Afghanistan - Still losing the war, Part 9

There ought to be a "tongue-in-cheek" smiley. I had to read your post a couple of times before I was able to figure it out. Damn I'm dumb. Or tired.

quote:Originally posted by N.Beltov:
His advice is falling upon deaf ears.

And thank the FSM for that!

The last thing we need is a powerful and efficient Afghan army, air force, and police under the direction of the puppet Karzai government.

Canadian heroes murder another Afghan civilian

quote:A male passenger in an Afghan vehicle died after Canadian soldiers fired on a civilian truck that was driving toward their military convoy Thursday evening.

The soldiers were travelling through Kandahar City at about 8:30 p.m. when the transport truck loaded with fruit approached their convoy, said military officials.

Soldiers in the convoy, fearing a suicide attack, tried repeatedly to get the driver to turn away before eventually firing a warning shot, said officials.

"Neither the warning signals nor the warning shot were heeded," said military spokesman Lt. Alain Blondin.

The soldiers then fired two additional shots from the turret cannon on a light-armoured vehicle, stopping the truck, and a subsequent investigation revealed one of the occupants was killed.

The soldiers had followed proper escalation of force procedures, said Blondin.

"Not guilty", says the spokesperson for the murderers.

French soldiers unprepared for Taliban ambush: report

The French did not have enough bullets, radios and other equipment, the report said. The troops were forced to abandon a counterattack when the weapons on their vehicles ran out of ammunition only 90 minutes into a battle that stretched over two days.

One French platoon had only a single radio and it was quickly disabled, leaving them unable to call for help.

Chillingly, in an indication that the French troopers may have been at the mercy of their attackers, the dead soldiers from that platoon “showed signs of being killed at close range,” the report said.

[ 20 September 2008: Message edited by: Webgear ]

quote:While praising the performance of U.S. and French troops under the onslaught, the report singled out the Afghan soldiers for criticism.

Of course you gotta praise the NATO troops. Never, ever criticize the performance of the godly troops. Kevlar body armour makes soldiers immune to criticism.

quote:“The ANA performed very poorly,” the report said. “The ANA force spent much of the time lounging on the battlefield. When they finally dispersed, most left their military equipment [including] weapons ID cards, and other items for the enemy.”

My word, it's so hard to find good help these days. If they aren't stealing your silverwear, they're abandoning your Crusader occupation forces to slaughter by their countrymen. You just can't trust your hired people anymore.

Or at least, the ironic version of the truth.

Oldgoat

I am pretty sure that Doug Beazley is wrong in saying those signs are in Arabic.

(Another journalist that does not know what he/she is talking about, maybe a topic for another thread)

I am about 90% sure that those signs are in written in Pasthun.

Pashto

That is why the ISAF also does education, shuras and radio programs.

Saudi influence in Afghanistan? No way? [img]tongue.gif" border="0[/img]

quote:

Taliban win over locals at the gates of Kabul

While clashes in remote Helmand dominate the headlines, another battle is being waged by the insurgents on Kabul's doorstep. There, the Taliban are winning support by building a parallel administration, which is more effective, more popular and more brutal than the government's....

Link to Article

This article was linked to and discussed here on August 24. Still an important article, though.

Why don't you spend all your time here like we do, Jerry? [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img] Seriously though, your knowledge of the subject is always helpful.

Obama has sworn to cross the Pakistani border in the hunt for "terrorists". He is in for a rude awakening:

US raids on Taleban and al-Qaeda targets in Pakistani territory have caused outrage in Pakistan.

quote:And that has added to the loathing that some people there have long felt for the way that the US conducts itself on the world stage, as Owen Bennett-Jones discovers.

"I would rather live in the dark ages under the Taleban than be subservient to any foreign power."

The unexpected comment comes from an urbane, sophisticated and, I had always thought, Westernised Pashtun lawyer.

He wears none of the badges of Islamic piety - a beard, for example - and he normally sports a navy blazer not the local shalwar kameez.

He is a former minister with the Pakistan People's Party, the most liberal in Pakistan. ...

