by Tariq Marzbaan for the Saker blog
PART I
Without a knowledge of history, one cannot understand the world today… For most people, especially Westerners, “Afghanistan” remains a dark enigma. But the enigmatic nature of this construct was cultivated… and still is today, because it suitably represents the enduring colonialist romantic myth of a wilderness populated by swashbuckling barbarians.
And today this bleeding crossroads, at the heart of the Heartland, also represents a thorny obstacle for Eurasian integration and a multipolar world…
* * *
The 15th of August this year marked the anniversary of the Taleban takeover of Afghanistan. In the countless articles, reports, reportages and analyses published throughout the world, efforts were made to take stock of the current state of affairs. The tenor was more or less the same: Afghanistan is poor; the Taleban are backward Islamic extremists; women are oppressed; girls cannot receive an education; the Afghan economy has collapsed because the US has frozen the country’s funds; the population is facing famine and untold suffering; etc. …
Sadly, all this is true. It is not difficult to paint such a bleak picture of today’s Afghanistan under the Taleban.
For some fairly thorough “facts and figures” on the current situation in Afghanistan I can recommend this report (though I am not in agreement with everything that is claimed in it, especially concerning topics beyond the author’s jurisdiction – such as: “China’s harsh crackdown on Uyghur identity and politics”).
However… in all this information and all the latest reporting on Afghanistan, there is little to no mention of the historical roots and behind-the-scenes agendas of this current state of affairs….
The “international community” calls on the Taleban ad infinitum to “respect and guarantee human rights and women’s rights” (it is significant to note the distinction frequently made between “human rights” and “women’s rights”!), “to reject terrorism, to form an inclusive government in which all ethnic groups, religions and genders existing in Afghanistan are represented”, and so on… and as long as these demands are not met, the Taleban will not be “recognised”.
Following the Taleban-US talks in 2018, there were claims (made both directly and indirectly) that “the Taleban of today are not the Taleban of 20 years ago“… “they have changed!”. These assessments implied that the Taleban were suddenly in tune with the times and could run a state in adherence with contemporary norms. It was even believed by many that the entire Afghan population was suddenly behind the Taleban and wanted them in power. From this perspective, one could conclude that the Taleban were the right choice for Afghanistan.
But only recently has it become clear to many that the Taleban have not changed in the least… and, furthermore, they are not even considering any changes. The positions taken by a few “moderates” (as called by some media) who apparently exist and who occasionally express criticism of some of the government’s policies, constitute little more than a PR effort for foreign relations. Their invisible leader, Mullah Heibatolla Akhondzada, who allegedly resides in Kandahar, sent a clear message to the world… that, even if they were faced with a nuclear threat, they would pursue their own path resolutely.
And yet, their critics – consisting of women’s groups, human rights activists, local and foreign dissenters, various politicians and statesmen from East and West, the so-called “international community” – keep on reiterating their demands and exhortations over and over to the Taleban. It all sounds like a litany…
While a weak armed resistance has formed in the Panjshir valleys, Badakhshan and Andarâb (these are all areas in the valleys and slopes belonging to the Hindu Kush and Pamir Plateau), other opponents of the Taleban hope to achieve their demands and solve problems through “talks”. But the Taleban either ignore them or simply invite them to work with them – under their command of course.
And yet, to this day, the Taleban cannot comprehend why they are not achieving due international recognition. They simply say: “With regard to the education of women and girls – that is an internal matter, and all problems will be solved over time.”
The position taken by the northern and western neighbouring states (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, China and Iran) and other states and republics beyond (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Chechnya, Russia and India) is a “delicate” one: they want to avoid open hostile relations with the Taleban… For good reasons: the Taleban are harbouring, in addition to Al Qaeda, many other foreign militant forces from these very territories… and they are only waiting to be deployed in their respective home countries. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan seek to assuage the Taleban with economic aid. But Tajik President Rahman is the only one who has taken a firm stand and refuses to interact with the Taleban. Not only does he openly speak of the terrorist threat issuing from the Taleban “empire”, he has also provided a safe haven for the Tajik Panjshiri “National Resistance” faction, whose forces are fighting fierce battles on a daily basis in the rugged valleys of the Hindu Kush against a Taleban supremacy.
The Taleban, however, seek to assure everyone again and again that they will not allow anyone from within Afghanistan to threaten or attack neighbouring states. Even if their intentions are serious, what will they do with all their Uyghur, Tajik and other Central Asian counterparts who, fully armed and bored out of their minds, are killing their time mowing down endangered species (such as snow leopards and Marco Polo deer) on the slopes of the Hindu Kush? Will they ultimately hand these mates over to their respective native states, as the Chinese have demanded? Or will they simply “disappear” them?
