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      Biden declares ‘it was time to end this war’ in Afghanistan – live

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      Key events

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      5.48pm EDT
      17:48

      The Guardian view on the US departure from Afghanistan: its responsibilities don’t end here

      5.26pm EDT
      17:26

      Texas legislature approves restrictions on voting access

      5.17pm EDT
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      Today so far

      4.46pm EDT
      16:46

      Biden says he plans to “turn the page” on US foreign policy

      3.54pm EDT
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      ‘It was time to end this war,’ says Biden

      3.38pm EDT
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      Biden on withdrawal: ‘We were ready’

      1.42pm EDT
      13:42

      White House announces military aid for Ukraine

      Live feed

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      5.48pm EDT
      17:48

      The Guardian view on the US departure from Afghanistan: its responsibilities don’t end here

      Editorial

      The histories are already being written, but for now, two moments encapsulate the closing moments of America’s longest war. One was the eerie, lonely night-vision image of the last US soldier boarding the military’s final flight from Afghanistan. The other came a day earlier, when a retaliatory strike targeting Islamic State reportedly claimed the lives of 10 civilians, including at least six children. Together, they convey the sense of hopelessness and waste, after almost 20 years and $2tn, the carelessness which too often characterised both the US presence and its withdrawal, and the costs to Afghans.
      Though Donald Trump set the clock for departure ticking, Joe Biden’s timing owed more to symbolism than pragmatism. The president promised that the US military would leave before 11 September – the 20th anniversary of the al-Qaida terrorist attacks that led the US to topple the Taliban.
      Far from drawing a line under the war, the choice of date and the rushed, chaotic withdrawal have underscored its toll, most critically on Afghan lives, but also on America’s standing. A country already tarnished by the ascent of President Trump and then the assault by his supporters on the Capitol on 6 January 2021 and by the disastrous response to Covid, looks further diminished, reduced to bickering with one of its closest allies over who bears more responsibility for the scores of Afghans and 13 US personnel who died in the bombing at Kabul airport.
      Above all, though the Biden administration talks up the achievements of its evacuation programme in airlifting more than 120,000 people, many – American citizens, Afghan allies and other vulnerable Afghans such as civil society activists – are left there. They and the rest of Afghanistan awoke on Tuesday to the new reality, with a triumphant Taliban promising a different approach while their fighters commit atrocities and rivals jockey for power.
      For all the failures of the American intervention, many in Afghanistan had begun to forge a better way of life, and to hope for freedom and peace there. Many who had dedicated themselves to rebuilding their country have now fled abroad. Others cannot.
      Over the last two decades, tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have lost their lives. They have suffered not only at the hands of the Taliban, but also of Afghan government forces and the US military. The US has said that it is not in a position to dispute reports that the drone strike on Sunday night claimed civilian lives; what is certain is that, since 2001, both US solo and joint operations have claimed too many innocent lives without even proper acknowledgment, let alone reparation.
      America’s responsibilities do not end with its departure. Its first duty is to do all it can, within its very limited means, to support those still in Afghanistan. Whatever can be done to hold the Taliban to their pledges must be done. Its second duty is to take responsibility for its own actions, beginning with the latest drone strike. Accountability, honesty and restitution are required. This is all the more important as it contemplates an “over the horizon” counter-terrorism effort, aiming to tackle renewed threats in Afghanistan from afar – increasing the risks. Though the US has ended its two-decade conflict, it must not turn its back on Afghans who continue to live with the consequences.

      5.26pm EDT
      17:26

      Texas legislature approves restrictions on voting access

      Sam Levine

      The Texas legislature gave its final approval on Tuesday to a new bill that would impose substantial new restrictions on voting access in the state.
      The Texas House of Representatives gave its approval to a final form of the measure on Tuesday, 80-41. The senate quickly followed with an 18-13 vote Tuesday afternoon. The bill, nearly identical to a measure that passed the legislature last week, would prohibit 24-hour and drive-thru voting – two things officials in Harris County, home of Houston, used for the first time in 2020. It would also prohibit election officials from sending out unsolicited applications to vote by mail, give poll watchers more power in the polling place, and provide new regulations on those who assist voters.
      The bill now goes to the Texas senate, where it is expected to win quick approval, and then to the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican. Civil rights groups are expected to swiftly challenge the measure once it is signed into law.
      The sole remaining point of disagreement between the two houses on Tuesday was a provision inserted by the House that would have clarified people could not be prosecuted for illegally voting unless they knew they were ineligible. The bipartisan provision was inserted after Crystal Mason, a woman from Fort Worth, was prosecuted and sentenced to five years in prison for mistakenly voting while ineligible in 2016. Lawmakers ultimately removed the protection after objections from the Texas senate Republicans, who said it could be used to protect non-citizens who illegally voted, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
      The restrictions would only add to those already in place in Texas, which has some of the most burdensome voting requirements in the country and was among the states with the lowest voter turnout in 2020.

