World News: Biden team owes answers on Afghan disaster

Wednesday, August 18

Hundreds of people run alongside a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane as it moves down a runway of the international airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug.16. 2021. Thousands of Afghans have rushed onto the tarmac at the airport, some so desperate to escape the Taliban capture of their country that they held onto the American military jet as it took off and plunged to death.

Afghanistan exit demands congressional hearings

Good morning. Afghanistan is still in the news and in our columns.

Today we're bringing a good mix of columns from Afghanistan and COVID, so take a moment and enjoy a full plate of opinionated content.

Biden team owes USA and allies answers on disaster

Editorial Board

America's greatest foreign policy debacle in more than a generation will demand congressional hearings to understand what went wrong with America's disastrous exit from Afghanistan.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner hit the right tone this week when he pledged "tough but necessary questions about why we weren't better prepared for a worst-case scenario involving such a swift and total collapse of the Afghan government and security forces."

Today's editorial cartoon

Marc Murphy, USA TODAY Network

USA TODAY Network

•	August editorial cartoon gallery: Cartoons on Biden, COVID-19, politics and more

Why appeals to faith can increase vaccinations

By Robert P. Jones and Eboo Patel

Here we go again. Mask mandates. Tracking case counts. Wondering about whether schools will be open. Worrying about whether a stray sniffle is COVID-19 or a cold.

It was supposed to be over by now. And yet here we are.

But there is a ray of light in the doomsday sky. Our recent PRRI/IFYC Religion and the Vaccine Survey found clear progress in vaccine uptake, even among many hesitant groups, between the first wave of the survey in March and the second wave in June. Vaccine acceptance is up (from 58% to 71%), and vaccine hesitancy has been cut in half (from 28% to 15%). Today, only 13% are vaccine refusers.

You got this far. Go ahead and read these

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