Afghanistan News & Discussion

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 28 Jul 2010 07:41

goutham wrote:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/vp/ ... 7#38411097

Brezinski being more paki than a paki. I cant believe him trying to distinguish between paki army and the ISI and essentially implicating India for all the mess in Afghanistan.

Notice Brzezinski cunningly and repeatedly playing up the Indo-Iranian angle, which he knows will resonate with the US public.

It's ironic to hear him talking about the cost to innocent civilians, given the recent limp convictions against the Khmer Rouge war crimes, whom he himself abetted in their genocide.

Atlanticism seeks to suck the blood out of the rest of the world, for the benefit of their narrow interests.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 28 Jul 2010 09:15

Sorry if posted before ...

Meet Afghanistan's new intel boss
http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/20 ... intel_boss

Engineer Nabeel is from Wardak and, according to Pajhwok News Agency, was born in 1968. He went to primary school in Kabul, then, after the Soviet invasion, to secondary school in exile in Peshawar. He also studied for a degree in engineering in Peshawar from a private university and then worked as an engineer with NGOs (reportedly in Peshawar and Jalalabad). By the late 1990s, he was working in Kabul for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), while Engineer Ibrahim was with UNHCR in Kandahar.

Is Nabeel up to the job? "He's certainly clever," was the conclusion of those AAN spoke to who knew him in the 1980s and 1990s. "He's not a bad man," was another comment on the man's character. He has received top-level security training from the Americans, has eight years of experience at the Palace and speaks the languages needed to deal not just with Afghans (Pashto and Dari), but also foreigners (English and Urdu). Crucially, he is a Karzai and Engineer Ibrahim partisan, promoted through their support. This is a very different background from Amrullah Saleh who was a protégé of Ahmad Shah Massoud and had risen up through the ranks of the Shura-e Nazar/Islamic State of Afghanistan intelligence agency. Indeed, one of Saleh's friends told to AAN, "President Karzai never trusted him regarding his personal security." Most importantly, the power behind the NDS throne -- as he is also at the NSC -- remains Engineer Ibrahim. Even though he apparently took a demotion, he has merely stepped back out of the limelight. This new appointment strengthens his hand considerably.

The man Nabeel will be working most closely with is his newly appointed deputy, General Hassamuddin Hassam, a Panjshiri who was working as a security advisor to the First Vice President, Marshal Fahim. Before that, Hassam was in charge of the military affairs department (riyasat-e ummur-e nezami) at the Ministry of Defense. He's from the pro-Fahim, rather than the pro-Dr Abdullah faction of Shura-e Nazar. General Hassam has replaced Qayyum Katawazai, who had only been in the job since April. Katawazai, who is from Paktika and is reportedly former PDPA, had been the governor of Paktika and before that, head of NDS in Kandahar and Ghazni (he had followed the now Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs, Assadullah Khaled, as he moved about the country taking different governorships).

The appointment of Engineer Nabeel means that, apart from the four years of the Taliban regime, this is the first time in almost two decades that a Panjshiri from Shura-e Nazar has not been in charge of Afghanistan's intelligence agency.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 28 Jul 2010 09:31

U.S. General Wants Afghan Militants Branded Terrorists

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/07/ ... orist.html

President Barack Obama's pick to lead the U.S. military command overseeing operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere said on Tuesday he wanted top leaders of two major insurgent groups designated as terrorists.

The Quetta Shura and the Haqqani network oppose U.S. forces in Afghanistan and officially blacklisting their leaders could trigger punitive measures, like freezing assets. Advocates say it would also send a strong message to Pakistan, under pressure to go after insurgents inside its borders.

"Both those groups have engaged in terrorism and I believe the leaders of both groups should be placed on the State Department list," General James Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 28 Jul 2010 09:41

Lost in a Maze
By MAUREEN DOWD

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/opinion/28dowd.html

The more we try to do for our foreign protectorates, the more angry they get about what we try to do. As Congress passed $59 billion in additional war funding on Tuesday, not only are our wards not grateful, they’re disdainful.

Washington gave the Pakistanis billions, and, in return, they stabbed us in the back, pledging to fight the militants even as they secretly help the militants.

We keep getting played by people who are playing both sides.

