US set to work with Pashtunistan

US President Barack Obama announced in sweeping terms a subtle policy switch that may well lead to a near-term settlement of the conflict in Afghanistan/Pakistan where the al Qaeda organization has held out for seven years. The US government will reach out to headmen and clans in Pashtunistan in an effort to make that nation of 40 million an ally in the renewed efforts to dismember and destroy the al Qaeda organization.

As I noted in this pages nearly eight years ago, al Qaeda is essentially a non-governmental organization organized with business-like precision that would intimidate, violate and kill many thousands of indigenous peoples in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia and elsewhere while targeting econonomic structures and institutions dearly held by states to promote a distorted islamic agenda. After years of futzing around and killing many thousands of non-threatening people in Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan the United States has slowly turned its attention to the real target of its worries: a militarized, corporate organized, criminalized, idiologized, non-governmental organization directed by an Arab businessman.

To achive this dimemberment of al Qaeda the United States and its soon-to-be purchased Pashtun allies must isolate, negate and systematically break up the corporation that is al Qaeda from within and without. There will be a few “students” (Taliban) who will see their existence dependent on al Qaeda…but ultimately cultural ties will be stronger and the Obama government must pay close attention to those ties.  Pashtunistan, it is often said, has never been defeated.  It is wise not to attempt.  It is much wiser to make this ancient people an ally if for only a short time to rid the world of a non-governmental organization gone amuck. Just as unregulated financial corporations went crazy with power and money breaking down the very stability of the world’s economy, a non-governmental organization organized the way al Qaeda is organized has emerged since the global liberalization policies of Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980s to socially and economically destabilize the world.

The indigenous nations have long been the key to stopping al Qaeda and only now does it seem that some of the leaders of the US government understand this subtle truth.