{"id":36768,"date":"2021-09-12T14:05:03","date_gmt":"2021-09-12T05:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/sep\/12\/the-observer-view-on-the-taliban-and-how-they-underestimate-ordinary-afghans"},"modified":"2021-09-12T14:05:03","modified_gmt":"2021-09-12T05:05:03","slug":"the-observer-view-on-the-taliban-and-how-they-underestimate-ordinary-afghans-observer-editorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=36768","title":{"rendered":"The Observer view on the Taliban and how they underestimate ordinary Afghans | Observer editorial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Islamists haven\u2019t mended their ways but the population they wish to subjugate won\u2019t submit without a struggle<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2001\/nov\/13\/afghanistan.terrorism18\" title=\"\">fall of Kabul<\/a> in November 2001 was celebrated by rightwing British newspapers and commentators as something akin to Victorian imperial payback. Northern Alliance forces, backed by US and UK air strikes, swept the Taliban from power two months after al-Qaida\u2019s 11 September terror attacks.<\/p>\n<p>Now, 20 years on, Kabul has fallen again, and that silly, jingoistic triumphalism is placed in perspective. The west\u2019s victory was, at best, temporary and at worst, illusory. Despite its well-meant, ill-considered, vainglorious attempts to transform Afghanistan in its own image, the Taliban are back in charge. By some measures the situation is worse than in 2001.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/sep\/12\/the-observer-view-on-the-taliban-and-how-they-underestimate-ordinary-afghans\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Islamists haven\u2019t mended their ways but the population they wish to subjugate won\u2019t submit without a struggleThe fall of Kabul in November 2001 was celebrated by rightwing British newspapers and commentators as something akin to Victorian imperial &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":363,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,61,44,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-south-and-central-asia","category-taliban","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/363"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36769,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36768\/revisions\/36769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}