Systematic Suppression of Women’s Rights

Under Taliban rule, women’s rights have been systematically suppressed, suffocating every aspect of their lives. The Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islamic law has led to the banning of women from attending schools, working in NGO offices, and participating in public office and the judiciary. The above-mentioned joint report states that “women and girls in Afghanistan are experiencing severe discrimination that may amount to gender persecution – a crime against humanity – and be characterised as gender apartheid, as the de facto authorities appear to be governing by systemic discrimination with the intention to subject women and girls to total domination”.  These restrictions not only curtail women’s personal freedoms but also hinder the progress of Afghan society as a whole. Education is a vital tool for empowerment and social advancement, and by denying women access to education, the Taliban is ensuring the perpetuation of gender inequality and limiting the country’s potential for development.

The Taliban’s oppressive policies also extend to the economic sphere, where women’s ability to work and contribute to their families’ livelihoods has been severely curtailed. By excluding women from the workforce, the Taliban is not only depriving them of financial independence but also undermining the overall economic growth and stability of Afghanistan. It is essential for the international community to recognize the significance of economic empowerment for women and advocate for inclusive economic policies that enable Afghan women to participate fully and contribute to the rebuilding of their nation.

Brutal Imposition of Punishments

The Taliban’s harsh interpretation of Islamic law has resulted in the brutal imposition of punishments on women. Stoning, lashing, and amputation have become tools of intimidation and control. These cruel practices not only cause physical harm but also instill fear among women, effectively silencing their voices and perpetuating a climate of oppression. The international community must condemn such barbaric acts and take decisive action to protect the fundamental rights and dignity of Afghan women.

The brutal punishments imposed by the Taliban serve as a chilling deterrent to women who dare to challenge the status quo. By subjecting women to such inhumane treatment, the Taliban aims to enforce conformity and maintain a patriarchal power structure. The international community must make it clear that such actions are unacceptable and stand in direct violation of universally recognized human rights principles. Sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and targeted assistance should be employed to hold the Taliban accountable for their egregious violations and work towards dismantling the culture of fear that prevails in Afghanistan.

Widespread Restrictions on Women’s Rights

The Taliban’s edicts have imposed widespread restrictions on the rights of women and girls, encompassing various aspects of their lives. From curbing their freedom of movement and dictating their attire and behaviour to limiting their access to education, healthcare, and justice, Afghan women find themselves trapped in a web of oppressive regulations. This should be recognised for what it is, a form of apartheid, gender-apartheid.

The freedom of movement is a basic human right that enables individuals to pursue education, employment, and opportunities for personal growth. By restricting women’s mobility, the Taliban effectively confines them to their homes, stripping them of agency and autonomy. This not only hampers their ability to access essential services but also perpetuates their reliance on male relatives, further exacerbating gender inequality.

The Taliban’s imposition of strict dress codes and behavioural expectations further reinforces the notion that women’s bodies and actions must be controlled. Such restrictions infringe upon women’s right to self-expression and individuality, reducing them to mere objects subjected to societal norms and expectations. The international community must advocate for the freedom of expression and choice, encouraging Afghan women to reclaim their identities and challenge the oppressive norms imposed upon them.

Access to education, healthcare, and justice is vital for the well-being and empowerment of women. The Taliban’s restrictions in these areas deny women their basic rights, leaving them vulnerable and marginalized. Education is not only a means to acquire knowledge but also a tool for empowerment and social change. By denying women access to education, the Taliban perpetuates a cycle of ignorance and dependence. Similarly, limited access to healthcare and justice denies women essential services and denies them recourse in cases of abuse or discrimination.

The Taliban’s treatment of women in Afghanistan is nothing short of a gender apartheid, as characterized by experts in the field. Afghan women, who were making significant strides towards empowerment and equality over the past two decades, now face an uncertain and perilous future. Their rights and freedoms have been erased, and their voices have been silenced by a regime that is inherently anti-women. According to the UN, around 80% of girls and young women of school age are not in education.  This systematic suppression of women’s rights, brutal imposition of punishments, and widespread restrictions on their freedoms demand urgent attention from the international community. Efforts must be made to protect their rights, provide aid and support, and hold the Taliban accountable for their actions. Only through collective action can we hope to restore justice, dignity, and equality for the women of Afghanistan and prevent a humanitarian crisis from further deepening. The time to act is now.

—-

A decades old patron of New Age Islam, Dr Adis Duderija is a Senior Lecturer in the Study of Islam and Society, School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science ; Senior Fellow Centre for Interfaith and Intercultural Dialogue, Griffith University | Nathan | Queensland | Australia.

Courtesy: New Age Islam

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A young Afgani woman has tweeted:

SaraWahedi (@Sara Wahedi) Tweeted: Professor Ismail Mashal, who ripped up his diplomas on live TV in Afghanistan and went viral across the world, was arrested by the Taliban yesterday.

His defiantly stood against the Taliban’s ban on women’s education. Now, he’s been silenced. Demand his release.

#FreeMashal 

Professor Ismail Mashal, who ripped up his diplomas on live TV in Afghanistan and went viral across the world, was arrested by the Taliban yesterday.

His defiantly stood against the Taliban’s ban on women’s education. Now, he’s been silenced. Demand his release.#FreeMashal pic.twitter.com/UiZ6X3iZb5

— Sara Wahedi (@SaraWahedi) February 4, 2023

Related:

Kabul University Prof Protests Taliban ban on Women’s Education, Tears Up Diplomas on TV

IMSD condemns the Taliban’s shutting of university gates to Muslim women

Afghanistan a year after the Taliban occupation: An ongoing war on human rights

The post University professor, outspoken critic of the Taliban’s ban on education for women and girls arrested in Kabul: Afghanistan appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Representational use only.Image Courtesy:Flickr

Protesting the Taliban’s hard-line strictures against women’s education, a Kabul University professor tore up his diplomas on live TV saying that he doesn’t “accept this education” if his “mother and sister can’t study”.

After seizing power last August, the Taliban have brutally clamped down on women in several ways, including a ban on returning to secondary schools in March and university education this month.

In a viral clip from the TV show, the professor shows his diplomas and then tears them one by one.

“From today, I don’t need these diplomas anymore because this country is no place for an education. If my sister & my mother can’t study, then I DON’T accept this education,” he says in the video, tweeted by Shabnam Nasimi, former policy adviser to the minister for Afghan resettlement and minister for refugees.

“Astonishing scenes as a Kabul university professor destroys his diplomas on live TV in Afghanistan,” Nasimi tweeted along with the video. 

Astonishing scenes as a Kabul university professor destroys his diplomas on live TV in Afghanistan —

“From today I don’t need these diplomas anymore because this country is no place for an education. If my sister & my mother can’t study, then I DON’T accept this education.” pic.twitter.com/cTZrpmAuL6

— Shabnam Nasimi (@NasimiShabnam) December 27, 2022

Last week, minister for higher education Neda Mohammad Nadeem issued a letter to all government and private universities banning university education for Afghan women. “You all are informed to immediately implement the mentioned order of suspending the education of females until further notice,” Nadeem wrote.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) had termed the ban a “shameful decision that violates the right to education for women and girls in Afghanistan”.

“The Taliban are making it clear every day that they don’t respect the fundamental rights of Afghans, especially women,” HRW said in a statement.

The US state department condemned the Taliban’s “indefensible decision to ban women from universities” as well.

After the Taliban takeover, women have been barred from working in most sectors, require a male guardian for long-distance travel and have to cover their faces in public.