      Updated
      at 5.28pm EDT

      5.17pm EDT
      17:17

      Today so far

      It’s been a lively afternoon and my colleague on the US west coast, Maanvi Singh, will now take over the blog and bring you any remaining developments in US political news for the next few hours, so do stay tuned.
      So far:

      Joe Biden signaled a fundamental shift in US foreign policy away from what he cited as mistakes such as war missions with no clear vision for victory or an end and missions that turn into prolonged nation-building where, like Afghanistan, he said the US can get “bogged down”.
      The US president declared in a speech at the White House that the US-led war in Afghanistan is over and said: “It was time to end this war.”
      Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine, will visit the White House tomorrow and the US announced new aid for the country. Donald Trump’s interactions with Zelenskiy led to the-then Republican president’s impeachment.
      A new poll issued from Pew Research showed public support for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan but not for how Joe Biden got it done.

      Updated
      at 5.33pm EDT

      5.02pm EDT
      17:02

      National security adviser Jake Sullivan hopped onto CNN moments after Joe Biden’s address at the White House to defend what anchor Jake Tapper suggested was a defiant speech by the US president over the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan. More

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      Ending the US Empire of War, Corruption and Poverty

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      Americans have been shocked by reports of thousands of Afghans risking their lives to flee the Taliban, whose militants swept through Afghanistan and returned to power on August 15. This was followed by a suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (IS-KP) that killed at least 170 people, including 13 US troops. Some eyewitnesses told the BBC that “significant numbers” of those killed were shot dead by American and foreign forces.

      Even as UN agencies warn of an impending humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the US Treasury has frozen nearly all of the Afghan central bank’s $9.4 billion in foreign currency reserves, depriving the new government led by the Taliban of funds it will desperately need in the coming months to feed its people and provide basic services. Under pressure from the Biden administration, the International Monetary Fund decided not to release $450 million in funds that were scheduled to be sent to Afghanistan to help the country cope with the coronavirus pandemic. 

      Afghanistan: A Final Nail in the Coffin of American Foreign Policy

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      The US and other Western countries have also halted humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. After chairing a G7 summit on Afghanistan on August 24, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that withholding aid and recognition gave them “very considerable leverage — economic, diplomatic and political” over the Taliban. 

      Western politicians couch this leverage in terms of human rights, but they are clearly trying to ensure that their Afghan allies retain some power in the new government and that Western influence and interests in Afghanistan do not end with the Taliban’s return. This leverage is being exercised in dollars, pounds and euros, but it will be paid for in Afghan lives.

      US Spending in Afghanistan

      To read or listen to Western analysts, one would think that the United States and its allies’ 20-year war in Afghanistan was a benign and beneficial effort to modernize the country, liberate Afghan women and provide health care, education and good jobs, and that this has all now been swept away by capitulation to the Taliban. The reality is quite different and not so hard to understand.

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      The United States spent $2.26 trillion on its war in Afghanistan. Spending that kind of money in any country should have lifted most people out of poverty. But the vast bulk of those funds, about $1.5 trillion, went to absurd, stratospheric military spending to maintain the US-led military occupation, drop tens of thousands of bombs and missiles, pay private contractors and transport troops, weapons and military equipment back and forth around the world for 20 years. 

      Since the United States fought this war with borrowed money, it has also cost half a trillion dollars in interest payments alone, which will continue far into the future. Medical and disability costs for US soldiers wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq already amount to over $350 billion, and they will likewise keep mounting as the soldiers age. Medical and disability costs for both of those US-led wars could eventually reach another trillion dollars over the next 40 years.

