Afghanistan squandered its 20-year opportunity
How is everybody doing this morning? USA TODAY Opinion is offering up a slate of great columns that should keep you busy. So, take your time and see if anything jumps out at you.
As always, thank you for subscribing.
US troop withdrawal is overdue
Daniel L. Davis is a senior fellow at Defense Priorities and a former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army who deployed into combat zones four times, including twice to Afghanistan. He writes about the plan to get U.S. troops out of that Afghanistan.
"President Joe Biden's promises of long-term American support for Afghanistan will no doubt come up when he meets Friday at the White House with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the Afghan High Council for National Reconciliation. What will not be on the agenda, however, is any suggestion that the military withdrawal, due to end Sept. 11, be altered or slowed.
Some are warning that the increase in Taliban violence is evidence that Biden’s withdrawal order was a mistake, and that the Afghan government should have been given more time. To the contrary, the level of violence is more a condemnation of the utterly failed strategies of the past two decades and evidence the withdrawal should have been ordered long ago."
Today's editorial cartoon
- Editorial cartoons on climate change from the USA TODAY Network
My brother died by suicide
USA TODAY Columnist Connie Schultz writes a deeply personal column about the death of her brother.
"The people who love us most want us to act as if this is all behind us. The people who love us best understand the toll of that pretense.
We are not who we used to be, in ways that we sometimes cannot explain even to ourselves, but we can read the room: Enough of that sadness, please. And so, this grief too often becomes a survivor’s biggest secret. It’s as if mentioning it makes us contagious."
More columns for you to read
- Climate change coverage ignores heavy impact of heat on cold deaths
- How a Florida newspaper ended up on the moon -- and then became our first NFT
- Israel's new government will make Middle East affairs a lot easier for Joe Biden
This newsletter was compiled by Louie Villalobos