[url=http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/yasmin-alibhai-brown/y...'m sorry, but I was wrong to support the war in Afghanistan[/url]
If he were to realize that war doesn't fix anything (never has, never will), then it could be said he had a truly epiphanous experience in his thinking.
UPDATE
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE57L12B20090822
I hope Mr. Steinmeier wins in Germany's upcoming election next month.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=104370§ionid=351020604
(Sigh) "German Chancellor Angela Merkel has snubbed a promise by her rival in the upcoming elections to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, saying the mission there continues until its goals are met.
Merkel said she would bring home the Bundeswehr, Germany's military forces, 'as soon as possible' but only after their mission was complete.
By the end of this year, the parliamentary mandate which allows Germany to contribute up to 4,500 troops to the NATO mission in Afghanistan expires. It must be renewed if the troops are to remain in the country."
Here's a profile of the new commander of the Pakistani Taliban, Zulfiqar (aka Hakimullah) Mehsud:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8219223.stm
2009: Already NATO's deadliest year in Afghanistan.
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/08/25/2009-already-natos-deadliest-year-in-...
"It... lead[s] to questions about the viability of the Obama Administration's escalation of the war, which doesn't appear to be netting anything but failure and which commanders are already saying isn't big enough. It must likewise be damaging to the administration's 'new' strategy, which seems to be yielding the same old results: record breaking violence every month."
"President Obama is caught between two important constituencies as he recalibrates his policy in Afghanistan -- the generals who want more troops, and the base of his own party, whose tolerance for a worsening conflict is quickly evaporating."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/25/AR200908...
[url=http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/yasmin-alibhai-brown/y...'m sorry, but I was wrong to support the war in Afghanistan[/url]
Sometimes intervention is the only option, often a lesser evil. Ultra-nationalist Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo would have successfully exterminated or driven out indigenous Muslims from those lands had NATO not intervened.
But certain NATO countries did intervene both before and after Balkanization of Yugoslavia. The Clinton regime helped transform Bosnia into a militant Islamic state. And if Muslim Kosovars were not the large majority before destabilization efforts began, they would be if Alija Izetbegovic had anything to do with it. His attitude toward radicalization and purification of Bosnia amounted to so much one people, one state, one fuhrer mentality. In fact, the New York times described Izetbegovic as having joined the Young Muslims in Ustashe ruled Croatia during WW II, which was a group torn between supoprting Tito's partisans and Handzars, a group which favoured working with the waffen SS. Alija supported the Handzars.
Non-Albanians and Serbs were suddenly considered undesirables in a part of Yugoslavia that was founded by Serbs over one-thousand years ago. There are several war criminals from the 1990's who the Hague Tribunal refused to acknowledge were guilty of ethnic cleansing and general all around crimes against humanity.
[url=http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/yasmin-alibhai-brown/y...'m sorry, but I was wrong to support the war in Afghanistan[/url]
Sometimes intervention is the only option, often a lesser evil. Ultra-nationalist Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo would have successfully exterminated or driven out indigenous Muslims from those lands had NATO not intervened.
"Myth 3: The NATO air attacks prevented even greater Serb atrocities, and thus had a positive effect on the human rights situation in Kosovo."
"In fact, the bombing campaign increased the scale of Serb atrocities. ...."
Read more at http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/jul_09_gibbs
Any argument that is contrary to the fact that war is state organized murder is a fallacy.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/08/25/afghanistan-violence025.htmlA large blast made by five car bombs strung together rocked Kandahar city Tuesday night, killing at least 41 people, wounding 66 and damaging dozens of buildings, officials said.
Gunfire followed the explosion, which sent flames shooting into the Afghan sky. It targeted a Japanese construction company that mostly hires Pakistani engineers, said Haji Agha Lalai, a provincial council member.
He said the vehicles were filled with explosives and detonated together.
One Associated Press reporter estimated that the blast destroyed about 40 shops.
"Once again, they've killed children, women, innocent Afghans," said deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Sher Shah. "They are not human. They are animals. You can see for yourself the destruction of this enemy."
I call bullshit!
Since when does a vehicle, even 5, have enough power to destroy 40 shops and kill 40 people? And attack the Japanese?
This is more like a NATO bomb dropped on purpose to try and set up the Taliban. When will pople open their eyes.
Quote:http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/08/25/afghanistan-violence025.htmlA large blast made by five car bombs strung together rocked Kandahar city Tuesday night, killing at least 41 people, wounding 66 and damaging dozens of buildings, officials said.
Gunfire followed the explosion, which sent flames shooting into the Afghan sky. It targeted a Japanese construction company that mostly hires Pakistani engineers, said Haji Agha Lalai, a provincial council member.
He said the vehicles were filled with explosives and detonated together.
