Winter Sets In
Though many Afghans were euphoric, yesterday’s Taliban were tremulous and dispossessed. The Taliban and their supporters had every reason to fear swift vengeance from the armed ethnicities, including the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and, particularly, the Hazaras, whom they had harangued and demeaned for 5 years; from the Americans whom they had outraged; and from the myriad villagers whose lives they had made miserable and mundane. Armed with few skills and having made themselves pariahs in their home villages, many Taliban left for Pakistan. Most had no clear agenda, employment prospects, or precise destination. But they needed to leave Afghanistan immediately.
Some former Taliban trimmed their beards and bought Western-style clothes because they felt free to sever their Taliban ties. But others, still true believers, did so to disguise their Taliban connections. Taliban who couldn’t slither back into their tribe or among the masses of refugees needed to wear Western dress to evade detection as former Taliban. Some secretly remained loyal to the Taliban’s cause, but many seethed with resentment toward the Arabs and al Qaeda. Many were confused and began making their way to Quetta, Pakistan.
The vacuum left in the wake of the Taliban’s ever-present moral watchfulness gave rise to vice, by Salafist standards, and some social license. Dogfighting was back. Afghans would bet on muscular dogs that, with savage barks and bites, chewed each other, sometimes to the death. One of the best dogfighting arenas also offered panoramic beauty atop a local hill. Dogs battled in the long-drained Bib Mahru swimming pool, overlooking Kabul. When the Taliban were in power, they would use the diving platforms as execution planks for their victims.
In Kabul, sex-starved young men could access prostitutes, many of whom were war widows. Desperate and abandoned, these women were homeless and desperate to feed their children. Gambling dens, forbidden during Taliban rule, reopened in the cities. But, like prostitution, the ready availability of alcohol posed moral dilemmas for more conservative Afghans, who feared a growing national prurience.
Afghan villages were free of the Taliban, but many villagers were uncertain about their families’ future. The situation was often far worse for those Afghans living in remote villages. For some, life became subsistence. The end of the Taliban did nothing to bring them food immediately. The United States delivered food to many villages, but not everyone was eating. Many Afghans were still hungry and cold, and the oncoming winter brought panic and desperation.
Western aid organizations made determined and unorthodox efforts to provide relief. PETA, which in October remonstrated against the military action, implored Americans to surrender their fur coats, particularly mink coats, to the freezing Afghans in January 2001. PETA partnered with the American Friends Committee, which helped pay for shipping the furs. Soon, a load of worn minks and ermines was mailed to drape Afghans who were shivering in the midwinter frost.
Before food could be sent, some of the hungry and cold Afghans in remote areas began to starve. In a village near Mazar-e Sharif, people began eating bread made from grass. Symptoms of starvation developed, accompanied by the lethargy it produces. As one villager said, “We are waiting to die. If food does not come, we will eat dirt. We will die.”
Still-imprisoned Taliban and al Qaeda were also concerned about their future. The United States was not freeing all of the captives. Arabs, Pakistanis, and other foreign fighters loyal to Osama bin Laden were caged in camps until the U.S.-led coalition amnestied, locally imprisoned, or transported them to U.S. facilities, such as the Guantanamo military prison, for interrogation and incarceration. The United States insisted that suspected al Qaeda members not be allowed to go free. Some were taken directly to U.S. military prisons.
The killing was over, and the United States and other nations were determined to meet and coordinate on stabilization operations in Afghanistan. A new Afghan dawn was made brighter by the return from Europe of the respected, if geriatric, 87-year-old former king, Mohammed Zahir Shah. Washington saw Shah as a force to unite the many Afghan ethnicities. Charities, large and small, were reinvigorating their efforts. Some became creative, such as the mountain-climbing Greg Mortenson, who built schools in the region and would write about his accounts, if embellished, in “Three Cups of Tea.” As for heads of state, the victors agreed to unite their efforts and meet in Bonn to begin rebuilding Afghanistan.
