Afghanistan Reflections

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Iran fills a void left by Pakistan`s decline

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/008/nation/Iran_fills_a_void_left_by_Pakistan_s_decline+.shtml

By Anthony Shadid, Globe Staff, 1/8/2002

SLAMABAD, Pakistan - Long the regional heavyweight, Pakistan now finds its role in Afghanistan has all but vanished, dealing a blow to the nation`s influence in southwestern Asia and leaving an opening for rivals like Iran, diplomats and officials say.

Iran is seeking to capitalize on the dramatic shift in Pakistan`s fortunes with moves to tie its economy more closely to Afghanistan, according to officials here and in Washington. Pakistan`s longtime rival is opening links to Afghanistan by air and road, the officials said.

``There has been a complete flip-flop on who was the major player, and it has gone from Pakistan to Iran,`` a Western diplomat in Islamabad said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ``The Iranians are good about not gloating over that fact.``

Iran`s entry into the void shows both the extensive diplomatic realignment in the region since Sept. 11 and how far Washington has come in its perceptions about Iran, a state it still lists as supporting terrorism. Moreover, diplomats said, it underscores how far Iran itself has come in moderating its policies and playing a more assertive international role.

The decline of Pakistani influence here is remarkable, given the formidable authority Islamabad wielded in the US-backed fight against Soviet troops in the 1980s and the far-reaching support it provided the Taliban during its rise to power in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

Today, Pakistan`s once-extensive intelligence network in Afghanistan has gone the way of its Taliban allies. In Kabul, it faces an Afghan government with a still-vivid memory of Pakistan`s support for the Taliban and consequently an intense distaste for any hint of Pakistani meddling.

Mushahid Hussain, a member of Pakistan`s Parliament and a former government minister, said that in his nation`s pursuit of `` this flawed policy to install a friendly government in Kabul, we promoted favorites, we ditched friends, we suddenly had a romance with the Taliban.

``Of course after Sept. 11, we realized that our pro-Taliban policy was buried in the wreckage of the World Trade Center.``

Iran played a more extensive role than has generally been acknowledged in reaching the agreement in Bonn last month that made possible the provisional government in Kabul, the diplomat said. Tehran has also taken on a higher profile inside the war-shattered country by providing aid, including the funding of teacher salaries in Kabul for the next six months.

In a farther-reaching effort, Tehran has sought to bolster its links by road from Mashhad in western Iran to Herat, an Afghan border city with longstanding links to Iran. Iranian officials have urged the United Nations to make more use of the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Arabian Sea to ship aid into southwestern Afghanistan, and an Iranian diplomat in Islamabad said that direct flights would begin ``in the near future`` from Tehran to Kabul.

``They`re not missing a beat,`` said the Western diplomat.

He and other diplomats agreed that the Iranians appear to be a force for stability in Afghanistan, so US officials have so far raised no objection to their growing role.

``It`s obviously something we`re going to keep an eye on, but it`s not causing alarm to the extent that we`re trying to stop it,`` a State Department official said.

Pakistan`s diplomatic retreat from Afghanistan is occurring as the nation is losing ground in other ways.

For example, Washington is not only cooperating more with Iran, but is also diluting its reliance on Pakistan by forging closer ties to nations in the region such as Uzbekistan and, of course, Afghanistan itself. And the United States is reshaping the situation on the ground by increasing its military presence in the region, with Russia`s blessing.

Pakistan is also stinging - and presumably has lost ground in the region, at least for the time being - as a result of its ongoing military confrontation with India.

Although the Bush administration has pressured both sides to avoid war, the most intense efforts have clearly been made in Islamabad, which has reacted with unprecedented crackdowns on the Islamic militants it had been supporting. The result has been to make Pakistan seem less of a force, particularly compared with its archrival, India, which has offered no apparent concessions.

Some analysts say that next to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Pakistan has lost the most as a result of the US campaign.

``Everything seems to have boomeranged against Pakistan, both in the east and in the west,`` said Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan`s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.

It is hard to overstate the extent of Pakistan`s loss of influence, especially within Afghanistan.

After the Soviet invasion in 1979, Pakistan had treated its neighbor to the west as its strategic backyard, shepherding the US-funded resistance by the mujahideen that eventually led to a Soviet withdrawal a decade later.

But it was under the Taliban that Pakistan enjoyed its greatest influence.

