Afghanistan getting less US media attention isn’t surprising. US withdrawal was a compelling and highly relevant story, and now it’s over.
What stands out here is how little coverage Afghanistan got before. They didn’t care about the war, they cared only about the US leaving. https://t.co/10t0dzQN1a— Nicholas Grossman (@NGrossman81) September 19, 2021
*Whispers* can we all acknowledge that a lot of the caterwauling about Afghanistan last month was just a wee bit overstated? https://t.co/7Vl9lVVlEo
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) September 20, 2021
Sometimes, things do not go as badly as we feared they would…
Remember Afghanistan? It would be understandable if some readers did not, since mainstream media coverage of events there has nosedived over the past few weeks. If you recall, however, a month ago, a lot of U.S. analysts and commentators (myself included) were fretting about the collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Kabul and the rapid Taliban takeover of the country. The frenzied efforts to get Westerners and Afghan allies out of Kabul in the face of a Taliban deadline of Aug. 31 seemed daunting.
The take industry was churning out a lot of copy during this period, most of it heavy on the pessimism. I would wager, however, that Noah Rothman, online editor of Commentary and an MSNBC columnist, generated the most hyperbolic take of the past month. He tweeted, “This is the worst display of presidential maladministration in my lifetime.”
Now this was quite the empirical claim. Was the Biden administration’s handling of Afghanistan in August really the worst? Worse than 1983 terrorist attack in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. Marines? Worse than trading arms with Iran for U.S. hostages held in Lebanon? Worse than standing idly by while genocide tore apart Rwanda? Worse than failing to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks? Worse than deciding a year after 9/11 to prioritize the invasion of Iraq over finishing the mission in Afghanistan? Worse than the planning for postwar Iraq? Worse than the response to Hurricane Katrina? Worse than the confused intervention in Libya and the schizophrenic intervention in Syria? Worse than the abandonment of the Kurds in Syria? Worse than the initial federal response to the coronavirus pandemic? Worse than fomenting an armed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol? That is quite the maladministration!…
I suggested that we revisit this question in a month — and hey, what do you know, it is a month later. Has Rothman’s dire prediction come to pass?
It would appear not. Contra Rothman’s supposition, In the latter half of August, the U.S. military and allied forces were able to ferry considerable numbers of people out of Afghanistan. In his Senate testimony, Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted that in August, the United States and its allies “completed one of the biggest airlifts in history, with 124,000 people evacuated to safety.” This includes most of the Americans whom Rothman referenced in his tweets (though, to be fair, it is possible that he was unknowingly relying on inflated numbers at the outset).
Not all Americans got out before the Aug. 31 deadline, but in the weeks since, more have departed Afghanistan. Even conservative editorials blasting the Biden administration as not doing enough acknowledge that more Americans have left in recent weeks. The Qataris, who have functional ties with both the Taliban and the United States, have brokered multiple flights out of Kabul with dozens of U.S. citizens on board. Chartered flights out of Mazar-e Sharif have been slower, and U.S. officials have acknowledged some difficulties there. Nonetheless, the State Department confirmed that at least one plane has departed from there, as well…
… This was not even close to the most sordid example of U.S. government maladministration of the past four decades. Indeed, despite a tsunami of negative (but accurate) media coverage, the public polling on Afghanistan is clear: Surveys from Monmouth and Quinnipiac show that more than two-thirds of respondents approve of the withdrawal of U.S. troops regardless of how it was executed (roughly the same numbers as from two months ago). It is difficult to argue that this outcome represents the worst foreign policy decision in 40 years…
NERD FIGHT!
I overreacted to the initial debacle as well but it's clear that we got our act together rather quickly. And there have been *so many* examples of gross maladministration in the last 40 years that I'm not sure this even makes the top 10. https://t.co/r7YRwFfJsB
— James Joyner (@DrJJoyner) September 20, 2021
Compared to the scenario you painted last month — tens of thousands of Americans being used as bargaining chips by the Taliban — the situation for the United States has gotten demonstrably better. https://t.co/7Vl9lVVlEo https://t.co/BcF72DLVHK
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) September 20, 2021
‘Totally not partisan, tho.. ‘
U.S. allies in Europe see an increased risk of terrorism because of the way the Biden admin handled the withdrawal from Afghanistan, @SenatorHagerty says after meeting officials in the U.K. and Brussels.https://t.co/zaXmH4sDPP
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) September 5, 2021
… “The result is that we have a heightened exposure to terror now,” Senator Bill Hagerty, a former U.S. ambassador to Japan, said in an interview Sunday after returning from the 48-hour trip. The view among the officials he spoke with is that the U.S. “put the world at risk, or at least the world of our allies.”
