More to the point: Should the Taliban Call the Left for Advice?
"Our operatives are standing by..."
Should The Left Call for Taliban Victory?
Sat, 2009-08-22 01:52
#102
Sat, 2009-08-22 02:02
#103
Wow Frmrsldr, thanks for that analysis of how Afghanis of various ethnicities are just inhrently violenct and cannot help from killing each other bsaed on race/ethnicity. Who knew an entire country acted and felt that way?
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KH20Df01.html
How are you rabblers doing, are you able to keep up with the explanation so far? I know I was a little out of breath by the end.
Sat, 2009-08-22 14:00
#104
I wonder why there isn't a Taliban party candidate running for President in the Afghan elections. Surely Mullah Omar would sweep to power if he was on the ballot? Instead, apparently Taliban militias are chopping off the fingers of people who who have ink their fingers from having voted.
Sat, 2009-08-22 14:03
#105
Watch your lip, Stockholm... The last Westerner who called Mullah Omar "Shirley" got a lot more than a finger chopped off!
Sat, 2009-08-22 16:09
#106
In Maclean's Mag, August issue page 29, Michael Byers quotes survey conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org that says westerners are more likely to believe that Afghans desire NATO's presence in their country while 86% of Pakistanis believing Afghans want NATO to leave, 74% of Palestinians, and 67% of Egyptians believing the same. However, 56% of Americans believe Afghans desire the NATO military occupation and support Obama's troop surge, says Byers. Byers says Obama's strategy is supported at home but will have "significant problems implementing the strategy on the ground."
Sat, 2009-08-22 16:40
#107
I wonder why there isn't a Taliban party candidate running for President in the Afghan elections. Surely Mullah Omar would sweep to power if he was on the ballot? Instead, apparently Taliban militias are chopping off the fingers of people who who have ink their fingers from having voted.
As has been mentioned repeatedly in this thread, the far-right theocrat types have little support in Afghanistan and are different from the Afghan resistance.
Sat, 2009-08-22 16:47
#108
Neither the USA's former proxies, the Taliban, nor the USA's current proxy leftovers from the anticommunist jehad era of the 1980s now in government, believe in democratic elections.
[url=http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/Afghan_ESal_Iraq_Elections.h... Afghan, El Salvador, and Iraq Elections[/url]
U.S. managed elections, with the threat of violence, are called "democratic" by Edward S. Herman 2004
Sat, 2009-08-22 17:52
#109
If you want to make fun of me that's up to you. I admit that I don't study the war and politics of the region closely but I think that it is obvious from news of the region that the Taliban are active in Pakistan.Taliban militants are active in Pakistan and would love to gain control of the Pakistani government and its nuclear weapons.
I'm amazed they allowed you to divulge that here. How do you get in on their planning?
Some people seem to hold the belief that 'Taliban' and 'Al-Qaida' are not a real movement but some kind of bogeyman invented by imperialists and racists to further their agenda. I don't think so.
Sat, 2009-08-22 18:06
#110
If you want to make fun of me that's up to you. I admit that I don't study the war and politics of the region closely but I think that it is obvious from news of the region that the Taliban are active in Pakistan.
Where did you pick up that theory about the Taliban wanting to get hold of nuclear weapons?
And if you believe the Taliban are a danger to Pakistan, what do you think we should do about that?
Sat, 2009-08-22 18:21
#111
Where did you pick up that theory about the Taliban wanting to get hold of nuclear weapons?
Tariq Ali (The Clash of Fundamentalisms) is one of those who has written about this as a very real concern.
--
"One law for the lion and the ox is oppression" - Blake
Sat, 2009-08-22 19:22
#112
Where did you pick up that theory about the Taliban wanting to get hold of nuclear weapons?
Tariq Ali (The Clash of Fundamentalisms) is one of those who has written about this as a very real concern.
What did he say?
Was he not all that concerned by the fact that Pakistan now has nuclear weapons? He thinks the ruling cliques there are more responsible than the Taliban? How about India? China? Russia? the U.K.? France? the U.S.?
How about Israel?
Show me what Tariq Ali said, please. And I'll form my own opinion as to whether it makes any sense. But I have to see it first.
