November 29, 2025

An apparent targeted shooting of two West Virginia National Guard members on Nov. 26 in Washington, D.C., has unloosed Trump’s political vomit and raised questions regarding decades of U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and the authoritarian ambitions of the MAGA regime.

Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, were shot during the day of Nov. 26 within two blocks of the White House. Beckstrom died Nov. 27, and as of Nov. 28 Wolfe remained hospitalized in critical condition.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan refugee who had been living in Bellingham in Washington State, who was arrested for the shootings, was wounded in a firefight and remains hospitalized while in custody.

Trump, as is usual for him, used the shooting as a pretext to justify his political program. He immediately suspended immigration and asylum for people from Afghanistan and other countries considered hostile to the U.S., while slandering all migrants.

The events expose not only the indefensible position of the MAGA regime but the crimes of U.S. imperialist intervention in Central Asia starting from the 1978 Saur Revolution in Afghanistan.

According to government and media reports, Lakanwal had enlisted in a paramilitary unit of Afghans called a “zero unit.”

Human Rights Watch described the “zero units” as mostly “recruited, trained, equipped and overseen by the CIA.” (New York Times, Nov. 28) These units specialized in night raids and clandestine missions.

Lakanwal will be charged with first-degree murder for the shooting, say the authorities. No one is charging him or any other “zero unit” members or any CIA officials for crimes carried out against the Afghan civilian population during the U.S. occupation.

Decades of U.S. intervention

The real root of this shooting, however, is U.S. imperialist (and bipartisan) intervention in Afghanistan at least since 1978. In April of that year, progressive forces in Afghanistan overthrew the king and set up a pro-socialist government in Kabul, the capital, in what was known as the Saur Revolution.

The U.S. immediately financed and trained reactionary “warlords” throughout Afghanistan. Later, imperialism doubled down by supplying arms and funds, supplemented by funds from Saudi Arabia, in order to attack Soviet forces that were invited to aid the central Afghan government.

A long, bloody civil war followed, and finally the reactionaries — which included “warlords” and groups that developed into al-Qaida as well as the Taliban — defeated the pro-socialist side. In the end, the Taliban seized power. But the U.S., which had first accepted Taliban rule, used the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center as an excuse to invade Afghanistan two months later.

The influx of refugees from Afghanistan arrived as the U.S. retreated from Afghanistan after 20 years in August 2021. The U.S. government was obliged to offer asylum, because it had recruited Afghans to work with the occupation forces, turning them into collaborators. Since the Taliban won the central government, the Afghan people who collaborated would be at risk if they remained.

Both Democratic and Republican administrations supported the intervention in Afghanistan, yet Trump is now pushing for a complete double cross. Not that this would be the first time U.S. imperialism double-crossed its collaborators.

Trump put Guard members at risk

By ordering the National Guard into Washington, D.C., Trump chose to put Guard members at risk. From the point of view of the safety of the population, his pretext for the order, there was no reason to send troops to D.C.

He ordered them into the capital to press Trump’s seizure of the armed state apparatus — army, police, National Guard and armed and masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) mercenary thugs for use against the working class.

And the West Virginia governor, who was all too quick to accept use of his National Guard, is also complicit. The state resources he used to aid Trump were desperately needed in West Virginia during recovery from disastrous floods.

Trump will likely continue his slanderous rant against migrants. But the real criminals responsible for the death of the Guard member are the White House MAGA crowd and the U.S. political and military leaders who committed 50 years of U.S. imperialist aggression against Afghanistan.