Even as the Taliban attacks US, Canadian, and British forces, organization is left off terrorist list in 'political' decision.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
When the US State Department issued its annual Country Reports on Terrorism last Friday, it listed numerous state-sponsors of terrorism, like Iran, and groups it considers foreign terrorist organizations, like Hamas, Al Qaeda, and Hizbullah. Conspiciously absent from the lists, however, was the Taliban.
In an article entitled "Terrorism's Dubious 'A' List," the non-partisan Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) reports that the religious extremist organization has never been listed as a terrorist group by the US, Britain, the EU, Canada, Australia, or any of the coalition partners, despite the fact that during its six year rule in Afghanistan, it provided save haven for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, and currently is staging terrorist attacks against coalition forces and waging a national campaign of intimidation and fear.
The new report did designate the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region as a terrorist "haven," however.
In a CFR Q&A on the Taliban, Chistopher Langdon, a defense expert at the Institute for International Strategic Studies, describes the group as "an insurgent organization that will periodically use terrorism to carry out its operations."
According to Kathy Gannon, the former Associated Press bureau chief for Pakistan and Afghanistan, these [Taliban] have at times aligned themselves with Al Qaeda fighters and with mujahadeen (holy warriors) led by the anti-government warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. During the Soviet occupation, Hekmatyar received more support from US and Pakistani agents than any other fighter. "The Afghan Taliban is better organized today than it was in 2001," says Gannon, "they have more recruits [and they] have been able to take advantage of the lawlessness, the criminal gangs, and the corruption in the government."
Langton says Taliban forces "have largely recovered from their initial defeat," and are proving a savvy enemy for coalition forces. Taliban fighters have become encouraged by the domestic opposition some NATO nations face as they deploy in former Taliban strongholds previously patrolled by US forces, he says. "They are very adept at reading these signals and seeing where the weaknesses lie."
Some experts, like Mr. Langdon, say the Taliban aren't terrorists. "You could never say that the Taliban themselves espoused the wholesale use of terror," Langton says. But the CFR article points out that many others, like Amin Tarzi, the Afghanistan analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, say that if the activities that the Taliban are carrying out were happening in any other country, they would be called terrorism.
He says a political motive is behind this double standard. In order to gain a broad base of support, Afghan President Karzai has reached out to Pashtuns, many of whom were members of the Taliban. "You can't call them 'terrorists' and at the same time reconcile with them," Tarzi says. In an April 2003 speech, Karzai noted a distinction between "the ordinary Taliban who are real and honest sons of this country [and those] who still use the Taliban cover to disturb peace and security in the country." Steven Simon, CFR's Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, says Tarzi's explanation is plausible, "The designation of 'Foreign Terrorist Organization' has always been highly political," he says.
Former National Public Radio reporter Sarah Chayes, who has been living and working in Afghanistan since 2002, wrote in the March/April edition of The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that one only needs to look at how the traditional Afghan values of hospitality have changed to see how effective the Taliban have been in their campaign of intimidation and terror. In previous years, Ms. Chayes could freely visit local villages to buy produce and goods from local farmers for the organizations she helps run. But now she must ask them to come to her office because if she is seen talking to them publicly, they will probably be killed.
In reality, the four years since the Taliban's demise have been characterized by a steady erosion of security in distinct phases. The most recent phase, signaled by the rebuffs I received from the farmers, may represent a point of no return. These rebuffs are the consequence of a highly effective intimidation campaign that has been carried out in tightening circles around Kandahar by, for lack of a better term, resurgent Taliban. Handbills appear in village mosques threatening anyone who dares collaborate with foreigners or the Afghan government. Homes receive armed visitors, demanding provisions or other assistance. One of my farmer friends, afraid even to pronounce their name, refers to them as "fairies who come at night."
Chayes also writes that the US military obsession with Al Qaeda and "an Osama bin Laden-style, ideological confrontation" have acted like a set of blinders to the real problem with the Taliban, and that this has greatly disillusioned the average Afghan.
The steadily worsening situation in southern Afghanistan is not the work of some ineffable Al Qaeda nebula. It is the result of the real depredations of the corrupt and predatory government officials whom the United States ushered into power in 2001, supposedly to help fight Al Qaeda, and has assiduously maintained in power since, along with an "insurgency" manufactured whole cloth across the border in Pakistan a US ally. The evidence of this connection is abundant: Taliban leaders strut openly around Quetta, Pakistan, where they are provided with offices and government-issued weapons authorization cards; Pakistani army officers are detailed to Taliban training camps; and Pakistani border guards constantly wave self-proclaimed Taliban through checkpoints into Afghanistan.
Chayes says the result is that people in Kandahar, where she lives, "have reached an astonishing conclusion: The United States must be in league with the Taliban ... In other words, in a stunning irony, much of this city, the Taliban's former stronghold, is disgusted with the Americans not because of their Western culture, but because of their apparent complicity with Islamist extremists."
The Globe and Mail of Toronto reported Tuesday how Afghanistan's new parliament is having troubles learning to function correctly, but it is still moving ahead. The new parliament is "odd mixture of Muslim fundamentalists, former Taliban commanders, ex-Communist politicians, Western-educated women and even a former United Airlines pilot." The parliament is a baby, its members say, but they are hoping to "build and institution that lasts" longer than they do.
Finally, the Associated Press reports that, in a study being released Tuesday, Afghanistan and Iraq are listed as two of the world's ten most vulnerable states. Foreign Policy magazine, in its second annual "failed states index," ranked Sudan as the country under the most severe stress. The magazine goes on to say that the situation in Iraq (No. 4) and Afghanistan (No. 10) has deteriorated since 2005, the first year the survey was taken. |
PESHAWAR: Several countries are responsible for the promotion of terrorism and militancy in the region, said