You'd Think After 8 Years of US "Involvement" Afghanistan Would Rank Higher Than 181 Out of 182

[Orwellian_Ghost]

Factsheet of Human Development Report 2009: Afghanistan ranked 181 out of 182 countries

Each year since 1990 the Human Development Report has published the human development index (HDI) which looks beyond GDP to a broader definition of well-being. The HDI provides a composite measure of three dimensions of human development: living a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy), being educated (measured by adult literacy and gross enrolment in education) and having a decent standard of living (measured by purchasing power parity, PPP, income). The index is not in any sense a comprehensive measure of human development. It does not, for example, include important indicators such as gender or income inequality nor more difficult to measure concepts like respect for human rights and political freedoms. What it does provide is a broadened prism for viewing human progress and the complex relationship between income and well-being.

Of the components of the HDI, only income and gross enrolment are somewhat responsive to short term policy changes. For that reason, it is important to examine changes in the human development index over time. The human development index trends tell an important story in that respect. HDI scores in all regions have increased progressively over the years (Figure 1) although all have experienced periods of slower growth or even reversals.



This year's HDI, which refers to 2007, highlights the very large gaps in well-being and life chances that continue to divide our increasingly interconnected world. The HDI for Afghanistan is 0.352, which gives the country a rank of 181st out of 182 countries with data (Table 1).

By looking at some of the most fundamental aspects of people’s lives and opportunities the HDI provides a much more complete picture of a country's development than other indicators, such as GDP per capita. Figure 2 illustrates that countries on the same level of HDI can have very different levels of income or that countries with similar levels of income can have very different HDIs.



Human poverty: focusing on the most deprived in multiple dimensions of poverty

The HDI measures the average progress of a country in human development. The Human Poverty Index (HPI-1), focuses on the proportion of people below certain threshold levels in each of the dimensions of the human development index - living a long and healthy life, having access to education, and a decent standard of living. By looking beyond income deprivation, the HPI-1 represents a multi-dimensional alternative to the $1.25 a day (PPP US$) poverty measure.

The HPI-1 value of 59.8% for Afghanistan, ranks 135th among 135 countries for which the index has been calculated.

...

http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2009/10/05/human-development-report-2009-factsheet-afghanistan-ranked-181-out-of-182-countries.html

The great fallacy at the heart of discussions of Afghanistan is this: if one can plausibly argue that a war was originally justified, then that proves that the war should continue even eight years later (there's no need for us to leave because the Taliban let Al Qaeda use that country to attack us in 2001 and therefore it's self-defense). Often, the discussion, for many war supporters, rarely progresses beyond that point. But whether a war is "justified" is a completely separate question from whether it's "wise." Just as was true for Iraq, the supposed "costs" of leaving Afghanistan are endlessly highlighted (the Taliban will return, Al Qaeda will come back, it'll be a brutal and lawless state), while the costs to the U.S. from staying -- and from continuing to be a nation in a state of perpetual war and occupation -- are virtually ignored.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/07-8

[hobbit709]

1. We don't build nations

We destroy them in order to exploit them.

[unhappycamper]

2. .

[stray cat]

3. It was such a paradise in 2001?

[CBGLuthier]

4. Lets ask the dead women and children

[Orwellian_Ghost]

5. Don't forget your history

I. The Historical Context Of The Present Crisis

Afghanistan is currently undergoing a humanitarian catastrophe of tremendous proportions, to which the international community displays only what appears to be systematic indifference. To understand the crisis in Afghanistan it is particularly important to understand its historical causes. This is because the crisis is a direct result of self-interested American and Russian operations in the region.

Afghanistan’s coup of 1978 resulted in a new government headed by Nur Muhammad Taraki coming to power in the Afghan capital, Kabul. The coup d’etat that brought Taraki’s party - the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) - to power, had been precipitated by the previous government’s arresting of almost the entire leadership of the PDPA. This was an attempt to annihilate any viable opposition to the existing government, which was led by Muhammad Daud. The leader of the PDPA, Taraki, was then freed in an uprising by the lower ranks of the military, and within a day Daud and his government was overthrown, with Daud being killed in the process. In fact, many of the leaders of the PDPA had studied or received military training in the USSR; moreover, the Soviet Union had pressured the PDPA - which had split into two factions in 1967 - to reunite in 1977. The PDPA had therefore been the principal Soviet-orientated Communist organisation in Afghanistan; the military coup of 1978 was thus effectively engineered by the USSR, which had significant leverage over the PDPA and its activities. Afghanistan subsequently became exclusively dependent on Soviet aid, unlike previous governments which had attempted to play off the US and USSR against one another, refraining from exclusive alignment with either.

The PDPA did go on to implement certain programmes of social development and reform, like the previous government - although these were primarily related to urban as opposed to rural areas. For example, the previous government under Daud had used foreign aid from both the USSR and the US (primarily the USSR) to build roads, schools and implement other development projects, thereby increasing the mobility of the country’s people and products - not that this necessarily eliminated the severe problems faced by masses of the Afghan population. For instance, 5 per cent of Afghanistan’s rural landowners still owned more than 45 per cent of arable land. A third of the rural people were landless labourers, sharecroppers or tenants, and debts to the landlords were a regular feature of rural life. An indebted farmer ended up turning over half his annual crop to the moneylender. Female illiteracy was 96.3 per cent, while rural illiteracy of both sexes was 90.5 per cent. The Communist PDPA government under Taraki had similarly imposed some social programmes like Daud’s government: It moved to remove both usury and inequalities in land-ownership and cancelled mortgage debts of agricultural labourers, tenants and small landowners. It established literacy programmes, especially for women, printing textbooks in many languages, training more teachers, building additional schools and kindergartens, and instituting nurseries for orphans.

Once more, these policies should be understood in context with the fact that the government was established as the result of a violent military coup without any connection to the wishes of the majority of the Afghan people, and consequently did not engender their participation. The PDPA’s policies served to destroy even the state institutions established over the previous century, having constituted a stage in a revolutionary programme which the government had attempted to impose by force, not by the approval of the population. The new government, like previous governments, was essentially illegitimate, with no substantial representation of the Afghan population. It was, for example, responsible for arresting, torturing and executing both real and suspected enemies, setting off the first major refugee flows to neighbouring Pakistan. Such policies of repression and persecution, resulting in the killing of thousands as well as the forceful imposition of a Communist revolutionary programme that was oblivious to the sentiments of the majority of the Afghan masses, sparked off popular revolts led by local social and religious leaders - usually with no link to national political groups. These broke out in different parts of the country in response to the government’s atrocities. Furthermore, during the Soviet occupation, despite the modest ‘modernising’ policies that were primarily urban in character, the bifurcation of Afghan society and economy deepened greatly.<1>

...

http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq2.html

[tekisui]

7. You need some new material.

Every Afghanistan post you come in, you maintain that it must be a comparison to 2001. There is no excuse for us to stay because it was a hell-hole in 2001. :eyes:

[tekisui]

6. But, we have to stay as long as there are women to protect.

As some would suggest.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

8. Bump

[maryf]

9. October 17th anti-war rallies

At a town near you! Big K&R