An important point:
It is not true that Afghans are incapable of democracy because they’re a “tribal society”. Afghans were fighting to build democracy.
They were betrayed by corrupt leaders.
We should not wash our hands of the Afghan people, whether they are Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, or anyone else.
It is frustrating to hear people denigrating that entire society.
As someone who worked in that region, I want my friends to know that there are thousands of brave people there who want – and deserve – democracy and transparent governance.
This is as true today as it was last week.
Human rights are universal.
Please share widely!
Who says that the Taliban is not a democracy? It seems that they are the majority in Afghanistan and there was little of no resistance by the Afghan people to stop them from taking control after the US troops left.
It’s impossible to claim democracy for someone who has a gun pointed at their head.
Even if the one holding the gun is in the majority, there’s something called the consent of the governed.
The US troops were the ones holding the guns until they left. Me? I did not support the invasion of Afghanistan nor do I support the Taliban. The fact remains that Afghanistan is not Ohio, or even France. It is not an ally of the USA.
Yup, sure, they are mistreating women and a whole of other demographics….and a twenty year occupation did absolutely nothing to change that.
I have no idea what might work, but I know what does not work.
The American Taliban is doing all in their power to make Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, and other states look like Afghanistan.
I’m far more concerned about the consent of the governed in Georgia than I am in any of the several provinces of Afghanistan.
It’s worse that that. “The South” used to mean south of the Mason Dixon line. Today, “The South” can be found twenty miles from any metropolitan district.
Have you checked out United Cape Patriots? No, I will not leave link but I’m sure anyone can find their web site.
On their “to do list” today:
Fortunately they are very unlikely to win a significant voice in the MA legislature.
I’m talking about the several states where Republican legislatures and/or Republican governors are passing laws like the ones just passed in Texas and Georgia that allow the GOP to arbitrarily overturn whatever election result they choose.
I’ll agree with you on the voting rights but these groups do have a voice in the MA legislature on other issues, specifically those related to race issues, immigration, and aid to the poor.
I’m equally concerned about both. We are all brothers and sisters.
Amen
It should be the consistent policy of the USA to support free and fair elections, then commit to living with the results.
Perhaps we might focus on making that stick here in the USA before we get involved in places like Afghanistan.
Touche!
It appears that the Afghan people do not seek US-style democracy.
This is not to in any way defend the Taliban or attack its victims. It is instead to observe that western-style representative democracy is founded on a complex cultural heritage that has not yet emerged in Afghanistan.
Various published reports from those who are far more familiar with the culture than me observe that centralized top-down government is the antithesis of the culture that has emerged from centuries of Afghan experience. The Afghan people are accustomed to governance centered on their local community, on extensive family networks, and on various warlords.
We attempted to replace that with a centralized government headquartered in Kabul. We imposed an American-style constitution, a President, an elected national legislature, and all the apparatus — and corruption — that comes along with that.
The collapse happened, by all accounts, because the Afghan military chose to cooperate with the Taliban rather than perpetuate further days, weeks, months, years, or decades of the puppet government installed by the US.
There are rampant credible reports that US funds that were intended to pay Afghan soldiers ended up in offshore bank accounts controlled by corrupt officials within the US-sponsored government. Food, ammunition, medicines, and so on were similarly diverted. Afghan soldiers have, for months or years, been unable to get ammunition for their US-supplied weaponry. Their rations have been small portions of moldy and rotten potatoes, not nearly sufficient for anybody never mind a fighter.
A humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Afghanistan. The abuses of women and girls are horrific and likely to explode. The reason that the crowds mobbing the airport were nearly all male is that Afghan women are afraid to leave their homes — for good reason.
Like johntmay, I do not know what the right answer is. I do know that what we’ve been doing for twenty years, and what some would have us continue to do for another one, five, twenty, or one hundred years will not work.
We must not and cannot ignore this humanitarian catastrophe. We also cannot solve this crisis with more guns, money, and force.
It appears to me that the bottom line is that America has once again created a human catastrophe among some of the world’s most vulnerable people. We did this in South Vietnam, we did this in Iraq, and we’ve done this in Afghanistan.
It appears to me that the most immediate and urgent action required on our part is to evacuate the tens of thousands of Afghans who are rightly fearful for their lives to safe havens on US soil. Get these people OUT of Afghanistan, and worry about the niceties of visas, background checks, and the rest once they are out of reach of those who seek to rape, abuse, torture, and kill them.
This is a time for immediate and creative new alternatives. These alternatives must come from and be led by other civilized nations — we have made ourselves the villain.