Afghanistan: Mission Accomplished

[Pickman's model]

And you can arrange this?

I think he might surprise you

 

[Rimbaud]

Well bollocks to that.

Democracy and reformism is part of the problem, always has been - always will be.

Democracy and reformism mean a continuation of the status quo - capitalism, the state, parliamentary parasites, the wage system, the class sytem - all things that need to go.

Revolutionary anarchism is what is required.

Like I say, I mean democracy in a very broad sense of the term, which includes anarcho-syndalicism.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Very aware I might well be on my own here, but, I saw this image and thought...

View attachment 284474

Don't show it to the editors at Vogue magazine. They've already given us "Heroin Chic" and "Nazi Chic". I think we can do without "Taliban Chic."

 

[Pickman's model]

Don't show it to the editors at Vogue magazine. They've already given us "Heroin Chic" and "Nazi Chic". I think we can do without "Taliban Chic."

I suspect more people would be after the accessories than the garb

 

[A380]

Someone doing something both funny and practical:

HELP ARE OWN FIRST, organized by Simon Harris

I have started this fundraiser because at the moment too many people seem to have forgotten that WE … Simon Harris needs your support for HELP ARE OWN FIRST

www.gofundme.com

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I suspect more people would be after the accessories than the garb

Kalashnakov, Simonov, and Makarov are all known to be excellent designers of "accessories."

 

[Combustible]

I just came across a video by Roberto Saviano claiming that heroin production is supported and taxed by the Taliban and the resources that this gives them is what has enabled them to succeed in occupying the country so rapidly, which would seem to contradict what that, sadly paywalled, NYT claims. Equally unhelpfully, for most, it is in Italian.

When in power the Taliban banned the opium trade, but after the invasion they decided to participate in it, claiming that it was a means to an end to fight the invaders. But I don't think it's true that the Taliban had anywhere near a monopoly on the opium trade, plenty of government aligned individuals and others were also making shitloads of money from opium/heroin, and it seems like that especially out in the provinces, a lot of the fighting between coalition/government forces and the Taliban, was in reality more about conflicts between rival drug traffickers.

 

[Gramsci]

I’m not wading into anyone. I’m questioning the politics of an approach that responds to a post about the Taliban killing people by questioning if calling them medieval is fair/western imperialist.

I’m also questioning the conflation of them and the Mujahideen.

I've haven't conflated them with Mujahideen.

Taliban came later.

What I would say is that people like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar are hardly to be considered moderates.

It was Hekmatyar and Massoud fighting each other and destroying Kabul after end of communist rule that contributed to rise of Taliban.

I don't think using term Medieval helps. Its imo ahistorical. Islamo fascism yes Id say ok that's a way to look at it.

Article I posted up thread also says that Taliban could be compared with group like Pol Pot Khmer rouge. Rural guerrilla group with hatred of urban modern society. Its part rejection of modernity.

Whether the new Taliban has changed is not really known yet.

So Taliban use of Islam is part a reaction to a form of modernity.

The form of modernity as has been posted up is neo liberal and does nothing to deal with inequality. This the western intervention has a lot to answer for. That is the form post overthrow of first Taliban government.

In the doc I posted up one women says Western aid money was used to build western style shopping malls in Kabul. Shops that most Afghans could not afford.

I think what your arguing is that some can see Taliban as "primitive rebels" or just see the West as the problem without seeing that many ordinary Afghans see Taliban as a form of reactionary fascism.

On the demo today which was all Afghans. Looking at the banners they are criticising both Taliban and intervention by other countries.

I didn't get photos of all the banners but Pakistan got a lot of stick.

So some Afghans see Pakistan government as supporting Taliban.

 

[Gramsci]

One more photo from demo. Demo was wholly Afghans. Lot of banners criticising US and Pakistan as well as Taliban.

 

[Gramsci]

And their own leaders got a lot of stick at demo

 

[Gramsci]

And you can arrange this?

