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Mythos vs Logos

Islamic literalism

(opium resurgance)

history of conflict in Afghanistan


"The reasons for the international terrorism threat are connected to American imperialism and humiliation of Muslims worldwide. Once we rein in imperialism and stop humiliating Muslims, we will discover a greatly diminished terrorism threat." - Robert Lentz


Terrorist attacks create terror because from the victim's perspective there is no easily identifiable enemy, no sovereign state to bombard or invade, no territory to conquer, no easily identifiable specific force to overwhelm and no clear strategic objective to attain.

In response to the attack on September 11, 2001 America invaded Afghanistan to dispossess the Taliban and to capture Osama bin Laden.

An identifiable enemy army, a sovereign state to bombard and invade, a territory to conquer, and a clear objective.

Although America shocked and awed the Afgani's and later the Iraqi's they failed to realize that besides fighting a physical enemy (insurgents, terrorists, gorilla fighters, rebels, revolutionaries, tribal elements, et al) they are fighting a deeply set tribal religious way of knowing.

This may be the very first conflict to be fought over epistemology.

Epistemology is the branch of science and philosophy that concerns knowledge, specifically, how we know what we know.

There are many 'ways of knowing,' but the religious historian Karen Armstrong, in her study of religious fundamentalism, The Battle for God, identified two primary systems of knowledge that have special relevance for the current conflict.

Karen Armstrong called one 'mythos.' With its roots in ancient time when gods,
heroes and other fanciful forces provided the answers for the questions of existence.

Mythos relies on intuition, superstition, emotion,
traditional non-rational 'ways of knowing'.

Mythos embodies a form of mental artistry which symbolically and aesthetically resonates with an individual's past conscious experiences of personal enlightenment.

The other system is 'logos.' As the name implies, logos relies on reason and logic,
on what we call rational ways of knowing, a form of science.

The battle on Earth is evolving into a battle between mythos and logos.

The Taliban and their Islamic literalist allies live within mythos and have subordinated themselves to mythos. They see themselves not as individuals with desires, which is a relatively modern notion, but as operatives of Allah. They strive for 'immortality' in the tales, legends and eventually myths, of their tribal 'group'.

For them, everything is glorious legend, everything is based on a religious faith in tradition.

In fact they do not acknowledge any other legitimate way of conceptualizing the reality of life on Earth.

The Taliban and their Islamic literalist allies are essentially pre-modern and a-historical, believing only in what has been passed down to them by their religious teachers.

In the madrasas, the Islamic religious schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, students are strictly forbidden from learning anything except the Koran. Taught as a literal text, without an understanding of metaphor, symbolic archetypes and socio-cultural bias, the Koran presents a corrupted mythos.

When neo-con zealots talked about bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, it is futile not only because the Taliban are already there physically(opium resurgance) but because they are also there epistemologically.

The spiritual and the rational can exist together in society, they do in every society, but literalists do not see it that way. As pre-modernists, they believe the two worldviews are mutually exclusive and must remain so. Their grievance is that their way of thinking is being destroyed by the inundation of Western materialistic influences, which globalization has made nearly impossible to escape.

Literalists of Christianity, Judaism and Islam do not want reason, critical thinking or intellectual pursuits to challenge tradition; they demand blind faith and obedience to tradition.

Religious literalists do not want their culture radically modified by the purveyors of materialistic consumerism which worships only Mammon. Religious literalists demand obedience to traditional modes of thought as prescribed by previous religious literalists.

Since religious literalists are unwilling to acknowledge any way of living other than their traditionally prescribed way and since they do not believe in tolerance, personal choice or persuasion, all of which are secular rationalist notions, their only option is to eradicate the purveyors of logos before logos eradicates their mythos.

Religious literalists are attempting to turn back the clock to a time when reason was not and superstition prevailed.

America is entangled in this struggle because of American combat troops stationed in Islamic countries.

America has been called the "Great Satan" because America is the symbol of a corrupt logos - materialistic consumerism - the worship of Mammon.

America has attracted students from everwhere on Earth, including Islamic countries. When those students return they bring back with them American popular culture steeped in the worship of Mammon.

Butrus Elias, a communications major at the University of Cairo, admits to being a democracy advocate. Butrus Elias owns the DVD of the movie Forrest Gump. Butrus Elias favorite scenes are the surreal handshakes between Forrest Gump, played by Tom Hanks, and an assortment of smiling American presidents who are juxtaposed with evidence of their political dark sides.

"Forrest Gump helped me understand that my country's leaders are not in accord with reality. I saw in the movie Forrest Gump how a politician would behave dishonestly just to influence the society around him, and I identified with the simple character who could be so easily manipulated by falsehood. It helped me to look at my own country and see our leadership through a similar lens."- Butrus Elias

Religious literalists would prefer it if the population remained passive and did not employ the halo of critical thinking.

In 1095, Pope Urban II lauched the First Crusade knowing that the Great Seljuk empire had dissolved with infighting and therefore the balance of power in the Central Asia was overturned.


After Ghengis Khan conquered most of Asia there was religious discord as Mongols were shamanists acknowledged the existence of one God, but also venerating forces of nature, the sun, moon, Earth, and water.

In response to the the Crusades and the Mongol invasion Islam turned from the path of enlightenment towards religious zealotry much as Christianity had done 700 years earlier.

