essay "Mujahideen: The Resistance in Afghanistan"
david ford
author: David Ford <dfo...@GL.umbc.edu>
date: 30 Dec 2000
In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with the goal
of propping up an ailing communist government. Opposition to the
ruling party had been developing since implementation of land
reforms and indoctrination programs.[1] Following the Soviet
invasion, resistance to both the occupation and the communist
regime swelled. This resistance consisted of mujahideen, or holy
warriors, engaged in a jihad, or holy war. While presenting
difficulties for them, the freedom fighters' worldview proved to
be a major part of why the resistance was successful in driving
out an invading superpower. Various religious, political,
cultural, social, historical, and military aspects of that
worldview will be examined.
The Afghan people faced the might of the Soviet empire.
Elite commando troops, the latest and best in military hardware,
tactical innovations, chemical weapons, and a policy of attrition
were all used by the Soviets in an attempt to kill the
resistance. The freedom fighters saw practically everything in
the Russian arsenal except nuclear weapons. Soviet forces burned
crops, mined crop fields, and destroyed irrigation systems [2]
while trying to drive the resistance out of the country and
eradicate the mujahideen's support base with those people that
remained. Hunger and malnourishment among the mujahideen were
one result of the crop destruction. Serious injury in battle or
from a mine required travel to Pakistan on a camel or mule to
receive proper medical attention. Most of the injured painfully
suffered and died while making the trip. Peter Arnett, Moscow
correspondent for Cable News Network, observed that head, chest,
and abdomen wounds nearly always ended in death, while gangrene
and amputation were the typical result of arm or leg wounds.[3]
The mujahideen received critically needed antiaircraft missiles
from the United States only halfway through the conflict. Within
the war's early days, it was widely expected that the Russians
would quickly overrun the resistance.[4] To answer the question
of how exactly the mujahideen were able to win against such long
odds, in large degree it was their worldview that enabled them to
survive, inspired them to fight, and caused them to win.
Several things underlying the mujahideen's struggle against
the Soviet Empire derived from their worldview's Islamic faith.
Almost 100 percent of the Afghan people were Muslim. The huge
majority of this percentage were traditionalists when it came to
religion, meaning that they were deeply concerned with Islam's
ideas concerning authority and virtue. Traditional Islam made a
sharp distinction between believers and wicked, despicable
_kafirs_, or infidels. The invading Soviets fit neatly into this
notion of the _kafir_ through reports of their past brutality
toward Central Asian Muslims in the 1920s, accounts of
contemporary barbarity, and because of their blatant atheism.
Resistance fighter Janeb Gul's comment, "Allah will help us
because ours is a just fight"[5] illustrates traditional Islam's
appeal to truth and morality. From their contact with Western
ideas and institutions, progressive Muslims focused more on the
commonality of Islamic rituals and theories of nationalism than
on the finer points of Islamic belief. Generally, progressive
commanders led more traditional warriors. One of those moderate
leaders said with respect to the more traditional soldiers, "The
people you in the West call Fundamentalists are the most
ideological, but they are also the best of the fighters."[6]
From traditional Islam came the call for a morally-imbued holy
war against the _kafirs_ that involved, if need be, martyrdom.
Those progressive Muslims in leadership positions lent a sense of
country-wide unity of purpose in driving the invaders from the
Afghan homeland and not just out of local communities.[7]
Just as the mujahideen's religious faith proved to be an
important asset in their struggle, it was also at times a
weakness exploited by the Soviets. The use of chemical weapons
was particularly debilitating to the morale of the resistance in
this regard. Mujahideen General Rahim Warduk related an instance
where the Russians' use of these nefarious weapons resulted in
accelerated body decomposition. In death, not only do Muslims
believe that a holy warrior's soul receives eternal life,[8] but
also that his body does not decompose. Explained Warduk, "We've
found bodies where the flesh is separating from the bone within
hours of death. The psychological effect this has on the
mujahideen is horrifying."[9] In addition, disagreements among
the various religious sects made themselves manifest in the
resistance's disunified political representation.
