THE ABC'S OF JIHAD IN AFGHANISTAN * Courtesy, USA
By Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway
Washington Post, 23 March 2002
[Posted 3 April 2002]
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*As Afghan schools reopen today, the United States has delivered 4 million
radical Islamist texbooks. More are on the way.* (See text below).
In the twilight of the Cold War, the United States spent millions of dollars
to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images
and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance
to the Soviet occupation.
The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of
guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan
school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced
books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with
its strict fundamentalist code.
As Afghan schools reopen today, the United States is back in the business of
providing schoolbooks. But now it is wrestling with the unintended
consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight
communism. What seemed like a good idea in the context of the Cold War is
being criticized by humanitarian workers as a crude tool that steeped a
generation in violence.
Last month, a U.S. foreign aid official said, workers launched a "scrubbing"
operation in neighboring Pakistan to purge from the books all references to
rifles and killing. Many of the 4 million texts being trucked into
Afghanistan, and millions more on the way, still feature Koranic verses and
teach Muslim tenets.
The White House defends the religious content, saying that Islamic
principles permeate Afghan culture and that the books "are fully in
compliance with U.S. law and policy." Legal experts, however, question
whether the books violate a constitutional ban on using tax dollars to
promote religion.
Organizations accepting funding from the U.S. Agency for International
Development must certify that tax dollars will not be used to advance
religion. The certification states that AID "will finance only programs that
have a secular purpose. . . . AID-financed activities cannot result in
religious indoctrination of the ultimate beneficiaries."
The issue of textbook content reflects growing concern among U.S.
policymakers about school teachings in some Muslim countries in which
Islamic militancy and anti-Americanism are on the rise. A number of
government agencies are discussing what can be done to counter these trends.
President Bush and first lady Laura Bush have repeatedly spotlighted the
Afghan textbooks in recent weeks. Last Saturday, Bush announced during his
weekly radio address that the 10 million U.S.-supplied books being trucked
to Afghan schools would teach "respect for human dignity, instead of
indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry."
The first lady stood alongside Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai on Jan. 29
to announce that AID would give the University of Nebraska at Omaha $6.5
million to provide textbooks and teacher training kits.
AID officials said in interviews that they left the Islamic materials intact
because they feared Afghan educators would reject books lacking a strong
dose of Muslim thought. The agency removed its logo and any mention of the
U.S. government from the religious texts, AID spokeswoman Kathryn Stratos
said.
"It's not AID's policy to support religious instruction," Stratos said. "But
we went ahead with this project because the primary purpose . . . is to
educate children, which is predominantly a secular activity."
Some legal experts disagreed. A 1991 federal appeals court ruling against
AID's former director established that taxpayers' funds may not pay for
religious instruction overseas, said Herman Schwartz, a constitutional law
expert at American University, who litigated the case for the American Civil
Liberties Union.
Ayesha Khan, legal director of the nonprofit Americans United for Separation
of Church and State, said the White House has "not a legal leg to stand on"
in distributing the books.
"Taxpayer dollars cannot be used to supply materials that are religious,"
she said.
Published in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtu, the textbooks
were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to the University of
Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies. The agency spent $51
million on the university's education programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to
1994.
During that time of Soviet occupation, regional military leaders in
Afghanistan helped the U.S. smuggle books into the country. They demanded
that the primers contain anti-Soviet passages. Children were taught to count
with illustrations showing tanks, missiles and land mines, agency officials
said. They acknowledged that at the time it also suited U.S. interests to
stoke hatred of foreign invaders.
"I think we were perfectly happy to see these books trashing the Soviet
Union," said Chris Brown, head of book revision for AID's Central Asia Task
Force.
AID dropped funding of Afghan programs in 1994. But the textbooks continued
to circulate in various versions, even after the Taliban seized power in 1996.
Officials said private humanitarian groups paid for continued reprintings
during the Taliban years. Today, the books remain widely available in
schools and shops, to the chagrin of international aid workers.
