Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts

Friday, January 28, 2022

January 28: Omicron, Krugman, Afghanistan, Pakistan

Omicron’s Radical Evolution Thirteen of Omicron’s mutations should have hurt the variant’s chances of survival. Instead, they worked together to make it thrive...... Whereas earlier variants had differed from the original Wuhan version of the coronavirus by a dozen or two mutations, Omicron had 53 — a shockingly large jump in viral evolution. ......... 13 of those mutations were rarely, if ever, found in other coronaviruses, suggesting they should have been harmful to Omicron. Instead, when acting in concert, these mutations appear to be key to some of Omicron’s most essential functions. ............... In December 2020, British researchers were jolted to discover a new variant in England carrying 23 mutations not found in the original coronavirus isolated in Wuhan a year before. That variant, later named Alpha, soon swept to dominance worldwide. Over the course of 2021, other fast-spreading variants emerged. While some remained limited to certain countries or continents, the Delta variant, with 20 distinctive mutations, ousted Alpha and became dominant over the summer. And then came Omicron, with over twice as many mutations. .................. Two of the clusters change the spike near its tip, making it harder for human antibodies to stick to the virus and keep it out of cells. As a result, Omicron is good at infecting even people who have antibodies from vaccinations or a previous Covid infection. ................ Because an immunocompromised host doesn’t produce a lot of antibodies, many viruses are left to propagate. And new mutant viruses that resist the antibodies can multiply.



Wonking Out: Are We in Another Housing Bubble? . people have been building houses for thousands of years; what could justify those extraordinary prices? ......... ........ Anyway, the bubble eventually burst, taking a large part of the financial system down with it. That is a worrying precedent, because housing prices have once again been rising rapidly. In fact, the average real price of housing in major markets is now higher than it was at its 2006 peak ......... America was effectively divided between Flatland — places where it was easy to increase the housing supply — and the Zoned Zone, where “a combination of high population density and land-use restrictions” made it hard to build new houses. And the big price increases took place only in the latter. ....... By the mid-2000s, real home prices at a national level were up by “only” about 50 percent, a number you could, with painful intellectual contortions, try to justify on the basis of low interest rates. But there was no way to justify the 100 percent or more increases we were seeing in places like Miami and San Diego. ........ the reason the national average is so high is that prices are surging everywhere — even in small towns that used to be bargains. ........ This time, however, record home prices haven’t led to a boom in housing construction ......... It’s the supply chain, stupid. Look at what is happening to the price of building materials ........ Real estate people I know tell me that there’s still a feeling of unhealthy frenzy, and people who paid high prices for small-town houses may regret it once supply chains get unsnarled and more houses get built.



Let Innocent Afghans Have Their Money . The Afghan government had been heavily dependent on foreign aid, which was largely cut off when the Taliban took power. .........

International assistance made up 45 percent of Afghanistan’s gross national product and funded 75 percent of the government’s budget.

Doctors, nurses, teachers and other essential government workers haven’t been paid in months, and it’s not clear when they will ever be. The Taliban remain on the U.S. sanctions list, so the international community has refused to give them money. .......... Right now the entire financial system in Afghanistan risks collapse. Ordinary people who have nothing to do with the Taliban have been largely cut off from the international banking system, simply because they live in Afghanistan. Even though U.S. Treasury Department officials say that the central bank of Afghanistan is not under sanctions, financial institutions around the world are treating it as if was. Foreign banks are refusing to wire money to Afghanistan, not only because they don’t want to deal with the reputational risk, but also because they fear that the long arm of the U.S. Treasury might one day punish them for it. Many banks say it is not worth the hassle. As a result, it has been difficult to get cash into the country. .......... If the formal banking system in Afghanistan collapses, then the entire economy could be driven into the shadows, where illicit activities like kidnapping and drug trafficking would play an even bigger role than they do now. Entrepreneurs who could be a counterweight to the Taliban would struggle to survive. ......... The Biden administration was right to offer aid to stave off the immediate humanitarian crisis caused by hunger, drought and a harsh winter. The administration has also issued a flurry of licenses to allow personal remittances and humanitarian aid to pass through banks unmolested. But the very existence of those licenses implies that the rest of Afghanistan’s economy is off limits. That means shopkeepers can’t open lines of credit to import goods, and farmers can’t receive payment for their crops through international banks. Aid is not enough. Commercial activity is what feeds a nation. .........

“The economy is not just in free fall; it’s being strangled”

......... The entire banking system could fall apart. ....... Since commercial banks in Afghanistan are required to keep some reserves in the central bank, hundreds of millions of dollars in the frozen overseas accounts are part of the life savings of Afghan citizens, which should not be rendered inaccessible because the Taliban took over the country. ......... the world will be treated to the spectacle of Americans and Europeans paying to mitigate a humanitarian disaster caused, in part, by the fact that many Afghans have been cut off from their own money. ......... When banks splinter and fail, they exacerbate crises, as happened in Yemen ...... Small efforts now could avoid big problems later — such as another mass migration in Europe. They could also preserve a toehold in the country. The war has been lost, but that doesn’t mean every institution that Americans worked with is destined to disappear. There’s still time to save Afghanistan’s central bank.
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The U.S. Needs a Reset With Pakistan . For decades, U.S. policy toward Pakistan has been predicated on America’s goals in Afghanistan. Pakistan both helped and hindered the U.S. war on terror, making for a notoriously dysfunctional relationship. .......... The United States must treat Pakistan as a country in its own right, not as a fulcrum for U.S. policy on Afghanistan. That starts with America disentangling itself from the close military relationship with Pakistan. ......... Resentment is rife. America sees Pakistan’s support for the Taliban as one reason it lost in Afghanistan; Pakistan sees the Taliban insurgency it faced at home as blowback for partnering with America next door. In Washington the grim mood has led to talk of disengagement and sanctions. Neither approach will work or be satisfactory in the long run. ........ Pakistan, meanwhile, wants a broad-based relationship with the U.S. focused on geoeconomics — which is not realistic. ........ a repetition of the old, failed cycle, missing the opportunity to steer Pakistan away from its own harmful overreliance on the military to a more productive future. ........ It would be smarter and safer for the United States to pivot to a multidimensional approach that acknowledges the realities of the country and its neighborhood. Pakistan is a nuclear-armed country with a population of more than 220 million, neighboring not just Afghanistan but also Iran and Pakistan’s close friend China and nuclear-armed rival India. Pakistan faces immense domestic challenges, including with governance and terrorism. It also has unrealized economic potential. ........... military spending accounts for about 16 percent of Pakistan’s annual expenditures. (U.S. military spending accounts for 11 percent.) .........