The Tennessee Republican’s meetings in the U.K. included Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative chair of the House of Commons defense committee. Ellwood, an army veteran, has called the U.K.’s own withdrawal “an operational and strategic blunder.”…
Hagerty said there’s concern “that Afghanistan becomes the world’s greatest arms bazaar where our adversaries from around the globe will be able to go in to secure American military equipment that they can reverse engineer, that they can use, that they can modify.”
In Brussels, he met with German, Italian, Turkish and U.K. envoys to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. All of them told him that they want to see more consultation in the future, Hagerty said…
All the best Europeans agree that somebody should do something about this. And by ‘somebody’, they meant ‘the Americans, preferably’.
Today In Productive Counter-Political Action
Chetan Murthy
So our boy’s answer to this, is to put troops in there, so they can, y’know, blow up weddings from up-close, go into villages and make enemies from, y’know, up close, etc? Boy, hes one really smart cookie!
piratedan
Well…. if the situation was as dire as Rothman claims…. i have to give credit to the Taliban for their discretion as they’ve displayed a better understanding of what would help their image than the media would credit them with.
NotMax
Just you wait, in a few years the Afghan government will have reverse engineered the Subways now sitting idle on U.S. bases and managed to corner the cheap sandwich fast food market.
And our only choice of bread then will be &8230; poppy seed!
//
sab
My litle city in Ohio has a hundred year old immigrant settlement non-profit. The governor noticed. So we are getting 150 Afghan refugees, the biggest group in the state even though we are the fifth biggest city.
The non-profit posted on irt’s website that the donations space is full up with recent donations (household goods and furniture) so please check back later.
Yay us.
NotMax
More seriously, with the breakdown and change in administration, coupled with strictures on trade with the Taliban, hospitals in Afghanistan (those that don’t close up shop entirely) will be little more than warehouses for a tsunami of COVID cases.
Chetan Murthy
@NotMax: IIUC, the Taliban are antivaxx. Gonna be horrific.
NotMax
@sab
How many hundred-year-old immigrants can there possibly be?
;)
cain
@sab: I am jealous of the possible Afghani based businesses you will have – specifically I’m hoping food.
cain
@Chetan Murthy:
So the virus will do what western colonists have not been able to do? Go figure.
Fake Irishman
@sab:
And I thought it was called Summit County because it was on a ridge line or something. Guess there’s a metaphorical meaning that can be extended to its citizens. Well done!
Chetan Murthy
@cain: I don’t want to speculate on what the fatality rate will be like, with no hospitals, no modern medicine. But it won’t be good. That said, it won’t be worse than 20%. It’ll be horrific.
NotMax
@Chetan Murthy
In the sick, fetid swamps of the web:
Mart
By historical standards the surrender and evacuation was pretty damn clean. Tragic +/- 22 good guys died in violence on both sides. But who could have predicted a Trump/Pompeo negotiated surrender would work out so well? So proud of Biden for sticking to his guns under the extreme weight of the Blob. Oddly, at least to my expectations, he’s a transformative President.
Kent
No it won’t be horrific. The median age in Afghanistan is 18.4 years. Compared to a 38.1 year median age in the US. And they lack most of the co-morbidities that exist in places like Alabama with all the obesity and diabetics. They are a very young country. They will likely escape most of the ravages that have hit older less healthy countries. It will be like Covid hitting a US university.
Chetan Murthy
@Kent: Oh, I’d forgotten about that. Well, small mercies, I guess. Thanks for reminding. Seriously.
Eolirin
@Kent Except they’ll get hit with Delta which has worse outcomes for younger people than alpha did. It won’t be as bad as it could be, because of those factors, but it’ll be far worse than it would be if there was no delta.
Dan B
It seemed that American military intelligence in Afghanistan did not realize how rapidly the Afghan military would fold. They predicted several months for Kabul to be overrun, if ever. Many Kabul citizens believed this as well so there are obviously limits to what can be known if an entire population believes that their military is capable of fighting.
Tha worst aspect for me are the number of LGBTQ people who did not leave when the Taliban were making advances. It’s likely that no country would have offered refuge and that the Afghans who worked with our military would not want LGBTQ people to be part of the evacuation. The stories are wrenching. The Taliban has bern tracking them on social media and most are not safe with their families. Their are Taliban who have declared they will torture and execute any they find.
Wahabbism has delivered hell.
Dan B
It’s good that Afghanistan is fading in the media. Is it fading in social media as well? There are other challenges we face like threats to our economy, the climate, and our democracy.
Ruckus
I’ll ask.
Is it better for the world that we are no longer fighting in Afghanistan? Yes, yes it is.
