Gordon Adams, American University School of International Service
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US Afghanistan pullout is not a repeat of failures in other recent wars. “This is not Saigon,” he said. A seasoned foreign policy expert disagrees.
Canada is offering to resettle 20,000 Afghan refugees, including women’s leaders and journalists. Why has Australia so far been unwilling to make the same declaration?
When the US invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, Afghans had endured 22 years of war. The Taliban were on the rise. Little has changed after an additional 20 years of war and suffering.
Scenes of mayhem unfolded at Kabul airport overnight, as foreigners and Afghans try to flee Afghanistan following the seizure of the capital by the Taliban. This is Kabul’s ‘Saigon moment’.
When historians look back at the shambolic US exit from Afghanistan, it may increasingly appear a critical marker of America’s decline in the world, far eclipsing the flight from Saigon.
The Taliban ‘expect a complete handover of power.’ Experts explain who the Taliban are, what life is like under their rule and how the US may bear responsibility for Afghanistan’s collapse.
Emboldened by success in Afghanistan, the Taliban is now ordering religious leaders to provide them with lists of girls over the age of 15 to enter into ‘marriages’ to Taliban fighters.
Herat is home to an India-built dam that provides water for drinking, irrigation and bathing for much of western Afghanistan. If the Taliban control that water, they control the population.
Academic research in conflict zones suggests Ghani’s resignation could actually be Afghanistan’s best chance at peace – but not under the conditions the Taliban is demanding.
Afghanistan’s Artlords are using art on blast walls to advocate for social change and to stand in contrast to the country’s war lords, drug lords and corruption.
Burqas and male chaperones for women were features of the Taliban’s extremist rule of Afghanistan in the 1990s. Those policies are now back in some districts controlled by these Islamic militants.
Two decades have passed since the US invasion of Afghanistan toppled the Taliban’s Islamic extremist regime. Despite efforts to update its image, the group still holds hard-line views.