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Haji Mohammed Mohaqiq, photo from RAWA.org
This is the second in a series of posts to help Americans get to know some of the most powerful figures in the Afghan government for whom our troops are killing and dying. Today we’ll meet a warlord’s warlord: the kind that engineers immunity for his and his fellow war criminals’ crimes against humanity.
Meet Haji Mohammed Mohaqiq.
Mohaqiq was one of the leaders of the notorious Hezb-e Wahdat, which in late 2001-early 2002 targeted Pashtun civilians for violence because of their ethnic ties to the Taliban. According to Human Rights Watch, Mezb-e Wahdat was "implicated in systematic and widespread looting and violence in almost every province under their…control, almost all of it directed at Pashtun villagers. In scores of villages, homes were destroyed, possessions were taken, and men and boys were beaten and in some cases killed.…[T]here were several reports of rapes of girls and women. In Chimtal district near Mazar-e Sharif, and in Balkh province generally, both Hizb-i Wahdat [alternative English rendering of Mezb-e Wahdat] and Jamiat forces were particularly violent: in one village, Bargah-e Afghani, Hizb-i Wahdat troops killed thirty-seven civilians," which, as of 2003, was the largest known intentional killing of civilians since the fall of the Taliban.
Following the overthrow of the Taliban, Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq managed to get himself appointed as a vice chair of the interim government and as Minister of Planning. During the 2002 loya jirga that set the basic shape of the new government, Mezb-e Wahdat was named by Human Rights Watch as one of the groups that used threats and intimidation against other delegates. Through their use of these thuggish tactics, Mohaqiq’s militia helped corrupt a process which many hoped would lead to greater civilian control relative to the warlords, but which led instead to the warlords’ solidifying their power. Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, of course, retained his positions of power.
Mohaqiq’s militia also became widely feared and loathed for their practice of kidnapping young girls, "forcibly marrying" them (what a useless euphemism for rape), and ransoming them back to their parents. They seemed to especially enjoy snatching girls who were on their way to school, leading many parents to keep their girls home rather than risk their abduction and rape.
But here’s the real kicker: once legtimized, Mohaqiq was one of the masterminds of the widely condemned legislation that granted warlords amnesty for their war crimes during the civil war. The UN sharply condemned the amnesty law, declaring "No one has the right to forgive those responsible for human rights violations other than the victims themselves."
Here’s the kicker: Karzai just promised to carve out a new province for Mohaqiq in exchange for his support in the election.
So, to sum up, Mohaqiq was a commander of a militia known for using rape as a weapon of war and for human rights violations and war crimes. He deliberately targeted civilians. Then, once he obtained "legitimate" political power, he used it to block prosecution of himself and other warlords for war crimes. But hey–’the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ when you subscribe to counterinsurgency doctrine, so our policymakers have tasked our troops with fighting to make sure thugs like this stay in power in Afghanistan.
Haji Mohammed Mohaqiq is just one more reason why American policymakers should stop sending our troops to prop up a warlord-ridden narco-state government in Afghanistan. Get our troops out of there.
Learn more at Brave New Foundation’s Rethink Afghanistan site, which just released the latest segment of their documentary online: "Part Six: Security."
(Derrick Crowe is the new Brave New Foundation/The Seminal Afghanistan blog fellow.)
14 Comments
I always thought that only really nice people earn the honorific “warlord.”
Additionally, silly goose that I am, I think that your first sentence, where you say that it’s the warlords “for whom our troops are killing and dying”, doesn’t much pass the smell test, Derrick.
Some of these fine warlords will benefit from our efforts, but we sure as hell didn’t go there for them, did we?
Macaquerman, when this and this is the situation, the posters sentence is very sensible.
Also, see this.
No, it still is not. I believe that Derrick’s sentence carries the implication that our intent in pursuing the war is to advance the interests of the warlords.
That’s not true and isn’t the kind of statement that reasonable opponents of the war ought to advance.
Macaquerman:
It passes the smell test just fine when you read the counterinsurgency field manual. No, we didn’t arrive in Afghanistan to advance warlord interests. But, once we got there, we took counterinsurgency as our strategic paradigm. In COIN, you pick a side and advance them as the legitimate host nation government over against those you define as the illegitimate insurgency. So while our choice of response to the 9/11 attacks took us into Afghanistan, we sought to proceed with a strategy that meant shoring up the power of the warlords who largely comprised the Northern Alliance versus the Taliban.