From 1994 on, Pakistani intelligence fostered the Taliban as a military client, providing help in recruitment and training, logistics, money, weapons, and even military intervention on the Taliban`s behalf.

Hundreds of Pakistani volunteers, many fired by religious fervor, populated the Taliban`s ranks. And the religious militia drew on Pakistan`s religious parties, groups that grew in prominence during the 1990s, for financial and ideological backing. In 1997, Pakistan led the way in granting diplomatic recognition to the Taliban.

``If you look at Afghanistan, the Taliban regime was probably the most friendly to Pakistan in the last 100 years,`` said Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema, president of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute, a Pakistani think tank.

That very success with the Taliban, analysts said, is the reason the retreat has been so sweeping: Pakistan invested so much in the Taliban that it was left with virtually nothing to show once the Taliban disintegrated before the American military onslaught.

Diplomats and former officials said Pakistani policy is in shambles, reeling from the loss of influence in Afghanistan and with no realistic prospect of exerting any.

Pakistan has yet to open an embassy in Kabul, though a Foreign Ministry spokesman said that would occur ``sooner rather than later.``

``Where does Pakistan stand after 25 years of making sacrifices for Afghanistan?`` said Gul. ``Pakistan has no relevance as of now. It has completely pulled out.``

Gul, who supported Pakistan`s policy of fostering the Taliban, blames the US government. Washington broke promises to keep the Northern Alliance from taking power, he said. ``Pakistan was used as a pawn, not as a partner by the Americans.``

But other analysts here put the blame squarely on Pakistan, part of an assessment of policy here that some compare to US discussions over the victory of communists in China in 1949.

``Pakistan`s policy toward Afghanistan was one vast failure,`` said Hussain.

``Judge by the results. Ultimately what did it produce? It didn`t produce stability for the region, for Pakistan, or for Afghanistan.``

For now, Pakistani officials say they will support UN efforts to form a government in Kabul that represents Afghanistan`s mosaic of ethnic and religious groups. That in itself is new, said one senior Pakistani official.

``In the past, there were preferences for certain people and certain parties,`` the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ``That has proved to be a disaster.``

But given Pakistan`s ties of language, culture, and ethnicity, the official predicted that its influence would once again grow in Afghanistan.

``Whatever government ultimately emerges in Afghanistan will have to deal with Pakistan,`` he said. ``We are not worried about it.``

This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 1/8/2002.

Bravo, Ras, for saying the unsayable. But I would like to quote the following from your article

:

``I have to strongly disagree with Afghan representative appearing in the American media these days and blaming Pakistan for the problems of Afghanistan. Instead I would like to forward the proposal that the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan can become their own best friends (and everyone else’s) if they could learn to get along with each another inside their own countries.

Blaming Pakistan is easy but I believe that the Afghans can learn a great deal about self-preservation from the example of the current regime in Pakistan. It is time to join the real world, to quit fighting and to learn the benefits of trade and commerce.``

BY this you are saying that the current geographical dispensation - Durrand line and all should be a near final state of the States boundaries. That Trade and commerce are more important and should be first revived, rejuvinated, etc etc before any other thing can done regarding the Durrand line etc.

But there are internal contradictions to your arguments. rememebr these sentiments/arguments should be apllicable everywhere, and one counter example is enough to dismantle the who edifice. Those of us who are steeped in mathematical analysis realise this and spend our lives looking for counter examples for every theorem we come up with. Anyway I will gove you one (for better or worse):

I wonder how long it will be before our brothers from the various jehadi outfits take this message and use it in other places. Or is this only for the believers, not not for the kafirs/kufirs like Ahmedias, pagans, the heeng oozers aka dirty hindoos (thanks Sarwari for this new epithet for the Indians brings a new new dimension to the racism and bigotry of your elite ilk). If it is aplicable to the other scenario on Pakistan`s eastern borders - I would suggest that you say it loud and clear so that all can hear it.

But somehow I feel that this will not happen. Peace and the subcontinent are two words which can never go together. History, repeats itself, and will keep repeating itself - Alexander, mogols, Ahmed Shah abdali, 1857 etc etc. We subcontinentals are always at mercy of foreigners, and can never live in peace within ourselves. Well, I say let the world rule us. We are better off that way. The brits, gave us some sort of a law and a sense of equitableness. When they left, we ruined the system (built our 200 yrs) in the matter of a few years.

