“An Abrupt U.S. Withdrawal From Afghanistan Undermines the Fragile Peace,” read a November Washington Post op-ed written by the co-chairs of the Afghanistan Study Group.
Two months earlier in September, the Post expressed similar views in an editorial, writing that “the chance for an Afghan peace will depend on the willingness of the U.S. president to maintain U.S. forces in place until the Taliban shows a genuine will to settle.” The editorial went on to say that a definitive break with Al Qaeda should be a precondition to full troop withdrawal.
Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism project at the Institute for Policy Studies, joined FAIR’s CounterSpin to discuss the situation, and to answer a simple, yet profound question from host Janine Jackson: “What, truly, are we to make of the claim that the trick to ending the longest ever U.S. war is to do something other than end it?”