Afghanistan to re-form virtues ministry

What the hell are our servicemen doing, fighting and dying in support of such a regime?

I thought democracy was also about separation of state and religion.

"the new office would concentrate on alcohol, drugs, crime and corruption" (from article)

..so they going to crush the poppy trade all by themselves? ..or enhance it again since the foreigners did so much damage already?

well, I never trusted doubledealing poor victim Mr.Karzai at any time, and that was strongly emphasised when he travelled the west in his Afghan coat begging millions for his poor oppressed "culture"... try to visit the beggar in his palace in Kabul for an interview and be glad if the palaceguards dont beat you up. Scum they are!

"I thought democracy was also about separation of state and religion."

Not if you don't have a constitution guaranteeing a secular state and individual rights. Can't just form a democracy out of a country used to dictatorial theocracy and totally blinded by islam, and without an army and police that fully support a secular state and have the powers to suppress theocratic movements. Without a history and culture of human rights, women's rights, secularism etc., democracy will mean what it has meant in 'Palestine': bring in the theocratic dictators and let them take over.

They aren't ready for true democracy, it would seem.

"I thought democracy was also about separation of state and religion."

Not if you don't have a constitution guaranteeing a secular state and individual rights. Can't just form a democracy out of a country used to dictatorial theocracy and totally blinded by islam, and without an army and police that fully support a secular state and have the powers to suppress theocratic movements. Without a history and culture of human rights, women's rights, secularism etc., democracy will mean what it has meant in 'Palestine': bring in the theocratic dictators and let them take over.

They aren't ready for true democracy, it would seem.

Sorry, annoying the way it does that!!

The fact is, folks, that it doesn't really matter if Afghanistan makes the transition to secular democracy or not. Our troops are there to prevent the Taliban re-establishing its network of terrorist training camps that was used to such devastating effect on 9/11, and so they are likely to be there for many years to come.

The rest of it is just a sideshow.

There is still the problem that Afghanistan is a mono-crop economy, with opium accounting for a high proportion of its GDP. One reason the Taliban collapsed so easily was because their campaign against the poppy crop had left the country in a state of economic ruin. Supporting an unsavoury regime to interdict the territory for terrorists is fair enough. Stamping out opium cultivation may prove one task too many - especially if the jihadists are now all for it.

The U.S. spent One Billion $ to combat the poppy cultivation in afghanistan this year. It went down the drain, afghanistan has a bumper never before crop of poppy. They said the fertilizer was for vegetables and put it in the poppy fields. I am trying to find the link.

islamic university shuts down in India due to 'students' running amok. Both the students and the 'procter' are muslims.

http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory.asp?category=National&slug=Jamia+Milia+Univ+shut+indefinitely&id=90358

The exaggerated attention given to Afghanistan, first by the Americans, and now by other members of NATO determined to prove that though they may have let the Americans down in Iraq they will do their bit in Afghanistan, is based on a series of errors.

The main error, however, is to believe that the experience of Al-Qaeda should fix, forever, the importance of Afghanistan. But while Al-Qaeda is an important terrorist group, it is hardly the only one. There are hundreds whose names we know, and other hundreds or thousands whose names we do not know, or that have no names, or knowing their names would hardly matter. The amount of time that goes into solemn parsing of whether or not "this terrorist act" (in Mumbai, or in Beslan, in Madrid or Amsterdam) is or is not "part of an Al-Qaeda plot" is absurd. These are all Muslim terrorist groups. They have their immediate and local aims. Lashkar-e-Toiba has as its immediate aim forcing the Indians to abandon Indian-held Kashmir. That does not mean that the members of Lashkar-e-Toiba would not, if they could, lend a hand, say, to thoselocal Muslims enjoying themselves killing Hindus in Bangladesh, or killing Jews in Israel, or possibly, in London, helping out with killing British citizens on their way to work. It is just a question of what particular local or Lesser Jihad for the moment floats your murderous boat. Arabs of every kind have have been found fighting with the Taliban, and in Bosnia, and in Chechnya, and Pakistanis were found by Christian Lebanse fighting with the PLO, and of course Pakistanis have been discovered blowing up the British Infidels who had nothing to do with Kashmir.

Afghanistan is no more indispensable to terrorists for training than is any other place on earth. Almost none of the terrorist attacks in Amsterdam and Madrid, London and Moscow and Beslan, Jerusalem and Djerba, were carried out by people who had ever trained in Afghanistan. The endless videotapes of those recruits on the monkey-bars, or high-stepping it in their black balaclavas, while eerie Arab music, music to kill the Infidels by, wails on the soundtrack, keeps reminding us all of those camps in Afghanistan. But again, it forces us to focus too narrowly.

