PAKISTAN (DAWN) VIEWS AFGHANISTAN
Malala urges world leaders to take urgent action on Afghanistan
Reuters | Dawn.com
She posted a heartfelt note asking people to be kind and true Muslims and stop harbouring hatred towards anyone.
Afghanistan is now in the hands of the Taliban and thousands of Afghans are desperately looking for ways out of the country. Videos of Afghan men clinging to the wheels and wings of planes and then plummeting to their death will tell you just how desperate they are to leave. But amidst this, there have been many voices praising the Taliban takeover. Anoushey Ashraf isn't one of them — she's calling for people to be more kind.
The actor and RJ shared a lengthy but very necessary post on Afghanistan on Instagram. In the post she shared pictures of a trip she made to the country in 2016 for a TV show.
"On this trip I met girls who wanted to cycle for the Olympics, boys who only wanted to be the next Messi. I met Imams at masjids who greeted me with love, respect and duas. I met fantastic TV hosts who were living under tense conditions but were also excited about the new game shows they were launching. I met writers, poets and restauranteurs. I met children of the Hazara, beautiful even with their traumas," she recalled.
"They were exactly like you and me. And today, they’re helpless, homeless and abandoned."
This doesn’t make the government or the Americans my heroes, she clarified. "But are the Taliban any better? So stop your hate. In this moment, whoever leads the nation it’s still in a crisis and people's lives have been disrupted all over again. Not fair!" she cried.
She also raised one point that no one seems to realise. "No one wants to leave their homes and live as a refugee," she said. People against refugees seem to believe that these people willingly and happily leave their homes and possessions to live in refugee camps thousands of miles away, where they are often not even afforded dignity or a comfortable place to sleep.
"Look at the second last picture in this series," Ashraf asked, referring to a collage of portraits. "I photographed each of them. They’re humans with dreams. Please ask yourself why you grew up to be so bitter, that instead of giving people the room to breathe, you abuse them, give them titles like ‘yeh liberals’. Please be kinder. Be a true Muslim on the inside and you’ll never harbour hate for anyone in this world," she wrote.
"Sure, the people in power say they want peace, but to many peace only comes on their terms," the actor explained. "Peace means girls not working and men not playing sports. Surrender means peace. Not a single life and their true dreams come into consideration. If you think this is ‘good’ let me remind you it’s the innocent losing their right to be free for these leaders (Taliban or not) to feed their agenda, politics, power and greed. NOTHING ELSE," she wrote.
"The Taliban says they’re ready to evolve and give women and children their rights. Let’s not hail them heroes yet. They’ve said they have learned from the past. Only time will tell. Reaching out to all my Afghan friends tonight, you are in my prayers. Humanity first."
Of the many people — including celebrities — posting about Afghanistan, Ashraf's post really struck a chord with us. Her pictures don't show people crying and mourning, they show happy people, full of hopes and dreams. Just like us. We hope that people can be empathetic towards Afghans right now — they've lost more than you can imagine and all they want is for them and their families to be safe.
Arifa Noor
Reuters | Dawn.com
Published August 17, 2021 - 
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai poses for photographs during the Education and Development G7 Ministers Summit in Paris on July 5, 2019. — Reuters
Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai said she was deeply concerned about the situation in Afghanistan, particularly the safety of women and girls, and called on Monday for world leaders to take urgent action.
Yousafzai said US President Joe Biden “has a lot to do” and must “take a bold step” to protect the Afghan people, adding she had been trying to reach out to several global leaders.
“This is actually an urgent humanitarian crisis right now that we need to provide our help and support,” Yousafzai told BBC's Newsnight.
Yousafzai, 23, survived being shot in the head by Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan militants in 2012, after she was targeted for her campaign against its efforts to deny women education.
She had become known as an 11-year-old, writing a blog under a pen name for the BBC about living under the rule of the militants.
“I am deeply concerned about the situation in Afghanistan right now, especially about the safety of women and girls there,” Yousafzai told Newsnight.
“I had the opportunity to talk to a few activists in Afghanistan, including women's rights activists, and they are sharing their concern that they are not sure what their life is going to be like.”
Yousafzai said she had sent a letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan asking him to admit Afghan refugees and ensure that all refugee children “have access to education, have access to safety and protection, that their futures are not lost”.
A day earlier, Yousafzai and Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry had spoken on the phone during which the minister said Pakistan would continue supporting endeavours for women's education in Afghanistan.
According to Radio Pakistan, the minister said that Pakistan was providing educational facilities to the children of Afghan refugees. He said that 6,000 Afghan children were currently studying in the country.
During the call, Yousafzai informed the minister about global concerns regarding women's rights in Afghanistan. "Pakistan should play an active role in promoting women's education in Afghanistan," she said.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai said she was deeply concerned about the situation in Afghanistan, particularly the safety of women and girls, and called on Monday for world leaders to take urgent action.
Yousafzai said US President Joe Biden “has a lot to do” and must “take a bold step” to protect the Afghan people, adding she had been trying to reach out to several global leaders.
“This is actually an urgent humanitarian crisis right now that we need to provide our help and support,” Yousafzai told BBC's Newsnight.
Yousafzai, 23, survived being shot in the head by Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan militants in 2012, after she was targeted for her campaign against its efforts to deny women education.
She had become known as an 11-year-old, writing a blog under a pen name for the BBC about living under the rule of the militants.
“I am deeply concerned about the situation in Afghanistan right now, especially about the safety of women and girls there,” Yousafzai told Newsnight.
“I had the opportunity to talk to a few activists in Afghanistan, including women's rights activists, and they are sharing their concern that they are not sure what their life is going to be like.”
Yousafzai said she had sent a letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan asking him to admit Afghan refugees and ensure that all refugee children “have access to education, have access to safety and protection, that their futures are not lost”.
A day earlier, Yousafzai and Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry had spoken on the phone during which the minister said Pakistan would continue supporting endeavours for women's education in Afghanistan.
