An exit wounds: America’s Afghanistan retreat

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Teasing or humiliating a bride or groom to be is a common practice the world over. But in parts of China, things can get a little out of hand. We look into a tradition that Chinese authorities are trying to snuff out in the name of decorum. And where were you on the night of May 20? Sometimes keeping out of serious trouble means having a good alibi. But new research shows just how inaccurate people are in remembering where they were and when. First up, though, This week, at least 10 people were killed in an attack in Afghanistan after armed men opened fire on workers clearing landmines. The government blamed the Taliban, which has denied responsibility. Violence has been increasing in the country since America announced it would withdraw its troops. This isn't the first time a world power has left Afghanistan's government forces on their own. At the outskirts of Kabul, the last Soviet tank crews prepare to pull out. They're handing these positions over to the Afghan army. For them, the last exit to Kabul beckons. In 1989, Soviet troops pulled out after a decade of fighting against Islamist guerrillas, the mujahideen. Then, as now, the mood was not hopeful for peace. These soldiers are all volunteers. In two weeks time, they'll be Kabul's main defenses. This time around, the story was supposed to be very different.

We'll not conduct a hasty rush to the exit. We'll do it responsibly, deliberately and safely.

America wanted to leave behind robust forces, a government in firm control, and a pathway to peace with the Taliban. Instead, it's departing in what seems like a hurry. President Joe Biden said America will continue to mount a defense.

Taliban should know that if they attack us as we draw down, we will defend ourselves and our partners with all the tools at our disposal.

And senior officials are weighing whether to keep open the option for further airstrikes. It all leaves Afghanistan at risk of a violent, bruising summer.

When Joe Biden took office earlier this year, he he debated for a long time about what to do with his Afghan strategy.

Ben Farmer covers Afghanistan and Pakistan for the Economist and is based in Islamabad.

And when it got to April, he decided that he was going to pull all the troops out, that it's time to end America's longest war. It's time for American troops to come home. The United States will begin our final withdrawal, begin it on May 1st of this year. And now we are about six weeks later after the beginning of that withdrawal, and it is going very fast. So the latest estimate we've had from American generals is that they've removed about half of the stuff they need to remove. They've handed over several bases. Biden said he was going to make sure the troops were all out by September, but the pace is such that a lot of people are saying it could well be possible now by July. Now, that has an impact, of course, on all the other NATO nations who are there because they can't remain without American might. So it's not only the Americans are leaving, but it's all the other NATO nations, for example, the British and the Germans and so on.

And how will Afghan security forces fill that vacuum?

Well, Afghan security forces have been operating largely on their own for several years as the American forces have drawn down. But, but there's always been that psychological support, that backstop, if you like, that the Americans are there to bail them out if they really get in trouble. So they're going to have to deal with this on their own now. And it looks like it's going to be a very difficult and bloody period. What we've seen in recent months is that the rank and file Afghan forces, these are your ordinary policemen and your ordinary soldiers have struggled in the face of some Taliban offensives. They're often not paid, they're often not well equipped, they're often without ammunition and food. And dozens and dozens of checkpoints and small bases have been lost to the Taliban and handed over in rural districts in the last few months.

And what's the level of the Taliban offensive, given these conditions?

The fighting at the moment is very intense. You'll recall last year there was a lot of talk about peace talks, but the American withdrawal seems to have encouraged the elements of the Taliban who think they can win a military victory. And those peace talks, for the moment at least, appear to be on hold. There is a lot of fighting across Afghanistan. National security officials said that there was fighting in more than a quarter of the country's districts. That has meant a lot of casualties among the Afghan forces, a lot of casualties among the Taliban, and sadly, a lot of civilian casualties as well. It's difficult to tell exactly what's happening on the ground, but last week the United nations put out an assessment that somewhere between half and 70% of the countryside is either under Taliban control or is being contested by the Taliban.

And among Afghan people themselves. How's the mood?

Well, history hangs very heavily in Afghanistan and it's had decades of bloodshed and people are looking back towards what happened in the past and whether that presage is what will happen in the future. So, for example, the big thing people are looking at is whether the American withdrawal will echo the Soviet withdrawal of 30 years ago after their 10 year occupation. And they left after being driven out, really, by the mujahideen who were backed by America and Pakistan and Saudi money. I spoke to one former general, Datikullah Ama Khel, who said that he felt a similar sensation about what's happening at the moment. Thirty years ago, he was a senior general in the Afghan Communist Air Force, which was left by the retreating Soviet troops. Now, interestingly, he said that he thought that the Soviets had left a stronger military behind them than the Americans were leaving. At the time. The communist strongman the Soviets left behind was expected only to last a few weeks, but he managed to last three years before the mujahideen took over. Now, General Amichel said that he thought partly that was to do with the military that had left behind was stronger, whereas he was concerned that the current military is just a very lightly armed counterinsurgency force.

