Right now, 11 different passenger planes are being denied the ability to leave Afghanistan by the Taliban. Those flights include over 100 Americans looking to escape the turmoil. RedState previously reported on the ongoing crisis, including the absurdity of Kamala Harris going to campaign in California while this is going on.

But now, likely because Glenn Beck is involved in eight of the flights, the simping for the Taliban by the news media has begun. Newsweek’s editor-at-large chimed in with perhaps the dumbest semantic argument I’ve ever seen. Though, to be fair, I’ve seen a lot of dumb semantic arguments.

Also @RepMcCaul was absolutely incorrect as characterizing any of these people as hostages. There is nobody being denied exit of the country, or being detained on a plane. Instead the Taliban has not granted clearance for the planes to leave. Spoke to two sources who confirmed.

— Naveed Jamali (@NaveedAJamali) September 6, 2021

Again there is no evidence that the Taliban is targeting the passengers or explicitly denying them exit. What NGO officials told us was that this was likely due to an impasse between the State and Taliban.

— Naveed Jamali (@NaveedAJamali) September 6, 2021

According to this ridiculous clown, these Americans aren’t being denied exit from the country. Rather, they are being told their planes can’t leave the country. See the difference? Yeah, me neither. It’s a stupid, meaningless distinction being used to take a shot at GOP Rep. Michael McCaul instead of just reporting what’s happening on the ground.

Naveed Jamali promotes himself as a former “double agent,” so you’d expect that he’d be smart enough to recognize a hostage situation when he sees one. You see, the “impasse” between the State Department and the Taliban that he cites is because the Taliban are asking for something. And unless the Taliban get it, they are not going to allow the Americans to leave. In any normal setting, we call that holding someone hostage. There is no requirement that the Americans must be kept on the plane at gunpoint to qualify for the label.

The idea that there’s no evidence the Taliban are targeting the passengers is ludicrous. They clearly are, otherwise, they’d let them leave instead of tying them to talks with the State Department. Further, relying on NGO officials to characterize motive is asinine. Those NGO officials are at the mercy of the Taliban. They are not going to say anything that could jeopardize their access to Afghanistan. This is obviously a hostage situation. Perhaps it gets resolved, but as it sits, Americans are being confined by the Taliban, unable to return home, until they extract whatever concession they are looking for.

But the media are loathe to admit this is a hostage situation because that would mean they’d be beating up on Joe Biden again, and protecting him politically is far more important to many in the news industry than protecting Americans. Think about how incredible it is that we have over 100 Americans trapped in Afghanistan in just this specific situation, and the media have basically blacked it out. But worse, they are now defending the Taliban in order to excuse what’s going on.

Never trust these people. They will hang you out to dry, including leaving you in the hands of terrorists, if it means protecting their political narrative.