Sat, 2009-08-22 21:10
#113
Seymour Hersh said something about American F-16 contracts to Pakistan in exchange for turning a blind eye to Pakistan's nuclear weapons proliferation in the 1990's. As secretary of defence, Dick Cheney and others in the Pentagon had oodles of evidence that Pakistan was selling nuclear weapons technology to countries on America's shit list and did nothing about it.
Sat, 2009-08-22 21:28
#114
Where did you pick up that theory about the Taliban wanting to get hold of nuclear weapons?
Tariq Ali (The Clash of Fundamentalisms) is one of those who has written about this as a very real concern.
Must a a different Tariq Ali [url=http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/ali130509.html][color=blue][u]from this one[/u][/color][/url] (interviewed by [i]Der Standard[/i] in May 2009):
STANDARD: How would you evaluate the danger often invoked today that Pakistan is collapsing and its nuclear weapons may fall into the hands of extremists?
Tariq Ali: [b]Much of that is alarmist rumor, with which Washington wants to put pressure on the Pakistani army.[/b] The nuclear weapons are well guarded by the army. [b]There is no danger that extremists could seize them.[/b] It would be only dangerous if there were a split in the Pakistani army -- which won't happen if the US doesn't further escalate the war in Pakistan.
What we are seeing is that the war in Afghanistan is going terribly awry and that the US believes that the solution for it is in Pakistan -- but the solution lies in Afghanistan itself, for which the NATO must find an exit strategy. It's dangerous to expand the war on Pakistan.
STANDARD: For the US government, are the Taliban and Al Qaeda still more or less the same? What do you think?
Ali: That's crazy -- completely wrong. [b]Al Qaeda today is a tiny group. The Neo-Taliban in contrast embody the resistance against the occupation of Afghanistan, increasingly representing the Pashtun tribes as the Pashtun resistance.[/b] The intelligence advisers of US President Barack Obama know that, too. Yet, for public consumption, they lump them all together. Besides, they have been negotiating with the Taliban for a year, but the Taliban don't want to be part of an Afghan government as long as Afghanistan is occupied.
[emphasis added]
Read the rest of the interview. Maybe Tariq Ali was saying something different years ago - show me - but he is capable of understanding that our enemy is imperialism, not the people of Afghanistan.
Sat, 2009-08-22 21:38
#115
Why shouldn't the Taliban be allowed to have Nukes?
Russia has them, Germany, USA, France? North Korea? LOTS of countries have the, and don't use them.
Do you really thnk someone in the Taliban would use a nuke if they had one?No way. At most they would take pictures with them crowding around it smiling. Kinda an ohgaboogabooga look what we have!
They would never actually use it.
Sat, 2009-08-22 21:45
#116
More to the point: Should the Taliban Call the Left for Advice?
"Our operatives are standing by..."
J'aime ca, Martin.
Sat, 2009-08-22 21:49
#117
Some people seem to hold the belief that 'Taliban' and 'Al-Qaida' are not a real movement but some kind of bogeyman invented by imperialists and racists to further their agenda. I don't think so.
Al-Qaeda is a bogeyman created by the Pentagon: The narrative goes like this; Osama Bin Laden is the head of Al-Qaeda. He (Osama)/they (Al-Qaeda) are responsible for 9/11. The hunt for Bin Laden/Al-Qaeda justifies the War in Afghanistan and the War of Terror and curtailing your and my rights for greater security. We are fighting an illegal aggressive war in Afghanistan to defend ourselves here at home, don't you know.
The Taliban, on the other hand, do exist: They were one of many mujahideen (insurgents) who fought the Russians in the Soviet Afghan War. They are one of many insurgent groups fighting against our invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. They are Afghans, mostly Pashtun. When the Taliban was in power, they had one major ambition: to stay in power. Now that they are out of power, they want to get back into power.
Confusing the Taliban with "Al-Qaeda" is disinformation perpetrated by the Pentagon, Western governments and (Western) media to cause fear and confusion among people and to (hopefully) prolong support for the war.
The Taliban never had the means nor the desire to spread terror throughout the world or to destroy Western culture and civilization - of which they were largely unaware of and apathetic toward if they did know about it. They had/have no desire to meddle with other countries' affairs, just as they do not wish their internal affairs to be interfered with by other countries.
Sat, 2009-08-22 21:49
#118
Why shouldn't the Taliban be allowed to have Nukes?
