Hawley's latest stunt threatens our security
Sen. Showy McShowboat, R-Mo., is at it again. Josh Hawley, Missouri’s Republican junior senator, has long chased national attention with headline-grabbing antics, quixotic legislation and plain old-fashioned demagoguery. Now he says he’ll gum up the works on State Department and Defense nominees unless President Joe Biden’s foreign policy team resigns over the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. It’s a ridiculous demand, and Mr. Hawley knows it. But as always with him, the headline is the point.
As this newspaper and others have said, the Afghanistan withdrawal was indeed handled abysmally. But trying to make political bank from that issue by keeping numerous national security positions vacant, hobbling America during globally dangerous times, isn’t a remedy, it’s a campaign tweet.
Mr. Hawley last week called for the resignations of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan over the way the Afghanistan withdrawal was conducted. Otherwise, he said, he’ll stall all pending civilian nominations to the Defense and State departments.
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Underestimating the pitfalls of a daunting military withdrawal is regrettable but, in the real world, is not cause for a purge. If it was, former President Donald Trump’s administration would have been emptied out by its sudden, lurching withdrawal and return in Syria, which showed no indication of any planning at all but was apparently driven by nothing but Mr. Trump’s impetuousness. Where was Mr. Hawley’s glowering then?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/hawleys-latest-stunt-threatens-our-security/ar-AAOLoxv
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