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The Amanpour Hour

Interview With Principles For Peace Foundation Executive Director Hiba Qasas; Interview With Israeli Air Force Former Chief of Planning General Nimrod Sheffer; Interview With "The Uninhabitable Earth" Author David Wallace-Wells; Interview With "Adventures In The Louvre" Author Elaine Sciolino; When the Taliban First Seized Power. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired August 23, 2025 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:00:41]

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello everyone, and welcome to "THE AMANPOUR HOUR".

Here's where were headed this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: With the Middle East embroiled in endless conflict, Palestinian and Israeli peacemakers Hiba Qasas and Nimrod Sheffer join me to discuss a different way forward.

Then the killer consequences of Trump going fossils first. I speak to science writer David Wallace-Wells about microplastics getting into our brains.

DAVID-WALLACE WELLS, AUTHOR, "THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH": Everywhere they look on the planet, we find some evidence of this kind of pollution. And increasingly, we're seeing it inside us, too.

AMANPOUR: Also --

ELAINE SCIOLINO, AUTHOR, "ADVENTURES IN THE LOUVRE": Well, it's a fortress. And I went in like a foreign correspondent, like a war correspondent, and did battle in this incredible fortress that's still impregnable.

AMANPOUR: "Adventures in the Louvre", former "New York Times" Paris bureau chief Elaine Sciolino takes me behind the scenes of the iconic Paris museum, from its famous Glass Pyramid to the coveted Mona Lisa, all explored in her new book.

Plus, four years after the Taliban took over, how women and girls are paying the price for America's withdrawal from Afghanistan.

And from my archives, the familiar chaos that ensued the first time the Taliban seized control in 1996.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.

Of all the crises and wars raging in today's world, none has confounded more leaders than the 80-year conflict raging in the Middle East between Israelis and the Palestinians.

With the war on Gaza grinding past 22 months and a desperate humanitarian and starvation crisis, even the concept of a two-state solution has all but disappeared from the conversation.

And few understand better this failure to bring a political solution than my next Israeli and Palestinian guests, calling to revive the process.

Hiba Qasas is the executive director of the Principles for Peace Foundation, and Nimrod Sheffer is running for parliament with the center left party called Democrats. They join me in a rare show of shared activism and a possible solution.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Hiba Qasas and Nimrod Sheffer, welcome both of you to the program.

Can I ask you first to explain why and how you got here?

Hiba, you were born in Nablus on the West Bank. Your boyfriend was shot and killed by the IDF in 2000. And you have left in order to study peace building.

And Nimrod, you are the son of two Holocaust survivors, and you've served 37 years in the Israeli military becoming the second in command of the Israeli Air Force.

So, Hiba first, what about this origin story made you do what you're trying to do now at this time of all times?

HIBA QASAS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PRINCIPLES FOR PEACE FOUNDATION AND PALESTINIAN PEACEBUILDING LEADER: I think I can say like many Palestinians and incidentally also many Israelis, we are shaped by this conflict and the reality of occupation and insecurity.

And for me, I grew up in the West Bank. I grew up in Nablus. I'm a child of the first intifada.

And of course, this moment that we're in is a very dangerous moment because there's a very strong sense of existential threat.

You know, since October 7th in the war in Gaza, after years of occupation and insecurity felt amongst both our peoples, what we are experiencing today is truly traumatic.

And I can say very clearly that 22 months with the devastation that is happening in Gaza, you know, Gaza is lying in ruins, the majority of the population is displaced, we're witnessing starvation.

And with all of that, hostages remain in captivity. And we are seeing that we are on a crossroad. We're either going to go into a continuous case of perpetual war and intergenerational trauma and loss, or we need to choose something different.

So, I'm choosing to be amongst pragmatic Palestinians and Israelis who see the necessity and the imperative to forge a different kind of path, a path of mutual recognition, of safety and security, of dignity and an end to the occupation.

[11:04:53]

AMANPOUR: Ok.

QASAS: And a path that will get us out of this situation that we're in.

AMANPOUR: So Nimrod, I don't know whether you heard Hiba say both of our peoples face an existential situation. So, the empathy from one side to the other side, do you feel that as well? And what about your history both personal and military, has brought you to this moment and what convinces you that this a moment of possibility?