One Associated Press reporter estimated that the blast destroyed about 40 shops.
"Once again, they've killed children, women, innocent Afghans," said deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Sher Shah. "They are not human. They are animals. You can see for yourself the destruction of this enemy."
I call bullshit!
Since when does a vehicle, even 5, have enough power to destroy 40 shops and kill 40 people? And attack the Japanese?
This is more like a NATO bomb dropped on purpose to try and set up the Taliban. When will pople open their eyes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/world/asia/27kandahar.html?_r=1&ref=world
"The bomb exploded with such force that it was felt even by people miles away outside the city. Not only was the scale unusual. but also the fact that the attack appeared to be aimed not at the police or coalition forces but at civilians."
Sounds like a clumsy attempt by the CIA to turn the Afghan people against the Taliban and/or Afghan insurgents.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/world/asia/27kandahar.html?_r=1&ref=world"The bomb exploded with such force that it was felt even by people miles away outside the city. Not only was the scale unusual. but also the fact that the attack appeared to be aimed not at the police or coalition forces but at civilians."
Sounds like a clumsy attempt by the CIA to turn the Afghan people against the Taliban and/or Afghan insurgents.
Oh, the glad gang would never stoop so low so as to perpetrate a false flag op causing mass hysteria among the public in order to justify a repressive national security state or anything? It's not that something like this has ever happened before? At least, I don't think so. This is one of those run of the mill clean-dirty wars with straightforward objectives as usual. Has to be.
Oh, the glad gang would never stoop so low so as to perpetrate a false flag op causing mass hysteria among the public in order to justify a repressive national security state or anything? It's not that something like this has ever happened before? At least, I don't think so. This is one of those run of the mill clean-dirty wars with straightforward objectives as usual. Has to be.
Ha, ha, ha, ha! Yeah, just like Iraq.
Here's another straightforward objective in our clean-dirty little war:
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/08/27/us-copter-opens-fire-on-afghan-medica...
http://original.antiwar.com/pfaff/2009/08/27/alternative-to-victory-in-a...
"Please, President Obama:... Don't kill tens, or hundreds, of thousands more people in still another search for a useless American victory that ends in defeat, and ruins your presidency."
Taliban's growth in the north threatens to expand war:
The US Invades and Occupies Pakistan
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_56799.shtml
"We are watching it happen in the streets. The recurring nightmare has become a grim, new reality for the people of Pakistan.."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/taliban-claim-victory-over-vot...
He said his fighters never intended to follow through on threats outlined in “night letters” – leaflets warning death and dismemberment to would-be voters.“We are not targeting Afghan civilians. We are targeting foreign fighters,” the Taliban commander said, an oft-repeated pledge meant to win the support of Afghan civilians, who have suffered high casualties in insurgent attacks....
I find it hard to blieve the Taliban were actually threatening to murder anyone who went to vote but lets just say they did. Why would they threaten to kill people for voting?
Isn't that what we want? Them to NOvote in an american puppet? If the people of Afghanistan support the Taliban, which they do, why not prove it? Threatenign to kill people doesn't seem conductive of a good relationship?
I find it hard to blieve the Taliban were actually threatening to murder anyone who went to vote but lets just say they did. Why would they threaten to kill people for voting?Isn't that what we want? Them to NOvote in an american puppet? If the people of Afghanistan support the Taliban, which they do, why not prove it? Threatenign to kill people doesn't seem conductive of a good relationship?
Afghanistan has a number of religious minorities who have been supported by larger religious power bases in surrounding countries. During the 1990's when all hell broke loose with in-fighting among US and Saudi backed fundamentalists, there were thousands of proxy fighters who poured in over the borders from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Uzbekistan, Iran etc to defend the interests of their respective minorities living in Afghanistan then. So the Pahstuns, although they are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, are not the large majority of people living in that country at the same time.
I believe the Taliban are supported mainly by Pashtuns, who are about 42 percent of the population. If they were to rule Afghanistan again as they did when they were a proxy government of US, Britain, Pakistan etc, then that would be the equivalent of our phony majority governments elected by obsolete electoral rules here in North America. There are a number of political parties in Afghanistan that are not recognized in government, and it's because the US and Karzai(formerly pro mujahideen and now Northern Alliance), want to maintain the very undemocratic and unrepresentative system now in-place known as Single Non-transferrable Vote(SNTV). And violence and threats of violence are typical of US-managed elections around the "democratic" capitalist thirdworld and has been for a long time.
Are the Taliban surrounding NATO Armies and Cutting them Off?
http://www.juancole.com/2009/08/are-taliban-surrounding-nato-armies-and....
"The Taliban are obviously attempting to cut the supply routes that allow the US and NATO to keep their troops supplied with ammunition, arms and food.."
