Of Terrorists and their proponents

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By Huzaima Bukhari and Dr. Ikramul Haq

terrorism.gifThe likely threat of military attack by the US and its allies in the tribal areas of Pakistan using the pretext of potential strike like 9/11 and increasing activities of the Taliban is creating fear and panic amongst masses. The main agenda behind this bizarre scheme is to push the armed forces of Pakistan to the wall, get the control of nuclear arsenals and use bogey of ‘Islamic terrorism’ for the containment of China. George W. Bush Jr., now lame-duck President, before leaving the Oval, wants to ensure that the new man taking his place should have no option but to remain engaged in wars in various parts of the world.

Before one tries to understand the recent US military and propaganda outbursts against the Taliban, one must turn one’s mental clock back three decades or so, and recollect the legacy of Bush Senior. It was George Herbert Walker Bush’s ‘New World Order’ that led to the biggest and worldwide economic chaos during the Gulf War. As Vice-President and President, Bush was an unfortunate instance of ‘collateral damage’, or a ‘necessary evil’, flowing from his more primary geopolitical mission: to usher in the post-nation-state “one world order”, first spelled out in the mid-1970s Trilateral Commission studies of Samuel Huntington and Zbigniew Brzezinski, and first unleashed by the 1977-81 ‘All Trilat’ Jimmy Carter administration.

George Bush remarkable feats include inter alia amongst others:

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Son of a Lion

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pust.jpgAustralian filmmaker Benjamin Gilmour’s debut movie, Son of a Lion, tells the story of a young Pashtun boy who wants to escape working in his father’s weapons workshop and go to school. Gilmour speaks to Spiegel Online about his attempt to combat negative stereotypes about the Pashtun people.

For most people in the West, Pakistan’s remote tribal region bordering Afghanistan held little interest - until Osama bin Laden and his fellow Al-Qaeda fanatics decided to hole up there. The tough terrain and the Pashtun people’s tribal code of hospitality has provided them with protection ever since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan over six years ago.

Australian filmmaker Benjamin Gilmour visited the region before the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and was captivated by the local Pashtun people. Horrified by the post-9/11 negative images of the tribal areas in the Western media, he decided to go back secretly and make a film about the people that showed them in their true light. He and his local assistant director managed to shoot a story about a young 11-year-old boy who dreams of escaping his father’s weapons workshop and going to school. The simple story, which was co-written by the local people in the village of Darra Adam Khel, is a delicate portrait of a father-and-son relationship, which portrays the local people as well-informed about politics and far from supporters of the Taliban.

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Taliban breached NATO base in deadly clash

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By Carlotta Gall and Eric Schmitt - International Herald Tribune

taliban_fighters_attending_funeral-2.jpgJuly 15, 2008-The Taliban insurgents who attacked a remote American-run outpost near the Pakistan border on Sunday numbered nearly 200 fighters, almost three times the size of the allied force, and some breached the NATO compound in a coordinated assault that took the defenders by surprise, Western officials said Monday.

The attackers were driven back in a pitched four-hour battle, and appeared to suffer scores of dead and wounded of their own, but the toll they inflicted was sobering. The base and a nearby observation post were manned by just 45 American troops and 25 Afghan soldiers, two senior allied officials said, asking for anonymity while an investigation is under way.

With 9 Americans dead and at least 15 injured, that means that one in five of the American defenders was killed and nearly half the remainder were wounded. Four Afghan soldiers were also injured.

American and Afghan forces started building the makeshift base just last week and its defenses were not fully in place, said one senior allied official. In some places, troops were using their vehicles as barriers against insurgents.

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Welcome to the Badlands

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What must never, repeat never, be done is to negotiate a treaty with these elements from a weaker position. A Pathan despises weakness as much in himself as in any one else. Such treaties are not worth the paper these are written on.

By Anwaar Hussain

oie_talibanselected4.jpgThe badlands were not always badlands.

The Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, or FATA as these are more commonly known, are an amazing place with a fascinating history. This unique region of pine-scented vales, tall mountains, deep gorges, harsh topography and even harsher demography has traveled a tortuous path throughout its known history.

Starting from 500 BC to date, the region which includes Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier of Pakistan has seen perhaps more invasions in the course of history than any other country in Asia, or indeed in the world. However, during most of this period when the plains surrounding this region had been dominated by great powers of the times, these hill tracts and the tribes that inhabited these remained fiercely independent.

The people of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and FATA as well as the adjacent eastern regions of Afghanistan are overwhelmingly Pathan, or Pashtun as they are alternatively called, with a total population of around 40 million. About 18 million of these are living on the Pakistani side. Within the NWFP province, geographically, FATA runs north to south, forming a 1,200-kilometer wedge between Afghanistan and the settled areas of the NWFP. The Durand Line supposedly divided Pathan tribes between British India and Afghanistan in 1893. Supposedly because the line has never been effectively able to divide these tribes and since then this delineation has been viewed with great contempt and bitterness by Pathans on both sides of the line.

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Bomb Haters, Unite!

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Who was it that said, if you live with a cripple, you would learn to limp.

By Anwaar Hussain

kandahar_crutch.gif Walk down a busy Kabul street and try coming back unscarred.

Legless men rattle down bazaars in wheelbarrows, little children with missing limbs crab along like some decapods, one-legged men hobble about on ugly crutches among the throng of people. The common threads; they are all war victims, they are all beggars. Welcome to the land of the wretched.

