Its is the USA’s longest running war with ground-troops deployed.

It’s doomed to failure you say? Of course. The people in charge of this bunfight know that perfectly well. Afghanistan can’t be won and everyone knows it. It didn’t stop them though did it?

Given that Bin Laden was a CIA agent all along; given that he died in November 2001; given the absurdity of a story about a bunch of fundamentalists in Afghanistan breaching the uber-defended headquarters of the greatest military force the world has ever seen; given that this current war against Muslims has helped Muslims not a whit, but rather funded and empowered the very people they attacked; given all of that, the only question that remains is why was Afghanistan invaded?

Oil, you say? Hmm… well these things are measureable. In the last ten years, which has made more money – oil or smack? Not forgetting precedent – the British army invaded China specifically so that David Sassoon could flood China with opium. They were called the Opium Wars I seem to recall.

Okay so why not call these the Heroin Wars? Not forgetting that Afghanistan isn’t actually the target. It’s merely the means. My best guess is that the target is Russia. And maybe China again?

Anyway if smack is the objective, I imagine the people who organised this caper would laugh at you for declaring it a disaster. It’s no such thing.

Sorry, I forgot to insert the word ‘allegedly’. The above sentence should read “funded and empowered the very people they allegedly attacked”.

“Given that Bin Laden was a CIA agent all along …”

So many years later – to believe this on the basis of absolutely zero evidence is just silly. It’s bizarre wishful thinking.

I had the impression the Blackhawk was hit by a lucky shot from an RPG, while it was (foolishly) hovering stationary. That’s what the Taliban said, anyway. It is not evidence of new missiles.

That said, Obama’s surge has evidently come to a complete halt. The first round was a failure. The second round seems to being delayed all the time. I wonder why.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/viktor-ivanov-the-real-price-of-afghanistan-1995933.html

By coincidence there is an Independent piece about drugs in Russia and Afghanistan.

Craig – first congratulations on your early start to the day. Does Cameron – son not PM – help that discipline? I can’t help directly with the comparative longevity of war in Afghanistan and Vietnam, but recall that there was much media comment when the war in Iraq had lasted longer than WWII.

However, the latter comparison is a reminder that the chronology of each war usually differs for each participant (China had a longer WWII than the UK, USSR or USA). In any case, there is a conceptual gulf between wars between fully-functioning states (mostly the pattern for WWI and WWII) and wars that mainly take place in the territory of one state. It is often divided, with the effectiveness/ legitimacy of its government disputed on practical/ ideological grounds.

There’s the added problem that military activity in Afghanistan is often explained as part of the global battlefield of the “War on Terror”.

So, why compare the longevity of radically different types of military/ resistance/ terrorist actions, often taking place in towns and cities rather on the windy plains of Troy? (However, mechanical drones add a non-human technological component surely alter the concept of “brave American troops in battle”.)

Such comparisons do, however, highlight the inadequacies or ambiguities of the language used to debate the issues. It’s a mad (or sane) world my masters when a former editor of the Times can argue in The Guardian (Comment is Free website 8 June) that the best way to deal with our fiscal deficit would be to reduce the Defence budget to zero.

Such Swiftian polemics should at least suggest we question national and multilateral strategies that treat “our brave soldiers” – and even braver Afghan civilians with no protective clothing – as Saturnine fodder for wars with undefined boundaries and objectives.

But your website is not the place for this debate. It needs to engage UK politicians, military leaders and the public. Can I suggest that you use your skills as a diplomat and journalist to persuade an authoritative part of the media to sponsor a serious debate on the UK’s role in Afghanistan (and as an ally of the USA) with rules of engagement [ringside judges to say whether blows were cleanly struck?] that force participants to make explicit their own assumptions and special interests, such as political advantage within their own party? Some serious devil’s advocacy (thank you, BBC Radio 4) is also called for.

http://stopwar.org.uk/content/view/1928/27/

America’s longest war

The only mention of Vietnam I saw was on Michael Moore’s twitter stream:

Congrats to U.S. War in Afghanistan, which beat out Vietnam today, 6/7/10, to become America’s longest war ever! http://mmflint.me/d6QWz7

@MMFLINT 7th June 17.43

Craig,

Note also the nefarious business of private security companies operating in Afghanistan. See the NYT article here:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/35jrx77

A book I’d recommend is ‘Invisible History:Afghanistan’s Untold Story’ by Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould. (See here:

http://www.invisiblehistory.com/ )

Plenty of ‘evidence’ is in the book, by this dedicated husband & wife research team who know Afghanistan more than most…

War in Afghanistan longer than Vietnam

http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-06-08/war-afghanistan-longer-vietnam.html

Vanity Fair also covered it – and I think Democracy Now did too

Craig – a postscript to my earlier blog. I should have added a reference to the forthcomoing Strategic Defence Review, which must take policy on Afghanistan apart and then put it together again. Maybe this is the moment for Afghan bloggers of the world to unite – see the Afghan section of Brian Barder’s Open Letter Part 2 to Harriet Harman. (Diane Abbot should be able to make David Miliband defend his vapid “Next Labour” bid with enough cliches to make sure that the country is at least not saddled with him as Leader of the Opposition.)

