Congressman Bob Latta (R-OH5) joined a resolution led by Congressman Michael Waltz (R-FL), an Afghan War veteran, to condemn President Biden’s failures in Afghanistan and calls on the President to commit to maintain the evacuation as long as necessary to evacuate U.S. citizens and Afghan partners that would like to leave the country. President Biden has held firm in his commitment to the arbitrary timeline of full withdrawal by August 31, even as American citizens are still stranded in Afghanistan. Text of the resolution is available here.
“President Biden has much to answer for, and he must address why he ignored intelligence and military leaders in a rush to pull our troops out of Afghanistan,” said Latta. “This debacle was entirely predictable. Our focus must now be on getting Americans out of country. It’s simply not possible to do this by August 31, and President Biden will be leaving American citizens and our Afghan partners to the whims of the Taliban if he does not extend the withdrawal deadline. We know that being left behind is a death sentence for many.
“Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress are calling for an extension of the August 31 deadline – along with our international allies. It’s the only appropriate course of action. We are the United States – we do not leave our fellow Americans behind.”
Last week, Congressman Latta also shared the following video on his social media channels in response to President Biden’s lack of leadership in Afghanistan since Kabul was overrun by the Taliban.
Watch Congressman Latta’s video message here.
On Sunday, August 15, 2021, Congressman Latta released the below statement on Facebook and Twitter:
The news today out of Afghanistan is devastating and ultimately represents an increased terror risk to the United States. The Biden Administration’s reckless drawdown ensured that the chaos we are currently seeing was destined to happen.
There was no foresight and absolutely zero consideration of intelligence reports that the Afghan military would be steamrolled without air support.
President Biden said just last week that we would not see Americans helicoptered out from rooftops like we did in Vietnam. But that’s what is happening today. The Pentagon said on Friday that the fall of Kabul was not imminent. The Afghan capital is not going to last the weekend.
As Kabul is overrun, we are with the brave men and women in our military and diplomatic corps who are desperately trying to get Americans and our allies to safety. This is a truly dark day for American leadership on the world stage.
Today’s events are not due to the members of our armed services or our veterans, who have served admirably and made immense sacrifices in Afghanistan. We are forever in debt for their service to our nation.
As has been reported, terror threat levels are already elevated with the fall of the Afghan government. This will mean that the U.S. will need to show even more vigilance to ensure the American people are safe from terrorist groups that will most likely have free rein to base themselves in a Taliban-governed Afghanistan.
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