- January 2012: US marines urinate on dead Afghans
- February 2012: US troops burn Koran
- March 2012: US soldier kills 16 civilians including 9 sleeping kid
- April 2012: tba
Feel the love...
Keep going boys, you are, no doubt, winning this war :-)
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Monday, March 12, 2012
Keep going boys you are, no doubt, winning this war!
Thursday, June 23, 2011
The US Empire throws in the towel
This is a great American tradition: declare victory and leave. And that is what Obama did yesterday when he announced that 10'000+23'000 troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan. The French immediately announced that they are withdrawing another 4'000 of their own. Yes, I know, 68'000+ troops will remain. Make no mistake, that is a fig leaf, also a security and a way to pretend that this is not what is really is: a total retreat following a strategic defeat. Obama clearly indicated that:
Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security.
This is a howling joke, of course. Translated into English it means "all future defeats will henceforth blamed on the Afghans, not on us - we have won". Sure looks like the White House has finally read the writing on the wall.
As for the the alleged execution of Bin Laden, it provided Obama with the "patriotic" and "presidential" credentials needed to conceal the true magnitude of this strategic US defeat in Afghanistan.
While I do blame the USA for its infinite arrogance and imperial hubris in invading Afghanistan in the first place, and while Obama's idiotic "surge" was nothing but a useless PR effort, I cannot blame the US armed forces for having been defeated.
From the deserts of Dasht-i-Margo (Land of Death), Registan (Land of Sands) and Karakum (Black Sand), to the mountains of the Hindu Kush, Waziristan, or the Safīd range, to the "panhandle" of the Wakhan Corridor - most of Afghanistan is a hell-hole which always ended up defeating its occupiers, including the British and the Russians - far more capable (and ruthless) opponents than the US military, nevermind the NATO alliance's hodgepodge force.
All this was pre-ordained from Day 1 of the "invasion". I put that word in quotation marks because the USA did never really invade Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance attacked the Taliban with the support of the USAF and some special ops on the ground and rapidly seized Kabul. As for the Taliban, they had no intention of openly fighting the USA; they waited for a better time (which soon came).
In reality, the US military simply entered the country with only minimal resistance. In fact, and unlike the Soviets, the US never won a single battle during this entire war. Bloody and ugly as this war was, it was primarily a gigantic multi-billion exercise in PR. It is no wonder then that it ended in yet another, last, PR exercise. When the Soviets left Afghanistan, they had least had the courage to do that openly and proudly; the US even lacks the courage to do that.
Now all this really begs the question of what will happen in Pakistan. The relationship between the USA and Pakistan are now at an all-time low and the CIA's fancy drone-war combined with the infinite arrogance of its personnel on the ground, is creating a powerful blowback against the USA, and I would venture to say that the US Empire was also defeated in Pakistan.
The important thing to keep in mind though is that being militarily defeated does not entail loosing all influence, quite to the contrary, in fact. If the USA cannot control "AfPak" it still can make darn sure that nobody else does, including the Taliban and their Pashtun brethren across the border. Preventing the creation of a united "Pashtunistan" is an objective which the US shares with all other actors in the region, including India, Iran, Russia and the so-called "legitimate government of Afghanistan" aka The Northern Alliance. Even the local drug lords and their foreign patrons will support this. To be totally honest, I cannot disagree with this either: nuclear armed Wahabis is just about the worst of all imaginable options for all of mankind.
The fact is that no matter how much the US Empire is hated, nobody wants to replace the current regimes in Kabul and Islamabad with an alliance Wahabi crazies armed with nuclear weapons. The easiest option to prevent this is to trigger and sustain a process of "Somalization" of the region. And that is a skill which the US Empire and, in particular, the CIA, truly excels at. That will also be the real mission of the US forces remaining in the region: maintain chaos and preventing the creation of a "Pashtunistan".
Next to the 68'000+ "chaos" forces we will also probably see "for profit" occupation forces (think Blackwater & Co. here) which will provide "security" for the various multi-national companies trying to exploit the country's natural resources (including opium). Bottom line: the US "withdrawal" from Afghanistan does not mean that the US Empire is "letting go", only that it is redefining its strategy in a manner more commensurate to its actual capabilities.
The Saker
Friday, February 18, 2011
What is that crazy bitch smoking?
Listen to these words of wisdom about the situation in Afghanistan:
"They face a stark choice between war and peace, as (...) military pressure on them mounts. They cannot defeat us. And they cannot escape this choice"
Who do you think said that? Mullah Omar? Hakimullah Mehsud? Maybe Osama himself (from the word beyond, IMHO)? Nope.
She is one hell of a joker, is she not? She seriously claims that she supported the Egyptian Revolution from day 1, that there is a bloodbath in Iran, but that the killings in Bahrain are only "deplorable" and now that: Hillary is telling the Taliban that they cannot defeat the USA! That at a time when the USA spend more time in Afghanistan than the USSR and when it has comprehensively been defeated (does anybody still remember the lame US campaigns in southern Afghanistan last year?).
I usually do not refer to ladies with the word "bitch", but after much consideration I think that this term is ideally suited for Hillary. She is clearly evil to the core, without even a minor trace of decency or honesty. She is nasty and bellicose in a way Maggie Thatcher was, but unlike Maggie, Hillary is all words, she cannot deliver on any of her threats. Maggie, for all her numerous other faults, at least had a bite which matched her bark. Hillary is a toothless barker, something rather pathetic.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
US Plutocrats even dumber than Soviet Gerontocrats
Amazing but true. The US invasion of Afghanistan is even longer than the Soviet one which lasted nine years and 50 days. Yesterday, the US beat this sad figure and the end of the US occupation is nowhere in sight.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
"Quand le bateau coule, les rats quittent le navire"
Amazing article on the BBC website this morning:
The top US commander in Afghanistan has apologised for a magazine article that mocks senior Obama administration officials and diplomats. Gen Stanley McChrystal said the article in Rolling Stone showed "poor judgement" and a lack of integrity.
In the article Gen McChrystal said he felt betrayed by US ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry. The general's aides mock Vice-President Joe Biden and say Gen McChrystal was "disappointed" in President Obama.
The Rolling Stone article - The Runaway General - is due out on Friday but Gen McChrystal has quickly sought to limit the damage. He said in a statement on Tuesday: "I extend my sincerest apology for this profile it was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never happened."
He adds: "Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honour and professional integrity. What is reflected in this article falls far short of that standard.
"I have enormous respect and admiration for President Obama and his national security team and for the civilian leaders and troops fighting this war and I remain committed to ensuring its successful outcome."
One of the main targets of the article appears to be Mr Eikenberry. Gen McChrystal says he felt "betrayed" by the ambassador during the White House debate on troop requests for Afghanistan.
Gen McChrystal suggests Mr Eikenberry was using a leaked internal memo that questioned the troop requests as a way to protect himself from future criticism over the deployment.
The general says: "I like Karl, I've known him for years, but they'd never said anything like that to us before. "Here's one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, 'I told you so'."
Gen McChrystal also appears to joke in response to a question about the vice-president.
"Are you asking about Vice-President Biden?" McChrystal asks. 'Who's that?" An aide then says: "Biden? Did you say: Bite Me?"
Another aide refers to a key Oval Office meeting with the president a year ago. The aide says it was "a 10-minute photo op", adding: "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was... he didn't seem very engaged. The boss was pretty disappointed."
Gen McChrystal himself says: "I found that time painful. I was selling an unsellable position."
Another aide refers to national security adviser, James Jones, as a "clown stuck in 1985".
Of an e-mail from US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke, Gen McChrystal says: "Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke... I don't even want to open it."
Last year's Afghan strategy review by the new president was detailed and drawn out, with Gen McChrystal finally getting an additional 30,000 US troops from Mr Obama. Analysts say Gen McChrystal disagreed with the pledge to start bringing troops home in July 2011.
-------
Commentary: The war in Afghanistan is the longest war in US history and a decade into this war, the best McChrystal recently had to say about it was that it was "a draw". The world's only global superpower fights to a decade and ends up in a "draw"?! Needless to say, that is an admission of DEFEAT and, as we all know from time immemorial, "Victory has a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan" and now the war in Afghanistan is clearly entering its last phase: the "CYOA phase".
The top US commander in Afghanistan has apologised for a magazine article that mocks senior Obama administration officials and diplomats. Gen Stanley McChrystal said the article in Rolling Stone showed "poor judgement" and a lack of integrity.
In the article Gen McChrystal said he felt betrayed by US ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry. The general's aides mock Vice-President Joe Biden and say Gen McChrystal was "disappointed" in President Obama.
The Rolling Stone article - The Runaway General - is due out on Friday but Gen McChrystal has quickly sought to limit the damage. He said in a statement on Tuesday: "I extend my sincerest apology for this profile it was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never happened."
He adds: "Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honour and professional integrity. What is reflected in this article falls far short of that standard.
"I have enormous respect and admiration for President Obama and his national security team and for the civilian leaders and troops fighting this war and I remain committed to ensuring its successful outcome."
One of the main targets of the article appears to be Mr Eikenberry. Gen McChrystal says he felt "betrayed" by the ambassador during the White House debate on troop requests for Afghanistan.
Gen McChrystal suggests Mr Eikenberry was using a leaked internal memo that questioned the troop requests as a way to protect himself from future criticism over the deployment.
The general says: "I like Karl, I've known him for years, but they'd never said anything like that to us before. "Here's one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, 'I told you so'."
Gen McChrystal also appears to joke in response to a question about the vice-president.
"Are you asking about Vice-President Biden?" McChrystal asks. 'Who's that?" An aide then says: "Biden? Did you say: Bite Me?"
Another aide refers to a key Oval Office meeting with the president a year ago. The aide says it was "a 10-minute photo op", adding: "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was... he didn't seem very engaged. The boss was pretty disappointed."
Gen McChrystal himself says: "I found that time painful. I was selling an unsellable position."
Another aide refers to national security adviser, James Jones, as a "clown stuck in 1985".
Of an e-mail from US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke, Gen McChrystal says: "Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke... I don't even want to open it."
Last year's Afghan strategy review by the new president was detailed and drawn out, with Gen McChrystal finally getting an additional 30,000 US troops from Mr Obama. Analysts say Gen McChrystal disagreed with the pledge to start bringing troops home in July 2011.
-------
Commentary: The war in Afghanistan is the longest war in US history and a decade into this war, the best McChrystal recently had to say about it was that it was "a draw". The world's only global superpower fights to a decade and ends up in a "draw"?! Needless to say, that is an admission of DEFEAT and, as we all know from time immemorial, "Victory has a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan" and now the war in Afghanistan is clearly entering its last phase: the "CYOA phase".
Friday, June 11, 2010
Afghanistan: Funding both sides
Delegates in Shangra-La pledge eternal war in Afghanistan, as the US creates new and very dangerous allies there, reports Eric Walberg
War junkies popped their champagne corks on 7 June to celebrate the 104th month of US military engagement in Afghanistan, America’s longest war in history (Vietnam lasted 103 months). Presumably they toasted the five NATO soldiers killed on 6 June. Troop deaths have skyrocketed this year and NATO forces are continuing to “mow the grass”, killing dozens of “Taliban” every day, and lots of civilians, though no one seems to know just how many of each or how to tell the difference. In any case, what’s the point of questioning numbers provided by those doing the killing?
Washington’s main ally looked like it was about to change its tune with the new Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition in Britain. After early hints that the British might follow the Dutch and Canadians and decamp from the failed war next year, Conservative Defence Secretary Liam Fox has now backtracked. At the appropriately named Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last week he asked himself, “Should we be there? And my answer was, unequivocally, still yes.”
The “still” speaks volumes. His colleague US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, also attending the Dialogue, clearly had given him a dressing down about the lack of enthusiasm Fox showed during his visit to Afghanistan two weeks ago. Fox had asked himself then what his troops were doing in a “broken 13th-century country”, and he and Foreign Secretary Hague answered -- without consulting with Gates -- that they should come home as soon as possible. This about-face caused not even a ripple in the Western media. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov mocked his fellow Shangri-La-ers by noting that soon NATO will beat the Soviet record there of ten years.
Meanwhile in Kabul, 1,600 delegates came to President Hamid Karzai’s loya jirga and endorsed his plan to seek peace with the Taliban, including an amnesty and job incentives to induce Taliban fighters to give up arms. Unfazed, Taliban militants greeted the jirga by launching three rockets at the gathering though no attendees were reported killed. The delegates were far outnumbered by the 12,000 security personnel. The Taliban issued a statement saying that the jirga did not represent the Afghan people and was aimed at securing the interest of foreigners. Even Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i-Islami called the conference a “useless exercise”.
The only outcome was that Karzai agreed to a review of all Taliban suspects being held in the country’s prisons and the release of any militant arrested on doubtful evidence. Oh, and he fired Interior Minister Hanif Atmar and General Director for National Security Amrullah Saleh for not preventing an attack on the jirga. Interestingly, both men were US favourites, and had earned a reputation for being reformists. Saleh -- I’m not making this up -- has been a CIA agent since the 1990s.
NATO, US and Afghan forces are proceeding with their biggest offensive yet in Kandahar. Foreign troop numbers will peak at 150,000 by August and by July 2011 will gradually be withdrawn according to US President Barack Obama’s plan. But whether Obama realises it or not, US generals are not planning to leave -- ever -- and America’s longest war is poised to become America’s first “everlasting war” in the words of Congressman Michael Honda.
No better evidence of this are Army building plans; in particular, the $100 million expansion of US Special Operations headquarters in Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan, and the 700 bases the US has built in the country. Construction on the new HQs is supposed to take a year, just when the US is supposedly to begin drawing down its forces in Afghanistan.
The latest innovations in US policy in Afghanistan to improve security are both foolish and dangerous. The lesser is the new 5,000 Afghan National Civil Order Police (ANCOP), the “cream” of the 104,000 member police force the West is paying for (an ancop gets more than double the regular cop’s $165 per month). It earned a resounding D- in Marja, where more than 300 ancops were deployed following the NATO surge, and were accused in a US report of “drug use, petty corruption and a lack of commitment” including abandoning or setting up illegal checkpoints to shake down motorists. “They refused to work at night, they refused to go out on patrols and refused to stand post more than three hours,” complained Staff Sargeant Joseph Wright.
The Yanks and their quislings almost started a war between themselves when US officials forced the Afghans to submit to urinalysis to weed out the dope smokers. Most of the ancops are Tajik who don’t speak Pashtun, and, dressed up and paid by the invaders, are as much the enemy to the Marja residents as the Americans. No wonder the ancops don’t want to patrol or work at night.
This attempt to build a western-style police force from recruits who have no use for the invaders except as milkcows pales beside the more “successful” US strategy to support private armies and warlords. They despise the Karzai government and will no doubt spawn the country’s future brutal military dictator who will, as a local leader at arms length from the invader, finally bring the country to heel. He may well be one Matiullah Khan, an illiterate former highway patrol commander, now the head of a private army that guards NATO supply convoys and fights Taliban insurgents alongside American Special Forces. He effectively controls the local government in Oruzgan Province, and has local officials “removed” if they aren’t up to scratch. “What should we do?” he asked the New York Times haughtily. “The officials are cowards and thieves.”
