pulled all of our training

00:13:32.900 troops out of Afghanistan.

00:13:35.340 So with the situation worsening in Afghanistan back in the summer of this past year, I partnered

00:13:43.900 with two other retired generals, and we wrote a letter to the government asking them to 0.52

00:13:50.860 support uh the intention of of evacuating afghans who had worked with us served with us on the

00:13:58.700 ground patrolled with us fought alongside of us and we just saw that this with the situation 0.93

00:14:05.580 worsening and then the taliban taking over that we needed to to evacuate those afghans so uh so 0.99

00:14:14.060 We put this letter together. We initially received some support, some feedback, and the evacuation 1.00

00:14:23.260 commenced. As you know, it was a traumatic, very, very difficult situation. Canada, along with other

00:14:30.860 countries, did manage to pull out a few Afghans. As a matter of fact, Canada pulled out 3,000,

00:14:38.060 of which about 15 percent of that no more than 500 were afghans that actually supported us

00:14:45.740 and soldiered alongside of us on the ground so after the air bridge was closed we continued our

00:14:55.260 our efforts under the group called afghan afghanistan strategic evacuation team

00:15:03.420 ASET. We have a number of organizations that have been working with us, Veterans Transition Network,

00:15:10.220 who have now moved on, but Amon Lara, the Afghan and Canadian Interpreters,

00:15:20.540 the Journalists for Human Rights, and a few others. And we've continued our efforts to try

00:15:28.540 and evacuate as many afghans out of afghanistan that we we can unfortunately we just have not 1.00

00:15:35.180 received the the support that we need there's no plan from the government um they've provided us 1.00

00:15:41.500 a little bit of financial support but we we we're moving out small numbers but we need to move out

00:15:47.580 a whole bunch more than that so we're really we're we're asking the government to do more uh we need 0.94

00:15:53.820 them to do more the situation continues to worsen over in afghanistan we know that the uh the afghans

00:16:01.820 that work for us are being threatened the taliban are continuing to to threaten them we ask the

00:16:07.660 government uh to con you know to support us to to take the leadership to provide the financial 0.96

00:16:15.020 support the direction and we will not end our efforts we will continue to to move and evacuate 1.00

00:16:22.620 these afghans until all of them have been evacuated and we've got a lot more work to do 1.00

00:16:29.420 so we ask the government again we really like your leadership your partnership and a plan 1.00

00:16:37.420 to evacuate the remaining afghans canada doesn't recognize refugees from afghanistan as legitimate

00:16:45.740 legal refugees. Applicants need a Pakistani visa to get out of Afghanistan.

00:16:52.780 To get that, they must be valid passport holders. Many Afghans in that impoverished country are

00:16:59.740 undocumented. They must get passports from the Taliban government. That forces them out of

00:17:06.380 hiding and puts them directly on the Taliban's radar as Canadian allies. IRCC has ignored requests

00:17:15.180 to implement solutions such as single-use travel documents allowing Afghans into neighbouring

00:17:21.420 Pakistan and biometric verification after they arrive in Canada.

00:17:27.740 Meanwhile, abandoned Afghans' attempts to connect with the Canadian government are impeded

00:17:33.960 by unreliable electricity, internet and cell services.

00:17:39.580 they do get through to Canada calls go directly to voicemail and they're never returned I'm speaking 0.93

00:17:45.900 on behalf of the ad hoc group called asset which is designed to help Afghans leave that country

00:17:53.420 and come to this country Canada under the government program to bring 40 000 Afghans

00:18:01.580 this is an important mission for Canada because these 40 000 Afghans and eligible Afghans who

00:18:08.380 helped us provide hope and opportunity to that country need our assistance today in getting out

00:18:15.660 of that war-torn country that is going through humanitarian crisis we urge the government of

00:18:21.340 canada to fulfill their promise for the 40 000 afghans under the program to tell us what the

00:18:27.740 plan is and to help those afghans come to a place that where they can have hope and opportunity that

00:18:35.420 you and i take for granted we owe them and we have a moral obligation to help them in their time of

00:18:41.340 need and bring them to this great country of ours in order that we can live together and show them

00:18:47.980 what it was that we were doing so hard for them now that they have decided that they want to come

00:18:52.860 here i urge the government of canada to do the right thing and to expedite their promise of

00:18:58.380 bringing those 40 000 afghans to this country i am a member of asset which is the afghan strategic

00:19:05.260 evacuation team a loose coalition of non-government organizations and charitable foundations that are

00:19:12.700 that are moving successfully eligible afghans out of afghanistan and resettling them here in canada

00:19:21.020 you might ask why is this important well from my point of view we the west including canada are

00:19:27.180 the ones that raise the expectations of everyday afghans that we would help them not do it for them

00:19:33.020 but help them build a more fair and just society.

