Afghanistan News & Discussion

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 08 Aug 2010 19:41

Hamid Gul to Farid Zakaria on the GPS show on CNN : Afghans are treacherous. Never trust an Afghan.

PS: He also said Afghans would do anything for money.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 08 Aug 2010 20:57

JE Menon wrote:I smell LET in the medical worker killings... Let's wait and see.

JEM, the Bajaur & Swat regions surrounding Nuristan, where the killings have taken place, are awash with several AQAM groups. Even Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami has presence there. There is also a particularly vicious Takfiri group operating from Bajaur. Bajaur saw one of the heaviest fightings in 2008 with the PA. LeT may not be operational there. OTOH, HuJI cadres have been embedded there with Maulana Faqir Ahmed's TTP. I suspect this to be in retaliation for HuJI ban by US & UNSC.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 08 Aug 2010 23:57

You're probably right there boss. It was just my visceral thing when I heard it. For some reason (I guess overexposure), my antennae went "LET"...

Rudradev · Post by **Rudradev** » 09 Aug 2010 03:13

A_Gupta wrote:Hamid Gul to Farid Zakaria on the GPS show on CNN : Afghans are treacherous. Never trust an Afghan.

PS: He also said Afghans would do anything for money.

Is there a link, Arun-ji?

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 09 Aug 2010 07:16

Afghan problem: for a regional approach

Chinmaya R. Gharekhan & Karl F. Inderfurth

http://www.hindu.com/2010/08/09/stories ... 570800.htm

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 09 Aug 2010 09:17

abhishek_sharma wrote:Afghan problem: for a regional approach
Chinmaya R. Gharekhan & Karl F. Inderfurth

Chinmaya Gharekhan & Karl Inderfurth are saying that a 'partition' of Afghanistan would be infeasible and introduce grave danger through instability especially to Pakistan etc. They are instead offering a regional solution where the neighbours vow not to interfere in the affairs of Afghanistan and leave it to the Afghans to find a solution under a benign oversight of a UN-appointed committee consisting of the representatives of the P-5 and 'relevant' foreign powers (who are these relevant are not listed out, though). They mention, in this respect, the 1988 Geneva Agreement which ended the presence of the Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

We must remember that the Geneva Accord did not bring any stability to Afghanistan and in fact, 'relevant' foreign powers did intervene in Afghanistan making the matters worse for almost five years. That period was one of the most depressing and traumatic in Afghan history. Not only the neighbours, but also the US and USSR, covertly supported the various factions. It was in this context that Gen. Zia made his famous 'Muslims can lie in a good cause' statement.

If ending the presence of foreign troops on Afghan soil is the objective, the Geneva Accord could be cited as a valid reference but not for stability afterwards.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 09 Aug 2010 12:43

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGaAT8Bx0vo

Freidman on Afghanistan exit.
6:37 - 6:57 absolutely hilarious lol

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 09 Aug 2010 17:05

Taliban execute pregnant woman in Afghanistan

If these are the people the Khans plan to entrust the long suffring population of Afghanistan, in their mad dash for exit from Afghanistan then they deserve as a nation to burn in hell.

If she was guilty then she should have been allowed to marry the man how made her pregnent. If indeed it was some one other then her deseased husband who made her pregnent.

Secondly how can a widow be an adultrus.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 09 Aug 2010 17:30

^^^a widow falling pregnant is not that surprising. She could have been raped by one of the very same people who accused her. There are many other ways. what should be remembered is that these have straightforward justifications from Hudood - the Islamic sharia portion applicable to so-called sexual offenses. These reported actions are supported in Islamic jurisprudence. Wherever you allow Islamism the right to claim exclusive existence, today or tomorrow, this is what will happen.

You are applying non-Islamic logic to a law as supposedly revealed by supreme "god" - which cannot be questioned. This is a completely different thinking about "law" than the modern concept of "law" being a negotiable contract between the citizen and the state [at least that is the claimed ideal - even if in reality older non-negotiable ideas persist as law due to historical reasons].

