Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

"Going forward the strategic interests of Canada and our allies in Afghanistan have diminished."

"As a result, a reduced programming footprint ... is proposed, focused on education health and gender equality in addition to humanitarian assistance."

Canada's foreign affairs briefing note to Ahmed Hussen, minister for international development 

Newly recruited personnel joining the Taliban security forces demonstrate their skills during their graduation ceremony in the western city of Herat

 

Internal Canadian government documents give some insight to Canada's ongoing financial support to Afghanistan in humanitarian aid, meant to be delivered to suffering Afghans living a life of privation under Taliban rule, in the hopes that none of that financial aid goes to the government itself. The "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" under Taliban administration, has no diplomatic recognition from any nation. It has no international legitimacy. And its toxic rule has been a life-stopper for Afghan girls and women.

Global Affairs Canada issued a briefing note that while recognizing Canada's diminished focus on the country at a time when new crises are erupting elsewhere in the world, that ongoing funding in areas such as health, education and women's rights be maintained; given the odium in which the fundamentalist Islamist regime is held, there is no popularity among Canadian taxpayers to expend charitable funding to a country that its extremist rulers would be swift to appropriate.

"This could generate negative media interest", the document warns, should it be publicized, recommending a "reactive" communications strategy. Since the Taliban took over in 2021 and foreign missions were withdrawn along with a coalition led by the United States of military forces, the Taliban expelled international humanitarian groups leading to an exacerbated condition of non-foreign-interference in the affairs of the country bringing issues of education, health, food scarcity to a head.

 

Taliban security personnel holding rocket-propelled grenade ride motorbikes as they celebrate the third anniversary of Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in Khost on August 14, 2024. Photo by AFP via Getty Images/File

Most countries strive to avoid direct government-to-government contact with the Taliban that risks legitimizing a regime known for its human rights abuses. Afghanistan is a country whose people face severe humanitarian pressures; the United Nations estimating that over 12 million Afghans suffer "acute food insecurity". Canada's government while refusing to recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government, has provided $367 million in assistance in the past three years. 

 

"Canada has continued to provide development assistance to the people of Afghanistan", a Global Affairs spokesman affirmed to an investigating journalist. Over the years of Canada's active involvement in Afghanistan the total that the government of Canada provided was over $4 billion in aid. Under the Taliban, girls are barred from attending school past Grade 6. Women cannot participate in most areas of the economy, and harsh rules have been imposed on their dress and their participation in social life.

"A country like Canada can't do everything everywhere all the time. But if there's ever a place where values, historical obligation and interests kind of align, it's Afghanistan."

"There is no place in recent history where not just Canadian Forces but also civilians and diplomats were as present for as long as they were in Afghanistan."

Martin Fischer, spokesman, World Vision Canada

There is nothing quite like the passion of humanitarian groups urging governments to fund their missions abroad. It is their reason for existence. For employing locally engaged people. For priding themselves on supporting those for whom few options remain other than to dream of a future without coercion, insecurity and starvation. That, in the process of delivering their humanitarian aid they relieve dictators of their own responsibility to provide for their populations is irrelevant; as is the fact that indirectly they are supporting those dictatorships.

Since Canada closed its embassy, cutting off direct assistance to the Afghan government since the Taliban takeover it has continued to provide critical support "without compromising our values", Global Affairs insists. Pointing out that 40,000 Afghans were brought to Canada, ostensibly saving them from Taliban threats, but leaving the question of adequate security measures being in place through the process. That an incident of recent street protests where extremists gathered to condemn Israel for its war in Gaza following the terrorist assault on Israel, flags of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban have been seen. 'Death to Canada' has been heard, along with 'Death to Israel'.

The government of Canada insists that much of its funding aid has been directed to the Afghanistan Resilience Trust Fund, a World Bank project; funding that the briefing note recommended be reduced. Funding directed elsewhere in aid to Afghanistan is meant to focus on health, education, female rights and empowerment and humanitarian aid, the Global Affairs briefing note adds.

A Taliban fighter stands guard as women wait to receive food rations distributed by a humanitarian aid group in Kabul last month.

"Should the reduction in the department's international assistance to Afghanistan be publicized, this could generate negative media interest."

"[However], the proposed approach is not expected to garner media and/or public attention."

"The department recommends a reactive communications approach."

Relying on Canada...

"In two months I won't be able to fly because of liability issues with airlines. This whole situation is a nightmare, it feels like we're not living real life."

"How can a government of the free world look down and leave me and my husband to live one more day like this?"

"Every day it feels like I don't think I can do this another day, but we push on."

"People [in Pakistan] are suspicious of me because of my husband's ethnicity, especially the men, who know I'm pregnant and that my husband is far away. They say disgusting words to me."

"Women pretend to be my friend just to get personal information, like that my husband fought Taliban. Here, a lot of people support Taliban."

"I don't go outside anymore. I hide all day. I know some Afghans on special measures had everything paid for, but after all this we want only a stamp."

"I know if my husband comes back to Pakistan, he will end up in jail or dead. I just want my baby to have a dad."

Former Afghan interpreter (name withheld)

A former Canadian Armed Forces interpreter, unnamed in concern for her safety, in an undated photo. She is six months pregnant and stranded in Islamabad, in her agonizing journey through Canadian bureaucracy.  Submitted photo

Canada committed to bringing all its former Afghan assistants, office workers, locally engaged diplomatic staff, language interpreters with the Canadian military, to safety in Canada when the Taliban returned to power to transform Afghanistan once again from a nascent democratic model to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan under its fundamentalist aegis. The Taliban are known to hunt down Afghans who worked for the former Afghan government, members of the Afghan military, and above all, those they consider traitors; Afghans who worked for foreign countries stationed with a NATO/U.S.-led contingent in the country.

