Secretary Of State Blinken Has Trouble With Rand Paul's Question About Guy Killed In Drone Strike

Senator Rand Paul asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken a rather simple question Tuesday during a hearing on the U.S. exit from Afghanistan. Who was the guy the U.S. killed during a drone strike in retaliation for a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport? Sen. Paul made this question as simple as possible: "Was he an aid worker or an ISIS-K operative?"

This isn't some partisan question that Sen. Paul concocted in his head to play a game of Gotcha® on Blinken. It's a question the New York Times asked last week after obtaining security footage of the drone strike. Seems simple enough. Did we blow the right guy into a thousand pieces?

In this case, Senator Paul went out and did the work we pay him to do. He asked the question and Sec. Blinken couldn't answer it one way or the other. That's right, he couldn't say, "You're damn right that was a scumbag we blew to pieces and the world is a better place without that scum of the earth who organized a strike on our soldiers at the airport."

Instead, this is how Blinken answered the question:

The New York Times reported that the drone strike targeted a car driven by Zemari Ahmadi and described him as a "longtime worker for a U.S. aid group." Even more damning for the U.S. administration, the Times reports that Ahmadi wasn't loading explosives into a car as the government has said. He was "transporting colleagues to and from work," the newspaper reported.

And as for those explosives that were allegedly being loaded into the car...the Times says those were water canisters that were being taken to Ahmadi's family.

The U.S. claims there were three civilian casualties. Ahmadi's family told the Times that 10 members of their family, including seven children, were killed.

But Blinken will have to get back to all of us on this. Of course he won't.