Afghanistan

[Cosmic Yak]

Being a recognised 'legitimate' government of a country has never been dependant on democracy. Just think of the number of democratically elected left wing governments the US has overthrown and replaced with military dictatorships. You can be a democratically elected government and not be recognised (Taiwan, Palestine).

This democratic argument is just an excuse because the US is in a sulk. Action needs to happen now to save lives. Voting and education are of little point if there is no food. Funds and food first then more carrot and less stick. Education and democracy are good things but they are not life saving in the next few weeks.

When the Taliban first came to power, they destroyed the irrigation channels in areas that had resisted them.
Any humanitarian/food crisis that may now occur will be as much the fault of the Taliban as it would of the US.
Moreover, the Taliban is not short of money itself: they have the opium trade, for a start. A lack of food, shelter or whatever, could be mitigated, or even solved completely, if they stopped spending that money on weapons and actually helped the people they claim to want to help.
Afghanistan has been largely self-sufficient for centuries. It could feed itself, if it were allowed to: it is up to the Taliban to make that happen.
Also, throwing money (funds) at the country may not help much. For example, in Bamiyan, around 45 different NGOs were operating there. Each employee was earning around $10,000 per month (this was in 2005), as danger money. Add that up. The vast bulk of the aid money going into Afghanistan never reached the people: it was swallowed up by NGO wages. Furthermore, giving money directly to the government, as it was then, or to the Taliban now, is an open invitation for corruption and embezzlement. I'm not saying don't do it: what I am saying is that it needs to be done carefully, transparently, and with accountability.

 

[Ziggurat]

When the Taliban first came to power, they destroyed the irrigation channels in areas that had resisted them.

This should surprise no one. Oppressive governments frequently weaponize food against the populations they oppress. Sending food aid often doesn't work, because those self-same governments don't WANT it to work. And why would they? A starving population can be a pliant population.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

This should surprise no one. Oppressive governments frequently weaponize food against the populations they oppress. Sending food aid often doesn't work, because those self-same governments don't WANT it to work. And why would they? A starving population can be a pliant population.

Mengistu's engineering of the 80's famine in Ethiopia is another example of that.

 

[Planigale]

When the Taliban first came to power, they destroyed the irrigation channels in areas that had resisted them.
Any humanitarian/food crisis that may now occur will be as much the fault of the Taliban as it would of the US.
Moreover, the Taliban is not short of money itself: they have the opium trade, for a start. A lack of food, shelter or whatever, could be mitigated, or even solved completely, if they stopped spending that money on weapons and actually helped the people they claim to want to help.
Afghanistan has been largely self-sufficient for centuries. It could feed itself, if it were allowed to: it is up to the Taliban to make that happen.
Also, throwing money (funds) at the country may not help much. For example, in Bamiyan, around 45 different NGOs were operating there. Each employee was earning around $10,000 per month (this was in 2005), as danger money. Add that up. The vast bulk of the aid money going into Afghanistan never reached the people: it was swallowed up by NGO wages. Furthermore, giving money directly to the government, as it was then, or to the Taliban now, is an open invitation for corruption and embezzlement. I'm not saying don't do it: what I am saying is that it needs to be done carefully, transparently, and with accountability.

The Taliban haven't been in charge for twenty years, even when they were in charge they weren't recognised, did not have complete control and there was only I think four years between the fall of the communist government and the US invasion. Any lack of infra-structure is primarily the responsibility of the corrupt and inefficient US installed government that has been in place for twenty years. Forty percent of Afghanistan's income was overseas aid. I suspect even the most competent technocrats could not have turned round twenty years of US supervised mismanagement in a month. The previous government had not paid wages for months before the Taliban took over.

I do agree with you that much of the AID paid high wages to Westerners probably with a small trickle down benefit. I also agree that aid can produce aid dependency (and corruption) which is probably what has happened in the past twenty years. The problem is food is needed before winter.

 

[Planigale]

You really don't get this, do you?
OK, let's say that deal is set up.
The Taliban agree to those terms. The money starts rolling in. They continue to deny human rights. The money stops.
They have made a profit of millions of dollars, for almost no effort at all.
The people of Afghanistan, meanwhile, continue to suffer. The Taliban remain in power, and enjoy their profits, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Now do you now see the problem?

Just perhaps the Taliban are not in it for profit? They are in it for THE Prophet!

 

[Planigale]

Mengistu's engineering of the 80's famine in Ethiopia is another example of that.

As a communist presumably he was just following good Stalinist practice?

(In passing not a democrat; was the recognised government.)

