Buzkashi is an ancient Central Asian game in which two teams on horseback seek to drag a goat carcass (often headless) across a field to a marked circle or goal line. A very rough game, it is also played in Afghanistan.
Something like Buzkashi is currently going on in Afghanistan, with not one but several teams pitted against each other. Instead of the carcass of a goat, the teams are fighting over the country, and its future within the broader regional context.
The game started in 1979 with the Soviet invasion, and has continued ever since, with the 'goat' in the possession of one team or the other. After the US-supported Mujahideen forced a Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the regime they left behind lasted for about 3 years, to be followed by a vicious civil war, centred on Kabul, between the various Mujahideen commanders and warlords. This was ended by the Taliban in 1996 when, with clandestine Pakistani support, they established control over most of the country (taking over the rest in the next two years).
The US invasion in 2001 (after the 9/11 attacks) involved a massive aerial assault under which the forces of the Northern Alliance moved on Kabul and the South. This shattered the Taliban's forces and administration, and within a few days they were completely defeated. Their troops and cadres scattered, most of them seeking refuge in their villages and homes, with a few escaping to Pakistan.
Strangely, out of this total victory, the US managed, in a short time, to stir up a Pashtun-Taliban insurgency. According to a remarkable book by Anand Gopal (which describes the occupation as seen through Afghan eyes) this was mainly due to an almost complete lack of knowledge of the country and its people, as well as the propensity, especially of US Special Forces, to undertake 'kinetic action'. (Later on, even Gen Stanley McChrystal, not known to be shy about undertaking such action himself, once said, “We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat”; he was referring primarily to shootings at checkpoints and from convoys).
In spite of a couple of troop 'surges', the US and its allies could not defeat the Taliban insurgency, especially in the Pashtun areas. In 2011, they began to drawdown their troops, handing over the lead in operations to the Afghan Army in 2013, with a planned total withdrawal by the end of 2016.
Ashraf Ghani, who became President in 2014, initially thought that the Afghan Army, with the support and military backing of the US, would succeed in defeating the insurgency. However, he was soon forced to the conclusion that this was not going to happen. So, with American blessing, he sought to negotiate peace with them. But the Taliban obviously believed that they could wear down the Americans and their protégés in Kabul, and spurned Ghani's overtures. Until the Chinese stepped in, both directly and through Pakistan. This combined pressure was sufficient to bring the Taliban leadership to the negotiating table.
China's actions on Afghanistan need to be seen in the context of other developments affecting it. US actions in spurning Russia's attempts to move towards the West, thus forcing it to turn to China instead, plus other aggressive US moves directed at China, appear to have hastened its longer-term plans. Part of these are its moves in Central Asia and (what I like to term) Middle Asia (Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and, in some contexts, the 4 'stans' to their North).
The most recent of these actions is its commitment of $46 billion to develop an Economic Corridor (comprising road, rail and pipeline links) between Kashgar (in its Xinjiang province) and the Pakistani port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea (the still-incomplete Iran-Pakistan pipeline will also run through Gwadar). Longer term, it is also interested in Afghanistan's untapped mineral resources (currently it has the rights to mine a huge copper deposit).
It is these plans that make it important for China to ensure peace in this region, and explain its actions in pushing the Afghan peace talks. Another concern is indigenous terrorism feeding off turmoil in neighbouring regions. These Chinese actions are also the cause of a significant change in Pakistan's attitudes. From secretly helping the Taliban in their insurgency, and evading Afghan and US requests to arrange peace talks, it has moved to twisting the arms of the Taliban hard enough to get them to the table. Because now China wants it. (The BRICS and SCO have also called for a settlement in Afghanistan, but, for Pakistan, it is China that matters).
The opening of the talks is already creating ripples.
President Ghani is well aware how fragile his support is in the country. His survival depends on continuing American involvement and assistance, including, where necessary, military support. President Obama wants to pull US troops out by the end of 2016, but the US military lobby (the military, the defence industry, their Congressional backers, various thinktanks, the neocons, etc) wants to maintain a military presence in Afghanistan. The Taliban's basic demand, however, is for all foreign troops to leave the country. This is where the Islamic State (IS) has come in handy.