Some Afghans numbering in the thousands were fortunate enough to have been flown to Canada in a universal rescue undertaken by all western nations as they decamped from the country on the cusp of the Taliban's conquest. Others were far less fortunate, following orders of operation issued to them from Canada's Immigration and Refugee ministry, but which were fairly useless, leaving these people behind in fear of their lives at the hands of the Taliban. Paperwork is the fundamental stumbling block.

This woman interpreter married to a Canadian soldier is awaiting but one stamp on her passport to enable her to be brought to safety.She had followed Canadian instructions to leave Afghanistan for Pakistan on a visa, but her Pakistani visa was running out and she is in a helpless, vulnerable position. Pakistan views former helpers of foreign countries only marginally less favourably than the Taliban whom, after all, the Pakistani military and Inter-Agency intelligence group fostered, armed and protected.

The Pakistani government would not hesitate to return a former Afghan interpreter to Canadian forces to her country of origin. Where the Taliban would be prepared to take her into custody and her fate, following that, would be anyone's guess. Her own guess is none too hopeful. This woman's husband desperately urges and awaits action on the part of the bureaucrats of Canada's Immigratation, Refugees and Citizenship ministry. Action that has not been forthcoming, and whose lack of movement places this pregnant woman in danger for her life.

She has already been accepted into a special immigration program which grants Canadian Armed Forces interpreters the right to come to Canada as landed immigrants and eventually to achieve citizenship; she would be joining her Canadian husband in Canada. Instead, she languishes in fear and suspense awaiting rescue from Pakistan. She is fearful of going out in public. Simple excursions such as shopping or a medical visit place her in danger.

She and her husband barely managed to secure a rented place to stay from a reluctant landlord who demanded a steep fee for the privilege. In the interim her visa to remain in Pakistan expired and the potential of deportation looms. The lapsed visa makes is more difficult for her to find new lodgings. All the promises for swift action from the government of Canada have come to nothing.

Half a year after they returned to power in Afghanistan, Taliban arrests of Westerners are growing in frequency. Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images

Savaging Women's Human Rights in Afghanistan

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have decreed that women should wear the all-covering burka in public and leave home only when necessary, a throwback to when the Taliban ruled the country between 1996 and 2001. (Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)

"For all dignified Afghan women, wearing Hijab is necessary and the best Hijab is chadori [head-to-toe burka] which is part of our tradition and is respectful."

"If a woman is caught without a Hijab, her mahram [male guardian] will be warned."

"The second time, the guardian will be summoned and after repeated summons, her guardian will be imprisoned for three days."

Shir Mohammad, Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice

 

"This decision contradicts numerous assurances regarding respect for and protection of all Afghans’ human rights, including those of women and girls, that had been provided to the international community by Taliban representatives during discussions and negotiations over the past decade."

"The decision six weeks ago to postpone secondary schooling for Afghan girls was widely condemned internationally, regionally, and locally. Today’s decision by the Taliban might further strain engagement with the international community."

United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)

 

A burqa-clad woman and a child walk past Taliban fighters along a roadside in Jalalabad, Afghanistan

It was expected, but it's still a shock to women in Afghanistan hoping that the return of the Taliban to government rule in their country abandoned by the West to the fundamentalist Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan whose leaders promised when they took power from the West-supported government in August of 2021 that Afghan women would not be shoved back to the Stone Age as they were in the Talibans' initial iteration when they ruled the country from 1996 to 2001.

 

It has now, after almost a year of rule, reneged on its promise and re-installed their original proscriptions against women appearing in public unless entirely covered but for their eyes, and in the company of a male family member. Music and dance are again disallowed. Women may no longer attend school, much less have employment outside of the home. All the stringent disallowals of the previous Taliban administration have been reintroduced.

 

This, in a country that is in a humanitarian crisis with over half the population facing malnutrition. International sanctions excluding the Taliban from major financial institutions have heavily impacted the collapsed economy. International investment dried up as soon as the Taliban returned to power. Afghan financial resources held overseas have been frozen rather than release them to the Taliban.

 

Afghan women and girls shout slogans demanding the reopening of high schools for girls during a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Education in Kabul, March 26, 2022  AFP

 

Afghanistan is once more back in the thrall of an oppressive, violent government, implementing -- as Afghan women suspected they would -- those same regressive and repressive laws targeting rights and freedoms of women. Segregation laws were brought to Herat decreeing women and men may no longer dine out in each other's company. Women must now remain at home unless it is absolutely necessary for them to venture forth at which time a male guardian must accompany them in public.

Parks are to be open to women exclusively on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with men having exclusive use of the parks on the other four days of the week. Burkas have become the preferred coverings henceforth to obscure a woman completely from public scrutiny. Only eyes are to be exposed. The Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is known to monitor the streets of the country looking out for any foolish enough to flout the law.

Disobedience to the new/old proscriptions will be viewed as a criminal offence. A far cry from the oleaginous statement for international consumption made by Zabiullah Mujahid when the Taliban spokesman said "our sisters, our men have the same rights" in an effort to reassure the world that the returned Taliban were now moderate and civil. It took little time however, before women were banned from working and girls prohibited from attending school beyond Grade 6.

