"This week marked a year since the Taliban took the Afghan capital of Kabul after the United States completed its military withdrawal following nearly two decades of war. News from Afghanistan further illuminates America’s failed attempt at nation building.

Marking the anniversary, large numbers of Taliban jihadi militants shouted “Victory” and “Freedom” throughout Kabul, celebrating the Taliban’s return to power after two decades of war against the U.S. and the government it created. But Taliban militants weren’t alone in Monday’s celebrations. As the Washington Post reported, families piled in cars drove through the streets, honking their horns as individuals hung outside their vehicles to photograph the celebrations. Other bystanders recited various Āyah from the Quran.

Muhammad Zubair Shahab, a 22-year-old Taliban fighter who helped the jihadist group force its way into Kabul last August, told the Washington Post, “for us, this is a day of liberation.”

“By the grace of God in a single year, we have brought security to Kabul and eliminated corruption,” said the young Taliban fighter, who was just an infant when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001.

Afghanistan’s security position and economy nevertheless remain on precarious footing.
....
When the U.S. military left, billions of Western development dollars went with it. Though these development schemes were rife with corruption, they undeniably injected billions of dollars into the Afghan economy. And once the Taliban took control of Kabul, continued Western sanctions on Taliban leaders and the freezing of the country’s foreign-currency reserves only compounded the nation’s economic woes. Add on top of that a severe drought and global supply shocks arising from events like the Ukraine war, and you get a country in which nearly half of its population is suffering from acute food insecurity.

But the country’s compounding predicaments haven’t deterred Taliban fighters like Shahab or caused notable concern within Taliban ranks about its leadership's capacity to rule the country.

“When you are liberated, you must endure hardship,” Shahab told the Washington Post of the country’s current economic situation. Regardless, “the invaders were never going to improve the economy,” Shahab asserted. “They were just here for their own interests... We are here for the Afghan people.”

There’s plenty of reason to doubt that the Taliban are acting fully in service of the Afghan people. The regime rules with an iron fist based on the group’s interpretation of Islamic law. But, reflecting on the United States’s record in Afghanistan, it is hard to say that Shahab is completely off-base when it comes to the United States’ impact on the Afghan economy.

For example...
The prevalence of opium poppy during America’s two-decade stay in Afghanistan had disastrous effects on not only Afghan society, with soaring substance-abuse levels and the rise of a brutal drug trade, but rippled beyond the nation's borders. A United Nations report from 2009 stated it plainly:

In NATO countries, the number of people who die of heroin overdoses every year (more than 10,000) is five times higher than the total number of NATO troops that have been killed in Afghanistan in the past eight years."
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-year-of-the-taliban/

On Sunday, August 21, 2022 at 11:39:50 PM UTC-4, David P. wrote:
> ltlee1 wrote:
> > When the U.S. military left, billions of Western development dollars went with it.
> ------------
> It's very difficult to police the world. Maybe China can try it.

And very expensive.
As far as I can tell, China has no interest to police the world. In addition, it is
not rich enough.

At the same time, does the world really need any self elected police?
What about intention? Does the world police intend to benefit the world or for
selfish reason?
The US spent trillion of dollars in Afghanistan, yet it failed to convince the
people on its good intention and/or capability.

> ------------------
> > In NATO countries, the number of people who die of heroin overdoses every year (more than 10,000)
> > is 5 times higher than the total number of NATO troops that have been killed in Afghanistan in the past 8 years."
> -------------
> There ain't no equality in Nature, and there doesn't need to be!
> If there needed to be, then God would have made it that way!

"There ain't X in Nature, and there doesn't need to be!
If there needed to be, then God would have made it that way "
is a commonly employed sentential frame. But not all X
is equally meaningful.

Pertaining to this thread, X = world police, NATO, and etc are
more meaningful than equality.

Anyway, with US as leader of NATO nations in Afghanistan allowing
poppy cultivation, do they still need enemies?

