Clarissa Ward is the Chief International Correspondent at CNN – used to reporting from the front lines of conflict zones and global events. But in the past few days she found herself, more unusually, at the centre of a culture war. In a clip from one of her broadcasts, some Taliban fighters on a Kabul street were chanting ‘Death to America’ but she observed that “they seemed friendly enough at the same time. It’s utterly bizarre.”
Politicians right up to Senator Ted Cruz jumped on to social media to condemn her remarks as another example of CNN being unpatriotic and out of touch. “Is there an enemy of America for whom @CNN WON’T cheerlead?” he asked.
I caught up with her earlier today from her compound in Kabul. It was an extraordinary conversation — we had no fewer than three powercuts during our 20 minute discussion — but she gave a vivid behind the scenes account of what is going on in the Afghan capital right now. Definitely one not to miss.
On the media storm around her coverage:
The context wasn’t given. The full clip was me saying ‘they’re chanting Death to America, but they’re behaving in a friendly way towards us. It’s utterly bizarre.” It was a statement of fact. At the end of the day, I just think that all commentary that distracts from what’s happening to the Afghan people right now, that in any way minimises or reduces or trivialises their suffering, is not something that I really want to engage with or pay attention to. I’m here to tell the Afghan people’s story, and I’m going to keep on doing it.
- Clarissa Ward, UnHerd
On the situation at the airport:
There are far fewer people at the airport now than there were previously but there’s still hundreds all around the streets leading up to the airport, and the Taliban is controlling the checkpoints leading in to the airport. The way that the Taliban does crowd control is not in a way that is safe. They are firing shots in the air, they’re firing shots in the crowd, injuring people. They are whipping people, beating them back. They are essentially not allowing people into the airport. It’s different if you’re a Westerner — you can get in. But if you’re an Afghan right now trying to get into that airport, it is extremely difficult and extremely dangerous.
- Clarissa Ward, UnHerd
What her impression is of the Taliban fighters:
The one thing that you can’t deny about the Taliban is that they are coherent and cohesive, and they have a clear chain of command. The Taliban leaders said to its fighters, you are not to engage in criminal-like behaviour or retaliatory attacks when you go into Kabul, you’re there to maintain law and order. I would have to say, there’s been barely a shot fired. For the most part it has been, with the exception of the incredibly horrific scenes at the airport in the city centre, relatively calm. There is a sense that the Taliban fighters — for now at least — do what their leaders tell them to do.
- Clarissa Ward, UnHerd
Was the Afghan army unprepared for the Taliban?
Having spent a few weeks in the country before this all happened, I did start to get a very strong sense of just how weak the Afghan army was. I drove past a checkpoint on my way into Taliban territory, and the Taliban were taking shots at the checkpoint. Suddenly, we just saw these Afghan soldiers coming down from their base, running down, hailing a civilian car — for me, that was one of those real moments that showed me the Afghan army does not have the appetite for a fight right now.
- Clarissa Ward, UnHerd
How are the Taliban being received in Kabul?
It’s a mixture. Many people are hiding, they’re too afraid to leave their homes. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve interviewed over the last few days who literally cannot leave the house… But we did also see young people going up and posing for photographs and taking selfies with the Taliban and shaking their hands.
- Clarissa Ward, UnHerd
On the reputation of outgoing president Ashraf Ghani:
A lot of people in Kabul hate the Taliban. But boy, do they hate president Ashraf Ghani as well. The corruption of the government, the incompetence, the way that he left in the middle of the night on a chopper, abandoning his people… there’s a sense he was so divorced from the reality of the situation, because he never really believed that the US was going to actually leave. He missed so many opportunities to start conversations that needed to be started much earlier.
- Clarissa Ward, UnHerd
freddiesayers
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Subscribe“some [were] were chanting ‘Death to America’ but she observed that “they seemed friendly enough at the same time. “
But enough about the US women’s soccer team.
Fantastic post
This is very clever, what a cynic. Love it
I wonder what would have happened if there had been a push back. Would they have been so magnanimous. Surely they didn’t mount retaliatory attacks because they did not have to.
According to Pew research a few years ago, 85% of Afghans wanted to live under Sharia law. Now they’re going to.
Most people in the West want to live in representative democracies. We don’t.
Excellent interview thanks. Real old fashioned reporting by a correspondent, rather than writing the story based on Twitter.
Shouldn’t this be ‘what the Taliban want the world to see right now’, instead of ‘what the Taliban is like’.
There has been violence and wrongdoing on all sides. Please don’t tell us there have been no atrocities on the part of the US and even the UK forces.. not least the original involvement of the West in Afghanistan: wtf was that about? Destroying Al Qaeda? Gimme a break!
It is now abundantly clear that the Taliban had massive civilian support: otherwise how did they manage to overrun a country of 20m people? And why did the Afghan army crumble and dissolve? Same answer. What a sick joke for Western powers to interfere, propping up corrupt regimes in Muslim countries. Stay away!
Finally, ask yourself: how many Christians have died at the hands of Muslims vs how many Muslims have died at the hands of Christians? I use the word Christian loosely of course!
