The Morning: A savage campaign

Plus, Trump's trial, Volodymyr Zelensky and "bromakase."

View in browser|nytimes.com May 22, 2024 Good morning. Today my colleague Azam Ahmed is writing about a hidden history of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. We're also covering Trump's trial, Volodymyr Zelensky and "bromakase." —David Leonhardt Malika mourns her son Ahmad Rahman, who was abducted in front of witnesses in 2016. Bryan Denton for The New York Times America's monster By Azam Ahmed I covered the war in Afghanistan and went back after the Taliban took over. General Abdul Raziq was one of America's fiercest allies in the fight against the Taliban. He was young and charismatic — a courageous warrior who commanded the loyalty and respect of his men. He helped beat back the Taliban in the crucial battlefield of Kandahar, even as the insurgents advanced across Afghanistan. But his success, until his 2018 assassination, was built on torture, extrajudicial killing and abduction. In the name of security, he transformed the Kandahar police into a combat force without constraints. His officers, who were trained, armed and paid by the United States, took no note of human rights or due process, according to a New York Times investigation into thousands of cases that published this morning. Most of his victims were never seen again. Washington's strategy in Afghanistan aimed to beat the Taliban by winning the hearts and minds of the people it was supposedly fighting for. But Raziq embodied a flaw in that plan. The Americans empowered warlords, corrupt politicians and outright criminals in the name of military expediency. It picked proxies for whom the ends often justified the means. I'll explain in today's newsletter how using men like Raziq drove many Afghans toward the Taliban. And it persuaded others, including those who might have been sympathetic to U.S. goals, that the U.S.-backed central government could not be trusted to fix Afghanistan. If there was ever any chance that the United States could uproot the Taliban, the war strategy made it much harder. A savage campaign My colleague Matthieu Aikins and I have covered Afghanistan for years. After America's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, we were suddenly able to visit people and places that were off-limits during the fighting. We traveled there, hoping to learn what really happened during America's longest war. Alongside a team of Afghan researchers, we combed through more than 50,000 handwritten complaints kept in ledgers by the former U.S.-backed government of Kandahar. In them, we found the details of almost 2,200 cases of suspected disappearances. From there, we went to hundreds of homes across Kandahar. The original missing-person complaint paperwork and passport pictures for Salahuddin, a rickshaw driver who disappeared in 2016. Bryan Denton for The New York Times We tracked down nearly 1,000 people who said their loved ones had been taken or killed by government security forces. We corroborated nearly 400 cases, often with eyewitnesses to the abductions. We also substantiated their claims with Afghan police reports, affidavits and other government records they had filed. In each of the forced disappearances, the person is still missing. Even at the time, U.S. officials grasped Raziq's malevolence. "Sometimes we asked Raziq about incidents of alleged human rights abuses, and when we got answers we would be like, 'Whoa, I hope we didn't implicate ourselves in a war crime just by hearing about it,'" recalled Henry Ensher, a State Department official who held multiple posts on Afghanistan. "We knew what we were doing, but we didn't think we had a choice," Ensher said. The cost It would be too simple to say that Raziq's tactics were entirely in vain. They worked in some respects, reasserting government control in Kandahar and pushing insurgents into the hinterlands. Raziq earned the admiration of many who opposed the Taliban. More than a dozen U.S. officials said that without him the Taliban would have advanced much faster. But Raziq's methods took a toll. They stirred such enmity among his victims that the Taliban turned his cruelty into a recruiting tool. Taliban officials posted videos about him on WhatsApp to attract new fighters. Abdul Raziq at his home in Kandahar City in 2015, shadowed by one of his many bodyguards. Bryan Denton for The New York Times Many Afghans came to revile the U.S.-backed government and everything it represented. "None of us supported the Taliban, at least not at first," said Fazul Rahman, whose brother was abducted in front of witnesses during Raziq's reign. "But when the government collapsed, I ran through the streets, rejoicing." Even some who cheered Raziq's ruthlessness lamented the corruption and criminality he engendered — a key part of why the Afghan government collapsed in 2021. After Raziq's death, his commanders went further. They extorted ordinary people and stole from their own men's wages and supplies. "What they brought under the name of democracy was a system in the hands of a few mafia groups," said one resident of Kandahar who initially supported the government. "The people came to hate democracy." Historians and scholars will spend years arguing whether the United States could have ever succeeded. The world's wealthiest nation had invaded one of its poorest and attempted to remake it by installing a new government. Such efforts elsewhere have failed. But U.S. mistakes — empowering ruthless killers, turning allies into enemies, enabling rampant corruption — made the loss of its longest war at least partly self-inflicted. This is a story Matthieu and I will spend the coming months telling, from across Afghanistan. Read Azam's investigation, and watch him explain how it came together. ADVERTISEMENT THE LATEST NEWS Trump on Trial The defense rested its case in Donald Trump's Manhattan criminal trial. Trump declined to testify. The prosecution cross-examined Robert Costello, a lawyer who once advised Michael Cohen but has since criticized him. The jury saw emails in which Costello seemingly tried to manipulate Cohen on Trump's behalf as federal officials investigated the hush-money payments. The court is adjourned until Tuesday, when both sides will give their closing arguments. "He wanted to take the stand, but then he saw it was three steps without a handrail": The late night hosts joked about Trump's decision not to testify. 