Afghan government collapse.

[NOVA Green]

Macron says EU setting up initiative to thwart arrival of Afghan refugees

French president Emmanuel Macron said the European Union would be setting up an initiative to thwart the expected arrivals of refugees from Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.

“We must anticipate and protect ourselves against significant irregular migratory flows that would endanger the migrants and risk encouraging trafficking of all kinds,” he said in a televised statement.

He said the response from France, Germany and other EU countries would be “robust, coordinated and united” and would target smuggling rings.

There is something just, intensely morally despicable about this being his reaction. That his priority in a humanitarian crisis is how to stop them from coming over here. It’s just sick. I mean, I have pretty liberal opinions on asylum from the outset, but we as the west collectively have a huge moral failing here and a huge degree of moral responsibility to people who are actively suffering. We should be offering safety to absolutely every Afghan who asks for it, and of course we have the resources between us.

Apart from that, I have nothing to say beyond a sense of horror at what is going on, and can only echo what the likes of Al have said that reading a lot of what people on here have had to say about this makes me want to scream.

"2015 must not repeat itself" was probably the most commonly uttered phrase by CDU politicians in Germany today. Well, that and hanging the blame for the debacle around the neck of foreign minister Heiko Maas (SPD).

Meanwhile in Afghanistan... the first German military transport plane was finally able to land in Kabul. It deployed a unit of paratroopers to further secure the airport and is now on its way back to a base in Uzbekistan with the first batch of evacuees.

Good to hear.

How's this all playing in Germany with elections coming up within the next Month?

I know Germany backed down on it's planned deportation of a number of existing Afghan refugees in response to the recently unfolding humanitarian crisis, after having been one of the most generous countries in Europe during the Afghan Civil War of the early '90s, but obviously the political climate has changed considerably since then.

Greens, FDP, and Left are criticizing the CDU/SPD government for not having seen the success of the Taliban insurgence earlier, despite the fact that there apparently had been warnings from the German Embassy in Kabul to that effect for a couple of weeks now.

Greens and Left in particular have also blasted the government for having stalled the evacuation of locally recruited Afghan staff in past months... something these two parties had advocated for for quite a while now, while CDU and SPD had so far worked on the assumption that a Taliban takeover would be months away at worst.

Like I said before, the CDU is blaming the SPD because the social democrats are running the Foreign Ministry. And the CDU is also afraid of the prospect of another refugee crisis, something that might lead to them losing votes to the AfD.

Speaking of the AfD... I suspect they're at least secretly quite happy about the whole situation for the same reasons the CDU is worried. The voters that are most worried about chaos, uncertainty, and loss of control usually go for the AfD.

Electorally, I'd say both the Greens and the AfD have profited from the refugee issue in the past though, while it is a somewhat delicate topic for CDU and SPD. This is because the latter parties' bases are somewhat divided on refugees and whatever they're doing they stand to lose something.

Interesting that from this description it doesn't sound that any political party is blaming the Americans for not providing intel regarding the state of the military situation on the ground over the past few Months.

I also thought it interesting that the first (?) German civilian flight only went to Uzbekistan versus direct to Germany.

Was that just a temporary logistical thing to maintain "in theater" resources, or was it more, "let's just move refugees there while the political situation in Germany is sorted out regarding more permanent asylum?

Are these civilians who worked for the German effort in Afghanistan including NGOs, regardless of German Nationals or Afghan employees, etc

Do we know more about the background of these Flüchtlinge?

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

So, will there be a new Northern Alliance?

[PSOL]

So, will there be a new Northern Alliance?

Nope, the old leaders are at death’s door and divided.

[NOVA Green]

So, will there be a new Northern Alliance?

Nope, the old leaders are at death’s door and divided.

Don't believe that Amrullah Saleh is that young (born in 1971), and Ahmad Massoud (Born 1989) is a young pup, but with a great family history in the equivalent of the Asterix cartoon deal "last village in Gaul" sort of deal....

Dostum's "strategic retreat" to Uzbekistan after basically repossessing all of the Afghan Gvt Military hardware prior to the fall of his turf to the Taliban will effectively remain a puppet of Putin, which they can use a a major chess piece if needed, but is basically on a short leash and unlikely to participate in any direct military activities in the immediate future.

Don't recall off-hand the various historical militias in the Western part of the country outside of Herat and places like that, but obviously Iran will continue to protect the interests of the Shii'te population of the region.

