The Right and Our Afghan Allies – WSJ

Recalling the violence in Europe after the 2014-15 migrant surge, some Americans may have good-faith concerns about terrorism or cultural differences. Attacks by Taliban spies who worked with the coalition killed dozens of troops during the war, and Kandahar isn t Kansas. We also worry about the Administration s competence.

But Europe had to cope with millions of unvetted migrants.These are thousands of people who proved they work well with Americans. They aren t Muslim extremists; they are fleeing Muslim extremists. The thousands of Afghans who already made it to the U.S. through the SIV program haven t always had an easy time, but they haven t caused havoc.

GOP hostility to these Afghans is also a political mistake. How large is the constituency for betraying allies? Voters know the difference between lawlessness on the southern U.S. border and Afghans who earned the right to emigrate in a lawful program.

Conservatives claim to believe in American exceptionalism, and they once took pride in welcoming exiles from authoritarian lands. They still court the votes of Cuban, Venezuelan, Korean and Vietnamese immigrants all as American as anyone. Afghans who fought with us deserve no less.

via www.wsj.com

I was surprised by the stance Tucker Carlson took against admitting some or all — I’m not really sure what he was saying — Afghan refugees, after our precipitous, well, after 20 years I guess you can’t really say that, exit from that benighted country. Just abandoning many Afghans there and letting the Taliban target practice on them would only further undermine our already tattered reputation. Tucker seems sure they will all turn out to be Democrats. I’m not so sure.