| Issue 25 Vol II, October 15, 2006 | Archive |
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On the Brink
Pakistan after two years of fighting the tribesmen from Wazirstan with all its military might has been forced to tailor a ceasefire agreements with pro Taliban groups in June and September to withdraw thousands of army troops from North Waziristan and release several hundred Taliban and al Qaeda militants from jail. This was disturbing for the current afghan ruler whose writ interestingly does not run beyond the two cities of Kabul and Kandahar. The accord, similar to one reached with pro-Taliban forces in South Waziristan two years ago, reportedly obliges the tribal chiefs to prevent Taliban and al Qaeda forces from crossing into Afghanistan. But President Karzai has likened Islamabad’s policy to feeding a serpent and he minced no words when he spoke to the UN General Assembly last month, Yet the Americans finding themselves cornered as were once Russians went with the Pakistani plan and urged him to cooperate. Both he and his Pakistani counterpart are supposed to address a grand jirga. American President George W. Bush who is losing ground not only in Afghanistan and Iraq but back home has to be trying to stitch some policy to meet the daily exposures and defeats called the two leaders to a White House dinner. They may be is personal friends he as he described them, yet they have nothing to agree upon. President Musharraf has been likening the Afghan leader’s policies to those of an ostrich. Karzai whose argument that these tribal areas are the feeding ground for Talibans and al Qaeda finds support among the top US and NATO officers who have been skeptical of the approach of the West. He has been squarely blaming the US and its allies for doing practically nothing to initiate development work to dislodge the Talibans from the hearts of the people. In fact, America and other western countries that created the Talibans and al Qaeda to fight the Soviets and later abandoned the country to suffer at the hands of Islamic fundamentalists have worked no plan as yet. It has no human concerns and is all the time has larger hegemonic agenda. This suits the Taliban and provides much needed fuel to their ideology. It is ironical that when Musharraf sat down with Karzai for a peace-making dinner hosted by Bush, an anonymous senior U.S. military officer was telling reporters in Kabul that cross-border attacks by Taliban forces had, in fact, tripled since the North Waziristan truce actually took effect. As Washington Post reported on the basis of a captured al Qaeda document that strongly suggested that at least part of the group's top leadership is in fact living in North Waziristan, bolstering claims that the truce had created, in Newsweek magazine's words, a "'Jihadistan'... an autonomous quasi state of religious radicals, mostly belonging to Pashto tribes..." stretching from central Afghanistan to much of northwestern Pakistan. Some experts and concerned American public men have been suggesting that Washington and NATO must give top priority to three policy objectives: eliminating the Pakistani sanctuary (for the Taliban and al Qaeda); dramatically increasing international economic assistance, and pressing Karzai to take much tougher stand against corrupt and abusive elements in his government. Similar advice is available for Iraq where at least fifty thousands people have lost their lives and many times uprooted and a modern developed nation is in utter ruins with no signs of any bright future. Can it happen? If past is any guide, it can not. Both from Afghanistan and Iraq the US and its allies can not return in the near future and when they return they would be much bruised and depleted of men and resources. These two countries too would be in ruins where very existence is becoming impossible. All talk about democracy and human rights have been sham. This kind of miserable situation would be a gift from the American and the rest of the West to the less developed poor third world. What becomes of the Global War on Terrorism, no one has any clear answer. |
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IT
is now five years when the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] of the United
States started executing its brilliant campaign to oust the Taliban and its
al Qaeda allies from Afghanistan, yet the ground reality is that the country
is in tatters. A serious insurgency fueled by a thriving drug trade and
growing popular disaffection with the government of President Hamid Karzai
has virtually unnerved both the U.S and its NATO allies. A fierce and
prolonged Taliban offensive that began last summer has only brought knee
jerk reactions from Washington, Kabul and Islamabad.