Courtesy: Newsclick

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IMSD unequivocally condemns the blatantly misogynist decree of Taliban that for all practical purposes has effectively banned women’s education in Afghanistan. Since the Taliban have taken over in 2021, girls haven’t been able to access schools. Although they promised to open girls’ school from March 23rd; the same day they revoked the order. This December on the 20th, there is another edict which debars women from universities. As always, no reasons were cited; neither did they indicate whether this is just a temporary measure. Going by what they have done with schools, the ban appears to be a permanent one.

The IMSD would like to remind the international community that the Taliban, during the negotiations in Doha, had promised not to rollback whatever little gains Afghan women had made in terms of education. Those who were spinning the narrative that the Taliban 2.0 was different from its earlier version now need to explain their continued support to this fanatic group. Those in the Indian Muslim community who were celebrating the Taliban takeover need to ask themselves whether this is the future they envision for half the Ummah. This is the time when the Muslim world should sit up and take notice as to what happens when we empower religious orthodoxies.

We would also like to point out that such anti-women diktats should not be seen as exceptions. The now increasingly marginalized idea that Muslim women should not be educated, has a long genealogy in the Muslim world. The (in)famous Deobandi, Ashraf Ali Thanwi, never wanted women to have even an iota of modern education. Deoband is the spiritual fountainhead of the Taliban; hence it shouldn’t surprise us that its ideological descendants are excluding women from all public spaces including schools and universities. IMSD believes that a fight against the depravities of the Taliban will be incomplete without questioning the very foundational ideas which inform such antediluvian practices.

IMSD stands in solidarity with all the struggling women and men in Afghanistan who are resisting such evil decrees of the regressive Ulama. We welcome the fact that the governments of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have condemned the Taliban’s regressive step and appeal to the international community to urgently intervene and demand that this grossly violative decision be taken back immediately. We also appeal to all Indian Muslim organizations to outrightly condemn this misogynist action of the Taliban regime.

1. A. J. Jawad, IMSD Co-convenor, Advocate, Chennai

2. (Dr) Amar Jesani, Medico Friends Circle, Mumbai

3. Amir Rizvi, IMSD, Designer, Mumbai

4. Anand Patwardhan, IMSD, Documentary Filmmaker, Mumbai

5. Anjum Rajabali, IMSD, Film writer, Mumbai

6. Arshad Alam, IMSD, Commentator, Delhi

7. Askari Zaidi, IMSD, Senior Journalist, Delhi

8. Ashhar Khan, Jaunpur

9. Bilal Khan, IMSD, Housing rights activist, Mumbai

10. Dipak Malik

11. Feroz Abbas Khan, IMSD, Director, Producer, Mumbai

12. Feroze Mithiborwala, IMSD Co-convenoir, Bharat Bachao Andolan, Mumbai

13. Gauhar Raza, Anhad, Delhi

14. Ghulam Rasool Dehlv, Islamic scholari

15. Hasan Ibrahim Pasha, IMSD, Writer, Allahabad

16. (Dr) Indira Munshi, retired professor, Mumbai

17. Javed Akhtar, IMSD, Poet, lyricist, Padma Bhushan, former MP, Mumbai

18. Javed Anand, IMSD Convenor, Human Rights Defender, Mumbai

19. Khadeeja Faroqui, Social Activist, Delhi

20. Lara Jasani, Lawyer, Social Activist, Mumbai

21. Mallika Sarabhai, Activist, Classical Dancer,Ahmedabad

22. (Dr) Manisha Gupte, Social activist

23. Mansoor Sardar, IMSD, Social Activist, Bhiwandi

24. Mohammed Imran, Delhi, New York

25. Muniza Khan, IMSD, CJP,Varanasi

26. Naseeruddin Shah, Actor, Mumbai

27. Nasim Khan, Varanasi

28. Nasreen Fazelbhoy, IMSD, retired professor, Mumbai

29. Neelima Sharma, Theatre, Delhi

30. (Prof) Qamar Jahan, Lucknow

31. Qaisar Pasha, IMSD, Homemaker, Allahabad

32. Qutub Jahan, IMSD, Social Activist, Mumbai

33. Rahman Abbas, Author, Novelist, Mira Road, Thane

34. (Dr) Ram Puniyani, IMSD, Author, Commentator, Mumbai

35. Rashida Tapadar, Civil service coach, freelance writer, Nagaland

36. Rooprekha Verma, former Vice-chancellor, Lucknow

37. Sabah Khan, IMSD, Parcham, Mumbai

38. Saif Mahmood, IMSD, Supreme Court lawyer,Delhi

39. Sandhya Gokhale, Feminist activist, FAOW, Mumbai

40. Shabana Mashraki, Mumbai

41. Shabnam Hashmi, Anhad, Delhi

42. Shalini Dhawan, Designer, Mumbai

43. Shama Bano, Social activist, Varanasi

44. Shama Zaidi, IMSD, Film Maker, Mumbai

45. Shamim Abbasi, Mau

46. Shamsul Islam, Author, Delhi

47. Sheeba Aslam Fehmi, Writer, Commentator, Delhi

48. Sultan Shahin, Editor-in-chief, New Age Islam, Delhi

49. Teesta Setalvad, IMSD, CJP Secretary, Mumbai

50. Vasanthi Raman, retired professor, Delhi

51. (Dr) Vibhti Patel, retired professor, Mumbai

52. Zakia Soman, Co-convenor, Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, Delhi

53. (Dr) Zeenat Shaukatali, IMSD, Islamic Scholar, Author

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The word “anniversary” usually brings about happy and memorable moments. But Aug. 15 marks one year since the Taliban takeover and occupation of Afghanistan, and it’s not a happy occasion for my homeland.

Recently, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released a report entitled “Human Rights in Afghanistan,” delving into the situation in the country since the takeover.

The report is troubling but not shocking as it highlights civilian casualties, restrictions on women’s rights and freedom of speech, extrajudicial killings and ethnic minority persecutions. Yet a lot is under-reported due to the difficulties in gathering evidence against the Taliban, which has censored the media and mistreated journalists.

The UNAMA report states that the Taliban have taken steps “aimed at the protection and promotion of human rights” and that the security has improved. UNAMA has proposed several recommendations to the Taliban as the extremist regime tries to enhance its reputation globally, but the fundamental human rights of Afghans continue to be violated.

War against women

Afghanistan is under occupation. There have been many reports detailing the forced displacement and systemic genocide against the Hazara population, targeted violence and eyewitness reports of the mass killings of 600 Tajik hostages, crimes against humanity in Panjshir, strip-mining of mineral wealth and the war the Taliban are waging against women.

As the Taliban send their daughters to schools overseas, secondary schools for other girls have been banned for almost a year.

Women are forced to wear the hijab or burqa, park visits are segregated by sex and women were recently sacked from their jobs at the Finance Ministry in favour of male relatives.

Amnesty International’s recent report describes the situation of Afghan women as “death in slow motion.” With the scrapping also of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, this is a gender-apartheid regime.

The Taliban have also instructed men to grow beards and not trim them, and to wear local clothing or face consequences.

Other tragedies are ongoing. Millions of Afghans have been displaced since the occupation. A powerful earthquake in June killed more than 1,000 people, leading to a cholera outbreak. The Doha Agreement, a peace pact signed between the U.S. and Taliban to mark the withdrawal of all forces in Afghanistan, has also been breached as terrorist groups reposition themselves under the Taliban.

Foreign interference

Between 1996 and 2001, only three countries recognized the Taliban regime: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. While no country has formally recognized the current regime, the United States and co-instigators like Pakistan and the Arab Gulf states have destabilized Afghanistan.

Much of the destabilization and corruption found in Afghanistan dates back to American and Soviet involvement in infrastructure projects in the 1950s and 1960s that haunts the country to this day. The nation’s entire economy relied on foreign aid.