What 'IF' the US and NATO Decide to Leave..
http://www.countercurrents.org/maitra230809.htm
"...there is every liklihood that when the Americans choose to leave, the Greater Pushtunistan movement may rear its head like never before. Neither the Taliban, nor the drug lords, nor even the powerful warlords, would be able to counter that storm.."
I call bullshit!
Since when does a vehicle, even 5, have enough power to destroy 40 shops and kill 40 people? And attack the Japanese?
This is more like a NATO bomb dropped on purpose to try and set up the Taliban. When will pople open their eyes.
Depends on the number of people who are around and the explosives they use.
I recall a few car bombings in Tehran during the fight between the Islamic govenment and its opponents in 1981-1982. One car bombing one night, a single car bomb, was so powerful that we heard it loud in our house that was some 15 kilometers from the blast centre. It killed over 150 people.
And a few years ago single suicide bomber in Iraq killed a shia Iraqi leader along with 180 people, near the shrine in karbala.
Happy Junta Grounds:
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1846-...
"Escalating the war in Pakistan--with ground troops no less--is, to put it bluntly, insane.."
U.S. mulls increasing drone strikes in Pakistan. Pakistan escalation may come with Afghan escalation:
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/09/24/us-mulls-increasing-drone-strikes-in-...
Update
Not only may there be increased drone strikes in Pakistan, the U.S. is contemplating a ground attack on the Pakistani city of Quetta:
In fact, the attack on Quetta may turn out to be even more than lobbing a few missiles, as reportedly officials have discussed sending ground forces into the town to "capture or kill" any Taliban they find.
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/09/27/us-threatening-to-attack-major-pakist...
Jirga Threatens to Support Afghan Taliban
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=24862
"A Tribal Jirga of North Waziristan on Sunday threatened to support the Afghanistan based anti-US groups, including the Taliban, if the US drone attacks were not stopped...The elders said they would send volunteers and suicide bombers to Afghanistan to intensify the attacks on the US troops if the Americans did not change their policy of using drones to target the tribal people..."
"The Maple Leaf Needs to be There"
http://www.vueweekly.com/article.php?id=13294
"Eight years into a war that many commentators are now calling a quagmire from which NATO forces should extricate themselves as soon as possible, most Canadians are unaware of the link between the war and Canada's increasing involvment in the "Great Game" for the region's abundant natural resources.."
And when Uncle Sam gives the order to pull out, that's when our stooges in Ottawa will change their tune on Afghanistan. Aye-aye Uncle Sam whatever you say goes double for Liberal and Tory governments alike in Ottawa.
The men are frustrated by the lack of obvious purpose or progress. "The soldiers' biggest question is: what can we do to make this war stop. Catch one person? Assault one objective? Soldiers want definite answers, other than to stop the Taleban, because that almost seems impossible. It's hard to catch someone you can't see," said Specialist Mercer."It's a very frustrating mission," said Lieutenant Hjelmstad... "There's no tangible reward for the sacrifice. It's hard to say Wardak is better than when we got here."
Troops disillusioned in Wardak
This reaction is entirely predictable. The US and its running-dog lackeys went into this (these) war(s) with no objective other than to get revenge for the WTC/Pentagon attacks, and inflict pain on someone else, no matter who.
The first rule in Military Theory 101 is to have a clearly-defined goal for a mission. The Afghan mission has no goal other than to create misery for those people The West holds responsible for Sept. 11. Unfortunately The West holds the swarthy Muslim races responsible, and so all Arabs and Muslims are considered enemies. To achieve success in the mission is therefore to kill Muslims, not to achieve any strategic goal. Thus, the mission cannot help but fail.
By Lenin's Tomb
"... [The Afghan] insurgents are supposed to be ranged against almost 65,000 ISAF troops, 45,000 non-ISAF American troops, 9,000 British troops and purportedly 100,000 members of the Afghan National Army (most of whose troops are probably working for the ruling pro-US warlords). The implication is that a combined army of over 200k troops armed to the teeth and with godlike aerial power to back them up can't thwart an insurgency of an eight of the size with comparatively poor weapons and no air force. There must be a substantially larger hardcore of insurgents, and a very large periphery in the supporting population. This is what is so illogical about the continued pretense by US-led forces that their foes are an unpopular rump. They may once have been, but evidently now command the loyalty of broad social layers, perhaps comprising a majority in places such as Helmand. Still, if the figures nonetheless correctly identify a trend, then the insurgency has more than tripled in size since 2006."
Truth is war's first casualty. The Afghan war's biggest untruth is, "we've got to fight terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them at home."Many North Americans still buy this lie because they believe the 9/11 attacks came directly from the Afghanistan-based al-Qaida and Taliban movements.