To be fair to Count Cuckula their was RAWA in Afghanistan for example.

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)

RAWA is an independent political/social organization of Afghan women struggling for peace, freedom, democracy and women's rights in fundamentalism-blighted Afghanistan.

www.rawa.org

They opposed Russian intervention, the Mujahideen, and western intervention. Trying to organise for bottom up revolution with Afghan woman

One of the tragic things about Afghanistan is that their was an active secular left.

Over years been either destroyed or exiled.

 

[Gramsci]

Great photos as usual, Gramsci.

Thanks. I was working in north London this morning and someone said their were some demos on so went to have a look. As I do. I seem to be able to be at the right place at right time.

Sometimes I find the way politics is discussed here is about point scoring or hammering any poster who isn't up to it in Urban terms.

Im happiest when I'm in a demo of real people.

These were all Afghans. It was moving to be present at their demo. These are people who love their country but are living here. Being at demo like this and politics isn't all about how well you can post. Whether you have the right amount of political knowledge.

Many ordinary people If their is such a thing have emotional connection to what is right.

I feel with all the times I've covered demos and protests its this emotional connection that is underestimated and dismissed to easily.

 

[planetgeli]

Just watched the video. He basically just says the defining characteristic of the Taliban is that they are narcotraffickers, that they always have been, and that their returns from the sale of heroin were greater than what the US invested in the ANA, thus potentially a richer army (not sure about that tbh). He also says that Iran will be enemy of the new Taliban regime because they are particularly afflicted by a heroin epidemic they'd like to stop and which they see the Taliban as responsible for. He says 90% of the world's heroin comes via the Taliban and that even legal opiates we find in hospitals often come from Afghan heroin at the source, but are sort of laundered through different countries before being sold to Western pharma companies.

Not sure how trustworthy he is on much of this stuff, not many sources given, but he certainly is the most respected intellectual voice on the drug trade within Italy.

Your mate is mostly spot on. It's not that 90% of the world's heroin comes from the taliban, but yes from Afghanistan. But they didn't control it all up to now. And now of course, they will control a hell of a lot more.

I highly doubt the hospital heroin claim though. There has been an ongoing shortage of diamorphine in the NHS for 20 years. English farmers have been recruited in the past to help out. But it is never enough. So there's a business opportunity for the taliban.

 

[IC3D]

I don't have a good source to cite right now but I have got the impression the Talibans success has been to gain the supoort of the rural poor by providing governance between villages and tribes who are largely growing poppies and living under the yoke of warlords in the Panshir valley that produce and ship the heroin. Might be a simplistic I admit but they must be providing some form of governance out in the fields of poppy's

 

[Pickman's model]

I don't have a good source to cite right now but I have got the impression the Talibans success has been to gain the supoort of the rural poor by providing governance between villages and tribes who are largely growing poppies and living under the yoke of warlords in the Panshir valley that produce and ship the heroin. Might be a simplistic I admit but they must be providing some form of governance out in the fields of poppy's

this would be the panshir valley which isn't under the control of the taliban?

see eg Explained: Why Afghanistan’s Panjshir remains out of Taliban’s reach

 

[Pickman's model]

Sometimes I find the way politics is discussed here is about point scoring or hammering any poster who isn't up to it in Urban terms.

sometimes?

 

[AmateurAgitator]

Like I say, I mean democracy in a very broad sense of the term, which includes anarcho-syndalicism.

I tend to think of bourgeois democracy when I see or hear the term these days.

 

[weltweit]

Afghanistan reports of torture and killing contradict Taliban’s promises

Fighters tortured Hazara men to death, say witnesses, and relative of journalist killed

www.theguardian.com

Bit of background, what the Taliban are actually up to.

 

[Storm Fox]

Afghan child refugees left without support in Home Office hotels

Charities accuse the government of failing to meet young asylum seekers’ basic needs, despite care pledge

www.theguardian.com

Child refugees from Afghanistan are being held by the Home Office in hotels for weeks on end without shoes, spare clothes, money or access to healthcare, embarrassing the home secretary, who promised to help people fleeing the Taliban.

