"Al-Qaeda funding the return of the Taliban, top US commander says," from the Turkish Press, :
KABUL - Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network is making fresh efforts to engineer a comeback by the Taliban and regain a foothold of its own in Afghanistan, the commander of US forces in the country said Tuesday.Lieutenant General David Barno said the US believed both Bin Laden and fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar were probably still in the region, possibly on the rugged border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"Al-Qaeda clearly still wants to see the Taliban stage some kind of a comeback in Afghanistan," Barno told.
"They're still providing financing, with guidance, training, support and selected individuals that help lead and motivate the operations here in Afghanistan."
Barno, who leads a force of around 18,000 US troops in Afghanistan, added that Al-Qaeda militants were "located in tribal areas, down there in border areas, probably on both sides of the border" with Pakistan.
"We operate under the assumption that they're still in this region," he said when asked where Bin Laden and Mullah Omar were believed to be.
There is no end to this. Instead of continuing trying to make one of the most primitive and backward parts of the world into Westport, Connecticut, why not simply establish a system of supporting whomever, at the moment, is willing to suppress the Taliban, continually resuppy them, and never again let Afghanistan, or any other place, be immune from attack as bases are set up that threaten. But the enormous expense, the hideous waste of men and money, to maintain not only many bases in Afghanistan, bases which in any Muslim country will always in the end be taken away, or be limited in their use, should stop. Men, materiel, money, morale are to be husbanded, and used widely -- not squandered in a cart-before-the-horse naive attempt to transplant "democracy" in the most primitive sense, rather than work to create the conditions in which Muslims themselves will be forced to confront the evidence that their own failures, political, economic, social, and intellectual, are a direct result of the teachings, and attitudes, of Islam.
That is, after all, what happened with the Soviet Union. Outspending the Soviet Union, helping to create the conditions in which Russians themselves, including the GenSec, could come to realize that the Soviet system had failed, is what lead to the end of Soviet Communism as the ruler of Russia.
Nothing should be done that will help Muslim countries delay that day of self-reckoning. And if it doesn't come, so what? As long as Muslim migrants are prevented from entering the West, and the practice of Islam monitored and curtailed wherever possible, and Muslim states and groups and individuals prevented from obtaining major weaponry, that is all that need be done -- the "Light-Unto-the-Muslim" Nations Project consists only in this, not democracy, but in creating the conditions in which failure is recognized, and related to Islam, rather than to the imagined faults and malevolence of the Infidels.
Hugh,
I agree with a lot with what you are saying. Slaying Islam is like doing battle with the 9-headed hydra. That is, cutting off one head ensures that two will grow in it's place. No, this monster must be (and will be!) slayed by cutting out it's heart. I however must take issue with the idea that Man or the West can do such things by themselves under their own strength and understanding. Yes, Islam will have it's "day of reckoning" as you put it but it will be according to God's own perfect timing, not our timing. There is a supernatural element to this, a type of spiritual warfare that is trying Israel, America and the rest of us (like me here in Canada) who love freedom. Everyone, including you Mr. Fitzgerald, must come to this realization. It is JHVH that must get the glory, not little old us. Keep safe Hugh and RS!!
These actions will never cease and desist until the time comes when all humanity will turn the tides and something in the nature of events resembling the crusades,GOD HAVE MERCY ON OUR SOULS FOR WHAT WE MUST DO.
Have missed a lot in the month I've been gone, darn computer problems and talking to non-english
tech reps who may or may not have members of al-queerda or the taliban or worse yet a terrorist.
ETERNAL VIGILANCE IS THE PRICE OF LIBERTY
GODSPEED EVERYONE