The British Empire prided itself on discovering warrior races in places it conquered — Gurkhas, Sikhs, Pathans, as the Brits called Pashtuns. But why are they warrior cultures only until we need them to be warriors on our side? Then they’re untrainably lame, even when we spend $25 billion on building up the Afghan military and the National Police Force, dubbed “the gang that couldn’t shoot straight” by Newsweek.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 28 Jul 2010 09:53

The Brits started with the Scottish Highlanders who were declared as martial and and recruited into the British Army. After the pacification of the Highlanders the experiment was repeated elsewhere.

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 28 Jul 2010 10:00

Martial Race Theory.....reminds me of a comment by a British Civil Servant on MRT...."Many a men behave in a manner in which they are expected to......"

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 28 Jul 2010 12:17

How about Hannah Montana theory?

(TIME)Introducing the Oprah of Afghanistan: Mozhdah!

Carl_T · Post by **Carl_T** » 28 Jul 2010 12:22

It's not a graveyard of empires.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... _graveyard

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 28 Jul 2010 22:00

Carl_T, A book review :

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 48#p909048

This book is mentioned in that op-ed.

As Thomas Barfield pointed out to me the other day, for most of its history Afghanistan has actually been the cradle of empires, not their grave. Barfield, an anthropologist at Boston University, has been studying Afghanistan since the early 1970s, and he has just published a book -- Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History -- that takes issue with the hoary stereotypes that continue to inform our understanding of the place.

One of those myths, for example, is that Afghanistan is inherently unconquerable thanks to the fierceness of its inhabitants and the formidable nature of its terrain. But this isn't at all borne out by the history. "Until 1840 Afghanistan was better known as a 'highway of conquest' rather than the 'graveyard of empires,'" Barfield points out. "For 2,500 years it was always part of somebody's empire, beginning with the Persian Empire in the fifth century B.C."

After the Persians it was Alexander the Great's turn. Some contend that Alexander met his match in the Afghans, since it was an Afghan archer who wounded him in the heel, ushering in a series of misfortunes that would end with the great conqueror's death. Ask anyone who believes this is why Greek coins keep cropping up in Afghan soil today -- in fact, Alexander's successors managed to keep the place under their control for another 200 years. Not too shabby, really. And there were plenty of empires that came after, thanks to Afghanistan's centrality to world trade in the era before European ocean fleets put an end to the Silk Road's transportation monopoly.

What about the popular accounts that insist, awe-struck, that even Genghis Khan was humbled by the Afghans? Poppycock, says Barfield. Genghis had "no trouble at all overrunning the place," and his descendants would build wide-ranging kingdoms using Afghanistan as a base. Timur (know to most of us as Tamerlane) ultimately shifted the capital of his empire from provincial Samarkand to cosmopolitan Herat, evidence of the role command over Afghanistan played in his calculations. Babur, who is buried in Kabul, used Afghanistan to launch his conquest of a sizable chunk of India and establish centuries of Muslim rule. Afghans seemed pretty happy to go along.

In fact, Afghan self-rule is a relatively recent invention in the full sweep of the country's history, dating to the middle of the 18th century -- and it took another century for Afghanistan to earn its reputation as an empire-beater. That's when the Afghans trounced a British invasion force, destroying all but one of 16,000 troops sent to Kabul to teach the Afghan rulers a lesson.

But context is everything. Everyone tends to forget what happened after the rout of the British: In 1842 they invaded again, defeating every Afghan army sent out against them. True, they didn't necessarily achieve their aim of preventing Tzarist Russia from encroaching on Central Asia; that had to wait for the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880), when they succeeded in occupying much of the country and forcing its rulers to accept a treaty giving the British a veto over future Afghan foreign policy. Then there's the fact that First Anglo-Afghan War preceded the end of the British Empire by more than a century. London, it should be noted, never intended to make Afghanistan part of its empire. Britain's foreign-policy aim, which it ultimately achieved, was to ensure that Afghanistan remained a buffer state outside the influence of imperial competitors, such as the Russians.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 29 Jul 2010 19:01

Haven't we repeatedly said about the Afghans being conquerable and crushable? They simply bow down before the threat of genocide. Those who have been successful have typically been genocidal. But the larger problem is maintaining control over the region if you let pockets of Afghans survive. They have consistently adapted to change of religions and theologies that have been imposed by imperial authorities. However the tribal clan organization is the basis of the power of independent negotiators between imperial authorities and states and the common Afghan. No system that specifically targets the tribal warlords and their supporting extended families as well as allied theologians will be able to put in an autonomous state for long.

