After two decades of military occupation and over $2 trillion in spending, United States troops are leaving Afghanistan as the Taliban regains control of the country.
Who could have seen this coming? According to a 2019 Washington Post investigation, just about every US military and political official with knowledge on Afghanistan knew that the war was an utter disaster, despite bald-faced lies to the American people. Maybe if President George W Bush had accepted the Taliban’s surrender offer in December 2001, things might have ended differently, but hindsight is 20/20, and at that time even Saturday Night Live was manufacturing consent for more bloodshed in the Middle East nation.
Devastating images of desperate Afghanistan citizens clinging for their lives onto the gear of US military planes as they fly out of Kabul’s airport are already evoking comparisons to the United States fleeing Vietnam in 1975. More bloodshed is expected in the coming months. It’s obvious that this was a botched withdrawal, but the Biden administration isn’t taking responsibility.
The right thing to do now would be for the US to focus on care for refugees, start discussions on reparations for the people of Afghanistan, and to take a hard look in the mirror on our repeated failed attempts at “nation building” throughout the world.
Want to help Afghan refugees? You can support our friends with the International Rescue Committee or NorCal Resist.
Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always: Twitter: @youknowkempa, @ShanNDSTevens, @Flojaune, @guillotine4you
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