Afghanistan’s arc from 9/11 to today: Once hopeful, now sad

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — It was Nov. 13 , 2001. The prima had conscionable begun to emergence implicit the Hindu Kush Mountains erstwhile the Taliban disappeared from Kabul, the battered superior of Afghanistan.

The bodies of overseas Arabs who had stayed down were mutilated and bloodied. They had been recovered and killed by advancing Afghans of different faction who were brought to the metropolis by a blistering U.S.-led run that drove the Taliban from power.

America was inactive reeling from the horrific violent attacks of 2 months earlier, erstwhile planes flown by al-Qaida terrorists crashed into 3 iconic buildings and a Pennsylvania field, sidesplitting astir 3,000 people.

The perpetrators and their leader, Osama bin Laden, were determination successful Afghanistan, sheltered by the Taliban .

The mission: Find him. Bring him to justice.

Right then, Afghanistan — 2 decades of upset down it, 2 decades much conscionable up — was suspended successful an in-between moment. The caller pages of its publication were already filled with truthful overmuch heartbreak, but for the archetypal clip successful a while, immoderate blank pages afloat of imaginable sat conscionable ahead. Nothing was certain, but overmuch seemed possible.

Against that backdrop, Afghans understood the ngo against bin Laden to mean a accidental to unafraid their aboriginal — a aboriginal arsenic murky connected that time arsenic it is today. In those post-2001 months and years, they believed successful the powerfulness of “the foreigners.”

From hundreds of years agone close up to the jumbled chaos of caller days arsenic the United States pulled retired of its aerial base and then the capital, the connection “foreigner” has meant galore things successful the Afghan context, from invaders to would-be colonizers.

But successful November 2001, successful a mostly ruined Afghan superior wherever rutted roads were filled with bicycles and beat-up yellowish taxis, it meant hope.

The caller Afghanistan

Torek Farhadi joined scores of educated and trained Afghan expatriates who returned to their homeland successful 2002 aft the Taliban were gone. He wanted to beryllium portion of the caller Afghanistan that the U.S.-led penetration promised.

“I recovered the radical relieved caller and afloat connected vigor to commencement anew,” the economist said from his location successful Geneva, arsenic helium watched the Taliban’s instrumentality to powerfulness past month. He remembered, too, the “smart young women” helium encountered who had mislaid immense chunks of their educations to Taliban repression betwixt 1996 and 2001.

The accomplishment of the U.S.-led conjugation weeks aft the Sept. 11 attacks ended a repressive, religiously extremist authorities that had much successful communal with the sixth period than the 21st.

Mullah Mohammad Omar, the reclusive one-eyed person of the Taliban, had brought the colony to the city. The strict edicts helium taught astatine his one-room mud madrassa, oregon spiritual school, became law. Girls were denied education. Women were confined to their homes or, erstwhile successful public, wrong the all-encompassing burqa. Men were told to deterioration beards. Television was banned, arsenic was each euphony but spiritual chants.

When the Taliban fled and the new, station 9/11 leader, Hamid Karzai, entered the sprawling statesmanlike palace, helium discovered the Taliban had near their mark. The expansive soft had been gutted; lone the elegant ammunition remained. The insides had been removed — seemingly retired of fearfulness that a soft cardinal mightiness beryllium accidentally pressed and euphony made.

Wall-to-wall hand-painted miniature murals had been defaced; Taliban who believed images of surviving things were a transgression against Islam went to each tiny vertebrate and blotted retired its look with a achromatic marker.

In those archetypal years, George W. Bush’s defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, vowed determination would beryllium nary nation-building. The moving of the state was handed to Washington’s Afghan allies, galore of whom had destroyed Kabul with their bitter feuding erstwhile they past ruled. Under their corruption, the state devolved into a postulation of fiefdoms that enriched section warlords and led to the Taliban’s rise.

Ethnic Pashtuns, the bulk radical that had made up the backbone of the country, were abruptly disenfranchised. In 2002, the lawman constabulary main of Zabul, a confederate state that was erstwhile a Taliban stronghold, sent 2,000 young Pashtun men to Kabul to articulation the Afghan nationalist army. They were teased and mocked; the lawman main said each but 4 ended up joining the Taliban.

Giant posters of slain anti-Taliban combatant Ahmad Shah Massoud — an taste Tajik warlord who was assassinated connected Sept. 9, 2001 — were plastered connected authoritative vehicles and wrong the Defense Ministry. The archetypal defence minister, Mohammad Fahim, a Massoud lieutenant, deepened the divisions by institutionalizing taste discrimination.

The Afghan subject that would illness successful the aftermath of Taliban advances successful 2021 began beingness with its recruits often much loyal to a warlord than the service itself. Training was hardly 8 weeks for new, mostly uneducated men. Building the Afghan service was often likened to repairing an craft midflight.

So crossed Afghanistan, rapidly and understandably, it started: The defeated Taliban began to re-emerge. And it kept getting worse.

By 2012, conscionable 2 years earlier the U.S. and NATO handed implicit the operational extremity of the warfare to Afghanistan’s government, the Afghan service was hardly competent and filled with fighters aggravated astatine what they considered mediocre attraction by their overseas trainers. Soldiers wore boots with holes due to the fact that a shoddy contractor, paid millions by corrupt officials, had delivered substandard equipment. At an service outpost successful the deadly east, helmets were truthful scarce that 5 soldiers took turns wearing one.

And U.S. trainers? They were nary longer attending grooming sessions wherever unrecorded ammunition was being used.

They feared the weapons mightiness beryllium turned connected them.

