Out of Afghanistan
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Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 August 2020
⏱️ 30 minutes
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Summary
The U.S. has welcomed thousands Afghan refugees since pulling out of Afghanistan in 2021. Safe from the Taliban, but without social security numbers,credit ratings, or even sometimes basic English, they have to make a new life relying on a patchwork of volunteers and their wits.
Guests:
Elena MacFarlane, volunteer with the Immigrant and Refugee Outreach Center and assistant Professor in the Johns Hopkins Department of Genetic Medicine.
Lila and Basheer, Afghan refugees living in Maryland.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Do you hear that? It might sound like nothing to you, but it's actually the sound of nuclear, wind and solar energy. |
| 0:11.0 | At EDF, we're busy generating more British |
| 0:14.2 | zero carbon electricity than anyone to help keep future energy |
| 0:17.7 | cost down for everyone and help cut UK carbon emissions to nothing. |
| 0:21.8 | Sound good to you? Find out more about our |
| 0:24.9 | zero carbon generation at edf energy.com slash helping Britain. There are certain images that are hard to shake. I'm going to start the show today with a couple of those. The first is from August of 2021 in Kabul, Afghanistan. |
| 0:48.0 | The United States was in the middle of pulling out of this country, and it was going poorly. |
| 0:54.2 | The Taliban is in control of Afghanistan. |
| 0:57.3 | The country's president has fled, |
| 0:59.4 | and Western countries are scrambling |
| 1:01.1 | to get people out. I did not, nor did anyone else, see a collapse of an army that size in 11 days. |
| 1:08.0 | The Kabul Airport got overrun with people. |
| 1:12.0 | The runway, too. Thongs of desperate Afghans trotted alongside |
| 1:16.4 | military planes as they tried to take off. Some clung to aircraft as they |
| 1:21.6 | taseed around. |
| 1:23.5 | And others, against all odds, found a way to scramble on board. |
| 1:28.9 | There's a picture of what happened next, captured by a military photographer, the belly of a cargo plane packed with people, not a |
| 1:36.8 | seatbelt in sight. |
| 1:38.8 | I can still see it if I close my eyes. |
| 1:42.3 | Within days, scores of people like the ones in that photograph, they were |
| 1:46.5 | touching down in the US. |
| 1:48.7 | Well, as the Taliban tighten their grip on Afghanistan, thousands of people are desperately trying to lead. Many are now |
... |
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