According to a report by France24, the Taliban who overran Afghanistan following America’s exit and seized Kabul, the capital, within 11 days, “announced a “general amnesty” for all government officials on Tuesday and urged them to return to work, trying to calm nerves across a tense capital city that only the day before saw chaos at Kabul airport as people tried to flee. Women would also be allowed to play a role in government that corresponds with sharia law, the group said.” The France24 report notes further that “the comments by Enamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban‘s cultural commission, represent the first comments on governance in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover of the country on Sunday. “You should restart your routine life with full confidence,” Samangani said in announcing the amnesty. Some appeared to take the advice to heart, with white-capped traffic police reappearing on the streets for the first time in days.”
However, the Taliban are a terrorist group and cannot be taken for their word. They do not care about diplomacy and these statements are a publicity stunt, a PR exercise addressed to international donors. Afghanistan is bankrupt and the Western powers and institutions that were bankrolling the country have simply frozen all aid to the country as well as all of the country’s foreign reserves and assets, leaving the Taliban with no money to run their “Islamic Emirate”. Some evidence that the Taliban cannot be trusted is that while their leaders preach amnesty their elements are, behind the scenes, doing what terrorists do, torture innocent civilians vindictively and for not just reason. The Taliban are openly, not even secretly, moving from door-to-door searching for those who worked or collaborated with the United States and other Nato allies.
Two things are noteworthy. First, the idea that the Taliban can give “general amnesty” to the population should be rejected. Afghanistan is not the domain of the Taliban and its subjects theirs to oppress by some divine right. Under no circumstance should the civilized world accept the notion that a small group of illegitimate anti-democratic challengers can “forgive” an entire population for offending it. Second, the Taliban cannot be trusted. As a matter of principle, a terrorist group cannot be trusted or allowed to govern a people. They can only unleash terror, that is why it is a terrorist group in the first place. Terrorist groups are created to terrorize and oppress not to find solutions to social problems, i.e., govern. Therefore, Trump’s negotiation with the Taliban was the antithesis of how to deal with terrorists. It provided the groundwork for Biden’s dismal blunder in how he pulled out from Afghanistan.
Instead of reversing such an obnoxious policy, Biden seems to have instead seen an opportunity where there was none. Eager to score points among the American electorate, considering that Trump, through is incendiary rhetoric, had successfully whipped up sentiments of an “unending war” in Afghanistan, Biden foolishly capitalized on the ill-negotiated deal by the Trump administration to pull out of Afghanistan. He did so hastily thinking that he would be praised by the public that was now more than eager for an end to America’s long-drawn escapade in the middle east. But the result is what we know and the same public has quickly turned on Biden much to the pleasure of he who in actual fact bears the responsibility, Trump.
The entire world now has a crisis to manage. Nevertheless, the future of Afghanistan lies in the hands of the Afghans themselves. While aid and comfort should be provided to Afghan refugees – although Africa should be left out of these refugee quotas – Afghans must recognize that it is up to them to fight this fight to the end. If they want a country, they should fight the oppressors, make the country ungovernable because freedom is taken, not given. If they cannot do this then they have two options left: empty the land so that the Taliban terrorists govern rocks or accept their fate and become victims of the so-called “Islamic Emirate” and its unfolding reign of terror.
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