At his massively fortified residence in Kabul's posh Wazir Akbar Khan district, Berhanuddin Rabbani, the godfather of Afghanistan's warlord bloc, uttered a dire warning. Any "exit strategy" from Afghanistan that proposes a power-sharing deal with the Taliban could plunge the country back into the raging, fratricidal warfare that preceded September 11, 2001.
"This is possible,"¯ he said. "As I read history, when a nation's problems become this complex and they are not solved, that could result in violence and revolutions and other unwanted things. Water is very soft, but if you put it under pressure, it will explode."¯Throwing his formidable weight behind the surging opposition to Afghan president Hamid Karzai's backroom entreaties to the Taliban, Rabbani warned that any hint of political concessions to the Pashtun-based terrorist movement could provoke Afghans to take up arms against their own government. "There is a limit to the patience of the people. Beyond that limit, no one can be patient anymore."My report of our conversation appears in today's National Post, but it's the background to all this that is especially chilling. It's not just speculation about what might happen. The big story here is about what is happening already, and as always, pereption counts for everything in Afghanistan, and there is no intrigue like Afghan intrigue.No matter how well-intentioned, President Karzai's "peace at any cost" approach to the Taliban's counterrevolutionary insurgency is bonding the conservative leaders of Afghanistan's religious and ethnic minorities with some of Afghanistan's most progressive forces - women's rights leaders, human rights activists and pro-democracy reformers. The anti-appeasement revolt is directly related to an all-out, last-ditch effort to entrench a transparent, functioning and accountable democracy in this country, with Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai's front-running challenger in last year's fraud-plagued presidential election, digging in for the long haul. First, a bit about Rabbani and why it matters what he says.Now 70, Rabbani has seen Afghanistan's agonies from a singularly advantageous perch. As a young Tajik Afghan from the northern reaches of Badakhshan, Rabbani saw Islam as a way to escape the crushing grindstones of the Cold War. In the 1960s, he traveled to Cairo, becoming one of the bright young proteges of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. He was one of the first scholars to translate the works of Sayed Qutb, the grandpappy of Islamism, into Dari.It was Rabbani who led the U.S.-backed mujahideen alliance in its long and bloody resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. At the helm of Jamiat-e Islami, Rabbani took over as Afghanistan's first post-Soviet president in 1992. But by this time the Americans had washed their hands of Afghanistan, and Rabbani was left helpless while the various mujahideen fractions, fronts and crime syndicates that he'd brought together ended up turning the country into an abattoir and an opium racket. Then the Taliban took over, and things got worse. Still formally president through the years of anti-Taliban resistance, Rabbani led the mujahideen "Northern Alliance" that drove the Taliban from Kabul in 2001. It was only with Rabbani's blessing that Karzai clinched the presidency of Afghanistan's interim government the following year.Largely untainted by the atrocities that blacken the reputations of several mujahideen commanders who ended up in Karzai's original inner circle, Rabbani looms over Afghanistan's powerful warlord bloc. He also chairs the legislative committee of Afghanistan's parliament.To understand the urgency of Rabbani's warnings - and to understand why he's not just speculating about some possibly nasty future scenario - you'll want to notice three things.The first is the point raised by Niamatullah Ibrahimi, research officer with the London School of Economics' Crisis States Research Center in Kabul: "With these latest talks about negotiating with the Taliban, ethnicity is now the most divisive issue in Afghanistan."The second is Rabbani's reference to the conservative Pashtuns who form the emerging core of President Karzai's inner circle. While he wouldn't name names, Rabbani says Karzai's advisers include at least some of the authors of a 1999 tract that calls for the ethnic cleansing of perhaps half of Afghanistan's population, including Tajiks, Uzbeks, and the long-persecuted Hazaras, among the country's minority Shiites.The third is the key difference in President Karzai's recent enthusiasms about courting the Taliban. Until now, Karzai has enjoyed broad support for his proposition that Pashtun "sons of the soil" who give up the gun, renounce Al Qaida and accept the Afghan constitution should be welcomed back into the multicultural Afghan family. His latest initiative, which has won some support in western capitals, is an ambiguous package that could include even cabinet posts to Taliban leaders, and at the very least, would provide grants of money - and land - to Taliban fighters.During our conversation, Rabbani pointedly observed that President Karzai's previous "reconciliation" approach, partly bankrolled by Canada, served mainly to disarm anti-Taliban militias among the country's Uzbek, Hazara, and Tajik minorities. Rabbani says he is all in favour of "national reconciliation," but he fears something else entirely is going on."If poverty is the only thing that creates insurgency, then why in Bamiyan and other provinces, there are many poor people living, but there is no insurgency? In the secure areas, they are not growing opium, and they are poorer.
"Definitely, we want peace. We don't want war. So this is the question. Firstly, we ask, the work that Karzai has started, is it about bringing peace and security in Afghanistan? Karzai thinks of it more of an ethnic issue, not a national question. He didn't share it even with Parliament. Bringing back the Taliban by some kind of reconciliation is not to bring about security. This is to play a card against others. . . It is not playing a national card. It is bringing an ethnic card into play in Afghanistan. The result of that would be to threaten to deprive other ethnic communities of their political rights, their social rights and the other rights they have in the country. "¯
Successful revolutions are from within.
