5
Thursday, May 6, 2021
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Biden may not be pulling out of Afghanistan — but he should
Whose questions are we
answering?
Vaccinated? Great, keep your mask on.
OPINION
BRANDON COWIT | OPINION COLUMNIST
LILY CESARIO | OPINION COLUMNIST
ANYA SINGH | OPINION CARTOONIST
P
resident
Joe
Biden
recently
reached
the
end of his first 100 days
in office, the arbitrary measure
American political media has
decided is the opening period
of a president’s term. Discus-
sion of these first 100 days has
largely been related to Biden’s
efforts in ending the COVID-19
pandemic and re-energizing the
country’s economy after over a
year of lockdowns. This is par-
tially because, on most of the
foreign policy issues the Ameri-
can media tends to care about,
Biden has taken little action.
He has shown little inter-
est in finding a solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His
policy on Iran up until now has
mostly been fruitless negotia-
tions to revive the former nucle-
ar weapons deal. And while his
ostensible end of support for
the Saudi-led invasion of Yemen
was initially met with some
fanfare, it has largely been
swept under the rug, especially
after it was shown to be untrue.
Seemingly the only exception
to this has been Biden’s recent
announcement that he plans
to remove U.S. soldiers from
Afghanistan after 20 years of
war later this year. While I have
frequently been critical of Biden
in the past, I believe withdraw-
al from Afghanistan would be
an unequivocally positive move
from the president, and one he
should absolutely proceed with.
However, it is important to
consider that this alleged pull-
out of forces may not actually
happen.
Former
Presidents
Barack
Obama
and
Donald
Trump both announced troop
withdrawals of their own, nei-
ther
of
which
materialized.
Additionally, as shown by his
reversal on the end of U.S sup-
port for the Saudi invasion
of Yemen, Biden is willing to
announce the end of a U.S mili-
tary operation and then take it
back. Most concerningly, the
Biden administration has been
uncomfortably
vague
about
the more than 18,000 private
military
contractors
currently
stationed in Afghanistan, cur-
rently
outnumbering
official
U.S military personnel by about
seven to one. A pull-out that
does not include PMCs would
be effectively meaningless.
Nevertheless,
even
the
prospect of ending the war
in
Afghanistan
has
terrified
many in the media and a num-
ber of Biden’s fellow politicians.
These objections have primar-
ily fallen under two categories:
that withdrawal will be a boon
for terrorist activity, and that it
will cause an erosion of human
rights — women’s rights in par-
ticular. The first category is
best exemplified by Sen. Lind-
sey Graham, R-S.C., who stated
shortly after Biden’s announce-
ment that withdrawal means
canceling “an insurance policy
against another 9/11.” Among
voices for the second position is
Fawzia Koofi, an Afghan politi-
cian and peace negotiator, who
claims “withdrawal of U.S. forc-
es from Afghanistan will under-
mine the Afghan government’s
ongoing negotiations with the
Taliban” and “risks sidelining
Afghan women and all of the
gains we have made over the
years.”
However, neither of these
arguments holds water when
examined closer. As for the idea
that U.S troop presence is pre-
venting another terrorist attack
on American soil: While with-
drawal might strengthen the
presence of terrorist groups like
al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, this
would not make it more likely
for them to launch a 9/11-style
attack on America again. Al-
Qaeda still maintains a presence
in countries such as Syria and
Yemen that they could use to
plan terrorist activity. Even if we
were able to wipe out all of their
bases of operation, attacks like
9/11 require mostly manpower
and small arms, neither of which
require having a large presence
in any country. Keeping troops
in Afghanistan does nothing to
stop another large-scale terror-
ist attack — especially consider-
ing the Taliban, who would be
the most likely to aid al-Qaeda in
A
cademia can teach us a lot.
But does it always teach
the most important things?
Through complex systems like math
and languages, we are taught, albeit
in a structured and linear way, how
to solve problems and communicate
in the world. And yet, with all of the
questions we answer in academia,
there is one that is rarely, if ever,
posed: Whose problems are we solv-
ing?
When we are young, we are often
reminded of how powerful it is to
have dreams for the future. But little
by little, from K-12 to university, that
sense of imagination often becomes
lost. If we aren’t careful we eventu-
ally become little more than pawns in
someone else’s game.
Not that leadership roles aren’t
valuable, but at what point does being
a founder of a company justify mak-
ing two thousandfold more than your
employees? If we crunched the num-
bers, I think it’s doubtful that the 50k
salary of an entry-level tech employ-
ee would scale against a CEO’s $108.9
million-dollar per year income. No
matter how much risk is involved in
being a founder, in a single lifetime,
no human being’s time and energy
are worth two thousand times more
than another’s.
CEOs who pay themselves dis-
proportionately
more
than
their
employees do not provide exponen-
tially more value to their companies.
Rather, the power they’ve garnered is
assumed to be insurmountably more.
And while, without a doubt, econom-
ic inequality goes much deeper than
the salaries of entry-level employees
and CEOs in a given industry, the
pattern of exploitation is always the
same: the rich and powerful exploit
others to fill their pockets, capitaliz-
ing on the fact that the lower classes
rely on them to survive.
To end exploitation in large indus-
tries, CEOs need to own up to the fact
that their pay system needs major
restructuring. But at its core, creating
that change within our society comes
down to reframing the way we value
each other as human beings.
Read more at michigandaily.com
Brandon Cowit is an Opinion Columnist
and can be reached at cowitb@umich.edu.
Lily Cesario is an Opinion Columnist and
can be reached at lcesario@umich.edu.
Anya Singh is an Opinion Cartoonist and can be reached at anyas@umich.edu.
Read more at michigandaily.com