{"id":219293,"date":"2022-09-12T12:01:02","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T11:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=219293"},"modified":"2022-09-09T09:24:11","modified_gmt":"2022-09-09T08:24:11","slug":"afghanistan-a-hidden-trophy-worth-more-than-a-trillion-dollars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/09\/afghanistan-a-hidden-trophy-worth-more-than-a-trillion-dollars\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan: A Hidden Trophy Worth more than a Trillion Dollars"},"content":{"rendered":"

6 Sep 2022 – <\/em>Both the mainstream media, the international bodies and the human rights defenders continue to rightly denounce the Taliban\u2019s inhuman abuses against the Afghan people\u2019s basic rights, in particular those of women and girls..<\/p>\n

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\"How<\/p>\n

Over one year after the Taliban takeover, an estimated 24.4 million people \u2013 59 per cent of the population in Afghanistan \u2013 are dependent on international aid and emergency relief in their day-to-day lives. Credit: UNAMA\/Fraidoon Poya<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In doing so, they use a similar vocabulary, saying that since the Taliban \u201cseized the power\u201d on 15 August 2021 everything has collapsed. Shouldn\u2019t it be more accurate to say that the power was \u201cknowingly\u201d \u201cdelivered\u201d to them by the United States following negotiations between the two parties under Donald Trump\u2019s administration?<\/p>\n

Other statements talk about how the Taliban\u2019s regime has in just a few months erased with a stroke of a pen all the \u201cgreat achievements\u201d made over 20 years of US and allies\u2019 massive military attacks on Afghanistan\u2019s unarmed population.<\/p>\n

Has all this happened in just 12 months?<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

How come that the Taliban managed in just a few weeks to push Afghanistan\u2019s economy into \u201cfree fall\u201d as defined by the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, <\/b>already in December 2021?<\/p>\n

How come that in such a relatively short time the Taliban have hurled into hunger as many as 23 million people \u2013 around 60% of the total population?<\/p>\n

Have they in one year pushed over 6 million Afghans away to neighbouring countries like Pakistan and Iran?<\/p>\n

Then, how come that \u201cOver one year after the Taliban takeover, an estimated 24.4 million people \u2013 59 per cent of the population in Afghanistan \u2013 are dependent on international aid and emergency relief in their day-to-day lives,\u201d as stated<\/a> by the International Organization for Migration (IOM<\/a>)?<\/p>\n

\u201cSince August 2021, nearly all Afghans have plunged into poverty and the country has been facing the risk of systemic collapse,\u201d states IOM.<\/p>\n

Add to this the reiterated UN disparate appeals for funding to provide \u201clifesaving\u201d assistance to 21 million Afghans or 50% of the whole population.<\/p>\n

By the way: weren\u2019t the United States who helped, funded \u2013and armed\u2013 the Taliban \u201cmoderate\u201d predecessors, over the 70s and 80s, to expel the Soviet Union\u2019s troops from Afghanistan?<\/p>\n

Weren\u2019t the US and allies aware that the \u201cnarco lords\u201d in Afghanistan, the world\u2019s largest opium producer, have also been providing money and weapons to the Taliban in exchange for protection?<\/p>\n

Operation \u201cEnduring Freedom\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

Whatever the case is, the Afghan war narrative should also remind us of other \u201cgreat achievements\u201d made during the two-decade-long \u201cEnduring Freedom\u201d operation launched against this country by the then US president George W. Bush and allies.<\/p>\n

Has this Operation Enduring Freedom really brought food, health, education, safety, democracy, stability\u2026 and freedom?<\/p>\n

Regardless of the arguments used to \u201cjustify\u201d them, wars are also a \u201cgood\u201d business.<\/p>\n

Indeed new weapons have been tested; killing-drones perfected, troops casualties lessened; fully-equipped private armies made big profits as did the giant weapons industry. And the strategic concept of \u201cwar on terror\u201d has definitely been settled.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hidden and under-reported<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

Anyway, there seem to be other under-reported \u201cgreat achievements.\u201d One of them appears to be Afghanistan\u2019s treasure of precious mineral resources that the technology and war business needs.<\/p>\n

Just see this: the 2019 official report: Mining Sector Roadmap<\/a>, published by Afghanistan\u2019s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum [PDF<\/a>], and introduced by the then Afghan president Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, states the following, among other facts:<\/p>\n