March 23, 2007
Ban Ki-moon, the lack-luster spokesman for the United States who now heads the organization established to legalize the international hegemony of the Untied States and its Western partners, has spoken again: this time to the Security Council of an organization which has often provided legal coverage to the aggressions committed by Western nations. And he says: “Suicide bombers and Taliban fighters are crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan, and Pakistan must take more action to stop the incursions.”
One would not even comment on the content of his actual statement, as it indicates a tainted understanding of the Afghan situation to such an extent that Ban Ki-moon’s name could easily be replaced by, for instance, the US Secretary of State, Foreign Minister of Canada, or any minister of foreign forces now occupying a large part of Afghanistan under the nom de guerre which invokes nothing but images of Western hegemony: NATO.
It may be beneficial, however, to refresh the memory: Afghanistan, the backwater of the modern world, known to the outside world for nothing but its poppy harvest, has been home to nomadic and settled tribes for centuries; people who have lived in relative isolation, surrounded by their calm and serene mountains and vast deserts. This thinly populated place has served as a doorway to invading armies going east, west, south, and north, but it has never been occupied by anyone for any length of time. Every foreign power that has ever tried to occupy it has left after suffering a humiliating defeat, for freedom is by far the only treasure of the Afghan and he protects it at whatever cost is involved.
To the outside world, it is a backward and poor country, where illiterate and impoverished men and women live under harsh conditions. Those who know the place with any degree of intimacy are, however, stunned by the richness of life in this sparsely populated land: carpets, kilims, and fine glass work being merely a few better-known aspects of the rich and diverse culture of this ancient land, whose people embraced Islam within the first century of its appearance. Afghanistan also produced some of the most celebrated scholars and Sufis and remains a place of deep religious devotions.
The relative calm of this land was disturbed in 1979, when more than one hundred thousand Russian soldiers marched into Kabul from the North. Since that fateful day, this country has been ravaged by three foreign armies: the Russians, the US, and now NATO. If one were to pay attention to the modus operandi of these foreign forces, one would find a remarkable similarity: they come in on the strength of their advanced weapons. They establish a puppet regime, which, in turn, quickly “invites them to stay” (when using this invitation card at UN, no one wants to recall that they are already there!). Once their initial objective is achieved, these foreign forces try to transform this ancient land so that it looks like how they want to see it. All have failed in this goal. The Russians left in disgrace, the US pulled out most of its forces to invade Iraq, NATO continues the same old dirty work, but is bound to fail.
To be sure, Afghanistan does not offer oil wells to the greedy global players, but there is much else at stake. It is the road to oil-rich Central Asian republics, where the US oil cartel has established itself as a major long-term “partner”; it is the nearest land from where Iran can be invaded, and it is a place where so-called Islamic fighters must be prevented from establishing their training camps.
So, Taliban or no Taliban, the aim of the Western powers is to transform this ancient land and destroy its rich and varied spiritual and cultural tradition. Already, Kabul and Kandahar have lost much: there are restaurants offering pork chops and wine, there are television channels offering telecasted vulgarity and Western values, and a huge effort is underway to establish an educational system designated to create a next generation of Afghans who would have lost all touch with fourteen centuries of their past.
Afghans are a hardy people and the last place in the world to succumb to foreign forces. This is not empty rhetoric; one has only to turn a few pages of a world history book to arrive at this conclusion: from Alexander to the terror-invoking armies of Bush, all have walked in and out of this land of serene mountains where snow has not melted since the Ice Age in humiliation and defeat. An organization such as NATO could not merely disappear without further disgrace; it had to find a foe which would send it packing in the right coffin. It has found one in Afghanistan.
As for details of Ban’s statement; it is nothing but meaningless bureaucratic verbiage: “Support from Pakistan”, “safe havens in Pakistan”, foreign hands—all of these are empty words. Yes, there is a foreign hand in the current Afghan disaster, but this hand is the very hand that feeds people like Ban. And a man like him should be concerned with nothing more than his next paycheck.
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