According to Radio Pakistan, the minister said that Pakistan was providing educational facilities to the children of Afghan refugees. He said that 6,000 Afghan children were currently studying in the country.
During the call, Yousafzai informed the minister about global concerns regarding women's rights in Afghanistan. "Pakistan should play an active role in promoting women's education in Afghanistan," she said.
Afghans are just like you and me and today, they're helpless and abandoned, says Anoushey Ashraf
Afghanistan is now in the hands of the Taliban and thousands of Afghans are desperately looking for ways out of the country. Videos of Afghan men clinging to the wheels and wings of planes and then plummeting to their death will tell you just how desperate they are to leave. But amidst this, there have been many voices praising the Taliban takeover. Anoushey Ashraf isn't one of them — she's calling for people to be more kind.
The actor and RJ shared a lengthy but very necessary post on Afghanistan on Instagram. In the post she shared pictures of a trip she made to the country in 2016 for a TV show.
"On this trip I met girls who wanted to cycle for the Olympics, boys who only wanted to be the next Messi. I met Imams at masjids who greeted me with love, respect and duas. I met fantastic TV hosts who were living under tense conditions but were also excited about the new game shows they were launching. I met writers, poets and restauranteurs. I met children of the Hazara, beautiful even with their traumas," she recalled.
"They were exactly like you and me. And today, they’re helpless, homeless and abandoned."
This doesn’t make the government or the Americans my heroes, she clarified. "But are the Taliban any better? So stop your hate. In this moment, whoever leads the nation it’s still in a crisis and people's lives have been disrupted all over again. Not fair!" she cried.
She also raised one point that no one seems to realise. "No one wants to leave their homes and live as a refugee," she said. People against refugees seem to believe that these people willingly and happily leave their homes and possessions to live in refugee camps thousands of miles away, where they are often not even afforded dignity or a comfortable place to sleep.
"Look at the second last picture in this series," Ashraf asked, referring to a collage of portraits. "I photographed each of them. They’re humans with dreams. Please ask yourself why you grew up to be so bitter, that instead of giving people the room to breathe, you abuse them, give them titles like ‘yeh liberals’. Please be kinder. Be a true Muslim on the inside and you’ll never harbour hate for anyone in this world," she wrote.
"Sure, the people in power say they want peace, but to many peace only comes on their terms," the actor explained. "Peace means girls not working and men not playing sports. Surrender means peace. Not a single life and their true dreams come into consideration. If you think this is ‘good’ let me remind you it’s the innocent losing their right to be free for these leaders (Taliban or not) to feed their agenda, politics, power and greed. NOTHING ELSE," she wrote.
"The Taliban says they’re ready to evolve and give women and children their rights. Let’s not hail them heroes yet. They’ve said they have learned from the past. Only time will tell. Reaching out to all my Afghan friends tonight, you are in my prayers. Humanity first."
Of the many people — including celebrities — posting about Afghanistan, Ashraf's post really struck a chord with us. Her pictures don't show people crying and mourning, they show happy people, full of hopes and dreams. Just like us. We hope that people can be empathetic towards Afghans right now — they've lost more than you can imagine and all they want is for them and their families to be safe.
Wars lost and won
Published August 17, 2021
- DAWN.COM
The writer is a journalist.
“Our battle is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armour all as strong, our cause the best.
Then reason will our hearts should be as good.”
“Our battle is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armour all as strong, our cause the best.
Then reason will our hearts should be as good.”
— Shakespeare
‘MISSION accomplished’ was a phrase that came to haunt President George Bush for his two terms, even though he never used it. The two words were simply displayed on a banner behind him when he landed on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit to declare the end of major combat missions in Iraq. But that image and those words came to symbolise his failed and widely criticised Iraq policy as it was after this event that the violence in Iraq intensified, leading to heavy casualties on both sides.
President Joe Biden’s July speech where he said, in answer to a question, that the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was not inevitable is going to reverberate similarly, for months and perhaps years to come.
But it is hard to believe that anyone expected the collapse of the Afghan army to be as sudden and as complete as it was.
In Islamabad itself, some of those who kept an eye on Afghan affairs felt its security forces would put up a challenge and slow down the Taliban. Even those who were more sceptical of the Afghan forces’ ability to hold (in hindsight a more realistic assessment) spoke of three to six months till the fall of Kabul. Perhaps most of us were letting the past colour our analyses — some referred to the difficulties the Taliban had controlling the entire country even after they took over Kabul in 1996 and some to the Najibullah government which lasted for three years after the Soviet troops departed.
Institution-building in Afghanistan was missing entirely as the soldiers were being trained.
But then history is not always a good guide to the future and when matters came to a head, the countdown to a Taliban takeover was merely days long.
And while there will be considerable focus on what is to come and if Taliban 2.0 will prove any different from the rule they provided in the 1990s, the quick collapse of the security forces will also inspire reams of paper and words in the days to come.
The videos on social media of Taliban fighters roaming the palatial residences of the fleeing officials and giggling at the plush surroundings brought to mind the Khaldunian warriors who are able to vanquish a decaying society used to a comfortable life.
But there is far more to this story.
At one level, it is yet again a reminder of the failure of the state building project — the impossibility perhaps of outsiders coming in to build a state, especially its military and turn it into a professional fighting force.
It seemed that in Iraq and in Afghanistan, the focus was on recruiting and training people but not on building institutions. Hence, corruption was endemic and career progression and accountability missing (the next time there is a story about the nonpayment of soldiers’ salaries, one needs to think about how and why the relevant government departments in Kabul were able to get away with this state of affairs for years).
