On Dec. 3, 2000 - one year ago - this column said that overthrowing the Taliban would "pave the way for a
second Russian occupation of Afghanistan." This has now happened. The Northern Alliance, armed and funded by
Russia, directed by the Afghan Communist party and under the overall command of the chief of the Russian general
staff, Marshall Viktor Kvashnin, deputy KGB director Viktor Komogorov, and a cadre of Russian advisers, seized
Kabul and all of northern Afghanistan. U.S. President George Bush committed a colossal, inexcusable blunder. If
this column could foresee Russian intervention, why didn't the White House?
* Last week's much-ballyhooed Afghan "unity" conference in Germany produced precisely what this column
predicted: a sham "coalition" government run by the Northern Alliance. One of the CIA's Pashtun "assets," Hamid
Karzai, who represents no one but himself, was named prime minister. There was no other real Pashtun
representation, though they comprise half the population.
Of 30 cabinet seats, two-thirds went to Northern Alliance Tajiks, notably the power ministries of defence, the
interior and foreign affairs. Two women were added for window dressing to please the West. The 87-year old
deposed Afghan king, Zahir Shah, widely blamed for allowing the communists to infiltrate Afghanistan in the
1970s, was invited back as a figurehead monarch. In short, a communist-dominated regime, ruled by a king, whose
strings are pulled by Moscow. Quite a bizarre creation.
The very next day, feuding broke out among Alliance members. Old communist stalwart Rashid Dostam, who had
just finished massacring hundreds of Taliban prisoners with American and British help, threatened war if his Uzbeks
did not get more spoils. My old friend, the Alliance's figurehead president, Prof. Burhanuddin Rabbani, a respected
Islamic scholar, was shoved aside by young communists.
* The Bush administration was apparently too preoccupied chasing Osama bin Laden to notice its new best friend,
Russia, had broken its agreement to wait for formation of a pro-U.S., pro-Pakistani regime, and seized half of
Afghanistan. Marshall Kvashnin rushed his men into Kabul, just as he outfoxed the Americans in 1999 in a similar
coup de main in Kosovo.
* The hunt for bin Laden and his Al-Qaida continues. A few senior figures have been killed, likely including Dr. Ayman
al-Zawahiri, leader of Egypt's Islamic Jihad. The net is closing around bin Laden's possible hiding places. Unless he
has escaped Afghanistan, his capture or death appear imminent. This will be welcome news for the Bush
administration. If bin Laden somehow escapes, or his body is never found, Bush will be accused of blowing apart
Afghanistan, killing large numbers of civilians, and allowing the Russians to grab back the country, all for nothing.
* The late Pashtun leader Abdul Haq, whom I knew from my Peshawar days, warned the U.S. before his death that
bombing Afghanistan was unnecessary and a grave mistake. Taliban control could be broken, where needed, by
financing tribal uprisings - the standard form of Afghan warfare - without foreign intervention. Otherwise, he
warned, the Northern Alliance would take over and bring in the Russians. He pleaded with Washington for
restraint, but to no avail. Haq was captured by the Taliban during a bungled CIA operation and hanged.
But Haq was right. U.S. forces could have hunted bin Laden in southern Afghanistan with relative impunity, as they
are now doing, without having to launch a total war against the Taliban. U.S. air power totally dominates barren
Afghanistan. Taliban forces could not move or communicate. There were only a small number of Taliban fighters in
southern Afghanistan where bin Laden was hiding.
Bombing Afghan civilian centres was absolutely unnecessary. The only real military targets offered by the Taliban
were its entrenched troops facing the Alliance. It was remarkable the Taliban managed to withstand five weeks of
carpet bombing by U.S. B-52s - particularly, as one Pakistani writer wryly noted, after his nation gave in to the
U.S. after only a threatening phone call from Washington.
he U.S. could have hunted bin Laden without allowing the Russians to recapture half of Afghanistan, a severe
geopolitical defeat for American ambitions to use that nation as a gateway to Central Asian oil and gas. And without
blasting to rubble what little remained of demolished Afghanistan, and without driving 160,000 civilians into
terrified flight.
So, after eight weeks of war, the Taliban is out, the communists are in power in Kabul and the south is in chaos. The
war has cost Washington US$60 billion to date. Afghanistan is a bloody mess. And Vladimir Putin is smiling.
Oh yeah, buddy! Well, Bush's approval ratings are nearly
90%. So take that, you evil canuck!
