Hey Mr. Jo Mama you are no different from the kkk white 
supermacisit with that dirty language you use by calling all 
arabic people sand niggers. You piece of dirt kkk 
representative. You  all believe in the killing of innocent 
people because of their race and religion. You are Just like the 
Taliban, NAzi,Bin Landen,Timothy Mc Vay, etc because you all use 
your religion as excuse for you racisim and your evil feelings 
for human kind. I bet you want all people of arabic decent to go 
back from where they came from huh ? Well my answer to you is U 
GO BACK FROM WHERE  EVER THE HELL YOUR ANCESTORS CAME FROM!  
American is a country made of imigrants and if you remember 
your  history correctly this land was the native americans and 
we the "proud americans" took it over and had mass genocide 
against Indians. JO MAMA Its sad to know that in this day an age 
people like you still exist in the world. May God forgive you 
for your racism and hopefully one day you will see that we all 
are 99.9% the same it doesn't matter what race or religion we 
are because we are all the children of GOD! You are a poor exuse 
for a human being and your brian washed mentality is no good in 
our American society.. 

I looked it up, but the words in the Qu-ran of my posession, are 
completely different from the ones you wrote.
Especially the Nisa 5:51 gets me, my version does not even make 
sense, and seems to be cut:
"O ye who believe!
Take not the Jews 
And the Christians (...to what; the cinema?)
They are
Those who rebel"

An, a little further on:
"And if any fail to judge
By what Allah
Has revealed, they are
Wrong-doers
But nothing about not taking Jews and Christians for friends 
etc., not very convenient to let us know that.
This confirms what I said in a previous post:
These kind of books are made to the advantage of the people who 
wrote them and a-kins!
Also, a very inquieting thought:
Maybe the Qu-rans they give away as presents to Westerners have 
been censured, not to let us know the hateful messages written 
in the original one!
We should all unite against the Islam, not in the name of 
Christ, but in the name of our wonderful free world. These are 
very dangerous times!!!!!!

Of course I referred to the verse in Al-Ma'ida, even though all 
the others are different as well.
May peace be on the Americans and all of us who stand behind 
them!!!!

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO LIKE DR. SEUSS, YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS
 (Author unknown) 

This is the story of "The Binch" 

Every U down in Uville liked the U.S. a lot, 
But the Binch, who lived Far East of Uville, did not. 
The Binch hated the U.S! The whole U.S. way! 
Now don't ask me why, for nobody can say, 
It could be his turban was screwed on too tight. 
Or the sun from the desert had beaten too bright 
But,  I think that the most likely reason of all 
May have been that his heart was ten sizes too small. 

But, whatever the reason, his heart or his turban, 
He sat facing Uville, the part that was urban. 
"They're doing their business," he snarled from his perch. 
"They're raising their families! They're going to church! 
They're leading the world, and their empire is thriving, 
I MUST keep the S's and U's from surviving!" 

Tomorrow, he knew, all the U's and the S's, 
Would put on their pants and their shirts and their dresses, 
They'd go to their offices, playgrounds and schools, 
And abide by their U and S values and rules, 

And then they'd do something he liked least of all, 
Every U  down in U-ville, the tall and the small, 
Would stand all united, each U and  each S, 
And they'd sing Uville's anthem, "God bless us! God bless!" 
All around their Twin Towers of Uville, they'd stand, 
and their voices would drown every sound in the land. 

"I must stop that singing," Binch said with a smirk, 
and he had an idea--an idea that might work! 
The Binch stole some U airplanes in U morning hours, 
and crashed them right into the Uville Twin Towers. 
"They'll wake to disaster!" he snickered, so sour, 
"And how can they sing when they can't find a tower?" 

The Binch cocked his ear as they woke from their sleeping, 
All set to enjoy their U-wailing and weeping, 
Instead he heard something that started quite low, 
And it built quite slowly, but it started to grow-- 
Then the Binch heard the most unpredictable thing... 
And he couldn't believe it--they started to sing! 

He stared down at U-Ville, not trusting his eyes, 
what he saw was a shocking, disgusting surprise! 
Every U down in U-Ville, the tall and the small, 
was singing! Without any towers at all! 
He HADN'T stopped U-Ville from singing! It sung! 
For down deep in the hearts of the old and the young, 
Those Twin Towers were standing, called Hope and called Pride, 
and you can't smash the towers we hold deep inside. 

So we circle the sites where our heroes did fall, 
with a hand in each hand of the tall and the small, 
and we mourn for our losses while knowing we'll cope, 
For we still have inside that U-Pride and U-Hope. 

For America means a bit more than tall towers.
It means more than wealth or political powers, 
It's more than our enemies ever could guess, 
So may God bless America! Bless us!  God bless! 

Right on!  I was thinking the same thing...say, Jo Mama, are 
you 'sheet-faced' bigot?  Sounds like it.
That's not what this country is about.
Where were you when the president said this is a battle against 
TERRORISM, not religion?

Of course, the president did a great thing to make that 
statement, a man in his place should do nothing else.
But this sure as hell is not about poverty, or globalisation, 
these terrorists are religious fanatics who only want to destroy 
everything on this earth in order to subdue all people to their 
own sadistic religion. And power.
After all, all that matters for tem is a "life hereafter"

The founder of Islam was a pedophile.  He married a young girl 
of seven but waited until she was nine to rape her.  Look it 
up.  Old Mohammed was nothing but a pedophile.  LOOK IT UP!

The butchers in this world are Muslim.  Bin Laden, Saddam, 
Assad, Arafat, the Saudi family, and so on.  Look it up.  Show 
me one elected government in the Arab world or one that gives 
full rights to women.

Do you know that the Saudi family  owns Saudi Arabia?  And that 
every man, women, and child is a slave of the King.  My God, 
it's a pity that we have to deal with such, but we do.

Look at Iran.  A country that sent children to clear mine fields 
with a plastic key in their hands that they were told was 
the "key to paradise".  Tens of thousands were slaughtered by 
the Iragi army.


Look at Iran.  A country that used chemical weapons against its 
own people.  A country that slaughtered over 250,000 people who 
occupied the region around the Euphrates River.  By the way, 
Bill Clinton did nothing about it.  He could have stopped it.

Country after country in the Islamic world hates us simply 
because we have a sense of decency.  They hate us because of our 
tolerance.  They hate us because of our religion.  they hate us 
because of our freedom.

Isn't it time we have a show down with them?

In my last post in the next to last paragraph it should be Irag 
instead of Iran.  Iran massed raped young girls before they put 
then to death because their fucked up Koran says a virgin cannot 
be put to death. Look it up.

I think your conclusion about the different texts of quran is 
likely, and very interesting. 
I don't know if this is true, but many years ago I also read (in 
a book of E.A.Poe) that somewhere in the quran is written that 
"the earth is supported in the space by a celeste cow with 400 
horns".

P.S. very soon I'll post my great reply to cool/john/good 
thinker.

Yes, it's true, the Moslim one is a religion of hatred. Now we 
have to fight neither all Moslim, nor all Islam, because many of 
them don't like what al-quaeda terrorists have just done, but 
about the question wether the Moslim religion means hatred, well 
it does. It's barbarous. Actually also our culture passed though 
periodes in which we committed some true barbarous crimes in the 
name of religion (that then is REALLY a religion of love), our 
middle age is since a long time over, our culture and our 
mentality had their evolution since then, while Moslim religion 
kept Islam still in their middle age. This is their problem, and 
their difference from us. 

Until I read the above message, for a minute, I didnt think u 
were an airhead. 
Sadly enough, and to my surprise, I should have known better.
No religion is a religion of hatred.
And about the cow with 400 horns holding up the earth... it just 
further proves your ignorance. Would you believe me if I told u 
I saw a cow with 400 horns, parked outside your garage way, with 
a number plate on its butt? According to u, if u were asked 
about it, u'd say:
I don't know if this is true, but many years ago I also read 
that...
Educate urself, and stop making Italians look like ignorant 
fools, coz my brothers in Law are Italian, but u r probably what 
I think u r.. 
NOT ITALIAN! 

Dear Satin Bin Ladin;
   You are a pussy. George Bush is a Stud. I guess your 
wondering what is going to happen to you. Well, it isn't up to 
you. You are a common criminal and you are being chased around 
like the whimp satanic pussy you are. 
   Keep looking over your shoulder. Your friends are betraying 
you. You can't trust anyone. Your in deep shit! 
    Time is not on your side, nor do you have any choice on what 
happens when. Bring on your scare tactics, pussy. We will defeat 
you no matter the cost.
    Good bye and say hello to your leader, Satin.
Freedom

Let's get this straight...you (and others) are saying go after 
ALL Islam, using the reasoning that bin Laden purports to be 
Islamic...by that reasoning

Islam=bin Laden
KKK=ALL Americans
Hitler=ALL Germans

etc...etc...

Let's get real here, folks.  There are a few fundamentalist 
factions in every religion.  That doesn't mean EVERYONE of that 
faith adheres to the same warped principles.

Stop Hate Crimes Now
 
 (New York, September 21, 2001) Human Rights Watch condemns the 
violent assaults, harassment and threats against Muslims, Sikhs 
and people of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent that have 
occurred in the United States since September 11. These shameful 
acts against men, women and children targeted because of their 
religious beliefs, ethnicity or national origin violate basic 
principles of human rights and justice. Misguided violence at 
the hands of a few dishonors the nation's legitimate anger and 
shock over the immense loss of life and destruction from the 
September 11 attacks in the United States.  "These shameful acts 
against men, women and children targeted because of their 
religious beliefs, ethnicity or national origin violate basic 
principles of human rights and justice."    
Since Sept. 11, monitoring groups around the country have 
received several hundred complaints alleging crimes apparently 
motivated by bias and hate. A shooting rampage in Mesa, Arizona, 
left one Sikh man dead, with additional shots fired at a 
Lebanese clerk and the home of an Afghan family. An Egyptian-
American grocer was shot and killed near his store in San 
Gabriel, California and a storeowner from Pakistan was shot dead 
in Dallas, Texas. A gasoline bomb was thrown into the home of a 
Sikh family in California.Beatings and other violent assaults 
were reported across the country, as were death and bomb 
threats. Mosques and Sikh temples have been shot at, vandalized, 
and defaced, and bricks were thrown through the window of an 
Islamic bookstore in Virginia. At several U.S. universities, 
foreign students from the Middle East and South Asia have been 
targeted for attacks, and some have chosen to leave the country 
because they feared additional attacks. Throughout the country 
affected community members have been afraid to leave their 
homes, go to work or wear traditional clothing for fear of 
possible hate crimes against them.Human Rights Watch commends 
U.S. President George Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft, New 
York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and other officials who have 
called on the public to reject national or religious 
stereotyping that would blame whole communities for the 
appalling deeds of a few - deeds, in fact, whose victims 
included members of some of the same religious, ethnic and 
national minorities now being injured by retaliation.During 
President Bush's visit to the Islamic Center in Washington D.C. 
on September 17, he stated, "those who feel like they can 
intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don't 
represent the best of America, they represent the worst of 
humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior." 
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has repeatedly emphasized that 
individuals should not be singled out for any type of harassment 
in retaliation for the World Trade Center attack.In these 
painful times, the values of tolerance and respect for each 
other and the rule of law are all the more crucial. Urgent 
measures must be taken to counteract and prevent xenophobic and 
racist attacks against migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. 
Human Rights Watch calls on public officials as well as civic 
and community leaders to act decisively and creatively during 
the coming months to affirm those values and to prevent further 
acts of retaliation. We urge them to reach out to Muslim, Arab-
American and other communities vulnerable to reprisal and hate, 
and to condemn attacks against them. We also call on law 
enforcement officials to provide enhanced protection for 
targeted individuals and groups, and their homes, places of 
business, and houses of worship; to vigorously investigate any 
reports of criminal behavior against them; and to hold 
accountable those found responsible.The terrible events of 
September 11 constituted not only an attack on people and 
property - they were an attack as well on the very principles of 
human rights. As the nation forges its individual and collective 
response to this outrage, it must uphold those cherished 
principles. Anger at the heinousness of the September 11 attacks 
is understandable. But that anger cannot justify vengeful and 
lawless violence against the innocent.

If the atrocities outlined above continue, then bin Laden has 
won.

