President Donald Trump and his supporters are already calling for a broad reinvestigation and reversal of asylum grants to Afghan nationals who helped the U.S. military, after one of them was arrested in connection with the horrific ambush shooting of two National Guard troops in D.C. But this call for “collective punishment” is only going to make things worse, warned the Wall Street Journal editorial board on Thursday evening.
“The motive of 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal isn’t known at this writing. But U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said he drove from his home in Bellingham, Wash., with a goal of staging an attack in Washington, D.C.,” wrote the board. “Officials are calling it a terror attack, yet the CIA said the man had been part of a CIA-backed Afghan ‘partner force’ in Kandahar province, one of the most dangerous places during the war. As such he was a Taliban target and thus he and his family were candidates for evacuation after the chaotic U.S. retreat from Afghanistan in 2021.”
The fact is, the board wrote, this man checked all the boxes to be granted resettlement in the United States, and everyone involved did their due diligence. “Even careful vetting is imperfect, and Rahmanullah Lakanwal may have become radicalized in the U.S. This has been known to happen even with the children of refugees who grow up in America.”
Moreover, the board wrote, the calls to shut the door on people who helped the U.S. military and face reprisal in their home country, will cause far more problems than it solves.
“The fate of Afghans, men and women, who worked with the U.S. has often been brutal,” wrote the board. “You can be sure Americans will fight overseas again, and our troops will need allies on the ground to succeed. How many will assist us if they believe there will be no exit for them if the U.S. leaves with the enemy triumphant?”
The bottom line, the board concluded, is that “tens of thousands are building new lives here in peace and are contributing to their communities. They shouldn’t be blamed for the violent act of one man. Collective punishment of all Afghans in the U.S. won’t make America safer and it might embitter more against the United States.”
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