Honouring a hero

[DaMalakandGhar]

ANALYSIS: Dr Shakil Afridi —Farhat Taj

Dr Afridi’s act could not be hidden from the world because the US is
directly involved in it. Therefore, a smear campaign has been
launched. It depicts the doctor as a dishonest person and a traitor.
The aim, it seems, is to absolve the military of any responsibility
for bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan for years

A native of Khyber Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas
(FATA), Dr Shakil Afridi has been arrested by the military authorities
in Pakistan. He faces charges of treason for his role in locating and
killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Reportedly, he ran a
vaccination campaign for the US intelligence agency the CIA in
Abbottabad to collect blood samples of the children of Osama bin
Laden. The DNA test from the blood samples established the presence of
bin Laden in a military area in Abbottabad and subsequently he was
killed in the US commando raid in the house where the al Qaeda leader
had lived with his family for many years.

Capturing or killing of al Qaeda terrorists is the aim of the
UN-mandated US-led war on terror. Pakistan is supposedly a partner in
this war. The Pakistani military authorities have not only been
killing, capturing and handing al Qaeda militants based in Pakistan to
the US but have also been taking pride in doing so. Former dictator
Musharraf admits in his book (In the Line of Fire, pg 237) that his
government captured and handed over 369 al Qaeda militants to the US.
He also writes that Pakistanis received ‘millions of dollars’ as prize
money from the CIA for capturing those militants. But none of those
Pakistanis ever faced the treason charges that Dr Afridi does today.
The reason is not what some people are underscoring in internet blogs
and newspapers in Pakistan — that because Dr Afridi’s cooperation with
the US led to, what they call, an ‘invasion’ of Pakistan, so he must
be tried for treason.

The reason is that his act has torn apart the strategic depth
narrative internalised by many in Pakistan due to a constant
state-backed propaganda based on outright lies or at best distortion
of facts. According to this narrative, the people of FATA are
fanatically religious. They have given refuge to al Qaeda militants
following their escape from the US bombing in Afghanistan. They have
given their daughters and sisters in marriage to foreign al Qaeda
militants, who enjoy comfortable hospitality in the area not only
under the code of tribal Pashtunwali but also as sons-in-law and
brothers-in-law. According to this narrative, Osama bin Laden was
never supposed to be discovered in a military area in Pakistan, but in
FATA. The tribes in the area were supposed to rise in rage in the
event of any harm to Osama bin Laden by the US. Dr Afridi, himself a
tribesman from the area, proved exactly the opposite.

Dr Afridi, however, is not the first person from FATA who has exposed
the Pakistani military’s control over the Taliban or al Qaeda
terrorists, whereby they are used for terrorism in Afghanistan and the
‘unwanted’ among them handed over to the US to prove Pakistan’s
‘performance’ in the war on terror as well as to win the head money
placed by the US on terrorists. There are countless more people in the
area who have done so before him. But their contributions have never
made it to the wider world because there is a strict state control
over the flow of information from FATA coupled with a systemic
state-sponsored propaganda that distorts facts as well as attributes
outright lies to the area, its culture and people. More importantly,
many of those who exposed the military control over the militants were
eliminated through targeted killings, which had scared the others into
silence.

Dr Afridi’s act could not be hidden from the world because the US is
directly involved in it. Therefore, a smear campaign has been
launched. It depicts the doctor as a dishonest person and a traitor.
The aim, it seems, is to absolve the military of any responsibility
for bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan for years in the military area
and to assassinate Dr Afridi’s character so that the people in
Pakistan can never acknowledge his contribution for peace and honour
him as a Pashtun hero of Pakistan.

