Showing posts with label British. Show all posts
Showing posts with label British. Show all posts
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Afghans are cynical (and wise) enough to assume from past experience that the secrecy covers up facts too grisly for public airing. Aerial counterinsurgency was invented in the Pakistani-Afghan borderland and Iraq by the British in the 1920s. Then, as now, it was a means of fighting insurgency without public scrutiny. Then, as now, no one counted the dead.
Monday, September 28, 2009
waziristan: the faqir of ipi and the indian army, alan warren
(xxxii): "Pathans, living as agriculturists on the Indus plains, were relieved to escape despotic Sikh rule, and the introduction of British government in the late 1840s was relatively smooth..." Not until 1870s that the government takes much interest in internal affairs; the British at this stage are content to continue the Mughal and Sikh "practice of grudgingly respecting the autonomy of the hill tribes..." Soon, though, the Great Game, for which the Hindu Kush were critical.
(xxiii): 2nd Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1881) precedes the formal annexation of the frontier territories in 1893 (for 'strategic reasons', thus content with a 'superficial' presence/loyalty)--"the government wished to control only a handful of vital passes"
(xxiv): this is the context that gave rise to the "political agent", who would maintain contact with the tribes--"the political agents paid the tribes regular allowances in return for their recognition of the principle that they lived under imperial government." of course, this was not always smooth--often required use of the State's 'stick'
(xxiv-xxv): 1850s-1900, "bulk of campaigns took place in northern and central sections" ; during last decades of british india, locus of fighting shifted southward, towards Kurram and Waziristan (and even Balochistan)
(xxv): Gov of India's 'long struggle' to pacify Waziristan was the climactic episode in the history of these tribal wars. one major revolt after WWI was followed by a period of calm, which was in turn followed by the famous revolt of 1936, led by the Faqir of Ipi (raised a force of "thousands")
(xxv): "If casualties are compared to the size of the indigenous population, the attempt to pacify Waziristan was one of the bitterest large-scale struggles of its kind."
(xxvi): what's more, the Great Game was over in 1907 and the British were in decline, anyway. nonetheless, "the British Indian government set out to crush resistance in Waziristan as if they were going to be running the Frontier for many years to come."
(xxvii): the author is here grouping this counter-insurgency campaign in Waziristan with the famous campaigns in Iraq (1920-1921), Ireland (1916-1922), Palestine, etc.
----
(1): despite the fact that the 19th century was, for the most part, characterized by a 'closed door' policy on the Frontier, "the Indian army were no strangers to Waziristan... no less than six expeditions were sent into the Wazir hills between the 1840s and 1880s."
(2): the British were re-committing to the possibility of confrontation with Russia in the late 1880s, as a conservative gov't came to power--for that, control of key positions in NWFP was key (they had already made their advances in Baluchistan--Quetta was soon to become one of the largest military cantonments in all of India)
(4): the Durand Line was born in this context, as Amir Abdur Rahman in Afghanistan was made insecure by British advances into tribal territory (this is, again, 1893)--as a reward, they raised the Amir's subsidy from annual 80,000 to 120,000 pounds.
(7-9): British make their first post-Durand incursion in 1894; though limited in its objectives, the invading force is met with resistance, but wins out (winning lenient terms of peace for the state). nonetheless, gov't refuses to occupy waziristan in campaign's aftermath, despite the wishes of one Richard Bruce, who wanted a cantonment built there. they are still, invited by some Toch valley Wazirs to build some military posts. "In 1895-1896 the North and South Waziristan political agencies were established."
(13-14): writing about Waziristan--into the 20th century, mainly a village-based subsistence economy (biggest village was about 400 households large), with the added depredation of being constantly at war (as a result, resources constantly diverted into armaments).
(16): KEY: "In the richer areas north of Peshawar, and in the trans-Indus border districts, the rough equivalent of feudal barons or khans existed (even small states in very favorable situations) but the tribal economy in Waziristan lacked the resources to develop a centralized political structure... If Waziristan lacked strong tribal chieftans it could boast a great number of petty chieftans.. The political life... revolved around the institution of the jirga... [where] any jirga member could speak his mind, but the maliks were likely to dominate proceedings... Significantly, the mullahs were not permitted a place in the jirga..."
(17): pukhtunwali--revenge (badal), asylum (nanwatee), and hospitality (malmastia) [needs theoretical an historical treatment, OF COURSE]
(17): women as objects--"women had no inheritance rights"
(19): "...in Pathan districts of the Indus valley under direct British rule, and subject to arms regulation and the Indian penal code, the observed murder rate was the better part of a hundred times that prevailing in the UK."
(21-22): unlike Baluchistan, early attempts at indirect rule in Waziristan were not very successful. the key difference was the lack of identifiable leaders with whom the State could enter in compact (it tried to fashion these by distributing allowances)--"Over time, the granting of monetary benefits to maliks would formalize and ossify the maliks into a government funded elite."
(23-24): Waziristan was not subject to land tax, nor to a penal code--rather, the Frontier Crimes Regulation (1872) was applied, like in Baluchistan and other border areas.
(27): in general, the political agent "tried to remain aloof from inter-tribal disputes. Tribes in conflict with each oteh was preferable to their uniting against the government..."
(27-28): the period of gradual extension of British administration over the Frontier came to an abrupt halt in 1897, when there began a general, though uncoordinated revolt in many different areas (began in N. Waziristan, in Tochi, though S. Waziristan would lay dormant throughout); this is when Winston Churchill fought in Malakand and Mohmand, restoring 'peace' to the hills north of Peshawar. The Army settled the areas by April 1898.
(29): KEY: in steps Curzon, who forms NWFP (taking it out of the Punjab gov't's hands). "The NWFP was conceived as a security arrangement. IT was a bureaucratic initiative, and did not arise out of a local demand for a Pathan province."
(30-31): rapid development of British military technology (Lee-Enfield introduced in 1908), which--it is thought--will help leave the tribes behind. but Kohat was already a major center of arms production, and replica rifles were doing the trick--they were able to inflict signficant damage on troops.
(32): it was 1900-1902 campaign against Mahsuds that prompted Curzon's remark about military steamroller. this was followed by an attempt to co-opt them into the British structure (along with Afridis, they were most favored tribe). but not always successful (in 1904, Political Agent murdered by a Mahsud sepoy)
(33): in 1907/1908, accusations/facts circling that Afghanistan was funding Mullah Powindah's attempts on the lives of political agents (ha!)
(34): Powindah's death paved way for his son, Fazal Din, who was to become famous. Organized assasination of Political Agent in 1914, but no action taken against tribe (seen as crime of the individual assistant)
(35): again, British confronted general rebellion in 1915-1917 (including a warring party from Afghanistan, which took issue with Britain's being at war with the Ottoman Empire), in much of the area. the Mahsuds, under loose leadership of Fazal Din, in particular, continue to be the most troublesome.
------
(44): in 1919, as Third Anglo-Afghan war begins (and ends), continuous trouble in Waziristan sees the agency moved to direct administration by military command in Delhi. Wazirs had a total fighting force of about 23,000, all told.
(51): final tally of 1919-1920 campaigns were heavy: "both the suddenness with which British authority had been expelled, and the human costs of the 1919-1920 campaign of reconquest, constituted powerful arguments for putting the administration of Waziristan on a new footing."
(52): KEY: here discussion in post-campaign environment of whether to puruse the military pacification to its fullest conclusion (but risk falling into greater deficits), or withdraw (but be seen as weak, and risk the possibilty of greater expenditure in the future). sounds familiar? it was decided, in a sense, to escalate--to build roads, and whatnot
(55): scouts being stationed in Waziristans were, in the main, Pathans from other tribes
(58): nonetheless--"fighting in Waziristan quietened down as 1923 wore on... A little prematurely Waziristan was declared a 'peace district' from 1 April 1924, and the Chief Commissioner resumed politcial control on 25 July. Gang warfare continued for the rest of the year, and early in 1925 an intensive aerial campaign was successfully waged against the last remaining pocket of tribal resistance." (!)
(59): Sir Denys Bray, India's Foreign Secretary (1923): "Come what may, civilization must be made to penetrate these inaccessible mountains, or we must admit that there is no solution to the Waziristan problem... I may be thought a visionary to talk of the civilization of the Mahsud. But you must take long views on the Frontier."
(60): "...the opening of the first Mahsud school by Malik Mir Badshah Khan, a former regular soldier, in 1922, caused a mullah-led riot."
(60): gov't not sure whether to educate tribesmen, as there wasn't much room to absorb them--"unemployed tribesmen with academic qualifications were 'bound to be a source of potential trouble.'
(61): regardless, never enough revenue to invest properly in non-tax paying areas, extenisvely (not that they invested anywhere else, extensively)
(63-64): in the late 1920s, NWFP joined the nationalist movement--a Congress flag seen in Waziristan! (though the revolt that racked the areas in 1930 was put down, quickly, allegedly thanks to the "forward policy in Waziristan")
(64): KEY, air power: "The RAF was quick to claim a share of the credit for the restoration of order in 1930. Several tribal sections had submitted in the face of air action alone. According to one senior RAF commander, 'without air power I believe that there would have been a general blaze up all along the Frontier.'"
