USA...The Root of Terrorism

As you sow so shall you reap…This adage became the de facto for the US of A when they were annihilated by the(shoes..sorry Bush but as the adage goes..:-) metallic kites in the worst terrorist attack ever on 9/11.The Presidential elect Barrack Obama is on record high advocating the escalation of military in Afghanistan. But history has something subtle to say . In the late 70’s the military of Afghanistan invited the People’s Democratic Party(PDP) to form a coalition government with the Marxist under the leadership of Noor Mohammed Taraki, a poet and novelist. Under his regime Afghanistan began to prosper as never before and Kabul became a cosmopolitan city. Girls education became compulsory, legalization of labor unions, women held top post in the government . People looked this as kaleidoscope of hopes. But the elitists poked their long nose because of the egalitarian and economic policies of the Taraki governance.

Almost immediately after the PDP coalition came to power, the CIA(Central Intelligence Agency of US), assisted by Saudi and Pakistani military(ISI), launched a large scale intervention into Afghanistan on the side of the ousted feudal lords, reactionary tribal chieftains, mullahs, and opium traffickers. The then Carter administration was providing huge sums to Muslim extremists to subvert the reformist government. Part of that effort involved brutal attacks by the CIA-backed mujahideen (Islamic guerrilla fighters) against schools and teachers in rural areas.. In 1979 Taraki was executed.

The seriously besieged PDP government asked soviet union to send a contingent of troops to help ward off the mujahideen and foreign mercenaries, all recruited, financed, and well-armed by the CIA. The CIA recruited almost 1 million radical Muslims from forty countries including Pakistan, Algeria, Iran and termed as holy war i.e the notorious Jihad. Ruling the country gangster-style and looking for lucrative sources of income, the tribes ordered farmers to plant opium poppy. The Pakistani ISI, a close junior partner to the CIA, set up hundreds of heroin laboratories across Afghanistan.


By 1995 an extremist strain of Sunni Islam called the Taliban---heavily funded and advised by the ISI and the CIA and with the support of Islamic political parties in Pakistan---fought its way to power, taking over most of the country, luring many tribal chiefs into its fold with threats and bribes. Suspected murderers and spies were executed monthly in the sports stadium, and those accused of thievery had the offending hand sliced off. The Taliban condemned forms of “immorality” that included premarital sex, adultery, and homosexuality. They also outlawed all music, theater, libraries, literature, secular education, and much scientific research. All men were required to wear untrimmed beards and women had to wear the burqa which covered them from head to toe, including their faces.


Upon taking over Afghanistan, the mujahideen fell to fighting among themselves. Several fled to home and others went to Pakistan and India to foster terror in the name of holy war and this way it spread to whole world. The US was paid back in its own coin. And now in the face of all this Obama’s call for “change” rings hollow.