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  1. #51
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    There is no need to reboot Aghanistan. All we need do is to send them slippers. Comfortable and much lighter to post.

  2. #52
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by can123 View Post
    send them slippers. Comfortable and much lighter to post.
    Is a NaGastani leader planning a visit:



    What is it nearly 20 years, have they left Iraq yet?
    Last edited by OhOh; 12-09-2021 at 10:34 PM.

  3. #53
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Reflections on Events in Afghanistan -16

    Posted on September 12, 2021 by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

    16. Biden’s Taliban blues

    "The best part of the visit by the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Nikolay Patrushev to New Delhi (September 7-8) was that the two countries may embark upon a voyage of discovery of each other at a phase in their relationship when the US-led Quad irrevocably sets them apart and as Delhi climbs on board the US’ Indo-Pacific Strategy to fight the Chinese on the beaches, in the hills and in the air.

    The Americans are of course back on the cold war era track obsessed with weakening and possibly dismembering Russia, if they can, to realise their elusive dream of ‘nuclear superiority’.

    Contradictions are galore in the contemporary world situation and India-Russia relationship is no exception. Look at the feisty mood in Delhi yesterday, feting two Australian ministers and confabulating with them on the ways and means to bully the Taliban government in Kabul.
    Our External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar didn’t seem to be aware that the Australian troops fled from Afghanistan overnight when it got exposed that they had used Afghan civilians for target practice and did many heinous things in their host country! Yet, India and Australia worry today over the plight of Afghan women under the Taliban!
    Succinctly put, the great convergence between the security czars of India and Russia is that they represent nations with large restive Muslim populations who feel aggrieved over suppression. Delhi and Moscow worry that the ascendancy of political Islam in their immediate external environment could radicalise their own Muslim population.

    Yet, the small print is that Patrushev is actually the third czar in a row to drop by within the week — after Richard Moore, the head of the UK Secret Intelligence Service or MI6, and William Burns, the chief of the US Central Intelligence Agency. The Western powers appear to regard Delhi as the most logical destination in the region in these extraordinary times — as a counterpoint to the ascendance of political Islam and a rising red star over Afghanistan.
    The BBC’s build-up over Afghanistan has an eerie similarity with what it attempted a few months ago to orchestrate in Myanmar and Belarus — a ‘colour revolution’ via the skilful use of social media to overthrow regimes on China and Russia’s underbelly and encircle them with an arc of hostile power centres. The weaponisation of the human rights issues comes easy for the West.

    Do the chic English-speaking Afghan women truly represent their country? What about “The Other Afghan Women,” which is the title of a fabulous essay in the New Yorker magazine penned by Anand Gopal, one of the best chroniclers of the Afghan war in the western world and the author of the acclaimed 2014 book ‘No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes’?

    Gopal exposes that the Afghan countryside has an entirely different story to tell than the urbanites excited by the urgings of social media. More than 70% of Afghans do not live in the cities. Gopal writes that in rural areas, the realities are entirely different from what BBC’s Razia Iqbal and Lyse Doucet would have us believe.

    Life in the rural areas under the boots of the US military and Amrullah Saleh’s NATO-trained Afghan Special Forces was “pure hazard; even drinking tea in a sunlit field, or driving to your sister’s wedding, was a potentially deadly gamble.” Here’s an excerpt from Gopal’s essay:
    “Some British officers on the ground grew concerned that the U.S. was killing too many civilians, and unsuccessfully lobbied to have American Special Forces removed from the area. Instead, troops from around the world poured into Helmand, including Australians, Canadians, and Danes. But villagers couldn’t tell the difference—to them, the occupiers were simply “Americans.” Pazaro, the woman from a nearby village, recalled, “There were two types of people—one with black faces and one with pink faces. When we see them, we get terrified.” The coalition portrayed locals as hungering for liberation from the Taliban, but a classified intelligence report from 2011 described community perceptions of coalition forces as “unfavorable,” with villagers warning that, if the coalition “did not leave the area, the local nationals would be forced to evacuate.” read more

    That was already the desperate point reached 10 years ago — and still there was another 10 years to go under the western occupation. Human security, unlike a country’s, is absolute — not only because you live only once or because your daughter may lose her innocence only once. What is life worth if you are used for target practice by young inebriated Australian soldiers or sodomised by your own country’s security forces?

