Reading Abdul Salam Zaeef: My Life with the Taliban:

Under the shadow of this new government, the Russians announced their intention to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan. When I first learned about this I was very happy. The jihad seemed to be over, and we had won. I had never thought that I would live to see the day when the Soviet Union left Afghanistan. I was sure I would be martyred by one of their bullets: I even wished for it. Every time I went on an operation I believed I would not return. With the defeat came new hope, though, and I found myself praying to God that he would let me live to see Afghanistan as a free and independent Islamic country with an Islamic government.

But the loose alliance between the different mujahedeen groups crumbled before our eyes as everyone started to pursue their own goals. What came next obliterated what we had fought for, and defamed the name and honour of the mujahedeen and the jihad itself.

Cont. reading: Reading Zaeef: 6. Withdrawal

Reading Abdul Salam Zaeef: My Life with the Taliban:

Mullah Mohammad Omar Akhund, who later became the leader of the Taliban movement, was the commander of our fronts in the north. Mullah Mohammad Omar Akhund, Mullah Mazullah, Mullah Feda Mohammad and Mullah Obaidullah Akhund were the main leaders of that battle in Sangisar.

Cont. reading: Reading Zaeef: 5. Bitter Pictures

Reading Abdul Salam Zaeef: My Life with the Taliban:

In the early 1980s the ISI began to run a special weapons training programme for the mujahedeen. The new weapons, so we were promised, would allow us to destroy Russian tanks and shoot their helicopters out of the sky. Mullah Mohammad Sadiq chose me along with several other mujahedeen to take part in the training programme. We went to Sayyaf’s office in Quetta where Commander Abdullah, the head of the office and responsible for south-eastern Afghanistan, introduced us to Pakistani officials.
…

Cont. reading: Reading Zaeef: 4. Lessons from the ISI

Having been part of ever single government conspiracy in recent years, from the War On Afghans, the War On Iraqis to the to the future War On Iranians, the NYT suddenly discovers that the War On The Freedom Of Speech has been going for years and that now The NYT is very likely to be on the casualty list:

Our concern is not specifically about payments to WikiLeaks. This isn’t the first time a bank shunned a business on similar risk-management grounds. Banks in Colorado, for instance, have refused to open bank accounts for legal dispensaries of medical marijuana.

Still, there are troubling questions. The decisions to bar the organization came after its founder, Julian Assange, said that next year it will release data revealing corruption in the financial industry. In 2009, Mr. Assange said that WikiLeaks had the hard drive of a Bank of America executive.

What would happen if a clutch of big banks decided that a particularly irksome blogger or other organization was “too risky”? What if they decided — one by one — to shut down financial access to a newspaper that was about to reveal irksome truths about their operations? This decision should not be left solely up to business-as-usual among the banks.

No, I do not expect them to learn from this.

Reading Abdul Salam Zaeef: My Life with the Taliban:

We travelled on foot, each carrying our own ammunition, although later we occasionally found tractors and cars as transport. Back roads and smuggling tracks through valleys and mountains bypassed Soviet or Afghan Communist checkpoints and we sometimes rode motorcycles or horses on longer journeys.

Cont. reading: Reading Zaeef: 3. The Jihad

Reading Abdul Salam Zaeef: My Life with the Taliban:

When we arrived there, some 75 kilometres west of Quetta, we found nothing but wilderness. The sun was already setting when the truck finally came to a stop at the end of a small dirt track. We tried our best to improvise for the night. In these first days everyone was busy cutting down trees and clearing the ground, building small huts and a mosque out of wood. We set up the tents we had brought with us and tried to settle down as best we could. Around our makeshift huts we laid fences made of osh murghai, a type of thorn bush.

Cont. reading: Reading Zaeef: 2. The Camps

Me busy with family stuff …

Reading Abdul Salam Zaeef: My Life with the Taliban:

In the summer of 1975, my father died in Rangrezan. He got up in the middle of the night, earlier than was his habit. Later, when it was time for the night prayer, I woke up and lay still, listening to my father in the moonlit darkness. I could only make out parts of the words he was whispering, and I saw tears running down his face.