On Monday, August 22, 2022 at 11:39:50 AM UTC+8, David P. wrote:
> ltlee1 wrote:
> > When the U.S. military left, billions of Western development dollars went with it.
> ------------
> It's very difficult to police the world. Maybe China can try it.
> ------------------
> > In NATO countries, the number of people who die of heroin overdoses every year (more than 10,000)
> > is 5 times higher than the total number of NATO troops that have been killed in Afghanistan in the past 8 years."
> -------------
> There ain't no equality in Nature, and there doesn't need to be!
> If there needed to be, then God would have made it that way!
> ---
> --

China is not interested in the affairs of other countries. But China is willing to help in solving their economic infrastructural needs.

On Monday, August 22, 2022 at 2:28:43 AM UTC+8, ltlee1 wrote:
> "This week marked a year since the Taliban took the Afghan capital of Kabul after the United States completed its military withdrawal following nearly two decades of war. News from Afghanistan further illuminates America’s failed attempt at nation building.
>
> Marking the anniversary, large numbers of Taliban jihadi militants shouted “Victory” and “Freedom” throughout Kabul, celebrating the Taliban’s return to power after two decades of war against the U.S. and the government it created. But Taliban militants weren’t alone in Monday’s celebrations. As the Washington Post reported, families piled in cars drove through the streets, honking their horns as individuals hung outside their vehicles to photograph the celebrations. Other bystanders recited various Āyah from the Quran.
>
> Muhammad Zubair Shahab, a 22-year-old Taliban fighter who helped the jihadist group force its way into Kabul last August, told the Washington Post, “for us, this is a day of liberation.”
>
> “By the grace of God in a single year, we have brought security to Kabul and eliminated corruption,” said the young Taliban fighter, who was just an infant when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001.
>
> Afghanistan’s security position and economy nevertheless remain on precarious footing.
> ...
> When the U.S. military left, billions of Western development dollars went with it. Though these development schemes were rife with corruption, they undeniably injected billions of dollars into the Afghan economy. And once the Taliban took control of Kabul, continued Western sanctions on Taliban leaders and the freezing of the country’s foreign-currency reserves only compounded the nation’s economic woes. Add on top of that a severe drought and global supply shocks arising from events like the Ukraine war, and you get a country in which nearly half of its population is suffering from acute food insecurity.
>
> But the country’s compounding predicaments haven’t deterred Taliban fighters like Shahab or caused notable concern within Taliban ranks about its leadership's capacity to rule the country.
>
> “When you are liberated, you must endure hardship,” Shahab told the Washington Post of the country’s current economic situation. Regardless, “the invaders were never going to improve the economy,” Shahab asserted. “They were just here for their own interests... We are here for the Afghan people.”
>
> There’s plenty of reason to doubt that the Taliban are acting fully in service of the Afghan people. The regime rules with an iron fist based on the group’s interpretation of Islamic law. But, reflecting on the United States’s record in Afghanistan, it is hard to say that Shahab is completely off-base when it comes to the United States’ impact on the Afghan economy.
>
> For example...
> The prevalence of opium poppy during America’s two-decade stay in Afghanistan had disastrous effects on not only Afghan society, with soaring substance-abuse levels and the rise of a brutal drug trade, but rippled beyond the nation's borders. A United Nations report from 2009 stated it plainly:
>
> In NATO countries, the number of people who die of heroin overdoses every year (more than 10,000) is five times higher than the total number of NATO troops that have been killed in Afghanistan in the past eight years."
> https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-year-of-the-taliban/

NATO countries in high consumptions of heroin produced from opium fields in Afghanistan. It goes to show that US and NATO presence are not interested in containing the growth of opium poppy fields in Afghanistan. Hence, they should buy more to rebalance their needs from Afghanistan instead.

