This has felt for a long time very much like the Mujaheddin and the Russians, from whence came the Taliban.
The Afghans have always united to throw out the invader, then broke back down into tribal rivalries and ancient traditions that defy the rest of the world. I fully expect the Taliban to promise whatever it takes to get the US (the "invader") out, and return to their deeply-held, proven attitudes.
Women, progressives, modern thinkers, western sympathizers, get ready. Here we go again.
I really hope I'm wrong, but history is on the side of the devil on this one.
Women in Afghanistan were able to enjoy a degree of freedom from the mid-1970s until the Taliban overthrew the Soviet then Russian backed government of Mohammed Najibullah in the mid-90s. Then it was back to the Middle Ages for them during the Taliban government. We know who the Taliban are. So in spite of their promises to protect women it is difficult to believe them. They are still religious extremists.
4
“I do not think anyone else has ever been as troubled in the Afghan government as much as I have,” she told me. “But I went to this meeting because I feel like you cannot wash blood with blood. How long will this war go on?”
This is from Hawa Nuristani, who limps because of a bomb attack on her by the Taliban. She now serves on the Elections Committee in a profoundly difficult and prominent role.
Meet with the Taliban; you cannot meet blood with blood. Such courage and wisdom—from one who has suffered so much—absolutely astounds me. How many world situations could use even one such voice, let alone a whole chorus?
I cannot help but contrast it with Mr. Trump, whose personal motto is to attack back 100 times harder. Imagine him at the bargaining table of peace.
Give me Hawa Nuristani any day.
41
@Paul McGlasson
Except she is unlikely to survive if the people she negotiates with come back to power
6
The Taliban's idea of protecting women is probably very different than women's idea of being protected.
1
If my country betrays Afghan women, I will be apoplectic.
2
I am sure AOC, and Omar, will intervene to make sure that the women of that country are protected. They will simply mobilize their millions of Twitter soldiers to shame the Taliban.
1
This is a retrogade step , negotiating with the Taliban . The same organization who suppressed women in Afghanistan when they were in power . The same organization who helped Osma Bin Laden when Mullah Omar was the head of the organization . Can they ever be trusted ? Once they are back in power , Afghanistan would go back to becoming a safe haven for terrorists . Why has Trump ignored India which has been assisting and spending money in Afghanistan for it's infrastructure . If the United States pulls out of Afghanistan , what guarantees are there that a second 9/11 will not happen again ???? Trump is destablising the entire South Asian region by this retrograde step .
Afghanistan needs a two-state solution: one for the Taliban and one for the forward-thinking Afghans that believe women are full human beings, with equal rights and dignity and that by law, the governmental bodies must have 50% female representation in all facets of government and legal protections that cannot be abrogated under any condition. They'll need a female army to guard them from terrorism.
The reason for this is that Afghan's sex ratios are more males to females and that, my friends, is the first step in a disaster for females the world over (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5983495/).
It's not just religion, folks. Religion is the medium; the goal is control because a man that has NOTHING going for him in terms of wealth, knowledge, resources, education, etc. can only gain reproductive success with the tools of subjugation. Their brand of religion just keeps them ignorant and therefore can't see that emancipating women would end up being a net-benefit to them.
2
The ONLY way the Taliban can be defeated is if NATO has AT LEAST 200,000 troops in Afghanistan. At its peak, NATO had 150,000 troops in Afghanistan between 2009-2012.
1
Our effort in Afghanistan must be multi-generational if we are to secure our considerable investment in blood and treasure, and allow these brave women and men to complete the task of permanently transforming the society. Therefore, I advocate our commitment extend another dozen years to prevent the barbarians from undoing the progress achieved to date. If the Taliban were serious about peace, they would cease the suicide-bombing of civilians, which they commit on a regular basis. The United States must remain in Afghanistan until the positive changes effected to date cannot be easily undone, and the society is fortified against evil Taliban ideology.
Interesting story about the grim prospects Afghan women face if and when the American client government in Kabul falls. But the story fails to point out that, with US support, these Westernized women have thrived in only part of Afghanistan. That's because the insurgents control the rest of the country, over which US and Afghan government troops never succeeded in imposing their control.