The communists were a good start in breaking the power of the tribal warlords - the reason they were wiped out when USA decided to back the tribal warlords and theologians. The communists were so much of a threat in Afghan ruling cliques because potentially it held out delegitimization of the warlord claim to absolute power. Islam was perfectly adapted to tribal warlordism so was so popular in AFG [after strong almost 300-400 years of initial resistance].

It is the tribal clans who will hold onto Islamism and use it as a tool to preserve their personal power. Unless this combination of clan chiefs and allied theologians are destroyed not much progress can happen in AFG.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 29 Jul 2010 21:39

ramana wrote:The Brits started with the Scottish Highlanders who were declared as martial and and recruited into the British Army. After the pacification of the Highlanders the experiment was repeated elsewhere.

the same highlanders who were defeated with the introduction of the bayonet onto muskets which countered their fierce charge with broadswords

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 30 Jul 2010 14:27

Lalmohan wrote:the talibs were reported to have disembowelled the 9 captured french troops from a couple of years ago, the tales of what they did to the russians are very lurid, so the seal dude is in big trouble

Poor fella has been found dead - apparently nothing more horrific than 3 GSWs which is merciful considering what those talibunnies are capable of. Re. the French, they allegedly disembowelled 1, not 9. I guess all that sounded very warrior-like and patriotic when it was being done to the Russians, now that it is done to their own boys, it probably doesn't feel as desirable.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 01 Aug 2010 08:15

Afghans Can Win This War

The fight in Afghanistan is difficult, but with a strategy that fully empowers the Afghan people to defeat the Taliban, it is still winnable.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... n_this_war

From Ahmed Shah Massoud's brother

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 01 Aug 2010 08:24

Gates, Brzezinski, muj, Taliban - some history:

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 01 Aug 2010 08:37

arun · Post by **arun** » 01 Aug 2010 10:59

X Posted from the Pakistani Role in Global terrorism thread.

The Islamic Terrorism fomenting ways of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

District Governor of Nad-e-Ali, Helmand Province, Habibullah Shamalany:

"It is Pakistan that trains, funds and leads them. When we capture their fighters they confess that they are trained in Pakistan. The Pakistanis find religious boys, give them weapons, and send them across the border into Afghanistan to kill us, and to kill your British soldiers."

Lieutenant-Colonel Lincoln Jopp of the British Army:

"We do encounter some evidence of Pakistani involvement in the insurgency in Helmand,"

Read it all in the UK’s Telegraph:

Helmand despatch: 'Pakistan is the true enemy'

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 01 Aug 2010 14:02

Rethinking the Afghanistan War’s What-Ifs

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/weeki ... anger.html

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 03 Aug 2010 10:32

Latest Time magazine cover:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/ ... 38,00.html

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 03 Aug 2010 10:51

Pranav wrote:Latest Time magazine cover:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/ ... 38,00.html

The picture is worth a thousand words. The nature of the taliban is made clear in that image. If still the khans want to cut a deal with the Taliban, then I truly feel sorry for the Women of Afghanisatan.

But look at the bright side, if the female sex is to be weakened in that society then there ability to propogate them selves is also weakened.

Carl_T · Post by **Carl_T** » 03 Aug 2010 11:15

Pratyush wrote:
But look at the bright side, if the female sex is to be weakened in that society then there ability to propogate them selves is also weakened.

Afghan fertility rate is something like over 7 births/woman...

Varoon Shekhar · Post by **Varoon Shekhar** » 03 Aug 2010 11:37

Again, why isn't India forcefully asserting the fact that it has a 3000+ year association with Afghanistan, and that the very names Afghanistan, Kabul and Kandahar are of Indian origin. Why should India have to be apologetic with jackasses like Brezezinski?

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 03 Aug 2010 11:38

But how many survive to adulthood. What is the MMR/ 000 live births.? Similalrly what is the IMR / 000 live births. The deliberate supression of women will also result in poor development indicators. Resulting in a stabalisation (at most optimistic). Or a reduction of population.

Airavat · Post by **Airavat** » 03 Aug 2010 11:41

Floods in Afghanistan

The Afghan Government estimates that the floods have left several thousand individuals homeless in northeast Kapisa, central Ghazni, Laghman, Nangarhar, Kunar, Logar, Khost and northern Parwan provinces, where at least 2,500 houses have been destroyed.