The path of religious zealotry creates cultural stagnation as thought outside traditional patterns was and still is forbidden. The stagnation in Islam mirrors the stagnation that occured in the Christian countries of the dissolved Roman Empire during the time that was properly titled the Dark Ages. The stagnation of which was only broken in the Christian countries of the West by renewed contact with the East.

"If Allah's grace and mercy are present, then surely one reforms, otherwise, the person just wanders around in the desert of knowledge and intellectualism. After studying the educational history of the Earth, this point becomes very clear that all the mischief and chaos that were created, were all at the hands of intellectuals and geniuses. During the period of Ilm (knowledge) a greater portion of Fitna (mischief) appeared by the way of Ilm. Even among the Ulama-e-Haqq, many geniuses due to their sharp intelligence and accentricity became victims of their wrong thoughts and ideas." - Moulana Muhammad Yusuf Binnori

The Taliban and their Islamic literalist allies are still fighting the proclamation of Pope Urban in 1095 stating, "Christians, hasten to help your brothers in the East, for they are being attacked. Arm for the rescue of Jerusalem under your captain, Jesus. Wear his cross as your badge! If you are killed your sins will be pardoned."

Pope Urban's 'request' to European Christianity is a perfect example of imperial Christianity. This myth of saving the Byzantine empire was made with the intent of stopping the internecine warfare among knights of the feudalistic European social culture which cut into the tithes made to the Holy Roman Catholic Empire as well as taking advantage of divisions in the East.

Osama bin Laden understands the application of myth well and has used myth to rally literalist Islamic religious zealots.

Islamic religious literalists have been fighting Talmudic thought and power for almost a millineum.

The reality of American political opinion of foreign relations depends on a cold calculation
of the interests of American Zionists who control American exports and imports.

Islamic religious literalists see that America supports corrupt regimes that suppress religious literalist's as threats to the corrupt regimes existence and believe this involvement to be for American Zionists own narrow and selfish needs.

Islamic literalists insist that Islamic governments be based on the Sharia, or Islamic law. Sharia, Shari-'ah, Shari'a, Shariah or Syariah is the Arabic word for Islamic law, also known as the Law of Allah. Islam classically draws no distinction between religious, and secular life. Sharia covers not only religious rituals, but many aspects of day-to-day life, politics, economics, banking, business or contract law, and social issues much in the same way that the Torah does. As a matter of fact the real reason that that Zionists oppose Sharia is that contracts can be found null and void if deception has occurred whereas in Talmudism deception in contracting for self-enrichment at the expense of others, especially contracts made with goy, is looked upon as the ultimate success.

To the devout religious literalists - Talmudist, Islamist or Christian - the most abhorrent effects of rationality has been the growing secularism, that has separated religion from popular social culture throughout most of the social cultures of Earth.

The American system of government, born of reason with the hope of freedom and liberty for all men, is under assault from American Zionists, imperial Christians and the false prophets of (neo)evangilism.

Literalists mistakenly believe that America, through its economic,
intellectual and military might, is the logos, or reason, capital of the Earth, not realizing that America is run on a Talmudic worldview of strict laws.

It was the ability of Osama bin Laden to tap into the epistemological nature of Islamic literalist myth that frightend American Zionists.

When one is fighting for territory the terms of battle are relatively clear.

In this new conflict, literalist zealots have many targets,
virtually anything and everything that does not fit within the literalist worldview,
but American Zionists, imperial Christians and the false prophets of (neo)evangilism, have no military targets to hit.

The enemy is not easily identifiable.

The enemy could be the guy next door. (He could very well harbor heretical thoughts.)

The enemy is a non-conforming way of thinking.

This new enemy of critical thought, of reason, of logos is mythos,
an intuitive way of knowing different from rational thought based on interpretations of myths by religious literalist zealots.

To the rational mind major terrorist acts make no sense as rational minds have been conditioned to accept only materialistic reasons for destructive action. Major terrorist acts falsely appear to not have a materialistic goal, such as conquering territory for example, and falsely seem to be commited simply out of malice or spite when in fact they are committed for the very same purpose all acts of terror have been committed - to sow fear terror.

The George W. Bush administration claimed to believe that a major terrorist attack on American soil would never occur. (Which seems a little disingenious considering the World Trade Center had already been bombed once.)

The terrorists may destroy logos but not in the manner that rational minds are likely to concieve of. The terrorists are more likely to destroy logos if, in response to the threat, Americans embrace their our own historic mythos, a mythos closely aligned with the mythos of American Zionists, imperial Christians and the false prophets of (neo)evangilism.


"Western civilization is supposed to be based on free and rational thought. Closed-minded fundamentalism of any sort, whether denying empirical scientific evidence or blowing up abortion clinics, seems more akin to the ancient, mindless ways of the Middle East than the civilization that brought you Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and the Enlightenment." - Dirik Lolkus


Islamic literalism



Islamic fundamentalism, in the form of Mawdudi and the Jamaat-e-Islami, have existed in Pakistan for over a half century. Recent events have increased the fortunes of Islamic fundamentalism.

The Iranian revolution, in which the Shah was deposed, elevated the Shiite religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini to the center of power. The Shah had come back to power after the democratically elected government of Iran was dispossessed with the help of the Central Intelligence Agency.

