SLOBODIAN: Get this man out of Kabul!

If claims that Canadian Dave Lavery was captured by the Taliban prove accurate, the federal government should already be working on overdrive to secure his release.He’s owed that.Retired Sgt.-Maj. Lavery served his country in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) for two decades. He was a founding member of JTF2, an elite counterterrorism unit. He’s also responsible for getting Canadians and Afghan allies to safety while working under extreme duress and danger when the Taliban overran the capital Kabul in August 2021.The NATO-backed Islamic Republic of Afghanistan government simply crumbled when President Jo Biden pulled the US out. The Canadian government ran away, leaving people whose lives were at grave risk stranded.Lavery stood his ground and undeniably saved some of those lives.Now it is the rescuer, a true humanitarian and modest hero, that needs to be rescued and returned to his wife Junping Zhang-Lavery who he calls his “rock” and to his son Brant.The Canadian government is obliged to move swiftly to make that happen.A shockingly bad Liberal government bureaucratic decision let Lavery down before. Hopefully, not this time.The Taliban kidnapped Lavery Monday when his flight landed in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to CTV sources.The lawless Taliban trademark is extreme brutality. Since its return to power, it has resumed corporal punishment and public flogging for murder, robbery, adultery, and whatever crimes it wants to, according to Islamic law. It recently conducted its sixth public execution in a stadium.“If the reports are true, I’m deeply concerned. He could potentially be in harm’s way with a regime that nobody wants to suffer what they do,” said retired Maj.-Gen. David Fraser in an interview Friday.Fraser was one of three retired generals overseeing the Afghanistan Strategic Evacuation Team (ASET,) an umbrella for several groups labouring to get Afghan interpreters and other allies who worked with Canadian soldiers serving on NATO missions there to safety.Lavery worked with them and the Veterans Transition Network (VTN.)“He was the guy on the ground doing most of the work. He really good operator. Somebody who is exceptionally knowledgeable because he lived in Afghanistan, was traveling in and out of the country extensively.”“The news of him being taken by the Taliban is as shocking to me as it is, I think to everybody in Canada, especially to those people who know him and most of all his family.”“My thoughts and prayers are with Dave and his family. I truly hope that we can find out what’s happened to him and get him out.”Fraser said he hasn’t spoken with Lavery for months, so is unaware of “what the current circumstances are with him” pertaining to his work.Why the Taliban would kidnap him now is an unknown.“He was known to the Taliban but at the same time was able to work beside them to do what he needed to do for protection of people.”For years David Lavery has run Raven Rae Consulting Services, a private security company, in Kabul. It offers risk mitigation, humanitarian aid, safety and security management and crisis management for government organizations, NGOs, and development organizations.Global Affairs told CTV it was aware of an incident involving a Canadian national, is “monitoring” the situation and offering consular assistance.An incident! Monitoring! Seriously? Canada should be raising royal hell to get him back.Global Affairs wouldn’t say if it had informed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office. Why not answer that simple question?Lavery deserves the full weight of the Canadian government supporting him after all he has done — and should never have had to do alone.When the Taliban approached Kabul, Canada’s disgraced ambassador to Afghanistan Reid Sirrs and his staff had fled on a half-empty military aircraft because it was “far too dangerous.”No one could get special immigration visas requiring the provision of biometric information (fingerprints,) no paperwork could be filed because the embassy was closed. So, they couldn’t get out of the country.As the Taliban entered the city, Lavery took on an insurmountable heart-wrenching task with a list of names of almost 1,200 terrified people needing to be rescued.He worked as the solo Canadian at the chaotic Hamid Karzai International Airport for six days.In the madness, confusion, and hysteria of throngs who ran to the airport hoping to escape, Lavery and his team of locals helped those with Canadian documentation — passports and visas — inside the gate.Afghans, communicating via WhatsApp video calls with the advocacy group Afghan-Canadian Interpreters, were told to wear red and search for Canadian Dave, who wore a red bandana around his neck.The VTN credits Lavery with helping 100 people to freedom then. But he vowed to keep working to get vulnerable people to safety, so how many people he since helped is unknown.Lavery was in Antalya, Turkey, when I interviewed him at length for the Western Standard documentary Abandoned But Not Forgotten by Canada’s Generals.Despite the dogged heroism he displayed in Kabul, there was no bravado. Just an ex-soldier whose military training kicked in doing his job. His graphic description of babies being thrown at them by desperate parents and people standing in raw sewage screaming and crying on the other side of the gate who couldn’t be let in was haunting. And, at the time, still haunted him.So did the betrayal from the Canadian government when he had tried to send his own wife to safety after working beyond exhaustion to help others.When the first Canadian transport plane arrived in Kabul six brutal days after Sirrs fled, Canadian officials offered Lavery and his son a flight out of Afghanistan.He wanted to stay and help more people but send his family to safety. Despite knowing exactly who he was, what he had done and endured, Canada refused to airlift Junping out without him because she only had a Chinese passport.They sent their son off to safety and stayed.On August 26 a suicide bombing occurred at the airport’s Abbey Gate, killing 182 people including 13 US soldiers.Lavery and Junping were boarding the last German transport plane out of Kabul headed for Tashkent, Uzbekistan. They heard the explosion and didn’t know how serious it was until after they landed.Before the collapse of Afghanistan, Junping and Brant both worked tirelessly beside Lavery getting people to the Baron Hotel near the airport which at the time was protected by US and British military.So, Canada owes them also and has to make every effort to return Lavery to them.Despite the horrors and carnage, he has witnessed in many hotspots other than Afghanistan, Lavery said he’s driven by a moral duty to “help and guide” others while striving for unity.He's proudly mastered the ability to walk away from a negative and pull the positive out of it.He exudes goodness, and decency and strength.He's unfathomably brave and resilient.The Canadian government? Let’s hope it mans up for once and doesn’t get all caught up in tiptoeing around the Taliban with weak diplomacy and red tape and excuses — to betray him again.

SLOBODIAN: Get this man out of Kabul!

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