&lti&gtEditors Note: This is the second of a three-part series concluding tomorrow by Waj Syed, a senior at the University and Daily columnist who traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan earlier this month. Syed was born in Pakistan and lived there until 1997.&lt/i&gt

CHAMAN, Pakistan

This dusty town of around 200,000 is on the Afghan border in southwestern Pakistan. It has a fierce history because of the local tribal populace, who are primarily of Pushtun origin and share ties with tribes across the border.

Warring is a tradition here. Men walk around with firearms, but there are no licensed gun shops in the city.

In the last 20 years, the social fabric of border towns like Chaman has been torn by the exodus of around 3 million Afghan refugees into Pakistan. Added to the already violent tribal culture was the guns and drug trade that sustained the anti-Soviet, U.S-backed Mujahideen, as well as the use of madrassahs, (typically boarding schools meant to sustain an education of the sciences and arts as well as religious studies) but were used instead as recruiting centers for the Mujahideen. Chaman"s claim to infamy is that one of its madrassahs was where Mullah Mohammad Omar, the missing leader of the Taliban, started his movement.

While living with a contingent of the Pakistan Frontier Corps, I interviewed the officer in charge, Col. Sarwar, who was responsible for regional security and border traffic, mechanical and human. Under his watch have been many arrests of Taliban and al-Qaida personnel trying to cross into Pakistan, breakups of numerous smuggling rackets, and a peaceful negotiation over a land dispute with the new warlords now in power across the border in Spinboldek, Afghanistan.

Sarwar, a mild-mannered Command and Staff college graduate (Pakistan Army"s officer school), could be the quintessential example of the myriad complications espoused by recent global security affairs. Almost proudly, Col. Sarwar described how he had been working with the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, as well as the American CIA to engage and capture Taliban and al-Qaida members. But, when I asked him what he thought about the old Taliban regime, he smiled. "Not bad. In terms of law and order, there was nothing closer to perfect than the Taliban."

Col. Sarwar backed up his views as a security specialist by stressing that under the Taliban, smuggling was down and there had been just four murders in the border city of Spinboldek in the last two years, a big deal for a violent smuggling town filled with armed tribals. He didn"t comment when I pushed further, that maybe the reason for such a small number of murders was that the Taliban were executing offenders of all sorts anyways, so the official numbers might be skewed. He smiled again and said I sounded like an American.

That"s when the face-off started. I asked him what he meant, and he had an answer. "Take the example of the recent media coverage of this area. My units have been criticized for letting the Taliban just walk across the border like it"s a joke. It"s not true. Every day, 7,000 people cross the border to Afghanistan from Chaman.

"Also, every day 4,000 Afghans come to this side to work for the day."

So, I asked, of what significance was that? "It is linked to the tribal culture, to tribal economics. For thousands of these people, borders are nothing. Families, shopkeepers, cross it every day. Just because the American media comes here and sees thousands of people with turbans crossing the border, they think that the Taliban are being allowed. Not everyone with a turban is an Afghan, or a Talib. He could be Pakistani. A Pathan, like you.

"We have our own methods, and they work well."

But what about the question of murder and execution? About how the low figures for murders in Spinboldek may be skewed because the Taliban were reported to execute many, sometimes without trial? "I have heard about the strictness of the Taliban," he said. "I cannot comment on the science of numbers. I can say this. When it came to stopping civilian-crime, tribal warfare, et cetera, they (Taliban) were a law and order body other people should learn from."

OK, so the colonel, as a military man, was open to the idea of strict military/police control over a violent civilian constituency there is ample research and news analysis that civilian crime under the Taliban was at an all-time low during their regime in controlled parts of Afghanistan, probably due to harsh enforcement mechanisms. But what about Pakistan?

Could he see those rules being applied there? Would he not send his daughters to school? Not allow his sons to listen to music? "Of course not," he responded, point blank. "You should pick good things, not bad."

I could see where the colonel was going with this. Pick the Taliban"s law and order ideal, not their oppressive social policies.