Read: ‘Unfinished problem’: World leaders react to Taliban's reclaiming of Afghanistan
Partly, those training created forces dependent on their resources rather than what was possible indigenously — the US military developed a model in which its air support was a crucial factor for the Afghan forces. Hence as the widely read Wall Street Journal story on the quick collapse of the Afghan forces pointed out, once the American forces pulled out along with their airpower, the Afghan forces in far-off outposts could no longer hold on as supplies ran out. And this is one reason, says the story, the soldiers found it easier to surrender than to fight.
More importantly, institution-building was missing entirely as the soldiers were being trained — deliberately or otherwise — by the international forces. For there was constant talk of low morale — an easy term to bandy about but a complex one to unpack. It is linked to all that a professional outfit brings — merit, a sense of purpose and identification (which is inculcated in the institution) and a relationship with society. All this was missing in Iraq when the US-trained military collapsed in the face of the IS assault, and now in Afghanistan. Consider this quote from a paper on the Iraq army: “If the hallmark of professionalism is trust, the Iraqi army in 2014 did not have it: the people did not trust it and its members did not trust each other.”
That the agreement between the Americans and the Afghan Taliban increased violence against government installations and the people was also a factor. This too took its toll on the people and the regime.
But not all the blame can be laid at the door of the outsiders.
Ashraf Ghani and others around him in Kabul didn’t do much to win over their countrymen. If the north, which had evaded Taliban influence the last time, fell quickly it was partly due to its troubled relations with Kabul. Just recently in Badakhshan, government troops fired on protesters demanding water and electricity, reported the Washington Post. In Mazar-i-Sharif, in 2017, a governor was fired by Ghani, a move which nearly led to an armed conflict between the local militias and federal troops.
The fault lines and fissures were multiple but the presence of the superpower had papered over all of it. Once the forces’ withdrawal was finalised, there was a widespread — inside Afghanistan as well as internationally — sense of the inevitability of a Taliban takeover. Perhaps this simply convinced or hastened everyone to give up the fight rather than opting for resistance.
Indeed, as time passes, more details will be filled in, not just as to what happened in the districts and cities as the Taliban swept across the country but also what the regional powers were up to. In the latter category, Pakistan, especially, will not escape censure. But the internal failings are and will be the storyline, not just a chapter or two.
The writer is a journalist.
Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2021
‘MISSION accomplished’ was a phrase that came to haunt President George Bush for his two terms, even though he never used it. The two words were simply displayed on a banner behind him when he landed on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit to declare the end of major combat missions in Iraq. But that image and those words came to symbolise his failed and widely criticised Iraq policy as it was after this event that the violence in Iraq intensified, leading to heavy casualties on both sides.
President Joe Biden’s July speech where he said, in answer to a question, that the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was not inevitable is going to reverberate similarly, for months and perhaps years to come.
But it is hard to believe that anyone expected the collapse of the Afghan army to be as sudden and as complete as it was.
In Islamabad itself, some of those who kept an eye on Afghan affairs felt its security forces would put up a challenge and slow down the Taliban. Even those who were more sceptical of the Afghan forces’ ability to hold (in hindsight a more realistic assessment) spoke of three to six months till the fall of Kabul. Perhaps most of us were letting the past colour our analyses — some referred to the difficulties the Taliban had controlling the entire country even after they took over Kabul in 1996 and some to the Najibullah government which lasted for three years after the Soviet troops departed.
Institution-building in Afghanistan was missing entirely as the soldiers were being trained.
But then history is not always a good guide to the future and when matters came to a head, the countdown to a Taliban takeover was merely days long.
And while there will be considerable focus on what is to come and if Taliban 2.0 will prove any different from the rule they provided in the 1990s, the quick collapse of the security forces will also inspire reams of paper and words in the days to come.
The videos on social media of Taliban fighters roaming the palatial residences of the fleeing officials and giggling at the plush surroundings brought to mind the Khaldunian warriors who are able to vanquish a decaying society used to a comfortable life.
But there is far more to this story.
At one level, it is yet again a reminder of the failure of the state building project — the impossibility perhaps of outsiders coming in to build a state, especially its military and turn it into a professional fighting force.
It seemed that in Iraq and in Afghanistan, the focus was on recruiting and training people but not on building institutions. Hence, corruption was endemic and career progression and accountability missing (the next time there is a story about the nonpayment of soldiers’ salaries, one needs to think about how and why the relevant government departments in Kabul were able to get away with this state of affairs for years).
Read: ‘Unfinished problem’: World leaders react to Taliban's reclaiming of Afghanistan
Partly, those training created forces dependent on their resources rather than what was possible indigenously — the US military developed a model in which its air support was a crucial factor for the Afghan forces. Hence as the widely read Wall Street Journal story on the quick collapse of the Afghan forces pointed out, once the American forces pulled out along with their airpower, the Afghan forces in far-off outposts could no longer hold on as supplies ran out. And this is one reason, says the story, the soldiers found it easier to surrender than to fight.
More importantly, institution-building was missing entirely as the soldiers were being trained — deliberately or otherwise — by the international forces. For there was constant talk of low morale — an easy term to bandy about but a complex one to unpack. It is linked to all that a professional outfit brings — merit, a sense of purpose and identification (which is inculcated in the institution) and a relationship with society. All this was missing in Iraq when the US-trained military collapsed in the face of the IS assault, and now in Afghanistan. Consider this quote from a paper on the Iraq army: “If the hallmark of professionalism is trust, the Iraqi army in 2014 did not have it: the people did not trust it and its members did not trust each other.”
That the agreement between the Americans and the Afghan Taliban increased violence against government installations and the people was also a factor. This too took its toll on the people and the regime.
But not all the blame can be laid at the door of the outsiders.
Ashraf Ghani and others around him in Kabul didn’t do much to win over their countrymen. If the north, which had evaded Taliban influence the last time, fell quickly it was partly due to its troubled relations with Kabul. Just recently in Badakhshan, government troops fired on protesters demanding water and electricity, reported the Washington Post. In Mazar-i-Sharif, in 2017, a governor was fired by Ghani, a move which nearly led to an armed conflict between the local militias and federal troops.
