West­ern gov­ern­ments are all but crow­ing over the effi­ca­cy of sanc­tions as a weapon in the war in Ukraine. For­got­ten in the rush is that what­ev­er their con­tri­bu­tion towards vic­to­ry over Vladimir Putin, sanc­tions are on the point of destroy­ing the peo­ple of Afghanistan, but have lit­tle chance of chang­ing let alone oust­ing the Taliban.

While I have nei­ther time nor sym­pa­thy for either Putin or the mul­lahs of the Tal­iban, it needs to be borne in mind that they are not equals in evil. Putin wants to take over a sov­er­eign coun­try he thinks he has a right to own. The Tal­iban are in charge of a sov­er­eign coun­try they call home, and want to gov­ern it their own way, whether oth­ers like it or not. Nei­ther the ordi­nary cit­i­zens of Rus­sia nor those of Afghanistan can be expect­ed to do much about the sins of their dic­ta­to­r­i­al leaders.
The Russ­ian peo­ple will suf­fer pri­va­tions, includ­ing spi­ralling prices, loss of sav­ings, jobs and their econ­o­my poten­tial­ly crip­pled to — hor­ror of hor­rors were it in the West — lifestyle depri­va­tions that include no Star­bucks, fast food or lux­u­ry goods. When it’s all over they will face years of strug­gle to raise their liv­ing stan­dards. But they will do so, and won’t starve in the meantime.
And there­in lies the major dif­fer­ence between sanc­tions against Moscow and those imposed on the gov­ern­ment in Kabul.

                            NO FAULT VICTIMS

Afghanistan is already in what a Ger­man aid organ­i­sa­tion char­ac­terised as “freefall.”
As many as 24 mil­lion of Afghanistan’s 38 mil­lion peo­ple require urgent human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance. The UN esti­mates that about 10 mil­lion chil­dren across Afghanistan urgent­ly need human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance just to survive.
Pri­or to the Tal­iban takeover, West­ern aid filled 75% of the Afghan gov­ern­ment budget.
Sanc­tions have cut that to the bone and are crush­ing what’s left of the econ­o­my. Accord­ing to a UN report: “Food secu­ri­ty lev­els have plunged at a rate not seen else­where in such a short peri­od, with half the pop­u­la­tion fac­ing acute hunger, includ­ing 9 mil­lion peo­ple in emer­gency food inse­cu­ri­ty – the high­est num­ber glob­al­ly. Mal­nu­tri­tion is on the rise, and liveli­hoods have been destroyed.”
As every­where, food prices are ris­ing as a result of the Ukraine cri­sis, adding to Afghans’ misery.
None of that, of course, dimin­ish­es the need to help Ukraine. The two coun­tries have sim­i­lar-sized pop­u­la­tions. At the time of writ­ing an esti­mat­ed three mil­lion Ukraini­ans were refugees and tens of mil­lions face severe short­ages of food, shel­ter and medicine.

                                    SELECTIVE SYMPATHY

Unlike Afghans, how­ev­er, Ukraini­ans are being wel­comed wher­ev­er they flee. Visas and work per­mits are being expe­dit­ed and extend­ed, aid is pour­ing in, unfet­tered by pol­i­tics, reli­gion or what can fair­ly be deemed racial bias that has denied refugee sta­tus to Afghans and oth­er asy­lum seek­ers and migrants.
When they feel safe to do so, Ukraini­ans will go home to democ­ra­cy and a flood of West­ern help and invest­ment to rebuild their war-wrecked homes and businesses.
Afghans dri­ven into exile can expect none of that.
Rather than seek com­pro­mise that could if not elim­i­nate, then at least ease sanc­tions, the Tal­iban give every indi­ca­tion they’re will­ing to con­tin­ue to sac­ri­fice their own peo­ple on the altar of main­tain­ing hard­line theo­crat­ic ideology.
In an obtuse way, the West is will­ing to do the same. UK for­eign sec­re­tary Liz Truss announced the cur­tailed UK pledge of sup­port for Afghanistan “…will depend on how con­struc­tive­ly the Tal­iban engage on key issues like the rights of women and girls and also eth­nic and reli­gious minorities.”
Admirable though the aim may be, it’s also a glib way of avoid­ing the fact that part of edu­cat­ing and sup­port­ing peo­ple, is help­ing ensure they don’t have to apply all their ener­gy into just mak­ing through to the next mea­ger meal.
West­ern help is self-serv­ing. The Biden admin­is­tra­tion agreed to release half of some sev­en bil­lion dol­lars of Afghanistan Cen­tral Bank funds held and frozen by the New York Fed­er­al Reserve Bank, but is hold­ing the oth­er half for poten­tial set­tling of law­suits by fam­i­lies of vic­tims of the 9/11 attacks. Con­sid­er­ing what the mon­ey is sup­posed to relieve, and no Afghan or Tal­iban took part in the attacks, that smacks of skewed val­ues at best.
Per­verse­ly, Putin’s inva­sion has helped the Tal­iban by reliev­ing them of being the world’s worst bad guys. The mul­lahs are now using the Ukraine cri­sis to try out the role of being con­sci­en­tious mem­bers of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, by call­ing on Moscow and Kyiv “to resolve the cri­sis through dia­logue and peace­ful means.”
There is lit­tle argu­ment that sanc­tions are any­thing but a fair weapon to use against Putin, or the Tal­iban. But their deploy­ment sure­ly needs to take into account the extent to which ordi­nary cit­i­zens can sus­tain, nev­er mind be held account­able, for the sins of their dic­ta­to­r­i­al leaders.

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