American elites have gotten tellingly quiet about Afghanistan

Afghan civilians are starving, but that doesn't matter to U.S. imperial pride

A woman and child.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock)

Two months ago, the entire political media and a considerable fraction of the American public were in the grips of a hysterical meltdown over President Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan. One of the biggest reasons, supposedly, was worry about the Afghan people. "This war used to be called Operation Enduring Freedom, and it's turned out not to be enduring and they're not leaving behind a society that is free," complained NBC's Richard Engel.

Today, conditions in Afghanistan have only deteriorated, yet the country has virtually vanished from the central stage of the mainstream media as well as the social media feeds of American politicians. The speed of this shift is telling. It overwhelmingly suggests all the maudlin weeping about Afghan civilians was a sham. The American elite mourned wounded imperial pride, not the welfare of Afghan civilians.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.