RUPEE NEWS: Recording History, Narrating Archives, Strategic Intellibrief Analysis: Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | اخبار روپیہ

  80% of Afghanistan is under insurgent control. Taliban sanctuaries around Kabul thumb thier noses at ISAF, NATO & US forces. Why would Taliban need safe havens far away in Pakistan? Getting out of Valhalla or new goals for war in AfPak: Can Obama’s “Neocon Lite” advisors sell old wine in new bottle

Revising Finance 101 for the Chinese Century: Political impact of Center of Gravity shift from New York to Beijing

Obama’s “Surgers” vs. “Exiters”: Exit strategy now or scrambled hasty retreat later

China sets conditions for bailing out US and buying US T-Bills

Why the US gave up India as a strategic partner

India’s worst nightmares come true: Long term strategic malaise

Betrayels and Balckmail: Cloaking failure as success, Hiding the defeat, declaring Victory, Withdrawing from Afghanistan within 12 months

Kabul: The Final assault begins. How long can NATO hang on? Does Obama have the courage to implement the real solutions to Obama’s Vietnam (AfPak)

2009: Obama’s South Asian policy: A Marshall Plan for AfPak

Selective Amnesia of Americans: Pakistan is the most mistreated friend in the world

Fixing AfPak expedites the inevitable union between Pakistan and Afghanistan

The Algeriafication of Pakistan, the Egyptianization of Bangladesh may will yield Iranian type of revolutions

India’s worst nightmare come true: Long term strategic malaise

Mumbai False flag: Indian hawk & Gujarat Chief Minister Modi exonerates Pakistan’s position. Delhi’s fails to prove Pakistan is complicit

India intoxicated by meager success is blind to real self-portrait of caste infested penury and balkanization

When will India handover terrorists Advani, Thackery, Purohit & 38 other murderers

Nuclear war in South Asia guarantees total and absolute annihilation and mutually assured destruction for India and Pakistan

Response to the Dossier: Some Inexplicable questions for Indian Leaders

Delhi outwitted at its own game

When Freedom fighters turn terrorist

=================================

Solutions to AfPak

  Betrayals, blackmail in Bakiyev cloaking failure as success hiding the defeat declaring victory withdrawing from Afghanistan within 12 months

Obama to unveil new policy: Marshal Plan & end to bombing raids in Pakistan

Convincing the US tin ear of the Pakistani point of view Peek into Obama’s brains: Bruce Reidel on Pakistan

Growing consensus in the Obama team: Much of Pakistan’s problems originate in Afghanistan

Obama advisor Weinbaum predicts total Afghan policy review: Sees focus on talks & Reconciliation

Afghanistan: Gen. Petraeus’ Pakistani advisers: Indians jittery

Obama adviser gives deep insights into new Afghan policy

The story of Afghanistan and colonialism begins a long time ago. British tried to take up White Man’s burden in Afghanistan. It suffered badly in Kabul and could not hold it. NATO Lessons: 1880 UK defeat at Maiwand-Afghanistan. Today ISAF is making the same mistakes as the British did more than a century ago. Is NATO committing suicide in Afghanistan? There is a powerplay going on. …the CIA assassination. Juggling all the permutations and the permutations, the US has considered every possibility. However the most obvious one escapes the $80 Billion think tank industry in the USA. Saving the Pashtuns of Afghania from Afghanistan. Eradicating the Pashtun plight and ending occupation.

Kabul: The Final assault begins. How long can NATO hang on? Does Obama have the courage to implement the real solutions to Obama’s Vietnam (Afghanistan)

Mumbai False flag: Indian hawk & Gujarat Chief Minister Modi exonerates Pakistan’s position. Delhi’s fails to prove Pakistan is complicit

2009: Obama’s South Asian policy: A Marshall Plan for AfPak

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. Thomas Jefferson Afghan picks up baby killed

Graveyard of Empires

Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived. ~Abraham Lincoln In 1821 Solutions to “Obama’s Vietnam” Kabul: The Final Spring Offensive? End of NATO? Afghanistan: The writing is on the wall. Can Obama read it? UK Brig. Smith: “We’re not going to win this [Afghan] war”
Failure and Defeat in Afghanistan: Inevitable Frustration & misdirected Payback for ally Pakistan US Charge of the Light Brigade into Pakistan is a US failure and has to stop

Pakistan’s do more list for the USA

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan & Swat run by Taliban Huge Migraine for India Facing the Khyber poltergeist & Ganges hobgoblin NATO war: UK 1880 defeats in Afghanistan Cambodiazation of the Afghan war Rescueing the Pashtuns of Afghania from Afghanistan Unite! Erase the Durand Line Solution: Fixing “AfPak” expedites the inevitable union between Pakistan & Afghanistan

These invasions ended in defeat – for the Europeans.

