Afghanistan 2021 Onwards
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Politico: (Tuesday 26th). Presumably to be covered on BBC Parliament or elsewhere.
AFGHANISTAN FALLOUT: Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and head of the Armed Forces Nick Carter appear together at Tobias Ellwood’s Commons defense committee this afternoon, which is currently holding an inquiry into the U.K.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. They’re up for two hours from 2.30 p.m.
AFGHANISTAN FALLOUT: Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and head of the Armed Forces Nick Carter appear together at Tobias Ellwood’s Commons defense committee this afternoon, which is currently holding an inquiry into the U.K.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. They’re up for two hours from 2.30 p.m.
It looks like Afghanistan is heading for a major famine this winter. Some families have already been reduced to selling their children to get enough money to live.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
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Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
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Defence Committee coverage just started on Sky News.
twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1gqxvleglkpGB?t=14m54s
twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1gqxvleglkpGB?t=14m54s
Last edited by ORAC; 26th Oct 2021 at 13:49.
There is no shortage of books about Afghanistan and its history. One of the most insightful is William Dalrymple's "The Return of a King". To say that history repeats itself is an understatement.
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Why oh why does this not surprise me, what a total shambles, it would even be farcical if it wasn’t people were dying because of these action in the U.K..
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...bul-evacuation
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...bul-evacuation
Tens of thousands of Afghans were unable to access UK help following the fall of Kabul because of turmoil and confusion in the Foreign Office, according a devastating account by a whistleblower.
A former diplomat has claimed bureaucratic chaos, ministerial intervention, lack of planning and a short-hours culture in the department led to “people being left to die at the hands of the Taliban”.
The evidence of Raphael Marshall was deemed so serious that an internal inquiry was launched when he presented his account to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) permanent secretary, Sir Phillip Barton, at the end of August.
A former diplomat has claimed bureaucratic chaos, ministerial intervention, lack of planning and a short-hours culture in the department led to “people being left to die at the hands of the Taliban”.
The evidence of Raphael Marshall was deemed so serious that an internal inquiry was launched when he presented his account to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) permanent secretary, Sir Phillip Barton, at the end of August.
At one point at the height of the crisis, he says he was the only person working on the evacuation desk, and was having to make life and death decisions on individuals to be evacuated on the basis of entirely haphazard criteria.
He has claimed Raab showed a misunderstanding of the haphazard process and desperate position at Kabul airport by delaying several emergency evacuation referrals.
Rather than acting immediately, Raab – he said – insisted on further, better formatted evidence. “It is hard to explain why he reserved the decision for himself but failed to make it immediately,” Marshall says.
Marshall claims some of those that needed Raab’s consent never reached the airport, and in another case the team went ahead without waiting any longer for a response by Raab.
Marshall has also questioned whether Downing Street had been correct to tell parliament that all emails from Afghans attempting to leave the country had been processed by 6 September.
The whistleblower also reveals the uproar inside the Ministry of Defence when Boris Johnson ordered an Afghan animal charity to be given priority for evacuation
In his testimony, Marshall claims: “There was a direct trade-off between transporting Nowzad’s animals and evacuating British nationals and Afghan evacuees, including Afghans who had served with British soldiers.”
The civil servant worked for a team responsible for helping people whose lives were at risk due to their connection with the UK.
In his testimony, Marshall estimates between 75,000 and 150,000 people (including dependants) applied for evacuation under the special case scheme.
The vast majority of these applicants feared their lives were at risk as a result of their connection to the UK and the west and were therefore eligible for evacuation.
In a 39-page statement to MPs on the foreign affairs select committee, Marshall estimates fewer than 5% received help.
Marshall says: “At the height of the crisis on the afternoon of Saturday 21 August, I was the only person monitoring and processing emails in the Afghan special cases inbox.
“No emails from after early Friday afternoon had been read at that point. The number of unread emails was already in the high thousands, I believe above 5,000, and increasing constantly.”
Marshall said that, given the excess demand for places, it was critical that credible selection criteria were applied, but he says this did not happen. Instead, he claims the criteria provided were entirely subjective.
