Taliban condemns Afghanistan balloon project

[A.Rafay]

Who cares what talibans say!! Btw how are they giving these statements in their so called official site from caves and mountains with no Electricity and internet??

 

[That Guy]

Who cares what talibans say!! Btw how are they giving these statements in their so called official site from caves and mountains with no Electricity and internet??

smartphones? I've written entire paragraphs on PDF on my cell phone, lol.

 

[rubyjackass]

A dictator who cares about his people far more better than likes of Taliban , when you compared Iraq to Afghanistan on living conditions everyone knows which is better.

Which one? I honestly don't know.

 

[rubyjackass]

First, Iraq had money because of it's large oil deposits and even after the sanctions they were selling oil on the black market. Without the oil wealth the situation in Iraq would have been worse than what the North Koreans are going through.

The Taliban knew of the countries immense mineral wealth but they didn't allow foreigners to exploit it so that Afghans would be left poor like the current government is planning on doing. This is in contrast to men like Kim Jong-il and Saddam who exploited their peoples and/or the countries natural resources for their own benefit while everyone starved.

The Taliban were never an ethnocentric group nor did they ever refer to themselves as a "Pashtun" organization. It just so happened that the majority of their members were Pashtun because of where they got their start but the group reached out to men like Masood (Tajik) when they controlled 90% of the country in hopes he would join a coalition government and finally end the years of war that ravaged the country even though they never had to. However, the current government can't even meet the first precondition to peace talks with the Taliban which simply involves the expulsion of all NATO forces from the country where as under the Taliban you didn't have 150,000+ foreign troops rolling around the country immune to local prosecution. The country had a far more stable security situation and at the very least it was free.

The Taliban eliminated the drug trade in Afghanistan (which fuels crime in countries around the world) while the current government has inducted warlords who deal in drugs (ex. Haji Bashar) or partnered with them and totally overlooked their shady dealings (Ahmed Wali Karzai) all of which fuels crime in countries around the world. Hamid Karzai even admits to paying them off with CIA money which also explains why poppy cultivation increases yearly as does the number of people addicted to drugs a disturbingly large number of whom are children.

You're talking about Afghanistan like it's some kind of paradise when all NATO did was turn it into a hell. Yes, there are some shiny new buildings but so what? Out of the $120 billion spent in Afghanistan by the US alone in 2012 The whole economy is unsustainable considering by all accords 90% of the GDP is based on the foreign presence. This idea that the current government has made things better is nothing but a mirage.

There are certain issues I have with the group, particularly related to certain atrocities they are accused of having committed and accusations that members have restricted education for females, but with respect to the current government and security force are you seriously telling me that things are actually better?

So Taliban never allowed drug trade? So you mean, after the coalition's intervention, Karzai went to LA and brought some poppy seeds and saplings from a nursery? And if you say that Taliban did not exploit resources for their selfishness and they did not allow drug trade, then how were they exactly managing the country? I honestly expect an answer.

 

[PakPrinciples]

No, the Taliban did not allow the drug trade.

In 2001, pre-invasion, it was estimated that the opium trade had all but vanished. At this time the group controlled about 90% of the country and was, by estimates I have read, about a month away from taking total control of the entire country (the N. Alliance was essentially holed up in a small pocket in the North).

They began a drive to totally eliminate the narcotics trade by destroying opium fields and banning its production and almost succeeded. Unfortunately, the US invaded and opium production skyrocketed and has been increasing ever since.

The graph above only goes up to 2008 and has fluctuated since then but the most recent figures have shown increases from the previous year. In fact I would not be surprised if the reason production slightly decreased between 2008 and 2010 is because the drug lords were holding stock back so as not to crash the price of opium and heroin (kind of like what oil producers will do). However, all this is not surprising when the government inducts drug lords like Haji Bashar and El Presidentes own bro, Ahmed Wali Karzai, was a well known drug lord himself.

Obviously the seeds were there but the point is that if the drug trade is what both the US and Afghan governments say is supposedly financing the Taliban why have they refused to clamp down on it? In fact why have they not only inducted drug dealers into the government but Karzai even openly admits that, once secret now exposed, deliveries of cash from the CIA are being used to bribe these very drug lords? These guys are responsible for more and more people in the country becoming addicted to heroin and those drugs that they ship out eventually wind up in Pakistan and India that fuel street crime on our streets not to mention elsewhere around the world.

It has gotten so bad that now the country is even the largest producer as well as a major exporter of hashish.
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan

The group made their money like any government does through taxation. Afghans grew a host of products (wheat, fruit orchards, goats, etc...), there were also many small scale mining projects and regularly traded with Pakistan (pre-2001 the border has largely an open door with no one paying any duties or tariffs).