The fault lines and fissures were multiple but the presence of the superpower had papered over all of it. Once the forces’ withdrawal was finalised, there was a widespread — inside Afghanistan as well as internationally — sense of the inevitability of a Taliban takeover. Perhaps this simply convinced or hastened everyone to give up the fight rather than opting for resistance.
Indeed, as time passes, more details will be filled in, not just as to what happened in the districts and cities as the Taliban swept across the country but also what the regional powers were up to. In the latter category, Pakistan, especially, will not escape censure. But the internal failings are and will be the storyline, not just a chapter or two.
The writer is a journalist.
Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2021
'The Taliban will ban all art': An Afghan female filmmaker's plea
In an open letter, acclaimed director Sahraa Karimi has written of the brutal impact of the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan on women, girls and artists.
Sahraa Karimi: appeal for help
"If the Taliban take over they will ban all art. I and other filmmakers could be next on their hit list," Sahraa Karimi writes in an open appeal that was sent to global media organizations on August 13 and circulated on social media as the Taliban took control of major cities in Afghanistan and encircled the country's capital, Kabul.
The filmmaker is also documenting the situation on social media and has since posted on Facebook and Instagram different videos showing her fleeing to the Kabul airport, joining crowds of other Afghans as they scramble to reach the capital's last remaining exit.
The director of the award-nominated film Hava, Maryam, Ayesha (2019) is the only Afghan woman to have a PhD in cinema. Karimi is also the president of the state-run Afghan Film Organization.
A murderous takeover
In her letter, Karimi writes that the Taliban have "massacred our people" as they gained control over several provinces over the past weeks. Many children have been killed and girls sold as child brides to Taliban fighters, she writes; they murdered a woman for wearing the wrong clothes and gouged out the eyes of another.
"They tortured and murdered one of our beloved comedians," Karimi writes, referring to the killing of Nazar Mohammad, popularly known as Khasha Zwan, who was killed by unidentified gunmen in Kandahar last month.
Earlier this month, members of the militant group also killed poet and historian Abdullah Atefi in Afghanistan's southern Uruzgan province.
The Taliban have been targeting activists, journalists and cultural figures who have been critical of its activities.
The country's top media official, Dawa Khan Menapal, was also murdered by Taliban gunmen in early August. In a statement accepting responsibility for the killing, the Taliban said Menapal was "punished" for his deeds.
Karimi mentions both the incidents in her letter to emphasize the danger that cultural figures face in the country.
'Meanwhile, residents in various cities that have been taken over by the Taliban are fleeing to camps. "The families are in camps in Kabul after fleeing these provinces, and they are in unsanitary condition. There is looting in the camps and babies dying because they don't have milk," Karimi writes, adding that apart from the political crisis, the country is also on the brink of a humanitarian crisis and "yet, the world is silent."
In a recent report, the UN has stated that "Afghanistan is on course to witness its highest ever number of documented civilian casualties in a single year since records began." About 250,000 Afghans have been forced to flee their homes since the end of May, 80% of whom are children, according to the UN report.
The filmmaker also mentions that the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, initiated by Donald Trump and pursued under the administration of his successor, Joe Biden, is to be blamed for the situation in Afghanistan today. "We know that this decision to abandon our people is wrong, that this hasty troop withdrawal is a betrayal of our people and all that we did when Afghans won the Cold War for the west," Karimi writes, adding that the Afghan people were "forgotten" during the militant group's "dark rule" that began in 1996.
Girls forced out of school again
"When the Taliban were in power, zero girls were in school. Since then there are over 9 million Afghan girls in school. This is incredible. ... Herat, the third-largest city which just fell to the Taliban had nearly 50% women in its university. These are incredible gains that the world hardly knows about. Just in these few weeks, the Taliban have destroyed many schools and 2 million girls are forced now out of school again," Karimi writes.
During the first emirate that the Taliban established, in 1996, they executed a strict interpretation of Islamic law and established a moral police that forced men to grow beards and women to wear full-body burqas. Women who went unaccompanied to public places were beaten and schools for girls were shuttered. Music was also banned, aside of religious chants.
'A proxy war'
"If the Taliban take over Kabul, we may not have access to the internet or any communication tool at all," Karimi writes, adding that she will stay and fight for her country.
"This war is not a civil war, this is an imposed war, and it is the result of the US deal with the Taliban," she says, referring to the peace agreement that was brokered between the US, represented by special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, and the Taliban's chief negotiator, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in February 2020.
At the time, the US government, under Trump, said the country would withdraw all its troops within the next 14 months. Since then, unrest in the country has been growing, culminating in the present occupation of the country by Taliban militants.
In her letter, Karimi appeals to the world to "not turn its back on us. We need your support and your voice on behalf of Afghan women, children, artists, and filmmakers."
In an open letter, acclaimed director Sahraa Karimi has written of the brutal impact of the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan on women, girls and artists.
Sahraa Karimi: appeal for help
"If the Taliban take over they will ban all art. I and other filmmakers could be next on their hit list," Sahraa Karimi writes in an open appeal that was sent to global media organizations on August 13 and circulated on social media as the Taliban took control of major cities in Afghanistan and encircled the country's capital, Kabul.
The filmmaker is also documenting the situation on social media and has since posted on Facebook and Instagram different videos showing her fleeing to the Kabul airport, joining crowds of other Afghans as they scramble to reach the capital's last remaining exit.
The director of the award-nominated film Hava, Maryam, Ayesha (2019) is the only Afghan woman to have a PhD in cinema. Karimi is also the president of the state-run Afghan Film Organization.
A murderous takeover
In her letter, Karimi writes that the Taliban have "massacred our people" as they gained control over several provinces over the past weeks. Many children have been killed and girls sold as child brides to Taliban fighters, she writes; they murdered a woman for wearing the wrong clothes and gouged out the eyes of another.