Seven major political factions spanning the range of Islamic
belief made up the resistance. Loosely subsumed under the
umbrella of the Islamic Alliance for the Liberation of
Afghanistan, the parties exhibited much disunity,
disorganization, and infighting among their leadership. For
example, Gulbuddin Hekmatayar sent some of his group's members
out on missions to assassinate commanders from other parties.
Hekmatayar's and Ahmad Massoud's troops openly fought each other
on occasion. Usually, however, the conflicts were not as deadly.
Bickering over trivial matters was the norm, with political
parties mostly interested in having a good image compared with
the other parties while arguing over who was the better
representative of the Afghan people.[10] Albeit providing a
common thread as a basis for resistance, Islamic militancy was,
unfortunately for the freedom fighters, unable to smooth over the
hostility completely. The holy warriors' power would have been
enhanced had they more fully cooperated with each other in spite
of their differing religious views.[11]
While the mujahideen did not cooperate politically, the
Afghan people's worldview was such that they did cooperate when
it came to blood feuds. Afghanistan's dominant ethnic group is
the Pathans. Historically, the Pathans' way of life has been
replete with blood feuds aimed at upholding honor. As seen in
their constant feuding, the Pathans embodied the adage about
blood being thicker than water. This Pathan habit of protecting
their own when outsiders molested relatives spread to other
ethnic and tribal groups. A halt of internal conflict occurred
as families, communities, tribes, and even the nation
periodically united to face a common adversary.[12] The Soviet
Union proved to be that foe embodied in the idea of the _kafir_.
This unity lasted only as long as there remained a common enemy.
Freedom fighter Esmael commented, "If the Soviets left tomorrow,
by that afternoon we would be fighting each other," while fellow
warrior Gailani noted, "Fighting comes naturally to every Afghan.
It's in his blood."[13] Fiercely individualistic, mujahideen
highly valued courage. Because such a premium was placed on
valor, the Russians were described as cowards since they stayed
in the protective walls of their tanks instead of fighting the
resistance man to man and because in the latter years of the
conflict, they bombed villages from a great height, safe from the
rebel's new antiaircraft missiles.[14]
Within the area of surviving in the face of a harsh
environment, the mujahideen's worldview encompassed a simple,
some might call primitive, way of living that helped them in
their struggle. Mujahideen usually wore sandals, baggy pants,
and a long shirt while carrying a blanket that served as bedding,
a tent, and covering. This blanket helped the freedom fighters
blend in with Afghanistan's slate-grey rocks should a Soviet
aircraft or convoy suddenly appear. In a country half desert,
the baggy pants provided a comfortable cooling effect that was
especially helpful in the heat of battle. The Afghan practice of
traveling in large caravans through the land's mountains proved
to be relatively safe since the Russians' weapon of choice, the
helicopter gunship, did not perform well in high altitudes.[15]
While the mujahideen very much enjoyed drinking green tea, they
could survive extended journeys without bringing along water.
Their flat, unleavened loaves of bread called _nan_ were
concentrated sources of nourishment readily carried through the
mountains. Relentless mountain climbers, the mujahideen
exhibited much endurance. After observing the seemingly
indefatigable rebels, Vietnam War veteran Philip Caputo remarked,
I saw then how smart the Russians were to fight this war
with helicopters and tanks. The toughest infantry in the
world would be no match for the Afghans in these
mountains.[16]
However, in a society possessing scarce resources, the need for
making maximum use of those available resulted in substandard
inflatable goatskin boats. Since the holy warriors were
generally unable to swim, many drowned when their boats capsized
in Afghanistan's swift mountain rivers. The need for
conservation of bullets while hunting translated into superb
shooting ability [17] that was well used against the Russians.
