Pakistan

[Alchemist]

Not one of you have given an adequate explanation of how you would have stopped the Civil War of 1994 in Afghanistan.

We have been giving you more than adequate of an explanation to the cause of the civil war and all unrest in Afghanistan but you have your fingers in your ears and your foot in your mouth. The root of the problem, the civil war, has been Pakistan. Even after the taliban subdued all the different factions that were vying for power, the ISI protected the biggest war criminal from their wraths - namely Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. This criminal has killed more Afghans than soviets...he had links to the KGB KHAD and the ISI knew of it. He operates the biggest drug network in the region and is more famous for throwing acid on girls.


We did have a solution ...one posited by Majrooh....but who was then killed by Hekmatyar...pakistan's bff.

To gauge the level of support for the former king, Majrooh devoted the bulk of the following issue of the bulletin to a survey of Afghan refugees, which asked the question “Who would you like to be the national leader of Afghanistan?” The data-collection team put together by Majrooh contacted more than two thousand respondents in 106 of 249 camps, representing twenty-three of the twenty-eight provinces, the eight major ethnic groups, and all seven political parties. The result was that 72 percent of respondents wanted Zahir Shah as the national leader of Afghanistan. Only nine of the two thousand people surveyed, or 0.45 percent, wanted one of the leaders of the resistance parties in Peshawar, and a mere 12.5 percent indicated that they would like to see the establishment of “a pure Islamic state.” [8]
Despite the limits and biases of a survey of this type, the overwhelming support expressed for Zahir Shah, combined with the direct rebuke of the resistance leaders, indicated that the majority of Afghans remained unmoved by the Islamic political rhetoric with which they had been relentlessly assailed for the better part of a decade. Zahir Shah’s support may have been largely nostalgic in nature and reflective of his stated view that government should play a limited and nonintrusive role in people’s lives. Or it may simply have stemmed from the fact that he was not part of the morass in Peshawar. Whatever the reasons, Majrooh demonstrated with a degree of empirical precision heretofore lacking what everyone had long assumed—namely, that the Afghan people, if given the option, would choose Zahir Shah as their ruler.
In response to calls for his return, Zahir Shah broke his usual silence on exile political affairs in a radio interview with the BBC World Service in which he stated his willingness to serve the Afghan people if called on to do so; he stressed that, if asked to return, he would under no circumstance seek the restoration of the monarchy. These assurances aside, Hizb-i Islami and other radical Islamic parties reiterated their absolute opposition to any negotiated settlement that would bring Zahir Shah back to Afghanistan, even if he were selected through a democratic election. Hekmatyar’s position, as well as that of other radical leaders, was that Afghanistan should be an Islamic state and that the head of state should be selected by a council of qualified Islamic scholars and leaders from among those who had played an active part in the jihad. Since he had remained in Europe throughout the war and had made no sacrifices for the jihad, Zahir Shah was disqualified a priori from consideration. Majrooh’s commentaries and refugee survey challenged that view and gave ammunition to those who sought a more moderate solution to the political crisis facing Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal.

You chid us by assuming Afghans to be backwards fools who can't come up with solution unless with the guiding hand of pakistan?

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Greetings,

You said,


That was the main topic of this thread. I told you exactly what the problem is. The problem is Pakistan supporting instability in Afghanistan. The problem is Pakistan meddling in Afghan affairs. Do you understand why Afghans/Pashtuns who inhabit Pakistan and Afghanistan hate the GOP and GOA? Pakistan played a hypocrites role.


There is no doubt about that. The Mujahideen began to fight against the soviets because of American and Pakistani support. It was an American who landed in Pakistan and told the Pashtuns "Go free your country" little did they know they were fighting someone else's war, and serving someone else's interest all along. But that's not even the topic, nor concern here. The problem is with Pakistan, the Islamic brother of Afghanistan. How could the brother in Islam deceive the naive Muslim Pukhtuns?

You are being a bit naive here. You forget the fact that Pakistan made billions during the war on terror, and it has consistently received aid by the USA for carrying it's dirty work. What benefits did Afghanistan get from this "Strategic depth"? A powerful military? advanced infrastructure? All of what I mentioned is what Pakistan gained. Even today, Pakistan is supporting the Taliban, whilst receiving aid from the USA. I think the US is catching up to Pakistan's dirty game now. Pakistan is forcing Afghanistan to be dependent on her. That way, it can continue being Islamabads proxy.