Last Sunday, when Ghani met Gen Dempsey, the US CJCSC, he said he wanted US troops to remain in order to counter the IS threat in Afghanistan; in fact, he suggested, the US could use Afghanistan as a regional hub to counter IS in the whole area. Dempsey was very receptive. Gen Campbell, the US commander in Afghanistan, supported the idea, and obligingly upgraded the IS's presence in the country from "nascent" to "operationally emergent"!
This IS 'herring' raises some interesting questions: Is the IS threat real? Will the Taliban buy into it, and agree to US troops staying on?
The IS 'presence' in Afghanistan has to do with the fact that the Taliban movement is fracturing. The protracted insurgency has brought many tribal and personal loyalties into play. Some (younger) insurgent commanders within the country are weakening or breaking off their ties with the old leadership in Pakistan. Some of the latter have adopted the IS brand (a purely nominal gesture). Many of them may well refuse to accept an agreement negotiated by the leadership, and lay down arms.
This is a major concern as far as the Haqqanis are concerned. One of the most deadly insurgent groups in Afghanistan, they have so far remained a part of the Taliban; they even had a representative in the Taliban delegation at the first round of the peace talks. They are likely to adopt a hard line in the negotiations, and may refuse to accept any agreement arrived at if it is not to their liking. Drawing their strength from the predominant tribe in the region around Kabul, and now much less amenable to Pakistani persuasion and pressure, they are critical to an effective ceasefire and a peaceful outcome.
If parts of the Taliban movement refuse to accept any negotiated agreement, they may well adopt the IS designation as a declaration of independence. That is likely to be the future "IS threat" in Afghanistan.
The chances of a peace agreement being arrived at between the Taliban leadership and the Afghan government are dependent on the package on offer. It is a distinct possibility if the deal offers the Taliban the potential of dominating the Pashtun South and East, with reasonable representation in the Kabul government. Will the Taliban accept an agreement containing a continued US military presence? The answer depends on many factors.
Principal among them is China's attitude. It is just possible that it may agree to it. If China believes that an insurgency is likely to continue in parts of the country, and that the Afghan military will not be able to suppress it, it may well let the US military stay on and deal with it ‒ provided its freedom of action is limited, as is the duration of its presence. Pakistan would certainly go along (it wouldn't mind a US presence in the neighbourhood to balance somewhat its dependence on China).
The Taliban leadership would face a conundrum. Acceptance of such a clause would almost certainly lead to parts of the movement refusing to accept the agreement. This is likely in any case, but this would lead to many more refuseniks. If the leadership felt that it couldn't deal with them itself later on, it may also want to let the US do it. However, if China was ambivalent, and the Taliban were adamantly against it, they would not agree to any such presence.
If China was against such a US presence, that would be the end of the matter. Then Ashraf Ghani would have to do his sums again.
All these goings-on have caused India to feel left out. So it whispered into the ear of someone else also feeling left out ‒ former Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Karzai promptly headed off to Moscow, where he proposed to President Putin that Russia, China and India should replace the US and NATO in dealing with "terrorism" in Afghanistan. With China already involved in its Afghan venture, this Karzai-India move is not likely to lead to anything. Like the US, they are left looking on from the outside while the party goes on inside.
Meanwhile, the peace negotiations are about to resume. It is being said that the second round will take place in China. Of much greater significance, the reports say that China and Pakistan are prepared to act as guarantors of the peace agreement!
This Buzkashi game in Afghanistan is coming to an end. It was yet another manifestation of the geo-strategic imperatives so presciently discerned a century ago by Halford Mackinder.
The main part of Afghani opium seems to end up in Europe. The most important traffic line, used to be and apparently still is the route via Turkey, Balkan. But Russia seems to have a problem too lately that is related that an alternative traffic line is via Russia.
Link from the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction:
Home page:
http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/
Afghanistan Opium:
http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/topics/pods/opioid-trafficking-routes
Search results:
Opium Afghanistan
http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/www/advancedsearch.cfm
Apparently the latest reports are from 2011. No doubt the illegal market is interesting, pushes up the price and is tax free. All that is needed is laundering the money. ...
You may have China's surplus economy in mind and British efforts to deal with it via opium. ...* apparently drug addiction is back in China too since the early 1990s
http://tinyurl.com/Mao-revolutionary-opium-war
Posted by: LeaNder | 25 July 2015 at 07:01 AM
YUP!
Posted by: William R. Cumming | 25 July 2015 at 08:56 AM
Thanks!
