|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”
The United Nations just confirmed what most Western officials won’t admit.
Afghanistan is not in recovery. It’s collapsing, economically, socially, and morally. Entire provinces are nearing famine conditions:
- 90% of Afghan households are skipping meals, selling what little they own, or surviving on loans they can’t repay
- 4.5 million people have been pushed back into the country since 2023, most of them forcibly returned from Iran and Pakistan
- Average monthly income is around $100, while rent has tripled
- Unemployment among returnees is over 90%
- 30% of Afghan children now work instead of going to school
- Women’s participation in the workforce is down to 6%, among the lowest on Earth
And yet the world barely blinks.
But this isn’t just the aftermath of war. It’s the collapse of a 20-year Western project, now replaced by a regime enforcing theological law, funded by the very nations that promised Afghan citizens they’d never be abandoned.
From 2001 to 2021, the United States and its NATO allies spent over $2.3 trillion in Afghanistan. This wasn’t just military expenditure.
Over $145 billion of that total was explicitly earmarked for reconstruction: civilian governance, elections, legal reform, media, education, job creation, and the protection of women’s rights.
Billions were routed through USAID and the State Department into programs aimed at reshaping Afghanistan into a functioning secular republic. Schools were built. Local TV and radio stations were created.
NGOs and civil society groups were funded and staffed. Women were trained to become judges, journalists, lawyers, professors, and physicians. Entire bureaucracies were constructed with Western guidance. And a whole generation came of age believing that Taliban rule was part of history, not the future.
Yet throughout this period, the West looked away from the cracks: the growing influence of Islamist ideology inside supposedly secular ministries, the corruption within Afghan government ranks, and the quiet survival of Taliban leadership across the border in Pakistan.
Even while American troops were on the ground, foreign-funded madrassas were operating openly. Parallel Sharia courts were tolerated in rural areas. U.S. officials routinely avoided confrontation with religious powerbrokers. And still, the messaging stayed the same, Afghanistan was being “rebuilt,” and the Taliban were “on the run.”
That lie was sustained for 20 years.
And then it ended with one handshake.
In 2020, under the Trump administration, the United States signed the Doha Agreement, a deal that essentially legitimized the Taliban as a negotiating partner. The Taliban promised not to attack American troops. The U.S. pledged to a complete withdrawal. The agreement also forced the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners, many of whom returned straight to the battlefield.
What the agreement did not include was any real guarantee for the Afghan people. It made no demands for disarmament, no requirement for power-sharing, no framework for elections, and no commitment to preserve the rights of women. The message was clear: the U.S. would leave, and the Taliban? They’d do whatever they wanted.
They didn’t.
By the time the Biden administration executed the disastrous withdrawal in August 2021, the Taliban had already encircled most major cities. With no plan to evacuate civilians, no enforcement mechanism, and no resistance left from a government abandoned by its international backers, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was reinstated. The republic was gone. The Constitution was dissolved. And Sharia became the only law that mattered.
Girls are banned from attending school beyond the sixth grade. Women are banned from most employment sectors, including healthcare and education.
They cannot travel or access hospitals without a male escort. In some provinces, women who do not wear the full-body burqa are refused treatment at emergency rooms.
Female NGO staff have been systematically removed from their jobs. The United Nations now estimates that removing women from the workforce has cut Afghanistan’s productive labor force in half.
When women are banned from work, families, communities, and nations suffer.
— Kanni Wignaraja, UN Assistant Secretary-General
In a country where women had become doctors, professors, and cabinet members, they are now banned from even walking alone.
And while millions suffer under these restrictions, the regime imposing them is not struggling. It’s governing.
Afghanistan’s current rulers have power, territory, infrastructure, and access to money.
Every border crossing, airport, customs checkpoint, and permit office is under Taliban control.
They impose taxes on businesses, civilians, and even foreign NGOs. They’ve signed mineral extraction deals with China, offering up access to copper, lithium, and rare earths. They maintain financial and strategic ties with Russia, Iran, Qatar, and Pakistan. Taliban revenue has doubled since 2021, according to UN estimates.
