Division of Afghanistan?

[asad71]

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[Herat]

You do seem to be one of the few members of this forum who does not couch their ethnic interests in the language of brotherhood, unity etc so I apologize if I offended you but you see at this point Im very much used to the Pashtun double standard of touting both Pashtun ethnic interests and national unity etc in the same language so I tend to forget about exceptions to the rule, sorry once again. Given your honesty, I will accept your claim of being native to Kunduz but the unfortunate fact remains that the Pashtun population there is mostly the legacy of a rather recent forced migration (there is simply no historical evidence for a significant Pashtun population in the north prior to the imperialist creation of the Afghan state). Now to be honest, I don't really have a problem with the Pashtun presence in the North per se, the real problem is that that population will be the necessary condition for the misery and suffering that might be brought upon the non-Pashtuns there, I am talking about the very real prospect of a Taliban re-conquest. You see, if the Taliban have any shot at re-capturing the non-Pashtun areas it will be mostly because of your northern Pashtuns who will inevitably ally themselves with their ethnic kinsmen against their neighbours. A similar situation does not hold for the non-Pashtuns of the south regardless of what they do because they simply will not be able to make a difference in the fate of the Pashtuns there (they are a far too small minority) but you northern Pashtuns can make all the difference in our right to self-determination; how the hell is that just or fair? It has absolutely nothing to do with you speaking your own language at home. It has everything to do with the fact that you will certainly and very naturally be loyal to your own ethnic kinsmen, at their benefit but at a cost to the non-Pashtuns of the north, a possibly tremendous cost of very real suffering and misery. The cost that the non-Pashtuns of the north have to bear for you is the very real possibility that we will never be able to win our self-determination. I hope now you understand why I despise your presence in our lands, it has nothing to do with your language.

Now I know exactly how you will reply to this if at all but you see this the problem with emotion-over reason yet perfectly honest people like you: you see the world as youd like it to be -the nice fairy tale that everyone gets and will get along happily ever after, different peoples do not have different ways of life, that there are no and will never be conflicts of ethnic interests that will have horrific, terrible and tragic ramifications (as we can see in the case of Iraq right now). I wish it were true but it isn't okay, it has never historically been the case, is not now (those politicians and warlords are getting votes and endorsement for a reason) and will never happen. The real world just doesn't freaking work that way but whats the point trying to explain all of that to you. Never mind, forget this post, I don't even know why I am replying.

[pashtanajan]

You do seem to be one of the few members of this forum who does not couch their ethnic interests in the language of brotherhood, unity etc so I apologize if I offended you but you see at this point Im very much used to the Pashtun double standard of touting both Pashtun ethnic interests and national unity etc in the same language so I tend to forget about exceptions to the rule, sorry once again. Given your honesty, I will accept your claim of being native to Kunduz but the unfortunate fact remains that the Pashtun population there is mostly the legacy of a rather recent forced migration (there is simply no historical evidence for a significant Pashtun population in the north prior to the imperialist creation of the Afghan state). Now to be honest, I don't really have a problem with the Pashtun presence in the North per se, the real problem is that that population will be the necessary condition for the misery and suffering that might be brought upon the non-Pashtuns there, I am talking about the very real prospect of a Taliban re-conquest. You see, if the Taliban have any shot at re-capturing the non-Pashtun areas it will be mostly because of your northern Pashtuns who will inevitably ally themselves with their ethnic kinsmen against their neighbours. A similar situation does not hold for the non-Pashtuns of the south regardless of what they do because they simply will not be able to make a difference in the fate of the Pashtuns there (they are a far too small minority) but you northern Pashtuns can make all the difference in our right to self-determination; how the hell is that just or fair? It has absolutely nothing to do with you speaking your own language at home. It has everything to do with the fact that you will certainly and very naturally be loyal to your own ethnic kinsmen, at their benefit but at a cost to the non-Pashtuns of the north, a possibly tremendous cost of very real suffering and misery. The cost that the non-Pashtuns of the north have to bear for you is the very real possibility that we will never be able to win our self-determination. I hope now you understand why I despise your presence in our lands, it has nothing to do with your language.

Now I know exactly how you will reply to this if at all but you see this the problem with emotion-over reason yet perfectly honest people like you: you see the world as youd like it to be -the nice fairy tale that everyone gets and will get along happily ever after, different peoples do not have different ways of life, that there are no and will never be conflicts of ethnic interests that will have horrific, terrible and tragic ramifications (as we can see in the case of Iraq right now). I wish it were true but it isn't okay, it has never historically been the case, is not now (those politicians and warlords are getting votes and endorsement for a reason) and will never happen. The real world just doesn't freaking work that way but whats the point trying to explain all of that to you. Never mind, forget this post, I don't even know why I am replying.

