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Post by karl on Sept 7, 2021 19:58:01 GMT -7
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Post by kaima on Sept 7, 2021 21:33:14 GMT -7
Thanks for the link to www.albawaba.com Karl, It is refreshing to have a new news source! Now to keep them in mind.... Kai
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Post by pieter on Sept 8, 2021 7:19:52 GMT -7
Karl and Kai, I am curious how the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan of the Taliban will function. It will be backed by it’s neighbours Pakistan and China. Afghanistan at the moment seems to be a country in Centraal-Asia and South-Asia which is far away from the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, the EU, Australia and New Zealand. The country is landlocked by Pakistan in the South and East, Iran in the West, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tadzhikistan in the North and China in the far North East. Hopefully for Afghanistan the most important Sunni Muslim states Turkey and Saoudi Arabia will establish diplomatic, financial-economical and trade ties with the Islamic Emirate soon. Also rich Arab Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrein, Oman and Kuwayt could invest in Saoudi Arabia. Iran is difficult due to the hostilities between the Sunni Muslim Taliban and the Shia Muslim Hazara people in Afghanistan who are persecuted by the Sunni Muslim majority. Many Sunni’s consider Shia’s to be un-Islamic, heretics and unbelievers. Hazara therefor today are uneasy with the new regime and have armed themselves. There are Hazara militia. What Iran will do is unclear, since the hostility between Saoudi Arabia and Iran. Afghanistan is a beneficiary of Saoudi Arabia. The relationship with Tadzhikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan will depend on how the Taliban treats the Tadziks, Uzbeks and Turkmen in Afghanistan. The Russian Federation shall try to seal off the danger of Islamist Jihadist extremism and terrorism by sending as much troops to the South as it possibly can. Russia hold mass military exercises with its Central Asian allies Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in August near the Tajik border with Afghanistan. India is very worried about the present day situation in Afghanistan and fears that situation in the Indian part of Kashmir might deteriorate. The Indian intelligence community is on high alert and the Indian Armed Forces as well. The same counts for Bangladesh which fought a bloody independence war with Pakistan during the seventies. The West has taken a more distant approach and monitors the situation in Afghanistan. The West has spend trillions of dollars in Afghanistan and won’t go back easily. www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/world/asia/vulnerable-afghans-forming-militias.amp.htmlCheers, Pieter
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Post by karl on Sept 8, 2021 7:24:37 GMT -7
Kai "Thanks for the link to www.albawaba.com Karl, It is refreshing to have a new news source! Now to keep them in mind...." You are most welcome.. It is some times a bit of risk for to bring out with some of these sources of news for as to not irritate some folks. For at times such as at present with the Afghanistan fresh in the minds of some veterans may bring up some very bad memories and my self do not wish to be a cause for that.. Karl
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Post by Jaga on Sept 8, 2021 23:28:26 GMT -7
I was watching Polish news and they showed the new government. Unfortunately it consists of the old guard and military. Some members were exchanged from Guantanamo for an American soldiers. It does not look that these people would be able to get any reforms done. Women are still protesting, but this might not last long.
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Post by pieter on Sept 9, 2021 0:46:58 GMT -7
Jaga,
The Taliban are already putting pressure on the woman. Beating them with whips and sticks and throwing teargas at them. I heard a brave Afghan female leader of the women protest who fears that the Taliban might throw grenades at them or shoot them.
