The Problem With Afghanistan



"I don't have to runaway and live in the street. I can runaway and I can go to the ocean, I can go to the country, I can go to the mountains. I could go to Israel, Africa, Afghanistan."

-- Allison Reynolds, The Breakfast Club

What is going on along the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where, reportedly, Osama bin Laden operates freely? Did you happen to read the New York Times Sunday magazine article on "Talibanistan"? Do you recall this breathtaking passage from the piece by Dexter Filkins:

"For years, the survival of Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders has depended on a double game: assuring the United States that they were vigorously repressing Islamic militants — and in some cases actually doing so — while simultaneously tolerating and assisting the same militants. From the anti-Soviet fighters of the 1980s and the Taliban of the 1990s to the homegrown militants of today, Pakistan’s leaders have been both public enemies and private friends.

"When the game works, it reaps great rewards: billions in aid to boost the Pakistani economy and military and Islamist proxies to extend the government’s reach into Afghanistan and India."

The idea is that the Pakistan economy itself depends upon American foreign military aid. Pakistan's misrulers depend on it so much so that they play this circular game, a dangerous game, killing as many Taliban and Al Quaeda soldiers as will keep the United States happy, but not so much as to put a decisive end to the war. Just astonishing. Another passage:

"I had come to my destination: Takya, the home village of Haji Namdar, a Taliban commander who had taken control of a large swath of Khyber agency.

"Pulling into Namdar’s compound, I felt transported back in time to the Kabul of the 1990s, when the Taliban were at their zenith. A group of men and boys — jittery, clutching rifles and rocket-propelled grenades — sat in the bed of a Toyota Hi-Lux, the same model of truck the Taliban used to ride to victory in Afghanistan. A flag nearly identical to that of the Afghan movement — a pair of swords crossed against a white background — fluttered in the heavy air. Even the name of Namdar’s group, the Vice and Virtue brigade, came straight from the Taliban playbook: in the 1990s, bands of young men under the same name terrorized Afghanistan, flogging men for shaving their beards, caning women for walking alone and thrashing children for flying kites.

"... So here was Namdar — Taliban chieftain, enforcer of Islamic law, usurper of the Pakistani government and trainer and facilitator of suicide bombers in Afghanistan — sitting at home, not three miles from Peshawar, untouched by the Pakistani military operation that was supposedly unfolding around us.

"What’s going on? I asked the warlord. Why aren’t they coming for you?

"'I cannot lie to you,' Namdar said, smiling at last. 'The army comes in, and they fire at empty buildings. It is a drama — it is just to entertain.'

"Entertain whom? I asked.

"'America,' he said."