A similar environmental shift is documented in The Water Will Come (2017) by Jeff Goodell. Writing about Florida in the mid-2010s, Goodell describes how rising seas were already pushing inland by 2016, causing “sunny-day flooding” in places like Miami Beach. Roads flooded without rainfall, groundwater rose, and infrastructure began failing from below. Local governments responded with large-scale investments in pumps, elevated roads, and long-term flood mitigation systems. The environmental process in Florida and Khogyani is comparable, but the scale and type of response are not.

In Khogyani, protecting the village from further erosion would require a retaining seawall that would cost approximately 1,000,000 Afghanis, or about $15,000 USD. At the same time, international organizations, including the United Nations, are distributing tents and food packages following recent floods. A single tent costs around $281 USD, and thousands have been distributed in response to homes and livelihoods being destroyed.

Emergency aid is necessary in the event of displacement and crisis. Tents and hot food address the immediate needs of communities. But the underlying issue is that humanitarian systems were not built to address the repetitive crisis as a result of climate change. Humanitarian aid assumes that when a disaster occurs, aid is deployed, and then conditions stabilize enough for response teams to move on. But this assumption is no longer true because what we’re seeing as a result of climate change, is that the same communities experience the same “emergencies” year after year, without any structural change in what is actually producing them.

Displacement is being managed but the environmental degradation that makes land unlivable in the first place is being ignored. Typical humanitarian aid is not structured to sustain long-term infrastructure or environmental redesign, even when those are what would actually reduce future harm.

Humanitarian aid can respond to climate disasters, but it is not designed to resolve them. As a result, communities remain in a loop where the same forms of assistance are delivered repeatedly, while the conditions that create the need for that assistance remain unchanged.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs defines humanitarian action as the provision of “life-saving assistance” during emergencies. This model is built for rapid response and measurable outputs, how many people received shelter, how many food packages were distributed. It is less equipped to prioritize interventions that reduce long-term vulnerability but require sustained investment and do not produce immediate results.

In Dead Aid (2009), Dambisa Moyo examines the effects of decades of foreign aid in sub-Saharan Africa. From the 1960s through the early 2000s, more than $1 trillion in aid flowed into the continent. Despite this, many countries experienced stagnant growth and persistent poverty. Moyo argues that when aid is delivered as a continuous stream of short-term relief, it can create dependency and disincentivize long-term development. Governments and systems begin to rely on external assistance instead of building internal capacity.

This pattern is visible in Afghanistan. Farmers receive food during periods of drought, but there is limited investment in restoring soil health or improving water systems. Communities receive tents after floods, but there is little support for infrastructure that would prevent those floods from causing repeated displacement.

In Afghanistan, my nonprofit organization, The Kalaam Project, has shifted its focus from emergency distributions to longer-term interventions aimed at sustainability. One example is soil regeneration workshops for farmers. Instead of providing food aid, we equip farmers with tools such as shovels and spades, along with fertilizer, legume seeds for cover crops, and earthworms to improve soil composition. The workshops also include training on water retention and soil management techniques.

The objective is to restore agricultural productivity so that farmers are less dependent on external assistance over time.

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In response to repeated earthquake damage, we’re supporting the construction of earthquake-resistant housing, reducing the likelihood that homes will collapse during future seismic events. In areas facing water scarcity, solar-powered wells are being implemented to provide consistent access to water without requiring repeated emergency distribution.

These interventions are smaller in scale than those carried out by large international organizations, but they are designed to change long-term outcomes. They address the causes of vulnerability rather than only the effects.

The contrast between these approaches reflects a broader structural issue within humanitarian systems. Large organizations operate within frameworks that prioritize immediate, visible results, or what I like to call, initiatives that look good on camera. Preventative infrastructure and long-term development are more difficult to fund and measure, even when they are more cost-effective over time.

In Khogyani, the cost of building a retaining seawall that could protect an entire village is relatively low compared to the cumulative cost of repeated emergency aid. Yet the latter continues to be prioritized.