“Staff were scared by making hundreds of life and death decisions about which they knew nothing,” he says.
Specific failings include a rigidly enforced eight-hour working day culture, the inability to match the computer systems of the FCDO and the Department for International Development (DfID) – which had merged with the Foreign Office in 2020, the lack of computers for soldiers in Kabul calling forward selected evacuees, a complete lack of expertise including language skills, and a lack of coordination with US allies.He claims the parallel Arap scheme was equally dysfunctional, saying that on the evening of Thursday 26 August, there were 4,914 unread emails in the Arap specific inbox.
There was confusion between the two email inboxes meaning cases were left for days without anyone noticing, he alleges.
For five nights in succession, he claims no night shift staff were deployed. DfID staff recruited to help “were visibly appalled by the system”.
Yet despite the urgency of the situation, the default expectation remained that staff in the FCDO would only work eight hours a day, five days a week. FCDO employees were only asked to work shifts for which they volunteered.
He has claimed Raab showed a misunderstanding of the haphazard process and desperate position at Kabul airport by delaying several emergency evacuation referrals.
Rather than acting immediately, Raab – he said – insisted on further, better formatted evidence. “It is hard to explain why he reserved the decision for himself but failed to make it immediately,” Marshall says.
Marshall claims some of those that needed Raab’s consent never reached the airport, and in another case the team went ahead without waiting any longer for a response by Raab.
Marshall has also questioned whether Downing Street had been correct to tell parliament that all emails from Afghans attempting to leave the country had been processed by 6 September.
The whistleblower also reveals the uproar inside the Ministry of Defence when Boris Johnson ordered an Afghan animal charity to be given priority for evacuation
In his testimony, Marshall claims: “There was a direct trade-off between transporting Nowzad’s animals and evacuating British nationals and Afghan evacuees, including Afghans who had served with British soldiers.”
The civil servant worked for a team responsible for helping people whose lives were at risk due to their connection with the UK.
In his testimony, Marshall estimates between 75,000 and 150,000 people (including dependants) applied for evacuation under the special case scheme.
The vast majority of these applicants feared their lives were at risk as a result of their connection to the UK and the west and were therefore eligible for evacuation.
In a 39-page statement to MPs on the foreign affairs select committee, Marshall estimates fewer than 5% received help.
Marshall says: “At the height of the crisis on the afternoon of Saturday 21 August, I was the only person monitoring and processing emails in the Afghan special cases inbox.
“No emails from after early Friday afternoon had been read at that point. The number of unread emails was already in the high thousands, I believe above 5,000, and increasing constantly.”
Marshall said that, given the excess demand for places, it was critical that credible selection criteria were applied, but he says this did not happen. Instead, he claims the criteria provided were entirely subjective.
“Staff were scared by making hundreds of life and death decisions about which they knew nothing,” he says.
Specific failings include a rigidly enforced eight-hour working day culture, the inability to match the computer systems of the FCDO and the Department for International Development (DfID) – which had merged with the Foreign Office in 2020, the lack of computers for soldiers in Kabul calling forward selected evacuees, a complete lack of expertise including language skills, and a lack of coordination with US allies.He claims the parallel Arap scheme was equally dysfunctional, saying that on the evening of Thursday 26 August, there were 4,914 unread emails in the Arap specific inbox.
There was confusion between the two email inboxes meaning cases were left for days without anyone noticing, he alleges.
For five nights in succession, he claims no night shift staff were deployed. DfID staff recruited to help “were visibly appalled by the system”.
Yet despite the urgency of the situation, the default expectation remained that staff in the FCDO would only work eight hours a day, five days a week. FCDO employees were only asked to work shifts for which they volunteered.
Last edited by NutLoose; 7th Dec 2021 at 02:09.
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/t...cash-xz9xjnmjw
Taliban take seats on mercy flights out of Afghanistan to raise Gulf cash
Evacuation flights designed to allow vulnerable Afghans to flee the Taliban have been suspended over fears that militants have been using the US-chartered planes to leave the country.
