لراوبر ویب پاڼه لراوبر يو افغان – تازه خبرونه
From the Bookshelf
A review: The Warlord: Abdur Rasheed Dostum, a Blood-Stained Chapter in the History of Afghanistan, Abdul Qadeer Muhajir. Lahore: Sana Printing Press, 1997.
Afghanistan’s Eponymous Warlord: The author, Abdul Qadeer Muhajir has invested twenty years of research in writing this compelling narrative and expose, a manuscript which often entailed physical hardship and personal risk while on a fact-finding mission through six of Afghanistan’s provinces. His lengthy, dangerous journey resulted in resident interviews, as well as interviews with former associates, disaffected commanders and friends and supporters of the nefarious traitor…Abdur Rasheed Dostum. His investigative skills are recognized and acclaimed by the international media and should therefore come as no surprise to those amongst us with a dedicated interest in Afghanistan history, to learn that the details surrounding the persona of this reprehensible, impious and brutal leader from the north of Afghanistan were and are inspired by the lure of power and Russian and American gold. See: American Raj, Liberation or Domination, Resolving the Conflict between the West and the Muslim World, Eric S. Margolis, 2008, p.196)
Can there be any doubt concerning the gravity of the contribution made by Dostum to the success of the war-effort by Moscow in their attempt to achieve economic and strategic supremacy in Afghanistan, or for that matter to his participation in the current strife and bloodletting at the behest of foreign sponsors? Could there be any question or doubt of the incalculable cost to the Afghan people, both in human and economic terms as a result of his collaboration with the Soviet Union, can there be any amongst us who would question the veracity of the allegations of collaboration, Dostum’s self-serving relationship with Russian, Iran, India, and Uzbekistan? These and other issues and characterizations are authoritatively addressed and documented by the author in this exhaustive expose of the Soviet, Iranian, Indian and Russian game in Afghanistan. This is undoubtedly the most engagingly comprehensive and informed book ever published on the history of this beleaguered nation that addresses in lucid detail the sordid role of Afghanistan’s notorious ‘Quisling.’ (See: The Hand of Moscow, Leonid Shebarshin, KGB, 1992)
The War Lord asserts that collaboration, treason and genocide is not a sporadic or random event, nor is it necessarily linked to economic development, national psychosis or social decay. The proclivities of Abdur Rasheed Dostum are a special sort of mass destruction conducted for personal gain in concert with the state apparatus. As the author states succinctly, life and death issues are uniquely fundamental, since they alone serve as a pre-condition for the examination of all other issues. This compelling study alleges Dostum’s participation and guilt in what social scientists term ‘democide’…the intentionally killing by governments and their agents through genocide, politicide, massacre and terror. Muhajir illustrates authoritatively the enormity of the slaughter in Afghanistan and the role Dostum played in it. (See: Afghanistan, Political Frailty and External Interference, Dr. Nabi Misdaq, 2006, pp. 258-259)
As Afghanistan struggled to regain their social, economic and political equilibrium in the post-Soviet period, the author properly examines the incestuous role of the propagandists, a critical role initiated by media personalities, government officials, deposed bureaucrats and other loyalists of the so-called Northern Alliance: A cadre of ethno-centric party Loyalists who endeavored to create division through sophistry and by espousing outright disinformation to the mass-media on such misunderstood topics as gender-bias in patrilineal-Islamic societies, terrorism, fundamentalism, and the alleged brutality of the Taliban…and in so-doing, seek to justify and promote a so-called ‘broad-based government’ to unsuspecting members of the outside world. This so-called ‘broad-based government’ as heralded by outside interventionists represented nothing more than a coalition of warlords… guilty of wanton bloodletting , collaboration, treason, corruption, drug trafficking, arms smuggling, treason and perfidy.
General Dostum, for those who may not know him, is one of the most ruthless warlords in Afghanistan. As leader of the notorious Jowzjani or ‘Gilamjam’militia, an irreverent sobriquet or reference to their predisposition to loot everything in sight to include gilems or rugs, Dostum was also a Soviet devotee who commanded a pro-Soviet militia that fought alongside Soviet and Afghan government troops against the Mujahideen engaged in opposing the invaders. (See: Afghanistan, Political Frailty and External Interference, Dr. Nabi Misdaq, 2006, p.162)
With loyalty to their foreign sponsors, it was also Dostum’s militia while in the service of the U.S.-led invasion that were responsible for the Dasht-i-Laili massacre in which evidence indicates that 2000 Taliban prisoners of war were suffocated to death in cargo containers. In addition, Dostum is a key player in the drug trade and suspected of involvement in the burgeoning, illicit arms trade. (See: Afghanistan, a Search for Truth, Bruce G. Richardson, 2009, pp. 271, 272,381-382)
In a cruel twist of irony, Abdul Qadeer Muhajir notes as to how the treasonous Abdur Rasheed Dostum and his subordinates knowingly subverted and brutalized Afghanistan and its people…raping, killing and looting his countrymen who’s forbears or ancestors had, in an earlier era, compassionately provided asylum and subsistence to his itinerant kin at a perilous time in in the bloody history of Russia. A time when the alternative to emigration to Afghanistan was certain death as Tsarist Russia embarked on an unprecedented campaign of murder and terror against the citizens of Muslim Central Asia.
The War Lord therefore is a fundamental work for political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, war crimes investigators, and all those engaged in historical research or concerned with human rights, unbridled foreign interference in a sovereign nation, and or with certain ethno-centric, factional, individual propensity toward collaboration and brutality.
This scholarly work is clear, sober and tough minded, especially poignant given the fact that Afghanistan’s President Karzai for reasons of political expedience repatriated the notorious and reprehensible Abdur Rahseed Dostum from exile in Turkey back to Afghanistan in 2009, appointing him, notwithstanding his acknowledged status as a war criminal…as Army Chief of Staff… in order to benefit from the tens-of –thousand s of Uzbek votes Dostum could muster for any candidate of his choosing in a presidential bid.
That Afghanistan’s eponymous warlord is currently Army Chief of Staff and yet with his powerful proxy-militia represents the single, major impediment to China’s development of the energy fields in the Amu Darya Basin, an oil-based project which promises to be of significant import to the health of the business community in Afghanistan. Holding out for more lucrative bribes while leveraging his military as a security guarantor, Dostum is testimony to the fact that political expedience and personal economic gains reign supreme over justice and the interests of the country and the people.
