The World Food Programme is warning that millions of Afghans could face starvation this winter, with children particularly at risk. The organizations is predicting a massive economic collapse in Afghanistan in the near future which could return the country to an impoverished and hungry nation not too dissimilar from what the United States found when it invaded twenty years ago to topple the first Taliban regime.
Afghans facing starvation
The Taliban were able to conquer Afghanistan militarily with astonishing ease. Now they might be facing an even more daunting challenge.
When the Taliban inherited control over the capital city of Kabul it did not inherit the financial resources of the previous government.
Former President Ashraf Ghani reportedly packed up as much cash as he could carry before he fled from the country; corruption was always the defining feature of the Afghan government propped up by NATO.
Now Afghanistan faces starvation as the new Taliban government finds itself economically isolated. Banks remain closed and Afghanistan’s cash reserves have been frozen by the United States.
The World Food Programme estimates that more than 90% of Afghans are not getting enough food due to skyrocketing prices in Kabul and other cities.
People are reportedly setting up makeshift markets in the streets of Kabul to sell what little they have in an attempt to raise enough cash to keep their families fed.
How to waste two decades and $2.3 trillion
Unsurprisingly many Afghans seem to blame the United States for the fact that they now face potential starvation. In some ways it is hard to disagree with that point of view.
The massive amounts of foreign aid which were funneled more or less blindly into the country over 20 years generally made its way into the pockets of corrupt government officials.
The fact that the US government was fully aware of the mass corruption in the government it propped up in Kabul but seemingly did nothing to put a stop to it is one of the many unfathomably stupid aspects of the war.
After its summer humiliation the White House will probably be happy to see Afghanistan fall apart in the near future. Many in the west will be eager to see a disaster take place under the Taliban.
After two decades of assurances that the United States was working to improve the lives of Afghan civilians, those same civilians now face starvation and death as a punishment for not supporting a “democratic” government which did little more than stealing from them on a regular basis.
The Biden administration likely hopes that some new suffering under the new regime will make ordinary Afghans blame that Taliban for their troubles. In reality we can expect that most of them will blame the United States. They will probably be justified in doing so.
