By Jerry Bellune
JerryBellune@yahoo.com
South Carolina’s Congressional staffs are working around the clock to save Americans and their allies.
McLaurine Pinover of Springdale Republican Congressman Joe Wilson’s office  said their staff is working closely with the State and Defense Departments to get US citizens, legal permanent residents and eligible Special Immigrant Visa applicants out of Afghanistan. 
“Our office has been successful in helping some to safety and we will continue for as long as it takes.”
Toby Tyler of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s office said his staff is working on rescuing as many as 15,000 Americans behind the Taliban’s lines. 
“We have been dealing with members of the military who were concerned about their Afghan partners,” Tyler said.
“We are hearing from people not only in South Carolina but across America.”
Graham said on TV,  “If we leave one American behind, if we don’t get all those Afghans who stepped up to help us out, then Joe Biden has committed a high crime and misdemeanor and should be impeached.
“If the French are willing to use military force to get their people out, if the British are willing to do it, we should join the effort to get everybody out who honorably served along our side?”
Charleston Republican Sen. Tim Scott’s office is working with relatives of Americans in Afghanistan  and government officials.
Although he could not discuss specific cases in view of what might happen to those behind enemy lines, Brad Traywick of Sen. Scott’s office said they are exploring every means possible. 
One of the most visible Congressional activists has been Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton.
“It’s important to get out the Afghans who have helped,” Cotton said, “but there’s thousands of American citizens in Afghanistan”. 
Cotton, like Joe Wilson and Lindsey Graham, has a military background as a retired Army Captain and a Bronze Star recipient.
He said Biden shortsightedly chose Sept. 11 as a “politically symbolic” exit date.
This will become a propaganda victory for the Taliban flying their flag over the US embassy in Kabul by that tragic anniversary, he said.
If Americans be left at the mercy of the Taliban, it will eclipse President Jimmy Carter’s infamous Iran hostage crisis in 1979, he said.

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