The third anniversary of the ISIS-K bombing of Abbey Gate at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan- which left 13 U.S. service members dead and wounded many others, came and went with barely a mention from the Regime Media beyond Donald Trump’s observance of the grim anniversary at Arlington National Cemetery. The strongest acknowledgement of that withdrawal comes from an unlikely source.
Watch as NBC Nightly News closes out their newscast with a report on the Afghan Youth Orchestra (click “expand” to view full transcript):
NBC NIGHTLY NEWS
8/28/24
6:56 PM
TOM LLAMAS: Finally, they come from a place where music has been banned, but after a daring escape these young people are finding harmony in a whole new place. Here's Richard Engel.
RICHARD ENGEL: In the city of Braga, known as “the Rome of Portugal”, where tradition and history run deep, members of the Afghan Youth Orchestra are keeping their country's rich musical traditions alive. Because in Afghanistan now, this -- is a crime. Three years ago as U.S. troops left Afghanistan, the Taliban seized power.
MUSICIAN: It was like we were dead.
RICHARD ENGEL: You felt like you were dead?
MUSICIAN: Yes, of course.
ENGEL: For cousins Farida and Zora Ahmadi, it was a threat to their very existence. They were students at Afghanistan's National Institute of Music, established in 2010 in Kabul. The school was a direct challenge to the Taliban's extremism. For years the group tried to silence them, even dispatching a suicide bomber to a performance. So when the Taliban returned as rulers, the music stopped. The school's director, Dr. Ahmad Sarmast, orchestrated a miracle, a mass evacuation of students and staff.
AHMAD SARMAST: It’s an opportunity for our students to dream once again.
ENGEL: Today, the school and orchestra live on in Portugal, and their sacrifices are being recognized with an invitation to play Carnegie hall. It was bittersweet for Zora.
ZORA: We were happy and sad at the same time.
ENGEL: Sad for those left behind in Afghanistan where music remains banned and girls are not allowed more than a sixth grade education. The orchestra is fighting back with instruments. This August, they made it to New York City.
STUDENT: Welcome to Carnegie Hall! No one has silenced us.
ENGEL: Each concert is a protest.
SARLAST: Each note is a protest.
ENGEL: Bringing them one step closer, perhaps, to returning music and hope to their homeland. Richard Engel, NBC News.
LLAMAS: We thank Richard for that special story.
At first blush, this appears to be a story about the resilience of this youth orchestra that fled their country in order to remain together and play together- a rolling act of defiance of the Taliban and their prohibitions of music. But ever present is the fact that we, the United States, allowed the Taliban to return to power.
It seems like a tiny blurb within the video but that’s all it takes. Three years ago, the Biden Administration implemented a withdrawal that failed, and got many people hurt. Some of them permanently. Some of them, fatally.
That barely-acknowledged capitulation is what enabled both the Taliban’s return to power, and the displacement of the youth orchestra. That reality is inescapable, even to a Regime Media that might wish it weren’t so.
