{"id":56170,"date":"2024-05-22T11:59:42","date_gmt":"2024-05-22T11:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/22\/investigating-a-monster-what-we-found-and-how-we-did-it\/"},"modified":"2024-05-22T11:59:42","modified_gmt":"2024-05-22T11:59:42","slug":"investigating-a-monster-what-we-found-and-how-we-did-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/22\/investigating-a-monster-what-we-found-and-how-we-did-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigating a Monster: What We Found and How We Did It"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"549\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/13\/multimedia\/00raziq-takeways\/00raziq-portrait-hfvj-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,549&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Investigating a Monster: What We Found and How We Did It\" title=\"Investigating a Monster: What We Found and How We Did It\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The only thing faster than the American withdrawal from Afghanistan might be how quickly the world moved on.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Biden Administration largely stopped talking about it. Most news organizations were already scaling back in Afghanistan when the Taliban took over.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But a question remained, at once basic and vast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">How did it come to this? How did the group that the United States invaded Afghanistan to eviscerate wind up back in charge?<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">With the war\u2019s end, The New York Times could finally reach people and places that had been off-limits during the fighting \u2014 to figure out what really happened.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">We found that one of America\u2019s most important partners in the war against the Taliban \u2014 a celebrated general named Abdul Raziq \u2014 had carried out a systematic campaign of forced disappearances that killed hundreds, if not thousands, of people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">General Raziq\u2019s story was not just a familiar one of tragedy and loss in a faraway war. Across Afghanistan, the United States elevated and empowered warlords, corrupt politicians and outright criminals to prosecute a war of military expediency in which the ends often justified the means.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It helps explain why the United States lost.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-9ycfei eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-39030d87\">What We Found<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">General Raziq was the police chief responsible for security across Kandahar. The U.S. military lionized him for years as a fierce combatant and a loyal partner. American generals made pilgrimages to see him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But his battlefield prowess was built on years of torture, extrajudicial killings and the largest-known campaign of forced disappearances during America\u2019s 20-year war in Afghanistan, The Times found.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">We obtained hundreds of pages of ledgers belonging to the former U.S.-backed government. In them, we identified almost 2,200 cases of suspected disappearances in Kandahar Province alone, with families reporting missing relatives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Working off that list, we collected detailed evidence of 368 cases of forced disappearances and dozens of extrajudicial killings attributed by families, witnesses and official records to American-backed forces under General Raziq.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That is almost surely a gross undercount. The Times only logged cases that were corroborated by at least two people. Many of the families who had reported missing loved ones were impossible to locate, and many others never filed complaints.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A mechanic and a rickshaw driver. Tailors and taxi drivers. The human tally helps explain why many Afghans so quickly embraced the Taliban after the American withdrawal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cNone of us supported the Taliban, at least not at first,\u201d said Fazul Rahman, whose brother was abducted. \u201cBut when the government collapsed, I ran through the streets, rejoicing.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-9ycfei eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-2396930c\">How We Did It<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When the Taliban took over the country, they inherited nearly everything that had belonged to the U.S.-backed government. The computers, rickety office chairs, even tea glasses.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">They also inherited documents, at least those that hadn\u2019t been destroyed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Times obtained and combed through a decade\u2019s worth of handwritten ledgers, made available to us by the Taliban, stretching from 2011 until the American-backed Republic of Afghanistan collapsed in 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Using the ledgers as tips, local Times researchers searched for the families of the disappeared. Each was asked to fill out a form with the details of the disappearance and provide records to substantiate the claim: police reports, affidavits, medical files, government documents, whatever they had.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">We spoke with nearly 1,000 families and narrowed that list to hundreds of verified cases of forced disappearance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In each case, the person is still missing.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-9ycfei eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-12ec53f4\">Why Did The Americans Support Raziq?<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">General Raziq was one of the United States\u2019 most important allies in Afghanistan. When he took charge of units in Kandahar, he managed to beat the Taliban there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He was always dogged by accusations of human rights abuses. But the Americans stood by him until the last.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When he was gunned down by an undercover Taliban assassin in 2018, he was standing next to the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin S. Miller, who celebrated him as a \u201cgreat friend\u201d and \u201cpatriot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He was seen as the only partner capable of beating the Taliban in the heartland of the insurgency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe knew what we were doing, but we didn\u2019t think we had a choice,\u201d said Henry Ensher, a former State Department official.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But many Afghans say General Raziq used his position, and his American support, to pursue personal vendettas and decades-long tribal rivalries. To many everyday citizens, General Raziq was the cruel hand of the American government. Even the Taliban seemed preferable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Like so much about the war in Afghanistan, this is something that former top American officials say they never truly understood.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/22\/world\/asia\/abdul-raziq-afghanistan-investigation.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The only thing faster than the American withdrawal from Afghanistan might be how quickly the world moved on. The Biden Administration largely stopped talking about it. Most news organizations were already scaling back in Afghanistan when the Taliban took over. But a question remained, at once basic and vast. How did it come to this? [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/13\/multimedia\/00raziq-takeways\/00raziq-portrait-hfvj-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2020,29895],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56170"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56172,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56170\/revisions\/56172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}