Now there are two important issues at hand. One, Dr Afridi and his
family must be saved from the Pakistani military establishment, and
two, steps must be taken to ensure he is hailed as he deserves to be:
a saviour of peace in the world and son of the Pashtun soil who
exposed those who have devastated the Pashtun land with terrorism.
Something seems to be happening to ensure the former. US Defence
Secretary Leon Panetta has publicly expressed concern about Pakistan’s
treatment of Dr Afridi. US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher has announced
that he will introduce legislation in the US Congress seeking US
citizenship and a Congressional Gold Medal for Dr Shakil Afridi for
his contribution in eliminating bin Laden. The US should not abandon
Dr Afridi and his family. One would like to hope that the US would
manage to save his life and freedom.

Most probably, the latter cannot be ensured by the US because
appropriate measures in this regard must be taken indigenously. The
PPP-led coalition government of Pakistan would not acknowledge Dr
Afridi’s role at the state level because it has no control over
Pakistan’s Afghan policy, which remains the exclusive domain of the
military establishment. The Pashtun nationalist ANP government in
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would also not honour him with a gallantry award.
The ANP government works under strict constraints imposed on it by the
military establishment’s strategic depth policy vis-à-vis Afghanistan.
The ANP as a political party has sacrificed hundreds of its leaders,
workers as well as their family members for the sake of its Afghan
policy. Decorating Afridi with a public honour at this point of time
might be politically as well as physically damaging for the ANP and
its leaders and workers. As long as the military dominates politics in
Pakistan, there is no hope Afridi can be honoured by any government in
Pakistan. What is more likely is that he might lose his life and go
down in history as a traitor by means of sheer distortion of facts.

The only state authority that should and probably can ensure that Dr
Afridi’s contribution to peace in the world in general and the Pashtun
land in particular is not lost at the hands of the Pakistani military
authorities is the government of Afghanistan. The government and the
people of Afghanistan know more than anyone in the world how their
country have been devastated by al Qaeda and the proxies of the
Pakistani military establishment, the Taliban. This is the reason why
Pashtun as well as non-Pashtun public opinion in Afghanistan is
anti-Pakistan. By facilitating the killing of Osama bin Laden, Dr
Afridi has also done a service to the people of Afghanistan. Moreover,
he is a Pashtun — the ethnic group that forms the majority of the
Afghan population. The Karzai government should honour this fellow
Pashtun with the highest civil award of Afghanistan and take other
appropriate means to ensure his contribution to peace in the world in
general and cleansing Afghanistan of al Qaeda terrorists in
particular, is appreciated in Afghanistan and through Afghan channels
in the whole world.

The writer is the author of Taliban and Anti-Taliban

http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...8-2-2012_pg3_6

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Ah Toramana,

Miss Far-asshat Taj ANDERSEN does it again.... offering a surface analysis that inculcates her own personal viewpoints into an article versus actually pausing to write about the implications of Dr. Afridi's treatment for locals in the 1% that might be inspired to emulate him.

Lets pause and take a second to think about how Dr. Afridi got to where he is. There are two potential pathways:

1. He knew he was playing James Bond and was actively involved in the build up to the operation

or

2. He had little idea of what he was involved in.

If the answer is that he was entrenched and a trained CIA assett, then perhaps Dr. Afridi and Mr. Karzai can give eachother some pep talks and here is why:

From day 1 the fools, surface thinkers, and ahistorical buffoons that have proposed that Afghans can utilize the US and the US to achieve independence, stability, and power projection against their enemies lost sight of the history of the people they proposed to use (i.e. Americans) and their own history (the history of elites of the Pashtun belt thinking that they can get away with using the raw power of an empire against their enemies). They forgot that the Americans did not get to where they have by being used cannon fodder proxies. Sure they prop up Israel, but their preference has been to have other installed governments reflect their national security interest goals. They also forgot that each and every time a Pashtun leader has attempted to use an outsider power's arsenal for their personal objectives and goals (Shah Shuja, Nadir Khan, etc, the Telai brothers) it has ended disasterously for these folks and the commoners.