Russia has them, Germany, USA, France? North Korea? LOTS of countries have the, and don't use them.
Do you really thnk someone in the Taliban would use a nuke if they had one?No way. At most they would take pictures with them crowding around it smiling. Kinda an ohgaboogabooga look what we have!
They would never actually use it.
Yea, let's give one to every family whenever they purchase a vehicle.
Sat, 2009-08-22 21:50
#119
.
Sat, 2009-08-22 21:50
#120
Why shouldn't the Taliban be allowed to have Nukes?
Russia has them, Germany, USA, France? North Korea? LOTS of countries have the, and don't use them.
The U.S. murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians with nuclear weapons.
The Taliban (or any of the Afghan insurgents) have never attacked the U.S. or Canada or any NATO country.
But I guess maybe history wasn't your strongest subject at school?
Sat, 2009-08-22 22:00
#121
Of course he is, and does (far better than me). He has also expressed that the Taliban having nuclear weapons was not a prospect to be greeted with relish. That was before the US turned against its Taliban friends, back when leftists like Ali were criticizing the Taliban and the US government was still backing it through the Pakistani ISI and with direct payments for poppy eradication. Maybe at the time he saw the need to expose the Taliban as a regime that killed its people in the service of US imperialism, and now (obviously) he sees the need as less.
This is not about the Taliban, but of some possible related interest: In [i]The Clash of Fundamentalisms[/i], Ali writes on p. 251 that 25 to 30% of Pakistan's army are "Islamists" and that this conjures a fear of "Islamist" control of nuclear arms. My reading of that book is that there's a need to resist both the fundamentalists in Washington and those "Islamists" he writes about. But he may well have changed his mind, people do that.
As an aside, I've certainly never said the people of Afghanistan are our enemy. Quite the reverse. I'd like to see Canadian troops out yesterday. I simply don't equate the words "resistance" and "Taliban."
Sat, 2009-08-22 22:05
#122
As an aside, I've certainly never said the people of Afghanistan are our enemy. Quite the reverse. I'd like to see Canadian troops out yesterday. I simply don't equate the words "resistance" and "Taliban."
Right on, you'd like to define the "resistance" not on the basis of who is resisting, but whether they are nice people or not. That's how the war against the Afghan people is justified and perpetuated. It was the same with the war against the people of Southeast Asia, because the communists were cutthroat murdering terrorists bent on world conquest - just like the Taliban.
Sat, 2009-08-22 22:18
#123
But I guess maybe history wasn't your strongest subject at school?
Sat, 2009-08-22 22:19
#124
Why shouldn't the Taliban be allowed to have Nukes?
Nuclear arms control is like gun control. If we wish to reduce crime involving firearms, we could ban all guns - save for law enforcement officers.
Detractors make the opposite argument: You cannot eliminate gun crime because criminals will not respect the law and if they want guns, they will get them. You can't always have police in the right place at the right time. How would you feel if you or a member of your family was the victim of a gun crime? How would you feel if you had a gun and the opportunity to successfully defend yourself when there were no police officers available? The argument here is that everyone, legally and in principle, has the right to bear arms. Corollary to this, there must also be strong prevention of gun crimes and strong punishment as deterrent if they occur.
The chief inventor of the atom bomb, Oppenheimer argued that nuclear weapons technology should be public knowledge, not a jealously guarded secret by a (growing number of) few nations.
Which do you prefer:
1. A nuclear weapons free world?
2. A world where every country (or every country that wants them) has nuclear weapons?
In which world would you feel (more) secure?
Sat, 2009-08-22 23:04
#125
Just focus on getting Western forces out of another bankrupting and losing war in the MIddle East; trying to defend the Taliban or Al Qaeda themselves will do more to hinder that reasonable goal than help. The majority in the West are already coming around to that. It's not complicated.
Sat, 2009-08-22 23:22
#126
I wonder why there isn't a Taliban party candidate running for President in the Afghan elections. Surely Mullah Omar would sweep to power if he was on the ballot?
See, you do pick out relevant stuff every once in a while.
In fact, the Taliban and Mullah Omar are [i]excluded[/i] from the ballot. That's democracy in action. Only parties and candidates approved by the occupying power may stand for election. Gotta keep a tight lid on the locals, lest they get idears in their heads about voting for someone [i]they[/i] want. Next thing you know, you get Hamas.