Until I read the above message, for a minute, I didnt think u 
were an airhead. 
Sadly enough, and to my surprise, I should have known better.
No religion is a religion of hatred.
And about the cow with 400 horns holding up the earth... it just 
further proves your ignorance. Would you believe me if I told u 
I saw a cow with 400 horns, parked outside your garage way, with 
a number plate on its butt? According to u, if u were asked 
about it, u'd say:
I don't know if this is true, but many years ago I also read 
that...
Educate urself, and stop making Italians look like ignorant 
fools, coz my brothers in Law are Italian, but u r probably what 
I think u r.. 
NOT ITALIAN! 
Well, 
1) I am Italian!
2) Moslim religion IS a religion of hatred, if what "speak the 
truth" quoted about koran is true;
3) NOTHING what I said of, proves any ignorance ever;
4) as far as I know about koran and Moslim mentality, there
would be nothing to be amazed if that story of the big celeste 
cow with 400 horns was true;
5) yeah, if I were asked about it, I'd right answer that way,  
because it's a quite normal answer;
6) I am already educated, why?
7) and actually I never started to make Italians ignorant fools; 
on the contrary, what I say expresses culture and love for thuth 
and for justice
8) what you say just expresses love for the Quran; I think we've 
got quite different values.

(Love live through compassion and compassion is born from love).
I pray to all beings who are suffering from all forms of false
man made religous laws .I know that there is a Creator of all 
things and that , for the time being , since we still are mostly 
evolving slowly to univeral understanding of ourselves and of
others. May we ,therefore, pray for our salvation in this most
difficult and sad time . BABAJI love all sentient beings no 
matter how terrible they may be. I PRAY WITH LOVE IN MY HEART.

                                 A friend of BABAJI.

I hear over an over again how many people from the middle east 
cheered when the WTC collapsed.  I can't in million years 
understand this.  Sure you explain how many arabs died, and I 
understand that but I don't know of anyone cheering about this.  
Those of you who cheered are pathetic animals with no regard for 
human life. You are morally weak and I hope you learn the lesson 
you are about to.  Watch how the world might end on the brink of 
nuclear disaster and when your crying for your lives, remember 
your laughter. The world trade is the first of many deaths that 
your own people will face.   Pathetic you are. Join the human 
race.

I agree with you, and do excuse myself if it seems I enticed 
people do use violence against the Musliims. Nothing less true 
than that,I am by nature not a violent person, all I meant is 
that we should start to stand up for what we do or do not 
believe in and not always be so over-indulgent towards people 
who are criticising us in the name of Allah.
Of course the US and Europe are part of the free world where, 
fortunately, everyone may believe in whatever they like.
But I also think we should stop being so naive. Don't forget the 
Islam is, as the Muslims themselves admit, a political as well 
as a religious institution.
And I am sure that behind the idea of that so-called "Holy War", 
or the "Jihad",lies the intention of destroying the Western 
world. I think the good Muslims should also question themselves 
about that.
And we should also be a bit more weary about who we welcome into 
our countries and homes; mr. Atta was a well esteemed neighbour 
in Europe, quiet and very educated.
He and his fellow Kamik-nazis were wealthy, well-educated 
people, who would not have spent a penny for the populations of 
the poor Arabian countries, but spent loads of money to learn 
how to destroy the world of the persons that hosted them.
And what do you figure were their last words before crashing 
with airplaes into the buildings? Right: "Allah Akhbar!!"
Your remark about the Bin Laden, the KKK and Hitler  has no 
value.
The KKK are just a bunch of local loonheads, never capable to 
organise themselves the way the fundamental Muslems do because 
they would not likely distroy their own homeland. And you can 
very well tell normal Amercans from the KKK-ones. Which is not 
true about the Islamics.
As far as the Germans are concerned, it took Europeans like the 
Dutch a long time not to have prejudices anymore against all of 
them, the older people that experienced the war and the 
occupation still do have them, but because the Germans 
themselves could understand those feelings, the relationships 
are better now.
It's also no use saying, like the Pope does, that religion and 
violence do not go together, just take a look around you: 
Philippines, Indonesia, India, Shri-Lanka, Pakistan, 
Afghanistan, Iraq, even Ireland, all countries where religions 
use violence against other religions.
OK, no violence, but let us not be too "meek"; at this moment 
being angry is healthy and completely legitimate!!

YIUYOIUYOU

I am wondering about the Israels situation now that Ariel Sharon
has bitten the hand that feeds him with those comments he made.
Hopefully US will just pull out of Israel once and for all.

Sharon really has some nerve after accepting billions of US
dollars for years and then issue statements, he should talk...he
is a war criminal himself.

I hope Israel finally gets what is coming to them, they are
pathetic and only upset because the US is on the Playground with
some new friends who they don't like!


  

10-4-01

Iraq Praises Usama bin Laden,Taliban,Saddam for 
'Terrorizing' the World 


Iraq praised Usama bin Laden,Taliban and even their own 
leader,Saddam Hussein, on Wednesday for using 
Saddam's huge supply of terrorist money against the west 
and the poor Muslims throughout the Middle East as a way 
of ``terrorizing'' the world.

Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said the fortunes of 
Saddam make possible the actions against the U.S.along 
with assistance of Taliban rulers,  and Usama bin Laden. 

``Iraq's terrorism is a war against humanity, not against a 
single country but all of civilization (It) aims at terrorizing the 
whole world,'' Aziz told reporters.

``Our country and the Talibn do not need such a great 
amount of military arsenal to cause great harm to the west 
and throughout the world. The main objective of these 
terrorist attacks on the U.S. is to impose Saddam's terrorist 
imperialism on the world.''

The U.S. military is mobilizing heavily in the Gulf and Indian 
Ocean regions in apparent preparation for an assault on 
Afghanistan, whose Taliban rulers have sheltered bin 
Laden -- Washington's prime suspect for the September 11 
attacks on the United States in which some 6,000 people 
were killed or are missing.

U.S. officials have not ruled out raids on other countries they 
accuse of harboring ``terrorists.'' Iraq is one of seven 
nations Washington regards as ``state sponsors of 
terrorism.''

``If the United States is planning for a new aggression 
(against Iraq) we will confront such aggression as we had 
done in the past war,'' Aziz said.

On Monday, the Jordanian news agency Petra quoted 
Jordan's King Abdullah as saying U.S. President George 
Bush had pledged not to undertake military strikes on any 
Arab state, including Iraq, in revenge for the attacks.

The report was quickly denied by U.S. officials.

``We have asked for any pledge from anybody. The 
aggression of Iraq has been continuing for the last 10 
years,'' Aziz said in reference to raids on U.S. targets with 
western commercial planes, and we plan to continue such 
attacks. 

The Iraqi government had not officially taken credit for the 
September 11 suicide plane attacks on the United States, 
but Aziz sent letters of congradulations to bin Laden and 
Taliban rulers opposed to U.S. and her allies.

Baghdad has confimed press reports linking one of the 
suicide hijackers to its intelligence apparatus and said it 
had a solid relationship with bin Laden and with the Taliban. 
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has said investigations 
have found Iraqi link to the attacks.

Aziz condemned Iraq's foe Kuwait for accusing two Iraqi 
nationals of spying. Kuwaiti state television last week 
showed two men it described as Iraqi agents who had 
spied on military and civilian targets in Kuwait.

``The Kuwaiti rulers are telling the truth but they are trying to 
find an excuse for the United States to launch new 
aggression on Iraq,'' he said.

Washington led a multinational force in 1991 that forced Iraq 
to withdraw its invasion forces from Kuwait. The border 
between the two countries is monitored by a U.N. 
peacekeeping force
Source:BAGHDAD (Reuters) 

10/05/2001 : "Iraq Says U.S. Attacks Carried Out by Iraqi 
Sponsored Terrorism" 

Iraq says U.S. Attacks carried out by state sponsored 
terrorism with
aid from Taliban rulers and Osama bin Laden. 


Last month's suicide attacks in New York and Washington 
were carried out by Osama bin Laden and his militant 
Muslims, Iraq's Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan said 
in remarks published last Wednesday.

``We are assisting the Taliban and bin Laden...and the 
executors of the attacks were state sponsored,'' Ramadan 
told the al-Raee newspaper.

``The operation was carried out from inside Afghanistan and 
cells based throughout the west,'' he said.

On Saturday, President Bush repeatedly named Saudi-born 
militant Osama bin Laden, based in Afghanistan under the 
protection of the ruling Taliban movement, as a prime 
suspect behind the attacks which may have killed over 
6,000 people.

Ramadan also admitted to Iraqi officials financing and 
suppling the Taliban
with arms.

``The whole world knows that we are aggressive throughout 
the 
Musilim World,'' he said, adding that the W.T.C. attacks were 
a retaliation against ``military acts practiced by the American 
administration.''

Saddam Hussein on Saturday advised the United States to 
use non violence, and not force, in retaliation.

Ramadan described the deadly attacks as the fruit of 
Saddam's policies toward the United States and the civilized 
world. ``America has to review its internal and external 
policies,'' he added.

Iraq, which faced a U.S.-led alliance in the 1991 Gulf War 
following Baghdad's invasion of Kuwait, has used its media 
to hail the attacks
source:BAGHDAD (Reuters) 

America will be coming after your sorry asses as soon as we kill 
Osama.  Then we should hang Saddam and Aziz from a lamp post.

The USA, UK, and Israel will do what has to be done.  As Bush 43 
says, "Make no mistake about it."  

I am a peace loving man who believes:

AN EYE FOR AN EYE AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.
A KILLING FOR A KILLING.

BEWARE THE PALE HORSE.  FOR ON HIS CHEST IS A SHIELD AND IN THE 
HAND OF HIS RIDER A SWORD.  WE RIDE A PALE HORSE. DIE YOU ARAB 
FUCKS.

IASPS
Division for Research in Strategy

April 
2000                                                             
                  No. 9
 
The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski
    

Afghanistan The very name conjures up notions of some far away 
land, of war with the Soviets, and now of a haven for 
international terrorists and drugs.  The country is small, poor, 
inhospitable, and one of the least developed in the world.  
There are no railroads to speak of, a primitive road network, 
some of the most difficult terrain in the world, with high, 
sometimes inaccessible mountains. Its people are fierce. In the 
words of Jason Goodwin:  This is a region that has swallowed 
civilizations, and sent the sands to seal them up.  It has been 
dug, charted, swindled and coerced, but what can change the fact 
that its deserts are as dry as ever, its mountains vast, and it 
is still a long, long way from the sea? [1] 

 

Why then have so many great nations fought in and over 
Afghanistan, and why should we be concerned with it now? In 
short, because Afghanistan is the crossroads between what 
Halford MacKinder called the world s Heartland and the Indian 
sub continent. It owes its importance to its location at the 
confluence of major routes.  A boundary between land power and 
sea power, it is the meeting point between opposing forces 
larger than itself.   Alexander the Great used it as a path to 
conquest.  So did the Moghuls.  An object of competition between 
the British and Russian empires in the 19th century, Afghanistan 
became a source of controversy between the American and Soviet 
superpowers in the 20th.   With the collapse of the Soviet 
Union, it has become an important potential opening to the sea 
for the landlocked new states of Central Asia.  The presence of 
large oil and gas deposits in that area has attracted countries 
and multinational corporations.  Russia and China, not to 
mention Pakistan and India, are deeply involved in trying to 
shape the future of what may be the world s most unchangeable 
people. Because Afghanistan is a major strategic pivot what 
happens there affects the rest of the world.

The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski
 
Throughout the world we see the rapid proliferation of new 
states (or entities seeking to become states).  As quick, has 
been a sort of spreading collapse of state power.  This has been 
true in most of Africa, in large segments of the former Soviet 
Union, and in Central and South Asia. Afghanistan may be the 
prototype case. It certainly remains a prime illustration of how 
a seemingly unimportant entities can exert disproportionate 
influence on the course of great events.

 

Today, most of the states active in the Afghanistan drama are 
weak, have major internal problems, and are confronting 
international tensions.  Pakistan, currently the dominant 
player, is in grave economic straits, faces mounting internal 
instability and sectarian violence, all in addition to 
heightened tensions with India over Kashmir.  Russia has gone 
from one economic crisis to another, and faces major ethnic 
unrest, including a protracted guerrilla war in Chechnya.  Its 
political system is unstable. Some have questioned the 
capability of Moscow to control its own far-flung provinces, let 
alone attempt to exert influence abroad.[2]   The new Central 
Asian republics face actual or potential ethnic and sectarian 
strife.  All are highly vulnerable to external intervention, 
especially from Russia.   Iran s own internal institutions are 
torn between the factions of a massively unpopular ruling 
theocratic elite.   China, without doubt the most powerful of 
the neighboring states, also confronts an unsettled situation in 
its Muslim province of Xinjiang, abutting northeastern Pakistan, 
Afghanistan, and Kazakhstan.  Furthermore, as Beijing s 
crackdown on the Falun Dong sect and dissidents indicates, 
Chinese authorities are increasingly concerned (with reason) 
over their control of the population. Rapid modernization and 
economic progress have released decentralizing pressures and 
tendencies that ill accord with the requirements of Communist 
control.[3] Why then are they all involved in Afghanistan, and 
what are their chances of getting what they want? 

