According to Rep. Rob Wittman, if the Taliban is preventing airplanes containing American citizens from being able to take off, that means these individuals are “indeed hostages by any definition,” and President Joe Biden is not stepping up to the plate to show real leadership by taking action to fix this situation.
“I am very concerned these Americans are being held against their will,” the Virginia Republican went on to say during his appearance on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America.” “The president should have this on the front burner. He should be all about getting Americans out of Afghanistan. He should be all about telling the Taliban that under no circumstances will you hold these Americans, and you will let them go, and if you do not allow them to leave Afghanistan, there will be immediate and severe consequences for that.”
Wittman’s comments come not long after Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas, spoke with “Fox News Sunday” and revealed that six planes have been blocked by the Taliban from being able to leave the international airport in Kabul.
via Newsmax:
The State Department said after the interview that it does not have the “reliable means” to back up the claim because there are no personnel or air assets in the country and the government controls no airspace in the region, and Wittman slammed that statement.
“That sounds like a complete disconnect by this administration,” said the congressman. “The reason we find ourselves in this situation is truly the doing of the president. [With] this chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, where we have no diplomatic presence on the ground and the president said he was going to help get Americans out. Doesn’t look like [it] to me. There’s a whole lot of help going on today.”
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is in Delaware, not in Washington, but he should be back at the White House making the situation his top priority, the congressman said.
“Here’s the Taliban trying to shake down the United States,” Wittman went on to say. “He should be unambivalent about this. … By any measure, you would say they’re being held as hostages. That needs to be addressed immediately.”
He added that if action is not taken immediately, the situation will only become worse because the Taliban will believe they can get away with even more violent actions because “they will do everything they can to either embarrass America or to extract concessions from America.”
Wittman also rejected an argument from former deputy director of national intelligence Sue Gordon, who said on Sunday the United States is far safer now with troops out of Afghanistan.
“We really don’t have good situational awareness,” he continued. “We are operating at great distances to try to gather intelligence surveillance. I would argue our place in south Asia today is weaker than it was prior to 9/11.”
This is a mess that was made by President Biden, thus he’s the individual that needs to clean it up, starting with a confession and an apology to the American people.
Then, he needs to use the U.S. military to go back into Afghanistan and free the rest of our people and bring them home.
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