Letters to the Editor
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BTW it's partly Nixon's fault that the Sufi moderates became so powerless in Afghanistan
Speaking of the Sufis, before the 1973 coup, Afghanistan was ruled by King Zaher Shah, who was a Sufi moderate.
Nixon didn't like him. He thought he was weak. Afghanistan had become a haven for hash-smoking hippies, and Afghan hashish was being smuggled into America. There were even rumors that the King smoked hash and favored legalization.
Nixon found out that the King's cousin Daoud was eager to take over the government. Daoud was the kind of "strong man" Nixon liked.
Just like Nixon, Daoud hated hippies and hashish and intellectuals. Aside from the fact that most of Daoud's supporters were Marxist-Leninists, whereas Nixon's were Republicans, the two men had a lot in common.
So the CIA helped concoct a phony medical emergency to get the King to leave for Italy and Daoud took over in a mostly bloodless coup the next day. And the Shah of Iran offered a big wad of cash to support the new regime.
Before 1973, tribal Pushtuns were very adamant about sticking to their traditional patriarchal ways, with burqas and honor killings and all that stuff.
But they were still tribal. They hadn't yet formed what we know today as the mujahedin armies.
The tribalists ended up forming their mujahedin armies only after their conflict with Daoud's authoritarian pseudo-Marxist government escalated into outright armed resistance.
This was clearly a consequence of the 1973 coup.
The Sufi moderates fared even worse than the tribalists, because so many of them were allied with the King.
Daoud's government wanted to reform the tribalists, but anyone allied with the King was targeted for elimination.
American policy has been, shall we say, LESS than empowering towards moderate Muslims.
It's not fair to point to their relative lack of global influence in Islam when our own foreign policy has often helped rob them of any influence they originally had.
Especially in Afghanistan, where our policy in 1973 was shamefully cynical and misguided and has had blowback beyond our wildest nightmares.