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Topic: Afghanistan: And the wheels kept falling off in all directions (Read 2971 times) |
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Afghanistan: And the wheels kept falling off in all directions
« on: 2009-08-19 19:41:44 » |
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Fake Elections Won’t Bring Peace to Afghanistan
[ Hermit : Despite his conservative bent, Eric Margolis remains, in my opinion, the best connected author and most knowledgeable commentator on Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Kashmir. His interpretation and outlook on this area largely parallels my own. So much for "victory." ]
Source: EricMargolis.com
Authors: Eric Margolis
Dated: 2009-08-18
This week’s presidential election in Afghanistan will be an elaborate piece of political theater designed to show increasingly uneasy Western voters that progress is being made in the war-torn nation after seven years of US-led occupation.
Most Afghans already believe they know who will win the vote: the candidate chosen by the United States and its NATO allies.
Voting will mostly be held in urban areas, under the guns of US and NATO troops. The countryside, ruled by Taliban, who are often local farmers moonlighting as fighters, is too dangerous for this electoral charade. Over half of Afghanistan is under Taliban influence by day, 75% at night.
The entire election and vote-counting election commission are financed and run by the US. So are leading candidates. Ten thousand Afghan mercenaries hired by the US will police the polls and intimidate voters. US-financed Afghan media are busy promoting Washington’s candidates.
The Pashtun Taliban, a fiercely anti-Communist, religious movement, is banned from the election. Pashtun tribesmen form over half of Afghanistan’s population but have been largely excluded from power by the Western occupation.
Taliban vows to fight the sham election, which it calls a tool of foreign occupation. Other nationalist and tribal groups battling Western occupation, notably Gulbadin Hekmatyar’s Hisbi Islami and forces of Jalaladin Hakkani, are also excluded from the election.
In fact, all parties are banned; only individuals are allowed to run. This is a favorite tactic of non-democratic regimes, particularly the US-backed dictatorships of the Arab world.
Real power is held by the US-installed Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, whose administration is being undermined by charges of corruption and involvement in drug dealing. Behind him are two powerful warlords: former Communist secret police chief Mohammed Fahim, a Tajik, and the recently returned from exile Uzbek warlord, Rashid Dostam. These two pillars of the old Afghan Communist regime were arch henchmen of the former Soviet occupiers and notorious war criminals.
President Hamid Karzai’s main "rival," Abdullah Abdullah, fronts for the Russian and Iranian-backed Tajik Northern Alliance. Technocrat Ashraf Gani is another supposedly leading candidate. Both men are expected to get high positions in any new government formed by Karzai. Their primary role is to give the impression of an electoral contest.
The northern Tajiks and Uzbeks, traditional foes of the majority Pashtun, are in cahoots with Russia, Iran and India, all of whom have designs on Afghanistan. They continue to dominate Karzai’s faltering regime. The majority Pashtun are largely excluded from power.
When the Soviets occupied Afghanistan from 1979–1989, they held fairer elections than the US-run votes. Of course, the Soviet’s man, Najibullah, won, but at least dissension was voiced. In Washington’s stage-managed Afghan votes, real opposition is excluded. The US used the same trick in Iraq’s rigged elections.
Ironically, the US and its NATO allies have been blasting Iran for lapses in its recent presidential election while stage-managing far more questionable elections in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The UN, which, in the words of a senior American diplomat, has become "a leading tool of US foreign policy," is being used to validate the US-run election. The feeble current UN chief, Ban-Ki moon, was put into his job by Washington.
Meanwhile, the party-line North American media keeps lauding the vote. It has long-term memory loss.
In 1967, the New York Times, a vocal supporter of the war in Afghanistan, wrote of US-supervised elections in war-torn Vietnam, "83% of voters cast ballots…in a remarkably successful election…the keystone of President Johnson’s policy of encouraging the growth of the constitutional process in Vietnam."
The vote may be close, since so many Afghans dislike Karzai, forcing a runoff. Washington may impose a CIA-World Bank approved "CEO" on poor Karzai, making him a double figurehead.
Whoever wins, President Barack Obama will end up the real power of Afghanistan.
Ravaged Afghanistan needs genuine, honest elections, and patient national reconciliation, free of foreign manipulation. That’s the only true road to peace.
America has a great deal to teach Afghanistan about how to run clean elections and build the essential institutions of democracy. As I underline in my latest book, American Raj – American and the Muslim World, this is what America should be exporting to the non-democratic world, not B-1 bombers and Predators.
Running phony elections is unworthy of the United States and demeans its values and traditions. The way to real peace and stability in Afghanistan can only be through a national consensus and negotiated settlement that includes Taliban and its allies.
But President Obama is desperate for some sort of victory, though he cannot even properly define the term. Senior US generals warn of defeat in Afghanistan if the US garrison is not doubled. The conflict continues to spread into neighboring Pakistan. Americans are being prepared for a widening of the war "to defend Afghan democracy." [ Hermit : I think that doubling th garrison to about 120,000 to 150,000 would have prevented a "defeat" but as I observed before the illegitimate US invasion of Afghanistan, given the terrain, the population and the demographics, using South African military metrics, it would have taken an estimated 450,000 troops to take and hold the country while embarking on an (expensive) nation building exercise during the window in which trust could have been bought and built after an initial invasion. That window is long since closed. At this point the attainment of a stable pro Western government is simply not possible irrespective of the resources wasted attempting it. ]
The US and NATO watch in horror as their casualties sharply mount and they have nothing to show voters for the latest Afghan imperial misadventure but body bags and tantalizing mirages of Central Asia’s fabled oil and gas.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Afghanistan: And the wheels kept falling off in all directions
« Reply #1 on: 2009-08-20 01:54:12 » |
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Where to Begin Rebutting the Afghan Blather?
Source: Antiwar.com
Authors: Christopher Dowd
Dated: 2009-08-19
Everything that appears in our mainstream media about foreign policy is blather.
Everything we read about Afghanistan and Iraq and Iran floats upon a sea of false premises and lies of omission and commission.
