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Afghanistan News Update #20

Afghanistan News Update #20

With each passing month since the U.S./NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the catastrophic impacts of the United States’ hegemonic grip over West and Central Asia, or the so-called “Middle East,” continue to be evident. At the same moment U.S. officials are facilitating an ongoing genocide in occupied Palestine, they're subjecting the people of Afghanistan to collective punishment.

In October, a series of powerful earthquakes killed and injured thousands in Herat. One month later, the U.S.-backed interim government of Pakistan initiated racist deportations of all Afghan nationals from the country. Despite the need for immediate humanitarian relief, the United States continues to levy sanctions and freeze Afghanistan's sovereign assets. Despite the need for an immediate normalization of relations, Thomas West, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan, maintains that this is “not going to be possible.” The United States intends to continue targeting the Afghan people with impunity.

The mission of the United States Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan is “to advance U.S. interests related to Afghanistan.” The United States was built on indigenous genocide, colonial conquest and violent repression, and the destructive humanitarian impact and economic devastation wrought by U.S. interests is plain to see–from Afghanistan, Palestine and Sudan to Haiti, Niger and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

As the conditions in Afghanistan worsen before what is expected to be another harsh winter–with nearly all Afghans unable to attain basic necessities like food, water and fuel due to the U.S.-led sanctions and asset freeze–it is imperative to connect what is unfolding in Afghanistan as a result of U.S.-led war and imperialism to the wider region and world. 

ADDITIONAL READINGS AND RESOURCES

Sanctions Watch

November 2, 2023 by Pedro Labayen Herrera for Center for Economic and Policy Research

The U.S.-led sanctions and financial asset freeze hinder aid recovery efforts, and with the complete collapse of Afghanistan’s economy and a cash-strapped Taliban government, millions of refugees and migrants deported from Pakistan will be left with little to no food, water, fuel or shelter. 

‘What’s Wrong?’: The Silence of Pakistanis on Expulsion of Afghan Refugees

November 22, 2023 by Abid Hussain for Al Jazeera

As nearly 1.7 million Afghans are ordered to leave Pakistan, there is a silence on the streets. Racist state propaganda has produced a hatred and fear of Afghans in Pakistan, who already live in some of the poorest conditions there. In a recent poll, 84% of respondents “strongly approved” of the government's decision of mass-deportation. 

The Afghan Fund: The Limits of Sovereign Immunity & Recognition Law

October 6, 2023 by Matei Alexianu and Ali Hakim for LawFare

Half of the $7 billion in Afghanistan’s stolen assets is held by the United States in an international trust fund out of Switzerland. The conditions U.S. policy officials have set for the return of the funds are not only impossible to meet but violate international law.

A Week of Earthquakes Brings Death, Grief, and Trauma to Afghanistan’s Herat

October 16, 2023 by Ali M. Latifi for The New Humanitarian

The scale of the destruction caused by recent earthquakes in Herat, Afghanistan, especially in the district of Zinda Jan, are closely linked to it being one of the least developed and secure districts in Herat.

Banner photo: An Afghan boy mourns next to a grave of his little brother who died due to an earthquake. (courtesy Ebrahim Noroozi—AP)

Afghanistan News Update #19

Afghanistan News Update #19

The month of September 2023 marked the anniversary of two events key to understanding U.S.-led imperialism targeting Afghanistan and the Afghan masses. The first, September 11, was the 22nd anniversary since hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon. With no evidence linking these actions to Afghanistan, the Bush administration launched a full-scale invasion of the country the following month–initiating the U.S./NATO’s so-called “Global War on Terror.” 

The second date, September 14, marked the one year anniversary of the establishment of the “Afghan Fund,” a Switzerland-based fund set up by the United States after its withdrawal from Afghanistan to steal away part of Afghanistan’s sovereign assets. To this date, not a single cent of the $3.5 billion has gone to the Afghan people who face a dire humanitarian crisis. The devastating impacts of the United States’ international asset freeze and sanctions campaign against Afghanistan could not be clearer, yet they are choices which continue to be pursued. 

This month’s Afghanistan News Update includes an interview with military veteran and anti-war activist Matthew Hoh who held a number of positions with the U.S. Department of Defense and State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan variably from 2004 to 2009. In September 2009, he resigned from his position with the U.S. State Department to protest the war on Afghanistan. Since then, he has worked with a number of foreign policy and anti-war organizations, both formally and informally. Hoh is Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy, a certified Peer Support Specialist for Mental Health and Substance Abuse Disorder for veterans, and a former U.S. Senate candidate for the Green Party of North Carolina.

You were one of only a few U.S. State Department officials to resign in protest over the lies told to justify wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Can you summarize the false justifications used during the U.S./NATO-led war on Afghanistan specifically? 

I think the first lie was that the Taliban were involved with the 9/11 attacks and the United States had no choice but to invade Afghanistan. This was closely followed by the lie that the Taliban refused to negotiate and would not have surrendered. Within this conventional understanding, the United States and the West generally diminished the importance of the decades-long civil war in Afghanistan and assumed the Taliban government had no support among the population. 

During the occupation, the United States’ official position whitewashed those it had installed into power. It redefined warlords and drug lords as aspiring democrats and human rights defenders. These lies, which persisted throughout the 20-year U.S. occupation, enabled all U.S. administrations to say they had no choice but to escalate and continue the war. In my opinion, other lies that sustained the war included:

  • The U.S. military, particularly after Obama's “surge,” was making progress on the battlefield–“hard-won gains” was the oft-heard rhetoric, even as the Taliban grew militarily and politically stronger every year.

  • The U.S. reconstruction effort was yielding great economic, development and human rights gains, often referring to women's rights and education, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

  • Afghanistan was a progressing democracy even as each election was more fraudulent than the previous.

  • Corruption could be controlled and did not dominate the installed Afghan government, which was the definition of a kleptocracy.

  • The Taliban were running a criminal nexus with narcotics producers and international terrorism, whereas it was the Afghan government and military that dominated the illicit drug trade.

  • The Taliban were a fringe revolutionary movement despite clear evidence that they had legitimate grievances and a constituency that grew every year in support of insurgency and resistance.

  • The Afghan people, especially non-Pashtuns, would never welcome a Taliban return to power, although they did just that in province after province when U.S. money disappeared; Afghans often saw the Taliban as a much better option than the cruel and predatory Afghan security forces supported by the United States.

Skipping ahead to today, what lies continue to justify U.S. sanctions on Afghanistan? Why do you think the sanctions continue?

The U.S.-led sanctions policy imposed on the country since August 2021 depends on the narrative and lies I outlined above, as well as a popular misunderstanding in the United States that sanctions punish "rogue” regimes and “help” oppressed people. The narrative and lies dominate with the help of compliant Western vassals and media that are subservient to their corporate sponsors and government interests. 

For the U.S. government, sanctions ideally force suffering populations to overthrow their governments and replace them with leaders more compliant to U.S. and Western interests. In reality, sanctions rarely produce these outcomes, especially unilateral U.S. sanctions applied to many countries, which is a violation of international law, as can be shown for nations such as Cuba, Iran, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela. 

The myth that sanctions are effective, follow international law, and support human rights is nevertheless foundational to U.S. foreign policy-making and thinking. In Afghanistan, the sanctions are designed to punish the Taliban for its victory over the United States. They save face and rebuke the Taliban and Afghans for humiliating them. 

Given your experience, can you more broadly explain why U.S. foreign policy works the way it does today? In other words, what systems are at play here which serve to embolden the demands of U.S. foreign policy and military officials?

While people in other countries should not listen to U.S. demands, most do not get to decide. Since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, when the United States established itself as the hegemonic world power, many political leaders saw it as to their benefit to side with the United States. While there may have been some benefits, the United States was quick to punish nations that dared to maintain their political and economic independence. This was the case in the 1990s with Iraq and Serbia, which were made examples of by the U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, respectively.

George W. Bush continued such policies with the U.S. invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. After 9/11, Bush declared: “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” President Barack Obama vastly expanded the reach of the so-called “Global War on Terror,” most notably in the U.S. wars on Libya, Syria and Yemen, as well as through expansion of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). The results have been unmistakably catastrophic.

As the economies of the “collective West” diminish with the rise of the Chinese, Indian and other economies, including through the formation of the BRICS organization by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, many countries suffering from Western colonialism and imperialism are rising up against demands that keep them poor and flout international law. New options are becoming available to less powerful countries to forge transnational relationships and pursue policies that may more effectively serve their people’s interests.