In most Abrahamic faith subjugated regions, "adultery" was a capital offense, and women were obviously more at risk because they could become pregnant.

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 09 Aug 2010 19:44

B JI,

There has to be an answer to the Islamists atrocities. We cannot allow this population to suffer in this way.

Or is this just a continuation of what has always taken place in that land.

Moreover, How can some ones god allow half of the population to be treated as little better then animals.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 09 Aug 2010 21:33

Pratyush wrote:B JI,

There has to be an answer to the Islamists atrocities. We cannot allow this population to suffer in this way.

Or is this just a continuation of what has always taken place in that land.

Moreover, How can some ones god allow half of the population to be treated as little better then animals.

In Islamic countries, the ruler:Sultan, Caliph etc, had the power to make laws under "zawabit" and confined the ulema to "shariat" or personal law. Ziauddin Barani in the 14th century says about zawabit as "the ruler must rule!"

However during colonialism the rulers were decimated and the field left open for Shariat. And it was even legitimised as Anglo-Muhmmadan law! And earlier Islamic rulers were replaced in modern Islamic states with civilian leaders guided by Western ideology of sepration of religion and state who misguidedly leave the field open to the ulema to rule in areas outside their jurisdiction. Delivering death sentence is the right of the state/ruler and not religious leaders.

Its upto Karzai to bring back zawabit. And the US to support him rather than undermine him constantly by appeaseing TSP terrorists.

Carl_T · Post by **Carl_T** » 09 Aug 2010 21:39

Pratyush wrote:B JI,

There has to be an answer to the Islamists atrocities. We cannot allow this population to suffer in this way.

Or is this just a continuation of what has always taken place in that land.

Moreover, How can some ones god allow half of the population to be treated as little better then animals.

Why should we not allow the population to suffer? They are doing exactly as their religion tells them.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 09 Aug 2010 23:29

Actually the law regards Hudood or sexual offenses is part of Sharia, and is definitely strongly endorsed in the Hanafi school which is followed mostly on the subcontinent and large chunks of Sunnis in Eastern ME. The question of execution at the hand of the state is clearly mentioned as the duty of the ruler when the accused is found guilty by a Qazi and endorsed by an Alim. So the sentence can be delivered by the theolgians and not necessarily the state.

The critical point given in Sharia's modern interpretations remains the word - "ruler of an Islamic state". For the Talebs of AFG, they think themselves as representing the Islamic state, and they do not recognize the legitimacy of the Karazai led "state". So in that sense they are legitimate.

There is no separation of theology and state in Islam - which leads to a constant struggle between "ruler" and "mullah" for the supreme power. The problem it leads to is exemplified in KSA and Iran. In other modern states it takes the form of a multilateral struggle. But the source of the struggle is this fundamental fusion of state and religion - and hence will never be solved unless one is rejected completely in favour of the other.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 17 Aug 2010 12:22

Secret CIA war crimes exposed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ju ... engagement

EXcerpt:

Afghanistan war logs: Secret CIA paramilitaries' role in civilian deathsInnocent Afghan men, women and children have paid the price of the Americans' rules of engagement

David Leigh guardian.co.uk, Sunday 25 July 2010
An Afghan girl lies on a hospital bed in Helmand after being injured in an airstrike by coalition forces in June 2007. Photograph: Abdul Qodus/Reuters

Shum Khan, a man both deaf and unable to speak, lived in the remote border hamlet of Malekshay, 7,000ft up in the mountains. When a heavily armed squad from the CIA barrelled into his village in March 2007, the war logs record that he "ran at the sight of the approaching coalition forces … out of fear and confusion".

The secret CIA paramilitaries, (the euphemism here is OGA, for "other government agency") shouted at him to stop. Khan could not hear them. He carried on running. So they shot him, saying they were entitled to do so under the carefully graded "escalation of force" provisions of the US rules of engagement.

Khan was wounded but survived. The Americans' error was explained to them by village elders, so they fetched out what they term "solatia", or compensation. The classified intelligence report ends briskly: "Solatia was made in the form of supplies and the Element mission progressed".