 

In short, these countries  essentially zero-sum-game policies 
aimed at control, have virtually no chance of succeeding.  
Pakistan, in the driver s seat in Afghanistan for the time 
being, continues trying to establish a malleable puppet 
government led by the Taliban, a radical Islamic movement mostly 
of the majority Pushtun ethnic group.   On the other side are 
most of the remaining interested parties: a loose anti-Pakistan, 
anti-Taliban coalition of Russia, Iran, most of the Central 
Asian republics, and India.  Pakistani strategy rests on its 
association with the Pushtuns, the dominant ethnic group in 
Afghanistan, who live in the southeast, while that of its 
opponents perforce leans on northern ethnic minorities, the 
Tadjiks, Uzbeks, and the Shiite Hazaras of the country s central 
massif.  This coalition, even were it to be successful 
militarily, would not be able to effectively govern Afghanistan 
any more than would the Pushtuns. 

The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski
 
All of Afghanistan s neighbors are fearful of the Islamic 
fundamentalist threat posed by the Taliban spreading into their 
own territories.  Russia has from the beginning sought to keep 
the former Soviet Central Asian republics within the Russian 
orbit, which in part has meant ensuring their continued 
dependence on Russia.  The opening of a new trade route for the 
Central Asian republics through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the 
Indian Ocean would clearly defeat such an objective. Iran has 
similarly sought to prevent the possible flow of Central Asian 
oil and gas through Afghanistan.  Iran has jealously guarded its 
position in the energy field and sought to discourage the 
construction of any pipeline that would not go through Iran 
itself.  Blocking a consolidation of Pakistani control over 
Afghanistan is clearly easier to do than for Pakistan to firm up 
and maintain such control.  But, as we will see, even Islamabad 
may not be looking for stability in a way familiar in the West.  
And attempting to perpetuate a state of what we might 
call  controlled chaos  is, as the Soviets were fond of 
saying,  playing with fire.  

 

  The possibility of a non-zero-sum game solution, beneficial to 
all, exists. So far none of the parties have shown the least 
inclination to seek such a solution.  Obviously, the West in 
general and the U.S. in particular, cannot hope to teach the 
various parties what policies would be in their ultimate 
interest.  Yet the following pages point out some opportunities 
available to the West to  stabilize Afghanistan.

 

Afghanistan s twentieth century history encompasses two major 
geostrategic thrusts.   The first from 1978 to 1989, a Moscow-
generated southward movement, was a catastrophic failure that 
contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The end of the 
first thrust was followed by a short ambiguous interregnum of 
some three years, 1989 to 1992, which saw both the collapse of 
the southward thrust and the creation of a significant political 
vacuum. This political vacuum presented Pakistan with unforeseen 
opportunities. The second thrust, from 1992 to present, is 
northward and underwritten by Islamabad.  While still being 
played out, it seems well on its way to following the sad 
pattern established earlier by the Soviet Union.  Initial 
successes, which by 1997 were leading some observers to proclaim 
a Taliban victory and counsel accommodation with the status quo, 
by 1998-1999 were giving way to stalemate.  The Taliban s 
inability to achieve a definitive victory, discussed below, was 
then just as quickly interpreted as signifying its approaching 
end.  Could it be that Islamabad will soon face a choice similar 
to the one that confronted Moscow in late 1978 and 1979? Or are 
there constraints upon Pakistan which did not exist for the 
Soviet Union? In any event, is there any reason to believe that 
Islamabad might succeed where Moscow failed?  Or again, is there 
perhaps a way to break out of the established pattern?  The 
material that follows explores the pattern of the thrusts 
outlined above and attempts to address these questions.

The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski
 
          Southward Thrust, 1953 -1989

Emir Abdur Rahman, Afghanistan s leader in the late 19th 
century, described his country   then the target of the Russian-
British Great Game, as a goat between two lions. That apt phrase 
described well the position of Afghanistan between the 
countervailing pressures of the two empires.  The British 
withdrawal, after WWII, removed the only counterweight to 
Russian expansion. Moreover, British colonial policies had 
ensured that relations between Afghanistan and the new state of 
Pakistan would be inimical from the start. Afghanistan was the 
only country which voted against the admission of the new state 
of Pakistan to the United Nations. The boundary between the two 
states   the so-called Durand Line   was the product of 
concessions forced upon a reluctant but helpless Afghanistan by 
the British in the 19th century.  It arbitrarily divided major 
Pushtun tribes on the two sides of a new border, and immediately 
became a source of controversy. That antagonism helped the 
Soviet Union s gradual penetration of Afghanistan.

Soviet interest and influence in the country begins in the early 
post-Revolutionary period. The Soviet push for dominance of 
Afghanistan, however, began in 1953 when Mohammed Daoud, a 
cousin and brother-in-law of the king, became prime minister and 
availed himself of Soviet offers of assistance against Pakistan. 
Soviet military assistance, including the training of Afghan 
officers in the USSR, began at Daoud s initiative.  
Nevertheless,  Afghanistan tried to balance its growing links 
with Moscow with repeated requests for American economic and 
military assistance.  Washington rebuffed these requests.[4]  As 
Leon Poullada wrote, by the mid 1950s  a more powerful obstacle 
had emerged.  Pakistan, a new American ally, objected strongly 
to any U.S. military assistance to Afghanistan.[5]

 From that time onward, Moscow s influence in Afghanistan was 
never challenged by other powers.  The U.S. was content to leave 
that country within the Soviet sphere of influence.  In drawing 
its ring of alliances through Pakistan, Washington had conceded 
Afghanistan.  By 1960 Moscow was already asking to have Soviet 
advisers placed in each Afghan ministry.  As in other countries, 
Moscow operated through the formal state structures as well as 
by encouraging the development and growth of local Communist 
movements.   The Afghan Communist Party, the PDPA (People s 
Democratic Party of Afghanistan) was created in 1965, a 
byproduct of the previous year s democratization moves by the 
king.  In 1973, when former Prime Minister Daoud overthrew the 
king and proclaimed a republic, it was with the support of pro-
Soviet army and air force officers, and with that of the 
Parcham  Banner  wing of the Communist party. 

The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski
 
The coup fit in neatly with Moscow s desire for ever greater 
control over Afghan affairs.  The leader of the coup, a cousin 
to the king, had impeccable pro-Soviet credentials.  But because 
Daoud was  a relative of the king, the change would be seen as 
simply part of an internal family struggle and would therefore 
be acceptable to the Afghan people.  The transformation from 
monarchy to republic through a nationalist leader would be seen 
in the outside world as a progressive move in keeping with 
modernizing trends.  There was every reason to believe that 
Soviet interests would be strengthened without raising 
significant opposition.

 The Soviets were soon disappointed.  What happened next was 
inherent in the nature of Afghanistan: Daoud, like many of the 
Afghan leaders before and since, felt that he could manipulate 
the Soviets while minimizing their manipulation of him and his 
country.   Once in power, Daoud started to eliminate his 
Communist backers from positions of influence.  Abroad, he soon 
embarked on a series of moves to improve relations with 
neighboring states and with religious Muslim states.  In order 
to ensure a more independent stance and to diversify his base of 
external support, he began to send Afghan military officers to 
Egypt and India for training.  Just prior to his overthrow in 
1973, he had initiated similar steps with Pakistan.  

 In both the overthrow of the king and the bloody assassination 
of Daoud a mere five years later, an Afghan leader s attempts to 
improve relations with its neighbors   in particular with 
Pakistan   was followed by his removal from power.  Moscow, 
twice disappointed with its path of indirect control, decided to 
rely on Communists.  The April 1978 coup brought the 
Khalq  Masses  wing of the PDPA to power.  The Communists 
immediately proceeded to implement their Marxist program, which 
entailed control of all aspects of Afghan life.

 The Afghans, accustomed to the traditional autonomy of tribes 
and tribal groups, had remained largely unconcerned by how their 
central government was being run.  However, the new rulers  
interference with that autonomy and assault on their religious 
faith provoked massive and almost instantaneous armed 
resistance. Once popular resistance began in 1978, the Soviet-
backed regime found itself in an increasingly difficult 
situation.  

 Yet the Soviets did not have to invade.  Aside from adjusting 
the existing policy of military assistance, Moscow could have 
replaced the existing Communist regime with a pliable non-
Communist  leader,  and taken a much more gradual path to a 
Leninist agenda.   Thus, the resistance would have been deprived 
of its reason for being.  The decision to intervene with  
massive force was a matter of serious dispute within the Soviet 
leadership.[6]   The Afghan Communist regime, while facing 
problems, was not on the brink of being overthrown.  The 
resistance, while large scale and having an impact, was poorly 
armed and organized.   Soviet military intervention was 
initially seen in Moscow as a massive show of force that would 
intimidate the Afghan Mujahiddin, as the resistance came to be 
called. [7]  It was, in all likelihood, seen essentially as a 
shortcut to solving a messy problem with brute force.

 Early Soviet operations were patterned after the earlier 
invasion of Czechoslovakia and, therefore poorly adapted to the 
Afghan terrain and conditions.[8]  Had Soviet political 
assumptions proven correct, it may not have mattered much. As it 
was, the intrusion of foreign troops into Afghanistan provided 
the Afghans with what turned out to be the sole real unifier to 
the disparate groups of fighters.   Moscow realizing its mistake 
during its first year in Afghanistan, began to adjust its 
operations accordingly and settled in for a prolonged stay.  

 The Soviets focused on control of the cities and military 
installations.   There was never any attempt made at controlling 
the countryside south of the Hindu Kush mountain range. Faced 
with an unremittingly hostile population, Moscow never tried 
to  win over  the Afghans.  Massive aerial bombing was meant to 
instill terror.[9] The Soviet solution was what became known 
as  migratory genocide  to empty the water   that is to say 
chase the population out of the country, thereby removing the 
base of support for the Resistance.  And this they did on a 
grand scale.  Out of a pre-war population of 16 million, by 1985 
three and half million were refugees in Pakistan and Iran.  By 
1989 there was approximately that many refugees in Pakistan 
alone, with another one million or so in Iran. In 1981 Moscow 
was already conducting massive aerial bombardments in various 
areas of the country.  By 1982-1983 attention was also being 
given  to smaller operations, including the growing use of 
Soviet Special Forces (Spetsnaz), the penetration of Afghan 
Resistance groups, and the assassination of Resistance leaders. 

The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski

Interestingly, the  migratory genocide  strategy was implemented 
only in the southern, mostly Pushtun part of Afghanistan.  In 
the north, down to the Hindu Kush mountain range, the Soviets 
followed a different, almost opposite approach.[10] Just as for 
the south there was systematic destruction and desolation, for 
the north the approach was to build up.  Instead of chasing the 
population, the attempt was to co-opt it.  The distinction 
between the two parts of the country was not new. It had already 
been made wistfully by Tsarist officials who were describing the 
Hindu Kush as the  natural  boundaries between the Russian and 
British Empires.  

Instead of promoting desolation as in the south, in the north 
the Soviets encouraged economic development including the 
building of dams for irrigation, and the construction of 
factories. Most of Afghanistan s natural resources also happen 
to be in the north.  The region is contiguous to the Soviet 
Union, is readily accessible, has flatter terrain, and is thus 
easier to pacify. Furthermore, a large portion of the people of 
northern Afghanistan are of the same ethnic background as the 
peoples of (then Soviet) Central Asia   Tadjiks, Uzbeks, and 
Turkmen.   Soviet officials and publications played on the 
ethnic pride of the inhabitants and encouraged the use of their 
native tongues - a practice discouraged until then within the 
Soviet Union.  The Soviets constantly harped on common 
traditions and practices as a way to ethnic unity on both sides 
of the northern border.  Delegations were exchanged especially 
in cultural matters between the two sides of the border. 

