It has been a year since President Joe Biden pulled out of Afghanistan in what has been labeled a disastrous “military failure,” leaving the country in shambles. Within hours the Taliban reclaimed control, and so many US allies, left behind to fend for themselves, were summarily imprisoned or gruesomely murdered as examples of what happens to disloyal subjects. While the White House tried to defend its botched withdrawal, it ignored the most vulnerable population under Taliban rule: Afghan women.
But Karma is a fickle mistress, and the Biden administration is finding that out as wave upon wave of media backlash – even from the liberal crowd -- rolls over the exhausted, aged leader of the Free World.
Biden Blunders Sends Afghan Women Back Eons
A few days after the fall of Kabul in 2021, Taliban leaders assured the world that women in Afghanistan would be allowed to work and study. Well, only within the confines of a strict, male-dominated “framework of Islam.” Unfortunately, those who believed that would indeed be the case have learned nothing from the region’s history. One of the first things the new regime accomplished was compiling a list of available girls and women – ages 12 to 45 – and distributing it to Taliban fighters like an a la carte menu.
What the Taliban did accomplish through their primitive and enslaving policies was crash their economy, increase inflation, prohibit women from working or going to school past grade six, and reintroduce full body coverings for women who venture into public. And with imposing the detail of travel only with a male companion, most Afghan women are stuck at home. A short list of Taliban actions include:
Fired 125,000 women from government jobs
Revoked the right to drive
Removed 80% of women journalists
No education
But to learn the absolute truth about the Taliban, examine this change: The government department Ministry of Women’s Affairs became the Ministry of Vice and Virtue. According to Sharia standards, of course.
(Photo by Bilal Guler/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
How is this working? It isn’t. According to the United Nations, 98% of the population suffers from hunger, and children under the age of five are diagnosed routinely with acute and prolonged malnutrition. All within the framework of one year. And the Biden administration is leading the way in punishing the Taliban by withdrawing resources – a move mimicked by global leaders to the tune of 75% of previous contributions. But the new regime doesn’t care if its women and children suffer and blames it on the sanctions of Western powers. It’s a hot mess in Afghanistan, and Biden is fingered as the big bad wolf.
Leading up to the first anniversary of the fall of Kabul, Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, released a statement: “This suffocating crackdown against Afghanistan’s female population is increasing day by day.” And New York-based Women for Afghan Women (WAW), a leading relief effort founded just before Sept. 11, 2001, is beating a desperate drum as well. Just short of calling out the folks in the Swamp, a WAW blog post states in part:
“Two decades later, here we are again facing another major humanitarian crisis. In the past six months alone, we have witnessed a 300% increase in requests for our services and programs in the US after the NATO troop withdrawal and the fall of the Afghan government in 2021.”
While still campaigning for president, Biden, in February 2020, told Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation that he believed he held “zero responsibility” if a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan resulted in the loss of rights for Afghan women. Fast forward to August 2021, and Biden’s State Department spokesperson Ned Price praised the Taliban’s “openness to engaging with the international community on full access to education.”
Well, that is not happening, and president is mum about the conditions that Afghan women face. But this is how the compassionate Biden justified himself during that unfortunate 2020 Face the Nation interview: “Women are being abused in a lot of places around the world.”