False. The 9/11 attacks were planned in Germany and Spain, and conducted mainly by U.S.-based Saudis to punish America for supporting Israel.
Taliban, a militant religious, anti-Communist movement of Pashtun tribesmen, was totally surprised by 9/11. Taliban received U.S. aid until May, 2001. The CIA was planning to use Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida to stir up Muslim Uighurs against Chinese rule, and Taliban against Russia's Central Asian allies.
Al-Qaida only numbered 300 members. Most have been killed. A handful escaped to Pakistan. Only a few remain in Afghanistan. Yet President Barack Obama insists 68,000 or more U.S. troops must stay in Afghanistan to fight al-Qaida and prevent extremists from re-acquiring "terrorist training camps."
This claim, like Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, is a handy slogan to market war to the public. Today, half of Afghanistan is under Taliban control. Anti-American militants could more easily use Somalia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, North and West Africa, or Sudan. They don't need remote Afghanistan. The 9/11 attacks were planned in apartments, not camps.
What Lies Beneath the War in Afghanistan
Eric Margolis wrote:Truth is war's first casualty. The Afghan war's biggest untruth is, "we've got to fight terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them at home."Many North Americans still buy this lie because they believe the 9/11 attacks came directly from the Afghanistan-based al-Qaida and Taliban movements.
False. The 9/11 attacks were planned in Germany and Spain, and conducted mainly by U.S.-based Saudis to punish America for supporting Israel.
Good article from EM. But I have to question his conclusion. The Americans and Brits have supported Israel for a long time. It's not like the Israelis have only just recently obtained nuclear weapons with western help. Israel's harsh treatment of Palestinians and surrounding Arab and Muslim countries is not a new phenomenon by any means. Someone should ask
Eric Margolis what he knows about certain US-based Saudis, as he refers to them, and why they were allowed to cross the Can-Am border so easily? Who is Ali Mohamed, and why was he working for the CIA and US military at the same time he was travelling back and forth from America to Central Asia, where Sibel Edmonds says the CIA and US government has been funding religious extremist schools for the indoctrinating militant Islam in the fertile young minds of Pakistani and Afghan youth as well as Uighurs attending those same Central Asian so-called schools? And Sibel Edmonds says it is no small amount of money flowing from the US to Asia in order to maintain them and build more. The CIA never broke ties with their militant Islamic friends in 1992. That is also a lie which nobody in the mainstream newz talks about and for obvious reasons.
Af-Pak: War on Two Fronts
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15685
am posting also to the Afghan thread
The TTP is attacking police stations across the nation, even in Lahore which is far outside their usual tribal area dominion. Marketplaces in the Northwest Frontier Province have become a battlefield. Though Pakistanis are no strangers to internal strife[,] the Pashtun insurgency has largely been restricted to military offensives into Pashtun tribal areas... those days appear over.
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/10/15/pakistan-declares-taliban-guerrilla-w...
WASHINGTON - The recent spate of terrorist bombings in Pakistan is likely to figure in President Obama's ongoing review of Afghanistan policy with top advisers next week.
Discussions of the violence in Pakistan will underscore the interconnected nature of the challenges the US faces in Afghanistan and Pakistan, say South Asian analysts who have advised the administration on its policies...
... But Pakistan is also a critical part of the administration's deliberations, Mr. Riedel says, with this week's targeting of the Pakistani military only augmenting nervousness over the future US direction in Afghanistan...
... Others such as Mr. Biden say Pakistan should be the focus of a counterterrorist strategy that eschews higher troops levels in Afghanistan in favor of more surgical air strikes against terrorist targets in Pakistan.
In their view, the bombings in Pakistan underline the importance of targeting terrorist bases rather than fighting over territory in Afghanistan. "The Al Qaeda threat is not to be equated with control of a particular piece of real estate," says Paul Pillar, a former deputy director of the CIA's counterterrorism center who is now at Georgetown University in Washington.
according to Mr. Pillar, who participated in a Brookings event on Afghanistan Friday, Afghanistan's place in determining what happens in Pakistan has been largely overstated. "The course of events in Pakistan," he says, "will depend mostly on what happens in Pakistan."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1017/p02s01-usfp.html
The Pak Army Offensive in South Waziristan
http://globalgeopolitics.net/wordpress/2009/10/17/the-pak-army-offensive...
"Pakistan's counter terrorism mechanism, is in a shambles. It does not know who is a friend or who is a foe in Punjab. It does not know who is a terrorist and who is a serving or retired serviceman. It does not know who is an ally against India and who is an adversary of the State of Pakistan."
this is also a war against Indigenous tribal peoples and their relatively autonomous jurisidiction over their lands - Pakistan's 'wild west' which is now being invaded, occupied and despoiled by Pakistan forces under US payment and control..
