The Price
Shandana Minhas November 19, 2001
#443 Posted by mohajir on December 29, 2001 2:37:36 pm
Pakistan, India and the United States
2230 GMT, 011227
Dec 27,2001
Summary
http://www.stratfor.com/home/0112272230.htm
With al Qaeda and Taliban elements fleeing Afghanistan, the United States will continue to grapple with strategic problems concerning its traditional ally, Pakistan. There are significant differences between what President Pervez Musharraf has said he will do to fight terrorism, what he intends to do and what he actually can accomplish. The threat of an imminent Indo-Pakistani war may be just the lever Washington needs to move Islamabad.
Analysis
The United States has been engaged in intense debate regarding the next steps it must take to eradicate al Qaeda. Two main strategies have emerged of late. One argues that there can be no solution to the problem of Islamic attacks on the United States until the regime of Saddam Hussein is eliminated. The other strategy argues that Iraq`s role is secondary, and that the United States` primary mission is to prevent al Qaeda from establishing a command center in some other isolated country, like Yemen or Somalia.
Obviously, the strategies are not incompatible. Equally obviously, at least from STRATFOR`S point of view, the debate misses the point entirely: the next country on the agenda is Pakistan.
When planning for the Afghan campaign began immediately after Sept. 11, it was clear -- at least from a naive standpoint -- that Pakistan, which has an extensive border with Afghanistan and a long-standing strategic relationship with the United States, would be the strategic key to the campaign. The planners` first impulse was to deploy U.S. forces in Pakistan and prosecute the campaign from there. This proved impossible. Instead, U.S. ground forces had to deploy in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, while air attacks were carried out from carriers in the Arabian Sea and from strategic bombers on Diego Garcia and elsewhere. Clearly, some forces were deployed in Pakistan, but only under tight secrecy.
The need for secrecy is the key to everything. Simply put, the Pakistani government was not in a position to permit a war against the Taliban regime to be waged from its soil. This was not simply because of substantial sympathy for the Taliban in Pakistan, although that existed. Nor is it simply because Pushtuns, the foundation of Taliban power, live on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border, although they do.
Rather, it was because the Taliban was ultimately as much a Pakistani phenomenon as it was Afghan. In a sense, the Taliban was a Pakistani construct, designed to conclude -- on terms acceptable to Pakistan -- the civil war that raged in Afghanistan following the Soviet withdrawal. Pakistan feared the ascendance of the Northern Alliance as well as other groups in Afghanistan, and saw in the Taliban a government that was congenial to Pakistan both strategically and ideologically. The ISI, Pakistan`s intelligence service, was in many ways the godfather of the Taliban government.
As the Taliban government provided al Qaeda with a secure operational base, the United States continued to parse the issue of Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is inconceivable that the Taliban would have been able to develop its relationship with al Qaeda without the knowledge of Pakistan`s intelligence services and government, and it is difficult to imagine that they would not have given at least implicit approval. However, the United States was not prepared to frame the issue as an Afghan-Pakistani issue -- only as an Afghan problem fundamentally distinct from Pakistan.
This policy continued after Sept. 11 and throughout the campaign, despite the clear limits Pakistan placed on cooperation with the United States. Washington clearly and rationally wanted to contain the Afghan campaign. It placed sufficient pressure on President Pervez Musharraf to force him to remove senior officials who were too closely aligned with the Taliban, to permit at least some basing of U.S. forces in Pakistan and to publicly commit himself to use Pakistani forces along the frontier to prevent Taliban forces from crossing into Pakistan.
The United States recognized that much of this was cosmetic. Support for the Taliban ran deep in the government and deeper in the country. The U.S. forces based in Pakistan were hardly strategic. Finally, whatever he promised, there were significant differences between what Musharraf said, what he actually intended to do and what he ultimately was able to do.
The United States carefully refrained from pressing the issue, afraid that excessive pressure would topple Musharraf and throw Pakistan either into chaos or into a fundamentalist dictatorship. Or if excessive pressure threatened Musharraf`s survival, he might simply reverse course and turn against the United States. In any case, the United States adopted a minimax policy -- it demanded the most it could get within the limits of what Islamabad could deliver, and it lived with the three differences: what was said, what was actually intended, what could really be delivered.
The manner in which the Afghan war concluded has suddenly rendered this policy untenable. While the Taliban has abandoned the cities, it continues to exist, both in alliances with particular warlords and in its own right. Where it exists most intensely, in fact, is in Pakistan, among Taliban sympathizers as well as among hundreds or thousands of Taliban fighters that have crossed into Pakistan during the past month. A very few have been very publicly apprehended, but most have gone to ground -- some protected by Pakistani forces.
Far more important than the fate of the Taliban is the fate of al Qaeda`s senior commanders, including Osama bin Laden, and of its fighters. It is becoming increasingly obvious that neither the Taliban`s high command nor al Qaeda`s has been captured. The release of a new videotape that appears to have been made in the past few weeks, and perhaps as recently as last week, dealt a blow to speculation that bin Laden and the others were killed at Tora Bora. It was always problematic that bin Laden would have chosen to travel from Kandahar to Tora Bora in the chaos that followed his last known taping. This would be not only dangerous but pointless. It was far more likely that he went directly to Pakistan, where supporters hid him and may still be doing so.
Whether bin Laden is in Pakistan or has traveled elsewhere, it is clear that many of his forces as well as Taliban leaders went to Pakistan and that the vast majority of those remain. In other words, apart from native support for the Taliban and al Qaeda, elements from Afghanistan are now in Pakistan and operating under the protection of, if not the government, certainly elements of the government and powerful political forces.
If we are correct in this, then the problem the United States faces in destroying al Qaeda does not concern Somalia, Yemen or Iraq, but Pakistan. Ideally, the United States would like Musharraf to use his security and military forces to destroy al Qaeda`s forces and hand senior leaders over to the United States. Certainly, this is something that Musharraf has assured the United States he would do. However, it is not clear that he is in a position to deliver on his promise -- it is not clear his orders are being obeyed. Nor, frankly, is it clear that he wishes to see these orders carried out. Certainly, he wants to placate the United States, but there is a huge gap between saying he will act, acting, and acting effectively.
A case in point is the Dec. 13 attack on India`s parliament by gunmen, which the U.S. government says were Islamic militants based in Pakistan. There are two explanations for the attack. The first is that Musharaff knew about plans for the attack and sanctioned it. The second is that he neither knew of nor sanctioned the attack. In a real sense, it doesn`t matter which it was. Either explanation raises serious questions about the course of Afghanistan.
All this creates a strategic crisis for the United States. Its fundamental goal is to defend its own territory against al Qaeda attacks and the global destruction of al Qaeda. In our view, al Qaeda has taken refuge in Pakistan -- historically an ally of the United States, and a country that poses a military challenge on an order of magnitude beyond that posed by Afghanistan. Launching a military campaign in Pakistan is possible but requires much greater resources than in Afghanistan, as well as the destruction of Pakistan`s nuclear capability. Rather than use direct military action, the United States would prefer a more subtle lever.
The attack on India`s parliament provides precisely that lever. Obviously, the shootout was as intolerable for India as a similar attack on Congress would be for the United States. India must react. But even apart from that, India sees itself as having an unprecedented opportunity to deal not only with the Kashmir issue but with the entire issue of the nature and future of Pakistan.
Pakistan`s alliance with the United States has placed severe limits on how far India could go. However, a profound schism is developing between Washington and Islamabad as post-Sept. 11 events evolve. Clearly, both sides are doing everything to avert an open breach -- but equally clearly, if it becomes undeniable that Pakistan is harboring al Qaeda elements, a break becomes inevitable. At that moment, India would have the opening it has awaited for 50 years. The United States would be not be able to refrain from acting against Pakistan, nor could it act efficiently without Indian support and involvement. India was eager to help from the beginning; now the United States would have no choice but to accept that help.
The United States does not want an Indo-Pakistani war, but the threat of such a war is precisely what Washington needs to move Islamabad. For Pakistan, the threat of a war with India in which the United States either stood to one side or actively participated is the worst possible nightmare. By allowing the specter to rise, Washington has given Musharraf an opportunity to become more forthcoming. If he is in control but insincere, he is being shown the abyss and can change course. If he is sincere but not in control, he can show the abyss to Islamic fundamentalists in his government and bring them under control.
The problem is that many of the fundamentalists would actually welcome a war and even defeat by India. Their goal is to radicalize the Islamic world by demonstrating that Christians, Hindus and Jews have formed a vast alliance designed to crush Islam. A combined U.S.-Indian attack would be exactly what would be needed to demonstrate this to the world. The destruction of Pakistan`s nuclear capability -- whether by nuclear or conventional weapons -- would further illustrate the point. It is therefore no accident that Islamic fundamentalists struck India at what would normally be considered the worst possible moment. From their point of view, it was the best possible moment to act.
This indicated that Musharraf may not be able to gain control of the situation, even if he wanted to. Thus, he visited Beijing in late December. China has historically been an enemy of India and an ally of Pakistan. Beijing has been extremely cautious since Sept. 11, but it remembers both the EP-3 spy plane incident and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld`s redefinition of strategy toward the Pacific and against China prior to Sept. 11. Beijing is happy to see the United States diverted. It would not be happy to see India emerge without a threat on its western flank. Hence, Musharaff had a very cordial visit to Beijing.
At this point, the strategic imperative of defeating al Qaeda begins to intersect with Eurasian geopolitics. It is one thing to take Afghanistan apart, quite another to do the same with Pakistan. Afghanistan`s fate is of little significance to great powers. The fate of Pakistan matters to China, among others. At the same time, if al Qaeda is using Pakistan as a base of operations or even as a transit point and the Pakistani government can`t or won`t do anything decisive and effective about it, this strikes at a fundamental U.S. interest and cannot be tolerated.