On Monday, August 22, 2022 at 11:45:30 AM UTC-4, stoney wrote:
> On Monday, August 22, 2022 at 2:28:43 AM UTC+8, ltlee1 wrote:
> > "This week marked a year since the Taliban took the Afghan capital of Kabul after the United States completed its military withdrawal following nearly two decades of war. News from Afghanistan further illuminates America’s failed attempt at nation building.
> >
> > Marking the anniversary, large numbers of Taliban jihadi militants shouted “Victory” and “Freedom” throughout Kabul, celebrating the Taliban’s return to power after two decades of war against the U.S. and the government it created. But Taliban militants weren’t alone in Monday’s celebrations. As the Washington Post reported, families piled in cars drove through the streets, honking their horns as individuals hung outside their vehicles to photograph the celebrations. Other bystanders recited various Āyah from the Quran.
> >
> > Muhammad Zubair Shahab, a 22-year-old Taliban fighter who helped the jihadist group force its way into Kabul last August, told the Washington Post, “for us, this is a day of liberation.”
> >
> > “By the grace of God in a single year, we have brought security to Kabul and eliminated corruption,” said the young Taliban fighter, who was just an infant when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001.
> >
> > Afghanistan’s security position and economy nevertheless remain on precarious footing.
> > ...
> > When the U.S. military left, billions of Western development dollars went with it. Though these development schemes were rife with corruption, they undeniably injected billions of dollars into the Afghan economy. And once the Taliban took control of Kabul, continued Western sanctions on Taliban leaders and the freezing of the country’s foreign-currency reserves only compounded the nation’s economic woes. Add on top of that a severe drought and global supply shocks arising from events like the Ukraine war, and you get a country in which nearly half of its population is suffering from acute food insecurity.
> >
> > But the country’s compounding predicaments haven’t deterred Taliban fighters like Shahab or caused notable concern within Taliban ranks about its leadership's capacity to rule the country.
> >
> > “When you are liberated, you must endure hardship,” Shahab told the Washington Post of the country’s current economic situation. Regardless, “the invaders were never going to improve the economy,” Shahab asserted. “They were just here for their own interests... We are here for the Afghan people.”
> >
> > There’s plenty of reason to doubt that the Taliban are acting fully in service of the Afghan people. The regime rules with an iron fist based on the group’s interpretation of Islamic law. But, reflecting on the United States’s record in Afghanistan, it is hard to say that Shahab is completely off-base when it comes to the United States’ impact on the Afghan economy.
> >
> > For example...
> > The prevalence of opium poppy during America’s two-decade stay in Afghanistan had disastrous effects on not only Afghan society, with soaring substance-abuse levels and the rise of a brutal drug trade, but rippled beyond the nation's borders. A United Nations report from 2009 stated it plainly:
> >
> > In NATO countries, the number of people who die of heroin overdoses every year (more than 10,000) is five times higher than the total number of NATO troops that have been killed in Afghanistan in the past eight years."
> > https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-year-of-the-taliban/
> NATO countries in high consumptions of heroin produced from opium fields in Afghanistan. It goes to show that US and NATO presence are not interested in containing the growth of opium poppy fields in Afghanistan. Hence, they should buy more to rebalance their needs from Afghanistan instead.

Actually, Afghans also suffer greatly from the widespread availability of opium. In 2018,
Afghan could have produced as much as 380 ton of opium which was ~85% of world output.

"The New Face of Drug Addiction in Afghanistan
by Cesar Chelala

The high number of opium-addicted Afghan women and children is a dramatic consequence
of the war in that country. It painfully illustrates how foreign intervention has doomed generations
of children to a miserable life.

A U.S.- funded study released in April of 2015, found that one in every nine Afghans -including
women and children- uses illegal drugs. For several years, donors have disbursed hundreds of
millions of dollars to control Afghanistan’s drug problem. However, most of those funds have
been spent on poppy eradication and much less attention has been paid to the rising addiction
problem. The U.S. has spent over $8.62 billion in taxpayer funds on counternarcotic efforts.

Although the U.S. government has paid poppy farmers to switch to legitimate crops such as wheat,
poppy cultivation has proven to be too lucrative to stop. In 2014, opium cultivation reached record
levels: more than 553,000 acres, an increase of seven percent from the year before, according to
estimates of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC).

The export value of opium trade is over $4 billion. A quarter of that amount is being earned by opium
farmers and the rest is going to district officials, drug traffickers, insurgents, and warlords according
to this agency. The high drug revenue prolongs insecurity and fuels corruption in the country, already
besieged by multiple problems.

According to the U.S. Government estimates, although poppy cultivation had decreased in 2019 compared
to 2018, potential pure opium production had increased. 380 tons of heroin and morphine are produced
annually, which is approximately 85% of the global supply."