And given that parallel, is there any chance that the Afghan army, as it's now composed, could repeat that trick, essentially hold off opponents for longer than expected?

Well, it's not all doom and gloom. So if you look at the Afghan army As it was 30 years ago, the comparison only works if you look at the forces against them. And General Ama Khel, for example, said that the Taliban are much weaker than the mujahideen were 30 years ago. The Taliban have been unable to capture major cities. And the Afghan Special Forces, these commandos that they've built up over the last 20 years with the Americans, have been quite effective at pushing the Taliban back. So while the Taliban are buoyant at the moment, they have yet to really capture major cities. And that will be key if they want to take over the country.

And so what support will the Afghan government have once America pulls out what remains of its troops?

Well, America is still deciding, but one thing that's key is money. Looking back again at the historical parallels, a lot of people point out that it was only when Moscow stopped paying the Afghan military's bills and the Afghan government's bills that the government actually fell 30 years ago. Up to that point, they'd managed because they were being given plenty of financial backing by Moscow. America has said that it will continue to pay a lot of the bills for the Afghan military. They've said that their backing will be largely financial to pay the salaries of the security forces. They've also said that they're looking at ways to keep fixing and maintaining the Afghan's aircraft, which are very important.

What about the state of domestic politics in Afghanistan right now?

Domestic politics is one of the great unknowns and in fact, one of the most important factors that we're looking at about how this will all play out in the next year. Ashraf Ghani is the Afghan president in May tried to put a brave face on all this, and he said that the withdrawal could be the greatest opportunity in our contemporary history. He leads a very fractious, bickering state. There are a lot of very powerful strongmen, warlords from Afghanistan's history, and keeping them together, keeping them on the same page and stopping the state fracturing will be perhaps his most pressing job because as soon as things start to fracture, that makes his job against the Taliban much more difficult.

And perhaps a dangerous game here to ask you to make a guess, but how do you think this will play out?

Well, it is a dangerous game to make predictions, but I would say that we've got a very bloody summer where the Taliban do try and push and see how far they can get. I don't think that the Afghan government will collapse imminently. I think they will hold the Taliban at bay. Maybe they'll lose some small towns and small provincial capitals, but not big cities. So I think the bad news for the Afghan people is that this conflict will continue, and I think it's going to be very bloody.

Ben, thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you.

For more analysis like this from our international network of correspondence, take out a subscription to the Economist. Get a great introductory deal@exterator.com intelligenceoffer. The link is in the show notes. There are all kinds of traditions surrounding what happens to brides and grooms before their weddings. Traditional practices in parts of China are, as elsewhere, supposed to be in good fun. The groom's friends dress him up in silly garb, maybe tie him to a lamppost. But the celebrations can get pretty intense. Firecracker safety goes out the window. They're often taped to the groom. Brides may have it even worse. And the increasingly unseemly nature of all this playful humiliation has caught the attention of the Communist Party.

This tradition is called nauhun, and that roughly translates to disturbing the wedding.

Stephanie Studer is a China correspondent for the Economist and is based in Beijing.

The custom is popular in many parts of China, but you tend to see it more often in smaller towns, rural areas, in big cities. This tradition has faded somewhat.

And where did the tradition come from?

Well, it's rather old. Centuries ago, it began as a way to help put newlyweds at ease because often they had never met each other or barely knew each other. And so the idea was that some point in the long wedding ritual, there would be a moment to tease the bride and groom, often in their bridal chamber. And it also served as a form of sex education. You know, at the time, you'd be marrying as a teen and you wouldn't really know much about what to expect on the wedding night. But the practice has evolved quite a lot in the modern day.

It seems to have evolved into something, well, much more raucous.

Yes, that's right. Beginning around perhaps 2000, the custom began to be an excuse to be rowdy and lewd. So some older traditions, for instance, rituals involving the groom's father, where he would be made to carry his daughter in law on his back, that in the past was once seen as a sign that she would have a high status in her new family. And now these sorts of rituals have taken on sexual connotation and can be very uncomfortable for the bride. And bridesmaids, too, they often suffer from groping and unwanted attention from male guests at the weddings. And the grooms also tend to suffer from physical abuse. They can be bound to a tree or a post and beaten or have eggs pelted at them. So it can all be quite humiliating and embarrassing for the couple.

And why is the Chinese government wanting to step in to stop these practices?

Well, a lot of the naohun happens in public spaces. So you will go out onto a street or a public square, and there are often spots that are preferred to do this. And the government thinks that jars with trying to create what it calls civilized cities, the idea that you want orderly public spaces, and so it's cracking down on them. And last month said that it wanted to ban naohun in many parts of China. And local governments have responded to this call and have begun to specify Fines and to punish people. In the city of Dali that I went to already for some years now, because it's such a hot spot for nauhun, they have been stationing city officers at spaces known for this ritual.

