I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the brand new Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism.
And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2003, almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at ScottHorton.org.
You can sign up for the podcast feed there, and the full interview archive is also available at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton Show.
All right, you guys, introducing Zaheer Wahab.
He is a professor emeritus at Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education and was a senior advisor to the education ministry in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2006.
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing, sir?
Zaheer Wahab Fine.
And taught at the American University of Afghanistan from 2013 until the end of 2019.
David Oh, OK, great.
All right.
So, you know, our friend Sam Hussaini put out this great press release about your criticism essentially of current American policy towards Afghanistan in the midst of their drought and humanitarian crisis this winter and your plan to fix it.
So first of all, I mean, there's so much to tackle here.
But go ahead and give us, if you could, something like a thumbnail sketch of what you think we need to understand has been happening in Afghanistan since the end of the American occupation and the beginning of Taliban rule there at the end of last summer, please, sir.
Zaheer Wahab OK.
Well, Scott, I don't know if you happened to watch the PBS last night, as it was a very short segment, maybe four to five minutes.
Scott No, I missed it.
I'm sorry.
Zaheer Wahab On Afghanistan.
And it showed, you know, street life, family life, kids sitting almost literally on top of snow and trying to write something, you know, and people begging, screaming, yelling, you know, crying and so forth.
I think the American allied misadventure in Afghanistan was a gross mistake.
It was unnecessary.
It was immoral.
It was illegal.
And I think it was criminal.
And nevertheless, because Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9-11 or very little to do with 9-11, the American and allies stayed there for 20 years, spent $2 trillion on the war industry, but also gave the Afghan, quote, puppet regime about $140 billion for, quote, nation building.
Well, after 20 years, the world realized and the Americans finally realized that this was a massive failure.
It was a disaster.
It was a defeat, you know, and it was a disgrace.
And so the Americans and its allies left on, you know, toward the second half of August, the way it had entered Afghanistan in October 2001.
And soon, you know, we realized, you know, that over the last 20 years, Afghanistan, not only was there no development actually taking place, but the country was made completely dependent on foreign assistance.
For example, over the last 20 years, 80% of the Afghan operating budget came from technical foreign assistance and 40% of its GDP.
In other words, Americans, instead of trying to do some development work over the 20 years, prepare the Afghan economy, polity, civil society, infrastructure, et cetera, it made the country completely dependent on life support.
So on August 15th, when the Americans left, they went ahead.
They ended one kind of war, direct military war, and embarked on the economic war on Afghanistan.
We all know the Americans froze 10 billion of Afghanistan's money, not the Taliban money, but Afghanistan's money in the U.S. banks.
The U.S. also forced, literally, the World Bank and IMF and other organizations to stop, you know, any kind of aid and declared a massive sanction on Afghanistan, the country.
And so right now, you know, whether you listen to, you know, Antonio Gutierrez, the head of the U.N., Martin Griffiths, his assistant, the UNHCR, the World Food Program, you know, the International Rescue Commission, whoever you, Deborah Lyons, the head of the UNAMA in Afghanistan, who stayed there and spoke before the U.N. Security Council last night, by all indication, the vast majority, 90% of the Afghans are food insecure right now.
They are hungry, and 22 billion are, you know, really, really hungry, have no food.
Four or five billion on the verge of famine and starvation.
Right now in the country, you know, there's almost no money in or outside the banks.
There's no work.
People haven't been paid for five, six months.
The schools are closed.
Banks are essentially closed.
There's very little trade taking place.
The country is blanketed with snow.
The country has been in its fourth or fifth year of massive drought.
We have the pandemic.
So, you know, the country is in a very difficult situation.
People have referred to it as hell on earth.
The worst crisis in history, a disaster, a calamity, a catastrophe.
Choose your own word.
And this is all true.
I mean, we're literally watching a society sort of condemned to slow genocide and starving to death.
That's where we are.
All right.
Now, I have to say, you know, and I wrote a book about Afghanistan.
I've read all the cigar reports and all these things.