Maybe ‘Nobody’ is right and all this has more to do with Smack than oil?

Considering the invasion took place soon after the Taliban stopped opium production in all lands they controlled cutting it by 95%. And soon after the invasion Opium production was at higher rates than it had ever been.

The CIA has always obtained massive funding from drugs and used them for ever purpose.

Knowing that the opium wars happened when China had massive exports to the west and imported nothing at all causing economic crises in America and Europe.

Give that china again exports a lot and imports little.

Is all this about exporting smack to china?

The attack on the convoy was sophisticated, and shows a level of sophistication the Taliban should not possess. I suspect an other nation training them in effective tactics. One article (BBC) even suggested the attack was nothing as it was mainly food, and the guns go in by air. Yeah, they can eat the guns so no need to worry. Attacking the supply lines is effective. The Russians did it by stretching and attacking it during WW2.

Slighly far fetched Arsalan, although factions in the CIA and US forces in general have always dabbled in drug smuggling when it suited to boost their secret operation funds and they did start in Helmand the main opium producing area.

Apparently black ops are on the up under hard pressed Obummer and all this frustration and inability to shut oilwells have to be let out somewhwere.

This wedding party ‘bombing’ needs a closer look.

The bomb? exploded in a place were people of that village gathered and which was part of that village and its defense scheme, promoted by the US in the past.

But now the given policy has changed again and they want to ‘clean kandahar’ from the Taliban, but how do you explain this to the locals and make it crystal clear that the taliban is a local problem and a risk to all?

This village was self protected and to smuggle in an IED, dig it in and wait somehwere until the proceeding started to blow them all up sounds far fetched.

What sound more likely is that a predator drone hit this place, or a laser guided device of sorts, upping the anti in Kandahar.

This will show the locals how much to fear the Taliban and how much they need the yanks to sort it out.

An option that should not be excluded.

Perhaps along with the seemingly unstoppable tide of drugs from Mexico into the US it’s time legalisation was considered as a means of drug control. If nothing else, street crime is likely to plummet and tax revenues can be generated from sales. We simply can’t seem to get control of this problem by constantly battling it so why not try something different. And yes, I have two children I wouldn’t want anywhere near the damn stuff but if they are persuaded to start using it by the wrong people then they are probably f**ked anyway, running the additional risk of HIV, Hepatitis, cutting agents like cement dust used and the use of it to encourage prostitution, another thing we ought to start legalising so we can control it.

I’m talking as if I like control, I don’t but drugs are a real threat to society and no matter how much we burn or confiscate the price continues to drop as demand increases. A sure sign we are losing the battle.

Re: Indigo

One report is that it was a suicide bomb so there is no need to sneak the bomb in and dig it in, more walk in and light blue touch paper. If you can get one into a meeting of CIA operatives I would have thought a wedding would be a lot easier!

Also as to needing (I assume you mean Iran) outside training, tactics evolve and the whole point of this post is to show how long they have had to learn.

Redders, well said. Unless we decriminalise, set out a regime on how to franchise, educate and regulate durgs and then legalise it, we will only see ever wider use of drugs.

The statistsics for the worst two drugs are horrific, but they are accepted by the general publicas normal, they are legal, but cost us billions each year.

Alcohol and nicotine show how hypocritic we have become. We do not want to see the effects every weekend in A&E’s, we do not recognise the 30.000+ death due to alcohol and similar for nicotine, the lifelong needs for some to attend the NHS for related illnesses.

The exchequer could add 14 billion to its coffers and have a better control and clue about drugs. Thing is,

what are the tabloids going to write about in future when the loose their best beating boy?

legalising is the harder decision to make, prohibition is a cop out, wiping it off the table, that is soo stupid as it perpetuates the myth about drugs.

We all take drugs every day, unless nobody isdrinking tea and coffee, but the hypocrisy has created its own dynamic and problems.

The UN has recognised it last year and said that the prohibition and its measures are cuaisng more harm to people than the drugs themselves, that should give you a hint as to what is going on.

Cameroon prolongs the agony by handing out £67m for improved IED detection. I thought there was no money and this on the day when three more corpses are returned for the Wootton Bassett ghouls to gawp at.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10281793.stm

It makes me wonder that Obambi’s latest anti-British bluster over the BP spillage, is a thinly cloaked warning to the new British government: to not get complacent, or feel safe enough to go your own way; daddy still has the big stick for naughty boys and girls.

If Britain pulls out of Afganistan, Obambi kills a kitten.

