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One important point is, when people talk about "understanding their
anger", I think it's not so much about understanding the anger of the
terorists themselves, which is academic, but about understanding why
millions of far more reasonable, non-terrorist Muslims in that part of the
world would say in response to 9-11, "Yes it was horrible and we condemn
it, but . . . . "

To continue the Hitler analogy, it probably would not have been too
important to understand Hitler's motivations in detail, but it might have
done a lot of good to figure out why or how he was able to become so
popular with millioins of German citizens at the time.

Hear's a pretty interesting article, about the failure of the current US
effort, from a largely practical standpoint :

US bombs are boosting the
Taliban
Abdul Haq

Days before the Kabul regime
killed him,
Afghan leader Abdul Haq argued against
the American raids

Friday November 2, 2001
The Guardian

Probably the US has already made up its mind what to do, and any
recommendations by me will be too late. However, military action by itself
in
the present circumstances is only making things more difficult -
especially if this war goes on a long time and many civilians are killed.
The best
thing would be for the US to work for a united political solution
involving all the Afghan groups. Otherwise there will be an encouragement
of deep
divisions between different groups, backed by different countries and
badly affecting the whole region.
I am not sure that the air campaign will work. Before the attacks
started, the Taliban's people were very nervous, and their support in the
population was very low. Everyone was afraid. But once the bombing
started, people began to say: "Well, it's not so bad. We have known worse.
We can stand it." This is something I have often seen in battle. The
soldier runs away, terrified. Then he realises he is not in immediate
danger.
He stops and faces the enemy, and his courage comes back.

So in these last weeks I have seen more support for the Taliban than
before. We have been trying to create a revolt within the Taliban, but the
US
hasn't given us the chance. They seem to have been determined to
attack, even if someone came up with the best proposal in the world to
avoid
this. This has been a big setback for me.

The US should keep up the pressure, above all with money, but should
not bomb. The top leadership of the Taliban is impossible to change by
bombing or talking. Instead I have been talking with second-level
Taliban commanders, ex-mojahedin and tribal elders. What I am working for
is
that these should make a statement saying that the Taliban must go,
and that anyone who rejects this can be fought.

However, what everyone is telling me is that for this to happen,
there must be some alternative structure for Taliban people to come over
to. Most
won't go over to the Northern Alliance, and the Alliance must not be
allowed to take power, because they would take revenge on anyone who had
ever fought them and drive people back to the Taliban. And the
Northern Alliance must not be allowed to launch attacks, at least against
Kabul
and to the east and south [ie into core Pashtun territories].

If this is followed, then, many Taliban people have told me, they
will be prepared to abandon the Taliban.

I have said all this to US officials, and so have others. But it's
impossible to find anyone beneath the level of the president who is
willing to take
responsibility for a decision. If the US keeps bombing and helps the
Northern Alliance, then our work will be much more difficult. The problem
is
that the Americans cannot control Alliance commanders on the ground
if they decide to attack Kabul or massacre people. How can they control
them? By threatening to bomb them too?

The Taliban is mostly from Pashtun areas and Pashtuns are the key to
getting rid of them. Whenever the Taliban is weak, it turns to Pashtun
nationalism, and it does have a certain effect. The anti-Taliban
campaign needs two stages: a military strategy to split and remove the
Taliban,
which should be carried out by Afghans themselves, not the US; and a
Loya Jirga [grand national assembly] to create a future government,
including representatives of all ethnic groups and tribes.

We should be concentrating on avoiding bloodshed as far as possible.
The Taliban are like a crystal ball. They are very hard, but brittle. If
they are
hit in the right way, they will shatter into a million pieces. But
bombing the whole of Afghanistan is not the right way. Instead, we should
undermine the central leadership, which is a very small and closed
group and the only thing which holds them all together. If they are
destroyed,
every Taliban fighter will pick up his gun and blanket and disappear
back home, and that will be the end of the Taliban.

But the US is trying to show its muscle, score a victory and scare
everyone in the world. They don't care about the suffering of the Afghans
or how
many people we will lose. And we don't like that. Because Afghans are
now being made to suffer for these Arab fanatics, but we all know who
brought these Arabs to Afghanistan in the 1980s, armed them and gave
them a base. It was the Americans and the CIA. And the Americans who
did this all got medals and good careers, while all these years
Afghans suffered from these Arabs and their allies. Now, when America is
attacked, instead of punishing the Americans who did this, it
punishes the Afghans.

· Afghan opposition leader and former mojahedin commander Abdul Haq
was captured last week by the Taliban and executed as an American
spy. This article is an edited version of an interview he gave on
October 11 to Anatol Lieven of the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace.

www.ceip.org