CNN's Clarissa Ward tells Colbert the Taliban believes the Kabul airport chaos 'looks really bad for them'

The Biden administration is getting heavy bipartisan criticism for the harried U.S. evacuation of Kabul after a faster-than-expected Taliban occupation of the Afghan capital, and CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward told The Late Show's Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night that Afghans are angry over America's manner of exit, too.

"You know, I think this is a really important point to clarify," Ward said. "The Afghans that I have spoken to do not blame America for withdrawing from Afghanistan. They did not expect America to continue to fight another country's war for decades more, and they understand fully that Afghan people must assume responsibility of their own country. Where the bitterness, where the sadness, where the fear comes from is the manner in which this withdrawal was executed, the chaos of it, the hurried nature of it, the fact that more concessions weren't extracted from the Taliban during those negotiations" in 2020.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.