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by karl on Sept 9, 2021 11:19:13 GMT -7
It so appears the Taliban have overcome most issues but then, another issue concerning money has come about. It will be interesting to see how they get this rabbit out of the hat.. www.businessinsider.com/taliban-has-almost-no-chance-getting-afghan-banks-reserves-2021-9An expert says the Taliban have 'almost no chance' of getting their hands on the Afghan central bank's nearly $10 billion in reserves that's mostly stashed in New York "It's all but impossible, to tell you the truth," Cornell University professor Robert Hockett said. The majority of Afghanistan's reserves are reportedly held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Taliban have "almost no chance" of getting their hands on the nearly $10 billion in reserves in Afghanistan's central bank — and it's likely that most of the assets will remain frozen in US bank accounts for decades to come, a legal and financial expert said. Hockett said it was essentially legally impossible because the Taliban are "not recognized as a legitimate government by the United States." "And the United States has the legal authority to freeze assets that were held by a government when that government is replaced by a nongovernment," he added. The "only way" that the Taliban could see the billions of dollars in reserves, according to Hockett, is "if it ceases to be the Taliban." "Because only if they were to cease being the Taliban, might they come to be viewed as a legitimate government of Afghanistan," Hockett said. Shortly after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan following the stunning collapse of the Afghan government last month, the US froze most of the roughly $9.5 billion in assets in the country's central bank. And the majority of those reserves are reportedly held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where many governments and foreign central banks hold assets. The former acting governor of the Afghan central bank, Ajmal Ahmady, previously told The New York Times that a stash of about $7 billion of the central bank's reserves was held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, while $1.3 billion was held in international accounts. Those assets, Hockett said, could sit frozen in the US "indefinitely." "There's no sort of time, date, or limit on how long that can be. It could literally be for hundreds of years, legally speaking," Hockett said. He added: "Afghanistan held assets in other countries, too, and they're without a doubt all doing the same thing." Hockett pointed to how the US froze billions in Iranian assets after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, when Ayatollah Khomeini took control of the government. Iranian assets, in that case, were frozen for decades. "With Iran, of course, it has gone on for decades," Hockett said. "And with the Taliban, it could also go on for decades, if the Taliban itself goes on for decades." Another possibility with regard to Afghanistan's reserves, Hockett said, is that the frozen assets are one day be used to pay damages from lawsuits filed by Afghan refugees who were airlifted out of the country by US and allied forces in the lead-up to the completion of the US military withdrawal from the region. "I think it's more likely than not that a bunch of those refugees will end up becoming plaintiffs in suits brought against the Taliban," Hockett said. "I can imagine class-action suits ... brought against the Taliban, or the sort of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, in US federal courts and seeking compensation out of those assets." It is likely lawsuits would "succeed," Hockett said, "given that the US hasn't even recognized the Taliban as a government, as distinguished from a sort of terror group." "I don't think there's any chance at all that the Taliban gets this money back through any kind of legal argumentation or legal process," Hockett said. Meanwhile, Afghanistan is left in dire economic straits as the Taliban move to form a new government there. The cash-strapped Taliban could "finance themselves in the way that they have over the last 20 years, which is through the illicit drug trade" or rely "on some sort of financing help from rogue elements in the world that have money," Hockett said. Additionally, the US could use the frozen assets "as a kind of bargaining chip in negotiations with the Taliban to prevail on the Taliban to do certain things," Hockett added. "This is yet another case in which the importance of the US in the global financial system ends up conferring a great deal of power on the US," Hockett said. "It's exactly in cases like this where you see just how important or how much power that role the US in the global financial system plays." The US Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department did not return requests for comment for this report. A New York Fed official told Insider in a statement: "As a matter of policy, we do not acknowledge or discuss individual account holders. Karl
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Post by kaima on Sept 13, 2021 7:22:51 GMT -7
apnews.com/article/joe-biden-middle-east-business-afghanistan-taliban-3f66d407542879a95b26608eee08a07eAfghanistan Taliban Study criticizes post-9/11 reliance on war-zone contractorsBy ELLEN KNICKMEYER FILE - In this Oct. 27, 2010, file photo a private security contractor watches a NATO supply truck drive past in the province of Ghazni, south-west of Kabul, Afghanistan. Military contractors got up to half of the $14 trillion spent by the Pentagon since 9/11, a study by Brown University’s Costs of War project and the Center for International Policy said Monday, Sept. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Rahmatullah Naikzad, File) 1 of 2 FILE - In this Oct. 27, 2010, file photo a private security contractor watches a NATO supply truck drive past in the province of Ghazni, south-west of Kabul, Afghanistan. Military contractors got up to half of the $14 trillion spent by the Pentagon since 9/11, a study by Brown University’s Costs of War project and the Center for International Policy said Monday, Sept. