04/08/09 – Jean MacKenzie – The Scott Horton Show

For Antiwar.com, I'm Scott Horton.
This is Antiwar Radio.
Introducing Jean MacKenzie.
She's a writer, has been a writer for the Moscow Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Newsday, Boston Globe.
She's the program director for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, and she's on the phone in Afghanistan right now.
She writes about Afghanistan for the Global Post.
That's at theglobalpost.com.
Welcome to the show, Jean.
How are you?
I'm very well, thank you.
How are you?
I'm doing great.
Thank you so much for joining us on the show today.
You're quite welcome.
First of all, can you tell us a little bit about the Global Post?
I know it's fairly new, and it seems like you guys have a lot of really great coverage on a lot of things, so I was just wondering if you could kind of give us the lowdown about the organization itself there.
Well, thank you.
Yes, it's quite a new operation.
We just started in January, mid-January, and there are dozens, I believe 65 to 70 correspondents all over the world who are filing stories about everything from elephant polo to mining in the Congo.
So it's quite a unique collection of information.
I don't think I've seen anything quite like it.
And now, are a lot of you guys refugees from newspapers that are going out of business and working out the new Internet paradigm kind of thing with your reporting now?
I think that many people are looking for a new way of working in journalism and in the media.
It's not a secret that things are pretty tough, certainly in the newspaper business and in media overall.
So I think this is another way of getting information out there and another way of working as a journalist.
Okay, well, let's talk politics, Afghan politics.
Let's start with the prospects of negotiations with the Taliban.
Your archives at the Global Post are just a treasure trove of great reporting.
I found, well, I didn't have time to read all of them, but I read quite a few of your articles.
And it looks like you have an interview there with two former members of the Taliban, Saif and Mutawakkil.
And I'm interested in that story.
Can you tell us what they told you?
Yes, Mutawakkil was the foreign minister during the Taliban regime and Saif was the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan.
These were, as you may imagine, these were high-level diplomats in the Taliban regime who Saif particularly spent four years in Guantanamo.
But they are reasonable, rational men, although we might not admire their lifestyles or how they treat their wives or any of the other things that distinguish the Taliban regime, but they are reasonable, rational men who want to see an end to the violence.
And I think that many of the things that they said made a great deal of sense.
For example, that the United States has a right to ensure its own security in Afghanistan and that the Taliban would understand that if it were put in that way.
On that point, it sounds like the subtext in the interview there is that they recognize, they basically have no love for the Egyptians and Saudi friends of Osama and are basically more than willing to give them up if we would negotiate along those lines.
It's sort of what it sounded like.
Well, what it sounds like is that they recognize that al-Qaeda posed a danger to the United States or poses a danger to the United States and they recognize the United States' right to protect itself.
If you go back to the pre-911 state of affairs, al-Qaeda and the Taliban were not that close.
Osama bin Laden, yes, had received refuge in Afghanistan, but there did not seem to be a union of politics between the two groups.
That may have changed now with the seven-year intervention of the foreign military in Afghanistan.
We may find that it could be more difficult to separate the Taliban from al-Qaeda, specifically in Pakistan.
But yes, according to Motawadkil and Zaif, that should not be a problem.
The Taliban recognizes that the United States can ensure its own security and therefore would be willing to work towards making sure that Afghanistan would not once again serve as a base for al-Qaeda or for people who could attack the United States.
And they also indicated that American policy was pushing them into closer alliances with the Pakistani Taliban, which obviously they have a lot in common with but aren't necessarily completely tied together with, and yet we're making it more that way.
Instead of dividing the Taliban apart and dividing the Taliban from al-Qaeda with our policy, we're pushing them all together into a group that basically we can't defeat.
Well, I think that that is a fair statement.
We have been trying to divide the Taliban, but we're trying to divide the Taliban along ideological lines.
We're trying to separate out the moderate Taliban from the extremist Taliban, whatever that means.
And both Motawadkil and Zaif suggest that instead of trying to do that, we make our discussions with the Afghan Taliban as opposed to the Pakistani Taliban, that Afghan Taliban have an interest in seeing their country at peace and safe and therefore would be more willing to enter into negotiations.
