There are a number of points that don't ring true…….but before we look at these, one must identify who the “Taliban” Gates is talking about are….there is one Afghan Taliban (Mullah Omar), there is the Haqqani Network, there is the HIG (Hekmatyar), and now the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)is active in Northern Afghanistan. This is a loose confederation that will support one another when it is beneficial and bear arms against one another when necessary. The issues are: (1) abandon ties to Al Qeada……it is known that there is no strong linkage between the two at this point in time. The Taliban are not looking to exert control over any territory larger than current Afghanistan (and the Pashtun belt of Pakistan). (2) I am not aware of any pressure being put on by Coalition Forces that will induce the Taliban to the Peace Table. Statistics do not bear out any of the spin emanating from ISAF about the Taliban being ineffective. They are somewhat stagnant, however, they are demonstrating the ability to infiltrate into the heart of the Afghan military/government. They are very active in the areas Karzai has declared as secure enough to allow the nascent Afghan National Army to exercise control. The most interesting part: As wars conclude, Gates noted, it is inevitable that “peace is made between people who have been killing each other.” The Taliban, he added, is “part of the fabric” of Afghan politics. This suggests that this administration will declare victory and go home, only to aid the electoral process…..
The comments expressed in this interview exactly reflect my views–recommended!
Bill Moyers Interviews Andrew Bacevich
Thursday 2 June 2011
by: Bill Moyers, The New Press
Our finest warriors are often our most reluctant warmongers. They have seen firsthand the toll war exacts. They know better than anyone that force can be like a lobster trap that closes with each stage of descent, making escape impossible. So it was when the liberal consensus lured America into Vietnam during the ’60s, and again after 9/11, when neoconservatives clamored for the invasion of Iraq. With the notorious ferocity of the noncombatant, the neocons banged their tin drums and brayed for blood, as long as it was not their own that would be spilled.
Andrew Bacevich
One old warrior looked on sadly, his understanding of combat’s reality tempered by twenty-three years in uniform, including service in Vietnam. A graduate of West Point, Andrew Bacevich retired from the military to become a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, a public thinker who has been able to find an audience across the political spectrum, from The Nation to The American Conservative magazines. In several acclaimed books, including The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War, and his bestselling The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, Bacevich speaks truth to power, no matter who’s in power, which may be why he reaches both the left and the right.
Phi Beta Iota: The world is in an interregnum, between “rule by secrecy” and lies from power as the norm, and a very ugly baby Web 4.0 in which bottom-up truth struggles to emerge. We will have a great deal of baby poop to deal with, but over time, public intelligence in the public interest will find its edge, and truths that shock publics into extreme action will emerge. Below is are a few extracts from a very sharp and ably illustrated story, and one expert author's evaluation of that story. Provided for information, “sharing our confusions.” WARNING NOTICE: This story should be read in conjunction with the recent Pentagon declarations that cyber-attacks will be considered a declaration of war. An Israeli virus in US nuclear control systems (attributed to Iran of course), with or without the help of the US Government, could be used to justify World War III starting with an attack on Iran and “precision” attacks on Pakistani nuclear facilities. We believe Israel is “all in” at this point; and we believe President Obama and Congress have lost all semblance of control over the U.S. military-industrial-secret intelligence complex.
General Hamid Gul, former chief of the Pakistani intelligence service–11:50 tour of the horizon from death of Bin Laden to future of Afghanistan to what World War III might look like if US military-industrial complex is allowed to open a Pakistani front.
Phi Beta Iota: Worth listening to every second. BBC (itself a virtual subsidiary of CIA under the US-UK “special relationship”) is rapidly being over-shadowed by Russian TV, Al-Jazeera, and Ha'aretz as sourced of useful open information in English.
These are discouraging times, but once in a blue moon a bit of hope appears. I am pleased to report on the bit of hope delivered in March of 2011 by Michael Spence, a Nobel prize-winning economist, assisted by Sandile Hlatshwayo, a researcher at New York University. The two economists have taken a careful empirical look at jobs offshoring and concluded that it has ruined the income and employment prospects for most Americans.
To add to the amazement, their research report, “The Evolving Structure of the American Economy and the Employment Challenge,” was published by the very establishment Council on Foreign Relations.
