ANALYSIS | Afghans face a return to the dark age in the midst of the digital age

The Taliban's plan to take over Afghanistan 2:56

(CNN Business) -

At futuristic speed, Afghanistan is traveling back in time, into what is often called a "dark age" of Taliban rule.

The Afghan population is witnessing with tools of the digital age, which means that anguish and terror are just a click away, filling the screens of cell phones and televisions, if the world wants to see it.

• Minute by minute: Taliban close to "total control" of Kabul

While there were relatively few sources of video when Kabul fell to the Taliban on Sunday, there were endless posts on social media:

- When the ousted President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, fled the country, the acting Defense Minister, Bismillah Mohammadi, posted a tweet cursing him.

Ghani later wrote a post on Facebook to justify his decision.

- Former President Hamid Karzai also used Facebook to communicate with citizens.

He posted a video message wishing for peace while standing with his daughters.

- Rumors about the presence of the Taliban in Kabul exploded on social media platforms as journalists posted videos of the US helicopter evacuation effort.

Other videos showed traffic jams along major arteries and empty neighborhoods elsewhere.

- "Pro-Taliban social media accounts showed video clips of what they said were large numbers of insurgents arriving in vans to provide security to Kabul," reported Yaroslav Trofimov of

The Wall Street Journal.

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- Trofimov also shared one of the closest views of the evacuation from what appeared to be a military helicopter landing zone.

He titled it "The End."

- The nightly videos of the airport, on Snapchat and other platforms, showed absolute chaos.

In one video, people were seen boarding a US Air Force plane. Afghan filmmaker Sahraa Karimi posted photos from the runway.

- PBS's Amna Nawaz wrote about the text messages with sources in Kabul that "they couldn't get to the airport. They are hiding in what they hope will be safe spaces."

- Beyond Kabul, "Afghan government officials were shown in video footage agreeing to a handover of power to their Taliban counterparts in various cities,"

The New York Times reported.

• ANALYSIS |

  Biden's failed Afghanistan withdrawal is a long-brewing disaster at home and abroad

Sign of the times

Former

New York Times

and

Wall Street Journal

reporter

Quentin Hardy, now Google Cloud's managing editor, called it "a sign of the times: helicopters on the roof, the president has fled, and telecommunications are fine."

The besieged are interviewed on Internet calls, the insurgents post videos on social media. "

When I interviewed Megan Stack four days ago, she predicted this.

He said we would see a ton of "citizen journalism and decontextualized cell phone videos" as the Afghan government collapsed.

Phones have made a difference since 2001, he said, when there were virtually "no computers in Afghanistan."

What remains to be seen: How will the proliferation of smartphones and social platforms affect the next chapter of Afghanistan?

Will the Taliban clamp down on this technology and prevent Afghans from telling their own stories?

Disturbing stories have already emerged from some Taliban-controlled provinces.

CNN's Sam Kiley takes a closer look at what "an Afghanistan under the Taliban" looks like in this CNN.com analysis.

• Who are the Taliban and how did they take control of Afghanistan so quickly?

It all happened so fast

Dan Lamothe of

The Washington Post

wrote: "On Monday,

The Washington Post

published a scoop that US intelligence officials had revised their assessment of Afghanistan to say that Kabul could fall in 90 days. Some said it could fall in 30 days. That is. it was six days ago. "

The Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan was, many analysts said, shocking but not surprising.

It was expected, but not so soon.

Perhaps this was a failure of the imagination, as well as a failure of American intelligence.

When I sat in the CNN presenter's chair just before 11 am ET, the international table moved an URGENT that read "The Taliban have entered Kabul."

So we started the hour with the news of the collapse of the Afghan government.

We ended the hour with Kylie Atwood's report that the American flag was down at the embassy.

It all happened so fast...

• Everything you need to know about Afghanistan, the "tomb of empires"

Boris Johnson talks about the situation in Afghanistan 5:19

Afghan journalists are "absolutely petrified"

That's what Clarissa Ward told me during one of her live reports from Kabul on Sunday. He said Afghan journalists, particularly women, are "absolutely petrified" by the Taliban takeover. "They have been doing bold and incredible reporting for many years, and now there is a very real fear that they may face retaliation for that or that they will certainly no longer be able to do their job."

As we spoke live on CNN, I was inundated with emails and tweets from viewers who were concerned about Ward's safety.

So I asked him about that.

He said CNN teams in Afghanistan are being "exceptionally cautious" and will leave if necessary.

But "for so many Afghans, that is simply not an option," he said.

"They are here, they have to stay, they have to live with the consequences of this next chapter."

Alexis Benveniste has more here ...

- CPJ's Sonali Dhawan reports that the Taliban "today invaded the homes of at least two female journalists in Kabul. One managed to escape, the other has not been contacted."

- In a memo to employees,

The New York Times

editor

AG Sulzberger said: "We are doing everything we can to try to get our staff, former employees and their families out of harm's way as soon as humanly possible. .. Please keep our colleagues and their families in your thoughts and prayers. "

• Biden officials admit miscalculation in Afghanistan

New anonymity for Afghan women

What will happen now to women in Afghanistan?

2:35

The Guardian

has been publishing amazing essays by Afghan contributors.

This is from a Kabul resident who now insists on anonymity for obvious reasons.

On Sunday, he wrote: "All I could see around me were the scared and scared faces of women and the ugly faces of men who hate women, who do not like women to be educated, work and have Liberty".

The Fuller Project, the nonprofit newsroom covering women and injustice, also produced a harrowing thread filled with reports and reactions from Afghan journalists, many of whom spoke anonymously.

Politico also published a story of an Afghan journalist "who asked not to be identified to protect her safety ..."

New attention for the "forgotten war"

America's presence in Afghanistan has been a footnote for so long.

Too much time.

Now all of a sudden it's the main news.

As CNN's Nick Paton Walsh observed: "The kind of tragic and urgent care that Afghanistan is receiving now is clearly the result of the spectacular and exhausting lack of care it has received over the past 9 years."

I wonder if viewers and readers feel a kind of confused whiplash.

Or if they feel anything at all.

Kate Brannen of Just Security asked: is this "the first time in 20 years that the American people have shown any interest in Afghanistan?"

• Situation in Afghanistan with the Taliban: Here's what you need to know

I said on CNN that I sensed that the American people "accepted" this defeat, so to speak, years ago.

What struck me the most was what Ruben Gallego, an Iraq war veteran and Democratic lawmaker, said on Twitter on Saturday.

"What I feel and think about the situation in Afghanistan, I will never be able to embed on Twitter," he wrote.

"But one thing that definitely stands out is that I haven't gotten a call from voters about it and my district has a large veteran population."

"IS OVER"

The banner headline at the top of Monday's edition of the US military's proudly independent newspaper,

The Stars and Stripes

, reads "IT'S OVER."

Today's front page signals the end of the 20-year Western experiment to remake #Afghanistan.

On Sunday, the Taliban swept into Kabul after the government collapsed and the country's embattled president joined an exodus of his fellow citizens and foreigners.

pic.twitter.com/AWQo1chb6m

- Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) August 15, 2021

Taliban