Thread by @RichardHanania

I’ve been paying attention to Afghanistan over the duration of the war. I still find stuff I missed that shocks me. In 2011, while the US “surged”, at a military hospital injured soldiers starved to death because doctors and nurses demanded bribes for food online.wsj.com/article/SB1000…

“Da­wood is the pre­mier hos­pi­tal of the Afghan se­cu­rity forces, akin to the Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Cen­ter in the U.S.” The Taliban may have unenlightened views on women, but wouldn’t have survived against the world for 20 years if they behaved like this.

The US tried to get the Surgeon General to do something about pharmaceuticals being stolen, came to suspect he was in on it.

“The U.S. gov­ern­ment in gen­eral has been try­ing to build Afghan in­sti­tu­tions that can solve their own prob­lems, in prepa­ra­tion for an even­tual U.S. with­drawal.” This was 2011!

“sol­diers were go­ing to the op­er­at­ing ta­ble with­out mor­phine or even seda­tives. When one pa­tient de­manded med­i­cine, an or­derly punched him in the face.”

An Afghan soldier was starving in his bed for weeks. An American general came by to give him a medal for his heroism. The soldier later died, and when the American general came back and asked to see him again they presented a healthy looking impostor.

The US sent the military to help run the hospital. When they posted a patient bill of rights, the Afghan staff tore it down.

At of the time of the article, the corrupt Surgeon General was still receiving a salary subsidized by the US, and expecting a promotion.

Postscript: Yaftali, the corrupt Surgeon General, was sentenced to six months in prison in 2019. Apparently, he just decided he didn't want to prison and continued to attend parliament. ariananews.af/sentence-to-in…