"[Pre-Taliban Afghanistan was] a thriving cultural environment [with 3.6 million girls in school and a quarter of the seats in Parliament held by women]."

"I very much hope that very shortly we'll be able to agree on a product that expresses our collective agreement and concern about these latest developments."

Barbara Woodward, British UN Ambassador to the United Nations

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the World Community

"The Panjwaii people, they suffered a lot from the war and drought." 

"With the help of Allah, our God, we will provide good security when you bring some aid to the people. And you can return back to your home without any suffering." 

"As you suffered from the Afghanistan war, we suffered too. In the future, do not attack our land, our nation; don't use drones on our land."

"There is no security threat. The only problem we have is that the international community is not recognizing Afghanistan."

Syfe Rahman Syfm new district chief, Panjwaii District Centre

Well, of course the international community recognizes Afghanistan. The Afghanistan that was called the Republic of Afghanistan, when Afghan-style democratic elections took place to elect government officials, despite the corruption rife in every aspect of life in the country; traditional and ongoing. It is the Afghanistan now ruled by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, by the Taliban that fails to receive official international recognition. But the Taliban leadership feels empowered to insist on international support for their Islamist Emirate.

Is a transition period of two months long enough to review the actions of the Taliban to conclude what their rule as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will look like? Resemble their previous time in power when anything remotely resembling freedom for Afghans from the shackles of Islamist sharia was strictly forbidden? When hospitals that treated men could not treat women who had their own assigned hospitals where only females themselves garbed in head-to-toe burqas could examine and treat women and girls? When music and parties were forbidden? 

 

Where girls were not permitted to gain an education? When men whose beards were merely suggestive rated public beatings? When women improperly garbed in public and an inch of bare skin on ankle or a wrist could be seen merited a lashing? When women and girls had to be accompanied outside their homes by male relatives?

 

When so much as a greeting between a woman and man not of the same family was forbidden. When the carnal sin of physical contact between the sexes could rate a prison sentence. When extramarital affairs could guarantee public stoning and death?  When women were expected to remain in their houses, forbidden to work outside the home. Where girls as young as ten were considered old enough to 'marry' Taliban fighters? That Afghanistan.

The Taliban are in power in Kandahar province, where  former Taliban fighters are now in government, are on a mission to restore international help under the new regime.  CBC

In August, the Taliban stormed the countryside, then the cities as the Afghan military and national police scattered before their onslaught. As they neared Kabul, the government suddenly melted away. Knowing they were slated to be hunted down, imprisoned or killed. Government employees in all government departments would be sought out through house-to-house searches and penalties meted out to them. Imprisonment, death. Of course when the Trump administration negotiated with Taliban spokesmen in Doha, Qatar promises were extracted in exchange for a U.S./NATO withdrawal.

 

A withdrawal badly wanted by both sides. The U.S. and other foreign troops to finally wash their hands of a protracted unwinnable war against a pathology of theistic conquest. The Taliban yearning to see the last of U.S. troops so they could get on with their mission unimpeded by the presence of foreign troops whose fixation on human rights was so infuriatingly irritating. August 15 marked the end of the Republic of Afghanistan, and the culmination of American shame. 

Pakistan exulted along with the Taliban, for of course the Taliban is their creature; the bulwark against India's possible presence in Afghanistan. As was Syria in Lebanon, so is Pakistan in Afghanistan. Iran benefits, China benefits, Russia benefits as long as the Taliban, as warned and acquiesced keep their terrorist adversaries and partners within Afghanistan, from Islamic State in Khoristan to al-Qaeda, and the Islamist Uyghurs.

"I am particularly alarmed to see promises made to Afghan women and girls by the Taliban being broken", mourned U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Did he really and truly expect otherwise? The 38 million Afghans now living under Taliban rule expected nothing else; certainly the country's women dreaded the transition, swift and brutal and now it is their future. Teen girls who hoped to continue their education now sit at home. Social/cultural/religious hostages. 

As for the promise to the U.S. negotiators, primarily the splendid choice of Zalmay Khalilzad who assured the Biden administration that a swift Taliban takeover of the country in the sudden absence of U.S. troops wouldn't occur: "I don't believe it's a likely scenario", well, surprise, surprise. And nor would the promise by the Taliban to the U.S. that it would form an inclusive government representing the interests of all Afghans by the Pashtun-majority Taliban take place since thousands of Hazara families were driven from Daikundi, Helmand and Kandahar in bloody ethnic-cleansing operations.

Women at the Panjwaii District Centre try to appeal to a Sharia court to solve their problems. The Taliban says it will solve disputes using a strict interpretation of Sharia law. The women don't appear to have secured a hearing. (Ellen Mauro/CBC)

"The international order now, it's just might makes right."

"If you have power nobody is going to stop you from doing anything. If we don't deal with the Taliban, if we sanction them, they don't really care. If we stop their officials from visiting the U.S., be it for education or trade or other opportunities, there is China. There is Russia. They don't care."

"Afghans now are most concerned with just having food on the table and a roof over their heads, with the basic necessities of life."

"That is how things are. Might makes right."

Irfan Yar, managing director, Afghanistan Security Institute, Ottawa, Canada

De facto diplomatic recognition of the Islamic Emirate has been extended by China, Iran and Russia. The Biden administration announced it was prepared to permit American aid agencies and private groups to resume sending food and medicine to Afghanistan. Not providing it directly to the Taliban of course, they reassure themselves; it's meant for the suffering Afghan people. And they are suffering. Mass starvation looms, the UN World Food Program warns. 