00:19:37.680 The fact that we have failed miserably in that project is not on them.

00:19:42.340 They stepped up and they acted in a number of roles that put their personal safety at risk.

00:19:50.680 And now it's putting not only their personal safety, but also that of their family members.

00:19:55.780 How has it come about like this?

00:19:57.180 Well, myself and my two other major general retired colleagues, Dean Milner and Dave Fraser, wrote a letter to the ministers responsible for this dossier back on the 8th of July 2021, asking the government to put in place a program that would assist us in moving these people out in a rapid fashion.

00:20:18.480 They answered with a policy statement that came out on the 23rd of July, 15 days later, which is actually pretty commendable.

00:20:25.540 unfortunately the country collapsed much quicker than anyone thought and on the 15th of august 0.68

00:20:31.680 the city of kabul fell and essentially the country afghanistan reverted to the taliban it's also the

00:20:38.160 day incidentally that the election was called and so we were trapped in this election writ

00:20:45.580 time frame when all we had to lean on were policies and no new programs the new cabinet

00:20:52.100 after the election occurred on the 27th of, sorry, on the 20th of September was not announced until

00:20:58.100 the 26th of October. And so in that intervening period, we struggled to continue to move Afghans

00:21:05.420 out of the country. And I'm just going to close by making the same request that I made 0.96

00:21:09.800 with my brother, Major Generals, on the 8th of July, 2021. What we wanted then and what we want

00:21:17.440 now is quote an immigration program with an empowered government point of contact

00:21:22.800 and logistical support that is fit for purpose in bringing these brave and loyal afghans

00:21:28.400 to canada that is what is needed nothing follows an initial acknowledgement from immigration

00:21:35.040 of having received emails the taliban conquered swaths of afghanistan before closing in on the

00:21:42.320 capital of Kabul in mid-August. President Ashraf Ghani fled. Afghan allies wearing

00:21:48.740 red pieces of cloth to identify themselves as friends to Canada turned

00:21:53.840 to Canada for help. They arrived in droves at Karzai International Airport

00:21:59.640 in the capital of Kabul. Canada was already gone. Canada's ambassador Reed

00:22:05.180 Sirs closed the embassy and fled August 15th on a half-empty Air Force plane.

00:22:11.560 The emergency preparedness he bragged about while ignoring months of warnings about the pending doom from Assad and others weren't in place.

00:22:21.800 SIRS recently testified before a House of Commons special committee on Afghanistan that it was too dangerous for diplomats to stay.

00:22:29.880 Chaos and desperation mounted.

00:22:32.120 An August 26 suicide bombing at the airport during evacuation efforts killed 183 people,

00:22:40.120 including 13 US military personnel. Another 170 people were injured.

00:23:02.120 I had the privilege of serving in Afghanistan as a deputy commander of the International

00:23:14.880 Security Assistance Force and a senior Canadian in the area.

00:23:18.120 Bottom line is I got to know the Afghan people, especially those many thousands who risked

00:23:23.620 their lives helping Canadians in the accomplishment of the various missions that the Canadian

00:23:27.280 forces were assigned in Afghanistan.

00:23:30.560 Fast forward to the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban again last year, tens of thousands

00:23:41.040 of brave Afghans and their families were asked by Canada to come to Kabul to be administered

00:23:49.740 so as to be able to evacuate from Kabul to Canada.

00:23:57.640 What happened next is more than tragic.