Afghanistan is reverting to type. It is reverting, that is, to its deep-rooted and primitive Islam. Last week, in the magazine section of The New Duranty Times, there were several photopraphs of Afghani couples. The man, turbaned, prematurely wizened (they were all in their 40s and 50s), craggy faced, barefoot, sat looking straight at the camera. And beside the man in each grim and telling photograph sat his new bride, perhaps his second or third, a silent or smiling or chirpy young girl, 9 or 10 or 11, and anyone who looked carefully at those photogrphs,and who has been reading about Afghanistan, knows that it is not slick and plausible and slippery Karzai who is representative of Afghani society, but those men with their child brides.

What is to be done? What is to be done is to have as little to do as possible, to expend not more men and money, but to intermittently intervene from afar, in the meantime letting Afghanistan sink into its own internecine struggles. The Infidel Man's Burden is too much at this point. We don't have the time, the political will, the resources. We can rely on this or that warlord, no doubt someone who does not bear much looking into (for god's sake, the famous Massoud enjoyed massacring his enemies), but that is not our affair.

Our affair is to weaken, and to weaken at the lowest cost to ourselves because this war has no foreseeble end, the menace of Islam, by weakening, dividing, demoralizing, diminishing the appeal of, the camp of Islam. It can be done. But we need not be present in Iraq or Afghanistan to pursue this goal. In fact, a Western Infidel presence guarantees that some -- even some military men unduly impressed, on a human level, with this or that touching example of personal bravery or seeming loyalty by a particular Iraqi or Afghani, which can get in the way of a less sentimental assessment of why we cannot rely on the handful of semi-decent (and are we sure they are semi-decent, or merely for the moment, behaving well because, for the moment, they need our aid in killing their local enemies?).

The problems of Muslim peoples and states -- their penchant for violence and for conspiracy theories and hysterical reactions, their failure to create modern economies, their tendency to accept despots or a series of despots, as long as those despots are Muslims, the intellectual desertificiation, the moral paralysis -- these are all problems that come from the belief-system of Islam itself. Having to pretend to believe an unpleasant set of tenets, having to admire Muhammad or to pretend to, having to locate legitimacy of government not in the consent-- even the manufactured consent-- of the governed, but in the Qur'an and Sunnah, as codified in the Shari'a, having to adhere to the Islam-presribed hostility toward all non-Muslims and the contmept for women -- all of this has contributed to make these places what they are, and will be.

Within these lands,a strong leader, an Ataturk, might manage to impose systematic constraints on Islam, and to create a class of the secular who may dimly recognize that Islam is the source of their problems. But the example of Kemalist Turkey shows that even there, many decades, many generations, many laws and changes in attitudes are required, and that even then, after all that, Islam keeps coming back, like Rasputin.

We cannot devote our money and men to making Muslim countries better unless we realize that Islam is the explanation for their woes, and recognize further that no Infidels can change Islam, can constrain it in Muslim countries. But in the lands still part of that Infidel world, we are free to constrain it, to limit or hobble the various instruments of Jihad, including Da'wa and demographic conquest, and that this is the minimum that all Infidel governments owe their often ignorant and certainly largely unwary populations.

And that is best achieved by stopping to make the counter-Jihad an affair of creating "Iraq the Model" (an idiotic notion) or "Afghanistan"
where democracy, prosperity, you name it, is on the march.

What is on the march in Afghanistan is Islam. Just a few years have gone by, and already the hatred directed at the Taliban has dissipated, and that hatred turned to the eternal foe, the Infidels, and consequently, the Taliban itself is back, though not quite as before. It doesn't matter. Islam is back, or rather Islam in Afghanistan never went away.

Look at those photographs of those Afghan couples. That is Afghanistan. Not Karzai, or his restaurant-running siblings (or the one who went back to strike it rich in the "new" Afghanistan). Not Zalmay Khalilzad or those "Afghan-Americans" who have little to dow with, are completely unrepresentative of, the real Afghanistan.

Husbanding, not squandering, of resources of every kind is now required. It is, the Pentagon tells us now, to be a "long war." Indeed.

It is a very unfortunate development. But I ask the readers of JW/DW, what should be the asppropriate policy besides the one Bush is pursuing?

Hugh advocates walking away from Afghanistan and propping up local warlords to fight the Taliban.

1) This paradigm was recently shattered in Somalia, where the Al Qaeda affiliate has defeated pro-western warlords. A US-Western withdrawal could very-well witness the reconstitution on the Taliban-Al Qaeda government in Afghanistan, with all the national-security implications.

2) Would there be any less Sharia under the warlords than there is under Karzai?

Hugh, thanks for your comments, there's plenty of common sense in all that.

