Taliban winning in Afghanistan
POSTED BY: Magonsdaughter
UPDATED: Sunday, August 30, 2026 23:18
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http://www.theage.com.au/national/troops-overwhelmed-and-cannot-defeat
-taliban-20101016-16odk.html
Quote:
THE Taliban have ''overwhelmed'' foreign troops and cannot be defeated by military means, one of Australia's top combat soldiers has warned.
Brigadier Mark Smethurst says securing Afghanistan could take decades, but success is uncertain without a fundamental change in strategy.
His critical assessment comes in a report that contrasts sharply with federal government claims of progress in Afghanistan.
While the key role of Australian troops is mentoring local forces, he says the Afghan army cannot operate independently, despite seven years of training, and the police are even worse.
The Afghan government is ineffective and has failed to deal with corruption, human rights abuses and a non-existent justice system. Aid distribution, he says, has been ''wasteful, ineffective and insufficient''.
Brigadier Mark Smethurst implicitly criticises the Howard government's approach, and poses questions about the present government's agenda.
While successive governments have stated we are in Afghanistan to deny al-Qaeda terrorists a base, the brigadier says the key reason is to maintain the US alliance.
In a paper that makes uneasy reading for MPs before this week's parliamentary debate on Afghanistan, he implies that if we haven't achieved our primary aim by 2012 - training Afghan troops - we should pull out.
''Compared with other counterinsurgency campaigns, the chance of a solution in the short term appears remote,'' he says. ''Even with the strongest possible action and co-operation at the national level, it is difficult to see solutions emerging in less than 10 years unless proactive action is taken now.''
Brigadier Smethurst is a highly regarded special forces officer, with service in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan in a 28-year career. At present deputy commander of Special Operations Command, he is tipped for a key coalition post in Afghanistan.
While his paper was written last year, he told The Sunday Age the basic tenets held true.
Called Creating Conditions for the Defeat of the Afghan Taliban: A Strategic Assessment, it was recently published online by the Australian Defence College.
He describes the Taliban as a ''very capable adversary'' who are winning the propaganda war and whose tactics had ''overwhelmed the coalition''.
The insurgents ''cannot be crushed by a conventional military campaign'', he says. As public support for the nine-year-old war in the West wanes, foreign efforts have made limited progress.
He calls for a co-ordinated military and political strategy aimed at providing security, building Afghan forces and creating a functioning Afghan government. Yet all three aims face massive obstacles, he writes.
The number of troops in Oruzgan, where Australians are based, is less than half the number recommended.
If Australia fails to reach its 2012 target, ''any further commitment should be questioned, as Australia could be drawn into a greater security dilemma as the Taliban and al-Qaeda networks expand their control further into Pakistan and the region''.
While Australian and Dutch troops in Oruzgan had made substantial achievements, creating ''ink spots'' of security, ''there is little real security beyond the areas of operations''. The lack of security means Australian aid workers and police trainers have had limited impact and ''struggle to maintain a presence''.
Greater progress could have been made if Australia had adopted a ''whole of government'' approach when the Howard government sent reconstruction troops to Oruzgan in 2006.
The nature of Australia's commitment also raises ''many questions'' about the agenda of Labor governments, with the defence white paper issued by the Rudd government last year declaring conflict in the Middle East was not the ADF's principal task.
He warns the coalition must not be seen to fail in Afghanistan, because of the boost it would give to the Taliban in nuclear-armed Pakistan. A solution lies between the exNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Gee, don't you wish you hadn't funded, trained and armed them?
"I really am ruggedly handsome, aren't I?"
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Indeed.
Still, as I said at the beginning of this mess...
Would-be conquerers come and go, but end of the day, Afghanistan, is Afghanistan.
We also made the mistake of trying to prop up yet another puppet, Kharazi, who is the Afghan version of Ahmed Chalabi, a useless corrupt sleazeball only out for himself who told us what we wanted to hear instead of anything remotely resembling the realities of the situation.