This marksmanship was important given that in the war's early
years, the mujahideen typically had only single shot 303-Enfield
firearms. Those Enfields had been kept from the days of the
Anglo-Afghan wars.[18]
The historical portion of the mujahideen's worldview was
another factor helping them resist. Their belief that there did
not exist a historical precedent for Afghanistan's subjugation by
foreigners [19] rested upon three incidents in the Afghan
peoples' history. Britain had been soundly defeated and repulsed
each of the three times it invaded. Knowledge that Afghans had
"fought the Arabs for a hundred years before they finally
defeated us" led the mujahideen to conclude, "we'll fight the
Russians for as long."[20] The third historical item was Genghis
Khan's thirteenth century invasion of the land. Afghanistan had
not been overrun since that time until the Soviets' arrival. The
resistance interpreted this long period of freedom from
foreigners as meaning that Afghanistan was not destined to be
controlled by other nations.[21] Perhaps an unconscious
motivation behind the mujahideen's will to fight was the memory
of a Mongol brutality similar to that shown by the Russians.
Never again must Afghanistan be defeated by outsiders; repetition
of a defeat like that suffered at the hands of Genghis Khan's
Mongols simply could not be allowed. If the rebels _were_ to be
defeated, the mujahideen believed it would come only after all
freedom fighters had been killed. In keeping with this
conviction one holy warrior remarked, "The mujahideen fight for
religion and country, and will fight to the death of the very
last Afghan."[22]
Blood feuds involved the entire family, including women and
children. With the resistance to the Russians, the pattern was
identical. One village chief asked why the West made a
distinction "between fighters and the old men, the women and the
children," explaining, "If you have courage and treasure freedom,
you are a mujahideen."[23] In the war's early days, women
donated jewelry so that would-be fighters could purchase weapons.
One woman was said to have created a separate group of female
soldiers after replacing her fallen brother as a commander.
Another woman by the name of Maryam became a legendary
mujahideen. She once immolated a contingent of Soviet
infantrymen by setting fire to her house after inviting them in
as guests. On another occasion she knew that the Soviets were
coming and had villagers drive their livestock across a bridge.
When the poorly-fed Russian soldiers left the safety of their
tanks to catch the animals, her army of three thousand men
slaughtered them. Village women often discussed what they would
do with their knives should a Soviet soldier enter their
homes.[24] In one village surrounded and attacked by the
occupiers, Shirina killed four Russians with a 303-Enfield rifle.
By fighting, she gave courage to the men and set an example for
the other women that were, finally, able to use their knives, and
sickles, against the Soviets.[25] Besides fighting when
necessary, the women also carried messages and weapons, and, in
the cities, hid fellow holy warriors from the communists.[26]
Because unresolved blood feuds were passed down from
generation to generation, the Russians targeted the young for
extermination. In the countryside, many children became martyrs
by playing, as children will, with the colorful explosives shaped
as trucks, dolls, birds, and pens in addition to the oddly-shaped
butterfly bombs dropped by the Soviets. When Afghanistan's
capital of Kabul saw more than 30,000 college, high-school, and
elementary students march against the communist government, the
protest was crushed by force. Many of the two thousand
imprisoned at the end of the demonstration were tortured and
executed.[27] The general attitude of the children, and adults,
was kill or be killed. Numerous mujahideen boys, some only nine
years old, volunteered to fight. Like the Afghan people as a
whole, young men despised the invaders. Many had lost fathers
and brothers in the fighting as well as other family members to
the Russian scorched-earth policy and wished to avenge the
deaths. This characteristically Pathan desire for revenge is
seen in one young man's comment that "I have one idea-- to kill a
Soviet man. I have one wish-- to have a black gun."[28]
In the earliest days of the conflict, the mujahideen
believed Allah would disapprove of cowardly hit-and-run attacks
and ambushes. After losing several conventional battles, the
resistance's Islam showed flexibility in allowing them to
reinterpret Allah's will and practice guerilla warfare.[29]
During the bulk of the war, the mujahideen typically launched
surprise hit-and-run assaults and set up ambushes, and, in the
cities, carried out bombings, assassinations, and surprise mortar
and grenade attacks. Beginning in 1987, mujahideen strength was
such that they could survive direct confrontations with the
Russians. The freedom fighters were very effective at giving the
Soviets much grief. For example, they would frequently blow up
gas, petroleum, and kerosene pipelines running between
Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. Mining of the area around the
blast site made repair more difficult, particularly since the
mujahideen, or ghosts, as the Soviets called them, controlled the
night besides the countryside. Each individual group of freedom
fighters studied the tactics of the Soviets they met and had its
own style of fighting. Most early weapons were captured from
Soviet and government forces. Later, weapons provided by the
United States' Central Intelligence Agency and by fellow Muslim
countries began to arrive.
