Skip to main content

Inside the Taliban’s Return to Power

After their victory against the Taliban in 2001, with the support of the Americans, local warlords such as Abdul Rashid Dostum and Atta Muhammad Noor, and other militia commanders responsible for the murderous anarchy of the civil war, were to play a significant role in the new democratic Afghanistan. They were given immunity from prosecution for their alleged human rights abuses and war crimes, and the opportunity to enrich themselves from the immense inrush of foreign aid.

Torture and mistreatment of prisoners in American jails helped turn these sites into fertile recruiting centres for future jihadis. “The memories of Bagram are hard on everyone, especially me,” Jawhar said. “We were three to five in each cell, we had no mattresses and we slept on the concrete floor. I became the imam of my cell, and the soldiers were always harder on the imams. Many times they called me to the door and then sprayed my face with pepper spray. Some [guards] tortured us for no reason, while others would find an excuse. In the end, the only reason was cruelty.”

In 2001, Babak had been part of the US-backed force that defeated the Taliban in Mazar. From the late 2010s onwards, as a local government official and a commander, he had seen the Taliban make inroads into rural communities. He spoke honestly and candidly, his voice soft and subdued, as he stared at a plate of raisins on the floor in front of him, like someone trying to come to terms with a death in the family. He said the people of the region had been allowing the Taliban to come into their villages, and providing them with shelter, accommodation and ammunition, as a kind of revenge against the weak and distant central government, and as protection against the corrupt local political powers

“We were the ones who crashed the government because of the corruption. The Taliban didn’t capture it, we brought it to collapse. We couldn’t fight, we sold it.”

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Qarmatians (Al-Qaramita)

By Nadeem Mahjoub Documentary film-makers G. Troeller and M. C. Defarge once asked a cabinet minister in South Yemen, why socialistic ideas were so readily acceptable in that part of the Arab world. He replied: “Because we have been communists for a thousand years! My mother was Qarmatian.” Official Muslim scholars and clerics, and many so-called moderates (whether individuals or groups) oppose sedition ( fitna ). Tensions and contradictions in society should be solved peacefully and even if the ruler was unjust and impious, it is generally accepted he should still be obeyed, for any kind of order is better than anarchy and sedition. “The tyranny of a sultan for a hundred years causes less damage than one year’s tyranny exercised by the subjects against one another.” Revolt was justified only against a ruler who clearly went against the command of God and His prophet.” 1 Here we look at not what happened in the minds of people who call for calm, oppose dissent and preach the re...
Post a Comment
Read more
"A second position argues against transition, which is transitology itself. It is well known—especially among economists—as the sudden mobilization of a considerable mass of experts who are generally foreigners,generally Western, who come to preach the good word and to propose ready-made models of democracy. The science of the transition has become a financial windfall, a market. And the word transition has of course become a reflex of language, a term of reference, a call for tenders ( appel d’offres ) to which the whole society was supposed to respond.  Consequently, the reticence that one can express is the following: our history is framed, transition is a heteronomy. Every democratic revolution is henceforth supposed to take a unique, imposed path, which is, at the same time, indistinctly democratic and liberal (or neoliberal). A more or less non-“negotiable” package.  It is necessary to highlight the imposed character (and imposed from the outside) of this coming to t...
Post a Comment
Read more

UK

"We are all in it together" A letter from a doctor to Boris Johnson published a few months ago: ' Johnson has contributed to thousands of deaths ' Related 'The greatest global science failure for a generation' 'Herd immunity' or lockdown
Read more

Finance

"The hegemony of finance—the most fetishized form of wealth—is only maintained by the public authorities’ unconditional support. Left to itself, fictitious capital would collapse; and yet would pull down the whole of our economies in its wake. In truth, finance is a master blackmailer. Financial hegemony dresses up in the liberal trappings of the market, yet captures the old sovereignty of the state all the better to squeeze the body of society to feed its own profits. " (my emphasis) —Cédric Durand, Ficticious Capital , 2017, p. 155 
Read more

Against Authoritarianism and Neoliberalism in Venezuela

“The current confrontation in Venezuela today is not between left and right.” “We are witnessing the transition from a government with authoritarian tendencies to a dictatorial regime.” “This is not a government ‘backed’ by the military, but, as Maduro himself has said, the government is led by a ‘civilian-military-police alliance’. “Those who continue to support Maduro, including parties and movements of the Sao Paulo Forum or the spokespersons of Podemos in Spain, are causing severe damage to the left in the region and the world. They are damaging anti-capitalist struggles in the broadest sense.” The US embargo is ‘in violation of international law’. This is a useless statement repeated a million times, and it has come back again during the ongoing Israel’s genocidal war. “[A]fter the failure of the current, self-defined “socialist” governments, Venezuelan society tends to associate any reference to socialism or the left with the corruption and authoritarianism of the Maduro governme...
Post a Comment
Read more