What is the state of rhetoric in American society today regarding [your choice of an issue/topic]?
Communication is a key part of running a successful country. This past Tuesday, 8/31, President Joe Biden addressed the nation in a thirty minute long news conference. In this conference, Biden was asked about his opinions on the ongoing Afghanistan situation. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this situation, these past few months have been nothing short of political turmoil for Afghanistan. The Taliban has overthrown the somewhat democratic government and have taken over most of the country.
During his presidency, former president Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would be withdrawing troops from the Middle East (most specifically Afghanistan). When Biden took over as president at the end of 2020, Biden decided to continue this agenda. This past April, Biden announced that he would have all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by August 1st. Biden set into place several strategic military operations to train about 300,000 Afghanistan security officers to keep the enemy (The Taliban) in check.
Unfortunately for Afghanistan, these troops didn’t stop the raging Taliban. Whether or not the U.S. knew about the growing Taliban presence in Afghanistan or not, they lost ground quickly in August. As of last week, the Taliban has almost complete control over the country. Hundreds of innocent civilians have already died (some through deadly experiences while trying to escape). As of right now, 13 known U.S. troops have died there (since some troops weren’t successfully evacuated).
Why was America left in the dark on such a terrible issue? As far as most Americans knew, the U.S. and their involvement in the Middle East was going to end in August. Most Americans were not informed on the severity of the issue until the Taliban had almost complete control. The media didn’t really do a good job of covering and giving us status updates. Is the media ethically responsible for putting its audience before its own interests?
In this particular situation, why were Americans left in the dark? Who knows to be honest. Maybe it was because no one knew. Maybe it was being kept silent by the Government. Personally I think it was an effort by news outlets to align with a political agenda. This issue was not fully Biden’s fault. Trump set over ambiguous goals which made our actions pretty apparent to the Taliban. Despite screw ups on both sides, the news really failed to cover the small events that lead up to the big boom. I see this as a major flaw in communication and a major flaw in our countries media. If the media wasn’t so politically polarized in both directions, we might see parts of this world we never knew existed.