_____________________

“The attempt to impose by brute military force an alien ideology on the Afghan people, is doomed to failure.”

Indeed, they should use a state sponsored propaganda machine, like the BBC; they should indoctrinate the children by removing them from mummy and daddy, like our social services do; and they should instigate laws forbidding self defence, whilst arming the state police to the gills, and encouraging secret denouncement of imaginary crimes against women and children.

It works for me… almost.
)

I have heard the report of a suicide bomb as well and have not discounted it.

The Taliban also has a good motive to show it can hit everyone, even those who are allowed to protect themselves under a US scheme.

Wedding parties are always large affairs were people from outside the family clans come into villages, the easiest legitamite way of getting into compounds, people who are mediating for weddings, who arrange for cakes and services and music are enbracing each other, are not frisked and seen as pseudo family, a win win situation for the Taliban.

Ingo: who are the ‘Taliban’? And who were the people who killed Ahmed Shah Massoud, with the same tactic?

Otherwise, CIA involvement in opium; yes.

You people can moan all you like but national interests must come first. Here in Scotland for example, heroin has never been so cheap!

heading? Its been a disaster since day 1.

CIA Operations In and Around Afghanistan:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/34b4at7

Note how the BCCI was involved in the supply chain of weapons etc. from the CIA/US covert programme to the Mujaheddin.

The history that we’re not meant to know about

@BP

precisely my point, legalise it and control it.

I strongly agree with Iain Orr’s comment at 9:39, and with Brian Barder’s letter mentioned there. The letter can be found here:

http://www.labourlist.org/brian-barder-letter-harriet-harman-leader

“By my calculation, this month Afghanistan overtakes Vietnam as the United States’ longest running war. I haven’t seen that referenced anywhere, so grateful for views on that.”

Well, I vote for the Korean War as the US’ longest running one. Granted it was a “UN Police Action” but the majority of the UN’s force was the US military and while there has been an armistice, to paraphrase Gerry Addams it hasn’t gone away y’know.

technicolour

There really is no “the Taliban”.

It isn’t a single organisation with a single leader and command structure as it is make themselves out to be and their enemies make them out to be.

Now the term is used to refer to the Afghan resistance. Anyone who fights the occupiers and their puppets.

Most of what they call taliban consists of loosely connected militias. And the bulk consists of people who have nothing to do with any group or organisation, simple farmers, who take pope shoots or plant IEDs in the way of foreign soldiers whenever they get the opportunity.

So the are undefetable, because there is no one to defeat. There is no standing army, to exterminate. Just peasants who pick up guns whenever they feel like it, and return to farming when they don’t.

Even the people who have joined the so called Afghan Army or Afghan police force, have a tendency, “become Taliaban” and shoot the foreign invaders. They join the puppet army for food, not beliefs, so once their hunger gets quenched they turn taliban again, and may rejoin the puppet army when hunger demands it.

The foreign occupiers know this, that is way the Puppet Hamid Karzia is guarded by American soldiers instead of Afghans. There isn’t a single afghan, including Hamid Karzia immediate family who wouldn’t kill him if given half the chance.

I think there was a strategy at the beginning of the war. Afghanistan is situated in a very important place bordering Iran to the west, Pakistan and China to the East and the Central Asian states to the North and just south of Russia. It has strategic importance to the US.

There is a huge amount of oil and gas in the Caspian Sea basin to the north and west in the Central Asian states and in Iran and the US hates Iran, distrusts China and wants influence in Central Asia with its oil reserves.

However the whole thing’s gone to rats for the US as the resurgent Taliban continue to fight and to destablise the US ally of Pakistan in the east.

I’m more inclined to the cock-up theory. The US went in to gain a strategic foothold in Central Asia but now they can’t subdue the country and they can’t get out because they’re locked into their, “War on Terror”, rhetoric and because it still has strategic importance to them. The only point to note about “failure” is that the US is not losing a huge number of troops and it militarily controls Afghanistan in its strategic Central Asian location.

What the UK’s doing there apart from as a US lapdog is anyone’s guess.

Don’t the Taliban have the moral high ground, eh, Craig?

Arsalan,

sorry, I can’t resist; I love your idea of “pope shoots”!

I thought the Taliban were all the Afghan religious students, that studied in Talibs provided by the Pakistani government.

And it was Benazir Bhotto that sent them back to Afghanistan as a device to counter the effects of cultural destabilization instigated by both Washington and Moscow.

The Talibs presumably were unleashed to take Afghanistan back to its Muslim roots, in hope of stability, without which Pakistan would suffer from mass immigration of displaced Afghans.

I knew an old lady who swallowed a spider; she swallowed a spider to catch an oil fly… perhaps she’ll die.

Who are the taliban I hear you ask.

