The scenes near Farragut Square were sickening and heartbreaking — two West Virginia National Guard members were ambushed while on high-visibility patrol just blocks from the White House, a reminder that our streets and our capital are not immune from violence. Americans deserve to be outraged, not placated by platitudes; these are men and women in uniform who put their lives on the line to protect our citizens and our institutions.
Video and law enforcement accounts indicate the attack was brazen and targeted: a lone gunman came around a corner and opened fire, wounding both guardsmen and later being shot and detained after a firefight. This was not random mayhem — it was an ambush on uniformed troops carrying out an ordered mission to keep Washington safe, and it should be treated as the grave national-security incident it is.
Reports now identify the suspect as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who entered the United States in 2021, though officials say the motive remains under investigation and are treating the act as a possible terror-related attack. We should accept nothing less than a full, transparent inquiry into how someone with that background could carry out such an attack on our soil, and whether intelligence or vetting failures played a role.
President Trump and the Defense Department moved quickly to respond, with the White House demanding accountability and requesting 500 additional National Guard troops to bolster security in the capital after the shooting. That swift action is exactly what leadership looks like — reinforcing our forces, not surrendering ground to political theater or media-driven second-guessing.
Yet predictably, politicians and judges who rushed to quash the deployment of these troops now posture as surprised when tragedy strikes. The legal and media circus over whether federal forces should be on the streets has real consequences; when you argue in courtrooms to pull guardsmen away from vulnerable neighborhoods, you are playing with lives. The American people should demand an end to the performative crusade against law-and-order measures that keep our communities safe.
This incident must also reopen a hard conversation about border security and vetting procedures for resettlements that have been rushed or compromised in the name of political expediency. If people admitted under humanitarian programs can be linked — even allegedly — to attacks, we have failed the first duty of government: to protect the American people, and that failure must be fixed immediately.
Right now our priority must be the wounded Guardsmen and their families, demanding justice and ensuring no bureaucratic loophole allowed this ambush to happen. Americans stand with our troops and law enforcement; we will not be safe until our leaders secure the capital, secure our borders, and show the courage to stand with those who stand between us and chaos.