GEN. NIMROD SHEFFER (RET.), FORMER CHIEF OF PLANNING, ISRAELI AIR FORCE: What brought me here and to get to know Hiba and work together with her started with a kind of a deep fear that I felt that I might leave to my children a worse place that -- than I inherited from my parents as you said, Christiane, are Holocaust survivors.

And starting with that I try to understand what I've learned in my military service and I have a very deep belief that struggles and conflicts can be solved, must be solved, and can be solved.

And together, both things like brought me to the place when I said, ok, I must be active in that. Because as a military person, you are active in defending your country, but you don't necessarily active in solving conflicts.

But when I met with Hiba, I said, ok, I think if we work together, we can do something to solve the conflict, not only to live through it. I don't believe in containing conflict for a long time. It causes a lot of suffering.

And so, together, I think we are in a place and a point that we believe we can try and add something to solving that hard conflict.

AMANPOUR: Let me ask you the brutal hard facts. There seems to be no public support, certainly not in Israel, and no longer really in -- amongst Palestinians for a two-state solution.

Hiba, from your perspective, is there a consensus for -- amongst the Palestinians?

QASAS: You know, Christiane, you're absolutely right. I think when we look at the experience of Palestinians, I mean, we talk a lot about Gaza, but I'm -- I've been here now also in the West Bank and speaking with people from different sectors, from the business community, from -- you know, amongst the leadership, but also the civil society.

The reality, the lived reality of people is very hard for them to envisage a different kind of future because you're talking about, you know, settler violence, you're talking about settlement expansion, you're talking about rhetoric around complete annexation of the West Bank. So, yes, there's been a loss of hope around the prospects of a political solution.

But the reality is with what's happening in Gaza, the latest polling is showing a record number of support amongst Palestinians, over 70 percent today support a two-state solution.

There is a desire and an imperative for separation between the two people. There's a high level of trauma. And for Palestinians, what's happening in Gaza is another Nakba. So, in the psyche of the people, its people are very traumatized.

But now is the time to see a different kind of future. And I can tell you for a fact that in the different polling that we've been following and our partners have been doing, that when you're asking about support to a two-state solution, for example, in Israel, it get -- you get support less than 30 percent.

But when we're talking about a regional political and security framework and a non-militarized Palestinian State as part of that framework, then the support goes up to over 57 percent.

So, that is the opportunity that is bringing us together, not as a traditional peace camp, but as a coalition of enlightened self- interest, a coalition that brings folks who believe in realpolitik (ph) and are doing it also for the betterment of their own people and recognize that there is a desire for separation and that a political solution is the only way forward that would actually break this containment trap.

And this situation where we keep seeing this perpetual war, this intergenerational trauma going and inherited from one generation to the other.

AMANPOUR: And Nimrod, a similar question to you because as traumatized as the Palestinians are and this being a second Nakba, 75 years after the first one, Israel, I've been hearing over and over again from people who I interview, is not in a post-traumatic situation after October 7th. It's in a traumatic situation after October 7th.

You though, wrote a letter with a lot of other military to get the government to stop this war. On the other hand, as you also know, the very hardline right-wing nationalists want to bury any idea of a Palestinian State.

So, for you, do you think it -- you know, this future aim has to start with the end of the war, and how does that happen?

SHEFFER: We must start from a point when we stop the war, bring back everybody home and start rebuilding. This is going to be a very long process in both sides, even in Israel.

[11:09:51]

SHEFFER: And then, when you're talking to me about the solution, when I'm looking at the long-term solution, I think first about the State of Israel, my friends, my people, and I say to myself, look, if you want to live here in safety and security, you must separate from another people, the Palestinian people who live here.

We -- I think living together is really, a kind of a way we won't be able to support and sustain and reality show that. And I believe we must look and strive for a solution who, first of all, will make the State of Israel a safer and a better place to live.

I believe by that, it's going to give the Palestinian people also the chance to build a better and a much better place for them to live.

But when we're talking about, again, the short-term, we must stop the war. And I say it again and again to my government, and I protest against the government time and again on the streets, it's not a secret. And I think the government of Israel should stop the war and then start thinking about the long-term solution.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Coming up later on the show, the consequences of Trump going fossils first. I speak to science writer David Wallace-Wells about the microplastics accumulating on our shores and in our vital organs.