"The pictures [in] the texts are horrendous to school students, but the
texts are even much worse," said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, an Afghan educator who
is a program coordinator for Cooperation for Peace and Unity, a
Pakistan-based nonprofit.
An aid worker in the region reviewed an unrevised 100-page book and counted
43 pages containing violent images or passages.
The military content was included to "stimulate resistance against
invasion," explained Yaquib Roshan of Nebraska's Afghanistan center. "Even
in January, the books were absolutely the same . . . pictures of bullets and
Kalashnikovs and you name it."
During the Taliban era, censors purged human images from the books. One page
from the texts of that period shows a resistance fighter with a bandolier
and a Kalashnikov slung from his shoulder. The soldier's head is missing.
Above the soldier is a verse from the Koran. Below is a Pashtu tribute to
the mujaheddin, who are described as obedient to Allah. Such men will
sacrifice their wealth and life itself to impose Islamic law on the
government, the text says.
"We were quite shocked," said Doug Pritchard, who reviewed the primers in
December while visiting Pakistan on behalf of a Canada-based Christian
nonprofit group. "The constant image of Afghans being natural warriors is
wrong. Warriors are created. If you want a different kind of society, you
have to create it."
After the United States launched a military campaign last year, the United
Nations' education agency, UNICEF, began preparing to reopen Afghanistan's
schools, using new books developed with 70 Afghan educators and 24 private
aid groups. In early January, UNICEF began printing new texts for many
subjects but arranged to supply copies of the old, unrevised U.S. books for
other subjects, including Islamic instruction.
Within days, the Afghan interim government announced that it would use the
old AID-produced texts for its core school curriculum. UNICEF's new texts
could be used only as supplements.
Earlier this year, the United States tapped into its $296 million aid
package for rebuilding Afghanistan to reprint the old books, but decided to
purge the violent references.
About 18 of the 200 titles the United States is republishing are primarily
Islamic instructional books, which agency officials refer to as "civics"
courses. Some books teach how to live according to the Koran, Brown said,
and "how to be a good Muslim."
UNICEF is left with 500,000 copies of the old "militarized" books, a
$200,000 investment that it has decided to destroy, according to U.N.
officials.
On Feb. 4, Brown arrived in Peshawar, the Pakistani border town in which the
textbooks were to be printed, to oversee hasty revisions to the printing
plates. Ten Afghan educators labored night and day, scrambling to replace
rough drawings of weapons with sketches of pomegranates and oranges, Brown
said.
"We turned it from a wartime curriculum to a peacetime curriculum," he said.
(c) 2002 The Washington Post Company * Posted for Fair Use Only
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Further Reading:
***********************
1) 'Congressman: U.S. Set Up Anti-Taliban to be Slaughtered' This account of
how the US covertly supported the Taliban can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/rohr.htm
2) 'Washington's Backing of Afghan Terrorists: Deliberate Policy' Article
from "Washington Post' with introductory note from 'Emperor's Clothes'. Can
be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/anatomy.htm
3) 'Taliban Camps U.S. bombed in Afghanistan Were Built by NATO'
Documentation from the 'N.Y. Times'. Combined U.S. and Saudi aid to
Afghan-based terrorism totaled $6 billion or more. Can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/camps.htm
4) 'CIA worked with Pakistan to create Taliban'
>From 'Times of India.' Can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/pak.htm
5) 'Osama bin Laden: Made In USA'
Excerpt from article on U.S. bombing of a pill factory in Sudan in August,
1998. Argues that bin Laden was and still may be a CIA asset. Can be read at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/madein.htm
6) 'Excerpts from News Reports - Bin Laden in the Balkans' evidence that bin
Laden aided or is aiding the U.S.-sponsored forces in Bosnia, Kosovo and
Macedonia. Can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/news/binl.htm
7) 'The Creation Called Osama,' by Shamsul Islam can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/creat.htm
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