Popular movement? Then why Taliban are against election?....lets us assume for sake of argument there is a culture/religious ideology behind the terrorist like Taleban movement…that sustains them. Then the question arises where does the motivation for that ideology comes from? … Deobandi School of Thought? and many others of the type, Paki state-funded Mufties, and Paki State sponsored Mullahs? Where this religious ideology comes from? Do you know that all these are not indigenous to the Pashtons at all? Pashtons being a proud nation/ethnicity with history going back thousand of years do not need a religious identity. In other words the use of religion as a means for acquiring political power either in Afghanistan or in Pakistan. In fact the crisis of identity is with the Panjabi state Pakistan..which needs religion to bind it together in the absence of any meaningful contract between the various groups for a collective well being of all its citizens. You remove that religious motivation and preach secularism for a while…and the phenomena of Talebanisation will recede automatically ..because it is superfluous, imposed and NOT indigenous to the Pashton culture which offers a much better alternative identity.
Fact of matter is that terrorist like Taleban were not a force/movement until they were given a political agenda, to control Afghanistan and marginalize the Pasthon nationalists in the context of Pak-Afghan relations. Which means that there is nothing culture/religious about the Taleban, its the political agenda behind that facade which needs to be addressed / neutralized if there has to be a long lasting solution to the problem.

All I hear are these hypotheses. If I were to start a rumour that Karzai is in reality Chairman Mao with a face disguise, then I could say like you that Karzai is Chairman Mao, but what evidence is there to justify this? None.

In the same way, I would ask you to provide evidence that being allowed nuclear weapons was part of this deal.

Dollars were given to the Pakistani establishment, and they probably pocketed it instead of building madrassas like they were supposed to. Any South Asian or Central Asian establishment would have done the same.

I can tell you what Pakistan did get out of it. It wasn't money or being able to go nuclear. It was to prevent the Soviet Union from threatening it.

LIKEWISE, should India invade Pakistan, Afghanistan would play strategic depth because it is in Afghanistan's interest to do so.

Explain what the difference between Pakistan playing strategic depth for Afghanistan during the Afghan-Soviet war, and Afghanistan playing strategic depth for Pakistan in the event of an Indian invasion would be?

What is the difference then?

You really don't understand what I'm saying to you.

Strategic depth is a tactic that contributed substantially to the outcome of the Soviet-Afghan war.

It is in Afghanistan's interest to have Pakistan's KPW playing startegic depth for it. It is in Pakistan's military interest to have eastern Afghanistan support it in the event of an occupation. I will get onto the destruction of Afghanistan a little later, since again I see very little evidence for the assertions here.

From what I understood of this, you are saying that Pakistan allowed the Afghan mujahideen bases in Pakistan during the Afghan_Soviet war (strategic depth for Afghanistan) because it was part of a long term, rather devious, ploy to make Afghanistan subservient to it.

I'm sorry, but this is total paranoia not based in any fact.

Tell me what the plan was. How was Pakistan going to control anyone? Would Dostum be loyal to anyone. Dostum would switch sides in the blink of an eye to whoever was winning. How would Pakistan exert control over any of these warlords?

Pakistan involved itself in Afghanistan for its own interests. I've read some internet Pakistanis talk about how Pakistan did it for Afghanistan, which is completely nonsense. Pakistan provided strategic depth for Afghanistan for its own interests. That is what every nation in the world does, or should do. It looks after its interests.

The Afghan mujahideen did not have to use Pakistani territory. But they did. Because it was in their interests to do so.

Ideologically, definitely not. I'm anti war. Do you believe that the Taliban can be ignored for the moment as part of the Afghan government, or they're too powerful?

A friendly Afghanistan (ruled by Pashtuns presumably) would be in Pakistan's interests. A feudal Afghanistan, an unstable Afghanistan is not in Pakistan's interests. Instability will cross the border and find its way into Pakistan imo.

What Pakistan wants is a friendly Afghanistan imo.

You've mentioned foreign policy in your first posts in this thread. That does not have anything to do with what I asked. This is what I asked. This is what happened following the Soviet withdrawal. Who was at fault for the ensuing Civil War? This is who caused the instability in Afghanistan. If it was Pakistan, explain why you think so.

Noone's given me an explanation of who caused the Civil War. I've heard many people blurt out Pakistan, but noone has told me how.

You do realize that the Civil War in Afghanistan started in 1991, well before the emergence of the Taliban? Who started it in 1991 is what I was asking? Don't blurt Pakistan. What did Pakistan do to instigate the Civil War? And give some evidence.