 

Figures post that 97 percent of the population is facing poverty. Close to half of the population is reliant on humanitarian aid, according to the UN Development program. And so, the West, through the G20, the United States and the European Union have resigned themselves to engaging with the Taliban albeit planning to withhold diplomatic recognition. That's a neat trick.

 

In meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusogin the Taliban foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, a sanctioned UN-designated terrorist -- gained NATO-member Turkey's comradely gesture in urging UN member states to support the Taliban.

The Panjwaii District Centre was opened by Canada in 2009, part of economic development in Panjwaii. Today it's headquarters for the Taliban district office, Sharia court and adjacent to the former military-operations centre for Canada, the U.S. and Afghan forces. (Susan Ormiston/CBC)

The Enduring Deterrent Effect of Amputations and Public Executions

Taliban leader Mullah Nooruddin Turabi AP

"Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments." 

"No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Qur'an."

"Cutting off of hands is very necessary for security [deterrent effect. The Cabinet is studying whether to do punishments in public and will] develop a policy."

"[The Taliban would allow television, mobile phones, photos and video] because this is the necessity of the people, and we are serious about it."

"[The Taliban views the media as a way to spread their message.] Now we know instead of reaching just hundreds, we can reach millions."

"We had complete safety in every part of the country [in the late 1990s of their previous rule]."

Taliban co-founder, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi

The Taliban swiftly grasped control of Afghanistan amid the withdrawal of U.S troops from the country last month. There are continuing signs the Taliban's hardline views and tactics are not a thing of the past. (West Asia News Agency/Reuters)

 

"It’s not a good thing to see these people being shamed in public, but it stops the criminals because when people see it, they think ‘I don’t want that to be me'."

Amaan, Kabul store owner

 

"In our Sharia it's clear, for those who have sex and are unmarried, whether it's a girl or a boy, the punishment is 100 lashes in public."

:But for anyone who's married, they have to be stoned to death..."

"For those who steal: if it's proved, then his hand should be cut off."

Taliban judge in Balkh, Haji Badruddin

The genteel reassurance has been revealed for what it was, a purely temporary ruse to persuade the outside world that the Taliban are really responsible caretakers of Afghanistan. Not what the media in the West make them out to be; fanatical Islamist fundamentalists following sharia to the letter of its laws as they interpret them; no shades of grey, rigidly black-and-white: guilty as charged renders an accused vulnerable to amputation or public execution.

 

The Taliban view corporal punishment as educational devices; a warning to any others who might conceivably be contemplating criminal offences, anathema in the considered opinion of the pious Islamists who honour Islam and the Prophet Mohammad by closely following sacred instructions on managing lawbreakers by extracting painful punishments of permanent disfigurements (lopping off ears and noses), amputations (complete disablement), or surrender of life itself.

 

It has started. Once again capital punishment for social crimes is meted out; kidnapping meriting death, the body hung in a public square hanging off a crane. For lesser crimes public humiliation will do; steal bread because you're hungry and bread will be stuffed in your mouth, and you paraded as a criminal-thief displayed on the back of a truck as it drives down busy streets, drawing the attention of shoppers, business people, idlers and burqa-clad women. Citizens are required to witness, to take note, to understand this could be their fate should they dare to bring offence.

 

People look up at a dead body hung by the Taliban from a crane — not shown in this image — in the main square of the city of Herat, in western Afghanistan, on Saturday. (The Associated Press)

 

As yet the governing council of the Taliban is undecided whether public executions will take place in public. As an entertainment with a message 'Do not emulate the forbidden actions of these criminal elements among you. See how they pay the price for their actions!' And when executions are in the offing the public is informed and advised that attendance is not optional. Unless they can be trusted to view at a distance via social media; a new and improved innovation; marrying modern technology to ancient barbaric rituals.

 

Nooruddin Turabi, a Taliban co-founder known for formulating and administering the rules of deterrence in the first iteration of the governing Taliban, and now a venerable 60 years of age, has been reappointed to the vital role of overseeing the vice and virtues of the people of Afghanistan. Morality is a subject of great moment to this government. It must be upheld as the pinnacle of Islamic values, instructing all of the expectations incumbent upon them as proud citizens of an ancient country. 

 

There have been reports of women's rights being brutally restricted   Reuters

 

City streets will once again be patrolled by the morality police, and dress infractions by women will be instantly met with appropriate punishment; the public humiliation of public beatings. The lesson driven home, if need be, that it is better, much, much better for one's peace of mind, much less reputation to be honoured as a modest woman in full compliance with Islamist custom and sharia law, to be fully encased in stifling dark fabric, peering at the world through a narrow slit, taking care no inch of bare skin can be seen by helplessly lascivious men.

No more music, no more dancing, no more drama classes, or parties. None of which do honour to Islam. Men and women must not be seen in close proximity; women should ideally be accompanied by male family members, never speaking to men, nor looking directly at them without betraying their wantonness. Requiring due correction. The greater tolerance of social mores not in concert with Islamist principles hinted at previously have been reconsidered.

 

Men's beards must be fully visible, not snipped short and they too must dress themselves modestly. However, this new Taliban reiteration is not destined to completely re-enact previous restrictions where girls may not under any circumstances attend school or exit their homes, as long as the sexes are completely separated some concessions may apply in educating girls. The expansion of the previous edicts that only females may administer medical services to females has been expanded to include women judges sitting in judgement of other women.

