Editors’ Blog
Taking Stock Of The Great and Cowardly Press Freakout Of August 2021
With the American war in Afghanistan and the American withdrawal from Afghanistan now definitively over, I’ve been trying to put the entirety of the last four weeks into some perspective. As you can see I’ve been fairly dug in on the proposition that the great majority of the criticism we’ve seen amounts to ignorance and deflection. Pulling the plug on a failed or misconceived mission isn’t pretty. But it is inevitable. The ugliness is built into the failure rather than a consequence of recognizing it. Most of what we’ve seen is an attempt to deny the failure (mostly hawks) or imagine that withdrawing would be orderly and free of consequences. But with all this reasoning, what parts were handled poorly? What could have been better organized or cleaner?
Perhaps this is only a matter of stepping back and with the benefit of clear eyes and more perspective and, well … agreeing with myself. But honestly, I think I really agree with myself. The airlift evacuation appears to have transported well over 110,000 people out of the country, an astonishing feat under any circumstances and probably unprecedented for a civilian airlift in a kinetic military context and in the context of state collapse.
All the latest on the new Texas anti-abortion law that went into effect at midnight.
Where Things Stand: Native Tribes Have Been Bucking Anti-Mask Rules For A While 
We’ve watched and covered public school districts in red states around the U.S. defying Republican governors’ orders against universal masking in schools for the past several weeks. But as sovereign nations, many Native American tribes around the country have been taking school-related COVID mitigation measures into their own hands for some time.
Where Things Stand: Mississippi Guv Blames Everything And Everyone But Himself For Deadly COVID Spike
Back in April of this year, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) blamed the lackluster vaccination situation in the Magnolia State on “a very large African American population” and “a lot of rural people.”
All Political Power is Unitary
All political power is unitary. In the rare instances when I’ve given advice to people who have political power or money to support people who do, this is the central point I’ve emphasized. All political power is unitary. You can’t be gaining it in foreign policy and losing it on the domestic front. It’s all one thing. And this is particularly important right now for Democrats looking at what the President can accomplish during these critical two years in which Democrats hold both the White House and the Congress by the thinnest of margins. In fact, in political terms it is the most important thing happening right now.
Yesterday Axios ‘Sneak Peak’ blared this: “1 big thing: Biden faces Dem defections”. The story is about Democratic representatives and Senators in marginal seats trying to distance themselves from the situation in Afghanistan and President Biden. “Many moderate Democrats and their aides are huddling with campaign consultants over how to handle the setback in Afghanistan,” as they put it.
This is a cliche Axios storyline, entirely in line with the elite DC political reaction to recent events we’ve been discussing. But if it is an Axios comfort-zone storyline it’s one they know really well. Wobbly, Sunday show going Democratic moderates is their métier. And in this case it’s real.
Force, Future and Thinking Seriously About How Governments Fall
This morning The Washington Post published an illuminating new look at the fall of Kabul. What is most telling, however, is the commentary about the facts revealed in the article. First let’s look at the new details.
The flight of former President Ghani, which triggered the final collapse of the Afghan government, was driven at least in part by apparently false reports that Taliban fighters were in the palace searching for him. The more resonant claim is about the mechanics of the turnover of control in Kabul.
Where Things Stand: Giuliani Makes The Case That He’s ‘A Functioning’ Person
It’s not me, it’s you.
America’s former mayor gave a rather blunt interview to NBC New York this week, addressing head on the fact that everyone thinks he’s basically lost his mind.
Remembering the Origins of the United States’ 20 Year War in Afghanistan
I wanted to flag to your attention this opinion piece for Robert Kagan in The Washington Post. It is an overarching look at the US mission in Afghanistan. Fundamentally it is an apologia, a defense. But Kagan is significantly more sophisticated and thoughtful than most of the more editorially kinetic defenders of the mission. So even while I think he’s mostly wrong and often disingenuous about recounting these events in which he played an important role you can nonetheless learn a lot about the last twenty years from reading his account. Be cautious, though, because the real essence is the many things left out.
One thing that Kagan is right about is this: Many retrospectives say the US went into Afghanistan with hubris and optimism and a mission to build a Western style democracy in Afghanistan. That’s not true. The US invaded Afghanistan because we were scared and angry. Kagan focuses on the “scared.” “Angry” was just as much it. But it was in the nature of that moment that the two were so fused that it was difficult to distinguish them.
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Where Things Stand: Bernie May Make A Few Pointed Pitstops On His Reconciliation Bill-Hyping Tour
While Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) centrist colleagues in the House try to flex their muscles ahead of the party’s $3.5 trillion reconciliation package reaching their chamber, Sanders is planning to spend the next few weeks selling the bold legislation to Americans — specifically, Republican voters in the Midwest.