A Cockburn Classic

[Ken Hanly]

I didn't mean to do that but you are right I should have made myself
clearer. There were numerous competing factions and of course there still
are in the Alliance in the north against the Taliban. I pointed out that
Najibullah's government fell in 1992 at which time factional fighting
increased as u mention. I point out that the Taliban did not take power
until 1996--and even then it was just as a dominant faction. However, you
are right that certainly it was not just the Taliban who were left to their
own resources but all the factions. You can be sure that now the US will be
happy to finance the factions in the Northern Alliance and use them as
proxies or even install them as puppets. I am not sure that all these
factional groups were Islamic fundamentalist engaged in Jihad. Some were
probably just local strong men.

    I have little knowledge of the situation in Pakistan. You are probably
right that many in  the military might be happy enought to curb the power of
Islamic fundamentalists. The present situation is ideal to be unmerciful
with not the slightest whimper of dissent coming from the west no matter how
ugly and repressive the military's actions.

Cheers, Ken Hanly

----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com>
To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 1:12 PM
Subject: Re: A Cockburn Classic


>
> On Sat, 15 Sep 2001, Ken Hanly wrote:
>
> > Najibullah's government was not to fall until 1992 and the Taliban did
> > not take power until 1996. They immediately hung Najibullah and
> > displayed his body in public. So there were over six years of struggle
> > for the Taliban during which they were totally abandoned by the US who
> > had signed an agreement with the Soviets not to arm the mujahedeen.
>
> I agree with much of your post, Ken, but here you seem to be equating the
> Taliban with the Mujahadeen in general.  The Taliban didn't appear in the
> country until late 1994.  Their ranks were primarily made up of students
> that had studied in seminaries in Pakistan ("Taliban" means "students.")
> Thus they overran most of the country in little over a year.
>
> Also, the civil war among the Mujahadeen is usually dated from 1992.
> Between the ouster of the Russians in 1989 and 1992, the country was
> relatively at peace, as I understand it.
>
> As far as Pakistan is concerned, the rather opaque question there is who
> is on the side of the seminarians, and who is against them.  My impression
> is that Musharef belongs to a faction of the army that would like to take
> the country back from seminarian control, but isn't strong enough.  But I
> certainly don't know any such thing for certain.  And you are right to
> caution that if Pakistan is just used as a jumping-off point to be bullied
> aside, rather than a long-term project, we risk setting off a civil war in
> a country that has the bomb as well as a population of a 130 million.
> Although it can be argued that is also a likely future for the country if
> outsiders leave the country alone.
>
> Michael
>
> __________________________________________________________________________
> Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com
>
>