Prayers for Gaza

January 8, 2009 at 5:02 pm (Literary)
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No more tears left

My eyes are dry

As I watch the news unfold

The heartache is unbearable

 

It’s slaughter in Gaza

Fire, death everywhere

 

UN is meeting

Around the table they all sit

With food, water, light

The room is warm

 

But no water, food, light or heat

For the people of Gaza

Nothing for Gaza

The UN is meeting.

 

How many days, months, years

Have they lived

Without basic human dignity

But the UN is still talking

 

How many men, women and children will die

Before the UN does something

So many deaths, so much destruction

Crying, screaming, sobbing

 

UN does not hear you Gaza

UN is in meeting

But you’re in my prayers Gaza

May God be with you.

 

By Archana Tripathi, (UK)

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Gaza in Perspective

January 2, 2009 at 11:02 am (Comments)
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Deepak Tripathi

The bombing of the Gaza Strip has predictably been justified by Israel and the United States as self-defense by a country under attack from a ‘terrorist’ organization. Claims of ’surgical air attacks’ against ‘carefully selected targets’, to minimize civilian casualties, are repeated by Israeli politicians and government spokesmen in their daily encounters with the world media. In Jerusalem, as in Washington, the blame for the plight of Palestinians is placed entirely on Hamas, which rules the territory.

A little perspective is needed to understand what is really happening in Gaza. Roughly 400 Palestinians were killed and as many as 2000 injured in the first five days of Israeli bombing until December 31, 2008. These casualties include children and young students, civilian officials and local policemen. The Gaza Strip is a small territory, about 140 square miles in area and a population of 1.5 million, making it one of the most densely populated places in the world. Israel, on the other hand, is a country of seven million people.

The scale of bloodshed in Gaza over five days is the same as if almost 2000 Israelis had been killed and 9000 wounded in the same period. Imagine the consequences for Israel in such an event. It begins to explain what the people of Gaza have already endured. And their horror is still not over. In contrast, the actual number of Israeli deaths by Hamas rockets fired randomly towards Israel recently is four.

Not only have Hamas security complexes and government buildings been hit. Mosques, schools, University buildings and civilian homes lie in ruins. Hospitals have been overwhelmed and shortages of medical supplies and food are making the situation increasingly desperate. Underground tunnels to Egypt, used to transport essential supplies as well as weapons and explosives, have been destroyed. Despite all this, the leader of Israel’s Kadima Party, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, says the country has ‘no alternative’ but to carry on. 

The Israeli offensive was launched soon after the end of a six-month ‘ceasefire’ with Hamas. In reality, no such ceasefire ever existed, because the continuing Israeli siege of Gaza amounts to an act of war. Richard Falk, the United Nations special rapporteur, has described the Israeli air attacks on the territory as ’severe and massive violations of international law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an occupying power and in the requirements of the laws of war’. According to Professor Falk, Israel is guilty of inflicting collective punishment on the entire population of Gaza, of targeting civilians and of using disproportionate force, killing civilians and destroying the administrative infrastructure in the territory.

Certainly the Hamas rocket attacks against civilian targets in Israel are unlawful, he says. But that illegality does not give rise to any Israeli right to violate international humanitarian law and commit war crimes or crimes against humanity in response.

The above article was published in the Palestine Chronicle on January 1, 2009.

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Obama’s Afghan Surge

December 30, 2008 at 5:51 pm (Articles)
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Deepak Tripathi

Nearly thirty years after the Cold War exploded into full-scale conflict in Afghanistan, the incoming president, Barack Obama, is about to embark on yet another stage in America’s involvement in that country. In short hand, it is described as Obama’s ‘Afghan surge’. If a recent report in the New York Times is anything to go by, the ‘Afghan surge’ would be remarkably similar to the ’surge’ of 2007 in Iraq under President George W Bush.[1]

The ‘Iraqi surge’ was an attempt to subdue the rapidly escalating cycle of violence in the capital, Baghdad, and Anbar Province covering much of western Iraq. The buildup involved the deployment of thirty thousand extra US troops as part of ‘The New Way Forward’ announced by Bush in January 2007. Barely six weeks before, the Washington Post had disclosed a US intelligence report admitting that ‘the social and political situation has deteriorated to a point’ that American and Iraqi troops ‘are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency’ in Anbar.[2] From village to provincial levels, nearly all government institutions had collapsed. Summarizing the assessment, one American military officer said, “We have been defeated politically – and that’s where wars are won and lost.”  

Today, the situation in much of Afghanistan and Pakistan is grim and reaches beyond the borders of Pakistan. Militants launch audacious attacks from their bases on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan frontier. Events in recent months have demonstrated that Kabul, Islamabad, Delhi or Mumbai – no major city in the region is safe. Violence in the countryside in Afghanistan and Pakistan goes on largely unnoticed, unless it involves foreign forces.

I referred to similarities between the ‘Iraqi surge’ and the ‘Afghan surge’ earlier. American and British media report that as many as thirty thousand extra troops are to be deployed on the Afghan front by summer 2009. According to the New York Times, preparations are underway ‘to arm local militias to help in the fight against a resurgent Taleban’ in Afghanistan. The government of Pakistan is unlikely to give its official consent to the arming of militias inside its territory. There are several reasons. Contrary to popular belief  in the West, the Taleban are not a homogeneous group, but a loose network bound by a certain interpretation of Islam. The Taleban of Pakistan are firmly embedded in Pakistani society, where the culture of weapons is all pervasive.  

Relations between Islamabad and Washington, and Islamabad and Delhi, have suffered a sharp deterioration. The perception is strong in the ruling establishment of Pakistan that America has switched its support to India. Three main factors are responsible for this change in US policy: Pakistan’s failure to contain the militant groups in its territory, the decision by the Bush administration after 9/11 to invest so heavily in General Pervez Musharraf, then military ruler of Pakistan, and America’s growing economic and military ties with India.

The shift in American policy towards India is likely to continue during the Obama presidency. It means a break in Washington’s strategic alliance with Islamabad going back to the 1950s as part of the policy of containment of the Soviet Union. One of America’s long-term aims now is to counter the growing power of China. But the military-political establishment of Pakistan will see it as encirclement of the country while the occupation forces remain in Afghanistan to the west and US ties grow with India to the east. There is also a perception in Pakistan that the country does rather better under military dictators as an ally of the United States than under a fledgling democracy.

