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Banned
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What I would like to find out is how the supporters of Mr. Bush, "know what they know".....how they come by the "knowledge" that gives them the confidence to trust what he says and to support what he and his administraion "do"....vs. what they say they do....and the criteria and the methods that supporters employ to discern and evaluate, the "results", of the Bush admin. GWOT policies......if there actually are any positive ones. <b>Also, if supporting Mr. Bush is not about any of the above....I'd like to read about that, too.</b>
Is the Bush administration "doing a good job", i.e., making progress in the GWOT,
while prudently overseeing the spending and budgeting of funds that this entails? What are the signs that they are doing anything that you approve of? Tout them for us, please!
All I see is bad news and the refusal, on the part of the Bush admin. to study or learn.....the regional political history, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, before plunging into military conflict in both former British colonial regions....in each instance, for the stated goal of taking or removing, one objectionable individual, (Usama & Saddam) from each country:
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...0500312_2.html
Bush Warns Of Enduring Terror Threat
Words of Bin Laden, Allies Show Their Goals, He Says
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 6, 2006; A01
......In his speech, Bush said terrorist leaders' statements have made plain their goals, which he called the present-day equivalent of the "evil" aims of Vladimir Lenin and Adolf Hitler.
"Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is: Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?" Bush said, adding that "we're taking the words of the enemy seriously."
Meanwhile, the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies issued a report saying that although the Bush administration has deprived al-Qaeda of sanctuary in Afghanistan and has prevented more attacks on U.S. soil in the past five years, it has not tracked down bin Laden or created "enduring security in Afghanistan." Moreover, the report said, the administration's attempts at public diplomacy are "undermined by perceived U.S. unilateralism."
"What is missing from the . . . public discussion of all of this is some explanation of the phenomenon of radicalized Islam," said Daniel Benjamin, a senior fellow at CSIS and former Clinton administration official. "Why are there so many people out there who want to kill Americans and so many Westerners? Why is this such a durable phenomenon?"
As Bush spoke in Washington, Pakistan <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090501249.html">signed a peace accord</a> with pro-Taliban forces in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, agreeing to withdraw its troops from the region in return for the fighters' pledge to stop attacks inside Pakistan. The pact prompted concern that it could allow Islamic extremist groups to operate more freely in the area........
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Quote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13990130/site/newsweek/
Border Backlash
Musharraf's attempt to police the tribal areas with the Army has bred a new generation of extremists.
By Ron Moreau and Zahid Hussain
Newsweek International
July 31, 2006 issue - Just over three years ago, under pressure from Washington to stop Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters from crossing the porous border into Afghanistan, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf began dispatching tens of thousands of Pakistani troops to the country's tribal regions. The goal: to beat back the Islamic radicals in and around the seven tribal agencies bordering on eastern and southern Afghanistan. Today some 80,000 Pakistani troops are stationed in outposts and garrisons along the rugged frontier.
But, ironically, instead of quelling extremism, the military occupation has fueled it. Radical Islamic clerics throughout Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal belt now preach the hard-line gospel, day and night. Their fiery jihadist sermons exhort people to live by the harsh code of Islamic Sharia—or else. In Wana, the capital of the South Waziristan tribal agency, extremists recently used dynamite to blow up a radio station for playing music. If these radicals sound like Pakistan's equivalent of Mullah Mohammed Omar's ousted Taliban regime, they are. The tribal militants call themselves "Pakistani Taliban," or members of a newly coined and loosely knit entity, the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan. They openly recruit young men to fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan and run their own Islamic kangaroo courts that, on occasion, stage public executions. The local police simply stay out of the way. "Fearing for their lives, no one dares to challenge them," says Afrasiab Khattak, former chairman of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
The Pakistani Army has had some success. It's killed 180 foreign fighters and captured some 300 foreign-born militants, including Qaeda operatives, in periodic fighting, according to military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan. He says some 370 local militants have also been killed. But the Pakistani Army has also paid a high price, losing 350 of its troops. And on balance, the Army has little to show for all the carnage. "There has been some success in hunting down Al Qaeda," says retired Pakistani Army Lt. Gen. Talat Masood. "But there has only been failure in terms of controlling the local Taliban."
