Letter to Joe Biden, President of the United States - Rep. Clyde joins 35 Freshman Colleagues on letter to President Biden on the current situation in Afghanistan

Letter

Dear Mr. President:

We write today as members of the House Republican Freshman Class to express our deep concern with the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, and to highlight the plight of Americans and the many Afghans who worked alongside U.S. forces and have still not been evacuated. While we may be new to Congress, the complete lack of leadership and direction that has come from your administration in the midst of this ongoing crisis has not been lost on us.

For nearly twenty years, brave Americans - several of whom are represented in our Freshman Class - have served in harm's way in Afghanistan. The primary goal of our nation's mission in Afghanistan has always been to prevent the region from being a safe haven for terrorists who seek to violently attack our nation and our way of life, as it was on September 11, 2001.

Over the course of our nation's military operations in Afghanistan, our service members and intelligence professionals have succeeded in preventing the many terrorist threats emanating out of Afghanistan from becoming a reality. The world has undoubtedly been a safer place because of the efforts to deny terrorist groups the ability to use Afghanistan as a base of operations.

As you oversee the final withdrawal from Afghanistan, we call on your administration to urgently prioritize the evacuation of American citizens, security of the airfield, and the evacuation of loyal Afghans who served alongside U.S. forces. We must safely and expeditiously get Americans and our Afghan partners out of harm's way. Leaving Afghan allies behind would almost certainly seal their fate and would have harmful and lasting repercussions for our nation that cannot be overlooked.

With these grave concerns in mind, we ask that you provide a briefing to Congress as soon as possible on your administration's plan to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies. We would also ask that you brief our members on your plan going forward to prevent terrorists from capitalizing on the instability in Afghanistan. As members of Congress, we also need to understand how and why your administration had such a poor grasp of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan. The American people and our nation's veterans who served in Afghanistan deserve to have a full accounting of the diplomatic, defense, and intelligence failures that led to the crisis we are witnessing today.