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By mikema63
#14814548
Hello and welcome. :)

Tell us about yourself. What are your politics?
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By Barmakid
#14814563
mikema63 wrote:Hello and welcome. :)

Tell us about yourself. What are your politics?


Thank you. I'm a mixed bag, I consider myself a socialist but I also have nationalist leanings in the form of Pan-Iranism and Afghan and Tajik nationalism. Religiously I hover between agnosticism and Islam (Hanafi Sunnism + Sufism) depending on my mood. :D
Last edited by Barmakid on 14 Jun 2017 18:34, edited 1 time in total.
By mikema63
#14814570
Oh that's cool your our only afgani member.

What do you think of the taliban, us, and current situation in your country? I read that things aren't going well right now from an American point of view.
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By Barmakid
#14814575
Afghans are in a rough spot at the moment as they have to choose between a corrupt dysfunctional government/ foreign occupation and the Taliban. Most Afghans would prefer the former as the Taliban were utterly incompetent in their 5 years of rule. They removed the entire civil service in Kabul because it was mainly composed of women and replaced its members with illiterate tribesmen. Their brand of Islam (Deobandism) is a foreign import to Afghanistan.

I think a federalist system would be ideal for Afghanistan. The Taliban have grassroots support in some regions of Afghanistan. Call their bluff and allow them to administer those territories. They will lose legitimacy once they fail to meet any of their constituents' expectations. The northern, western and central regions of Afghanistan will never succumb to Taliban rule. The leaders/"warlords" of those regions will not repeat the mistakes of the 90s.

Latif Pedram, an Afghan Tajik politician, advocates for federalism as well. This is a good interview with him. He is a socialist and was part of the SAFZA party.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/q ... 51532.html
By mikema63
#14814578
Federalism seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to push for. Is the current government against it? I send no reason for the US not to support it since we have a federalist system.

According to my reading there have been a few attempts to negotiate with the taliban that have failed. Do you really think they would accept anything less than taking control again?

I remember reading under the Obama administration there were pushes to get the afgani government to crack down on corruption but kharzi was hard to work with. Pity it didn't work out.
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By Barmakid
#14814580
Pashtun political movements of all stripes (Islamist, Liberal, Socialist, Technocrat) oppose federalism and see it as a conspiracy against them by Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. They advocate for a strong centralized government and executive branch. Under the current system the president appoints provincial governors and even district officials. Ashraf Ghani, the current president, is a western-educated technocrat who likes to micromanage. He is more educated and less corrupt than Karzai and his family.

As long as the Taliban believe they can prevail militarily then they will not enter genuine negotiations. Some Afghan political figures think that a more hardline military approach will bring them to the negotiating table and accuse secular Pashtuns in the government of stonewalling those efforts and being too conciliatory with the Taliban. Afghan forces have to adhere to "rules of engagement" while the Taliban do not. I would say federalism is preferable.

The government recently reached a peace deal with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami party. He is the most notorious warlord in Afghanistan and received the bulk of American and Pakistani aid during the 80s and early 90s before being abandoned by Pakistan once he failed to capture Kabul and the Taliban emerged. Some see that peace deal as a template for reconciliation with the Taliban but I am skeptical.
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By Oxymoron
#14814584
Pashtuns are my favorite kind of Muslims, cause they kick ass warriors and independent people. Having said that we will not have much in common, welcome to the Forum.
By mikema63
#14814585
Good old ethnic conflict, always making everything 100 times harder.

I've never been much of a fan of how we've dealt with post-invasion Afghanistan. I feel like we should have spent two or three years directly training security forces under american military trainers advancing trainees through the ranks and splitting them off to their own force, training a new civil service (bringing them on full scholarship to the US if necessary), and organizing a functional government system that makes sense for the region before having elections. It would be unpopular on both sides and internationally since it'd be a hop and a skip short of colonization but it'd save a lot of headaches if we fully dedicated ourselves into rebuilding the government and infrastructure rather than having misadventures in Iraq.

There is talk of a new troop surge to afghanistan so maybe the Taliban will be pushed back but things don't look super hopeful right now. I agree that the Taliban is unlikely to negotiate.
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