Angry Planet - The View From Kabul

Episode Date: July 9, 2021

Afghanistan, the site of America’s longest war, is changing. The Taliban is gaining ground in the North while peace talks stall. The U.S. continues its withdrawal and the Afghan military is left to pick up the pieces.Here to help us understand what’s going on is Ali M. Latifi.Latifi is an Afghan journalist living in Kabul. His work has appeared in Al Jazeera, Business Insider, and NBC News.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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freedom has never saint-guided people. Anyone who is depriving you of freedom isn't deserving of a peaceful approach. Hello and welcome to Angry Planet. I am your host, Matthew Galt. Afghanistan, the site of America's longest

war, is changing. The Taliban is getting ground in the north while peace talks stall. The U.S. continues its withdrawal, and the Afghan military is left to pick up the pieces. Here to help us understand what's going on is Ali M. Latifi. Latifi is an Afghan journalist living in Kabul.

His work has appeared in Al Jazeera, Business Insider, and NBC. Ali, thank you so much for joining us. Welcome. Thank you for having me. All right. So the big story that's going around here in the West, kind of in the past 24 hours, is this report from the AP about the U.S. troops leaving Bogram Airfield in the middle of the night without alerting the Afghan commander who's going to be taking it over.

And there's been, you know, kind of a lot of sharing of the story and talking about it. But I think it undercuts the reality of the situation where America has been pretty, it's my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, that America has been pretty hands off for a bit now. The media has kind of turned its attention to Afghanistan as this deadline of September 11th that Biden set kind of creeps up. Do you think that from your perspective, does it feel like people are paying attention now as the end for America's involvement is coming? People where? I'm sorry. Fair point. Does it feel like people in the West are more interested in Afghanistan right now than they have been for 20 years? I mean, I'm not there, so I don't know.

I do think that the media definitely all of a sudden wants to cover. it again and you know i've been getting all kinds of requests um and i've seen video and audio and text reports from journalists flying in and you know creating all of these reports and uh some of them you know asking for advice and asking for help um so yes it does seem that the media industry is interested again, whether or not that actually means that the people of the United States or Germany or the UK or any of these other countries that have troops here, whether or not they're interested, I couldn't tell you. That's, in my experience, covering this stuff for a while now is that the American public, at least,

has always been a little disinterested. Which I've always found kind of horrifying, but that's like a whole separate conversation. Okay, so what is, I guess can you give us the broad strokes of what is happening right now as we talk here on July 6th? So what is happening is that yesterday the Taliban put out a statement saying that within a month they hope to finally actually detail their. plan for peace and that they hope that the government will do the same because, I mean, the Taliban have actually been in Doha since 2011, but it's only been a couple years that they have officially been engaging first with the U.S. now over the last year or so with representatives of the Afghan government in Doha. But those talks other than creating an agreement between

Washington and the Taliban have yielded no results in terms of direct dialogue between the Afghan Taliban and the Afghan people. And so, or the Afghan government who's meant to represent the people. And so the hope is that they will finally actually lay out some kind of a plan or some kind of a list of what specifically they want in terms of making a deal what they expect their role to be, whether or not they expect society and the laws and things like that. These are all things that the government and the people have been asking for this entire time. You know, they've all been saying, tell us what you want. You know, tell us specifically what you want so that we know what can be discussed, right? Like where possible concessions have to be made on either side, what specific issues need to be discussed

in more detail because the entire time, the Taliban keeps saying we want an Islamic system in Afghanistan, but from the constitution to the judicial law, to family law, to education, everything in Afghanistan is based on Islam. And so the question all along has been, tell us specifically what you think. Like, is there a specific amendment in the Constitution? Is there a specific law? Is there a specific thing that we're teaching in schools that you are saying is un-Islamic? So that we can address that directly.

And at the same time, what's been going on is that in the last month or so, this sort of cat and mouse game between the government and the Taliban, of taking districts and losing districts has ramped up. So for years, this has been happening where districts will fall to the Taliban and then maybe weeks, months, sometimes even years later, the government will recapture it. But now we're at a point where it's all happening in a matter of days. You know, one day you'll hear that this district has fallen to the Taliban

And then a couple, two, three, four, five days later, you'll get the report that the government took it back. But what happens, what's happening now is that it's just intensified. Every day you see two, three, four, five, six, seven districts are falling and changing hands to one side or the other. It's an overdrive at this point. And at the same time, again, in the last few weeks, the government has made an official policy. of basically expanding these public uprising forces, which have existed in different capacities around the country for years now, some very organic, some much more deliberate.

