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- As the Taliban regained control, the US pulled out of Afghanistan.
- Last year, Matt Zeller, a war veteran and former CIA analyst, described the frustration and sadness he felt during the withdrawal.
- “It’s a shame that people seem to only care about calendar anniversaries,” Zeller said Thursday.
A former CIA analyst and war veteran said the effort to save people in Afghanistan is an ongoing struggle — not just the one-year anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal.
Matt Zeller, who runs a nonprofit to help U.S. interpreters and personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, told INSIDER that no one will be allowed out of Afghanistan when the war ends.
“It’s over. We can’t get people out,” Zeller said in 2015. He spoke one day before a suicide bomber killed more than 170 people at Kabul airport on August 25, 2021, and five days before the official withdrawal of US troops from the country. August 30.
“My heart goes out to these wonderful people,” he added last year.
Zeller In 2008, he served as a combat advisor in Afghanistan. Since his time in the military, he has been an advocate for current and former service members and is the author of “Watches Without Time: An American Soldier in Afghanistan.”
Asked about his headquarters Thursday, a year after the United States pulled out of Afghanistan, he said not much has changed.
“I’m right where I was a year ago,” Zeller told Insider. I’m sorry but no offense but you and all the other people in your life. It has been our daily life for the past year trying to get these people out.
Zeller — who chairs the advisory board of the Wartime Partners Association, an organization that helps refugees and allies — said last year they were unable to evacuate a single person from Afghanistan.
“It’s good that you all look at them, seeing how we’re doing, but this is still an ongoing mission. And people only care when the calendar year is over,” the Army veteran said. .
During the war, 2,448 U.S. service members, nearly 66,000 Afghan National Army and police officers and more than 47,000 Afghan civilians died, according to Brown University’s Cost of War Project.
Last August, nearly 124,000 individuals left the United States. Since then, the Biden administration has removed 800 U.S. citizens from the country, Politico reported earlier this month, citing House GOP investigators and the State Department.
The New York Times reported last year that thousands of Afghans who helped the US government during the 20-year war are seeking asylum.
Zeller said they still need help getting out.
Although Biden called his resignation a “remarkable achievement,” he faced heavy criticism from members of both parties for his departure.
“The guy at the top seems to have washed his hands and wants to move on from what happened last year. And that’s a shame,” Zeller said of Biden, adding that helping people stuck in Afghanistan “is something that this administration really wants to be careful about.”
The Taliban’s current grip on Afghanistan has seen reports of killings, mutilations and abuse of women – despite promises of a moderate regime reminiscent of the repressive regime of 1996 to 2001.
“It’s hard to stand out when there are so many other problems in this world that need our attention,” Zeller said.
“I think this is a life lesson for all of us: we can’t give up just because things get difficult or we don’t like the outcome,” he added. “We have to see promises to the end. Otherwise, people will literally die in this situation.”
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