So I got a pretty good idea of how much money was coming in there.
Yes, great.
It's stolen.
It's stolen.
Sure.
But, you know, so I guess that's my question, right, is since we know it wasn't really going to infrastructure, it's mostly just being put in bank accounts in Qatar.
But overall, and, you know, this is the problem with Keynesian economics, you have things like aggregate demand and gross domestic product and all this, which can be meaningless terms in certain circumstances.
So here you have essentially, you know, 40 something, almost half of the GDP as they measure it of the country was just foreign money coming in, American money coming in.
And then, as I say, most of it just going right out anyway.
But so if that's the case, it's hard for me to picture, I guess, first of all, now that you bring it up, how is Afghanistan being fed the last 20 years?
They were blanketed in snow.
And as you said, the drought's been going on for five years.
We didn't have a humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan the past few years, other than the bombs falling from the sky, of course, and just the deprivation of of the war.
But now we're hearing, you know, the way you describe it, it sounds like, you know, Ethiopia in 1984 or maybe Yemen right now, where and I understand, as you're saying, you got the drought and you have the obvious Great Depression caused by the withdrawal of all of that foreign money coming in.
But still, I mean, you can't just feed people with only dollar bills, right?
I mean, there's got to be, you know, markets.
Was it was the international community, the NATO and American forces, were they bringing in that much food that that's really what's missing is actual sacks of wheat that had been coming in from the West?
What is it that explains such or such a dramatic change in such a short amount of time here?
Well, there hasn't been really a dramatic change.
It has been intensified.
We all know that Afghanistan was the poorest country in South and Central Asia and in the Middle East to begin with.
You know, I remember Ashraf Ghani, the then disgraced and thief president, the American puppet, late last year saying that he knew that 95 percent of the Afghans lived below the poverty line.
That is to say, on less than two dollars a day.
We all know that this was the poorest and least developed country in the entire region.
And the last 20 years simply, you know, sort of exacerbated that situation.
I'm sure you know the work of Sarah Chase, the NPR correspondent in Afghanistan, who has done a lot of work on corruption, mismanagement, embezzlement in Afghanistan over the last 20 years.
You know, we know this.
In fact, one of Ashraf Ghani's minister, you know, the minister, the female minister of mines and industry, just yesterday, it's in the news still.
She worked with Ashraf Ghani for 12 years, including five or six years in the cabinet.
And she said that she knew that there was massive corruption at the very highest level, you know, massive corruption, mismanagement, even sex orgies and prostitution in the palace itself.
And this is, you know, Nargis Nihan, the woman speaking, and Ashraf Ghani, they went to Ashraf Ghani and talked to them about the corruption, you know, the sexual assault on women and all that, and spoke to the so-called first lady that they didn't bother at all.
Sarah Chase's point is that the Americans were deeply involved in the corruption, mismanagement, embezzlement, waste and fraud and all that.
And we know from the Afghanistan papers by Martin Witts, I think, and from CIGAR reports that there was corruption, mismanagement, embezzlement at all sites.
And so one of the things I will be saying is, you know, Afghanistan was not even, you know, prepared for any kind of self-reliance, although it's an agricultural country.
There's land, there's water, but there was no development.
They didn't pay attention to at least, you know, enable the country to feed itself, hence the massive starvation.
And given the other conditions, what the UN is saying now and others are saying that even if we poured in massive amounts of aid, five, six billion dollars worth of aid, this would only get people through the winter, you know.
And then next year they will be asking for 10 billion dollars because the country is so underdeveloped.
I mean, right now, the real problem is the genocide, the starvation.
People are selling themselves, they're selling their children, you know, they're selling anything they have just to feed themselves.
And still they cannot manage because there's no money, there's no food.
Most people are out of work.
I mean, it's a real, real problem.
And the Americans, I would say, had a direct role in this to keep Afghanistan and countries like that destabilized, dependent, underdeveloped.
So for its own strategic, ideological and other kinds of reasons.