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Rahmatullah Naikzad, File) Up to half of the $14 trillion spent by the Pentagon since 9/11 went to for-profit defense contractors, a study released Monday found. While much of this money went to weapons suppliers, the research is the latest to point to the dependence on contractors for war-zone duties as contributing to mission failures in Afghanistan in particular.In the post-9/11 wars, U.S. corporations contracted by the Defense Department not only handled war-zone logistics like running fuel convoys and staffing chow lines but performed mission-crucial work like training and equipping Afghan security forces — security forces that collapsed last month as the Taliban swept the country. Within weeks, and before the U.S. military had even completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban easily routed an Afghan government and military that Americans had spent 20 years and billions of dollars to stand up. President Joe Biden placed blame squarely on the Afghans themselves. “We gave them every chance,” he said last month. “What we could not provide them was the will to fight.” FILE - In this Oct. 18, 2013, file photo Afghan police arrive to secure the area after a car bomb detonated outside an ISAF civilian personnel compound in Kabul, Afghanistan. Police said the assault started at dusk when a car exploded near the gate of a compound, housing contractors from various countries, European diplomatic personnel and United Nations employees. Military contractors got up to half of the $14 trillion spent by the Pentagon since 9/11, a study by Brown University’s Costs of War project and the Center for International Policy said Monday, Sept. 13, 2021. The U.S. saw about 7,000 military members die in all post-9/11 conflicts, but nearly 8,000 contractors, another Costs of War study estimates. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus, File)But William Hartung, the author of Monday’s study by Brown University’s Costs of War project and the Center for International Policy, and others say it’s essential that Americans examine what role the reliance on private contractors played in the post-9/11 wars. In Afghanistan, that included contractors allegedly paying protection money to warlords and the Taliban themselves, and the Defense Department insisting on equipping the Afghan air force with complex Blackhawk helicopters and other aircraft that few but U.S. contractors knew how to maintain. “If it were only the money, that would be outrageous enough,” Hartung, the director of the arms and security program at the Center for International Policy, said of instances where the Pentagon’s reliance on contractors backfired. “But the fact it undermined the mission and put troops at risk is even more outrageous.”At the start of this year, before Biden began the final American withdrawal from Afghanistan, there were far more contractors in Afghanistan and also in Iraq than U.S. troops. The U.S. saw about 7,000 military members die in all post-9/11 conflicts, but nearly 8,000 contractors, another Costs of War study estimates.U.S. officials after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks embraced private contractors as an essential part of the U.S. military response. It started with then-Vice President Dick Cheney, the former CEO of Halliburton. Halliburton received more than $30 billion to help set up and run bases, feed troops and carry out other work in Iraq and Afghanistan by 2008, the study says. Cheney and defense contractors argued that relying on private contractors for work that service members did in previous wars would allow for a trimmer U.S. military, and be more efficient and cost effective. By 2010, Pentagon spending had surged by more than one-third, as the U.S. fought dual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a post-9/11 American, politicians vied to show support for the military in a country grown far more security conscious. “Any member of Congress who doesn’t vote for the funds we need to defend this country will be looking for a new job after next November,” the study notes Harry Stonecipher, then the vice president of Boeing, telling The Wall Street Journal the month after the attacks. And up to a third of the Pentagon contracts went to just five weapons suppliers. Last fiscal year, for example, the money Lockheed Martin alone got from Pentagon contracts was one and a half times the entire budgets of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to the study. The Pentagon pumped out more contracts than it could oversee, lawmakers and government special investigators said. For example, a Florida Republican Party official made millions on what lawmakers charged were excess profits when the U.S. granted a one-of-a-kind contract for fuel convoys from Jordan to Iraq, the study notes. The electrocution of at least 18 service members by bad wiring in bases in Iraq, some of it blamed on major contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root, was another of many instances where government investigations pointed to shoddy logistics and reconstruction work. The stunning Taliban victory last month in Afghanistan is drawing attention now to even graver consequences: the extent to which the U.S. reliance on contractors may have heightened the difficulties of the Afghan security forces. Jodi Vittori, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel and scholar of corruption and fragile states at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who was not involved in the study, points to the U.S. insistence that the Afghan air force use U.S.-made helicopters. Afghans preferred Russian helicopters, which were easier to fly, could be maintained by Afghans, and were suited to rugged Afghanistan.When U.S. contractors pulled out with U.S. troops this spring and summer, taking their knowledge of how to maintain U.S.-provided aircraft with them, top Afghan leaders bitterly complained to the U.S. that it had deprived them of one essential advantage over the Taliban.Hartung, like others, also points to the corruption engendered by the billions of loosely monitored dollars that the U.S. poured into Afghanistan as one central reason that Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed government lost popular support, and Afghan fighters lost morale. Hillary Clinton, while secretary of state under President Barack Obama, accused defense contractors at risk in war zones of resorting to payoffs to armed groups, making protection money one of the biggest sources of funding for the Taliban. The United States also relied, in part, on defense contractors to carry out one of the tasks most central to its hopes of success in Afghanistan — helping to set up and train an Afghan military and other security forces that could stand up to extremist groups and to insurgents, including the Taliban. Tellingly, Vittori said, it was Afghan commandos who had consistent training by U.S. special operations forces and others who did most of the fighting against the Taliban last month.Relying less on private contractors, and more on the U.S. military as in past wars, might have given the U.S. better chances of victory in Afghanistan, Vittori noted. She said that would have meant U.S. presidents accepting the political risks of sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and getting more body bags of U.S. troops back. “Using contractors allowed America to fight a war that a lot of Americans forgot we were fighting,” Vittori said.
