While the media are attempting to get the world into the fixed choices, Reesian debate of what did the U.S. intelligence community and the State Department know and convey about the military capabilities of the Taliban, there can be no doubt that U.S. Congress knew or should have known what utter destruction the United States’ slavish adherence to British policy had inflicted upon the economy of Afghanistan.
In a Congressional Research Service report, titled “Afghanistan: Background and U.S. Policy: In Brief,” dated June 11, 2021, it is stated, “President Ghani said in July 2020 that 90% of Afghans live below the government-determined poverty level of two dollars a day.”
