Taliban, Pashtoons and Pakistan

Manto mian,

(They were for the longest time, Pakistan's greatest cheerleaders and supporters... who was the first one in Kashmir? Who was the first one in Afghanistan?)

Are you saying that you support Pakistan's expansionist strategies in J&K and A'stan and the means (Talibani-jihadi) to achieve them?

(I am afraid Pakistan and the US both are going to lose this war)

I dont think so, the Pak-US alliance will substantially decimate the Paki Talibs (if the alliance wants to that is). But Pakistan is going to pay a huge price.

(However I generally agree with your view that Tribal areas should not be tampered with. )

Maybe I got you wrong but I thot you were a strong opponent of the Paki Talibs.

Regards

31,

Romair, please review the extent of Maharaja Ranjit Singh's Empire.

Your comments are historically inaccurate as usual.

Re: # 15

Romair mian,

That is a very sad and unfortunate comment. FATA has given Pakistan a lot more than you think. They were for the longest time, Pakistan's greatest cheerleaders and supporters... who was the first one in Kashmir? Who was the first one in Afghanistan?

By blindly supporting the US strategy in the tribal areas, we have compromised our own internal security as well as the war on terror. I am afraid Pakistan and the US both are going to lose this war simply because of the ill-advised and extremely stupid invasion of the tribal areas.

As for tribal values etc... who died and gave us the right to "civilize" anyone? Let them evolve at their own pace.

Re: # 29

Adam,

That is an excellent post.

Dear Prince Albert Victor's Own,

Jinnah had called Punjab a hopeless place (in 1936??) because the Unionist Party of Sir Fazli-hussain and Sir Sikandar Hayat after him kept the Nationalists and All India politicians out of Punjab by fiercely insisting on regional particularism. However you may appreciate that Lahore was very much part of Punjab on 23rd March, 1940.

However I generally agree with your view that Tribal areas should not be tampered with. This current policy of tribal invasions has undone all the good done through "Operation Curzon" in 1947.

HP

its not the strokes of a few pens but targeted assassinations of some of the most powerful men in waziristan... the response so far has been.. well.. nothing....

First you say The Taliban on a very limited scale might have hurt the political clout of the Khans and maliks but the Khans and the Malik would regain that influence as the Taliban power starts to wane,

and then you say In fact, shariah does no such thing. Shariah is reaffirmation and the reestablishment of the tribal system. It is not contrary to the tribal system.

If the taliban's power wanes then how is that a reaffirmation of shariah? OR why would the maliks be resisting if shariah allows them to keep their current power structure!?

The difference between shariah and the tribal system is that shariah erodes all ethnic identities. From a tribe you go on to become part of a bigger brotherhood. This means that a wazir qazi can decide if the hands of a mohmand theif be chopped off or not. The tribal malik has no role in that, the jirga is simply replaced by Islamic courts.

This is the mistake that you southerners make while assessing pakhtoons. This current wave of islamic extremism is in NO WAY is a reflection of the pushtoon way of life or of pushtoon identity.

In terms of conservative norms Peshawar in the 70s and 80s was not that different from Lahore at that time. Look at the situation now. The difference is because of the huge amount of money pumped in this region to brain wash our masses, if there were that many madrassahs in punjab or sindh, i assure you things would have been a lot more different down south as well.

This is the price that Pakhtoons are paying for that elusive "strategic depth", a policy that was carried out in the name of Pakistan's national interest, the last thing we need is for the rest of the country to refer to us as some sub-human beings who are not capable of acting normal. This is plain racism, and I do hope you realize that.

Fuzair, Pavo's point holds (and doesn't contradict your view) if we concede that most non-tribals are not the victors you described. Most indeed are, in your words, 'idiots' who (1) do not understand what precisely they must do to gain victory over the tribals, and (2) even if they do understand that, don't have the 'moral courage' or fibre to take those steps. (What the US can do and what the US is able to do for a long-enough period of time are two entirely different things.)

Pakistani army, of course, fully knows and should have no 'moral problem.' But I doubt it has the ability or the desire to fight tribal Pakistani citizens long and hard enough.

So in effect, tribal Pakistanis are invincible, unless Pakistani army suddenly surprises us all.

(I hope it doesn't. I find liberal arguments against tribal Pakistanis to be morally repugnant, but that is just me, on a subjective level alone.)

