Doofus Of The Day #1,083

 

Today’s award goes to the US State Department for this mind-boggling piece of bureaucratic stupidity.  Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.

My reader who is trying to get his company’s former employees out of Afghanistan offers another update, and another illustration of the Kafkaesque process for getting an Afghan ally authorization to leave the country.

. . .

My reader says the State Department hotline operator’s advice was to leave Afghanistan, contact any of the neighboring country U.S. embassies, travel to that embassy, finish the interview process, get the visas, and then buy tickets and fly to the United States.

My reader replied that that step one is impossible without first having a visa, “and that the Taliban have made it clear that no Afghans like his former employee’s wife and children are allowed to leave, and that the northern border is closed to Afghan refugees. She had no answer.” … The plight of these Afghans is now a catch-22; they can’t leave without a visa, and without a functioning embassy in the country, the U.S. government cannot issue them visas.

My reader continued, “after a long pause, she suggested I call the nearest local embassy in the area and see what they recommend. Get that? The U.S. Department of State … is telling me that in order for him to leave Afghanistan, he must leave Afghanistan. He must cross a border where one side won’t let you leave and the other side won’t let you in, and that we should call the U.S. embassies in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan or Tajikistan and see what they recommend.  She gave me the numbers, told me there is nothing more she could do, and thanked me for calling.”

There’s more at the link.

It’s like a bureaucratic version of a Kafka Trap:  no matter what you want to do, it’s not going to work, and is going to trap you in a web of circular logic that has no outcome at all except to leave you as helpless as you were when you started.

Congratulations, State Department.  I daresay you’ve just demonstrated peak bureaucratic inertia, and peak lack of interest or caring in the very people you’re supposed to be helping and serving.  Just why do we continue to pay you people, anyway?

Peter

12 comments

  1. The State Department is just asking for its defenestration (Defenestration: Tossed out a window–the higher the better…)

  2. If you ever find yourself in a position where you are at the mercy of the U.S. State Department, for any reason whatsoever, you have MASSIVELY f***ed up.

    Treat them like the enemies of humanity they are, for life, and you'll do just fine.

  3. Obviously, our State Dept is operating normally for them. Just look at their history since day one. They have never been on our side. Back in the day, they were Soviet sympathizers/supporters. It is a communist run organization, it's just taken the rest of our .gov a while to catch up to them. Some of their employees were cut from a different cloth, but the vast majority have been dyed-in-the-wool communists and haters of the US.

  4. The important thing is that the people at the state department go home safely at the end of their shift. Second, that they stay on the payroll long enough to qualify for their pension. Anything else is secondary.

  5. Since no one else has mentioned it, I will.

    Most readers have heard of the efforts of the Nazarene fund, originally to get Afghan Christians out of the country before they're massacred by the Taliban, then turned to getting everyone out that they could. Glenn Beck, the face of the organization, tells the story of them having a commercial jet (737 or A320 vs. something bigger wasn't clear) and being denied permission to leave. The State Department had instituted a new form a day or two before that they needed to have. They asked how to get it, DOS said at the embassy, and the Nazarene fund guy said, "but there is no American embassy."

    The DOS person on the phone literally laughed at them and said, "well you'll just have to figure that for yourself, then, won't you." State department laughed at Americans trying to get out of the country.

    They're actively malicious and evil.

  6. Not surprising. John Kerry is owned by Iran and hates America and Americans. His wife is one of the largest funders of America hating globalist totalitarian organizations and terrorist groups with her money laundering Tides Foundation.

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