Doing double duty (since that post from a moment ago looked
goofy) just found a book by an Afghan exile from U.C. Press.
Accused by the KhAD(Afghan KGB during the PDPA era.) of being
a Maoist. Imprisoned for many yrs. Solid archival research including
a fascinating transcript of Taraki and Kosygin in '78, Taraki
begging for Soviet intervention. "Afghanistan: The Soviet Innvasion
and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982, " by M. Hassan Kakar. Includes
documentation of biochemical weapons used. And just an aside
on one of the earlier posts I made on Afghan maoism. If Yoshie
reads it she will see that hundreds of Maoists were killed by
the PDPA. Michael Pugliese--- Original Message ---
>From: Michael Pugliese <debsian at pacbell.net>
>To: Michael <debsian at pacbell.net>
>Date: 1/7/02 3:26:00 PM
>
>Dear Michael
>
>I am sending you a copy of the page I read at
>http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/0112karzai.html :
>================================================================
>
>GAC OUS0112karzai
> Hamid Karzai Moves From Lightweight To
Heavyweight In Afghan Politics
>
>by Ahmed Rashid
>
> December 12, 2001
>
>
>
>Hamid Karzai has traveled a long distance politically
over a relatively short period of time to emerge as the
leader of Afghanistan's provisional council. In the 1980s,
Afghan warlords and Western diplomats considered Karzai
a lightweight--an intellectual who was a voracious reader
and a snazzy dresser. Now, he is being counted upon to
lead the effort that breaks Afghanistan's two-decade-long
cycle of violence.
>
>While he attempts to unite the 30-man cabinet and begin the
difficult task of setting up an effective administration,
Karzai will be challenged to accommodate several powerful
warlords, including the Persian speaking leader Ismail
Khan in Herat, the Hazara warlord Karim Khalili, and the
Uzbek warlord General Rashid Dostum in the north.
>
>Karzai will be helped by the three modernizers in the Northern
Alliance leadership--Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, General Mohammed
Fahim, and Younis Qanooni. All three respect Karzai and,
in fact, behind the scenes quietly told the UN before
the Bonn talks began that they would be happy to work
with Karzai if he were nominated as the future head of the interim
government.
>
>"Karzai is a man who shares our vision of building a modern,
stable Afghanistan and creating a multi-ethnic government,"
Dr. Abdullah told me in an all-night conversation at
his home in Kabul, just before the Bonn negotiations
began. "We trust Karzai, he is a patriot who will put
Afghanistan first rather than his clan, his tribe, or his ethnic
group," Abdullah added.
>
>Abdullah's views, which were echoed by Qanooni, were stunning
because it was evident that the three were ready to dump
their own leader Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was the recognized
President of Afghanistan. The troika's support for Karzai
is indicative of tension within the Northern Alliance,
with Rabbani fighting to beat back challenges to his authority mounted by younger members of the leadership. Although Abdullah, Gen. Fahim, and Qanooni can secure the support of their own Tajiks, it remains to be seen whether they can sway other ethnic groups to win support for Karzai's
administration.
>
>Until just a few years ago, Karzai, who speaks six languages--Pushtu,
Dari, Urdu, English, French, and Hindi--had not seen military action. During the resistance to the Soviet invasion of 1979-89, he served as a mujaheddin adviser and diplomat. In that capacity, Karzai was a frequent
visitor of embassies in Islamabad. He also ran a small hotel in Peshawar. He maintained a relatively low profile following the departure of Soviet forces. Like many Afghans, however, he lamented the inability of the mujaheddin warlords to set aside their differences and rebuild Afghanistan in the
early 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet-supported
regime of Najibullah.
>
>"Like so many mujaheddin, I believed in the Taliban when they
first appeared on the scene in 1994 and they promised
to end the warlordism, establish law and order, and then
call a Loya Jirga to decide upon who should rule Afghanistan,
" Karzai told me in an interview in late September. "I
gave the Taliban $50,000 U.S. to help run their movement
and then handed over to them a large cache of weapons I had hidden away. I met Mullah Omar several times and he offered to appoint me as their envoy to the UN," Karzai said wistfully. "The tragedy was that very soon the Taliban were taken over by Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence
(ISI) and they became a proxy for a foreign power. Then they
allowed Arabs and other foreigners to set up terrorist
training camps on Afghan soil and I began to organize
against them," he said. "By 1997 it was clear to most
Afghans that the Taliban were unaccepta!
>ble because Osama bin Laden was playing a leadership
role in the movement. I warned the Americans many times,
but who was listening--nobody," he added.