Latest news as seen by the Frontier Post in Peshawar, which generally supports the Awami National Party government of the NWFP -- a progressive secular Pakhtun party with Gandhian traditions, which therefore sympathizes with Pakhtuns on both sides of the Durand line, and favours conciliation with anyone (even the Taliban) when possible, although politically opposing Islamists of all stripes. They gave up on conciliation some time in 2008 or early 2009, as I recall, yet they are anti-American enough to oppose American anti-Taliban conditions.
138 people killed in 13 terror incidents in 2009.
After announcement of the formal military action, the contingents of security forces started advancing towards Mehsud dominated areas of South Waziristan Agency from three sides. The personnel of security forces were already deployed in Ahmadzai dominated areas of Wana in South Waziristan, Frontier Regions of Jandola and Razmak region of North Waziristan Agency. Taliban militants have planted dozens of IEDs, land mines and other explosive material on all roads and routes, connecting Mehsud dominated areas with rest of Waziristan and Tank. Earlier the region was also known for harbouring thousands of foreign militants but now almost all of them have slipped from this part of Waziristan into other regions like North Waziristan and Ahmadzai Wazir dominated areas of South Waziristan. As a result of ground military action, thousands of people are now abandoning their homes in South Waziristan and moving towards peaceful region. Majority of them prefers districts like Tank and Dera Ismael Khan. According to reliable sources the operation is expected to last around two months. The United Nations has said it is preparing to help civilians who are fleeing the region. Up to 150,000 civilians have already left in recent months after the army made clear it was planning an assault, but there are perhaps as many as 350,000 remaining. It is nearly impossible to independently verify information from the region, which is largely controlled by local tribes and has little infrastructure or government presence. Foreigners require permission to enter tribal areas, and few Pakistani journalists risk travelling there.
Not all the aid will flow into the government treasury, under whatever pretext. Much of it will land into the unaccountable private pockets of NGOs. Indeed, going by the present indications, in the first year hardly about one-third of the aid will be received by the government; all the rest is to be consumed up by the American administration in laying down administrative procedures, methods and infrastructure for its spending. Indeed, as a sideshow the disbursement issue has embroiled bitterly two American entities themselves in a noisy turf war. At loggerheads are the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Obama administration's czar for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, with the former accusing the latter of poking his nose unwarrantedly in aid disbursement affairs and trying arrogating in his own hands a monopolistic control of all the pledged aid spending in Pakistan. But going by media reports, at the heart of their tiff is no sublime principle but a dispute if the aid handlers have to be international NGOs or the Pakistani. The USAID wants the international; Holbrooke wants the Pakistani. Their bickering has already led to suspension of work on the ongoing USAID projects in the country and the sacking of the staff working on them with a three months salary. The aid agency says it will await the US administration's decision on the tiff to resume its aid activities here. But it will be same for this country's hapless people whether international or national NGOs are involved. For, neither have a glorious track record for performance. It was the international NGOs that together handled something like $25 billion in foreign aid in Afghanistan. But they have nothing spectacular to show on their slates for this mountain of cash, having spent far more on their own upkeep and very little on the nation-building and economic reconstruction tasks assigned to them. As for the Pakistani NGOs, the little said the better. They are veritably money-minting machines in the hands of their operators, who have combined up to turn the NGOs as the nation's most flourishing industry. It indeed would not be wrong to say that if this American aid is to be channelized through the NGOs, it will enrich some select elite pockets, leaving the nation holding a staggering debt tab to pay up. If the government is now all set to an abject surrender to this atrocious aid contrivance, at least it must take up a firm stand that the money will not land in private hands under whatever pretence and will be spent on development schemes and projects holding import and priority in its own scheme of things. After all, for a puny sum that makes just a small fraction of our annual budget no respectable government would even think of signing up to a surrender document like this US aid law. In any case, the government must tell the nation at what price it is giving it in the suzerainty of the Americans.
Thousands of Internally Displaced Persons in South Waziristan are deprived of basic necessities, said the UNHCR spokesperson Michelle Montas: about 80,000 people have gone to Dera Ismail Khan and Tank from South Waziristan. "The UN is facing problems in carrying out support activities in Pakistan after the attacks on its offices, but it will continue its work."
Punjab Chief Minister, Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif has said that the entire nation is united to cope with the challenge of terrorism and we will jointly make the country a haven of peace after elimination of the menace of terrorism. The significance here is that the province of Punjab is ruled by the main conservative opposition party, which would normally be criticizing the PPP national government.
Pakistan Peoples Party leaders Matloob Wariach, Abdul Qadir Shaheen and Muhammad Salim Mughal in a joint statement Saturday lauded the government for launching a military operation against terrorists in South Waziristan Agency. They appreciated all political parties for supporting the government on the operation. (Is this a dog bites man story, PPP leaders supporting their govenment? But these three are leaders of the party's labour wing, and old Benazir Bhutto loyalists; it's good news that they are speaking out, apparently.)