And so party officials reckon that will keep things on the streets a little more ordered.

Yes, and. Well, there's more to it than that because with this package of reforms, they're hoping to make weddings in China less extravagant. One thing they're really taking aim at is the caili, which is cash, usually a large sum given by the groom to the bride's family. This is also a tradition, but these sums have become exorbitant. And in some parts of China now, local areas are setting limits to how much tsaili you can give. In some parts, they're also setting caps to the size of banquets, so you're only allowed to have 30 tables for your wedding.

And so how do happy couples feel about these traditions being stripped away in.

The city of Dali? I spoke to Yang Ping Kang, who is 26 and got married last October, and he told me that he'd chosen not to have a nauhun, that his male friends were a bit disappointed. But he pointed out that most of them hadn't yet got married themselves and so didn't understand what torment it involved. He says that residents on the whole have gone cool on the custom since a couple of tragic incidents, including one in which the groom drowned after being thrown into a lake. So I think he was, on the whole, relieved to hear that the government is stepping in. But he said, you know, traditions are important as long as nobody's harmed in the process.

Stephanie, thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you. Jason.

Imagine that you've been wrongly charged with murder. An eyewitness mistakenly identifies you as being at the scene of the crime. The investigators think you did it. You can still get off. If you can accurately recall what you were doing four Fridays ago, do you think you could manage it?

So it turns out that when you are asked what you were doing last week or three weeks ago, people often make mistakes in what they're remembering.

Matt Kaplan is a science correspondent for the Economist.

Because people often cannot remember where they were. A lot of innocent folk have ended up being suspected of crimes and even going to prison for things that they didn't do.

Do we have a sense for how often that actually happens?

The short answer to that, Jason, is no. We can't quantify how often people are caught out by giving alibis that are wrong. But we do have examples of it going wrong in some pretty colossal ways. Mr. Ronald Cotton was a resident of North Carolina and in 1985 was falsely convicted of rape and burglary, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. It was only 10 years later that DNA evidence Reveale revealed that he didn't do it. Now, he consistently said that he didn't do it, but unfortunately, the victim made an error in identifying him as the perpetrator. And worse for Mr. Cotton, he also provided an alibi that the court simply could not corroborate. As it turns out, Mr. Cotton was actually remembering where he was on, for example, a Wednesday, but the Wednesday before the Wednesday that the court was asking him about. So it was a fair error. But it led a team of researchers to wonder, just how often does this happen?

So this is now the province of research?

Yes. Two researchers, Yim Hyung Mok of Hangyang University in South Korea and Simon Dennis of the University of Melbourne, were really curious about how often people remember details about where they were in the past and how accurate they are. When asked, what were you doing last Tuesday, they recruited 51 people and asked them to download an app onto their smartphones. Now, this app tracked pretty much everything about them as they moved around. It monitored their gps. It periodically flicked on the recorder on the phone to make audio recordings, and then was able to send this information back to the researchers at the end of the experiment. After the experiment ended, the participants were given a memory test to look at markers and say, on this date, at this time, which of these four places were you at? And then the person had to guess which one they thought they were at. And then, more importantly, they were asked to say, so now that you've selected a location, how confident are you that you were there?

And how accurate and how confident were respondents?

People got things wrong about 30% of the time. That's not great. It means that when you're asked for an alibi, there's a sizable chance of you being mistaken. The good news is that when people made mistakes, they were able to say, I am not at all confident about this. And when they were confident, they almost always got it right. So that's encouraging. People know when they're likely making an error, and if they were asked that by a court or a lawyer, that could be used to help to determine whether or not an alibi is accurate. The other really interesting thing that got teased out by this research was that people made certain types of errors more often. So, for example, people would tend to incorrectly remember places and times that were similar so if you are asked, where were you last Wednesday, there's a reasonable chance you're actually going to say where you were two Wednesdays ago or three Wednesdays ago. People chose the right day of the week, but the wrong week 19% of the time, just as Mr. Cotton did, and the right hour of the day, but the wrong day 8% of the time. This is not nothing. And the fact that it's happening is potentially very helpful to law enforcement.

So how to make use, then, of these findings in a criminal context?

I think the first step is making sure that detectives and lawyers actually know about this. The more people who can become aware of this sort of error can start to close in questions like this and say, okay, if you are not certain about where you were last Wednesday, where were you the Wednesday before? And by that line of questioning, you can start to tease out where an error might exist and potentially identify the real alibi that someone might have. If you're pinned with a crime that you didn't commit, you just got to be sure to double check that you're not remembering something from the week before or something similar along those lines.

Matt, thank you very much for joining us.

My pleasure, Jason.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, leave us a rating and a review and see you back here tomorrow. It.