"I think on the ground at the village, district, provincial level most people did take (?insurance? ?assurance?) from the Taliban by making behind the scene deals. The Taliban also said to people, important people, not only in the military, they said 'If you don't fight with us, if you don't put up a fight, we're not going to bother you, we're going to let you live, we're going to give you a literal guarantee'.
That is consistent with the "terror" report by...Goldbaum, whatever her name was, with the New York Times. The report was also cited by Friedman today for Taliban abuses. I don't know why the Times gave that story that lede. It was beyond misleading, it was just factually not what the reporter wrote. The Taliban "mayor" was acting like a mayor! getting the streets cleaned, the hospitals staffed again, the garbage collected. Wth?