Also ahead, four years after the Taliban's takeover, following the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, a look at the country now and back in 1996, when they first took charge.

[11:11:23]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

Around the world, but especially in Europe, extreme heat waves have been a real killer this summer, quite literally, with scientists saying that climate change is responsible for the rising number of deaths in certain European cities.

But across the ocean, in the United States, Trumps MAGA movement is rolling back plans to combat climate change, instead expanding oil, gas and coal while slashing green energy.

Since returning to office, Trump has ignored findings which say fossil fuel emissions endanger human health, all while plastics made from these very fossil fuels continue to choke our oceans and pollute our food chain.

David Wallace-Wells is an opinion writer for the New York times who authored the book "The Uninhabitable Earth", and I spoke to him about this issue from New York. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: David Wallace-Wells, welcome to the program.

WALLACE-WELLS: Really good to be here.

AMANPOUR: So, let's talk about something that's actually happening and in your most recent writing.

So, you recently wrote an op-ed in "The New York Times" about this problem. And honestly, one of the most vivid and probably terrifying sentences is, "There might be inside your skull the equivalent of a full plastic spoon." Obviously, plastics are made of fossil fuels.

What -- tell me how you came up with that and what actually that means.

WALLACE-WELLS: Well, you know, plastic concern has been rising for years now. And so, really since I've been writing about climate, I've been seeing, you know, news and alarm about microplastics in particular, although there are also nano plastics, macro plastics. You hear about the great Pacific garbage patch. You know, we talk about plastics in the ocean.

And the -- when you follow the science, it's almost like every week there's a new alarming finding. Everywhere they look there are plastics.

So, there are plastics in the depths of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean. When a human submersible got there a few years ago, deeper than anyone had ever reached in the ocean before, plastic pollution was already there.

When they look up into the atmosphere and the stratosphere, there's plastics there; in you know, rain clouds circling Mount Fuji; in raindrops falling in the Amazon; in freshly sprayed, you know, ocean water coming off the beaches crashing against sand there's plastics there. Everywhere they look on the planet we find some evidence of this kind of pollution.

And increasingly, we're seeing it inside us too. There's plastics in placentas discharged by new mothers. There's microplastics in the breast milk being fed to new babies.

And yes, most -- perhaps most alarmingly in the brain, so much so that not just does it add up to the equivalent of a plastic spoon in the brain, but actually, that's about one-fifth by weight as much as brainstem.

AMANPOUR: Oh, my God. Ok, you've fully terrorized me, and I'm sure you can go on and on about where plastics are.

I mean, if this is so pervasive and it's everywhere and you cannot escape it, and it's in us and in our food chain, how does that get reversed or does it? WALLACE-WELLS: Well, you know, I come to this from climate change and it's a quite similar problem. It's basically a collective action problem, which we often tell ourselves can be solved through individual action. In the case of climate, by reducing our carbon footprint.

In the case of plastics, by throwing out the wrong kind of spatula or making sure that we're drinking less, you know, single-use plastic bottles, which by the way can -- a single bottle of water can contain as much as 250,000 microplastics in it.

But in fact, you know, this is a silly way of thinking about the problem when pollution is already everywhere, including inside of us.

What we need to do is try to stop the -- you know, stop the flow at the source, and that means producing less plastic than we are now.

[11:19:51]

WALLACE-WELLS: We're now at something like 400 times as much plastic being produced every year as was produced in the years after World War II. And so, this is a huge booming global business, which does need to be really reformed.

And for about 30 years now, the companies that produce plastics, petrochemical companies and the fossil fuel companies have sort of sold us this story that we could actually solve this problem, or at least address it through recycling, because they want to distract us from how -- you know, from the real problem, which is reducing the production in the first place. And that's ultimately where we need to go.

AMANPOUR: Ok. So, again, doubly depressing because certainly all of us who've been busily recycling think that we're doing a decent job for us and for our future, but clearly not enough.

So, the latest in the new MAGA fossils first, you know, climate policy is this proposal by the EPA to repeal what's called the Endangerment Finding. That was issued by the Supreme Court apparently in 2009.

Now look, What is it and why is it important?