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/04/the-new-face-of-drug-addiction-in-afghanistan/

American media talked about children and girls attending schools day in and day out. How
about "one in every nine Afghans -including women and children- uses illegal drugs"?
Would they have better lives if Afghanistan was opium free?

On Sunday, August 28, 2022 at 4:00:11 PM UTC-4, ltlee1 wrote:
> On Monday, August 22, 2022 at 11:45:30 AM UTC-4, stoney wrote:
> > On Monday, August 22, 2022 at 2:28:43 AM UTC+8, ltlee1 wrote:
> > > "This week marked a year since the Taliban took the Afghan capital of Kabul after the United States completed its military withdrawal following nearly two decades of war. News from Afghanistan further illuminates America’s failed attempt at nation building.
> > >
> > > Marking the anniversary, large numbers of Taliban jihadi militants shouted “Victory” and “Freedom” throughout Kabul, celebrating the Taliban’s return to power after two decades of war against the U.S. and the government it created. But Taliban militants weren’t alone in Monday’s celebrations. As the Washington Post reported, families piled in cars drove through the streets, honking their horns as individuals hung outside their vehicles to photograph the celebrations. Other bystanders recited various Āyah from the Quran.
> > >
> > > Muhammad Zubair Shahab, a 22-year-old Taliban fighter who helped the jihadist group force its way into Kabul last August, told the Washington Post, “for us, this is a day of liberation.”
> > >
> > > “By the grace of God in a single year, we have brought security to Kabul and eliminated corruption,” said the young Taliban fighter, who was just an infant when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001.
> > >
> > > Afghanistan’s security position and economy nevertheless remain on precarious footing.
> > > ...
> > > When the U.S. military left, billions of Western development dollars went with it. Though these development schemes were rife with corruption, they undeniably injected billions of dollars into the Afghan economy. And once the Taliban took control of Kabul, continued Western sanctions on Taliban leaders and the freezing of the country’s foreign-currency reserves only compounded the nation’s economic woes. Add on top of that a severe drought and global supply shocks arising from events like the Ukraine war, and you get a country in which nearly half of its population is suffering from acute food insecurity.
> > >
> > > But the country’s compounding predicaments haven’t deterred Taliban fighters like Shahab or caused notable concern within Taliban ranks about its leadership's capacity to rule the country.
> > >
> > > “When you are liberated, you must endure hardship,” Shahab told the Washington Post of the country’s current economic situation. Regardless, “the invaders were never going to improve the economy,” Shahab asserted. “They were just here for their own interests... We are here for the Afghan people.”
> > >
> > > There’s plenty of reason to doubt that the Taliban are acting fully in service of the Afghan people. The regime rules with an iron fist based on the group’s interpretation of Islamic law. But, reflecting on the United States’s record in Afghanistan, it is hard to say that Shahab is completely off-base when it comes to the United States’ impact on the Afghan economy.
> > >
> > > For example...
> > > The prevalence of opium poppy during America’s two-decade stay in Afghanistan had disastrous effects on not only Afghan society, with soaring substance-abuse levels and the rise of a brutal drug trade, but rippled beyond the nation's borders. A United Nations report from 2009 stated it plainly:
> > >
> > > In NATO countries, the number of people who die of heroin overdoses every year (more than 10,000) is five times higher than the total number of NATO troops that have been killed in Afghanistan in the past eight years."
> > > https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-year-of-the-taliban/
> > NATO countries in high consumptions of heroin produced from opium fields in Afghanistan. It goes to show that US and NATO presence are not interested in containing the growth of opium poppy fields in Afghanistan. Hence, they should buy more to rebalance their needs from Afghanistan instead.
> Actually, Afghans also suffer greatly from the widespread availability of opium. In 2018,
> Afghan could have produced as much as 380 ton of opium which was ~85% of world output.
>
> "The New Face of Drug Addiction in Afghanistan
> by Cesar Chelala
>
> The high number of opium-addicted Afghan women and children is a dramatic consequence
> of the war in that country. It painfully illustrates how foreign intervention has doomed generations
> of children to a miserable life.
>
> A U.S.- funded study released in April of 2015, found that one in every nine Afghans -including
> women and children- uses illegal drugs. For several years, donors have disbursed hundreds of
> millions of dollars to control Afghanistan’s drug problem. However, most of those funds have
> been spent on poppy eradication and much less attention has been paid to the rising addiction
> problem. The U.S. has spent over $8.62 billion in taxpayer funds on counternarcotic efforts.
>
> Although the U.S. government has paid poppy farmers to switch to legitimate crops such as wheat,
> poppy cultivation has proven to be too lucrative to stop. In 2014, opium cultivation reached record
> levels: more than 553,000 acres, an increase of seven percent from the year before, according to
> estimates of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC).
>
> The export value of opium trade is over $4 billion. A quarter of that amount is being earned by opium
> farmers and the rest is going to district officials, drug traffickers, insurgents, and warlords according
> to this agency. The high drug revenue prolongs insecurity and fuels corruption in the country, already
> besieged by multiple problems.
>
> According to the U.S. Government estimates, although poppy cultivation had decreased in 2019 compared
> to 2018, potential pure opium production had increased. 380 tons of heroin and morphine are produced
> annually, which is approximately 85% of the global supply."
>
> https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/04/the-new-face-of-drug-addiction-in-afghanistan/
>
> American media talked about children and girls attending schools day in and day out. How
> about "one in every nine Afghans -including women and children- uses illegal drugs"?
> Would they have better lives if Afghanistan was opium free?

