Nearly four months since the Taliban seized power, Afghanistan is on the brink of a mass starvation that aid groups say threatens to kill 1 million children this winter — a toll that would dwarf the total number of Afghan civilians estimated to have been killed as a direct result of the war over the past 20 years.
While Afghanistan has suffered from malnutrition for decades, the country’s hunger crisis has drastically worsened in recent months. This winter, an estimated 22.8 million people — more than half the population — are expected to face potentially life-threatening levels of food insecurity, according to an analysis by the U.N. World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization. Of those, 8.7 million people are nearing famine — the worst stage of a food crisis.
Such widespread hunger is the most devastating sign of the economic crash that has crippled Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power. Practically overnight, billions of dollars in foreign aid that propped up the previous Western-backed government vanished, and U.S. sanctions on the Taliban isolated the country from the global financial system, paralyzing Afghan banks and impeding relief work by humanitarian organizations.
Across the country, millions of Afghans — from day laborers to doctors and teachers — have gone months without steady or any incomes. The prices of food and other basic goods have soared beyond the reach of many families. Emaciated children and anemic mothers have flooded into the malnutrition wards of hospitals, with many of those facilities bereft of medical supplies that donor aid once provided.
Compounding its economic woes, the country is confronting one of the worst droughts in decades, which has withered fields, starved farm animals and dried irrigation channels. Afghanistan’s wheat harvest is expected to be as much as 25% below average this year, according to the United Nations. In rural areas — where roughly 70% of the population lives — many farmers have given up cultivating their land.
To be honest, this probably would happened under President Trump if he withdrew the troops. It would have taken longer but the
Taliban and and other terrorists would have taken over eventually and would have the same results.
And those also means that Senile Joe is starving American citizens.
And we still pay farmers to not grow food or grow it for dirtier bio-fuel purposes…Why the Government doesn’t pay farmers FOR the extra food grown to use for just such emergencies has always been beyond me.
Tuerqas, let’s say we have more than enough food, which we do, would you support sending it to Afghanistan?
Depends upon whether there is a viable distribution method. Are there any international orgs allowed in there right now? I would not be against getting food to the population if there were an opportunity. I would not give it directly to the Taliban. If they stopped all help for their people at gun point, I would not force it again. Afghanistan aside, other nations are certainly being hit by the same drought and famine to some extent. We don’t always have to be ugly Americans. Why does our Gov pay for nothing year after year when they could be paying for goodwill collateral in the form of free food every year?
I understand your point Tuerqas but you also have to consider the farmer as well.
The more they grow, the less money they receive.
On the other hand, this is also government welfare for the farmers, especially the big factory farms.
But as far as the ugly Amrrican, we donate billions of dollars a year to countries in food and money. That’s not too ugly.
“The more they grow, the less money they receive.”
if true that is exactly my point that Gov’t is failing. If you are going to give X farm X dollars, then require X bushels. It should be a simple formula and if Gov can’t figure that out, it shows a serious lack of…well of every positive word i can apply to it.
“But as far as the ugly American, we donate billions of dollars a year to countries in food and money. That’s not too ugly.”
I agree (though the bulk is through private donation today), but we are still branded for the actions we fight and the famines we don’t solve world wide. Branding and publicity, something I would have said Gov was pretty good at has been abandoned in order to continue the full on assault on the American public’s psyche to make sure Ds hate Rs and vice versa, and make sure that is all that matters. Imagine if everyone knew about a program that gave all Gov’t paid food (instead of farm welfare) and waited for the numbers to come out on Christmas day of X food going to specific organizations. Why that would make every working American feel good regardless of party. That does not happen anymore…ever.
How far are we from seeing stats on the massive drop in opium availability in the US?
Isn’t this what typicsal socialist administrations like Biden do? starve people. Awful. Just awful. Socialists are human rights disaster wherever they go…
Jason, I would bet real money that we will see a serious drop in opium over the next few years.
Kevin, the Taliban is NOT a Socialist administration.
Tuerqas, your probably right.
Fentenyl is the new drug of choice by dealers and users.
It is historical fact all the way back to Ghenghis Khan at the least. Whatever country that invades or controls Afghanistan uses the opium trade as a cash cow and their people’s heroine addiction skyrockets. As soon as they leave their number of addicts drop. Just look up Russian addictions during the time they were in Afghanistan and our addiction peaks while we were in Afghanistan.
Quite a few politicians and upper echelon military men have become very rich men while their country spends billions to pretend to tame Afghanistan. And that is why the Taliban in some incarnation will never die and someone else will always be invading. It is even easier for Taliban interests to sell opiates to an invader than to keep their own channels in current and potential foreign markets. And the rich people in every nation tend to control the Government.