Issue 39: Afghanistan Matters, Part II: Raisins in the Sun
Another difficult week in Afghanistan, and practical steps on how to help the ongoing humanitarian efforts
From the moment the United States announced its withdrawal till the fading hours of August 30, when the final American troops departed from Kabul, I have been troubled by what is taking place. As an analyst who participated in regional dialogues, trying to improve the level of conversation between experts with access to government officials, I tried to conjure lines of argumentation that supported the manner and method by which the US exited. But I always hit a mental roadblock. As I wrote last week, how you execute policy is just as important as the policy itself. And while US policy in Afghanistan over the last 20 years has always been something of a Sisyphean endeavor, I don’t believe that legitimized the Biden administration’s approach.
We should all care about developments taking place in our world, even in those far off corners that, from a distance, appear too remote to matter. And as the tragedy in Afghanistan unfolds, we should celebrate the small triumphs of those who managed to find refuge (knowing, that perhaps they may never see their home again).
But when confronted by the chaos and destruction that is inflicted upon innocents, we should stop, think, and ask ourselves what we can do that will make an impact.
In particular, I was moved by the letter sent to my friend Claire Berlinski that she was kind enough to share via her newsletter, The Cosmopolitan Globalist:
Difficult days after the fall of Kabul
From Claire—we have removed identifying details from this letter for obvious reasons. Our correspondent is in Kabul. I have translated his letter from Dari via Google Translate; I apologize for any infelicities or inaccuracies in the translation.
I was a student at the computer science faculty. Our lives were normal. On the day Kabul fell, like all normal days, I woke up and went to work after breakfast. On the way, people sitting in the city vehicle were worried about the security situation and talking about our uncertain future.
When I arrived at the office, the situation was still normal, like every day. It was 11 o’clock, when many people were out and about, when my father called me and told me to leave the office right away and go home, because the security situation wasn’t good.
I immediately left the office. On my way home, everyone looked disturbed, they were moving in every direction, terror was everywhere. It was as if Kabul had fallen, I thought, but I had never experienced such a situation and I thought that maybe tomorrow things would be better. I wasn’t aware that yes, Kabul had really fallen, that Kabul had been sold out by its corrupt Afghan leaders.
It was exactly 2 o’clock in the afternoon when I got home. Everyone was worried that our lives would change a lot. Warplanes flew over Kabul.
It was nighttime when I saw on Facebook that the Taliban had taken over the presidential palace in Afghanistan. From that moment, Kabul was dead. Our hopes were dashed. Yes, all our achievements were lost in one day. Afghanistan turned back the clock twenty years because of the United States’ policy mistakes and the corruption of Afghanistan’s leaders.
I woke up the next day with no hope of going to work because the whole city was closed. Fear was everywhere. I felt we had lost something. Yes, our freedom. Our achievements. Our hopes. Our reason to live. We had lost it all.
All I could think about was surviving and getting out of Afghanistan. My mother worked for many years as a lawyer and advocate for women’s rights. My father also worked for years with the French government and other international organizations. It is clear that the Taliban were opposed to such people. Kabul was no longer a safe place for us.
My father brought me the documents that proved he had worked on French projects for seven years. He said we must contact the French embassy to ask them to save our lives. I was surprised by my father’s words, because he loves Afghanistan very much. He could have left his homeland many times to emigrate to the United States or Europe. But before, he didn’t want to leave Afghanistan.
I took his documents and went to the French embassy, in the Green Zone. When I got there, about 5,000 people had already gathered near the embassy to ask for visas. Most of them had not worked for France in Afghanistan. They were ordinary people. The Taliban were near the French embassy. They didn’t allow people to approach the embassy and they beat people away.
I went home and found the French embassy’s phone number on Google. I called them but they didn’t answer. I tried the French embassy on Twitter, but that didn’t work either. I could not make contact with them. By nightfall, I was sharing our problem on Twitter but could find no one to help.
A few days after the fall of Kabul, I was still unable to make contact with the French Embassy in Kabul. Ms. Claire Berlinski replied to me on Twitter as if she had been sent by God to help us. I told her my problem and sent her our documents and she promised to try to help. She gave me the email of the French crisis center. I emailed the crisis center and sent them my documents. I told them about my family. But I did not receive an answer.
One day after the fall of Kabul, I saw two Taliban men with violent faces near our house, looking toward our house. The Taliban are wild people. I have never been in such a situation before. Fear ran through us, wondering if they had come to kill us, but after thirty minutes, they left. We left the house immediately and went to my aunt’s house. Claire Berlinski tried contacting people in France to help us. But still, the French Embassy did not reply. They left us behind. I emailed them over and over but received no response.
