At 01:12 PM 10/4/01 +0300, you wrote:
>Dove and hawk strategy to topple Taliban
>FRED HALLIDAY
>The Herald, 4 October 2001
>
>MUCH is made of the record of the Afghans in fighting invading enemies,
>the British on three occasions in colonial times, the Russians in the
>1980s.
>
>The terrain in Afghanistan is rugged, there are men prepared to fight
>and die, the intelligence available on the country is exiguous.
>
>But Afghanistan today is not the country it was two decades or a century
>ago: the society, and the tribal, ethnic, and religious structures that
>sustained past resistance, has been pulverised.
but a US invasion might create the impetus to unite the Afghans.
>The Taliban is a group of at most 40,000 armed men, with rudimentary
>weapons, which has been unable to prosecute the war against its Northern
>Alliance opponents.
>
>Its increased reliance on foreign volunteers explains some of its recent
>actions: the publicity stunt of blowing up the Buddhist statues (a
>response, it was claimed by some, to an "international Buddhist
>conspiracy" orchestrated by Japan to arm opposition groups inside
>Af-ghanistan); the increasing use of militants from Pakistan; the recent
>appointment of Juma Namangoni, the head of the Islamic Movement of
>Uzbekistan, as a senior commander of Taliban forces, with 9000 men under
>his control.
>
>By all accounts, Afghanistan is a society with little capacity to resist
>and where many people would be glad to see the end of the Taliban. A
>purely military action by the US would provoke resentment, and
>resistance.
and a "reformed" Taliban -- perhaps with new leadership -- could be created
to unify the people against foreign invaders ("infidels").
>An initiative that combined military action against the Taliban forces,
>and its al Qaeda allies, with a humanitarian and political initiative,
>would stand much more chance of success.
>
>Many attempts to bring peace, and compromise, to Afghanistan have failed
>over the past 15 years: amidst the despair of the present situation,
>there may be a better chance. An opportunity for diplomatic action,
>linked to military intervention, may be present.
>
>The international authority, and framework, for such a solution already
>exists, in the resolutions of the UN Security Council which, in 1997,
>set up the "6+2" process: in this, the six neighbouring countries
>(Pakistan, Iran, Turmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, China) plus Russia
>and the US have met to discuss the formation of a coalition government,
>the establishment of the context for a substantial international
>programme of humanitarian aid and reconstruction, the termination of the
>drugs trade, and the ending of arms flows into and out of Afghanistan.
>
>At one point, in Tashkent in July 1999, they even got the Taliban and
>the Northern Alliance to sit at the same table.
>
>The problems up to now have been twofold: one, the Taliban has refused
>to compromise with the Northern Alliance, the force that is still
>recognised by most of the world as the legitimate government of
>Afghanistan; two, the outside states have not found common ground -
>Pakistan has resisted any attempts to change its support for the
>Taliban, and the Americans and the Iranians have found that their other
>differences prevent any co-operation in the context of 6+2....
I recently read in the GUARDIAN (U.K.) that the Northern Alliance is a
bunch of looters and rapers. Also, it's a group that lacks the large
Pushtun ethnic base and clear ideology of Taliban and will look bad if
allied with the "infidels."
>Fred Halliday is Professor of International Relations at the London
>School of Economics and the author of The World at 2000
he used to get published in the NEW LEFT REVIEW a lot. He seems to have
"gone establishment." If I remember correctly, he was one of those who was
unhinged when the USSR fell, since he admired that country to some extent.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