He was praying for us children, asking God for our safety, for our futures and for our health. I had never heard him pray like that before, but I did not think much of it at the time. He left the house early to pray eshraq at the mosque.

Cont. reading: Reading Zaeef: 1. Death At Home

And this wall shall come down.

Contemplative, hope- and peaceful holidays to all of you.

Los Angeles has a lot of immigrants from Iran, many of whom came to the U.S. after the revolution kicked the Shah out of his office. The Los Angeles Times is therefore the paper that many of these immigrants read. Unfortunately it does not inform them, but it propagandizes against the Iranian system.

For proof see today's piece on just launched subsidy reform in Iran: Prices in Iran rise after lifting of subsidies

The austerity measures generate work stoppages and embolden the political opposition. Critics contend that the price increases hurt those with modest incomes while leaving the wealthy unscathed.

That short summary printed at the top of the story includes at least two big lies.

Economic austerity (used by the LAT writes because it just made Websters "word of the year"?), is shortly defined as:

a policy of deficit-cutting, lower spending, and a reduction in the amount of benefits and public services provided.

The subsidy reform in Iran will NOT cut the deficit Iran doesn't have. It will also NOT lower government spending and it will NOT reduce the amount of provided benefits and public service. There are zero austerity measures in Iran.

Cont. reading: LA Times Misleads on Iran’s Subsidy Reform

Of course the headline is not news to anyone who has been watching, but here is additional proof.

The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.
Text: Obama’s Speech in Cairo – June 4, 2009

—

[France] MFA Middle East Director (Assistant Secretary-equivalent) Patrice Paoli informed POL Minister Counselor June 18 that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told French officials in Paris June 15 that the Israelis have a "secret accord" with the USG to continue the "natural growth" of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
US Embassy France Cable: "FRANCE MID-EAST DIRECTOR ON PEACE PROCESS" – June 22, 2009

(Sorry for not posting – busy day)

Taking Robert Kaplan's "Monsoon" apart: Recall America's imperial past, understand its present – Manan Ahmed /The National

Important piece: The Great Islamophobic Crusade – Max Blumenthal/TomDispatch

Spare Afghanistan Iraq's success – Nir Rosen/FP

Heroism is no substitute for an Afghan strategy – Max Hastings/FT

As the General's favored spokesperson and NYT writer Dexter Filkins reports, General Petraeus wants to widen the war in Afghanistan by sending troops into Pakistan.

The plan has not yet been approved, but military and political leaders say a renewed sense of urgency has taken hold, as the deadline approaches for the Obama administration to begin withdrawing its forces from Afghanistan. Even with the risks, military commanders say that using American Special Operations troops could bring an intelligence windfall, if militants were captured, brought back across the border into Afghanistan and interrogated.

Those reasons given are quite interesting.

a. It seems to be urgent for Petraeus to totally mess up Pakistan before withdrawing from Afghanistan.
b. The General's torturers have run out of useful clients and need to capture new militants to interrogate.

Ain't those cute ideas?

The Filkins/Mazzetti report is useful as it finally confirms what people in Pakistan have been saying all along and which the U.S. always denied. There are U.S. ground attacks withing Pakistan. Those and the assassinations by drones may by and large explain the troubles in the tribal areas as a result of U.S. (and Indian) meddling.

Afghan militias backed by the C.I.A. have carried out a number of secret missions into Pakistan’s tribal areas. These operations in Pakistan by Afghan operatives, known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams, have been previously reported as solely intelligence-gathering operations. But interviews in recent weeks revealed that on at least one occasion, the Afghans went on the offensive and destroyed a militant weapons cache.

And what about the people that guarded the weapon cache?

Also, all those reports from Afghans who tell about black helicopters landing at nighttime and mysterious Taliban forces seem to have a true element:

The Paktika Defense Force is one of six C.I.A.-trained Afghan militias that serve as a special operations force against insurgents throughout Afghanistan. The other militias operate around the cities of Kandahar, Kabul and Jalalabad as well as in the rural provinces of Khost and Kunar.

The report does not include any voice from Pakistan. Though from the last reaction against U.S. incursions, when the Pakistani military just shut the boarder and let some 150 fuel trucks go up in flames, one would assume that any Pakistani reaction to these plans will not be sympathetic. On hopes to soon see their salvo that will shoot down this trial baloon.