And I don't buy that "if we leave it'll become a breeding ground for terrorists" bullshit, it's ALREADY one, mostly due to our own actions - every civvie who gets killed as "collateral damage" from our ineffective thrashing... every relative they have then becomes a potential threat to us, this also I warned of going into the situation.
EXCERPT FROM CROSS THE STARS
Quote:
Marilee sat down with the abruptness of a gun returning to battery. She laughed as she looked out the window through which she could see nothing but sky from her present low angle. "Well," she said, "Danny, I suppose you'd better explain that. I hadn't expected to hear from a mercenary that force doesn't accomplish anything."
"Ex-mercenary," Pritchard corrected. The smile was back. "And force accomplishes a lot of things. They just aren't the ones you want here. Bring in the Slammers and we kick ass for as long as you pay us. Six months, a year. And we kick ass even if the other side brings in mercs of their own—which they'll do—but that's not a problem, not if you've got us." Unit pride lasted even after the unit's work became a matter of distaste. Pride beamed now from Danny Pritchard's face, and his hand caressed a tank that only his mind could see.
"So," the man went on. He got up without thinking about the action because he was focused on plans, on possibilities. "There's what? Three hundred thousand people on Tethys?"
Marilee's eyes narrowed. "On the Council Islands, about. There's a lot more in little holdings on the unclaimed islands, but I don't think anyone can be sure of numbers."
"So," Pritchard repeated. The word was his equivalent of the Enter key when his mind was computing possibilities. "You want to kill fifty kay? Fifty thousand people, let's remember they're people for the moment."
"I don't want to kill anybody!" the woman snapped. She swung abruptly to her feet again. Her boots rapped on the inlaid floor over which her visitor's heels had glided unheard. "I don't even want to kill Bev Dyson. I grew up with him, after all, I . . . maybe he did kill my husband. But I don't want to know that for sure. And I don't want him killed."
"You see," said Danny Pritchard, as if he had not heard his companion expose a part of herself that she had not known existed, "if we go in quick and dirty, the only way that has a prayer of working is if we get them all. If we get everybody who opposes you, everybody related to them, everybody who called them master—everybody."
"They aren't all dangerous!" Marilee shouted. She turned to the wall of trophies and went on in nearly as loud a voice. "They aren't any of them dangerous, except maybe a few. What are you talking about?" She spun back to Pritchard.
The ex-soldier nodded in agreement. "They're not dangerous now, but they will be after the killing starts. Believe me—" he raised a hand to forestall another protest— "I've seen it often enough. Not all of them, but one in ten, one in a hundred. One in a thousand's enough when he blasts your car down over the ocean a year from now. You'll see. It changes people, the killing does. Once it starts, there's no way to stop it but all the way to the end. If you figure to still live here on Tethys."
"M—Danny!" the woman said. "I told you, I don't want killing. Why do you keep saying that?"
"What do you think the Slammers do, milady?" asked Danny Pritchard. His grin was wide as a demon's, as cruel as the muzzle of the guns he remembered using so well. "Work magic? We kill, and we're good at it, bloody good. You call the Slammers in to solve your problems here and you'll be able to cover the Port with the corpses. INOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I agree.
The laughing Chrisisall
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As one of the mujahideen once told a Westerner...
"This is Afghanistan. You in the West have the watches; we have the time."
The modern definition of "socialist" is anyone who's winning an argument against a tea-bagger.
AURaptor's Greatest Hits:
Friday, September 24, 2010
I hate Obama's America. You're damn right about that.
Friday, May 28, 2010 - 18:26 To President Obama:
Mr. President, you're a god damn, mother fucking liar.
Fuck you, you cock sucking community activist piece of shit.
... go fuck yourself, Mr. President.
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http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2010/10/20101016133711604
162.html
Injustice in the age of Obama
Barack Obama, a former law professor, should have a healthy respect for civil liberties, but his actions suggest not.
Since being the defendant in about six trials after I was arrested for protesting the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations, it’s my experience that the police lie. Period.
