Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
January 05, 2011

Senator Graham Confirms Taliban Propaganda

Senator Lindsey Graham wants permanent bases in Afghanistan:

I hope we can find an enduring relationship with Afghanistan that will make sure that country never goes back in the hands of terrorists. And the idea of putting permanent military bases on the table in 2011, I think would secure our national interest and tell the bad guys and the good guys we're not leaving, we're staying, in a responsible way if the Afghan people want us to stay.

Afghanistan never was "in the hands of terrorists". The Taliban may have had guests that turned out to be "terrorists" but the Taliban movement itself never fought outside of its country.

But that is not the main point - it just shows that Graham does not understand what he is talking about.

The Taliban have claimed all along that the U.S. is occupying Afghanistan to have permanent bases there and to steal its riches. It was one of there main propaganda point, though, up to now, not provable.

Accordingly their response to Graham is somewhat triumphant (though badly translated):

His remarks definitely lifts the curtain from the colonialist motives of America which the Islamic Emirate has been trying in the past decade to draw to them, attention of the people of the world. In fact, the invading America wants to establish her dominance over the region and the world under the so-called war on terror. Thus, they are trying to deprive the masses from their inalienable rights.

Graham has just arranged for a new successful nationalistic recruitment drive by the Taliban and for further support to them from Pakistan. Permanent U.S. bases just across the boarder is not what any of Afghanistan's big neighbors, Iran and Pakistan, want. As the Pakistani Chief of Staff Kayani explained the relation with the U.S.:

The two countries' "frames of reference" regarding regional security "can never be the same," he said, according to news accounts. Calling Pakistan America's "most bullied ally," Kayani said that the "real aim of U.S. strategy is to de-nuclearize Pakistan."

The most interesting points in the response of the Islamic Emirate to Graham's statements are their explanation of U.S. motives, an offer to China to sell natural resources and a bow to and request for support from neighboring countries:

The tempo of economic and industrial progress is going to shift from America and Europe to Asia in the near future. This economic impetus needs raw material. Hence, the invading America wants to bring under her belly the natural resources of Afghanistan, ostensibly, under the name of war on terrorism, thus intending to coerce regional countries to agree to the colonialist objectives and strings of America. Similarly, they want to deprive the Afghan people of access to their natural resources and compel them live in poverty and misery. Therefore, the Mujahid people of Afghanistan will never allow the invading America to plunder their natural resources and take their freedom.

We are ready to enter into transparent bilateral agreements with other countries on the basis of national interests and economic profitability for the extraction of the said natural resources.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is a responsible force. We assure all regional countries that we will maintain good relations with them in light of the lofty rules of ethics of Islam, following our obtaining independence. Meanwhile, we urge them not to be beguiled by America to give consent to establishment of American permanent bases in Afghanistan under the unjustified name of war on terror.

Whatever one may think about the Taliban and their Islamic Emirate, dumb they are not. That distinguishes them from Graham.

Posted by b on January 5, 2011 at 18:32 UTC | Permalink | Comments (11)

January 04, 2011

Free Speech Blasphemy

ISLAMABAD: Gunmen killed the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, a senior member of the ruling party, in Islamabad on Tuesday, his spokesman said.
...
Interior Minister Rahman Malik told reporters that the suspect in the case had surrendered to police and told them he killed Taseer because “the governor described the blasphemy laws as a black law.”
Governor Punjab Salman Taseer killed in gun attack - Dawn
Blasphemy is the defamation of the name of God or the gods, and by extension any display of gross irreverence towards any person or thing deemed worthy of exalted esteem.
Blasphemy

There will now be an uproar about those Islamist Pakistani and the idolizers who hold free speech in exalted esteem will now declare how abhorrent, even blasphemic, it is that countries can have a law against blasphemy at all. Especially if those countries have mostly Muslim populations.

Well, many countries have such laws. Wikipedia currently lists some forty and I am sure there are many unlisted ones. Let's take a look at a few not so Islamist ones:

Austria: In Austria, Articles 188, 189 of the penal code relate to blasphemy.
Brazil: Art. 208 of the penal code states that "publicly villifying an act or object of religious worship" is a crime punishable with 1 month to a year of incarceration, or fine.
Greece: Article 199 "Blasphemy Concerning Religions" states: One who publicly and maliciously and by any means blasphemes the Greek Orthodox Church or any other religion tolerable in Greece shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than two years
Israel: In Israel, blasphemy is covered by Articles 170 and 173 of the penal code
United Kingdom: Blasphemy laws in the United Kingdom were specific to blasphemy against Christianity. ... The last successful blasphemy prosecution (also a private prosecution) was Whitehouse v. Lemon in 1977, when Denis Lemon, the editor of Gay News, was found guilty.

