GABA ghoul posted:

Kinda surprising that they are dropping the pretense so fast. Half their population and infrastructure depends on foreign aid and they haven't secured any agreements to keep it flowing yet. Couldn't keep up the charade for even a couple of months.

How are u posted:

This is why I found the gleeful lionizing of the Taliban to be pretty drat disgusting. Glad people aren't doing that much anymore. Meet the new Taliban, same as the old Taliban.

GABA ghoul posted:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/17/taliban-ban-girls-from-secondary-education-in-afghanistan

GABA ghoul posted:

So, as everyone expected, the Taliban have just closed down all secondary schools for girls.

A big flaming stink posted:

its not gleeful lionizing, its recognizing that as poo poo as the taliban have been and will be, they are far better than the endless cavalcade of horrors that the united states enacted in their invasion.

the us's drone strikes killed, on average, more than 6 members of each family, were the muscle for institutional child rape, and the ceaseless advocates for the biggest monsters in the region.

whatever image you have in your head for the sort of monsters that the taliban are?

that's what we were. we out-taliban'd the taliban. and it wasnt even loving close

VitalSigns posted:

Look it's just a fact that the Allied invasion of Normandy killed French civilians, therefore they are worse than the mostly peaceful reich occupation authorities who only killed such civilians as were necessary to maintain law and order

Dopilsya posted:

1. "the us's drone strikes killed, on average, more than 6 members of each family,"

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/projects/drone-war/afghanistan

Using the high number here, and attributing every death as a civilian reveals that Afghanistan apparently has 1,500 families total?


2. "we out-taliban'd the taliban. and it wasnt even loving close"

According to the UNAMA, anti-government forces are responsible for the majority of civilian casualties; the Taliban alone is responsible for at least a plurality. They may even be responsible for an outright majority on their own, but the UNAMA publishes casualty statistics on year-by-year basis and I haven't done the math to check.

https://unama.unmissions.org/protection-of-civilians-reports

None of this exonerates the U.S.A. from the crimes that it did commit, but the idea that the Taliban are some better actor than the "endless cavalcade of horrors" that are the Americans doesn't seem borne out by any of the information available.

quote:

Muhammad Wali, an adult cousin: Villagers were instructed by coalition forces to stay indoors for three days as they conducted an operation, but after the second day drinking water had been depleted and Wali was forced to venture out. He was shot.

Khan Muhammad, a seven-year-old cousin: His family was fleeing a clash by car when it mistakenly neared a coalition position; the car was strafed, killing him.

Bor Agha, a twelve-year-old cousin: He was taking an evening walk when he was killed by fire from an Afghan National Police base. The next morning, his father visited the base, in shock and looking for answers, and was told that the boy had been warned before not to stray near the installation. “Their commander gave the order to target him,” his father recalled.

Amanullah, a sixteen-year-old cousin: He was working the land when he was targeted by an Afghan Army sniper. No one provided an explanation, and the family was too afraid to approach the Army base and ask.

Ahmed, an adult cousin: After a long day in the fields, he was headed home, carrying a hot plate, when he was struck down by coalition forces. The family believes that the foreigners mistook the hot plate for an I.E.D.

Niamatullah, Ahmed’s brother: He was harvesting opium when a firefight broke out nearby; as he tried to flee, he was gunned down by a buzzbuzzak.

Gul Ahmed, an uncle of Shakira’s husband: He wanted to get a head start on his day, so he asked his sons to bring his breakfast to the fields. When they arrived, they found his body. Witnesses said that he’d encountered a coalition patrol. The soldiers “left him here, like an animal,” Shakira said.