I agree with some of your points, and it is definitely not black and white. However, if we are talking Christians in the Middle East (not using the word loosely), the majority have been killed off or chased away with barely a remark from the west.
You may be right, but we need reports on what has been witnessed without judgement. I found her report balanced, credible and an extremely human.
I found her very CNN – when talking of ‘Seeing Young people even taking selfies with Taliban’ – and Freddy repeats, something like ‘How Young, and she replies something like ‘Pretty Young’ AHHHGGGG How F* king Western Pronoun avoiding was that? The entire thing made stupid in this context —- Male or Female Young People??????????? the issue is treatment of women under the Taliban….And this was not mentioned…western like it is ‘People’ – non-gender specific- WTF.
In my post yesterday I said my guess of the canary in the coal mine is how the women are made to cover – as this is code for all Muslim society’s social movement – all freedoms are reflected in this outward showing.
Like post Shah the return of the chador, yet not much else restraints gave some signs, Egypt and Turkey oscillating from head scarfs to none, to chadores even – like KSA lightening the covering as it liberalizes in all ways, like Dubai, but this issue is neglected.
Anyway, I sure wish Freddy could get that NZ Al Jezera woman to interview, then we would get some real stuff…
(president Ashraf Ghani) “there’s a sense he was so divorced from the reality of the situation, because he never really believed that the US was going to actually leave. He missed so many opportunities to start conversations that needed to be started much earlier.”
Well if that is not the biggest indictment of Biden’s insane cabal of politically, agenda driven, appointees, Nothing is! His top military brass are making the military quit training to fight and totally devoted to Diversity and CRT studies…. and not troubling themselves, and the senile Big Guy, with trivialities like Afghanies…..
(I await her next report on how the Taliban are making ‘People’ wear the Burqa and grow full beards.)
Given the choice of wearing a beard and living in a peaceful country vs being clean shaven and being bombed to Kingdom come: yeah, tough choice there!
The Twitter scandal over her comments seems like nonsense. Cruz would do best to drop it. The dumb “mostly peaceful” thing, CNN deserved to take heat for that. Not for this. It’s worth noting that people chanting death to America are not actually trying to hurt actual Americans who are there – that is newsworthy.
Nonsense.
(although Cruz is STILL correct, CNN never did meet an enemy of America it did not like)
Perhaps America’s enemies are all likeable? They did not, after all become America’s enemies by invading the US did they? Or bo.bing the US? Rather the reverse is true is it not? Surely the aggressor is less likely to be likeable: in the same way that Palestinians are likeable whereas the invading Zionists are detestable!
Fantastic insight thank you. I am reminded more of the situation in Phnom Penh, Pol Pot’s followers were, similarly, ‘backwoods boys’, poor country people whose envy of the bourgeoisie had been delibrately cultivated.
I’m not so sure I believe that the Choir boys, oops, I mean the Taliban, have completely reversed their ideology in favor of peace and cooperation with the civilized world. The sad truth is that they play the Western media like a fiddle. They must have a Madison Avenue firm consulting them on how to appear in front of the Western cameras.
A Madison Avenue firm: ‘wouldn’t surprise me in the least! A Florida flight school was happy to train Al Qaeda pilots after all. “If you got money we got the service”! The dollar is primary: all else is secondary.
Do remember 85% of Afghans actually want to live under Sharia law. Stop invading foreign countries: stop propping up corrupt regimes. Stop committing war crimes for oil. It’ll be better for all concerned
‘they’re chanting Death to America, but they’re behaving in a friendly way towards us. It’s utterly bizarre.”
Is this a Hegelian dialectical manoeuvre” called ‘aufheben’ – keeping and destroying?
James Lindsay put me on to this tool on his newdiscourses podcast. The method is to take some proposition – ‘they’re chanting death to America’ and to negate or hollow it out but still keep the sentiment, in this case with ‘but they are behaving in a friendly way towards us. It’s utterly bizarre’.
The 1st statement is a political chant of what should happen to a nation and the people who constitute it. The reporter’s rendition is to hollow out the negative sentiment within it by putting it in the context of the friendly chanters. Thus the the political reality of the sentiment has been diluted IMO.
It’s possible to hate the sin and love the sinner. Israeli Zionism is as bad as Taliban cruelty and I’d love to see Palestine free of the hateful invaders but I’m not going to mistreat any individual Israeli.. and BTW I’m no anti semite either!
Temember 85% of Afghans actually want Sharia law! Westerners go home!
And yet her reply in this interview did not contradict my interpretation. She replied ‘it was a statement of fact’. That may be the case, but the mere fact of juxtaposing those two observations in such a constructed way with the ‘but they’re behaving in a friendly way’ comment after the ‘hate to America’ comment. It is the ‘but’ that alerted me plus the structure of the juxtaposition.
I am not suggesting this was her intent but her observations certainly ramped up my ideology-suspicion detection meter to near full.
The best interview I’ve seen on the situation in Afghanistan. Well done Unherd.
