1. Why did Swat work and Dir fail under the same institution?
2. What filled Swat’s courts after 1969?
3. Can privilege be given function without giving it rule?
4. Should Pakistan restore its princes?

The abolitions

Thirteen states by the standard count came to Pakistan at Partition, and the republic dissolved them in stages. One Unit swallowed Bahawalpur, Khairpur and the Balochistan states in October 1955. The Dir, Chitral and Swat Regulation ended the frontier states in July 1969. Bhutto merged Hunza and Nagar in 1974, and in March 1972, watching Indira abolish India’s privy purses by constitutional amendment, he issued the Rulers of Acceding States (Abolition of Privy Purses and Privileges) Order, P.O. 15 of 1972.

The Friday Times records the scene at the rulers’ meeting with Bhutto. Someone gestured at the Nawab of Bahawalpur and said, Mulk chalaney kai liye paisa bhi is ne diya tha. He gave the money to run this country. It was true; Sadiq Muhammad Khan V had lent the newborn state its working capital. Bhutto conceded lifetime pensions and the ruling houses passed into private life.

So Pakistan ran the same experiment as India, a few months behind.

Swat against Dir

Swat State was founded in 1915 by a jirga that had thrown off the Nawab of Dir; the state’s very existence was a verdict on its neighbour’s rule. Under Miangul Jahanzeb, Wali from 1949, the state built three colleges, thirty-six high schools, thirty middle schools and over two hundred and seventy primary schools in twenty years. On the independent record, literacy ran higher in Swat, for girls as well as boys, than elsewhere in the country, and its qazi courts settled cases in days. Next door, the Nawabs of Dir kept schools and roads out of the state on the standard account, education being the one import a ruler of that mind could not survive, and Ayub deposed the Nawab in 1960.

Same institution, same paramountcy, same decade, opposite outcomes.

The Royal vacuum & Kalat

Swat’s merger in 1969 replaced the Wali’s fortnight justice with Pakistan’s courts under the PATA regulations, and the backlog grew for twenty years. In 1990 the Peshawar High Court struck the regulations down, and into the legal void stepped Sufi Muhammad’s TNSM, demanding sharia courts for a population that had lived with fast religious courts within living memory. TNSM became Fazlullah, Fazlullah became the emirate of 2007, and when the Taliban sold themselves to Swat in 2008 their promise, in terms, was a return to the golden era of the Wali.

Kalat is the other failure. The Khan acceded in March 1948 under circumstances Pakistani official history calls persuasion and Baloch history calls coercion, his brother Abdul Karim was in revolt within months, and the insurrection has recurred in every generation since. Swat shows abolition without replacement; Kalat shows abolition experienced as annexation. Between them they account for a remarkable share of Pakistan’s internal emergencies since 1947.

The secure Monarch argument

Curtis Yarvin, writing as Mencius Moldbug, has the most developed modern case for monarchy. His claim is not that kings are wise. It is that insecure power is what predates: a ruler who may lose everything loots while he can, and a ruler whose position is safe has the incentives of an owner, long horizons, low time preference, maintenance over extraction. Secure the sovereign and you dissolve the motive for misrule.

The princely record is a clean test, because the Raj made every throne secure. Paramountcy guaranteed the rulers against their subjects; no jirga could remove the Nawab of Dir. And under identical security, Swat built two hundred and seventy schools while Dir refused to build any. Security turns out to be permissive, not productive.

What the model misses, the Wali’s own circumstances supply. Swat’s throne began accountable, elected by jirga in 1915 and confirmed in 1917, and it governed its whole life under the shadow of merger, performance being the standing argument for the state’s survival.

My own test for any government, royal or republican, is that it holds the acquiescence of seventy per cent and keeps the street protests below two per cent, and the scholarly anchor for the second number is Chenoweth’s finding that, in her data, no campaign reaching sustained participation of three and a half per cent has failed. The Wali passed that test for twenty years. Dir’s Nawab failed it and fell to Ayub. Secure princes can be good; only accountable ones reliably are.

The case against

The objection with teeth is not administrative, it is as our favourite commentator put on this blog last week: Pakistan’s curse is feudal domination, and restoring nawabs is refeudalisation with pageantry. The JAAC is marching in Azad Kashmir against elite privilege as I write this.

The answer the record gives is that abolition did not de-elite Pakistan; it changed which elites. The republic that dissolved thirteen ruling houses has since grown a military estate with its own foundations, housing authorities and industries, electoral dynasties that pass constituencies from father to son more reliably than any gaddi ever passed, and commercial houses whose fortunes are settled with the garrison rather than tested in any market. Every republic manufactures aristocracies; the honest question is which ones, holding what, answerable to whom. On that test a custodial prince with a public duty and no writ compares rather well with a housing authority that answers to nobody.

There is also the army. A prince with real power is either Rawalpindi’s rival or Rawalpindi’s client, which is why restoration of rule is dead on arrival and always will be. And Kalat is off this table entirely; in Balochistan any talk of restoring powers reads as secession.

Constitutionalism

Which is why the serious proposal is the narrow one, and the working model is Malaysian. Nine hereditary rulers survived decolonisation there, constitutionally embedded: a Conference of Rulers, a kingship rotating among them on five-year terms, each sultan the head of Islam and custom in his own state, none of them governing. When the monarchy overreached, the 1993 crisis clipped royal immunity and kept the function.

Same indirect-rule genealogy as Pakistan’s states, same religion, federal, and alive.

