Florida Rep. Michael Waltz (R) has joined forces with South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (R) to pen an op-ed discussing President Joe Biden’s (D) “terrorism complacency.” Both lawmakers have been sharply critical of the Biden Administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. While the GOP members note that “the United States may have left Afghanistan,” they clarify that withdrawal has not resolved anything because “the war against Islamic terrorism has not left us.”
In the op-ed written for FOX News, the lawmakers share that “during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl testified that the terrorist group Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) could develop the capability to attack the American homeland in the next six to 12 months.”
The Biden Administration received extensive criticism from GOP members after the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, which led to the Taliban completely taking over the government. Subsequently, efforts were launched to evacuate people, and anecdotes shared have exposed the horrors of trying to flee.
“ISIS-K is the same terrorist group that killed 13 United States service members and over a hundred innocent Afghans at Hamid Karzai International Airport in August 2021 during our chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan,” the lawmakers add, commenting that Secretary Kahl “testified that al Qaeda, the group responsible for the devastating attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, could develop the capability to attack us here at home in a year or two.”
The lawmakers share their disappointment at the President arguing that “the United State maintains an ‘over-the-horizon counterterrorism’ capability in Afghanistan that can prevent the rise in radical Islam.”
Calling it ineffective, the lawmakers are calling for the Biden Administration to admit that the “over-the-horizon counterterrorism” plan “is fiction when it comes to Afghanistan.”
In short, Waltz and Graham warn that “ISIS-K is gaining ground and the Afghan Taliban has not severed its ties with al Qaeda.”