Do you know understand why most Pashtuns/Afghans hate the government of Pakistan?

The violence can be stopped by educating the people. I am not asking you to pull out a notebook and teach them Linear Algebra. If Pakistan wanted to be play a positive role, it could've conducted UN meetings, and sat down with local Afghan cheifs to figure out ways to stop the war. But no, no! Pakistan took advantage of the weak Afghanistan. It made young, naive Afghans fight someone else's war, and they sort of made Afghanistan their 5th province for a good 6 years.

Negotiation.


I think I told you this already. I'm not one of those people that blames everything on ISI. I have answered the above way, way to many times now. Please, read all my posts in this thread and you will realize how Pakistan's role ended up being poison for Afghans.

I hope you answer all my points. Also, let's not derail the thread. Your question was answered, and I have yet to see a rebuttal.

Salamoona Admin wrorra,

Let us hone in on the Taliban.

When you say someone else's battle, do you mean the Kashmir conflict? Or do you mean the war against the Russian Juggernaut?

I think the issue here is to define what the Taliban are. The Karzai administration's propaganda is to simply label them "our wayward brothers." And then he usually adds some propaganda to this labeling them as influenced wholly by Pakistan. This however is hard to accept as having any basis in reality.

What I have generally read on here, which to me defies reason, are claims that the Taliban are a pure creation of Pakistan vs a Salafi Frankenstein vs a group of Panjabies dressed to look like Pashtuns. I completely dismiss the latter theory because it is so incredulous that it is a waste of time to even discuss or entertain that last hypothesis.

First, its like Mike Scheuer says, the Afghans were already killing Russians with their father's rifles... all the US did was really offer increased lethality. He posits that the Afghans would have gone on fighting the incursions with or without the US and that the victory of said war is purely an Afghan achievement. Had the US not been involved, it would have merely turned into what we see today, a war of attrition.

So then, when we say that a whole generation of Afghans was brainwashed by Pakistan... or by Arabs, I would have to say that men like Hekmetyaar, Omar, Salam-Zaeef, and Sayyaf were already "made-men" and really needed not much convincing to do what they had chosen to do: namely, fight the Russian juggernaut on a basis enshrined in the defensive holy war principle. And I would argue that the a large chunk of the fighting forces under men like Abdul Haq, Sayaaf, and other non Taliban leaders were not that much different in their though processes.

I previously made the case here that this phenomena mirrors the southern Baptist style phenomena of rallying around God and Country in the US when an outside anti Christian (Communist and now Islam) appears on the horizen. The Southern Pulpits open up and the fiery hell and brimstone sermons commence. During the Clinton era, these figures receded into the background.

In Pashto history, this is also an undeniable cycle: Mir Wais obtained a religious edict to evict Gurgin, Ahmad Shah obtained an invite and fatwa from Shah Waliullah, and Amanullah rallied the Ghazis. This article details this religious reflex that kicks in when the Pashtun nation galvanizes against a threat. Its almost like the body's innate B-cell immune response.

http://www.tribalanalysiscenter.com/...%20Mullahs.pdf

Take as another example the commentary on the Tirah revolve in Pashtunkhwa:

"There were other contributory factors: a perception that the Amir of
Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman Khan, would support an anti-British Jihad; rumours that the Christian Greeks had been defeated by the Muslim Turks and that the Christian world was finally in retreat...."

http://www.tribalanalysiscenter.com/...Operations.pdf

Usually, after the threat or the disorder was neutralized, such movements rapidly involuted and collapsed.

Finally, as much as it pains me to say it, I would have to state that Roadrunner is not too far off when it comes to the issue of internal stability. In fact, Kandahar itself supported this sentiment:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...1578-2002Jan15

"During the Taliban time, you could walk the streets safely day and night. Now we have to sleep with guns for pillows because we can be robbed at any time," said Abdul Haddi, 35, a car dealer. "Now we have the freedom to listen to music, and nobody bothers us about wearing beards, but music does not put food on the table. We prefer extremism to instability."

Regarding the relationship between Kandaharis the Arabs themselves:

"To a certain extent, Taliban sympathies here also extend to Arabs who lived here and fought alongside the Taliban against its armed domestic opponents in northern Afghanistan, and who later were killed or wounded in the U.S. bombing campaign.