Not only are the Pakistani militants now stronger than ever, the links between the pro-Taliban, ethnic Pashtun tribes in Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban across the border, who are also Pashtuns, have been strengthened. The resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, who last week briefly captured two district towns in southern Afghanistan, has only increased the morale and muscle of their Pakistani brethren. "What was a containable problem has spun out of control," says Ayaz Amir, a political columnist for the Dawn daily newspaper. The invigorated Pakistani militants have boosted their recruiting of Afghan and local youths studying in madrassas along the mountainous border, and are sending them into Afghanistan to fight. "There is now a greater cross-border traffic between Waziristan and Afghanistan than before the Army moved in," adds Amir. And both Waziristan and the border areas of neighboring Baluchistan have become even more hospitable rear bases and havens for Taliban commanders and fighters.
<b>Before the military moved into the tribal areas, the militants had been sympathetic with, but not actively committed to, the Afghan Taliban's cause. Now that has changed. "The military's presence has brought no plus for the tribals," says General Masood. "It has made them more angry, dissatisfied, antigovernment and actively pro-Taliban." Perhaps more important, the Army's occupation upset the traditional governing balance in the tribal areas, which has changed little from the days of British colonial rule.</b> The tribal agencies are not governed by Pakistan's Constitution or legal codes. Rather, government-appointed political agents hold sway by offering patronage (chiefly large amounts of money) to maliks, or tribal elders, who are charged with maintaining law and order according to custom. But as an occupying force, the Army took control over everything from security to development. "It marginalized the maliks and the entire administrative system, and didn't replace it with anything other than military rule," says General Masood. "That was a huge mistake. It created a vacuum that was quickly filled by the militants."
This Pakistani neo-Taliban force has fought aggressively. Nowadays, no Army convoy can move through Waziristan without an escort of helicopter gunships. Over the past year the local Taliban has killed more than 100 pro-government maliks, and many more have fled the tribal areas in terror. Scores of so-called military collaborators have been murdered. General Sultan strongly denies that the Taliban is running the show. "To say that these people are in control is too much of an exaggeration," he insists. In a nationally televised address to the nation late last week, Musharraf acknowledged the "wave of Talibanization in tribal areas" but vowed "not to tolerate this regressive trend."
But the president seems to be in a bind. He's already tried military force, and there are political considerations besides. He doesn't want to alienate Pakistan's pro-Taliban and pro-militant religious parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, or MMA, which he may need in next year's parliamentary elections. To that end, the government employed MMA leader Fazlur Rehman to negotiate a monthlong ceasefire with the militants, which expires at the end of this month....
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Quote:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...rnational/home
‘We must do something about Pakistan'
GRAEME SMITH
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
MAYWAND, AFGHANISTAN — Under a waning moon, with no electricity for light, the headquarters of Afghan forces in the Maywand district of southern Afghanistan was cloaked in heavy darkness.
Despite the late hour, district leader Haji Safullah remained awake in his concrete bunker, sitting cross-legged on ragged carpets, talking with police commanders about how to defeat the Taliban.
“Pakistan,” the former mujahedeen warrior said, his voice a growl in the dark. “We must do something about Pakistan.”
As the Taliban insurgency grows in southern Afghanistan, so do suspicions about Pakistan's role in the war. Afghans tend to blame their old nemesis for everything wrong in their country, but their accusations about the Taliban finding money, shelter, weapons and fighters on the other side of the border are getting more specific these days. Mr. Safullah rhymed off the names of Taliban leaders living in neighbourhoods and compounds around Quetta, in west-central Pakistan, and complained bitterly that his men can't hunt insurgents in those havens.
The frustration of such front-line commanders has been percolating upward in recent months, through the ranks of foreign soldiers, NATO officials, and Western diplomats. During a visit to Islamabad yesterday, Canada's Defence Minister praised Pakistan's assistance but pressed for more. “In my ideal world, they could do even better because that way our troops will be safe,” said Gordon O'Connor, who was on a tour this week through Afghanistan and Pakistan.
And diplomats say that each NATO soldier killed by a Taliban bomb or ambush adds weight to an emerging consensus among Western allies, roughly mirroring the conclusion of the battle-scarred Afghan commander: Something must change inside Pakistan, quickly.
On a leafy patio in Kabul, a senior Western diplomat took a long sip of sparkling water when asked whether foreign troops are really fighting a local uprising in the country's south. What about the argument, he was asked, that the NATO forces have been drawn into a proxy war, a struggle against fighters whose instructions come from a neighbouring country?
“It's a bit of both,” the official said, with an uncertain shrug.
The answer wasn't vague for the sake of diplomacy. Nobody has a clear picture of the connections between elements in Pakistan and the Taliban, or how the insurgents draw support from inside the country without, apparently, any meaningful interference from Pakistani authorities. Analysts often point to the deep historical ties between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which helped nurture the Taliban in the early 1990s, giving them support that helped the movement grow from a religious backlash against corrupt warlords into a theocracy that dominated most of the country.
