New York Times The Interpreter: Two Afghanistans — Anand Gopal has long reported for The New York Times and others from stretches of Afghanistan that few other Westerners have entered. There’s the rural Afghanistan, and there’s the urban Afghanistan. all the coverage is in Kabul, so one would think there is complete chaos in the country… life outside Kabul is calm, and for the first time, outside of Kabul there’s no war… Kabul and a handful of other cities became islands of semi-Americanized stability, protected by the United States and funded by billions of dollars in annual direct aid. the war, in rural Afghanistan, has been very different. It means fierce, sometimes dayslong gun battles. Night raids and drone strikes without explanation. Cruel, capricious warlords and corrupt officials backed by a central government you’ve never encountered. Thousands of dead per year, year after year, for a generation.
to the majority of Afghans who live in rural areas, there is no Kabul-style island of stability to lose. The picture of American departure may not represent a loss at all, but rather a reprieve from the terrifying and unpredictable violence of constant war.
New York Times The Interpreter: Two Afghanistans — Anand Gopal has long reported for The New York Times and others from stretches of Afghanistan that few other Westerners have entered. There’s the rural Afghanistan, and there’s the urban Afghanistan. all the coverage is in Kabul, so one would think there is complete chaos in the country… life outside Kabul is calm, and for the first time, outside of Kabul there’s no war… Kabul and a handful of other cities became islands of semi-Americanized stability, protected by the United States and funded by billions of dollars in annual direct aid. the war, in rural Afghanistan, has been very different. It means fierce, sometimes dayslong gun battles. Night raids and drone strikes without explanation. Cruel, capricious warlords and corrupt officials backed by a central government you’ve never encountered. Thousands of dead per year, year after year, for a generation.
to the majority of Afghans who live in rural areas, there is no Kabul-style island of stability to lose. The picture of American departure may not represent a loss at all, but rather a reprieve from the terrifying and unpredictable violence of constant war.