WB: Mullah Omar Come Home: All is Forgiven

October 3, 2006

Billmon:

More likely, this is part of some half-hearted, fumbling effort to peel away the Taliban "moderates" and "bring them into the process," like the attempt to bring the Sunni into the big tent in Iraq — a ploy which, we now know, almost worked too well.

Either way, I think we can take a guess at the larger motive: To shore up (or at least simmer down) the Afghanistan front in advance of the attack on Iran.

Mullah Omar Come Home: All is Forgiven

Posted by b on October 3, 2006 at 04:06 UTC | Permalink

Comments

All is forgiven? There are two sides to that.
Rolling Stone: The Unending Torture of Omar Khadr

He was a child of jihad, a teenage soldier in bin Laden’s army. Captured on the battlefield when he was only fifteen, he has been held at Guantanamo Bay for the past four years — subjected to unspeakable abuse sanctioned by the president himself

Posted by: b | Oct 3 2006 5:47 utc | 1

Six years of Bushism have made us very sick and traumatized puppies. Mentally battered but still attached to the childish, pseudo-coherent feelgood movie we used to call “our political reality”. So along comes Mr. Frist and talks sensibly, and along come the Brits and make the only deal that makes sense in Afghanistan now that Pakistan has made the same one in Waziristan… and what does Billmon do? He complains about cognitive dissonance instead of popping the champagne and celebrate the fact that, in Afghanistan at least, we appear to have started to do the sensible thing and are at long last deescalating. After five years of striking out non-stop, the Anglos appear to have hit the ball! Now celebrate, don’t sulk.

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Oct 3 2006 11:12 utc | 2

The Americans backed the Taliban and negotiated with them both before and after 96 even if almost no country recognised the Taliban as the legitimate Gvmt. The Taliban victory was in a sense a Pakistani victory (pipeline, poppy trade..) It was thought the Taliban could hold the country. (They couldn’t.)
Iran, India, and Russia in public supported the old regime (President Rabbani) while the CIA poured in money and arms for Mistah Taleb.
In 1999, the CIA stepped up ties with Massoud (Northern Alliance) in line with capturing Binny – ….
Massoud gets some help, not much. He perpetually requests more, without success (officially the US is ‘neutral’ in this affair.) The rest of the International community also hesitates. As 9/11 approaches, he warns the US and Europe of an upcoming attack. On 9/9 he is assassinated by Belgian freaks (called Al Quaeda in the US.)
After 9/11 the US is fed up with the Taliban and diplomacy, and has an excuse to fight war. They switch sides, instrumentalise the only ones who can help and take up with the Northern Alliance. When the Taliban were routed and an ‘interim’ Gvmt. set up the US and Pakistan insisted that Talibans be included in it; they were opposed by India and Russia. (I forget the position of other countries.) The US prevailed.
The President of Afghanistan is an ex tribal leader who supported the Taliban. He co-opted warlords, appointed them governors (thus part of the Gvmt.) thus securing the Pashtun vote, in several elections. These warlords had previously been put out of action by the Taliban. (?) The US effort of ‘reconciliation’ (between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban) failed, notably because the US did not put pressure on Pakistan to help.
Mullah Omar, the (ex) leader of the Taliban, is a public figure in Afgh. today. He refused to stand in the last elections, gave a lot of dramatic speeches, what about I haven’t a clue. According to US media ‘he continues to evade capture.’ I wonder if he still rides a moped, very dangerous if you have only one eye. The Lion of Panshir is now a dead hero. Binny’s ghost makes occasional appearances in the US media.
I agree with Guthman’s post – seriously!- that this news is more positive than negative, in part because:
My difficulty with the press articles that Billmon quotes is that I perceive a tendency to name any violent opposition to the Coalition / Nato as ‘the Taliban’. Surely some of them are just plain old local despots (‘war lords’ in the press), probably those who were NOT favored by Karzai. They are anti-foreign and anti-Gvmt. As the west’s ‘state building’ is shoddy and the Gvmt is a ridiculous joke, no big surprise…
The way to settle turf wars is to negotiate, compromise. And do it again.

