Evil rushes in to fill the void in Afghanistan

Add its exit strategy to ways the West has failed country

KABUL Things are worse here in Afghanistan than they have been in years, and as ever, that things are getting worse is a problem partly caused by things outside of Afghanistan.

That Afghanistan is now the deadliest country in the world for journalists; that more civilians have been killed in Afghanistan during the first half of this year than in any other year since the UN started counting the bodies in 2009; that Taliban fighters are now active in 70 per cent of Afghanistan; that the Taliban controls more than a dozen districts in Afghanistan; that ISIL fighters are increasingly active in Afghanistan; that the gains Afghanistan has made in women’s rights are backsliding; that the gains Afghanistan has made in children’s rights are backsliding; that the gains Afghanistan has made in democratic elections are backsliding — all these things may be found in Afghanistan, but much of the responsibility for them lies elsewhere.

Of course, many things can be debated. “Should foreign governments have invaded Afghanistan in the first place?” for instance. “Should foreign countries have invaded Afghanistan yet again, and again, and again, and finally again?” for several other instances.

But whether or not one believes it would

It is the emptying out of Afghanistan that is most ominous. Where so many things have left, other things have quickly entered.

have been better for various countries to have never entered this other country in 2001, one thing at least must be acknowledged: The manner of exiting it has invited the decline of nearly everything that could possibly matter in any country. The right to life, the right to liberty, never mind about happiness — there is nothing neo-colonial or American-hegemony-derived about the desire for basic personal security and freedom. These things are at measurably greater risk in Afghanistan than they were a few short years ago.

It is the emptying out of Afghanistan that is most ominous. Where so many things have left, other things have quickly entered. In the streets: Afghans fear kidnappers and killers, so many stay home; international NGO workers fear kidnappers and killers, so many are ordered to stay in their compounds. And in the countries that came and sort of took their leave: Troops were told they would be withdrawn under Barack Obama, satisfying certain elements of the left; now, liberal institutions are being given additional walking papers under Donald Trump, satisfying certain elements of the shell of what was once the right.

Perhaps this last thing seems of little consequence in light of the other things. What with the bombings and the abductions and ISIL and the Taliban, it may seem not to matter to Afghanistan that National Security Adviser John Bolton, a man who has always tried to damage the International Criminal Court, this month tried again to damage the International Criminal Court. In a country where ill treatment of most people is routine, it may seem of little significance that a man from another country does not want personnel from his own to be investigated for ill treatment of a small number of people.

But attacking international criminal justice is one more careless way that a foreign country can leave a place it entered. It is one more manner of declaring that people who come in from outside can take off with little accountability for what they did while they were there; meanwhile, what they leave behind is a place with little accountability for those who stay. The ICC investigation, after all, would target Taliban atrocities as well.

Perhaps it is the emptying out of the liberal world order that is most ominous. Where the will to fight for global justice in the streets or the courts has left, other things will enter.