WASHINGTON — Alleged Nationwide Guard assault terrorist Rahmanullah Lakanwal betrayed the People 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 bunch that has rescued quite a few Afghans instructed The Submit.
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 stated one man’s monstrous actions at the moment are hurting all Afghans who risked their lives for the US in its 20-year conflict — and the shockwaves are hitting the People who helped them discover security.
“He betrayed all people who helped him,” VanDiver stated Thursday. “He betrayed his household. He betrayed each American that helped him get right here. He betrayed america 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.
People throughout the nation stepped up starting in August 2021, when Afghans fled the Taliban takeover. Volunteers offered rides to driving lessons, helped navigate paperwork, discovered jobs, and in lots of circumstances opened their properties to households with nowhere to go, Van Diver stated.
Now, People who helped settle Afghan allies within the US are the topic of some on-line rage for his or her efforts serving to hundreds of innocents resettle in America, VanDiver stated.
“One deranged man taking insane motion doesn’t make a group,” he stated.
He added that some political voices are speeding to make use of the tragedy to vilify Afghan evacuees broadly — an consequence he says performs immediately into the attacker’s palms.
“Folks pushing this narrative are doing the shooter’s job for him,” he stated. “If he had been born in Missouri, no one can be punishing all of Missouri.”
The Afghan group and the volunteers who supported them at the moment are terrified they’ll be blamed for one thing they’d no half in, he stated.
“They really feel like they’re being focused. They’re being marked for one thing they didn’t do,” the advocate stated. “They gave a lot out of their hearts to assist wartime allies. Now they’re scared and grieving.”
Many volunteers concern the years they spent serving to Afghan interpreters, drivers, and different wartime companions — individuals 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 individual screws up and the entire platoon will get punished,” the advocate stated. “There’s no good cause to do that apart from to go after individuals they didn’t need right here within the first place.”
He argued that the prevailing vetting system labored — and that real safety comes from legislation enforcement and intelligence work, not blanket suspicion.
“People are most secure after we stand with our allies, not in opposition to them,” he stated. “Afghan households are our neighbors, classmates, coworkers. They deserve dignity and reality, not fear-mongering.”
Regardless of the vitriol, many People who helped resettle Afghan allies are persevering with their work, although they’re shaken by the political firestorm now engulfing them, he stated.
For now, volunteers and Afghan households are united in grief.
“They’re as mad as we’re. They’re afraid of being blamed for one thing they’d nothing to do with,” he stated.
VanDiver argued that hundreds of households got here right here looking 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 stated. “Not Afghan households. Not the volunteers. And never the group that believed in him.”
