"Another Afghan Provincial Capital Is Being..." Topic
14 Posts
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Tango01 | 22 Oct 2016 9:51 p.m. PST |
… Threatened By The Taliban. "The Taliban has surrounded yet another provincial capital in Afghanistan and recently launched an attempt to overrun it. The Taliban is now threatening six of Afghanistan's 34 provincial capitals in Afghanistan, according to data compiled by The Long War Journal, and its operations are not nearly confined to one region of the country. On Oct. 16, the Taliban assaulted Maimana, Faryab's capital, "from three directions," and attacked the city's airport and an Afghan Army base, but were rebuffed by Afghan forces, according to TOLONews. Taliban fighters withdrew to "bases to Khaja Sahib Posh and Pashtun Kot districts" after failing to achieve their objectives…"
Main page link Are they winning the war? Amicalement Armand
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Mako11 | 22 Oct 2016 10:15 p.m. PST |
It's Saturday, in another week, so this really comes as no surprise, and yes, they are winning. |
Legion 4 | 23 Oct 2016 9:05 a.m. PST |
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15mm and 28mm Fanatik | 23 Oct 2016 9:55 a.m. PST |
The Taliban is the most powerful tribe in Afghanistan fighting what it perceives to be an illegitimate American puppet government. Plus, they have the tacit support of Pakistan. After 9/11 we "defeated" them for aiding and abetting Osama bin Laden, then occupied the country for over 10 years before bringing our troops home. We all know the saying about what happens "when the cat's away." |
USAFpilot | 23 Oct 2016 2:21 p.m. PST |
Damned if we do, and damned if we don't. |
Rod I Robertson | 23 Oct 2016 2:25 p.m. PST |
The Taliban is a religious, social and political movement with military roots and is not a tribe. It is true that many of the Taliban are from the Pashtun tribal confederation but the Taliban movement is pan-tribal and even international. The roots of the Taliban movement are found not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan in the mid-1980's with the financial, military and logistical support of the Pakistani ISI and the US's CIA. The rest is just blow-back from an ill-considered foreign policy which subsequently blew up in Pakistani and American faces. That being said they have found fertile soil in Afghanistan. First as a resistance movement to Soviet occupation and then central government. Then as a reactionary and theocratic government in their own right. Then once again as a resistance force to the corrupt central government and to the centralisation of power after the US-led Coalition occupation of Afghanistan. Cheers. Rod Robertson. |
Legion 4 | 23 Oct 2016 3:48 p.m. PST |
As I have said before. In 20/20 hindsight, we made a strategic error supporting the Muj vs. the USSR. We should have let them bleed each other out. As some in the CIA had first believed. We see now that would have been the better opinion, IMO. UBL and his AQ fanatics, etc., may have been killed off by typical Russian ruthless efficiency. Even if the USSR did commit war crimes, etc., … And it appears they did. As we happening in Syria now. But there may not have been 9/11, etc., had UBL/AQ, etc., were removed by the USSR years before. After all we see what has happened and is happening. Once the US and other allies[are there any others still left there ?] pull out. The tribes, factions, warlords, mullahs, etc., will go back to killing each other. As they have so many times in the past. And let the West leave them to their own devises. |
Rod I Robertson | 23 Oct 2016 5:36 p.m. PST |
Legion 4: So don't repeat the mistakes of the past by continuing to do them today and tomorrow. Stop supplying weapons to dangerous proxies in Iraq and Syria. The Syrian Resistance groups or the Kurds could very well be the next proxies which sour on weak US support and turn on the US. Hindsight may well be 20/20 but present sight and foresight seem to be purposefully myopic with regards to US policy in Iraq and Syria. Cheers. Rod Robertson. |
Mako11 | 24 Oct 2016 2:28 a.m. PST |
Well, many/most in the Syrian Resistance are Al Qaeda, so I suspect you are correct. The whole Muj/Taliban thing stems back as far as July 1979, when Carter and the CIA decided to support them in Afghanistan. As Legion correctly points out, some at the time suggested that might not be a good idea. Appears they may have been right. |
Legion 4 | 24 Oct 2016 8:16 a.m. PST |
Hindsight may well be 20/20 but present sight and foresight seem to be purposefully myopic with regards to US policy in Iraq and Syria. My ongoing often repeatedly posted "theory" of US "recent" strategic errors … *[Disclaimer, if you have heard this before, then stifle me] 1) US support of the Muj vs. the USSR 2) GWII, compounded by very poor political decisions before, during and after. *3) This is a future error which we will see come about sooner than later, IMO > US-Iran nuke deal.
