When Afghanistan fell, the Taliban promised that things would be different. They told the western world not to worry – women would still have rights.
Meanwhile, every woman in Afghanistan was terrified. After all, we’re dealing with terrorists. They can’t possibly be held to their word.
Biden promised that the Taliban would keep their promises.
Now, we’re learning that it’s literally our worst nightmares come true. Their words mean nothing, especially when you see what actions they’re taking across the country.
John Sopko is the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. On CNN, he said that he and the rest of the Biden administration were “hopeful” that the Taliban had changed their ways. Now, he says that “Our worst fears are coming true.”
We’re learning that the Taliban is not interested in accepting some of the international standards of human rights.
On CNN’s Amanpour with Christiane Amanpour, she pointed out to Sopko that approximately half of the media outlets in Afghanistan have closed. Many of the news reporters are no longer able to report the news. She was interested to hear how that would impact the country moving forward.
Moving forward, it means that the country is going to be in trouble. The Taliban will be cutting back on all of the western values that many in Afghanistan have come to enjoy over the past 20 years.
Sopko said that one of the successes over the past 20 years was that we helped to give Afghanistan a free and independent press. “Over half of those media outlets have disappeared…It does not bode well.”
When a country doesn’t have free and independent press, it means that they’re at the mercy of the government to tell them what’s going on. It also gives the government (a group of terrorists, in this case) a chance to spin the news so that the people have no idea what is true and what is not.
We’re seeing countless problems in regard to women getting an education, getting proper healthcare, and more.
Biden and NATO, according to Amanpour, laid the blame of what happened at the feet of the Afghan forces. Basically, it was easy to say that they just let it happen and ran away. Sopko had a bit of a different story to explain what happened. The peace negotiations signed with the Taliban and the decision to follow through on the removal of US troops destroyed the morale of the Afghani police. They saw how the US was willing to work with terrorists, and it caused them to give up. They felt as though everything was hopeless.
And perhaps that’s true.
However, we already know that the US shouldn’t have ever tried to sign peace negotiations with the Taliban. We believed their lies that things would be better.
And now, all we’re seeing is a constant list of human rights violations.
As of May, the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice published a decree that would require all women in the country to wear full-body coverings. This included either an abaya with a niqab or a burqa, which would only leave their eyes uncovered.
Remember, many women never had to go through this. They were part of the free world that the US had created for them.
And they are also banned from secondary and higher education.
Women cannot participate in air travel without the presence of a male family member.
And women cannot be in the parks of Kabul four days a week.
The list goes on and on.
As reported by Human Rights Watch, “These are the latest in a long string of broken promises and restrictions on the rights of women and girls the Taliban have imposed since taking control of Afghanistan last year.”
The truly heartbreaking aspect of all of this is that it could have been prevented. If Biden weren’t trying to outdo Trump, we could have slowed down and managed the Afghanistan retreat properly. Instead, we’ve left countless individuals to live under the hands of terrorists who believe an oppressive regime is the only regime that works.
Now, we simply have to wait to see if the Taliban will respond to the condemnation coming from not only the US but also over 50 countries with a Muslim majority.