But what's happening now is that the government is working with people in different parts of the country, finding ways to provide them arms so that they can join the Avalon National Security Forces in trying to defend their own land against the Taliban. And so there are a lot of people that are proponents of this saying, you know, it's very important. It boosts the morale of the security forces and it shows that the people, you know, they are willing to sacrifice and to put up a fight to save their own land, their own territory and to fight for their people. and that it's a way of localizing security. And then there are some people that are afraid,

at least in part, saying that when you start to arm thousands of people across the country, how can you ring that in when you need to? Can you be certain that that won't turn into some sort of a civil war? That that won't turn into infighting once this war comes to an end in whatever way it will. And there are also people questioning, like, if these weapons were available all along, why weren't they being given to the security forces?

But at this point, the government sees this as a positive policy because it's showing the Taliban that the people are willing to stand up against you, and it's also showing their security forces, which have had, you know, a lot of difficulties over. the last 20 years, that the people are behind you. So that's really like where things stand at the moment. There was, there's a lot of stuff I want to kind of dive into there. One of the things is that this idea that the Taliban has not made clear what it wants,

other than an Islamic society and state. From what do, is there any sense of from people like that they, kind of know what that would look like or they know what life under the Taliban would be? No. The only thing they know is what existed from 1996 until 2001. And I mean, no one I've spoken to over the years wants that. And so that's the fear. And that's the question is when you say that, are you saying that we would be back to 1996

where women except for doctors can? can't work, where a woman can't go out of the house without a male companion, where men have to have beards of a certain length and have to wear certain kinds of clothes. And, you know, if you're caught outside during prayer time, you know, you could be beaten or wear, you know, film and music and radio and the internet. All of these things are banned. Um, where, you know, all so many aspects of your daily life are being watched and restricted. You know, so people are wondering, they're saying, are you trying to go back to that? Because we won't accept that this time, you know?

At that time, it was very different. The country was just coming out of a civil war. People were fed up with warlordism and literally rockets raining all over Kabul and, you know, reports of abuse from different armed groups and things like that. So there was enough people that were willing, at least in theory, to put up with the, a lot of people didn't think that the way the Taliban sort of sold it is like, you know, things are really bad right now. We just need to be restrictive for a while and then we'll open things back up. But in the five years that they ruled, nothing opened up. And people grew more and more frustrated and angry and upset at just how, you know, restructural.

and the stranglehold that the Taliban had on their lives. And then when you add the violence and the killings and everything else that came along with it, that's that that's the thing that that that's also part of why the government certainly, but also for 100% the people want something like a list, right, to to make it clear whether or not they are thinking of going back to 1996 or, or if they have changed their thinking in any way whatsoever. It sounds as if then they are just stalling for time while they take territory. Do you think that's accurate?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, if you look at it, the problem has been that over the last year and a half, both sides have been stalling for time because, you know, the government was waiting, both sides were waiting to see who would win the U.S. election and what that would mean for both of their individual sides. And then obviously with the Taliban's current tactic, it's really about implanting fear in people's minds. Because if you're constantly hearing reports of districts falling, including districts that are very close to Kabul, you know, it creates this image that they could come, you know, storming into the capital city at any moment. Or if not Kabul, then in Herod or in Kandar and Jalalabad or in Jalabad or in Mazzad and one of the other big cities.

And so, you know, it's working on that level and it's also working on the level. Like I said, like everything is an overdrive, right? Like multiple districts are in battle at the same time. They're in play and being handed off between the two sides. within the matter of days. And so, you know, what that does is not only instills fear in the population, but it also, I'm assuming, is a ploy to try and stretch the national security force is thin, right? Because if you start fires everywhere and you only have a finite amount of military and police to address it,

you know, that that, that, that, that obviously creates a major impediment. And it can be used as a way to highlight, you know, what they want to make seem like an ineffective security force. Do you make a distinction between a civil war and the fighting with the Taliban? I mean, the civil war of the past was different because the civil war of the 1990s. it was several different groups fighting each other literally in the city of Kabul and dividing the city into subsections and different kinds of ghettos and having to cross different checkpoints that belong to different groups. And, you know, if you lived on one side of the city, rockets from one group or another would come at you. And if you lived on another side, you know, rockets from another group would come at you.