The United States is, therefore, in the midst of a veiled crisis over Pakistan. It is an odd crisis in that Washington, fearing the consequences of a public confrontation, is trying very hard to maintain the fiction that Pakistan has been fully cooperating in the battle against al Qaeda, that it is acting effectively against the Taliban and al Qaeda and that its forces would certainly arrest senior al Qaeda leaders if they could catch them. At the same time, the United States is quietly showing Pakistan the abyss in the hopes that the plausible fiction of U.S.-Pakistani relations might thereby become reality.
The problem is that in Pakistan, there are those who prefer an open breach with the United States to accommodation. Even if we assume that Musharraf is not one of these elements, it is not clear that he can control them. If he can`t control them, the United States is faced with an extraordinary dilemma -- to go into Pakistan and get al Qaeda itself. It cannot do this without India, and India will not move unless Pakistan`s nuclear weapons are destroyed. It is not clear that U.S. precision-guided munitions are sufficient for a task that will tolerate no failure.
The rest follows logically.
2230 GMT, 011227
Dec 27,2001
Summary
http://www.stratfor.com/home/0112272230.htm
With al Qaeda and Taliban elements fleeing Afghanistan, the United States will continue to grapple with strategic problems concerning its traditional ally, Pakistan. There are significant differences between what President Pervez Musharraf has said he will do to fight terrorism, what he intends to do and what he actually can accomplish. The threat of an imminent Indo-Pakistani war may be just the lever Washington needs to move Islamabad.
Analysis
The United States has been engaged in intense debate regarding the next steps it must take to eradicate al Qaeda. Two main strategies have emerged of late. One argues that there can be no solution to the problem of Islamic attacks on the United States until the regime of Saddam Hussein is eliminated. The other strategy argues that Iraq`s role is secondary, and that the United States` primary mission is to prevent al Qaeda from establishing a command center in some other isolated country, like Yemen or Somalia.
Obviously, the strategies are not incompatible. Equally obviously, at least from STRATFOR`S point of view, the debate misses the point entirely: the next country on the agenda is Pakistan.
When planning for the Afghan campaign began immediately after Sept. 11, it was clear -- at least from a naive standpoint -- that Pakistan, which has an extensive border with Afghanistan and a long-standing strategic relationship with the United States, would be the strategic key to the campaign. The planners` first impulse was to deploy U.S. forces in Pakistan and prosecute the campaign from there. This proved impossible. Instead, U.S. ground forces had to deploy in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, while air attacks were carried out from carriers in the Arabian Sea and from strategic bombers on Diego Garcia and elsewhere. Clearly, some forces were deployed in Pakistan, but only under tight secrecy.
The need for secrecy is the key to everything. Simply put, the Pakistani government was not in a position to permit a war against the Taliban regime to be waged from its soil. This was not simply because of substantial sympathy for the Taliban in Pakistan, although that existed. Nor is it simply because Pushtuns, the foundation of Taliban power, live on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border, although they do.
Rather, it was because the Taliban was ultimately as much a Pakistani phenomenon as it was Afghan. In a sense, the Taliban was a Pakistani construct, designed to conclude -- on terms acceptable to Pakistan -- the civil war that raged in Afghanistan following the Soviet withdrawal. Pakistan feared the ascendance of the Northern Alliance as well as other groups in Afghanistan, and saw in the Taliban a government that was congenial to Pakistan both strategically and ideologically. The ISI, Pakistan`s intelligence service, was in many ways the godfather of the Taliban government.
As the Taliban government provided al Qaeda with a secure operational base, the United States continued to parse the issue of Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is inconceivable that the Taliban would have been able to develop its relationship with al Qaeda without the knowledge of Pakistan`s intelligence services and government, and it is difficult to imagine that they would not have given at least implicit approval. However, the United States was not prepared to frame the issue as an Afghan-Pakistani issue -- only as an Afghan problem fundamentally distinct from Pakistan.
This policy continued after Sept. 11 and throughout the campaign, despite the clear limits Pakistan placed on cooperation with the United States. Washington clearly and rationally wanted to contain the Afghan campaign. It placed sufficient pressure on President Pervez Musharraf to force him to remove senior officials who were too closely aligned with the Taliban, to permit at least some basing of U.S. forces in Pakistan and to publicly commit himself to use Pakistani forces along the frontier to prevent Taliban forces from crossing into Pakistan.
The United States recognized that much of this was cosmetic. Support for the Taliban ran deep in the government and deeper in the country. The U.S. forces based in Pakistan were hardly strategic. Finally, whatever he promised, there were significant differences between what Musharraf said, what he actually intended to do and what he ultimately was able to do.
The United States carefully refrained from pressing the issue, afraid that excessive pressure would topple Musharraf and throw Pakistan either into chaos or into a fundamentalist dictatorship. Or if excessive pressure threatened Musharraf`s survival, he might simply reverse course and turn against the United States. In any case, the United States adopted a minimax policy -- it demanded the most it could get within the limits of what Islamabad could deliver, and it lived with the three differences: what was said, what was actually intended, what could really be delivered.
The manner in which the Afghan war concluded has suddenly rendered this policy untenable. While the Taliban has abandoned the cities, it continues to exist, both in alliances with particular warlords and in its own right. Where it exists most intensely, in fact, is in Pakistan, among Taliban sympathizers as well as among hundreds or thousands of Taliban fighters that have crossed into Pakistan during the past month. A very few have been very publicly apprehended, but most have gone to ground -- some protected by Pakistani forces.
Far more important than the fate of the Taliban is the fate of al Qaeda`s senior commanders, including Osama bin Laden, and of its fighters. It is becoming increasingly obvious that neither the Taliban`s high command nor al Qaeda`s has been captured. The release of a new videotape that appears to have been made in the past few weeks, and perhaps as recently as last week, dealt a blow to speculation that bin Laden and the others were killed at Tora Bora. It was always problematic that bin Laden would have chosen to travel from Kandahar to Tora Bora in the chaos that followed his last known taping. This would be not only dangerous but pointless. It was far more likely that he went directly to Pakistan, where supporters hid him and may still be doing so.
Whether bin Laden is in Pakistan or has traveled elsewhere, it is clear that many of his forces as well as Taliban leaders went to Pakistan and that the vast majority of those remain. In other words, apart from native support for the Taliban and al Qaeda, elements from Afghanistan are now in Pakistan and operating under the protection of, if not the government, certainly elements of the government and powerful political forces.
If we are correct in this, then the problem the United States faces in destroying al Qaeda does not concern Somalia, Yemen or Iraq, but Pakistan. Ideally, the United States would like Musharraf to use his security and military forces to destroy al Qaeda`s forces and hand senior leaders over to the United States. Certainly, this is something that Musharraf has assured the United States he would do. However, it is not clear that he is in a position to deliver on his promise -- it is not clear his orders are being obeyed. Nor, frankly, is it clear that he wishes to see these orders carried out. Certainly, he wants to placate the United States, but there is a huge gap between saying he will act, acting, and acting effectively.
A case in point is the Dec. 13 attack on India`s parliament by gunmen, which the U.S. government says were Islamic militants based in Pakistan. There are two explanations for the attack. The first is that Musharaff knew about plans for the attack and sanctioned it. The second is that he neither knew of nor sanctioned the attack. In a real sense, it doesn`t matter which it was. Either explanation raises serious questions about the course of Afghanistan.
All this creates a strategic crisis for the United States. Its fundamental goal is to defend its own territory against al Qaeda attacks and the global destruction of al Qaeda. In our view, al Qaeda has taken refuge in Pakistan -- historically an ally of the United States, and a country that poses a military challenge on an order of magnitude beyond that posed by Afghanistan. Launching a military campaign in Pakistan is possible but requires much greater resources than in Afghanistan, as well as the destruction of Pakistan`s nuclear capability. Rather than use direct military action, the United States would prefer a more subtle lever.
The attack on India`s parliament provides precisely that lever. Obviously, the shootout was as intolerable for India as a similar attack on Congress would be for the United States. India must react. But even apart from that, India sees itself as having an unprecedented opportunity to deal not only with the Kashmir issue but with the entire issue of the nature and future of Pakistan.
Pakistan`s alliance with the United States has placed severe limits on how far India could go. However, a profound schism is developing between Washington and Islamabad as post-Sept. 11 events evolve. Clearly, both sides are doing everything to avert an open breach -- but equally clearly, if it becomes undeniable that Pakistan is harboring al Qaeda elements, a break becomes inevitable. At that moment, India would have the opening it has awaited for 50 years. The United States would be not be able to refrain from acting against Pakistan, nor could it act efficiently without Indian support and involvement. India was eager to help from the beginning; now the United States would have no choice but to accept that help.
The United States does not want an Indo-Pakistani war, but the threat of such a war is precisely what Washington needs to move Islamabad. For Pakistan, the threat of a war with India in which the United States either stood to one side or actively participated is the worst possible nightmare. By allowing the specter to rise, Washington has given Musharraf an opportunity to become more forthcoming. If he is in control but insincere, he is being shown the abyss and can change course. If he is sincere but not in control, he can show the abyss to Islamic fundamentalists in his government and bring them under control.
The problem is that many of the fundamentalists would actually welcome a war and even defeat by India. Their goal is to radicalize the Islamic world by demonstrating that Christians, Hindus and Jews have formed a vast alliance designed to crush Islam. A combined U.S.-Indian attack would be exactly what would be needed to demonstrate this to the world. The destruction of Pakistan`s nuclear capability -- whether by nuclear or conventional weapons -- would further illustrate the point. It is therefore no accident that Islamic fundamentalists struck India at what would normally be considered the worst possible moment. From their point of view, it was the best possible moment to act.