What more does the ‘Afghan surge’ indicate beyond introducing as many as thirty thousand additional troops and recruiting militias to fight the Taleban? In the case of Iraq, most of the extra US soldiers were deployed in Baghdad with the stated aim of improving security in the capital. The tour of duty of several thousand troops already in Baghdad was extended. Many were deployed in Anbar Province, which had suffered some of the worst violence. A report by the Senlis Council think-tank in November 2007 estimated that more than half of Afghanistan had fallen back under Taleban control.

If anything, the situation worsened in 2008. Anti-government forces, enriched by the illicit profits from Afghanistan’s poppy harvest, set up de facto administration in large areas of the Pashtun belt in the south and the east. Insurgents penetrated the security ring around the capital, Kabul. Attacks on government and foreign targets were launched with increasing frequency – the most audacious of them on the Indian embassy in July 2008.

As part of the ‘Afghan surge’, many of the additional US troops are likely to be deployed around the capital, Kabul, as they were in Baghdad in 2007. The need to protect the American and allied embassies, diplomats, Afghan ministries and officials is paramount. Offices of many non-governmental organizations are located in Kabul. It is vital to project Kabul’s image as a secure and stable seat of government – image that has suffered as the situation has steadily worsened. The International (Green) Zone in Baghdad would serve as the model where occupation forces and Iraqi government are concentrated. Surrounded by blast-proof walls, barbed wire-fences and a few checkpoints to control entry, it is in effect a mini-city inside the Iraqi capital. In contrast, Kabul is a sprawling, chaotic town and fortification of a similar kind would be more difficult.

The other side of Obama’s ‘Afghan surge’ is to recruit local militias to fight the Taleban. As the New York Times says, this has raised fears that ‘the new armed groups could push the country into a deeper bloodletting’. Shi’a and other minorities are already concerned over the prospect of new Sunni militias roaming parts of Afghanistan, supposedly to fight the Taleban. Once again, the plan originates from Iraq. US officials say their decision to recruit a hundred thousand Sunni tribesmen, many of them ex-rebel fighters, under the umbrella of Awakening Councils was responsible for the ’steep reduction’ in violence. The logic is that what worked in one country would also work in the other.

In truth, it is too early to claim success in Iraq. American casualties have declined after the handover of security to the Iraqis. But acts of bombing, shooting, abduction and extortion continue almost every day. Under American pressure, the Shi’a-dominated government in Baghdad took over the responsibility of paying salaries to the Awakening Council militias. But the government remains opposed to assimilating more than a small proportion of them into the regular armed forces. The Shi’a majority of Iraq, together with Iran, will view the Sunni militias as a proxy of Saudi Arabia. The militiamen see an uncertain future for themselves as the occupation forces draw down and Obama turns his attention to Afghanistan. 

We have seen it all before. Following the 1978 Communist coup by a group of army officers in Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter ordered secret aid to the Mujahideen in that country. Encouraged by the American Central Intelligence Agency and its close ally, Pakistan, Mujahideen guerrillas increased pressure on the Communist regime. The Soviet leadership panicked. It invaded Afghanistan to maintain control of a country it regarded as within its sphere of influence. From 1980 on, President Ronald Reagan, Carter’s successor, armed and financed more than eighty thousand guerrillas to fight America’s proxy war against the Soviet Union.

For almost two decades, the ‘official version’ of history, promoted from Washington, had suggested that America’s military aid to the Mujahideen came after the Soviet invasion of a poor, helpless country. The truth was rather more complex. In 1996, the CIA’s former director, Robert Gates, revealed that the Carter administration had begun to look at ways of providing covert assistance to the anti-Communist forces soon after the 1978 coup in Afghanistan.[3] And in July 1979, nearly six months before the Soviets invaded, Carter issued a directive authorizing secret aid to the Mujahideen.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security adviser, spoke in public about the matter for the first time in 1998.[4] He confirmed that Carter did issue the order that started the secret aid program for the Mujahideen. Brzezinski also revealed that he told Carter the American action was ‘going to induce a Soviet military intervention’ in Afghanistan. Brzezinski described it as ‘an excellent idea’, because it had the effect of drawing the Soviet Union into ‘the Afghan trap’. On the day the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Brzezinski said, he wrote to the president that the United States now had ‘the opportunity to give the USSR its Vietnam War’.

In 1989, the Soviet occupation forces retreated from Afghanistan, just as the United States had done from Vietnam in 1975. The Soviet Union paid the ultimate price – its own demise – barely three years later. The Communist regime in Afghanistan collapsed a few months after the Soviet state had disintegrated, like the fall of America’s client regime in South Vietnam more than fifteen years before. The Mujahideen march into Kabul was greeted with delight in Washington. And the United States moved on to new priorities. They were to manage the disintegration of the Soviet state and its nuclear arsenal, to oversee the expansion of the free-market system abroad and to help its own economy.

Afghan factions had been supplied with weapons, money and copies of the Qur’an by President Reagan’s CIA chief, William Casey, in the 1980s.[5] In the ruins of war, they were left to fight it out in the 1990s. The civil war gave rise to the Taleban and Afghanistan became a sanctuary for Al-Qaeda. Now, after eight years of failed war in Afghanistan under the Bush presidency, comes the latest twist. President Obama’s ‘Afghan surge’ will not only involve extra American troops to defend Kabul and other strategic points; it will include the hiring and arming of pro-US local militias to fight the Taleban in the countryside. And, according to a recent report in the Washington Post, the CIA has begun to supply the sex-enhancing drug, Viagra, to Afghan chiefs to gain information about Taleban activities.[6]

In the Cold War, the CIA handed out money, weapons and copies of the Qur’an to Islamic groups to fight against Soviet communism. Twenty years on, the agency has added Viagra to its list of temptations to lure Afghans in the US war against fundamentalist Islam, which the Taleban and Al-Qaeda represent.

 The above article originally appeared in the Media Monitors Network on December 28, 2008.

[1] New York Times, December 23, 2008.

[2] Washington Post, November 28, 2006. 

[3] Robert Gates, a career CIA officer, served as the agency’s Director between 1991 and 1993. See his memoirs, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), pp 143-149. Gates became secretary of defense in the Bush administration in 2006. President Obama decided to keep him in the post.  

