Newshour - Afghanistan: 'US was culturally illiterate' - BBC Sounds

As US-led troops withdraw from Afghanistan after 20 years in the country, many are asking how the Taliban have been able to make such a swift return to power. Baktash Ahadi thinks one key element has been rather ignored - cultural literacy. He's an Afghan-American who served as a combat interpreter for both US and Afghan special forces.

He says, "One of the major reasons why I believe the war was not successful in Afghanistan is because the United States did not take the time to understand the culture. The United States did not properly understand the values and principles of the people they were trying to serve."

"Most of my work was quite literally playing a cultural ambassador... I'd have to be part of conversations where an American soldier would be wearing sunglasses while talking to village elders in the middle of one of the provinces. In the context of Afghanistan, eye contact is very important when establishing trust... These little things do add up."

"Or the idea of US service members engaging women in the provinces in rural parts of Afghanistan where that was a major cultural taboo. So committing these sorts of cultural insults in some sense I believe led to a lack of trust and understanding of where the US was coming from. And as a result, lending itself to a lot of Afghans believing in conspiracies over why the US was in Afghanistan."