America Held Hostage

We’re in the middle of the biggest hostage crisis in American history.  To be sure, it’s not our first hostage crisis, but there is something fundamentally different this time.  It has been going on for months, yet nobody is talking about it, and the government isn’t doing anything about it.  It’s a shameful period in our history and a testament to the corruption of the MSM and the Biden administration.

On November 4, 1979, Islamic Fundamentalists overran the US embassy in Tehran, taking 52 American hostages.  It galvanized the country.  Within 4 days, Ted Koppel began a nightly program about the crisis.  A couple of months later the program became known as Nightline.  Every night the program began with the banner: America Held Hostage — Day 253…America Held Hostage — Day 254… and on and on.  The program’s focus remained on the hostages throughout the crisis, and the nightly ticker continued until it had reached day 444 – the day that Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, and the hostages were released.

For 444 days, all of President Carter’s efforts to free the hostages failed, but nobody disputes that he was making the effort.  Our situation today is very different.  Nobody who SHOULD be talking about our current crisis, IS talking about our current crisis.  Months ago, Secretary of State Blinken estimated that 100 to 150 Americans were left behind.  That’s a disturbing number – almost three times as many as the Iranian hostage crisis.  But when Blinken said it, nobody believed it, not even him – we could see it in his eyes.

Last week, Sen Jim Risch (R-ID) released a report with a somewhat different accounting of the state of our current hostage crisis.  His report estimates that 15,000 Americans were left behind when we precipitously fled from Afghanistan.  He further estimates that since our departure, 6,000 of those Americans have been rescued by private organizations.  Let that sink in.  The salvation of 6,000 Americans didn’t come from the government sworn to protect them, but from private citizens that answered the call.  Our government has done nothing but inhibit the rescues – at one point even refusing to allow a flight of escaping Americans to land at US-controlled airstrips.

Senator Risch estimates that 9,000 Americans remain in Afghanistan, against their will – and that’s not even counting the thousands of allies that we promised to protect and then betrayed.  Almost three times more Americans than were killed on 9/11 are now being held hostage.  It’s 173 times more Americans held hostage than during the Iran hostage crisis.  In 1979 the nation was glued to the TV watching with concern for news about the trapped Americans.  In 2022, the news doesn’t even mention the 9,000, and President Asterisk is occupied with other matters.  We’ve heard him talk about nationalizing elections.  We’ve heard him demand $5 trillion to spend on leftist causes.  Has he even mentioned our hostages this year?  Is this what a return to normalcy means – inaugurating a fool with a nice smile, that will happily leave 9,000 Americans to the tender mercies of the Taliban, and then sleep like a baby?

But it’s not only our PINO (president in name only) that’s AWOL.  Where has the press been?  Their performance throughout this episode has been just as shameful as Biden’s.  Has anyone seen a nightly ticker counting the days that this nightmare has been going on?  Spoiler alert: we’re currently at America Held Hostage II — Day 165.  The fact that Joe Biden, Jen Psaki, Lloyd Austin, and Antony Blinken can come within a hundred yards of a reporter without being asked about the hostages tells you everything you need to know about the MSM.  They’re not in the business of speaking truth to power or reporting the news.  They’re in the propaganda business and telling happy stories about President Asterisk is their current mission.

There have been no interviews of Americans who have friends and family caught in Afghanistan.  Pleading for help from our government wouldn’t fit the narrative.  There hasn’t even been any coverage of the happy reunions as the rescued have returned home.  That also wouldn’t fit the narrative.  We can’t have the rescued talking about the horrors they endured, the people left behind, or the fact that their own government did nothing to rescue them.  That might anger Americans.  Instead, we’re being treated to a total media blackout about all things Afghanistan.  Nothing to see here – no questions, please.

While President Carter was completely ineffective in dealing with the Iran hostage crisis, nobody doubted that he was genuinely concerned about our trapped citizens and was looking for a solution.  He even tried a rescue attempt which ultimately cost the lives of 8 servicemen – but he did try.  In stark contrast, nobody can argue that Biden is even thinking about our current hostages, let alone doing anything to help them.  If anyone has any evidence that Biden cares about our trapped citizens as much as he does his afternoon ice cream break, please share it with me, because I’m not seeing it.  There are two types of people who have no empathy for others – sociopaths and psychopaths.  Which do you suppose our President is?

Featured by Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons