The Politics of Pretending
The politics of pretending is a feature of today's political left, not a bug.
Illustration by Vilhelm Pedersen, Andersen's first illustrator
What a week we just had.
Monday was the one-year anniversary of the U.S.' catastrophic and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Some of you probably still remember. The shocking image of desperate Afghans fell off the sky after the plane they clung to took off. The anxious look of Afghan parents when they passed their precious baby into the arms of U.S. soldiers, the Islamic terrorist horrific attack that took the lives of 13 U.S. servicemen and women and hundreds of Afghans, and thousands of Afghan allies were left in harm's way. The fiasco damaged the U.S. credibility and boosted the confidence of U.S. adversaries. I am inclined to think that Russia probably would not have invaded Ukraine early this year had our withdrawal turned out much differently.
In a scorching assessment, John Manza, NATO's former assistant secretary general for operations, wrote, "Civilian leaders inside Washington's Beltway in particular also deserve much of the blame, as many political appointees at the departments of State and Defense were more concerned about protecting the sitting president's chances of reelection than they were about telling the truth about the lack of progress in Afghanistan."
But the Biden administration has pretended the withdrawal from Afghan was a success since day one. No civilian nor military leaders were held accountable. The only military personnel who lost his job (as far as I know) was a marine who slammed the U.S. Military's strategy over Afghan exit on social media. The Biden administration has pretended that it didn't notice that Afghan women were thrown back to the Stone age, girls were not allowed to go to school, or that the Taliban celebrated their victory by having a parade and riding the million-dollar-worth vehicles left behind by the U.S. military.
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