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US military‘Move heaven and earth’: pressure on Biden to speed up visas for Afghans who helped US Members of Congress warn that those who aided US military are in grave danger as they wait for evacuations and paperworkDaniel Strauss in Washington@ More
For days now, the news media has likened the chaotic end of our misadventure in Afghanistan, and the awful images of terrified people scrambling onto planes at the Kabul airport, to the final exit from South Vietnam. The comparison is overdrawn; the last American combat troops left Indochina two years before the collapse of the Saigon government.But there is at least one potential parallel between the two conflicts that should have President Biden worried: The last time a war blew up in the face of a Democratic president, it derailed his domestic agenda and stalled the most ambitious social reforms of a generation.To be sure, domestic political concerns should not overshadow the immediate urgency of getting all Americans and the Afghans who worked for them out of Afghanistan. But history shows how adversity abroad has often led to trouble for the governing party back home. Mr. Biden may not be able to save his ambitious legislative agenda unless he understands that lesson from the past.In 1964, Lyndon Johnson and his fellow Democrats secured crushing majorities that enabled them to enact a flurry of landmark legislation: the Voting Rights Act, the bill establishing Medicare and Medicaid, an overhaul of immigration law. It is a feat Mr. Biden and progressive Democrats in Congress today would dearly like to emulate.But Johnson’s decision early in 1965 to send thousands of troops to combat the Vietcong soon halted the momentum of his Great Society agenda and put Democrats on the defensive. A year later, as the war dragged on and protests mounted, Johnson’s approval rating dipped below 50 percent. In the midterm contests of 1966, the Republican Party picked up 47 seats in the House, and Democratic governors in eight states were replaced by Republicans — one of them a former actor in California named Ronald Reagan. By 1968, Republicans had taken back the White House, and Democrats never achieved a progressive policy agenda as far-reaching again.Joe Biden bears far less responsibility for the defeat in Afghanistan than Lyndon Johnson did for the debacle in Indochina. As Mr. Biden mentioned in his address to the nation on Monday, as vice president, he opposed the troop surge ordered by Barack Obama in 2009. He can also claim that he was merely carrying out an agreement Donald Trump signed last year.Furthermore, unlike the Vietnam War, which provoked a long, scorching debate that divided the country far more bitterly and profoundly than the more limited, if longer, battle with the Taliban ever did, this conflict could soon be forgotten. As the public’s attention shifts away from Afghanistan, Mr. Biden’s decision may seem less like a failure and more like a sober, even necessary end to a policy that was doomed from the start.Yet the president and his fellow Democrats face a political environment so daunting that even the slightest disruption could derail their domestic agenda. Even before the Afghan crisis, they needed the vote of every senator from their party to enact their budget blueprint, and Mr. Biden has never had the sky-high approval ratings that allowed Johnson to rule Congress with an iron fist. This week, for the first time, his rating dipped into the 40s. Whatever they manage to accomplish in Congress, Democrats could easily lose their narrow control of both houses in the next midterm elections, especially if Republicans effectively inflame fears about Afghan refugees being resettled in this country.The United States has not had a true majority party for 50 years, and that stalemate, with the enduringly fierce partisanship it engenders, is unlikely to end soon. To pass the big reforms he wants, Mr. Biden will need to describe what he did to end this war better than Johnson explained why he dispatched troops to meddle in another civil conflict in a nation thousands of miles from their homeland.President Lyndon Johnson with Gen. William Westmoreland in South Vietnam in 1967. The Vietnam War derailed Johnson’s domestic agenda.Yoichi Okamoto/LBJ LibraryTwo lessons from Johnson’s downfall are paramount. First, tell the truth, even if it makes you look bad, temporarily. The 1971 release of the Pentagon Papers demonstrated that Johnson lied continually when he lauded the progress the United States and its South Vietnamese allies were supposedly making. By 1966, the press was accusing the administration of creating a credibility gap that only yawned wider as the conflict escalated.All presidents lie at times, but those who admit mistakes, particularly obvious ones, can retain their popularity. This happened to John F. Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961 and to Bill Clinton when he acknowledged his affair with Monica Lewinsky in 1998 (although he benefited more from the Republicans’ failed attempt to throw him out of office).Mr. Biden made a decent start at such truth-telling during his speech this week. But he should give a fuller explanation of why his administration failed to prepare for a Taliban victory that, according to years of intelligence reports, was quite likely.Second, keep the coalition that elected you united in its response to the crisis. Though Johnson had a reputation as a masterful politician, he became despised by millions of his fellow Democrats because of his Vietnam policy. If Democrats in Congress follow through on their vows to carry out extensive hearings into the collapse of the Afghan government, they could provoke a similar intraparty battle.But the president may be able to stave off that kind of public bickering. If he chooses to declassify whatever vital documents exist, in an attempt to convince his Democratic critics that he is serious about revealing why his exit strategy went wrong, it may dissuade them from engaging in their own lengthy investigation.The defeat in Afghanistan, like the one in Vietnam, was a long time coming. Democrats can take steps to prevent such interventions. But if they repeat the errors of their predecessors in the 1960s, they may secure the triumph of an opposition party whose leaders have not stopped lying about the election that drove them from power.Michael Kazin (@mkazin), a professor of history at Georgetown University, is the author of the forthcoming book “What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More
AfghanistanThe UK must answer for a litany of strategic failings in AfghanistanThe UK should never have joined the US invasion, writes Dr Taj Hargey, and its reputation is being stained by America’s unilateral retreat. Plus letters from Jonathan Worthington and Sandra Khadhouri L More
OpinionAfghanistanWhy did we ignore the lessons of history in Afghanistan? We need a public inquiry Jonathan SteeleThe US and Britain’s dogged pursuit of reform and regime change made the return of the Taliban almost inevitable Wed 18 Aug 2021 12.30 EDTLast modified on Wed 18 Aug 2021 12.32 EDTWhen rising British casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq started to raise public doubts 15 years ago, a new mantra began to be heard: Iraq was a war of choice, Afghanistan a war of necessity. The argument was that the US and its faithful ally, Britain, had launched an invasion in Iraq that was unjustified as it was based on a false premise: the hollow claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.Fear of refugees must not shape the response to Afghanistan’s crisis | Daniel TrillingRead moreThe intervention in Afghanistan was different, it was said, even by many who opposed the Iraq war. Al-Qaida had organised the atrocities of 9/11 and its leader, Osama bin Laden, was based on Afghan soil. George W Bush was right to give the Taliban an ultimatum to hand him over or face invasion.But here, too, there was a false premise, or indeed several. Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership were as surprised to see the twin towers crash to the ground in New York as everyone else. They had never been consulted by Bin Laden on his strategy, let alone his targets. Anticipating US reprisals, Bin Laden and his large entourage of Arab fighters left Kandahar and hid in the Tora Bora mountains. Bush’s call on the Taliban to arrest him was unrealistic. So going after the Taliban was just as unnecessary as bringing regime change in Iraq.It was also equally dubious from the standpoint of international law. There was no UN security council resolution authorising the US assault on Afghanistan. It was clear that Bush would want to punish al-Qaida for 9/11, but international law does not permit armed force for revenge or retaliation. The US claimed that al-Qaida had declared war on the US and it was entitled to respond with force in self-defence. International law only allows this if an enemy attack is imminent. In the autumn of 2001, imminence was hardly a relevant concept. None of the 19 9/11 hijackers was Afghan and they had mainly trained in Germany and the US. It had taken two years to prepare the attack, so there was no way al-Qaida could have mounted another similar atrocity imminently.After 9/11, a few analysts argued that if the US was determined to use force it should have limited it to a search-and-destroy operation against al-Qaida in Tora Bora. Their view was ignored and Bush added a new war aim: the building of a modern democracy in Afghanistan. Joe Biden repudiated that in his speech on Monday when he stressed that US policy should be based on security from terrorism rather than any humanitarian reforms. His remarks are sparking a furious debate, but they are correct.Britain, too, needs to re-examine its Afghan policies. It should hold an inquiry along the same lines as the Chilcot report into Iraq (except that it should report much faster). The first item on its agenda must be whether the decision to go for regime change in 2001 was wise or foolish. The events of the past two decades, culminating in the triumphant return of the Taliban that we have just witnessed, flows from that decision.It is true that Kabul and other major Afghan cities have enjoyed 20 years of patchy progress. Women in particular have benefited