By Joshua Q. Nelson | Fox News
A Somali-born immigrant and Air Force veteran is running for office as a Republican in the Baltimore area, explaining that the “Defund Police” movement and the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan motivated her to run for Congress.
“The military service and government service brought me to Maryland,” Amal Torres told Fox News Digital.
The House Republican hopeful in Maryland’s third congressional district told Fox News she was working in the defense industry at Fort Meade as an intelligence analyst before she decided to run for office. Torres explained that she changed course after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, believing she could no longer serve “apolitically.”
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“You have to be apolitical when you’re in the Department of Defense and you have to work under the president who’s the commander-in-chief, and you have to obey all orders above you. And that was up until Afghanistan. The fall of Afghanistan and watching the catastrophe that that was. I couldn’t serve apolitically in that organization anymore. I couldn’t fulfill the oath of service in true faith with what the president was doing,” she said, deciding to instead run for political office.
“I knew I had to be a part of the solution and that’s why I switched to fulfilling a more political role and running for office at the congressional level. So that we could hold the executive branch accountable and be a part of that solution.”
The former Air Force cryptologic intelligence analyst referred to the botched U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan during the Taliban’s swift takeover of the country. The Taliban had moved quickly through the country ahead of the planned U.S. withdrawal last summer, catching the U.S. off guard and leading to chaotic scenes at Kabul airport including a suicide bombing that killed 13 American soldiers.