Graveyard of Empires: AfPak-TurkTaj-UzbKaz-AzKyr -istan

Posted on 18 May 2009. Tags: Afghan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

HoOb-ClPet-ReiMul vs AfPak-TurkTaj-UzbKaz-AzKyr -istan

Bruce Reidel thought he was being clever in inventing the name AfPak. The Reidel, Mullen, Petraeus, Holbrooke Clinton and Obama (HoObClPetReiMul) team thought that they had concocted a new region. They were wrong. Like exuberant bartenders of Manhattan who create new drinks after a major event the Obama team has tried to sell their new katzenjammer–without much success. AfPak wasn’t potent and didnt give anyone a buzz. The AfPak petard backfired in Islamabad, and wasn’t successful in Kabul either.

The Afpak acronym is as confused as the Obama policy. Washington is like a blind man in a a dark room looking for a black cat. it blames anyone and everyone. More troops, more blood, more devastation blinds their myopic vision.

Like a “Mudslide” or a “Long Island Ice Tea” the original meaning of the a new drinks name is often lost after a few weeks. All that is remembered is the moniker and the inebriation that it brings. AfPak would be a good antedote to the drunker befuddlement of HoObClPetReiMul– to remind ISAF and NATO that many empires have come to the Hindu Kush and then had to leave. During the retreat, they either imploded or were unable to remain potent.

^{Indian machinations in Kabul are reminiscent of the Marhatta messing with the Pakhtuns and the Balauch in the 18th century. With dreams of Mughal grandeur, the Marhattas began to think of themselves as successors to the Mughals. They began harassing the states of the Punjabis, Sindhis, Pathans and the Baluch. By messing with the powers, a grand alliance was formed which included Ahmed Shah Durrani to the West and Ud Daula to the East. The Marhattas ultimately paid the consequences of the harassment–they were decimated from history. http://www.zimbio.com/World+Politics/articles/1989/Khyber+Pass+invasions+Taliban+another+Battle}

The war in Afghanistan is not going well. Hence the rhetoric. As President Obama’s administration begins to put lipstick on a pig–it looks gorier and more and more bloody. There is a great danger that the administration will face another pandemic of Swine Flue–this one utterly destroying the omnipotence of the mighty empire. War drums in the Gulf, Hindu Kush & the Khyber Pass.

The Obama Administration has linked the fate of its campaign in Afghanistan to its efforts to persuade Pakistan to fight the Taliban on its own soil. That was always a risky bet. Pakistan’s military swung into action last week — in its own inimitable way, relying on artillery as a counterinsurgency weapon, with predictable “collateral damage” and massive displacement of civilians — following weeks of hysteria in Washington about the country falling to the Taliban, nukes and all. That was nonsense, of course, and you’d have expected better from a Secretary of State who had once chided her President for his “inexperience” than to be babbling about the Taliban’s gains in Pakistan as representing a “mortal threat” to global security, demanding that the Pakistani army go to war on its own soil. The Writing on the Wall for Obama’s ‘Af-Pak’ Vietnam. Tony Karon

The hysterical noises out of Washington about the “TTP” in Swat did not translate into panic in Moscow or Beijing, rather both of them are working behind the scenes. Beijing invited the Jamat e Islami to build relations with a section of the society in Pakistan.

As Obama faces his Vietnam it is pedagogical to see what the Rev. Dr. King had to say about US involvement in Vietnam in his speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,

“There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor — both black and white — through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.” Martin Luther King

Bruce Reidel who conjured up the five letter acronym AfPak was lazy. He should have named it AfPak-TurkTaj-Uzb-Kaz-Az-Kyr or (APTTUKAK) or if he had read Chaudhry Rehmat Ali, he would simply have called it P-A-K-I-S-T-A-N. The “A” in Pakistan stands for “Afghania”.

The battle rages in AfPak on the front pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times, but the real war is happening in Afghanistan-Pakistan-Azerbaijan-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan-Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. If Mr. Reidel had done any research on the history of Pakistan, or read Alama Iqbal he would have discovered that the original acronym “PAKISTAN” included K=Kyrgyzstan, T=Turkmenistan and Tajikistan and so on and so forth.

Wilmer Leon has written a prodigious article on the graveyard of empires, but he misses the boat. He suffers from the myopic vision that sees the world in the context of borders drawn by the Soviets and the British if the context of Delhi’s Akhand Bharat. They are unable to see the reality of the Ottman Empire and are not worried about the horrendous dictatorships in the countries surrounding Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mr. Wilmer opposes the war in Afghanistan but doesn’t even mention the war raging in Uzbekistan.

