Morning Wire: Who Are The Taliban, Media Reacts To Biden’s Afghanistan Crisis, Pro-Life Law Challenged In Court
It’s Friday, August 20th, and this is your Morning Wire. Listen to the full podcast here.
1) Who Are The Taliban?
The Topline: The Taliban have taken over Afghanistan, and reports on the ground are alarming. Video has emerged appearing to show Taliban members shooting and torturing civilians, while other footage shows young women pleading with U.S. troops to save them from being brutalized by members of the militant group.
Quote Of The Day:
“They’re murderers, they’re liars, they’re drug dealers, they’re misogynists. They cannot be trusted.” — Lynne O’Donnell
History Of The Taliban
Lynne O’Donnell, former bureau chief in Kabul for the Associated Press and AFP, told Morning Wire the Taliban emerged during the civil war in Afghanistan that followed the departure of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. The group initially grew with promises of peace for the region, a message that resonated with many Afghani people.
The Taliban, however, took over with their own brand of rough justice and a medieval interpretation of Islam that was incredibly strict. There was no music, women weren’t allowed out, girls couldn’t go to school, and boys who were in school were taught almost exclusively to recite the Qur’an.
After 9/11, American forces drove them from power after it was discovered the group had embraced Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, offering them a safe haven as they planned the 9/11 attacks.
Mir Ahmad Firooz Mashoof/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Rhetoric About Women
The Taliban have been changing their public rhetoric about women in recent days, saying they will allow women to be involved in government and other parts of society. But O’Donnell says there is no reason to believe they’ll actually give women more freedom now.
She told Morning Wire how she recently spent time in a region where the Taliban had briefly held control. The group asked for names of the women and girls in the town so they could marry them off to their fighters in sex slavery and a form of ethnic cleansing.
GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images
2) Media Reacts To Biden’s Afghanistan Crisis
The Topline: Images of chaos and panic following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan have put the Biden administration on the defensive with the media.
George Stephanopoulos: “But we’ve all seen the pictures. We’ve seen those hundreds of people packed into a C-17. You’ve seen Afghans falling–”
President Joe Biden: “That was four days ago, five days ago.”
ABC Interview
On Wednesday President Joe Biden spoke with George Stephanopoulos in a contentious interview on “Good Morning America.” The president said his administration planned for every contingency, and that he doesn’t think they could have done anything better.
Stephanopoulos later said Biden sounded defiant and unapologetic, after appearing to absolve himself and his administration of any blame in the crisis. The president has since been widely criticized for not acknowledging the human toll of his policies.
Reports: Biden Ignored Military Advice
Stephanopoulos asked the president about reports that he did not follow the advice of his generals. “But your military advisors did not tell you, ‘No, we should just keep 2,500 troops. It’s been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that’?”
“No. No one said that to me that I can recall,” Biden answered.
The Wall Street Journal, however, reported names of the senior military brass who disagreed with him in April. They were General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General Scott Miller, who leads NATO forces in Afghanistan; and General Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East. The secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, seemed to confirm those concerns in an April 14th press conference as well.
Taliban Seizes U.S. Military Equipment
On Tuesday, Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, said, “We don’t have a complete picture, obviously, of where every article of defense materials has gone, but certainly a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban, and obviously, we don’t have a sense that they are going to readily hand it over to us at the airport.”
Axios reported Thursday evening that the Biden administration is considering launching airstrikes to destroy American military equipment left behind during the withdrawal.
Catherine Delahaye/Getty Images
3) Pro-Life Law Challenged In Court
The Topline: A pro-life bill that would criminalize providing abortions based on genetic factors like Down syndrome, race, or sex, is facing a legal challenge from pro-abortion advocates.
The Law
The law makes it illegal for a doctor to provide an abortion if the doctor is aware that the abortion is being sought explicitly because of a genetic abnormality, the baby’s race, or the baby’s sex.
It also criminalizes the coercion of mothers to obtain an abortion on the same basis using force or threat or force, as well as the solicitation to finance such an abortion.
Example: If a boyfriend or husband makes physical threats against a mother in order to coerce her to get an abortion based on a condition such as down syndrome, or the sex of the baby, that person is guilty of a class 3 felony.
The law also allows the husband of the mother, or her parents (if she is under 18), to sue for damages on behalf of the aborted baby if the doctor violated this clause.
Funding Limitations
The law prohibits public schools and colleges from facilitating abortions on campus except to save the life of the mother, and it prohibits government funds from being used for abortions unless the mother’s life is in danger. It also prohibits public funds from going to research projects involving abortions.
Lawsuit
A federal lawsuit is trying to overturn the law, including the personhood provision in it that would grant full legal personhood to an unborn child at every stage of development. That provision is seen as a significant threat to abortion in the state.
Similar Pro-Life Laws
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an abortion law in Missouri in June that would have banned abortion at or after the eighth week of pregnancy and included a provision that would ban a woman from getting an abortion because the baby has Down Syndrome. On the other hand, the 6th Circuit Court ruled that Ohio could implement its anti-Down syndrome abortion law.
A similar law in South Dakota that bans abortions when based on a Down Syndrome diagnosis also took effect last month.
Key Point: The decisions from the lower courts in these cases could mean that this type of legislation might make its way up to the Supreme Court at some point.
Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Other Stories We’re Tracking
Capitol Bomb Threat
Several buildings in the Capitol complex were evacuated Thursday after a man threatened to ignite bombs in his truck unless President Biden stepped down. In videos posted on social media, the man ranted about a “revolution” against the government. He surrendered to police without incident hours after parking the vehicle outside the Library of Congress.
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