The situation in Khogyani, Afghanistan reflects this clearly. The river continues to erode land, and people continue to become internally displaced, moving their homes further inland. Crops are destroyed in floods and rainstorms, and the soil cannot retain water. In the meantime, larger organizations continue to distribute hot meals and tents. Without investment in prevention, these patterns will persist, leaving communities in a constant state of crisis.

Humanitarian aid is necessary, but its current structure leaves communities in humanitarian crisis in a limbo; suffering in the same cycles. Until there is a shift toward interventions and more sustainable measures, communities worldwide will continue to experience the same cycle of crisis and response.

This is why we’ve shifted our approach at the Kalaam Project. Instead of only responding to emergencies with short-term relief, we are focusing on sustainable solutions to help communities in Afghanistan become self-sufficient. Our initiatives like soil regeneration workshops, earthquake-resistant housing, and solar-powered wells are not separate from humanitarian response; they are a response to the limits of it. Humanitarian systems, as they currently exist, were not built for the repetition and scale of climate-driven crisis. They can respond to displacement, but not prevent the environmental breakdown that produces it. By investing in long-term, locally rooted infrastructure and resilience, we are moving away from a cycle of repeated emergency response and toward solutions that reduce the need for emergency response altogether.

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About the Author

Sayeda Qader is an Afghan American essayist, writer, and humanitarian. She writes personal essays and investigative pieces exploring life in the Afghan diaspora, ongoing crises in Afghanistan, and the human impact of U.S. foreign policy. Sayeda is the founder of the Kalaam Project, a humanitarian aid organization providing sustainable, on-the-ground humanitarian aid to communities in Afghanistan. Her work blends storytelling, advocacy, and reporting.

Eventually, our Muslim neighboring countries did show up. Pakistan showed up to bomb eastern Afghanistan and deport millions of Afghan refugees, beating them, stripping them of their finances and belongings at the border. Iran followed suit, deporting hundreds of thousands of Afghans into western Afghanistan, treating Afghan migrants as second-class people, banning them from certain schools, from bakeries, putting bounties on their heads, herding them like cattle and beating them. This is how our Muslim brotherhood showed up for Afghans.

So the question I am forced to ask, as an Afghan in the diaspora is, how are you showing up?

In the holy month of Ramadan, the Pakistani government has launched airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan, killing 19 Afghan Pashtuns and leaving a young boy orphaned. This was not the first time. Over the past two years, Pakistan has repeatedly bombed eastern Afghanistan under the justification of targeting militants. Last October, the Pakistani military struck Kabul, violating Afghanistan’s sovereignty and, by any standard, international law. Today is the fifth day of an open war that Pakistan has waged on Afghanistan. My aid workers are sending me videos of their skies filled with the streaks Pakistan’s missiles are leaving.

Yesterday, Pakistan attempted to bomb Bagram Air Base, a base that for two decades was the home to the US’s military occupation. Afghanistan was able to thwart the attack, but the timing is not lost on us. Last September, Donald Trump publicly stated that “bad things would happen” if Afghanistan did not give the United States Bagram Air Base back. Months later, Pakistan is once again playing its role as the US’s proxy.

Pakistan has long functioned as a proxy in the region, first during the post-Soviet invasion civil war, then later during the U.S. War on Terror, and now again in a shifting geopolitical landscape. Billions in military aid flowed into Pakistan during the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. Training, weapons, and intelligence cooperation shaped its security doctrine.

Over the past year, Pakistan has deported millions of Afghan refugees. Afghans have been beaten, detained, denied medical care, and stripped of their belongings and finances. Many today live in refugee camps on the border. Yesterday, the Omari refugee camp near the Torkham border was bombed. This morning, three children were killed in a refugee camp in Kunar, the same population that Pakistan just pushed across the border. The Pakistani government bulldozed their homes, and now they’re bombing the camps they’ve sought refuge in. The playbook mirrors those the ummah has easily condemned elsewhere.

The Muslims of today’s ummah have been conditioned to call out the West and nations backing Western interests. We know how to name Western imperialism. We know how to speak on American aggression and Israeli violence. But when the aggressor shares our faith, the ummah acts dumbfounded. Critiquing Western violence has become a comfortable moral identity to have, but critiquing violence carried out by Muslim governments, has become synonymous with betrayal.