At a UN conference last year, Pakistan’s former prime minister not only defended Taliban occupiers, but claimed that the only way forward was to “strengthen this current government” and “stabilize it for the sake of the people in Afghanistan.”

This was based on the Taliban promise they would adhere to human rights, form an inclusive government, provide amnesty to former government employees and not allow the country to serve as a safe haven for terrorists. Almost a year later, none of this is true.

There have been anti-Pakistan protests in Afghanistan condemning the many frequent visits of Pakistani officials in Afghanistan and their support of the Taliban.

The discounted sale of coal to Pakistan was greeted with public outcry by Afghans, reaffirming views that the Taliban are a Pakistani proxy.

Qatar also has close ties to the Taliban and a security agreement is possible. China has engaged with the Taliban by expanding trade and investment plans.

Cruel treatment of refugees

The Afghan refugee crisis is unsettling. Iran has deported thousands of Afghan refugees and subjected them to abusive treatment by both the public and authorities, while Turkey has also forcefully deported more than 10,000 Afghan migrants.

Belgium has rejected asylum claims of hundreds of Afghan refugees, putting them at risk of being deported as authorities deem Afghanistan to be safe.

Germany has evicted Afghan refugees from their homes within a 24-hour period to make space for Ukrainian refugees.

Canada has capped the number of Afghan refugees at 40,000, yet there’s no cap for Ukrainian refugees, and the government has also waived some security measures for Ukrainians.

It’s estimated that more than 650,000 Afghans from neighbouring nations have been deported or returned to Afghanistan since August 2021. This puts many at severe risk under the Taliban regime.

Now with the passage of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, U.S. humanitarian aid delivered to Afghanistan via Defense Department resources has ended. The greatest humanitarian crisis in the world will continue to worsen as long the Taliban are in power.

An absence of war is not the same as peace when Afghans are continuously stripped of their human rights. The Taliban must not be whitewashed — they are patriarchal terrorists. Resistance forces continue to fight this illegitimate regime that is not in any way representative of Afghans — but the rest of the world needs to step up.

Ferdouse Asefi, PhD candidate, Sociology, University of Toronto

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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After the former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on August 15, 2021, the Taliban, allegedly with the direct support of the army of Pakistan, captured Kabul, the Afghanistan capital. The resistance continued for a short time in Panjshir province leaded by Ahmad Massoud, but the resistance was defeated by the alleged intervention of the army of Pakistan.

The people of Afghanistan have been living amidst abysmal conditions since the Taliban came to power. Nearly one million employees of the previous government lost their jobs. The economic system is falling apart and poverty is rampant. 

Foreign aid is distributed only to those who support the Taliban, and poorest people are deprived of such aid. The humanitarian aid which provided by India to the people of Afghanistan, unfortunately, the aid is only distributed to relatives of Taliban members and it is not distributed to the country’s poor peoples.

The education system is broken and schools and universities are closed. Women have been denied the right to study and work, and girls have been barred from going out of their homes. My mother was a teacher and my sisters were school students, my mother lost her job and my sister can’t go to school, they are staying at home like prisoners.

The scientists and other people working in the field have left the country and thousands of citizens are leaving the country every day due to poverty and unemployment. Most of the soldiers of the previous government have left Afghanistan. Some of them remain in the country, they are arrested and tortured by the Taliban. Professional people are fired from government offices and replaced by people who have any relationship with the Pakistan government.

Afghanistan is made up of different ethnic groups such as the Hazara, Tajik, Uzbek and Pashtun. But in the Taliban government, only the Pashtun ethnic group is present and other ethnic groups play no role. Due to the absence of other ethnic groups in the Taliban cabinet, this group has not yet been recognized by other countries. Taliban are not acceptable to any people of Afghanistan. Most Afghans, especially women, oppose Taliban rule. Every day uprisings against the group are taking place across Afghanistan. But due to lack of foreign support, the uprisings are being suppressed by the Taliban.

Nowadays Afghan people are in a tough situation. As an Afghan student, I request international powers and our friendly countries to help my country. There will be a humanitarian catastrophe if foreign aid does not arrive in this country. Foreign aid should not be given to the Taliban and should be distributed directly to the people of Afghanistan. I also believe that the Taliban is a huge threat to the security of our neighbours and the countries of the world. Taliban doesn’t believe in human rights and, especially, women’s rights.

As an Afghan citizen who is aware of the tyranny and crimes of the Taliban, I urge India and the rest of the world not to recognize the Taliban in any way. It is not just my voice and request, it is the request of millions men and women of Afghanistan.

* The writer is an MBA student from Afghanistan.

Related:

Afghanistan: Women, Economy and Taliban

Afghanistan: Bullet riddled bodies of women activists found in Mazar-e-Sharif

EXCLUSIVE: Craig Whitlock exposes the Secret History of the War in Afghanistan

‘Taliban Are Unlikely To Reform’

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In Islam, there are no restrictions on the work and education of women. A clear example of this is Hazrat Khadijeh, the wife of the Prophet Muhammad. Khadijeh, the daughter of Khwild, was a wealthy woman who engaged in trade and commerce in the age of Arab barbarism, when many girls were buried alive after birth.

The hypothesis of acquiring knowledge and education in men and women has also been confirmed in Quran and hadith. There is an authentic hadith from the Holy Prophet (PBUH) which says that “seeking knowledge is obligatory on every Muslim man and Muslim woman.”

Article 22 of the Afghan Constitution, adopted in 2004, explicitly bats for gender equality – all forms of discrimination are prohibited. Afghan citizens, both men and women, have equal rights and duties under the law.

Women make up half of society in any country and play a significant role in the economy. Women have been one of the most vulnerable groups in the history of Afghanistan. Decades of war, cultural backwardness in Afghan society, have left women in social and cultural poverty, with little opportunity for advancement. Due to the illiteracy of many men and women in the traditional society and adherence to certain ethnic customs, less attention was paid to the role and position of women in political, economic and social affairs. But Afghan women struggled with the challenges despite all the difficulties.

The previous Taliban government in Afghanistan was referred to as the Dark Age for Afghan women, when the Taliban regime issued strict decrees barring women and girls from studying, working, and leaving home unaccompanied. The only permissible covering for women was the burqa / chador, which was issued by special ministries called “commanding the good and forbidding the evil” and included punishments such as flogging, public execution, and stoning. Then there were shocking instances of rape, sexual slavery, forced and child marriages were also included.

Opportunities for socio-political and economic participation for women were eliminated and women were excluded from these fields. The women were left at home, forcing themselves to work hard for a living, such as weaving carpets, breaking almonds and four nuts, sewing, etc., for very low wages.

In the last 20 years since the fall of the first round of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Afghanistan has been a fertile ground for the expansion of women’s activities. After the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, most of the international community concentrated on women empowerment in Afghanistan and the number of educated women increased day by day.

Many women became involved in large-scale activities inside and outside the government. In the meantime, women have played a good role in small and medium-sized businesses and investments. The establishment of women’s business enterprises during this period was to some extent effective in improving the economic situation of women and reducing poverty. It was expected that in the long run women would be in better and more key positions and more involved in government decision-making. 

According to the statistics of the National Statistics Office, two years ago, 24% of the civil servants were women, of which 4,12,000 were government employees. Out of these, about 1,01,216 were women who held various leadership positions of ministers, consulting and as security, police guard etc. The highest number of women worked in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the lowest in the Ministry of Independent Commissions.

According to statistics from the Afghan Ministry of Commerce and Industries, women led less than five percent of Afghanistan’s business a year ago, and the number of women-owned businesses was growing. Nearly 50,000 women in Afghanistan engaged in business, leading approximately 1,550 women-owned businesses in Afghanistan, and these women played a role in the labour market, most of them worked in manufacturing, clothing, food processing, and the production and sale of agricultural products.