00:24:00.480 aircraft were amongst the very last to arrive amongst all the nations participating key to all

00:24:06.080 this is that the ambassadorial staff led by the ambassador left faster than just about everybody

00:24:10.960 else ahead of the afghans arriving in significant numbers responding to call for canada to come to

00:24:18.240 cabal so now we had thousands of afghans and their families in cabal who are readily and easily

00:24:26.000 identifiable as not being local with no means to process them because the Canadian diplomatic staff

00:24:33.280 have all left. They fled. So they had to make their way to the airport where there's no processing

00:24:41.600 capacity because unlike just about every other nation our diplomatic staff led by the ambassador

00:24:46.480 came back to Canada. There was no one on the ground to actually help process. So very few

00:24:51.520 actually got out and we were amongst the first nations to stop the military airlift

00:24:59.040 but a week ahead of everybody else

00:25:02.560 bottom line is tens of thousands of afghans that helped canada at the risk of their lives

00:25:08.960 were stranded in afghanistan 0.63

00:25:14.000 ready victims to the taliban who hunted down and killed a significant number of them and is still

00:25:19.200 going on. One solution that has been spectacularly successful is grassroots veterans organizations

00:25:27.680 and led by senior diplomats and retired senior soldiers and general officers. To all of you

00:25:36.080 listeners, get hold of your local members of parliament, federal members of parliament,

00:25:41.840 and urge them to honor the promise they've made to those Afghans who helped Canada

00:25:49.200 in Afghanistan at the height of the fighting, whose lives because of their service to us are

00:25:54.480 now at extraordinary risk from the Taliban. And there's a bunch of Canadian organizations

00:26:00.800 who need modest funding to help expedite that flow of Afghans to Canada, and they're not getting. 0.99

00:26:10.000 So up to you, please. We need your help.

00:26:12.480 I had the opportunity to visit the troops in Afghanistan and to see some very, very serious, serious, serious dedication from our troops, but also from the Afghans who are helping us.

00:26:31.700 and it was quite striking as many of you may know canadian forces made a promise to

00:26:39.860 bring to canada those people that wanted to come to canada if ever there was a problem

00:26:44.580 and or just to immigrate doing so one of the things behind our mind of course was that

00:26:52.100 we would win, and such would be ways we would do our due diligence to the citizens that are still there.

00:27:04.100 Unfortunately, as everyone saw in 2021, there was quite a change, shocking change, a disgusting change from our perspective.

00:27:14.100 The disgusting part to me was that as you looked at those films of the airports, very few people wearing those red things to identify them as friends of Canada were able to get out of there.

00:27:34.100 I and my class of 1966 from RNC got together and are addressing a letter to the Prime Minister of Canada asking him to help in protecting and preventing the catastrophic loss of life that will occur inevitably.

00:27:56.100 The major problems here are in fact the burdens of extrication from Afghanistan, the transportation

00:28:10.100 to a friendly country and or directly to Canada, and the immigration process that we have to get here.

00:28:19.100 I am a soldier who has spent over 40 years in uniform.

00:28:24.900 I was guided by three words, truth, duty, and valour.

00:28:31.740 Truth, to do what is right and truthful.

00:28:35.340 Duty, to get on with it, make sure that I have all the processes to do that.

00:28:40.340 And valour, when it gets a little tough,

00:28:43.380 be it politically, militarily, geographically, or otherwise,

00:28:47.420 to get on with it, make sure the best service can be rendered.

00:28:52.520 Last December, IRCC's Fraser, blaming situational factors,

00:28:57.580 told CBC it would take two years to get the promised 40,000 Afghans to Canada.

00:29:03.440 That our commitment to resettle 40,000 Afghan refugees has not wavered,

00:29:07.420 and our commitment to support those who have supported our mission in Afghanistan has not wavered.

00:29:12.400 There are extraordinary challenges, as you pointed out, with the situation in Afghanistan,

00:29:16.760 and I think you'll appreciate the chief amongst those challenges is that the Taliban has seized

00:29:21.220 control of the territory. Canada does no longer have a diplomatic or military presence in the

00:29:27.020 region. It meant to make one of the most substantive resettlement efforts. So the answer is yes to

00:29:32.520 both. I want to really emphasize how important it is that the Canadian government provides safe

00:29:42.960 havens for the afghan interpreters that are in afghanistan still without giving these people

00:29:52.640 safe houses which the government is refusing to do there can be no survivors left in a short

00:30:00.480 period of time the taliban are actively hunting down people that work for the canadian army

00:30:07.920 as interpreters at the time don martin in 2007 noted there was the most dangerous job in

00:30:16.320 afghanistan as there was a price tag of forty thousand dollars on the head of each interpreter 0.56

00:30:23.200 what has changed nothing except the taliban are now in power and they won't have to pay out