When people say that it's currently a civil war, they mean that because, yes, a certain person, I would say a large proportion of the Taliban are still from Afghanistan or identify as Avran. And so in that way, yes, it does seem like a war between two Avran sides. But unfortunately, you also have a lot of foreign manipulation, you know, because the Taliban get a great deal of support, obviously from Pakistan, but also from Iran. And then to a lesser extent, China and Russia. And then you also have foreign fighters that do come in from different countries that, you know, join the Taliban or that claim to belong to the different armed groups and things like that.

But at the heart, you know, it is, it is, you know, basically an Afghan killing another Afghan for the most part. And that's what infuriates people so much because they keep saying, like, the Taliban claims to be fighting an occupation. But if they're fighting an occupation, why did they make a deal with the country that they see as the ultimate occupier and agree not to attack their forces, but continue to attack Avon security forces and civilians? Because they still stage attacks that kill civilians all the time. And even at a time before the agreement with the U.S., when they were attacking foreign forces, so often they would pick. spots that were very much on open road, like on main streets and on open roads and near residential areas and near commercial areas where, you know, the odds of the foreign forces or even the

government forces being killed or injured were much less compared to someone who is going to work or going to school or coming back from the store. you know, people, just innocent bystanders who were caught up in these brutal, vicious attacks. You light it on something I think is pretty important here. The end of American involvement is not the end of foreign interference in Afghanistan, right? Right. Can you talk a little bit more about the Taliban's relationship with Pakistan? So, I mean, it's very clear that the Taliban, you know, have...

safe havens, they have assistance, they have financial benefits from Pakistan. You know, different Pakistani officials, even in recent days, have come out and made statements either saying that outright or alluding to it. And if you look at, you know, the history of things that have happened, for instance, in 2000, well, let's say a few years ago, when the second leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mansur, when he was still alive, there was footage of him traveling to Iran through the Karachi airport, through the airport in Karachi, Pakistan. And there was footage of him in other instances traveling.

And if you look at, you know, where Osama bin Laden was found, because at the end of the day, the whole point of the U.S. war here, allegedly, he was to hunt down bin Laden and bring an end to al-Qaeda. But when bin Laden was killed, where was he? He was outside a huge military garrison, basically outside. what they say is like the west point of Pakistan, you know, in Abatabad. He wasn't here. He hadn't been here in years.

And, you know, just the fact that the leadership of the Taliban is called the Qaeda Shura. And at this point, Qaeda is considered to be a part of Pakistan. You know, there's just so much proof. There's so much evidence that the government keeps giving. And at the same time, you know, we've had more and more proof. in the west and the south of the country that Iran is just as involved, that they are also providing safe haven and medical attention and training and weapons and that, you know, different people, as I said, in the western and southern provinces will say we've seen Iranian fighters fighting

alongside the Taliban or at least standing beside them, if not necessarily like shooting the actual guns. And so, and this is what more than a civil war is. If you look at the way the government refers to it, they keep saying it's an imposed war. Because what they're saying is that the actual war lies beyond Afghanistan. You know, the people making these, aiding and abetting these terrorists are in these two other countries. And yet, you know, no real pressure is being put on either one. What about China and India?

China, you know, there have been. reports that they have armed or supported the Taliban, but those are not as substantiated or it's not as, how do I put it? It's not seen as, as impactful as other two countries. In terms of India, you know, because India has been such a long time ally of Afghanistan, and, you know, they keep talking about the friendship, between the two nations. This is part of what, you know, some people fear is that because Pakistan and India have this rivalry ever since the partition, that the closer Afghanistan gets to India and the more

we keep referring to them as a friend, the more that Pakistan will retaliate with the Taliban forces. So does the Taliban have either? any kind of popular support at all? I know that Afghanistan is a large, complicated place. It's very complicated, right? Like,

the thing is, like, how do I put it? One is like when, part of it is that, you know, if people say they support them, you can never know 100%

if it's truly how they feel or they feel under pressure, especially obviously if they live in Taliban-controlled area, to say such a thing. And then the other thing is that it's seen as the alternative to a corrupt government. Because the main problem with the government of Afghanistan over the last 20 years has been this endemic massive, massive amounts of corruption and how that corruption has affected the people, you know, in the sense that they aren't giving, I mean, we live in Kabul in 2021 and we still don't have 24 electricity most of the days. You know, like in winter, you know,

you know that for hours and hours at a time, if not days at a time, you won't have electricity. And now this year, even during the summer, this is happening. Or like when it rains, you know, the streets of Kabul literally flood over. It's basically like last year when it started to rain, they started making memes of the current Kabul mayor, you know, and reenacting scenes from the Titanic. All of this is proof of corruption, right?