At Mir Weis Hospital, where a half-dozen injured and armed Arab fighters have been barricaded inside a prison ward for weeks, even the soldiers guarding the grounds this week said they strongly disagreed with the government's decision to suspend all food supplies to the detainees after they refused to surrender.

"It is a shameful violence to stop their food and kill them slowly. Every Muslim in the world has sorrow for these men," said Akhtar Mohammed, 40, a hospital guard. "We want a moderate Islamic government, but not one that will sell the Koran for dollars." The Arab prisoners, he added, "are dying but they are happy, because they will go to paradise.""

I also stated on here that when we compare the decade under the Taliban versus the decade under Karzai, where the former was sanctioned heavily and brutally by the international community and the latter has the full support of it, yet still provides a failing infastructure, how can one ignore the need for stability or the great difficulty involved in bringing it to Afghanistan?

Moreover, I asked this question earlier without a response, regarding the story of this man, Commander Dauran, an Afghan born in Afghanistan, a land owner, and now a Talib Commander.

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

I asked, what does one consider Dauran? Do you consider him a wayward brother or what he appears to be: a man who sees non Muslims encroaching on his country's soveriegnty and thus a man who decided to obey the Prophet's edict regarding Muslim lands not needing a Caliphate order to initiate defensive holy war? I think its completely ignorant to simply label men like him as proxies and dupes of Pakistan or the Wahhabi phantom. Because then, this allows the labeling of anyone with anti occupation sentiments to be called a Pakistani proxy. And you will have to validate why everyone who feels that way deserves that label.

So I would pose 4 questions:

1) If the Talibs are men like Omar and others who were sons of the soil and fought for it in its time of need versus the soft handed effeminate elite like Karzai who fled in the face of danger... why does the Karzai government deserve our sympathy or empathy when it has not proved itself except as comprised of opportunists?

2) How sure are you that the Taliban forces are comprised completely of Pakistani dupes? Is it not fair to assume that a great many of these men are Commander Daurans who want the invader out, and as that villager from Qandahar above stated, who want a government that will not sell the Quran for a dollar?

3) In the absence of a viable alternative, and in an environment where everyone violently resisting US occupation is labeled a Talib without consideration of true affiliations, why should Pashtuns support an installed fabulously corrupt regime that now has the Northern Alliance Parliamentarian stamp on its head versus a movement that is comprised of Afghans/Pashtuns attempting to remove it?

4) Bottom line, I am asking whether there is any legitimate resistance movement in your eyes, and is it wrong to label everyone that resists a Talib?

Also, I would hard pressed to accept the simple label as Pakistani proxy for men like Hakimullah, per his blatant involvement in the Khost operation and his simulataneous strikes against Pakistani installations.

As I said above, I think this supports the notion that the current movement that has set the Pashtun lands on fire is an innate response to the presence of an outsider force seeking to impose its will on the Pashtuns. It appears that once TTP recognized that the Pakistani government was playing a double game, it turned its guns against it (hence the drone strikes against Hakimullah).

As I have also argued before, I think Roadrunner has a point regarding stability bearing slow but gradual improvement. Expecting the Taliban to have built Harvard in a day or the Empire state building in Kabul in 10 years seems absurd to me.

I view that movement as very similar to the nascent puritan community here in the US in the 1600s in Massachussetts Bay. Those were Christian Taliban that, as you well know, burned women alive in the masses for being suspected witches and instituted theocratic Christian law. However, they were left alone and no French man or outsider came in and galvanized opposition from the Puritans and forced a reactionary setback in their mode of thinking. The result was literary men like Nathanial Hawthorne, whose great grandfather was the head of the community and had sent many young women to their death, ended up writing books like the Scarlet Letter as ways to come to terms with the theocratic reactionary mindset that killed so many here in that early American community. That transition from violent theocracy to something stable took time.

The Taliban were already moving in that direction:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/...6610BM20100702

"In a brief idyll in 1992, after the fall of the Moscow backed-government but before civil war erupted, there were around 200,000 Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan compared with around just a few thousand today.
When warring factions fought over Kabul, razing entire neighborhoods in deadly rocket barrages, the two communities became targets partly because of their religion, but also because they didn’t have a militia of their own for protection.

Armed men stormed a temple in Kabul and tore a religious book to avenge the destruction of a mosque by fanatic Hindus in India. After complaining of extortion, intimidation, kidnappings, theft and even rape, those with the means fled to India where they live as aliens and require visas, like other foreigners.