This indicated that Musharraf may not be able to gain control of the situation, even if he wanted to. Thus, he visited Beijing in late December. China has historically been an enemy of India and an ally of Pakistan. Beijing has been extremely cautious since Sept. 11, but it remembers both the EP-3 spy plane incident and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld`s redefinition of strategy toward the Pacific and against China prior to Sept. 11. Beijing is happy to see the United States diverted. It would not be happy to see India emerge without a threat on its western flank. Hence, Musharaff had a very cordial visit to Beijing.
At this point, the strategic imperative of defeating al Qaeda begins to intersect with Eurasian geopolitics. It is one thing to take Afghanistan apart, quite another to do the same with Pakistan. Afghanistan`s fate is of little significance to great powers. The fate of Pakistan matters to China, among others. At the same time, if al Qaeda is using Pakistan as a base of operations or even as a transit point and the Pakistani government can`t or won`t do anything decisive and effective about it, this strikes at a fundamental U.S. interest and cannot be tolerated.
The United States is, therefore, in the midst of a veiled crisis over Pakistan. It is an odd crisis in that Washington, fearing the consequences of a public confrontation, is trying very hard to maintain the fiction that Pakistan has been fully cooperating in the battle against al Qaeda, that it is acting effectively against the Taliban and al Qaeda and that its forces would certainly arrest senior al Qaeda leaders if they could catch them. At the same time, the United States is quietly showing Pakistan the abyss in the hopes that the plausible fiction of U.S.-Pakistani relations might thereby become reality.
The problem is that in Pakistan, there are those who prefer an open breach with the United States to accommodation. Even if we assume that Musharraf is not one of these elements, it is not clear that he can control them. If he can`t control them, the United States is faced with an extraordinary dilemma -- to go into Pakistan and get al Qaeda itself. It cannot do this without India, and India will not move unless Pakistan`s nuclear weapons are destroyed. It is not clear that U.S. precision-guided munitions are sufficient for a task that will tolerate no failure.
The rest follows logically.
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#442 Posted by mohajir on December 22, 2001 12:37:33 am
In Kabul Indians get a bear hug
Agencies/Kabul
Kabul is one place today where an Indian visitor is glad to flaunt his nationality and Pakistanis would hate to be in.
Whether it is government offices or public places, Indians are greeted warmly, sometimes even with a bear hug, by smiling Afghans.
At the Foreign Ministry, the uniformed male receptionist wanted to see the equipment carried by a group of Indian journalists. ``Indians? Indians?`` he asked on being told of their identity. ``No Pakistanis, okay, please go,`` he said, directing the group to the Press office with a back slap and a smile.
``This is one place we are glad to be an Indian,`` commented a scribe. It is not journalists alone who are being greeted with such warmth.
A group of five doctors who have been here for the last three weeks as part of India`s relief effort and have been working at the Indira Gandhi Institute for Child Health, set up with Indian aid in the late 1960s, said they had been overwhelmed by the goodwill and affection shown by parents of their patients.
``Many of them remembered names of Indian doctors who had worked at the hospital before and asked about their welfare,`` A R Basu, a surgeon, said.
The Indian doctors are held in such high regard that often parents come to them with prescriptions given by Afghan doctors. ``But because of professional ethics we try to avoid seeing them,`` said B C Nambiar, an anesthetist.
Hindi film music can be heard in street corners and in taxis, and the only two functioning cinema halls here are screening Bollywood movies. Pirated video cassettes of recent Bollywood releases like the Amitabh Bachchan starrer ``Mohabbatein,`` smuggled in through Pakistan, are available in the markets. If the Afghans are effusive towards Indians, their anger against Pakistanis too is vented loudly. They say the Taliban cadres were largely composed of Pakistanis.
``They raped our country. We hate them,`` said Sanjar, a second-year medical student. ``When they were fleeing after the American bombing started, I asked them why they came. They said they came for jehad since we were not firm in our Islamic belief. I told them to go on to do that in their own country.`` ``Why doesn`t India go to war with Pakistan?`` asked Zia, a taxi driver. ``We don`t want the Taliban to come back.``
Ahmed Wali Masood, Afghan ambassador to Britain and brother of the late Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah Masood, had this to say: ``We don`t want help from our neighbours like Pakistan. We have paid a heavy price for that. We want help from India, the US and Britain.``
Agencies/Kabul
Kabul is one place today where an Indian visitor is glad to flaunt his nationality and Pakistanis would hate to be in.
Whether it is government offices or public places, Indians are greeted warmly, sometimes even with a bear hug, by smiling Afghans.
At the Foreign Ministry, the uniformed male receptionist wanted to see the equipment carried by a group of Indian journalists. ``Indians? Indians?`` he asked on being told of their identity. ``No Pakistanis, okay, please go,`` he said, directing the group to the Press office with a back slap and a smile.
``This is one place we are glad to be an Indian,`` commented a scribe. It is not journalists alone who are being greeted with such warmth.
A group of five doctors who have been here for the last three weeks as part of India`s relief effort and have been working at the Indira Gandhi Institute for Child Health, set up with Indian aid in the late 1960s, said they had been overwhelmed by the goodwill and affection shown by parents of their patients.
``Many of them remembered names of Indian doctors who had worked at the hospital before and asked about their welfare,`` A R Basu, a surgeon, said.
The Indian doctors are held in such high regard that often parents come to them with prescriptions given by Afghan doctors. ``But because of professional ethics we try to avoid seeing them,`` said B C Nambiar, an anesthetist.
Hindi film music can be heard in street corners and in taxis, and the only two functioning cinema halls here are screening Bollywood movies. Pirated video cassettes of recent Bollywood releases like the Amitabh Bachchan starrer ``Mohabbatein,`` smuggled in through Pakistan, are available in the markets. If the Afghans are effusive towards Indians, their anger against Pakistanis too is vented loudly. They say the Taliban cadres were largely composed of Pakistanis.
``They raped our country. We hate them,`` said Sanjar, a second-year medical student. ``When they were fleeing after the American bombing started, I asked them why they came. They said they came for jehad since we were not firm in our Islamic belief. I told them to go on to do that in their own country.`` ``Why doesn`t India go to war with Pakistan?`` asked Zia, a taxi driver. ``We don`t want the Taliban to come back.``
Ahmed Wali Masood, Afghan ambassador to Britain and brother of the late Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah Masood, had this to say: ``We don`t want help from our neighbours like Pakistan. We have paid a heavy price for that. We want help from India, the US and Britain.``
#441 Posted by sarwar on December 7, 2001 12:41:25 am
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#440 Posted by mohajir on December 6, 2001 1:28:19 am
A Neighborhood Challenged
http://www.msnbc.com/news/667486.asp
After dozens of detainments, residents of New York’s immigrant-rich ‘Little Pakistan’ are feeling insecure
By Gretel C. Kovach
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
Dec. 4 — On a recent Friday evening in New York City’s “Little Pakistan,” the mutton kebab and spicy curries are sitting largely untouched in the restaurant display cases. But that’s nothing new these days.
THE USUALLY-BUSTLING MIDWOOD area of Brooklyn is home to 125,000 or so of the 200,000 Pakistanis living in America, but now it has an empty feel. The community is painfully aware that of the 548 people being held nationwide on immigration charges as part of the investigation into the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, 208 of them are from Pakistan. The spillover effect is clear here, where some residents are in jail, others have fled back to Pakistan, and still more are holed up in their apartments, afraid of being arrested. Along Coney Island Avenue, men dressed in billowing shalwar kameez robes and white kufi caps and turbans talk about the disappeared. Some say the Immigration and Naturalization Service hauled away hundreds, others say less than 50, but whatever the real figure, everyone without proper immigration documentation is nervous.
“They took my chef,” says Zafar Iqbal, 32, who, together with his brother and uncle, owns the Lazzat side of Gina’s Pizza-Lazzat restaurant. The spot serves up rich Pakistani desserts such as gulab jamun, cottage cheese balls cooked in cardamom syrup. “A lot of people are scared. A lot of people go back to their country. Business is really down,” says Iqbal, looking glumly around at the vacant rows of tables covered in formica, the paper napkins unfurled like dove’s wings in the water glasses, untouched. “Everyone stays in their house. They say to the person with the green card, you go and buy the food.”
Exactly four weeks earlier (“28 days,” says Iqbal, who’s counting) on Nov. 2, the Lazzat cook, Maqsood Ali, 43, was getting out of bed and ready for work when he got a knock on his door. It was agents from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. They weren’t even looking for Ali, but when he couldn’t show proper documentation, he was detained and incarcerated in Paterson, New Jersey, along with 57 other Pakistani and Arab immigration violators. In a call to NEWSWEEK from prison, Ali said he was confident his application for political asylum will be successfully reopened. But it is his wife and six children back in Pakistan that he is worried about. “I feed my family before, so now they are waiting for me,” he says.
Ali moved to the United States 10 years ago because of his involvement with the Pakistan People’s Party, the party of deposed former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Ali wanted to secure residency papers before his family could follow, but the family is still separated: nearly a decade later, he has still to meet his youngest son. After working five years at his first cooking job, Ali’s boss agreed to sponsor a green card application that would give him permanent residence in the U.S. But then an argument soured the deal, and Ali found another job at Lazzat. Now that Ali is locked up, his boss Iqbal sends money here and there to keep the household going. But it’s not clear how much longer the Alis can survive like this.
Iqbal is one of the lucky ones: he has a green card and his brother is an American citizen. Iqbal’s three children were born in this country, and he has clearly thrived here—nattily dressed in slacks, western shirt and a gold earring, and answering frequent calls on his cordless phone. He isn’t afraid of being arrested, but his business is suffering. “At this time [3 p.m.], I used to be so busy I couldn’t speak to you,” he says.
