The Afghan people will win - part 16

Rand McNally wrote:

“The Afghan people will win”

I don’t have an answer on how the Afghanistan gets to a place were the people will win, but most of what this thread is about is simply picking a side in the civil war, not about the people winning. The people were not winning under the Taliban, they are not winning under the current government, and I am afraid they will not likely win under whatever exists post Western intervention.

What is Afghanistan and its relation to winning? Is it some kind of game?

In December 2001, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair stated, "For too long Afghanistan has been ignored. Afghanistan must not become a breeding ground for terrorists."

We could have accomplished that by helping Afghans, not waging war against them, murdering them, injuring them, destroying their country's economy, their countryside, their communities and their homes.

I don't see any condemnation of war.

In your opinion, how could we have helped the Afghans?

Through economic and humanitarian assistance?

Or if we had avoided/were to avoid certain mistakes in the prosecution of the war?

War is the cause of all the harm we are bringing to the Afghans and to ourselves.

We should never have chosen to wage war against Afghanistan.

IEA: Afghan Resistance Statement on the London Conference

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25947906/Statement-of-the-Leadership-Council-o...

"the invaders have no option but to put an end to the occupation of our country and soil.."

New US Finding: Two-Thirds of Taliban Not Extremists

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117287&sectionid=351020601

The US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan has claimed that more than two-thirds of the Taliban are not extremists.."

[Canada], Britain and the US Defeated in Afghanistan

http://maysaloon.blogspot.com/2010/01/britain-and-united-states-defeated...

"the Afghan war is ending, and whilst nobody will admit it, the Taliban have won..."

NATO's Role in the Afghanistan Escalation:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100208/hayden

"The current 'talk about talks' runs counter to the neo-conservative espousal of the 'long war' doctrine, but there is no reason to believe that peace is at hand. Instead the Obama/Pentagon plan is for brutal conflict including an emphasis on drones and special operations for 18-24 months, in the belief that the Taliban can be pounded into accepting an American imposed peace settlement and to permit Karzai's Afghan army time to grow into an effective force..."

Frmrsldr wrote:

NoDifferencePartyPooper wrote:

"The current 'talk about talks' runs counter to the neo-conservative espousal of the 'long war' doctrine, but there is no reason to believe that peace is at hand. Instead the Obama/Pentagon plan is for brutal conflict including an emphasis on drones and special operations for 18-24 months, in the belief that the Taliban can be pounded into accepting an American imposed peace settlement and to permit Karzai's Afghan army time to grow into an effective force..."

This is the same policies of the Johnson and Nixon administrations hashed over again. With the same result: We will lose and Afghan nationals will win.

 But will Pakistan's army intelligence still influence the Taliban after a peace agreement? And will the ISI continue to be an extension of the American CIA? Will the CIA and Saudis continue funding madrassas to the tune of billions of dollars to effect the destabilization of Asian countries? WIll the west's neoliberal policies continue destabilizing Pakistan and creating another Yugoslavia in the longer term?

[url=http://www.glennsacks.com/us_policy_has.htm][i]"Are the sun and the moon the same thing?"[/i][/url]

NoDifferencePartyPooper wrote:

Taliban Talks

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8488813.stm]Afghan Taliban deny peace talks with UN's Kai Eide[/url]

Quote:

A statement by the Islamist group's ruling council described the reports as "futile and baseless rumours".

Mr Eide himself denied a report that talks were held in Dubai on 8 January and refused to comment on other dates.

In other news from the same link, a precision NATO air strike successfully wiped out four Afghan puppet government soldiers near Kabul last night. Victory is nigh!!!

Terror Comes at Night in Afghanistan

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LA30Df01.html

"Sometime in the past few years, Pashtun villagers in Afghanistan's rugged heartland began to lose faith in the American project.."

From Fidel's link:

Quote:

Speaking at his home in Rawalpindi, the 65-year-old downplayed the significance of reports that the head of the UN mission to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, met senior Taliban commanders in Dubai earlier this month for "talks about talks".

"The people who went over there didn't have any value. There were no hardcore people from Mullah Omar's shura," he said, citing refugees and "people coming from Afghanistan" as his sources.

US Drones Killed 123 Civilians, three Al Qaeda men, in January

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=221847

Afghanistan based US Predators carried out a record number of 12 deadly missile strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan.."