Since the U.S. withdrawal in 2021:
- The United States has pledged $2.9 billion in aid to Afghanistan. Over $1 billion of that has already been delivered, primarily through USAID.
- The United Nations is requesting another $3.2 billion for 2024 operations.
- In early 2024, the U.S. proposed an additional $470 million for humanitarian and development programs inside Afghanistan.
There are no conditions tied to these funds. There are no mechanisms to prevent Taliban taxation. No laws are stopping the regime from skimming aid, blocking female workers, or enforcing ideological compliance on NGOs. Even the World Bank has resumed assistance for health and education sectors that are collapsing in real time due to the Taliban’s own policies.
And there is no outrage.
No congressional investigations. No hearings. No media exposés. No political speeches. No international sanctions tied to ideological oppression.
The world keeps sending money. The regime keeps consolidating power. And the Afghan people are left to starve under the system we said we’d never let return.
There are no global protests for Afghan women or refugee children. There are no celebrity statements, no campus encampments, no flood of humanitarian influencers posting flags, and no “Free Afghanistan”.
Why?
Because in this world:
Muslim regimes are treated as victims. Islamic leaders are “misunderstood.” And Sharia? Untouchable.
Because “Islamophobia” holds more political weight than millions of Afghan lives.
Because Trump’s deal with the Taliban can’t be criticized without triggering partisan loyalty.
Because the collapse of Afghanistan under U.S. and NATO hands can’t be admitted without exposing the lie of our foreign policy.
And most importantly, because there’s no way to shift the blame onto Jews or Israel.
Afghanistan doesn’t fit the narrative, so it’s erased.
Afghanistan Is Starving by design, by abandonment, by theocrats. And starved by the cowards who still won’t name the system killing them.
We funded the war. We funded the republic. Now we’re funding the regime that buried both.
And not one of the architects is being held accountable.
My “give a f*ck” meter is at absolute zero, when it comes to the misery of the Islamic world.
Our policy vis-a-vis Islam should be:
1 – Never, ever again spend any blood or treasure to save the miserable Muslims from the results of the cultural depravity in their own countries.
2- Never let a single Muslim into the West. In other words, build a “cordon sanitaire” to keep the disease of Islam out of healthy countries.
Of course, I am aware we are too far gone to implement the above. If only, though…
Common sense would dictate that after the Al Queda prick (that the Taliban set free) bombed the Abby Gate area of our withdrawal, any deal to keep sending these islamic thugs $2.9 billion+ would evaporate.
Side note: the suicide bomber who was tracked from the start, was allowed to continue – sniper was refused the “green light” by Sleepy’s incompetent woke brass.
Our tax dollars flow over there.
Thankless islamists chain-migrate here (only in our neighborhoods; never the politicians).
We have less than a year to reverse that, but as you said, we’re too far gone.
Thanks to the demented pervert. we also left billions of dollars in military equipment.
Trump had set up an orderly withdrawal with warnings to the taliban that we would be back if they refused to abide with the peace treaty
If the left had not stolen the 2020 election, things would look a whole different over there and in this country.
It was the demented pervert’s administration that botched the withdrawal that Trump had set up and left billions of dollars worth of military equipment and munitions for the taliban.
With USAID ended we aren’t sending anymore money to Afghanistan. This article only goes with Joetato in the WH. Trump is never mentioned.
Too far gone? When there is a will, there is a way.
We have the will.
The politicians don’t.
So these politicians will have to be dismissed – as a first step.
I’m so glad that President Trump got us out of Afghanistan when he was in office the first time, rather than leave it to Sleepy Joe.
I’d write more but I just saw Bigfoot riding a unicorn.
Ditto that🖕🏻fed up with those subhumans
Nation Building is a fools errand. Obama’s dream was to bankrupt our country. Nation Building is very expensive. Remember “Gone with the Wind” ‘Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn.’