It begins to be noticeable in conversations like when discussing the UAE’s involvement in Sudan, in how conversations about intra-Muslim state violence get shut down with “don’t divide the ummah.” A coined phrased I have heard often when speaking on Pakistan’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan as a proxy. And I hear it again now, as Pakistan bombs Afghan villages during Ramadan.

Much of this silence has to do with the racism within our own communities. Afghans have long been racialized within the broader Muslim world. Afghan migrants in neighboring countries are treated as disposable labor.

Look at how long it has taken for the suffering in Sudan to trend consistently in Muslim spaces. There have been no sustained boycotts. No unified online campaigns to reshape Muslim discourse. Black Muslims, whether Sudanese, Somali, Nigerian, or African American, have always had to fight for visibility within Muslim spaces that claim universality. Anti-Blackness did not originate in the West alone; it exists in Arab, South Asian, and broader Muslim-majority societies too. Darker skin is still devalued in the marriage market, in media representation, and in leadership roles. Mosques are still often segregated by ethnicity and language.

Sudan has exposed that some Muslim suffering is seen as geopolitically strategic. Some tragedies are framed as an attack on the entire ummah while others like Sudan are framed as unfortunate regional conflicts. When I speak about Afghanistan and Sudan together, it is to name a pattern in racism and classism. When victims are poorer, darker, or like Afghans, displaced and already marginalized within Muslim-majority countries, the tragedies they have faced are no longer an issue for the entire ummah. It makes intra-Muslim violence easier to rationalize when the victims are already socially downgraded.

So the next question I am forced to ask, is why does the ummah preach unity and practice racism, classism, and hierarchy in the same breath?

There comes a time when we have to question our ethics. It is hypocritical for governments that invoke Shariah and Islamic legitimacy to mirror the very imperial tactics we condemn in the West. Being Muslim does not grant moral immunity to a state. You can love your country and critique it. You can belong to a nation and still hold it accountable.

In the holy month of Ramadan, a month of discipline, a month of giving, a time of heightened moral consciousness, I cannot help but wonder if we have reduced our faith to aesthetics. Is Islam in 2026 simply about late-night coffee runs, decorated homes, and Muslim consumerism? Has being Muslim become more about branding and the way we perform? Because the core of our faith is clear: when we see injustice, we act. If we cannot act, we speak. In today’s day and age, speaking sometimes just means a repost on one’s social media account.

I have spent the last five days mourning the Afghan people I have met in the streets of Afghanistan. Last June, I walked miles every day conducting interviews, asking villagers what they needed most — water systems, flood mitigation, food stability, environmental protection. I met with the ice cream men. I met with the children collecting plastic in duffel bags. I met women seamstresses and bakers. Today, I do not know who is alive and who isn’t. I do not know if the ice cream man heard the airstrikes in time. I do not know if there were children waiting for their ice cream when the airstrikes hit.

I did not grow up around many Afghans. My Afghan community has mostly been my family back in Afghanistan. I spent summers in Afghanistan while the U.S. occupied it. It was mundane and normal to me back then. Now, as an adult, I return for work. I consult with villagers and community leaders about environmental and systemic challenges and help direct funding toward solutions they lead themselves. And today, in Chicago, as I look to lean on my Muslim brothers and sisters for support, for a nod to tell me that they see me and my people, I don’t see anyone in my corner. In the month of Ramadan, the Afghan people are once again isolated and ignored in the war our Muslim neighbors have brought to us. So I grieve, and I wonder, why aren’t my Muslim friends talking about the war Pakistan has brought to Afghanistan? And you should be wondering the same thing.