Right now the American mainstream media is printing mountains of news stories and editorials and opinion pieces about the Afghanistan "elections." All of it is blather. All of it. This is an election where no political parties are allowed. This is an election for a government that does next to nothing but serve as a propaganda tool for an occupying army, an election where no one truly opposed to the U.S./NATO occupation is allowed to run. All the stories and opinion pieces on this election miss the plain, simple fact that this is an "election" being conducted under occupation and is seen by probably next to no one in Afghanistan, regardless of their politics or ideology, as legitimate.
In fact, this whole election production in Afghanistan is being staged more for Americans than Afghans. The election is meant to soothe a skeptical and impatient American public. Having lived with war and occupation propaganda of all types for 30 plus years, Afghans know better.
And it’s barely worth mentioning, as it is the sort of hypocrisy out of Washington that barely merits notice at this point, that the U.S., at one time, espoused the principle that elections held under foreign occupation were automatically illegitimate. [ Hermit : It remains a war crime. ] But of course, elections held under American occupation are never illegitimate, because we are America and America is inherently good and selfless. The rules don’t apply to us, the exceptional and indispensable nation.
And Monday we got more of the same out of the president. Obama went before the VFW in Phoenix and did some rote, costless, and meaningless denunciation of Pentagon waste a month after approving a $636 billion "defense" budget. And then he told us why the Afghan war has to be fought:"This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. This is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defense of our people.” Other than possibly Ron Paul, there isn’t one person of renown in this country who would challenge that false justification for this meaningless war for war’s sake. [ Hermit : Dennis Kucinich might also disagree, although he has not said nearly as much about Afghanistan (possibly because the US browbeat and bribed the UN into blessing the illegitimate invasion of Afghanistan. ) as he has about Iraq. Also the plotting for 9/11 occurred in Germany, not Afghanistan, meaning that Obama is as confused as Bush over our reasons for being there. Then, of course, a country sized "safe haven" is hardly a requirement to "plot to kill" - as a simple apartment or walk in the park would generally suffice. Finally it is the USA's presence in Afganistan, illegal attacks in Pakistan, presence in and support of other brutally misruled countries and ongoing support of Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestine and blockade of the Palestinians that establishes motivation for many groups, not just al Qaeda to want to "plot to kill more Americans." Being unable to see these things might be a product of American exceptionalism. ]
Don’t we have "those who attacked us 9/11" in some dark dungeons somewhere awaiting super-secret special military trials? Who are "those"? Well, "those who attacked us on 9/11" are "al-Qaeda," or just "Qaeda," which is becoming the fashionable appellation for that mysterious organization among our mainstream press stenographers now. And what is "al-Qaeda"?
"Qaeda" is quite simply anyone the U.S. military, intelligence community, or major D.C. politicians say it is. "Al-Qaeda" is a catch-all term applied to enemies of the current interests of our Beltway ruling elite. And when those interests change or shift? So does the definition of "al-Qaeda." If you doubt that is possible, just witness the shifting blame for Lockerbie as the needs of the Beltway have changed over the past decade. And note the sickening history of blame for the Halabja gas attack as Washington’s interests changed.
"Those who attacked us on 9/11" cannot and never will be defined. [ Hermit : This is not entirely true. Those "who attacked us on 9/11 are dead. It is their associates, who at the time numbered about 300 but now are vastly more numerous, who are less well defined. ] There is no end to it. There never will be. Anyone who picks up arms against the U.S. or its regional puppets will be called "al-Qaeda" or "Taliban."
Our "debate" on foreign policy is so far from reality that we just accept plainly preposterous statements like the Afghan war "is fundamental to the defense of our people" without comment. What can you even say to that? What do you say to people who mouth such things? Where do you begin?- Do you point out that the U.S. would not have been attacked on 9/11 if it were not for its self-serving entanglements in the Middle East and Central Asia for the past 60-plus years?
- Do you point out that slaughtering hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people all but assures that this country will be attacked again by "terrorists"? [ Important to differentiate between "slaughtered" where there may be some legitimate doubt as to the numbers, and surplus deaths caused by American actions through sanctions, war, attacks upon civilians and failures to support civilians in occupied areas, where there are no such grounds to evade responsibility for millions of surplus deaths. ]
- Do you point out that the attack on 9/11 was the result of a comedy of errors on the part of a "defense" and "intelligence" community that even then cost us half a trillion dollars a year?
- Do you point out that terrorists don’t need a "safe haven" to plot attacks?
- Do you point out that even a moderately cautious and alert immigration policy would have prevented 9/11?
I could go on…
But you know what? No one cares. Our Beltway elite barely even try to justify these elective wars with coherent rationales anymore. In fact, Obama could have gotten up on that stage yesterday and justified the Afghan war as the latest front in the war on drugs (which is now a sub-justification) and no one would have cared. Not one major politician would say boo about it. They don’t care enough anymore about our opinion on these wars to treat our intelligence with respect. They know that these wars are going to go on no matter what Americans think and no matter which vetted mannequin of the two-party fraud occupies the White House. No matter what imbecilic justifications they advance for these wars, the wars will continue until the last nickel can be made from them.
I’ve seen some commentary lately about how the Afghan war is not winnable. [ Hermit : And even while we have the luxury of defining what a victory will be, it does remain "unwinnable" on any cost/benefit basis. ] These columns miss the point. D.C. doesn’t care about "winning." It has no definition of winning quite on purpose. The war in Afghanistan is a war for war’s sake.
