Allies: How Did the U.S. Leave So Many of Its Local Allies in Afghanistan?

This week, Lawfare and Goat Rodeo released the final episode of Allies, a narrative podcast series that traces the U.S.’s efforts to protect Afghan interpreters, translators, and other partners through the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program. The history of the SIV program was fraught with partisan infighting, executive inaction, and contradictions that ultimately led to chaos. However, that same history also reveals how private citizens—veterans, lawyers, retired diplomats, and many others—tried to fill the void left by their government. The effort to protect the U.S.’s partners in Afghanistan culminated in the evacuation in August 2021, when thousands of the U.S.’s local partners were left behind. AlliesThis article has been indexed from Lawfare