Already this formulation that they “will not allow anyone from within Afghanistan to threaten or attack…” feeds the suspicion that there is already “someone” in the wings waiting to take action.
Alas, the history of Afghanistan shows that the people in power (the Pashtun elites, currently commanding the Taleban, whose members are predominantly ordinary Pashtun people) can quickly and easily change their positions and break their “promises”. The Pashtuns are known to be a pragmatic people… and, when it comes to politics, one only has one’s best interests in mind. If need be, bans can suddenly be revoked and permits granted… and there are some reasons that this may well occur – when the time comes.
However, not everything is in their hands… There are other players (or parties) involved who will want to give them the go-ahead first…
Until then, the Taleban can go about quietly deploying their drug squads and flooding their neighbours with narcotics – despite the big promises they made to end the opium cultivation and drug business in Afghanistan.
The breaking of vows and acts of betrayal are an integral part of Afghan history…
In 1920, General Mohammad Nader assured the defecting Tajik commander Habibollah Kalakâni with an oath on the Qorân that nothing would happen to him if he surrendered; and as proof he sent him a Qorân with his oath, signature and seal. In response, Habibollah, a devout Muslim, capitulated. He and some of his close comrades-in-arms were then apprehended, tortured and summarily executed.
In 1842, following the popular uprising against the British occupying forces, the British – amounting to roughly 15,000 people (including women and children) – agreed to depart all at once… with the guarantee, that, until they crossed the Afghan border, the Mujaheddin would not attack them. In the end, as is famously known, only the military doctor Dr William Brydon and a few dispersed Indian foot soldiers reached the border. Some women and children were captured and taken to Kabul. The rest were slaughtered or died in the cold.
In 1979, Prime Minister Hafizollah Amin, a Ghelzâyi Pashtun in the PDPA (the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan), ordered the assassination of President Nourmohammad Taraki, also a Ghelzâyi. Amin had previously cultivated a veritable personality cult around Taraki, praising him as his great teacher, bowing to him and kissing his hand at every public meeting.
The most recent example of Pashtun “loyalty” to their tribal traditions is the Taleban massacre of a large group of resistance fighters from the Panjshir Valley, who had been guaranteed bodily integrity in exchange for their surrender.
After taking power, the Taleban proclaimed a general amnesty for civilians and military personnel of the overthrown previous regime. Since then, however, hundreds of such men and women have been killed by “unknown persons” or disappeared without a trace.
Moreover, the Taleban had repeatedly claimed there was no Al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan… until a building in Kabul was bombed by the US and it was subsequently announced that Al Zawahiri, a leader of Al Qaeda, had been residing there. By the way, rumour has it that Al Zawahiri had been kept there by a Haqqâni group under Serajoddin Haqqâni (of the Ghelzâyi tribe) and then sold to the Yanks by the Kandahari group under Mullah Yaqub (of the Dorrani tribe). Since the 19th century these two tribes have been competing for dominance in a geopolitical construct named “Afghanistan”.
The Dorrani tribe constituted the ruling class in Afghanistan until 1978. All the amirs and kings were either from the Mohammadzâyi clan or the Barakzâyi clan. Both these clans belong to the Dorrani tribe from areas in and around Kandahar. They were thus considered the “aristocracy” of the Pashtuns… which generated a certain degree of envy and hostility amongst the proud and poorer Ghelzâyis tribe. Several uprisings of the Ghelzâyis against the Dorranis in the 19th and early 20th centuries were brutally quelled by the latter.
On 27 April 1978, a coup was staged against the last ruler of the Dorrani, Mohammad Daud, by the Khalq faction of the PDPA (the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan). Even the (communist, Soviet-oriented) PDPA was divided into two opposing camps: The Khalq faction and the Parcham faction, named after their press organs: “khalq” (the people), “parcham” (the flag). The officers who launched and executed this bloody coup belonged to the Khalq Ghelzâyis, while the unsuspecting Parchamis were majority non-Pashtuns with some Dorrani Pashtuns. These circumstances eventually led to bloody purges within the PDPA to the detriment of the Parcham faction, which then created one of the incentives for the Soviet intervention. This period of history in Afghanistan is fascinating and makes for compelling reading… but there is no space for it here. Nonetheless it is important to mention that some of the once staunch Khalqi Marxists were later to be found amongst the Taleban.
