Afghanistan - The Current Situation

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Ayman al Zawahiri may just have done a really dumb thing:

https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2021/09/ayman-al-zawahiri-promotes-jerusalem-will-not-be-judaized-campaign-in-new-video.php

Over and above the usual bombast & jingoism, he appears, rather foolishly, to have threatened to export Jihad to China.....I'm sure that the Taliban will be delighted at his enthusiasm for bombing their new chums! 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Maybe not so much like his dad after all:

https://theintercept.com/2021/09/21/afghanistan-taliban-ahmad-massoud-flee/

Poor Afghanistan. 

[Erwin]

Looks like they didn't get the CIA money they wanted for the job...

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

You might be right, bit disappointed in young Massoud, but glad he's still alive.....I still think he's the best hope for Afghanistan in the future, but it will probably mean another civil war. 

[Erwin]

The perennial challenge/problem with places like Afghanistan and others is that we in the west simply cannot accept that their culture and way of life is so inimical to ours.  So, we repeatedly assume that the people of those nations will all fall over themselves to embrace western-style democracy.

It took a thousand years for British-style democracy to emerge from warring feudal lords, and the US democracy "experiment" is an exceptional example that I don't think has ever happened b4.  

It is much more common that nations with thousands of years of dictatorial/totalitarian systems tend to continue in that vein whatever they may call their system of government - eg: China, Russia etc.  

Am old enuff to have learned that we have to deal with the world as it is... not as we wish it were, or hope that it was...

Many/most of these nations are hopelessly corrupt and life tends to be cheap ion those places.  As many from those countries come to the west, those cultural values become increasingly evident in the west.   

 

[Combatintman]

On 9/24/2021 at 12:54 AM, Sgt.Squarehead said:

You might be right, bit disappointed in young Massoud, but glad he's still alive.....I still think he's the best hope for Afghanistan in the future, but it will probably mean another civil war. 

Heaven knows why - Massoud was a nobody until about eight months ago - funnily enough he is back to being a nobody.  He has/had nothing like the clout or support that others of his ilk had.  Sure he has been fawned over by various people of late but what qualifies him as Afghanistan's future?  He is a member of a minority group, even that belligerent bombastic twit Saleh, the former 1st Vice-President who featured in the leadership of the 'National Resistance Front' had more evidence of experience and a support base than Massoud.  I'll tell you for free that the name Massoud doesn't even register in Afghanistan's southern provinces - the former Massoud Day commemoration - which was a National Bank Holiday under the previous mob was just another day off.  I suspect the people of other provinces with no Northern Alliance connections felt exactly the same.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

The fact that Massoud was a 'nobody', while crooks like Karzai & Ghani were stuffing their accounts with taxpayer money tells us a lot more about Western policies than it does about Massoud.

I guess it's crooks all the way down, eh? 

[Combatintman]

5 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

The fact that Massoud was a 'nobody', while crooks like Karzai & Ghani were stuffing their accounts with taxpayer money tells us a lot more about Western policies than it does about Massoud.

I guess it's crooks all the way down, eh? 

Not what I said at all.  Try getting over the fact that no matter how much you adore Massoud, the factual evidence demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that he is not 'the best hope for Afghanistan.'  To give you an example, I used to work in a Police District in Kabul that flew Northern Alliance flags, was non-Pashtun in makeup and never saw pictures of anybody other than Massoud senior.  Have you looked at the Resistance group's website/Twitter feeds or heard/seen that idiot that is its 'Foreign Minister?'

[dbsapp]

[Sgt.Squarehead]

So you are saying it's OK to for Taliban to enforce a Pashtun Deobandi/Wahabi Theocracy on the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras et al. but a Tajik led democratic government would somehow be wrong?

That's fekkin priceless! 

[Combatintman]

1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

So you are saying it's OK to for Taliban to enforce a Pashtun Deobandi/Wahabi Theocracy on the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras et al. but a Tajik led democratic government would somehow be wrong?

That's fekkin priceless! 

If your comment is aimed at me then I repeat what I said in my last post - that is not what I said.  All of the evidence points to Massoud being a nobody and never will be.  Unless you've forgotten, I've been there more frequently than you have and I have studied it more closely than you have.  Stop putting words into my mouth and either accept facts as they are presented or don't.  If you choose the latter approach then fine but be prepared for rebuttals.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I'm wondering why Massoud wasn't backed and remained a 'nobody', as you so charmingly put it, when various crooks, like Karzai & Ghani were.....They hardly proved to be 'somebody' did they? 