Just like the Vietnam war was escalated beyond Vietnam's borders and inflamed Laos and Cambodia the war in Afghanistan is now to be carried into Pakistan. At least until some religiously motivated Colonel there takes over and starts throwing nukes around.

So despite protests South Korea did its announced live fire artillery drill at the disputed border today but North Korea did not immediately respond in kind.

Good. With the South Korean military on high alarm and a lot of the U.S. fleet around an immediate response would have been quite dangerous. And why fight on your enemies' terms?

But just as the South could not back off for fear of losing face, the North will now have to do something to keep its face. It will do that something pretty soon but probably still at a surprising place and time.

What might something be?

Another nuke test or firing off of some bigger missiles is a possibility but might be just too normal and predictable to be seen as an appropriate response. Something asymmetric like a daring infiltration into the South to blow up this or that bridge or military outpost is my best guess.

But your guess is as good as mine. How do you think North Korea will respond to this provocation?

The New York Times reports on the election in Belarus with this headline.

After Belarus Vote, Riot Police Attack Protesters

Reading the headline one assumes an unprovoked attack of brutal police on peaceful demonstrators.

But that is not what happened. The article itself gives the real version which is quite the opposite of what the headline says:

At one point, protesters charged the entrance of the imposing government headquarters, breaking through glass doors and trying to push through barricades that had been erected inside.

But armored riot troops quickly overwhelmed the protesters, at times funneling them toward packs of plainclothes officers who beat them.

The reporter observed a violent attack of protesters against a protected government building with a police force defending against that. The headline is thereby a willful falsification of cause and effect. Violent  protesters attacked and the riot police action was a reaction to that.

We have seen such willful falsification before. After the election in Iran, which unlike the recent one in Belarus were not manipulated, U.S. media emphasized police action in Tehran while leaving out the fact that protester brutalities had caused them.

For the record. I am generally not against violent protest against governments and have personally taken part in several demonstrations that ended in big and violent clashes. It is sometimes necessary to show the state that there are limits it better does not cross.

But there is no justification for manipulating casual readers of a 'free press' by a headline which says the opposite of what the facts bear out.

One detail is the story about the recent drone strikes in Khyber agency makes Paul Woodward and me a bit curious about censorship in the U.S. media. While a CIA agent's name was discussed publicly in Pakistan and elsewhere, the U.S. media censored it out.

The CIA station chief in Islamabad, named as Jonathan Banks in various reports in English language Pakistani media for over two weeks now, left Pakistan last Thursday, December 16. The reason given was that his name was exposed in a law suit and that there were threats against him.

That may or may not be the real reason for him to leave (we think not). But what is curious is how and why the U.S. media is now censoring the name of the CIA man in its reports about the issue. As the Pakistani journalist Omar R Quraishi points out:

MSNBC, ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Associated Press all ran stories but declined to name the CIA officer. Both MSNBC and the AP mentioned explicitly in the text of their main stories that they were not naming the official. The New York Times ran a story on December 17 raising the issue of the ISI’s involvement in the naming of the official but this was strongly denied by the intelligence agency. The Times then ran a story on December 18 quoting a senior ISI official as “strongly” denying any link to the CIA official’s name being outed.

The AP, too, ran a follow-up on December 18 of the ISI denying any involvement. However, this story stated the following:

The Associated Press learned about the station chief’s removal on Thursday [December 16] but held the story until he was out of the region. The CIA’s work is unusually difficult in Pakistan, an important but at times capricious counterterrorism ally.

Not all U.S. media blocked the name at all times.

The news website Monster and Critics ran a DPA news agency story on the lawsuit on November 30:

Karim Khan, a local journalist from the North Waziristan tribal district, said he had sent a 500-million-dollar claim to US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, CIA chief Leon Panetta and the agency's station head in Islamabad, Jonathan Banks, for the deaths of his teenage son and brother in a drone airstrike.

A November 30 story in the Washington Post suppressed the name.