As I understand it, it is another aboirition of a western idea to politicise islam, initially to fight the Russians. These madrassas were paid for and instigated by the CIA in cooperation with Pakistans ISI. Today they do not have to fund it anymore, the ideologies have mushroomed, it marks essentially a shoot in the foot for western ideas of subdefuge.

As for Shah Masoud? there are rumours and facts I’d rather not go into, the man had good ideas that did not fit into Afghan society and quiet a few enemies who were envious of his position with many Mujahedin, a natural leader. But this is not helping to fix the overall disunity amongst clan land Afghanistan.

Trying to wrestle the Taliban in Kandahar and surrounding areas will backfire and create strife in all sorts of other places, because the Northern alliance is the majority representative in the Afghan Army and no Pashtun will accept being ruled by a Tajik or Uzbek police/soldier, it is a recipe to foster civil war imho. Pashtuns in all sorts of areas are going to create a nightmare, Taliban or not,its a family thing, and Afghanistan would be alight.

Craig, please, cut this link out and delete my post as it is totally unrelated, or leave it in as relevant info for everyone, decision is yours.

http://www.acciona.com/news/the-board-of-directors-of-acciona-will-recommend-to-its-shareholders-the-appointment-of-miriam-gonzalez-durantez-as-a-non-executive-director-

Just read this missive from Mr. Gates.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/10275379.stm

He’s niffed that Europe has rejected Turkey for its human rights record and that they hence elected a Muslim Government, indeed its all our fault that Turkey sent an aid flotilla to Gaza. Naughty Europe needs a good spanking for pushing Turkey away.

What a cheek of the man, his country is jeopardising NATO’s doctrine with its co-belligerence towards Israels coward flagrations, together with the Netherlands and muppet Italy, I have to say.

The man should have never got appointed by Obummer, one only has to look at what he got him into?

How much of this predator drone agenda is promoted by the CIA I wonder.

I think one should retaliate and shut each and every US base in Europe. Since Gates is partial to the decision of not condemning Israels despicable actions, we might as well start thinking along the lines of a European Peace and Defence Force, since NATO’s days are so obviously over.

It’s one of the great ironies that two of the USA’s most pernicious and evil exports are colliding so violently in Afghanistan.

US lawless and murderous military interventionism finds itself pitched against a persistent asymmetric opponent largely funded by wealth generated by US prohibition policies.

We should never have collaborated in the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and we should never have allowed ourselves to be browbeaten, bullied and persuaded to go along with America’s stupid, authoritarian and self-defeating prohibitionist approach to particular recreational drugs. Anybody who doesn’t oppose the prohibition of recreational drugs hasn’t fully appreciated the harm prohibition does.

We can solve both problems given the political will – pull our troops out of Afghanistan and declare that we will henceforth no longer engage in unilateral warfare that is not in direct defence against ongoing armed attack, and relegalise all recreational drugs in the UK subject to a more suitable and effective tax and licensing regime of the kind we use for alcohol and tobacco.

These policies would in the long run reduce any threat of terrorism against us to virtually nothing, and, also in the long run, reduce organised crime dramatically by cutting out its main source of funding. They would also have the major beneficial effect of dramatically reducing the budget deficit almost overnight.

Neither will happen, because our political class is mostly corrupt, incompetent, reflexively and ignorantly authoritarian, or Quisling transatlanticist dual loyalty types.

ingo: “The man should have never got appointed by Obummer, one only has to look at what he got him into?”

Obama was always America’s Blair, and more and more people are coming to see this, just as Brits’ eyes were gradually opened to Blair’s despicable nature during the years after 1997:

ACLU chief ‘disgusted’ with Obama

http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0610/ACLU_chief_disgusted_with_Obama.html?showall

” Asked why he’s so animated now, Romero said: “It’s 18 months and, if not now, when? … Guantanamo is still not closed. Military commissions are still a mess. The administration still uses state secrets to shield themselves from litigation. There’s no prosecution for criminal acts of the Bush administration. Surveillance powers put in place under the Patriot Act have been renewed. If there has been change in the civil liberties context, I frankly don’t see it.” “

A Taliban spokesman says the deadly attack on a group of civilians at a wedding in southern Afghanistan was a US-led air strike.

A Press TV correspondent reported that the bomb explosion in the Arghandab district of Kandahar province on Wednesday left about 40 people dead and more than 80 others injured.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said on Thursday that Wednesday night’s blast was not an attack by the group, but a US-led strike.

The spokesman also strongly rejected remarks by Kandahar officials that blamed the Taliban for the explosion.

NATO officials have not commented on the blast.

AP

More than 200 years ago (1791 to be precise) Maximilien Robespierre – not exactly a bleeding heart liberal (more of a bloody hands radical) – eloquently admitted the obvious point that Craig makes in his post.

“The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have one’s laws and constitution embraced. It is in the nature of things that the progress of Reason is slow and no one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies.

