by W. Patrick Lang
Sept. 20 — President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday questioned the need for further international military operations within Afghanistan, while the top U.S. military commander here predicted more fighting in the weeks ahead as Taliban guerrillas continue to mount attacks and U.S.-led forces respond.
Karzai, speaking at a news conference two days after landmark parliamentary elections were held with minimal disruption, called instead for a “stronger political approach,” focused on shutting down guerrilla training camps and financial support outside the country.” (Washington Post)
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Hamid Karzai is an Afghan, a Pushtun to be precise. He knows that Afghanistan is a wild, high, tribal place that was created in the 19th Century by imperial Britain and imperial Russia as a convenient buffer state between the boundaries of their Asian dominions. Their purpose in doing this was simple.
The “Great Game” was being played at that time with increasing ferocity and danger of war in Central Asia. A neutral space was needed to cushion the effects of super-power competition. Domination and occupation of what is now Afghanistan had been attempted by both empires. They had found it to be an unprofitable, in some cases disastrous, enterprise. A brilliant idea emerged in Delhi, London and St. Petersburg. The conversation in these cities must have been something like this – “Let’s draw lines around this unoccupied space on the map and recognize it as a sovereign state! What shall we call it? Ah. The strongest group call themselves ‘Afghan.’ Brilliant!”
The world has “cycled” a number of times since then and in the latest turning of the wheel of history we see the recreation of an independent Afghanistan under the aegis of the West and America in particular.
We Americans see . . . Continued BELOW:
We Americans see the campaign in Afghanistan as just one theater of war in a global struggle against international Jihadism with the Moriarty-like figure of Usama bin Laden lurking in secret, somewhere. Afghanistan for us is a place to pursue his followers to the death.
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Karzai is trying to tell us that Afghanistan is what it always was, a country made up of many ethno-religious communities, ruled at the local level by leaders whom we call “war lords” and who the Afghans know are the same as the tribal and regional figures who have always ruled this region.
We are pleased to think of Afghanistan as an emerging, centralized and globalized democratic state, but the Afghans, like Karzai, know the truth.
They know that Afghanistan is a poor, loosely knit country in which all the different factions and peoples in the country must be brought together by the “central government” in a consensus that establishes a “status quo” accepted by the local forces that will always hold the balance of power in the country.
Karzai also knows that the interests of all the foreign players must be satisfied if there is to be the modicum of quiet which would constitute “peace” in Afghanistan.
Iran, Russia, Pakistan and now the United States must all be brought into consensus before the Afghans can once again weave exquisite textiles and play “Buz Kashi” in peace with their bearded Green Beret friends.
He wants us to stop pusuing OUR dreams in Afghanistan. Our dreams are too destructive, too massively disruptive. They are interfering with his important work for internal and external reconciliation. They are interfering with a return to the real Afghanistan.
“Four Things Greater Than All Things Are; Women And Horses, and Power and War.” Rudyard Kipling writing on Afghanistan in the 19th Century.
Pat Lang
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“Drinking the Kool-Aid,” Middle East Policy Council Journal, Vol. XI, Summer 2004, No. 2
Thank you Pat for a valuable history lesson and what to expect in the future. As long as the good ol’U.S. can keep osama in a cave somewhere(yeah right) they will have a boogey man to continue to instill the fear it our people and an excuse to stay there indefinately.
and as generations a century later have seen, Afghanistan is not a land that can be dominated by outsiders who would seek to bend the country to their will.
The Soviet Union thought it had a puppet government securely in place from April 1978 – December 1979, but the weaknesses of that regime (among other reasons) led to their invasion and occupation until 1989. Many observers, of course, credit the Soviet Army’s failures in Afghanistan (as in, “This was their Vietnam”) as a major factor that forced the hands of Gorbachev in setting the table for the dissolution of the entire Soviet system.
The United States, it seems, has yet to fully absorb that lesson. We cannot hope to impose our will there and be successful over the long run. The nation’s culture and history will ultimately conspire to become our undoing.
I’ve not read Kipling. Where should I start? Are there online resources you know of? (I can find those on my own — i’m just curious if you know of any off the top of your head.)