How to support Afghans in the US & Afghanistan:

1. Donate to the Afghan Community Center in Chicago, a nonprofit organization supporting Afghan migrants in the Chicagoland area

2. Donate to the Kalaam Project, a nonprofit organization distributing humanitarian aid to vulnerable communities in Afghanistan

3. Donate to Afghans For A Better Tomorrow, community organizers dedicated to building a resilient and thriving community working to achieve lasting change

4. Support the installations of solar paneled water wells in the name of martyrs killed by the US in Afghanistan

5. Sign up for one on one classes to learn Pashto/Farsi from Afghan women in Afghanistan

6. Support an orphanage in Herat, Afghanistan

7. Support an Afghan cricket team in the Chicagoland area

8. Support an Afghan mom hand embroidering Afghan traditional dresses and shawls by purchasing from her Etsy shop

Share

About the Author

Sayeda Qader is an Afghan American essayist, writer, and humanitarian. She writes personal essays and investigative pieces exploring life in the Afghan diaspora, ongoing crises in Afghanistan, and the human impact of U.S. foreign policy. Sayeda is the founder of the Kalaam Project, a humanitarian aid organization providing sustainable, on-the-ground humanitarian aid to communities in Afghanistan. Her work blends storytelling, advocacy, and reporting.

Let’s be clear: the violence Rahmanullah perpetrated on November 27th is not inherent to Afghans. It was taught, normalized, and weaponized through U.S.-backed paramilitary programs like the Zero Unit. This isn’t just semantics, it’s cause and effect. The incident is the result of militarized trauma, decades in the making, yet now the story is being wielded to justify President Trump’s anti-immigration agenda. Afghan migrants in the U.S. are being collectively punished, resettlement programs paused, community mistrust amplified, and a whole population painted as inherently violent.

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But what actually produced a 17-year-old capable of growing up to shoot National Guards? Rahmanullah’s trajectory is emblematic of systemic militarization. Young men, desperate to support families in a country ravaged by the U.S. War on Terror and occupation, were recruited into paramilitary units. Often, they didn’t know the full scope of what they would do. They were taught targeted killings, night raids, and “surgical” assaults, tactics that dehumanized victims abroad and instilled a framework of violence that followed them into resettlement.

Take SEAL Team Six, for example. The New York Times’ 2015 exposé described a “secret history of quiet killings and blurred lines,” likening operations to the Phoenix Program. Operators used custom tomahawks and engaged in acts meant to dehumanize targets. Delta Force and other JSOC units executed high volumes of assassinations under the F3EAD framework—find, fix, finish, exploit, analyze, disseminate. Often these operations were based on flawed intelligence and prioritized body counts over civilian safety. In regions like Kunduz and Mazar-i-Sharif, operators targeted “low-level suspected Taliban”—often innocent farmers.

The culture of violence extended beyond combatants. Psychological operations specialists, for instance, observed unnecessary killings. Valeria Zavala described an operator executing a man simply because he ran into a tunnel—against orders. This systemic lack of accountability is critical to understanding how these units operated, and why Afghan civilians became direct victims. Villages were devastated, families displaced, and a generational imprint of trauma was left behind.

And then there’s the economic side. The CIA’s entanglement with Afghanistan’s narcotics economy compounded the human cost. Seth Harp details how U.S. officials, including those in Kabul under Hamid Karzai—complicitly maintained poppy cultivation while blaming the Taliban. SIGAR reports corroborate that the Taliban were rarely the real beneficiaries of the opium trade; systemic corruption in government, police, and military—enabled by U.S. policy—dominated. By fostering poverty and instability, the U.S. left Afghan men few options outside paramilitary or illicit networks.

Rahmanullah’s actions are the result of a systemic, decades-long pattern of U.S. militarization in Afghanistan. His actions are being weaponized politically to demonize an entire community while the state responsible for producing his violence is left unexamined. The same U.S. institutions that trained, deployed, and normalized lethal force now pause Afghan immigration and reinforce a narrative of collective Afghan guilt. Critiquing U.S. policy does not mean every person affected by it bears guilt for acts of violence. Most Afghan individuals who served in paramilitary roles resettle without perpetuating harm. Recognizing systemic responsibility and individual agency simultaneously allows us to hold policies accountable without reducing humans to symbols of geopolitical failures

And yes, this narrative is not new. For decades, American policy has blurred the line between “enemy combatant” and civilian, between targeted killing abroad and public security at home. The New York Times and excerpts from Seth Harp’s The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces accounts make it clear: special operations forces were empowered to act with impunity, often targeting civilians under the guise of counterinsurgency. Understanding this pattern is essential, not just for accountability, but to recognize how U.S. militarized foreign policy has ripple effects that extend into diaspora communities thousands of miles away.

