Washington's man to be installed as Afghan prime minister

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

while the article below is informative, I think it's a mistake to see
Karzai as a "puppet." He's under US influence, no doubt about it, but to
the extent that he's merely a puppet, he's not going to last. (He'll be
like one of those short-lived South Vietnamese generals during the
1960s.) Though the US did its thing with civilian-killing strategic
bombing and special ops troops, those don't win a war or create a peace.
That has to be done with troops on the ground, in this case, the
Northern Alliance and other non-Taliban forces. That gives those forces
a lot of influence in determining the nature of the peace (or civil war)
that results. In any case, the US elite doesn't seem to give a damn
about the details in Afghanistan _per se_. All they want is to make sure
it's a safe place for US business (oil, etc.) and it doesn't break with
US hegemony, cooperating with the so-called "war against terrorism" and
the like.

BTW, there's good reason to think that Karzai is better than, say,
Rabbani, for Afghans. Not that the US elite cares about what's good for
Afghans.
JD

-----Original Message-----
From: Karl Carlile
To: communism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 12/22/01 10:57 PM
>Subject: [PEN-L:20892] Washington's man to be installed as Afghan prime
minister


Washington's man to be installed as Afghan prime minister
By Peter Symonds
22 December 2001

The new Afghan interim administration headed by Hamid Karzai is due to
be sworn into office in Kabul today. While UN officials are withholding
details of the two-hour ceremony for security reasons, it promises to be
a low-key affair. To be held in the Interior Ministry auditorium, it
will be attended by the 30-member cabinet, UN Special Representative
Lakhdar Brahimi, US special envoy James Dobbins and a handful of other
UN officials and diplomats, including the foreign ministers of Iran and
Pakistan.

While neither US President Bush nor any senior member of his
administration will preside, the entire affair bears an unmistakable
American imprint. The new regime was cobbled together at a UN-sponsored
meeting of Afghani factions in Germany in early December. The UN
Security Council had already set out a detailed framework-all that was
left for the Afghani groups was to haggle over positions.

But, as several reports last week indicated, even the selection of
personnel was the subject of pressure and bullying, from Washington in
particular. According to an article in the New York Times last weekend,
"The new government's first challenge is to be not perceived as a lackey
of America." As the newspaper goes on to explain, there is good reason
why Karzai and his ministers should be seen as US puppets.

"A Western diplomat confirmed this week that delegates in Bonn chose a
different leader, Abdul Sattar Sirat, to head the interim government.
Pressure from American and United Nations officials resulted in the
naming of Mr Karzai and the selection of ministerial positions. 'The
result is that a lot of people feel that Karzai is a US imposition,' the
diplomat said. 'Depending on how he plays his cards, that could be a
problem'."

An American diplomat, who attended the Bonn talks, attempted to rebut
the claim, pointing out that others also regarded Karzai favourably. But
he did not deny the allegation that Washington had overruled the choice
of Sirat, nor Karzai's close links to the US, going back to the 1980s.
Karzai ran the office of Sebghatullah Mojadeddi, the leader of one of
the US-backed Mujaheddin groups fighting the pro-Soviet regime, and
undoubtedly liased with CIA and other US officials.

Several of Karzai's brothers and a sister run restaurant businesses in
the US and have in the past provided funds for his political activities
in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Qayum Karzai, who has a master's degree in
political science, has decided to leave his restaurants to return to
Afghanistan to "unofficially" advise his brother on "the nuts and bolts"
of running a government. As one US newspaper noted, Qayum "is familiar
with Washington's diplomatic and legislative circles after years of
pleading for American notice for the Afghan cause".

Karzai is a Pashtun tribal leader, head of the Popalzai clan of the
Durrani tribe, and a close supporter of the exiled Afghani king Zahir
Shah. He made a special point of visiting the monarch in Rome this week
for lengthy discussions before his installation as interim prime
minister. Karzai also met with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi
who has offered to send Italian troops as part of the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and promised to help build a private TV
station in Afghanistan.

Even before his formal installation, Karzai has clearly demonstrated
that he will fall into line with US wishes. At the time of the Bonn
conference, he was in southern Afghanistan using his tribal ties to
negotiate the surrender of Kandahar. Part of the deal was an amnesty for
Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, if he promised to renounce
terrorism. But the offer brought a swift rebuke from US Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who warned: "To the extent that our goals are
frustrated and opposed, we would prefer to work with other people."
Karzai abruptly changed his tune.

