All right, y'all welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton and our first guest on the show today is Shaukat Qadir.
He is an independent risk and security analyst on South Asia in general and Pakistan and Afghanistan in particular.
He started his career as a pilot in the Pakistan Air Force and then moved to the Pakistan Army retiring in 1998 as a brigadier.
In 1999 he became the founder and vice president and later president of the semi-independent think tank Islamabad Policy Research Institute.
He is currently visiting faculty at Fatima Jinnah Women's Women University as well as faculty for the war wing at the National Defense University.
His website is shaukatqadir.info.
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing?
Not too bad, not too bad.
Well, I appreciate you joining us.
I have no idea what time it is in Pakistan but I figure probably late at night or something so appreciate you joining us today.
Pretty late at night, yes, yes.
All right, so and you're in Islamabad now, is that right?
Yeah, I'm in Islamabad.
I'm having a large drink and enjoying life.
Right on.
All right, now when this says that you retired as a brigadier, does that mean a brigadier general?
Well, the Americans call it a brigadier general.
In our part of the world they call it a brigadier and that's a one star.
Okay.
So that's what I got to.
All right, and now I wanted to make sure everybody knew about this piece at Counterpunch.
It's called How Anarchy Beats Out Tradition.
Two or three things you need to know about Afghanistan.
I love that title.
I guess basically the unsaid premise there is that most of us Americans don't know the first thing about Afghanistan.
Maybe we can start with two or three to kind of get us up to speed about this war we've been waging for nearly a decade now, huh?
That's right.
This is the first piece actually.
You'll probably see the sequel of this piece tomorrow.
Oh really?
Great.
Yeah.
Great.
And again, that's at counterpunch.org.
Two or three things you need to know about Afghanistan by Shaukat Qadir.
Well, why don't you tell us what they are, these two or three things?
Well, the two or three things are that the Afghanistan whole system, the tribal system has been destroyed over the last three and a half decades.
That's what this piece was all about.
And the next piece talks about what the situation is like today.
Mm-hmm.
And now, so on the tribal identity thing, it seems, and the tribal system, I think you write in the article that even though the people of Afghanistan have their loyalties to their tribes and like that, they're also very fiercely nationalistic.
They really do believe in Afghanistan, even though, you know, it's a creation ultimately of the British or whatever, the Duran line and all that.
You see, the error is it's not a creation of the British.
Nobody seemed to realize that this was a country far before the British created that damn country.
The only thing the British created was the Duran line.
And unfortunately, because they created that, and at that time, the Afghan king, the king of Afghanistan was in Russian custody.
So the impression is that there was an agreement between the Russians and the British, and this was a buffer created between them.
That's not the truth.
The truth is this country existed far before that.
Well, so, but then, I mean, and I don't know even necessarily how important this is, but I guess I'm trying to understand whether the Pashtun tribesmen and say the Tajiks and Uzbeks and other groups, other ethnicities, other tribes inside that land, they still all got along as Afghans and all considered each other Afghans.
So we're not just talking about Pashtun nationalism in a sense.
We're talking about Afghan nationalism among all these different people.
Absolutely, absolutely, there is an Afghan nationalism, and the movement that has begun is Afghan, has been begun by a chap called Burhanuddin Rabbani, who's a Tajik.
And one of the, one of those who murdered a hell of a lot of Pashtuns some years ago, but he's begun this movement, and it's being backed by Pakistan and the Pakistan army, and they've just taken it over.
Now, you describe in here, it's very interesting, the sort of court system, I guess you could call it in a way, of the Pashtun tribe and how the Soviet war in the 1980s really did a lot to disrupt sort of the natural order of things in the way that these Pashtun courts ruled.
Not just the Soviet order, it was just a whole sequence of events that followed, because what happened was that the Pashtun tribes, because they were far away when the Soviet invasion began, they derogated responsibilities to somebody else, and therefore they created warlords.
And the warlords, when they came back after the Soviets withdrew, decided to take over.
So some of them decided that the old traditional custom was not what they wanted to accept.
When the Soviets invaded, the leaders basically, because they, I guess, had the resources, were able to flee the country, and they did, and they abdicated their responsibility.
Then when they came back, the people didn't want their system anymore.
They lost their legitimacy.
Is that what you're saying?
Some of the people wanted them, and some people didn't.
But then the Taliban came in, and when the Taliban came in, then the old traditional leaders just left.
They deserted their people, and that's when the whole system disintegrated.