Pakistan’s dominant military has kept active the specter of potential conflict with India, and its intelligence services have cultivated relationships with an array of dangerous nonstate armed actors.

......... Once America’s reliance on Pakistan’s military is explicitly and clearly reduced, U.S. policy toward Pakistan can be steered toward economic and other forms of engagement. ....... The United States is Pakistan’s top export destination .......... Mr. Biden’s focus is on the Indo-Pacific. ....... Pakistan is simultaneously important and complicated.
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Four critical ingredients that Pakistan needs to rev up its economy and realize its potential Pakistanis working abroad sent home about $18.5 billion in FY2014/15 which contributed to financing the trade deficit. ........ The share of investment to GDP remains minimal at 15%, about half of the South Asian average at 30% and one of the lowest in the world. This means not that enough infrastructure is being built, people don’t have access to sufficient levels of energy and water, the quality of schools and hospitals are not optimal. ........... One of Pakistan’s biggest assets is its large and young labor force. But this young population will contribute to higher and sustainable growth only if it’s healthy and well educated. .

Afghanistan Is in Meltdown, and the U.S. Is Helping to Speed It Up . The United States should swallow the bitter pill of working with the Taliban-led government in order to prevent a failed state in Afghanistan. Kneecapping the government through sanctions and frozen aid won’t change the fact that the Taliban are now in charge, but it will ensure that ordinary public services collapse, the economy decays and Afghans’ livelihoods shrink even further. ....... Afghans are already on a countdown to calamity. Their cash-based economy is starved of currency, hunger and malnutrition are growing, civil servants are largely unpaid, and essential services are in tatters. ......... It’s no surprise that the United States and its allies responded to the Taliban takeover with punitive measures: halting the flow of aid that had been paying for three-fourths of public spending, freezing Afghan state assets abroad, cutting the country off from the global financial system and maintaining sanctions on the Taliban — which now penalize the entire government they head. That playbook is how Washington typically tries to punish objectionable regimes. But the result has been catastrophic for civilians. ....... Devastating droughts, the pandemic and the Taliban’s incompetence in governing have all played roles in creating what may be the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. But the West’s immediate steps to isolate the new regime triggered Afghanistan’s meltdown. This was especially the case because the countries that shut off the aid spigot had, over 20 years, enabled the Afghan state’s dependency on it. ......... I’ve seen over the past two decades how Western powers have consistently overestimated their ability to get Afghan authorities — whoever they are — to acquiesce to their demands.

Governments that were utterly dependent on U.S. security and financial support brushed off pressure to adopt Washington’s preferred peacemaking, war-fighting and anti-corruption strategies.

......... The Taliban are never going to have a policy on women’s rights that accords with Western values. They show no signs of embracing even limited forms of democratic governance. Nor is it likely they will ever take active measures to destroy or hand over remnants of Al Qaeda
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Thursday, December 30, 2021

December 30: Afghanistan, China, TikTok, Omicron, India, Michigan

Ultra-leftist voices are making themselves heard in China, but at what cost? Bloggers and commentators are riding a wave of nationalism by attacking intellectuals and corporate targets in China as well as emblems of the West ...... Observer predicts the radicals are convenient while Xi Jinping seeks a successful 20th party congress but their usefulness will expire once he consolidates power .......... First, China’s ultra-left opinion leaders battled outspoken media, liberal intellectuals and NGOs, then foreign governments, corporations and moderate liberals. But lately they have found new ideological opponents to take on. Leftist bloggers are targeting private tech firms, entrepreneurs and capital markets, as well as misbehaving celebrities, in combative essays pushing a socialist agenda in the name of patriotism. Ultra-leftist sentiment riding on the rising tide of nationalism is gaining popularity on the Chinese internet. However, analysts warn that

leftist tendencies that build on irrational and misguided policy interpretation could threaten China’s progress of reform and opening up if left unchecked



ASTRONAUT BARBER MEANS WELL, GIVES TERRIBLE HAIRCUT IN SPACE HE WAS DOING HIS BEST. ...... the thought of being surrounded by a floating cloud of hair clippings is horrid.



China warns of grave terror risks from Afghan chaos Isis, al-Qaeda and Xinjiang-related militant outfits are regrouping and also targeting cyberspace, Chinese minister tells counterterrorism seminar ...... Solidarity and cooperation are the most powerful anti-terror weapons, Wu Jianghao says as he seeks international support against ETIM ..... The resurgence of international militant groups emboldened by the chaos in post-war Afghanistan is posing serious threats to anti-terror work, China has warned. ........ Terrorist groups including Islamic State (Isis), al-Qaeda and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) are taking advantage of the drastically changed situation in Afghanistan this year to expand their presence and stir up trouble ..........