Now that the americans have started their, long overdue and for the Taliban a just desert, attacks let us hope that they have a permanent presence on the roof of the subcontinent to keep us brown skins in place so that we do not loose sight of daily bread......justice, equality etc etc etc

ANOTHER PATHETIC APOLOGIST,

So america is responsible for the afghan proble. A few hundred thousand tibetans came to india, yeah, budhist terroists are bombing china. Pakistan was created for islam, especially a viulent form of islam stemming fom TNT, essentially that muslims cannot live with people of other religions. the number of `other` religions have declined steadily in the last fifty years true to the TNt doctrine. Then comes the afghan refugees, a great oppotunity to train them and send them to kashmir. That needs a true jihadic version of islam and that is taliban.

The great success of taliban is not afghanistan, it is the invasion at KARGILL. They were armed with the stingers and their willingness to kill and maim, remeber the mutilated bodies of the first indian patrol, were true achievements of taliban.

Taliban is a carefully selected jihadic strain, cultured and propagatrd by pakistan.

ANOTHER AFGHANISTAN IN THE MAKING,

from hindustan times of today. It is the same in pakistan and in kashmir. IC hijackers and the WTC man, the same genus, different species.

Violent anti-US protests in Kashmir

AFP

(Srinagar, October 8)





Violent anti-US protests have erupted in the Kashmir valley on Monday with people pouring onto the streets of Srinagar, stoning taxis and chanting slogans against the United States.

In downtown localities, groups of mainly young protesters forced shops to down shutters and stoned taxis and other public vehicles.

Around 200 students, including women, participated in a peaceful protest on the campus of Kashmir University amid tight security.

The demonstrators were chanting ``Long Live Islam``, ``Down with America`` and other slogans.

Police and paramilitary forces have been sent to the trouble spots.

From The Friday Times

Split Down the Middle

Khaled Ahmed

Pervez Musharraf announced that it would give unstinted support to the international initiative against terrorism led by the US, the Pakistani mind is split down the middle. The question is whether Afghanistan should be punished for harbouring Osama bib Laden. Pakistanis don`t believe that enough proof has been furnished of Osama bin Laden`s complicity in the attacks in New York and Washington on 11 September 2001. If he is not proven guilty, then the invasion of Afghanistan would be wrong and immoral. The tortured question is: why has Islamabad supported the expected invasion and offered `unstinted support`?

The heart has `other` reasons: The wide-spread support for this policy change on Osama bib Laden was pegged adroitly by General Musharraf to India`s support to the expected invasion. (You want to get anything accepted by a Pakistani? Peg it to India. But such subterfuge leads to problems of a collective split personality). The Pakistani quickly accepted the fact that standing outside the international consensus, Pakistan could be isolated and destroyed by a flanking move by India. Indian private TV stations had a hawk like Brahma Chellany presenting scenarios of Pakistan`s destruction as a terrorist state, and that was enough to raise the hackles in Pakistan and make the government opt for `unstinted support`. But the truth of the matter is that no Pakistani actually supports the American invasion. The mullahs have come out on the road. But those opposed to the mullahs don`t think differently from the mullahs.

Not long ago it was settled among the columnists and General Musharraf that the religious trouble-makers in Pakistan were only one percent of the population and that there was a large segment of the population which was cosmopolitan and therefore non-isolationist. Now the new figure relating to those who are agitating against Islamabad`s change of policy over the Taliban is 10 percent. It means that 90 percent of the population wants General Musharraf to help the United States invade Afghanistan. But if you examine the mind of this 90 percent, they don`t want Musharraf to give any meaningful facilities to the US. As time passes, the Pakistani mind is throwing up fresh barriers of objection to what Pakistan earlier wanted to do to break out of the isolation emanating from supporting the Taliban, and relieve its long drawn out economic crisis.

The perfidious United States syndrome: Kamran Khan ( The News 22 September) brought the `inside` information that while General Musharraf`s civilian cabinet was all for offering unstinted support to the United States, the generals in the corps commanders` meeting had voiced their reluctance to relying on the Americans to assist Pakistan in the future to overcome its difficulties. They referred to the past record of the United States with regard to friendship with Pakistan and appeared cautious about implementing the `unstinted` policy. The Urdu press echoed the split in the Pakistani mind. The English language press focused on a pragmatic approach and some writers in it also referred to the global alliance against the Taliban as an antidote to the almost unsolvable problems of fundamentalism and the two `tired` policies (Afghan and Kashmir) that were now yielding negative fallouts.

