|
October
9, 2001
Patrick
Cockburn
Bombs
Weaken Taliban
Lenni
Brenner
Powell
the Owl
Zha
Marginalization
and Terror
Steve
Perry
It
Begins
October
8, 2001
Zbigniew
Brzezinski
How
Jimmy Carter and
I Started the Muj
Philip Agee
The
USA and Terrorism
Mahajan
and Jensen
A
War of Lies
Patrick
Cockburn
Northern
Alliance
Builds an Airport
October
7, 2001
John Pilger
Hitchens'
Slurs
Tariq
Ali
Who
Said History
Stopped Being Ironical?
October
6, 2001
Vijay
Prashad
US
War Aims
Kevin
Gray
The
Trap:
Blacks and 9/11
October
5, 2001
Ronnie
Gilbert
Déjà
Vu: The FBI's War
on Civil Liberties
Patrick
Cockburn
Taliban
Cluster Bombs
Dave
Marsh
John
Brown, Woody Guthrie
and the Secret Music of 9/11
Babak
Nahid
A
Suspect's Perspective
October
4, 2001
David
Vest
Send
in the Cons
Robin
Blackburn
Road
to Armageddon
Noam
Chomsky
Chatting
with Chomsky
Tony
Blair
The
Dossier on bin Laden
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published Oct. 3, 2001
8-Page Special
Issue
Aftermath
Diary
Ashcroft's Onslaught
on
Civil Liberties
Ridge Long Groomed
for
Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
Bids
Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
Ban
Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
Fled Bel Air
Tom Ridge's
Vietnam
Same as Kerrey's?
A CounterPunch
Journey
to Ramallah
A Word About
God
Nostrodamus
Jam-maker
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James
Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas
Valentine
Al
Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
New Stories:
|
October 10,
2001
The Pakistan Maelstrom
By Tariq Ali
For the last three weeks Pakistan's
military rulers have been trying to convince the Taliban to
hand over Osama bin Laden and avoid the catastrophe being prepared.
They failed.
Since Osama is the son-in-law
of Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, this was hardly surprising.
The more interesting question is whether Pakistan, after withdrawing
its own soldiers, officers and pilots from Afghanistan, has
managed to split the Taliban and withdraw some of those totally
dependent on its patronage. This would be a key aim of the military
regime to maintain its influence in a future coalition government
in Kabul.
Relations between Pakistan
and the Taliban leadership have been tense this year. Last year,
in an effort to cement Pak-Afghan friendship, Pakistan dispatched
a football team to play a friendly against Afghanistan. As the
two teams faced each other in the stadium at Kabul with the
referee about to blow the opening whistle, bearded security
forces entered and announced that the Pakistani footballers
were indecently attired. They were wearing normal football
shorts, whereas the Afghans were dressed in surreal long shorts
which came down well below the knees. Perhaps it was felt that
the rippling thighs of the Pakistanis might cause upheavals
in the all-male audience. Who knows? The Pakistani players were
arrested, their heads were shaved and they were all flogged
in public while the stadium audience was forced to chant verses
from the Koran. This was Mullah Omar's friendly warning shot
to the Pakistani military to assert the independence of his
leadership and his loyalty to Bin Laden.
The bombing of Kabul and Kandahar
by the United States and its ever-loyal British ally will not
have seriously affected the fighting strength of the Taliban.
The combined force - including Bin Laden's special brigade of
Arabs - is now reported to consist of 30-40,000 hardened veterans.
Nonetheless the Taliban are effectively encircled and isolated.
Their defeat is inevitable. Both Pakistan and Iran are ranged
against them on two important borders. It is unlikely they will
last more than a few weeks. Obviously some of their forces will
go to the mountains and wait till the west withdraws before
attacking the new regime, likely to be installed in Kabul when
the octogenarian King Zahir Shah is moved from his comfortable
Roman villa to less salubrious surroundings in the wreckage
of Kabul.
The Northern Alliance backed
by the west is marginally less religious than the Taliban, but
its record on everything else is just as abysmal. Over the last
year they have taken over the marketing of heroin on a large
scale, making a mockery of Blair's claim that this war is also
a war against drugs.
The notion that they would
represent an advance on the Taliban is laughable. Their first
instinct will be revenge against their opponents. However the
Alliance has been weakened in recent days by the defection of
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, once the favourite "freedom-fighter"
of the west, welcomed in the White House and Downing Street
by Reagan and Thatcher.
This man has now decided to
back the Taliban against the infidel. Sustaining a new client
state in Afghanistan will not be an easy affair given local
and regional rivalries. General Musharraf has already told Pakistanis
he will not accept a regime dominated by the Northern Alliance.
This is hardly surprising since his army has been fighting the
Alliance for over a decade.
Till now the Pakistan army
(unlike its Arab counterparts) has avoided a coup mounted by
captains and colonels. It has always been the generals who have
seized power and kept the army united, largely by sharing out
the pieces of silver.
It is an open question whether
that will be enough on this occasion. A lot will depend on the
aftermath of the current war. A major concern for the overwhelming
majority of Pakistanis is that the Taliban, cornered and defeated
in their own country, will turn on Pakistan and wreak havoc
on its cities and social fabric. Peshawar, Quetta, Lahore and
Karachi are especially vulnerable. By that time the west, having
scored a "victory", will turn a blind eye to the mess
left behind.
As for the supposed aim of
this operation - the capture of Bin Laden - this is unlikely
to be easy. He is well-protected in the remote Pamir mountains
and might well disappear. But victory will still be proclaimed.
The west will rely on the short memory of its citizens. But
let us even suppose that Bin Laden is captured and killed. How
will this help the "war against terrorism"? Other
individuals will decide to mimic the events of September 11
in different ways.
More importantly, the focus
will shift to the Middle East. In Saudi Arabia fierce factional
struggle within the royal family is in progress. Saudiologists
have long recognised that Crown Prince Abdullah is close to
the Wahhabi clerics. But he will still face a bitterly angry
population--as will Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. The prospect of
eruptions in these two countries is growing and the consequences
of the Anglo-American war in Afghanistan are likely to be incendiary.
CP
Tariq Ali, a frequent CounterPunch contributor,
is the author of The
Stone Woman.
|