| 1 big thing — Behind the scenes: Embassy endangered
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Taliban
fighters stand guard today along a roadside in Herat, Afghanistan's
third biggest city, after government forces pulled out. Photo: AFP via
Getty Images Many in the U.S. military see the
race out of Afghanistan as a dishonorable withdrawal, and some State
Department officials fear the U.S. may have to close the embassy in
Kabul. - Those were some of the dire soundings Axios' Jonathan Swan took in Washington yesterday, as the Pentagon made the shocking announcement that 3,000 U.S. troops will head into Afghanistan to help evacuate Americans.
It got worse overnight: The Taliban overran the capital of Helmand province after years of blood spilled by American, British and NATO forces. - The Taliban has also captured the
country's second and third-largest cities, Kandahar and Herat, in a
lightning advance that's encircling the government in the capital,
Kabul, AP reports.
How we got here: It
wasn't crazy for President Biden and his national security team,
including the Pentagon, to have imagined that the Afghan forces — with
superior technology and manpower — could have done a much better job
holding the Taliban at bay. - But senior U.S. officials
are privately acknowledging that the Afghans appear psychologically
defeated — and there was insufficient accounting for the psychological
consequences of the long war.
- The fact that U.S. officials are drawing down so soon to a skeleton staff suggests they harbor grave doubts about the embassy's viability.
Senior Pentagon officials expressed deep distress: - One source said we
shouldn't underestimate the effect it has on the U.S. military's morale
to carry out a mission — withdrawal and evacuation — that many view as
dishonorable.
The U.S. is playing it extremely safe with the evacuation. - "All of the top people
in the Biden administration lived through the pain of Benghazi," said
the Atlantic Council's William Wechsler, a Pentagon counterterrorism
official in the Obama administration.
Part 2 below.
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2. What Biden is thinking
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In Kabul yesterday, Farzia, 28, who lost her husband a week ago to
Taliban fighting, sits with her children — Subhan, 5, and Ismael, 2 — in
a tent in a makeshift camp. Photo: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images
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President Biden's senior national security team
briefed him Wednesday night on the deteriorating battlefield situation
in Afghanistan — and plans to dispatch forces to evacuate American
personnel, Afghan translators and others who helped with the war effort. - At 7:30 yesterday morning, Biden's top national security advisers met to review the president's questions from the previous night, Axios' Jonathan Swan reports.
There was unanimous agreement
on the order that Biden later gave Defense Secretary Austin: Thousands
of Marines are being dispatched to Kabul and surrounding areas. - At the same time,
Biden's diplomatic team in Doha, Qatar, was trying to talk sense into
the Taliban. But events on the ground have made a mockery of the peace
process.
Biden's key aides aren't second-guessing his decision to withdraw: - They derive comfort
from the fact that the American public is behind them — an overwhelming
majority support withdrawal from Afghanistan — and they bet they won't
be punished politically for executing a withdrawal.
West Wing officials reject
the notion that they could keep Afghanistan stable indefinitely with a
small force of around 3,000 that they inherited from Trump. - The Biden team's line
is that the only reason the Taliban weren't killing Americans last year
was because Trump had agreed to leave on May 1 this year. When that
deadline passed, they contend, there would be no way to guarantee peace
and stability with such a small force.
Republicans, led by
hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, are zeroing in on the
larger consequences of a chaotic and dangerous withdrawal. - Graham sent a letter
to Biden's Pentagon leaders on Tuesday asking whether they wanted to
review their June assessment to Congress that the removal of U.S. troops
from Afghanistan would bring a medium risk of terrorist organizations
re-emerging to threaten our homeland within two years.
"The ripple effect of
what's going on in Afghanistan is devastating," Graham told Axios in a
phone interview. "To lose in one place hurts you in every place."
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3. Our short climate attention span
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Data: NewsWhip. Chart: Danielle Alberti/Axios The shock factor needed to jolt people into demanding climate action is wearing off on social media, Axios' Neal Rothschild writes from exclusive NewsWhip data.
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A message from Facebook
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Internet regulations are as outdated as dial-up
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Facebook supports updated regulations, including four areas where lawmakers can make quick progress: - Reforming Section 230.
- Preventing foreign interference in our elections.
- Passing federal privacy law.
- Setting rules that allow people to safely transfer data between services.
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4. Pic du jour: National mood
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Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images Sunbathing on the National Mall yesterday, as Dulles reached 100°F.
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5. Borders are back
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
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The Delta variant has killed hopes that international travel will return to anything like its pre-pandemic trajectory, Axios' Felix Salmon reports. - Why it matters: In the decade to 2019, the number of international arrivals
rose by 42%, to 2.3 billion, in a trend that seemed steady and
unstoppable. Now, international borders seem set to be most countries'
first line of defense against COVID for the foreseeable future.
What's happening: The
fastest-growing country in pre-pandemic international tourism was
China, which has kept the virus in check by means of strict controls on
travel. There's now little chance of those controls being lifted any
time soon. - Australia, which used to be a
tourist magnet, now has one of the hardest borders in the world. It's
extremely hard for non-citizens to enter, and even harder for citizens
to leave.
- Vietnam isn't allowing inbound tourism. When it starts, the country will insist on at least seven days of centralized quarantine — enough to dissuade all but the most avid travelers.
The bottom line: Look for strict border controls for many years to come.
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6. Mapped: Where U.S. grew, shrank
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Blue counties grew, orange counties shrank between the 2010 and 2020 censuses. Go deeper with our Big Thing from Axios PM: Axios' Stef Kight, "Census reveals a more diverse, urbanized America."
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7. Vaccine mandates exacerbate class divide
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
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Corporate America's patchwork approach to vaccine requirements is deepening the pandemic's class divides, Axios' Hope King reports. - Why it matters: The new surge has upended return-to-work plans for some sectors, while others can't afford to change course.
Businesses that can and
have operated remotely, like those in tech and financial services, are
requiring vaccines for returning workers, while service and retail
economy companies have stopped short of full workforce mandates. - So workers are continuing to experience the pandemic unevenly.
Keep reading.
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8.  "Hey, Dad, you wanna have a catch?"
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Photo: Charlie Neibergall/AP
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The beloved 1989 movie "Field of Dreams" came to
life last night with a temporary stadium in a cornfield at the film site
in Dyersville, Iowa — the first Major League Baseball game ever held in
Iowa. - The Chicago White Sox outslugged the Yankees 9-8 for ... a walk-off ending.
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Photo: Charlie Neibergall/AP Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge watches a home run fly into the corn.
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A message from Facebook
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Why Facebook supports the Honest Ads Act
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Advertising means something different than it did 25 years ago — the last time comprehensive internet regulations were passed. At Facebook, we've already implemented the Ad Library and a 5-step verification process for political advertisers. See why we support passing the Honest Ads Act. |
Watch a video of Costner's entrance.
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