Here's a fascinating story: some schools in the FATA tribal areas, which would be part of the NWFP except that they have never accepted that they are even part of Pakistan in the first place, are funded from the national government. The teachers of National Education Foundation Community Model Schools FATA staged protest demonstration demanding immediate release of their salaries for the last four months by the education departments. "After seven months, the male and female students of the schools has yet to be provided with books, the protested said."
Border security officials from India and Pakistan exchanged sweets at the Attari-Wagah border joint checkpost Saturday to mark the festival of Diwali. Border Security Force (BSF) personnel on the Indian side offered sweets to the officials of Pakistan Rangers. Border security officials had exchanged sweets during the Eid festival last month also. (Another dog bites man story? But the Awamis favour peace with India, although no one in Pakistan wants to stop supporting freedom for Kashmir.)
this is also a war against Indigenous tribal peoples and their relatively autonomous jurisidiction over their lands.
Yes, except for "indigenous." The various tribes in the tribal areas are still Pakhtuns, as are most residents of the North-West Frontier Province. The difference is historical, not ethnic: the NWFP was part of British territory, part of British India, and therefore became part of Pakistan.
The Tribal areas were never truly conquered by Britain, and in that respect resembled the Pakhtun provinces of Afghanistan, from which they differed only by being on the wrong side of the Durand line, a line they never really accepted although they allowed the British to appoint an "agent" in each of the tribal areas, who pretended to be in charge. There are a lot more Pakhtuns in Pakistan than in Afghanistan, mostly in NWFP, although quite a few have migrated to the more prosperous and multi-ethnic Karachi (or even to Dubai).
However, each of the tribal areas does now elect an MP to Pakistan's parliament, with decent turnouts, since Pakistan has been trying recently to provide some services to those areas. The NWFP wants to do so and to incorporate them into the province by agreement, which would be fine once peace is achieved.
Listening to the Canadian state media this morning they kept calling the area "ungovernable" which I gathered is a synonym for unconquerable.
Pakistan Military Launches Offensive into South Waziristan:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/wazi-o19.shtml
"The unstated military objective of the current offensive is to slaughter the estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Taliban and Tribal fighters in the agency. As well as heavy combatant losses on both sides, there are likely to be large numbers of civilian casualties. While some 150,000 people have fled the area over the past several months, some 350,000 civilians, mainly impoverished tribal farmers have been trapped in the army dragnet.
The Pakistani government of President Asif Ali Zardari ['Mr. 10%'] has sought to ensure the army has a free hand to carry out a bloodbath...Since 2001, Islamabad has been prepared to wage a civil war against the Pashtun tribal communities in the north-west of the country who sympathize with and aid the anti-occupation fighters over the border in Afghanistan.
The Pakistan government's motive is to ensure that US political, military and financial aid continues to flow to the country's corrupt ruling elite.."
[url=http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15761]America's Phoney War in Afghanistan[/url]
[url=http://www.ericmargolis.com/political_commentaries/afghanistan-a-war-of-... to author Erik Margolis[/url], prior to the September 11,2001 attacks, US intelligence was giving aid and support both to the Taliban and to Al Qaeda. Margolis claims that "The CIA was planning to use Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda to stir up Muslim Uighurs against Chinese rule, and Taliban against Russia's Central Asian allies."
The US clearly found other means of stirring up Muslim Uighurs against Beijing last July via its support for the World Uighur Congress. But the Al Qaeda "threat" remains the lynchpin of Obama US justification for his Afghan war buildup.
Now, however, the National Security Adviser to President Obama, former Marine Gen. James Jones has made a statement, conveniently buried by the friendly US media, about the estimated size of the present Al Qaeda danger in Afghanistan. Jones told Congress, "The al-Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies."
That means that Al-Qaeda, for all practical purposes, does not exist in Afghanistan. Oops...
Even in neighboring Pakistan, the remnants of Al-Qaeda are scarcely to be found. The Wall Street Journal reports, "Hunted by US drones, beset by money problems and finding it tougher to lure young Arabs to the bleak mountains of Pakistan, al Qaeda is seeing its role shrink there and in Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports and Pakistan and U.S. officials. For Arab youths who are al Qaeda's primary recruits, 'it's not romantic to be cold and hungry and hiding,' said a senior U.S. official in South Asia."
If we follow the statement to its logical consequence we must conclude then that the reason German soldiers are dying along with other NATO youth in the mountains of Afghanistan has nothing to do with "winning a war against terrorism." Conveniently most media chooses to forget the fact that Al Qaeda to the extent it ever existed, was a creation in the 1980's of the CIA, who recruited and trained radical muslims from across the Islamic world to wage war against Russian troops in Afghanistan as part of a strategy developed by Reagan's CIA head Bill Casey and others to create a "new Vietnam" for the Soviet Union which would lead to a humiliating defeat for the Red Army and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union.