Behind the military jargon, the war logs are littered with accounts of civilian tragedies. The 144 entries in the logs recording some of these so-called "blue on white" events, cover a wide spectrum of day-by-day assaults on Afghans, with hundreds of casualties.

They range from the shootings of individual innocents to the often massive loss of life from air strikes, which eventually led President Hamid Karzai to protest publicly that the US was treating Afghan lives as "cheap". When civilian family members are actually killed in Afghanistan, their relatives do, in fairness, get greater solatia payments than cans of beans and Hershey bars. The logs refer to sums paid of 100,000 Afghani per corpse, equivalent to about £1,500.

ast September there was a major scandal at Kunduz in the north of Afghanistan when a German commander ordered the bombing of a crowd looting two hijacked fuel tankers. The contemporaneous archive circulated to Nato allies records him authorising the airstrike by a US F-15 jet "after ensuring that no civilians were in the vicinity". The "battle damage assessment" confirmed, it claims, that 56 purely "enemy insurgents" had died.

Media reports followed by official inquiries, however, established something closer to the real death toll. It included 30 to 70 civilians.

In another case the logs show that on the night of 30 August 2008, a US special forces squad called Scorpion 26 blasted Helmand positions with multiple rockets, and called in an airstrike to drop a 500lb bomb. All that was officially logged was that 24 Taliban had been killed.

But writer Patrick Bishop was embedded in the valley nearby with British paratroops at their Sangin bases. He recorded independently: "Overnight, the question of civilian casualties took on an extra urgency. An American team had been inserted on to Black Mountain … From there, they launched a series of offensive operations. On 30 August, wounded civilians, some of them badly injured, turned up at Sangin and FOB Inkerman saying they had been attacked by foreign troops. Such incidents gave a hollow ring to ISAF claims that their presence would bring security to the local population."

Ambar · Post by **Ambar** » 20 Aug 2010 21:25

More than 30 security personnel and construction workers killed in Helmand province.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11040856

I dont think IA Corp of Engineers work in Helamand, if they do,i hope they are all safe.

Y. Kanan · Post by **Y. Kanan** » 20 Aug 2010 22:37

A bit of positive news for the Americans: US Afghan casualties are down by more than 50% since Pakistani flooding began...

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 21 Aug 2010 08:20

A new chief of intelligence aims to earn Afghans' trust

http://www.hindu.com/2010/08/21/stories ... 251300.htm

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 21 Aug 2010 09:34

Y. Kanan wrote:A bit of positive news for the Americans: US Afghan casualties are down by more than 50% since Pakistani flooding began...

You usually have an even more pessimistic bent of mind than I, so just wondering what your thoughts are on these floods. Do you think with all the moolah being doled out, TSP will live another day to hit India? Or have these floods dented TSP's ability to torment India as they have been all these years.

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 21 Aug 2010 09:54

Ambar wrote:More than 30 security personnel and construction workers killed in Helmand province.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11040856

I dont think IA Corp of Engineers work in Helamand, if they do,i hope they are all safe.

I if they were hurt then we would have known about it.

Y. Kanan · Post by **Y. Kanan** » 23 Aug 2010 08:47

CRamS wrote:
Y. Kanan wrote:A bit of positive news for the Americans: US Afghan casualties are down by more than 50% since Pakistani flooding began...
You usually have an even more pessimistic bent of mind than I, so just wondering what your thoughts are on these floods. Do you think with all the moolah being doled out, TSP will live another day to hit India? Or have these floods dented TSP's ability to torment India as they have been all these years.

I think in the long run yes, any aid dollars will, one way or another, end up killing Indians and Americans. But in the short term, we can enjoy a slight reprieve as many of the jehadis are distracted with the flooding in their home villages.

