Things are really bad right now in Afghanistan—but administration officials need to understand that things could get a lot worse, fast.
So far, Joe Biden has been missing in action, spending most of the crisis holed up in Camp David and Delaware. As the president now knows, inaction comes with a cost.
It’s time to end the vacation.
With maximum urgency, the Biden administration must pursue three simple goals to keep this disaster from spiraling into catastrophe.
The first and most pressing is safely getting every American out of Afghanistan.
The Biden administration is currently telling stranded Americans that “the U.S. Government cannot guarantee your security” while traveling to the Kabul airport. Have they forgotten they control the most powerful military in the world? Joe Biden isn’t incapable of protecting Americans in Kabul—he’s just unwilling.
If that sounds like a harsh assessment, consider the fact that the Biden administration isn’t even prioritizing Americans ahead of noncitizens for flights out of Afghanistan. The Biden administration is evacuating applicants to the Special Immigration Visa program, who haven’t even been approved yet, with the same urgency as U.S. citizens. This is a travesty and must change.
That brings me to the next point. This weekend, Biden abandoned our embassy in Kabul. That embassy was responsible for vetting Afghan visa applicants.
I served in Afghanistan with interpreters and members of the Afghan security forces, some of whom have already moved to the United States. They earned their citizenship and I’m glad they came, but I’m also glad they were extensively vetted.
Past employment by the Afghan government doesn’t rule out the possibility of terrorist ties. In 2011, 15% of American soldiers killed in Afghanistan were murdered by Taliban insurgents embedded in the Afghan army. Hundreds of Americans are dead because of Afghanistan's inadequate vetting. In fairness, the Afghan government was brand new and dirt poor. Joe Biden won’t be excused for repeating their mistake.
And the vetting process is more important in Afghanistan than it’s ever been. Because Afghanistan is now controlled by a terrorist group the chance of Afghan terrorists sneaking into America is exponentially higher than it was last week. If anything, the Biden administration should more stringently investigate visa applicants. Relaxing the process, as many Democrats have suggested, should be out of the question.
Lastly, I know for a fact that Afghanistan is full of expensive, lethal, American-made weapons because I’ve seen them with my own eyes. My job in Afghanistan was to securely transfer U.S. military equipment to Afghan security forces. To be exact, U.S. taxpayers spent $82.9 billion on Afghanistan’s security forces, which is more than the entire U.S. Marine Corps’ annual budget. Biden needs to keep that equipment away from terrorists.
The Taliban already seized an unacceptable amount of U.S. weaponry, all of which now risks being transferred to their jihadist allies and used against American citizens. House Armed Services Republicans are introducing a bill that would force Biden to reveal how much U.S. military equipment the Taliban now controls.
But it will take another month for our bill to make it to the House floor. That’s why Republicans in Congress aren’t responsible for responding to foreign disasters. That is the Commander-in-Chief’s job, and he needs to start doing it. The Biden administration must account for all U.S. military equipment in the Taliban’s hands and act to destroy equipment that hasn’t been seized yet.
So, is Biden going to do any of this? Does he already plan to do some of it? Does he have a plan at all?
Your guess is as good as mine. He didn’t show Congress a plan before the withdrawal and he hasn’t shown us one since Afghanistan fell.
We’ll just have to “knock on wood.”