      So, what about “rebuilding Afghanistan”? Congress appropriated $144 billion for reconstruction in Afghanistan since 2001, but $88 billion of that was spent to recruit, arm, train and pay the Afghan “security forces” that have now disintegrated, with soldiers returning to their villages or joining the Taliban. Another $15.5 billion spent between 2008 and 2017 was, as per Al Jazeera, documented as “waste, fraud and abuse” by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

      Corruption

      The crumbs left over, less than 2% of total US spending on Afghanistan, amount to about $40 billion, which should have provided some benefit to the Afghan people in economic development, health care, education, infrastructure and humanitarian aid. But, as in Iraq, the government the US installed in Afghanistan was notoriously corrupt, and its corruption only became more entrenched and systemic over time. Transparency International (TI) has consistently ranked Afghanistan as among the most corrupt countries in the world.

      Western readers may think that this corruption is a long-standing problem in the country, as opposed to a particular feature of the US-led occupation, but this is not the case. TI noted that “it is widely recognized that the scale of corruption in the post-2001 period has increased over previous levels.” A 2009 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warned that “corruption has soared to levels not seen in previous administrations.” Those administrations would include the Taliban government that US and NATO invasion forces removed from power in 2001, and the Soviet-allied socialist governments that were overthrown by the US-supported precursors of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the 1980s, destroying the substantial progress they had made in education, health care and women’s rights.

      Embed from Getty Images

      A 2010 report by Anthony H. Cordesman, a Pentagon official under Ronald Reagan, entitled “How America Corrupted Afghanistan,” chastised the US government for throwing gobs of money into that country with virtually no accountability. The New York Times reported in 2013 that every month for a decade, the CIA had been dropping off suitcases, backpacks and even plastic shopping bags stuffed with US dollars for the Afghan president to bribe warlords and politicians.

      Corruption also undermined the very areas that Western politicians now hold up as the successes of the occupation, like education and health care. The education system has been riddled with schools, teachers and students that exist only on paper. Afghan pharmacies are stocked with fake, expired or low-quality medicines, many smuggled in from neighboring Pakistan. At the personal level, corruption was fueled by civil servants like teachers earning only one-tenth the salaries of better-connected Afghans working for foreign NGOs and contractors. 

      Rooting out corruption and improving Afghan lives has always been secondary to the primary US goal of fighting the Taliban and maintaining or extending its puppet Afghan government’s control. As TI reported, the US “has intentionally paid different armed groups and Afghan civil servants to ensure cooperation and/or information and cooperated with governors regardless of how corrupt they were… Corruption has undermined the U.S. mission in Afghanistan by fuelling grievances against the Afghan government and channelling material support to the insurgency.”

      Poverty and Freezing Funds

      The endless violence of the US-led occupation and the corruption of the Afghan government boosted popular support for the Taliban, especially in rural areas where three-quarters of Afghans live. The intractable poverty of Afghanistan also contributed to the Taliban victory, as people naturally questioned how their occupation by wealthy countries like the United States and its Western allies could leave them in such abject poverty.

      Well before the current crisis, the number of Afghans reporting that they were struggling to live on their current income increased from 60% in 2008 to 90% by 2018. A 2018 Gallup poll found the lowest levels of self-reported “well-being” that Gallup has ever recorded anywhere in the world. Afghans not only reported record levels of misery, but also unprecedented hopelessness about their future.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Despite some gains in education for girls, only a third of Afghan girls attended primary school in 2019 and only 37% of adolescent Afghan girls were literate. One reason that so few children go to school in Afghanistan is that more than 2 million children between the ages of 6 and 14 have to work to support their poverty-stricken families.  

      Yet instead of atoning for their role in keeping most Afghans mired in poverty, Western leaders are now cutting off desperately needed economic and humanitarian aid that was funding three-quarters of Afghanistan’s public sector and made up 40% of its total GDP. 

      In effect, the United States and its allies are responding to losing the war by threatening the Taliban and the people of Afghanistan with a second: economic war. If the new Afghan government does not give in to their “leverage” and meet their demands, our leaders will starve their people and then blame the Taliban for the ensuing famine and humanitarian crisis, just as they demonize and blame other victims of US economic warfare, from Cuba to Iran. 

      After pouring trillions of dollars into endless war in Afghanistan, America’s main duty now is to help the 38 million Afghans who have not fled their country, as they try to recover from the terrible wounds and trauma of the conflict that the US inflicted on them. This is coupled with a massive drought that devastated 40% of their crops this year and a crippling third wave of COVID-19. 

      The US should release the $9.4 billion in Afghan funds held in American banks. It should shift the $6 billion allocated for the now-defunct Afghan armed forces to humanitarian aid, instead of diverting it to other forms of wasteful military spending. It should encourage European allies and the IMF not to withhold funds. Instead, they should fully fund the UN 2021 appeal for $1.3 billion in emergency aid, which as of late August was less than 40% funded.

