By: Sune Engel Rasmussen – wsj.com – August 18, 2021 The first major Afghan city fell on Aug. 9. The last one, Kabul, capitulated just six days later. The offensive that returned the Taliban to power 20 years after they were ousted by a U.S.-led coalition seemed dizzyingly fast. In reality, the Taliban’s road to victory winds back many years....

By: The Editorial Board – wsj.com – August 17, 2021 It’s too early to know the wider strategic fallout from America’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal. But there’s strong reason to doubt convenient claims that the retreat will help the U.S. balance a revisionist China. Beijing is more likely to see the display of fecklessness as an opening to exploit. “Our true...

Tragedy is an inadequate word to describe what’s happening in Afghanistan. President Joe Biden’s administration’s feckless, vacillating incompetence is a catastrophe.

Almost 20 years of American involvement in Afghanistan have ended in unmitigated disaster. In fact, it would be difficult to imagine a worse scenario.

Leaving to put ‘America First’ or staying to protect Afghan human rights would be defensible. Leaving while pretending to care about those rights is not.

Using the same deceitful tactics they pioneered in Vietnam, U.S. political and military officials repeatedly misled the country about the prospects for success in Afghanistan.

Biden argued that the Taliban’s swift takeover of the country vindicated his decision to withdraw American troops.

In yielding Afghanistan to the Taliban, Joe Biden has engineered the worst foreign-policy disaster in a generation.

The U.S. has a responsibility to protect Afghans from the mass atrocities of the Taliban.

His departure comes as the U.S. takes steps to evacuate its remaining embassy staff and other personnel from Afghanistan. Source: Afghan President Ghani Flees Country as Taliban Enter Kabul: ‘It’s Over’ | National Review