meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Slate Daily Feed

The Last-Ditch Effort to Get Afghans Out

Slate Daily Feed

Slate

News, Society & Culture, Business

3.91.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 September 2021

⏱️ 20 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

U.S. officials announced the end of the American military presence in Afghanistan this week, but thousands of people desperate to leave — American citizens and Afghans alike — remain in the country. A loose collection of volunteers is working to get them out. 

Guest: Matt Pelak, soldier in the Army National Guard and veteran of the war in Iraq.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm here to announce the completion of our withdrawal from

0:09.1

Afghanistan in the end of the military mission to evacuate American citizens.

0:14.3

This week, the head of the U.S. Central Command announced that the U.S. military's withdrawal

0:18.8

from Afghanistan was complete. I'm curious what your reaction to that announcement was. I mean, the U.S. military's withdrawal from Afghanistan was complete.

0:21.6

I'm curious what your reaction to that announcement was.

0:23.6

I mean, the reaction was, you know, sort of BS, right?

0:27.6

Matt Peeleck is an Army veteran and a member of the National Guard.

0:33.6

He lives in New York City.

0:35.6

And I called him because he's been part of a volunteer effort

0:38.9

to help people get out of Afghanistan. The U.S. military's airlift has ended, but Matt's group,

0:45.9

it's still going. I've got friends who, you know, are sleeping two, three hours a night and go to

0:50.6

sleep to get back up, they hit it hard again. It's just sort of adds insult to injury when our own government is saying,

0:56.7

everything's fine, we're done, go back about your regular business,

1:00.9

and we're in the background screaming, you know,

1:03.8

hey, the building's on fire, someone help.

1:07.2

We got out thousands of citizens and diplomats from those countries.

1:11.4

When President Biden delivered a speech on Tuesday afternoon, he addressed the messy nature of the evacuation effort.

1:17.4

Now we believe that about 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan with some intention to leave.

1:25.3

I knew the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan had been rushed.

1:29.0

I knew it was likely that thousands of Afghan allies would miss a chance out of the country.

1:34.6

But I hadn't realized the potential that we were going to be leaving Americans behind two.

1:40.7

Yeah, it's bananas right now.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Slate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.