|
November 30, 2001
Jordan
Green
Disappeared
in the Southland
Willliam Blum
Rebuilding
Afghanistan?
November 29, 2001
Phillip
Cryan
Defining
Terrorism
Robert Fisk
We Are the
War Criminals Now
November 28, 2001
Tom Turnipseed
A
Continuum of Terror
Patrick Cockburn
Tribal
Council:
Don't Blame It All on Taliban
Robert
Fisk
At
Last, The Truth about the Sabra and Chatila Massacres
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!
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. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
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
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
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
|
November 30,
2001
The Afghan King and the Nazis:
A
German Dispatch From 1940 Shows
King Mohammed Zahir Shah's True Colors
By Tariq Ali
Some weeks ago, I predicted a rapid defeat of
the Taliban . It was obvious that without the military and logistical
support of their creators--the Pakistan Army--they would collapse,
but the price being paid for this "victory" is unacceptable.
The Northern Alliance is a confederation
of monsters. Attaching  dissidents to the
chains of a tank and crushing them in public view, executing
defenceless prisoners, extracting gold teeth from corpses, raping
men and women, are all part of a day's work for these guardians
of the heroin trade. Blemishes of yesteryear? No such luck. Much
of this is going on today under the approving gaze of US marines,
CIA agents and the handful of SAS men that Blair was allowed.
And where will the 2000 German troops now be sent? To Iraq? Europe
has been spared pictures of most of these atrocities, because
the perpetrators are "our friends", but Arab viewers
knew what was going on long before the massacre of Mazar Sharif.
The Geneva Convention is being violated every single day.
From being told that they were not allowed
to take Kabul, the Alliance have now been promoted to the full
status of "our allies". Just like Osama Bin Laden and
his praetorian guard in the glory days of the Cold War. Learn
nothing. Forget nothing.
The facts are these: the situation in
Afghanistan is inherently unstable. Only fantasists could suggest
otherwise. The notion that the Alliance in its present form could
last out a few years is risible. Turf wars have already begun
in "liberated" Kabul, though open clashes have been
avoided. There is too much at stake. The West is watching. Money
has been promised. Putin and Khatami are urging caution. But
the dam will burst sooner rather than later. Once the Marines
depart with or without the head of Bin Laden, the Alliance will
discover that there is no money for anything these days except
waging war. The boy-scout propaganda that "we're re-making
the world" is designed for domestic consumption. Schools
and hospitals and homes are not going to be sprouting next spring
or the one after in Afghanistan or Kosovo. And if the 87 year-old
King Zahir Shah is wheeled over from Rome, what then? Nothing
much, thinks the West, except to try and convince the Pashtuns
that their interests are being safeguarded.
Judging from past form indicates that
Zahir Shah might not be satisfied with the status quo. His people
were in fine fettle at the Afghan summit in Bonn, where they
were put up in the hotel where Neviille Chamberlain used to stay.
A document from the German Foreign Office, dated 3 October, 1940
(cracked by the Enigma decoder during the Second World War) makes
fascinating reading. It is from State Secretary Weizsacker to
the German legation in Kabul and is worth quoting in some detail:
"The Afghan Minister called on me
on September 30 and conveyed greetings from his Minister President
and the War Minister, as well as their good wishes for a favourable
outcome of the war. He inquired whether German aims in Asia coincided
with Afghan hopes; he alluded to the oppression of Arab countries
and referred to the 15 million Afghans [Pashtuns, mainly in the
North West Frontier Province ---TA] who were forced to suffer
on Indian territory. My statement that Germany's goal was the
liberation of the peoples of the region referred to, who were
under the British yoke, as well as the restoration of their rights,
was received with satisfaction by the Afghan Minister. He stated
that justice for Afghanistan would be created only when the country's
frontier had been extended to the Indus; this would also apply
if India should secede from Britain...The Afghan remarked that
Afghanistan had given proof of her loyal attitude by vigorously
resisting English pressure to break off relations with Germany.
Today he wanted to present Afghanistan's wishes as a matter of
precaution, but he requested strict secrecy; he called a fulfilment
of these wishes a matter for the future."
The King who had dispatched the Minister
to Berlin was the 26-year old Zahir Shah. The Minister-President
was his uncle Sardar Muhammad Hashim Khan. What is interesting
in the German dispatch is not so much the hatred for Britain,
which was normal at that time. It is the desire for a Greater
Afghanistan by the incorporation of what is now Pakistan's North-West
Frontier Province and its capital Peshawar. Zahir Shah's return
is being strongly resisted by Pakistan. They know that the King
never accepted the Durand Line, not even as a temporary border.
They are concerned that he might encourage Pashtun nationalism.
Islamabad's decision to hurl the Taliban
into battle and take Kabul was partially designed to solve the
Pashtun question. Religion might transcend ethnic nationalism.
Instead the two combined. A proto-Taliban group, Tehrik-e-Nifaz-i-Shariah-
e-Mohammed (TNSM) seized a large chunk of Swat during Benazir
Bhutto's government. It forced women to veil themselves in "burqas",
banned watching television and had a public bonfire of TV sets
and videos (in Italy this could be seen as a protest against
Berlusconi, but not in Pakistan!) imposed "Islamic punishments"
including amputations.
Bhutto was helpless and paralysed, but
last week Musharraf imprisoned the TNSM leader, Soofi Mohammed
Saeed. Coming on the heels of the Taliban defeat this could create
an ugly atmosphere in parts of the country, especially since
many Taliban have returned to Pakistan.
Not all the repercussions of this crude
war of revenge have come to the fore, but the surface calm in
Pakistan is deceptive. With armed fundamentalists of the Lashkar-e-Taiba
threatening to "take on the government" if attempts
are made to disarm them, the question of how much support they
enjoy within the military establishment becomes critical. The
inflow of US military aid and the lifting of sanctions has persuaded
Musharraf's opponents within the Army to leave him in place,
but for how long?
Add to that the appalling situation in
Kashmir with a monthly casualty rate higher than Palestine, where
Indian soldiers and Pakistani-infiltrated jihadis confront each
other over the corpses of Kashmiri innocents. If Delhi were to
use the "war against terrorism" as a precedent and
decide to bomb the terrorist bases in Pakistan, the sub-continent
could implode.
Tariq Ali,
a frequent CounterPunch contributor, is the author of The
Stone Woman, just published in paperback by Verso. His new
book, The Clash of Fundamentalisms, will be published
in March, 2002.
|