Liberty vs. Security: The War at Home
The immigration crackdown has also intensified the post Sept.-11 economic downturn in the Pakistani-American community. That icon of New York City—the Pakistani cabby—is suffering from the scarcity of tourists. And even as Pakistani-Americans mourned their own dead—like Salman Hamdani, a part-time emergency medical technician buried in the World Trade Center—they kept off the streets to avoid harassment. In the weeks after September 11, Pakistanis received death threats and were kicked off airplanes. Freelance journalist Haider Rizvi, 38, stepped out of a Fifth Avenue Pakistani grocery when a man said, “You look like Osama bin Laden.” The man attacked Rizvi, who later regained consciousness in a hospital bruised and missing a front tooth. In Brooklyn, motorists pelted eggs at the Makki Masjid and Muslim Community Center, the main mosque in New York for Pakistanis, and spat on a cabby parked out front. Police were posted outside the mosque after school children were harassed. Just when the worshippers were starting to feel safe again, the immigration arrests began. The unofficial mayor of Little Pakistan, an accountant named Asghar Choudhri, says he has been besieged by pleas for help, and by his count more than 40 people have been detained from Midwood recently. Only three or four have been released. During the evening hours of the month of Ramadan, after the fast is broken, the sidewalks used to be crowded with people, cars were double-parked, and police directed traffic. “Now our women are afraid to come out,” Choudhri says, and the streets are noticeably empty of their brightly colored dubattas(scarves).
The Cover: Secret Trials, How Far Should We Go?
At Makki, estimates of the number of detainees are higher. “Hundreds, I think,” says Farooq Hussain, 30, who was standing outside after afternoon prayers and smelling perfume oil one of the mosque elders had purchased. “One guy, they didn’t even let him withdraw the money from his account before they deported him.”
Despite their fears, it is unlikely that the Pakistani immigrants will give up on New York. They began moving into Brooklyn in bulk in the early 1980s, some fleeing the martial law in Pakistan; others seeking political asylum. Most, however, came for economic reasons. They settled in Midwood, where they could satisfy strict Islamic dietary requirements by shopping at Orthodox Jewish kosher butchers. Today, most of the businesses on Coney Island Avenue between Glenwood and Avenue H are owned by Pakistanis, Bangladeshis or other Muslims.
“Mayor” Choudhri, who also is president of the Pakistani-American Federation, organized a community meeting in mid-November to allay fears and get answers to the question, “Why us?” About 150 invitees packed into the richly decorated banquet hall at Bukhara restaurant with its patterned carpet wall coverings, including U.S. Congressmen Anthony Weiner and Major Owens, as well as representatives from the FBI, INS, U.S. Justice Department and the New York Civil Liberties Union. “Our government, the U.S. government, is against terrorism, and so is the Pakistani community,” says Malik Saleem Akbar, owner of Pak U.S. Travel. “But our people should not be discriminated against. The government has a right to question. They have to seek the security of the citizens. But questioning should be done for everyone, regardless of sect or ethnicity.” Maqsood Ali’s lawyer, Craig Goldsmith, agrees. “It seems outrageous, a clear violation of 14th amendment equal protection law. And to hold people indefinitely is fundamentally wrong. The INS says these people have violated immigration law. But these are general humanitarian rights.”
There were no easy answers, but Midwood residents still felt the meeting was a success, especially since the arrests have slowed. But the experience has left a lasting mark on their love for America. “This thing has divided us [as Americans]. I am really disappointed,” Choudhri says. “I came to this country as a student 35 years ago. I stayed because here there are lots of chances, everyone is somebody. There is equal education, and freedom....Now that dream is shattered,” he says.
Maqsood Ali, incarcerated in America while his family in Pakistan struggles to feed itself, still says he loves this country. “I cried that day [Sept. 11],” says Ali, who marched in the Union Square candlelight vigil alongside Bhutto. “I feel very bad to be in jail, but I have inside satisfaction because I love America. I want my family here. I don’t want my kids to go the wrong way. They are growing up, and I don’t want them to be brainwashed. The religious people have this [brainwashing] happen for everyone over there in Pakistan.”
Choudhri knows of at least one man who left the U.S. after an FBI agent came knocking. But Akbar, the travel agent, says he hasn’t seen a spike in one-way tickets to Pakistan. That’s a good sign, he feels, because immigrants are integral to the country. “Even the illegals are a strong part of the U.S. economy. They were giving back their fair share.” Akbar immigrated to the United States in the 1970s, and he, too, has been successful here. He pauses while counting a stack of cash meant for a plane ticket and says, “The beauty of New York City is that it is a city of immigrants. If you take away the immigrants, the city will not be the same.”
http://www.msnbc.com/news/667486.asp
After dozens of detainments, residents of New York’s immigrant-rich ‘Little Pakistan’ are feeling insecure
By Gretel C. Kovach
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
Dec. 4 — On a recent Friday evening in New York City’s “Little Pakistan,” the mutton kebab and spicy curries are sitting largely untouched in the restaurant display cases. But that’s nothing new these days.
THE USUALLY-BUSTLING MIDWOOD area of Brooklyn is home to 125,000 or so of the 200,000 Pakistanis living in America, but now it has an empty feel. The community is painfully aware that of the 548 people being held nationwide on immigration charges as part of the investigation into the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, 208 of them are from Pakistan. The spillover effect is clear here, where some residents are in jail, others have fled back to Pakistan, and still more are holed up in their apartments, afraid of being arrested. Along Coney Island Avenue, men dressed in billowing shalwar kameez robes and white kufi caps and turbans talk about the disappeared. Some say the Immigration and Naturalization Service hauled away hundreds, others say less than 50, but whatever the real figure, everyone without proper immigration documentation is nervous.
“They took my chef,” says Zafar Iqbal, 32, who, together with his brother and uncle, owns the Lazzat side of Gina’s Pizza-Lazzat restaurant. The spot serves up rich Pakistani desserts such as gulab jamun, cottage cheese balls cooked in cardamom syrup. “A lot of people are scared. A lot of people go back to their country. Business is really down,” says Iqbal, looking glumly around at the vacant rows of tables covered in formica, the paper napkins unfurled like dove’s wings in the water glasses, untouched. “Everyone stays in their house. They say to the person with the green card, you go and buy the food.”
Exactly four weeks earlier (“28 days,” says Iqbal, who’s counting) on Nov. 2, the Lazzat cook, Maqsood Ali, 43, was getting out of bed and ready for work when he got a knock on his door. It was agents from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. They weren’t even looking for Ali, but when he couldn’t show proper documentation, he was detained and incarcerated in Paterson, New Jersey, along with 57 other Pakistani and Arab immigration violators. In a call to NEWSWEEK from prison, Ali said he was confident his application for political asylum will be successfully reopened. But it is his wife and six children back in Pakistan that he is worried about. “I feed my family before, so now they are waiting for me,” he says.
Ali moved to the United States 10 years ago because of his involvement with the Pakistan People’s Party, the party of deposed former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Ali wanted to secure residency papers before his family could follow, but the family is still separated: nearly a decade later, he has still to meet his youngest son. After working five years at his first cooking job, Ali’s boss agreed to sponsor a green card application that would give him permanent residence in the U.S. But then an argument soured the deal, and Ali found another job at Lazzat. Now that Ali is locked up, his boss Iqbal sends money here and there to keep the household going. But it’s not clear how much longer the Alis can survive like this.
Iqbal is one of the lucky ones: he has a green card and his brother is an American citizen. Iqbal’s three children were born in this country, and he has clearly thrived here—nattily dressed in slacks, western shirt and a gold earring, and answering frequent calls on his cordless phone. He isn’t afraid of being arrested, but his business is suffering. “At this time [3 p.m.], I used to be so busy I couldn’t speak to you,” he says.
Liberty vs. Security: The War at Home
The immigration crackdown has also intensified the post Sept.-11 economic downturn in the Pakistani-American community. That icon of New York City—the Pakistani cabby—is suffering from the scarcity of tourists. And even as Pakistani-Americans mourned their own dead—like Salman Hamdani, a part-time emergency medical technician buried in the World Trade Center—they kept off the streets to avoid harassment. In the weeks after September 11, Pakistanis received death threats and were kicked off airplanes. Freelance journalist Haider Rizvi, 38, stepped out of a Fifth Avenue Pakistani grocery when a man said, “You look like Osama bin Laden.” The man attacked Rizvi, who later regained consciousness in a hospital bruised and missing a front tooth. In Brooklyn, motorists pelted eggs at the Makki Masjid and Muslim Community Center, the main mosque in New York for Pakistanis, and spat on a cabby parked out front. Police were posted outside the mosque after school children were harassed. Just when the worshippers were starting to feel safe again, the immigration arrests began. The unofficial mayor of Little Pakistan, an accountant named Asghar Choudhri, says he has been besieged by pleas for help, and by his count more than 40 people have been detained from Midwood recently. Only three or four have been released. During the evening hours of the month of Ramadan, after the fast is broken, the sidewalks used to be crowded with people, cars were double-parked, and police directed traffic. “Now our women are afraid to come out,” Choudhri says, and the streets are noticeably empty of their brightly colored dubattas(scarves).
The Cover: Secret Trials, How Far Should We Go?
At Makki, estimates of the number of detainees are higher. “Hundreds, I think,” says Farooq Hussain, 30, who was standing outside after afternoon prayers and smelling perfume oil one of the mosque elders had purchased. “One guy, they didn’t even let him withdraw the money from his account before they deported him.”
Despite their fears, it is unlikely that the Pakistani immigrants will give up on New York. They began moving into Brooklyn in bulk in the early 1980s, some fleeing the martial law in Pakistan; others seeking political asylum. Most, however, came for economic reasons. They settled in Midwood, where they could satisfy strict Islamic dietary requirements by shopping at Orthodox Jewish kosher butchers. Today, most of the businesses on Coney Island Avenue between Glenwood and Avenue H are owned by Pakistanis, Bangladeshis or other Muslims.
