Rolling Afghanistan Thread

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polystyle

Well-known member
OK, so Karzai did finally agree to the run off,
got to do it in Nov.,
The Pakistani armed forces are into their third attempt pushing into those deeper tribal areas -where it appears the Taliban have their own society set up.
Those recent articles and the Frontline program really shown how deep and in their own thing these cats are - with Pakistani forces half helping , half fighting them.

Now today a suicide bomber blows up in a Muslim University ?
It may come to me , coffee has to kick in here - but why kill, maim, alienate even more people in your own country ?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/world/asia/21pstan.html?hp

They have two arms and a head there in the 'lost and found' ...

Edit: ok, now I see- it is the 'International' Islamic School that got two suicide bombers today ...
I guess the ' Int.' in their title explains it ...
 
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scottdisco

rip this joint please
'Kidnapped by Taliban' was an interesting one, as you said,

cheers

was struck by

"During our time as hostages, I tried to reason with our captors. I told them we were journalists who had come to hear the Taliban’s side of the story. I told them that I had recently married and that Tahir and Asad had nine young children between them. I wept, hoping it would create sympathy, and begged them to release us. All of my efforts proved pointless.

"Over those months, I came to a simple realization. After seven years of reporting in the region, I did not fully understand how extreme many of the Taliban had become. Before the kidnapping, I viewed the organization as a form of “Al Qaeda lite,” a religiously motivated movement primarily focused on controlling Afghanistan.

"Living side by side with the Haqqanis’ followers, I learned that the goal of the hard-line Taliban was far more ambitious. Contact with foreign militants in the tribal areas appeared to have deeply affected many young Taliban fighters. They wanted to create a fundamentalist Islamic emirate with Al Qaeda that spanned the Muslim world."
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then i remembered something Joshua Foust wrote about Nuristan Province (following quote my italics)

On a personal note, I am sad to see the area being abandoned. Nuristan is one of the most interesting, beautiful places in the world, with a mixture of peoples and cultures totally unique in Central Asia. These are the people who fought off Timur, Babur, and Alexander (literally, not just in the mythography of Afghanistan), and until a century ago had the most unique religion in the world. It is a shame to leave them at the hands of such people, but the costs of remaining there simply do not justify the slim benefits.
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polystyle

Well-known member
Scott , you picked out exactly the same quote as I would have .
Thought that was a kind of amazing point made about their 'emirate'.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
when it pains it roars

Karzai's brother is said to be on CIA payroll

druglord, paramilitary forces, it's got everything. CIA denies it, obv. this is a $ quote from "an American official"

There’s no proof of Ahmed Wali Karzai’s involvement in drug trafficking, certainly nothing that would stand up in court"
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oh yes, he's also supposed to have been deeply involved in election fraud. I don't like facile Vietnam comparisons but it's hard in this case not to think of Diem & the awful Nhus.

in other news, 53 Americans have died in Afghanistan this month, making it the bloodiest month of the war for us (of course casualties go up when you go on a counteroffensive but that doesn't make it any easier to hear).
 
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scottdisco

rip this joint please
OT in this is about a personality and nothing substantive (without sounding flip, i mean wrt the issues ^ of troops, planning, troop deaths etc), but interesting nonetheless

Peter Galbraith has an op-ed in today’s New York Times in which he rightly points out that the Afghan elections were tainted by fraud, something which several election monitors have also reported...Masud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, is likely guilty of the same fraud and abuse in the recent Kurdish election. Galbraith is intimately involved in Kurdistan and has never uttered a peep about the human-rights abuses and corruption ongoing there. He has never spoken about Barzani family members on the CIA payroll, or Barzani family members involved in drug and weapons smuggling. Why not? Since I posted on the issue last, Galbraith has confirmed to the Norwegian business daily Dagens Naeringsliv what he denied to the U.S. Senate: that he took money from Barzani (and Talabani) in addition to the oil interests which he also has sought to keep secret...Galbraith is doing good work in Afghanistan right now and I’m never upset to see the U.N.’s feet held to the fire for its ineffectiveness. It is too bad that Galbraith ignores the many others fighting against corruption for far longer in Afghanistan and instead makes the episode too much about Galbraith, but that's been Peter's style since he was a Senate staffer. Still, so long as Karzai doesn’t offer Galbraith a consulting or business relationship, Galbraith's pressure will continue, which is good.

The larger point isn’t to pick on Galbraith. He has done great work over the years, and isn’t alone in cashing in on connections.
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Rubin at NRO
 
M

mms

sometimes
just watched the news to see a lad i was friends with at junior school who's a sergeant in the bomb disposal unit being interviewed, that was quite a shock, hadn't seen him in years, but it turned out he's the latest casualty in Afghanistan which is pretty depressing.
 
M

mms

sometimes
polystyle desu said:
That's tough and sorry to hear that mms.
Here today , sometimes gone today too
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just a bit depressing really, i'd not seen him for years, but i was quite pleasantly surprised to see him on the telly only to find out he'd just been killed. oh well.
 
S

scottdisco

rip this joint please
i am very sorry, mms.

condolences.

was reading about him in the paper yday, a genuine "legend" and incredibly brave, his CO said. he was due to see his five yo lad and partner next week.

in other British soldier news, five were killed in Helmand yday. not via blast but gunshot wounds apparently, which is quite a notable detail imo.

ah

Five British soldiers have been shot dead after a rogue Afghan policeman opened fire inside a check point,

The soldiers, three from the Grenadier Guards and two from the Royal Military Police, died in the Nad-e’Ali district of Helmand Province yesterday afternoon.

It is thought a further three Afghan police officers were also killed and up to six men injured.
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i initially assumed a firefight in theatre i admit (hence my notable shout)
 
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