Here again we see that those in authority had no mechanism for and/or no interest in distinguishing "moderates" who merited being given powerful positions in post-Taliban Afghanistan from Islamic supremacists and jihadists. And even they had cared to make such a distinction and tried to do so, how could they have gone about it? "Wikileaks Afghanistan: police chief doubled as Iranian spy," by John Bingham in the Telegraph, July 27:
A powerful Afghan police chief doubled as an Iranian spy and drugs lord, a leaked US report claims.The man, described as a "notorious criminal" is said to have secured his position through the influence of Iran's Revolutionary Guard over local warlords in southern Afghanistan....
It recounts how the man, named in redacted versions only as X, is said to have had links with Iran stretching back to the time of the war against the invading Soviet forces the 1980s.
"It was reported that [X] is a notorious criminal in Afghanistan and a spy for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)," the report alleges.
"During the time of the jihad in Afghanistan against the Russians, [X] did not participate in the jihad, but went into Iran and became a spy for the IRGC.
"By order of the IRGC, the jihadi commanders in western Afghanistan were to protect [X] and help him attain a government job.
"In this way, [X] became [a] chief of police."
While he was chief of police, says the report, he "encouraged the farmers of Bala Bluk, Khaki Safeed, and Bagwa districts, Farah province, to start to cultivate poppies"....
What do we learn from the leaked documents?
In one sense, the well-prepared learn nothing they did not already know, about the bottomless corruption of the warlords, big and little, in Afghanistan, about the meretriciousness of the Pakistani military and government, about the quickness with which Muslim "friends" can turn on you, about the readiness of Muslims to blame the Infidels for anything, for everything, about the endless naivete of rough-tough American soldiers, those who have been brainwashed into believing in -- they want to believe, they have to believe, they participate in forcing themselves to believe -- this business of winning local hearts and minds, in Afghanistan as in Pakistan, by showing that the locals are trusted (but they aren't), and their police and army who work beside the Americans are to be trusted (but they aren't), and their local officials are to be trusted (but they aren't).
No, in one sense we learn nothing, except that now it is harder for the denialists, those who keep thinking we can rely on the "good Muslims" to be our true-blue friends and "help us" against the "violent extremists" when, of course, it is all those who believe in Islam who must be treated as our enemies, for it is they who are raised up in the belief that between Muslims and Infidels a state of permanent war must exist, that Dar al-Islam must push back and eventually swallow up Dar al-Harb, and that Infidels are always to be regarded with mistrust and hostility amounting often to hatred, for that is what Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira teach, and there is no way for American soldiers, building schools or roads or distributing money, clothes, food, toys, to ever undo what Islam inculcates.
But in another sense, we have it given more flesh. We find out, for example, that those Stinger missiles the Americans supplied the Muhajideen, to be used against the Soviets, are apparently now being used to bring down American helicopters and drones. That has always been denied by the American military; they have claimed that no Stingers are still operational. Or are these Stingers perhaps from some other Muslim armory, say that of Pakistan, or even Saudi Arabia? Who knows?
And we find out about the corruption, and realize that such corruption turns the people against the government that we are trying to keep in place, and which we supply with the billions that then become the object of that very corruption that might not exist if there were no American money to be corrupt about. One more idiocy, still to be grasped -- don't give money to Muslim states. They will inevitably misuse it, and corruption will inevitably create such anger and resentment that will inevitably lead to support for Al Qaeda or other groups that think exactly like Al Qaeda.
And what else? Oh, I don't know. Is it tragicomical, this Comedy of Errors and Terrors, that apparently has no swift denouement, for we are still unwilling to fashion policies based on a clear understanding of the need to divide, demoralize, weaken, the Camp of Islam, and we can do that without spending three trillion dollars, and could spend possibly only a hundredth of that, and get much better results far more cheaply and effectively, if more in power, like Bolger's Man of Straw, only had a brain.
It sounds like X is not quite X enough...
Hugh is right, they are not trustworthy, and they are not going to become trustworthy no matter how much money we squander on them...And it's not just the Taliban in Afghanistan or Pakistan...As long as Mahoundians piously believe in the word of Allah, and the examples of Mahound, there is nothing there to trust...Q 98:6...
