Afghanistan: Land of Valor, Land of Sorrow - Part 6
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
CA
The Taliban, joined by many erstwhile mujahideen and idealist youth, made rapid gains against the warlords. In 1996 they captured Kabul. The warlords were pushed into a small enclave in Northern Afghanistan around Mazar e Sharif.
The Taliban brought stability to the country and controlled the opium trade. However, the price for this stability was the imposition of a rigid, extremist regime in Kabul. The participation of women in public life was banned. Women were compelled to wear head to toe chadurs and shrouds, and men to grow their beards long.
Television was banned and cinema houses closed. Magazines were censored for their pictures and their content. Vice squads were organized to patrol the streets. Violators of the rigid behavioral code were severely and publicly flogged. In 2001, the Taliban, at the orders of Mulla Omar, dynamited the famous Buddha statues of Bamyan. These statues were carved out of sandstone in the sixth century CE and were the finest examples of Gandhara Buddhist sculpture. They were declared UNESCO world heritage sites.
The demolition of the statues drew worldwide condemnation and vehement protests from the Buddhist world. (The Dalai Lama personally expressed his sorrow to me over this demolition when I met him in Amritsar, India in November 2007).
The extremist ideology of the Taliban was matched only by their political naïveté. The increasing competition for the dwindling energy resources of the world put Afghanistan squarely in the midst of oil politics. The discovery of oil and gas in the Caspian Sea region increased the strategic importance of Afghanistan. There were only two routes available to transport the oil and gas from the Caspian Sea to the oil thirsty nations of Western Europe, United States, India and China. One was through Iran but the participation of Iran in any oil venture was opposed by the United States which was at loggerheads with the Iranian regime since the Islamic revolution of 1978. The other route lay through Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A proposal for such a pipeline originating in Turkmenistan and passing through western Afghanistan and Baluchistan to Karachi was presented to the Taliban government by UNOCAL, a US-Saudi consortium. It was rejected in favor of an alternate proposal from the Argentine corporation Bridas. The hardliners in Washington bridled at this rejection. It provided an added excuse to get rid of the Taliban and have them replaced by a more pliant government.
On September 11, 2001, the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center were attacked. The horrendous attack took the lives of almost 3,000 people and caused billions in economic loss. In its sheer mendacity, the attack was comparable to that on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The United States accused Al Qaeda of carrying out the attacks and demanded that the Taliban in Afghanistan turn over Bin Laden and his cohorts to the US. The Taliban, inexperienced in global affairs, demanded proof for Al Qaeda complicity. A diplomatic standoff ensued. Despite the advice of their friends in Pakistan, the Taliban did not budge. Within a month, the United States commenced its bombing of Afghanistan. Simultaneously, the Northern Alliance was provided arms and encouragement to break out of its enclave and take over the country.
The sustained, intense bombing obliterated the military infrastructure of Afghanistan. Destroyed were the mountain hideouts and caves so carefully prepared during the Soviet occupation for a long guerilla war. The Taliban reeled under pressure of aerial bombardment from the United States and ground attacks from the Northern Alliance. Thousands died. Civilian casualties were enormous. The Northern Alliance overran Kabul and on the way committed atrocities to avenge of the humiliation of earlier defeats.
The United States installed a new government in Kabul. Hamid Karzai became the President of Afghanistan in 2004 in an American backed government. The presence of foreign troops fueled an insurgency backed by the former Taliban. As resistance increased, so did the military presence of the United States and its NATO allies. And the war continues with increasing intensity fueled by the obscurantism of the Taliban and the fears of an obdurate, over-committed superpower run by neo-cons.
Meanwhile, the suffering of the Afghan people continues with no end in sight. Refugees rot in camps in Pakistan and Iran. Children die from land mines. Famine threatens millions. Education and culture have come to a grinding halt. Women continue to bear the brunt of the tragedies and are exploited and abused both inside and outside their land. The war threatens to spill over into Pakistan and place it squarely in the bulls-eye.
An unstable Afghanistan poses a grave risk to all of its neighbors. A neutral Afghanistan, allied neither with the United States nor with Russia or China, with open frontiers for the passage of oil and gas, and respect for the traditions of its ancient people and its Islamic heritage. would be in the best interests of all. Whether this comes to pass will depend as much on the actions of the Afghans as the regional intentions of the United States. (Concluded)