And then the job of keeping out al-Qaeda or the Pakistani Taliban, what we see as the extremist wing of the movement, would fall to the Afghans themselves.
Well, now there was news recently that the Saudis were trying to negotiate some kind of arrangement, I guess toward peace with the Taliban at the expense of al-Qaeda, but it seems like the policy has already been decided the other way.
Is that right?
Well, there were indications that the Saudis were willing to serve as facilitators of some kind of negotiations.
There were several meetings a few months ago in Mecca, where representatives of the Taliban were present along with members of the Afghan government.
That was an initiative that has not developed since then, but I think that the offer is still more or less there.
Well, what has happened when Holbrooke's come to town?
What is he telling people to do?
Well, I'm not sure that it's up to Special Representative Holbrooke to tell people to do anything.
I think he's there to listen and to try to understand what the situation is and to offer the assistance of the United States in trying to do it.
Now, whether the new Obama strategy is going to work, whether it's going to be what Afghanistan needs at this moment in time, I think is still an open question.
What is the actual strength of the Karzai government?
I mean, not necessarily Karzai himself, but just the government of Afghanistan, as we call it.
Is it really the government of Afghanistan, or how much of it?
That's a very difficult question.
The government of President Hamid Karzai is highly unpopular in Afghanistan right now.
That being said, there is a power vacuum.
Karzai has managed to make alliances with several different groups in Afghanistan, which is what is keeping him in power.
So the central government is doing very little for the people, has very little support among the people, but it is, at least right now, holding the country together.
We'll have to see what happens with the presidential elections coming up in August.
My understanding is that Afghanistan is very divided by ethnicity and geography, and that it's sort of three or four mini-states sort of crammed together with British-drawn borders.
Is that basically right?
And how much division is there between, say, the Hazaras and the Uzbeks versus the Pashtuns, for example?
There is quite a bit of ethnic tension right now.
Afghanistan is divided up among the Pashtuns, which is the largest group, then Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmens, and assorted smaller groups.
I think it's fair to say there's always been a certain amount of ethnic tension, but certainly over the past 30 years that has become quite a bit worse.
First during the Soviet years, the Soviets were targeting largely the Pashtun South, and then during the civil war and the Taliban years, when there was a civil war in the country, the Pashtuns, the Taliban were dominated by Pashtuns, and there are many ethnic groups that resent them for what happened during those years in the 90s.
So right now you've got Tajiks against the Pashtuns, Hazaras against the Pashtuns, the Pashtuns against the Hazaras, and then the assorted other smaller ethnic groups in various pockets of Afghanistan who are trying to have their own type of government.
So yes, I think that the ethnic divide, the ethnic and linguistic divide, is one of the biggest problems that is keeping Afghanistan from progressing along the road to stability.
Well, now we talked about the way America conflated Al-Qaeda and the Taliban together, kind of, when they're really not the same, but it also seems like they use the term Taliban to describe any Pashtun that resists.
And I wonder if that's actually true, that the only people who are resisting or fighting American occupation are the Taliban, or is it just the case that America calls anybody who fights us the Taliban?
I think it is true that the term Taliban has been used for a wider and wider segment of the population.
We were calling everyone the Taliban.
Then it became very clear that it was not just the Taliban.
Then we started calling them AGEs, or Anti-Government Elements, and then we started calling them Armed Opposition Groups, or AOGs.
Then we started calling them Anti-Coalition Militias.
So we are trying to find some sort of term that defines all of the people who are fighting against us.
Yes, I think you are quite right.
The term Taliban is misused to describe anyone who is fighting against the foreign forces.
But there are more and more and more people that are fighting against the foreign forces these days.
The issue of civilian casualties has mobilized the population in many places against the foreign forces.
We are seeing more and more occupiers here rather than people who are here to help us, to help the Afghans, and that has also mobilized the population against us.
So I think we are going to be coming up with more and more labels to describe these people as Taliban, unless something is done to change the situation theoretically.
Is there any real organized political force that could be recognized by the U.S.
-NATO forces as representing the interests of Pashtun tribespeople that aren't the Taliban?