[4] Brzezinski interview, ‘The CIA’s Intervention in Afghanistan’ (Paris: Le Nouvel Observateur, January 15-21, 1998, English version posted on October 15, 2001 by the Centre for Research on Globalization, Shanty Bay, Canada, on www.globalresearch.ca).    

[5] See, for example, Chalmers Johnson, ‘Are We to Blame for Afghanistan?’ (History News Network, George Mason University, Virginia, November 22, 2004).

[6] Joby Warrick, ‘Little Blue Pills Among the Ways CIA Wins Friends in Afghanistan’ (Washington Post, December 26, 2008, A01).

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India’s neoliberal elite

December 19, 2008 at 8:20 am (Comments)

Deepak Tripathi

Tragedy and trauma magnify a nation’s awareness or lack thereof. The events surrounding the Mumbai carnage have revealed certain aspects of India’s collective psyche that provide food for thought and perhaps a lesson to learn.

The country had already suffered a wave of mindless bombings and targeted attacks on Muslim and Christian minorities recently. That the killings in Mumbai by Muslim gunmen, whose victims included dozens of fellow Muslims, did not lead to further retribution was an achievement. So weary was the country of the possibility of another disastrous turn of events.   

On Indian television channels, though, there was plenty of heat and theater in debates. Voices of reason appeared to drown in high-pitched rhetoric from a handful of guests – socialites and self-styled commentators. They were in competition for space with politicians, academics and journalists of the more established ranks. Ex-model, now socialite and author, Shobha De, described as India’s answer to Jackie Collins, known for her erotic novels, lambasted politicians for ‘failures’ that led to the bloodbath. “Enough is enough,” she screamed. India’s leading English news channel, NDTV, responded by naming an entire episode ‘Enough is Enough’. Participants had a field day attacking the government and politicians in general. Those who begged that the fiery rhetoric be toned down had little chance of succeeding until the heat was exhausted.

There were loud calls to teach Pakistan a lesson. The Mumbai attack was described as ‘India’s 9/11′. Participants demanded that India launch military raids inside Pakistan to destroy militant bases – rather like America using pilotless aircraft that regularly kill many more innocent civilians than militants. Simi Garewal, a movie actress in the 1960s and 1970s, later to host her own talk show, was not going to be left behind. Look at how America retaliated after September 11, 2001, she argued, and no one has dared to harm it since. Even more grotesque was praise for Israel’s behavior from a guest.

A recent discussion program on ‘Hindu terror’ turned to the possibility of Hindu fundamentalism affecting some in the Indian armed forces. The issue was how the military can remain unaffected by a phenomenon that exists in the wider society. When a US-educated academic of Indian descent tried to speak, he was abruptly told by a participant that there would not be a word said against the army.

As I have said before, these comments came from a small group of India’s neoliberal elite – smart, well-spoken and aggressive. These neoliberals undoubtedly love their country. But their worldview is as misinformed as their remedies are perilous. They boast of India’s military might, but fail to understand that Pakistan, like India, also has nuclear weapons. Before both countries became nuclear powers, India’s bigger armed forces meant the balance of power was in its favor. However, with nuclear deterrence, Pakistan is now equal to India. A basic knowledge of the doctrine of ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ would be enough to counter the foolish proposition of war on Pakistan.

Equally careless and dangerous were claims about the American retaliation against Afghanistan and the illegal invasion of Iraq, which, it was said, had prevented further attacks on the United States. Such claims are little more than regurgitated rhetoric of George W Bush to begin with. The facts tell a very different story. Terrorist attacks on US mainland are neither frequent, nor have they always originated from outside. Before September 11, 2001, the previous attack by external forces on American mainland was the car bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Two years later, a homegrown American bomber, Timothy McVeigh, devastated a large government building in Oklahoma City, killing about 170 people and wounding more than 850 others.

The 9/11 attacks came six years after the Oklahoma City bombing by McVeigh and one hopes nothing like it happens again. Meanwhile, five thousand American soldiers have died and tens of thousands have been injured and traumatized in Afghanistan and Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis have perished. Millions have been made homeless and displaced. Many have been abducted, tortured and thrown into notorious prisons like Guantanamo. The hatred for the Bush administration is widespread. From the Palestinian Territories through Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Afghanistan to Pakistan, India and elsewhere – the overall balance sheet of George W Bush is deeply in the red, even without considering the world economic slump.

Heaping praise on Israel’s conduct from the television studios of Bombay and Delhi has no relation with realities in the Middle East. Despite its huge military superiority and brutal tactics, Israel has failed to tame the Palestinian rebellion. One-and-a-half million Palestinians in Gaza, two-thirds of them registered with the United Nations as refugees, live in desperate conditions, under an Israeli blockade. A growing number of Israelis are alarmed at their government’s tactics and the deteriorating situation all around their country.

Israel’s military superiority is maintained by more than three billion dollars of American money every year. The nuclear weapons which Israel first developed in the late 1960s may have deterred its Arab enemies in the 1973 war and afterwards. Today, Israel faces a different threat. It comes from the mass of alienated humanity encircling Israel that nuclear weapons cannot counter. A country of Israel’s size, in the midst of Arab neighbors, cannot use weapons of mass destruction without grave consequences for itself.

All of which tells us that members of the relatively small westernized, but ill-informed, neoliberal elite of India would benefit from the reserve of morality and wisdom the country has accumulated over its long history. The lesson to learn is that thoughtless talk, without consideration for the consequences, is dangerous.

The above commentary appeared in Online Journal on December 18 and on ZNet on December 20, 2008.

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Obama’s Foreign Crises

December 1, 2008 at 9:14 pm (Articles)
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Deepak Tripathi

The carnage in Mumbai by young, well trained gunmen is the latest chapter in the world’s most complex web of problems today. Not only is it bound to have new consequences, it also throws up fresh challenges for all concerned, not least for America’s President-elect, Barak Obama.

When a bloodbath in India’s main commercial center is played out on television screens across the world, people who have witnessed events in New York and Washington, London and Madrid, Islamabad and Bali immediately connect with a rapidly escalating phenomenon. India is no stranger to terror. Still, it has suffered a huge shock. The Indian economy, already caught up in a global recession, is bound to feel the impact. Tourism and investor confidence may suffer, at least in the short term. The political fallout may go beyond the resignation of the Home Minister, Shivraj Patil. The country faces a general election in May 2009. The governing coalition led by the Congress Party is under heavy criticism from the Hindu nationalists, as well as the population in general.