Was our military presence in the Middle East really the only thing holding the world together or is maybe spending billions in military gear and operations, military and civilian deaths, worth anything to anyone other than those getting wealthier on a large portion of what was spent?
Did the last guy, pretending to be both president and an actual human do anyone other than the money goons any good what so ever? No. I thought so.
Is this country better off no longer fighting a war for 20 yrs that has done exactly what for the world or us? Yes it is.
Are most of our less than fine press in the bag for conservative always war, conservative screw everyone below the billionaires, and screw the American people? Why yes they are.
I will say, as a rather unwilling participant in war, in my youth, that war is never meant to be continuous, nor does it normally solve more problems than it leaves in it’s wake. It is a last resort, not the only one.
Lastly, Fuck those reporters that can’t see the daylight because their heads are constantly located where the sun don’t shine. Conservative world and national policies have made the world and this country far worse than it could and should be. And conservative world and national policies have been made worse trying to gain power because they are incapable of any good policies or effort for any reason. Selfishness, hatred, racism, are the minimum issues of conservatism. Bad public policies or no actual public betterment policies whatsoever. Conservatism is a blight upon the world.
JWR
In a first for last night’s over-the-air TV news guy, he didn’t use any of the usual words, (debacle, chaos, chaotic, etc) to describe the U.S. withdrawal. Instead, he used “messy”, which to me seemed much more on point than any of the others.
Progress!
And if you ask me, especially given the size and scope of the thing, it went pretty damn well. Of course, I openly admit that I can be very wrong.
Sloane Ranger
The UK media is reporting that the MOD has accidentally put over 200 Afghan interpreters at risk by ccing them all into an email, meaning they can see each other’s names and email addresses, as will the Taiwan if they find one of them. The MOD has apologised but MP’s are not impressed
Villago Delenda Est
Rothman is simply a sack of shit. No two ways about it. Dogpile on the Dem!
Baud
@Villago Delenda Est:
Right. Serious person being hyperbolic because serious people don’t lose credibility among other serious people for being hyperbolic against Dems.
Tony Jay
@Sloane Ranger:
It’s obviously a far more complicated world we live in than I ever imagined. What will the Chinese say? 8-)
Never mind, I’m sure Liz Truss is on the case and will be signing a wide-ranging politico-economic treaty with all sides any… day… now…
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Tony Jay: Nice to see Emily Litella posting Op-Eds
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Tony Jay:
In other news:
Speaking to Thatcher would have racked a steep long distance charge
NotMax
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Well, television is a medium.
:)
Tony Jay
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
This is the Tory Party we’re talking about, where summer exchanges between Eton and the Scholomance ensure that (for the right price) any of a dozen backbenchers can easily sacrifice a child, a goat and a vial of lawyer’s tears to the Lords of the Infernal Pit and arrange a face-to-face with their Satanic Maggiesty.
Gillian Anderson has spent time with Chris Carter, she knows how all of this works.
evodevo
I’ve just spent the last two weeks arguing via email with my AF son about the withdrawal. As an integral part of the MIC, he is on the side of never-withdraw, and insists the situation was under control, and we should have stayed forever, no matter how many stats or logical arguments I threw at him. I am at the point of giving up the argument, since he does not seem able to concede on any point. Luckily for his family, he isn’t a crazy QAnon anti-vaxxer, at least! (though I am not sure about his in-laws, who are megachurch people)
J R in WV
@Ruckus:
I agree totally.
Additionally, taken to its logical extreme, if conservatism had won out over the past few centuries, we would be ruled by inbred European royalty, the sun would rotate around the Earth, canals and horse-drawn barges would be state of the art transportation, and advanced health care would be leeches and cauterization of amputated limbs.
Oh, yeh, most of us would be serfs bound to the land, or slaves bought and sold to work in sugar-cane and cotton, worked to death for profit of the land owners!
J R in WV
@evodevo:
Try asking him “Why should we have stayed in Afghanistan?” because there is no reason he could possibly give for remaining at war in the Hindu Kush. Also ask “Who profits from that war?” because it certainly isn’t him.
S. Cerevisiae
I keep seeing friends bitching about all the military hardware we left behind but I would be surprised if we couldn’t brick the electronics in all of it. Maybe some of our military people here can correct me but most of our stuff is really high tech now and even cars can be stopped from afar so why wouldn’t we build in some failsafes in case the stuff gets captured. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know but it just makes sense to me that we would have the capacity to shut down the software.
Robert S
Afghanistan is going back down the memory hole. By the time election season rolls around, nobody will listen to the armchair quarterbacks, and the only thing that most people will remember is ‘Thank god we got out’.