“Mayor” Choudhri, who also is president of the Pakistani-American Federation, organized a community meeting in mid-November to allay fears and get answers to the question, “Why us?” About 150 invitees packed into the richly decorated banquet hall at Bukhara restaurant with its patterned carpet wall coverings, including U.S. Congressmen Anthony Weiner and Major Owens, as well as representatives from the FBI, INS, U.S. Justice Department and the New York Civil Liberties Union. “Our government, the U.S. government, is against terrorism, and so is the Pakistani community,” says Malik Saleem Akbar, owner of Pak U.S. Travel. “But our people should not be discriminated against. The government has a right to question. They have to seek the security of the citizens. But questioning should be done for everyone, regardless of sect or ethnicity.” Maqsood Ali’s lawyer, Craig Goldsmith, agrees. “It seems outrageous, a clear violation of 14th amendment equal protection law. And to hold people indefinitely is fundamentally wrong. The INS says these people have violated immigration law. But these are general humanitarian rights.”
There were no easy answers, but Midwood residents still felt the meeting was a success, especially since the arrests have slowed. But the experience has left a lasting mark on their love for America. “This thing has divided us [as Americans]. I am really disappointed,” Choudhri says. “I came to this country as a student 35 years ago. I stayed because here there are lots of chances, everyone is somebody. There is equal education, and freedom....Now that dream is shattered,” he says.
Maqsood Ali, incarcerated in America while his family in Pakistan struggles to feed itself, still says he loves this country. “I cried that day [Sept. 11],” says Ali, who marched in the Union Square candlelight vigil alongside Bhutto. “I feel very bad to be in jail, but I have inside satisfaction because I love America. I want my family here. I don’t want my kids to go the wrong way. They are growing up, and I don’t want them to be brainwashed. The religious people have this [brainwashing] happen for everyone over there in Pakistan.”
Choudhri knows of at least one man who left the U.S. after an FBI agent came knocking. But Akbar, the travel agent, says he hasn’t seen a spike in one-way tickets to Pakistan. That’s a good sign, he feels, because immigrants are integral to the country. “Even the illegals are a strong part of the U.S. economy. They were giving back their fair share.” Akbar immigrated to the United States in the 1970s, and he, too, has been successful here. He pauses while counting a stack of cash meant for a plane ticket and says, “The beauty of New York City is that it is a city of immigrants. If you take away the immigrants, the city will not be the same.”
#439 Posted by Prem on December 5, 2001 3:20:32 am
re: Sarwar # 458
Wonderful people — terrible government. Really?
That article could as well be written for India, except for the dominant role of the military.
But I question that vapid, masterbatory mantra - wonderful people, terrible government.
Governments do not materialize from thin air. They are a reflection of the people. Limitations of the government mirror the limitations we have put around ourselves.
When we say - thus far and no further, our governments too say - thus far and no further. Therein lie the limits of our being, and therein lies the inevitable character of our government.
The nice talk of the back-slapping, courtly people doesnt help if these liveried types are walking over rugs under which has been swept all the filth of their societies.
Wonderful people — terrible government. Really?
That article could as well be written for India, except for the dominant role of the military.
But I question that vapid, masterbatory mantra - wonderful people, terrible government.
Governments do not materialize from thin air. They are a reflection of the people. Limitations of the government mirror the limitations we have put around ourselves.
When we say - thus far and no further, our governments too say - thus far and no further. Therein lie the limits of our being, and therein lies the inevitable character of our government.
The nice talk of the back-slapping, courtly people doesnt help if these liveried types are walking over rugs under which has been swept all the filth of their societies.
#438 Posted by semipreciousme on December 5, 2001 3:20:32 am
anarayan
“Almost all the western athletes are affiliated to some sort of scientific research institute with doctors, coaches, psychologists and others.”
…i would disagree here….the africans are world class long-distance runners and they don’t exactly have resources falling at their feet but they still manage to beat western athletes …and take a look at the latvian countries…again, not exactly top-class facilities and what-not, but they still managed to take home more medals then all of s.east asia combined…although, to be fair, i think it was a sri-lankan woman who came 3rd in the 100 m….but still, that’s a rarity….
#437 Posted by semipreciousme on December 5, 2001 3:20:32 am
Prem:
``BTW, as many people have already noted, the prefix semi does you a great deal of injustice :)``
....wouldn`t argue there:)....and ty...
``BTW, as many people have already noted, the prefix semi does you a great deal of injustice :)``
....wouldn`t argue there:)....and ty...
#436 Posted by Prem on December 4, 2001 9:42:37 pm
re: SPM # 452
LOL...I have made a conscious decision to try to ``respect`` even those believe that pigs do fly. I can tell you it is very hard, because in my day to day life I not suffer fools gladly.
BTW, as many people have already noted, the prefix semi does you a great deal of injustice :)
Prem
LOL...I have made a conscious decision to try to ``respect`` even those believe that pigs do fly. I can tell you it is very hard, because in my day to day life I not suffer fools gladly.
BTW, as many people have already noted, the prefix semi does you a great deal of injustice :)
Prem
#435 Posted by Fatimah on December 4, 2001 9:42:37 pm
Reply #: 454
Prem
Fatimah # 443
That is a real problem. I say it from personal knowedge - missonaries DO travel from the United States in the garb of `secular` workers to India, and I dont see any reason why they wouldn`t do the same to other South Asian countries.``
When otherthan ideology or believes is used to entice or even pollute or poison other societies it should be crime.
If for the sake of feedom & democracy you were tyo allow free flow of information,it should be limited to informations only not attached with welcoming gift .
Prem
Fatimah # 443
That is a real problem. I say it from personal knowedge - missonaries DO travel from the United States in the garb of `secular` workers to India, and I dont see any reason why they wouldn`t do the same to other South Asian countries.``
When otherthan ideology or believes is used to entice or even pollute or poison other societies it should be crime.
If for the sake of feedom & democracy you were tyo allow free flow of information,it should be limited to informations only not attached with welcoming gift .
#434 Posted by scout on December 4, 2001 9:42:37 pm
precious #452, ``….i thought it was one of the many heads of the hydra…or is that giving him/her/it too much credit?…``
no, can`t be. this ``khamakhwa`` makes sense sometimes.
no, can`t be. this ``khamakhwa`` makes sense sometimes.
#433 Posted by rsaxena on December 4, 2001 9:42:37 pm
re: prem
``That is a real problem. I say it from personal knowedge - missonaries DO travel from the United States in the garb of `secular` workers to India, and I dont see any reason why they wouldn`t do the same to other South Asian countries.``
there are few things more repugnant than proselytization...i don`t know why some people salivate at the thought of brainwashing someone to join their cult...
``That is a real problem. I say it from personal knowedge - missonaries DO travel from the United States in the garb of `secular` workers to India, and I dont see any reason why they wouldn`t do the same to other South Asian countries.``
there are few things more repugnant than proselytization...i don`t know why some people salivate at the thought of brainwashing someone to join their cult...
#432 Posted by sarwar on December 4, 2001 9:42:37 pm
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#431 Posted by mohajir on December 4, 2001 9:42:37 pm
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO111A.html
http://www.mqm.org/ISI/ISI_State_Within_A_State.htm
The Role of Pakistan`s Military Intelligence (ISI) in the September 11 Attacks
by Michel Chossudovsky
Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), Montréal
Posted at globalresearch.ca 2 November 2001
Summary
Pakistan`s chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad ``was in the US when the attacks occurred.`` He arrived in the US on the 4th of September, a full week before the attacks. He had meetings at the State Department ``after`` the attacks on the WTC. But he also had ``a regular visit of consultations`` with his US counterparts at the CIA and the Pentagon during the week prior to September 11.
What was the nature of these routine ``pre-September 11 consultations``? Were they in any way related to the subsequent ``post-September 11 consultations`` pertaining to Pakistan`s decision to cooperate with Washington. Was the planning of war being discussed between Pakistani and US officials?
On the 9th of September while General Ahmad was in the US, the leader of the Northern Alliance Commander Ahmad Shah Masood was assassinated. The Northern Alliance had informed the Bush Administration that the ISI was allegedly implicated in the assassination.
The Bush Administration consciously took the decision in ``the post September 11 consultations`` with Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad to directly ``cooperate`` with Pakistan`s military intelligence (ISI) despite its links to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and its alleged role in the assassination of Commander Masood, which coincidentally occurred two days before the terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, senior Pentagon and State Department officials had been rushed to Islamabad to put the finishing touches on America`s war plans. And on the Sunday prior to the onslaught of the bombing of major cities in Afghanistan (October 7th), Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad was sacked from his position as head of the ISI in what was described as a routine ``reshuffling.``
In the days following General Ahmad`s dismissal, a report published in the Times of India, revealed the links between Pakistan`s Chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad and the presumed ``ring leader`` of the WTC attacks Mohamed Atta. The Times of India article was based on an official intelligence report of the Delhi government that had been transmitted through official channels to Washington. Quoting an Indian government source Agence France Press (AFP) confirms in this regard that: ``The evidence we [the Government of India] have supplied to the US is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism.``
The revelation of the Times of India article has several implications. The Indian intelligence report not only points to the links between ISI Chief General Ahmad and terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta, it also indicates that other ISI officials might have had contacts with the terrorists. Moreover, it suggests that the September 11 attacks were not an act of ``individual terrorism`` organised by a separate Al Qaeda cell, but rather they were part of coordinated military-intelligence operation, emanating from Pakistan`s ISI.
The Times of India report also sheds light on the nature of General Ahmad`s ``business activities`` in the US during the week prior to September 11, raising the distinct possibility of ISI contacts with Mohamed Atta in the US ``prior`` to the attacks on the WTC, precisely at the time when General Mahmoud and his delegation were on a so-called ``regular visit of consultations`` with US officials.
