Bulletins and News Discussion from August 14th to August 20th, 2023 - America's War On Pipelines

Ultimately these sorts of governments are very extreme when they first start out, but mellow as they come to grips that a large part of the population is discontent with moralistic politics and want actual material changes. The country is under rather severe sanctions that are causing famines in many parts, I expect them to mellow out a lot of their policies and cozy up to China, because thats really their only option for stabilizing their position. China seems to be very open to this idea.

I'm trans so obviously I don't support them as an individual. To be frank, I think if I visited as a Czech citizen nothing bad would happen to me there and would be safer than many places for a visitor, but that doesn't mean it'd be great to live there and obviously my Afghan trans siblings will not be doing so hot even though there are certain allowances for transness under Islamic law. Things could be worse though, like being under US occupation or ruled by Al-qaeda or something.

Casual reminder that Afghanistan used to be communist until the USA killed many of them. They still have a decently sized socialist movement that, afaik, has no quarrel with the Taliban at this moment. Maybe that issue will be pressed later, but I doubt it.

Nobody likes the reactionary, misogynistic and homophobic Taliban movement and I'm sure everybody here wish something much better for the Afghan people. However, we live in the real world and not in the fairytale world of nicely aligned black and white ideals. The alternative to the Taliban is not fully automated luxury gay space communism but an American puppet government of unfathomably corrup compradors.

The Taliban are horrible but they've done things that are objectively good, like bringing law and order, stopping the opium trade, reining the warlords in and ending the foreign occupation. All of these are things the US puppet government failed miserably at.

In a wider geopolitical context the Taliban victory over the US empire has weakened the imperialists and helped make more breathing space for the global south to seek independence. This too is an objectively good development as US imperialism remains one of the largest impediments to socialism and global development.

I'm not denying that these things comes with a heavy price that the Afghan people are paying. But even if you reckon that Taliban rule is as bad or worse than US rule, you have to assess reactions to the Taliban by their material consequences rather than by what feeling the abstract idealism of a reaction gives you in your tummy. The current western policy towards Afghanistan is outright criminal and borderline genocidal. Sanctions never ever work. They didn't work against Cuba, China, Korea, Vietnam, the USSR, Venezuela, Iraq, Afghanistan in the 1990's or Russia and they're not going to work now. What they are already doing to Afghanistan is creating famine and suffering for Afghan people whose only crime was being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Taliban might be the worst regime in the world but isolating them, stealing their money, blockading them and funding terrorist groups inside the country is only going to hurt the average Afghan even more.

I wouldn’t go that far because they’re fucking awful but I would say that we can’t impose feminism or gay rights by military force and that’s not what we were doing in Afghanistan anyway, aside from some photo-ops in Kabul.

I’d also say critical support to the Taliban for ending the opium crop and ending the practice of pederasty among the elite. They also seem to be good at fighting corruption.

They’re fucking awful to women and I can’t even imagine what being gay in Afghanistan would be like, just awful. But that doesn’t justify the invasion at all because the invasion wasn’t able to reform that and in fact it wasn’t even trying anyway so pointing to the horrendous treatment of women and LGBT+ is liberal idealism that should be ignored.

So critical support to the Taliban for keeping the west out of their society and now that they’ve achieved that goal I hope they fucking die.

Not really, no. But it would have been really fucking cool if the US hadn't intervened in their affiars and supported reactionaries who dismantled the incredibly progressive home-grown, communist-led government that had liberated women and built infrastructure and housing. The Taliban is a direct result of US intervention in Afghanistan, as is Afghanistan's subsequent historical trajectory. The Taliban offered up Osama Bin Laden in order to avoid an invasion, but the US said "no" ... All that blood and suffering and the US couldn't manage to build a political institution that could withstand the Taliban. The blood is entirely on the US governments hands since 1979, so I would say that they are definitely the bad guys in this scenario, even if the Taliban suck... way more innocent people have been killed and had their lives ruined by the US than the Taliban as far as I can tell.

Probably the closest you will find is a bunch of people (including yours truly) who commented during the very brief takeover period in 2021 that was genuinely incredible that the US had managed to create 0 effective government after propping up a puppet for 20 years. People were looking at it like with a certain level of schadenfreude and bemoaning the fact that the entire occupation was for naught, except allowing local opium growers time to export their goods to the big pharmaceutical companies, which probably helped cause the opiod crises that is ravaging poor, rural areas.

Afghanistan has the right to nationally self-determin their own course independent from American interference.

