Talibanada?

A friend recently wrote me from New York. He wanted to know my response to the Canadian New Democratic Party's position that Canada should stop miltary operations in Afghanistan and ought to instead negotiate with the Taliban. Here is my response:


----- Original Message -----
From: RBB
To: El Moe
Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 4:31 PM
Subject: Rv: Harper or Layton: Who's in Tune with Canadians?

You tell me, Landru.

Saludos desde Nueva York. P.d. entrevista de Tavis Smiley con Hugo Chavez PBS por la noche

Canada's NDP <bulletin@ndp.ca> escribió:

Afghanistan Op-ed: "NDP in tune with Canadians"
NDP Foreign Affairs Critic Alexa McDonough outlines why this mission is the wrong for Canada in an op-ed that appeared this week in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald.


I find the Layton/McDonough position on Afghanistan completely atonal. I would like to think they are merely ill-informed and facile; but I'm afraid it is worse than that - that they are being completely cynical and disingenuous. I feel so strongly about this that I am thinking of changing my vote next election - and I have voted NDP for more than 25 years. As I see it here are the issues: Point #1) We created the mess to begin with. The Taliban arose out of Pakistani/American/Saudi/British support, just as the U.S.A. had supplied and encouraged the resistance fighters who formed the mujahaddin. The mujahaddin movement was supported by the United States through Pakistani Interservice Intelligence and the C.I.A. itself, most vigorously from 1986 to 1989. In this period, the United States partnered with Saudi Arabia in providing financial support for the resistance in Afghanistan totaling $500 million per year (enter Osama bin Laden for the first time.) Weapons were sold at cut rate prices to the mujahaddin and by 1987 the US had facilitated the importation of an estimated 65,000 tons of weapons. This is when they got their shoulder-launched Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to shoot down Soviet aircraft. The British Special Air Service provided weapons training for these and other systems throughout the conflict. All US support abruptly ended in 1989 after the Soviets withdrew. After the Ruskie withdrawal, much of the country was in chaos, the economy was fucked and the countryside was littered with hundreds of thousands of Soviet anti-personnel mines. The mujahaddin by no means controlled the entire country. Regional ethnic warlords had arisen nurtured by the C.I.A.'s financial support and the revenue collected through opium and heroin production and export (which similarly had received a wink and a nod from gringolandia - much as does the anti-FARC militias whose finances come from cocaine exports.)

So, we are talking about a pot pourri of muthafuckers here, man, left in the wake of Ronbo's war by proxy. Here s another little-made point about yankee involvement in Afghanistan: the C.I.A. had been there well before the Russian invasion. As you well know, the Central Intelligence Agency's raison d'etre is and has always been not just to collect intel but to carry out covert operations involving economic warfare, rigged elections, assassinations and even genocide. Prior to 1979 the boyz had supported the military dictatorship of Mohammed Daoud Khan, who had seized power in 1973. Daoud was another nasty piece of goods. Like the Shah, his buddy, he suppressed his people brutally and allowed the good ole boyz of Amarrica to set up spy stations in strategic locations along the Soviet border. He also allowed them to engage in incursions into Soviet territory. Domestically, he used an iron fist against the growing tide of Sunni Islamic fundamentalism, chasing believers into Pakistan where they were welcomed with open arms. Indeed they were encouraged to set up madrassas (Islamic schools) to indoctrinate more radicals. The Pakistanis were happy to encourage Daoud's enemies since there had always been bad blood between them. Daoud was a Pashto nationalist. In an earlier incarnation as Prime Minister (early 1950s I think) he had tried to unite all the Pashto tribes under the banner of "Pashtunistan." This would have meant the splitting off of much of Pakistan's territory. Naturally they didn't like that (India loved it – Pakistan, after all, had done the same thing.)

Back to the 70s. So, the Americans were pressuring the already paranoid Stalinist Soviets. It was all part of a Cold War policy they had followed since Truman, called "brinksmanship." The plan was to pressure the Soviets everywhere with missile installations (Turkey 1950s - this led the Soviets to respond with missiles in Cuba) and radar monitoring posts (Afghanistan and Iran) and Voice of America transmissions and radio-jamming facilities all over the place. The idea was to keep the pressure on, to push and push and push until you brought them just to the "brink" of war. Then you backed off at the last moment. This, it was thought, would wear 'em out, make them spend their treasure on tanks instead of refrigerators and T.V. sets. Anyway, the Soviets got fed up and invaded and tried to set up a client regime without listening to the locals. The tribal mullahs hated it when they let women go to school, tried to force the collectivization of agriculture (they had apparently learned nothing from the 1930s) and attempted to suppress the heroin trade. I think the Soviet intentions were good, but they always had a heavy-handed, Czarist mentality when it came to opposition - which is to say they used the iron fist too and brutally suppressed dissent.