"They tortured and murdered one of our beloved comedians," Karimi writes, referring to the killing of Nazar Mohammad, popularly known as Khasha Zwan, who was killed by unidentified gunmen in Kandahar last month.
Earlier this month, members of the militant group also killed poet and historian Abdullah Atefi in Afghanistan's southern Uruzgan province.
The Taliban have been targeting activists, journalists and cultural figures who have been critical of its activities.
The country's top media official, Dawa Khan Menapal, was also murdered by Taliban gunmen in early August. In a statement accepting responsibility for the killing, the Taliban said Menapal was "punished" for his deeds.
Karimi mentions both the incidents in her letter to emphasize the danger that cultural figures face in the country.
'Meanwhile, residents in various cities that have been taken over by the Taliban are fleeing to camps. "The families are in camps in Kabul after fleeing these provinces, and they are in unsanitary condition. There is looting in the camps and babies dying because they don't have milk," Karimi writes, adding that apart from the political crisis, the country is also on the brink of a humanitarian crisis and "yet, the world is silent."
In a recent report, the UN has stated that "Afghanistan is on course to witness its highest ever number of documented civilian casualties in a single year since records began." About 250,000 Afghans have been forced to flee their homes since the end of May, 80% of whom are children, according to the UN report.
The filmmaker also mentions that the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, initiated by Donald Trump and pursued under the administration of his successor, Joe Biden, is to be blamed for the situation in Afghanistan today. "We know that this decision to abandon our people is wrong, that this hasty troop withdrawal is a betrayal of our people and all that we did when Afghans won the Cold War for the west," Karimi writes, adding that the Afghan people were "forgotten" during the militant group's "dark rule" that began in 1996.
AFGHANS TRY TO FLEE AS TALIBAN TOPPLES GOVERNMENT
Desperate Afghans try to enter Kabul airport
Afghan families have been making increasingly desperate attempts to get into Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. Many children are among the crowds trying to make a last ditch attempt to escape the Taliban who stormed the capital city.
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Girls forced out of school again
"When the Taliban were in power, zero girls were in school. Since then there are over 9 million Afghan girls in school. This is incredible. ... Herat, the third-largest city which just fell to the Taliban had nearly 50% women in its university. These are incredible gains that the world hardly knows about. Just in these few weeks, the Taliban have destroyed many schools and 2 million girls are forced now out of school again," Karimi writes.
During the first emirate that the Taliban established, in 1996, they executed a strict interpretation of Islamic law and established a moral police that forced men to grow beards and women to wear full-body burqas. Women who went unaccompanied to public places were beaten and schools for girls were shuttered. Music was also banned, aside of religious chants.
'A proxy war'
"If the Taliban take over Kabul, we may not have access to the internet or any communication tool at all," Karimi writes, adding that she will stay and fight for her country.
"This war is not a civil war, this is an imposed war, and it is the result of the US deal with the Taliban," she says, referring to the peace agreement that was brokered between the US, represented by special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, and the Taliban's chief negotiator, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in February 2020.
At the time, the US government, under Trump, said the country would withdraw all its troops within the next 14 months. Since then, unrest in the country has been growing, culminating in the present occupation of the country by Taliban militants.
In her letter, Karimi appeals to the world to "not turn its back on us. We need your support and your voice on behalf of Afghan women, children, artists, and filmmakers."
CIA’s turn to admit to its fiasco
Jawed Naqv i
Jawed Naqv i
Published August 17, 2021 - DAWN.COM
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in New Delhi.
AS far as the Afghan Taliban’s fanaticism is concerned, together with their overwhelming military superiority with their winning guerrilla tactics, there ought to be no surprises at the brigands’ return to Kabul with amazing ease. It is also not a huge surprise that the US spilled unimaginable quantities of blood and money in the 20 years of its occupation of the landlocked impoverished nation with precious little to show for it.
The savagery showcased the nature of the beast for both sides, one under the banner of democracy, the other openly tethered to religious and cultural atavism and, therefore, in this situation, less of a hypocrite. The gloss of human rights and women’s liberation offered by the Western coalition as a ruse to wreck Afghanistan was wearing thin at least a decade ago.
At the risk of annoying my liberal Pakistani friends, and Indians who have lost crucial listening posts in the erstwhile friendlier Afghanistan, the question needs to be asked: why this fret over barbarism when we can put up with the routine chopping of heads and hands in other countries, legally?
How was the demolishing of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban any worse than Turkey’s forcible conversion of a fabled church into a mosque? How was that different from the razing of a mediaeval mosque in India by a frenzied mob? When the acrimony and false pride surrounding the great tragedy fade away, history would search for the genesis and execution of the mindlessness.
The gloss of human rights and women’s liberation offered by the Western coalition as a ruse to wreck Afghanistan was wearing thin at least a decade ago.
The main personalities involved in the latest version of the Great Game — which better qualifies to be called the dirty game — were the KGB and the CIA. We know from the contrite revelations of Vasili Mitrokhin, the senior KGB defector to the West, the Soviet side of the truer story. We could do with a CIA defector, why not, to Afghanistan itself to explain the inexplicable insanity that was not the agency’s first such enterprise.
When I visited Kabul in 1981 for a Dubai daily, I saw girls going to schools and women heading off to colleges and universities. One was aware that the rural regions in the story were built on a different foundation. Iran’s Islamic revolution also had its seeds in the greater control that the religious clergy had on the rural masses. It was mainly the underground communist groups led by the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party that provided the urban sinews for the revolution in Iran. In Afghanistan there was no similar bridge between the rural conservative masses and the left-leaning and liberal intellectual elite located in urban pockets.
