We Shouldn’t Have But We Did: In Defense of Having Gone and Stayed

Protest in Kabul (From Sky News)

No, we did not invade Afghanistan to liberate women and girls from the Taliban. Yes, for much of the outlying rural population in particular, nothing much changed, and they bore the brunt of the long war. (Taliban fighters have wives and children, too.) Yes, the governments we installed and maintained were mostly corrupt and incompetent. All of this is true.

But the fact remains that for 20 years, millions of Afghan women had access to opportunities that had been completely closed to them and were not forced to wear burkas or only leave the house with a male relative. Hundreds of NGO’s operated across the country, opening medical clinics that brought a level of health care that raised Afghan life expectancy from 56 to 65. Millions of girls became literate and many continued on through high school and even college. An unknown but significant number were saved from child marriage. Prior to Trump, there was a steady flow of Afghan immigrants joining the sizable community here, whose remittances helped the country stay afloat. (The flow of immigrants and refugees has blessedly reopened). Virtually no one there had a cellphone in 2001 and now over 70% of the population does. Television has penetrated every corner of the country, exposing the highly conservative country to far more humanistic and secular ways of living, if only through…