Beyond Armchair talk........Understanding the dynamics and context of the Afghan mess: The people of Afghanistan are paying the price for the hatred and regrets of one man

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msjo...@aol.com

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Aug 31, 2021, 10:44:56 AM8/31/21
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There is no shortage of recrimination, which is  only rivaled by  playing on the  ignorance of the public by pundits and press alike. It is good to read from those who go beyond the shallow banters, histrionics and hysteria.

https://news.yahoo.com/people-afghanistan-paying-price-hatred-120937862.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

Note: Zalmay Khalilzad,  featured prominently in this report, born and raised in Kabul, Afghanistan, served  as US Ambassador to the UN, Afghanistan and Iran (under George Bush). Reportedly considered for the post of Secretary of State by Trump, he was appointed US Special Envoy to Afghanistan reconciliation at the State Department, and Biden retained him in the position. Khalilzad is an ethnic Pashtun.

"The people of Afghanistan are paying the price for the hatred and regrets of a man who became a US citizen years ago but who, in his soul and heart, continues to harbour the dream of becoming the president of Afghanistan. In the run-up to both the 2009 and 2014 elections, Khalilzad attempted to get support from the influential elders of Afghanistan to back his candidacy for presidency but he got nowhere." Camelia Entekhabifard , editor-in-chief of The Independent Persian

Note: The former Afghan President  Ashraf Ghani, born in Afghanistan, an ethnic Pashtun, who fled was also an American citizen. He is considered an expert on "failed states." He authored a book or books to that end. This is what  is called: the point is academic. 

The Taliban is not a monolithic force but overwhelmingly Pashtun.

How any foreign system  think it understood the Afghans, intrigues and all, to remake them in the image of America, is another wonder. 

 China and Russia abstain from the UN vote on "safe harbor." 


MsJoe.

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Aug 31, 2021, 2:49:17 PM8/31/21
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I wonder if anyone is to blame.

Should the US not have gone to Afghanistan to dislodge Bin Laden?

Should the US have left the Taliban in power after the US is described as smoking him out of there?

Won't the long US presence and the attempt at democracy they sustained make it hard for the Taluban to maintain power if their rule does not try to provide a significant degree of the freedoms represented by US presence?

I get the impression that Afghanistan's future has been empowered by the US, making a return to the earlier primitivity of the Taliban difficult to sustain or even impossible.

Quality of life is likely to be seen by Afghans as superior to human stunting Islamic policies from a sect that represents only one kind of approach to Islam.

Thanks

Toyin 

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Aug 31, 2021, 4:55:03 PM8/31/21
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i don't want to get into a whole thing here, but to be precise the u.s. did not go into afghanistan to install democracy, or to free its women. those were the excuses.
they went to stamp out muslim opposition that coalesced around 9/11. people here were outraged, bush helped whip up more outrage, and used his wife to call on the women's issue.
so why did we go to conquer a country, and not simply take revenge? the answer is really obvious. we took on afghanistan to enable our country to overthrow the govt in iraq, and the reasons for that have to do with american and western hegemony in the oil producing region. we joined forces with the saudis and uae etc, to manage the flow of oil to our benefit.

i'm no specialist. it is obvious to anyone.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2021 1:48 PM
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Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beyond Armchair talk........Understanding the dynamics and context of the Afghan mess: The people of Afghanistan are paying the price for the hatred and regrets of one man
 

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Aug 31, 2021, 5:43:36 PM8/31/21
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How could the US  Afghan effort "stamp out Muslim opposition that coalesced round 9/11"?

I'm trying to understand the logic represented by that statement.

Afghanistan is only one Muslim country.

Did the US need to attack Afghanistan in order to attack Iraq?

The first Iraq war did not involve an attack on Afghanistan, did it?

Was the search for Bin Laden not part of the reason for the US presence in Afghanistan?

