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Congress MP Jairam Ramesh on Sunday cited Dr Paul Miller's book "Choosing Defeat: The Twenty-Year Saga of How America Lost Afghanistan", saying it details the US involvement in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021 and highlights Pakistan's "duplicitous role" during the conflict.
He said the analysis makes the current US approach towards Pakistan under President Donald Trump's second term "astonishing", especially after Operation Sindoor, and called it a diplomatic setback for India given Prime Minister Narendra Modi's early visit to the White House in February 2025, soon after Trump's return to office. In a post on X, the Congress leader wrote, "Dr. Paul Miller has written a hugely informative history of the American involvement in Afghanistan during 2001-2021. He identifies a number of reasons why the US suffered such a humiliation, one of which he says was the duplicitous role of Pakistan. He explains in great detail how Presidents Bush, Obama, Trump-I and Biden ended up being deeply suspicious and distrustful of Pakistan." https://x.com/Jairam_Ramesh/status/2055970653107638516 "This makes President Trump-II's warm embrace of Pakistan post-Operation Sindoor all the more astonishing. This is even more of a diplomatic setback for India given that Prime Minister Modi was amongst the earliest leaders to visit the White House in mid-Feb 2025, just a month after President Trump's second swearing-in," the post read. Earlier in the day, Ramesh wrote to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, raising sharp objections to the government's Great Nicobar Island Project. In the letter, Ramesh strongly criticised the union government for using "overriding security considerations" to justify what he terms an "essentially commercial venture" that faces intense public backlash over severe environmental threats. He said that he had previously written to the Union Minister of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change and the Union Minister of Tribal Affairs. "On May 10, 2026, I had written to the Union Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change on how these FAQs present a completely false picture on the project's environmental clearances which, in reality, have been given on very dubious grounds. On May 13, 2026, I wrote to the Union Minister of Tribal Affairs on how the FAQs misrepresent totally the position regarding the fulfillment of the provisions of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 as part of the project's clearance process which flagrantly violate, in letter and spirit, the individual and collective rights given to tribal communities by Parliament," he wrote in the letter. (ANI)
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