Re <<Afghanistan>>
The situation shall likely get worse before whatever else might happen, getting worse than worse or better than worse
(1) However, as the old approach is well past best-use-by date, new angles shall indubitably be tee-ed up, scientifically. Perhaps simple economics shall work better than sophisticated technologies of killing. In any case the cretinous Economist gives its view re an unpredictable situation
economist.com
America’s longest war is ending in crushing defeat The consequences of the conflict for Afghans, already catastrophic, are likely to get worse Jul 10th 2021 “I WANT TO talk about happy things, man!” protested President Joe Biden in early July, when reporters asked him about the imminent withdrawal of the last American forces from Afghanistan, expected some time in the next few weeks. No wonder he wants to change the subject: America has been fighting in Afghanistan for 20 years. It has spent more than $2trn on the war. It has lost thousands of its own troops and seen the death of tens of thousands of Afghans—soldiers and civilians alike. Now America is calling an end to the whole sorry adventure, with almost nothing to show for it. ... There will be a long debate about how much the withdrawal saps America’s credibility and prestige. For all its wealth and military might, America failed not only to create a strong, self-sufficient Afghan state, but also to defeat a determined insurgency. What is more, America is no longer prepared to put its weight behind its supposed ally, the Afghan government, to the surprise and dismay of many Afghan officials. Hostile regimes in places like China and Russia will have taken note—as will America’s friends. That does not make Afghanistan a second Vietnam. For one thing, the Afghan war was never really the Pentagon’s or the nation’s focus. American troops were on the ground far longer in Afghanistan than they were in Vietnam, but far fewer of them died. Other events, from the war in Iraq to the global financial crisis, always seemed more important than what was happening in Kandahar. And American politicians and pundits have agonised over whether to stay or go for so long that, now the withdrawal has finally arrived, it has lost its power to shock. To the extent that outsiders see it as a sign of American weakness, that weakness has been evident for a long time. Unhappy things Shocking or not, though, the withdrawal is nonetheless a calamity for the people of Afghanistan. In 2001 many hoped that America might end their 20-year-old civil war and free them from a stifling, doctrinaire theocracy. For a time, it looked as though that might happen. But today the lives of ordinary Afghans are more insecure than ever: civilian casualties were almost 30% higher last year than in 2001, when the American deployment began, according to estimates from the UN and academics. The economy is no bigger than it was a decade ago. And the mullahs are not only at the gates of Kabul; their assassins are inside, targeting Shias, secularists, women with important jobs—anyone who offends their blinkered worldview. America was never going to solve all Afghanistan’s problems, but to leave the country back at square one is a sobering failure. ¦ This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "Abandoning Afghanistan"
(2) Taliban seems to respond to economics - who would have thought, had they thought at all
scmp.com
China a ‘welcome friend’ for reconstruction in Afghanistan: Taliban spokesman Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen says the group welcomes Chinese investments in reconstruction and would guarantee the safety of investors and workersThe US withdrawal from Afghanistan has emboldened the Taliban and there are growing concerns about the Kabul government’s ability to stay in power The Taliban sees China as a “friend” to Afghanistan and is hoping to talk to Beijing about investing in reconstruction work “as soon as possible”, the group’s spokesman Suhail Shaheen said on Wednesday. In an exclusive interview with This Week in Asia, Suhail said the Taliban now controlled 85 per cent of the country and that it would guarantee the safety of Chinese investors and workers if they were to return. “We welcome them. If they have investments of course we ensure their safety. Their safety is very important for us,” he said by phone. Suhail also said the Taliban would no longer allow China’s Uyghur separatist fighters, some of whom had previously sought refuge in Afghanistan, to enter the country. The Taliban would also prevent al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group from operating there. ... “We have been to China many times and we have good relations with them,” Suhail said. “China is a friendly country that we welcome for reconstruction and developing Afghanistan.” ... Afghanistan has the world’s largest unexploited reserves of copper, coal, iron, gas, cobalt, mercury, gold, lithium and thorium, valued at over US$1 trillion. ... A longstanding relationship Andrew Small, a senior transatlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund’s Asia Programme, said China’s relationship with the Taliban was “longstanding”, going back to the group’s time in government. The Taliban ruled the country from 1996 to 2001. “I first wrote about it many years back when I became aware of the secret meetings that had been taking place in Pakistan even after the US invasion and before other countries’ contacts with the Taliban had been normalised,” said Small. China had in one sense been a “friend” by maintaining diplomatic contacts with the Taliban, he said. However, he said that now China would “be very cautious about any new investments or commitments to Afghanistan”. “Whatever benign language the Taliban use, China remains highly concerned about the security situation there,” said Small. He said China’s biggest concern in its dealings with the Taliban had always been whether it was sheltering Uygur separatists... ... The US intelligence community believes the Afghan military is weak and that the Kabul government’s prospects for survival in the short term are not good. But the idea of the Taliban in power has also stoked fears among women that they will once again be oppressed, stopped from working and that young girls will be banned from going to school. Rights groups said Taliban insurgents had forced people out of their homes in northern areas that they had captured and have expressed concern for the safety of women.Suhail claimed girls would be allowed in classrooms. “In the districts that we control, schools are open and girls are allowed to attend,” he said. He also appealed to the international community for financial assistance to help pay teachers, civil servants and local officials. “The Kabul government has stopped paying their salaries ... in the areas that we control,” he said.
