Another contribution from Lawdog

 

Lawdog isn't blogging at present, and is limiting his social media activity due to a few things going on that are occupying his attention.  Nevertheless, he's given me permission to publish a few of his musings from time to time, as shared with a limited circle of other folks.

A recent news report pointed out that Afghans were selling their children to strangers, in order to raise money to feed the rest of the family.  It's a horrifying concept to Westerners, who've mostly never had to face that level of poverty and deprivation:  but it's not uncommon in the Third World, and has been for millennia.  Both Lawdog and I have encountered it in Africa, and it's endemic in Asia as well.

Lawdog says of the practice:

A Gentle Reader sent me this link and asked if I agreed that this should be laid at Biden's feet also.

That's ... complicated.

One of the things that frustrates me the most is trying to get through the average American's thick skull that the rest of the world is not America.

Is selling your children so that the rest of your family can eat horrifying?

Yes.

Is it depressingly normal for the Third World?

Also yes.

I tell people that one of the heartbreakingly coldest and methodical mathematical equations I've ever heard was a widow in Nigeria figuring out which child to sell to feed the rest. Current value was balanced against future earning potential versus dietary requirements of remaining family members. Absolutely chilling.

And nothing new to the rest of the world that isn't First World. Nothing new in history.

For Americans that are horrified by this: good, but understand -- this is the bloody norm for most of the world. Do you understand? This sort of thing. Is. Normal.

(As a side note -- do you now understand why I hold Social Justice Warriors in such contempt? You're wrapped around the axle because somebody forgot to use your made-up pronoun while nine-year-old girls are being sold to 55-year-old men as brides. Take your made-up pronouns, and your butt-hurt feels, and get fucked. Seriously.)

Do I hold Biden responsible? Yes and no.

Afghanistan isn't America. They were going to wind up back selling girl-children sooner or later. Like the rest of the world. So, no, I don't hold Biden responsible for the rest of the World not being America.

BUT ... It didn't have to be this widespread this quickly. And that I do hold against Biden. We could have slowed the re-spread of this bullshit, slowed the rate of re-spread. And we didn't. So, yes, I do blame Biden for that.

I agree with Lawdog.  By accelerating the ongoing collapse of Afghanistan and making its fall inevitable, the Biden administration has condemned millions of Afghan girls to this fate, because their families will have no alternative.  Afghanistan has always been a hotbed of tribalism, primitive superstition and ideological perversity.  It was broken long before the USA conquered it, but we made little or no practical, fundamental, effective effort to change it.  Now we've abandoned it pell-mell to fall back into its original state - and out of that will come new terrorist challenges to threaten the rest of the world.

I agree we had to leave Afghanistan.  We should have left it after we took out the Taliban, and left it to its own devices, as every other conqueror of that benighted region has had to do over the past few millennia.  It's a hellhole of empires, a cesspit of failure for outsiders - but we failed to learn from history, and are now paying the price.  The way in which we finally left was an abject humiliation for the USA, one we'll be paying for in terms of earning the distrust and suspicion of Third World allies for decades to come (just as we did when we abandoned South Vietnam).

It also abandoned the young girls of Afghanistan to a renewed chattel existence.

Well played, Mr. Biden - I don't think.

Peter