    Typically, just before vacating the occupation on August 31, the US troops committed a final act of crime — the last testament — by killing with drone an aid worker and a family of seven small children, and brusquely lying that the man was an ISIS terrorist.

    Haven’t these Anglo-Saxons had their fill of human blood in modern history? But the Americans are so vengeful that they won’t even allow Afghans to spend their own money. Shouldn’t the US be addressing its own problems instead of bullying other peoples? A microscopic virus just took away 677, 737 American lives through the past year and a half… How could such a country heaving with sorrows have iron in its soul? read more

    What is being meted out to the Afghans by the Biden Administration is cruelty. Make no mistake, Prometheus, Sisyphus, Corinth, Actaeon — they were made horrible examples by the ancient Olympian gods for much lesser crimes.

    It could be a Christian virtue and will certainly be an act of atonement if President Biden returns to the Afghans their 9 billion dollars for meeting their immediate needs, and allows the World Bank and the IMF to assist that country to pull through this lowest point in their proud history. For good or bad, leave it to the Taliban and fellow Afghans to figure out their way forward."

    Reflections on Events in Afghanistan -16 - Indian Punchline
    A tray full of GOLD is not worth a moment in time.

  4. #54
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Christ you love a bit of drivel don't you?


  5. #55
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Iran says Afghan interim government ‘not inclusive’

    TEHRAN (Agencies): Iran said Monday that the Taliban’s interim government announced last week in neighbouring Afghanistan is not representative of the country’s population.


    It “is certainly not the inclusive government that the international community and the Islamic Republic of Iran expect,” said foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh.


    “We really have to wait and see how the Taliban respond to international demands,” he added, speaking at a news conference in Tehran. He further said that:“War and aggression are not [proper] solution.”


    As he noted, Afghan people do not accept presence of foreign forces in their soil.


    Regional and extra-regional sides should facilitate intra-Afghan talks, the spokesman stated.


    Asked if Taliban’s invitation of Iran to attend ceremony on the beginning of their government in Afghanistan means recognition of them, the spokesman said that it is soon to talk about the issue.


    Also about military drills conducted by Turkey and Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea, Khatibzadeh said agreement between five littoral states has stressed illegitimacy of military presence of any country in the Sea except the five- Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan.


    At the end, the spokesman described the statement issued by the four-member committee of the Arab League against Iran as boring and old-fashioned.


    Iran says Afghan interim government ‘not inclusive’ - The Frontier Post

  6. #56
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    agreement between five littoral states has stressed illegitimacy of military presence of any country in the Sea except the five- Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan.
    Can't imagine anyone else sailing into it, unless Nessie has shown a new pathway no-one knows about.

  7. #57
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Double post.
    Last edited by OhOh; 14-09-2021 at 10:58 PM.

  8. #58
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    anyone else sailing into it,
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    conducted by Turkey
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    in the Caspian Sea
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    five littoral states
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    illegitimacy of military presence of any country in the Sea except the five- Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan.
    Turkey is not one of the littoral states, hence illegal according to the .
    Last edited by OhOh; 14-09-2021 at 11:14 PM.

  9. #59
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    Donors pledge $1.1 billion for 'collapsing' Afghanistan
    Sep 14, 2021

    United Nations tries to galvanise world to help Afghanistan

    Food shortages exacerbated after Taliban takeover

    Exit of Western donors complicates aid situation

    World Food Programme says 14 million "on brink of starvation"

    U.S. pledges $64 mln, China and Pakistan already sending aid

    Read more
    Donors pledge $1.1 billion for '''collapsing''' Afghanistan | Reuters

    (Didn't the Afghani get enough in the last 20 years?)

  10. #60
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    Falling apart already:

    Afghanistan: Taliban leaders in bust-up at presidential palace, sources say

    By Khudai Noor Nasar
    BBC Islamabad

    A major row broke out between leaders of the Taliban over the make-up of the group's new government in Afghanistan, senior Taliban officials told the BBC.

    The argument between the group's co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and a cabinet member happened at the presidential palace, they said.

    There have been unconfirmed reports of disagreements within the Taliban's leadership since Mr Baradar disappeared from public view in recent days.

    These have been officially denied.

    The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan last month, and have since declared the country an "Islamic Emirate". Their new interim cabinet is entirely male and made up of senior Taliban figures, some of whom are notorious for attacks on US forces over the last two decades.