What makes you think all Pashtuns support the Taliban? You have a very prosaic view of Pashtuns', their viewpoints and where they stand politically. Pashtuns had people like Zahir Shah, Taraki and Mullah Omar. What makes you think they agree on an ideology when you have a fanatic like Taraki who proposed a communist ideology, and Mullah Omar who advocates for a fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Islam? Pashtuns are extremely divided on their political allegiances, but it's easy to paint all of them as bearded fanatics. They are just as much victims of the Taliban as the minorities in Afghanistan. I know personally, as my family has suffered tremendously. Pashtuns (and of course other people from Afghanistan) have been used and abused by every political and ideological wave in Afghanistan, and now the common Pashtun is getting the bulk of the blame for something he or she is frankly not accountable for.

The Taliban were able to successfully gain control of Afghanistan, as Afghanistan was war-torn and the people did not have the sustenance or energy to retaliate. Furthermore, people did not know if the Taliban were good or bad—to simply put it—and so they easily welcomed them (even the minorities) as they believed they might be slightly better than Rabbani and the previous warlords whom had taken control of the country, and constantly bombed one another and everything in sight.

In Kandahar (a province that supposedly supports the Taliban), most people are tired of the deaths caused by them and the constant suicide bombing. I suggest you step out of your social circle where you might be sharing the same opinion with people whom share the same opinion, and meet some common Pashtuns and other people from Afghanistan to widen your perspective. You have based your opinions and viewpoints on a very limited framework, but I believe you may be intelligent enough to see past the blur, and view everything objectively. I don't see how extremely small patches of landlocked independent countries in Central Asia will be able to prosper (and add in their low literacy rate and HDI index), and if these nation-states come to fruition, I don't see how the current conflict will end, as the beginnings of these nations will start on a bitter note. Look at India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Have they realized peace and moved past their separation? I know you view me as an idealist (and I am one, and rather proud of it as well), but I don't think reality is stagnant. It is always changing, and it is humans whom are changing it. The world you see today will not be the world of tomorrow, as globalization further brings humans together and deteriorates primitive ideologies like tribalism and ethnocentrism. Promoting these ideologies in the 21st century will be preparing the near descendents of the people in the current region of Afghanistan for a life in weak nation-states based on primitive ideologies that will no longer have merit in the near future. Today is the day of economic interests and growth of human ideas, not ethnic interests based on fear.

But of course you'll call me an idealist and say that I don't have my feet on the ground. And my response to that will be, just wait and see.

[Da Bannu Mazdigar]

A united Afghanistan is powerful than a divided

1-if tajiks think that in a seperate country,they will be accepted by iranian,than i can assure you that they are wrong.neither should they even dream of getting merged with iran later as again they won't accept it even if they are getting more landmass and people.

As i said for iranian,Religion is the top most priority than anything else.I know a shia kurdish,infact more than 3-4 Member in the other forum and they keep abusing the turkey or the sunni kurds.

Pashtuns and tajiks has lived for centuries together while talibs are not older than 3decades with hardly support from pashtuns and if for this you want to break off from the people your ancestors has lived for centuries with,than God Bless you my friend.

Even in a seperate country,you would remain dependent upon iran for access to warm water and we have seen how they treat the Afghan refugees in Afghanistan.

Stay united and love your country

[Herat]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/8/afghanistans-looming-partition/?page=all