However the lies don’t stop at street law enforcement level. From lies about WMD and connections to "al Qaeda," almost every institution of so-called authority - the Pentagon, State Department, CIA, FBI, all the way up to the Oval Office and back down - lie. Not white lies, but big, Mother of all BS (MOAB) lies that lead to the destruction of innocent lives. I.F Stone was most definitely on the ball when he proclaimed, "Governments lie".
Having clarified that, I would now like to examine a case that should be enshrined in the travesty of the US Justice Hall of Shame.
In February of this year, Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani mother of three, was convicted in US Federal (kangaroo) Court of seven counts, including two counts of "attempted murder of an American." On September 23, Judge Berman, who displayed an open bias against Dr. Siddiqui, sentenced her to 86 years in prison.
The tapestry of lies about Dr. Siddiqui - a cognitive neuroscientist, schooled at MIT and Brandeis - was woven during the Bush regime but fully maintained during her trial and sentencing this year by the Obama (in)Justice Department.
Before 9/11/2001, Aafia lived in Massachusetts with her husband, also a Pakistani citizen, and their two children. According to all reports, she was a quietly pious Muslim (which is still not a crime here in the States), who hosted play dates for her children. She was a good student who studied hard and maintained an exemplary record, causing little harm to anything, let alone anyone.
After 9/11, when she was pregnant with her third child, she encouraged her husband to move back to Pakistan to avoid the backlash against her Muslim children - which was a very prescient thing to do considering the Islamophobia that has only increased in this country since then.
Tortured 'truth'
Following the move to Pakistan, Dr. Siddiqui and her husband divorced. Her life took a horrendous turn justly after. While Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) - supposed mastermind of the 9/11 plot - was being water-boarded by the CIA 183 times in one month, he gave Dr. Siddiqui up as a member of al-Qaeda. Was this a case of stolen identity, or was Mohammed just saying random words like you or I would to stop the torture?
There is some disputed "intelligence" that Aafia had married KSM’s nephew, a tenuous allegation at best, and even so, guilt by association has no place in the hallowed US legal system.
Following KSM’s torture-induced 'insights', Dr. Siddiqui was listed by Bush’s Justice Department as one of the seven most dangerous al-Qaeda operatives in the world. A mother of three equipped with a lethal ability to 'thin-slice' your cognitive personality in seconds. If alleged association and a healthy interest in neuro-psychology are the definitive hallmarks of a 'terrorist operative,' then Malcolm Gladwell better start making some phone calls to Crane, Poole and Schmidt.
A culture of falsehoods
Face it, we all know that since 9/11, there have been numerous false "terror" alerts and lies leading to the capture and torture of hundreds of innocent individuals - and the heinous treatment we have all witnessed to from Abu Ghraib. Additionally, we are supposed to believe that multi-war criminal, Colin Powell, was "fooled" by faulty intelligence so much so that he paved the way for the invasion of Iraq by his false testimony at the UN but we are also supposed to unquestioningly believe the US intelligence apparatus when they lie about others such as Dr. Siddiqui.
In any case, in a bizarre scenario - to make a very long story short - Dr. Siddiqui and her three children disappeared for five years from 2003 to 2008, resurfacing i
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http://english.aljazeera.net/photo_galleries/middleeast/20101061135121
96166.html
Israel 'declares war on its people'
You could easily miss the thin, gravel road that leads to Al Arakib, a Bedouin village in the north Negev. It is a bit ironic, given the enormity of the struggle there and its deep implications for the Jewish state.
Israeli forces have razed the village five times since late July, sparking cries of ethnic cleansing and leaving more than 300 Bedouin homeless. But the equally determined residents, along with a handful of Jewish activists, continue to rebuild.
The government claims that Al Arakib was abandoned and, as such, belongs to the state. Israel calls the Bedouin squatters who "infiltrate" the area and settle it illegally. According to the state, these people must be removed to make way for a forest to be planted by the Jewish National Fund.
Villagers, some of whom hold Ottoman-era deeds to the property, say that the Israeli army asked them to leave temporarily in 1951. Believing they would be able to move back, they left. It was then, they say, that the state declared Al Arakib abandoned and expropriated it.
