Afghanistan: Beware of Pashtun ire
Khaleej Times
Eric S Margolis
Afghanistan has recently seen the heaviest fighting since the 1991 [sic] US invasion. Many Americans, who were then assured their nation had triumphantly won the war in Afghanistan and crushed Taleban, are understandably confused and dismayed by this startling turn of events.
In 2001, unable to withstand high-tech US forces, Taleban's leader, Mullah Omar, ordered his men, who had been fighting the Afghan Communists and pro-Russian Tajiks, to disband and blend into the civilian population. At the time, this writer, who covered the 1980's Great Jihad in Afghanistan and ensuing birth of Taleban, warned war would resume in about four years, just as it did after the 1979 Soviet invasion.
Now, Taleban forces have taken the offensive against US and NATO troops, often employing deadly new tactics, like roadside and suicide bombs, learned from Iraq's resistance. Casualties are mounting on both sides.
Significantly for a nation unused to cooperation of any kind, the Taleban movement has been joined by many other political and tribal groups to form a national resistance against foreign occupation. Prominent among them are Hizbe Islami, led by Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, the most effective guerilla leader in the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad, and renowned mujahideen leader, Jallaludin Haqqi.
Small numbers of foreign mujahideen have also come to fight. Most important, growing numbers of 'khels' or clans of the Pashtun (Pathan) tribe, the world's largest tribal group, numbering 40 million, have joined the resistance. Pashtuns comprise half of Afghanistan's 30 million population. Another 28 million Pashtuns live across the border, known as the Durand Line, in Pakistan.
The US-Nato campaign is increasingly directed against warrior Pashtun tribes like the Afridi and Orokzai, and their civilians, rather than against the so-called Taleban terrorists. Only fools pick fights with Pashtuns. There is an old Indian prayer: 'Lord Shiva, protect us from the fang of the cobra, the claw of the tiger, and the vengeance of the Afghan.'
Until recently, millions of dollars in monthly cash bribes from CIA to Afghan warlords kept key areas under nominal authority of the US-installed Karzai regime. The writ of this long-time CIA asset barely extends beyond the capitol, Kabul. Only western bayonets keep him in office.
Karzai's popularity among Afghans is best judged by the fact that he is constantly surrounded by 100-200 US bodyguards kept just out of range of western TV cameras.
The Soviets also built schools, clinics, and roads in Afghanistan, held 'democratic' elections and branded the resistance 'Islamic terrorists'. The US-Nato occupation follows an identical pattern, complete with candy for kids, platitudes about women's rights and nation-building, and rigged elections.
But the Westerners won't be any more successful in winning hearts and minds of Afghans than the Russians particularly after the flood of $100 dollar bills renting temporarily loyalty begins to dry up once Washington cuts back on the $1.5-2 billion monthly cost of the occupation.
The biggest difference between the Soviet and US occupation is that since 1989, Afghanistan has become a total narco-state. Close to 80 per cent of national income comes from export of opium and morphine/heroin. Washington's allies, members of the Karzai regime and Afghan Communists are accused of being deeply involved in the drug trade.
Sending troops to Afghanistan was marketed to Americans as a crusade against terrorism and revenge for the 9/11 attacks, with nation building as a sub-theme. Blaming 'terrorists' for the current upsurge in fighting obscures the natural and inevitable growth of resistance to foreign occupation among Afghans. The longer foreigners stay and bomb villages, the more they are hated by the xenophobic Afghans. Claims by Washington of political progress in Afghanistan are wishful thinking. It is the classic Afghan way to smile and pocket bribe money, and tell foreigners what they want to hear, only to attack them in the night. Tribal and clan loyalties trump all other links. Most Afghans working for the foreign occupation are secretly in touch with the resistance.
All those ponderous US search-and-destroy operations are telegraphed long in advance to the resistance. Of course, Afghans know one day Americans and other foreigners will go home, just as the Russians, British and Alexander's Greeks did. Link
Eric S Margolis is a veteran US journalist and contributing foreign editor of The Toronto Sun.