and a generation of young people has grown up with the expectation of secure and free life choices. If the Taliban had not been ousted from power in 2001, none of this would have happened. But the country would have been spared the ravages and killing of the civil war that resumed in 2003 once the Taliban recovered from the shock of defeat. Like the Ashraf Ghani administration, it also just gave up in 2001 under the weight of US bombing with barely a shot fired. It was bound to seek ways to reverse it, however long it took.In the century since Afghanistan gained independence from Britain in 1919, the country’s tragedy has been the constantly repeated cycle of defeat for the minority of Afghan modernisers who have sought to break the hold of conservative rural patriarchy. It happened with the first post-independence leader, Amanullah Khan, who took power on a wave of popularity but lost it after he introduced co-educational schools and stopped women wearing hijab, let alone the full burqa. Conservatives marched on Kabul in 1929, the army deserted and Amanullah abdicated.Resistance to a new wave of reform arose again in the 1980s when Afghanistan’s communists, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), expanded education for girls and increased opportunities for women to work outside the home. When they took Soviet support, they opened the door for an alliance of religious and tribal leaders (helped by western governments at the height of the cold war) to rise up as mujahideen warriors and brand the PDPA as atheists and lackeys of the Kremlin. When Moscow withdrew its aid in 1992 (like Trump and Biden today), the modernising regime quickly fell. Now we are seeing a third turn of the wheel of conservatives ousting reformers.Observers wonder how the Taliban managed to achieve so sweeping a victory. The sad fact is that its patriarchal views are popular in rural and small-town Afghanistan and it could never have made its stunning military advances without local support. People had also lost faith in a corrupt central government and an army that the Pentagon was well aware was ineffective and unmotivated – as revealed in the “Afghanistan Papers”, hundreds of confidential interviews with US military and diplomatic leaders obtained by the Washington Post.Many Afghans felt the Taliban produced quicker and more honest justice in village disputes between families. The UK government should have known this. Surveys commissioned for the Department for International Development in Helmand in 2010 showed that people preferred Taliban courts to the Kabul-appointed ones, where they had to bribe prosecutors and judges.Afghans do not like invaders, whatever their motives, and the Taliban were able to exploit the narrative of patriotic resistance. Why did Britain ignore the lessons of history and follow the unhappy experience of the Soviet invasion and occupation? That must be the central issue in the public inquiry we need.
Jonathan Steele is a former Guardian correspondent and author of Ghosts of Afghanistan: The Haunted Battleground
TopicsAfghanistanOpinionSouth and Central AsiaTalibanUS politicscommentReuse this content More
The departure of US forces was followed by a rout of Afghan government forces. Now, after 20 years of western intervention, Afghanistan is back under the control of the Taliban
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It began with a steady trickle of military defeats. First Afghan government control was ceded to the Taliban in provincial towns and cities. Then, as the lack of resistance became apparent, bigger cities and regional capitals began to fall. Finally on Sunday the Taliban entered Kabul as the western-backed government fled the country. The Guardian’s senior international correspondent, Emma Graham-Harrison, tells Michael Safi that it marks a stunning reversal for the Afghan government, which had begun negotiating a deal with the Taliban in recent months. And as deeply flawed as the government in Kabul has been for the past 20 years, it has created space for the education of girls and a free press. All of that is now in grave doubt as Afghans wait to see whether their new Taliban rulers plan to carry on where they left off in 2001. We hear voices from inside Afghanistan including reporter Zahra Joya, who was a child when US forces invaded in 2001 and drove out the Taliban. She describes her fears for what will come next. More
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‘I stand squarely behind my decision,’ Biden says after Taliban takes Kabul
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Biden acknowledges ‘rapid collapse’ in Afghanistan after Taliban takes Kabul
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Ambassador to UN tells security council meeting Afghanistan must never be a terrorism base again
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Third Bob Woodward Trump book will also focus on Biden
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The publishers of the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times asked Joe Biden to move journalists to the US military-protected side of the airport in Kabul, as they evacuate.