In assessing the alleged links between the terrorists and the ISI, it should be understood that Lt. General Ahmad as head of the ISI was a ``US approved appointee``. As head of the ISI since 1999, he was in liaison with his US counterparts in the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Pentagon. Also bear in mind that Pakistan`s ISI remained throughout the entire post Cold War era until the present, the launch-pad for CIA covert operations in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Balkans
The existence of an ``ISI-Osama-Taliban axis`` was a matter of public record. The links between the ISI and agencies of the US government including the CIA are also a matter of public record. The Bush Administration was fully cognizant of Lt. General Ahmad`s role. In other words, rather than waging a campaign against international terrorism, the evidence would suggest that it is indirectly abetting international terrorism, using the Pakistani ISI as a ``go-between``.
The Bush Administration`s links with Pakistan`s ISI --including its ``consultations`` with General Ahmad in the week prior to September 11-- raise the issue of ``complicity``. While Ahmad was talking to US officials at the CIA and the Pentagon, ISI officials were allegedly also in contact with the September 11 terrorists.
In other words, according to the Indian government intelligence report, the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks had links to Pakistan`s ISI, which in turn has links to agencies of the US government. What this suggests is that key individuals within the US military-intelligence establishment might have known about the ISI contacts with the September 11 terrorist ``ring-leader`` Mohamed Atta and failed to act.
Whether this amounts to the complicity of the Bush Administration remains to be firmly established. The least one can expect at this stage is an inquiry. What is crystal clear, however, is that this war is not a ``campaign against international terrorism``. It is a war of conquest with devastating consequences for the future of humanity. And the American people have been consciously and deliberately misled by their government. Whether this amounts to the complicity of the Bush Administration remains to be firmly established.
And the American people have been consciously and deliberately misled by their government.
Ultimately the truth must prevail. The falsehoods behind America`s war against the people of Afghanistan must be unveiled.
http://www.mqm.org/ISI/ISI_State_Within_A_State.htm
The Role of Pakistan`s Military Intelligence (ISI) in the September 11 Attacks
by Michel Chossudovsky
Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), Montréal
Posted at globalresearch.ca 2 November 2001
Summary
Pakistan`s chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad ``was in the US when the attacks occurred.`` He arrived in the US on the 4th of September, a full week before the attacks. He had meetings at the State Department ``after`` the attacks on the WTC. But he also had ``a regular visit of consultations`` with his US counterparts at the CIA and the Pentagon during the week prior to September 11.
What was the nature of these routine ``pre-September 11 consultations``? Were they in any way related to the subsequent ``post-September 11 consultations`` pertaining to Pakistan`s decision to cooperate with Washington. Was the planning of war being discussed between Pakistani and US officials?
On the 9th of September while General Ahmad was in the US, the leader of the Northern Alliance Commander Ahmad Shah Masood was assassinated. The Northern Alliance had informed the Bush Administration that the ISI was allegedly implicated in the assassination.
The Bush Administration consciously took the decision in ``the post September 11 consultations`` with Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad to directly ``cooperate`` with Pakistan`s military intelligence (ISI) despite its links to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and its alleged role in the assassination of Commander Masood, which coincidentally occurred two days before the terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, senior Pentagon and State Department officials had been rushed to Islamabad to put the finishing touches on America`s war plans. And on the Sunday prior to the onslaught of the bombing of major cities in Afghanistan (October 7th), Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad was sacked from his position as head of the ISI in what was described as a routine ``reshuffling.``
In the days following General Ahmad`s dismissal, a report published in the Times of India, revealed the links between Pakistan`s Chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad and the presumed ``ring leader`` of the WTC attacks Mohamed Atta. The Times of India article was based on an official intelligence report of the Delhi government that had been transmitted through official channels to Washington. Quoting an Indian government source Agence France Press (AFP) confirms in this regard that: ``The evidence we [the Government of India] have supplied to the US is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism.``
The revelation of the Times of India article has several implications. The Indian intelligence report not only points to the links between ISI Chief General Ahmad and terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta, it also indicates that other ISI officials might have had contacts with the terrorists. Moreover, it suggests that the September 11 attacks were not an act of ``individual terrorism`` organised by a separate Al Qaeda cell, but rather they were part of coordinated military-intelligence operation, emanating from Pakistan`s ISI.
The Times of India report also sheds light on the nature of General Ahmad`s ``business activities`` in the US during the week prior to September 11, raising the distinct possibility of ISI contacts with Mohamed Atta in the US ``prior`` to the attacks on the WTC, precisely at the time when General Mahmoud and his delegation were on a so-called ``regular visit of consultations`` with US officials.
In assessing the alleged links between the terrorists and the ISI, it should be understood that Lt. General Ahmad as head of the ISI was a ``US approved appointee``. As head of the ISI since 1999, he was in liaison with his US counterparts in the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Pentagon. Also bear in mind that Pakistan`s ISI remained throughout the entire post Cold War era until the present, the launch-pad for CIA covert operations in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Balkans
The existence of an ``ISI-Osama-Taliban axis`` was a matter of public record. The links between the ISI and agencies of the US government including the CIA are also a matter of public record. The Bush Administration was fully cognizant of Lt. General Ahmad`s role. In other words, rather than waging a campaign against international terrorism, the evidence would suggest that it is indirectly abetting international terrorism, using the Pakistani ISI as a ``go-between``.
The Bush Administration`s links with Pakistan`s ISI --including its ``consultations`` with General Ahmad in the week prior to September 11-- raise the issue of ``complicity``. While Ahmad was talking to US officials at the CIA and the Pentagon, ISI officials were allegedly also in contact with the September 11 terrorists.
In other words, according to the Indian government intelligence report, the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks had links to Pakistan`s ISI, which in turn has links to agencies of the US government. What this suggests is that key individuals within the US military-intelligence establishment might have known about the ISI contacts with the September 11 terrorist ``ring-leader`` Mohamed Atta and failed to act.
Whether this amounts to the complicity of the Bush Administration remains to be firmly established. The least one can expect at this stage is an inquiry. What is crystal clear, however, is that this war is not a ``campaign against international terrorism``. It is a war of conquest with devastating consequences for the future of humanity. And the American people have been consciously and deliberately misled by their government. Whether this amounts to the complicity of the Bush Administration remains to be firmly established.
And the American people have been consciously and deliberately misled by their government.
Ultimately the truth must prevail. The falsehoods behind America`s war against the people of Afghanistan must be unveiled.
#430 Posted by mohajir on December 4, 2001 9:42:37 pm
CITIZEN OF THE WORLD
Wartime Letters
The fight against terror, from A to Z.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/tvaradarajan/?id=95001552
BY TUNKU VARADARAJAN
Tuesday, December 4, 2001 12:01 a.m. EST
As anti-Taliban forces overcome the Afghans from the Taliban (as well as the motley, but deadly, assortment of Arabs, Chechens, Pakistanis, Pakistanis and more Pakistanis), it might be a useful juncture at which to jot up a little primer on the war. After all, we seem to be reaching the end of a chapter. The selection of entries, while personal, is not eccentric, and I trust that most readers will find, in this glossary de la guerre, an echo of their own priorities and interests.
A is for Afghanistan, a benighted land whose inhabitants have, over generations, turned warring into a fine art. Kiplingesque noble savages, they usually fight each other, but just occasionally, there will come along foolish foreigners who unite all Afghans in a temporary hatred of The Outsider. A landlocked place in the middle of nowhere, with no natural resources to speak of, the country has, nonetheless, held a bizarre ``strategic`` appeal for empire-builders through the ages--dating back to Alexander the Great, and on down to the British and the Soviets.
B is for President Bush, who, with his declaration of war on terrorism, grew overnight in stature from dubious sapling to giant beanstalk. War has brought out the best in the man, stirring him to rhetorical heights in addresses to the nation and to action that brought to mind (at least to old-timers) the decisiveness of Churchill. Never has a man made Maureen Dowd look quite so silly.
C is cockfighting, a pastime beloved of gentler Afghans (the ones who don`t ride around on horseback fighting over a carcass of a sheep, that is). All forms of fun were pretty much banned by Islamic killjoys for the past six years, so connoisseurs of bloody beaks have a lot of catching up to do. Ditto with kite-flyers and soccer players.
D is for the daisy-cutter, an awe-inspiring bomb that conjures an unlikely bucolic image. It`s a pity the explosive device isn`t called a daffodil-cutter, or we could have amused ourselves adapting Wordsworth:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o`er Afghanistan,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of turbaned Taliban;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and shooting in the breeze.
E is for Enduring Freedom, the sonorous but apt label given to the ``Operation``--that oh-so-slightly clinical euphemism for war--currently under way in Afghanistan (and, we hope, in other places afterwards; see ``H`` below). Parenthetically, what we want to know is, who thinks up these names? Is there a ``label czar`` in the Defense Department?
F is for fatwa, the most emphatic Arabic concept to enter the Western lexicon since the adoption of ``zero.`` We know it means ``religious decree,`` but what we don`t yet understand is who has the right to issue the darn things? Ayatollahs dish them out whenever it takes their fancy, as do numerous mullahs, big and small, around the world. And now, in a chilling vindication of all those Huntingtonian prophecies, there`s a fatwa against an entire civilization--that of the West.
G is for Geraldo, the latest correspondent to drop in Kabul. Read all about him in my next column.
H is for Saddam Hussein, antagonist in the likely next chapter in Operation Enduring Freedom. As evidence emerges--both concrete and circumstantial--of the Iraqi tyrant`s ties to the attacks of Sept. 11, pressure for his armed ouster grows increasingly irresistible. In a world grown robustly Manichean, in which evil is denounced as evil and its practitioners are called to account, Saddam is likely to find that this President Bush is immensely more determined in his disposal of enemies than his father was.