      Rethinking Its Place

      Once upon a time, the United States helped its British and Soviet allies to defeat Germany and Japan. The Americans then helped to rebuild them as healthy, peaceful and prosperous countries. For all America’s serious faults — its racism, its crimes against humanity in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and its neocolonial relations with poorer countries — it held up a promise of prosperity that people in many countries around the world were ready to follow. 

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      If all the United States has to offer other countries today is the war, corruption and poverty it brought to Afghanistan, then the world is wise to be moving on and looking at other models to follow: new experiments in popular and social democracy; a renewed emphasis on national sovereignty and international law; alternatives to the use of military force to resolve international problems; and more equitable ways of organizing internationally to tackle global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate disaster. 

      The US can either stumble on in its fruitless attempt to control the world through militarism and coercion, or it can use this opportunity to rethink its place in the world. Americans should be ready to turn the page on our fading role as global hegemon and see how we can make a meaningful, cooperative contribution to a future that we will never again be able to dominate, but which we must help to build.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The Guardian view on dealing with the Taliban: no good options | Editorial

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      OpinionAfghanistanThe Guardian view on dealing with the Taliban: no good optionsEditorialStrategic failure has drastically reduced the west’s ability to influence the future course of events Mon 30 Aug 2021 13.30 EDTLast modified on Mon 30 Aug 2021 16.43 EDTAs the final evacuation flights leave Kabul, watched in despair by those abandoned and in peril, the lasting consequences of strategic failure must now be faced. During the Doha peace talks, American diplomats liked to talk of a process towards an inclusive political settlement that would be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned. The “process” turned out instead to be a victory procession for the Taliban. What comes now will therefore be Taliban-led and Taliban-owned. Hamstrung as a result of their own mistakes, the United States, Britain and their allies have little choice but to engage with the new reality.Belated attempts are being made to do so from a supposed position of strength. As the last British forces left Kabul at the weekend, Boris Johnson adopted a stentorian tone to warn: “If the new regime … wants diplomatic recognition or to unlock the billions currently frozen, they will have to ensure safe passage for those who wish to leave the country, to respect the rights of women and girls, [and] to prevent Afghanistan becoming again an incubator for global terror.” It seems clear that Taliban leaders hope to avoid the international pariah status of the 1990s and will soon be in desperate need of cash. Both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have suspended payments to Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover, and the Afghan central bank’s reserves are frozen in the US. But the notion that, as China and Russia pursue their own agendas, the west can continue to call the shots and impose its terms is wishful thinking.Unfolding humanitarian crises will limit the scope for playing diplomatic hardball. Over the weekend it emerged that, despite the huge evacuation effort from Kabul airport, British government estimates of the number of vulnerable people left behind were far too low. There is no plan in place for what those left stranded should do now, and no route established yet for refugees to neighbouring countries. Demonstrating extraordinary negligence, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, failed even to engage with his Pakistani counterpart until a week after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. On Monday, the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, began a diplomatic tour of countries bordering Afghanistan, including Pakistan, in the hope of securing refugee agreements which should have been negotiated months ago.According to a joint statement by the UK, the US and more than 90 other countries, the Taliban have given assurances that foreign nationals and Afghans with travel authorisation from other countries will be allowed to leave. This seems at odds with reports of house-to-house searches and the intimidation of those associated with the former government and western forces. But in the absence of any leverage in the country, America and its allies must simply hope that the Taliban’s calculation of their self-interest works in the west’s favour. Meanwhile, soaring food prices, prolonged drought in much of the country and the internal displacement of millions of refugees – many of them women and children – are already leading to appalling hardship as autumn and winter approach. It will be impossible to deliver to desperate Afghans the scale of humanitarian assistance required without some degree of cooperation and collaboration with the new regime.On Monday, the Kremlin called for Washington to release the Afghan central bank reserves on humanitarian grounds, while in a phone conversation with the US secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, said that the international community should engage with the Taliban and “guide it actively”. By failing to link military withdrawal to conditions on the ground, the west no longer controls the course of events. In relation to the Taliban regime it inadvertently installed, it has no good options now.TopicsAfghanistanOpinionSouth and Central AsiaUS politicsTalibanForeign policyUS foreign policyeditorialsReuse this content More

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      Some Boots on the Ground Leave Odd Footprints

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      Most people consider the trillions of dollars spent by the Americans on military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq to have been a waste of money and the sign of a failed vision. When US President Joe Biden reasoned that it was time to put a stop to the spending, he claimed it had long ago achieved its most essential objectives: “to ensure Afghanistan would not be used as a base from which to attack our homeland again.”