An additional source of arms, as well as men, was the many
Afghan army members that defected with their weapons. Afghan
army strength steadily decreased from 90,000 to about 25,000 men
as those disgusted with fighting their fellow citizens
deserted.[30] Those that remained were less than enthusiastic
about the war effort and halfheartedly fought. Even with the
weapon resources provided by allies and defectors, the need for
arms was so great that for the price of a gun, an entire family
could feed itself one year. With the arrival of the American
_Stingers_ in the mid-1980s, the mujahideen ended Soviet air
superiority by shooting down an average of more than one Soviet
plane or helicopter per day. Capable of obliterating a village
in mere seconds, Hind Mi-24 helicopter gunships were especially
feared by the mujahideen. Reports from the early years describe
rocks being dropped from the mountains onto the rotating blades
of the gunships;[31] only with the arrival of the _Stingers_,
however, were the mujahideen able to combat efficaciously these
machines of destruction. Evasive measures enacted by the
Russians decreased their military's efficiency. The mujahideen
would have been substantially more effective had their allies
supplied them earlier with adequate numbers of antiaircraft
missiles.[32]
The Afghan nation met the challenge the Soviet occupation
posed. While they could have done a better job fighting the
Russians, they did, in the end, give the Soviet Union its own
Vietnam experience. Helping them to do so was a worldview
composed of many different aspects. Those Afghans that did not
follow the five million fellow citizens fleeing the Soviet-
inflicted carnage and destruction remained to fight as a people
unified in defense of religion, country, family, and honor. Once
the Russian common enemy left, the resistance descended into
severe infighting that prolonged the defeat of the regime in
Kabul. Finally, after fourteen long years of civil war, the
resistance succeeded in driving the communist government from
power in April 1992.
NOTES
1. Nake M. Kamrany, "The Continuing Soviet War in Afghanistan,"
_Current History_ 85:334 (1986).
2. Alex R. Alexiev, "Soviet Strategy and the Mujahidin," _Orbis_
29:33 (1985).
3. Artyon Borovik, _The Hidden War a Russian journalist's
account of the Soviet war in Afghanistan_ (NY: The Atlantic
Monthly Press, 1990), 67, and Philip Caputo, "A Rumor of
Resistance," _Esquire_, Dec. 1980, 43.
4. Edward Girardet, "With Afghan Rebels: Ready, Willing, Able?,"
_U.S. News and World Report_, 18 Feb. 1980, 38, and the
international affairs department at _Time_, "Props for Moscow's
Puppet," 28 Jan. 1980, 34.
5. The international affairs department at _Time_, 36.
6. Dorris Lessing, "The Catastrophe," _The New Yorker_, 16 March
1987, 78.
7. Material without endnotes came from Robert L. Canfield,
"Islamic Sources of Resistance," _Orbis_ 29:57-71 (1985).
8. Alessandra Stanley, "Child Warriors," _Time_, 18 June 1990,
33.
9. Jan Goodwin, _Caught in the Crossfire_ (NY: E.P. Dutton,
1987), 207.
10. Edward Girardet, "With the Rebels in a Nasty, No-Win War,"
_U.S. News and World Report_, 9 June 1980, 54, and Lessing, 76.
11. Material for this paragraph also came from Goodwin, 34-5,
Caputo, 36, Georges Larroque with Monique Couillaud, "On a Trek
With the Rebels," _Newsweek_, 31 Aug. 1981, 31, and Emily
MacFarquhar, "Praise Allah and Pass the Ammunition," _U.S. News
and World Report_, 12 Nov. 1990, 54.