Posted by: William R. Cumming | 25 July 2015 at 08:57 AM
WRC, I am admittedly slightly hesitant, maybe for the wrong reasons, concerning Globalresearch, but to complete FB Ali's suggestion as far as "the West" goes:
Drug War? American Troops Are Protecting Afghan Opium. U.S. Occupation Leads to All-Time High Heroin Production
http://tinyurl.com/Global-Research-US-drug-war
Sounds a bit too easy for my taste, meaning they don't get me below the headline. Wrongly? You tell me.
But yes the Taliban restricted the trade shortly before the war due to UN pressure. And US troops simply wanted to return to the earlier state of business as usual??? Could some of the war-lords that earlier profited have some type of limited interest of providing intelligence to the foreign troops? And these interests are blown out of proportion? Notice, I didn't read any of this only scanned it.
But yes, I stumbled across all kind of allegations in the "drug war" field, concerning involvement by the US military, or legitimate firms and banks laundering drug money. There may be a well established mythical base by now. Some single arguments admittedly even seemed to make sense, or partial sense. No doubt our countries are not beyond corruption, but the larger context in the argument is way too complex for me to simply subscribe to any the "basic laws" that seem to surface here again.
Notice, the Guardian link, drug laundering saved banks post 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/Drug-Money-saved-banks
http://tinyurl.com/Wiki-Opium-Afghanistan
Last but not least, why Igot interested in the issue. I stopped almost all contact with a good friend from Czechoslovakia, after I realized he was involved in Opium, both trading and using it. Actually smoking it. And yes, I felt a bit guilty when he was dead due to an overdose a couple of years, not many, two? one and a half, after I last stumbled across him and found him gone beyond hope.
Posted by: LeaNder | 25 July 2015 at 09:11 AM
Why not 2005, Babak:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93Iran_relations#India.27s_nuclear_vote_with_Iran
Posted by: LeaNder | 25 July 2015 at 09:35 AM
Thus you are another supporter of a return to ethnically defined national lines of division? Look I have no doubt you will show me inside the Seljuk line its pretty multicultural and outside it may be purely Pashtun? No?
You should watch your basic theses, my dear Babak, since ultimately you may be in search of evidence. ... One of my favorite fields in high school seems to have reached the limits of agreed on basic laws long ago.
Would it have helped to divide Iraq into ethnic lines to start with with the main three groups?
Posted by: LeaNder | 25 July 2015 at 09:56 AM
Some further context to the centrality of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (and thus its relations with China) in Pakistan's policies. Today its Army chief said that the Armed Forces were ready to "pay any price to turn this long cherished dream into a reality".
In Pakistan, domestic and foreign policies that impinge on security are the province of the military. This is one of them.
The military is using its own Works Organization to build the 870 km road linking Gwadar port as part of the CPEC; 500 km of this have already been completed.
Posted by: FB Ali | 25 July 2015 at 12:31 PM
Not at all.
North of the Seljuk Line, Afghanistan is populated by a diverse ethno-linguistic groups such as Turcoman, Hazara, Tadjik etc.; i.e. non-Pashtuns dominate.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 25 July 2015 at 12:41 PM
Taliban had no qualms about producing and pricing heroin below opium to get more Muslims and others hooked on it.
Feeble-minded and ignorant Afghans might have believed their protestations of being advocates of Islam; not I.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 25 July 2015 at 12:44 PM
My mistake. You are right - it started in 2005.
Hindus in India later escalated in 21010 (please http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203513204576046893652486616) and joined the Western Civilization's total economic War against Iran - the core state of the Muslim Civilization; validating Samuel Huntington's theses of wars of civilizations.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 25 July 2015 at 12:49 PM
As far as Pakistan's interests go there is no clash with either the U.S or China. The latter needs Pakistan to help her keep peace in the Muslim-Turkish regions of the country and also as a conduit for energy supplies from the Middle East.
It enables her to bypass the choke point of western controlled Malacca Straits, at the same, shortens the distance to Africa and beyond for her exports and imports by more than ten thousand kilometers. This symbiotic relationship is here to stay barring some unforeseen catastrophic change.
Pakistan's relationship with the U.S has changed dramatically since the 1950s and 60s when she joined the western pacts in the hope that these will provide protection against any aggression by India. The situation changed when the pacts became redundant and India decided to go nuclear. Pakistan had no choice but to follow suit. It did not sit well with the West and relations soured, becoming almost adversarial. Pakistan harbours and will continue to harbour grave misgivings about western intentions which draws her closer still to China.