The Islamist fundamentalists who swept to power in August are said to have demanded a number of seats on every US-chartered Qatar Airways flight from Kabul to Doha for their own supporters, in a suspected attempt to raise money abroad.
The dispute over who can use the planes, which are intended for humanitarian purposes, has led to a temporary halt of the regular flights since mid-December. There is no indication of when they will resume.….
Before this month’s suspension there were at least one or two evacuation flights a week between Kabul and Doha. They offered a lifeline to Afghan refugees as the Taliban regained power after the withdrawal of American and British troops…..
Ned Price, a US State Department spokesman, confirmed the suspension of evacuation flights late last week, suggesting that Qatar had objected to the Taliban’s demand to allocate seats in return for use of its airspace.
“It is essential that Kabul airport remain operational to ensure safe passage, commerce and, above all, urgently needed humanitarian aid,” he told the US broadcaster NBC News. “The Qataris have been unfailing, generous and critical partners in this important work, and we support the quickest possible resolution to any disagreements.”
NBC News, quoting a US Congress source, a State Department official and two refugee advocates, said the feud was between the Taliban and the Qatari government, which has previously criticised security at Kabul airport and the harassment of refugees by Taliban fighters.
However, The Times has learnt that neither Qatar nor the Taliban think that they have a disagreement. In their assessments it was the US’s refusal to issue seats to the Taliban that caused the group to halt the flights.
Sources familiar with the evacuation process said that the Taliban had previously submitted a list of selected names to Qatar’s foreign ministry, which then co-ordinated with American officials, and only those on the US’s final evacuees list were allowed to board flights leaving Kabul.
It is not clear whether those selected by the Taliban to leave were hardened fighters, sympathisers, civilians or a combination of the groups. However, the demand for seats on flights is understood to have led to concerns that the group could be seeking to reach out to its clandestine funding networks and to procure money for its own purposes.….
Taliban take seats on mercy flights out of Afghanistan to raise Gulf cash
Evacuation flights designed to allow vulnerable Afghans to flee the Taliban have been suspended over fears that militants have been using the US-chartered planes to leave the country.
The Islamist fundamentalists who swept to power in August are said to have demanded a number of seats on every US-chartered Qatar Airways flight from Kabul to Doha for their own supporters, in a suspected attempt to raise money abroad.
The dispute over who can use the planes, which are intended for humanitarian purposes, has led to a temporary halt of the regular flights since mid-December. There is no indication of when they will resume.….
Before this month’s suspension there were at least one or two evacuation flights a week between Kabul and Doha. They offered a lifeline to Afghan refugees as the Taliban regained power after the withdrawal of American and British troops…..
Ned Price, a US State Department spokesman, confirmed the suspension of evacuation flights late last week, suggesting that Qatar had objected to the Taliban’s demand to allocate seats in return for use of its airspace.
“It is essential that Kabul airport remain operational to ensure safe passage, commerce and, above all, urgently needed humanitarian aid,” he told the US broadcaster NBC News. “The Qataris have been unfailing, generous and critical partners in this important work, and we support the quickest possible resolution to any disagreements.”
NBC News, quoting a US Congress source, a State Department official and two refugee advocates, said the feud was between the Taliban and the Qatari government, which has previously criticised security at Kabul airport and the harassment of refugees by Taliban fighters.
However, The Times has learnt that neither Qatar nor the Taliban think that they have a disagreement. In their assessments it was the US’s refusal to issue seats to the Taliban that caused the group to halt the flights.
Sources familiar with the evacuation process said that the Taliban had previously submitted a list of selected names to Qatar’s foreign ministry, which then co-ordinated with American officials, and only those on the US’s final evacuees list were allowed to board flights leaving Kabul.
It is not clear whether those selected by the Taliban to leave were hardened fighters, sympathisers, civilians or a combination of the groups. However, the demand for seats on flights is understood to have led to concerns that the group could be seeking to reach out to its clandestine funding networks and to procure money for its own purposes.….