Incidentally, this is not the first time I have read about this subject in the NYT. The other article that made a deep impression on me was written in 1988, when the Soviets were preparing to withdraw from Afghanistan.
In that 1988 article, the NYT pointed out the grim prospects that Westernized Afghan women faced if and when the Soviet backed government in Kabul fell to the insurgents. And, of course, the NYT went out of its way to make clear that these women thrived in only part of Afghanistan, and not the whole country. In other words, the NYT never missed a chance to remind readers that the Soviet nation-building project in Afghanistan applied to only a small part of country.
Interesting to compare and contrast the ways that American political establishment media writes about the respective experiences of the US and its rival, Russia, in Afghanistan.
3
I'll never understand our national priorities. I hear endlessly how the military has failed in Iraq and Afghanistan despite defeating every armed force that fought it in battles small or large but because Afghans and Iraqis still obstinately refuse to act like Americans, but the military is somehow supposed to defeat, misogyny I suppose? The Taliban didn't spring from nothing - a lot of people are going to have to get woke if you want Afghans to act like Americans.
9 years ago when I was here for the second time, I watched a very earnest Spanish NGO explain to a group of Durranis in Badghis how they would build a girl's primary school and it would change the world. Only to stare slack jawed when they explained they needed all the children in the fields to plant and drive off the birds, or they would starve in the winter. He wasn't lying, they probably lost 100 in the village to hunger and what I'm pretty sure was cholera.
Medieval solutions for medieval places. Secure the major cities along route 1 and keep working from there, understanding this will take decades if not centuries. There's no easy or lazy solutions here, but that's all Americans have time for.
3
My concern is not from the Taliban leaders who have come to the bargaining table. I feel that if a brave female leader such as Nuristani who has so much more to lose can meet them eye to eye and come out hopeful, then no one on the sidelines has a legitimate right to be skeptical.
Like any movement or party, even our own Dems and Reps, there is wide variation and extremes in thought. Certainly there is likely similar disparities within the Taliban ranks. My worry is that the “centrists” who are at the bargaining table and may be legitimately vying for coexistence will be not be able to reign in the far right faction. My real fear is that if the Taliban gets back some power, the fundamentalists will feel entitled to go back to their old ways and will force the resolve of the centrists.
1
The west has lost in Afghanistan. The Taliban will win THIS YEAR.
First of all, I think the next/current round of the talks between the US and the Taliban will be the final round of the talks between the US and the Taliban. After the next/current round of the talks between the US and the Taliban, the Taliban will announce that they will not talk to anyone anymore, and they will close down their political office in Qatar.
2nd, the Taliban will kill all of the Afghan presidential election candidates, including Ashraf Ghani, in September or earlier.
1
Each woman and girl needs to be armed. The Taliban doesn’t listen or negotiate. When America and the West leave, the women will return to their previous state.
Perhaps all women and their children should be offered asylum.
2
The West should offer asylum to any educated or working woman and their children (under say 14). Split up the asylum candidates across all developed countries, including Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, USA, Canada, Mexico, Aus/NZ and Europe.
To give those women hope and then sentence them to bondage and death is unacceptable.
1
@Practical Thoughts so if their child is 15, she doesn’t get asylum with her mother? Strange age requirement.
If the west wants to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan, then it and its Afghan partners should stop committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan on a daily basis, which is completely ignored by the media, the UN, the ICC and the ICJ, and the so-called human rights organisations.
NATO war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan is far worse under Trump then it has been under Obama and Bush, even though the size of NATO in Afghanistan is a tenth of what it use to be in Afghanistan.
You want to know why the Taliban are winning? That is one major reason why the Taliban are winning in Afghanistan. The Taliban are winning the hearts and minds in Afghanistan because of NATO's and its Afghan partners' brutality against the innocent Afghan civilians.
You can talk about human rights and you can pretend to care for people all you like, but when your words don't match your action, when you do the opposite of what you preach, when you are a big hypocrite, then your objective is doomed from the start and you are bound to fail.
2
@John Ironically, the majority of the victims of NATO's and the ANDSF's war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan are women and children.
Hey NYT, hey liberals, where is your outrage about this? Hypocritcal devils.
Afghan women enjoyed great liberty back in the days when Afghanistan was under Communist rule. Those days are gone. Now they have to sort it out themselves. Good luck in the fight against "holier than the Koran" theocracy supporters.
