Guided Reading Activity Lesson 2 Focusing on Afghanistan
current events
Lesson of the Day: 'The U.S. War in Afghanistan: How Information technology Started, and How It Concluded'
In the lesson, students will learn more than nigh America's longest war — its causes and its consequences. Then, they will consider arguments for and against removing U.Due south. forces and debate: Should we have withdrawn from Afghanistan?
Lesson Overview
Featured Article: " The U.S. State of war in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan: How Information technology Started, and How It Concluded " by David Zucchino
On Aug. 30, the United States removed all military forces from Afghanistan — ending America's longest war nearly 20 years after information technology began.
The war claimed 170,000 lives and cost over $2 trillion. Now, the Taliban is in control of the country, as it was on Sept. 11, 2001, the twenty-four hour period of the terrorist attacks on the The states by Al Qaeda.
In the lesson, you will learn more than about the causes and the consequences of the Us' war in Afghanistan. In a Going Further activity, yous volition explore offset-person stories from Afghanistan and consider whether the U.Due south. should have withdrawn.
Warm-Up
Accept y'all been following the news about the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Transitional islamic state of afghanistan? What have you seen, read or heard? What emotions, thoughts or feelings exercise you have about these recent events — including the fall of the Afghan government to the Taliban and the suicide bombing at the Kabul airport equally Western forces scrambled to evacuate tens of thousands of people from the land?
Side by side, take five minutes to explore ane or more of the pieces below that capture the sights and sounds of the cease of America'due south 20-year war in Afghanistan:
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Photos: Powerful images hither and here documenting the dramatic scenes from Afghanistan during the past six weeks.
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Audio: The start few minutes of an episode of "The Daily" in which a Kabul resident recounts her experiences as the Taliban seized the capital.
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Video: A one-infinitesimal video capturing the chaos and desperation at the airport in Kabul every bit thousands of people attempted to flee the country.
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Maps and graphs: Maps illustrating how the Taliban took over most of the country afterwards the United states started its withdrawal in May.
As you view these resources, write downwardly iii details that stand out for you, ii reactions you lot have and one question you want to enquire. And then, if in a classroom setting, share and explain your responses with a partner.
Note to teachers and students: Some of the multimedia resources higher up contain images and stories of trauma and death.
Questions for Writing and Discussion
Read the featured commodity , and so reply the following questions:
1. David Zucchino begins the commodity with a powerful and blunt assessment: "The American mission in Afghanistan has come up to a tragic and cluttered end." What evidence does he provide in the opening paragraphs to support this view? Which details do you notice most memorable, poignant or significant?
2. How did the U.S. withdrawal go, according to Mr. Zucchino? What arguments did President Biden requite to back up the withdrawal? How persuasive do you find them? Why has Mr. Biden been criticized for both the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and its execution? How justified are these criticisms?
3. Why did the Us invade Afghanistan, co-ordinate to the article? What was the connexion to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America?
four. How did the mission modify and evolve over time? Cite at least 3 cardinal actions, events or decisions in the two decade conflict.
5. What are the legacy and the lessons of the war in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan? What was accomplished, if annihilation? What do you consider to be its successes or failures? What questions do you yet have nigh the twenty-year state of war?
Going Further
Pick 1: Explore showtime-person stories from Afghanistan.
Video
Equally the Taliban Tighten Their Grip, Fears of Retribution Abound (Article)
The Airlifts Have Stopped, and the Taliban Are Looking for Me (Invitee Essay)
After reading the article, listening to the podcast or watching the video, reflect on the questions beneath:
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What is one quote that you found memorable, surprising or affecting?
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What is i image that yous saw in the video, or that was described in the article or podcast, that was most powerful in your agreement of the electric current situation in Afghanistan? How did it add together to or change your agreement of Transitional islamic state of afghanistan?
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What personal connections can you make to these stories? What questions would yous want to ask the people featured in them?
If you want to know what you, your customs and local leaders can do to help, read: How to Help Afghan Refugees and the Relief Effort.
Pick 2: Watch a video examining the roots and consequences of America'south longest war.
Video
transcript
transcript
How the U.Due south. military machine response to the ix/eleven attacks led to decades of war.
Officials who drove the decades-long war in Afghanistan look back on the strategic mistakes and misjudgments that led to a 20-yr quagmire.