"I can deal with Taleban, they are my own people. They come from here. I know them.

"I will be able to get around them. But the Americans never. No way."

quote:Just one year ago, the Taliban insurgency was a furtive, loosely organized guerrilla force that carried out hit-and-run ambushes, burned empty schools, left warning letters at night and concentrated attacks in the southern rural regions of its ethnic and religious heartland.

Today it is a larger, better armed and more confident militia, capable of mounting sustained military assaults. Its forces operate in virtually every province and control many districts in areas ringing the capital. Its fighters have bombed embassies and prisons, nearly assassinated the president, executed foreign aid workers and hanged or beheaded dozens of Afghans.

The new Taliban movement has created a parallel government structure that includes defense and finance councils and appoints judges and officials in some areas. It offers cash to recruits and presents letters of introduction to local leaders. It operates Web sites and a 24-hour propaganda apparatus that spins every military incident faster than Afghan and Western officials can manage.

"This is not the Taliban of Emirate times. It is a new, updated generation," said Waheed Mojda, a former foreign ministry aide under the Taliban Islamic Emirate, which ruled most of the country from 1996 to 2001. "They are more educated, and they don't punish people for having CDs or cassettes," he said. "The old Taliban wanted to bring sharia, security and unity to Afghanistan. The new Taliban has much broader goals -- to drive foreign forces out of the country and the Muslim world."

In late 2001, U.S. forces made common cause with ethnic groups in Afghanistan's north to overthrow the Taliban, in response to Osama bin Laden's use of the country as a base. Hamid Karzai was tapped as president by the United States and other powers, then elected to the job. In the early years, much of the deeply conservative Muslim country was largely peaceful and secure.

Over the past two years, the Taliban's revival has been fueled by fast-growing popular dissatisfaction with Karzai's government, which has failed to bring services and security to much of the country. Deepening public resentment against civilian deaths caused by U.S. and NATO alliance airstrikes is another factor.

No one here believes that the insurgents, estimated at 10,000 to 15,000 fighters, are currently capable of seizing the capital of Kabul or toppling the government, which is backed by more than 130,000 international troops. But a series of spectacular urban attacks in recent months, notably the bombing of the Indian Embassy and an armed assault on a parade reviewing stand where Karzai sat, have turned Kabul into a maze of bunkers and barricades that drive officialdom ever farther from the public.

Washington Post, Sept. 20

An Afghan Woman Who Stands Up to the Warlords August

quote:Afghanistan lives in the fear of the US-sponsored war lords. These hated warlords are not scared by the Taliban-monster raising its head in the south. Ironically, they live in the fear of an unarmed girl in her late twenties: Malalai Joya. To silence Joya’s defiant voice, war lords dominating national parliament, suspended Joy’s membership for three years in 2007. Earlier, at almost every parliamentary session she attended, she had her hair pulled or physically attacked and called names (‘whore’). ‘They even threatened me in the parliament with rape’, she says. But she neither toned down her criticism of war lords (‘they must be tried’) nor US occupation (‘war on terror’ is a mockery). Understandably, she’s been declared the ‘bravest woman in Afghanistan’ and even compared with Aung Sun Suu Kyi . . .

Why is the USA letting all this happen?

Joya: The USA wants the things as they are. The status quo. A bleeding, suffering Afghanistan is a good excuse to prolong its stay. Now they are even embracing the Taliban. Recently, in Musa Qila, a Taliban commander Mulla Salam was appointed as governor by Karzai. The USA has no problem with the Taliban so long as it’s ‘our Taliban’.

Must keep colonies suppressed, poverty-stricken and in chaos. Desperately poor people easier to rule over than healthy and well educated. Old ideas.

[ 20 September 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

I think it quite possible that this weekend's bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad was the work not of "Islamists" but of the U.S. government wanting to instil the fear of the Talibans in the population and to detabilize a new government hostile to a U.S. invasion. It's happened before. It would explain the abrupt, unexplained, last-minute cancellation of a dinner meeting the new Pakistan president was supposed to have there.