The Hill news website reported that the issue of the United States’ catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan holds significant importance for segments of voters in key states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
According to the publication, the manner in which the US exited Afghanistan has adversely affected support for Joe Biden.
In an article authored by Joseph Azam and published on Monday, it has been highlighted that the withdrawal and the subsequent fate of the Afghan people under the Taliban rule resonate with a large population of US veterans and Afghan-Americans in critical states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Virginia, Wisconsin, and North Carolina.
Azam contends that Biden harboured a "deep and personal antipathy towards the war in Afghanistan" and adopted "Trump's ill-conceived agreement with the Taliban” without ensuring the survival of the young democracy and the safety of the Afghan people.
The writer of the article argues that both Trump and Biden jointly orchestrated the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. By failing on US promises to protect the Afghan government and its people, Washington has inflicted “moral injury on hundreds of thousands of US veterans and left nearly 40 million people living under one of the most regressive and dangerous regimes in the world”.
The author calls on Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, to distance herself from Biden's Afghanistan policy and uphold United States’ commitments to the Afghan people. One such commitment is to assist former Afghan collaborators of US forces who remain in Afghanistan and expect the US to relocate them to a safe country.
Furthermore, Azam emphasises that Washington should expedite the granting of permanent residency to evacuated Afghans in the US, a proposal that has been hindered by Republican opposition in the Congress. He urges Harris to adopt a principled stance toward the Taliban and, in light of the gender apartheid in Afghanistan, to avoid normalising relations with the Taliban.
