WTF is happening in Afghanistan?

[nc8765]

Kabul will fall soon, and the Taliban will control the whole country.

The rights of women and girls will go back to the dark ages, along with rights for any other liberal view/s. In a few years, the UN will declare a humanitarian crisis and then what, we're back to square one?

The US is highly unlikely to commit to troops, same goes for us here in the UK. What about China? Surely a stable Middle East is in their best interest? Russia? The other 'stan nations??

I understand there are Afghans that do prefer life under the Taliban, but surely that's a small minority group?

I'm not a foreign affairs expert so would really like some help on this one!

The durrand line was a basic border requested and planned by the afghan emir before pakistan existed.

Omg, it's also complex because of the root of a nasty evil medieval version of Islam that the perps puporte to support which Pakistan secretly funds and Saudi Arabia.

The cultures and morals within the country are highly questionable agaisnt western standard of liberty and the rights of the child.

@Akire

If you are bloke though how awful is the Taliban for you? your life will probable carry on as normal. Your daughters will get married off instead of getting educated then married off.

I think least before this some aid agencies on the ground but think they have all left now because of security and so families on run no good or water. No doubt plenty of jobs going on new army as only way feed your family

Ummm because a lot of Afghani men want their daughters to be educated, and actually support their daughters education and betterment. Because the Taliban bring complete chaos. Because some men are killed of they don't join the Taliban or publicly oppose them? So yeah, blokes can have it pretty shit too??

The Durrand line - a British construct - is one of the major issues. It meant the Pashtun region was split between Afghanistan and Pakistan

Pakistan didn't exist at the time the Durand line was drawn up.

@BrozTito

The durrand line was a basic border requested and planned by the afghan emir before pakistan existed.

Yes before Pakistan existed - but only because British hadn’t partitioned India at that point.

It was drawn up by Mortimer Durand and was created to protect the British empire in India (with agreement from the then Amir of Afghanistan but not officially recognised by current-day Afghanistan)

The fact remains, it is an artificial border, decided by the British, named after the British, dividing the Pashtuns between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The result is that Pakistan is fundamental to the Afghan problem due to their internal politics and the fact that they have a large Pashtun population courtesy of the British-designed, afghan-disputed Durand line.

Afghanistan isn’t in the Middle East.

The US and Russia fought a proxy war in Afghanistan in the 70s, which led to the rise of the taliban, who governed through fear, as they still do today. For some reason that has never been clear, the US decided to invade Afghanistan after September 11 in the belief it could impose its values on a completely different culture. It’s another Vietnam, in that they are simply not prepared for war in such an environment.

@SaskiaRembrandt

The Durrand line - a British construct - is one of the major issues. It meant the Pashtun region was split between Afghanistan and Pakistan

Pakistan didn't exist at the time the Durand line was drawn up.

Yes I’ve clarified in my previous post. But in today’s terms the Durand line does split the Pashtun region between Afghanistan and Pakistan and that is fundamental to the problem (but as I’ve noted before, there are many other hugely significant factors in this massively complex region)

The fact remains, it is an artificial border,

All borders are artificial.

I'm genuinely not trying to be contentious, but the idea that the British are solely, or even mainly responsible for what is happening today massively ignores the more recent influence of other entities, notably the USSR, the USA, Saudi Arabia and vested interests within Pakistan.

I listened to an interview with a female afghan filmmaker on BBC Radio Scotland this morning, maybe around 8.40am, and I'm ashamed to say I've forgotten her name. You can find it on BBC Sounds app.
It was so upsetting to listen to her experiences and her fears.

I feel so helpless, it's just awful. Imagine being the parent of young daughters in Afghanistan right now. Must be terrifying.

I'm failing to understand the link between the durrand line and girls of 12 ripped from the homes to become raped? A culture that seemingly turns a blind eye to little boys similarly being raped and abused as dancing tea boys?

Surely that's a here the mess lies an the surrounding counties like Pakistan who support the this??

@SaskiaRembrandt

The fact remains, it is an artificial border,

All borders are artificial.

I'm genuinely not trying to be contentious, but the idea that the British are solely, or even mainly responsible for what is happening today massively ignores the more recent influence of other entities, notably the USSR, the USA, Saudi Arabia and vested interests within Pakistan.

Maybe you are not being contentious but you are certainly being disingenuous by implying that I am putting the sole blame for current situation on British empire.

