There is a young woman sheltering under a tree between two busy roads clutching a pile of documents to her chest.
These pieces of paper are more important to Bibi Nazdana than anything in the world: they are the divorce granted to her after a two-year court battle to free herself from life as a child bride.
They are the same papers a Taliban court has invalidated - a victim of the group’s hardline interpretation on Sharia (religious law) which has seen women effectively silenced in Afghanistan’s legal system.
Nazdana’s divorce is one of tens of thousands of court rulings revoked since the Taliban took control of the country three years ago this month.
I think you’re confusing America bombing Afghanistan into the ground with the Soviet Union bombing Afghanistan into the ground. Since the Soviets invaded, and the US propped up the proto-Taliban in response, Afghanistan’s government has been fundamentally broken. The US bears a lot of responsibility for that but the invasion of Afghanistan arguably made things better for a brief window.