CHELLANEY: Afghanistan’s looming partition

It may be time to think outside the borders


The United States, still mired in a protracted Afghan war that has exacted a staggering cost in blood and treasure, has agreed to formal peace talks with the Taliban, its main battlefield opponent. With the Obama administration already reducing U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan after almost 12 years of fighting, the talks in Doha, Qatar, are largely intended to allow it to do so “honorably.”
How the end of U.S.-led combat operations shapes Afghanistan’s future will affect the security of countries nearby and beyond. Here the most important question is whether the fate of Afghanistan, which was created as a buffer between czarist Russia and British India, will be — or should be — different from that of Iraq and Libya (two other imperial creations where the United States has intervened militarily in recent years).
Foreign military intervention can effect regime change, but it evidently cannot re-establish order based on centralized government. Iraq has been partitioned in all but name into Shia, Sunni and Kurdish regions, while Libya seems headed toward a similar tripartite, tribal-based territorial arrangement. In Afghanistan, too, an Iraq-style “soft” partition may be the best possible outcome.
Afghanistan’s large ethnic-minority groups already enjoy de facto autonomy, which they secured after their Northern Alliance played a central role in the U.S.-led ouster of the Taliban from power in late 2001. Having enjoyed virtual self-rule since then, they will fiercely resist falling back under the sway of the Pashtuns, who ruled the country for most of its history.
For their part, the Pashtuns, despite their tribal divisions, will not be content with control of a rump Afghanistan consisting of its current eastern and southeastern provinces. They will eventually seek integration with fellow Pushtuns in Pakistan, across the British-drawn Durand Line — a border that Afghanistan has never recognized. The demand for a “Greater Pashtunistan” would then challenge the territorial integrity of Pakistan (itself another artificial imperial construct).
The fact that Afghanistan’s ethnic groups are concentrated in distinct geographical zones simplifies partition and makes the resulting borders more likely to last, unlike those drawn by colonial officials, who invented countries with no national identity or historical roots, lumping together disparate ethnic groups. Afghanistan’s ethnic divide also runs along a linguistic fault line, with the Pashto language of the Pashtuns pitted against the more widely spoken Dari (a Persian dialect). Indeed, both geographically and demographically, Afghanistan’s non-Pashtun groups account for more than half of the country, with Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras alone making up close to 50 percent of the population.
After waging the longest war in its history, at a cost of tens of thousands of lives and nearly $1 trillion, the United States is combat-weary and financially strapped. The American effort, pursued in coordination with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, to cut a deal with the Pashtun-based, Pakistan-backed Taliban is stirring deep unease among the non-Pashtun groups, which suffered greatly under the Taliban and its five-year rule. (The historically persecuted Hazaras, for example, suffered several large-scale massacres.)
The rupture of Mr. Karzai’s political alliance with non-Pashtun leaders has also aided ethnic polarization. Some non-Pashtun power brokers continue to support Mr. Karzai, but most others now lead the opposition National Front.
These leaders are unlikely to accept any power-sharing arrangement that includes the Taliban. In fact, they suspect that Mr. Karzai’s ultimate goal is to restore Pashtun dominance throughout Afghanistan.
Their misgivings have been strengthened by the “Peace Process Road Map to 2015,” a document prepared by the Karzai-constituted Afghan High Peace Council that sketches several potential concessions to the Taliban and Pakistan, ranging from the Taliban’s recognition as a political party to a role for Pakistan in Afghanistan’s internal affairs. The road map dangles the carrot of Cabinet posts and provincial governorships to prominent Taliban figures.
The most serious problem today is that the country’s ethnic tensions and recriminations threaten to undermine the cohesion of the fledgling, multi-ethnic Afghan army. Indeed, the splits today resemble those that occurred when Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, an exit that led to civil war and the Taliban’s eventual capture of the capital, Kabul.
This time, the non-Pashtun communities are better armed and prepared to defend their interests after the U.S. withdrawal. Thus, in seeking to co-opt the Taliban, the United States is not only bestowing legitimacy on a thuggish militia, it also risks unwittingly reigniting Afghanistan’s ethnic strife, which would most likely tear apart the country for good.
This raises a fundamental question: Is Afghanistan’s territorial unity really essential for regional or international security?
To be sure, the sanctity of existing borders has become a powerful norm in world politics. Yet this norm has permitted the emergence of ungovernable and unmanageable states, whose internal wars spill across international boundaries, fueling regional tensions and insecurity.
With a war-exhausted United States having run out of patience, outside forces are in no position to prevent Afghanistan’s partition along Iraqi or post-Yugoslav lines, with the bloodiest battles expected to rage over control of ethnically mixed strategic areas, including Kabul. In this scenario, Pakistani generals, instead of continuing to sponsor Afghan Pashtun militant groups such as the Taliban and their allies such as the Haqqani network, would be compelled to fend off a potentially grave threat to Pakistan’s unity.
A weak, partitioned Afghanistan may not be a desirable outcome, but a “soft” partition now would be far better than a “hard” partition later, after years of chaos and bloodletting — and infinitely better than the medieval Taliban’s return to power and a fresh reign of terror. Indeed, partition may be the only way to prevent Afghanistan from sliding into large-scale civil war and thwart transnational terrorists from re-establishing a base of operations amid the rubble.
Brahma Chellaney, a geostrategist, is the author of “Water, Peace and War” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013).