What the Imperial City on the Potomac wants is a long, low-burning conflict with tolerably low casualties and extremely high overhead. It will end only when Americans are pushed to the precipice of real economic hardship and their two-party system is in genuine jeopardy. [ The two party system has destroyed what the United States might have been, and the economy is on life support and failing rapidly, so this may yet happen. ] Only then will the Empire declare victory and come home. And after a decade of holding a huge pity party for ourselves, in which we file into movie theaters to watch film after film showing how Americans were actually the victims of the weakling nations we destroyed on the other side of the globe, D.C. will plot the next round of wars against the next batch of "madmen" ruling over distant, impoverished countries that are absolutely no threat to us at all. My guess is that it will be the "Bantu threat" in 25 years. And, yeah, we will fall for even that.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Afghanistan: And the wheels kept falling off in all directions
« Reply #2 on: 2009-08-21 23:50:50 » |
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Reality Is Its Own Caricature for US in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Source: Antiwar.com
Authors: William Pfaff
Dated: 2009-08-21
The problem with U.S.-sponsored elections in Asia and elsewhere in the non-Western world, as in Afghanistan Aug. 20, is that they are sponsored by the United States primarily to legitimize its own presence in the country.
A poll sponsored by the Qatar-based satellite broadcaster Al Jazeera recently asked respondents in Pakistan to identify what they considered the greatest threat to Pakistan today. Eleven percent said it was the Taliban militants; 18 percent said it was the traditional enemy, India; and 59 percent said that the United States was the biggest threat to Pakistan.
A New York Times report published Aug. 20 described the efforts of American officials, including Richard Holbrooke, to convince Pakistani officials, journalists and other notables that the U.S. is anxious to build bridges between Pakistan and the United States, and that the Obama administration represents a great change from the Bush administration.
Holbrooke is President Obama’s special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan. He told an audience in Karachi that the U.S. under President Obama wants to see an improvement in the lives of Pakistanis, and more business opportunities for them as well.
The new administration’s under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, Judith A. McHale, met a group of Pakistani journalists, including Ansar Abbasi, an important commentator critical of U.S. policy. She spoke warmly of U.S.-Pakistani relations, and Abbasi politely listened, thanking her for coming. He then, according to McHale afterward, said, "You should know that we hate all Americans. From the bottom of our souls, we hate you."
Under Secretary McHale also reported that Abbasi went on to explain that Americans "are no longer human beings because (their) goal was to eliminate other humans." He said that "thousands of innocent people had been killed because (Americans) are trying to find Osama bin Laden."
To quote the Times’ characterization of McHale’s remarks afterward, "She said that even though she knew that she did not sway Mr. Abbasi, it was good to hear what he thought because she wanted to try to understand the source of much of the anti-Americanism in Pakistan."
Twelve days earlier, in Washington, Holbrooke had held another press conference, accompanied by many from his team in Pakistan. The purpose was to explain to the American television audience that the mission in Afghanistan is to kill or capture drug traffickers, help farmers grow food instead of poppies, build a public health system, build "civil society" there, and in general rebuild the country.
However, ex-NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark, another adviser to President Obama, shortly afterward cited the lessons of Vietnam, and said he had counseled the president to emphasize the pursuit of al-Qaeda, and not confuse Americans about being in Afghanistan to create a democracy. "Learn the lessons of the past; don’t repeat them."
Building a new democratic state in Afghanistan might be thought a large ambition, even if the famously energetic Holbrooke and President Obama had the 20 to 30 years or more necessary to get started on such an undertaking, and if the Afghans would put up with the Americans trying to do it.
Ambassador Holbrooke expressed the ambition to add a spiritual dimension to his efforts in the region. He said the religiously motivated enemies of the American presence in Asia "present themselves as false messengers of a prophet, which is what they do. And we need to combat it." (Surely he has his theology badly confused?)
The New York Times report on this press conference was headlined "U.S. Turns to Radio Stations and Cell Phones to Counter Taliban’s Propaganda," emphasizing what would seem to be a star project of Holbrooke’s "counterinsurgency expert," Vikram Singh. It is to build a communications and media system that can reach into every Afghan village to deliver an anti-Taliban message.
As Afghanistan is a very large and mountainous country, and one of the poorest in the world, one would like to know his plan for regularly delivering replacement batteries necessary to millions of peasants to power the new cell phones they have been given, as well as supplying guards (from Blackwater?) to protect from the Taliban the thousands or tens of thousands of satellite receivers or relay stations necessary to deliver the Voice of America into Afghan homes.
Suppose the Taliban tap into the network and deliver their own messages? A learned friend of mine quoted Herbert Marcuse on this plan: "Reality is its own caricature."
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Afghanistan: And the wheels kept falling off in all directions
« Reply #3 on: 2009-08-24 05:29:25 » |
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Afghanistan ‘Deteriorating,’ Admiral Mullen Admits
Top US Commander Also Concerned About Growing Public Opposition
Source: Antiwar.com
Authors: Jason Ditz
Dated: 2009-08-23
In a pair of interviews this morning, with CNN’s “State of the Union” and NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Admiral Michael Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave yet another grim assessment of the ongoing war in Afghanistan, but provided little hope for it ending.
“The Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated,” the Admiral conceded. “Their tactics just in my recent visits out there and talking with our troops certainly indicated that.” He said Afghanistan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal would not ask for additional specific numbers of troops in his assessment, but suggested that such a request was likely forthcoming in the next several weeks.
Admiral Mullen also expressed “concern” over the flagging public support for the Afghan War, as several polls have shown that the American public is now firmly opposed to the continuation of the eight-year long war. He insisted, however, that the war would continue, because the president has ordered that it will continue.
During his Meet the Press interview, host David Gregory asked whether or not the massive escalation of the war and pledges of enormous government aid for nation-building exercises were not similar to the mission creep of the Vietnam era. The admiral insisted the mission from the beginning was to “get” al-Qaeda and that this required that the military build a brighter future for Afghanistan. He balked at questions of how much longer this would take, but said he’d have a better idea after another 12-18 months in the war.
Perhaps most incredibly, particularly since he spent so much of his time visiting Congress to defend President Bush’s assorted “new” strategies in the war, Admiral Mullen insisted this is the “first” new strategy the US has embarked on in the entire war. Whether this is selective amnesia on the admiral’s part or a concession that all the other “new” strategies he touted weren’t really new but were the same strategy of escalation and nation-building that has been failing since the 2001 invasion.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Afghanistan: And the wheels kept falling off in all directions
« Reply #4 on: 2009-08-26 11:10:27 » |
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Afghanistan Votes: Who Cares?
