Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
It occurs to me you could say the same about lots of elements of the Christian Right as well. Culturally medieval - literally so with the Qanon eschatology - but using modern technology to spread the madness. Off topic so carry on.
Plus, you know, the Nazis! Bunch of Odin-worshippers and rune-fetishists setting out to conquer the world in cutting-edge tanks, subs and aircraft. Not such a different vibe from ISIS's apparently pretty slick social media presence.
 

sufi

lala
This stuff at the airport's a real mess,


all kicking off with whistleblowers and leaked letters revealing boris personal signoff for the dog evacuation
 
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shakahislop

Well-known member
more disgusting than the nowzad thing, which is gross in itself, is that no-one at all gives a shit about afghans any more. for one reason or another the takeover and evacuation captured everyone's imaginations for a week or so, and everyone pretended to care about getting afghans out and keeping them safe. but the country is descending into the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, for a range of reasons but including the US withholding the entirety of afghanistan's foreign reserves, it's winter and people are starting to starve, and no-one is that interested.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
Got hold of a new Tariq Ali book on Afghanistan. It's a book which basically tries to tell the overall story of the last 20 years. There must be about ten books which have more or less the same structure and objectives by now.

Never read him before but got the impression he was quite respected. The book isn't the worst thing I've read on Afghanistan, but it is pretty bad. He doesn't really seem to know what he's talking about and makes new claims about various things which I've never seen claimed elsewhere, but he gives no evidence for them and doesn't seem to have done any new fieldwork. He seems to be pretty far off the facts and it makes it quite an unreliable book.

In the preface alone he says that Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar are related, that one in ten young afghans are opium addicts, that people moved to slums in Kabul just to go through the bins of the American military, that the afghan military was infiltrated by the taliban at an early stage, and that there was a big sex trade around the US bases. None of these things are things that I've heard before and they seem a bit far fetched.

I had to watch Fahrenheit 9/11 the other day and that was a bit similar on the afghan parts, where it says that Karzai was installed by the US in order to help them get an oil pipeline through the country. It's just total bullshit, such a great example of people essentially being uninterested in the facts, and just using these conflicts to make whatever point they want to make about America.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
@shakahislop I was wondering if you had any thoughts on this article, from December 12th, on the BBC news site that alleges that Afghanistan is now a major exporter of crystal meth? Any trace of truth in this?

Meth and heroin fuel Afghanistan drugs boom
Yeah that seems pretty accurate. It's pretty well documented that meth production has ramped up in the last few years. Mad shit but I guess if you already have such a well developed heroin processing and export system it can take advantage of that. That guy in the article, David Mansfield, is a very good researcher and has pretty much only been studying the drugs thing in Afghanistan for at least ten years and i think he's pretty careful about trying to make sure what he says is accurate. I really trust myself.

My guess is that what's happening now is that everyone involved in drugs production is adjusting to the removal of a load of old people who were powerful in the business (the former government) and getting used to a new power structure. That is very theoretical on my part though, based on how I think networks in Afghanistan work. But to be honest it's been pretty mad how big the drop off in information has been about what's going on in Afghanistan has been, given that a load of journalists will have left, everyone there is scared to do anything much, etc. So it's hard to get a handle on anything that's going on outside Kabul really.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
one thing i always loved about afghanistan was the laddish-ness of it. so little to do, no women about, the lads pissing around
 

wild greens

Well-known member
Not sure about Vice these days- I don't read it much- but I saw this earlier & it's the first I've heard of it. I know there was the talk of new meth abundance earlier but meth & smack simultaneously is.. something


A drug that is a mix of meth and opioids, and believed to be the first of its kind in the world, is on the rise in Afghanistan.
UN drug experts have warned that pills being sold on the streets as “tablet K” mark a new era in narcotics production because some of them contain both stimulants and depressant drugs. The tablet also represents a further step in the expansion of a cheap synthetic drug market serving up to the world’s poorest populations.
 
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