Asia Times’s Syed Saleem Shahzad has a must-read story on their website Thursday. He writes:
- While the world’s attention focused on the troubles of President General Pervez Musharraf following his declaration of a state of emergency in Pakistan at the weekend, the Taliban have launched a coup of their own in Afghanistan and the Pashtun areas of Pakistan.
… The November 4 declaration of an emergency and the preparations before it was enforced distracted the military. As a result, several villages and towns in the Swat Valley, only a drive of four hours from Islamabad, have fallen to the Taliban without a single bullet being fired – fearful Pakistani security forces simply surrendered their weapons.
The Taliban have secured similar successes in the northwestern Afghan province of Farah and the southwestern provinces of Uruzgan and Kandahar, where districts have fallen without much resistance.
A new wave of attacks is expanding the Taliban’s grip in the southeastern provinces of Khost and Kunar. And on Tuesday, the Taliban are suspected to have been responsible for the massive suicide attack in northern Baghlan province in which scores of people died, including a number of parliamentarians, most notably Sayed Mustafa Kazimi, the Hazara Shi’ite leader.
I have no reason to doubt the veracity of Shahzad’s account, and have often admired his reporting from Pakistan (and Afghanistan) in the past.
By way of background, in mid-October Tom Koenigs, Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Afghanistan, told the Security Council that “the number of violent incidents was up approximately 30 per cent on a month-to-month basis, with a significant increase in civilian casualties — at least 1,200 had been killed since January.”
Not many institutions in the west keep anything like a close enough watch on political and security developments in Afghanistan. One intriguing report I found was this one, issued by Swisspeace on September 30. (That’s a PDF file. You can get around half of the textual material from it in this HTML version. The PDF version has a map that illustrates handily the extent to which Afghanistan-related violence bleeds across the country’s borders– into Pakistan, and into countries to the north.)
The Swisspeace report recalls that the large “peace jirga” held with a total of 850 Afghan and Pakistani participants in mid-August called for the establishment of a smaller peace delegation that would hold a dialogue with the Taliban:
- While the Taliban initially responded positively, a Taliban spokesman later made talks conditional upon a withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
The idea of seeking a negotiated settlement with the Taliban appears to have gained ground in Afghanistan and now even seems to be backed by the US, which could be explained by a possible military attack of the US in Iran. If the weakened President Karzai intends to win the presidential elections in 2009 he might indeed require Pashtun and Taliban backing to outweigh the growing opposition from former factional leaders of the Northern Alliance…
There is more analysis there, too, about the close linkage between the Afghan/Pakistan situation and the US-Iran situation…
(Talk about an “arc of instability”! And which outside power do we see caught right up in the middle of it???)
Regarding the possibility of the US “backing” the idea of intra-Afghan negotiations that include the Taliban, my first reaction is to say (1) that I think that trying to include one’s opponents in serious peacemaking efforts is always a good idea– q.v., my latest Nation article on Hamas and Hizbullah; but (2) if the administration is indeed considering such a switch, it should at the very least talk about it openly with the US citizenry so we can all understand the reasoning, rather than going about it slyly and as part of a still quite unjustifiable rush into a war with Iran.
I note that the Swisspeace report also stressed that,
- the Karzai administration continuously stresses its good relations with Iran. Iranian President Ahmadinejad visited Kabul for the first time in the middle of August. At the end of his visit, the two governments signed various agreements to strengthen mutual cooperation…
Note on the lawyers’ protest in Pakistan.
Much of the political drama currently being played out in Pakistan has to do with the role of lawyers in society and governance. This obviously closely linked to the issue of “the rule of law”, though it is not exactly the same as it. Musharraf’s sacking of four Supreme Court justices last Saturday has many echoes of the campaign Egypt’s Mubarak has been waging against the lawyers in his country, and I can’t help thinking through some of the parallels, and some of the apparent differences, in the two situations…
One thing that struck me, looking at photos both of the street protests mounted by some lawyers and of protesting lawyers being hauled away in trucks by the security forces, was the strong contrast in both dress styles and facial-hair styles between the two groups. The lawyers were almost to a man (no women in sight there) dressed in dark suits, white shirts, and dark ties, with cleanshaven faces. The security forces were wearing uniforms incorporating many more “traditionally Pakistani” sartorial motifs; and many had full, long beards…
In a rambly and extremely ethnocentric reflection on the pics of the protesting lawyers, the WaPo’s Philip Kennicott wrote this:
- It would be comforting to dismiss the image this way: If lawyers are running the revolution, how bad can it get?