How can you buy a Mahoundians heart and mind when Allah already owns them? And Allah hates kufr...
OK, if foreigners ever invade your country, disband your police and military, and start bombing your wedding parties, just be cooperative. Be thankful and greatful for them. Never tell them a lie, and always give them exactly what they want.
"Disband your police and military"? The Americans have spent tens of billions trying to build up a modern, well-armed, well-trained army and police force in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite all their efforts, however, those forces remain completely untrustworthy, ineffective, hotbeds of corruption, and potentially destabilizing. The hundreds of thousands of Muslim men, trained and armed by the Americans, may stand as just one example of the colossal folly of American policies.
Neither the Americans, nor any other Infidels, should try to fashion and execute policies based on a misunderstanding of Muslim peoples and polities, and that misunderstanding will always be evident, if the study of Islam and of the history of Islamic conquest (and subjugation of many different non-Muslim peoples after the seizure of their lands). Best to leave those Muslim states alone, have as little to do with Muslim peoples as possible -- and severly restrict their ability to come and settle in our own countries, and to use our systems of benefits -- and unlimited amounts of money from the Saudis and other Gulf Arabs -- to thrive and establish themselves, as a presence that is permanently dangerous, even if for the moment, prudentially, in some places, misleadingly and deliberately quiescent.
The thing that really bugs me about Muselmen like you is that even when you have a legitimate gripe (happens sometimes), you still lie in order to embellish the gripe further, or beyond any reasonable comprehension, all in the name of boosting your own self-esteem and sense of grievance.
"Being Moslem means never having to say you're sorry."
And don't think for a second that we in the west have not noticed how NOTHING is EVER your fault, even when something clearly is.
Sissy, wimp, girly-crybabies is all you moslems are, and your lack of honesty and sense of fairness is going to be one of the pillars of your undoing.
I cannot, offhand, remember a SINGLE instance when some moslem in power came out and announced "We were at fault for (whatever situation), we were wrong and and we apologize for it (whatever it was)."
Nope. It's always "The Jooos, the Imperial Americans, somebody else, not us, even though we stand here with blood on our hands, the Americans or somebody else must have put it there."
Even when you kill each other over clearly theological or political internal struggles, you have to blame others for it.
Have you no sense of honor whatsoever? (That's a rhetorical question).
You know, it's all going to catch up with you...
Yusef. My man! Have you forgotten about 9/11? This nabi, nabi ZK (pbum), says that until the evil forces which acted on that day are completely eradicated there will be no peace and such little things like shock and awe are to be expected. Like the man said, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Right?
Of course the nabi does not care a whit about a wedding party in Kandahar. But you might want to check that this latest bombing was probably done by the Taliban or other mohametan scum. It doesn't look like the western M.O. of death from above if you know what I, nabi ZK (pbum), mean. Just saying.
The evil mohametan doctrines will be abandoned or there will be continuous war against the mohametans. And that is a very good thing and only to be expected. The mohametan world is under assault and not just by the USA but by modernity itself. This silly belief system will surely wither and die. It can't happen soon enough in the estimation of this nabific nabi, nabi ZK (pbum).
nabi ZK (pbum)
Yusef YK is just one of those nefarious far-right Moslem agiatators, the likes of which we're seeing more of these days.
An answerless fool with who blathers on and drops dive-bombed stink ordinance, but then is miles away when serious arguments are made to counter his harebrained "claims."
He's a coward just like Islam's "perfect man" Mahommad.
The WikiLeaks documents were U.S. Army documents, so presumably every single thing that was contained in them were "known" by at least some faction of the Army, probably field commanders and possibly also the U.S. Ambassador and his superiors at Langley and Foggy Bottom. The question Hugh asks above ultimately boils down to whether any of this information from the field, information gained, digested and evaluated by Army personnel, was actually being read, understood, and contextualized at higher levels.