2024 Elections Nicole Shanahan Jim Wilson/The New York Times Nicole Shanahan — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s running mate — has called herself a "Silicon Valley princess." Her past has included drug use and affairs, a Times examination found. Kennedy's younger sister, Kerry, is leading their family's opposition to his candidacy. "It's heart-wrenching to be in this position," she said. Trump suggested in an interview that he would let states restrict access to birth control. 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As Russian forces advance in northeastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian military is fighting while slowly falling back to more fortified positions. Israel-Hamas War Spain, Norway and Ireland said that they would recognize an independent Palestinian state. Israel recalled its ambassadors from Ireland and Norway for consultations. Some of Benjamin Netanyahu's critics have expressed support for him after the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor requested a warrant for his arrest. None of the aid that entered Gaza through a U.S.-built pier has been distributed, a Pentagon spokesman said. More International News Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, led prayers at a funeral for the country's president, who died in a helicopter crash. A Greek court dropped charges against nine Egyptians over the sinking of a trawler with hundreds of migrants on board because the shipwreck was in international waters. In Mexico, howler monkeys are falling dead from trees because of the heat, The A.P. reports. Education At elite colleges, Gen Z — despite their popular image as idealists — are particularly corporate-minded. They say "sellout" is not an insult. The Biden administration canceled $7.7 billion in student loans, bringing the total debt canceled to about $167 billion. Other Big Stories Inside a Singapore Airlines flight. Reuters A 73-year-old man died and dozens of other passengers were injured after a flight from London to Singapore hit extreme turbulence. Storms and at least one tornado caused deaths and considerable damage in Iowa. Opinions Israel and Iran are both vulnerable to collapse. But Zionism is the world's oldest anticolonialist struggle, and the risks facing Iran are graver, Bret Stephens writes. The world is on the verge of eradicating polio. The effort is succeeding because it has put the people living closest to the disease in charge, Richard Conniff writes. Here are columns by Thomas Friedman on Netanyahu and Thomas Edsall on Trump's impact. A subscription to match the variety of your interests. News. Games. Recipes. Product reviews. Sports reporting. A New York Times All Access subscription covers all of it and more. Subscribe today. MORNING READS Kimberly Arcand Supernova or coronavirus? A scientist finds beauty in the "visual synonyms" between the microscopic and the massive. Expiration: Eggs last longer than you think. Letter of Recommendation: One writer praises an unexpected means of escape — conferences. How to: Thinking of going vegetarian? Read this guide. Lives Lived: C. Gordon Bell helped create smaller, more affordable interactive computers that could be clustered into a network. He died at 89. SPORTS N.B.A.: The Boston Celtics won Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals over the Indiana Pacers. "Bring ya ass": A Timberwolves star's off-the-cuff comment has become a rallying cry for the state of Minnesota. (They face the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference finals tonight.) N.F.L.: Aaron Rodgers returned to Jets practice for the first time since tearing an Achilles' tendon four plays into last season. ADVERTISEMENT ARTS AND IDEAS Jessica Attie for The New York Times A new sushi experience is on the rise in mainstream American restaurant culture: the "bromakase." Unlike the tranquil traditional ritual of Japanese omakase dining, these restaurants feature cocktail lounges and hip-hop soundtracks. Bromakases borrow from aspects of high-end American steakhouses — with their excessive tabs, copious consumption and masculine energy — but give them a worldly sheen. Read Brett Anderson's story. More on culture Chappell Roan  Scott Kowalchyk/CBS, via Getty Images Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, singers with big online followings, are having a brush with mainstream success thanks to hook-driven pop tracks. Listen to the Times critic Jon Pareles's six-minute review of Billie Eilish's third studio album, "Hit Me Hard and Soft." "The Apprentice," a biopic about Trump's relationships with his first wife and the lawyer Roy Cohn, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. A Trump spokesman called it "garbage." Pixar laid off 175 employees and said it would focus on films rather than shows for Disney+. Jenny Erpenbeck's "Kairos," a novel about a love affair in the final years of East Germany, won the International Booker Prize for fiction translated into English. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … David Malosh for The New York Times Try chicken Vesuvio, a classic Chicago dish with potatoes and a white wine sauce. Make the most of a small outdoor space. Buy a fast charger. Clean your grill ahead of Memorial Day. GAMES Here is today's Spelling Bee. Yesterday's pangrams were bluefin and unbelief. And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. P.S. New York Times Cooking will publish a cookbook — "Easy Weeknight Dinners" — this fall. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for the Morning newsletter from The New York Times, or as part of your New York Times account. To stop receiving The Morning, unsubscribe. To opt out of other promotional emails from The Times, including those regarding The Athletic, manage your email settings. 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