Matiullahs are sprouting up “like grass”, fertilised by huge cash payments from the Americans, loose cannons undermining the local governments which NATO is supposedly trying to strengthen, spreading violence and chaos when thwarted. Matiullah now completely controls the US supply route, opening the highway from Kandahar one day a week, charging $1200 per truck and “earning” (read: extorting) $2.5 million a month for his ragtag band of mercenaries. He even charges simple Afghans a toll for use of the public road. The Ministry of the Interior pays for 600 of his 1,500 fighters, despite the fact that the force is not under the government’s control. “Matiullah is not part of the government, he is stronger than the government, and he can do anything he wants,” said Essa, a tribal elder in Tirin Kot.
Matiullah’s operation is one of at least 23 private security companies working in the Kandahar area alone, which Karzai's brother Ahmed, Kandahar's official warlord, is now bringing together under his control. These mercenaries kill people who refuse to use their "security services" and one Ruhullah has even destroyed entire villages. They bribe the Taliban to allow safe passage, enlist them to do their dirty work, and, like Ahmed Karzai himself, are involved in the opium trade.
In a dispute over territory and cash, Karzai's cousin Rashid Popal, head of another such private army/ security company, Watan Risk Management and Compass Security, was caught red-handed colluding with Taliban, allowing them to attack a convoy headed for Kabul in which a Afghan driver and a soldier were killed and their truck burned. Within two weeks, and with more than 1,000 trucks backed up, Karzai allowed his dear cousin to resume his "safeguarding".
“We’re funding both sides of the war,” a NATO official in Kabul said. Matiullah's US paymaster General Carter said he fears that the legions of unregulated Afghan security companies have a financial interest in prolonging chaos. Well, yes. And is the Pope Catholic?
What seems to be the real US policy in the AfPak region is something along the lines of:
*quell the Taliban in AfPak with Pakistan’s help (Pakistan’s defence budge will increase 17 per cent next year, funded largely by the US)
*keep Afghanistan in a state of low-level war that justifies long term NATO presence
*bring Pakistan and India together enough to create a sense of stability in the region under US hegemony.
Either Obama is a very smooth liar or he is being duped by his military with their new HQs and 700 bases. Maybe he’s playing a new kind of “chicken” with them, gambling that they will fail spectacularly due to the creative use of US dollars by both sides in Afghanistan (and Pakistan?), and will have to throw in the towel, letting him proceed to rebuild America without their manic delusions of world conquest. That would make him a devil’s advocate at best. Otherwise, he will join Karzai’s “cowards and thieves” in the history books.
***
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/
URLs for article
come home as soon as possible
http://ericwalberg.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=257
ten years
http://ericwalberg.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=126
Hizb-i-Islami
http://ericwalberg.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=247
Kandahar
http://ericwalberg.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=242
Marja
http://ericwalberg.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=230
AfPak region
http://ericwalberg.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=200
War junkies popped their champagne corks on 7 June to celebrate the 104th month of US military engagement in Afghanistan, America’s longest war in history (Vietnam lasted 103 months). Presumably they toasted the five NATO soldiers killed on 6 June. Troop deaths have skyrocketed this year and NATO forces are continuing to “mow the grass”, killing dozens of “Taliban” every day, and lots of civilians, though no one seems to know just how many of each or how to tell the difference. In any case, what’s the point of questioning numbers provided by those doing the killing?
Washington’s main ally looked like it was about to change its tune with the new Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition in Britain. After early hints that the British might follow the Dutch and Canadians and decamp from the failed war next year, Conservative Defence Secretary Liam Fox has now backtracked. At the appropriately named Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last week he asked himself, “Should we be there? And my answer was, unequivocally, still yes.”
The “still” speaks volumes. His colleague US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, also attending the Dialogue, clearly had given him a dressing down about the lack of enthusiasm Fox showed during his visit to Afghanistan two weeks ago. Fox had asked himself then what his troops were doing in a “broken 13th-century country”, and he and Foreign Secretary Hague answered -- without consulting with Gates -- that they should come home as soon as possible. This about-face caused not even a ripple in the Western media. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov mocked his fellow Shangri-La-ers by noting that soon NATO will beat the Soviet record there of ten years.
Meanwhile in Kabul, 1,600 delegates came to President Hamid Karzai’s loya jirga and endorsed his plan to seek peace with the Taliban, including an amnesty and job incentives to induce Taliban fighters to give up arms. Unfazed, Taliban militants greeted the jirga by launching three rockets at the gathering though no attendees were reported killed. The delegates were far outnumbered by the 12,000 security personnel. The Taliban issued a statement saying that the jirga did not represent the Afghan people and was aimed at securing the interest of foreigners. Even Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i-Islami called the conference a “useless exercise”.
The only outcome was that Karzai agreed to a review of all Taliban suspects being held in the country’s prisons and the release of any militant arrested on doubtful evidence. Oh, and he fired Interior Minister Hanif Atmar and General Director for National Security Amrullah Saleh for not preventing an attack on the jirga. Interestingly, both men were US favourites, and had earned a reputation for being reformists. Saleh -- I’m not making this up -- has been a CIA agent since the 1990s.
NATO, US and Afghan forces are proceeding with their biggest offensive yet in Kandahar. Foreign troop numbers will peak at 150,000 by August and by July 2011 will gradually be withdrawn according to US President Barack Obama’s plan. But whether Obama realises it or not, US generals are not planning to leave -- ever -- and America’s longest war is poised to become America’s first “everlasting war” in the words of Congressman Michael Honda.
No better evidence of this are Army building plans; in particular, the $100 million expansion of US Special Operations headquarters in Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan, and the 700 bases the US has built in the country. Construction on the new HQs is supposed to take a year, just when the US is supposedly to begin drawing down its forces in Afghanistan.
The latest innovations in US policy in Afghanistan to improve security are both foolish and dangerous. The lesser is the new 5,000 Afghan National Civil Order Police (ANCOP), the “cream” of the 104,000 member police force the West is paying for (an ancop gets more than double the regular cop’s $165 per month). It earned a resounding D- in Marja, where more than 300 ancops were deployed following the NATO surge, and were accused in a US report of “drug use, petty corruption and a lack of commitment” including abandoning or setting up illegal checkpoints to shake down motorists. “They refused to work at night, they refused to go out on patrols and refused to stand post more than three hours,” complained Staff Sargeant Joseph Wright.
The Yanks and their quislings almost started a war between themselves when US officials forced the Afghans to submit to urinalysis to weed out the dope smokers. Most of the ancops are Tajik who don’t speak Pashtun, and, dressed up and paid by the invaders, are as much the enemy to the Marja residents as the Americans. No wonder the ancops don’t want to patrol or work at night.
This attempt to build a western-style police force from recruits who have no use for the invaders except as milkcows pales beside the more “successful” US strategy to support private armies and warlords. They despise the Karzai government and will no doubt spawn the country’s future brutal military dictator who will, as a local leader at arms length from the invader, finally bring the country to heel. He may well be one Matiullah Khan, an illiterate former highway patrol commander, now the head of a private army that guards NATO supply convoys and fights Taliban insurgents alongside American Special Forces. He effectively controls the local government in Oruzgan Province, and has local officials “removed” if they aren’t up to scratch. “What should we do?” he asked the New York Times haughtily. “The officials are cowards and thieves.”
Matiullahs are sprouting up “like grass”, fertilised by huge cash payments from the Americans, loose cannons undermining the local governments which NATO is supposedly trying to strengthen, spreading violence and chaos when thwarted. Matiullah now completely controls the US supply route, opening the highway from Kandahar one day a week, charging $1200 per truck and “earning” (read: extorting) $2.5 million a month for his ragtag band of mercenaries. He even charges simple Afghans a toll for use of the public road. The Ministry of the Interior pays for 600 of his 1,500 fighters, despite the fact that the force is not under the government’s control. “Matiullah is not part of the government, he is stronger than the government, and he can do anything he wants,” said Essa, a tribal elder in Tirin Kot.
Matiullah’s operation is one of at least 23 private security companies working in the Kandahar area alone, which Karzai's brother Ahmed, Kandahar's official warlord, is now bringing together under his control. These mercenaries kill people who refuse to use their "security services" and one Ruhullah has even destroyed entire villages. They bribe the Taliban to allow safe passage, enlist them to do their dirty work, and, like Ahmed Karzai himself, are involved in the opium trade.
In a dispute over territory and cash, Karzai's cousin Rashid Popal, head of another such private army/ security company, Watan Risk Management and Compass Security, was caught red-handed colluding with Taliban, allowing them to attack a convoy headed for Kabul in which a Afghan driver and a soldier were killed and their truck burned. Within two weeks, and with more than 1,000 trucks backed up, Karzai allowed his dear cousin to resume his "safeguarding".
“We’re funding both sides of the war,” a NATO official in Kabul said. Matiullah's US paymaster General Carter said he fears that the legions of unregulated Afghan security companies have a financial interest in prolonging chaos. Well, yes. And is the Pope Catholic?
What seems to be the real US policy in the AfPak region is something along the lines of:
*quell the Taliban in AfPak with Pakistan’s help (Pakistan’s defence budge will increase 17 per cent next year, funded largely by the US)
*keep Afghanistan in a state of low-level war that justifies long term NATO presence
*bring Pakistan and India together enough to create a sense of stability in the region under US hegemony.
Either Obama is a very smooth liar or he is being duped by his military with their new HQs and 700 bases. Maybe he’s playing a new kind of “chicken” with them, gambling that they will fail spectacularly due to the creative use of US dollars by both sides in Afghanistan (and Pakistan?), and will have to throw in the towel, letting him proceed to rebuild America without their manic delusions of world conquest. That would make him a devil’s advocate at best. Otherwise, he will join Karzai’s “cowards and thieves” in the history books.
***
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/
URLs for article
come home as soon as possible
http://ericwalberg.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=257
ten years
http://ericwalberg.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=126
Hizb-i-Islami
http://ericwalberg.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=247
Kandahar
http://ericwalberg.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=242
Marja
http://ericwalberg.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=230
AfPak region
http://ericwalberg.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=200
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Afghanistan: Reading between the lines
The new coalition in Westminster is parsing all the words about Afghanistan and coming up with a very different interpretation, says Eric Walberg
The movement to “get the troops out now!” has found unlikely converts in the form of the Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition in Britain . The election campaign suggested nothing new could be expected from any of the parties on Afghanistan, despite the fact that over 70 per cent of Britons want the troops home.
So eyebrows were raised with the news that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was Prime Minister David Cameron’s first visitor at Chequers. They went higher still when Foreign Minister William Hague made his first foreign destination Kabul, where he called for the withdrawal of troops as soon as possible.
Accompanying Hague, Tory Defence Secretary Liam Fox seconded the new approach, saying, “We have to reset expectations and timelines. National security is the focus now. We are not a global policeman. We are not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th century country. We are there so the people of Britain and our global interests are not threatened.”
Britain ’s new coalition government also announced it would reduce the defence budget by at least 25 per cent as part of massive cuts across the board to try to save the bankrupt British economy.
Cleverly taking advantage of the electorate’s revulsion with the war, Hague’s bold call for withdrawal was no doubt sparked by Karzai’s address at the US Institute of Peace last week, where he once again predicted an extended US commitment to Afghanistan that would last “beyond the military activity right now … into the future, long after we have retired, and perhaps into our grandsons’ and great-grandsons’ — and great-granddaughters’ — generations. This is something the Afghan people have been seeking for a long, long time.” Clearly, unlike the unborn great-granddaughters of Afghans, the Brits want no part of any such plans.
The only way withdrawal will be possible, of course, is if accommodation is reached with the Taliban. So it is no surprise that talk of peace talks continues to make headlines. What was referred to by Al-Jazeera as the second meeting between Taliban and Afghan government officials hosted by the Maldives (a Muslim statelet that actually issues visas to Afghans on arrival) took place last week. It was organised by Feroz and Jarir Hekmatyar, the son and son-in-law of Gulbadin Hekmatyar, an Afghan warlord and leader of the insignificant Hezb-e-Islami party.
Karzai was rumoured to be unhappy that the talks are taking place, but nonetheless sent observers. Hekmatyar sent a delegation to Kabul for talks in March, clearly trying to use the opportunity to upstage the main Taliban opposition.
Qari Zia-ur-Rehman, a Taliban commander in Kunar province, told Pakistan’s The News, “The reports of negotiations between the Islamic Emirate and Karzai regime are bogus and no leader of the Islamic Emirate is engaged in talks with the puppet administration in Kabul,” reiterating that the unconditional and immediate withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan was a precondition for any peace talks. He explained that Karzai is using such talks as a ruse to convince the US that he can divide the Taliban and negotiate them into submission. Former Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence director Hamid Gul asks, “How can Taliban hold talks with a government which has never been recognised by them?”
Western officials were not present at the non-talks though the US State Department said it was aware of them. “We continue to support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect human rights of their fellow citizens,” US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley droned.
The meeting comes ahead of a grand jirga of Afghan tribal and community leaders, to be hosted by Karzai, which will demand the insurgents lay down their arms and accept asylum in another Islamic country from where they can negotiate with the Afghan government. The jirga, already postponed twice, is scheduled for 2 June and will last only three days. No representatives of the Taliban are due to attend.
There is little incentive for the Taliban to cave in to pressures to disband, visit sunny Maldives or retire to even sunnier Saudi Arabia . Kabul MP and former presidential candidate Ramazan Bashardost last week called for NATO troops to evacuate Kabul to avoid further civilian casualties. The call came two days after a suicide bomber rammed a convoy of NATO forces in Kabul , killing 12 civilians and six foreign soldiers, including visiting Canadian Colonel Geoff Parker. But if NATO troops can’t function in Kabul — the only part of the country the Karzai government “controls” — when can they function?
After the NATO campaign in Marja, it is once again in Taliban hands in all but name. As the Taliban launch their spring offensive, talk is of the Taliban “surge” as opposed to the would-be NATO one. NATO casualties have been increasing at an alarming rate, with the year’s NATO toll 215. The number of British troops killed and wounded in Afghanistan has more than doubled compared to last year. The 200,000 rupee bounty Taliban fighters are awarded for each NATO soldier killed is paying off.
Another Canadian officer, Daniel Menard, is to direct this summer’s NATO campaign in Kandahar and Panjwaii, where troops from the Royal Canadian Regiment will take the lead. “This conflict is our D-Day,” boasted this colonial representative of Queen Elizabeth II, great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria , who presided over the British invasions of Afghanistan in the 19th century. In his obscene comparison between the liberation of occupied France in WWII and the US occupation of Afghanistan , Menar added, “The first guys on the beach here are the Canadians.”
