The editors of the Washington Post seem to be determined to keep us involved in Afghanistan, even after we’ve withdrawn our troops from the country:
Some 33,000 Afghans have been vetted and are eligible to be taken out of the country immediately; because of logistical difficulties, though, they might not actually get out until “well into 2022,†the Journal reported. Another 29,000 applicants remain to be processed and would not be eligible to leave until after that. That’s a lot of friends the United States has left behind.
The Taliban has so far shown restraint; the systematic violence that many of these people feared has not materialized. That is cold comfort however, because — meanwhile — Taliban units have summarily executed or forcibly “disappeared†more than 100 former police and intelligence officers, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch. The organization also reports that the Taliban has been seizing land in central Afghanistan to give to its fighters. Those dispossessed are generally members of the country’s long-persecuted Shiite Muslim minority.
And there is one clear and present danger facing all 40 million of Afghanistan’s people: economic privation, bordering on starvation in many parts of the country. International donors have pledged more than $1 billion in food aid, some $64 million of which is new money from the United States. The Biden administration has also taken steps to make it easier for Afghans abroad and humanitarian groups to send resources without violating continuing U.S. economic sanctions. The problem of how to make sure that relief reaches people who need it, rather than the Taliban — still not recognized as the legitimate Afghan government by most of the world — remains a real one, and it affects the flow of aid.
Meanwhile David Ignatius, whom I view as the voice of the prevailing wisdom in Washington, in his latest WaPo column, seconds that:
As winter approaches, Afghanistan’s battered population faces food shortages approaching famine; its financial system has imploded, thanks in part to U.S. Treasury sanctions. There is, literally, no cash to conduct many transactions. According to the World Food Program, the nation “is on the brink of economic collapse.â€
“What is at stake is the survival of millions,†Saad Mohseni, the chief executive of Moby Group, Afghanistan’s largest media organization, warns in an email. “The tsunami of crises that Afghanistan is currently facing can claim more lives than the two decades of war,†in which the United States sought to vanquish the Taliban and failed.
Biden administration officials say the Treasury Department is preparing to announce an expansion of licenses for trade with Afghanistan that will make it easier to send humanitarian assistance there. But Treasury sanctions aren’t being lifted. That means the squeeze will continue for Afghanistan’s central bank and commercial banks that have been unable to provide the liquidity the country needs. The Treasury’s licensing move is good, but more should be done — and too much time has been wasted as Afghanistan heads toward disaster.
Helping the Afghan people (but not the Taliban) should have been a no-brainer weeks ago. The fact that it has taken so long illustrates an unfortunate quality about the Biden administration: Too often, policy is reactive; it’s made with a closer focus on likely political reaction than on what’s happening on the ground. The Biden team sometimes seems to care more about the optics of policy than about the substance.
I have a single question to ask them: under what circumstances would U. S. withdrawal from Afghanistan ever not have been a catastrophe? I don’t believe there were any. Considering that there were only two alternatives available to us. Either we never occupy the country in the first place or we never leave. Considering that four consecutive presidents all held out the prospect of our exiting the country as quickly as possible with the present incumbent making good on that prospect, the latter was never going to happen.
Shame on them for being the cheerleaders of occupation. Shame.
I believe there is precisely one prism through which to view American foreign policy: is it in the U. S. interest, narrowly construed? By “narrowly construed” I don’t mean does it make the world a better place or is it good for people in other countries or even is it more popular with our European allies. I mean does it make the U. S., its people, and its economy more secure. Healing the world is beyond our ability and whenever we try for some reason things always go awry. Will they never learn?