But the split mind manifested a curious pattern. Those who relied on the English press to accept the pragmatism of General Musharraf`s decision leaned significantly to the opinion expressed in the Urdu press about the satanism of the United States. It seems as if the English language press represents the mind while the Urdu press holds sway over the hearts of Pakistanis. Even those who boast about not reading the `emotional` Urdu press tended to express views very close to the column-writers of the Urdu newspapers. The mind prefers a deal benefiting Pakistan financially. The heart wants to challenge America and defend Osama bin Laden. The heart of course is persuaded by the grand myth that the United States had betrayed Pakistan in the past. Once that premise has been accepted then the whole story about Zionism and Pakistan`s epic struggle against it becomes our real narrative.

Blessings of `emotional` foreign policy: There is a basic contradiction in how Pakistanis and the Americans look at the conduct of foreign policy. American thinking is based on enlightened self-interest, in other words, a tendency to change policy not on the basis of morality or emotion but opportunity to enhance the state`s international standing. One can say that America admits that it is not a loyal friend unless such a course is dictated by domestic lobbies and external self-interest. On the other hand, Pakistanis think of international relations as a network of emotional friendships. For them the state is a sentient being which experiences passions of friendship and alienation. Pakistan`s first prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan was so put off by the American credo of foreign policy opportunism that he politely objected to it during his tour of the United States: `A statesman, well known in history, speaking of his own country, once said that it had no eternal friends and no eternal enemies but that it had eternal national interests. Personally I believe that is too cynical a view to take of the foreign relations of any country, unless the word `interests` is interpreted very widely. But perhaps for some people it is a good starting point for the study of foreign relations.`

The truth is that Pakistan never really understood the nature of American policy. It was offended that the Americans should object to Pakistan using weapons received by it under the anti-Soviet treaties against India. Wasn`t India a Soviet ally? And wasn`t Pakistan treating the enemies of the United States as its own enemies? Sadly, the American embargo on arms to Pakistan after the 1965 Indo-Pak war was correct on the basis of the agreements under which the arms had been received. In 1979-80, when the Americans needed Pakistan to fight their covert war in Afghanistan, Pakistan acted pragmatically. This pragmatism was manifest in the price which Pakistan named for its participation in the jehad. It told President Carter off for his parsimony and went along with the big-spending President Reagan and his `package` for Pakistan`s economy and a shopping list for General Zia`s depleted military arsenal. The named price was paid. There were other bonanzas from the Afghan war pocketed by the rulers of Pakistan about which the less said the better.

Pakistan too stabs US in the back: How did Pakistan behave as a friend of the United States? This must also be examined if Pakistan`s protestations about America`s perfidy are to be credited. An American ambassador representing the Reagan Administration in Islamabad used to cite five contradictions between Pakistan and the United States despite the alliance in the Afghan war. Some of these contradictions were actually complaints about how Pakistan had been stabbing the United States in the back while posing as its `paid` friend. The first contradiction was of course the development of Pakistan`s nuclear program in violation of the express American policy against nuclear proliferation. Some of the equipment that went into the maturing of the bomb in Pakistan was actually stolen from the United State which had to keep quiet so as not to jeopardize its enterprise of defeating the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

The second contradiction was the production of narcotics in Pakistan and the export of heroin to the United States. At one point during the Afghan war, fully 80 percent of the heroin consumed in the United States was supplied from Pakistan. And the suppliers included the president of Pakistan and some of his fellow generals as well as his civilian friends who ran the federal and provincial assemblies. As the war simmered down in Afghanistan a bit, the American embassy took to circulating lists of those members of the assemblies who were busy exporting heroin to the United States. The list contained nearly 60 percent of the members who served General Zia in the provinces. A convicted heroin-smuggling son-in-law of an important functionary of Pakistan, who later became president, had to be freed by the United States in deference to the Afghan war. The habit of smuggling heroin to the United States spread to the armed forces and lingered long after the Afghan war.