'Peace in your own house'
But the Bedouin maintained a connection to the earth. They continued to cultivate the village land, harvesting olives, pomegranates, and other produce. And more than a decade ago, they rooted themselves in Al Arakib once again, building houses and families.
A graveyard, established more than a century ago, also signals the villagers' attachment to the area.
Speaking just days after his home was demolished for the fifth time, Aziz Abu Mudegem points towards the cemetery and remarks: "My grandfather was buried here in 1908. He was the first to be buried here."
Abu Mudegem, a member of the al-Turi family, adds: "We have a purchase agreement from Ottoman times. The British came after that and, now, our government."
"They say that we're squatters, but it's not true," he continues. "Squatters are people who sit on the state's land. [Al Arakib] isn't the state's land. It's ours."
Their story is emblematic of the Palestinian struggle; it also touches on questions about Israel's treatment of non-Jewish citizens.
Facing the ruined houses, Ismail Mohammed Abu Mudegem al-Turi takes his wallet from his pocket. He pulls out his Israeli identity card and tosses it onto the sand. "I want someone to take this," he says. "What do I need it for? It doesn't protect me. It's just paper in my pocket."
"We don't have water. We don't have electricity. We don't have honour," al-Turi says, referring to both the demolitions and the scores of unrecognised Bedouin villages in Israel. The continued destruction of Al Arakib, he says, is like "declaring war on the people".
Just days before the village was destroyed for the first time, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, declared that "an international campaign is being waged against the definition of Israel as a Jewish state .... The significance of these attacks is that various elements are liable to demand their own national rights and the rights of a state within the state of Israel - in the Negev, for example, if it becomes a region without a Jewish majority". Netanyahu added that such a change would be "a real threat" to the Jewish state.
Al-Turi simply remarks: "Go make war with Syria, not with your own people. If you want peace, do it first in your own house."
Battling the system, not the bulldozers
Ismail Mohammed Abu Mudegem al-Turi tosses his Israeli identity card to the floor [Credit: Mya Guarnieri]
Oren Yiftachel, a geography and urban studies professor at Ben Gurion University and the author of Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine, comments: "Citizenship is empty of any substantive content if you don't have basic services or recognition.
"The land issue [at Al Arakib] serves as a reminder that citizenship in Israel is very unequal."
Yiftachel has served as an expert witness in the lawsuit filed by Nuri al-Uqbi, another Bedouin who lays claim to Al A
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That is bullshit. Look the taliban what is left is in Pakistan. We the USA as always is building up huge in Kabul. Nobody is gonna invade like Russia and China so they can have a jumping off point into the gulf. The stinky French and gay ass liberals of England get there oil from Iraq so we are gonna stay for a long time. Cut the oil off to your Europe see how quick they come to Uncle Sam for help. Please Please Mr America.
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What?
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Quote:
Originally posted by CatPirate:
That is bullshit. Look the taliban what is left is in Pakistan. We the USA as always is building up huge in Kabul. Nobody is gonna invade like Russia and China so they can have a jumping off point into the gulf. The stinky French and gay ass liberals of England get there oil from Iraq so we are gonna stay for a long time. Cut the oil off to your Europe see how quick they come to Uncle Sam for help. Please Please Mr America.
Y'know, either people are really ignorant of geography, or they're relying on OTHER people being really ignorant of geography when they float out comments like this. I heard a pundit and a policy wonk repeating this exact same kind of statement a while back - they insisted that Russia invaded Afghanistan to get a warm-water port.
Where IS the port in Afghanistan?
Saying Afghanistan is the gateway to the Gulf is like saying that Nebraska is the gateway to the Pacific.
The modern definition of "socialist" is anyone who's winning an argument against a tea-bagger.
AURaptor's Greatest Hits:
Friday, September 24, 2010
I hate Obama's America. You're damn right about that.
Friday, May 28, 2010 - 18:26 To President Obama:
Mr. President, you're a god damn, mother fucking liar.
Fuck you, you cock sucking community activist piece of shit.
... go fuck yourself, Mr. President.
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