US Rep. Dan Meuser (PA-9), who represents Schuylkill County, says US troops should stay in Afghanistan beyond the Aug. 31 deadline to leave set by President Joe Biden.
In a social media message on Aug. 28, Meuser says, “President Biden showed a complete lack of leadership and responsibility for the unmitigated disaster he and his administration created in Afghanistan. He projected weakness when our country needs a leader. It is time for him to step up to the plate and be the Commander in Chief America needs.”
Meuser says he’s backing Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s demand that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi call a special session of Congress to pass a bill that “discards the Biden Administration withdrawal date” at the end of this month.
He says this is necessary to ensure “no American is left behind.”
Indeed, Biden has set an Aug. 31 deadline for US troops to leave Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of conflict there.
However, that decision is being met with sharp criticism from both Republicans, like Meuser, and Democrats from within Biden’s party.
But is the criticism over the decision to actually leave Afghanistan or the way in which the evacuation of Americans and Afghans who helped our troops and allies there for years is being conducted? And does that mean Meuser wants us to stay in Afghanistan only for as long as it takes to remove those people who want to leave or does he favor an even more prolonged military presence there?
In an Aug. 25 interview on Newsmax, Meuser does say that it definitely should be for as long as it takes to remove those people. He said in this interview that meeting that Aug. 31 deadline is not realistic.
“The President is enforcing the August 31st date because the Taliban insists upon it,” he said. “Clearly, August 31st won’t work for America and our civilians.”
Meuser predicts that if the US does withdraw from Afghanistan by Aug. 31, regardless of whether Americans are left behind, those potential Americans will be “hostages or face the wrath of the Taliban.”
Now, while Meuser does believe that Afghanistan likely will be overrun by the Taliban and other terror groups like ISIS-K, he doesn’t mention any prolonged military presence in Afghanistan beyond removing Americans from that increasingly dangerous situation.
“We need to be strong and deal from a position of strength with the Taliban,” he says.
Earlier this week, 13 US military members were killed during a pair of terrorist attacks near the Kabul airport where Americans and Afghans are being airlifted from the country.
Social Media Censorship
On a side note, we thought we’d point out what social media censorship of conservatives looks like and show you just one example.
And it comes from Meuser’s Facebook post on this subject on Aug. 26.
Here’s a look at the post:
You can see that the post has been liked 410 times. In reality, it’s been liked 381 times. Another 10 people reacted with the Heart emoticon and 10 people responded with the Hysterical Laughter emoticon.
But look at the Comments section.
Even though the post says there are 67 comments on this post, Facebook only shows 2. And those 2 comments, of course, are negative toward Meuser. One person says, “Nope,” and another tells the Congressman to “Stuff it.”
We tried numerous times to display the other 65 comments to this post but Facebook insists on only showing these 2.