The very first thing I wrote was:

It’s a hugely, hugely complex situation which goes back British Empire and how it defined Afghan/Pakistan border and then has been subjected to so many different negative events; rise of Islamism, Soviet invasion and American response (which was to fund Mujahideen- those fighting against Soviets but some of whom went on to become al-Qaeda), Pakistan politics and then of course 9/11

And I’ve repeatedly mentioned the Pakistan angle - which is probably the biggest influence as to how it will progress from here.

So please read what I’ve written carefully rather than take one part of it and reframe it inaccurately.

It is absolutely dreadful. Watching the scenes on the news makes me so mad; to think of all the lives lost and what more hell awaits them. All the progress made was so tenuously held onto and I feel the people of Afghanistan have been failed so badly by the West, not least for having so poorly prepared for sustainability of gains.

Scautish I know what you wrote, but the fact remains that Afghanistan was complex long before that. I'm not being disingenuous, I just don't think you can pick an arbitrary point in the country's history as a starting point for current events.

"They are horrendous if you are a bloke who is from the wrong tribe, or whose family has shown any resistance or who can't afford the 'taxes' demanded. They torture young men, including those under 16 in front of their families, or shoot them, they take all their property."

Another common Taliban recruitment strategy is to kidnap young men and boys who have been deported from Iran (illegally) or Europe and force them to convert to the cause. If they are young men who have grown up as refugees in Iran this can be heard in their accents, so the Taliban know they probably won't have family to support them in Afghanistan itself (will also know that the family was in Iran to escape the Taliban, which won't go down well). So deporting young men back to Afghanistan is the best thing European countries can do to aid recruitment.

It happened to a young man I mentor: he was kidnapped by the Iranian police aged 15 (after someone made false accusations) and dumped at the Afghan border, where a Taliban recruiter was waiting for all such arrivals. He was lucky: the Taliban gave his family the option of either letting him fight for them or of paying a hostage fee, which they somehow cobbled together, and so he was released back to Iran. Of course at that point he had to flee Iran too, because the secret police were on his back. That's how he ended up in Europe, aged 15 (along with his younger brother, who the police had also started picking on). It wasn't by choice, it wasn't an economic decision, it was pure survival. It's been difficult for him, but he's made a really good go of learning a new language and finally getting an education.

A different family might not have been able to pay the release fee, or a different boy might have decided to believe the Taliban lies about a better life, because nobody else actually wanted him.

@Panickingpavlova

I'm failing to understand the link between the durrand line and girls of 12 ripped from the homes to become raped? A culture that seemingly turns a blind eye to little boys similarly being raped and abused as dancing tea boys?

Surely that's a here the mess lies an the surrounding counties like Pakistan who support the this??

I’m not trying to link this at all.

Ironically, the reason the Taliban were “welcomed” in the 1990’s by many in Afghanistan was that after the withdrawal of the Soviets, the warlords who had been fighting against them turned in each other vying for power. Afghanistan became an incredibly lawless place and the sexual exploitation of children was horrendous. The Taliban came along and handed out brutal treatment to those conducting the atrocities - so that’s “good”. This allowed them to gain acceptance and then gradually turn the authoritarian screw applying an extreme form of Islam (Similar but not the same as the extreme Wahhabi Islam in Saudi Arabia). A huge number of madrassas (thousands) had sprung up in Pakistan teaching an extreme version of Deobandi Islam. This meant that there were literally thousands of recruits which could be called upon to fight for Taliban.

Whether the Taliban now themselves commit these sexual atrocities against children I don’t know (I would have thought it would be against their puritanical beliefs) but I’ve no doubt that the situation for females in Afghanistan is utterly appalling and will only get worse with the increasing rise.

But the Durand line is still relevant to the issues faced today, because of how it draws in Pakistan and Pakistan has sheltered the Taliban for many years.

@SaskiaRembrandt

Scautish I know what you wrote, but the fact remains that Afghanistan was complex long before that. I'm not being disingenuous, I just don't think you can pick an arbitrary point in the country's history as a starting point for current events.

No - you absolutely did try to say that I was putting the blame only in the British. You said this:

but the idea that the British are solely, or even mainly responsible for what is happening today massively ignores the more recent influence

I did not “massively ignore” any of the other factors. I explicitly mentioned them. So you are being, and are continuing to be, disingenuous.