Some published reports, such as one about Taliban leaders travelling in cars with official ISI licence plates, suggest that Pakistan intelligence retains its links with the insurgents. But does the military regime in Islamabad know about, or control, its ISI agents in the borderlands?
“We don't have evidence of that. But we know Pakistan could, and should, be doing more to stop the Taliban,” a senior Western diplomat in Islamabad said.
Canadian diplomats interviewed in Pakistan last month suggested that Canada must push Islamabad more vigorously for co-operation.
“We're not as aggressive as we could be,” one diplomat said.
Mr. O'Connor's visit this week is the 18th known delegation from Ottawa to Islamabad since the beginning of 2005. That means the Canadian High Commission in Pakistan is busier than most of Canada's missions abroad, but the diplomatic traffic is slower than the bustle among other Western countries. Britain's High Commission in Islamabad says it welcomed 40 official visits, not including military delegations, in the same time period. The U.S. embassy reported “30 to 35,” also excluding military guests.
The Western allies have similar goals in Pakistan, analysts say, but Canada's aims grew more distinct since it took responsibility for security in the troubled Afghan province of Kandahar this year. Kandahar shares a mountainous border with Balochistan, the vast swath of Pakistan's tribal regions. Balochistan has a reputation as a Taliban recruiting ground, a haven for insurgent training camps and home to many of the movement's leaders.
Canada wants Pakistan to crack down on the insurgents coming from Balochistan, but diplomats say it's difficult to reverse the habitual neglect with which counterterrorism officials inside and outside Pakistan have treated the southern tribal belt.
Within Pakistan, the biggest obstacle to a crackdown is the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), a staunchly anti-imperialist party that promotes a rigid enforcement of Islamic law. A political summary prepared for Canadian diplomats in Islamabad says the JUI “is still believed to be supporting the uprising of the ‘local' Taliban from the tribal areas, and Balochistan.”
The document adds: “Taliban fighters are apparently recruited and trained in these areas.”
Despite the JUI's unsavory connections, President Pervez Musharraf has relied on the party's strong regional voting base in previous elections.
“Part of the quid pro quo with the JUI was, ‘If you want to go after al-Qaeda because of the American pressure, fine, but we will differentiate between al-Qaeda and the Taliban, because we the JUI support the Taliban,'” said Ahmed Rashid, a prominent writer on Afghan issues.
Sitting in the elegant study of his home in Lahore, Pakistan, Mr. Rashid leaned forward in his chair to emphasize his next point: <b>The United States focused on hunting al-Qaeda after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, at the expense of fighting the Taliban.
“What happened after the war ended was simply that the Americans were insisting on a wrap-up of al-Qaeda,” he said. “That was translated by the Americans, very conveniently, as meaning Arabs; not Afghans, not Pakistanis. The focus was on the NWFP,” he said, referring to the North West Frontier Province on the northern side of Pakistan's tribal areas where Osama bin Laden was believed to be hiding.
“Because the focus was there, that very conveniently left the Taliban, who were based essentially in Balochistan, completely alone,” he continued. “Which is why they were able to revive and resurge.”
For the United States, this strategy in Pakistan has achieved significant goals. Since 2001, Pakistan has arrested more than 600 al-Qaeda operatives, including major terrorism suspects such as Ramzi bin Al-Shibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, alleged organizers of the 9/11 attacks.
But the U.S. strategy left NATO with an unpleasant surprise when the international force assumed responsibility for Afghanistan this year: U.S. intelligence agencies had little useful information about the Taliban revival in the south.
Foreign militaries have misunderstood their enemy, said Mohammad Ziauddin, resident editor at the Dawn newspaper group in Islamabad.
Western officials often refer to Mullah Mohammed Omar, the one-eyed former leader of the Taliban government, and his sadistic field marshal, Mullah Dadullah, as key leaders of the insurgency.
But those two leaders are merely “foot soldiers,” Mr. Ziauddin said.
“They take orders from the JUI,” he said. “It's not a Taliban uprising. It's a section of the Pashtuns who are pissed off, and they're organized by the JUI to take back Kabul.”</b>
Some diplomats and analysts disagree with Mr. Ziauddin, saying it's not clear whether the JUI has such control over the militants. But there's broad agreement with his two main points: That the JUI feeds the insurgency with its support, whether material, or merely ideological, as the party claims; and that the Pashtun tribe feels marginalized in the new Kabul government.