ADDITIONAL READINGS

Sanctions Watch

August 31, 2023 by Michael Galant for Center for Economic and Policy Research 

The United States continues to pursue economic policies designed to isolate Afghanistan, despite no evidence of any positive results. Women and children continue to be the most severely impacted, and a drought is expected to upturn the country’s already fragile agricultural sector. 

Why Won’t the United States Close Guantanamo?

August 21, 2023 by Maha Hilal for Middle East Eye

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2024 passed by the U.S. Senate once again prohibits the closure or transfer of political prisoners from the U.S.-controlled Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. Dr. Hilal argues for its closure, as well as reparations to survivors, a disproportionate amount of whom are Afghan.  

Western Arms Proliferate in Afghanistan, Spike Violence

September 15, 2023 by Amitabha Roychowdhury for Peoples Dispatch 

When the U.S./NATO fled Afghanistan in 2021, they left behind a huge cache of arms, ammunition and sophisticated military equipment which found its way into the black market, leading experts to fear risks of increased transnational terrorism and regional instability.

China Becomes First to Name New Afghan Ambassador Under Taliban

September 13, 2023 by Mohammad Yunus Yawar and Charlotte Greenfield for Reuters

While the Taliban have not been officially recognized by any foreign government, China’s new ambassador to Afghanistan aims to continue advancing dialogue and cooperation between the two countries. A step which could prevent further international isolation of Afghanistan's ruling government. 

No Compromise, No Retreat!

BAP Solidarity Network’s Afghanistan Committee

Banner photo: Some armed men have pledged to support the Afghan army in defending Kabul against the Taliban (Courtesy Reuters)

Afghanistan News Update #18

Afghanistan News Update #18

UPDATE: Citations have been included in the first paragraph and a news article has been added.

“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent, and that’s power.” -Malcolm X

For more than 40 years, the U.S. government has waged war in one form or another against the people of Afghanistan, sponsoring violent, reactionary insurgencies,  bombing and invading the country, leveling crippling economic sanctions, and expropriating vital assets. Tens of thousands of Afghans have died—and continue to die—from these assaults, while almost 6 million more have been driven from their homes, and the country has been left battered, impoverished, and dependent.

Every step of the way, the U.S. media has provided cover for these violations of Afghan sovereignty, consistently tailoring its narrative to support the U.S. government’s shifting imperial agenda. Whether echoing government claims without adequate investigation, favoring standard tropes of freedom and democracy over facts, or spotlighting some human rights while ignoring others, the media has effectively functioned to drum up public support for—rather than expose—the United States’ long running and continuing war of terror.

The Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network’s Afghanistan Committee further examines the role of the media in the U.S. war on Afghanistan in the following interview with Julie Hollar, senior analyst and managing editor at media watch group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR).

Hollar has a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Some examples of Hollar’s work on Afghanistan are here, here and here.

According to journalism’s ethics principles, journalists are compelled to serve the public interest by acting as independent “watch dogs,” seeking out truth and holding the government to account. How does this square with the way the mainstream media (MSM) have abetted U.S. wars against countries, like Afghanistan?

Simply put, it doesn't square. When the U.S. government engages in wars abroad, it's extremely rare for [the United States'] most prominent media outlets to do anything other than broadcast official talking points. We did a study of guests on ABC, CBS and NBC in the days after 9/11. Fifty percent were current or former U.S. government officials. Less than 4 percent were from activist or advocacy groups. None were international law experts. Fast forward 20 years to the withdrawal. We looked at the same networks again, and nearly two-thirds of sources were U.S. government or military, while no scholars or antiwar activists from either the United States or Afghanistan were featured. 

You have pointed out that the news media have allowed U.S. officials to fashion the narrative regarding U.S. wars. Can you comment on this blurring of lines between the media and the U.S. government, particularly in regard to its coverage of Afghanistan?

During the withdrawal, we saw such things as [a CBS anchor] announcing, “When America leaves, for many, so does the hope—the hope of freedom, the hope for human rights. And in its place comes the sheer terror of what’s next.” This sounds like the U.S. media offering the perspective of Afghan people. But, of course, that's not primarily who they're talking to. Instead, the journalists are getting that perspective through U.S. officials. In other words, it's propaganda, but because corporate media are not state-run, and because they proclaim their deep commitment to “objectivity,” the relationship between government and media is somewhat obscured.  

You have written about how the MSM “discovered” women’s rights leading up to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, inundating the public with imagery of, in your words, “burqa-clad women in need of liberation,” and then “rediscovered” these women following the withdrawal in order to justify sanctions. Can you talk about the media’s selective focus on “human rights” and how it erases the harm caused by the violence of U.S. wars?

If the primary question is, “How can we support women's rights, anywhere in the world?” the answer will never be “By starting (or refusing to end) a war.” But if the primary question is, "How can we make our war more popular among the public?" introducing a narrative about saving women from oppression looks very appealing. FAIR has documented U.S. media's lack of interest in Afghan women's rights, except when that subject could be used to justify military intervention, which clearly demonstrates that they don't see it as a human rights story, but as a war story. And in fact, if reporters looked too closely at human rights, it would completely undermine the U.S. war projects, because it would highlight the endless violations of rights by those projects. In the Ukraine War, U.S. media have reported a great deal on [alleged] civilian casualties caused by Russia, but you didn't get that same attention in Afghanistan or Iraq, for example, despite the fact that so many were killed and wounded. 

Racism clearly permeates U.S. popular media coverage here in the United States, whether overtly as displayed during the onset of the war in Ukraine, or in more subtle ways as seen in the portrayals of racialized migrants and refugees and the use of white saviorism to gain public support for U.S. wars. Why do you think racism is so central to the way U.S. media covers stories involving other countries and peoples? What would be required to transform this fundamental problem? 

Racism is central to U.S. media because racism is central to U.S. political, economic and cultural systems. Corporate media have evolved to thrive in that system as it exists, and so challenging it in any fundamental way would threaten their own viability. To transform media, you have to change the environment in which they operate, and to transform that environment, you have to change the media that prop it up. It would be very difficult to tackle them in isolation from each other. 

You point out the strategic use of passive and active voice in media stories, such as those regarding the seizure of Afghanistan’s assets that, together with U.S.-imposed sanctions, is starving a majority of Afghans. Can you discuss this manipulation and the ways it’s used to minimize U.S. agency when it comes to violations, while at other times to suggest U.S. benevolence?

A lot of this has to do with perceptions of bias, and journalists’ misplaced commitment to so-called objectivity. Many journalists will claim that if “both sides” complain about their reporting, they must be doing something right. The problem is that sometimes one side is much louder, more powerful, or more extreme than the other side. This holds across issues. But, in the case of foreign policy, outlets are much more concerned about getting complaints about coverage from U.S. officials—who are often important sources for scoops and have much more power to influence journalists’ career and the public's perception of the outlet's biases—than getting complaints from “official enemies.” So you find yourself softening your coverage of the sources who will prompt the most backlash against your reporting.

The U.S. military budgets continue to break records, with reports of it potentially reaching $1 trillion this year. At the same time, despite movements to defund the police, their budgets have increased across the board. Do you see a connection between the way the media drums up support for expanding policing here and expanding U.S. ‘policing’ overseas?

Both have at their heart a deeply symbiotic relationship between media outlets and police/military, which I've alluded to above. Crime and war are stories that sell, that produce clicks and views, and the military and the police give reporters unparalleled access to these stories. Militaries give embedded reporters protection in war zones, [while] police give reporters access to crime scenes. But that kind of access necessarily shapes the kinds of stories those reporters tell. Reporters get their stories, but those stories are really the military’s stories, the police force’s stories. They become allies, and reporters become overly reliant on and trusting of their official sources, and much less open to alternative perspectives. 

How do you think the U.S. media functions overall to create and maintain a popular understanding of the rest of the world, a mythology that reflects and promotes the pro-capitalist and imperialist agenda of the U.S. government? What do you see as the role of alternative media such as FAIR in countering that narrative?

The media help establish what are considered realistic or acceptable narratives and policies, partly by simply excluding certain voices or painting them as dangerous or crazy. If the public could hear alternative perspectives that center the needs of people, rather than the needs of the powerful, those perspectives would be normalized, and the visions they put forth would seem realistic rather than extremist or fantastical. That's why independent media are so crucial, because the stories we tell each other shape the possibilities of the world we live in, and the more those people-centered stories push against the corporate media narratives, the more another world is made possible.