Source: Worl Politics Review
Authors: Joshua Foust
Dated: 2009-08-18
There is tremendous buzz about Afghanistan's elections. Open up any op-ed page, and you can find countless articles about votes and democracy and Karzai not instantly winning, and whatever else. But what I don't get is why anyone cares. Democratic elections usually rest on a few basic principles: a free and fair vote, an uncoerced selection of candidates, and an agreement by all parties to abide by the results. Afghanistan doesn't quite qualify for any of these.- Take the idea of a free and fair vote. Pajhwok, an internationally-funded independent Afghan news service, has an entire news page set aside for incidents of voter intimidation -- and I don't mean by the Taliban (more on them later). It runs the gamut from the government arresting supporters of Abdullah Abdullah, to police killing Nuristanis for asking for enough ballot boxes to cast their votes.
- The government is building up "tribal security" forces modeled on the arbakai, a traditional tribal militia. Only, these forces are going to be different from all the other forces that have come before, will be given better weapons, and will not be subject to the disarmament and de-mobilization programs that have stood down other informal militias. In other words, they are flooding the country with guns to try to create security for the election.
- Shortly before the registration deadline passed, Gul Agha Sherzai -- the former-warlord governor of Nangarhar Province who had taken to American newspapers to make the case for his impending presidency -- abruptly withdrew his own nomination amid rumors of a deal cut with Hamid Karzai.
- Speaking of deals, what's "free and fair" about Karzai de-exiling a man like Abdul Rashid Dostum -- the Uzbek warlord who faces allegations of America-sponsored mass killings in 2001 -- to deliver the Uzbek vote?
We could go on. The very fact that several parties expect the Uzbeks to essentially vote as a bloc makes me question the entire validity of the vote: this is not like a party member voting a party line, these are subjects doing their ruler's bidding. In interviews all around the country, you see a similar dynamic -- "we'll vote for whomever our elder tells us to." What's worse, many people have been explicit that they plan on voting for whomever they think will win -- which means, they are voting for Hamid Karzai.
Lastly, there is the Taliban question. Until Abdullah made a surprisingly strong showing, the Taliban were almost absent from the election -- in particular they didn't interfere with voter registration over the last year. Even though they're doing what insurgencies do, and attacking some polling stations here and there, it is obvious, especially from the soldiers on the ground, that there is no way they could possibly secure even a majority of the polling stations around the country. Despite that, there won't be a major Taliban disruption because they know better than we do that even a runoff election will not change a thing in the country.
If Hamid Karzai wins, it's the failing status quo, and a powerful narrative that democracy doesn't work. If Abdullah Abdullah somehow wins, then he'll have to deal with the powerful entrenched interests in Kabul that even Karzai couldn't meaningfully change -- which would mean a continuation of the status quo and a powerful narrative that democracy doesn't work. If somehow the planets align and Ashraf Ghani wins, then Kabul will get to experience yet another America-friendly egotistical technocrat -- precisely what Karzai was in 2002 -- and very little would likely change. You know the rest. While this matters on a theoretical level -- Afghanistan has never before tried to change a government through election -- the chances of it meaning anything on a strategic, pragmatic, or personal level are so remote it's difficult to understand what all the hubbub is about. Then again, this is also an argument I would be thrilled to lose, because if Afghanistan is consistent about anything, it is surprising its Western observers.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Afghanistan: And the wheels kept falling off in all directions
« Reply #5 on: 2009-08-28 17:40:29 » |
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Alternative to ‘Victory’ in Afghanistan?
Source: Tribune Media Services
Authors: William Pfaff
Dated: 2009-08-28
The Nation magazine’s Robert Dreyfuss has just published a fascinating account of Washington establishment opinion about the war in Afghanistan.
The four speakers at a Brookings Institution discussion were Bruce Riedel, adviser to the president (and believer in the catastrophic international consequences of a loss of the war in Afghanistan); Michael O’Hanlon, an adviser to Gen. David Petraeus; Tony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; and Kim Kagan, head of the Institute for the Study of War.
The unanimous gloom expressed by these four speakers, and the apparent absence of any sunlight shining from the attending (and largely professional-political) audience, seems clear confirmation that Barack Obama and his chosen advisers have wasted no time in placing themselves and the country — in a mere five months — into the same desperate situation that it took the combined Johnson and Nixon administrations 15 years to arrive at in the case of Vietnam. This view would seem widely shared today — without influencing policy.
This is scarcely believable. Dreyfuss summarizes the speakers’ shared views: 1. "Significant escalation" is essential "to avoid utter defeat." 2. If "tens of thousands" of new troops were sent to Afghanistan, it would be impossible to know whether this reinforcement changed anything until another 18 months had elapsed. 3. Even if the U.S. "turns the tide," no "significant drawdown" of American troops could occur for at least another five years.
However, the most dramatic unanimous opinion of the four experts was this one: "There is no alternative to victory."
Where have we heard that before? From Douglas MacArthur, speaking to Congress on April 19, 1951, almost six months to a day after his combined U.S., R.O.K. and U.N. army’s drive to the Yalu River was defeated by China’s intervention in the Korean war. The Communists’ complete re-conquest of North Korea followed.
Two months after MacArthur spoke, the United States renounced the military objective of reunifying Korea and expressed interest in an armistice roughly along the 38th parallel, the prewar border. That was the alternative to American victory.
In Vietnam, the alternative to victory was the 1973 subterfuge of "Vietnamization" of the war, with withdrawal of the last American troops in March of that year. Saigon fell on April 30, 1975.
Why is there no alternative to American victory in what the president calls "AfPak"?
When President Obama took office he might have said that the Bush administration had made a dreadful mess of Afghanistan, but that he was resolved to save America, NATO and Afghanistan itself from this Bush-era folly. He intended to put the U.S. on a new track toward peace and reconciliation with the 40 million Pashtuns of Central Asia — who provide the potential recruiting pool for the angry young men of the Taliban.
