tribe and sub-tribe will prevaricate in the face of an unstable situation

8-9-21  The essential flaw of withdrawal is that a carefully managed stalemate has suddenly broken loose.  The Afghans relied on Americans to help with air strikes and logistics which are now gone.

More importantly, ordinary Afghans feel the Americans have abandoned their cause.  This has been especially destabilizing because Afghanistan is a tribal system.  The tribe and sub-tribe will prevaricate in the face of an unstable situation and support both sides.  But if one side looks set to win, the tribe will flip to that side.  This has spurred a surge of recruiting into the Taliban ranks as tribes try to make good with the winners.

The Biden administration understands almost none of this, or it would not have withdrawn.  Joe Biden says the Afghan government and its allies can win if they have the will to fight. Biden shows no awareness that he has upset a delicate political and military balance that swings widely with relatively small changes.  So the departure of just 2,500 American troops (plus contractors) has a huge impact on a fight between 300,000 government troops and 60,000 Taliban.  This is a strategic blunder with very real human consequences.

The Taliban are cold-blooded killers.  Since 1995 they killed tribal elders who resisted them.  As areas come under their sway, they kill whoever they deem to have cooperated too closely with the U.S. and the Afghan government.  This means interpreters, government officials and anyone associated with the war effort.  The sense of fear is palpable.

What does this look like in practice?  The Taliban will call the cell phones of the men on their hit list and make threats.  The Taliban will then track them down and shoot them or place bombs to kill them.

The insecurity persists everywhere, even in cities.  The Taliban now have hit squads operating in Kandahar, Kabul and elsewhere.  The Taliban will ride up and shoot someone in their car plus the passengers.  Or they will attach a bomb to their car and blow them all up.  Women and children will die as well as the target.  If they miss one time they will keep trying; they’ve bombed or shot at one official 11 times.

This is why tribal leaders do deals, because they are afraid.  This is why many government commanders have simply taken their troops out of areas where the Taliban have overwhelming superiority. They do not want to be shot if they surrender, and the Taliban have the money to pay them to leave. Why not go?

The Taliban are not reasonable people. They are killers who have an agenda of the compete domination of the country.  Their recent talks with the Afghan government are no doubt proposals that the government surrender. They are not serious about negotiations unless they control the outcome, for the nation just as for the districts.

The Biden administration has failed to understand what has driven the war, the kind of people they face and the psyche of their Afghan allies.  They are throwing their best friends in Afghanistan to the wolves, and letting in a movement that prides itself on upholding values from the Middle Ages, and that kills without remorse. It is also a close ally of al Qaeda, who are now fighting alongside the Taliban.

In short this withdrawal is a blunder of historic proportions with huge consequences for the people who helped us the most and for America itself.   https://www.bostonherald.com/2021/08/09/grindle-u-s-withdrawal-enables-taliban-killers-in-afghanistan/

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  “When I saw the Taliban up close I was very scared,” says the student who gave only her first name and who wants to become a doctor.  “They are wild people, and they don’t respect women.” 

Top Taliban political leaders have been proclaiming a pragmatic, moderate evolution in their thinking since the late 1990s when their version of Islamist rule was marked by violence and strict enforcement of bans on girls’ education, women working outside the home and even men shaving their beards.  They reiterated this more restrained approach while negotiating a withdrawal deal directly with the U.S. in 2019 and 2020, and later after joining intra-Afghan peace talks last September.

Instead, in the weeks leading up to the Taliban capturing Kabul, these residents confirmed it is the “old” Taliban--every bit as brutal, zealous and vengeful as they were two decades ago--that are again taking control.  Their oppressive actions provide a glimpse of what the country might look like under the Taliban’s archconservative sway.

“Unfortunately the current situation in the country is we are going back to the 1990s,” says a women’s rights activist in Faryab province, whose district of Shirin Tagab fell to the Taliban in June.  “It means we go back to the darkness.” 

“All Afghans, especially women, are suffocated by the recent actions of the U.S. government,” she says.  “The U.S. should have defeated this ominous phenomenon on the ground or forced them to make peace.  But they introduced the Taliban as a power to the world [through direct negotiations] and did not realize the Taliban are the savage Taliban who know nothing but terror.”

She saw signs of Taliban intolerance last October as she prepared for World Teachers’ Day at a local girls school.  Money had been raised for a party, but a new computer lab at the school prompted local “radicals” to start a rumor that immoral films were being shown, and that “days of infidelity” were to be celebrated, she says.   The night before the event Taliban fighters crept past guards and burned down the school.

“We wrote a letter to the Taliban and asked them to work together to build a peaceful Afghanistan, to provide education for the future ... to teach the young generation the lesson of self-confidence, mutual acceptance and national unity,” says the activist.  “But the Taliban threatened to kill me and my father in response.”    https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2021/0816/Under-Taliban-rule-Afghans-warn-of-going-back-to-the-darkness