Pashtun Culture is Key to Afghan Insurgency

[Admin Khan]

Complicated tribal dynamics in Afghanistan are not given their due weight by coalition leaders, but they will have a big impact on how things play out in Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal.

There is a pervading suspicion among the Pashtun that rival tribes are colluding with U.S. forces to destroy them. According to author Jere Van Dyk, he has heard this belief voiced by Pashtun from the lowest ranks all the way to high-level government officials.

“The Pashtuns feel that they are under attack,” said Van Dyk in a phone interview.

Van Dyk lived alongside the mujahedeen, Muslim fighters, in the 1980s and maintains contact with high-ranking Afghan officials to this day. In 2008, he attempted to disappear into Pashtun culture and infiltrate the Taliban, but was captured. He recounted the experience in his book, "Captive, My Time As A Prisoner Of The Taliban.”

The Pashtun are the largest tribe in Afghanistan, comprising 42 percent of the population.

Aside from coalition forces, there are three main players in the Afghan conflict: The Tajiks in northern Afghanistan, the Punjabis in Pakistan, and the Pashtun whose tribal region is mostly in the south and then stretches 80 miles east into Pakistan.

While nearly all Taliban insurgents are Pashtun, the officer core of the Afghan army is primarily Tajik, and nearly 80 percent of the Pakistan army is Punjabi.

Thus, it is impossible to consider Afghanistan in isolation from Pakistan. “This in many ways is an ethnic war, between the Punjabis which control the bureaucracy and military in Pakistan, and the Pashtuns of the tribal areas and across the area into Pakistan,” says Van Dyk.

“Pakistan is going to try to control this until the very end,” he said.

“If you talk to any Pashtun along the tribal belt on both sides of the border, they will tell you that Pakistan is trying to create chaos, or the image of chaos, in order to get money from the U.S.,” says Van Dyk.

The Tajiks aligned themselves successfully with the northern alliance—a loose coalition of mostly non-Pashtun groups united to defeat the Taliban—and with the United States at the very beginning, explains Van Dyk.

The United States is also making a common mistake in operations in the Pashtun Afghan south, by giving the operations names in the Tajik language, a Persian dialect called Dari.

“This is telling every single Pashtun that the United States has allied itself with the Tajiks,” he said.

The Pashtun believe they are caught in the middle of a conflict meant to crush them

A Circle of Vengeance


In Pashtun culture, revenge is not merely an act of emotion. Rather, badal (revenge) is a responsibility required by their unwritten law (Pashtunwali). This concept is one of the main drivers of the Afghan insurgency.

“The insurgency, which almost exclusively involves ethnic Pashtuns, is strongest in the Pashtun-dominated south and southeast of the country," although it is present in smaller pockets of Pashtuns throughout Afghanistan, according to a report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

“Many Taliban 'foot soldiers' are young men who take up arms on a part-time basis. They may be motivated more by local grievances, including the desire to avenge friends and family members killed in the fighting, than by ideology,” states the IISS report.

Van Dyk said he witnessed this firsthand. “Based on my experiences, I was told and observed that many of the young men had joined the Taliban not because of money, but because of something that happened to their family, and it was a matter of badal—because of what you did to us, I have an obligation.”

The problem of insurgency in Afghanistan led the United States to adopt a counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy of winning “hearts and minds,” in the country. The strategy is based on clearing enemy fighters from targeted areas then holding ground while building government and infrastructure.

Pashtun law is a distant concept from modern governance. From the viewpoint of Western society, the Pashtun regions are lawless, but this could not be farther from the truth. What they have is an unwritten code of honor rooted in a culture believed to date back at least 5,000 years.

In a culture where a man’s honor determines his place in a society, keeping face and maintaining the Pashtun code of honor carry deep importance. The need to enforce badal has thus kept the Pashtun in recurring conflict throughout history. The Pashtun are divided into many separate tribes and clans, and government takes the form of jirgas—tribal councils demanding unanimous agreement for an act to move forward.

Lack of consensus in jirgas, however, can lead to near endless tribal war due to the concept of badal and maintaining honor, according to a October 2009 report from the Tribal Analysis Center.

“In order for a winner to emerge, there must be losers and those individuals, and their loyal followers, will normally take up arms to recover lost honor from those who won in the council,” states the report.

Due to the butterfly affect of revenge, battles over lost honor can “become endless wars under their chivalry code they call 'pashtunwali' that requires badal, or revenge,” states the report.

Since many Taliban fighters may have joined the conflict to seek badal, the 2014 troop pullout from Afghanistan could reduce the insurgency, said Van Dyk. However, what the Americans are leaving behind, namely a centralized democratic government, could remain a target.

Under the former primarily Pashtun Taliban Islamic regime there was no separate concept for religion and government, which bespeaks how the Pashtun view the importation of democracy. “The Taliban will call democracy a western religion," said Van Dyk.

Right to Rule


The Pashtun have an inherent belief that it is their right to rule the country. They “see themselves as Afghanistan,” Van Dyk said.

Their concept of a “right to lead” ties both into their being the largest tribe in Afghanistan, and into their having governed the country since its founding, with few exceptions in history, according to a March 2 report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

This dynamic is reflected in the current Afghan government, headed by President Hamid Karzai. “Karzai is a Durrani Pashtun, and his Cabinet and inner advisory circle has come to be progressively dominated by Pashtuns and to exclude members of the other communities,” states the CRS report.

