When the last American soldier flew out of Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2021, leaving the country to Taliban rule, the world braced for a human rights nightmare.
In that sense, the Taliban have met expectations. The country’s extremist rulers, who seized power from an American-backed government of 20 years, have carried out revenge killings, torture and abductions, according to international observers. They have also imposed the world’s most radical gender policies, denying education and employment to millions of Afghan women and girls — even shutting down beauty parlors.
On Aug. 14, a group of United Nations officials issued a report saying the Taliban had engaged in “a continuous, systematic and shocking rescinding of a multitude of human rights, including the rights to education, work, and freedoms of expression, assembly and association.”
Some analysts and U.S. officials had clung to the hope that the Taliban had moderated since they last controlled the country in the 1990s, or that they would at least make concessions to Western demands on human rights to win diplomatic recognition or economic aid as the country suffers a deepening humanitarian crisis.
It was not to be.
“The concept of a ‘reformed’ Taliban has been exposed as mistaken,” the U.N. experts wrote.
As a result, Biden administration officials have ruled out the possibility that they would agree to Taliban demands for international recognition, sanctions relief and access to billions of dollars of assets frozen in the United States.
At the same time, aspects of Taliban rule have modestly surprised some U.S. officials. Fears of civil war have not materialized, and the Taliban have cracked down on corruption and banned opium poppy cultivation, although it remains to be seen how strictly the ban will be enforced.
And on President Biden’s top priority for the country — preventing a return of terrorist groups that might threaten the United States — the Taliban leaders appear to be meeting Washington’s approval. That is crucial, given that the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 because the Taliban harbored leaders of Al Qaeda who plotted the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“I said Al Qaeda would not be there,” Mr. Biden said on June 30, in response to a reporter’s question about the American withdrawal. “I said we’d get help from the Taliban. What’s happening now?”
The question was rhetorical; Mr. Biden’s clear implication was that he had been vindicated by his decision to withdraw American troops.
That has not been enough to persuade Mr. Biden to restore any U.S. support to the country. But some humanitarian groups and Afghanistan experts are calling on the Biden administration to soften its position and, at a minimum, provide the Taliban with direct economic assistance to alleviate the country’s desperate poverty and hunger.
“The world needs to think hard about what it’s trying to achieve in Afghanistan these days, and most of the stuff we want to do…
2023-08-30 19:57:45
Post from www.nytimes.com
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