Yeah-another success story or are we kidding ourselves that Afghanistan will ever progress a few decades out of the Stone Age?Infidels will never prevail against the black,evil rock at the heart of Islam particularly with Pakistan providing an unending supply of Taleban over the border.Nice touch-'U.N' label to deceive Infidels.

Posted by: Morgane at September 24, 2006 8:01 AM

Well, here is a ray of sunshine....

Let's hope it is not an isolated event.

--- or is it a bone, tossed by Afghanistan to calm anti-terror, anti-jihad, anti-muslim fears... to lull us back to sleep?

Not any more.

Posted by: alert-up-usa at September 24, 2006 8:03 AM

The whole war on terror is producing the opposite effect that it intended.

It was naive to think that a moderate government could be invoked in Afghanistan after ousting the Taliban.

The main loyalty of the Afghans is still towards the same Islamic principles that inspired the Taliban.

Pakistan has been spared the attacks that it deserved for having bred the Taliban in the first place and having allowed it to hide in its territory later.

Those countries are snakepits. And they will continue to produce poison, until the real enemies are identified, isolated and destroyed.

Posted by: rocky at September 24, 2006 8:51 AM

Pervez Musharraf - Pakistan
(a DECLARED NUCLEAR WEAPONS STATE)

Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world, is home to the second most populous city in the world, and is the second most populous Muslim country.

Pakistan has the seventh largest armed forces in the world and is a declared nuclear weapons state.

Pakistan is a federal republic with Islam as the state religion.

WATCH OUT!

Posted by: alert-up-usa at September 24, 2006 9:00 AM

All the glad-handing by Musharrif isn't going to convince me we can trust him. Look at the history of the government, and the involement of Islam in that history.

Posted by: alert-up-usa at September 24, 2006 9:02 AM

those officiers should have the firing squad, as their actions would of lead to the death of their own people and the NATO forces. You cannot change people overnight, and l dont think it was ever said that way. the media add extras to their reporting.
What my thinking is while there is some control over Afganstan, there is no open taliban, but killing them and controling the taliban will take a very long time. you let it go, you allow monsters like OBL to operate inthose countries without impunity.

Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at September 24, 2006 9:07 AM

Robert:
You are right on with the central question of our times:
What is the challenge of islam and how to defeat it.
When we see almost all AP stories out of Yahoo are about muslims (exception about a train wreck in Germany).
The demographic attack is almost inexhorable: the West has got to marginalize current muslim ideology immediately: from the streets of Deerborn to those of Gaza and London; from total nonsupport of welfare in the West to withholding of Western technology and capital support throughout the world.
Central on how to effect these measures, to understand the challenge, to meet it, and for us to win, begins with an understanding of islam.
Many thanks.

Posted by: dgene at September 24, 2006 9:34 AM

Amusing story out of Musharrif:

When he complains that he got a phone call from Armitage (denied) demanding cooperation from Pakistan or it would be bombed back to the stone age - note the audience and the sentiment he was appealing to: to the hand wringing self doubting and self hating liberals in the West, the Willie Clitmans, the Jimmy Cattas, the Madeline Halfbrights and their entourage of apologists in the massmedia.

He is taking his playbook from these surrender monkeys !

Posted by: dgene at September 24, 2006 9:42 AM

The British Army had to cope with Afgans for over 150 years and while Islam did not have the world reach it does now they worked on a principal,

"You cannot buy an Afgans loyalty - you can only rent it."

Are we paying to market price in gold?

Posted by: Fred at September 24, 2006 9:45 AM

And one last point:

Are you listening Ibrahim ?

Screw you Ibrahim.

Posted by: dgene at September 24, 2006 9:48 AM

No Fred, we're paying it in blood and loss of freedom.

Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at September 24, 2006 9:58 AM

It would have been a good idea to nuke pakistan.

Now things would be different.

I wonder why Musharraf has waited so long to disclose the threats.

Posted by: rocky at September 24, 2006 10:00 AM

*test*

(sorry. Finally got a Blog. Testing...)

Posted by: Gary at September 24, 2006 10:10 AM

Isabellathecrusader

I know that - I was being sarcastic but to give you another quote from the "last" British Army involvement.

Army officer circa 1890. - "The Afgan tribes have been murdering each other for 1000 years, all we do is add a little spice to the game"

Posted by: Fred at September 24, 2006 10:12 AM

*second test*

(Apologies, Mr. Spencer. Blogging is new to me. I hope that the extremely tiny contribution my blog likely makes to the effort will make up for these two interruptions)

(Suggestions (other than 'go to hell!' :P ) for formatting the Blog, are appreciated (on the Blog, please!))