An estimated 80 people have reportedly died in the floods, and much of the arable land, where crops were planted, has been inundated. The destruction of roads and bridges, as well as security considerations hindered response to the flood emergency, according to UNICEF.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 03 Aug 2010 12:18

Well one needs to set up a "Friends of Afghan (Pushtun) Women", a group of countries, who are willing to give asylum to Afghan (Pushtun) Women.

A whole flock of birds will come down with this just one stone.

Poor Sheep!

=> "Friends of Afghan (Pushtun) Sheep" ????

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 03 Aug 2010 12:51

UN removes 35 Al Qaeda & 10 more Taliban from the 'banned' list
Some of them may be dead but as the report says it is extremely difficult to be sure they are indeed dead before removing their names.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 04 Aug 2010 02:13

Pranav wrote:Latest Time magazine cover:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/ ... 38,00.html

Just posted in the comments section of the article

Rajesh wrote:I make a request to the whole world, SAVE the Afghan Women.

All those countries who are concerned with this mutilation by barbarians, should form a group, "Friends of the Afghan Women"! This group should be active in Afghanistan and neighboring countries.

A woman who has faced such treatment, should be considered eligible for asylum in one of the member countries, where they can be cared for by other Afghan women counselors. There is a need for setting up the needed humanitarian infrastructure for this project in Afghanistan.

The Taliban barbarians would learn their lesson, and start treating women with respect, when the gender ratio would strongly tilt towards males, and women become a minority through asylum-based emigration.

This is the only way to stop this human rights abuse!

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 04 Aug 2010 02:54

In Case of Talibani takeover of Afghanistan, its wont be bad idea to airlift all the Afghan females to different countries where they can be live safely without mutilation. And , no secret ,good Talibans without any women in sight will gorge on Pakjabi male , females ,young ,old in effort to change their "nasal".

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 04 Aug 2010 03:04

^^^

Didn't I read somewhere that Pakjabi women force their Afghan servants to have sex with them, in order to get children with green eyes!!! Well now they will not have to force!

Carl_T · Post by **Carl_T** » 04 Aug 2010 04:31

RajeshA wrote:Didn't I read somewhere that Pakjabi women force their Afghan servants to have sex with them, in order to get children with green eyes!!!

Wow, hadn't heard that one yet.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 04 Aug 2010 10:14

India-Russia to step up cooperation on Afghanistan

The two sides “agreed to coordinate our policies more closely on Afghanistan,” Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao told journalists after talks in Moscow.

Afghanistan and Pakistan dominated Indo-Russian Foreign Ministry consultations on Monday with New Delhi seeking reassurances from Moscow that the two countries were on the same page on the AfPak situation, as the United States presses ahead with the accommodation of the Taliban in the Afghan power structures.

India and Russia “share similar views on the evolving situation in Afghanistan,” Ms. Rao said. “Our cooperation on Afghanistan is well institutionalised and we have reconfirmed our commitment to work jointly for peace and stability in that country.”

We should recall that on the very same day Obama announced his new policy on Afghanistan and appointed Gen. McChrystal, an equally powerful initiative was announced by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in what is known as the Moscow Declaration. While there was similarity in approach as far as the involvement of neighbours and regional players such as Russia, China, India, Iran and Pakistan in resolving the Afghan situation was concerned, it differed from the US policy of differentiating among the Taliban. This Declaration also castigated Pakistan for its support to terrorism and asked it to dismantle these infrastructure. Later, in October 2009, the foreign ministers of the RIC triangle of Russia, India and China met in Bangalore and demanded a greater say for themselves in the resolution of the Afghan problem. These efforts must be given a greater push.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 04 Aug 2010 12:55

Taliban attack main US base in Kandahar

A Taliban suicide squad armed with bombs and rockets attacked the largest US military base in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday. . . NATO confirmed the incident but said its initial assessment showed that eight insurgents had died and two had been wounded, while four American soldiers were also hurt.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 07 Aug 2010 08:37

India-Iran discuss Afghanistan

India and Iran on Friday rounded off extensive discussions on Afghanistan, which included an Indo-Iranian initiative to develop a new trading route to the land locked country and a “regional approach” to bringing peace and stability.

Talks between visiting Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali Fathollahi and senior Foreign Office officials here also touched on the possibility of a trilateral meeting between India, Iran and Afghanistan, to discuss how the situation can be stabilised.

