Afghanistan

Afghanistan 

Like most of you, I have been following the news about Afghanistan in the past 2 weeks or so and saw how quickly the situation turned into complete chaos, even for Aghan standards. 

The situation there is obviously terrible, and I really feel sorry for the normal people there, and especially the women, who now have to live under Taliban rule once again.

While the Taliban have stated that their rule will be more inclusive and moderate this time around, I’m having a hard time believing the words of a bunch of murderous relegious lunatics. 

What also surprised me is the criticism on NATO/UN/USA because they decided to end the war and withdraw all troops.

If you read the travel stories from hippies in the 1960s and early 70s, who did the overland hippie trail from Europe to South East Asia, or even Australia, they pretty much all say the same thing: they all spent way longer in Afghanistan than they had planned. The country was a safe haven for creative and free-spirited characters who came there to create music and art and smoke as much hash as they could get their hands on which, I am lead to believe, was A LOT. 

Women were dressed in Western fashion, sporting mini skirts and high heels and carried hand bags from famous European fashion houses. Everyone loved it.

So what went wrong? 

Well, in 1973, while king Zahir Shah, a man who promoted progressive policies on foreign affairs, modernisation and industry, was on holiday in Italy, a guy named Daoud Kahn staged a coup and abolished the monarchy by creating a socialist republic.

It’s been mayhem ever since. 

After 4 decades of Soviets, the UN, NATO and the USA trying to bring some sense of normalcy to the country, it seems clear to me that Afghanistan simply doesn’t work.

As long as an international millitary presence is in place, acting like a school teacher with a raised index finger and a fuckton of ballistic missiles, the place is relatively stable, but as soon as we, “the West”, look the other way, they start murdering each other again. 

For almost half a century, Afghanistan hasn’t functioned as a normal country, with a central government like, say, France or Japan. 

It has been a confusing and chaotic patchwork of local tribes and warlords who each want to control their own little patch of land and don’t want to have anything to do with each other. 

The way we govern countries in the West will not work in Afghanistan unless the West keeps everything under tight control.

After 40 years of trying to make the country work, it’s clear that it simply won’t.

There has to be a point in time where we have to ask ourselves when the point is reached that we say “Enough is enough”.

I think that point is now. 

We have spent hundreds of billions on economic assistance, development aid, military operations and infrastructure. We have sent thousands of soldiers to their deaths in attempts to make the country function, but it simply doesn’t and it won’t. 

We have reached a point where we have to say “Afghanistan, you’re on your own.”

This is obviously very tragic for the regular people there, who just want to live a normal life, and not live in fear of being killed at a moment’s notice by religious nutcases, but we tried and tried and tried again, and there has to be an end to it. Afghanistan is a failed state and it is time to realize that it always will be.

Afghanistan, good luck, and thanks for all the heroin. We’ll clean up the smouldering remains in a decade or so and sell whatever is left for scrap metal.