(64): important analytic point: "With the benefit of hindisght, it is clear that the origins of the 1930 risings lay in the settled districts, where economic changes had altered the status quo. These changes were not mirrored in the tribal agencies, where only a handful of Red Shirt agents were detected."
(68-69): 1929 incursions from Waziristan into Afghanistan to support Nadir Shah; 1933 incursions of Wazir militia to do opposite, but this threatened interests of British, who threatened to bomb wazir militia unless they stopped fighting in Khost.
(68): KEY: "Despite persistent minor troubles, life in Waziristan between 1925 and 1935 was usually settled. As the government's medical, teaching, and political presence was so slender, the personnel in the military cantonments and scouts' posts were central to the imperial experience in Waziristan."
(70): "The 1945 Government of India Act, and plans for a new federal India, did not impact upon the NWFP tribal agencies, whereas in the settled areas..." [a very discontinuous experience, in other words--no "common sense of the national" through struggle, the q. of however illusory that might have been in other cases notwithstanding]
(72): SETTING SCENE FOR 1936 INSURGENCY: "Despite the growing arms trade, by 1935...the tribal lashkars had been dispersed and a long-running insurgency had been crushed. A large garrison had been installed in a brand new cantonment in the heart of tribal territory... The Wazirs and Mahsuds had been extensively involved in the new regimne... But had there been in any substantial change...?"
(81-82): the Islam Bibi case as the match that lit the fire (but there are questions to be asked here; which we cannot ask, I suppose...)
(82-83): tradition of muslim holy men resisting foreign occupation, especially the British (Mullah Powindah, Fazal Din, in particular)--in this tradition enters Faqir of Ipi.
(84-85): Faqir of Ipi born in 1901, settles in Tochi valley in mid-1920s. acquires reputation for demanding minimal donations from his followers. an important member of the N. Waziristan Lashkar that went to Khost to fight in 1933.
(xxxii): "Pathans, living as agriculturists on the Indus plains, were relieved to escape despotic Sikh rule, and the introduction of British government in the late 1840s was relatively smooth..." Not until 1870s that the government takes much interest in internal affairs; the British at this stage are content to continue the Mughal and Sikh "practice of grudgingly respecting the autonomy of the hill tribes..." Soon, though, the Great Game, for which the Hindu Kush were critical.
(xxiii): 2nd Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1881) precedes the formal annexation of the frontier territories in 1893 (for 'strategic reasons', thus content with a 'superficial' presence/loyalty)--"the government wished to control only a handful of vital passes"
(xxiv): this is the context that gave rise to the "political agent", who would maintain contact with the tribes--"the political agents paid the tribes regular allowances in return for their recognition of the principle that they lived under imperial government." of course, this was not always smooth--often required use of the State's 'stick'
(xxiv-xxv): 1850s-1900, "bulk of campaigns took place in northern and central sections" ; during last decades of british india, locus of fighting shifted southward, towards Kurram and Waziristan (and even Balochistan)
(xxv): Gov of India's 'long struggle' to pacify Waziristan was the climactic episode in the history of these tribal wars. one major revolt after WWI was followed by a period of calm, which was in turn followed by the famous revolt of 1936, led by the Faqir of Ipi (raised a force of "thousands")
(xxv): "If casualties are compared to the size of the indigenous population, the attempt to pacify Waziristan was one of the bitterest large-scale struggles of its kind."
(xxvi): what's more, the Great Game was over in 1907 and the British were in decline, anyway. nonetheless, "the British Indian government set out to crush resistance in Waziristan as if they were going to be running the Frontier for many years to come."
(xxvii): the author is here grouping this counter-insurgency campaign in Waziristan with the famous campaigns in Iraq (1920-1921), Ireland (1916-1922), Palestine, etc.
----
(1): despite the fact that the 19th century was, for the most part, characterized by a 'closed door' policy on the Frontier, "the Indian army were no strangers to Waziristan... no less than six expeditions were sent into the Wazir hills between the 1840s and 1880s."
(2): the British were re-committing to the possibility of confrontation with Russia in the late 1880s, as a conservative gov't came to power--for that, control of key positions in NWFP was key (they had already made their advances in Baluchistan--Quetta was soon to become one of the largest military cantonments in all of India)
(4): the Durand Line was born in this context, as Amir Abdur Rahman in Afghanistan was made insecure by British advances into tribal territory (this is, again, 1893)--as a reward, they raised the Amir's subsidy from annual 80,000 to 120,000 pounds.
(7-9): British make their first post-Durand incursion in 1894; though limited in its objectives, the invading force is met with resistance, but wins out (winning lenient terms of peace for the state). nonetheless, gov't refuses to occupy waziristan in campaign's aftermath, despite the wishes of one Richard Bruce, who wanted a cantonment built there. they are still, invited by some Toch valley Wazirs to build some military posts. "In 1895-1896 the North and South Waziristan political agencies were established."
(13-14): writing about Waziristan--into the 20th century, mainly a village-based subsistence economy (biggest village was about 400 households large), with the added depredation of being constantly at war (as a result, resources constantly diverted into armaments).
(16): KEY: "In the richer areas north of Peshawar, and in the trans-Indus border districts, the rough equivalent of feudal barons or khans existed (even small states in very favorable situations) but the tribal economy in Waziristan lacked the resources to develop a centralized political structure... If Waziristan lacked strong tribal chieftans it could boast a great number of petty chieftans.. The political life... revolved around the institution of the jirga... [where] any jirga member could speak his mind, but the maliks were likely to dominate proceedings... Significantly, the mullahs were not permitted a place in the jirga..."
(17): pukhtunwali--revenge (badal), asylum (nanwatee), and hospitality (malmastia) [needs theoretical an historical treatment, OF COURSE]
(17): women as objects--"women had no inheritance rights"
(19): "...in Pathan districts of the Indus valley under direct British rule, and subject to arms regulation and the Indian penal code, the observed murder rate was the better part of a hundred times that prevailing in the UK."
(21-22): unlike Baluchistan, early attempts at indirect rule in Waziristan were not very successful. the key difference was the lack of identifiable leaders with whom the State could enter in compact (it tried to fashion these by distributing allowances)--"Over time, the granting of monetary benefits to maliks would formalize and ossify the maliks into a government funded elite."
(23-24): Waziristan was not subject to land tax, nor to a penal code--rather, the Frontier Crimes Regulation (1872) was applied, like in Baluchistan and other border areas.
(27): in general, the political agent "tried to remain aloof from inter-tribal disputes. Tribes in conflict with each oteh was preferable to their uniting against the government..."
(27-28): the period of gradual extension of British administration over the Frontier came to an abrupt halt in 1897, when there began a general, though uncoordinated revolt in many different areas (began in N. Waziristan, in Tochi, though S. Waziristan would lay dormant throughout); this is when Winston Churchill fought in Malakand and Mohmand, restoring 'peace' to the hills north of Peshawar. The Army settled the areas by April 1898.
(29): KEY: in steps Curzon, who forms NWFP (taking it out of the Punjab gov't's hands). "The NWFP was conceived as a security arrangement. IT was a bureaucratic initiative, and did not arise out of a local demand for a Pathan province."
(30-31): rapid development of British military technology (Lee-Enfield introduced in 1908), which--it is thought--will help leave the tribes behind. but Kohat was already a major center of arms production, and replica rifles were doing the trick--they were able to inflict signficant damage on troops.
(32): it was 1900-1902 campaign against Mahsuds that prompted Curzon's remark about military steamroller. this was followed by an attempt to co-opt them into the British structure (along with Afridis, they were most favored tribe). but not always successful (in 1904, Political Agent murdered by a Mahsud sepoy)
(33): in 1907/1908, accusations/facts circling that Afghanistan was funding Mullah Powindah's attempts on the lives of political agents (ha!)
(34): Powindah's death paved way for his son, Fazal Din, who was to become famous. Organized assasination of Political Agent in 1914, but no action taken against tribe (seen as crime of the individual assistant)
(35): again, British confronted general rebellion in 1915-1917 (including a warring party from Afghanistan, which took issue with Britain's being at war with the Ottoman Empire), in much of the area. the Mahsuds, under loose leadership of Fazal Din, in particular, continue to be the most troublesome.
------
(44): in 1919, as Third Anglo-Afghan war begins (and ends), continuous trouble in Waziristan sees the agency moved to direct administration by military command in Delhi. Wazirs had a total fighting force of about 23,000, all told.
(51): final tally of 1919-1920 campaigns were heavy: "both the suddenness with which British authority had been expelled, and the human costs of the 1919-1920 campaign of reconquest, constituted powerful arguments for putting the administration of Waziristan on a new footing."
(52): KEY: here discussion in post-campaign environment of whether to puruse the military pacification to its fullest conclusion (but risk falling into greater deficits), or withdraw (but be seen as weak, and risk the possibilty of greater expenditure in the future). sounds familiar? it was decided, in a sense, to escalate--to build roads, and whatnot
(55): scouts being stationed in Waziristans were, in the main, Pathans from other tribes
(58): nonetheless--"fighting in Waziristan quietened down as 1923 wore on... A little prematurely Waziristan was declared a 'peace district' from 1 April 1924, and the Chief Commissioner resumed politcial control on 25 July. Gang warfare continued for the rest of the year, and early in 1925 an intensive aerial campaign was successfully waged against the last remaining pocket of tribal resistance." (!)