I is for Islam, which, we are told, is what this war is not about. We are at war, instead, with those who would ``pervert Islam,`` ``hijack a noble religion,`` ``stain the name of a great faith,`` etc. We are asked to ignore that--Turkey and Bangladesh excepted--there is no Islamic country that is a democracy. We are asked to ignore the still more damning fact that scarcely any Islamic institutions in the West have come out and condemned Sept. 11 in unequivocal terms.
When Margaret Thatcher points out that she would have liked to hear more Islamic clerics in Britain speak out against terrorism, she is pilloried as ``racist`` and ``divisive`` by the multicultural establishment. And when Silvio Berlusconi, Italy`s prime minister, says that ``we must be aware of the superiority of our civilization, a system that has guaranteed well-being, respect for human rights and--in contrast with Islamic countries--respect for religious and political rights, a system that has as its values understandings of diversity and tolerance,`` he is treated like a pariah by his confreres at the European Union. Go figure.
J is for jihad, which is about the only thing (apart from oil) produced in the Muslim Middle East. Unlike ``crusade,`` its Western conceptual counterpart, jihad has maintained its religious, confessional intensity since the days of the Prophet Mohammed. In societies that are intellectually and materially impoverished, this form of holy war against infidels offers the easiest way out of the depths to which stagnation has consigned Muslim youth.
K is for Kabul, Kandahar and Kunduz, places whose names ring with undeniable romance, and which are now associated, too, with destruction and gore. Afghan toponyms are as handsome as the country`s people--who can deny that names like Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat and Ghazni have a certain poetry, a certain panache?
L is for loya jirga, the centuries-old Afghan practice whereby elders sit around in a large group (or grand council) and decide how many sheep to roast for the week. Actually, that is a slight misrepresentation. They also discuss politics, though scarcely in the sort of quasi- or protodemocratic way that proponents of the council suggest. Still, it is worth convening one of these affairs only because the alternative does not bear thinking--and because of the hilarity that will ensue when Hannity and Colmes try to wrap their tongues around the phrase.
M is for Pakistan`s Gen. Pervez Musharraf, arguably the luckiest man in the world right now. This panjandrum was on a hiding to nothing before Sept. 11; he`d seized power in a coup (so what`s new in Pakistan?), exiled the leaders of the two largest political parties, and packed his curriculum vitae with sponsorships of groups that wage terrorist war on India. Now, he`s a valued ally, a latter-day Ataturk, who has reaped for Pakistan a windfall for his support in the war against terrorism. Forget for the moment that he ferried out from Kunduz some 200 soldiers of the Pakistan army, who were fighting for the Taliban--fighting against us, in other words.
N is for New York, where the war began, where thousands of innocents were slain. New Yorkers are watching the war with special interest. They are invested in Operation Enduring Freedom in a way that few others are. They want justice. Something tells me that they`ll get it.
O is for Osama bin Laden, the most evil man since Hitler, the embodiment of the enemy, the personification of every diabolical force against which we are at war. His death may not end the war against terrorism, not even stanch the flow of terrorism against us; but that is no reason not to desire it fervently, passionately. Let his elimination, however, not spell the end of the war.
P is for Pashtuns, the ethnic group that predominates in the Taliban, and that comprises a plurality of the Afghan population. Pashtuns are some of the most hidebound, unscientific people on earth, their values unchanged for centuries--though the enforcement of those values is today conducted by Kalashnikov, not scimitar. They have unbending codes of honor, which involve, mostly, the oppression of women. They have a profoundly inflated sense of self-worth, which is why it is, for many of them, inconceivable that they be governed by an alliance of such ``inferiors`` as Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. Perhaps a partition of Afghanistan, one that gives the Pashtuns a homeland of their own in the south (with the possibility, at some stage in the future, of incorporating Pashtun lands in present-day Pakistan) would be the best way out of a cycle of interminable civil war.
Q is for al Qaeda, the deadly, nihilistic organization set up by bin Laden, one that seeks to scorch the earth of the West, to level the buildings of the unbelievers, to bring fire and destruction upon the heads of the infidels. Never in history has the enemy been so shapeless, so elusive. The outfit is thought to have ``sleeper`` cells in the heart of the Western world, all biding their time before striking at our cities, killing our people, razing our buildings and our way of life.
R is for the Russians, to whom we must, this time, give thanks. They (along with India, an unsung ally in the whole campaign) kept the Northern Alliance supplied with arms and other basic necessities in the long years of war that preceded this one. And it was Moscow`s green light that made it possible for Uzbekistan to allow the U.S. to use military facilities in that country. With Islamist terror the new enemy of civilization, look to the Russians for sturdy support. Nazhdrovye!
S is for Saudi Arabia, which, in contrast, has hardly been of any help at all. The ally from hell, Riyadh has obfuscated, dragged its feet, refused to divulge evidence on the Saudis (and they were almost all Saudis) who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks, and generally made pretty sure that we get as little from them as possible. All this while the U.S. protects its regime, and its oilfields, from Saddam. Talk about an atrocious bargain.
T is for the Taliban, the group of ``students``--or Islamic seminarians--who ran Afghanistan with a ferocious brutality for six-plus years. Dour, violent, misogynist and completely without pity, they made their land a living hell for anyone but the most fanatical adherent of their brand of Wahhabi Islam. The movement was funded and armed by Pakistan, and the majority of the ruling Taliban elite were trained in Pakistani madrassas, or Islamic schools. The movement would not have survived a week, let it be known, without the unending supply of fighters (often regular army men or retired soldiers) from Pakistan.
U is the ummah, the Arabic word used to describe the Muslim world, or the global community of the faithful (both individuals and nations). Bin Laden urges the ummah to be at war with the West; vast swaths of the ummah, in fact, see themselves as being at war with the West.
V is for veils, the tragic leitmotif of Afghanistan under the Taliban, the device by which women were rendered--literally--faceless, and powerless , jobless and devoid of dignity.
W is for warlords, that catchall phrase used to describe every petty chieftain in any godforsaken part of the world who wields a gun and answers to no authority other than that of a bigger, meaner chieftain who wields a bigger, meaner means of going ``bang bang you`re dead.`` Afghanistan has a surplus of such characters, all of them unsavory, all of them with no desire other than to lord it over a wedge of territory and to profit from doing so. Warlords inherit their ``office`` from their fathers, which is why you have 15-year-olds at the helm of armies of 10,000 men. All this has always made Afghanistan a very exotic--and very dangerous--place.
X is for those marks on the map, every one a Taliban or al Qaeda stronghold, where U.S. warplanes have been dropping their bombs. Think of each as a notch for justice.
Y is for yammering liberals--of whom Susan Sontag is an example, par excellence--who see this war as one that the West has reaped, and who equate the ways of the civilized world with those of the men with whom we are at war. These are the people who can`t bring themselves to utter the word ``terrorist,`` and who cannot, like the ABC network`s David Westin, bring themselves to say that the Pentagon was not a legitimate target on Sept. 11. (And just to prove that not all yammerers are liberal, there was Ann Coulter, the evangelist.)
Z is for Zahir Shah, the former king of Afghanistan. Ousted in 1973, this charming octogenarian is thought to be the country`s best bet for a unifying figure. There is merit in the contention, for sure. After all, in a land where life expectancy is not much more than 40, a man in his 80s must command a great deal of awe. But is he too gentle, too polished, for this rough-hewn land? And does he have the stomach, after years of exile in Rome, for the rigors of postbellum Kabul? One wonders, and one prays.
Mr. Varadarajan is deputy editorial features editor of The Wall Street Journal. His column appears Tuesdays.
Wartime Letters
The fight against terror, from A to Z.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/tvaradarajan/?id=95001552
BY TUNKU VARADARAJAN
Tuesday, December 4, 2001 12:01 a.m. EST
As anti-Taliban forces overcome the Afghans from the Taliban (as well as the motley, but deadly, assortment of Arabs, Chechens, Pakistanis, Pakistanis and more Pakistanis), it might be a useful juncture at which to jot up a little primer on the war. After all, we seem to be reaching the end of a chapter. The selection of entries, while personal, is not eccentric, and I trust that most readers will find, in this glossary de la guerre, an echo of their own priorities and interests.
A is for Afghanistan, a benighted land whose inhabitants have, over generations, turned warring into a fine art. Kiplingesque noble savages, they usually fight each other, but just occasionally, there will come along foolish foreigners who unite all Afghans in a temporary hatred of The Outsider. A landlocked place in the middle of nowhere, with no natural resources to speak of, the country has, nonetheless, held a bizarre ``strategic`` appeal for empire-builders through the ages--dating back to Alexander the Great, and on down to the British and the Soviets.
B is for President Bush, who, with his declaration of war on terrorism, grew overnight in stature from dubious sapling to giant beanstalk. War has brought out the best in the man, stirring him to rhetorical heights in addresses to the nation and to action that brought to mind (at least to old-timers) the decisiveness of Churchill. Never has a man made Maureen Dowd look quite so silly.
C is cockfighting, a pastime beloved of gentler Afghans (the ones who don`t ride around on horseback fighting over a carcass of a sheep, that is). All forms of fun were pretty much banned by Islamic killjoys for the past six years, so connoisseurs of bloody beaks have a lot of catching up to do. Ditto with kite-flyers and soccer players.
D is for the daisy-cutter, an awe-inspiring bomb that conjures an unlikely bucolic image. It`s a pity the explosive device isn`t called a daffodil-cutter, or we could have amused ourselves adapting Wordsworth:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o`er Afghanistan,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of turbaned Taliban;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and shooting in the breeze.
E is for Enduring Freedom, the sonorous but apt label given to the ``Operation``--that oh-so-slightly clinical euphemism for war--currently under way in Afghanistan (and, we hope, in other places afterwards; see ``H`` below). Parenthetically, what we want to know is, who thinks up these names? Is there a ``label czar`` in the Defense Department?