The first British occupation of Kabul lasted for four years. When the British garrison retreated from Kabul in 1842, it was picked off by Ghilzai warriors as they trudged through the snow. Only one British officer, William Brydon, survived this harrowing retreat. This solitary survivor was memorialized in a haunting painting by Elizabeth Butler, titled, Remnants of an Army.

The British occupied Kabul a second time in 1878, withdrew a year later, leaving behind a British resident to keep an eye on the Afghans. They returned the same year, when their resident in Kabul was killed in an uprising. When the British withdrew in 1880, discretely, they did not insist on leaving behind a British resident.

Nearly a hundred years later, 30,000 Soviet troops, invading from the north, occupied Kabul in December 1979. In order to oppose the growing Afghan resistance, the Russians soon raised their troop strength to 100,000 but never controlled any areas beyond the limits of a few cities. With 15,000 deaths, and unable to sustain growing casualties, the Soviets retreated in February 1989.Into the Chasm Afghan Pitfalls By M. SHAHID ALAM

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 The implications of the IMU activity in Pakistan The Grand Bargain? Pakistan key to Afghan Great Game Tough lessons in geography

THE LESSONS FROM AFGHANISTAN DEFEATS: RETREATING FROM DEFEAT

• Seven Years in Afghanistan by Gary Leupp
• The War Spreads to Pakistan by Gary Leupp
• UK Brig. Smith: “We’re not going to win this [Afghan] war”
• People hate Karzai support Taliban: Afghan Senator Ahmadzai
• Gandhi & Nehru ordered massacre of 29000 Indian army jawans in 1946
• Indian Secularism: A status report by Shah Abdul Halim of Bangladesh
• America’s Secret war in Pakistan-MSNBC uncovers Marines with long beards and without uniforms
• Nightmare scenario for India in Kabul: The Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
• Karzai the biggest drug baron in Afghanistan
• Guess whose coming to dinner in Kabul—they are back!
• It all came tumbling down…the house of cards that George built—in Kabul
• Can American Taliban bring Peace in Afghanistan? Impact & Analysis
• Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan run by Taliban Huge Migraine for India
• How quickly will the Americans leave Afghanistan?
• Afghanistan: India packing its bags? Now or Never!
• Talibal is Indefatigable: UK Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith
• We can’t defeat the Taliban: British Army Chief in Afghanistan
• Why are the Assamese flying Pakistani flags? Express India report
• Is Bin Laden winning the war?
• SECULAR INDIA? Christian genocide in Indian Orissa-pictures
• Real bombs-Fake encounters, torso with fake beard: Hinduvata connection?
• US predatory nuclear mafia chomping at the bits for Indian Dollars
• Marriott Marines Mystery: Why hide the secret steel boxes?
• End of drone supramacy? US spy plan shot down in Pakistan
• US drone shot down not far from ’50s U2 US Badabare base
• Taliban deny attacking Marriott: All fingers point to Indian RAW
• Risk of another war: How many more American Crusades?

• Those that the gods will destroy they first make mad…
• Kabul ventriloquist’s bravado-Puppet Karzai’s bluster
• ‘I Wish I Had the Taliban as My Soldiers’ Hamid Karzai
• Karzai vs. Pakistan: After the battle is won and lost!
• The last mayor of Kabul’s failures spell the end of Afghanistan. How long can the inept Karzai blame others for his corrupt Narco Warlordism?
• Afghanistan: Zenat Karzai Popalzai dancing in Peshawar
• http://rupeenews.com/ideas-on-afghanistan/bugti-karzai-vs-pakistan/
• Why did Buddhism disappear from South As

Erase the Durand Line: The inevitable union between Paksitan and Afghanistan. It is time to erase the Durand Line.

