Cyreenik Says
The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is getting stranger and stranger! Here are some oddities that I have noticed over the last month.
o There is no Taliban "president". The media talk constantly about the Taliban, but they don't have anyone they call the leader. This is an indication of how decentralized the Taliban is as a group of people.
o The Afghanistan nation is falling apart but the US financial markets are not wobbling in response. The financial markets in the US and Europe are in effect ignoring what is going on there. The markets see no big current or future threats from this event. In an irony of history, Afghanistan may not be affecting Wall Street but hurricanes Henri and Ida are drenching it during the final week of August.
o Even with all the media's panicky shrieking, and the surprising quickness of the collapse, Biden is still supporting the withdrawal. I see this as good news. This is a good move and I'm happy that Biden is still firmly supporting the choice.
Afghanistan is definitely going through a spooky time: the Americans are leaving and the Taliban are rapidly replacing them. The media of the world are as spooked as the rest of the world.
But what kind of Taliban is replacing the Americans? This is not clear.
I will vote for a collection of warlords and a lot of chaos in the country. This will also mean that the threats coming from Afghanistan to neighboring countries will also be chaotic, and small scale.
This will be a spooky time, and an annoying one, but Afghanistan under Taliban rule will not be a serious threat to its neighbors or America. They have just experienced twenty years of grief from making spectacular trouble outside their border, they aren't going to want to repeat that.
The attention of its many rulers will mostly be on the threats being created by the other rulers that are the neighbors inside the country. The outside world will be mostly a distraction to the many Taliban warlords who take over the country.
It will be a spooky place, but mostly internally spooky.
-- The End --