One might imagine that if scenario 1 were the case, Mr. Karzai would somberly turn to Dr. Afridi and pretty much sum up the following article in his laments:

http://articles.cnn.com/2012-02-14/a...led?_s=PM:ASIA

His consternation that the Taliban and the US are directly communicating and outmanuevering him, [He of the green cape, he of the Kabul Arg, Crome Dumicus Maximus, Hamid Shah "Durrani"] is enough to send him into wild rages without much thought processes. Take for instance his recent tantrum in Pakistan. What did he suppose that Pakistan and the ISI would do? Did he think that they would magically point out where their proxy force leaders are if they truly are their proxies??? For what reason? So that the US can decapitate the shura Quetta in 1 swift drone's sting? He truly must be writhing in agony that he has been Shah Shujad.

And for nearly 1 and half years now I warned these folks that this is exactly what would happen. The US will do what it thinks is best for its national security interests with or without Karzai. That is what all surviving nation states do. They do not coopt national security interests and they certainly do not invent them like the Kabul government has. Karzai, like Qaddafi, and much like Saddam before him (when Saddam was killing Iranians assuming that the US respected him as a King of Mesopotamia) thought that he had the super power by the proverbial "balls." Instead, day in and day out his government is releasing frenzied statements wondering why they are being marginalized. After all, if Saddam thought himself the Lord of Mesopotamia, Karzai certainly thought himself a reincarnation of brave Afghan leaders of old. Perhaps he envisioned himself as equivalent to a young Ahmad Khan, enlisted in the Army of the enemy, biding his time till when he would unite his country and lead it to greatness. Despite his political science degree he forgets that Ahmad Khan never made a case for permanent Iranian bases when he seized the moment. Oh Hamid, dont you see that although Ahmad and Hamid may share some Arabic root... they arent the same name... no matter how much you close your eyes and wish upon a star, you cannot repeat a great man's history when you are less than great!

There was Osho claiming the US was the great friend of the Afghan people and Mr. Karzai was cut from a meritocratic cloth... ignoring the fact that if history is lost on him then he should watch it in the making as the West discards its old dictators and "presidents" like used toilet paper. There was Toramana echoing the notion that Western power was the greater equalizer to imported terrorism, ignoring the fact that nearly all major studies show the root cause of the latter is the former. Mr. Karzai was just the latest roll of toilet paper, and that article above, coupled to his anger at the US for keeping him out of the loop and marginalizing him proves it once and for all.

Then we might imagine that Dr. Afridi, if scenario 1 is true, would turn to his green caped friend and sing his own swan song about how he was working with the enemy because the enemy of my enemy (ie the Arabs) is my friend. He would go on to turn the phrase around and say that in fact, "the enemy of my enemy was my worst enemy indeed!" leaving me to rot in a Pakistani prison after the service I rendered to them!

But I think the much more likely scenario here is scenario 2.

After all, the US had learned its lesson from the Jordanian doctor who killed 7 CIA agents in Afghanistan and from the multiple times their Pashtun or Arab informants had turned up dead leads. It knew that it could not trust "rag heads" and "hajjis" with such sensitive information as this.

With an operation as big as this, they would have been unlikely to pull aside this surgeon, whose family appeard to have no idea that the gentleman was involved in anything international, and entrust him with such sensitive information as the fact that the world's most wanted man lived in Abbotabad.

More likely, they got a patsy, put some money into some "vaccine drive" and basically got a doctor to think that he was being paid by a Western NGO some big bucks to do something that nurses in the US do for cents. For a surgeon pushing a vaccination drive it would be like a paid vacation.

His keepers surely did him no justice when they revealed the whole details of the vaccine operation to the world within hours after they got their target.

What the readers should recognize is that the question arose from critics: how do you know you got him? The world, even Europe demanded this answer and the US was willing to sacrifice the doctor to show the world that they were 100% DNA sure they got UBL. They even revealed the details of the fact that a local doctor was working with them. Did his supposed keepers at the time care for him or his family or their safety? Was he a hero to them?