ADDITIONAL READING

The Human Consequences of Economic Sanctions 

May 4, 2023 by Francisco R. Rodríguez for Center for Economic and Policy Research

In addition to concrete findings on the deadly impacts of sanctions in Venezuela and Iran, this report has found that the U.S.-led sanctions on Afghanistan blocked the country’s access to international funds desperately needed to mitigate widespread hunger and starvation. 

As UN ‘Reviews’ Presence in Afghanistan, People Continue to Suffer 

April 25, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch

A new report released by the United Nations Development Program raised concerns about the increasingly reduced international aid for Afghanistan since the Taliban took over in 2021, highlighting the severe economic repercussions and the need for reevaluation. 

Afghanistan Seeks Boost in Energy Ties with Russia

May 19, 2023 by The Cradle News Desk

The Afghan Minister of Trade and Industry, Nooruddin Azizi, stated that Afghanistan is looking to expand its energy ties with Russia. After a deadly winter with below-freezing temperatures, Afghanistan is in need of around 4 million tons of oil products.

Trust Is So Low That Half of Americans Believe News Organizations Deliberately Mislead Them

February 15, 2023 by David Bauder and the AP in Fortune

A 2023 survey shows low levels of public distrust in U.S. national news sources, with less than a quarter of respondents believing journalists act in the public’s best interest, and half believing a deliberate intent to deceive.

Two Decades and $90 Billion U.S. Dollars Later: Dissecting the Afghan Military's Total Collapse

March 27, 2023 by Kit Klarenberg in MintPressNews

An analysis of the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction's (SIGAR) investigative "obituary" issued in February on the collapse of the U.S.-sponsored Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, which is a "remarkably uncompromising, no-punches-pulled assessment, exposing corruption, incompetence, lies, and delusion every step of the way" that was accomplished despite "stonewalling" from Pentagon and State Department officials.

No compromise, no retreat!
BAP Solidarity Network’s Afghanistan Committee

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Banner photo: U.S. soldiers stand guard behind barbed wire as Afghans sit on a roadside near the military part of the airport in Kabul (courtesy Wakil Kohsar. AFP via Getty images)

Afghanistan News Update #17

Afghanistan News Update #17

The Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network’s Afghanistan Committee continues to foreground the situation in Afghanistan and the responsibilities of those in imperial cores toward the Afghan people. The United States continues to be committed to devastating Afghanistan by imposing unilateral sanctions and sponsoring violent, reactionary forces.

This newsletter includes an interview with U.S. Air Force veteran Eddie Falcón, 39, who served four years as a loadmaster aircrew member on a C-130 aircraft. Falcón was deployed twice to Afghanistan (in the winters of 2003 and 2004) and twice to Iraq (in the summers of 2004 and 2005). He also did evacuations in the United States during Hurricane Katrina (2005). Falcón was honorably discharged in December 2005 and moved in January 2006 to San Francisco to start college. He has been a member of activist organizations, such as About Face (formerly Iraq Veterans Against the War), Before Enlisting, Bay Area Copwatch, and Warrior Writers. This work has allowed him to speak about his military experience and anti-war perspective in high schools, colleges, youth programs, and at events across Europe, the United States, Canada and West Asia. 

Falcón co-produced the 2011 documentary, “Occupation Has No Future,” with Upheaval Productions, a film set in Palestine and Israel. He is a featured speaker in the anti-recruitment video, “Before You Enlist!,” he has co-starred in two bilingual National Lawyers Guild infomercials for immigrants’ rights, and he has provided “Know Your Rights” training across the San Francisco Bay Area. Falcón is a musician and has performed at several events and fundraisers across the United States. For many years, he was a high school teacher in special education, mathematics and Spanish. Falcón is involved in California’s Indigenous community as an Aztec dancer, drummer, and event organizer with the group Calpulli Coatlicue.

Like many young people in the United States, you enlisted in what you call the "economic draft" in the hope of escaping poverty. What conclusions were you able to draw from being raised in East Los Angeles, and then serving in the U.S. military in Iraq and in Afghanistan?

A big part of me joining the military was for economic reasons. All the benefits offered like the Government Issue (GI) Bill, healthcare, the Veterans Administration (VA) home loan, and an enlistment bonus seemed like they would help me get a boost in society. Though an enlistment bonus never happened and once in, I was told my chosen job as aircrew was bonus enough. If I wanted a bonus, I needed to extend my enlistment to six years, which I didn’t want to do. More important than economic benefits, and much more immediate to me, I wanted to escape the cycle of violence and poverty I experienced. I had been through the foster care system, had an uncle die from police violence, been repeatedly harassed by the police myself, and saw family members involved in gangs, drugs, prison, and being deported. I felt like joining the military was my only escape. 

You have said that as one of the few Mexicans in a mostly-white unit, you experienced racism early in your enlistment. Later, you were encouraged to see and treat Iraqis as dirty beings. Iraqi prisoners often mistook you for an Iraqi after you removed their blindfolds. How did these kinds of experiences change how you viewed the U.S. war on this so-called enemy?

The missions on my last deployment, moving detainees in and out of the Basra, Iraq prison, definitely shifted my perspective. To start, I was given a Prisoner Under Containment (PUC) kit, a bag with a tarp, diapers, and such. I was told the prisoners will shit, piss, or try to spit and it was for my protection. I refused the bag, as that sounded absurd. I was then told to remove the seats from the plane and to strap the prisoners to the floor. So yes, it was implied that they were dirty and not worth a seat and seat belt. Upon releasing prisoners, one mistook me for being Iraqi. That moment showed me I was on the wrong side. I thought about the racial slurs my squadron hurled at me daily, my family being taken away by police or immigration, and I related to the struggle of the so-called enemy.

What efforts to dehumanize Afghans did you encounter during your tours in Afghanistan?

One day [in approximately the winter of 2004] in Herat, I was outside the plane getting ready to load it. This little boy, maybe 6 years old, crawled out from under the base’s fence. I watched as he jogged up, pulled some rocks from his pocket, and began throwing them at me and the plane with all his might. I was actually impressed by how bold and brave he was, taking on the U.S. military at his size. Suddenly, the pilot came over the headset telling me, “If that kid gets any closer or hits us with a rock, you need to shoot him!” 

My heart sank in my chest in disbelief, but I knew I had to do something. I made eye contact with the boy, laughed, waved and smiled. He paused, smiled too, and ran back home thankfully. I couldn’t believe they wanted me to just swat away this child’s life like a fly. 

How did getting involved in the anti-war movement change your understanding of the world?

When I was first discharged from the military [in December 2005], I felt isolated and resentful. I thought no one cared or could relate to all the things I had seen and been through in war. I think I just had a lot of unreconciled anger. I wondered, how could everyone just be living their happy little lives while all this suffering was taking place abroad? I saw students organizing against war at San Francisco City College’s campus [in January 2006] and went right up to talk to them. They, the socialists, had me speaking [about the war] at a campus event and then at a high school by my second semester. Getting involved in the anti-war movement helped me channel some of that energy into activism. It showed me there were people out there who did care and wanted to fight for peace. It also introduced me to other veterans who were critical of the wars and militarism. It pretty much gave me my first sense of community after the military, and I’m grateful for that.

How do you see your role as a rap musician and performance artist in opposing U.S. militarism and wars, both abroad and in the United States?

Music is a way through art to process some of my life, the war, and to communicate my worldview from those experiences. Although I haven’t done a rap performance in years, I do remember people approaching me and saying that they identified with my lyrics. How they had family who served in the military or had been through the prison system, and they spoke of the adverse effects it had on their community. I see this entire range of experience as symptoms of militarism. Nowadays, I mostly express myself through Aztec dance. For me, indigeneity has been the best way to decolonize myself and my community to oppose militarism. Honoring our traditions, rituals, festivals, dances, language, ancestors, and identities before colonization not only can heal generational trauma, but can show the youth that we already have something to be proud of and to fight for, right here in our neighborhoods.

What would you like to tell young people who are thinking about joining the military?

I speak about this very topic in high schools with a group called Before Enlisting. I mostly let kids know the military is historically a place for straight white men and, if you’re not that, it’s most likely going to be difficult just to get along. That’s besides the stress of boot camp, injuries on the job, war, mental health issues and the bureaucracy of pursuing veterans benefits. Try not to make the military your first option after high school. If you enlist and don’t like it, you have rights. The GI Rights hotline can help. You’re not stuck. It’s a process, but you can get out and retain some benefits. If you stay in, put your health and safety first. Get everything you can from them while in and as a veteran. They will get anything they can out of you, including your life and limbs.