F is for fatwa, the most emphatic Arabic concept to enter the Western lexicon since the adoption of ``zero.`` We know it means ``religious decree,`` but what we don`t yet understand is who has the right to issue the darn things? Ayatollahs dish them out whenever it takes their fancy, as do numerous mullahs, big and small, around the world. And now, in a chilling vindication of all those Huntingtonian prophecies, there`s a fatwa against an entire civilization--that of the West.
G is for Geraldo, the latest correspondent to drop in Kabul. Read all about him in my next column.
H is for Saddam Hussein, antagonist in the likely next chapter in Operation Enduring Freedom. As evidence emerges--both concrete and circumstantial--of the Iraqi tyrant`s ties to the attacks of Sept. 11, pressure for his armed ouster grows increasingly irresistible. In a world grown robustly Manichean, in which evil is denounced as evil and its practitioners are called to account, Saddam is likely to find that this President Bush is immensely more determined in his disposal of enemies than his father was.
I is for Islam, which, we are told, is what this war is not about. We are at war, instead, with those who would ``pervert Islam,`` ``hijack a noble religion,`` ``stain the name of a great faith,`` etc. We are asked to ignore that--Turkey and Bangladesh excepted--there is no Islamic country that is a democracy. We are asked to ignore the still more damning fact that scarcely any Islamic institutions in the West have come out and condemned Sept. 11 in unequivocal terms.
When Margaret Thatcher points out that she would have liked to hear more Islamic clerics in Britain speak out against terrorism, she is pilloried as ``racist`` and ``divisive`` by the multicultural establishment. And when Silvio Berlusconi, Italy`s prime minister, says that ``we must be aware of the superiority of our civilization, a system that has guaranteed well-being, respect for human rights and--in contrast with Islamic countries--respect for religious and political rights, a system that has as its values understandings of diversity and tolerance,`` he is treated like a pariah by his confreres at the European Union. Go figure.
J is for jihad, which is about the only thing (apart from oil) produced in the Muslim Middle East. Unlike ``crusade,`` its Western conceptual counterpart, jihad has maintained its religious, confessional intensity since the days of the Prophet Mohammed. In societies that are intellectually and materially impoverished, this form of holy war against infidels offers the easiest way out of the depths to which stagnation has consigned Muslim youth.
K is for Kabul, Kandahar and Kunduz, places whose names ring with undeniable romance, and which are now associated, too, with destruction and gore. Afghan toponyms are as handsome as the country`s people--who can deny that names like Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat and Ghazni have a certain poetry, a certain panache?
L is for loya jirga, the centuries-old Afghan practice whereby elders sit around in a large group (or grand council) and decide how many sheep to roast for the week. Actually, that is a slight misrepresentation. They also discuss politics, though scarcely in the sort of quasi- or protodemocratic way that proponents of the council suggest. Still, it is worth convening one of these affairs only because the alternative does not bear thinking--and because of the hilarity that will ensue when Hannity and Colmes try to wrap their tongues around the phrase.
M is for Pakistan`s Gen. Pervez Musharraf, arguably the luckiest man in the world right now. This panjandrum was on a hiding to nothing before Sept. 11; he`d seized power in a coup (so what`s new in Pakistan?), exiled the leaders of the two largest political parties, and packed his curriculum vitae with sponsorships of groups that wage terrorist war on India. Now, he`s a valued ally, a latter-day Ataturk, who has reaped for Pakistan a windfall for his support in the war against terrorism. Forget for the moment that he ferried out from Kunduz some 200 soldiers of the Pakistan army, who were fighting for the Taliban--fighting against us, in other words.
N is for New York, where the war began, where thousands of innocents were slain. New Yorkers are watching the war with special interest. They are invested in Operation Enduring Freedom in a way that few others are. They want justice. Something tells me that they`ll get it.
O is for Osama bin Laden, the most evil man since Hitler, the embodiment of the enemy, the personification of every diabolical force against which we are at war. His death may not end the war against terrorism, not even stanch the flow of terrorism against us; but that is no reason not to desire it fervently, passionately. Let his elimination, however, not spell the end of the war.
P is for Pashtuns, the ethnic group that predominates in the Taliban, and that comprises a plurality of the Afghan population. Pashtuns are some of the most hidebound, unscientific people on earth, their values unchanged for centuries--though the enforcement of those values is today conducted by Kalashnikov, not scimitar. They have unbending codes of honor, which involve, mostly, the oppression of women. They have a profoundly inflated sense of self-worth, which is why it is, for many of them, inconceivable that they be governed by an alliance of such ``inferiors`` as Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. Perhaps a partition of Afghanistan, one that gives the Pashtuns a homeland of their own in the south (with the possibility, at some stage in the future, of incorporating Pashtun lands in present-day Pakistan) would be the best way out of a cycle of interminable civil war.
Q is for al Qaeda, the deadly, nihilistic organization set up by bin Laden, one that seeks to scorch the earth of the West, to level the buildings of the unbelievers, to bring fire and destruction upon the heads of the infidels. Never in history has the enemy been so shapeless, so elusive. The outfit is thought to have ``sleeper`` cells in the heart of the Western world, all biding their time before striking at our cities, killing our people, razing our buildings and our way of life.
R is for the Russians, to whom we must, this time, give thanks. They (along with India, an unsung ally in the whole campaign) kept the Northern Alliance supplied with arms and other basic necessities in the long years of war that preceded this one. And it was Moscow`s green light that made it possible for Uzbekistan to allow the U.S. to use military facilities in that country. With Islamist terror the new enemy of civilization, look to the Russians for sturdy support. Nazhdrovye!
S is for Saudi Arabia, which, in contrast, has hardly been of any help at all. The ally from hell, Riyadh has obfuscated, dragged its feet, refused to divulge evidence on the Saudis (and they were almost all Saudis) who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks, and generally made pretty sure that we get as little from them as possible. All this while the U.S. protects its regime, and its oilfields, from Saddam. Talk about an atrocious bargain.
T is for the Taliban, the group of ``students``--or Islamic seminarians--who ran Afghanistan with a ferocious brutality for six-plus years. Dour, violent, misogynist and completely without pity, they made their land a living hell for anyone but the most fanatical adherent of their brand of Wahhabi Islam. The movement was funded and armed by Pakistan, and the majority of the ruling Taliban elite were trained in Pakistani madrassas, or Islamic schools. The movement would not have survived a week, let it be known, without the unending supply of fighters (often regular army men or retired soldiers) from Pakistan.
U is the ummah, the Arabic word used to describe the Muslim world, or the global community of the faithful (both individuals and nations). Bin Laden urges the ummah to be at war with the West; vast swaths of the ummah, in fact, see themselves as being at war with the West.
V is for veils, the tragic leitmotif of Afghanistan under the Taliban, the device by which women were rendered--literally--faceless, and powerless , jobless and devoid of dignity.
W is for warlords, that catchall phrase used to describe every petty chieftain in any godforsaken part of the world who wields a gun and answers to no authority other than that of a bigger, meaner chieftain who wields a bigger, meaner means of going ``bang bang you`re dead.`` Afghanistan has a surplus of such characters, all of them unsavory, all of them with no desire other than to lord it over a wedge of territory and to profit from doing so. Warlords inherit their ``office`` from their fathers, which is why you have 15-year-olds at the helm of armies of 10,000 men. All this has always made Afghanistan a very exotic--and very dangerous--place.
X is for those marks on the map, every one a Taliban or al Qaeda stronghold, where U.S. warplanes have been dropping their bombs. Think of each as a notch for justice.
Y is for yammering liberals--of whom Susan Sontag is an example, par excellence--who see this war as one that the West has reaped, and who equate the ways of the civilized world with those of the men with whom we are at war. These are the people who can`t bring themselves to utter the word ``terrorist,`` and who cannot, like the ABC network`s David Westin, bring themselves to say that the Pentagon was not a legitimate target on Sept. 11. (And just to prove that not all yammerers are liberal, there was Ann Coulter, the evangelist.)
Z is for Zahir Shah, the former king of Afghanistan. Ousted in 1973, this charming octogenarian is thought to be the country`s best bet for a unifying figure. There is merit in the contention, for sure. After all, in a land where life expectancy is not much more than 40, a man in his 80s must command a great deal of awe. But is he too gentle, too polished, for this rough-hewn land? And does he have the stomach, after years of exile in Rome, for the rigors of postbellum Kabul? One wonders, and one prays.
Mr. Varadarajan is deputy editorial features editor of The Wall Street Journal. His column appears Tuesdays.
#429 Posted by Brad Cruise on December 4, 2001 9:57:51 am
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/september11/ihlqna.htm
Human Rights Report on Afganistan Operation enduring Freedom
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/september11/ihlqna.htm
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/september11/ihlqna.htm
Human Rights Report on Afganistan Operation enduring Freedom
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/september11/ihlqna.htm
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/september11/ihlqna.htm
#428 Posted by Prem on December 4, 2001 9:57:51 am
Fatimah # 443
That is a real problem. I say it from personal knowedge - missonaries DO travel from the United States in the garb of `secular` workers to India, and I dont see any reason why they wouldn`t do the same to other South Asian countries.
One can argue the merits or demerits of trying to convert another human being, but this kind of trickery is absolutely wrong, and shameful. It can lead to huge problems, and then the victim countries are blamed for it.
I hate the Taliban from the bottom of my heart but I have no sympathies with these bird-brained missionaries.
That is a real problem. I say it from personal knowedge - missonaries DO travel from the United States in the garb of `secular` workers to India, and I dont see any reason why they wouldn`t do the same to other South Asian countries.
One can argue the merits or demerits of trying to convert another human being, but this kind of trickery is absolutely wrong, and shameful. It can lead to huge problems, and then the victim countries are blamed for it.
I hate the Taliban from the bottom of my heart but I have no sympathies with these bird-brained missionaries.
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