Whoops, sorry; last Soviet Commander was not Lebed but Gromov; who still walked over the bridge into Tajikistan very slowly and taking his time; demonstrating to the world that the Soviets were not run out of Afghanistan.

Pew,

Major Sahib is PAVOCavalry, who left the Army in 1993 as a Major. Don't know if he was superceded or left voluntarily, I suspect the latter as he was probably too junior to be superceded by a promotion board (maybe he didn't get Staff College, which would have been the kiss of death for his career--if he hadn't already sabotaged it himself!). PAVO is Prince Albert Victor's Own Cavalry, 11 FF, btw; a fine old namak halal colonial regiment that delighted in keeping the Afghan scum out of the King Emperor's lands.

Quite ironic given the Good Major's current views! ;-)

Buleya is a FM (Honorary) Retd. Captain, but sometimes I wonder about this since he is quite elusive about his actual service.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

HP,

Hamida Khoro said, almost thirty years ago, that the real tragedy of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was that we had just started trying to civilize our Pathans when all those Afghan barbarians poured into Pakistan and undid all the work.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Romair,

Come on, if you have any sort of a military background at all, you know that the Mujahideen did not defeat the Soviet Union; the Soviet Union decided to leave. They were not pursued out of Afghanistan, leaving hundreds and thousands of dead soldiers littering the trail behind them. Remember how contemptously Gen. Lebed, the last Soviet Commander, walked over the bridge into Tajikistan? He walked over as teh last man across, emphatically underscoring that the Soviets were leaving of their own accord and were not being chased out.

Re: # 21 Fuzair
Very prescient analysis, especially the reference to Lord Curzon’s ‘forward policy’. Most of the ignoramuses on Chowk have no idea what you were referring to.

By ‘liberating’ FATA, one aspect of Curzon’s policy, i.e. creating a buffer zone between the British Empire and Czarist Russia through a weak Afghanistan will come into effect – this time between the Taliban anarchists and India. The party responsible for maintaining peace in the buffer will be Pakistan, but with no where near the resources that the British Empire had – a daunting prospect for Pakistan, but one that should be pleasing to the mandarins of South Block. There is a big risk in all this though – Pakistan may not be equal to the task, and that might still spell trouble for India.

Die-hard Pakistan ideologues would do well to reassess the rationale for the creation of Pakistan in the first place and absorb the gradual withering of the Pakistan state in the face of unbearable security obligations.

BTW, who were you referring to as ‘Major’? Bulleya? I thought he got out as a Captain. He has the Chowk honorific title ‘Field Marshall’ actually.

#15 Posted by bulleya on January 31, 2008 8:20:00 am


what exactly does pakistan get from fata


you get afghan looks, which, according to you, are necessary for an IT company to succeed.

think about it..without fata, you'll be without 2 of the 3 ingredients you said an IT company needs to succeed: afghan looks, paki management and indian something..

There really is no need to assimilate FATA into the Pakistan. I say this for several reasons:

1.Politically they lean towards religious orthodoxy and their numbers would help the fundamentalism and obscurantism gain political clout in Pakistan.

2.Majority of Pakistanis in the settled areas both politically and religiously have rejected their brand of Islam and politics which rest on the laurels of illegal trade, Arms smuggling and drugs manufacturing.

3.If they are incorporated in NWFP, that province would be forever lost to the humanity and we should never accept that position.

Also, No Pakistani government should allow them to renege on the contract they committed with the Pakistan government at the time of partition. They should never be given an option to renounce their Pakistani citizenship or given an opportunity to breakaway from Pakistan.

I am not saying this for some nationalist reasons. Like having a Taliban controlled Afghanistan in our neighborhood was bad for Pakistan, having an independent area controlled by the most renowned criminals of the country would be worse for Pakistan.

FATA as an independent geographical area would be like inviting the criminals’ world over to come to our neighborhood and start drugs and heroine factories ala Colombia!
Would any one allow that to happen to their neighborhood?

In fact, the center of the drug activity would move down to FATA from South American countries. The pushtoons in FATA have no experience whatsoever in managing nation states. while the Afghanistan under the religious fanatics became the most hated country in the world, FATA under the same set of people would end up not only a safe heaven for the religious fanatics, but also a dream come true for the international crime syndicates.