The more tolerant Taliban will now permit television, cellphones and media. "This is the necessity of the people, and we are serious about it. Now we know instead of reaching just hundreds,we can reach millions". The Taliban has exited the dark ages....

 

On September 8, 2021, journalists Nemat Naqdi (left) and Taqi Daryabi were tortured and beaten by Taliban fighters for reporting on women’s rights.

MARCUS YAM / LOS ANGELES TIMES

 

No Need To Plunder -- It's a Gift!

"The helicopters are the most expensive item, but the ability of the Taliban to operate and maintain them without outside help is modest."  

"The absence of U.S. logistical support will lead to a steady decay in the state of the residual Afghan military arsenal. Even small arms will gradually become unusable if not properly maintained."

"MRAPs are real gas-guzzlers, so their value in a country where fuel supplies are scarce and terrorist attacks have largely ceased is doubtful."

Dr. Loren Thompson, military analyst, Lexington Institute think-tank

 

"I would tell you that they can inspect all they want. They can look at them, they can walk around, but they can't fly them." 

"They can't operate them. We made sure to demilitarize - to make unusable all the gear that is at the airport,"

"The only thing we left operable are a couple of fire trucks and forklifts so that the airport can remain more operational going forward."

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby

 

"They'll never be able to be operated by anyone."

"Most of them were non-mission capable, to begin with, but certainly they'll never be able to be flown again."

Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command

 Mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle (MRAP), light utility vehicle

"Certainly, our objective was not to leave them with any equipment, but that is not always an option when you are looking to retrograde and move out of a war zone."

White House press secretary Jen Psaki

 

Humvees parked at Camp Phoenix, Kabul, Afghanistan    Meg Jones, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The victory parade held by the Taliban in Kandahar City where they showed off dozens of American-made armoured vehicles along with other weapons captured during its victory over the Afghan national police and military was as much a celebration over their claims to have won a battle over the most powerful nation and army on Earth, as it was to preen over the wonderful gifts so generously left behind for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. 

As for the complacency assumed by the U.S. military elite that these technologically advanced planes, helicopters and armoured vehicles were too complex in their performative operation for the uncouth savages represented by the Taliban to ever master; the helicopters and the planes would never see a Taliban fighter at the controls. A Black Hawk helicopter trailing a Taliban flag was flown over the celebrations amply demonstrating that even savages 'get' sophisticated equipment.

True, some gear was disabled with the retreat of the U.S. from Afghanistan. Head of U.S. Central Command informed journalists of the disabling of 70 armoured vehicles, 27 Humvee trucks and 73 aircraft. Presumably he was not asked by journalists and therefore had no need to respond to a hypothetical question of the practicality of having American pilots fly all those helicopters and planes back to the U.S. or to friendly countries from which they could later be retrieved, leaving personnel more time to destroy the rolling stock.

 

Taliban fighters atop a Humvee vehicle in Kabul as they celebrate after the US pulled all its troops out of the country (Photo: AFP)

 

What he did, however, state with pride was: "Those aircraft will never fly again. They'll never be able to be operated by anyone." No, not those particular aircraft, but there are plenty of others. Others in great numbers thanks to the generosity of the U.S. and other Western powers that provided the Afghan Army  with large numbers of flight machines. They'll be in flight for awhile. Perhaps not for long, since the American technicians that serviced them also departed.

The only 'usable gear' left intact, stated Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby included some fire trucks and fork lifts. They'll certainly come in handy. That's one air base accounted for but dozens of other bases are located around Afghanistan now in the happy hands of the Taliban who have there as well acquired with the greatest of serendipity, tons of military equipment. Over 600 armoured vehicles were in the possession of the Afghan army; contrast that with 500 Tactical Armoured Patrol Vehicles possessed by the entire Canadian Forces.

Over 22,00 Humvees, 140 mine-proof vehicles, 8,000 transport trucks, 150 M113 armoured vehicles, over 350,000 assault rifles, 64,000 assorted machine guns, 120,000 pistols and over 170 artillery pieces, according to various reports, were owned by the Afghan military. Weaponry exceeding in number and advanced technology what is currently in the possession of many G20 countries. From the Afghan military to the Taliban, once again masters of Afghanistan.

Over 30 Black Hawk helicopters, 40 light helicopters and 33 transport helicopters were also left to the Taliban. Little wonder they're celebrating. Pakistani instructors must be very busy right now, teaching their Taliban cohorts. Oh, and 65 fixed-wing aircraft of assorted types. Over $500 million was spent by the U.S. on 15 military transport aircraft alone for the Afghan military. They sit derelict now in Kabul, the result of spare parts lacking.

A helicopter displaying a Taliban flag fly above of supporters gathered to celebrate the US withdrawal of all its troops out of Afghanistan, in Kandahar on September 1, 2021. (JAVED TANVEER / AFP)

As for funding on military equipment on the part of Canada, when the Canadian military left Afghanistan in 2014, it earmarked $330 million to fund the Afghan security forces. Infrastructure built and paid for by taxpayers is now inherited by the Taliban who don't particularly appear as fond of that kind of gifting as they are enamoured of military gifts. Once home to Canadian troops, the Kandahar base, full of thousands of Canadian military personnel, is now the Taliban's to hold and to keep.

