Up on the Roof
Jeff Stern, who has lived and worked in Afghanistan on and off since 2007, says that the first thing he does upon returning to Kabul is head for the rooftops. From there he takes the measure of the city and its changes. On his current trip, as a Pulitzer Center grantee, Jeff surveys the Afghan capital’s changing landscape—and the implications for its inhabitants as the U.S. prepares to withdraw its troops by the end of the year.
Most analysts are deeply pessimistic about Afghanistan’s chances, but Jeff, writing for The Atlantic, takes a different view:
“[T]he feeling I have is that the Taliban is facing a simple numbers problem. There are just too many people who’ve built houses here, too many people opening restaurants, too many people playing soccer, too many people learning new languages, too many people, for the Taliban to do more than insert slivers of violence info city life, to serve as a disruptive criminal syndicate settling scores, capable of terrific violence and trauma, but not of ever really coming back.”
— Tom Hundley for the Pulitzer Center’s weekly newsletter. Get your copy here.