WALLACE-WELLS: Basically, it was a finding that allows the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases without direct action by Congress. And that seems increasingly important because it doesn't seem all that likely that in the U.S. Congress we'll be taking action to reduce carbon emissions or greenhouse gases more generally anytime in the future.

AMANPOUR: What is the impact on individual health, do you think, if this is allowed to continue with this current Republican MAGA president?

WALLACE-WELLS: Well, I think the biggest impact on human health from this problem is not directly the result of climate change but the result of what we do to make climate warm, which is to say, burn fossil fuels that produces air pollution, that kills globally perhaps 5 million, perhaps 10 million people every single year.

And in the U.S. estimates run as high as 350,000 people a year, which is to say, as many Americans may have died in 2020 from the effects of air pollution produced from the burning of fossil fuels as died from COVID in that first pandemic year.

And that is not an exceptional year. The statistics, the modeling suggests that we are doing that in an ongoing way. It's killing many Americans every year. And if we were in a greener,

cleaner future, we would be killing fewer of them. That's true not just in the U.S., it's true around the world. But in the U.S. I think it's particularly grotesque given that we are such a rich country.

AMANPOUR: Well, you keep raising the alarm and we'll keep talking to you.

David Wallace-Wells, thank you very much indeed.

WALLACE-WELLS: Thanks for having me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Coming up, it's the most popular museum in the world. But how much do we really know about the Louvre? Writer Elaine Sciolino tells me what she discovered when she drew back the curtain in Paris.

[11:22:29]

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AMANPOUR: Next, unlocking the secrets of one of the most famous museums in the world. Elaine Sciolino made her name as a foreign correspondent covering crises and revolutions.

Now she's turning her investigative eye to the colorful world of the Louvre. Notably, how visitors can fall in love with its hidden charms and unique art collection. Her book is called "Adventures in the Louvre", which she joined me here in London to talk about.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Elaine Sciolino, welcome.

SCIOLINO: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: "Adventures in the Louvre". What made you want to write a book about the world's --

SCIOLINO: Yes --

AMANPOUR: -- biggest, best-known museum? Was it obvious?

SCIOLINO: Well, it's a fortress. And I went in like a foreign correspondent, like a war correspondent, and did battle in this incredible fortress that's still impregnable, and hopefully conquered it, at least temporarily. AMANPOUR: You say impregnable. I was actually really astounded to hear about the amount -- I mean, it's a little bit like going to some kind of authoritarian dictatorship where you can't move from minders.

SCIOLINO: Yes.

AMANPOUR: How many minders and why at a museum were you so closely supervised?

SCIOLINO: Well, Christiane, you know, minders as I know minders from the Middle East. And I had a minder, and she was responsible for setting up every single interview with a Louvre official.

In fact, there was even a classified Louvre document that said that I was not allowed to go anywhere in the Louvre, except with my minder, and that slowed me down probably --

AMANPOUR: Yes.

SCIOLINO: -- probably about a year.

AMANPOUR: Yes. And it put your hackles up no -- it would drive me bananas.

SCIOLINO: Well, what was terrible is she was a good minder. She was really efficient. And so, she did her job and that made it difficult.

AMANPOUR: And how difficult was it to navigate? Because I know it's 400 rooms, it's massive. Did you have to pick and choose what you focused on?

SCIOLINO: No, I did everything. I decided to treat it like a journalistic field. And so, I asked questions, like how do you wash the windows of the pyramid? So, I had to go up with the window washers.

AMANPOUR: That's the -- famous IMP.

SCIOLINO: Yes. Well, how do you wash these or how do you go into the basement of the Louvre? So, I went with the Sapeur Pompier, who are the firefighters who live in the Louvre, into the bowels of the Louvre and up climbed -- we climbed up the side of the Louvre up to the roof.

Or I found out that, for example, there was a librarian in charge of all of the letters about the Mona Lisa and to the Mona Lisa. So, I went through every single letter about it.

So, it was -- it really was an investigative but also ground -- on- the-ground reporting job.

[11:29:45]

AMANPOUR: So, we've done the process. Now, we're talking about the art and you bring up the Mona Lisa. So, I didn't know this, but it stands to reason that 80 percent of first time Louvre visitors go specifically to see the Mona Lisa. SCIOLINO: Yes.

AMANPOUR: What was your experience covering that? You'd obviously seen it before. But what was your relationship with the Mona Lisa and with the crowds around the Mona Lisa?