US Foreign Policy Towards Iran

The civil war in Afghanistan, fought between Islamic literalists and the United Soviet Socialist Republic, proved to Islamic literalists that they could gain control of a country by evicting a world superpower. The civil war in Afghanistan was ‘the straw that broke the camel's back' of the United Soviet Socialist Republic(not Ronald Reagan's 'Starwars' program and accompanying military buildup).

Islamic literalists were recruited to fight in this ‘holy' war or jihad, struggle, from all over the Islamic world. When the civil war ended there existed tens of thousands trained professional guerrilla fighters who subscribed to Islamic literalist belief systems and who had successfully caused the withdrawal of a superpower from Afghanistan. They became known as the Taliban.

The house of Saud had been powerful on the Arabian pennisula ever since the eighteenth century, when the radical cleric Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab, the founder of the puritanical Wahhabi movement, wandered into Dar'iya, near present-day Riyadh, and made a bargain with its ruler, Muhammad ibn Saud. The Saud family would provide the generals, and the Wahhabi's would provide the foot soldiers.

In Saudi Arabia wahhabism has been on the rise due to a deal that the house of Saud cut with Islamic literalist religious leaders. Islamic literalist religious leaders promised not to speak out against the opulent and ostentatious life style of the royal family members of the house of Saud if they were given funds to run their Wahhabi Islamic literalist schools.

Popular imams all over Saudi Arabia have called openly for a jihad against the West. Two out of every three Ph.D.s earned in Saudi Arabia are in Islamic studies. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers on September 11 were Saudis.

Until September 11, Saudis were not even required to appear at the American embassy in Riyadh or the consulate in Jidda for a visa interview. Under a system called Visa Express a Saudi had only to send his passport, an application, and the application fee to a travel agent.

All of the wealth of the house of Saud comes from oil sales, much of that oil is and was sold to America. Much of the Saudi money was funneled into Pakistan to support religious literalist schools in Pakistan. In 1997 Abdul Aziz, a youngest of King Fahd's children, coordinated a $100 million aid package for the Taliban.

Even after the 1998 attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which were organized by Osama bin Laden from his bases in Afghanistan, the Saudi royals continued to aid the Taliban and its main supporter in the region, Pakistan.

The Pakistanis were directly involved with the civil war in Afghanistan as money, supplied by the American government through the Central Intelligence Agency, was funneled through the Pakistani Intelligence Service to provide arms and ammunition to professional guerrilla fighters, Osama bin Laden for one, that were fighting the United Soviet Socialist Republic supported marxist government of Afghanistan.

It is ironic that America, directly and indirectly, supported the rise of Islamic fundamentalism - wahhabism. Directly by supporting the Taliban in the civil war in Afghanistan, the despotic governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and the military government of Pakistan. Indirectly by purchasing oil from the house of Saud.


history of conflict in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is populated with a mosaic of ethnic groups who have subscribed to a variety of religions. Afghanistan, an ancient focal point of trade and migration, exists at the junction of the crossroads between the East and West. Afghanistan has suffered an almost continuous conflict being repeatedly invaded throughout recorded history.

Afghanistan's first known invasion was by the Medians. The Medians came from the region south of the Caspian Sea and controlled Afghanistan in the 6th century BC.

Next the Persians invaded during the reign of the Zoroastrian Darius I creating the Achaemenid Persian empire which reached to the Indus river.

The Scythian empire reached its greatest extent in the 4th century BC during the reign of Ateas and included Bactria (present-day Balkh).

Following the defeat of the Achaemenid Persian empire, in 328 BC, the Greek Alexander the Great entered the territory of present-day Afghanistan to capture Bactria and finally conquered a region reaching to the Indus river.

When Alexander the Great's empire crumbled along came the ruthless Indian Hindu warrior and general Ashoka the Great who reigned from 273 BC to 232 BC as the emperor of the Mauryan empire. The brutality of the conquests led Ashoka the Great later in life to adopt Buddhism under the guidance of the Brahmin Buddhist sages Radhaswami and Manjushris.

The Bactrian Hellenistic Greek king Euthydemus and his son Demetrius crossed the Hindu Kush and began the conquests of Northern Afghanistan and the Indus valley creating the Indo-Greek empire at the turn of the 2nd century BC. Bactria had been populated with deported unreliable Greek colonists by the Persian kings of the past.

The Kushan empire wrestled control of the area from the Bactrian's including the Kabul valley, part of Qandahar and established the twin capitals near present-day Kabul and Peshawar then known as Kapisa and Pushklavati respectively. The Kushans adopted elements of the Hellenistic culture of Bactria including a writing system that used the Greek alphabet. During the Kushana empire rule, Afghanistan and Gandhara became major centers of culture and learning.

White Huns, the Hephthalite empire, were an agricultural people with a developed set of laws. They displaced the Kushan and conquered Sogdiana and Khorasan before 425. They crossed the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) River and invaded Persia in 425. Held off at first by Bahram Gur, they later succeeded in making Persia a tributary in 485. After a series of wars they were driven out of Persia, permanently lost the offensive, and were finally defeated by Khosru I in 557 . The White Huns also invaded India and succeeded in extending the empire to include the Ganges river valley.

The Göktürks or Kök-Türks were a Turkic people of ancient North and Central Asia, Eastern Europe and northwestern China. Known in medieval Chinese sources as Tujue, the Göktürks under the leadership of Bumin/Tuman Khan/Khaghan and his sons, established the first known Turkic empire around 552 in the general area of territory that had earlier been occupied by the White Huns, and expanded rapidly to rule wide territories in Central Asia.