However, I still feel that places like Afghanistan (and Somalia) present unique problems for the civilised world. Their geography and history, the terrain, the near-impossibility of imposing any kind of effective national government, and the impenetrable ignorance and stupidity of their people does seem to provide al-qaeda (and all the groups operating under its 'franchise') with a unique opportunity set up various headquarters and training facilities with complete inpunity, undisturbed by the outside world.

Unless we have a military presence there capable of stopping them.

A poster above has ignored my posting, or chosen not to reply to its insistence that Afghanistan is not as important as it has been made out to be. It was important. It was, at one time, the main training ground for what was, at one time, the main terrorist group. But terrorist groups and groupuscules and individuals performing their duty of Jihad, and choosing as their instrument violence, do not need to train anymore in Afghanistan. I adduced the evidence: that almost every major terroist attack in the last five years has been committed by Muslims who were never in Afghanistan. The poster above chose not to attempt to rebut this.

He then goes on to ask if the defeat of the warlords in Somalia by what he somewhat too-easily calls an "Al Qaeda affiliate" (why? because Aweys may have some Al Qaeda connection? Does that make the Islamic courts necessarily an "Al Qaeda" affiliate? Must a terrorist group necessarily have an Al Qaeda connection for us to be alarmed? Furthermore, must any grou0p of Muslims have to have some definite terrorist connection for us to be alarmed -- or is it any and all Muslim states that should alarm, and that we must keep from getting certain kinds of arms? Somalia has been largely ignored by the West for the past decade. Dire results? None. Increased threat to the Weset? None. Let Somalia sink, without Western aid or attention (and do not admit, of course, those who claim to be "refugees" -- let them go, if anywhere, to another Muslim country), and let that be one more lesson in what Islam brings. And if the people there have a good dose of Islam, like the Afghanis who became sick of the Taliban and juset as quickly, in the last few years ,have managed to forget what the Taliban rule was like and again come to welcome more Islam, as one would expect -- what else could one expect?-- in a society that is unhinged by any contact with the non-Muslim or modern world. Let it stay hinged, and backward, and poor, and without those roads we are building that will merely make it easier for the opium crop to be delivered, or weapons and talibanish sorts to move around. Do nothiing to change it.Let Afghanistan stay just as it is, while we use the same resources -- men, money, materiel, attention -- of NATO members to shore up the defenses of the Infidel world, rather than attempt to deal with the menace of Islam in such an ill-thought out, messy, and even messianic fashion. Replace Bush's innocence, and his crazed focus only on "terror" and total neglect of the Da'wa and demographic conques that threaten far more, with people more intelligent, less impressed by the word "religion," less sentimental all way round.

The poster above asks: "Would there be any less Sharia under the warlords than there is under Karzai? No. Neither more nor less. That is why it should be a matter of indifference to us if Karzai stays or goes. He is weak, he has countenanced corruption, and is main claim is his elegant robe and plausible, if a tad too oleagineous, presentation of self. If the results are the same with a large and expensive NATO presence, as would be the case without that presence, why spend the money and the men? Why not use local warlords, monitoring vigilantly, interfering when neceessary with infusions of weapons, or the odd bombing campagin, but otherwise staying well away.

The presence of Infidels, and the attempted moral makeover of Afghanistan, has led to a situation in which those who once hated the Taliban now apparently have forgotten that hate, and begun to yeaarn for it again. This feeling has been exacerbated by the presence of Infidels who cannot bring peace, and who cannot manage to enforce any constraints on Islam.

They, we, and the rest of NATO, should figure out ways to engage in telemachy -- "fighting from afar." The less we have to do with Muslim states and Muslim peoples, the better. Pare those interventions to a minimum. Let them endure their own lords of misrule, the results of their own inshallah-fatalism and primitivism. Do nothing to prevent their own divisions and demoralizations. Do nothing to shore them up. Do nothing to supply them with the saving Jizyah of Infidel foreign aid.

But do spend that money, time, energy, instructing Infidels, and in renewing the alliance with Europe, by addressing the sinister influence of the E.U. bureacrats (Javier Solana comes to mind), the media that accept and justify and promote the pre-existing mental conditions of anti-Americanism and antisemitism (the latter expressed in its new, improved, "acceptable" form of anti-Israel bias, to be observed present almost everywhere in the press, radio, and television in Western Europe), and the general inability of European peoples and their governments to deal successfully, and far more determinedly, with the steady islamization of their own populations.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. This fits islam to a tee.

Instead of worrying about coming into the 21st century, feeding their people, building an economy, they are worried about how women dress, show an ankle, stay covered or get educated. They must have that sharia.

Pathetic.

