https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/08/counting-on-the-taliban.php?

Counting on the Taliban

With thousands of westerners at the mercy of the Taliban, the world is awaiting events in Afghanistan. Taliban leaders have embarked on a charm offensive with western media; as has been widely noted, they have taken more questions from reporters than Joe Biden. These adjacent headlines from today’s London Times sum up the situation well:

The less optimistic of the two stories begins:

Reports of Taliban atrocities have spread across Afghanistan since the insurgents launched their final offensive.

Despite pledges to be magnanimous, the Taliban have been accused of beheading prisoners, gouging out eyes and executing hundreds. Fleeing civilians have brought tales of girls forced into marriage or kidnapped as sex slaves. Video on social media shows Islamists pumping machinegun rounds into the bodies of captured Afghan policemen.

Then there are the woman shot for not wearing a burka, and the “two men [paraded] through streets with blackened faces and nooses around [their] necks.”

I expect we will find out in the weeks and months to come that it is the same old Taliban. Still, that leaves open the fate of the thousands of westerners now trapped in Kabul and, no doubt, other cities. The Taliban may decide that its interest lies in letting them go. After all, the “international community” might pony up cash in an implicit quid pro quo. But even on that assumption, since no one knows how many Americans or other westerners are trapped, occasional atrocities against them are likely to go unreported. As for the much larger number of Afghans who worked with the U.S. and allied countries and are unable to get out of the country, I am afraid there is little such hope, despite the Taliban’s current promises of “amnesty.” 

Joe Biden’s handling of our withdrawal has been such a clusterf*** that the above now represents the optimistic scenario.