Nearly two years after the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan and thousands of Afghan allies were left behind, a veterans-led organization and the State Department renewed their agreement to work together to continue relocating Afghans through 2024.
The renewed agreement indicates that the relocation work is far from over — but also, the organization’s leader said, that the Biden administration is committed to seeing it through to the end.
“To me, it’s a message that they’re in this for the long haul,” Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran and president of #AfghanEvac, an umbrella organization for hundreds of nongovernmental groups that helped with the evacuation, told Military.com on Monday. “They’re not trying to make this go away.”
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VanDiver also expressed hope that the public accolades from top officials would reinvigorate the veterans and other volunteers who have been “breaking themselves” trying to help their Afghan allies.
VanDiver was speaking ahead of a Monday afternoon ceremony at the National Museum of American Diplomacy in Washington, D.C., where he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed a memorandum of understanding that extends the #AfghanEvac coalition’s partnership with the State Department through December 2024.
The Biden administration has weathered criticism from across the political spectrum that it failed…