Emerging new technologies are being abused by terrorist forces. The use of cyberspace has made terrorist activities more covert and unchecked, and pushed terrorism closer to organised crime

.......... heightened alert against potential terror attacks amid risks of the instability in Afghanistan spilling over into Xinjiang in western China .......... Beijing has previously blamed the ETIM for separatist attacks in its Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. ......... Western troop withdrawals from Afghanistan have been followed by a fast-escalating wave of terrorist attacks by the regional chapter of Isis, including in neighbouring Pakistan. ....... a bus blast in July, which killed 13 people including nine Chinese workers in northern Pakistan, was carried out by the Pakistani Taliban or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, an umbrella movement of militant groups linked to al-Qaeda and Isis .......... Representatives from both Afghanistan and Pakistan attended the seminar via video link, as did those from Russia and the United Arab Emirates. China and Russia, along with several neighbouring Central Asian nations, have stepped up cooperation in view of the Afghan crisis and the risk of terror spillovers. .......... “Counterterrorism should not become a tool of major-country rivalry or a leverage in geopolitics, still less an excuse to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs.” ........ “We need to support the counterterrorism and deradicalisation efforts of all countries and build a global united front against terrorism” ........... Nabeel Munir, additional secretary at the Pakistani foreign ministry, said “immediate attention” is required in the face of new and emerging forms of terrorism, as

“no country has made more sacrifices in this fight than Pakistan”

. ........... a different kind of risk for Afghanistan’s neighbours – a new wave of Afghan refugees fleeing humanitarian and economic crisis in the middle of a pandemic and resurgent terror activities.


Beijing defends ‘democracy with Hong Kong characteristics’ model as white paper released a day after Legco election cites end goal of universal suffrage Within hours of Legco election closing, central government publishes strategy on developing Hong Kong-style democracy ....... White paper is only the second covering Hong Kong political reforms to be released by Beijing in seven years ......... Beijing has renewed its pledge to pursue the

ultimate goal of electing Hong Kong’s leader and legislature by universal suffrage

, releasing a white paper on Monday to mount a robust defence of its strategy of developing democracy for the city “in line with its realities” and putting “patriots” in charge.


TikTok surpassed Google as the most popular site in 2021 Video-sharing platform TikTok rose to massive popularity in 2021. Surpassing mammoths like Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Netflix in web traffic shows the speed and power of the ascent. TikTok rose from No. 7 to spot No. 1 on Cloudflare's ranking of top domains in 2021, and also beat out Facebook this year in social media domains, taking its No. 1 spot.

A new coronavirus vaccine heading to India was developed by a small team in Texas. It expects nothing in return. For some vaccine developers, the coronavirus pandemic has had a silver lining in billions of dollars in profits. But a new vaccine rolling out soon in India is taking the opposite approach: Its developers are getting zilch. ......... Unlike big-name vaccine manufacturers like Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, the Texas Children’s Hospital vaccine, which is called Corbevax, is being shared patent-free. ....... The ambition is to create a low-cost, open-source alternative to expensive and limited supply mRNA vaccines for developing and under-vaccinated countries. And it wouldn’t stop at India: Hotez and Bottazzi are talking to other manufacturers around the world and have consulted with the World Health Organization to see how they can share the vaccine globally. ........... “Texas Children’s Hospital’s commitment to sharing technology is a challenge to the pharma giants and the false narrative that vaccine production and medical innovation thrive through secrecy and exclusivity,” said Peter Maybarduk, director of the advocacy group Public Citizen.

“If Texas Children’s Hospital can do it, why can’t Pfizer and Moderna?”

.............. Operation Warp Speed invested $4.1 billion in Moderna alone. Instead, the Texas Children’s Hospital vaccine was developed with $7 million from mostly private investors. ............

“If we had even a fraction of the support that Moderna had, who knows, maybe the world would be vaccinated by now. We wouldn’t be having a discussion about omicron”

........... The aim is to quickly scale up to manufacturing over 100 million doses a month — a potentially significant amount even in India, a giant country where only 40 percent of its 1.38 billion population is reported to be fully vaccinated. ......... Corbevax doses may be as low as $2.50 — which would make it not only the cheapest coronavirus vaccine in India but one of the cheapest in the world. Doses from Pfizer and Moderna sometimes cost almost 10 times that ......... In terms of unvaccinated people, he continued, “you’ve got a billion people in sub-Saharan Africa, almost 2 billion in Latin America and the Caribbean, another billion in the smaller, low-income countries of Southeast Asia. That’s 3 billion people.” ........ “You’re going to need 6 to 9 billion doses of vaccine. So you know, when the president stands up a couple of weeks ago and says the U.S. government is the largest donor of vaccines, 275 million doses,” Hotez said. “I’m looking at that and saying: That’s not something to boast about.”




India reckons with the possibility of a third wave of the virus. At least 61 percent of Indians have received at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, and 43 percent have received two ......... Voting is scheduled to begin next month in five states including Uttar Pradesh, the most populous in the country, and massive crowds attended rallies held by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and opposition parties on Thursday. .......... The police in Mumbai, the country’s financial nerve center, banned gatherings of four or more people until Jan. 7 after new infections there nearly tripled in recent days. ......... Satyendar Jain, Delhi’s health minister, said on Thursday that genome sequencing suggests that

nearly half of the city’s new infections were of Omicron

, adding that the variant was spreading fast and infecting people regardless of their travel history.


A.O.C. and Manchin Are in the Same Party. No Wonder Democrats Are Struggling. After the latest twist by Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia in the Build Back Better drama, Democrats are weathering a storm of accusations of being plain bad at politics. ........ the disconnect between the party’s ability to assemble a broad coalition at the ballot box and the struggles it faces in legislating ........ several structural problems at once: the counter-majoritarian institutions in American government; the fuzzy balance of power among different forces within the party; and the difficulty of energizing a diverse set of interests around common goals. ....... Roosevelt had to deal with several conservative Southern Democrats. Today, Mr. Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona are actually in line with many recent Democratic proposals, but they can still extract concessions that don’t necessarily reflect the bulk of the party’s priorities. ........... the emergence of a strong and cohesive left wing within the Democratic Party. ............ The so-called Squad and the rest of the Progressive Caucus bring both a more economically left perspective and a different vision on issues like race and criminal-justice reform. ........ Democrats might be doomed to more cycles of lengthy negotiations and under-delivering on progressive promises ............. One route is to strengthen social movements, which could both keep progressive issues like green energy and student debt on the public agenda and possibly help to elect more progressive Democrats. Such movements could also help to mobilize different groups of voters around shared priorities like health care and economic insecurity. ...........

institutional reform

........ reforming the rules of governance to allow a party that already regularly wins national elections to wield proportionate influence in governing .......... filibuster reform and making Congress more proportional. ........ these changes would ease the veto power that less populated and more conservative areas of the country hold over the majority. .........