Ethnic Hazzars and Tajiks have considerable sway in respective regions, where there were historically history of massacres previously from Taliban forces in the past...

No, I don't think we will see a revival of a "Northern Alliance Proper", but it's pretty clear that in many parts of Afghanistan the ethnic Pashtun and overall the Deobandi extreme fundamentalist rule, does not mesh well with populations where historically traditional rural folk versions of Islam do not match what is effectively an imported ideology.

Also, with everything so recent on the ground it is questionable to what extent that many of the Taliban Fighters who swarmed various capitols as part of the traditional late Spring to Fall Offensive season, many of whom have tended to be recruited from the Madrassas in SW Pakistan will actually be able to relate to the local populations.

I would not be surprised to see Iran, Russia, India, as well as various factions within Pakistan once again try to figure out ways to carve up the country, keep the flow of weapons going as effectively a "buffer state", while meanwhile the people suffer and the Taliban Gvt allows to the Poppies to once against grow freely, while their GVT is starved of currency, no fuel or spare parts to support what aircraft and military vehicles they might have obtained, while unrest grows throughout not only the urban population centers but also rural areas.

Basically, this is the chance for Taliban 2.0 to show their own population that they can provide essential services, maintain peace and avoid corruption, not risk the wrath of the international community by allowing terrorist facilities to profligate, and not commit anything like the massive atrocious human rights abuses that marked their last Government.

Tall order for sure, and with the release of key Pakistani Taliban leaders from "liberated prisons" within Afghanistan, there is a good chance the Taliban will start to focus East towards Pakistan, where despite the initial support of the JuI and JeI, terrorist activities will increase in Pakistan from the hard-line formations, possibly even calling for the borders to be rearranged to allow a Pashtun majority country....

IDK.... jury is still out out how this is going to go down over time.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So, will there be a new Northern Alliance?

Well, that came into being under very specific circumstances. My guess would be that it is unlikely that the next phase in conflict will be dominated by ethnic considerations, unless the Taliban make some really stupid errors. But the future in general is uncertain. It may well be that we will see, at some point, entirely new militia groups: there are a lot of weapons floating around and authority is rarely spread about particularly thickly in Afghanistan. An attempt to re-establish old ones acquired a lot of equipment and men from the 'National Army' very quickly before fleeing safely to Uzbekistan. A lot will depend on how the Taliban rule: there are certain things they could do that might trigger uprisings and opportunities for opponents almost immediately, but they may well be very careful.

[NOVA Green]

America has a tendency to abandon our allies quickly when US Military Forces pull out of what are considered effectively "losing wars".

Perhaps the most recent parallel to the current Humanitarian Crisis in Afghanistan, might be something to how we treated the Kurds.

Most recently, the Trump Administration effectively abandoned the Kurdish Fighters in Northern Syria and the far NW corners of Iraq who had fought side by side with US Special Forces and regular US Military to fight against ISIS.

We abandoned them to the mercy of Turkey, a fellow NATO ally for many decades with a long history of Military Dictatorship, Ethnic Cleansing of Minority populations, not to mention directly responsible for the burning down of over 4,000 Kurdish villages during their war against the Kurdish Intifada and unrest from the last '70s to the mid '90s.

We could also look at how the Bush Sr Administration effectively allowed the Baathist regime of Iraq to use Helicopter gunships against the Kurdish population of the North of Iraq, without even going into our lack of response when the Iraqi Gvt used chemical weapons against Halabja, as well as a nearby village while meanwhile Don Rumsfeld is basically shaking hands with Saddam Hussein while promising US weapons to fight against the Iranian GVT.

The US in the post World War II has increasingly acted like an Imperial Power, without the will to act like a true Colonizer, believing that our piss-ant history and background and version of Democracy will somehow automatically "make friends and influence people", while meanwhile US economic and cultural expansion will somehow create converts from every nation from Iraq to Vietnam to North Africa, etc...

Simply flying the Kurdish flag is banned in Germany and could get you arrested (Yes I was at a few Newroz events back in the mid '90s).

If I lived in Germany and were to post this song off of a German server, I could be arrested simply for the Kurdish Flag and what might be considered a "nationalist" song.

Biden is not responsible at all for what has been a practice for over 50 Years of US Foreign Policy, the perception of ourselves vs how we are perceived elsewhere, when ultimately we are a reluctant empire, but for decades and decades since the end of WW II and the Cold War, have effectively tried to play Kingmaker globally without any education or understanding about the actual world in which we live.