But the Canadians are very much high-and-dry after their base in Kandahar came under heavy attack three times in the past week and as they solemnly hoist the flag-draped coffin of their unfortunate guest Colonel Parker aboard a jet for Canada. To expect that they and the Karzai government will prevail is a fantasy which surely no one any longer believes.None of the 130,000 foreign troops has any understanding of Afghanistan ’s culture and traditions, or even speaks one of the local languages. Their only communication with locals is through the barrel of a gun. Only six per cent of locals polled support the current Kandahar offensive. Afghans can only take pride in repelling these unwanted invaders.
As if a sign from Allah, Hague and British media idol David Beckham had their flight to Kandahar diverted mid-air to Helmand province, when the Kandahar airport came under attack. Rather than Karzai, it is Bashardost, the angry British troops and their mounting body count that Cameron and Hague are now heeding, and it is about time.
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The Afghan ant hole
NATO plans for Afghanistan this year are shaping up nicely: negotiate with the Taliban, but at the same time kill them in Kandahar and Kunduz, observes Eric Walberg
A joint operation involving several thousand troops was launched in Kandahar last week, the second one this year after Operation Mushtarak in Helmand province. Kandahar has been the bailiwick of 2,500 contingent of Canadian troops who have suffered heavy losses in this mountainous home of the Taliban. It is ruled by a Canadian national, Governor Tooryalai Wesa , a close friend of President Hamid Karzai’s brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, chairman of the Kandahar provincial council, infamous for his involvement in the drug trade.
Already, there are strong indications from Marja, that the new offensive will soon run into trouble. The Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing there two weeks ago that killed 35. Though Marja now has one coalition soldier or policeman for every eight residents, after dark the city is like “the kingdom of the Taliban”, said a tribal elder in Marja. “The government and international forces cannot defend anyone even one kilometre from their bases.”
The new governor of Marja, Haji Abdul Zahir, like Wesa, a foreign national (German) parachuted in by the occupation forces, said the militants post “night letters” at mosques and on utility poles and hold meetings in randomly selected homes, demanding that residents turn over the names of collaborators. The Taliban “still have a lot of sympathy among the people.” Zahir has no idea how many Taliban are still in Marja. “It’s like an ant hole. When you look into an ant hole, who knows how many ants there are?”
Marja district MP Walid Jan Sabir scoffed at Zahir’s denial that the Taliban were beheading collaborators. “He is not from the area and he is only staying in his office, so he doesn’t know what is happening.” He predicts the situation will deteriorate and return to “chaos” as “the Taliban and Marja residents all have beards and turbans so it’s impossible to distinguish them.”
Will these campaigns in Marja, Kandahar and Kunduz subdue the Taliban and bring them to the negotiating table table (note: the recently announced talks with Hezb-e-Islami are an empty gesture), the newly professed strategy of the occupiers? It should not be forgotten that Karzai himself was a member of the Taliban government from 1995-98, before Unicol hired him as an insider to try to clinch an oil pipeline deal. His effortless transition to US protege suggests he was probably already on the US payroll, along with his less reputable colleague Osama bin Laden. Though Karzai sees negotiations as the only way out, comments by other ex-Taliban officials who have cast their lot with the occupiers, however reluctantly, are not encouraging.
The leading coopted Taliban, Abdul Salam Zaeef, holds no hope whatsoever. Zaeef was the Taliban’s minister of transportation until he became ambassador to Pakistan. His post-911 news conferences, where he condemned the attacks, insisted Osama bin Laden was not responsible, and offered to send him to a third country for trial, are now the stuff of legend. Despite his diplomatic immunity, he was arrested, held at Bagram and Guantanamo, and, according to his hot-off-the-Columbia-University-press My Life with the Taliban, tortured.
He was released in 2005 and returned to Afghanistan, where he was installed in an upscale home around the corner from ex-Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil and lives more-or-less under house arrest. In 2007 he called for a unity government and negotiations with the Taliban, no doubt at the prompting of his beleaguered former comrade-in-arms Karzai. However, in a recent interview, he gave no hope for the reconciliation process, as the US is “a monster” that is “selfish, reckless and cruel”, and the “reintegration process will further strengthen the Taliban.”
Hakim Mujahed, a former Taliban ambassador to the United Nations, reconciled with Karzai several years ago, and is currently the head of a Taliban splinter group Jamiat-i-Khuddamul Furqan, which still has not been incorporated into the US-controlled Afghan political process. He told the US-funded Radio Free Afghanistan that reconciling with the Taliban through a traditional Loya Jirga will not work “as long as the foreign powers – the United States and Britain in particular – don’t agree with this. The first important thing is to lift the sanctions on the leaders of the armed opposition. They are blacklisted and multimillion-dollar rewards are offered for them.” He wants Saudi Arabia to mediate. Clearly with Zaeef in mind, he argues that if a Taliban were to attend a Loya Jirga, “he might get captured the next day and end up in Guantanamo Bay. Our president has no authority to even release somebody from Bagram.”
Mulla Salam defected to the government three years ago in Helmand and was made district administrator of his native Musa Qala district as a reward. He bitterly sees the British occupation as a blatant act of revenge for their defeats in Afghanistan in the 19th century and regrets his decision, like Mujahed calling Karzai a powerless president. “We are still slaves. Foreign advisers are sitting in the offices.” He complains that no Afghan minister can even visit Helmand without the permission of British military commanders. The British troops “haven’t served our people and have yet to build schools or mosques in Musa Qala.” Poor Salam’s days are numbered as he has barely survived several assassination attempts. There will be no “reconciliation” for the likes of him.
Then there is Abdul Ghani Baradar – second in command only to Taliban leader Mohammed Omar – whose recent capture in Karachi was hailed by the US as a sign that Pakistan was getting serious at last. His arrest appears to have backfired big time. Not only has Pakistan refused to extradict him, but Karzai is apparently furious over the capture, as he was supposedly negotiating with Baradar to split the Taliban and coopt moderates.
Former UN special representative to Afghanistan Kai Eide, who stepped down this month (in disgust?), asserted last week that the arrest was a huge mistake, stopping a secret ongoing channel of communications with the UN, and revealed that he had been holding talks with senior Taliban figures for the past year in Dubai and other locations. He suggested Pakistan was deliberately trying to undermine the negotiations, as it ultimately wants to control the political landscape in Afghanistan, however rocky and dangerous for its own stability. “I don’t believe these people were arrested by coincidence. The [Pakistanis] must have known who they were, what kind of role they were playing,” adding it would now take a long time before there was enough confidence between both sides to really move forward.
“I see no evidence to support that theory,” immediately harrumphed US envoy to AfPak Richard Holbrooke, insisting that the US had no involvement in any of Eide’s talks, and knew of them only in a “general way”. In line with the Washington line, he heaped praise on Pakistan for the capture. At the same time, he welcomed “reconciliation of all Afghans”, whatever that could possibly mean. Of course, Pakistan protests its innocence, understandably preferring the American version of events. It just happens to have presented Washington with a multi-billion dollar bill for its selfless battle in the “war on terror”. Publically at least, Karzai is all smiles, calling (ominously?) Pakistan a “twin” during a visit to Islamabad last week.
A bizarre theory about the capture promoted by McChrystal is that Baradar, deemed more pragmatic than other top Taliban leaders, was “detained” to split him from fellow insurgents. McChrystal said recently that it was plausible that Baradar’s arrest followed an internal purge among Taliban leaders, that Omar himself, angry about Baradar’s negotiations with Karzai or the UN or whoever, squealed on him and tipped off Pakistani intelligence officials. But both McChrystal and Holbrooke are so out-of-touch with reality that we can probably safely assume that the opposite of what they say about anything.
During his trip to Afghanistan last week, Defence Secretary Robert Gates – the guy who in fact calls the shots – made the real US policy clear. He said it was premature to expect senior members of the Taliban to reconcile with the government, that until the insurgents believe they can’t win the war, they won’t come to the table. Said Heritage Institute researcher Lisa Curtis ghoulishly, “The military surge should be given time to bear fruit.”
The purpose of undermining the feeble attempts by Karzai or Pakistan or the UN or Bob’s-your-uncle to undermine the resistance is hard to fathom, considering that negotiations are now part of US policy. At the pompous London conference on Afghanistan in January, US advisers even came up with the very American idea of simply bribing them with a cool half billion greenbacks, a strategy that Russian officials (tongue-in-cheek?) also have urged on the Americans.
A key US protege in the Pakistan military with close contacts with the Taliban in Pakistan, Colonel Imam, said the idea of paying members of the Taliban to change sides would not work and only bogus figures would come forward. “It is shameful for a superpower to bribe.” He seconds Zaeef’s conclusion that negotiations, like Lisa’s strategy of mass murder, are fruitless. "The Taliban cannot be defeated and they will not be weakened by the recent capture of even senior commanders such as Baradar.
“The movement is so devolved that commanders on the ground make most of their own decisions and can raise money and arrange for weapons supplies themselves. The Taliban cannot be forced out, you cannot subjugate them,” he said. “But they can tire the Americans.” Obama is “doing what you should never do in military strategy, reinforcing the error. They will have more convoys, more planes, more supply convoys, and the insurgents will have a bigger target. The insurgents are very happy.” Of all the thousands of men he trained, he said, religious students like Mullah Omar were the most “formidable” opponents because of their commitment.
Hamid Gul, a former director of the Pakistani intelligence service, says the insurgents want three things from the US before talks could begin – a clearer timetable on the withdrawal of troops, an end to labelling them terrorists, and the release of all Taliban militants imprisoned in Pakistan and Afghanistan. What could be more obvious?
So Mr Obama, even if you ignore your own loyal opposition in Congress, where a motion to withdraw immediately garnered both Democratic and Republican support 10 March, even if you ignore the thousands of loyal Americans who marched on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq 20 March, calling for the same, please listen to these voices of reason.
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/
A joint operation involving several thousand troops was launched in Kandahar last week, the second one this year after Operation Mushtarak in Helmand province. Kandahar has been the bailiwick of 2,500 contingent of Canadian troops who have suffered heavy losses in this mountainous home of the Taliban. It is ruled by a Canadian national, Governor Tooryalai Wesa , a close friend of President Hamid Karzai’s brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, chairman of the Kandahar provincial council, infamous for his involvement in the drug trade.
Already, there are strong indications from Marja, that the new offensive will soon run into trouble. The Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing there two weeks ago that killed 35. Though Marja now has one coalition soldier or policeman for every eight residents, after dark the city is like “the kingdom of the Taliban”, said a tribal elder in Marja. “The government and international forces cannot defend anyone even one kilometre from their bases.”
The new governor of Marja, Haji Abdul Zahir, like Wesa, a foreign national (German) parachuted in by the occupation forces, said the militants post “night letters” at mosques and on utility poles and hold meetings in randomly selected homes, demanding that residents turn over the names of collaborators. The Taliban “still have a lot of sympathy among the people.” Zahir has no idea how many Taliban are still in Marja. “It’s like an ant hole. When you look into an ant hole, who knows how many ants there are?”
Marja district MP Walid Jan Sabir scoffed at Zahir’s denial that the Taliban were beheading collaborators. “He is not from the area and he is only staying in his office, so he doesn’t know what is happening.” He predicts the situation will deteriorate and return to “chaos” as “the Taliban and Marja residents all have beards and turbans so it’s impossible to distinguish them.”
Will these campaigns in Marja, Kandahar and Kunduz subdue the Taliban and bring them to the negotiating table table (note: the recently announced talks with Hezb-e-Islami are an empty gesture), the newly professed strategy of the occupiers? It should not be forgotten that Karzai himself was a member of the Taliban government from 1995-98, before Unicol hired him as an insider to try to clinch an oil pipeline deal. His effortless transition to US protege suggests he was probably already on the US payroll, along with his less reputable colleague Osama bin Laden. Though Karzai sees negotiations as the only way out, comments by other ex-Taliban officials who have cast their lot with the occupiers, however reluctantly, are not encouraging.
The leading coopted Taliban, Abdul Salam Zaeef, holds no hope whatsoever. Zaeef was the Taliban’s minister of transportation until he became ambassador to Pakistan. His post-911 news conferences, where he condemned the attacks, insisted Osama bin Laden was not responsible, and offered to send him to a third country for trial, are now the stuff of legend. Despite his diplomatic immunity, he was arrested, held at Bagram and Guantanamo, and, according to his hot-off-the-Columbia-University-press My Life with the Taliban, tortured.
He was released in 2005 and returned to Afghanistan, where he was installed in an upscale home around the corner from ex-Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil and lives more-or-less under house arrest. In 2007 he called for a unity government and negotiations with the Taliban, no doubt at the prompting of his beleaguered former comrade-in-arms Karzai. However, in a recent interview, he gave no hope for the reconciliation process, as the US is “a monster” that is “selfish, reckless and cruel”, and the “reintegration process will further strengthen the Taliban.”
Hakim Mujahed, a former Taliban ambassador to the United Nations, reconciled with Karzai several years ago, and is currently the head of a Taliban splinter group Jamiat-i-Khuddamul Furqan, which still has not been incorporated into the US-controlled Afghan political process. He told the US-funded Radio Free Afghanistan that reconciling with the Taliban through a traditional Loya Jirga will not work “as long as the foreign powers – the United States and Britain in particular – don’t agree with this. The first important thing is to lift the sanctions on the leaders of the armed opposition. They are blacklisted and multimillion-dollar rewards are offered for them.” He wants Saudi Arabia to mediate. Clearly with Zaeef in mind, he argues that if a Taliban were to attend a Loya Jirga, “he might get captured the next day and end up in Guantanamo Bay. Our president has no authority to even release somebody from Bagram.”
Mulla Salam defected to the government three years ago in Helmand and was made district administrator of his native Musa Qala district as a reward. He bitterly sees the British occupation as a blatant act of revenge for their defeats in Afghanistan in the 19th century and regrets his decision, like Mujahed calling Karzai a powerless president. “We are still slaves. Foreign advisers are sitting in the offices.” He complains that no Afghan minister can even visit Helmand without the permission of British military commanders. The British troops “haven’t served our people and have yet to build schools or mosques in Musa Qala.” Poor Salam’s days are numbered as he has barely survived several assassination attempts. There will be no “reconciliation” for the likes of him.
Then there is Abdul Ghani Baradar – second in command only to Taliban leader Mohammed Omar – whose recent capture in Karachi was hailed by the US as a sign that Pakistan was getting serious at last. His arrest appears to have backfired big time. Not only has Pakistan refused to extradict him, but Karzai is apparently furious over the capture, as he was supposedly negotiating with Baradar to split the Taliban and coopt moderates.
Former UN special representative to Afghanistan Kai Eide, who stepped down this month (in disgust?), asserted last week that the arrest was a huge mistake, stopping a secret ongoing channel of communications with the UN, and revealed that he had been holding talks with senior Taliban figures for the past year in Dubai and other locations. He suggested Pakistan was deliberately trying to undermine the negotiations, as it ultimately wants to control the political landscape in Afghanistan, however rocky and dangerous for its own stability. “I don’t believe these people were arrested by coincidence. The [Pakistanis] must have known who they were, what kind of role they were playing,” adding it would now take a long time before there was enough confidence between both sides to really move forward.