While Mr.Glavin's article has some interest it does not convince me we should keep spending billions of dollars for out military presence.
Good for Mr.Glavin for staying on.
Terry it sounds like the foundation has been laid to commit genocide against those we've disarmed tell me I'm wrong?
Rabbani is a man with many faces. He is the head of gangs in Afghanistan. What he is saying about the rapes, ethnic cleansing of Hazaras, Uzbecks, and Pashtuns when he was ruling Kabul. I guess he is forgeting that he brough the extremist cancer to Afghanistan, and now he thinking that he can nuture demogogy into democrazy. He and his gang of Dostum, Sayyaf, Faheem, and Khalili and Ismael just need to be brought to Internation Court, and punished to death. These are the people who benefited from Karzai's governance. If Talibans were there, then Mr. Rabanni with the rest of his gang would be flying out of Afghanistan the next morning. We really need to get rid of these evil souls who created the best condition for the cancerous extremism, and the rise of Talibans.
Rabbini is lizard, and deserves no respect. He is the worst of Afghan rulers, and there is no good memory of his time. If I was the judge, then he would go to hell under my watch right away. I do not care what his nationality is, and I am not a racist.
So basically what's being said is that when NATO pulls out the civil war ,between the Pashtun(50% of pop) and the other ethnic groups(Tajiks 25 % ,Hazaras 15%,Uzbeks 6% ,Turkmen & Qizilbash ) that made/make up the Northern Alliance, will continue.
Indeed things will pretty much go full circle,i.e back to the 2001, when NATO sided with the Northern Alliance. NATO air-support allowed the Northern Alliance to do what they were unable to do before defeat the Taliban(majority Pashtun).
People should also understand that there is very little difference between either the Northern Alliance or the Taliban.Both are equally thugish and cruel.
So what's the solution I do not know, but taking sides in a civil war is definitly not the solution. Indeed after 8 years & many,many deaths and billions spent that lesson should be clear to all.
There's no hero's here,no white knight's in shining armor will be riding to the rescue of the Afghan people,only the Afgan people can do that.
This article is spot on. Once the we leave Afghanistan the 60% of non-pashtun population of Afghanistan would be massacred by Taliban. The same population that we disarmed and let them be a easy target for heavily armed Taliban.
Rabbani is the most experienced of all Afghan politicians and he is a wise guy as well. I have the honor of meeting him back in 1990s. To call him a warlord or a criminal is not wise. He ihereted a war torn country will thousands of armed groups, after the soviet withdrawal. His country was left helpless and we didn't care about Afghanistan anymore that time. It paved the way for countries like Pakistani, Saudi, Iran to play their games in Afghanistan. Actulaly, the areas under direct control of Rabbani even during civil war (Parts of the capital, Panjsher, Taloqan, Herat, Parts of Logar, Parwan, Kapisa, Baghlan and etc..) had proper infrastructure, girls schools, security and boys universities. Nobody can deny this!
Now regarding this article, pashtuns just make up 40% of Afghanistan, since there hasn't been any census even that is hard to certify. But the pashtun areas are vast deserts or mountains while the North, North East and the West where the rest live..is heavily populated with a bulk of Afghanistan population living there. Kabul, the capital for example has a population of 4 million out of which Tajiks make up 45%, Hazaras 25%, Pashtuns 20% and rest are others.
We disarmed others (60% of Afghanistan) only to leaving them for Taliban to repeat the history of ethnic cleansing and genocide. It is historical not just Taliban but other pashtun rules like Emir Aburahman Khan mascaraed 50% of hazara population of Afghanistan.
History is repeating itself.
Other ethnic groups have the very potential of deadly fighting if they are forced to but they for now are peaceful.
If Pakistan's hand is cut off Taliban would not survive even 6 months
This article is spot on. Once the we leave Afghanistan the 60% of non-pashtun population of Afghanistan would be massacred by Taliban. The same population that we disarmed and let them be a easy target for heavily armed Taliban.
Rabbani is the most experienced of all Afghan politicians and he is a wise guy as well. I have the honor of meeting him back in 1990s. To call him a warlord or a criminal is not wise.
He ihereted a war torn country will thousands of armed groups, after the soviet withdrawal. His country was left helpless and we didn't care about Afghanistan anymore that time. It paved the way for countries like Pakistani, Saudi, Iran to play their games in Afghanistan.
Actulaly, the areas under direct control of Rabbani even during civil war (Parts of the capital, Panjsher, Taloqan, Herat, Parts of Logar, Parwan, Kapisa, Baghlan and etc..) had proper infrastructure, girls schools, security and boys universities. Nobody can deny this!
Now regarding this article, pashtuns just make up 40% of Afghanistan, since there hasn't been any census even that is hard to certify. But the pashtun areas are vast deserts or mountains while the North, North East and the West where the rest live..is heavily populated with a bulk of Afghanistan population living there.
Kabul, the capital for example has a population of 4 million out of which Tajiks make up 45%, Hazaras 25%, Pashtuns 20% and rest are others.
We disarmed others (60% of Afghanistan) only to leaving them for Taliban to repeat the history of ethnic cleansing and genocide. It is historical not just Taliban but other pashtun rulers like Emir Aburahman Khan mascaraed 50% of hazara population of Afghanistan.
History is repeating itself.
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