About every month there's an attack on the Shia communities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, meanwhile no Shia has ever put on a suicide vest and walked into a Sunni mosque. It's almost like the vast majority of the violence is primarily in one direction & the burden is not equal.

I bring it up often but look at how Uzbeks r treated in Tajikistan. They r a small minority but the govt dominated by Tajiks always keeps them in consideration when making laws. They recently made a law requiring Tajiks2 choose Persian names4 kids but exclude Uzbeks from this law

And their govt-issued IDs dont force them to adopt Tajik label, they r Uzbek with Tajikistani nationality. Is life perfect for them? Of course not, & ofc the govt doesnt always address their concerns & big boy Uzbekistan as neighbor is a big incentive to appease TJKstani Uzbeks

Yes, the USA is involved in Afghanistan, no doubt. People talk about this but don't mention the specific nature of US involvement. There's a reason why only one ethnic group in Afghanistan has most of the power.

The British in colonial India classified races based on their suitability for their ends. There's a reason why (after 1857) they stopped recruiting Bengalis into their military and instead went for Punjabis instead, even though their military capital was Calcutta.

It's simple: when you give one tribe a bunch of benefits & power, other tribes will build resentment towards that tribe and they will fight amongst each other.

Hamid Karzai was chosen by the US for reasons not much different from when the British chose their nawabs & princes.

And that's why the Afghan government is doomed to fail. It simply cannot do anything that goes against the USA. Remember when Ghani stood by a bunch of low ranking US Army soldiers as President Trump gave a speech? That's exactly how the USA views Ghani.

The situation in Afghanistan doesn't make any sense when you think about it in terms of people just disagreeing about reaching the same ends. How can the Afghan govt combat the Taliban when in many cases it literally provides them their salaries and funding?

Yet, the moment you see through the "unity" myth and realize that no, actually, different groups aren't aiming for the same goals but different ones, it makes way more sense. The reason why they fund the Taliban is because they are family.

Remember that the Taliban asked Karzai to work for them and be their ambassador, and Karzai was actually friendly and supportive of the Taliban in the mid 1990s. Someone who the Taliban felt comfortable asking to be their spokesperson obviously has connections there.

When Karzai declined their offer, the Taliban assassinated his dad, and that's why Karzai from then on had disputes with them. But for someone like Karzai, the Taliban r not an existential threat. They are just misguided people who can be reasoned with. Thus all the "peace talks

But for many, if not most ppl in Afghanistan, the Taliban ARE an existential threat and so what peace talks and conversations are there to be had between a sword and a neck?

The Afghan govt is not "ineffective", they r actually doing quite well in their goal of appeasing Taliban