“One can encourage freedom, never create it by an invading force”.

I am sure the Founding Fathers of the USA and its government at the time completely agreed with Robespierre’s words.

As for US foreign policy, the Monroe Doctrine was stated by the US government in 1823, warning European powers not to meddle in the affairs of the Americas (North and South). Am I alone in wondering whether it is time for the rest of the world to adopt a complementary agreement, requesting the Americans to stick to their own continent?

I agree with most of the previous comments.

One thing.

Who supplies the forces currently opposing NATO in Afghanistan who presumably trade heroin (as do their ‘opponents’). How do they get their weapons and ammunition? What are their supply-routes? Someone’s making a real packet. Obvious statement. But no-one’s been able to tell me as yet.

Of course, the Independent continues to push the ‘we’re winning’ line, fooling a few readers with the ‘the truth comes from the trenches’ style guff

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/afghanistan-a-war-were-winning-1994934.html

i think we’ve occupied Afghanistan because of its key, strategic position, at the crossroads of Asia. Just look at the map and things become clearer.

Also I don’t think we give a damn about what happens to the place. We’d probably prefer it passified, but if we have to destroy it, so be it. Arguably this won’t affect are overall plan to use it as a base, or potential jumping-off point.

Whilst it’s clear by now that we will never defeat the Afghans, or the Pastuns, it’s also unlikely that they will ever have the military strength to threaten our massive bases, and that’s all we care about, our fortresses, full of heavily armed knights, bugger the peasant armies outside the walls, who needs them?

Clark yes

Pope shoots

http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s3i72982

Every announcement of another British casualty in Afghamnistan reduces me to incoherent anger — which doesn’t mean that I’m indifferent to Afghan deaths, either. As far as I’m concerned, all British forces should be withdrawn from this benighted country tomorrow; their presence is achieving nothing and the western presence as a whole is doing more harm than good. But there are two points on which I have reservations about some of the preceding comments:

(1) I don’t condemn the original military intervention in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda and their Taliban hosts. It seems obvious that 9/11 made this inevitable and it was right that Britain and other countries allied with the US also took part in support. The operation had UN Security Council support and was entirely legal and justified. But it largely failed in its original purpose and has now lost its way.

(2) Those of us who advocate UK withdrawal as soon as logistically possible will make no impression on either government or Labour party policy or on public opinion if the basis of our demand is a root-and-branch denunciation of the whole Afghanistan enterprise. Not only is that historically mistaken (see (1) above): worse, many decent people won’t accept it, and will be repelled by the implication that British men and women killed and maimed in Afghanistan, and their families, have suffered in vain. We’ll be much more effective if we say that whatever the rights and wrongs of the original intervention and even of the current NATO operation, Britain has made a more than adequate contribution, second only to the Americans: we have done our bit, and more: it’s now time for others, if they believe that the operation can eventually ‘succeed’, to replace the UK contingent, or else for NATO strategy to be adapted to our very early withdrawal. (This is the line I have suggested in my “open letter to Harriet Harman, Part 2″, kindly referred to above by Iain Orr, and to be found at http://www.barder.com/2608 and also at

http://labourlist.org/brian-barder-letter-harriet-harman-leader.) It’s not as satisfying as letting off an angry rant about the whole misconceived, doomed, muddled misadventure that it has now become, but I believe it stands a far better chance of getting a hearing from the decision-makers. And Diane Abbott’s acquisition of her 33 nominations should help to ensure that the whole thing is properly and openly debated.

Brian

http://www.barder.com/ephems/

Bert,

According to a British close protection contractor in Afghanistan some elements of the Taliban are being offered large sums of money to attack (as part of a mixed group with special forces) certain targets across the border in Pakistan.

Let me make this crystal clear – the Taliban are paid to strike targets in Pakistan and those targets seem to be the result of drone intelligence or actual drone attacks over the border.

I now actually understand this is an AfPac war.

Pure speculation, but I believe this insane activity is a prelude to a similar attack on Iran given time for the recent UN sanctions to confirm failure.

America I believe are going all out for regime change in Iran without even considering the disastrous back-lash.

Without a doubt, non-violent activists will morph into soldiers.

Using a broad brush, I think we have a, mostly, unspoken attitude to many countries outside our sphere of influence, or empire. We want to destroy them and create chaos, so that they remain backward areas. But why? Well, weak countries pose no real threat to us, or competition. Secondly, and this might even be more important, weak and under-developed countries don’t use ‘our’ raw materials, leaving more, and cheaper supplies for us.

Africa is probably the best example of this longterm strategy; keep them poor, keep them weal, keep them dependent.

If this is an accurate analysis, then we don’t seem like very nice people at all.

