In the Pashto language the word "Taliban" means "students". Indeed, the Taliban movement began amongst students of Islam during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1978-1992).
However, the Taliban fighters we see today are not students. They are bearded warriors from a medieval costume museum riding in battered pick-up trucks or upon motorcycles, clutching purloined weapons. As well as having plenty of money from opium sales, they undoubtedly believe they have truth and justice on their side. They look into the camera like aliens from another planet.
The way they have retaken their country in just three weeks is breath-taking. It has been so easy. The official Afghan army has been as tough as wet tissue paper. All that money spent on training them and equipping them! They might as well have been provided with a bunch of white flags costing less than a hundred dollars.
It's as if the clock has been turned back to October 2001 so that the Taliban can continue with their harsh rule - only this time it's a bit different because the legacy of bitterness will have been boosted tremendously by the American-led occupation.
I wonder how the intellectually challenged George W. Bush and his devious lapdog Tony Blair will now reflect upon their Afghan adventure. All those lives lost and all that money spent - for what? It would have been better to engage with the Taliban leadership and find a way forward that was in tune with the march of history, not attempting to fight against the tide.
It is worth remembering that amongst the nineteen 9/11 terrorists there were fifteen Saudi Arabians but not one Afghan national.
The last place on Earth I would want to be right now is Kabul. Children crying. Voices raised in desperation. Car horns blaring as rotor blades whirr. Where is the exit door? Where is the golden ticket? And all the while out there in the darkness but alarmingly nearby, the medieval warriors close in with their vindictive holy truth and their Russian guns, promising a return to their good old days.
It's nice to know that The President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani has already escaped to neighbouring Uzbekistan "to avoid bloodshed". Yup! His own blood! Whatever happened to captains going down with their ships?
Taliban fighters in the presidential palace
Heartbreaking, but the violence never stopped. The taliban (and Isis) attacks in Kabul (and the rest of the country) were regular and unceasing. For all our military leaders pleading to be given 'just a little bit more time, that the Afghans were close to becoming a supreme force, it was never true. The poor people caught in the middle of this have a history of aligning themselves with whoever they perceive to be in power at the moment. They saw us as the power for a time, and once we left, they saw the taliban as the power and capitualated quickly. They live in a country of warlords and this is how they survive.
ReplyDeleteOrdinary people supporting whoever is in power - that has been a common theme throughout history but I doubt that The Taliban will consider that when taking what they see as revenge.
DeleteThey absolutely will not. It will not stop desperate people from trying
DeleteNeil, it worries me sick, this whole Afghanistan business. Not only the fate of women and girls, but also that of any person in that country who does not manage (or is not willing) to live up to the harsh, unrealistic and inhumane standards of the Taliban, hardly bears thinking about.
ReplyDeleteAny philosophy that suppresses women and fails to treat them as equals is just plain wrong.
DeleteI've been wondering about what enlightened Afghan men do in this situation. Assuming they aren't murdered for being enlightened or educated, could they protect the freedoms of their female family members, at least privately within the home. Or is there no privacy? Would children be turned into informants against their own families?
ReplyDeleteThere were a lot of enlightened men in Germany during the rise of the Nazis. How could they fight back against the darkness?
DeleteI worry for the women and girls, and also for the people who worked for us who are being left behind to certain death. It's disgraceful and horrible. What a mess. All these years of being there for essentially nothing.
ReplyDeletePulling out so rapidly - Joe Biden has made a big mistake. Following Trump's lead on Afghanistan was ill-considered. Mr Biden was badly-advised causing a lot of unnecessary deaths and mass panic.
DeleteHi - sorry - this is not relevant to your blog post but I wonder whether your family has a connection with Barmby on the Marsh school. I have some negatives from 1952 and am told one picture is of Mr Theasby and one is of his son aged about 3/4. You can contact me through my website howdenshirehistory.co.uk
ReplyDeleteYes Susan. That is my father and the little boy would have been my late brother Paul.
DeleteWhat will happen to the women as Jennifer asks?
ReplyDeleteMy sister in London works for an NGO, and they are trying to get Afghan staff who worked for Western agencies out of the country, or they fear for their lives.