Defeat in Afghanistan: Battle of Maiwand

RECENT ARTICLES ON AFGHANISTAN: 

Proxy war in Afghanistan: Strategic depth vs Strategic clout   http://rupeenews.com/2008/07/07/proxy-war-in-afghanistan-strategic-depth-vs-strategic-clout/

India intelligence: “‘the aim of RAW is to keep internal disturbances flaring up and the ISI preoccupied so that Pakistan can lend no worthwhile resistance to Indian designs in the region.”

India vs. Pakistan–Gwador vs. Chabahar. http://rupeenews.com/2008/02/08/pakistani-gwador-to-china-links-threatened-by-indian-chahbahar-links-to-kabul-via-iran/

India a secret player in Afghanistan: Bases—Lashkargarh, Qushila Jadid,Khahak,Hassan Killies

Another daring attack on Kabul rattles Karzai’s shakey regime     http://rupeenews.com/2008/07/08/another-daring-attack-on-kabul-rattles-karzais-shakey-regime/

Kabul bombing: Ruse to send Indian troops to Afghansitan?
http://rupeenews.com/2008/07/09/kabul-bombing-ruse-to-send-indian-troops-to-afghansitan/

Afghanistan: Why was India attacked in Kabul?     http://rupeenews.com/2008/07/08/afghanistan-why-was-india-attacked-in-kabul/

http://rupeenews.com/2008/07/08/5288/

Afghanistan audacious attack: Karzai-Kabul weaknesses exposed      http://rupeenews.com/2008/07/08/afghanistan-audacious-attack-karzai-kabul-weaknesses-exposed/ 

Pakhtuns to India: Get out of Afghanistan     http://rupeenews.com/2008/07/08/pakhtuns-to-india-get-out-of-afghanistan/

Kabul bombing: Ruse to send Indian troops to Afghansitan?     http://rupeenews.com/2008/07/09/kabul-bombing-ruse-to-send-indian-troops-to-afghansitan/

Kabul ventriloquist’s bravado-Puppet Karzai’s bluster

Defeat in Afghanistan: Remember Maiwand

TERROR IN AFGHANISTAN

 Pakistan’s National Crisis Management Cell (NCMC) submits proof of Indian RAW involvement in terror bombing in Pakistan. Blunt message to New Delhi to stop!

STRATEGIC DEPTH VS STRATEGIC CLOUT

AFGHAN HISTORY

AFGHAN PEACE AND WAR

• Gen Daniel McNeill “There’s not a Pakistani miscreant behind every tree in Afghanistan..its simply not so”
• Karzia gets EU scolding and $20 Billion–laughs all the way to the bank!
• Frustrated Karzai: ‘I Wish I Had the Taliban as My Soldiers’
• NATO defeat: Why 40 nations Can’t Deliver Peace in Afghanistan
• Those that the gods will destroy they first make mad…
• Defeat in Afghanistan: UK “White Man’s burden” fails again
• Afghan food shortages fuel riots, revolt, anti-Nato insurgency
• Qandhar now Kabul later: The Taliban Tet offensive
• Britain’s unnecessary wars in 1879-1939-2001
• $50 Billion for Afghanistan. $5 Billion for Pakistan
• India Doctrine and Regional crises by Dr.Abdul Ruff Colachal

AFGHANISTAN’S HAMID KARZAI

Impact of Pashtuns Spring attack on Kabul: Will Karzai survive?. Begining of the end?

AFGHANISTAN AND CHINA

China rail integrates Afghanistan, Tajikistan, & Pakistan

AFGHANISTAN AND ENERGY

Pipelinestan: All energy routes lead through Islamabad

AFGHANISTAN AND USA NATO ISAF

• Frustrated Karzai on edge: Blames West for defeats & chaos
• Karzai’s continuous critical carping divides defeated & dejected allies by Bob Fox
• Petraeus ignored:-US is not serious about War on Terror!
• Afghanistan: US ignores data denies Spring Offensive!
• “The Taliban was a construct of the CIA”:-Congresman Dana Rohrabacher

AFGHANISTAN & USA

• End Iraq:-Restart Afghanistan says Biden
• Hollow Victory! Defeat’s agony! Afghanistan-Iraq  