Very well thought out and written. Thank you Aynaz Anni Cyrus.
I agree… I like Annie…
Knowing a bit of her history on satanic islam… we can trust her input…
Cry me a f’cking river. They’re lucky they weren’t starving before
we ever got there. When the United States first went to
Afghanistan right after 9/11 in 2001, the American military began
training Afghan farmers in modern farming because throughout
the country, Afghan farmers used the plough to cultivate fields.
That’s how backward those people are.
Only after WW II in the 1950s did American women begin to flood
the workplace mostly in clerical and factory jobs – and immediately
before the advent of The Pill in the 1960s which gave women a
freedom never before known in human history. It is only very recently
that American women have been able to become lawyers, doctors,
etc. in great numbers. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole, for example, used
to speak of the male harassment she suffered during law school. And
we’re supposed to believe that backward Afghan women beginning in
2001 had become doctors, lawyers, teachers by – 2021. Oh, okay.
And while I’m not in disagreement with the wrongs on the part of the
U.S. perpetrated on the Afghans mostly under the Biden administration,
I’m 100% glad Trump’s Doha agreement brought our troops home from
that hellhole. I especially remember the 144 troops murdered by Afghan
security forces working hand in hand with American military known as
Green on Blue. One wonders how many of the rest of the security forces –
recruited from among ordinary Afghans – wanted to do that as well.
So at this time when advanced American people are faced with the real
threat of dictatorship from Globalists and Islam – America-bashing because
those poor Afghans are suffering makes me puke. Especially when one
remembers that even without the Taliban – they are all Muslims who
couldn’t care less about us.
20 years, several trillion and counting, thousands of dead and wounded soldiers and America definitely failed to win their “hearts and minds”.
And the moron who started all the insanity went on to a quishy taxpayer-funded retirement, painting hideous pictures that aren’t worth the nails they’re hung on.
and this is what the west wants for itself . hell in this life and the next . there is evil then there is islam .
It was a fools errand to go into that country and try to change a culture that has existed for hundreds of years. It is tragic what is becoming of the women and children there, but short of remaining indefinitely, there is not much we can do. Islam is a malign force, and the refusal of the west to recognize this, and react accordingly, is endangering everyone on the planet. It cannot be moderated. We have allowed them into our country because of our liberal policies and our tendency towards kindness and generosity. Most people here just think everyone deserves a chance, and in the past, with most immigrants that may have been true, but we have allowed them into positions in government and they show every intention of instituting their society here as well and their will is stronger than ours. Afganistan is is not an anomaly, but represents the base tendencies of human nature. Christianity alone, was able to change human behavior and elevate us to something better. Everywhere Islam goes, misery follows.
It will be a cool day in hell when I shed a tear for the Afghans! Let them sleep in the bed they make for themselves, same as any other nation.
What I take from Afghanistan is… America sent Troops over there to protect their Poppy Fields…
I commented about this for years… and warned about the Open Borders and how America would see a rise in Heroin use. Which DID happen.
What I see now is… Afghanistan is another Gaza. Where America funnels money into satanic islam constantly… for more uprisings.
Understand… The Taliban is the Great Grandfather of Terrorism. The Muslim Brotherhood is the Grand Father…
And from that… we can add… Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hezbollah and the hundreds of other Terrorist Organizations.
Let’s also remember… It was America that trained and developed Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. To fight the Soviet Union and essentially stomp out communism.
And.. what have we gotten out of that? A new breed of satanic islamic terrorism, funded by American tax payers money.
Why? To rear up satanic islam as the Antichrist Beast System.
How does the Taliban look to you now?
Good question…
The Taliban, at one time, used to fight against the Muslim Drug Lords who produced Heroin with the Poppy Fields…
Now they… see Drugs as the ‘Soft Kill Method’ for killing off the non believing Infidels. Through overdoses…
It has been said… Islam is the largest Drug Dealers in the world…
What’s become of that group CARE we used to see read and hear so much about back in the 1960s/70’s and where’s UNICEF?