Pakistan has the pieces on the board already. Salahuddin Abbasi has been ceremonial Amir of Bahawalpur since 1988 and has led the campaign to restore Bahawalpur as a province since 2011, in a South Punjab whose Bahawalpur districts run poverty above forty-five per cent, nearly double the provincial average. A Bahawalpur province with the Amir as constitutional figurehead restores a federal unit, not a throne, and every party has promised the province in some form since 2018. Swat’s Miangul house already supplies the republic with governors and parliamentarians; a custodial role over the valley’s heritage and its dispute-resolution prestige formalises what the Taliban proved the population still wanted. Chitral’s ceremonial Mehtar holds the role now and spends it writing history.

Power not Luxury

The abolition of 1972 took function and left luxury, which is the exact inversion of what a wise republic would have done. The repair is not thrones. It is giving the houses back their work, under constitutions, on the Malaysian pattern, starting where a custodian is already standing beside a live provincial demand (Pakistan meanwhile still pays a maintenance allowance to the Nawab of Junagadh, ruler of a state it has never governed, because the claim on the map requires a prince to hold it).

While the news of those northern cities falling had been bad, and it was felt that the Taliban were likely trying to prevent a replay of the 1990’s Afghan civil war when the north fought them for five years, 12th August got progressively grim. It started to seem that the Taliban were not just going to put a knife to the Afghan government’s throat (and northern escape routes) by taking Tajik and Uzbek cities, but rather box Kabul in. This became clear when not just small towns but larger Afghan cities were put on the chopping block by the Taliban’s offensive. There is a wave of anti-Shia mobilisation across the region and I suspect that it also might have something to do with the expanded, multi-ethnic Taliban mobilisation in the north of Afghanistan. As these provinces border the ex-Soviet Central Asian states, and ISIS school-shooter sectarianism has had salience in many places where Muslims were previously considered un-radicalised or nominally secular, I suspect Taliban lines might not be a bad place for Central Asian, Afghan or even Pakistani potential ISIS recruits to flee.

As news of more fighting came in, the reports of Herat and Kandahar in the north-west and south of the country respectively, being surrounded and attacked threw whatever strategic calculus the great powers thought they had in Afghanistan, into the bin.

The updates from panicked civilians about the Taliban attacks killed whatever illusions about America having a semi-peaceful withdrawal from Afghanistan, or Pakistan smoothly sliding a re-furbished Taliban into power in Kabul, might have been harboured by the countries that have sponsored destructive wars in that nation since the eighties. The distressed calls, postings, video reports of Afghan citizens, especially educated women trapped in these cities, came flooding out. No one was crying but everyone was deadly serious.

Simultaneously, clips of refugees flooding out of captured cities, camps of the displaced going up in Kabul and where the government stood were broadcast. Among the wretched sights was the Afghan military vehicles zooming out of cities and from among people they were supposed to defend were broadcast as afternoon turned to evening, and then night fell.

The west, south and north of Afghanistan are out of that government’s hand. Kabul is boxed in. If you look at the map above, it’s sitting in the open jaws of Taliban controlled territory.

The BBC generally has the best maps, and frankly the best and most accurate, un-sentimental coverage on the rout in Afghanistan of the Kabul government. Hey, I guess after four disastrous wars into a country, they end up knowing their stuff. The second best coverage is by Al Jazeera, which also sobered up once it stopped sourcing its maps from neo-conservative American outfits, and ditched a sort of mawkish patronising tone for the Afghans.

As for America’s intelligence reports, which we started Thursday with – they have achieved the typical notoriety of stupidity that American intelligence reports are known for. By nightfall, the American bureaucrats had, in typical CYA fashion, re-assessed their estimate down to 30 days. That feels optimistic.

Yup. The business groups have already started removing equipment and personnel.

— Nutellastaan ? (@Nutellastaan) August 12, 2021

As reports come in of Afghan business interests trying to wrap up and send their equipment, personnel and capital out of the country, and the various state and private banks withdrawing funds to forward abroad, it becomes clear that the Kabul government, especially the career of one President Ashraf Ghani, is very over. At least at the prospect of anything beyond 2021.

30 days. According to a close friend with extensive links in Afghan govt. Apparently they are all set.

— Nutellastaan ? (@Nutellastaan) August 12, 2021

What happens to the rest of the Kabul government is anyone’s guess. I don’t know if the Taliban have much to worry about “holding” their territory if part of their offensive was contacting Afghan defence forces commanders and asking them to stop fighting/withdraw or switch sides. A government counter-offensive seems highly unlikely, especially with the hollow, broken Afghan Army that has been described by Major Amin. If the Taliban went in for the kill against the government, then they would win and also be saddled with a lot of prisoners, many extremely high value ones as well as seas of refugees and an isolated country. I suspect they might be willing to live with that. You can visit the link below to see Pashtana Durrani describe the consequences of the Taliban taking over her city.

“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition… everything.”

Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. pic.twitter.com/j6qUPzDkP3

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) August 12, 2021

How soon will the end happen? The fall of Kabul, the closing of the Taliban’s jaws on what is left of Afghanistan’s government, that is now in the Taliban’s hands.

______________________________________________________

You can see the original post at https://these-long-wars.blogspot.com/2021/08/30-days-thats-excuse-to-run-consulate.html

You can support my Patreon at patreon.com/theselongwars

I will be posting more regularly now.

https://menafn.com/1102564159/Anti-Taliban-chants-thousands-including  -vice-President-Saleh-took-to-streets 

https://www.aninews.in/news/world/asia/afghan-vice-president-amrullah-saleh-joins-civilian-protest-against-taliban-pakistan-in-kabul20210804110936/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/3/afghans-chant-allahu-akbar-in-defiant-protests-against-taliban

Anti-Taliban chants, thousands including vice-President Saleh took to streets

Mass popular cheering for the ANDSF synchronized across the country hasn’t  happened before in Afghanistan.