This is no longer a story on Afghans being inherently predisposed to violence from the “hellhole” they come from. It’s about an American-made framework of violence, displacement, and trauma. Acknowledging the systemic failures of U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan does not absolve individuals of responsibility, nor does it suggest that Afghan lives are predetermined by those policies, but it does demand that we confront the consequences of the systems we create.

We should ask ourselves: if the U.S. trained Rahmanullah in violence, and then punished the Afghan community collectively after his actions, who is really accountable? It isn’t just a question of law; it’s a question of policy, history, and moral responsibility.

Resources:

The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces by Seth Harp

Intercept: The Crimes of Seal Team 6

NYT: SEAL Team 6: A Secret History of Quiet Killings and Blurred Lines

How to support Afghans in the US & Afghanistan:

1. Donate to the Afghan Community Center in Chicago, a nonprofit organization supporting Afghan migrants in the Chicagoland area

2. Donate to the Kalaam Project, a nonprofit organization distributing humanitarian aid to vulnerable communities in Afghanistan

3. Donate to Afghans For A Better Tomorrow, community organizers dedicated to building a resilient and thriving community working to achieve lasting change

4. Support the installations of solar paneled water wells in the name of martyrs killed by the US in Afghanistan

5. Sign up for one on one classes to learn Pashto/Farsi from Afghan women in Afghanistan

6. Support an orphanage in Herat, Afghanistan

7. Support an Afghan cricket team in the Chicagoland area

8. Support an Afghan mom hand embroidering Afghan traditional dresses and shawls by purchasing from her Etsy shop

Share

About the Author

Sayeda Qader is an Afghan American essayist, writer, and humanitarian. She writes personal essays and investigative pieces exploring life in the Afghan diaspora, ongoing crises in Afghanistan, and the human impact of U.S. foreign policy. Sayeda is the founder of the Kalaam Project, a humanitarian aid organization providing sustainable, on-the-ground humanitarian aid to communities in Afghanistan. Her work blends storytelling, advocacy, and reporting.

Last night, Pakistan launched airstrikes and drone attacks across eastern Afghanistan, in Kunar, Khost, and Paktika Provinces. In Khost Province, Pakistan bombed a civilian home, killing 9 kids and 1 woman while they were asleep. Community members spent the morning digging graves for the children and the women. Pakistan has continued to claim that they are targeting TTP militants, just recently announcing that they killed 22 militants in Afghanistan in last night’s airstrikes.

Arab News reports, “The Afghan government on Tuesday accused Pakistan of carrying out overnight airstrikes in three eastern provinces that killed at least 10 civilians, including nine children and a woman, as Pakistan’s military separately announced it had killed 22 militants in an intelligence-based operation in its northwest region bordering Afghanistan.”

Pakistan has consistently targeted eastern Afghanistan; bombing civilian homes in rural Pashtun villages, killing innocent civilians who have never heard of the TTP. Over a month ago, the Pakistani military bombed Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, killing and wounding hundreds of innocent Afghans on Taimani Street. The same street I lived a block away from when I was in Afghanistan in June.

Last October, Pakistan launched an airstrike, killing 8 young Afghan cricket players.

BBC reports, “The strike hit a home in Urgon district in Paktika province, where the players were eating dinner after a match, witnesses and local officials told the BBC. Eight people were killed, the ACB said. Pakistan said the strike hit militants and denied targeting civilians.”

The Pakistani government continues to show blatant disregard for Afghan lives. During ceasefire discussions following Pakistan’s bombing in Kabul, Pakistani officials openly admitted that they cannot stop the strikes because Pakistan has signed an agreement with a foreign power to continue bombing Afghanistan. This follows President Trump’s threat demanding Afghanistan hand over the Bagram Air Base. The Taliban refused, and since then, the bombings have not only continued but escalated, with Afghan civilians paying the price for geopolitical negotiations they never chose to be part of.

