Powerful piece from Biko.
Reminds me of my developing thoughts.
What have the Taliban got to offer the average Afghan in terms of quality of life?
That is the question.
Not claims of adherence to religious codes.
Whatever our faith, some fundamentals are needed for quality of human life. If you can't build that, your religion could become a trap.
I see Europe and North America as the most successful polities in moving beyond the trap religion often becomes and caring for their people, in spite of their imperfections.
The example of Islamic societies is uneven in this regard and without the freedom from religious constraints won by Western thinkers enabling the Scientific Revolution I'm not able to understand how any people can develop themselves into a knowledge powerhouse, the enduring core of Western global doniance in technology and it's relationship to weapons construction, other technologies and wealth creation.
Without liberalised economies that inspire innovation and wealth creation I can't see how anyone can approximate Western leadership in information technology and other sectors.
Whatever Asia is doing today in technology all comes from Western innovations.
In the past 300 years has any other body of people's advanced human knowledge, human control of nature, human comfort, human creativity, as much as the West?
Yes, they have been criminals, thieves, slavers, manipulators, colonialists, destroyers of civilisations and remain neo-colonialists while racist nationalism grows within their borders, but the complete scope of their contrbution to human well being, in terms of models of how to live with dignity and self fulfillment as a human being remain unequalled.
Anyone who claims to have a better blueprint has to prove it.
Claims of divine revelation, the core of claims of Islamic supremacy in social management can't replace lived reality in people's lives.
Thanks
Toyin
On Wed, Aug 18, 2021, 01:12 bikozino via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Note taken. Let them make an exception for marijuana then since it has never hurt a fly and doctors recommend it to the sick.But even with opium, the war on drugs and the war in Afghanistan allowed the trade to boom. True that opioids killed 95,000 in the US last year and half a million in the past ten years but because it is profitable, there is no war on the manufacturers. Rather, they are allowed to negotiate chicken feed fines and escape with the loot just like big tobacco and legal moonshiners for tax revenues.Education works better to reduce harm than prohibition. Peace and love work better than war. Health care for all.I support Biden pulling out as fast as he could to escape being trapped in a pyrrhic defeat at huge costs. The transition to the Taliban is proving more peaceful than the transition from Trump. If Trump supporters want to continue fighting against the Taliban, let them go and volunteer for the opposing war lord's over there. Let the Taliban surprise their people by pursuing development instead of militarism.Biko--On Aug 17, 2021 6:42 PM, "'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:--Note that legalizing drugswould be interpreted as legalizing the poppyand heroin .That is a slippery slope. Opiod Crisisfrom Afghan poppies and US pharmaceuticalsis devastating enough.
Trump definitely bungled things and maybe responsible for the demoralization of theAfghan army and the swift victory of the Taliban.
Good reminder that Obama/Bidenwanted out. Where Biden went wrongis in the flat footed response.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2021 4:48 PM
To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Obama's Afghan Exit StrategyPlease be cautious: **External Email**
--It was Obama's idea to get out of Afghanistan as far back as 2010, even without a victory. He did not like the idea of fighting to protect corrupt politicians who did not have the guts to fight their own civil war. Bob Woodward wrote in Obama's War that the policy should have been to construct a Jeffersonian style democracy (as if Jefferson who enslaved hundreds and raped enslaved children was such a good role model for democracy) but Obama insisted that it was up to the Afghans what sort of polity that they wanted to build, so long as they did not harbor terrorists or threaten human rights. If they choose to build a more perfect union, the US will be there to assist them and if they allow any group to threaten the US from their soil, the can count on being punished again, collateral damages and all.
US generals told Obama to follow their recommendation to remain because they were the ones on the ground. Obama told them that he was the Commander In Chief and that he was giving them the direct order to find an exit strategy. Although he agreed to their recommendation for more resources by sending 30,000 more troops in the surge of 2009 to bring the troop levels to nearly 100,000, he made it clear that it was a temporary measure to accomplish the goal getting Osama and getting out. He got his man in 2011 and immediately started rapid draw down of troops.
Trump came in and said that it was a mistake to leave quickly. He wanted to stay on and 'kill terrorists'. But he ended up negotiating with the Taliban for a time-table to withdraw US troops within a year. Biden delayed Trump's arbitrary deadline by 3 months to see if the Afghans would come to a negotiated settlement on their own but their corrupt government bragged that they preferred to fight on. Biden is wrong in suggesting that getting out of there is the Trump policy, it was set by the Obama-Biden administration. It was bungled by Trump who may have demoralized Afghan troops by negotiating with the Taliban without inviting Afghan government officials.
It is to the credit of the US that thousands are scrambling into the military cargo plane crammed like a slave ship to escape their own country. It is true that hundreds of thousands more will prefer to move to the US than live under the Taliban. Afghans can help to change that Stockholm syndrome by guaranteeing the rights of women and children to go to school. Obama already increased school enrollment by girls and brought women into the traditional ruling councils called Jirgas (reported by Wardak and Braithwaite in a two-part article in the British Journal of Criminology in 2013). Afghans should consider having a co-equal bicameral legislature with a House of Men and a House of Women and they should enforce gender parity in all offices provided that their is mass literacy. Abolish capital punishment too.
After 20 years of conquest and occupation, the average years of schooling remained 3.9 years and that is the shame of US occupation. If 26% of the trillions of dollars spent in Afghanistan had gone to education, as recommended by UNESCO for all countries, the country would have 100% literacy today. If all that money was spent at home on education, all the student loan debts of US students would have been paid off with some change to provide for publicly funded education at all levels and healthcare for all. The Biden-Harris administration should pursue bold policy initiatives with the savings from wars of choice that should be rightfully ended.
It was reported that the Taliban made much of their war revenues through the drugs trade. They should now join states in the US by legalizing marijuana because it is known to be medicinal and therefore should not be forbidden as Haram. Legalization of marijuana will bring in wealth and employment opportunities for many families as they recover from the war and the government can tax their profits.
Biden-Harris should lead the world by example from home by ending the war on drugs so that educators and healthcare providers can use harm-reduction instead of punishment to deal with the public health issues of drug use. End the war against the people in the guise of the war on drugs worldwide, says the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Biko
Bob Woodward book details Obama battles with advisers over exit plan for...
President Obama urgently looked for a way out of the war in Afghanistan last year, repeatedly pressing his top m...
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