Or is it basically the Taliban or nothing if you are Pashtun and you need organized violence to protect you somehow?
Well, Pashtuns are part of the population.
I think that there is a certain amount of anger and resentment among Pashtuns that the major Pashtun groups were cut out of the government way back in 2001.
The Taliban were deemed the enemy and were not given a part in the new Afghanistan.
And Hezbollah, which is the group belonging to or associated with Golgotha and Hezbollah, was also deemed a terrorist organization and cut out of the government.
So I think that there is a simmering resentment among Pashtuns that they were kicked out, if you will, of the initial coalition.
But Hamid Karzai is a Pashtun.
There are many Pashtuns who are in the government.
And specifically in the south, Pashtuns tend to recognize tribal leaders, village elders, and local leaders as representing them.
So yes, I think that there are other power centers that Pashtuns can identify with other than the Taliban.
Well, and I guess that just emphasizes even more the point how illegitimate it is to characterize any resistance as being the Taliban.
Tell me a bit more about Hekmatyar.
Is that how you say it?
And how much power does he have?
How many people does he legitimately represent, do you think?
Well, it's difficult to say how many people are associated with Hekmatyar group.
But in certain areas of Afghanistan, they wield a great deal of power.
There are pockets of Hezbollah in Kandahar in the south, in Nandahar, which is not that far from Kabul, and in some parts of the north, such as Kunduz.
So they tend to be a bit harder line and more extremist than the Taliban even.
And it tends to be a difficult group to come to terms with.
But as far as absolute numbers, I don't have any information.
How much good has all the nation-building effort been thus far, and would you recommend more of it?
I'm not sure what nation-building efforts there have been up to now, so I guess they haven't been all that effective.
The aid that has come in to Afghanistan over the past several years, I think, has been largely ineffective, judging by the fact that the situation in the country is worse now than it was in 2001.
Certainly, there are some signs of improvement.
There are some roads that have been saved.
There are more children in school.
There are airlines, and there are some businesses, mobile phones, things like that.
But the security situation in 2009 is worse than it was in 2002.
And the country seems more divided and more fractured in 2009 than it did in 2002.
So I think we would have to say that efforts at nation-building have been largely unsuccessful.
Yeah, cosmetic improvements don't really count when basically the place has been set up for more violence.
And, in fact, that's a common refrain we're used to hearing from American puppets in Iraq and so forth.
In your interview with the former Taliban, they do say, well, you can't leave now.
You have to work things out, or else the place will go to pot.
It'll be even worse if you leave.
That is very true.
I think that it's commonly acknowledged that if all of the foreign forces were to leave tomorrow, this country would very quickly descend into civil war.
We've taken a power group that had been marginalized and defeated, and we've brought them back center stage.
And the Taliban has not gone away.
They have come back and grown stronger.
So if we were to leave tomorrow, the Taliban and what we still refer to as the Northern Alliance, or the former Mujahideen, would very quickly come to great clashes, I think, with a great deal of bloodshed in the country.
So at this point, we have a moral responsibility to make sure that Afghanistan is functioning and able to stand on its feet before we hop on a plane and get out of here.
Well, and so that would mean turning it back over to the majority, right?
Well, I'm not sure we know who the majority is at this point.
We are going to have to try to identify the major power groups and get them to sit down and come to some sort of an agreement among themselves.
This is not something that we can put in place.
This is not something that we can impose on them.
We cannot impose a system of government on the Afghans, and we cannot occupy the country indefinitely.
So it seems that the only way forward is to try to help the Afghans to come to some sort of accommodation among themselves.
Well, it seems like the exact opposite is what's happening, and you're reporting about the controversy over Karzai and whether America supports him or not, and going back and forth in the upcoming elections.
You make it clear that basically the vote of the Afghan people has nothing to do with it, and that it's all about who Barack Obama wants to be the president, so-called, of Afghanistan.
Isn't that right?
Well, I'm not sure that that's an accurate statement.
I think that that reflects what the Afghan people are saying.
The Afghan people, for whatever reason, are under the impression that the United States is going to pick the next president just as it picked the first one.