      Biden thus implicitly admitted that most of the operational objectives defined and pursued over the past two decades ended in failure. He noted that once Osama bin Laden was out of the picture, there was nothing further to accomplish in Afghanistan. “We delivered justice to bin Laden a decade ago,” he proudly announced, “and we’ve stayed in Afghanistan for a decade since,” he complained.

      US Media Amplifies Afghan Chaos

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      Anyone who has been through Harvard Business School (HBS) and understands the basic principles of economics would recognize that there were probably better things to do with that amount of money. Hal Brands and Michael O’Hanlon, the authors of an article in Foreign Affairs, have penned an article with the title, “America Failed Its Way to Counterterrorism Success.” Neither did an MBA at HBS. Both men aimed higher, frequenting other elite universities (Stanford, Yale and Princeton), where they focused on what really matters: managing the global strategies of an expanding empire. They share a solid reputation as experts in strategic defense and are associates respectively of the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute and the centrist Brookings Institute. 

      Brands and O’Hanlon have teamed up to convince their public of the Leibnitzian truth that all was for the best despite the obvious fiasco. In their analysis of the profligate waste that appears on the Pentagon’s still unaudited books, they recognize but appear unconcerned by a two-decade-long failure to produce even a minimal return on investment. Thanks to their clever detective work, they believe that there is a hidden success story waiting to be told.

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      Their embarrassment with the obvious facts becomes clear in two sentences that begin respectively with the words “but” and “yet.” “But since around 2014,” they affirm, “Washington has settled on a medium-footprint model based on modest investments, particularly in special operations forces and airpower, to support local forces that do most of the fighting and dying.” In the same paragraph, they explain: “Yet the experience of the past two decades suggests that the medium-footprint strategy is still the best of bad options available to the United States.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Medium-footprint:

      In geopolitics, a size that sounds reasonable after realizing that an effort based on maximum power by a mighty nation has catastrophically failed. The virtue associated with a medium footprint follows the convincing reasoning that spending less on wasteful activities is more virtuous than spending more.

      Contextual Note

      For the past two decades, US foreign policy has accelerated the trend, influenced by McDonald’s, of supersizing everything, all in the name of security needs. But the supersized milkshake appears to have fatally slipped from every administration’s hands and has now crashed to the ground in the place it all began. President Biden’s decision has rocked the foundations of America’s belief in the efficacy of its unparalleled military might.

      Brands and O’Hanlon agree with the now commonly held opinion that the entire campaign in Afghanistan was, in terms of its stated goals, a spectacular failure. They see it as tragic overreach. But rather than applaud Biden for seeking to put an end to “unsustainably expensive military commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq,” they complain that “the United States underreached by pulling back from the broader Middle East too fast and allowing old threats to reemerge.” They appear to lay the blame on all three occupants of the White House since 2014: Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. At the same time, they applaud what they see as a trend of downsizing the supersized calamities initiated by the Bush administration.

      Embed from Getty Images

      When the Americans put boots on the ground, the footprints they leave tend to be outrageously big and messy. Rather than simply marching forward, US military campaigns have a habit of seeking to mash into the ground everything that seems a bit foreign on their path. The authors think they can do better and applaud what they see as a trend toward a medium footprint as a form of progress. In their eyes, it may even justify all the otherwise obvious failure.

      They present the medium-footprint model as a kind of silver living in a somber and depressing cloud, daring to invoke a possible positive return on investment. “When combined with nonmilitary tools such as intelligence cooperation, law enforcement efforts, and economic aid,” they write, “this approach provides reasonably good protection at a reasonable price.” They recast the failure as a kind of research and development investment that has prepared a brighter future and will guarantee increased market share for US military domination (i.e., security).

      Historical Note

      In their audit of success and failure, Hal Brands and Michael O’Hanlon rejoice in one accomplishment: that “Washington has inflicted devastating losses on its enemies and forced them to focus more on surviving than thriving.” An honest historian would be tempted to reframe this in the following terms: Washington has inflicted devastating losses on multiple civilian populations and forced them to focus more on surviving than thriving.