“I see no evidence to support that theory,” immediately harrumphed US envoy to AfPak Richard Holbrooke, insisting that the US had no involvement in any of Eide’s talks, and knew of them only in a “general way”. In line with the Washington line, he heaped praise on Pakistan for the capture. At the same time, he welcomed “reconciliation of all Afghans”, whatever that could possibly mean. Of course, Pakistan protests its innocence, understandably preferring the American version of events. It just happens to have presented Washington with a multi-billion dollar bill for its selfless battle in the “war on terror”. Publically at least, Karzai is all smiles, calling (ominously?) Pakistan a “twin” during a visit to Islamabad last week.
A bizarre theory about the capture promoted by McChrystal is that Baradar, deemed more pragmatic than other top Taliban leaders, was “detained” to split him from fellow insurgents. McChrystal said recently that it was plausible that Baradar’s arrest followed an internal purge among Taliban leaders, that Omar himself, angry about Baradar’s negotiations with Karzai or the UN or whoever, squealed on him and tipped off Pakistani intelligence officials. But both McChrystal and Holbrooke are so out-of-touch with reality that we can probably safely assume that the opposite of what they say about anything.
During his trip to Afghanistan last week, Defence Secretary Robert Gates – the guy who in fact calls the shots – made the real US policy clear. He said it was premature to expect senior members of the Taliban to reconcile with the government, that until the insurgents believe they can’t win the war, they won’t come to the table. Said Heritage Institute researcher Lisa Curtis ghoulishly, “The military surge should be given time to bear fruit.”
The purpose of undermining the feeble attempts by Karzai or Pakistan or the UN or Bob’s-your-uncle to undermine the resistance is hard to fathom, considering that negotiations are now part of US policy. At the pompous London conference on Afghanistan in January, US advisers even came up with the very American idea of simply bribing them with a cool half billion greenbacks, a strategy that Russian officials (tongue-in-cheek?) also have urged on the Americans.
A key US protege in the Pakistan military with close contacts with the Taliban in Pakistan, Colonel Imam, said the idea of paying members of the Taliban to change sides would not work and only bogus figures would come forward. “It is shameful for a superpower to bribe.” He seconds Zaeef’s conclusion that negotiations, like Lisa’s strategy of mass murder, are fruitless. "The Taliban cannot be defeated and they will not be weakened by the recent capture of even senior commanders such as Baradar.
“The movement is so devolved that commanders on the ground make most of their own decisions and can raise money and arrange for weapons supplies themselves. The Taliban cannot be forced out, you cannot subjugate them,” he said. “But they can tire the Americans.” Obama is “doing what you should never do in military strategy, reinforcing the error. They will have more convoys, more planes, more supply convoys, and the insurgents will have a bigger target. The insurgents are very happy.” Of all the thousands of men he trained, he said, religious students like Mullah Omar were the most “formidable” opponents because of their commitment.
Hamid Gul, a former director of the Pakistani intelligence service, says the insurgents want three things from the US before talks could begin – a clearer timetable on the withdrawal of troops, an end to labelling them terrorists, and the release of all Taliban militants imprisoned in Pakistan and Afghanistan. What could be more obvious?
So Mr Obama, even if you ignore your own loyal opposition in Congress, where a motion to withdraw immediately garnered both Democratic and Republican support 10 March, even if you ignore the thousands of loyal Americans who marched on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq 20 March, calling for the same, please listen to these voices of reason.
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Statement From The Afghan Resistance
Statement of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan regarding monopolization of activities of Mass Media Outlets by the Puppet Administration.
By Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
March 03, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- According to international media reports, the Kabul Puppet Administration have warned media outlets not to publish or transmit live reports of events without obtainment of prior permission. In case of violation, they have threatened to arrest relevant reporters, seize their equipment and impose ban on activities of the concerned media outlet in a given area. International media outlets, civil societies and human rights organizations have condemned the irrational warning of the Kabul puppet administration. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers this measure of the surrogate administration as a flagrant violation of the recognized principle of freedom of speech and wants to announce as follows:
1. The ban on independent mass media outlets by the Puppet Administration is, in fact, an effort by the surrogates to put a clout on their failure and shameful fiascos, which they face during confrontations with the Mujahideen in every part of the country.
2. The monopolization of activities of independent mass media outlets by the Kabul Puppet Administration is a clear-cut violation of norms and regulation of neutrality, independence and liberty of speech and has no justification in the light of national and international laws.
3. The said unjustified step of the Kabul Puppet Administration, defacto, originates from the anti-human attitude of their masters i.e. the Americans, who are bent on imposing their dictatorship and the so-called abhorrent liberty on independent nations.
4. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan while inviting all activists of mass media to accurately publish ground realities, highly appreciates the courageous efforts of the fact-finding and investigative journalists, reporters and photographers who continue their duty to reflect the ground realities of the Afghans issue despite threats and obstacles that they are facing in their way.
5. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, pertinent to its previous request, urges all employees of independent and neutral media outlets to initially observe the losses inflicted on the invaders by the Mujahideen and the destruction caused to public properties by the invaders and then transmit or publish their reports for the judgment of the public of the world. This as a part of their obligation to fulfill their journalistic mission and convey the true picture of events to the people of the world without any inclination to support the aggression of the invaders.
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
By Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
March 03, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- According to international media reports, the Kabul Puppet Administration have warned media outlets not to publish or transmit live reports of events without obtainment of prior permission. In case of violation, they have threatened to arrest relevant reporters, seize their equipment and impose ban on activities of the concerned media outlet in a given area. International media outlets, civil societies and human rights organizations have condemned the irrational warning of the Kabul puppet administration. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers this measure of the surrogate administration as a flagrant violation of the recognized principle of freedom of speech and wants to announce as follows:
1. The ban on independent mass media outlets by the Puppet Administration is, in fact, an effort by the surrogates to put a clout on their failure and shameful fiascos, which they face during confrontations with the Mujahideen in every part of the country.
2. The monopolization of activities of independent mass media outlets by the Kabul Puppet Administration is a clear-cut violation of norms and regulation of neutrality, independence and liberty of speech and has no justification in the light of national and international laws.
3. The said unjustified step of the Kabul Puppet Administration, defacto, originates from the anti-human attitude of their masters i.e. the Americans, who are bent on imposing their dictatorship and the so-called abhorrent liberty on independent nations.
4. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan while inviting all activists of mass media to accurately publish ground realities, highly appreciates the courageous efforts of the fact-finding and investigative journalists, reporters and photographers who continue their duty to reflect the ground realities of the Afghans issue despite threats and obstacles that they are facing in their way.
5. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, pertinent to its previous request, urges all employees of independent and neutral media outlets to initially observe the losses inflicted on the invaders by the Mujahideen and the destruction caused to public properties by the invaders and then transmit or publish their reports for the judgment of the public of the world. This as a part of their obligation to fulfill their journalistic mission and convey the true picture of events to the people of the world without any inclination to support the aggression of the invaders.
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Media Banned from Covering Taliban Attacks in Afghanistan
Democracy Now reports:
Afghanistan has banned the news media from covering Taliban attacks. The announcement came on a day when NATO-led forces reported six of its service members had been killed in various attacks. Under the new rules, journalists will be allowed to film only the aftermath of attacks, when given permission by Afghanistan’s spy agency. Journalists who film while attacks are underway will be held and their gear seized. The new rule has been denounced by Afghan journalism and rights groups.
Afghanistan has banned the news media from covering Taliban attacks. The announcement came on a day when NATO-led forces reported six of its service members had been killed in various attacks. Under the new rules, journalists will be allowed to film only the aftermath of attacks, when given permission by Afghanistan’s spy agency. Journalists who film while attacks are underway will be held and their gear seized. The new rule has been denounced by Afghan journalism and rights groups.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Russia, NATO and Afghanistan: High stakes Great Game
What did Medvedev have up his sleeve when he welcomed Obama's new surge in Afghanistan, wonders Eric Walberg
US President Barack Obama's now expanding war against the Taliban is garnering support from liberals and neocons alike, from leaders around the world, even from Russia. “We are ready to support these efforts, guarantee the transit of troops, take part in economic projects and train police and the military,” Russian President Dmitri Medvedev declared in a recent press conference with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Moscow and Washington reached an agreement in July allowing the US to launch up to 4,500 US flights a year over Russia, opening a major supply route for American operations in Afghanistan. Previously Russia had only allowed the US to ship non-lethal military supplies across its territory by train.
So far, Obama has all European governments behind him, if not their people. Despite a solid majority in all countries, from Canada to Europe East and West, who want the troops out now, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was able to deliver pledges from 25 NATO members to send a total of about 7,000 additional forces to Afghanistan next year "with more to come" with nary a dissenting voice. In a macabre statement, Fogh Rasmussen welcomed Obama's surge: "The United States' contribution to the NATO-led mission has always been substantial; it is now even more important."
Explaining the willingness of Euro leaders to ignore their constituents, former US ambassador to NATO and RAND adviser Robert Hunter told the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR): "In terms of motivation, very few European countries believe that winning in Afghanistan -- that is, dismantling, defeating, and destroying Al-Qaeda and Taliban -- is necessary for their own security. A few believe that, but most do not. When they add forces, it is to protect the credibility of NATO now that it is there. NATO has never failed at anything it chose to do." Part and parcel with this, Europeans want to keep the US "as a European power, not just as an insurance policy but also as the principal manager of Russia's future." He ghoulishly agreed with the CFR interviewer that Afghanistan is a way for Europe to "pay the rent" to the US for continuing to bully Russia.
The combined US and NATO forces will bring together a staggering 150,000 soldiers from more than 50 nations, not to mention the estimated 80,000 mercenaries already there, bringing the total to 230,000. Every European nation except for Belarus, Cyprus, Malta, Russia and Serbia will have military forces there, as well as nine of the 15 former Soviet republics. Marvels analyst Rick Rozoff, "Troops from five continents, Oceania and the Middle East. Even the putative coalition of the willing stitched together by the US and Britain after the invasion of Iraq only consisted of forces from 31 nations." By way of comparison, in September this year there were 120,000 US troops in Iraq and only a handful of other nations' personnel. The Soviet Afghan occupation force in the 1980s peaked at 100,000 shortly before beginning to pull out in 1989; the British in 1839 had only 21,000 and in 1878 -- 42,000.
The world's last three major wars -- Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq -- have all been testing grounds for the new, global NATO. Hence the flurry of visits by US officials to prospective members to make sure they sign up for the surge. For instance, Celeste Wallander, US deputy assistant secretary of defence for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, just returned from a visit to her new friend Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, to thank him for coughing up 40 "peacekeepers" who will start training in Germany in January 2010 before deployment in Afghanistan. As if to up the ante with its nemesis, Azerbaijan promised to double its 90 troops. It would be interesting if the two warring nations' troops were to share barracks. They have far more cause to fight each other than Afghans.
It is hard to imagine this heathen Tower of Babel as an effective force against devoted Muslims ready to die to repel the invaders. But Fogh nonetheless chortles, "With the right resources, we can succeed." Could it be that one of his "resources" is the "big one"?
What explains Russia's quiescence at Obama's determination to wrest Central Asia from its traditional sphere of influence? Russian suspicions about US intentions are very strong on many fronts. Sucking more than half of the ex-Soviet republics into returning to Afghanistan -- this time on the US side -- is surely brazen. Continuing to expand NATO eastward is strongly condemned by all Russians and is not popular in either Ukraine or Georgia, but continues nonetheless. Russian intelligence is undoubtedly following US and others' machinations in Chechnya, which continues to be a serious threat to Russian security. Hunter's cynical explanation to the CFR of Euro complicity in the Afghan genocide is not lost on deaf ears.
Yet, Russia dawdles on its assistance to Iran both in nuclear energy and in providing up-to-date defence missiles, clearly at US prompting. And now seems to be happy that Obama is expanding what all sensible analysts insist is a losing and criminal war virtually next door. Is this evidence of Russian weakness, an acceptance of US plans for Eurasian hegemony which could imperil the Russian Federation itself?
Russia is still in transition, caught between a longing to be part of the West and to be a mediator between the Western empire and the rest of the world. Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, represents this conflict between the "Atlantist" and "Eurasian" vision of Russia's future, terms which have been popularised by Alexandr Dugin. In a TV interview with Russia Today, loose-cannon Rogozin argued: “There is a new civilisation emerging in the Third World that thinks that the white, northern hemisphere has always oppressed it and must therefore fall at its feet now. If the northern civilisation wants to protect itself, it must be united: America, the European Union, and Russia. If they are not together, they will be defeated one by one.”
But Rogozin is not in favour of Russia merely lying down to be walked over by NATO. He would like NATO replaced by a Euro-Russian security treaty. It is no coincidence that just before Obama's announced surge, Russia unveiled a proposal for just such a new pact, which despite talk of "from Vancouver to Vladivostok" would essentially exclude the US and include Russia. It would prevent member states from taking actions which threaten other members, effectively excluding Ukraine and Georgia from NATO and preventing Poland and the Czech Republic from setting up their beloved US missile bases. Rogozin's Atlantist vision would see NATO defanged, and North America forced to ally with a new, independent Europe, where Russia is now the dominant power.
NATO, of course, will not go quietly into the night -- unless its latest venture in Afghanistan fails. So Russia is biting the bullet on this war -- for the time being. Just in case Obama was too busy with Oslo to notice, Rogozin warned last week that Russian cooperation over transit of military supplies to Afghanistan could be jeopardised by a failure to take the Russian security treaty proposal seriously. In Washington's worst-case scenario, if its Afghan gamble implodes, not only will it have to take Russia seriously, but so will Europe, giving the Russian Atlantists the opportunity to integrate with Europe without the US breathing down their necks. If by some miracle NATO succeeds in cowing the Afghans and continues to threaten Russia with encirclement, the Eurasians will gain the upper hand, and Russia will build up its BRIC and SCO ties, forced to abandon its dream of joining and leading Europe as the countervailing power to the US empire.
As this intrigue plays itself out, any number of things could tip the apple cart. For example, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, two quarrelsome ex-Soviet republics bordering Afghanistan which are vital to Obama's surge, virtually declared war on each other earlier this month, potentially complicating the shuttling of US materiel to the front. Uzbekistan announced its withdrawal from the Central Asian electricity grid, a move that isolates Tajikistan by making it impossible for the country to import power from other Central Asian states during the cold winter months. The Tajiks threaten to retaliate by restricting water supplies that Uzbekistan desperately need for its cotton sector next summer.Who knows how this will end? At least they haven't any troops in Afghanistan, where, like the Azeris and Armenians, they would be sorely tempted to turn their guns against each other rather than against the hapless Taliban.