But as with the earthquakes 2 years ago, the reprieve will be short lived.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 23 Aug 2010 08:50

http://www.pashtunforums.com/political- ... tuns-5496/

It is a known fact that majority of the Taliban were inititially from the Ghiljay tribe. Especially the non- Kandahari Taliban. Mullah Omar himself is a Hotaki Ghiljay. And likewise, many prominent figures of the Taliban movement hailed from the Ghiljay tribe.In all three of the aforementioned conflicts, the Pashtun Nationalists critisize the role of Ghiljay tribe. In Afghanistan Ghiljay tribe is known for its conservative and orthodox image. Ghilji have always faught on the frontline against any invader. Pashtun Nationalists disrespect the largest Pashtun tribe in Afghanistan. And their contribution to our independence and resistance against invaders.Today, all northern regions of Afghanistan, like Takhar, Kunduz, Balkh, Baghlan and Badghis have large pockets and enclaves where the Ghiljay tribesmen dwell.
Pashtun Nationalists argue here that those regions should be surrendered to Tajik Nationalists.

arun · Post by **arun** » 23 Aug 2010 11:52

X Posted from the Pakistani Role in Global Terrorism thread.

Rangin Dadfar Spanta, the National Security Advisor of Afghanistan indicts the Islamic Republic of Pakistan for fomenting Islamic Terrorism in Afghanistan in an Op-Ed in the Washington Post.

I expect the Wa Po comment section will shortly be crawling with many much peeved Pakistani’s.

Excerpt:

Pakistan is the Afghan war's real aggressor

By Rangin Dadfar Spanta
Monday, August 23, 2010; A13

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Afghanistan became a rare example of international consensus. The global community, amid competing regional and international interests, undertook a military intervention endorsed and legitimized by the U.N. Security Council. It was common knowledge that al-Qaeda had created a haven in Afghanistan with the support of Pakistan's intelligence agency. Dismantling this regional terrorist infrastructure was considered vital to the international counterterrorism strategy.

Then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage delivered a message to Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in November 2001: It could join the international coalition or be bombed "back to the stone age." Across the border, the Afghan people persecuted by the brutal rule of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as by the lordship of Pakistani generals, welcomed the international community with open arms. We have made significant progress in recent years. But our achievements in education, health, development and civil rights have been overshadowed and eroded by terrorist attacks.

There is ongoing domestic and international confusion in identifying Afghanistan's friends and foes. The Afghan people are wholeheartedly grateful to the international community for its sacrifices in blood and treasure. Unfortunately, the military-intelligence establishment of one of our neighbors still regards Afghanistan as its sphere of influence. While faced with a growing domestic terrorist threat, Pakistan continues to provide sanctuary and support to the Quetta Shura, the Haqqani network, the Hekmatyar group and al-Qaeda. And while the documents recently disclosed by WikiLeaks contained information that was neither new nor surprising, they did make public further evidence of the close relations among the Taliban, al-Qaeda and Pakistani intelligence.

The international community is present in Afghanistan to dismantle these international terrorist networks. Yet the focus on this fundamental task has progressively eroded and has been compounded by another strategic failure: the mistaken embrace of "strategic partners" who have, in fact, been nurturing terrorism. ……………….

WaPo

PTI’s take on the WaPo article by Spanta:

Pak harbouring terrorists: Afghan national security advisor

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 23 Aug 2010 19:27

>>I expect the Wa Po comment section will shortly be crawling with many much peeved Pakistani’s.

Standby to counter vigorously

Suppiah · Post by **Suppiah** » 23 Aug 2010 19:35

All of Pakbarian efforts to replace the NSA with someone 'better' seems to have given no benefits, this man is equally anti-Pakbarian animals

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 23 Aug 2010 21:27

spanta is a cool dude, he very politely rips paqui journo's new musharraffs whilst smiling

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 23 Aug 2010 21:35

While all this public defrocking TSP is going on the thing that counts is what are they doing on the ground in Afghanistan to counter them? Otherwise it willmount to nothing in the end. What is Karzai doing to consolidate the current Afghan power structure?

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 24 Aug 2010 06:30

Pakistanis Tell of Motive in Taliban leader's Arrest - NY Times

hen American and Pakistani agents captured Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s operational commander, in the chaotic port city of Karachi last January, both countries hailed the arrest as a breakthrough in their often difficult partnership in fighting terrorism.