To the average person. It's a symptom of the corruption, or it's an indication of the corruption. And then, you know, the farther out you get from the bigger cities, the less access you have to pay roads, to proper schools, to proper hospitals, to electricity, to clean water, to any number of basic, basic services. And a lot of the blame for the lack of those things. Because at the end of the day, the fact that billions and billions and billions of dollars

came here, and yet, as I said, like the streets, forget, you know, the districts, the streets of Kabul still flood over when it rains to the average person is very clear evidence that corruption has been all around them all along. So is there any kind of, then I'll ask the question the other way. Is there any kind of popular support for the central government? Or is it kind of, this is the government we have? Exactly. I think for a lot of people, especially at this point, it's become this is the government

that we have. And I think a lot of times when you meet with like these public uprising forces and things like that, when they say they want to protect the republic, what they mean is the idea of a republic, the idea of a democracy, not necessarily this exact government and this exact leadership structure. But just that a democracy is better than Talibanism. But a lot of people feel as if they're sort of stuck between a corrupt government and a brutal Taliban. And I want to talk about the specifics of that brutality here just a little bit to kind of make this clear because I think this is something that's underreported here or at least maybe people in America again, as we were talking about earlier, kind of don't pay attention to. Who are the Hazaras and what has been going on with them? So the Azuraz are an ethnic minority. The vast majority of them are of the Shia sect.

And over the last five years, the forces claiming to be part of the so-called Islamic State have targeted them repeatedly, attacked them repeatedly. You know, there's one neighborhood in the west of Kabul that is almost all Azora. And when you travel there, you see it's basically like just two lanes, one lane in either direction. And then all of the side streets that go on for kilometers. Half of them aren't paved. Some of them are. And when this specific neighborhood, Dashtabachi comes under attack, because it's so densely populated, they say there's up to a million people there.

Because it's so densely populated and because it's so, like the layout is so. constricted, the damage is so much worse. And, you know, everything from a girl's school to, like, a test prep center for the high school exit, for the college entrance exam, to a wrestling gym, to mosques, to a place where you get your vote, your national ID. All. And of these kinds of places have come under attack in that neighborhood over the last five years. Mostly, did you say mostly by Islamic State factions? Uh-huh. That's another thing I think I want to make clear to the audience is that this is not just,

what are the other, I guess what are the other factional pieces that are at work in Afghanistan? So, I mean, the government claims that there's something like 20 armed groups, But like a lot of those are like very small, you know, maybe a few dozen or a couple hundred. But the two main, you know, sort of armed opposition groups, if you will, are the Taliban. And then this branch that calls itself, the Islamic State, that there's been no proof that they have connections to the actual, quote unquote, Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. but they are separate from the Taliban and they do fight the Taliban and the two groups actually despite, like if you go in the areas where the so-called Islamic State used to rule, you know, people will say that it's very clear that the two groups hate each other, that they try and kick one another out of each other's territories and that, you know, when these groups first started to peer around 2014-15 and all the way up until like 2017, 17, 18, I was going, they were mainly in the eastern provinces. So I was going to the East a lot and talking to the people there.

And they were saying like these people that claim to be these so-called Daish forces, you know, they were like, they were saying things like they don't look like us. They don't speak like us. They deal in US dollars. They're incredibly brutal. You know, they were saying like a lot of times, you know, the Taliban are people, they're your neighbors. They may be your son. They may be your nephew. But these people that were claiming to be the Islamic State, they seemed like complete strangers to us.

And so as soon as they sort of outed themselves as claiming to be Daesh, a lot of people in these districts that they were taking over were trying to escape. We're trying to come to Jalalabad, the capital of Ningahar province, or if they could come to Kabul, come to Kabul. So it is a distinct group, but the problem is that there's very little known about its structure, its leadership. And unlike, like the Taliban, at the very least claims that they're fighting a foreign occupation. But these so-called Islamic State fighters, they don't necessarily have some kind of a quote-unquote clear goal in mind. they just want to wreak havoc. And one of their constant targets is the Shia population of Avonistan, which is common with, you know, the other so-called Islamic state in Iraq and Syria.

