http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=105560
Robert Fisk: Our friends in the North are just as treacherous and
murderous
'When our Northern Alliance boys go on a killing spree, we have to
take responsibility'
The Independent,
19 November 2001
When the Iranian army massed on the western border of Afghanistan in
1998 and prepared to storm across the frontier to avenge the Taliban
slaughter of its diplomats - and its Afghan allies - in
Mazar-i-Sharif, it received a message from the Taliban leadership in
Kandahar.
"You will decide the date of your invasion," came the two-sentence
communiqué from Mullah Omar's men. "We will decide the date of your
departure." The Iranians wisely held their fire. It may have been a
reply from the Taliban - but it was a very Afghan reply. The US and
Britain - or the "coalition" as we are constrained to call them - are
now getting similar treatment. The Northern Alliance watched the
American bombers clear the road to Kabul. They were grateful. Then
they drove into Kabul and now they are asking the British to leave.
Poor old Jack Straw had trouble contacting the Afghan foreign minister
to sort things out. The Afghan satellite phone was not switched on.
You bet it wasn't.
The mystery is why we ever expected these people to obey us. Afghan
rules don't work that way. Ethnic groups and tribes and villagers
don't take orders from foreigners. They do deals. The West wanted to
use the Northern Alliance as its foot-soldiers in Afghanistan. The
Alliance wanted to use the American bombers to help it occupy the
capital. For the Tajiks and Uzbeks and Hazaras, it was all very
straightforward. They destroy the Taliban - and then take over
Afghanistan, or as much as they can swallow. And if they indulge in a
little revenge here and there - 500 or 600 Pakistani fighters
massacred in a bloodbath at Mazar, a possible human rights atrocity in
the making in Kunduz - what's so surprising?
Even now, faced with the bitter fruits of our coalition with the
Northern Alliance, we are reacting with an odd replay of our Bosnian
adventure: calling for restraint while at the same time reminding the
world that the Afghans are a warlike, cruel people.
As the Alliance gunmen prepare to storm into Kandahar, Mr Blair calls
for "restraint". Yet the western media are now set upon informing
their readers and viewers that nothing more than a massacre could have
been expected of our foot-soldiers. An Irish journalist came on the
line to me last week with a familiar complaint. Wasn't I being a bit
finicky, getting upset about a little slaughter in Mazar? Weren't the
Afghans steeped in age-old traditions of warfare? Wasn't it a bit much
to be asking the Afghans to behave in a civilised way?
I tried to remind my interviewer that Afghanistan's civilisation
predated Ireland's - and indeed much of Europe's - and that the
missiles, tanks, artillery pieces and rocket-propelled grenades with
which the Afghans were destroying each other had been provided by the
civilised outside powers. Hadn't I listened to this same nonsense
about "age old traditions of warfare" peddled by the British foreign
secretary Malcolm Rifkind when he was trying to wash his hands of
Bosnia?
The real point, however, is that we cannot adopt someone's army as our
own and then deny responsibility for its behaviour. We didn't allow
the Germans to do that after the Second World War. And when our
Northern Alliance boys go on a killing spree, we have to take
responsibility for the bloodshed that results.
Take the case of Kunduz. More than 50 US planes have been bombarding
the Taliban lines around the area in a deliberate attempt to break the
morale of the defenders and allow the Northern Alliance gunmen to
capture the district.
The Alliance has given the Taliban a deadline. It's pretty clear what
will happen if the Taliban ignore that deadline. They are going to be
killed in cold blood. I hope this is not true. I fear it is. But are
we going to shrug our shoulders when the knives come out? Are we going
to admit we helped the Alliance to gain the upper hand but then eschew
all interest in the results? Isn't there even a faint, horrible
parallel with Osama bin Laden? If he merely inspired murderers to
commit the crimes against humanity of 11 September, surely he was
guilty of the death of 5,000 people. But if we facilitate Alliance
murderers, it seems we are innocent of the crime.
Meanwhile, outside Kabul, the familiar Northern Alliance anarchy is
falling into place. The warlords of Jalalabad are feuding over who
rules which part of Nangahar province. The Pashtu tribal leaders
around Kandahar are threatening to fight the Northern Alliance. Hazara
elements of the alliance are threatening their Tajik and Uzbek
comrades if they do not receive a sufficient share of power in Kabul.
Amid all this, in clops the poor old UN donkey, dragged into the pit
to undertake the most impossible task ever faced by statesmen in the
history of the modern world: to sort out Afghanistan. Would the
Alliance please be kind enough to allow the Pashtuns to have a
proportionate share in the government? Could we have a few moderate
Taliban - perhaps with shorter beards - in a broad-based
administration? I can just see the Afghan delegates to these talks
when they hear the phrase broad-based. Broad-based?
The only broad-based phenomenon the Afghans know about are ceasefires.
And even then, only for Afghans. The most sinister element of the
Kunduz ceasefire offer is that it only applies to Pashtuns - not to
foreign (ie Arab) fighters - trapped in the area. They, presumably,
are to be massacred or - in the chilling words of a BBC reporter with
the Alliance yesterday - "given no quarter".
My own experience of armies that give no quarter is that they intend
to commit war crimes - as has already happened in Mazar - and that
this will only stiffen the resolve of those men who escape the
bloodbath. For it is worth remembering the moral basis upon which we
are prosecuting this war. This is, remember, a war "for
civilisation". It is a war for "democracy". It is a war of "good
against evil". It is a war in which "you are either for us or against
us".
So when we see the pictures of the next massacre, let's ask ourselves
whose side we are on. On the side of the victims or the murderers? And
if the side of good happens to coincide with the side of the
murderers, what does that make us? We're hearing a lot about the
Allied success in the war. But the war has only just begun.
