Insurgents Share a Name, but Pursue Different Goals

punditman says...punditman is posting an article from the New York times. That's probably a first. The Times has been a bastion of neo-con warmongering for as long as this man of punditry can recall. Of course, as with all corporate media, there are always exceptions. There are informative articles. This is one such piece.

Even experts have trouble keeping up with how complex the situation really is in the AfPak theatre. No surprise then, that many people do not know the difference between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban, or the fact that there are real tensions between these two movements. Or, that the Afghan Taliban are a "genuine national movement," whatever we may think of them. Or that the Afghan Taliban say that their interests lie solely in Afghanistan. In fact, in a recent interview, an Afghan Taliban leader said that they “don’t have any interest in fighting against other countries.” “Our aim was, and is, to get the occupation forces out and not to get into a fight with a Muslim army,” the commander added. Many people don't realize that while the Afghan Taliban are supported by elements in Pakistan's intelligence services, it is the Pakistan Taliban who are attacking Pakistani forces and causing a lot of havoc and misery for Pakistan.

This is worse than Iraq. Western governments are deluded if they really believe they can somehow manage and control this region. When you read this, you should realize that idea has become a joke, really--something to keep in mind when you hear shallow platitudes about "staying the course" from idiotic politicians.

Punditman says that the United States and NATO face an impossible situation, which is what often happens when you invade and occupy other countries. You stir up a hornet's nest. It is one helluva mess over there.

Punditman is posting an article from the New York times.

By SCOTT SHANE

Published: October 22, 2009

WASHINGTON — As it devises a new Afghanistan policy, the Obama administration confronts a complex geopolitical puzzle: two embattled governments, in Afghanistan and Pakistan; numerous militias aligned with overlapping Islamist factions; and hidden in the factions’ midst, the foe that brought the United States to the region eight years ago, Al Qaeda.

But at the core of the tangle are the two Taliban movements, Afghan and Pakistani. They share an ideology and a dominant Pashtun ethnicity, but they have such different histories, structures and goals that the common name may be more misleading than illuminating, some regional specialists say.

“The fact that they have the same name causes all kinds of confusion,” said Gilles Dorronsoro, a French scholar of South Asia currently at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

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Saigon Again?

By Philip Giraldi

www.antiwar.com

The problem with assessing President Barack Obama’s foreign policy after little more than 100 days is that it is nearly impossible to distinguish what has already become policy from approaches that might be termed more tentative. Does he really think that a continued American engagement in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and on behalf of Israel serves the national interest? Maybe not. There are signs that a broad reassessment of U.S. policy is underway, though critics who have been rightly soured by eight years of George W. Bush’s blundering note that Obama appears to have embraced the interventionist formula that has proven so disastrous. Nation-building will not work in Afghanistan, and interference in neighboring Pakistan has produced a nuclear country that is self-destructing. Taking the two countries together, it is clear that Central Asia has become the poster child for U.S. foreign policy ineptitude.

The Bush administration’s tendency to try to sell an otherwise questionable foreign policy continues. President Obama’s pledge after last week’s meeting with the Pakistani and Afghan presidents that he is dedicated to defeating al-Qaeda was intended to push a button with the American audience. He knows perfectly well that al-Qaeda has become a minor player in the Central Asian drama and that the problem is much larger than the terrorist group that carried out 9/11. To be fair to Obama, it should be accepted that the Bush administration created the Afghanistan and Pakistan crisis that he has inherited. Obama has questioned existing policies even though he has increased the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan by only half the number requested by the Pentagon. He has also increased the intensity of Predator drone strikes directed against Taliban and al-Qaeda inside Pakistan. He would be well advised to think yet again about what he is doing.