Yet, the erstwhile conservative Afghans were an agreeable lot, relatively speaking. Sample the way the Soviet-backed government would pick them out from their lairs. One of the most popular method of arresting suspected Afghan mujahideen in droves was to raid cinema halls where everyone would be watching recently released Indian movies. The Soviet ambassador, probably a Tajik, was a burly man named Fikriat al Tabeev. Indian ambassador J.N. Dixit introduced us at a party thrown by some Eastern European embassy. I remember a flare would be shot into the sky for the Soviet ambassador to travel.
I met Sultan Kishtmand, the prime minister, and found him to be an enlightened communist who supported the rights of peasants, workers and women. Life was, however, difficult already with the support that the culturally regressive Muslim groups were getting from Pakistan, a conduit to a Western campaign to evict the Soviet presence from Afghanistan.
The Mitrokhin Archive has been an excellent source to correct the communist narrative one had impressionably accepted. But there is no matching account of the American story other than the dribble in the Western media and their global consumers that have justified the CIA’s blunders in Afghanistan.
A KGB report submitted to the Soviet politburo, On the Events in Afghanistan on 27 and 28 December 1979, was effectively designed to mislead the rest of the Soviet leadership about the harsh reality of the Afghan situation, admits Mitrokhin with the help of his co-author Christopher Andrew. Probably composed for “Brezhnev’s benefit, the report maintained the fiction that the assassination of Amin had been chiefly the work of the Afghans themselves rather than KGB special forces” says Mitrokhin.
“On the wave of patriotic feelings which had overcome fairly broad sections of the Afghan population following the introduction of Soviet troops which was carried out in strict accordance with the Soviet–Afghan treaty of 1978, the forces opposed to H. Amin carried out an armed attack during the night of 27 to 28 December which ended in the overthrow of the regime of H. Amin. This attack was widely supported by the working masses, the intelligentsia, a considerable part of the Afghan army and the state apparatus, which welcomed the establishment of the new leadership of the DRA [Democratic Republic of Afghanistan] and the PDPA [People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan].” It reads like any communist pamphlet, not dissimilar to the story Tabeev- and Kishtmand-fed journalists like me.
The reality was starkly different as Mitrokhin reveals. “Far from receiving widespread support from both working masses and intelligentsia, the Soviet invasion provoked immediate opposition. Demonstrations against the presence of Soviet troops began in Kandahar on 31 December.”
The KGB also gave the politburo an extraordinarily optimistic assessment of the prospects for the new Babrak Karmal government. He was “one of the best-trained leaders of the PDPA theoretically. He is able to take a sober and objective view of the situation in Afghanistan. He has always been noted for his sincere goodwill towards the Soviet Union and is held in great respect in the Party and throughout the country”. We know what happened to someone’s dream of sowing socialism in Afghanistan. And now we are compelled to remember the fall of Saigon as the Taliban entered Kabul on Aug 15.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in New Delhi.
jawednaqvi@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2021
AS far as the Afghan Taliban’s fanaticism is concerned, together with their overwhelming military superiority with their winning guerrilla tactics, there ought to be no surprises at the brigands’ return to Kabul with amazing ease. It is also not a huge surprise that the US spilled unimaginable quantities of blood and money in the 20 years of its occupation of the landlocked impoverished nation with precious little to show for it.
The savagery showcased the nature of the beast for both sides, one under the banner of democracy, the other openly tethered to religious and cultural atavism and, therefore, in this situation, less of a hypocrite. The gloss of human rights and women’s liberation offered by the Western coalition as a ruse to wreck Afghanistan was wearing thin at least a decade ago.
At the risk of annoying my liberal Pakistani friends, and Indians who have lost crucial listening posts in the erstwhile friendlier Afghanistan, the question needs to be asked: why this fret over barbarism when we can put up with the routine chopping of heads and hands in other countries, legally?
How was the demolishing of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban any worse than Turkey’s forcible conversion of a fabled church into a mosque? How was that different from the razing of a mediaeval mosque in India by a frenzied mob? When the acrimony and false pride surrounding the great tragedy fade away, history would search for the genesis and execution of the mindlessness.
The gloss of human rights and women’s liberation offered by the Western coalition as a ruse to wreck Afghanistan was wearing thin at least a decade ago.
The main personalities involved in the latest version of the Great Game — which better qualifies to be called the dirty game — were the KGB and the CIA. We know from the contrite revelations of Vasili Mitrokhin, the senior KGB defector to the West, the Soviet side of the truer story. We could do with a CIA defector, why not, to Afghanistan itself to explain the inexplicable insanity that was not the agency’s first such enterprise.
When I visited Kabul in 1981 for a Dubai daily, I saw girls going to schools and women heading off to colleges and universities. One was aware that the rural regions in the story were built on a different foundation. Iran’s Islamic revolution also had its seeds in the greater control that the religious clergy had on the rural masses. It was mainly the underground communist groups led by the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party that provided the urban sinews for the revolution in Iran. In Afghanistan there was no similar bridge between the rural conservative masses and the left-leaning and liberal intellectual elite located in urban pockets.
Yet, the erstwhile conservative Afghans were an agreeable lot, relatively speaking. Sample the way the Soviet-backed government would pick them out from their lairs. One of the most popular method of arresting suspected Afghan mujahideen in droves was to raid cinema halls where everyone would be watching recently released Indian movies. The Soviet ambassador, probably a Tajik, was a burly man named Fikriat al Tabeev. Indian ambassador J.N. Dixit introduced us at a party thrown by some Eastern European embassy. I remember a flare would be shot into the sky for the Soviet ambassador to travel.
I met Sultan Kishtmand, the prime minister, and found him to be an enlightened communist who supported the rights of peasants, workers and women. Life was, however, difficult already with the support that the culturally regressive Muslim groups were getting from Pakistan, a conduit to a Western campaign to evict the Soviet presence from Afghanistan.
The Mitrokhin Archive has been an excellent source to correct the communist narrative one had impressionably accepted. But there is no matching account of the American story other than the dribble in the Western media and their global consumers that have justified the CIA’s blunders in Afghanistan.