All right, Angry Planet listeners, we are going to pause there for a break. We're on with Ali and Latifi. We'll be right back after this. All right, Angry Planet listeners, welcome back. Let's get back into it. So this thing that you tweeted kind of feeds into this. I know that's the one thing. no journalist ever wants to hear this thing you tweeted.

But this struck me, and I wanted to talk about it because I think it makes a lot of the stakes here pretty clear. Over the last week, I've heard men in Kabul, Parwan, and Lagar keep saying, we're doing this for women's rights. And yet there isn't a single woman in sight when they make these pronouncements. Can you explain that a little bit? What I mean is that, I mean, it's just that, right? It's that obviously in certain places, you know, like for instance in Paduan and the Gordaban Valley where I was, like the people had already fled for the most part. But in Kabul, you know, you hear these politicians say it. And yet, you know, you notice there's so many high-level meetings, so many, yeah, these meetings and these gatherings and you never see a woman present, you know, even though they are famous women.

politicians and very influential women politicians. But, you know, so often you will see, like, you know, President Ghanin, former President Kazai and so on and so forth all sat down to discuss peace. And yet there's not a single woman in the picture. And, you know, even if you look at the current negotiating team, there's only three women amongst the entire team. and there have been instances, for instance, like in Moscow, where, you know, the government representatives and the Taliban representatives were sent, and there was only one woman present. So it's sort of this idea that people like to talk about women's rights, but putting in the actual work, you know, I mean, obviously, you know, like, misogyny is a huge problem in the United States to this day.

you know it's something that it's not rare to Afghanistan but the interesting thing is is that there's a lot of lip service play to it right like when George Bush first invaded Afghanistan half of his reasoning was oh I want to liberate the Afghan women well why didn't you care about why didn't you or Bill Clinton care about them from 1996 to 2001 you know like you didn't really say much about it then you didn't do anything about it then and even now, you know, how much better, how much better has the lives of the average? I mean, this is something you'd have to ask a woman, but still, you know, it's an issue. I think it's very much a talking point for people, but you don't, you know,

obviously, like representation and visibility is a big part of that. If you're saying that, you know, like for instance, when we were in Logad, this one old man, he's like, I'm fighting for girls schools in my area. I want my girls to go school. And like his girls were like playing in the fields, but like, you know, no one went to talk to them. He didn't say anything. You know, he didn't tell them to come and talk or say anything or do anything. And, you know, there was no real indication of any other woman having to say. or a role in that.

And this has been very indicative of what's been happening over the last 20 years. Does that make sense? No, no, it makes total sense. Anna, but I also want to make clear that at the same time, there are women, journalists, activist, teachers. No, this is what I'm saying. This is why it's infuriating for people, right? because they exist, you know, in the last 20 years,

they've regained all of those rights and probably even gained new rights that they didn't even have under the kingdom. But the fact that, you know, like there's so many times, like you're talking about Twitter, there's so many times where, you know, some government official will post a picture of a meeting or a gathering and then people will be like,

well, there's no women there. You know, like that still happens, even though, as I said, and as you said, there are so many accomplished, unbelievable, incredible, intelligent, expressive, brave women in the media and in politics and in civil society and in arts and all of these other avenues. But, you know, does the representation match up with that? Well, and also they are specific targets of violence and assassination, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, I remember last year, yeah, it was in January. I was talking to a friend of mine, a female journalist, a very famous female journalist, Anisa Shahid, and she was saying how they had gotten reports from the intelligence

that the quote-unquote so-called Islamic State had brought in, I forget however many women armed with silencers whose entire goal was to lure famous women to see, you know, like to say like I'm being abused and, you know, like to sort of like say I need help and then wanting to kill or at least give information to other assassins of how to kill these women. You know, I was working on a story a couple months ago about how like small and medium business is still continuing in Kabul, even though, you know, there's so much uncertainty at the moment. And one of them was a young woman, also a friend of mine who owns a beauty salon. And she was saying that around that time, there were these women that came in in Black Abayas and would ask all these questions. So who owns this place? What does she like? What does she look like?

