The Taliban are only pretending they aren't barbaric mass murderers

Afghanistan's new rulers are irredeemable; Biden should reject proposals that try to leverage US assistance to reform them.

The Taliban would like the world to know that they’re no longer the child-bride-marrying mass murderers that they used to be.

At a press conference Tuesday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said there would be no reprisals against Afghans who worked with the U.S. military. Women would be free to work and study, and the media free to broadcast what it wished, so long as both stayed “within our cultural frameworks.” How enlightened.

These promises are discredited by events on the ground. Those Afghans hanging from a U.S. military jet taking off from Kabul clearly do not take the Taliban at their word.