But the arrest of Mr. Baradar, the second-ranking Taliban leader after Mullah Muhammad Omar, came with a beguiling twist: both American and Pakistani officials claimed that Mr. Baradar’s capture had been a lucky break. It was only days later, the officials said, that they finally figured out who they had.

Now, seven months later, Pakistani officials are telling a very different story. They say they set out to capture Mr. Baradar, and used the C.I.A. to help them do it, because they wanted to shut down secret peace talks that Mr. Baradar had been conducting with the Afghan government that excluded Pakistan, the Taliban’s longtime backer.

If we recall, the UN Special Representative for Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said at that time that he was dismayed by the arrest of Baradar because Pakistan was well aware of the secret talks he was having with him. He said that Pakistan decided to arrest him and keep him in Pakistan to abruptly thwart the dialogue. It later emerged that Baradar was planning to attend the May 2-3, 2010 Jirga that Karzai had called of the tribal leaders to give a shape to the reconciliation process. The jirga was also expected to set the terms and conditions for reintegrating the insurgents.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 24 Aug 2010 12:38

Kabul feels the heat of 'working' with Pakistan

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 423872.cms

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 24 Aug 2010 17:06

Terrific feature from William Dalrymple about current events in Afghanistan.Must be read in full.

http://www.google.co.in/images?hl=en&q= ... 02&bih=454

EXCLUSIVE
william dalrymple in afghanistan
Souter Takes The Call
As the Great Game repeats itself, India must wake up to Karzai’s new moves

In 1843, shortly after his return from Afghanistan, an army chaplain named Rev G.H. Gleig wrote a memoir of the disastrous First Anglo-Afghan War of which he was one of the very few survivors. It was, he wrote, “a war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, was acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated”.

It would be difficult to imagine any military adventure today going quite as badly as the First Anglo-Afghan War, an abortive experiment in Great Game colonialism that ended with an entire East India Company army utterly routed by poorly equipped tribesmen, at the cost of Rs 80 billion and over 40,000 lives. But this month, almost 10 years on from NATO’s invasion of Afghanistan, there were increasing signs that the current Afghan war, like so many before them, could still end in another embarrassing withdrawal after a humiliating defeat, with Afghanistan yet again left in tribal chaos, possibly partitioned and ruled by the same government which the war was originally fought to overthrow.

Worse still, there are unsettling and persistent rumours that Karzai is trying to reach some sort of accommodation with elements in Pakistan that aid and assist the Taliban: the ISI head, Lt General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, has secretly been shuttling to and from Islamabad to meet Karzai, and last month, General Kayani, head of the Pakistani army, visited Kabul.

This followed the sacking of Amrullah Saleh, Karzai’s very pro-Indian security chief. Saleh is a tough, burly and intimidating Tajik with a piercing, unblinking stare, who rose to prominence as a mujahideen protege of Ahmed Shah Masood, the legendary, India-backed Lion of the Panjshir. Saleh brought these impeccable credentials to his job after the American conquest, ruthlessly hunting down and interrogating any Taliban he could find, with little regard for notions of human rights.

The Taliban, and their backers in the ISI, regarded him as their fiercest enemy, something he was enormously proud of. When I had dinner with him in Kabul in May, he spoke at length of his frustration with the Karzai government’s ineffectiveness in taking the fight to the Taliban, and the degree to which the ISI was still managing to aid, arm and train their pocket insurgents in Waziristan, Sindh and Balochistan.

Saleh’s sacking in early June merited much less newsprint than last month’s sacking of General Stanley McChrystal. Yet in reality, McChrystal’s departure reflects only a minor personnel change, no important alteration in strategy. The sacking of Saleh, however, gave notice of a major and ominous change of direction by President Karzai.

Bruce Riedel, Obama’s Afpak advisor, said when the news broke: “Karzai’s decision to sack Saleh and (Hanif) Atmar (head of the interior ministry) has worried me more than any other development, because it means Karzai is already planning for a post-American Afghanistan.”

