September 5, 2021
"With the aid-dependent country’s economy in free-fall — nearly 80 percent of the previous government’s budget came from foreign aid that has been cut off..."
"... the United Nations has convened a 'high-level ministerial humanitarian meeting' in Geneva on Sept. 13 to appeal for aid. Nearly half the country is 'malnourished,' said the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan, Ramiz Alakbarov. Nearly half of all children under the age of 5 are predicted to be acutely malnourished in the next 12 months, the U.N. said.
Still, there were signs of a creeping return to a kind of normality, as domestic flights resumed and the U.N.’s humanitarian flights restarted. Two cash transfer agencies, Western Union and MoneyGram, reopened for business, a vital step for a country with a large diaspora."
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42 comments:
Ah, “diplomacy.”
USA now will be able to choose sides in another civil war and will play off the sides as part of own political grifting in DC
Don't worry.
It is really the women in the US that are oppressed.
The patriarchy.
And stuff.
"the aid-dependent country’s economy in free-fall"
Let Allah provide.
This sounds like the world returning to normal.
Cynical, yes. But true.
What an interesting excerpt to choose, with that headline and subhead. I like the juxtaposition. And I would have expected the opposite, from the NYT: "things are looking up" headline, awful buried lede.
IF we are Truly Worried about Climate Change...
Don't we HAVE TO be Worried about Population Growth?
And If we ARE worried about Population Growth... Don't We HAVE TO DO the Kind Thing;
And STOP giving food to areas that are breeding like rabbits? (Palastine. Afghanistan, etc)
I KNOW, it Sounds Cruel, to let them starve; but starving women DON'T Menstrate
Sometimes, You Have to be Cruel to Be Kind
in Ireland: Potatoes led to Overpopulation, overpopulation led to over culitvation of potatoes, over cultivation led to potato blight, which led to FAMINE
Meanwhile, up in Scotland: people were ALWAYS starving (too cold for potatoes), so they NEVER got overpopulated, and thus; Never had a famine (They were too hungry to menstrate)
It's NOT Lack of food, that causes Famine... It's Overpopulation that causes famine
And it's GIVING PEOPLE FOOD that causes Overpopulation
[this message brought to you by centuries of Scots people, who are Sick of hearing about "Famine"]
Potemkin Joe will give inept corrupt general Milley a raise. plus some insider bonus cash from the chi coms.
I never—and I mean never, ever—want to hear that a country we've invaded and occupied is "stable" and "ready for us to withdraw" if it depends on foreign aid for 80% of its economy.
Considering all the arms and ammunition and equipment the Biden administration and its generals left behind for the Taliban, I find it hard to predict success for the “anti-Taliban rebels in the north.”
Ann Althouse wrote, "Nearly half the country is 'malnourished,' said the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan, Ramiz Alakbarov. Nearly half of all children under the age of 5 are predicted to be acutely malnourished in the next 12 months, the U.N. said."
From The World Bank May 6, 2018...
Unlocking the Potential of Agriculture for Afghanistan’s Growth
Agriculture has traditionally dominated Afghanistan’s economy and contributed for a large part to its growth. About 70 percent of Afghans live and work in rural areas, mostly on farms, and 61 percent of all households derive income from agriculture.
Despite a decline in its share of Afghanistan’s overall economy, the sector still employs 40 percent of the total work force, and more than half of Afghans living in rural areas contribute to agriculture.
With the right mix of policies and investments, the agriculture sector can drive down poverty and boost sustained growth in Afghanistan through jobs, better productivity, and inclusiveness.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/afghanistan/publication/unlocking-potential-of-agriculture-for-afghanistan-growth
I'm sure the taliban will be providing that right mix of policies and investments.
I suspect that selling off all of the US military equipment abandoned by the Afghan National Army could help the Taliban Government get through their impending cash crunch: perhaps sell it back to the US for 5-10 times the book value in order to keep it out of ISIS-K and Al-Qaeda's hands.
Win-win for everyone!
Massoud senior, held off most of the Soviet 40th army till the bulk of the aid arrived, bin laden just took the credit,
@gilbar: "in Ireland: Potatoes led to Overpopulation, overpopulation led to over culitvation of potatoes, over cultivation led to potato blight, which led to FAMINE"
Seriously?
Of course, foreign aid will just strengthen the anti-woman, anti-gay government
@MalaiseLongue
I believe gilbar is simply making a "modest proposal".
I am somewhat surprised the Lincoln Project and The Bulwark lads, perhaps assisted by The Dispatch losers who have plenty of free time, havent mounted a strong effort to establish a young male "mentoring" program in Afghanistan......where the boys could receive proper nutrition and..."training".
The primary cash crop of Afghanistan is opium poppies. They don’t need aid. They need a more equitable distribution of the profits from the heroin trade.
"It's NOT Lack of food, that causes Famine... It's Overpopulation that causes famine
And it's GIVING PEOPLE FOOD that causes Overpopulation."
Maybe if they converted some of the acreage they devote to growing opium poppies to growing wheat and corn, just maybe there would be enough food to go around. Just a thought.
gilbar, are you seriously arguing that you can't grow potatoes where it's cold? May I remind you that the top potato-growing state in the US is . . . Idaho? I mean, if you're a Scot and are tired about hearing about the Irish potato famine, fine, I guess, but don't blame the weather.
Also, the word you are looking for is "menstruate." And you have to be in famine already to stop menstruating, which makes your "Let's starve 'em all out" line of reasoning all the more obnoxious.
seriously, look at the population of ireland; prepotato and post potato
western food Changed the world, and caused the first population explosion
Freedom cannot be given...prosperity cannot be bestowed.
Whatever happened to 'Teach a man to fish...'?
Chris Lopes said... I believe gilbar is simply making a "modest proposal".