12. Anthony Arnold, "The Stony Path to Afghan Socialism:
Problems of Sovietization in an Alpine Muslim Society," _Orbis_
29: 40-41 (1985).
13. Kevin Lynch, "War on a Shoestring," _National Review_, 21
Jan. 1983, 14.
14. Lessing, 77. Material for this paragraph also came from
John Bierman, "Russia's Afghan Enemy," _New Republic_, 6 June
1981, 11.
15. Olivier Roy, "The Lessons of the Soviet/Afghan War," Adelphi
Paper 259, published for the International Institute for
Strategic Studies. GB: Nuffield Press Ltd. (Summer 1991): 22.
16. Caputo, 41.
17. Arnold, 40.
18. Roger Fenton and Maggie Gallagher, "Inside Afghanistan,"
_New Republic_, 29 Aug. 1983, 20, and Arnold, 40. Material for
this paragraph also came from Goodwin, 75, 166, Roy, 57, and
Robert D. Kaplan, "Why the Afghans Fight," _Reader's Digest_, May
1988, 129.
19. Arnold, 56.
20. Lessing, 76.
21. Robert D. Kaplan, "Driven Toward God," _The Atlantic_, Sept.
1988, 18.
22. Fenton and Gallagher, 17.
23. Edward Girardet, _Afghanistan: The Soviet War_ (NY: St.
Martin's Press, 1985), 163-4.
24. Savik Shuster, "The Rebels' Haphazard War," _Newsweek_, 10
Jan. 1983, 30.
25. Goodwin, 271-2.
26. Material without endnotes came from Lessing, 85-86, 88.
27. Goodwin, 6, 26-7, 98.
28. Shuster, 30. Material for this paragraph also came from
Stanley, 32.
29. Fenton and Gallagher, 18.
30. Kamrany, 335.
31. Alvin Z. Rubinstein, "Afghanistan at War," _Current History_
85:118 (1986).
32. Additional sources for this paragraph were Goodwin, caption
under picture opposite 172, Roy, 23, Russell Watson et al., "With
Blood in Their Eyes," _Newsweek_, 18 April 1988, Lessing, 77,
Borovik, 31, and William Burger et al., "Inside an Unholy War,"
_Newsweek_, 12 Oct. 1987, 47.
WORKS CITED
Primary Sources:
Bierman, John. "Russia's Afghan Enemy." _The New Republic_, 6
June 1981.
Borovik, Artyon. _The Hidden War a Russian journalist's account
of the Soviet war in Afghanistan_. NY: The Atlantic Monthly
Press, 1990.
Burger, William et al. "Inside an Unholy War." _Newsweek_, 12
Oct. 1987.
Caputo, Philip. "A Rumor of Resistance." _Esquire_, Dec. 1980.
Fenton, Roger and Maggie Gallagher. "Inside Afghanistan." _The
New Republic_, 29 Aug. 1983.
Girardet, Edward. "With Afghan Rebels: Ready, Willing, Able?"
_U.S. News and World Report_, 18 Feb. 1980.
________. "With the Rebels in a Nasty, No-Win War." _U.S. News
and World Report_, 9 June 1980.
________. _Afghanistan: The Soviet War_. NY: St. Martin's Press,
1985.
Goodwin, Jan. _Caught in the Crossfire_. NY: E.P. Dutton, 1987.
Kaplan, Robert D. "Why the Afghans Fight." _Reader's Digest_, May
1988.
________. "Driven Toward God." _The Atlantic_, Sept. 1988.
Larroque, Georges and Monique Couillaud. "On a Trek With the
Rebels." _Newsweek_, 31 Aug. 1981.
Lessing, Dorris. "The Catastrophe." _The New Yorker_, 16 March
1987.
Lynch, Kevin. "War on a Shoestring." _National Review_, 21 Jan.
1983.
MacFarquhar, Emily. "Praise Allah and Pass the Ammunition." _U.S.