Among the first to publicly discuss that popular chants were beginning in Herat was one of Afghanistan’s greatest living intellectuals, Davood Moradian–founder and director-general, Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies. (Is there interest in interviewing him for BP?)

I would recommend that everyone read Davood’s very fine article on how Britain has long supported violent extreme Islamists in Afghanistan and has been flirting with or even appearing to support the Taliban for over a dozen years. In former US defense secretary Robert Gates book, President Karzai famously asks Secretary Gates why Britain was de facto supporting the Taliban. Gates responded with silence. The British have repeatedly sabataged Afghans in many other ways too. Here are some highlights from Davood’s article about Britain’s negative role in Afghanistan:

• UK Secretary of Defence . . . Ben Wallace announced that Britain will work with the Taliban should they enter government in Afghanistan. The Taliban’s spokesperson seized upon the announcement and described it as “positive”.
  • Note that Britain didn’t say they would welcome a national unity government and genuine power sharing that INCLUDED the Taliban. Rather Britain was welcoming a Taliban government in Afghanistan. This is deeply offensive and hurtful towards Afghans.
• The UK assumed the lead role in tackling Afghanistan’s flourishing illicit drug economy damaging the Helmand economy.
• “Mediation between Afghanistan and Pakistan was another of the UK’s priorities.” Britain has almost always sided with Pakistan against Afghanistan, so you can understand how Afghans interpret UK mediation versus mediation by a neutral country such as the USA, France, Germany, Japan, Iran, Russia, Turkey, UAE, Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia, India, Italy, Brazil, Malaysia, Singapore, Nigeria or Russia.
• Less known are the UK’s efforts and “success” in “tribal balance”. The UK supported the presidency of Ashraf Ghani, who belongs to the Ghiljai branch of Pashtun — to which most Taliban fighters are believed to belong. They reasoned that a Ghiljai president could induce the Taliban to join the political process.
• former UK Secretary of Defence, Liam Fox, advocated for a negotiated settlement and revealed that the UK’s main rationale in being in Afghanistan was not “for the sake of the education policy in a broken, 13th-century country”. If Fox had acquired an elementary knowledge of the history of the country, he would have known that in the 13th century, Herat was the capital of the Timurid Empire (1370-1507) and a cosmopolitan and globally oriented city.
  • There are no words for how offensive and inaccurate this statement is. Afghanistan has for many thousands of years been the cradle of human civilization. In 1700 Afghanistan was one of the most technologically and culturally advanced places in the world. As late as 1973 Afghanistan compared favorably with the four little Asia Tigers, Macau, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Jordan, Turkey. 
• In 2007, the Afghan government took an unprecedented step by expelling two senior UN and EU officials, with Irish/British passports. The officials were expelled because they had cultivated unauthorised contacts with the Taliban, including by way of the distribution of cash. The Afghan government suspected the officials of being British spies. One of the two deported, Michael Sample, who has married the daughter of a senior Pakistani army general, managed to return to the country and continues to pursue his decades-long interactions with the Taliban.
• The uprising against Afghanistan’s modernising and enlightened king and Britain’s sworn enemy, Amanullah Khan, in the 1920s combined tribal and clerical elements that had received significant support and encouragement from British agents
• Margaret Thatcher roused the Mujahideen by telling them that “the hearts of ‘free world’ were with them in their bid to fight evil”. Such rhetorical support was accompanied by massive financial, military and diplomatic support
• UK Chief of the General Staff, Nicholas Carter, has recently assumed additional responsibility for reviving the UK’s mediation effort between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the triangle of Afghanistan-Pakistan-UK, many Afghans would describe it as “2+1”, similar to the Palestinians’ view of the US’ role in the Palestine-Israel conflict. The UK’s Pakistan-centric South Asia policy is further illustrated by the absence of any dialogue between London and Delhi on Afghanistan since 2001.
• Despite losing more than 450 troops and investing significant amounts of financial and political resources, the UK has failed to attain any of its stated objectives in the country. A UK emancipated from its colonial burden would have been in a better position to contribute to Afghanistan’s stability and security.
• Are both ordinary British nonmuslims and British muslims anti Afghan at the popular level? Can Afghans can do anything to persuade Britain to help Afghanistan at least at this late date? Or is Britain a lost cause and Afghans should focus on lobbying other countries for help?

The Taliban have taken astronomical catastrophic casualties in recent months. Including probably over 5,000 killed in action in just the past month. For those interested, the Afghan MoD (Ministry of defense) posts daily reports.

The Taliban assisted by the Pakistani Army took the border crossing of Spin Boldak, Kandahar. The Pakistani Air Force threatened to bomb the Afghan Air Force (AAF) and anyone else who tried to disrupt or approach Spin Boldok, and give close air support (CAS) to the Taliban as needed. Having limited resources the ANSDSF and AAF have so far avoided Spin Bodok to avoid more direct Pakistani Army intervention. The Pakistani Army is driving in a large number of trucks, equipment, ammunition, fuel, spare parts, weapons and supplies to prepare for another massive offensive in Kandahar and Helmand provinces.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement saying that Taliban forces that are advancing in Ghazni, Kandahar, and other Afghan provinces have summarily executed detained soldiers, police, and civilians with alleged ties to the Afghan government.

“Summarily executing anyone in custody, whether a civilian or combatant, is a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime,” said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director. “Taliban commanders with oversight over such atrocities are also responsible for war crimes.” . . .

the Taliban forcefully took these 900 people from their homes and killed them.

“They possibly martyred 800 to 900 people in the past month and a half. The people have suffered enormously. The brutality that occurred in Boldak (Spin Boldak district of Kandahar) is unforgivable,” . . .

