Afghan man filmed trying to escape Kabul on side of C-17 during takeoff (taskandpurpose.com)
Biden Follows Through
Feb. 3 — The Afghanistan Study Group, which was created by Congress in December 2019 and charged with making policy recommendations for a peaceful transition in Afghanistan, releases a report recommending changes to the agreement with the Taliban.
“The most important revision is to ensure that a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops is based not on an inflexible timeline but on all parties fulfilling their commitments, including the Taliban making good on its promises to contain terrorist groups and reduce violence against the Afghan people, and making compromises to achieve a political settlement,” it said.
Feb. 19 — Biden reiterates his campaign promise to bring U.S. troops home from Afghanistan, saying during remarks at the Munich Security Conference, “My administration strongly supports the diplomatic process that’s underway and to bring an end to this war that is closing out 20 years. We remain committed to ensuring that Afghanistan never again provides a base for terrorist attacks against the United States and our partners and our interests.”
March 7 — Secretary of State Antony Blinken tells Afghanistan President Ashra Ghani that, despite future U.S. financial assistance, he is “concerned that the security situation will worsen and the Taliban could make rapid territorial gains.”
March 25 — Gen. Richard Clarke, commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that “it is clear that the Taliban have not upheld what they said they would do and reduce the violence. While…they have not attacked U.S. forces, it is clear that they took a deliberate approach and increased their violence…since the peace accords were signed.”
March 25 — During a press conference at the White House, Biden says “it’s going to be hard to meet the May 1 deadline. Just in terms of tactical reasons, it’s hard to get those troops out.” He assures that “if we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way.” Without committing to a pullout date, Biden says, “it is not my intention to stay there for a long time. But the question is: How and in what circumstances do we meet that agreement that was made by President Trump to leave under a deal that looks like it’s not being able to be worked out to begin with? How is that done? But we are not staying a long time.”
April 14 — Saying it is “time to end the forever war,” Biden announces that all troops will be removed from Afghanistan by Sept. 11.
In a speech explaining the decision, Biden says he became convinced after trip to Afghanistan in 2008 that “more and endless American military force could not create or sustain a durable Afghan government.” Biden says the U.S. achieved its initial and primary objective, “to ensure Afghanistan would not be used as a base from which to attack our homeland again” and that “our reasons for remaining in Afghanistan are becoming increasingly unclear.”
Biden says he “inherited a diplomatic agreement” between the U.S. and the Taliban that all U.S. forces would be out by May 1. “It is perhaps not what I would have negotiated myself, but it was an agreement made by the United States government, and that means something,” Biden says, adding that final troop withdrawal would begin on May 1.
“We will not conduct a hasty rush to the exit,” Biden says. “We’ll do it responsibly, deliberately, and safely.” Biden assures Americans that the U.S. has “trained and equipped a standing force of over 300,000 Afghan personnel” and that “they’ll continue to fight valiantly, on behalf of the Afghans, at great cost.”
April 15 — In response to Biden’s decision to delay full withdrawal until Sept. 11, the Taliban releases a statement that says failure to complete the withdrawal by May 1 “opens the way for [the Taliban] to take every necessary countermeasure, hence the American side will be held responsible for all future consequences.”
April 18 — In a released statement, Trump criticizes Biden’s Sept. 11 withdrawal deadline saying, “we can and should get out earlier.” He concludes, “Getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do. I planned to withdraw on May 1st, and we should keep as close to that schedule as possible.”
May 18 — The Defense Department IG releases a report for the first three months of 2021 that says the Taliban had increased its attacks against Afghanistan government forces during this period and appears to be preparing with al-Qaeda for “large-scale offensives.”
“The Taliban initiated 37 percent more attacks this quarter than during the same period in 2020,” the report said. “According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Taliban maintained close ties with al-Qaeda and was very likely preparing for large-scale offensives against population centers and Afghan government installations.”
May 18 — In a House hearing on U.S. policy in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, downplays the prospect of a swift Taliban takeover when U.S. forces leave. “If they [Taliban] pursue, in my judgment, a military victory, it will result in a long war, because Afghan security forces will fight, other Afghans will fight, neighbors will come to support different forces,” Khalilzad says.
Later Khalilzad added, “I personally believe that the statements that the [Afghan] forces will disintegrate, and the Talibs will take over in short order are mistaken. The real choices that the Afghans will face is between a long war and negotiated settlement.”
June 8 — Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tells Foreign Policy that after foreign forces leave Afghanistan the group’s goal is to create an “Islamic government,” and “we will be compelled to continue our war to achieve our goal.”
