The Taliban are less a legitimate government than they are an organized crime syndicate. A legitimate government would serve to provide protection to its citizens, alongside food, jobs, and education.
Instead, Afghans are horribly exploited to fill the pockets of the leaders of the Taliban, many of whom are among the largest drug lords in the region. Often, Afghans are forced to work on the Taliban’s poppy fields as slave laborers to produce heroin for their Taliban overlords, while others, such as the Shia Hazara, are massacred or ethnically cleansed to meet the Taliban’s genocidal ideological goals.
The individuals and groups that support the Taliban operate in the same manner and with the same methods and goals of profiting at the expense of Afghan and Hazara lives. The Taliban’s inability to govern and provide for the people of Afghanistan only reinforces this comparison to an organized crime syndicate. Indeed, the Taliban place extortive fees on all exports, especially opiates, ores, minerals, and auto parts, and they demand a cut of all food or humanitarian aid being brought into the country to the point that such aid never reaches most of the intended population. Now that population is starving to death because of the greed of their Taliban “rulers.”
These are not the actions of a legitimate government, but of a criminal network that has managed to gain complete power and control over a country.
Thus, a proper prescription for dealing with the Taliban involves stronger action and policies not only against them but also their immediate business partners in Russia, China, Iran, and Pakistan as well. AWVV calls upon the world to impose strict travel restrictions and financial sanctions to keep these partner criminals in their ‘home countries,’ unable to spend their blood money abroad in our countries and reap the benefits of our financial institutions, while also preventing them from fleeing the consequences of their actions at home.
AWVV has shown that it is critical that the world does not continue to treat the Taliban as a legitimate government, for they are in fact not governing Afghanistan. Instead, AWVV calls upon the world to treat them as the criminal syndicate that they are and work to bring them to justice. Diplomacy and negotiation will not work with the Taliban nor stop them from committing their genocide on the Shia Hazara people. This is clear because the Taliban have refused to change despite every opportunity given to them.
To this point, the International Criminal Court and all other relevant jurisdictions must formally and expediently investigate and indict the Taliban on charges of crimes against humanity. Only then will we be able to stop the genocide of the Shia Hazara community and ensure the future of all Afghans.