| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a 5G network of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. One rationale for leaving Afghanistan is that it will help the U.S. focus on other challenges around the world. But today was a reminder the situation in Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East will require sustained focus. Several people died, including at least 12 U.S. service members, in a terrorist attack at the Kabul airport, where thousands are desperately trying to leave the country. It's a despicable act, but it's also just the latest of dozens of such acts in Afghanistan in recent years. Many of them, possibly including today's, have been perpetrated by the Islamic State of Khorasan, or IS-K. It has long been battling the Taliban for power, writes Ruth Pollard. That fight will only intensify now that the whole country is up for grabs. The Taliban condemned the attack and apparently warned the U.S. it was coming. It's the latest example of the group playing good cop, or at least less-bad cop, for the rest of the world, even as it seems set on continuing to be a very bad cop at home. Bobby Ghosh writes the Taliban is torn between two spheres of influence, Qatar and Pakistan, with the former on the side of being a decent global citizen and the latter on the side of being, you know, not that. The U.S. should hope Qatar wins, but should not bet on it. Meanwhile, there are still perhaps hundreds of thousands of Afghans who want to leave the country. But any hope of simply walking them all onto the Kabul airport tarmac for orderly departure is gone. James Stavridis suggests the U.S. could set up a modern "underground railroad" to help them out of the country's porous borders. But this won't be easy. The Middle East, never exactly a simple place, is about to get even more complex, as Hal Brands writes. The U.S. can neither check out nor ever truly leave. Further Afghanistan Reading: Perhaps it will not surprise you that as the delta variant of Covid-19 has spread, Americans have lost their appetite for air travel:  And it was juuuuust about back to normal, too, which has got to be frustrating for airlines. Some of them are starting to make their employees get vaccinated, via mandate or financial penalty. But this doesn't go nearly far enough, writes Brooke Sutherland. What airlines really need is a vaccine mandate for travelers, and it would be super helpful if the U.S. government played the heavy and imposed it on the whole industry. Most Americans support such mandates, and they'd feel safer traveling if one was in place. It would support the airlines, and by extension the economy, far better than whatever patchwork quilt of rules the companies impose. If consumers and investors ever thought T-Mobile had a halo, Tara Lachapelle writes it's been tarnished by news of security vulnerabilities and antitrust shenanigans.  Just because some funds greenwash their ESG investments doesn't mean the industry should stop chasing ESG standards, writes Mark Gilbert. It's a net good for the world.  Democrats play with fire by holding the bipartisan infrastructure deal hostage to their bigger spending plan. — Bloomberg's editorial board The new trend in trade could be foreign companies opening factories in the U.S., and America should embrace it. — Noah Smith Used solar panels could be a huge market and help renewable energy proliferate. — Adam Minter Crypto fans claim it's too onerous for crypto mediators to generate tax records. It's not. — Alexis Goldstein Global supply chain problems keep getting worse. Blue, vaccinated counties are driving the U.S. economy. Get to know Larry Elder, possibly California's next governor. Why are hyperlinks blue? An extra artery shows humans are still evolving. Geoengineering may be our only hope. Or maybe it's carbon air capture.  Notes: Please send spider drawings and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Twitter and Facebook. | 
@♣¤〖S.T.r.e.a.m〗 2020 Songbird Full Movie Online released 2020. story: During a pandemic lockdown, Nico, a young man with rare immunity, m...
Post a Comment