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The myth of Talibanistan

dabong1

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The myth of Talibanistan
By Pepe Escobar

Apocalypse Now. Run for cover. The turbans are coming. This is the state of Pakistan today, according to the current hysteria disseminated by the Barack Obama administration and United States corporate media - from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to The New York Times. Even British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said on the record that Pakistani Talibanistan is a threat to the security of Britain.
But unlike St Petersburg in 1917 or Tehran in late 1978, Islamabad won't fall tomorrow to a turban revolution.
Pakistan is not an ungovernable Somalia. The numbers tell the story. At least 55&#37; of Pakistan's 170 million-strong population are Punjabis. There's no evidence they are about to embrace

Talibanistan; they are essentially Shi'ites, Sufis or a mix of both. Around 50 million are Sindhis - faithful followers of the late Benazir Bhutto and her husband, now President Asif Ali Zardari's centrist and overwhelmingly secular Pakistan People's Party. Talibanistan fanatics in these two provinces - amounting to 85% of Pakistan's population, with a heavy concentration of the urban middle class - are an infinitesimal minority.

The Pakistan-based Taliban - subdivided in roughly three major groups, amounting to less than 10,000 fighters with no air force, no Predator drones, no tanks and no heavily weaponized vehicles - are concentrated in the Pashtun tribal areas, in some districts of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), and some very localized, small parts of Punjab.

To believe this rag-tag band could rout the well-equipped, very professional 550,000-strong Pakistani army, the sixth-largest military in the world, which has already met the Indian colossus in battle, is a ludicrous proposition.

Moreover, there's no evidence the Taliban, in Afghanistan or in Pakistan, have any capability to hit a target outside of (Afghanistan and Pakistan). That's mythical al-Qaeda's privileged territory. As for the nuclear hysteria of the Taliban being able to crack the Pakistani army codes for the country's nuclear arsenal (most of the Taliban, by the way, are semi-literate), even Obama, at his 100-day news conference, stressed the nuclear arsenal was safe.

Of course, there's a smatter of junior Pashtun army officers who sympathize with the Taliban - as well as significant sections of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency. But the military institution itself is backed by none other than the American army - with which it has been closely intertwined since the 1970s. Zardari would be a fool to unleash a mass killing of Pakistani Pashtuns; on the contrary, Pashtuns can be very useful for Islamabad's own designs.

Zardari's government this week had to send in troops and the air force to deal with the Buner problem, in the Malakand district of NWFP, which shares a border with Kunar province in Afghanistan and thus is relatively close to US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops. They are fighting less than 500 members of the Tehrik-e Taliban-e Pakistan (TTP). But for the Pakistani army, the possibility of the area joining Talibanistan is a great asset - because this skyrockets Pakistani control of Pashtun southern Afghanistan, ever in accordance to the eternal "strategic depth" doctrine prevailing in Islamabad.

Bring me the head of Baitullah Mehsud
So if Islamabad is not burning tomorrow, why the hysteria? There are several reasons. To start with, what Washington - now under Obama's Afghanistan and Pakistanstrategy - simply cannot stomach is real democracy and a true civilian government in Islamabad; these would be much more than a threat to "US interests" than the Taliban, whom the Bill Clinton administration was happily wining and dining in the late 1990s.
What Washington may certainly relish is yet another military coup - and sources tell Asia Times Online that former dictator General Pervez Musharraf (Busharraf as he was derisively referred to) is active behind the hysteria scene.
It's crucial to remember that every military coup in Pakistan has been conducted by the army chief of staff. So the man of the hour - and the next few hours, days and months - is discreet General Ashfaq Kiani, Benazir's former army secretary. He is very cozy with US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen, and definitely not a Taliban-hugger.

Moreover, there are canyons of the Pakistani military/security bureaucracy who would love nothing better than to extract even more US dollars from Washington to fight the Pashtun neo-Taliban that they are simultaneously arming to fight the Americans and NATO. It works. Washington is now under a counter-insurgency craze, with the Pentagon eager to teach such tactics to every Pakistani officer in sight.

What is never mentioned by US corporate media is the tremendous social problems Pakistan has to deal with because of the mess in the tribal areas. Islamabad believes that between the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and NWFP, at least 1 million people are now displaced (not to mention badly in need of food aid). FATA's population is around 3.5 million - overwhelmingly poor Pashtun peasants. And obviously war in FATA translates into insecurity and paranoia in the fabled capital of NWFP, Peshawar.

The myth of Talibanistan anyway is just a diversion, a cog in the slow-moving regional big wheel - which in itself is part of the new great game in Eurasia.

During a first stage - let's call it the branding of evil - Washington think-tanks and corporate media hammered non-stop on the "threat of al-Qaeda" to Pakistan and the US. FATA was branded as terrorist central - the most dangerous place in the world where "the terrorists" and an army of suicide bombers were trained and unleashed into Afghanistan to kill the "liberators" of US/NATO.