In Pakistan, authorities have placed bounties on the heads of Afghan refugees. If a Pakistani citizen finds an Afghan and hands them over to police, they get paid for it, Afghans have become hunting targets. Pakistani police have been conducting nightly raids on Afghan communities, storming into homes between midnight and dawn. They drag people out of bed, beat Afghan women, shove elderly men to the ground, and strike children with batons. Phones are confiscated, visa documents ripped apart, valuables taken. Afghan families live in fear every night.

Footage has emerged of Afghan women with deep bruises along their cheekbones and jawlines, young men with gashes across their foreheads, and crying children clutching each other in the aftermath of these raids. These aren’t isolated incidents; this is a campaign of intimidation and punishment against an already displaced population.

Afghans do not need sympathy; we need accountability. We need people to speak up, to question Pakistan’s brutality rather than justify it, and to refuse to let Afghan suffering be white noise in global politics. The world must stop turning its head away every time Afghans are harmed. If human life still holds any moral weight, then the international community must condemn these abuses, demand transparency, and halt the support of regimes that target displaced and vulnerable people. We will not be silent, and we will not allow the Afghan struggle to be erased. History is watching, and so are we.

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The Kunar earthquakes are a stark example of how institutions and the international community have largely forgotten the people of Afghanistan. Smaller, grassroots organizations like the Kalaam Project were among the first on the ground, and continue to deliver much needed aid. We delivered critical aid, distributing cash, cooking pans, blankets, coats, and even soccer balls for children. Major media news outlets continue to refer to Afghans as a people who are war-torn, this contributes to the narrative that this is a constant state that the people of Afghanistan will remain in. It discourages aid organizations from making Afghanistan a priority. Aid organizations like the Kalaam Project are locally led, our team leads create and launch community initiatives that help their own people. There is no forgetting in the ways we distribute aid at Kalaam. As we begin building homes for families in Kunar, it is clear that many urgent needs remain unmet.

My aid worker shared this update this morning:

“The problems of the people in Kunar are immediate and severe. Many children are suffering from chest infections and pneumonia because nights are cold and they have no heaters, sleeping in tents without blankets or mattresses. Families sit in the dark without electricity or hot meals. When the news stops talking about Afghanistan, the support stops. Organizations no longer come to help. It is just us here now.”

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Post-conviction court is often the last resort for inmates to defend their case. It’s where they can present new evidence, point out violations of their constitutional rights, or argue that they did not have adequate representation from their attorney. In theory, it is a place for justice. In practice, especially for Chicago’s Jon Burge torture victims, post-conviction court is often a stage for delay and obstruction. The State stalls. They say they are “not ready.” And time, the one thing a person can never get back, is stolen again and again.

The Continuation of Torture

To understand what happens in post-conviction court to Chicago’s Jon Burge torture victims, you have to go back to the torture chambers of Chicago’s Area 2 and Area 3 police headquarters. In the 1970s through the early 1990s, Commander Jon Burge and the officers under his command tortured over 100 Black men into confessing to crimes they did not commit. Some were teenagers, most came from homes of poverty, but nearly all were black.

To be clear, police officers and detectives weren’t just trying to get a conviction. They were reenforcing a system where Black bodies could be controlled, coerced, and broken. Many of these men spent decades in prison for crimes they didn’t commit, and today, survivors are still fighting for freedom in post-conviction court.

In today’s hearing, the State’s Attorney repeated the same words I’ve heard before: “I need more time. I’m not ready”

I attended court support for Abdul-Malik nearly a year ago. At that hearing, the State’s Attorney said the same thing. Nothing has changed except the weight of more time stolen from someone who should be free. From someone who the State knows should be free. For Abdul-Malik, that “more time” looks like this: he goes from prison to the jail, waits there for hours, then goes to the court. He sits through a hearing, hears the State’s Attorney stall again, and is driven back. And then he waits. And waits. Every day he waits costs him years of his life.

After 31 years in prison, after numerous torture victims have been exonerated, the court knows Abdul-Malik is innocent. And yet the State continues to stall. And the Judge continues to grant continuance of torture.

From Slavery to Torture to the Prison-Industrial Complex

To understand why this happens, you have to see the system as part of a continuum. The oppression of Black bodies did not end with slavery. It morphed and adapted. After emancipation, Black communities were criminalized through Jim Crow laws. Slavery became incarceration. Torture became extraction of forced confessions. And today, the prison-industrial complex sustains the same racialized control, now justified through law and bureaucracy.

