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Selling liberalism to Afghanistan
Washington wanted democracy, but got a bloated NGO sector instead
“America is back,” declared Joe Biden earlier this year. And with it, a resurrected liberal internationalism that has lain dormant for the past four years. Biden’s cabinet, packed with officials who supported the Iraq invasion, the Libya intervention, and expressed remorse over Washington’s failure to play a bigger role in Syria, now wants America to reclaim the mantle of global leader.
The President has said that he wants to convene a global democracy summit as part of the administration’s push to promote democratic values abroad (though his Secretary of State has insisted that this will not be done through “costly military interventions”) and approach authoritarian regimes “from a position of strength, not weakness“. All of which suggests that the new President will be taking a more active role on the world stage than his predecessor.
Whether the Biden administration has learnt from the Blob’s past mistakes will be put to the test in Afghanistan, where the deadline to withdraw US soldiers from the region is fast approaching. Troops have been stationed in the region for nearly 20 years, and Washington’s failure to get out is a case study in the failures of exporting democracy and, by extension, liberal values abroad. Instead, what has happened, according to a new report in Foreign Affairs, is that liberal values have ‘become a business’ in Afghanistan generating fat contracts for NGOs:
In turn, this business created an artificial — and parallel — civil society:
Now, Washington now finds itself trapped in peace talks:
The lesson to draw? That the death of liberalism ends not with a bang, but with a bloated NGO sector.
I lived in Afghanistan back before this crazy stuff, Like I always say, read about Passhtunwali, this is The Code Of The Pashtuns, and Talib means religious student (means memorizing the Koran in Arabic, although they do not speak Arabic) and Taliban are Deobandi, Pashtun religious fanatics, as created in Whabi financed Salafist madrases during the Russian years to create a resistance army – and it worked. After the Mujahideen ran out the Russians (by our stinger rockets) the Taliban ran off the Mujahideen.
Nyāw aw Badál (نياو او بدل), honour, a slap must be avenged by death would be one way to think of it, death before dishounour would be the Western equivalent.
And this is the one which causes all the trouble with the West Nāmús (ناموس): – Female Honour
Anyway, have a read on it, WIKI will give a report in their wiki agenda way.
And the thought of the creepy Biden and his VP trying to reconcile the Pashtuns with the American Race/Sexual industry and politics is like the most sure way to screw up the region I ever heard of. There is not a single person in the world’s politics more guarenteed to mess everything there totaly up then Harris and her agenda which is 100% against every thing they believe in, and will die for – so expect a vast amount of suffering to come from her twisted hand on the wheel.
Despite agreeing with this author’s arguments I deplore his/her facile reference to President Trump. Ad hominem attacks are the refuge of the dullard.
I shouldn’t find this article funny, but I do.
We tried to export traditional liberal values to Afghanistan (without paying the least bit of attention to their own culture) and they’ve commoditized those values; turned them into profit centers to be paraded when grant time comes around. Meanwhile, back home, those same values are being systematically undermined by a significant percentage of Americans (and Brits, so far as I can tell).
The Afghans must be laughing their heads off.
We have all known for years that all these NGOs are a giant racket and do more harm than good. The Biden-Harris administration is no different. Meanwhile, according to (I think) Jimmy Dore, some arms firms are suing the Pentagon because the US might pull the troops out of Afghanistan. Disgusting, the whole lot of it.
“As long as the values serve their interests, the values are defended,” Zawulistani said.
Well then, we have exported our values. Our Left-wing values.
Zawulistani could say the same about the Left in America and Britain, which the current debates over free speech illustrate nicely.
The ends justify the means. Whatever works.
Or, as the late great Rush Limbaugh said on his program 25 years ago describing the Clinton Administration, every morning they wake up and wonder, “How are we going to fool them today?”
The last thing we need is Blinken and a return of Samatha Power who has more blood on her hands than Carrie at the end of the prom. Clueless, sanctimonious, arrogant imbeciles living out their West Wing fantasies who inevitably make things worse and get working-class mean and women killed in the process.
this article was from Foreign Policy not Foreign Affairs
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