all your dumbest questions about afghanistan, answered by me

     Hello. My name is Erin, and I don't understand what's happening in Afghanistan at all. I have absolutely no idea what the Taliban is and the word 'terrorist' is so alarmist in US politics that I can't even begin to comprehend what it means in an actual legitimate context. I don't know anything about Afghanistan's history and I have no idea why people are talking about Osama Bin Laden right now. Everything I learned about the 'war on terror' is from Dykes to Watch Out For. But I put in the work to do some news readings, and now I'm here to tell you what I've learned about Afghanistan.

     I am intimidated by reading news updates about war-related things because they are upsetting and often confusing. But I read a bunch of them, and now I can answer some questions about the current Afghanistan news. Please do not expect this to be highbrow analysis. It's on a blog where I mostly post pictures I take of my couch. 

Q: What is the Taliban?

A: I'm glad you asked. I, too, did not really understand exactly what people meant when they said 'the Taliban'. It's basically an extremist religious and political group that wants to enforce their own version of Sharia law. According to the BBC, the Taliban "emerged in the early 1990s in northern Pakistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. It is believed that the...movement first appeared in religious seminaries - mostly paid for by money from Saudi Arabia - which preached a hardline form of Sunni Islam.

     The promise made by the Taliban - in Pashtun areas straddling Pakistan and Afghanistan - was to restore peace and security and enforce their own austere version of Sharia, or Islamic law, once in power." 

     If you're like me, i.e not one of those guys who is weirdly addicted to learning about the cold war, you're probably like, uh, what Soviet troops?

    Well, I have the answers. The Atlantic says the Soviets occupied Afganistan from 1979 to 1989. I know from watching the movie 'Argo' starring Ben Affleck of Bennifer that the Iran Hostage Crisis was also in 1979, but I believe those things to be maybe unrelated. Wikipedia says that in 1978, there was a coup in which Afganistan's communist party took over the government in Kabul and did a lot of modernization and land reforms, but the former power structures did not dig that (obviously.net -- the powers that be never dig revolution), and neither did many in the rural population. This let to a lot of anti government militia groups rising up. The communist government itself was not doing too hot even without the conflict; there was hella conflict and the General Secretary was even assassinated. 

     The Soviets were conceptually all about the communist government (a friend!!) but they saw all this shit going wrong and said uh uh, honey. We can't let that happen. So they came in and did a coup and instated a Soviet loving government. 

     There was a lot of rebellion from the Afghan people in response to this, which was monetarially supported by Iran, Pakistan, China, and the United States (the United States is simply obsessed with being involved!!!). Eventually, the Soviets left in '89 and there was civil war until the Taliban took over in 1996. The BBC says Afghans were generally initially supportive of the Taliban in the late 90s because they brought some stability after years of war. But they also brought Sharia law, including requiring wearing of burquas for all women and growing of beards for all men, which not everyone was conceptually into. They also banned TV, music, movies, and school for all girls over 10. 

   Also, did you notice that the Taliban kind of started in Pakistan? I almost didn't because I have awful reading comprehension, so I wanted to flag that for us all. It's worth noting that the Taliban has also been active in Pakistan and that they threatened to destabilize Pakistan and also are the ones who shot Malala on her way home from school. Also, there are basically almost always war or Taliban related things going on in Pakistan throughout the US occupation of Afghanistan, so you may see that throughout different timelines. 

A: How did the US get involved in Afghanistan?

Q: I'm so glad you asked. I'm probably going to get some/a lot of this a little bit off, but here is what I've learned from the internet. 

     The BBC says that after 9/11, the US suspected that the Taliban (still in power in 2001) was providing sanctuary for Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The BBC does not say why we thought this, so I googled it because my thirst for information knows no bounds. The internet says it's because Afghanistan is the base for Al Qaeda, and Wikipedia confirms for me that Al Qaeda was formed during the Soviet-Afghan war in the late 70s and  has since spread to other middle eastern countries. The internet also says the Taliban was allowing them to operate freely in Afghanistan. Damn. The more you know. 

     The US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 and by December, the Taliban-led government had collapsed. However, it seems like the Taliban have kept on keeping on since then and in turn, the US has kept doing their thing (drone strikes and killing people for no reason). 

     I read a few different timelines of the war. Basically,  the US was pretty fucking involved in Afghanistan from 2001 until 2011, when Osama bin Laden is found and killed in Pakistan. President Obama then announced that the US was going to leave Afghanistan through a gradual withdraw plan. 

     The US gradually reduced their troops in Afghanistan until 2017, when Trump sent 14,000 more troops (at the time there were less than 9,000). Basically, some political shit happened in between then (peace talks, dealmaking??) and late February 2020 when we signed a peace deal with the Taliban. 

     I don't know how much the specifics matter, but basically: we go to war, a lot of shit goes down, then we signed a peace deal in early 2020. You can find detailed timelines of the war here and here.

Q: Quick sidebar: what.....exactly....was the was in Afghanistan called....???

A: The sources I'm looking at mostly call it 'The US War in Afghanistan', but I think it's worth noting that a lot of news articles mention 'the war on terror' (ongoing United States military campaign against global 'terrorist' and extremist groups) and 'Operation Enduring Freedom' (which is kind of confusing to me but I guess is specifically the US military campaign targeting Al Qaeda and the Taliban after 9/11) as well. Hope this helps.

Q: What's happening in Afghanistan now? 

A: Amazing question. So basically, we signed the peace deal in 2020 and said we would get out of there by May 2021. Unfortunately, the timelines I'm reading basically say that the Afghan political situation was kind of fractious and that US military contractors and employees were kind of filling in a lot of cracks and holding certain things together.

     thehindu.com says that the government 'was internally divided and the last two presidential elections — 2014 and 2019 — were disputed,' which is not so good. Basically as soon as the US started pulling out of Afghanistan in spring 2021, the Taliban started taking over rural towns, with the aim of working up to take over big cities. The BBC says that they took their first provincial capitol on August 6 and then swept through Afghanistan; in ten days, they had encircled Kabul, the nation's capitol. Basically, the Taliban's in power and is running Afghanistan again. 

Q: What about the peace deal?

A: IDK. Guess it was not valid? No one listened to it?

Q: Damn. That sucks. 

A: So true, bestie. Let's go read something fun and salacious to blow off steam, like this chaotic article about Lena Dunham's dog.