From The Real News Network:
October 7, 2010:
One War in Pakistan and Afghanistan
Muhammad Junaid: U.S. is replicating the final days of Russian occupation, deal looking more likely October 6, 2010
October 6, 2010
One War in Pakistan and Afghanistan
Muhammad Junaid: U.S. is replicating the final days of Russian occupation, deal looking more likely
One War in Pakistan and Afghanistan
Bio
Muhammad Junaid is a researcher and lecturer at the Institute on Management Studies, University of Peshawar in Pakistan. He holds a Masters degree in Business and IT and contributes regularly to blogs. He is currently doing his PHD in entrepreneurship from University of Essex, UK. His particular topic of interests include the identity of Afghan (Pashtun) entrepreneurs. As a Pashtun himself, he communicates the events in Afghanistan and Pakistan by interpreting them with respect to Pashtun culture.
Transcript
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Washington. In Pakistan, the effect of the massive flooding continues, with hundreds of thousands of people displaced. The war on the border between American and NATO troops and Taliban troops and their supporters rages on. The US offensive has begun around Kandahar in the south of Afghanistan. The battle is fierce, although very little reporting coming from the field in American news media. Now joining us to make sense of all of this is Muhammad Junaid. He's a researcher doing his PhD in London, from Peshawar in Pakistan, very familiar with the situation in Afghanistan. Thanks for joining us, Muhammad.
MUHAMMAD JUNAID, PHD STUDENT AND RESEARCHER: Thank you very much.
JAY: In terms of the American offensive and what's going on in Pakistan, tie these things together for us.
JUNAID: Well, let us start, you know, with the immediate context of Afghanistan first, where the situation around Kandahar is getting hotter and the Zhari District is becoming the place where the next fight is going to happen. The reports are that the concentration of NATO and American forces is coming out of Marja and shifting towards the suburbs of Kandahar. This trend really replicates the Russian invasion. If you look at the chronology of things, as the things come to end for Russia, they concentrated on different spaces in big numbers, just trying and hoping to finish Taliban somewhere—or mujahideen somewhere, in that case. However, it is a guerrilla war, we should remember. They will pit a few hundred or maybe 1,000 guerrilla warriors against the Americans and NATOs, trying to do the maximum damage, and the rest of them will go into the mountains. However, in the media it will be reported very differently; it will be reported like a big victory. This seems to be happening in Afghanistan. Now, just across to Pakistan, and things are very different now. These are not two different wars now, because in the last one week, things have changed massively. NATO has continuously violated the Pakistani boundary. They have entered with helicopters and bombarded and sent missiles, killing Taliban, presumably, and killing many more people who nobody knows. But it became really bad when they hit a military checkpost on the border. Three Pakistani paramilitary troops were killed in that. Because of that, Pakistan has stopped the NATO supplies, and it is the fifth day that the NATO supplies are blocked within Pakistan. Now, in the last five days there have been three strikes on the NATO supplies. About 40 oil tankers have been burned down in three different incidents, and different drivers have also been killed who are carrying these supplies for NATO. The Pakistani foreign minister is in Brussels, and he has lodged a complaint. The news are that Pakistan is not going to accept any verbal apology. They need something written, and they need something more guaranteed.
JAY: Let's go back, first of all, to the historical piece. Many people have said the British failed, the Russians failed, the American-NATO venture's bound to fail. But there were a couple of big differences, certainly, between the American situation and the Russian situation. First of all, there was a really nationalist, broad nationalist opposition to the Russian invasion. By the time the war was at its height, even the urban Afghans on the whole, as far as I understand it, were supporting the mujahideen, were opposed to the Russian invasion. In this situation, from what I understand, Afghan society's more divided about the presence of the Americans and NATO, because a lot of the urban Afghans don't want to see the Taliban back. The other thing that the Russians argue is that when you look at battle for battle, the Russians actually weren't really losing, they claim. The Russian generals say the big thing that happened was the implosion of the Russian economy, that the Soviet leadership and the Russian economy just wouldn't support this war anymore. They claim they actually—if they'd been allowed to stay, they could have won. Of course, we hear that from, I guess, every military in this kind of situation. Just compare this, the current situation, to the Russian situation.
