US
Encourages The Talibanisation
Of Afghanistan
By Abid Mustafa
23 December, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Lately,
relations between Kabul and Islamabad have taken a dramatic turn for
the worse. Hamid Karzai has accused Pakistan of spurring the Taliban
to carry out attacks against his fledgling government and the NATO troops
that defend it. He is not alone in holding Pakistan responsible for
the re-emergence of the Taliban. NATO commanders, the New York Times
and the International Crisis Group (ISG) have all pointed the finger
at Pakistan for fomenting the Pushtoon resistance that shows no sign
of abating.
On its part, the Musharraf
government vehemently denies such accusations and continues to blame
Karzai's government for its failure to include the Taliban and other
militants as part of the national reconciliation drive. It must be stressed
here-Pakistan is almost isolated on its present stance-evidence to the
contrary shows that Islamabad has actively nurtured Taliban fighters
to reassert their authority on towns and villages ceded to US led forces
in the aftermath Taliban's collapse during the winter of 2001.
Oddly enough, the Whitehouse
instead of holding Islamabad to account has thrown its weight behind
the Pakistani government and has suggested that a more collaborative
approach between Islamabad and Kabul would stymie the rising militancy
in Afghanistan. Washington's ambivalent attitude raises the question;
is America encouraging the emergence of Taliban as a way of extricating
itself from Afghanistan?
The answer lies in the Afghan
coalition America cobbled together to ouster Taliban. Back then, the
Bush administration believed that the Northern Alliance (NA) could be
used as an instrument to remove the Taliban from power, subdue the Pushtoon
resistance, and bring stability to Afghanistan. But just the opposite
occurred on all three fronts. From the outset of the Bonn Conference
it became plainly clear that the NA was rife with internal rancour and
prone to outside influences of Russia and Europe. America, having spent
millions of dollars buying the fickle loyalty of warlords was left with
no option, but to counter the Pushtoon resistance on her own. If this
was not bad enough-America's association with the NA enraged the Pushtoons
further who felt politically isolated and indignant towards the Tajik-Uzbek
dominated government in Kabul. As a result, a violent rebellion erupted
against Karzai and his US masters. The epicentre of the rebellion quickly
became the strip of land known as the Pakistani tribal belt that abuts
Afghanistan. Fighters from all over Afghanistan opposed to the occupation
sought refuge here and mingled freely with the remnants of Taliban and
other Pashtoons disillusioned with American promises of a better Afghanistan.
Unable to quell the resistance,
America had to change tack. In 2003 acting under the tutelage of US
Ambassador to Afghanistan Khalilzad, Karzai adopted a two prong approach
to suppress the resistance. He offered an olive branch to moderate Taliban
fighters and declared an all out assault against hardened Pashtoon militants
and their backers. The intention was to shore up Karzai's beleaguered
government with moderate elements of the resistance movement and to
win the support of tribal elders on both sides of the Afghan-Pak border.
The longevity of any government in Kabul is dependant upon the support
of the Pashtoons. In Karzai's case, his constituency was
diminishing and support base dwindling.
America was fully aware that
the Pushtoon uprising could not be defeated unless the support structures
for waging guerrilla warfare against US forces were destroyed, especially
those located in Pakistan's tribal belt region or Federally Administered
Tribal Areas (FATA). After all, it was with American money and know-how
that the military infrastructure was meticulously assembled by Pakistan's
ISI. Training camps strewn across the region were established to arm
and train Afghans to wage asymmetric war against the Soviets. Not surprisingly
then, America turned to enlist Pakistan to deploy its army to the restless
tribal areas. Musharraf promptly obliged, and in 2004 under the pretext
of fighting foreign fighters linked to al-Qaeda, military operations
commenced in South and North Waziristan agencies.
However, the Pakistani military
forays into the tribal region yielded very little success for the Americans.
Instead, the Pakistan army suffered high causalities-some ranks even
experienced mutiny; Musharraf, America's stalwart in region lost credibility;
the Pashtoon resistance increased in ferocity, the government in Kabul
looked ever shakier and for the first time the prospect of defeat in
Afghanistan troubled American officials. Confronted with these realities
America decided to resurrect the Taliban. Pakistan swiftly abandoned
military force and hurriedly concluded peace pacts with pro-Taliban
tribal elders in the agencies.
Taliban buoyed by Pakistan's
apparent turn around, extended their reach further into Pakistan and
made Quetta, the capital city of Balochistan an additional mainstay
for their activities. Here they began to rearm and recruit young men
from religious seminaries, replenish their front lines with valuable
supplies for the planned spring offensive next year. Some of the new
recruits were given senior positions in preference to old Taliban warriors
whose loyalty could no longer be guaranteed by Pakistan's ISI. Thus
the Taliban were swiftly transformed from a rag-tag band of men into
a force to be reckoned with. This boosted their capability to lead the
Pushtoon resistance in many parts of Afghanistan. NATO was the first
international organisation to borne the full brunt of a rejuvenated
Taliban movement. Some members of NATO were surprised by the intensity
and the magnitude of the resistance. UK's Defence Secretary Des Brown
said," We do have to accept that it's been even harder than we
expected."