***
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/
-------
Commentary: I think that Russia's willingness to let US/NATO supplies transit through its airspace and territory can be explained by a number or pragmatic considerations:
a) If there is one thing which Russia does not want in Afghanistan it is a return to power of the Taliban whom they correctly view as a major destabilizing factor for the Central Asian republics, in particular Tajikistan. That does not mean that Russia wants the US to "succeed" in Afghanistan (such as "success" being probably impossible to achieve anyway), only that Russia does not want the US/NATO to fail dramatically, a la Vietnam, if you want.
b) By allowing US/NATO supplies to transit through Russia Medvedev makes US/NATO dependent on a Russian "service" if you want, something which they can cut off literally in one minute. That gives Russia lot of leverage over its main rival. Think of it this way: could the Ukraine or Georgia provide such a service?
c) keeping the USA involved in a war which by definition cannot be won weakens the USraelian Empire, by depleting its resources and capabilities. Having US/NATO soldiers and Taliban fighters kill each other far away from Russia is actually something very good for Russia as it weakens both of its enemies.
d) by keeping the US/NATO efforts alive in Afghanistan, Russia also keeps the US involved in Pakistan. You could say that the US is "in charge of security" in Pakistan. Considering the truly immense potential for catastrophic developments in Pakistan, having the US in charge there as the hated policeman is not a bad calculation for Russia.
e) lastly, Russia can get a great deal of solace from the fact that the countries which are not supporting the US efforts in Afghanistan are all going to become part of a slow-motion defeat of the US/NATO operation. As the expression goes, victory has many parents, but defeat is an orphan - what could better weaken NATO then a jointly lived defeat.
Somebody once said that while the Americans play monopoly, the Russians play chess. This is quite true. The only 'strategy' which the Americans appear to be capable of is to grab as much land as possible and to make others pay for "transit". The Russians, being the chess players which they are, are capable of far more sophisticated maneuvers, including traps, discovered attacks, pins, skewers, etc. In this case, it is tying up the IS forces in the defense of an indefensible pawn - Afghanistan - and while preparing itself for the best possible position on the board for the endgame.
The Saker
US President Barack Obama's now expanding war against the Taliban is garnering support from liberals and neocons alike, from leaders around the world, even from Russia. “We are ready to support these efforts, guarantee the transit of troops, take part in economic projects and train police and the military,” Russian President Dmitri Medvedev declared in a recent press conference with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Moscow and Washington reached an agreement in July allowing the US to launch up to 4,500 US flights a year over Russia, opening a major supply route for American operations in Afghanistan. Previously Russia had only allowed the US to ship non-lethal military supplies across its territory by train.
So far, Obama has all European governments behind him, if not their people. Despite a solid majority in all countries, from Canada to Europe East and West, who want the troops out now, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was able to deliver pledges from 25 NATO members to send a total of about 7,000 additional forces to Afghanistan next year "with more to come" with nary a dissenting voice. In a macabre statement, Fogh Rasmussen welcomed Obama's surge: "The United States' contribution to the NATO-led mission has always been substantial; it is now even more important."
Explaining the willingness of Euro leaders to ignore their constituents, former US ambassador to NATO and RAND adviser Robert Hunter told the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR): "In terms of motivation, very few European countries believe that winning in Afghanistan -- that is, dismantling, defeating, and destroying Al-Qaeda and Taliban -- is necessary for their own security. A few believe that, but most do not. When they add forces, it is to protect the credibility of NATO now that it is there. NATO has never failed at anything it chose to do." Part and parcel with this, Europeans want to keep the US "as a European power, not just as an insurance policy but also as the principal manager of Russia's future." He ghoulishly agreed with the CFR interviewer that Afghanistan is a way for Europe to "pay the rent" to the US for continuing to bully Russia.
The combined US and NATO forces will bring together a staggering 150,000 soldiers from more than 50 nations, not to mention the estimated 80,000 mercenaries already there, bringing the total to 230,000. Every European nation except for Belarus, Cyprus, Malta, Russia and Serbia will have military forces there, as well as nine of the 15 former Soviet republics. Marvels analyst Rick Rozoff, "Troops from five continents, Oceania and the Middle East. Even the putative coalition of the willing stitched together by the US and Britain after the invasion of Iraq only consisted of forces from 31 nations." By way of comparison, in September this year there were 120,000 US troops in Iraq and only a handful of other nations' personnel. The Soviet Afghan occupation force in the 1980s peaked at 100,000 shortly before beginning to pull out in 1989; the British in 1839 had only 21,000 and in 1878 -- 42,000.
The world's last three major wars -- Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq -- have all been testing grounds for the new, global NATO. Hence the flurry of visits by US officials to prospective members to make sure they sign up for the surge. For instance, Celeste Wallander, US deputy assistant secretary of defence for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, just returned from a visit to her new friend Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, to thank him for coughing up 40 "peacekeepers" who will start training in Germany in January 2010 before deployment in Afghanistan. As if to up the ante with its nemesis, Azerbaijan promised to double its 90 troops. It would be interesting if the two warring nations' troops were to share barracks. They have far more cause to fight each other than Afghans.
It is hard to imagine this heathen Tower of Babel as an effective force against devoted Muslims ready to die to repel the invaders. But Fogh nonetheless chortles, "With the right resources, we can succeed." Could it be that one of his "resources" is the "big one"?
What explains Russia's quiescence at Obama's determination to wrest Central Asia from its traditional sphere of influence? Russian suspicions about US intentions are very strong on many fronts. Sucking more than half of the ex-Soviet republics into returning to Afghanistan -- this time on the US side -- is surely brazen. Continuing to expand NATO eastward is strongly condemned by all Russians and is not popular in either Ukraine or Georgia, but continues nonetheless. Russian intelligence is undoubtedly following US and others' machinations in Chechnya, which continues to be a serious threat to Russian security. Hunter's cynical explanation to the CFR of Euro complicity in the Afghan genocide is not lost on deaf ears.
Yet, Russia dawdles on its assistance to Iran both in nuclear energy and in providing up-to-date defence missiles, clearly at US prompting. And now seems to be happy that Obama is expanding what all sensible analysts insist is a losing and criminal war virtually next door. Is this evidence of Russian weakness, an acceptance of US plans for Eurasian hegemony which could imperil the Russian Federation itself?
Russia is still in transition, caught between a longing to be part of the West and to be a mediator between the Western empire and the rest of the world. Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, represents this conflict between the "Atlantist" and "Eurasian" vision of Russia's future, terms which have been popularised by Alexandr Dugin. In a TV interview with Russia Today, loose-cannon Rogozin argued: “There is a new civilisation emerging in the Third World that thinks that the white, northern hemisphere has always oppressed it and must therefore fall at its feet now. If the northern civilisation wants to protect itself, it must be united: America, the European Union, and Russia. If they are not together, they will be defeated one by one.”
But Rogozin is not in favour of Russia merely lying down to be walked over by NATO. He would like NATO replaced by a Euro-Russian security treaty. It is no coincidence that just before Obama's announced surge, Russia unveiled a proposal for just such a new pact, which despite talk of "from Vancouver to Vladivostok" would essentially exclude the US and include Russia. It would prevent member states from taking actions which threaten other members, effectively excluding Ukraine and Georgia from NATO and preventing Poland and the Czech Republic from setting up their beloved US missile bases. Rogozin's Atlantist vision would see NATO defanged, and North America forced to ally with a new, independent Europe, where Russia is now the dominant power.
NATO, of course, will not go quietly into the night -- unless its latest venture in Afghanistan fails. So Russia is biting the bullet on this war -- for the time being. Just in case Obama was too busy with Oslo to notice, Rogozin warned last week that Russian cooperation over transit of military supplies to Afghanistan could be jeopardised by a failure to take the Russian security treaty proposal seriously. In Washington's worst-case scenario, if its Afghan gamble implodes, not only will it have to take Russia seriously, but so will Europe, giving the Russian Atlantists the opportunity to integrate with Europe without the US breathing down their necks. If by some miracle NATO succeeds in cowing the Afghans and continues to threaten Russia with encirclement, the Eurasians will gain the upper hand, and Russia will build up its BRIC and SCO ties, forced to abandon its dream of joining and leading Europe as the countervailing power to the US empire.
As this intrigue plays itself out, any number of things could tip the apple cart. For example, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, two quarrelsome ex-Soviet republics bordering Afghanistan which are vital to Obama's surge, virtually declared war on each other earlier this month, potentially complicating the shuttling of US materiel to the front. Uzbekistan announced its withdrawal from the Central Asian electricity grid, a move that isolates Tajikistan by making it impossible for the country to import power from other Central Asian states during the cold winter months. The Tajiks threaten to retaliate by restricting water supplies that Uzbekistan desperately need for its cotton sector next summer.Who knows how this will end? At least they haven't any troops in Afghanistan, where, like the Azeris and Armenians, they would be sorely tempted to turn their guns against each other rather than against the hapless Taliban.
***
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/
-------
Commentary: I think that Russia's willingness to let US/NATO supplies transit through its airspace and territory can be explained by a number or pragmatic considerations:
a) If there is one thing which Russia does not want in Afghanistan it is a return to power of the Taliban whom they correctly view as a major destabilizing factor for the Central Asian republics, in particular Tajikistan. That does not mean that Russia wants the US to "succeed" in Afghanistan (such as "success" being probably impossible to achieve anyway), only that Russia does not want the US/NATO to fail dramatically, a la Vietnam, if you want.
b) By allowing US/NATO supplies to transit through Russia Medvedev makes US/NATO dependent on a Russian "service" if you want, something which they can cut off literally in one minute. That gives Russia lot of leverage over its main rival. Think of it this way: could the Ukraine or Georgia provide such a service?
c) keeping the USA involved in a war which by definition cannot be won weakens the USraelian Empire, by depleting its resources and capabilities. Having US/NATO soldiers and Taliban fighters kill each other far away from Russia is actually something very good for Russia as it weakens both of its enemies.
d) by keeping the US/NATO efforts alive in Afghanistan, Russia also keeps the US involved in Pakistan. You could say that the US is "in charge of security" in Pakistan. Considering the truly immense potential for catastrophic developments in Pakistan, having the US in charge there as the hated policeman is not a bad calculation for Russia.
e) lastly, Russia can get a great deal of solace from the fact that the countries which are not supporting the US efforts in Afghanistan are all going to become part of a slow-motion defeat of the US/NATO operation. As the expression goes, victory has many parents, but defeat is an orphan - what could better weaken NATO then a jointly lived defeat.
Somebody once said that while the Americans play monopoly, the Russians play chess. This is quite true. The only 'strategy' which the Americans appear to be capable of is to grab as much land as possible and to make others pay for "transit". The Russians, being the chess players which they are, are capable of far more sophisticated maneuvers, including traps, discovered attacks, pins, skewers, etc. In this case, it is tying up the IS forces in the defense of an indefensible pawn - Afghanistan - and while preparing itself for the best possible position on the board for the endgame.
The Saker
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
AfPak: War on two fronts
The only thing Obama’s got right so far about his warzone-of-choice is the name, worries Eric Walberg
As more NATO trucks were being torched in Peshawar last week, a Karachi student managed to fling his shoe at warmongering US journalist Clifford May during his address to the Department of International Relations on “Pakistan’s Role in Countering the Challenge of Terrorism”. In Washington, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi announced bitterly the US probably knows Osama Bin Laden’s where-abouts. He neglected to draw the appropriate conclusion about what the US is really up to in AfPak. Also in Washington, within hours of the decision of the Nobel Peace committee, US President Barack Obama met with his War Council.
It’s getting to the point that it’s hard to tell who is the biggest opponent of Obama’s plans to bring peace to AfPak: the Taliban, the Pakistani government, or the Nobel committee. Oh yes, or virtually the entire world beyond the Washington beltway.
As the world marked the eighth anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October, the Taliban were stronger than ever – their forces have increased nearly fourfold since 2006. “We fought against the British invaders for 80 years,” Mullah Mohammad Omar reminded the world on the Taliban’s website www.shahamat.org. “If you want to colonise the country of proud and pious Afghans under the baseless pretext of a war on terror, then you should know that our patience will only increase and that we are ready for a long war.” A statement from the leadership insists, “We had and have no plan of harming countries of the world, including those in Europe. Our goal is the independence of the country and the building of an Islamic state.” They call for the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops as the only solution.
So far, there is no hint that Obama is even considering this no-brainer. On the contrary, the war is now being fought on two fronts, with the US and Britain starting an extensive training programme for Pakistan ’s Frontier Corps (FC) in Baluchistan, the new battleground.
It is part of the Obama administration’s massive military aid package to AfPak – Pakistan will get $2.8 billion over the next five years in addition to $7.5 billion in civilian aid, but only if it satisfies US benchmarks by making progress in “anti-terrorism and border control”. The Pakistani government and army are furious, not to mention the 60 per cent of Pakistanis who see the US as the greatest threat to Pakistan – with good cause. In the past few months, US forces have stepped up their aerial bombardments of villages in the northern tribal areas. According to the Pakistani press, of the 60 cross-border US drone strikes between January 2006 and April 2009, only 10 were able to hit their targets, killing 14 Al-Qaeda leaders and 687 civilians. Even official US policy (to kill no more than 29 civilians for every “high-value” person) is being violated. At least 23 Al-Qaeda leaders should have been killed, nine more than the actual 14. This assassination campaign is a more ruthless version of Operation Phoenix in Vietnam, and can only spur the Taliban and Al-Qaeda’s recruitment efforts.
True, Taliban control of the Pakistan frontier province SWAT was brought to a brutal end during the past six months by the Pakistani army, though civilian corpses continue to be dumped, with accusations of revenge and official terror labelled at the army. And the almost complete lack of reconstruction aid by the Pakistan government – with winter approaching – means the Taliban will probably regain SWAT. Local opposition to the war against both Afghanistan and Pakistan’s frontier region, especially Baluchistan, continues to grow, with the long-simmering Baluchi campaign for independence gaining new life daily.
Obama’s war plans have reached a critical stage. In an arrogant gamble, much like General MacArthur’s challenge to president Harry Truman in 1951 over the Korean war, General Stanley McChrystal recently demanded publically that Obama provide 60,000 more troops for Afghanistan, boldly stating the war would be lost without them. Faced with a similarly outspoken MacArthur, Truman just as publically fired him.
McChrystal is said to have offered the Commander in Chief several alternatives “including a maximum injection of 60,000 extra troops”, 40,000 and a small increase. Common in military planning is to discuss three different scenarios in order to illustrate why the middle option is preferable, though this is usually done privately. But the Obama administration faces growing hurdles within his Democratic Party if he decides to go with even the middle option.
Obama’s review of AfPak is now centring on preventing Al-Qaeda’s return to Afghanistan – a narrower objective that could require fewer, if any, new American troops. Obama-Biden no longer see the primary mission in Afghanistan as completely defeating the Taliban or preventing its involvement in the country’s future, a policy strongly opposed by Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Gates-Clinton have a point: once the Taliban are acknowledged as legitimate players who are of no strategic danger to the US, then the horror of the past eight years becomes excruciatingly clear. The defeat of the whole criminal project becomes inevitable and will be just as devastating for the US as the Soviet defeat was for the USSR.
But the Gates-McChrystal super-surge is just about impossible in any case. The Institute for the Study of War reported recently that the US military has only limited troops ready for deployment, meaning that forces might not reach the warzone until the summer of 2010. There are only three Army and Marine brigades – 11,000-15,000 troops – capable of deploying to Afghanistan this year. Troops are plagued by a severe lack of helicopters and all-terrain vehicles.