Whether it's Afghanistan or the US, patriarchy, by its nature, subjugates women. The more profound the patriarchy, the more profound the subjugation. Even at its most benign, subjugation of women by the Taliban is a given.
In the same way, the Taliban's promise to give women rights "within an Islamic framework" assures human rights abuses. By Western standards, by UN Human Rights Watch standards, the Islam practiced in Saudi, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, and increasingly other Muslim majority countries is extreme. Wearing a burka in public, gender segregation, male guardianship—that would be considered extreme oppression by any US woman. But it's considered normal "within an Islamic framework."
The Taliban talking about women's rights and the US talking about women's rights—they're not on the same planet, much less the same page.
1
DO NOT believe the men.
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The west is at war with Islam in Afghanistan. The Taliban are the perfect embodiment of Islam and what it is to be a Muslim. Prophet Mohammad and the Sahabas were just like the Taliban. Prophet Mohammad said the Muslims should live like him and the Sahabas, and that is exactly what the Taliban are doing. Prophet Mohammad said Muslims should follow the Quran and Hadiths, and that is exactly what the Taliban do, and Prophet Mohammad said the Muslims should implement and live under Sharia, and that is exactly what the Taliban are striving for.
The west, and its Afghan friends and allies, are at war with Islam, and thus at war with Allah and Mohammad. The Taliban are the Mujahideen (warriors/knights of Allah), the west are the kufar (infidels), and the anti-Taliban Afghans are the khawarij/murtadeen (heretics/apostates/traitors).
1
I find it very ironic that the NYTtimes did such a piece, yet it and the other liberal news outlets like it turn a blind eye to Iran, suck up to and praise Iran, and even side with Iran against the US and Israel, just because Obama signed a terrible deal with Iran and just because Trump is confronting Iran, albeit alone with Israel. Such pure hypocrisy.
2
It’s unnerving how most (all?) religions seem to require the subjugation of women.
2
The Taliban's idea of "protection" is a burka, a male "guardian", no education and for a woman to never, ever leave the home. The Taliban don't consider those ideas oppressive. Women aren't equal, they are barely human, there to provide sons and food. They are chattel.
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“People on both sides of the war want peace, and are tired of the fighting — certainly the Taliban,” she said. Ms. Nuristasni said this, but she does not believe it. The Taliban will never stop fighting, especially if the US is leaving. A deeply troubling end to the Afghanistan intervention. At this point and as the conflict stands, we have a moral obligation to stay.
1
@Kevin --- don't any other nations have any moral obligations ?
Why is Yemen off the hook? why is Saudi Arabia off the hook? they are Moslem, and rich, and much closer -- so they have more at stake, right? their culture is more similar, so they'll understand better than we do (about cultural things that make goals achievable or not) -- right?
Exactly why is the US always the one that has to re$cue the entire planet ? This is not a rhetorical question. I am asking for a real answer.
No one is rescuing OUR people.
2
It appalls me that my tax dollars are going to negotiate "peace" with the Taliban, a group that would take every single hard won gain for freedom that my tax dollar went to win. If my government, which has spent untold millions (if not more) to fight for "freedom of the Afghan people" now abandons its promises of freedom from gross oppression, then my government is not capable of fulfilling any promise at all. I want my money back. As a woman, a patriot, and taxpayer, I want it back. If I had a son or daughter who'd given their life to fight the Taliban, I'd feel even more so.
15
You can multiply this by several and have the situation in the "tribal areas" of Pakistan. But there, it's not even a discussion whether we should invade there and subjugate the local government to our agenda of saving women's rights.
There, it's a ridiculous idea that would get a lot of people killed and not be the way to change their culture.
It's the same in Afghanistan, but because we're already there, the "sunk cost fallacy" is giving us pain at the idea of withdrawal.
Our best influence on these societies is economic pressure designed to impoverish their 1%, as opposed to our current policies of greatly enriching their 1% in return for lying promises of reform.
There's also nothing keeping us from extracting promises of deep involvement by NGOs in their village-level poverty relief and schooling.
The current cost of the Afghan War (2018 figures) is $45 Billion per year. If Afghanistan has about 45,000 tiny villages (and it does), the US could spend a million a year in each and still break even, compared to war.