So once again, Miss Andersen glances over the fact that the CIA had information control here. It could have whisked Dr. Afridi out of Pakistan before the news hit. It certainly knew that the ISI would not take kindly to the CIA having assetts so close to its military solar plexus!

In the words of our favorite local Pashtun "nationalist" - "motives, motives, motives Miss Andersen... motives motives motives.

The take home lesson from the sad stories of Mr. Karzai and Dr. Afridi and Saddam and Qaddafi and the Shah of Iran and Mubarak and Bin Ali of Tunisia and now Assad and perhaps in the future others to come???

I'll let you, the reader draw your own conclusions.

The point is that Pashtuns pseudo nationalists like Miss Taj Andersen have rejected true sovereignty and traded it for some sort of quasi deal making gesture with western counter parts in the hopes that they can reinvent their "little brown brothers" as they wish them to be... not as they truly are. The question they will have to ask themselves is what side of history they will stand on when they children and their children's children read of their outcomes?

[afghan]

dr. shakil afridi has done a great job by exposing the pakies, he is truely a brave pashtun, the pakies were riding on two ships the same time, no wonder the US has stopped supporting the the paki army.

[JattApache]

dr. shakil afridi has done a great job by exposing the pakies, he is truely a brave pashtun, the pakies were riding on two ships the same time, no wonder the US has stopped supporting the the paki army.

Don't be so rude

The time will come soon, you just have to wait that Usa broke the relationship with Pakistan
And all will be suddenly " automatic "

[Ghundal]

Ah Toramana,

Miss Far-asshat Taj ANDERSEN does it again.... offering a surface analysis that inculcates her own personal viewpoints into an article versus actually pausing to write about the implications of Dr. Afridi's treatment for locals in the 1% that might be inspired to emulate him.

Lets pause and take a second to think about how Dr. Afridi got to where he is. There are two potential pathways:

1. He knew he was playing James Bond and was actively involved in the build up to the operation

or

2. He had little idea of what he was involved in.

If the answer is that he was entrenched and a trained CIA assett, then perhaps Dr. Afridi and Mr. Karzai can give eachother some pep talks and here is why:

From day 1 the fools, surface thinkers, and ahistorical buffoons that have proposed that Afghans can utilize the US and the US to achieve independence, stability, and power projection against their enemies lost sight of the history of the people they proposed to use (i.e. Americans) and their own history (the history of elites of the Pashtun belt thinking that they can get away with using the raw power of an empire against their enemies). They forgot that the Americans did not get to where they have by being used cannon fodder proxies. Sure they prop up Israel, but their preference has been to have other installed governments reflect their national security interest goals. They also forgot that each and every time a Pashtun leader has attempted to use an outsider power's arsenal for their personal objectives and goals (Shah Shuja, Nadir Khan, etc, the Telai brothers) it has ended disasterously for these folks and the commoners.

One might imagine that if scenario 1 were the case, Mr. Karzai would somberly turn to Dr. Afridi and pretty much sum up the following article in his laments:

http://articles.cnn.com/2012-02-14/asia/world_asia_afghanistan-taliban-qa_1_taliban-leaders-pakistan-afghan-led?_s=PM:ASIA

His consternation that the Taliban and the US are directly communicating and outmanuevering him, [He of the green cape, he of the Kabul Arg, Crome Dumicus Maximus, Hamid Shah "Durrani"] is enough to send him into wild rages without much thought processes. Take for instance his recent tantrum in Pakistan. What did he suppose that Pakistan and the ISI would do? Did he think that they would magically point out where their proxy force leaders are if they truly are their proxies??? For what reason? So that the US can decapitate the shura Quetta in 1 swift drone's sting? He truly must be writhing in agony that he has been Shah Shujad.