About 2,741 women were licensed and work formally, and the rest operated without a formal work permit. The Ministry of Finance had also stated that in the budget for the year, it had allocated about $ 36 million for the support and economic empowerment of women. Afghan businesswomen invested $ 68 million and owned an industrial park in Kabul and many in the provinces, where more than 100 women producers worked directly in the industries, providing employment for thousands of other women.

Now that the Taliban have regained control of Afghanistan, the situation of women has returned to zero and the Dark Age once again, and unfortunately, the concerns and despair of Afghan citizens, especially women and girls, cannot be overstated. Women were thrown into the situation two decades ago, and they are still afraid of how long they will be imprisoned in the corners of their homes and deprived of the right to education, work and community activities.

The Taliban prime minister had assured that women’s rights would be protected under “Sharia law”. But there is still no “clear position” on how they will support women, and when the gates of schools, universities and work in general will be open to women. The apparent under-representation of women in the workplace is also a major problem for women these days.

The current Taliban cabinet is made up of all its members, most of them are Pashtuns, and all men. There is no any woman in this cabinet. Some members of this cabinet are on the UN sanctions list. Four of them are former Guantanamo detainees.

With the arrival of the Taliban in Afghanistan, many international and national offices, a number of government agencies, embassies, and a large number of media outlets and businesses were closed down. The Ministry of Women Affairs- MoWA, that had about 900 employees and worked in 34 provincial departments, closed down. Instead of that, the Ministry of Enjoining the Good and Forbidding the Evil began to work.

Afghanistan needs $ 6 billion to $ 8 billion a year in international aid to fund basic services, support growth, and sustain peace efforts. Although the international community has begun distributing cash to internally displaced persons and poor families, it has continued to distribute between 6,000 and 15,000 AFN per family, and food items are distributed in some provinces in a scattered and irregular manner by foreign offices.

Unfortunately, corruption is still in its place, so some families receive such amount many times and some family never receive it.  The estimated number of Afghan families is more than 7 people, when their income is not regular and consistent, this amount of money and food is not enough for one family during a month, and people are often left on the brink of starvation.

Afghanistan is facing a humanitarian crisis and famine after the Taliban came to power following a cut in aid by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. One of the conditions for many donors to Afghanistan to resume is to recognise the right of women to study and work in the country. The United Nations has warned that 23 million of Afghanistan’s nearly 40 million people are at risk of famine this winter.

The Taliban’s ban on working women could cost up to $ 1 billion, or 5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, according to a new report. The UN report paints a “frightening” picture of Afghanistan’s economy, which is under “rising inflation” and a “continuing cash crisis”.

Women make up 24 percent of the country’s workforce, and preventing them from working alone could reduce half a billion dollars in domestic consumption alone. The Taliban have told all female government employees to stay home, and only a handful of women have been asked to resume school work in essential tasks such as nursing and elementary school teachers.

According to the Taliban, in the future, a framework based on the Islamic values ​​will be set for women to work and study in Afghanistan, but how and when, is not yet clear. With these restrictions, unemployment in Afghanistan has peaked and the arrival of a cold winter is another major challenge for the people. A large number of men started working on the roads and rigging, except for women, who did not have a job to continue working in.

I know many women who break almonds and four nuts in Kabul, they receive its shell as wages to heat as fuel for their homes and return the insides to the suppliers for money. Many women have started sweeping the streets out of unemployment and poverty, cleaning the streets of the city with their faces covered and burqas at low wages.

One of the main consequences of poverty and unemployment and its negative effects is increasing violence against women, which leads to forced and underage marriages, the absence of a husband to work in neighboring countries and the deprivation of women. Ministry of Women’s Affairs, independent human rights commissions, safe houses, and numerous international, national, and government offices are working to resolve cases of violence against women. But now, with the rise of violence statistics, unfortunately, there is no body to record and process these cases.

Gul Maki is the nickname of a 33-year-old woman. She is mother of 4 children who is a teacher in a school in Mazar-e-Sharif and her husband was an employee of the Department of Women’s Affairs in Balkh province. She said, “We have not received regular and complete amount salary, the house rent and the cold of winter forced us to sell a lot of household items at a very cheap price, but we still could not feed the children.” On a more disturbing note, she continued, “As you know poverty bring violence in each house, one day after a long argument my husband emptied all his knots on me and beat me a lot.”

When she sought justice from the Taliban, they mocked and sexually harassed her. “Many Taliban soldiers who were sitting mockingly asked me to show them my injuries. I told them – you are a Muslim and a non-mahram, so how can I show you my body?” Narrating her shocking ordeal she continued, “The other one pointed to me and said – you are still young and nice, so we have many single and Muslim Mujahideen (soldier). God willing, choose one of them and we will marry you to him. Then I returned home frustrated with my wounded and injured body.“

Psychological problems are also prevalent among women grappling with financial insecurities. Studies show that poverty can increase stress disorders in women that affect their lives, work and relationships and increase the risk of depression. How a mother can cope with their children’s hunger? Restricting women breadwinners from not going out without a mahram is one of the great challenges that endangers their own health and their children.

One such woman, named Mitra from Kabul said darkly, “I wish for my death every moment, unless God has closed death on me.” She looks like a young, educated woman. Her dry and tired face and eyes indicate the unspoken and her deep inner pain. An 8-year-old boy is with her and, he discusses the price of food items with Mitra like a grown-up. I sat for a moment following the words of this eloquent and tired lady.

“This is Ahmad my eldest son, he is 8 years old,” she says introducing the little boy to me. “Since his father left, he has been the man of the house and his mother’s helper. Without thinking like other children about toys, etc., he discusses with me about household expenses and negotiating on prices with sellers and shopkeepers,” says Mitra.

“My husband was driver of a car that was transporting ANA food to them and he was martyred in a suicide bombing in Kabul. He was not a soldier. He was an ordinary driver. I now live with Ahmad and two younger girls,” she narrates her woes. “Our salaries have not been paid regularly since the advent of the Taliban. Times are filled with misery and compulsion, sometimes we get tired and give it to this child, sometimes I go to the neighbors’ house to do laundry and cleaning, and sometimes our friends and relatives support me a little,” she says asking, “They (Taliban) have announced a general amnesty that has forgiven us, but what is our sin to be forgiven. Can we forgive them?”

Mitra continues, “I cannot forgive them. Every moment when I cannot provide regular bread and clothes for my children, every moment I look for work in people’s homes and encounter different reactions from that home, I die hundreds of times and come back to life. I hate these people from the bottom of my heart.” She has a thousand questions for the Taliban, “These people are shouting about Islam, but are their deeds Islamic? Where in Islam does it say that it is okay to kill an innocent Muslim? Where is the prohibition of girls from educating in Islam? Where in Islam is it okay to take someone’s sustenance and alimony from them and lead people to poverty and oppression?” She is struggling on many fronts, but is determined to succeed, “I try my best to stay calm and in control, but sometimes I catch my breath to get up and I get short of breath. I get into a fight with myself, become aggressive and violent. In all circumstances, I say again, God, give me strength, I will stand up again and continue.”

After she left, she and her words stayed with me for many days. I thought about how many women are struggling with such difficult conditions and how many are silently dealing with this situation in the country where the field of work for women has become narrower and narrower. How can the international community turn a blind eye to all this, I wonder…

In recent days, the value of the dollar against the Afghani has also risen; an event that directly affects people’s lives and purchasing power. Because the import of most materials is done in dollars.

Finally, it should be noted that ignoring women’s economic work and activity, removing half of the active population from the country, disregards the important principle that achieving economic re-construction and prosperity is not possible without them. Creativity in the economy, which can be created by the meticulous and precise thinking of women, is the best factor in eradicating poverty in Afghan society and contributing to socio-economic development. Also, this creativity is desirable as a factor for the economic maturity of the family in economic management.