 

[theprestige]

I've seen it argued that no famine in modern times has been caused by an actual food shortage. They are all directly attributable to (intentional) food supply mismanagement.

The way to ensure the Afghan people get fed is to send not only food, but also a strong enforcement presence to properly guard and distribute the food.

Raise your hand if you're interested in twenty more years of Western military occupation of Afghanistan!

 

[Michel H]

You really don't get this, do you?
OK, let's say that deal is set up.
The Taliban agree to those terms. The money starts rolling in. They continue to deny human rights. The money stops.
They have made a profit of millions of dollars, for almost no effort at all.
The people of Afghanistan, meanwhile, continue to suffer. The Taliban remain in power, and enjoy their profits, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Now do you now see the problem?

No, I don't see any real problem.

One million dollar is a large sum of money for most individuals, like probably most posters on this forum (including myself), but not for countries. The central bank of Afghanistan has nearly $10 billion in reserves, but most of the money is in New York (https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/f...w-york-holds-billions-from-afghanistan-2021-8). Obviously, one or two millions are only a very small fraction of just that money.

Also, I don't accept the idea that the Taliban are just despicable terrorist insects, while Westerners are noble, responsible adults. If a deal has been negotiated, my default assumption is that it will be mostly abided to by the various parties of the deal (one can also cite the nuclear agreement with Iran for example; Iran mostly fulfilled its obligations until Trump withdrew). Should the Taliban not do their part of a hypothetical agreement, than the money should be withheld without delay, I don't see anything crazy about that.

As a citizen of the world, I would recommend that the current U.N. representative of Afghanistan invites himself a Taliban colleague to speak at the U.N., see https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58632147.

 

[Ziggurat]

As a citizen of the world

You are not a citizen of the world. There is no such thing. You are pretending to have a status you don’t actually have, and you are able to do so precisely because you are a citizen of a western liberal democracy.

 

[Ziggurat]

I've seen it argued that no famine in modern times has been caused by an actual food shortage.

Yes and no. Food shortages are real, but they don’t lead to famine unless there is some form of mismanagement. In the absence of mismanagement, international food aid to regions experiencing food shortages are sufficient to prevent widespread starvation, but mismanagement (often deliberate) can prevent that aid from functioning properly.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

The Taliban haven't been in charge for twenty years, even when they were in charge they weren't recognised, did not have complete control and there was only I think four years between the fall of the communist government and the US invasion. Any lack of infra-structure is primarily the responsibility of the corrupt and inefficient US installed government that has been in place for twenty years. Forty percent of Afghanistan's income was overseas aid. I suspect even the most competent technocrats could not have turned round twenty years of US supervised mismanagement in a month. The previous government had not paid wages for months before the Taliban took over.

I do agree with you that much of the AID paid high wages to Westerners probably with a small trickle down benefit. I also agree that aid can produce aid dependency (and corruption) which is probably what has happened in the past twenty years. The problem is food is needed before winter.

I travelled from Peshawar to Kabul in 2005.The main road was unusable, and we went the entire way bouncing along a dirt track next to it.
The reason for this was that the money allocated for resurfacing the highway had mostly been embezzled, and a substandard layer of tarmac had been laid down. Sun, wind, rain and snow lifted most of that off very quickly and so the whole thing was having to be done again. This road was the main link bringing supplies into the country to help the rebuilding after the civil war.
This is an example of what I was talking about- how the money simply disappeared into the pockets of crooked officials. Meanwhile the Afghans were rebuilding with mud bricks, which were drying in the sun by the sides of the roads, almost everywhere.
In most places I went through, the only sign of outside help was the presence of health clinics set up by the Aga Khan.
I think this has a lot to do with the ease of the Taliban conquest. The people had lost faith in the ability of their government to help and protect them. You can also see this in the interviews with members of the Afghan Army, who felt abandoned by Kabul.
How much of this mismanagement is down to the US is debatable. On what grounds do you attribute this to the US?

 

[Arcade22]

On what grounds do you attribute this to the US?

The double standard they have been maintaining is pretty obvious: the US (and the rest of the international community) is held responsible for just about everything bad that has happened in Afghanistan while the Taliban (and any other anti-western terrorists apparently) cannot be held responsible for anything other than which they explicitly decide to take responsibility for (which is very little).