Anything else you'd like to share?

Please visit the following websites to see some of the work I have been involved in. Thank you!

ADDITIONAL READING 

CEPR Sanctions Watch: February 2023

February 28, 2023 by Michael Galant for Center for Economic and Policy Research

A Federal Judge ruled this month that the Afghan central bank’s U.S.-based frozen reserves could not be used to compensate families of survivors of September 11. An expected appeal will keep the $3.5 billion frozen for potentially years to come while the other $3.5 billion remains in the control of the U.S.-sponsored “Afghan Fund.”

Foreign Devils on Road to Afghanistan

March 13, 2023 by M.K. Bhadrakumar in Peoples Dispatch

Western powers led by the United States work to find justifications for intervention in Afghanistan, pursuing options that will create anarchical conditions in the country in a quest for regime change. 

  

News Report 

March 6, 2023 by News Central Asia 

China and Russia lead efforts to establish diplomatic relations with the Taliban, discussing ways to improve material conditions on the ground while raising questions centered around women’s rights. 

Banner photo: U.S. veterans of Iraq march in protest against war (curtesy, en.wikipedia.org.).

Afghanistan News Update #16

Afghanistan News Update #16

Propaganda continues to justify the U.S./EU-backed economic war on Afghanistan, which the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) has argued constitutes a crime against humanity. That is why the BAP Solidarity Network’s Afghanistan Committee has steadfastly shone a light on the invasion and 20-year war, its devastating consequences, and its punishing lawfare and sanctions. In this newsletter, we focus on the ideological gender and sexual “empowerment” stories that underlie the war. 

In December, Marya Hannun addressed questions about women and gender in Afghanistan. Hannun completed a Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University and is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Exeter's Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, where she serves as the Managing Editor of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP). Her current research examines women’s movements and legal reform in early 20th-century Afghanistan.

The views expressed below do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Black Alliance for Peace. 

Would you give us a sense of your biographical background as well as intellectual and activist interests?

I became interested in Afghanistan’s history in my early years of graduate school in the 2010s. Like many in the United States with Arab or Muslim backgrounds, I devoted a lot of energy to combatting damaging stereotypes about Muslims, particularly Afghan women. These concerns formed the backdrop of so much intellectual engagement in Middle East Studies in the decade after 9/11. This work, while crucial, was often superficial. Many of us only knew Afghanistan’s history through the lenses of invasion and war. Moreover, intellectual study of Afghanistan was not part of our training as gender scholars in Middle East Studies.

What are the problems with the concept “Afghan women and girls” so frequently and effectively deployed by imperialist and colonial forces like the U.S. State Department and mainstream media outlets?

By creating this monolithic category, and then using it to justify a war that, as Shah Mahmoud Hanifi described, was really “an imperial punishment exercise” for 9/11, the U.S. occupying forces had a rhetorical frame to deflect accountability. They sold the war to U.S. and Western audiences by pointing to some women who were going to school or imperialist programs costing billions of dollars that purportedly built an “inclusive civil society.” But by subsuming all women under the technical term “Afghan women and girls,” they flattened out the gendered, classed, and regional experiences of war and tried to erase their own production of massive levels of violence and poverty. The more it was reproduced the more ingrained (and meaningless) it became as a category. It left no room for the women who never gained access to these international streams of funding and education during the war, or who experienced violence under the U.S.-NATO occupation—including dead and injured spouses or children—in battles, drone attacks, and night raids by the same NATO-backed forces purporting to save them.

How does the category work when deployed by the Taliban, especially since the occupation has technically ended? 

The Taliban also instrumentalize women’s rights in damaging ways. When it comes to girls’ and women’s education, for example, the leadership deflects questions about when schools will reopen by saying they are working to create a “safe environment” for them. But their access to education has been eroding steadily, with the latest blow coming in the recent government announcement that women are formally banned from universities. Here, we have the imperialist rhetoric of war to protect Afghan girls and women also used to justify national policies that deny girls and women access to schooling and mobility. Meanwhile, many international organizations and donor governments are leveraging the re-opening of women’s schools and making aid conditional on this. Reporting on behind-the-scenes negotiations indicates the Taliban are divided on the issue of education, but ultimately catering to the most conservative elements among their ranks. This serves to illustrate the continued extreme politicization of women’s situations by all sides.

Beyond “women and girls,” the post-withdrawal political order led by the male Pashtun-dominated Taliban includes discrimination, insecurity, and violence for many groups across gender who are being forced to negotiate new forms of survival. For example, in the year-plus since the Taliban took over the central government, Hazaras have been purged from government ministries and forced to leave their homes and communities in several provinces in Afghanistan. Hazara and Shia communities such as Dasht-e-Barchi in Kabul are being targeted in attacks by ISIS-K, as occurred in a bombing on September 30. Sufi communities have faced violent attacks over the past year in Kabul and Kunduz.

How do class, region, education, and other factors disrupt or complicate this category of “Afghan women and girls”?

In some ways, it’s a really obvious point, but it gets lost time and again. How can we speak about a single category of “Afghan women and girls” when people’s experiences diverged so greatly during the 20 years of intervention depending on class position, access to university education, quality of roads and transport in their villages, and who held power and managed access to utilities in their municipalities? All these factors shaped how people experienced the invasion and occupation, their priorities and demands, and how they organized their lives.

In addition, Afghanistan’s population composition is ethnically and religiously diverse. Even before the Taliban returned to power in Kabul, the Ghani-led state was channeling ethno-nationalism, contributing to the marginalization of Hazara and Shia communities, in particular. The rural-urban dimension is another important axis of difference in Afghan society.

At the same time, I have been wary of an overemphasis on difference in Afghanistan, or simplistic “corrective” explanations of who won and who lost during the war and after the U.S.-NATO occupation collapsed. One narrative I saw a lot in the wake of the withdrawal is a binary between two categories of Afghan girls and women: urban residents who gained as a result of occupation and rural residents who were on the frontlines of drone strikes, night raids, and everyday militarized violence. In this narrative, the urban residents lost and the rural residents gained after the U.S.-NATO withdrawal. 

This works to reproduce the same narrow analytic of “women’s rights” in relation to Afghanistan, but framed through an urban-rural dichotomy. For example, Kabul is a city of 5 million residents, including the urban poor, internally-displaced people (IDPs), and a variety of neighborhoods and communities that overlap with these categories, such as Hazara, Sufis, and transgender women. Many of its residents have family they are in regular contact with in the provinces, so they cannot be understood as separate from rural communities. Moreover, Kabul was never protected from the occupation and war. It was full of blast walls and checkpoints and its residents were regularly subjected to bombings and kidnapping threats. The city was heavily polluted and overpopulated as a result of the U.S.-NATO occupation and war. My point is there was, and is not, a single urban woman’s experience in Afghanistan. Similarly, rural Afghanistan is diverse and people in different regions of Afghanistan experienced the war and occupation differently. An overemphasis on divisions undermines solidarity and organizing for a new generation of women’s movements, certainly among the activists I was in contact with in the years before the withdrawal.

You have written that “we,” which we’re guessing are the imperialist, colonialist, and adjacent formations in the West, often ask the wrong questions about girls and women in Afghanistan. What should we be curious about instead?

I’m really motivated by Cynthia Enloe’s concept of cultivating a feminist curiosity. At the heart of such curiosity is the idea that all women’s experiences are worth unpacking and are often by definition “messy” when considered within larger constellations of power. In examining the Afghanistan past, we find women’s rights have been central to debates about modernity/progress and authority/legitimacy from early in the 19th century. The state’s views of and projections about women in these earlier periods tells us little about their everyday lived experiences, triumphs, or the violence they were subjected to. [Take], for example, under the rule of Abd al-Rahman Khan (r. 1880-1901), when internal colonization and conquest of space included the concubinage/enslavement of Hazara women, who would serve in households in Kabul in subsequent decades.

Not unlike today, in the 1920s—the period I research—we find a recurring tension between political discourses on women’s rights and women’s actual social realities. During that time as well, women’s education was a source of enormous contention between state leaders, who wanted to establish a system, and “civil society” actors in Kabul and other areas, who were opposed. Relying solely on the available archives, much of this debate was between men. There has been little attention, in the words of anthropologist Sonia Ahsan-Tirmizi, to how women “understand and inhabit their own worlds.”