All of this was part of Moscow s policy toward the Indian sub-
continent. The Soviets, directly and through their Afghan 
Communist puppets, promoted and encouraged Afghan irredentist 
claims over the parts of Pakistan inhabited by Pushtuns.  In a 
September 1985 speech to a Jirga (assembly) of the Pushtun 
border tribes, Babrak Karmal, then the Afghan Communist leader, 
openly called for the reunification of the Pushtuns (from both 
sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border) under Afghan sovereignty. 
Aside from reviving an old divisive issue between the two 
countries, it was a call for the subversion of Pakistan.  
Increasing Soviet military pressures upon Pakistan   large 
numbers of cross-border artillery strikes and aircraft 
penetrations   helped to drive the point home.   The absorption 
of northern Afghanistan within the Soviet Union, together with 
the creation of a Pushtun state under Afghan Communist 
leadership (and incorporating Baluch areas of southwestern 
Pakistan), would have meant the end of Afghanistan as well as of 
Pakistan.  More importantly, it would also have yielded, for the 
first time, a direct Soviet land route to the Arabian Sea. [11]  

The key to Soviet strategy from the very beginning was to 
prevent outside assistance to the Resistance.   Moscow was 
confident, and correctly so, that the Mujahiddin would not be 
able to continue for long without external aid.  Again, things 
did not go quite as planned.  The reaction to the Soviet 
invasion boiled down only to a very modest, and covert, program 
of U.S. aid to the Resistance, enabling the Soviets to make some 
significant gains through 1982 and 1983.  By then, both the 
Afghan Mujahiddin and European humanitarian groups that were 
seeking to help them, had recognized that without more 
meaningful external assistance, the Afghans would indeed not be 
able to continue for much longer.   Both the Afghans and the 
European humanitarian organizations, recognizing that the key to 
such assistance lay in Washington, began to approach officials 
there on aid to the Resistance. Because existing assistance to 
the Afghans was under the guise of a  covert  program, there was 
little open discussion of the issue. U.S. Government discussions 
on the matter involved a small number of officials in the 
executive branch and those members of Congress and their staffs 
who had to act on requests for aid to the Resistance.  The 
author was part of that small number, and the remarks that 
follow about the U.S. reaction refer to essentially such 
internal arguments.   

Until 1984 aid to the Resistance was sufficient only to keep the 
Afghans fighting.  There was no thought of gearing aid toward a 
victory of the Resistance.  As was often the case with U.S. 
policy, the summary phrase could well have been, and for some 
was,  raising the costs to the Soviets.  A major shift in policy 
however culminated in a 1985 Presidential Directive that at 
least declared that the aim was to help the Afghans win.  When 
translated into substantive action, it came to mean more 
forceful U.S. assistance that ultimately included Stinger anti-
aircraft missiles.  The significance of the shipment of Stingers 
to Afghanistan was not solely that they allowed the Resistance 
to thwart the Soviet effort to depopulate the countryside, but 
above all it signified to both sides a major shift in the level 
of American commitment. 

The main impetus for this shift in policy stemmed from growing 
bipartisan Congressional pressure.  The other part of that 
impetus came from a very small number of officials within the 
executive branch, chiefly in the Pentagon. It should be noted 
that throughout the war the State Department and CIA continued 
to resist meaningful aid to the Resistance.   The eventual U.S. 
policy was the byproduct of this friction.

By late 1984, military assistance to the Afghan Resistance was 
becoming more serious, which meant that Soviet progress was at 
the very least slowing, increasing their frustrations.  To have 
their intervention in Afghanistan seen as a victory, Moscow 
needed to win conclusively.  To lose, it only needed to be 
confronted by the promise of a never-ending fight.  As such, 
1985 proved in this respect to be a turning point.  It was then 
that the Soviet leadership, under Gorbachev, came to the 
conclusion that it might not be able to win on the battlefield. 
What it could not obtain there, it would need to make a greater 
effort to obtain at the negotiating table. 

The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski

At the 27th Party Congress in February 1985 Gorbachev launched a 
major peace initiative designed to convince the outside world of 
the Soviet Union s genuine desire for a settlement in 
Afghanistan.  It is then that he made his since famous reference 
to Afghanistan as  a bleeding wound  intimating a certain war 
weariness. In that same speech Gorbachev announced that the 
Soviet Union and Afghanistan had come to a bilateral agreement 
on a  phased withdrawal  of Soviet troops.  Such a withdrawal, 
Gorbachev indicated, was contingent upon a  political solution  
that would guarantee  the non-resumption of foreign armed 
interference. 

That phrase summed up for Moscow the root cause of the 
continuing conflict.  The purpose of negotiations had always 
been to resolve what the Soviets called  the situation 
surrounding Afghanistan,  which meant ending  armed 
intervention  from the outside.  Until the very end, the Soviets 
successfully insisted that their actions in Afghanistan were 
purely a bilateral issue with the Afghan Communist government, 
while what others were doing was a matter for international 
negotiation.

The core of Soviet strategy was to build up the Communist regime 
sufficiently for it to stand without Soviet ground troops, 
albeit with continued Soviet air, logistical, and other 
assistance.  Continued aid to the Afghan Resistance would 
prevent this goal from ever being attained.  Hence it became 
crucial for Moscow to determine the level and extent of the U.S. 
commitment to Afghanistan.   Was the U.S. serious when it spoke 
of genuine  self-determination  for the Afghans? Or did America 
merely intend to rid Afghanistan of Soviet troops?  If the 
latter was true, the combination of Soviet aid to Afghanistan s 
Communist regime and America s cessation of aid to the 
Resistance would ensure a Soviet victory.  By the end of 1985, 
Moscow had obtained from State Department negotiators an 
agreement that the United States would be willing to stop aid to 
the Afghan Resistance at the beginning of a Soviet troop 
withdrawal.  At the end of 1985 the Soviets were talking about a 
four year phased withdrawal. When it became known in Washington 
that U.S. officials had concluded the agreement with the Soviets 
behind the back of the President,[12] these officials argued 
that they had not accepted the four year time frame. This 
prevented the cutoff of American assistance, and dragged out 
negotiations another two years.  Nevertheless, Moscow now knew 
it could concentrate on building up the Communist Afghan 
infrastructure in preparation for an ultimate withdrawal.

Weeks prior to the signing of the 1988 Geneva accords, 
Congressional backers of the Afghan Resistance found out that 
the State Department had finally agreed to cutting off the anti-
Soviet side in the war without a similar pledge by Moscow.  An 
uproar led Washington to issue a  side letter  stating that it 
would engage in  positive symmetry,  meaning that that if the 
Soviets continued supplying their side, so would the U.S.    It 
is revealing that while the Soviets were unhappy about this last 
minute addition, it did nothing to unravel the agreement or the 
Soviet decision to withdraw. By February 1989 all Soviet forces 
were out of Afghanistan.

The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski

          Interregnum: Vacuum Creation, 1989-1992

Because U.S., and for that matter Pakistani policy was 
about  raising the costs  of Soviet occupation, not really 
ending it, few were ready when it did come.  In addition, policy 
was based on mistaken assumptions growing out of ignorance. At 
the end of 1987  Western officials  were  quoted as saying that 
Soviet troop withdrawal would  almost inevitably mean the 
collapse  of the Kabul regime.[13]  Without Soviet troops,  one 
of these diplomats was quoted as saying, the Afghan 
government  could not last six months. [14]   Once Soviet troops 
had actually begun withdrawing, the forthcoming collapse of the 
Afghan regime became a matter of near certainty.   Jon Glassman, 
the charge d affaires at the U.S. embassy in Kabul, had 
described the Kabul regime in the last months of the Soviet 
withdrawal as  a house without girders,  and predicted that  it 
would fall within a matter of weeks, months at the most. [15]

 How strongly such mistaken beliefs influenced actual policy can 
be seen by the fact that the Afghan Resistance was pressed hard 
then to capitalize on what was seen as an easy situation. Barely 
ten days after the signing of the Geneva accords a New York 
Times headline proclaimed  Pakistan officials tell of ordering 
Afghan rebel push.  And in slightly smaller print:  U.S. Aide in 
on Decision.  

No amount of evidence including the buildup of the Communist 
infrastructure, with particular emphasis on the KHAD, or Afghan 
equivalent of the KGB could convince these officials to the 
contrary.  There was, furthermore, no evidence on the ground of 
any panic, mass defections, or any other signs of possible 
apprehension in Kabul about the forthcoming situation.   Moscow 
had clearly and explicitly committed itself to continued support 
of the Afghan regime even after a Soviet troop withdrawal.  It 
stayed true to its word and continued to provide Soviet air and 
other military and economic support.  Whenever there was even a 
hint of a possible Mujahiddin success in taking a town, Soviet 
air support was forthcoming.

 The Soviets were confident that the Resistance could either 
agree to Communist demands for a cease-fire and thereby admit 
failure; or launch attacks and fail.  That confidence was amply 
justified.   The Afghan Resistance, never united to begin with, 
was becoming more fragmented now that the sole unifier of a 
foreign troop presence was gone.  Attacks on Afghan towns by 
other Afghans, especially when they failed, could only generate 
the antagonism of the Afghan population.  The Afghan Resistance 
had never been trained or prepared to undertake coordinated 
operations that could lead to victory.  It was not ready 
politically, and there was therefore no existing alternative to 
the Communist regime.  The Soviet strategy proved to be sounder 
than the Soviet Union itself because the communist regime in 
Kabul survived the one in Moscow   though not for long.

 In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed creating a major 
vacuum in the region, Pakistan got the opportunity to do what 
the Soviet Union attempted through the 1970s and 1980s. 
Islamabad understood that something along the lines of 
traditional colonialism would not be acceptable internationally, 
and simply not feasible in the Afghan context. Hence, like 
Moscow, it pursued an indirect approach.  The Pakistani 
leadership decided that it needed to produce an Afghan  leader  
and/or regime that would remain constantly dependent upon 
Islamabad to maintain power.  That in turn meant that such a 
leader could not have or develop a significant popularity or 
genuine political base. 

 Afghanistan, as already indicated, is not a nation but a 
multiethnic-state.  Its existing ethnic groupings had coexisted, 
but the Pushtun majority never allowed any of the minorities to 
dominate.  The sole aberration, in 1929 when a Tadjik briefly 
seized power, did not even last a year.  Soviet policy during 
the war exacerbated tribal and ethnic antagonisms and 
divisions.  Just as Moscow favored the northern Central Asian 
ethnic groupings because of their affinities to Soviet Central 
Asians, Pakistan has relied from the beginning on Pushtuns.  But 
to divide and rule has also entailed making sure that even the 
Pushtuns could never be strong enough to act together.  

 Even before the Soviet invasion, Islamabad had selected as one 
of its main agents Hekmatyar Gulbuddin, an extremist  Pushtun 
leader with little popular base.  During and after the Soviet-
Afghan war, Gulbuddin was more frequently engaged in fighting 
other Afghan Resistance groups than the Soviets or, after 1989, 
the Communist Afghans.  During the war, the Pakistani ISI (Inter 
Services Intelligence, which has in effect been in more or less 
independent charge of Afghan policy) made sure to channel most 
of the foreign assistance through Gulbuddin.  It thereby 
strengthened him, while minimizing the development of any 
genuine Afghan leadership.  The same reasoning was also 
responsible for Pakistan s reluctance to countenance any 
meaningful organization of the Resistance.   When, in part 
because of growing American interest, certain steps were finally 
taken, the Pakistanis made sure to keep things as divided, weak, 
and disorganized as possible.   Thus, several political parties 
and leadership groups were allowed to come into being. Islamabad 
actively fostered suspicions and competition for its attention 
and favors among these groups. Pakistani antagonism for the most 
effective Resistance leader, Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, was 
not due solely to his being a Tadjik.  Any effective commander 
with a popular following was a threat to Islamabad.

 The ISI also relied on its old favorite to penetrate the Kabul 
regime in order to collapse it from within.  In March 1990, 
General Shah Nawaz Tanai, also a Pushtun and defense minister in 
the Kabul regime, joined with Gulbuddin in a coup against the 
Communist regime.  The coup failed, but revealed the growing 
tensions within the Communist ruling group.[16] Aware of the 
growing internal weakness of his own regime, the Communist 
leader, Najibullah, became more serious in UN sponsored 
negotiations toward the establishment of a broad-based 
government.   As these negotiations proceeded, officers from the 
ruling party begin to transfer weapons to Resistance commanders 
and to make their own deals. With the failed Moscow coup of 
August 1991, followed by the cessation of Soviet assistance to 
the Kabul regime, and the actual collapse of the Soviet Union in 
December of that year, the fate of the regime was sealed.   