As Badgers would say
#ToryScum

 

[eatmorecheese]

Afghan child refugees left without support in Home Office hotels

Charities accuse the government of failing to meet young asylum seekers’ basic needs, despite care pledge

www.theguardian.com

As Badgers would say
#ToryScum

However, I think it's naive of this article to suggest this has embarrassed the Home Secretary. She is utterly shameless.

 

[Pickman's model]

However, I think it's naive of this article to suggest this has embarrassed the Home Secretary. She is utterly shameless.

she accounts it a wasted day if she hasn't made more children go to bed hungry

 

[Humberto]

Britain can't stand up to the Taliban? I mean on its own. An insurgence. The painstaking work, the hearts and minds, network building, doesn't count for shit?

 

[Pickman's model]

Britain can't stand up to the Taliban? I mean on its own. An insurgence. The painstaking work, the hearts and minds, network building, doesn't count for shit?

Clearly not

 

[kebabking]

ain can't stand up to the Taliban? I mean on its own. An insurgence. The painstaking work, the hearts and minds, network building, doesn't count for shit?

Part of it is simple logistics and geography - Afghanistan is landlocked, and without US diplomatic pressure we simply wouldn't get permission/safety to run our air and road logistics into the country.

currently everything goes via Pakistan, neither Russia, China, nor Iran are going to give that permission/support, so we'd have to cultivate Pakistan far more than we currently do, and what we already do is far more than we'd like.

We'd need a local base to stage our logistics from - we have bases in the ME, but whether the host countries would be up for supporting another campaign that's just us, with no diplomatic benefits from the US, and lots of disapproval from China, Russia, and their own domestic politics is another matter.

There's an argument about whether the European half of NATO has the diplomatic, political and economic swing to pull that off, but the UK on its own couldn't - particularly, as we now, that host nations would be letting themselves into a protracted commitment. 6 weeks? maybe - 20 years, no chance...

 

[ska invita]

Britain can't stand up to the Taliban? I mean on its own. An insurgence. The painstaking work, the hearts and minds, network building, doesn't count for shit?

Satire

 

[Humberto]

They knew the withdrawal was coming. If the 'plan' involved hoping and praying they could get them out then it is a pisstake.

 

[kenny g]

Your mate is mostly spot on. It's not that 90% of the world's heroin comes from the taliban, but yes from Afghanistan. But they didn't control it all up to now. And now of course, they will control a hell of a lot more.

I highly doubt the hospital heroin claim though. There has been an ongoing shortage of diamorphine in the NHS for 20 years. English farmers have been recruited in the past to help out. But it is never enough. So there's a business opportunity for the taliban.

Based on my front garden's crop this year there isn't really any good reason for an opium shortage in the UK. Looks like the Home Office are being arses to stop UK exports - Subscribe to read | Financial Times

Hampshire - the opium poppy capital of the UK

Not Afghanistan, but Hampshire! How opium poppies are being grown in the UK to make morphine for the NHS

At first glance these pictures show depressingly familiar scenes of fields of poppies in strife-hit Afghanistan - but these scenes were actually captured at an 88 acre farm near Winchester in Hampshire.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Smokeandsteam]

More drivel from someone else I once had some time and respect for. This insistence that you can’t criticise the liberal democracy worldview of the third way neo-libs without letting Biden off the hook is exhausting:

 

[gosub]

They knew the withdrawal was coming. If the 'plan' involved hoping and praying they could get them out then it is a pisstake.

I think the 'plan' was to hand over an oveneady Afganistan

 

[gosub]

More drivel from someone else I once had some time and respect for. This insistence that you can’t criticise the liberal democracy worldview of the third way neo-libs without letting Biden off the hook is exhausting:

As m pretty sure iirc Blair told everyone UK was in it for the long haul