The white flag with its black Arabic lettering flies everywhere in Kabul. The symbol of the Taliban’s triumph flutters on the American Humvees in which long-haired fighters cruise around sporting purloined Oakley sunglasses and M16 rifles; above Aimuddin’s ice-cream shop in the bazaar; atop Wazir Akbar Khan hill.
One year after the takeover it is hard to absorb the fact that 20 years of international efforts to reinvent Afghanistan, at a cost of a trillion dollars and tens of thousands of western and Afghan lives lost, led only to the Taliban returning to power. Times