    One Taliban source told BBC Pashto that Mr Baradar and Khalil ur-Rahman Haqqani - the minister for refugees and a prominent figure within the militant Haqqani network - had exchanged strong words, as their followers brawled with each other nearby.

    A senior Taliban member based in Qatar and a person connected to those involved also confirmed that an argument had taken place late last week.

    The sources said the argument had broken out because Mr Baradar, the new deputy prime minister, was unhappy about the structure of their interim government.

    It has been said that the row stemmed from divisions over who in the Taliban should take credit for their victory in Afghanistan.

    Mr Baradar reportedly believes that the emphasis should be placed on diplomacy carried out by people like him, while members of the Haqqani group - which is run by one of the most senior Taliban figures - and their backers say it was achieved through fighting.

    Mr Baradar was the first Taliban leader to communicate directly with a US president, having a telephone conversation with Donald Trump in 2020. Before that, he signed the Doha agreement on the withdrawal of US troops on behalf of the Taliban.

    Afghanistan: Taliban leaders in bust-up at presidential palace, sources say - BBC News

  11. #61
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    It's all so inevitable. This was my post on the Biden made the right call thread:



    Abdul Gani Baradar, the Taliban's chief political leader returns to Kabul.

    One of my favourite recent news photos. His face just says it all:

    Biden Made the Right Call

  12. #62
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    (No helicopter available to bring it out? But such a peanut wound not help for the "reboot", anyway)


    Taliban Reportedly Finds $6Mln, Gold Bars in Home of Self-Declared Afghan President Saleh

    KABUL (Sputnik) - The Taliban (terrorist organisation, banned in Russia) found about $6 million in cash and at least 15 gold bars in the house belonging to former Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who had declared himself president of Afghanistan, Khaama Press reported on Monday.

    The Afghan news agency shared a video circulated earlier on social media, saying it showed Taliban militants demonstrating the assets found in Saleh's residence.

    A source in the movement confirmed to Sputnik that "huge sums of money" had been found in the house of the vice-president in the failed government of Ashraf Ghani.

    Neither Saleh nor the members of the anti-Taliban resistance have yet commented on the claims.

    Amrullah Saleh claimed presidential powers and duties on 17 August 2021, shortly after the Taliban took control of Kabul, forcing President Ashraf Ghani to flee and the Western-backed government to dissolve. Saleh had been serving as the country's vice-president since February 2020. He also was the interior minister in 2018-2019 and served as the head of the National Directorate of Security in 2004-2010.

    On 10 September, a source close to the resistance forces said that the Taliban took prisoner and then killed Rohullah Saleh, a brother of the self-proclaimed Afghan president.

    Taliban Reportedly Finds $6Mln, Gold Bars in Home of Self-Declared Afghan President Saleh - 13.09.2021, Sputnik International

  13. #63
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Lavrov: No one is in a hurry to recognize Taliban

    DUSHANBE (RIA Novosti): No one is in a hurry to officially recognize the Taliban, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.


    “The Taliban have not yet been recognized by any country. Everyone is talking about the need to have contacts with them on current issues, first of all, on security issues, respect for the rights of citizens, and ensure the normal functioning of diplomatic missions. But no one is in a hurry with official recognition.”, – Lavrov told reporters.


    The minister noted that the Taliban proclaimed their goals, including “the fight against terrorism, drug trafficking, and also assured everyone else that they will do everything so that no threats to neighboring countries come from the territory of Afghanistan and that they have no intention of destabilizing neighboring countries. countries that will form an inclusive government that will reflect the full spectrum of Afghan society.”


    “We, like the overwhel-ming majority of countries in the world, welcomed this approach and are now watching how it will be implemented. Of course, too little time has passed to draw final conclusions,” Lavrov told reporters.


    “At this stage … we maintain contacts with them on current issues, primarily on issues that relate to the removal of any risks for our Central Asian neighbors,” the Russian Foreign Minister said . …


    “We do not impose anything on the Taliban, no conditions. They themselves declared their goals, including, they declared their commitment to the further fight against terrorism, the fight against drug trafficking, assured everyone else that they will do everything to prevent any threats from neighboring countries and that they have no intention of destabilizing neighboring countries and that they will form an inclusive government that reflects the full spectrum of Afghan society, political, ethnic, and confessional balance,” Lavrov told reporters.