Posted by: Gary at September 24, 2006 10:13 AM

" by a truck, which was marked with UN emblem and escorted by a military Ranger vehicle."

Are they saying a US Army Ranger vehicle or just some type (brand name) of vehicle ?

Posted by: thehappyinfidel at September 24, 2006 10:27 AM

This or that group of Afghanis will temporarily, as long as the money keeps flowing, collaborate with the Americans. But working to create out of the mishmash of Afghanistan something it never was, and never will be, a unified nation-state. When various local groups can be pitted against those who are most dangerous, and can be aided and supplied and supported and prodded from afar, why should there be tens of thousands of troops, and a great deal of money, used to do what locals can do more ruthlessly and cheaply? The only reason seems to be that the Administration has convinced itself that "poverty" must end. But "poverty" kept Muslims from having enough money left over to conduct the world-wide Jihad. Saudi Arabia and the other Muslim oil states were no threat in 1930, or 1950, or 1960. It was only when the oil bonanza gushed that they became much more sinister, for large amounts of the revenues received naturally were applied to further the Jihad -- and always will be. "Poverty" for Muslims is their natural condition, a condition made natural by their habit of mental submission (which discourages new ways of doing things) and inshallah-fatalism, which hustifies, and reinforces, the natural human tendency not to put in effort.

And the other aim of Bush's policy in Afghanistan, to sow "freedom" which will somehow, in a way unstated and therefore incapable of challenge, lessen the threat of Jihad to Infidels, is based on a stout refusal to consider the significance of Islam as a belief-system. It is not based, and will not for long tolerate, the idea that the will of the people should, expressed through the ballot, be the basis for a government's legitimacy. The despot, even if he may be an enlightened despot, accords better with the nature of Islam and the models of Muhammad and the succession of caliphs and other rulers.

What matters in Islam is the Umma, the collective, not the individual; submission, both intellectual ("Allah Knows Best") and physical; the winner-take-all view of the world as divided between conqueror and the conquered, not as a world where political rivals can come to some accomodation, a world where the art of real compromise is practiced; the belief in permanent war against the enemies of Islam, punctuated here and there by hudnas, that is truces to be entered into only when necessary, and broken whenever one feels strong enough to do so. And all of this gives rise, in societies suffused with Islam, to attitudes that make Western-style democracy, and the compromises and free discussion and free thought and emphasis on the individual, impossible to sustain.

The Western world does not have endless resources. Half-a-trillion dollars has been squandered, in order to create, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the kind of societies that go against the grain of Islam, and that cannot conceivably last for long as long as Islam itself is not weakened.

If one wished both to better defend the West, and indeed to defend Infidels everywhere, and at the same time to make the lives of those born into Islam ultimately better, one would not focus on bringing to Islamic societies the fruits of Western societies, but instead, do nothing to prevent the weakening of the Camp of Islam.

In Iraq, that means playing upon, exploiting rather than working to undo, the sectarian and ethinc divisions that have always existed, that are not attributable to Saddam Hussein alone, nor even to the Sunni Arab rule throughout the history of modern Iraq, but instead are nearly as old as Islam itself, dating back to the first century of Islam. The sectarian divisions between Sunni and Shi'a outside of Iraq can only widen, if within Iraq the Americans leave and there is an open fight for power, a fight that will obviously attract men, money, and materiel from outside Iraq, by those determined to ensure that their co-religionists inside Iraq will win. In the ensuing chaos and hatred, that may have effects in Pakistan ("our staunch ally") and in Saudi Arabia ("our staunch ally") and in Lebanon (where "Democracy Is On the March" but how much better that march would be if Hezbollah volunteers filtered into Iraq to help Shi'a, and died fighting equally-detemined Sunnis?), and in Bahrain, and in Kuwait, and in Yemen.

And if the Kurds are given a little aid from outside, and if the American government were to run diplomatic interference with Turkey, offering American guarantees as to Kurdish territorial demands being limited to the Kurdish-populated areas of Iran and Syria (a guarantee that, as the Americans would be sole supplier of military aid to Kurdistan, can be taken seriously), a free Kurdistan will help to threaten, and preoccupy, the Islamic Republic of Iran, worried not only about the effect on the Iranian Kurds, but on others -- Baluchis, Azeris, Arabs in Khuzistan. And it will threaten as well the Alawi regime of Bashar al-Assad. And finally, a free Kurdistan would inspire other non-Arab Muslims who have suffered from Islam as the "Arab national religion" that has served as a vehicle for Arab supremacism -- especially among the Berbers, both in Algeria and Morocco, and possibly even help to enroll some Berbers in France to work against Arab Muslims within the Muslim immigrant communities. Unsurprisingly, Berbers are much in evidence among the "maghrebins laiques" who reject Islam as a political doctrine -- which is to say, more or less reject Islam.