In the second stage, the new Obama administration accelerated the Predator "hell from above" drone war over Pashtun peasants. Now comes the stage where the soon over 100,000-strong US/NATO troops are depicted as the true liberators of the poor in Afghanistan and Pakistan(and not the "evil" Taliban) - an essential ploy in the new narrative to legitimize Obama's Afghanistan and Pakistan surge.
For all pieces to fall into place, a new uber-bogeyman is needed. And he is TTP leader Baitullah Mehsud, who, curiously, had never been hit by even a fake US drone until, in early March, he made official his allegiance to historic Taliban leader Mullah Omar, "The Shadow" himself, who is said to live undisturbed somewhere around Quetta, in Pakistani Balochistan.

Now there's a US$5 million price on Baitullah's head. The Predators have duly hit the Mehsud family's South Waziristan bases. But - curioser and curioser - not once but twice, the ISI forwarded a detailed dossier of Baitullah's location directly to its cousin, the Central Intelligence Agency. But there was no drone hit.
And maybe there won't be - especially now that a bewildered Zardari government is starting to consider that the previous uber-bogeyman, a certain Osama bin Laden, is no more than a ghost. Drones can incinerate any single Pashtun wedding in sight. But international bogeymen of mystery - Osama, Baitullah, Mullah Omar - star players in the new OCO (overseas contingency operations), formerly GWOT ("global war on terror"), of course deserve star treatment.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan
 
dabong1 - for "talibanisation", read "mau-mau".

one thing we must not forget is the consistent "hitlerisation" or demonisation of the people most likely to resist you when you fight them. just like for the iraq war, many muslim states and neighbours (not muslim individuals) turned a blind eye or gave a nod to the invasion and occupation of afghanistan. this included india, pakistan and iran. what did the "wahhhabi" saudis do? what did "dar-ul-uloom deoband" do? did they mobilise their troops to defend their fellow afghan "wahabi-deobandis"? no.

they don't like women (prevent them from attending schools and lash them when they are found with a non-related male, they don't like minorities i.e. sikhs, they wish to impose their backward laws or have their version of Shariah thrust upon others, they fight against the soldiers of their "own" country.

pepe escobar looks in te same mould as juan cole. good luck to him
 
Half of what's told in the media, including segments of the bought off Pakistani media, is false and scaremongering.

Anyone with half a brain knows Pakistan is not going to fall to the Taliban ideology. Countries that could are ones like Somalia, Sudan.

The only reason Taliban ideology flourished in Afghanistan was because of their funds and the havoc wreaked upon the state by the Soviets and Americans.
 
The writer makes the mistake of over simplifying the issue. For example he totally ignores southern Punjab and Seraiki belt. Ahmad East in Bahawalpur has been a nursery of extremism in Pakistan for more than three decades. A couple of official studies have been conducted in that area to determine the reason of the rise of extremism in South Punjab. Thousands of Taliban fighters were recruited from this area during Afghan jihad and later when Taliban were fighting with Ahmad Shah Masood for the control of Afghanistan. ANP leader has stated on TV that he himself came across Punjabi Taliban in Swat.

It is therefore incorrect to say that Taliban are only about 10,000 in number. This may be true of the armed Taliban militia. What people such as Imran Kahn, John Cole and Mr. Escobar ignore, is the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of Madrassa students already at large and ready for the call to arms, with hundreds of thousands more in the seminaries getting ready for the jihad.

Most frightening thing is the anti US sentiment in Pakistan polity which translates into support of any one against the US. I can quote the example of Saddam Hussein. He was always anti Pakistani; there was the famous case of Russian arms being found when police stormed Iraqi Embassy in Islamabad on Feb 10, 1973. These arms (300 machine guns with 50,000 rounds of ammunition were meant for the Marri tribesman who fighting for independent Baluchistan during the ZA Bhutto era. Additionally, Saddam Hussain had invaded and occupied a brother Muslim State (Kuwait) and was posing a threat to Saudi Arabia; a well-known friend of Pakistan. Nevertheless emotional and capricious Pakistani public was rooting for Saddam Hussein!

Even the PA Chief Mirza Aslam Beg ; whose elevation to this rank is still clouded with mystery and whose involvement in the Mehraan Bank scandal has never been denied; chose to speak to an Army gathering about the strategy of defiance overtly praising Saddam Hussein at time when Pakistan had agreed to contribute to the coalition forces fighting Saddam!.