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Two decades after invading Transitional islamic state of afghanistan, the U.s. is withdrawing, leaving chaos in its wake and the state much equally it plant it xx years ago. "The Taliban don't simply control Kabul, merely the whole country." How did a war that began in response to the 9/11 attacks get the longest in American history? "If somebody had told me in 2001 that we were going to be there for another twenty years, I would not have believed them." And what lessons tin exist learned for the future? "We were doing the same affair year later twelvemonth later yr, expecting a different result." "Virtually 2,400 Americans have died in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan." "More 43,000 Afghan civilians lost their lives." "You can't remake a state on the American prototype. You can't win if you're fighting people who are fighting for their ain villages and their own territory. Those were lessons we idea we learned in Vietnam. And yet, xxx, 40 years after, we stop upwards in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan, repeating the same mistakes." On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, President George Due west. Bush was visiting an elementary schoolhouse in Sarasota, Fla., when he received give-and-take of an assault on the World Merchandise Center in New York Metropolis. "Nosotros're looking at a alive picture of the, of the building right now. And, uh, what would yous say? That would be almost the 90th floor or so?" The president joined his staff in an empty classroom, where his C.I.A. intelligence briefer, Michael Morell, had been watching the set on unfold. "There was a TV at that place and the 2d plane hit." "Oh my goodness." "Oh God." "There'south another one." "Oh." "Oh my goodness, there's another i." "God." "And when that happened, I knew that this was an act of terrorism." At the Capitol in Washington, Representative Barbara Lee's meeting was interrupted. "I heard a lot of noise maxim, 'Evacuate. Leave. Become out of here. Run fast.' And so, I ran up Independence Avenue. As I turned around, I was able to see a heck of a lot of smoke." "Another shipping, unbelievably, has crashed into the Pentagon." "What you have to understand is this is the largest attack ever in the entire history of the country." At 9:59 a.m., the second World Trade Center tower to exist struck collapsed. Twenty-nine minutes later, the other tower followed. "The president, he asked to run into me in his office on Air Force Ane. The president looked me in the centre and he said, 'Michael, who did this?' I told the president that I would bet my children'due south future that Al Qaeda was responsible for this assault." Within hours, evidence surfaced that Al Qaeda, a multinational terrorist organization headed by the Islamic fundamentalist Osama Bin Laden, had committed the attacks. The group was being given safe oasis in Afghanistan past the Taliban authorities. "The president's inclination was to striking back and hit back hard." "I can hear you. The rest of the globe hears y'all. And the people — " "So the president decided to go to state of war." " — And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us shortly." "Nosotros had to go to Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. In that location'south no question in whatsoever of our minds, information technology's a war of necessity. We had to become after Al Qaeda, we had to kill them, we had to get them out, and we had to pursue them to the ends of the world." "The give-and-take on the street was everyone's got to exist united with the president. You lot know, the country is in mourning." Three days afterwards the attacks, Lee was under pressure level to vote yeah on a resolution in Congress to authorize going to war against Al Qaeda and its allies when she heard a eulogy at a memorial service. "That as we act, we not go the evil we deplore." "It was at that betoken I said, We need to think through our military machine response, our national security response and the possible impact on civilians." "Mr. Speaker, members, I rising today really with a very heavy heart. One that is filled with sorrow for the families and the loved ones who were killed and injured this calendar week. Yet I am convinced that military action will not foreclose further acts of international terrorism against the United States." "Got back to the office and all hell was breaking loose." "The simply dissenting vox was Democrat Barbara Lee of California, voting no." "Telephone calls, threats. People were calling me a traitor. She'due south got to go. Merely I knew then it was going to set up the stage for perpetual war." Within weeks of 9/11, the U.South. struck back in Afghanistan. "The U.s.a. armed services has begun strikes against Al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban authorities." Before long after, U.S. ground troops arrived in the land. "The invasion was a success very quickly." "At the gates of Kabul, news of a Taliban collapse had already reached these thousands." "The Taliban retreat has turned into a rout." "Past the end of the year, the Taliban had been driven from power. A large number of Al Qaeda operatives had either been killed or captured." And although Osama Bin Laden had managed to escape, the U.South. had accomplished its main goal. "Al Qaeda could non operate out of Afghanistan anymore." President Bush knew there was a history of failed armed forces campaigns in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. "Nosotros know this from not just intelligence only from the history of military disharmonize in Afghanistan. It'due south been i of initial success followed by long years of floundering and ultimate failure. Nosotros're not going to repeat that mistake." [Applause] Just subsequently his initial success, Bush expanded the mission to nation-edifice. To prevent farther Al Qaeda attacks, his assistants said information technology wanted to transform the poor, war-torn country into a stable republic, with a strong central government and U.Due south.-trained military. "The thought was it would be impossible for the Taliban to e'er return to power and impossible for Afghanistan to ever be used every bit a safe haven over again." "There were girls starting to become to schoolhouse, there were clinics and hospitals being fix, at that place were vaccinations, there were elections planned. Everything was kind of bustling along and we all thought, OK, this is going to be fine." But by the mid-2000s, after the Bush assistants expanded the war on terror to Republic of iraq, Richard Boucher realized that the U.S.