A year old article but Chellaney correctly prophesized the fate of Iraq and seems to understand Afghanistan very well. Ive noticed a recurring argument in this forum against the certain fate of our failed state in the contingency of another civil war -the vacuous argument that because the last civil war did not lead to partition, therefore this one will not either. The same could have been said of Iraq based on its past civil wars.
The main difference is that this time around the non-Pashtuns have realized that they have no stake in the current state of Afghanistan -as can be inferred from their push for decentralisation- and will not compete for a central Afghan government again (that was the ultimate mistake of the last civil war: everyone was competing for rule of the entire country via a central government in Kabul). More importantly, they will not accept Taliban rule ever again (anyone who believes otherwise is certainly delusional); the main reason the Taliban succeeded last time is because the non-Pashtun warlords had long since lost the sympathy of their ethnic populations by the time the Taliban came along. This time, the non-Pashtuns will certainly mobilize en masse against the Taliban in their own areas but even if the Taliban do conquer the entire country again, I think we can expect the non-Pashtuns to start giving "Afghanistan" the same treatment that the Kurds have been giving "Iraq" since nearly its inception -in any case, Afghanistan cannot be kept intact in the long-run.

[Herat]

http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/the-coming-civil-war-in-afghanistan/

Afghanistan and the coming civil war

Talk of partition is taboo for diplomats and political suicide for Afghan politicians, but it is never far from people’s minds.


Adnan R. Khan
July 3, 2012



3




In September 2010, Robert Blackwill, a former U.S. deputy national security adviser, sent the world’s Afghanistan experts into a tizzy with a call to partition the country. “The Taliban are winning,” he told London’s Daily Telegraph. “We are losing. They have high morale and want to continue the insurgency. We need a Plan B.”
He envisioned pulling back U.S. troops to the relative safety of the Dari-speaking north, conceding the turbulent and Pashtun-dominated south and east to the Taliban.
Blackwill is no voice in the wilderness. The distinguished scholar and George W. Bush-era policy adviser engineered a major shift in Washington’s alliance with India and remains a powerful voice inside the Republican party. Outside Republican circles, however, few warmed to his Plan B. “If you want civil war in Afghanistan again,” NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen retorted, “this would be a good way to get it.”

But the idea wasn’t shelved. In January, a group of Republican congressmen and a coalition of Afghan leaders from the country’s north met in Berlin to discuss it, reigniting debate. This time, the group made sure not the use the dreaded p-word, calling, more vaguely, for the decentralization of power in Afghanistan. The softening tactic fooled no one. Afghan President Hamid Karzai was reportedly furious, accusing the Afghans involved in the talks of treasonous activities and rebuking the U.S. politicians for meddling in Afghanistan’s internal affairs.
Since then, talk of partition has dropped to a whisper. The subject is taboo for diplomats and political suicide for Afghan politicians. On the street, however, it is never far from people’s minds. To a growing number of Afghans, it is only a matter of time before the country is divided, not for the first time. At the height of the civil war in the 1990s, Dari-speaking ethnicities took control of the north, leaving the south and east of the country to the Pashtun-dominated Taliban. Kabul, in eastern Afghanistan, was internally divided, as it is now.
A return to a divided Afghanistan is “the only way there will ever be peace in this country,” says Ashoor Stanekzai, a 25-year-old Pashtun gem trader. “There’s been too much bloodshed for the Dari speakers and Pashtuns to ever trust each other again.” That view is gaining traction at a time of growing Taliban influence and an accelerated withdrawal of foreign troops from the country. French officials, following a deadly attack on June 9 that left four French dead, recently announced its military drawdown will begin next month—two years ahead of the NATO withdrawal. Their hasty departure, along with the exodus of other combat troops, Canada’s included, has left many here wondering if Afghanistan is on the brink of repeating the chaos that followed the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.
Ethnic divisions plague the capital, where the Pashtuns hold the majority. In the city’s newly rebuilt Karte Se district, the primarily Hazara residents retain vivid memories of those horrors. Especially how the Hazara, a Dari-speaking, predominantly Shia population, were terrorized by Pashtuns, who are mostly Sunni.
Sectarian violence dominated until the Pashtun-dominated Taliban took power in 1996. Karte Se, on the city’s southwestern flank near the bullet-ridden ruins of Darulaman Palace, was reduced to rubble, littered with landmines, unexploded bombs, and the occasional skeletal remains of the many who perished under siege.
Over the past decade, its recovery has been remarkable. It is now one of the safest, most exclusive districts in the Afghan capital, its streets lined with palatial homes and thriving businesses. And the Hazara are unwilling to give up what they’ve gained. Armed guards can be found on many street corners, protecting the wealthy and their Hazara compatriots. Outsiders are viewed with suspicion, particularly Pashtuns, so different in appearance from the Hazara, with their distinctive Asiatic features.
For some, it is a safe haven. Outside Karte Se, “we never felt safe,” says Habiba Khalili, a mother of two who moved in last year. “My children were harassed every day because they are Hazara. I’m not racist but for us, it’s impossible to live with Pashtuns.”
Khalili’s sentiment finds its mirror image in Pul-e-Charki district, a bastion of Pashtun nationalism. From there, the rest of Kabul is eyed with suspicion, and the Pashtuns’ newly subordinate position infuriates residents. Dari speakers have “taken all the power for themselves,” says Hafizullah Shinwari, an 18-year-old Pashtun mechanic. They “refuse to share it.”
Once more, civil war is looming. Ask any taxi driver, shopkeeper or labourer what they think will happen after 2014, when Western forces are scheduled to leave, and they will all say the same thing: civil war. Many have already begun making preparations, moving their families to ethnically separate enclaves: Pashtuns to the east and south, Hazara to the south and west, Tajiks to the north.
Kabul itself is equally fractured. Ethnic divides infect the most anodyne activities, even sport. Dari speakers play soccer, the Pashtuns cricket. Dari speakers deride cricket as a Pakistani import while Pashtuns view soccer as yet another example of a Western cultural invasion. Pashtuns complain of the Dari speakers’ penchant for dressing in jeans, accusing them of abandoning their traditions. Dari speakers accuse the Pashtuns of backwardness.
“But this was not always the case,” says Mir Ahmad Joyenda, a former member of the Afghan parliament. “Ethnic tensions really only began in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation when foreign governments began supporting various ethnic-based factions opposed to the Soviet presence. Iran hosted Dari insurgents, Pakistan hosted Pashtun insurgents.”
The U.S. hasn’t helped the situation, Joyenda adds: “During the early days of the U.S. invasion, officials came with bags of money to distribute to Northern Alliance commanders,” creating “powerful warlords.” These warlords became ministers, gaining economic, political and military power. “And they want to keep that power, which for them means a divided Afghanistan.”
A divided Afghanistan would threaten the stability of the entire region, says Mahammod Khan, a member of the Afghan parliament. Each ethnic faction will become the proxy of one regional government or another—Pakistan, Iran, Russia: “It will mean endless war.”
But it is a real possibility. Afghanistan remains deeply divided. Partition, whether engineered or not, seems increasingly likely.