News and World Report_, 12 Nov. 1990.
The international affairs department at _Time_. "Props for
Moscow's Puppet." 28 Jan. 1980.
Shuster, Savik. "The Rebels' Haphazard War." _Newsweek_, 10 Jan.
1983.
Stanley, Alessandra. "Child Warriors." _Time_, 18 June 1990.
Watson, Russell et al. "With Blood in Their Eyes." _Newsweek_, 18
April 1988.
Secondary Sources:
Alexiev, Alex R. "Soviet Strategy and the Mujahidin." _Orbis_ 29,
Spring 1985.
Arnold, Anthony. "The Stony Path to Afghan Socialism: Problems of
Sovietization in an Alpine Muslim Society." _Orbis_ 29,
Spring 1985.
Canfield, Robert L. "Islamic Sources of Resistance." _Orbis_ 29,
Spring 1985.
Kamrany, Nake M. "The Continuing Soviet War in Afghanistan."
_Current History_ 85, Oct. 1986.
Roy, Olivier. "The Lessons of the Soviet/Afghan War." Adelphi
Paper 259, published for the International Institute for
Strategic Studies. GB: Nuffield Press Ltd., Summer 1991.
Rubinstein, Alvin Z. "Afghanistan at War." _Current History_ 85,
March 1986.
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j_h...@my-deja.com
<Pine.SGI.4.21L.01.0101...@irix1.gl.umbc.edu>,
david ford <dfo...@gl.umbc.edu> wrote:
...In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with the goal of
propping up an ailing communist government. Opposition to the ruling
party had been developing since implementation of land reforms and
indoctrination programs.[1] Following the Soviet invasion, resistance
to both the occupation and the communist regime swelled. This
resistance consisted of mujahideen, or holy warriors, engaged in a
jihad, or holy war......
========================================================================
Afghanistan Land Mine
By S. Frederick Starr
Washington Post
Tuesday, December 19, 2000 ; Page A39
Three little-noted recent measures on Afghanistan mark a fundamental
shift in U.S. policy not only toward that impoverished land but toward
all Central Asia and even the Middle East. Whether it succeeds or fails,
the outgoing administration's latest gambit will damage basic U.S.
interests.
First, the United States has quietly begun to align itself with those in
the Russian government calling for military action against Afghanistan
and has toyed with the idea of a new raid to wipe out Osama bin Laden.
Until it backed off under local pressure, it went so far as to explore
whether a Central Asian country would permit the use of its territory
for such a purpose.
This comes at a time when Central Asians are as concerned over recent
Russian activities as they are over the Taliban -- specifically over
Russian efforts to use the specter of terrorism and Islamic radicalism
to regain control of their region. In fact,the United States' new
militancy arises just as Afghanistan's immediate neighbors are preparing
to accept the Taliban regime so long as it puts a stop to cross-border
actions and otherwise respects their sovereignty.
Second, Assistant Secretary of State Karl Inderfurth met recently with
Russia's friends in the government of India to discuss what kind of
government should replace the Taliban. Thus, while claiming to oppose a
military solution to the Afghan problem, the United States is now
talking about the overthrow of a regime that controls nearly the entire
country, in the hope it can be replaced with a hypothetical government
that does not exist even on paper.
Third, the United States is supporting a one-sided resolution in the
United Nations that would strengthen sanctions against foreign military
aid for the Taliban but take no action against its warlord opponents,
who control a mere 3 to 5 percent of the country's territory. These
warlords, when they ruled in key areas, showed a brutal disregard for
human rights and for other minorities that was comparable to the Taliban
at its worst. Yet the fragment of a government they support limps on
and, with U.S. backing, occupies Afghanistan's seat in the United
Nations.
How did the United States become the junior partner to a misguided
Russian policy arising from that country's desire for revenge against
humiliations suffered in Afghanistan and Chechnya and from a kind of
post-imperial hangover? The trail goes back to the Clinton
administration's desire to throw Moscow a bone after brushing the
Russians aside during the Kosovo crisis. That bone was support for
Russia's crusade against "Muslim fundamentalism" and "terrorism." We
bought the Russians' line that these forces, rather than seven
generations of savage Russian and Soviet misrule, fueled the revolt in
Chechnya.
