"The people know we are returning to power." From a Newsweek report on the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan:
Oct. 2, 2006 issue - You don't have to drive very far from Kabul these days to find the Taliban. In Ghazni province's Andar district, just over a two-hour trip from the capital on the main southern highway, a thin young man, dressed in brown and wearing a white prayer cap, stands by the roadside waiting for two NEWSWEEK correspondents. It is midday on the central Afghan plains, far from the jihadist-infested mountains to the east and west. Without speaking, the sentinel guides his visitors along a sandy horse trail toward a mud-brick village within sight of the highway. As they get closer a young Taliban fighter carrying a walkie-talkie and an AK-47 rifle pops out from behind a tree. He is manning an improvised explosive device, he explains, in case Afghan or U.S. troops try to enter the village.In a parched clearing a few hundred yards on, more than 100 Taliban fighters ranging in age from teenagers to a grandfatherly 55-year-old have assembled to meet their provincial commander, Muhammad Sabir. An imposing man with a long, bushy beard, wearing a brown and green turban and a beige shawl over his shoulders, Sabir inspects his troops, all of them armed with AKs and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. He claims to have some 900 fighters, and says the military and psychological tide is turning in their favor. "One year ago we couldn't have had such a meeting at midnight," says Sabir, who is in his mid-40s and looks forward to living out his life as an anti-American jihadist. "Now we gather in broad daylight. The people know we are returning to power."
Read it all.
Get big enough to cause trouble? Maybe/probably...return to power? Probably not, unless the wishy washy Bush administration allows it...
This Taliban soldier just outside Kabul obviously isn't watching the Administration's press conferences. If he had, he would know that the Taliban is crushed, the Afghan people have overwhelmingly chosen democracy and rejected the small band of radical Taliban, and Hamid Karzai's government is in firm control of Afghanistan. He, this Taliban soldier, didn't watch the Administration's press conferences, because he and his comrades were too busy taking over Afghanistan again.
Let's go over it again: bombing Afghanistan after 9/11: makes sense. Overthrowing the Taliban and killing as many as humanly possible: makes sense. Rewarding them (for what?!!) by rebuilding their infrastructure: doesn't make sense. Thinking that we will somehow get the Afghans to take on our traditional values and reject their own: doesn't make sense. Telling the American public that things are going our way in Afghanistan, despite all the evidence to the contrary: doesn't make sense.
This is no way to run a war.
I think the NFL season has started, so to use a football analogy, you don't declare yourself the victor in the first 10 minutes of the game after you score the first touchdown of the game. You don't then start helping the other team carry the ball down the field towards your own endzone, all the while asking them "now do you like us?". You don't ask them if you can carry their helmet for them and offer them a waterbottle as they are marching towards their touchdown.
The attempted comparison between Afghanistan and Japan and Germany after WWII is so extremely wrong that it's hard to know where to begin. We have not "defeated" the jihadists in Afghanistan, Iraq, or anywhere else in the world, the way we defeated Germany and Japan. We have won military victories whenever and wherever we have faced the jihadists; our military (including Israel's and UK's) is beyond comparison. But we have done NOTHING to convince the Islamic ummah, dar al-Islam, that they cannot win. We have not convinced them that we will not allow their values into our society. We have not made it clear that they are not welcome in our society. If we are losing in Afghanistan, it is not a military failure, it is a policy failure, a policy of avoiding knowing or admitting who (or better, what) the enemy is.
1. Afghan with gun= Taliban
2. Afghan without gun= "civilian" or 'villager'...
3. Afghan with gun & money= "Rent an ally in the WoT..."
When out of money, our 'ally' goes back to no. 1...
Rebuilding their infrastructure does more than reward them. It convinces them that they're winning, else why would we give them jizya?
Here is a revealing article from this story: "One year ago we couldn't have had such a meeting at midnight," says Sabir, who is in his mid-40s and looks forward to living out his life as an anti-American jihadist. "Now we gather in broad daylight". And proof of this is the political correctness shown by the US in not bombing a Taliban funeral and taking out more than 150 Jihadi big cheeses 'out of respect', when they were spotted by a drone. How many lives will this unwillingness to act and take out these Jihadis cost in the end? They probably know about this episode, and that battlefield etiquette is so one-sided. They would never show this sort of restraint towards us. At the end of the day, political correctness and the fact that it is forcing us to fight with one hand tied behind our backs, is losing us this war for our civilization.
This is why the Taliban needs to be wiped out wherever they're found-funerals, weddings, anywhere. The war doesn't end by merely throwing the savages out of power.
I was really disappointed when I heard this last night. You MUST give it a listen folks.
Is Bush a confused Christian?
Excerpts from an interview by Charles Gibson.
http://www.thebereancall.org/radio/radio/2006/3806b.mp3
This is bad news folks. Here is our President, in his own words, saying that allah and Jehovah are the same God.
It takes a minute to get past all the address details and details about this radio program website, but once the radio program begins, it goes straight into the interview. So be patient, it’s a real eye-opener.
Although Islam and Jihad's role in inciting violence can not be denied, yet the tribes here are war loving people, they need an enemy to fight, just as others need food. I might be wrong but I have an impression that all the early followers of Islam were of similar temperament and culture, that is why violence and fight has been so much appreciated in the Koran.