@MsHedgehog

Afghanistan isn’t in the Middle East.

The US and Russia fought a proxy war in Afghanistan in the 70s, which led to the rise of the taliban, who governed through fear, as they still do today. For some reason that has never been clear, the US decided to invade Afghanistan after September 11 in the belief it could impose its values on a completely different culture. It’s another Vietnam, in that they are simply not prepared for war in such an environment.

Some of this is not quite right but I agree with the final conclusion.

The Soviet-Afghan war took place in the 1980s. The Soviets withdrew in 1989 and thus ended all US interest in the place.

It is more accurate to say the Taliban arose due to the civil war that followed superpower withdrawal -- a war first against the Soviet-backed regime, and then among the mujahidin commanders. The Taliban emerged promising to restore order and get rid of the corrupt warlords, which they did, but then of course imposed their own brutal regime.

It's not unclear why the US invaded Afghanistan, that is where the people responsible for 9/11 were holed up and it was inevitable the US would respond militarily. Of course you can disagree with this decision but it's not unclear why it happened.

What IS unclear is why the US bought into the nation-building project and then proceeded to do it so poorly. There actually was a window in 2002-2004 when the Taliban were virtually defeated and things looked hopeful, it didn't have to end up this way.

I think in both Afghanistan and Iraq it was basically imperial hubris, we did not understand these societies and local political dynamics and thought we could just impose our own model of government and economics upon them.

Scoutish but in the complex history your picking up on this one thing.

You could have mentioned so many other things things.

They harbour each other because they supported the belfiefs.

DP served in Afghanistan in the 90’s. He says that the Afghan people have been very tribal for centuries, and have a totally different mindset and way of life to those in western civilisations. The vast majority are unlikely to want to come to the UK as refugees and would find it too difficult to adapt.

@Panickingpavlova

Scoutish but in the complex history your picking up on this one thing.

You could have mentioned so many other things things.

They harbour each other because they supported the belfiefs.

Again - exactly how am I “focusing on one thing” when my opening paragraph from my first post said:

It’s a hugely, hugely complex situation which goes back British Empire and how it defined Afghan/Pakistan border and then has been subjected to so many different negative events; rise of Islamism, Soviet invasion and American response (which was to fund Mujahideen- those fighting against Soviets but some of whom went on to become al-Qaeda), Pakistan politics and then of course 9/11

I then go in to explain most recent event which I think has influenced situation:

But in terms of most direct “recent” event which impacted current situation it is probably the 2003 Iraq war

Please read all my posts, especially my first one and don’t misrepresent what I’ve written.

Ok there are 7 colours in the rainbow, blue.

I asked my husband who works in international relations about this yesterday. His basic explanation was that even if Britain and America pulled out in a few years, the Taliban are just waiting until they leave to come back. They can’t stay indefinitely and at some point the Afghan government have to take over.

The Afghan government forces have received a lot of training from our military and it at some point has to be up to them. They are still receiving a lot of support from Britain and America however in terms of things like air support and equipment.

I’m sure this is a simplistic explanation but it’s the one he gave me 😂

@21Bee

I asked my husband who works in international relations about this yesterday. His basic explanation was that even if Britain and America pulled out in a few years, the Taliban are just waiting until they leave to come back. They can’t stay indefinitely and at some point the Afghan government have to take over.

The Afghan government forces have received a lot of training from our military and it at some point has to be up to them. They are still receiving a lot of support from Britain and America however in terms of things like air support and equipment.

I’m sure this is a simplistic explanation but it’s the one he gave me 😂

This is how I thought it - probably simplistic also but the key question is how would more years help and at what cost

@ShitzandGiggles

DP served in Afghanistan in the 90’s. He says that the Afghan people have been very tribal for centuries, and have a totally different mindset and way of life to those in western civilisations. The vast majority are unlikely to want to come to the UK as refugees and would find it too difficult to adapt.

There were no foreign troops in Afghanistan in the 1990s. Is he Afghan?

It is extremely offensive to depict all Afghans as tribal and unable to adapt to Western life. Since 1979 millions of Afghan refugees have made new homes in the US and Europe, very successfully.

Of course no one wants to be a refugee, but if it's that or life under the Taliban, a lot of people will want to leave. The UK has played its part in the current debacle and should accept as many as it can.

Dreaming what numbers are you thinking?

And how would you decide who