Now US NSC head Jones admits there is essentially no Al Qaeda anymore in Afghanistan. Perhaps it is time for a more honest debate from our political leaders about the true purpose of sending more young to die protecting the opium harvests of Afghanistan.
Pakistan: State of Chaos
http://www.swp.ie/index.php?page=469&dept=News&title=Pakistan%3A+state+o...
"Pakistan is in a state of chaos, the whole society has been damaged by the US's 'War on Terror'. Pakistan's rulers are divided and there is no civilian government. The military dominates, but it too is divided.."
U.S. use of drones questioned by UN:
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States must demonstrate that it is not randomly killing people in violation of international law through its use of drones on the Afghan border, a Uniited Nations rights investigator said Tuesday.
The investigator, Philip Alston, also said the American refusal to respond to United Nations concerns that the use of drones might result in illegal executions was an "untenable" position.
Mr. Alston, who is appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, said his concern over drones had grown in the past few months as the American military prominently used them in the rugged area along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
President Barack Obama must admit to certain hard realities says the Frontier Post, the voice of progressive secular Pashtuns in Pakistan:
Afghan Taliban are living there with their families and in their tribes not as a distinct separate entity but as part and parcel of their Pakhtun community straddling all over from the country's south to the east. And this ethnic majority of Afghanistan is extremely outraged at the raw deal it has been dealt with by the occupiers and their puppet Kabul regime over the past eight years unremittingly. Traditionally a ruling community, it has been kept out of the power dispensation since the country's occupation. No formidable voice it had had in the government and no presence in its state security apparatus. At best, it had only symbolic representation in some state arms. President Hamid Karzai may be a Pakhtun. But the community sees him no better than half Pakhtun Abdullah Abdullah, both playing pawns in the hands of non-Pakhtun minorities, the occupier's favourites. Both are despised by Pakhtuns, though Karzai more scornfully for betraying his community so traitorously when from his top position he could have made for a better deal for the community, stamping out the train of injustices being inflicted on it with abandon.Obama would do well to comprehend that what he is confronting in Afghanistan is not a Taliban insurgency but a boiling Pakhtun nationalism of a disgruntled community. And he would be better informed if he understands that it is not the corteges carrying bodies of soldiers wrapped in national flags that sadden American and European hearts and streets, but the Pakhtuns too mourn their dead and are filled with anger and revenge over their unnatural demise. For that, doomed is his commanders' planned strategy to concentrate holding on to major urban centres in Afghanistan, leaving the countryside untended. The Soviet occupiers did it too. Yet they kissed defeat. The Afghan resistance controlled the countryside where it assembled, trained, planned actions and from there launched their attacks on Soviet garrisons, encampments, ammunition depots and convoys. The stratagem did not work then, and it sure is not going to work now.
Even buying out of resistance loyalties would go the Soviet way. It was not uncommon that recipients of money would turn back on their Soviet paymasters at once. The Americans must have indeed learnt of this from their own experiences of this foray. Reports have surfaced in these recent days that American merchants of loyalties passed on money under the table to certain Pakhtun tribal chiefs but were then horrified seeing them leading the fight against their troops the next day. In fact, this device had helped not the Soviets in curbing the Afghan resistance; in all probability, it would be of not much avail to American occupiers either.
Even now Obama could rethink his entire Afghanistan policy afresh. Oscillating between the options of counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency would in the ultimate analysis come to naught, as neither can reasonably hope to deliver. Karzai too would turn out a paper tiger as has he been so far. At best, he would throw out, if at all, a few warlords from his counsels and sack some corrupt officials from his reeky administration to put the international pressures off his back. But of what effect could it be even if he packs his cabinet with spotless technocrats, when almost the whole of southern and eastern Afghanistan are out of Kabul's writ and the entire northern and western territories are in regional warlords' autocratic control?
Obama would really be well off if he seeks out a negotiated peace with Taliban leader Mullah Umar as also Gulbuddin Hikmatyar to pacify the restive Pakhtun territory and work for a grand reconciliation among Afghanistan's ethnic and tribal divides and then leave.
President Barack Obama must admit to certain hard realities says the Frontier Post, the voice of progressive secular Pashtuns in Pakistan:The Soviet occupiers did it too. Yet they kissed defeat. The Afghan resistance controlled the countryside where it assembled, trained, planned actions and from there launched their attacks on Soviet garrisons, encampments, ammunition depots and convoys. The stratagem did not work then, and it sure is not going to work now.
