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Geopolitics

Afghan Debacle Reminds Us That Finance Rules The World

The fall of the Afghan national government may be a calamity for the Afghans but not for the world's big-money interests, which prefer to deal with ruthless, incompetent regimes that will sell out their countries.

Afghan Debacle Reminds Us That Finance Rules The World

Evacuating operations at Kabul airport on Aug. 21

Sra Taylor Crul/U.S. Marine/Planet Pix/ZUMA
Mohammadreza Hosseini

-OpEd-

LONDON — The world is still in shock from the sudden departure of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the collapse of its vast, national army, and the Taliban overrunning the country within days before an almost coordinated silence among governments and media.

People everywhere are asking: What really happened? There is no convincing answer yet. Initially it was said that Washington's policies toward the Taliban had failed. Then, that the Taliban were themselves Afghans, unlike the Pakistani Taliban, and somehow "working with" the Americans. Then U.S. President Joe Biden tells us: we never intended to forge a democracy in Afghanistan, but a security cordon for ourselves.

But one thing for sure he hasn't clearly explained is how 20 years of presence had left such an ill-prepared Afghan army behind. Did the Americans and the Afghan army agree not to fight? What led Biden and others to conclude the United States no longer had interests in Afghanistan?

Such questions often remain unanswered even if politicians know the answers. Decisionmakers deal precisely with these questions when meeting at international summits like G7 or at Davos. That is where it would be agreed that the United States can vacate Afghanistan and who's to come in its place. Yes, global capital is the guiding force behind such plans, and its interests and methods are the only explanation for the Taliban's unchallenged power grab. The same can be said about the world's silence over the crimes perpetrated by Iran's regime and the killings of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of civilians. Yet where it serves globalized interests, the world is whipped into a frenzy over the death of an individual and an incident becomes media fodder for weeks.

Globalism is neither a necessity nor an inevitable consequence of capitalist development.

Media of course are a key tool for the global control of both mass and élite opinions. A study from June 2020 by the Oxford Internet Institute cited China's direct influence, through think tanks and cash, on the world's most influential media. Its aim has been to sway opinion in favor of its Belt and Road initiative, which would reorder global economic ties and spread Chinese influence across Asia. Through the media, China wants to impose the idea, particularly in Europe, that its rise to global preeminence is inevitable and liberal democracy is no longer the only option.

It used these tools to divert suspicions about the Wuhan laboratory being the source of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, propaganda and cultural infiltrations are no novelty in communism. And in spite of the Soviet Union's collapse, communism's influence on Western minds and cultural institutions endures. It has merged today with the globalizing tendency led by China and includes perversions like support for reactionary regimes that have thrown in their lot with the "Eastern" bloc.

Evacuating women from Kabul to Spain on Aug. 29 — Photo: Mc2 Katie Cox/U.S. Navy/Planet Pix/ZUMA

Globalism is neither a necessity nor an inevitable consequence of capitalist development. It is forged and fine-tuned at the élite summits in order to maximize coordination between regional capital blocks and ease capital flows. It has little time for personal or labor rights and will turn if need be to changing political structures, or bringing down nations and "little" economies.

What it wants is a global market, not global welfare. It has already, willy-nilly, forced states to cut benefits and healthcare, pummel wages, delay retirement and create "zero-hour" contracts, while boosting spending on arms. But it also requires incompetent governance — by Taliban, mullahs or militias — and discord abroad.

Since the Taliban won't be able to entirely fill NATO's place, there is room in Afghanistan for other, unruly forces. As we witnessed with last week's attacks, Afghan lives and civil society will be swept away, but that is of little concern to the global society. Its concern is profit, and more profit. For that it needs the resources repressive regimes will sell it cheap to earn the world's indulgence for their repressive acts.

Recent events are a turning point as the United States cedes its place to China.

Not content to ruin their own countries, the revolutionary zeal of these regimes inevitably leads them to stir trouble among neighbors. Which is fine, as fearful countries will purchase more arms. The aim in any case is to keep governments weak and ensure they will not obstruct profits from flowing to where they must.

The reasons why strong parties and institutions did not emerge in Afghanistan should be studied elsewhere, but recent events are a turning point as the United States cedes its place to China as the ranking superpower. An appeasement-minded outlook may have led many Western politicians to overlook the former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's observation that since Mao, Chinese leaders have simply mastered the art of diplomatic bluffing, or bluster, to get to where they are today.

Globalism is turning into capitalism in its most ruthless form, undermining nations, states and culture to forge and control its single market.

Perhaps the only thing that might stop its plans is public awareness. It doesn't seem like much today, but with a few more shocks like Afghanistan, people might take the first step, and shake off the chains of the false promises coming out of the media.

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Future

AI Is Good For Education — And Bad For Teachers Who Teach Like Machines

Despite fears of AI upending the education and the teaching profession, artificial education will be an extremely valuable tool to free up teachers from rote exercises to focus on the uniquely humanistic part of learning.

Journalism teacher and his students in University of Barcelona.

Journalism students at the Blanquerna University of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.

© Sergi Reboredo via ZUMA press
Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ - Early in 2023, Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates included teaching among the professions most threatened by Artificial Intelligence (AI), arguing that a robot could, in principle, instruct as well as any school-teacher. While Gates is an undoubted expert in his field, one wonders how much he knows about teaching.

As an avowed believer in using technology to improve student results, Gates has argued for teachers to use more tech in classrooms, and to cut class sizes. But schools and countries that have followed his advice, pumping money into technology at school, or students who completed secondary schooling with the backing of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have not attained the superlative results expected of the Gates recipe.

Thankfully, he had enough sense to add some nuance to his views, instead suggesting changes to teacher training that he believes could improve school results.

I agree with his view that AI can be a big and positive contributor to schooling. Certainly, technological changes prompt unease and today, something tremendous must be afoot if a leading AI developer, Geoffrey Hinton, has warned of its threat to people and society.

But this isn't the first innovation to upset people. Over 2,000 years ago, the philosopher Socrates wondered, in the Platonic dialogue Phaedrus, whether reading and writing wouldn't curb people's ability to reflect and remember. Writing might lead them to despise memory, he observed. In the 18th and 19th centuries, English craftsmen feared the machines of the Industrial Revolution would destroy their professions, producing lesser-quality items faster, and cheaper.

Their fears were not entirely unfounded, but it did not happen quite as they predicted. Many jobs disappeared, but others emerged and the majority of jobs evolved. Machines caused a fundamental restructuring of labor at the time, and today, AI will likely do the same with the modern workplace.

Many predicted that television, computers and online teaching would replace teachers, which has yet to happen. In recent decades, teachers have banned students from using calculators to do sums, insisting on teaching arithmetic the old way. It is the same dry and mechanical approach to teaching which now wants to keep AI out of the classroom.

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