9-11, Why Afghanistan?

By Hasan Nouri

In 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. That invasion cost the Soviet Union dearly -- in blood,

treasure and, eventually, its nationhood. Half of the 15 million prewar populations of Afghanistan were

either killed disabled or became refugees.

In 1988, after serving in the Reagan Administration, speechwriter Dana Rohrabacher left the White House

and was elected to Congress from Huntington Beach, California. He decided to go to Afghanistan's front

line, observing the resistance. When I learned that Rohrabacher was going to my embattled homeland, I

contacted my friend General Rahmatullah Safi who was one of the leaders in the resistance and was

operating from Peshawar, Pakistan. I asked General Safi to accompany Congressman Rohrabacher to

Afghanistan and provide the necessary protection for him. He did and Rohrabacher's trip was a success.

In 1989 the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan. In the wake of her withdrawal the Soviet Union

was bloodied and was on the brink of disintegration. The U.S. turned its back on Afghanistan by not

helping her to establish a legitimate government and allowed Pakistan to have the control of the country.

A few Members of Congress, most from California, however, did not turn their backs and tried to

establish peace in Afghanistan

In early 1992 the Communist Government of Afghanistan under the leadership of Najib was about to

collapse. For several years some of my friends and I who were providing humanitarian assistance to the

men, women and children of Afghanistan had vowed that we will go to Afghanistan on the first plane that

is not controlled by the Soviets or the Communists. These friends were Robin Pierson, a reporter in

Orange County, California; Dr. Preston Darby, a physician from San Angelo, Texas and Charles Fawcett,

a veteran Hollywood film producer from London, England. The news was spreading that the Najib

government was collapsing, the legendary Commander Abdul Haq and Professor Sebghatullah Mojaddidi

were on their way from the south to Kabul. Also the legendry Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud was on

his way to Kabul from the north. I contacted the three aforementioned friends and within six days we

were in Kabul on the first plane managed by the government of Mojaddidi, Abdul Haq and Massoud.

What we observed in Kabul was both positive and negative. On the positive side Kabul was protected by

the Soviets and the communists during the preceding 13 years of war and was not destroyed. Its real

destruction came about as a result of the subsequent civil wars that followed the Soviet withdrawal. The

negative observation was that the government of Professor Mojaddidi and the Freedom Fighters was

highly divisive and had no chance of succeeding. The faction leaders did not have their unity as a priority

and each struggled for the control of the country.

In 1993, General Safi who was living in London, England at the time came to America seeking a solution

for a legitimate government in Afghanistan. He came to California to visit Congressman Dana

Rohrabacher and was staying in my home. Congressman Rohrabacher came to my home to greet General

Safi. General Safi and I mentioned to Congressman Rohrabacher that the only government that could

possibly succeed in Afghanistan must be broad based, formed by all Afghan ethnic groups and that the

only person who can form such a government is the Former King of Afghanistan, Mohammad Zahir Shah

who lived in exile in Rome, Italy. I recall Rohrabacher saying: “If this King can do this why is he not

going to Afghanistan? “. Safi and I looked at each other and said to Rohrabacher: “Why don’t you go to

Rome, Italy and ask this question from the King yourself?” Rohrabacher did not respond that evening.

About one week later Congressman Rohrabacher called me and told me that he has communicated with

the Department of State and authorities in Washington, D.C. and that he would be willing to go to Rome,

Italy to ask the question from the King that “Why he is not going to Afghanistan?” However, he will do

this with one condition. That condition is that the Afghan-American community must pay the travel

expenses of himself and his staff member, Paul Behrends. The Afghan-American community of Southern

California quickly raised the necessary funds and arranged for Rohrabacher, Behrends, Safi and Noor

Delawari who was a community activist to go to Rome and meet with the Former King. Mr. Delawari is

currently the President of Afghanistan Bank in Kabul and General Safi died of natural causes in 2006.

After his return from Rome during many Afghan-American community events Rohrabacher had

mentioned repeatedly that the only solution to the Afghan quagmire is a government that is formed by the

Former King, not as a King but as a facilitator and mediator to resolve the conflicts between the warring

factions. After his visit to Rome in 1993 and before 1998 Rohrabacher traveled to Rome, Italy three times

to visit with the Former King. Rohrabacher’s mission was to form a legitimate government in Afghanistan
and to end the civil war and production of drugs.

In 1994 Rohrabacher told me that he has talked to Ambassador Maliha Lodhi of Pakistan to Washington

and that Pakistan has agreed to invite the Former King to Pakistan and will arrange his trip to the

Pakistani-Afghan border and will provide the necessary security. Rohrabacher asked me to prepare a

draft invitation letter to go from Pakistan government to the King in Rome. I prepared that draft letter

which was given to Ambassador Lodhi by Rohrabacher. A few months later I found out a letter of

invitation from Pakistan was received by the King’s office in Rome. The King had declined the invitation

due to health reasons and had offered for his cousin General Abdul Wali who is also his son-in-law to go

to Pakistan. The government of Pakistan accepted the offer and General Wali’s trip to the Afghan-

Pakistani border was arranged. Because the King and the tribes along the Pakistani-Afghan border are

Pashtuns General Wali was welcomed with unbelievable hospitality. As will be explained later Pakistan

had an ulterior motive for inviting the King who similar to the Taliban is from the Pashtun tribe.