The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski
 When the Kabul regime collapsed in April 1992, it was not the 
Pushtun forces from the south that took control of the capital, 
but an unlikely assortment of minority ethnic groupings from the 
north. This Northern Alliance as it came to be called was made 
up of three significant minorities in Afganistan: the Tadjiks, 
Uzbeks, and Hazaras (the latter being not Sunni as the majority 
of Afghans, but Shiite).  The defection of the Uzbek General 
Abdul Rashid Dostum from the regime s northern forces played an 
important role in its collapse.  It was his joining with the 
Tadjik Commander  Massoud that enabled their joint forces to 
enter and take control of Kabul even as Najibullah had announced 
his intention of resigning in favor of a neutral interim 
government.[17]   If, as has been argued, their intention was to 
prevent  the predominantly Sunni and Pushtun-dominated Peshawar 
(Pakistan)-based parties from taking over power,  their hope was 
to be disappointed. [18]   

The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski

          Building a Northward Thrust, 1992-1999

Clearly the Northern Alliance was now in a stronger position vis-
 -vis the Pakistani government.  For Pakistan the situation just 
as clearly represented a setback.  Islamabad s reaction was to 
follow a double track of negotiate and fight.  Officially 
Pakistan stuck to the proverbial  high road,  participating in 
negotiations encouraging the formation of a broad-based interim 
government for Afghanistan. Islamabad had to acknowledge the 
Northern Alliance s control of Kabul by conceding the position 
of president to Burhannudin Rabbani, head of the Tadjik-
dominated, Pakistani-based Jamiaat Party. Since this, or any 
other arrangement not giving Pakistan the control it sought was 
unsatisfactory, the  fight  component was meant both to improve 
the negotiating outcome and to produce the desired result more 
definitively.  

 The Rabbani government never represented more than a fragment 
of the Afghan political spectrum, and never actually controlled 
much of Afghanistan.  After 1996 it did not even control Kabul 
or much of the north.   The April 1992 Peshawar Agreements 
setting it up had tried to placate Islamabad by reserving the 
prime ministership for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.    It did not work 
because Gulbuddin was asking for the removal of Massoud as 
defense minister and the subordination of Rabbani to himself.
[19]  When that failed to work, he launched attacks against 
Kabul. The other parties of the Northern Alliance, including 
General Dostum who had played a major role in the fall of the 
Communist regime and in the capture of Kabul, were also left out 
of major positions in the interim agreement.  The end result was 
that by the beginning of 1994 Dostum had allied himself to 
Gulbuddin, and together they launched another major attack on 
the capital, which ultimately failed. From Islamabad s 
standpoint, the negotiate-while-fight-via-proxy approach was not 
working. Thus in 1993 Pakistan began to seek an alternative to 
Gulbuddin. 

  The fundamentalist Taliban came to public attention as major 
players in October, 1994.  From its inception as a motley 
grouping, the Talibans, or  students,  seemed to come 
principally from fundamentalist Muslim schools of one the major 
Pakistani fundamentalist parties, the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islami 
(JUI). Its beginning can be traced to 1980, when a series of 
such schools (madrassas) were set up  in the Kunar Valley in 
order to create a belt of deeply religious groups close to the 
Afghan-Pakistani border. [20]  These were meant to help resist 
further Communist advances and help the Mujahiddin against the 
Soviets.[21]  Until 1994, however, they had remained 
inconsequential.

 The Taliban appeared as a military and political force first in 
the western province of Kandahar, then in the south, southwest 
and east.  Much of their rapid initial progress occurred with 
little or no fighting; with local commanders either joining or 
yielding to advancing Taliban bands.  It would seem that the 
Pakistani ISI had had a good deal to do with that relatively 
effortless advance by persuading the various commanders to shift 
sides.[22]   

Islamabad s technique, noted earlier, had been to rely on Afghan 
fundamentalists. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was also connected to the 
Pakistani JUI fundamentalist party closely associated with 
Pakistani governments since the rule of President Zia.  The post-
1994 policy relied on a fundamentalist Afghan party, itself 
closely connected to a rival Pakistani JUI fundamentalist 
party.  The latter aligned itself in 1993 with the Pakistan 
People s Party (PPP) of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.  The PPP 
had recently emerged the winner in elections and had returned 
Benazir Bhutto to the prime ministership.  The JUI, marginalized 
until then, finally gained access to the ISI and the military 
and government generally.  The transition from the earlier 
support for Gulbuddin to an even stronger commitment to the 
Taliban was not instantaneous. It appears that the Taliban s 
cause was first taken on by General Nasirulah Babar, the 
interior minister, and only later in 1995 by the ISI.[23] 

 The capture of an important arms depot outside the town of Spin 
Boldak early in the Taliban s advance provides an excellent, if 
ironic, illustration of Islamabad s policy shift.  The depot had 
belonged to Gulbuddin and was guarded by troops from Pakistan s 
Frontier Corps, under the control of the Interior Ministry, and 
therefore of the Taliban s earliest apparent advocate within the 
government.  The guards were simply instructed to walk away, 
leaving the Taliban in control.[24]

The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski

 The Taliban were just as, if not more fundamentalist than 
Gulbuddin.  They also had the promise of a certain popularity 
that did not seem threatening.  Led by  barely literate 
mullahs, [25] they had a simplistic view of Islam focused almost 
exclusively on the Koran and on  a very narrow concept [26] of 
Sharia (Islamic Law).  They never developed a program of any 
sort beyond the vague objective of implementing Islamic law and 
creating a religious (in their conception) Islamic society.  The 
Taliban s appeal to things spiritual, its claim not to 
monopolistic tribal power but to Afghan unity, resonated 
powerfully in the Afghanistan of 1994. Yet because those 
strengths were not accompanied by solid military or political 
capabilities, the Pakistani leadership was confident that the 
Taliban would remain dependent on Pakistan. The existence of 
many different groupings, many with traditions of enmity, no 
doubt translated into yet another lever for Islamabad.  The 
Taliban included not only different Pushtun tribal groupings, 
but a significant number of former Communists.  One 1997 report 
stated that  most of the Taliban commanders leading offensives 
for the past two years have false names, [27] that gave former 
Communists identities more in keeping with their new persona as 
fundamentalist leaders.  Some, like General Mohammed Gilani, a 
Khalqi who had just been named the Taliban s head of anti-
aircraft defense, had been in the Afghan Communist army until 
1992.[28] As one well-informed observer wrote:  By the time the 
Taliban captured Kabul, their entire air force and a large 
section of their armour and heavy artillery were being manned by 
former Khalqis. [29]

 In addition, Pakistan helped the Taliban with fighting 
men:   Between 1994 and 1999 an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 
Pakistanis trained and fought in Afghanistan. [30] Nevertheless, 
it was not until September 1996 that the Taliban were able to 
seize the capital.  Once they went beyond Pushtun territory, 
their progress slowed down.  A split within General Dostum s 
camp, combined with Pakistani subversion, facilitated the 
initial capture of the northern key city of Mazar-e-Sharif in 
1997.  However, Northern Alliance forces quickly retook the 
city. Still, the Taliban s progress toward militarily subduing 
all of Afghanistan continued through 1998 and into 1999.  By the 
end of the latter year, however, the Talibans had lost ground. 
What had looked like an irresistible march in 1997 was beginning 
to look like the return of stalemate.

The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski

End of the Northward Thrust and the Return of Stalemate 
 The Taliban is on the decline .[it] is kind of falling from its 
own weight,  said Richard Murphy, a former assistant secretary 
of state in charge of the region.[31]  Or, as another observer 
put it,  the Taliban  has passed its high water mark.  It is now 
disintegrating, echoing the rapid rise and fall of similar 
religious movements in Afghan history. [32] A more accurate 
assessment would be that a stalemate within Afghanistan is 
coinciding with a wider, regional stalemate. Rather than abandon 
the Taliban in favor of another alternative, Pakistan is likely 
to react to its unmitigated failure by following the failed 
Soviet example and increasing its direct involvement.  This 
would similarly provoke an explosion of open Afghan resistance.  
And since Talibani   and Pakistani   actions have already 
generated destabilizing trends in the region, such an implosion 
could have major consequences on the wider international system.

 In order to see why this may be so, it is necessary to examine 
the reasons for the Taliban s (i.e. for Pakistan s) inability to 
follow its initial successes to victory, thereby also exploring 
the nature of the internal and regional stalemates.

 The Nascent Internal Afghan Stalemate 

The Taliban s main claim to allegiance was its emphasis on 
Afghanistan as a whole, as well as on Islamic spiritualism.  Its 
promise was, above all, to bring peace and better economic 
conditions.  Under the abysmal conditions of 1994, few looked 
carefully beyond the shallowness of that promise. What mattered 
was the fact of an alternative.  In giving the Taliban the 
positive reception they did, the Afghan Pushtuns were 
not  voting for  the Taliban.  They were  casting their ballots  
against the existing order.  An apt analogy here would be to the 
earlier voting in Algeria, stopped by the government when it 
realized that the fundamentalists were winning.  Whatever else 
was involved in that situation, it is certain that the vote was 
essentially meaningless as anything but a protest against the 
corruption of the existing government. Deprived of any other 
means of expressing their frustrations, people expressed 
themselves through the only means available.

 There was another fundamental weakness: the Taliban s exclusive 
reliance on the Pushtuns.  Thus, Islamabad was repeating Soviet 
mistakes in reverse geographical direction.  A policy of such 
necessity spelled either protracted conflict or a division of 
the country into two distinct new entities. Neither would allow 
Pakistan to achieve its cherished objective of opening a new 
major trade route into Central Asia.  It is possible that 
Islamabad might think of dividing the country and thus gain some 
strategic depth.   Such an option would be another mirroring, 
again in reverse geographic direction, of another earlier and 
more systematic Soviet design.[33]

 Were that to be the objective, it too would be unreachable.    
First, the Afghans themselves   both north and south   would be 
unlikely to accept such a solution.   Despite years of war and 
divisive techniques used by all comers, one of the surprising 
factors in Afghanistan is that all groups continue to think of 
themselves as Afghans.  Many object strenuously even to mention 
of the possibility of a divided Afghanistan.[34]  Second, it is 
doubtful that the neighboring states would accede to such an 
extension of Pakistani influence.  Third, because the Taliban 
continue to control a large portion of the north, there is a far 
greater incentive for continued military pressure to gain the 
rest than there is for compromise and withdrawal.

 Fourth, The Taliban has proven incapable of managing the 
territory under its control.  Instead of genuine spiritual 
concerns, Afghans have been confronted by a brutal, highly 
simplistic notion of Islam. Some Pakistani observers, preferring 
to cite Western sources on this sensitive subject, have 
tellingly quoted descriptions of Taliban controlled areas as 
a   terrifying picture of puritanism at a brutalizing extreme.  
A place governed by illiterate teenage boys.  And again, giving 
the opinion of an  elderly scholar  in the western city of 
Herat,  we are ruled by men who offer us nothing but the Quran, 
even though many of them cannot read. [35]  The Taliban, to the 
extent they are known in the Western world, have become 
associated with the repression of women for their ban on most 
women working outside the home or girls attending school.  They 
have issued fatwahs (religious edicts) covering the most minute 
aspects of collective and individual life.  These have 
apparently gone to the extremes of forbidding women from wearing 
white socks or bans on kite flying,[36] not to speak of the bans 
on television or the taking of pictures.  These edicts have been 
enforced with beatings, and in the case of capital crimes with 
instant public executions.  These and other excesses have taken 
their toll.  Not only has finding soldiers become more difficult 
for the Taliban, but its fighters have actually been leaving its 
ranks and returning to their tribal areas.[37] However, there is 
no real alternative. Pakistan, past master in the art of  divide 
and rule,  has contributed to that.  Hence, as far as the 
internal situation is concerned, the likelihood is of a 
continued stalemate.  One observer has actually written 
that  Islamabad works toward maintaining the state of war to 
weaken its Afghan ally. [38]

  And its Regional Consequences

The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski

In some ways, one could say that Afghanistan has functioned for 
Pakistan as Lebanon has for Syria (and to some extent for 
Iran).  Lebanon, which, for all intents and purposes is a Syrian 
dependency, has served to deflect direct blame and military 
retaliation against Syria for what are Syrian, and/or Iranian 
sponsored or tolerated terrorist actions.  The rationale there 
has been that the groups operating from Lebanese territory are 
independent groups that neither Syria nor Iran control, and that 
therefore there is not much these states can do to stop them.  
While Syria admits to sympathy for the goals of these groups, it 
denies actively supporting or directing them.  And, as everyone 
knows, the Lebanese government is powerless to control these 
terrorist groups.  The presence of terrorist training camps in 
Afghanistan, the basing of terrorist groups active in many parts 
of the world, are by now well-known facts, as is the active 
support of the Taliban for them.[39]

 Examples of this type abound. Tahir Yuldashev, the leader of 
the radical Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who is wanted in 
Uzbekistan for complicity in the attempted assassination of that 
country s president, was given refuge in Afghanistan.  The 
Taliban has refused demands of extradition for him by Uzbekistan 
as they have for Osama Bin Ladin from the United States.  But 
the Taliban has also allowed him to run a  military training 
camp  near the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif and 
several miles from the Uzbek border.[40]  In this camp are 
trained  militants  from Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, Kirghiztan, 
and separatist Uigurs from the Chinese province of Xinjiang.  
The Chinese have claimed that weapons seized from Uigurs have 
come from Afghanistan.   There are also close links between  the 
Taliban and Abd el Rahman Khattab and Chamil Bassaiev, leaders 
of the insurrection against Russia in Daghestan in 1999.  Uigurs 
have been involved in Yuldashev s and Bin Ladin  operations.
[41]   Among the major users of this Afghan sanctuary have been 
the groups participating in the fight against India in what 
Pakistan sees as occupied Kashmir.

