The daily English lessons that Shabana attends are the highlight of her day. Taking the bus in Kabul to the private course with her friends, chatting and laughing with them, learning something new for one hour each day - it’s a brief respite from the emptiness that has engulfed her life since the Taliban took over Afghanistan.
In another country, Shabana* would have been graduating from high school next year, pursuing her dream to get a business degree. In Afghanistan, she and all teenage girls have been barred from formal education for three years.
Now even the small joys that were making life bearable are fraught with fear after a new law was announced saying if a woman is outside her home, even her voice must not be heard.
Not pressuring the Afghani government into releasing ~5,000 Taliban fighters as part of the pullout would have been a good start if I’m being honest. Donald “Art of the Deal” Trump himself basically sentenced that country to die when he agreed to those terms.
I agree that it’s a sad state of affairs that the military and government caved so quickly. 20 years of help and they couldn’t manage to stand up on their own, all things said and done. Not calling you wrong, but the way we left was a disaster, and honestly we should have reneged on the deal once Biden took office and found a better way to transition out of the country.
Us being there was pretty much an unmitigated disaster from start to finish for sure, up to and including how we left.
But at the same time, holy shit, a country and its people have to advocate for themselves at some point
USA could have been in Afghanistan for 200 years and they still wouldn’t be able to put together more than a humpty dumpty army. The problem isn’t even Afghan ineptitude as such, the problem is that US policymakers start and stay completely ignorant to local cultures and customs wherever they decide to stick their dick.