#29 Posted by adamkhan

“the taliban did when they were gaining influence in the tribal areas was to eliminate tribal maliks.... i.e. to replace the tribal system with shariah... which eventually would mean no difference between mehsud, wazir, mohmand,�

When a person of considerable knowledge of the political process, like you, says something like this with all seriousness, then I am afraid we began to wonder whether the enlightened Pathans too are getting overwhelmed by the Jihadi propaganda machine.

Khan Sahib, you cannot remove the Khan, and the Malik system just by a few strokes of pen or by word of mouth alone. Even in the settled areas of Pakistan de-tribalisation was unsuccessful as it was not backed and followed up by political and economic events that would have helped eliminate the Tribal system.

Taliban have no way of ending the Malik or Khan system as it is part of the Tribal system. The Taliban on a very limited scale might have hurt the political clout of the Khans and maliks but the Khans and the Malik would regain that influence as the Taliban power starts to wane, which would eventually happen in a very short period of time.

One more thing the shariah does not remove mehsud, wazir, mohmand from peoples’ minds overnight. In fact, shariah does no such thing. Shariah is reaffirmation and the reestablishment of the tribal system. It is not contrary to the tribal system.

I am afraid you are wrong on both counts!

i doubt fata would, itself, ever want independence from pakistan.......where would they get thier electricity from, and their smuggled cars, and their budget?

they are playing it both ways.......they get everything from the state of pakistan, but don't want to be subordinate to it......fata cannot just declare war on someone, by itself, and then expect pakistan to protect it......

how many pakistanis have ever been to fata....hardly anyone.....so what is the point of keeping them with pakistan....

if pakistan threatens them with independence......they will come back......they know they will turn into afghanistan and nato will bomb the hell out of them, without regard of anything.......not to mention the fact they won't have electricity or phones etc.......

instead of bombing them, give them independence.....

the biggest defeat of afghans, would be pakistan itself......

pakistan, west of indus was afghanistan.........it was taken from afghans, by very young british soldiers......in fact, had they not done so, there may have been no pakistan.....or at best a small one......sind and west punjab......

the question however isn't of how much the afghans have been defeated historically........but what has happened lately........in present day warfare, it is nearly impossible for an organized army to defeat a civilian guirella force........

afghans did defeat the might soviet empire.......so one has to give them that credit.......and they are about to defeat nato......so defeating pakistan shouldn't be too hard.....

in any case, anyone sending in an army to kill guirellas, who have local support will lose........that is what happened in iraq.....and arabs, of the latest generation, don't have much of a fighting tradition....tiny israel has been beating up on all 23 of their nations for a long time......

ah! man!! the pushtoon problem eh??...well one thing that sets pushtoons apart from all the other ethnicities in pakistan is the fact that they actually do take their religion seriously.... I mean let it be pardah, roza, nimaz, beards, jihad etc... the pathans generally do believe in these rituals/duties and therefore perform them "religiously"... just like they took non-violence pretty seriously not that long ago...

So although I DO agree that "de-tribalization" is necessary for the evolution of pushtoon society... it wont necessarily be the cure for everthing..... the Swat insurgency was in settled areas and was carried out by the locals...and also the first thing that the taliban did when they were gaining influence in the tribal areas was to eliminate tribal maliks.... i.e. to replace the tribal system with shariah... which eventually would mean no difference between mehsud, wazir, mohmand, or afridi.... so if anything the tribal system itself is a victim of talibanisation...

But since any criticism of beduin-ism is most vociferously opposed by those who had missed the last 4 jumma prayers... i guess pushtoon bashing is the next best thing.

There is a serious refugee problem after the Pakistan army attacked Muslims in the tribal regions. Today we came to know that kids under age 7 had to walk for two days to reach parts of the outskrit of Bannu. It is bitter cold and many perished. We have to raise money to feed them. Pakistan army picked up where their ancestor British Indian Army left. Under this indiscriminate and out of proportional use of excessive force, it is most likey the war will gradually spread into inner cities of Pakistan. The rulers in Islamabad may not feel that comfy next winter. Already the ranks of Taliban in Afghanistan have swelled from few thousands to over 25000. And the US treasury is trouble. Most troops are stuck in Iraq and Al-Qaeda desperately wants John McCain to win so that the war mill continue. Low violence in Iraq is understandable. Though Arabs are used to live in humiliation, but this time it is to boost McCain popularity. Where will be Pakistan in next 15 years if there will be one left?