Read Christina Lamb's book *Farewell Kabul*: this brave journalist spent a lot of time talking to Afghan women, as well as some of the most obdurate men.
Check Wikipedia on Ahmad Shah Massoud, the lion of Kabul, murdered by a Taliban suicide squad the week before 9/11.
Massoud was a haunted man, the USA stopped supporting him and backed Taliban.
Paperbacks.
*The Good War: Why We Couldn't Win the War or the Peace in Afghanistan* by Jack Fairweather.
*Afgansty - The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-89* by Rodric Braithwaite.
*Unwinnable - Britain's War in Afghanistan 2001-2014* by Theo Farrell.
*The End Game - the Final Chapter in Britain's Great Game in Afghanistan* by Susan Loughhead.
*Enemy on the Euphrates, The Battle for Iraq* by Ian Rutledge.
*God's Terrorists - The Hidden Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad* by Charles Allen.
*Directorate S - The CIA and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan 2001-2016* by Steve Coll.
*Ghost Wars - The Secret History of CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden* Steve Coll.
*Taliban* by Ahmed Rashid.
*Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia* by Ahmed Rashid.
*Salafi-Jihadism - The History of an Idea* by Shiraz Maher.
*The Bin Ladens - Oil, Money, Terrorism and the Secret Saudi World* Steve Coll.
And the saddest of all.
*The Light Garden of the Angel King* by English poet Peter Levi; travels in pre-Soviet Afghanistan, when tourists could visit Kabul, the garden city in the hills.
And *The Lion's Grave - Dispatches From Afghanistan* by John Lee Anderson.
This book opens with Massoud, the man who hoped to liberate his country from Soviet rule, a gifted military tactician, respected by his people, the good Muslim.
An ally of the West, then dropped.
Former Financial Times editor Lionel Barber has published his diaries in paperback, *The Powerful and the Damned*. They make compelling reading.
He writes that America spent two TRILLION dollars attempting to turn Iraq and Afghanistan into democracies.
As Christina Lamb said, the water in Kabul is still filthy, and young women eager to learn go to school in tents.
Haggerty
That's a hell of a reading list John. I guess there will be more books about Afghanistan to come - both fictional and investigative. This story is endless or so it seems.
DeleteSometimes I realize that truly, I have nothing to offer in comments. This is one of those times. From George Bush to now, I have never understood this situation.
ReplyDeleteWere the west ever clear about what they wanted to achieve? I don't think so.
DeleteAs I watched the scenes of the embassy staff getting airlifted out and hearing of shredding sensitive documents.... all I could think of was the fall of Saigon. Do we ever learn from the past?
ReplyDeleteSo much tragedy in this situation, both now and in the days/weeks to come.
This is just the end of another chapter.
DeleteIt's stunning how quickly the Afghan "army" dissolved. I suspect that many of them in fact sympathize with the Taliban, or at least feel they could live under Taliban rule. I don't see any other possible reason for their complete, rapid submission. As Jennifer pointed out, the women and girls will bear the brunt of this terrible development.
ReplyDeleteSurely The Taliban will seek revenge with regard to any men who fought for the puppet government so why didn't they fight back? Hard to understand.
DeleteThis is disturbing and tragic, but it makes it even clearer that we refuse to learn from history or to truly understand cultures, especially those that are tribal. In the end the Afghan women and children pay a terrible price.
ReplyDeleteThe fire has been stoked these last two decades.
DeleteThere will be a telly ban when the next Taliban government meet. Seriously I can't believe how the West have just left the poor Afghan people to it.
ReplyDeleteThe Afghan puppet government and their pathetic army have also left the ordinary Afghan people to it.
DeleteWhen it looks as if the world is falling to bits it is essential to learn as much as we can about the crisis.
ReplyDeleteI always think of John Steinbeck's advice: when he was afraid his mind went cold, and he made himself think very clearly and calmly.
Today I perused Justin Marozzi's book, *Islamic Empires - Fifteen Cities That Define Civilization* (Penguin).
The cities range from Cordoba to Constantinople (Istanbul), Damascus to Dubai, Beirut to Baghdad.
Marozzi visited Kabul in 1996, in search of Timur, the 14th Century Turco-Mongol conqueror of Afghanistan and Iran.