Whatever Obama decides – 60,000, 40,000 or 2 – the troops will have little time after they arrive to turn things around. Even super-loyal Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper just reaffirmed that Canadian troops will under no circumstances stay in Afghanistan after 2011. Any plans for the indefinite occupation of Afghanistan as touted by some NATO and US officials are fantasy; Canada’s retreat will be part of a flood. Canadian government support for the war, like that of its bigger brothers the US and Britain, has all along been motivated by Afghanistan’s untapped resource potential. The TAPI gas pipeline – so named for its 1680 kilometre path from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan, Pakistan, and eventually India – is slated to be constructed starting next year on the very soil that Canadian and US troops now occupy in southern Afghanistan.
Harper’s best-case scenario is for the pipeline to go ahead with Canadian participation and for a miracle to occur – the Taliban’s sudden and unexpected defeat, allowing Canadian troops to come home, the pipeline and other resource deals signed, and assuring him of a Conservative majority in the next election.“ Canada has the potential to beat rivals because it has such an uncheckered history in that part of the world,” argues Rob Sobhani, president of Caspian Energy Consulting. “People like Canadians, Canadians are apolitical.” Even if the miracle doesn’t happen and the pipeline deal collapses, Harper realises his political goose is cooked unless the troops come home, so he is forced to wash his bloody hands of this betrayal of Canada’s traditional international role of peacekeeper.
Obama needn’t rely on the Taliban as advisers on how to end the war. Deputy-general of the China Council for National Security Policy Studies Li Qinggong reflected official Chinese thinking on 28 September in Xinhua: The United States should first put an end to “the anti-terror war” and “end its military action. The war has neither brought the Islamic nation peace and security as the Bush administration originally promised, nor brought any tangible benefits to the US itself. On the contrary, the legitimacy of the US military action has been under increasing doubt.” Obama should take advantage of international opinion to withdraw troops immediately. This is no doubt also the hope of the Nobel committee that put its own credibility on the line by awarding him the Peace Prize. The UN Security Council permanent members should “draft a roadmap and timetable”, including deployment of an international peacekeeping mission.
The delicious irony of the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan (and Iraq) is that it is China, the US ’s real international rival, that has benefited most. Chinese investments (and workers) have been pouring in to both US warzones. The main effect of George W Bush’s two wars and Obama’s AfPak has been to promote Chinese business interests, leaving the US bankrupt and its army in tatters.
***
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/
As more NATO trucks were being torched in Peshawar last week, a Karachi student managed to fling his shoe at warmongering US journalist Clifford May during his address to the Department of International Relations on “Pakistan’s Role in Countering the Challenge of Terrorism”. In Washington, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi announced bitterly the US probably knows Osama Bin Laden’s where-abouts. He neglected to draw the appropriate conclusion about what the US is really up to in AfPak. Also in Washington, within hours of the decision of the Nobel Peace committee, US President Barack Obama met with his War Council.
It’s getting to the point that it’s hard to tell who is the biggest opponent of Obama’s plans to bring peace to AfPak: the Taliban, the Pakistani government, or the Nobel committee. Oh yes, or virtually the entire world beyond the Washington beltway.
As the world marked the eighth anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October, the Taliban were stronger than ever – their forces have increased nearly fourfold since 2006. “We fought against the British invaders for 80 years,” Mullah Mohammad Omar reminded the world on the Taliban’s website www.shahamat.org. “If you want to colonise the country of proud and pious Afghans under the baseless pretext of a war on terror, then you should know that our patience will only increase and that we are ready for a long war.” A statement from the leadership insists, “We had and have no plan of harming countries of the world, including those in Europe. Our goal is the independence of the country and the building of an Islamic state.” They call for the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops as the only solution.
So far, there is no hint that Obama is even considering this no-brainer. On the contrary, the war is now being fought on two fronts, with the US and Britain starting an extensive training programme for Pakistan ’s Frontier Corps (FC) in Baluchistan, the new battleground.
It is part of the Obama administration’s massive military aid package to AfPak – Pakistan will get $2.8 billion over the next five years in addition to $7.5 billion in civilian aid, but only if it satisfies US benchmarks by making progress in “anti-terrorism and border control”. The Pakistani government and army are furious, not to mention the 60 per cent of Pakistanis who see the US as the greatest threat to Pakistan – with good cause. In the past few months, US forces have stepped up their aerial bombardments of villages in the northern tribal areas. According to the Pakistani press, of the 60 cross-border US drone strikes between January 2006 and April 2009, only 10 were able to hit their targets, killing 14 Al-Qaeda leaders and 687 civilians. Even official US policy (to kill no more than 29 civilians for every “high-value” person) is being violated. At least 23 Al-Qaeda leaders should have been killed, nine more than the actual 14. This assassination campaign is a more ruthless version of Operation Phoenix in Vietnam, and can only spur the Taliban and Al-Qaeda’s recruitment efforts.
True, Taliban control of the Pakistan frontier province SWAT was brought to a brutal end during the past six months by the Pakistani army, though civilian corpses continue to be dumped, with accusations of revenge and official terror labelled at the army. And the almost complete lack of reconstruction aid by the Pakistan government – with winter approaching – means the Taliban will probably regain SWAT. Local opposition to the war against both Afghanistan and Pakistan’s frontier region, especially Baluchistan, continues to grow, with the long-simmering Baluchi campaign for independence gaining new life daily.
Obama’s war plans have reached a critical stage. In an arrogant gamble, much like General MacArthur’s challenge to president Harry Truman in 1951 over the Korean war, General Stanley McChrystal recently demanded publically that Obama provide 60,000 more troops for Afghanistan, boldly stating the war would be lost without them. Faced with a similarly outspoken MacArthur, Truman just as publically fired him.
McChrystal is said to have offered the Commander in Chief several alternatives “including a maximum injection of 60,000 extra troops”, 40,000 and a small increase. Common in military planning is to discuss three different scenarios in order to illustrate why the middle option is preferable, though this is usually done privately. But the Obama administration faces growing hurdles within his Democratic Party if he decides to go with even the middle option.
Obama’s review of AfPak is now centring on preventing Al-Qaeda’s return to Afghanistan – a narrower objective that could require fewer, if any, new American troops. Obama-Biden no longer see the primary mission in Afghanistan as completely defeating the Taliban or preventing its involvement in the country’s future, a policy strongly opposed by Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Gates-Clinton have a point: once the Taliban are acknowledged as legitimate players who are of no strategic danger to the US, then the horror of the past eight years becomes excruciatingly clear. The defeat of the whole criminal project becomes inevitable and will be just as devastating for the US as the Soviet defeat was for the USSR.
But the Gates-McChrystal super-surge is just about impossible in any case. The Institute for the Study of War reported recently that the US military has only limited troops ready for deployment, meaning that forces might not reach the warzone until the summer of 2010. There are only three Army and Marine brigades – 11,000-15,000 troops – capable of deploying to Afghanistan this year. Troops are plagued by a severe lack of helicopters and all-terrain vehicles.
Whatever Obama decides – 60,000, 40,000 or 2 – the troops will have little time after they arrive to turn things around. Even super-loyal Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper just reaffirmed that Canadian troops will under no circumstances stay in Afghanistan after 2011. Any plans for the indefinite occupation of Afghanistan as touted by some NATO and US officials are fantasy; Canada’s retreat will be part of a flood. Canadian government support for the war, like that of its bigger brothers the US and Britain, has all along been motivated by Afghanistan’s untapped resource potential. The TAPI gas pipeline – so named for its 1680 kilometre path from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan, Pakistan, and eventually India – is slated to be constructed starting next year on the very soil that Canadian and US troops now occupy in southern Afghanistan.
Harper’s best-case scenario is for the pipeline to go ahead with Canadian participation and for a miracle to occur – the Taliban’s sudden and unexpected defeat, allowing Canadian troops to come home, the pipeline and other resource deals signed, and assuring him of a Conservative majority in the next election.“ Canada has the potential to beat rivals because it has such an uncheckered history in that part of the world,” argues Rob Sobhani, president of Caspian Energy Consulting. “People like Canadians, Canadians are apolitical.” Even if the miracle doesn’t happen and the pipeline deal collapses, Harper realises his political goose is cooked unless the troops come home, so he is forced to wash his bloody hands of this betrayal of Canada’s traditional international role of peacekeeper.
Obama needn’t rely on the Taliban as advisers on how to end the war. Deputy-general of the China Council for National Security Policy Studies Li Qinggong reflected official Chinese thinking on 28 September in Xinhua: The United States should first put an end to “the anti-terror war” and “end its military action. The war has neither brought the Islamic nation peace and security as the Bush administration originally promised, nor brought any tangible benefits to the US itself. On the contrary, the legitimacy of the US military action has been under increasing doubt.” Obama should take advantage of international opinion to withdraw troops immediately. This is no doubt also the hope of the Nobel committee that put its own credibility on the line by awarding him the Peace Prize. The UN Security Council permanent members should “draft a roadmap and timetable”, including deployment of an international peacekeeping mission.
The delicious irony of the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan (and Iraq) is that it is China, the US ’s real international rival, that has benefited most. Chinese investments (and workers) have been pouring in to both US warzones. The main effect of George W Bush’s two wars and Obama’s AfPak has been to promote Chinese business interests, leaving the US bankrupt and its army in tatters.
***
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
America Has Been Here Before
By Eric Margolis for the Toronto Sun (via Informationclearinghouse)
"We should hang a huge neon sign over Afghanistan: "CAUTION: DEJA VU."
Afghanistan's much ballyhooed recent election staged by its foreign occupiers turned out to be a fraud wrapped up in a farce -- as this column predicted a month ago. It was as phony and meaningless as U.S.-run elections in Vietnam in the 1970s.
Canada played a shameful role in facilitating this obviously rigged vote.
Meanwhile, American and NATO generals running the Afghan war amazingly warn they risk being beaten by Taliban tribesmen in spite of their 107,000 soldiers, B-1 heavy bombers, F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, Apache and AC-130 gunships, heavy artillery, tanks, radars, killer drones, cluster bombs, white phosphorus, rockets, and space surveillance.
Washington has spent some $250 billion in Afghanistan since 2001. Canada won't even reveal how many billions it has spent. Each time the U.S. sent more troops and bombed more villages, Afghan resistance sharply intensified and Taliban expanded its control, today over 55% of the country.
Now, U.S. commanders are begging for at least 40,000 more U.S. troops -- after President Barack Obama just tripled the number of American soldiers there. Shades of Vietnam-style "mission creep." Ghost of Gen. William Westmoreland, rattle your chains.
The director of U.S. national intelligence just revealed Washington spent $75 billion US last year on intelligence, employing 200,000 people. Embarrassingly, the U.S. still can't find Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar after hunting them for eight years. Washington now fears Taliban will launch a Vietnam-style Tet offensive against major cities.
This week, in a wildly overdue observation, U.S. military chief Adm. Mike Mullen told Congress, we must rapidly build the Afghan army and police."
'Vietnamization'
But the U.S. record in foreign army-building is not encouraging. Remember "Vietnamization?" That was the Pentagon's effort to build a South Vietnamese army that could stand on its own, without U.S. air cover, supplies, and "advisers." In early 1975, it collapsed and ran.
Any student of Imperialism 101 knows that after invading a resource-rich or strategic nation you immediately put a local stooge in power, use disaffected minorities to run the government (divide and conquer), and build a native mercenary army. Such troops, commanded by white officers, were called "sepoys" in the British Indian Army and "askaris" in British East Africa.
America's attempts to build an Afghan sepoy army of 250,000 failed miserably. The 80,000 men raised to date are 95% illiterate and only on the job for money to feed their families. They have no loyalty to the corrupt western-installed government in Kabul. CIA's 74,000 "contractors" (read mercenaries) in Afghanistan are more reliable.
But the biggest problem in Afghanistan, as always, is tribalism. Many of the U.S.-raised Afghan army troops are minority Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazara who used to collaborate with the Soviets. They are scorned by the majority Pashtun tribes as enemies and foreign stooges. These U.S.-paid troops also know they will face death when the U.S. and its western allies eventually quit Afghanistan.
The Soviets had a much better understanding of Afghanistan than the American military, which one senior British general recently called, "culturally ignorant." Moscow built an Afghan government army of around 240,000 men. Many were loyal Communists. They sometimes fought well, as I experienced in combat against them near Jalalabad. But, in the end, they smelled defeat and crumbled. The Soviet-backed strongman, Mohammad Najibullah, was castrated and slowly hanged from a crane.
The American command, deprived of men and resources by the Bush administration, only managed to cobble together an armed rabble of 80,000 Afghans. The Afghan army, like the post-Saddam Iraqi army, is led by white officers -- in this case, Americans designated "trainers" or "advisers."
Afghanistan keeps giving me deja vu back to the old British Empire, and flashbacks to those wonderful epic films of the Raj, Drums, Lives of a Bengal Lancer, and Kim. The British imperialists did it much, much better, and with a lot more style. Many of their imperial subjects even admired and liked them.
"We should hang a huge neon sign over Afghanistan: "CAUTION: DEJA VU."
Afghanistan's much ballyhooed recent election staged by its foreign occupiers turned out to be a fraud wrapped up in a farce -- as this column predicted a month ago. It was as phony and meaningless as U.S.-run elections in Vietnam in the 1970s.
Canada played a shameful role in facilitating this obviously rigged vote.
Meanwhile, American and NATO generals running the Afghan war amazingly warn they risk being beaten by Taliban tribesmen in spite of their 107,000 soldiers, B-1 heavy bombers, F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, Apache and AC-130 gunships, heavy artillery, tanks, radars, killer drones, cluster bombs, white phosphorus, rockets, and space surveillance.
Washington has spent some $250 billion in Afghanistan since 2001. Canada won't even reveal how many billions it has spent. Each time the U.S. sent more troops and bombed more villages, Afghan resistance sharply intensified and Taliban expanded its control, today over 55% of the country.
Now, U.S. commanders are begging for at least 40,000 more U.S. troops -- after President Barack Obama just tripled the number of American soldiers there. Shades of Vietnam-style "mission creep." Ghost of Gen. William Westmoreland, rattle your chains.
The director of U.S. national intelligence just revealed Washington spent $75 billion US last year on intelligence, employing 200,000 people. Embarrassingly, the U.S. still can't find Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar after hunting them for eight years. Washington now fears Taliban will launch a Vietnam-style Tet offensive against major cities.
This week, in a wildly overdue observation, U.S. military chief Adm. Mike Mullen told Congress, we must rapidly build the Afghan army and police."
'Vietnamization'
But the U.S. record in foreign army-building is not encouraging. Remember "Vietnamization?" That was the Pentagon's effort to build a South Vietnamese army that could stand on its own, without U.S. air cover, supplies, and "advisers." In early 1975, it collapsed and ran.