The talks appear to have further coordinated Indian and Iranian positions on national reconciliation in Afghanistan. Both countries agreed that the Afghan Constitution would be the “basis and pillar for any action,” Mr. Fathollahi said at a press conference.

Both sides want to accommodate only those militia groups that accept the suzerainty of Kabul in governing Afghanistan.

The issue of modernisation of Iranian port of Chabar, to give a fillip to economic activity in Afghanistan was also discussed in detail. “This issue is of great importance to the Indian side as well. The details of cooperation with India were discussed today. In future there will be fundamental developments regarding the position of Chabar,” he noted.

India has proposed expanding the capacity of the port, currently working at its full handling capacity of 2.5 million tonnes of cargo per year from two active berths, by five times and linking it to the Iranian town of Bam, on Afghan border, with a railway line. From there goods are proposed to be taken to Afganistan through the Zaranj-Delaram road, built by India, which in turn links up with the garland highway connecting all major Afghan cities.

As Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao recently noted, the Zaranj-Delaram road has already revived the economy in Nimroz province of Afghanistan. She is confident that the link up with Chabar would enable it to gain from transit of goods to Central Asia, in addition to the local economy benefiting from access to a sea port.

From an earlier report, India has handed over to Afghanistan the 220-km highway from Zaranj to Delaram in Nimroz province in the south-western part of Afghanistan. The number of passengers who travel between Zaranj and Delaram has multiplied. In the last three years, the number of container trucks that come up to the Iranian side of the border, carrying goods for Afghanistan, has gone up from five to fifty-five. Travel and trade are both growing steadily. The population of Zaranj, the capital of Nimroz province, has doubled from 55,000 to 1.1 lakh. The time of travel for ordinary Afghans to Delaram has been reduced from 14 hours to two-and-half hours.

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 07 Aug 2010 09:26

^^^Its been an eternity that I have been reading bout the modernisation on the Iranian port of Chabar. When will we see some action on the ground.

Or is this an act of chanikianness from the babooz of India. That we want to kill the Taliban and pakistan through boredom.

svenkat · Post by **svenkat** » 07 Aug 2010 19:39

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100807/ts_ ... n_tourists

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6760DN20100807

Eight foreign medical workers including americans killed in Afghanistan.

sum · Post by **sum** » 07 Aug 2010 21:17

One basic Q onlee:

How has India ensured that none of its non-Kabul consulates has ever been the target of any serious attack? The areas like Kandahar, Mazar-e-sharif etc are much worse off ( security wise) than Kabul and is almost ruled by Paki based groups. Does India have such a good intel setup in those areas to thwart any attacks on those consulates? Also, were there any news reports from all these years indicating thwarted attacks on the consulates?

Asking because virtually every Paki rag mentions the 10000 Indian consulates and yet, Pak never even once tried to bomb any of them ( even when the managed to brazenly bomb the most secured Kabul embassy)? Something doesn't add up...

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 07 Aug 2010 21:28

^^ Perhaps targeting them is not really a part of Pakistani agenda. As doing that will divert the focus of the Taliban from the more lucrative and damaging attacks on the capital.

sum · Post by **sum** » 07 Aug 2010 21:34

But don't the Pakis have enough groups spread out across all the major Afghan centers to ensure all can be kept satisfied by doing some "activity" or the other in their respective AoR?
Would assume that a Kabul team of talibs would be headed by a different commander ( both at ISI level and Taliban level) and a Kandahar team by someone else and so on.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 08 Aug 2010 00:16

I smell LET in the medical worker killings... Let's wait and see.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 08 Aug 2010 09:36

Maybe they dont exist hence the Pakis cant attack them?

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 08 Aug 2010 17:31

perhaps the dehaati taliban cant be bothered to attack indian consulates on behalf of the ISI since they have no interest and/or other priorities. come to think of it, mostly the rural action is centred around area control and not political targetting, which is basic bandit country stuff. therefore the kabul attacks are possibly carried out by 'closer' friends or serving personnel? quite possibly, outside kabul, the whole war is about the power balance between bandits and ideology has little to do with it.

on the killing of the medical workers, the circumstances are highly suspicious. quite possibly a message being sent to western governments to 'lay off' ?(in the words of a famous jarnail bandicoot - and most probably from his successor)