Episode 62: Finna Get Loose
In a typical news cycle, President Biden's support in the Senate for a $1 trillion infrastructure package, with the backing of 18 Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, would dominate headlines and be cause for celebration. However, three developments trumped (no pun intended) the infrastructure milestone:
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The rise of the Delta variant.
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The immigration crisis on our country’s southern border.
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America’s departure from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s return to power.
President Biden is now fighting a three-front war and losing. COVID, immigration, and Afghanistan threaten Biden’s presidency (in that order). According to polls, most Americans favored the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan: Democrats—77% support / 22% oppose; Republicans—56% support / 43% oppose. However, the clumsy retreat from Afghanistan and chaos that followed, along with the Taliban’s surge to power, weren’t anticipated. With the benefit of hindsight, poll numbers would look very different. Accordingly, this week I wanted to look closer at Afghanistan and understand how we got here and what it means for our future.
Who are the Taliban?
They emerged in the civil war that followed the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989. Taliban , literally meaning ‘students of Islam’ or ‘seekers of knowledge,’ first appeared in religious seminaries which preached a hardline form of Sunni Islam. (Ironically, the CIA provided arms and military support to the Taliban to fight against the Soviets in the 1980s.)
The Taliban rose to power on the vow to fight corruption, improve security, and follow an austere form of Islam. They enforced their hardline version of Sharia, or Islamic law, and introduced brutal punishments—public executions of convicted murderers and adulterers and amputations for those found guilty of theft. Men were made to grow beards, and women had to wear the all-covering burka; girls over age ten were forbidden from school. TV, music, and cinema were banned. By 1998, the Taliban had taken control of almost all of the country.
How are the Taliban different from al Qaeda and the Islamic State?
The Taliban, al Qaeda, and Islamic State are all radical jihadist groups focused on ridding the world from the threat, as they perceive it, that Western culture poses to Islam. Although the groups share a similar ideology, their views differ significantly, so much so that the groups have often found themselves in conflict. (The Islamic State is a staunch rival of al Qaeda.)
Al Qaeda follows Wahhabism – an extreme form of Sunni Islam that insists on a literal interpretation of the Koran. The group was founded in 1988 in Pakistan by Osama Bin Laden and Mohammad Atif shortly before Soviet forces withdrew from neighboring Afghanistan.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh, is a Sunni jihadist group with a particularly violent ideology that calls itself a caliphate and claims religious authority over all Muslims. It emerged from the remnants of al Qaeda in Iraq. Founded by Abu Musab al Zarqawi in 2004, ISIS controlled about a third of Syria and 40 percent of Iraq at its height. In 2015, ISIS expanded into a network of affiliates in at least eight other countries. Its branches, supporters, and affiliates increasingly carried out attacks beyond the borders of its so-called caliphate. ISIS’s Egypt affiliate bombed a Russian airplane, killing 224 people. And in June 2016, a gunman who pledged support to ISIS killed 48 people at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
The United States adopted a “limited liability, limited risk” strategy to defeat ISIS that called for Iraqi and Syrian ground operations to provide the primary effort. At the same time, the US military and its coalition partners—29 countries that contributed military support—played a supporting role, contributing critical air power to combat operations. President Trump pledged to “bomb the shit” out of ISIS, and he lived up to his word. The US and its allies dropped more than 150,000 bombs in Iraq and Syria. (The US and its partners have dropped more than 326,000 bombs and missiles on people in other countries since 2001. That’s an average of 46 bombs and missiles per day for nearly 20 years.) By December 2017, the ISIS caliphate had lost 95 percent of its territory. On December 19, 2018, President Donald Trump declared that ISIS was defeated and signaled a withdrawal of all 2,000 US troops.
Why did the US invade Afghanistan?
The 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington resulted in the death of nearly 3,000 people, and officials identified Islamist militant group al Qaeda and its leader Osama Bin Laden as responsible. Bin Laden was in Afghanistan, under the protection of the Taliban. When they refused to hand him over, the US intervened militarily, quickly removing the Taliban and vowing to support democracy and eliminate the terrorist threat. Nato allies joined the US, and a new Afghan government took over in 2004, with Hamid Karzai chosen as the country’s new leader.
Troops in Afghanistan increased from 1,300 in 2001 to 68,000 in 2009, with 36,000 US and 32,000 from NATO countries. Despite being out of power, the Taliban survived and reorganized, growing in financial strength from donations from wealthy patrons in the Persian Gulf and utilizing the country’s bountiful poppies. (By 2006, 90% of the global opium trade revolved around Afghanistan, with the Taliban being the primary beneficiary.) In 2010, President Barack Obama ordered a surge of troops in Afghanistan—a move opposed by then Vice-President Joe Biden. Obama approved the deployment of an additional 17,000 personnel in early 2009 and would add another 30,000 in 2010 and oversee an increase in drone strikes in Pakistan.
