🇺🇸 Afghanistan a Year Later

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Afghanistan a Year Later

Twelve months ago the US military was completing its pullout of Afghanistan following decades of fighting there in opposition to both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. We covered when Kabul first fell, the immediate aftermath, and the official end of the War in Afghanistan.

News Coverage from the Left: Violence, hunger and fear: Afghanistan under the Taliban (NBC News)

News Coverage from the Right: Ex-general says Afghanistan pullout puts US ‘back where we started’ 20 years ago (New York Post)

From The Flag: The chaotic withdrawal harmed President Biden’s poll numbers, and led to questions as to America’s credibility on the world stage. Here’s selected commentary from both sides, one year later.

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

The Withering Withdrawal: Biden's Failure Complete, Questions Remain

• The Biden administration has yet to be held fully accountable for the disastrous exit from Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda’s reemergence.

• American foreign policy continues to be a failure due to misplaced priorities, something that was evident in Afghanistan.

• Reports are coming to light showing President Biden lied to the American people about key facts and dates during the pullout.

“Biden's Afghanistan debacle began with the fall of Kabul a year ago and Americans deserve answers” By Rep. Kevin McCarthy , Rep. Michael McCaul , Rep. Mike Rogers , Rep. Mike Turner , Rep. James Comer, Fox News Op-ed: “The Biden administration spent the past 12 months misleading the American people to avoid accountability for its failed withdrawal in Afghanistan. The administration has stonewalled congressional requests for information and continues to deny the American public, and especially Afghanistan war veterans, much-needed answers on how the withdrawal unraveled into unmitigated chaos, and ultimately caused a reemergence of al-Qaeda in the heart of Afghanistan. … Attempting to justify his tumultuous exit, President Joe Biden claimed last year that al-Qaeda was ‘gone’ from Afghanistan. Yet less than one year later, the United States rightfully killed al-Qaeda’s top leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, during a counterterrorism operation in Kabul. … evidence that Afghanistan is once again becoming a haven for terrorists.”

“A Feckless American Foreign Policy’s Legacy” Walter Russell Mead, Wall Street Journal Opinion: “The war in Afghanistan illustrates the feckless nature of two decades of American foreign policy. In Afghanistan, we expanded our objectives, and our war aims shifted from removing and punishing a government that sheltered the terrorists who engineered 9/11 to changing the culture and political system of a society very different from our own. … (but) we neglected one tiny detail: We never developed and implemented a military strategy capable of winning the war. The same disastrous mix of mission creep and strategic incompetence that wrecked our Afghan policy threatens our global strategy today. Our plans for world order grow increasingly ambitious and elaborate even as the security underpinnings of that system become dangerously weak. Global issues are real, and hard power on its own is never enough. But if you don’t get the hard-power issues right, nothing else matters much.”

One more opinion piece from the Right: New GOP Report: Biden Misled Public on Afghanistan Susan Crabtree, Real Clear Politics

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

The People of Afghanistan Were Failed by the US

• Today Afghanistan lacks a functioning economy as the Taliban looks to maintain its tenuous grip on power.

• President Biden’s brave political decision was beset by failures within his own administration, as well as those of former President Trump.

• Quality of life has significantly deteriorated one year later in terms of security, human rights, the economy, and political stability.

“Afghanistan, One Year After the Fall” Victor J. Blue, New York Times Op-ed: “In May, I returned to see how Afghanistan had fared under Taliban rule. … I found a country that continues to lack a functioning economy. Crowds of women wait outside bakeries for handouts. Men who once held office jobs must now sell vegetables at the market or peddle used goods to be able to buy a little bit of food to take home. Merchants have seen their customers dwindle as prices soar. In the countryside, where the fiercest fighting took place, Taliban fighters now haunt the former military installations of the US occupation. They marvel at the luxuries their adversaries enjoyed while they spent years sleeping in the mountains, hiding from US drones. The Taliban are all too aware of the fragility of their control. They championed a brutal style of rule. The same struggle can easily be waged against them.”

“No one has been held accountable for the catastrophic Afghanistan withdrawal” Jonathan Guyer, Vox: “A cost-free exit from Afghanistan may have never been possible. The war itself had been a debacle for two decades … Days after Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban in August 2021, a senior Biden administration official told me that the entire administration had let the president down. President Joe Biden had made a politically brave decision, the official said, but the policy plans were not there to back it up. … The US government, it seemed, had failed to anticipate how quickly the Taliban would overthrow the Afghan government … it’s unclear who, if anyone, has been held accountable. There was a bureaucratic failure and a strategic failure. Trump had pledged to draw down US forces to zero in Afghanistan, with a May 1, 2021, timeline, but his team had not created a plan for it.”

One more opinion piece from the Left: One Year Later, Life Under Taliban Rule Is Brutal Colin Clarke, POLITICO

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12 Months Later: Right Move or Wrong Move?

Earlier this month a poll from YouGov asked if the military pullout from Afghanistan was “a mistake.” Among Biden voters, 64% said no, while just 17% said yes.

Trump voters overwhelmingly said it was a mistake (72%), while Independents were more split (43% - mistake, 34% not a mistake).

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