A Friday, December 12 McClatchy story on the lawsuit in the Miami Herald said:

The lawsuit, which stands little chance of being won, is lodged against the CIA station chief in Islamabad, identified as Jonathan Banks; CIA Director Leon Panetta; and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

It seems that only after Jonathan Banks was leaving Pakistan, news the Associated Press suppressed (at who's request?) for 24 hours, did U.S. media start to suppress the CIA man's name. The LA Times, also not naming Jonathan Banks, tries to explain:

The officer, whose name remains classified, is returning to the U.S. because "terrorist threats against him in Pakistan were of such a serious nature that it would be imprudent not to act," said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing a sensitive personnel matter.

"Whose name remains classified"? So what, if it is all over the internets? Did the LA Times not report on the Pentagon Papers? Doesn't it quote WikiLeaks cables? In an administrative sense both are still classified but who cares and why should anyone?

If anyone with not-so-secret-access to Google can find the name in about 0.06 seconds, why do the U.S. media suppress the name of Jonathan Banks? Did they get orders to do so? If so why follow them?

Imperial by Design (long) – Mearsheimer/The National Interest
The zombie war in Afghanistan – Walt/Foreign Policy

Why Night Raids May Doom U.S. Prospects in Afghanistan – Time
Afghan tribal elders threatened to ‘fight Nato like the Soviets’: US embassy cables – Dawn
Patrick Cockburn: History is repeating itself in Afghanistan

The Law Office of David E. Coombs – A Typical Day for PFC Bradley Manning

Israel, Obama & The Bomb

This afternoon I was looking for gifts for kids between 3 and 6. This is the best-ever I ended up with.

The Playmobil Security Check Point sells on Amazon for just $225.

It even makes these beautiful new 'naked' scanner pictures.

Now that will give the kids some really creative ideas.

What really convinced me to buy this toy are the very favorable customer reviews. One finds it Educational and Fun:

I applaud the people who created this toy for finally being hip to our changing times.

This one is a bit negative though:

Unfortunately, this toy comes short in a few areas:
1) It does not show that if you're rich, you don't have to wait in line for hours. If you can travel first class, you get your own fast-track screening. Too bad the terr'ists have plenty of Saudi and Pakistani cash and can easily travel first class should they want to. They should have included another screening set in the box.
2) It does not come with the 300 tired-looking playmobils you would need to show the passengers waiting in line behind the screening area.

However, it does some things very well: for instance, the screening apparatus is not actually functional. This represents faithfully the actual TSA system, which, every time it is tested or audited, fails to catch anything (weapons, even bombs).

Now I am off to pick up my gift: A 'harsh interrogation method' starter kit. That will come in handy when the kids let someone terrorists get through their gate.

Last month a law suit was filed in New York against several U.S. and Pakistani officials for killing two persons through a drone strike in Waziristan. The CIA station chief in Pakistan was named in that law suit as one "Jonathan Banks". The picture in the link is the actor Jonathan Banks, not the CIA station chief. Jonathan Banks is likely not his real name anyway. Allegedly a Pakistani website asked people to track down a real picture of the CIA station chief.

On Thursday Michael J. Morell, the C.I.A.’s deputy director, met with Pakistani officials in Islamabad. The same day the CIA station chief Mr. Banks left the country. The CIA claims that this was unrelated and that Banks left because of public threats against him. That claim seems dubious.

The CIA then claimed through several U.S. media that the Pakistani military secret service ISI was responsible for the threats. The ISI denies that.

Six days earlier, on Friday the 11th, the U.S. Consulate General in Peshawar Elizabeth Rood’s suddenly left her position and returned to Washington:

There were rumours circulating in the town on Friday that she had been frequently receiving life threats from militants, which prompted her to rush back to the States.

However, the US Embassy spokesperson contradicted the reports and pronounced “personal matters” to be the actual reason behind her departure.

Note that I find no U.S. media entity even mentionig that.

Six days after Mrs. Root and one day after Mr. Banks were gone: Scores die as drones renew attack on Pakistan's Khyber:

Nearly 60 people have been killed in a series of attacks by US drones in the past 24 hours in Pakistan's Khyber tribal district, officials say.

At least 50 died in three unmanned air strikes in the Tirah Valley, a day after seven others were killed nearby.
…
The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan in Karachi says Khyber is an unusual target for drone attacks, as it is not usually seen as a major militant sanctuary.