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Unfortunately, it's nothing new. They have been selling children (girls mostly) to pay back debt or to settle blood-feuds for centuries. It's called Baad. Clearly, the economic meltdown has increased the tempo, but when you are dirt poor and you keep popping out kids... If we had given Afghan women access to birth control in 2001, the TB would not be in power today. Giving women the power to choose when/if to have children is the ultimate social engineering tool.
It appears that some of the warlords are about tired of the Taliban, and will be trying to do something about it.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/14...c_latest062921
The band that broke Afghanistan in the early 1990s and hobbled it for years after is, in other words, getting back together.
Fun for the whole international community, if there is one left as the current economic retraction gets a bit worse ...
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/14...c_latest062921
The author, Lynne O’Donnell is a columnist at Foreign Policy and an Australian journalist and author. She was the Afghanistan bureau chief for Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press between 2009 and 2017.
A few high points:The band that broke Afghanistan in the early 1990s and hobbled it for years after is, in other words, getting back together.
Originally Posted by linked article, excerpted
JUNE 14, 2022, 2:34 PM
Unlike their first time around in power—right after the Soviet pullout in 1989—this time the warlords might even seem appealing, so awful is the Taliban regime that took over in August of last year. The back-to-the-future moment for the old guard came in May when 40 of the like-minded converged in the Turkish capital, Ankara, to meet with Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostum and his hangers-on. Dostum, like some of his fellow warlords, used the wealth accumulated during the 20 years of the U.S.-backed Afghan republic to build his own patronage network, the coin of the realm in Afghanistan’s political landscape. At the time, Dostum and men like him supported the reconstruction effort funded by the United States and allies and encouraged education for women, including the dispatch of thousands of Afghan students abroad to study.
But the Ankara gathering had a bigger crowd. Among the group was Ahmad Wali Massoud, uncle of Ahmad Massoud, the head of the National Resistance Front and one of the few personalities of Afghan politics untainted by accusations of corruption or atrocities. His late father, Northern Alliance general Ahmad Shah Massoud, is renowned for keeping the Taliban from taking full control of the country before they were crushed in 2001. In a statement, those in the group said they had formed a “High Council of National Resistance” to demand that the Taliban negotiate their return to Afghanistan and include them in government—or face the consequences.
If the Taliban don’t talk, a spokesman for Dostum threatened, “Afghanistan will experience civil war once again.”
Afghans know what that means. With an average age of 19 years, the vast majority of the population of around 38 million knows only war. The warlords and their cohort are part of a perpetual cycle that has blighted Afghanistan for more than 40 years. People are exhausted and yearn for peace, but the depredations of the Taliban present a new phase of crisis. And now the warlords are back in the mix.
Those in the new resistance front are hardly saviors. Dostum, for instance, was accused in 2016 of ordering the abduction, rape, and torture of an opponent. That was par for the course: In 2001, he allegedly rounded up captured Taliban gunmen and sealed them in shipping containers to suffocate to death. When he was a deputy to former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani—an alliance built on his ability to deliver a million Uzbek votes—his gunmen regularly took over Kabul’s streets in a show of force.
Among the others in Ankara: Atta Muhammad Noor, who had his own army while he ruled a breadbasket province and, like Dostum, groomed his son as successor. Others present in Ankara included Hazara leaders, former mujahideen, former members of the Afghan republic, and a few other warlords. Women even took part, one advisor said, via Zoom.
Afghanistan’s mosaic is now dangerously fractured. Across the north, armed groups are fighting to dislodge the Taliban, giving the warlords and their allies confidence they’ll find popular support for a comeback as pressure grows on Western governments to end Afghanistan’s isolation. Amid looming starvation for millions and economic implosion worsened by U.S. financial sanctions, the old guard has a number of factors on its side, not least the Taliban’s proven inability to function as a national government.
But amid the rumblings of civil war, some analysts warn that history is set to repeat with another atrocity like the 9/11 attacks as dozens of anti-West terrorist groups converge with Taliban protection.