AFGHANISTAN HISTORY

• Britain’s unnecessary wars in 1879-1939-2001
• British “Charge of the Light Brigade” in Afghanistan AGAIN: Unfortunately the lessons of the unmitigated disaster of “Auckland’s Folly”, (First Anglo-Afghan War 1838–42) have not been taught to the Oxbridge students.
• Defeat in Afghanistan: UK “White Man’s burden” fails again
• Hollow victory and defeat’s agony
• NATO plans long term war: Defeated Russia back in Afghanistan
• USSR destruction: 2 million Muslim kids died destroying the Soviets. Pakistan is suffering because of failed UK & US policies
• British “Charge of the Light Brigade” in Afghanistan AGAIN: Unfortunately the lessons of the unmitigated disaster of “Auckland’s Folly”, (First Anglo-Afghan War 1838–42) have not been taught to the Oxbridge students. 
• Python swallows Alligator–explodes: Indigestion Iraq and Afghanistan 
• “The Taliban was a construct of the CIA”:-Congresman Dana Rohrabacher
• Pipelinestan: All energy routes lead through Islamabad

Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | Defensebriefs Translate to: RSS feed: | RUPEE NEWS |  Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ | 

AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN

Enough is enough: Karzai silly threats are “Declaration of war”. Must be responded to

AFGHANISTAN ARTICLES CONTINUED

• Damadola, Drones, divorce: US attacks evince reevaluation of US-Pakistan relations and extreme anger at America
• Karzai’s continuous critical carping divides the defeated and dejected ISAF allies by Robert Fox

“The threat from a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan has been greatly reduced but not eliminated. U.S. and NATO forces remain there to help finish the job, and continue operations against the remnants of al Qaeda. The Government of Pakistan has cooperated with the U.S. in successfully adapting the counterinsurgency tactics that worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan to its lawless tribal areas where al Qaeda fighters are based. The increase in actionable intelligence that the counterinsurgency produced led to the capture or death of Osama bin Laden, and his chief lieutenants. There is no longer any place in the world al Qaeda can consider a safe haven.” John McCain

“War does not determine who is right — only who is left.” Bertrand Russell

Failure and defeat in Afghanistan has reslted in payback and blowback against Pakistan

Afghan defeat: Whose Spring offensive?

• Lessons learned for Afghanistan–from Afghanistan itself
  UK Afghan defeats at Maiwand, Gandamak: Lessons learend for NATO and ISAF)
• Afghan defeat?
• The Afghans don’t have to go to Vietnam to learn guerilla tactics. The Afghans can teach a thing or two to the Vietcong. Maybe the Vietcong actually learned their tactics from the Afghans and the Pakistanis.Pakistani cheese for Western wine. Countering the “Do More” mantra. Selling Pakistan too cheap. Tit for Tat dimplomacy. Countering requests with formal invoices and charging market prices for service.
• The Afghans and the Pakistanis defeated the Mongols, the Greeks, the British, the Soviets. Today the Afghans today are giving a very tough time to the ISAF forces.
  Hollow victory and defeat’s agony
• The lessons of the Battle of Maiwand are lost to even the British. There needs to be a Marshall Plan for Pakistan. US again offers peanuts in aid. Pakistanis want to reject and negotiate up.
• Pakistanis are from Mars, Americans are from Venus.
  Decoding Pakistani Venus jalebee answers and USA Mars Pretzel questions
• The American have a tin ear, and do not listen to the Paksitanis. US threats to Pakitan are counterproductive. Pakistani hawk Shireen Mazari takes stock of US threats
• From the very begining, Pakistan has been saying that a military solution will not work in Afghanistan. A minority Northern Alliance dominated non-Pashtun, anti-Pakistan government was a recipe for failure in Kabul. The incompetent narco-terror warlod ex-Taliban government of Mr. Karzai has to be replaced with a national consensus government. Afghan war attack Pakistan safe sanctuary or hideouts
• The ISAF defeat is reminscent of the Peloponeisian wars Python swallows alligator and explodes. Iraq and Afghanistan
• Afghanistan creates problems for Pakistan
  NATO lessons: 1880 UK defeat at Maiwand Afghanistan. Trained sabateurs may defect. Drones sabotaging peace may create blowback
• The blowback from the US airstrikes: Consequences of US airstrikes by Rahimullah Yusufzai)
• The international conspiracies in Afghanistan Spy vs spy in Kabul, London, Delhi, Islamabad and Swat. Taliban prepare for spring
• Blatent Indian interference in Pakistan BLA: A threat to international pace by Ahmad Shah Baloch. The BLA is the creationg of the Indian intelligence agencies which are trying to create instability in the areas bordering Iran and Afghanistan
• Some Pakistani invoices from the Stone Age for America Pakistan’s 7 invoices from the stone agen (pun intended). New Pakistani government. New 150 Billion per annum bill for the USA. Old aid was signed under duress.
• The right aid for Pakistan:Renegotiating the US Pakistan alliance. Correcting the pirce tag. GWOT. Seven counterpoints to USA
• Fighting terror without PakistanFighting terror without Pakistan by Lisa Curtis
• This is the only solution to the Afghan crisis The inevitable Pakistan Afghan union