Funeral of the criminal Riaz Basra was attended by thousands. What was Riaz Basra accept a criminal who killed scores of Shia notables purely out of sectarian hatred? Therefore as a direct consequence of the 11 years of the bigot Zia era followed by Taliban support of the Nasirullah Babur who was Governor of NWFP during BB first gov&#8217;t; there is a strong underlying support of Taliban and extremism in Pakistan. A fact also evident thru pro Taliban posts in this forum. Even in Karachi, in addition to some 4 million mostly Mahsud tribesman, Taliban have a fifth column in the form of Jamaat Islami, whose leader has made no secret of his liking for the Taliban. Karachi University Jamiat Tulabaa has chanted &#8216;Sufi Mohammad aao hum tumharey saath haein.

Thankfully due to strong anti Taliban stance of MQM, Pakistan is not going to fall tomorrow or within 6 months. Because the city with the largest Pashtun population (Karachi) is controlled by MQM. MQM fight Taliban with Taliban&#8217;s own weapons; thuggery, intimidation and outright murder as they have shown on May 12th riots and during the recent upheavals.

There is no 'Myth' of Talibanistan, fact is that there is a lot of underlying support for Taliban /Al Qaeda in Pakistan and IMO any one who belittles the danger of Talibanization, is doing so at his/her peril.
 
Talaban and jehadi mullahism planted by US (Regan regime) & Zia regime ,but i will say darkness has no existance it is due to absence of light.
 
The writer makes the mistake of over simplifying the issue. For example he totally ignores southern Punjab and Seraiki belt. Ahmad East in Bahawalpur has been a nursery of extremism in Pakistan for more than three decades. A couple of official studies have been conducted in that area to determine the reason of the rise of extremism in South Punjab. Thousands of Taliban fighters were recruited from this area during Afghan jihad and later when Taliban were fighting with Ahmad Shah Masood for the control of Afghanistan. ANP leader has stated on TV that he himself came across Punjabi Taliban in Swat.

It is therefore incorrect to say that Taliban are only about 10,000 in number. This may be true of the armed Taliban militia. What people such as Imran Kahn, John Cole and Mr. Escobar ignore, is the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of Madrassa students already at large and ready for the call to arms, with hundreds of thousands more in the seminaries getting ready for the jihad.

Most frightening thing is the anti US sentiment in Pakistan polity which translates into support of any one against the US. I can quote the example of Saddam Hussein. He was always anti Pakistani; there was the famous case of Russian arms being found when police stormed Iraqi Embassy in Islamabad on Feb 10, 1973. These arms (300 machine guns with 50,000 rounds of ammunition were meant for the Marri tribesman who fighting for independent Baluchistan during the ZA Bhutto era. Additionally, Saddam Hussain had invaded and occupied a brother Muslim State (Kuwait) and was posing a threat to Saudi Arabia; a well-known friend of Pakistan. Nevertheless emotional and capricious Pakistani public was rooting for Saddam Hussein!

Even the PA Chief Mirza Aslam Beg ; whose elevation to this rank is still clouded with mystery and whose involvement in the Mehraan Bank scandal has never been denied; chose to speak to an Army gathering about the strategy of defiance overtly praising Saddam Hussein at time when Pakistan had agreed to contribute to the coalition forces fighting Saddam!.

Funeral of the criminal Riaz Basra was attended by thousands. What was Riaz Basra accept a criminal who killed scores of Shia notables purely out of sectarian hatred? Therefore as a direct consequence of the 11 years of the bigot Zia era followed by Taliban support of the Nasirullah Babur who was Governor of NWFP during BB first gov’t; there is a strong underlying support of Taliban and extremism in Pakistan. A fact also evident thru pro Taliban posts in this forum. Even in Karachi, in addition to some 4 million mostly Mahsud tribesman, Taliban have a fifth column in the form of Jamaat Islami, whose leader has made no secret of his liking for the Taliban. Karachi University Jamiat Tulabaa has chanted ‘Sufi Mohammad aao hum tumharey saath haein.

Thankfully due to strong anti Taliban stance of MQM, Pakistan is not going to fall tomorrow or within 6 months. Because the city with the largest Pashtun population (Karachi) is controlled by MQM. MQM fight Taliban with Taliban’s own weapons; thuggery, intimidation and outright murder as they have shown on May 12th riots and during the recent upheavals.

There is no 'Myth' of Talibanistan, fact is that there is a lot of underlying support for Taliban /Al Qaeda in Pakistan and IMO any one who belittles the danger of Talibanization, is doing so at his/her peril.

So how come the islamic parties dont win elections if talibanistan is so widespread?.....its a violent minority that we are talking about that needs to be crushed no doubt...... but its a minority.
 