Sir Winston Churchill wrote a book called "The Malakand Field Force". Mr. Holger Dansker was kind enough to provide the link to the free e-book. It details British campaigns in afghanistan starting from 1890s. I am still midway in the book, but the first chapters describe the place most accurately. An Indian author went to afghanistan in 1987, and published what he saw. It was the same as Mr. Churchill described. These people, afghans, are absolute savages. The complexity of their tribal and ethnical system can only be understood by one of them. Mr. Churchill has had a good try, but it is not 10% of the picture of intra-tribe rivalry. One can read the book, it is informing, and entertaining if one likes war stories. The first chapter describes "The Theatre of War".

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/mkdff10.txt

Here's a link to photos of those happy couples Hugh mentioned above:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5541006

The islamic vitues;

Pride - (synonym to arrogance),
Avarice - (synonym to covetousness),
Envy - (synonym to jealousy of the possesions of others),
Wrath - (synonym to anger),
Lust - (synonym to impurity),
Gluttony - (synonym to lack of self-control),
Sloth - (synonym to laziness).

Sound familiar?

Please feel free to add to this list.

sorry about spelling! "virtues"

I admit I have often wondered what would happen if the West were to pull all its military and financial aid, commercial interests etc, out of the Middle East. Given that on the face of things Islamic nations seem to have a pathological need to have someone to fight with, how long would it be before they imploded under the weight of their own ideology.

I remember Douglas Adams describing in one of his "Hitchhikers" novels "a being so violent and savage that, left long enough in a room on its own, would beat itself to death".

I agree with Hugh though. It seems a pointless waste of time, expense and above all lives attempting to impress our values on those whom, by the standards of our own societies are savages.

I certainly don't hold with the so called "post colonial guilt" that my country seems to be afflicted with. As Churchill said "If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future". We should simply move on and leave the savages to their own self destruction if they wish and, as Hugh pointed out, intervene from a distance if our own interests are threatened.

LETTERA APPELLO AI PARLAMENTARI DELL’UNIONE: VIA DALL’AFGHANISTAN

Vorremmo, se ci consentite, dire la nostra sulla questione Afghanistan.
La pace è spesso stata considerata un valore, quindi un fine, un
qualcosa da raggiungere, e per cui qualsiasi mezzo è consentito. Per
questo motivo esiste, nel campo militare, il motto "si vis pacem para
bellum", ossia "se vuoi la pace prepara la guerra", considerando la
guerra come deterrente e quindi come mezzo per raggiungere una pace. Per
Gandhi e per tutti i veri pacifisti, tra cui ci sono anche io, la pace è
un principio, ossia un metodo di vita, un modo di essere che
naturalmente porta alla pace. Quindi vale il principio "si vis pacem,
para pacem", se vuoi la pace prepara la pace. Si dice anche che si è in
guerra non solo quando la guerra è in atto, ma anche quando la guerra è
in potenza, ossia quando si lavora per prepararsi alla guerra. Per
questo motivo noi viviamo in uno stato di perenne guerra, in quanto
determinate ed istituzionalizzate parti dei nostri popoli sono
addestrate per andare in guerra. Ponendo dette premesse e per
sintetizzare, posto come dovuto ed indiscutibile il ritiro delle nostre
truppe dall'Iraq, teatro di guerra che non ci appartiene, oggi si
discute se bisogna continuare a permanere in Afghanistan. Si giustifica
tale presenza come necessaria ponendo la questione che gli afghani hanno
bisogno del nostro aiuto non militarmente ma civilmente. Ma questo non
comporta assolutamente la presenza dell'esercito in Afghanistan. Come
dice Gino Strada, se gli afghani hanno bisogno di ospedali, perché
mandargli carri armati? Allora, invece di mandare militari, mandiamo
personale civile, medico, infermieristico, strutture mediche, esperti
politici o quant'altro, ma non militari in armi. A questo punto sentiamo
il dovere morale e il diritto civile di chiedere a chi abbiamo eletto a
rappresentarci al Parlamento e che è pacifista per principio, di non
votare il rifinanziamento della missione in Afghanistan, ma a porre le
basi per un finanziamento o un sostegno a quelle missioni civili già
presenti, come appunto quella di Emergency.

