Friday, March 11, 2022

Ted Rall: Afghanistan, Not Ukraine, Is the Biggest Humanitarian Crisis

 Maybe it's time to change the flag on your social-media avatar.

To the extent that objective guideposts exist in international relations, the United States has no legal obligation to defend Ukraine. Ukraine, a U.S. strategic partner, is neither an ally nor a member of NATO. Nor is it in our neighborhood. Much as the Monroe Doctrine declares the entire Western Hemisphere under American sway, Russia has long declared all the former Soviet republics, including Ukraine, to belong to its "sphere of privileged interest."

Despite our newfound obsession with a nation two out of three Americans couldn't find on a map last month, American journalists and ordinary citizens have been so moved by scenes of death and destruction that members of both major parties have quickly come together to declare that they #StandWithUkraine, want to welcome Ukrainian war refugees, favor sending advanced weapons to aid Ukraine in its defense and support an array of harsh sanctions against Russia so wide-reaching that they ban Russian opera singers, paralympians and cats.

Headlines aside, Ukraine is not the most miserable place on earth right now. And the cruelest inflictor of human pain isn't Russia.

It's the United States.

"Afghanistan has become the world's largest humanitarian crisis," Jane Ferguson reported in The New Yorker in January. "More than twenty million Afghans are on the brink of famine."

"Afghanistan," says the United Nations World Food Program, "teeters on the brink of universal poverty. "As much as 97% of the population is at risk of sinking below the poverty line."

The afghani, the national currency, has lost 30% of value since the American withdrawal last August, a collapse so precipitous that the U.N. worries that a liquidity crisis is imminent. Money exchanges in major Afghan cities have ceased operations, portending a return to the cashless subsistence economy, based on barter, that prevailed before the 2001 U.S. invasion, when Afghanistan was officially designated a failed state. Imports, which make up a high percentage of consumer goods, have been soaring in price as unemployment has shot up following the cessation of international aid that accounted for more than 40% of GDP. UNICEF warns that up to one million children under age 5 may die from malnutrition and lack of essential services by the end of 2022.

Schoolchildren are taught outside in the snow because schools can't afford electricity for lights. Desperate Afghans are selling daughters and their own kidneys (going rate: $1,500) to survive.

"U.S. politicians and media frequently treat Afghanistan these days like a TV series that had its finale in 2021," observes James Downie of The Washington Post. "But Afghans' suffering is very much ongoing, and American decisions continue to make it worse." With all eyes on Ukraine, no one is paying attention to the graver situation in Afghanistan even though (or because?) the spiralizing disaster there is largely our fault.

About 1.4 million Ukrainian refugees have fled and 200,000 are internally displaced. Compare that to Afghanistan: 2.2 million Afghans have gone to neighboring countries in the last six months and 3.5 million are internally displaced.

Even if we don't exactly (SET ITAL) care (END ITAL) about the people of Afghanistan, what about self-interest? It's curiously strange that we've already forgotten that an unstable, impoverished Afghanistan can pose a danger to the region and the world.

Downie notes: "That famine is a direct consequence of the United States' failure to create a self-sustaining economy there over two decades." During the occupation, we created a kleptocracy by dumping billions of dollars on pallets of shrink-wrapped $100 bills into the hands of corrupt government officials, connected oligarchs and warlords while small entrepreneurs were shaken down for protection money. "The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan," an American official told The New York Times, "was the United States."

Coverage of the Afghans' plight, such as it is, focuses on the $7 billion to $9.5 billion held by the former Afghanistan government in U.S. banks, now frozen by the Biden administration, which stubbornly refuses to recognize the reality of Taliban rule. 

President Joe Biden wants to siphon off $3.5 billion of the Afghan funds to settle legal claims by the families of 9/11 victims, a bizarre stance given the fact that no Afghan national had anything to do with the terrorist attacks. The remaining monies, says the president, will only be released to the Taliban after they allow girls to attend school, guarantee universal human rights, form an inclusive government and promise to sever all ties with terrorist groups.

