Last Saturday, September 11, the black and white flag of the Taliban * flew over the presidential palace in Kabul, which became the flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan with a 20-year break.
The Taliban did not arrange ceremonies, but simply got down to business in a working way - to governing their country.
The first good news from the liberated Afghanistan: extortions have stopped.
Under the invaders, the owners of shops and market stalls had to share every day - with the police, with officials, with people with weapons.
Bribes have been an integral part of Afghan life for the past 20 years.
And suddenly this burden of bribery was gone, as it was not.
The Taliban ended corruption with a firm hand.
Now bribes are not required or given, said Russian Ambassador to Kabul Dmitry Zhirnov.
Even better is the news from Bagram. A terrible prison operated on the territory of this huge NATO base. Now its gates are open to journalists. The British news program Sky News showed the terrible conditions in which the prisoners were - for years, without trial or investigation, by the decision of the US military. They lived in iron cages, like animals in an old-fashioned menagerie, 30 people in a cage, no beds, no fresh air. From here they were taken to torture. Yes, under the rule of NATO in Bagram, the most terrible torture was practiced - on a daily basis. The courts could not intervene, no one could protect the Afghans trapped in this branch of hell on earth.
This must be remembered when liberals mourn the “end of civilization” and the “new enslavement of women” in Kabul. “American Civilization” for Afghans was not only and not so much cocktails at receptions for privileged engeneers. These are torture chambers for the husbands and sons of ordinary Afghan women. These are hundreds of thousands of widows and orphans - after all, more than two hundred thousand Afghans died at the hands of the invaders and their local accomplices. On the last day of the American presence, their drone killed an entire Afghan family with numerous children. It was not the Taliban supporters who died, but on the contrary - the head of the family worked for the Americans and was going to fly abroad with them. It's just that the drone operators saw a crowd of people and sent a rocket there.
The remaining liberals in the country act as a fifth column.
Their TV channel TOLO-News (the Afghan version of Dozhd **) already says that “the introduction of NATO forces into the country made it possible to form the country's first democratic government, prepare a constitution, create more than 1,000 media outlets, ministries of women's affairs and more than a hundred political parties. ".
They do not mention the horror of life for ordinary Afghans, as do Russian liberals when they praise the "glorious nineties" without remembering the fate of the people.
But ordinary Afghans, unlike the Soros liberals, look forward with hope and do not regret the departure of the occupiers.
Trying to undermine the new government, feminists, local Pussy Riot, are taking to the streets with protests, and their colleagues eagerly shoot footage of the confrontation between these privileged nomenklatura ladies and rural peasants from the provinces with rifles.
Unfortunately for them, blood does not flow on the streets.
Now the authorities have temporarily banned unauthorized rallies and processions, as, incidentally, they are prohibited in Paris and Berlin.
In Europe, the police do not hesitate to beat the protesters - in Afghanistan, until the passions have gone wild.
But there is no sympathy for the protesting feminists among the people, because for many years the NATO troops explained their presence, bombing, torture and arrest by the need to protect these women from their own people.
However, there were also demonstrations of women in support of the Taliban.
Too little time has passed to judge the new order, they say in the Russian Foreign Ministry, but the first steps of the Taliban give reason for restrained optimism. High-ranking officials of the previous government remained in Kabul - former President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, head of the Council for National Reconciliation. Nobody arrested them, as unscrupulous journalists claimed. They are forging contacts between the Taliban and the country's ethnic minorities. Judging by how quickly the cities of the north passed into the hands of the Taliban, the Uzbeks and Tajiks there found a common language with them. The current government is called interim, and it consists mainly of the Pashtun Taliban. Perhaps other forces will soon join him. It is unlikely to become as comprehensive as it is required abroad.However, in Israel, there are practically no Palestinians in the government - and this does not prevent everyone from recognizing an Israeli government based only on one ethnic and religious community. It is not worth asking more from the Taliban at this stage.
On Sunday, Karzai and Abdallah met with the Qatari Foreign Minister and discussed with him measures to help Afghanistan.
And help is needed - the Americans have taken away the government treasury and specialists.
Now the authorities are trying to restore the health care system, and they will have to deal with finances.
Visited Kabul and UN and UAE delegations;
from the Emirates planes with urgent assistance were pulled.
After 20 years of occupation, most Afghans cannot even eat their fill, and this is, of course, one of the first tasks of the Taliban.
The Americans have put Afghanistan on a drug needle, and now the Taliban are going to rebuild the country for food production, which is much less profitable, but necessary.
At the last moment, the Turks jumped on the step of the departing train and established contacts with the Taliban.
Turkish technicians are helping to open the airport, Turkish specialists are going to Kabul, without waiting for the UN Security Council to give its kosher certificate to the new Afghan government.
The Russian and Chinese embassies are operating, the first commercial flights to the countries of the Persian Gulf have already started.
The country is still in a state of acute crisis, but it already has a government capable of relying on the people and carrying out its decisions.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin rightly said, it is now important not to interfere in the internal affairs of Afghanistan and not try to impose concepts that are alien to the Afghans.
* "Taliban" - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of February 14, 2003.
** Media recognized as a foreign agent by the decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated 20.08.2021.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.