Chicago’s Jon Burge era was a direct link in that chain. Black men were tortured not only to punish them individually, but to enforce a system that treated their bodies as expendable and their freedom as negotiable. Post-conviction delays — repeated continuances, the “not ready” proclamations, are just another form of torture.

The prison-industrial complex isn’t just historical; it’s profitable. On paper, the state doesn’t make “profit” from incarceration, but the system relies on people being behind bars to function. Illinois spends roughly $38,000–$50,000 per inmate per year. That money doesn’t disappear though, it circulates. It funds contracts for food, uniforms, and healthcare. It sustains private companies and unions whose livelihoods depend on a full prison population.

Prosecutors, too, benefit institutionally. High conviction rates and long sentences justify budgets, support careers, and create political capital. There is no incentive to exonerate someone wrongfully convicted; if anything, delays protect the system from civil liability, and public accountability.

Exoneration threatens this structure.

So this probably leads you to ask, what does the State gain by stalling in post-conviction court? The truth is that the State gains time, they gain control. They preserve and continue to be the architects of slavery.

For Abdul-Malik, that means waiting months or years after a lifetime already stolen. For survivors of Jon Burge’s torture, it means the system is still finding ways to harm them. And yet the system knows, the courts know, the lawyers know, that many of these men are innocent. It is a reminder that slavery did not end in 1865. Torture did not end in 1993. Incarceration today is still an industry built on the exploitation of Black bodies, and delay is part of its design. Post conviction court is not about justice, it is about maintaining face and funding for the State.

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it was particularly cold the day my mom got the call. you don’t remember anything from your infant ages, and not much from your toddler ages either. but I remember the sounds. I remember every time i’ve ever heard that sound come out of my mother.

her younger cousins had gone to Paktia to visit their grandparents. they were playing outside, kite running to be specific. marina was always running, the girl couldn’t be stopped. she was wearing a yellow kamarchin dress, with embroidered mirrors at the neckline. marina was always asking when my mom was coming home. she’d make lists of all the toys she wanted from America, and she’d read the list aloud on the phone. they didn’t have smartphones or internet back then, the calls were paid per minute. and marina would read for many minutes, her mother always scolding her for using up all the minutes that my mom would pay for. my mom, and her pocket full of change, would walk to the international call stores and would gingerly buy 10 minutes for 20 bucks. 20 bucks was a lot in 2003. but she loved marina.

and marina didn’t know me but she loved me. she’d make handmade red beaded necklaces that were far too big for my neck, and would promise to give them to me when I came home. home was afghanistan, home was the place dick cheney would talk about on cnn. jowls jowling, hands folded, as he took marina away from my mother. away from the fields of paktia. away from me.

we did go home that summer. I was too young to remember, but we visited marina’s grave. and I know she’s still up there watching over us.

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I’m sitting in the back room at work as I write this, and i’m thinking of the number of children that were forced to stay children. other people write politically moving pieces, they reference dates and times because the dates and times are still foreign to them. all I have are memories, everything happened at home. it was all too close to home.

but let’s get back to the discussion at hand, why did Afghanistan retaliate?

when the Pakistani military isn’t killing Pashtuns in the Afghan territories, they are usually preoccupied with launching airstrikes across eastern Afghanistan. Pakistan has spent a good portion, if not most of its available weaponry to launch airstrikes along eastern Afghanistan. Pakistan is notorious for bombing Afghan villages and killing Afghan children while they’re asleep, continually claiming to be aiming for TTP members and their “headquarters.”

most recently, Pakistan launched airstrikes in Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul, claiming once again to be targeting a TTP member. no casualties were reported, but Kabul is the capital of Afghanistan, making it a sovereign state. Pakistan’s airstrikes were a clear violation of Afghan sovereignty as well as international law, giving Afghanistan the right to defend itself. Pakistan intelligence officers as well as generals were seen celebrating on social media, claiming, “We got him,” referring to Noor Wali Mehsud, the emir (leader) of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who actually happens to still be in Pakistan.