Afghan defeat: Blaming the other ally. UK Afghan defeats at Maiwand, Gandamak: Lessons learend for NATO and ISAF“The problem with the allies’ thinking about Afghanistan is that it’s all tactics and no strategy,” A senior British general.Failure and defeat in Afghanistan has reslted in payback and blowback against Pakistan.The ISAF defeat is reminscent of the Peloponeisian wars Python swallows alligator and explodes. Iraq and Afghanistan

Pakistani cheese for Western wine. Countering the “Do More” mantra. Selling Pakistan too cheap. Tit for Tat dimplomacy. Countering requests with formal invoices and charging market prices for service.

Nato, Pakistan and Afghanistan are as divided as the Taliban, says Robert Fox. It’s time to talk
After nearly a month of intense fighting against the Taliban in the south of Afghanistan, involving a surge of 3,000 US Marines, the Americans are changing the guard. Their top US commander General Dan ‘Bomber’ McNeill is to hand over the command to General David McKiernan. It will mean a change of style, and perhaps a change in tactics, but don’t expect the fierce fighting across Helmand and Kandahar to die down any time soon.

The blowback from the US airstrikes: Consequences of US airstrikes by Rahimullah Yusufzai.For all of this month, troops of the British 16 Air Assault Brigade and the US 24 Marine Expeditionary Unit, supported by Dutch and Canadian forces, have been battling to carve out a safe area round Garmsir in Helmand province.

• Those that the gods will destroy they first make mad…
• The last mayor of Kabul’s failures spell the end of Afghanistan. How long can the inept Karzai blame others for his corrupt Narco Warlordism?
• http://rupeenews.com/ideas-on-afghanistan/bugti-karzai-vs-pakistan/
• UK Afghan defeats at Maiwand, Gandamak: Lessons learend for NATO and ISAF)
• Afghan defeat?
• Hollow victory and defeat’s agony

APPENDIX A

Digging around on the internet, you can find a different view. Back in April Syed Saleem Shahzad, the Pakistan Bureau Chief of Asia Times Online, wrote that the Taliban were taking their inspiration from the Vietminh who chased the French out of what was known as Indochina in the 1950s.  He wrote that they were inspired by the Vietnamese commander General Vo Nguyen Giap, who successfully employed guerrilla tactics against the French before crushing them in the battle of Dien Bien Phu  in 1954.

Taking up the theme, the website openDemocracy  followed up by saying that the west tends to assume that it alone is watching the lessons of Vietnam. ”It is as if “only” the United States (and by extension western forces or combatants in general) have the capacity or the interest to draw lessons from the past,” it said. It called the reference to the Taliban looking for  inspiration in Vietnam ”startling and ominous”.

“In the early 1950s, the Vietminh – faced with an imbalance between their own forces and conventional French military power – concentrated on attacking isolated garrisons in the northern part of Vietnam well away from the main colonial centres of control…  This strategy, combined with attacks on French supply-lines, gradually wore down the French military and political leadership’s resolve. Now, it seems, the Taliban aim to do the same against an equivalently “asymmetrical” enemy: Nato, and the International Security Assistance Force forces in Afghanistan.”

So do we go with McCain, who has his own experience of Vietnam? Or the historical parallels with France, which like the United States today in Afghanistan and Iraq, was struggling to cope with guerrilla warfare, did not know how to win over the hearts and minds of the local population, and faced economic crisis at home and a general public which was tired of war in faraway places?