What are some mistakes in how gender relations, sexuality, and other dimensions of life for Afghan boys and men are typically framed by outsiders?

A flipside of the obsession with “saving Afghan girls and women” was and continues to be the demonization and disregard for the lives of Afghan boys and men. During the 20 years of U.S. war and occupation, they were the implied other from whom Afghan girls and women had to be saved. As Sahar Ghumkhor and Anila Daulatzai have written, this view deems that the “‘toxic masculinity’ of the Taliban fighters is somehow more toxic than unrestrained white violence, white occupation, white torture, white drones. Theirs is a violence that is otherworldly, and unlike [violence perpetrated by] the West, it is savage, intentional and remorseless.” 

There has been little interrogation of the lived realities of men, their status as survivors of violence and trauma, and their relational existence with men and women in their communities. In an exception, Andrea Chiovenda did sustained research exploring the way masculinity is relationally understood, lived, and performed in the predominantly Pashtun southeast.

As a historian, I find it notable that the unruly violence today’s imperialists associate with Afghan and Pashtun masculinity has colonial roots. In the 1920s, the same regions that in contemporary times were sites of the most intense drone warfare were subject to heavy aerial bombardments by British forces, who saw the frontier as a uniquely ungovernable space, where the wives of colonial officers were not allowed to accompany their husbands. Large-scale imperial violence was rationalized as necessary because people in these regions, in the imperialists’ view, “only responded to violence.” Similar racist imperial projections onto Afghan men justified drone warfare over the past 20 years and allowed for massive numbers of deaths and injuries to be framed as acceptable “collateral damage.”

What do you see as the major social and political obstacles (at multiple scales) to Afghans’ right to self-determination and their ability to build a more just society?

The question of scales is a good one. Afghanistan and Afghans have been facing overlapping and intersecting crises at various scales and timelines. The political insecurity and violence of the current moment under the Taliban has been compounded by shorter and longer-term problems, keeping in mind the cynical and self-serving nature of the World Bank position that describes the current economic situation in Afghanistan as stemming from the “political crisis that began in August 2021.” Even before August 2021 [when the U.S. military pulled out of Afghanistan], half of the Afghan population depended on humanitarian support for survival. The economic situation worsened following the U.S. [military] withdrawal and suspension of foreign aid, but this was a function of the extreme dependence on foreign aid that was cultivated during 20 years of occupation and war and the ongoing U.S. freeze of Afghanistan’s foreign reserves, which among other things devalues the country’s currency. 

Another crisis unfolding over a longer timeline is climate change. Over the past four years, drought has caused widespread internal displacement and contributed to massive food insecurity. Then there’s the environmental damage produced by the war itself, which we’re just beginning to explore. Shah Mahmoud Hanifi has written about the “20-year monsoon of bombs,” beginning with the U.S.-NATO aerial bombardment campaign of Afghanistan’s east and south in 2001 and reaching a climax with the so-called “Mother of All Bombs” detonated in 2017 in Nangarhar, the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used. Hanifi talks about the lingering debris, such as depleted uranium in groundwater, and the long-term impact on human and animal life. He likens it to the situation in Fallujah, Iraq, resulting from the 2003 U.S. invasion and war. U.S. military bases and burn pits in Afghanistan have devastated topsoil as well. 

There is no political will to acknowledge and investigate this violence and its consequences, let alone a system of accountability. These are huge obstacles to building a more just society. How can Afghans be expected to resolve and keep paying for crises manufactured by U.S.-NATO imperialism? 

Finally, tens of thousands of Afghans who fled the country around August 2021 remain in precarious positions in multiple parts of the world. In the U.S. alone, 70,000 Afghans are on temporary Humanitarian Parole, which is set to expire, and their pathway to permanent legal status is uncertain. The Afghan Adjustment Act, a congressional proposal to change this, has been blocked from moving out of committee level. 

Do you see any anti-imperialist, anti-sectarian inclusive left formations or possibilities in Afghanistan? If yes, where are they? If not, why do you think that is?  

I’m not the best person to speak to this, as I’m not currently in Afghanistan, but there have been glimpses on social media of public anti-sectarian and anti-patriarchal resistance. I’m thinking of the women who led demonstrations in October against attacks on Hazaras and women-led protests in solidarity with Iranian women. Some media organizations, like Hasht e Subh and Rukshana (a women’s media organization), are covering the situation on the ground through websites and Twitter accounts and providing a kind of oppositional viewpoint that wasn’t possible in the 1990s. At the same time, open political resistance and mobilization is not possible under the Taliban’s authoritarian political order. That doesn’t mean things are not being organized and negotiated informally and beneath the public surface. Outside Afghanistan, there is a growing and active diaspora, such as Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, grappling with how to build a people-centered, anti-imperialist, anti-sectarian movement to support Afghans.


ADDITIONAL READING

The Truth About Afghanistan's Zero Unit Night Raids 

December 15, 2022, by Lynzy Billing for ProPublica

For many Afghans, U.S. terror came at night. Throughout the United States’ occupation of Afghanistan, CIA-backed operations killed countless Afghans. Unjustly, the United States has yet to be held accountable. 

U.K. Prince Harry Claims to Be Responsible for Murder of 25 Afghans 

January 9, 2023, by Solcyre Burga for Time

In a bold confession fit for an imperialist prince, the Duke of Sussex claims to have killed over a score of Afghans from his Apache attack helicopter during his two military tours of Afghanistan. He coldly credits his past video game skills. 

Let Afghanistan Rebuild

December 13, 2022, by Graeme Smith and Delaney Simon for Foreign Affairs

Even U.S. State Department consultants admit that, for conditions to improve in Afghanistan, the United States must diplomatically work with the Taliban to alleviate the economic war inflicted upon Afghanistan by the United States. Not only do they contradict the U.S. State Department’s rhetoric, but they implicate that same government in the collective suffering of Afghans. 

Banner photo: Women at the UNICEF-supported Mirza Mohammad Khan clinic in Afghanistan (Courtesy UN News /Alessio Romenzi).

Afghanistan News Update #15

Afghanistan News Update #15

It remains evident that the United States, along with its European Union lackeys, continue to wage a destructive and cruel hybrid war in Afghanistan through sanctions and an asset freeze that are starving millions of people. The situation is so dire, Afghans have been selling their children.

The Biden administration, in collaboration with Swiss bank authorities via the so-called “Afghan Fund,” is withholding $7 billion of Afghan money. Both the sanctions and the asset freeze constitute—in our view—collective punishment under the Geneva Convention’s Article 33 as well as a crime against humanity under the United Nations’ Article 7. With winter right around the corner, many Afghans fear the impact this year will be even worse than the last. 

Regardless of these facts, the U.S. government and its corporate media apparatus continue to create a false narrative that they care about the lives and human rights of Afghans, blaming other countries—and even Afghans themselves—for the current state of affairs. U.S. State Department officials continue to insist their hands are clean, wrongly claiming the Taliban is not Afghanistan’s legitimate government, while pushing for regime change, which would inevitably cause more instability, violence, and death.   

The United States claims to be the largest international “aid” donor to Afghanistan. Yet, a recent report from the independent watchdog group, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), revealed that—for the first time in history—SIGAR is unable to provide a full accounting of $1.1 billion in U.S. “aid” to Afghanistan. In an apparent attempt to keep the U.S. public ignorant, the Biden administration continues to block SIGAR’s right to access accurate accounting records, while the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has “ceased all cooperation” with the investigation.

The Black Alliance for Peace is clear that the United States, leader of the “collective West”—those Western-oriented and Western colonial-capitalist nations that hold hegemonic global power—continues to declare war on the world. This could not be more obvious than with the U.S.-led starvation and destruction of Afghanistan. 

ADDITIONAL READING

Sanctions Watch, Afghanistan (Center for Economic and Policy Research, November 8, 2022)

Since the Taliban takeover in 2021, the Biden administration blocked Afghanistan’s central bank from accessing roughly $7 billion in foreign reserves held in the United States. Around $2 billion in additional reserves have been withheld by European authorities. Along with a cutoff of aid and sanctions on Taliban officials, this has contributed to a collapse of Afghanistan’s economy.

A Town Hall with Tom West (Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, October 21, 2022)

U.S. State Department Special Representative and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Afghanistan Tom West incorrectly claims the U.S. government cannot do anything more to alleviate suffering and starvation in Afghanistan, while repeating racist tropes of the Afghan diaspora and praising the U.S. “relocation effort”  of Afghan refugees that left tens of thousands stranded on U.S. military bases. 