JUNAID: Let's look at the, you know, similarities first. This notion of Afghan cities being at the loggerheads with Russians is actually misplaced, I can tell you. Most of the natives of Kabul migrated to Pakistan after 1992 when there was a civil war between mujahideen. So it means that at that time the cities were really kept intact by the Russians and by the local Pashtuns, who were communists. Many Pashtuns were communist at that time. There was a very strong military serving that communist regime. It was so strong that they even held to the communist government within Afghanistan more than three years after the Russia imploded, and Najibullah still kept there as a president for more than three years. This tells us a lot how strong the internal support was for the Russians.
JAY: There was support for the Russians or for the Afghan communists in the cities. I guess that would lead to the conclusion, then, that the cities would be even more anti-Taliban.
JUNAID: Yes, exactly. If you look at the city dwellers, they normally want their city life and their normal life returning to them. In the long run, nobody will support Americans to be there. That's—you know, there is no difference on this. They will want, eventually, Americans to go out. Now, once America—. And what is the reason behind that? The reason is the current structure and the current parties which are holding the power in Afghanistan are actually made of warlords. They have got their own parameters, and they will want their own rule to be there. So why will oppose Taliban? Well, there is a simple reason: Taliban will not let them have their own parameters, not let them have their own small kingdoms. They will, you know, just—they will just go on. And, you know, maybe they will go on a killing spree again. So this is, you know, the main reason they are siding with America. It is not because of some human rights or some kind of development projects which can empower the poor of the area. The warlords will hate these things. They do not want the lower cadre of people to be empowered. But they want the enemies to be destroyed, and then for the Americans to leave.
JAY: So in terms of the American campaign now, the Russians you could say in the urban centers had some support and still they had to leave anyway. The Americans—you hear in the Western press, and the American media particularly, is that this mission seems to be doomed. Most of the left and progressives around the world say this mission seems to be doomed. Do you think so?
JUNAID: Well, you know, it depends on what we mean by "doomed". If we say that, you know, by "doomed", it is going to, you know, become a turmoil again as it was in 1992, well, it seems like it is going to become like that. There will be, you know, a lot of civil war, as it seems like. However, you know, America will not let that happen, I think. They are trying to, you know, reach some settlement right now, and they have approached Afghan Taliban. And there is a big change in the tone of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Mullah Omar, you know, in the recent one month. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was interviewed by a Pakistani journalist, and his interview was recorded from an unknown place, and his tone was really different. He was looking for a broad-based government. Now, let's shift to Mullah Omar, and his narrative has also changed a lot. He assured that there will be no attack from the land of Afghanistan and in foreign territories. So there is a change, which means that they can reach some kind of collective agreement. But the bigger problems in those collective agreements are a lot of influence for America, which America is really after, and Afghans are really against it. And then the regional powers, like Pakistan, China, Iran, and Russia, and to some extent India, do not want Americans to be here.
JAY: In the next segment of our interview, let's talk about the geopolitics of this. There's all kinds of debate about why exactly is the United States in Afghanistan, what is the Afghan policy, and they seem to be caught between short-term crises and long-term strategic needs, meaning China. So in the next segment, let's talk about the Afghan war and geopolitics in China. Please join us again on The Real News Network with Muhammad Junaid.
End of Transcript
DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
October 7, 2010
China and the Afghan War
One War in Pakistan and Afghanistan Pt.2
One War in Pakistan and Afghanistan
Bio
Muhammad Junaid is a researcher and lecturer at the Institute on Management Studies, University of Peshawar in Pakistan. He holds a Masters degree in Business and IT and contributes regularly to blogs. He is currently doing his PHD in entrepreneurship from University of Essex, UK. His particular topic of interests include the identity of Afghan (Pashtun) entrepreneurs. As a Pashtun himself, he communicates the events in Afghanistan and Pakistan by interpreting them with respect to Pashtun culture.
Transcript
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome back to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Washington. Now joining us again from London to discuss the Afghan-Pakistan situation is Muhammad Junaid. He's a researcher working on his PhD, comes from Peshawar in Pakistan. Thanks for joining us, Muhammad.
MUHAMMAD JUNAID, PHD STUDENT AND RESEARCHER: Thank you.
JAY: So in the first segment we were talking about the campaign in the south of Afghanistan, comparing it to what had happened with the Russians. But the bigger situation now is just exactly what is the US objective here. And China, of course, has to be in their calculations. Talk a little bit about how you think the China strategy for the US affects their decision here?