Posted by: Noirette | Oct 3 2006 12:05 utc | 3

heh that was a splash of potted history!

Posted by: Noirette | Oct 3 2006 12:13 utc | 4

I just read via No Quarter about the first reactions to Frist among right wingers: Deep deep unhappiness! Rage! Frist, you are destroying our movie!

Goodbye GOP.
Perhaps we should make peace with Zawahiri as well? Let’s negotiate, and see what terms we can get as good dhimmis.
The hell with the lot of them.

God I love this! I love it love it love i love it!
Rove to Bush: We really have a big psyops problem here.
They really need to lose the November election so they have an excuse and a cover for the unfolding policy change. Without that cover the wingnut base will eat them alive.

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Oct 3 2006 12:34 utc | 5

OK here is Guthman pushing his twisted logic another step forward:
Since the Republicans need cover for the unfolding GWOT policy change (and by the way: stop fretting about Iran. Iran is a real power. The US of A only beats up cripples and retards.), aren’t they probably self-engineering their own demise? Isn’t the timing of that Foley story very interesting?
The ex-Republicans and ex-CIA people at No Quarter are in giddy overdrive. “Is the GOP in Free Fall?” they ask in their latest post this morning.
Stefanopoulos says the “Republican house is burning down”. The Washington Times asks Hastert to resign! How cute, how coordinated — and all about sex!
I say: (a) the Republicans are desperate to be out of there and let Pelosi and her Dem’crat Nancygirls and girlymen friends take the heat for deescalating. And (b) on the PSYOPS side of the universe, we will now be subjected to a movie entitled: the American system still works.
P.S. If my conjecture is right, then this is Wall-Street driven system change, which means it’s bullish for Wall Street, which means higher equity prices.

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Oct 3 2006 14:24 utc | 6

@ Guthman Bey
given that neither democrats nor republicans want verifiable voting, your theory becomes very do-able. It only takes a few votes here and there to tip the scales one way or another.
these are truly interesting times.

Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 3 2006 15:08 utc | 7

Kind of agree with Guthman here. Very timely OpEd appeared yesterday by William Pfaff on this same topic. Here’s a snippet:

Now the Taliban are back. Why? For better or for worse this revivalist religious movement, which began in Pakistan and was promoted by Pakistani intelligence in the struggle over control of Afghanistan as the Russians left, remains a vital manifestation of Pathan identity.
The 23 million Pathans in Pakistan and Afghanistan are used to dominating southern Afghanistan and the Northwest Frontier region of Pakistan, where President Pervez Musharraf has just recognized an autonomous Pathan “Islamic Emirate of Waziristan.” The Pathans have successfully resisted foreign control since before the time of Alexander the Great, and seem determined to continue. Why are the United States and NATO now at war with them?
Neither the overall Pathan community of 40 million people nor the Taliban movement itself are “terrorists.” The Taliban link with Osama ben Ladin was a matter of religious ideology. The Taliban are no threat to the United States, and their return to Afghanistan is a political phenomenon linked to Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s failure to establish his authority much beyond Kabul, the resurgence of warlord power, and, in such conditions, revival of the opium poppy trade.
The Karzai government’s weakness is a problem for Pakistan, as Musharraf tried, with limited success, to explain in Washington and London last week.
The United States has a legitimate interest in the success of the Karzai government, but this does not extend to fighting a new Afghan civil war on its behalf, against a Taliban movement possessing its own legitimacy inside the Pathan community — itself likely to be around centuries after the United States and NATO have left Afghanistan.