June 26 — At a rally in Ohio, his first since leaving office, Trump boasts that Biden can’t stop the process he started to remove troops from Afghanistan, and acknowledges the Afghan government won’t last once U.S. troops leave.
“I started the process,” Trump says. “All the troops are coming back home. They [the Biden administration] couldn’t stop the process. 21 years is enough. Don’t we think? 21 years. They couldn’t stop the process. They wanted to, but it was very tough to stop the process when other things… It’s a shame. 21 years, by a government that wouldn’t last. The only way they last is if we’re there. What are we going to say? We’ll stay for another 21 years, then we’ll stay for another 50. The whole thing is ridiculous. … We’re bringing troops back home from Afghanistan.”
July 6 — The U.S. military confirms it has pulled out of Bagram Airfield, its largest airfield in the Afghanistan, as the final withdrawal nears.
July 8 — Saying “speed is safety,” Biden moves up the timeline for full troop withdrawal to Aug. 31. Biden acknowledges the move comes as the Taliban “is at its strongest militarily since 2001.” Biden says if he went back on the agreement that Trump made, the Taliban “would have again begun to target our forces” and that “staying would have meant U.S. troops taking casualties. … Once that agreement with the Taliban had been made, staying with a bare minimum force was no longer possible.”
Biden assures Americans that a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan “is not inevitable,” and denies that U.S. intelligence assessed that the Afghan government would likely collapse.
Asked if he sees any parallels between the withdrawals from Vietnam Afghanistan, Biden responds, “None whatsoever. Zero. … The Taliban is not the south — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.”
Biden adds that “the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”
Biden also promises to help accelerate the issuance of special visas for Afghan nationals who helped the U.S. during the war.
July 24 — At a rally in Phoenix, Trump again boasts, “I started the move out of Afghanistan,” adding “I think it was impossible for him [Biden] to stop it, but it was a much different deal.”
Trump says that when he was president, in a phone conversation with the leader of the Taliban, he warned that after U.S. troops leave if “you decide to do something terrible to our country … we are going to come back and we are going to hit you harder than any country has ever been hit.” Trump says he believes the two “had a real understanding” but that after Trump left office “now they’re going wild over there.”
Aug. 6 — The Taliban takes control of its first province — the capital of Nimroz province in Afghanistan — despite the agreement it signed with the U.S.
Aug. 15 — Taliban fighters enter the Afghanistan capital Kabul; the Afghan president flees the country; U.S. evacuates diplomats from its embassy by helicopter.
Aug. 16 — In a speech to the nation, Biden says, “I do not regret my decision to end America’s warfighting in Afghanistan,” and deflected blame for the government’s swift collapse.
“The truth is: This did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. So what’s happened? Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight,” the president said. “If anything, the developments of the past week reinforced that ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision.”
Source: Timeline of U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan – FactCheck.org
Kamala Harris’s campaign has hit out at Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban in retaliation to the damning Republican report on the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
A day before the first presidential debate, House Republicans have released a scathing report into the US exit from Afghanistan in August 2021, which left behind an estimated 100,000 partners of the US government, while 13 American soldiers and 170 civilians were killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul.
The report solely blames the Biden-Harris administration’s “failure to plan for all contingencies” for the disaster, but Harris’s campaign has been quick to remind voters how Trump “cut a bad deal” with the Taliban in 2020, when the former president was the one who agreed the US would withdraw from Afghanistan by May 2021.
Committee chair Michael McCaul, leading the investigation, accuses the Biden-Harris administration of “fail[ing] to plan for all contingencies, including a noncombatant emergency evacuation” an “refusing” to order an evacuation “until after the Taliban had already entered Kabul.” The administration “misled” and “lied to the American people at every stage of the withdrawal,” the report also claims.
“The evidence proves President Biden’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops was not based on the security situation, the Doha Agreement, or the advice of his senior national security advisors or our allies,” it says. “Rather, it was premised on his longstanding and unyielding opinion that the United States should no longer be in Afghanistan.”
But Harris’s campaign has hit back. Morgan Finkelstein, the Harris-Walz national security spokesperson, said: “Trump shamelessly attacks the Vice President because he hopes he can trick the country into forgetting that his own actions undermined U.S. strategy and put our troops and allies in harm’s way.”