BTW - My previous comment was based on the presumption that you were suggesting that the Pashtuns wouldn't accept Massoud because he was a Tajik.

 

Edited September 26, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Combatintman]

Then I suggest you revisit Mr. Karzai and all of the election results for starters.  Then work out why non-Pashtuns failed to achieve power since the Taliban got the boot after September 11.  About 45% of the population, which votes on ethnic lines as a rule, is Pashtun.  The other groups do not come close to 45% of the population.  In some ways Dr. Abdullah, an individual famously congratulated by David Cameron when he was UK PM as having 'transformed Afghanistan from a corrupt country into an incredibly corrupt country' or words to that effect, was the person who stood a better than reasonable chance of breaking that mould coming from a mixed Pashtun/Tajik parentage.  As things turned out, he could not break that mould and, despite all sorts of deal making on his election tickets, came second albeit in flawed elections.  To make it clear, I am not advocating Dr. Abdullah as Afghanistan's best hope - he was at best a vaguely competent Foreign Minister - but, like many of the political class, more interested in how many bodyguards he would get, what jollies he could go on and being the second-highest ranked politician in the country, despite what the constitution said.  Go look at the May 2020 Abdullah-Ghani Agreement for starters.  After that, see what happened afterwards and work out who was the mover and shaker behind that.

And to make it clear, presuming or assuming my position is not the way to continue this debate.  I return to my point that Massoud Junior never was, is not, and never will be 'the best hope for Afghanistan.'

Back to the National Resistance Front's Head of Foreign Relations ... 

After this August 18 instruction, this gets retweeted on August 25 ...

Bit of an epic fail really.

What is Massoud's vision for Afghans?  How important is he?  His circumstances are that Dad was a bit famous in the north of Afghanistan a few years back and he doesn't like the fact that the current mob hasn't made much of an effort to include non-Pashtuns in the government.  Neither qualifies him as 'the best hope for Afghanistan' because, apart from not having famous Dads a few years ago, there are other folks out there who believe the same thing.  You only have to look at the various disputes between [name your sex, religion, tribe, ethnicity, locality etc] over the years to see that.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

1 hour ago, Combatintman said:

And to make it clear, presuming or assuming my position is not the way to continue this debate.  I return to my point that Massoud Junior never was, is not, and never will be 'the best hope for Afghanistan.'

You really do seem quite adamant about that. 

2 hours ago, Combatintman said:

Neither qualifies him as 'the best hope for Afghanistan' because, apart from not having famous Dads a few years ago, there are other folks out there who believe the same thing. 

Have they stepped forward.....I've not noticed them? 

 

[Combatintman]

18 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

You really do seem quite adamant about that. 

Have they stepped forward.....I've not noticed them? 

 

Yes I am adamant about Massoud and there are frictions/disputes between communities that end in gunfire all the time and I have seen numerous examples since August 15 outside of Panjshir Province, Baghlan Province and Parwan Province that the so-called 'National Resistance Front' has claimed to have operated in.  The fact that you don't know that or who they are makes them no less or more likely to be 'the best hope for Afghanistan.'  Although of the two options my assessment is less likely rather than more likely and, as I have I think by now made fairly clear, that is a pretty low benchmark.  I very much doubt that Sgt.Squarehead has 'noticed' this person is ever going to weigh heavily on an Afghan deciding who their 'best hope for Afghanistan' is.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I'm aware of some of the fighting you refer to and of some allegations relating to it. 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

It appears the boot is on the other foot in the Afghanistan 'War On Terror':

https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/brutally-ineffective-how-the-taliban-are-failing-in-their-new-role-as-counter-insurgents/

[Sgt.Squarehead]

It seems the BBC have finally discovered Ephedra:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-59608474

Vice News beat them to it by months:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/8xwv83/drug-lords-have-figured-out-how-to-make-meth-from-plants

https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kv4px/plant-based-meth-from-afghanistan-is-turning-up-all-over-the-world

[Sgt.Squarehead]

It seems there are some internal divisions within the Taliban:

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/afghanistan-review-january-3-–-january-25-2022

Afghanistan's inter-ethnic squabbling never seems to end.