President Obama is also ratcheting up the rhetoric and activity in Pakistan. There’s a significant increase in ground forces, Predator drones and air attacks. In his announcement on March 27th, President Obamareferred to the border region of Afghanistan/Pakistan as, “the most dangerous place in the world….This is not simply an American problem – far from it. It is, instead, an international security challenge of the highest order. Terrorist attacks in London and Bali were tied to al-Qaida and its allies in Pakistan, as were attacks in North Africa and the Middle East, in Islamabad and Kabul. If there is a major attack on an Asian, European, or African city, it, too, is likely to have ties to al-Qaida’s leadership in Pakistan. The safety of people around the world is at stake.

President Obama and his advisors should learn from history, some ancient some modern, and not repeat it. This is a region of the world that has never been defeated militarily. It is where empires go to die. The Greeks, Indians, Persians, Mongolians, British, and Russians have tried to hold Afghanistan but never succeeded.

Under the pretext of responding to the September 11, 2001 attacks in America, the United and States and Great Britain invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. They dubbed this invasion Operation Enduring Freedom. President Bush 41’ told the American people that the US strikes were,

“…designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime…we will make it more difficult for the terror network to train new recruits and coordinate their evil plans. Initially, the terrorists may burrow deeper into caves and other entrenched hiding places…At the same time, the oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies. As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan… ” AfPak: Where Empires Go to Die, May 18, 2009, Wilmer Leon

“Talibanization”: Myth or reason to demonize & attack Pakistan?Terrorism is not indigenous to Pakistan. It is the direct consequence of American invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and American Drone attacks in FATA

“This is not our war”: Imran Khan on Prosaic delivers rare positive message & debunks Afghan war myths

Manufacturing consent using Fake Videos: Chand Bibi of Swat was never spanked. Video not in Swat

Swat & FATA for dummies: Who has Infiltrated the “Taliban”. Who are the terrorists in Pakistan?

It is Central Asia where the true battle is being lost and won. Lenin tried to incorporate many Muslim lands after the October Revolution of 1917. It deported millions of Checniyans and Dagistanis to Sibera. Stalin murdered millions. The Soviets installed ruthless dictators in countries which were under the Ottomans and were called Turkistan. These lands have suffered much. Religion was banned, and it was illegal to build a mosque or pray. Muslims were forcibly converted to Christianity, Agnosticism or Atheism.After the defeat of the USSR, the former Soviet republics became independent and tried to overthrow the dictators. Afghanistan also struggled for a decade to get rid of the Soviet dictators that the Kremlin has left behind. India, and Russia continue to meddle in the affairs of Kabul, way after the last Soviet tank had left Afghanistan.

It requires a spectacular leap of faith in a kind of superheroic American exceptionalism to imagine that the invasion of Afghanistan that occurred in November 2001 will end any differently from any previous invasion of that country. And it takes an elaborate exercise in self-delusion to avoid recognizing that the Taliban crisis in Pakistan is an effect of the war in Afghanistan, rather than a cause — and that Pakistan’s turmoil is unlikely to end before the U.S. winds down its campaign next door. The Writing on the Wall for Obama’s ‘Af-Pak’ Vietnam. Tony Karon

Pakistan. Map of Asian Muslim Union like the European Union

During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Obama promised to immediately withdraw troops from Iraq in order to bolster the forces in Afghanistan in order to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda. “It’s time to refocus our attention on the war we have to win in Afghanistan.” I believe that this tactic was taken by the Obama team in order to placate the anti-Iraq contingent in the American electorate while not leaving himself vulnerable to the “soft on defense” hawkish critics on the other side. As a campaign tactic this approach proved to be successful. In reality, this may prove to be one of the greatest miscalculations President Obama could make.

After the historic election of President Obama, many historians and others placed this event in the context of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Dream”. Some mistakenly saw this election as the fulfillment of that Dream”; others mistakenly compared candidate Obama’s “race neutral” approach with Dr. King’s vision. Some even likened Obama’s oratory skills with that of Dr. King’s.

Today critics are asking the question “is the Obamaadministration’s approach to the problems in Afghanistan/Pakistan going to be their Vietnam?” As America faces its most difficult economic challenges in recent history, compare President Obama’s Afghanistan/Pakistan with President Johnson’s Vietnam. Is the Obama administration making the same mistakes based on arrogance, hubris, and a misplaced sense of empire that led us into Vietnam? Here’s what the Rev. Dr. King had to say about US involvement in Vietnam in his speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,

“There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor — both black and white — through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.” AfPak: Where Empires Go to Die, May 18, 2009, Wilmer Leon

The implications of the IMU activity in Pakistan

Tough lessons in geography

The different types of “Taliban”: The good Bad and the Ugly

Swat & FATA for dummies: Who has Infiltrated the “Taliban”. Who are the terrorists in Pakistan?

