Margaret Sullivan/WaPo:
David Rothkopf/Daily Beast:
Matthew Yglesias/Slow Boring:
Margaret Talev/Axios:
Mike Mazarr/Twitter:
Helen Branswell/STATNews:
WaPo:
LA Times:
And in other news, for those who prefer an alternative to Red Cross:
The Afghan debacle lasted two decades. The media spent two hours deciding whom to blame.
The situation is tragic, no doubt, and the images of the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul on Sunday are stunningly memorable, but the blame has to be spread much more evenly. Biden has been in office for just over seven months; the always untenable Afghan war — and its sure-to-be-terrible ending — has been a disaster for decades. It cuts across political parties: begun by a Republican, George W. Bush, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and presided over by two Obama terms and four years of Trump.
Throughout, the American government has lied to the American people about how well things were going in America’s longest war, as The Washington Post’s important 2019 project, “The Afghanistan Papers,” made abundantly clear. Sometimes compared to the Pentagon Papers that chronicled a secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, it relied on more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and lawsuits to drive home its conclusion.
“Senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.”
David Rothkopf/Daily Beast:
Biden’s Right That It’s Time for Us to Leave Afghanistan
After he spoke, the talking heads came out in force and argued he did not accept responsibility. But “the buck stops here” is the ultimate expression of a president owning his actions. They said he did not explain how we could be in the situation we are in. But what they really mean is that he did not give the explanation they wanted.
On Afghan military the US built: “U.S. military trainers described the Afghan security forces as incompetent, unmotivated and rife with deserters. They also accused Afghan commanders of pocketing salaries — paid by U.S. taxpayers — for tens of thousands of “ghost soldiers.”
— Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) August 16, 2021
Matthew Yglesias/Slow Boring:
Biden (and Trump) did the right thing on Afghanistan
The war was lost long ago — if it was ever winnable
Watching Donald Trump in action over the past five years has given many people an opportunity to appreciate certain positive qualities in George W. Bush that they may not have seen at the time or may have forgotten during the unraveling of his presidency during his final three years in office. But the rapid collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan this week and the Taliban conquest of Kabul illustrates, once again, the peculiarly bad nature of the Bush presidency.
This badness stems not from him having been the worst person to hold the office, nor even necessarily from his ideas being particularly rotten.
But 9/11 and the public reaction to 9/11 that sent Bush’s approval rating soaring ended up giving him an unusually large amount of freedom of action for a modern president. Obviously, any president would have responded to those attacks with some kind of use of military force. But the public was open to all kinds of approaches, the international community was open to all kinds of approaches, and America was not seriously checked by any kind of rival powers. There was a lot you could have done. And what he happens to have chosen to do worked out very poorly. And while it took over a decade after his departure from office for the mess he made of things to unravel, I don’t think it makes any sense to look at the choices that faced Trump during his term or Biden faced these past few months without the Bush-era context.
There are two things that “objective” reporters are allowed to openly root for: deficit reduction and foreign interventions
— Matt O'Brien (@ObsoleteDogma) August 16, 2021
Margaret Talev/Axios:
Axios-Ipsos poll: Most Americans favor mandates
Most Americans support mandating masks in schools and vaccinations to return to the workplace, and they oppose states' efforts to ban such moves, according to the latest installment of the Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index.
But, but, but: The survey finds the Republican base going against the grain so disproportionately that it helps explain the defiant postures of many red-state governors.
- It also showed regional differences, with Midwesterners the most critical of mandates.
What they're saying: “This is why we’re seeing so much conflict,” said Cliff Young, president of Ipsos U.S. Public Affairs.
- “This data shows that public policy and public health is continuously challenged by our politics today" and that "at the end of the day, it’s all-politics-is-local."