>
>From his home in Quetta, Karzai began to organize anti-Taliban
opposition in 1998. He found support among some Pashtun
tribal chiefs, who were angry with the Taliban for their
close ties with Arab radicals. The Taliban reacted to
Hamid Karzai's move swiftly. They murdered Karzai's father,
Abdul Ahad Karzai, in 1999--an act that appalled Karzai's
Popalzai tribe. The elder Karzai had been chief of the
Popalzai tribe, a former government minister, and immensely
respected for his wisdom amongst the southern Pashtun
tribes.
>
>Hamid Karzai was appointed the new Popalzai chief, even though
Hamid has several older brothers living in the United
States. The death of his father prompted Karzai to assemble
a 300-vehicle convoy of tribal chiefs and mourners. Defying
both Pakistan and the Taliban, Karzai took his father's
body from Quetta to be buried in his home city of Kandahar. The Taliban did not intervene, fearing that an all-out war would break out amongst the Pashtuns of Kandahar. That single act of defiance helped Karzai shed the image of a lightweight and paved the way for his emergence as the
provisional coalition's leader.
>
>Within days of the September 11 attacks, Karzai began to assemble
arms, money, and communications gear. His intention was
to prepare a tribal "lashkar," or militia, to enter Afghanistan
and foment an anti-Taliban movement from within Afghanistan.
He also approached the U.S., British, and other European
embassies for logistical support.
>
>Wendy Chamberlain, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, ignored
him, because after September 11 Washington had left its
political strategy in the so-called Pashtun belt of southern
Afghanistan to the Pakistani ISI, which maintained that
it could split the Taliban movement and create so called "moderate
Taliban." Moreover, the ISI was not keen to see Karzai play any dominant role in the anti-Taliban offensive.
>
>The British embassy was more amenable and encouraged Karzai,
knowing that until there was an indigenous uprising in
the Pashtun belt against the Taliban, al Qaeda mastermind
Osama bin Laden would remain protected by the Taliban
in the south.
>
>On October 8, when Karzai entered Afghanistan--the day after
the U.S. bombing started--he had a satellite phone but
too few wireless sets to communicate with his men, little
money, no sleeping bags or other supplies, and insignificant
Western support. His men were well armed, only because
they had ferreted away weapons during the Taliban years, but they were short of ammunition and heavy weapons.
>
>According to a U.S. diplomat, the issue of whether or not to
support Karzai provoked a heated debate between the U.S.
departments of state and defense. Secretary of State
Colin Powell reportedly was reluctant to support Karzai
out of concern that such a move would anger Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf.
>
>"There was real anger at Powell from the military because he
was accepting at face value whatever the Pakistanis were
telling him, when in reality they were doing nothing
constructive in the Pashtun belt," the U.S. diplomat
said.
>
>Washington only decided to support Karzai in the first week
of November--four weeks after the bombing campaign started--and
only after the Pentagon had taken the decision to support
a Northern Alliance attack on Mazar-i-Sharif.
>
>Karzai will now adopt the same the strategy he used to woo the
Pashtun tribes against the Taliban in order to run the
new government when it is installed in Kabul on December
22. He is an unflagging negotiator and conciliator willing
to spend days to win his point amongst the tribes. These
skills will now be much in demand because he has several major
problems.
>
>The new Afghan government will initially be like an island in
a sea of uncompromising warlords. Karzai will first have
to gather around him like-minded Pashtun leaders from
the east and the south, who have relatively clean track
records and are not noted for their past butchery, drug smuggling,
or human rights violations.
>
>The international community will have to pitch in, by providing
funds for the development and reconstruction of Afghanistan--which
will be a major incentive that Karzai can use to woo
angry commanders and make ethnic warlords more amenable
to supporting the idea of a broad-based government.
>
>There is little doubt that he will face immense difficulties
and the roller coaster ride that is built into Afghanistan's
politics today. However the once-lightweight Karzai is
now a heavyweight. It is typical of his personality that
Karzai bears no rancor toward Pakistan. "Tell the Pakistani
government that I want good relations with them, tell them we
have to turn a new page, " he told me recently.
>
>(Ahmed Rashid is a journalist and author of the book Taliban:
Militant Islam and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. (Yale
University Press, 2000). This originally appeared on
Eurasianet (http://www.eurasianet.org/ ) on December
10, 2001.)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>================================================================
>
>Sent by: Michael Pugliese - mailto:debsian at pacbell.net
>
>
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