Those who left and those who could not flee speak of a country in ruins and decry the world’s apathy towards the humanitarian crisis and the lack of rights, mainly for women, which a UN report describes as ‘gender apartheid’
I think this is a situation where there just aren’t good answers. I prefer to draw a distinction between the politicians and cowards who handed the keys to the Taliban, vs the women and men and everyday people who opposed the Taliban.
It’s unfair and gross to blame them. It’s also unfair though for them to blame us. We spent a lot of time in Afghanistan. American blood watered the soil, but we saw beautiful flowers bloom. Women were uplifted. The infant mortality rate plummeted. People voted for their leaders.
What more could we do, at this point? I’d like to think that if we had armed more of the uplifted people, they would’ve maintained their government and continued to fight the Taliban. I tell myself that partially though because if that isn’t true, then there truly was nothing different we could’ve done or do now. We’d have to annex territory into a state, maybe.
A full military occupation followed by several years of constructing a new government like what was done in Germany or Japan might have had a chance at working. Our efforts were always half-hearted. There were never enough boots on the ground to properly police the population and there was no political will to try.
I think this is a situation where there just aren’t good answers. I prefer to draw a distinction between the politicians and cowards who handed the keys to the Taliban, vs the women and men and everyday people who opposed the Taliban.
It’s unfair and gross to blame them. It’s also unfair though for them to blame us. We spent a lot of time in Afghanistan. American blood watered the soil, but we saw beautiful flowers bloom. Women were uplifted. The infant mortality rate plummeted. People voted for their leaders.
What more could we do, at this point? I’d like to think that if we had armed more of the uplifted people, they would’ve maintained their government and continued to fight the Taliban. I tell myself that partially though because if that isn’t true, then there truly was nothing different we could’ve done or do now. We’d have to annex territory into a state, maybe.
A full military occupation followed by several years of constructing a new government like what was done in Germany or Japan might have had a chance at working. Our efforts were always half-hearted. There were never enough boots on the ground to properly police the population and there was no political will to try.