War Fever: Expedient Lapses of Memory
The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable events…Winston Churchill
The assassination of Burhannudin Rabbani, Jamiat’s titular boss has predictably spawned a post-mortem, career-enhancing historical resuscitation by Western media outlets and Obama Administration spokespersons. But here we must depart from fantasy and embrace reality. The gratuitous character endorsements which represent a departure from reality and the historical record are templates reminiscent of both the British Colonial and Soviet era ‘divide and conquer’ strategies.
Inarguably, the West has long harbored an anti-Pashtun orientation, seeking instead alliances with the minority Northern Alliance, a fractious collection of Soviet collaborators, nefarious war lords and narcotics traffickers soon to be allies of the U.S., a country that tirelessly obsesses over combatting opium proliferation in Afghanistan, and yet would recruit as an anti-Taliban proxy militia, the Northern Alliance who provided 90% of the 2001 crop of opium production in the provinces under their control, a crop virtually eradicated by the Taliban’s ban on poppy production in their respective areas according to a report from the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention dated October 16, 2001. (See: Drugs, Oil and War, Peter Dale Scott, p. 44, 2003, Time to Ditch the Northern Alliance, Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2002, by S. Frederick Starr)
Notwithstanding those visionary-detractors among various U.S. Government agencies who forewarned of doing business with a collection of war criminals and thereby certain to embarrass the United States in their foreign policy endeavors, it would appear, with myopic aforethought, that the United States has drawn upon nineteenth century British and Soviet tactics and motivations of enlisting a modern-day King (Iraq) Faisal, a divisive, bribed impresario, a self-serving element to buttress their ulterior as opposed to their posed motivations , the quest for oil. (See: Time to Ditch the Northern Alliance, Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2002, by S. Frederick Starr)
To be sure, this dubious affiliation is centered on a strategy of ethnic based rivalry and division, posing the minority as inviolable on the world stage, and thereby eviscerating Taliban legitimacy, resistance and world support against a brutal occupation, indiscriminate attacks against the civilian population, and what is viewed in Afghanistan and around the world as an unjust, decade-long illegal war based on fabrications for material gain.
However, in that amorphous world of international politics, certain analysts engaged in colonial-era research have concluded that at the root of America’s anti-Pashtun predisposition is latent jealousy, an unspoken, though cerebral/emotional political-hangover from the Anglo-colonial era extant amongst American leaders, leaders cognizant of the fact that our British cousins were unceremoniously defeated in three wars by legendary Pashtun martial prowess and courage as more recently were the Soviet 40th Army. Both super-powers of their respective time in history buttressed by the latest in killing technology or modern weaponry sought to weaken the majority Pashtuns in order to wrest control over the country.
Expedient lapses of memory:
Unrecognized by the mainstream media and post-mortem eulogy, notwithstanding an indictment as a war criminal for facilitating massacres in the post-Soviet period, and as with the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, Burhannudin Rabbani supported the concept of a partitioned Afghanistan, a ‘Greater Tajikistan’, was decidedly anti-Taliban and on record as a high-office politician for sale to the highest USSR, Russia, Iran and U.S. bidder, and therefore immunized against American media and administration criticism and subsequent military incursion while recipient of billions in American largesse. See: Afghanistan, Political Frailty and External Interference, Dr. Nabi Misdaq, p330n, 2006, and American Raj, Liberation or Domination, Resolving the Conflict between the West and the Muslim World, Eric S. Margolis, P196, 2008).
A brief review of his [real] as opposed to mythical tenure as President of Afghanistan as concocted by KGB, GRU, MI6, and CIA coopted-media sycophants, a tenure as compiled by Rabbani while in a position of leadership, serves to illuminate the recent, parochial, gratuitous and politically expedient flow of accolades from his foreign sponsors.
