Afghan schoolgirls are weeping as they finish sixth grade, knowing their education is over. Under Taliban rule, they are unlikely to ever step foot in a classroom again.
I'm sure that millions of Afghan women would disagree with this. The nation building in Afghanistan was fucked from the start because it completely ignored Afghan tradions of life and government, and the Western-style government was horribly corrupt and failed to inspire any sort of loyalty, but just leaving was incredibly destructive too.
Well... The ones that aren't brainwashed into thinking they should be enslaved. There's a lot of internalized misogyny in Muslim countries because the women have been raised to believe they should be submissive to patriarchal forces.
That's the issue with control over education, once you get your hooks in you can make the slave believe being a slave is honorable and noble. They'll fight against their own interests. I've even see it on lemmy. Where they talk about the evil west and our damn equality for the sexes, how awful we are for letting women do what they want.
Being consistent in your isolationism is hard when you also have a big military huh? See Chinese naval build up soon to become a big waste of money without serious fast movement towards reeducation or alternatives e.g. large scale island fish farming and maybe brink style wargames simply for entertainment lol
Man, we spent 20 years trying to end it. Arguably we could have had success if it wasn't for the Iraq War interrupting things, but that's besides the point now - we don't have the political capital to go back in, we don't have a reason to go back in (as bad as Afghanistan is, oppression is not actually grounds for intervention despite what Bush will tell you), and we have limited resources. We have to use our limited resources on objectives that are obtainable, justifiable, and have a good outcome relative to investment. Right now, that's the Ukrainian War. After 20 years in Afghanistan? Afghanistan is at the very bottom of the fucking list, man. We can't just say "Here's another trillion, let's try again"
The guys we supported let the practice of bacha bazi happen. So with our guys we get the systematic rape of boys and with the Taliban we get what is happening now. There is no good side or lesser evil in this situation.