For a decade I have warned that US corporations, pressed by Wall Street and large retailers such as Wal-Mart, to move offshore their production for US consumer markets, were simultaneously moving offshore US GDP, US tax base, US consumer income, and irreplaceable career opportunities for American citizens.
Among the serious consequences of offshoring are
the dismantling of the ladders of upward mobility that made the US an “opportunity society,”
an extraordinary worsening of the income distribution, and
large trade and federal budget deficits that cannot be closed by normal means. These deficits now threaten the US dollar’s role as world reserve currency.
Phi Beta Iota: Everything killing the USA today was properly briefed to the Senate and the White House in the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's. The missing ingredient was INTEGRITY on the part of the listeners. Intelligence without integrity is irrelevant; integrity without intelligence is dangerously uninformed.
By Chuck Leddy – Boston Globe Correspondent / June 1, 2011
Journalist James Fergusson has spent more than a decade covering the Taliban, from its beginnings in the 1990s as a militant Islamist response to the brutal warlordism then dominating Afghanistan to its 2001 ouster by US-led forces to its present-day battle to topple the US-supported Afghan regime of President Hamid Karzai. Rather than present the Taliban as a caricature of jihadist, misogynistic thugs, Fergusson has worked hard to understand them. Filled with insights about the group’s origins and motivations, this sympathetic and eye-opening account should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand contemporary Afghanistan.
Amazon Page
Fergusson opens with a portrait of the burned-out, lawless hellscape of Afghanistan in the aftermath of Soviet occupation. With multiple tribal warlords practicing highway robbery and murder, absent any control from a viable, centralized government, Afghanistan was a Hobbesian “failed state’’ run by bandits. The Taliban coalesced around a few mujahideen — holy warriors — who had been part of the insurgency that ousted the Soviet army. These fighters sought to restore order under sharia, Islamic holy law. But the Taliban were also Pashtun tribesmen. It is in explaining the complex interconnections between Pashtun and Islamic traditions that Fergusson truly shows his understanding of the organization.
Fergusson describes how the militarily powerful Taliban took over Afghanistan in the late 1990s but lost the global public relations war. The movement was irreparably tainted by horrific videos of public executions and reports of extreme restrictions against women. “From 1997 on,’’ Fergusson writes, “the Taliban were almost universally portrayed in the West as a regime beyond comprehension or redemption.’’
But what these Western reports never quite explained, Fergusson notes, is how the Taliban brought law (however harsh) and order to a nation that had rarely seen either. Today, Fergusson reports, the Taliban are riding a growing wave of anti-Americanism and anti-corruption sentiment triggered by both US military operations and strong support for Karzai, who is considered unusually corrupt by the standards of a country where governmental corruption is the norm.
As he travels a few miles outside the capital, Kabul, Fergusson observes the resurgent Taliban collecting taxes, meting out local justice, attacking American soldiers, and pockmarking the roads with bombs. Taliban commanders repeatedly tell Fergusson that the Americans must depart before national reconciliation can begin. Even an Afghan police officer, ostensibly an agent of the Karzai government, denounces the American military presence: “If [US soldiers] kill fifty people, they create five hundred Taliban,’’ he tells Fergusson, “If they did something to my family . . . I’d take revenge. I hate the Americans.’’ And he’s supposed to be on our side.
One disillusioned local official tells Fergusson, “Warlordism and insecurity have returned, and the people are fed up. They are ready to welcome the Taliban back again.’’ Indeed, the Taliban are coming back just when the Obama administration has reduced US forces in Afghanistan. Fergusson makes clear the differences between the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Many of those inside the Taliban told Fergusson that they would welcome an agreement with Washington that would swap the exclusion of Al Qaeda from Afghanistan for an American pullout and foreign aid.
Fergusson makes a powerful case that US strategy in the region is failing, and that bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table is the most sensible option. This is a provocative account written by somebody who’s talked to all the relevant parties, however unsavory, and has learned to navigate some of the world’s most treacherous terrain. In the end, Fergusson believes that talking with the Taliban might work better than fighting them.
Chuck Leddy, a freelance writer who lives in Dorchester, can be reached at chuckleddy@comcast.net.