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Post by karl on Sept 13, 2021 16:11:18 GMT -7
I was watching Polish news and they showed the new government. Unfortunately it consists of the old guard and military. Some members were exchanged from Guantanamo for an American soldiers. It does not look that these people would be able to get any reforms done. Women are still protesting, but this might not last long. Jaga It so appears the new Taliban is once again the old Taliban. What rules they once applied to people, is once again the new rules all the same. For these people apply their will upon the people by rule of bullets and fist. They have progressed no where. But then, we are not the rule makers of the world and although this entire situation is of another world of cruelty and meanness, still it is their world and not ours. Many years past, the Russians tried to make a difference and gave up, then the Americans tried for twenty years to make a difference and also then gave up. There comes a time though, that in the stead of out side forces trying to make a dfference, it needs be for the Afghanistan common good to do their part with turning sword from against them, to for them against such thugs as the Taliban and the likes of their kind. Karl
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Post by karl on Sept 13, 2021 16:30:34 GMT -7
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Post by kaima on Sept 13, 2021 19:56:51 GMT -7
Here is an article on the waste and incompetence in Afghanistan, published last April: apnews.com/article/asia-pacific-afghanistan-middle-east-business-5e850e5149ea0a3907cac2f282878dd5Business Counting the costs of America’s 20-year war in AfghanistanBy ISABEL DEBRE April 30, 2021 FILE - In this Oct. 27, 2013 file photo, relatives surround the body of a 10-year-old Afghan girl who was killed by a roadside bomb, apparently targeting a group of soldiers, during her funeral on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. America’s longest war, the two-decade-long conflict in Afghanistan that started in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, killed tens of thousands of people, dogged four U.S. presidents and ultimately proved unwinnable despite its staggering cost in blood and treasure. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)1 of 5 FILE - In this Oct. 27, 2013 file photo, relatives surround the body of a 10-year-old Afghan girl who was killed by a roadside bomb, apparently targeting a group of soldiers, during her funeral on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. America’s longest war, the two-decade-long conflict in Afghanistan that started in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, killed tens of thousands of people, dogged four U.S. presidents and ultimately proved unwinnable despite its staggering cost in blood and treasure. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File) DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — America’s longest war, the two-decade-long conflict in Afghanistan that started in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, killed tens of thousands of people, dogged four U.S. presidents and ultimately proved unwinnable despite its staggering cost in blood and treasure. This final chapter, with President Joe Biden’s decision to pull all American troops from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, has prompted a reckoning over the war’s lost lives and colossal expenditure. Here’s a look at the spiraling cost of America’s campaign — the bloodshed, wasted funds and future consequences for the war-battered nation teetering on the brink of chaos. THE COST IN LIVESAfghans have paid the highest price. Since 2001, at least 47,245 civilians have been killed in the war as of mid-April, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University, which documents the hidden costs of the post-9/11 wars. Gun and bomb attacks targeting civilians surged to previously unseen heights since the intra-Afghan peace negotiations opened in Qatar last fall, according to the U.N. Watchdogs say the conflict has killed a total of 72 journalists and 444 aid workers. The Afghan government keeps the toll among its soldiers secret to avoid undermining morale, but Costs of War estimates the war has killed 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan troops. The war has forced 2.7 million Afghans to flee abroad, mostly to Iran, Pakistan and Europe, the U.N. said. Another 4 million are displaced within the country, which has a total population of 36 million. Meanwhile, 2,442 U.S. troops have been killed and 20,666 wounded in the war since 2001, according to the Defense Department. It’s