The participation of members of society, regardless of gender, is one of the foundations of economic development of countries. The significant presence of women in economic, political, cultural and social planning can be considered as a precondition for development and save society from possible crises.

Due to the economic situation, women in Kabul and other provinces have repeatedly taken to the streets to protest and demand their rights. They chanted slogans such as “Hunger is not a joke”, “Bread, work and freedom”, “Bread for children”, and “Afghans need a piece of bread”, and called for addressing the humanitarian crisis, political and economic participation and women’s freedom of work.

Unfortunately, these protesting women have been responded to with guns, tear gas, lashes, arrests and imprisonment by the Taliban.

Since then, journalists covering the women’s protests were imprisoned and severely punished, women protesters in Balkh province have been arrested and imprisoned by the Taliban, other women from Kabul have been captured by the Taliban overnight and are still missing. Few women dare to leave. They did not do so on the roads, except in houses and basements with half-covered faces, whose identities were not revealed, and they continued their individual and collective protests.

The closure of universities and the denial of access to school for girls above the sixth grade can guarantee a critical situation for women for many years to come, as they pay huge damages for the loss of women in society every day. Women have been forced to settle for the role of mother and wife. Of course, the role of mother or wife is one of the basic and natural roles of women, but women must be able to achieve political, social, cultural and economic participation and be recognized as capable models of society.

Now a days the Afghan women are headline of international news broadcasts, but unfortunately most of funds and international opportunities are closed for Afghan women inside the Afghanistan. We are requesting from all the women outside the Afghanistan and international community, please don’t forget Afghan women and stand with them, raise their voice and be their voice.

*The writer hails from Balkh, Afghanistan, and has secured an MBA degree from SIU, Pune.

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The post Afghanistan: Women, Economy and Taliban appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Around 500 people came together outside Savitribai Phule Pune University’s (SPPU) International Centre on September 10, 2021 to express support for the “national uprising” against the Taliban declared by resistance leader Ahmad Massoud.

Afghan students studying in Pune took permission from the university authorities to observe a protest at 3 P.M on Friday. Holding banners and posters, the youths wanted to declare that a Taliban government is not acceptable to the people of Afghanistan. Women protesters were also present at the venue. However, organisers had to postpone the event when local police told them they had to get permission from administrative authorities as well.

“The situation is tough for the people of Afghanistan. We wanted to raise our voice in support of Massoud’s call against the Taliban and Pakistan. But the police told us, we have to get permission from the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO),” said organiser Ahmad Zia Rohani.

He further said that the Taliban does not allow women to leave their houses, disallowing their rights. The Afghan students oppose this vehemently. The loss of one million jobs in Afghanistan is also a great concern for the students in India, who worry about their student visa if their financial support from home is gone.

“I graduated a month ago. But in this situation, I can’t go back. We [students] don’t recognise this government [Taliban]. So, we request the Foreign Affairs Ministry to extend scholarships and visas for self-finance students as well,” said Rohani.

The lack of financial support for students has created difficulties in availing food, accommodation and educational facilities. Many students don’t have money to pay rent in the city. Earlier, the Afghan Students Association Pune (ASAP) approached the Maharashtra government to talk about the extension of visas and scholarships. Around August 29, members also sent letters to the FRRO and the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Delhi.

Rohani noted that on Friday, the FRRO’s website said students can extend their visa but did not provide details as to the procedure. The website says, “Afghan nationals living in India on any category of visa will be granted extension of visa by FRRO/FRO concerned on gratis basis until further orders. They will not be granted exit or issued leave India notice by FRRO/FRO concerned without prior approval of the Ministry of Home Affairs.”

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The post We do not recognise a Taliban govt: Afghan students in Pune appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI) has reached out to women journalists in Afghanistan in solidarity. The NWMI has explored ways to support the beleaguered colleagues trying to survive and tell their stories against immense odds there. The interactions have revealed that one of the most urgent needs, as expected, is money. 

The NWMI stated that the rapid Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in early August, and its potential adverse impact on hard-won freedoms, particularly for women’s rights, freedom of speech and press freedom, has now become alarmingly clear. 

Now, under the banner “Journalists for Afghanistan”, the NWMI has launched a fundraiser from sales of stunning photographs taken by well known photojournalists. According to the NWMI, the Associated Press has “generously allowed the use of images from its Afghanistan coverage”. The collection includes photographs by some of AP’s bravest and most talented visual journalists and allows rare glimpses into the daily life in Afghanistan documented over the past two decades. “At a time of unimaginable societal and political upheaval in Afghanistan, and even as its people face an uncertain and frightening future, these images challenge us to reflect on the power of resilience and courage in tumultuous times,” stated the NWMI, adding that “all proceeds of the fundraiser will go towards supporting Afghan women journalists.”

For more details and to buy prints visit: https://journalistsforafgh.wixsite.com/for-afg.  The images can also be viewed on Instagram. 

Journalists continue to be targeted, and beaten up when they venture out to report. Images such as those of reporters Nemat Naqdi and Taqi Daryabi showing bruises as a result of lashings by Taliban have been flooding the social media. The two Afghan journalists, were reporting on the somen-led Kabul protests, when they were thrashed by the Taliban. The photos were shared by American journalist Marcus Yam. Several Afghan journalists covering the Kabul protests have also been arrested, stated news reports.

Painful. Afghan journalists from @Etilaatroz, Nemat Naqdi & Taqi Daryabi, display wounds sustained from Taliban torture & beating while in custody after they were arrested for reporting on a women’s rally in #Kabul, #Afghanistan.#JournalismIsNotACrime https://t.co/jt631nRB69 pic.twitter.com/CcIuCy6GVw

— Marcus Yam 文火 (@yamphoto) September 8, 2021

اطلاعات روز: تقی دریابی و نعمت‌الله نقدی، دو گزارشگر روزنامه اطلاعات روز پس از بازداشت توسط طالبان، به شدت مورد لت‌وکوب قرار گرفته‌اند.
آثاری از شلاق و کیبل‌ بر سر، صورت و بدن این دو گزارشگر اطلاعات روز به چشم می‌خورد. pic.twitter.com/0vuEwYW28b

— اطلاعات روز | Etilaatroz (@Etilaatroz) September 8, 2021

Many media outlets have ceased operations in Afghanistan. The International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) has also called upon the international community to “ensure that the rights of women and girls are respected, with special regard to women journalists and media professionals.” Violet Gonda, IAWRT President said, “There are many journalists and female social activists whose lives hang in the balance and whose stories may never be told as the Taliban takes over – once again. These are the brave women who challenged the status quo fighting for fundamental rights, but have been left behind while terror strikes”.  

On Tuesday September 7, 2021 thousands of Afghans took to the streets of Kabul to participate in anti-Pakistan protests. Demonstrators included hundreds of women who defied the Taliban’s traditional stand against women stepping out of their homes. The Taliban then reportedly opened fire to disperse protesters. Nevertheless, brave Afghan women continue to demand equal rights vis a vis education and employment, even as Taliban shows its old face again.

Women’s rights are under threat in Afghanistan, but they refuse to be silenced. ? pic.twitter.com/VWaDOiWcOS

— Amnesty International (@amnesty) September 3, 2021

The NWMI had shared earlier that women journalists they are in contact with are “bearing witness to the utter chaos, terror and uncertainty as the nightmare of a brutal Taliban reign becomes a reality, pushing back decades of hard-won progress for women and girls, upon whom the Taliban has meted out particularly horrific treatment merely on account of their gender.” A woman journalist shared this haunting statement with NWMI: “Last week, I was a news journalist. Today, I can’t even write under my own name or say where I am from or where I am. My whole life has been obliterated in just a few days.”