The West finds in India a natural ally given the present geo-political environment but the Indians, not wanting to be drawn into a confrontation with China or Russia, will go only part of the way with the West.
She is not at all happy with the close relationship between China and Pakistan but can do little about it. She is also resentful of Pakistan's influence and involvement in Afghanistan. Above all, she needs Pakistan as the bogeyman to keep her impossibly diverse internal make up united.
What happens in the region in the future mostly depends upon western aims and objectives in the Middle East and Central Asia. If it decides to pursue an aggressive containment policy towards China and Russia we should see more instability and polarisation. There is hope only if there is moderation and accommodation of regional states' interests.
Chances of the latter happening are remote but that is another story.
Posted by: Hussan Zia | 26 July 2015 at 10:38 AM
I do not think that there is any natural affinity between India - Hindu, Muslim, Jain, Sikh etc. - and the West.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 26 July 2015 at 11:47 AM
Babak: That's no answer. And you know it.
The question was about your Seljuk line or a division between "good" or "evil", or as you may put i,t people beyond "cultural hope", since after all their grand-grand-grand-grand ... parents weren't born within you line.
In other words--at this point in time--people that are beyond redemption, for the simple reason they happen to have been born into a region outside the limits of the Seljuk empire quite a few centuries ago.
How is that possible. Did this empire shape--to use modern terms--shape a specific people versus the ones outside? And it by not yet recognized patterns was passed on to the children over the centuries? What's your evidence for that? I mean evidence beyond that people want to live their limited lives? And ideally don't want disruptions like war?
Could you e.g. via your more recent European-line-theory show that the disaster that Germans caused to the world, was basically a result of them not completely surrendering to Roman domination? Since the fought that. And the rest is simply a result?
In other words what sense do basic rules (theses) make, if they cannot be tested?
Posted by: LeaNder | 26 July 2015 at 01:15 PM
Babak, I tend to consider this legitimate, since it would make sense. After all the trail to Turkey no doubt had to pass Iran and must have left traces.
I also from a purely feminist perspective, which I grant you to distrust, do not believe there wasn't something below the religious power surface as far as the Taliban are concerned. Can there ever be?
But pray tell me, aren't there any financial interests below the rule by the Mullahs in Iran, or why they based on religion could be the first "power" in religion that does not misuse its power for their own designs?
Show me it doesn't.
Posted by: GR | 26 July 2015 at 01:31 PM
I answered your question, quite factually, and you are still not satisfied?
I cannot do much more.
In regards to Good and Evil division that you raised: I never ever made a moral statement - only an empirical one: Jihadists seem to have roots in the non-Seljuk World.
Deal with it.
"People beyond redemption"? How quaint - a Christian doctrine coming from a lapsed Catholic...It is too funny...
I do not know how the Seljuk Empire caused the minds of men to change. That it did is beyond contest any dispassionate survey of the empirical reality can tell you that.
It is the work of scholars to discern and decipher the specific mechanism of the change that has persisted through centuries.
And why are you saying all these things; same patterns have persisted in Europe: in Spain, in Romania etc. I am not saying anything that is not equally applicable to Europe.
To your one before the last paragraph:
I do not have the depth of knowledge to even begin to select the secondary sources to write a college essay on your profound question.
My very shallow guess:
The amalgamation of the Personal Liberty of Germanic Tribes with Mystical Christianity
---
To your last sentence: I am sharing my insights based on empirical reality and a Hypotheses - The Makkinejad Theses.
You just need to find an overwhelming set of observations that negates them - say a very strong and relevant rational approach to Islam in non-Seljuk world; significant number of terrorists blowing themselves up who come from Seljuk areas, historical states persisting over the centuries regardless of dynasties coming and going in the non-Seljuk lands etc.
You won't fine them but you are welcome to try.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 26 July 2015 at 02:40 PM
I do not understand your first sentence; what is the referent of "this" please?
I think more than 3500 Iranian soldiers and anti-narcotics policemen have been killed in the line of duty to stem the flow of drugs to Europe.
Perhaps you prefer Iranians to make a deal with drug smugglers and let them transship their goods to Europe - the Enemy of Iran par excellence?
"Show me is doesn't".
Why should I try?
I really do not care what you think on this subject.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 26 July 2015 at 02:44 PM