SCIOLINO: Well, I was lucky because I got into the Louvre many times when no one else was there.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

SCIOLINO: So, I was able to see the Mona Lisa, just -- she and I bonded. And after a while, you can appreciate just why she's so magical.

AMANPOUR: Because you didn't appreciate before?

SCIOLINO: No, and I still don't like the fact that she's so important. I mean, here she's a Florentine and she's in this room with Venetian painting. She doesn't belong there. She really does belong -- have to have her own space.

But we had to navigate. We had to have a relationship of confidence and trust.

AMANPOUR: You and the Mona Lisa?

SCIOLINO: Me and the Mona Lisa. Yes.

AMANPOUR: Tell us about the building itself. It wasn't built as a museum.

SCIOLINO: No.

AMANPOUR: We don't know why it's called Louvre. I want to hear why you think it possibly is. But it was built as a fort to protect Paris in 1190.

SCIOLINO: Yes. And then it was a palace that the kings tried to live in, but it was damp. It's on the Seine.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

SCIOLINO: So, it's damp and flooded and humid, and that's why Louis the XIV escaped and built Versailles to get away. It never really worked as a royal residence.

AMANPOUR: But how many -- I mean, hundreds of years later, it became -- it became a museum.

SCIOLINO: During the French Revolution.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

SCIOLINO: Yes. And it became a people's museum. It became a museum that everyone had access to and everybody could go to. But it was never a museum, and it was sort of like a building, huge building, 400 rooms. It would take 18,000 steps to go to every single room.

It kind of was all pieced together over the century so, nothing makes sense. It's not at all like the Met, which was built as a museum.

AMANPOUR: You talk about -- I mean, look, the Mona Lisa, as we know, the most famous painting there, but there's so much more. I mean, you and I, we've been to Iran and Iraq and we've seen so much of the artwork there, but also that that has been brought to the Louvre. And it is amazing what they have.

Tell me the story though, because you went to -- I can't remember whether it was Iran, but you -- the town of Susa, which had all these beautiful, huge, you know, sculptures of Darius I.

SCIOLINO: Well, that was the sister empire. But when we would go to Persepolis, the tour guides would say, if you really want to experience what it was like during this period of ancient Persian history, you've got to go to the Louvre.

And so, I tell people, you can't go to Iran, but go to the Louvre and have a feel for what this wonderful empire was like.

AMANPOUR: What's your advice for people going there? Because it is huge and some people think that, oh, they've got 15 minutes. They can do a quick whiz round and they can get in and out. But it's not like that.

SCIOLINO: Well, I say to people, choose your Louvre identity. Decide what kind of a visitor are you? Are you a marathoner? And you have to go see every single work of art in every single room? And I did find people who did that.

Are you a sprinter? Do you just want to go in and look at the big three? The Mona Lisa, the Victory Samothrace, the Venus de Milo.

Are you a wanderer, a (INAUDIBLE) and you just want to get lost in the loop?

And once you allow yourself the joy and the freedom to look at it however you want, it makes it a lot easier.

AMANPOUR: Really interesting. Elaine Sciolino, thank you so much.

SCIOLINO: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: "Adventures in the Louvre".

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Coming up, the painful legacy of U.S. withdrawal -- a look at Afghanistan today four years since the Taliban took over.

[11:33:33]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

It's been four years since U.S. troops left Afghanistan, putting the nation into the hands of the adversary they'd been fighting for two decades.

Since then, Afghan women and girls living under Taliban rule have suffered some of the world's most severe restrictions. They can't study beyond sixth grade. They can't hold jobs. They can't visit parks or even speak outside their homes.

And now many of those who intended to escape this repressive regime are unable to leave as the poverty skyrockets there.

Isobel Yeung discovered all of this during her recent travels to Afghanistan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ISOBEL YEUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here in Afghanistan, the remnants of war are everywhere.

These guys are trying to clear this whole field of land mines that have been left by decades of war. Just got to watch where we're stepping, because anywhere beyond these red flags is still potentially contaminated and could have unexploded ordnance.

Deminers work around the clock.

KHALID SAMIN, DANISH REFUGEE COUNCIL: There were three accidents, civilian accidents, happened in this area in the past.

