Afghanistan: One Year Later
Spoiler: Life is much worse for the people of Afghanistan and it was all avoidable.
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© UNICEF Afghanistan
Withdrawal
It has been almost a year since the United States withdrew troops from Afghanistan after having a presence there for two full decades. While the withdrawal dominated the news at the time, coverage has waned as inflation and Ukraine have risen to the forefront of most minds. This is completely understandable, but the ramifications of Afghanistan haven’t gone away with less attention. The consequences of the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, and to withdraw in the way we did, continue to reverberate.
For example, it was around the time of the Afghanistan withdrawal that President Biden’s approval rate took a nosedive.
As you can see from the graph above, Biden’s approval rating hasn’t recovered since the withdrawal and has only gotten worse. I don’t mean to imply that Biden’s measly 39% approval rating is because of the Afghanistan withdrawal, but it is clear that Afghanistan was a turning point in the way Americans viewed the administration. This low approval rating will plague Democrats in midterms this November despite Biden not being on the ticket.
There is also the possibility, though we can never be certain, that America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine. With the United States having demonstrated an unwillingness to fight, it is certainly plausible that Putin thought a quick invasion of Ukraine would be met with nothing more than disapproving words from the rest of the world.
The continuing ramifications of the withdrawal, however, have had more profound and tragic consequences for the people of Afghanistan. Almost every aspect of life has been altered for Afghans as they are faced with Taliban rule again.
Economy
One of the most measurable ways that life has gotten much harder for Afghans is the economy. According to the WSJ, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to drop by around 34% by the end of the year compared to 2020.
That is a remarkably bad headline number, but the situation on the ground paints a more vivid picture of how much harder the economic life of Afghans has gotten. The U.N. has come out and said that over 90% of the Aghan population isn’t eating enough and half is facing acute hunger. In some cases, families have resorted to selling their children or their organs to survive. The International Rescue Committee warned that the current humanitarian crisis could be more deadly for Afghans than the past 20 years of war.
While a lot of the economic damage is coming from the Taliban’s inability and inexperience in running a developed, modern economy, it is also a result of economic sanctions from the West that have debilitated Afghanistan’s financial system. International financial assistance has been cut off which accounted for the majority of government expenditures. At the same time, roughly $9 billion of foreign assets are frozen abroad out of reach of the Taliban, which makes fighting the double-digit inflation of the afghani almost impossible.
The afghani itself is manufactured out of the country and none have been sent to Afghanistan since the Taliban took over. This has pinched Afghanistan’s banking system as liquidity is practically nonexistent. Imports from other countries have essentially dried up as paying for goods is impossible without an operational banking system. Plus, companies and countries don’t want to run afoul of the economic sanctions and suffer punishment. The limited liquidity has also prevented Afghans from withdrawing their own money in banks due to restrictions put in place to avoid bankruns.
As a result, Afghans are unable to purchase the everyday products and food that they need to survive. Any businesses are forced to operate on a microscale using inefficient methods of exchange resembling the Middle Ages more than the 21st century.
Theoretically, the United States could lift the economic sanctions to help ease Afghan suffering, but this would risk funding the Taliban, an enemy of the United States. Some foreign aid has been able to circumvent the Taliban and make its way into the hands of ordinary Afghans but not on the scale needed. This puts the United States in a precarious situation of choosing between funding an enemy or allowing the suffering of millions of Afghans.
Human Rights
As if the economic situation wasn’t bad enough, the human rights situation has deteriorated just as much. Freedoms have been eliminated as the Taliban have cracked down on protests, curbed free press, and arbitrarily arrested citizens. Free expression and freedom of religion are nonstarters for the Sharia-bound Taliban.
The stripping of freedoms is minor compared to the Taliban’s treatment of Afghans associated with the old Afghan government and military. According to the U. N., 160 extrajudicial killings, 178 arbitrary arrests and detentions, and 56 instances of torture have been documented. Taliban officials operate with virtual immunity to treat these “traitors” in whatever way they want.
The life of Afghan women has also been markedly worse since the Taliban took back over the country. The U. N. has reported that “Taliban leaders in Afghanistan are institutionalizing large scale and systematic gender-based discrimination and violence against women and girls.” They have done this by making sure it is clear to women and girls that they are expected to stay home. If they do leave, they are expected “to cover in all-encompassing loose clothing that only reveals their eyes - preferably, a burka.”
These restrictions have made it impossible for women to work, leaving them at the mercy of their “male guardians” for survival. Meanwhile, the education of women was stopped as the Taliban has refused to open up schools for girls beyond 6th grade. This will leave half of the population without a K-12 education making them more dependent on male guardians over time.
All the while, maternity care has slipped with children and women dying at higher rates than before the Taliban’s takeover.
America’s Choice
I am particularly vexed about the situation in Afghanistan since it was entirely predictable and preventable. America knew what Taliban rule looked like since the group ran the country from 1996 to 2001. America was also aware of the significant improvements in the quality of life experienced by Afghans as a result of their involvement.
In my newsletter almost a year ago, I included a quotation from Jonathan Rausch that described these improvements:
“As for the Afghans, they assuredly suffered in the war, but they suffered more under Taliban rule. Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution figures that the war may have cost 400,000 Afghan lives over the past 20 years, but he guesstimates that U.S. activities there saved a million or more lives, a significant net positive.
Consider: Infant mortality dropped by half during the U.S. operation. Life expectancy improved by six years. Electricity consumption, a key quality of life indicator, increased by a factor of 10. Years in school increased by at least three years for men and four for women. University graduates rose from under 31,000 to almost 200,000. (Those and other indicators are available at the Brookings Afghanistan index.)”
Life was markedly better for the majority of Afghan people while America was involved in the country. In that same newsletter, I argued that “America has a moral responsibility to the people of Afghanistan” and the current situation in Afghanistan demonstrates why I believed that. Yes, there were costs; however, those costs were worth it to provide a better life for the Afghan people.
Unfortunately, America failed to live up to its moral responsibility and the Afghan people are suffering as a result. I’m not claiming that America is responsible for the actions of the Taliban, but our role in allowing it to happen has to be acknowleged. I am still proud of my country, but I am ashamed that American politicians chose to succomb to the isolationist strand of the American electorate. I am also ashamed that we, as the American people, were unwilling to make the relatively minor sacrifices necessary to ensure a better life for the Afghan people.
God Bless,
Hunter Burnett