Afghanistan

• 
• 5/9/2021
  

  A CIA Historian’s Photos of the Afghan War Tell the Story of Those Being Left Behind in Afghanistan

  by Brian Glyn Williams

  A historian who advised the US military in Afghanistan and traveled extensively in the country warns that America's Afghan allies may pay a terrible price from Biden's proposed troop withdrawal. 

• 
• SOURCE: Foreign Exchanges
  4/26/2021
  

  Necessary but Not Sufficient

  by Daniel Bessner

  The 2001 AUMF in effect has become yet another tool to enable the United States to prosecute a series of endless wars in the Global South.

• 
• SOURCE: Foreign Policy
  4/16/2021
  

  Biden Just Made a Historic Break With the Logic of Forever War

  by Stephen Wertheim

  A historian of American interventionism says that Joe Biden's apparent determination to withdraw from Afghanistan is a significant break from recent precedents, and possibly signals a shift away from perpetual war. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  4/19/2021
  

  Is America’s Longest Forever War Really Coming To An End?

  by Adam Weinstein and Stephen Wertheim

  The authors argue that Joe Biden has recognized that the US faces the choice of absolute withdrawal from Afghanistan or permanent entanglement. His resolve will be tested by inevitable bad news, but the time is now to move on from the policy of perpetual war. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  4/13/2021
  

  Biden Can Redeem His Mistake

  by George Packer

  Writer George Packer argues that withdrawing from Afghanistan repeats a mistake of the Vietnam era: abandoning groups who took the grave risk of allying with the United States. 

• 
• 4/11/2021
  

  Making Religious Peace in Afghanistan

  by Wayne Te Brake

  American policymakers must recognize the distinctly religious components of the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, and learn from European wars of religion: the key to ending war is brokering a political agreement that protects religious diversity. 

• 
• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  3/28/2021
  

  America’s Longest War Winds Down

  by Andrew Bacevich

  Public fatigue over the ongoing War on Terror must not allow political leaders to do what they seem to want most to do: avoid taking responsibility or learning lessons.

• 
• SOURCE: Responsible Statecraft
  3/30/2021
  

  Will Afghanistan make Biden's Presidency Turn Out like Truman's or LBJ's?

  by Joe Cirincione

  "Joe Biden can be a great president. But not if he is so afraid of attacks from the right that he repeats LBJ’s blunder and stumbles into a war we cannot win and never need fight."

• 
• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  1/7/2021
  

  Will They Ever Be Over? The 20th Anniversary of the War on Terror Arrives

  by Nick Turse

  Trump's incoherent foreign policy presents Joe Biden an opportunity to take genuine steps to end the entanglements of the war on terror. 

• 
• 12/20/2020
  

  Trump's Troop Withdrawal in Afghanistan: Part 2 – Is There Even a "Trump Doctrine"?

  by Brian Glyn Williams

  Many Americans have bought Donald Trump's claim that he seeks to extricate the U.S. from "endless wars," including in Afghanistan. Viewed in the context of his other foreign policy actions, this claim is nonsensical, and undermines the work being done in support of global democracy and American interests.

• 
• 12/20/2020
  

  Trump's Troop Withdrawal in Afghanistan: Part 1 – Abandoning a Vulnerable Ally in the War on Terror

  by Brian Glyn Williams

  Donald Trump's plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan misrepresents the scope and costs of the American mission and ignores the high stakes of failure for both Afghans and American security, according to a scholar of the War on Terror. 

• 
• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  7/26/2020
  

  Killing Democracy in America: The Military-Industrial Complex as a Cytokine Storm

  by William Astore

  Sadly, it’s a reasonable bet that in the long run, even with Donald Trump as president, America has a better chance of defeating COVID-19 than the virus of forever war. 

• 
• SOURCE: Heather Cox Richardson
  6/28/2020
  

  Letters From An American: June 27, 2020

  by Heather Cox Richardson

  A series of stories from the Trump administration over the weekend don't add up.   

• 
• SOURCE: Informed Comment
  6/28/2020
  

  Trump Likely did Throw US Troops in Afghanistan under the Bus, but Why would the Russians have Targeted Them?

  by Juan Cole

  In Washington, a leak like this makes you ask questions. Who leaked the information and why?

• 
• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  3/22/2020
  

  What Americans Don’t Know About Military Families

  by Andrea Mazzarino

  All evidence indicates that military service tends to erode the fabric of family life and that, in reality, the state of America’s most fundamental union is anything but strong.

• 
• 3/15/2020
  

  The Cost of Loyalty: A Crisis of Ethics in the Military

  by Timothy Bakken

  Military leadership has inculcated a self-serving culture of loyalty that prevents a long-overdue reckoning with its failures. 

• 
• SOURCE: LawFare
  1/21/20
  

  Why Haven't the Afghanistan Papers Gotten More Attention?

  by David V. Gioe

  The Afghanistan Papers and the Perils of Historical Analogy

• 
• SOURCE: Tom Dispatch
  12/15/19
  

  Lessons From Battling the Pentagon for Four Decades

  by William D. Hartung

  The Stubborn Persistence of the Military-Industrial State 

• 
• SOURCE: Tom Dispatch
  12/17/19
  

  The (Failed) War on Terror's Precursor

  by Danny Sjursen

  It Was “Progress” All the Way Then, Too

• 
• 12/15/19
  

  A Real Red Wedding Massacre Puts Lie to Trump's Claim That he "Obliterated" ISIS

  by Brian Glyn Williams and Javed Rezayee

  The human cost of the war in Afghanistan.