The current cohesion of the Dorrani and Ghelzâyi tribes will not last long… So far, it seems that the Ghelzâyis now have the upper hand in the Taleban establishment.
To get a better grasp of what the Taleban is about, it can be helpful to view them from three different aspects that, though deriving from diverse sources, merge and complement one another in their organisation and core:
1. from the perspective of religion
2. from the perspective of their surrogate role as a secret service proxy
3. from the perspective of Pashtun tribal structures and their “national” identity, and…
The Taleban as a religious group
The command of the Taleban in the1990s comprised imams, mullahs and maulawis (clerics, religious leaders and scholars) of the first generation of mujahedeen, some of whom had fought in the ranks of the mujahedeen against the Soviets. The rest were young men who had previously been trained in the religious schools in Pakistan where they were submitted to a thorough religious indoctrination – hence the name of their movement: TALEBAN (in Persian, a religious pupil/student is called a “Tâleb”; the plural is: “Tâlebân”). These madrassas (the so-called “Qorân schools”) were sustained and subsidised by the Pakistani government and Saudi Arabia, in cooperation with the CIA. The pupils and students were the children of Afghan refugees and mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan, who then constituted the Taleban combat forces.
Legend has it that the Taleban wanted to end the civil war in Afghanistan, restore security and public order and eliminate crime and corruption – which they largely succeeded in doing. This was the real reason behind their initial reception and acceptance by a population terrorised by other mujahedeen groups and criminal gangs.
In 1996, they also succeeded in capturing Kabul and state power… There are reports that the military successes of the Taleban were only made possible by the active support of the Pakistani army. (There is plenty of material on the circumstances and events in Afghanistan at that time… that also corroborates the claim that the Taleban of today are scarcely different from what they were back then.)
The Taleban as an intelligence proxy – a Pakistani project
This aspect of the Taleban movement has never been adequately and duly covered in the international media or in any study I could find. The role of the intelligence agencies and covert policies of the agencies involved with them are indeed concealed or distorted. But it is an obvious fact that since time immemorial, the secret services of various states have benefitted from and directly supported and employed terrorism – whether perpetrated by an individual, group or organisation – in order to pursue their own goals. Examples abound… The Taleban movement was one such enterprise of the Western intelligence services and their regional offshoots.
The concept of the “Taleban movement” was born and put into practice in the backrooms of the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI with the active ideological, methodological and financial support of the Saudi and UAE intelligence agencies, the CIA and the MI6 in the 1990s. It goes without saying that all the political, economic, social and religious conditions present in Afghanistan were ideal at that time.
But before delving into the Pakistan-Taleban link, I will briefly describe the role of Pakistan in the region.
The Kingdom of Britain, after relinquishing India and partitioning it, bequeathed their colonial legacy to Pakistan. Without the role that was originally designated for Pakistan by the British, many things in Afghanistan would have been different from what we know today. A movement like the Taleban, as we know it now, would most likely not have existed.
Pakistan, like Afghanistan, is a spawn of British colonialism. While the British assigned Afghanistan the role of a buffer state during the Great Game, Pakistan was chosen as the heir and long arm of British colonialism… as a geopolitical tool and “troublemaker” in the region.
While Afghanistan’s buffer state status has long since fizzled out, Pakistan continues to play its role brilliantly and fulfil its function. This role is most evident in the conflicts between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Pakistan and India.
Between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Durand Line has always been a point of contention as a border. This line was drawn between Afghanistan and British India in 1884 by a British diplomat and leading figure of the Indian Civil Service, Sir Mortimer Durand and was approved of and signed by the prevailing ruler of Afghanistan, Amir Abdoll Rahman. It was to last until 1994, after which it would be renegotiated – just the year when the Taleban suddenly emerged out of thin air!
After the creation of Pakistan, there were repeated instances of friction at the border. Although this “Line” dividing the states of Afghanistan and Pakistan was internationally recognised, the Pashtun rulers in Kabul refused to recognise it as a border. It only provoked the two states to interfere in each other’s internal affairs. Owing to its military and economic strength, Pakistan was more successful than the poorer and weaker Afghanistan. And the prevailing positions and competition between the West (with the US at the top) and the People’s Republic of China on one side (the Pakistani side)… and the USSR and India on another side (the Afghan side) ensured the persistence of tensions.
