By Geoff LaMear
Nearly four months after the Taliban drove former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani into exile and returned to power after a 20-year insurgency, Afghanistan is confronting one of the world's most catastrophic humanitarian emergencies. The United States runs the real risk of exacerbating the Afghan people's dire situation if it continues to implement its current policy.
The collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government has produced an economic cataclysm the Afghan people were simply not prepared to handle. Afghanistan's humanitarian emergency, however, was quite predictable. The country relied on foreign donors for roughly 80 percent of its public expenditures, and a sizable portion of Afghanistan's $20 billion GDP was based on a war-time economy, cash infusions from Washington and regular appropriations from foreign capitals. In effect, Afghanistan was less a sovereign entity in the traditional sense of the word and more like a dependent whose leaders grew complacent with foreign support.
This piece was originally published in Newsweek on December 2, 2021. Read more HERE.