Any student of Imperialism 101 knows that after invading a resource-rich or strategic nation you immediately put a local stooge in power, use disaffected minorities to run the government (divide and conquer), and build a native mercenary army. Such troops, commanded by white officers, were called "sepoys" in the British Indian Army and "askaris" in British East Africa.
America's attempts to build an Afghan sepoy army of 250,000 failed miserably. The 80,000 men raised to date are 95% illiterate and only on the job for money to feed their families. They have no loyalty to the corrupt western-installed government in Kabul. CIA's 74,000 "contractors" (read mercenaries) in Afghanistan are more reliable.But the biggest problem in Afghanistan, as always, is tribalism. Many of the U.S.-raised Afghan army troops are minority Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazara who used to collaborate with the Soviets. They are scorned by the majority Pashtun tribes as enemies and foreign stooges. These U.S.-paid troops also know they will face death when the U.S. and its western allies eventually quit Afghanistan.
The Soviets had a much better understanding of Afghanistan than the American military, which one senior British general recently called, "culturally ignorant." Moscow built an Afghan government army of around 240,000 men. Many were loyal Communists. They sometimes fought well, as I experienced in combat against them near Jalalabad. But, in the end, they smelled defeat and crumbled. The Soviet-backed strongman, Mohammad Najibullah, was castrated and slowly hanged from a crane.
The American command, deprived of men and resources by the Bush administration, only managed to cobble together an armed rabble of 80,000 Afghans. The Afghan army, like the post-Saddam Iraqi army, is led by white officers -- in this case, Americans designated "trainers" or "advisers."
Afghanistan keeps giving me deja vu back to the old British Empire, and flashbacks to those wonderful epic films of the Raj, Drums, Lives of a Bengal Lancer, and Kim. The British imperialists did it much, much better, and with a lot more style. Many of their imperial subjects even admired and liked them.
Monday, April 13, 2009
$75 Billion More in War Spending?
How Many Democrats Will Stand Up to Obama's Bloated Military Budget
By Jeremy Scahill
April 10, 2009 "Information Clearing House - Much of the media attention this week on President Obama’s new military budget has put forward a false narrative wherein Obama is somehow taking his socialist/pacifist sledgehammer to the Pentagon’s war machine and blasting it to smithereens. Republicans have charged that Obama is endangering the country’s security, while the Democratic leadership has hailed it as the dawn of a new era in responsible spending priorities. Part of this narrative portrays Defense Secretary Robert Gates as standing up to the war industry, particularly military contractors.
By Jeremy Scahill
April 10, 2009 "Information Clearing House - Much of the media attention this week on President Obama’s new military budget has put forward a false narrative wherein Obama is somehow taking his socialist/pacifist sledgehammer to the Pentagon’s war machine and blasting it to smithereens. Republicans have charged that Obama is endangering the country’s security, while the Democratic leadership has hailed it as the dawn of a new era in responsible spending priorities. Part of this narrative portrays Defense Secretary Robert Gates as standing up to the war industry, particularly military contractors.
The reality is that all of this is false.
Here is an undeniable fact: Obama is substantially increasing US military spending, by at least $21 billion from Bush-era levels, including a significant ratcheting up of Afghanistan war spending, as well as more money for unmanned attack drones, which are increasingly being used in attacks on Pakistan. (David Swanson over at AfterDowningStreet.org does a great job of breaking down some of the media coverage of this issue across the political spectrum).
Obama’s budget of $534 billion to the Department of Defense "represents roughly a 4-percent increase over the $513 billion allocated to the Pentagon in FY2009 under the Bush administration, and $6.7 billion more than the outgoing administration’s projections for FY 2010," bragged Lawrence Korb, author of the Center for American Progress‘ report supporting Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan, in an article called, "Obama’s Defense Budget Is on Target."
Obama and his neoliberal think tankers clearly didn’t think much of Rep. Barney Frank’s call earlier this year to cut military spending by 25% to pay for urgently needed social programs and economic aid to struggling Americans. "To accomplish his goals of expanding health care and other important quality of life services without ballooning the deficit," Frank said, Obama needed to reduce military spending. "If we do not get military spending under control, we will not be able to respond to important domestic needs." Well, not only is overall military spending on the rise, but Obama is about to ask for billions more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a "supplemental" spending bill, the type which were staples in Bush’s campaign to mask the full military budget and total cost of the wars. Obama could seek the funding as early as Thursday.
Now, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that we may actually see some spine coming from Congress in standing up to Obama’s request for this additional $75.5 billion in war funds (UPDATE: Obama actually ended up asking for $83 billion). The WSJ characterized the situation as one of "raising tensions" between Obama and some lawmakers opposed to the wars. It should be noted off-the-bat that the Congresspeople speaking out are, predictably, members of the usual suspects club and the Democratic leadership is probably at this moment sharing cocktails in the backroom with McCain and McConnell, but, nonetheless, it is worth examining what is being said:
"I can’t imagine any way I’d vote for it," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a California Democrat and leader in the 77-member congressional Progressive Caucus. It would be her first major break with this White House.
Ms. Woolsey fears the president’s plan for Iraq would leave behind a big occupation force. She is also concerned about the planned escalation in Afghanistan. "I don’t think we should be going there," she said.
Similar sentiments echo across the House. Rep. Jim McGovern (D., Mass.) said he fears Afghanistan could become a quagmire. "I just have this sinking feeling that we’re getting deeper and deeper into a war that has no end," he said.
Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.) dismissed Mr. Obama’s plans as "embarrassingly naive," and suggested that the president is being led astray by those around him. "He’s the smartest man in American politics today," Rep. Conyers said. "But he occasionally gets bad advice and makes mistakes. This is one of those instances."
Obama has vowed to break with the Bush-era tradition of seeking such supplementals to fund the war, saying that beginning in 2010 he will fund the wars as part of his overall budget. The antiwar caucus of Democrats is unlikely to have enough votes to block it given the increasingly overt pro-war nature of the Democratic leadership. And, as the WSJ notes, the funding bills are likely to pass "since many Republicans will support them."
An interesting point nestled halfway through the WSJ piece illustrates a point some antiwar activists have been making since Obama’s election — he is likely to win increased support from Democratic lawmakers for wars they may not have supported when Bush was in power:
The president argues that Afghanistan has been neglected, allowing al Qaeda to regroup and exposing the U.S. to new dangers.
Rep. John Larson (D., Conn.) suggests Democrats may be less inclined to joust with the current White House on the issue than they were with former President George W. Bush. "We have somebody that Democrats feel will level with them," said Mr. Larson, the House’s fourth-ranking Democrat.
This truly is one of the most important trends to watch with the Obama presidency, particularly as it relates to war policy. Obama is in a position to greatly advance the interests of empire, precisely because he is able to build much wider support for policies that are essentially a continuation of those implemented by Bush.
Jeremy Scahill is the author of the New York Times bestseller Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He is currently a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute. http://rebelreports.com
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Misunderestimated Enemy
by Venik for Venik's Blog
Obama’s election campaign put the war in Afghanistan on a pedestal as the single most important national security goal of the post-Bush era. Currently, the NATO-led international force in Afghanistan numbers about 55,000 troops from forty one countries, including about 23,000 American soldiers.The NATO force in Afghanistan has virtually no heavy armor - just a couple dozen of Canadian and Danish tanks.
At the height of the Soviet deployment in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the number of Soviet troops in the country exceeded 120,000, supported by a 300,000-strong Soviet-trained Afghan (DRA - the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan) army. Just the initial Soviet deployment during the first few weeks of the war involved three divisions, one regiment, and one brigade, supported by an entire air army - a total of over 80,000 troops, 1,800 tanks, 2,000 AFVs, and over 1,200 combat aircraft. The operation begun at 19:00 on December 27, 1979 and was concluded by 07:00 the following morning. Most of the initial fighting was done by seven hundred special forces, who, in a matter of hours, stripped Afghanistan of its government, military command, and communications.
In the next few days, the Soviet forces entered more than two dozen major Afghan cities virtually unopposed. All of central Afghanistan was encircled, and the country was split into three sections. Western press (including front-page stories in NY Times and Washington Post) reported a complete Soviet victory within days of the initial invasion. Soviet losses stood at less than one hundred killed (most of these casualties were the result of the crash of a military Il-76 transport, which ran into a mountain in heavy fog Northeast of Kabul, killing all 58 on board.) Everything that followed in the next ten years was one Politburo screwup after another.
Years after the war, top Soviet commanders in Afghanistan - generals Varennikov and Gromov - wrote that levels of troops were simply insufficient to achieve the lofty political goals set by the Kremlin. The DRA army was inexperienced and unreliable. The Soviet commanders asked for 220,000 - 250,000 troops, but for most of the war only had about 108,000 troops - less than half of what the military strategists required.
A 100,000-strong force was trying to pretend to be a 250,000-strong army and, naturally, this required a lot of driving. Available units spent most of the war driving around the countryside, being continuously dispatched to plug up holes in the lines. Most of the Soviet casualties were sustained while combat and supply units were in transit from one position to the next. Most Soviet aircraft losses were sustained while covering troops in transit.
The NATO is currently discussing ways to increase troop levels in Afghanistan. Maybe the UK will send another couple thousand troops, or, perhaps, Poland will send another thousand. In other words, NATO ministers are wasting their time, because what they really need is to at least triple the number of troops. But even with the US troops being redeployed from Iraq to Afghanistan, the NATO is unlikely to reach the required troop levels. The economic crisis does not help either. Even if the NATO manages to significantly boost the troop levels in Afghanistan, it will not be able to sustain them for long due to purely financial reasons.
And then, of course, the USSR had one huge logistical advantage over the US when it came to fighting a war in Afghanistan - a 500-mile-long border with the country. If a Soviet general needed a hundred tanks, they would load them on five trains somewhere in Siberia and in less than week the tanks will be near the Afghan border. A few more days of driving and getting the sand out of the transmission and the tanks will be ready to level some mud huts.
If an American general needed a hundred tanks delivered to Afghanistan on the double, it would require fifty long-range flights by the C-5 Galaxy - the world’s most expensive military transport plane with the highest operating cost - with in-flight refuellings and about twenty service hours for every flight hour. And this is just to deliver the tanks. Then they would need to go back for fuel, ammunition and spare parts.
There doesn’t seem to be a military solution to this war and Obama’s only hope is to somehow capture the elusive Saudi Waldo and to get the hell out of Dodge. The 300,000-strong DRA army, which the Soviets hoped would take over after the victorious Red Army went home, was infinitely better trained and equipped than the NATO-trained pack of hoodlums pretending to be guarding Hamid Karzai, but in reality just stealing ammunition and extorting bribes. And even the DRA army was viewed by the Soviet commanders as more of a problem than a solution.
This is exactly what happens when you go to war with an idiotic plan of spreading Communism or Democracy; or when you send the army across the oceans to a distant land to catch one guy, who may or may not be there. And this is precisely why the Americans and the rest of the NATO are in Afghanistan: in 2001 Bush gave Mullah Omar of Taliban an ultimatum: surrender Bin laden (who is married to your daughter) or face the consequences. Obviously, nobody seriously expected Omar to comply. And so for the past eight years a force of tens of thousands of soldiers have been eating through a half-a-trillion-dollar budget trying to locate a single guy hiding somewhere in the Hindu Kush mountains
Obama’s election campaign put the war in Afghanistan on a pedestal as the single most important national security goal of the post-Bush era. Currently, the NATO-led international force in Afghanistan numbers about 55,000 troops from forty one countries, including about 23,000 American soldiers.The NATO force in Afghanistan has virtually no heavy armor - just a couple dozen of Canadian and Danish tanks.
At the height of the Soviet deployment in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the number of Soviet troops in the country exceeded 120,000, supported by a 300,000-strong Soviet-trained Afghan (DRA - the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan) army. Just the initial Soviet deployment during the first few weeks of the war involved three divisions, one regiment, and one brigade, supported by an entire air army - a total of over 80,000 troops, 1,800 tanks, 2,000 AFVs, and over 1,200 combat aircraft. The operation begun at 19:00 on December 27, 1979 and was concluded by 07:00 the following morning. Most of the initial fighting was done by seven hundred special forces, who, in a matter of hours, stripped Afghanistan of its government, military command, and communications.
In the next few days, the Soviet forces entered more than two dozen major Afghan cities virtually unopposed. All of central Afghanistan was encircled, and the country was split into three sections. Western press (including front-page stories in NY Times and Washington Post) reported a complete Soviet victory within days of the initial invasion. Soviet losses stood at less than one hundred killed (most of these casualties were the result of the crash of a military Il-76 transport, which ran into a mountain in heavy fog Northeast of Kabul, killing all 58 on board.) Everything that followed in the next ten years was one Politburo screwup after another.
Years after the war, top Soviet commanders in Afghanistan - generals Varennikov and Gromov - wrote that levels of troops were simply insufficient to achieve the lofty political goals set by the Kremlin. The DRA army was inexperienced and unreliable. The Soviet commanders asked for 220,000 - 250,000 troops, but for most of the war only had about 108,000 troops - less than half of what the military strategists required.
A 100,000-strong force was trying to pretend to be a 250,000-strong army and, naturally, this required a lot of driving. Available units spent most of the war driving around the countryside, being continuously dispatched to plug up holes in the lines. Most of the Soviet casualties were sustained while combat and supply units were in transit from one position to the next. Most Soviet aircraft losses were sustained while covering troops in transit.
The NATO is currently discussing ways to increase troop levels in Afghanistan. Maybe the UK will send another couple thousand troops, or, perhaps, Poland will send another thousand. In other words, NATO ministers are wasting their time, because what they really need is to at least triple the number of troops. But even with the US troops being redeployed from Iraq to Afghanistan, the NATO is unlikely to reach the required troop levels. The economic crisis does not help either. Even if the NATO manages to significantly boost the troop levels in Afghanistan, it will not be able to sustain them for long due to purely financial reasons.
And then, of course, the USSR had one huge logistical advantage over the US when it came to fighting a war in Afghanistan - a 500-mile-long border with the country. If a Soviet general needed a hundred tanks, they would load them on five trains somewhere in Siberia and in less than week the tanks will be near the Afghan border. A few more days of driving and getting the sand out of the transmission and the tanks will be ready to level some mud huts.
If an American general needed a hundred tanks delivered to Afghanistan on the double, it would require fifty long-range flights by the C-5 Galaxy - the world’s most expensive military transport plane with the highest operating cost - with in-flight refuellings and about twenty service hours for every flight hour. And this is just to deliver the tanks. Then they would need to go back for fuel, ammunition and spare parts.
There doesn’t seem to be a military solution to this war and Obama’s only hope is to somehow capture the elusive Saudi Waldo and to get the hell out of Dodge. The 300,000-strong DRA army, which the Soviets hoped would take over after the victorious Red Army went home, was infinitely better trained and equipped than the NATO-trained pack of hoodlums pretending to be guarding Hamid Karzai, but in reality just stealing ammunition and extorting bribes. And even the DRA army was viewed by the Soviet commanders as more of a problem than a solution.
