By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., told the Hays Lions club Wednesday he is troubled by what has transpired in Afghanistan.
He said he would like to see officials from the state department, defense department and secretary of veterans affairs in front of Congress to answer questions about the U.S. exit from Afghanistan.
"I think we are probably past the conversation of whether we should be in a significant way in Afghanistan, but how we leave I thought was important," Moran said. "Setting a deadline, whether it was President Trump or President Biden and making it public, is troublesome to me."
He said he did approve of the United States leaving behind equipment and people in Afghanistan, both Americans and colleagues who assisted the U.S.
Moran's office is receiving calls of people saying, "'We served in Afghanistan, and the person who helped me in Afghanistan and who was my interpreter is still in Afghanistan. He still needs to be brought out.'"
Ken Ediger, Moran's pastor when he was in Hays, has a daughter and son-in-law who were missionaries in Afghanistan.
"Their request of me is, 'Can you help us with the Christain people we worked with because we are quite certain Christians will be killed once the Taliban takes over,'" Moran said.
He added later the Taliban is not a group the United States can work with or trust.
Moran is the longest-serving Republican on the senate committee on veterans affairs.
He urged community members to reach out to veterans because calls to the veterans' suicide hotline have increased by double-digits since the stories of the exit from Afghanistan have been made public.
"Our veterans are struggling with the question if their service was of value and worthwhile," Moran said. "I think we all need to reach out. It is not just those who served in Afghanistan. I wouldn't be surprised if there are people in this room who served in Vietnam. It is the same type of circumstance they're reliving."
Those soldiers did what they thought was in the best interest of their country, he said.
"I put the fault, not on the men and women who wore uniforms in Afghanistan," Moran said, "but on people who wear suits in Washington, D.C., and make decisions about those men and women who served in Afghanistan."
Economy
Moran said he thought the federal government did not turn the spigot of COVID funds off soon enough.
He said he thought the Payroll Protect Program helped many small businesses retain employees working from home or on-site.
He did not vote for the federal bonus unemployment benefits and said Tuesday he was glad that bouns has lapsed.
"It became a problem in many instances," he said. "Look at your restaurants in Hays and the number of them that can't find people to work."
Environment
One audience member asked if conservation efforts, including those addressing water, are a part of the infrastructure package being considered by Congress.
"I think the answer to this question is can we find solutions that are based on science and common sense and not destroy the economy and allow people to work," Moran said.
He said a program is offering farmers, which have marginal wells that they are pumping dry, incentives to get out of irrigation farming.
However, he noted farming remains an important economic element of most rural communities.
"We cannot look the other way on these issues of the environment as much as people sometimes people want to," he said. "My issue is how you do it and not if you do something."