    The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry also commented on the situation with the participation of Afghanistan in the upcoming SCO summit.


    “Afghanistan is an observer in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, observers are always invited to the SCO summits, so it was this time. Former President Ghani received a timely invitation to an event to be held here tomorrow, and we all proceeded from this,” Lavrov told reporters.


    “What happened in Afghanistan when President Ghani fled the country, deciding to leave his post in order, as he explained, to avoid bloodshed … the situation has changed,” the minister added.

    Lavrov: No one is in a hurry to recognize Taliban - The Frontier Post

  14. #64
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    It's not unlike the early post revolution Soviet governments. Schisms within the Taliban are already becoming apparent.

  15. #65
    Hangin' Around cyrille's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sabang View Post
    Schisms within the Taliban are already becoming apparent.
    Hardly surprising is it.

    Does it need to be noted that they're a bit of 'rag bag' mix?

    I don't think so.

    Let me guess though...things still look pretty shit, especially for women.

  16. #66
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Taliban replace Afghan women's affairs ministry with virtue, vice dept


    In what depicts the true state of women under the new Taliban rule, the group seems to have closed down the women's affairs ministry and replaced it with a department, which used to once enforce strict religious doctrines.


    The Taliban’s true commitment towards women rights has come to light with this move.

    The sign at the ministry was removed on Friday. A sign for the ministry of virtue and vice was also put in its place.


    On social media, some videos also showed women employees outside the offices, urging the Taliban to let them return to work.

    In another measure curbing women’s freedom in Afghanistan, the new Taliban government’s higher education minister Abdul Baqi Haqqani had earlier said that women in Afghanistan can continue to study in universities, but classrooms will be gender-segregated and Islamic dress is compulsory. The women will be allowed to study at post-graduate levels too.


    At a news conference, the minister laid out new policies days after Afghanistan's new rulers formed the government.

    At this time, the whole world has been watching the new government’s actions closely to see is the group true to its words and the type of rule it imposes on the country this time.


    In the era of their last rule, girls and women were denied an education, and were totally excluded from public life.


    The Taliban have claimed to have changed, including in their attitudes towards women. But in recent days, they have used violence against women protesters demanding equal rights.

    Taliban replace Afghan women's affairs ministry with virtue, vice deptt, South Asia News | wionews.com

  17. #67
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Some high level meetings have taken place.

    1.
    Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

    "The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), or Shanghai Pact,[2] is a Eurasian political, economic, and security alliance. It is the world's largest regional organisation in geographic scope and population, covering three-fifths of the Eurasian continent, 40% of the human population, and more than 20% of global GDP.[3]

    The SCO is governed by the Heads of State Council (HSC), its supreme decision-making body, which meets once a year. Military exercises are also regularly conducted among members to promote cooperation and coordination against terrorism and other external threats, and to maintain regional peace and stability."


    Potential Efforts to Reboot Afghanistan-thu-shanghai_cooperation_organisation-jpg

    Future participation

    Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, East Timor, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Syria, Egypt, Israel, Maldives, Saudi Arabia,Bahrain and Qatar.

    Quite a mix of countries, most of Asia!

    One readout is here:

    The Chinese:

    http://The Shanghai Cooperation Orga...sue 2021/07/14

    another here:

    The Indian:

    https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1755831

    They appear to be mostly the same, except for a couple of points :

    China -

    "The SCO member states should leverage their respective advantages to make joint efforts for mediation, and urge all Afghan factions to clarify the road map and timetable for reconciliation, so as to lay a solid foundation for a broad, inclusive political structure in Afghanistan."

    India-

    "The first issue is that the transition of power in Afghanistan is not inclusive, and it has happened without negotiation.

    This raises questions about the acceptability of the new system.

    The representation of all sections of Afghan society, including women and minorities, is also important.

    And therefore, it is necessary that the decision on recognition of such a new system is taken by the global community collectively and after due thought.

    India supports the central role of the United Nations on this issue."

    2.


    Dushanbe Declaration on the Twentieth Anniversary of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

    September 17, 2021

    https://mea.gov.in/bilateral-documen...n+Organisation

    One opinion can be read here:

    Reflections on Events in Afghanistan-19

    September 18, 2021 by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
    19. SCO won’t be subaltern to QUAD


    https://www.indianpunchline.com/refl...fghanistan-19/
    Last edited by OhOh; 22-09-2021 at 08:21 PM.