So, stripped of the hysteria, the story is the Taliban have their act together, they are maintaining law and order and not yet engaging in revenge killings or the like. They seem to want to maintain stability in Afghanistan but only time will tell if they keep their promises. I can see why Clarissa Ward has attracted some criticism from the MSM: she’s not sticking to the ideological script about the cruel Taliban.
I strongly suspect this story will fade away over the next few weeks. Ordinary Americans (not the chattering classes) are tired of this war. Soon they will be dealing with more immediate issues such as whether schools will again be closed this fall due to the delta variant, whether to get the covid booster now recommended by the CDC, whether covid restrictions are reintroduced, what happens if/when the eviction moratorium is lifted, will the economic expansion continue, etc. In the long run, I doubt Biden will pay a political price for this hasty exit from Afghanistan.
Unless one of the 3000 American women in Afghanistan waiting to get out is shot on the street for not being covered head to toe. Unless an Afghani who helped the American cause is stoned to death or beheaded and a cell phone video picks it up.. Etc. etc.
While I abhor violence of any kind I think it would take a great deal of restraint not to seek revenge when you finally come face to face with the invader who killed so many thousands of your countrymen: and likewise when you confront your own countrymen who helped that foreign invader to kill and maim maybe your own family members and close friends.
Can I suggest you try and don the shoes of the average Afghan and try and see the situation from his or her point of view?
Wow how naïve you are, incredible. So, because in the first couple of DAYS they’re not hanging people from lampposts and whipping women in the streets, you think maybe the Taliban have changed after all, and they’re more cuddly now?
They know the whole world is watching, global media is reporting live, on the ground in Kabul, and NATO still have forces in the city. Wait until they settle in and assume complete control.
‘The ideological script about the cruel Taliban’.. because all the many public hangings, stonings, whippings, firing squad executions and the like by the Taliban over the years have all just been made up right?
So a month ago, July 14th, 2021, CNN reported this: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/13/asia/afghanistan-taliban-commandos-killed-intl-hnk/index.html
And yet today, in Kabul, this reporter is saying hardly any shots have been fired? What, today? in Kabul only? The diametrically opposed stories may speak more to current PR issues facing the White House now than those of the Taliban. I wish Freddie would find the original reporter on the earlier CNN video and ask her about her experiences.
Yep, the pro-Biden media are so desperate to spin this and soften the disaster for him, that quite incredibly they’re actually going with a ‘the Taliban aren’t so bad!’ angle now
Very brave lady, and highly professional too. I don’t think you can emphasise the point enough that the anger (across Europe, but clearly also among the Afghan people) is not about the withdrawal as such, but about the EXECUTION.
I think it was Mitt Romney who said, quite correctly, that the choice was not between staying forever and this chaotic exit. There were other ways of handling this that might not have eliminated chaos and suffering, but would have mitigated it and been less damaging to all involved.
Any insistence, by Biden or another public figure, that the exit we are witnessing was the only way is simply making the situation (and the damage to their and their country’s reputation) worse.
The deal as I can figure is 5000 Americans, and very few of them front line fighters, kept the peace in Afghanistan! For Years! Not one American death in 18 months.
They had amazing tech monitoring all the lands – and a great many gunships and missles ready to dispatch if Taliban come out massed, into the open, to attack. And to the Talibal stayed under cover and dispersed.
Biden removed these first, then began the civilian withdraw….
Naturally the Afghani army gave up – their air force had gone home, in a battle style they had trained to fight in – heavy air superiority – but then the air power went home….
F- the Biden administration, advisors, leadership. All about Woke, none about guns and lives. Snakes and traitors to the Western true Liberalism of freedom and now all about the Western Lefty/Liberalism Critical Theory, Post Modernist, Sexual Diversity war they bring to an unsuspecting world.
Mid April, after Biden announced withdrawal, the Taliban started their probing attacks. Discovering the US air support had disappeared to the surprise of both armies, the Taliban steadily ramped up their attacks with reserves from Pakistan. The Afghan army was beat because they depended on a partnership and the partner wasn’t engaging. The sweep into Kabul was ordained, no surprise as the Army of well paid mercenaries evaporated. The new war by locals against their new rulers has started. More bloodshed. The rural seniors just want order and an end to corruption. The young shall gain vital experience in their new enemy.
Clarissa is a very brave women to continue on. She is a bell weather for the return of the new Taliban. The next weeks will be quite a trial with prayers for a good ending.
That’s one courageous lady! It’s so good to get a balanced report. I’ve not had much faith in CNN up to now: but I guess I’ll have to revise my opinion: maybe it’s down to the individual reporter.
Yes, I think I would agree on that. CNN is, in general, a bit of a laugh-a-minute. But this lady definitely makes a very professional impression. And respect for carrying on her work in this situation, that’s true dedication to the job.
I thought her a token reporter of the highest example. She knows nothing but what she sees, no knowledge, no history, nothing of the land and people…
Thank you, Clarissa and Freddie, for this incredibly informative report. I have a family member who pilots one of those C-17s, although his plane was not the one of the transports that garnered such media attention.
Clarissa’s report is like a breath of fresh air in all this over-dramatized reporting on the American side.
When do we get another report from Clarissa?