The wrong bed-fellow protests too much: The third contradiction was the abysmal human rights record of the Zia regime which had just added to the disabilities of the Ahmedi community in Pakistan earlier apostatized by the Bhutto government. The fourth contradiction was of course the lack of democracy in Pakistan - an admission by the US that it was willing, temporarily, to deal with dictators and despots to gain its foreign policy objectives around the globe. The fifth contradiction was Pakistan`s resistance to normalization of relations with India, which was a part of the American foreign policy in South Asia. Pakistanis were always mystified by this insistence on normalization with India. Bhutto in his Myth of Independence in fact came to the conclusion that the US and the USSR were actually planning Pakistan`s subjugation to India through this policy. The thesis in India was that, far from seeking such normalization, the Americans were responsible for sowing the seeds of discord between otherwise brotherly Pakistan and India. In South Asia, no one believes that a big power may find normalization between India and Pakistan to be in its interest.

During the Afghan war honeymoon, speakers from the United States often spoke publicly in Pakistan, warning the Pakistanis that once he war was over the American policy was expected to change drastically in view of Pakistan`s above-mentioned contradictions - an admission that the US and Pakistan were strange bed-fellows right from the start. If the Pakistanis say that they were taken by surprise that in 1990 President Bush stopped all aid to Pakistan and applied the Pressler Amendment sanctions to it, they are clearly not telling the truth. The record shows that Pakistan was indeed not an honest ally of the US. It had its rogue officers who spread the anti-US virus inside the army and in fact used the war to convert Pakistan into an anti-US state that may not have been in Pakistan`s interest. They gave Hekmatyar 60 percent of all aid coming from the US while Hekmatyar enjoyed little support among the mujahideen, as prime minister Nawaz Sharif discovered in 1993 when he tried to implement the Islamabad Accord among the government-in-exile of the Afghan mujahideen. It was a part of Hekmatyar`s charisma to routinely insult President Reagan - the president whose largesse was actually responsible for his prosperity and that of his handlers inside the ISI. It was this anti-US orientation of the Afghan jehad under Pakistan that also partly led to the Americans abandoning Afghanistan in great haste after the exit of the Soviet troops from there.

The US-Pak relationship was ideologically poisoned from the start. Because it was consorting with all and sundry to advance its cold war aims against he Soviet Union, the United States leaned on the theory of changeability of foreign policy. On the other hand, despite its reliance on the theory of `eternal friendship`, as enunciated by Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan routinely stabbed the US in the back during the Afghan war. At the level of theory, the US is still better off admitting that it is fickle. Pakistan`s behaviour remains schizophrenic because it boasts of moral fixates in its foreign policy.

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Taliban were created during BB reign in Pakistan although it can be arfued that she was a puppet prime minister with respect to Afghan policy. Her government and particularly her interior minister Naseer Ullah Babar was competely on board with military in creating Taliban. From a minor role of protecting trade trucks passing through Kandhar area, they became monster once Pakistan opened the military storage at Spin Boldak near Pakistan border, in Afghanistan that was under the control of ISI. Later on, BB tried to bring moderate Islamic elements into Taliban by trying to make an alliance between Taliban and Herat governor Ismail Khan. Ismail Khan was of the calibre of Ahmed Shah Masood during war against USSR and was running Herat most effectively, progressively and pragmetically after the withdrawal of Russian troops from Afghanistan. She arranged a meeting with him in Turkeministan capital and rumor had it that he agreed but wanted strong presence in the Afghan affairs. ISI shot down that idea because they calculated to win Afghanistan without him. Herat was later lost to Taliban and Ismail Khan arrested but couple of years ago, he escaped from Taliban prison by bribing some taliban guards.

ISI helped Taliban through buying local tribal chiefs and commanders from drug money. Pakistan was given practically free hand in choosing Afghan leadership since US and CIA started supporting anti-USSR campaign. They first chose Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and later Taliban. Having free hand to control Afghan leadership was once in a long time opportunity that was wasted by Pakistan military. Pakistan could have bought much better strategic depth if military leadership was smart. The inept leadership of military, opportunity to make a killing from drug trade and tribal/ ethnic loyalties of Pashtun officers combined to create Taliban-almost a criminal enterprise. Musharrah went too far in allowing to go people from Indian hijacking go scot free and one of them, Maulana Azhar, was supported to set up another terrorist organization while other is alleged to have been involved in WTC bombing by sending money to one of the hijacker. Musharraf has yet to answer the million dollar question as to why he scrapped the previous (NS-USA, with the promise of lifting sanctions against Pakistan) covert operation by 60 trained Pakistanis in order to kidnap or kill OBL-the guy who who will happily sacrifice more than 500 soldiers in Kargill.