The persistent inability of a majority party to enact policies that reflect the opinions of its constituents means that we ought to look at the forces at work.

......... Mr. Manchin is an especially good example of this dynamic — powerful voices in West Virginia have come out in support of Build Back Better, but the senator has serious ties to the fossil-fuel industry. Ms. Sinema’s hesitance to support party priorities has also been linked to her ties to powerful industries rather than any ideology or what Arizona voters want............... These problems also require structural solutions — tightening regulations over conflicts of interest for members of Congress and enacting lobbying reform. The party’s survival may depend on its ability to represent its own voters and not the corporate interests that still have a powerful veto in the legislative process. ........ Democratic leaders will need to think differently about how power flows through their coalition if they want to see their successes in electoral politics turn into policy achievements.




New Variants Could Be ‘Fully Resistant’ Against Current Vaccines Or Previous Infection, WHO Director Says concern about the spread of omicron and delta variants causing a “tsunami” of new Covid cases. ........ His comments came as 4.99 million new virus cases were reported globally between December 20-26, up 11% from the previous week, according to the WHO. ........ As of Wednesday morning, the U.S. shattered its seven-day average of new infections, which totaled around 282,000, surpassing the previous record set in January ......... The WHO chief said nearly half of its member nations missed the target due to a “combination of limited supply going to low-income countries” and “vaccines arriving close to expiry and without key parts” such as syringes. ........

and last week Israel became the first country to greenlight a fourth dose

......... the WHO chief called on governments to make it their “new year’s resolution” to support the agency’s campaign to vaccinate 70% of the population in every country by the beginning of July 2022.


Ungerrymandered: Michigan’s Maps, Independently Drawn, Set Up Fair Fight A citizen ballot initiative took redistricting out of the hands of partisan legislators. The result:

competitive political districts — and an example of how to push back against hyperpartisanship

. .......... One of the country’s most gerrymandered political maps has suddenly been replaced by one of the fairest. ............ districts so competitive that Democrats have a fighting chance of recapturing the State Senate for the first time since 1984. ......... The work of the new commission, which includes Democrats, Republicans and independents and was established through a citizen ballot initiative, stands in sharp contrast to the type of hyperpartisan extreme gerrymandering that has swept much of the country, exacerbating political polarization — and it may highlight a potential path to undoing such gerrymandering. ........ The commission’s three new maps — for Congress, the State House and the State Senate — restore a degree of fairness ........ All of the maps still have a slight Republican advantage, in part because Democratic voters in the state are mostly concentrated in densely populated areas. ........ Detroit’s State Senate delegation will jump to nine members from five, and its State House delegation to 15 representatives from nine. ....... a lawsuit in 2018 unearthed emails in which Republicans boasted about packing “Dem garbage” into fewer districts and ensuring Republican advantages “in 2012 and beyond.” ..........

The path to an independent redistricting commission in Michigan began with a Facebook post days after the 2016 election from a woman with no political experience.

........... That post started a movement. Soon, a 5,000-member volunteer organization, Voters Not Politicians, was coordinating online through Facebook messages and Google documents, organizing a ballot initiative campaign and crisscrossing the state to gin up support. Members wrote folk songs and dressed up in costumes as gerrymandered districts to draw attention to the effort. ........... Republicans sued to block the ballot initiative but were denied by the state Supreme Court in August 2018. That November, the measure passed overwhelmingly, with more than 61 percent of Michigan voters approving the creation of an independent redistricting commission. ........... In Virginia, a commission deadlocked and failed to produce maps, punting the process to the state Supreme Court, which approved new maps this week. In Ohio, the Republican-led legislature ignored the state’s redistricting commission and drew an aggressively gerrymandered map all but certain to cement G.O.P. control for a decade.


Saturday, December 11, 2021

December 11: Nagaland, Putin, China, Hydrogen, Afghanistan



China-Japan tension: Abe’s comments on Taiwan prompt Beijing threat to ‘reconsider’ bilateral relations Relationship challenged by former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe’s remarks that neither Japan nor the US could stand by if island was attacked by mainland ...... Japan’s chief cabinet secretary says ‘there is a need for China to understand that there are such thoughts within Japan’

What is green hydrogen and can it help China meet its carbon goals? Most of the element used in industry is produced using fossil fuels ..... The country’s western regions are shaping up to be hubs of an industrial transformation ....... Hydrogen is the lightest and most common element in the universe. When used as fuel, it produces no direct emissions of greenhouse gases or pollutants. ........ Grey hydrogen is the most common form and is generated from fossil fuels. About 96 per cent of the hydrogen produced around the world falls into this category. ....... Green hydrogen is generated entirely by renewable energy such as solar and wind power and accounts for just 4 per cent of the total. ........ Green hydrogen has the potential to be used as a replacement fuel for coal in smelting and steelmaking, or as a raw material for petrochemical products in the decarbonisation of the industry. .......

hydrogen’s contribution to China’s energy mix is expected to increase from about 3 per cent in 2018 to 20 per cent in 2060

. ....... China is aiming to reach peak carbon emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 ........... by 2050, green hydrogen could be the cheapest production method for steel ....... Chinese iron and steel manufacturing conglomerate HBIS Group said last year that it would operate the world’s first direct reduced iron production plant powered by hydrogen-enriched gas. .......... hydrogen from renewables would fall as low as US$1.3 per kg by 2030 in regions with high-quality renewable resources, making it comparable with the cost of hydrogen from natural gas with carbon capture and storage ...... to be used in sectors where electrification is difficult to implement, including long-haul transport, shipping, aviation and buildings. ........... Ningxia Baofeng Energy Group says its overall cost of producing green hydrogen is about 0.7 yuan (11 US cents) per standard cubic metre. It is comparable with hydrogen production from fossil fuels in China, which cost about 0.6 yuan per standard cubic metre.


