NATIONAL President Biden Addresses Nation Amid Criticism on Afghanistan
Stacy Brown WI Senior Writer
Even as President Joe Biden announced earlier this year that the U.S. would completely withdraw troops from Afghanistan, Taliban fighters made their presence known. Reports and videos appeared to show the Taliban coercing the surrender of Afghan government forces while summarily executing unarmed military members in full view of crowds of civilians. After Biden’s April announcement, the Taliban reminded the world that it had never recognized the country’s democratic government. And on Monday, Aug. 16, images which captured dozens of fearful Afghan citizens desperately clinging to a U.S. Airforce plane as it took off, will undoubtedly remain etched in our minds for months, if not years, to come. At least three people fell hundreds of feet from the aircraft and died as they attempted the death-defying exit out of the country. “Our military commanders advised me that once I made the de-
MD CENSUS from Page 13 est in the state by 12 percent from 863,420 to 967,201 between 2010 to 2020. The state’s other majority Black jurisdiction of Baltimore City experienced a population decrease of nearly 6 percent , or slightly more than 35,000 residents. Census demographic data released last week shows less than half of Maryland’s residents are white, but the percentage of its Black population remain unchanged from a decade ago.
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cision to end the war, we needed to move swiftly to conduct the main elements of the drawdown,” President Biden remarked last month. He added that “speed is safety.” The President now faces criticism from within his party as his own words have come back to haunt him. “We provided our Afghan partners with all the tools – let me emphasize: all the tools, training and equipment of any modern military,” the President declared in July. “We provided advanced weaponry. And we’re going to continue to provide funding and equipment. And we’ll ensure they have the capacity to maintain their air force,” he said. Now, as the nation awaits the President’s address on Afghanistan slated for Monday night, the White House has essentially accused the middle eastern government of cowardice. According to Russian officials, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the county with several automobiles and a helicopter so filled with cash that money, unable to fit in the craft, had to be left behind. Ghani claimed he left the country to encourage peace and avoid death
and destruction in a statement issued over the weekend. But a disgruntled Biden refuted Ghani’s claim. “Afghan leaders have to come together. We lost thousands – lost to death and injury – thousands of American personnel,” Biden lamented. “They’ve got to fight for themselves – fight for their nation.” The President also laid the blame at the feet of former President Donald Trump. “When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor in which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019 – that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on U.S. Forces,” Biden asserted. “Shortly before he left office, he also drew U.S. Forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500. Therefore, when I became president, I faced a choice:
follow through on the deal with a brief extension to get our forces and our allies’ forces out safely or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict.” “I was the fourth president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan – two Republicans, two Democrats. I would not, and will not, pass this war onto a fifth,” he said. Twenty years ago, in response to Sept. 11, 2021 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and the failed attempt in a remote area of western Pennsylvania, then-President George W. Bush, ordered the attack on the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The war extended to Iraq where American troops were instrumental in capturing and eventually securing the death of the relentless dictator Saddam Hussein. Nearly 10 years
later, upon receiving concrete intelligence, then-President Barack Obama sent a Navy seal team into Pakistan where they located and killed Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. Early Monday, the U.S. military took control of the main airport in Kabul, Afghanistan while the Taliban seized the presidential palace. Efforts continue to remove all American personnel and those Afghani citizens who either served as translators for the U.S. or were friendly to the American agenda. “The Taliban is back in Kabul,” analyst Stephen Collinson wrote for CNN. “Afghans are once again sliding into a new dark age of repression and persecution of women. And the United States is beating a humiliating retreat, becoming the latest superpower humbled in Central Asia’s graveyard of empires.” WI @StacyBrownMedia
The once-a-decade count by the U.S. Census Bureau showed the state population increased last year by 7 percent from the previous census count to 6.1 million, up from 5.7 million in 2010. The population of white residents decreased from 55 percent more than a decade ago to 47 percent . During that same timeframe, the Asian population increased from 5 percent to 7 percent and Latino residents from 8 percent to 12 percent . The Black population in Maryland remained unchanged at 29 percent ,
which ranks fifth in the nation behind Georgia (31 percent ), Louisiana (31.4 percent ), Mississippi (36.6) and the District of Columbia (41.4 percent ). Maryland also ranked fourth in being the most diverse state in the nation, which has Del. Jheanelle Wilkins (D-Montgomery County) beyond excited. Wilkins served on a statewide committee that oversaw census efforts last year. “We were trending in this direction and it’s amazing through the work of every single jurisdiction and leaders all across the state to get out the count,” she said. “That’s something we should
be very proud of and as a legislator, for us to ensure that we’re implementing strategies that really reflect that and uplift our diverse populations.” Although the data show a diverse view of the country, National Urban League president and CEO Marc Morial said in a statement the process done historically has made attempts to split communities of color and pack them into a single voting district. One example, he said, stems from those in jail and prison where some state officials count where an individual remains incarcerated versus a per-
son’s last known address. “The news that the nation’s white population is shrinking while the Black and Brown populations continue to grow is likely to provoke the anti-democratic, racially-anxious contingent among state legislatures charged with drawing the new district lines,” Morial said. “The National Urban League has long embraced the vision of a multicultural, pluralistic democracy and we call on every state legislator to approach redistricting with that same vision.” WI Twitter: @jabariwill
5 President Biden. (Courtesy photo)
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