Ironically the rise to power of the hard-line Islamist Taliban marked an improvement in the lives of those who remained — and some emigres even started to return."

“The Taliban did not suppress us — they respected our religion and if we had any problem they would resolve it immediately, let alone delay it until the next day,” says Singh.

“We have no shelter, no land and no authority,” says Awtar Singh, a senator and the only non-Muslim voice in Afghanistan’s parliament.
“No one in the government listens to us, but we have to be patient, because we have no other options,” says Singh, 47.


The end result?: The US removed the only movement in recent Afghan history that provided a stable and uncorrupt government and has activated a reactionary pathway that will only feed further radicalization in the region.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...714936,00.html

"Scheuer: We're really not in a position to push these people. Who's going to replace them? There isn't anyone less corrupt. Probably the only incorrupt people in Afghanistan are the Taliban. If you want no corruption, give the government back to the Taliban"

[BarakzaiAbdali]

We have been giving you more than adequate of an explanation to the cause of the civil war and all unrest in Afghanistan but you have your fingers in your ears and your foot in your mouth. The root of the problem, the civil war, has been Pakistan. Even after the taliban subdued all the different factions that were vying for power, the ISI protected the biggest war criminal from their wraths - namely Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. This criminal has killed more Afghans than soviets...he had links to the KGB KHAD and the ISI knew of it. He operates the biggest drug network in the region and is more famous for throwing acid on girls.


We did have a solution ...one posited by Majrooh....but who was then killed by Hekmatyar...pakistan's bff.






You chid us by assuming Afghans to be backwards fools who can't come up with solution unless with the guiding hand of pakistan?

Salamoona

I think you make very valid points. 100% percent agreement on Pakistan needing to keep its nose out of it all.

Even Salam-Zaeef reminisced about the days of yore during his youth when Zahir Shah was in power. The question is really, what would the return of the Muhammadzai dynasty have meant for Afghanistan, and in what form would it have returned?

However, in his latest text, Scheuer details that it is a complete lie that the West abandoned Afghanistan. Quiet the contrary, he notes that as early as the late 80s, Zalmaay Khalilzaad and others were attempting to subvert the rise of an Islamic government and was utilizing the Afghans that fled to the West as a means to erect a secular regime that would marginalize many of the groups that had participated in the anti Russian effort. I can provide the quotes and the evidences he cites for this.

The original federalist Zahir Shah and Nadir Shah eras deferred a lot of local leadership to the tribes/clans, especially nearer to the border. This resulted in a lot of stability. For that particular reason, in the Pashtun villages, local disputes were referred to the jirgas and resolved in the time honored fashion. Zina, as an example, was punishable by death per both pashtunwali and Islamic law codes. With the secular imposition, this local legal structure would have been subverted (as the Karzai government currently attempting to do).

Finally, as I stated when I first started posting here, if we were to separate Pakistan out of the equation and simply view KP in isolation.. does KP have a right to say what goes on in Kabul? The problem is that KP has had a historical role as recently as under Nadir and Amanullah Shahs when both Kings rallied Wazir and Mehsud tribesmen to dispose of problems in Kabul. So now, if the Wazir tribe and the Mehsud tribe object to the Northern Alliance dominated Karzai government, do they not have historical precedent on their side for doing so? And if they do it violently, do they also not have Nadir and Amanullah to thank for establishing this precedent?

Finally, how does one tease out the will of KP from the will of Pakistan? If the Pashtuns of Pakistan decide that Karzai has to leave and backs armed movements to depose his government will the insurgency still not be labeled a Pakistani movement? If this is the case, why does the relationship between Afghan Pashtuns and Pakistani Pashtuns flow one way in the minds of such naysayers where Kabul ought to dictate the outcomes of matters in KP lands but KP denizens cannot dictate what happens in Kabul?

[Toramana]

Barakzai, I wonder sometimes, are you really someone from Pakistan defence forum or a genuine Barazai Afghan...Your stance is exactly what Pakistan's intelligence apparatus is maintaining via its hired mouthpieces.

Furthermore, Micheal Shuer and Tribal Analysis Center, are your only souces of information.

Neither Pashtun "always rising against foreign invasion" is an absolute truth nor they always "fighting in the name of jehad to establish a theocracy" is a universal rule. Furthermore, Gulbuddins, Ahmad Shah Masoud, etc. pampering by Pakistan's security interest as far back as in 1973 is an established fact that no degree of manipulation or mispresentation of truth can obscure....

