People are free to debate if it was right for the United States to invade Afghanistan in 2001, or if we should have maintained a presence in the country for over two decades, or even if the timing of our recent and hasty withdrawal was appropriate. However, one indisputable fact that is not open for debate is that the moment the United States entered Afghanistan, we accepted a moral, social, and arguably, legal obligation to care for and protect the country’s most vulnerable people, that being women and children.
The United States’ rapid and slapdash departure from Afghanistan represents a complete abdication of that responsibility and obligation. We are failing the very people we are supposed to protect and, worse, we are doing so despite our own government’s admission that there was still so much work left undone. The U.S. Department of State reported just this year that Afghanistan “does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so…”
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