The original mission in Afghanistan was to dismantle al Qaeda and kill Osama bin Laden. The US accomplished both objectives. A Navy SEAL raid killed bin Laden in Abbottabad in 2011. In terms of al Qaeda, the terrorist group bears little resemblance to the terror network that struck the US on September 11, 2001. Egyptian jihadist Ayman al-Zawahiri succeeded Bin Laden, but rumors began swirling last fall that al-Zawahiri died of natural causes. However, al-Qaida’s official media arm, al-Sahab, released a video earlier this year of al-Zawahiri, perhaps intended to quell reports of his demise. Still, the terror group is a fraction of its former self.
The Taliban entered direct talks with the Trump administration back in 2018. In February 2020, the two sides struck a peace deal in Qatar that committed the US to withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban to prevent attacks on US forces. Other promises included not allowing al Qaeda or other militants to operate in areas it controlled and proceeding with national peace talks. But in the year that followed, the Taliban continued to target Afghan security forces and civilians, advancing rapidly across the country. The Trump administration also forced the Afghan government, which was not allowed to be in the negotiations about the future of their country, to release more than five thousand Taliban fighters.
How costly was America’s war in Afghanistan?
Research by Brown University estimates losses in the Afghan security forces at 69,000. It puts the number of civilians and militants killed at about 51,000 each. More than 3,500 coalition soldiers have died since 2001 - about two-thirds of them Americans. More than 20,000 US soldiers have been injured.
Brown University research also puts the US spending on the conflict - including military and reconstruction funds in Afghanistan and Pakistan - at $1 trillion. Some media outlets estimate that figure to be much higher.
What happens next?
The Taliban are now in control of Afghanistan, including the capital, Kabul. Taliban forces have pledged not to allow Afghanistan to become a base for terrorists who could threaten the West. But questions are already being asked about how the group will govern the country and what their rule means for women, human rights, and political freedoms. Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen says the group will respect the rights of women and minorities “as per Afghan norms and Islamic values.” Militants also declared an amnesty across Afghanistan and said it wanted women to join its government. But many worry Taliban actions will not match their words, and it’s unclear if women will be allowed to work, dress as they choose, or even leave home alone under Taliban rule.
Another major fear is that the country will once again become a training ground for terrorism. Taliban officials insist that they will fully adhere to the US deal and prevent any group from using Afghan soil as a base for attacks against the US and its allies. But it’s hard to take these pledges seriously, given past behavior. Many analysts say the Taliban and al Qaeda are inseparable, with the latter’s fighters heavily embedded in the country and engaged in training. Thousands of inmates, including former Islamic State and al Qaeda fighters , were recently released from a prison on the outskirts of Kabul. The Bagram airbase, now under Taliban control, housed 5,000 prisoners, including the maximum-security cell block with al Qaeda and Taliban members. Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Iran are safe havens for terrorist activity, and Afghanistan is back in business. Can we effectively fight terrorism without a military footprint on the ground? The US presence in Afghanistan allowed us to track Taliban and other jihadist group activities, monitor neighboring Iran, and be strategically close to Russia. It’s hard to envision how our unorganized departure ends well, and my guess is things are “ finna get loose.”
I. Below are the articles I found interesting the past week:
II. Stats that made me go WOW!
- President Biden: “today we declare our independence from coronavirus“ (Whitehouse lawn with 1k unmasked guests, July 4th weekend). Fast forward six weeks: Covid cases are rising in all 50 states and up 930% since June.
- COVID cases in kids and % of total infections, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics:
July 8-15 / 23,551 / 16%
July 15-22 / 38,654 / 17%
July 22-29 / 71,726 / 19%
- “I’m not gonna drag the state through the mud, through a three-month impeachment, and then wink and have made the State Legislature and the state government look like a ship of fools when everything I’ve done all my life was for the exact opposite.” Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) with New York Magazine
- Ultra-processed foods — such as frozen pizza, microwave meals, packaged snacks, and desserts — accounted for 67% of calories consumed in 2018, up from 61% in 1999, according to research.
- U.S. Census data 2010 - 2020: Population breakdown: White 57.8%, Hispanic 18.7%, African American 12.4%, Asian 6%.
- Haiti was ill-prepared for the magnitude 7.2 earthquake that hit its western region on August 14. At the time of publication, the official death toll hovers around 2,000. But the actual number of deaths is probably at least five to 50 times that number , according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
- The Honus Wagner baseball card sold for $6.6m.
III. Name that Tune!
I am listening to “Finna Get Loose” by Puff Daddy (featuring Pharrell Williams).
Sean Love Combs, also known by the stage names Puff Daddy, Puffy, P. Diddy, or Diddy, is an American rapper, singer, record producer, and entrepreneur. He was born in New York City, working as a talent director at Uptown Records before founding his record label, Bad Boy Records, in 1993. Combs has cultivated artists such as The Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige, and Usher. Combs has won three Grammy Awards. In 2019, Forbes estimated his net worth at $750 million.
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