Taliban Seek to Sway U.S. Congress With ‘Open Letter'
Wall Street Journal, November 8, 2010
Matthew Rosenberg
KABUL—Add another group to the list of people with a message for the newly elected U.S. Congress: the Taliban.
In a rambling “open letter” to Congress, the Taliban's spokesman said he wanted to present American lawmakers with “a true picture of the ground realities” of the war in Afghanistan, which he insisted the U.S. can't win.
The spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousaf Ahmadi, called on Congress to send a fact-finding mission to Afghanistan, apparently ignorant of the fact that representatives and senators visit Afghanistan all the time. But American lawmakers rarely leave heavily guarded U.S. facilities, moving only in armored convoys,…
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Phi Beta Iota: While this initiative demonstrates the Taliban's understanding of history–Viet-Nam redux, it also shows their lack of understanding of Washington. We have absolutely no doubt that at least three lobbying firms have a team enroute to Pakistan to make contact and offer their services. They will accept bricks of #4 heroin, no extra charge for laundering currency. We are really surprised Halliburton did not think of this, Brown & Root seems to already have the smuggling channel for the drugs and money in place. Next up: a slick video and some YouTube snippets that go viral, under the broad campaign slogan of “Ground Truth from Afghanistan.”
