Adapting Massoud Sr’s 4-phase strategy of attritional liberation for 2021

This is a layman position paper.

Ahmad Shah Massoud’s 4-phase strategy has great validity for the current struggle that the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan is waging to bring about a more moderate Islamic republic with greater rights for women and minorities. They struggle against the more hardline Islamic emirate that the Taliban is currently establishing by force, something Massoud Sr stood staunchly against.

It feels like this attritional battle can be won via popular support for a moderate Islamic republic, by doing two things: (a) ensuring that aspirational hope for choice and opportunity is internalized by the the average Afghan, and (b) ensuring the same average Afghan realizes that a moderate Islamic republic is the way to achieve this as opposed to the misogynistic autocracy of the Taliban. Massoud Sr’s strategy provides a great blueprint to achieving this.

{First, a note for naysayers who suggest that the NRFA shouldn’t be supported because it’s got the likely support of the CIA, or that it has corrupt warlords among its alliance: This world is not perfect and striving for perfectionism is a fools errand. This is a battle against a misogynistic feudal autocracy. It is going on across the subcontinent. It is not Afghanistan’s problem alone, and no doubt we must be wary of one fascist using another fascist to hide their own human rights violations. For instance, those gleeful Hindutwadis who look at what’s going in Afghanistan with sick delight are the same people who support the Hindu Taliban in India, and their misogynistic feudal autocracy in states like Uttar Pradesh. So this fight against religious fundamentalist ideologies like Salaffism, Wahabbism, Savarna Manuwadism, Baniya-Brahminism, and other obscurantist garbage is pretty pan-subcontinent.}

Anyway, back to the Lion of Panjshir and his strategy…

With each phase of Massoud Sr’s strategic plan, comes distinct advantages and challenges in today’s global context. The two biggest possible differences in the last 40 years are: (1) the rapid spread and anarchic democratization of digital communication, along with (2) the multi-polarity of imperial capital.

Let us address each of the four phases of Massoud Sr’s ultimately successful plan, keeping in mind these two critical geopolitical shifts:

Phase 1 – Establish a popularly based resistance front that has the loyalty of the people. For the sake of establishing a usable framework, I’m going to assume that the NRFA is in this current phase and building towards Phase 2. Here, like Massoud Sr did in the 80s and 90s, it would be absolutely critical for the NRFA to utilize its rank and file to prove that life for the average Afghan will be materially, spiritually, and socially better under the moderate Islamic republic governance of the various parties under the NRFA, as opposed to the hardline autocracy of the Taliban. Training of a popular peoples army, which is already likely underway, is done in this phase. For 2021 in the age of social media, it feels like non-violent, civil disobedience actions in other parts of Afghanistan are an absolute must via the activation of disaffected groups there, including tribal factions who are getting hammered by the Taliban, minorities, democracy-seekers, and religious moderates.

Phase 2 – “Active defense” of the Panjshir stronghold, while carrying out asymmetric warfare. It is also quite possible that the factions of the NRFA are already variously in this phase. Massoud Sr essentially established a strategy of liberate-consolidate-repeat in a district by district manner. This is akin to many guerilla strategies of popular liberation across the world, but Massoud Sr necessarily had to make it bespoke to the specifics of the region’s objective conditions and subjective forces. So once Panjshir is firmly established as a liberated zone (and thus in Phase 2 or 3) Phase 1 is conducted by the NRFA in geographically and socially contiguous regions. Here, for 2021, I believe the usage of international solidarity groups from across the world would be of significant benefit to the resistance. Internationals are generally more protected than locals in terms of upping the ante on the rhetoric against fascist regimes and publicizing the atrocities of those regimes on social media. I have been a Palestine-solidarity activist for a long time and have personally seen the social landscape shift in America with the consistent usage of solidarity visits and actions. It has been a game changer in the movement and has essentially cornered Israel (a staunch American ally no less) into being seen, correctly, as a fascist state. With the NRFA and Afghanistan however, I believe it would be more prudent to organize solidarity visits from Muslim-majority countries, especially moderate regimes who also have a lot of sway with the more hardline regimes, including the explicitly fascist ones, who are either supporting the Taliban or playing the waiting game.

Phase 3 – “Strategic offensive” phase which seeks to gain control of large parts of Northern Afghanistan. Massoud Sr established the Northern Alliance as the counterweight to the Taliban in this phase. In 2021, this absolutely must include demonstrations, civil disobedience, and agitations specifically calling for a nationwide election, which the Taliban can participate in as a political party. The “Northern Alliance” of 2021 is the “Islamic Republic of Afghanistan” with Saleh as its current caretaker president. Needless to say, there needs to be a specific shift in the Panjshir leadership of Saleh, Massoud, and Khan to equally promoting strong, popular leaders into a cohort of sorts that can run in general elections. It cannot just be the Panjshir Resistance or Northern strongmen, but it must legitimately be representative of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan for it to have any chance of uprooting the Taliban.

