Local politicians react as Taliban takes control in Afghanistan
The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan over the weekend, capturing major cities in a matter of days as Afghan security forces completely collapsed.
The blitz occurred two weeks before the U.S. was set to complete its troop withdrawal after a two-decade war that began in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Current and former Lehigh Valley politicians were quick to react to what the Associated Press called a “lightning offensive” as the Taliban overran city after city, culminating in Taliban fighters installing themselves in the presidential
palace in Kabul.
“What we are witnessing in Afghanistan is nothing short of a tragedy,” Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said on Twitter late Sunday.
“The miscalculation to rapidly withdraw our forces to meet symbolic rather than strategic deadlines has created a rapidly unfolding humanitarian disaster that will lead to only more pain and suffering for the people of Afghanistan,” Toomey tweeted. “It’s incumbent upon the United States to ensure a swift and safe evacuation of American citizens, along with our Afghan partners fleeing the Taliban.”
Thousands of people rushed Kabul International Airport on Monday, climbing on U.S. military planes in a desperate attempts to flee the country, the AP reported. U.S. troops fired warning shots as they struggled to manage a tense and chaotic evacuation, and video shared online showed several bodies falling off the aircraft.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., announced he was urging Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to keep U.S. troops in the city to ensure the safe evacuation of Afghans facing Taliban violence. He called for U.S. security forces at Kabul’s international airport to coordinate with other forces in the region to provide security to allow Afghans to safely board planes and evacuate.
“Now that the Taliban has entered Kabul and has taken control of the government, our allies and defenders of democracy in Afghanistan are in grave danger, particularly women’s rights activists and leaders,” Casey said in a statement. “This is not the time for the usual Washington finger pointing and pontificating; our immediate priority must be to safely evacuate the Americans, women leaders, activists and human rights defenders who are being targeted by the Taliban.”
Casey also called for a review of mistakes made in Afghanistan over the last 20 years.
State Rep. Mike Schlossberg tweeted early Monday, “Kinda feels like we’re living a new, remarkably bad version of ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire.’ “
A reply to Schlossberg’s comment from a human rights activist read, “There are countless veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who have endured the trauma of war. The need for mental health resources and services are desperately needed for those who served their country.”
Schlossberg helped create a statewide suicide prevention plan that was announced last September.
U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-8th District, retweeted information from the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee on a crisis hotline available for veterans.
“How can we #BeThere for veterans? By letting them know about the mental health resources available to them. The Veterans Crisis Line is available 24/7 to help any veteran experiencing a mental health crisis: 1-800-273-8255 & press 1,” the tweet said.
Just before noon Monday, Rep. Susan Wild, D-7th District, tweeted, “What’s happening in Afghanistan is a tragedy. I am heartbroken for every Gold Star family who lost a loved one in AFG over the past 20 years. I am devastated knowing Afghan civilians, especially women & children, are now looking at the terrorizing face of Taliban control.”
Wild continued, “We owe it to these groups to uphold our promises of providing assistance, including refugee and visa support, especially for Afghans who provided invaluable help to American forces over the past two decades.”
Don Ritter, who represented the Lehigh Valley in Congress from 1979-93, penned an op-ed for The Morning Call last week calling on the U.S. military to reestablish an airpower capability in Afghanistan before the Taliban grabbed the air bases and made local and timely response to their attacks with air power impossible.
Ritter also said it’s time to stop calling the conflict a civil war, noting many Taliban fighters grew up parentless in refugee camps in Pakistan and were indoctrinated in radical Islamic madrassas, influenced by the philosophies of al-Qaida.
“The Taliban, al-Qaida and the Islamic State are not domestic Afghan creations,” Ritter wrote. “Yet their presence in Afghanistan is strong and growing as the U.S. and NATO retreat.”
The speed of the offensive appears to have stunned American officials. A U.S. military assessment days ago predicted it could take months for Kabul to fall, but Afghan security forces collapsed or fled in the face of the Taliban takeover.