He could also have said that it makes no real difference to the United States whether the Taliban do or do not rule Afghanistan, or whether Osama bin Laden is or is not in that country. Afghanistan is on the other side of the world, surrounded by tough people who can look after themselves. Terrorists do not need "safe havens" in Afghanistan. The world is full of empty "safe havens." The terrorists are being defeated by policemen and security forces in all of the Western countries, while Osama bin Laden periodically releases videos to Arab television.
The people of Afghanistan have themselves defended their country against all foreign interference since the time of Alexander the Great. It wasn’t the U.S. or NATO that defended them. They did it themselves — as an energetic minority of them are doing now — but, unhappily, against U.S. and NATO interference in their country.
The Afghans have already experienced Taliban rule, from 1996 until the U.S. invasion in 2001. A great many of them did not like it. If they don’t want the Taliban, with their obscurantism, oppression of women and brutal interpretations of Islamic law, to come back again and install their despotic rule, let the Afghan people defend themselves. The U.S./NATO intervention simply gets in the way. As a foreigners’ invasion, it is objectively a source of support for the Taliban.
Instead of reading ecology and novels on his vacation, the president should read Charles de Gaulle. He ended the dreadful insurrection in Algeria that brought him back to power in France in 1958. And Algeria was legally a part of France itself, possessing energy resources that could have made France energy self-sufficient, and it had a large colonial population that wanted Algeria forever French.
So did a part of the French army. A conspiracy of officers tried to assassinate de Gaulle and overthrow his government. This wasn’t a puerile problem of armed bullies shouting abuse at congressmen.
De Gaulle ordered peace negotiations, stopped the war, brought the colonists and the army home, and turned to rebuilding France after its generations of crisis.
Please, President Obama: Take a lesson in success. 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.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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Re:Afghanistan: And the wheels kept falling off in all directions
« Reply #6 on: 2009-08-28 18:32:54 » |
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[Blunderov] Ok. I give up. What does the USA actually want with Afghanistan?
What does victory mean? The defeat of the Taliban? If so, why?
I must confess to being baffled by all this.
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Hermit
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Re:Afghanistan: And the wheels kept falling off in all directions
« Reply #7 on: 2009-08-29 07:23:31 » |
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How to Bring Peace to Afghanistan
Source: EricMargolis.com
Authors: Eric Margolis
Dated: 2009-08-25
Refer Also: Fake Elections Won’t Bring Peace to Afghanistan
Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles appear in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times and Dawn. As a war correspondent Margolis has covered conflicts in Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique, Sinai, Afghanistan, Kashmir, India, Pakistan, El Salvador and Nicaragua. He was among the first journalists to ever interview Libya’s Muammar Khadaffi and was among the first to be allowed access to KGB headquarters in Moscow. A veteran of many conflicts in the Middle East, Margolis recently was featured in a special appearance on Britain’s Sky News TV as “the man who got it right” in his predictions about the dangerous risks and entanglements the US would face in Iraq. - Extract from EricMargolis.com
An election held under the guns of a foreign occupation army cannot be called legitimate or democratic. That’s a basic tenet of international law.
Nevertheless, the US and its NATO allies have been lauding last week’s faux presidential elections in Afghanistan as both a sign of growing support for Hamid Karzai’s Western-backed government and the birth of democracy in Afghanistan.
In reality, the carefully stage-managed vote in Afghanistan for candidates chosen by Western powers is unlikely to bring either peace or democracy to this wretched nation that has suffered thirty years of nonstop war.
On the contrary, American generals have intensified warnings that the military situation in Afghanistan is rapidly "deteriorating" and are calling for yet more troops in addition to the recent major manpower increase authorized by President Barack Obama. Sixty-eight thousand US combat troops, 40,000 NATO soldiers, and 75,000 mercenaries are apparently not enough.
Welcome to Vietnam Mission Creep, Part II.
Taliban and its nationalist allies rejected last week’s vote as a fraud designed to validate continued foreign occupation and open the way for Western oil and gas pipelines. Taliban, which speaks for many of Afghanistan’s majority Pashtun, said it would only join a national election when US and NATO troops withdraw.
Charges of a rigged election are unfortunately correct. All parties were banned from the supposedly "free election." Only candidates who favored continued US and NATO occupation ran. The US paid for the elections and advertising, funded the Election Commission, and spread around large amounts of largesse to tribal warlords. Foreign observers reported extensive fraud and vote rigging.
Compared to this predetermined vote, Iran’s recent elections look almost Swiss by comparison. Afghan elections run by the Soviets in 1986 and 1987 were fairer and more open: opposition parties were allowed to run.
After all the pre-election hoopla in Afghanistan, to paraphrase Omar Khayyam, we come out the same door we went in.
Election results won’t be in for two weeks. But the winner will be whomever Washington decides is to be its man in Kabul.
That will likely be Hamid Karzai or Northern Alliance front-man, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. The Obama administration is fed up with Hamid Karzai and mutters about dumping him, but can’t find an acceptable alternative. Abdullah, with his close links to Iran and Russia, makes Washington nervous.
What the US would really like is a new version of the late Najibullah, the iron-fisted strongman who ran Afghanistan for the Soviets.
The Western powers have marketed the Afghan War to their voters by claiming it is all about democracy, women’s rights, education and nation building. President Barack Obama claims the US is in Afghanistan to fight Al-Qaida. But Al-Qaida barely exists. Its handful of members long ago decamped to Pakistan.
This war is really about oil pipeline routes and Western domination of the energy-rich Caspian Basin. And of course pressure on Obama from the right that the US cannot afford to lose a second war under his command.
Afghanistan’s Pashtun tribes, who make up 55% of the population, remain excluded from power. Afghanistan is a three-legged ethnic stool. Take away the Pashtun leg and stability is impossible.
There will be neither peace nor stability in Afghanistan until the Pashtun majority is enfranchised. This means dealing directly with Taliban, which is part of the Pashtun people.
The Western powers cannot run Afghanistan by using the minority Tajiks, Uzbeks and smaller number of Shia Hazara.
