The Taliban and Afghanistan
By Mallory Rendon
On July 5, 2021, the U.S left the Afghan overnight without a warning, and this pronounced a large curve into the collapse of Afghanistan. Around 47,000 Afghan Civilians died during these past 20 years of disagreement.
Overall the United States has lost $2.26 Trillion dollars in the war in Afghanistan.
A breakdown of what the $2.26 trillion went towards.
How did the conflict arise?
Through these past 20 years of despair, no president was able to successfully withdraw troops completely from the war in Afghanistan, but In April, Biden ordered the Pentagon to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 11th, a decision he said was made in lockstep with NATO coalition forces, according to CNBC.
Efforts are still being taken into account even before the deadline in September. The U.S. is slowly being withdrawn from the Afghan war.
Who is the Taliban? What is the history?
In the 1980s, Afghan guerrillas called the mujaheddin fought Soviet occupation for 9 years while money and weapons were being provided via the CIA. Following 1989, the Soviets left, and it caused chaos. By 1992, there began a civil war with tribal leaders fighting for power. Then two years later, a militia called the Taliban sparked, and they started gaining attention.
Most of the members were strong religious believers and went to religious schools in Afghanistan and over the border in Pakistan. The Taliban had a plan for the country, were upset with the lawlessness and started marching and beginning their plan.
The Taliban wanted to make Afghanistan “safe,” and in 1996 they had seized the capital and declared the country an Islamic emirate and started instilling their strict way of Islamic law.
The Taliban is taking over, and political leaders have fled the country while Afghan people are suffering and trying to evacuate their country as well. As of right now, the Taliban control parts of major highways and own ⅕ of Afghan districts. Many of the other districts are contested by the Taliban, which means they still have a lot of power regardless of if they actually “own” it.
How has this conflict affected the Afghan people?
Below is a list of rules/laws that the Taliban is enforcing and the link to an article that explains in-depth The Taliban and Islamic law in Afghanistan.
- No democratic system
- Men and women must follow a strict dress code
- Women can not work
- Women have to cover their faces
- Women must be accompanied by a male relative outside their houses
- Girls were barred from school
- Television, music and cinema are banned
Airports began overflowing with Afghan people desperate to do anything to escape the Taliban’s strict rule.
Former author of the book “The Twenty-Year War,” Tom Amenta, states, “Watching Afghan men so desperate to leave the country, so scared for their life, they’d rather fall out of the sky, holding onto a C-17 then try something else.”
Moving towards August 26, 2021, there was an absurd attack on U.S forces while Afghans were wanting to flee the country. An explosion outside the Kabul airport aimed at evacuations and killed 13 U.S. service members.
President Biden’s response:
Biden felt that it was right to end these 20 years of chaos and destruction because of the damage it was causing to the U.S. After the explosion, Biden became more urgent about withdrawal.
On CMBC News, Biden responded to the airport killing by saying, “they were heroes who have been engaged in a dangerous, selfless mission to save the lives of others.”
Where will Afghan people flee to?
The U.K. is taking in 20,000 refugees, Canada is taking another 20,000, and the U.S will take somewhere in the tens of thousands of refugees.
Nevertheless, Afghanistan’s people are still surrounded around violence and hopelessness and no one knows when the chaos will stop. At the rate at which Afghanistan people are fleeing into the U.S., we don’t have enough homes to place them in.