“Kings of Kafiristan” was a terific book by Kipling that (somewhat fictionally) describes the tribal nature and fiercely independent character of peoples in the Afghan region. (Hollywood made a pretty good film based on this story called “The Man Who Would Be King”. (The Masonic mysticism in the story is fictionalized. while there are signs of a certain form of metaphysical teaching in the region similar to others found in Egypt, there’s no evidence that it was Alexander who carried it there).
Alexander the Great did pass through Afghasnistan and lost many of his soldiers to fighting there, but in the end did make some friends and allies.
Genghis Khan, who succeeded in giving the Hazaras a more Asian appearance, but was unable to actually conquer the place either, as you can see by looking at the Pashtuns 😉
Ghengis was a helluva lot smarter than Bush the imbecile and far more competent than Cheney and the neocons.
And besides, Ghengis was an accomplished horseman; apparently Bush only knows how to jerk them off.
I was sure the title of the story by Kipling was “Kings of Kafiristan”, but I must have misremembered, because it seems the title is actually “The Man Who Would Be King”. I remember the film is different from the original story because the component of greed was absent in the book but strongly dramatized in the film.
Despite the seeming brutality of the tribal groups, their intrinsic “cultural morality” comes through quite well in the book, less so in the film. I think this resonants somewhat with what Pat Lang is saying; that these tribal groupings each maintain a strong code of conduct that, historically, is necessary for their survival in an often times brutal and uncompromising world. Pulling these groups together under a rubric of common interest isa dauntingtask in the best of circumstances, and overlaying some sort of knee-jerk democratic construct to achieve this unity is usually a counterproductive way to begin the unifying process.
outside the West. It seems like no matter how many are slaughtered, tortured, incinerated, imprisoned or enslaved, the enthusiasm is just not there. There are unconfirmed reports that some may not even be grateful.
Ungrateful subjects? How dare they spurn the perfection of our plan for them. How rude of them not to praise our magnaminity. (“We should have just annihilated them all like we planned originally”, say the neocons to each other.)
Thank you, SBJ and Ducttape and others … I’ve been trying to think why I never read Kipling. I suspect it was regarded as only the kind of writing that boys would like. There was a lot of that kind of thinking when I grew up. For example, I was encouraged to read biographies about Clara Barton and Betsy Ross, but — heavens — not Ben Franklin, etc.
I have never been much a fan of imperialism, or racism, or convinced by his many Western apologists that he was just a product of his culture and a really nice guy etc etc, but to give credit where credit is due, he did write some good poems. Here is one:
Life in that part of the world has gone on for ten thousand years, more, nobody knows. The principal modern influence that has had any effect there is Islam, which has been rather selectively and loosely adopted.
It is not likely that Dara Adem Khel can be industrialized, and the future of Pipelinistan has caused some leeriness on the part of some investors, however this does not mean that the area does not offer lucrative opportunities for certain key business interests.
Millions of Afghans are willing to serve as gunmen for whoever is paying, at least on an hourly basis, as prevailing rates do tend to fluctuate over the course of a day.
BUT, BUT, BUT… The neocon script doesn’t say it will go that way?
Ideologues are always right, aren’t they?
If Afghanistan was supposedly going so swimmingly, what does this say about Iraq’s prospects?
I see you all nodding in agreement on Iraq’s prospects.
Sadly, neocons can read about as well as they can write…
Does this also signal Karzai stepping out more into his own as a leader?
I read a long report by Jon Lee Anderson recently in The New Yorker that described, in detail, Karzai’s very close relationship and long daily meetings with Khalilzad.
Some felt that when Khalilzad left to become ambassador to Iraq, that Karzai might emerge as more than a puppet of the U.S.
He cast his lot, and until he becomes the victim of an unfortunate accident, by whatever hand, he will be unable to pipi without being surrounded by a gaggle of US paid gunmen to protect him.
Much like Musharaf. When he obeyed US orders to have the Pakistani army slaughter Pakistanis, some did it, but the Pakistani people are not as loyal as Americans, nor is Musharaf as beloved as Bush, and there was “unrest.”
what is Karzai’s game then?
I would expect him to need protection for a long period of time. Is he dissembling?
And let’s not forget that Karzai, while working for Unocal along with Khalilizad, supported the Taliban during that time when Unocal was seeking to build it’s massive trans-Afghanistan oil pipeline there.