From 1992 until 1995 the people of Afghanistan had become the victims of Civil War between various

factions. The two dominant adversarial factions were lead by Gulbudin Hekmatyar and Commander

Ahmad Shah Massoud. Hekmatyar had the support of Pakistan while Massoud received his support from

Iran and Russia. In 1995 a new group in the name of Taliban surfaced. Pakistan diverted its military

support from Hekmatyar to the Taliban and Hekmatyar quickly vanished from the scene. The concomitant

occurrences of Taliban surfacing and General Wali visiting the border tribal areas lead the people of

Afghanistan to believe that the Taliban will bring the King to power. This is because they are both from

the Pashtun tribes. After seventeen years of being the victims of wars and knowing that the Taliban will

establish a government lead by the King Province after Province submitted to the Taliban without any

resistance. The only provinces that did not submit to the Taliban were the ones controlled by Massoud

which were a quarter of the area of Afghanistan. When the Taliban captured Kabul the Reuters’ reporter

asked Mr. Stenagzai who was the Taliban Minister of Information; “Now that you have concurred Kabul

when are you going to bring the King back to Afghanistan?” Mr. Stenagzai responded: “This is the King’s

country. He can come at any time he wants. We will either forgive him or imprison him for the crimes he

had committed when he was the King of Afghanistan”. That is when Rohrabacher and I realized that

Pakistan used us as well as the King and General Wali to empower the Taliban.

In 1994 Congressman Edward Royce of California was planning to go to Vatican to meet with the Pope. I

requested from Congressman Royce to meet with the Former King while he is in Rome. Congressman

Royce accepted my proposal. I arranged the meeting between the King and Congressman Royce, traveled

to Rome and joined in the meeting. The meeting triggered Congressman Royce’s interests in Afghanistan

as he was afforded the opportunity to quickly learn the risks and adverse impacts of the Afghan civil war

on the United States. Royce realized that as long as the growth of terrorism and production of drugs

continue in Afghanistan the people of America cannot be safe. As a result, he organized the historical

Congressional Hearing on Afghanistan in May of 1996 and cosponsored the Senate Hearing on

Afghanistan in June of 1996. Subsequent to those Hearings Congressman Royce has been instrumental in

organizing four Congressional Hearings on Afghanistan and many meetings with the high ranking

officials in the Whitehouse and the State Department for the Afghan-American community.

In 1998 President Jimmy Carter became the recipient of the Hoover Medal. This prestigious medal is

given to an engineer who has made significant contributions to humanitarian causes. President Hoover

was the first recipient of this medal in 1930 and I received this medal in 1996. Through the Board of the

Hoover Medal and the fact that both President Carter and I are graduates of Georgia Tech in Atlanta I

managed to find the lines of communication with President Carter. Through Ambassador Harry Barnes,

Director General of the Carter Center I requested that President Carter to become a mediator between the

Taliban and the Northern Alliance who were at war with each other in Afghanistan. After several

telephone communications Ambassador Barnes mentioned that President Carter is welling to have the

first meeting with me provided I have representatives of the Northern Alliance and the Taliban with me.

Through Hafiez Karzai (uncle of Hamid Karzai) who lived in Washington, D.C. I managed to have a

telephone conference call with the Taliban’s liaison representative in New York named Mujahid. I asked

Mujahid to join me in a meeting with President Carter and a representative of the Northern Alliance. His

response was that he will contact the headquarters of the Taliban in Kabul and will get back to me in a

day or two. I also called Rawan Farhadi who was the Ambassador of Afghanistan at the United Nations,

an old friend of my father and the representative of the Northern Alliance in America. Ambassador

Farhadi agreed to go with me to meet with President Carter. Mujahid called me three days later and said

that the headquarters in Kabul did not give him the permission to meet with President Carter. In retrospect

if we had succeeded in that mediation meeting September 11 most probably would not have happened,

Iraq would not have happened and the world would not have been in this mess.

In 1999 an Afghan-American group operating under the name of Council for Peace and National Unity of

Afghanistan (CPNUA) that I was a member of was formed in Southern California. The mission of

CPNUA was the same as that of Rohrabacher and Royce, i.e. to establish peace and democracy in

Afghanistan. In early March of 2001 the Taliban began the destruction of the 2000-year old Statue of the

Buddha in Bamyan, Afghanistan. Saddened by the destruction of the Statue, on March 15, 2001 CPNUA

Board of Directors decided that I am to go to Rome, Italy and meet with the Former King and his

Advisor, General Abdul Wali . My task was to find out what the Former King desires and how we can

replace the Taliban by a legitimate and democratic government in Afghanistan. My trip to Rome was

scheduled on March 19, 2001. On March 18, 2001, I contacted Congressman Rohrabacher and informed

him that I was on my way to Rome to meet with the King and that if he has any messages for the King.