Entire branches of Shakira’s family tree, from the uncles who used to tell her stories to the cousins who played with her in the caves, vanished. In all, she lost sixteen family members. I wondered if it was the same for other families in Pan Killay. I sampled a dozen households at random in the village, and made similar inquiries in other villages, to insure that Pan Killay was no outlier. For each family, I documented the names of the dead, cross-checking cases with death certificates and eyewitness testimony. On average, I found, each family lost ten to twelve civilians in what locals call the American War.

quote:

“The deaths we tallied are likely a vast under-count of the true toll these wars have taken on human life,” said the co-author of the Costs of War project report Professor Neta Crawford – noting that the tally does not incorporate indirect deaths due to the consequences of war through the destruction of civilian infrastructure.

The new figures therefore do not account for the many indirect deaths the War on Terror has caused by way of disease, displacement and loss of access to food or clean drinking water, she acknowledged.
he most accurate way to calculate the scale of total deaths would be through epidemiological surveys to determine ‘excess deaths’ by comparing pre-war and post-war mortality rates, which would encompass both direct and indirect deaths.

However, in many of these countries, the infrastructure to monitor and collect the relevant data does not exist or is very hard to obtain, which is why such surveys are rare.

In the absence of epidemiological analysis, it is still possible to develop a clear sense of the minimum likely scale of indirect deaths.

Last September, when commenting on an earlier version of the project’s findings, Costs of War report co-author Professor Catherine Lutz pointed out that “one has to multiply that direct death number… by an estimated two to four times to get to the total number of people – in the millions – who are dead today who would not have been dead had the wars not been fought”. But even this approach is likely to produce an under-count.

According to a landmark report by the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development – signed by 113 governments – in “the majority of conflicts since the early 1990s, for which good data is available, the burden of indirect deaths was between three and 15 times the number of direct deaths”.

The report found that, due to the impact of conflicts on public services and infrastructure, vastly greater numbers of people end up dying indirectly from the consequences of violence compared to the number that die directly from conflict.

The range varies based on different factors such as the levels of economic development in a country before a war, the duration of fighting, the intensity of combat, the population’s access to basic care and services, and the success of humanitarian relief efforts.

The more intense the fighting and the more degraded the level of infrastructure, the higher the number of indirect deaths.

The report concluded that “a reasonable average estimate would be a ratio of four indirect deaths to one direct death in contemporary conflicts”.

However, it should be noted that this ratio is a minimum average that is likely to be extremely conservative in relation to the impact of Western-backed military interventions. For instance, six months after the bombing campaign in Afghanistan in 2001, data assessed by the Guardian revealed that, although between 1,300 and 1,800 Afghans were killed directly, as many as 20,000 and possibly as high as 49,600 people had died due to the indirect consequences of the military intervention. In this case, the total number of indirect deaths was at least 15 times higher than direct deaths.

If that higher, empirically-substantiated ratio was applied to the Costs of War direct death figures in Afghanistan since 9/11 (176,000 people), it would imply 2,640,000 indirect deaths in that country to date, which would suggest that in just one country a total of about 2.8 million Afghans have been killed due to the War on Terror.

This scale of violence has been corroborated by one other assessment of avoidable mortality in Afghanistan by retired La Trobe University biochemist Dr Gideon Polya. His book, Body Count: Global Avoidable Mortality Since 1950, put total excess deaths of Afghans since 2001 at three million.

Dopilsya posted:

1. "the us's drone strikes killed, on average, more than 6 members of each family,"

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/projects/drone-war/afghanistan

Using the high number here, and attributing every death as a civilian reveals that Afghanistan apparently has 1,500 families total?


2. "we out-taliban'd the taliban. and it wasnt even loving close"

According to the UNAMA, anti-government forces are responsible for the majority of civilian casualties; the Taliban alone is responsible for at least a plurality. They may even be responsible for an outright majority on their own, but the UNAMA publishes casualty statistics on year-by-year basis and I haven't done the math to check.

https://unama.unmissions.org/protection-of-civilians-reports

None of this exonerates the U.S.A. from the crimes that it did commit, but the idea that the Taliban are some better actor than the "endless cavalcade of horrors" that are the Americans doesn't seem borne out by any of the information available.