No, it's best that western occupying crusader armies determine whom are eligible for democracy. That's why the boys are a-fightin'!
Sat, 2009-08-22 23:49
#127
[url=http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13611]Crushing Democracy in Afghanistan[/url] May '09
Demonstration electionsThe elections for President in October 2004 and for the Afghan parliament in September 2005 were deeply flawed. The main concern of Afghan liberals and democrats was the refusal of the U.S. government and Karzai to permit the participation of political parties. In the presidential election, Karzai won 55% of the vote, with strong support among the Pushtun communities, but he failed to win a majority in the areas of strength of the other ethnic groups. He had the support of the democrats who feared the election of one of the Islamist warlords. He was always the lesser evil.
The election for the new parliament was worse. While 34 political parties petitioned the government for an electoral system based on proportional representation, this was rejected. Instead, the U.S. government and President Karzai decreed the Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) system where only individuals could run for office and there would be no party identification or party lists. There were 2,800 candidates. Voter turnout for these elections was much lower, in Kabul only 30%. Voters were confronted by many candidates with no political identification.
The SNTV electoral system proved to be profoundly anti-democratic. As Andrew Reynolds points out, the winning candidates received just 2 million votes or 32% of the total. The losing candidates received 4.5 million votes or around two-thirds of the total.
Sat, 2009-08-22 23:51
#128
But I guess maybe history wasn't your strongest subject at school?
Nope! Maybe I was skipping the same time you were when your law class was learning about suspension with pay &CUPE.
Maybe we passed each other in the lunchroom even 
Now of course we both know I meant super powers aren't presently launching nuclear strikes against other countries, but don't let that get in your way.
Which do you prefer:
1. A nuclear weapons free world?
2. A world where every country (or every country that wants them) has nuclear weapons?
In which world would you feel (more) secure?
#1 sir.
In my little dream world there's no weapons.
Sat, 2009-08-22 23:57
#129
I'm afraid the real rule has been: Nukes for frontline states of the empire expanding eastward, and especially when surrounding the commies ie Russia and China, Iran etc. Fund militant Islamic groups, rinse and repeat.
Sun, 2009-08-23 05:26
#130
I wonder why there isn't a Taliban party candidate running for President in the Afghan elections. Surely Mullah Omar would sweep to power if he was on the ballot?
See, you do pick out relevant stuff every once in a while.
In fact, the Taliban and Mullah Omar are [i]excluded[/i] from the ballot. That's democracy in action. Only parties and candidates approved by the occupying power may stand for election. Gotta keep a tight lid on the locals, lest they get idears in their heads about voting for someone [i]they[/i] want. Next thing you know, you get Hamas.
No, it's best that western occupying crusader armies determine whom are eligible for democracy. That's why the boys are a-fightin'!
Very deep. Is that the "Taliban" that's now blowing up polling stations and threatening to kill anyone who even goes to vote? Are these the same "Talibs" that did in fact run most the country for awhile, but seemed to exclude certain members themselves from their own "democratic" process?
Excluding them permanently probably is a bad idea --even guys like Obama have paid lip service towards negotiating with "the enemy" now- but then the Allies and Soviets alike excluded real life Nazis from forming another party immediately after their defeat in WW 2 and Germany somehow survived, so lets try to be a little more realistic here and stop making the Taliban/Al Qaeda/whoever out as nothing but patriotic liberators ok?
Sun, 2009-08-23 07:23
#131
Excluding them permanently probably is a bad idea --even guys like Obama have paid lip service towards negotiating with "the enemy" now- but then the Allies and Soviets alike excluded real life Nazis from forming another party immediately after their defeat in WW 2 and Germany somehow survived, so lets try to be a little more realistic here and stop making the Taliban/Al Qaeda/whoever out as nothing but patriotic liberators ok?
Perhaps you could reflect on the notion that it's up to the Afghan people - not you or Obama - as to whether the Taliban are "allowed" to form a party, run in elections, etc.? And that in WW2, the Allies and Soviets had the right to destroy the Nazis and deprive them of all rights because of their [b]aggression and crimes against other peoples[/b] - the German people had forfeited the right to govern themselves for the time being.
Colonial psychology runs very very deep in this thread.
Sun, 2009-08-23 08:40
#132
Maysie
Super-long thread.
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