The increase in soldiers will not win the day, and would not even if it were double the number being committed, because the Afghan topography means the U.S. has to rely on air power, which leads to high civilian casualties and has turned the Afghan people against the NATO mission. More important, the narco-trafficking-fueled corruption in the Karzai government is so pervasive that Afghans have lost any hope that their lot will ever improve. Without that, the insurgency, which at least offers stability, will inevitably win, and the American GI will follow his British and Russian counterparts in the graveyard of empires. There is no reason to believe that allowing a government that includes the Taliban in Afghanistan threatens the United States. Quite the contrary, as the Taliban are not interested in exporting any revolution and are intensely inward-looking. They will also likely have learned the lesson of 2001 and will know that their support of any international terrorist movements will result in a devastating response from the United States. Obama could stay a while to save face, put a Band-Aid on the situation, and then get out while there is still an option to do so. The Afghans will sort out their own future just as they always have. If it is not a free-market, pluralistic, democratic future, then so be it.

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punditman says...

Punditman does not pretend that if NATO troops withdraw from the AfPak theatre, all will be peace and light. The question is, would the death, destruction and misery be any worse than that of an unwinnable foreign intervention? Or would things sort of muddle along at a lower level of conflict as the various forces jockey for power? Those who say you must support the troops by supporting their mission rarely offer a realistic assessment of the dire situation in Afghanistan and South Asia—let alone a "winning" scenario. They are content to follow whatever their government tells them until hell freezes over. Punditman thinks that they often secretly think this war is unwinnable but won't admit it. Or perhaps they believe in the magical military mystery tour?

Sometimes the only option is to choose the least worst choice. And that, it seems, is to stop messing with an already messy situation that the West is ill equipped to fix—much less truly understand—and come up with a plan for military withdrawal from South Asia. Unless of course the plan is for perpetual war as the domestic economy implodes. Other empires have known such folly. They now help form the ashheaps of history.

Making LBJ Look Like a Piker

Who Remembers Guns and Butter?

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s policy of Great Society spending and Vietnam War is credited with the rising American inflation that persisted until checked by President Reagan’s supply-side policy.

In Johnson’s time the American economy and the US dollar were strong, and there was no current account deficit. Yet, LBJ’s policy of guns and butter did long-term harm.

The Bush/Obama 21st century policy of guns and butter makes LBJ look like a piker. The 2009 and 2010 federal budget deficits will be monstrous even without guns. But Obama is exiting (apparently) the Iraq War in order to start two, possibly three, more wars.

Obama has announced a doubling of US troops in Afghanistan. Widening that war will require the US to occupy, or attempt to occupy, parts of Pakistan. The disrespect for Pakistan’s sovereignty will further radicalize that large, nuclear-armed country and bring Pakistan, or at least parts of it, into armed conflict with the US.

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punditman says...Is there something about the US presidency that automatically divorces the holder of the office from reality? The US economy is going off a cliff. So -- time to crank up the belligerent rhetoric and escalate military actions. Is there something in the White House water supply?

The Case of the Telltale Hoax

Who was behind the Mumbai massacre?

Justin Raimondo
www.antiwar.com

The idea that a nuclear war could be started by a hoax caller may seem too Bizarro Worldish, even for the post-9/11 era, but there you have it:

"A hoax caller claiming to be India's foreign minister threatened Pakistan's president with war during the final hours of the Mumbai attacks, prompting Islamabad to put its air force on its highest alert for nearly 24 hours, a news report said Saturday."

How did the Mumbai prankster get through to the president of Pakistan? Simple: caller ID! Naturally, these things can be faked, but what do they know in Pakistan? (Although I'll bet the caller wouldn't have gotten through to Gen. Pervez "No Nonsense" Musharraf, the previous "president"-cum-dictator.)

What this underscores – apart from the tenuous character of human existence and the utter absurdity of life – is how delicate the balance of terror is these days. One false move and – ka-boom! – the world (or a good chunk of it) goes up in a puff of smoke. If you like your humor dark and unsweetened, then this is mordantly funny. What's not so funny, however, is the probable answer to the obvious question: who made the call?