[Al-Afghani]

Ethnic divides infect the most anodyne activities, even sport. Dari speakers play soccer, the Pashtuns cricket. Dari speakers deride cricket as a Pakistani import while Pashtuns view soccer as yet another example of a Western cultural invasion. Pashtuns complain of the Dari speakers’ penchant for dressing in jeans, accusing them of abandoning their traditions. Dari speakers accuse the Pashtuns of backwardness.

The divide between Dari and Pashto speakers is indeed very great and can be witnessed by everyone familiar with Afghanistan.

It also confirms what I previously said, Pashtuns are closer to Pakistan and its people, than to TajiksUzbeksHazaras. This will make separation only smoother.

[Kushan Prince]

The divide between Dari and Pashto speakers is indeed very great and can be witnessed by everyone familiar with Afghanistan.

It also confirms what I previously said, Pashtuns are closer to Pakistan and its people, than to TajiksUzbeksHazaras. This will make separation only smoother.

I don't see how playing another sport is hinting that other ethnic groups are divided, it all comes down to personal preference. I guess you should add hazaras in the mix since most of them are into karate and marital arts like their asian cousin's. Besides, most Pashtuns despise cricket, it is only in popularity with Pashtuns of Jalalabad with their close proximity with pakistan and the afghan refugees that brought the sport to Afghanistan. Shall i remind you that majority of the players on the afghan national football team are Pashtun? Even the team captain is a yousafzai Pakhtun.

And don't lie about pakistan, most tajiks like it because of their strict denial of the durand line treaty because tajiks fear of becoming minority if it gets abolished.

Afghan Pashtuns are probably one of the most anti-paki people you will meet while tajiks are more tolerant of them.

[gadoonwal]

I don't see how playing another sport is hinting that other ethnic groups are divided, it all comes down to personal preference. I guess you should add hazaras in the mix since most of them are into karate and marital arts like their asian cousin's. Besides, most Pashtuns despise cricket, it is only in popularity with Pashtuns of Jalalabad with their close proximity with pakistan and the afghan refugees that brought the sport to Afghanistan. Shall i remind you that majority of the players on the afghan national football team are Pashtun? Even the team captain is a yousafzai Pakhtun.

And don't lie about pakistan, most tajiks like it because of their strict denial of the durand line treaty because tajiks fear of becoming minority if it gets abolished.

Afghan Pashtuns are probably one of the most anti-paki people you will meet while tajiks are more tolerant of them.