(59): Sir Denys Bray, India's Foreign Secretary (1923): "Come what may, civilization must be made to penetrate these inaccessible mountains, or we must admit that there is no solution to the Waziristan problem... I may be thought a visionary to talk of the civilization of the Mahsud. But you must take long views on the Frontier."
(60): "...the opening of the first Mahsud school by Malik Mir Badshah Khan, a former regular soldier, in 1922, caused a mullah-led riot."
(60): gov't not sure whether to educate tribesmen, as there wasn't much room to absorb them--"unemployed tribesmen with academic qualifications were 'bound to be a source of potential trouble.'
(61): regardless, never enough revenue to invest properly in non-tax paying areas, extenisvely (not that they invested anywhere else, extensively)
(63-64): in the late 1920s, NWFP joined the nationalist movement--a Congress flag seen in Waziristan! (though the revolt that racked the areas in 1930 was put down, quickly, allegedly thanks to the "forward policy in Waziristan")
(64): KEY, air power: "The RAF was quick to claim a share of the credit for the restoration of order in 1930. Several tribal sections had submitted in the face of air action alone. According to one senior RAF commander, 'without air power I believe that there would have been a general blaze up all along the Frontier.'"
(64): important analytic point: "With the benefit of hindisght, it is clear that the origins of the 1930 risings lay in the settled districts, where economic changes had altered the status quo. These changes were not mirrored in the tribal agencies, where only a handful of Red Shirt agents were detected."
(68-69): 1929 incursions from Waziristan into Afghanistan to support Nadir Shah; 1933 incursions of Wazir militia to do opposite, but this threatened interests of British, who threatened to bomb wazir militia unless they stopped fighting in Khost.
(68): KEY: "Despite persistent minor troubles, life in Waziristan between 1925 and 1935 was usually settled. As the government's medical, teaching, and political presence was so slender, the personnel in the military cantonments and scouts' posts were central to the imperial experience in Waziristan."
(70): "The 1945 Government of India Act, and plans for a new federal India, did not impact upon the NWFP tribal agencies, whereas in the settled areas..." [a very discontinuous experience, in other words--no "common sense of the national" through struggle, the q. of however illusory that might have been in other cases notwithstanding]
(72): SETTING SCENE FOR 1936 INSURGENCY: "Despite the growing arms trade, by 1935...the tribal lashkars had been dispersed and a long-running insurgency had been crushed. A large garrison had been installed in a brand new cantonment in the heart of tribal territory... The Wazirs and Mahsuds had been extensively involved in the new regimne... But had there been in any substantial change...?"
(81-82): the Islam Bibi case as the match that lit the fire (but there are questions to be asked here; which we cannot ask, I suppose...)
(82-83): tradition of muslim holy men resisting foreign occupation, especially the British (Mullah Powindah, Fazal Din, in particular)--in this tradition enters Faqir of Ipi.
(84-85): Faqir of Ipi born in 1901, settles in Tochi valley in mid-1920s. acquires reputation for demanding minimal donations from his followers. an important member of the N. Waziristan Lashkar that went to Khost to fight in 1933.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
AFGHANISTAN
population: 32,738,376 (July 2008 est.)
ethnic groups: Pashtun 42%, Tajik 27%, Hazara 9%, Uzbek 9%, Aimak 4%, Turkmen 3%, Baloch 2%, other 4%
languages: Afghan Persian or Dari (official) 50%, Pashto (official) 35%, Turkic languages (primarily Uzbek and Turkmen) 11%, 30 minor languages (primarily Balochi and Pashai) 4%, much bilingualism
religion: Sunni Muslim 80%, Shia Muslim 19%, other 1%
literacy: 28.1% (male 43.6%, female 12.6%)
GDP composition: agriculture 38%, industry 24%, services 38%.
labor force, by sector: agriculture 80%, industry 10%, services 10% (2004 est.)
1747-1823: Ahmed Shah Durrani creates the Durrani Empire, after the end of Nadir Shah's reign over Persia. Expanded east, sacking Delhi in 1757 (where he agreed to leave the weakened Mughals in power "as long as Shah Alam II acknowledged Ahmad Shah's suzerainty over Punjab, Sindh, and Kashmir"). Later forced to confront the expanding powers of the Maratha Empire at the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761. "The victory at Panipat was the high point of Ahmad Shah's -- and Afghan -- power." Already, soon after, he was losing control of Punjab to the Sikhs--he took Amritsar, sacked Lahore in 1762 and massacred thousands of inhabitants, but could not subjugate the resistance in Punjab. In the North, as well, compelled to negotiate borders with the Uzbek Emir of Bukhara. After Ahmed Shah's death in 1772, the Empire fell apart--his successors failed to stitch together competing tribes, and by 1818 controlled only Kabul and surrounding areas.
1823-1839: The Barkazai Dynasty takes power after battling the Durrani Empire (Shuja Shah had assasinated the elder brother of Dost Muhammad Khan, triggering the feud). Dost Muhammad Khan rules from 1826-1839; initially receptive to British overtures, but following their entreaties to him to keep to himself and abandon hopes of retaking Peshawar from the Sikhs, he renews relations with the Russians.
1838-1842: Fearful that Tsarist moves (1813 Treaty of Gulistan, 1826 Treaty of Turkmanchai, and other advances) indicated that the Russians were preparing for an invasion of British India, via Afghanistan, the British launched the First Anglo-Afghan War--an attempt to impose a reliable puppet regime under the leadership of Shuja Shah (who had ruled the Durrani Empire till 1809, and tried to retake it from Dost Muhammad Khan in 1834--under the cover of this battle the Sikhs had taken Peshawar). But by 1842 they were forced to retreat--a retreat which ended in a complete massacre of the occupying forces (of roughly thirty thousand personnel, only one man escaped).
1842-1878: After these troops were expelled by Mohammad Akbar Khan, Afghanistan was ruled again by his father, Dost Mohammad Khan till 1863. After his death, his sons Sher Ali Khan and Mohammad Afzal Khan who feuded over the kingdom until Afzal's death in 1867. (Akbar Khan had died in1845, possibly poisoned by his father, who feared his ambitions).
1878-1880: Though the 1855 Treaty of Peshawar had cemented British support for Sher Ali Khan in Afghanistan (the British saw his emirate as a buffer state), Sher Ali Khan grew distrustful at the weakness of British support, which only went so far. Sher Ali Khan's 1878 refusal to accept a British diplomatic mission triggered the Second Anglo-Afghan war. In May 1879, Sher Ali Khan's successor and son Muhammad Yaqub Khan signed the Treaty of Gandamak with the British, relinquishing control of foreign affairs to the British (and ceding Quetta and other frontier areas--the British had already taken Baluchistan in 1859, leaving Afghanistan land-locked). Though the British more-or-less withdrew, further uprisings followed--though the were unsuccessful, Yaqub Khan was suspected of complicity, and thus replaced by his cousin Abdur Rahman Khan in 1880.
1880-1919: Abdur Rahman Khan answered the prayers of the British, respecting their diktats. He united the disparate tribes, as well as tried to "modernize" Afghanistan (his vizier, Mahmud Tarzi, was important in this process). Under his rule, the Durand Line was drawn in 1893. His son, Habibullah Khan, who peacefully succeeded him in 1901, then ruled till 1919. (In 1907, an Anglo-Russian Convention marked the end of "The Great Game").
1919-1929: After Habibullah Khan was assasinated on a hunting trip, his third son, Amanullah Khan took power. Amanullah, under the influence of Tarzi (who was his father-in-law), introduced further reforms (women's rights, educational rights, Western dress, etc.). However, to stem intrigue in his own court, he crossed the Durand Line in May 1919, which trigged the Third Anglo-Afghan War. After recovering from defeats in the initial skirmishes, the superior technology of the British told--indeed, this war saw the inaugural aerial bombardment of Afghanistan. The fighting concluded in three months, at which point the British dictated the terms of the Rawalpindi Agreement in August 1919. Amanullah eventually succumbed in 1929--after he abdicated, his brother was deposed by the Tajik Habibullah Kalani, who ruled from January to October.
1929-1973: Nadir Shah, who had served as Amanullah Khan's minister of war until he quit in protest at the reforms, toppled Habibullah Kalani in October (the Pashtun tribesmen were unwilling to submit to a Tajik king). He abolished most of Amanullah's reforms. After his assasination by a college student in 1933, his 19 yr-old son, Mohammad Zahir Shah took control (though Nadir Shah's three younger brothers formed an influential clique of advisers around Zahir Shah). Some limited steps towards political liberalization were made (a legislature, education for women, etc.). In 1953, power shifted away from the uncles to the younger generation of the family--Zahir Shah's cousin, Mohammad Daud Khan, became Prime Minister in 1953. He concentrated much of his energies on the issue of Pashtunistan, resulting in numerous skirmishes with Pakistan on the border in the 1950s and 1960s (in 1962, Daud sent Afghan troops into Bajaur). He resigned, however, in 1963--the King had requested his resignation due to the deleterious effects of his Pashtunistan policies. In 1964, a new, democratic constitution was passed--relatively fair elections were held in 1965 and 1969, though the country could not yet be said to be a functioning democracy, in any sense (still closer to an absolute monarchy than a constitutional one).
