It was Christmas Eve. Around the `civilised world` children clutched their teddy bears to their softening chests. Mothers loved and fathers stared dewy-eyed across the glistening white blanket outside their warm safe dwelling.
But in Afghanistan, quietly, Rachid Dostum became deputy foreign minister and the greatest heroin government of all time was cemented in power. A flood of cheap opium, at up to 90% discount, is heading towards the softening chests, the dewy eyes and the loving Mums. Maybe yours.
So, how could the new left have been so, well, right. What did we say before the commencement of the Afghan bombing campaign ? We said the Taleban would collapse into a morass. Their house of card-mullahs was about as stable as the financial markets, less so even. We said that the collapse would initiate chaos in the Afghan country, the heroin supply would surge like never before, the violent Islamic fundamentalists would slip away to fight again and the innocent would die. We then said that the replacements for the Taleban would be mired in in-fighting, that the USA would try to minimise its financial contribution to the `restoration` of Afghanistan and that the underlying sub-plots, oil and heroin also would also play important roles in the outcome. Well. That is exactly what happened.
Professor Marc Herold’s study of the Afghani dead, ( http://www.media-alliance.org/mediafile/20-5/index.html) whilst being generally ignored by our media in the United Kingdom, has finally started to seep in to the public consciousness. Finally the BBC allowed it to be mentioned, and accepted as fact, by the errant MP Paul Marsden.
Now the reports are coming back about the chaos in the Afghani streets. The rape gangs, the bandits roaming the countryside, the resurgent heroin warlords (The Independent, The Dawn, Afghan News Network, Sabawoon.com, al-jazeera.net) . But of course this was always going to happen, like we said. But few UK or US media outlets will respond, not even to American congressmen on recce missions "People are afraid. Crime is increasing in Kabul," said Frank Wolf, a Republican congressman from Virginia. The pro-bombers even ignore their own, but then what do you expect. Only the right news will do.
Perhaps though the inclusion of the heroin baron Rachid Dostum in the new government would cause some consternation. After all this was a man whose militia (of he claims “50,000 men” – Afghan News Network) first supported the Soviet Invasion, then after the Soviets lost he supported the Najibullah government, then after Najibullah was hung by the Northern Alliance he supported the NA but in reality no one except himself before fleeing his “personal fiefdom” (The BBC) of Mazar I Sharif from the Taleban to go to the administrative centre of organised heroin dealing, Turkey. His soldiers were the chief perpetrators of the slaughters in Kabul during the reign of the Northern Alliance.
Amnesty International however have a long dossier on Dostum. This is a man who personally chains dissenters to his tank tracks, and then personally drives the tank around until the body is crushed to a pulp. He boasted of filling containers with prisoners and suspending them over fires until all were dead. But hey! This is war don’t you know, (or is it ? Not if you are a prisoner yeah ? ) But, well, you know, smack dealing murderers, well, that’s life. You have to do business with them, right ?

Well, someone does. How about the new all powerful American `envoy` to Afghanistan, the real de facto ruler of the country. Zalmay Khalilzad has all the right credentials. A member of pre-Soviet Afghan elite he went to the American University in Beirut before moving to the USA and getting a PhD from the University of Chicago in political science in 1979. From there he naturalised and then taught at the University before teaming up with the staunch Kissinger ally and intelligence Godfather, Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Of course that isn’t where Khalilzad’s credentials stop. He, like so many others in the Bushoil gang actually supported so-called “constructive engagement” with the Taleban in the mid 1990’s. In fact he said at the time that "The Taleban do not practice the anti-US style of fundamentalism practised by Iran," he wrote. "We should ... be willing to offer recognition and humanitarian assistance and to promote international economic reconstruction. It is time for the United States to re-engage."
But then some years previously he had also vociferously supported “providing surface-to-air missiles and other sophisticated weaponry to the very mujahedin groups that later gave birth to the Taleban.” (The New Zealand Herald)
However at the time that Khalilzad was supporting the Taleban he did appear to have some compromising facts surrounding his seemingly surprising `good intentions` towards the fanatical Afghani government. He was in fact working for the Texas-based oil company Unocal, who were competing with Argentinean oil company Bridas for the Taleban’s favour. Why? Because they wanted to build an oil pipeline from Tajikistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan. But, you know, maybe that never crossed his mind, right ?
However in time Khalilzad did indeed change his mind on the Taleban. This happened after the Clinton administration’s attacks on Afghanistan and the collapse of talks between Saudi Arabia’s intelligence services to get the Taleban to hand over Bin Laden. At this juncture Khalilzad’s views on supporting the Northern Alliance and using the former King, Zahir Shah, to usher in market reforms were outlined in a piece he wrote in the geo-political journal `The Washington Quarterly` in November 2000.
So it transpired that when Bush Jr came to power Khalilzad was immediately appointed to the National Security Council, an appointment that needed no wider political ratification. There Khalilzad worked alongside another oil-backed incumbent of the new Bush admin, Condoleeza Rice the former board member of Chevron, employed as such because of her expertise on the oil and mineral deposits of…Kazakhstan. Honestly, you wouldn’t believe the co-incidences that happen in modern governments.
We could go on. The heroin and rape connections of Dostum’s sometime partner in death Mohammed Atta, the sex slaves of General Masood, the connections between foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and the Indian secret services, the burger restaurants (yes, that brand you guessed it) owned by warlord Burhannudin Rabbani in Canada. And it goes on.
A few people have been brave enough to stand up and say that the sentimental, obstructive, dewy-eyed nationalism and downright nonsense talked by the authorities has been a terrible mistake. But they are few and far between, it takes men (and women) of honour, integrity and vision to see the disaster that is being created in our names. It takes people who believe in justice and peace to realise that the new left were, in every respect, right about the war in Afghanistan.
"After discussions with our family, friends and advisers we are convinced that our previous view was one-sided and indeed overstated," said one man of honour. A man big enough to admit he was wrong. But then Nelson Mandela was never one for a big Christmas.

adam porter
www.yearzero.org