[Marxism] Christian Parenti on Taliban resurgence

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061030/parenti
Taliban Rising

by CHRISTIAN PARENTI

[from the October 30, 2006 issue]

Afghanistan

Twenty minutes south of Kabul, along one of Afghanistan's few newly paved 
roads, lies Logar Province. In another country Logar's desert villages and 
accessible mountains might be a place city dwellers would use for quick 
rustication. But in Logar the Taliban are back, coming out at night to burn 
schools, assassinate liberal imams, launch rocket attacks on government 
buildings and plant mines to kill NATO soldiers.

The drive from Kabul to Logar is a mind-bending lesson in political 
geography, showing how badly deteriorated the occupation of Afghanistan has 
become. It seems the infamously insurgency-torn "south" of this country now 
extends very far north.

"The Italians call that the Valley of Death," says my local guide 
matter-of-factly as we pass a lush little cluster of villages wedged 
between two desiccated slopes. We are still in Kabul Province, the Musayi 
district: "Six of them were killed there a few months ago, and they never 
went back in." Then, after a pause: "The green is all pistachio trees."

According to NATO only two Italians were killed, with four wounded. Nor 
does NATO admit that any area of Afghanistan has been ceded to the 
insurgents--let alone a valley right outside the capital. Whatever the 
case, most Afghans are beginning to think that the Taliban are winning. 
This raises several questions: Who are these insurgents? Why are they 
fighting? What dynamics fuel their growth? And ultimately, how, when and to 
whom will the United States and its allies finally leave Afghanistan?

When we arrive at Shaffad Sang, a cluster of villages just off the main 
road, the tension grows palpably thicker. Our contact, a man named Zibullah 
Pimon, who works for a foreign construction company, is visibly nervous. 
Because of the Taliban activity here, Pimon spends all his time in Kabul, 
returning to his village only once a week to visit his family for a few 
hours before racing back. We slip into the privacy of his qala, or 
mud-walled compound, and then into his neatly whitewashed and carpeted 
guest room, away from the women in the family quarters.

"There were no police here and no Afghan army," explains Pimon. "So the 
Taliban saw their chance and came in." He says Taliban actions in Logar 
started about a year ago, when organizers infiltrated from Pakistan, using 
money and arguments to reactivate networks of former fighters and win over 
local imams. Opponents were killed or run off with warnings.

Though "Taliban" or "AGEs"--antigovernment elements--are the catchall 
phrases used to describe Afghan insurgents, in provinces near Kabul like 
Logar, Wardak and Nangarhar, most of the guerrillas are actually members of 
Hezb-e-Islami, an old mujahedeen party led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. A 
pathologically ruthless commander, Hekmatyar got his start throwing acid at 
unveiled women when he was an engineering student in Kabul. In 1975 he 
formed Hezb-e-Islami with Pakistani support. First he fought the 
nationalist President Daoud Khan; then, after the Communist coup in 1978, 
he received more than $600 million in American military aid to fight the 
Russians.

Now his forces have reorganized, pledged support to Al Qaeda, made peace 
with their old foes, the Taliban, and are "blowing back" upon their former 
patrons, the Americans. Like the Taliban, Hezb-e-Islami is made up 
primarily of Pashtuns, Afghanistan's dominant ethnic group at more than 45 
percent of the population.

"They say this is not a national government, that its positions are 
controlled by only a few," says Pimon, explaining why some of his neighbors 
support the insurgents. "And there are no jobs, no development.

"The Taliban have told every family to provide one man, and they say they 
will pay these fighters," explains Pimon, adding that corruption and opium 
eradication are also angering people.

(clip)

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