(3) Dunno, I have always found the Economist to be as prescient as ... say ... Foreign Affairs and such, useful to know what 'they' are calling thinking and that is all
economist.com
China’s revealing Afghan strategyA suspicious China prepares for America to pull out of Afghanistan
May 27th 2021
ON MAY 9TH China’s foreign ministry was asked to comment on an atrocity in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Terrorists had detonated a car bomb outside a girls’ school, then two more bombs to kill pupils running for safety. At least 68 people had died, most of them children. The attack was aimed at girls from a Shia minority that is often targeted by Sunni Islamist groups, which have brought much misery to Afghanistan. Today such groups are jostling for blood-soaked advantage ahead of a full withdrawal of American forces, at the latest by September 11th this year, as ordered by President Joe Biden. China’s diplomats could have responded to the latest violence in several plausible ways.
It would have been reasonable for the foreign ministry to tell the largest militant group, the Taliban, to rein in the mayhem, for China enjoys growing leverage over the Taliban’s leaders. That may seem counterintuitive. China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, has expressed hope that future Afghan governments will embrace moderate Islam: an apparent rebuke of Taliban-style zealotry. Across the border, in China’s north-western region of Xinjiang, officials have demolished mosques and banned young people from public prayers. In all perhaps a million Muslims, most of them from the Uyghur minority, have passed through re-education camps in Xinjiang, set up to cure them of excessively religious or “backwards” thinking, and to turn them into biddable workers, loyal to the Chinese motherland.
But the Taliban can be both fanatical and pragmatic, it turns out. Their leaders hope to rule Afghanistan soon, a quarter of a century after they first subjected the country to a reign of pious terror. Especially over the past three years, say scholars and diplomats in Beijing and other capitals, links between the Afghan Taliban and China have grown remarkably. Anxious for political recognition and economic backing from their giant neighbour, Taliban delegations have approved of Chinese plans to build motorways between Afghan cities. They claim to support a Chinese-funded project near Kabul to create one of the world’s largest copper mines, which has been stalled for years by concerns about ancient Buddhist ruins on the site and by fears of militant attacks.
Privately, it is said, the Taliban have signalled that they do not care about Xinjiang. That relates to China’s main interest in Afghanistan: to prevent that unhappy country from sliding into chaos and becoming a haven or transit corridor for Uyghur militants who, China is sure, lurk in the region. Those fighters, China believes, include some with combat experience in Syria, some trained by Iran, and others who hope to enter Xinjiang through lawless tribal regions of Pakistan.
It would have been reasonable, too, for China to have asked Pakistan to help stem the bloodshed. Pakistan is the Taliban’s patron, and has prodded the Afghan militants to establish ties with China. Pakistan likes to be useful to China, its most important sponsor. But the ministry chose a different response. After deploring the murder of the schoolgirls in Kabul, its spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, singled out America for blame. She charged that the “abrupt” announcement of America’s exit from Afghanistan had “led to a series of explosive attacks throughout the country”. She called on foreign troops “to pull out in a responsible manner and avoid inflicting more turmoil and suffering on the Afghan people”.
This is a new criticism. Chinese scholars and state media have spent years accusing American forces of straying beyond their original mission to eradicate al-Qaeda and of spreading turmoil with their naive dreams of Western-style nation-building. More recently, they have asserted that America will surely leave behind covert operatives after its troops leave, in part to make trouble for China. In short, China believes that America has stayed too long in Afghanistan, is departing too hastily and is not really leaving at all.
That line of argument is tangled enough. Making it more so, Chinese officials now call Afghanistan an area of possible co-operation with America, along with climate change and efforts to curb nuclear proliferation. When pressed for detail, including at a recent meeting with American counterparts in Anchorage, Chinese envoys are vague. A few years ago China and America did jointly train Afghan diplomats and police. These days China stresses the importance of its Belt and Road Initiative: how the infrastructure-building scheme can promote Afghan development and thus stability, such as by connecting the country to the sea via Pakistan.
Afghanistan once saw remarkable co-operation. Early in the war on terror, President George W. Bush’s administration designated a Uyghur group, the East Turkistan Independence Movement ( ETIM), as terrorists. Chinese agents were allowed to interrogate Uyghurs detained in Guantánamo Bay. They told one Uyghur he was lucky to be in American hands, since “as soon as they got him back to China, he was dead”, his lawyer later told Congress. Such joint action is unthinkable now: the two sides are so far apart on Xinjiang. In 2020 the Trump administration delisted ETIM as a terror group, expressing doubts that it still existed. China says it is a grave menace.
To China, nothing matters more than stabilityChina sees its positions as coherent. Singling out America as a troublemaker is logical. It also distrusts the Taliban, Pakistan and Iran, but those actors have reasons to bow to China’s will, so do not need public scolding. In contrast, America is a dangerous rival that has made bad mistakes, so is an ideal target for criticism. China may support regional or UN peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan, if its neighbour seems on the brink of civil war. But it will not send its own troops to keep order, at least under a Chinese flag, because its neighbour is a “graveyard of empires”. Afghanistan’s case is revealing. China is emerging as a great power that—to an exceptional degree—trusts in cold, hard economic and security interests alone. To China, self-interest is wisdom. ¦
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline "China’s revealing Afghan strategy" |