This is exactly what happens when you go to war with an idiotic plan of spreading Communism or Democracy; or when you send the army across the oceans to a distant land to catch one guy, who may or may not be there. And this is precisely why the Americans and the rest of the NATO are in Afghanistan: in 2001 Bush gave Mullah Omar of Taliban an ultimatum: surrender Bin laden (who is married to your daughter) or face the consequences. Obviously, nobody seriously expected Omar to comply. And so for the past eight years a force of tens of thousands of soldiers have been eating through a half-a-trillion-dollar budget trying to locate a single guy hiding somewhere in the Hindu Kush mountains
Monday, February 23, 2009
20 years ago the last Soviet soldiers left Afghanistan
On February 15th, 1989 the last Soviet soldier crossed the (then) Soviet-Afghan border leaving behind over one million dead Afghans, several millions more wounded and displaced. This war cost the Soviet Union just under 14 thousand lives. This is, for sure, a disastrous tally and nobody in his right mind would attempt to qualify the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan as a "success".
Still, while unequivocally a failure and a tragedy, looking back at the Soviet presence in Afghanistan a number of thoughts occur to me which now, twenty years later, make me reassess some of the things I previously had believed.
First, who were the good guys and who were the bad guys in this war? Remember how at the time the Western propaganda had it nice and simple: The Soviet Union was the "Evil Empire" while the Afghans were "Freedom Fighters"? The Soviet system was evil alright, but does that make the Afghan resistance "good"? In hindsight I am inclined to believe that this war was not a war between good and evil but between bad and much, much *worse*?
There can be no doubt at all that the Afghans were defending their own country, that they were fundamentally in their right to oppose the Soviet occupation of their land. But beyond that, what kind of Afghanistan did most - thought not all - of the Afghan resistance fight for? A grotesque medieval Islamic nightmare I would say, the same type of society which Wahabis have always - and still are - trying to establish. Does that sound like typical US propaganda? Sure it does! But whoever said that the US propaganda cannot, at times, say the truth? Why should the US propaganda use only falsehoods when the truth is even more appalling?
Of course, as always, the real picture of what was going on in Afghanistan in these days was more complex than "resistance vs Soviets". The truth is that Afghanistan already had a strong secular left-leaning movement, that a lot of Afghan intellectuals supported the various secular regimes which preceded the Amin government and that even within the Afghan communist parties several distinct factions were fighting for power. The opposition to the Kabul government was also split into various factions, often along ethnic lines. Finally, Afghanistan has a long history of shifting alliances, of local warlords being bought-off by various forces, of endless infighting between clans, groups and local leaders. Very roughly, at least three main parties fought during the Soviet occupation: the Soviet backed communists, the forces under Ahmad Shah Massud in northern Afghanistan and the various Pashtun forces in the rest of the country. At the time, all of the resistance forces called itself "Islamic", but in reality ethnicity played a huge role in their composition.
Ahmad Shah was a very interesting figure. He was arguably the single most effective Afghan commander, but at the same time he was also willing to negotiate with the Soviets. The Russian military had a great deal of respect for him and the Russian military intelligence service GRU secretly negotiated a ceasefire with Masud without the Kremlin being briefed about these talks. Later, the ceasfire was eventually broken under the joint pressure of Nadjibullah and (the then Soviet Foreign Minister) Eduard Shevarnadze. What the ideologues on both failed to see, did not want to see, is what soldiers on both sides understood very well: Masud and the Soviets did not have any other fundamental disagreement besides the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Even more importantly, they had a common enemy: the Wahabi Pashtun extremists which would later become the Taliban.
Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Soviet and, later, the Russians provided huge military and technical assistance to Massud and his movement which would eventually be re-branded as the "Northern Alliance". Once the Soviets left Afghanistan they became natural allies of Massud and forces.
In contrast, the Soviets truly despised the Pashtun Islamists. They saw them as illiterate barbarians with plenty of courage, but very little tactical or strategic skills. They saw them as either very corrupt or wholly fanaticized. Sadly, they were essentially correct.
The Soviets also tried their utmost to bring Afghanistan into the modern world: they built schools, promoted equal rights for women, assisted in agricultural project and infrastructure development. They provided much needed health care for thousands of destitute people and they pushed literacy programs. None of that was enough to create a moderate or secular middle class.
On the down side, when their forces were attacked, the Soviet also mercilessly destroyed Afghan villages and killed a huge amount of innocent civilians.
The basic Soviet counter-insurgency tactics was composed of the following elements:
1) occupy mountain tops using helicopter-dropped forces, often Airborne troops.
2) organize raiding counterinsurgency "operational maneuver groups" typically staffed by Border Guard troops lead by KGB Spetsnaz officers
3) maintain an intelligence/recon force supported by a network of local agents. Both the KGB and the GRU used such networks
4) prepare major raids by covertly introducing Spetsnaz GRU operators deep inside enemy territory and then follow up with DShB (air-assault) forces inserted by helicopters.
5) maintain regular military forces in all the large cities and use them to maintain the main roads under Soviet control.
All in all, these were very effective tactics which mostly confined the Afghan resistances to remote mountain valleys. The Soviet 40th Army's military performance in Afghanistan is vastly superior to the abject failure of the US/NATO force. Amazingly, but an under-financed, often under-equipped and under-staffed army of Soviet conscripts managed to achieve much more than the professional US/NATO forces. This is particularly true when one considers the fact that the Soviet had to fight both the Pashtuns and the Tadjiks and Uzbeks of Masud, whereas the US/NATO is only fighting the Pashtuns, clearly the inferior military force.
In many ways, the Soviet policies in Afghanistan were contradictory, and my point is not to make the Soviets look good, but to acknowledge one basic things: the Soviet were trying to prevent Afghanistan to become a base for the worst kind of Wahabi extremism. In contrast, the USA blinded by its hatred for the Soviet Union only succeeded in creating a monster which eventually - and inevitably - would turn against its former patron.
Almost the same situation was repeated in Chechnia. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the quasi total collapse of the state in Russia, the West threw its full support behind the Chechen separatists which were, I think, even worse than the Talibans. If the latter at least were sincere in their religious beliefs, the Chechens were first and foremost maniacal thugs, bloodthirsty butchers of the worst kind which only used Islam as a pious cover for their utterly amoral and perverted goals. I strongly suspect that some circles in Russia were actually interested in allowing the situation in Chechnya to degenerate into such a nightmarish chaos that nobody in his/her right mind would oppose the re-establishment of a powerful state. Once Putin came to power the Russian public essentially gave him 'carte blanche' to crush the Chechens, which he did very effectively by a combination of excellent military tactics and by simply buying off a good part of the Chechen leaders.
Though the "Chechen operation" eventually collapsed and, in many ways, made Russia not weaker but much stronger, there is no doubt that the West fully supported the Chechens, at least until 9/11. Only with the Twin Towers collapsing in flames did the Western elites suddenly loose their fancy for bearded gunman shooting at all sorts of "infidels" and "kafirs".
But has anything really changed?
The US and Europe are still automatically supporting anybody and everybody who is perceived as "anti-Russian" (Georgia, Ukraine, Latvia, etc. etc. etc.), they are still bitter foes of Iran (a country which borders Afghanistan and which is more aware than any other of the Wahabi threat for the region and the world) and they are still calling Hezbollah "terrorist" even though any logical analysis can only lead to the conclusion that Hezbollah is a national liberation movement and the strongest force to oppose the various Al-Qaeda franchises in Lebanon and the rest of the Middle-East. Instead of reaching out to its natural allies in its war against Islamic extremism, the West is trying to fight everybody at the same time abroad while giving up every civil right one by one at home.
That amazing Western blindness, arrogance and crass ignorance is really the most powerful weapon the Wahabis have in their "arsenal": as long as the West will continue to pursue imaginary enemies its real enemies will have all they need to strike at it, again and again.
As the so-called "redirection" has shown the so-called Global War on Terror (GWOT) is nothing but a planetary wide exercise in fostering Wahabi terrorism. 20 years ago the Soviet withdrew from Afghanistan and the idiots in the CIA reported "we won".
I wonder what they thought on 9/11 or if they even managed to connect the dots.
Probably not.
Still, while unequivocally a failure and a tragedy, looking back at the Soviet presence in Afghanistan a number of thoughts occur to me which now, twenty years later, make me reassess some of the things I previously had believed.
First, who were the good guys and who were the bad guys in this war? Remember how at the time the Western propaganda had it nice and simple: The Soviet Union was the "Evil Empire" while the Afghans were "Freedom Fighters"? The Soviet system was evil alright, but does that make the Afghan resistance "good"? In hindsight I am inclined to believe that this war was not a war between good and evil but between bad and much, much *worse*?
There can be no doubt at all that the Afghans were defending their own country, that they were fundamentally in their right to oppose the Soviet occupation of their land. But beyond that, what kind of Afghanistan did most - thought not all - of the Afghan resistance fight for? A grotesque medieval Islamic nightmare I would say, the same type of society which Wahabis have always - and still are - trying to establish. Does that sound like typical US propaganda? Sure it does! But whoever said that the US propaganda cannot, at times, say the truth? Why should the US propaganda use only falsehoods when the truth is even more appalling?
Of course, as always, the real picture of what was going on in Afghanistan in these days was more complex than "resistance vs Soviets". The truth is that Afghanistan already had a strong secular left-leaning movement, that a lot of Afghan intellectuals supported the various secular regimes which preceded the Amin government and that even within the Afghan communist parties several distinct factions were fighting for power. The opposition to the Kabul government was also split into various factions, often along ethnic lines. Finally, Afghanistan has a long history of shifting alliances, of local warlords being bought-off by various forces, of endless infighting between clans, groups and local leaders. Very roughly, at least three main parties fought during the Soviet occupation: the Soviet backed communists, the forces under Ahmad Shah Massud in northern Afghanistan and the various Pashtun forces in the rest of the country. At the time, all of the resistance forces called itself "Islamic", but in reality ethnicity played a huge role in their composition.
Ahmad Shah was a very interesting figure. He was arguably the single most effective Afghan commander, but at the same time he was also willing to negotiate with the Soviets. The Russian military had a great deal of respect for him and the Russian military intelligence service GRU secretly negotiated a ceasefire with Masud without the Kremlin being briefed about these talks. Later, the ceasfire was eventually broken under the joint pressure of Nadjibullah and (the then Soviet Foreign Minister) Eduard Shevarnadze. What the ideologues on both failed to see, did not want to see, is what soldiers on both sides understood very well: Masud and the Soviets did not have any other fundamental disagreement besides the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Even more importantly, they had a common enemy: the Wahabi Pashtun extremists which would later become the Taliban.
Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Soviet and, later, the Russians provided huge military and technical assistance to Massud and his movement which would eventually be re-branded as the "Northern Alliance". Once the Soviets left Afghanistan they became natural allies of Massud and forces.
In contrast, the Soviets truly despised the Pashtun Islamists. They saw them as illiterate barbarians with plenty of courage, but very little tactical or strategic skills. They saw them as either very corrupt or wholly fanaticized. Sadly, they were essentially correct.
The Soviets also tried their utmost to bring Afghanistan into the modern world: they built schools, promoted equal rights for women, assisted in agricultural project and infrastructure development. They provided much needed health care for thousands of destitute people and they pushed literacy programs. None of that was enough to create a moderate or secular middle class.
On the down side, when their forces were attacked, the Soviet also mercilessly destroyed Afghan villages and killed a huge amount of innocent civilians.
The basic Soviet counter-insurgency tactics was composed of the following elements:1) occupy mountain tops using helicopter-dropped forces, often Airborne troops.
2) organize raiding counterinsurgency "operational maneuver groups" typically staffed by Border Guard troops lead by KGB Spetsnaz officers
3) maintain an intelligence/recon force supported by a network of local agents. Both the KGB and the GRU used such networks
4) prepare major raids by covertly introducing Spetsnaz GRU operators deep inside enemy territory and then follow up with DShB (air-assault) forces inserted by helicopters.
5) maintain regular military forces in all the large cities and use them to maintain the main roads under Soviet control.
All in all, these were very effective tactics which mostly confined the Afghan resistances to remote mountain valleys. The Soviet 40th Army's military performance in Afghanistan is vastly superior to the abject failure of the US/NATO force. Amazingly, but an under-financed, often under-equipped and under-staffed army of Soviet conscripts managed to achieve much more than the professional US/NATO forces. This is particularly true when one considers the fact that the Soviet had to fight both the Pashtuns and the Tadjiks and Uzbeks of Masud, whereas the US/NATO is only fighting the Pashtuns, clearly the inferior military force.
In many ways, the Soviet policies in Afghanistan were contradictory, and my point is not to make the Soviets look good, but to acknowledge one basic things: the Soviet were trying to prevent Afghanistan to become a base for the worst kind of Wahabi extremism. In contrast, the USA blinded by its hatred for the Soviet Union only succeeded in creating a monster which eventually - and inevitably - would turn against its former patron.
Almost the same situation was repeated in Chechnia. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the quasi total collapse of the state in Russia, the West threw its full support behind the Chechen separatists which were, I think, even worse than the Talibans. If the latter at least were sincere in their religious beliefs, the Chechens were first and foremost maniacal thugs, bloodthirsty butchers of the worst kind which only used Islam as a pious cover for their utterly amoral and perverted goals. I strongly suspect that some circles in Russia were actually interested in allowing the situation in Chechnya to degenerate into such a nightmarish chaos that nobody in his/her right mind would oppose the re-establishment of a powerful state. Once Putin came to power the Russian public essentially gave him 'carte blanche' to crush the Chechens, which he did very effectively by a combination of excellent military tactics and by simply buying off a good part of the Chechen leaders.
Though the "Chechen operation" eventually collapsed and, in many ways, made Russia not weaker but much stronger, there is no doubt that the West fully supported the Chechens, at least until 9/11. Only with the Twin Towers collapsing in flames did the Western elites suddenly loose their fancy for bearded gunman shooting at all sorts of "infidels" and "kafirs".
But has anything really changed?
The US and Europe are still automatically supporting anybody and everybody who is perceived as "anti-Russian" (Georgia, Ukraine, Latvia, etc. etc. etc.), they are still bitter foes of Iran (a country which borders Afghanistan and which is more aware than any other of the Wahabi threat for the region and the world) and they are still calling Hezbollah "terrorist" even though any logical analysis can only lead to the conclusion that Hezbollah is a national liberation movement and the strongest force to oppose the various Al-Qaeda franchises in Lebanon and the rest of the Middle-East. Instead of reaching out to its natural allies in its war against Islamic extremism, the West is trying to fight everybody at the same time abroad while giving up every civil right one by one at home.
That amazing Western blindness, arrogance and crass ignorance is really the most powerful weapon the Wahabis have in their "arsenal": as long as the West will continue to pursue imaginary enemies its real enemies will have all they need to strike at it, again and again.
As the so-called "redirection" has shown the so-called Global War on Terror (GWOT) is nothing but a planetary wide exercise in fostering Wahabi terrorism. 20 years ago the Soviet withdrew from Afghanistan and the idiots in the CIA reported "we won".
I wonder what they thought on 9/11 or if they even managed to connect the dots.
Probably not.
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