If you’re an American with normal news consumption patterns, you most likely haven’t heard a morsel of information concerning Afghanistan since August of last year. It’s like the whole country has disappeared. If you have forgotten about the whole situation, good. That was precisely the goal.
In the summer of 2021, President Biden announced that all American troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by August 31st. The mainstream media covered the tumultuous evacuations taking place, a story of success. But then— radio silence.
This didn’t happen by mistake. American media coverage has moved on from Afghanistan not because the topic failed to captivate audiences or increase their viewership, but because America is no longer the picture of strength and world domination that many still believe it to be. This revelation is not necessarily new, but Afghanistan’s steady state of decline into the tight grip of the Taliban following our withdrawal has made America’s fall from power painfully crystal clear. Therefore, it has been hidden out of view.
Although initial U.S Military removal plans were made on the condition that the Taliban would reduce violence against the Afghan government and maintain democratic systems, once withdrawal was underway the Taliban reasserted their dominance and made further communication and evacuations nearly impossible. In May 2021, the Taliban began their sweeping ascent to power, seizing control of many districts, government officials, the capital city of Kabul, and most importantly, Kabul’s airport. The following series of events mark the point at which the media, likely in coordination with the American government, must have decided that any further reporting on Afghanistan would expose America’s undeniable and frightening new lack of world power.
At the time Kabul fell to the Taliban, the U.S. government had just narrowly evacuated the U.S. diplomatic compound and Secretary of State Antony Blinken reported that all embassy personnel along with the American diplomatic presence had been moved to Doha, Qatar. However, there are still thousands of Afghan Americans, U.S. citizens, legal visa holders and their dependents who were left behind in Kabul, voiceless and struggling in Afghanistan’s collapsing economy. These people were excluded from the typical, suspiciously neat U.S. evacuation success story which ended most news cycles. This strikes a seriously alarming similarity to the U.S. evacuation from Saigon following the Vietnam War which lurks infamously in the American hindsight.
In the last ten weeks, one flight has left Kabul. If this is the first time you are hearing this piece of news, you shouldn’t be surprised, only disheartened. Those thousands of aforementioned people are desperately waiting for the Taliban to reopen the airspace, and the disturbing reality is that the U.S. has reached the end of their rope of influence.
Currently, the State Department is desperately trying to collaborate with the Taliban while still keeping the matter under wraps. Further political and economic sanctions would only worsen Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis, marked by catastrophic human suffering. Not to mention, one of the reasons the Taliban has halted flights out of Kabul is to extort the U.S. for more relief to aid their tattered economy. Play into the hands of the Taliban or impose further sanctions on a dying nation? America: the epitome of benevolent power. You may begin to see why media outlets would rather cover the COVID-19 cases for another week.
In the picture above, taken by Hussein Malla, two people are photographed in front of a mural in Kabul. Scrawled in the native language of Pashto are the words, “By the help of God, our nation defeated America” standing beside an American flag, the bars of which are being slowly deconstructed. The international community has come to understand that our nation is at the complete mercy of the Taliban. We are no longer the world’s dominant superpower and many would argue that it’s for the better. However, we seem to be alone in our inability to comprehend this reality.
While a tough pill to swallow, it is a critical one. Lives are being lost and families are being torn apart the longer America fails to recognize its shrinking strong arm. Rousing a sleeping nation isn’t easy without the propulsion and loudspeaker of the mainstream media, but it’s happening slowly. Behind the curtain of government, officials are sinking under the weight of the situation, but nothing will get done without acknowledgement of reality. Without public knowledge of the status quo, America doesn’t stand a chance at returning what has been lost and rebuilding more symmetric international relations in the future.
Ultimately, the illusory global image of America on its high horse has become increasingly difficult to maintain. The reality is that whether the media covers it or not, Americans are beginning to awake to the fact that the luster and falsified nature of this image is only afforded through serious sacrifice and loss of life which too often flies under our radar.