Rohrabacher said: “You tell the King and his advisors that the time to move is now. Otherwise, we have

plans to abolish the Taliban without the King”. I responded to Rohrabacher “What do you mean by

move? What can the King do?” Rohrabacher replied back: “You tell the King that we know the southern

and western neighbors of Afghanistan, those being Pakistan and Iran will not welcome him. However, we

can arrange an official invitation for the King from one of the three northern neighbors of Afghanistan;

those being Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Once he is in one of those borders his Pashtun

followers will come to that border and take him to Kabul “. The King is a Pashtun, which represents

Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group. Rohrabacher and I have been under the same belief that because the

King was a symbol of dignity for all the Pashtuns and that the Taliban were formed by the Pashtuns of

Afghanistan and Pakistan if the King arrives to the soil of Afghanistan the Taliban will automatically

disintegrate because the country’s loyalty was not with the Taliban. On March 21, 2001, I was in Rome

and delivered Rohrabacher’s message to the King and his advisor, General Abdul Wali in the hopes that

the King would go to one of the northern borders of Afghanistan. Unfortunately, General Abdul Wali

rejected Rohrabacher’s recommendation and I came back to California with a failed mission.

On April 3, 2001 Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud who was the leader of the Northern Alliance and

was in battle with the Taliban arrived in Paris by the invitation of the French Government. This was the

first trip Commander Massoud had taken to a Western Country. I understand that while in Paris he had

met not only with the French authorities but U.S. officials as well. His visit to France led me to believe

that Massoud was a player in the plan mentioned by Rohrabacher to me on March 18, 2001. Subsequent

to Massoud’s trip in Paris I learned that the U.S. has provided Russia with over $100 million to assist the

Northern Alliance in their battle against the Taliban. Again, that confirmed Rohrabacher’s statement of

March 18, 2001 and I became certain that the U.S. with the help of Russians and the Northern Alliance

planned to abolish the Taliban and therefore, the Al-Qaeda for whom Taliban had provided a safe haven.

As a result of military assistance received from Russia, the Northern Alliance had made significant

advances against the Taliban including the capture of the Bagram Air Base in July and August of 2001.

The news of American help to the Northern Alliance leaked from CIA through Pakistan to their Taliban

surrogates. Because the Al Qaeda was one of the sources of funding for the Taliban Regime, Osama Bin

Laden was informed about the alliance of the Northern Alliance with Russia and the United States.

The advances by the Northern Alliance were the reason for Al Qaeda to react. On September 9, 2001 two

Al Qaeda suicide bombers disguised as journalists assassinated Massoud with a video camera that was

full of explosives and two days later they committed the heinous crime of September 11. In the morning

of September 11, 2001 I managed to reach Congressmen Royce and Rohrabacher in Washington, D.C.

through their cell phones. As I was crying on the phone trying to share my pain with them, Congressman

Rohrabacher said: “Hasan, you and I have done everything we could to avert this tragedy, but we as a

nation have failed”. Congressman Royce was also comforting me and was sharing his pain with me.

In October of 2001, Commander Abdul Haq entered Afghanistan and tried to facilitate the submission of

the Taliban to the U.S. troops in the hopes of preventing the U.S. bombing campaign of Afghanistan.

Commander Abdul Haq failed in his mission and the Taliban executed him.

During the Bonn process in December of 2001, the U.N. Representative Lakhdar Brahimi, and Dr.

Zalmay Khalilzad who was the Assistant National Security Council Advisor at the time overruled the

decision by the participants of the meeting, sidelined Professor Abdul Sattar Sirat who represented King

Zahir Shah and selected Hamid Karzay to head the Transitional Government of Afghanistan. Professor

Sirat was supposed to be heading the government. Prior to his position at the Whitehouse Dr. Khalilzad

was with the Rand Corporation and a consultant to UNOCAL on the Pipeline project between the

northern and southern borders of Afghanistan and then through Pakistan into the Indian Ocean. Dr.

Khalilzad who is an Afghan-American believed that construction of the pipeline would be possible under

the Taliban rule and was promoting the “Moderate Taliban Government”. In 2002 Dr. Khalilzad was

appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to Kabul. Then in 2003 he was appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to

Iraq.

In 2002 the King accepted Karzay’s invitation and went to Kabul. Ever since then the King has been

sidelined with no authority and has been given the title of the “Father of the Nation”. This was a sad

mistake as the King could have played a major role of unity amongst the people of Afghanistan. Karzay’s

government barely controls the City of Kabul while the Warlords rule the Provinces. Currently,

Afghanistan produces three quarters of the world’s opium and the future is unknown. Nationwide election

occurred in September of 2005 in Afghanistan. In a nation that never in its history has experienced the

process of democratic election and has been in war for 29 years, does not have an effective police force

and the Warlords rule the country and can buy 10 votes for a dollar one cannot expect results better than

what had occurred in 2005. If the International Community implemented my plan (Please see below) that

I presented in the Congressional Hearing of June 19, 2003 today Afghanistan would have been a stable

nation. By staying the course we can expect another civil war in Afghanistan and peril for the

United States.