Phase 4 – “General application” of phases towards regaining control of the whole country using similar tactics. In 2021, it feels like this has to be done in as democratic a way as possible, no matter how corrupt and shoddy that democratic process is. In other words, once enough provinces have been liberated, those members of the NRFA who wish to establish a moderate Islamic republic in Afghanistan need to provide adequate governance to those provinces that have been liberated, while calling for immediate nationwide elections. They then have to win a majority of those elections, and reduce the Taliban to a political party, albeit a likely very powerful one. The Taliban have to be cornered into accepting some kind of tribal democracy, with a likely stalemate for a while where the Taliban controls some provinces, while other provinces of Afghanistan controlled by moderate parties, establishing some greater freedoms for women and minorities. Equally importantly is to play up the infighting factions of the Taliban against one another via temporary, tactical alliances – through phases 3 and 4.

Again, not perfect, but better for the people by at least giving them options of choosing a moderate Islamic society to live in or a hardline one. This can be achieved through the strategic use of international capital interests, social media, and, most importantly, establishing the resistance as the popular aspirational hope of the average Afghan. Doesn’t sound romantic, but it has proven to be effective.

Because you know who else is doing that to great effect?

The Taliban.

The Western world’s colonial chickens are coming home to roost

We all go where we need to for a better life…

As an immigrant American, I think about borders a lot.

I also think about stupidity a lot.

And I especially think about how so many people in the wealthiest countries of the world are so damn fucking stupid when it comes to understanding their national borders.

They actually think that their borders matter (I can’t even finish that sentence without laughing).

That they do this while consuming colonized resources at criminally high rates does make me wonder if they’re stupid or, worse, actively committing mental suicide…but we’re splitting hairs here.

My fellow westerners probably need their immigrant brethren to educate them about these borders and their efficacy.

It’s very simple.

People are going to move wherever there’s more resources, safety, and opportunities.

That’s it.

You can whine about it. You can cry about it. You can rage about it. You can wail about it. You can chest thump about it.

You can jump whatever mental hoops you need to in order to deal with it.

But you cannot deny it.

Nor can you stop it.

The borders are getting smashed, by people and capital, as I write this. People are driven by their dreams. Capital is driven by its rationale.

Nationalism is withering away by the day, following it’s equally obscurantist sibling, religion, in a slow dump into history’s trash pile. Oh, there are dangerous flashes of upsurge here and there, but the trend lines are clear. God and country don’t matter as much as people and capital.

Hell, even the great civilized West knows that it’s born citizens are getting increasingly too soft, too lazy, and too damn entitled to do the jobs needed to keep an economy going.

Neither nations nor religion can stop this rationale.

Immigrants and refugees are here to stay.

Deal with it.

(And you’re welcome for all that taxation without representation btw.)

Tajikistan, India, and France must ally to support the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan

#PanjshirResistance

Tajikistan, India, and France are, at first glance, the strangest geopolitical grouping one can think of.

But upon closer inspection, it is in all three countries’ sovereign rational interests to form an alliance in support of the Panjshir Resistance (officially the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan or NRFA), regardless of the political inclinations of their respective governments.

Dushanbe, New Delhi, and Paris must start a global alliance to support the NRFA with the following four objectives in mind:

• Recognize the NRFA caretaker government as the legitimate representative of the Afghan people and their aspirations.
• Send money, food, medicine, and defense hardware to Panjshir, the NRFA, and their allies.
• Lobby their respective geopolitical spheres of influence to do the same and immediately call for democratic elections that the Taliban can participate in as a political party.
• Send delegations to meet the NRFA and to lobby the Taliban to accept democratic elections to determine a sovereign Afghanistan’s future.

As rational actors, this makes sense for these three countries and many more.

We live in a world of increasing multi-polarity, however uneven. The Taliban is propped up by a Pakistani state apparatus that is controlled by Chinese monopoly capital. (With Russia perhaps trying to wedge its way as a significantly junior partner to China.)

These governments do this in some harebrained plan, thinking they can control Afghanistan.

The NRFA needs to slowly gather international support that can counter these forces, in order to apply a genuinely sovereign Afghan solution to a problem created by multiple imperialist and regional powers.

And there are plenty, plenty, of rational state actors in the region and beyond, who would support the NRFA just to counter the power plays of those countries, not to mention the fears of an ascendant Taliban.

Tajikistan has already taken a giant step forward that India and France must replicate, following which a much larger global alliance explicitly in support of the NRFA can take shape.

This can neither be about sentimentalism nor perfectionism.

No doubt there will be corruption and abuse within such resistance fronts that will necessarily build tactical partnerships with unsavory opportunists, warlords, and patriarchs.