The last thing anyone in the West or Israel, etc., wants to see is a fundamentalist islamic theocracy in the Mid East with Nukes. No need to explain, I'd think … |
Rod I Robertson | 24 Oct 2016 1:20 p.m. PST |
Legion 4: My apologies for posting this wall of words on two separate but related threads but the whole 'it was just a big mistake' argument about US policy in and around the Middle East is beginning to wear thin with me. The destabilisation of the Middle East was not a failure of policy on the part of the US-led coalition. The destabilisation was the goal of the policy which was followed by the GW Bush administration from 2002 onwards. It was really an extension of a Mid East policy formulated and deployed since the Johnson and Nixon administrations. It is an extension of the tried-and-true British Imperial doctrine of divide and conquer, which the Americans experienced firsthand (albeit long ago and in much more mild form than for example India or say Northeast Africa). This was no accidental upheaval, it was carefully premeditated, crafted and executed to turn the Middle East topsy-turvy. The deaths of a million or more Arabs either directly or indirectly from this policy was considered acceptable losses in order to achieve the goals of preventing the Middle East from developing a pan-Arab nationalism under a Ba'athist or similar banner and was also to punish Saddam's Iraq for daring to challenge the Petro-dollar system by selling Iraqi oil for Euros and other currencies. More recently the threat of a unified Islamist Grand Caliphate under ISIL control has triggered an energetic military response from the West bent on further destabilisation. The destabilisation was as premeditated as the policies of destabilisation used to unhinge parochial nationalism and socialism from Central America or the more established Bolivar/San Martin-nationalism of South America. It was also used to cut off rising nationalism mixed with socialism in Iran and Vietnam. By ham-stringing legitimate political-economic-nationalist movements in the Middle East or globally through political, economic and ultimately military dislocation and by supporting wicked and brutal military juntas, it was hoped that the Middle East and other regions would remain divided and thus could be kept fractured and controllable. But by paralysing the rising secular nationalist and socialist movements and by discrediting the potential for success of such secular movements, these policies forced open the door through which the serpent of extremist Islamist radicalism slithered and coiled ideological muscles around the neck of the Middle East. Thus it was from Algeria to Iran, from Iraq to the Congo. The example of Libya is a good one. After Gaddafi made amends with the West by abandoning WMD programmes, reducing state sponsorship of terrorism and paying compensation for past crimes, he should have been left alone. But Gaddafi made the profound mistake of promoting a pan-African Union which could act as a bulwark against the power and exploitation of the West and China. In light of the desire to exploit a huge gas and oil basin in the Western Sahara and to profit from rich deposits of mineral wealth in the region this challenge had to be stymied. This challenge was deemed unacceptable primarily by French and American interests (but with others on board) and when the events of the Arab Spring unfolded they saw the opportunity to dislodge or weaken Gaddafi. These interested parties took the initiative to ham-string the Gaddafi Regime with a No-Fly Zone and a bombing campaign and things perhaps went further than they anticipated. With secular movements discredited, the power vacuum was filled by the Benghazi oil-thugs, a moribund central government in Western Libya, Tuareg nationalists bent on creating a nomadic Tuareg non-state in Northwestern Saharan Africa and both Algerian or ISIL inspired radical jihadists. A new witches' brew was thus concocted by a policy of destabilisation to wrong-foot any powerful institution able to effectively challenge the economic and political hegemony of the West and deliberate chaos resulted. Likewise, Afghanistan was a relatively prosperous and dynamically-stable state throughout the 1950's – early-1970's. Secular state-sponsored education was widespread and available to men and women alike in all but the most traditionalist regions of the country. Women wore western style clothes, walked freely in the streets and were making slow but real headway towards economic opportunity and political participation in the Afghan body politic. Afghanistan was a net exporter of food, especially fruit, and illegal drug exports were a more marginal part of the Afghan economy than they are today. Then the US Government under the Carter Administration decided to target the new pro-Soviet Afghan government in order to give