However, even rival Pashtan groups are vying for power, each wanting to lead the country, says Van Dyk.

The multiple layers of tribal dynamics put the United Sstates in a tough spot with leaving the country in 2014.

Afghan senators warned in March that the 2014 troop pullout could plunge the country into civil war, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

Van Dyk agrees, saying almost without doubt, “if we pulled out now there would be a civil war.”


Pashtun Culture is Key to Afghan Insurgency | World | Epoch Times

[Alchemist]

This is just another propaganda by mr van dyke. The usual western rhetoric of " tajik vs pashtun".

Even though he says it himself - "the president and his cabinet are predominantly pashtun"

Sometimes they say the Taliban has arabs and pakistanies in it, then when it fits their simplistic approach towards afghanistan, they will say it is exclusively pashtun. Really, even the drug trade of heroine is also exclusively pashtun. The people of Paktia are profiting wholesale from it but you'll never hear anyone mention that.

Then to say that this is "an ethnic war" goes contrary to what the Taliban themselves claim - that this is jihad for the sake of establishing an Islamic emirate. Still it portrays pashtuns as a bunch of barbarians from medieval times who only fight for the sake of revenge. This gives credence to the presence of NATO because it goes to show that taliban are not civil people and AFghanistan will be doomed unless the backwards and barbaric mentality of taliban, i.e, the pashtun culture, it self is eradicated. Did you post this here to tell us that too admin khan? That pashtun culture is the problem?

[Admin Khan]

Nice comments Alchemist. I never hinted, nor claimed that I endorse this editorial. I usually post all sort of editorials about Pashtuns/Afghans, just to see what you and others think of the articles written by other writers. Usually when I like an editorial, I post my supportive comments underneath it. So no, obviously Pashtun culture isn't the problem.

M,
what happens is this. If the writer ever looks up his own editorial, he will stumble upon this thread and read the comments left by you and others. That is why we, at all times, have to professionally refute what we don't like. Keep in mind, nice rebuttals hold weight. :-)

My opinion:
I think the Tajik vs Pashtun issue has been blown out of proportion. Neighboring nations are using this to exploit the Afghan nation. It's a divide and rule tactic that I think many of our neighbors are pursuing for their own strategic benefits. However, I am certainly aware that natural tensions do exist between these two ethnic groups and that things aren't necessarily as lovey-dovey as many might claim. Pashtuns and Tajiks are not ready to slice up each others throats though[as many articles might inadvertently claim]. The tensions that do exist usually revolve around a political level. Local Pashtuns and Tajiks don't really have problems, they mind their own business. Racist Tajik officers, and racist Pashtun officers do exist but that's just how the world is. Good and bad exists in all. Unfortunately, Politicians need to flex their muscle so they decide to exaggerate the Pashtun vs Tajik issue to make a livelihood. As usual, blood being spilled at the expense of Pashtuns/Afghans.

[ScimitarXEdge]

brilliant analysis, the ethnic card has always been manipulated in these media sources ; always to pit one group on another; say Taliban is arab and pakistanis to feed into Pashtun Nationalist palates, say they're Pashtun so Tajik Nationalists can use that as a scapegoat. Whatever it is , keep people divided.

[Alchemist]

Exactly^
Some sources say that Tajiks dominate the ANA. Other sources say Pashtuns dominate ANA.

In reality, the ANA is comprised of a bunch of pot heads who got no jobs. The attrition rate is ridiculous. They want to do what the Russians were doing. Use Afghans to fight against Afghans. If Karzair, the parliament, or whatever authority in Afghanistan wants to bring peace to Afghanistan they should right away disband the ANA. The only thing the army is doing is killing its own. In a way it actually benefits the "insurgency" since many of those in the ranks of the insurgency have been trained by NATO forces. They see the injustices committed by the foreign forces. They see that they are kafirs, who mostly crush beer cans on their heads and scream yahoo. So they get disillusioned and they join the other side. Instead of sinking millions of dollars into this ridiculous cycle of killing they should focus on building roads and de-mining schools and playgrounds. NATO should pull out it's 200,000 forces of combatants. But now we have to wait around until the US economy sinks further and further. This analysis is no different from what the british had analyzed a hundred years ago - the culture of jihad. The longer they stay there, the more chaos.
Then what bitter hypocrisy does Van Dyk exhibit when he calls pashtun culture, a culture of revenge. Isn't the US and NATO in Afghanistan for revenge? First thing they did after 9/11 was invade Afghanistan for revenge. For the 3000 that died on that day 300,000 of Afghans have to die? Why doesn't this fool go and look at the behaviour of the US soldiers? One of their soldiers die and they go on a killing spree, hunting children like rabbits. This is the west chasing its own demons. The western modern man is psychologically screwed up and always has been. They make themselves come off as being civil yet to this date some of the most cruelest and barbaric acts recorded in the last 10 years in Afghanistan has been committed by NATO itself. Then they criticize "suicide" bombings, when they themselves are dropping 100 lb bombs on villages.

[fzpz]

They're trying to intellectualize bs. They're fighting because they're getting shot at, bombed, tortured, and raped. It's human nature. Shouldn't be that hard to figure out. Jihad or no jihad. Badal or no badal.