Another earthquake has rocked Afghanistan, leaving more than 800 dead and nearly 3,000 injured. Villages are flattened, families buried under the rubble, survivors digging through the wreckage with their bare hands. It is tragic, heartbreaking, and predictable. Because if there is one thing Afghanistan does not have under Taliban rule, it is the ability to respond to disaster.
Remember when the Taliban swaggered into Kabul in 2021, promising to usher in a new era of stability and independence? They told the world they did not need Western influence or American troops. Today, those same men with rifles are holding out their hands, begging for international help. The very people who once blew up aid convoys and murdered humanitarian workers now want the world to swoop in and clean up the rubble. Irony dies a thousand deaths in Afghanistan.
Now, do not misunderstand me. The Afghan people, the men, women, and children crushed under collapsed mud homes, deserve compassion. They deserve aid. They deserve hope. But the Taliban? They deserve none of it. They ran the West out, demanded sovereignty, and promised they could govern. Governing means more than handing out whippings in the town square. Governing means building roads, hospitals, and disaster response systems. The Taliban never cared about that. And today, their people are paying for it in blood.
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Let us zoom out. Afghanistan was already in shambles. Millions hungry. Healthcare on life support. The economy strangled because, surprise, the world does not like funding a terror regime. Then nature struck, and now the Taliban’s inability to provide even basic services is on full display. These are the men who claimed they would restore Afghanistan’s honor. Yet in the face of tragedy, their entire government looks like a tent propped up in the wind, collapsing the second the storm hits.
Of course, the global community will respond. Aid groups, governments, and charities will rush in, not because the Taliban are worthy, but because human life is. That is the bitter irony. The world will again bail out the very people who hate the West, because mercy demands we separate rulers from the ruled. The Taliban can sneer at America and Europe all they want, but when Afghan babies are pulled lifeless from the rubble, it is Western medicine and Western generosity that will arrive first.
And maybe that is the point here. The Taliban love to posture as self-sufficient warriors of God, but when the ground shakes and the dust clears, it is not their prayers that save lives. It is the compassion of the free world. That is the difference between tyranny and freedom. One destroys. The other builds. One rules with fear. The other responds with mercy.
So yes, the West will send aid. Because we still value life, even in places where life is cheap under the rulers’ boot. But let us not fool ourselves. This earthquake did not just topple homes. It exposed, yet again, the utter emptiness of the Taliban’s promises. And no amount of foreign aid will fix that.
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