DeansMusings

15th August, the day India celebrates as Independence day, is also the day the Taliban took over  Afghanistan. after the US abandoned the country. I had earlier featured the story of an Afghan army officer who fought the Taliban, along with US forces, until he was abandoned.  Fighting the Taliban and the US betrayal A young medical student in Kabul also shared his story. I used that story to comment on smuggling and drugs in Afghanistan and how it has influenced the local economy and the fight for influence.  Life under the Taliban and Afghan Geopolitics This was followed by a young lady in Afghanistan, who was actually imprisoned by the Taliban and, having read the other stories now wants her voice to be heard. These are stories that will make us in India value the freedom we have. While my blog does not cover human interest and poetry, I was touched by the young lady's spirit and  believe her story deserves a separate post. Her background : Marwa is an 18 year old ...

Western accounts of the fight against the Taliban are mostly Hollywood style - Rambo type figures fighting the Taliban. The Afghan army – which did most of the fighting, is hardly mentioned. This is the story of an officer from the Afghan special forces. Four years ago, they were abandoned, when the US pulled out of Afghanistan. He had to flee to Iran and now faces possible deportation to Afghanistan and an uncertain future. This is his story of service in the Afghan army and being abandoned before the Taliban takeover. His identity has to be hidden for fear of his safety, but he has kindly shared his story for this blog. ( he is not fluent in English) My story : I proudly served in the Afghan national army for seven years and four months. During my service, I worked in joint operations units, as well as in an aerial surveillance section. The world sees the Taliban and the war in Afghanistan mostly through a Western lens, with analysis often disconnected from the reality on the grou...

Background ( Rahul Deans) : I used to do business in Afghanistan some 25 years ago. At the time, `business’ in Afghanistan consisted of importing goods from Dubai, into Afghanistan, at zero duty and smuggling it into Iran and Pakistan, which taxed those imports heavily. Control of the border crossings and the smuggling business was heavily contested, between various warlords, as was the other business in Afghanistan – opium cultivation and smuggling out of Afghanistan. To me, that was what much of Afghanistan’s civil war was about.    In more recent times, I found that every account of the situation in Afghanistan was by reporters who had never been to Afghanistan and were relying on old cliches to describe the situation. To give a first-person view, as I did in my recent blogpost on Myanmar, I had invited an old contact, a person from the Afghan army, who had been in intelligence and was unable to leave he country after the Taliban takeover. Unfortunately, he and his social...