The critical question
What every Afghan needs to answer

By Dr. Zia Jaghory

Summarized translation of Dr. Jaghory's Dari-Persian article, published in our previous issue.

In early August, I was invited to a gathering of twenty Afghans to discuss current affairs in our country, as three from among the assembled group were about to head off to Germany to participate in another Bonn conference, organized by Prof. Abdus-Sattar Sirat. My recommendations and advice for the gathering is what I will outline here.

What we Afghans and our nation are confronted with today is an historic and stark reality, driven by foreign political and economic interests. While the Soviet invasion brought forth the awe-inspiring and victorious Afghan jihad, it also afforded other outside elements the opportunity to intervene in Afghanistan. The introduction of these new elements was a turning point in the life for our unflagging national resistance effort.

The Saudis interjected their religious [deviant Wahabi Islam] agenda, and the United States and other Western industrial nations saw their chance to finally rid themselves of the Red menace -- but no consideration was ever given to the future of Afghanistan. And when the Evil Empire crumbled, the natural riches of Central Asia caught the capitalist's eye.

This rekindled American interest was quickly put to ill-use by Pakistan. Seeking to settle her half-century-old vendetta against Afghanistan and further a sinister defense and economic program, Islamabad piggybacked her hegemonic designs onto US energy concerns -- namely the ever-troublesome Turkmenistan pipeline and Unocal efforts to secure this resource. So a new army was conscripted, initially composed of Afghan and Pakistani religious [Deobandi-Wahabbi] students and Afghan "Khalqi" communists, which came to be known as the Taliban militia.

Beside their administrative and military expertise, the Khalqis have been masterfully employed by Pakistan's ISI to induce ethnic strife, thereby creating cracks in the wall of Afghanistan's national coherence, to allow for Islamabad's take-over of the country -- fulfilling much the same function they were assigned by the Soviets. And recently, Pervez Musharraf audaciously put into words Pakistan's ethnic play in Afghanistan -- previously, something that Islamabad at least attempted to cover up.

The un-Islamic, and to be proven futile, policy of the Taliban and the Pakistani government has thus far met with success. But they've also met with worldwide condemnation, especially for their egregious and unprecedented violation of human rights.

Today, Afghans have two vastly distinct forces to choose from in determining the future of their country: the first is the United Front national resistance force, comprised of all Afghan ethnic and religious groups, which continues to defend the nation against Pakistani invaders and other foreign meddlers; the second is the Taliban mercenaries and their Pakistani masters.

At this critical time, as our nation suffers under a foreign-imposed war, the sole question to ask from every Afghan organization, association, movement, and individual is: do you stand by the United Front national resistance force, or have you joined the ranks of other traitors in advancing the toxic agenda of Pakistan and the Taliban?

The frenzy over the Loya Jirga process and similar processes are effort-wasting and without meaning. No real purpose is served in putting on these shows to just say "we want national unity" or "we will establish solidarity." These processes, whatever their façade, are too little, too late -- acting only to raise false hopes and divert the people from hard facts and hefty decisions.

What is now brighter than the summer sun itself is that Afghanistan is plagued with the cancer of Pakistani hegemony, the terrorism of Osama bin Laden and infiltration from deadly drug mafias. All of whom must be thrown out of Afghanistan. And for this monumental task we have few alternatives but to support and aid the national resistance force. Supporting the United Front is the primary and obligatory duty of all Afghans.

We must act now to defuse the schemes of our nation's enemies. The Afghan nation is walking a thinning line between liberty and death. No other question can be asked until we answer the first and only one facing our nation, and that is, again, do we stand by the United Front national resistance force or do we stand against them?

When we declare our full and unconditional support for the United Front national resistance force, we can then debate and discuss how we ourselves can work to aid and advance their noble cause. But, until then there is nothing else to discuss.

Dr. Jaghory, a distinguished political and social activist, is chairperson of the Committee on Human Rights of the Association for Peace and Democracy for Afghanistan.