estimated that over 3,800 U.S. private security contractors have been killed. The Pentagon does not track their deaths. The conflict also has killed 1,144 personnel from the 40-nation NATO coalition that trained Afghan forces over the years, according to a tally kept by the website iCasualties. The remaining 7,000 allied troops also will withdraw by Biden’s 9/11 deadline. THE COST IN DOLLARSThe U.S. has spent a stunning total of $2.26 trillion on a dizzying array of expenses, according to the Costs of War project. The Defense Department’s latest 2020 report said war-fighting costs totaled $815.7 billion over the years. That covers the operating costs of the U.S. military in Afghanistan, everything from fuel and food to Humvees, weapons and ammunition, from tanks and armored vehicles to aircraft carriers and airstrikes. Although America first invaded to retaliate against al-Qaida and rout its hosts, the Taliban, the U.S. and NATO soon pivoted to a more open-ended mission: nation-building on a massive scale. Washington has poured over $143 billion into that goal since 2002, according to the latest figures from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). Of that, $88 billion went to training, equipping and funding Afghan military and police forces. Another $36 billion was spent on reconstruction projects, education and infrastructure like dams and highways, the SIGAR report said. Another $4.1 billion has gone to humanitarian aid for refugees and disasters. The campaign to deter Afghans from selling heroin around the world cost over $9 billion. Unlike with other conflicts in American history, the U.S. borrowed heavily to fund the war in Afghanistan and has paid some $530 billion in interest. It has also paid $296 billion in medical and other care for veterans, according to Costs of War. It will continue to pay both those expenses for years to come. FOLLOWING THE MONEYMuch of the billions lavished on huge infrastructure projects went to waste, the U.S. inspector general discovered. Canals, dams and highways fell into disrepair, as Afghanistan failed to absorb the flood of aid. Newly built hospitals and schools stood empty. Without proper oversight, the U.S. money bred corruption that undermined government legitimacy. Despite the costly counternarcotics campaign, opium exports reached record heights. Despite the billions in weapons and training to Afghan security forces, the Taliban increased the amount of territory they control. Despite vast spending on job creation and welfare, unemployment hovers around 25%. The poverty rate has fluctuated over the years, reaching 47% through 2020, according to the World Bank, compared to 36% when the fund first began calculating in 2007. “We invested too much with too little to show for it,” said Michael Wahid Hanna, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Century Foundation. FILE - In this April 11, 2016 file photo, farmers harvest raw opium at a poppy field in the Zhari district of Kandahar province, Afghanistan. President Joe Biden's decision to end America's longest war has prompted a reckoning over the colossal cost of the two-decade-long conflict in Afghanistan. Despite the costly counternarcotics campaign, opium exports reached record heights. (AP Photos/Allauddin Khan, File)THE COST OF LEAVINGAlthough few want to prolong the war interminably, many fear its final end may jeopardize Afghanistan’s modest gains in health, education and women’s rights, made in the early years as the U.S. expanded the economy and toppled the Taliban, which had imposed tough strictures on women. Since 2001, life expectancy has increased to 64 years from 56, the World Bank says. Maternal mortality has more than halved. Opportunities for education have grown, with the literacy rate rising 8% to roughly 43%. Life in cities has improved, with 89% of residents having access to clean water, compared to 16% before the war. Child marriage has declined by 17%, according to U.N. data. Girls’ enrollment in primary school has nearly doubled, and more women have entered college and served in Parliament. These figures still pale compared with global standards. But more broadly, the failure of America’s ambitions to build a stable, democratic Afghanistan has left the country mired in uncertainty as U.S. forces leave. The nation’s history tells of civil war that follows foreign invasions and withdrawals. “For better or worse, the U.S. has a serious stabilizing presence right now, and once that’s gone there’s going to be a power vacuum,” said Michael Callen, an Afghanistan economy expert at the London School of Economics. “In the 20 years’ war, there’s going to be a whole lot of scores that need to be settled.”
