“Afghanistan, in effect, is being positioned as a permanent welfare state. Perhaps, then, this is not about hungry Afghan children after all. Perhaps this about us — our contractors and the huge aid and development machinery that thrived in the country and now sees a way back in.”
For me, this is the most insightful paragraph in the article. It rings true. We’ll make the Afghans subservient to the NGO army aka international aid. I wonder if the Taliban understand that game? I wonder if they’ll sit back and let it happen?
So sad for ordinary Afghans who just want to live their life and support their families, and who’re tired of a game they never even heard of–The Great Game.
Galeti Tavas
2 years ago
“Cheryl Benard is an academic, a lifelong feminist and supporter of Afghan women.”
I gave up posting on Afghanistan pretty much – I feel too close to it from my very distant times there…
But in my thinking of it all – watching it go from 1973 when the Kings cousin formed his Communist Parliament, till they exiled the King in 1979, they were being removed in 82 by civil war so invited the Russians in to hold the gov up – and then began that Civil/Russian war, and then USA and KSA set about using this as a proxy war (for USA to break the USSR cold war bank, for KSA to bring in Deobandi Salifism by Whabbi influenced Madrassas and support and create an Islamic State – ) Then the USA insane post 9/11 war….
And I feel the biggest reason for the 20 years of the USA being mired there is Because the Feminists, via the MSM, and the NGOs, made the new war in Afghanistan happen because they just had to try to ‘Liberate’ the Afghani women.
\
Like USA used Afghanistan/Russian war of 20 years to bankrupt USSR, for Cold War reasons – – The Western Feminists caused this last 20 years of Afghan/Taliban/USA war to try to ‘FIX’ the Afghani in their Men/Women situation. USA did not want this – this endless thing, it was because the Feminists of the West were willing to destroy the country to save the women. And you see how well it ended….
Pashtunwali – if you do not know it, the code of the Pashtun, why did these silly Western women have their silly Western Men try to make the Afghani in their image, although it destroyed them?
SO, eight things did all this:
1) USSR tampering Afghani with the gov in 1970s to get them Communist
2) USSR goes to war in Afghanistan to preserve their Puppet in 82
3) USA uses this as a place to bankrupt USSR by funding the Afghani –
4) KSA uses this all as a place to create a true Islamic Caliphate, and creates the Taliban in the Madrasses of the Western Frontier
5) Saudi person Osama hides there as the Talib cannot expell him by the hospitality codes of Pashtunwali
6) USA invades to get Osama
7) The Western MSM flocks in – it is the most beautiful land in the world, and the post photogenic natives in the world – and the Feminists stream in with NGOs and Media and make everything about freeing the Women from the Beastly Men – although the relations between the sexes go back in time Thousands of years, to before Islam, and are the key point of Pashtunwali –
8) So they force the Afghani to try to be secular Feminists Liberals – which means 20 years of civil war and over a $Trillion, and misery and destruction – Go Woke, Go Broke…… so they broke Afghanistan…..
Hearing her talk is no different than listening to the old Political Appointee Generals who messed it all up talk….
An honest bracing view of the situation. For the past 20 years, the plight Afghan women has been used to justify our waste of lives and resources there. If their own fathers, brothers, uncles, etc. won’t defend them, why should we?
Peter Francis
2 years ago
Pakistan provided tacit support for the Taliban and the UK taxpayer has been giving more than £300 million in foreign aid to Pakistan (£374 million in 2019). So if the UK does decide to bail out the Taliban, then every penny we give them should be deducted from what we give to Pakistan.
John Smethurst
2 years ago
I get the impression that “their money” is in fact “our tax payers money”? They happily blew us up for years and now they have made their Islamic bed and as far as I am concerned they can now lie in it…..a bit like Fatima appears to have been doing.
Linda Hutchinson
2 years ago
For Afghanistan to prosper, we need to stop telling them what to do and how to do it
I agree with this. Now, if only the Taliban, ISIS etc would let the West live as it wants to without sending their ambassadors (i.e. terrorists) to show us the path that we should be taking all would be well.
Peter Francis
2 years ago
Afghanistan is mineral rich (copper, uranium, etc.) and the Chinese are keen to cut a deal that gives them mineral extraction rights. I don’t suppose that the Chinese will ask the Taliban too many questions about about human rights and feminism. But given the extent to which China will profit from exploiting their minerals, I feel that its Peking who should be dipping into its pocket to bail out the Taliban.
Douglas Proudfoot
2 years ago
Sorry. I gave at the office, at tax time.
The Taliban supported itself with opium sales and Pakistani contributions for years. What’s different now? Well, for one thing the Taliban is selfish. They won’t share food with civillians, especially worthless women and girls without husbands.