It is no secret that Karzai was handpicked by the United States, specifically by Zalmay Khalilzad, who was then special envoy to Afghanistan, and he was installed as the interim president, which then led to his becoming the president in 2004.
And I think Afghans are waiting for that to happen this time.
They're just waiting for someone to emerge and to be anointed as the next president.
And they seem to have very little faith in the process.
I don't think that that's at all unusual.
Democracy is very young in this country, and the country has been through quite a bit in the past seven or eight years.
So I don't think it's fair to say that Afghans don't have any power or that the United States could install a new president, unless that's until the system grows some deeper roots.
Afghans are going to have very little faith in it.
But don't you report in there that Holbrooke came to town and said to the opposition to Karzai, whoever you pick, we'll support, we're done with this guy.
That was the buzz about a month ago on Holbrooke's last trip, but he has recently come through Afghanistan again.
And in the meantime the situation has changed 180 degrees.
Afghanistan seems to have moved quickly here.
There was a very sharp shift in the position of the U.S. Embassy and of the Americans in general, the American administration, towards Karzai about three or four weeks ago, when they abruptly stopped issuing strong statements condemning him or saying how weak he was and how out of touch he was.
The United States is supporting President Karzai continuing in power after May 22nd, which is when his constitutionally mandated term of office expires.
And they perhaps, perhaps, this is speculation, had been thinking of supporting one candidate but are now no longer sure that that candidate is viable.
Therefore they're backing off, taking away their opposition to Karzai and waiting for a new situation to emerge.
Sounds like the average Afghan has at least some reason to be cynical about the process there.
I think it's a little bit early for cynicism in Afghanistan.
I think that they went right from great hope and optimism in 2004 to deep despair and cynicism in just five years.
And I think that I can understand that given what has gone on here in the past five years.
But I think it is a little bit early for that kind of reaction and I hope that that can be overcome.
Can you tell me about the influence of India in the Karzai government or in Afghanistan in general since the occupation began?
I'm not a specialist really in Afghanistan-Indian relations.
Certainly India is playing its own game in Afghanistan and is seeking to extend its influence in the region.
There's nothing else then to serve as a counterweight to what is undeniably a strong Pakistani influence in Afghanistan.
I think that we have to look at Afghanistan in the historical context and see that it has always been this kind of geopolitical football that is kicked around between major regional players.
India and Pakistan are fighting their own little proxy war in Afghanistan much the way that the United States was fighting its proxy war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
In the meantime, India is putting some assistance and some money into Afghanistan and is trying to forge closer relations with the country.
This makes Pakistan very nervous and leads to some very unfortunate consequences.
It's strange that these countries are all three friends of the United States.
I'm not sure exactly if the American government knows exactly what they're doing here, but Eric Margulies explained to me how all this policy of America encouraging even India to come into Afghanistan just forces the government of Pakistan to support the Taliban even more, because strategically they have already decided in stone that they need to be able to retreat into Afghanistan in the event of war with India.
So if they let India take over major influence inside Afghanistan, that ruins their whole game plan, and so they just start backing the Taliban more and more and more against the American-backed government in Afghanistan, as we're allies with all sides.
Well, it is true that the United States is the major geopolitical player these days, and we are friends with all sides.
But as I said, I'm not a specialist on India and Pakistan, but from what I can see in Afghanistan, I think that you're correct.
India is pursuing its own political agenda vis-à-vis Pakistan, and Pakistan is reacting to that and pursuing its own issues with India, and they are doing that at the expense of Afghanistan.
The Afghans are of the very strong belief that Pakistan is supporting the Taliban.
We've seen statements to that effect from the American administration, from very highly-placed officials in the past few weeks.
So there seems to be mounting evidence that this is the case and has been the case for a very long time.
But as to why it is in everyone's interest to keep Afghanistan unstable, that is a question that I think can be debated for a very long time.
All right.
Well, I've got to tell you, I really appreciate your time on the show today.
You're quite welcome.
Everybody, Jean McKenzie is Program Director for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.
She writes about Afghanistan for the Global Post.
That's globalpost.com.