Flayer posted:

The Taliban, a bunch of rag tag peasants armed with Kalashnikovs, managed to "invade" the bane of empires, the unconquerable lands of Afghanistan in about 2 weeks.

Must be because everyone there hates them.

Flayer posted:

The Taliban, a bunch of rag tag peasants armed with Kalashnikovs, managed to "invade" the bane of empires, the unconquerable lands of Afghanistan in about 2 weeks.

Must be because everyone there hates them.

MiddleOne posted:

It doesn't hurt that they already effectively controlled most of the non-major rural/urban areas.

Ron Paul Atreides posted:

e: especially bullshit when you consider we work with tons of hardcore Salafists in the Arab gulf states and our government doesn't give a poo poo about human rights there, gleefully laundering their atrocities.

Orange Devil posted:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/the-other-afghan-women

Zedhe Khoja posted:

The article goes for the most conservative estimate at the end with a corpse-count of 800k. The occupation and subsequent liberation of France cost roughly 500k lives. Current population of Afghanistan is 38 million, WW2 population of France proper was 42 million.
So I agree with Alchenar and Vitalsigns. Comparing the Nazi occupation of France to the American occupation of Afghanistan is rather unfair.

Flayer posted:

If there was a better alternative than the Taliban to American or American backed death squads, then that would be grand. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case. Starting from the extremely awful position of running the risk of being murdered while scratching out a subsistence living, peace and the Taliban must seem like a pretty decent deal for many of the people living in Afghanistan. The Western solution will start and finish with bombs, war and killing and that is the worst case after 20 years of fighting.

Terminal Autist posted:

This analysis ignores the reason the Taliban exist and ignores the reason why Afghanistan was in the state that the Taliban were allowed to reconquer the country in a matter of weeks.

Exporting violence on an industrial scale and brutally occupying a country for decades doesn't exactly produce a culture of poets and artists.

Ron Paul Atreides posted:

they didn't by around 2002 though. Whatever progress was achieved in Kabul it came at the cost of the periphery. if we aren't interested in actually building the whole region, this will be how it ends, and you can rend your garments over the horrors about to be visited on the women of Kabul but it's our fault it went this way and we need to reckon with that. It's out of our hands. All we can do is hope the needs of cooperating with foreign industry for trade will require concessions to the rights of women that the Taliban will be forced to adopt to keep things functioning. Material reality always dictates in the end.

quote:

Dopilsya posted:

This...is a complicated post and one I probably have to mull over more. As for fault, the Taliban did control in 2000. Did the US upset what would naturally happen, was their project just delaying the inevitable for 20 years? Was the invasion the possibility of a cultural revolution that they squandered? These aren't rhetorical questions (or maybe they are, I don't even know any more), but I'm genuinely not sure how to contextualize the results and effects on Afghanistan

Dopilsya posted:

The last section, I would agree with, certainly one can hope that the needs of running the country will drive the Taliban to bargain, but it seems optimistic to say the material reality will dictate when the Taliban as an organisation seems committed to a particular brand of idealism and rejection of materialism that implies they would refuse to be subject to it, and their success on the ground against the ANA would likely harden their resolve in that matter.

Dopilsya posted:

This is, of course, not the most conservative estimate. According to the Associated Press 47,245 civilians were killed in the Afghanistan War. Using the numbers from your article (from 3 to 15 times) a more conservative estimate would be a little under 150,000. There seems to be precedent for using a lower number since Afghanistan's infrastructure prior to the American invasion was notoriously poor (ex.-- infant mortality from 2000 to 2020 was cut nearly in half). This also fails to take into account who is responsible for them-- operations by anti-government forces also displaced people, destroyed infrastructure, etc. I'd also be interested if we have any numbers for what the Taliban inflicted during the Afghan Civil War prior to the American invasion, but I don't have sources on that.
.

Sanguinia posted:

I'm glad I'm actually learning things from these articles, because I'm sure not learning anything from the "Is the US or Taliban worse?" slap fight except that people still have failed to internalize that you do not, in fact, gotta hand it to ANYBODY in this situation.