We have seen instances of backlash against Muslims in the United States and Europe after 9/11. The Indian authorities will be mindful of this possibility in their own country. Violence against India’s Muslim and Christian minorities has been on the increase recently. The authorities have come under criticism for failure to protect them, too. Fortunately, Islam has deep roots in India and the 150 million or so Indian Muslims were all born and brought up in a secular country. This does not, however, guarantee harmony between India’s diverse communities. Opposition among Muslims against Indian rule in Kashmir, divided between India and Pakistan, has been a serious problem for the central government. Harsh measures by India’s security forces to suppress the militancy fuel the popular discontent even more.

As investigations continue into the massacre, there are accusations and counter-accusations within the governing coalition and between the opposition and the government. Relations between India and Pakistan have plunged following claims that the gunmen may have come by sea from Pakistan and belonged to a group based there. The attackers had AK-47 assault rifles that are manufactured in abundance on the western frontier of Pakistan, where Taleban and Al-Qaeda have sanctuaries and training camps. The sustained ruthlessness and cold-blooded determination of the gunmen to kill until the end was a product of a hardened, well-trained frame of mind.

The president-elect of the United states, Barack Obama, had made the economy his number one priority upon taking office on January 20, 2009. With the recent events in India, he faces another big challenge. Claims of improvement in Iraq are no longer enough to reduce America’s engagement in the Middle East, to concentrate on the Afghan theater and rebuilding the US economy.

The truth is that the web of crises spans from Palestine through Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to India and further east. The combination of extreme remedies applied as part of the ‘war on terror’ and neglect of the real issue in the Middle East – the Palestinian crisis – by the outgoing Bush administration has added fuel to the fire. The mistakes have alienated many decent ordinary people. The same old condemnations of ‘uncivilized terrorists’ and perfunctory support for their victims seem increasingly meaningless.

A strong sense of alienation, humiliation and injustice pervades the Middle East and South Asia. When the situation is so volatile, local crises feed each other until they become a catastrophe. The chain of events in recent years illustrates the way in which many problems have become one. One-and-a-half million Palestinians remain cut off in the Gaza Strip, virtually imprisoned without sufficient food, fuel and medicine. More than a million of them are registered as refugees with the United Nations. They rely on humanitarian assistance that cannot be distributed as it should. The blockade of Gaza may be aimed at breaking the will of its people to support Hamas, which won the parliamentary elections for the Palestinian Authority in 2006. But the embargo has had the opposite effect. The conditions in the territory are increasingly desperate and desperate people resort to desperate things. Underground tunnels have been dug in to Egypt to secure access to essential goods. The humanitarian situation demands urgent and extraordinary measures to prevent the one-and-a-half million residents of the territory reaching the point where desperation is beyond containment.

The Palestinian problem is central to the wider crisis in West and South Asia. Its solution requires historic efforts involving America and Russia, as well as regional powers including Syria, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India and China. Obama has repeatedly offered friendship and support to Israel – a political necessity for any successful American politician. The time has come to exercise a restraining influence on the Israelis. The president-elect says he is willing to negotiate with Iran – a country which has a nuclear program. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the United States already conducts discreet negotiations with the Taleban. Israel does the same with Syria. In the light of these overtures, the refusal to hold talks with Hamas does not make sense.

The rest comes after the Palestinian problem. Following prolonged negotiations, the timetable for America’s military withdrawal from Iraq is set. It is to be completed by the end of 2011, provided unforeseen events do not frustrate the plan. For the success in stabilizing both Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran’s cooperation is essential. But the more hawkish the US administration becomes, the less chance there is of securing that vital support. At the same time, cooperation of Syria, another big player in the Middle East, is essential for progress in Lebanon and elsewhere.

The crisis across the triangle that includes Afghanistan, Pakistan and India has both distinct and common aspects. The Taleban are an indigenous tribal movement across the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier and cannot be eliminated. But it is possible to influence them if conditions are right in both countries and Washington shows willingness to listen to regional experts. America has been heavily involved in both Afghanistan and Pakistan for almost three decades. It played a role in the war. Now it needs to play a part in their reconstruction and stabilization, in the interests of all. Last but not least is Kashmir, a territory disputed between India and Pakistan since their independence from Britain in 1947. The prospects of a resolution to this intractable problem could improve with democratic reforms in Pakistan and with America’s engagement with Pakistan’s civilian political establishment instead of military. Reforms are also needed on the Indian side of Kashmir, where a combination of political failures and heavy-handed military tactics over many years has fuelled popular disaffection and strengthened the militants.

The above article appeared in CounterPunch on 1 December 2008.

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Uproar in Police-State Britain

November 28, 2008 at 6:15 pm (Articles)
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Deepak Tripathi

The arrest and interrogation of Damian Green, one of Britain’s leading opposition politicians, by the counter-terrorism police (November 27, 2008) on ’suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office’ is an extraordinary event. Counter-terrorism officers searched his homes and offices in London and his constituency. He was questioned for nine hours and released on bail without charge, but must return next February for further questioning. The police action happened when the world’s attention was focused on the terrorist attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai.

The Conservative Party, the main opposition in the British Parliament that has been leading in opinion polls this year, is furious at the treatment of one of its star performers. In all probability, Green, a former journalist on the London Times, would be a minister if the Conservatives won the next general election. He had raised some uncomfortable questions for the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and his government in the past year. In November 2007, he disclosed that the Home Secretary knew as many as five thousand illegal immigrants had been granted licenses to work by the Security Industry Authority, but decided not to make the information public.

In February this year, Damian Green revealed that an illegal immigrant had been employed as a cleaner in the British Parliament and raised questions over its security implications. Then there was a letter from the Home Secretary warning that a recession could lead to an increase in crime. He confronted the British government at a time when public concern over crime was rising. The Home Office later admitted that serious crime had been underestimated in official statistics. Green further made public the existence of a list of Labour MPs who could rebel against their own government’s draft legislation to extend the period of detention without charge to 42 days.

