Afghanistan has always been known as the graveyard of empires, where the Tang Empire, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union all returned.
The United States spent 20 years here, and finally could not survive and withdrew its troops in panic under the attention of the world.
In this war, the United States suffered heavy losses, and the Afghan Taliban became the final winner.
But one cannot help but wonder how the Taliban can withstand a strong America.
As we all know, wars cost people and money, and they not only consume a lot of manpower, but also need to spend countless financial resources.
To fight a war is a "money", and if you want to win a war, you can't do without money. In fact, the United States withdrew its troops from Afghanistan because the United States could no longer afford to spend this huge amount of human, material and financial resources.
According to the statistics of the US Department of Defense, in this war that lasted for two decades, more than 2,000 American soldiers have been killed and about 20,000 injured, which is undoubtedly a very tragic loss for the United States.
In addition to casualties, the United States spent countless amounts of money in this war.
Officials estimate that the United States spent about $2 trillion on the war in Afghanistan, equivalent to more than 15 trillion yuan, including $1 trillion on soldiers' salaries, in addition to high borrowing interest.
According to official US data, the US fiscal year revenue in the year of withdrawal was $7 trillion, and the amount of debt reached $28 trillion, and the fiscal revenue and expenditure were seriously unbalanced.
Obviously, the United States no longer has enough money and energy to continue fighting. With such a strong United States already in debt, how can the little Taliban hold out for 20 years?
Why is the Taliban still getting richer? Where does the Taliban's war money come from?
In the documentary, Taliban soldiers are dressed like the local population, without uniform military uniforms, and it is difficult to identify them as soldiers if they are not armed with weapons.
They eat and live in local people's homes, but the Taliban are strictly disciplined, never disturb people's lives, and will not actively harass people, so the Taliban organization has good mass relations.
In the eyes of outsiders, the Taliban feel "poor", but in fact, the Taliban are not bad at all.
As a Central Asian country, located in the heart of Asia, Afghanistan is an important hub connecting Central, Western, South and East Asia, and a meeting place of Eastern and Western cultures.
Given its special geographical location and unique natural resources, its strategic location is very important and has been a place of contention for soldiers all year round.
In the 90s of the 20th century, the Afghan civil war and gang divisions and chaos led to the emergence of the Taliban organization.
The Taliban, which means "student" in Pashto, is made up of 800 Islamic students in refugee camps in Afghanistan.
They advocated "eradicating warlords and establishing a new state power", won the support of a large number of Afghan people, and quickly developed into the strongest force in the Afghan organization.
In 1996, the Taliban seized power after capturing the capital, Kabul, and controlling more than 90% of Afghanistan.
According to the Taliban income report released by the United Nations, the Taliban's diversified sources of funding have been revealed, and people can't help but smack their tongues after reading it.
In fact, the Taliban's way of making money mainly focuses on the following four aspects.
1. Rich mineral resources underground
As a poor country in the world, Afghanistan looks barren, but its underground is rich in mineral and oil resources, including a large number of lithium, copper, iron, cobalt, gold and rare earths.
Among them, the reserves of copper alone are as high as 700 million tons, and Kabul's copper belt is 110 kilometers long, which is a world-class giant copper mine, with an average copper content of 1.7%.
In addition, Afghanistan's iron ore reserves are close to 2 billion tons, and they are all high-quality hematite and magnetite.
Afghanistan is also located in a region with large natural gas reserves, reaching 150 billion cubic meters, and because of the high altitude of the region, almost all of them are undeveloped.
There is also a piece of "fragrant food" here is Afghanistan's pillar mineral - lapis lazuli, what kind of ore is lapis lazuli that will make the Taliban money?
In fact, lapis lazuli is a unique and rare rock, named for its dark blue, purple-blue and other colors on its surface, which is loved by luxury lovers and even regarded as a treasure by countries such as the United Arab Emirates.
Lapis lazuli was introduced to China via the Silk Road in ancient times, and during the Qing Dynasty, the crown of flowers on the heads of officials was made of lapis lazuli.
Most of Afghanistan's mountainous areas are controlled by the Taliban, and the total value of these mineral resources alone exceeds trillion dollars.
Even if the United States does not withdraw its troops, it will take another 20 years, and the Taliban's economy will still be able to withstand it.