The atomized landscape gives the new-old group of warlords breathing space to plot their return. A Dostum advisor, speaking on condition he not be identified, said the group wants the Taliban to widen the makeup of its government, currently composed of mostly Sunni Pashtuns and exclusively men. He said the council supports decentralization, a central national resistance platform and a step toward breaking the country into autonomous, ethnically dominated regions.
That’s not an impossible request, said anthropologist Omar Sharifi, who teaches at the American University of Afghanistan. The warlords have proved themselves able to adapt with time and circumstances, transitioning from jihad to democracy as necessary to maintain and build their power, influence, and wealth. The Taliban are so bad, Sharifi said, that they could make the warlords look over time like an attractive alternative.
The Taliban’s first turn in power grew out of the 1992-1996 civil war, when warlords tried to annihilate each other after the occupying Soviet army was defeated by U.S.-funded mujahideen in 1989; the Afghan government had collapsed three years after the Soviet withdrawal. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed in Kabul alone, and parts of the city still bear the pockmarks of the fighting.
The Taliban were greeted with cheers and tears when they took over, though the joy of an end to the war didn’t last long under their theocracy. Women were sequestered; music, dancing, and photography were banned; thieves’ hands were amputated and displayed in markets; and crimes such as adultery were punished with public executions.
Yet the lack of a credible governing alternative—as well as a growing humanitarian crisis—is behind growing pressure on U.S. President Joe Biden to recognize the Taliban, the world’s biggest drug cartel, which count dozens of sanctioned terrorists in their upper ranks. Citing the need to relieve the humanitarian disaster—despite billions of dollars going to the United Nations to feed the growing numbers of hungry people—and safeguard U.S. interests, some commentators have suggested ending the Taliban’s isolation with engagement short of diplomatic recognition. So far, though, the Taliban remain pariahs at home and abroad.
For New York-based researcher Ali Mohammad Ali, who advised the former Afghan government on security, the prospect of the warlords’ return is evidence of the failure of successive Afghan governments and their Western supporters to build sustainable institutions.
“The international community is incompetent and incoherent and has to get its act together because Afghanistan’s problems will not remain in Afghanistan,” he said. He underscored the lack of durable governing institutions built during the decades of Western stewardship, including a capable central bank and competent central government. Without the creation of such capacity, he said, the country again risks disintegrating and becoming a hotbed of terrorism.
“Otherwise you enable the emergence of not only warlords and Taliban oppression but groups like ISIS and al Qaeda that will fill the void by providing justice and services to the people. This is what happened in Iraq, and it will happen in Afghanistan if the current situation is normalized,” he said.
Unlike their first time around in power—right after the Soviet pullout in 1989—this time the warlords might even seem appealing, so awful is the Taliban regime that took over in August of last year. The back-to-the-future moment for the old guard came in May when 40 of the like-minded converged in the Turkish capital, Ankara, to meet with Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostum and his hangers-on. Dostum, like some of his fellow warlords, used the wealth accumulated during the 20 years of the U.S.-backed Afghan republic to build his own patronage network, the coin of the realm in Afghanistan’s political landscape. At the time, Dostum and men like him supported the reconstruction effort funded by the United States and allies and encouraged education for women, including the dispatch of thousands of Afghan students abroad to study.
But the Ankara gathering had a bigger crowd. Among the group was Ahmad Wali Massoud, uncle of Ahmad Massoud, the head of the National Resistance Front and one of the few personalities of Afghan politics untainted by accusations of corruption or atrocities. His late father, Northern Alliance general Ahmad Shah Massoud, is renowned for keeping the Taliban from taking full control of the country before they were crushed in 2001. In a statement, those in the group said they had formed a “High Council of National Resistance” to demand that the Taliban negotiate their return to Afghanistan and include them in government—or face the consequences.
If the Taliban don’t talk, a spokesman for Dostum threatened, “Afghanistan will experience civil war once again.”
Afghans know what that means. With an average age of 19 years, the vast majority of the population of around 38 million knows only war. The warlords and their cohort are part of a perpetual cycle that has blighted Afghanistan for more than 40 years. People are exhausted and yearn for peace, but the depredations of the Taliban present a new phase of crisis. And now the warlords are back in the mix.