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punditman says...This is a bit of a meandering column but well worth the read. It underscores the utter futlility of waging war in a region known for its byzantine politics and religious fanaticism. In other words, good luck trying to wade through the region by declaring as your objective the destruction of the abstract noun known as terrorism.

Pakistani Taliban Offers to Lay Down Arms for Peace

Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Maulvi Omar has offered negotiations with the Pakistani government “without any conditions.” The Pakistani government has previously offered such negotiations, but demanded that the TTP first lay down their arms and agree to expel all foreigners from the tribal areas.

Maulvi Omar seemed open to the possibility, saying that the TTP would be willing to lay down arms so long as the Pakistani government ceases its offensives against them. He also said his faction would be willing to cooperate with the government in driving out foreigners and preventing infiltration into Afghanistan. He also was open to promising the TTP would not cross into Afghanistan to fight there, saying the Afghan Taliban was powerful enough on its own.

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punditman says...It is important to point these things out to illustrate the complex, nuanced situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. You don't get that in the mainstream media, and you don't get that inside most people's heads -- where everything is good guys (us) vs. bad guys (meaning whoever the government and the military says are the bad guys) .

The New 'Invasion of Cambodia'

by William Pfaff

Paris, September 11, 2008 – The United States has just invaded Cambodia. The name of Cambodia this time is Pakistan, but otherwise it’s the same story as in Indochina in 1970.

An American army, deeply frustrated by its inability to defeat an anti-American insurgent movement despite years of struggle, decides that the key to victory lies in a neighboring country. In 1970 the problem was the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia. Today it is Taliban and al Qaeda bases inside Pakistan, which the United States has been attacking from the air for some time, with controversial “collatoral damages.”

George W. Bush has now authorized independent ground assaults on Taliban and al Qaeda targets in Pakistan’s Tribal Territories, without consultation with Pakistan authorities. These already have begun.

This follows a period of tension, with some armed clashes, between American and Pakistani military units, the latter defending “Pakistan’s national sovereignty.” Pakistan public opinion seems largely against “America’s war” being fought inside Pakistan.

Washington’s decision was made known just in time for the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that opened the first phase of the “war on terror,” after which “nothing could ever be the same.” We no doubt have now begun phase two.

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punditman says...

And now this: Pakistani Troops Fired on US Helicopters Trying to Cross Border. Using Pakistan as a gambit in the ever-expanding, endless war on terror is not going to work any more than invading Cambodia worked to help win another unwinnable war a generation ago. "Bold moves" such as these only serve to show up the US for the bumbling giant that it is, while making scores of new enemies for every civilian maimed or killed.

Scott Horton Interviews Eric Margolis

www.antiwar.com

Eric Margolis discusses the widening of the hopeless U.S. occupation of Afghanistan into Pakistan, America’s siding with the formerly pro-Soviet Tajik and Uzbek forces against the Pashtuns, the hatred of U.S. actions by most of the people of Pakistan, the relative lack of danger that Pakistan’s nukes could get loose or be used, how Americans don’t recognize they are living in an empire, U.S. plans to invade Afghanistan before 9/11, why the U.S. let Bin Laden escape and the AQ Kahn nuclear black market network.

MP3 here. (26:27)

Award winning author, columnist, and broadcaster Eric S. Margolis has covered 14 wars and is a leading authority on military affairs, the Middle East, South Asia, and Islamic movements. He is the author of War at the Top of the World. See his website.

punditman says...
I urge everyone who regularly reads this blog, as well as those who stumble in here, to take the time to listen to the above Eric Margolis interview, especially those of you who support the current NATO mission in Afghanistan and who think that the Afghan War is a "good war" compared to Iraq.

Sibel Edmonds, Turkey and the Bomb

A Real 9/11 Cover-Up?

By DAVE LINDORFF

If a new article just published Saturday in the Times of London based upon information provided by US government whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, we have not only solid evidence of prior knowledge of 9-11 by high up US government officials, but evidence of treasonous activity by many of those same officials involving efforts to provide US nuclear secrets to America's enemies, even including Al Qaeda.