Hell... at least the British Empire spent some time doing some serious research and cultural understandings about the places in which they attempted to dominate.

[NOVA Green]

So one thing I have been pondering over is that despite the facts on the ground where the Taliban effectively control militarily most of the country, including currently the Capitol of Kabul, the US still has effective leverage in multiple ways.

We hold the Airport with 6k US Troops effectively as trip-wires, with a complete red-line to the point that if the Taliban assaults US forces there will be massive retaliation.

Concept would be something like this.... we negotiate a period of time (say two weeks) and ALSO behind the scenes convince the Taliban political leadership in the Gulf Kingdom to allow not only foreign nationals, but ALSO Afghan Nationals a chance to leave, while meanwhile their paperwork can either be processed at the airport or within 3rd Party countries after the fact.

It could not only allow the US and NATO allies to evacuate individuals who are in the "highest risk" category from Afghanistan, but also potentially allow Taliban 2.0 to potentially remove future dissidents or even guerilla warfare in the future without having to risk the international consequences of a bloodbath against those Afghans who fought in the losing side of the Civil War.

Also, it is not unusual (Even in the post 9/11 era) for parents to have sons from their various Tribes and Villages / Towns join both sides, so that way in the event that one side or the other ends up winning, there is not retribution for the families and it allows easy deserting from the ranks in the event the other side in a Civil War becomes victorious.

Also, the Taliban would likely want a carrot, so let's say we give them a certain period before we freeze all of their foreign bank accounts, before the entire International Community takes over the former Afghan Government's treasury...

Thoughts???

[Benjamin Frank]

So one thing I have been pondering over is that despite the facts on the ground where the Taliban effectively control militarily most of the country, including currently the Capitol of Kabul, the US still has effective leverage in multiple ways.

We hold the Airport with 6k US Troops effectively as trip-wires, with a complete red-line to the point that if the Taliban assaults US forces there will be massive retaliation.

Concept would be something like this.... we negotiate a period of time (say two weeks) and ALSO behind the scenes convince the Taliban political leadership in the Gulf Kingdom to allow not only foreign nationals, but ALSO Afghan Nationals a chance to leave, while meanwhile their paperwork can either be processed at the airport or within 3rd Party countries after the fact.

It could not only allow the US and NATO allies to evacuate individuals who are in the "highest risk" category from Afghanistan, but also potentially allow Taliban 2.0 to potentially remove future dissidents or even guerilla warfare in the future without having to risk the international consequences of a bloodbath against those Afghans who fought in the losing side of the Civil War.

Also, it is not unusual (Even in the post 9/11 era) for parents to have sons from their various Tribes and Villages / Towns join both sides, so that way in the event that one side or the other ends up winning, there is not retribution for the families and it allows easy deserting from the ranks in the event the other side in a Civil War becomes victorious.

Also, the Taliban would likely want a carrot, so let's say we give them a certain period before we freeze all of their foreign bank accounts, before the entire International Community takes over the former Afghan Government's treasury...

Thoughts???

1.I'm not sure exactly what has been negotiated:
"Tomorrow and over the coming days, we will be transferring out of the country thousands of American citizens who have been resident in Afghanistan, as well as locally employed staff of the U.S. mission in Kabul and their families and other particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals," the Department of Defense and the State Department said in a joint statement.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/middle-east-north-africa/568003-central-command-chief-taliban-leaders-reached

2.How long before Republicans who had previously argued on Covid that 'we all die ventually' and who had claimed concern for the fate of the Afghanis start to fearmonger again about potential Muslim terrorists and that 'one death is too many.'?

3.The first poll out on this shows a 20% drop in support for the U.S leaving, from 69% in May to 49% at present. I wonder  how many of those 20% who no longer support the withdrawal are Republicans who supported the withdrawal under Trump but not now that Biden completed it.  Republicans are collectively known too have one position when a Republican is President and a different position when a Democrat is President.  See also deficit spending, interest rates and many other issues.

[Mr. Morden]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/at-the-pentagon-us-military-officials-bitter-as-they-watch-chaos-in-kabul/ar-AANouoi

Biden decided in mid-April that all US troops must be out of Afghanistan by September 11, though he later moved that date up to August 21.
.
.
.
As soon as Biden announced the withdrawal, the Pentagon said it was making preparations for a mass evacuation.

