pulled out of afghanistan last year, was what would happen to women and girls. is what you re seeing now a year on, is it what you expected? or is it worse? i think, you know, everyone wanted to believe the taliban s promises. i don t believe afghan women s rights activists ever believed them. but what s happened is as bad as could have imagined. there are very few differences between how the taliban are treating women now and how they treated them since last in power 1996 to 2001. and those signs of danger started immediately after the taliban takeover on august 15th. so, i think the real question now is why hasn t the international community done more to try to defend women s rights. what more do you think they can do? so, we think that well, first of all, i think we ve seen a real lack of focus and lack of
august 15th, so we re coming up on monday of the first anniversary of the taliban takeover. peter, what do you make of the argument then that the mission in afghanistan had been accomplished a decade before the withdrawal with the death of osama bin laden, that the united states didn t go into that country to prop up the nation with, you know, no expiration date, no withdrawal plans? you know, i mean, a reasonable argument, however, i mean, i think the counterargument there is the taliban are now stronger today than they were before 9/11. they control more of afghanistan, they re better armed because they have a bunch of american armored vehicles and m-16 rifles, they face no strong opposition. and, you know, the fact that ayman al zawahiri was living in downtown kabul sort of speaks for itself. al qaeda has not gone away, the taliban are sheltering them, in fact according to the united nations the minister of interior in afghanistan is actually a part of the leadership council
been no brain drain. if they had agreed to a peace process, the bureaucracy had not fallen. if they had agreed to a peace process, we would have had the small middle class still staying in afghanistan and the flow of money would have continued. so, the disaster today in my country is not my guilt or the guilt of the resistance, it is the guilt of the taliban whose leaders are on the terror list of the un and the western world. so we should not forget the big picture. these people are responsible for the catastrophe and the tragedy that afghanistan is undergoing. after the august 15th taliban takeover, many countries, including the united states, cut financial assistance to afghanistan, froze afg hanistan s reserves in us financial institutions, and a whole lot of other things which have contributed to the collapse of the afghan economy. the message now from agencies like the world food programme
if they had agreed to a peace process, the bureaucracy had not fallen. if they had agreed to a peace process, we would have had the small middle class still staying in afghanistan and the flow of money would have continued. so, the disaster today in my country is not my guilt or the guilt of the resistance, it is the guilt of the taliban whose leaders are on the terror list of the un and the western world. so we should not forget the big picture. these people are responsible for the catastrophe and the tragedy that afghanistan is undergoing. after the august 15th taliban takeover, many countries, including the united states, cut financial assistance to afghanistan, froze afg hanistan s reserves in us financial institutions, and a whole lot of other things which have contributed to the collapse of the afghan economy. the message now from agencies like the world food programme
been no grain drain. if they had agreed to a peace process, the bureaucracy had not fallen. if they had agreed to a peace process, we would have had the small middle class still staying in afghanistan and the flow of money would have continued. so, the disaster today in my country is not my guilt or the guilt of the resistance, it is the guilt of the taliban whose leaders are on the terror list of the un and the western world. so we should not forget the big picture. these people are responsible for the catastrophe and the tragedy that afghanistan is undergoing. after the august 15th taliban takeover, many countries, including the united states, cut financial assistance to afghanistan, froze afghanistan s reserves in us financial institutions, and a whole lot of other things which have contributed to the collapse of the afghan economy. the message now from agencies