The War Lords of Afghanistan - Part II

Afghanistan's member of parliament, Mrs. Malalai Joya, says American policy in Afghanistan is all wrong.

The so-called "Northern Alliance," a coalition of regional and religious organizations, governed Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996 before one of its member groups, the Taliban, took over the government. After a U.S.-led coalition in 2001 ousted the Taliban regime in response to the 9/11 attacks, Northern Alliance figures were appointed to government positions despite their extensive and well-documented history of human rights abuses.

And from Joya's perspective, that's the biggest problem Afghanistan now faces.

Malalai Joya says the former Mujahideen - "warlords who have now learned how to talk about democracy and women and how to wear a suit and a tie" - are no better than the Taliban: "Every country that wants to prove itself as real and honest friends of the Afghan people must stop following the policy of the U.S., because this is not a real democracy and this is not a real war on terror. At one hand they are saying 'we fight the Taliban' and on the other we have members of parliament who are Taliban. The only way is to stop this policy. If they don't stop this policy, I am sure that one day there will be another September 11. Another September 11 will happen — because they are like the Taliban [and] they will act like the Taliban."

She couldn't have told us this sooner?

I suppose we really knew this all along. You can only impose a form of government on a defeated people. Other wise all you have is pressure and not much of that if the Afghanis want to assert their independence.

Like it or not the warlords are power centers. Loyalties change slowly. The American Indians are a case in point.

As one example of the approach that Joya objects to, Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., while visiting Afghanistan two weeks ago, voiced his support for efforts to bring "people who call themselves Taliban into a larger, more representative government."

She says these are the same "warlords and drug lords [who] committed lots of crimes when they were in power under the name of jihad and even now are committing lots of crimes under the name of jihad and Islam."

We could reduce the profit in growing drugs by at least 90% to 95% by ending prohibition. I cover that in The War Lords of Afghanistan.

Who uses Heroin? About 70% of female heroin users were sexually molested. If heroin helps them get by I'm all for it. I think that being under a doctor's supervision would be a sufficient control of the market. Besides, the NIDA says that addiction has a genetic component. Only a small fraction of the population is susceptable.

In any case it looks like the outsiders in Afghanistan are backing the wrong crowd. Nothing new here. I think the Afghanis are going to have to sort this out. With our support. We have to resist the tendency to go native.

H/T Afghan LORD