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Re:Who Funds the Taliban? by woodruffw on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @01:39PM (#28131806)
I'm not going to argue that the Mafia is a state! But I think the Taliban satisfies the primary condition for statehood: possessing a monopoly on violence over a physical territory. Being a general menace to the population within that territory is just icing on the cake. The Italian Mafia might be extraordinarily effective in parts of Italy, but I don't think even they have the monopoly on violence: the Italian police are free to saunter in and arrest anybody not involved in their particular flavor of organized crime.

And, FTR, I don't believe that all states are themselves unethical. What I've said is that ethicality is neither necessary nor sufficient for statehood, at least in the "classic" Western political theory definition of the state.

Re:Who Funds the Taliban? by noduerme on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @02:14PM (#28132235)
Hm. Monopoly on violence in the political sense doesn't mean being the unchallenged masters of the territory - it means that people in that territory can't do violence to each other, or in this context engage in tribal or clan conflict, because the settlement of disputes and the application of law is the remit solely of the governing power. I don't think that's ever been the case in Afghanistan, i.e. even the Afghan state ain't much of a state.