And for nearly 1 and half years now I warned these folks that this is exactly what would happen. The US will do what it thinks is best for its national security interests with or without Karzai. That is what all surviving nation states do. They do not coopt national security interests and they certainly do not invent them like the Kabul government has. Karzai, like Qaddafi, and much like Saddam before him (when Saddam was killing Iranians assuming that the US respected him as a King of Mesopotamia) thought that he had the super power by the proverbial "balls." Instead, day in and day out his government is releasing frenzied statements wondering why they are being marginalized. After all, if Saddam thought himself the Lord of Mesopotamia, Karzai certainly thought himself a reincarnation of brave Afghan leaders of old. Perhaps he envisioned himself as equivalent to a young Ahmad Khan, enlisted in the Army of the enemy, biding his time till when he would unite his country and lead it to greatness. Despite his political science degree he forgets that Ahmad Khan never made a case for permanent Iranian bases when he seized the moment. Oh Hamid, dont you see that although Ahmad and Hamid may share some Arabic root... they arent the same name... no matter how much you close your eyes and wish upon a star, you cannot repeat a great man's history when you are less than great!

There was Osho claiming the US was the great friend of the Afghan people and Mr. Karzai was cut from a meritocratic cloth... ignoring the fact that if history is lost on him then he should watch it in the making as the West discards its old dictators and "presidents" like used toilet paper. There was Toramana echoing the notion that Western power was the greater equalizer to imported terrorism, ignoring the fact that nearly all major studies show the root cause of the latter is the former. Mr. Karzai was just the latest roll of toilet paper, and that article above, coupled to his anger at the US for keeping him out of the loop and marginalizing him proves it once and for all.

Then we might imagine that Dr. Afridi, if scenario 1 is true, would turn to his green caped friend and sing his own swan song about how he was working with the enemy because the enemy of my enemy (ie the Arabs) is my friend. He would go on to turn the phrase around and say that in fact, "the enemy of my enemy was my worst enemy indeed!" leaving me to rot in a Pakistani prison after the service I rendered to them!

But I think the much more likely scenario here is scenario 2.

After all, the US had learned its lesson from the Jordanian doctor who killed 7 CIA agents in Afghanistan and from the multiple times their Pashtun or Arab informants had turned up dead leads. It knew that it could not trust "rag heads" and "hajjis" with such sensitive information as this.

With an operation as big as this, they would have been unlikely to pull aside this surgeon, whose family appeard to have no idea that the gentleman was involved in anything international, and entrust him with such sensitive information as the fact that the world's most wanted man lived in Abbotabad.

More likely, they got a patsy, put some money into some "vaccine drive" and basically got a doctor to think that he was being paid by a Western NGO some big bucks to do something that nurses in the US do for cents. For a surgeon pushing a vaccination drive it would be like a paid vacation.

His keepers surely did him no justice when they revealed the whole details of the vaccine operation to the world within hours after they got their target.

What the readers should recognize is that the question arose from critics: how do you know you got him? The world, even Europe demanded this answer and the US was willing to sacrifice the doctor to show the world that they were 100% DNA sure they got UBL. They even revealed the details of the fact that a local doctor was working with them. Did his supposed keepers at the time care for him or his family or their safety? Was he a hero to them?

So once again, Miss Andersen glances over the fact that the CIA had information control here. It could have whisked Dr. Afridi out of Pakistan before the news hit. It certainly knew that the ISI would not take kindly to the CIA having assetts so close to its military solar plexus!

In the words of our favorite local Pashtun "nationalist" - "motives, motives, motives Miss Andersen... motives motives motives.

The take home lesson from the sad stories of Mr. Karzai and Dr. Afridi and Saddam and Qaddafi and the Shah of Iran and Mubarak and Bin Ali of Tunisia and now Assad and perhaps in the future others to come???

I'll let you, the reader draw your own conclusions.

The point is that Pashtuns pseudo nationalists like Miss Taj Andersen have rejected true sovereignty and traded it for some sort of quasi deal making gesture with western counter parts in the hopes that they can reinvent their "little brown brothers" as they wish them to be... not as they truly are. The question they will have to ask themselves is what side of history they will stand on when they children and their children's children read of their outcomes?

