A dark anniversary

Taking stock of the eight years since the US invaded Afghanistan: The Taliban is back, America is bogged down and Afghans are tired of it all.

Jean MacKenzieOctober 10, 2009 09:48Updated May 30, 2010 12:10

An Afghan man walks over a footbridge at sunset in the northern Afghanistan town of Khoja Bahawuddin on Oct 24, 2001. This month marks the eighth anniversary of the U.S.-led military offensive in Afghanistan. (Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)

KABUL, Afghanistan — Eight years after the U.S.-led invasion sent the Taliban packing, the Afghan capital is a very different place. Packs of little girls in white head scarves can be seen on their way to school every morning; at least half the women in Kabul no longer wear burqas.

There is electricity almost 24 hours a day; shiny new shops offer a variety of goods, and there is even a shopping center with a moving escalator. The lucky few with bank cards can get their cash from ATMs and shop in well-stocked supermarkets.

Why, then, is the mood so dark?

Now, more than any time since the heady days of 2001, Afghans are confused, angry and depressed. This anniversary has made little impact on the local population here; the media has paid almost no attention to it. Caught up in their post-election political crisis, few have the time or the patience to look back, in anger or otherwise.

But with President Barack Obama set to make one of the most important decisions of his presidency, it is a good time to take stock of a war that has defied all expectations.

It was, as journalist and writer Ahmad Rashid put it, the best-advertised beginning of a war in recent memory: the whole world watched on Oct. 7, 2001, as the United States, reeling from 9/11, gathered itself to deliver a crushing blow to an enemy who had shattered forever America’s image of itself as an invincible, inviolable power. The punishment to be meted out would destroy Al Qaeda and their allies, assuage the shock and humiliation of the Twin Tower attacks, and show any miscreants what happens to those who try and take on the world’s only superpower.

It did not quite work out that way.

Instead, the United States is bogged down in what increasingly looks like an unwinnable war in Afghanistan.

America is battling a poorly defined enemy, in pursuit of murky goals. Support for the war is waning at home, while in Afghanistan disappointment at the slow pace of reform is rapidly giving way to rage at the failures of the foreign efforts in the country.

Plummeting security, rampant corruption, a flourishing narco-mafia and a badly flawed election have combined to convince many Afghans that the much vaunted "democracy" foisted on them is just another trick being played by an international community intent on furthering its own interests at Afghanistan’s expense.

Much of the misery, of course, is being caused by the Afghans themselves. But that is a tough sell in a populace that feels, with some justification, that it has been alternately victimized and neglected by its neighbors over the past few centuries.

In 2001, most Afghans rejoiced at the departure of the Taliban.

“I was so excited,” recalled Nasimi, a young journalist in Kabul. “Everyone was happy that the Taliban were gone, that those dark days were over.”