Moreover Pakistan began to consider Afghanistan as its so-called “strategic depth”, which it always sought to penetrate and control. In due course, the war against the Soviets and the ensuing civil war, with the resulting disintegration of statehood in Afghanistan, created splendid opportunities for Pakistan to begin to launch this long cherished aspiration. By first backing the Mujahedeen groups opposing the Afghan leftist government and its Soviet supporters, then by its intervention in the country’s civil war and finally with its formation and deployment of the Taleban, Pakistan managed to come ever closer its goal.
The 2001 US/NATO invasion in did not deter Pakistan whatsoever from abandoning this goal. To realise their project, Pakistan has always needed the conscious or unwitting / involuntary help of the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. Their 20 years of support and encouragement of the Taleban and the current rule of the Taleban over Afghanistan has only strengthened Pakistan’s aspirations. Whether the Taleban are intentionally enabling Pakistan to realise this project or not is not clear. Sections of the Taleban, especially within the Haqqâni network, are under the strong influence of the ISI and strive for the goal of a unification with their Pashtun brothers in Pakistan. Whether at the end of these efforts Afghanistan remains within its present borders or expands at the expense of Pakistan with the formation of a Greater Pashtunestan, or whether a new Pakistan emerges with a northern border on the Oxus… no one can say, but these are the various visions for the future nurtured by the forces involved.
At the same time, one cannot ignore the role and positions of the other neighbouring states, the regional and global powers…
With its grandiose proclamations for its plans of eradicating Al Qaeda and Taleban terrorism and upholding human rights, “women’s rights”, democracy and state- and nation-building, the US and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001, toppled the Taleban, occupied the country and installed a vassal regime. It is, of course, superfluous to mention that the motives presented to the public by the USA and its allies were merely all pretexts. The plans for the invasion of Afghanistan were in the drawer long before 9/11. (See PNAC)
Consequently the Taleban and their Al Qaeda guests were defeated and retreated. And where to?… To neighbouring Pakistan, an ally of the US and the West. There they recuperated, regrouped and were soon ready for action again in Afghanistan… in an operation which lasted 20 years. And, during those years, in addition to their backing from Pakistan, the Taleban began to receive massive support from certain Arab Gulf states… all allies of the US and the West.
There are also unverifiable reports that the British have on several occasions airlifted or airdropped boxes with unknown contents into areas under Taleban control. Together with the US, Britain is also fighting the Taleban in Afghanistan… The Taleban are supported by Pakistan… Pakistan is not only an ally of the USA, but it has remained closely tied to Britain with regard to security since its inception. It is important to note that the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) was the brainchild of the former British Indian Army major general Sir Robert Cawthome, then Deputy Chief of Staff of the Pakistan Army. Cawthome was Director-General the ISI from 1950-1959.
One can thus infer that the “Taleban Project”, is just as much a British project. The British are, after all, the inventors of Afghanistan…
Back in the 19th century, two colonial powers – Britain and Russia – competed against one another in Asia The Great Game. By occupying India, partitioning Iran and creating Afghanistan, The British, put a spanner in the works to hinder Russian expansion into the warm waters to the south (the Arabian Sea). Afghanistan was given the status of a “buffer state” and was definitively established in the 1907 Treaty of St Petersburg between Tsarist Russia and Victorian Britain. Although this treaty was then annulled in the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1917, Afghanistan’s geopolitical importance was not diminished, but transferred instead… Afghanistan returned to what it had been for millennia – namely: The Battlefield of Nations… and Ideologies.
* * *
In order to proceed with Point 3 in my next essay “Part II” – understanding the Taleban “from the perspective of Pashtun tribal structures and their “national” identity…”, I will provide a brief history of the construct of Afghanistan…
If the Eurasian integration project is to become successful, Afghanistan must soon come onboard and the sooner the better. That will be a major project for all the powers in Eurasia.
How ironic it seems now; the British in Afghanistan during the 1800’s, were arrogant, conceited, thoughtless, demanding and ruthless. They treated the people of Afghanistan less than they would treat a stray dog. The whole point of Britain being in Afghanistan was to prevent the Russians establishing a presence there because the British, being paranoid and xenophobic, believed that Russia would then sweep down into India. Russia had never indicated it had any intention of doing that.
The Russians did interact with the Shah in Kabul, but they were courteous; they brought entertainment, they displayed their trade intentions and then they left. They were, therefore, much admired and liked by the Afghanis.
In spite of all this, the British behaved appallingly, believing that nothing would challenge them. Twice the Afghanis rose up against them and many British were killed in the process. As the article above points out, in the first Afghan war, thousands died. In the second, the uprising against the British embassy in Kabul caused the deaths of all those resident there; and yet here we are now, with the British Empire gone, India flourishing in her total sovereignty and Russia growing and growing and establishing good relations at last with Afghanistan.
