Back to the pessimistic takes: the Washington Post has an article on How Life under Taliban rule in Afghanistan has changed. A taste:
Over two decades of conflict and politicking, Taliban control in Afghanistan has become a patchwork of edicts and codes, with some areas seeing modest reform. But overall, fear and intimidation remain at the heart of the militant group’s command.
In one district, elders successfully lobbied Taliban fighters to open a high school for girls. In other provinces, clinics funded by international aid groups are now allowed to function. But in those same places, harsh, often public punishments remain common. Torture and imprisonment are widely used for infringements as minor as possessing the wrong SIM card....
Public beatings and executions are routine inside the Taliban’s Afghanistan. And women are almost entirely absent from public life, largely denied equal access to education and employment. Access to health care and some education has expanded under the Taliban, but that is largely a result of work by select international aid groups the militants have allowed to operate.
“All their changes are only for their own benefit,” said a 22-year-old university student from Helmand province who has lived in Taliban-controlled territory on and off his entire life. Like others in this article, he spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution by the Taliban.
“If you start criticizing the Taliban, you are their enemy,” he said. “Nothing has ever changed with that.”
And yet, to answer the question "why does anyone support this mob", we get this brief observation:
Other civilians said they prefer the Taliban’s justice system to that of the government. A taxi driver who lives in Mazar-e Sharif said he repeatedly traveled into Taliban territory to obtain a ruling on a family property dispute after government courts proved ineffective.
“The Taliban’s process is faster than the government,” said the driver, Mubaraksha Zafar, 38, “and there is no corruption.”
Huh.
2 comments:
a sure fire way to have a poor economy
The Taliban leadership will have Israeli handlers and some of them will even be Israelis in Pashtun clobber. . So anything can happen. But the Taliban so far say they will ban the vaccine. If they do this, whatever else they do, they will be the saviours of the country.
There is the movie "Charlie Wilson's War" and then there is a book associated with the movie. If you were to read the book you will see that it was the Israelis who trained the Taliban when they were fighting the Soviets.
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