00:30:29.200 to kill these people our friends our allies we helped them i did a tour in afghanistan when the

00:30:36.160 russians left in 1989 but they were not as callous as we were a lot of people made their way out 0.64

00:30:43.760 afraid that there'll be no interpreters left to be evacuated if we don't do something about

00:30:49.680 keeping safe houses there in the next few weeks let alone months and by the a year after the 1.00

00:30:58.000 government promised to bring all these afghans to canada the people that we want the canadian 0.69

00:31:03.680 the Canadian military personnel want, the people that worked 1.00

00:31:07.620 alongside them on combat patrols, they're going to be dead. 0.71

00:31:12.220 And when you bring out interpreters, you can't bring out just

00:31:15.580 the male that's served or perhaps in the rare case a female. You'll have to bring

00:31:19.600 out their family and their relatives and

00:31:23.500 anybody related. Because if the Taliban can't get the interpreter,

00:31:28.180 they'll get everybody related to them. Wipe out the whole 0.99

00:31:31.540 family. They'll wipe out everybody. We're dealing with thugs, real thugs. If the people aren't kept 0.94

00:31:40.100 safe in place, there's no point of an evacuation. They'll be just burying bodies, and they're

00:31:47.220 already being buried. I am currently the program director of Almanlora and formerly the assistant

00:31:52.420 director of the Afghan Canadian Interpreters. These are just two of the key advocacy groups

00:31:58.420 in canada supporting afghans and two key organizations that have recently joined forces

00:32:02.580 to tackle this arduous task the afghan canadian interpreters known to most as aci was one of the

00:32:08.260 first groups in canada advocating for afghans for the government of canada we at aci believe

00:32:13.940 the government of canada has a moral and ethical obligation to those interpreters and locally

00:32:18.580 employed civilians who once supported canada's mission in afghanistan it was apparent that the

00:32:23.780 government of canada was not prepared for the rapid and hasty fall of afghanistan to the hands

00:32:27.860 of the taliban sadly due to this unpreparedness not many afghans who aci initially supported

00:32:33.060 made it out during the evacuation between 15 and 26 august to date aci has directly and

00:32:39.700 indirectly supported approximately 1100 afghan families with a pathway to resettle in canada

00:32:45.540 however 94 of those families are still reporting to be in country having been a part of this crisis

00:32:51.300 since the beginning i can state that this arduous task is far from complete many afghans face extreme

00:32:57.780 dangers and many are prone to capture an even death at the hands of the taliban in addition

00:33:02.660 thousands who have had a profound relation with canada still wait for ircc to approve files

00:33:08.900 while it is easy to point fingers at canada's slow reaction i believe at this point that everyone is

00:33:13.460 doing the best they can with the resources they have been given this difficult task could have

00:33:17.780 been achieved more proactively if the government of canada developed more profound relations with

00:33:22.740 all those involved early on by months later. I call on the Government of Canada to continue

00:33:28.180 to deepen the relations with all NGOs operating on the Afghan file and provide IRCC with the much

00:33:33.540 needed resources to support vulnerable Afghans with a pathway to resettling Canada. Our class

00:33:38.660 though has a special focus. There's a special group that is at high risk within this refugee 1.00

00:33:44.500 population and these are the people who worked for the Canadian government during our time in

00:33:50.500 afghanistan they served many support roles and most importantly they served as interpreters

00:33:57.060 working hand in hand day to day with our troops in the field very courageous people

00:34:04.180 they are at risk because the taliban considers them to be traitors

00:34:08.980 because they help canada fight the taliban and they will pay for it

00:34:13.620 when the kabul fell 0.81

00:34:17.860 they were abandoned by our government

00:34:21.980 however the prime minister and three ministers made public comments they made commitments and

00:34:31.220 promises that they would look after these people and keep them safe today this has not happened

00:34:40.300 The majority of them and their families are still in Afghanistan, and they're being hunted by the Taliban.

00:34:49.100 So what's been our classes' activities?

00:34:54.460 Well, beginning in January 2021, we decided to write our members of parliament 1.00

00:35:00.220 and urge them to press the government to take action to rapidly evacuate this at-risk group from Afghanistan. 0.99

00:35:09.580 This was January 2021, seven months before Kabul fell. Seven months. We indicated that the urgency, the clock was ticking. We indicated to them that the Taliban's strength was growing. Government did nothing. We continued to write letters. In fact, our class wrote several hundred letters to MPs, ministers, and the Prime Minister. 1.00

00:35:35.460 No action was forthcoming, and here we are today.

