Afghanistan On The Brink.
The Taliban have seized control of major cities and are poised to return to power after 20 years. (NY Times)
“The Taliban effectively sealed their control of Afghanistan on Sunday, pouring into the capital, Kabul, and meeting little resistance as President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, the government collapsed, and chaos and fear gripped the city, with tens of thousands of people trying to escape.
The insurgents’ return to power, two decades after they were ousted, came despite years and hundreds of billions of dollars spent by the United States to build up the Afghan government and its defense forces. In a lightning offensive, the Taliban swallowed dozens of cities in a matter of days, leaving Kabul as the last major redoubt of government control.
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The Biden Administration withdrew from Afghanistan in what has been questions as a hasty retreat by critics of the Administration. I don’t now why we withdrew now or how that will accomplish our foreign policy objectives int the region. What is clear is the quick Taliban power coup that filled the power vacuum left in our wake. The country will now be overrun by a terrorist organization that is an avowed enemy of America. Why did we withdraw? Now? I would like a clearer policy objective to emanate from the White House further explaining the evacuation.
