The Best Way to Help Afghans Is to Let Them Come to the US
The idea that the United States should have stayed in Afghanistan to stop it from falling to the Taliban is dangerously misguided. But there is one thing the US can and should do: admit every single Afghan refugee.
Afghan people queue up to board a US military aircraft to leave Afghanistan at the military airport in Kabul on August 19, 2021, after the Taliban’s military takeover of Afghanistan. (Shakib Rahmani / AFP via Getty Images)
The “forever war” in Afghanistan is finally coming to an end, two decades after the US invasion.
Inevitably, the retreat has prompted howls of outrage from war hawks in both parties and in the mainstream media who apparently thought the United States could have stopped the Taliban from retaking the country if it stayed just a little while longer. One particularly agitated reporter demanded that national security adviser Jake Sullivan explain to him how he could justify not continuing to have “some presence” on the border of Tajikistan. Ben Shapiro, always a reliable source of terrible opinions, called the pullout of US forces a “surrender.”
The Biden Doctrine is surrender abroad and bloated lethargy crossed with identity politics at home.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) August 18, 2021
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