I seriously doubt Karzai is the grand and noble figure the media and the propagandists make him out to be. He may have some generally big ideas for doing good, but such ideas are not likely to survive his own need to stay alive and his own ambition to remain in power. (Most politicians are like this to some degree, so he’s not any worse than the rest.)
turned down the deal, after being wined, dined and wooed.
Then all of a sudden, US was absolutely horrified by Pashtunistan social customs about which they had contained their outrage for the previous ten millennia.
And that is the sum total of what Taliban did, aside from stabilizing the country a bit from the warlord rampage that was going on after the proxy war, they took their rural village customs national.
The US is very selective in its concern over the plight of women in various parts of the world, including the US itself.
I agree about US duplicity and abandonment of principle.
I would only comment that the insanity of the Taliban transcended any basic tribal brutality practised by the Pashtuns and others in the region. The particular evangelical fanaticism practised by these sadists was imported, not indigenous.
This is not to say the tribal customs in the region did not have their own high levels of barbarity. But not on the scale of the Taliban.
Taliban at that one post-refusal point in history.
How much Pashtunistan village life was ever talked about before that?
How many Americans had even ever heard of Pashtuns before UnoCal had a pipeline plan?
Ask any old Pashtun, he or she will tell you that when people say nothing changed for 10 thousand years, they mean exactly that.
Islam, as I said before, was adopted in a very spotty sort of way, a whole lot of pre-Islamic customs in that (and other) parts of the world are in direct conflict with the actual religion, yet they prevail.
This is not unique to Pashtunistan, by any means. Many pre-Christian customs have prevailed in Western nations, in fact military aggression is in direct conflict with the teachings of Jesus.
Yes but the Taliban sadism was rooted in the extremist perversions of Islamic teachings, not out of ancient tribal customs. Certainly there was some macabre serendipity between the zealotry and the repressive ancient custom, but the Taliban actively repressed even more based on their flawed version of Islamic law.
I agree that the so-called Karzai regime has done little to advance basic human rights in Afghanistan, nor has Musharraf in Pakistan nor will any of the ambitious and power-hungry psychopaths seeking control of Iraq. And certainly for the Bush regime to trumpet it’s success in bringing freedom and liberty to the peoples in these lands is the cruelest form of hypocrisy.
But the Taliban did make things worse.
were what the Prophet really meant, much in the same way that Jesus’ exhortation to “love thy neighbor as thyself” is interpreted by modern Western Christians as a coded instruction to slaughter Iraqi children and exterminate their own poor citizens.
Remember that Mullah Omar, for example, unless he has undergone a crash course recently, is not literate, and neither are most of the Taliban, or most of Afghanistan, for that matter.
They have never read the Koran, all they do is memorize it by rote in a language they do not speak or understand.
Again, not unlike popular American clerics who issue edicts based on their reading of a translation of an ancient text into Elizabethan English.
Nor are brutal practices and terror against women confined to the Abrahamic faiths. Little girls are married off every day in parts of India, brides are burned, and widows forced to burn themselves alive, and the American public manages to contain its outrage.
Look into some of the practices in rural areas farther east, in Tibet, Nepal, and I can assure you that if these customs got the same media coverage the Taliban did you would find them every bit as barbaric.
As you acknowledge yourself, the purpose of US occupation of Aghanistan, and I will also add Iraq, has nothing to do with improving the plight of women.
I know that Americans cheer when Bush talks about the little girls going to school in Afghanistan, but what he doesn’t tell you is that those little girls are pretty much limited to the daughters of employees US entities, and if anything, hatred of the occupation has decreased the likelihood of persuading people outside the Karzone to let their daughters go to school.
The price of little girls, however, has multiplied exponentially since 2001. At that time it was a bag of grain. Now it is up to over $100.
The opium crop is thriving, too.
Karzai will never get beyond being “King of Kabul” and most likely the US will have no more use for him in a couple of years anyway. Once they finally cut off their support, he’ll become just another ambitious tribal chief or he’ll be a dead one.
Security and stability in Afghanstan and Iraq are not part of the neocon warmonger agenda. I think we need to remember that.
An Afghan woman’s memoir of growing up during the Soviet occupation, fleeing the country, and returning as a Canadian filmmaker and journalist during and after the Taliban days:
A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan
by Nelofer Pazira
Lyrical and heartbreaking. This one should be added to our book club reading list.
