Two stories struck me. The first is from the Wall Street Journal, that well known extreme leftist media outlet. Note the comment about girl's education and hijab. Compared to 2001, this is dramatic. Trump lovers will no doubt hate what the second story had to say about Trump's negotiation with the Taliban.
Many in Rural Afghanistan Welcome an Unfamiliar Peace After Taliban Victory
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“In the past, we couldn’t go outside after 5 or 6 p.m., we were afraid. We didn’t know who were our enemies and who were our friends,” he said. “Now, we have freedom. The democracy has ended.”
As in many Afghan villages, some of Mr. Momand’s neighbors have served in the Afghan army and police, while others joined the Taliban. The Taliban have proclaimed an amnesty, and some of these former soldiers have been back to their homes after Aug. 15. “We’re Muslims, humans and Afghans, our hearts are wide enough,” said Mr. Khan, the village elder. “We forgive them all.” The men, he added later, didn’t stay long and have since left for Kabul.
Mr. Usmani, the district’s military commander, said the Taliban’s focus in Baraki Barak would now turn to improving schools, providing better healthcare and rebuilding infrastructure. Schools for boys and for girls, closed earlier this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, have reopened. Shops and businesses on Baraki Barak’s central road are open, too, including several barber shops whose billboards feature photos of Justin Bieber and Gulf music stars. Women are allowed to move around without a male guardian as long as they wear the hijab, Mr. Usmani said.
The biggest of Baraki Barak’s schools is located just a few hundred yards from the district headquarters, with girls studying in the mornings in one part of the compound and boys in the afternoons in another.
For some Afghan women, the U.S. and the Taliban are a problem
Since the beginning of the “Global War on Terror” in 2001, certain sectors of Afghan women at home and abroad have adopted an anti-imperial feminism that has fervently characterized both the United States and the Taliban as repressive and violent. For many of these women, the Taliban and the United States reflect two sides of the same coin. While the Taliban actively denies women their human rights, the United States has funded warlords who have gone on to do the same and actively resuscitated the Taliban’s power in the 2020 Doha negotiations.
Many in Rural Afghanistan Welcome an Unfamiliar Peace After Taliban Victory
...
“In the past, we couldn’t go outside after 5 or 6 p.m., we were afraid. We didn’t know who were our enemies and who were our friends,” he said. “Now, we have freedom. The democracy has ended.”
As in many Afghan villages, some of Mr. Momand’s neighbors have served in the Afghan army and police, while others joined the Taliban. The Taliban have proclaimed an amnesty, and some of these former soldiers have been back to their homes after Aug. 15. “We’re Muslims, humans and Afghans, our hearts are wide enough,” said Mr. Khan, the village elder. “We forgive them all.” The men, he added later, didn’t stay long and have since left for Kabul.
Mr. Usmani, the district’s military commander, said the Taliban’s focus in Baraki Barak would now turn to improving schools, providing better healthcare and rebuilding infrastructure. Schools for boys and for girls, closed earlier this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, have reopened. Shops and businesses on Baraki Barak’s central road are open, too, including several barber shops whose billboards feature photos of Justin Bieber and Gulf music stars. Women are allowed to move around without a male guardian as long as they wear the hijab, Mr. Usmani said.
The biggest of Baraki Barak’s schools is located just a few hundred yards from the district headquarters, with girls studying in the mornings in one part of the compound and boys in the afternoons in another.
For some Afghan women, the U.S. and the Taliban are a problem
Since the beginning of the “Global War on Terror” in 2001, certain sectors of Afghan women at home and abroad have adopted an anti-imperial feminism that has fervently characterized both the United States and the Taliban as repressive and violent. For many of these women, the Taliban and the United States reflect two sides of the same coin. While the Taliban actively denies women their human rights, the United States has funded warlords who have gone on to do the same and actively resuscitated the Taliban’s power in the 2020 Doha negotiations.