Planeloads of civilians, including about 6,000 Americans, were airlifted out of Afghanistan late this summer to escape likely harm, according to news accounts. Another 40,000 or so others reportedly left that primitive country in other ways under military supervision.
If factual (rather than more political spin), that's a lot of folks to be transferred to safer nations, including the United States, without being besieged by mainstream reporters wanting to tell their experiences.
Admittedly, I might have overlooked such stories. Yet I can't recall even one article informing me of their life in Afghanistan and escape from behind Taliban lines into freedom.
I'm not alone. Methodist minister David Smith of Harrison was wondering in an email exchange what's become of these people. Who, if anyone in the national or local media, is telling their stories?
I certainly recall the Biden administration bragging repeatedly about the historic airlifts that supposedly brought so many Americans and friendly Afghans out of harm's way to the United States and elsewhere.
So today the reverend and I are puzzled about the silence surrounding so many whose rescue led the news for weeks.
Have you seen anything about the many Americans we rescued, he asked. How about pictures or stories about reunifying with their families and friends in the states? How about even a brief mention about them and their new lives?
He said we were told by powers-that-be and the national mainstream media that "some 6,000 to 7,000 Americans" were rescued by the State Department and military in evacuations from the Kabul airport.
"So doesn't it seem even a little odd there have been no videos of those evacuated arriving at any airports anywhere? No crowds or families greeting the extracted residents?"
That includes no simple human-interest stories from survivors.
"There also were no publicized 'White House invites' for survivors, or TV broadcasts praising Biden for saving them. No hometown interviews from people returning to tell harrowing stories," he continued.
Smith and others expected local broadcast and print news stories by relieved husbands, wives, daughters or sons arriving in the country or back in their hometowns. "Thousands of Americans and many others saved from the clutches of the Taliban, yet not a single story or article I've seen about even one arriving safely to the waiting arms of their families?"
Well, as he stated, it's impossible to place an effective gag order on that many people, right?
"To not tell how bad or terrifying it was and expect not even one anonymous source to say something, even off-the-record? Who were they and where did any of them come home to?"
What could possibly be the reason the Biden administration would allow such a praiseworthy opportunity to pass?
"Any of this sound strange to you? Are you asking yourself any questions yet?" Smith's email concluded.
It certainly sounds like a valid question and one the American people deserve to have answered, especially when the national media devotes hours to covering issues such as Britney Spears' conservatorship travails, Aaron Rodgers' covid nonvaccination and the tribulations of angry actor Alec Baldwin.
Here from there
On the topic of welcoming new arrivals, I'm sharing my slightly revised version of a social media offering from last weekend.
"You came here from there because you didn't like it there and wanted a change. But now you want to change here to be like the there you left behind. We are not racist, phobic or anti-whatever you might name-call here.
"We simply like living our life the way it is, which is why we chose to settle here. Most of us came here, or selected to live our lives here, because it is not like there, wherever there happened to be.
"You are most welcome here. But please don't try to make here like the there you decided to leave for your own reasons.
"Should you want here to become like the there you decided to leave, you should not have left there to come here. Or, of course, you could always adapt to living here because it is preferable to the life you decided to reject there."
Changed my view
Stories last week about innocent Black men whose convictions were vacated caught my attention.
The first was Anthony Broadwater, 61, of Syracuse, N.Y., who had served 16 years for a rape he didn't commit. Even the district attorney said the original conviction never should have happened.
Meanwhile, 62-year-old Kevin Strickland of Kansas City was set free after serving more than 40 years for three murders a judge ruled he didn't commit. Imagine: More than half your life and innocent.
These accounts triggered a rush of memories of Arkansas cases across the years that led me into the lives of Arkansans who also had been mistakenly charged and/or convicted. They were people with names like Ronald Carden, Shelby Barron and Belynda Goff.
The fallibility of our system that allows innocent people to slip through the cracks is the reason I've become leery of the death penalty (from which we know there is no mulligan).
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.