Law students and lawyers in Afghanistan are filing reports with JURIST on the situation there after the Taliban takeover. Here, a law student in Kabul reports on some recent developments and wonders about the rationale of US policy in Afghanistan. For privacy and security reasons we are withholding the name and institutional affiliation of our correspondent. The text has been only lightly edited to respect the author’s voice.
Last week the first evacuation flight since November flew out of Kabul. The flight was through Qatar Airways and was paid for by the US government. On board were an unreported number of Americans. Not long after news of the flight broke, social media sources said 40 men and women close to the National Resistance Forces—NRF—were arrested in Mazar-e-Sharif, in Balkh province. These people were living in a single house waiting for chartered flights to get them evacuated. This report was not confirmed nor denied by Taliban officials.
Serajuddin Haqqani, the leader of Haqqani network and Afghanistan’s current minister of interior, issued an implied warning against the US government in an interview with Aljazeera. On the issue of not being recognized he said “If the Taliban-acting government is recognized, it will no longer be a threat to anyone” he also added that “By refusing to recognize the Taliban, the US is keeping the doors of hostility against the Afghan people wide open”. His word clearly indicates that the United States by not recognizing the Islamic Emirate is keeping the doors of hostility wide open against herself. After the comment was made other officials of Taliban took it as provocative and risky to their relationship with their feuding-friend, the United States; thus, subsequent to social media chatter about the comment, the Taliban ministry of interior released a statement, stating that “no threat was made by Haqqani in their interview with Aljazeera, and its interpreted out of context”—the same old joke.
Lack of prompt and decisive actions by the US administration towards their affiliates in their mission in Afghanistan has taken so many lives, and has compelled many more to live in shadows and on the run. Given that the Doha agreement was signed by the US government and Taliban on, while not a single US soldier was at risk, it makes me wonder how-come a terroristic group has all the leverage.
The historic blunder by the United States’ current administration in leaving Afghanistan in this manner which ended in an unprecedented disaster has made US foreign policy—for the lack of a better word—a guessing game for many here in Afghanistan. There are unanswered questions like: was the US government applying a long term policy by engaging in negotiation with a terrorist group? Could they have known this would turn up to be a humanitarian crisis and ignored it? Was the takeover of the country by the Taliban after the army was severely demoralized by the Doha Talks and fleeing of the president such an unpredictable development that they could not have foreseen it? There might be many more, but a question that might only bring resentment and dismay to Afghans who have seen everything they held dear flee before their eyes is this: does the US government works by instincts and instant plans? How else do they not see the obvious consequences of their actions?