I just get so sick and tired, of seeing all that good meat, going to waste
Well, potatoes, and herring, were the standard diet of Scotland also:
“ Your hardworking Scotsman’s gone crazy I fear
Each day ye maun hae your bit beef and your beer
But ye dinna ken though you’re maybe no’ carin’
Your natural food is tatties and herrin’
Tatties and herrin’, tatties and herrin’
Your natural food is tatties and herrin.”
The Highland Potato Famine (Scottish Gaelic: Gaiseadh a' bhuntàta) was a period of 19th-century Highland and Scottish history (1846 to roughly 1856) over which the agricultural communities of the Hebrides and the western Scottish Highlands (Gàidhealtachd) saw their potato crop (upon which they had become over-reliant) repeatedly devastated by potato blight. It was part of the wider food crisis facing Northern Europe caused by potato blight during the mid-1840s, whose most famous manifestation is the Great Irish Famine, but compared with its Irish counterpart, it was much less extensive (the population seriously at risk was never more than 200,000 – and often much less[1]:307) and took many fewer lives as prompt and major charitable efforts by the rest of the United Kingdom ensured relatively little starvation. The terms on which charitable relief was given, however, led to destitution and malnutrition amongst its recipients. A government enquiry could suggest no short-term solution other than reduction of the population of the area at risk by emigration to Canada or Australia. Highland landlords organised and paid for the emigration of more than 16,000 of their tenants and a significant but unknown number paid for their own passage. Evidence suggests that the majority of Highlanders who permanently left the famine-struck regions emigrated, rather than moving to other parts of Scotland.[2]:197-210 It is estimated that about a third of the population of the western Scottish Highlands emigrated between 1841 and 1861.” Wikipedia,
The highland clearances made Scott landowners wealthy by facilitating centralized stock production.
Guess he’s just a spudboy
Looking for that real tomato 🍅
“In this post-potato world…”
Congresscritter McCaul said today we have six planes full of Americans at Maz Al-Sharif being held hostage by the Taliban. Right now. Zero Americans have left Afghanistan since Joe slammed the door shut.
" never—and I mean never, ever—want to hear that a country we've invaded and occupied is "stable" and "ready for us to withdraw" if it depends on foreign aid for 80% of its economy."
I made a quick scan of the headline, read that '80 percent of the government's budget' and assumed we'd be talking about the United States. Between the 4 trillion 'infrastructure' and the covid 'aid' the US gets us short of but close...
What percent of the previous government's budget was used to enrich corrupt officials and their families (or awarded to Western contractors with their own graft issues)? How much of the previous government's spending had any impact on the average rural Afghan family?
We need to keep a list of every group and / or individual who speaks in favor of giving any sort of aid to the Taliban.
Whenever possible, we must work to destroy anyone on a anything on that list.
And yes, any aid to any part of Afghanistan that is not in open and violent revolt against the Taliban is "aid to the Taliban"
"Seriously?"
You don't get PBS or the History channels where you live?
Michelle, I am pretty sure gilbar was writing that tongue in cheek.
If I had a tater
I'd wake up all my neighbors
Pounding out a rhythm
All about you
"Whatever happened to 'Teach a man to fish...'?"
Give a man to fish, he'll have food for a day.
Teach a man to fish, he'll sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
We don't want to be encouraging obesity over there.
we've had a war going on in afghanistan for 20 years. How many people have been maimed and killed, 100,000? 500,000? we know 2,300 American soldiers were killed. we now have peace. But a few feminists were hit with rifle butts.
Wow, just wow. That is sad.
BTW, how are the trans/Gays doing in Kabul? I'm sure the NYT will tell us. Over and OVer again in the next few months. Taliban takes, over. Gays and Women hardest hit.
we've had a war going on in afghanistan for 20 years. How many people have been maimed and killed, 100,000? 500,000? we know 2,300 American soldiers were killed. we now have peace. But a few feminists were hit with rifle butts.
Wow, just wow. That is sad.
BTW, how are the trans/Gays doing in Kabul? I'm sure the NYT will tell us. Over and OVer again in the next few months. Taliban takes, over. Gays and Women hardest hit.
Chris Lopes and Yancey Ward, OK. To me it still seems a tad detailed for the Swiftian vibe, but I think Yancey at least knows gilbar better than I.
Teach a man to fish, he'll sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
Sharia law prescribes 40 lashes on the bare back for drinking alcoholic beverages. That has no doubt impeded our ability to teach Afghans how to fish properly.
I, for one, look forward to and lament the next episode in Afghanistan history, wherein China make memories of the Soviets and the Americans seem like the effing Peace Corps paid the place a visit to drop off boxes of lollipops. God help the locals when the Chinese are let in by Biden, because China knows how to replace everyone there with a few tens of millions of good communist Chinese. The Taliban will find that Pakistan is loyal to the Chinese, not sharia, just before they also determine that the Chinese don't try to avoid civilian casualties while eliminating enemies of the CCP. At best, a country of reeducation camps for locals and immigrant Chinese everywhere. At worst, a country of immigrant Chinese only.
send money, which will then be stolen.
The last president left with 160 million dollars, so why not confiscate his money?
Or sell a couple of abandoned US helicopters etc. to raise money.
And maybe those American trucks and humvees could deliver aid to the starving villagers.
Ah, but who has the education to do the logistics to get aid where it is needed, or merely to keep the water supply running so you don't get a cholera outbreak?
It's not money they need, it's expertise to do things. But outsiders won't go if it's not safe, and locals who are educated and could actually do the job will flee or be killed.
Paul Snively said...
I never—and I mean never, ever—want to hear that a country we've invaded and occupied is "stable" and "ready for us to withdraw" if it depends on foreign aid for 80% of its economy.
----
but USA depends on more for its own economy
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