Whatever may have been the full scope of the motives of the US in Afghanistan, the liberal society they were central to enabling and the democratic culture they helped nurture, even if inadequately, means that the country is not likely to be able to return for long, if at all, to it's  previous era of primitive Taliban rulership.

Even Taliban seem to have realised this, as evident from their efforts to present themselves as reformed as they seek international recognition.

Thanks

Toyin

Harrow, Kenneth

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Aug 31, 2021, 7:03:10 PM8/31/21
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dear oaa
there were other attacks by muslim militants prior to 9/11. an earlier attempt to blow up one of the towers, from the basement, that failed. an attack on an american warship off of yemen. there was also a heightened rhetoric of al qaeda calling for attacks, and those attacks vilified the u.s. but also the saudi royal govt. and of course there was iran and its rhetoric of the great satan. and saddam hussein's enmity had become heightened thanks to bush the father.

9/11 wasn't the beginning of the conflict, but it brought it home to the u.s. which felt invulnerable.
i am answering your points below because i didn't spell this out before, though i thought it was obvious.
we attacked afghanistan in order to get at al qaeda and to kill  osama bin laden--in revenge for 9/11. but the larger goal of the hawks was to establish more dominance and control in the middle east, the real goal, which was revealed by bush's turning his crusade to iraq, and his belabored efforts to justify it with a series of lies about nuclear threats, etc. it was transparent, and everyone could see it, unless they didn't care. most americans didn't care and barely heard of saddam hussein, so bush had to mobilize them with the lies and propaganda.

it is probably a mistake to predict the future for afghanistan, or ethiopia, or the congo, or the u.s.a.  i can't predict my own future for tomorrow. can you?

nothing precludes the taliban from reasserting sharia law in whatever form they please. they won the war.
the only point you make that i would choose to dispute is your description of previous taliban rule as "primitive."
ken


kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2021 5:41 PM
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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beyond Armchair talk........Understanding the dynamics and context of the Afghan mess: The people of Afghanistan are paying the price for the hatred and regrets of one man
 

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Sep 1, 2021, 8:00:21 AM9/1/21
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The core of our disagreement is on previous Taliban rule as primitive.

I would be pleased to know why you think its not so.

People against fundamental human rights such as education for women,cutting off people's hands for stealing, imposing their rule on others by force of arms, preventing people from innocent entertainment and forbidding electronic communication, are primitive.

I'll be pleased to learn why you think such a lifestyle is not primitive.

As things stand, the Taliban can't be said to be received with joy and relief by Afghans.

Within certain parameters, one can make predictions that demonstrate some validity even as one does not argue that such predictions are inflexible.

Certain orientations are fundamental to humanity. The Taliban was opposed to those orientations. The US supported those orientations in Afghanistan.

That fact stands whatever may have been the scope of the rationale of US presence in Afghanistan.

Education,  communication and entertainment are  fundamental human needs.

These are the needs the Taliban suppressed.

In their rebound from their removel of power, they began to use the Internet which they had previously forbidden.  

Now that they are back, they are demonstrating through their stances that returning to the past is not sustainable.

This is a narrowly conceived and ethnically focused form of Islam, far from representative of Islam in general or of all Afghans.



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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Sep 2, 2021, 6:33:14 PM9/2/21
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Ken.

I absolutely agree with you that the genesis of the Afghan war crisis was oil and the aftermath of the global dislocation was the decisive shift away from oil to solar and electric power for many western industries.

You are indeed right that Saddam Hussein was marked down by his fracas with Bush senior and decisively penned down for invasion and removal by the American led West because he saw Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as western lackeys and thought by controlling oil flow to the West through the invasion of Kuwait, he could hold the whole of the West by the balls.
.

Western strategists thought if he was allowed to get away with it without a fight and with no energy fall back plans by the West, it would be the end of western civilisation as we know it today.

It was also the domino effect of attacks on strong anti West leaders that led to the Arab spring and the invasion of Libya as well as fall and death of Ghadafi.