1973-1978: In 1973, Daud took advantage of the King's absence to launch a bloodless coup. His rule was brutish, marked by harsh repression of dissident politics (he replaced Zahir Shah's constitutional set-up with a largely nominated loya jirga; in 1977, a presidential, one-party system was approved by said assembly). Though he didn't pursue the issue of Pashtunistan, he distanced himself from the USSR ("At first Daoud’s dictatorship leaned towards the Soviet Union in foreign policy and the Communists supported him. By early 1978, though, Daoud was swinging back towards the US and he had the main Communist leaders arrested.")
1978-1979: The PDPA, which had been founded in 1965 by Nur Mohammad Taraki, Hafizullah Amin, and Babrak Karmal, had been marred by a serious internal schism: Taraki and the Khalq faction represented the more radical arm, committed to a Marxist-Leninst vision of revolution carried out by educated cadres, whereas Karmal and the Parcham faction believed that the underdeveloped character of Afghanistan meant that the emphasis should instead be on building a federation of national and democratic forces. Though they split in the late 60s, the USSR compelled them to reconcile in 1977. In April 1978 (the Saur revolution), the PDPA organized a coup, led by Hafizullah Amin--Daud and most of his family was killed in the uprising. While in power, they were ambitiously secular, and moved to waive farmers' debts and nationalize agricultural resources. Nonetheless, "[though they] had support in the cities [they had] very little in the countryside, where 90 percent of Afghans lived," and soon confronted peasant rebellions led by village mullahs. It was brutal in repressing this opposition (including opposition led by the soon-to-be-purged Parcham faction)--thousands of political prisoners were held and executed in the months leading up to the Soviet invasion in 1979. In September 1979, Amin took over after a palace shootout in which Taraki was killed. (There was also, of course, the small matter of pre-emptive American funding for mujahideen groups, admitted later by Brzezinski.)
(A different view, articulated by Parenti: "“It was a totally indigenous happening. Not even the CIA blamed the USSR for it,” writes John Ryan, a retired professor at the University of Winnipeg, who was conducting an agricultural research project in Afghanistan at about that time. The Taraki government proceeded to legalize labor unions, and set up a minimum wage, a progressive income tax, a literacy campaign, and programs that gave ordinary people greater access to health care, housing, and public sanitation. Fledgling peasant cooperatives were started and price reductions on some key foods were imposed.")
1979-1992: The USSR invaded in December 1979 to prop up the teetering, besieged government (only after months of PDPA requests had gone largely unheeded). There was some suspsicion that Amin was untrustworthy (even that he was a CIA agent!). Kamral was installed as President, the Khalq faction was purged. "The mullahs had been saying that the Communists were Russian puppets. Now everyone could see that this was true." The phases of the Russian Operation:
- Decmeber 1979-February 1980: Occupation of major urban centers, military bases, strategic installations.
- March 1980-April 1985: "The Soviet armed forces held the cities and patrolled the highways with tanks. But in the countryside they came under sustained attack. Here their main tactics were land mines, helicopter gunships, bombers and free fire zones." The resistance was waging a guerilla war, and winning.
- April 1985-January 1987: Gorbachev came to power in Moscow, declared his impatience with the war. Gradually the USSR shifted the burden of fighting onto the Afghan army.
- January 1987-February 1989: A general peaceful withdrawal of Soviet troops, leaving behind a strained DRA to fight the mujahideen.
1992-1996: As a result of the war, "about two thirds of the population were killed, wounded or forced to flee." In 1992, mujahideen entered Kabul, and Najibullah was forced to flee--he sought sanctuary in the UN compound. A war for Kabul ensued, which brutalized the capital: "Kabul had survived the Soviet occupation without being bombed. Now the city was flattened as competing Islamist parties shelled the working class areas. Kabul looked like a German or Japanese city after the Second World War."
1996-2001: The Taliban won the war for Kabul in 1996, after having been patronized by the ISI beginning in 1994. "The soldiers were boys from the religious schools in the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. Taliban simply means “the students”. The boys had spent most of their lives not in traditional villages but in that very 20th century institution, the refugee camp." ("The Taliban were driven to emphasise their Islamic credentials partly because everyone knew they were in fact clients of the Pakistani and American governments. Their public executions in football stadiums were barbaric but also welcome to many Afghans. The Taliban enforced law and order, they were more honest than the commanders and people hoped for security. Their odd and un-Afghan Islam went too far for most people. So they had little passionate support but a good deal of toleration in Pushtun areas from people who felt they were better than the alternatives.") Furthermore, "the central ideology of the Taliban was Pushtun chauvinism. The Taliban were exclusively Pushtun. Since the 1920s Afghan politics had always been polarised on religious and class grounds. The Communists, for instance, had always included Pushtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and people from other groups, and so had the Islamists. The various factions, too, had been mixed. Ethnicity was not trivial, but it was not the main basis of politics. Now that Communist and Islamist politics had betrayed people, ethnicity was all that was left for political organising."
2001-2009: America invades and occupies Afghanistan in October 2001, with the assistance of NATO, deposing the Taliban. Karzai is installed in December 2001: "He was an American client but not simply a puppet. His government relied on three real sources of power. One was the US army. The other was the Northern Alliance, who were willing to put up with the Americans but expected them to leave eventually. The third was a certain degree of popular support in Pushtun areas... The explanation for the lack of resistance is simple. Afghans had endured 23 years of war. That meant death but also desperate insecurity, a life of all against all. There was little passionate support for the Taliban or the Islamists. People were willing to settle for almost anything not to live in perpetual fear." In 2002, a loya jirga affirms Karzai as interim president. In 2003, a constitutional loya jirga is convened, which ratifies a new constitution in January 2004. In elections held in October 2004, Karzai wins and becomes President ("The elections in 2004 were a clear demonstration of the willingness to give peace a chance. The Americans forbade any credible candidate from running against Karzai for president. But Afghans turned out in very large numbers to vote for him and for parliamentary representatives.") Legislative elections are held in September 2005. The national assembly sits in December 2005, for the first time in 32 years. Despite all this, of course, the same patchwork of warlords and criminals that prevailed earlier are reported to retain effective control over the country--via these democratic institutions. As of 2007, significant resistance is reported to have re-emerged (called the Taliban, though this is probably more provocative than accurate; at the very least, the resistance is indigenous and largely a result of the failures of the present administration)--with very recent reports suggesting they control wide swathes of the country. President Obama, of course, has promised to commit more troops in order to win the "good war." Perhaps the abiding lesson, though, is that "Afghanistan is one of the few places in the world where progressives and the left have consistently lined up with brutal imperial mass murder. That is why the right wing is strong in Afghanistan." (Again, the Parenti view: "One might agree with John Ryan who argued that if Washington had left the Marxist Taraki government alone back in 1979, “there would have been no army of mujahideen, no Soviet intervention, no war that destroyed Afghanistan, no Osama bin Laden, and no September 11 tragedy.” But it would be asking too much for Washington to leave unmolested a progressive leftist government that was organizing the social capital around collective public needs rather than private accumulation.")
Sunday, May 6, 2007
a quote from a general:
When he was asked if he thought the Iraqi insurgents were right to try to force the US-led coalition out, he replied: "Yes I do. As Lord Chatham [the politician William Pitt, the Elder, who, in the second half of the 18th century called for a cessation of hostilities in the colonies and favoured American resistance to the British Stamp Act] said, 'if I was an American - as I am an Englishman - as long as one Englishman remained on American native soil, I would never, never, never lay down my arms'. The Iraqi insurgents feel exactly the same way. I don't excuse them for some of the terrible things they do, but I do understand why they are resisting the Americans."
When he was asked if he thought the Iraqi insurgents were right to try to force the US-led coalition out, he replied: "Yes I do. As Lord Chatham [the politician William Pitt, the Elder, who, in the second half of the 18th century called for a cessation of hostilities in the colonies and favoured American resistance to the British Stamp Act] said, 'if I was an American - as I am an Englishman - as long as one Englishman remained on American native soil, I would never, never, never lay down my arms'. The Iraqi insurgents feel exactly the same way. I don't excuse them for some of the terrible things they do, but I do understand why they are resisting the Americans."
Friday, May 4, 2007
britain and india:
Britain's industrialisation was secured by destroying the manufacturing capacity of India. In 1699, the British government banned the import of woolen cloth from Ireland, and in 1700 the import of cotton cloth (or calico) from India. Both products were forbidden because they were superior to our own. As the industrial revolution was built on the textiles industry, we could not have achieved our global economic dominance if we had let them in. Throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries, India was forced to supply raw materials to Britain's manufacturers, but forbidden to produce competing finished products. We are rich because the Indians are poor.
