Report: US officials gave Taliban list of Americans and friendly Afghans who need to be evacuated.

The officials were probably from the State Department. Its headquarters are located in the section of Washington called Foggy Bottom. That says it all. The officials’ idea was to let the Taliban know whom to allow through their checkpoints and roadblocks, so these people could reach Kabul Airport to be evacuated. But what was the Taliban’s idea?

• To facilitate the evacuation of their enemies out of kind and humanitarian feelings?
• Or to learn the names of those left behind, so they could arrest, torture, and kill them, possibly by beheading?

Abandoning Trump’s plan for evacuation might be forgivable. The plan included harsh retaliation for any Taliban attacks, including wiping out the home village of the Taliban leader.

Abandoning the secure Bagram Air Base was not forgivable. Any half-sober corporal could have told you that was the last place to abandon as we departed.

Relying on Kabul Airport, with its single runway in the midst of a city of 4 million, was even less forgivable. It was something even a drunk PFC could have told you was dangerously stupid.

Drawing down our troop numbers before evacuating civilians was unimaginable. Even a bleary-eyed stoner civilian could have told you not to do it.

But giving the Taliban names (and possibly addresses) of Americans and friendly Afghans? Trusting the Taliban with information on our people and our friends? How is this any different from a Frenchman giving names of Resistance fighters to the Nazis during World War II? Even a disturbed person on a psychological hold would not do that. Only an enemy would do that.