That's almost comical to say, of course: the US has societal structures for blowing $45B a year on the military, but not enough staff or resources to use up $45B on civilian aid.
Still, you could try. Even a fraction would supply every neighbourhood and village with a women's centre, a safe place with a classroom and armed guards.
You see, even $20B would be greater than the GDP of Afghanistan.
13
@roy brander You're absolutely correct,
but the War hawks would never consent that there may be a more efficient way ! Our Lindsey G. wants to FIGHT! Prove we're strong and in charge ( Manly he probably thinks).
2
One should not forgot that leftist and nationalist groups actually helped women's liberation in Afghanistan from the 1950s. While the Soviet occupation was by no means justified, they helped women again. In the cold war environment the West then supported everybody who was anti-communist, including all the Islamist terror groups which then turned against Western values all over the world and made the life of women miserable in Afghanistan and many other Muslim countries.
4
I remember media reports in the mid-to late- ‘90s of how the Taliban were treating women and how the West should not turn a blind eye. 911 allowed the West an excuse to fight in Afghanistan and 18 years later, little has been accomplished (and lives have been lost). Now we could be agreeing to start the cycle again...
4
Never trust fundamentalists!
Their view of the truth found in the fine print of their holy books allows them to lie to unbelievers and to deceive them to achieve their sacred goals.
You don't have to look far for the proof. American Christians who for decades condemned every politician who deviated from their doctrine immediately abandoned all their fallacies in their enthusiasm to support Trump. Are this incredible Hypocrites or is everything allowed to achieve their goals?
The Taliban are the same, but even worse, they kill to achieve their goals.
8
@Richard AMEN! Never trust a fundamentalist- will kill you in the name of Jesus! There's only one way- their's!
1
The Taliban have never wanted just peace -- only power. They are the current bullies of the world, and even with my deep devotion to free speech, I would wish them stamped out forever.
I cannot help but think, however, that the women themselves are aiding and abetting the Taliban in the fact that they subject themselves to subservience in their dress and actions. Yes, I realize this is a religious compulsion, but it is one which is detrimental to their health, welfare, and even existence. My hope is that more and more of these women are able to stand up and oppose the oppression that the men dish out. Evidently these men do not realize that without women, they cannot exist. It is a lesson they should quickly learn.
3
If women are not represented in negotiations then men are negotiating peace with each other and leaving women out. Some women who believe that peace can be negotiated for them when it is not negotiated with them, ultimately find themselves suffering sexism and its attendant oppressions and abuses when peace by and for men is achieved.
4
I guess no amount of evidence provided by the Taliban will convince Americans about the futility of talking to them.
No amount of evidence that Taliban exist because of Pakistani military, with indirect money from people in the Middle East would stop us from keeping Pakistan flush with cash, and Middle East from the status of our bffs.
For twenty years now, we have given money and arms to Pakistan, who give it to the Taliban, who kill our boys and girls. Pakistan remains their safe haven.
We are sacrificing vulnerable population of Afghan women by our hubris and pigheadedness. I am surprised anyone trusts us anymore; so will have we been to sacrifice everyone who helps us, everyone willing to fight for us, for our own, immediate expedience and convenience.
It is likely useless to ask, but I will anyway. What kind of a compromise do you suppose can be reached with the Taliban and Afghani women? Do you suppose the Taliban will, in spirit of cooperation, agree to behead only half the women they intend to behead? Will women be treated like animals on all days of the week, say, but Friday as a compromise?
We are fighting a disease, a pathogen, a deep seated psychopathology that does not respond to reason. We don't seem to know that. There are clear solutions to defang the Taliban, all of which start in Pakistan, and we don't seem to know that either. Seriously, is no one in charge here anymore?
7
Its America first. The US just doesn't have the cash.
The US never really had any values apart from the dollar.
The Afghan population should have known this was coming.
It all started when the US promised Pakistan based Afghan jihadists a pious utopia after they threw out the godless communists.