“Trump wanted to bring the Taliban to Camp David just days before September 11th—think about that,” Finkelstein added. “He cut a bad deal with the very same people who violently took over Afghanistan, leading to the collapse of the Afghan government. Trump’s chaotic actions led to catastrophic consequences in Afghanistan.”
The White House also furiously hit back at the report, adding that Trump’s deal meant President Biden “inherited an untenable position” when he entered office in January 2021. White House spokesperson Sharon Yang said in a statement the report’s author “cherry-picked facts” and maintained ending the war “was the right thing to do and our nation is stronger today as a result”.
Congressman Gregory Meeks, the ranking member of the committee, also slammed the partisan report, accusing Republicans of politicizing the withdrawal and omitting Trump’s role.
“The Republican majority has taken particular pains to avoid facts involving former President Trump— including his committing the United States to a full, date-specific withdrawal in a deal he negotiated with the Taliban that excluded the Afghan government or any reference to the rights of Afghan women and girls,” he wrote in a minority report released the same day.
“President Trump initiated a withdrawal that was irreversible without sending significantly more American troops to Afghanistan to face renewed combat with the Taliban,” Meeks also noted that Harris was only referenced three times in the 3,288 pages of the Committee’s interview transcripts. – Search (bing.com)
McCaul brushed off accusations the report was being used politically. “This is not about politics to me – it never has been,” he said in a statement. “It’s about getting to the bottom of what happened so we can make sure it never happens again. And it’s about finding who was responsible for this catastrophe so they can finally, after three long years, be held accountable.”
The chaotic withdrawal saw unprecedented scenes where hundreds of thousands of Afghans and other citizens tried to flee Taliban rule in a mass panic and scrambled to enter Kabul airport. Videos showed men clinging onto aircraft as they taxied down runways and others trying to climb the big walls of the airport.
Afghans cling to US Air Force plane as it takes off in Kabul (nypost.com)
Trump lays a wreath at Arlington Cemetery at a visit last month (Getty Images)
Trump has used the Afghanistan withdrawal throughout the presidential campaign as means to attack the vice president, including accusing her of being responsible for the deaths of the American soldiers who died in the suicide bombing. In response, Harris’s camp has accused him of politicizing a visit to Arlington Cemetery last month where he met with the families of the servicemen who died.
The report is the latest in a long-running blame game over the disastrous withdrawal.
A State Department report released last year detailed the failures of both the Trump and Biden administrations. The Afghanistan After Action Review report concluded both administrations were at fault and laid out the shortcomings of a “chaotic and dangerous environment” during the pullout.
“The decisions of both President (Donald) Trump and President (Joe) Biden to end the US military mission in Afghanistan had serious consequences for the viability of the Afghan government and its security,” said the unclassified report.
“Those decisions are beyond the scope of this review, but the AAR (After Action Review) team found that during both administrations there was insufficient senior-level consideration of worst-case scenarios and how quickly those might follow,” it added.
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Liberal pollster predicts blowout victory for presidential candidate (msn.com) ©APA liberal pollster’s latest projection shows Donald Trump securing a blowout victory over Kamala Harris. Nate Silver’s prediction places the Republican hopeful’s chances of winning the electoral college vote at 63.8 percent, compared to 36 percent for Harris.
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United States drug overdose death rates and totals over time – Wikipedia
Over the past decade, the United States has seen a significant increase in drug overdose deaths. Map Shows States With the Highest Drug Deaths – Newsweek
Here are some key points:
- Annual Increase: Drug overdose deaths have been rising at an annual rate of about 4.0%1.
- Recent Statistics: In 2020, Trumps last year approximately 93,700 people died from drug overdoses2.
- By the end of 2021, Bidens first year this number had increased to around 109,200 deaths, with opioids involved in about 80,400 of these cases2.
- The opioid crisis, particularly involving synthetic opioids like fentanyl, has been a major driver of these increases. – Search (bing.com)
- Long-Term Trends: From 1999 to 2017, over 700,000 people died of drug overdoses in the US1.
- Opioids were most common cause of child poisoning, study found (nbcnews.com)
The United States of America is undoubtedly one of the most well-known countries on Earth. It would be challenging to find someone who had never heard of the U.S. of A.
The majority of people born outside the U.S. have quite specific stereotypes of Americans, and there are many idiosyncrasies of the culture that foreigners simply cannot comprehend.
So, here are 11 Very American Things That Foreigners Just Don’t Understand (msn.com).
30 Times People Had a Culture Shock Experience When Visiting the U.S. (msn.com)
15 Things Foreigners Find Extremely Odd About American Culture (msn.com)