When Russian troops departed from Afghanistan in 1989 after their disastrous ten years of occupation they left behind thousands of kilometres of roads, tunnels, bridges, schools, apartment buildings and military bases. When the Taliban moved in after the Soviets moved out that infrastructure mostly fell into disuse and disrepair. 

 

One of those bridges, the "Friendship Bridge" that links Afghanistan to Uzbekistan was used by the retreating Soviet troops. It is the very same bridge that last week saw troops from NATO-trained Afghan National Army traverse as they fled the conquering Taliban horde.

ToThe Victor Go The Spoils

 

"This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It's about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries."

"I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not extending a forever exit."

"Yes, the American people should hear this. Three hundred million dollars a day for two decades. What have we lost as consequences in terms of opportunities? I refuse to continue a war that was no longer in the vital national interests of our people. We've been a nation too long at war."

"There is nothing 'low grade' or 'low risk' about any war."

U.S.President Joe Biden

 

"I had to go to the bank with my mother but when I went, the Taliban [were] beating women with sticks."

"It's the first time I've ever seen something like that and it really frightened me."

22-year-old, name-withheld Afghan woman

 

"It is a historical day and a historical moment."

"We are proud of these moments, that we liberated our country from a great power."

Zabihullah Mujahid spokesman, Taliban

 

"We demilitarized those systems so that they'll never be used again."

"We felt it more important to protect our forces than to bring those systems back."

Gen.Kennth F.McKenzie, head, U.S.Central Command, Afghanistan

In his interview with reporters General McKenzie confirmed that over 150 military vehicles and aircraft had been disabled by U.S. forces before they left Afghanistan on the cusp of 31 August, the agreed-upon withdrawal date for all U.S. and NATO-allied countries which had taken part in the U.S.-led mission to capture al-Qaeda's leader and in the process oust the governing Taliban Islamists for refusing to surrender Osama bin Laden, the esteemed guest of the Taliban, to U.S. forces.

 

The invasion represented the U.S.'s and its allies' reaction to the al-Qaeda-planned and -executed attacks on the World Trade Center, and Pentagon in 2001. The side-effect of that action was the removal of an Islamist fundamentalist tyrannical government that reviled democratic values and human rights, administering the affairs of the war-wracked country under strict sharia law that marginalized women and girls and practised capital punishment as just desserts for opposing sharia strictures.

The Taliban proved implacable to conventional conflict meant to subdue them and destroy their ambitions; for two decades they regularly spent the winter months in the mountains separating Afghanistan and Pakistan, sponsored by, trained by, and funded and armed by the Pakistan Interagency Intelligence service. In the spring they descended to carry on their insurgency. President Biden's logic and sanctimony over U.S. intervention in the affairs of other countries will not serve his country well.

The very Islamist fundamentalists who succeeded in shocking the world community by the audacity and success of the 9/11 attacks have not been defeated. The Wahhabist, Deobandist and Salafist extremists are firmly established in Afghanistan's hinterlands where the Islamic State of Khorasan lost no time in reminding the U.S. of their presence and their mission when suicide bombers killed 13 U.S.Marines and scores of Afghans at Kabul airport which the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) were supposedly protecting.

Taliban forces celebrate the withdrawal of US forces in Kandahar.

 

As for the tumult and chaos and violence of the U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan -- a highly preventable event which succeeded in producing inestimable damage to American prestige, its power image, and its relations with its allies, there is no excuse other than rank and deliberate ignorance of the risks involved in such an abandonment despite that U.S. intelligence oversight made it clear that the confusion, chaos and harm done would be the result of such an ignominious exit. "I take responsibility", said President 

 

Biden.

Leaving the Taliban in control of a grater territory than they controlled before the allied West's entry in 2001. "This was a disgraceful and disastrous departure that will allow the Taliban and al-Qaeda to celebrate the 20th anniversary of 9/11 by having complete control of Afghanistan. We are less safe as a result of this self-inflicted wound", lashed out U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

Almost two-and-a-half thousand U.S. troops were killed in those two decades in Afghanistan, and many others among the militaries of NATO allies supporting the U.S. in the country. At the same time an estimated 240,000 Afghans lost their lives. The cost to the Western treasury, borne mostly by the U.S. for those 20 years in Afghanistan was $2 trillion, a sum impossible to imagine, one that hugely benefited contractors of all stripes in a massive undertaking of undocumented and deliberate corruption.

 

 

In Kandahar, Taliban supporters celebrated the return to power of those who had defied conventional warfare for the troop-defying exploits of guerrilla warfare. In the eastern city of Khost a funeral took place, coffins draped with Western flags, symbolic of Western forces departing in a flurry of excited pressure as desperate Afghans clamoured to be taken along to safety from the Taliban. The image of the powerful, wealthy nations of the Western democracies coffined in their demise, celebrated, not mourned.

 

Taliban supporters gather to listen to the Taliban's governor for Kandahar province.

 

The chaotic airlift managed to evacuate over 123,000 desperate people from Kabul by the United States and its allies in a frenetic two-week period. Many Afghans who had helped the Western forces and their diplomats stationed in Afghanistan, desperate to leave and escape the certain retribution as traitors awaiting them by the Taliban were left behind, to face their fate or somehow manage to extricate themselves.

The Taliban are jubilant; not only did they 'force' the largest, best-trained and -equipped military the world has ever seen to retreat and leave the spoils to them, they were left in possession of billions-worth of military equipment. The U.S. spent $83 billion in providing the Afghan national police and military with technologically advanced weaponry. That is all now in the hands of their successors, the Taliban, along with all the rolling stock and weapons left by the departing American troops.