So this is not an accident of history, but it was deliberate by design.
And the Americans, as you know, have been involved for the last 40 years, 42 years in Afghanistan, not just for the last 20 years.
That's right.
And so the Americans are directly responsible because nothing moved over the last 20 years without the Americans knowing.
They knew everything, you know, the payments were made to the civil servants, you know, to the army, the intelligence, the police on telephone.
The Americans knew because they paid the bills.
They knew that the elections were fraudulent because they paid the bills, but they said nothing.
Well, and also, I mean, I guess the topic that is sort of the elephant in the room behind all these discussions, left out of all these discussions, is that the one real successful cash crop in this country is poppies.
It's heroin.
And so now that America and NATO are gone, it sounds like possibly one of the major problems exacerbating this Afghan Great Depression, aside from just the withdrawal of all that military and government aid money, there would be the closing of Afghans opium export routes.
And there's no way.
And maybe they need to get all of that, you know, started back up again, fresh.
And now they have a glut of heroin on their hands and no way to distribute it all.
Yes.
Well, you know, we all know that the United States spent eight to nine billion dollars, quote, eradicating drugs.
Remember George Bush after he realized that he committed a major mistake in a crime by invading an innocent country, then came up with these reasons, quote unquote, an alibi in drug eradication with the other.
You know, it was Bush was saying, I wanted to bring peace, progress, democracy, prosperity to the country, liberation of women, eradication of drugs, the end of terrorism, blah, blah, blah.
And now we know that not only have those, quote, objectives not been accomplished, but in fact, every single one of them have not only failed, but in fact, gotten worse.
And this is what Deborah Lyons told the UN Security Council last night, that unless we stop this catastrophe immediately, it would have consequences that the whole world would be sorry and drugs would be another.
There's no way you can stop drug addiction.
There are three and a half million Afghan drug users and three million addicts right now, which we speak in that country is not able to end that.
So, you know, the starvation would increase drug trade because that's the only thing, as you said, terrorism, ISIS in Afghanistan, you know, immigration, you know, and hurting other countries and neighbors and finally the whole world.
So it behooves the whole world to end this catastrophe like today, not even tomorrow.
If the world is really interested in ending, quote, narcotics on the streets of Portland or Berkeley or any place else.
And, you know, ISIS here and there, et cetera, et cetera.
So nothing has been accomplished.
Everything has been made worse again because of American ineptness, insincerity and the hidden objectives of the military industrial congressional agenda.
Yeah.
Hang on just one second.
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All right.
Now, so what exactly?
You mentioned that there's 10 billion dollars that are being held.
That's Afghan sovereign government money.
The fact that there's been a change in who's sitting in power in Kabul shouldn't really make a difference, but they're holding it.
But then, yeah, can you explain this?
Explain to me, please, if you could, the sanctions regime and the degree of it, because there are a lot of European countries.
Of course, there's Russia and China and and India and Pakistan have their own interests there.
So what's preventing everybody else in the world?
Never even mind our Western allies who maybe are just under America's thumb.
But what about everybody else?
Why can't people just send in sacks of wheat and rice and keep people from starving?
Well, for one, the sanctions, you know, the United States on August 15th, regardless of its previous involvement there, you know, and crimes, I would say all of a sudden decided to freeze the 10 billion dollars of the country's money in the U.S.
And then also forced the World Bank, IMF and other allies, quote unquote, to embark on the strictest sanctions.
So there was no money going into Afghanistan.
And we all know Afghanistan in some ways is sort of a victim of its own geography.
Its location is a curse because there are so many people who are interested in this piece of geography, call it a buffer zone or, you know, etc.
Other countries are helping in a way, but other countries also have been very vocal.
China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, India, the Stans in Central Asia, they have all been very vocal in blaming the United States for its invasion, for its failure and for its catastrophe induced on Afghanistan.
They're trying to help, you know, a small amount.
But you're talking about a society of 35 million people, you know, who are desperately poor and depends on life support.
You know, that's not very easy.