But by mid-June the administration still did not consider an evacuation necessary and favored the granting of special visas -- a process that can take up to two years. 

It was only at the end of June that the White House raised the possibility of evacuating the Afghan interpreters before the end of the military withdrawal, and asked for the Pentagon's help.

[NOVA Green]

So one thing I have been pondering over is that despite the facts on the ground where the Taliban effectively control militarily most of the country, including currently the Capitol of Kabul, the US still has effective leverage in multiple ways.

We hold the Airport with 6k US Troops effectively as trip-wires, with a complete red-line to the point that if the Taliban assaults US forces there will be massive retaliation.

Concept would be something like this.... we negotiate a period of time (say two weeks) and ALSO behind the scenes convince the Taliban political leadership in the Gulf Kingdom to allow not only foreign nationals, but ALSO Afghan Nationals a chance to leave, while meanwhile their paperwork can either be processed at the airport or within 3rd Party countries after the fact.

It could not only allow the US and NATO allies to evacuate individuals who are in the "highest risk" category from Afghanistan, but also potentially allow Taliban 2.0 to potentially remove future dissidents or even guerilla warfare in the future without having to risk the international consequences of a bloodbath against those Afghans who fought in the losing side of the Civil War.

Also, it is not unusual (Even in the post 9/11 era) for parents to have sons from their various Tribes and Villages / Towns join both sides, so that way in the event that one side or the other ends up winning, there is not retribution for the families and it allows easy deserting from the ranks in the event the other side in a Civil War becomes victorious.

Also, the Taliban would likely want a carrot, so let's say we give them a certain period before we freeze all of their foreign bank accounts, before the entire International Community takes over the former Afghan Government's treasury...

Thoughts???

1.I'm not sure exactly what has been negotiated:
"Tomorrow and over the coming days, we will be transferring out of the country thousands of American citizens who have been resident in Afghanistan, as well as locally employed staff of the U.S. mission in Kabul and their families and other particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals," the Department of Defense and the State Department said in a joint statement.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/middle-east-north-africa/568003-central-command-chief-taliban-leaders-reached

2.How long before Republicans who had previously argued on Covid that 'we all die ventually' and who had claimed concern for the fate of the Afghanis start to fearmonger again about potential Muslim terrorists and that 'one death is too many.'?

3.The first poll out on this shows a 20% drop in support for the U.S leaving, from 69% in May to 49% at present. I wonder  how many of those 20% who no longer support the withdrawal are Republicans who supported the withdrawal under Trump but not now that Biden completed it.  Republicans are collectively known too have one position when a Republican is President and a different position when a Democrat is President.  See also deficit spending, interest rates and many other issues.

Deleted the post I was making, since maybe this isn't the right time nor place necessarily to go into the American partisan political scene when it comes to Afghanistan, and perhaps would be more appropriate in a US Domestic Politics thread.

Still, the chicken hawks are coming out in force on Afghanistan, despite their abject failures on so many other American Foreign Policy issues over the decades....

[Benjamin Frank]

So one thing I have been pondering over is that despite the facts on the ground where the Taliban effectively control militarily most of the country, including currently the Capitol of Kabul, the US still has effective leverage in multiple ways.

We hold the Airport with 6k US Troops effectively as trip-wires, with a complete red-line to the point that if the Taliban assaults US forces there will be massive retaliation.

Concept would be something like this.... we negotiate a period of time (say two weeks) and ALSO behind the scenes convince the Taliban political leadership in the Gulf Kingdom to allow not only foreign nationals, but ALSO Afghan Nationals a chance to leave, while meanwhile their paperwork can either be processed at the airport or within 3rd Party countries after the fact.

It could not only allow the US and NATO allies to evacuate individuals who are in the "highest risk" category from Afghanistan, but also potentially allow Taliban 2.0 to potentially remove future dissidents or even guerilla warfare in the future without having to risk the international consequences of a bloodbath against those Afghans who fought in the losing side of the Civil War.

Also, it is not unusual (Even in the post 9/11 era) for parents to have sons from their various Tribes and Villages / Towns join both sides, so that way in the event that one side or the other ends up winning, there is not retribution for the families and it allows easy deserting from the ranks in the event the other side in a Civil War becomes victorious.

Also, the Taliban would likely want a carrot, so let's say we give them a certain period before we freeze all of their foreign bank accounts, before the entire International Community takes over the former Afghan Government's treasury...