If it is true that Karzai is tilting away from NATO and India, and towards Pakistan, it would represent a strategic victory for the Pakistani military, and a diplomatic defeat for India—though the ISI will have to first deliver the Taliban, who still say they are unwilling to negotiate with Karzai. It also remains to be seen whether Pakistan can be defended from the jehadi Frankenstein’s monster its military has created: the recent bomb blasts in Lahore at the shrine of Datta Sahib would seem further evidence to indicate not. The other question is whether India can succeed in its reported attempts to resuscitate the Northern Alliance as a contingency against the Taliban’s takeover of the south, possibly in conjunction with Russia, Iran and the Central Asian ‘stans’.

sum · Post by **sum** » 24 Aug 2010 21:26

Could you please correct the URL since it seems to be pointing to some google images!!!

shravan · Post by **shravan** » 24 Aug 2010 21:30

^^ http://www.outlookindia.com/printarticle.aspx?266767

sum · Post by **sum** » 24 Aug 2010 21:48

^^Thanks for the correct link.

Good article. But, the following quote caught my eye:

MEA sources say there are less than 3,600 Indians in Afghanistan, almost all of them businessmen and contract workers; there are only 10 Indian diplomatic officers as opposed to nearly 150 in the UK embassy. Yet the horror of being squeezed in an Indian nutcracker has led the ISI to risk Pakistan’s own internal security and coherence, as well as its strategic relationship with the US, in order to keep the Taliban in play, and its leadership under watch and ISI patronage in Quetta, something the Wikileaks documents amply confirmed.

There are just 10 diplomats for 4 consulates+ 1 embassy?

Either Darymple is a fool to not laugh on the face of such a absurd statement when it was told to him( 10 diplomats across 4 consulates + 1 embassy) or the consulates are actually empty or non-diplomats staff the buildings ( IA, certain agencies etc)

?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 24 Aug 2010 22:21

After the spate of attacks only essential diplomatic staff is left in Afghanistan.

His data reconciles with known facts.

Meanwhile I think....

The sub-surface tussle in Af-PAk is the Ghilzais are reasserting themselves after the Abdali/Durrani centuries. And the historic reality is Ghilzais are drawn to Dilli while the Durranis are drawn to Fars. Am wondering if the solution is two Pashtun states. Ghilzai dominated Khyber-Pashtunwa and Afghanistan with the Durrani Pashtuns?

sum · Post by **sum** » 25 Aug 2010 09:19

After the spate of attacks only essential diplomatic staff is left in Afghanistan.

His data reconciles with known facts.

So, basically we have 5 building in A'tan and all have been left virtually empty with no one staffing them?

Brad Goodman · Post by **Brad Goodman** » 25 Aug 2010 17:22

Partition of Afghanistan Is a Quixotic Adventure

As the fog of weariness over the war in Afghanistan is growing thicker, some political analysts have come up with the idea that the partition of Afghanistan might be the only alternative to the present counterinsurgency war. In theory, it may seem a panacea but in practice, it could be a frivolous adventure.

Under this approach, the Taliban will take over the south, but if they try to welcome Al-Qaeda back or seek to attack the north, the United States will retaliate using air bombing, drones and surgical operations by its elite forces. Partition could have an adverse impact on Pakistani military in that it will likely break ranks with the Taliban. As a result, Pakistan would reverse its current policy largely for the fear that partition of Afghanistan could turn its own Pashtun Taliban into a Baluch-like separatist movement for forming a greater Pashtunistan.

Afghanistan is indeed an ethnic mosaic. Except for two or three out of 33-provinces of the country, you can hardly find a place identified with one ethnic identity. Separatism has never been an issue of concern in Afghanistan. During Afghanistan's civil war in the early 1990s, when a fierce internal competition for control of Kabul was raging, no ethnic group and no warlord ever called for partition. The anti-Soviet resistance in the north remained always as strong as in the south. And let's not forget that there are millions of Pashtun in the north as well.