It is silly in Afghanistan to keep making policy on the basis of Al Qaeda camps having been there. Al Qaeda camps are not that important. There are Muslim groups and individual Muslims training themselves, or being trained, all over the Muslim world -= not least in the two "staunch allies" of the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Shall we invade and occupy Pakistan and Saudi Arabia? And they are being trained, can train and plot all by themselves, in London or Madrid, or anywhere that Muslims can get together and find an apartment, a warehouse, or a field. This image, imprinted on so many retinas, of Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, has made some attribute to Afghanistan a kind of permanent importance it does not possess. Hezbollah does not train in Afghanistan. Hamas does not train in Afghanistan. Jaish-e-Mehdi does not train in Afghanistan, nor Ansar al-Sunna, nor Lashkar-e-Taiba, nor Gemaah Islamiyya, nor Jemaah Islamiya, nor Lashkar Jihad, nor Sipaha-e-Sahaba, nor Ansar al-Islam, nor, for that matter, all the groups of Muhajiroun, the Muslims within the Infidel lands. They don't need Afghanistan to train in. They don't need Iraq. And the more squandering of resources there is, and the more attention is monomaniacally focussed on Iraq and Afghanistan by an obstinate group of policymakers in Washington, whose inability to fathom things fully, maddens (maddens as much as do the critics of the Administration -- that is, the critics who criticize for all the wrong reasons).

A great many "conservative" commmentators cannot let go of their own long-expressed support for the Administration. They would look silly -- or so they think. They continue the cheerleading, and in the end, it is they who will have damaged -- possibly permanently -- their own claim, whatever it was, on our attention. Some are giving signs of comprehension, but have to do it in tiny steps, so as not to draw attention to the difference between what they are writing or saying now, and what they wrote and said over the past five years. Their claques are diminishing, but not past enough. And support for the war being conducted to bring "freedom" to "moms and dads" in Iraq is also diminishing, but not always for the right reasons (but any reason, at this point, will do), and not fast enough -- or at least not fast enough to get the Administration to get out of Iraq, and not into, but over the skies, of Iran.

Posted by: Hugh at September 24, 2006 10:54 AM

Having met a few Afghans I can tell you there is a simple way to test their loyalty. If their mouths are moving they are lying.

Posted by: Ronin at September 24, 2006 11:01 AM

Ronin

Very observant of you. Its a good day for quotes take this one from a Major Mitford about the Amir in 1879,

"What his true reasons for this step may have been we never knew, certainly not the one he gave, for no Afghan ever told the truth intentionally!"

Posted by: Fred at September 24, 2006 11:37 AM

Hmmm so history does repeat itself, thanks Fred.

Posted by: Ronin at September 24, 2006 11:44 AM

Why does this sort of thing happen? Because the question of whether or not these officers adhered to the ideology of jihad and the subjugation of infidels is something that the Americans wouldn't care, and the Afghans wouldn't dare, to ask about.

Could these smugglers just be criminals with no idealogy? Why do we expect criminals in Afghanistan to have idealogy beyond their own selfishness and survival? This incident could, might be a chance to make a quick buck. Afghanistan poppy cultivation is just a criminal interprise, no more no less. To attach wide conspiratorial motives to this gun running incident just might be the wrong conclusion.

The destruction of the SS Normandie was a Mafia operation made to look like German sabotage. It actually hurt America's war effort, but it gave the Mafia more control over the New York docks with the blessings of the US Government. It also gave Charles Luciano the illusion of helping keep the docks secure. Another example, Joe Valachi testified that Vito Genovese made a small fortune stealing gasoline ration stamps.

It did not matter to the criminals in America who was in power, Demorats, Republicans, or Nazis. It would make no diference. It will make no difference in Afghanistan. Don't allow yourselves to believe that criminals have any patriotism.

Posted by: Pelayo at September 24, 2006 11:59 AM

Hugh,

one of your most valuable posts.

If only someone at Foggy Bottom is listening.

Most strange that they have to learn statecraft from an outsider.

Most strange that they have to learn about islam from a small outsider blog site with many courageous bloggers.

What can save our world.