I went to a talk by Col Tim Collins the other night – he had a lot of interesting things to say about Afghanistan, and I think many, though not all, of his views would chime with most people on here. Besides calling the Afghan government just a system of “organised robbery” and the police “generally a disgrace” he also mentioned that the bomb makers there are have nearly reached a Northern Irish proficiency in the art of making home-made explosives (he reckoned about 97% the potency of commercially available explosives). He also spoke at length about the necessity for a trustworthy police force and justice system that is acceptable to everyone, and stressed that effecting arrests, not killing people, is key to defeating an insurgency. Even taking NATO at face value and accepting their motives as to help the Afghans build a stable country I find it very difficult to see how this can come about, if the country is split down the division as Craig suggests of Pathans in the south against the northern tribes. I have an aversion in general to the imposition of western power and values onto Afghanistan, and don’t think history bodes well for achieving this in the long run. But I also feel a dilemma about going in a stirring up a hornets nest and then buggering off. What do people think is the best way to leave Afghanistan, not for our interests, but for the interests of the Afghans?

So, Mark, if I’ve got this correctly, you’re saying that NATO/ the US/ UK Special Forces are paying some groups in the Taliban in Afghanistan to attack other groups in the Taliban situated in Pakistan.

Interesting and eminently feasible.

And you see as being a blueprint for a destabilsation of the eastern border or Iran, guided by drones. Have I got that right?

Who is supplying the Taliban(s) with their weapons now? What’s your view, Mark?

Thanks again.

Does anyone know a guy called, Mao Chapman? Just wondered. He was a British journalist I once met (2004)in Pakistan and he wrote a nice article about my work in one of the English-language ‘papers there. I wondered whether or not he was still there.

Seems to me there can be more than one reason.

Obviously to facilitate the Trans Afghan pipeline.

But also geo-strategic encirclement of Russia and China.

As for drugs, I thought the point was $800 million of money from narcotics worldwide, hard cash, gets laundered through Wall Street every year and the whole thing would seize up if it stopped coming.

It might be about all of the above. The one thing it is definitely not about is ‘making us safe on the streets of London.’

Geo-strategy,oil,gas,and drugs are in a nutshell the chief motivation for the war-mongers in Afghanistan.

The Anglo-US financial empire has been addicted to the narco-traffic for centuries.(see DOPE INC.on-line for detail on its organization)

The multi-billion dollar black budget from the Afghan trade which supplies 90% of the world’s heroin finances the empire’s “soft genocides” against states it wants to weaken and undermine.You might call it the “China syndrome” and lest we forget one of the great ironies of history is that communist China was cut into the Anglo-US Golden Triangle trade not long after WW2.

Astronomical profits from the trade finance the empire’s assassination teams,false-flag terror attacks,its friends as well as its enemies-both sides of the war-can be financed out of these profits in perpetuity.

It’s a complex form of domination but it boils down to judicious use of military might supplemented by intelligence and off-shore banking assets.

It’s not just in the longevity of the war in Vietnam being surpassed by the current Afghan campaign where grounds for comparison lie.The US in both conflicts engaged knowing they were both unwinnable.The US Defence establishment orthodoxy that US involvement in an Asian land war was anathema went back to McArthur days when the US ended up in an humiliating stalemate on the Korean peninsula.

The US knows now that such conflicts can be dragged out interminably if need be.

The other main point of comparison between S.E.Asia and Afghanistan is the narco-traffic.Like the various US proxy regimes succoured by the US in S.Vietnam the Karzai government is dependent on the drug trade for its revenue.The trade has increased exponentially in scope since the occupation began especially in Helmand,the British zone.

Again don’t overlook the fact that like Vietnam Afghanistan shares a border with China and this may not be coincidental.The role of the superstate in the Afghna trade is probably vastly understated.

Like all wars in history a small elite enriches itself at vast human cost to the ordinary soldiers and civilians on the front-line.

Our western leaders, including Obama and all the rest, don’t give a damn about the Afghan people, they are expendable, merely pawns on the great, and very bloody, international chessboard.

Christ, we ‘kill’ somewhere between 2 and 3 million Iraqis, over a couple of decades, rape the country, smash it to pieces; and then we are supposed to accept that our leaders… care?

They only care about themselves and the circles they represent and serve so passionately. Social climbers, like Blair and Obama, though not born into spectactular wealth and power, show what can be achieved and gained, a lesson to us all.

I think I finally accept that we live in something close to ‘terrorist states’ and that our leaders are very smartly dressed, articulate, seemingly charming… terrorists. Only we are so used to our style of terrorism, groomed over centuries, that we, mostly, don’t even see it for what it really is. It’s almost invisible, benevolent, terror. Terror that’s sold as a helping hand to the weak, instead of an axe of evil cutting them and their children in half.