A big flaming stink posted:

I will, in fact, hand it to the Taliban because at least with them there is a faint hope of improvement

How are u posted:

They just banned girls from school.

A big flaming stink posted:

That is an improvement to the incredible depravity that Afghanistan has been subjected to for the past 2 decades

For example, it beats institutionalized child rape

A big flaming stink posted:

That is an improvement

Aegis posted:

Did the Taliban suddenly change their minds about child marriages or something?

Sanguinia posted:

I'm glad I'm actually learning things from these articles, because I'm sure not learning anything from the "Is the US or Taliban worse?" slap fight except that people still have failed to internalize that you do not, in fact, gotta hand it to ANYBODY in this situation.

-Zydeco- posted:

Sorry if this is the wrong place for this, but I'm trying to assist an Afghan friend get out of the country and need some help with preparing i-131/134/912 forms for them. Is there an org that does legal assistance for afghan refugees?

How are u posted:

I don't see any problem whatsoever with criticizing the Taliban for doing awful things. I criticize the US government for doing awful things as well. I would really prefer that the Taliban not be the organization that they are already showing us they are, but simply wishing that they weren't insane fundamentalists doesn't change the fact that, so far, they are showing us exactly who they are.

Criticism of the Taliban emphatically does not = wishing death and ruin upon the Afghan people. It is ridiculous to assert such.

It is important to remind ourselves who the Taliban are and what they stand for and how they are executing their particular vision for Afghanistan, lest we fall into a weird space where we ignore their flaws merely because they opposed the United States. See: Putin, the CCP, Maduro.

-Zydeco- posted:

Sorry if this is the wrong place for this, but I'm trying to assist an Afghan friend get out of the country and need some help with preparing i-131/134/912 forms for them. Is there an org that does legal assistance for afghan refugees?

Zydeco posted:

Sorry if this is the wrong place for this, but I'm trying to assist an Afghan friend get out of the country and need some help with preparing i-131/134/912 forms for them. Is there an org that does legal assistance for afghan refugees?

Ron Paul Atreides posted:

They did not by 2002. The Taliban was done, Afghanistan belonged to us through our provisional government. But we still went out hunting 'terrorists'. Still trained up death squads, still ran guns and provided guards and support to the opium, pedophile warlords in the north. We were in control and the people were, if not enthusiastic, ambivalent about our role in replacing the group that had only just secured the victory in the civil war barely 5 years earlier.

We squandered that moment. We pivoted to Iraq, kept the occupation going at a low boil in whatever way helped us launder tax dollars to military contractor accounts, and turned the whole of the region outside Kabul against us. All of this was self inflicted. The Taliban re-emerged due to our negligent and callous indifference to the region. We were never serious about creating something, we never had a plan for anything like that.

Being a materialist means rejecting the idea that things are shape by idealism or belief. I've listed the outcomes possible; either they concede to material requirements for foreign trade or the state apparatus will collapse as the economy starves, with internal splits creating a new civil war. My bet is 20 years of occupation and pressure from every outside group, including Pakistan who has the most influence, will win out over even their most fervent beliefs.

Zedhe Khoja posted:

Your a stupid loving wretch who used Wikipedia as your source to make excuses for mass slaughter.
e: Before one of the oafs who mods this place comes, the 3-15 doesn't multiply from only the civilian deaths (as determined by coalition forces). It's just deaths.

Up to 6 Million... posted:

"According to a landmark report by the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development – signed by 113 governments – in “the majority of conflicts since the early 1990s, for which good data is available, the burden of indirect deaths was between three and 15 times the number of direct deaths”.

The report found that, due to the impact of conflicts on public services and infrastructure, vastly greater numbers of people end up dying indirectly from the consequences of violence compared to the number that die directly from conflict. "

Zedhe Khoja posted:

Your a stupid loving wretch