These folks currently comprise the government of Afghanistan, we’re fighting to ensure that government persists because of our strategic paradigm. Reasonable folks can and do disagree with whether we should adopt this strategy, but there’s absolutely no way you can dispute that this is our strategy at the moment.
To put this another way, Macaquerman:
In response to the 9/11 attacks, we knocked Taliban off the top of the pile, a position they achieved by overtaking the NA during the civil war. We reversed the status quo of the civil conflict, which had the eventual effect of reigniting it. Now we back the Kabul government in the conflict, and that means we’re fighting and dying to preserve a warlord-ridden narco-state government in a death match against the Taliban. So yes, again, the point made in the first sentence stands.
Stop confusing what we are doing to achieve what we want with what we want to do.
Derrick, you’re argument is pretty reasonable. The sentence stinks.
Our troops are not there to kill and die for the warlords. If our doctrine requires that we bolster them sometimes, it still does not sit well for someone to say that we’re killing and dying for the warlords.
I enjoy reading your stuff and enjoy mostly disagreeing with it, but this is just wrong. We didn’t kick the Iraqi army out of Kuwait because of a desire to restore a monarchy and we’re not going to pressure the Israelis to cease occupying the West Bank because we love a nice Palestinian kleptocracy.
I appreciate your acknowlegment of the argument and wish to acknowledge your for acknowleging it. :)
But back to the sentence:
I’m not confusing tactics with strategy. I recognize the distinction. You, however, seem to be wanting to talk only about strategy without mentioning the ugly tactics to achieve the strategy.
I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I have a question I’d like you to consider:
Let’s say I wrote a blog in response to the news of a death of a U.S. soldier who died because he was following COIN prescriptions about “accepting tactical risk for strategic gain” (i.e. he was very, very circumspect about returning fire if it endangered civilians, or went on a foot patrol in a market to get to know the locals rather than stay in a walled base). Let’s say that there were children present, and it was likely that his choice prevented their collateral deaths. If the post were titled, “Meet the Child that Lance Corporal Bob Smith Saved,” and the first sentence said,
would you have a problem with it? My hunch is you would not, and honestly, neither would I. I doubt you’d wade into that thread demanding the author forgo mentions of the child and focus only on some larger purpose.
To illustrate further: Let’s say I wanted the Iraq war to end, and that led me to support Barack Obama. Suppose you and I ran into each other as I was walking into a phone bank and you asked me why I was about to volunteer. Both of these answers would be valid:
1) I’m here to help get Barack Obama elected.
2) I’m here to do my part to stop the war in Iraq.
Number One explains my actions in terms of tactics. The other explains my actions in terms of strategy. Both of these are true and valid answers.
The sentence is fine.
Derrick. You’ve argued well. The sentence isn’t fine without adding every bit of your argument, but I’ve busted them enough over one sentence in a decent post.
I would also say, though, that the first sentence is not intended to impugn troops tasked with implementing the tactic. It’s intended to impugn the decision-makers who chose COIN as the paradigm with thugs like these as allies.
Is not writing a form of ‘art’? And is not ‘art’ in the eye of the beholder?
I still think Derrick’s sentence is accurate; please read this woman who probably knows the situation better than any of us:
We’re also joined by Sonali Kolhatkar, host of Uprising on Pacifica radio station KPFK, co-author of the book Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence. And she co-directs the Afghan Women’s Mission.
“But then, if you step back and if you judge the US and NATO occupation by its actions, which I think we really need to remind ourselves that these elections are happening in the context of this occupation that’s now gone on for nearly eight years, what it ends up looking like in context of these elections is one set of warlords—that’s us—protecting a second set of warlords—that’s Karzai and his cohorts—from a third set of warlords, which are the Taliban. And who’s protecting the Afghan people? Nobody. And that’s why they’re not showing up to vote.”
macaquerman: it’s very possible that I have made this argument so many times that I assume it without spelling it out. Future posts will have some form of the above explanation.
Well, if you’re going to be both fair and gracious….
Good God….