The Göktürks originated from the Ashina tribe, an Altaic people who lived in the northern corner of the area presently called the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomus Region of China. They were the first Turkic tribe to use the name "Türk" as a political name.

The Sassanid empire, Sassanian empire, second Persian empire, the fourth Iranian dynasty, and other powers ruled the rest of Afghanistan before the Arab Muslims invaded the entire region and introduced Islam in 642.

The Sassanid empire's territory encompassed all of today's Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Afghanistan, eastern parts of Turkey, and parts of Syria, Pakistan, Caucasia, Central Asia and Arabia.

Afghanistan, like all the others conquered by the Arab Muslims, had local rulers including the empire of Tang China, which had extended its influence all the way to Kabul.

The Samanids, who reigned from 875-999, founded a reemerging Persian empire in Central Asia and eastern Iran, named after its founder Saman Khoda. It was among the first native Iranian dynasties in Iran and Central Asia after the Arab conquest and the collapse of the Sassanid Persian empire.

The Persian Samanids empire, continued to rule eastern Afghanistan from the mid-7th century until they were conquered by the Turkic invasions of Mahmud of Ghazni and, Harun, Bughra Khan.

In 999, Bughra Khan, grandson of the paramount tribal chief of the Turk Karluk empire, occupied Bukhara, the capital of the Persian Samanids empire. The Samanid domains were split up between the Ghaznavids, who gained Khorasan and Afghanistan, and the Karakhanids, who received Transoxania; the Oxus River thus became the boundary between the two rival empires. During this period the Karakhanid, Kara-Khanid Khanate, were converted to Islam.

Mahmud of Ghazni, founder of the Ghaznavid empire, a Sunni Muslim state in Khorasan in modern day Afghanistan that existed from 962 to 1187, consolidated the conquests of his predecessors and turned Ghazna, Ghazni, into a great cultural center as well as a base for frequent forays into India.

Khwarezm was a province of the Ghaznavid Empire from 992 to 1041.

In 1041 the Seljuk Turks gained control of Khwarezm.

The Seljuk Turks were a Muslim dynasty of originally Oghuz Turkic descent that ruled parts of Central Asia and the Middle East. The Seljuk Turks power was at it's zenith under Malik Shah until 1092 when the Great Seljuk empire stretched from Anatolia to Pakistan.

When Malik Shah I died in 1092 the Great Seljuk empire split, as his brother and four sons quarrelled over the apportioning of the empire among themselves thus becoming the target of the First Crusade.

In 1041 Muhammad 'Ayn ad-Dawlah took over the administration of the western branch of the Kara-Khanid Khanate, centred at Bukhara. The unity of the Karakhanid empire was fractured by constant internal warfare and later served the dual suzerainty of both the Kara-Khitan empire to the north and the Seljuk empire to the south.

The Khitan empire, Kara-Khitan Khanate, 1124-1218 was founded by Yelü Dashi, who led the remnants of the Liao dynasty to Central Asia after fleeing from the Jurchen conquest of their homeland in Manchuria. In 1141, the Seljuk Sultan Ahmed Sanjar was defeated by the Kara-Khitan Khanate and the Great Seljuk empire fell into chaos. Anu-sh Tigin's grandson Ala ad-Din Aziz was forced to submit as a vassal to the Khitan empire as was the the Kara-Khanid Khanate.

The Khwarezms expanded their territories south when the Great Slejuk empire collapsed in 1141.

Uthman, reigned 1204–11, briefly reestablished the independence of the Karakhanids empire, but in 1211 the Karakhanids were defeated by the Khwarezm-Shah 'Ala' ad-Din Muhammad and the dynasty was extinguished.

The Ghaznavid empire was defeated in 1146 by the Muhammad of Ghor, who founded the Ghurid empire. The Ghaznavid Khans continued to live in Ghazni as the 'Nasher' until the early 20th century, but they did not regain any power until 1709 when the Ghilzai Pashtuns's defeated the Safavid Persians in Kandahar.


The Ghurid Empire, between 1175 and 1192, under the leadership of Muhammad of Ghor, stretched over a vast area including parts of Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Turkistan, Iraq and parts of other Arab countries. Muhammad of Ghor occupied Uch, Multan, Peshawar, Lahore, and Delhi.

In 1206, one of the Ghurid generals, Qutb-ud-din Aybak, the conqueror of Delhi, made himself independent and founded the first of a succession of dynasties collectively known as the Delhi Sultanate which lasted from 1206-1526.

In 1194, the last Sultan of Great Seljuk empire, was defeated and killed by the Khwarezm ruler Ala ad-Din Tekish.

In 1200, Ala ad-Din Tekish died and was succeeded by his son, Ala ad-Din Muhammad, who by 1205 had conquered all of Great Seljuk empire and declared himself Shah , Persian for king, he became known as the Kwarezmshah, the ruler of the empire of Khwarezm.

In 1212 Ala ad-Din Muhammad defeated the Ghurid empire and conquered the lands of the Kutluk, the Gur-Khan of the Kara-Khitan Khanate, expanding the empire of Khwarezm, ruling a territory from the Syr Darya nearly to Baghdad, and from the Indus River to the Caspian Sea.

The empire of Khwarezm conquered and ended both the empires of Khitan and of Ghurid. This continuous warfare between these empires drained the life from them making them vulnerable to hostilities.