IO VIVO IN PACE E VOGLIO LA PACE
1)Ettore Lomaglio Silvestri - promotore
2)Norma Bertullacelli
3) Massimo Dalla Giovanna
4) Comitato per la pace “Rachel Corrie”
5) Social Forum Valpolcevera
6) Maria Teresa Morresi
7) Associazione culturale Sconfiggiamo la mafia
8) Piero Cannistraci
9) Serena Pisano
10) Associazione Regionale Lazio per la lotta contro le illegalità e le
mafie "Antonino Caponnetto" 11) Elena ROMA CIRCOLO L. CIMINELLI P.R.C.
Amendolara
12) Ivano Dalla Giovanna – Genova
13) Fabio Eboli
14) Albino Garuti
15) Fabrizio Fiorilli
16) Andrea Manganaro
17) Matteo Lotario (?)
18) Sergio Ruggirei
19) Rossana Montecchiani
20) Giacomo Alessandrini
21) Stefania Volonghi
22) Roberto Stoppini
23) Francesca Piemonte
24) Roberto Barison
25) Vincenzo Caldarola
26) Antonia Valeria (?)
27) Alfonso Navarra - Lega per il disarmo unilaterale
28) Marco Rivarolo
29) Silvia Nerini
30) Paolo Ivaldi
31) Lucia Altemura
32) Clara F. (?)
33) Tiziana Leoni
34) Rita Filippo
35) Martina Zampieri
36) Gennaro Variale
37) Luca Galvani
38) Simona Pinna
39) Claudia Di Tommaso
40) Giovanni Intini
41) Franco Fuselli
42) Marina Criscuoli
43) Carla Dalla Pozza
44) Marisa Cesarano
45) Giorgia (?)
46) Doriana Goracci – Donne in Nero Tuscia
47) Ezio Scavazzini – segretario ANPI sezione di Lainate
48) Caterina Morgantini
49) Vincenzo Carnazzo
50) Antonietta Ermacora
51) Dante Bedini – Treviso
52) Agnese Ginocchio – cantautrice per la Pace
53) Roberto Ferrario – http://bellaciao.org/it
54) Anna Lise Nicolodi
55) Stefano Polo
56) Daniele Aprile
57) Elena Cavallone
58) Andrea Caminati
59) Vittorio Paolo Fasciani
60) Gianna Tirondola – Padova
61) Gianfranco D'Angelosante
62) Virginia Agliata
63) Norma Naim - Centro Studi Educazione alla Pace
64) Luca Sardi
65) Barbara Pianta Lopis
66) Tullio Cipriano
67) Maria Nicolina Papa
68) Matteo Mosna
69) Alberto Sipione
70) Franca Maria Bagnoli
71) Hermann Barbieri
72) Giancarlo Nonis
73) Nadia De Luzio
74) Maria Nina Posadinu
75) Paola Manduca
76) Luigi Fusco
77) Antonella Mangia – Coordinamento salentino contro la guerra
78) Ettore Zerbino
79) Maria Luce Graziadei
80) Rosa Pia Bonomi
81) Comitato Claudio Miccoli
82) Massimo Petrucci
83) Nella Ginatempo – Bastaguerra
84) Lidia Maria Cirillo
85) Antonella Sapio
86) Pino De Stasio Consigliere P.R.C. seconda Municipalita' NAPOLI 87)
Tesfai Selamawit
88) Giuseppina Catalano
89) Gianfausto De Dominicis
90) Vania Santolini
91) Roberto Pinzi
92) Gianni D’Errico
93) Giorgio Vinciguerra
94) Giuseppe Reitano
95) Elena Van Westerhout
96) Mario di Francesco
97) Elisabetta Romanelli
98) Flavio Minisini
99) Sara Nutricato
100) Maria Nicoletti
101) Paola Cirio
102) Pino Parisi – Centro Italiano Aiuti all’Infanzia
103) Chiara Parisi – Centro Italiano Aiuti all’Infanzia
104) Claudia Tessaro
105) Antonella Raddi
106) Fulvia Candeloro
107) Agnese Fiducia
108) Marco Righi
109) Ugo Beiso
110) Comitato Attac Firenze
111) Marino Tambuscio
112) Ornella Morez
113) Adriana De Mitri
114) Paolo Fierro
115) Flavio Mobilia
116) Franco Casagrande
117) Massimiliano Bazzana
118) Massimo Marco Rossi
119) Francesco Cannizzaro
120) Paola Schiavon
121) Umberta Biasoli
122) Giorgio Morelli
123) Maria Antonietta Rossi
124) Olivia Pastorelli
125) Mauro Castagnaro
126) Eugenia Regis
127) Guido Ratti
128) Giusy Cuccia
129) Valentina Franchi
130) Noemi di Leonardo
131) Paola Merlo
132) Marco Zerbino
133) Isa Brunetti
134) Marco Staffoli
135) Bastaguerra
136) Gabriella Bianchi
137) Andrea Montagner
138) Lucia De Faveri
139) Marco Zanatta