5
AS soon as the news came out that the Taliban was included in talks, I knew their would be trouble for women
30
It’s very hard to believe that the Taliban will honor the civil rights gained by women. They already control significant areas of the country. Just how are women’s rights faring in those regions NOW. If I’m to believe what I read in the mainstream press, Afghanistan has not been able to rise above the status of being basically a semi-corrupt failed narco-state with a highly subsidized western supported government that has a weak security infrastructure and only nominal control of the major cities and towns and a “redneck” Taliban shadow government that nominally controls the
remote and hard to reach / hard to govern
rural areas. Sounds very much like rural Vietnam in the early 1960s.
The Taliban always had too much tribal, familial and cultural currency with the general population at large (not to mention Pakistani support) to be somehow “crushed” out of existence and could always “out-violence” our allies. Without some sort of reconciliation process that includes clear and transparent acknowledgment of past wrongdoing and repudiation of past policies and practices I just don’t see change being sustained.
Lest we think this is some sort of Afghan or Islamic cultural deficiency, don’t forget, a significant civil rights roll back is exactly the sort of thing that took place in our own country at the end of the US Grant administration when Reconstruction “ended”.
Get ready for the next big painful-to-watch refugee / human rights crisis. I truly hope I’m wrong.
18
Let's all take a moment to examine the situation. The Taliban say they won't oppress women after they oppressed women. Do we really want them to be in charge? We wouldn't allow this from a murderer who promises he won't murder again, especially when there is no evidence that they wouldn't murder again. Women's rights are too important to take ANY chances with. One wouldn't think that people needed this explained to them, but apparently they do.
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@Tallulah Garnett Who's "we" to decide for the Afghan people? "We" backed the fundamentalists who opposed the leftist regime's policy on women rights, and then became the Taliban.
Let the Afghans sort it out without our 2 cents (guns and bombs). Yankee go home!
Unfortunately there is very little that the West can do when a large portion of the country supports these illiberal ideas. Seems to me Afghans by and large support the basic ideas of the Taliban. These are same people that fought off the British, Russians, etc. If there was deep well of anti-Taliban sentiment, these would have shed them off.
The battle for liberalism, against the Taliban and their Wahhabi supporters from the Middle East is for the Afghani people to settle. The West would be wise not to step too deep into the cultural fray.
8
@HistoryRhymes
True. The average Afghan supports a caliphate, and accepts its excesses as an acceptable price to pay (i.e., average Afghani outside of major cities). But one of the things that makes Taliban possible is the direct ways in which we fund Pakistan (and the Emirati and Saudis fund Pakistan), which then funds, aids, abets, and provides a safe haven for the Taliban. Pakistan is what makes Taliban happen, they are the one's who created and nurtured them.
We cannot change the tribalism, ignorance, fanaticism of Afghanistan - not by a long shot. But we can stop sending money to Pakistan and make sure it is de-nuclearlized. We can stop coddling middle eastern Emirati and Saudis. There is much in our power, but we are too corrupted and out of touch - a very dangerous combination.
5
I do hope the US, the Afghan government, and the Taliban can end the Afghan war. I also know that the Taliban will threaten and intimidate all those that stand in their way to seizing power. They are, after all, religious fanatics who know the mind of god and will brook no opposition. The women - and the population at large - are caught between a rock and a hard place. When the US pulls out its troops we all know what will happen. The women know more than everyone.
22
The Taliban should be treated the same way we treated Confederate soldiers after the Civil War or Nazis after WW 2. How can the United States consider a peace treaty recognizing power sharing with the Taliban.
11
@Michael Green
It is one thing to agree not to turn on the Taliban in revenge; quite another to engage in power sharing. For the sake of women— and decent men— power sharing should be off the table. To the extent there are any religious minorities (e.g. Buddhists) left in Afghanistan, they must be terrified as well.
3
@Michael Green. To answer your question - because we are losing.
4
@Michael Green
The only alternative is continued war, the Taliban have not and will not surrender, the US and allies do not have the means/will to force them to surrender.
4
Why do I think that making sure women's rights are protected is not going to be a must for the American side?
21
The price of peace with the Taliban is the virtual imprisonment and abuse of half the population of Afghanistan. Who gets to decide if it is worth the price? Not that half of the population. What can we do about it? Nothing. That is the sad reality, and a reminder of how barbaric we still are as a species.