The Mongol Genghis Khan invaded Afghanistan in 1219 slaughtering the resisters, salting fertile agricultural areas and destroying many cities including Herat, Ghazni, and Balkh.

"The Mongols took no prisoners and allowed no torture. They executed swiftly and efficiently, including all the soldiers of the defeated army who, they believed, would be a constant source of future problems if allowed to live. The first several months of a Mongol invasion were bloody, but once the takeover ended, the bloodshed ended." - Jack Weatherford

To enhance the heinous legends of his conquests Genghis Khan left mountains of the skulls of the defenders of those cities that would not submit throughout Central Asia.

Following Genghis Khan's death in 1227, a succession of petty chiefs and princes struggled for supremacy until late in the 14th century, when one of his descendants, Timur Lang, Tamerlane or Tamburlaine, incorporated what is today Afghanistan into his own vast Asian Timurid empire.

At this time there were two factions of the ruling class;

the Tajik, men of the pen, wazirs in Persian, of Persian descent, chancellors, merchants, artists and scholars.

the warriors, men of the sword, a combination of Turk and Mongol descent.

Prince Babur, a descendant of Timur Lang or Tamerlane, established the Moghul empire in 1526 by defeating Ibrahim Lodi, the last of the Delhi Sultans, at the First Battle of Panipat. The Moghul empire's capital was based in Kabul.

At its greatest territorial extent the Moghul empire included most of the Indian subcontinent, then known as Hindustan, and parts of what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Persian word for Mongol is Moghul, generally used to refer to Central Asian nomads who claimed descent from the Mongol warriors of Genghis Khan. The Moghul rulers were adherents of Islam.

On the whole the indigenous Pashtun tribes, Afgans living in the Kandahar area pitted foreigner against foreigner, Persian against Arab against Turk against Mongol, siding sometimes with the Persians, sometimes with the Turks, sometimes with the Moghuls, but never with each other, they perpetuated tribal disunity and prolonged foreign domination.

Afghanistan was divided in many parts in the 16th, 17th and early 18th century. North were the Turkisk Uzbeks, west was Persian Safavid's rule and east was the Mongol's or Moghuls rule and local Pashtun rule.

The Persian Safavid's were an Azeri -speaking Iranian dynasty, the Safavid empire, that ruled from 1501 to 1736, and which established Shi'a Islam as Iran 's official religion.

Much of Central Asia was conquered by the Pashtun Sher Shah Suri, Sher Khan, the Lion King, in the mid 15th century, during the time of Moghul Humayun the second Moghul ruler. Sher Khan founded the Sur empire of northern Indian.

Under Akbar the Great the Moghul empire grew considerably, all of Hindustan and continued to grow until the end of Aurangzeb's rule.

Jahangir, the son of Moghul Emperor Akbar and Rajput princess Mariam-uz-Zamani, ruled the empire from 1605–1627.

In October 1627, Shah Jahan, the son of Moghul Emperor Jahangir and Rajput princess Manmati, succeeded to the throne, where he inherited a vast and rich empire in India - at mid-century the greatest empire on Earth. Shah Jahan commissioned the famous Taj Mahal (between 1630–1653), in Agra as a tomb for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their 14th child.

In 1709, the Pashtuns decided to rise against the ruling Persian Safavids in Kandahar. The Persians were defeated and the Afghans conquered and held Isfahan, Iran, from 1719-1729.

Nadir Shah of Persia pushed back the Afghans in the 1729 Battle of Damghan. In 1738, Nadir Shah conquered Kandahar, in the same year he occupied Ghazni, Kabul and Lahore.

Pashtun martial prowess has been renowned since Alexander the Great ran up against them in the 3rd century BC. The Pashtuns were one of the few groups that managed to impede British imperialism during the 19th century.

The Pashtuns are the world's largest patriarchal segmentary lineage tribal group. The total population of the group is estimated to be at least 45 million, but an accurate count remains elusive because there has not been an official census in Afghanistan since the 1970s, and because of the migratory nature of many Pashtun tribes and the practice of secluding women in Pakistan.

After Nadir Shah death in 1747, the Durrani Pashtuns became the principal Afghan rulers.

Ahmed Shah Durrani, founder of Afghanistan, established rule in 1747. Ahmad Shah Durrani, a Pashtun, was elected King in a loya jirga after the assassination of Nadir Shah.

Throughout his reign, Ahmad Shah Durrani consolidated chieftains, petty principalities, and fragmented provinces into one country. Ahmad Shah Durrani's rule extended from Mashad in the west to Kashmir and Delhi in the east, and from the Amu Darya (Oxus) River in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south.

From 1747 until the 1978 Marxist coup, all of Afghanistan's rulers, with the exception of a 9-month period in 1929, were from Durrani's Pashtun tribal confederation, and all were members of that tribe's Mohammadzai clan.

In the 19th century, Afghanistan became a battleground in the rivalry between imperial Britain and czarist Russia for control of Central Asia. Three Anglo-Afghan wars (1839-1842, 1878-1880, and 1919) ended inconclusively. In 1893 Britain established an unofficial border, the Durand Line, separating Afghanistan from British India, and London granted full independence in 1919.

Emir Amanullah founded an Afghan monarchy in 1926.

