On Thanksgiving Eve, a brazen ambush outside the White House left two West Virginia National Guard members shot and the nation rightly shaken, as authorities say the suspect is a 29-year-old Afghan national who drove across the country to carry out the attack. This was not a random street crime; it was an attack on our military, minutes from the heart of American government, and the FBI has opened a terrorism investigation that spans domestic and international leads.
FBI Director Kash Patel made clear the probe is sprawling and international in scope, telling Americans investigators are looking into the suspect’s ties to partner forces in Afghanistan and any associates here or overseas. That admission should remove any doubt about the severity of the threat we face when our immigration and vetting systems fail. The FBI is not playing political games — this is the kind of focused, relentless inquiry patriots expect when our servicemembers are targeted.
We now know the suspect, identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, served with U.S.-backed units in Afghanistan and arrived in the United States under the post-2021 resettlement program intended for allies. That program was born of a chaotic withdrawal that prioritized speed over thorough vetting, and recent events tragically illustrate the consequences when ideology and optics trump common-sense security. Americans didn’t sign up to import danger under the guise of humanitarianism.
Investigators have executed search warrants from Washington state to San Diego, seizing phones, laptops and other devices that have been rushed to the Quantico lab for analysis. Those moves show the FBI and partner agencies are following the evidence and moving at the speed this threat deserves, but they also underscore how much ground must be covered when vetting is shallow and records are sparse. If anything else comes to light, citizens should expect and demand full transparency about how this person entered the country and slipped through the cracks.
The political fallout has been immediate and unavoidable: Republicans are rightly demanding accountability and a halt to programs that allow unknown actors into our towns and bases, while critics of lax vetting have found vindication in this tragedy. President Trump and others have signaled a need to pause certain admissions and tighten oversight — common-sense measures any responsible government would pursue after such a breach. Our priorities must be simple: protect Americans, not political narratives.
Hardworking Americans and our armed forces deserve a policy reset — stronger vetting, immediate pauses where red flags exist, and a sober review of immigration streams that place unvetted individuals near our most sensitive sites. Political correctness should never be allowed to blind policymakers to clear threats; when national security is at stake, the safety of our citizens comes first. Elected leaders must act decisively now to restore common-sense border and resettlement controls.
We should applaud the men and women in law enforcement mobilizing around the clock, from local detectives to Kash Patel’s FBI teams, who are doing the hard work of piecing together this case. Still, praise for the investigators does not erase the policy failures that enabled this danger to arrive in our backyard; accountability must follow both in the criminal case and in the halls of power where decisions about who comes to America are made. Patriots will stand with our Guard, demand justice for the victims, and insist this nation never repeats the mistakes that allowed this horror to happen.