23
@gf. The other half of the population are the ones dying every day
1
Fundamentalist religions are mainly about power and controlling women and their sexuality. This is true in Afghanistan and also true in the United States. Only the methods differ.
37
@Chuck Burton, the methods won't differ all that much when Pence and his theocrats run things.
7
@Chuck Burton
Only the methods differ? Seriously? Go live in a Taliban controlled area for a year with your mother or wife or daughters, and not in a protected American enclave but with ordinary people, and then tell us what you think.
6
Sounds like a recycle of Bush's ignoring potential victory in Afghanistan to prevent the Iraq's attacks on Israel. Now Trump wants to focus on Iran and leave Afghanistan. Women's rights likely will be sacrificed again.
8
The Taliban are conservatives. They will not change their attitude toward women ever. Anyone who thinks there will be a sea change in their methods of treating women is oblivious to common knowledge.
19
“a woman’s emotions might get in the way.”
Anyone who suggests that women are more emotional than men usually doesn't categorize [male] rage as an emotion.
65
The claim for Afghan women has been misused for the past 18 years to justify the war there. If that were the criterion, the US should have supported the former leftist regime, which actually did liberate women and was overthrown by the fundamentalists with US support.
12
Does anyone really think the Taliban can change?
14
@Alberto Abrizzi -- anyone can change if they really want to. My question is, what would make the Taliban want to change?
My heart breaks for the women of Afghanistan. But how much longer can the U.S. stay there, holding the Taliban at bay?
7
This is human rights abuse. Is there any support in the international community for the women? South Africa buckled under international sanctions and ended apartheid. This is no better.
14
@mary bardmess. I don’t see the Taliban buckling under to international pressure! Please, they’ve fighting for 18 years.
2
Afghanistan looks quite central on the map, but really it is the end of the world. After a trillion dollars of expenditure and 2,430 dead the United States is going to cut its losses and leave. There is little doubt the Taliban are going to win eventually. If the government had been of honest men and women the Taliban would have been easy to defeat. Unfortunately, the honest men are the Taliban. Implicit in their rustic society is the idea of wives as property and daughters as currency. When they take over again, any gains women have made since their overthrow will be rolled back. On a wider note, applicable to most Muslim countries, there is something about Islam that rhymes with the oppression of women.
15
So ignorant. They are afraid of an educated women. I don't blame them
2
The Time of the Last Judgment; the End of the Disbelievers in Allah - “History is written by the victors is punchy, but it is too often a cynical dismissal of objectivity in history,” wrote Stephen Hicks, PhD., on the day of January 11, 2018. “Judgment Day is nothing more than a dangerous fantasy,” according to countless of lucid men and women. Still, the Islamist militants, whose terrorist acts committed are rooted in the Quran or Allah, believe only through their lens that the history of their avowed enemies, the “Infidels,” will be told, just in case they happen to have developed a particular interest in doing so. An encore, for the very reason that all (the history book) will most likely tell that they are not only or first ones to have emulated the ancient Egyptians, Babylonian, Assyrians, to also say the writers of the Hebrew Bible, whom thousands years later their action continues to be indicative that they have not only proven themselves capable to communicate to others the sad history of their enemies - the Philistines - as exemplified by David’s defeat of Goliath, the mighty Philistine warrior, but the only ones to have done so.”
1
How is this “peace” if half the population must become slaves to the other half? Would we entertain this kind of “peace” if we were talking about half the men in the country, instead of women?
26
These women are extremely brave for their advocacy for other women and girls. I do not trust the Taliban to keep their word and the U.S. should not trust them, either.
This is an example of why women in the U.S. must fight to keep their reproductive rights. When we allow religion to rule instead of secular laws, we diminish the rights of half the population.
33
Headline: "The Taliban promise to protect women..."
Have we forgotten Ms. M. Yafuzez, (pardon my spelling!!), who got shot on a school bus for the unpardonable 'SIN' of seeking an education, and survived, to receive, (amidst death threats), a Nobel prize??
The fact that the Taliban have been 'protecting' women from themselves is a pretty good definition of the problem...
NOT the solution!
One is reminded of the U.S. evangelicals, who having failed in their grotesque efforts to get the death penalty on the books for U.S. gays / gays, in general, traveled to Uganda!
One is also reminded of (so, called) Pro_Lifers'!!
15