What is tragic is that the problems associated with the previous regime will only be worse under the Taliban. Not only will there still be extreme corruption, breathtaking incompetence and outrageous criminality from the Taliban but they will do so with even more impunity.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

The double standard they have been maintaining is pretty obvious: the US (and the rest of the international community) is held responsible for just about everything bad that has happened in Afghanistan while the Taliban (and any other anti-western terrorists apparently) cannot be held responsible for anything other than which they explicitly decide to take responsibility for (which is very little).

What is tragic is that the problems associated with the previous regime will only be worse under the Taliban. Not only will there still be extreme corruption, breathtaking incompetence and outrageous criminality from the Taliban but they will do so with even more impunity.

^^ This.

 

[Michel H]

You are not a citizen of the world.

"I am a citizen of the world" is a very common phrase, Google gives more than 7 million results for it.

Wikipedia has an article devoted to global citizenship:

Global citizenship is the idea that one's identity transcends geography or political borders and that responsibilities or rights are derived from membership in a broader class: "humanity". This does not mean that such a person denounces or waives their nationality or other, more local identities, but that such identities are given "second place" to their membership in a global community.
...
Political, geographic borders become irrelevant and solutions to today's challenges are seen to be beyond the narrow vision of national interests. Proponents of this philosophy often point to Diogenes of Sinope (c. 412 B.C.) as an example, given his reported declaration that "I am a citizen of the world (κοσμοπολίτης, cosmopolites)" in response to a question about his place of origin.
...
Albert Einstein described himself as a world citizen and supported the idea throughout his life,[46] famously saying "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."[47] World citizenship has been promoted by distinguished people including Garry Davis, who lived for 60 years as a citizen of no nation, only the world.
...

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_citizenship).

 

[theprestige]

"I am a citizen of the world" is a very common phrase, Google gives more than 7 million results for it.

Wikipedia has an article devoted to global citizenship:

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_citizenship).

Appeals to popularity and spurious authority are fallacies, not convincing arguments.

 

[Michel H]

Appeals to popularity and spurious authority are fallacies, not convincing arguments.

It's not spurious authority, the wikipedia article explains:

World citizenship has been promoted by distinguished people including Garry Davis, who lived for 60 years as a citizen of no nation, only the world.

I invite you to become a citizen of the world, if you are not already one.

This can be useful to fight global warming and climate change, pandemics, unnecessary military spending ... .

As a member of an international forum, you may already have made one step in that direction.

 

[Ziggurat]

"I am a citizen of the world" is a very common phrase

So is "I was abducted by aliens".

Wikipedia has an article devoted to global citizenship:

And? What's your point? That you're not the only one with that idea?

Yeah, I know. It's still not a real thing. A wiki article doesn't make it a thing either. It's a label you apply to yourself which is supposed to signal something about your values, but it doesn't have any actual significance. "I am a US citizen" means something. "I am a Belgian citizen" means something. There are legal realities which flow from that. "I am a citizen of the world" doesn't mean anything. There are no consequences to it. Nobody cares that you call yourself a citizen of the world, just like nobody cares if you say you're a trigender pyrofox.

This can be useful to fight global warming and climate change, pandemics, unnecessary military spending ...

Bwahahahahahaha!

Yeah, no. It's not useful for anything.

 

[Michel H]

It's a label you apply to yourself which is supposed to signal something about your values

Being a citizen of the world isn't something that's printed on my identity card, it's more a certain state of mind, which should probably be shared more widely.

This is a concept which may also be understood more literally, as meaning: "I am a citizen, and I live on planet Earth. So, anything that happens on this planet does affect me, whether I want to contribute or not".

By the way, your youtube video is very scary. Perhaps this video does reveal something about your state of mind too.

 

[Planigale]

^^ This.

So the US has been in control of Afghanistan for twenty years, but the corruption, lack of infrastructure and upcoming famine is the responsibility of the taliban who only took responsibility when the US pulled out at the end of August?

Probably the best option for Afghanistan would have been if the US had not overthrown the communist government that promoted women's rights etc. The US funded the fighters that led to the first Taliban government. The US was responsible for the first Taliban government coming to power. Most of those who were in the first Taliban government are gone, there are new people in power now, they may or may not do things differently.

Above there was a link to a BBC news item. I was struck by the resignation of the Minister for Health. He was the minister from the pre Taliban government. He had remained in Kabul doing his job until the Taliban replaced him, then he resigned. The Taliban left him doing his job. He stayed dong his job, he did not run away and abandon his people. He was not arrested or shot. The Taliban allowed him to run his department for a month. Then he resigned as a new minister was appointed. He wished his successor well.

 

[The Atheist]

More trouble in paradise: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/23/how-deep-are-divisions-among-the-taliban