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November 28, 2001
Harry Browne
The Bill of
Rights:
They Threw It All Away
Sunil
Sharma
Suffer
Palestine's Children
November 27, 2001
Paul Coggins
Kafka and
the Patriot Act
Tariq
Ali
Tigris
and Euprhates
November 26, 2001
Robert Fisk
Blood and
Tears in Kandahar
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Boeing's
Sweet Deal
CounterPunch Wire
Human
Rights Abuses and
Nuke Waste Shipments
Alexander
Cockburn
Harry
Potter and Terrorism
November 25, 2001
Ralph Nader
The Crisis
in Leadership
Sam Bahour
Israel's
Choice
November 24, 2001
Patrick Cockburn
He Who
Has
the Guns Rules
November 23, 2001
Phyllis
Pollack
Long
Live The Clash
Cockburn/St. Clair
The Press
and
the Patriot Act
November 22, 2001
Oscar
Gonzalez
A
Homeland Thanksgiving
November 21, 2001
CounterPunch Wire
Rep. Chambliss
Calls for Arrest of Every Muslim That Enters Georgia
Tom Turnipseed
Broadcasting
and Bombing
David Price
Academia Under
Attack
Molly
Secours
Modern
Day Witch Trials
Tariq Ali
Killing
Mr. Biswas
November 20, 2001
Sam Bahour
Plain
Truths About Palestine
Michael Ratner
Moving Toward
a
Police State
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
November 19, 2001
Edward
Said
Suicidal
Ignorance
November 18, 2001
John Farley
Shame on You,
Chelsea!
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Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
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November 28,
2001
Tribal Council:
"Don't
Blame the Taliban for Everything"
By Patrick Cockburn
The Independent
in Mohammed Agha, Afghanistan
In a field in an arid valley south of Kabul a
hundred local leaders, all powerful in their own districts, assembled
yesterday to debate the future of their province at the same
time as Afghan politicians were meeting in Germany to try to
create a stable government for their country.
There was tension in the air at this
tribal council, or jirga, in the Mohammed Agha district of Logar
province, once known, before the present disastrous drought,
as the "breadbasket of Kabul". People here are from
the Pashtun community, and the Northern Alliance is mainly Tajik
and Uzbek.
Just off the road we saw the menacing
guns of two Northern Alliance tanks pointing at Mohammed Agha.
It was clear that many of the leaders,
most of whom fought against the Communist government in the 1980s
or come from prominent local families, do not much like either
the Northern Alliance or the defeated Taliban. After the fall
of Kabul, leaders in Logar even raised the blue United Nations
flag over their headquarters in a bid to assert their neutrality.
The jirga's purpose was to appoint a
new governor, but all the problems of Afghanistan were addressed.
It was self-deception to blame everything on the Taliban, said
a giant military commander called Ajap Khan Masud. At least 6ft
5in tall, dressed all in black and wearing a large silver ring
with pink amber in it, he told the meeting: "These difficulties
we are now facing are our own fault."
He spoke of the murderous anarchy in
Afghanistan in 1992 and 1996 before the Taliban took over, before
adding defensively: "I was a commander here then, but I
did not rape women, I did not oppress people." Then some
of the leaders start to heckle him, shouting: "Don't say
these things, don't remind us of that time."
But another commander called Izatollah
Kouchai rose to defend him. He said: "The Taliban were not
foreigners. They were our brothers. We have to retain our humanity.
Whoever says the Taliban were pagans is not a Muslim himself."
The sense of the meeting was that somehow
they had to avoid the savagery of the pre-Taliban era as well
as the authoritarianism of the Taliban.
More circumspectly--perhaps with an eye
to the tanks down the road--there was no enthusiasm for domination
by the Northern Alliance. Gholam Ghaus Nasri, the 34-year-old
commander of Mohammed Agha district, the man who had raised the
UN flag, said: "Local people must rule in their own districts
even if we send troops to support the government."
As elsewhere in Afghanistan, the provincial
leadership is intent on retaining power despite the political
earthquake of the past month. Gholam Gaus, who inherited his
position from his brother, who was killed fighting the Russians,
seemed nervous.
He explained that he had been forced
to leave the country by the Taliban. He went to live in Peshawar
in Pakistan. When he left he had 1,000 armed men at his command.
"I now have only 50 men with guns," he said. "The
rest were disarmed by the Taliban though they are still loyal
to me."
He hinted that he would like to see them
rearmed, but the Northern Alliance would not allow it. He added
that he had taken down his UN flag, but "I still have it,
though the Northern Alliance does not know it, in this very room."
The problem for the Northern Alliance
is that its spectacular military victories were only possible
because of the support of US air power. It is now over-extended.
It also has to reach an accommodation with Pashtun leaders, like
those who attended the jirga yesterday.
Ajap Khan told the meeting that "we
have never had any problems between Pashtun, Tajik and Uzbek
around here, though they do in the north of the country."
But the very fact he raised the subject showed what is in people's
minds.
The raising of the UN flag indicates
that their acceptance of the Northern Alliance victory is grudging
and probably only temporary.
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