“Brave Afghan colleagues have worked tirelessly to help The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal share news and information from the region with the global public. Now, those colleagues and their families are trapped in Kabul, their lives in peril,” the publishers said in a joint statement.
The airport today was overrun with desperate civilians fleeing Kabul after the Taliban’s seized the city. Seven died amid the chaos.
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5.13pm EDT
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Today so far
Joe Biden defended his decision to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan, even after Taliban forces took Kabul and the world saw images of desperate Afghans attempting to flee the country. “I stand squarely behind my decision,” Biden says. “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw US forces.”
At least seven people were killed amid the chaos at Kabul International Airport today, according to the AP. Videos widely shared on social media showed desperate Afghans trying to cling to a US military plane as it departed Kabul and then falling to their deaths.
Administration officials have continued to defend Biden’s strategy in Afghanistan, even in the face of rebukes from Democrats and Republicans over how the troop withdrawal has been executed. National security adviser Jake Sullivan said this morning, “What the president kept saying over and over again is that it was not inevitable Kabul would fall. And it was not inevitable. There was the capacity to stand up and resist. That capacity didn’t happen.”
The US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield said at the emergency security council meeting today that other countries should Afghanistan becoming a base for international terrorism again. “We must all ensure Afghanistan cannot ever, ever again be a base for terrorism,” she said in New York.
– Joan E Greve
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Botched Afghanistan withdrawal gives Biden biggest crisis of his presidency
David Smith
Joe Biden was facing the biggest crisis of his presidency on Monday after the stunning fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban caught his administration flat-footed and raised fears of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Recriminations were under way in Washington over the chaotic retreat from Kabul, which one Biden opponent described as “the embarrassment of a superpower laid low”.
Bowing to pressure, officials said the president would leave his country retreat, Camp David, to address the nation from the White House on Monday afternoon.
The Taliban swept into Kabul on Sunday after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, ending two decades of a failed experiment to import western-style liberal democracy. Diplomatic staff were flown to safety but thousands of Afghans who worked with US forces were stranded and at risk of deadly reprisals.
As harrowing scenes played out on television – including desperate Afghans clinging to a US transport plane before takeoff – the White House scrambled to explain how the government collapsed so quickly.
Last month Biden, pointing to the Afghan military’s superior numbers and technology, predicted: “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”
Unrepentant, the president issued a statement on Saturday, insisting the sudden withdrawal had been the only possible choice.
But the response by Biden, who ran for election promising unrivalled foreign policy credentials after 36 years in the Senate and eight as Barack Obama’s vice-president, was jarring to many. A headline in the Washington Post read: “Defiant and defensive, a president known for empathy takes a cold-eyed approach to Afghanistan debacle.”
Read more:
4.30pm EDT
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Joe Biden acknowledged that his decision to continue with the Afghanistan withdrawal mission would be criticized by many, and he pledged he would not “shrink from my share of responsibility for where we are today”.
CBS News
(@CBSNews)
Biden says he takes “my share of responsibly” for what is happening Afghanistan: “I’m deeply saddened by the facts we now face, but I do not regret my decision… I cannot and will not ask our troops to fight on endlessly in another country’s civil war.” https://t.co/almuVAk3AW pic.twitter.com/xJicyWQTTu
August 16, 2021
“I am president of the United States of America, and the buck stops with me,” Biden said.
“I’m deeply saddened by the facts we now face, but I do not regret my decision to end America’s warfighting in Afghanistan,” the president added. “I cannot and will not ask our troops to fight on endlessly in another country’s civil war.”
After concluding his prepared remarks, Biden left the East Room without taking any questions from reporters. He will soon return to Camp David.
4.26pm EDT
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Joe Biden warned that the US would carry out a “swift and forceful” response if the Taliban attacked US citizens or attempted to disrupt evacuation efforts in Kabul.
“We will defend our people with devastating force, if necessary,” Biden said.
The president said that, once all evacuation efforts have been successfully completed, the US will move forward with wrapping up its withdrawal mission and “end America’s longest war”.
“The events we see now are sadly proof that no amount of military force would ever deliver a stable, united, secure, Afghanistan,” Biden said.
