In a new document shared from a source on the ground in Afghanistan, warnings continue about the future of the country after the United States has chosen to stop the war effort and exit the nation. From the perspective of the source, recent decisions could quite possibly lead to a massive fallout of order into chaos for the people of Afghanistan.
In a recent article, I shared my opinions about the facts available around us leaving behind our station in the nation. Although I mostly agree with the assessment that it was time to leave the nation and bring our troops back home, I also understood that doing so would most likely lead to problems arising again within Afghanistan. This seems to already be quickly becoming what is happening there.
From the ground report, the source says that “The situation in Afghanistan is now suitable for civil war rather than peace and tranquility.” From his point of view, this situation was built up over decades of time by the vast amount of investment in Afghanistan, specifically the city of Kabul, where the population has increased up to 20 times the normal rate due to an excess of “growth with equity”. Here, around 2 trillion dollars have been dropped on the nation in what he calls “helicopter money”, or free money that attracted the mass population increase in the area from people of various ideological stances within the nation. Kabul has grown from an estimated 300,000 people in 2001 to around 6 million people as of this year. With decades of population increase dependent on U.S. funding and protection being removed, what is to be expected of the population center that is being left behind?
The source reflects that “Patreus’ and the other agencies’ use ‘money as a weapon’ strategy is the root of the disaster in Afghanistan. The handing out of free money has caused the Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazara and the moderate Pashtun to move into Kabul where they are now being surrounded with the distinct possibility of being executed en masse in the not too distant future.”
In the previous article, it was written on how the Taliban have resumed attacks on the population as the U.S. military leaves the region. It was also written on how China is planning on moving in to establish ground in the nation for its ‘belt and road initiative. In the document from the source, he continues to share on how Iran and Russia are also making preparations for the exit around the nation.
The source says, “The combination of the shifting demographics induced by enormous free money handouts has not created the secular political and economic development that was hoped for, instead it has more than likely either set up a genocide or a civil war depending on the degree that Iran supports the Shia Hazara with weapons to defend themselves or not. And meanwhile in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and especially Tajikistan, the Russians have brought in a lot of heavy and medium armor and have started running large scale military drills along the Afghanistan border in order to contain the fallout of the U.S. departure and dystopian legacy.”
In the sources view, this “dystopian legacy” could have been avoided by building up an economy centered around the resources that exist within the nation rather than focusing on policies that induced free money into the land and provided a false sense of security by force and funding.
From my view, I can see the threats that exist in the moment to the future of Afghanistan, but also do not understand why the people of Afghanistan cannot attempt to work together to begin to mine their own resources and build their own economic wealth for the future. How long is a culture supposed to lean on the prospects and decisions of the United States, or even China, Russia or Iran for that matter? If the resources exist, no matter if the U.S. decided to tap into them or not, can’t the people decide to do that for themselves? Maybe that is just too much optimism and hopeful thinking for an already divided people. Just a thought, and I know that most will disagree entirely and provide excuses as to why that is impossible.
The source continues, “The chances of the conditions improving to develop a primary economic sector in Afghanistan centered on the extraction and export of rare earth metals through Balochistan Pakistan was not feasible in the previous decade and is significantly less possible now. Instead of having the growth with equity utopia and having the best of both worlds, the U.S. chose a policy strategy that does not have sustainable growth, fostered a corrupt government that did not increase equity, and put ethnic groups together that do not like each other and then defunded the military and diplomatic assistance. The U.S. has quite possibly induced the conditions for a dystopia, after spending $2 Trillion.”
All sounds like a mismanaged mess of efforts to me, but again, how long are we supposed to remain in the region? Even if we took the money away or set in place the technology to gain the resources, would the situation be any better? Would it have been any better if we never went into the region in the first place?
I don’t have the answers here and it doesn’t seem like anyone else truly does either. But I do believe in the capability of people’s ability to step up when necessary if they choose to do so rather than sit back and watch it all fall apart. Maybe the future sits in the hands of the people of Afghanistan, when it comes to what to do about the economy, their own resources, the U.S. leaving, Russia, Iran and China around and what to do about the Taliban in their own nation. We could be in to see an awful downturn in the nation, but it also doesn’t have to be that way. People just must be inspired to make good for their own land, but that seems far fetched in itself as well looking at the moment.
Even today the Jerusalem Post shared an article about an Afghan being beheaded for briefly serving as a translator for the United States. The event happened back in May, but reports are just now coming out about the situation. With events such as these, the potential horror of choices made on all sides continues to be shown. What should have and should now be done all comes down to matters of opinion, and in my opinion, nobody seems to really know.
Human nature has the capability to play out like a horror movie, but it is also up to humans to stand up and create law and establish order to prevent that from being the case. Looking at the past thousands of years, I am not sure how possible that is within Afghanistan. Even still, I have hope for the people that good is still possible. It just isn’t entirely up to the United States, or any other region for that matter, to make that so. Maybe Afghanistan is beyond the possibility of help or hope, but I hate to think that good isn’t still possible anywhere. For humanity’s sake, here’s to hoping that the nation finds a true way forward in time.