RE: RE: Max tells the "truth"

["Brownson, Jamil" <JBrownson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

to weigh in on the issue without commenting on anyone's food preparation,
two issues need clarification.

First, the taliban are a post modern formation being represented by media as
a modern organization. In reality they are a fluid process of temporary
alliances among small groups and individuals, in which ideology is less
important than personality and access to resources. Many former Northern
Alliance groups joined the Taliban when they were winning and could dispense
resources, mainly money and arms, and these same groups are now shifting
back to the NA, and as the media reporst, are being welcomed with open arms.
Many NA groups were formerly part of the Russian backed Gov't troops and
even fought with Russians against the resistance, but were welcomed back to
the folds of tribal, clan, ethnic & affinity group identities.

Most to the taliban resistance to NA forces has to do with Pushtun Taliban
vs. "other" non-Pushtun NA forces. For the past decade Afghan ethnic
rivalries have exploded into genocide and ethnic cleansing by all sides,
which now drives loyalties more than anything else other than small group
self interest.

Many experts have writen extensively on this issue, including Oliver Roy,
Barnet Rubin, etc.

The NA has been heavily backed by Russia, which has a number of its own
ethnic Tajik & Uzbek agents well placed in the NA, some former Afgan Gov't,
others from the two "stans" & so on. It is ironic that the US is now helping
Russia's long term strategic objective of dominating Afghanistan, albeit
playing a British card with forming a new Pushtun alliance rooted in both
anti-taliban elements (mostly tribal chiefs, drug barons & warlords) and
Pakistani forces opposed to pro-taliban ISI and Army faction.

Secondly, the idea that taliban represent extreme religious orthodoxy is
both correct and incorrect. Yes the core leadership does, but not the
ordinary soldiers & workers for their rump state, as a job is s job in a
country with 90% unemployment other than as soldier being paid by loot &
booty, which is why all the corpses and prisoners are stripped. Moreover,
collective orthodoxy pervades all sides and factions equally, albeit all
alliances are broad enough to include former communists, who may or may not
be religious.

It is like Italy where one can be both communist and aethist while
catholic,& vice versa, or Africa or Indonesia where all religions mix up in
the melting pot & most people pay some attention to all of them & to none of
them at the same time. I have met, for example, a few Marxist-Aethist Muslim
Catholics in West Africa with four wives and at least as many mistresses.

Binary thinking is a Western mental disorder.



-----Original Message-----
From: Max Sawicky [mailto:sawicky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 9:15 AM
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [PEN-L:19949] RE: Max tells the "truth"