The Taliban say they're open to negotiations, but none have been scheduled.

While the White House dithers, babies are starving to death in Afghan hospitals without medicine.

Biden's statements border on fantasy. "(The money) is not going to the Taliban; it is going to be used for the benefit of the Afghan people," an anonymous White House official told the Post. The U.S. government couldn't control the fate of aid money to Afghanistan while occupying with tens of thousands of soldiers. Now we're gone, without a single embassy or consulate in the whole country.

Like it or not, the Taliban is the government of Afghanistan. They will rule the country for the foreseeable future. There is no realistic way to help the Afghan people without recognizing their government, lifting sanctions and restoring the flow of aid money. 

Now, in the middle of an especially harsh winter in a mountainous country whose meager agricultural operations are disproportionately impacted by climate change, there is no time to lose. The U.S. should offer a helping hand immediately, without preconditions. 

Give Afghanistan its money back.

We can set deadlines for the Taliban to meet U.S. benchmarks on women's rights and other issues, stating that noncompliance will mean there will be no resumption of aid.

Even if the Taliban spend its billions carefully, it won't last long in a country of 40 million people. Over the coming years, the U.S. has a moral obligation as well as a vested interest to help Taliban-ruled Afghanistan transition from a bloated welfare state dependent upon foreign aid to a modern, developing capitalist economy.

Whether or not we relate more easily to blond European Christians than darker-skinned Central Asian Muslims, back-burnering the U.S.-made catastrophe in Afghanistan in favor of the more telegenic mayhem in Ukraine is unconscionable. 

Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of a new graphic novel about a journalist gone bad, "The Stringer." Order one today. You can support Ted's hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.

COPYRIGHT 2022 CREATORS.COM


35 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Afghans are like most of those countries that want a free handout. Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe and their contribution to modern civilized society outweighs the needs of the Afghans who did not stand and fight. The Ukrainians are standing fast and showing the world how dedicated they are to freedom. The Afghans laid down and basically gave up. Their is nothing we need from Afghan except a few raw resources which one is Lithium for YOU All’s electric cars….not mine. I still have faith our country will somehow aid the Ukrainians and somehow we will need to address the 3 Biological / Chemical warfare plants in Russia. You think the Chinese flu was something, wait until Russia spreads their deadly toxins.

Anonymous said...

This column is idiotic. I don’t know where to begin. So much stupid.

Anonymous said...

Up yours Ted! You are a complete idiot. We tried for 20 years in Afghanistan, and it didn't work. Meanwhile, Ukraine is suffering horrible atrocities at the hands of the Russians. Like it or not, there comes a point where you have to intervene. The world cannot let the Russians get away with this. We tried to remain neutral before World War I and World War II. How did that work out for us?

Anonymous said...

Being of Middle Eastern descent, my heart bleeds for both countries, but I live here in America and really don't give a ratz ass about either one. Sorry, but this is worthless to me.

Anonymous said...

The author is an employee of the Russian state owned news site Sputnik International. That should provide some context here.

Anonymous said...

I can’t be bother to give a damn about either country when we have an epidemic of 15 year old gang members driving around in stolen cars and killing people right here in Mississippi.

Anonymous said...

I think we should all pause and rally 'round the poster at 4:32. He seems so lonely. One of the first steps in loneliness and depression (then self-harm) is lashing out at others.

Krusatyr said...

Biden daily spreads death and misery across the earth, what purpose in choosing between his catastrophes when his demented devastation will continue apace as long as we have that immoral half-dead coward for POTUS?

He is now today pandering to Iranian mullahs to permit their nukes knowing Israel and all the Middle East is at risk of Iranian annihilation; Biden has inflicted our economy with energy dependence to support his satanic Climate Church, caused 8% inflation and another 3M peasant invaders, plus imported fentanyl deaths and child sex slaves.