Why CIA drones never target Baitullah or any other Anti-Pakistan militia that is committing terrorism against Islamabad

Reversing Anti-Americanism in South Asia: Building bridges with Pakistan

Truth not Orwellian propaganda: Best article on Afghanistan anywhere

There are many poltergeists in the Khyber and many hobgoblins in the Amu Darya. For years we have shed light on the pull and push theory. Can the $80 Billion Think Tank industry not comprehend the simple truths described by Peter Senge in his seminal book “The 5th Discipline“. They theory goes as follows. When the Police cracks down on drug dealers on 42nd street, the drug dealing does not disappear, it simply moved to 52nd street or gets dispersed over a bigger area out of reach of the police raids. Similarly when the US bombs the insurgents in East Afghanistan, it is but obvious that they will find shelter and hideoutson the Durand Line and beyond. As the US drones bomb FATA, areas in Pakistan are affected destabilizing parts of the NWFP.

Sure, the U.S. has now appointed a hard-charging Special Forces general to lead its mission in Afghanistan. Perhaps, as a result, they will be able to strike more blows at the Taliban, but they’re unlikely to alter the overall outcome of the war. In fact, you could make a speculative case that appointing Stanley McChrystal, whose resume highlights include the capture of Saddam Hussein and the elimination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, Washington may be looking for a “bring me the head of Osama bin Laden” scenario to create a pretext for beginning to dramatically scale back the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. But that would be a wild hunch. The Writing on the Wall for Obama’s ‘Af-Pak’ Vietnam. Tony Karon

There has been much discussion of dictators and democracy in Pakistan. Amazingly the US media and the American government doesn’t seem at all bothered by the excesses committed by dictators in Central Asia. Mr. Islam Karimov is one of the worst dictators on the planet who boils his opponent in water. Uzbek President Islam Karimov is is scared out of his wits that the war in Pakistan will spill over to the other “tans”. He barely survives the perpetual onslaught of his own insurgents. By bringing money from Moscow and Washington he thinks he can survive popular dissent.

A South Korean deal with Mr. Karimov provides him with a fig leaf to hide his double dealing with the USA while promising Russia that he has kicked the US out of a base. With assistance from South Korea, the US has reestablished a strategic presence in Uzbekistan - kind of. The Uzbek Korean agreement on US access to Navoi airport gives Karimov the plausible deniability in front of Moscow that he has cut a deal with the United States. In fact he has, but not directly. Washington will play along because it gets what it needs – a transit base which can be used as a replacement for the lost American base in Kyrgyzstan scheduled to close this summer.

Today, President Obama is planning to send an additional 4,000 troops and other support personnel into Afghanistan. Like his predecessor, President Obama says, “If the Afghanistan government falls to the Taliban or allows al-Qaida to go unchallenged, that country will again be a base for terrorists.” The additional 4,000 troops will bring the total US force up to 30,000 by the end of 2009.

“the most dangerous place in the world….This is not simply an American problem – far from it. It is, instead, an international security challenge of the highest order. Terrorist attacks in London and Bali were tied to al-Qaida and its allies in Pakistan, as were attacks in North Africa and the Middle East, in Islamabad and Kabul. If there is a major attack on an Asian, European, or African city, it, too, is likely to have ties to al-Qaida’s leadership in Pakistan. The safety of people around the world is at stake.”

The Grand Bargain? Pakistan key to Afghan Great Game Truth not Orwellian propaganda: Best article on Afghanistan anywhere

Tick Tock Tick Tock-2011: Obama’s shrinking Afghan timeline

US bluff: Other arduous US Supply Chain routes to Afghanistan not feasible

Afghanistan fiasco: Cleaning up the Am-Brit failures in Kabul again Tick Tock Tick Tock: Obama’s shrinking Afghan timeline-2011

For the past 5000 years the Khyber pass has witnessed invading armies come into South Asia and then become resident in the fertile plains of the Punjab and the Ganges.

The Aryans come down the Khyber, as did the armies of the Ghaznavids, the Abdalis, the Seljuk Turks, and then the Mughals. The British did not come down the path of the invaders. They came as traders through Bengal (today’s Bengal, Orissa, and Bihar) the riches part of the Subcontinent under Siraj Ud Daulah.When the British tried to reverse the path of the invaders, they failed miserably and had to retreat back to the Indus when they stayed.
According to historians, Alexander the Great in 330 B.C. lost more men and more animals crossing the Hindu Kushthan all his subsequent campaigns in central Asia. In 1839 the British invaded Afghanistan; in 1841 after an Afghan revolt, 4,500 British troops withdrew. According to a description published in the North American Review in 1842,

On the 6th of January, 1842, the Caboul forces commenced their retreat through the dismal pass, destined to be their grave. On the third day they were attacked by the mountaineers from all points, and a fearful slaughter ensued…

In most recent history, the Russians invaded Afghanistan. The initial deployment of the Soviet 40th Army began in Afghanistan on August 7, 1978. After nine years of fighting a US, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistani backed mujahideen resistance, the Soviet troop withdrawal began on May 15, 1988 and ended on February 15, 1989.