 As is Syria in the Lebanese case, both the Taliban and Pakistan 
have denied any connection with these groups  activities.  They 
have repeatedly proclaimed their opposition to terrorism.  A 
recent headline in a Pakistani paper summed this up 
well:  Kabul, Islamabad reaffirm opposition to terrorism: 
Taliban stick to stand on Bin Laden. [42] Mullah Mohammad 
Rabbani,  Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Afghanistan,  
in a press conference following a meeting in Islamabad with 
General Parvez Musharraf, the Pakistani leader, acknowledged 
that the Bin Ladin issue had come up.  Yes, the matter was 
raised,  he said.  But Afghanistan is a free Islamic State and 
Osama is our guest.   He also added  that Afghanistan had 
declared terrorism illegal and against human rights,  and that 
it  would not be permitted in his country.   Answering a 
question on the growing international pressure being applied to 
Pakistan on the issue of terrorism and Bin Ladin, the Taliban 
official replied that Pakistan had asked that Afghanistan 
resolve the issue.  But,  he said,  Afghanistan is an 
independent state, and we take our decisions ourselves. [43]

 What seems clear is that this situation has allowed Pakistan   
so far at least   to actively support these groups and their 
activities while using the  plausible deniability  technique 
whenever one of the consequences of these terrorist acts becomes 
uncomfortable.  Even if it were true that Pakistan lacks minute 
control on either the Taliban or the groups engaged in terrorist 
activities, that is largely irrelevant.  Pakistan has created 
the overall conditions for the existence and perpetuation of 
this form of terrorism.  Day to day control is not a necessity, 
and the ability to put some distance between oneself and the 
actual perpetrators provides useful cutouts and a certain degree 
of plausibility to denials of complicity.

 Pakistan has nowhere near any of the capabilities of the Soviet 
Union when it launched its doomed southward thrust through 
Afghanistan. Not only is its power much smaller, but Pakistan, 
unlike the Soviet Union does not have a core state with long and 
solid traditions extending for centuries.   Created just over 
fifty years ago out of disparate ethnic and tribal groupings, it 
has continued to face active sectarian tension and violence.  
That violence, including killings between Sunnis and Shiites, 
has increased in recent years. The military coup that overthrew 
its government in 1999, was in response to popular disaffection 
with the inefficiency of the government, its corruption, and the 
lamentable state of the economy. Yet it too undertook its own 
thrust into Afghanistan.  Could the stalemate in Afghanistan be 
but a prelude to the collapse of Pakistan? 

 In some ways Pakistan finds itself with a more serious 
situation than the Soviet Union did at a similar point. In 
undertaking its northward thrust, and in choosing the  Taliban 
Option  when the earlier approach was failing, Islamabad 
embarked upon a no less dangerous path.  The switch from the 
relatively small operation of the Islamic fundamentalist 
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to the much bigger operation of the even 
more radical Taliban was more than just one of scale. By 
launching a very active intervention in Afghan affairs by 
Pakistani fundamentalist parties, that policy choice provided a 
major opening for a spread of fundamentalism back into 
Pakistan.   

The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski

 Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto even referred to the 
trends set in motion as the  Talibanisation  of Pakistan.[44]  
In making that characterization, Bhutto was also accusing then 
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of abetting the process and 
encouraging the lawlessness of Pakistani fundamentalist groups, 
that were already being heavily influenced by Taliban ideas and 
practices.   There is little doubt that the charge against 
Sharif had merit.  Sharif had introduced measures to make 
Islamic law the law of the land and in a November 1998, speech 
he openly called for the  introduction of instant Taliban-style 
justice in the country.   Sharif had said that  today in 
Afghanistan crimes have virtually come to nought . I want this 
kind of justice system in Pakistan. [45]  From all available 
evidence, Sharif did not need to provide much encouragement.  
There was a growing number of instances of such summary justice 
by local mullahs taking the law into their own hands.  These 
have involved mobs destroying video stores, storming police 
stations on the local mullahs  urging, threatening to  break the 
legs  of Afghan and Pakistani women if they marched in Peshawar 
to protest the treatment of women in Afghanistan.  They have 
also included summary capital punishment by  Islamic courts  
made up of tribesmen who refused to go through the established 
legal system.[46]

 By the end of 1998 Pakistani fundamentalist  neo-Taliban  
groups had spread throughout the Northwest Frontier Province and 
Baluchistan.  By July 1999 they were already extending their 
presence in the provinces of Punjab and Sind, as was evidenced 
by the participation of some six to eight thousand Pakistanis 
from these two provinces in the Taliban summer offensive.[47] 
Pakistani fundamentalists have also borrowed techniques used by 
Muslim radicals in other Muslim countries. Taking advantage of 
the sometimes abysmal failure of the state to provide adequate 
basic services, these fundamentalist groups have stepped into 
the breach and offered such things as free education and health 
care. In Pakistan as elsewhere, these techniques have often 
proved successful in generating significant popular backing for 
these radical movements.  The JUI and other fundamentalist 
parties have become the chief recruiters for the thousands of 
Pakistanis sent to fight alongside the Taliban.

 The talk of Afghanistan as a base for terrorists to some extent 
hides the fact that while the base is Afghan, key players are 
often from Pakistani extremist parties.  Yet, even in 
Pakistan,  Muslim militancy  is  increasingly 
internationalized. [48]  One account cites one of these 
Pakistani extremist groups  (the Lashkar-e-Taiba s) claim 
that  300 of its  martyrs  have been killed fighting alongside 
local Islamic forces in Afghanistan, Tadjikistan, Bosnia, 
Chechnya, Lebanon, and half a dozen places it wasn t willing to 
name. [49]  The list of course also included Kashmir.

 Just as interesting in light of Pakistan s protestations of 
innocence concerning terrorism, is the December 1999 hijacking 
of an Indian airliner by terrorists fighting the Indian presence 
in Kashmir.  Islamabad indignantly denied initial accusations by 
India that Pakistan was behind the hijacking.  Yet evidence has 
mounted that, as an official U.S. statement declared,  a 
terrorist group supported by the Pakistani military was 
responsible for the hijacking. [50]  

The group in question, Harakat ul-Mujahedeen, had changed its 
name from Harakat ul-Ansar after having been placed on the U.S. 
State Department s list of terrorist organizations. The Taliban, 
who portrayed themselves as innocent bystanders in the 
hijacking, in fact have close ties to the hijackers.  In July 
1999 that group, during a press conference in Lahore, Pakistan 
was openly claiming that their fighters were deployed on several 
fronts in Afghanistan  under the direct orders of Mullah Omar,  
the head of the Taliban.[51]  The openness of these groups, 
their ability to act freely and widely, attests to their 
influence and to the at least tacit support of the Pakistani 
power structure. 

The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski


 The spread of Islamic fundamentalism has increasingly come to 
include the Pakistani army. Many of the junior officers in the 
army are now said to come from madrassas rather than from elite 
colleges.  Some 30 percent of the army s officer corps are said 
to be  militantly Islamic and sympathetic to calls by religious 
parties for an Islamic revolution in the country. [52] Musharraf 
himself, soon after having been named army chief of staff in 
October 1998,  promoted to key positions several officers with 
close links to fundamentalist parties. [53]  Given the above, it 
is perhaps not too surprising that General Musharraf rebuffed 
U.S. officials who had asked him during a January 2000 meeting 
to ban the Harakat ul-Mujahedeen.[54]  And neither is the 
conclusion of an  Asian ambassador from a Muslim country  with 
regard to Pakistan:  there is an explosion here waiting to 
happen . In Indonesia or Turkey you have the army and the middle 
class who still uphold secular values, but here the army will 
not resist an Islamic movement and no party is willing to stand 
up against fundamentalism. [55]

 The  Taliban Option,  coming as it did partly as a result of 
shifts in Pakistani politics, themselves intertwined within an 
ascending spiral of corruption and governmental inefficiency, 
meant falling into an endless series of concessions to extremist 
parties. After a certain point it probably becomes difficult 
even for the policymakers to know whether a particular decision 
is a conscious policy act or merely another mollification.   The 
consequences of Islamabad s policy for Pakistan already are 
serious, and fraught with major risks just ahead. 

Internationally the situation is not better.  Afghanistan is 
completely isolated. Recognized by only three countries 
(Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates), it has 
managed to alienate an assortment of countries not necessarily 
found on the same side of issues.  The United Nations in 1999 
imposed sanctions on the country because of its stand on 
terrorism, thus further isolating it. Its position as the 
largest producer of heroin in the world, with Taliban controlled 
territory contributing 90 percent of that, has not enhanced its 
status.[56]  The Taliban s recognition of the Chechens in 1999 
has not enhanced its reputation with the Russians or the 
Indians. Neither did the foray into Kyrghiztan from Afghan 
territory by an Uzbek Islamic leader in August 1999.  With Iran 
tensions remain also   notwithstanding periodic mentions of 
negotiations and improving relations.  The killing of Iranian 
diplomats by the Taliban when it seized the northern Afghan city 
of Mazar-e- Sharif in August 1998 had brought the two countries 
to the brink of war.  While Tehran is well aware that it cannot 
afford to become involved in an Afghan conflict, its minimal 
objective of blocking Pakistan remains one it can pursue at 
relatively little cost.     The greatest source of pressure and 
danger for Pakistan remains India.  Islamabad s ill conceived 
Kashmir adventure last summer, by provoking an armed 
confrontation with India, once again raised tensions that had 
only recently abated.  The hijacking of the Indian airliner have 
brought these tensions to a new high.  The refusal of the 
Pakistani government to outlaw the Pakistani extremist group 
linked to it only adds to the recklessness of recent Pakistani 
actions.

The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski


          Conclusion

2000 and Beyond: Chaos or Breaking Out of the Mold?

Pakistan s strategy has depended on walking an impossible 
tightrope. On the one hand it needs a peaceful Afghanistan for 
the construction of pipelines into Pakistan for its desired 
trade, and for commercial routes to Central Asia.  On the other 
hand, its neurotic fear of any Afghan independence has led to it 
actually encouraging something akin to  controlled chaos.   
Along with other surrounding states, it is unfortunate that the 
only major point these states have seemed to agree on has been 
the perpetuation of conflict.  

 The continuation of the Afghan conflict is not desirable for 
any of these entities. Pakistan and the Central Asian states 
suffer the most.  The latter because they can ill afford further 
sources of destabilization while fending off continuing Russian 
attempts at re-absorption.  Pakistan, because it cannot win 
militarily in Afghanistan, and because if it escalated Soviet-
style it would not only lose, but quite possibly disintegrate in 
the process.  It is likely that even without such a massive 
escalation, the very inconclusive prolongation of the war would 
continue to tear at the already frayed fabric of Pakistani 
society and precipitate a similar fate. Yet as was pointed out 
earlier, Pakistan has not shown any signs that it recognizes its 
quandary.  On the contrary, whatever evidence there is points 
the other way, to a further increase in its Afghan commitment.

