Thread by @JABell27

@AdrianBonenber1 I wouldn't say naïve, exactly, but the piece I think you're missing is how the sausage gets made for a visit from a congressional delegation & why. Speaking here from 3 years' experience in the US Defense Attaché Office in Moscow, Russia. 1/

@AdrianBonenber1 First: when a congressional delegation (CODEL) goes to a foreign country, it is an official visit. Congressmen can go on vacation to Cancun, sure, but a CODEL is a different animal altogether. Congressmen in a foreign country represent the United States, & either the US House 2/

@AdrianBonenber1 or Senate. They aren't there as Seth & Pete, or even as Vetbros Seth & Pete. They *are* the United States, just as the US ambassador to that country is speaking to host government national as a representative of the US & is the direct voice of POTUS to the host nation. 3/

@AdrianBonenber1 It is the responsibility of the US ambassador, coordinating w/Dept of State & perhaps other stakeholders in the executive branch & legislative branch (& even judicial sometimes), to determine how the US is to be represented to that foreign country. Cowboy congressmen can f* up 4/

@AdrianBonenber1 policy initiatives & relationships that have been years in the making. There's also a public spin to put on the visit, both at home & abroad. US embassies have their own PAO staff that works w/US, host nation, & 3rd-party press to ensure that a coordinated message goes out. 5/

@AdrianBonenber1 This is appropriate in the context of int'l diplomacy. You want a great deal of transparency always, but you also want a coordinated & coherent message, esp to the host nation press. The ambassador will delegate coordination responsibilities for managing the CODEL 6/

@AdrianBonenber1 to attachés—Political, Defense, Legal, Commerce, Culture, Education—on the Embassy staff. Both b/c Seth & Pete are vets & Seth is on HASC, tag, Defense Attaché Office, you're the point of contact for handling CODEL Moulton/Meijerer. Is there even a USDAO Kabul rn? Not sure. 7/

@AdrianBonenber1 In normal times, DAO Kabul would do many things to support the CODEL: arrange lodging/meals, country clearance, set up meetings w/Embassy & host nation staff, itinerary down to 5-minute time windows, in-country transportation (coordinate w/local police for motorcade), terps...8/

@AdrianBonenber1 And especially host nation & US Secret Service security, b/c a congressman is a very juicy terrorist target. It is not reasonable to assume that 2 sitting legislators can SNEAK into a foreign country w/o that country's security service knowing they're coming, even if 9/

@AdrianBonenber1 that country is Afghanistan under a nascent Taliban. Think they have no intel apparatus, or sat on their hands w/o developing intel sources in, say, airports all over the world, for the last 20 years? I give them a LOT more credit than that. They're friends w/Pakistan. ISI is 10/

@AdrianBonenber1 a professional, trained, effective regional intelligence agency. The last thing the DAO staff would do, if it existed, would be to write a scene-setter giving experienced, on-the-ground context to the CODEL so they interpreted what they were seeing correctly. 11/

@AdrianBonenber1 Most of your DAO staff are Army Foreign Affairs Officers w/extensive academic & practical experience in a region & country, or their other-service-branch counterparts, & they are nonpartisan. Their only "agenda" is to support the US ambassador & US policy initiatives w/host. 12/

@AdrianBonenber1 Moulton & Meijerer bypassed all of that. They went in w/no other context than they were getting from their aides & the US/foreign press; w/no security detail or prep; w/no coordination w/the executive branch, which has responsibility for our relationship w/whomever is 13/

@AdrianBonenber1 in power in Afghanistan. The Biden administration is at a particularly tricky place in trying to coordinate w/Taliban officials for safe-conduct (such as it might be) for people we WANT to evacuate, for a possible extension of our airlift w/o violence, for the future conduct 14/

@AdrianBonenber1 of our relationship w/whatever government appears in Afghanistan from the ashes of the last 20 years of our involvement there. There are undoubtedly delicate CIA operations ongoing in country as well, appropriately invisible to the US public. 15/

@AdrianBonenber1 I don't know if Moulton & Meijerer disrupted or destroyed any of those processes, but they should've been smart enough to know that such disruption or destruction at a critical time was possible. It's bigger than 2 airline seats. It's bigger than a handful of Marines 16/

@AdrianBonenber1 who now have to work a double shift pulling security for the impromptu CODEL & standing duty out on the wall, where they have to make split-second decisions that could affect the safety of the US military personnel inside the wire & civilians around the airport, & 17/

@AdrianBonenber1 even the success of the remainder of the entire damn airlift. They could've just p*ssed all of that away, & to do...what? What more can they tell the American public or Congress in a day on the ground, w/no prep, that we don't already know? 18/

@AdrianBonenber1 Oh: and now that they're gone, somebody is or somebodies are now getting pulled off visa processing or logistics at the aiport to write up a summary of the CODEL visit for HQ back in DC, b/c that is also a requirement. 19/

@AdrianBonenber1 So: Tell me how any "value" the congressmen provided is more important or useful than the official work of the US government that their visit disrupted or jeopardized, & how that justifies bypassing procedures that are in place for very good reasons. I just don't see it. 20/end