Comments limited on Obama’s Instagram after deluge of calls to help Afghan people

The comments on former President Barack Obama’s Instagram page were briefly suspended on Monday morning as his social media page was inundated with calls to help the Afghan people.

Mr Obama’s former vice president and now president, Joe Biden, has been heavily criticised for the US military’s swift withdrawal from Afghanistan, with civilians breaking through security at Hamid Karzai Airport and clinging to US military aeroplanes as they took off, desperate to get away from Taliban rule.

For about two hours on Monday, as the Biden administration was being criticised for its handling of the withdrawal, Instagram users were met with a message on Barack and Michelle Obama’s Instagram pages that said: “Comments on this post have been limited.”

The previous Democratic president has not made a public statement about the events in Afghanistan as of yet, and his most recent Instagram post was a video about voting rights.

“Afghanistan needs your help. Please please help Afghanistan,” one person wrote.

“The blood of the #Afghan people is on the hands of those who have remained silent in the face of oppression and have made friends with the Taliban,” another commented. “History will not forget your crime.”

“What did we accomplish in Afghanistan if we turn tail and run now?” one user asked. “They need us! That is not the American way! We do not surrender and run! We stay and fight and until the issues are resolved which is true independence!”

Commenters used hashtags such as #help_afghanistan and #afghanistanisbleeding.

An Obama spokesperson told Fox News that there was “no intentionality on our side”, that they had “no further comment” and pointed towards Mr Obama’s comments from April when he praised Mr Biden’s “bold leadership”.

“It has been a long and arduous struggle in Afghanistan, rooted in our response to the deadliest terrorist attack on the US homeland in our history,” the former president said at the time. He added that both US troops and the diplomatic core “can take pride in their efforts to deliver justice for 9/11, destroy al Qaeda’s safe-haven, train Afghan Security Forces, and support the people of Afghanistan”.

Mr Biden defended his actions in a White House speech on Monday, saying that he stands by his decision to pull out and blamed Afghan forces and the Afghan government for being unable or unwilling to fight their own battle.

The Taliban’s rapid takeover of the country leaves women and girls in an especially vulnerable situation as they stand to lose civil rights and access to education and work.

Mr Biden said the former President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani, who fled the country over the weekend, was wrong in his analysis that the Afghan security forces were ready, able, and willing to fight the Taliban.

“When I hosted President Ghani and Chairman Abdullah at the White House in June, and again when I spoke by phone to Ghani in July, we had very frank conversations,” Mr Biden said. “We talked about how Afghanistan should prepare to fight their civil wars after the US military departed. To clean up the corruption in government so the government could function for the Afghan people. We talked extensively about the need for Afghan leaders to unite politically. They failed to do any of that.”

“I also urged them to engage in diplomacy, to seek a political settlement with the Taliban. This advice was flatly refused. Mr Ghani insisted the Afghan forces would fight, but obviously, he was wrong,” Mr Biden said.