This, of course, was a C.I.A. dream come true. The money began to flow to resistance groups like manna from Reagan, ahem, I mean heaven. Afghanistan became the C.I.A.'s biggest operation ever. They supposedly poured $5 or $6billion dollars into the place. "What's that? You're a radical fundamentalist who wants to hang schoolgirls from the soccer posts of the schoolyard? Well, sheeeiiit boy! Here's a million dollars!" or "Whatya say podna? Y'all wanna overthrow the comenists so's ya kin stone some homosexuals? Hell, boy! Lemme contribute some Stingers!" And it worked. They created chaos. The Soviets withdrew. But there was no (as they say) exit stategy (I hate that stupid phrase.) There was no post-Soviet reconstruction aid. No Marshal Plan. The Americans just up and went home, and their money went with them. Left behind was a gawd-awful mess. They and their Pakistani allies had thus prepared the ground for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Speaking of the Taliban. Recall that Mamoud Daoud Khan had chased several thousand extremists into neighbouring Pakistan. There the madrassas had flourished and had doled out lovely Saudi scholarships. The wretched of those isolated mountain villages were fertile ground for radical fundamentalist indoctrination. Never mind the misery of this world. Liberation is at hand by resisting the apostate evil ones (Christianity knows this approach very well.) Former Pakistani Interior Minister Naseerullah Babar was instrumental in encouraging the formation of the Taliban around 1992-93 out of the pool of graduates from these so-called Islamic schools. Madrassa grads went on to post-madrassa military training camps. Then they were pressed into action, entering Afghanistan from Pakistan. Pakistan-sponsored Talibanis swept across Afghanistan and in the confusion and political vacuum that was left after the collapse of the post-Soviet communist regime (which had been weakened and then swept away by the Northern Alliance), they were able to seize power and defeat or subdue all resisters including most of the Northern Alliance. Like everyone else at the time, the Clinton administration had its eye on the rich oil reserves beyond Afghanistan. At night Bill didn’t dream about Monica Lewinsky, he dreamed about a trans-Afghani pipeline which was to stretch from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan to the Indian Ocean. Unicol, Inc. (an American Oil Company) and Delta International Group (a Saudi oil company) put together $3billion to start the project. With its promise to break the deadly chaos in Afghanistan and with the enticing prospect of reaching the resource wealth of Central Asia beyond, Pakistan (with help from Unicol and Delta) was soon able to get support from the Clinton government, the Saudis and the UK. They all provided funding for the Taliban to mobilize and expand so as to defeat the remaining Northern Alliance resisters.

The idea was to defeat the NA tribal leader Ahmad Shah Masoud who had entered into an alliance with the communist General Abdul Rashid Dostum. The Taliban was to defeat the northern resistance and then bring back Pakistan's former monarch, Zahir Shah, who was a doddering old bugger living in exile in Italy at the time. Unfortunately for these machinators, the whole thing went awry. Pakistan had hoped to keep control of the Taliban by swelling its ranks with madrassa fundamentalists. They cultivated and promoted the leadership of one individual in particular, Mullah Omar, who was supposed to be pliant and obedient. Instead he turned out to be a fundamentalist Frankenstein's monster, asserting his independence once the northern resistance was subdued or beaten. Thus began the fundamentalist nightmare which terrorized Afghanis for years. Also around this time we see the return of a now-pissed-off Osama bin Laden - and then…budabing-budaboom, Al Qaeda has a base in which to train and the journey to 9/11 is set in motion.

September 11th, 2001 was textbook blowback, man. I feel bad for all the innocent secretaries and workers in the towers, but in a way (and believe me I hate to say it) the Americans had it coming. They were the underwriters of the war against the Soviets that cost over a million dead Afghanis. And there’s the rub: we in the west created the mess that is Afghanistan. I am not going to debate the relatively, passive, acquiescent role that Canada played in all this. There is little doubt or question in my mind that the Canadian leaders knew what was going on and they accepted it. Hence, Canada bears some responsibility to rebuild and stabilize.

Letting the Taliban return is not a responsible option in my view. I also recognize that the goal cannot be achieved through military means alone. The fundamentalist cadres in the Taliban need to see it more in their interest to live in a reconstructed Afghanistan, than to die fighting without the prospect of winning. The on-the-ground reality of this world needs to be attractive enough and more tangible to them than going to a martyr’s paradise. In order to reconstruct, however, the military needs to keep the Talibani forces at bay. What the NDP leadership fails to understand, is that there is no negotiating with the Talibani leadership. As Peter McKay pointed out (and gawd, I hate quoting that asshole) what, exactly, are you going to concede in said negotiations? “We’ll let you continue to stone homos as long as you stop hanging female students.” It doesn’t work.

Point # 2) Whether Alexa or Jack like it or not, Canada is a NATO member. That treaty required Canada to follow the Americans into Afghanistan after 9/11. I personally never liked NATO, but a treaty is a treaty. I am going to post this on the blog, along with your original question. I will post any response you may have.
Hasta la pasta, baby!