Back in 2000 and early 2001, the Western Press had horror stories about the Afghanistan Taliban. No school for girls. No healthcare for females. No female could leave purdah (South Asian for harem or seraglio) so girls could not go to school, women could not go to hospital or to a physician, a male physician was not allowed into a woman's purdah unless he was her husband, brother, son, or father, and a female physician was not allowed to leave her own purdah, so no healthcare except for the very few females who had a husband, brother, son, or father who was a physician (or maybe another of her husband's wives was a female physician).
Of course, the 'woman' reporter who 'spent a year in Afghanistan researching that story' might have been a man who could not find Afghanistan on a map, but, since the Taliban destroyed some statues that were almost 2,000 years old because they were not Islamic, it is quite possible to believe that those newspaper stories were true.
However, Ted Rall went to Afghanistan in 2001 to see what the war was about, and again about 10 years later, and said the Taliban were completely different: different people, different goals.
Actually, right after the 9/11 attack, the CIA identified the attackers as Arabs, 15 from Saudi. Bush, Jr quickly corrected that mistake: the attack was planned, coordinated, and arranged in Afghanistan, so the US military were sent to Afghanistan to eradicate all the jihadists who were planning another attack. The proof that the attackers were really from Afghanistan was that no one on the planes had an Afghan passport or visa in their passport, proving that Afghanistan carefully concealed their primary role in the attack. And the US had that proof, but, of course, it was all Top Secret, so no patriotic American, or any American ally, would ever want to see any of that proof.
So off the US military went to Afghanistan in 2001, and now the ground forces are coming back in 2021, and the war will be prosecuted by drones controlled from the US.
Total success! Great Job! Another unmitigated US victory!!!