And then it's not very easy, I think, to get support.
And you have distribution issues on the ground.
I mean, the Taliban have been saying, in fact, Deborah Lyons said last night that we have been very frank with the current government in Kabul about all the subjects and that they admit they know that they were not equipped or prepared to run the country.
So there's a problem on the inside.
There's also a problem from outside, which is to say not enough aid is going in, you know, a token.
The United States says, you know, they contributed six hundred million dollars.
Well, you contributed six hundred million dollars, but not directly going to the government.
But you kept the country's, you know, ten billion dollars.
I mean, this is it's a joke.
It's a disgrace.
So there are things that need to be done on the outside and things that must be done inside.
You know, if we're to improve the situation and save save the nation, as you know, sanctions don't work.
They won't work.
But right now there's no medicine.
There's no work.
There's no food.
There's no money.
There's no safety or security.
You know, crime has mushroomed in a way of retail crime.
And, you know, ISIS seems like is trying to find a place there and reach out to other countries from here.
So it's a really difficult situation.
I mean, major things will have to be done on the outside, but as well as on the inside, if we're to end this tragedy.
Yeah.
All right.
And so it's important to it's kind of the most self-evident sort of a thing in in a way, the deafening silence, the dog that didn't bark.
Every hawk in American media who said for 20 years, we have to stay and wage this war because we love these people so much to leave would be to betray them.
In fact, leaving did mean the Taliban came back to power, which is pretty bad for a lot of people.
But anyway, they said that that's why we have to do this.
And as recently as last summer, they threw an absolute fit over the final withdrawal and end of the war.
And now it's like the story's completely disappeared.
And those same people who said we have to kill these people because we love them so much can't be bothered to even put out a tweet saying, hey, man, maybe we should send these people a chicken sandwich or something to her or instead of occupying them.
You know?
Yes.
Well, we all know, you know, the ideology of the the corporate press.
They're a mouthpiece for the ruling elite in this and in most other societies.
No wonder they have moved on, you know, to more newsworthy court subjects.
And Afghanistan, the women, the girls, the poor, et cetera, the children are forgotten.
That's to understand.
But, you know, Washington must face up to its responsibility, its blunder and its crime and do something immediately, not worry.
I mean, the country has to be engaged.
We must airlift immediate massive humanitarian assistance.
We must end the psychological, you know, and economic warfare.
We must hold all the warmongers, war makers, war profiteers, Afghans, Americans, Afghan Americans, Europeans, contractors, the military industrial complex.
We must hold all of these people accountable to account for their crimes.
And we must, you know, repatriate Afghanistan money and assets, whoever stole them.
And we must, you know, we must also put Scott, I have to say this, unless we stop this situation, there will be a civil war come next spring.
So we must empower and place a U.N. peacekeeping force, a U.N. trust fund and a U.S. development corps to develop this country and prevent a civil war from happening.
Well, I don't think they need any more.
I don't think they need any more foreign troops, but certainly money and aid, certainly we can stop being a sore loser and keeping their own money from them and keeping all these sanctions on in this way.
And as you talked about, the previous government was so corrupt that the Taliban, they're, you know, a different faction, but they're not different in kind in most ways from the people, from the brutality of the previous regime here.
So the idea that like, oh, no, morally speaking, we have to, you know, boycott the Taliban forever because they're mean to women or the previous government was also mean to women.
Pashtun culture is mean to women.
It is what it is.
But that doesn't mean you economically boycott what's left of this country after, as you said, 40 years of picking on them.
Seems like we could cut them a break.
Yes, but also I hold the United States and its allies directly responsible for the calamity that is Afghanistan, because not only did they not do much, but they actually prevented development.
And the Taliban, too, are first Afghans, then the Taliban.
So I say, why did we not build this country's education, civil society, politics, institutions, etc., economy over the last 20 years?
Why is this country the way it is?
Who is responsible?
Who was in charge?
And why did the U.S. support it, groomed, protected and funded corrupt thieves, you know, over the last 20 years?