(...) The impact on British workers will be devastating. Service jobs of the kind now being exported were supposed to make up for the loss of employment in the manufacturing industries which disappeared overseas in the 1980s and 1990s. The government handed out grants for cyber sweatshops in places whose industrial workforce had been crushed by the closure of mines, shipyards and steelworks. But the companies running the call centres appear to have been testing their systems at government expense before exporting them somewhere cheaper.
(...) It is not hard to see why most of them have chosen India. The wages of workers in the service and technology industries there are roughly one tenth of those of workers in the same sectors over here. Standards of education are high, and almost all educated Indians speak English. While British workers will take call-centre jobs only when they have no choice, Indian workers see them as glamorous. One technical support company in Bangalore recently advertised 800 jobs. It received 87,000 applications. British call centres moving to India can choose the most charming, patient, biddable, intelligent workers the labour market has to offer.
(...) So is the flight to India a good thing or a bad thing? The only reasonable answer is both. The benefits do not cancel out the harm. They exist, and have to exist, side by side. This is the reality of the world order Britain established, and which is sustained by the heirs to the East India Company, the multinational corporations. The corporations operate only in their own interests. Sometimes these interests will coincide with those of a disadvantaged group, but only by disadvantaging another.
(...) For centuries, we have permitted ourselves to ignore the extent to which our welfare is dependent on the denial of other people's. We begin to understand the implications of the system we have created only when it turns against ourselves.
Britain's industrialisation was secured by destroying the manufacturing capacity of India. In 1699, the British government banned the import of woolen cloth from Ireland, and in 1700 the import of cotton cloth (or calico) from India. Both products were forbidden because they were superior to our own. As the industrial revolution was built on the textiles industry, we could not have achieved our global economic dominance if we had let them in. Throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries, India was forced to supply raw materials to Britain's manufacturers, but forbidden to produce competing finished products. We are rich because the Indians are poor.
(...) The impact on British workers will be devastating. Service jobs of the kind now being exported were supposed to make up for the loss of employment in the manufacturing industries which disappeared overseas in the 1980s and 1990s. The government handed out grants for cyber sweatshops in places whose industrial workforce had been crushed by the closure of mines, shipyards and steelworks. But the companies running the call centres appear to have been testing their systems at government expense before exporting them somewhere cheaper.
(...) It is not hard to see why most of them have chosen India. The wages of workers in the service and technology industries there are roughly one tenth of those of workers in the same sectors over here. Standards of education are high, and almost all educated Indians speak English. While British workers will take call-centre jobs only when they have no choice, Indian workers see them as glamorous. One technical support company in Bangalore recently advertised 800 jobs. It received 87,000 applications. British call centres moving to India can choose the most charming, patient, biddable, intelligent workers the labour market has to offer.
(...) So is the flight to India a good thing or a bad thing? The only reasonable answer is both. The benefits do not cancel out the harm. They exist, and have to exist, side by side. This is the reality of the world order Britain established, and which is sustained by the heirs to the East India Company, the multinational corporations. The corporations operate only in their own interests. Sometimes these interests will coincide with those of a disadvantaged group, but only by disadvantaging another.
(...) For centuries, we have permitted ourselves to ignore the extent to which our welfare is dependent on the denial of other people's. We begin to understand the implications of the system we have created only when it turns against ourselves.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
toni solo on resistance:
The Rif independence campaign led between 1920 and 1927 by Emir Abd el-Krim el-Khattabi was just one instance of global resistance to colonial domination before and after Versailles and the end of the 1914-18 war. Resistance flared from Ireland to Iraq to India, from Algeria to Syria to Indo-China, and from Java to the Congo. Sandino's war against the US marines in Nicaragua began in 1926. Revolt in China against Chiang Kai Shek's pro-imperialist regime lasted from 1925 through 1926. The period between the two world wars was marked by repeated outbreaks of such resistance - invariably repressed with ruthless barbarity by the colonial powers and their allies among local elites.
(...) The impetus for French and Spanish dominion over Morocco came with the 1906 Treaty of Algeciras, part of that era's crude imperialist game of swap between Britain, France, Germany and the other colonial powers. In 1907, French troops occupied Casablanca. A Berber uprising in 1911 led France to move into the Moroccan interior and later to declare Morocco a French "Protectorate" in 1912, the same year Italy imposed dominion over Libya. Spain bagged control of the northern coastal Rif region and of the tiny pocket of Tarfaya/Ifni. The status of Tangier was dubious until, in 1923, it was made a tripartite international port controlled by Britain, France and Spain. In his earlier career, Abd el-Krim el-Khattabi had worked with the Spanish colonial authorities until his imprisonment in 1917 for criticising Spanish designs on the Rif, for its mineral resources, which before then had remained outside the sphere of direct colonial rule. In 1919, el-Krim returned physically to his native region around Ajdir and morally to the salafiyyah inspired ideas of national and cultural renaissance of his student days in Fez. From that time on, he worked to organize resistance in the Rif to Spanish colonial dominion.
(...) Youssef Girard observes, "For Spain, Anoual was one of the most grievous defeats in its history. The Spanish troops had not just suffered a defeat but had lost face to an enemy judged to be technically and racially inferior. In a world marked by racist and ethnocentric prejudice, Anoual was a symbol : it was that of the victory of people of colour over a nation of whites ; it was the effacement of the Cross by the Crescent ; it was the revenge of the Orient over the West."
(...) The Moroccan king, afraid of the threat to his own position posed by el-Krim, refused to fight. Instead, the monarchy collaborated with the colonial powers in their war on the Rif. (Its successors have used similar aggression against the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic in the western Sahara. Morocco invaded Western Sahara in 1976, bombing fleeing refugees with napalm. Today it applies systematic repression against Western Sahara's occupied population.)
(...) The French-Spanish counter-offensive in the Rif did not discriminate between civilians and combatants. Losses among the Berber population have been reckoned at around half a million just for the years 1925 and 1926. Villages were subject to artillery and aerial bombardment both by conventional munitions and by poison gases including mustard gas, following the example of the British in Iraq in 1919. The overwhelming offensive by Spain backed by Europe's strongest military power, France, forced el-Krim to negotiate. By 1927 active resistance in the Rif was effectively over. Spain had secured its colony.
(...) It may be the case that history teaches nothing except that people learn nothing from history. Santayana believed peoples who forget their history are condemned to relive it. In any case, events seem to survive somewhere between interpretation and remembrance as well as through their immediate physical and economic aftermath. It is hard to contemplate the aggression against Iraq and the genocide against the Palestinians without wondering about the relevance of previous imperialist wars against Muslim countries. The resourceful, ferocious and determined asymmetrical campaign of Abd el-Krim el-Khattabi against the vastly more numerous and better equipped conscript and mercenary forces of France and Spain is relevant to the war on Iraq and the pending attack on Iran.
(...) Despite overwhelming air superiority and the indiscriminate use of chemical weapons, the subjugation of a hostile population requires huge numbers of infantry. Since such numbers can only be secured via a military draft, colonial wars by modern democracies cannot be "won" in the conventional sense. Despite this, the United States government has chosen to abandon the façades of democracy and prepare for an endless series of colonial wars. The Bush regime's pursuit of that alternative vindicates its critics who argue that two main objectives of the Iraq war were the enrichment of Bush regime corporate cronies and a deliberate wrecking operation on democracy in the United States.
(...) Abd el-Krim el-Khattabi himself insisted he harboured no hatred towards Spain or its people, that his resistance was aimed at the colonialist policies of the Spanish government. He wrote, "The Rif isn't fighting the Spanish and holds no hatred towards the Spanish people. The Rif is fighting that arrogant imperialism that wants to strip it of its liberty using the moral and material sacrifices of the noble Spanish people......people of the Rif fight against the Spanish military who try to abuse their rights, and at the same time hold their doors open to receive unarmed Spanish people such as technicians, business people, industrialists, farmers and workers." (2)
(...) One returns again to Steiner's paradox of Bluebeard's Castle, a paradox consistently noted earlier over centuries by many anti-colonialist writers : utter barbarity coexists readily with advanced cultural achievement. The spiralling genocide in Palestine and US threats to use nuclear weapons against Iran are the latest colonialist outrages in a long history of criminal barbarism inflicted by countries that preen themselves on democratic processes many of which in reality are mostly nugatory, rendered trifling by the power of corporate elites. The story of the Rif Republic is just one of innumerable episodes in that bitterly shameful history worth revisiting and remembering.
The Rif independence campaign led between 1920 and 1927 by Emir Abd el-Krim el-Khattabi was just one instance of global resistance to colonial domination before and after Versailles and the end of the 1914-18 war. Resistance flared from Ireland to Iraq to India, from Algeria to Syria to Indo-China, and from Java to the Congo. Sandino's war against the US marines in Nicaragua began in 1926. Revolt in China against Chiang Kai Shek's pro-imperialist regime lasted from 1925 through 1926. The period between the two world wars was marked by repeated outbreaks of such resistance - invariably repressed with ruthless barbarity by the colonial powers and their allies among local elites.
