Democratic Rep Praises Biden. Admin’s Transparency on Afghanistan Drone Strike
"The administration’s response to this has actually been unprecedented," Jason Crow says
A Democratic congressman who is also a veteran of both wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is praising the Biden administration for its transparency in addressing the US drone strike last month in Afghanistan which killed 10 innocent civilians.
The US military said that it launched an attack against what it thought was an impending terrorist attack in Afghanistan on August 29 but instead killed Afghan civilians, including seven children.
The military has issued an apology for the mishap, and further accountability is likely.
“Well, first of all, this was a tragic mistake. My heart goes out to the family members that were killed, you know, 10 innocent civilians, including seven children, and the humanitarian aid worker among those,” said Rep Jason Crow (D-Colo), who rose to the rank of captain and was awarded the Bronze Star for his Army service. “So, terrible mistake. And I want to point out that the administration’s response to this has actually been unprecedented. Never before has any administration and the Department of Defense come out as candidly and transparently as they have in the last couple of days and said this is a mistake, that they’re going to launch an investigation.
“So we certainly have to figure out what happened, what type of mistake it was, whether somebody didn’t follow protocol and procedure or something else happened. But you know, the over horizon thing -- yes, it is harder. There is no doubt that it is harder to conduct over the horizon counterterrorism operations than if you have boots on the ground, but having boots on the ground creates other problems too. You have to defend those boots on the ground,” Crow said. “There are mistakes that can happen there too. We should not have thousands of troops on the ground in Afghanistan, and I continue to agree with the president’s decision on that.”
President Biden announced this year that the United States would end it's nearly 20-year occupation of Afghanistan following the agreement that the Trump administration set last year directly with the Taliban.
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