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The post Journalists for Afghanistan: A fundraiser for colleagues targeted by Taliban appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Joe Biden did not begin the Big Botch-Up in Kabul. George W Bush started it all, and Barack Obama and Donald Trump continued the golden legacy. Backed by the top brass of the political and war machine of the American establishment. A journalistic bombshell of our times, a new book of scathing revelations by a seasoned investigative reporter of The Washington Post, exposes it all.

(‘The Afghanistan Papers: a Secret History of the War’, by investigative journalist Craig Whitlock)

George W Bush, president of the United States during the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, and the man who started the original ‘war against terror’, did not apparently know the name of his own supreme commander in the ‘war’ in Afghanistan. Not only that, he simply could not ‘make time’ to meet him – seemingly, so skewed were his priorities.

Earlier, The New York Times had reported (September 19, 2001): Speaking with unusually raw intensity, President George W Bush says that he wants the militant Islamic leader Osama bin Laden brought to justice “dead or alive”… “There are no rules,” Mr Bush said during a visit to the Pentagon. “It’s barbaric behavior. They slit throats of women on airplanes in order to achieve an objective that is beyond comprehension, and they like to hit and then they like to hide out… But we’re going to smoke them out,” he said… His comments appeared in part spontaneous, reflecting a rage that seems to have been building for days, and that aides say was stoked by the horror he witnessed Friday on his visit to New York.  “I want justice,” he said. “There’s an old poster out West that said, ‘Wanted, dead or alive.’”

(In one chilling discovery reported by The New York Times, the body of a male air crew member from one of the planes that struck the World Trade Center was found in the rubble bound hand and foot, and the body of a flight attendant was found with her hands bound.)

Two years later, his Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, in a memo to his intelligence chief, actually admitted that he simply had “no visibility into who the bad guys are”. This was two years after the formidable American war machine had unleashed its full might inside the landlocked country. Not to be outdone, his successor, Robert Gates, said later: “We didn’t know jack shit about Al-Qaeda.”

On the war in Afghanistan, complained Army General Dan McNeill, “There was no campaign plan. It just wasn’t there.” The officer had operated ‘twice’ as the US commander under the Bush administration.

“There was no coherent long-term strategy,” said David Richards, a British General who led US and NATO forces from 2006 to 2007. “We were trying to get a single coherent long-term approach — a proper strategy — but, instead, we got a lot of tactics.”

Other military officials claimed that the Americans “flubbed the war from the start, committing missteps on top of miscalculations on top of misjudgments”.

“We did not know what we were doing,” said Richard Boucher, Bush administration’s top diplomat for South and Central Asia.

“We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking,” said Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute. He was the ‘White House War Czar’ under Bush and Barack Obama.

Obama promised to end the war, like Bush had done earlier, with much fanfare. Hence, NATO and American officials held a ceremony in Kabul to mark the occasion.

“A multinational colour guard paraded around as music played. A four-star general gave a speech and solemnly cased the green flag of the US-led international force that had flown since the beginning of the conflict.”

Obama called the day “a milestone for our country”. He said that America was now safe and more secure after 13 years of war. “Thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, our combat mission in Afghanistan is ending, and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion,” he declared.

In a bizarre statement stretching scientific logic to its limits, Army General John Campbell, 57, commander of the US and NATO forces, asserted that since the start of the war, ‘life-expectancy’ for the ‘Average Afghan’ had increased by 21 years. “You time that by about 35 million Afghanis represented here in the country, that gives you 741 million years of life,” he announced.

Writes Craig Whitlock, investigative reporter of The Washington Post: “But for such a historical day, the event seemed strange and underwhelming. The president didn’t actually attend; Obama issued his remarks in a written statement from Hawaii while he relaxed on vacation. The military ceremony took place in a gymnasium, where several dozen people sat on folding chairs. There was little mention of the enemy, let alone an instrument of surrender. Nobody cheered.”

SEASONED JOURNALISTS KNOW about the Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam, a war where the mightiest military empire lost a protracted and bloody battle with the guerilla forces of one of the smallest countries in the world. The world also knows about ‘Deep Throat and the Watergate Scandal’ with then US President Richard Nixon as the protagonist, while two intrepid journalists chased the story with incredible grit and maturity. Now, we have an explosive and exclusive investigation and expose of the Afghanistan war, which documents and exposes unprecedented goof-ups and confessions of failure at the topmost levels, and at such a massive scale, that the entire ‘American Empire’ seems to be so hollow and crumbling after a two-decade war.

It seems so shallow and rusted within, that all the war rhetoric, muscle-flexing, chest-thumping and money power seems such a big fake. In the final instance, it all turned out to be an infinite wasteland of human resources, over a graveyard of dead bodies and dead dreams, scattered across the rugged expanse of Afghanistan, from Kabul to Kandahar, and Herat to Helmand. Even while the Taliban is back once again, with the US playing footsie and Pakistan back as the behind-the-stage king-maker.

‘The Afghanistan Papers: a Secret History of the War’, by investigative journalist Craig Whitlock, has thoroughly and totally exposed the American political, defense and war machine! It has laid bare the lies, half-truths, propaganda and subterfuge hatched by the formidable Pentagon top brass and White House, the top military and strategic big guns, their sundry underlings, the huge parasitic networks of entrenched industrialists, arms-dealers and manufacturers, contractors, mercenaries and miscellaneous cartels, the embedded journalists and propaganda machinery — and all this under the watch of successive presidents: George W Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump. And let us not even count the billions and trillions which apparently went down the drain in Kabul and beyond – so where did it all go?

If Joe Biden has inherited the glorious ruins of a grand botch-up, then all the war medals for this apocalypse now should go to his illustrious predecessors. Clearly, the 20-year-old Afghan War has been perhaps the biggest foreign policy and strategic/military disaster for a hegemonic and imperialist war machine which has inflicted violence and destruction across the Post-War global landscape to reassert again and again its dominant narrative of supremacist, military and capitalist power, driven by the insatiable greed of its profit industry of construction, destruction and reconstruction, even while ‘blood for oil’ became the principle doctrine of war in the Middle-East in recent times.  

First published in parts by The Washington Post in 2019, ‘The Afghanistan Papers’ should rattle the American State and superstructure, its much-touted beliefs in democracy and truth, and all its shaky skeletons in the cupboard. More than that, it should shatter the ethical conscience and public consciousness of the American civil society.

This is because these disclosures prove with evidence, often straight from the horses’ mouths, of how the top army and political brass, led by various US presidents, have made a fool of the American people by manipulating public opinion through a continuous and organized web of lies and deception, fake and doctored news, and official declarations, speeches, text and rhetoric.

The sensational hardback edition, running into 346 pages with meticulously documented endnotes and references, has been published by Simon and Schuster. It has been launched globally on August 31, 2021. It is already creating waves.

Craig Whitlock is a seasoned journalist and investigative reporter with The Washington Post. He has reported from more than 60 countries across the world. He has been a beat reporter for seven years covering the Pentagon and US military. Earlier, he has been a foreign correspondent for the newspaper covering Al-Qaeda, terrorism and conflict zones in the Middle-East, Pakistan, North Africa and Europe. He has seen the “mess” in Afghanistan upfront while covering at least four defense secretaries and several war commanders.

For his reportage on Afghanistan, he has received the George Polk Award for Military Reporting, the Scripps Howard Award for Investigative Reporting, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Freedom of Information Award, and the Robert F Kennedy Journalism Award for international reporting. He has been a three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

“Like many journalists, I knew Afghanistan was a mess…” he writes. “…But I wondered if everyone had missed the big picture.”