the USSR its own version of a Vietnam morass and in July of 1979 began supporting religiously zealous mujaheddin and a nascent Taliban movement to overthrow the Afghan Central Government and to draw the USSR into a costly and likely ill-fated military intervention. This led to the death of effective secularism in Afghanistan and the triumph of fundamentalist traditionalists in combination with radical Islamists. The rise of the Iranian Islamic Revolution in reaction to the abuses of the Shah's corrupt and brutal puppet-regime clearly demonstrated that reaction to US policy would trigger theocratic blow-back. Thus Afghanistan was condemned to endure the last three and half decades of downward spiral and turbo-charged internecine warfare to further the Cold War interests of the USA and the West. So, let us dispel the apologetic myth that these were errors of policy which led to these dreadful but unforeseen consequences. These were deliberate acts of destabilisation and those who planned and executed these policies fully understood the scope and depth of the disasters they were creating in the service of promoting their interests and policies. These were not blundering miscalculations, they were profoundly antisocial and premeditated acts perpetrated by sociopathic leaders and an apathetic public which has now repeatedly failed to hold their chaos-promoting leadership in check and to make it accountable for its crimes of state. Welcome to the world of 'disaster-capitalism' , the 'shock doctrine' and political destabilisation. This is the quite intentional manufacturing of chaos in the service of policy. Rod Robertson. |
Legion 4 | 25 Oct 2016 9:09 a.m. PST |
Sorry Ron … I think you are giving the US government much more "credit" than is it due. The US government is not Vader's Evil Imperial Empire, the Klingons, Romulans, Go'uld, etc., … More like Wile E. Coyote link … Really some of that post sounds a bit like conspiracy theory … … IMO … If the US was that cunning, etc., then why is it in a tail spin likened to ancient Rome ? Economically, socially and especially politically and more ? Is this a case of "reaping the whirlwind" ? I doubt it … |
Rod I Robertson | 25 Oct 2016 10:55 a.m. PST |
Legion 4: I have to pop your denial-bubble as the events and descriptions presented above are all true and readily verifiable. As to the motivations behind such events and policy, that is more circumstantial, but is such a repeated theme in US/Western foreign policy that the pattern makes other conclusions less likely explanations than the one offered above. There is no aluminium foil hat haberdashery going on here and no attempt to misrepresent these policies. link link When confronted with such a harsh and seemingly unfamiliar explanation of these policies people tend to first ignore such analysis. When ignoring is no longer an option, then they mock and ridicule such explanations without consideration of the evidence presented. The third step is to angrily attack the argument and the person/institution making the argument by all means available, fair or foul. These attacks are not limited to contesting the evidence but expand to attack the motives and integrity/honesty of the ones making the alien argument. The final step is to retreat into ideological mental-redoubts, to resist the idea and to try to persuade others in a jingoistic call to arms that the analysis is suspect and is likely dangerous/treasonous, thus creating a pack mentality to bulwark the denial in the face of the evidence presented. A siege mentality then takes over preventing any meaningful discussion or meeting of minds. Where are you on that spectrum of responses and where will you move next, I wonder? Cheers. Rod Robertson. |
Legion 4 | 25 Oct 2016 3:13 p.m. PST |
I feel like I've said this somewhere before … de ja vu ? You can disagree with me … as I disagree with you … But again, I think, no mocking or ridicule intended. You very much over estimate the US leadership's abilities to do such things. As I said the US leadership had demonstrated to be more like a ["beloved"] hapless cartoon character who comes up with convoluted plans. Which inevitably fails with unseen consequences being revealed just before all goes "Booooomm". The US leadership is far from a cunning, vile, plotting, etc., evil empire. But again it has to be clear with what has been going in the US for the past few decades. The lunatics are running the asylum. Many being voted in by the electorate … Where are you on that spectrum of responses and where will you move next, I wonder? I think I just answered that. As I said on another thread when someone mentioned American Exceptionalism[in a negative light of course]. I pointed out the USA is very much "exceptional" by many of it's populous being exceptionally "stupid" … |
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