Blasphemy laws are dangerous if they are not neutral towards all acknowledged believes or when they can be easily abused to accuse anyone out of revenge or other personal motives.

But blasphemy laws make sense. Religion believe is often deeply held and blasphemy laws can prevent provoked strife and heart felt outrage. 

That is not to justify the murder of Salman Taeseer.  Just to think a bit about the lunatic religion of free speech absolutism and the blasphemy, inherent in the mere existance of any blasphemy law, against the  deeply felt believe and exalted esteem for the free speech religion.

Posted by b on January 4, 2011 at 19:53 UTC | Permalink | Comments (23)

January 03, 2011

Obama Administration Confirms "No Nukes" Iran NIE

The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate which stated that Iran does not have a military nuclear program has, to my best knowledge, never been publicly confirmed by the Obama administration. But two released diplomatic cables indicate that the NIE's conclusions are still considered to be correct.

In November 2007 a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate concluded (pdf):

• We assess with high confidence that until fall 2003, Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons.
• We judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years. (Because of intelligence gaps discussed elsewhere in this Estimate, however, DOE and the NIC assess with only moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran's entire nuclear weapons program.)
• We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.

In an embassy cables released by WikiLeaks the Obama administration confirms the NIE conclusion and states that Iran does not have any active military nuclear program. In another cable the Turkish Defense Minister states, undisputed by Secretary of Defense Gates, that there is no evidence at all for any Iranian military nuclear program.

A November 2009 cable with official talking points on U.S. missile defense policy states:

We continue to assess that Iran, at a minimum, is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran could choose at any time to restart its nuclear weapons program and, eventually, arm its missiles with nuclear warheads.

A February 2010 cable reports on a meeting between Secretary of Defense Gates and the Turkish Defense Minister Gonul:

Turning to Iran, Gonul cited the enrichment program and acknowledged that Ankara is "concerned about the Iranian threat," but said that the international community does not yet have evidence that there is a weapons program.

Posted by b on January 3, 2011 at 9:24 UTC | Permalink | Comments (11)

January 02, 2011

Why Do Threats Always Grow?

There are 3,090,000 results for the search term "growing threat". There are 219 results for the search term "shrinking threat".

Why do threats always grow?

Posted by b on January 2, 2011 at 11:43 UTC | Permalink | Comments (12)

Reading Zaeef: Epilogue - Afghanistan Today

Reading Abdul Salam Zaeef: My Life with the Taliban:

America made an irreversible mistake in their choice of friends, ignoring their history with Afghanistan. The Afghan allies they chose were often warlords who had returned to Afghanistan in the wake of battle, using America and damaging the very foundations of the new Afghanistan they planned to create. Another strategic mistake was to allow Great Britain to return to the south, or Afghanistan in general.
The British Empire had fought three wars with Afghanistan, and their main battles were with the Pashtun tribes in southern Afghanistan. They were responsible for the split of the tribal lands, establishing the Durand line. Whatever the reality might be, British troops in southern Afghanistan, in particular in Helmand, will be measured not on their current actions but by the history they have, the battles that were fought in past. The local population has not forgotten, and, many believe, neither have the British. Many of the villages that see heavy fighting and casualties today are the same that did so some ninety years ago.

There are even fundamental flaws in the very construction of the Afghan government that show a lack of understanding of Afghanistan and its people. From the very beginning Pashtuns were underrepresented, even though President Karzai is Pashtun; this alone is an inbuilt weakness. Furthermore, the government system and its mechanisms are far too advanced for Afghanistan. There is a lack of control within departments and ministries, with little means of ensuring that subordinate departments and ranks obey the orders of their superiors. Parts of the government appear to be under the control of foreigners and not the President, his ministers or the cabinet. There are government officials and members of the cabinet that are mistrusted by the population. The very structure of the government, the division of the army, the cabinet and the other organs have been decided by foreigners.

Information is key to any conflict. The foreign troops in Afghanistan have poor intelligence, though, and have too often listened to people who provided them with false information, who use the foreigners for their own goals and target their own enemies or competitors. America often admits mistakes, but the public never hears that an informant who provided them with false information that led mistakes is to be punished and held accountable for his action. As long as this is the case, we must assume that America cooperates with them and that military operations, based on false information, are actually planned and executed for other reasons, and are not in fact mistakes after all.

The US and its allies solely rely on force, and even the so-called peace talks are accompanied by threats. It is astonishing that after eight years, with tens of thousands of troops, warplanes and equipment, and a vast national army, facing down some estimated ten thousand insurgents, leaving some two-thirds of the country unstable, that foreign governments still believe that brute force is a solution to the crisis. And still they send more troops. The current conflict is a political conflict and as such cannot be solved by the gun.

