Afghanistan: The Use and Abuse of a Buffer State

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Notes

¹ This is a revised version of a talk given to the New Political Science section of the American Political Science Association in Chicago, Illinois, September 1, 2007.

² Louis Dupree, Afghanistan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973, 2002), pp. 248–251.

³ Olivier Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

⁴ Readers should skip the following summary section if they know this history.

⁵ Thought useful as right-wing bogie man, and thus fashionable to dismiss among some on the left, al Qaeda—that network of integrationist, Wahhabi terrorists loyal to Osama Bin Laden—is alive and well along the Afghan-Pakistani border. They support and cooperate with the Taliban and field troops of their own. Their areas of operation are mostly in the mountains of the east, the provinces of Noristan, Kunar, and Nagahar, rather than in the Taliban heartland of the south: Helmand Kandahar, and Zabul.

⁶ Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies (New York: Free Press, 2004).

⁷ Paul Wolfowitz, “Victory Came to Easily”, The National Interest 35 (Spring 2004)  < http://www.nationalinterest.org/General.aspx?id = 92&id2 = 11810>.

⁸ Jean Mazurelle, quoted in “Afghan aid ‘wastage’ under the spotlight at London Conference”, AFP, January 2006.

⁹ Steve Cole Coll, Ghost Wars (New York: Penguin, 2004); Ahmed Rashid, Taliban (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).

¹⁰ For more on this obscure but globally significant historical moment, I suggest consulting the work of Pakistani journalist Raja Anwar. His two books on the subject are The Tragedy of Afghanistan (New York: Verso, 1988) and The Terrorist Prince (New York: Verso, 1997). Also Oliver Roy's first book is good.

¹¹ “Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinsk”, Le Nouvel Observateur (France) January 15–21, 1998, p. 76.