I thought it would be interesting to ask one of the retired Reuters correspondents who had covered Vietnam whether it was legitimate to compare it to Afghanistan and got the following reply from Bernard Edinger, a French reporter who was sent in from Paris before the fall of Saigon in 1975 and also covered Kabul when the Russians first went in with ground troops in 1979:

“Yes, America’s opponents all dream of seeing the US helicopter its people out of Kabul the same humiliating way they flew out of Saigon. I stood on a rooftop opposite the embassy and watched the last choppers go as thousands of local Vietnamese clamouring to be evacuated were abandoned. As you know, the Communists did not win the war, the Americans lost it – at home. The press and much of the public had turned against the war to the point that the politicians just no longer thought it was worth fighting,” he wrote.

“Obviously domestic opposition to US involvement in Afghanistan is far less than that over Vietnam because the horror of the Taliban regime is already known and the Western public has seen the execution by rifle fire of kneeling women in midfield at half-time at Kabul soccer matches , the condemned men hanging from the goalposts etc … Also, opposition to Vietnam was led by students who had the threat of army service before them if the war lasted whereas the US only commits pro soldiers to the war today.”

“An outright Taliban victory over the US is out of the question … But in asymmetric warfare, ‘the strong lose if they don’t win and the weak win if they survive.’ I’m quoting others. The Pathans outlasted Kipling’s British Indian army (and even slit the throat of the British ambassador in his residence) and the Soviet Army. All they have to do is hang in there.”
  http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/2008/05/18/who-will-be-left-standing-when-the-afghan-war-ends/#comment-597

Da Dili takht herauma cheh rayad krhm, Zma da khkule Pukhtunkhwa da ghre saroona. “I forget the throne of Delhi when I recall, The mountain peaks of my beautiful Pukhtunkhwa.” Ahma Shah Abdali

The Pakistani province of NWFP, popularly known as Sarhad is now being renamed to Paskhtunkhwa based on Ahmad Shah Abdali’s words. Khushal Khan Khattak was one of the greatest poets of Pakistan and of Pakhtunkhwa.

Pashtuns comprise over 15.42% of Pakistan’s population or 25.6 million people.[2] In Afghanistan, they make up an estimated 39%[19] to 42% of the population or 12.4 to 13.3 million people. The exact numbers remain uncertain, particularly in Afghanistan, and are affected by approximately 3 million Afghan refugees that remain in Pakistan, of which 81.5% or 2.49 million are ethnic Pashtuns.[3] An unknown number of refugees continue to reside in Iran.[20] A cumulative population assessment suggests a total of around 42 million across the region Source Wikipedia

According to many historians including Humayun Gauhar and Aslam Khattak (” A Pathan Odessy) a confederation almost happened with Afghanitan in 1956.

The missed opportunity came in 1956-57  when Aslam Khattak was first our First Secretary and then Ambassador in Kabul. By then we had a full-blown ‘Afghan Problem’. Prime Minister Suharawardhy called a meeting in which Army Chief General Ayub Khan “dismissed our neighboring country in proper Sandhurst style. ‘Afghan problem?’ he said gruffly. ‘What is the Afghan problem? A little strategic bombing and an armoured thrust would settle it once and for all!.’” It was then that Pakistan, with Aslam Khattak in ‘Track Two’ mode, so to speak, started the proposal for a Pakistan-Afghan confederation. He wanted to get Prime Minister Sardar Daud on his side because “Daud honestly believed that the Pathans were oppressed in Pakistan. He considered it a duty to help his brethren. He may also have been suspicious about the ‘A’, for Afghan (Afghanica) province in Pakistan. Did it mean we wanted to take over his country? At the same time, we thought that Daud was in league with India and bent upon dividing our country with Delhi. As was often the case in such circumstance, both sides were wrong.” Daud was King Zahir Shah’s first cousin and married to the King’s sister. It was he who eventually deposed Zahir Shah. Khattak went to see Daud and told him that he wanted “to remove the misunderstanding between our countries…”

Next, Khattak separately met the “royal uncles”, Shah Wali and Shah Mahmood, and took them into confidence. “I told him that Pakistan and Afghanistan would have to form a confederation if they were to survive threats from the USSR and India.” After considerable humming and hawing both agreed to take the idea further. “Now I was ready to try my hand with Sardar Daud, whom I thought would be my most difficult hurdle.” After Daud had made his complaints and Khattak had clarified them, including the letter ‘A’ in the name ‘Pakistan’, they decided that there should be an exchange of visits between King Zahir Shah and President Iskander Mirza. Actually both President Mirza and Prime Minister Suhrawardy went to Kabul together, which is highly unusual. While King and President were involved in ceremony, the two Prime Ministers started talking. After they left, Khattak continued the dialogue with Daud, who “suggested that we include some friendly missions in our discussions, such as Turkey and the USA. Sardar Daud said that the Americans should foot the bill of our mutual development projects when we confederated. Both sides would maintain internal autonomy, he proposed, but they would form a Central Government for defence, foreign policy, foreign trade and communications. The Prime Ministers would rotate.”