 Yet all of the above notwithstanding, and perhaps because of 
the negative overall state of affairs, the moment presents a 
unique opportunity to escape pre-set patterns and move toward a 
long term stabilization of the situation in and around 
Afghanistan.   Clearly Pakistan is the key to a resolution. But 
no solution can be arrived at without the active participation 
of the other interested states.  

 The double stalemate of the Afghan conundrum   within and 
around Afghanistan   makes it impossible for any state or 
combination of states to impose its will on the others.  The 
stalemate, far from being a hindrance to a settlement, is an 
important element making one possible.  The central stumbling 
block to a solution is the unwillingness of the states involved 
to recognize the situation confronting them.  It is for this 
reason that external intervention is crucial. 

 Only the United States has this capability.  It, too, cannot 
unilaterally bring about a conclusion.  It can, however, act as 
a lever.  For that, however, Washington must first recognize the 
nature of the situation and come to grips with the fact that any 
undertaking will require a certain constancy of attention.  
American power and influence in this region remains enormous.  
The very fact that terrorist groups change their names when put 
on a State Department list, and that India should bother to 
request that Pakistan be put on such a list, testifies to the 
impact of even relatively small measures.

 It will be important to keep in mind that, unlike in past 
negotiations, the Afghans should not be ignored, but should be 
central players in determining their fate. A solution must 
include the long delayed genuine self-determination for the 
Afghans, by the Afghans.  An Afghan government that has the 
support of the people, that has genuine legitimacy, need not be 
a threat to Pakistan or to anyone else.  

 An ultimate resolution of the conflict will need to take into 
account the rightful interests of surrounding states.  It will 
be based on the recognition that while none of the states can 
have all that it wants, all of the states, through compromise, 
can define a common basis for understanding, and common rules of 
the game.  These rules of the game in turn will allow a 
realization that each state involved stands to gain if it is 
willing to accept less than everything; if it is willing to 
share instead of to exclude. In the final analysis, something is 
better than nothing.



-----------------------------------------------------------------
---------------

The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski


References:

[1]  Jason Goodwin,  The Playing Fields of Asia,  book review of 
Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in 
Central Asia, by Karl Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac  
(Washington: Cornelia and Michael Bessie/Counterpoint, 1999) in 
The New York Times Book Review, January 9, 2000.

[2] Stephen J. Blank, Why Russian Policy is Failing in Asia 
(Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 
1997).  The author writes about the Yeltsin administration s 
chaotic policies and speaks of the  de-insitutionalization  of 
the state.  He discusses various  structural weaknesses  of the 
state and writes that  these weaknesses not only undermine the 
center s ability to govern, formulate, and implement policy, 
they also erode the foundations of control over regional 
governments (pp.1-2).

[3] Of the various interested entities, China continues to 
remain more on the sidelines, giving its preferential 
relationship with Pakistan continued priority over the 
Afghanistan issue.  

[4] For an excellent discussion of this American failure to pay 
attention, see Leon Poullada,  The Road to Crisis, 1919-1980,  
in Rosanne Klass, ed., Afghanistan: The Great Game Revisited 
(New York: Freedom House, 1987), pp. 37-70.

[5] Ibid., p. 42.

[6] Army General Ivan Pavlovsky  (as reported in Literaturnaya 
Gazeta, September 20, 1989) who had gone on an assessment tour 
of Afghanistan in August 1979, is cited as having said there 
was  no need to send troops to Afghanistan.  As cited in Elie D. 
Krakowski,  Red Star Over Afghanistan,  Global Affairs, vol.5 
no.2 (Spring 1990), p.113.  General Pavlovsky s assessment is 
also cited in Cynthia Roberts,  Glasnost in Soviet Foreign 
Policy: Setting the Record Straight?  Radio Liberty, Report on 
the USSR, vol. I, no. 50, December 15, 1989.   Much of the 
discussion on the Soviet-Afghan war here is drawn from the 
author s  Red Star Over Afghanistan. 

[7]  The initial troop strength of 85,000 was ultimately raised 
to some 120,000.

[8] See on this Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The 
Lessons of Modern War, Volume III: The Afghan and Falklands 
Conflicts (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), p. 26. See also 
General (Ret.) Mohammad Yahya Nawroz, Army of Afghanistan, and 
LTC (Ret.) Lester W. Grau, U.S. Army,  The Soviet War in 
Afghanistan: History and Harbinger of Future War?  (Fort 
Leavenworth, Kansas: U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office, 
1996).

[9] As Bernard Malhuret (of the French Medecins Sans Frontieres) 
observed in a Foreign Affairs article  Report from Afghanistan,  
(Winter 1983/84)  the Soviets were no doubt aware that a 
guerrilla is to the population as a fish is to water (Mao Tse 
Tung s expression).

[10] Not that there were no brutal acts of war, but the 
techniques used systematically in the south were employed here 
mostly only in retaliation for Resistance attacks.

[11] For a more detailed discussion of these arguments, see Elie 
D. Krakowski,  Afghanistan: The Strategy of Dismemberment,  The 
National Interest, Number 7 (Spring 1987), and the fuller 
treatment of that subject in the author s  Afghanistan and 
Soviet Global Interests,  in Klass ed., The Great Game 
Revisited, pp.161-186. 

 

[12] Elie D. Krakowski,  US Policy on Afghanistan,  in Richard 
H. Shultz, Jr., Uri Ra anan, Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., William 
Olson, Igor Lukes, eds., Guerrilla Warfare & Counterinsurgency: 
US-Soviet Policy in the Third World, (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath 
and Company, 1989).

 

[13] The New York Times, November 29, 1987.

[14] Ibid.

[15] John F. Burns,  Afghans: Now They Blame America,  The New 
York Times Magazine, February 4, 1990.

 

[16] Samina Ahmad,  The Crisis of State Legitimacy,  in Lt.Gen. 
(Ret.) Nishat Ahmad, ed.,  Afghanistan: Past, Present, & Future 
(Islamabad, Pakistan: Institute of Regional Studies, 1997) pp. 
11-75.

[17] Ibid., p.54.

[18] Ibid., p.55.

[19] Amin Saikal,  The Rabbani Government, 1992-1996,  in 
William Maley, ed., Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the 
Taliban (New York: New York University Press, 1998), p.33. On 
the rift between Massoud and Gulbuddin, see Peter Marsden, The 
Taliban: War, Religion and the New Order in Afghanistan 
(Karachi, Pakistan: Oxford University Press, 1998), p.40.

[20] Former Pakistani Army Chief of  Staff General Mirza Aslam 
Beg, as cited by Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Kamal Matinudddin ,  The 
Taliban Phenomenon in Afghanistan: Genesis, Prospects, and 
Impact on the Region,  in K.M. Asaf and Abul Barakat, eds. 
Central Asia: Internal and External Dynamics (Islamabad, 
Pakistan: Institute of Regional Studies, 1997), p.82.

[21] On the early appearances of small groups of fighters 
already under the name of Taliban, and on already existing 
Pakistani awareness and training of these and other Mujahedeen, 
see Anthony Davis,  How the Taliban became a Military Force,  in 
Maley, Fundamentalism Reborn, p.45.

 

[22] Stephanie Allix,  Instabilite persistente en Asie Centrale: 
De la resistance a la prise de Kaboul, l histoire secrete des 
talibans,  Le Monde Diplomatique, January 1997, pp.4-5. 

[23] Ahmed Rashid,  Pakistan and the Taliban,  in Maley, 
Fundamentalism Reborn, p.85.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ahmed Rashid,  The Taliban: Exporting Extremism,  Foreign 
Affairs, (November /December 1999) p.22.

[26] Olivier Roy,  Un fundamentalisme sunnite en panne de projet 
politique,  Le Monde Diplomatique, October 1998, pp. 8-9.

[27] Allix,  Instabilite persistente en Asie Centrale,  p.5.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Rashid,  Pakistan and the Taliban,  p. 87.

[30] Rashid,  The Taliban: Exporting Extremism,  p.27.  

[31] Barbara Crossette,  As Hijacking Drama Plays Out, Views on 
Taliban Shift,  The New York Times, December 30, 1999.

[32] Peter Tomsen,  A Chance for Peace in Afghanistan,  Foreign 
Affairs, (January/February 2000), p.179.

 

[33] See discussion above on period of 1979-1989.

[34] The author encountered this sort of reaction from a number 
of Afghans from various tribal groupings and political 
persuasions during an extensive fact-finding mission in the 
summer of 1998.

[35] John F. Burns of The New York Times, as cited in 
Matinuddin,  The Taliban Phenomenon,  p.88.

[36] Roshan Zamir,  Deoband Opposes some of Taliban Beliefs,  
The Nation, Pakistan, March 11, 1998.

[37] Tomsen,  A Chance for Peace,  p.180.

[38] Allix,  Instabilite persistente,  p.5. 

 

[39] The U.S. State Department latest annual report Patterns of 
Global Terrorism 1998 (April 1999), p.9, describes the situation 
as follows:  Islamic extremists from around the world   
including large numbers of Egyptians, Algerians, Palestinians, 
and Saudis   in 1998 continued to use Afghanistan as a training 
ground and a base of operations for their worldwide terrorist 
activities. The Taliban facilitated the operation of training 
and indoctrination facilities for non-Afghans and provided 
logistical support and sometimes passports to members of various 
terrorist organizations.  Throughout 1998 the Taliban continued 
to host Osama Bin Ladin, who was indicted in November for the 
bombings in August of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa.  

[40] Ahmed Rashid,  Les talibans au coeur de la destabilisation 
regionale,  [http://monde-
diplomatique.fr/1999/11/RASHID/12663.html], November 1999.

[41] Ibid.

 

[42] Dawn, Pakistan, February 2, 2000.

[43]  Kabul, Islamabad Reaffirm Opposition to Terrorism: Taliban 
Stick to Stand on Bin Laden,  
[http://www.dawn.com/fixed/arch/arch.html].

[44] Ahmed Rashid,  The Talibanisation of Pakistan,  Daily 
Telegraph, December 28, 1998.

[45] Ahmed Rashid,  Raise the Crescent,  in Far Eastern Economic 
Review, December 3, 1998.

[46] Rashid,  The Talibanisation of Pakistan. 

[47] Ahmed Rashid,  Les talibans au coeur de la destabilisation 
regionale,  [http://monde-
diplomatique.fr/1999/11/RASHID/12663.html], November 1999.

[48] Rashid,  Raise the Crescent.  

[49] Ibid.

[50] Jane Perlez,  U.S. Says Pakistan Backed Hijackers of Indian 
Jetliner,  The New York Times, January 25, 2000.

[51] Francoise Chipaux,  Une offensive generale des talibans 
contre l opposition afghane se dessinerait: Le soutien 
pakistanais aux maitres de Kaboul s est renforce,  Le Monde, 
July 28, 1999.

 

[52] Rashid,  The Talibanisation of Pakistan. 

[53] Rashid,  Raise the Crescent. 

[54] Perlez,  U.S. Says Pakistan Backed Hijackers. 

[55] Rashid,  Raise the Crescent. 

[56] Barbara Crossette,  Afghan Heroin Feeds Addiction in 
Region, U.N. Report Declares,  The New York Times, March 1, 
2000.   The report notes that Afghanistan  is also becoming a 
major manufacturer of heroin, which is contributing to a rise in 
addiction throughout the region.   Another report specifies the 
opium production for 1999 as 5,070 tons, or about 75 percent of 
the global yield (Barry Bearak,  Distress in the Opium 
Bazaar:  Can t Make a Profit ,  The New York Times, March 3, 
2000).

SORRY THAT PAPER WAS SO LONG!

But if you read through it,
it shows how the Taliban Power is spreading
in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Ubeckistan, and threatens 
all surrounding areas, India, Russia, Asia, etc...

If this papers report is truely accurate,
The Taliban is the largest threat to world peace
since the sorrowful  Communist / Capitalist conflict!

Sorry About that Russia!
I hope Russia and USA can be forever friends! :-)

I guess the bottom line is:  
Trouble sucks, peace is better!

God Help us all live in Peace and Happiness! :-)

As I peruse some of the hateful crap posted above, I remain 
proud to be an American, but ashamed of some of my countrymen 
and saddened that they can call themselves American without 
having Clue Number One about what America stands for or what 
being an American means.

