Here ends the west’s grotesque delusion that it could use its military might to turn Afghanistan into a stable democracy, a shining path of moderate Islam. In the shadow of New York’s burning twin towers, I was one swept along on that “something must be done” tide, that drumbeat for a war to stop terror and liberate oppressed people. We have learned a bitter lesson.
How deceptively easy was the 2001 victory, as Taliban fighters fled to melt back into their own population famously murmuring, “You have watches, we have time.” They have just turned back the clock on 20 wasted years.
A year after that empty “victory”, I was in Afghanistan, seeking signs of cultural transformations and social progress. But it was already clear the west had neither the political will, financial generosity nor the attention span to match the windy rhetoric that breezed us there. » | Polly Toynbee | Tuesday, August 17, 2021
