Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

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You jest, but some of the Taliban's actions have been to take those cell phones and smash them. Girls are to be illiterate, they shouldn't use phones. Even boys aren't supposed to be listening to music, and the modern cell phone gives the boys easy access to music.

Some of the first actions of the Taliban in these new government centers has been to take over the radio stations and stop playing music. Its happening already.

We gave them a society where they can enjoy music, culture, and attempt to gain literacy and education. It didn't last, but its clearly an improvement over the 90s-era Taliban. Whether the people remember that moving forward will be another question.

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We pushed too many of our values upon the Afghan citizens. We were pushing for literacy, women's rights, democracy. But they would have been satisfied with far, far less (and having fewer moral qualms would have allowed us to ally up with more of the warlords who were in fact, competent, at security. Unlike the paper-soldiers we assembled).

But I don't think any of our values are in the wrong. It may be only temporary, but I assume the citizens will remember the difference in life one way or the other.

Do you think we should have had fewer moral qualms about systemic child rape by many of the Afghan leaders?

.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi?wprov=sfla1

The Taliban were able to recruit replacement officers at a far faster rate than we were. That's largely in part because the Taliban was a closer match to the local values than we were.

If we weren't willing to turn a blind eye to those sorts of things, then we needed to leave sooner. But the secret of conquest and governance is recruitment, and if leaders of that region want the "right" to exploit women and/or children (and that "right" is what allows them to get recruited at speed), then it becomes a necessity to accept that part of their culture as part of our recruitment drives.

We killed a lot of Taliban. They killed a lot of Afghani (some 60,000 Afghans on the government side died). But killing is only one side of the picture: recruitment is the other side. If you can replenish your troops and leaders faster than the enemy can kill them, you'll eventually win.

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We thought we could recruit with money, but as soon as the money stopped flowing (because we were leaving), the entire scheme collapsed. Money isn't a good recruitment tool.

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Alternatively: we chose the wrong side. Perhaps it would have been better to choose the side of the Taliban in the conflict. We went into the conflict simply choosing the "enemies of the Taliban" as our friends, without necessarily thinking about the morals associated with our new friends.

But that's the problem: on the one side is Taliban against child-prostitutes, while on the other, are the warlords who fight against the Taliban to restore child-prostitutes. If we want the warlord's help, then yes, we have to turn a blind eye to it.

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In any case, I'm well aware of the child-prostitute thing. A friend of mine had two tours to Afghanistan, and the local lords offered him some kids personally. So he's quite aware of the culture and told me of it.

> We gave them a society where they can enjoy music, culture, and attempt to gain literacy and education. It didn't last, but its clearly an improvement over the 90s-era Taliban. Whether the people remember that moving forward will be another question.

This is an absurd fantasy that has no relation to the reality in that country.

What fantasy?

The Taliban are already issuing cell-phone bans and bans of music. Those things were allowed in the US-sponsored regime.

https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2021/08/13/smartphone-bans-...

> “If single girls are found using smartphones, they are questioned over the possibility of having a relationship with a boy,” said Ansari, who declined to provide her last name out of fear of retribution. “If boys listen to songs, their memory cards are smashed by the Taliban.”

Girls having a relationship with a boy is punishable by death in the Taliban regime. Its a serious threat.

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The music-ban was a key attribute of 90s-era Taliban (among with other forms of cultural repression: they were destroying museums, libraries, and statues). When the USA invaded, we allowed them to play music again (among other rights). Literally giving the gift of music back to the people.

Unfortunately, it was temporary and the Taliban are taking back over. But there's no "fantasy" about my assessment here, that's the ground truth to what we did at a literal level.

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