As I have already mentioned, the arrest and interrogation of Damian Green came on ’suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office’. This seems to be related to information passed on to him by a whistleblower in the Home Office – an official who saw government wrongdoing and brought it to the attention of a leading opposition MP. The episode has fuelled worries over the loosely-worded anti-terror laws pushed after 9/11 by Tony Blair, the previous prime minister, and their misuse to suppress information likely to embarrass the government.

A number of senior political figures were informed about the Conservative shadow minister’s arrest shortly before it happened. Among them were the Conservative leader David Cameron, the London Mayor who is responsible for running the Metropolitan Police Force and the Speaker of the British House of Commons. The Home Secretary and others in the government have flatly denied prior knowledge of the arrest. However, an ex-Home Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, says he cannot believe that ministers did not know in advance what was about to happen. 

Reports and comments on how a prominent politician has been treated under anti-terror laws are all over the British press today. The London Mayor expressed his ‘trenchant concerns’ when told of the impending arrest. David Davies, former shadow home secretary who resigned in protest at the threat to civil liberties earlier this year, has called the situation ‘reminiscent to Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe’. The Conservative leader David Cameron has described the action as ‘Stalinesque’ and said the ministers have some serious questions to answer. “If the police wanted answers from him, why did they not pick up the phone,” Cameron asked.

The timing and possible motives of what has happened are worth considering.

Politicians, especially those in power, are very good at engaging in questionable acts when there are bigger events taking place elsewhere. Damian Green’s arrest and interrogation happened when the British public was focused on the terrorist attacks in India – attacks in which there had been hundreds of casualties, including British. There were already numerous examples where anti-terror laws had been used against people who had nothing to do with terror. Journalists and researchers are under unprecedented pressure. Academics at British universities have all but surrendered to the shifting and arbitrary interpretations by the authorities of the meaning and causes of terrorism, to save their careers and to ensure funding for their projects. The picture is bleak. It shows that when governments are able to seize too much power, they abuse it to the detriment of citizens.  

Was the arrest of one of Britain’s leading politicians, possibly a future minister, aimed at sending a message to lesser people in the country to close their eyes, ears and mouths? The good news is that criticism of the police action has been swift, widespread and strong and has only begun. As a front-bench member of the British Parliament, Damian Green has ‘parliamentary privileges’ which would be hard to challenge. His actions are in the public interest. For this reason alone, the government would be foolish to prosecute him in court. Green says it is his job as an opposition politician to hold the government to account and he has every intention of continuing to do so. 

The above article appeared in CounterPunch, November 28-30, 2008.

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On A Revolution to Remember

November 14, 2008 at 11:51 pm (Comments)
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Deepak Tripathi

With the victory of Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, America has undergone a revolution. I say this not only for its symbolism, undeniable though it is. The entry of a black man into the White House is a powerful symbol – something that has taken nearly two-and-a-half centuries since the American revolution of 1776 and almost a-hundred-and-fifty years since slavery was abolished under the presidency of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Progress of this magnitude is the end result of a monumental struggle, often by people whose names will not receive the limelight they deserve.

A revolution must go beyond such boundaries. It must be a wider response to critical problems in society, an acknowledgement by the masses that things have got to change, or there will be a greater calamity. Above all, a revolution is not a coup d’état which involves seizure of power by a small group of people. It is a wider phenomenon that happens when the time has come. The 2008 election in America reflects all of this and much more. The last eight years of the presidency of George W Bush illustrate what damage can be done when the world’s most powerful nation goes rogue, squandering its capacity to do good.

I belong to a generation born just after the Second World War. As someone who has lived and worked in America, travelled from coast to coast and one who has kept a keen eye on its politics, my interest in the country is abiding. With sadness, I say that I cannot recall a more repressive period in America’s domestic and foreign affairs in my lifetime than the era that will soon be behind us. It may sound uncomfortable to some, but the facts speak aloud.

At home, a mismanaged economy, driven down by hugely expensive foreign wars, crushing the middle-class America. The numbers of Americans struggling to stay above the poverty line are growing. In real terms, their plight invites comparisons with the basket cases in the Third World: lack of food, nourishment, health care, education and job opportunities, security. Abroad, profound alienation from the United States, caused by the use of devastating military power by America and discredited client regimes. The scale of this repression has affected the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Such behavior loses friends and inflames armed opposition, leading to stronger retaliation. And the cycle goes on. The importance of prudence in the employment of power has never been greater.

The ‘war on terror’, the project of the Bush presidency, has often made me think about something said by Mahatma Gandhi, who inspired leaders like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless,” Gandhi said, “whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?” Those who associate revolutions with the old-fashioned armed struggle in Russia or China in the first half of the 20th century actually miss the point.

A revolution is not necessarily a violent event. It is a definite and an overwhelming response against the existing order by people who feel they have had enough. This is what happened in America in 1776 – independence from Britain that Americans celebrate on July 4 every year. The abolition of slavery in 1865 was also a revolutionary event. So was the introduction of civil rights laws in the 1960s. In Europe, a number of Soviet bloc countries underwent ‘velvet revolutions’ peacefully in the 1980s and 1990s.

The scenes all across America on November 4, 2008 were part of a phenomenon of profound magnitude. The turnout of over a-hundred-and-twenty million people was unprecedented. An ocean of humanity pouring out, determined to vote, will be remembered for a long time. The margin of popular votes for Barack Obama was 52-46 percent – less than some recent opinion surveys had predicted, but substantial. Obama’s majority in the Electoral College, which actually elects the president, was 2-1. And the Democrats strengthened their hold by sizeable margins in both chambers of the US Congress. The verdict was overwhelming.

Writing in Time magazine, Nancy Gibbs made the point that this victory was not achieved because of the color of Obama’s skin, nor in spite of it. “He won because at a very dangerous moment in the life of a still young country,” she said, “more people than have ever spoken before came together to try to save it.” Her comments are all-encompassing. They tell the story of a superpower falling on hard times, nearly twenty years after it had defeated the Soviet Union in the Cold War and thought the capitalist system had won for good.

