Note: for those who wish to do something to help the people of Afghanistan, this article has some suggestions about charities that may be effective.
Many of the articles I have read about Afghanistan talk about the natural beauty of that land - and I can well believe it from the photos, and from knowing similarly of the rugged beauty of nearby lands such as Kashmir, Nepal and even Tibet.
However, even in that harsh environment, I can also well believe that people there are like people everywhere - they want to survive, see their families thrive, and be free of troubles. In fact, that is being very well described in some recent articles - including an interview here (the human touch of that journalist also shows in the book she wrote - which, having now finished, I recommend considering reading), and several articles that give "everyday" Afghans a voice.
Love of family and desire for them to thrive is something I have experienced in my work trips overseas (one to Vietnam, two to China, and one to Mongolia), and through people I and my partner know overseas. (After one of my trips, I commented to my partner at that time [now my ex-], that they would have liked the people I was working - they both enjoyed drinking and playing cards - even though here that ex- was basically racist [one of the reasons that person is now an ex-].)
To repeat: we have interviews revealing the fear and utter despair, resignation, and possibly some hopefulness of Afghanis.
As Clarissa Ward wrote in her book a Syrian said to her of the bodies in the street (bodies I have seen photos of in countless places around the - beginning with Biafra, and continuing through - to choose but a few - Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Northern Ireland and the UK, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma, Uganda, and - for decades - Afghanistan):
"These are not toys."Some of the reports now emerging are repeating the Taliban's claims that women will be "free" under sharia laws without comment, when that is a cultural, not an Islamic practice, a misogynistic subjugation of women - objectively, and that is a comment made knowing how much widespread, endemic and violent misogyny there also is in the West.
Other reports from the regional areas of Afghanistan are possibly foretelling of Taliban duplicity.
Nothing good is going to come out of this - it reminds me of the line given given to the portrayal of David Lloyd-George in the TV series "37 Days" when talking of the imminent World War (part) One: "None of us will survive this war - politically, I mean."
Similarly, the political credibility of the West is dead - I doubt anyone would trust the West, with a half century of gutless and hypocritical inaction, elitist ineptness, and cronyism-crippled attempts at "change".
Maybe that will be, in the long term, a good thing.I suspect Afghanistan would have been less cruelly treated if the West had gone in, stayed focused, got rid of the violent extremists who committed the atrocity of 9/11, and then got out.
At least that way, no-one would have been robbed and scarred by being given a lie that there was hope.
I also know that my trust of the once-a-beacon-of-hope USA, a trust that has been weakened through most of my life since the Watergate era, has been pretty much permanently crippled or even killed by the debacle in Afghanistan (incidentally, Korea, which does not have a peace treaty [only a ceasefire] is the USA's longest running war), the attempted insurrection in January this year, and the fact that so many fools supported and still support that psychopath #45.
The problem is, I can foresee a time when the growing might & power and projection of repressive authoritarian dictatorship of China (and, incidentally, apart from wanting closer ties with Afghanistan now, Mao Zedong's guerilla playbook gave the Taliban the model they needed to win) will need to be counterbalanced, and no-one can do that but the USA.
Still, that is at least a few years away * .
For now, there is the unfolding nightmare in Afghanistan to despair over - the people of Afghanistan who are not toys, our incompetence, and the iron-hearted inhumanity of neoliberals.
* The way this could work is: Iran welcomes access to successful, experienced, tough and competent fighters to furthers its destabilisation, those extremists in Pakistan are boosted by the events and access to new resources from Afghanistan and destabilise Pakistan to the extent that conflict in Kashmir escalates into full-blown war between China-backed Pakistan and India, and ,if that becomes nuclear, China, Russia and the USA get drawn in - and the USA is not particularly well placed for a long conventional war, which makes the pressure to go nuclear higher. Anyone who thinks the events in Afghanistan will definitely only affect that region is an idiot - it may be contained, but only if we start to do better ethically.