Eric S Margolis
Afghanistan has recently seen the heaviest fighting since the 1991 [sic] US invasion. Many Americans, who were then assured their nation had triumphantly won the war in Afghanistan and crushed Taleban, are understandably confused and dismayed by this startling turn of events.
In 2001, unable to withstand high-tech US forces, Taleban's leader, Mullah Omar, ordered his men, who had been fighting the Afghan Communists and pro-Russian Tajiks, to disband and blend into the civilian population. At the time, this writer, who covered the 1980's Great Jihad in Afghanistan and ensuing birth of Taleban, warned war would resume in about four years, just as it did after the 1979 Soviet invasion.
Now, Taleban forces have taken the offensive against US and NATO troops, often employing deadly new tactics, like roadside and suicide bombs, learned from Iraq's resistance. Casualties are mounting on both sides.
Significantly for a nation unused to cooperation of any kind, the Taleban movement has been joined by many other political and tribal groups to form a national resistance against foreign occupation. Prominent among them are Hizbe Islami, led by Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, the most effective guerilla leader in the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad, and renowned mujahideen leader, Jallaludin Haqqi.
Small numbers of foreign mujahideen have also come to fight. Most important, growing numbers of 'khels' or clans of the Pashtun (Pathan) tribe, the world's largest tribal group, numbering 40 million, have joined the resistance. Pashtuns comprise half of Afghanistan's 30 million population. Another 28 million Pashtuns live across the border, known as the Durand Line, in Pakistan.
The US-Nato campaign is increasingly directed against warrior Pashtun tribes like the Afridi and Orokzai, and their civilians, rather than against the so-called Taleban terrorists. Only fools pick fights with Pashtuns. There is an old Indian prayer: 'Lord Shiva, protect us from the fang of the cobra, the claw of the tiger, and the vengeance of the Afghan.'
Until recently, millions of dollars in monthly cash bribes from CIA to Afghan warlords kept key areas under nominal authority of the US-installed Karzai regime. The writ of this long-time CIA asset barely extends beyond the capitol, Kabul. Only western bayonets keep him in office.
Karzai's popularity among Afghans is best judged by the fact that he is constantly surrounded by 100-200 US bodyguards kept just out of range of western TV cameras.
The Soviets also built schools, clinics, and roads in Afghanistan, held 'democratic' elections and branded the resistance 'Islamic terrorists'. The US-Nato occupation follows an identical pattern, complete with candy for kids, platitudes about women's rights and nation-building, and rigged elections.
But the Westerners won't be any more successful in winning hearts and minds of Afghans than the Russians particularly after the flood of $100 dollar bills renting temporarily loyalty begins to dry up once Washington cuts back on the $1.5-2 billion monthly cost of the occupation.
The biggest difference between the Soviet and US occupation is that since 1989, Afghanistan has become a total narco-state. Close to 80 per cent of national income comes from export of opium and morphine/heroin. Washington's allies, members of the Karzai regime and Afghan Communists are accused of being deeply involved in the drug trade.
Sending troops to Afghanistan was marketed to Americans as a crusade against terrorism and revenge for the 9/11 attacks, with nation building as a sub-theme. Blaming 'terrorists' for the current upsurge in fighting obscures the natural and inevitable growth of resistance to foreign occupation among Afghans. The longer foreigners stay and bomb villages, the more they are hated by the xenophobic Afghans. Claims by Washington of political progress in Afghanistan are wishful thinking. It is the classic Afghan way to smile and pocket bribe money, and tell foreigners what they want to hear, only to attack them in the night. Tribal and clan loyalties trump all other links. Most Afghans working for the foreign occupation are secretly in touch with the resistance.
All those ponderous US search-and-destroy operations are telegraphed long in advance to the resistance. Of course, Afghans know one day Americans and other foreigners will go home, just as the Russians, British and Alexander's Greeks did. Link
Eric S Margolis is a veteran US journalist and contributing foreign editor of The Toronto Sun.
posted by exoplanet at 12:57 AM
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