YEUNG: Oh, wow. And how often are civilian accidents happening in Afghanistan?

SAMIN: On a monthly basis, we have witnessed more than 110 people. Most of them as children involved with the accident, unfortunately.

YEUNG: So, over 100 civilian accidents every month.

SAMIN: Monthly basis, yes.

YEUNG: Wow. It must be dangerous work.

SAMIN: Yes. This is the reality of Afghanistan.

YEUNG: This guy here has just found some sign of metal, so they're digging a little further to try and find out whether that's a mine or not.

[11:39:48]

YEUNG: Very hot, dangerous work up here.

Every week, the deminers collect unexploded ordnance and explode them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three, two, one.

YEUNG: But invading countries have left more than just bombs in their wake here. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans worked with the U.S. government during their 20-year war here as translators, drivers, civil society workers and doctors.

Following America's chaotic withdrawal under the Biden administration in 2021 the U.S. set up a refugee program that would provide a path for Afghans to move to the U.S., a lightning rod for many Republicans.

STEPHEN MILLER, NOW-WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: The United States of America never, ever made a promise, written or unwritten, to the people of Afghanistan, that if, after 20 years, they were unable to secure their own country, that we would take them to ours.

YEUNG: When Trump returned to power this year, he canceled refugee programs, dismantled the office dedicated to helping Afghans relocate and barred them from entering the U.S. altogether.

We've been speaking to a lot of those individuals across the country, but sadly, because of security concerns, most of them we're having to speak to on the phone.

On paper, the U.S. says they are still processing papers for people who worked with the U.S. military directly, but many, like this man are stuck in Afghanistan, living in fear. We've disguised his voice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know that the Taliban is searching for me. I'm hiding. I can't go outside freely. If they find me, I'm confident that they will imprison me. They will torture me. They will kill me.

Donald Trump become U.S. president. He signed the executive order and all our cases dropped. We stood with the U.S. forces side by side for a long term, but now they banned us, why? Where is the justice?

YEUNG: So, we've been in touch with one woman who has agreed to meet with us. She says that it's very risky that she risks running into the Taliban,

she risks traveling by herself, and she's very scared. But she says it's worth it, because she really needs to share her story.

As a doctor, this woman worked for American charities. With recent U.S. aid cuts she lost her job. She now feels that her relationship with U.S. organizations has put her and her family's life in danger.

You're clearly terrified. You came here. You are shaking.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: During the way here, I saw Taliban and I'm very afraid of them.

YEUNG: What is it like as a woman living in Afghanistan right now?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The situation is very bad for the Afghan woman. And we don't -- I don't have any job. Going to the bazaar, not going to the shopping. We can't. Everything. Just we are in the home and we are afraid from every second of the

life we spend is very dangerous.

YEUNG: Her communication with the State Department has stopped. The last email she got was in January, just days before Trump returned to the White House.

How did you feel when you saw the news that Trump was canceling these programs?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All the night we are crying. It was very difficult to accept like this.

YEUNG: You felt like this was your lifeline?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, yes. It broke our heart.

YEUNG: President Trump has said that he needs to protect the borders, that he needs this America First policy to ensure that it's not dangerous and no one dangerous enters the U.S.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I'm not agree with this. They broke his promise to Afghan woman and Afghan girls.

YEUNG: What does it feel like?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're feeling bad because we trusted it. And we working with them for 20 years. And they promised us too. We must be moved from here to America.

YEUNG: What is your message to President Trump?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please, please, please, start the cases again. And also, please support the Afghan girls or women. Because now it was very difficult for us. It was very dangerous. And now, I'm not feeling safe in here.

YEUNG: The U.S. State Department told us they're unable to comment on individual cases or internal operations of refugee processing, and that the president is, quote, "committed to helping those who helped us, but that their first priority is always the safety and security of the American people".

Isobel Yeung, CNN -- Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Just a small glimpse of what life is like under the Taliban now.

Up next from my archives, we take you back nearly 30 years to 1996. We were the first to film the Taliban seizing power back then.

[11:44:47]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

Four years after Americas chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the abandoned promises and the harsh reality of so many women and girls today are visibly clear. But this is not the first time the world has neglected the Afghan people.

