The United States and NATO are talking about a “strategic failure” in Afghanistan after twenty years of war and the massacre of tens and thousands of innocent Afghans and handing over Afghanistan with $85 billion worth of weapons and military equipment to their Taliban stooges. Today, Afghanistan is in a more catastrophic state than in 2001, in the grip of terrorism, barbarism, drug mafia, foreign intervention and other devastating miseries, and is facing economic collapse, poverty and mass exodus of its citizens. Meanwhile, the situation of Afghan women under the Taliban's medieval oppression is the most painful. However, the courageous protests of women in Kabul and several other provinces in the early days of the Taliban takeover, and their glorious resistance to the group's formidable gunmen showed that these ignorant people will never be able to hold Afghan women captive in their tyrannical chains like they did under their previous period of rule.
When the US and NATO whitewashed the Jehadi oppressors at the beginning of their occupation of Afghanistan, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) warned the world in a statement (March 8, 2002) that a new period of disaster has arrived for Afghanistan:
“One fundamentalist band cannot be fought by siding with and supporting another. In its war on the Taliban and the al-Qaeda, the US has taken the "Northern Alliance" into service through wooing and arming certain infamous warlords. By so doing, the US is in fact abetting the worst enemies of our people and is continuing the same tyrannical policy against the people and the destiny of Afghanistan which successive US administrations adopted during the past two decades. The Taliban and the al-Qaeda cannot be eradicated through military and financial might alone. War on the Taliban and the al-Qaeda is not only a war on the military and financial fronts, it is a war on the ideological front too. Until such time as mindsets and thoughts characteristic of the Taliban and Osama & Co. remain, it is inevitable that we shall witness their trademark barbarism erupt yet once again, be it in Afghanistan or in any other part of the world.
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RAWA has repeatedly and consistently asserted that under the prevailing circumstances no power except the Afghan people themselves can or will succor them against fundamentalism, and there is no precedent in history wherein a foreign nation or nations who have themselves been patrons and abettors of agents of bondage and fundamentalist affliction have granted liberty to a nation held in thrall by those very same agents.”
The intellectuals who worshipped the US and coined the term of “Afghanistan turning into another Japan” while riding the massive wave of propaganda accused us of “negativity” and “an organization that accepts none”, “stuck in the past” and so on. But after twenty years of betrayal and murder by the US, most of RAWA's critics suddenly turned into the critics of the US and its policies when they were orphaned with the departure of the US forces and had to flee the country in the humiliation in the disastrous evacuation through Kabul airport.
US officials each spoke of being “surprised” by the fall of Kabul but the reality is that everything went according to plan. The US, in accordance with its usual policy, spent twenty years playing the Tom and Jerry game with these Taliban criminals, maintaining and strengthening them for future use. The release of several Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay, the removal of some of them from the UN blacklist, the signing of an agreement, the opening of an official office in Qatar and the dignified transfer of their leaders there, the release of more than 5,000 of the most savage murderers from the prison of Afghanistan, were the prelude to their installation in Kabul and led to their recognition, raising their morale in escalating the war and killings. Even if Ashraf Ghani and his corrupt entourage had not fled in that shameful way, this sad fate awaited our people.
During the Doha talks, Western media outlets and clowns of the corrupt Ghani government which included the filthiest and most infamous figures, tried to portray the Taliban as “changed”. Fawzia Koofi went so far as to deceive the public by declaring that “the Taliban's view of women has changed and they have good plans for Afghan women”. Zalmai Khalilzad, who played a treacherous role in infecting Afghanistan to the virus of fundamentalism, appeared in media outlets such as TOLO TV to try to soften this blow and recently enlisted the help of his villainous wife, Cheryl Benard to this end. In an article in the National Interest (August 24, 2021) she shamelessly defends the Taliban and by covering up the bitter truths and fabricating false “facts”, paints these bloodthirsty criminals as “changed” and compassionate to the people.
Suppose everybody, especially Afghan women, forget the barbarism, suicide attacks, bombings, and massacres, in less than two months of their bloody rule, our people have felt the pain of the “changed” Taliban through their brutal attacks on women, individual freedoms, education, science and art, the media and press, and crimes against ethnic minorities. As expected, there is nobody in their cabinet except Mullahs and clerics and Sheikhs trained in Pakistani suicide-bomber manufacturing factories, most of whom are also on the UN blacklist. This has been subject to widespread ridicule by our people on social media as well. How is it possible for a force dependent on foreigners and enemy of all the manifestations of a modern and humane society, to “change” overnight and become the savior of the nation?
On the other hand, the US and most Western and regional governments have each sought to establish relations with the Taliban regime, citing only the establishment of an “inclusive government” as one of the main conditions for recognizing the Islamic Emirate. In the final analysis, the Taliban will be the enemies of democracy and women, violating the most basic human rights.