The war on Indigenous peoples begun in 1492 continues as 'The War on Terror'. If these were white people being killed it wouldn't be tolerated..

US Frame Up of Aafia Siddiqui Beginning to Unravel

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/sidd-f01.shtml

"Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui went on trial in a US federal courtroom in New York City on January 19, charged wtih the attempted murder of US personnel in Afghanistan...The case against Dr. Siddiqui is rapidly unravelling due to lack of evidence and discordant testimony from witnesses...it is becoming increasingly evident that the charges amount to a frame up.."

Taliban Take on the US Surge

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LB03Df01.html

"Asia Times Online contacts claim that in an effort to get the dialogue process back on track, the US is considering the Taliban's demand on stopping the troop surge in Afghanistan, with the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan lined up to work out an arrangement that would keep the Taliban and al-Qaeda under control in any US exit plan.."

[url=http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/02/201024102050255189.ht.... verdict sparks Pakistan protests[/url]

Quote:

Thousands of Pakistanis have staged rallies against the conviction of a Pakistani scientist found guilty of trying to kill American servicemen in Afghanistan.

Protests were held on Thursday in several cities in Pakistan, where many believe that Aafia Siddiqui is innocent.

The neuroscientist, branded "Lady Qaeda" by some in the US press, disappeared for five years before her arrest in Afghanistan in 2008.

She was convicted in a New York court on Wednesday.

Siddiqui, who was arrested in 2008, was accused of grabbing a US serviceman's rifle and opening fire on her American interrogators, who returned fire.

While none of the US agents or personnel were injured, Siddiqui was shot in the incident.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/pers-f06.shtml

"At least 15,000 troops are expected to lay siege to the Helmand river valley town [ Marjah], which has 80,000 inhabitants and is said by the US military to be a stronghold of the Taliban.."

The Americans will MURDER Marjah like they did Fallujah.

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8503478.stm]Senior Afghan policeman held over planting roadside bombs[/url]

Quote:

Correspondents say policemen in Afghanistan are badly equipped and poorly paid.

... which no doubt explains why they don't use fancier weaponry.

Canadian Foundation for 'Political Warfare':

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50262

"Mark Neufeld, a professor in the Department of Political Studies at Trent University, said Canada's role as an 'occupier' in Afghanistan precludes it from promoting democracy there. 'You can argue the occupying and intervention legacy of Canada in Afghanistan means that it can never be a democracy promoter there. People will never trust us to be some kind of neutral purveyor of good governance when we've been there mainly propping up a government that's not democratic..'"

embassymag.ca wrote:

Instead, he [Lawrence Cannon] re-announced $25 million for counter-narcotics efforts. The money had originally been made public about six months ago under proactive disclosure as a contribution to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for implementation of the Afghan National Drug Control Strategy.

What a sick joke this waste of money is. The Pentagon, the Defense Department and the arms industry (military-industrial complex) don't want the flow of opium (and its attendant flow of money) and the war to end:

Veterans Today wrote:

50 billion dollars in drugs and nobody sees anything. 50 billion dollars in drugs and more poppy fields are planted every day especially in US controlled areas. This kind of money buys intelligence agencies, military leaders, high ranking elected members of the US government and more influence in Afghansitan, Pakistan, India and Israel than anyone will ever admit. No matter what anyone does, the drug business will work to keep the war going and has the money and power to do exactly that.

http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2010/02/07/gordon-duff-dirty-little-secr...

deleted

Taliban Regime Pressed Bin Laden on Anti- US Terror

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24655.htm

"Mullah Omar's willingness to allow bin Laden to remain in Afghanistan was conditional from the beginning according to al-Masri's account, on two prohibitions on his activities; bin Laden was forbidden to talk to the media without the consent of the Taliban regime or to make plans to attack US targets.."

Nick Grono and Candace Rondeaux wrote:

One of the warlords who may soon star in the new US efforts to rebrand fundamentalists as potential government partners is Gulbuddin Hekmetyar, a brutal Afghan insurgent commander responsible for dozens of deadly attacks on coalition troops. As a mujahedeen commander during the civil war in the 1990s, Hekmatyar turned his guns on Kabul, slaughtering many thousands of Afghans, with his militias raping and maiming thousands more.

http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2010/01/17/dealing-with-brutal-afghan-wa...

[Edited to correct faulty link]

Travers: Did We Turn a Blind Eye to Afghan Prisoners?