That sounds fascinating!
A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan
— this link, if anyone buys it, will be credited to Booman. Otherwise not. (Sorry… there has to be the 30079 partnership # for Boo to get credit.)
Sounds so good.
Hmmmm . . . I used the Powell’s link from here to get there. Wonder why the 30079 didn’t show up?
Thank you! I just tried the same thing as you probably did — went to Powell’s via a link here / then used the search engine — but the search result loses the 30079 number.
I’ll e-mail Emily right away. That’s not good. Thank YOU for bringing this up.
Emily wrote back to me right away! As she always does.
We’re fine … their computer tracks you, once you click on a link here, even if the 30079 doesn’t show up in the Web address.
WHEW!
But it’s very good to know, and I’m glad you helped me check this out.
Very good to know–I was worried that none of the truckload of books I’ve been ordering from Powell’s lately have been credited to Booman. And of course I’d never have ordered all those books if Booman didn’t get something out of it.
Oh, who am I kidding? I’m just a bookaholic and would have ordered them anyway. But still, it’s nice to be able to help out the site a little.
As long as the Washington warlords are making money in Afghanistan, and they are, and as long as they want it as a staging base for Operation Iranian Freedom, and they do, they are not going to leave. And if they did, they would have to take Karzai back with them, and even then, he would need protection.
He can hardly go out and say all that though, even though his “Green Zone” audience constitutes the bulk of his audience.
do you think about the quality of the election?
And a request for some effort at stifling your cynicism on this question…
…unlike Iraq, Afghanistan was fully functioning failed state before we got there. So, conditions in Afghanistan can and should be measured on a different scale than Iraq.
I acknowledge that the difference, from a practical standpoint, may be somewhat theoretical.
Because I have a fundamental disagreement with the doctrine of Manifest Destiny and imperialism in general, my opinion of the elections in Afghanistan is no different than my opinion would be if Iran invaded and occupied the US and held an election.
I am supposing that Iran was invading this country after a decade of civil war (culminating in the rule of Pat Robertson) led some irritated Americans to destroy a substantial area of Teheran. Is that the comparison you are making?
be in its own best interest, as well as the best interests of the American people, to invade and occupy the US.
In the scenario you describe, it is quite likely that that Robertson loyalists might not be the only ones whose enthusiasm for becoming, say, an Islamic republic would be a bit low, while the likelihood that having their children carted off to be “interrogated” by Iranian gunmen, even if accompanied by Americans who welcomed the Iranians, would improve the conditions which sparked the civil war in the first place.
So even though the Iranians might be quite sincere and most well-intentioned in their conviction that they, and not the American people were the appropriate entity to run the United States, I would not be in favor of such a move, and with all respect, would have to disagree with the Iranians’ view.
I agree with all that you say. I would be the last one to dispute the fundamental truth that as a species, we humans are not anywhere near as civilized as we like to think we are. and certainly right here at home in the US we have a resurgence of the violent intolerance and fear that would seek to do for us what Khomeni did for iran, turn bacjk the clock to the dark ages where witch burnings and such were matter of fact occurences.
My point about the Taliban, (a group we helped empower, by the way), is that they took a pre-existing, ugly situation and made it worse.
This is the only functional handle we have to describe the nature and extent of our violent inhumanity; by charting a vector that delineates the growth of this aggressive barbarism. And like a disease, if we can chart it’s growth, see how it metastisizes, then we have a chance to combat it’s source and possible develop a social vaccine.
An eons long enterprise I fear, but we have to start somewhere.
Like you, I’m not a cynic either, but I have been around a long time and seen lots of things both great and ugly. I have no incentive to give the benefit of the doubt to people who lie and cheat and steal like so many of our politicians do. And I have absolutely no incentive to imagine these same kind of people are operating from any noble motives, and playing the game of lauding them until they screw up only helps them do more damage. This is why I condemn the Bush regime so heartily and why I have no doubt that their intentions in the MidEast and across the broader globe are inimical to everyone. they are not seeking peace or freedom or security or democracy for anyone and the sooner we understand that right from the gitgo the sooner we can find ways to start repairing the damage they’ve caused.
I wish more people understood that there is nothing this Bush regime wants to do that’s good for humanity or good for the planet. Nothing!