  18. #68
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    Some high level meetings have taken place.
    Yeah 'cos the chinkies don't give a fuck about women or muslims, they just want to stick the enema tube in Afghanistan and suck up the loot.

  19. #69
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Eurasian consolidation ends the US unipolar moment

    Shanghai Cooperation Organization's 20th-anniversary summit heralded the beginning of a new geopolitical and geo-economic order

    by Pepe Escobar September 22, 2021

    Potential Efforts to Reboot Afghanistan-068_aa_17092021_465131-jpg

    Participant leaders pose for a photo ahead of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, on September 17. Photo: AFP / Iranian Presidency / Handout / Anadolu Agency

    "The 20th-anniversary summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, enshrined nothing less than a new geopolitical paradigm.

    Iran, now a full SCO member, was restored to its traditionally prominent Eurasian role, following the recent US$400 billion trade and development deal struck with China. Afghanistan was the main topic – with all players agreeing on the path ahead, as detailed in the Dushanbe Declaration. And all Eurasian integration paths are now converging, in unison, towards the new geopolitical – and geoeconomic – paradigm.

    Call it a multipolar development dynamic in synergy with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

    The Dushanbe Declaration was quite explicit on what Eurasian players are aiming at:

    “a more representative, democratic, just and multipolar world order based on universally recognized principles of international law, cultural and civilizational diversity, mutually beneficial and equal cooperation of states under the central coordinating role of the UN.”

    For all the immense challenges inherent to the Afghan jigsaw puzzle, hopeful signs emerged on Tuesday (September 21), when former Afghan president Hamid Karzai and peace envoy Abdullah Abdullah met in Kabul with Russian presidential envoy Zamir Kabulov, China’s special envoy Yue Xiaoyong and Pakistan’s special envoy Mohammad Sadiq Khan.

    This troika – Russia, China, Pakistan – is at the diplomatic forefront. The SCO reached a consensus that Islamabad will coordinate with the Taliban on the formation of an inclusive government that including Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras.
    The most glaring, immediate consequence of the SCO’s not only incorporating Iran but also taking the Afghan bull by the horns, fully supported by the Central Asian “stans,” is that the Empire of Chaos has been completely marginalized.

    From Southwest Asia to Central Asia, a real reset has as its protagonists the SCO, the Eurasia Economic Union, the BRI and the Russia-China strategic partnership. Iran and Afghanistan – the missing links heretofore, for different reasons – are now fully incorporated into the chessboard.

    In one of my frequent conversations with Alastair Crooke, a prominent political analyst, he evoked once again Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard: everything must change so everything must remain the same.

    In this case, imperial hegemony, as interpreted by Washington: “In its growing confrontation with China, a ruthless Washington has demonstrated that what matters to it now is not Europe but the Indo-Pacific region.” That’s Cold War 2.0 prime terrain.

    China after having been all but expelled from the Eurasia heartland – had to be a classic maritime power play: the “free and open Indo-Pacific,” complete with Quad and AUKUS, the whole setup spun to death as an “effort” attempting to preserve dwindling American supremacy.

    Potential Efforts to Reboot Afghanistan-068_aa_17092021_465217-jpg

    Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, on September 17, 2021. Photo: AFP / Iranian Presidency / Handout / Anadolu Agency

    The sharp contrast between the SCO continental integration drive and the “we all live in an Aussie submarine” gambit (my excuses to Lennon-McCartney) speaks for itself. A toxic mix of hubris and desperation is in the air, with not even a whiff of pathos to alleviate the downfall.

    The Global South is not impressed. Addressing the forum in Dushanbe, Russian President Vladimir Putin remarked that the portfolio of nations knocking on the SCO’s door was huge.

    Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are now SCO dialogue partners, on the same level with Afghanistan and Turkey. It’s quite feasible they may be joined next year by Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Serbia and dozens of others.
    And it doesn’t stop in Eurasia. In his well-timed address to CELAC, Chinese

    President Xi Jinping invited no fewer than 33 Latin American nations to be part of the Eurasia-Africa-Americas New Silk Roads.