Scott Ritter Extra, Episode 20: Ask the Inspector (U.S. Tour of Duty, November 11, 2022)

At the 2:09:40 mark, Scott Ritter, former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector, explains why, in his opinion, Western reports that Russia’s Wagner Group are recruiting CIA- and MI6-trained Afghan commandos to fight in Ukraine are likely false. Reports like these intentionally conceal the root causes of wars in both countries, further masking the primary role the United States is playing in their destruction. 

Quarterly Report to the United States Congress (Special Instructor General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, October 30, 2022)

A report from SIGAR, an independent watchdog group the White House and USAID refuse to cooperate with, reveals that—for the first time in the group's history—it cannot provide a full account of the $1.1 billion in U.S. “aid” sent to Afghanistan. 

 

The Next Afghan-Refugee Crisis Is Right Here in the U.S. (The Atlantic, November 28, 2022)

Without congressional action, tens of thousands of Afghans, who the U.S. military evacuated to the United States, may be deported back to Afghanistan in the coming year if their immigration status is not adjusted.


Banner photo: Four Afghanis trying to cook at night outside of a small tent. (Petros Giannakouris/AP])

Afghanistan News Update #14

Afghanistan News Update #14

Fourteen months after ostensibly exiting Afghanistan in humiliating defeat, the United States remains at war. Relations between the two countries continue to be driven by the United States’ arrogant, racist posturing, which judges Afghanistan’s Central Bank to be unfit to recover its own foreign reserves following a unilateral confiscation. The Biden administration has stated its willingness to appoint an international board of trustees to manage the administration of Afghanistan’s finances. As in Haiti, the United States makes clear its contempt for the sovereignty of nations. Reports of widespread hunger, malnutrition and job losses have not moved the United States to reconsider its position. The U.S. goal appears to be to isolate and plunge Afghanistan into a state of complete deprivation.

The imposition of sanctions against Afghanistan is a policy of collective punishment constituting a crime against humanity, and is yet another example of the United States operating beyond the norms of international law. We condemn these actions and maintain reparations are necessary for Afghanistan following the 20-year U.S. war and occupation that is directly responsible for the conditions the Afghan people face today. 

Additional Reading

Russia Inks Deal to Supply Afghanistan with Fuel and Grain (The Cradle

Afghanistan has been grappling with an acute food crisis and the resurgence of ISIS in the country, whose ranks have been bolstered by U.S.-trained operatives.


Despite Humanitarian Aid, Life in Afghanistan Is Reaching a New Low (The Washington Post

There is little prospect for improvement in Afghanistan without the unfreezing of government assets held in the United States and the restoration of the country’s access to international financial systems.


China’s Balancing Act In Afghanistan (Oil Price)

China’s strategic interests in Afghanistan are to forestall the country from becoming an arena of geopolitical competition, prevent Afghanistan from falling back into the orbit of the West and promote stability to prevent the country from becoming a safe haven for extremist groups.


Communiqué of the U.S.-Europe Group on Afghanistan (U.S. State Department)

Special Envoys and Representatives of the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States met in Washington, D.C., on September 15 to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.


I Watched the Afghan Government Collapse Under the Weight of Its Own Greed (The Intercept)
Afghan journalist Elyas Nawandish on the corruption of the U.S.-backed government and the U.S. abandonment of Afghan soldiers and police during last year’s withdrawal. 


U.S. Will Not Fund Non-State Actors in Afghanistan: Taliban Sources (Al-Jazeera)

The Taliban has repeatedly called for the lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen funds, including international aid that was suspended after the U.S. withdrawal, to help its dying economy.


President Biden, Release My Father from Guantanamo Says Ismail, Son of Muhammad Rahim (CAGE)

One year on from the U.S. withdrawal and defeat in Afghanistan, the United States continues to hold innocent Afghan men in its infamous prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.


 



Banner photo: A woman prepares dinner on a campfire in the Shedai displaced persons' camp outside the city of Herat, Afghanistan. (photo by Lorenzo Tugnoli / Washington Post)

Afghanistan News Update #13

Afghanistan News Update #13

This month, the United States announced it will provide Afghanistan with $327 million in humanitarian assistance, largely funneled through federal agencies supervised by the U.S. State Department such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). While this may seem like a lot of money considering Washington’s failure to pass basic social and infrastructure policies for people in the United States, it’s only a fraction of the $7 billion in Afghan financial reserves the Federal Reserve Bank of New York illegally seized last year. Moreover, as with all USAID projects, “aid” is primarily used to serve U.S. economic and political interests. Finally, these funds will not ameliorate the damage tens of millions of Afghans are forced to endure from the devastating U.S./EU-led sanctions. 

The contradictions in U.S. foreign policy, coordinated by the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination, continue to sharpen. The Taliban’s regressive policies toward women are still being used to justify calls for U.S.-backed regime change in Afghanistan. Many seemingly well-meaning reports from popular outlets like Reuters, AP News, New York Times, Foreign Policy and the U.S. military’s own, Stars and Stripes, continue to push imperialist propaganda, justifying continued U.S. intervention in Afghanistan.

These outlets confuse the U.S. public as to who is primarily to blame for the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and erase the violent U.S. history there. 

The Taliban continues to condemn the impact of the U.S.-led asset freeze and sanctions, along with a growing number of other countries, such as China and Russia. If conditions for all Afghans—including women, children and the rural poor—are to improve, it is clear the United States must end its war on Afghanistan as well as be held to account for its decades-long campaign of destruction and destabilization in the region.

ADDITIONAL READING

CEPR Sanctions Watch, August 2022

September 2, 2022, by Michael Galant for Center for Economic and Policy Research

Economic sanctions have become one of the main tools of U.S. foreign policy, evident in Afghanistan. The Biden administration continues to contribute to the collapse of Afghanistan’s economy and to the creation of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, collectively punishing tens of millions of Afghans. 

The Weakness of US Empire & Defeat in Afghanistan: New Book by Vijay Prashad and Noam Chomsky

September 14, 2022, by BreakThrough News

Journalist and historian Vijay Prashad joins Brian Becker to break down how the United States is starving Afghanistan through sanctions and an asset freeze, explaining how the United States also hindered the development of a political left in Afghanistan throughout 40 years of interference and occupation. This continues today despite the United States being “withdrawn.” 

The U.S. Response to the World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis: Seize and Privatize

September 15, 2022, by Andrés Arauz for Center for Economic and Policy Research

About 70 percent of Afghan households are unable to meet their basic needs. In response, the Biden administration continues to freeze billions in Afghan cash and lead devastating sanctions, worsening Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis. The former Central Bank General Director of Ecuador breaks down and relates Afghanistan's struggle with the U.S. foreign-asset freeze to the struggles of countries across Latin America and Africa. 

U.S. Citizen Held Captive in Afghanistan for More Than 2 Years Is Released in Prisoner Swap

September 19, 2022, by Staff for CNN

Since the Taliban’s release of Mark Frerichs, there are no known U.S. prisoners in Afghanistan. The last POW, U.S. Army private Bowe Bergdahl, was released in 2014. Despite this, the United States continues to unlawfully imprison Afghan national Muhammad Rahim in Guantánamo. Rahim, who previously worked to eradicate opium poppies from Afghanistan, has been held in Guantánamo since the CIA illegally detained him in 2008. 

Afghanistan’s Economic Calamity 

August 15, 2022 by Felix Salmon for Axios

Mark Weisbrot, co-director for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, was quoted stating U.S. actions against Afghanistan could constitute a war crime under the UN’s Article 33. 



Banner photo: Women queue to receive cash at a money distribution organized by the World Food Program in Kabul, Afghanistan. (photo by Petros Giannakouris / AP)

Afghanistan News Update #12

Afghanistan News Update #12

For this month’s Afghanistan News Update, the Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network’s Afghanistan Committee spoke with Obaidullah Baheer, a lecturer at the American University of Afghanistan and a visiting scholar at the New School in New York. He leads an aid initiative under the title “Save Afghans from Hunger.” An advocate of reconciliation in Afghanistan, Baheer has delivered lectures and talks—and he has written for—several eminent global platforms. This interview was conducted before the recent earthquake, for which the death toll is in the hundreds.

The views expressed below do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Black Alliance for Peace.

Black Alliance for Peace: Based on your experiences, how would you describe the current situation on the ground in Afghanistan? For instance, how does the refusal by the United States and European allies to lift their sanctions or return stolen assets affect ordinary Afghans?