A KGB report submitted to the Soviet politburo, On the Events in Afghanistan on 27 and 28 December 1979, was effectively designed to mislead the rest of the Soviet leadership about the harsh reality of the Afghan situation, admits Mitrokhin with the help of his co-author Christopher Andrew. Probably composed for “Brezhnev’s benefit, the report maintained the fiction that the assassination of Amin had been chiefly the work of the Afghans themselves rather than KGB special forces” says Mitrokhin.
“On the wave of patriotic feelings which had overcome fairly broad sections of the Afghan population following the introduction of Soviet troops which was carried out in strict accordance with the Soviet–Afghan treaty of 1978, the forces opposed to H. Amin carried out an armed attack during the night of 27 to 28 December which ended in the overthrow of the regime of H. Amin. This attack was widely supported by the working masses, the intelligentsia, a considerable part of the Afghan army and the state apparatus, which welcomed the establishment of the new leadership of the DRA [Democratic Republic of Afghanistan] and the PDPA [People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan].” It reads like any communist pamphlet, not dissimilar to the story Tabeev- and Kishtmand-fed journalists like me.
The reality was starkly different as Mitrokhin reveals. “Far from receiving widespread support from both working masses and intelligentsia, the Soviet invasion provoked immediate opposition. Demonstrations against the presence of Soviet troops began in Kandahar on 31 December.”
The KGB also gave the politburo an extraordinarily optimistic assessment of the prospects for the new Babrak Karmal government. He was “one of the best-trained leaders of the PDPA theoretically. He is able to take a sober and objective view of the situation in Afghanistan. He has always been noted for his sincere goodwill towards the Soviet Union and is held in great respect in the Party and throughout the country”. We know what happened to someone’s dream of sowing socialism in Afghanistan. And now we are compelled to remember the fall of Saigon as the Taliban entered Kabul on Aug 15.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in New Delhi.
jawednaqvi@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2021
To Afghans with nowhere to go
Abbas Nasir
Published August 15, 2021
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
AS news organisations report on the rapid territorial gains by the Taliban in Afghanistan, a lot of debate around the issue focuses on power politics and very little on the impact a Taliban win will have on the lives of the Afghans.
Just a few weeks ahead of President Biden’s announcement, confirming his predecessor’s decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, and then the dramatic, unannounced overnight pullout emptying the massive Bagram military base, I was watching a vlog.
It was by one of those vloggers who go travelling around the world on different airlines, rate and report on the carriers and the services they offer from check-in to inflight meals. Our particular vlogger happened to be in Kabul.
He reported he’d been invited to the Afghan capital by an airline to travel on an ‘all-woman crew’ return flight to the western city of Herat. Lo and behold, when he boarded the Boeing 737, a women cabin crew welcomed him aboard and not a single male crew member was present.
‘This means I am going to lose … everything my father and I and my whole family have worked for.’
The crew members the vlogger talked to belonged to different parts of the country and had taken up their profession over the past decade or so. Each said they loved their work and the travel opportunities and the independence it provided them.
Then the vlogger entered the flight deck and both the captain and the first officer were women. The captain was an experienced Ukrainian and her deputy a young Afghan. They both talked of their passion, flying, and during the more relaxed phases of the flight discussed various aspects of their job.
Being the proud father of two daughters myself, my eyes turned misty when the first officer told the vlogger that flying was all she ever wanted to do and getting to live her dream was great but what was even better was that ‘young Afghan girls can see if I can do it, so can they,’ a little before she executed a perfect touchdown at Kabul airport.
Earlier this week, I watched UK’s Channel 4 News TV interview another Afghan woman, this particular one ran an NGO for young girls’ education in Kandahar, who described the Doha talks as “selling us out ... that was ‘let us go out, let the elite and the posh people get out, let us sell the people of Afghanistan, the civilians of Afghanistan’ … for us there is no way out”.
“This means I am going to lose my … everything my father and I and my whole family have worked for, every girl has worked for, every person has worked for in the last 20 years. This means losing your houses, losing your dreams, your goals, your ambitions, your identity as Afghans. Everything.”
The brutal Channel 4 presenter, aware that the Taliban were already at the gates of Kandahar, from where the staggeringly articulate and inspirational young woman was answering his questions live, asked: “What are you going to do if there is a bang on the door?”
Her forlorn face answered the question better in the moment of silence that preceded her words. She heaved a huge sigh and said: “Pray. Pray, probably. It is going to be the last thing I am going to do but it is the only thing I can do. I don’t have anything else to do,” the presenter shifted awkwardly in his chair as he thanked the woman whose expression was no less than a stab in the heart.
So, yes while you read ‘analysis’ ie partisan accounts of who exactly is to blame for the Afghans’ dilemma today, spare a thought for the young airline pilot, for the equally brilliant young woman whose despair and desperation will haunt me for weeks on end. And countless others like them.
In pictures: The human cost of the Taliban's gains
Pakistan is concerned that it may be ‘scapegoated’ and left to shoulder the blame by itself, even isolated, for giving sanctuary to the Taliban leadership and fighters, as others, while they were being hunted down by US-led forces in Afghanistan. There is no escaping that blame.
But let’s not kid ourselves. The US forces arrived in Afghanistan to degrade and destroy Al Qaeda that had launched ‘spectacular’ terror attacks on the US mainland, striking at the corporate heart of the country and also at the core of its near-mythical, unchallenged military power.
The US spent a reported $1.5 trillion (I don’t know how many zeroes are in that, do you?) over the 20 years its forces were present on the ground and largely believes that Al Qaeda is no more the threat it once was.
The US hand was guided by its own security interests not concerns for the Afghan nation. It is that simple. No higher purpose, principles were involved. The Afghans were let down more than anyone else by their own elite, if you ask me.