Return of the Taliban

The instrumentality past period of the Taliban, with their agelong beards and flowing accepted turbans, has created wide fearfulness among young radical successful Afghanistan’s cities — places wherever municipality girls wearing headscarves person felt escaped to mingle successful java shops and connected the street. Young men wearing Western formal who imagination of adjacent greater freedoms person been portion of the airdrome chaos that greeted the commencement of evacuation flights.

A state of 36 million, Afghanistan is filled with blimpish people, galore of whom unrecorded successful the countryside. But adjacent they bash not adhere to the strict mentation of Islam that the Taliban imposed erstwhile past they ruled.

The Taliban leaders, galore of whom are linked to the erstwhile regime, including the movement’s co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, promise a antithetic Taliban this time. Once camera shy and reclusive, galore person made regular appearances connected the diplomatic stage. They accidental women tin work, be schoolhouse and enactment successful nationalist life.

Who believes them is different substance entirely. The caller procreation is filled with tense young radical who grew up connected stories that were the worldly of nightmares.

Some older Afghans, who interest that an already depressed system volition lone get worse, enactment that the Taliban’s past regularisation was marked by beardown security. Under those Taliban, justness was swift and harsh. Convicted thieves had their hands chopped off. Murderers were publically executed. The punishments and the trials were carried retired publically successful a stadium filled with thousands — barbaric scenes that inactive make fear.

The Taliban’s regularisation was not marked by attacks connected women, but alternatively relentless repression that denied them a nationalist space. And contempt orders that they should beryllium accompanied by men, women often traveled by themselves. But the accepted all-covering burqa, an past formal that near lone a gauzy spot done which to see, came to symbolize Taliban repression.

Even arsenic the satellite watched successful daze astatine the speedy demise of the Afghan service and authorities implicit the past weeks, the signs of Afghanistan’s post-9/11 decay had agelong been evident.

Twenty years and billions of dollars successful concern aft 9/11, Afghanistan was considered 1 of the worst places successful the satellite to beryllium a pistillate successful 2020 and successful 2019, according to the Georgetown Institute for Women Peace and Security. In 2018, successful a Gallup canvass offered a standard of 1 to 10 to find however respondents judged their chances for a amended aboriginal 5 years down the road, Afghans averaged 2.3. Gallup called it a “new debased for immoderate state successful immoderate year.”

And two-thirds of those respondents were 35 years aged oregon younger — the precise young Afghans who, this month, are anxiously wondering what mightiness beryllium coming next.

Searching for peace

When Afghans inactive believed that searching for bid could marque a difference, determination was thing called the High Peace Council. A fewer years ago, 1 of its members wondered however U.S. and NATO forces — which astatine their highest numbered 150,000 and fought alongside hundreds of thousands of Afghan troops — couldn’t vanquish tens of thousands of Taliban.

“Either they did not privation to, oregon they could not bash it,” Mohammed Ismail Qasimyar said. “They person made a hell, not a paradise, for us.”

In the archetypal years aft 9/11, U.S. wealth arrived successful Kabul successful suitcases. There were nary moving banks astatine the clip — and nary oversight of the billions pouring into the country. Most of it passed done the hands of U.S.-allied warlords whose corruption had led to the Taliban’s emergence successful the 1990s.

American generals were often utilized by their Afghan allies to nonstop revenge. Mohabullah, an Afghan who had near the Taliban to instrumentality location to the cardinal state of Ghazni, erstwhile laughed arsenic helium recounted however easy fooled the Americans were by their Afghan partners. He recalled however a state presumption proprietor was turned successful to U.S. forces arsenic a Taliban — to settee a feud.

American forces often unwittingly recovered themselves enmeshed successful specified section rivalries during those aboriginal months and years erstwhile they were utterly babelike connected their warlord allies. In 2002, 1 U.S. wide had to trust wholly connected erstwhile warlords for accusation astir salient al-Qaida figures who were connected the move.

For those who person watched Afghanistan for years, the scenes of throngs of mostly young men hanging from departing craft astatine Kabul’s airdrome past period seemed an indictment of the 2 decades of efforts and the billions of dollars spent. For galore of those men, the desperation to depart was little astir fearfulness for their beingness — and much astir uncovering a caller one.

And, accidental immoderate Afghans, nary wonder.

“Kleptocrats and warlords recovered their mode successful the corridors of power. They were rich, they became filthy affluent and took the full governance strategy hostage to their interests,” says Farhadi, the economist. “People mislaid faith,” helium says. “Even the soldiers didn’t combat for their corrupt leadership.”

Still, Farhadi, a erstwhile advisor to the International Monetary Fund and a erstwhile economist astatine the World Bank, said he’d instrumentality to his homeland nether the Taliban — to assistance them find a mode to run successful the 21st century.

So overmuch has changed from 9/11-era Afghanistan. Bin Laden is dormant and gone, slain by U.S. forces successful Pakistan successful 2011. Kabul is simply a metropolis that galore returning Taliban no longer recognize. The repercussions of the past fewer weeks will beryllium with the U.S. authorities for a while. And with that anticipation of November 2001 agelong consigned to Afghanistan’s past and heartbreak, Farhadi has proposal for his country’s erstwhile and newest rulers.

“Keep a crisp oculus connected corruption. Create a level playing tract for corruption escaped business. Let the women articulation the workforce; it volition assistance households boost their finances. Call connected the diaspora to travel back, put and assistance physique the country. Avoid driving the state into isolation. It is the radical who volition extremity up paying the terms of sanctions.”

Kathy Gannon, AP’s quality manager for Pakistan and Afghanistan, has been covering the state for 3 decades, including the runup to and contiguous aftermath of 9/11.