The scale of the Democratic victory in the 2008 election is a truly revolutionary event. But in the euphoria that prevails in America and, in many cases, beyond its shores, it would be prudent to introduce a note of caution. I know of no revolution fulfilling all that it promised. Americans have given their final verdict on the neo-conservative order of the last eight years. It was an order which promoted a deregulated, free-for-all, corporate system and severe state controls on ordinary citizens at home and thoughtless militarism abroad; a form of state capitalism that made the Bush-Cheney administration the most unpopular in US history. As a result, the economy is in turmoil, there is a crisis of faith in America and the country has suffered a loss of friendship and goodwill in the world.

The initial phase of the revolution is over. The old order has been rejected and the arduous task of fixing the broken system lies ahead. America has a total debt of ten trillion dollars. Its budget deficit is likely to be more than 750 billion dollars when Obama takes over as president on January 20, 2009. As the recession deepens, hundreds of thousands of Americans are losing their jobs every month, while Europe and the rest of the world are dragged down. The Bush administration had chosen to fight three wars – in Afghanistan, Iraq and a global ‘war on terror’. Dealing with these wars in the short run with a view to ending them eventually, hopefully before too long, is going to be a mammoth job. Fractured relationships abroad have to be rebuilt and engagement with international organizations must be revived. The most profound lesson of unilateralism of recent years is that the loss of international support for America weakens its leadership and makes it less effective in the world.

The most urgent task is economic revival, beginning with the restoration of the financial system. In the longer term, an enlightened approach to medical care, security and social welfare will be required to ensure the renaissance promised by the president America has just elected. The number of people incarcerated in American prisons exceeds two million. At least five million more are on probation or parole – the vast majority of them from black and other ethnic minority groups. China, with four times the population of the United States, has fewer inmates in jail – around one-and-a-half million.

What is the total cost of all this and can anything be done? Consider the failure of the justice system which relies heavily on plea bargaining to secure convictions. The system convicts some of the most disadvantaged citizens, with little or no chance of proper legal representation. Consider, too, the lax gun laws and the violent incidents that lead to avoidable deaths and injuries and massive hospital bills. Two-thirds of Americans with insufficient medical cover or none at all. How many of the sick and the incarcerated die prematurely or spend their long years in prison, failing to contribute their best to America? These issues must be taken seriously in Washington. For without it, America is a failing state.

The above commentary appeared in the History News Network (George Mason University, Virginia) on November 8, 2008.

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Post-Bush Scenarios

October 26, 2008 at 3:45 pm (Comments)
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Deepak Tripathi

After war comes peace. With peace must come justice, or it will be meaningless. It is one of the most enduring lessons of history.

With the end of the Bush presidency in sight and the desire for change strong, the next president’s inauguration on January 20, 2009 will be a turning-point. George W. Bush will retreat from the White House into retirement, leaving America exhausted, confused and polarized after eight years of foreign wars and domestic crises. His legacy will pass on to his successor. The conduct of the Bush administration has affected the lives of numerous people at home and abroad. As we approach something new and historic, a number of scenarios come to mind. The future not only depends on who will succeed Bush – John McCain, the old warrior, or Barack Obama, who increasingly looks like a renaissance man in the 21st century. It also depends on the nature of events to follow. They could force the hand of the incoming president.

Energy and the economy have become the main concerns in America and around the world. Seven years on, Americans, in growing numbers, have turned against the ideologues who manipulated fear to advance their own expansionist ambition. Americans want the next president to concentrate on rebuilding the economy and improving their lives. They remain conscious of the terrorist threat. But they are no longer willing to support foreign wars at great cost.

The Bush-Cheney administration has tormented hundreds of millions of innocent people around the world in the ‘war on terror’, although Afghans and Iraqis have borne the brunt. An unsettling realization has been building up among Americans of the extreme hardships and strong resentment this has caused abroad. It is time to make peace with the alienated and try to recover at least some of the wasted capital of sympathy the United States had earned immediately after the 9/11 attacks.

I am reminded at this point of something said by Mahatma Gandhi, who inspired the American civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela of South Africa, among others. “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless,” Gandhi asked, “whether mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?” The Bush administration’s wars are an expression of a mindset seriously infected with arrogance, reckless ambition and a passion for warfare, even against its own people.

What if, therefore, the next administration decided in favor of a rapid military withdrawal from Iraq to concentrate on the task of economic recovery? Iraq was invaded on a false pretext and against the advice of the U.N. weapons inspectors. Kofi Annan, then U.N. secretary-general, said the invasion was illegal. But a hasty retreat would be fatal, whether it was triggered by the new American president’s desire to cut the losses or because the Iraqi government told the U.S. occupation forces to leave. A swift withdrawal would leave the present Iraqi regime more vulnerable and it might not survive. The Iraqi regime is dominated by the Shi’a majority. Its relations with Iran are close – contrary to the original U.S. designs for the oil-rich Middle East. If the Iraqi regime found itself in imminent danger, it would become even more dependent on Tehran.

The creation by the United States of a-hundred-thousand-strong Sunni militia, described as the Awakening Council movement, evokes memories of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, armed and financed by the CIA in the war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Until recently, many of these Sunni tribesmen belonged to Al-Qaeda. But they were lured with money and weapons by the Americans around 2006. In October 2008, America transferred the responsibility of paying their salaries to the Shi’a-dominated Iraqi regime, which has strongly resisted pressure to incorporate them in the armed forces. If the militiamen were not paid in future, with or without the occupation forces being there in Iraq, they could change their uniform. They could just as easily turn against America and its allies as the Mujahideen did in Afghanistan at the end of the Cold War in 1991. The risks of what the Bush administration has done for short-term gains are huge.

The conflict in Iraq and the broader ‘war on terror’ have added great uncertainty in the region. They have contributed to the energy crisis and the worldwide economic slump. If the internal conflict in Iraq escalated again, the consequences would be catastrophic. The Iraqi state structure would be threatened. The military and the police, already fragile, would find that they are no match to a rebellious Awakening Council and other armed groups.

Extreme caution would therefore be required on the part of the incoming administration in Washington. A sudden, rapid withdrawal would involve great risks. So would the insistence on maintaining the U.S. military presence ‘for a hundred years’, as John McCain said. It is obvious that the Iraqis do not want U.S. troops. And the American economy cannot bear the drain caused by foreign military adventures. Withdrawal has to come, but the timing is of the essence. The next president must avoid a repeat of the 1990s Afghan scenario, total lawlessness and the rise of the Taleban, in Iraq.