Thoughts???

1.I'm not sure exactly what has been negotiated:
"Tomorrow and over the coming days, we will be transferring out of the country thousands of American citizens who have been resident in Afghanistan, as well as locally employed staff of the U.S. mission in Kabul and their families and other particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals," the Department of Defense and the State Department said in a joint statement.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/middle-east-north-africa/568003-central-command-chief-taliban-leaders-reached

2.How long before Republicans who had previously argued on Covid that 'we all die ventually' and who had claimed concern for the fate of the Afghanis start to fearmonger again about potential Muslim terrorists and that 'one death is too many.'?

3.The first poll out on this shows a 20% drop in support for the U.S leaving, from 69% in May to 49% at present. I wonder  how many of those 20% who no longer support the withdrawal are Republicans who supported the withdrawal under Trump but not now that Biden completed it.  Republicans are collectively known too have one position when a Republican is President and a different position when a Democrat is President.  See also deficit spending, interest rates and many other issues.

Deleted the post I was making, since maybe this isn't the right time nor place necessarily to go into the American partisan political scene when it comes to Afghanistan, and perhaps would be more appropriate in a US Domestic Politics thread.

Still, the chicken hawks are coming out in force on Afghanistan, despite their abject failures on so many other American Foreign Policy issues over the decades....

I don't agree because it's hard to believe that concerns over domestic politics didn't play into how the Biden Administration decided to handle this.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I'm hearing that Panjshir might actually resist the Taliban, but who knows.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I also thought it interesting that the first (?) German civilian flight only went to Uzbekistan versus direct to Germany.

Was that just a temporary logistical thing to maintain "in theater" resources, or was it more, "let's just move refugees there while the political situation in Germany is sorted out regarding more permanent asylum?

The official reasoning is that there might be only a very short window of opportunity where you even can get people out, before the Taliban shut down the airport for good or have caught/killed all former Western employees. The flight time to Uzbekistan is much shorter than to Germany and it is the idea that the planes can get out as many people as possble in a short period of time, if they're just circling back and forth between Kabul and Tashkent.

That being said, the first flight out of Kabul must be considered a failure in that regard, since it contained only seven (!) German staffers from the embassy in Kabul. (EDIT: Correction, the first German flight out of Kabul consisted of five German nationals, a Dutch, and an Afghan.) This was apparently a result of the plane only having been granted a slot of 30 minutes at the airport after it had been very uncertain whether it could land at all throughout the day. It is the hope that this can be improved with the next flight(s), with the Defence Ministry also arguing that it had been the main objective of the first flight to deploy the paratroopers at the airport.

Are these civilians who worked for the German effort in Afghanistan including NGOs, regardless of German Nationals or Afghan employees, etc Huh

Do we know more about the background of these Flüchtlinge?

No, I don't really much of a clue how this is prioritized... and maybe neither does the German government, given the circumstances.

Yesterday I read a report about the plight of the Afghan employees of the local branch of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (the think tank of the SPD), implying those are also among the ones waiting to be evacuated.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I also thought it interesting that the first (?) German civilian flight only went to Uzbekistan versus direct to Germany.

Was that just a temporary logistical thing to maintain "in theater" resources, or was it more, "let's just move refugees there while the political situation in Germany is sorted out regarding more permanent asylum?

The official reasoning is that there might be only a very short window of opportunity where you even can get people out, before the Taliban shut down the airport for good or have caught/killed all former Western employees. The flight time to Uzbekistan is much shorter than to Germany and it is the idea that the planes can get out as many people as possble in a short period of time, if they're just circling back and forth between Kabul and Tashkent.

That being said, the first flight out of Kabul must be considered a failure in that regard, since it contained only seven (!) German staffers from the embassy in Kabul. This was apparently a result of the plane only having been granted a slot of 30 minutes at the airport after it had been very uncertain whether it could land at all throughout the day. It is the hope that this can be improved with the next flight(s), with the Defence Ministry also arguing that it had been the main objective of the first flight to deploy the paratroopers as the airport.

Are these civilians who worked for the German effort in Afghanistan including NGOs, regardless of German Nationals or Afghan employees, etc Huh

Do we know more about the background of these Flüchtlinge?

No, I don't really much of a clue how this is prioritized... and maybe neither does the German government, given the circumstances.

