GOP lawmaker Waltz channels Charlie Wilson in pledge to aid anti-Taliban forces

Florida Rep. Michael Waltz pledged his continued support to resistance fighters Thursday still battling Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers, amid heightened clashes in the group’s last remaining stronghold.

The former Army Green Beret and Afghanistan veteran and fellow Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina met last week with Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh and representatives of Ahmad Massoud, leader of the anti-Taliban resistance fighters known as the National Resistance Front (NRF). 

“They are standing for freedom,” Mr. Waltz told Tammy Bruce Thursday on “Fox News Primetime.” “They are standing against extremism. They know, as Biden’s own intelligence community has briefed us in Congress, that the Taliban equals al Qaeda and that terrorism in Afghanistan doesn’t stay in Afghanistan. It will spread.”

Mr. Waltz pledged to “take a page out of ’Charlie Wilson’s War’” in support of the NRF, referring to the book and movie about the flamboyant Texas Democratic congressman known for securing millions of dollars for the CIA to arm the Afghans fighting against Soviet occupiers in the 1980s. 

“Congress will lead if this administration won’t,” he said. 

Mr. Saleh proclaimed himself to be the “acting president” of Afghanistan on Aug. 17 after the democratically elected President Ashraf Ghani fled the country as the Taliban gained control.

Neither the White House nor the State Department has publicly backed Mr. Saleh and are far less likely to back Mr. Massoud, the 32-year-old son of renowned Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, killed by the Taliban just before the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Soon after the Taliban takeover in August, Mr. Massoud, penned an op-ed in The Washington Post calling on the U.S to support his resistance movement. Mr. Massoud said he had recruited defecting Afghan army and special forces soldiers but said his forces needed more arms for protracted conflict with the Taliban.

Mr. Waltz’s comments Thursday came as fighting intensified in the Panjshir Valley, the National Resistance Front’s last holdout against the Taliban. Fighting between the two groups has persisted in recent weeks but the Taliban stepped up their pressure on the NRF early this week. 

Mr. Saleh said on Twitter Friday that the Taliban had blocked humanitarian access and cut phone service and electricity in the region. He also claimed that the Taliban had begun forcing “military-age men” to clear minefields in the area. 

Republican lawmakers fear the Biden administration has left the door open for the Taliban to be recognized as the legitimate government in Afghanistan, and have been critical of the administration’s coordination with the Islamist group during the withdrawal of U.S. forces and their Afghan allies in recent weeks. 

Earlier this week, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told reporters “it’s possible” that the U.S. military could coordinate with the Taliban in future engagements targeting terrorist factions in Afghanistan such as al Qaeda out of necessity, but said the group remains “ruthless” and questioned whether they would change their behavior to align with international norms. 

“Biden is going down the road of recognizing a Taliban/al Qaeda Islamic Emirate,” Mr. Waltz said Thursday.