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Post by karl on Sept 16, 2021 16:06:14 GMT -7
Once again, it is the common good that suffers: It would so appear the Taliban are running about as of a thieves convention trying to obtain monies from various foreign bank accounts and are being blocked. For now they have what they wished for, but with out funding, the wheels of progress do not operate. Perhaps in time they will get things figured out with out shooting up the sky and pushing their own people about. www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/taliban-cut-off-from-accessing-afghanistan-s-funds-can-t-pay-import-taxes-for-food/ar-AAOwe5r?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531Taliban, Cut Off From Accessing Afghanistan's Funds, Can't Pay Import Taxes for Food Mary Ellen Cagnassola 7 hrs ago Only a month after the Taliban seized Kabul, Afghanistan's impoverished people are hanging by a thread as the world tries to figure out how to deliver aid without indirectly supporting the militant group, the Associated Press reported. The interim government, cut off from its own and foreign funds as banks and Western governments freeze assets and pull out of financing deals, can't pay the import taxes necessary to access food from a port in Pakistan, the country's Chamber of Commerce and Industry vice chairman said. What's more, without government access to the international banking system, aid groups from inside Afghanistan and elsewhere are unable to bring emergency relief, basic services and funding to people at risk of starvation, unemployment and COVID-19. Among the groups struggling to function is a public health nonprofit that paid salaries and purchased food and fuel for hospitals with contributions from the World Bank, the European Union and the U.S. Agency for International Development. The $600 million in funds, which were funneled through the Afghan Health Ministry, dried up overnight after the Taliban took over the capital. Now, clinics in Afghanistan's eastern Khost Province no longer can afford to clean even as they are beset with COVID-19 patients, and the region's hospitals have asked patients to purchase their own syringes, according to Organization for Health Promotion and Management's local chapter head Abdul Wali. Donor countries pledged during a United Nations appeal this week to open their purse strings to the tune of $1.2 billion in humanitarian aid. But attempts by Western governments and international financial institutions to deprive the Taliban-controlled government of other funding sources until its intentions are clearer also has Afghan's most vulnerable citizens hurting. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Union suspended financing for projects in Afghanistan, and the United States froze $7 billion in Afghan foreign reserves held in New York. Foreign aid to Afghanistan previously ran some $8.5 billion a year—nearly half of the country's gross domestic product. The West's strategy is to strangle the Taliban's finances to induce Afghanistan's new leaders to respect the rights of women and religious minorities. The all-male, hardline Cabinet appointed last week includes several ministers subject to U.N. sanctions and one with a $5 million FBI bounty on his head. While it's unclear how long Afghan central bank reserves will remain out of reach, American officials insist that humanitarian groups can sidestep Taliban authorities to deliver directly to the needy Afghans fearing for their lives and futures in the wake of the chaotic U.S. pullout. "It's definitely still possible to meet the basic needs of Afghans without rewarding the government with broader economic assistance and diplomatic recognition," said Lisa Curtis, former South and Central Asia director of the U.S. National Security Council. But the situation on the ground shows the limits of that approach. Fighting over the years has displaced over 3.5 million people—including over half a million since the start of the year. The price of basic goods has soared. Bank lines snake down streets as people wait hours, even days, to withdraw money so they can feed their families. While individuals are allowed to withdraw a maximum of $200 per week from Afghanistan's banks, organizations are unable to get any funds. The paralysis has hampered the work of local authorities who used World Bank development funds to pay for health services and clean water, as well as international charitable groups trying to run vast aid operations. "The cash remains the main issue," said Stefan Recker, Afghanistan director for Catholic relief organization Caritas. "We cannot pay our own staff, run our aid projects or implement badly needed new programs." Cut off from their bank accounts, groups dependent on international donors are using stop-gap methods to stay afloat. They are getting their hands on operating cash through a mixture of mobile payment service M-PESA, Western Union transfers and hawala—the informal money transfer system that helped power the economy when Taliban ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s. The ancient system, which existed in the country before banks, relies on the principle that if there are two people who want to send equal amounts of money between two locations, cash doesn't need to change hands. International anti-poverty organization CARE is among the relief providers that rely on hawala dealers to transfer funds and record loans across provinces. Meanwhile, some countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Uzbekistan, have avoided the messy debate over financial aid by dispatching planeloads of food and medicine to Kabul, betting that bags of rice will get distributed to the needy and not line the pockets of Taliban ministers who are on terrorism watch lists. But many insist that informal money transfers and rice shipments are hardly the way to prevent Afghanistan's financial and social collapse at a time when the stakes are so high: along with drought and the threat of famine, potential Taliban brutality and a collapsing health care system, Afghans face more desperate times as winter approaches. Although the $1.2 billion raised at the U.N. this week exceeded expectations, uncertainty surrounds the outpouring of international sympathy. Aid workers want to know where exactly the money is going and when, as well as how the needs of cash-strapped local nongovernmental organizations will be addressed while Afghanistan's banking system remains crippled. Those salaries now run through financial plumbing controlled by former insurgents with a brutal reputation. In maintaining its grip on the Afghan state's foreign reserves, the U.S. hopes to pressure the Taliban to honor their promises to create a moderate and inclusive government. Although Afghanistan's new rulers vowed as recently as Tuesday to ensure the U.N. aid is distributed fairly, reports have emerged in recent days of Taliban fighters cracking down on journalists and peaceful protests. As the international community ponders the answer, doctors at a government-run pediatric hospital in Kabul say they have run out of antibiotics and gauze and are bracing for a harsh winter without heating as they treat a growing number of malnourished children. Karl
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Post by Jaga on Sept 16, 2021 22:22:39 GMT -7
Kai, Karl, it is sad that opium seem to be the most popular crop in Afghanistan. I hope that international help would get there, but Taliban need to start to change.
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