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Slick, oleagineous, is Hamid Karzai, but not more than one is used to in such regions. Think of Hussein of Jordan, in his celebrated role as plucky little king. Hamid Karzai, when he first appeared on the world scene, in that beautifully-colored robe he wears, seemed okay. He had brothers and a sister running restaurants in Maryland and Massachusetts. He was the son of a civic-minded Afghan. He seemed -- okay. He seemed to be one of those "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslims, or as close to it as one might hope for outside of Azar Nafisi and Fouad Ajami. He was not able to fess up to it all himself, but still...or so one thought.
Then came the Speech of Mahathir Mohamed, the sober-toned, yet hysterical and telling speech, at the O.I.C., when he made an appeal for the world’s Muslims to use their brains, not in order to investigate the nature of the brain or DNA or of the atom or the origins of the universe, but only -- the only thing he meant by "science" -- to acquire military technology, and to defeat, among others, "the Jews." Smooth Hamid Karzai, oily Hamid Karzai applauded. Interviewed just after, Karzai was enthusiastic about Mahathir’s speech. The oleaginous Karzai said he found the speech deeply impressive. He said he had found the speech wonderful, inspirational, tip-top. Well, that was it as far as Hamid Karzai was concerned.
Never mind that the poppy trade is flourishing and Karzai is weak. Never mind that he is better than the Taliban. His Muslim solidarity, of the kind he expressed after that speech, leaves a permanent impression: he is not to be trusted. Oh, he's more to be trusted than any conceivable Arab leader. He's more to be trusted than any conceivable Pakistani leader. But he's not to be trusted. That's it.
His government is famously corrupt. Oh, not as corrupt as that of the Al-Saud. Not as corrupt as that of Mubarak. Not as corrupt as that of Arafat and his successors and collaborators in the so-called "Palestinian" "Authority." But corrupt. And the American and NATO forces are tearing their hair out.
But he wants, he wants, he wants. A year or two ago he was lamenting all the money spent in Iraq because he thought it should go to Afghanistan. He wants, he wants, he wants.
And he wants the Western powers to prop up his government -- why? -- but to fight exactly as he wishes them to fight, obeying Marquess of Queensberry rules that will only cause more Western casualties, and that make no sense in the Afghani context.
He wants, he wants, he wants.
Afghanistan can be controlled, as much as it can be controlled, from afar. There is no need for such a NATO presence, that will only be a waste, and a cause for intra-NATO tensions, and will be as ineffectual in promoting Infidel aims as is the business in Tarbaby Iraq.
The belief or desire to remake Afghanistan springs from an impulse born of naivete. It is a manifestation of the Yankee-can-do spirit misapplied to things of the spirit rather than to objects one can indeed improve. See the observations on this American polypragmonic impulse. It springs from a reluctance, and even from a fear, to dare to confront the backwardness and social injustice that arises from the application of Islamic principles. In Afghanistan these effects are felt mainly by women. Women there are held in permanent thrall. As for non-Muslims, there are none left in the country -- the Jews and Hindus once described by Robert Byron in The Road to Oxiana all left, some before, some during, the rule of the Taliban.
The British could not hold Afghanistan, and intelligently left. The Russians, with a ruthlessness (and a geographical proximity) that the Western powers could never hope to approach, could not hold Afghanistan, and intelligently left (having self-inflicted great damage on their own economy, and on their own military morale).
Why are we in Afghanistan? Why do we wish to build roads, and other infrastructure, when we have every reason to believe that the poorer, more illiterate and isolated the Muslim villagers are, the less able they are to receive the Jihad-war-whoops and propaganda that greater prosperity would naturally bring? For that is what audiocassettes, and videocassettes, and access to satellite television, and Internet service, mean for Muslims who are pulled out of living (and fighting among themselves) at a subsistence level.
The misapplication of naive Western ideas -- that greater "prosperity" will perforce lessen the hold of Islam in Afghanistan -- has to be held up for public inspection.
J. B. Kelly and many others with some sense of what Afghanistan's history has been suggest it will "all end in tears" for the West. That is exactly the phrase Kelly used several years ago about Iraq, at the very beginning of the conflict, when there was such enormous oorah-excitement and pleasure all over official Washington at the magnificent achievement, at the certain great victory, at the impending "transformation" of the whole Muslim Middle East.