His book starts with an important quote as a prelude, recording a historic moment for independent and ethical journalism in the US, and across the world, and as a tribute to journalists who chose to stand against the establishment if need be, and to tell the truth on the ground, against all odds. “Only a free and unrestrained Press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free Press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.”

This is a statement by Justice Hugo L. Black of the US Supreme Court, in the New York Times Co. v. United States, also known as the ‘Pentagon Papers Case’, June 30, 1971. In a 6–3 decision, the court ruled that the US government could not block The New York Times or The Washington Post from publishing the Defense Department’s secret history of the Vietnam War.

Over several years of painstaking and meticulous investigations, Whitlock has obtained thousands of documents, oral testimonies, official memos and notes, interviews, published and unpublished testimonies, confessions and statements, often expressed directly by the top brass of the American power and military apparatus. In page after page, chapter after chapter, this book is a bitter revelation and a scathing indictment of a bloated regime which prides itself as the most powerful State apparatus in the world, while self-congratulating America as the “greatest nation in the world” — for mythical reasons it alone knows.

Writes Whitlock, about what has been a fake narrative repeated again and again as a public spectacle: “President Barack Obama had vowed to end the war and bring all the troops home, but he failed to do so as his second term neared an end in 2016. Americans had grown weary of endless conflict overseas. Disillusioned, many people stopped paying attention…”

Indeed, like the fake ceremony described above, replete with typical ‘Obamesque’ charm and deception, it was crystal-clear that both, the US president and his top general, were playing a stage-managed show with a lot of pomp and patriotism thrown in. The damned, bloody war was nowhere ending. Afghan and American troops and civilians would continue to die for many years to come, as it happened in ravaged Syria in the following years.

This reporter covered the American elections in 2016 from New York and Boston. One of the reasons the young, educated pro-Bernie Sanders millennials hated Hillary Clinton was because of a certain video which had circulated widely during the 2016 presidential polls. It showed her devilish and unbridled ecstasy when shown how Muammar Gaddafi, soaked with blood all over, has been captured, beaten into pulp and tortured on the streets, and then bayoneted to death in perhaps one of the most grotesque and brutal forms of ‘mob-lynching as justice’ awarded to a former head of state.

(In Syria, for instance, a mindless and multi-pronged war by multiple actors, continued, from Damascus and Alleppo and beyond. This mindless war left millions dead, brutalised, trafficked and devastated, turned cities into morbid installations of melted, destroyed rubble, forced women such as from the Yazidi community into dehumanizing sex slavery at the hands of Islamic fundamentalists, and gave rise to another sinister ‘Caliphate’ – the ISIS — backed by all kinds of sinister forces and diabolical players from behind the infinite war rubble in the Middle-East. This was a war first conceived and crystallized by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (then the next presidential hopeful, backed by an ‘anti-war’ Obama). Barack Obama had earlier received a Nobel Peace Prize much too early in his presidency even as the world rejoiced the arrival of the first black president in the history of the United States.)

Writes Whitlock: “The Washington Post and other news organizations had exposed systemic problems with the war for years. Books and memoirs had delivered insider accounts of pivotal battles in Afghanistan and political infighting in Washington. But I wondered if everyone had missed the big picture… How had the war degenerated into a stalemate with no realistic prospect for an enduring victory? The US and its allies had initially crushed the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in 2001. …What went wrong? No one had conducted a thorough public accounting of the strategic failures or provided an unsparing explanation of how the campaign fell apart. To this day, there has been no Afghanistan version of the 9/11 Commission, which held the government responsible for its inability to prevent the worst terrorist attack on American soil. Nor has Congress convened an Afghanistan version of the Fulbright Hearings, when senators aggressively questioned the war in Vietnam. With so many people from both parties responsible for a multitude of errors, few political leaders have wanted to assign or accept blame…”

In the summer of 2016 Whitlock received a “news tip that an obscure federal agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, had interviewed hundreds of participants in the war and that many had unloaded pent-up frustrations” in a project called ‘Lessons Learned’. This project was meant to “diagnose policy failures in Afghanistan”.

“Only a free and unrestrained Press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free Press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.” –  (Justice Hugo L. Black of the US Supreme Court, in the New York Times Co. v.   United States, also known as the ‘Pentagon Papers Case’, June 30, 1971)

According to Whitlock, “That September, SIGAR began to publish a series of Lessons Learned reports that highlighted problems in Afghanistan. But, the reports, weighed down with leaden government prose, omitted the harsh criticism and finger-pointing that I heard the interviews contained. An investigative journalist’s mission in life is to find out what truths the government is hiding and reveal them to the public… So I filed Freedom of Information Act requests with SIGAR seeking transcripts, notes and audio recordings of the Lessons Learned interviews. I argued (that) the public had a right to know the government’s internal criticisms of the war — the unvarnished truth…

“At every turn, SIGAR delayed and resisted the requests — a hypocritical response for an agency that Congress had created to provide accountability for the enormous sums of taxpayer dollars being spent on the war. The Post had to file two federal lawsuits to compel SIGAR to release the Lessons Learned documents. After a three-year legal battle, SIGAR finally disclosed more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with 428 people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials. The agency redacted portions of the documents and concealed the identities of most of the people it interviewed. But the interviews showed that many senior US officials privately viewed the war as an unmitigated disaster, contradicting a chorus of rosy public statements from officials at the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department, who assured Americans year after year that they were making progress in Afghanistan…”

Among other documents, interviews and oral testimonies, Whitlock also obtained hundreds of classified memos about the war in Afghanistan that Defense Secretary in the Bush administration, Donald Rumsfeld, dictated or received between 2001 and 2006. They were called ‘snowflakes’ by Rumsfeld and his staff; these included “brief instructions or comments that the Pentagon boss dictated to his underlings”, often many times a day.

“…Speaking frankly because they assumed their remarks would not become public, US officials confessed to SIGAR that the war plans had fatal flaws and that Washington had wasted billions of dollars trying to remake Afghanistan into a modern nation. The interviews exposed the US government’s botched attempts to curtail runaway corruption, build a competent Afghan army and police force, and put a dent in Afghanistan’s thriving opium trade. Many of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the US government to deliberately mislead the public. They said officials at (the) military headquarters in Kabul — and at the White House — routinely distorted statistics to make it appear (that) the United States was winning the war when that was plainly not the case…”

 In the chapter, ‘Afghanistan Becomes an Afterthought’, Whitlock writes how Bush and Obama heralded the end of the war as a public relations exercise, though it was all stage-managed and fake.

“Six weeks after the invasion of Iraq, on May 1, 2003, the commander-in-chief boarded another flight to deliver another victorious speech with a military audience as the backdrop… Thousands of sailors cheered as Bush stepped off the plane and exchanged salutes with crew members on the flight deck. The president mingled and posed for photos before changing into a civilian business suit to give his speech as the sun dipped over the Pacific Ocean. Standing in front of a billowing red-white-and-blue banner proclaiming ‘Mission Accomplished’, Bush announced that ‘major combat operations have ended’ and thanked the US military for ‘a job well done’ in Operation Iraqi Freedom… In fact, the worst in Iraq was yet to come and Bush’s visit to the aircraft carrier would haunt him as the biggest public-relations blunder of his presidency…It also overshadowed an equally nonsensical claim that his defense secretary had made hours earlier about the war in Afghanistan…” 

In a joint press conference with Hamid Karzai in Kabul, Rumsfeld echoed the ‘Bush script’, that major combat operations are over in Afghanistan. “The bulk of this country today is permissive, it’s secure,” he said.