America deftly exploited
the upsurge in attacks against NATO troops to press home to alliance
members at the NATO summit in Riga, the need to permanently redefine
the organisation's mission, approve proposed amendments to its charter,
establish a 25,000 strong rapid reaction force, and to increase troop
levels to buttress NATO operations in Afghanistan. At the Riga summit
Bush said,"The Taliban radicals who are trying to pull down Afghanistan's
democracy and regain power saw the transfer from American to NATO control
as a window of opportunity to test the will of the Alliance.Today Afghanistan
is NATO's most important military operation, and by standing together
in Afghanistan, we'll protect our people, defend our freedom, and send
a clear message to the extremists the forces of freedom and decency
will prevail."
Nonetheless, the NATO mission
in Afghanistan exposed deep fissures-over political and operational
issues- amongst some of the older members of the alliance. France was
unequivocal in its condemnation to make NATO duplicate functions of
the UN, while Britain, America's closet alley expressed dismay at Pakistan's
endeavours to revive the Taliban. UK's Ministry of Defence
intentionally leaked a report that revealed the extent to which Pakistan's
ISI was providing assistance to the Taliban thereby contributing to
the death of British soldiers in southern Afghanistan. The disclosure
was supposed to embarrass Musharraf on his visit to London who promptly
proceeded to reject the allegation that ISI was a rogue institution
acting separately from the army. He said, "ISI is a disciplined
force, breaking the back of al-Qaida."
To redress the short-sightedness
of Britain's NATO policy in Afghanistan, Blair visited Pakistan in November,
and again urged Musharraf to put a halt to the rise of the Taliban.
The gravity of the deteriorating situation facing Britain's armed forces
was summed up in a speech given by Blair at Camp Bastion in Helmand
province. Blair said, "Here in this extraordinary piece of desert
is where the future of world security in the early twenty-first century
is going to be played out." Earlier, Bush had described Iraq and
not Afghanistan-central to the ideological struggle of the 21st century.
The difference in Anglo-American perspectives underscores America's
belief that General Musharraf will stabilise Afghanistan for them.
On the battle front, acute
differences have surfaced between American and British commanders. Britain
ignored American sensibilities and urged her ally Mohammed Daud the
governor of Helmand to and secure the retreat of British forces from
the town of Musa Qala via a peace deal with the Taliban. But the Americans
publicly criticised the truce in Musa Qala and other Helmand towns,
saying they effectively gave in to the Taliban. Exasperated by British
tactics, the Americans instructed Karzai to remove Daud from power.
"The Americans knew Daud was a main British ally," one official
told The Independent on Sunday, "yet they deliberately undermined
him and told Karzai to sack him." Americans have also been irked
by the British commander of the NATO force in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General
David Richards. On 10/12/06 the British paper Independent on Sunday
reported that the American supreme commander of NATO, General Jim Jones,
has let it be known, according to sources, that General Richards "would
have been sacked if he had been an
American officer".
Away from the battle field,
the Pakistani political establishment confident of a Taliban victory
come next spring, has begun to instil momentum in the idea that NATO
must consult the Taliban prior to any political settlement. On 30/11/06
Mushahid Hussain Sayed, chairman of the Pakistan's foreign affairs committee,
told a visiting delegation of British Parliamentarians:"There has
to be negotiations, a dialogue with all elements of Afghan society-ethnic
or political, including, frankly, members of the resistance." Latif
Khosa, of the opposition Pakistan People's Party said,"You have
to open avenues for talking with the Taliban." Speaking before
the press, Foreign Office Spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said, "The
international community must encourage national reconciliation and undertake
an extensive reconstruction programme for South and Southeast Afghanistan."
It appears that America's
plan is to exploit the Taliban to take the helm of the indigenous Afghan
resistance, invest the battle field gains made by the resistance into
a political process, which recognises the Pushtoon's popular base, but
is cognisant of other ethnic groups' concerns; then convene an international
conference to forge a comprehensive settlement pertaining to Afghanistan
and the interference from its neighbours. The pertinent issues will
be the composition of the new government in Kabul, the continuation
of US bases, the resolution of the border disputes between Afghanistan
and Pakistan, resettlement of Afghan refugees and the successful integration
of FATA into mainstream Pakistani life.
In this way, US policy makers
hope to stabilise Afghanistan and use as a conduit for transporting
the rich energy reserves of the Caspian region, conducting military
incursion into the former Soviet Republics, thwarting Russian and Chinese
expansions into Central Asia and foiling the re-establishment of the
Caliphate. However, the success of this plan depends upon factors which
may no longer be in Washington's control such as can the Pashtoons be
trusted, will the Europeans tolerate a Taliban dominated government
in Kabul, and will the Russian and Chinese remain quiet as they did
after 9-11.
As far as the people of Pakistan
are concerned they have been duped by General Musharraf into believing
that Pakistan had no choice, but to disown the Taliban and join America's
war on terror. Five years on, Pakistan has again embraced the Taliban
at the America's behest. This time it is to help the US extricate itself
from Afghanistan and preserve her plan for the region. General Musharraf
is right when he said that without Pakistan's help the West would have
been brought to its knees. But under his leadership it is Pakistan that
has been brought to its knees in a senseless quest to preserve American
interests.
Abid Mustafa
is a political commentator who specialises in Muslim affairs
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