The HRW statement also said: “Human Rights Watch obtained a list of 44 men from Spin Boldak, Kandahar, whom the Taliban have allegedly killed since July 16. All had registered with the Taliban before being summarily executed. Waheedullah, a police commander from Spin Boldak, had obtained a ‘forgiveness’ letter from the Taliban, but Taliban fighters took him from his house and executed him on August 2, activists and media monitoring these detentions in Kandahar said.”

“The civilians who have worked with the government should not be targeted, it is a war crime and a violation of human rights,” said Shahrzad Akbar, the head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC).

According to the HRW report, the Taliban after taking over the center of Malistan district in Ghazni province began searching house to house “apparently to identify residents who had worked for the provincial or district government or security forces.” The Taliban “took into custody dozens of residents, some of whom were later released after being compelled to provide assurances they would not cooperate with the government,” said Human Rights Watch, adding that the organization “could not confirm the status or whereabouts of those not released.”

“They killed many civilians,” said MP Arif Rahmani.

There are many videos of the Taliban driving and using T-55 tanks:

These Taliban tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, trucks, artillery, mortars etc. require a lot of fuel, spare parts, ammunition, logistics (logistics means supply, transportation and maintenance), repair. Including skilled mechanics. They also need advanced C2 (command and control) and advanced ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) to use effectively. Especially in combined fire enabled manouver warfare. Precise indirect fire without line of sight right in front and to the sides of an advancing column of troops is extremely difficult.

1996 to 2001 the Taliban were supported by 10 to 20 thousand high end Pakistani Army embedded advisors who helped maintain, repair  operate tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, artillery, mortars, rockets, managed C2 and ISR. Many international analsysts say this is also true now, albeit the embedded combat advisors are “retired” Pakistani Army officers and NCOs that are formally Lashkar e Taiba, Jaish e Mohammed etc.

For anyone interested the Taliban has their own youtube channels where they show many videos filled with information.

I plan to write up a specific list of equipment, supplies, spare parts, maintenance, upgrades, funding and training that specific countries can provide the ANDSF in the short run. Please feel free to leave your ideas below.

The Brown Pundits plans to interview ANDSF leaders, current duty or retired, to ask them to discuss this.

Afghanistan’s need is urgent. GIRoA (Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) has cut off most goverment spending other than for the ANDSF because of a massive cash shortage.

We should also remember that in much of Afghanistan life continues mostly normally. For example in this video that was just taken in Kandahar:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Previous posts on Afghanistan include:

Afghanistan’s History (a)

Afghanistan’s History

Avtar Singh Khalsa: Lion of Afghanistan

Some questions and then more questions came my way about recent events in Afghanistan. My two cents put together in the piece.

Afghanistan – Next Round Afghan Style

Hamid Hussain

“However tall the mountain is, there is a road to the top of it”.   Afghan Proverb

United States and Taliban signed an agreement in February 2020.  The agreement was to pave the way for withdrawal of US troops and integration of Taliban in Afghan political system. The next step was exchange of 5000 Taliban and 1000 Afghan government prisoners.  This also proved to be the first hurdle.  Afghan President Ashraf Ghani insisted on linking prisoner release with cease fire.  Taliban rejected it and under US pressure, Ghani released few hundred Taliban prisoners.

In the deal with US, Taliban agreed not to threaten “security of US and its allies’.  Taliban defined only Europeans as ‘US allies.  Off course they don’t consider Afghan government as US ally therefore they continued to attack government forces. On the start of the Muslim holy months of Ramazan, Ghani asked again for a ceasefire.  Taliban representative in his response called this call ‘illogical’.  Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) also called for a ceasefire during negotiations between Taliban and Afghan government.  Taliban are not likely to agree to this.  They see attacks on Afghan security forces as a lever to extract more concessions. Taliban also want to calibrate its military operations to keep momentum of its cadres.  If they agree to a prolonged ceasefire and few months later need military operations, they may face difficulties in re-activating its own cadres.

Current violence in uneven geographically.  Violence has decreased in Taliban controlled areas in south and east and large cities.  In Taliban controlled areas, night raids by Afghan forces and air strikes by US forces and attacks by Taliban on government posts and convoys, Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks and target killings was the main engine of violence.  Afghan forces have stopped operations in Taliban controlled areas resulting in marked reduction of violence.  In government controlled large cities, Taliban were attacking government and civilian targets.  They have markedly reduced these attacks that resulted in reduction of violence in large cities. In some parts of eastern Afghanistan, Daesh was responsible for most attacks.  An unlikely alliance of US, Afghan forces, Taliban and local militias confronted Daesh from all sides eliminating most pockets of Daesh that contributed to marked reduction of violence. In all these areas, with reduction of violence, general public feels somewhat secure with economic activity picking up in towns and rural areas.

Most violence is now concentrated in contested areas where Taliban and Afghan forces are trying to assert control.  Taliban want to expand the territory under their control to further strengthen their bargaining position. Some parts of Ghor, Ghazni, Badghis and Badakhshan have seen increased violence.

In Washington, a pause button is hit on all military and diplomatic ventures.  Diplomats and military leaders are grounded during Corona virus crisis.  The only exception is Afghanistan.  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, President’s special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and even commander of US troops in Afghanistan General Austin Miller are shuttling between Kabul and Doha to keep Afghan project on track.  Khalilzad and Austin made a trip to Islamabad and met army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa to get Pakistan’s help in influencing Taliban to keep violence low. Corona crisis and economic meltdown has weakened President Trump’s position for the upcoming election.  He wants to use withdrawal from Afghanistan as his big achievement.  This is the main reason that only Afghan file is open on diplomatic front.