00:35:40.440 Canada's reputation on the world stage has been compromised by our government's avoidance of this moral obligation they have.

00:35:49.040 Evacuate these people now.

00:35:51.620 The government of Canada must tell the people of Canada and the world that we leave no one behind.

00:36:00.260 Dave Lavery, a founding member of Joint Task Force 2, an elite counterterrorism branch of

00:36:07.820 Canada's Armed Forces, has run a small business in Afghanistan 11 years. When the embassy staff

00:36:15.200 fled, ex-Special Forces Lavery was the only Canadian at Kabul Airport for six days. He

00:36:22.280 worked in the Baron, a strategic location next to the airport, to help Afghan allies with paperwork

00:36:28.340 work to get them to safe houses. The Canadian government had long been indifferent to their

00:36:34.220 warnings of impending collapse, but asset and organizations under its umbrella had forged

00:36:41.060 ahead and set up safe houses ahead of time.

00:36:44.100 I'm in Antilia, Turkey and I'm prepared to have a speak with you folks and to give you

00:36:54.420 an idea what we went through in in Afghanistan during the the days prior

00:37:01.680 during and after the event we had a lot of talent in country during before the

00:37:07.740 event and we tried to present that in the best manner to the applicable people

00:37:14.640 within IRCC Canadian Embassy GAC and even reached out to the military just to

00:37:22.860 let them know that what we are doing, preparing for the event of an inevitable closure of

00:37:31.120 Afghanistan and to assist the Afghans in the special visa process.

00:37:37.320 So that's very important for me to home in on because we don't believe anybody took our

00:37:47.100 reach outs very seriously. The Taliban came into the city very quickly and at that point in time

00:37:54.140 we had various safe houses for these primary applicants spread out throughout Kabul city and

00:38:01.020 at that stage everybody was in a major panic. They were more concerned on getting to the airport,

00:38:08.860 evacuating. We were in the evacuation stage. I was the only Canadian asset physically on the ground

00:38:15.580 at that point of time to be able to assist there was no Canadian presence that I seen from the

00:38:21.820 government or the military that was physically at the airport or within the barren area was it was

00:38:29.660 it wasn't a good situation for our military also they were put in a really bad position

00:38:37.020 and it affected a lot of things the harmony the synergy so this is a little bit what I like to

00:38:42.140 to get across to if we're doing lessons learned you know we should basically explore if we have

00:38:48.560 to go through this again being able to tap into our resources a little better we had so much to

00:38:54.140 offer and i just don't know why they didn't tap into our amazing team back in canada because now 0.71

00:39:00.900 fast forward we've got so much going on so much help is happening and getting towards the afghans

00:39:09.920 that are still stuck in Afghanistan,

00:39:12.940 predominantly Kabul and certain other areas.

00:39:16.360 The voluntary team that's comprised of many groups,

00:39:19.840 as I mentioned before, all volunteers and veterans,

00:39:23.740 you know, comprised of the ASAT,

00:39:25.820 which is the Afghan Strategic Evaluation Team.

00:39:28.640 It's not a one entity, as I said,

00:39:30.980 it's just a group that we all come together

00:39:33.380 and share the same harmony and the same vision.

00:39:36.380 we all want to help these Afghan families.

00:39:40.000 And we're still pushing the government

00:39:42.320 to support us the best they can.

00:39:44.140 Let's work together and let's get more funds

00:39:47.680 that are required.

00:39:49.520 And we shouldn't have to rely so much

00:39:51.760 on the private donors out there,

00:39:55.040 reaching deeply into their generous pockets,

00:39:58.740 which they have.

00:39:59.800 But we can do a lot of things right now

00:40:01.900 and we are going to carry on doing a lot of things.

00:40:05.560 But with the support of the Canadian government, I think we can go a lot further.

00:40:09.720 We're not going to give up.

00:40:10.840 As long as we still have families under our watch, we're going to carry on and try to do the best we can to get them out.

00:40:35.560 so

Western Standard - July 30, 2022

DOCUMENTARY： Abandoned But Not Forgotten By Canada’s Generals

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