If you are surprised at how far the dialogue went, there was more. Feroz Khan Noon had replaced Suhrawardy as Prime Minister. Khattak raised the question of head of state of the confederation with him. “In his grand way [Noon] said we should have no difficulty accepting King Zahir Shah as the constitutional head of state. ‘After all, for some time after independence we had a Christian queen. Now we would have a Muslim man’. President Mirza concurred in this.” When Khattak next met Daud, he said that “…a confederation was the correct step to realise our common destiny. I noted that Pakistan was a democratic country and asked what would be the position of the King. He promptly replied, ‘We shall be a republic if Pakistan so desires.’” So here was Pakistan ready to accept the constitutional monarchy of Zahir Shah in the new Pak-Afghan confederation and there was Afghanistan prepared to become a republic.

As to the USA, Aslam Khattak says, “The Americans agreed to help in a big way. They were prepared to enlarge Karachi harbour and to develop another port. They agreed to provide fifty locomotives and five hundred wagons and to extend the Chaman railway to Kandahar and the Torkham rail line to Jalalabad. Sardar Daud wanted them to extend the Jalalabad railhead to Kabul and to commit to connect Kandahar and Kabul by rail.” They had actually got into post-confederation details.

Then came mistakes. Daud came to Pakistan and while inspecting a shipyard in Karachi a bullet ricocheted off a ship and hit Aslam Khattak instead. Undaunted, they decided to bring Ghaffar Khan into the equation. He was released from prison and sent to Kabul, where he agreed to help in removing Pakistan-Afghan differences provided President Mirza agreed to hold a referendum on the One Unit. Mirza agreed. The American Ambassador in Karachi assured Ghaffar Khan through the American Ambassador in Kabul that the referendum would be held. But it wasn’t. “I have never known,” says Aslam Khattak, “exactly why he did not go ahead and do the job that he said he would. He may have got word from some important Pathans in Pakistan that, if the Afghans stopped speaking about the Pushtuns, the Punjabis would literally turn them into camp followers and second-class citizens. At any rate a great chance to change the face of history was missed.” Indeed. Let’s leave it at that. So much water has flown since then.

But consider. If the confederation had happened, it would have automatically meant the end of the Parity Principle and One Unit because the anti-democratic 1956 Constitution would have had to be changed. There would have been no Ayub Khan regime and East Pakistan may still have been with us. The Soviets would not have such a large country. No Soviet occupation means no Jihad. No Jihad means no Mujahideen. The Americans could not have created Osama bin Laden. No Osama means no 9/11. Source Humayun Gauhar  hgauhar@nation.com.pk

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Afghanistan’s Mad Max Highway 1 controlled by the insurgents US attacks on Pakistan have fueled the Afghan insurgency NATO war: UK 1880 defeats in Afghanistan
Moscow’s pound of flesh for allowing base & supplies to Afghanistan
—————————————-
Rescueing the Pashtuns of Afghania from Afghanistan

Erase the Durand Line

Afghan Great Game

The Grand Bargains for Kabul Russia asserts itself in Central Asia Moscow’s pound of flesh for base & supplies to Kabul

Gwadar to China:- Trade lessons from the 5000 yr old Pakistani Indus Valley Civilization: The Harrappan Trade Corridor within the IVC (Dilmin, Mekan) and beyond is now being resurrected again
Obama’s advisor predicts focus on talks and reconciliation

Why was India attacked in Kabul? India a secret player in Afghanistan: Bases—Lashkargarh, Qushila Jadid,Khahak,Hassan Killies

Pakistan Assembly: No to War in Afghanistan

Khyber Pass choked for NATO supplies

Nightmare for Bharat: New realities in Kabul

“American Taliban in Kabul?