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/771199--travers...

"What distinguishes the special forces from the broader Afghan mission are its cutting edge skills, the high value of its targets and an ultra-secretive need to know command structure. Unlike the bulk of Canada's troops fighting under the NATO umbrella, JTF2 has long been associated with the US led Operation Enduring Freedom.

As a source familiar with its work put it this week, the force works side by side with the US 'to pick up or pick off' top Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders.."

"They [U.S. troops] control one stretch of road (at Kalagush [Nuristan province]) for a few miles up and down, and that's it. If they make a foray further, they get their teeth kicked in."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100304/wl_asia_afp/afghanistanunrestsociet...

dup omitted

Ahhem, yes, I was right along!! Thanks FrmrSldr. And some babblers have criticized me for droning on about General Zia of the 1970's-80's. But here is a tid-bit from antifascist-calling.blogspot.com mentions a not-so remote connection between CIA-ISI anticommunist jihadis of the 1980's and two infamous masterminds of WTC bombing of 1993 and 9/11 terror.

[url=http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/South_Asia/Swat_Pakistan_Chaos_CIA.htm... Jihadi "Frankenstein" Sows Chaos, Reaps Death[/url] [in Pakistan's Swat Valley]

Quote:

Though allegedly on the outs with the clericalists, Musharraf was a staunch supporter of the Army's policy of fielding "irregular forces" comprised of far-right thugs such as Lashkar or the virulently anti-Shia communalist group Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP) to carry out "plausibly deniable" strikes against India or internal left-wing political opponents.

Originally founded in 1985 at the behest of dictator General Zia ul-Haq to liquidate secular and leftist forces opposed to his moves to "Islamize" Pakistani society with the blessings of the CIA, the SSP was "banned" in 2002 but quickly regrouped under the banner of Millat-e-Islamia. Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 was an SSP member as was his uncle, the al-Qaeda operative and alleged architect of the 9/11 attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

I think Canadian Peter Dale Scott is right when he writes about deep state events. I think these various groups are connected to their governments in some way. morphing into new terror cells for short-term terror goals, and all operating on the principle of 'plausible deniability.' Like Central Banks are supposed to operate at arm's length from government influence, these clandestine terror groups operate by the same principle to extremes. If anything goes wrong and there are questions asked, no one knows enough to convict anyone else of wrong doing and especially not the cosmetic leadership. I think Roman era coup d'etats were carried out with similar cunning.

Myself I think false flag terror operations were never really abandoned by NATO countries or their client states. I think it's ongoing and pulled from their dirty bag of tricks whenever democracy threatens them or their client state rulers.

Iran Leader Says US is playing 'double game' in Afghanistan figting militants it once backed

http://wire.antiwar.com/010/03/10/iran-leader-us-playing-game-in-afghani...

"Iran calls the accusation by Gates part of a broad anti-Iranian campaign by the US and says it makes no sense that IRan's Shiite led government would help the fundamentalist Sunni movement of the Taliban. 'I believe that they themselves who are now fighting militants in Afghanistan, are playing a double game', said Ahmadinejad. 'They themselves created terrorists and now today they're saying that they are fighting terrorists.."

Afghanistan: NATO Covers Up Killing Pregnant Women

http://news.scotsman.com/world/NATO-accused-of-cover-.6149210.jp

"The survivors of a night raid in eastern Afghanistan in which five people, including two pregnant women died have accused NATO of trying to cover up the atrocity.."

[url=http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/031310a.html]30 Years of US Mistakes in Afghanistan[/url]

Quote:

About one in 10 Afghans is disabled, mostly due to the wars and landmines. An Afghan’s life expectancy is about 43 years. There are reportedly about 400,000 orphans.

Many Americans explain this internal strife in Afghanistan by saying that “they have always been fighting among themselves.” But the truth is that United States contributed to the past three decades of warfare, a process that continues to this day with U.S. ordnance claiming the lives of Afghan civilians as the “collateral damage” of American attacks on the Taliban.

Clearly, Afghanistan is in desperate need of economic development, health care and educational assistance – not more killing.

When U.S. officials talk about their desire for nation-building in Afghanistan, they neglect to mention that in the eyes of many Afghans, Washington has done just the opposite.

Naomi Klein wrote about "the mistakes" in general that it's time to consider that they are not mistakes at all.