Mark,

Your comment about Afghanistan against Pakistan is a load of crap. Whoever is telling you that is talking shit! The main reason is that the Pakistan special forces are secretly in Afghanistan aiding the Taleban not the US, especially in Helmand. This is what I was told from an intellegence officer for the army when I was working in Helmand.

The Taleban are not a force that people think they are in afghanistan. There are not many of the actual taleban and many local warlords are sometimes considered taleban by the british media. But a lot of the people that are “resistance fighters” are only there because they need to make a living and there are not many jobs going in Helmand. Also the government in afghanistan are so corrupt that they are only concerned with making millions for themselves in Kabul and don’t really give a shit about the rest of the country.

There are many construction jobs waiting to go ahead in Helmand which will bring thousands of jobs to the area and reduce the people flocking towards the Taleban but the afghan government isn’t bothering to get off it’s arse and start them. Craig is right they don’t care about the people in Helmand and are happy for that area to be in conflict so that they can get rich elsewhere.

Also if you want to know where the taleban get a lot of their weapons from you only have to look at a small high pass along the border of China where the chinese are happy to leave unguarded so that chinese arms dealers can sell weapons there to the taleban.

Re: “I think I finally accept that we live in something close to ‘terrorist states’ and that our leaders are very smartly dressed, articulate, seemingly charming… terrorists.”

I would omit the qualifications.

Here’s a vid. providing a short primer on Western state terrorism. No doubt Larry will critique it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOVICOudMVI

Shifting the camera angle a few degrees.

Does anyone think the current attacks on BP by the Obama administration could have any political motivation against the UK because we look a bit wobbly about Afghanistan and made a fuss about the Israeli butchery on the boat to Gaza?

It might not have been officially a “war”, but it any case, the longest running campaign in US history surely has to be that against the Native Americans, running as it did from 1492 until about 1910.

bruan barder said “many decent people won’t accept it, and will be repelled by the implication that British men and women killed and maimed in Afghanistan, and their families, have suffered in vain. We’ll be much more effective if we say that whatever the rights and wrongs of the original intervention and even of the current NATO operation, Britain has made a more than adequate contribution,”

what contribution?

you british thought you could latch on to the loot which american forces are going to get in and after afgansitan. when not successful you british are paying Taliban and begging Taliban not to shoot at rbitish forces and for that you pay them a good sum of money by afghasn standard. you are not only immoral and evil you are also coward. No wonder the last time britian won any war agasint anyone otn its own was Boer war in 1899.=that too with all resources of empire. and no you didn to win falkand war without american help.

The real hidden dimension to wars that mainstream coverage never mentions is the role played by secret societies.For those willing to suspend their disbelief and corporate media programming will discover that fringe masonry has played decisive roles in all conflicts since the French Revolution.

Why should we assume Afghanistan is any different? If an aspect of any phenomenon registers highly on the corporate media’s “absentometer” then it’s likely crucial to our understanding.Moreover it will be detectable to those willing to look hard enough below the surface establishment narrative.

Given the knee-jerk aversion for “conspiracy theory” which is really a cover for intellectual laziness that allows elites off the hook all too often it’s no surprise that the fact that Afghanistan is the very cradle of secret societies has been utterly overlooked here.

The Roshiniya sect dates from the seventeenth century and shares organizational features with the Bavarian Illuminati.From Germany this fringe-freemasonry spread to France and the US.

The common Sufic thread that runs through such groups has its origins in Afghanistan.

On the links between Afghan and European freemasonry:

http://tehutionline.com/newpage12.htm

Many UN delegates have expressed surprise when they first arrive in NY to discover that the organization has its very own Sufi reading room!

The Roshaniya were simultaneously a mystery school,political movement and army.

Now do they sound like the Taliban or the Northern Alliance?

You pays yer money and take your choice-but it bears considering that the Afghan conflict may be mutually orchestrated by two sides linked by fringe freemasonic connections who had the pieces on the Grand Chessboard in place long before this phase in the Afghan war started in 2001.

This may also be the case in Iran where the ruling elite was helped to power by Britain and the US at the very same time as the Soviets were being enticed into Afghanistan.

forget about democracy in afgansitan-the anglos want their stooges and drug trade to destablise Russia and central asia and then India.

The CIA isn’t going to give up its’ opium profits that easily…

Opium production EXPLODED after the US invasion.

Ever wonder why?

CIA Heroin has a premium over generic in the world market. Good profits too!

Posted by: Ydotheyhateus on Jul 16, 2008 8:28 AM

“”

There was a point in Afghanistan’s tortured history when the future looked bright, when a determined effort to lift the country and its people out of backward agrarian feudalism almost succeeded.

It began with the formation of the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) back in the sixties, which opposed the autocratic rule of King Zahir Shar. The growth in popularity of the PDPA eventually led to them taking control of the country in 1978, after a coup removed the former Kings’ cousin, Mohammed Daud, from power.