What could one could say? That nothing changes? as the French say ” plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” – the more things change the more they stay the same.
And we could say the same thing about people who just can’t learn from the past.
I had the pleasure and honor of running round Afghanistan as a freelance hack for seven years, 1987-94, with the Afghan mujahideen. I ventured there as a gung-ho young Cold Warrior, but soon learned that matters were a little more complicated than ‘freedom vs communism.’ I was based at first in Peshawar, making forays across the border. I got a proper wire-service stringership in late 1991, and moved to Kabul. A few months later, the communist regime collapsed, the ‘wrong’ mujahideen took over, and Pakistan immediately started a proxy war to overthrow them.
For many years thereafter, I continued to suffer from what I now see is a peculiarly American failing: I became strongly attached to a certain vision of what I thought was the best way for Afghans to run their affairs.
What that meant in practice was that I developed an affinity for Ahmad Shah Masood, the Panjsheri mujahid leader who became defense minister in 1992, and his followers. Masood and his party leader, President Rabbani – by contrast with many of their rivals – believed that Shari’a and democracy were compatible, at least in Afghanistan, because of Afghans’ innate conservatism.
They tried to implement a sort of federal state, in which each province would host an army division (in practice, more of a national guard or militia unit) and the people would popularly elect its governor. The governor would appoint an army division commander – presumably the most powerful local mujahid commander, or one of his proxies. But each division’s military budget would come from the defense ministry in Kabul.
They never got very far with this, because ISI was fixated on having Pashtuns in power in Kabul, and sabotaged Masood at every turn by arming his rival, nominal PM Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. I won’t get into a blow-by-blow account of the civil war that ensued. But for a couple years, first Iran’s, then Uzbekistan’s Afghan proxies actually fought alongside Hekmatyar in an untenable alliance, meaning that all Afghanistan’s militarily significant neighbors had waded into an unsuccessful effort to overthrow the new government in Kabul.
The Taliban wiped out that alliance in 1995 before being (temporarily) driven off, in their turn, by Masood’s forces. Of course with Saudi cash, fuel from Pakistan and the diplomatic nod from Washington, they made a big comeback and drove Masood & Co back into the mountains in Sept 1996.
Now I’m not convinced I was all wrong. I still think that had Masood and Rabbani been left alone to implement their statecraft, it could well have yielded a resilient federal order, with enough provincial empowerment and control to make the central government in Kabul less a bone of contention among regional ‘warlords’ (how I hate that nasty dishonest term!) and their foreign patrons. Eventually a stable Swiss-style, multiethnic Islamic federal state, representing both Sunni and Shi’a could have emerged.
US and UK diplomats in Pakistan sided tacitly with ISI during this time – that is, they were perfectly happy to let ISI’s proxies – first Hekmatyar & Co, then the Taliban – indiscriminately shell and rocket the capital, killing tens of thousands, in order to keep the new government from consolidating power. Since in my experience, both British and US diplomats in Pakistan were total stooges of the Pakistani establishment, I actually think I was ‘onto something,’ in terms of who had the best idea for Afghanistan’s future.
But my point is, even if I’m right, IT WASN’T MY CALL. I was a Christian and a foreigner and I had no business getting so damned attached to my vision and to the Afghans who seemed most able to implement it. It turns out that a great many Afghans saw nothing especially traitorous about cooperating with a neighboring country’s intel service – for their own ends mind you. And that tendency got a lot stronger, indeed became downright honorable, when the US sent an occupation force and embarked on a bizarrely misguided nation-building project after 2001.
In the early 2000s, the Americans largely disarmed Masood’s old ‘United Front’ (aka Northern Alliance’), coopting some of its members into the army and national police they were trying to build. Suddenly, the forces that had once been the stubborn nationalists, battling foreign proxies, were coopted by infidel occupiers. At the very best, they were yesterday’s men.
The Taliban never got Stinger missiles – the Pakistanis couldn’t have maintained deniability. So the Taliban, unlike their mujahid fathers, were never able to contest the occupiers’ air supremacy. The foot soldiers’ death toll must have been horrendous, never mind all the weddings US pilots shot up. Yet the Taliban never gave up.