The solution to this unnecessary war is not more phony elections but a comprehensive peace agreement between ethnic factions that largely restores status quo before the 1979 Soviet invasion. That means a weak central government in Kabul (Karzai is ideal for this job), and a high degree of autonomy for self-governing Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara regions.
Government should revert to the old "loya jirga" system of tribal sit-downs, where decision are made by consensus, often after lengthy haggling. That is the way of the Afghans and of traditional Islamic society. Afghanistan worked pretty well under this old easygoing system. In fact, Afghanistan never really had a government in the Western sense.
All foreign soldiers must withdraw. A diplomatic "cordon sanitaire" should be drawn around Afghanistan’s borders, returning it to its traditional role as a neutral buffer state.
The powers now stirring the Afghan pot – the US, NATO, India, Iran, Russia, the Communist Central Asian states – must cease meddling. They have become part of the Afghan problem. Afghans must be allowed to slowly resolve their differences the traditional Afghan way even if it initially means blood and revenge attacks. That’s unavoidable in a land where the code of revenge – "badal" – is sacred.
All Afghans must share future pipeline royalties. The only way to end the epidemic of drug trading is to shut border crossings to Pakistan and the Central Asian states. But those nation’s high officials, corrupted by drug money, will resist.
The US and NATO can’t solve Afghanistan’s social or political problems by continuing to wage a cruel and apparently endless war. American and NATO soldiers will never be able to change Afghanistan’s social behavior or end tribal customs that go back thousands of years. They are too busy defending their own bases from angry Afghans.
A senior British general just warned his troops might have to stay for another 40 years. He quickly was forced by the government to retract, but the cat was out of the bag.
President Barack Obama is charging full tilt over a cliff in Afghanistan. Unless he ends this daft misadventure, his grown-up children may see American soldiers still fighting in the badlands of Afghanistan.
The Western powers have added to the bloody mess in Afghanistan. Time for them to go home.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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Re:Afghanistan: And the wheels kept falling off in all directions
« Reply #8 on: 2009-08-29 13:45:35 » |
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Blunderov] Thanks Hermit. So it's about pipelines. I suppose I should have guessed.
Best regards.
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Hermit
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Re:Afghanistan: And the wheels kept falling off in all directions
« Reply #9 on: 2009-09-04 15:24:11 » |
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NATO Airstrike In Afghanistan Kills Up To 90
[ Hermit : While, in a multi-ring circus reminiscent of Summer in Tehran, the Obama Administration praises the election results and Hamid Karzai and hios opponents both claim a "sweeping victory" in advance of official results in an election rife with over 2,600 reported irregularities large enough to change the outcome and a largely indifferent public, and while American generals report that the largest native tribe, the Pushtun, often referred to by confused Americans as "theTaliban", is "getting the upper hand" (next post), the colonizers are still killing people en mass, but denying they do so until forced to acknowledge it. ]
Source: Associated Press
Authors: Amir Shah (Associated Press Writer, Kabul), Frank Jordans
Dated: 2009-09-04
An American jetfighter blasted two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan on Friday, killing up to 90 people, including insurgents and dozens of civilians who had rushed to the scene to collect fuel, Afghan officials said.
Germany, which called in the 2:30 a.m. airstrike, said 50 fighters were killed and that no civilians were in the area at the time. Later, however, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen acknowledged some civilians may have died.
The attack in northern Kunduz province is likely to intensify Afghan public anger over such casualties, which prompted NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal last June to order curbs on airstrikes where civilians are at risk.
Violence has soared across much of the country since President Barack Obama ordered 21,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan this year, shifting the focus of the U.S.-led war on Islamic extremism from Iraq. Fifty-one U.S. troops died in Afghanistan in August, the deadliest month for American forces there since the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001. [i] [ Hermit : More troops, more anger, more targets. Thus more casualties. It ought to be as clear as day follows night to both politicians and military leaders - even when they are American. ]
Kunduz, a former Taliban stronghold, had been generally peaceful until insurgent attacks began rising earlier this year – perhaps an effort to control a profitable smuggling route from Tajikistan. Most of the fighting in Afghanistan this summer has been in the south and east, where U.S. and British forces operate. Germany has troops under NATO command in Kunduz and is responsible for the area.
The airstrike occurred a day after Defense Secretary Robert Gates signaled for the first time that he may be willing to send more troops after months of publicly resisting a significant increase – despite growing public opposition in the United States to the war.
A large number of civilian casualties could also stoke opposition in Germany to the Afghan mission ahead of the Sept. 27 German national elections. There are 4,050 German soldiers in Afghanistan, and polls show a majority of Germans oppose the mission.
Friday's airstrike came hours after the militants seized the tankers near the German base – possibly for a suicide attack against the base, according to German Deputy Defense Minister Thomas Kossendey.
An American jetfighter blasted two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan on Friday, killing up to 90 people, including insurgents and dozens of civilians who had rushed to the scene to collect fuel, Afghan officials said.
Germany, which called in the 2:30 a.m. airstrike, said 50 fighters were killed and that no civilians were in the area at the time. Later, however, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen acknowledged some civilians may have died.
The attack in northern Kunduz province is likely to intensify Afghan public anger over such casualties, which prompted NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal last June to order curbs on airstrikes where civilians are at risk.
Violence has soared across much of the country since President Barack Obama ordered 21,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan this year, shifting the focus of the U.S.-led war on Islamic extremism from Iraq. Fifty-one U.S. troops died in Afghanistan in August, the deadliest month for American forces there since the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001.
Kunduz, a former Taliban stronghold, had been generally peaceful until insurgent attacks began rising earlier this year – perhaps an effort to control a profitable smuggling route from Tajikistan. Most of the fighting in Afghanistan this summer has been in the south and east, where U.S. and British forces operate. Germany has troops under NATO command in Kunduz and is responsible for the area.
The airstrike occurred a day after Defense Secretary Robert Gates signaled for the first time that he may be willing to send more troops after months of publicly resisting a significant increase – despite growing public opposition in the United States to the war.
