European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 17, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 columns the stars and stripes sunday. January 17,19bb . Rosenthal one Down one to go for afghan resistance Islamabad Pakistan the afghan resistance movement has achieved one historic Victory and is lighting hard for another. In he first Battle it Defeated the soviet attempt to colonize Afghanistan. The second struggle just started is for afghans themselves to determine the political future of their country if and when the russians pull out. The afghans say they will fight on forever to achieve he Sec Ond Victory. Nobody thinks icy Are bluffing. From the United Stales the afghan resistance seemed complicated and obscure la seemed to be splintered full of feuds and feudalism led by leaders with conflicting ambitions and full or intensities and tribal Loyal pics almost incomprehensible to Western Mindi. 11 looks different closer up in this capital of Paki Stan which for a decade has Given Refuge to millions of afghans. And in looks different even co scr still in he a Kisi Ini Frontier cily of Peshawar where the political leaders of the major groups work Oul of Barren office and refugee Camps. The complications and inc feuds do exist but they fall i nto place As Arisi a out of the particular history of Afghanistan where religion and clan have dominated life for centuries in War and in peace. It was inc Pas Sions of religion and Liibs that supplied the strength and will Power Tinl blocked soviet expansion for the lira time since the bolshevik revolution of 117. Ken nearer the leaders and followers become not just fierce looking warriors but living people Wor ried about their families food and the future. And it begins to become much clearer thai there were two inseparable motivation for year after year of fighting suffering and dying. One was to drive the russians out. The Oiler just As Strong was to wipe out any Power of the afghan communists. In Peshawar the Frontier and the War beyond Are an hour s drive through the khyber pass where for generations each House and Village in the Rock Hills have been Buill like forts against inc marauder. The seven major afghan resistance groups have their Headquarters there an Alliance usually restless. Right now they arc United on two things the russians must go and they must take the afghan communist leaders with them or at least those who want to go on living. As the russians talk More and More about leaving the afghans arc being urged to Speed the Day by agreeing thai the afghan communists can share Power in a free Afghanistan. The president of Pakistan Mohammad Zia it Haq. George f. Will is a key player. He is also one of inc More interesting men in Asia presiding Over a movement toward Politi Cal Freedom. He still puts on his general s uniform from time to time to remind people the army could return if politics becomes chaos. But it is a Long Way from the martial Law under which he ruled for almost a decode. He seems to be enjoying it As much As his critics enjoy the Freedom to have at him. Zia is respected by the afghan fighters. His country poor and troubled took on three million afghan Refu gees and shared whal in had Wilh them. Few countries have done As much for refugees As Pakistan. H was through Pakistan that american military Aid reached the afghans. Pakistan did not go unrewarded militarily but without Pakistan inc War against the soviet occupation could not have been fought. The pakistanis would like the Burden of the Refuge cd 10 be lifted. In his office the other Day Zia said he though giving the afghan communists a role would be a reasonable Price for the resistance to pay. In pc Shawar the lighters for a revolutionary islamic Afghanistan and the fighters for a More moderate islamic Afghanistan both use the same word about Power Shar ing never. Zia Hopes he can persuade them but does not think they Are just bargaining. The resistance has Power. If a peace i imposed that it does not like the War will go on the refugees will remain the Burden far Pakistan Wil increase. He knows it the americans know it the resistance knows it. Up close the resistance seems utterly convinced that it will determine inc future of Afghanistan itself and that it will be a future without communists afghan or soviet. Ii has some Feudal beliefs and one very Modem one Small countries Tan Oul Wail and some times outright the big ones and if they do they Are entitled to decide their own Fate. Houston is discovering that nothing lasts forever Houston whal a difference just half a decade can make in the life of a cily. With inc sort of bad Liming that is the result of bad Luck. The Tad timing thai any journalist can understand Jan Morris inc travel writer picked 1982 to cd brate Houston As the Best Hope the Lime can she compared it to Queen Victoria s London or new York or Chicago in la in salad Days. Houston was. Mic marvelled a cily of centripetal forces a cily Meta tas izing where the vocabulary is habitually in the future tense and the sunday papers carried 40 pages of help wanted ads. Few Boom towns Ever boomed As Houston did Between 1973 and 1982. With the sort of bad timing that any politician can sympathise with Kathryn Whitmire picked 1982 to become Houston s mayor. She came to Power thinking thai her task was 10 Deal with the problems of Pell Mell growth. She must be a gluon for punish Man she is lulling her fourth two year term full she has these Lenity of someone who can reasonably suppose thai she has seen the worst. Visitors to her office walk past a Wall adorned with an admonition spelled Oul in Large air a i cities and thrones stand in time s does not need to be reminded of Thi Prosperity. Houston became a focus of the National epidemic of the emotion of the eighties taking pleasure from the misfortunes of others because of the fall of Oil and natural Gas prices first in 19b2 and again in 1986. Houston had typified the Texas too much Ain t enough spirit but suddenly Sec through skyscrapers new and comply became symbols of the City in which John Connally Bunker hum and other High rollers were brought Low. In the 1910s, the slate government ran surpluses of up to s3 billion a year. But every Al drop in the once of a barrel of Oil cos the stale 1 100 million in revenues and Cost the stale Economy j3 billion. Texas had considered itself recession proof or at least the place where the recession came last and left first. Actually the Economy of the Oil Patch Texas Oklahoma Louisiana was in an inverse relation to the nation s Economy. In the 1970s, when rocketing Energy prices drove inc nation into stagflation Texas produced less and prospered. Oil production fell from 1.3 billion barrels in i972w9.l million barrels in 1981, bul revenues Rose from s4.5 billion to $31. 7 billion. Natural was production fell from 8.7 trillion cubic feel to 7 trillion while revenues soared from is. 4 billion to j12.fi Bill Ion. However in 1982 Jan Morris had detected something evanescent about Houston. She recalled that the glory. Days of cities come and go. When Charles Dickens arrived. Tart pc lettering by train in Chicago the conductor boasted to him you old moral. 1 1 in Houston arc entering the Boss City of the moms said a p vie Impan Nonence of the future never lasts that Houston s Ascendancy would Muiir mum ii i be As ephemeral As any other. She imagined Houston emptying itself in an exodus As terrific Asiu influx mexicans streaming Back South toward the Border Oil men fleeing in their Gulf Stream jets. But great titles do not disperse they diversify. Today Houston s largest employer is the Texas medi Cal Center. In this respect Houston inc South s target City resembles some Rusl Belt cities. The largest employer in Cleveland is a medical Center. Tie largest in Pittsburgh is the University of Oil Patch did not use its wealth to prepare fora future insulated from the Vicissitudes of Oil prices wrote the economist of London made the Oil Patch Rich it also made in feckless Lazy and con the Oil Pate h entered the 1970s relatively poor and far behind the rest of the nation in education and other indices . Much of the Money and Many of the mores of the West come from extraction industries Oil Gas min ing. Such industries involve hard physical work and Good Luck booms and bust. They Are not industries thai encourage altitudes conducive to Hus banding re sources and investing in inc social and physical infrastructure needed for steady Prosperity Over the Jong haul. Extraction industries Are bastions of rugged mid visual Iii. They do not encourage in inc Community t propensity for collective provision. But now Houston is developing a saving diversity one moral of its recent roller coaster history is an old moral la is that in the lives of cities or nations arc As Good or As bad As they went. An the nation should draw from this Metropolis As microcosm is that the future has a Way Ofarriz ing unannounced. Its arrival is jolting when people have not prepared for in. One Way to prepare is by governing with a three word truism in mind nothing lasts forever