One in nine Afghan addicted because NATO occupier changed the policy from no poppy
cultivation policy enforced by Taliban to a poppy cultivation allowed policy, as many as
553,000 acres in 2018.

Is it not a kind of genocide? Crime against humanity?

On Wednesday, August 31, 2022 at 3:27:02 AM UTC+8, ltlee1 wrote:
> On Sunday, August 28, 2022 at 4:00:11 PM UTC-4, ltlee1 wrote:
> > On Monday, August 22, 2022 at 11:45:30 AM UTC-4, stoney wrote:
> > > On Monday, August 22, 2022 at 2:28:43 AM UTC+8, ltlee1 wrote:
> > > > "This week marked a year since the Taliban took the Afghan capital of Kabul after the United States completed its military withdrawal following nearly two decades of war. News from Afghanistan further illuminates America’s failed attempt at nation building.
> > > >
> > > > Marking the anniversary, large numbers of Taliban jihadi militants shouted “Victory” and “Freedom” throughout Kabul, celebrating the Taliban’s return to power after two decades of war against the U.S. and the government it created. But Taliban militants weren’t alone in Monday’s celebrations. As the Washington Post reported, families piled in cars drove through the streets, honking their horns as individuals hung outside their vehicles to photograph the celebrations. Other bystanders recited various Āyah from the Quran.
> > > >
> > > > Muhammad Zubair Shahab, a 22-year-old Taliban fighter who helped the jihadist group force its way into Kabul last August, told the Washington Post, “for us, this is a day of liberation.”
> > > >
> > > > “By the grace of God in a single year, we have brought security to Kabul and eliminated corruption,” said the young Taliban fighter, who was just an infant when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001.
> > > >
> > > > Afghanistan’s security position and economy nevertheless remain on precarious footing.
> > > > ...
> > > > When the U.S. military left, billions of Western development dollars went with it. Though these development schemes were rife with corruption, they undeniably injected billions of dollars into the Afghan economy. And once the Taliban took control of Kabul, continued Western sanctions on Taliban leaders and the freezing of the country’s foreign-currency reserves only compounded the nation’s economic woes. Add on top of that a severe drought and global supply shocks arising from events like the Ukraine war, and you get a country in which nearly half of its population is suffering from acute food insecurity.
> > > >
> > > > But the country’s compounding predicaments haven’t deterred Taliban fighters like Shahab or caused notable concern within Taliban ranks about its leadership's capacity to rule the country.
> > > >
> > > > “When you are liberated, you must endure hardship,” Shahab told the Washington Post of the country’s current economic situation. Regardless, “the invaders were never going to improve the economy,” Shahab asserted. “They were just here for their own interests... We are here for the Afghan people.”
> > > >
> > > > There’s plenty of reason to doubt that the Taliban are acting fully in service of the Afghan people. The regime rules with an iron fist based on the group’s interpretation of Islamic law. But, reflecting on the United States’s record in Afghanistan, it is hard to say that Shahab is completely off-base when it comes to the United States’ impact on the Afghan economy.
> > > >
> > > > For example...
> > > > The prevalence of opium poppy during America’s two-decade stay in Afghanistan had disastrous effects on not only Afghan society, with soaring substance-abuse levels and the rise of a brutal drug trade, but rippled beyond the nation's borders. A United Nations report from 2009 stated it plainly:
> > > >
> > > > In NATO countries, the number of people who die of heroin overdoses every year (more than 10,000) is five times higher than the total number of NATO troops that have been killed in Afghanistan in the past eight years."
> > > > https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-year-of-the-taliban/