2. Overseas donations
Donations from overseas communities are also an important source of funding for the Taliban.
The Taliban has intricate relations overseas, and some neighboring countries or organizations will provide a certain amount of economic assistance to the Taliban out of various interests.
Like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, etc., donate to the Taliban every year.
Donations are mainly divided into active donations and passive donations, in addition to some ordinary people donating to the Taliban, the Taliban even through some violence, threats and other means, coerced local wealthy businessmen to sign donation agreements, so that the annual financial acceptance of donations has reached hundreds of millions of dollars.
3. Black industry
It is well known that drugs are a black industry, but Afghanistan is the world's largest drug producer and one of the Taliban's largest and sustainable economic sources, and the industry has brought considerable economic benefits to the Taliban.
Especially in the southern part of Afghanistan, large quantities of opium poppy are cultivated and the Taliban control almost all of the poppy fields.
The poppy trade has always been a means of enrichment for the Taliban, which has a very mature operating system involving all links from production to sales. Afghan officials estimate the annual value of the illicit income to be around $4 billion.
According to relevant United Nations reports, Afghanistan provides most of the raw materials for drug production around the world, and most of the profits go to the Taliban.
To date, the Taliban remain the world's largest poppy grower.
According to the Afghan Research and Assessment Unit, the Taliban collect a 10 per cent tax on everything from cultivation to processing to marketing, and that the Taliban generate about $400 million a year in illegal drug revenue.
At the same time, the Taliban are not soft on drug manufacturers, levy huge taxes on them, and correspondingly charge a certain "protection fee" to drug trafficking groups, so it can be said that drug trafficking and the Taliban have become an inseparable part.
4. Infrastructure construction and security work
International organizations' infrastructure projects in Afghanistan are also one of the sources of funding for the Taliban. UN experts noted that the Taliban received considerable funding from international organizations' development funds for Afghanistan.
Some countries go to Afghanistan to aid infrastructure, and the Taliban take advantage of this opportunity to collect protection fees, and if they do not pay, the personality of the Tali's organization will harass and intimidate from time to time.
According to a US contractor who had been in Afghanistan, the Taliban collected 360 million yuan in protection fees for the 2.1 billion yuan project it built there to ensure its safety.
In addition, there is indirect support from the United States, the US military has been stationed in Afghanistan for a long time, and the number of soldiers has exceeded 100,000, in order to resist the Taliban attack, it is natural to build some military bases.
As the saying goes, "fertile water does not flow into the fields of outsiders", the United States will not venture to hand over such a large amount of money to outsiders, and naturally contract to its own builders.
However, their contractors have encountered serious blackmail and blackmail here, and the Taliban's threatening e-mails and suicide bombers threaten the safety of American workers, which makes American capitalists frightened.
As a last resort, they hired local Afghan troops, most of whom were Taliban members, to secure the site.
The United States and the Taliban have confronted each other and constantly built military bases, and the security of the bases needs to be maintained by the Taliban. It's ridiculous enough to think about.
After the project was completed, the cunning Taliban had a new way to make money.
When the US military enters the military base, the basic life of the army must be guaranteed, most of the materials needed by the military must be transported from Pakistan, and this rugged and long transportation route is in the hands of the Taliban.
Goods are often blocked by Taliban forces during transportation, and transportation companies simply spend money directly to buy safety, so the military has a part of the money indirectly handed over to the Taliban.
In addition to the four main sources of income, the Taliban have other fractional incomes, such as playing a government-like role in areas under their actual control, imposing a 10 percent tax on small businesses and a 2.5 percent "wealth tax" on the wealthy.
It is this steady stream of income that has prompted the Taliban to grow, and there are even additional funds to be managed by foreign financial planners to see the opportunity to invest abroad.
The Taliban are working how to quickly accumulate money, but from the perspective of the public, some means of collecting wealth are indeed immoral, and even unscrupulous.
Rejoice, the people suffer; The harm caused by war to the people is enormous, after 20 years of hard struggle.
The Taliban may no longer be the frivolous and impetuous armed organization he once was, and I hope that he can shoulder the heavy responsibility of building and leading the country, live up to the expectations of the Afghan people, and lead the Afghan people to stability, prosperity and strength.