AFGHANISTAN: 'NEW' MODERATE TALIBAN? INTERVIEW WITH ENRICA GARZILLI

"AFGHANISTAN: 'NEW' MODERATE TALIBAN? INTERVIEW WITH ENRICA GARZILLI", August 18, 2021, Radio Onda d'Urto. In Italian. A reflection of mine on the situation in Afghanistan on one of the few authentically free radio stations I know that deals in depth with foreign policy. Half an hour, also downloadable as an MP3 (which you can listen to conveniently with Drive, even from your cell phone).

To the links to the radio I add an interview (in English) with H.R.H. India of Afghanistan from February 1, 2010: "AFGHANISTAN, ISSUES AT STAKE AND VIABLE SOLUTIONS: AN INTERVIEW WITH H.R.H. PRINCESS INDIA OF AFGHANISTAN" in the journal I used to direct, the Journal of South Asia Women's Studies (since 1995):

Now the Taliban are asking the West to help them find other crops to replace opium. But they know very well what to do, they don't need us, since they know the territory much better than we do. Ten years ago, in this interview, India of Afghanistan already proposed a solution: saffron. A legal and precious commodity. Something I also explained in an article in "Il Messaggero" of March 21, 2010: "Princess India: to save Kabul we must eradicate the trafficking of opium and arms".

This morning's reflection was not planned, this morning I asked for the link to my interview of two years ago on NATO's withdrawal from the country and I was asked for an in-depth analysis of today's situation. I didn't even listen back to what I said, I finished and it went straight to air. If I was wrong, please correct me. I reserved the right to do so later, in public, on air. 

I thank HRH Princess India of Afghanistan, whom I spoke to yesterday, a champion of human rights who has spent decades advocating for Afghan children both in Italy and there, and some of my Italian military friends who were deployed in the country. Thanks to all of them, andwhile I was teaching "History of Pakistan and Afghanistan" at the University of Turin, I follow the events of Afghanistan closely. Since well before 9/11, since I saw India's tireless work, some 25 years ago -- and she had done it for many more years -- to bring war-affected children to have surgery at Bambino Gesù, the Children's Research Hospital in Rome, and then host them at her home -- queen, mother, hostess and nurse -- to save on convalescent costs, so as to bring more children to have surgery here in Italy. Children whom she usually sent back healed -- the ones who didn't die, like a child I knew with shrapnel in his bones, badly operated in Kabul, who then had osteomyelitis that took him to the Best Place -- with new clothes, a little radio and a coveted pair of sneakers. As well as, I think, some money for the families.

So Afghanistan is a country that is in my heart, even though I don't know it personally. I was offered to go there this October on a mission, distributing medicine in remote places, but the situation seemed too risky to me, and I still have a couple of things to finish in the West. I'm not a soldier of Folgore, I'm not a hero, as our PM Draghi said yesterday. I'm just a woman and I do what I probably do best: write. 

I'm only sorry that I was such a cassandra in February of two years ago, when I said I didn't believe in the possibility of a good agreement with the Taliban because they are not reliable -- if not, they wouldn't have wanted agreements after NATO left the country, it was obvious to me that they would have wanted a free hand -- and again in August of last year, when the radio asked me what I thought of the 60,000 deaths from Covid in India that were shocking the world, and I replied that in my opinion there were certainly many thousands more, only that it was still not known given the extreme difficulty of detecting the number of sick and dead, and that the emergency was social more than sanitary. 

Now, simply, half an hour to say that I don't believe one bit in the "good Taliban" and that I am afraid of a new civil war. And I say why.

And, as usual, it will be the children who suffer first. 

"AFGHANISTAN. HYPOTHESIS OF AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN USA AND TALIBAN. INTERVIEW WITH ENRICA GARZILLI". February 1, 2019. We know that the the Doha Agreement was then signed on Febrary 20, 2020.

"COVID 19: INDIA AT THE CENTER OF THE CONTAGE, BETWEEN HEALTH AND SOCIAL EMERGENCY", August 24, 2020.