[graveyardofempires]

Toramana oh please now you are sounding like goatrunner

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Barakzai, I wonder sometimes, are you really someone from Pakistan defence forum or a genuine Barazai Afghan...Your stance is exactly what Pakistan's intelligence apparatus is maintaining via its hired mouthpieces.

I know who I am and we know who you are:

http://www.pashtunforums.com/hujra-1...lgabari-10575/

There is only serial poster that jumps forums and that is you. I definitively proved there your sentiments lie with Tajiks and not the Pashtun people per your Papin Khel lineage and your absurd claim that Tajik populations exert influence in Pakistan. What really asserts even more that the poster on those forums was you is that the poster was the only individual on the Tajik forums that could not speak a word of dari.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Barakzai, I wonder sometimes, are you really someone from Pakistan defence forum or a genuine Barazai Afghan...Your stance is exactly what Pakistan's intelligence apparatus is maintaining via its hired mouthpieces.

Besides, I am content enough with my lineage that I could care less whether my point agrees with Ku Klux Clansmen, Doctor Octopus, or Pakistanis. If I see logic in something, I state it. Finally, I see your general silence on Roadrunner now that he has completely broke ranks with your viewpoint. A few days ago you were calling him a "nice guy." Mysteriously, you have grown silent on him and the salient points of his arguments (note that I do not agree with a number of them, but I will address that later when I get home).

[Toramana]

Barakzai, I petty on you...I am not suffering from any kind of identity crisis neither the one based in religion nor the other rooted in tribalism. What I observe is, how perfectly aligned are your views with those of Pakistanis of both genres; the liberal secular as well as the fundamentalist. The clean shaven general of Pakistan army or an equally refined-looking civilian Pakistani ideologue/nationalist can have the same stance as an Islamist fundamentalists like General Hamid Gul and Qazi Hussain Ahmad when it comes to Taleban i.e. they are an indegenous Pashtun movement resisting foreign occupation. That is why one skeptically sees a Pakistani in you instead of an Afghan.

Now your argument runs like this.

"Pashtuns have always risen against foreign occupation" and "that they have always risen in the name of Islam"...And this not to mention the distortion of an established fact not just from onesource but multiple sources and perspectives...

[graveyardofempires]

Toramana is here trying to say "If you are against the war in Afghanistan you support isi and pakistan interests" how is that even possible?

[Azmal]

Pakistan's foreign policy towards Afghanistan. Let's start with strategic depth and Taliban.

Wrora,
Creation of Pakistan on historical afghan land as “successor of British Raj” in itself is greatest danger and threat for us Afghans. Ali Jenah speech regarding status of FATA two months after creation of Pakistan clearly state continuation of colonial British forward policy…ex.. political agents, and collative punishment. In addition to this, in absent of national coherence in Pakistan, political Islam has been the ONLY means at government’s disposal for survival….Thus naturally Pakistani creates and support terrorist in shape of Taliban and naturally Pakistan will do everything possible to radicalize Pashtons society. This is exactly the reason why Pashton nationalist parties have been prevented from so called FATA while the “Islamist” has been given free hand and state support in order.
In short occupation of Pashtonistan at hands of servants of colonial British NOT only threaten the survival of Afghan culture , heritage , identity and noble values , but even our existence as a people as well. Worst off they violate the sanctity of Islam by using Islam when it’s convenient…you can’t pick and choose parts of Islam to justify its society and then ignore the rest. That is a travesty to Islam. Holy Islam and our Pashton culture teaches us to be ruled by ourselves and not by others, and being apart of Pakistan a country which is not formed by our OWN authority is a violation of both ethics.

[Azmal]

Taliban are a symptom of Afghanistan. The Afghan-Soviet war, the radicalization, what to do with all those radicals who only knew militancy. Pakistan just stamped the name Taliban onto these individuals.

I wish they'd unbrainwash themselves, but it will take a while. In the meantime, they're too much of a popular movement within Afghanistan to ignore. Reconciliation is the only answer, plus lots of funding for development.

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.

[roadrunner]

I know this is not adressed to me but one thing you are forgetting is the the strategic depth in KP was to pakistan's benifit. The pakistani establishment earned billions of $ from that period and maybe even their nuclear capability was part of the deal. Afghanistan has arguably gained nothing and has been fragmented and ethnic groups fighting each other supported by opposing countries.

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?

so no I wouldn't call that hypocracy,

What is the difference then?