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US think tank gets it right

       The following is the Executive Summary of "Defusing Terrorism at Ground Zero: Why a New U.S. Policy is Needed for Afghanistan." This groundbreaking research paper, written by Mr. James Phillips for The Heritage Foundation, a prestigious think tank based in Washington DC, is the first work in the US that accurately depicts the crisis in Afghanistan.
       To a large extent, the paper faithfully follows in the footsteps of the many articles, analyses, interviews and investigative pieces published in Omaid Weekly, which have advocated a new US policy in Afghanistan -- free from damaging Pakistani influences -- that is beneficial to both America and Afghanistan.

The United States scored one of its biggest Cold War victories by helping the Afghan resistance to defeat the Soviet Army. Soon after Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan, however, the United States withdrew from active involvement in Afghan affairs. Recently, after years of neglect, Washington has been forced to address a long-simmering set of national security and foreign policy problems emerging from a traumatized and radicalized Afghanistan. The August 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania by Osama bin Laden's Afghanistan-based terrorist network made it impossible for American foreign policy to continue to ignore Afghanistan. Yet as the world's leading exporter of terrorism, Islamic revolution, and opium, Afghanistan still does not receive the attention it should.

The Clinton Administration has publicized the hunt for Osama bin Laden and made his capture a high priority. By focusing narrowly on bin Laden, however, the Administration has failed to grasp the extent to which he is a byproduct of the revolutionary upheaval in Afghanistan. The war-torn country is a breeding ground for Islamic radicalism, terrorism, and drug smuggling, all of which are spreading to Afghanistan's neighbors and throughout the region.

The United States needs to develop a coherent long-term policy for building a stable and peaceful Afghanistan that will no longer serve as a safe haven for international terrorists, drug smugglers, and Islamic revolutionaries. This will require a major shift in U.S. policy. Since the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the United States has all but ignored Afghanistan, a poor landlocked country slightly smaller than Texas. The absence of American involvement weakened and demoralized moderate Afghan groups and allowed Pakistan to support the radical Taliban ("Islamic students" or "seekers") movement. This ultra-fundamentalist Muslim group, unknown before 1994, now dominates Afghanistan politically and militarily and provides support to a wide spectrum of radical Islamic groups, including bin Laden's terrorist network.

The United States must end its passive neglect of Afghanistan. Rather than focusing narrowly on bin Laden, Washington should develop a broad regional strategy to uproot the Taliban regime that protects and sustains him. It should push for broad-based international sanctions on trade and arms to reduce the Taliban's ability to repress the Afghan people and export terrorism. The United States should adopt a more aggressive strategy, in cooperation with Afghanistan's neighbors and Afghan opposition groups, to contain the Taliban regime, cut off its external support, bolster internal Afghan opposition to its radical policies, encourage defections from its ranks, and build an inclusive Afghan government willing to live in peace with its neighbors.

Specifically, the United States should:

• Maximize international pressure on the Taliban, including additional United Nations sanctions, to halt its support of terrorism.
• Pressure Pakistan to end its support of the Taliban.
• Provide military, diplomatic, and economic support to the anti-Taliban opposition.
• Forge a regional coalition to support the anti-Taliban opposition and support an Afghan peace settlement.
• Build an internal Afghan consensus for peace.
• Designate the Taliban as a terrorist organization to set the stage for declaring Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism if it continues to support the Taliban.
• Provide humanitarian aid to non-Taliban areas of Afghanistan.
• Appoint a special envoy for Afghanistan to raise the priority of Afghan policy within the U.S. government and coordinate U.S. policy with other governments.
• Allow the Afghan opposition to reopen the Afghan embassy in Washington, which has been closed since 1997.
• Revive bipartisan congressional activism on Afghanistan similar to the broad coalition that supported aid for the Afghans during the Cold War.

America's neglect of Afghanistan for the past decade has had the unintended effect of allowing the extremist Taliban to emerge as the dominant force in this war-torn country. Only by adopting these measures can the United States hope to help build a stable and peaceful Afghanistan that no longer harbors terrorists, drug smugglers, and revolutionaries.

The full text of the research paper is available on Omaid Weekly's Web site at www.omaid.com (go to the "In the Press" section).

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