We must however remember that a patriarchal, feudal kleptocracy is still preferable to a brutally misogynistic, fundamentalist autocracy. The former at least has a fighting chance of fostering a social rationale towards a less feudal, more democratic society, with greater individual choice and safety nets.

Massoud and Saleh must think like rational economic actors (and also invest in military drones)

#PanjshirResistance

This is just my personal opinion as a supporter of the Panjshir resistance:

I believe that Massoud and Saleh, along with their people and supporters, need to put themselves in a position to be attractive to international capital.

This means presenting a case for bigger actors, state and private, to supporting the Panjshir resistance and its allies as the likeliest to usher in an Afghanistan that will be open to (*gag*) international markets, both consumer and labor.

Cold hard economics will beat the Taliban over anything else.

Even if there’s an asymmetric power-sharing stalemate of Panjshir and a few northern regions ruled by the National Resistance Front, with the rest of Afghanistan under Taliban rule…the attritional battle can still be in favor of eventually moving to a tribal-party democracy with the Taliban reduced to a Pashtun Islamist party (albeit a very powerful one but still preferable to it’s current ascension as an autocratic, brutal government).

Oh… And I hope the resistance is investing in some game changing defense technology like drones (just think recently how Azerbaijan thrashed Armenia using them).

The advantage that Massoud, Saleh, and their supporters have is that – because the Taliban is expressly Salafi Islamist – the Panjshir resistance can easily win the nationalist argument (made with megaphones).

If they can win the economic one (made via back channels) they guarantee an endless supply of support from international capital.

Then they just have to wait for the Taliban to implode.

The rationale of capital in undoing misogyny

Capital sees potential rational economic actors of the future…Capital sees a new market…Capital can be progressive

The stunning blitzkrieg of the barbaric Taliban showcases the death of nationalism as a civilizing force and the clear need for enlightenment-values internationalism under capital’s cold rationale.

This is an Islamist victory harkening back to a dark-age barbarism that is forced to be moderate in a digital age due to the ever-increasing internationalization of the global economy, the pressures of monopoly capital, and competing imperial interests, chief of which are America and China.

(America is “losing” – in quotes because whoever is “winning”…well…controlling a Taliban-led Afghanistan is just about the most pyrrhic geopolitical victory you can have in today’s world.)

The current moment highlights the great societal choice that Rosa Luxemburg suggested every nation or people must face – that between barbarism or socialism.

To those who think that the West, including the libertarian US, isn’t constantly lurching towards socialist and social democratic values, I say to them that they do not really understand the system of safety nets in Western countries.

I am a migrant settler with hard earned citizenship in Canada and the US (apart from India, where I was born) – and let me tell you, both (yes both, Canada certainly ahead of the US) have far better social democratic safety nets than most other countries on this planet. Even if substantial percentages of the populations don’t realize it. Not unlike most wealthier nations with democratic political cultures.

Why?

Cos they rich as fuck. (Bruh.)

And they know from a rational perspective that there have to be some safety nets to prevent social upheaval and continue creating conditions for economic growth.

(Mind you, these are all staunchly capitalist countries with very few ceilings on accumulation and profit-making.)

I’ve come to the belief that capital is the only rational force that can uproot the misogynistic barbarism that stems from forces of religious fundamentalism and muscular nationalism. I think its coldblooded need for further markets is the only thing that can render this barbarism helpless, eventually having it whither away in a few generations (as is currently underway in much of the wealthier parts of the earth, albeit in extremely uneven ways).

Capital has a rational interest against misogyny because misogyny creates significantly reduced market possibilities. Capital wants more potential consumers and rational economic actors with the freedom of choice. Capital will do anything, including undoing barbarism, to make that happen.

This might be old hat…but the historical evidence is hard to argue against.

we all be subjects of randomness

in time…

As beings self-burdening ourselves with the quest for meaning and reason, we attempt the impossible. We do so, using an ever-increasing buffet menu of emotional strategies.

We attempt the impossible by foolishly seeking rationality and logic in the absurd;

We attempt the impossible by wisely seeking joy and fulfilment in the mundane;

Above all however, we attempt the impossible by seeking love without coming to terms with the tragic.

We do this daily, naturally, and with so much consistency that it can even be mistaken for instinct.

We know what we are all under the authority of, and yet we choose to fool ourselves into thinking we have some two way, communicative relationship with this authority.

Most of us call it God and pray to it, fear it, even kill and die for it.

Some of us call it the universe or the spirit of the earth or even a simulation – which are all healthier strategies in my humble opinion. (I don’t believe anyone has ever committed atrocities in the name of gaia or a cosmic computer program.)

However, we all want to avoid calling it what it really is. Even I am just hemming and hawing now, pretending like I have something useful to say before writing the one word that describes our existence beyond all others in the English lexicon. A word that gives me both mind numbing fear and soul freeing courage in equal measure.

Randomness.

There really is no other supreme authority out there if you think about it.

And I urge you not to think about it for very long.