The boom is about to be lowered on the young 22 year old Army kid who leaked this info, and who is looking at spending quite a number of years, perhaps life, in Ft. Leavenworth (military prison in Kansas). Other heads will probably roll, too, although if the past is any guide the blood letting will probably be limited to the lower ranks. I will guess, though, if one looks carefully, one will find numerous plans quietly being made to "spend more time with the family" (i.e., forced retirements) and people otherwise scrambling to protect their asses in what is the single largest intelligence leak in the history of the U.S.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand the kid who did this was a traitor of the worst kind, and no intelligence outfit can afford to have loose cannons like this within their ranks. I wonder how he escaped notice? I also worry that Obama and his Leftist supporters will find ways to leverage this affair in such a way as to work against the military. On the other hand, the revelations in those leaked cables confirm what many people have known for a long time about the perfidy of Pakistan, not to mention the incompetence of our people in understanding the milieu they injected themselves into. If the leaked information can be used to discredit the people who have known about but covered up this information for years, and if it can be used to help break the misguided and self-destructive attachment we have to Pakistan, then perhaps some good will come from it. Like I said, I have mixed feelings, though. I wish it were more black and white.
An answerless fool with who blathers on and drops dive-bombed stink ordinance,...
A troll. A mohametan or pseudo mohametan troll. The nabi has experience with such. Thats why I, nabi ZK (pbum), am the total nabi for them.
Believe it Yusef, or suffer a humiliating fate in this world and far worse in the next, where you may be required to wear a sign around your little mohametan neck which announces that you doubted nabi ZK (pbum). Like duh! Hello...
nabi ZK (pbum)
test?
test?
More about the WikiLeaks documents. You can be sure that every intelligence organization in the world, and this would include Iran, Pakistan, Al-Qaeda,..., has downloaded the leaked documents and is now poring over them in great detail to glean what they can about U.S. intelligence methods and to identify vulnerabilities that could be exploited. This is a very serious matter - and a sad day for our intelligence community. I imagine that a thoroughgoing shakeup and review of intelligence operations and security procedures is now underway to prevent similar occurrences in the future. But if it is not accompanied by cleaning out problematical people at the same time, it will only be a rearranging of the furniture. Obama could also use the same crisis to clean out people, except one suspects it would be the wrong people.
Maybe Yusuf YK and his Muslim buddies can thank the Taliban for keeping their people wallowing in 7th century misery and forever in mindless violence...subject to the whims of the very religious Muslim warlords....
OK, if foreigners ever invade your country, disband your police and military, and start bombing your wedding parties, just be cooperative.
That's pretty much describes Hamas...They invaded Gaza, disbanded the police, became the military, and bomb wedding parties, or at least shoot them up...The 'Palestinian people' are very cooperative...or else...
"start bombing your wedding parties"
lol
But, how are those 12-year-old girls forcibly married to 45-year-old Muzlim child rapists' doing? Poor things. How revolting. Islam has no shame in how girls/women are treated. No shame at all. There is something VERY WRONG about a society that treats the female half like worm dung.
See the similarity: the Soviets got chucked out of Afghanistan with generous help from America. Now the Americans are in the process of getting chucked out with generous help from - from the Americans! I bet Lewis Carroll must be squirming in his grave for not having thought of such an episode in his Alice in Wonderland books.
BTW the NYT is downplaying the double-crossing Pakistani angle by quoting folks who say that intelligence gathered by the troops in the field is of poor value (rumors, BS, hearsay etc). But it does concede that about 130 of the leaked documents on the topic do seem credible. I thought even one credible document would have been more than enough. NYT seems more concerned about civilian casualties and Afghan corruption. The paper seems to be rather sparing with sympathy for the dead and wounded soldiers who might have been alive and well today but for the double crossing Pakistanis.
Well, I'd bet the farm if I had one that there will be lots of blood flowing in parts of Afghanistan now. Much information is out now on exactly who has been providing America and its allies with information on the Talibs and Qaeda. And all this because someone could have his fifteen minutes of fame and play the professional "agonized conscience".
I say this as someone who always thought that trying to catch OBL in Afghanistan was a big mistake; and who thinks Hugh's posting is basically correct. Still, we have a moral obligation to people who were helping us in our hunt for the badmash who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11. I hope that this leaker gets put away for a good long time, if not hanged on the green.
While we're at it, here's a link:
http://unclecephas.blogspot.com/2010/07/blood-for-fifteen-minutes-of-fame.html