In September 2019, an American raid left an Afghan farmer and several of his children dead, but an injured infant survived (read story here).
This young girl was still in Afghanistan when a Marine officer, who served there, and his wife persuaded a rural Virginia judge to give the girl to them with an adoption order.
Meanwhile the girl was taken in by Afghan relatives, and when they came to the United States to escape the Taliban, they brought her with them. That’s when Major Mast used those adoption papers to get physical custody of the girl.
That adoption is no good legally, a Virginia appeals court ruled on Tuesday, July 16, 2024, but it didn’t order the Masts to relinquish the girl. The federal government’s position is that “Mast never had any claim to this child, and that she be returned immediately to her Afghan family (read story here).
This case is a no-brainer. The girl has Afghan relatives, who are the natural parties to assume responsibility for an orphaned child. She belongs with Afghan people, and in Afghan culture.
I don’t understand why the Masts insist on keeping this child, just as I don’t understand the whites who fought all the way to the Supreme Court for a “right” to adopt Native American children whose tribes want them (see article here).
This isn’t about saving abandoned children. The Afghan girl and the Native American kids have homes with their own people. It’s about adult strangers hunting for adoptable children trying to rip those kids out of those homes to satisfy their own selfish yearning for parenthood.
Nobody should give them the time of day.
Picture below: A court artist’s sketch of the Masts in an adoption hearing
