https://legionmagazine.com/the-graveyard-of-empires/ Wed, 30 Mar 2022 17:42:38 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://legionmagazine.com/the-graveyard-of-empires/#comment-61767 Thu, 02 Sep 2021 18:27:27 +0000 https://legionmagazine.wpengine.com/?p=71542#comment-61767 Lots of useful background here, but I am troubled by the simple repetition of the “report” that Ashraf Ghani fled with millions in cash. We have seen no evidence of this, in an age when phone cameras are everywhere. This feeds into the lazy, patronizing and defeatist assumption that Afghanistan is genetically and irredeemably corrupt – thus hopeless and the author of its own misfortune, letting us all off the hook.
In fact many Afghans worked honestly and courageously to bring positive change, and Ghani, while not a natural politician in one of the toughest political snake pits in the world, may well have been one of them. When he already lived with compromised health, it is hard to believe he left senior, well-paid and safe positions in international organizations to go back in order to get rich.
See https://www.npr.org/2021/08/15/1027962001/the-governing-style-of-ashraf-ghani-the-departing-afghan-president

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