King Amanullah, governing from 1919 to 1929 moved to end Afghanistan's traditional isolation in the years following the Third Anglo-Afghan war. King Amanullah established diplomatic relations with most major countries and introduced several reforms intended to modernize Afghanistan. Some of these reforms, such as the abolition of the traditional Muslim veil for women and the opening of a number of co-educational schools, quickly alienated many tribal and religious leaders. Faced with overwhelming armed opposition, King Amanullah was forced to abdicate in January 1929 after Kabul fell to forces led by Bacha-i-Saqao, a Tajik.

Prince Mohammed Nadir Khan, a cousin of Amanullah's, in turn defeated and killed Bacha-i-Saqao in October of the same year, and with considerable Pashtun tribal support he was declared King Nadir Shah.

King Nadir Shah began consolidating power and regenerating Afghanistan. King Nadir Shah promoted a more gradual approach to modernization and reversed the reforms of Amanullah Khan .

In 1933 King Nadir Shah was assassinated in a revenge killing by a Kabul student.

Mohammad Zahir Shah, Nadir Khan's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973.

Until 1946 Zahir Shah ruled with the assistance of his uncle Sardar Mohammad Hashim Khan, who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. In 1946 another of Zahir Shah's uncles, Sardar Shah Mahmud Khan, became Prime Minister.

In 1953 Sardar Shah Mahmud Khan was replaced as Prime Minister by Mohammed Daoud Khan, the king's cousin and brother-in-law.

Mohammed Daoud Khan sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union and a more hostile one towards Pakistan. The dispute with Pakistan led to an economic crisis and Mohammed Daoud Khan resigned in 1963.

From 1963 until 1973 Zahir Shah took a more active role. In 1964, King Zahir Shah promulgated a liberal constitution providing for a bicameral legislature to which the king appointed one-third of the deputies. The people elected another third, and the remainder were selected indirectly by provincial tribal assemblies.

Although King Zahir Shah's "experiment in democracy" produced few lasting reforms, it permitted the growth of extremist parties on both the left and the right. These included the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan which had close ideological ties to the Soviet Union.

In 1967, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan split into two major rival factions: the Khalq (Masses) faction headed by Nur Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin and supported by elements within the military, and the Parcham (Banner) faction led by Babrak Karmal. The split reflected ethnic, class, and ideological divisions within Afghan society.

Most of the following presidents and heads of state were Ghilzai (Taraki, Amin, Najib, Mullah Omar), once again trying to take power away from the Durrani.

Former Prime Minister Mohammad Sardar Daoud Khan seized power in a military coup on July 17, 1973.

King Zahir Shah fled the country. Sardar Daoud Khan abolished the monarchy, abrogated the 1964 constitution, and declared Afghanistan a republic with himself as its first President and Prime Minister.

Sardar Daoud Khan attempts to carry out economic and social reforms met with little success, and the new constitution promulgated in February 1977 failed to quell chronic political instability. On April 27, 1978, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan initiated a bloody coup, which resulted in the overthrow and murder of Sardar Daoud Khan and most of his family.

Nur Muhammad Taraki, Secretary General of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, became President of the Revolutionary Council and Prime Minister of the newly established Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, strongly supported by the USSR. The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan implemented a socialist agenda which included decrees abolishing usury, banning forced marriages, state recognition of women's rights to vote, replacing religious and traditional laws with secular and Marxist ones, banning tribal courts, and land reform. Men were obliged to cut their beards, women couldn't wear a burka, and mosque visiting was forbidden. These reforms and the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan's monopoly on power were met with a large backlash, partly led by members of the traditional establishment, partly by tribal elements.

Many groups were formed in an attempt to reverse the dependence on the Soviet Union, some resorting to violent means and sabotage of the Afghanistan's industry and infrastructure. The government responded with a heavy handed military intervention and arrested, exiled and executed many mujahideen - "Allah's warriors." Pashtuns played a pivotal role in the Soviet war in Afghanistan, as many joined the ranks of the mujahideen.

The USSR also sent contractors to build roads, hospitals, schools and water wells; they also trained and equipped the Afghan army. In 1979 the Afghan army was overwhelmed with the number of mujahideen incidents. The Soviet Union sent troops, entering Kabul on December 25, 1979, to crush the uprising and install a pro-Moscow government.

For over nine years the Soviet Army occupied Afghanistan while conducting military operations against the Afghan mujahideen rebels. The Central Intelligence Agency, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia assisted in the financing of the resistance because of their anti-communist stance, and, in the case of Saudi Arabia, because of their Islamist inclinations. Osama bin Laden was a prominent mujahideen organizer and financier.

The Soviet Union withdrew its troops in February 1989, but continued to aid the government, led by Mohammed Najibullah. Massive amounts of aid from the Central Intelligence Agency and Saudi Arabia to the mujahideen also continued. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Najibullah government was overthrown on April 18, 1992 when Abdul Rashid Dostum mutinied, and allied himself with Ahmed Shah Massoud, to take control of Kabul and declare the Islamic State of Afghanistan.

When the victorious mujahideen entered Kabul to assume control over the city and the central government, internecine fighting began between the various militias, which had coexisted only uneasily during the Soviet occupation. With the demise of their common enemy, the militias' ethnic, clan, religious, and personality differences surfaced, and the civil war continued.

An interim Islamic Jihad Council was put in place, first led by Sibghatullah Mojadeddi for two months, then by Burhanuddin Rabbani. Fighting among rival factions intensified.