“I am now the fourth American president to preside over war in Afghanistan. Two Democrats and two Republicans. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth president.”
4.17pm EDT
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Joe Biden argued that Afghan troops’ failure to defend their country demonstrates why it was the correct course of action to move forward with the US troop withdrawal.
“It is wrong to order American troops to step up when Afghanistan’s own armed forces would not,” Biden said.
Echoing his message from earlier this year when he announced the planned withdrawal, Biden added, “How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan’s civil war when Afghan troops will not?”
4.12pm EDT
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‘I stand squarely behind my decision,’ Biden says after Taliban takes Kabul
Joe Biden continued to defend his decision to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan, even after Taliban forces took Kabul and the world saw images of desperate Afghans attempting to flee the country.
“I stand squarely behind my decision,” Biden says. “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw US forces.”
CSPAN
(@cspan)
President Biden: “I stand squarely behind my decision…there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces…The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. So, what’s happened? Afghan political leaders gave up and left the country.” pic.twitter.com/v3nnvXxRiI
August 16, 2021
Biden said he and his national security team were “clear-eyed about the risks” of leaving Afghanistan, and he argued that the events of the past week demonstrate how America’s continued military involvement could not have ultimately propped up the Afghan government.
The US president criticized Afghan government leaders for fleeing the country and Afghan troops for refusing to properly defend their country.
“The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated,” Biden said.
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at 4.17pm EDT
4.05pm EDT
16:05
Biden acknowledges ‘rapid collapse’ in Afghanistan after Taliban takes Kabul
Joe Biden is now delivering an update on the situation in Afghanistan, a day after Taliban forces took control of Kabul.
The president said he and his national security team have been “closely monitoring” the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, even though Biden has not delivered on-camera remarks about the issue in several days.
Biden acknowledged that the world is now seeing a “rapid collapse” of the Afghan government, but he insisted the US mission in Afghanistan was “never supposed to be nation-building”.
4.01pm EDT
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Reporters are now set up in the East Room of the White House, where Joe Biden will soon deliver remarks on the situation in Afghanistan, a day after Taliban forces entered Kabul.
Peter Alexander
(@PeterAlexander)
Inside the East Room, awaiting @POTUS’ remarks on the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. pic.twitter.com/vaEzJJPWkQ
August 16, 2021
3.55pm EDT
15:55
Joe Biden was scheduled to start his remarks on Afghanistan about ten minutes ago, but he appears to be running late — as he so often is.
Nikki Schwab
(@NikkiSchwab)
The pool hasn’t even been called yet, so President @JoeBiden’s remarks will not be happening on time.
August 16, 2021
3.40pm EDT
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The Guardian’s Daniel Strauss reports:
The office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a congresswoman from California, distributed a set of talking points to members of Congress on the unfolding crisis in Afghanistan. The talking points, obtained by the Guardian, are below. They were sent out around noon on Monday.
White House Talking Points on Afghanistan
TOPLINE:
The President was not willing to enter a third decade of conflict and surge in thousands of more troops to fight in a civil war that Afghanistan wouldn’t fight for themselves.
It’s clear from the past few weeks that would have been necessary – more troops for an indefinite amount of time.
The administration knew that there was a distinct possibility that Kabul would fall to the Taliban.
It was not an inevitability. It was a possibility.
POTUS said in July that the Afghan military had the capability to fight the Taliban. But they had to demonstrate the will. Sadly, that will did not materialize.
The administration planned for every possibility. We had contingency plans in place for any eventuality — including a quick fall of Kabul. That’s why we had troops pre-positioned in the region to deploy as they have done.
We are focused on safely evacuating US Embassy personnel, American citizens, SIV applicants and their families, and targeted Afghans. We have deployed 6000 US military to Afghanistan to secure the airport and ensure that those evacuation flights, as well as commercial and charter flights can safely depart.
But indefinite war was and is unacceptable to the President.
SIV Applicants
The administration has deployed 6000 US military to Afghanistan to secure the airport and ensure that evacuation flights, commercial and charter flights can safely depart.
Chairman Miley [sic] and Secretary Austin are working to restore order at the airport so those flights can take place.