Look, this seems a little harsh, but us vaccinated folks are getting a little fed up, ok? https://t.co/adik4FickB
— Information Junkie ?? (@JustTheFacts37) August 18, 2021
Mike Mazarr/Twitter:
One argument of critics is that, as Bret Stephens claims, the US had a cozy minimal presence which "Any American president could have maintained ... almost indefinitely — with no prospect of defeating the Taliban but none of being routed by them, either"
"In other words," Stephens adds, "we had achieved a good-enough solution for a nation we could afford to neither save nor lose. We squandered it anyway." This is far too simplistic, a dangerous and misleading straw man. Many problems with this vision of a Permanent Minimal War:
1. There is no end to the effort in this scheme. None. If we agree that governance + other key indicators were stuck or in reverse, this clever stratagem ties the US to a truly forever war. What major democracy has ever maintained such a role (in *active* combat) for 3+ decades?
2. Even w/small force levels there are economic costs. Proposed 2021 spending was $14B assuming big drawdown; if violence fluctuated, we could easily have seen spikes. So, with potent domestic needs, we spend $20B+ a year on an endless war?
3. The "stay forever" plan assumes the Taliban would have tolerated such a stalemate forever. They would not. The last few days suggest they had major untapped political + military power. If they sensed the US was digging in to stay, they would escalate, not abandon their cause
4. Indeed, the best guess is probably that there was never a stalemate to preserve. Mapping Taliban control is tough, but lots of indicators showed gradual rise in power. Last days indicate that they were accumulating more influence than we thought
It feels like everyone and their cousin are comparing the endgames in Saigon and Kabul. It was a pleasure to team up with @loujacobson on this piece about what was the same and what was different.https://t.co/LqUv1R5I9n pic.twitter.com/6K1KAMtCIx
— Jon Greenberg (@JonZGreenberg) August 17, 2021
Helen Branswell/STATNews:
The fine print: Understanding the new policy authorizing extra Covid vaccine doses for the immunocompromised
But the new policy from U.S. health officials, announced late last week, came together in a hurry. It addresses some questions but leaves a number unanswered, in some cases because there are no data on which to base a decision.
Some experts believe the new policy may also have created a loophole big enough to allow easier access to a third dose for non-immunocompromised people who are trying to find ways to get one.
If you’re one of the architects of the endless war perhaps you should sit this one out?
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) August 17, 2021
WaPo:
America’s failure to pay workers time off undermines vaccine campaign, according to surveys, policy experts
The shortcomings are playing an underreported role in vaccine hesitancy in the country, particularly among lower-income populations. Workers who do not get paid time off to get the shot or deal with potential side effects are less likely to get the vaccine, research by a Kaiser Family Foundation study shows.
About two out of ten unvaccinated employees said if their employer gave them paid time off they’d be more likely to get vaccinated, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey of 1,888 adults conducted from June 8 to June 21.Three vaccine clinic representatives said in interviews that the time-off issue was one of a handful they commonly hear from vaccine hesitant people.
this tweet is for people who don't believe in the Overton window. Scott is a radical Republican who voted against election certification in PA (one of 7 senators), but he's not MTG https://t.co/mHohhxjD7r
— Greg Dworkin (@DemFromCT) August 17, 2021
LA Times:
U.S. declares first-ever water shortage for Colorado river, triggering cuts in Western states
U.S. officials on Monday declared the first water shortage from a river that serves 40 million people in the West, triggering cuts to some Arizona farmers next year amid a gripping drought.
Water levels at the largest reservoir on the Colorado River — Lake Mead — have fallen to record lows. Along its perimeter, a white “bathtub ring” of minerals outlines where the high water line once stood, underscoring the acute water challenges for a region facing a growing population and a drought that is being worsened by hotter, drier weather brought on by climate change.
States, cities, farmers and others have diversified their water sources over the years, helping soften the blow of the upcoming cuts. Federal officials said Monday’s declaration makes clear that conditions have intensified faster than scientists predicted in 2019, when some states in the Colorado River basin agreed to give up shares of water to maintain levels at Lake Mead.
Somehow the people who warned for 20 years that Afghanistan would ultimately end like this aren't as in demand as experts as those who started and sustained it.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) August 17, 2021
And in other news, for those who prefer an alternative to Red Cross:
A list of trusted organizations for emergency #earthquake response in #Haiti including those based in the most affected areas #aidaccountability @HaitiResponsehttps://t.co/9xULbZu4ch
— Melinda Miles (@melindayiti) August 16, 2021