Politicians, generals and admirals pursued a guaranteed losing strategy in Afghanistan for 20 years. Almost all air and artillery strikes had to be cleared by lawyers. The Taliban were guaranteed winter sanctuary in Pakistan. The Taliban’s main source of funding, opium sales, wasn’t materially interfered with. This was a guaranteed loser.
In top of that, radical feminism and LGBT was forced on a primitive tribal society. The author of this piece, and her friends, insisted on this. Further, nobody made sure Afghan soldiers got paid.
However, now, when we’ve lost any chance of actually saving the children, the author says we need to subsidize the Taliban, a terrorist organization with absolutely no history of caring for women and children, unless they’re sex slaves. How does this recommendation make any sense?
The author should have thought about what losing would mean to the women and children of Afghanistan BEFORE we lost. She should have insisted on bombing Taliban havens in Pakistan, unlimited artillery and air strikes against any position shooting at our soldiers, and destroying Taliban controlled opium fields. Screaming about collateral damage instead brought about this defeat.
It’s too late to help the women and children of Afghanistan without subsidizing the terrorist Taliban, and killing more of us. Deal with your mistakes, and our military mistakes. Next time insist on a winning strategy. Next time don’t scream about collateral damage. Just insist we win at all reasonable costs.
Jerry Jay Carroll
2 years ago
Call it compassion fatigue or some other label, but it is time Afghanistan stood on its own feet, even if it means questioning the tenets of a 7th Century religion.
JP Martin
2 years ago
It strikes me that there may be some real barriers to doing business in Afghanistan under the new regime. How do you trade with the Taliban without falling foul of anti-terrorism finance laws (UNSC 1373, etc)? It’s not my area of expertise, but I am curious to look into this question.
I am sure that heroin drug pedlars will continue their lucrative trade with the Afghanistan, despite the Taliban not having any women cabinet ministers.
Francisco Menezes
2 years ago
Was there no hunger while proudly flying the rainbow flag during Pride Month in Kabul? Why don’t the Afghans sell some helicopters to China? They can be paid in US T-Bills which can be used to purchase food. I fully agree with the last paragraph. Woke bigotry does not put bread on the plates of the ordinary Afghani.
Terence Fitch
2 years ago
It is possible to time travel. Parts of the world inhabit around 1300 AD. Letting such people into a 2021 secular world is a cruel thing to do.
Bryan Dale
2 years ago
If the “government” of Afghanistan isn’t recognized as legitimate, then clearly it doesn’t have the right to access funds held on behalf of the legitimate government.
Geoffrey Wilson
2 years ago
Strange article, from someone oddly claiming to be some sort of advocate for Afghan women (I wonder how many of them voted for her or in any other way have asked her to represent them). Does she expect the US government to be “nice” to the Taliban who waged war on them? What about the parties negotiating a peace treaty, which might cover the state assets point apparently the main concern of the author as well as a host of other issues (returning the military and other assets looted by the new government)?
Niels Georg Bach Christensen
1 year ago
The population of Afghanistan has grown more than 100% the last 20 years. The sole reason is the international support for the population and health care. Afghanistan on it self can’t support that many children. Of course with the growth of fugitives the remittance will grow.
Many muslim countries can only exist on the basis on remittance. Fugitives and forced marriages are necessary for those countries. We shouldn’t accept this.
Even Sweden ar thinking about changing the rules. At the moment the children allowance are growing with the number of children. The Social democratic government will stop this: Don’t get more children than you yourself can take care of.
Last edited 1 year ago by Niels Georg Bach Christensen
David Bell
2 years ago
Nice article on a difficult choice, but please stop the standard ‘COVID is running rampant’ bit. We don’t have to write that, especially if just making it up. It’s recorded at 0.3 deaths/million daily at present, about zero. because the population is very young and not fat.
Off target but important, as we will start to re-address the pressing issues of humanity when we can clear the psychosis, separate fact from politically-inspired fiction, and return to the big issues of health and human rights. Afghanistan is a great example of the need for this.
Dustshoe Richinrut
2 years ago
President Biden seems to wish to keep an eye on British goings-on in Ireland. To be informed of any mischief committed by the Brits. Perhaps his interest is in part due to his forbears’ awareness of the British neglect of, and dim-witted response to, Ireland during the potato famine of the 1840s, in which up to one million people perished. The ‘protector’ nation had failed its poor relation, its neighbour. And President Biden would certainly not wish to see, in relation to Irish affairs, another major faux pas by the British, that would threaten the Good Friday Agreement.
Will Afghans this year and next see President Biden neglect or sloppily care for them? In the manner of an absentee English landlord aggrieved by the plundering of his distant estate?
Random indeed (speaking as an English Catholic with emigrant forebears after the famine). This is the kind of romantic joining up of random dots that led bored US bar-Guevaras to fund violence in NI/UK in 70/80s before the, errr, War on Terror. The article, however, is good.
