Shock and awe

A most extraordinary seven days

“History is going to judge us very harshly, I believe, if we allow the hope of a liberated Afghanistan to evaporate because we are fearful of the phrase ‘nation-building,’ or we do not stay the course.”

—Sen. Joe Biden, February 2002

WHAT A difference a week makes. Last week at this time, some of us wondered if the Taliban could take back Afghanistan, whether the United States government would really allow it, and whether this country’s generals could finally get the president of the United States to listen to them.

We have our answers on all of that. Some things that we still don’t have answers to, however:

■ Early in the week, Jake Sullivan, the Kissinger of this administration, told NBC’s “Today” that the administration executed a “successful drawdown of our embassy” in Afghanistan. This while the Internet was filled with motion pictures of people falling from airplanes. If this whole episode was successful, then what would completely chaotic look like?

■ How desperate would a human have to be to hold onto an airplane until the wind blew him off, at a height of certain death?

■ In his speech to the nation on Monday, President Biden said the U.S. had provided the Afghan government with “every tool they could need” and even “provided for the maintenance of their air force—something the Taliban doesn’t have. Taliban does not have an air force.”

Well, they now have a start on one. When the Taliban rolled up provincial capitals around Afghanistan in no time flat, many Afghan troops dropped weapons and walked away. And abandoned all sort of vehicles. Including those that transport people and things through the air. The papers don’t say if the helicopters left behind are flight-worthy, but there’s no doubt the Taliban have been showing off the Black Hawks for the world press. There are pictures to prove it.

■ Fortunately (and that’s the only time we’ll use that word in today’s column) a person just can’t strap into a military helicopter and use it as intended. Reports say even if the Taliban could find a former pilot with the Afghan army to fly the machine, it takes more than a pilot to keep an air force intact.

(One official told Reuters: “Ironically, the fact that our equipment breaks down so often is a life-saver here.”)

Unfortunately, there are billions of dollars of other kinds of military materiel the Americans left behind, including small arms, night vision equipment, drones, armored vehicles, artillery and rockets. Which, if not used against the Afghan people, can be sold on the market. And end up elsewhere in the world. The woes created this past week in Afghanistan won’t stay in Afghanistan.

■ In a “charm offensive” in the hours after the fall of Kabul, the Taliban’s leaders say they will forgive those who fought against them and ensured the world that Afghanistan will not become an outpost for terrorists again. They also pledged to respect women’s rights.

In other news, the press is filled with accounts of women and children being beaten by victorious fighters after the American surrender. Human rights workers said some girls in the Takhar Province were lashed because their sandals were too revealing. Another dispatch said a woman in the same province was killed for not wearing a burqa. So much for promises.

■ The Wall Street Journal reported in Wednesday’s editions that “long-standing intelligence assessment” has estimated al-Qaida would reconstitute itself in Afghanistan in 18 months to two years after an American military withdrawal. But U.S. officials “are likely to re-assess their timeline.”

■ Buried in a couple of the stories last week was this bit of information: In at least two Afghanistan cities—Kabul, the capital, and Asadabad—people took to the streets to protest the Taliban. Or at least to celebrate its independence day (from British rule many years ago) with the Afghan flag. Not the Taliban flag. Which the Taliban considered poor form. Some of the protesters chanted, “Our flag, our identity!”

Reports said the Taliban fired on one rally, and “several people” were killed.

In the Khost province, the Taliban had to institute a 24-hour curfew after breaking up another protest. Or at least those were the reports from witnesses who got the information out to journalists abroad.

None of that is good news. But it does show that freedom still struggles to be. And some are willing to risk their lives to proclaim it. Even if they’re doing it without much help.