 

A C-130 at Hamid Karzai International Airport  Getty Images

 

Videos have been posted online with the Taliban inspecting endless lines of vehicles, opening crates of new firearms, of communications gear, of military drones. "Everything that hasn't been destroyed is the Taliban's now", an American official speaking anonymously, confided to Reuters. The Taliban, it is now estimated, are the proud possessors of over 2,000 armoured vehicles inclusive of U.S. Humvees; up to 40 aircraft, including UH-60 Black Hawks, Scout attack helicopters and ScanEagle military drones. 

The U.S. military, said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, is unconcerned with Taliban members wearing abandoned American military uniforms, walking about Kabul with American weapons, sizing up U.S. helicopters at Kabul aircraft; they could inspect all they wanted, he said, but would not be capable of flying them. And how wrong he was; members of the Afghan military, trained by Americans to fly the helicopters, who recognized the expediency of going over to the Taliban are more than capable of teaching their new masters.

An A-29 surrounded by abandoned kit   Getty Images

Fearsome Desperation

"I love the U.K., I love the U.K. people. If they hear my sound, please take me, please evacuate me. I was your interpreter, I helped you, I served for you, but you don't care for me."

"I have just one message, please evacuate me, please take me, please pick me up from this place."

"I had a dispute with my wife. She told me 'We cannot stay more in Kabul, the U.K. doesn't care about you, they don't care about your children'."

former British Army interpreter

 

"It is difficult, we don't know when the wait [to be permitted into the Kabul airport for evacuation] will be over, and if the gate will open."

"Do you [journalist] know?"

Young Afghan boy anxious not to be named 

Thousands of people are scrambling to flee Afghanistan after the Taliban seized back control of the country, almost two decades after they were ousted by a US-led coalition. Getty Images

 

NATO-aligned nations all pledged their intention to evacuate Afghans who had helped their diplomats and their military as interpreters and aides at any time during the last twenty years when the U.S.-led coalition kept the Taliban at bay and went about investing huge sums of treasury and the lives of their military in leading the country to Democracy, to recognizing women's and minority rights, to building schools for girls and boys to receive an education, and clinics to provide basic health care. All the while the Taliban surged back each spring from their winter quarters in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Confident they were winning 'the hearts and minds' of the people, foreign NGOs installed themselves to help the country adjust to a new reality of freedom from enforced fundamentalist Islam under sharia law and Afghan women branched out from enforced burqa-wearing recluses to confident news anchors, beauty shop attendants, medical personnel and business owners. In rural areas the Taliban burned down the schools built for children's education by foreign elements.

Now, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the preferred formal title of the Taliban, has routed the elected government of Afghanistan in the shadows of the agreed-upon final drawdown of foreign troops and diplomats in the country. And Afghans who had worked in any capacity for the foreign military or foreign missions as well as for the Afghan government know they will be hunted down and murdered by the Taliban as traitors.

 

Afghans unable to enter the airport watch on as another evacuation flight leaves Kabul   Getty Images

 

Hundreds of thousands of Afghan citizens are desperate to escape the return of the Taliban; some to save their lives, others to avoid living under their despotic, violent rule. The former British Army interpretor held out hope he and his family would be rescued, and then his hopes began slowly to wane and fade. Would-be refugees including the man, his wife and six children awaited rescue while queuing in a putrid ditch close to the airport, hoping they would be among those airlifted out of Kabul to foreign shores.

The ditch served as a human waste runway, and here people were directed to stand, the disgusting waste making children retch, their parents in despair as filth spilled through around them. No shelter, no food, no water, just the urgency of fear. People clutching documents; passports and visas, holding them high above the mess at their feet to keep them dry and viable. The feeble elderly placed in wheelbarrows to keep them above the foetid water but not safe from its nauseating stench.

While standing there in desperation people had little option but to add to the filth by defecating and urinating themselves into the sludge sliding past them. Childen were given pieces of cardboard to hold to shield hemselves from the sizzling sun. Many standing there sent messages to contacts in countries of the West pleading for help. The long queues led to where members of the British Army processed people, even with the awareness of the risk of a violent attack by the IS-KP terrorists.

 

Afghan families inside a US military aircraft wait for the plane's departure from Kabul airport   Getty Images

 

Former guards at the Australian embassy and their families queued for hours in the sewage canal only to be informed by soldiers standing on the wall above, that they lacked the correct visas. "The situation is unbelievable. People are jumping, falling off walls, there's shootings", one of the guards said. Two young girls were reportd to have been refused entry when their parents were allowed into the airport.

A man, Najibulla Alizadeh, posted a video. "They [the Taliban] hit me. I am Australian citizen" he said, blood pouring from his head. An armed man could be seen attempting to grab his phone, and then a gunshot was heard. And all was still. At the main airport entrance "red  units" of the Taliban on guard wearing militaryfatigues, pushed back people who they declared did not possess the necessary paperwork, enforced their leadership's declaration that Afghans will no longer be permitted to leave.

 

On Friday morning, New Zealand, Australia and Canada announced they were ending their airlift of Afghans out of the country. Not because they had completed their mission of rescuing all those they had promised they would not be abandoned to their fate, but rescued from the talons of the Taliban in recognition of the risks they took working for foreign powers. The Biden administration in the U.S. had adamantly refused all of its allies' requests to delay departure.

