
Show Notes
This week marks twenty five years since the United States invaded Afghanistan, on October 7th, 2001. It was less than a month after the September 11th attacks and President George W. Bush vowed swift revenge. And the U.S. did quickly oust the Taliban– the Islamist group controlling the country– over its support for and harboring of Osama bin Laden and his militant group al Qaeda, blamed for the deadly attacks on U.S. soil.
But the war itself was far from quick, lasting 20 years. U.S. troops remained on Afghan soil until August, 2021 when the Taliban again retook Kabul amid a somewhat chaotic U.S. exit.
On today’s episode we hear what life in Afghanistan is like now and try to understand how its people are dealing with the legacy of the conflict that began a quarter century ago.
Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
More from State of the World from NPR
Chinese manufacturers have not had it easy these past few years, with U.S. tariffs as well as the wars in Ukraine and Iran pushing up their costs and shrinking profits.
In the Israeli occupied West Bank, dozens of Americans have been detained, including a politician running for Congress.
Sometimes it feels like when we aren’t worried about AI destroying humanity — we worry about it replacing white collar jobs like lawyers, accountants, coders. But tech companies have plans for AI-powered robots to replace blue collar jobs as well.
Israel holds an election on October 27th, electing members of the Knesset, their parliament. And this election will decide the future of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Ukraine finds itself in a difficult situation. It has endured increased airstrikes from Russia, especially in the capital Kyiv.