Afghans are hard bargainers. Every negotiation round is painfully slow and contentious.  If prisoner release is facing so many hurdles then wait until negotiations start about political bargains.  This will be a multi layered process involving Taliban, different factions that are currently part of Afghan government, local tribal leaders and all those who are currently out of power.  Violence will be used at different stages by each group to advance its own interest and extract maximum concessions. In this battle, each Afghan party will also seek assistance from foreign backers.

“Community is not made by force”.   Afghan Proverb

Hamid Hussain

April 2020

Post-Script

Afghan Government Tussle:  Bargaining reminiscent of an old bazaar of Central Asia is going on between Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah.  Tentative agreement is that Abdullah will get forty percent of ministries and head the peace negotiations with Taliban.  Khalilzad is cajoling and Pompeo is carrying the stick.  Many details need to be hammered out but if this agreement goes through it will have its own set of repercussions.  Ghani and Abdullah will run their share of ministries as fiefdoms to reward their partisans.  If Abdullah becomes the head of the negotiation team that will make any meaningful negotiation very difficult.  Abdullah’s support is overwhelmingly non-Pushtun and he will not be able to give too much ground to Taliban as it will risk his own support base.

“Courage among civilized peoples consists in a readiness to sacrifice oneself for the political community.”        G.W. Hegel

Taliban:  After conclusion of agreement with United States, there was some ripple within Taliban ranks on two planes.  One related to jockeying for power that resulted in removal of some members of Taliban’s Doha office.  Second related to some rank and file who were charged up to fight the ‘infidel’ and now told to hold attacks on the ‘infidel’ but continue to kill fellow Afghans. To placate these fellows one senior Taliban commander gave some hardline narrative suggesting that Taliban will not negotiate with Afghan government but looking to replace it ushering in new era of Taliban 2.0 that will be a bit moderate and tolerate few things not allowed in 1990s. It will be very difficult for Taliban leadership to accept a power sharing agreement in present set up.  If US pulls out then next step will be marked reduction of US financial assistance.  In this environment, government will become more dysfunctional from fights for dwindling resources and corruption.  Taliban will wait for that moment to expand territorial control.  They will need more coercion of the population as they have the guns but not the gold that does the magic of defections from the other camp.

“I will say this much for the nobility: that tyrannical, murderous, rapacious, and morally rotten as they were, they were deeply and enthusiastically religious”.     Mark Twain

Neighbors:  Pakistan’s main interest is to have some semblance of stability in Afghanistan while working to decrease Indian influence.  This is due to apprehension that a strong Indian presence in Afghanistan will keep its western border destabilized.   It wants that Taliban become part of the new set up that will help reduce Indian influence.  Islamabad does not want another round of civil war or outright Taliban take over as it will worsen Pakistan predicament. It will face refugee crisis and financial burden and worsen country’s regional and international position.  India’s main concern is that return of Taliban in any capacity risks use of Afghan territory against Indian interests.  Delhi has the bad memory of 1990s when Afghanistan was used to fuel Kashmir insurgency.  Current BJP government is not in a mood for engagement.  It wants to keep Pakistan off balance hoping that faced with myriad of problems Pakistan will not be in any position to re-activate insurgency card in Kashmir.  If Afghanistan descends into chaos after American withdrawal or Taliban capture large chunk of territory, it will be very difficult for India to maintain large influence.  Keeping in mind this worst case scenario, India has been trying for over a decade to establish a military base in Tajikistan.  This effort is not successful in view of Chinese and Russian interests.  A Chinese paramilitary contingent is secretly operating in southeastern Tajikistan in the panhandle bordering Wakhan corridor to prevent return of Uighur militants in Xinjiang.  The largest Russian troop presence outside Russia is in Tajikistan.  Russia considers Central Asia as its backyard and not willing to allow combat presence of other countries.  India is currently using Ayni and Farkhor airbases in Tajikistan for transporting non-military supplies to Afghanistan.  It has no combat assets stationed in Tajikistan.  If things deteriorate then India can strengthen its position in northern Afghanistan.  In this Iran is a partner as interests of both countries converge in Afghanistan. If Russia joins this ensemble then India may be able to convince Russia to allow use of Tajikistan bases for military purposes.  The only sane approach is a détente between India and Pakistan as chaos in Afghanistan is against the interests of both countries.  If both parties understand this fundamental reality then they can control their gut reactions and avoid adding fuel to the fire.

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent; but it takes a touch of genius and lots of courage to move something in the opposite direction.”                Albert Einstein

United States: A speedy drawdown before elections is President Trump’s main objective.  If he is re-elected, then political compulsion will be removed, and he may decide to keep some American assets in Afghanistan as surely it is not likely that Afghan government and Taliban can reach a deal in the next 1-2 years. If Democratic nominee Joe Biden wins the election, then we may see revisit of current policy.  The key factor will be economic aftermath of Corona pandemic.  If US economy is in deep recession then it will be very hard for Biden to sell to American public increased American military and economic commitment to Afghanistan.  Biden has been involved in Afghanistan as Vice President and he held the view that Pakistan was much more important than Afghanistan and he expressed this to then Afghan President Hamid Karzai.  He may give more role to Pakistan for policing the badlands.  Unless things completely meltdown, it is likely that Washington will keep air and intelligence assets in Afghanistan.  The security of these assets can be contracted to private security companies.  In this scenario, Kurdish model can be adopted.  The line will be drawn along Hindu Kush range. Taliban will be allowed to play in the south and east while non-Pushtuns organized, armed and provided intelligence and air cover to keep their area free of Taliban encroachment.