Perhaps no other place on earth has a larger proportion of disabled citizens living out their miserable existences in such heart rending circumstances as Afghanistan. Three decades of war, millions of mines and unexploded ordinance (UXO) for children to trip over, not to include the hordes of suicide bombers now killing in the name of God, have turned Afghanistan into a wasteland of the mutilated and the crippled.

War-related disabilities, primarily loss of limbs, account for an overwhelming proportion of non-birth-defect cases. Cluster munitions and land mines are among the main causes. Out of a population of 25 million, 123,000 Afghans have directly been so incapacitated by war and its consequences.

The Afghans are not alone in their suffering though. Owing to these horrific weapons of war, countless more human beings today live in similar misery in Laos, Iraq, Chechnya, Kosovo, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

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Afghanistan - Who is The Enemy?

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By Eric Walberg

afghanistan.jpgThe US is not only repeating all the Soviets’ mistakes in Afghanistan, it is showing remarkable creativity in the horrors department, says Eric Walberg in the first of a two-part series.

Twenty years ago this week the Soviet Union began its withdrawal from Afghanistan, eight and a half years after it was invited by the desperate People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), which had degenerated into intra-party squabbling and was beset by Islamic rebels massively financed by the United States. The straw that broke the Soviets’ back was when the US began providing Stinger missiles to Osama bin Laden and his friends.

Now, after eight years of US/NATO occupation, the parallels - and differences - between the two occupation are many and stark, as confirmed by the current Russian ambassador to Afghanistan , Zamir Kabulov.

“There is no mistake made by the Soviet Union that was not repeated by the international community here in Afghanistan ,” Kabulov said. “Underestimation of the Afghan nation, the belief that we have superiority over Afghans, that they are inferior and cannot be trusted to run affairs in this country. A lack of knowledge of the social and ethnic structure of this country; a lack of sufficient understanding of traditions and religion.”

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Lingering in Jalozai Camp

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By Zaigham Khan, Thursday, April 24, 2008

jalo.jpgIt was like a tumour on the body of Peshawar, a cancer that had to be removed sooner or later. The surgeon’s knife is working swiftly to eliminate the last traces of the Jalozai Camp, a mini-Afghanistan, from the soil of Pakistan. Its graveyard, where the dead are buried in the order of the Afghan provinces, may be allowed to stay on. In today’s world, dead Afghans have some privileges that living Afghans do not enjoy.

Located about 20 miles southwest of Peshawar, Jalozai was set up in 1980 to receive refugees fleeing from Afghanistan. It was a time when Pakistan under Zia-ul-Haq was a champion of the free world’s struggle against the evil empire occupying Afghanistan. Dignity and human rights for Afghan people were high on the agenda of the Pakistani government even though Pakistanis were living in indignity and ignominy. Jalozai was a significant square on the huge chessboard laid out to give a bloody nose to the Soviet Union. It was the centre of Arab fighters, who flocked to it to participate in the holy struggle, and seven Afghan jihadi organisations, generously supported by the CIA. It was here that the foremost jihadi ideologue of our times, Abdullah Azzam, founded a Jihad University, which promoted a new and radical interpretation of the Islamic concept of jihad. Abdullah Azzam and a number of other prominent jihadi leaders now lie in peace at the Jalozai graveyard.

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NATO’s Afghan Quagmire

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 by Patrick Seale

TS Admin : An absolute must-read with this article Bring out the Nails by Anwaar Hussain

natoflags.jpgNATO — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — is the world’s most powerful military alliance. It has two million men under its command, a thousand helicopters and countless other military resources. Yet it is facing failure, if not actual defeat, in Afghanistan. Why?

The answer is simple. The Afghan war was misconceived from the very start. It was decided in rage and haste by Washington, without proper thought or planning, in response to al-Qaida’s 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States. 

Instead of patiently tracking down al-Qaida’s leaders by police and counter-terrorist methods, the United Sates launched an all-out war against Afghanistan with the declared goal not only of smashing Al-Qaida, but also the Taliban regime which, willingly or unwillingly, was giving it sanctuary.

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My country is using Islamic law to erode the rights of women

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By Malalai Joya*

TS Admin : Some courage the lady has. Read on.

sharbat-gula.jpgAfter six years in control, this government has proved itself to be as bad as the Taliban - in fact, it is little more than a photocopy of the Taliban. The situation in Afghanistan is getting progressively worse - and not just for women, but for all Afghans.

Our country is being run by a mafia, and while it is in power there is no hope for freedom for the people of Afghanistan. How can anyone, man or woman, enjoy basic freedoms when living under the shadow of warlords? The government was not democratically elected, and it is now trying to use the country’s Islamic law as a tool with which to limit women’s rights.

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Fighting Someone Else’s War

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by Ayaz Amir*

*Mr. Ayaz Amir is a prominent Pakistani columnist.

bkushi.jpg

THE war the Pakistan army is being made to fight in the two Waziristans is not our war. It is a war calibrated to an American agenda, Pakistan being asked to pull the chestnuts out of a fire the Americans have started.

Yet so helpless is this government, so tightly held in America’s embrace, that it can do nothing. Even if it wants to, it cannot break free from this suffocating relationship, more like bondage, which is costing us dearly and will cost us more as time passes.

This is a war for Pakistan’s soul, we are told, a war between the forces of moderation and extremism. This is self-serving nonsense served up as justification for performing mercenary duty in defence of American interests. Read more



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Anwaar’s articles appear simultaneously here at Truth Spring and at Soul Vibes in The Pakistan Tribune.


US loses its status as economic world power
DAVOS, Switzerland, 2008
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