{"id":35903,"date":"2021-08-25T15:00:12","date_gmt":"2021-08-25T06:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/aug\/25\/blame-afghanistan-war-media-intervention"},"modified":"2021-08-25T15:00:12","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T06:00:12","slug":"whos-to-blame-for-the-afghanistan-chaos-remember-the-wars-cheerleaders-george-monbiot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=35903","title":{"rendered":"Who&#8217;s to blame for the Afghanistan chaos? Remember the war&#8217;s cheerleaders | George Monbiot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today the media are looking for scapegoats, but 20 years ago they helped facilitate the disastrous intervention<\/p>\n<p>Everyone is to blame for the catastrophe in Afghanistan, except the people who started it. Yes, Joe Biden screwed up by rushing out so chaotically. Yes, Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab failed to make adequate and timely provisions for the evacuation of vulnerable people. But there is a frantic determination in the media to ensure that none of the blame is attached to those who began this open-ended war without realistic aims or an exit plan, then waged it with little concern for the lives and rights of the Afghan people: the then US president, George W Bush, the British prime minister Tony Blair and their entourages.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Blair\u2019s self-exoneration and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2021\/aug\/22\/tony-blair-afghanistan-exit-gives-opportunities-to-uks-enemies\">transfer of blame<\/a> to Biden last weekend was front-page news, while those who opposed his disastrous war 20 years ago remain cancelled across most of the media. Why? Because to acknowledge the mistakes of the men who prosecuted this war would be to expose the media\u2019s role in facilitating it.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/aug\/25\/blame-afghanistan-war-media-intervention\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today the media are looking for scapegoats, but 20 years ago they helped facilitate the disastrous interventionEveryone is to blame for the catastrophe in Afghanistan, except the people who started it. Yes, Joe Biden screwed up by rushing out so chaoti&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2475,"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":[46,2233,238,4,61,2292,52,47,631,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-george-bush","category-media","category-politics","category-south-and-central-asia","category-tony-blair","category-uk-news","category-us-news","category-us-politics","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\/35903","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\/2475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35904,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35903\/revisions\/35904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}