US meeting with Taliban puts high gloss on dismal conditions in Afghanistan

Earlier this week, U.S. delegates
met
with 
Taliban
officials in Qatar for the first
formal talks
between the groups since the U.S. withdrawal from
Afghanistan
in August 2021. U.S. officials have issued a bland statement about the meetings that fails to capture the Taliban’s long list of human rights violations, allowing the Taliban to
posture
as if they are on a path to obtaining recognition as a government.

Milquetoast references to the “deep concern regarding the humanitarian crisis,” “grave concern regarding detentions, media crackdown, and limits on religious practice,” and mentions of unspecified “policies responsible for the deteriorating human rights situation in Afghanistan” fall atrociously short of describing the Taliban’s vast inhumanity toward Afghans, which includes but is not limited to allegations of
war crimes
and
gender apartheid
.

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While the spokesperson’s office mentioned the groups discussed the importance of releasing U.S. prisoners from Taliban custody, it made no references to the group’s murderous
reprisals
against U.S. allies, including former government or military personnel.

On July 24, Taliban
fighters killed
the brother of Idris, an election adviser employed through a U.S. contracting company whose name has been changed to protect his identity. The Taliban had long demanded that Idris return to Afghanistan from the country where he fled with his wife and children in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal. When he refused to comply with their demands, Talibs took vengeance on Idris’s brother. Now, Idris told the Washington Examiner, he must choose between remaining in his current location to protect his own life, or possibly widowing his wife and leaving his children fatherless to protect his remaining family members from reprisal by returning to Afghanistan.

Though the U.S. delegation noted its “openness to a technical dialogue regarding economic stabilization,” the cash-strapped Talibs are currently limiting growth by curtailing individual economic participation. Furthering their
predation on musicians
who once were employed to fill traditional celebrations with song, on July 29, Talibs in Herat province
set
“thousands of dollars [sic] worth of musical equipment” ablaze because they believe music “causes moral corruption.”

On July 25, the Taliban
ordered the closure
of all women’s beauty salons, citing that many of the services provided there “violated Islam.” The newest facet of the Taliban’s rulings harming
women
, these closures deprived
60,000 women
of employment, according to Human Rights Watch’s Associate Women’s Rights Director Heather Barr.

While Taliban and U.S. accounts of their talks are similar, they differ in one respect. U.S. officials noted the Taliban’s “continuing commitment” to keeping terror groups from threatening the United States and its allies from Afghan soil. The Taliban do not mention terrorism in their tweets, perhaps to avoid stoking the ire of their al Qaeda
affiliates
, or any of the other terror groups that currently operate within Afghanistan.

Senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Bill Roggio told the Washington Examiner that “the idea that the Taliban is committed to upholding counterterrorism assurances is laughable. This idea should have been discarded when [al Qaeda senior leader] Ayman al Zawahiri was killed in Kabul one year ago.” Roggio also admonished the Biden administration for being “eager to reengage with the same group that was never committed to peace or human rights.”

In the aftermath of their talks, the Taliban noted they anticipate the “continuation of such meetings, understanding, and interactions” with the U.S. Pursuit of further meetings would be a fool’s errand. Bearing in mind the Taliban’s history of neglecting their promises, and noting the regime’s continued horrifying behavior toward their people, U.S. officials must reject repeating the mistakes of our past by working with the Taliban.

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Beth Bailey (
@BWBailey85
) is a freelance contributor to Fox News Digital and the co-host of The Afghanistan Project, which takes a deep dive into the tragedy wrought in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.