(...) The impetus for French and Spanish dominion over Morocco came with the 1906 Treaty of Algeciras, part of that era's crude imperialist game of swap between Britain, France, Germany and the other colonial powers. In 1907, French troops occupied Casablanca. A Berber uprising in 1911 led France to move into the Moroccan interior and later to declare Morocco a French "Protectorate" in 1912, the same year Italy imposed dominion over Libya. Spain bagged control of the northern coastal Rif region and of the tiny pocket of Tarfaya/Ifni. The status of Tangier was dubious until, in 1923, it was made a tripartite international port controlled by Britain, France and Spain. In his earlier career, Abd el-Krim el-Khattabi had worked with the Spanish colonial authorities until his imprisonment in 1917 for criticising Spanish designs on the Rif, for its mineral resources, which before then had remained outside the sphere of direct colonial rule. In 1919, el-Krim returned physically to his native region around Ajdir and morally to the salafiyyah inspired ideas of national and cultural renaissance of his student days in Fez. From that time on, he worked to organize resistance in the Rif to Spanish colonial dominion.
(...) Youssef Girard observes, "For Spain, Anoual was one of the most grievous defeats in its history. The Spanish troops had not just suffered a defeat but had lost face to an enemy judged to be technically and racially inferior. In a world marked by racist and ethnocentric prejudice, Anoual was a symbol : it was that of the victory of people of colour over a nation of whites ; it was the effacement of the Cross by the Crescent ; it was the revenge of the Orient over the West."
(...) The Moroccan king, afraid of the threat to his own position posed by el-Krim, refused to fight. Instead, the monarchy collaborated with the colonial powers in their war on the Rif. (Its successors have used similar aggression against the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic in the western Sahara. Morocco invaded Western Sahara in 1976, bombing fleeing refugees with napalm. Today it applies systematic repression against Western Sahara's occupied population.)
(...) The French-Spanish counter-offensive in the Rif did not discriminate between civilians and combatants. Losses among the Berber population have been reckoned at around half a million just for the years 1925 and 1926. Villages were subject to artillery and aerial bombardment both by conventional munitions and by poison gases including mustard gas, following the example of the British in Iraq in 1919. The overwhelming offensive by Spain backed by Europe's strongest military power, France, forced el-Krim to negotiate. By 1927 active resistance in the Rif was effectively over. Spain had secured its colony.
(...) It may be the case that history teaches nothing except that people learn nothing from history. Santayana believed peoples who forget their history are condemned to relive it. In any case, events seem to survive somewhere between interpretation and remembrance as well as through their immediate physical and economic aftermath. It is hard to contemplate the aggression against Iraq and the genocide against the Palestinians without wondering about the relevance of previous imperialist wars against Muslim countries. The resourceful, ferocious and determined asymmetrical campaign of Abd el-Krim el-Khattabi against the vastly more numerous and better equipped conscript and mercenary forces of France and Spain is relevant to the war on Iraq and the pending attack on Iran.
(...) Despite overwhelming air superiority and the indiscriminate use of chemical weapons, the subjugation of a hostile population requires huge numbers of infantry. Since such numbers can only be secured via a military draft, colonial wars by modern democracies cannot be "won" in the conventional sense. Despite this, the United States government has chosen to abandon the façades of democracy and prepare for an endless series of colonial wars. The Bush regime's pursuit of that alternative vindicates its critics who argue that two main objectives of the Iraq war were the enrichment of Bush regime corporate cronies and a deliberate wrecking operation on democracy in the United States.
(...) Abd el-Krim el-Khattabi himself insisted he harboured no hatred towards Spain or its people, that his resistance was aimed at the colonialist policies of the Spanish government. He wrote, "The Rif isn't fighting the Spanish and holds no hatred towards the Spanish people. The Rif is fighting that arrogant imperialism that wants to strip it of its liberty using the moral and material sacrifices of the noble Spanish people......people of the Rif fight against the Spanish military who try to abuse their rights, and at the same time hold their doors open to receive unarmed Spanish people such as technicians, business people, industrialists, farmers and workers." (2)
(...) One returns again to Steiner's paradox of Bluebeard's Castle, a paradox consistently noted earlier over centuries by many anti-colonialist writers : utter barbarity coexists readily with advanced cultural achievement. The spiralling genocide in Palestine and US threats to use nuclear weapons against Iran are the latest colonialist outrages in a long history of criminal barbarism inflicted by countries that preen themselves on democratic processes many of which in reality are mostly nugatory, rendered trifling by the power of corporate elites. The story of the Rif Republic is just one of innumerable episodes in that bitterly shameful history worth revisiting and remembering.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
some much-needed context:
As a child, he went to a predominantly white school and his social circle was non-Muslim. His family paid little attention to religion. His parents divorced in the late 1990s, when Omar was 10 and his father lived in Belgium for much of the time, where he had a business selling clothes. His mother did not speak or write much English and the eldest son took on family responsibilities at a young age, writing cheques on her behalf. Khayam was captain of the school cricket team, and easily reconciled his British and Pakistani cultures — supporting England at football but Pakistan at cricket. He was popular and academically gifted.
(...) When he started his A-levels, Khayam went to meetings of al-Muhajiroun, led by Omar Bakri Mohammed, who talked of establishing an Islamic state. He was shown videos of the war in Chechnya, featuring graphic footage of the bodies of fellow Muslims and bullet-riddled buildings to a soundtrack of Qur’aanic verses and religious music
As a child, he went to a predominantly white school and his social circle was non-Muslim. His family paid little attention to religion. His parents divorced in the late 1990s, when Omar was 10 and his father lived in Belgium for much of the time, where he had a business selling clothes. His mother did not speak or write much English and the eldest son took on family responsibilities at a young age, writing cheques on her behalf. Khayam was captain of the school cricket team, and easily reconciled his British and Pakistani cultures — supporting England at football but Pakistan at cricket. He was popular and academically gifted.
(...) When he started his A-levels, Khayam went to meetings of al-Muhajiroun, led by Omar Bakri Mohammed, who talked of establishing an Islamic state. He was shown videos of the war in Chechnya, featuring graphic footage of the bodies of fellow Muslims and bullet-riddled buildings to a soundtrack of Qur’aanic verses and religious music
Saturday, April 28, 2007
sanctions to war to war-profiteering:
Iraq was simply and shamelessly robbed blind during the period of US-championed UN sanctions. Sadly, the robbery and mismanagement continue to this day, but now the figures are much more staggering.
(...) I reflected on my lengthy interview with Iraq's former Ambassador to the United Nations Mohamed Al-Duri. Al-Duri, being interviewed for the first time by English-language media since taking up his post at the UN, revealed to me in early 2001, in equally shocking detail, what sanctions had done to his country and people. He claimed that the UN was a key part of the problem. Led by two countries, the US and Britain, the UN Oil for Food Programme and the "humanitarian" mission it established in Iraq was reducing Iraqis to beggary, robbing the country blind and mis-managing funds, whereas the large bulk fuelled UN-related missions and operations, with needy Iraqi families receiving next to nothing. He spoke of the manipulation of Iraq's wealth for political purposes and alleged that the UN was a tool in the hands of the US government, aimed at encouraging widespread popular dissatisfaction with Saddam's government, before the country was dragged into war.
(...) By March 2003, when American forces invaded Iraq, the UN was generating $64 billion in sales of Iraqi oil, according to von Sponeck. But scandalously, only $28 billion reached the Iraqi people. If distributed evenly, each Iraqi received half a US dollar per day. According to UN figures, an individual living under one dollar per day is classified as living in "abject poverty". Even during the most destructive phases of the war with Iran, Iraq managed to provide relatively high living standards. Its hospitals were neither dilapidated nor did its oil industry lie in ruins. Only after the advent of UN sanctions in 1991 did Iraqis suffer with such appalling magnitude. Alas, the tyranny of Saddam Hussein expanded to become the tyranny of the international community as well.
(...) The UN Security Council's "elected 10 or veto-wielding five" had nothing for Iraq but "empty words," and there were "deliberate efforts to make life uncomfortable (for the Iraqis) through the Oil for Food Programme". All efforts to modernise Iraq's oil industry were blocked, said von Sponeck, at the behest of "two governments that blocked all sorts of items," necessary for even basic living -- again, the US and Britain, the same two that invaded and currently occupy Iraq. The logic in all of this is clear; the "pre- emptive" war on Iraq was but an extension of the sanctions regime.
(...) Von Sponeck reports that a large chunk -- 55 per cent of the money generated from Iraq's oil -- went to fund the UN's own inadequate "humanitarian" programmes. Much of the rest was usurped by the UN Compensation Commission, entrusted with handling damages claims made by those allegedly harmed by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. According to von Sponeck, the Iraqi oil "pie" was so large there was plenty for everyone: Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey, and all the rest. But most ironically, the commission awarded a large sum of money to two Israeli kibbutzim in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, for allegedly losing some of their income due to the fact that the war damaged the tourism industry in Israel.
(...) The US Government Accountability Office uncovered appalling discrepancies in the US military administration's handling of money: uncountable billions went missing; hundreds of contractors fully paid but the work never done; layer upon layer of shady companies, mercenaries and sub-contractors (Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root but mere illustrations). In partnership with the new rulers of Iraq, these corporations are stealing the wealth of the once prosperous nation, leaving it in shambles. And now, the Iraqis are facing enormous pressure to approve the Iraqi oil and gas law. The draft bill, according to Iraqi MP Nureddin Al-Hayyali, would give "50 per cent of the Iraqi people's oil wealth to foreign investing oil firms".