Let's assume the Afghan people wanted the ex-king back. Why wasn't he part of the 5-point UN peace plan? And why did Masood launch an attack on Kabul before the peace plan was finalized?

Its "pity" as in "I pity you." Petty means "insignificant/trifeling."

I never said they rose "in the name of Islam" and were "sahaba" replicas. I am merely saying what John Esposito noted in his survey "Who Speaks for Islam?" And that is that folks in that region utilize Islam as a rallying tool similar to how religion is utilized as a rallying tool in the American south and midwest via the Baptist pulpit. It doesnt mean that they are all Jesus Christ Incarnate. Quit seeing the Islamic bogey man around each dark corner, it does you injustice. Its no different than how the Iranian people, communists and all rallied around the Islamist banner. Professor Gerade at Vanderbilt has stated this in his sound work on the Iranian revolution in regard to Islam serving as a galvanizing force for all sorts of people responding to incursions in Persia, especially against the Pahlavi regime.

Regarding Scheuer/Hoh/Tribal Analysis center, you have been incapable of debunking their work. Why would I quit quoting a doyen like Dr. Scheuer who continues to be spot on in his analyses and has no vested interest in seeing Islamists win their causes? Your criticism of utilizing him as a resource is absurd. To me, its like a nurse practitioner criticizing a high impact factor source like the New England Journal of Medicine (meaning an amateur criticizing a well regarded and established source)... or in the engineering field, like an auto mechanic saying that the IEEE journals were being cited too much (equally absurd). So until you deal with their work and do a point by point rebuttal of it, I'll keep smashing your arguments with their evidence leaving you in the dust as you answer with what I refer to now as "Toramanaisms."

Definition of Toramanaism?
Toramanaism: The act of defining any and all things one is uncomfortable with as an Islamist/Pakistani/Arab mediated plot. A subset of the psychological coping mechanism of denial.

You know Toramana, I continue to be depressed at your continued lack of logic. As one former engineer to someone like yourself (a current engineer) I thought that the field was built on evidence and logic as opposed to emotional driven rhetoric. Engineers are supposed to be the lethal witness in a court case because they see the world as it is, not as they want it to be. They are the ultimate pragmatists. Yet you defy this character type and continue to utilize the following strategy that even the youth like Graveyard pick up on:

Here is your algorithm:

1) ANP driven rhetoric comes out
2) If 1) is opposed with evidence to the contrary label it Pakistani or Arab motivated
3) of 2) does not work, continue to repeat until self is convinced that the opposing viewpoint is utterly and purely Hamid Gul generated.

So, brother to give you some rest, I'll give you what you want. I'll erect an alternate reality (nonreality) that you can live in to comfort yourself.
I'll let you assume that I am actually the fusion of a lab project:

They took Arab gametes and fused them with Pakistani gametes and created me in a lab in the Panjab. I then grew up in Hamid Gul's basement on a leash. I was taken to Pashtunkhwa and I learned pashto there and was given many books to study Pashtun culture. Being the lab creation that I was, my weak DNA started to break down and I had to be shipped to America for folks at the NIH to work on strengthening it. In my spare time, I enjoy dancing bangra and instead of praying salah, I sing the Pakistani national anthem as well as praises of the Panjab. I chose the name BarakzaiAbdali because the initials form B/A, or if you say it right, P/A, for my codename: PanjabiArab.

There you go Toramana, I hope this gives you comfort and allows you to rest comforted that you exposed Hamid Gul's laboratory creation. loool.

Wrorre, they are uncomfortable with their own past mistakes and sins that either they or their parents committed when they left their people to fight the Russian juggernaut or now as they surrender their people over to the Pakistani fauj under some feudal banner called ANP. They refuse to comment on Commander Dauran as depicted by Paul Refsdahl because it reminds them of their humiliations and guilt. They know he is as Afghan as they come and that he represents the beating heart of the Afghan populace that rises against what they seek to impose upon it. They cannot, with their own hands, kill such a man who represents, in his most basic element, the proof positive that struggle against tyranny can proceed with even the most base weapons if one has the heart of a lion.

There were oppressors like this before. When the CIA agent held a gun to Che Guevara, after they caught him in Bolivia as he struggled against imperialism under the banner of an ideology that I do not agree with (yet I still admire his goals), they could not pull the trigger. He, per their own records, looked squarely at them and said "what, are you afraid to simply kill a man?" And the agent passed the gun to his Bolivian henchman who pulled the trigger.