As the U.S. withdrawal approached, analysts thought it would be months before the Taliban brought the fight to Kabul. Over the years, the capital’s elite had retreated deeper behind concrete walls topped with concertina wire; sometimes they even added a layer of Hesco barriers on the sidewalk, forcing me into the street as I passed. .......... Should we stay or should we go? Afghans had endured the agony of displacement and exile for 40 years ......... She majored in women’s studies and religion at the University of Virginia and considered herself a proud feminist; that was also when she chose to start wearing the hijab, which strengthened her connection to her faith. ........ her father became Kandahar’s mayor as the streets filled with American soldiers and the war intensified. In 2011, he was assassinated by a suicide bomber. ........ After a couple of years, the school’s success had attracted the capital’s elite. That, she believed, was why she received a call last year from the president. She thought Ghani wanted to know about Mezan’s online learning programs for the pandemic; instead, he asked her to become his minister of education. ......... Until then, Rangina had resisted joining the Afghan government; it was dominated by warlords who, she believed, were responsible for killing her father, more so than the Taliban. ........... Those who took part became corrupt themselves, or else were hounded into leaving. ........ she became Afghanistan’s first female education minister since the Communists, who brought radical new opportunities for women to go to school and work in the cities, gains that were wiped out after they were overthrown by American-backed Islamists in 1992. ............. He proposed a caretaker government and new elections overseen by himself, a nonstarter for the Taliban. ...... the Islamists were simply running out the clock until the U.S. forces left. .......

In the West, Ghani was hailed by many as an educated reformer, co-author of the book “Fixing Failed States.”

.......... “Young, educated, well-spoken, corrupt” ...... a 40-year civil war fueled by foreign superpowers, malignant corruption and the Pakistani military’s covert support for the Taliban. ......... the U.S. occupation had created a state dependent on American troops and foreign money. .......... Another initiative was the creation of thousands of fake accounts on Facebook and Twitter dedicated to promoting the government and attacking its critics, work known by the Pashto term Facebookchalawonky. ......... Afghanistan’s vibrant cyberspace must have been attractive to officials cloistered within blast walls and armored cars, but it failed to capture the reality of the countryside, where only a fraction of the population had access to the internet. ..........

many working for the council clung to the belief that the United States would never leave Afghanistan

........

The U.S. military had spent billions to train and equip a force in its own image, heavily dependent on foreign contractors and air support.

........ But the Afghan Army’s notoriously corrupt generals stole their men’s ammunition, food and wages .......... while security forces were supposed to total 300,000, the real number was likely less than a third of that ........ “Latest Report: 98% of Government Officials’ Families Live Outside Afghanistan.” ........... the president — whose children grew up in the United States ......... Out of 27 cabinet ministers, it claimed, only two had families who resided in Afghanistan full time. ...... Torture had long been common in the republic’s prisons, as documented since 2011 by the United Nations. ........ included waterboarding and sexual assault, much of it carried out by the N.D.S., which was advised by the C.I.A. and British intelligence (both agencies have denied any involvement with torture). ..........

But as much as Kabul’s journalists feared violence at the hands of the government, some worried that if the republic fell, worse would follow.

........ Criticism, like objectivity, made sense only within a shared set of values. “If we’re talking political philosophy, and the question of a republic versus an emirate, well, that’s different,” he told me. “We’re liberals. We believe in freedom and democracy.” ......... Zaki feared that freedom of the press and women’s rights would be the first areas of compromise. ......... “I said that things are falling apart, the chain of command is broken and people are not telling the truth to you,” Nadery told me. “He answered, ‘Yes, it will take another six months for us to turn it around.’” Stunned, Nadery left the palace wondering what kind of information the president was getting. ............. There were increasingly strident assertions about what a Taliban takeover would mean: stories about the forced marriage of young girls and widows to their fighters, even sex slavery. .............. It would mean a return to the brutal days when men without beards were flogged in the streets, when women were not allowed to leave the home without a guardian, of public executions in soccer stadiums, of stoning and amputations, a massacre for everyone who had worked for the foreigners, a genocide for Afghanistan’s Hazara minority. .......... Even after the last troops left on Aug. 31, a 650-strong security force was supposed to remain behind to protect the massive embassy complex. ............. But now the rebels were advancing as fast as their motorcycles could carry them. ......... On Thursday, Biden ordered the embassy to shut down, and diplomats began destroying classified materials and shifting operations to the airport, where 3,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines were being flown in to evacuate American citizens and their allies. ..........

People from neighboring districts were pouring into the capital, fleeing ahead of the Taliban, who the U.S. Embassy had warned were committing war crimes.

.......... he knew how vicious the Taliban had been with their opponents in the 1990s. He was ready to give his life to protect his wife and daughter; he also knew that might not be enough. ......... Many of the foreign nationals based in Kabul left the country during the pandemic to work remotely, but the few who remained had been

as surprised as everyone by the sudden collapse of the government

. ............ The decision of the U.S. Embassy to pull out meant that most other Western organizations were evacuating, too, although the embassies of Iran, Russia and China — America’s rivals — were going to remain. .......... “They’re rational. They have advisers from Pakistan, from China, from Russia. You think these guys with the long beards are making decisions?” ......... Jim and I stockpiled everything from canned goods to buckshot. ........ The former president, Hamid Karzai, sat in a semicircle with leaders of the mujahedeen, former Communists, contracting barons — men who were handed power by the Americans in 2001, when their enemies, the Taliban, seemed utterly defeated.

They had presided over two decades of plenty, when a rain of billions from abroad had enriched a minority, even as poverty among the people had grown.