Those killed are said by an "Pakistani official" to be part of a Taliban group, Lashkar-e-Islam, that is active in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan.

I do not believe that the sudden leaving of a Consulate General in Peshawar, which is only a few miles east to Khyber agency, the visit of the CIA second in command in Islamabad, the sudden leaving of the CIA station chief in Pakistan, a smear campaign against the ISI and several heavy drone strikes in an area that is usually off limits for CIA drone strikes – all within very few days – are unrelated. The claim that the target was an anti-Pakistan-state group makes this even more curious.

This stinks. Though I have no idea yet why and how these items really connect.

Mrs. Rood's bio says:

Previously, Mrs. Rood was the Department of State representative on the U.S. Provincial Reconstruction Team in Paktika Province in southeastern Afghanistan from 2008 to 2009.

Mrs. Rood speaks several languages including Pashto.

Paktika has seen quite some fighting allegedly against the Haqqani network. The BBC remarked:

The Paktika region has been the target of many US drone attacks on insurgents.

Several drones crashed in Paktika, likely shot down.

Mrs. Rood thereby seems to have some affinity with areas that are hit hard by drones. She also one of only few Pashto speakers in U.S. government service. This suggests that she is not only working for Foggy Bottom but also for Langley.

But again, so far I have no real connection for these bits.

Some conflict between ISI and the CIA about widening drone strike areas? Some ISI faction that revolted against this? An ISI requested drone hit, denied by the Peshawar consulate and the CIA station chief, then agreed to by the CIA's number two?

Please let me know your theories about this issue.

For the "western" troops to leave Afghanistan without letting it continue to fall deeper into its the civil war a political solution will be required. Such a solution will have to include a government participation for the Taliban.

Washington is not yet willing to allow that. That has nothing to do with some moral question or women rights. Washington has lots of friends and allies who behave much worse then the Taliban ever did. The real issue is a, largely imagined, U.S. conflict with China.

To negotiate seriously with the Taliban an agreement will have to be found with the Pakistani military which at least partly controls that movement.

The concern of the Pakistani military is an Afghanistan under heavy Indian influence and, resulting from that, a potential two front war. The concern is not without merit. Karzai was educated in India and India has same para-militaries, an embassy and four consular offices in Afghanistan which certainly do not have the sole purpose of stamping visa into passports.

For Pakistan to agree to further serious negotiations with the Taliban, at least a temporary solution has to be found to alleviate its fears with regard to India.

The way to fundamentally relieve Pakistani fear of India is to find a solution for Kashmir. While the Kashmir conflict is partly a Hindu versus Muslim religious conflict and partly an ethnic/tribal conflict the real Kashmir concern for Pakistan are the water sources from the Himalaya that spring up in Kashmir and feed the Indus river. The Indus is literally the lifeline that feeds Pakistan's people. Uncontested Indian rule in Kashmir with the ability to cut off Pakistan's water is a knife to its throat.

A solution for Kashmir could be some vote for independence by the people living there, as promised to them a long time ago but never allowed, followed by a neutrality and water sharing agreement with its neighbors.

To at least temporarily have the Pakistani agree on a negotiated solution for Afghanistan, India (and Karzai) will have to leave Afghanistan. The U.S. would have to press India for this to happen.

But the U.S. does not want to pressure India on anything, not even on leaving Afghanistan. It is fantasizing about a big conflict with China in which, it assumes, India will be an ally.

So for now the U.S. will continue to pay a $120 billion per year in Afghanistan to achieve nothing. A few years down the road and after some more serious budget pressure Congress will finally have enough of it. The U.S. will then leave without a political solution. The civil war in Afghanistan will continue and a few years later the Taliban will have again won.

That is not the necessary outcome, but it is what the current purely military U.S. policy, if continued, will achieve.

Recommended readings:
How the Afghan Counterinsurgency Threatens Pakistan – Anatol Lieven/The Nation
The Way Out of Afghanistan – Ahmed Rashid/NYRB
In deadly Kandahar, skepticism over gains cited in Afghan war review – CSM
Fresh Approach: It’s Time for the Afghans to Leave Afghanistan – World Affairs