A large number of civilian casualties could also stoke opposition in Germany to the Afghan mission ahead of the Sept. 27 German national elections. There are 4,050 German soldiers in Afghanistan, and polls show a majority of Germans oppose the mission.
Friday's airstrike came hours after the militants seized the tankers near the German base – possibly for a suicide attack against the base, according to German Deputy Defense Minister Thomas Kossendey.
German troops reached the scene at 12:30 p.m. and after about 40 minutes received fire from militants, according to a Germany army statement. They returned the fire.
Officials said the airstrike took place after an unmanned surveillance aircraft determined no civilians were in the area.
German officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity as a matter of policy, said the strike took place 40 minutes after the commanders requested it. It was unclear whether civilians began to assemble during that time.
It was impossible to independently verify details because the attack occurred in an area where Taliban forces operate. Travel is risky, and the Germans refused to allow an Associated Press reporter to accompany them to the site.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the trucks were headed from Tajikistan to supply NATO forces in Kabul. When the hijackers tried to drive the trucks across the Kunduz River, the vehicles became stuck in the mud and the insurgents opened valves to release fuel and lighten the loads, he said.
Villagers swarmed the trucks to collect the fuel despite warnings that they might be hit with an airstrike, Mujahid said, claiming no Taliban fighters died in the attack.
Abdul Moman Omar Khel, member of the Kunduz provincial council and a native of the village where the airstrike happened, said about 500 people from surrounding communities swarmed the trucks after the Taliban invited them to help themselves to the fuel.
"The Taliban called to the villagers, 'Come take free fuel,'" he said. "The people are so hungry and poor."
He said five people were killed from a single family, and a man he knows named Haji Gul Bhuddin lost three sons.
Kunduz Gov. Mohammad Omar said 90 people were killed, including a local Taliban commander and four Chechen fighters.
A senior Afghan police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said the dead included about 40 civilians.
The director of the Kunduz hospital, Humanyun Khmosh, said a dozen people, including a 10-year-old boy, were treated for severe burns.
Many of the bodies were burned beyond recognition, and villagers were burying some of those in a mass grave.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has sharply criticized the U.S.-led command for allegedly using excessive force in the war against the Taliban, alienating the civilian population. Karzai repeated those charges in last month's still-unresolved presidential election and on Friday announced he was creating a panel to investigate the attack.
"Targeting civilians is unacceptable for us," he said.
The U.S. Embassy released a statement saying it was aware of reports of civilian casualties in Kunduz and that it awaits the results of a joint investigation by NATO and the Afghan government.
"We send our condolences to those families who lost loved ones," the statement said.
Last May, U.S. warplanes struck military targets in the western Farah province, killing an estimated 60 to 65 insurgents. The U.S. said 20 to 30 civilians also died in those attacks. The Afghan government said 140 civilians were killed.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Afghanistan: And the wheels kept falling off in all directions
« Reply #10 on: 2009-09-04 15:31:00 » |
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Taliban getting upper hand - US commander
Source: AFP
Authors: Not Credited
Dated: 2009-08-10
THE top US military commander in Afghanistan says the Taliban have gained the upper hand in the country, forcing the US to change its strategy by increasing the number of troops in heavily populated areas, The Wall Street Journal reported today.
General Stanley McChrystal told the newspaper in an interview the militant group was moving beyond its traditional strongholds in southern Afghanistan to threaten formerly stable areas in the north and west.
The militants are mounting sophisticated attacks that combine roadside bombs with ambushes by small teams of heavily armed militants, causing significant numbers of US fatalities, the general said, according to the report.
"It's a very aggressive enemy right now,'' Gen McChrystal is quoted by the Journal as saying in his office in a fortified NATO compound in Kabul.
"We've got to stop their momentum, stop their initiative. It's hard work.''
The commander said the troop shifts are designed to better protect Afghan civilians from rising levels of Taliban violence and intimidation.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Afghanistan: And the wheels kept falling off in all directions
« Reply #11 on: 2009-09-09 13:03:19 » |
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US: Afghan Election Results ‘Could Take Months’
[ Hermit : It seems exceeding strange to me that those who forgot that the shattered glass remaining after the 2000 and 2004 elections proved that America could not afford to throw stones at all, never mind at others, about their elections, and chose to make risible accusations against the Iranian's recent debacle should have suddenly become terribly quiet now that the wheels have come off the USA's pseudo election for a new mayor of Kabul. Why are the obvious parallels between what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was accused by these chinless wonders of doing (in the absence of evidence), and what the UN commission that was supposed to rubberstamp an election where only people who support continued American support were allowed to run, where political parties were banned, where the incumbet received vast amounts of largess and the opposition nothing, and where the ballot boxes were owned by the known to be as dishonest as possible incumbent, has found in their investigation of the vast number of irregularities exposed so far?
I do think that, well into the eighth year of a war predicted here to be futile, where the "Taliban are more numerous than ever, inflicting more casualties than ever, operating in more provinces than ever, and controlling more territory than ever." and with Gen. Stanley McChrystal calling the situation 'serious.'” and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Michael Mullen calling it 'serious' and 'deteriorating' despite vastly increased supplies, munitions, mercenaries and money, a little schadenfreude might be justifiable at the sheer incompetence of these clowns at staging something as simple as a fake election operated entirely under their control and with no serious opposition - if we hadn't already killed far to many Afghans and Pakistanis in our illegal wars and attacks, wasted far too American lives and far more money than we could afford. Not to mention having dragged both NATO and the CIS into our stupid losing fight. ]
Afghan Election Commission: Clear and Convincing Evidence of Fraud
Partial Recount Forestalls Karzai Victory
Source: Antiwar.com
Authors: Jason Ditz, September 08, 2009
Dated: 2009-09-08
With the first round of vote counts nearly completed Afghanistan’s incumbent Presdient Hamid Karzai has 54.1% of the votes, seemingly enough to avoid a run-off vote with top rival Abdullah Abdullah though well short of the nearly 70% of the vote his supporters claims he had gotten. But Karzai’s victory celebration is going to have to wait, potentially for quite some time.