Whitlock reports: “But, as in Iraq, the fighting in Afghanistan was far from over. Combat operations would re-intensify and turn much more deadly. More than 95 per cent of US casualties in America’s longest war had yet to occur. In oral-history interviews, Army officers who served in Afghanistan in 2003 said Rumsfeld’s assertion that combat had ended was absurd.

‘We used to laugh,’ said Lt. Col. Mark Schmidt, a Special Forces officer with a background in psychological operations. ‘There was still plenty of fighting going on… Quite frankly, we were just going around killing people. We’d fly in, do a mission for a few weeks, then we’d fly out —and, of course, the Taliban would just flow right back in…’”

Whitlock writes: “..Most U.S. officials wrongly assumed the Taliban would never pose a serious threat again. In his ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech, Bush declared flatly: ‘We destroyed the Taliban.’”

In the chapter, ‘At War with the Truth’, Whitlock writes that during his trip in 2012 to Afghanistan, 73-year-old CIA director, Leon Panetta, apart from other PR disasters, had to deal with a massacre, typically something insane, which has been repeated again and again in different forms, in similar wars – from Vietnam to Afghanistan, from Iraq to Syria and Palestine. Even recently, after the bomb blast at the Kabul Airport which killed scores of civilians, Taliban guard and US Marines, the drone attack by the Americans reportedly killed an entire Afghan family in Kabul. This war had too many similar stories of innocents dying all over at the hands of the Taliban, other terrorist groups, and the US and NATO forces.

 “A few days before his arrival, a lone US soldier, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, strode into two Afghan villages in Kandahar province in the middle of the night and inexplicably massacred 16 sleeping villagers, most of them women and children. The mass murder inflamed Afghans and the Taliban exploited it as propaganda fodder…,”  reports Whitlock.

Panetta termed his visit in the backdrop of this massacre as “very encouraging”. The campaign, as I’ve pointed out before, I think, has made significant progress,” he told reporters in Kabul. “We’re on the right path. I’m absolutely convinced of that.”

The Obama administration followed this bluff and bluster with distorted statistics very similar to what the Bush administration had reportedly done earlier. According to Whitlock, Obama’s staffers in the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department took this hyperbole of distortion to an entirely new level — “hyping figures that were misleading, spurious or downright false”.

Writes Whitlock:  “‘We have broken the Taliban’s momentum,’ Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a Senate committee in June 2011. As evidence, she quoted an array of metrics: Afghan schools had enrolled 7.1 million students, a seven-fold increase since the fall of the Taliban; infant mortality had decreased by 22 per cent; opium production was down; hundreds of thousands of farmers had been ‘trained and equipped with new seeds and other techniques; and Afghan women had received more than 100,000 micro-finance loans’…”

 “Now, what do these numbers and others that I could quote tell us?” said Hillary Clinton. “Life is better for most Afghans.”

In contrast, much later, auditors discovered “many of the statistics” dished out on life-expectancy, enrolment in schools, infant mortality, among other human development index, was based “on inaccurate or unverified data”.

The special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, John Sopko, later told the Congress in January, 2020 that officials “knew the data was bad” and yet chose to exaggerate — “bragged about the numbers anyway”.  Sopko said the lies were part of “an odor of mendacity” that was integral to the depiction of the war by the US adminstration, writes Whitlock.

The investigations found that in the interviews recovered from the project, ‘Lessons Learned’, military officials and advisers made extra efforts to systematically mislead the American public. Apparently it was routine tactics at the military headquarters in Kabul, at the Pentagon and at the White House, to skew statistics so as to prove that the US was actually winning the war, though this was not the reality on the ground.

In one such interview, an army colonel, Bob Crowley said, “Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible.” He was a senior counter-insurgency adviser to US commanders in 2013 and 2014.

“Surveys, for instance, were totally unreliable but reinforced that everything we were doing was right and we became a self-licking ice cream cone,” he said.

 “At military headquarters, “truth was rarely welcome” and “bad news was often stifled,” Crowley said. “There was more freedom to share bad news if it was small — we’re running over kids with our MRAPS (armoured vehicles) — because those things could be changed with policy directives. But when we tried to air larger strategic concerns about the willingness, capacity or corruption of the Afghan government, it was clear it wasn’t welcome.”

Interestingly, and funnily, John Garofano, a Naval War College strategist, who advised the Marines in Helmand in 2011, disclosed that a huge amount of time and effort was spent in “churning out color-coded charts that heralded positive results”. “They had a really expensive machine that would print the really large pieces of paper like in a print shop,” he said in a Lessons Learned interview. “There would be a caveat that these are not actually scientific figures, or this is not a scientific process behind this.”

Donald Trump fought the presidential elections in 2016 on the patriotic ploy of ‘America First’ and ‘Make America Great Again’ unleashing racist and white supremacist currents, an inherited brand of hate politics and collective phobia of immigrants, as well as promising to back-out of all the wars in which America has been trapped in other parts of the world.

Whitlock depicts an ironic study which reflects how frivolous and risky it all became when it came to Trump. “Before he won the 2016 presidential election, the real-estate mogul and reality TV star had complained loudly about the war’s expense and demanded that Obama pull out. In keeping with his slogan, ‘Make America Great Again,’ he denounced any foreign-aid programmes that resembled nation-building… ‘Afghanistan is a complete waste. Time to come home! — he tweeted in 2012. We have wasted an enormous amount of blood and treasure in Afghanistan. Their government has zero appreciation. Let’s get out! — he tweeted in 2013. A suicide bomber has just killed US troops in Afghanistan. When will our leaders get tough and smart. We are being led to slaughter! — he tweeted in 2015…’”

However, once Trump assumed power in January 2017, he ran into serious difficulties. His aides in the cabinet and the Pentagon top brass told him in as many words that “it could be cataclysmic to withdraw abruptly. If the Afghan government collapsed or the war spilled over to nuclear-armed Pakistan, he would own the problem,” they told him.

“Trump agreed,” writes Whitlock. “However, unlike other presidents, he had scant respect for the generals running the war and no patience for detailed policy deliberations…Trump hated any hint of weakness or defeat. His Defense Secretary, James Mattis, had committed the grievous error of suggesting just that in June when he told the Senate Armed Services Committee that ‘we are not winning in Afghanistan right now’. General Joseph Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the same mistake six days later when he confessed during an appearance at the National Press Club in Washington that ‘Afghanistan is not where we want it to be’.”

Citing an interesting event which tells a typical story so characteristically Trump, Whitlock reports that the president was invited to the Pentagon by Mattis for a “wide-ranging discussion about the importance of NATO and other military alliances…” Trump agreed, but was fed up with the lecture soon enough.

“In particular, he blew his stack when Mattis and Dunford talked about Afghanistan. Trump called it a ‘loser war’. He trashed the commanding general in Kabul, Army General John Nicholson Jr., saying: ‘I don’t think he knows how to win… I want to win…’”

According to Washington Post journalists Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, Trump said in the meeting: “You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”

Indeed, The Afghanistan Papers by Craig Whitlock opens up an uncanny can of worms which will be deeply worrisome and embarrassing for the top brass in the American and NATO establishment, of the past and present, howsoever thick-skinned they might appear to be. Indeed, it might just take away the halo some of them have surrounded themselves with in this eternally mysterious, sinister and diabolical game-play of the ‘war against terror’. The painstaking investigative documentation is a reminder to voters and citizens of America, and all nations, to take all official rhetoric and propaganda with a big pinch of salt. More than that, it yet again heralds the great victory of great journalism in the era of ‘post-truth, new normal and fake news’: showing truth to power!

A must read for journalists and all concerned, those who like to walk in and around the corridors of power, and especially for those who love to pump their chests in patriotic glory at the mere mention of ‘war’.

(The author is a senior journalist, media commentator and academic and presently Executive Editor Hardnews. The piece is Exclusive for Sabrangindia)

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