140) Alma Re Fraschini
141) Ivan Rossi
142) Michela Pitturi
143) Gianni Trez
144) Michele Citoni
145) Valentina Signorile
146) Luigi Pirelli
147) Francesco Mason
148) Mirko Mazzetto
149) Remo Caretti
150) Roberto Feletto
151) Riccardo Carraio
152) Fabio Gatto
153) Adelise Midolli
154) Miriam Silvestri
155) Michele Quaini
156) Fulvio Boccardo
157) Loris Donazzon
158) Elisabetta Gueli
159) Pasquale di Lalla
160) Adriano Battisti
161) Margherita Granero
162) Carmine Esposito – Coordinamento Tacciano le Armi
163) Antonio Oliati
164) Giovanni Marchi
165) Luca Vannetiello
166) Mattia Sciarrotta
167) Giacomo Piccioni
168) Angela Andruccioli
169) Lucio Cozzolino
170) Elena Mazzarano
171) Massimo Paghi
172) Maria Grazia Saracco
173) Gaetano Velotto
174) Giovanna Guandalini
175) Roberto Vassallo
176) Liliana Armocida
177) Giovanni Pasella
178) Antonio Pisano
179) Silvia Nardi
180) Enza Longo
181) Carla G. Razzano
182) Alessandra Martiniello
183) Agnese Palma
184) Rino Sanna
185) Valeria Tuv
186) Emergency – Gruppo di Pessano con Bornago (MI)
187) Mariangela Mozzone
188) Alice Bonavida
189) Fabrizio Bianchi
190) Dario Mariani
191) Beppe Orlandi
192) Cinzia Martini
193) Giuseppe Puleo
194) Simone Mestroni
195) David Gianetti
196) Edvino Ugolini
197) Anna Polo – Partito Umanista
198) Partito Umanista
199) Stefano Cera
200) Gian Luigi Bettoli – Spilimbergo (PN)
201) Serenella Angeloni
202) Davide Barillari
203) Eva Melodia
204) Luca Marra
205) Ernesto Pedrini
206) Marilisa Pierabella
207) Marika Malanca
208) Ornala Jurinovich
209) Renato Bossi
210) Francesco Fortinguerra
211) Floriana Lipparini
212) Goretta Bonaccorsi
213) Sara Bellandi
214) Davide Morano
215) Giuseppe Concione
216) Andrea Anselmi –
217) Barbara Bianchi
218) Antonella Visintin - commissione globalizzazione e ambiente
-Federazione chiese evangeliche in Italia (Fcei) 219) Maria Paola
Pussetto
220) Alessandra Sica
221) Giuliana Fuggetta
222) Agnese Manca
223) Giovanni Pigozzo
224) Maria Del Vento
225) Tiziana Marchese
226) Cristina Zadra
227) Daniela Taglianetti – Agenzia per la Pace
228) Giorgio Cordini
229) Rosa Calderazzi
230) Valentina Bongi
231) Valentina STamerra
232) Alessandra Nassuato
233) Marco Sacchi
234) Luca Brogioni
235) Donatella Camatta
236) Alice Bastianoni
237) Simona Signorelli
238) Marialuisa Paroni
239) Mario Enrico Gottardi
240) Marina Costa
241) Associazione Progetto Gaia
242) Cristina Puppis
243) Elvira Corona
244) Luciana Sossi
245) Laura ERizi
246) Francesco Tassi
247) Marco Barbato
248) Rosa Maria Albino
249) Evelina Savini
250) Enea Guarinoni
251) Melania Leone
252) Valeria Giuffrida
253) Riccardo Minisola
254) Alessio Ariotto
255) Dino Venanzi
256) Alberto Agresti
257) Veronica Giuffrida
258) Sara Pinti
259) Claudia Pretto
260) Silvia Maria Esposito
261) Francesca Mazzoni
262) Silvia Cirenei
263) Valentina Cremona
264) Silvia Rossi
265) Silvia Fenaroli
266) Daniele Politi
267) Pierpaolo Riboli
268) Fabio Bottini
269) Francesca Arici
270) Pasquale Francese
271) Paolo Righetti
272) Stefano Angelone
273) Enrica Lobina
274) Ermanno Baldassarri
275) Pino Canale
276) Sonia Centro
277) Lorella Lari
278) Beppe Pavoletti
279) Edisetta Pozzati
280) Enza Panebianco
281) Paolo Sangiorgio
282) Maria Cristina Veronesi
283) Giovanna Canadesi
284) Nicoletta Trevisan
285) Jamil Gharaba
286) Maria TEresa Cazzaro
287) Pina Garofalo
288) Gabriele Piras
289) Sandra Cecchini
290) Miriam Gagliardi – Vicenza
291) Salaam Ragazzi dell’Olivo di Vicenza
292) Lino Sturiale
293) Nicola Verza