So we know who is responsible and they must face up to it.
Yeah, I'm with you.
I wonder if you have any ideas for how we can do this accountability thing that you keep talking about, because I sure would like to see it as well.
In fact, I volunteer to be one of the prosecutors at the war crimes trial if you can arrange one.
Great.
Well, you know, there's unfreeze Afghanistan.
There are campaigns underway here.
You know, there should be tribunals in the United States at the Hagues and other places at the ICC.
You know, there should be tribunals, courts and missions investigating, as I say, all warmongers, war profiteers and liars and thieves and criminals and assassins.
You know, and Afghan money should be repatriated.
People should be held accountable, whoever they are, wherever they happen to be.
And we need to change, change the country and change our attitudes toward it, you know, because we're blaming the victim.
You know, the Afghan nation who are starving right now, they had nothing to do with this.
You know, 75 percent of the Afghans were not even born on October 7, 2001.
What's their fault?
You know, and how does the West, the civilized, quote unquote, civilized West stand there hypocritically?
Watch.
We're watching a genocide, a mass murder taking place.
This says a lot about America and Europe, the West, you know, Westphalia and all that.
Yeah, man.
You know, I wonder if you could tell us some stories about Afghanistan.
I'm trying to think from the mind of a critic listening here.
Both of us have such a negative take on this whole thing, but surely I think we probably would agree that there's some busybody do-gooder types, maybe in the State Department, who thought that somehow they were saving the Afghan people, if only it had worked out or something.
So I wonder if there was something in your experience while you were there that made you think that, wow, this really is just a cynical exercise in moneymaking at these people's expense, as you keep saying here.
Well, I think we all know the names, beginning with, you know, George Bush, you know, Cheney, Rumsfeld, you know, and Mr.
Khalilzad, our own, and Ahmed Chalabi.
Remember Ahmed Chalabi from Iraq, the Iraqi American leader of the Exile Liars.
So we know the character, but it's the institution.
It's it's the system, I would say.
It's imperialism.
Old and new, you know, and all of these people are little tools in the hands of imperialism, whether they live in Washington or in Kabul, Afghanistan or other places.
But as I said, you know, I spent a major part of the last 20 years in Afghanistan, taught, you know, at different places, worked with the Ministry of Higher Ed, lived there for seven straight years at the American University campus until I got back in October 2019.
You know, so I know a lot of associates, friends, students, colleagues, and some of them have not left.
You know, they're not chasing money now.
Now, you know, so they're staying.
They say, where should we go?
Why should we leave our country?
There are people like that with master's degrees, doctorate degrees, you know, nurses, doctors, school teachers.
I mean, my own students in the master's degree programs at AUAF, at the Kabul University, Kabul Education University, who worked very hard, you know, and endured a lot of hardship, really sacrificed a great deal to build the country.
And they were sick and tired of the all foreign invaders and do-gooders, you know, and they didn't want any charity and any handouts.
They wanted to develop their own country.
They still want to develop their own country, you know, so that they will not need any.
Right now, we have made, turned the whole country into beggars, runaways, escapees, corrupts, you know, and prostitutes and thieves and spies.
You know, this is a major crime that, you know, the West is committing against an entire nation.
As I said, most of who are not even born and had nothing to do with the current situation.
So, of course, there's hope and we have to keep hope alive.
We must continue to struggle, but the struggle has to take place here because Afghanistan, as you know, was not the last one and it wouldn't be the last one either.
There were cases like this before.
America has been all over and it will be all over and it is all over.
It's waging war on several countries, as you and I speak, and it has maybe 800 bases all over the world.
America is the only country.
The Military Industrial Congressional Congress must be held morally and politically and economically responsible.
Yeah, absolutely.
All right.
Well, thank you so much for your time on the show.
I really do appreciate your time and I agree with you about just about everything here except the U.N. troops thing.
Thank you, Scott.
Thank you.
And have a good day.
Thank you.
The Scott Horton Show, anti-war radio can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A.
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