Since 2001, in spite of President Bush and now President Obama’s noble speeches and military tactics, the US and its allies have not “disrupt(ed) the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations”. The US has not been able to successfully “attack the military capability of the Taliban regime”.

What the US has done is lose 1147 coalition forces; US Air Force data shows that Munitions dropped in Afghanistan have risen 1,100 percent, from 2004 to 2007, tonnage figures jumped from 163 tons to 1,956 tons. According to the United Nations, bombs have killed over 2000 Afghan civilians in 2008, up 40% from 2007. The Associated Press reports the direct correlation between the rise in Afghan civilian deaths and anti-American sentiment.

Perpetual Mimitic War: Strategy for continued Failure in Afghanistan

Mr. Obama: You can’t monitor AIG and want accountability from Pakistan

Obama’s Afghan ‘Strategy’ without an “Exit Plan” is a ‘Straightjacket’ named quagmire & defeat

Solutions to “Obama’s Vietnam”–AfPak

Obama must avoid creating a backlash in neighboring Pakistan by heavy-handed U.S. military intervention there: David Kilcullen

The Ferghana Valley of Uzbekistan has many links to the South Asian Subcontinent. Zahiruddin Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire was born in Ferghana and lies buried in Kabul. One reason While the offensive goes one, one of the factors effecting situation is the presence of hardened foreign fighters. The Uzbeks have been present in Pakistan and Afghanistan. These Uzbeks came to Pakistan during the 80s and some of them got married and stayed in FATA. They continued to come down. One reason they came down was because of the pressure on the IMU.

In terms of dollars, according to recently released pentagon reports, the price tag for running the war in Afghanistan/Pakistan will outstrip the cost of the conflict in Iraq next year. America can not afford this folly. As the Rev. Dr. King would say; then came the buildup in Afghanistan/Pakistan and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war…

The US and its allies could “disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and attack the military capability of the Taliban regime…” if more of this effort and money were spent on winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan and Pakistani people through real humanitarian assistance such as water, food, medicine, blankets, and building supplies.

The problem with this solution is that those who fuel and promote the military industrial complex in America do not profit from the sale of humanitarian assistance. They profit from war. This is why, if America is not smart, Afghanistan/Pakistan will once again be where empires go to die. AfPak: Where Empires Go to Die, May 18, 2009, Wilmer Leon

In 1999 and 2000 the IMU launched a series of audacious raids into Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan from Tajikistan and Taliban-controlled areas of northern Afghanistan. These raids alarmed Russia and China and they formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. These raids also alarmed the USA and are considered one of the main reasons for the devastating attack on Afghanistan

The IMU and the Taliban were on the verge of eliminating the Northern Alliance which was supported by India, Russia and Iran. In 2001 Afghan bombing started. The IMU was specifically targeted and dispersed into the countryside along with the Taliban. Namangani was killed but. Yuldeshev and a large number of fighters escaped

After controlling most of Afghanistan, the insurgents target supplies from Uzbekistan and the Central Asia Republics Uzbekistan pressured the IMU is scared of Taliban reprisals on supplies to Kabul Anti-Occupation forces choke US Afghan war

Reality check on War in Afghanistan

There were three battles of Panipat.

The First Battle of Panipat (1526), between the Mughal Babur against the Delhi Sultan Ibrahim Lodi
The Second Battle of Panipat (1556), between the Mughal Akbar the Great against Adil Shah Suri and Hemu
The Third Battle of Panipat (1761), between the Afghans against the Marathas Wiki

The decline of the Mughal Empire had led to territorial gains for the Maratha Confederacy. Ahmad Shah Abdali, amongst others, was unwilling to allow the Marathas’ gains to go unchecked. In 1759, he raised an army from the Pashtun tribes with help from the Baloch peopleand made several gains against the smaller garrisons. The Marathas, under the command of Sadashivrao Bhau, responded by gathering an army of 100,000 people with which they ransacked the Mughal capital of Delhi. There followed a series of skirmishes along the banks of the river Yamuna at Karnal and Kunjpurawhich eventually turned into a two-month-long siege led by Abdali against the Marathas. Wiki

The impact of the invasions from Fergana, Samarkand, Bokhara and Ghazni had long term impacts on the Subcontinent as we see it today. These invasions to much extent destroyed the power of the Brahmins and at the very least liberated 450 million souls who would have been in total bondage of the caste system. The 450 million Muslims (in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh) today enjoy a decent life whereas the 450 million Dalits (leftover are still struggling to find humanity in their souls and their destiny.

1 million displaced Pakistanis victims of US drone bombing, CIA Covert Ops & Indian sabotage