“In addition to US and its nefarious interests, regional powers have long been interested in intervention in our country and wanted to occupy or control Afghanistan — especially China, Russia, Pakistan and Iran. Each of these countries have their own specific strategic interests for their own benefits. Furthermore countries like Britain, Germany, Turkey, Qatar, France and many others have contributed to Afghanistan instability pushing it back to the dark ages for their own political, economical and military interests.” Malalai Joya, former member of Afghan Parliament. October 20, 2021
Afghanistan have a strategic location, and resources –like rare earth elements that run our the high-tech world–, at the crossroads of Asia. Wars have been imposed to Afghanistan by invading and occupying the country inside the 'The Great Game' of global powers. In the last decades, the Soviet–Afghan War, and the consequent civil war, was a proxy war in the frame of ‘Cold War’ between the United States and the Soviet Union. After, the so-called ‘War on Terror’ was used for United States to invade and occupy Afghanistan, provoking the longest war in the States history, and ultimately the defeat, the greatest debacle that U.S.-led Nato has experienced since its foundation. This endless wars has smashed the life during generations, and push Afghanistan peoples back to the dark ages. The last war' harvest is Afghanistan’s humanitarian catastrophe. The Afghan state is collapsing. The economy is in freefall. The UN warns that the country is fast becoming the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.
Farmers haven’t recovered from a drought in 2018, while the coming year is projected to be worse. “The situation in Afghanistan is compounded by the decades-long vicious cycle of climate change and conflict,” says the International Rescue Committee (IRC). The Hindu Kush mountain, that range stretches from central and western Afghanistan, is hotspot for climate change. The Hindu Kush-Himalayan region stores more snow and ice than anywhere else in the world outside the polar regions, giving its name: ‘The Third Pole’. Glaciers are melting and this impact the river water system in Asia. A fifth of the world's population lives downstream rivers of the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region. Afghanistan had regular droughts but with climate change, they become more frequent and more intense. Currently, Afghanistan shrivels in worst drought in decades displacing over 700,000 people from their homes this year. Much of displaced go to cities; there the war has ravaged all urban infrastructure – water utilities, electricity, transport, parkland… As result, Kabul, capital city, is now one of the world’s most polluted cities. Tens of thousand people death annually by pollution-related illnesses, deadlier than war.
All in all, the hellish cycle of never ending wars in Afghanistan is reminiscent of a sort of Buzkashi, the national game of Afghanistan. Means “goat-pulling” (in Dari Persian) and is played on horseback by two opposing teams, fighting with their whips and boots, to place a beheaded calf with its limbs cut off at the knees in a goal. One would say that Afghanistan is subjected to a kind of devastating and endless global buzkashi facing regional and world powers. But the ‘carcass’ is broken again; the most vulnerable people is coping with the collapse cultivating drugs or with exodus, even in winter, to escape starvation.
The war, and its consequences, are not over. Women, and especially children, are bearing the burden of the conflict. Afghan children have known nothing but war their entire lives. The death and above all the mutilation of children have been a target of war to demoralize and overwhelm relatives. Currently, the situation of children in Afghanistan is dire: 38% of children suffer from stunting due to malnutrition. 42% of children are out of school, and 70% of girls (15+) struggle to read and write. 21% of children are engaged in child labor, instead of learning [data collected by Save the Children]. At least 1 million children are at risk of starvation in Afghanistan this winter. And now Afghan families are selling their children so they can eat. International solidarity and support to Afghanistan peoples are crucial at this time.
By acquiring this NFT, you will support Afghanistan via cryptocurrency: 80% will be donated automatically to Save the Children (#HODLHOPE). You can also make a donation by clicking ‘Send a Tip’.
split://0x82C575cf345D5161a1Ff528E5c78eB6aE2664501