Biden is the evil one, Afghanistan and Ukraine are his "trix".

Anonymous said...

What the fuck is this garbage?

Anonymous said...

Hey Kim Wade I bet you won’t pop off your mouth to David Archie to his face. Just have him on your show.
Just about every black person you’ve come in contact with knows you are nothing but mouth and sell wolf tickets.

Kingfish said...

Kim has had Mr. Archie on his show several times.

Anonymous said...

Yawn. Ted is such a boor. Kingfish, if you just want to get a rise out of people, you could just post the Ten Planks.

Anonymous said...

Afghanistan is an anthill. You have to kick it over every once in a while so it doesn’t get to out of control. You don’t waste you’re time and money trying to teach it to behave.

Anonymous said...

@7:18
Don’t forget the opium and the powerful Sassoon family who have controlled the global drugs trade since the 18th century. I assure you that the Chinese haven’t forgotten.

Anonymous said...

This fool should apologize to the families of the 2,400+ American soldiers that died fighting for Afghanistan. And the spineless Afghanistan cowards ran away when it was time to defend their own country.

Anonymous said...

Afghanistan is sooo last year, Covid was sooo last month, that hot thing to virtue signal right now is Ukraine. I mean guns and nationalism are bad except for like when Ukraine does it.

Anonymous said...

“America must not know, don’t show or just don’t care about what’s going on in the hood.”

- Ice Cube, Boyz N The Hood

Anonymous said...

@6:21 PM
You’re just now realizing Kim is a coward? I mean, it took all this time for you to realize it? What does that say about you?

Anonymous said...

@7:06 PM
“Ted is such a boor.”

Um, I believe it’s “bore.”

Anonymous said...

@6:25 PM
Hm. KF and his undying obsession with David Archie, to the point where he refers to Archie as the “Mister.” One of my aunts refers to her husband as the “Mister.”

They consider it to be their love language.

Anonymous said...

@4:44 PM
Run-on sentences are not permitted in America.

Anonymous said...

We should have learned from the Russians about Afghanistan but we didn’t. The terrain there as well as the culture and no changes will be made ever or accepted. I was there for 2 years

Anonymous said...

Hunter Biden was a board member of gas company in Ukraine.

Don Drane said...

12:07 - You'll notice that Kim uses his real name, not anonymous. What's that say about you?

Anonymous said...

Somehow Tater Tot is at fault for this.

Anonymous said...

This column is idiotic. I don’t know where to begin. So much stupid.

Not as stupid as the stupid comments you reflexively and predictably deposit under every Rall column offered here. Instead of seeking a beginning, just stop and go troll elsewhere.

Anonymous said...

Melvin is still hurt that Kim Wade spurned his advances. Take note Jessica.

Anonymous said...

Um, 7:06, the same device you used to post your comment can be used to look the definitions of words you don’t know. You should try it sometime.

Kingfish said...

or, knucklehead, I tend to follow the practice of the WSJ and NYT and refer to people as Mr. or Ms. _______ .

Anonymous said...

@9:16 who should apologize for 2400 lives lost in the Afghan conflict? It’s like you guys Trumpublicans blame the boring channel line up on Biden, but completely ignore the laws Trump thought he was above.
Oh and Kim Wade has BEEN a coward as long as I’ve known him. @Kingfish I know Kim has had David L. on his show, but he didn’t insult him to his face. Kim knows David L. Will smash him!!

Anonymous said...

You don't know Kim Wade.

Anonymous said...

Can someone tell me who this Mobile Bob guy is who calls into KW’s show and ramble for minutes about the same thing? Does he even have a job and can someone who knows him suggest he take speech therapy?

Anonymous said...

@10:02 AM
Sure you do, buddy.

Anonymous said...

LOL. All the detractors dogging Wade's radio gig and yet they listen often enough to know who Mobile Boy is. LOL.

Anonymous said...

@7:32 & 9:43…..you do know that boor IS a word, right? And boor is a good description for Ted.


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