The story also casts a chilling light on the so-called "accidental" flight of six nuclear-armed cruise missiles aboard an errant B-52 that flew last Aug. 30 from Minot AFB in North Dakota to Barksdale AFB in Shreveport, Louisiana.

The Sunday Times reports that Edmonds, whose whistleblowing efforts have been studiously ignored by what passes for the news media in American news media, approached the Rupert Murdoch-owned British paper a month ago after reading a report there that an Al-Qaeda leader had been training some of the 9-11 hijackers at a base in Turkey, a US NATO alley, under the noses of the Turkish military.

Edmonds, who was recruited by the FBI after 9-11 because of her Turkish and Farsi language skills, has long been claiming that in her FBI job of covertly monitoring conversations between Turkish, Israeli, Persian and other foreign agents and US contacts, including a backlog of untranslated tapes dating back to 1997, she had heard evidence of "money laundering, drug imports and attempts to acquire nuclear and conventional weapons technology." But the Turkish training for 9-11 rang more alarm bells and made her decide that talking behind closed doors to Congress or the FBI was not enough. She had to go public.

Edmonds claims in the Times that even as she was providing evidence of moles within the US State Department, the Pentagon, and the nuclear weapons establishment, who were providing nuclear secrets for cash, through Turkey, to Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, agencies within the Bush administration were actively working to block investigation and to shield those who were committing the acts of treason.

Pakistan's ISI is known to have had, and to still maintain close contacts with Al-Qaeda. Indeed, the Times notes that Pakistan's nuclear god-father, General Mahmoud Ahmad, was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks.

Edmonds claims, in the Times article, that following the 9-11 attacks, FBI investigators took a number of Turkish and Pakistani operatives into custody for questioning about foreknowledge of the attacks, but that a high-ranking US State Department official repeatedly acted to spirit them out of the country.

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Imbecilic email still making the rounds

punditman says:

Recently, I received the following forwarded email, which has a kind of innocent jingoism about it:

"Someone in Pakistan advertised in a newspaper an offer of reward to anyone who kills a Canadian -- any Canadian. In response, an Australian dentist wrote the following editorial to help define what a Canadian is:

A Canadian can be English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. A Canadian can be Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, Arab, Pakistani or Afghan.

A Canadian may also be a Cree, Metis, Mohawk, Blackfoot, Sioux, or one of the many other tribes known as native Canadians. A Canadian's religious beliefs range from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or none. In fact, there are more Muslims in Canada than in Afghanistan. The key difference is that in Canada they are free to worship as each of them chooses. Whether they have a religion or no religion, each Canadian ultimately answers only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

A Canadian lives in one of the most prosperous lands in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which recognize the right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.

A Canadian is generous and Canadians have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return. Canadians welcome the best of everything, the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services and the best minds. But they also welcome the least - the oppressed, the outcast and the rejected.

These are the people who built Canada. You can try to kill a Canadian if you must as other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world have tried but in doing so you could just be killing a relative or a neighbor. This is because Canadians are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, can be a Canadian."

Nice thoughts. Too bad it is hokum. A dead giveaway that this is recycled gibberish is the claim that there are more Muslims in Canada than in Afghanistan. What imbecilic nonsense! In fact, 1.9% of the population in Canada is Muslim compared to 99% in Afghanistan and yet both countries have roughly the same population: 33,390,141 and 31,889,923 respectively (source: CIA World Fact Book--ironically). Add to that the American spelling of "neighbor." Then again, the pro war folks rarely do their homework.

A quick google search reveals a strikingly similar five-year-old email, but in fact it was talking about Americans, not Canadians. See the following link (scroll down to the part entitled "An American"):
http://www.saw.co.za/newsletters/archive/sawmail_150402.html#adhoc

It is possible the whole thing is just some internet urban myth -- was there such an ad in a Pakistan newspaper? Did an Australian dentist write an editorial? Where was it published? Who knows?