For Western governments, safeguarding their strategic interests is far more important than the fate of Afghan men and women and they are willing to make any disgraceful deal with the barbaric Taliban regime. They fear that Afghanistan and its vast mineral wealth will be completely in the hands of Pakistan, China, Russia, Iran and its other rivals, and they will not benefit from them.
Our call to the freedom-loving, anti-war and peace-loving people and organizations of the US and other Western countries is to stand by the people of Afghanistan so that this land and its unfortunate women do not fall prey to the inhumane policies of the imperialist powers once more.
Over the past two decades, the US and NATO have misused the name of Afghan women under deceptive slogans to justify their occupation, terrorism, and crimes in Afghanistan. A handful of mercenary women were promoted everywhere as fake symbols of women’s achievements and a few women were installed in government positions. However, in the last two decades, the lives of millions of poor Afghan women have not changed. The rates of violence, oppression and sexual abuse of women has reached new heights and we have witnessed the most shocking atrocities against women.
Afghanistan’s twenty-year history has repeatedly shown that a country that relies on a foreign power, especially the US, will face the catastrophic fate of Afghanistan. Contrary to this reality, mercenary intellectuals who have a fiery love for the US’s criminal empire, propagated it as the savior of our people and screamed about the benefits of signing the Bilateral Security Agreement. Rangin Dadfar Spanta shamelessly called the opponents of this agreement the “enemies of national interests”; Javed Kohistani called it “water of life for Afghanistan”; Daud Muradian claimed that “this agreement will give us the opportunity to fly” (which it did, even if it was at the cost of the lives of several people who fell off the American planes while flying!); Daud Sultanzoi ridiculed the meaning of independence in the twenty-first century, saying, “We must have strong allies to find political, economic and military stability!” (and today it is thanks to this “stability” that he himself is acting as the footman of Kabul Talib mayor!); Malik Sitez vehemently spoke of “security”, “US’s reconstruction and modernization of Afghanistan's infrastructure” and “good governance and the securement of democracy and human rights” as outcomes of the agreement; Lina Roozbeh was so offended by Belquis Roshan’s courageous act when she raised the slogan “The pact with US is treachery against the nation!” in the Loya Jirga that she called it a “foolish act” for “gaining fame”; and many such acts. Do these persons have a glimmer of conscience left in them to express their remorse over their ostentatious and Americanistic remarks?
The US withdrawal from Afghanistan is not due to a “military defeat’ in Afghanistan but due to the gradual decline of this superpower and its severe internal problems. When US officials declare that none of their soldiers have been killed in the war in Afghanistan in the last eighteen months, what “defeat” should we speak of? The truth is that over the past few years, with the catastrophic failure of the US imperialist policies in Syria, the inability to defeat COVID-19, the furious black movement, the monstrosity called Trump and the scandal of his supporters occupying the Capitol were events that showed its decay to the world and worsened its crisis. White House leaders were forced to end the costly “longest-running war in American history” and focus more on domestic issues. Of course, the US will not give up on Afghanistan entirely and will try to keep it as the epicenter of terrorism and insecurity to harm the interests of its rivals.
Considering the analysis of the current disastrous situation, Afghanistan is waiting for more painful and dark days. The US and NATO have already laid the groundwork for the relocation of other terrorist groups, such as ISIS, to Afghanistan and have announced that their drone strikes will continue (the main victims of these strikes, as was in the past, will be the common and innocent people). The Taliban are also incapable of meeting the smallest requirements of the society and will only strengthen their administration by suppressing protesters and controlling women’s clothing and the length of men’s beards through their Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
Although the Taliban gained power, they have no place in the minds and hearts of the people and will not be able to rule except by relying on guns and fascism. A nation that has realized the benefits of acquiring knowledge and has become aware of progress around the world through the media and social media cannot be imprisoned in the chains of ignorance and medieval laws for long. Given the atmosphere of deep hatred and protests of women who are the prime victims of these criminals, the struggle for liberation, and popular uprisings under independent leaderships in different parts of Afghanistan against these foreign agents, their desire for a smooth rule will never come true.
The departure of the American and NATO occupiers and the escape of its henchmen and agents, even though accompanied by the rise of the odious Taliban regime, will in the long run pave the way for the establishment of a new justice-seeking movement so that the truly committed and democratic elements can use it to fight against fundamentalists and imperialists. The treacherous Jehadis, these brethren-in-creed of the Taliban, who are one of the main causes of today’s miseries were immediately thrown away as they did not have any real foundation of support from the people. However, they are still falsely chanting the slogan of “national resistance” from their hiding places and they need to be unmasked for their true nature so they do not deceive our injured nation once more.
At a time when a wave of despair has overtaken our nation, especially among the youth and intellectuals who want to flee, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) calls on all nationalist, freedom-seeking and revolutionary individuals and forces to join the struggle and use every possible window, even if dangerous, to play their role in healing the deep wounds on the body and soul of our homeland, and to fight honestly to mobilize the masses. Those who evade this vital cause under any pretext will be shamed by history.
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
October 7, 2021