Today, Karzai met with a US Senate delegation to discuss the so-called strategic pact which is going nowhere. While requesting that Taliban enter talks with 'his' government, he at the same time is supporting and requesting a US occupation which Afghans are opposed to? How does he expect peace talks? What peace?


Th rationale behind any talks boils down to simple truths that will be the only mechanism to end the US war in Afghanistan, and that is a complete US withdrawal. The fact that the Taliban are speaking to US officials in Qatar is indicative that the end result will be a complete US withdrawal in a face saving maneuver. Nothing else will result in the end of the US war.


At the same time, it is rather funny to see Karzai turn around and around in a circle, and like you say, babble nonsensical words from his mouth. One day, he is saying that Afghans want permanent occupation of their country, and in the same interview he claims that his "Afghan" government is talking with the Taliban too, only to be again refuted by a Taliban denial.

After that interview with the Wall Street Journal, he then goes to Pakistan, and states that he wants to have direct access to the Taliban. Nothing happens there either. He then goes to meet a cleric by the name of Sami Ul-Haq, the person who runs the Durul Uloom Haqqani school. Here is what transpired.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/18/world/...ban/?hpt=wo_c2

Haq says he is in contact with senior leaders of the Taliban but he didn't say who.
He said the Taliban have two key demands -- the exit of all foreign troops from Afghanistan and the release of Afghan Taliban prisoners from detention centers in Guantanamo Bay and Bagram Air Base.
"Thousands of people have been killed in Afghanistan. Why should the Taliban start a dialogue without a guarantee that foreign forces will leave the region?" Haq said.
Haq said the Taliban are reluctant to negotiate with Karzai because they view him as a supporter of U.S. policy in the region.
"He needs to change that impression," Haq said.

So basically, he is asking for Afghans to accept occupation, and is realizing that thats not going to happen, so what is he attempting to do? What peace is he exactly talking about? He offers them nothing in return for 'peace?' What school did this idiot go to? Even Nuri Al-Maliki played his hand with Muqtada Sadr, and some say even collaborated with him.

What this reveals then is that Karzai knows he is hated from all corners of the country (for endorsing and supporting a war), but he still wants to stay on as a 'leader' who thinks he oversees a foreign mercenary army.

If he cant accommodate the Taliban or any other insurgent groups' demands for a full withdrawal of US/NATO, then he is not going to get anywhere at all. MK Bhadrakumar rightfully pointed out that Karzai is no nationalist at all. Others have said that the US will leave him in the dark, and he will be left by himself in Afghanistan, probably literally, but I think he will leave before that. What role does he expect to have when the US does withdraw? Afghan history provides us with the litmus test about that. Did Shah Shuja stay on?


Then here comes the other jokesters- Abdullah Abdullah and the Northern Alliance who are opposed to any talks with the Taliban, and want the US to stay and fight the Taliban in the South and East forever. They supported the continuation of a heavy handed war that inflicted thousands of Afghan (specifically Pashtun) civilian casualties, and now they dont know what to do with themselves. Are they going to follow through with their repeated threats to fight? Is anyone concerned about that? They too, have become as pathetic as Karzai/Spanta combined.

The talks, preliminary as they are, in Qatar will only have one result


Karzai has become Shah Shuja. He either didn't read Machiavelli's "The Prince," or did not heed the wise mans advice to a 'ruler' even after reading it. Foreign mercenaries can never be depended on, and therefore should never be used.

I doubt there will really be a civil war. Northern Alliance has gotten so used to the good life (with their mansions in Dubai), that they will most likely just leave along with Karzai.


The question that has not been asked is if he really had a vision for Afghanistan outside his continued rule of Kabul with the Northern Alliance behind him and the US coalition- a backing that was always fragile, why did he not try to connect the various tribes to back him? What stopped him? It is said that the Taliban in fact offered to make peace with him before the US war escalated back in 2001, and that he rejected their offer due to US objections. Now, he is the one who wants to talk to the Taliban. Thats called paradoxical.