Privation, Malnutrition, Stalking a Taliban-Led Afghanistan
Privation, Malnutrition, Stalking a Taliban-Led Afghanistan
"I owe the Afghan people an explanation for leaving Kabul abruptly on August 15 after Taliban unexpectedly entered the city.""I left at the urging of the palace security who advised me that to remain risked setting off the same horrific street to street fighting the city had suffered during the Civil War of the 1990s. Leaving Kabul was the most difficult decision of my life, but I believed it was the only way to keep the guns silent and save Kabul and her 6 million citizens.""Now is not the moment for a long assessment of the events leading to my departure,” adding that “I will address them in the near future.""I must now address baseless allegations that as I left Kabul I took with me millions of dollars belonging to the Afghan people. These charges are completely and categorically false. Corruption is a plague that has crippled our country for decades and fighting corruption has been a central focus in my efforts as president.""I welcome an official audit or financial investigation under UN auspices or any other appropriate independent body to prove the veracity of my statements here.""I offer my profound appreciate and respect for the sacrifice of all Afghans, especially our Afghan soldiers and their families, through the last forty years."."It is with deep and profound regret that my own chapter ended in similar tragedy to my predecessors — without ensuring stability and prosperity. I apologize to the Afghan people that I could not make it end differently. My commitment to the Afghan people has never wavered and will guide me for the rest of my life."Former Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, September 8, 2021
Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani attends a security meeting in Kabul, Afghanistan August 14, 2021. Afghan Presidential Palace | Reuters |
In
the immediate aftermath of the lightning-swift Taliban takeover of
Afghanistan in the dying days of August of 2021, accusations were that
the Western-backed President of Afghanistan, taken by surprise by the
swiftness of the Taliban advance, and the melting resistance of his
Republic of Afghanistan military, fled the presidential palace, taking
with him millions representing the treasury of the country. These were
accusations that obviously stung the president, under extreme duress,
seeking haven and ultimately finding it in the United Arab Emirates.
Qatar,
after all, where negotiations purportedly between the Taliban
negotiators and the United States. with eventual inclusion of
negotiators of the Afghan government taking place in Doha, where a
delegation representing the Taliban and their interests found a
sympathetic home and permanent base in Qatar. Ashraf Ghani's message to
the people of Afghanistan might have been better received had it been
written in Pashto, the majority language of the country, and not
completely in English. A legitimate question might be: who was he really
addressing?
"The spiralling economic crisis, the conflict and drought has meant the
average family can now barely cope. We have a huge amount to do to stop this crisis from becoming
a catastrophe."
"We cannot waste any moment. Our country director describes
the situation as quite dire. She says it's 'an avalanche of hunger and
destitution',"
Tomson Phiri, World Food Program
An Afghan woman buys food left behind by the US military from a peddler in Kabul, Afghanistan November 17, 2021. REUTERS/Ali Khara |
"I want to categorically state I did not take any money out of the country. The helicopters in our first destination [Tashkent, Uzbekistan], were available for everyone to search. I would be delighted to have any kind of investigation, including taking a lie detector test or anything else that is important.""[My] style of life is known to everyone [with no need to take state money].""On the morning of that day, I had no inkling that by late afternoon I would be leaving. [My] national security adviser and the chief of the president protective service came and said the PPS has collapsed.""If I take a stand, they will all be killed and they will not be capable of defending me. [I left] in order to avoid further bloodshed.""Leaving Kabul was the most difficult decision of my life, but I believed it was the only way to keep the guns silent and save Kabul and her six million citizens."Ashraf Ghani, in UAE exile, December 28, 2021
That
old adage that a captain is supposed to go down with his sinking ship,
rarely qualifies as an expectation for a deposed ruler. When an
adversarial group like the Islamist fundamentalist Taliban not known for
polite drawing room discourse storms into a capital city with the
intention of taking it by force it can be guaranteed that in the
resulting melee, the government official at the apex of the
administration will somehow end up dead by 'misadventure'. The courage
to remain and face the violent overthrow of his government would have
gained nothing.
When
advised by the head of the presidential guard and the national military
that neither group was in a position to protect the president, the
country's parliament and its people, defiance of the inevitable made
little sense. Of course, had he remained to face his fate he would have
become a martyr, one that all Afghans now under the fist of the Islamic
Emirate of Afghanistan's new Taliban rulers, would have venerated as an
icon of heroic defiance, rather than derisively regarding him as a
coward.
The
international community disgraced itself, from the United States to
other NATO countries that had signed on to the original purpose of
destroying al-Qaeda in revenge for the 9/11 atrocities, and to free the
war-torn country from the viciously restrictive confines of Taliban
rule. The disjointed, pathetically unorganized and hugely inadequate
international response to the Taliban's capture of the country resulting
in the departure of aid groups, government missions and agencies,
terrified, compromised Afghans ended in chaos. -- And the withdrawal of
foreign investment and charitable donations.
It
is precisely that, alongside the culture of endemic corruption that
left Afghanistan a penurious, broken remnant of a nation. When the
ex-leader of the country fled Kabul, Russian state media led the
allegations he had left with millions in cash, that some of the millions
had of necessity to be left behind since all that wealth would not be
accommodated by the helicopter's interior. As absurdly malicious an
interpretation as any.
An Afghan boy sits on the hill overlooking the IDP camp near Qala-e-Naw, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021. Severe drought has dramatically worsened the already desperate situation in Afghanistan forcing thousands of people to flee their homes and live in extreme poverty. Experts predict climate change is making such events even more severe and frequent. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov) |
The
stinging rebuke to his loyalty to Afghanistan and its people has
festered and led Mr. Ghani to submit to another interview where he
repeated his original of-the-moment explanations in an effort to clear
his name and justify his actions. Nothing. however, will dispel the
optics of the time; his decision to seek self-exile in favour of
remaining to face the Taliban and whatever would emerge from that event,
given how much he was despised as a tool of the West, selling out
Afghanistan to expectations that would betray the Islamic ideal that the
Taliban represented.
But
nothing will expunge the reality that the country he abandoned to its
fate is now mired in extreme food and energy shortages, where hunger
stalks the land and the vulnerable will die in droves during the winter
months of exposure and food deprivation. The international community,
faced with the prospect of releasing funds to aid the people of
Afghanistan, must do it by funding the Taliban, a terrorist group
addicted to violence and vengeance.
Members of the Afghan government delegation, including Abdullah Abdullah, the chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation, during the opening of intra-Afghan negotiations in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 12, 2020. (Ron Przysucha /U.S. State Department) |
Labels: Afghanistan, Afghans Facing Starvation, Exile, Former President Ashraf Ghani, Taliban
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