You must be kidding. What is this drivel doing here?
BLINK? My eyes are shut.
Let the Muslims take care of their “brethren”.
I do not mind saying I find all of the advertisements on SELL-EM radio for the fatuous FELLOWSHIP OF CHRISTIANS AND JEWS scheming for money to be every bit as obnoxious as this and insulting to Israel.
I refuse to believe Israel is not taking care of its own people.
Sick of “non-profits” and NGOs and those that “cry a river of tears for the poor” all the while living luxurious lives.
Non-profit means the management keeps all of the goodies for themselves.
Dear America: Welcome to our future. Even Hitler fades in the face of Islqm.
Afghanistan was abandoned to the Taliban savages in August 2021 because of Joe Biden ordered it, therefore is either stupid or evil.
The problem was that the arrogant conceited and stupid Joe Biden/Harris team refused to heed or listen to the wise council of the intellects of the Pentagon. Therefore is this complete catastrophe with the Taliban total takeover of Afghanistan.
In the ancient but wisdom filled book by Sun Tzu entitled THE ART OF WAR, it is written “He will win who has the military capability and is not interfered with the sovereign.”
This article informs its reader that “Women’s participation in the workforce is down to 6%, among the lowest on Earth.
That is because the Taliban have banned women from the university because the Islam is a religion of oppressive misogyny and their regime in Afghanistan is based on Islam with its Sharia.
The Taliban want the women trapped in Afghanistan to under the darkness tyranny and oppression of Sharia. Therefore, they ban them from receiving an education.
As Thomas Jefferson had, so wisely, declared “Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppression of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
Initially, we sought retribution by bombing Afghan terrorist training grounds after 9/11. At some point, someone in the Bush Deep State thought it would be fun and profitable if we invaded, ostensibly to westernize the Afghans and launder a tremendous amount of taxpayer money into their own pockets through military and civilian infrastructure expenditures. But they were careful not to damage the poppy fields.
It would make sense for Mr Trump to assemble a council of experts to advise on how best to deal with Islamists, ideally liberating their victims without throwing funds at corrupt leaders or enabling terrorists. It seems to me that Mr Trump’s gift for talent-spotting may be more relevant for the time being than his deal making skills. Since Islamism does not vary very much, if we can identify interventions that work in the longer term, they can be applied across the board.
Afghanistan in and of itself is hopeless. Its whole history is one of tribal treachery, deceit, chaos, and backward misery. If it had any export it would be communicable disease. The Afghans should have been told in their fight with the Taliban, “you better fight and win, if you lose you ain’t coming to the states.” Abel bodied Afghans need to go b ack and fight for their country.
One of the key words in Anni’s excellent article is “cowardice” about not recognizing Islam for the evil that it is. There needs to be a world wide recognition and revulsion for this twisted credo, and then appropriate actions (like a Crusade) can be taken to deal with it.
On another note, here is a comment on the Afghan shooting of a National Guard in DC from former Ranger Chuck Holton. He thinks the whole Afghan intervention was misconceived and that Afghans are friendly, until they aren’t.
Thank you, Madeline Brooks, for this excellent video.
It is exactly what I’m talking about regarding those
“poor Afghans”.
And you are right about the need for world-wide
recognition and revulsion of Islam – which is the
twisted creed and heartfelt belief of those Afghans.
There will never be a ‘worldwide revulsion’ for Islam, since the control freaks of the world are using the psychopathic ideology of Islam as a battering ram against the order of free nations. They think that when Islam is finally successful in achieving this end, they will either wipe out Islam as a faith and subsume the spoils, or pretend to convert to Islam and take over from within.
Maybe all of the above.
Don’t give one rats flea ridden behind. As far as I am concerned, the ISIS and Al Queda training camp known as Afghanistan can be nuked from corner to corner. That’s right carpet bombed with nukes. Women, children, all of them. Sorry, not sorry.