Translation anyone?.

Well Hugh, we've been down this road before. I certainly don't want to usurp your time and energy rehashing old arguments.

One could certainly legitimately argue that there are better ways and places to expend Western resources than on propping up Karzai in Afghanistan. But the premise that a re-constitution of the Taliban as the national government there will in no way impact American national security and Western interests in the region and the world is - I believe - quite mistaken.

The Italian posting above, apparently the work of a convinced and therefore, from my point of view, a dangerous pacifist, is put up here by "outofafghanistan." Among the signatories I see one "Jamil Gharaba" (#285) and at #27, someone from the "League for Unilateral Disarmament" () and at #4, and most disturbing of all, the Comitato per la pace "Rachel Corrie." So I'm inclined not to get into that particular galere and row, row, row that boat, gently down the stream.

As for the first signer and apparent composer of the Appello, Ettore Lomaglio Silvestri, he apparently supports Rifondazione Comunista.

I wouldn't touch this petition with a ten-foot pole. Out of Afghanistan, yes, but not for peace with those participating in, or funding, or otherwise supporting or defending, Jihad. Out of Afghanistan for the only reason that makes sense: In order to conduct a more intelligent, less wasteful, more effective and cleverer war.

Still, those names are a pleasure to read. Umberta, Beppe, Pierpaolo, and then those last names too -- in a country where even every Tom, Dick, and Harry is Tizio, is Caio, is Sempronio.

"But the premise that a re-constitution of the Taliban as the national government there will in no way impact American national security and Western interests in the region and the world is - I believe - quite mistaken."
-- from a posting above

That was not "the premise." There was no mention of having the Taliban in control of some "national government." Warlords, constantly warring, with this side or that being resupplied as the occasion warrants, could prevent that "national government" from existing. After all, it hardly has existed during the last century or more; its writ never ran in the countryside. Let Hazaras fight Pashtuns, and Uzbeks fight Tadzhiks and together fight both Hazaras and Pashtuns, and let n choose k be the number of possiblities. That is far from a "re-constitution of the Taliban as the national government."

Re: The Italian posting

Thanks for explaining that Hugh.

Here's a link to photos of those happy couples Hugh mentioned above---posted by Silvester

How absolutely repulsive! Nothing has changed in Afghanistan; it is still a Sharia state with religious police, where lecherous old bastards buy, sell, exploit, and abuse little girls with impunity.

How could anyone consider this primitive, savage culture relevant in the 21st century, much less equal or superior to our own?

I don't know if anyone heard, but Neal Boortz let loose on another muslim today. The caller wanted to know where he (Boortz) got his information about Islam, and also what religion he practiced. Boortz told him that his religion was his business and irrelevant to the conversation. Boortz then cited a dozen or so recent heinous atrocities committed by "peaceful" muslims. It was great! It's too bad the MSM deliberately obfuscates the truth about Islam and muslims. Their censorship and collusion with the enemy are treasonous and exacerbate the threats we all face from muslim terrorists.

Hugh,

You actually believe that a withdrawal of Western forces from Afghanistan will result in something other than a return to power of the Taliban? Even in the Pashto-speaking south?

This is little different than your unrealistic expectation that Iraq's Kurds can not only attain independence, but can lop off Kurdish portions of Syria and Iran, and all with the acquiesence of the Turks, in spite of their oft-stated vow to crush the advent of any independent Kurdish polity. It just doesn't wash.

It's one thing to say we shouldn't be squandering lives and treasure in Afghanistan on behalf of Karzai. I disagree, but the argument is legitimate.

The fantasy enters when you suggest that the withdrawal won't result in a return of the Taliban to power...and that we can determine events there without boots on the ground. Perhaps the Uzbeks and Tajiks in the far north will hold out, but the Pushtoon south is without a doubt Taliban-friendly, and considering the support of their breathren in Pakistan's NWFP, their victory is a forgone conclusion.

"...and considering the support of their breathren in Pakistan's NWFP,..."

That support will exist with or without the approval of Islamabad.

Yes, the posting by the Italian commenter is in favor of terrorism and is demanding the current Italian dhimmi gov't (not my gov't) to pullout the troops even from Afghanistan.

"outofafhanistan" is a communist moonbat.

Cornelius

There are other intra-Pashtun divisions in the south, and in Baluchistan (across the border from Kandahar, in Quetta) and NWFP, such as Waziris, Afridis, another one I forget (of which Gulbuddin Heqmatyar is a member), Baluchis, etc, which could be exploited just as easily. The Pashtuns aren't a monolith, and if the civil war not only involves a battle for Kabul between Pashtun and Tajik, but also intra-Pashtun conflicts, as well as battles beween Tajik and Hazara, Uzbek & Turkoman, etc.