America has made her share of blunders, but throughout her 
history America has always stood for freedom, justice, equity, 
and human rights.  We've never said that some people should have 
more of these things because of their race, religion, or ethnic 
origin, or that others should have less of these things. 
Instead, America has proclaimed to the world, "We hold these 
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that 
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable 
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of 
Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are 
instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the 
consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government 
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People 
to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, 
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its 
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect 
their Safety and Happiness." (Paragraph 2, Declaration of 
Independence).

Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of 
Confederation, the Constitution of 1787, or the writings of any 
of our nation's founding fathers do we find anything which could 
be used to justify an American "jihad (holy war)" against Islam, 
or against Afghanistan and its people, or against any nation or 
people.  Why is this?  It is because, if you are an American, 
there *IS NO* justification for such an atrocity!

Do you want to live by "an eye for an eye"?  Live by that creed 
for long enough, as the great Irish bard Tommy Sands observed, 
and we will all be blind.

So, to all those "super-patriots" who want to show how proud 
they are to be Americans by beating up people who look or 
speak "different", I have a suggestion:  If you are so tough, 
and love America so much, why haven't you joined the U.S. 
military forces?  True, you can forget the Marines, because they 
are looking for a few *GOOD* men, not a few sorry street toughs 
like yourselves.  But there's always room in the Army for an 
S.O.B. who is willing to put his life on the line--so why 
haven't you enlisted?

For those who are over-age or disabled, and can't enlist, what's 
stopping you from organizing a group of volunteers to protect 
Islamic people from being attacked, and Islamic property from 
being vandalized?  If you can get enough volunteers, you can 
extend this service to other groups at risk for being assaulted 
and/or vandalized, such as the Sikhs and Hindus.  Remember, the 
average street tough is neither very smart nor very well 
educated--he will attack anyone who looks or speaks "different". 
We've seen Greek Orthodox Christians attacked by gangs of these 
ignorant, bigoted louts.

So if someone in your area is organizing volunteer protective 
services for Muslims and Islamic properties, join up.  If nobody 
in your area is doing this, start doing this.

Then when the street-Nazis show up, you'll be there first, and 
innocent people won't be hurt or killed, because you were there. 
That's what America is all about.  And when they ask you what 
you're supporting, tell them what we told them:  "Freedom of 
religion!  It's in the Bill of Rights!"

It's great to be proud to be an American.  It's even better to 
know why.

Let us know where you'll be for your next book signing !!!!

Translation: Pickthall

[an-Nisa' 4:56] Lo! Those who disbelieve Our revelations, 
We shall expose them to the Fire. As often as their skins are 
consumed We shall exchange them for fresh skins that they 
may taste the torment. Lo! Allah is ever Mighty, Wise.

ISLAM MEANS SUBMISSION AND THE GOAL IS TO FORCE 
ISLAM ON THE "DISBELIEVERS"

Translation: Pickthall


[an-Nisa' 4:91] Ye will find others who desire that they 
should have security from you, and security from their own 
folk. So often as they are returned to hostility they are 
plunged therein. If they keep not aloof from you nor offer you 
peace nor hold their hands, then take them and kill them 
wherever ye find them. Against such We have given you 
clear warrant.

ISLAM IS NOT A "PEACEFUL" RELIGION.  IT IS A RELIGION 
OF HATRED!

Translation: Pickthall

[al-Ma'idah 5:51] O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and 
the Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. 
He among you who taketh them for friends is (one) of them. 
Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk.

ISLAMIC BELIEVERS - IT IS TIME TO SPEAK UP ABOUT 
THESE PASSAGES IN THE QU'RAN!  THE CHRISTIAN 
WORLD IS WAITING!

Is it gain that Islam advances its cause via the blood of 
others?

The nations of Islam - it is time to speak out and explain the 
hatred in the Qu'ran.

AMERICA WAKE UP -EDUCATE YOURSELVES!  You will 
know a man by his works!

IF I SAY THAT BIN-LADEN IS A PIG-FUCKING, HEARTLESS, ASSWIPE AND 
THAT I HAVE NO RESPECT FOR HIM AND I WISH HIM DEAD WITH EVERY 
SINGLE BREATH, I PRAY EVERY NIGHT THAT HE WILL DIE. I DO THIS 
BECAUSE HE HAS SENTENCED ME (AMERICA) TO DEATH. THIS OFFENDS ME 
BECAUSE I (AMERICANS) ARE INNOCENT. THE INNOCENTS...YES...THE 
ONE'S THAT THE "RELIGION OF PEACE" (ISLAM) CLAIM THEY ARE 
FORBIDDEN TO MURDER. I SAY TO YOU, OSAMA-BIN-LADEN HAS 
CIRCUMVENTED YOUR BELOVED KORAN (I DON'T FUCKING CARE IF I 
SPELLED IT WRONG SO SHUT UP), BY DECLARING ALL AMERICANS UNFIT 
FOR LIFE ON EARTH. WELL FUCK YOU, I AM MAD, FUCK HIM.
ALL YOU BITCH ASS PUSSY AMERICANS ALWAYS WAVING YOUR FLAGS AND 
SINGING YOUR BULLSHIT SONGS AIN'T GONNA SAVE OUR ASSES FROM THIS 
RACIST MOTHERFUCKER (BIN-LADEN) AND HE IS A FUCKING RACIST, NO 
DIFFERENT FROM HITLER. I WON'T CALM DOWN, YOU CAN TAKE YOUR 
WORLD PEACE AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS, BECAUSE IF PEOPLE LIKE ME 
DON'T FIGHT FOR YOU, YOU WON'T BE ALIVE TO ARGUE ABOUT IT, 
YOU'LL BE CAUSUALTIES OF THE FUCKING RAGHEAD GARBAGE.
OHHHHHHHH YOU ARE SO EMBARRASED OF MY LANGUAGE, IT OFFENDS YOU 
AND YOU THINK I AM NOT A GOOD REPRESENTATION OF AMERICA?
GO FUCK YOURSELF WHILE THE REST OF US PREPARE TO DEFEND YOUR 
UNGRATEFUL ASSES FROM THE BEAST OF THE EAST. I WILL GO DOWN 
FIGHTING RATHER THAN BEING DEFEATED BY YOUR INTELLECTUAL 
RATIONALIZATIONS OF DIPLOMACY AND PROPER ETTIQUETTE. AMERICA 
WASN'T FOUNDED IN YOUR NICE-NICE BULLSHIT OUTLOOK ON LIFE, IT 
WAS FOUNDED ON BLOOD, AND IT WILL BE DEFENDED IN BLOOD. AFRAID 
TO FACE IT? GO BURY YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND, WE'LL LET YOU KNOW 
WHEN OSAMA HAS BEEN CRUCIFIED IN MECCA.

http://www.cin.org/bushra/mag1196/0896saad.html

http://www.rawa.org

So, do they hate everyone who's not like them or just Christians 
and Jews?

well....we sneak in, capture him, do a quick sex change 
operation, electolysis to remove that unsightly beard and other 
body hair, breast implants...then after he has healed, we drop 
him off with the taliban....gee...he's tall enough to be a model 
too!

ooh my gosh

What have you done? This is a question millions of Americans ask 
you daily. But of course you have no real answer. I will share 
with you this. What you have done is awaken the sleeping giant. 
I am sure that you have faith and a strong belief in your 
actions. But make no mistake you have seriosly miscalculated the 
United States of America. We are not afraid of your tiny little 
cries for recognition. The tears you see on our television 
networks are tears of pain for our lost country men. They are 
not tears shed in fear. You must understand that in America we 
have always found great strength in times of danger and terror. 
Do not forget the United States not even a century ago defeated 
what at the time was thought to be the greatest military power 
the world had seen the Nazis of Germany, they like you were an 
small minded scared eliteist organization that came to power 
after turmoil. They like you believed in one type of life and 
had strong convictions of conservativism. They like you punished 
and persecuted those who did not have the same beliefs as they. 
You will suffer just as they did. You will have an embarassing 
and very public defeat. You will forever be known as the 
cowardis, faceless, tiny, scared, and ignorant men who once 
thought they could win against the United States and brought 
shame to thier religion. Make no mistake we will destroy you. We 
wont just punish you. We wont just retaliate. You see, where you 
made the mistake about America was in thinking that because our 
nation seems so transparet, and supposedly easy to assess by the 
television and your out of touch poor intelligence supplied by 
those who do not know what it is like to be American. Behind the 
our government unlike yours is a nation of people. 200 plus 
million and growing. There are farmers, auto mechanics, lawyers, 
doctors, waiters, clergy men, mothers, sons, daughters, 
teachers, restaurant managers, and millions more who are ready 
to fight. Who would gladly stomp you down in the street. Most of 
us unlike your poor mis managed poverty stricken hell hole 
country have money, cars, and weapons. Yes thats right weapons. 
Dont under estimate the American populations ability ot defend 
itself. The numbers you see being mobilized in our Armed forces 
are but a scratch of those Americans ready to take you out of 
power and vanish you from the earth. I dont think you estimated 
our reaction very well. You know those television news stories 
you see with Americans waiving flags and hanging flags outside 
thier houses and business's, well each of those flags represent 
1 American ready to help fight your barbarism. I hope that you 
arent so smug as to not realize the shear numbers you do not 
have. We by ourselves not counting our alies have enough man 
power to match you Man to Man many many times over and still be 
here to see the end result of our victory.  We are America you 
idiots not some third world under advanced nation like you. We 
will most certainly crush you. It will only be a matter of time 
till one of you is caught on our soil. Then you will begin to 
see our punishment of murderers. You should not have taken your 
gloves off and started this street fight. Your the man who 
brings his knife to what clearly is a gunfight. If you think 
that we dont payback so harshly those who attack us, why dont 
you ask the people of Heroshima, Japan for thier perspective. We 
are awake little terrorist, only now we are not worried about 
diplomacy we are just plain MAD! So I will say goodbye and good 
ridence to you all. And now I am sure you are asking 
yourselves............What have we done? ............God Bless 
the United States of America and all of her citizens Black, 
Brown, White, Yellow, Red, Muslim, Jew, Christian, 
Buddhist,Atheist, Male, Female, Youth, and Elderly. In other 
words Americans!     

IGNORANCE IS WHAT GETS YOU TO JUDGE PEOPLE JUST BECAUSE OF RACE 
COLOR OR RELIGION........TRANSLATE THIS AND YOU WILL SEE THAT I 
AM RIGHT......


ESTAMOS EN LOS FINES DEL MUNDO LA TROMPETA SIETE BA A TOCAR MUY 
PRONTO Y CUANDO ESO PASE DECEARAN CONFEZAR SUS PECADOS PERO SERA 
DEMASIADO TARDE.......

A.H..........YAKIMA WASHINGTON.....

I think what you told about islamic culture is VERY INTERESTING, 
path

you afghans are gonna be soooooooooooooooooooooooooo sorry!

Dear Satin Bin Ladin and friends;
     As an American Citizen I slept very well last night, did 
you? As I slept a great big machine continued working on its 
goal; the corruption of your plans and objectives. Your criminal 
acts and satanic plan will not be tolerated. You will submit to 
the great american system and your followers will be 
neutralized. In fact, your neutralization is already in 
progress. 
     As you try to sleep at night beware of your friends and 
comrads. Just as you are a coward you cowardly followers are 
conspiring to betray you. This is how things work when you 
enlist Satin's doctrines.
     We will fight you till the last if necessary; however, we 
are so much stronger than you this will not be necessary. We 
will free the people you have oppressed and intimitated. We will 
put you down and show the world the coward you really are.
     Goodbye you pussy whimp. The Studs of the world are going 
to kick your ass. Time is running out for you.

Freedom

The One, you are exactly right...these long letters on this 
board are from intellectual morons who think they are living in 
a perfect world. There has never been "world peace" and there 
never will be. We were attacked by the living piece of breathing 
camel shit, osama bin laden, and now he and all his followers 
must be sent to join their beloved allah. I wipe my ass on the 
koran and osama`s beard. If only I could kill him myself, they 
could keep the 5 million reward or give it to the families of 
those slaughtered in the attacks. bin laden now has look-alikes 
traveling around afghanistan as decoys--no problem--kill them 
all. As for the "innocents", osama owes us 5 or 6 
thousand....... that`s the way I see it and fuck all you peace-
preachers.

Well, I'm sorry, but I can speak the Truth and live 
straightforward without the need of any religion, not even the 
Catholic one..

Lock and load!