It appears likely that the Clinton administration also supplied the
Russians with special equipment used against the Chechens. Confronted on
this point in a Senate hearing, a State department spokesman took two
weeks to produce a letter claiming disingenuously that the State
Department itself provided no arms -- as if Secretary Albright, rather
than the Pentagon, controlled America's arsenal.
By making itself the junior partner in a Russian-Indian crusade
against Muslim Afghanistan and Pakistan, the United States will
eliminate itself as a future mediator in one of the world's major
trouble spots. This is all the more unfortunate because even today the
United States is better positioned than any other country to resolve the
Afghan tragedy and associated pathologies infecting the entire region.
The United States supported opposition to the Russian invasion of 1979
and welcomed the Taliban to the extent it reduced killing within the
country. Even today, $9 of every $10 of food aid distributed there by
the United Nations comes from the United States, and the Afghans know
this.
But few in the Islamic world will doubt that the object of Russia's and
India's efforts is not just Osama bin Laden or specific policies of the
Taliban regime but Islam as such. This in turn will further damage
America's position as a broker in the Middle East. It will weaken
Israeli moderates who have reached out to Muslim states such as
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Equally serious, the new states of Central Asia already sense that the
United States is subordinating its policy toward them to Russia's
aspirations in the region. The considerable credibility America gained
from a decade of support for independence and development in their
region will evaporate.
These shifts add up to a fundamental redirection of American policy
toward the world's largest and most vexed zone of conflict. All this is
occurring without public discussion, without consultation with Congress
and without even informing those who are likely to make foreign policy
in the next administration. Thus the Clinton State Department is
preparing a kind of land mine that will explode in the face of the
incoming Bush administration.
* The writer is chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns
Hopkins's Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.
________________________________________________________________________
Diffusing the Afghan land mine
By Jamal Hasan
S. Frederick Starr's narrative in the Post's op-ed column
(Afghanistan Land Mine; December 19, 2000) gave me the awe. His
simplistic formula, if implemented, could hardly rid the South Asian
region of the menacing virus of militant Islamism.
Granted, the Russians made a grievous mistake in Afghanistan and we
tried to teach them a lesson. But in the process, we created a
Frankenstein's Monster -- we inadvertently helped groom an ideology that
is violent, spiritually emotional, impositional and at the same time had
global implication. Mr. Starr's sharp criticism is directed at the
US-Russia rapprochement regarding containing Islamic militancy. After
the breakup of the former Soviet Union and the formation of the
Commonwealth of the former Soviet states, Russia had already gained the
necessary geopolitical influence in the region. Now the question is what
is so wrong if Russia's priority is confronting the religiously inspired
violence. As India has been a major player in the South Asian region,
which has its share of dealing with Islamic fundamentalists, it is wise
for a US foreign affair official to draw India into the equation.
We now see that Osama bin Laden's tentacles have spread all over South
Asia. Lest we forget, Clinton had to cut short his trip to Bangladesh
where he had to skip certain parts of his itinerary due to a grave
security risk coming from bin Laden followers. The intolerant Islamic
fundamentalist virus is slowly encompassing the countries not too far
from Afghanistan. In Pakistan's thousands of Madrassahs (religious
schools), on the Kashmir border in the western part of India and in
urban and rural regions of Bangladesh, more and more diehard
Talibanesque Islamists are waiting in the wings only to strike when the
opportune moment comes. No wonder, the governments in Uzbekistan and
Kyrgyzstan are pursuing a hard-line policy against militant Islamism as
they can see clearly its ultimate manifestation in neighboring
Afghanistan.
Mr. Starr should have done more homework before proposing to diffuse
Afghan land mine, i.e., Taliban style Islamic fundamentalism, which
already is posing a serious threat to the impoverished people of South
Asia and to larger extent the mankind.
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