If the U.S never interfered in the first place, its likely that the goddamn taliban wouldn't have been in power in the first place and the Communists - who did everything the Americans cry about the taliban not doing - would've helped create a quality of life for the people of Afghanistan that they can only dream of now under the yoke of the american-created Islamic fundamentalist republic.

Hopefully now that the Adghani people have their first respite in the literal decades since America plunged their lands into hell, they can now start sorting themselves out and head back onto the correct path towards the Red sunrise of a better tomorrow.

I definitely don’t support the taliban, but they are at this point the legitimate government. I think we should return the money we’ve stolen from Afghanistan and drop sanctions as that only hurts the most vulnerable people.

I don't support the Taliban, no, I'm okay with their anti-US stance. There's a big difference between uncritically supporting everything a group does and understanding one thing they do.

I thought the blog posts with the Taliban guy whining about the boring life of an office drone were funny as hell, idk if that counts

EDIT: also as others have pointed out, we need to give their money back, people are starving over there.

China’s Position on the Afghan Issue

The Afghan/Taliban issue isn't just imperialism and resisting the US, as the Chinese note in their policy. Nobody in the real world is simply making decision based on "do you hate the US yes or no?". There are a number of relevant real world issues that come into consideration when "supporting" or even just dealing with a country/government.

Afghanistan's situation is a regional problem that affects others to the extent it should be in the self interest of the whole region to cooperate with and help them.

But as the Chinese also note, this isn't just naive selfless help, it is targeted and principled, they do have an interest in seeing Afghanistan develop into a somewhat more economically and socially stable country as this solves the US interference/imperialism problem, it means international trade through land routes uncontested by US+vassals and perhaps most importantly helps maintain strong incentives for the Taliban to continue to fight against other Islamic terrorists(ETIM).

#1- China will not interfere directly as its against their principle. Of course non-interference doesn't mean selflessness, of course they have their vision on what path would be best according to what they consider regional "stability".

#3

3.Supporting peace and reconstruction of Afghanistan. China will continue to do its best to help Afghanistan with reconstruction and development, make plans with Afghanistan and fulfill its assistance pledges, promote steady progress in economic, trade and investment cooperation, and actively carry out cooperation in such fields as medical care, poverty alleviation, agriculture, and disaster prevention and mitigation, so as to help Afghanistan realize independent and sustainable development at an early date. China welcomes Afghanistan’s participation in Belt and Road cooperation and supports Afghanistan’s integration into regional economic cooperation and connectivity that will transform Afghanistan from a “land-locked country” to a “land-linked country”.

#4- China is particularly concerned about Afghanistan because it was historically a base for ETIM terrorists who are now used as geopolitical pawns by the US to misrepresent China's crackdown on Xinjiang. ETIM was also present in other countries e.g Syria. It is important to support the Afghan government and pushing them to crack down on ETIM.

#7

The US should draw lessons from what happened in Afghanistan, face squarely the grave humanitarian, economic and security risks and challenges in Afghanistan, immediately lift its sanctions, return the Afghan overseas assets, and deliver its pledged humanitarian aid to meet the emergency needs of the Afghan people.

As you should note this isn't stated with some *terms and conditions apply: as long as its a government we like. The Chinese say this unequivocally and if the Taliban is in charge right now then so be it.

#8

To help Afghanistan achieve sustained peace and stability, relevant countries should not attempt to re-deploy military facilities in Afghanistan and its neighborhood, practice double standards on counter-terrorism, or advance their geopolitical agenda by supporting or conniving at terrorism.

I think this should be obvious but no special "bargaining" e.g "we will help you, if you let us build another base"

#9 China doesn't want to dictate(certainly at least not give the impression) these "terms" alone, which is why they want to bring all the relevant regional powers into this discussion.

I don’t support the taliban nor US imperialism. I think it’s good that Afghanistan is no longer is the US’ hands, but now I hope normal citizens can resist the taliban without intervention

No, but a majority of libs on lemmy do support the Islamist separatist party of Xinjiang, despite the fact the Taliban has backed them since 2007

You mean those mujahideen that the US propped up to fight a proxy war against the Soviets, and then didn’t turn out to be reliable allies? To quote Trump, “we’re going to win so much, you’ll be so sick and tired of winning”

I don't support the taliban, I just hate America

I'd say I support them over US imperialism but Id also choose to have my poop on my hands over a strangers poop on my hands.

?

What do you mean by "support" exactly?

I hate amerikkka so much. Not a fan of taliban.

Look, I'm not saying a million of the most right wing Afghans should be liquidated, but the world has never seen a properly leftist Jakarta method

i'm not straight, so no