    Remember the Scythians


    Iran as a SCO protagonist and at the center of the New Silk Roads has been restored to a rightful historic role. By the middle of the first millennium BCE, northern Iranians ruled the core of the steppes in Central Eurasia. By that time the Scythians had migrated into the western steppe, while other steppe Iranians made inroads as far away as China.
    Scythians – a northern (or “east”) Iranian people – were not necessarily just fierce warriors. That’s a crude stereotype. Very few in the West know that the Scythians developed a sophisticated trade system, as described by Herodotus among others, that linked Greece, Persia and China.
    And why’s that? Because trade was an essential means to support their sociopolitical infrastructure. Herodotus got the picture because he actually visited the city of Olbia and other places in Scythia.

    The Scythians were called Saka by the Persians – and that leads us to another fascinating territory: the Sakas may have been one of the prime ancestors of the Pashtun in Afghanistan.

    What’s in a name – Scythian? Well, multitudes. The Greek form Scytha meant northern Iranian “archer.” So that was the denomination of all the northern Iranian peoples living between Greece in the West and China in the East.

    Potential Efforts to Reboot Afghanistan-scythia-parthia_100_bc-png

    Now imagine a very busy international commerce network developed across the heartland, with the focus on Central Eurasia, by the Scythians, the Sogdians, and even the Xiongnu – who kept battling the Chinese on and off, as detailed by early Greek and Chinese historical sources.

    These Central Eurasians traded with all the peoples living on their borders: that meant Europeans, Southwest Asians, South Asians and East Asians. They were the precursors of the multiple ancient Silk Roads.

    The Sogdians followed the Scythians; Sogdiana was an independent Greco-Bactrian state in the 3rd century B.C. – encompassing areas of northern Afghanistan – before it was conquered by nomads from the east who ended up establishing the Kushan empire, which soon expanded south into India.
    Zoroaster was born in Sogdiana; Zoroastrianism was huge in Central Asia for centuries. The Kushans for their part adopted Buddhism: and that’s how Buddhism eventually arrived in China.

    By the first century CE, all these Central Asian empires were linked – via long-distance trade – to Iran, India and China. That was the historical basis of the multiple, ancient Silk Roads – which linked China to the West for several centuries until the Age of Discovery configured the fateful Western maritime trade dominance.

    Arguably, even more than a series of interlinked historical phenomena, the denomination “Silk Road” works best as a metaphor of cross-cultural connectivity. That’s what is at the heart of the Chinese concept of New Silk Roads. And average people across the heartland feel it because that’s imprinted in the collective unconscious in Iran, China and all Central Asian “stans.”

    Revenge of the heartland


    Glenn Diesen, professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal, is among the very few top scholars who are analyzing the process of Eurasia integration in depth.
    His latest book practically spells out the whole story in its title:

    Europe as the Western Peninsula of Greater Eurasia: Geoeconomic Regions in a Multipolar World
    .

    Diesen shows, in detail, how a “Greater Eurasia region, that integrates Asia and Europe, is currently being negotiated and organized with a Chinese-Russian partnership at the center. Eurasian geoeconomic instruments of power are gradually forming the foundation of a super-region with new strategic industries, transportation corridors and financial instruments. Across the Eurasian continent, states as different as South Korea, India, Kazakhstan and Iran are all advancing various formats for Eurasia integration.”

    The Greater Eurasia Partnership has been at the center of Russian foreign policy at least since the St Petersburg forum in 2016. Diesen duly notes that, “while Beijing and Moscow share the ambition to construct a larger Eurasian region, their formats differ. The common denominator of both formats is the necessity of a Sino-Russian partnership to integrate Eurasia.” That’s what was made very clear at the SCO summit.

    It’s no wonder the process irks the Empire immensely, because Greater Eurasia, led by Russia-China, is a mortal attack against the geoeconomic architecture of Atlanticism. And that leads us to the nest-of-vipers debate around the EU concept of “strategic autonomy” from the US; that would be essential to establish true European sovereignty – and eventually, closer integration within Eurasia.

    Potential Efforts to Reboot Afghanistan-image001-jpeg

    European sovereignty is simply non-existent when its foreign policy means submission to dominatrix NATO. The humiliating, unilateral withdrawal from Afghanistan coupled with the Anglo-only AUKUS was a graphic illustration that the Empire doesn’t give a damn about its European vassals.