Afghanistan’s response was markedly different. rather than resorting to airstrikes or indiscriminate violence, Afghan forces engaged Pakistani soldiers in direct combat along the border. reports indicate that over fifty-six Pakistani soldiers were killed, with no civilian casualties — a crucial distinction.

it is important to note that Pakistan has long served as a US proxy in wars against Afghanistan, from the Cold War to the so-called War on Terror. Pakistan’s attacks come as Trump has repeatedly threatened that “bad things” will happen in Afghanistan if the Taliban refuse to hand over the Bagram Air Base. Afghanistan is firmly opposed to another U.S. invasion, yet Pakistan’s attacks come as an invitation, that Pakistan will do Trump’s bidding, for cash of course.

and yet, amidst all this, what has also become difficult to ignore since the Taliban takeover in August of 2021, is the white feminist rhetoric that has resurfaced, that Afghan women need saving, particularly saving from the US. during the U.S. occupation, that narrative was weaponized to justify two decades of war and occupation under the guise of liberation. while claiming to defend Afghan women, the United States and its allies committed countless war crimes against innocent civilians, including women.

to continue believing that Afghan women are helpless beings awaiting Western salvation is not compassion, it is complicity. it perpetuates the same colonial logic that justified war under the guise of aid. by upholding that rhetoric, you are, knowingly or not, encouraging yet another invasion.

instead, I ask that you center Afghan women’s voices, not white women. support Afghan-led, diaspora-based humanitarian organizations that prioritize both immediate relief and sustainable solutions for women in Afghanistan. support schools built by Afghan women, vocational programs teaching seamstress work and literacy, and community initiatives that ensure women’s economic survival and independence.

Afghanistan does not need saving from abroad. it needs the world to stop enabling those who destroy it, and to listen to those who are rebuilding it.

after the, so called “emancipation” of slaves, formerly Black slaves were expected to dress in a way that signaled “humility” and “gratitude.” during the first Jim Crow era (I say first, because Jim Crow laws are still prevalent in today’s world), “professional” jobs were reserved for white workers. employers refused to hire black workers because often times, they could not afford the expensive suits and dresses that white works wore, adhering to the “Eurocentric professional standard.” historically, even in service jobs, uniforms and dress codes were used to reinforce hierarchy. black workers were expected to wear servant like attire (maids’ uniforms, porters’ caps) while being denied opportunities to wear clothing associated with authority.

in the 1940s, when black and mexican youth in Los Angeles wore zoot suits; oversized and sharp suits — their clothing was criminalized. the police force framed these suits as symbols of delinquency, leading to what we now call the Zoot Suit Riots, where mobs literally stripped men of their clothes in the streets.

fashion became a weapon, a way for police to profile and dictate who was allowed to have dignity, and who they could strip dignity of. by the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement took a different route: activists intentionally wore suits, ties, and dresses at marches and sit-ins. it was a strategy of survival, a way to look “professional” in the eyes of a white audience that equated dignity with Eurocentric standards of appearance. but even then, younger activists like the Black Panthers resisted this expectation, reclaiming leather jackets and afros as their uniform. their very existence was labeled as “radical,” and “threatening.” clothing has never just been about fabric. it was, and still is, a tool of control.

when someone gets “dress coded” at work today, it’s not just about fashion, it’s a part of a long history of policing marginalized people’s appearance to control access to jobs, dignity, and respect.

as employers continue to reinforce Eurocentric business casual wear in workplaces, they are continuing to make jobs inaccessible to marginalized people. what started as a tool of exclusion in the Jim Crow era has shifted, but the logic remains the same: only those who can afford to look the part are deemed professional enough to belong. in today’s world of Jim Crow, it’s often people of color in supervisory positions who are tasked with disciplining and dress coding employees, enforcing the same rules that once locked their own communities out of opportunities. the hierarchy continues to be maintained, policed from the top down. reminding us that “professionalism” is not a neutral standard, but a system designed to keep certain people in their place.

I’m wearing another zip-up hoodie today as I head into work, keeping in mind how my supervisor polices privilege through dress codes.

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