The United States had no remit in Ireland in the 1840s, and has no remit in Afghanistan today. That is the only remote analogy I can see. The quite obvious answer to the question in your last paragraph is “no, they will not”.
“Afghanistan, in effect, is being positioned as a permanent welfare state. Perhaps, then, this is not about hungry Afghan children after all. Perhaps this about us — our contractors and the huge aid and development machinery that thrived in the country and now sees a way back in.”
For me, this is the most insightful paragraph in the article. It rings true. We’ll make the Afghans subservient to the NGO army aka international aid. I wonder if the Taliban understand that game? I wonder if they’ll sit back and let it happen?
So sad for ordinary Afghans who just want to live their life and support their families, and who’re tired of a game they never even heard of–The Great Game.
“Cheryl Benard is an academic, a lifelong feminist and supporter of Afghan women.”
I gave up posting on Afghanistan pretty much – I feel too close to it from my very distant times there…
But in my thinking of it all – watching it go from 1973 when the Kings cousin formed his Communist Parliament, till they exiled the King in 1979, they were being removed in 82 by civil war so invited the Russians in to hold the gov up – and then began that Civil/Russian war, and then USA and KSA set about using this as a proxy war (for USA to break the USSR cold war bank, for KSA to bring in Deobandi Salifism by Whabbi influenced Madrassas and support and create an Islamic State – ) Then the USA insane post 9/11 war….
And I feel the biggest reason for the 20 years of the USA being mired there is Because the Feminists, via the MSM, and the NGOs, made the new war in Afghanistan happen because they just had to try to ‘Liberate’ the Afghani women.
\
Like USA used Afghanistan/Russian war of 20 years to bankrupt USSR, for Cold War reasons – – The Western Feminists caused this last 20 years of Afghan/Taliban/USA war to try to ‘FIX’ the Afghani in their Men/Women situation. USA did not want this – this endless thing, it was because the Feminists of the West were willing to destroy the country to save the women. And you see how well it ended….
Pashtunwali – if you do not know it, the code of the Pashtun, why did these silly Western women have their silly Western Men try to make the Afghani in their image, although it destroyed them?
SO, eight things did all this:
1) USSR tampering Afghani with the gov in 1970s to get them Communist
2) USSR goes to war in Afghanistan to preserve their Puppet in 82
3) USA uses this as a place to bankrupt USSR by funding the Afghani –
4) KSA uses this all as a place to create a true Islamic Caliphate, and creates the Taliban in the Madrasses of the Western Frontier
5) Saudi person Osama hides there as the Talib cannot expell him by the hospitality codes of Pashtunwali
6) USA invades to get Osama
7) The Western MSM flocks in – it is the most beautiful land in the world, and the post photogenic natives in the world – and the Feminists stream in with NGOs and Media and make everything about freeing the Women from the Beastly Men – although the relations between the sexes go back in time Thousands of years, to before Islam, and are the key point of Pashtunwali –
8) So they force the Afghani to try to be secular Feminists Liberals – which means 20 years of civil war and over a $Trillion, and misery and destruction – Go Woke, Go Broke…… so they broke Afghanistan…..
Hearing her talk is no different than listening to the old Political Appointee Generals who messed it all up talk….
I had to stop reading. So the entire Afghan conflict of decades is about feminists and the liberation of women? What nonsense.
An honest bracing view of the situation. For the past 20 years, the plight Afghan women has been used to justify our waste of lives and resources there. If their own fathers, brothers, uncles, etc. won’t defend them, why should we?
Pakistan provided tacit support for the Taliban and the UK taxpayer has been giving more than £300 million in foreign aid to Pakistan (£374 million in 2019). So if the UK does decide to bail out the Taliban, then every penny we give them should be deducted from what we give to Pakistan.
I get the impression that “their money” is in fact “our tax payers money”? They happily blew us up for years and now they have made their Islamic bed and as far as I am concerned they can now lie in it…..a bit like Fatima appears to have been doing.
For Afghanistan to prosper, we need to stop telling them what to do and how to do it
I agree with this. Now, if only the Taliban, ISIS etc would let the West live as it wants to without sending their ambassadors (i.e. terrorists) to show us the path that we should be taking all would be well.
Afghanistan is mineral rich (copper, uranium, etc.) and the Chinese are keen to cut a deal that gives them mineral extraction rights. I don’t suppose that the Chinese will ask the Taliban too many questions about about human rights and feminism. But given the extent to which China will profit from exploiting their minerals, I feel that its Peking who should be dipping into its pocket to bail out the Taliban.
Sorry. I gave at the office, at tax time.
The Taliban supported itself with opium sales and Pakistani contributions for years. What’s different now? Well, for one thing the Taliban is selfish. They won’t share food with civillians, especially worthless women and girls without husbands.