The incident raises another aspect of Karzai's political career. Like
other Pashtun leaders, he supported the Taliban, when the movement first
emerged in 1994, as a means of challenging the government headed by
Burhanuddin Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik. Karzai had served as deputy
foreign minister in Rabbani's administration but resigned when it became
evident that the Mojadeddi faction had no political clout.

As late as September 2000, Karzai told the Atlantic Monthly: "The
Taliban were good, honest people. They were connected to the madrassas
[Islamic schools] in Quetta and Peshawar, and were my friends from the
jihad against the Soviets. They came to me in May 1994, saying, 'Hamid,
we must do something about the situation in Kandahar. It is unbearable.'
I had no reservations about helping them. I had a lot of money and
weapons left over from the jihad. I also helped them with political
legitimacy."

Karzai claimed in the interview to have had his doubts about the Taliban
as early as September 1994 when "the hidden hand of Pakistani
intelligence" became obvious. But his close relationship with the
Taliban continued for a number of years. He met with Mullah Omar on a
number of occasions and in 1996 was offered the post of the Taliban's UN
representative, which he politely declined.

It may appear odd that the US should chose someone with close links to
the Taliban as their puppet in Kabul. But the paradox is more apparent
than real. In the mid-1990s, Washington tacitly supported the Taliban,
which was heavily backed, financially and militarily, by two close US
allies-Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The US has always officially rejected
allegations that it provided direct support to the Taliban but the
involvement of Karzai in providing money and arms to Omar and his
followers once again raises the question. He told author Ahmed Rashid:
"I gave the Taliban $US50,000 to help run their movement and then handed
over to them a large cache of weapons I had hidden away."

The US only openly turned on the Taliban in 1998 after the bombing of
the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, allegedly by Osama bin Laden,
and the collapse of plans by US oil giant Unocal to build a gas pipeline
through southern Afghanistan from Turkmenistan. Karzai broke with the
Taliban leadership at the same time and began to organise against them.
He and his brothers blame the assassination of their father, Abdul Ahad
Karzai, on the Taliban.

Rumsfeld met with Karzai and other Afghan leaders last weekend during a
brief stopover in Afghanistan. He bluntly reinforced US opposition to
any dealings with the top Taliban leaders, warning: "To the extent that
we find that people who aspire to high office or high position in
Afghanistan have been involved in preventing us from getting our hands
on people who are responsible for what's gone on in Afghanistan [they]
will find the United States not terribly friendly to their aspirations."

The Karzai administration to be inaugurated today is to hold office for
six months while a loya jirga or tribal assembly is convened to select a
transitional administration. Some two and a half years down the track,
according to the UN blueprint, Afghanistan will have a new constitution
and national elections. There are already signs, however, that the new
regime, patched together from rival ethnic, tribal and religious groups
and militia, will be highly unstable.

Former president Rabbani is due to speak at the inauguration today. In
the course of the Bonn meeting, Rabbani was pushed aside by other
Northern Alliance figures who took the key ministerial posts of defence,
foreign affairs and interior. Just last week he lashed out at the Bonn
agreement, describing it as a "humiliation of the nation," and accused
foreign powers of imposing an unrepresentative government on
Afghanistan.

Also present will be about 80 British marines, who will be "assisting"
in security arrangements for the ceremony. They are the advance guard of
the British-led ISAF of between 3,000 and 5,000 troops, which will be
based in Kabul. The mandate for the troops was only agreed at the UN
Security Council on Thursday after sharp divisions opened up between the
US and Europe over its command structure.

The ISAF is crucial for Karzai, who has no significant militia of his
own and faced the prospect of ruling from a capital controlled by rival
Northern Alliance troops. The establishment of an international military
force in Kabul has been strongly resisted by Northern Alliance militia
commander Mohammad Fahim, who will become the new defence minister. He
has insisted that Afghanis can take care of their own security and
called for any "peace-keeping force" to be limited to less than 1,000
soldiers.

The US is no doubt aware that there is very little holding together the
new Afghan administration-other than the threats and financial bribes of
the major powers. That is why, in a highly unstable situation,
Washington made sure that its man holds the top job in the regime.

Published by WSWS

Karl Carlile
Be free to visit the web site of the Global Communist  Group at
http://homepage.eircom.net/~beprepared/