But bad news is not kept at bay so easily. To that effort to dismiss the image, the image answers back: If lawyers are this angry, then the trouble is serious.
And indeed, the trouble is very serious. The United States has backed a dictator, while proclaiming democracy our loftiest goal. ..
The story in Pakistan/Afghanistan– which is increasingly only a single intermingled story– is actually far more serious than Kennicott or many people in the US media seem to realize. (See main story above.)
For my part, I’d note that many of the suits I saw in the lawyers’ pics looked far less well tailored than the “Brooks brothers” model Kennicott wrote about. Many of the lawyers looked like guys who’d had to save up a long time or even borrow money to buy the one decent suit required for their work in the courts… Buying into an occidentocentric version of “modernity” that may be increasingly irrelevant in their country as a whole.
Ah, and talking of the “west”, here’s a recent little report from the BBC that gives some indication of the strains that the US-led NATO “mission” in Afghanistan is causing to that august former Cold War alliance.
Amazing feat of geographic legerdemain, if you come to think of it, to be able to re-classify Afghanistan as somehow falling under the rubric of the “North Atlantic”…
“…Buying into an occidentocentric version of “modernity” that may be increasingly irrelevant in their country as a whole…”
Precisely. Call it The Washington Podsnap.
The only thing that the Taliban can offer the Afghans is security…but that is what the Afghans crave the most…in the face of suicide bombings (more than 100 the first 9 months of this year according to NPR) “democracy” and economic development pales. Ultimately it is preferable to stay alive than to be able to send your daughters to school, play music, shave your beard, fly a kite, etc…
Providing “security” is the principal reason the Taliban prevailed against the forces of the Northern Alliance before 9/11…and why the future may belong to them.
Actually, Shahzad’s article noted that the Taliban’s apparent strategy last year was to hold key districts in order to overtake cities, but that NATO thwarted that plan through attacks during December, 2006. So the Taliban were not able to redo an offensive this spring like what was done in 2006, but they turned to frequent suicide bombings instead. In the recent district attacks mentioned by Shahzad, the ANA and NATO/ISAF were able to push them back. The problem though is that NATO’s troop levels are so low that they’re not able to prevent these district attacks in the first place, something I saw noted at registan.net. If not for this NATO squabbling and for this involvement in Iraq maybe the US and NATO actually could commit the troops that Afghanistan actually needs to establish security. I hope they can, and I won’t give in to the defeatism that’s echoing in Truesdell’s post.
As Shahzad’s pointed out, Pakistan has to be restored to normalcy quickly. I was glad to see the army finally carry out action in Waziristan, before this awful auto-Coup. Successful action in the FATA, where the Taliban have a base of operations, can be the key to weakening the Taliban enough to make these political solution talks feasible. I hope the best for Justice Chaudhry. The lawyers and judges are playing the role of the Myanmar monks now.
I haven’t read of anyone else remarking on this rather dismal irony, but watching Pakistani lawyers riot for Democracy and legal due process reminded me of the Republican Party lawyers dispatched to disrupt the court-ordered Florida elections recount operations in 2000. One particularly disreputable American lawyer even went so far as to earn himself an eventual (although unconfirmed by the U. S. Senate) position as America’s Ambasssador to the United Nations when he memorably announced: “My name is John Bolton. I’m with the Bush campaign, and I’m here to stop the count.”
The Dick Cheney Shogunate Regency began with a complete contempt both for the rule of law and the expressed will of the American electorate. But with the Republican-packed United States Supreme Court justices proving even more contemptuous of the Constitution, it should really not seem surprising that an outlaw American regime finds a lawless dictator like Pakistan’s so admirable and deserving of “support.”
Once again, though, a bad foreign puppet has demonstrated that (1) strings have two ends and (2) that the erstwhile American puppeteer can’t decide whether to push or pull on the coils wrapped around both his feet and neck.
Hot on the heels of Time magazine naming the Apple iPhone “Invention of the Year” and just as many newspapers, blogs and TV programs prepare to unleash their various “Top 10” and “Best Of” lists for 2007, comes the news that you, your ravaged and saddened heart, and the world at large have all just awarded George W. Bush’s disastrous, embarrassing, profoundly disgusting occupation of Iraq “War of the Year,” for the fourth consecutive year.
“Oil prices is skyrockin’ and it’s costin’ me over 100 buckaroos just to fill the Expedition to drive to Taco Bell! I mean, come on, George! Stick a big, fat oil pipe into Baghdad, aim it at our U.S. oil refineries, press the ‘Suck’ button, and let’s git the hell outta there!”