Politicians, generals and admirals pursued a guaranteed losing strategy in Afghanistan for 20 years. Almost all air and artillery strikes had to be cleared by lawyers. The Taliban were guaranteed winter sanctuary in Pakistan. The Taliban’s main source of funding, opium sales, wasn’t materially interfered with. This was a guaranteed loser.
In top of that, radical feminism and LGBT was forced on a primitive tribal society. The author of this piece, and her friends, insisted on this. Further, nobody made sure Afghan soldiers got paid.
However, now, when we’ve lost any chance of actually saving the children, the author says we need to subsidize the Taliban, a terrorist organization with absolutely no history of caring for women and children, unless they’re sex slaves. How does this recommendation make any sense?
The author should have thought about what losing would mean to the women and children of Afghanistan BEFORE we lost. She should have insisted on bombing Taliban havens in Pakistan, unlimited artillery and air strikes against any position shooting at our soldiers, and destroying Taliban controlled opium fields. Screaming about collateral damage instead brought about this defeat.
It’s too late to help the women and children of Afghanistan without subsidizing the terrorist Taliban, and killing more of us. Deal with your mistakes, and our military mistakes. Next time insist on a winning strategy. Next time don’t scream about collateral damage. Just insist we win at all reasonable costs.
Call it compassion fatigue or some other label, but it is time Afghanistan stood on its own feet, even if it means questioning the tenets of a 7th Century religion.
It strikes me that there may be some real barriers to doing business in Afghanistan under the new regime. How do you trade with the Taliban without falling foul of anti-terrorism finance laws (UNSC 1373, etc)? It’s not my area of expertise, but I am curious to look into this question.
I am sure that heroin drug pedlars will continue their lucrative trade with the Afghanistan, despite the Taliban not having any women cabinet ministers.
Was there no hunger while proudly flying the rainbow flag during Pride Month in Kabul? Why don’t the Afghans sell some helicopters to China? They can be paid in US T-Bills which can be used to purchase food. I fully agree with the last paragraph. Woke bigotry does not put bread on the plates of the ordinary Afghani.
It is possible to time travel. Parts of the world inhabit around 1300 AD. Letting such people into a 2021 secular world is a cruel thing to do.
If the “government” of Afghanistan isn’t recognized as legitimate, then clearly it doesn’t have the right to access funds held on behalf of the legitimate government.
Strange article, from someone oddly claiming to be some sort of advocate for Afghan women (I wonder how many of them voted for her or in any other way have asked her to represent them). Does she expect the US government to be “nice” to the Taliban who waged war on them? What about the parties negotiating a peace treaty, which might cover the state assets point apparently the main concern of the author as well as a host of other issues (returning the military and other assets looted by the new government)?
The population of Afghanistan has grown more than 100% the last 20 years. The sole reason is the international support for the population and health care. Afghanistan on it self can’t support that many children. Of course with the growth of fugitives the remittance will grow.
Many muslim countries can only exist on the basis on remittance. Fugitives and forced marriages are necessary for those countries. We shouldn’t accept this.
Even Sweden ar thinking about changing the rules. At the moment the children allowance are growing with the number of children. The Social democratic government will stop this: Don’t get more children than you yourself can take care of.
Nice article on a difficult choice, but please stop the standard ‘COVID is running rampant’ bit. We don’t have to write that, especially if just making it up. It’s recorded at 0.3 deaths/million daily at present, about zero. because the population is very young and not fat.
Off target but important, as we will start to re-address the pressing issues of humanity when we can clear the psychosis, separate fact from politically-inspired fiction, and return to the big issues of health and human rights. Afghanistan is a great example of the need for this.
President Biden seems to wish to keep an eye on British goings-on in Ireland. To be informed of any mischief committed by the Brits. Perhaps his interest is in part due to his forbears’ awareness of the British neglect of, and dim-witted response to, Ireland during the potato famine of the 1840s, in which up to one million people perished. The ‘protector’ nation had failed its poor relation, its neighbour. And President Biden would certainly not wish to see, in relation to Irish affairs, another major faux pas by the British, that would threaten the Good Friday Agreement.
Will Afghans this year and next see President Biden neglect or sloppily care for them? In the manner of an absentee English landlord aggrieved by the plundering of his distant estate?
Bonkers ,
WTF has this to do with the article?
World Trade Forum? Um, I don’t think so.
Random indeed (speaking as an English Catholic with emigrant forebears after the famine). This is the kind of romantic joining up of random dots that led bored US bar-Guevaras to fund violence in NI/UK in 70/80s before the, errr, War on Terror. The article, however, is good.
The United States had no remit in Ireland in the 1840s, and has no remit in Afghanistan today. That is the only remote analogy I can see. The quite obvious answer to the question in your last paragraph is “no, they will not”.