The military leadership is at it best in conquering Islamabad which they have done repeatedly. They think themselves to be most loyal and smartest of Pakistanis. As the high command of the largest and most expensive institution in Pakistan, they have given only headaches to the people of Pakistan. Their policies have led Pakistan to a highly volatile situation where one more stupid move would have been fatal. Then, there are Pakistanis who think that by replacing couple of generals, the high command will become sharpest and smartest. They will have the same mindset as before, to safeguard their own interests. They are hoping that Pakistan will be given another free hand to choose the next Afghanistan government after the current crisis. There is no chance for that. Pakistan is much less important in the current crisis with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan fully on board with US-Britain. They would like to have say in the post-crisis Afghanistan also and they will have the backing of US, Russia and Britain. Once Pakistan has used their trump card of sharing intelligence about Taliban, its hand is weak now. All Pakistan can do now is pray to god for a seat, alongwith northern alliance, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Russia, US and Britain after crisis is over.

Pakistan will have to end support of terrorist activities in Kashmir with a promise for sumpathetic consideration by IMF and WB. Pakistan will have to make peace with India, with or without Kashmir solution. BJP is going to stay in power in India for several more years and not goning to turn against USA for any reason. From now on, the pressure will be on Musharraf to yield on terrorism in Kashmir. The importance of Pakistan in US plans regarding Afghanistan seems to be much less than previously thought. The first area to be freed from Taliban control and thus providing a foothold for US special military units will be in the west and north of Afghanistan-away from Pakistani border, decreasing the reliance on Pakistan.

There are few interesting factors related to the terrorist acts of Sept. 11:

If one looks at the names of the hijackers, most of them have Saudi and Egyptian names. They are not from Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Palestine or Iran. They are also middle class to upper-middle class Arabs. They are educated, with many obtaining higher education. And both Saudi Arabia and Egypt have not agreed to openly support the US with military facilities.

This must have put the US in a quagmire. The terrorists are from the two Arab states that the US considers to be its closest of allies.

India takes exception to Pak stand on terrorism





NEW DELHI: Dismissing Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf`s description of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir as ``freedom struggle``, India on Monday asserted that it would resolutely oppose cross-border terrorism being fomented from across the borders.

``It is not a freedom struggle. Jammu and Kashmir is an integral and inalienable part of India``, an external affairs ministry spokesperson said when asked about Musharraf`s remarks at press conference in Islamabad this morning.

``Cross-border terrorism and militancy is being fomented by a neighbouring country. We resolutely oppose it``, she said.

Rejecting Musharraf`s charge that India was deriving political mileage from the evolving situation in the wake of the September 11 terrorist strikes in the US, she said, ``we have not sought to compound Pakistan`s difficulties``.

India, she said, has been defending its concerns and at no time sought to complicate the situation in that country.

India has made it clear that terrorism cannot be tackled in a piece-meal manner and stressed that it should be dealt with globally in a comprehensive way.

Asked about the Musharraf`s sudden decision to remove ISI chief, the spokesperson said she would not like to comment on an internal issue of Pakistan.

New Delhi is well aware of the role of certain Pakistani agencies in the promotion of cross-border terrorism in J and K and other parts. It remained to be seen how the situation evolved and whether it would have a salutary effect in curbing the menace, she said.

Re: Sameer

``BJP is going to stay in power in India for several more years and not goning to turn against USA for any reason.``

Hmm..not sure about the latter. The BJP can be very petulant ... witness Jaswant Singh`s recent tactics in DC and GoI`s reception of Tony Blair.

Sameer #6
``Musharraf has yet to answer the million dollar question as to why he scrapped the previous (NS-USA, with the promise of lifting sanctions against Pakistan) covert operation by 60 trained Pakistanis in order to kidnap or kill OB``

A Mr. Popham from The Independent, UK asked Musharraf in (today`s) press conference why was the operation aborted. Musharraf replied something like `he had no knowledge that such an operation was planned by former Prime Minister and the former ISI chief. When he(Musharraf) came to know about the plan, he ended it because in his judgement, it had absolutely no chance of succeeding`.

Mr Ras Siddiqui

what are your opinions on Musharraf regime oppressing the Pakistani masses. Riots breaking out in clashes with the cops and armed forces everywhere. These are all indications of a ``freedom struggle`` against the oppressive Pakistani regime aren`t they ?