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”  Samuel P. Huntington

Hamid Hussain

coeusconsultant@optonline.net

01 May 2020

This week began with a drone attack that dispatched Mullah Mansoor to meet his 72 virgins. More details have since been revealed about the Taliban chief’s last journey and the Pakistani government has finally confirmed that he is dead, though the whereabouts of his remains are still a bit mysterious (it was reported that he has been buried in Spin Boldak, but the latest Pakistani government statement claims his body is still in Pakistan). The details of his life before the fatal strike are still confusing and contradictory.

Everyone has theories about the significance of this strike and whether it will weaken or strengthen the US-backed Afghan regime or the Pakistan-backed Taliban. Considering that Pakistan is a “major non-NATO ally” and a partner in the ANTI-Taliban coalition (and receives regular payments for these services, freely offered and repeatedly affirmed by Pakistani civilian and military leaders) AND is also the main backer of the Taliban and feels that the US-backed regime and US policy in general are actually a threat to Pakistan (a position also repeatedly affirmed by Pakistani civilian and military leaders, especially when they no longer hold official positions; incidentally this affirmation is shared  by many “pro-Western” Pakistanis), there is no end to the convolutions and contradictions in this situation. So it is impossible for an amateur/casual observer to claim that he knows what is going on and what “really happened”. All we can say is “what a tangled web we weave..” and leave it at that.
But while we may be in no position to say how and why this particular strike took place and who is playing against whom, we can still make a general observation that in war there are only two ways to make peace: either one side wins and the other side accepts defeat (or gets wiped out), OR both sides recognize they are not likely to win outright and there is a compromise position both sides can accept (no matter how unhappily). Now consider the position of the Taliban; if they feel they have no chance of coming back into power and the pain of carrying on is too much, then they may accept a US backed regime and make peace on those terms. But if they feel they can outlast the US and their losses are bearable, then what is the incentive to make peace? Considering that for 15 years the US has not made strategic victory a priority, and is still insisting that the Mullah Mansour strike was a one-off, why would the new leaders compromise? More of the same seems likely..

The other big news of the week on social media was the announcement by the council of Islamic ideology that they are working on an “Islamic” version of the women’s protection bill that would protect the position of women by prohibiting contact with non-mehram males (e.g. by banning female nurses contact with male patients), banning any art education that includes drawing living beings or sculpting them and by permitting husbands to “discipline” their wives by “lightly beating them” if needed. (incidentally, this problem has arisen because the Pakistani constitution has a series of “Islamic provisions” that require ALL laws to be “in accordance with the quran and sunnah”. Many of the framers no doubt thought this could be taken to mean whatever they wanted, but it does give an opening to mullahs and Islamic scholars over and above that afforded to them in countries like Egypt and Turkey).

Needless to say, this news led to a gleeful postings on Islamophobic sites, much outrage among  Muslim women and intense discussion about the locus standi of the CII, the “Islamic” nature of this Islamic proposal and the best way to stop this move. As any fan of Islamic jurisprudence will agree, the proposals are fully in line with classical Shariah law (of ALL major schools of Islamic law), but as these fans are also aware, this law was never fully implemented in the good old days and is even less likely to be enforced today. Very few modern leaders in Muslim nations have seriously considered (much less asked for) the institution of slavery or the practice of using female slaves as concubines, to be freely  bought and sold by Muslim males in a Muslim society. Yet these are also part and parcel of classical shariah. In short, there IS indeed some truth to the claim that contemporary Muslims do NOT necessarily practice (or support) all aspects of medieval Islamicate jurisprudence. But while most contemporary Muslims do not practice or vocally support particular Shariah rulings that are not in line with contemporary mores, they frequently support the abstract notion of “enforcing shariah” and they lack any clear alternative to that law. There have been institutional efforts and there are individual scholars who argue in favor of modern re-interpretation of classical shariah, but these efforts have NOT achieved critical mass. And all efforts at reform face the twin threats of apostasy and blasphemy memes, which have enough support in the Islamic world to make such reform a hazardous undertaking. But all is not lost. As the reaction to the “wife-beating” proposal indicates, this may well be the next shariah rule that will go the way of slavery and concubinage. Inshallah. 🙂

Finally, I happened to be at a Pakistani-American gathering yesterday and was somewhat surprised to run into a couple of vehement Trump supporters. One of them was a very observant Muslim who prays five times a day and is a pillar of the local Islamic center, but who was supporting Trump because “Trump will keep out terrorists who give a bad name to Muslims and who threaten our future and the future of our children in this great country”. And he is not alone. 
Then I woke up to see this tweet from Indian film director Ram Gopal Verma (who happens to have 1.83 MILLION twitter followers):

“3rd world people” like Varma are not necessarily fans of third world people. 

I still hope Hillary wins. I don’t think Trump is fit to be president (on ANY party’s platform). But I also think he COULD win. A lot of people are voting against the bipartisan consensus of the recent past. ..They may be voting for a worst alternative (at least, I think they will be, if they vote for Trump), but there is a lot of resentment and sense of betrayal out there. Interesting times.

Announcing graduate studies in “how to be a suicide bomber.” The Unique Selling Point: campus recruitment is 100%, they would like many more students!!!
…….
It was one of the many non-descript buildings around, located at the
dead-end of a small street inside Serai Darpakhel. “Go straight and
there is the door on the left”, we were told by a guard outside the
street. But even then it was hard to find the iron door, opposite
a power transformer and a heavy generator to ensure uninterrupted power
supply. 

For the unsuspecting outsiders, there was nothing
unusual about this place, except that it was known to all those who
lived nearby. It was a facility to indoctrinate and train suicide
bombers.