If it was about religion and non Western Muslim states, Saudi Arabia would have been the first to go.  After all Bin Laden plotted 9/11 from there on religious grounds.



OAA

End the travesty of democracy in Nigeria; vote for majority rule at the centre come 2023.



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From: "Harrow, Kenneth" <har...@msu.edu>
Date: 01/09/2021 00:17 (GMT+00:00)
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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beyond Armchair talk........Understandingthe dynamics and context of the Afghan mess: The people of Afghanistan arepaying the price for the hatred and regrets of one man

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dear oaa
there were other attacks by muslim militants prior to 9/11. an earlier attempt to blow up one of the towers, from the basement, that failed. an attack on an american warship off of yemen. there was also a heightened rhetoric of al qaeda calling for attacks, and those attacks vilified the u.s. but also the saudi royal govt. and of course there was iran and its rhetoric of the great satan. and saddam hussein's enmity had become heightened thanks to bush the father.

9/11 wasn't the beginning of the conflict, but it brought it home to the u.s. which felt invulnerable.
i am answering your points below because i didn't spell this out before, though i thought it was obvious.
we attacked afghanistan in order to get at al qaeda and to kill  osama bin laden--in revenge for 9/11. but the larger goal of the hawks was to establish more dominance and control in the middle east, the real goal, which was revealed by bush's turning his crusade to iraq, and his belabored efforts to justify it with a series of lies about nuclear threats, etc. it was transparent, and everyone could see it, unless they didn't care. most americans didn't care and barely heard of saddam hussein, so bush had to mobilize them with the lies and propaganda.

it is probably a mistake to predict the future for afghanistan, or ethiopia, or the congo, or the u.s.a.  i can't predict my own future for tomorrow. can you?

nothing precludes the taliban from reasserting sharia law in whatever form they please. they won the war.
the only point you make that i would choose to dispute is your description of previous taliban rule as "primitive."
ken


kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2021 5:41 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beyond Armchair talk........Understanding the dynamics and context of the Afghan mess: The people of Afghanistan are paying the price for the hatred and regrets of one man
 

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Sep 2, 2021, 10:25:40 PM9/2/21
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i agree with what you wrote, oaa. feels like years and years ago, things have changed so much. consider, back then, china wasn't in the picture. now they are set to become the dominant player in afghanistan, uighars or no uighars.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 2, 2021 1:36 PM
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Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beyond Armchair talk........Understandingthe dynamics and context of the Afghan mess: The people of Afghanistan arepaying the price for the hatred and regrets of one man
 

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

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Sep 3, 2021, 8:06:20 AM9/3/21
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I thought Bin Laden was in Afghanistan not Saudi Arabia at the time of 9/11

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DB6PR04MB298244C4924CECF8689B5093A6CE9%40DB6PR04MB2982.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.

Gloria Emeagwali

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Sep 3, 2021, 8:06:20 AM9/3/21
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OAA

Saddam hoped to hold by the balls not only the West but all the clones and wannabes, too.

Don’t forget the currency factor as well. Saddam threatened to undermine the viability of the petrodollar.

Bush got rid of Sunni Saddam, inadvertently strengthened Shia Iraq and Iran,  in  the process, and  caused the ISIL backlash. And by leaving behind biometric data bases of all those who supported them, the  Biden admin sold out those Afghan allies who remained behind. Catastrophic blunders galore.

As for China, well it now has one of the world’s best armed military powers as a neighbor, Afghanistan, and that neighbor is a host to some of its most hostile adversaries- Uighur fundamentalists, some of whom are also Taliban. But the Chinese are equal to the task, no doubt. They know how to play chess.




Professor Gloria Emeagwali







GE


On Sep 2, 2021, at 22:25, Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu> wrote:



Harrow, Kenneth

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Sep 3, 2021, 8:44:26 AM9/3/21
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he was in afghanistan, but came from a prominent saudi family, and received financial support from the more fervent hanafi saudis....
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Friday, September 3, 2021 6:58 AM
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