Those in the new resistance front are hardly saviors. Dostum, for instance, was accused in 2016 of ordering the abduction, rape, and torture of an opponent. That was par for the course: In 2001, he allegedly rounded up captured Taliban gunmen and sealed them in shipping containers to suffocate to death. When he was a deputy to former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani—an alliance built on his ability to deliver a million Uzbek votes—his gunmen regularly took over Kabul’s streets in a show of force.
Among the others in Ankara: Atta Muhammad Noor, who had his own army while he ruled a breadbasket province and, like Dostum, groomed his son as successor. Others present in Ankara included Hazara leaders, former mujahideen, former members of the Afghan republic, and a few other warlords. Women even took part, one advisor said, via Zoom.
Afghanistan’s mosaic is now dangerously fractured. Across the north, armed groups are fighting to dislodge the Taliban, giving the warlords and their allies confidence they’ll find popular support for a comeback as pressure grows on Western governments to end Afghanistan’s isolation. Amid looming starvation for millions and economic implosion worsened by U.S. financial sanctions, the old guard has a number of factors on its side, not least the Taliban’s proven inability to function as a national government.
But amid the rumblings of civil war, some analysts warn that history is set to repeat with another atrocity like the 9/11 attacks as dozens of anti-West terrorist groups converge with Taliban protection.
The atomized landscape gives the new-old group of warlords breathing space to plot their return. A Dostum advisor, speaking on condition he not be identified, said the group wants the Taliban to widen the makeup of its government, currently composed of mostly Sunni Pashtuns and exclusively men. He said the council supports decentralization, a central national resistance platform and a step toward breaking the country into autonomous, ethnically dominated regions.
That’s not an impossible request, said anthropologist Omar Sharifi, who teaches at the American University of Afghanistan. The warlords have proved themselves able to adapt with time and circumstances, transitioning from jihad to democracy as necessary to maintain and build their power, influence, and wealth. The Taliban are so bad, Sharifi said, that they could make the warlords look over time like an attractive alternative.
The Taliban’s first turn in power grew out of the 1992-1996 civil war, when warlords tried to annihilate each other after the occupying Soviet army was defeated by U.S.-funded mujahideen in 1989; the Afghan government had collapsed three years after the Soviet withdrawal. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed in Kabul alone, and parts of the city still bear the pockmarks of the fighting.
The Taliban were greeted with cheers and tears when they took over, though the joy of an end to the war didn’t last long under their theocracy. Women were sequestered; music, dancing, and photography were banned; thieves’ hands were amputated and displayed in markets; and crimes such as adultery were punished with public executions.
Yet the lack of a credible governing alternative—as well as a growing humanitarian crisis—is behind growing pressure on U.S. President Joe Biden to recognize the Taliban, the world’s biggest drug cartel, which count dozens of sanctioned terrorists in their upper ranks. Citing the need to relieve the humanitarian disaster—despite billions of dollars going to the United Nations to feed the growing numbers of hungry people—and safeguard U.S. interests, some commentators have suggested ending the Taliban’s isolation with engagement short of diplomatic recognition. So far, though, the Taliban remain pariahs at home and abroad.
For New York-based researcher Ali Mohammad Ali, who advised the former Afghan government on security, the prospect of the warlords’ return is evidence of the failure of successive Afghan governments and their Western supporters to build sustainable institutions.
“The international community is incompetent and incoherent and has to get its act together because Afghanistan’s problems will not remain in Afghanistan,” he said. He underscored the lack of durable governing institutions built during the decades of Western stewardship, including a capable central bank and competent central government. Without the creation of such capacity, he said, the country again risks disintegrating and becoming a hotbed of terrorism.
“Otherwise you enable the emergence of not only warlords and Taliban oppression but groups like ISIS and al Qaeda that will fill the void by providing justice and services to the people. This is what happened in Iraq, and it will happen in Afghanistan if the current situation is normalized,” he said.