Step inside and there is a courtyard with big columns, mats spread out, bedrolling piled up in one corner.
Nothing unusual. Stairs lead to the upper portion painted in light cream and brown colours.
Plastered on one of the walls is a white banner inscribed with kalma and beneath it ‘the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’.

This
was one of the five suicide bombing facilities, locals now say, owned
and operated by the Haqqani Network in Serai Darpakhel, frequented by
would- be-bombers in their teens and twenties; Afghans and Mehsuds
mostly but boys from Mohmand and Orakzai too would turn up.


Rarely were the religious indoctrinators, mentors or those running
the centres seen outside the iron gate that shielded the dead-end house
from passersby.
No -one living in Serai Darpakhel knew who they were, except that it was a centre for suicide bombers.

Even
those brought or enrolled at the centre for ‘esteshahadi’ or martyrdom
were not allowed to step outside till the completion of his mandatory
two-month stay inside the centre.

The undertaking or affidavit all ‘esteshahadi’ friends were required to sign was elaborate.

It
had a printed colour picture of the would-be bomber, his name, assumed
name, his father’s name, age, address, education, personal contact
number, family contact number, family occupation, names of
friends and acquaintances, father’s past and present political
affiliation, the number of members in the family and their monthly
income and experience, if any, in militant activities.

And the
seven rules the ‘esteshahadi friend’ were required to live by were
pretty stringent too. The use of cell phones were neither allowed nor
considered necessary, the undertaking said. For two months, neither
would the enroller be allowed to go outside nor was he allowed to go out
without permission, it read.

He was also required to make no
attempt to befriend anyone else except his other ‘fidayi brothers’
teachers and mentors. He was supposed to hand-over his personal
belongings to the centre in-charge and ask for things he might need from
him. 

Other than that, things inside the centre were kept tight with a
strict regimen of praying, spiritual and religious indoctrination and
cooking, locals say.

Even a man, who came looking for his son, was
turned away by the centre’s administrator, feigning ignorance about his
whereabouts, a local resident recalls. It was only after a lot of
contacts here and there, that the centre reluctantly let the boy go.

Not
very far from Serai Darpakhel, drive to the main Miramshah bazaar. And
there is the two-storey building of what once was the Government Girls
Higher Secondary School. When militants first moved in and started
bombing schools, this too was soon abandoned and later occupied and
converted by militants of all hue and origin into a facility for
training and distribution of dead bodies on their arrival from
battlefield or of those killed in drone strikes.

The 450 to 500
girls were later shifted to continue their studies at a degree college
inside the military cantonment in Miramshah. The militants,
surprisingly, had no objection to that.

……

Link: http://www.dawn.com/news/1118706/startling-facts-about-suicide-bombers-training-den

……

regards

With madness all around we can expect only small mercies and tiny blessings. Herat has been the scene of Indian embassy attack recently. It was considered an unlikely place due to the proximity with Iran. But then mad people follow no logic.

…….

Afghan police hunted down and killed two Taliban insurgents who cut off
the fingers of 11 elderly men who voted in the presidential election
run-off, officials said today.




All voters in Afghanistan had their fingers marked with ink after voting
to prevent them from casting more than one ballot, but the ink also
identified those who participated in the election in defiance of Taliban
threats.


….
“Insurgent commander Mullah Shir Agha and one of his officers were
killed in a police operation yesterday in Herat,” a statement from the
interior ministry said.

“The pair were accused of having cut off the ink-dyed finger of 11 voters.”

The ministry said another insurgent involved in the attacks was injured in the operation and held by police.

….
Local police confirmed the operation, but said two Taliban fighters had escaped.


“The security forces are on them. They are members of Taliban and will
pay the price for their crimes,” Herat police spokesman Abdul Rauf
Ahmadi said.

…
Jan Kubis, head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, described the mutilations as an “abhorrent” act.

“These ordinary Afghans were exercising their fundamental right to
determine the future path of their country through voting and not
through violence and intimidation,” he said.

…
One spokesman for the Taliban denied involvement in the attack.

The Taliban had vowed to target voters on Saturday, when two candidates
stood in the second-round vote to succeed President Hamid Karzai.

……

Link: http://www.outlookindia.com/news/printitem.aspx?845010

……

regards

 Well yes, and no. One can stretch the imagination and claim that India is being portrayed in the Western Press as “that country” where rapists are running wild, with even six month old babies not being spared from the clutches of monsters (yes, really). The insults are coming fast and furious on Twitter: what is wrong with Indian men? Not just any Indian men, but conservative Hindu vegetarian men. It was none other than an Alicia Muller May an american diplomat based in India who made this astute statement:

“It’s the vegetarians that are doing the raping, not the meat eaters. This place is just so bizarre,” Alicia Muller May wrote in 2012

We can throw statistics back and forth (gun crime in the USA is a nice, soft target) but at the end of the day this is the truth: Americans (westerners) think of the brown and black people as uncivilized barbarians (all of them). And Rafia Zakaria is certainly correct that the West is good in covering up its complicity.

But if there is ever going to be an opportunity to set the matters right the brown world must do better than sit around and complain that America is being mean and not helpful enough. There was after all a very good reason why Pakistan, for example, invited the USA to come to the village well and poison the drinking water (so to speak). The expectation was that with the help of USA, Pakistan can fend off India. When sufficient help did not materialize in 1965 (1971, 1998,..) there was a lot of pain and heart-break. Surely it is up to the browns to stop the sword-fighting and start investing in plough-shares?
……….
There was a time in Pakistan when the doings of the Taliban were also
just beginning. It was a time when Pakistanis never believed that the
Taliban, a ragtag group of itinerant fighters, with their bonfires of
CDs and their floggings of women, would be able to expand their sphere
of operations to other parts of the country.