So in July 2021 – as the Biden administration began persecuting, on Pfizer’s behalf, Americans reluctant to become lab rats for a ‘vaccine’ of proven inefficacy and questionable safety (including young fit soldiers at essentially no risk from the virus) – US generals took their eye off the ball. They abandoned the nearly unassailable strategic airfield at Bagram, in the countryside an hour from Kabul, to ‘Afghan forces,’ meaning, pretty quickly, the Taliban.
All over the country, and especially the northeast, the army the US spent billions and two decades training fled or surrendered en masse.
US ‘intelligence officials’ told Forbes on Aug 12 that the Taliban might take Kabul within 90 days. It was less than 90 hours. When I saw the inevitable memes and photos of the first Taliban press conference in the presidential palace – no social distancing, not a mask in sight, their NATO-trained men-at-arms behind them with fingers out of the trigger-well, extended along the upper receiver – I suddenly felt … proud of them. These were the Afghans I’d known in my youth. And by God, they’d just broken another Empire.
Afghanistan never had a Renaissance, a Reformation, or the Enlightenment that grew out of those movements. Human rights, civil rights and women’s rights are constructs that grew out of western Christian Enlightenment values.
There are certainly comparable protections in Shari’a, but it isn’t anyone’s business except the Afghans’ how to implement them.
Oh, I almost forgot: In 1995-96, when I’d confront State Dept fanboys of the Taliban over the militia’s indiscriminate shelling of Kabul, they’d get all defensive and insist that ‘masood is shelling his own positions and blaming it on the Taliban.’ Sound familiar? Zaporozhie NPP, Nordstream anyone ?
Thankyou so much for sharing your first-hand experiences with us Josey. It must have been incredible to have been there – memories that will stay with you for a lifetime.
Cheers,
Great summary Josey. Thank you for posting that incredible adventure.
I started reading this and couldn’t help but think what an ungovernable country the US is becoming. A failed state of extreme intolerance and corruption only getting worse by the day. One of the most important lessons of my life was the realization that people have to be accepted for who they are and not for who I want them to be. Maybe the US and Afghanistan have more in common than most people realize. An artificial construct best dealt with in pieces than as a whole. Time for the master and servant mentality to end.
“But only recently has it become clear to many that the Taleban have not changed in the least… and, furthermore, they are not even considering any changes.”
Of course they didn’t change, they WON.
…..and the winners write the history, unless they are Afghani or VietNamese..
when china actually builds its transport systems roads railways pipes and extracts the rare earth , then we will see a different nation. that i thought would have started already. maybe it has , ive only heard plans so far. to be honest not much can be expected so soon after decades of devastation.
Many thanks to this author for his insight & clarity. A truly brilliant exposition!
Personally, I’d given up on A’stan – so many contradictions and complexities how would I ever get my ahead around it all. But this piece draws it all together.
“One can thus infer that the “Taleban Project”, is just as much a British project. The British are, after all, the inventors of Afghanistan” – says it all!
But canvassing Pakistan’s involvement the author also sets the backdrop for Perfidious Albion’s role in the recent removal from power of democratically-elected Pakistani PM Imran Khan & further his banning of political activity for 5 years by the Pakistani judiciary in what is known as lawfare.
Very much looking forward to Parts II & III.
A wonderfully informative inquiry into a subject matter that the white western Judeo-Christian mass media does not want us to know. Thank you Tariq Marzban. I look forward to the upcoming articles.
Many people outside india especially Muslims think that India is a great country for Muslims.
Indian Hindus have within it a deep facist group for the last hundred plus years it’s a great admirer of Nazi Ideology. In fact a organisation which nurtures this ideology and has worked for a hundred years away from limelight to turn ordinary hindus into a fascist hammer through more than two dozen sister organizations including a few political parties of various shades of religious political right.
This organisation has turned into a mild version of Ukrainian nationalism. Where others ie Christians, Muslims, and other hindus into hate objects calling them similar terms that Ukrainian nationalists and right sector call russians, ie termites, second class citizens etc.Using same process like slow elimination bof language of Muslims opposition to other languages and religion and demonization bof the neighbors Pakistan and Bangladesh and then associating Indian Muslims with them.
All these was forseen by many muslim leaders as even secular parties of Mahatma Gandhi accommodated many of these Ideologies and couldn’t remain immune to it in practice if not in declarations.
Thus people like this writer looking at Pakistan and India as a British construct are misguided.
There is nothing benign about India and it’s hindu majoritarianism which has taken the reigns of power in India since 2014
The author is describing the United States! It is not difficult to paint such a bleak picture of today’s America under the US Government. They think Human Rites is when you paint their blood on your faces.