The Taliban Aren’t Martians

America supports the Taliban and Afghan terrorists, claims the former foreign correspondent Christoph Hörstel. A dialog about Western double standards and intelligence services.

Die Tageszeitung (TAZ): Mr. Hörstel, why do you damage your own credibility by claiming that the attacks of 9/11 were orchestrated by the CIA?

Christoph Hörstel (CH): I don’t claim to be an expert on 9/11. But I do think there are enough indicators from credible and accepted American sources to show that U.S. intelligence services were involved. Other than that, I prefer to concentrate on those things to which I can add my exclusive personal observations – for example in Afghanistan, where I can move between and have access to both sides. But I’m convinced that I will eventually be proven right about 9/11, just as I was in 1985 when, despite the prevailing reportage in the German media, I predicted in the newspaper “Stuttgarter Nachrichten” that the Soviet Union would lose the war it was fighting in the Hindu Kush.

TAZ: Sometimes one is right just by chance.

CH: That’s right. But I had covered more than 350 miles on foot and horseback in regions of Afghanistan where very few journalists had ever been. I got to know many insurgent soldiers there and saw myself how successful their military operations were and how ineffective the Soviet response was. I became friends with Gulbuddin Hekmatjar and joined the Islamic movement, as I call the Taliban, and still support it today. I found them politically more interesting than the secular Afghan insurgents. To me, a friend is the opposite of an accomplice.

TAZ: The Islamic warlords are probably more loathsome murderers than the secular insurgents.

CH: There’s no statistical support for that view. Not 48 hours before the Taliban fled from Kabul in 2001, I spoke with their intelligence chief, Nur Ali. He asked me what they had done wrong. I began listing everything from the suppression of women to the beating of taxi drivers who listened to Indian music on their radios and on to the executions in the soccer stadium – in short, everything that had really nothing to do with the original ethical aspirations of the Taliban.

TAZ: It’s impossible that he hadn’t previously heard these accusations, isn’t it?

CH: That’s right. But the difference was that he was hearing them for the first time from someone who was conversant with the goals of his organization. The Taliban at that time wasn’t paying attention to the outside world.

TAZ: What then? They seem to follow the world press quite closely.

CH: But that had nothing to do with the vision they have of their values. The Taliban only pays attention to what their political and religious dignitaries say. These aren’t necessarily their traditional or hierarchical leaders but often respected warriors. The Taliban approves only of their own society, and their society is, above all, the Islamic scene.

TAZ: Does that explain their brutality?

CH: A second factor that has made the Taliban what it is today is the Pakistani secret service. The Taliban’s very existence depends on them still today. The ISI (Translator’s Note: The ISI is Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence arm) is all-powerful in the region. In the 1990s, it wanted to see some results for its U.S.-inspired support. The Western media doesn’t make clear how extensive this support is today.

TAZ: ISI support for the Taliban is reported in every newspaper.

CH: Yes, but my definition for the informal actions of the United States is called “terror management.” The CIA not only knows that the ISI supports the Taliban, it promotes it. Most Afghanis also believe that, by the way. They believe the United States supports their enemies so that they have a pretext for staying.

TAZ: The Afghanistan war is costing the United States a great deal of money and many lives. U.S. Presidents are turned out of office for unpopular wars.

CH: Up to now, the anti-terrorist alliance in Afghanistan has suffered a total of 950 dead. That’s not much, by American standards. Of course, it’s life on the razor’s edge for the U.S. government. Big mistakes are mixing with risky policies. It’s possible the United States hasn’t considered that the Taliban may be receiving large-scale arms support from Russia and China. When the NATO commander responsible for operations in Afghanistan calls for an additional 20,000 troops, that nothing more than a band-aid.

TAZ: Then why so many expensive band-aids?

CH: It’s in America’s geopolitical interest to surround Russia, Iran and China. There are two important oil pipelines from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and an additional gas pipeline to India in the planning. These are to be built by American companies. These American items of interest were part of my eighteen-month curriculum for 1200 of the German Army’s troops who would serve in the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. The German government, the army and the German security service are all familiar with these U.S. interests. In fact, I got the pipeline maps directly from the German Army itself.

TAZ: Are you alleging that Germany is a willing dupe of the United States – or that it shares the same interests with America?

CH: Germany has, meanwhile, made itself almost completely supportive of American objectives. The German government has to understand how to integrate the Taliban rather than to fantasize about NATO defeating it. That will fail because ideas can never be eradicated. But the Taliban will never be assimilated as long as they’re seen to be some sort of Martians or rodents. They’re much too strong for that. In order to have a lasting peace, we’ll have to sit down at a table with precisely these same people and finally recognize what their real interests are.

TAZ: Which interests would those be?

CH: Their real interests may be something entirely different from what we’re hearing. It may be that they want to advance women rather than repress them. I’m able to have such peaceful discussions with them.

TAZ: But those involved in Afghan women’s initiatives aren’t able to do that.

CH: I once negotiated a contract for female education in a Taliban-controlled area in the province of Paktika. I explained that the girls, as future mothers, would someday be instructing their Afghan sons. One has to get to the people through their cultural ambitions. That only succeeds with the Taliban if they feel they’re not facing enemies. I’m not a Taliban partisan, but I have come to understand that they don’t wish to have our culture forced on them.

TAZ: We recently read that an Afghan girl had acid thrown in her face as she walked to school. Many of the new schools there stand empty.

CH: Yes, the rate seems to stand at about 35 percent. And of course there are far too many loony idiots who attack defenseless girls. But it’s simply the policy of the Afghan resistance to reject any developmental help that hasn’t been negotiated by both sides. Former military physician Reinhard Erös, with his organization German Aid For Afghan Children, and the Hamburg-based Union of Assistance For Schools in Afghanistan, both built schools for girls under the Taliban regime. The German organization GTZ (German Technical Cooperation) talks with the Taliban whenever they organize new projects in southern Afghanistan. Those who coordinate with the Taliban never have any problems – as long as there are no western traps involved.

TAZ: Traps?

CH: The Taliban was against having to teach American-inspired politics along with the Koran. They would raise objections if we wanted to include “women’s liberation” in social studies courses. But mathematics, reading and writing present no problems. It’s my experience that after discussing curricula with the Taliban, the restrictions are remarkably loosened. As long as they stick to the curricula approved for all of Afghanistan, the Taliban gives its OK. Anyone failing to note that risks having empty schools.

To those who look to blackmail me by saying acid is being thrown in schoolgirls’ faces, I say look also at what my education projects have accomplished. When even the most brutal get to have a say, the whole country eventually gets to have its say as well.

Their policies are not mine. To me, it just makes sense to get the Taliban on board when I plan my projects, which, by the way, are supported by a majority of the Afghan people.

TAZ: Will the now officially announced negotiations between the Taliban and the Karzai government lead to anything?

CH: No. I get that straight from the Taliban representatives who were engaged in the informal talks. Karzai offers to include them in his government. The Taliban responds that they won’t be part of any government that allows foreign troops on Afghan soil. They would rather fight against that. Until all foreign troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan, the Taliban will not be part of any solution. Never.