The story of how
they did manage to do so is a sad and complex one, with chapters
detailing a superpower invading Afghanistan and bombing a portion of
Pakistan and littering the country with its intelligence agents and
security contractors. Those chapters are omitted from the world’s
imagination, in which the difference between a Taliban fighter and an
ordinary Pakistan is next to none. The conflation is enshrined even in
the American definition of drone targets: every man over the age of 16
in a strike zone is automatically and always a ‘combatant’. The truth of
imperium is the truth the world accepts.

In the process of
fighting both the local insurgency and American intervention, Pakistan
became ‘that’ country, occupying a place in the world’s imagination
alongside problems so complex that it does not belong to the normal
moral order of things. Pakistan is the country where a schoolgirl can be
shot by the Taliban for wanting to go to school, an act so ghastly that
it functions to create the moral extreme that defines other nations as
‘good’, in relation to Pakistan’s ‘bad’.

Becoming ‘that’ country,
Pakistan’s citizens can tell you, involves having the human rights
violations of your present being dislodged from context, extricated from
narratives of global inequity, so that others less unfortunate can
count their blessings. They, after all, are not ‘that’ country, the one
that stands at the darkest edge of misfortune, the most hapless case, at
the fringe of the fellowship of nations.

Nigerians should take
note and beware. Within the global imagination, the issue of abducted
schoolgirls seems to be marching in just the same direction.

In
the beginning, most global media outlets did not cover the issue at all,
discarding it with the disdain that accompanies misfortunes in parts of
the world used to misfortune. When the story was taken up by the CNN
and other gods of the global media, its details and context were happily
snipped away and moulded into the familiar form: an Islamist group, a
ghastly act and an ineffective government.

The boring specifics
of income inequality, Western complicity, ongoing insurgency, and
military repression are all subtracted to leave the skeleton of a story:
a group of abducted schoolgirls in a faraway place where people are
callous enough to allow such things to happen.


When singular acts are
used to construct the dynamics of complex problems, however, those
agitating against groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Taliban in
Pakistan are erased from the stories.

The consequence is a global
context in which a grotesque act becomes the source of moral castigation
of an entire nation, a step in the process of making it ‘that’ country,
a place that exists in the global imagination only to mark the furthest
boundary of badness, where anything can happen. As Pakistanis can tell
Nigerians, it is a costly sentence; often, an undeserved one.
………
Link: http://www.dawn.com/news/1104659/becoming-that-country
……..
regards

It sounds just like a fairy (horror) tale but there will be many more true stories like this from Taliban controlled Af-Pak territory.

It is beyond belief that the powers that be (from America to Afghanistan) are waiting (for what?) to designate the Taliban as terrorists. They will feel bad, the poor dears. Nelofar’s life is presumably lost in vain.

..
The story is heartbreaking. A Facebook status update on July 16, 2013,
from Ahmad Sardar, the Afghan journalist in Kabul. Nelofar, his
5-year-old daughter asks her dad, “Do the Taliban kill animals too?” The
father answers no, and the little girl says: “I wish we were animals.”


 
Little Nelofar is dead now, brutally murdered
by the Taliban – shot in the head – together with her dad, her mom and
her 8-year-old brother. Of Nelofar’s family, only her 2-year-old brother
has miraculously survived, in a coma with three bullets in his body.


 

On March 20, 2014, on the eve of the Persian New Year, the Taliban
managed to enter the highly fortified Serena Hotel, located just a
kilometer away from the Afghan presidential palace, where Nelofar and
her family were celebrating the Nawrooz, the arrival of the spring and
of the New Year.


 
The Taliban suicide mission left nine people dead and many more
injured before Afghan forces killed the four attackers, who had managed
to sneak pistols and ammunition inside the hotel, despite the tight
security measures.


 
The deadly attack on the Serena Hotel occurred on the same day that yet more Taliban fighters were freed from Bagram Prison,
complete control of which was transferred to the Afghan government
exactly a year ago. Since, then, most of the prisoners – considered
dangerous members of the Taliban – have been let go without formal trial
and over the strong protests of both U.S. officials and a majority of
the Afghan people.


 
Despite the fact that the Taliban’s use of deadly force against the
civilian population is widely branded as “terrorist attacks” inside and
outside of Afghanistan, neither the Afghan government nor the U.S.
officially recognizes the Taliban as a terrorist organization.


 
There is no sign that Karzai will put aside his vain hopes of winning
the hearts and minds of his “dissident brothers”; not even at the cost
of the many lives taken during the bloodshed perpetuated by the Taliban
on a daily basis. Karzai has lost the faith and trust of the Afghan
people on this.


 
It is an open secret that Mr. Karzai’s refusal to sign the Bilateral
Security Agreement with the Americans is purely political, with an eye
to winning the Taliban’s favor.


 
The Afghan public meanwhile worry that the withdrawal of
international forces from Afghanistan will mean a return of the Taliban
to power. There is an increasing need for the international community,
led by the United States, to take a clear stance with regards to the
Taliban.


 
In short, it is time for Washington to put objective facts above
political wishful thinking and officially recognize the Taliban as a
terror organization. Many other members of the international community
would then surely follow suit, resulting in real and effective pressure
on the Taliban and its supporters, both inside Afghanistan and at a
regional level. Acknowledging the Taliban as a terrorist entity will
also facilitate more cooperation between the international community in
their fight against terrorism, based on universal legal conventions and
international law.


 
Little Nelofar was surely not the only Afghan child to be so
frightened of the Taliban; the fear has paled the face of every Afghan.
The first step in overcoming that fear, however deep and complex, is for
people to know what they are dealing with: insurgents or terrorists.
..
regards