The biggest mistake of American policy makers so far might be their profound lack of understanding of their enemy. The US brought an overwhelming force to Afghanistan. They arrived with a superior war machine, trying to swat mosquitoes with sledgehammers, destroying the little that was left of Afghanistan and causing countless casualties on their mission, knocking down many more walls than killing insects. Till this very day it is this lack of understanding and their own prejudices that they still struggle with.

The new Obama administration appears to be making as many mistakes as their predecessors. The decision to bring a special envoy who will diminish the authority of Afghan officials, coupled with the appointment of General McChrystal, a man who was previously responsible for covert operations, are both steps in the wrong direction. The mounting number of civilian casualties together with the ill-made attempts to cover up massacres will doubtless further alienate the Afghan people. America now is at risk of following the same path as the Soviet Union. If America does not wake up from its trance of selfproclaimed omnipotence, Afghanistan will be its demise.

Ever since America invaded Afghanistan, they have come to many junctions in the road and all too often they have made the wrong decisions. They are on unfamiliar territory, and they know little about Afghanistan. Today the situation in my birthplace of Kandahar looks like an unhealthy amalgam of the worst of the Russian times and the civil war that followed. Once again Afghans are fighting each other, and President Obama, who had the option to choose a new path, seems to have made his mind up. And once again foreign troops will arrive in great numbers trying to solve a problem they are part of.

How much longer will foreigners who fail to understand Afghanistan and its culture make decisions for the Afghan nation? How much longer will the Afghan people wait and endure? Only God knows. Once again I pray for peace. Once again I pray for Afghanistan, my home.

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef
Kabul, June 2009

Posted by b on January 2, 2011 at 10:16 UTC | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 01, 2011

Some Links And An Open Thread

A few links and an open thread:


Found this on the Boston Globe's Big Picture Afghanistan series. The caption to it says:

Taliban fighters man a checkpoint in an undisclosed location in Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan on Dec. 13, 2010. A Taliban commander on the ground said that they were checking the traffic looking for people working for the Afghan government, for non-governmental organizations or who work at the US military bases.

Noticed the machine gun? It is a M 240 widely used by the U.S. military. Funny how that interesting little fact didn't make it into the caption ...

Posted by b on January 1, 2011 at 10:50 UTC | Permalink | Comments (31)

Reading Zaeef: 21. No War To Win

Reading Abdul Salam Zaeef: My Life with the Taliban:

Afghanistan’s political situation is tied to the international scene, a political game in which the most disparate nations are tied together in one dishonest chain. Things are so confused you cannot tell back from front. Why don’t these people get themselves out of Afghanistan? It is all temporary anyway. Maybe they will leave sooner; maybe they will stay a bit longer. But one thing is clear: Afghanistan has the right to resist invasion. We have the right to save our honour. We have the right to take revenge on those who have spilled our blood.
...
It is the eighth winter since the invasion, but still the cruelty and dishonour continue. The series of killings, of funerals, of bloodletting, is getting stronger by the day. So what strategy are they working on?

Their brains have atrophied in their skulls. And what empty-headed, selfish Afghans are they listening to?

It would be good if these countries would leave the alternative strategies to the Afghans. We should decide our future by ourselves. We should be making the decisions, the compromises, and the system. These countries should abandon the idea that all of these things can be under the prerogative of just one empty president, who dances according to their tune. The law of the country is disregarded, the ministers are appointed according to their wishes. The judiciary forgets its own decisions, or even takes actions that violate previous decisions. They cannot have an economic monopoly, or try to manipulate Afghan honour for their own ends.

They process governors and parliamentarians through their own filter. And for them killing an Afghan is just like killing a bird. If they kill or injure an Afghan, no one can take them to court; no one can make them answer.

The diabolical United Kingdom and stubborn America will widen the gap between Muslims and other religions. They will create an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion. This satanic policy has gone on for long enough.

Afghans should forget their fear of this paper tiger. They should take back their independence, in such a way that the foreign invaders have no more excuses. Is this possible or not? Perhaps it is too early to say. But if the situation continues as it is now, after this unholy alliance came together for the Afghan elections, it will not benefit either the Afghans or their neighbours.

Afghanistan will survive. It was here long before America was born and will still be here long after the Americans have left. Now our nation is caught in a web woven by our neighbours and the foreigners with the help of a few. But the time will come when the Afghan people find their voice and come together to once again move forward at their own pace and along their own path.

