Mick Hartley

Shabnam Nasimi in the Spectator – Don’t be fooled, the Taliban hasn’t changed:

Twenty-five years ago, when the Taliban took over Kabul, they declared that it was not going to take revenge, instead offering amnesty to anyone who had worked for the former government. The exact statement assured the population that the 'Taliban will not take revenge, we have no personal rancour'.

Soon after that promise was made, the ousted president Mohammad Najibullah was castrated and strung up from a lamppost at the centre of Kabul. So maybe the reports in the last few days from Kabul may seem reassuring to those unfamiliar with the country’s history but it sure doesn’t convince those who know the country….

But the Taliban have always returned to their core identity and beliefs. The Taliban are evil and cruel, but they are not fools, and trying to seem kinder and gentler now does not mean that they will be any less vengeful when foreign evacuation is complete and the world has officially left Afghanistan. Even today, outside of Kabul and away from the eyes of the world, there are already reports of executions and brutality.

Biden’s speech last week was noted for its lack of sentimentality about the thousands of Afghans left to the mercies of the Taliban. But its incoherence should be noted too. He claimed that the United States had no business trying to build a durable and democratic government; it sought only to keep the country terrorist-free. But Afghanistan’s availability as a sanctuary for terrorists is, to say the least, related to its status as a backward tribal-ridden wasteland. Turning Afghanistan into a healthy democracy required endurance — you can't change a society overnight — and 20 years is nothing when it comes to nation-building.

Americans like to think that they have valiantly tried to bring democracy to Afghanistan. But, so the narrative goes, Afghanistan just wasn't ready for it, or didn’t care enough about democracy to bother defending it. Or we’ll repeat the cliche that Afghans have always rejected foreign intervention; that Washington is just the latest in a long line. This is all wrong. The people of Afghanistan did not reject the international community’s efforts. They looked to you as exemplars of democracy and the rule of law.

Who is Biden trying to delude? The people didn’t kick you out, you chose to leave. And now the West is trying to justify its exit by convincing us the Taliban have changed.

When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan 20 years ago, it implemented a programme of startling simplicity: a law-and-order government according to an interpretation of Islamic law — relaxed and inclusive. But its actions suggest that nothing has really changed and the Taliban will turn Afghanistan into a place just as miserable for its people, and for the rest of the world, as it ever was. And the United States has all but announced that they are willing to let that happen.

More of the same from David Patrikarakos, at UnHerd:

Of all the footage that has emerged from Afghanistan over the past week, the most disturbing clip does not contain shooting jihadists, exploding buildings or screaming civilians. It appeared a few days ago as the Taliban took Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, and it shows a small group of them in the gym at the captured presidential palace.

One man peddles on a cross trainer; one struggles to operate a weights machine; another uses his arms to work a leg press. Then one hops off an exercise bike and scoots gleefully across the room, squealing with delight.

It’s his look that I can’t forget: his eyes twinkle, his mouth explodes into a grin. It’s the same look that I’ve seen a thousand times on the faces of my godchildren and young cousins when they know they’re misbehaving. The video was of fighters triumphing in a captured building, but it was also of a pack of brutal man-children fooling around with expensive toys they will eventually break. There could be no clearer metaphor for what is happening to Afghanistan.

These men — and they are always men — are always the same; adults who revel in their savagery like misbehaving adolescents, child arsonists driven by the same violent impulses — to shoot a woman for wearing the wrong sort of Naqib or none at all; to kill a man for being the wrong religion; or simply to pull the wings off a fly….