Editorial: Lombard man held hostage in Afghanistan and his family deserve to know he is not being left behind

If Joe Biden wants to salvage even a modicum of respect from our disastrous departure from Afghanistan, there is one clear action he and only he can take.

Bring Mark Frerichs home to Lombard.

Failing some joyous miracle this weekend, Monday will mark the end of two years since Frerichs, a Navy veteran and civil engineering contractor working in Kabul, was lured to a meeting with a branch of the Taliban and taken hostage.

As far as is known, Frerichs is the only American still held in Afghanistan. The last American troops pulled out of the country Aug. 30, five months ago. Despite repeated promises from both the Trump and Biden administrations that officials are working hard to secure his safe release, almost no progress has been reported in negotiations, neither before the American pullout nor since.

For a nation and a president that have committed to the notion that no American would be left behind in this or any time of conflict, Frerichs' ongoing captivity is disgracefully inhumane.

Frerichs' sister Charlene Cakora pleaded in a compelling guest column in The Washington Post Wednesday for the president to take action to free her brother. She said she has been repeatedly told that only he can give the order that could gain Frerichs' release.

It is no simple order, to be sure.

What the Taliban affiliate holding him - a group known as the Haqqani network - wants is a one-for-one exchange of Frerichs for Bashir Noorzai, an influential Pashtun tribal leader and convicted drug lord who reportedly had close ties to Taliban co-founder Mohammed Omar.

Noorzai came to New York City in 2005, according to Newsweek magazine, under the pretext of a diplomatic mission and what he thought were assurances that he would not be arrested. He was. Then he was convicted on charges of trying to smuggle $50 million worth of heroin into the United States. He was sentenced to life in prison and has been held ever since.

Prisoner exchanges involving hostage takers are always delicate, uneven experiences, fraught with concerns about strength, honor, equivalence and precedent. This one, if it occurred, would be no cleaner than any other.

Cakora acknowledges that in her Washington Post essay.

"I cannot speak to whether (Noorzai) deserves to be released," she writes. "But I know we have held him for more than 16 years and that others who have done a lot worse have been sent home. It's normal for prisoners to be returned after wars end."

That point surely must hold some sway, if negotiators can't fashion some agreement out of Afghanistan's collapsing economy. Otherwise, Cakora writes, she and the rest of Frerichs' family can only dread that, "Every day we don't bring Mark home is another day he remains in danger."

Illinois' two Democratic U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth have repeatedly pleaded for more strident efforts to gain Frerichs' release. His family has maintained a painful, unending crusade on his behalf - and heard a litany of promises and excuses.

Now, we are left to wonder along with Charlene Cakora why nothing is happening.

"If the Biden administration is not prepared to support this trade," Cakora told our Katlyn Smith and other reporters last August, "then they need to tell us what they are prepared to do instead."

That, indeed, is literally the least they can do.