Entire piece is here:
Link to Pfaff OpEd

Posted by: McGee | Oct 3 2006 16:39 utc | 8

If the anticicpated attack on Iran becomes more than a short-term in-&-out operation, it will not be a good thing. Especiallly if seizing the Iranian Balochistan & oil-rich Khuzestan regions is anywhere in the plan. And it gets worse if action in the Afghan/Pakistan Baloch regions also feature in the plan.
One thing thats for sure is Mullah Omar does not want to tangle with Iran or Pakistan or Chinese interests. As for bringing the Taliban into the Afghan govt, it might be an interesting exit strategy.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Oct 3 2006 17:37 utc | 9

… this is Wall-Street driven system change
That would be my read too, Guthman Bey.
Every Republican scribbler suddenly has permission to speak in opposition, and every Republican-owned media outlet is covering all of it. Send Frist, who isn’t running again, to Afghanistan.
Washington Monthly (not Republican, as far as I know) actually runs a series of essays this month “Time for Us to Go – Conservatives on why the GOP should lose in 2006.” Christopher Buckley, Joe Scarborough, Richard Viguerie, etc.
How is it orchestrated? Do they send out a memo in invisible ink?

Posted by: small coke | Oct 3 2006 20:11 utc | 10

Karzai is weak because no one has given him the wherewithall.
There are about 1 000 (guessing) NGOs walking over each other’s feet in Afghanistan. These try and coordinate with 2 different armies who fight (the Coalition) and fight and re-build, that is rush around, get nothing done and eat up billions of dollars (Nato).
Factlets:
Afghans who have electricity: 6%
women who die in childbirth: one every half hour
number of schools burnt down in the past year (about): 300
Number of policemen who also belong to a militia: unknown but very large, half or more?
Corruption: has reached the incorruptibles – schoolteachers. they now demand phone cards or chickens to correct homework or give exams.
Societies that don’t function often return to authoritarian (and therefore religious) command, as well as a patchy territorial organisation, based on group belonging. Obsurantism does ensure some kind of stability, an place one can at least walk in (if only bearded / tented), where the rules are known, and survival can be calculated.

Posted by: Noirette | Oct 4 2006 16:46 utc | 11

… this is Wall-Street driven system change
Maybe. Pinpointing specific actors is hazardous and sets aside the complexity of the different systems and their interaction.
BushCo have been weakened by a series of mistakes, failures, and eff ups, from 9/11 to Katrina, the price of gas, the Iraq horror.
The worm turns, rats leave a sinking ship (some mainstream conservatives very evidently here), people’s doubts and discontents surface, they follow the movement, and suddenly realise that they were always very bothered by some specific thing. The media encourage this sheep-like behavior.
Wall street requires stability above all. If that is threatened, by groundswell opinion, by pol. figures coming out and pontificating, by whistle blowers getting a hearing, by disastrous management that can no longer be covered up, by scandals that horrify, etc. they too will seek some ‘solution.’
I follow 9/11 news – in a way it is becoming respectable to question the official story. Here, I am sure, there is no grand plot or conspiracy – there is simply a confluence of circumstances that lead to gradual questioning, a slow ‘awakening’, which rests on the fact that the Bush Admin is in a weak defensive position.
DKos has recently run some discussions / stories on 9/11 when previously the topic was taboo. This has not happened because anyone there learnt something new (all the present news is old as the hills), but simply because the signs of questioning the present PTB became strong enough to allow that kind of discourse. 5 years on followers, given permission by cues in the media, and now seeing some ‘democratic’ advantage, timidly jump on whatever issue is offered them.
This is the surface, I know.

Posted by: Noirette | Oct 4 2006 17:25 utc | 12

Noirette,
“Wall Street” is the people controlling the big money in the US/West. They have much more of a stake in this country than anyone on here. I think they were all on board for 911 and many of them for the New Middle East too (not surprising given the ethnic make-up of the American moneyed class). But not at any price. And not at any level of ineptitude. Why isn’t the stock market 30% higher? In my opinion because of a malaise among moneyed people about Bush. Ever since Foley blew up the stock market has been skyrocketing. Doesn’t that say it all? If I am right the Dollar will soon rally too.
Goldman rules.

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Oct 4 2006 20:36 utc | 13

stake=identification.

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Oct 4 2006 20:45 utc | 14

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