Attention to the Unseen

Anand Gopal writes: Both sides of the war did make efforts to avoid civilian deaths. In addition to issuing warnings to evacuate, the Taliban kept villagers informed about which areas were seeded with improvised explosive devices, and closed roads to civilian traffic when targeting convoys. The coalition deployed laser-guided bombs, used loudspeakers to warn villagers of fighting, and dispatched helicopters ahead of battle. “They would drop leaflets saying, ‘Stay in your homes! Save yourselves!’ ” Shakira recalled. In a war…

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Faisal Devji writes: Most accounts of the Taliban’s emergence in the 1990s attribute it to a Saudi-funded and Pakistani-led project. Its aim was to create an Islamic state in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal, one that would keep Iran at bay for the Saudis and India for the Pakistanis. This was necessary because the mujahedeen, who had routed the Soviets with help from the United States, were too riven by internecine quarrels to form a government. But the Taliban were…

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RFE/RL reports: Hundreds of Afghans stand along dusty roadsides in the capital, Kabul, desperately trying to sell their meager possessions. Many offer used pots, plates, and cups that are piled up on bedsheets. Others sell tattered mattresses and old rugs or hope someone will buy their television or refrigerator. “There are no jobs and we don’t have any money,” says Haji Aziz, an unemployed cook who stands by a heap of kitchen utensils for sale along a busy road in…

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CNN reports: Stephen Miller seemed floored by the idea, raised during a fall Cabinet meeting in 2018, of  keeping open the doors for Afghan allies and other Middle East refugees to enter the US.  “What do you guys want?” Miller, then a top adviser to President Donald Trump, asked incredulously, according to one person in the room. “A bunch of Iraqs and ‘Stans across the country?” His words stunned many in the meeting, but they were no accident. Under Miller’s guidance, several…

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Jeff Greenfield writes: Much of the commentary on Biden’s speech today will focus on his defense of the Afghanistan withdrawal strategy — his celebration of the U.S. military’s mass evacuations and whether his promise to get those left behind has the ring of plausibility. But perhaps more significant for American politics is that Biden seems to be embracing a belief now shared across ideological lines: America’s international role has been an exercise in overreach. For more than a decade, in…

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NBC News reports: More than 120,000 people of all nationalities were evacuated from the Kabul airport as the U.S. military withdrew, but initial figures suggest that only about 8,500 of those who left Afghanistan in recent months were Afghans, according to numbers released by the Biden administration and estimates from advocates. That is a small percentage of the tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the U.S. government or U.S. organizations and applied for special U.S. visas, and an…

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Zeeshan Aleem interviews Anand Gopal, an award-winning journalist who reports for The New Yorker and wrote the acclaimed book, “No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes.” He’s a trained sociologist and renowned foreign affairs reporter who lived in Afghanistan for years, embedded with the Taliban, speaks the local languages and is well versed in the history of the war-torn nation. Zeeshan Aleem: Was there a significantly better way to withdraw from Afghanistan?…

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Bloomberg reports: The Taliban called for friendly ties with the U.S. and indicated they were close to announcing details of a new government just hours after the last American soldiers flew out of Kabul to end 20 years of war. “The Islamic Emirate wants a good and diplomatic relationship with the Americans,” Zabihullah Mujahed, the Taliban’s main spokesman, told reporters on Tuesday from the Hamid Karzai International Airport, which was the last place under American control. Key Taliban leaders took…

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Adam Ciralsky writes: America’s chaotic departure from Afghanistan was not unforeseeable. Nor was it an intelligence failure—that old chestnut often used to absolve leaders of culpability. Instead, the Biden administration’s tumultuous exit from the war-torn country seems to have been the result of incremental and baffling bureaucratic decisions. Throughout the summer, I had been fielding Cassandra-like calls from U.S. officials. They warned of impending doom in Afghanistan. They spoke of scenarios in which the Taliban, on the eve of President…

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Politico reports: President Joe Biden has faced a torrent of criticism for abandoning Afghan partners as their country fell to the Taliban. Now, there is also a looming political controversy over the thousands of Afghans Biden will end up resettling over here. An increasingly vocal group of Republicans — led by Donald Trump, who made immigration restrictions a hallmark of his presidency — oppose the resettlement of Afghan refugees in the U.S., claiming that they could be dangerous, or will…

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Reuters reports: Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a phone call on Sunday that the international community should engage with Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers and “positively guide” them, China’s foreign ministry said. Washington should work with the international community to provide economic and humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, help the new regime run governmental functions normally, maintain social stability, and stop the currency from depreciating and the cost of living from…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Zach Van Meter, a private-equity investor from Naples, Fla., phoned the government of Somaliland last week, asking if it would host thousands of Afghan refugees. “He just called me out of the blue,” said Bashir Goth, the Washington representative for a region of Somalia seeking independence. Two days later, on Aug. 25, Somaliland’s acting foreign minister signed a tentative accord with charities working with Mr. Van Meter, agreeing to temporarily house as many as 10,000…

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The New York Times reports: The United States and 97 other countries said on Sunday that they would continue to take in people fleeing Afghanistan after the American military departs this week and had secured an agreement with the Taliban to allow safe passage for those who are leaving. The Taliban’s chief negotiator, Sher Mohammed Abas Stanekzai, had announced on Friday that the group would not stop people from departing, no matter their nationality or whether they had worked for…

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