Its not as if Pakistan can always dictate what it wants, the pakistani elite will sell their mothers and daughters if they can gain money and power from it, same is true of Afghan elites and corrupt leaders.

The matter is really simple as long as there is pakistan, it will keep playing this strategic depth game in Afghanistan, As Afghans our priority is to work for the intrest of Afghanistan and if that means the destruction of Pakistan then so be it, The pakistani establishment has done exactly that. It has destroyed Afghanistan for its own survival and games with India. Our turn will come inshallah.

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.

[roadrunner]

No. Pakistan used it's own land to make sure it gains influence over Pakistan. Afghanistan had no proper government. Nor were Afghans smart enough to know what's going on. Pakistan trained them[willingly] and sent them off to fight. It's not like Pakistan did Afghanistan a favor. Pakistan found herself a 5th province. A province that was backwards, and had one of the worlds lowest literacy rate. Training Mujahdeen[with Pakistanis free-will]was a golden opportunity for their own strategic depth. So in other words, training Afghans in Pashtunkhwa was part of Pakistans strategic depth, not Afghanistan. And if you want proof for this, just look at the outcome of the war. Pakistan made billions, Pakistan got US aircraft, and it was the Pashtuns who suffered on both sides of the war. Pakistan gained the most out of the civil war. She found herself a destabilized, Pakistan dependent Afghanistan. You being a Thinktank, I don't even think I have to make you understand how beneficial the war that Afghans fought was for Pakistan.

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 did the opposite. Pakistan funded, and supported the Mujahadeen for her own benefit. And that outcome shows us what Pakistan's intentions were. Afghanistan served as a proxy for Pakistan, and even as we speak, Pakistan is continuing it's dirty game. That's not what Afghans want Roadrunner, let's be a bit more realistic.

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.

You still didn't answer me very basic, yet elementary question.

Do you support the Taliban? What do you think of the Taliban? I want a very basic answer.

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?

If Pakistan wanted something to happen, it could've executed. All that is nothing but smokescreen for the international media. Pakistan's intentions are very clear, it want's a friendly, and dependent Afghanistan. And that is exactly what it pursued, an even today it's supporting the Taliban to pursue that goal. You can tell me all you want about these meetings but the reality is what we see, and what we witnessed.

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.

Brother, I don't mind elaborating. However, can you at least read my first few posts in this thread? I really showed you how the Pakistani government played a hypocrites role.

I'm not in a rush. We can take this slowly, that way I can learn from you. And you can learn from me. That's whole purpose of this site, learning.

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.

As far as I am aware, the UN under Sevan suggested a five point peace plan for power sharing. It did not work. The reason it didn't work was predominantly down to what? Pakistan? Iran? I don't think either were at fault. It was the UN expecting everyone would listen to them, and not bothering to enforce their resolutions. Where did Pakistan fit into this equation? Pakistan did enter the equation later on in trying to unify the maniacs that militant deobandi Islam's spread had created.

Now if I'm wrong on this, explain to me how Pakistan was responsible for the Civil War? You might be correct and I'm missing something.

[roadrunner]

We have been giving you more than adequate of an explanation to the cause of the civil war and all unrest in Afghanistan but you have your fingers in your ears and your foot in your mouth. The root of the problem, the civil war, has been Pakistan. Even after the taliban subdued all the different factions that were vying for power, the ISI protected the biggest war criminal from their wraths - namely Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. This criminal has killed more Afghans than soviets...he had links to the KGB KHAD and the ISI knew of it. He operates the biggest drug network in the region and is more famous for throwing acid on girls.

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?

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Barakzai, I petty on you...I am not suffering from any kind of identity crisis neither the one based in religion nor the other rooted in tribalism. What I observe is, how perfectly aligned are your views with those of Pakistanis of both genres; the liberal secular as well as the fundamentalist. The clean shaven general of Pakistan army or an equally refined-looking civilian Pakistani ideologue/nationalist can have the same stance as an Islamist fundamentalists like General Hamid Gul and Qazi Hussain Ahmad when it comes to Taleban i.e. they are an indegenous Pashtun movement resisting foreign occupation. That is why one skeptically sees a Pakistani in you instead of an Afghan.

Now your argument runs like this.

"Pashtuns have always risen against foreign occupation" and "that they have always risen in the name of Islam"...And this not to mention the distortion of an established fact not just from onesource but multiple sources and perspectives...

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.