Recent post-mortem eulogies by a co-opted Western media serve the U.S. mission-statement in Afghanistan and should therefore be assessed with extreme caution. The homogenization and shaping of the war narrative has fallen to the intelligence community during the so-called ‘war on terror.’ Global Research has recently reported that there were over 400 American journalists who had secretly carried out assignments for the CIA. Among organizations which cooperated with CIA were the American Broadcasting Company, NBC, The AP, UPI, Fox News, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Newsweek, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald, the Saturday Evening Post and the New York Herald Tribune. By far the most valuable of the associations, according to CIA officials, has been the New York Times, CBS, and Time Inc. The CIA ran training programs to teach its agents to be journalists who were placed in major news organizations with assistance from management. The aforementioned, recently discovered to be in the pay of the CIA, are charged with advising the world of the righteousness of the anti-insurgency, the ‘war on terror’ and warrant studied and cautious circumspection as to the merits of Burhanuddin Rabbani’s tenure as a political leader. For the record, a brief resume of Burhannudin Rabbani’s political dossier follows:
1992:
One of Rabbani’s first official acts as President of Afghanistan (1992) was to travel to Moscow and trade away Afghanistan’s right to sue for hundreds of billions in war reparations in exchange for Russian military and economic support of his government. His concessional letter to a leader (Vladimir Putin) of a country (Russia) that killed 2 million of his people, destroyed eleven of eighteen-thousand villages, more than one-million homes, over eleven-thousand mosques, and twenty-two hundred primary schools, is illustrative of a leader obsessed with parochial projection of power at any price. A verbatim (Dari to English*) translation of his (1999) concessional letter to President Vladimir Putin follows:
25 December 1999
Honorable Mr. President:
On behalf of the Afghan people the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and myself wish to take this opportunity to congratulate you on the New Year 2000. Congratulations to you and to the friendly Russian Government and the Russian people.
Mr. President, using this time I want to assure you of the firm commitment, cooperation, and stand of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in regards to the important issues facing our two countries. The government and the people believe that a united, strong and democratic Russia is the main ingredient for peace and stability as well as unity and justice in the region and the world. The new Russia under your leadership has taken positive steps in that direction.
The result of the last Parliamentary election has proven your enormous success. So therefore please accept my congratulations honorable and respected Mr. President. And I can assure you that the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan with all its effort will stand with you against the common enemies of our two great countries, terrorism, smuggling and injustice.
The strong resistance of the people of Afghanistan against broad occupation and anarchy is not only in defense of its rights but is also a struggle against instability and in defense of our right to freedom, national sovereignty and self-determination, which itself will assure peace in the region and the world. From this point the people of Afghanistan hope for support of the friendly government of Russia as well as those of other nations of the international community.
Afghanistan and Russian friendship has historical and strategic value. Because of this, we need more cooperation and hope for strong ties and relations now as well as in the future.
With respect,
Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani
President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
*Translation: By Afghan Journalist, Sayed Noorulhaq Husseini, See: Afghanistan, a Search for Truth, Bruce G. Richardson, p 450, 2009, In summation, when evaluating Rabbani’s tenure as party (Jamiat) leader, political icon, or as interim president, one cannot ignore or dismiss in the name of some intra-party ideology or utopian pronouncement, the massive, unprecedented violence and war crimes committed under his stewardship during the post-Soviet civil war period. In addition, his covetous foreign intelligence affiliations are well-recognized, unassailable as fact and a matter of record. His concessional letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin stands as a case in point given the traumatic Soviet/Afghan historical experience, and while representative of his political worldview … and notwithstanding expedient superlatives issued in post-mortem eulogy by self-serving intelligence associates, remains inexplicable and inexcusable. (See: Time to Ditch the Northern Alliance, Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2002 by S. Frederick Starr),
Bruce G. Richardson
Notes:
For additional detail regarding the presidential tenure of Burhanuddin Rabbani see: Afghanistan, Political Frailty and External Interference, Dr. Nabi Misdaq, pp. 90, 146, 149-152, 167-8, 180, 182, 205-209, 231, 243,330n, 2006, American Raj, Liberation or Domination, Resolving the Conflict between the West and the Muslim World, Eric S. Margolis, p. 196, 197, 2008. Afghanistan, a Search for Truth, Bruce G. Richardson, pp. 250-251, 2009, and Drugs, Oil and War, Peter Dale Scott, p.44, 2003, and Time to Ditch the Northern Alliance, 2/26/02, Wall Street Journal, by S. Frederick Starr.