chances are still that karzai will end up hanging from a lamppost like najibullah.
but he's clearly decided that the yanks are useless. karzai has decided that the americans will cut and run, come what may, proclaiming victory. so he's trying plan B. bad plan, unless he's planning to cut and run, too. he's supposed to have squirreled away a bit of cash. he will be welcome in exile, along with his checkbook.
i don't see many people looking at the ethnic angle. karzai just fired the highest-ranking tajik in his cabinet, amrullah saleh, the minister for security.
the tajiks are traditionally the ones who braved the soviets. ahmed shah massoud, one of my heroes, fought them to a standstill. they were the core of the northern alliance along with the uzbeks.
afghanistan is fractured ethnically, and the pathans are only a majority in the area close to pakistan, if i remember right.
i think we'll see the country plunging back into civil war, pretty much the status before the americans stepped in. the northern alliance was being defeated by the ISI-taliban combination then, although the taliban had trouble holding territory too.
so we're back to 2001, just around the time of 9/11.
in other words, china and pakistan have defeated the americans.
this is a sad day.
but i think the americans defeated themselves as early as nov 2001, at the siege of kunduz. that's the point at which the pakistanis realized they could take the americans for a complete ride.
and who's going to bear the brunt of all this? that's right, india. as we can see, the ISI has ratcheted up its manufactured rage in jammu and kashmir already. the rage-boys have been given more money to do their stone-throwing. pakistan has gained the strategic depth they have been coveting for ever.
incredible. they literally snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. who woulda thought! especially when musharraf peed in his pants immediately after 9/11 when that barrel-chested american (name escapes me) read him the riot act.
7 comments:
Richard Armitage (whose the indian press kept misspelling as Amritrage!) was the guy who told Mush to wisen up.
Kunduz was the turning point no doubt. i read a book (dont remember the name) that said the cia had advised against, but both the pentagon and foggy bottom (then under that career opportunist Colin Powell) prevailed and had their way. Powell was a slippery little character - chap had paki army buddies all his life and was always loved by Musharraf (and his assassin dog).
the only good thing is that he may run in 2012 and screw O'Bummer over. Sadly it will be too late for India - as we will have to vacate Kashmir before O'Bummer goes to the polls
Karzai doesn't like fighting his fellow Pathans.
I'm reminded of Mountbatten, who wanted to seek peace with Pak during the 48 Kashmir war because he didn't want to be fighting his fellow Brits on the Pak side.
Karzai wants to pull a Mountbatten, and India will get screwed. Hopefully, the Northern Alliance members would quickly revolt and turf Karzai out. Otherwise, he'll be the Maino of the pack - the joker in the deck.
We can also see another example in Taiwan's President Ma. His Kuomintang party is predominantly supported by those of mainland descent, while the opposition is supported by islanders of local descent who see themselves as ethnically separate from the mainland. Ma is then leaning towards making more and more peace deals with Beijing, in order to cement ties between the mainland, with whom he shares a common ethnicity.
The choice for India, now is simple. Divert those billions being spent on Karzai to RAW and stew Pakistan in their own juice.
Is it not ultimately in India's interest to have a fractured Afghanistan, and, who exactly are the Afghans anyway, but, mainly the inheritors of the cult of destruction that overran classical Bharath? Even diverse, modern Indians have more compelling reasons of cultural unity, and deserving of nationhood than the many tired, backward tribes of cave-dwelling, fundamentalist, gullible Afghans. A new culture will emerge there only after natural dissension goes forward its fateful conclusion. Only Afghans (whoever they are) must work for it by themselves. The British created a fake nation where none existed, the US is enforcing a fake unity for energy contracts, Pakistan is doing the same for religious ideology. On the other hand, India should encourage a falling apart for geopolitical reasons. Eventually, the Pashthuns will join the western half of Pakistan, the Hazaras and Tajiks will split off. In a few decades even bin Laden will be forgotten (as the Americans have shown possible when they elected Barack Hussain Obama). And to all of that one should say, good riddance Afghanistan. Afghanistan is one of those historical super fault lines, where a line must be drawn. Equivocating there only spells doom for civilized existence. Ghazni and Ghouri have a lot to answer for. And one 9/11 is too many. Leave Afghanistan, period.... alone, period.
Personally, I think that the current Afghan patchwork is what sustains Pakistan, along with its compulsion to attack India. Dismantle the Afghan patchwork, and the Pakistani patchwork will automatically fall apart. Any Pashtun remnant of Afghanistan would automatically reunify with NWFP, thus triggering the end of Pakistan.
i agree to some extent, san. a united pashtun nation, which erases the durand line, will be good. naturally, this will also lead to a united baluch nation. and a separate sindhi nation. this leaves the rump of pakistani punjab as a tiny state too small to do anybody much harm. that is, in the long run, the only real solution to the pakistan problem.
and this is precisely why the ISI seeks strategic depth, ie. with afghanistan fully under its control and the tajik/uzbek/hazara minorities overwhelmed by punjabi and pashtun force, ie. taliban. this is the antidote to the collapse of pakistan, an imaginary homeland.
even the recent renaming of NWFP as 'khyber pashtunkhwa' (a mouthful) is part of the ISI's plan to create a pashtun nation (in pak and afghan) under its tutelage. the paks are big into renaming for strategic purposes.
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