Afghan Press Author: Rooh-ul-Amin

During his election campaign he has repeatedly reiterated that he will withdraw US forces from Iraq and half of the withdrawn forces (4500) would be sent to Afghanistan. After trouncing his republican rival John McCain in presidential election, the US president-elect Barack Obama, as a first step of his enunciation, has called for evacuation of its forces from the land of Iraq. The process would be completed with in a span of 16 months. He has been a harsh critic of Bush foreign policy but what is, that, which has compelled him on deploying more troops in Afghanistan. Does America really want to bring true democracy to Afghanistan, (a land of eccentric traditions) and want to hamstring the influence and strength of Al-Qaida?

Does it want to uplift the social and economic conditions of a tattered country, which has fought for more or less thirty years, which has to fight a long way further?

Whether it was the solo and personal decision of late General Zia-ul-haq to initiate a holy war against the then USSR, or he was doing it at the behest of his American counterpart.

The assassinated Benazir Bhuttu and General Naseerullah Babar reared Taliban on his or her own initiatives or it was the dictation of the US?

Whether America was against Talibanisation from the very out set or something occurred, which, the US could not digested? For asking there is a torrent of questions but for understanding the full story why America invaded Afghanistan, there are a few factors, which are surely helpful in understanding the great intrigue of invasion. Among them all, the US economic interest factor stands prominent. It is no denying the fact that no Afghan national was involved in 9/11 attacks on the twin towers of the US then what was there that goaded the Washington on invading Afghanistan?

When the Taliban were getting triumph after triumph with the secret backing and succor of Pakistan, the US felt it a hazard for capitalism for which it had fought with the USSR.

Islamabad assured Washington that king Zahir Shah is popular among majority of the Taliban and it will exert on them to re-empower him. Thus Islamabad embanked the Taliban against the US possible aggression. Here, some of the journalists started writing Afghanistan as the fifth province of Pakistan. Because there was no need to have a passport to visit Afghanistan and similarly the Taliban were given a special privilege in Pakistan. The ties between the Taliban and Pakistan can be jugged of the fact that once I was at lurk for a non-stop vehicle from Torkhum border-gate to Islamabad, that a Taliban pick-up vehicle appeared at the gate and luckily I was given a hitch-hike by them.

But to my surprise during the whole course of journey no security personnel could dare to stop the vehicle while traveling from Torkhum to Islamabad.

But it was a herculean task to muster up the scattered eight different factions of Taliban under a single flag of Zahir Shah. The Peshawar accord and Islamabad accord could not weld them into a homogenous whole. But this factor is not so convincing in paving the way for the US aggression.

The second factor, which provoked the US on invasion, was the presence of Usama bin Laden and his purported involvement in the attacks of 9/11. But this factor is also not so convincing.

Because, on one hand he was the production of American anti-socialist strategy, on the other the US has been a major haven for the insurgents of Asia, Europe and Cuba. One prime example is that only in Florida, there is a glut of Cuban insurgents. In such a case it has no legal right to decimate and destroy an entire nation and a country in the pursuit of a single man or a faction. If the US is justified in it then the Cuba has such kind of right to attack America, and indeed it did not do it. At least the Cuba had the legal right to file a case in the international court of law against American CIA. For, it was involved in Che Guevara’s execution on October 10, 1967, in La Higuera, Bolivia. Then why did it attack Afghanistan?

Was it the Islamic styled fast-response judicial system of Taliban, their religious mentality or their tough purdha system for women that invoked its invasion on Afghanistan? The answer is surly ‘no’. If it were the case then it must have attacked, its friend Saudi Arabia, for it has also the same Islamic tradition with a dynasty instead democracy. Then why America does not attack it? It is very recent that the Bush administration also fabricated a plan to attack Saudi Arabia but it is not a part of this current discussion.

If religion is a great threat for America then unlike Usama (who epitomises religion in the eyes of the US), Che Guevara was a stanch atheist (a symbol of apostasy), so why did the US destroy him. It is because the US always fights for its hegemony and want to hoist the flag of capitalism and its supremacy across the globe. The person who was stanch supporter for socialism (Che Guevara) was executed and the person who is a stanch anti-socialism (Usama), is under the pursuit of the US.

If America really wanted to kill Usama then CIA has the mastery of intrusion and intrigues. It has executed Che Guevara in Bolivia for his revolutionary vision, and Z.A Bhuttu in his own country for introducing nuclear programme in Pakistan through the hands of its own superseded military General.

If it can knit intrigues against President Suikarno of Indonesia and president Nasser of Egypt,Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, Cuban Socialist leader Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, then it could have assassinated Usama also. Thus it is clear that imperialist power always keeps its economic interests dear than any thing in the world. It has nothing to do with religion, culture or democracy. For it has always bolstered up dictatorship in Pakistan with no exemption of Taiwan. For bolstering up two-China policy, Washington had supported a military dictator Gen. Chiang Kai-Shek in Taiwan. It was after a great deal of hues and cries of Beijing that Carter buried the hatchet for sometime and that too for the sake of its own economic interests.

After the Soviet disintegration and the emergence of Central Asian States, all the natural resources near river Caspian were laying underutilised. Washington, like a hovering hawk wanted to swoop on that underutilised pool of natural gas and oil.

We have been hearing it since long and this perception is so common that even a layman can utter a few words about it. But it is necessary to explain it whether it is a rumour or a reality. Once addressing a seminar on “ Oil and Gas Industry” arranged by the CATO Institute, US Vice-President Dick Cheney exposed “God has accumulated the natural resources in those countries whom we have no good ties. This is the reason we sometimes go to those areas where we rarely go. Then it is our compulsion to interfere in their affairs. Anyway we prefer to go where there is business we prefer to go there”.

He pointed out that the pool of natural resources in gulf states are fast depleting so for Washington the entrails of river Caspian and its adjoining areas can be a good alternative. It has a pool of worth four trillion in US $ dollar. He wondered that he could not believe the river Caspian and its adjacent areas will get such a strategic prominence. Now it is obvious that for the US there was no option save invasion, to plunder such a huge natural pool of entrails. It wanted to have access to it by meshing a pipeline via Afghanistan. It was in 2001 when “Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth” which made its debut as a collaborative work by French writer Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, that divulged the causes of American invasion.

The book says that Washington wanted to raise Taliban as a power among Central Asian States and thus it dreamt for meshing pipeline from former Soviet States via Afghanistan. For the purpose America wanted to bring conformity among the different factions of Taliban. Thus it prodded Islamabad to play its role and many rounds of talks among small and major eight outfits of Taliban were carried out.

The US was acting on a policy of conformity until the Taliban defied its dictations in 2001. It is not the notion of a layman rather it is the out come of Brisard and Dasquie’s joint observations and efforts. The former has been a high profiled official at the French Secretariat Service while the later is a prominent name in journalism. The book says that Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) Deputy Director John O’Niel resigned on account that the US had always ignored the presence of Usama in Afghanistan. Frustrated with this, O’Neill had gone public, stating that he was ordered not to investigate Saudi/al-Qaeda connections because of the Enron pipeline deal.

It is then, the US roared with furry when the Taliban put some conditions before Washington for carpeting pipeline via Afghanistan.

Thus America could not condone their unforgivable crime and decided to exterminate the Taliban.

(To be continued)

The writer is a FATA-based freelance journalist.