Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2022 August 10

= August 10 =

Americans left behind in Afghanistan
I think I already asked this question once (as part of a 2-part question), but didn't get an answer: out of the estimated 9000 Americans left behind in Afghanistan 2 years ago, how many are still alive and how many have been murdered by the terrorists? 2601:646:8A81:6070:24B8:808D:CF39:8B32 (talk) 12:57, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Estimated by who? Source? AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:01, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Per AndyTheGrump, can you show us where you got the information? It would help us find you answers to your question.  -- Jayron 32 14:03, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
 * That was actually the answer given me the last time when I asked how many in all were left behind -- so, the source is right there in the archives. 2601:646:8A81:6070:998F:6FD5:D19:39F9 (talk) 14:49, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, found the 2022-03-11 thread which links a Khaama article (and Khaama isn't bad, but like most news agencies it says its info is from an official, open source, namely the Senate 2022-02-03 Left Behind report, but they don't link to it or give specific citation info, as if they think either the reader is too dumb to understand citations or are embarrassed by how much of their reporting is basically verbatim repetition of a report, or both).
 * I don't know if the August 17 F-77 report (ref 12) citing 10-15k citizens left in Afghanistan may have been including armed forces or just had unusually fuzzy numbers (for numbers that are by nature fuzzy), but it seems most likely from the reading of this report that the final number of Americans left in Afghanistan, by choice or accident, is on the order of hundreds, not thousands (while the number of those at risk who would otherwise qualify for visas in an orderly process could possibly still be in the thousands or more). I base that on their accounting of non-citizen groups left behind who would automatically qualify for visas that were well under 1000, so it just doesn't seem likely that they can account for those groups and their families while there's a cohort of thousands of citizens or their families in Kabul still unaccounted for. The report details a number of shortcomings and it's an interesting read, and I think this whole story is even more interesting in the context of our seeming overcompensation for the failure of prediction in Afghanistan that resulted in a failure to predict Ukraine, which had we (and by "we" I mean all NATO powers who were monitoring the situation) been more accurate we may have been able to improve outcomes all around. It seems that perhaps military analysts have faced a reckoning that either their accuracy or precision or both in estimating an army's morale has been completely wrongly assessed. SamuelRiv (talk) 16:26, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I did find that as of January, 2022 there were 80 Americans who wished to leave Afghanistan, but had not yet been able to leave. That source says that there were an additional 150 that the State Department knew about that did not want to leave, however the U.S. does not keep tabs on every citizen and their locale, so the absolute number of American citizens who are in Afghanistan, but have no intention of leaving, appears to be an unknowable number, but is at least 150.  -- Jayron 32 14:08, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I scanned the minority report from the Senate Foreign Relations committee, and I can only find two sorts of statements on American citizens left behind: 1) Quotes from executive branch officers that give fairly specific numbers, generally ranging from a few hundred (in August 2021) to a few dozen (early 2022). 2) Expressions of incredulity at the official state department numbers, and insistence that the numbers are actually much higher, with vague assertions of "thousands" appearing several times.  At no time, however, does that report indicate either the report writers methodology at arriving at the higher numbers, nor anything more specific than "thousands", certainly no mention of the 9000 number the OP is asking about.  I may have missed it, as I used a ctrl-F search for "Citizens" or "American" and the number "9000".  -- Jayron 32 18:20, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
 * [un-indent] OK, let's try it another way -- we know how many Americans are still alive and still inside Afghanistan as of January 11 of this year (based on the figures above), what about how many have got out between the fall of Kabul and January 11 of this year? 2601:646:8A81:6070:F54F:9561:564F:58D7 (talk) 06:24, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I did a good-faith search when you initially asked the question, and the most recent hard numbers I could find were those I posted above, from January-February, where numbers on the order of magnitude of the high double-digits to low single-digits. Beyond that, I couldn't find anything.  Unless someone else can find it, there may not be publicly available numbers more recent than that.  -- Jayron 32 11:20, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Right, and thanks for the info, but these numbers are of Americans still inside Afghanistan, which is only one part of the equation -- did you happen to find any numbers regarding Americans who had left Afghanistan up to that point? 69.181.91.208 (talk) 07:10, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Not sure. Still trouble finding hard numbers. This report from November 2021 states 6000 in the initial August push to evacuate, and an additional 435 in September 2021, stating that about 200 American citizens remained at that point.  -- Jayron 32 12:07, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks... for the bad news! Although I didn't have time to read the full report yet, it appears to me that the majority of those who didn't make it out in the initial evacuation were indeed slaughtered within just the first couple of months after the Taliban takeover! 2601:646:8A81:6070:5D28:2900:7F86:A1B3 (talk) 03:11, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * That's clearly not the case. If you read the 2022 report linked in my post, or any outside reporting, all non-citizens who might be eligible for western visas are in effective escrow during ongoing negotiations with the Taliban over what comes down to basically sanctions, aid, and recognition. Any one person on that list that the Taliban "slaughters" severely weakens their negotiating position, never mind dozens or hundreds or thousands, and never mind American or European (or Chinese or dozens of other influential countries) citizens or their families, already visa-eligible, who want out out. Your assumption is simply nonsense. SamuelRiv (talk) 03:24, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that the American citizens who remain in Afghanistan are overwhelmingly Afghan-Americans born and raised in Afghanistan who decided to stay there because of strong family ties there. Many of them may be non-political and think that they can do some form of humanitarian work. The US State Department can recommend that US citizens leave certain countries for their own safety, but that agency has no way to force citizens to leave. Cullen328 (talk) 03:52, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @User:SamuelRiv: The 2022 reports say that out of a total of 4000 to 9000 Americans left behind (calculated by difference -- 10,000 to 15,000 estimated present in Afghanistan as of August 2021, minus a firm number of 6000 evacuated before the Taliban takeover), 900 Americans were evacuated after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, 80 were still waiting to be evacuated and 150 didn't want to leave, giving a total of 1130 accounted for -- so, out of the 4000 to 9000 left behind as of the day of the Taliban takeover, where did the rest of them go, if not into a hole in the ground??? 69.181.91.208 (talk) 07:29, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Read my previous responses above. The thousands of citizens is from the August F-77 report. Clearly they had better numbers later. The number of citizens remaining simply could not outnumber the number of accounted for American-visa-eligible non-citizens remaining (2022 numbers) -- that's ridiculous. Think critically. SamuelRiv (talk) 12:11, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * And where are those "better numbers", if there are any??? Am I supposed to trust a bipartisan entity like the Senate which has an interest in investigating this matter, or am I supposed to trust some "better numbers" from the Talibiden administration, which has actually given up Afghanistan to the same Taliban which did 9/11, AND armed them with 80 billion dollars' worth of modern American weapons, and which has every kind of vested interest in covering up its own acts of treason???  You think critically! 69.181.91.208 (talk) 14:54, 16 August 2022 (UTC)


