Fareed Zakaria's critique in the New York Times of "The Assassins' Gate" misrepresented the plight of the Afghan people. The Afghan tragedy is the result of a long history of interventions culminating with the American Cold Warriors failure to re-stabilize Afghanistan by de-commissioning the warlords once the Soviets withdrew in 1989. Selig Harrison, a leading US expert on South Asia, was told by CIA leaders in the 1980's they had encouraged the most fanatical Islamists from around the world to come to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. In 1992 US special envoy to Afghanistan Peter Tomsen wrote to his superiors that "US perseverance in maintaining our position in Afghanistan - at little cost - could contribute to a favorable moderate outcome which would sideline the extremists, and help combat terrorism." With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 the Afghan story had already disappeared. But the Afghan people were faced with the effects of the largest covert CIA operation in history that left extremists warlords enriched by a decade of funding that included military training and massive weapon supplies. As the crisis grew more desperate for the Afghan people the media continued to look away. That is why Zakaria's comment, "It has not had a functioning government in three decades, some would argue three centuries, and yet it is coming together under a progressive leader" must be challenged. It dismisses the historical record of Afghanistan's evolution as a nation culminating in 1976 with a revised Constitution that articulated the rights of all Afghans as men and women. Another comment, "it has accepted certain facts of Afghan life, like the power of its warlords, working slowly to change them" implies that warlords were always a part of Afghan life when the record is the opposite. Afghan Warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyer was forced to flee to Pakistan in 1972 for extremism. Today, moderate Afghans now must face off against well armed extremists warlords like Hekmatyer legitimized by a political process that dismisses holding these criminals accountable for their war crimes.
This must be challenged.
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