Now they faced the ruin of the republic. ............ The republic’s forces, utterly demoralized, were simply laying down their arms, allowing the rebels, after their long, lean years in the mountains, to take possession of billions of dollars worth of vehicles and weapons bought by the United States and its allies. ......... By now, cities were falling without a fight, surrendering after a mere phone call. ............ Saleh, the vice president who had run security meetings for the capital, had secretly escaped to his home province of Panjshir, which helped throw the chain of command in Kabul into disarray. Local criminal gangs — many of them connected to the police — were waiting for their chance to start looting. ........... Shortly before 10 o’clock that morning, the president sat in the shade of a courtyard at the palace, reading a book. ...........

Ghani’s frequent reading breaks had become a joke between him and his friends.

............ but they’d still been waiting for years to go to America under the Special Immigrant Visa program for local employees. There was a backlog of some 20,000 applications. ..........

The Taliban were as surprised as everyone else by their lightning success

; they weren’t prepared to take control of the capital and feared a confrontation with the Americans at the airport. ......... I had a sudden sense of the fragility of the social contract that bound us; our shared reality was melting into air. I was as worried about being robbed or shot by them as I was about the Taliban. .......... “Remember, this is not Saigon,” the secretary of state would say on television later that day. .......... Earlier that day, the guards at the main prison in the city had fled, and the prisoners had broken loose — the same thing happened at the detention center in Bagram, north of the capital. ........... Jim and I had looped the whole Green Zone: the ugly concrete maws of its compounds stood open, the barriers upraised. Across the city, soldiers and police officers took off their uniforms, laid down their weapons and walked off into the evening light. ..........

by lunchtime many of Kabul’s police stations had been abandoned, becoming targets of large, organized groups of looters.

............ Khalilzad and the Taliban had been getting messages from Afghan politicians in Kabul, begging for someone to take charge of security before the looting and violence got worse. Everyone feared what might happen come nightfall............. The police had the giddiness of condemned men granted a reprieve; they crowded shyly around the Talib, who seemed annoyed by his duty but not in the least concerned about being surrounded by armed men who would have shot him a day ago. ............ After flying for more than an hour, the three presidential helicopters arrived at the Uzbekistan border and landed; confusion ensued at the Termez airport as they were surrounded by soldiers —

the Uzbek government had apparently not been informed of their arrival.

Eventually, the president, his wife, Mohib and several aides were taken to the governor’s guesthouse, but the rest of the 50 or so people on board spent a miserable night out in the open by the helicopters, relieving themselves on the tarmac. The next day, a charter flight arrived and took them all to Abu Dhabi. .................. The U.A.E., which had deep business ties with Kabul’s elite, was a close ally of Ghani’s; according to three sources within the administration, Abu Dhabi had secretly helped fund his election campaigns. ......... … Mujahedeen are not allowed to enter anyone’s home, or harass anyone.” .......... The sudden fall of the city had caught the Taliban leadership without adequate forces on hand. ........ In all, according to one senior Taliban commander’s estimate, the rebels took command of Kabul with well under a thousand men — less than the number of Marines at the airport, let alone the tens of thousands of Afghan security forces who had deserted their posts. ...............

There was a widespread belief that if you could only get inside the airport, you’d make it to Germany or Canada

, and in fact, many had gotten out in the chaos of the first night, when, in order to clear the runway, people were bundled onto planes indiscriminately and flown to Doha. ............... some of the jeans reappeared, while the Taliban donned a patchwork of uniforms that had belonged to the republic. ........ Ghani was in Abu Dhabi writing a book, a follow-up to “Fixing Failed States,” perhaps. ....... Ramin and his wife were given an artist’s residency in a French farmhouse, where he was writing of his longing for his city, a Kabul that now lived on in the imagination of a new diaspora. .......... The farther we traveled from Kabul, the less nostalgia people seemed to have for the republic. In Panjwai, outside Kandahar City, the farmers had dug up the I.E.D.s and were planting crops. Everywhere, white flags fluttered above the graves of young men. ......... For ordinary people in the countryside, the fall of the republic had at least brought an end to the fighting. ......... In Kandahar, I was told about a quiet campaign of kidnappings and assassinations of former police and intelligence officers by Taliban fighters — which their leaders denied — some driven by local disputes, others by revenge. ....... The economy was in free fall, the banks were out of cash; it had been a drought year,

and everyone feared the hunger that winter would bring

. .......... I thought about my visits there, when the runway was crowded with jets, and tried to remember the brash generals who’d explained, year after year, how they were winning — they just needed more troops, more money, more time. .......... We kept driving to Nimruz and reached the Iranian border. Here the desert began. A great exodus was underway. We watched as the migrants crowded onto trucks, heading west.




Wednesday, December 08, 2021

The US Is Making A Major Mistake In Afghanistan

The US going in as a response to the 9/11 attacks that were orchestrated by the Al Qaeda who were hosted by the Taliban who ruled Afghanistan can make some sense, although it must be noted the Taliban kept asking for "proof." The US did have proof. The Al Qaeda did not keep the Taliban in confidence before the 9/11 attacks. They maintained utmost secrecy for understandable logistical reasons. The word might have leaked out. The operation might have failed.

The Taliban said, give us proof Bin Laden did it, and we will hand him over to you. The US refused. That was hubris. That was arrogance. That was not the democratic spirit. That was the attitude of an empire. The US could have privately provided proof while keeping the military option open all along.

At one point Condi Rice said, "Iraq is not Iran." The Taliban and the Al Qaeda are two separate organizations.

Afghanistan was a country like Nepal before the two superpowers took turns going in. Expats (the term for white immigrants) would write glowingly about the wonderful hospitality of the Afghan people, like they still say about the people in Nepal.

The right response would have been for the US to give the proof it had, privately, and then ask the Taliban to deliver. The Taliban did have the option to deliver Bin Laden at that point. They knew exactly where he was. They controlled the territory all around Bin Laden. They controlled the ground on which Bin Laden stood.