The coup enjoyed popular support in the towns and cities, evidenced in reports carried in US newspapers. The Wall Street Journal, no friend of revolutionary movements, reported at the time that ’150,000 persons marched to honour the new flagthe participants appeared genuinely enthusiastic.’ The Washington Post reported that ‘Afghan loyalty to the government can scarcely be questioned.

Upon taking power, the new government introduced a program of reforms designed to abolish feudal power in the countryside, guarantee freedom of religion, along with equal rights for women and ethnic minorities. Thousands of prisoners under the old regime were set free and police files burned in a gesture designed to emphasise an end to repression. In the poorest parts of Afghanistan, where life expectancy was 35 years, where infant mortality was one in three, free medical care was provided. In addition, a mass literacy campaign was undertaken, desperately needed in a society in which ninety percent of the population could neither read nor write.

The resulting rate of progress was staggering. By the late 1980s half of all university students in Afghanistan were women, and women made up 40 percent of the country’s doctors, 70 percent of its teachers, and 30 percent of its civil servants. In John Pilger’s ‘New Rulers Of The World’ (Verso, 2002), he relates the memory of the period through the eyes of an Afghan woman, Saira Noorani, a female surgeon who escaped the Taliban in 2001. She said: “Every girl could go to high school and university. We could go where we wanted and wear what we liked. We used to go to cafes and the cinema to see the latest Indian movies. It all started to go wrong when the mujaheddin started winning. They used to kill teachers and burn schools. It was sad to think that these were the people the West had supported.”

Under the pretext that the Afghan government was a Soviet puppet, which was false, the then Carter Administration authorised the covert funding of opposition tribal groups, whose traditional feudal existence had come under attack with these reforms. An initial $500 million was allocated, money used to arm and train the rebels in the art in secret camps set up specifically for the task across the border in Pakistan. This opposition came to be known as the mujaheddin, and so began a campaign of murder and terror which, six months later, resulted in the Afghan government in Kabul requesting the help of the Soviet Union, resulting in an ill-fated military intervention which ended ten years later in an ignominious retreat of Soviet military forces and the descent of Afghanistan into the abyss of religious intolerance, abject poverty, warlordism and violence that has plagued the country ever since.

Brzezinski confirms: “Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”

“”============================================ ==

For those members of the US military in Afghanistan the most enlightening lesson they could receive is that their government’s plans for that land of sadness have little or nothing to do with the welfare of the Afghan people. In the late 1970s through much of the 1980s, the country had a government that was relatively progressive, with full rights for women; even a Pentagon report of the time testified to the actuality of women’s rights in the country. And what happened to that government? The United States was instrumental in overthrowing it. It was replaced by the Taliban.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, US oil companies have been vying with Russia, Iran and other energy interests for the massive, untapped oil and natural gas reserves in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. The building and protection of oil and gas pipelines in Afghanistan, to continue farther to Pakistan, India, and elsewhere, has been a key objective of US policy since before the 2001 American invasion and occupation of the country, although the subsequent turmoil there has presented serious obstacles to such plans. A planned Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline has strong support from Washington because, amongst other reasons, the US is eager to block a competing pipeline that would bring gas to Pakistan and India from Iran. But security for such projects remains daunting, and that’s where the US and NATO forces come in to play.

In the late 1990s, the American oil company, Unocal, met with Taliban officials in Texas to discuss the pipelines.[6] Zalmay Khalilzad, later chosen to be the US ambassador to Afghanistan, worked for Unocal[7]; Hamid Karzai, later chosen by Washington to be the Afghan president, also reportedly worked for Unocal, although the company denies this. Unocal’s talks with the Taliban, conducted with the full knowledge of the Clinton administration, and undeterred by the extreme repression of Taliban society, continued as late as 2000 or 2001.

As for NATO, it has no reason to be fighting in Afghanistan. Indeed, NATO has no legitimate reason for existence at all. Their biggest fear is that “failure” in Afghanistan would make this thought more present in the world’s mind. If NATO hadn’t begun to intervene outside of Europe it would have highlighted its uselessness and lack of mission. “Out of area or out of business” it was said.

These little devils at play again I see. They play for keeps. They are making their diabolical stew again and have plans for WWIII. Every government is compromised and the good have always been outflanked in the past. These diabolical devils the illuminati are desperate because their plans are coming to light. Their destined to defeat. He who lives by the sword will die by the sword.

But it’s all about keeping folks safe and secure back home in Blighty. You know, so you don’t all ‘ave yer throats cut by ‘orrible Muslim terrorists. David Cameron just said so:

“I can sum up this mission in two words. It is about our national security back in the UK. Clearing al-Qaida out of Afghanistan, damaging them in Pakistan, making sure this country is safe and secure ?” it will make us safe and secure back home in the UK.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/jun/11/david-cameron-troops-noble-mission-afghanistan

Long live the Coalition goverment.