A little reading, a little thought, a little knowledge about Islam and Iraq, or for that matter Islam and Afghanistan, would help. It would help save lives. It would save a trillion dollars. It would save NATO from internecine wrangling. It would save soldiers from going to war wearing karakul kid gloves, and never taking those gloves off, lest Afghani hearts, lest Afghani minds, lest oily Karzai himself, be too much offended to be won, won, won.
Posted by Hugh at June 27, 2007 9:23 AM
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Probably scared of the Taliban - wimp.
Posted by: The Goobs![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 27, 2007 10:23 AM
Why have we found it so important to establish a governing body almost at the moment we landed in Afghanistan, and Iraq? Yes; there we are giving our countries youths blood and wealth away while at the same time letting the same corrupt people govern it. Was this somehow the designed strategy to let them know that we were not really occupiers? Yes one thing we should have learned and understood is that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink it. In this case as Hugh so aptly points out, we came up against an Ideology that is backwards, an ideology that does not have the same values for self betterment or improvement in there lives. Oh yes they moan and groan but very few of them are willing to step up and make a difference. That is why so much of what once was the Ottoman Empire collapsed into third world countries. They collapsed from a religious ideology that corrupts,suppresses, and diminishes what westerners find as a natural human desire to improve and create. They are a lost people driven only by a never changing status quo that only enjoys western technology if you give it, or sell it to them. Our desire to try and remove the evilness that is usually directed at half their population (women) is noble but will and can it last without us being the policeman of the world? And even then we have to hear from the phonies at human rights organizations who would literally do nothing to stop groups like the Taliban and a host of other radical Islamic suppressors of women around the world. Unfortunately for us is that if and when we get out of these two countries the standing and prevailing wisdom among republicans as well as most democrats is that the bad guys will come back stronger than ever and they will take the oil and buy more and more weapons to try and kill us.they will be even more empowered to try and defeat the western world and the great Satan known as America.
Posted by: Mackie at June 27, 2007 10:35 AM
Karzai struts around the world stage in the plumes of a peacock, while his female compatriots, including no doubt his own family, are relagated to funeral shrouds.
Posted by: Silvester at June 27, 2007 10:39 AM
As in, 'relegated'. But then Mohammed, also, was famously vain.
Posted by: Silvester at June 27, 2007 10:41 AM
Hugh said
The belief or desire to remake Afghanistan springs from an impulse born of naivete. It is a manifestation of the Yankee-can-do spirit misapplied to things of the spirit rather than to objects one can indeed improve. See the observations on this American polypragmonic impulse. It springs from a reluctance, and even from a fear, to dare to confront the backwardness and social injustice that arises from the application of Islamic principles.
We have been told, and told ourselves, for decades that everything bad in the world that happens, we are responsible for. Every group of people suffering anywhere in the world must necessarily be suffering due to our actions, not their own. We unquestioningly assume that all people are the same, have the same values and goals; if a group is flailing in abject poverty, then that flailing and that poverty must be caused by some external evil power (that is, us) that is holding down their inherent natural ability to thrive. To think otherwise would be to place one ideology over another; it would judge one set of values as less prone to success than another. That would be wrong, that would be culturally jingoistic; that would only prove how evil we are. Which takes us back to square one.
Posted by: special_guest at June 27, 2007 10:59 AM
Hugh, you have to be one of the best discoverer of where the fly in the ointment is.
One can only rent a believing muslim, cause his loyalty is elsewhere.
But then, we can rent Karzai too. As pointed out, the foolishness is in believing that our ally is solid.
Posted by: dgene at June 27, 2007 11:39 AM
We allowed the Afghan Constitution to include Sharia Law in Article Three, instead of doing what was done with conquered Japan and conquered Germany- imposing our will and constitutional demands on them.
What was the point of this military conquest of Afghanistan if all we did was play musical chairs with a different group of future terrorists?
And permit them to defeat our entire enterprise by writing a new Islamic state into existence upon the wreckage of their own failed prior Islamic state.
It would have been as crazy as permitting the defeated Nazis to reconstitute their government and legal system under a new and improved name- the Zanis, perhaps.
Karzi is simply the Taliban using a silencer.
Posted by: profitsbeard at June 27, 2007 12:42 PM
Just like most everything is proving to be a mare's nest! This is really sad! I had hope for Afghanistan! I know our-we do have an arrogance, but we really want them to run their own country and be happy. I am sad for the late Ahmed Massoud!