But the US figured, why waste a chance to make a movie out of the situation? Zero Dark Thirty.



After the US did go in, not long after the Taliban offered to surrender. The US refused the offer. That is mystifying to me. A puny military power under massive attack by an uncomparably larger military power offered to surrender. Why not take that surrender?

The corruption money from the military misadventure in Afghanistan is buying houses all across the US right now to park the money. That is why. The trillions wasted in Afghanistan could have paid to solve every "intractable" social problem America has. It could have ended homelessness. It could have rebuilt every public school. It could have rebuilt the country's infrastructure. But instead an average person can't even buy a house in America today.

And the corrupt Afghans who ran the puppet regime for the US took their money to Dubai. Cashloads of helicopters would land in Kabul and then, an hour later, fly off to Dubai.

The US did not stay a long time to win the war in Afghanistan. It won the war within weeks of going in.

I see no serious efforts of democracy building in Afghanistan. Plenty of outrageously expensive efforts yes, but no serious efforts. You can not build democracy in a country where you will not listen to the local population.

Finally the US gave up. It threw its hands in the air and walked out. Fine. Sometimes you cut your losses and move.

Except now the strategy seems to be to starve the population into revolting against the Taliban. Give me a break. You want starving Afghans to do what well-fed, well-trained, well-armed, well-financed Americans were not able to do?

The US needs to release Afghan funds that can feed the hungry Afghans. Maybe some sort of a deal can be cut that will allow for funds to be released for specified humanitarian purposes.

America did not go into Afghanistan to build democracy. It went in to get Bin Laden who it could have had by engaging the Taliban in dialogue. And offering the proof that it had that the Taliban asked for.

And it stayed long after Bin Laden was killed.

Several trillion dollars later, hundreds of thousands of lives later, when you have nothing to show for it, it is a shame.

It would have been better for the US to stay one more year, or two more years than to do what it is doing now. This economic strangulation is punishing a people who did not put the Taliban into power. The US did. This is wrong.



Facing Economic Collapse, Afghanistan Is Gripped by Starvation An estimated 22.8 million people — more than half the country’s population — are expected to face potentially life-threatening food insecurity this winter. Many are already on the brink of catastrophe. ....... Nearly four months since the Taliban seized power, Afghanistan is on the brink of a mass starvation that aid groups say threatens to kill a million children this winter — a toll that would dwarf the total number of Afghan civilians estimated to have been killed as a direct result of the war over the past 20 years. .......... While Afghanistan has suffered from malnutrition for decades, the country’s hunger crisis has drastically worsened in recent months. This winter, an estimated 22.8 million people — more than half the population — are expected to face potentially life-threatening levels of food insecurity, according to an analysis by the United Nations World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization. Of those, 8.7 million people are nearing famine — the worst stage of a food crisis. ......... Such widespread hunger is the most devastating sign of the economic crash that has crippled Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power.

Practically overnight, billions of dollars in foreign aid that propped up the previous Western-backed government vanished and U.S. sanctions on the Taliban isolated the country from the global financial system, paralyzing Afghan banks and impeding relief work by humanitarian organizations.

....... Across the country, millions of Afghans — from day laborers to doctors and teachers — have gone months without steady or any incomes. The prices of food and other basic goods have soared beyond the reach of many families. Emaciated children and anemic mothers have flooded into the malnutrition wards of hospitals, many of those facilities bereft of medical supplies that donor aid once provided. ...... Now, as freezing winter weather sets in, with humanitarian organizations warning that

a million children could die, the crisis is potentially damning to both the new Taliban government and to the United States, which is facing mounting pressure to ease the economic restrictions that are worsening the crisis.



Friday, October 11, 2019

Middle East: Cold War, Cold Peace, Warm Peace



The formula for peace between India and Pakistan is fairly easy. That is not to say peace is easy. It is not. But the formula is straightforward. Pakistan could not militarily capture an acre of Indian land and vice versa. And so you both agree to turn the Line Of Control into the final border, and then compete with each to bring as much democracy and economic growth into the two Kashmirs as possible. There are two Punjabs. There can be two Kashmirs.

The formula for peace in Afghanistan is also fairly straightforward. Something very similar was done recently in Nepal.

The Cold War between Iran and Saudi Arabi is complex. I am not worried about Iran. And I am not worried about Saudi Arabia. But the whole world worries about Yemen and Syria. The abject human tragedy in both places plays on TV screens across the world.

The domestic politics in Saudi Arabia looks opaque to me. The domestic politics in Iran looks opaque to me. I am sure I could read up and learn a few things. But I happen to have a day job.

At some point, the Cold Warriors US and the Soviet Union just decided to face the fact that since one could completely annihilate the other, war just did not make any sense. And so we had Reagan and Gorbachev talking to each other. There were grand summits. They met face to face.

The US is in no position to invade Iran. The US is unwilling and unable. Although the military-industrial complex in the US always appreciates being able to sell a few more weapons. And the world knows Saudis have cash. Truckloads of cash. I don't even mind that trade.

But the tragedies in Yemen and Syria are too much.

At some point, the Saudis and the Iranians are simply going to have to face the fact that war is not a realistic option. Unlike the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Iran and Saudi Arabia are not in a position to wipe each other out. But if they were to go to war, the world economy will have a heart attack. The world is so dependent on oil. Oil prices will skyrocket and the global economy will see a Depression worse than that of the 1930s. Should that happen, you will see the rise of all sorts of fascists in many parts of the world. There will be chaos.

And so the leaders of Iran and Saudi Arabia should hold summit meetings just like Reagan and Gorbachev. They should unconditionally discuss all outstanding issues. They should bring to end all proxy wars. They should end the arms race. They should both recognize Israel's right to exist. They should both commit to finding a creative solution to Palestine. And they should both focus on mutual trade and tourism.