Obaidullah Baheer: I've spent the last two days trying to track down a photo of an Afghan media presenter selling samosas on the streets of Kabul that had gone viral. This is just a snippet of how drastically life has changed for so many in the country. We are trained to view all suffering to look the same, but there are always cultural differences. Because Afghanistan is a male-dominated society, most of the real victims of hunger are sitting at home and away from the public eye. The International Community [IC] and the Taliban seem to be in a staring competition regarding the issue of recognition, which ties into the frozen assets issue. The IC has a list of demands that they want met before they will consider the Taliban a legitimate government, and the Taliban say that they will not meet other demands unless they are seen as a legitimate government. Amidst this political grandstanding, it is the common man who continues to fall deeper into the vicious cycle of poverty. The situation reminds me of a quote about Afghanistan following the Soviet Union's invasion: "It will take us 20 years to get back to where we were 50 years ago."

BAP: What does Western media get wrong about the Taliban?

OB: The Western media is guilty of seeing the world in monochrome and also of its own sensationalist tendencies. The Taliban aren't an ideal government and neither do they have a great record. However, the world has so many of these governments with records that could easily rank worse than the Taliban in human rights abuses, both in scale and intensity, but they are not necessarily demonized or sanctioned. The economic sanctions imposed on Afghanistan were worse than those imposed on Russia for invading a sovereign state. Afghanistan is struggling to define itself with the rapid succession of changes it has seen over the past four decades. The Taliban are not only an unfortunate political reality, but also represent the disconnect of the larger rural population of the country and its ideals from those of the urban population. The current state could either be another failed attempt at socially engineering the Afghan society by force, or we could stop the violence for once and try to arrive at a synthesis of visions that is bound to evolve with time. There are no short-term ideal outcomes for Afghanistan. There will have to be a painstaking process of organic dialogue that brings forth a sustainable order. It is up to the Taliban whether they will allow for that to happen or risk another fall like that of many regimes before them.

BAP: Can you describe attempts made by the Taliban government to engage diplomatically with neighboring countries to normalize relations? What progress has been made, where have there been setbacks, and what challenges lie ahead? 

OB: The Taliban deputy minister was recently featured on Indian media outlets to assure them of the Taliban's desire to normalize relations with India. The Taliban have been torn between trying to appease their fighters by appearing hard on some neighbors, being too accommodating towards groups that might pose a threat to regional countries, and their desire to engage in diplomacy. Afghanistan was in its best economic state after the Second World War, where it had consciously decided not to align itself in the great geopolitical game of the time. It has since then constantly been pushed into alignment in regional and global rivalries. The Taliban will have to be mindful of such a pitfall if they are to have any chance of succeeding in foreign relations.

BAP: Ever since U.S. and NATO troops formally ended their direct military occupation of Afghanistan, Western media outlets have focused considerably less attention on what is happening there. How do Western countries continue to interfere in Afghanistan today? 

OB: We experienced the decline of media attention as it unfolded. There is a saying that the U.S. doesn't lose wars, it loses interest. The global media are only interested in what the U.S. sees as important. It might have also been a conscious effort by the Biden team to make the Afghanistan issue go away because they knew they had botched the whole process and caused the eventual fall of a regime. One thing that has been good to see is the lack of appetite for interference in Afghanistan by most other countries. There are certain countries that engage with, and perhaps support, certain violent elements within Afghanistan to serve their own goals, but they are few and we are hoping such behavior will soon cease. 

BAP: The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is quite dire in many ways. Amidst this, where do you see signs of hope for constructing a better future? 

OB: Hope is a strong word in the current reality of Afghanistan, but there are plenty of positives from which to take heart. The absence of direct military presence and the lack of appetite for direct interference is positive and has rarely been afforded to Afghanistan in the past four decades. There is also the ending of the protracted war and occupation. This presents an opportunity to transform Afghanistan into something better. Even the strife between the relatively moderate Taliban and the hardliners is a positive sign. At the end of the day, the ball is in the Taliban’s court and they will have to find a common vision for Afghanistan among themselves and then have a dialogue with the people regarding what is sustainable for the whole country. That is, if they want a sustainable order.

To read more of Obaidullah’s work and commentary, please follow him on Twitter.


ADDITIONAL READING

Guantanamo: Afghan National Released After 15 Years in Detention Without Charge

June 24, 2022, by Staff for Middle East Eye

Assadullah Haroon Gul, an Afghan national who was held in detention at Guantanamo Bay for 15 years without any charges, was recently released and allowed to return to Afghanistan after a U.S. federal court ruled his detention unlawful.

 

Afghanistan: UAE Beats Qatar and Turkey to Sign Airports Deal 

May 25, 2022, by Ali M Latifi for Middle East Eye

Afghanistan announced that it had reached an agreement with the UAE in which the latter will manage three airports in Afghanistan, helping to pave the way for international flights to resume there.

 

9/11 Families and Others Call On Biden to Confront Afghan Humanitarian Crisis

June 6, 2022, by Murtaza Hussain for The Intercept

Family members of victims of 9/11 attacks are among those who continue to call on the Biden Administration to release sovereign funds stolen from Afghanistan.

 

Afghanistan Earthquake Victims Face Struggles Getting Aid

June 24, 2022, by Mark Gamboa for The Associated Press 

The refusal by the U.S. and its European allies to lift sanctions against the Taliban continues to have a devastating impact on ordinary Afghans and has compounded their suffering by making it difficult for humanitarian aid to arrive, following the recent earthquake. 

 

Iran Dispatches Humanitarian Aid to Earthquake-Struck Afghanistan

June 22, 2022, by News Desk for The Cradle 

Iran has sent two cargo planes carrying humanitarian aid to the regions of Afghanistan most impacted by the recent earthquake, making it the first government to provide tangible assistance to the country.

 

Afghanistan Dominates Global Opium Production. The Taliban Is Shutting That Down 

June 2, 2022, by The Associated Press 

The Taliban leadership is taking action to strictly enforce its ban on growing poppy for opium production, a move that will be acutely felt by many who rely on the crop to sustain themselves.

 

Millions of Dollars Went Missing As Afghanistan Fell, Watchdog Says

June 7, 2022, by Susannah George for The Washington Post 

Interesting and thought-provoking article regarding a recent investigation into millions of dollars unaccounted for during the Taliban takeover, although the imperialist root causes of the corruption are not addressed. 

 

TV Anchor In Afghanistan Now Sells Food on the Streets Under Taliban Rule

June 17, 2022, by Rujuta Thete for The Quint 

Mosa Mohammadi, formerly a journalist in Afghanistan, found himself out of work following the Taliban takeover and now sells food on the streets in order to earn a living. His story and image, referenced in this interview, has gone viral as it encapsulates the extreme levels of poverty Afghans face.


Banner photo: A member of the Afghan Red Crescent Society giving medical treatment to a victim following an earthquake in Afghanistan's Gayan district, Paktika province.(Photo by Bakhtar News Agency / AFP)

Afghanistan News Update #11

Afghanistan News Update #11

As the world's attention remains on the situation in Ukraine, the U.S. elite and corporate media mention Afghanistan only to highlight the Taliban's reactionary policies in an effort to justify Washington's prior occupation of the country.

The Taliban has announced positive changes are forthcoming regarding the re-opening of girls’ secondary schools, which Iran and China consider preconditions for economic partnership, including in China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

At a recent meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Moscow, regional leaders from the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan highlighted the need to counter the rise of externally supported terrorist groups in some Afghan provinces.


NEWS AND ANALYSIS

Cash-Strapped Taliban Dissolves Several Afghan Ministries

May 17, 2022, by News Desk for The Cradle

The Afghan ministries and departments that have been shut down due to financial difficulties include the human rights commission, the commission for overseeing the implementation of the Afghan constitution, the national security council, and the high council for national reconciliation.

Trump and Biden Let Afghanistan Collapse

May 18, 2022, by Lynne O’Donnell for Foreign Policy

A faction within the West’s ruling class evidently still has an interest in criticizing Trump for negotiating a deal with the Taliban and Biden for criticizing it.

The Taliban Have Made the Burqa Mandatory Again

May 9, 2022, by Lynne O’Donnell for Foreign Policy

More pro-imperial propaganda, trying to link Afghanistan’s hunger and poverty crisis to the Taliban’s regressive laws against women.