“Who has the real terrorists? Who has a resurgent Taliban, raping women and beating kittens and repressing all life and once again controlling the poppy production to make yummy opium to sell to secretly gay U.S. Republican senators and megachurch pastors at big discount? Who still has Osama bin Laden stored in bombed-out Hyatt Regency parking garage in downtown Kabul? Afghanistan, that’s who! What, I say too much? Do not care! Iraq win a sham! Afghanistan is war of century!” he screamed, waving his American-made rifle in the air. “Also: iPhone rules!”
Here’s an off-the-reservation comparison…. Among the fabled US “founders” — and in particular the “signers” of the Declaration of Independence, by far and away the top “profession” among these 56 mostly well-off figures was — lawyer. Granted, many held down multiple roles; many were also extremely wealthy plantation owners and/or merchants. That said, a lot of the delegates to the Continental Congress (including those like Dickinson who opposed the Declaration — on a complex prudential and international legal argument) had the best legal training available in their day. (especially the South Carolina delegation – ironically)
Curious.
Sad then that it’s American lawyers today who are anything but at the forefront of campaigns for liberty abroad…. (instead, the likes of Bolton & Dershowitz are lining up to make America the next Metternich… the “jailor of nations”)
I forgot to discuss the bombing in Baglan. The situation behind that bombing actually appears complex. Shahzad alludes to accusations of the Taliban for this bombing. But the Taliban have explicitly denied responsibility for this bombing. What is the Taliban’s track record; do they habitually deny responsibility for bombings confirmed to be their own work?
So there could be different scenarios behind that bombing. One wonders if Sayed Mustafa Kazimi’s status as an opposition MP had any significance. Could a warlord opposed to him or the other MP’s have been targeting him? Or, even more troubling, a pro-Karzai faction?
On the other hand, some news articles are reporting a lot of activity of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s group. Perhaps Hezb-i-Islami tried to do a suicide bombing of its own, only for the result to be a disaster that resulted in a massive loss of civilian life. Inexperience in suicide bombing tactics might’ve led to this mess.
Or on the other hand, maybe the Taliban did carry out this bombing, but did not expect such a huge loss of civilian life. So they now see this a public relations catastrophe, fearing that some outrage of the populace will be directed to THEM. They then might be trying to disavow the bombing. That might actually lead to a silver lining: the blowback from this catastrophe could cause rifts among the Taliban, making some factions break off and negociate with the government instead. We can only hope.
BTW1: This was the registan.net article I was talking about.
http://www.registan.net/index.php/2007/11/06/at-some-point-the-us-will-wake-up-and-care/
As Josh Frost points out, the point is not that the coalition can clear out Taliban troops most of the time, the point is that these Taliban raids happen in the first place. If NATO/ISAF really had the needed number of troops they’d be able to get to enough districts to discourage takeover attempts.
Actually, Michael and Scott, I’ve seen blog posts elsewhere comparing the Pakistani judiciary to the U.S. judiciary. To tell the truth I have little patience for those posts; it often seems that the only thing about the Pakistani auto-Coup that these posters care about is if they can make U.S. analogies to it. Like they only care about the U.S. and not the rest of the world.
There has been some sort of judiciary since the beginning of civilisation. Hammurabi’s Mesopotamian (a lot closer to Pakistan than to the USA) laws are supposed to have been the first written ones, and include building regulations of a sort. Surely there had to have been a cadre of individuals to transact these laws.
Actually the concept of property is not possible without contract law, and only when property exists can there be an expropriation of surplus product, and so the possibilty of bodies of armed men and of class division and The State. And all of this had to have been preceded by the dispossession of the women and their subordination to the new form of marriage, property marriage, so that the father can know his own child, at least in law, and property succession becomes possible.
The whole lot develops at once and the lawyers are right there at the beginning of it all. So let’s not get “ethnic” about this, please.
The person who said that the lawyers of Pakistan are playing the role of the monks of Burma is not too far wrong. Lawyers and priests are both components of the State, but neither are in the least bit democratic. By all means be partisan in support of the Pakistani lawyers, for the moment, but spare us the absurdity, heard in relation to Burma, of describing these characters as “pro-democracy”.
Of course there may be liberation theologists, and there may be pro bono publico lawyers, but until there is evidence of the actual presence of such, we are at liberty to regard these fights as turf wars.