Posted by: MZ at June 27, 2007 1:27 PM
I am so glad my son didn't join the military because he would probably be in Afghanistan right now.
Why are we in a country whose people neither care about, nor appreciate, democracy, freedom or even our assistance in building them roads and schools ? Every time I see on the news that another Canadian soldier has been blown to bits in some cowardly roadside bombing I feel sick.
And thank God it wasn't my son.
at June 27, 2007 1:35 PM
Afghanistan needs a civil war again. But this time, make sure all the ethnic groups are well armed, and none are allowed to take major control of the country, as the Taliban did in 1996. Let's have the Pashtun vs Hazara, Tajik vs Uzbek and whatever other permutations there are to let this happen, and sit back. Let Pakistan and Iran deal with a refugee crisis again, just like they did when the Soviets occupied Afghanistan. And let this Pashtun fanaticism take deeper hold in Pakistan than it already has.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at June 27, 2007 1:38 PM
"We allowed the Afghan Constitution to include Sharia Law in Article Three, instead of doing what was done with conquered Japan and conquered Germany- imposing our will and constitutional demands on them."
Yeah, but there's a heck of a lot more than that making up the difference.
Wartime Germany and Japan, for all their terrible faults, were societies organized in a non-tribal, nation-oriented way. The family structure was different, and more capable of working with modern society. They were modern societies with a lot of modern social structures woven in with their culture, even though the effectivness of these structures were directed toward evil ends, and controlled tightly by dictators rather than allowed to move freely through citizen's voluntary actions.
That's why we could deal with them nation-to-nation in conventional warfare. They had some root similarities. We fight them in a more normal sort of war, then enforce relatively superficial changes on them to turn them into modern rights-respecting democratic republics.
It is a very different situation in the Middle East. Even if we HAD stuck to our guns about the constitution, we'd be seeing a lot of the problems now. They're not just stemming from the wimped-out constitution, they're also stemming from the fact that imposing a constitution like this -- even if firm about it -- can only change a society so much, most of it pretty shallowly.
And anyway, if we're more interested in spreading democracy than staying alive that we're going to rebuild areas BEFORE actually winning the overall war, we're obviously spineless. Spineless people have even LESS chance of making any real, deep change in a region... as the tolerance of injecting Shari'ah law goes to show.
The more it goes on, the more I am convinced that this war, the defence against jihad, is less about Islamofascism than it is about us. Islamofascism is totalitarianism with a religious bent spread by violent and unjust methods. It isn't something extremely complex and gnarly and new-fangled. We just have to recognize what it is, that it maybe isn't quite what we fought last time, and that we need to develop new ways to fight it.
We could beat it easily if we hadn't half-lost our souls, and sense of real values, and will to live. We'd just need the guts to say what is bad, and why, and what are we going to do about it.
As it is, it is going to be a close call.
Part of the risk of being a cutting-edge society is running into cutting-edge problems. It isn't easy to have a dynamic society and solve every single new social problem before it become an epidemic... PC, Corporatism, the socialist longing for Big Brother, and so on. I hope we deal with ours sufficiently to survive.
