America owes a debt of gratitude to the Afghan interpreters and other support staff who put their own lives and the lives of their families at risk to help advance the two-decade U.S. mission in Afghanistan. With U.S. troops now rapidly nearing the end of their mission, thousands of those Afghans are in mortal danger as Taliban forces close in on Kabul. Death threats are flying thick and fast.

The Biden administration, to its credit, has pledged to bump those Afghans to the top of the list for priority asylum consideration, but even in the best of times, the vetting process is painstakingly slow and cumbersome. If they can't be granted asylum quickly, the least the United States can do is accelerate their evacuation to a safe third country.

Both the Biden and Trump administrations forced the U.S. military into a far more accelerated withdrawal schedule than originally planned. Taliban forces are rapidly spreading their control across the countryside, leaving domestic interpreters and other paid helpers to fend for themselves. Over the weekend, U.S. forces secretly withdrew from the sprawling Bagram air base they had occupied since the early days of the war in 2001. Afghan government forces were kept uninformed until it was completed. Though they're now in control, there's no telling how long they can fend off the Taliban.

Some might argue that Afghans who worked for the Americans knew what they were getting themselves into. In fact, they did. They made heavy sacrifices and took enormous risks to support the U.S. Interpreters, in particular, accompanied U.S. troops on their most dangerous missions. All the while, Taliban spies kept track, painstakingly tracing the interpreters' roots and determining where they and their families lived. Death threats at their homes were a regular occurrence.

"I don't think they'll last too long," Marc Silvestri, an Army veteran of Afghanistan, told CBS News. "The Taliban takes them as complete traitors." Like many U.S. veterans, Silvestri worked hard after his deployment to attain immigration status for one of his Afghan interpreters, Sabib Nuristani. Nuristani recalled receiving multiple threats and said of those left behind, "If they're not evacuated from Afghanistan they lose their life and the lives of family."

President Joe Biden insisted last week that "those who helped us are not going to be left behind." But the sheer logistics of processing the thousands of asylum requests virtually ensures only a fraction can be taken care of before the U.S. withdrawal is complete. An offer to evacuate them to a willing third country is the best temporary solution. Leaving them to a Taliban slaughter is a fast way to ensure no one steps forward to help the next time the U.S. launches a major mission on foreign soil.

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