Karzai’s apparent victory has come in the face of an almost impossible number of fraud claims, including that the president’s supporters created 800 fictious polling places to stuff ballot boxes and claims that Karzai got 10 times as many votes in some districts as their were registered voters. Afghanistan’s Election Complaints Commission says that there is now “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” on an enormous scale, and has ordered a “partial recount” of the votes.
And while a partial recount seems to be a rather conservative move considering the grand scale of the fraud in this election, if nothing else it should quiet claims from the US that the election was a great success, and at least temporarily silence Karzai’s claims of a huge mandate to rule.
But in the long run, it is unclear if the UN-backed commission will do much of anything. Western diplomats have expressed concerns that a re-vote would be unlikely to be any less corrupt, and UN officials have been quoted as coming out against holding the run-off at all since the nation is so wracked with violence it would be a logistics nightmare.
Karzai Remains in Power Despite Massive Fraud
Source: Antiwar.com
Authors: Jason Ditz, September 08, 2009
Dated: 2009-09-08
In perhaps the clearest sign yet that the September 17 deadline for releasing the results of last month’s Afghan election is off the table, the US State Department is now saying that it will likely take “months” to sort out the many allegations of fraud and determine if there will need to be a run-off vote.
The comments are a significant change from previous US position, as President Obama, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke et al had previously been touting the election as a great success and dismissing the claims of fraud.
Earlier today the Afghan Election Commission conceded that there was “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” on a massive scale in the vote, and said hundreds of polling sites had to be thrown out, while many others will face a recount.
Though President Karzai’s term ended on May 21, he has remained in office pending the vote for months, and between the reports of fraud and the prospect of a run-off vote with top rival Abdullah Abdullah he may remain in power for many months more, despite growing evidence that his campaign tried to steal the election.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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Re:Afghanistan: And the wheels kept falling off in all directions
« Reply #12 on: 2009-09-09 16:36:09 » |
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[Blunderov] I notice with some amusement that the euphemism 'insurgent' has fallen from favour with the ever servile MSM; 'militant' is now the preferred term for almost anyone who gets hit by a drone attack - unless they are female or juvenile in which case the casualties are swept under the ever trusty carpet of collateral damage. I suppose the reports must be true. It's hard to imagine that anyone in those parts would not be militant in their disapproval of a foreign 'military' which murders their women and children. I imagine that if you threw a stone in the air you would probably hit someone guilty.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-09/04/content_11998419.htm
Over 400 militants in Pakistan killed in U.S. drone attacks in 9 months
www.chinaview.cn 2009-09-04 23:23:18
ISLAMABAD, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- At least 443 militants in northwest Pakistan have been killed in 37 U.S. drone attacks during the last 9 months in which the name of the Pakistan Taliban chief Baitullah Masood was on the top of the hit list, the local NNI news agency reported Friday.
According to the news agency, the U.S. drone attacks pounded the hideouts of militants during current year and hit the areas of South Waziristan, North Waziristan, Kurram tribal agency, Orakzai agency and Buno and killed 443 militants.
During the last nine months the total numbers of secret attacks were 37, out of which 27 attacks stroked in the area of South Waziristan, part of the lawless tribal regions along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding in the area.
The chief of banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Baitullah Mehsud was killed in one of the U.S. drone attacks in early August.
U.S. drones regularly fire missile in the Pakistani tribal regions to target the militants and opposition parties said Pakistani government permitted such attacks. But Pakistan denied the charges.
Pakistan insisted that drone attacks were counterproductive and must be stopped but the CIA chief and top U.S. officials have ruled out any change in the policy.
Pakistani forces are on an offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan against Taliban sympathizers after it launched an assault in the Swat Valley and Buner in the northwest in April.
[Blunderov] (To all intents and purposes, Pakistan and Afghanistan are pretty much the same place; certainly the USA doesn't recognise any borders in those regions.) "Militants', then, is better. Not as respectable as 'insurgent' which sounds vaguely noble. Militants are hot heads. Militants are unreasonable. No point in negotiating with a militant. This new taxonomy is a most mighty martial stroke indeed! Hands up all those who love the smell of semantics in the morning?
Mmm. Victory.
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Re:Afghanistan: And the wheels kept falling off in all directions
« Reply #13 on: 2009-09-10 10:47:47 » |
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[ Hermit : It just keeps getting better :-) ]
Afghanistan’s Dueling Election Bodies Spark New Crisis Between West, Karzai
Following ECC's Order for Recount, IEC Declares Karzai Victory
Source :
Authors: Jason Ditz
Dated: 2009-09-09
Following yesterday’s announcement that the UN-backed Election Complaints Commission (ECC) had found “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” on a massive scale in last month’s presidential election and had ordered a partial recount of the ballots, Afghans hunkered down for what could be months of in-fighting over President Hamid Karzai’s hotly disputed victory.
But now the controversy has found yet another complication, as the Independent Election Commission (IEC), a separate commission which was appointed entirely by Karzai, officially published the results, which effectively gives Karzai the victory under Afghan law.
What about the partial recount? The IEC rejected the ECC’s documents, claiming there was a translation error in them. The IEC official went on to claim the ECC’s call for a recount might not be legal, and added that if it did happen it could take two to three months to complete.
From the moment the election started, reports of fraud and voter intimidation began to emerge. Initially starting with public sales of extra ballots of a few dollars each and claims of ballot stuffing, eventually the reports came to include 800 completely fictitious polling sites at which Karzai performed remarkably well, and several other sites where Karzai apparently got every single vote.
The dispute is setting up another serious battle between Karzai and his Western backers. Most Western nations have conceded that the election was probably not legitimate, and Karzai for his part has claimed all the accusations are an American plot against him.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Afghanistan: And the wheels kept falling off in all directions
« Reply #14 on: 2009-09-13 16:34:04 » |
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Source: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/cartoons/index.html
Caption: Dwane Powell / Raleigh News and Observer (Sept. 11, 2009) | Cartoons for week of Sept. 6, 2009
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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