So how come the islamic parties dont win elections if talibanistan is so widespread?.....its a violent minority that we are talking about that needs to be crushed no doubt...... but its a minority.

have you got numbers how big is this voilent minority " they are in millions " these are not some peacefull demonstrators these guys are proper lunatics ,heavily armed with latest weapons , this is no myth its for real ! if we were not to take action now pakistan was surely talibanised by the next generation. They are quiet wide spread in southern punjab.
 
have you got numbers how big is this voilent minority " they are in millions " these are not some peacefull demonstrators these guys are proper lunatics ,heavily armed with latest weapons , this is no myth its for real ! if we were not to take action now pakistan was surely talibanised by the next generation. They are quiet wide spread in southern punjab.

There was danger of talabanisation of whole Pakistan after peace deal but after SWAT operation and our continued operation in FATA , opressed majority of Pakistanis could realise that Talabanisation is not solution but futhure increases their problems .
 
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Half of what's told in the media, including segments of the bought off Pakistani media, is false and scaremongering.

Anyone with half a brain knows Pakistan is not going to fall to the Taliban ideology. Countries that could are ones like Somalia, Sudan.

The only reason Taliban ideology flourished in Afghanistan was because of their funds and the havoc wreaked upon the state by the Soviets and Americans.

don't forget the money and arms from the ISI as well. The vast majority of Afghans didn't support the Taliban. The summery executions, and rules such as no music, no girls going to school, no kite flying (I mean come on kite flying?). to speak out against them was a death sentence.
 
don't forget the money and arms from the ISI as well. The vast majority of Afghans didn't support the Taliban. The summery executions, and rules such as no music, no girls going to school, no kite flying (I mean come on kite flying?). to speak out against them was a death sentence.

Arms provided by USA during Afghan jehad not by ISI , ISI only helped to make their government after Russian defeat nothing more, they try to implement shariah which was new experience for modren world .Agreed they did lot of mistakes

For Pakistani members

Shah swar hi girta hai medan jang me
Wo tifal kia giray gah jo gutno ka bal chali
 
don't forget the money and arms from the ISI as well. The vast majority of Afghans didn't support the Taliban. The summery executions, and rules such as no music, no girls going to school, no kite flying (I mean come on kite flying?). to speak out against them was a death sentence.

The Taliban were a mixed blessing for the Afghans. On the plus side, they provided law and order and almost extinguished the drug trade (it has since mushroomed under the Indian/Iranian/NATO supported Northern Alliance). But on the negative side, they imposed the medieval Wahhabi extremism.
 
The Taliban were a mixed blessing for the Afghans. On the plus side, they provided law and order and almost extinguished the drug trade (it has since mushroomed under the Indian/Iranian/NATO supported Northern Alliance). But on the negative side, they imposed the medieval Wahhabi extremism.

Good point friend, you forget one other point: Taliban provides armed resistance against NATO which is welcomed by nearly all Afghans. Also, the other "leadership" of the Karzai puppet government is not good either. Afghans are stuck, no one to truly trust. :sniper:
 
Good point friend, you forget one other point: Taliban provides armed resistance against NATO which is welcomed by nearly all Afghans. Also, the other "leadership" of the Karzai puppet government is not good either. Afghans are stuck, no one to truly trust. :sniper:

you are mistaken my friend. it is a myth that nearly all Afghans support the Taliban. While I have not been there. My brother recently returned from there. I also keep in contact with friends from my old unit. While many Afghans are angry at the U.S. for some of the air strike mistakes. and the recent steps to eradicate the poppy fields. they also have no desire to see the Taliban returned to power. The majority despise the Taliban.

If the Taliban style of governing was imposed on you would you be happy? And don't forget they also provide armed resistance to the Pakistani Government. Or are you for that as well?
 
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you are mistaken my friend. it is a myth that nearly all Afghans support the Taliban. While I have not been there. My brother recently returned from there. I also keep in contact with friends from my old unit. While many Afghans are angry at the U.S. for some of the air strike mistakes. and the recent steps to eradicate the poppy fields. they also have no desire to see the Taliban returned to power. The majority despise the Taliban.

What do you think the afgans are going to say to the americans......we love the taliban?
Am sure the normal afghan loves the american army more then he loves his tribesman-relative-taliban friend?


If the Taliban style of governing was imposed on you would you be happy?

Yes.......if it was better then what was there before......warlords-drugs-bandits ect.


And don't forget they also provide armed resistance to the Pakistani Government. Or are you for that as well?

Which group did mullah omar support that attacked pakistan?
 
have you got numbers how big is this voilent minority " they are in millions " these are not some peacefull demonstrators these guys are proper lunatics ,heavily armed with latest weapons , this is no myth its for real ! if we were not to take action now pakistan was surely talibanised by the next generation.

If there that big how come they dont win elections......have massive rallies in support of the TTP.?


They are quiet wide spread in southern punjab.

Dont seem to have done that well in the elections if there that wide spread.......or are they all PPP supporters during the day and taliban at night?

No doubt there is a problem of extremist in our country but i think its a minority that can be crushed thriugh debate and the gun.
 

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