The start was the Soviet invasion, delegation of responsibility, but the end was when the Taliban came in, and their traditional leaders just left.
So today, we don't have the old traditional tribal system in Afghanistan.
We don't even have it in Pakistan, for a slightly different reason.
But that's another subject.
Okay, well, maybe we can get back to that part.
But so right now, I mean, it seems like it's been sort of a part of this war, especially over the last, say, five, six years, once it really started picking back up again, that the...
Well, and look, I'm from Texas, and I'm in Los Angeles now.
I've never been there.
I don't really know.
But from here, it seems that the Pashtun tribesmen don't really have any real sort of political representation or grouping of any kind, other than the Taliban to turn to.
They don't have any separate system.
The Taliban are the only kind of organized opposition that they can relate with.
Yes, that's quite correct.
Unfortunately, because the American invasion, which was in fact, when the American invasion started, and if you read my article, which will be carried tomorrow, which will tell you that the American invasion was actually welcomed by the Afghans.
But unfortunately, the Americans didn't come up to that expectation.
And therefore, the Afghan people, they turned away from what the Americans could have actually absolutely succeeded with.
If the timing was right, it was just absolutely fantastic.
Well, in fact, let's hold that for a minute, because I want to talk about the the American invasion.
But well, and it's my fault, too, because I fast forwarded, but I wanted to get to Shaukat.
I was thinking we could talk about how you mentioned in your article when the Taliban took over, they really weren't that bad until Osama bin Laden came from Sudan and he convinced Mullah Omar to institute this, you know, pretty much totalitarian society there.
Yeah, that's true.
When Osama bin Laden came over, the Taliban was starved.
They didn't have any money.
And Osama bin Laden had two things to offer.
One was, he was already in the gun trade.
So he said, you need guns and you need weapons.
So I can get you cheap guns and cheap weapons.
And the other thing he offered was, he said, transportation of opium.
Now, you have to realize this.
Eric Margolis, I think, was the first one who recorded this, that you pick up a kilo of paste in Afghanistan, and it costs, what, about $1,000.
And it gets to Karachi, and it's about $150,000.
And when it gets to New York, it's about $250,000.
And in the streets of New York, it's sold at between $3 and $5 million.
What Osama bin Laden offered was a share of the portion of transporting this.
And he said, this is what I can do, which is what the CIA was actually doing some time back.
Well, you know, Sabella Edmonds says that she, while working as a translator at the FBI, became aware of reports that the CIA was working with Osama bin Laden in that kind of same network of money laundering and drug running and terrorism financing up until the September 11th attack, in fact, ferrying fighters to Chechnya, that kind of thing.
Can you substantiate that?
Absolutely.
I'm sure you in America know this fact, that the bin Laden family had 22 members in the US.
And when it was blanketed out after 9-11, and there were no planes flying out, there were two planes that flew out, and they took out 22 members of the bin Laden family.
This is recorded history.
And George W. Bush, his father was the most well connected with the bin Laden family.
No doubt about it.
Well, do you think that Osama bin Laden was still working within that network or outside of it?
No, no, I think at that time he'd gone out of it.
But he was still one of the favorite people.
Do you know General Mahmoud, who was accused at least of sending $100,000 to the September 11th hijackers?
I know General Mahmoud very well.
Yes, indeed.
And I'm not sure whether that accusation was true or not.
But I wouldn't be surprised if it was true.
Really?
Well, yeah, I mean, I guess he was forced to resign shortly after September 11th, quietly, I guess, by General Musharraf there.
But, you know, that raises a lot of people's suspicions about, you know, who all was behind this if the Pakistani government was in on it.
No, no, you have to understand what happened at that time.
Mahmoud, when 9-11 occurred, Mahmoud was in the US.
And Mahmoud was trying to convince the US that he should be the next chief of the army staff.
He should replace Musharraf.
And Musharraf got to know this.
So when Mahmoud came back, he was offered two choices because Mahmoud had done a favor to Musharraf when the coup occurred.
Mahmoud was one of the prime movers of the coup.
So Musharraf offered him a choice.
And he said, become the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which is a nothing job.
And he said, if you don't, then you leave.
So Mahmoud said, at that time, he was arrogant.
And he said, no.
So Musharraf said, then you're sacked.
And just a year and a half later, Mahmoud came back, licked his boots, and said, I want a job.
And so he was given the job of chairman of the 4G Foundation.
And he took that job again.
And is that his job right now?
No, he's no longer there.
That's a three-year stint.
