A former U.S. Marine has claimed that during the Afghan withdrawal, the Taliban compiled lists of Afghans who had worked with American forces, intending to hunt them down and kill them.
Criticizing Donald Trump’s decision to ban Afghan allies from resettling in the United States, Elliot Ackerman, a former Marine and intelligence officer who served five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, said that many individuals on those Taliban lists were denied entry to the U.S. under the Trump administration’s policies.
In an article for The New York Times, Ackerman wrote that while Trump harshly criticized President Biden’s handling of the withdrawal, he also stood by his own administration’s decision to negotiate the withdrawal framework with the Taliban.
“Trump’s argument was that the United States needed to get out of Afghanistan, but that the Biden administration botched the execution,” Ackerman wrote. “Now he is making the same mistakes his predecessor made.”
Ackerman noted that many critics of Biden’s withdrawal pointed out that abandoning Afghan allies damaged U.S. credibility. “That was a fair criticism then, and it is a fair criticism now,” he added.
Ackerman argued that the U.S. now faces a world as volatile as any since the end of World War II, with ongoing threats from ISIS and the resurgence of great power competition. He emphasized that the United States has never fought alone—it has always fought alongside its allies.
During the withdrawal, Ackerman was one of thousands of American veterans who worked on what became known as a “digital Dunkirk”, helping evacuate Afghans in danger.
“I was personally involved in several hundred Afghan evacuation cases,” he said. “We knew that eventually our efforts would have to end—we would have to tell the remaining, deserving Afghans begging for our help that we couldn’t help them anymore, that the last flight had left.”
Since then, Ackerman said, the Taliban has taken retribution against some evacuees, while others have fled or remain in hiding.
A Call for Action
Ackerman argued that the Trump administration now has an opportunity to not only honor Afghan allies but also to recognize the sacrifices of a generation of American veterans who served alongside them.
By allowing vetted Afghan allies to resettle in the United States, Ackerman said, Trump could distinguish himself from Biden and demonstrate that he would have handled the withdrawal’s aftermath differently.
“He would also send a signal that the United States is reliable, even as we are renegotiating our relationships with international partners,” Ackerman wrote.