Posted by: dgene at September 24, 2006 12:47 PM

Hugh writes:

"This image, imprinted on so many retinas, of Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, has made some attribute to Afghanistan a kind of permanent importance it does not possess."

But since shutting the door to Muslims would be blasphemous to our State Religion, Liberalism, we are compelled to pursue the insane, impossible, and ineffective policies of our Liberally Correct leaders -- opening the gate to even more Muslims, while making our security dependent on turning all the world's Muslims into non-Muslims.

Liberals have taken control of the plane and are flying it into the ground. What's it going to take before we storm the cockpit?

Posted by: Zeno at September 24, 2006 1:21 PM

The way to solve the Afghan problem is withdraw all foreign forces from there, and encourage a civil war - Pak backed Pashtun/Taliban vs Iran backed Hazaras vs Tajikistan backed Tajiks... Just make sure that unlike 1996, when the Taliban took over, none of these parties are allowed to gain a decisive upper hand.

Hugh: correction - Lashkar-e-Taiba did train in Afghanistan, and was joined at the hip to the Taliban.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at September 24, 2006 2:17 PM

The CIA and State Dept. must be subjected to a thorough quality assurance audit, if such a thing is possible in the DC metro, and either reorganized or just shut down as per the findings. I especially point to all the Moslems who got hired as Arabic translators after the jihad terror assault after September 11.

Clearly the CIA and State are worthless organizations operationally, and in those rare moments when they do rise up off their dead asses to do a hard day's work work to harm American interests.

610 * 623 * 732 * 1066 * 1215 * 1453 * 1492 * 1683 * 1928 * 1938 * 1948 * 1996 * 2001

The good news is that opium poppy sales are booming in Afghan. It is projected that Afghan will account for 93% of world heroin production this year.

This is an opportunity. After that horrible little man Kofi Anan (and his son) got busted on the oil-for-food fraud bribe scam, they've been hurting. Let's ship in cadres of blue helmets from Western Europe to tranship truckloads of opium to their intended heroin production facilities in Macau, Mexico, Canada, China, and Colombia. That'd be great.

Kofi owes his ugly son a franchise, and the 9/11 junk biz could be the ticket. He could buy a real nice place on the upper east side with the proceeds.

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at September 24, 2006 2:18 PM

dgene observes...Most strange that they have to learn about islam from a small outsider blog site with many courageous bloggers.

We live in strange times, Orwell was almost right...so far. Truth is called lies and lies are called truths. Telling the 'truth' can get you killed. If you tell the truth about most anything, someone, somewhere, wants to kill you for it. It used to be ' I dis-agree with what you say, but I will fight for your right to say it'. Now, if you say something negative about a religion, even if it's true, you are a bigot and an intollerant hypocrite.
If you say something negative about any race, even if it's true, you are a bigot and a racist. If you say anything negative about gays, even if it's true, you are a bigot and a homophobe.
The motto is 'If you dont have anything good to say, then dont say anything at all'. If you speak out,'they' have a 'label' for you. That works fine for children and idiots, but adults live in a complex world, where the 'truth, even if it hurts, is required. As in the case of Islam and it's jihads against the west and other happless victims. Unfortunatly telling the truth can often make you a target, the Pope for instance. Truth tellers and truth killers are constantly at war with each other. The way to slay the slayer of truth is to bombard it with more truth. Putting oneself at risk by telling the truth, is of a very high standard. Those who do it are hero's of the first order. This includes RS and Hugh JW/DW and many other truth tellers, who are comming out of the closet and expressing themselves.
'Out of the mud a lotus grows'. It is strange that the 'Lotus of The Truth of Islam' is germinating in the mud of the internet blogs, but then, 'you know who' works in strange and mysterious ways.
Have a good day...

Posted by: duh_swami at September 24, 2006 2:37 PM

Alarmed Pig Farmer l have a better idea for all that heroin, why not just sell it back to the Iranians and other assorted muslims.. they need a good high for where they want to go. heck they cant eat pork, they can't drink a good beer, or any other alcohol product. so what the heck send the heroin back to iran. that littel man in iran needs some good stuff to losen up. reason for covering up iranian men, is if they were at a poolside party, someone would think they let out the monkeys.

Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at September 24, 2006 4:44 PM

Could it be that

Afhanistan has not really been redeemed

Pakistan is a cesspool

Saudi Arabia is a latrine

Egypt is a dungheap

Or do we have the wrong impression of what Islam is?