Iraq was simply and shamelessly robbed blind during the period of US-championed UN sanctions. Sadly, the robbery and mismanagement continue to this day, but now the figures are much more staggering.
(...) I reflected on my lengthy interview with Iraq's former Ambassador to the United Nations Mohamed Al-Duri. Al-Duri, being interviewed for the first time by English-language media since taking up his post at the UN, revealed to me in early 2001, in equally shocking detail, what sanctions had done to his country and people. He claimed that the UN was a key part of the problem. Led by two countries, the US and Britain, the UN Oil for Food Programme and the "humanitarian" mission it established in Iraq was reducing Iraqis to beggary, robbing the country blind and mis-managing funds, whereas the large bulk fuelled UN-related missions and operations, with needy Iraqi families receiving next to nothing. He spoke of the manipulation of Iraq's wealth for political purposes and alleged that the UN was a tool in the hands of the US government, aimed at encouraging widespread popular dissatisfaction with Saddam's government, before the country was dragged into war.
(...) By March 2003, when American forces invaded Iraq, the UN was generating $64 billion in sales of Iraqi oil, according to von Sponeck. But scandalously, only $28 billion reached the Iraqi people. If distributed evenly, each Iraqi received half a US dollar per day. According to UN figures, an individual living under one dollar per day is classified as living in "abject poverty". Even during the most destructive phases of the war with Iran, Iraq managed to provide relatively high living standards. Its hospitals were neither dilapidated nor did its oil industry lie in ruins. Only after the advent of UN sanctions in 1991 did Iraqis suffer with such appalling magnitude. Alas, the tyranny of Saddam Hussein expanded to become the tyranny of the international community as well.
(...) The UN Security Council's "elected 10 or veto-wielding five" had nothing for Iraq but "empty words," and there were "deliberate efforts to make life uncomfortable (for the Iraqis) through the Oil for Food Programme". All efforts to modernise Iraq's oil industry were blocked, said von Sponeck, at the behest of "two governments that blocked all sorts of items," necessary for even basic living -- again, the US and Britain, the same two that invaded and currently occupy Iraq. The logic in all of this is clear; the "pre- emptive" war on Iraq was but an extension of the sanctions regime.
(...) Von Sponeck reports that a large chunk -- 55 per cent of the money generated from Iraq's oil -- went to fund the UN's own inadequate "humanitarian" programmes. Much of the rest was usurped by the UN Compensation Commission, entrusted with handling damages claims made by those allegedly harmed by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. According to von Sponeck, the Iraqi oil "pie" was so large there was plenty for everyone: Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey, and all the rest. But most ironically, the commission awarded a large sum of money to two Israeli kibbutzim in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, for allegedly losing some of their income due to the fact that the war damaged the tourism industry in Israel.
(...) The US Government Accountability Office uncovered appalling discrepancies in the US military administration's handling of money: uncountable billions went missing; hundreds of contractors fully paid but the work never done; layer upon layer of shady companies, mercenaries and sub-contractors (Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root but mere illustrations). In partnership with the new rulers of Iraq, these corporations are stealing the wealth of the once prosperous nation, leaving it in shambles. And now, the Iraqis are facing enormous pressure to approve the Iraqi oil and gas law. The draft bill, according to Iraqi MP Nureddin Al-Hayyali, would give "50 per cent of the Iraqi people's oil wealth to foreign investing oil firms".
Friday, April 27, 2007
british troops speak out:"Basra is lost, they are in control now. It's a full-scale riot and the Government are just trying to save face," said Private Paul Barton.
(...) Reacting to Pte Barton's comments, many soldiers on websites appeared stunned but in agreement. One said: "When I arrived back last year, I was utterly depressed by what I had seen out there and the lack of any progress ... any journo sticking a microphone in my grid would have been given enough soundbites to retire on. And I would probably be in the Tower of London. "I can only imagine that the situation 12 months on is even worse, and it would not surprise me if this is repeated over the coming months by more guys coming back from their third and fourth tours to that midden."
(...) "Last tour, I never fired my rifle once. This time, I fired 127 rounds on five different occasions. And, in my role [providing medical support], I shouldn't have to fire." He added: "We have overstayed our welcome now. We should speed up the withdrawal. It's a lost battle. We should pull out and call it quits."
(...) Reacting to Pte Barton's comments, many soldiers on websites appeared stunned but in agreement. One said: "When I arrived back last year, I was utterly depressed by what I had seen out there and the lack of any progress ... any journo sticking a microphone in my grid would have been given enough soundbites to retire on. And I would probably be in the Tower of London. "I can only imagine that the situation 12 months on is even worse, and it would not surprise me if this is repeated over the coming months by more guys coming back from their third and fourth tours to that midden."
(...) "Last tour, I never fired my rifle once. This time, I fired 127 rounds on five different occasions. And, in my role [providing medical support], I shouldn't have to fire." He added: "We have overstayed our welcome now. We should speed up the withdrawal. It's a lost battle. We should pull out and call it quits."
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
divide and conquer?:
If the Bush administration is successful in its current efforts to divide Islam by pitting Shi'ites against Sunnis it will revitalize the old colonial tactic of divide and conquer, and maintain the domination of the Middle East by authoritarian elites allied with the U.S. and the international energy industry. Its vehicle, according to The New York Times, is an 'American backed alliance' of several Sunni-dominated regimes, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt, 'along with a Fatah-led Palestine and Israel.' The anti-Shiite front will also likely include Turkey and Pakistan.
(...) Suddenly, rhetoric like the 'eastern tide' and the 'Persian menace' have begun appearing in official newspapers in the region, although the average Arab does not view Iran as a threat. A recent Zogby International poll of Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) found that roughly 80% of those polled considered the United States and Israel the biggest threats to their security, while only 11% listed Iran. Further, fewer than 25% believe Iran should be pressured to halt its nuclear program, while 61% think Iran has the right to a nuclear program even if it results in nuclear weapons.
(...) One major concern for the United States is oil. While oil production in the United States, Mexico, and the North Sea is declining, U.S. consumption is predicted to increase by one-third over the next 20 years. By 2020, two-thirds of all U.S. oil will be imported, and since 65% of the world's remaining oil reserves are in the Middle East, one doesn't have to be a conspiracy theorist to conclude a strategy of divide and conquer is aimed at keeping strategic control of those resources.
(...) Keeping up tensions in the Middle East is also enormously lucrative for U.S. arms companies. Since 2006, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman have spent-or will spend over the next year- more than $60 billion on arms purchases.
(...) Who cannot remember that to contain the so-called 'Shiite Crescent' after the 1979 revolution, the extremism of the fundamentalist Salafi movement was nourished by the West-only to transform into Al-Qaeda and the Taliban?
(...) While the Shi'a are often represented as a single entity, there are in fact enormous differences among Shi'a communities. They are a majority in Iran, but Persians are ethnically different than Arabs. The Shi'a constitute the bulk of the Muslim population in Lebanon, but Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been sharply critical of Iraq's Shi'a government for working hand in glove with the U.S. occupation. Yemen. Traditionally they 'are under represented,' according to Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'Socially and economically, Shi'a communities are more marginalized, less educated, and poorer.' The fact that Shi'a communities-particularly in Lebanon and Iraq, but also in Saudi Arabia-are suddenly on the radar screen has less to with any kind of Iran-driven conspiracy than with growing resistance to the sect's traditionally second-class status in the Middle East. The 'divisions' are political and economic, not sectarian, says Abdel-Latif.
(...) As London School of Economics Middle East expert Fred Halliday points out, the distinctions 'are small, far less than those between Catholics and Protestants in Christianity,' and conflict between the two is 'essentially a recent development, a product of the Middle East political crisis in recent decades.' For instance, Shi'ites and Sunnis have intermarried and shared holy sites for centuries.
(...) Halliday argues that the wars in Kashmir and Afghanistan encouraged the division because militant Sunni groups were the heart of the resistance. The real divisions may be small, but religious conflict has always been a surrogate for something else. In Ireland it divided native Irish from Protestant settlers and kept the two at one another's throats. In Egypt, the British manipulated Copts against Muslims, Christian Greeks against Muslim Turks in Cyprus. As the Irish found out to their woe, small differences, if linked to a wider policy, can turn esoteric matters of theology into a life and death matter. 'These fires, once lit, can destroy forms of co-existence that have existed for centuries,' points out Halliday.
If the Bush administration is successful in its current efforts to divide Islam by pitting Shi'ites against Sunnis it will revitalize the old colonial tactic of divide and conquer, and maintain the domination of the Middle East by authoritarian elites allied with the U.S. and the international energy industry. Its vehicle, according to The New York Times, is an 'American backed alliance' of several Sunni-dominated regimes, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt, 'along with a Fatah-led Palestine and Israel.' The anti-Shiite front will also likely include Turkey and Pakistan.
(...) Suddenly, rhetoric like the 'eastern tide' and the 'Persian menace' have begun appearing in official newspapers in the region, although the average Arab does not view Iran as a threat. A recent Zogby International poll of Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) found that roughly 80% of those polled considered the United States and Israel the biggest threats to their security, while only 11% listed Iran. Further, fewer than 25% believe Iran should be pressured to halt its nuclear program, while 61% think Iran has the right to a nuclear program even if it results in nuclear weapons.