Ahmed Shah Massoud, an ethnic Tajik became Defence Minister under President Burhanuddin Rabbani's regime. Following the collapse of Burhanuddin Rabbani's government and the rise of the Taliban regime, Ahmed Shah Massoud became the military leader of the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan.

In reaction to the anarchy and warlordism prevalent in Afghanistan, and the lack of Pashtun representation in the Kabul government, the Taliban, a movement of religious scholars and former mujahideen, emerged from the southern province of Kandahar.

The Taliban took control of approximately 95% of Afghanistan by the end of 2000, limiting the opposition mostly to a small corner in northeastern Afghanistan.

The opposition formed the Afghan Northern Alliance, which continued to receive diplomatic recognition in the United Nations as the government of Afghanistan. The Afghan Northern Alliance was led by Ahmed Shah Massoud who was assassinated in late September 2001.

In response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States and its coalition allies launched an invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban government. Sponsored by the United Nations, Afghan factions met in Bonn, Germany and chose a 30 member interim authority led by Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun from Kandahar.

After governing for 6 months, former King Zahir Shah convened a Loya Jirga, which elected Hamid Karzai as president and gave him authority to govern for two more years.

On October 9, 2004, Hamid Karzai was elected as president of Afghanistan in the country's first ever direct presidential election.

opium resurgance

In 1980 Afghanistan produced 200 metric tons of opium. In 2006 Afghanistan produced 6,724 metric tons of opium - more than 30 times as much opium as in 1980. Approximately 448,000 Afghan families cultivated opium poppy in 2005-2006. In 2006- 2007 approximately 9000 metric tons of opium were grown.

"The White House says it believes that Ahmed Wali Karzai is involved in drug trafficking, and American officials have repeatedly warned President Karzai that his brother is a political liability, two senior Bush administration officials said in interviews last week." - James Risen October 4, 2008

Before NATO invaded Afghanistan the Taliban had nearly eradicated the opium trade, according to a federal government State Department report - trade was reduced to 1980 level. The opium trade was denounced as immoral and would not be permitted under the Islamic law of the Taliban. This was due to a $90 million downpayment on the rights to an oil pipeline deal approved by the George W. Bush administration.

Three and a half years after America led the invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime the government of America has issued a warning that Afghanistan is in danger of becoming a narcotics centered state controlled by narcotics traffickers. The State Department of the United States calls the Afghanistan drug trade 'an enormous threat to world stabilty'. The United Nations estimated that Afghanistan produces 87% of the Earth's opium in 2004.

"Opium production has grown exponentially since 2001 as much as 60% of the country's GDP is either generated by or dependent on it. As many as 90% of Afghanistan's police chiefs are reportedly involved in or protecting the drug trade." -Chris Mason, formerly an Afghanistan policy officer at the State Department from 2001 through 2005 and is a senior fellow at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies.

In the year 2006 the United Nations anti-drug chief announced a staggering increase in Afghani opium production of 60% over 2005. The record crop of opium poppies yielded 6100 tons of opium, enough to make 610 tons of pure heroin, outstripping world demand by a third. Ten dollars worth of heroin is enough to kill an inexperienced or infrequent user.

The law of unintended consequences has been amply fulfilled.

America invades a country because religious zealots have allowed terrorists to 'hang out'.

The Americans attempt to establish a government that is pro-Western.

Although the Americans succeed in transforming the government of Afghanistan along secular rational lines they fail to bring prosperity.

In late 2006 remnants of the Taliban, with the support of the Afghan people, begin staging more effective guerilla attacks.

"The Afghan people are rebelling because the American government is currently committed to destroying 60% of their economy.

In the name of the "war on drugs," an American corporation, Dyncorp, is being paid to barge into the fields of some of the poorest people on Earth and systematically destroy their only livelihood.

A quarter of all Afghan babies die before their fifth birthday.

If Western governments continue this program of economic destruction - and the negative propaganda bonanza it creates - the Taliban may be sufficiently rejuvenated to march on Kabul.

There is an alternative to this disastrous spiral. The Earth is suffering from a shortage of legal opiates.

The World Health Organization describes it as "an unprecedented global pain crisis."

About 80% of the Earth's population has almost no access to painkillers at all.

In developed countries, for cancer care alone there is an unmet annual need for 550 metric tons more opium to make morphine.

Instead of destroying Afghanistan's most valuable resource, Western governments should buy it outright and resell it to producers of legal opiate-based painkillers on the global market.

Both Turkey and India produce opium as legal suppliers of opiates for pain-control purposes.

Add Afghanistan to the legal opium producers and the Taliban would be conquered." - Johann Hari


In late 2006, with Dyncorp and the American Drug Enforcement Agency overwhelmed, the American military is once again getting into the business of opium poppy eradication.

This new push will destroy the livelihood of poor Afghani people. The killing of Afghans civilians marked as mujahideen will only cause the Afghans to resist the occupation more intensely.

Many empires have invaded and conquered Afghanistan throughout history and all have eventually been defeated.

Western civilization has an opportunity to create prosperity in Afghanistan.

On Earth there is a shortage of painkillers and the Afghans are producing more opium than ever.

Although different factions will always struggle for control of Afghanistan, just as they do everywhere else on Earth, control is less important if all prosper.

Civil unrest always occurs when living conditions are harsh.

Spraying opium poppy crops with herbicide is not the answer to the Afghan problem.