JUNAID: It is mainly about China, actually. China is spreading in all directions. It is going to Africa. Last night I was looking, and the news was that China wants to buy the debt of Greece. So they're expanding in a real, in a very aggressive fashion towards Europe as well. Sounds like Russia, you know, spreading. There is Iran as well, which is also, you know, a thorn in the side of America. The main problem is the energy war. The Central Asian states are really unexplored, and there is supposed to be a big wealth of minerals and carbon.
JAY: Yeah, they're calling it the Saudi Arabia of lithium.
JUNAID: Exactly. Afghanistan is something like that. So China has this policy that they want to make this area prosper by making it an energy corridor. Now, it will surely work against America, because all the energy that China, you know, gets is mostly now through the Straits of Malacca, where the American influence is huge. And recently Pakistan has offered China to take the Gwadar Port, where Chinese has already invested a huge amount of money. If that port is taken, it simply means that there can be a pipeline coming from the Gulf states which can run upwards to China. There can be another pipeline coming from Iran, which can go to India and which can go to China. So in this case India also benefits. And the Turkmenistan pipeline can also be plugged into that. In addition to that, the Russian gas can also be connected to that. So all this area can become a big pipeline land, and Pakistan will become a pipeline-istan, as a lot of the scholars has already said, that it can become pipeline-istan. Pakistan will get a few billion dollars per year in royalties only, in that case. So America is set to block that from every aspect. That is the long-term strategy.
JAY: That would change the power dynamics throughout the whole Middle East.
JUNAID: The Gulf states will not need to bank on America totally, because China is an emerging economy. There is India. Simply, there are about 2.5 billion people, you know, working in big economies, and that is the place to invest, and, you know, that is the place to supply all the oil to. This is a horrible situation for America from another dimension, because Turkey is also expanding, and Turkey is trying to have a very leading role. If Turkey is successful in what it is doing right now, it is going to connect Europe to all this game, and then Europe will also want a share of all that oil and all that gas. In fact, we know that Eastern Europe is being, you know, exploited by Russia from many dimensions, because they're, you know, supplying all the gas, and sometimes, you know, they turn off the knob on them. So Europe will be, you know, better off by this kind of oil pipeline, oil system. So this is the bigger game, as you can see.
JAY: Well, you would think, then, that the conclusion US policy might reach is for a massive aid effort in Pakistan to deal with the flooding, which has been described as, you know, having had a worse effect than the tsunami or even the earthquake in Haiti, and try to develop some pro-US public opinion in Pakistan, instead of pursuing the war in Afghanistan, in Waziristan, and such, which seems to be alienating Pakistan. So it's hard to understand what the logic behind US policy is here.
JUNAID: This looks to be a very rational, you know, path to take. However, the historical context is very different. China has a huge, huge historical advantage as far as trust is concerned between Pakistan and China. America has a huge disadvantaged position on that. Secondly, the geography of the area is such that China will have a huge advantage anyhow. So if Pakistan is stronger, then they will not need any American aid, and America can be told to mind their own business. This can be, you know, the result. So for America, strengthening Pakistan to such an extent that they can come to that [path] is not the right strategy right now. They will want to push them from different directions, for example, trying to raid the tribal areas through drones, and sometimes through their aircrafts and military helicopters, and also trying to trickle the aid and attach it to different kind of conditions that they will put on Pakistan. And this is the strategy right now.
JAY: But then does that mean that the long-term objective in Afghanistan is long-term bases, which they have, and they have agreement from the Karzai government to have long-term bases? On the other hand, you hear Obama talking about getting out.
JUNAID: As you know, and everybody, you know, knows this in Western press as well, that there is a huge amount of debate going on within the Obama regime. The military and the White House are not on the same page every time. The politicians are looking for different kind of objectives. The military's looking for different kind of objectives. The danger of this is—and I feel that, you know, it is more probable, unfortunately—that America will become sick and tired of this situation, and before they go out, it seems like they will allow, you know, the military to get the hell out of there, but destroy whatever is left there, and Afghan people will suffer for that. It seems like this kind of end is in the coming, because even if Afghans want, you know, some kind of peaceful settlement, it doesn't seem like its regional [inaudible] will, you know, let them reach that kind of settlement.
JAY: Thanks very much for joining us, Muhammad.
JUNAID: Thank you very much.
JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.
End of Transcript
DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
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