Afghanistan's last finance minister, now a D.C. Uber driver, ponders what went wrong

[brooklynite]

Washington Post

Until last summer, Khalid Payenda was Afghanistan’s finance minister, overseeing a $6 billion budget — the lifeblood of a government fighting for its survival in a war that had long been at the center of U.S. foreign policy.


Now, seven months after Kabul had fallen to the Taliban, he was at the wheel of his Honda Accord, headed north on Interstate 95 from his home in Woodbridge, Va., toward Washington, D.C. Payenda swiped at his phone and opened the Uber app, which offered his “quest” for the weekend. For now his success was measured in hundreds of dollars rather than billions.


“If I complete 50 trips in the next two days, I receive a $95 bonus,” he said as he navigated the light Friday-night traffic.


The job was his way of supporting his wife and four children after he had exhausted his modest savings supporting his family. “I feel incredibly grateful for it,” said the 40-year-old. “It means I don’t have to be desperate.” It was also a temporary reprieve from obsessing over the ongoing tragedy in his country, which was suffering through a catastrophic drought, a pandemic, international sanctions, a collapsed economy, a famine and the resurgence of Taliban rule.

[COL Mustard]

1. Minister, what went wrong is simple....

Your people weren't willing to fight for their country. They weren't willing to fight for their own freedom. Look at the Ukrainians, fighting against the Russian Army that vastly outnumbers them and has vastly superior equipment. The Ukrainians are destroying or stealing it by the dozens, and they're using it to FIGHT for their own country. There's your difference.

Yes, I know there are cultural differences between the two societies but still...if the Afghan Army had fought like this against the Taliban things would have been much different in Afghanistan.

[KPN]

2. The two situations are not comparable. It doesn't seem or feel fair to

make this comparison. What went wrong seems more akin to what has been going wrong in our own country with the rise of an authoritarian, white supremacist and evangelical Christian radical, far-right. They are waging a cultural war against our democracy and progressive society. It’s not an internal civil war at this point, but they are armed with militias. Have we defeated them yet?

[PoliticAverse]

3. I'd go with "corruption". n/t