{"id":35279,"date":"2021-08-16T01:31:09","date_gmt":"2021-08-15T16:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/15\/the-abandonment-of-afghanistan-is-shameful"},"modified":"2021-08-16T01:31:09","modified_gmt":"2021-08-15T16:31:09","slug":"the-abandonment-of-afghanistan-is-shameful-letters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=35279","title":{"rendered":"The abandonment of Afghanistan is shameful | Letters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Jane Ghosh <\/strong>thinks<strong> <\/strong>we have left behind devastation and despair, <strong>Trevor Curnow <\/strong>looks at parallels with Vietnam, while <strong>Daniel Peacock<\/strong> expresses concern for a generation of women and girls. Plus letters from <strong>Martin Harris <\/strong>and<strong> Caroline Willcocks<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The history of western interference after the second world war in countries throughout the world has been one of unmitigated failure for which we all bear a share of shame (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/12\/taliban-claim-capture-kandahar-grip-on-afghanistan-grows\" title=\"\">UK and US send troops to aid evacuation from Afghanistan as Taliban advance, 13 August<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Western powers have invaded countries thousands of miles away in the name of \u201cdemocracy\u201d and achieved a vacuum of power that has swiftly been filled by the very forces they went to evict. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/vietnam\" title=\"\">Vietnam<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/iraq\" title=\"\">Iraq<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/afghanistan\" title=\"\">Afghanistan<\/a>. We have left behind devastation and despair while never learning the lessons of each disaster. If people want a one-party state, why does the US and its poodles think it has a duty or right to impose a very flawed system of democracy on other nations? Hubris followed inevitably by nemesis.<br \/><strong>Jane Ghosh<\/strong><br \/><em>Bristol<\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/15\/the-abandonment-of-afghanistan-is-shameful\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jane Ghosh thinks we have left behind devastation and despair, Trevor Curnow looks at parallels with Vietnam, while Daniel Peacock expresses concern for a generation of women and girls. Plus letters from Martin Harris and Caroline WillcocksThe history &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":269,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,405,939,212,4,242,79,52,694,47,430,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-iraq","category-joe-biden","category-middle-east-and-north-africa","category-politics","category-rape-and-sexual-assault","category-society","category-uk-news","category-universities","category-us-news","category-vietnam","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/269"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35280,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35279\/revisions\/35280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}