Posted by: unicorns62000 at September 24, 2006 5:47 PM

Yes & no:

I was in Laos during 1972/73 when "Air America" was delivering weapons to the Laotian army - and it was no secret then that many of these weapons ended up with the communist Pathet Lao just a few days later. I have met some of those Laotian generals and they were so utterly corrupt that It would pain me to describe their behavior in detail here.
However: They had already made plans to move either to France or to the states in case the war-effort failed. And fail it did. Only the Hmong hill-tribes fought bravely against the communists and as a result they are persecuted and killed and in refugee-camps to this very day.
In this case it was obviously criminal behavior, few, if any of those corrupt thugs would be communists, they simply stole what they could steal...
In Afghanistan this is not the case, the situation is quite different: There you have Islam and nothing but Islam that unites them like nothing else. The infidels are an 'invading' army for all of them and none of the Afghans including Karzai or his foreign minister Abdullah can be trusted.
None of these 'war-lords' or 'allies in the WoT' would have the faintest scruples to sell weapons to the Taliban, they are their brothers in every way, and infidels will always remain infidels...

They will bleed the infidels as long as they can and will deceive them as long as they will allow themselves to be deceived. All efforts of "nation-building" in islamic lands are a total waste of manpower and material, especially when the west allows them to establish "democracy under sharia"- what an absurdity!

A comical tragedy!

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at September 24, 2006 7:28 PM

This story is about as surprising as discovering that the Pope is Catholic.

Afghanistan is a mess and always will be. Tribes do not make nations,but they do make wars. Expecting diverse tribes like these to live peacefully within any kind of national boundaries
would be like expecting the earth to stop orbiting the sun.

Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at September 24, 2006 8:51 PM

Sheik yer'mami is right.

Nothing can ever reform them,be it any *cracy or ism*.The very word Hindukush stands for "slaughter of Hindus".Why this fatal attraction towards these deadly respirating carcasses beyond redemption?

Read the following:

http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=OPED&file_name=opd3%2Etxt&counter_img=3

Zombiesque hindus wallowing in self deception have got it coming.Posting a little:

"The threat of local jihadis:

Terrorism has struck deep roots in India and Nizam-e-Mustafa is the cry now. Terrorist groups sponsored by Pakistan are always there to bleed India through a thousand cuts but now they have managed to penetrate deep into the urban areas. People of a particular community who hold high offices in banks, teach in schools, colleges, lawyers, doctors, computer experts and science graduates have got ensnared in the terrorist network. Terrorist groups have now white-collared individuals among them as recruits.

Trends indicate that persons with no previous criminal background are being motivated purely on ideological grounds. Terrorism is now an internal phenomenon with urban and rural belts churning out radicals, internal security experts say.

Indian Muslims are being recruited in terrorist networks that have spawned a surge of deadly attacks across the country, forcing us to acknowledge the grim reality of homegrown Islamist terror. Investigations ...have found that terrorist modules and sleeper cells exist in some of our urban areas, which highlight the seriousness of the threat.

Terrorism cannot be neutralised merely by police action. It is no more a law and order problem but a political challenge.

Terrorism is a war that begins in the minds of the people.

Locally bred terrorists pose a new and more difficult challenge to India's internal security. They can carry out their hidden agenda with greater facility than foreigners and melt more easily into the general population.
Security agencies have been demanding action against local modules but it is anticipated that any punitive action now would further alienate the minorities.

Madarsas are the new breeding grounds of "home-grown" terrorists. Pernicious propaganda is being unleashed on young minds. They are not being taught subjects like science and technology but hatred. Madarsas are churning out Indian version of the Taliban, says the official.

If it is not addressed with a sense of urgency or immediacy, the country will have to pay a very heavy price".

Posted by: Crows&Cows at September 25, 2006 2:42 AM

This incident about Afghan Army Officers being arrested for smuggling arms and ammunitions and supplying them to the Taleban occured last month.

The truck did not bear a UN Emblem but had UN licence plates which is produced by some shady underground outfit.

The other vehicle involved was not an Army Ranger but a Ford Ranger. These Ford Rangers have been supplied by the US to the ANA (Afghan National Army).

The media has to get their story correct before they publish it.

Smuggling of arms and ammunitions and supplying them to the Taleban is occuring every day. This is nothing new.

I know first hand because I am here on the ground in Kabul, Afghanistan since 2004.

I feel this is a fruitless effort for the world community.

What we have to ask ourselves is why are we here? Why are we sending our troops to war in Afghanistan? Is it worth it? The Taleban do get support from certain elements within the country.

Posted by: barook at September 25, 2006 7:06 AM