at June 27, 2007 1:50 PM
When I was a young anti-Communist Muslim in the Soviet Union, I was sympathetic to the mujahiddin both because of my anti-Communism and Muslim solidarity. But now I wish the Soviet-installed Communist leader Najibullah had prevailed. He would have brought Afghanistan somewhat close to the secular formerly Soviet "stans" of Central Asia, which is the best future for any Muslim country one can hope for. It would be better for everybody: the Russians, the Americans and the Afghans themselves. The new totalitarianism that was born out of my Muslim religion, Islamism-Islamofascism-Islamo-Nazism is far worse then Brezhnev's Soviet Union where I grew up. The US is stuck there now, and the things only keep getting worse. Our State Department sociopaths did not help by relentlessly bashing the friendly and ferociously anti-jihad apparatchik Karimov of Uzbekistan, finally driving him berserk and getting the US military kicked out of the strategic K-2 base there. As if that were not bad enough, the sociopaths, acting hand-in-glove with "NGO" vermin such as "Freedom House", engineered a "color revolution" that overthrew the Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan, the kindest and gentlest apparatchik of all, and the friendliest to the US. Now, previously serene and peaceful Kyrgyzstan is plagued with instability and lawlessness, with parlamentarians shot dead inside a maximum security prison, leading politicians assassinated, prime minister barely surviving poisoning, and jihadis, earlier cleared out, infiltrating back into the US-destbilized country. The Kyrgyz people, once nearly 100% pro-American, are souring on the US fast. If they kick our military out of their own Manas air base, it will cut the legs out of our war effort in Afghanistan. Nursultan Nazarbayev, the enormously popular President of Kazakhstan, by far the largest, richest and the most important country in the region, is reportedly very upset with the treatment of his good friend Akayev and sickened by the US perfidity. Just last month, Putin scored a major coup there with Nazarbayev chosing the Russian pipelines to transport his enormous oil riches abroad. He regected the US-pushed plan to lay pipelines under the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan bypassing Russia whose influence in Central Asia US seeks to combat. Don't let lack of US reaction full you: this is silence of someone wacked over the head with a sandbag. The Caspian pipeline was the centerpiece of the US strategy to compete with Russia in the region, and its regection is a huge blow to this strategy. This means that Nazarbayev, and all other "stans" absolutely do not trust the US, and trust Russia and China. Who can blame them? When the murderous jihadis launched their "Friday the 13th" terrorist putsch in 2005 against Uzbekistan's Karimov, both US and UK jumped into the terrorists' corner with both feet. In contrast, both Russia and China immediatelly voiced their full and unconditional support for Karimov, congratulated him with the swift and total victory over the jihadis, and received him with highest honors. This is when Karimov, and other Central Asian leaders, knew who their friends are, and who are not. Now, the entire Central Asia is distansing itself from the US and warmly embracing Russia and China. In Aug. 9 to 17, all of them: Russia, China and all the "stans" wil conduct joint military exersises "PeaceMission2007" in the Urals region of Russia. They will train to battle a terrorist incursion backed by "a terrorism-sponsoring nation". And who is that unnamed nation? Could it be ... the United States of America? The US had boisterously challenged Russia and China into a 19th century British "Great Game" of imperial influence in Central Asia, and is now losing it fast.
Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.
Posted by: Enragedsince1999 at June 27, 2007 7:10 PM
Afghanistan lacks oil wealth, so it really is not a significant contributor to jihad enablement, and therefore has dubious strategic value.
I agree with Hugh. Long-range high-tech strikes or pinpoint lightening forays are the way to manage Afghanistan. But no, we have to uplift them via a long-term baby sitting arrangement, as in Iraq, thereby exposing our troops to murderous fanatics, all to protect a Sharia-based regime.
at June 27, 2007 8:34 PM
"Afghanistan lacks oil wealth, so it really is not a significant contributor to jihad enablement, and therefore has dubious strategic value. "
Posted by: jewdog
....Afghanistan supplies millions of dollars from the opium trade and supplies a seemingly endless supply of crazed, bearded, fingerpointing wackos who scream "Allllaaaah Akbaaaarrr" as they attack civilians and coalition forces...Afghanistan also supplies some very vile crazed, bearded, finger pointing Islamic clerics to lead the faithful...Afghanistan also provides safe haven for many Islamic fugitives and supplies the fugitives with intelligence about coalition forces in the area...Afghanistan also supplies weapons, ammunition, and explosives to the terroists....
Afghanistan is a great contributor to the Jihad....
Posted by: exsgtbrown at June 28, 2007 6:31 AM
Hamid Karzai probably played a minor role in my gradual awakening to reality, a process which I can see began with the first Rushdie Rage of '89. A few years ago, my then favourite TV channel BBC World used to play a sound bite of Karzai saying something like "there is no moderate or fundamentalist islam, there is only islam!". I still recall the uneasiness this gave rise to in me - challenging my unqualified assumption (or wishful thinking) of the existence of "good" islam that meant peace and tolerance. If someone so obviously a man of our liking - and with whom the BBC's Lyse Doucet enjoyed a 'special relationship', with her sitting at his lap and taking it all in - if someone like him could eviscerate the nice distinction between "good" and "bad" islam, now where would this lead? I remember vividly the unpleasant feeling of cognitive dissonance that this sound bite gave rise to every time I heard it. One step of recovery, one step further towards cynicism - although I didn't know this, Motoon Rage and JW/DW enlightenment were beckoning on the horizon.
Posted by: anti-uffe at June 28, 2007 7:03 PM
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