What Hapens toThese Children When Taliban Return

Afghanistan is country with a long historical past with Americans only beginning to understand the complexity of this nation. Many pundits have articulated the need for the United States to exit Afghanistan as no nation has been successful there and our continued presence will have us suffer the same fate as Britain and Russia.

The problem with all the pundits is that there historical analysis is far of the mark, but the one question that I would like to pose to these experts is what happens to these children when we leave and let the Taliban return?

With my Deployment to Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11, the people and especially the children I encountered all want a better future. They see the United States not as an occupying force, but the one nation that forced the brutal Taliban regime from power. My greatest and lasting memory of my time in Afghanistan was providing school supplies to a girl’s school that is operating for the first time in almost a decade.

The photo attached is two small girls who received from my church in the states their first toy of any kind. The dolls were made by young girl in my church’s youth program as part of a project that sent over thirty five handmade Islamic friendly dolls to young girls in Afghanistan.

All the young girls that I had the chance to speak to all want an education and were thrilled beyond belief when Americans brought schools supplies providing an opportunity to further their education that had been denied by the Taliban.

Children all over Afghanistan want an education, the girl’s school that the U.S. military built was intended for 800, but over 1,000 showed up eager to learn. Contrast that with educational standards in the U.S. with our huge dropout rate and apathy toward education in many quarters. Here you have children eager to learn and learning in the most primitive setting.

What happens to the girls who received these dolls when the Taliban return? What happens to the 40% of Afghan girls receiving an education today? The pundits never speak of them as they are just pawns, but to those who served in Afghanistan I think of all these girls returning to brutality and depravation if the Taliban return!