He did a three-year stint, earned his money, and went back home.
All right.
Now, I'm not sure.
There's so many different things to discuss with you here.
And time is limited, unfortunately.
I guess if we could get to after the American invasion in 2001, you say in this article that on both sides of the Duran line, the invasion was celebrated.
People were so sick and tired of the Taliban by then, no matter who they were, they were happy to get rid of them.
But then what went wrong?
Well, I wrote that in that article.
I explained that in that article.
If the U.S. had just done, handled it right, if they just understood that the people were fed up with this place, with the rule of the Taliban, and actually, perhaps this is in the next article or the next article after that, because it was actually a priceless opportunity, because the U.S. has understood this.
Unfortunately, the U.S. military is so damned arrogant.
The only thing wrong with them, I'm not saying that they're intellectually lacking.
In fact, I think the American military is intellectually very, very, very powerful.
Unfortunately, they believe that their firepower is the last answer to every question.
And because they believe that, they go wrong.
And we've seen that happen from Korea to everything that we can come back to date.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, whatever you like.
Well, if they had dislodged the Taliban and then just left, would things have been better with the Taliban have been able to take back over or the people of Afghanistan would have finally had a chance to get back to their ways?
If they had come in with the intention of wiping out the Taliban, what they should have done was that they should have taken a little bit of time to get the intelligence information, find out exactly where the Taliban were, where Al-Qaeda was, and they would have targeted them.
And then they could have just walked in.
And everybody in Afghanistan would have kissed them and said, we will help you find Taliban supporters.
They never did that.
They just walked in.
And they slaughtered everybody.
They came in with the Northern Alliance and gave them total liberty.
Kill whom you want.
And they did that.
They were in a hurry to get to Iraq.
They didn't want to have to.
George W. Bush said, wipe them off the fucking face of the earth.
Well, now, over the years, and Eric Margulies has told me this, that because of Indian influence, because of America welcoming Indian influence in Afghanistan on the side of the Northern Alliance types, that that prompts the Pakistani government then are put in a position where they're basically forced to support the insurgency, Taliban or otherwise, inside Afghanistan, because they cannot let the Karzai government really create some monopoly power there, in alliance with the Indians.
If you read my article, you must, you must have understood the Karzai government, in fact, cannot exist.
It has no legality basis in Afghanistan.
Eric Margulies was very, very relevant about 10 years ago.
I think it is without a date now.
It's not the Indians we're worried about.
Ask me.
Indian presence in Afghanistan is not something we worry about.
When the U.S. leaves, the Indians in the Pashtun area will pack up and leave just as soon as they do, as will do Karzai.
Indians will remain in the Tajik and Uzbek area, which is up north, and that's for China to worry about.
But not in the Pashtun area.
So is it the case or do you dispute that the Pakistani military and intelligence services do back the insurgency in Afghanistan right now?
No, I'm sure they do.
I mean, in part, when we look at that, we have to see what parts they support and what parts they do not.
Because, you know, there are so many factions of the Taliban, and the factions of the Taliban who have supported Pakistan, who have said, we're not opposed to you.
And when, in 2007, Al-Qaeda said our enemy number one is no longer the U.S., it's now Pakistan, there were only two factions in Pakistan who took up that call.
And all the Afghan Taliban refuted that call.
So tell me, why the hell should we?
Give me one damn reason.
Why should we alienate those people in Afghanistan who are with us today?
And tell me one reason why we should not help them find an Afghanistan solution.
You should read one more article that I have written, which is also posted on a website somewhere, which is why Joe Biden came rushing to Pakistan.
He was scheduled to go to Afghanistan for two days.
And he changed his whole program and said he would come to Pakistan for one day.
And out of that one day, he spent five hours in the U.S. Embassy getting a briefing.
Then he spends 20 minutes with the president of Pakistan.
Then he spends one hour with the prime minister, out of which 10 minutes are spent talking to the press, which is a written statement.
And at the end of it, he says, I'm sorry, I cannot respond to your questions because I have an appointment with the general, and I cannot afford to keep the general waiting.
Can you just imagine a U.S. vice president saying I cannot afford to keep a general waiting?
Right.
Is he talking about a U.S. general or a U.K. general or a general in any part of Europe or in Russia?
He's just talking about the chief of the army staff in Pakistan.
And then he goes there.
He goes to GHQ.
He doesn't twitch his finger and call the Pakistan army chief of army staff in the American embassy.
He goes to GHQ and he spends an hour and 45 minutes with him.
That's right.