We will have to wait and see whether the new president can show a capacity to relax a little and not be so obsessed with having client regimes everywhere. The persistent stubbornness of President Bush to reshape Afghanistan and Iraq in his own vision has been like pouring oil to fire. A perilous consequence of the Iraq war has been the neglect of Afghanistan. Seven years after the Taleban were removed from power, Kabul and other towns are under siege. It is a reminder of the period when Afghanistan was under Soviet occupation and Mujahideen guerrillas encircled the main population centers. The present conflict has spread throughout Pakistan and spilled over into India. Western experts admit the situation is spiraling out of control.

It would be refreshing if the next U.S. president decided that stability was more important than intervention to impose and maintain puppet regimes abroad. Instead of the edict of George W. Bush – ‘with us or against us’ – his successor allowed governments which fell short of offering total support to America, always. The tendency to prop up dictators around the world was no longer rampant in Washington. There was a long-term strategy to encourage stability, not coercion to turn vulnerable nations into satellite states. The U.S. administration understood that war and economic renaissance could not happen together, but were alternate scenarios.

Conflict in the Middle East, high oil prices and economic downturns have had an unhappy relationship since the 1973 Arab-Israel war. Political turmoil and record energy prices have once again brought an economic slump with them. And the Palestinian problem, the main cause of the broader crisis in the region and beyond, remains unresolved. The urgent need to reduce America’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil is at the center of the national debate. America has the necessary technological expertise and financial muscle to push for rapid progress towards alternative sources of energy. But its resolve has been weak ever since the 1973 Middle East war and subsequent oil crisis. Today, calls like ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ may appear to provide short-term answers, but will play havoc with the environment. Their real cost would be very high.

Solar and fuel-cell energy technologies must be among tomorrow’s solutions. Would the incoming president have what it takes to make America ready for a giant leap in a relatively short period? Would he take on the corporate world? Even if it turned out to be the case, I do not believe that the consequences of an energy revolution within a decade are fully appreciated. The impact of such a revolution on the oil-producing countries would be serious. To deprive them suddenly of their main – in many cases the only – source of income would be to leave them on the road to state failure. Saudi Arabia comes to mind immediately, but there are others in Asia and Africa. To make sure that they do not join the league of failed states, potential terrorist havens, would be as important for the successor of President George W. Bush as reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil and rebuilding the economy.

Remember the words of the English philosopher and statesman, Francis Bacon: “He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.”

The above article appeared in CounterPunch and ZNet on 23 October 2008.

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Understanding Terror

October 19, 2008 at 10:27 am (Articles)
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Deepak Tripathi

(ZNet, 18 October 2008)

The 9/11 attacks on America and the subsequent ‘war on terror’ prosecuted by President George W. Bush have brought the debate on terrorism into sharp focus. Hardly any country today can claim to be immune from the threat of terrorism or the impact of the US offensive worldwide. In Afghanistan, Iraq, and increasingly Pakistan, it means war. India, ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia and US allies in the Gulf have become frontline states in the war against terrorism. Beyond the conflict zone, its manifestations can be seen in security operations. These include surveillance, kidnappings and detentions instigated by America and its allies, as well as immigration restrictions and checks on money transactions unprecedented in scale since the end of the Cold War.

 

When changes of such magnitude take place in the name of ‘war on terror’, it is natural to ask what constitutes terror and how is it caused? Yet the reluctance to confront these questions is far greater today than at any time in the last half century. ‘Terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’ have become widely used terms of abuse throughout the world by democratic and totalitarian regimes alike. Academics and human rights activists can be denied visas to enter the United State. The political opposition in Zimbabwe and Buddhist monks protesting against Chinese rule, even the Dalai Lama, are accused of engaging in terrorist activities.

 

There is no universally accepted definition of terrorism. The term is used so widely and for such a sweeping range of activities today that anybody faces the risk of terrorism-related accusations. The absurdity of this approach has been demonstrated most recently by the British government’s decision to use its counter-terrorism laws to seize the UK-based assets of Icelandic companies following the collapse of an Icelandic bank, caught in the worldwide financial turmoil. The ‘terrorist’ label is used primarily for non-state groups. States, with few exceptions, can employ extreme repressive measures without being called terrorist. The idea of citizens taking up arms against a repressive regime has been buried in history. It has been quite a turn around since the 1970s and 1980s.

 

But there is a way to understand the phenomenon of terrorism objectively, casting aside the subjectivity that clouds the debate today. It is to examine terrorism through the microscope of ‘culture of violence’. Conflicts such as those in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine serve as reference points to study terrorism by this method. 

 

Culture, as defined by E. B. Taylor, is ‘that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs and many other capabilities and habits acquired by … [members] of society’. Culture is the way of life which people follow in society without consciously thinking about how it came into being. It incorporates the impact of events, cultivated behavior, experience accumulated over time and social learning and is transmitted from generation to generation over years, decades, even centuries.

 

The fundamental building block of a culture is trait. Traits assume many forms such as tools, houses and lifestyle. Culture represents patterns of behavior – family relationships, attitudes and acts towards neighbors and people from distant places. The way government encourages citizens to conform, or imposes sanctions on them, indicates a certain culture. It is a collective mentality involving shared ways of seeing, understanding and experiencing the world. It distinguishes the members of one group from another.

 

How does a culture of violence take root and how does it grow? The process can be seen in four, sometimes overlapping, phases, starting with internal conflict. In Afghanistan, it began with the fall of the monarchy in 1973 and conflict between rival forces in the country. Iraq had been a tightly controlled dictatorship under Saddam Hussain. Its history under Ba’athist rule, which ended with Saddam’s overthrow in 2003, shows conflict within the ruling party and between the regime and opposition groups. The modern conflict in Palestine goes back to just after the Second World War and the creation of Israel. It, too, can be described as an internal conflict, between Jews and Palestinians, who have competing claims to the same land. But it would be wrong to see the Israel-Palestinian conflict solely as an internal matter today. It is central to the wider Middle East crisis, in which external powers are involved, and oil is key.   