But what did this author do with real history in comparing the US occupation with the proxy war of the 1980's? The truth is that among many other progressive reforms, the PDPA imposed a ban on poppy growing in the country sides. The CIA openly admitted to propping up Afghan drug barons and war lords with billions of US taxpayer dollars delivered covertly to these characters via the Pakistani ISI and US-backed military dictatorship of General Zia at the time. And then when the Afghan government fell to the fundamentalists, the CIA began funding and arming the most ruthless of them directly.
Drug addiction from Kandahar to Lahore and Islamabad was described as "flat" until the CIA, the world's biggest dope delivery sevice, moved in.
And now Malalai Joya is asking where $36 billion in western world aid money has disappeared to? Into the pockets of the drug barons and war lords, says Malalai Joya. Naturally.
[url=http://www.workers.org/ww/2001/afghan0927.php]How U.S. destroyed progressive secular forces in Afghanistan[/url] Deirdre Griswold
Salvador Option: Fomenting Civil War in Pakistan
http://www.countercurrents.org/ghazali050110.htm
"The tragic incident of Laki Marwat best reflects the outcome of the new government policy to pit tribes against tribes through bribes. The pro government tribes are being armed by the Pakistani government. More than 700 tribal elders have been killed in that strategy. A civil war is brewing in Pakistan, thanks to US policy adopted by a Washington installed government in Islamabad.."
Just another failed state that the American public has to bear the burden of helping out of their ignorance and on the road to democracy. Its not like they were ruled by the British for hundreds of years and have had the facade of a democracy for the last 50.
Given Pakistan has had years of British (centuries might be more accurate) and American training and 50 years of democracy and they apparently are still a failed state incapable of controlling anti-American activity; How long will we need to be in Afghanistan before they can reach the same level of failure as Pakistan?
According to the Geneva Conventions, we have no right to militarize human rights and then use that to justify war to defend and protect them. We have no justification for being in Afghanistan and waging war (this is called aggressive war by the Geneva Conventions) against Afghanistan and Pakistan.
We are engaging in a colonial and imperialist policy that is no different than that of Britain (and other colonial powers) of the past.
It's not colonialism. Their trespasses of today are a result of an advanced case of abused child syndrome dating from crazy George III through to George II of recent times. They're in between crazy Georges right now. Torture and merciful beheadings are still on with Bracket Obomba.
Because this war is about the Pakhtuns on both sides of the Durand Line, who have never really recognized it.
TTP's (Taliban's) treasure leads to India's RAW (Research and Analysis Wing):
RAW is The Research and Analysis Wing, India's foreign intelligence agency. Working directly under the Prime Minister, the structure and operations of the Research & Analysis Wing are kept secret from Parliament.
The Pakistani Air Force is now in the business of operating pilotless drones:
http://www.daily.pk/paf-starts-drone-production-9267
Afghanistan: Continuity Uber Alles
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1822-...
"Of course Obama's continuity in using the Bush-serving professional manipulaters only continues Bush's continuity with the Clinton Administration which also used the Rendon Group. Rendon's Job #1 is to make the destructive and expensive imperial wars appear palatable to the yokels back home, so the rubes will keep sending their sons and daughters off to die--and to kill, in vast numbers--for the profit and privilege of the small, bipartisan American elite.."
War to Escalate after Afghan Election
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/afgh-a24.shtml
"the election itself has been a debacle for US imperialism and its NATO allies. The majority of people in the ethnic Pashtun southern and eastern provinces followed the direction of the Taliban and boycotted the ballot altogether. While fear may have been a factor, it cannot be denied that the insurgency has broad popular support. The Pashtun population hates both the foreign forces and the puppet regime in Kabul which has inflicted 8 years of repression, corrupt officials and police and ongoing economic deprivation.."
[url=http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/yasmin-alibhai-brown/y...'m sorry, but I was wrong to support the war in Afghanistan[/url]
RAW is The Research and Analysis Wing, India's foreign intelligence agency. Working directly under the Prime Minister, the structure and operations of the Research & Analysis Wing are kept secret from Parliament.
Exactly, Wilf. And today's imperialists are trying to carve up the region, once again. There needs to be a regional solution arrived at by UN mediated negotiations with those Gulf countries, and Pakistan, Russia, Iran etc. They must stop using Afghanistan as a battleground for proxy wars. We can hold our breaths demanding that foreign troops be withdrawn while more Afghans are sacrificed to cluster bombs, IEDs, air raids etc, But colder warriors seem to be oblivious to the fact that not only are the peace activists turning blue in the cheeks and becoming irrelevant in the larger scheme of things, Afghans are still dying and war and chaos reign merrily. The left needs to push everyone involved toward peace talks and exit strategy for NATO. NATO doesnt want an exit strategy, and that's the problem.