Yes, Pakistan was duplicitous inasmuch as the Taliban were concerned owing to its own security concerns; the West was acting in self-interest too ie the security threat posed by the international terror group Al Qaeda even if it was born out of an earlier folly, the anti-Soviet ‘jihad’.
Read: 'No smoking, no shaving' — Taliban restore old rules in newly seized Afghan territory
What about the billions poured by the West into the Afghan defence forces? Just weeks before the Taliban advance began, the number of Afghan troops was put at 300,000. From the evidence on the ground the real number was one-tenth of the claimed figure, if that. It seemed largely a ghost force.
Of course, the West has more or less walked away and the Afghan elite, that siphoned off funds meant for bolstering the defence forces and meaningful structural reform, will be on planes out of the country before the final humiliation inflicted by the Taliban. The rest have nowhere to go.
My thoughts are with those Afghans today. Particularly women, so many of whom are demonstrably much worthier in intellectual terms than their male compatriots whose material greed and lust for power has left their country at the mercy of an armed, intolerant and obscurantist militant group.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
abbas.nasir@hotmail.com
Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2021
AS news organisations report on the rapid territorial gains by the Taliban in Afghanistan, a lot of debate around the issue focuses on power politics and very little on the impact a Taliban win will have on the lives of the Afghans.
Just a few weeks ahead of President Biden’s announcement, confirming his predecessor’s decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, and then the dramatic, unannounced overnight pullout emptying the massive Bagram military base, I was watching a vlog.
It was by one of those vloggers who go travelling around the world on different airlines, rate and report on the carriers and the services they offer from check-in to inflight meals. Our particular vlogger happened to be in Kabul.
He reported he’d been invited to the Afghan capital by an airline to travel on an ‘all-woman crew’ return flight to the western city of Herat. Lo and behold, when he boarded the Boeing 737, a women cabin crew welcomed him aboard and not a single male crew member was present.
‘This means I am going to lose … everything my father and I and my whole family have worked for.’
The crew members the vlogger talked to belonged to different parts of the country and had taken up their profession over the past decade or so. Each said they loved their work and the travel opportunities and the independence it provided them.
Then the vlogger entered the flight deck and both the captain and the first officer were women. The captain was an experienced Ukrainian and her deputy a young Afghan. They both talked of their passion, flying, and during the more relaxed phases of the flight discussed various aspects of their job.
Being the proud father of two daughters myself, my eyes turned misty when the first officer told the vlogger that flying was all she ever wanted to do and getting to live her dream was great but what was even better was that ‘young Afghan girls can see if I can do it, so can they,’ a little before she executed a perfect touchdown at Kabul airport.
Earlier this week, I watched UK’s Channel 4 News TV interview another Afghan woman, this particular one ran an NGO for young girls’ education in Kandahar, who described the Doha talks as “selling us out ... that was ‘let us go out, let the elite and the posh people get out, let us sell the people of Afghanistan, the civilians of Afghanistan’ … for us there is no way out”.
“This means I am going to lose my … everything my father and I and my whole family have worked for, every girl has worked for, every person has worked for in the last 20 years. This means losing your houses, losing your dreams, your goals, your ambitions, your identity as Afghans. Everything.”
The brutal Channel 4 presenter, aware that the Taliban were already at the gates of Kandahar, from where the staggeringly articulate and inspirational young woman was answering his questions live, asked: “What are you going to do if there is a bang on the door?”
Her forlorn face answered the question better in the moment of silence that preceded her words. She heaved a huge sigh and said: “Pray. Pray, probably. It is going to be the last thing I am going to do but it is the only thing I can do. I don’t have anything else to do,” the presenter shifted awkwardly in his chair as he thanked the woman whose expression was no less than a stab in the heart.
So, yes while you read ‘analysis’ ie partisan accounts of who exactly is to blame for the Afghans’ dilemma today, spare a thought for the young airline pilot, for the equally brilliant young woman whose despair and desperation will haunt me for weeks on end. And countless others like them.
In pictures: The human cost of the Taliban's gains
Pakistan is concerned that it may be ‘scapegoated’ and left to shoulder the blame by itself, even isolated, for giving sanctuary to the Taliban leadership and fighters, as others, while they were being hunted down by US-led forces in Afghanistan. There is no escaping that blame.
But let’s not kid ourselves. The US forces arrived in Afghanistan to degrade and destroy Al Qaeda that had launched ‘spectacular’ terror attacks on the US mainland, striking at the corporate heart of the country and also at the core of its near-mythical, unchallenged military power.
The US spent a reported $1.5 trillion (I don’t know how many zeroes are in that, do you?) over the 20 years its forces were present on the ground and largely believes that Al Qaeda is no more the threat it once was.
The US hand was guided by its own security interests not concerns for the Afghan nation. It is that simple. No higher purpose, principles were involved. The Afghans were let down more than anyone else by their own elite, if you ask me.
Yes, Pakistan was duplicitous inasmuch as the Taliban were concerned owing to its own security concerns; the West was acting in self-interest too ie the security threat posed by the international terror group Al Qaeda even if it was born out of an earlier folly, the anti-Soviet ‘jihad’.
Read: 'No smoking, no shaving' — Taliban restore old rules in newly seized Afghan territory
What about the billions poured by the West into the Afghan defence forces? Just weeks before the Taliban advance began, the number of Afghan troops was put at 300,000. From the evidence on the ground the real number was one-tenth of the claimed figure, if that. It seemed largely a ghost force.
Of course, the West has more or less walked away and the Afghan elite, that siphoned off funds meant for bolstering the defence forces and meaningful structural reform, will be on planes out of the country before the final humiliation inflicted by the Taliban. The rest have nowhere to go.
My thoughts are with those Afghans today. Particularly women, so many of whom are demonstrably much worthier in intellectual terms than their male compatriots whose material greed and lust for power has left their country at the mercy of an armed, intolerant and obscurantist militant group.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
abbas.nasir@hotmail.com
Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2021
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