 

The second phase in the growth of a violent culture is associated with the involvement of outside players that fuels the internal conflict. The conditions which led to Afghanistan falling under Communist domination in the 1970s and the war since then have much to do with the actions of the ex-Soviet Union, America and regional powers such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and, to a lesser extent, China and India. After the failed attempt to annex Kuwait in the early 1990s, the Iraqi regime was seriously weakened by the imposition of UN sanctions and no-fly zones by America, Britain and, for a period, France, excluding Iraqi aircraft from flying over large parts of northern and southern Iraq. Following the 2003 US-led invasion and the dismantling of the Ba’athist regime, many state and non-state players moved into Iraq, starting a vicious cycle of violence along with internal forces which had been unleashed.

 

The third phase in the growth of a culture of violence involves disintegration of the state structure, as the case of Iraq illustrates. The disintegration of the Afghan state in the 1980s and 1990s was a slow process. Once the institutions had collapsed, the Taleban were left as the only agency with the coercive power necessary to enforce some kind of order. The system which the Taleban imposed was oppressive and isolationist. It turned Afghanistan into a sanctuary for groups like Al-Qaeda. 

 

The fourth stage is the creation of an environment in which the rise of extremism occurs. By this stage, the cycle of violence has matured. Violence has superseded the rule of law. Violent players and their victims have become used to coercion. Their thinking and behaviour are driven by the perceived justification for, or expectation of, the use of force to resolve matters. In short, a condition has been reached in which violence permeates all levels of society and becomes part of human thinking, behavior and way of life. The reign of terror has arrived and becomes a phenomenon that does not know borders.

 

How can it be prevented? There are remedies implied in the discussion above.  

 

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A Bitter Harvest

October 5, 2008 at 8:15 pm (Articles)
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Deepak Tripathi

[Source: Special to History News Network, George Mason University, Virginia, 5 October 2008]

The audacity of recent attacks by the Taleban and their Al-Qaeda allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan has caused alarm in the region and beyond. The bombings of the Indian embassy in Kabul in June 2008 and the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad have been devastating. Large swathes of Pakistan’s frontier provide militant groups with sanctuaries, from where they launch attacks in both countries. The targets are chosen with precision and the campaign of violence has spread to India. A few days before the Islamabad bombing, a series of explosions in the Indian capital, Delhi, killed and maimed scores of shoppers at several locations. There have also been attacks in other Indian cities in recent months.

These events have caused tensions between the Bush administration and Pakistan, America’s main ally in the “war on terror.” On more than one occasion, U.S. helicopters carrying troops have attempted to land inside Pakistani territory, without authorization. Pakistani troops have fired on them and the helicopters have had to retreat. The anti-U.S. sentiment has rarely been so strong in the region. The authorities in Pakistan cannot afford to allow American troops on their country’s soil. The authorities in India, with a Muslim minority nearly as large as the entire population of Pakistan, struggle to decide how far to move towards imposing draconian measures. How have things come to such a pass?

The origins of today’s crisis rest in the past. For almost half a century after the Second World War, the United States had been at the forefront in efforts to contain communism. By December 1991, the Soviet empire had collapsed and America was in search of a new role. America’s proxy war with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan had ended. Billions of dollars worth of weaponry was left in the devastated country. The strategic importance of Afghanistan had diminished for the United States. The army of Islamic groups, financed and equipped by America, turned bitter. In their eyes, it was a deliberate act of abandonment.

The American economy had suffered years of decline, to which vast military expenditure on foreign wars had contributed. There were new opportunities to achieve economic renaissance at home and reshape the international order abroad. Bill Clinton, who won the presidency in November 1992, was keen to seize these opportunities.

However, there was a problem. Following the breakup of the Soviet state, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus had found themselves with almost all long-range nuclear weapons. Smaller tactical arms were scattered all over the territory of the defunct state. Every republic except Kyrgyzstan had inherited them. One nuclear state had suddenly become many. Unless these weapons were dismantled and Russia was helped to transform itself into a democracy in control of the ex-Soviet nuclear arsenal, the world would be a dangerous place.

When Clinton assumed the presidency in January 1993, America had already liberated Kuwait after brief Iraqi occupation. Clinton moved on to his agenda to stabilize the former USSR and rebuild the American economy. He was aware that a conservative takeover in Russia could start a new arms race and sink his plan for American renaissance. Clinton told his advisers to help Boris Yeltsin, the Russian president, in the transformation of his country. The focus of Clinton’s policy was to be investment in Russia.

One of its consequences was a move from Afghanistan, left in a Hobbesian “state of nature” – war of all against all. The policy to rescue Russia continued until the end of the Clinton presidency. In the darkest period of Russia’s economic crisis, Yeltsin was forced to default on repayment of foreign debt and devalue the Russian currency in 1998. Clinton pushed the International Monetary Fund to support a recovery program. Within two years, Russia’s income from oil sales had risen substantially, helped by an increase in the world prices. The crisis had subsided.

It was in late 1994 that a little-known Islamic militia, described as the Taleban, came to prominence in southern Afghanistan, amid the destruction of what was left of the Afghan state. The country was split into numerous fiefdoms run by rival warlords. Afghan and foreign Mujahideen had spent years fighting the Soviet Union and its client regime in Kabul. Now, they had nothing to do. Foreign money had dried up. Weapons were plentiful and America had walked away.

Murder, rape, looting and plundering became the way of life for these fighters, as Pakistan’s rival agencies tolerated or collaborated with the Taleban to impose a brutal regime in Afghanistan. The civilian government of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the most important U.S. ally in the region, were the staunchest supporters of the Taleban regime, which gave sanctuary to Al-Qaeda. America had, in effect, handed over Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia, which represents the most totalitarian brand of Sunni Islam. Its junior partner was Pakistan.

The 9/11 attacks prompted the United States to return to Afghanistan to overthrow the Taleban regime and destroy Al-Qaeda. Overthrowing the Taleban regime was the easy task. But the stabilization and reconstruction effort has suffered a calamitous failure. The Taleban and Al-Qaeda are regrouped and reinforced. Their top leaders continue to elude capture. Afghans at first welcomed their liberation from the Taleban. They are now very resentful of the Americans and their use of overwhelming force, resulting in large numbers of civilian casualties.

Afghanistan has been at the center of great power games for centuries. But outsiders have always failed to tame the spirit of resistance of its people. At the peak of their dominance, the British and Russian empires played the Great Game. In the Cold War, it was between America and the Soviet Union. Today, as the United States, the only hyperpower in the world, tries to reshape the Afghan state, it finds the new game as difficult as ever.

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