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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SARMAN who wrote (271972)	12/12/2009 2:05:28 PM
From: Hawkmoon	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hawk, you are describing us. Since you have no problem with permitting other foreign powers imposing non-democratic rule over the people of Afghanistan and exploiting their resources, I don't see why you'd have a problem if we did it (not that we are going to). And btw, the Taliban regime was right in the center of the illegal logging and deforestation of Afghanistan, making tremendous profits off of permitting plundered wood to be sold into Pakistan: The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) notes that the deforestation in Kunar and Nuristan began in the 1960s and 1970s. Furthermore, a 2002 report by IWPR claims that the rate of deforestation in this area increased dramatically with the fall of the communist government in Kabul. And what of the Taliban government’s forest policy? “People expected the Taleban to save the forests as it is a religious duty. But instead they actually made it easier (for the timber thieves) by opening up roads to the forest on the pretext of clearing old cut trees. It only cleared the way for locals to cut down even more trees and export the timber abroad.” Sher Ahmedi, an Afghan environmental expert, explained how the Taliban made massive profits off the timber industry by closing the border in Nangarhar to the timberlords and forcing trucks to detour 800km to Kabul, then on to Kandahar before finally crossing at Chaman where the Taliban had a higher level of control and could extract maximum tariffs. “The Taleban took 28,000 Pakistani rupees in duty (460 US dollars) from just one truck on the Chaman border near Khandahar. Three hundred trucks a day were making the same journey at that time.” The fall of the Taliban ended this massive detour and the Timber barons were free to cross east of Jalalabad, greatly easing their transportation concerns and bringing them higher profits. easterncampaign.wordpress.com So don't talk to us about the benefits of a Taliban regime preventing foreign exploitation of Afghanistan's resources. Hawk