    Throughout the book, Diesen shows, in detail, how the concept of Eurasia unifying Europe and Asia “has through history been an alternative to the dominance of maritime powers in the oceanic-centric world economy,” and how “British and American strategies have been deeply influenced” by the ghost of an emerging Eurasia, “a direct threat to their advantageous position in the oceanic world order.”

    Now, the crucial factor seems to be the fragmentation of Atlanticism. Diesen identifies three levels: the de facto decoupling of Europe and the US propelled by Chinese ascendancy; the mind-boggling internal divisions in the EU, enhanced by the parallel universe inhabited by Brussels eurocrats; and last but not least, “polarization within Western states” caused by the excesses of neoliberalism.

    Well, just as we think we’re out, Mackinder and Spykman pull us back in. It’s always the same story: the Anglo-American obsession in preventing the rise of a “peer competitor” (Brzezinski) in Eurasia, or an alliance (Russia-Germany in the Mackinder era, now the Russia-China strategic partnership) capable, as Diesen puts it, “of wrestling geoeconomic control away from the oceanic powers.”

    As much as imperial strategists remain hostages of Spykman – who ruled that the US must control the maritime periphery of Eurasia – definitely it’s not AUKUS/Quad that is going to pull it off.

    Very few people, East and West, may remember that Washington had developed its own Silk Road concept during the Bill Clinton years – later co-opted by Dick Cheney with a Pipelineistan twist and then circling all back to Hillary Clinton who announced her own Silk Road dream in India in 2011.

    Diesen reminds us how Hillary sounded remarkably like a proto-Xi: “Let’s work together to create a new Silk Road. Not a single thoroughfare like its namesake, but an international web and network of economic and transit connections. That means building more rail lines, highways, energy infrastructure, like the proposed pipeline to run from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan, through Pakistan and India.”

    Hillary does Pipelineistan! Well, in the end, she didn’t. Reality dictates that Russia is connecting its European and Pacific regions, while China connects its developed east coast with Xinjiang, and both connect Central Asia. Diesen interprets it as Russia “completing its historical conversion from a European/Slavic empire to a Eurasian civilizational state.”

    So in the end we’re back to … the Scythians. The prevailing neo-Eurasia concept revives the mobility of nomadic civilizations – via top transportation infrastructure – to connect everything between Europe and Asia.

    We could call it the Revenge of the Heartland: they are the powers building this new, interconnected Eurasia. Say goodbye to the ephemeral, post-Cold War US unipolar moment. "


    https://asiatimes.com/2021/09/eurasi...ipolar-moment/
    Last edited by OhOh; 22-09-2021 at 08:19 PM.

  20. #70
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    All this talk of history reminds me of when the chinkies said they don't have claims in the South China Sea.

  21. #71
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    "ghan"?

    Are you fucking 12 or something?
    Dear Harold think it is an Ozzie thingy , when they ran out of transported Poms to entertain teh wallabies, Camels and their jockeys were sent to help the many unmarried redcoats reliEve their tension.

    An international Man of mystery like yourself can imagine teh thrill as the first wagonload of fresh virgn camales were unleashed.

    The railroad to this day is affectionately called the (Gonna Have A Nawty)

    as to the substantial point of the OP

    When people ask me who will reboot Afghnistan, I have a sole response

    COBBLERS

  22. #72
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    Australia's oldest Mosque-




    Thanks for pointing out 'arrys ignorance Agent 44- but we already knew.


    The Ghan-




    We have the worlds largest camel population too 'arry- you're in the wrong place.





    The ghan memorial, Alice Springs.





    ghans.
    Last edited by sabang; 23-09-2021 at 04:33 AM.

  23. #73
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sabang View Post
    The Ghan-
    Land transportation assets are surely subject to ragheads attacks.

    Surely ships protected by some shiny/second hand submarines, costing USFUKAUS$200,000,000,000,000 and delivered in 2035 would be a more effective and financially prudent choice.

    One hopes OZ has sufficient drones and exceptionally trained and incentivised operators to splatter all the "confirmed" terrorists.

    Potential Efforts to Reboot Afghanistan-child-terrorists-jpg


    How many sheep sheared in OZ today?


  24. #74
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    I ain't sharing my sheep with anyone.

  25. #75
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    Some fucking 12 year old can't pronounce "Afghanistan" and then proves it with a load of irrelevant bollocks.

    You can't make it up.

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