Iran and Saudi Arabia can not wipe each other out. They should also stop the fantasy that they can affect regime change in each other's countries. That fantasy has come with serious human costs in nearby states with weaker state presences.

The politics in no country stays at a standstill. Ultimately the people in each country decide.








The Nation State In Peril
The Middle East Cold War
The Money Primary
And Now Iraq Erupts
Hong Kong: The Mask Ban Can Not Be Implemented
Hong Kong: Downturn?
Dubai, Pakistan, Peace, Prosperity
Imran's Peace Gamble In Afghanistan
The Impeachment Drama
South Asians Working In The Gulf
Masa, MBS, And The Broader Investment Climate
The Importance Of Being Kind
MBS Is Right About The Possible War
I Am Rooting For Imran To Succeed In Pakistan
Formula For Peace: Iran-Saudi-US, Taliban-US, India-Pakistan
Imran Wants To Lift 100 Million Pakistanis Out Of Poverty
To: The Crown Prince Of Dubai
Dubai's Remarkable Economic Transformation

Friday, October 04, 2019

Imran's Peace Gamble In Afghanistan



The Taliban of Afghanistan remind me of the Maoists of Nepal. At their peak right before they entered the peace process, the Maoists held sway over 80% of the territory in Nepal. That does not mean they were ruling 80% of the country. But they had managed to drive out the state's presence in 80% of the country, which was meager in the first place. Right before the peace process the Maoists and the Nepal Army were at war. And a ceasefire was not an option. Because the seven political parties in Nepal were not in power. The king was.

And so the Maoists needed to declare a unilateral ceasefire. They had to then join an alliance with the political parties, who they had been targeting for years. Targeting in the Maoist language means killing.

So you declare a unilateral ceasefire with the Nepal Army who, by the way, never officially reciprocated. Then they form an alliance with the political parties. Together you wage a street movement in the capital city to drive the king out.

The six parties come to power. Then you come to power after you agree to put your army into cantonments. And you integrate the two armies and become a political party.

Fairly complex.

But I believe that is the formula also for Afghanistan.

Imran Khan is best positioned to deliver. I don't believe Donald Trump or Mike Pompeo understand the ground situation in Afghanistan. Terrorist bad, democracy good kind of language is not going to make headway. That is as much nuance as Bernie's Medicare For All.

The Taliban are a fighting force. And those fighters drawing salaries as soldiers in the Afghan Army would be a good way to get them out of the political equation. The nonfighters have to form a political party and be willing to contest elections. The elections could be for a constituent assembly to write a constitution for Afghanistan. Unless they agree to accept what is already in place. They might even emerge the largest party. If they do, they get to come to power. Two Maoists became Prime Ministers in Nepal. Why not?

I believe this is the way out.

Pakistan can not prosper unless there is peace in the neighborhood. The only person both the Taliban and the Afghan president are willing to talk to is Imran. The Americans just want to get the hell out. They just want reassurance that all hell will not break loose when they leave. A negotiated peace settlement will deliver that.

Imran Khan does not really need Donald Trump's involvement. Trump could be part of the final step in the process when Imran might be in a position to say, you can safely leave now.

In Nepal, there was this critical juncture right before the six parties (was it six or seven, I forget) and the Maoists formed an alliance. Some Maoists blew up a bus. That would have been an excellent reason for the six parties to walk away. But that walking away would have been a mistake. You have to understand, not all Maoists were happy. Many were feeling betrayed by their leadership. They were supposed to defeat the parties, not form an alliance with them. But walking away at that juncture would have been a bad idea.

Imran should tackle Afghanistan, then Kashmir, then Iran. Somewhere along the way, he should get the Nobel, but Greta first.

I was thinking perhaps Imran can not make moves between Iran and Saudi Arabia. But now I think he is in a very good position to do so. I think the Saudis overestimate the American willingness and ability to inflict military pain on Iran. The Americans primarily want to sell military hardware. They are not interested in actual war. If the Saudis want peace, they have to engage in direct talks with Iran, and perhaps Imran can mediate. Co-existence is the idea. Since finishing each other off is not an option.



Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Formula For Peace: Iran-Saudi-US, Taliban-US, India-Pakistan



Iran-Saudi-US

Situation: War is not an option. An all-out attack by the US on Iran and an all-out counter-attack is unthinkable. For one, there would be a global Depression. It would be like the global economy had a heart attack. A seizure. Even when you are not talking, you are essentially "talking," you are signaling.

Interesting: The Saudis, the Iranians and the Americans all are on excellent terms with both Imran Khan and Narendra Modi. Both Modi and Imran should come together and help out Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the US.

Solution: Go back to the Obama nuclear deal and while you are at it, negotiate on all other outstanding matters. Give full engagement to Iran as a conclusion step. Maximum trade, maximum tourism.

Rationale: If you want democracy in Iran, you want to engage to the maximum. Trade also prevents war. If the Chinese and American supply chains were not such a spaghetti, we would already have seen a US-China hot war by now.



Taliban-US

Situation: The Taliban and the Afghan government refuse to talk to each other, but both are willing to talk to Imran Khan.

Interesting: Both the Afghan government and the Taliban are eager to talk to Imran Khan. The Indian government is on good terms with the Afghan government.

Solution: Integrate the Afghan Army and the Taliban to create one unified army, like happened with the Maoists of Nepal and the Nepal Army in the mid 2000s.

Bottomline: The Taliban must agree to become a political party and contest elections in Afghanistan.



India-Pakistan

Situation: Indian Kashmir is under curfew for more than 50 days running now.

Interesting: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the US are all on excellent terms with both Imran Khan and Narendra Modi.

Solution: Let Pakistan and India recognize the Line Of Control as the final border between the two countries and compete with each other to install democracy and human rights in both Kashmirs. This formula of recognizing the LOC as the final border is also the solution to the India-China border dispute. They have the longest disputed border in the world.

Bottomline: The curfew in Kashmir must be lifted immediately.