Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw said Monday the United States is “in a worse position than we were on September 10, 2001,” as the remaining U.S. forces pulled out of Afghanistan, leaving future U.S. presence in the region uncertain.
When asked about the upcoming 20th anniversary of the al Qaeda terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, the Republican congressman said, “It’s always worth reminding people we weren’t at war then, but somebody was at war with us, and guess what? They are still at war with us.”
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Crenshaw vehemently criticized President Joe Biden’s decision to move all troops out of Afghanistan by Aug. 31, alleging on Aug. 24 he was taking orders from the Taliban and that U.S. citizens would be left behind. Gen. Frank McKenzie Jr., U.S. CENTCOM commander, told reporters the number of U.S. citizens still in Afghanistan who want to evacuate is in the “very low hundreds” on Monday, shortly after announcing all troops departed. Secretary of State Antony Blinken later said the figure was likely “closer to 100.”
“Joe Biden did not end any war. That was always the myth. That was always the false promise from politicians, ‘we’re gonna end the wars’. Well, the enemy has a say in that, and they’ve made that pretty clear as of late,” Crenshaw added on Monday.
The Texas representative made his third deployment as part of the U.S. Navy SEALs Team Three in 2012, when, after six months of combat operations, he was struck by an improvised explosive device during a mission in the Helmand province in Afghanistan.
“It’s frustrating for a lot of us who served there. Now, don’t get me wrong, our service was not in vain. We got something out of that 20 years. What we got was no more 9/11’s, and that’s not nothing. That’s something,” Crenshaw added.
Crenshaw’s concerns of a reformation of al Qaeda come as a top leader in the Haqqani Network, a designated terrorist organization, declared on Monday the group and the Taliban are one and the same.
“But I am not sure who is going to be there to protect America from these kind of attacks in the future when al Qaeda reforms and finally gets some breathing room, which they’re very happy to have now, and can start to externalize their operations again,” Crenshaw said.
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Biden surged thousands of troops back into Afghanistan following the Taliban’s Aug. 15 takeover of Kabul. Pledging to stick to his Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline, the final U.S. service member departed Afghanistan on Monday, and future evacuation efforts are not expected to involve the U.S. military, officials said.
As of Monday, the U.S. has evacuated more than 120,000 people from Afghanistan, roughly 6,000 of whom were U.S. citizens and their families. Hundreds of U.S. citizens who wanted to leave the country remained in Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal, officials said.