These people, like Karzai Bibi/Toramana are comfortable letting the Americans kill Commander Dauran and his children because they do not want their own hands to get dirty. In Baygham's words, "why get your own hands dirty when you got a slave to do it for you!"

They sleep at night by labeling these folks that carry the banner against tyranny with terms like Terrorist/Fascist/Paki agent etc. In their heart of hearts they know that they are kil

Force them to comment on who this man is, and to justify how this individual is either brainwashed, indoctrinated by Pakistan, ISI created, or some secret Panjabi in Pashtun clothes:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5e5_1283088242

I think I can offer you some information. Per Scheuer's latest book, a bio of Osama Bin Ladin, he says that of the factions, the contribution Pakistan made to the Civil War was as follows:

Saudi Intelligence and the ISI supported Abdul Rasul Sayyaf (he was a favorite of Turky Bin Faisal). Abdul Azzam on the other hand supported Mossoud. Mr. Bin Ladin appeared to support a Pashtun dominance as well and broke ranks with Azzam, but remained cordial. So I think that there is evidence that Pakistan did have its money on a particular horse. The dilemma was that they simulataneously backed Hekmetyaar in the assumption that if their other war horses lost, they could at least have someone sympathic to their cause. Bin Ladin collected the various factions together and attempted to bargain a peace between the factions to no avail. He was in Jalalabad and had not heard of the Taliban when they poured out of Helmand and approached Jalalabad. When they took it, they asked him his loyalties and made an armistace with them. However, even he was surprised by their rapid ascendency from the chaos of the Civil War. So it would seem reasonable to assume that where Sayyaf and Hekmetyaar could not win with their backers money/arms; Pakistan saw more promise in this nascent movement being cradled in the Arghandab and Urzogan that eventually gave birth to the Taliban and catalyzed what was likely to happen anyways. In the mean time, America (once again per Dr. Scheuer's excellent work) and western powers had not, as is popularly stated, abandoned Afghanistan. They were working heavily and actively to install a secular and irreligious government, which was ridiculous as they had utilized religious and devout men to win the war while soft handed, effeminate, elitists ran to mud baths in Italy.

Barakzai your initial argument on Khyber-Pashtunkhwa is fallacious. The reason Pashtunkhwa should be separated from the policy of Pakistan (in the way you described it) is simply that one of the intentions of Pakistan's policy was to sideline the Pashtuns east of the durand line. Pakistan, due to the initial history of its creation, has had a rough patch in that region so they had to formulate a policy which they perceived could sideline the Pashtuns east of the line politically. Second of all, had these policies bore any fruit for Pashtunkhwa Pashtuns then they wouldn't be the primary losers in it. Up until now, Pashtunkhwa has gone backwards in all counts thanks to this policy. And it is becoming even more clearer that those regions are at best a second tier region and at worse a backyard for strategic games. I don't think it is fair for you to make such statements and you have to stop going back "listening to kabul, etc". That is not the point. The 30 years of war in Afghanistan has had political consequences for Pashtuns on both sides, it is not as simple as saying they won't listen to kabul or Kabul won't accept them. The situation has fundamentally crossed that. When we look at Pashtun lands now we have to look at it from different perspective and with different actors.

Michael Scheur is a decent analyst at best, but he is by no means the only one....one can also take a look at Selig Harrison, Ahmed Rashid, etc.

P.S. ISI initially supported Hekmatyaar until the 90s bore a different outcome during the siege of Kabul. Azzam and OBL's break I believe also came from some internal issues of the Arab fighter's ranks.

I respect Selig Harrison for crying in an opinion piece about China building a hi-speed train through a tectonic collision zone, through the highest mountains in the world, to a place where there is no economic, cultural, or political viability of such an adventure by the chinese. The chinese are also putting in missile silos in Gilgit-Baltistan because they ran out of places to put them in all the mountains in Tibet. I suspect your crush on Harrison is more for his comical diatribes than actual reason or analysis.

fzpz typical lol. The man correctly predicted the 1965 war and has been one of the leading experts on the region. He has given many talks on the internal dynamics of Pakistan and probably runs circles on the likes muhibe watan when it comes to the politics of Baluchistan and Sindh. Of course he is not infallible and his article on the China-karakarom has its issues...but then again do you know of any experts who have not made similar mis-calculations? I can give you one, it is called operation Gibralter ;-).