We are currently hiding in my aunt’s house and we are not going out. The Taliban are searching from house to house for people who have worked with foreign institutions and they’re also looking for women who defend women’s rights. We all fear for our survival and our future is unknown. We see anxiety and misery in our parents’ faces. They are not worried about themselves. They are worried about their children’s future.
We are facing a lot of problems right now. We may not have food to eat in the next few days. During the many years that my parents were on duty, they spent all their money on our education and did not make enough money to save.
When I see my sisters, I can’t control my tears. These days are really hard. I cannot do anything for my sisters.
We need urgently to leave Kabul. I don’t know why the French Embassy didn’t place value on our lives. Our lives are in danger. The Taliban are not human, they will kill all of us. Our only hope right now is for the French government to intervene to save our family.
Please, please, please, save our lives.
This story is not unique. This is the story of thousands of Afghans who face the prospects of either enduring Taliban rule, waiting interminably for someone to answer their calls, fleeing Afghanistan in the hopes of migrating to a safer country, or joining the last resistance efforts in the Panjshir Valley. Each of these options present grave risks. There are ongoing efforts in the US to help those trying to leave, especially for those Afghans eligible for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) because they were once employed by, or on behalf of the US government.
What can we possibly do? Well, if you are in the United States, start by clicking on this link to the HIAS website that describes how volunteering, advocacy, and donations can help support these efforts. HIAS has nearly 150 years of experience navigating the challenging bureaucracy of providing humanitarian aid and political support for refugees. But also watch this interview of my friend Mark Jacobson, who served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy and was the first Deputy NATO Senior Civilian Representative to Afghanistan, and delivers clear steps that the US and its allies can adopt.
If you aren’t in the United States, you can still advocate for a more proactive set of policies that encourage local and state governments to accept refugees. You can easily Google the local organizations that are providing resources for incoming refugees and looking for volunteers. Offering a new future to those trying to escape the Taliban shouldn’t fall on the US alone. It should be a global effort.
Here are several links that I think are worth checking out:
Kathy Gannon of the Associated Press composed a balanced summary of the last two decades in Afghanistan, featuring some of the best photography I’ve seen to date.
The BBC is producing a podcast series, hosted by journalist Lyse Doucet, titled “A Wish for Afghanistan” - a must listen.
While much of the media focus has been on the final weeks of the US withdrawal, perspective on America’s presence in Afghanistan is also essential to appreciating what past policies translated into a hurried exit with disturbing results. This interview of Anand Gopal, author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban and the War Through Afghan Eyes ,offer the kind of reflective voice that is necessary when trying to distinguish between media noise and on-the-ground realities:
“…there's actually two Afghanistans: There's the rural Afghanistan, and there's the urban Afghanistan.
Right now, all the coverage is in Kabul, so one would think there is complete chaos in the country. But most of that chaos is just around the airport, and most of Kabul itself is calm. And then life outside Kabul is calm, and for the first time, outside of Kabul there's no war, which, if you talk to men and women in the countryside, especially in those areas that had faced heavy fighting, that's the most significant difference that they've seen, compared to what was there before.
Afghanistan is one of the most rural countries on Earth. The individuals that we tend to hear about are the extreme outliers in Afghan society — which is not to say that they don't deserve a shot and they don't deserve to have a good life in Afghanistan as everyone else does. But if you just focus on these people, you won't actually understand how the Taliban was able to take over. In the countryside, people face very different calculus. They're facing war, and they can be killed either by airstrikes or by roadside bombs or whatever else, and the most important thing they need right now is security, above all else. Afghanistan's been in a civil war for 40 years.”
David Rohde’s latest for The New Yorker is receiving high praise, and for good reason. In my opinion, his reflections on the withdrawal - based on a series of conversations of current and former US military and intelligence officers as well as his own experiences - captures the sentiments of many people I’ve spoken with who served in Afghanistan over the last two decades (and who are still working to get people out):
The former C.I.A. station chief expressed despair. “It’s hard to believe that we’ve abandoned the Afghans so overwhelmingly,” he said. “We created this society, like it or not. We encouraged women to go to school and work. Now they’re being taken as war brides.”
Finally, I suggest reading Sami Moubayed and Ahmed-Waleed Kakar’s recent pieces in Newlines Magazine. I thought that Moubayed’s piece - which centers on the trailblazing life of Queen Soraya Tarzi in 1920s Afghanistan - and Kakar’s conversation with a prominent member of the “new” Taliban are complimentary profiles on Afghanistan’s past and future leaders.
I hope you find this week’s content informative and constructive. Please share this newsletter with others.
-Gabi