Reason al Qaeda had such a safe operating base was solid Taliban control over 90% of Afghanistan. This can be prevented in future by ensuring that every warlord is well armed, but that none of them get an upper hand. In fact, this should spread to Pakistan as well - let Panjabis, who dominate, be pitted against Pathan, Baluchi and Sindi - that way, they too can be kept on a leash.

Infidel Pride,

Listen, nothing is etched in stone. You certainly could be right.

But I think you'd agree that the Taliban are the most cohesive and best organized of all organizations in Afghanistan (including the government)...and larger than any entity besides the government itself (which would most likely fracture along ethnic lines in the absence of a Western presence).

Hugh rightly castigated Bernard Lewis for not anticipating a Sunni insurgency in Iraq that should have been a forgone coclusion once power had been taken from them. I think it equally myopic to assume that if the West leaves Afghanistan to its own devices, the Taliban won't return to power.

I'm not going to put that democracy and Islam fatwa up again, but I will remind people that the only kind of democracy that can exist in Islamdom is a Mohammedan "dhimmocracy." It does not in any way resemble an American democracy or the European kind. There is room for only one party rule and that is the party of Standard Islam.

We should declare Afghanistan "free and secure" and see what happens.

If the Taliban win the next elections, well, that's democracy.

Cornelius

I'm not disputing that the Talib could return to power. I'm just suggesting that to prevent a united Islamic power from emerging, every possible internecine conflict within the Pashtun should be encouraged. This would be easy, since the only thing they know is fighting, and in the absense of Infidel forces, they'll turn on each other. Keep following the policy that worked so well in the 80's - keep supplying all sides weapons, and make sure the fighting between them never ends. That should do it.

If the Talib only have control in say, Kandahar, parts of Helmand, Khowst, Jalalalalalabad, et al, al Qaeda won't set up shop there - they'd prefer a stable regime, like the one in 2000.

Infidel Pride (cool handle by the way),

Could happen your way.

Personally, I see a scenario developing like the one in '95-96, when the Taliban built up an irresistible momentum as the only viable alternative to the warlordism that had been thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the Afghan people precisely because of the unremitting blood-letting.

4) Comitato per la pace “Rachel Corrie
Is that Italian for St. Pancake?

St. Breece D'J.

Fascinating post/discussions on Afganistan; One problem with a complete pull-out. The intense scrutiny involved with bringing forces back in if necessary.

One of the greatest benefits of our presence in Afganistan and Iraq is that we can conduct operations from WITHIN the country without drawing the attention that a 're-occupation' would entail. Use the Israeli withdrawl from Lebanon as a current datapoint, every time a squad crosses the border, there are international headlines.

Hugh's analysis that our presence is a large part of the problem is spot-on. But... I'd argue that the biggest stressor is our visibility, not necessarily our capability.

There's a whole lot of sand over there and very few people. Establish protected outposts, away from population centers, as our presence. Fences (and deserts) make good neighbors.

While the outposts would cause symbolic friction, it would be nothing like our boots-on-the-ground presence in most villages today.

We would retain the ability to project air-power, and deploy ground forces when necessary, throughout the Middle East. We could manage intelligence assets.

This presence would not be able to stop radical groups, but it would be very effective at preventing them from becoming organized.

limes,
Agree with you. That is much better than building roads for these savages and giving them endless money for rebuilding which they would only end up destroying as soon as we left anyway. What Churchill wrote in his book is still valid today. They constantly fight among themselves. taliban came up because pakistan sponsored it, so it could control its own balooches, waziris and other tribes of NWFP. pakistan has little to no control over them, and wants to weaken them using the radical taliban, which, of course, runs amok throughout the world.

Hugh is right, the West needs to husband resources for this long war and not needlessly squander them on the attempt to spread Western liberal democracy in countries with no basis and aptitude for it..

I followed the above poster's link about the young girls being married to older men. All I can say to that;is how heart-breaking. My heart hurts for those little girls and that has been and will taken from them.This illustrates all that is wrong with Afghanistan. The first little girl was in school and wanted to be a teacher, but now she is the sexually play thing of a dirty old man, kept in unending bondage. Her dreams dead. She faces a life of poverty and being a breeder of more mouths to feed and hence more poverty. It is all so self-defeating. The Afghans and the rest of Ummah do all they can to insure their own perpetual misery. May the world one day be rid of Islam and all its cruelties and perversities.

..pretty pathetic, isn't it

It would be nice if a new web site is created called Sharia Watch. Like Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch, Sharia Watch could also be a blog where people could post comments about specific articles. However, unlike Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch, Sharia Watch would focus exclusively on the crimes that are committed in the name of Islamic Law.

If Sharia Watch exists, people will be able to know more about the legal innequities that exist in the Islamic world.