The very ironic thing about Afghanistan and its present culture is that if not for American meddling on behalf of the right-wing extremists (who eventually became the Taliban and al-Qa’ida) to undermine the Soviet-backed government of Afghanistan in the 1980’s, things wouldn’t have turned out the way they are now for the Afghan people.
The Soviet-aligned government that we helped overthrow had no restrictions on women — in fact, women (and men) dressed similarly to the prevailing Western styles at the time, they didn’t have to have their faces covered, they were educated and even participated in government alongside men. I invite you to Google images of Afghanistan in 1970’s-80’s and you will see what I’m saying. The problem for the US was that Afghanistan’s government was socialist and aligned with the USSR, so our CIA recruited legions of violent jihadists, armed them to the teeth, and ended up destroying a country that would’ve been fairly modernized today.
Of course this is at odds with the Western image of Afghanistan. Many assume it has always been a country barely out of the Stone Age’s, but these people don’t know anything about history and the United State’s nefarious and malign contribution to the misery Afghan women have been enduring since the Soviets retreated from their country.
There is nothing the US military can do in Afghanistan to improve things except leave, and yes, pay them reparations for the damage we’ve done. Not reparations to US-based companies to go in and build substandard infrastructure, but reparations to pay Afghans to hire other Afghans to rebuild their country. This applies to Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and the other countries we’ve had a hand in destroying since our reign of terror post-9/11 began. If the US really wants peace, they would also be working towards dialogue and communication with the Taliban, because they are the people who are going to run things when we eventually leave.