True,tajik loves pakistan cus they are allies with punjabis.
Both tajik and punjabis do not want pakhtun unity.
There are many tajiks lives in pehsawar hayat abad.
They lived there for ages and can speak good pashtu but they do,nt like speaking pashtu.
Many lives in islam abad and speak urdu.
There you talk to them in pashtu ,they will respond to you in urdu.
Many tajik women married to punjabis in pakistan and outside pakistan.

[Herat]

http://consortiumnews.com/2013/01/03/should-afghanistan-be-partitioned/

Should Afghanistan Be Partitioned?

January 3, 2013

Exclusive: The Obama administration is weighing options to leave 6,000 to 20,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014. But the prospect for even modest success is undercut by the country’s ethnic divisions and Pashtun hostility to foreign occupiers, says Bruce P. Cameron.

By Bruce P. Cameron
Regarding the Afghan War, the American people are being deceived; they believe they are fighting a political faction of the Afghan people, but … there is no “Afghan people.” There is no Afghan language.
There is just an amalgam of ethnic groups in a deeply divided land that has been fought over by big powers for centuries.
The Tajiks, the Uzbeks, the Hazaris and the Turkmen make up about 50 percent of the country’s population, with the Pashtun, concentrated in the south and east, accounting for about 42 percent. It is this Pashtun population, dominated by the Taliban, that represents the chief resistance to the U.S.-led war effort.


A U.S. Marine Corps helicopter carries howitzer over Helmand province in Afghanistan on Dec. 29, 2012. (Defense Department photo)



