The United States’ decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan closes a 20-year chapter between the two countries. But US intervention in Afghanistan far predates the 21st century, stretching back decades. In the weeks and months ahead, there are going to be a lot of questions about what’s next for Afghanistan, including how the US approaches…
Month: April 2022
We have to accelerate clean energy innovation to curb the climate crisis. Here’s how.
“Innovation” is a fraught concept in climate politics. For years, it was used as a kind of fig leaf to cover for delaying tactics, as though climate progress must wait on some kind of technological breakthrough or miracle. That left climate advocates with an enduring suspicion toward the notion, and hostility toward those championing it….
The economic case for letting in as many refugees as possible
The reason we should care about refugees is because they are people. But, unfortunately, for many people that is an insufficient moral claim. Even for the tens of thousands of Afghan people who put their lives in jeopardy working alongside the US military over the past 20 years. So let’s put it another way: Evidence…
Women’s rights have an uncertain future in Afghanistan
Afghanistan, after the Taliban takeover, is a waiting game. And for Afghan women, the waiting game is agonizing. The last time the Taliban held power, in the late ’90s and early 2000s, repression was a feature of their rule. This was especially true for women. Girls could not attend school; women could not hold jobs…
The 3 things experts are watching to evaluate the Taliban
The biggest question since the Taliban recaptured Kabul on August 15 has been whether the group’s return to power means the same thing for Afghans that it did 25 years ago. The last time the Taliban controlled all of Afghanistan, from 1996 to 2001, was marked by brutal oppression, particularly of minorities and women. Their…
The long road to resettling Afghans in the US
A vast majority of Americans across the political spectrum — 90 percent of Democrats and 76 percent of Republicans — support resettling vulnerable Afghans in the US amid the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. The Biden administration is surging resources to make that happen, speeding up visa processing for Afghans employed by the US government to…
ISIS-K, explained by an expert
The United States issued a warning this week amid the crush and chaos at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan: Avoid the area because of a possible ISIS terror attack. On Thursday, the threat bore out. The full tragedy of the attack is still unclear, but at least 170 Afghans and 13 US…
The helplessness of being an Afghanistan War vet
Inside a clinic in eastern Afghanistan, a nine-months-pregnant Afghan woman shivered on an old metal bed as an Afghan midwife examined her. It was 2012, and the war in Afghanistan had already been going on for 11 years. The woman had just traveled from an outlying village along the Pakistan border, seeking a safe place…
NATO allies are preparing for a future without America’s “forever wars”
Afghanistan wasn’t just America’s 20-year war. It also belonged to US allies. “This has been above all a catastrophe for the Afghan people. It’s a failure of the Western world and it’s a game changer for international relations,” the European Union’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell told an Italian newspaper Monday, according to the Washington Post….
How the US created a disaster in Afghanistan
On August 15, 2021, the Taliban took over Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul. The Afghan president fled the country. Almost all of Afghanistan is now under Taliban control. It marks the end of an era: America’s longest war is now over, and America lost. It happened fast, stunning the world and leaving many in the country racing…