Word: dostum
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Abdul Rashid Dostum, the thuggish Afghan warlord, would not seem a likely student of Abraham Lincoln. But there he was, echoing the Gettysburg Address as he spoke recently to a large political gathering in northern Afganistan. His speech was a booming appeal for a future that offered Afghans "government by the people, for the people." To accompany his new rhetoric, Dostum also has a new look. The powerfully built Uzbek general has shaved his beard - his thick trademark moustache remains - bought some new neckties and found a good tailor...
...lofty language, the dapper attire, even expressions of regret for making "mistakes"--all are part of an effort by Dostum, a onetime soldier of fortune whose name is a byword for a decade of warlord power, to resell himself to his compatriots and the world as a democratic politician and servant of the people in a kinder, gentler Afghanistan. Whether he and other warlords succeed in this improbable transformation is even more important to Afghanistan's future stability than is the fate of al-Qaeda remnants hiding out in the Pakistani borderlands. While the Bush Administration continues to make chasing...
...warlordism is out, Dostum wants to be part of whatever is coming in. Since reclaiming his old stomping ground in northern Afghanistan last November with the help of U.S. special forces, Dostum, who at 48 is graying and developing a middle-aged spread, has picked up the politically correct patter of the country post-Taliban. "We must never repeat the mistakes of the past," he recently told a convention of robed Islamic clergy. "Now is the time to defend ourselves not with tanks and armed corps but by the rule of law and establishing political parties." His rhetoric has persuaded...
...Dostum truly has evolved, there's no doubt a strong element of realpolitik behind the transformation. Since the defeat of the Taliban, Dostum has reasserted control over his home turf, the ethnically Uzbek and Turkmen provinces of Jowzjan and Faryab. But the onetime master of the north now finds his position challenged by the growing power of his erstwhile ally in the Northern Alliance, the mainly Tajik Jamiat-i-Islami faction. Jamiat's ascension has prompted an unlikely alignment between Dostum and Hamid Karzai, the patrician Pashtun tribal leader who heads Kabul's interim government. In December Karzai appointed Dostum...
...disciples of the late Ahmed Shah Massood. The U.S. must work with the new Afghan government to bring dependable chieftains, tribal elders and warlords under the umbrella of the state. It must then ensure that countries like Iran, Tajikistan and Pakistan cut off all aid to belligerent warlords like Dostum and Hekmatyar...