{"id":36151,"date":"2021-08-30T16:00:28","date_gmt":"2021-08-30T07:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/aug\/30\/afghanistan-us-corruption-taliban"},"modified":"2021-08-30T16:00:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-30T07:00:28","slug":"afghanistan-collapsed-because-corruption-had-hollowed-out-the-state-zack-kopplin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=36151","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan collapsed because corruption had hollowed out the state | Zack Kopplin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Afghan state was held together by theft, extortion and nepotism \u2013 at the highest levels<\/p>\n<p>When the Taliban swept into Afghanistan\u2019s capital, Kabul, the militant group faced almost no resistance. The country\u2019s now former president, Ashraf Ghani, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/aug\/18\/afghan-ex-president-steps-in-for-talks-with-taliban-over-peaceful-transfer-of-power\">fled to the United Arab Emirates<\/a>, accused by one of his own ambassadors of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/live\/2021\/aug\/18\/afghanistan-live-news-updates-taliban-kabul-airport-deaths-afghan-crisis?CMP=share_btn_tw&amp;page=with:block-611d49238f08a25db9839df5#block-611d49238f08a25db9839df5\">stealing $169m<\/a> (\u00a3123m) on his way out \u2013 and the Afghan military melted away without a fight. President Joe Biden blamed the Afghan people for the Taliban\u2019s conquest. \u201cWe gave them every chance,\u201d he <a href=\"https:\/\/nymag.com\/intelligencer\/2021\/08\/biden-blames-afghan-leaders-for-swift-fall-to-taliban.html\">said<\/a>. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t provide them the will to fight for their future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But blaming Afghan citizens, some of whom may be tortured or <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/afghanistan-taliban-protest-kabul-jalalabad-61e4bfcc8027e3952ee85c448773299b\">killed<\/a> in the near future, for their country\u2019s collapse is wrong and immoral. The Taliban victory is the product of the corruption and cronyism of elites \u2013 especially senior US military personnel and Afghan politicians.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/aug\/30\/afghanistan-us-corruption-taliban\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Afghan state was held together by theft, extortion and nepotism \u2013 at the highest levelsWhen the Taliban swept into Afghanistan\u2019s capital, Kabul, the militant group faced almost no resistance. The country\u2019s now former president, Ashraf Ghani, fled t&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2505,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,939,61,44,45,47,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-joe-biden","category-south-and-central-asia","category-taliban","category-us-foreign-policy","category-us-news","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2505"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36152,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36151\/revisions\/36152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}