When does she come in? What are your clients like? How many of them are from the government? And she didn't expose it to the media because she didn't want to put her staff and her clients at further risk. But she contacted the intelligence. And they advised her to, and this was unprecedented, to hire security for the beauty salon. So to have like a woman search. I mean, there are female search.

is everywhere, but it never existed in a beauty salon before. And we've seen, you know, female media workers, female judges. I mean, I interviewed the family of one of the female Supreme Court judges who was killed in January. And I mean, it was just devastating. And again, you know, these attacks go unclaimed. You know, the Taliban say they don't do it. And there's, the government says that they believe the Taliban are behind it, but the Taliban says no. So it becomes, you know, he said, he said kind of a thing. And there's never really, if there is an investigation, it's never really made public. So you don't know, you know, what information the government really has about who ends up being responsible for these things.

It gets a lot of media attention. But in terms of follow up, it's very rare. What do you think, I'm trying to think I had to phrase this. There's not, there's just not a good way to do it. What do you think the West's responsibility is here? What, what should and can it do at this moment? I mean, in a lot of ways, in terms of, I mean, God, in a lot of ways, like, in terms of like social things, in a way, I feel like it's too late because it was never really a genuine

effort and it's shown over time. But I think politically, the, you know, easiest thing they can do is, okay, maybe putting pressure on Iran is difficult, you know, because it's relations with the rest of the world. But putting pressure on Pakistan should not be difficult. There's no reason. I mean, we know why they don't, but theoretically, if you're fed up with this, if you're Joe Biden, you're fed up with this war and you want out and you don't even want to answer questions about it at a press conference, you know for a fact, like the whole world at this point knows that Pakistan plays a major, major, major role in this.

And yet, you've put no real pressure on that, as far as we know publicly. There's no real threat against them for what they're doing. So I think politically, what they can do is, you know, in terms of the region, put pressure on Pakistan. If they could find a way to do it with Iran, put pressure on Iran too. pressure on the government and the Taliban to really take peace talk seriously. But again, a big part of that is how are you treating Pakistan in relation to all of this? Because that to the average person in this country is what makes no sense, is that we've been saying this for years.

You know, there's been proof, like I said, where was Osama bin Laden found? You know? why were there reports of different Taliban leaders being in Pakistan or being arrested in Pakistan, of their families being in Pakistan, and yet nothing ever happens to them? Like to the average of on, it's like hitting a brick wall over and over again. It just doesn't make any sense. Yeah, I think there's this tendency in America on both sides of our political divide. to kind of to view those regions. We want simple stories, right?

And we can't process, especially on the political left, we can't process the idea that Iran would have political influence in a country like Afghanistan or that Pakistan should be pressured. I think it's been going on so long that people largely just don't, God, this feels awful to talk to you about while you're, while you're in while you're there and I know that it's your home and your country but it feels like especially on the political left that we they just want to stop talking about it um and that it's just about withdrawal and saying that it was a mistake uh well not understand and I'm not saying

that we should stay but there needs to be a well it's not even like it the thing is is like it's not even it's said with disson. stain, right? Like, oh, it was just a mistake without actually acknowledging what the mistakes were. You know, why it was so flawed from the outset. That, I think, is what's so sort of enraging and infuriating to people is that this country is now just being dismissed. and it's being treated with this disdain and this disgust without ever, you know, sort of being self-aware about what did you do wrong?

All that, like, what were all of the mistakes that you made? You know, like there's a reason that the special investigated, what is it? Cigar? Yeah, yeah, the special. Right. Oh, I used to write about them all. Investigator general for Afghanistan construction. There's a reason that it exists, right?

It constantly documents all of, you know, the bad money that the U.S. spent here. Just like, I mean, I'm talking like spending money on uniform, camouflage uniforms that have nothing with the terrain here, to spending millions of dollars on a gas station in Mazur to just any number of different things that are just. outlandish. Genetically engineered goats from Italy that could not survive in Afghanistan. Exactly, right? Like, as if there aren't goats here, you know, all of these things.

And, you know, I mean, obviously no one wants to admit when they lose a war. But just the fact that it, like, for instance, I'll tell you this. So in the last, you know, since April, I've been asked to be on these podcasts and these radios and these, you know, TV stations and everything. And they keep asking questions something along the lines of, well, like, what does it mean for security going forward? And my answer is always, well, yeah, security at this point sucks, but it wasn't any better in March, you know, all of these things were happening, you know, before Biden's announcement. You know, things were not good in this country before Biden's. It's not as if, you know, someone switched a light

and things just went to hell. They've gotten worse for sure, but they were also really bad. I mean, like, for instance, we were talking about the attacks on Nazaras. So there was that attack during the month of Ramadan on a girl school where anywhere, like the estimate goes from anywhere from 80 to 100 young girls were killed in this attack on a school during the holy month of Ramadan. And I remember, again, I was getting calls from all of these different media outlets and podcasts and things like that. And they were like, well, you know, how, like something about like, how does the U.S. withdrawal affect this? And I'm like, this was happening before the U.S. withdrawal. You know, there were no U.S. soldiers guarding girls schools in Kabul.