How NATO Weapons from Afghanistan Are Impacting Kashmir's Militancy

May 18, 2022, by Samaan Lateef for DW

Bombs and weapons used in Afghanistan by militants and U.S. forces are making their way into India-administered Kashmir, raising fears that they could bolster an Islamist insurgency in the area.

Afghans Urge Court Not to Give Frozen Central Bank Assets to Sept. 11 Families

May 10, 2022 by Charlie Savage for The New York Times

Advocates for the Afghan people say it would be unjust and illegal to use $3.5 billion of Afghanistan’s assets to pay off the Taliban’s judgment debts.

The U.S. Is Stealing Afghanistan’s Money and Starving Its People

May 13, 2022 by Deconstructed for The Intercept

Interview with Afghan journalist Masood Shnizai describing his country’s worsening plight since the U.S. departure last year.

Book Review: ‘The Afghanistan Papers’ Leaves a Critical Question Unanswered

May 13, 2022 by Patterson Deppen for Toward Freedom

While Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock delivers a thorough chronological history of the U.S.-led war on Afghanistan from the U.S. perspective, the author misses a crucial opportunity to clarify the profit-driven forces behind Washington's many cover-ups and false narratives in Afghanistan.



Banner photo: A Taliban fighter stands guard as people wait to receive food rations distributed by a South Korean humanitarian aid group, in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

Afghanistan News Update #10

Afghanistan News Update #10

In Afghanistan, the Biden administration continues to use sanctions as political leverage against the Taliban, compounding nation-wide and regional instability, and making food and fuel much costlier for tens of millions of Afghans. As a result, the United Nations estimates 97 percent of Afghans could be living below the poverty line by the middle of this year.

The Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network’s Afghanistan Committee continues its efforts to raise the public’s awareness on the role the United States and its coalition partners continue to play, despite mostly evacuating the country in September.  

The United States continues to support what the UN has called a “downward humanitarian spiral” in the country by:

  1. Refusing to return $7 billion in Afghan funds, preventing the country from resolving its crises and meeting the needs of the Afghan people.

  2. Leveraging sanctions and using aid as a political tool to destroy the Afghan economy, forcing tens of millions of Afghans into dependence on Western “humanitarian” funding for their well-being.

  3. Decades of interference and occupation, which led to reactionary violence, both inside and outside the country, thus paving the way to recent deadly confrontations with regional neighbors Pakistan and Iran

If the ruling class in the United States continues down this road, more Afghans will die over the next year than the number who died amid two decades of U.S. military occupation. Washington’s hegemonic grip over Afghanistan has been the status-quo for decades, but it may be faltering in the face of constructive diplomatic actions China and Russia have taken. 

ADDITIONAL READING

Starving a People, Committing a Genocide: Biden’s Sanctions on Afghanistan

March 18, 2022, by Eve Ottenberg for CounterPunch

The billions in stolen assets from Afghanistan by the United States is a crime against humanity that condemns possibly millions of Afghans to starvation.

Afghanistan's Per Capita Income Dropped By More Than a Third in 2021

April 14, 2022, by News Desk for The Cradle

U.S. sanctions have exacerbated the crisis in Afghanistan, with over 13,000 newborn babies dying since January as a result of the health sector's collapse. 

The Consequences of Closing Girls’ Schools

March 30, 2022, by Abdulhakim Allahdad for the Afghan Eye

Why the closure of girls’ schools in Afghanistan will continue to affect two important areas within the country: social unrest and security. 

China Condemns ‘Racist’ Western Hypocrisy Over Ukraine

April 1, 2022, by Benjamin Norton for Multipolarista

China’s Foreign Ministry said the “US, NATO and some Western media are very hypocritical” over Ukraine, that their “reports smack of racism,” and are not “equally concerned about the civilian casualties in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Palestine.”

An Economy in Crisis: Q&A with Afghanistan’s Former Finance Minister

March 21, 2022, by Adam Weinstein for Responsible Statecraft

Quincy Institute research fellow Adam Weinstein asked Khalid Payenda, Afghanistan’s former finance minister, about the causes and solutions to Afghanistan’s economic woes.

Timeline for Demonstrating U.S. Responsibility for Chaos in Afghanistan

September 7, 2021, by Solidarity Network’s Afghanistan Committee for BAP

As the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan worsens, it’s important to remember how U.S. policies and actions wreaked havoc across the country during the Biden administration's deadly withdrawal.



Banner photo: Displaced Afghans reach out for aid at a camp in Kabul on Tuesday. (© Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

Afghanistan News Update #9

Afghanistan News Update #9

Afghanistan has joined the ever growing ranks of countries forcibly thrown into desperate humanitarian crises following U.S./NATO wars now relegated to the sidelines as the latest crisis instigated by the West’s imperial aggression takes the spotlight. The blatant imperial theft of Afghan wealth, like what occurred with Iraq, Libya, and others before them, is old news now. As, too, are reports of Afghans, like others before them, being driven by hunger to sell their organs and their children.

Images of Ukrainian people fleeing violence are now forefronted to manipulate the public into supporting another war, yet another massive infusion to the arms industry, a welcomed windfall for both U.S. and European corporations following the loss of their trillion-dollar Afghanistan trough.

Ukrainians are currently the West’s favorite refugees, a position Afghans held momentarily just months ago. Indeed, the underlying white supremacy enabling U.S. imperial wars has come out in the open as the “civilized” recoil in horror at the sight of the “relatively civilized”—meaning whiter—people forced from their homes by bombings. They clamor to welcome them into their homes. Yet, despite these moments in the spotlight, the reality for the majority of refugees of U.S. imperial wars is anything but welcoming. Afghans “rescued” by the United States—only just granted “protected status” by Biden—are insignificant in number, a selective emigration facilitated to siphon off those with the expertise to help rebuild Afghanistan. Most of the millions forced to flee their homes join the tens of millions of other refugees of U.S./NATO wars languishing in camps, struggling under inhumane conditions to gain asylum elsewhere, facing constant threat of deportation, and sometimes told to go back to their sweatshops and to their decimated countries. 

The strategic importance of Afghanistan as a potential source of profit, as well as a base from which to destabilize its neighbors, didn’t end when U.S. forces were driven out. The United States’ tactical use of starvation has effectively disciplined the Taliban and reduced the country to depend on Western forces. Now, the United States shows signs of moving to maintain its influence within the country, as it eases sanctions to allow limited Taliban involvement in controlled financial activity. 

In tandem, the UN, while continuing to call for “humanitarian hand-outs” and organizing virtual pledge drives—positioning the United States in the role of saving the very people it impoverished—is now calling for more “engagement” with the Taliban. This comes while continuing to deny UN representation to Afghanistan and extending the UN’s direct involvement in Afghan governance for another year. These UN mandates, particularly military mandates, have long been effective tools of U.S. imperialism, used most vividly and violently in Haiti.

Western intelligence claims a “renewed surge of resistance” to the Taliban as Afghans continue to suffer terror attacks, most attributed to ISIS-K, a group that has been linked to Western intelligence. Reports have emerged that former U.S.-trained Afghan intelligence and elite military forces have joined ISIS-K forces.

Terror has long been a tool the United States uses to disable countries resistant to Western hegemony, as it is presently manifesting in different forms in Ukraine. ISIS-K may be disrupting Afghan relations with neighbors such as China,  Russia and Pakistan, and potentially interfering with investment and Eurasian integration.

Yet, with typical hubris, the U.S. ruling elite seems unable to differentiate between small countries weakened by their relentless aggression and large economic and military powers with the resources to fight back. Efforts to develop an alternative to the U.S. dollar-based economic system that has held much of the world hostage appear to be accelerating as the United States has stepped up its confrontation with China and Russia. More and more countries are failing to step in line, more and more looking for alternative trade relationships. The U.S. ruling class now appears to be shooting itself in the very booted foot they’ve had on the collective necks of peoples across the world, welcome news for the oppressed everywhere.

ADDITIONAL READING 

Afghanistan Monthly - February

March 3, 2022, by Ahmed-Waleed Kakar for the Afghan Eye

Monthly rundown of political and economic events in Afghanistan.


How Much Less Newsworthy Are Civilians in Other Conflicts?

March 18, 2022, by Julia Hollar for FAIR

Compares various aspects of U.S. media coverage of the Ukraine war versus the Iraq war, as well as U.S. wars on Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Yugoslavia.



Banner photo: An Afghan man carries food supplies in a wheelbarrow during a distribution of humanitarian aid for families in need, in Kabul, Afghanistan. (VOA News)