      That is the obvious truth concerning people’s lives and social structures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen. Is this something Americans who celebrate their military as “a force for good in the world” can really rejoice in? Reducing entire populations to the struggle for survival seems a far cry from spreading democracy and defending human rights. Creating misery is an aggressive denial of human rights. It creates conditions that encourage further violations of those rights.

      Playing the imaginary role of a CEO called in to take over a failing enterprise, the authors note that thanks to their vaunted medium-footprint strategy, “the rate of expenditure has come down markedly in the last decade.” They point out that wars that “once cost as much as $200 billion a year in all” now cost “just a few billion dollars.” That is effective downsizing.

      They define the new strategy as “managing intractable problems rather than solving them or simply walking away.” In other words, the Goldilocks principle. Not too heavy, not too light. “Just right,” or, as the authors put it, “meant to be both aggressive and limited.” 

      Embed from Getty Images

      Could this be an example of Aristotle’s golden mean as a moral principle? In such situations, Aristotle defines an extreme to be avoided as anger, which provokes the subject “to inflict pain, and to perceive his revenge.” That was the official motivation the Bush administration adopted for its war on the Taliban in 2001. “Managing intractable problems” presumably involves taking into account all the parameters of a situation. It should include engaging in dialogue and negotiation. 

      But that is not what the authors envision. The “aggressive” side they recommend involves delegating the nasty part of war to local partners who “clear and hold terrain,” assured that they will be accompanied by the “direct use of U.S. military power — especially special operations forces, drones, and manned airpower.” Aristotle would object that that could not be thought of as managing the problem. It is simply a more complex and messier prosecution of anger.

      The authors believe this strategy worked against the Islamic State (IS), a movement that wouldn’t even have arisen without the initial “heavy footprint.” But did it work or merely seem to work? There has been a lot of seeming over the past 20 years. Last week’s attack at Kabul airport was conducted by the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, a regional affiliate of IS.

      The authors explain the purpose of their medium footprint: “to maintain the regional military footholds.” From footprint to foothold, all seems to be clear. They even imagine that such strategies pay off in the form of “deeper reform once conditions stabilized.” Can they cite any cases of reform and stabilized conditions as a result of either heavy or medium footprints? Not really, because there haven’t been any. Instead, they console themselves with this conclusion: “On the whole, the medium-footprint strategy was more sustainable and effective than anything Washington had tried before.”

      The lesser of two evils? Or simply the slower of two evils?

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Biden meets remains of 13 troops killed in Kabul as US promises more strikes