The Pashtun people speak Pashto and live by a code that promotes their unity, especially when confronted by an invader, which often has been the case in the history of this landlocked land that sits along a strategic pathway of mountain passes that connect the West and the East. The Pashtun code, Pashtunwali, promotes defensive ferociousness in battle and incredible hospitality at home.
The modern term “Afghanistan” dates from the late 19th Century when two British cartographers drew the so-called Durand Line, which had the effect of dividing the Pakistani Pashtuns from the Afghan Pashtuns, with about two-thirds of the Pashtun population falling within what is now Pakistan.
That division created an inherently unstable political situation, with the Afghan Pashtun benefiting from their cultural ties to the Pakistani Pashtun, especially during the anti-Soviet war on the 1980s when the CIA was funneling hundreds of millions of dollars in aid through Pakistan to Afghan rebels fighting the communist government in Kabul and its Soviet backers. The Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, delivered nearly all the aid to Pashtun fighters, including many who were Islamic fundamentalists.
After the collapse of the communist government in 1992, a coalition of Afghan warlords took control of Kabul, under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Massoud, an Islamist but not a fanatic. A member of the Tajik minority, he was not favored by Pakistan. Infighting among the warlords also continued, while, the ISI trained a new force of Pashtun fighters recruited from refugee camps inside Pakistan, a group which became known as the Taliban.
Promising to restore order, the Taliban seized power in 1996, driving Massoud and other non-Pashtun warlords to the north and imposing a rigid form of Islam in Kabul and across much of the country. The Taliban also hosted Saudi Islamic extremist Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization, giving them safe haven from which to plot attacks against the West. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Why Afghanistan Really Fell Apart.”]
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, President George W. Bush ordered an invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban and deny al-Qaeda its Afghan sanctuary. Though the invasion succeeded in removing the Taliban from power and driving most of al-Qaeda out of the country, Bush soon shifted his attention to an invasion of Iraq, leaving the U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan to make do with limited resources and enabling a Taliban comeback in the Pashtun region.
That was the predicament that President Barack Obama inherited in 2009, a growing Taliban threat to the security of the U.S.-backed government in Kabul. Though Obama expressed interest in seeking a gradual exit strategy, he left in place key Bush holdovers, such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus, who maneuvered Obama into accepting their plan for an escalation of the war and a new concentration on counterinsurgency.
In effect, the strategy amounted to an unrealistic plan in which a foreign military would make “good citizens” out of the Pashtun. I understand the motivation, since an individual Pashtun – or even a group or a village – can demonstrate Pashtun generosity and kindness. However, their cultural resistance to outside domination is such that it justifies truly awful human rights violations.
Although Pashtunwali as a governing lifestyle exists mainly in rural areas, its precepts are learned by almost every Pashtun, both the generous and cruel impulses. When there are so-called “green-on-blue” attacks in which Afghan government soldiers kill their U.S. or European military advisers, it’s a safe bet that the perpetrators are Pashtun. Yet, when military or political officials publicly talk about “inside threats,” they never mention the ethnic dimension.
I heard one U.S. senator ask the commanding general of all NATO forces in Afghanistan about the ethnic tensions within the Afghan National Army. He replied to the question, but did so without ever mentioning “ethnic,” “Pashtun” or “Tajik.”
So, it’s obvious that the United States has a mess in Afghanistan that was not improved by the Gates-Petraeus-originated “surge” of U.S. combat forces. The counterinsurgency strategy has been largely a failure amid continuing loss of life.
It seems timely to get out – which is the direction that President Obama is now favoring, especially after the removal from office of both Gates and Petraeus. But I think there are still ways to leave behind a more stable Afghanistan.
In recruitment of officers for the Afghan National Army, the U.S. target numbers have been between 40 to 45 percent Pashtun and 30 to 35 percent Tajik. Yet, I fear that in trying to achieve some ethnic parity in the ANA, the United States could instead achieve military dominance by a combined force of Pashtun in the ANA and the Pashtun in the Taliban.
Why would they come together? Simply put, the power of Pashtunwali and ethnicity. In my view, a more sensible U.S. strategy would be to accept a division of Afghanistan along the existing ethnic boundaries, with a separate state in the Afghan north made up of Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks and Turkmen – and a withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from the Pashtun strongholds in the east and south.
The Taliban increasingly controls the east and the south anyway, despite several years of escalated activity by the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Forces. But separation could accomplish two major goals: 1) the proposed northern state would have defensible borders and 2) it could facilitate the end of the reign of terror against non-Pashtuns by Pashtuns.
It also is fair to say that President Obama – by letting himself be manipulated by Bush holdovers in 2009 – is responsible for the failed counterinsurgency strategy that has achieved little at great expense in blood and treasure. After all, he is commander-in-chief.
Obama’s three-pronged goal was to defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and neutralize its key leadership in Pakistan; create a functioning bureaucracy in Kabul and the Afghan countryside; and end Pakistan’s pernicious and lethal influence in Afghanistan. He succeeded in the first goal, most notably with the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, but failed miserably in the second and third.
His stated goal now is to have all combat troops out of Afghanistan by 2014. However, he intends to extend the presence of non-combat personnel, civilian contractors and some Special Forces until 2024. Yet, the size of that force is unknown, and the mission is unclear beyond what is called “counter-terror.”
[The New York Times reported on Thursday that Gen. John R. Allen, senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has suggested three options for troop levels, ranging from 6,000 to 20,000, after 2014. Allen says the smaller the force the greater the likelihood of failure, the Times wrote, citing unnamed defense officials.] To avert a possible bloodbath against some Pashtun who have been resisting the Taliban in Pashtun enclaves in the east and south, U.S. airpower and reaction teams of Special Operations may be needed to protect those anti-Taliban Pashtun or they could be relocated to the north if the threat from the Taliban is too formidable.
While similarities exist between what I’m suggesting and Obama’s plan – after all both foresee a continued U.S. military role beyond 2014 – my emphasis would be on creating a state that would be a safe haven for the northern tribesmen and protect some southern enclaves against Taliban attacks. I think we owe both the American people and the Afghan people something tangible for their 11 years of sacrifice and dying.
Yet, to salvage something, there needs to be a separation of the non-Pashtun tribes from the Pashtun with the reasons clearly explained to the American people. After this separation has allowed passions to cool down, the United States could approach the Pashtun again with the goal of achieving a relationship of mutual respect.
Bruce P. Cameron has served as a Washington lobbyist for various governments over the past several decades, including Nicaragua, Mozambique, Portugal and East Timor. He is one of four people who caused the collapse of South Vietnam, one of the authors of the Central American Peace Plan, and currently the author of a partial withdrawal from Afghanistan. He wrote My Life in the Time of the Contras.

[asif86]

http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/th...n-afghanistan/

Ethnic divides infect the most anodyne activities, even sport. Dari speakers play soccer, the Pashtuns cricket. Dari speakers deride cricket as a Pakistani import while Pashtuns view soccer as yet another example of a Western cultural invasion. Pashtuns complain of the Dari speakers’ penchant for dressing in jeans, accusing them of abandoning their traditions. Dari speakers accuse the Pashtuns of backwardness.

Didn't knew even in sports Pashtuns and tajiks are exact opposite to each other.

[Herat]

The ethnic divisions in Afghanistan as portrayed by that article does sound bizarre but it does seem to make some sense from an evolutionary perspective. In "The Origin and Evolution of Cultures", Boyd and Richerson note (chapter 2: Ethnic Groups and Markers) that many ethnically idiosyncratic cultural norms often serve functional evolutionary purposes in that they facilitate adaptive behaviours of groups in their environment, and cultural evolution itself is often best understood as an evolutionary system itself. One purpose that distinctive cultural markers seem to serve is indeed accentuating between-group differences -for example, prophet Mohammed prescribed beard growth to help distinguish Muslims from infidels.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Origin-Evolution-Cultures-Cognition/dp/019518145X/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407262451&sr=8-1&keywords=the+origin+and+evolution+of+culture

[Da Bannu Mazdigar]

Ethnic Diversity is the beauty of a Country,Just look at india or for that matter even Pakistan.