Posted by b on January 1, 2011 at 10:26 UTC | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reading Zaeef: 20. Getting Out

Reading Abdul Salam Zaeef: My Life with the Taliban:

I was astonished to read the terms listed on this piece of paper. The group of soldiers and some senior officials were recording everything with their video camera as I listened to the translator. They handed me the paper to sign it, but I threw it back at them in anger.
“I am innocent, and not a criminal,” I said. “I never have, nor will I, accept any kind of accusations. And never will I excuse or thank the Americans for releasing me. If I have committed any crime, which tribunal or court has proved me a criminal!?
“Secondly, I was a Talib, I am a Talib and I will always be a Talib, but I have never been a part of Al Qaeda!
“Third, I was accused of terrorist activities, which I have never done. So how could I admit to doing something that I never did to start with? Tell me!
“Fourth, Afghanistan is my home. No one has the right to tell me what to do in my homeland. If I am the owner of my house, how can someone else come and tell me what to do in it?
“Fifth, I am still detained here, innocently detained. I can be arrested again, accused of any crime, so I am not going to sign any kind of paper.”

They insisted that I sign the paper. They told me that I would not be released if I refused, but still I did not sign it. Even if it would have meant that I spend the rest of my life in prison, I could never accept to confess to being a criminal. Many times they left and came back, but I still did not sign.

Finally, they told me to write something myself instead of what was written on the paper. I was obliged to write something, so I took the pen and wrote the following:
I am not a criminal. I am an innocent person. Pakistan and the United States of America have betrayed me. I was detained for four years without specific accusations. I am writing this out of obligation and stating that I am not going to participate in any kind of anti-American activities or military actions. Wasalam.

After that, I signed what I had written and they left me alone. I wondered if they would accept what I had written. After a short while a Red Crescent delegation came and congratulated me on being released.
...
They became angry. “Why do you hate us?” they asked.

“I do not like you,” I told them. “Just look at what you are doing, and what you did to me and other Muslims. What do you expect?”

They looked at me with bulging eyes and mottled faces.

“Do you want to go back to Guantánamo?” they asked.

“Whatever you do is your business,” I answered. “You kept me in Guantánamo for four years when I had done nothing. If you want to do it again, there is nobody to stop you. But if it’s a question of freedom, then I have the right to tell you to leave me alone. But if it’s a question of power, then do as you wish, for you have all the power. But I don’t want to see you. So throw me in jail or leave me alone, it’s up to you.”

They left.

Posted by b on January 1, 2011 at 10:25 UTC | Permalink | Comments (24)

Reading Zaeef: 19. Graveyard of the Living

Reading Abdul Salam Zaeef: My Life with the Taliban:

Mullah Fazal was punished for forty-one days because he did not answer the questions during an interrogation. During the nights he remained chained up in the interrogation room with the air-conditioning unit on full blast. The soldiers made sure to keep him awake. During the day they forced him to walk around so he wouldn’t fall asleep. Visitors were always brought to Camp Four, and never saw the real Guantánamo, just a few metres away.
Many times the holy Qur’an was abused; the soldiers deliberately used it as a tool to punish us. More than once we collected all the Qur’ans and handed them back to the authorities because we could not protect them. But instead of taking them back, we were punished.

Prisoners are the weakest people in the world. A detainee in Guantánamo, however, is not even a person anymore. He is stripped of his humanity as each day passes.
...
At the beginning all questions were related to the current situation in Afghanistan, but later this changed completely. Questions were of a general nature or concerned with the country’s economy. Many questions were asked about natural resources or mines and their location. In particular I was asked many questions about oil, gas, chrome, mercury, gold, jade, ruby, iron and other precious stones. I was asked several times about uranium, even though I had previously not heard that there was any in Afghanistan. Often when I said that I did not know or when I had no information, I was punished and put into an isolation cage. There were countless questions about Islam, madrassas, religious institutions, famous scholars and religious conferences.
...
Several hunger strikes took place in the camp, and were ended only after receiving promises from the Americans, but the one that started at this time lasted until the day of my release on 11 September 2005. Each day the number of participants increased; several became extremely weak and were close to death, fainting in their cages and cells, and being taking to the hospital for treatment. They were forcefed intravenously, but even while in the hospital they still tried to prevent the doctors from feeding them. They could no longer tolerate what was being done to them and chose death over life.

The hospital was filled with starving patients. The doctors were so busy with the emergency cases that other patients had to wait to be treated. The doctor-in-charge refused to force-feed the prisoners, so five other doctors were brought. The problem continued until 19 January 2006.

Where now is the United Nations, which so readily supported sanctions against twenty million Afghans, while now thousands of Muslims are detained, clamouring for justice, law and human rights? And for what?

Posted by b on January 1, 2011 at 10:24 UTC | Permalink | Comments (0)

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