Afghan Military Pilots AWOL from U.S. Base Prompts Nationwide Alert

Seventeen Afghan military men training to become pilots at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas are listed as AWOL, as reported by FoxNews.com. Learning English at the Defense Language Institute as well as pilot training, the Afghan officers and enlisted men possessed military identification and security badges which would grant them access to U.S. defense and military bases, prompting the nationwide alert.

Chief of Public Affairs at Lackland AFB, Gary Emery said "I can confirm that 17 have gone missing from the Defense Language Institute. They disappeared over the course of the last two years, and none in the last three months."

The date of the alert was not noted, but this writer questions what prompted the alert now if the disappearances have occurred over a two year span, and none in recent months.

One official within DoD denies any direct knowledge of these 17 individuals being AWOL, adding that other foreigners training in the U.S. have gone missing in the past, so this is not an isolated incident. The same person downplayed the incident further by stating that the missing men were more in violation of immigration laws and of little threat to national security.

This writer disagrees.

Any U. S. military member with access to sensitive or classified information or areas that is declared in a UA (Unauthorized Absence) status poses a threat to national security. The fact that these men are foreigners training with U.S. forces, and that it's happened over a considerable period of time, should raise that threat to a much higher level.

Has the Defense Department been keeping it hush-hush so as not to cause widespread concern unnecessarily, or was it an attempt to keep their lax security measures from airing like so much dirty laundry?

Foreign pilots - men learning to fly sophisticated U.S. military aircraft - who have gone missing should be considered a major threat to the security of this nation; why it would be handled with less than the highest possible alert status remains a mystery.

The attempted breach of security at MacDill AFB by an AWOL member of the U.S. military and a Caucasian civilian woman seems to have sparked more interest than Afghan pilots that have disappeared after receiving extensive training on U.S. soil.

If missing Afghan pilots and trainees amounts to little more than an immigration violation, that alone should be cause for concern, considering U.S. immigration laws don't seem to be worth much.

Sources:
Personal opinion
FoxNews.com
MyFoxTampaBay.com