(...) One major concern for the United States is oil. While oil production in the United States, Mexico, and the North Sea is declining, U.S. consumption is predicted to increase by one-third over the next 20 years. By 2020, two-thirds of all U.S. oil will be imported, and since 65% of the world's remaining oil reserves are in the Middle East, one doesn't have to be a conspiracy theorist to conclude a strategy of divide and conquer is aimed at keeping strategic control of those resources.
(...) Keeping up tensions in the Middle East is also enormously lucrative for U.S. arms companies. Since 2006, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman have spent-or will spend over the next year- more than $60 billion on arms purchases.
(...) Who cannot remember that to contain the so-called 'Shiite Crescent' after the 1979 revolution, the extremism of the fundamentalist Salafi movement was nourished by the West-only to transform into Al-Qaeda and the Taliban?
(...) While the Shi'a are often represented as a single entity, there are in fact enormous differences among Shi'a communities. They are a majority in Iran, but Persians are ethnically different than Arabs. The Shi'a constitute the bulk of the Muslim population in Lebanon, but Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been sharply critical of Iraq's Shi'a government for working hand in glove with the U.S. occupation. Yemen. Traditionally they 'are under represented,' according to Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'Socially and economically, Shi'a communities are more marginalized, less educated, and poorer.' The fact that Shi'a communities-particularly in Lebanon and Iraq, but also in Saudi Arabia-are suddenly on the radar screen has less to with any kind of Iran-driven conspiracy than with growing resistance to the sect's traditionally second-class status in the Middle East. The 'divisions' are political and economic, not sectarian, says Abdel-Latif.
(...) As London School of Economics Middle East expert Fred Halliday points out, the distinctions 'are small, far less than those between Catholics and Protestants in Christianity,' and conflict between the two is 'essentially a recent development, a product of the Middle East political crisis in recent decades.' For instance, Shi'ites and Sunnis have intermarried and shared holy sites for centuries.
(...) Halliday argues that the wars in Kashmir and Afghanistan encouraged the division because militant Sunni groups were the heart of the resistance. The real divisions may be small, but religious conflict has always been a surrogate for something else. In Ireland it divided native Irish from Protestant settlers and kept the two at one another's throats. In Egypt, the British manipulated Copts against Muslims, Christian Greeks against Muslim Turks in Cyprus. As the Irish found out to their woe, small differences, if linked to a wider policy, can turn esoteric matters of theology into a life and death matter. 'These fires, once lit, can destroy forms of co-existence that have existed for centuries,' points out Halliday.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
on absolute right to self-determination, and Kashmir (mukherji):
To sum up, the right of self-determination cannot be withheld even if (a) some sections of the population do not desire it anymore, typically out of duress, (b) the people in the relevant region are divided, and (c) the character of resistance to external rule is questionable. We recall that the British used each of these to postpone independence until the circumstances arising out of the second war and liberation of people around the globe forced the British to leave India.
(...) [problems with the MORI poll] The part of MORI results which has drawn world-wide attention, and flagged repeatedly by Raina, suggests that 61 per cent feel that they would be better off politically and economically as Indian citizens, and only 6 per cent feel that they would be so as Pakistani citizens. Raina comments: ‘by no stretch of the imagination then can it be argued that the overwhelming sentiment in the state of Jammu & Kashmir is for “sovereign, secular, independence.” ‘However much as these findings might shock some knowledgeable peddlers of the “Kashmir Question,”’ Raina continues, ‘those are the facts.’ Praful Bidwai (‘Wanted: policy, not hubris’, Frontline, July 6, 2002) points out two related problems with the results. First, ‘the overwhelming majority of those who would prefer to be Indian citizens belong to Jammu and Ladakh, not to the Valley. The "don't know" answers to the question are concentrated in Srinagar.’ To elaborate, whereas 99 per cent of respondents in Jammu and 100 per cent in Leh felt they would be better off as Indian citizens, 78 per cent of those in Srinagar said they did not know while 9 per cent felt they would be better off as Indian citizens and 13 per cent as Pakistani citizens.’ Bidwai explains: ‘the 78 per cent "don't knows" clearly include a large number who subscribe to azadi or that version of it which equals autonomy or independence from India, but who reject merger with Pakistan. Given that the core Kashmir problem is about the Valley, this is a sobering thought.’
(...) According to the later poll, 36.2% Kashmiris in the Valley and Rajouri (equally muslim dominated) prefer the India option. This enabled Raina to conclude from articulated opinion that ‘by no stretch of the imagination then can it be argued that the overwhelming sentiment in the state of Jammu & Kashmir is for “sovereign, secular, independence.”’ Setting aside the algebraic issue of whether the remaining 63.8% represent ‘overwhelming sentiment’, recall the historical feature of (a) that, as time flows and the prospects of attaining basic rights recede, people are likely to resign to less desirable options in the absence of organized democratic struggle.
(...) It is interesting that Raina barely touches the fundamental issue of self-determination, and restricts his discussion only to what he considers to be hurdles in ‘granting’ independence to the people in the valley. Again, the message is ill-concealed. If independence is not admissible in the first place, people in the valley lose the right to exercise this option. Once they lose the right to exercise a specific option, the general right to exercise any option loses meaning. Hence, the people in the valley do not (really) have the right of self-determination. As a result, Raina holds that ‘the right to secession,’ which was ‘at one time a part of the theoretical repertoire of the undivided Left in India’ needs to be revised by the division of the current left to which Raina belongs. In the revised picture, basic rights of the people are viewed by Raina as ‘nothing but another form of Idealism,’ ‘a thin ground’ for ‘granting secession’. So, what was viewed as the basic right of people by the ‘undivided Left’ turns out to be dispensable rhetoric for that strand of the current left which views the stakes for the Indian state as higher than the rights of people.
[note: response to this article]
To sum up, the right of self-determination cannot be withheld even if (a) some sections of the population do not desire it anymore, typically out of duress, (b) the people in the relevant region are divided, and (c) the character of resistance to external rule is questionable. We recall that the British used each of these to postpone independence until the circumstances arising out of the second war and liberation of people around the globe forced the British to leave India.
(...) [problems with the MORI poll] The part of MORI results which has drawn world-wide attention, and flagged repeatedly by Raina, suggests that 61 per cent feel that they would be better off politically and economically as Indian citizens, and only 6 per cent feel that they would be so as Pakistani citizens. Raina comments: ‘by no stretch of the imagination then can it be argued that the overwhelming sentiment in the state of Jammu & Kashmir is for “sovereign, secular, independence.” ‘However much as these findings might shock some knowledgeable peddlers of the “Kashmir Question,”’ Raina continues, ‘those are the facts.’ Praful Bidwai (‘Wanted: policy, not hubris’, Frontline, July 6, 2002) points out two related problems with the results. First, ‘the overwhelming majority of those who would prefer to be Indian citizens belong to Jammu and Ladakh, not to the Valley. The "don't know" answers to the question are concentrated in Srinagar.’ To elaborate, whereas 99 per cent of respondents in Jammu and 100 per cent in Leh felt they would be better off as Indian citizens, 78 per cent of those in Srinagar said they did not know while 9 per cent felt they would be better off as Indian citizens and 13 per cent as Pakistani citizens.’ Bidwai explains: ‘the 78 per cent "don't knows" clearly include a large number who subscribe to azadi or that version of it which equals autonomy or independence from India, but who reject merger with Pakistan. Given that the core Kashmir problem is about the Valley, this is a sobering thought.’
(...) According to the later poll, 36.2% Kashmiris in the Valley and Rajouri (equally muslim dominated) prefer the India option. This enabled Raina to conclude from articulated opinion that ‘by no stretch of the imagination then can it be argued that the overwhelming sentiment in the state of Jammu & Kashmir is for “sovereign, secular, independence.”’ Setting aside the algebraic issue of whether the remaining 63.8% represent ‘overwhelming sentiment’, recall the historical feature of (a) that, as time flows and the prospects of attaining basic rights recede, people are likely to resign to less desirable options in the absence of organized democratic struggle.
(...) It is interesting that Raina barely touches the fundamental issue of self-determination, and restricts his discussion only to what he considers to be hurdles in ‘granting’ independence to the people in the valley. Again, the message is ill-concealed. If independence is not admissible in the first place, people in the valley lose the right to exercise this option. Once they lose the right to exercise a specific option, the general right to exercise any option loses meaning. Hence, the people in the valley do not (really) have the right of self-determination. As a result, Raina holds that ‘the right to secession,’ which was ‘at one time a part of the theoretical repertoire of the undivided Left in India’ needs to be revised by the division of the current left to which Raina belongs. In the revised picture, basic rights of the people are viewed by Raina as ‘nothing but another form of Idealism,’ ‘a thin ground’ for ‘granting secession’. So, what was viewed as the basic right of people by the ‘undivided Left’ turns out to be dispensable rhetoric for that strand of the current left which views the stakes for the Indian state as higher than the rights of people.
[note: response to this article]
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