John Oliver slams Fox News’ racial-panic goblins for poor approach to Afghanistan

John Oliver dedicated Sunday’s episode of “Last Weekt”To the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan, including a withdrawal from Fox News’s response to the situation.

Oliver showed devastating news clips of Afghan citizens invading Kabul airport in an effort to escape Taliban rule.

“We all knew the end would probably be ugly. The only question was, how ugly is it? he said on his HBO show. “Well, this week we got our answer.”

Oliver argued that the United States has an obligation to honor its promise to protect the Afghans who assisted the United States during its 20-year involvement with the nation, as well as other vulnerable citizens.

He played an excerpt from a An anonymous Afghan activist told Sky News that she had to go into hiding after receiving death threats from the Taliban for her work to empower other women.

“I feel extremely abandoned,” she said in the clip. “It’s not just that I’m in danger. Now my children are in danger. They won’t leave us alive.

Oliver said the United States was “responsible for the situation she found herself in”, especially after pledging to “protect people who have done courageous things that pissed off the Taliban, such as a human rights defender. man, even though it ended up putting a target on their backs. “

Oliver then set his sights on Fox News figures Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, calling them “goblins of racial panic” for their attempts to demonize Afghan refugees.

“We’re a big part of why these people are refugees,” Oliver said. “Helping them now is not charity. It’s doing the bare minimum. Refusing to help a neighbor whose house has just burned down is crap. To do it when you’ve helped light the fire is fucking creepy.

Last week Carlson claimed Afghan refugees would ‘invade’ the United States

“If history is a guide, and it is still a guide, we will see many Afghan refugees resettle in our country in the months to come, probably in your neighborhood,” he said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight ”. “And over the next decade, that number could grow into the millions. ”

“So first we invade, then we are invaded,” he said. “It’s always the same.”

Ingraham used similar fear-mongering rhetoric on the network.

“The lesson of this 20 year war cannot be that every time we overthrow a country or make huge mistakes, our immigration laws, our refugee laws no longer apply,” Ingraham said. .

Oliver reacted strongly to Ingraham’s loaded remarks.

“The notion of ‘every time we topple a country’ is an amazing thing to blow up,” Oliver said. “Maybe that’s the lesson here, Laura. Maybe don’t continue to upset countries in the first place. “