-backed Afghan government was plagued by corruption and mismanagement. "I used to say to my guys on the Afghan desk, 'If we're winning, how come up it don't look similar we're winning?'" "The Taliban have staged a major improvement, seizing control of large swaths of the country." "The people were non rejecting the Taliban. And that was, in the cease, because the government couldn't deliver much for the people. Everybody had this idea in their heads that government works the fashion it does in Washington. Merely Afghanistan hasn't worked that way in the past. I recollect that was a moment we should've at least asked ourselves whether it wasn't really time for the states to leave and to say to the Afghans, 'Information technology'due south your place, you run it every bit all-time you can.'" Instead, by 2011, President Bush's successor, Barack Obama, had sent nearly fifty,000 more troops to Afghanistan, hoping to reverse the Taliban'south gains. "I recall one of the biggest mistakes we made strategically, later nine/11, was to neglect to finish the job here, focus our attention here. We got distracted by Iraq." I of those troops was Marine Helm Timothy Kudo. Part of his task was to shore upwards support for the government by digging wells and building schools. He before long lost organized religion in that mission after, he says, his company killed 2 Afghan teenagers they mistakenly believed were firing on them. "And their family saw this happen. The mothers, the grandmothers, they came out. It was the start time I'd ever seen an Afghan adult female without wearing a burqa. They were sobbing and crying uncontrollably. I hateful, how can you kill ii innocent people and wait anything that y'all say to matter at that indicate?" "People here accept little organized religion in U.S. forces anymore. More Afghans now arraign the violence hither on the U.S. than on the Taliban." Weeks after Kudo returned home from Afghanistan, at that place was a monumental development. "I started getting all these texts, like, 'You lot've got to check out the TV.' My roommate calls me from the other room. 'Plough on CNN.'" "The United States has conducted an performance that killed Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda." "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" "In that moment, people are jubilant in front of the White House. They're celebrating by Footing Zero." "This is where it happened. We're dorsum. It's justice!" "And to my listen, in that location's no more reason to become through this madness. And, of form, we so did it for another decade." "I call up the military and the national security apparatus thought they could win. And I remember that they also wanted to believe that because they had invested and then much. People had died and they didn't desire them to die in vain." "2011, Bin Laden is now dead. Why was information technology so hard to de-escalate?" Jeffrey Eggers was on President Obama's National Security Council. He says that the goal since 9/11, to make sure Afghanistan would never again be a condom haven for terrorists, had become a recipe for endless state of war. "We will forever prevent the conditions that led to such an attack." "Danger close!" [Gunfire] "And if you define it that way, when are yous finished?" [Gunfire] "Go! Come up on, come up on, come up on!" Though the surge failed to push back the Taliban, the U.Southward. drew downwardly troop levels even as doubts were growing that Afghan forces would be able to defend the country. In 2021, President Biden, the fourth president to preside over the war, announced that he would withdraw U.S. troops, a plan gear up in motion past his predecessor, Donald Trump. "Nobody should accept any doubts. We lost the war in Afghanistan." "And we're clear to cantankerous?" "It wasn't a peace agreement; it was a withdrawal understanding. The agreement was essentially, As nosotros withdraw, don't set on u.s.." As the U.S. leaves Afghanistan, the Taliban is taking over again, having quickly overrun the Afghan Army, which the U.S. spent more than $80 billion to train and equip. "The Taliban are out in total force. And their Islamist dominion is already coming back." "They can use this as a recruiting tool. They are now the champions of the jihadi movement considering they pushed out the Usa." And U.S. officials are reflecting on the beginning of the war, xx years after 9/11. "More people should have idea about countless war, not merely in Congress only in the Land Department, in the Defence force Department, C.I.A. and elsewhere, in the White House. That the recipe of using military means to go after terrorism was just going to get u.s. into one fight after another afterwards another. I can only promise that Americans of the new generation volition think about this."
How did the American mission in Afghanistan go its longest war? What tin we larn from the decisions that drove the two-decade conflict?
In the Retro Written report video "How the Military Response to 9/11 Led to Two Decades of War in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan," officials who drove the decades-long state of war in Afghanistan await back on the strategic mistakes and misjudgments that led to a 20-twelvemonth quagmire.
Then, respond to the following questions, adapted from our Film Club feature:
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What moments in this film stood out for you? Why?
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Were at that place any surprises? Anything that challenged what you know — or thought you lot knew?
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What messages, emotions or ideas will you take away from this film? Why?
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What questions do you all the same accept about the war in Afghanistan?
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What connections can you brand betwixt this film and your own life or experience? Why? How does this film connect to what you learned in the featured article?
Option iii: Engage in a "Structured Academic Controversy" to explore the pros and cons of the U.S. decision to withdraw.
Retro Report has created a series of activities to accompany the film above — "How the Armed services Response to 9/11 Led to Two Decades of State of war in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan" — that culminates in a structured conversation and contend over the essential question: Should the Usa take withdrawn from Afghanistan?
Hither are the steps in the action: Showtime, you complete the timeline and clarify the perspectives presented in the pic. Then yous identify pros and cons for the essential question. Side by side, with a partner, you cull at least three articles provided in the activeness to read and clarify from your assigned side. And finally, you and your partner volition find another educatee pair to have a structured conversation about the question of staying or withdrawing from Afghanistan.
Teachers: Retro Report provides a full lesson plan that guides you and your students through the activities and how to appoint in a "Structured Academic Controversy."
Learn more virtually Lesson of the Day here and find all of our daily lessons in this column.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/07/learning/lesson-of-the-day-the-us-war-in-afghanistan-how-it-started-and-how-it-ended.html
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