In 1996 Marozzi found Kabul a wasteland of bombed factories, ruined houses, parks and palaces laid waste. So much for the green city in the mountains.
In his book *The Lion's Grave* John Lee Anderson spoke to a secular Afghan journalist, Idris, who saw Soviet communism as a system every bit as rigid as Islamic fundamentalism.
*Islam is a drug,* Idris said.
This is one way of getting into the mindset of Taliban, Al Qaeda, ISIL.
There is no understanding Afghan's agony without studying Pakistan.
Anatol Lieven's book *Pakistan - A Hard Country* (Penguin) is expansive.
Christina Lamb pointed out that Pakistan played a double game with the United States when it came to the Taliban in Afghanistan, fooling the superpower.
*While few Pakistanis dream seriously dream of a universal caliphate or the conquest of the West, the overwhelming majority believe that territories with Muslim majorities should be ruled by Muslim states,* writes Anatol Lieven.
This is 'defensive jihad'.
Meanwhile in the Syrian city of Raqqa, Save the Children said there is little clean water, electricity supplies are down, schools are in ruins.
Families who fled Aleppo are afraid to let their children play outside in this drought-ridden city.
H.
Duly read.
DeleteThere's a compelling piece written by the president of The Brookings Institution (a well-regarded think tank in the USA) you might be interested in reading. If you do, I would be interested to know your thoughts on it. It makes the case for Biden reversing his decision to pull the US out of Afghanistan. Found here: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/08/john-allen-biden-must-reverse-his-decision-quit-afghanistan/184512/
ReplyDeleteIt was written before Kabul fell, so I don't know how relevant it still is, even though it's only three days old.
I read the article by John Allen and sadly, yes, it surely is now too late to follow his advice. Biden was ill-advised and now that the Taliban have returned, restoring the previous fragile balance is impossible. Those young men running down the runway - why didn't they fight for their country?
DeleteThose young men were babies - or younger - when the US went into Afghanistan. I wonder if they even understand it all.
DeleteThanks for your input, by the way. And I had another thought - those young men are not going to be nearly as affected by the Taliban's power as their mothers and sisters will be.
DeleteYes. Shirley and I thought that too. Leaving their womenfolk behind.
DeleteThe news footage is harrowing and it breaks my heart to watch it. Was it worth all those lives lost over the last 20-years? I fear for the women - in particular those who have been educated at school and University - for they are now in danger of being beaten into submission again. We really have created a monster.
ReplyDeleteThe monster is fiercer than before - its frustration building through the past twenty years.
DeleteAfghanistan seems to be caught in a cycle of violence, poverty and ignorance. It is an old country with a long history and it's still can find no peace. Why?
ReplyDeleteGood question but I can't give an answer. I thought that Islam was meant to be about peace - not about terrorising women and teachers and riding around on motorbikes with powerful stolen rifles.
DeleteAfghanistan has war lords. The fighting will continue with clashes and skirmishes between groups. It just never stops.
DeleteThe same could be said about christianity sadly.
DeleteDespair and great sadness, along with a shot of anger are my emotions. Western countries must simple stop trying to change countries, though we should be there to pick up the pieces. We did the first and are failing with the second.
ReplyDeleteYou're right. There should be more wisdom, more subtlety when dealing with such countries. Bursting in with masses of soldiers, helicopters and sophisticated weapons is not the way to build a better future.
DeleteIt's an awful story. Of course there are a million awful stories but we ususally can't focus on more than one or two
ReplyDeleteOne's head might burst with the sorrow... but see my next post Kylie! Quite a contrast.
DeleteAnother example of western interference. We never learn do we?
ReplyDeleteAll those poor people who have been abandoned to either a fate worse than death, or death itself. They have tasted a form of freedom and now it's beyond their grasp - the unimaginable realities of their future lives will be almost impossible for them to bear. The Taliban will delight in taking harsh reprisals.
Abandoning these poor people is the most disastrous thing the west has done (so far) this century.
There must have been a better way to leave - involving discussions with The Taliban.
DeleteI’ve been seeing your comments on other blogs for ages. Sorry it’s taken me so long to visit yours. You’ve described this all so well. 20 years. At such a cost.
ReplyDeleteNice to meet you sir. Thanks for calling by.
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