Common sense

Well, and so the Reliable Source was wrong, for the Soviets did, of course, leave Afghanistan in 1989, and yet the Great Game may not be over.

* The Qur’an puts this prettily, remarking what a divine wonder it is that the place from which milk issues is located between the blood and the dung.

† See the entry in the Chronology for that year.

‡ That is, since the very birth of Pakistan.

§ The ideal or specter (depending on who looked at it) of a separate state for the Pakistani and Afghan Pathans, in Pakistani territory. The inhabitants of the North-West Frontier Province were mainly Pathans, like my friend General N., like his guest the Brigadier, like the refugees whom I interviewed. They had more in common with their fellows in eastern Afghanistan, with whom they had traded and intermarried for thousands of years, than with someone from Sind or Baluchistan. It was impossible for a foreigner to understand much of what they thought and what was important to them. The tribespeople on the border passed easily through the Soviet checkpoint on the Durand Line to trade with their counterparts. In those early days before the United States and the Arabs had begun to give much of their so-called covert aid to the Mujahideen, Pathans sold to Pathans. The principal business of the town of Darra, through which I passed in an International Rescue Committee van (it was a tribal area; we were not allowed to stop), was the manufacture of arms, from.38 caliber pistols made to resemble ballpoint pens to antiaircraft guns, all hand-produced. The General said that the people of Darra could copy any weapon so well that external inspection could not determine the original. He also said that those replicas sometimes blew up when fired. The Afghans were faithful patrons in Darra in 1982.

‖ The Pakistan-Afghanistan border (especially in the North-West Frontier Province). See Chronology, entry for 1893.

a The war between Pakistan and India, which Pakistan lost.

b An indecisive skirmish between Pakistan and India.

c An attempted putsch against Daoud. See Chronology, entry for 1975.

d The two rival leftist groups in Afghanistan, whom the Russians were to use in their chess game. See Chronology, entry for 1965.

e Daoud’s brother. Daoud was Prime Minister under Zaher Shah from 1953 to 1963, when he resigned over an imbroglio over the Pushtunistan issue. Daoud and Naim were members of the Royal Family. The Constitution of 1964 prohibited anyone in the Royal Family from holding political office. Daoud seized power on July 17, 1973, when Zaher Shah was on a visit to Italy. Naim was one of his advisers during his five years of power. Both of these men and their families were liquidated in a leftist coup on April 27, 1978 (see Chronology).

f Louis Dupree, Afghanistan, pp. 530–33.

g P. 9.

h See the Chronology’s entries for 1844–1907.

i I.e., Taraki’s coup in 1978.

j This would have been a few months after Daoud’s coup. He had already begun to send his 1, 600 Parcham cadres into the rural areas to preach modernization. The mullahs’ hackles were rising.

k Which he did the year after the Panjsher Uprising (see Chronology, entry for 1976).

l Here a recapitulation may be useful. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar ran the right-wing group Hezb-i-Islami, Maulvi Mohammad Yunus Khalis controlled a splinter group from Hezb-i named after him, and Maulvi Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi ran Herakat-i-Inqelab-i-Islami, an organization somewhat more to the liberal taste. † This sentence makes it clear that the Reliable Source is not always so reliable in the matter of dates, for earlier (see p. 176) he had said that Rabbani came in 1974.

m I.e., after Zia displaced Bhutto.

n In June 1982, when this interview was given, the United States had not yet admitted that it was supporting the Mujahideen via Pakistan. Therefore this was interesting news to me at the time. Five years later, it seemed only vaguely sad and sordid, like the Panjsher “Uprising”—and sadder and more sordid still because I support overt and covert aid to the Mujahideen. How true, alas, that there are so many things that one cannot say directly!

o Or, as they must say in Afghanistan: “Parcham! Parcham! Parcham! Parcham! ”

p I.e., the civil convulsions in Afghanistan just before the invasion.

11. A MATTER OF POLITICS: FRIENDLY ENEMIES (1982)

It is not important whether an Afghan is Shia or Sunni. We are all brothers … All those who lead the present resistance and fight against the Russians are patriotic and great personalities. Professor Rabbani is both Shia and Sunni. I am both Shia and Sunni. Everybody is both Shia and Sunni in Afghanistan, and the one who is not is not Muslim.

(Young Man: Is Gulbuddin your brother?)

Yes, of course he is my brother. He has very courageously fought against the Russian invaders. It is a matter of politics which causes disunity among the parties. There are Russian agents who make mischief and cause disagreement and difficulties among the leaders. They are all great men of their time.

SHIA MUJAHIDEEN COMMANDER