Factcheck: McCain on Taliban
Fact checking the debate:
'MCCAIN: Now, let me just go back with you very briefly. We drove the Russians out with -- the Afghan freedom fighters drove the Russians out of Afghanistan, and then we made a most serious mistake. We washed our hands of Afghanistan. The Taliban came back in, Al Qaeda, we then had the situation that required us to conduct the Afghan war.'
The 'freedom fighters' included Gulbadin Hikmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani, i.e. what McCain now calls 'radical Islamic extremists.'
The US is now trying to kill Haqqani, who has joined up with the neo-Taliban attacking US troops.
The Reagan Jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, supported by the fundamentalist military dictatorship of Zia ul-Haq, destabilized Pakistan and enormously expanded the bank accounts of 'freedom fighters' (i.e. mujahideen) like Hikmatyar. Hikmatyar's Hizb-i Islami is also attacking US troops.
Then McCain says that the US 'washed our hands of Afghanistan.' Actually George H.W. Bush made a deal with the Soviets that if they would depart Afghanistan and keep hands off, the US would cease supplying the mujahideen. "We" did not wash our hands of the country. The Republican Party led by its then president did a deal with the Soviet Communists.
Then McCain says that "the Taliban came back in." This is a very odd assertion. The Taliban were seminary students going to kindergarten and grade school as refugees in Pakistan at the time of the 1980s guerrilla war. They only emerged as a disciplined paramilitary group, with Pakistani help, in 1994. They did not 'come back in.' They arose and supplanted the mujahideen, though some mujahideen joined them.
So it was in part the very mujahideen or Muslim holy warriors for whom McCain voted more money from Congress in the 1980s that came to menace US interests in the late 1990s and who gave shelter to al-Qaeda.
The recent US air strikes on the tribal agencies in Pakistani territory have in some large part targeted the Haqqani network.
Aljazeera English reports on the US military presence in Afghanistan seven years later.
posted by Juan Cole @ 10/08/2008 12:03:00 AM
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6 Comments:
Bravo, Professor!
Speaking of Pakistan. It was reported in British papers that
Pakistan is asking for bailout of $100 Billion.
So the question is, will Pakistan because a state of Saudi Arabia, China or America's 51st State.
What do you think?
Sorry to burst the bubble, and it pains me to speak out in defense of McCain, but (whether he knows it or not) there's nothing wrong in the statement "the Taliban came back in."
I write this from my garden in Kandahar, where I'm working on two books based on oral testimony of players in Kandahar since the 1960s, and the Taliban were very much a force - miltary and religious - for almost as far back as people remember.
You should recall the role that Taliban played in the events of the 1920s. You should also recall the countless 'Taliban' commanders - and yes, people did refer to them as such at the time - who fought against the Russians in self-styled 'Taliban' fronts.
Can't give you all the details here, for that you'll have to wait for the two books coming out in 2009, but suffice to say that the Taliban have been around for a LONG time... While Pakistan were certainly involved in 1994, I have begun to question the exact extent of that support.
I once heard Vladimir Posner, once a frequent Soviet commentator/mouthpiece on US television, relate years later that when Gorbachov decided he had to pull out of Afghanistan he pleaded with Bush senior to work with the USSR to try to leave some semblance of security and order behind. But the Bush administration apparently was not inclined to do anything that might mitigate the Soviet humiliation.
Afghanistan being what it is, US-USSR cooperation at that point might have made little or no difference; but it is difficult to imagine it could have made matters any worse.
Actually George H.W. Bush made a deal with the Soviets that if they would depart Afghanistan and keep hands off, the US would cease supplying the mujahideen. "We" did not wash our hands of the country. The Republican Party led by its then president did a deal with the Soviet Communists.
Juan, this is the first I've ever heard of this. I've always thought we got the Russians out and just forgot about them once our use of them was done. Do you have any reference material on these dealings? You referenced Bush, and I assume this is his CIA days.
The U.S. was one of only a few countries to recognize the Taliban government of Afghanistan. And it gave them 43 million dollars, as well.
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