you know, this is not something that just started in May. And I think we have to be very honest about these things because how we got here is just as important as we won't know where we're going until we get there, unfortunately. You know, like there's no way to tell what's going to happen a day from now, two days from now, much less two months from now. But we do know what happened over the last 20 years. And I think we have to start being honest about that and how those 20 years led us to this moment right now. And it does feel like in America people would rather just forget. You know, something I've been that's been striking about. And, you know, I've done it too in my intro.

But the coverage is very American-centric, right? America cares right now because America is leaving. Well, exactly. And so many, you know, again, so many times when I've written for different media outlets, they've tried. I mean, like for instance, when there was an attack where foreigners were killed, the lead would be, even if the number of, if the number of, Afghans killed was larger, the lead would be the foreigners. The headline would be the foreigners. headline would be the foreigners, you know? Or they would, they would say like, oh, I, okay, one outlet said to me, like, oh, well, you know, you want to write about, like, Afghan soldiers and, you know, all the troubles they're facing.

Well, you can't really do that without talking about U.S. soldiers or British soldiers somehow, too, to make it interesting to a U.S. or a U.S. or a U.K. audience. And, you know, I've heard things like that my entire career. So, and that's really what's missing is sort of like this, this fact that, you know, this is a country full of human beings, you know, who, okay, maybe they're not white, maybe they're not Western, but they are people. They are suffering. And, you know, and, you know, know, not everything. Or for instance, I've had, you know, people try and insert their opinions into my reporting. You know, like even when you try and be balanced and sort of ethical, you will see editors in Boston or New York or London or wherever trying to add in their opinion as fact because they can.

What can you give me an example of that happening without getting yourself in? trouble? There's lots of examples. I mean, like, I mean, the one that I will never, ever forget is I was freelancing for this U.S. outlet. It's not even a big outlet for this U.S. outlet during the 2014 presidential election, which was one of those elections that was marred with accusations of corruption and fraud. And John Kerry came, if you, if you,

if you remember, he came to negotiate some kind of a settlement between the two candidates. And I remember I was in Beaumont province at the time, which is in the center of the country, which is where the Buddhas were destroyed by the Taliban. That's what it's famous for. And within Afghanistan, it's famous for having really shoddy electricity. So I submitted this report. They asked me to write about John Kerry's wisdom. So I wrote about it very plainly.

a news story. And you have to remember, I'm in a province where the electricity, no matter who you are, where you are, goes out at like 11 o'clock midnight, you know? And so because they're in the U.S., the time difference, that's when they send me their edits. And I remember they added, I think it was three points to this. One was they added the statement. And this is a thing that was I could not believe it. They added this. They were like, their literal words were, was there fraud in this election as there has been every previous election?

Undoubtedly. That was a statement I didn't write because at that point, I didn't have proof of that. And I remember that was one of the statements that I wanted taken out because I said, first of all, I didn't write that. Secondly, I can't say that because I don't have proof of that. And, you know, the editor was like, well, I've been to have Honestown and I've met one of the candidates and it happens all the time. And we got into this argument and I said, you have to take this line out and two other lines out.

And then he wouldn't take it out. So I said, then take my name off of it. And basically he said, I took your name off of it and I warned every editor never to work with you again. Even though I thought I was trying to be ethical about it because I'm like, this is a news. story, I can't be making claims like that without proof. Good Lord. That's a nightmare. All right, you've been, you've gone through my questions.

That's the kind of, we like to end on, um, on sad notes here at Angry Planet. Uh, so I think we got there. Ali and Latifi, thank you so much for coming onto the show and, uh, talking to us about Afghanistan. Thank you for having me. That's all for this week. Angry Planet listeners. Angry Planet is me, Matthew Galt, Kevin Odell and Jason Fields.

created by myself and Jason Fields. If you like the show and you want to hear commercial-free versions of it and get two bonus episodes every month, go to angryplanet.substack.com or angryplanetpod.com. $9.00. Get you commercial-free episodes and two bonus shows. We will be back next week with another conversation about conflict on an angry planet. Stay safe until then.