What is he going for?
Well, I mean, this whole time, the Americans have been pushing the Pakistani military to wage a civil war in the tribal territories against the Pakistani Taliban, right?
But before Biden came here, the Washington Post put up a six-point agenda of Joe Biden's visit, and that included the following.
They said the U.S. will promise military assistance.
They will promise resumption of arms and military aid and economic assistance.
That's three.
Then they came to the crunch.
They said the U.S. will no longer insist on Pakistan carrying out a military operation in North Waziristan.
Five.
They said—this is the Washington Post.
This is on record.
They said that the U.S. will say, we will promise you everything that you want, and we will accept that you are the most important person to negotiate the peace, the future of the peace in Afghanistan.
Well, so what, they're just trying to promote this guy to the next dictator?
Is that what you're getting at?
Well, no, no.
I think what they're saying is they've accepted Pakistan has a role to play.
And I think if you read my article and carry that in the next press before you talk to me, and I would welcome another conversation with you, then you will understand why they're doing so.
Ashok Parvez Giani, when he visited the U.S. in 2009, was the only chief of the army staff anywhere from the world who was invited to the White House.
Do you know of any army chief of any country in the world who's been invited to the White House for a person-to-person meeting with the president?
Nah, I mean, I would think maybe somebody from NATO or something, but no, other than that, no, that's pretty— Yeah, well, this fellow was.
And Obama gave him apparently 35 minutes.
And Obama, according to the American press, kept up his litany of requests and demands, and Ashok Giani just listened to him quite silently without responding to it.
And after Obama finished, to Obama's utter surprise, and this is according to the American media, Ashok Parvez Giani handed him an 11-page document.
And he said, this is a document that records what the U.S. is doing wrong in Afghanistan, and why I will not respond to what you want me to do.
Well, can you be more specific about what it was?
I mean, because I don't know whether Obama wants the war to go badly so that he can stay forever, or if he actually wants to accomplish something other than just fighting over there, or what?
I mean, look, you already said, and you're obviously right, that Hamid Karzai, who, you know, he had to steal the election from the CIA guy, Abdullah Abdullah, they were trying to replace him with.
And still, he's just the mayor of Kabul at best.
The U.S. helped him steal the election.
Then they accused him of rigging the damn thing.
Well, it seemed like they were trying to rig it for that guy, Abdullah Abdullah, for a little while there, but it was too little too late or something, maybe.
Because, I mean, the CIA ran an article on the front page of the New York Times about how Hamid Karzai's brother was a drug dealer and these kinds of things.
It looked like they were pushing against him, but he stole the election from him anyway.
But so, if he can't be the president of a government that rules Afghanistan, if everybody knows that, then what is the war for at this point?
I mean, do you think it's just to keep fighting?
That's it.
That's it.
It's Obama, if you remember, Obama and Joe Biden.
And, in fact, I think Joe Biden is a more forceful person in this party, which says, let's pull out.
But the Pentagon says, we won't.
And Obama doesn't have the guts, doesn't have the balls to say, OK, let's pull out.
He said, 2011, we will pull out.
Today, he's fooling the American people and he's telling them, these fellows hate us because they don't like our freedom.
What fucking freedom have you got?
Let me end with that.
We don't hate you because you got freedom, because you don't have any fucking freedom left.
We hate you because you're taking our freedom from us.
That's what we hate you for.
Well, and does that go for the population of Pakistan in general at this point?
Absolutely.
I'm talking about the population of Pakistan, not talking for me, because I love America.
I love America.
I've got a lot of friends there, a lot of new friends there.
But I think America is not what it was when the Declaration of Independence was written.
You fellows have changed to something very, very, very ugly.
From your mouth to Allah's ear, I'll tell you what.
All right.
Well, listen, I've decided that I need to read everything that you've ever written as best I can and have you back on the show.
For a lot of follow-up questions, if possible, because this has been very interesting and I'd like to follow up.
Thank you very much for your time on the show today.
Okay.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Oh, yeah, you will.
It's Shaukat Qadeer, everyone.
He used to be a brigadier general in the Pakistani military.
He's now at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute.
The new piece at counterpunch.org is called Two or Three Things You Need to Know About Afghanistan.
And he said he's got a follow-up article coming out, I think, tomorrow at counterpunch.org.
This is a very important piece.
I do hope you'll take a look at it.
And I'm sitting here racking my brain trying to think of all the great questions I should have asked, but to drop the ball on there.
But I guess that's how it is with live radio, you know.
