Afghan Warlord - 'America has failed. The Taliban will return.'



A former warlord, Ismail Khan is now calling for
the West to rearm him and his fellow
former mujahedeen leaders.

The international coalition "has taken away our artillery and tanks and turned them into scrap metal."
- - - Ismail Khan



(From Der Spiegel)  Ismail Khan grabs a pointer, taps it onto an area west of Herat and says: "This is where I came across the border from Iran with 17,000 men in 1996, during the Taliban era.

Then we continued through Faryab and Mazar to Faizabad and back to Herat." He drags the pointer to the north and then to the east, sweeping it across all the wind turbines and power plants, as if they were nothing but hindrances. "My militias fought bravely everywhere," says Khan.

But when he mentions the Taliban, he is also talking about the future. He foresees a return of the fundamentalist Taliban, the collapse of the government in Kabul and the eruption of a new war between ethnic groups.

He sees a future in which power is divided between the clans as it was in the past, and in which the mujahedeen, the tribal militias seasoned by battles against the Soviets and later the Taliban, remain the sole governing force.

But when he mentions the Taliban, he is also talking about the future. He foresees a return of the fundamentalist Taliban, the collapse of the government in Kabul and the eruption of a new war between ethnic groups.

He sees a future in which power is divided between the clans as it was in the past, and in which the mujahedeen, the tribal militias seasoned by battles against the Soviets and later the Taliban, remain the sole governing force.

The 'Lion of Herat'

In truth, the 65-year-old minister is still what he was 30 years ago: a mujahed, or warlord, although he doesn't like the latter term. "The Americans and English tried to discredit us with that word, until they realized that they couldn't do without us in their fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban," Khan, now an older, more peaceful man, says with a smile.

But he is also a man who had entire armies march across the Hindu Kush Mountains in the 1980s to fight the Soviets. He was one of the commanders in the ensuing civil war, in which Afghanistan's ethnic groups -- the Tajiks, Hazara, Uzbeks and Pashtuns -- massacred one another and laid waste to the capital Kabul.

Khan, governor of the most important province in western Afghanistan until 2004, was known as the "Lion of Herat." He still prefers to be addressed by his former title of Emir. But then he became too powerful for the Americans and President Hamid Karzai, so they removed Khan from office and brought him to Kabul to keep a closer eye on him.

He was finally given the somewhat laughable position of water and energy minister, despite his feeling that he should have been offered the job of defense or interior minister instead. "I'm not in this position voluntarily," says Khan.

"Ah! the Generals! They are numerous,
but not good for much!"
Aristophanes
(446 BC – c. 386 BC)
Generals and politicians have always loved to play war games with the lives of their soldiers.  If they die or are torn apart there are always more to replace the fallen. 
.
The Afghanistan War strategy was doomed from day one.  Afghanistan is larger in size than Nazi Germany which took millions of troops to subdue.  It is also over four times the size of Vietnam which 1.8 million allied troops could not control.  The small Allied force was never able to control Afghanistan.  The smart strategy would have been to arm and fund local Afghan warlords to do the heavy lifting backed by Allied air power and a small number of trainers and support.   

The year 2014 is approaching, and with it the withdrawal of NATO troops. When Khan appears in public today, it is with the demeanor of the mujahed. "We cannot allow Afghanistan to be destroyed once again," he said publicly late last year. He has also said that government forces are powerless in large parts of the country, that Afghans should arm themselves once again, new recruits should enlist and the command structures of the former militias ought to be reestablished.

The international coalition "has taken away our artillery and tanks and turned them into scrap metal."

"Instead, they have brought Dutch, German, American and French girls to our country, along with white soldiers from Europe and black soldiers from Africa, who were supposed to bring security to Afghanistan. They have failed," Khan said in a speech at a rally in Herat.

"So you believe that the Taliban will return as soon as NATO is gone?"

"The arrogant Americans drove the most important Taliban out of Kabul, bombed the rest from the air and then ended the war," says the minister. "So far, 2013 has been the bloodiest year yet in Afghanistan. The Taliban are in all the villages once again. They want all the power. Our army won't be able to stop them."

"And you could stop them?"

"We have 20 years of combat experience, and we defeated a superpower. We can deal with the Taliban too," says Khan, leaning back in his chair. "But not this army," he adds, waving his hand in the direction of the defense ministry. The Afghan army, trained by the West, has lost 63,000 men, or one in three soldiers, to desertion in the last three years.


To read the full article go to Der Spiegel - International.