What this article tells me is that partition of Afganistan scares the hell out of Pindi jernails so that is what South Block babus should be making all the noise about even if they are not serious emulating MA Jinnah's tactics will really give a lot of takleef to TFTA jernails

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 Aug 2010 21:03

Forget partition of Afghanistan, Here is ground reality....

Anecdotal evidence from Pakis calling after the floods says that poor people are resorting to infanticide as situation is hopeless. The consensus in the upper classes is very short time for the split inot three regions:Pakjab, Sindh and Baloch. K-P most likely merge with Afghanistan. Massa is the only glue preventing this thru forces.

Need to educate massa to let the people be free.

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 25 Aug 2010 22:52

About the nato supplies and the corruption --
Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan
Report of the Majority Staff
Rep. John F. Tierney, Chair
Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
June 2010

quick reading thru this 80 odd pages --
1) The supply routes are entirely under the control of the private contractors. they extort money from US for safe journey to its destination. roughly 1.5-2million per week.
2)no questions or accountability. deliveries can vary few to many days.
3) there are about 8-10 private contractors who control their own areas. Many of them have grown rich and have abundant arms. some of them are MPs, some are karazi relations. Funnily US forces have not met commander Ruhullah but he controls the highway 1 between kandahar and kabul. All other private contractors pay him. he also has karzai's realtions with him. He has gotten big for his boots. So do others (names are mentioned in the PDF files)
4) They also pay talibs not to attack the trucks/convoys.
5) they terrorise villagers by firing randomly into villages. Villagers fear them. Whenever villagers see the big trucks with USA painted on them, they cower with fear due to the armed men(of private contractors- warlords) escorting them. many are drunk/drugged. USA associated with bad men. Actions speak louder than words.
6) Opium is grown and supplied all over the world right under the occupation forces noses.Talibs extract ushr(10%) on the crop, also extort money from opium laden trucks, protection racket indirectly or directly through the private contractors.
7) Italians when they were in a part of afghanisthan was said to have paid protection money to the warlords.

8 ) NATO forces stay within their protected areas.

9) talibs repeatedly come and extort money. they are of different tribes and all want money. it can range from few $100s to $1000s (with kidnapping ).
10) Afghanisthan officials also harass the truckers and demand their money.

In comparison there was a statement wrt erstwhile soviets--- soviets used 70% of their forces to protect the supply route, hence they could not protect the entire country.
Here the US led forces is giving the supply route protection to the warlords( some of them are in touch directly or indirectly with talibs)--- so talibs have the money( also from opium) and kill the americans- body count increasing.

They went in thinking about controlling middle east/caspian sea gas and oil pipelines etc.
US forces don't control the country. US led forces will never control Afghanisthan nor stay for long without making its enemies more stronger.

WTF are there in afghanisthan with loss of lives and etch and dee as the world's greatest hyperpower.(declining due to its own strategy).

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 Aug 2010 22:56

Wait a minute. How is the opium exported?

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 25 Aug 2010 23:30

ramana wrote:Wait a minute. How is the opium exported?

regarding opium it is mentioned in pages 39-40. it quotes WHO report on drug trade 2007, Poppies a Target in Fight Against Taliban
Financing the Taliban

over 90% of world's opium comes from afghanisthan with talibs earning over $300 million.

The exact means of export is not mentioned - but it looks like the opium is refined and processed in pakistan/Iran/all the STAN countries of Russian soft belly and turkey and later taken to europe and USA. Afghanisthan has developed some facilities for coversion to occur within its borders.afghanisthan drugs
CENTRAL ASIA: Regional impact of the Afghan heroin trade

Russia has been asking the USA to destroy the opium as it is the key to improve the afghanisthan, it is also affecting its own population through its soft belly(the stans countries thru afghanisthan)

James B · Post by **James B** » 26 Aug 2010 02:02

Islamic supremacists gas schoolgirls in Afghanistan

About 40 schoolgirls became ill and were taken to hospital after a suspected gas poisoning in the Afghan capital Wednesday, another apparent attack by hardline Islamists opposed to female education.