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      Joe BidenBiden meets remains of 13 troops killed in Kabul as US promises more strikes
      Secretary of state to bereaved father: ‘I’m deeply sorry’
      Adviser: US will help people leave after deadline
      Afghanistan – live coverage
      Richard Luscombe and Martin PengellySun 29 Aug 2021 16.03 EDTFirst published on Sun 29 Aug 2021 09.56 EDTThe White House on Sunday reasserted its promise to capture or kill the perpetrators of the deadly attacks on Kabul airport, as Joe Biden travelled to Delaware for the repatriation of the bodies of the 13 US troops who died.Pentagon names troops killed in Kabul – some were babies at time of invasionRead moreThe “dignified transfer” of the remains of the victims at Dover Air Force Base provided the most somber moment of Biden’s presidency to date, punctuating a crisis in Afghanistan that has allowed political opponents to wield the chaotic end to the 20-year war as a cudgel.Biden spoke briefly about the victims during an afternoon visit to Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) headquarters in Washington, where he received a briefing on Hurricane Ida, which made landfall in Louisiana earlier.“We met with the families of 13 fallen heroes in Afghanistan, who lost their lives in the service of our country,” he said.“While we’re praying for the best in Louisiana, let’s keep them in our prayers as well.”As the president was greeting the families of the fallen, his national security adviser was reasserting that the US would continue to be involved in Afghanistan, even after Tuesday’s evacuation deadline.While Biden “does not intend to start a new war in Afghanistan”, Jake Sullivan told CBS’s Face the Nation, the president will continue to deploy drone strikes and to help Americans and Afghan allies leave.As many as 170 Afghans also died in the suicide bomb and gun attack on Thursday. Biden said on Saturday the drone strike which killed two Islamic State targets on Friday “was not the last and we’ll continue to hunt down those involved”.The president also warned that a new Isis terror attack was likely “in 24 to 36 hours”.On Sunday, US officials told Reuters American forces launched a strike in Kabul on Sunday, targeting a possible suicide car bomb thought to be heading for the airport.Reuters reported that the officials said the targets were suspected Islamic State militants, from the group which claimed the airport attack. The agency also said witnesses reported an explosion while TV footage showed black smoke.Sullivan said: “He also is going to talk to his commanders about whatever set of tools and capabilities they need to get the people who attacked and killed our troops at the Kabul airport and to make sure that we are degrading and debilitating the group, Isis-K, that conducted this attack.“So, yes, we will continue to take the kinds of over-the-horizon strikes like we did over the weekend against the Isis-K facilitators and plotters. And, yes, we will consider other operations to go after these guys, to get them and to take them off the battlefield.”The Taliban, which controls Afghanistan, protested the Friday strike. Sullivan said such strikes would be launched regardless of the Taliban’s wishes. He also indicated that such strikes could be implemented outside Afghanistan.Anthony Blinken, the secretary of state, estimated that about 300 US citizens remain in Afghanistan and want to leave.“We are very actively working to help them get to the airport, get on a plane and get out of Afghanistan,” Blinken told ABC’s This Week, shortly after the White House announced that the pace of evacuations had slowed. The US military flew about 2,900 people out of Kabul in the 24 hours to 3am Sunday, less than half the 6,800 evacuated the day before.Blinken was asked how the US mission could continue with its embassy closed and military assets gone. He said: “114 countries have made very clear that it is their expectation that the Taliban will permit freedom of travel going past 31 August, so that is a clear expectation across the entire international community.“We have very significant leverage to work with over the weeks and months ahead to incentivise the Taliban to make good on its commitments. The Taliban have a strong interest in having an airport that functions [and] there are other ways to leave Afghanistan, including by road.”The former CIA director and defense secretary Leon Panetta said this week the US would be forced to send troops back into Afghanistan. Sullivan deflected an invitation to hit back.“We are capable of suppressing the terrorism threat,” he said, “including external plotting capabilities without a large permanent presence on the ground. We have done that in places like Libya and Somalia, places like Yemen. And we will do that in Afghanistan as well as we go forward.”As the military began to withdraw from Kabul, the Pentagon said on Saturday it had evacuated nearly 120,000 Americans and Afghan allies.Asked if all US citizens would be evacuated before the deadline, Sullivan said: “There is an opportunity right now for American citizens to come, to be admitted to the airport and to be evacuated safely and effectively. There are those Americans, though, and this is important, who have chosen thus far not to leave Kabul. Maybe they’ve lived there for many years. Maybe they have extended family there.“Our message to those Americans is that after 31 August, we will make sure there is safe passage for any American citizen, any legal permanent resident. And yes, we will ensure the safe passage of those Afghans who helped us to continue coming out after 31 August.”That would not mean relying on Taliban co-operation, Sullivan said.“This is about ensuring that we use the leverage we have available to us, and it is considerable, to hold the Taliban to its commitments. The Taliban have both communicated privately and publicly that they will allow for safe passage. We’re not just going to take their word for it. We’ve rallied dozens of countries from around the world to stand with us in saying to the Taliban that if they do not follow through on those commitments, there will be significant consequences.”Asked about Biden’s morale in a White House besieged by Republicans and a hostile press, and with a category 4 hurricane bearing down on New Orleans, Sullivan said: “I would describe the president’s approach in recent days in one word: focused.Republicans scent blood as Biden assailed over Afghanistan pulloutRead more“He is laser-focused 24 hours a day on protecting our forces there and getting this mission complete, getting these folks home safely.”Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press in an interview broadcast as Biden visited Dover air force base, Blinken offered condolences to the families of the troops killed in Kabul, including the father of Marine L/cpl Kareem Nikoui, who on Saturday blamed Biden for his son’s death.“They sent my son over there as a paper pusher then had the Taliban providing security,” Steve Nikoui said. “Biden turned his back on him. That’s it.”Blinken said: “If I were in his shoes, probably I’d feel exactly the same way. There are no words that anyone can say to assuage the grief that a parent is feeling at the loss of their child.“All I can do is take responsibility for my own actions and do everything possible to continue to bring people out of Afghanistan. That’s my responsibility. But as a parent myself I feel deeply what he expressed. All I can say is I’m deeply, deeply sorry.”TopicsJoe BidenBiden administrationUS foreign policyUS national securityUS militaryUS politicsAfghanistannewsReuse this content More