Many have asked why we did not evacuate more Afghanistan civilians, sooner. Part of the answer is that many did not want to leave earlier: many Afghans to whom we gave visas to come to the US chose to stay in their country, still hopeful.
Nearly 2000 SIV applicants and their families are in the United States, and the administration is prepared to evacuate thousands of American citizens, SIV applicants, and targeted Afghans.
Was this an intelligence failure
The Administration knew that there was a distinct possibility that Kabul would fall to the Taliban.
It was not an inevitability. It was a possibility.
And the administration planned for every possibility. There were contingency plans in place for any eventuality — including a quick fall of Kabul. That’s why there were troops pre-positioned in the region to deploy as they have done.
The President said in July that the Afghan military had the capability to fight the Taliban. But they had to demonstrate the will. Tragically, that will did not materialize.
Here’s what the President was not willing to do: enter a third decade of conflict and surge in thousands of more troops to fight in a civil war that Afghanistan wouldn’t fight for themselves.
When Trump made the Doha agreement, there were 13,000 US troops in Afghanistan. When POTUS took office – Trump had drawn down troops to 2500. It’s clear from the past few weeks that would have been necessary.
The President was unwilling to send US men and women back to Afghanistan for an indefinite war.
Counter-Terrorism
The United States face terrorist threats in countries around the world including Syria, Libya and Yemen. We don’t have boots on the ground in those countries. We have over the horizon counter terrorism capabilities. And, that’s what we’ll do in Afghanistan – prevent, detect and disrupt terrorism threats with over the horizon capabilities.
And, we’ll hold the Taliban accountable to not allowing Al Qaeda a safe haven. if they do, there will be consequences that we’ll pursue.
Two points stand out. One is the emphasis put on the collapse of the Afghan government being a possibility, rather than an inevitability. The second is that the Biden administration is now focused on evacuating personnel, including American embassy staff and the special immigrant visa holders who helped American troops while in Afghanistan.
The talking points come as Democratic lawmakers emphasize throughout the day that American military forces must secure and retain control of the airport out of Kabul to evacuate people.
Updated
at 3.49pm EDT
3.22pm EDT
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Maryland governor Larry Hogan said his state is already slated to welcome at least 180 Afghan citizens through the special immigrant visa program, and the Republican leader said he is “ready and willing” to receive more immigrants.
Governor Larry Hogan
(@GovLarryHogan)
Today, I am announcing Maryland’s commitment to receive more Afghan interpreters who have contributed to U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. Many of these Afghan citizens—our allies—bravely risked their lives to support our efforts, and we have a moral obligation to help them. pic.twitter.com/1B89nxz3Bi
August 16, 2021
“The chaotic and heartbreaking scenes out of Afghanistan over the last several days—with innocent civilians running for their lives in fear of the Taliban—is the result of a rushed and irresponsible withdrawal,” Hogan said in a video message.
“Many of these Afghan citizens—our allies—bravely risked their lives to provide invaluable support for many years to our efforts as interpreters and support staff, and we have a moral obligation to help them.”
Hogan encouraged anyone who is in need of assistance, or knows someone who is, to immediately contact the state’s Office of Refugees and Asylees.
“I ask all Marylanders to continue to pray for the safety of every American and all of our allies who remain in harm’s way,” Hogan said.
Updated
at 3.22pm EDT
2.59pm EDT
14:59
German Chancellor Angela Merkel acknowledged that she and other global leaders had “misjudged” the Afghan government’s ability to withstand attacks from the Taliban.
“This is an extremely bitter development. Bitter, dramatic and terrifying,” the German chancellor said as the Taliban took control of Kabul, per DW News.
“It is a terrible development for the millions of Afghans who want a more liberal society.”
Merkel also noted that her misjudgment had been “widespread,” alluding to the incorrect calculations by other leaders, such as Joe Biden, about how long the Afghan government would be able to stand once US troops withdrew from the country.
DW News
(@dwnews)
“Bitter, dramatic and terrifying.”German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the international community was wrong in its assessment of the situation in Afghanistan, with terrible consequences. pic.twitter.com/LCi8KRCfsu
August 16, 2021 More
