What Afghanistan and the world could lose with the Taliban's return

More than a decade ago, a National Geographic writer saw warning signs the U.S. commitment would flag—and fragile democratic advances that could now be undone.

A Taliban fighter in Kabul keeps watch from the top of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The armored vehicle was one of many seized by the Taliban when military bases were abandoned by the Afghan armed forces. On August 15, the Taliban streamed into the capital city, bringing a startlingly swift end to the Afghan government and two decades of American military presence.
Photograph by Juan Carlos

As Afghanistan fell to the Taliban province by province, and American military officials struggled to evacuate those who sought to escape, I recalled a distressing incident that took place during a reporting trip to Afghanistan for National Geographic. 

I was there with photographer David Guttenfelder in the late spring of 2010 to write about how subsistence poppy farmers had been unwittingly caught up in bankrolling the Taliban’s activities after the militants seized control of the Afghan opium trade. I had been to Afghanistan once before, in 2005, to profile the president, Hamid Karzai, for GQ. As the chief Asia photographer for the Associated Press, Guttenfelder had embedded with the U.S. military in Afghanistan numerous times since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Still, even his

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