Round Up The Usual Suspects

So several months ago some media began reporting that US-backed Afghan ruler (and ex-Unocal oilman) Karzai was calling in US airstrikes on “opposition forces”. That quickly developed into either a fight between evil Taliban vs Forces Of Light And Good, or a classic Afghan north/south Uzbek-Tajik vs Pashtun conflict. Depends on your point of view…

Now today I read that Karzai has rounded up hundreds of people in “an apparent plot against the government”. Conveniently, most of those doing the rounding are Uzbeks and Tajiks, and most of those rounded up are Pashtuns, including people loyal to Afghanistan’s most recent, elected, non-Taliban President, Hekmatyar…
The arrests are also likely to inflame tension between Hekmatyar’s largely Pashtun followers and the northern alliance, which is dominated by ethnic Tajiks and which controls the interior and other key ministries … Pashtun leaders may interpret the arrests as an attempt to stifle their moves toward Pashtun unity in advance of the loya jirga.

Of course, there are those who say that the whole thing really is all about oil:
It’s mostly about oil. 9-11 or no 9-11, the U.S. would never have invaded Afghanistan minus its oil component. Don’t we deserve 75-cent-a-gallon gas in return for losing four planes and two big buildings?

And those who say otherwise:
There is no evidence of the supposed US-Pakistan decision. In fact, there is much evidence of indecision in US policy up to and after 1994, rather than some plan to “install a stable regime”. There is similarly no evidence that State Department (or the US government in general) helped provide arms or funds to the Taliban. Rashid explicitly notes that while there were rumors that the CIA supported the Taliban directly during the 1990s, he found no evidence of this.

Earlier here.