[11:49:46]

AMANPOUR: From my archives this week, when the Taliban first came to power in 1996, a few years after the Soviet Union ended its occupation, the power vacuum left the country in utter chaos and ruin, as my team and I witnessed, the first journalist to cover the rise of the Taliban 1.0. Here's that report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: It's called "buzkashi", calf pulling. It's Afghanistan's national sport, ferocious and wildly popular. Competing teams fight over the animal, sometimes ripping it to shreds.

Swap the calf for Afghanistan and the horsemen for her many warring factions and you get a pretty good picture of what is happening to this country today.

Seven years after sending the Soviets packing, Afghanistan is still at war, this time with herself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Brother killing, brother. Yes, fighting without nothing. I don't know what's happening.

AMANPOUR: A taxi driver tries to explain, but little prepares you for this futility. Vast stretches of the capital, Kabul, lie in ruins, destroyed not during the ten-year Soviet occupation, but afterwards, when victorious Islamic fighters known as Mujahideen turned on each other in a battle for power.

Civilians trying to get off the carousel of death move once, twice, too many times. But they cannot escape.

"Our lives are completely ruined," says this mother. "We've moved three times in three years because our homes were attacked."

In 1994 alone, 10,000 residents of Kabul were killed, 25,000 were wounded, and 1 million fled the capital, exceeding even the pain Serbs inflicted on Sarajevo in four years.

But pity the victims of a war that has fallen off the trend-o-meter. The spotlight was blinding in the 80s, when the Soviets rolled in and made this the last Cold War battleground.

Then the United States poured in billions of dollars to fight them through Mujahideen guerrillas. But when the communists left, the U.S. rolled up its Afghan maps, and now the dying goes on in the dark.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have unfinished business here. I think we didn't stay long enough to see these people through the critical period. I think, the critical period continued after the Soviets left.

AMANPOUR: The United Nations, Red Cross and a host of other relief agencies are the only ones trying to see the people through.

The Kabul government has little authority beyond keeping other factions at bay. Each claims to be more Muslim than the next, a distinction lost on the people who see the holy warriors riding around in expensive cars and getting their pickups hosed down while they live in slums with no running water, and even less say over whether they live or die.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to tell them to stop the war, and they kill their brothers. They fight with each other. It's not a good way.

AMANPOUR: That kind of despair is slowly sapping Kabul's strength. The government says the U.S. has a moral duty to reengage, but its embassy remains firmly shut. U.S. involvement amounts to backing a defunct U.N. peace mission.

The U.N. has been trying, without success, for the last two years, to get the warring factions to form a national authority, just to kick off the political process. But increasingly, many fear nothing will change unless the major powers weigh in on the side of peace.

In the meantime, the war is being aggravated as more and more neighboring countries become involved. Iran, Russia, India and Pakistan are said to be minding their own interests by supplying various sides while working on a negotiated settlement.

Observers believe no side can win a clear military victory, so casual killing fills the stalemate. The future lies with the generation of Kalashnikov-toting illiterates, and the world has one more wasteland whose people were good enough to fight its war, but not worth the effort for peace.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Historically, Afghanistan has been known as the graveyard of empires, but in truth, it's the people of Afghanistan who've been dispatched to a cold and dark place. And now that they've been mostly abandoned by the world and the U.S. has even cut off their humanitarian lifeline, all those girls, women and everyone who had hope when the Taliban fled after 9/11 are facing an even bleaker future.

When we come back, 105 years since women in America won the right to vote, it is more important than ever to protect that right.

[11:54:32]

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AMANPOUR: And finally, New Zealand was the first country to ever give women the right to vote back in 1893. It's been more than a century, 105 years ago in fact, since America followed suit. The 19th amendment was a hard-won success of the suffrage movement. And all these years later, those rights are still vulnerable to attack.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has hit the headlines and a lot of nerves after sharing and endorsing a video espousing views that women are subservient to men and shouldn't be allowed to vote.

[11:59:51]

AMANPOUR: And it comes as the Trump administration is advancing the Save Act, a bill that would make it harder for millions of women to register to vote.

Well, after our look at Afghanistan this hour, it's vital to remember not to look away, even from what's happening on our own democratic doorsteps.

And that's all we have time for. Don't forget, you can always find our shows online as podcasts at CNN.com/audio and on all other major platforms.

I'm Christiane Amanpour in London, thank you for watching. And see you again next week.