Please do write something on this ``indigenous freedom struggle`` against the armed forces and Police of Pakistan.

Also where is the ``proof`` that the US has attacked Afghanistan. All the planes came from Pakistan. I repeat ``where is the proof ?``

The following is a cut`n`paste from another board but, what the heck, I didn`t feel like typing it in again. Before we get carried away with all this ``poor Afghans`` nonsense and its all Pakistan`s fault for supporting the Taliban or similar tripe, lets not forget that the Afghan obscurants did it to themselves. Don`t forget, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is a high ranking member of the Northern Alliance and he is as bad as Mullah Omar when it comes to wanting to revert back to the 7th century CE. The only halfway decent Afghan `resistance` fighter was Masud and he started life as whacko as any Taliban obscurantist. The difference was that Masud discarded most of his stupid ideological baggage when he realized you couldn`t actually run a society that way.

Pakistan and the US only helped the Afghans in committing suicide. Sure, we helped the Mujahideen and later on the Taliban and without us the PDPA or the Northern Alliance would still be in charge of Kabul but we couldn`t have done it if the Afghans did not want to destroy themselves and whatever passes for civilized society there. Don`t forget, many of the anti-US rioters in Pakistan now are Afghan refugees.

Whats that shair?

Kuch hamay bhi marnay ka showk tha,
Kuch shehr key loag bhi zalim thay.

Regards.

OK, end of diatribe. Here`s my earlier post.

The coup in 1978 was really a palace coup, done without the knowledge or approval of the USSR, since Daoud Shah had been installed in 1973 with the help of the Afghan Communist Party (either the Parcham or the Khalq faction, I can never keep them straight). Against Soviet advice, who based it on their experience in Central Asia, the Parchamis (I think that was the faction in charge: Hafizullah Amin and Noor Mohammed Taraki, the man he murdered later on) insisted on a series of very radical reforms that insured a widespread rebellion against the central government. What were these reforms? Some truly unIslamic ones:

1 Abolition of the Islamic Waqfs.
2 Compulsory female education.
3 Stopping the payment of ``stipends`` (i.e., bribes) to the various tribal maliks and assorted pirs, faqirs and other religious leaders.
4 Radical land reforms to give land to the tillers.

It is only AFTER these reforms had been announced that you have mass uprisings against the Communist government. Prior to this, the common Afghan or his malik could not have cared less who ruled in Kabul as long as the maliks were paid off and left alone.

Incidentally, this is not the first time that the Afghans have thrown out a progressive government: Amanullah Khan was removed in the interwar period when he attempted to implement fairly radical, for the time, reforms.

BTW, the Afghan resistance was on its last legs and the Soviets had almost pacified the country by the mid-1980s when the Americans decided to ship Stingers to the Mujahideen. This ended Russian air superiority and convinced them that the war was unwinnable with the current extremely low level of Russian troop strenght: approx. 115,000, down considerably from the troop level immediately after the Russian invasion. In contrast, the Americans in Vietnam in 1968-9 had just over 550,000 soldiers (not counting the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and 200,000 Montagnard Highlanders armed, trained and commanded directly by the CIA).

In some ways, the Afghan Communist rulers were the only halfway decent government the Afghan people have had, or are likely to have, for a very long time. Although Hafizullah Amin and Noor Mohammed Taraki were not particularly nice people (the murder of Daoud Shah and his entire family, as well as the ruthless use of the secret police against suspected opponents was much worse than anything done by Daoud Shah, himself no angel), they at least had the aim to move Afghanistan out of barbarism. Under them, the average Afghan woman had for the first time some hope of living a real life and escaping from the prison of traditional Afghan society.

Dear Ras Siddiqui,

Besides to ``quit fighting and to learn the benefits of trade and commerce`` Pakistan and other Islamic countries (who have a state religion) need to be secular, allowing and promoting plural societies.

NotAMullah

Ras Siddiqui

Dear Mr. Siddiqui:

For the second time in it`s History, Pakistan has a leadership that has in mind the supreme interests of the Pakistani nation.

Situations change, policies change, national interest remain supreme. Afghanistan`s future is now recognized as being one in which it`s partnership with Pakistan, can lead it to unity and prosperity and brotherhood. These are in the national interest of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Perhaps, now, Indians will also reject the way of confrontation and negation and want to seek a negotiated settlement of the outstanding dispute, keeping in mind the will of the Captive kashmiri.