 * There are a couple of other options here 1) The August 17 numbers were inaccurate 2) People found their own way out of the country and were not evacuated as part of the U.S. government actions. 4,000-9,000 people don't disappear without leaving behind family in the U.S. who have questions.  Where are those people?  It's much more likely the lower numbers are more accurate.  -- Jayron 32 12:18, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * As far as option 1, I will discount it for the reason that these are the only numbers which don't come from an entity with a vested interest in covering up this treason (see above), and that even the lowest estimate gives a figure of at least 3000 people who were not evacuated -- but as far as option 2, it may indeed be possible (but this once again begs the question, how do we find out how many got out on their own?) 69.181.91.208 (talk) 14:54, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe from an opposition report. Oh look, we linked to two of those. Also see the operative quote: "based on discussions with Embassy Kabul staff responsible for the evacuation of Americans from Afghanistan, the F-77 report [prepared by the same Kabul Embassy] is '50% art and 50% science and educated guesswork.'" SamuelRiv (talk) 15:09, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * See, 69.181, this is beginning to read more like you're hunting for things to hang on people you perceive as your political enemies, and less like you're looking for facts. I'm tired of participating in such justifications of your delusions, and that's not what we do here.  Take it somewhere else.  -- Jayron 32 15:41, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, and the opposition reports you linked show between 3000 and 8000 Americans unaccounted for -- which means that either they fled Afghanistan on their own (as Jayron suggested), or they are missing and presumed dead! And a report that's 50% guesswork is still far better than one which is 100% lies, as Talibiden's initial statements on the number of Americans left behind were (and as all of his statements on this topic can be reasonably expected to be)!  And furthermore, anyone who refers to hard numbers and basic math as "delusions" is himself/herself promoting delusions! And yes, for the record, I am looking for facts, and I am looking to accuse the domestic enemies of America -- one does not exclude the other, because per the reports linked above, the facts do accuse them!69.181.91.208 (talk) 18:23, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Ok. Why are you asking questions on a Ref Desk or reading reports at all when you made all your conclusions before you came? SamuelRiv (talk) 19:41, 16 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Good luck with your research, but note that Wikipedia is not a soapbox, and the reference desks exist to further the Wikipedia project, rather than to right great wrongs. Alansplodge (talk) 19:11, 16 August 2022 (UTC)