American foreign policy

America's longest war draws to a bloody end. As the pullout deadline approaches, the probability of more atrocities like the suicide bombing last Thursday that killed 13 of our troops, and more than 90 Afghans, remains nauseatingly high. The American public was ready for us to leave Afghanistan. It was not prepared for just how ugly leaving could be. President Biden bears responsibility for the lives lost, just as he bears responsibility for those lost throughout the course of this conflict and the similarly ill-premised Iraq War — both of which he helped to launch while he was in the United States Senate. He has made grave mistakes. One mistake he has not made, however, is to waver from the decision to withdraw. He has not let terrorists change our timetable.

You have to hand it to the Taliban (or, if you are Joe Biden, the ‘Tally-bahn’): they are both a persistent and an infernally clever lot. As to their persistence, recall that George W. Bush assured us that, ‘thanks to our military, our allies, and the brave fighters of Afghanistan...the Taliban regime is coming to an end.’ That was in December 2001. As of August 2021, they control the country and are as I write issuing ultimatums to the President of the United States: everybody out by September 11, no, make that August 31 — otherwise, there will be ‘consequences’. Oh, and by ‘everybody out’, we don’t mean Afghans who may have worked for the US: they have to stay. There does seem to be a communications breakdown about radical elements in Afghanistan.

'There is no light in the bazaar. The Americans brought the light when they came to build the great dam . . . but when they left the took the machine with them and now there is no more light.’ — Eric Newby, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush There really isn’t much that is amusing about Afghanistan. There never has been. But Eric Newby wrote a most amusing book about his trek through the Hindu Kush in the late 1950s. These days, when the Americans decamp from Afghanistan they leave behind tons — literally tons — of lights, not to mention munitions of various sizes and lethality, roads, buildings, communication devices of all sorts — you name it. A few days ago, we were told that the Afghan government might fall within 90 days to the newly resurgent Taliban.

‘After al-Qaeda and the Taliban fall...when we "drain the swamp", as the President says, the medium-term goal is to roll up all al-Qaeda cells around the world. Then, with the help of other nations and possibly the ultimate sanction of the United Nations our hope is that we will see a relatively stable government in Afghanistan, one that does not harbor terrorists, is acceptable to the major players in the region, represents the ethnic make up of the country and provides the foundation for future reconstruction of that country.’ So said Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, on October 22, 2001, as America invaded Afghanistan. ‘The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.

Glenn Greenwald wants right-wing populists to understand that the CIA is not their friend. On Sunday thousands of Cubans swarmed the streets of Havana amid ongoing blackouts, food shortages and rising prices. Increasing COVID infections have strained the island's healthcare system and put medical care at a standstill. The protests are the largest of their kind in over a decade. In turn, the government began a crackdown. More than 100 activists and journalists are reportedly in custody. One male protester was shot in his home on Wednesday during a police raid. Facebook and Twitter played a crucial role in allowing the rest of the world to witness the unrest — so of course the Cuban government has banned those platforms in the last 72 hours.

‘The United States has no obligation to evacuate one, or 100,001, South Vietnamese,’ Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware intoned on the Senate floor as South Vietnam neared collapse in 1975. Thankfully, the Ford administration ignored this shameful advice. One of the more regrettable statements of its decade, it was likely one of the positions former Obama defense secretary Robert Gates had in mind when he wrote that Biden ‘has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades’. When the United States left Vietnam in 1973, it took two years for Saigon to fall to the Communists.