And then, on Friday, two deadly bombings took place at two airport entrance gates. Suicide bombers wering vests with detonating devices courtesy of Islamic State terrorists ensconced in Afghanistan killed a dozen U.S. Marines, close to 100 Afghan civilians awaiting the opportunity to leave their country, and wounding countless others.

Wounded people are taken to hospital after the blasts. Photograph: Reuters Tv/Reuters

The Imminence of Afghanistan's Civil War

"We want to make the Taliban realize that the only way forward is through negotiations. We do not want a war to break out."

"They [supporters and members of the newly-formed National Resistance Front of Afghanistan [NRF] want to defend, they want to fight, they want to resist against any totalitarian regime."

Ahmad Massoud, leader NRF

Ahmad Massoud, the son of resistance icon Ahmad Shah Massoud, founded the NRF   Reuters

"[We want to pursue peaceful negotiations, but] if this fails... then we're not going to accept any sort of aggression."

"[We have] thousands of forces ready for the resistance. However, we prefer to pursue peace and negotiations before any sort of war and conflict."

"The NRF believes that for lasting peace we have to address the underlying problems in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a country made up of ethnic minorities, no one is a majority. It's a multicultural state, so it needs power sharing - a power-sharing deal where everyone sees themselves in power." 

"[Having one group dominating politics will lead to] internal warfare and the continuation of the current conflict."   

"We prefer peace, we prioritize peace and negotiations. If this fails - if we see that the other side is not sincere, if we see that the other side is trying to force itself on the rest of the country - then we're not going to accept any sort of aggression."  

"And we've proven ourselves, our track record in the past [40 years] has shown that no-one is able to conquer our region, especially the Panjshir Valley."   

"The Red Army, with its might, was unable to defeat us... I don't think any force right now in Afghanistan has the might of the Red Army. And the Taliban also 25 years ago... they tried to take over the valley and they failed, they faced a crushing defeat."

Ali Nazary, head, foreign relations, National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF)

 

"There is the risk of a renewed civil war in Afghanistan."

"Of course, no one intends to interfere in these events."

"[The current situation poses] an additional danger and threats."

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman, Kremlin

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Taliban   peoplesgazette

Unlike President Ashraf Ghani who fled Afghanistan to avoid 'bloodletting" and taking with him over a hundred million in treasury and is now installed in Qatar, while promising to return at some date, his vice-president, Amrullah Saleh had pledged not to leave the country and he is now in Panjshir, an area northwest of the capital where the Taliban do not rule, held by a recently-formed resistance group by the son of the Afghan patriot who fought the Soviet invasion until it withdrew in 1989, then turned to opposing the Taliban when it ruled the country in the 1990s.

 

Under control of the NRF, founded by the son of the deceased champion of Afghanistan Ahmad Shah Massoud, the region stands firmly in opposition to the Taliban. Ahmad Massoud leading the movement he founded, is holding out the hope that the Islamist Taliban will agree to holding talks to hear out the position of the NRF in the interests of avoiding a civil war. It may be difficult to give credence to this faint hope, given the relentless advance of the Taliban and their quick and brutal disposal of any who oppose their control of the country.

Men opposed to Taliban totalitarian rule of the country have travelled to the region where the NRF boasts of forces comprised of parts of the country's regular army units and special forces along with local militia fighters. And although both spokesmen for the group spoke of avoiding conflict it seems highly unlikely that this will be possible. A widely distributed Taliban statement declared that hundreds of its fighters were on the march toward Panjshir after local state officials refused to hand it over "peacefully".

With the statement came a short video showing a column of trucks emblazoned with the identifying markers of the ousted national government, and the white Taliban flag in prominent view advancing along a highway toward Panjshir. Should Taliban forces, warns Massoud, attempt an invasion of the valley, his fighters were prepared to fight.  A Taliban official claimed an offensive was launched on Panjshir, but a Massoud aide revealed no signs the column had yet entered the narrow pass leading to the valley, and no reports of conflict.

 

The NRF says it wants to pursue peaceful negotiations before fighting   Reuters

 

The very presence of a narrow pass having to be negotiated by columns of fighters before access to the valley, conjures up pictures of a complete route of any invaders by opposition fighters alerted to their entrance by sentries, a classic pincer attack of an almost impregnable area, vigilant to the emerging presence of an enemy. There was indeed instances of forces opposing the takeover of the Taliban that took place recently.

In the northern province of Baghlan which borders Panjshir, anti-Taliban forces restored to themselves three districts -- an operation that Massoud claimed not to have himself organized but which had been carried out by local militia groups in reaction to "brutality" on the part of the Taliban, carried out in the area. Which itself speaks volumes of the potential for ongoing conflict flaming into an overall civil war that could possibly spell the end of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, despite its formidable reputation.

In calling for an inclusive, broad-based government in Kabul meant to represent all of the country's various ethnic groups, Massoud emphasized that the international community should forbear from recognizing a "totalitarian regime". His region leading the way, the examples of the war-torn country's past defence of its autonomy and traditional values can be seen in the presence of wrecked Soviet-era armoured vehicles still dotting the valley. 

Optimism never faltering, the practicality of an assumed force numbering some 6,000 fighters however determined and motivated they may be in defence of an Afghanistan freed from the shackles of the Taliban, Massoud speaks of the need for international support to enable his group to succeed in its mission, should large-scale conflict break out. And in view of the current withdrawal of some 51 foreign national troops anxious to finally leave the "Graveyard of Empires" after two decades of stalemate, how likely is that scenario?