> > > NATO countries in high consumptions of heroin produced from opium fields in Afghanistan. It goes to show that US and NATO presence are not interested in containing the growth of opium poppy fields in Afghanistan. Hence, they should buy more to rebalance their needs from Afghanistan instead.
> > Actually, Afghans also suffer greatly from the widespread availability of opium. In 2018,
> > Afghan could have produced as much as 380 ton of opium which was ~85% of world output.
> >
> > "The New Face of Drug Addiction in Afghanistan
> > by Cesar Chelala
> >
> > The high number of opium-addicted Afghan women and children is a dramatic consequence
> > of the war in that country. It painfully illustrates how foreign intervention has doomed generations
> > of children to a miserable life.
> >
> > A U.S.- funded study released in April of 2015, found that one in every nine Afghans -including
> > women and children- uses illegal drugs. For several years, donors have disbursed hundreds of
> > millions of dollars to control Afghanistan’s drug problem. However, most of those funds have
> > been spent on poppy eradication and much less attention has been paid to the rising addiction
> > problem. The U.S. has spent over $8.62 billion in taxpayer funds on counternarcotic efforts.
> >
> > Although the U.S. government has paid poppy farmers to switch to legitimate crops such as wheat,
> > poppy cultivation has proven to be too lucrative to stop. In 2014, opium cultivation reached record
> > levels: more than 553,000 acres, an increase of seven percent from the year before, according to
> > estimates of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC).
> >
> > The export value of opium trade is over $4 billion. A quarter of that amount is being earned by opium
> > farmers and the rest is going to district officials, drug traffickers, insurgents, and warlords according
> > to this agency. The high drug revenue prolongs insecurity and fuels corruption in the country, already
> > besieged by multiple problems.
> >
> > According to the U.S. Government estimates, although poppy cultivation had decreased in 2019 compared
> > to 2018, potential pure opium production had increased. 380 tons of heroin and morphine are produced
> > annually, which is approximately 85% of the global supply."
> >
> > https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/04/the-new-face-of-drug-addiction-in-afghanistan/
> >
> > American media talked about children and girls attending schools day in and day out. How
> > about "one in every nine Afghans -including women and children- uses illegal drugs"?
> > Would they have better lives if Afghanistan was opium free?
> One in nine Afghan addicted because NATO occupier changed the policy from no poppy
> cultivation policy enforced by Taliban to a poppy cultivation allowed policy, as many as
> 553,000 acres in 2018.
>
> Is it not a kind of genocide? Crime against humanity?

It's in indeed a kind of genocide and a crime against humanity used by US occupation forces on Afghanistan people. In their 22 years of occupation in Afghanistan not only to maim and kill them but to addicting the growing of 11% of children in the 40 million population with refined opium, heroin, and morphine from the cultivating and refining of poppy fields grown with 7% per year on areas to more than 550,000 acres, thereby exporting 380 tons with an exported value of 400 million dollars per year, and if counted over 22 years, the US occupied government made a total of 8.8 billion dollars over 22 years of occupation.

Wonder how many children died and languished in street corners smoking away their lives, and how many families suffered and what treatments US provided to treat them and where were the export money of 8.8 billion dollars earned from the export of 8,800 tons over 22 years. What criminal liability on US in masterminding the crime of production and profiting export revenue of dangerous drugs to young children around the world.