Yesterday I read a report about the plight of the Afghan employees of the local branch of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (the think tank of the SPD), implying those are also among the ones waiting to be evacuated.

Yeah, obviously you want the closest safe airport to dump them at. I guess the US military is using their base in Qatar. India had some flights.

[Middle-aged Europe]

One major obstacle in getting the locally recruited Afghan personnel out: In order to be airlifted out of there they need to carry documentation with them that they had indeed worked for a Western government. The Taliban are (probably) checking people who are trying to get to the Kabul airport for the very same documentation, but with the intent of arresting them then. I don't really see how a large-scale evacuation of former Western employees is supposed to work unless the West is directly negotiating their release with the new Taliban rulers (or they're flying every Afghan out who happens to make it to the airport, irrespective of documentation...).

[Middle-aged Europe]

US evacuated 640 people on a single plane. Germany evacuated 7.

Apples and oranges.

In the case of the US plane the Afghan civilians had stormed the plane and the US military personnel didn't want to forcefully remove them (= didn't know how to practically do that without shooting the civilians). So, they just accepting the situation and flying them out seemed to be the best way to deal with the problem.

Nobody had stormed the German plane and this probably didn't happen because at that point the US forces had already brought the situation at the airport under control again. And as I had indicated above, the German plane had only been allowed to remain on the runway for 30 minutes.

[Crumpets]

I'm sure the Taliban are just being on their best behavior while they know the whole world is watching and will probably revert to 90s-style governance as soon as the foreign cameras are off. But I guess seeing this is at least a better-case scenario than them just straight up coming into town and beheading everyone so... baby steps? And also maybe a sign that 20 years of US-backed governance didn't have no effect if even the Taliban knows what "normal" is supposed to look like now and it involves things like women news reporters.

https://twitter.com/saadmohseni/status/1427531355538272269

[CumbrianLefty]

I'm sure the Taliban are just being on their best behavior while they know the whole world is watching and will probably revert to 90s-style governance as soon as the foreign cameras are off. But I guess seeing this is at least a better-case scenario than them just straight up coming into town and beheading everyone so... baby steps?

https://twitter.com/saadmohseni/status/1427531355538272269

Maybe its not just that tbh, Taliban mark 2 seems to be a much looser more "decentralised" outfit - more of a franchise - and certainly less Pashtun chauvinist. I've no doubt they are still a thoroughly bad thing overall and life is going to be grim for many Afghans who don't share their worldview (even if they aren't actually deaded) but there seems reason to believe they won't plumb the depths of depravity that they did in 1996-2001. Let's hope so, for Afghanistans sake and indeed our own.

[Middle-aged Europe]

A second German plane has started from Kabul, this time with 125 people on board (described as mix of German, Afghan, and other nationals by the Foreign Ministry).

[Sir Mohamed]

I still don't trust the Taliban over women's rights a slight bit. And neither should anyone else. Even if they were somewhat "better" than pre-2001, women will still be treated like fourth-class citizens who aren't allowed to leave home without a man, let alone take more senior jobs.

Indications are that there's an inner divide within the Taliban between kind of lesser extreme elements and the old fashioned clerics. The former for sure have dominated public communications for now, but we have to watch where it ultimately goes. Not in the right direction, that much is guaranteed.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I still don't trust the Taliban over women's rights a slight bit.

Imagine being the sort of person that does.

[Storebought]

I shudder to think how hygiene is maintained on an a cargo plane carrying 640 people.

[afleitch]

To add,

A lot of Taliban soldiers; defectors, anti-govt, militia etc were either not alive or very young in 2001. It's possible that they don't share the same absolutism on women's visibility as the old regime do. This probably still means absolute barbarism a half step ahead of pre 2001 Afghanistan and a half step-behind the Sauds. But it may not mean the complete dissolution of women from public life. At least not initially.

[Conservatopia]

I shudder to think how hygiene is maintained on an a cargo plane carrying 640 people.

I was very impressed to see the Taliban fighters responsibly wearing face masks:

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The other difference between now and then is Afghanistan has definitely a more "modern" place than it was in the 90s: supposedly the only computer back then was possessed by Mullah Omar himself, who did not know how to switch it on: Kabul and other cities were small Soviet relics with decades old technology. Today Afghanistan is far more urbanized, literate and middle class, which doesn't necessarily mean more secular but does mean Omar's old style will have a few spanners thrown in the works.