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Pastimes : Desire And Grief -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: HG who wrote (358)	10/29/2001 12:59:36 AM
From: HG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1595

No picnic this Haq’s execution calls for a reassessment of US strategy Despite the George Bush rhetoric that the US is slowly but surely dismantling Taliban defences, their installations and their command-and-control structures, signs on the ground are unfortunately far less sanguine. It would be an exercise in self-deception to regard the brutal execution of Afghan opposition commander, Abdul Haq, as just another death in a barbaric war. From all evidence, Haq — as a credible Pashtun leader — was to play a central role in putting together a post-Taliban political order, one with a fair Pashtun representation. In fact, the mission that marked his end was in pursuit of precisely such a goal. His execution means that the Taliban, even after 20-odd days of unremitting pounding by the US with the help of the most sophisticated arms and ammunition in the world, are not about to give up the ghost. More important, it indicates that their information network and political control over much of Afghanistan remain intact. The brutal manner in which Haq was done to death within hours of his capture indicates that the Mullah Omar regime wished to make an example of him and send out the message that anybody who does business with the US is a dead man as far as it is concerned. This, incidentally, is the Taliban’s second significant strike: last month a suicide bomber had got Ahmad Shah Masood, a lynchpin of the Northern Alliance. There are two possible reasons for the Taliban being able to stave off imminent collapse, apart of course from the pathetic state of the forces opposed to it within the country. The first is through the sheer brutality of its methods. It is a dispensation that survives on an intricate network of fear and exemplary punishment. The second is the potent appeal it makes to country and culture. Note the words Mullah Omar used in exhorting his compatriots to rally to the Taliban cause: ‘‘We must defend our land. Remember our fathers and grandfathers who fell defending this religion and this land.’’ So where does this leave the strategy of the global alliance against terror? That three weeks of aerial attacks have only led to big rubble being reduced to small rubble is cause for concern. Already, there are signs of the US administration getting more realistic about its objectives. Last week, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld indicated that the US may never be able to get hold of Osama bin Laden. There was also that candid admission by a US rear admiral a few days ago. He had expressed surprise over the doggedness with which the Taliban were hanging on to power. These are useful reality checks and will hopefully moderate the blind ‘‘bomb ’em back to the stone age’’ rhetoric of many Washington hawks. With the holy month of Ramzan just a few days away and winter imminent, the Pentagon will have to tread a minefield. It doesn’t have many options before it but the few it has will have to be pursued with sense and sensitivity.