I won't call Afghanistan a very diverse country as on look,culture,cuisine and origin both tajik/pashtun(Making more than 2/3rd of Afghanistan Population) are similar.

Diverse countries are like India.The Northern People(Caucasion) are different from the southern(Dravidrian) or eastern(Mongoloid).

Or Even pakistan Such as Pashtuns/Baloch as iranic...Sindhi/Punjabi/Saraiki as Indic while kashmiri/Gilgit/Chitrali as Dardic.

Even though it is next to impossible to build a Seperate tajik state as again it will be ranked among the top failed state with no future as iran by no mean will ever give you a Good status with non existing resource,it will also be hard to survive along the fast getting riched central asian states

Tajik only future is to stay united with pashtuns in Afghanistan and work for the future of brighter Afghanistan

[Tiger Khan]

A united Afghanistan is powerful than a divided

1-if tajiks think that in a seperate country,they will be accepted by iranian,than i can assure you that they are wrong.neither should they even dream of getting merged with iran later as again they won't accept it even if they are getting more landmass and people.

As i said for iranian,Religion is the top most priority than anything else.I know a shia kurdish,infact more than 3-4 Member in the other forum and they keep abusing the turkey or the sunni kurds.

Pashtuns and tajiks has lived for centuries together while talibs are not older than 3decades with hardly support from pashtuns and if for this you want to break off from the people your ancestors has lived for centuries with,than God Bless you my friend.

Even in a seperate country,you would remain dependent upon iran for access to warm water and we have seen how they treat the Afghan refugees in Afghanistan.

Stay united and love your country

I honestly do not care about Tajik... but reality is that every human being wants to live in peace and provide for his/her family... if they do eventually divide Afghanistan.. it should only means secession of a few provinces in the north east of the country to Tajikistan... the rest stays with Afghanistan and afghans.. Hazara are a majority in only two provinces.. the total population of whom is not more than 800,000 (an exaggerated estimate) and are in the middle of the country which are the most inhospitable to human life..
Tajiks are a majority in few provinces in the north i.e. Takhar, Badakhshan, Parwan, Panjshir, and Kapisa. the rest of the province are either mixed or dominated by Pashtun and/or a much smaller ethnic group.. you can call aimaks or any other ethnic group Tajik.. but that does not makes them Tajik. So Pashtuns are lord of the land.. Tajikistan is a failed state by all international accounts but even they consider Afghnistani Tajiks as backward.. having no Tajiks (God forbid I am not implying genocide or mass deportation in anyway shape or form) by joining there provinces with Tajikistan would only be beneficial to rest of Afghanistan.. Moreover, I do feel that Shias should not be discriminated against or any other ethnic or religious minority for that matter.

[Herat]

I honestly do not care about Tajik... but reality is that every human being wants to live in peace and provide for his/her family... if they do eventually divide Afghanistan.. it should only means secession of a few provinces in the north east of the country to Tajikistan... the rest stays with Afghanistan and afghans.. Hazara are a majority in only two provinces.. the total population of whom is not more than 800,000 (an exaggerated estimate) and are in the middle of the country which are the most inhospitable to human life..
Tajiks are a majority in few provinces in the north i.e. Takhar, Badakhshan, Parwan, Panjshir, and Kapisa. the rest of the province are either mixed or dominated by Pashtun and/or a much smaller ethnic group.. you can call aimaks or any other ethnic group Tajik.. but that does not makes them Tajik. So Pashtuns are lord of the land.. Tajikistan is a failed state by all international accounts but even they consider Afghnistani Tajiks as backward.. having no Tajiks (God forbid I am not implying genocide or mass deportation in anyway shape or form) by joining there provinces with Tajikistan would only be beneficial to rest of Afghanistan.. Moreover, I do feel that Shias should not be discriminated against or any other ethnic or religious minority for that matter.

I literally laughed out loud at this post, I thought Kushan was the forum brain-farter but you even outclass him in the art of brain-farting. Afghanistan won't be divided by Tajiks my friend, it will be a non-Pashtun vs Pashtun civil war and will divide along those lines and no, Pashtuns do not make up more than 50% of the population at most (you insist otherwise but you furnish no evidence aside from your brain-gas).