The Pashtuns have dominated Afghanistan for centuries. As the main ethnic group of southern Afghanistan, Pashtuns led the Durrani Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, and they formed the core of the Taliban movement that conquered Kabul in 1996.
Pashtun resentment may slowly decline, analysts say, as the northern tribes that overthrew the Taliban in 2001 are increasingly balanced with representation from elsewhere in the country.
But the JUI's influence in Pakistan seems poised to grow. The leader of the JUI's largest faction, Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman, was appointed as the leader of the opposition in 2004, and his party now dominates the provincial governments in Balochistan and the NWFP. Among the JUI's ardent followers, Taliban victories in Afghanistan only increase the Islamic party's prestige inside Pakistan.
And while General Musharraf is a moderate politician, analysts say, recent defections from his governing coalition will force him to rely even more heavily on the JUI's support during the election next year.
This leaves Canadian diplomats with an exceptionally difficult task in Pakistan, Mr. Rashid said: “We are heading for an even bigger catastrophe.”
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The following link is to a page that contained information that gave me a headache to read....
http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/oct/31rajeev.htm
but it illustrated the folly of "invading" Afghanistan to "capture" Bin Laden, and of "enlisting" Pakistan as an "ally" in the GWOT. I am convinced that until the simplistic "thinking" that pervades some of the posts on this thread, and comes from "Bush's base".....the dwindling source of his legitimacy....if that is even what it is that still allows him to make these "speeches", and "fight this war".....morphs into something akin to rational thought, if it even holds that potential; <b>we're all fucked....to a much graver extent than if we endeavored to "stand down" and bring our troops and intelligence assets, home from "the Stans", and from the M.E.</b> IMO, as a nation, we would be wiser to "go to war" against the party ruling the federal government and it's supporters, than to continue the US military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our current government obviously knows not, what it is fucking with, or where it will lead.
Quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durand_Line
The Durand Line is a term for the poorly marked 2,640 kilometer (1,610 mile) border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.....
......<b>The border was drawn intentionally to cut through the Afghan tribes whom the British feared and may have tried to disunite.</b>
Afghanistan's loya jirga of 1949 declared the Durand Line invalid as they saw it as ex parte on their side (since British India ceased to exist in 1947 with the independence of Pakistan. This had no tangible effect as there has never been a move to enforce such a declaration. <b>Additionally, world courts have universally upheld uti possidetis juris, i.e, binding bilateral agreements with or between colonial powers are "passed down" to successor independent states, as with most of Africa.</b> A unilateral declaration by one party has no effect; boundary changes must be made bilaterally. Thus, the Durand Line boundary remains in effect today as the international boundary and is recognized as such by nearly all nations. Despite pervasive internet rumors to the contrary, U.S. Dept. of State and the British Foreign Commonwealth Office documents and spokespersons have recently confirmed that the Durand Line, like virtually all international boundaries, has no expiration date, nor is there any mention of such in any Durand Line documents. (The 1921 treaty expiration refers only to the 1921 agreements.)
Today, the line is often referred to as one drawn on water, symbolizing the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nevertheless, excluding the desert portion southwest of 66 degrees 15 minutes east longitude, 84% of the line follows clear physical features (rivers or watershed divides). The precise route of the remaining 16% straight line segments is also quite clearly demarcated from the 1894-95 demarcation reports and subsequent mapping, so the legal location of the line is not in doubt and is quite accurate on readily available mapping such as the detailed (1:50,000 scale) Russian maps of the 1980s.
The line has come under special attention of late, as the area has become notorious for Taliban fighters freely traveling back and forth, finding safety and shelter in the autonomous Pashtun regions of northwestern Pakistan.
<b>The September 2005 statements by the Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf calling for the building of a fence delineating the Afghanistan/Pakistan border have been met with opposition from Pashtuns political groups and Afghanis who view the border as illegitimate.</b>
The Durand Line continues to be a source of tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan due to the Afghan belief that the people of the Pakistani provinces of NWFP, Balochistan and FATA want to separate from Pakistan and are the property of Afghans. This belief is viewed as good result from Pakhtuns and Baloch living in Pakistani provincies who view themselves as Afghan nationals and who view the land as afghanistan.
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The fact that I have a stepson on active military duty who is about to be sent to risk his life, in one or the other of these Bush debacles, in view of the "blowback" now so evident in both places, as a direct result of Bush admin. policies, is even more disconcerting.
Last edited by host; 09-08-2006 at 01:38 AM..
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