Seamus Murphy: belief

Transcript context

…How urbanized is Afghanistan now? Kabul’s a pretty big city? Kabul’s a very big city. I think when the Soviets invaded, it was something like 400,000 or 500,000 people. We’re now looking at 4.5 million, something like that. The infrastructure doesn’t keep up with it. When NATO was in for 20 years, there was road building. There were projects that should have modernized the country. But there’s also a lot of corruption. Corruption set in fairly early on. You could say that was the Afghans’ fault, but I think, actually, the people that were giving the money, the West, should have been more vigilant. I think they knew what was going on. If they really wanted to solve the problem of corruption, they could have done more. They must have known in 2010, 2015, how things were going. Everyone knew there was corruption everywhere, and they continued to spend the money. Then when the time came, they said, “Well, we’ve spent all this money. Nothing to show for it. We’re getting out.” But they’re the ones who spent the money, so surely, there’s some responsibility there. How enduring do you think Taliban rule will be?…

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