For just a few hours on Tuesday, news sources reported that people were making their way to Kabul Airport without incident, that the pace of evacuation flights was increasing, and that the early chaos surrounding the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was settling down. After all, this is the “kinder, gentler” version of the Taliban, the one that swears it has reformed, the one that isn’t even certain it will continue chopping people’s hands off if they are suspected of a petty crime. That narrative didn’t survive the night. 

That’s about how long it took before reports of a supposed car thief being drenched in tar and tied to a truck, or protestors being shot, or 15 people getting their hands cut off to appear. In short, Taliban 2.0 looks an awful lot like Taliban 1.0 when it comes to brutality and repression. 

The other thing that’s changed overnight? Republican willingness to own their involvement in the withdrawal from Afghanistan. In contrast, in his speech, President Joe Biden stepped up to say, “I stand squarely behind my decision” to withdraw remaining American forces, and noted that the results of that withdrawal were both “hard” and “messy.” Biden made it clear that in this decision, “the buck stops with” him.

Which is good. Because Republicans are suddenly discovering that they would never talk to the Taliban, that keeping American forces in Afghanistan forever was perfectly fine, and that the crucial thing here is not allowing refugees from our 20-year war to come into America.

As Wednesday dawned in Afghanistan, there were still thousands of Americans and American allies who had not been able to catch a flight out of the country. Despite earlier negotiations and assurances from Taliban leaders, The Washington Post reports that those trying to get to the Kabul airport have anything but an easy passage. Though the U.S. and other nations continue to operate evacuation flights, and the pace of those flights has been reportedly increasing, the Taliban has created checkpoints at which Afghans attempting to escape have either been intimidated into turning back or suffered beatings. 

Meanwhile, TFG made an exclusive appearance on Fox News Tuesday evening to explain that he had no connection to events in Afghanistan and didn’t know any of these people. That includes now-former Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai. “Now, I never had a lot of confidence, frankly, in Ghani,” TFG told Fox. “I said that openly and plainly. I thought he was a total crook.”

Yes, that must have been what TFG meant when he said in December 2019 that Ghani “was terrific” during negotiations. Or when he sent a tweet in November saying, “Thanks to President Ghani for his courageous support.” Clearly, everyone failed to get the implied “total crook” in those statements.

Of course, TFG could be talking about another Ghani. Maybe he meant Abdul Ghani Baradar. That would be the Taliban leader for whom he brokered a release from prison with Pakistan, who then acted as the key participant in negotiations to turn Afghanistan over to the Taliban. Either way, it seems like quite a change in tune.

Of course, he’s not the only one. Two days ago, Republicans removed this page from their official website. 

Now deleted GOP.com page praising Trump’s deal with Taliban.

As of Wednesday morning, U.S. flights have evacuated around 3,200 people from Afghanistan to other locations. In addition, 2,000 Afghans relocated to the United States as “special immigrants.“ That are still about 11,000 people in Afghanistan who have identified themselves as Americans and over 80,000 Afghans seeking evacuation. Some of those evacuees are going to Europe. Germany has also created a “shuttle service” of flights between Kabul and Uzbekistan’s capital city of Tashkent. The plan is to take most of those people on to Germany later, but the temporary stop in Tashkent allows the planes to recycle more quickly.

Naturally, as Republicans have gotten out the erasers to cut any connection with getting out of Afghanistan, they’ve moved heavily into their most comfortable position: demeaning refugees and immigrants. This tweet from Newsmax host Steve Cortes might not garner the response expected, as more than ten thousand people hopped up to say they would welcome the refugees to their area.

Afghans did not ask for the war. More than 66,000 Afghan soldiers died fighting alongside American troops to push and defeat the Taliban. That the end of the war comes with obligations shouldn’t be that hard to understand except for those who have a permanent setting that’s all about racism.

Yes. It is absolutely our responsibility to welcome the people who fought alongside us for decades, risking their lives and families and now sacrificing their homes, to a poorly planned “strategy” that was largely based on little more than a desire for revenge.

But not every Republican is responding to the crisis by slamming the door; those few deserve credit.

That’s an expression of just basic decency that deserves everyone’s support.