The tone of the “original” piece equates America with all things bright and beautiful, while the copy-cat version merely substitutes Americans with Canadians.

The same basic email appears on David Kilgour's personal website, he being the former Liberal Member of Parliament for the Alberta riding of Edmonton Southeast: http://www.david-kilgour.com/2007/Nov_21_2007_06.htm

More Muslims in Canada than Afghanistan? Sloppy, David, sloppy!

The whole thing just smacks of cheap flag-waving, which politicians thrive upon.

The Australian dentist who supposedly wrote this editorial undoubtedly did so at least five years ago. That was when the post-911 sympathy-for-America phenomenon was at its peak -- before the Bush administration set to work to unravel it. Since then, the seemingly endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ongoing turmoil throughout much of the Middle East and a constant stream of scandals and malfeasance -- from torture, to rendition, to the new cooked-up lies about Iran's nuclear program -- have used up that "compassion capital" several times over.

Thus I remain suspicious of the agenda of the person who first “Canadianized” this forwarded email because no Aussie dentist ever wrote any such thing about Canadians. That much is true.

It always pays to do a little background research -- for what it's worth.

Antiwar Radio: Scott Horton Interviews Eric Margolis

punditman says: Been away for a few days folks, getting the computer fixed. But I am back, and I bring this to your attention:

From antiwar.com:
Eric Margolis, foreign correspondent for Sun National Media and the American Conservative magazine, discusses the state of emergency in Pakistan, the history of the Musharraf dictatorship, his relationship with Dick Cheney, the return of Benazir Bhutto, her accusation that Musharraf was behind the recent suicide bomb attacks, the Islamists in Waziristan, the cause of their insurgency, Pakistan’s feudal system and the slim chance that crazies could get their hands on the nukes, the tension between Pakistan and India, the collision course coming this way as the Kurdish PKK attacks Turkey and vice versa, the U.S. and Israel’s policy of splitting off Kurdistan Iraq while simultaneously backing the Turks, U.S. support for Kurdish terrorism against Iran and the plan for long term occupation of Iraq.

Listen to the mp3 here.

Forgotten Faces of War

by James Carroll

One news story from Afghanistan last week told of two tragedies. In Paktika Province a young man, whose chest was wrapped with an explosive vest, was en route to the place where he would detonate himself. But then, he saw people at prayer in a mosque, and he changed his mind. He went to the police. He began removing his explosive vest, but it went off. He alone was killed.

In Uruzgan Province, a young man, recently home from Pakistan where he had attended a religious school, announced a similar intention to his family. He was going to kill the enemy by killing himself. The article said that he handed over $3,600, presumably a reward for what he was about to do. In front of his mother, brother, and two sisters, he displayed his explosive vest. The young man’s mother was horrified, and she immediately tried to remove the vest from his body. The bomb detonated. The young man, his mother, and his three siblings were killed instantly.

Reports from Afghanistan and Iraq have been numbingly discouraging, in part because, in the United States, they come as a steady stream of abstraction. We see the faces of American casualties on the evening news, and the fate of wounded GIs draws sympathy, but otherwise the human cost of the war is kept vague.

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U.S. Aborted Raid on Qaeda Chiefs in Pakistan in ’05

by- Suzie-Q @ 5:06 PM MST

WASHINGTON, July 7 — A secret military operation in early 2005 to capture senior members of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas was aborted at the last minute after top Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardize relations with Pakistan, according to intelligence and military officials.

The target was a meeting of Qaeda leaders that intelligence officials thought included Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy and the man believed to run the terrorist group’s operations.

But the mission was called off after Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, rejected an 11th-hour appeal by Porter J. Goss, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, officials said. Members of a Navy Seals unit in parachute gear had already boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan when the mission was canceled, said a former senior intelligence official involved in the planning.

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