Prosperity for common Afghans could bring a peace to Afghanistan that could endure for centuries.
Unfortunately those in power can not see the reality of life on Earth, the reality of life in Afghanistan and the reality that attempts to control Afghanistan with a foreign occupation have failed throughout history.

"Afghan peasants grow opium because it is the only crop they can sell for a decent price. Will we win their hearts and minds by burning their fields or bombing them with toxic chemicals? Not likely. How then to deal with this dangerous crop in a way that also will advance our larger objectives? Buy it - all of it. Offer a price equal to or slightly above what the drug lords pay. Offer the peasants protection against drug lords who object. We are the toughest gang in town, after all. Refine our purchases into morphine to sell (or better, give) to hospitals. If we have any left over, destroy it. Keep doing this year after year until we can help the growers find an equally lucrative crop to sustain their meager lifestyles. " - Charles Bell

"Could someone please explain to me why a defenseless senior citizen dying in excruciating pain does not have a right to die free of pain?" - Bob Aronoff

One must question the thought process' of a social system that makes it's members live in excruciating pain when pain relief is possible.

"So it is down to you and it is down to me."

In the battle of wits between Wesley and the Sicilian in the movie The Princess Bride the Sicilian states, "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - never get involved in a land war in Asia."


Opium and the British East India Company

As a result of high demand for tea, silk and porcelain in Britain and the low demand for British commodities in China, Britain had a large trade deficit with China and had to trade goods for silver as the Chinese would only except silver in trade.

Britain had conquered Bengal in the Battle of Plassey in 1757 so the British East India Company pursued a monopoly on production and export of opium in India. In 1773, the Governor-General of Bengal pursued the monopoly on the sale of opium in earnest, and abolished the old opium syndicate at Patna. For the next 50 years, opium would be key to the British East India Company's hold on India.

Since importation of opium into China was against Chinese law, the British East India Company would buy tea in Canton on credit, carrying no opium, but would instead sell opium for silver at the auctions in Calcutta leaving it to be smuggled to China.

British exports of opium to China skyrocketed from an estimated 15 tons in 1730, to 75 tons in 1773, shipped in over two thousand "chests", each containing 140 pounds (64 kg) of opium.

The British crown with it's surrogate, the corporate chartered British East India Company, was directly responsible for the opium flood that lead to the Opium Wars in China as they functioned much as the Medellin Cartel of Pablo Escobar functioned in bringing cocaine to America in the 1970s and 1980s.

Dyncorp

In 2001 DynCorp oversaw an aerial fleet of forty-six helicopters and twenty-three fixed-wing aircraft which operated from twenty-three locations spread out over Colombia, Bolivia and Peru.

Representative Janice D. "Jan" Schakowsky, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, claimed that American taxpayers have been funding a secret war that has the potential to slowly but surely draw America further into a poorly understood counterinsurgency conflict in South America.

In 2002 Dyncorp, headquartered in Reston, Virginia, was the nation's 13th largest military contractor with $2.3 billion in revenue until it merged with Computer Sciences Corporation.

According to Federation of American Scientists secrecy specialist Steven Aftergood, the State-DynCorp contract is a prime example of how the executive branch is unilaterally projecting power and implementing policy without leaving a trace.

No one knows what DynCorp specifically is contracted to do because of claims that disclosure would compromise information proprietary to DynCorp - protected by the "trade secrets exemption" in the Freedom of Information Act.

"The kind of routine oversight that official military activities would be subjected to are evaded by contractors as a matter of course. This highlights how the whole phenomenon of privatizing military functions has enabled the government to evade oversight to a shocking degree." - Steven Aftergood




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This website defines a new religious ideology to which its author adheres. The author feels that the falsification of reality outside personal experience has created a populace unable to discern propaganda from reality and that this has been done purposefully by an international corporate cartel through their agents who wish to foist a corrupt version of reality on the human race. Religious intolerance occurs when any group refuses to tolerate religious practices, religious beliefs or persons due to their religious ideology. This web site marks the founding of the religion aptly named The Truth of the Way of Life - a rational religion based on reason which requires no leap of faith, accepts no tithes, has no supreme leader, no church buildings and in which each and every individual is encouraged to develop a personal relation with God through the pursuit of the knowledge of reality in the hope of curing the spiritual corruption that has enveloped the human spirit. The tenets of The Truth of the Way of Life are spelled out in detail on this web site by the author. Violent acts against individuals due to their religious beliefs in America is considered a “hate crime.”

This web site in no way condones violence. To the contrary the intent here is to reduce the violence that is already occurring due to the international corporate cartels desire to control the human race. The international corporate cartel already controls the world central banking system, mass media worldwide, the industrial military complex of America and is responsible for the collapse of morals, the elevation of self-centered behavior and the destruction of global ecosystems. Civilization is based on cooperation. Cooperation does not occur at the point of a gun.

American social mores and values have declined precipitously over the last century as the corrupt international cartel has garnered more and more power. This power rests in the ability to deceive the populace in general through mass media by pressing emotional buttons which have been preprogrammed into the population through prior mass media psychological operations. The results have been the destruction of the family and the destruction of social structures that do not adhere to the corrupt international elites vision of a perfect world. Through distraction and coercion the direction of thought of the bulk of the population has been directed toward solutions proposed by the corrupt international elite that further consolidates their power and which further their purposes.

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