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#21
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The Battle for Marjah: US Must Win with Both Hands Tied Behind it's Back
"William Black" wrote in message ... "Jonathan" wrote in message ... Legitimacy only flows from the people. Tell me, exactly how do the Afghan people in and around Marjah feel about this offensive? That's easy. They'd like the very loud bangs to stop, please, right now... What makes you say that? The Grand Ayatollah Sistani, who represents the majority of Iraq, didn't have any problem with our campaign in Fallujah. The UN, and common decency, has ruled it legal for us to attempt to return the ability of the Afghan people to make those decisions by themselves. Return? When did the people of Afghanistan ever have that right? Opportunity might have been a better word. But you make my point, Afghanistan has suffered at the hands of dictators for too long. Which is why it's such a hellhole. We have military bases almost everywhere. Plenty. What we want is to establish the domino effect within Islam. Where one dictatorship after another falls to democracy. The domino effect only works with things people...want, democracy. Not with dictatorships. The Taliban is not a dictatorship. Any top down or rigid control structure is a dictatorship. Whether that dictatorship is economic, religious or military doesn't really matter. Such control systems all suffer from the same fatal flaws and generally end up going out in a horrific Blaze of Glory. A rigid or dogmatic control structure, where the power is in the hands of a few, are highly resistant to change. The people constantly change their needs, desires and interests. The two camps inherently drift apart over time from the simple fact one is highly adaptive, the other is highly resistant to change. A dictatorship is destined for conflict internally, and also with democracies for the same reason. A govt must have the ability to quickly adapt. -- William Black I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach Time for tea. All unnatural systems have an expiration date. Democracy reflects a natural system. (positive sum) Dictatorships reflect a man-made system. (negative sum) With good and evil appropriately assigned to each. As in Natural vs Man-made. Since one creates, and the other destroys. s |
#22
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The Battle for Marjah: US Must Win with Both Hands Tied Behindit's Back
Jonathan wrote:
"William Black" wrote in message ... "Jonathan" wrote in message ... Legitimacy only flows from the people. Tell me, exactly how do the Afghan people in and around Marjah feel about this offensive? That's easy. They'd like the very loud bangs to stop, please, right now... What makes you say that? The Grand Ayatollah Sistani, who represents the majority of Iraq, didn't have any problem with our campaign in Fallujah. [ SNIP ] But I'll bet that the people in Fallujah would have liked the very loud bangs to stop, please, right now... AHS |
#23
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The Battle for Marjah: US Must Win with Both Hands Tied Behind it's Back
"Arved Sandstrom" wrote in message news:FZ0fn.68024$PH1.1203@edtnps82... Jonathan wrote: "William Black" wrote in message ... "Jonathan" wrote in message ... Legitimacy only flows from the people. Tell me, exactly how do the Afghan people in and around Marjah feel about this offensive? That's easy. They'd like the very loud bangs to stop, please, right now... What makes you say that? The Grand Ayatollah Sistani, who represents the majority of Iraq, didn't have any problem with our campaign in Fallujah. [ SNIP ] But I'll bet that the people in Fallujah would have liked the very loud bangs to stop, please, right now... The reason Baghdad /every day/ had one 'very loud bang' after another is due to the fact that just forty miles to the west lies a Sunni insurgent stronghold called Fallujah. When a lawless city, like Fallujah, has as it's only export an unending stream of car- bombs, dedicated to blowing up only crowded market places full of women, and schools full of little girls, then NOT taking over Fallujah would be a crime against humanity. The Ayatollah and the Iraqi govt constantly criticized us for not bringing enough troops to be able to stop the car and suicide bombings, mostly coming from Fallujah, which accounted for roughly /half/ of all the ...Iraqi...casualites. In December 2006, the city had become stable enough to return control back to the Iraqi forces. Take a look at this chart and what happend ...after 2006. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/ I bet the same will be true for Marjah with the steadily increasing violence in Afghanistan. It's the difference between winning or losing. Not to mention getting rid of half the world's heroin crop. AHS |
#24
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The Battle for Marjah: US Must Win with Both Hands Tied Behind it's Back
"Jonathan" wrote in message ... "William Black" wrote in message ... "Jonathan" wrote in message ... Legitimacy only flows from the people. Tell me, exactly how do the Afghan people in and around Marjah feel about this offensive? That's easy. They'd like the very loud bangs to stop, please, right now... What makes you say that? The Grand Ayatollah Sistani, who represents the majority of Iraq, didn't have any problem with our campaign in Fallujah. Because nobody in Afghanistanreally cares what religious leaders say unless it's 'kill the infidels'. The Taliban is not a dictatorship. Any top down or rigid control structure is a dictatorship. Whether that dictatorship is economic, religious or military doesn't really matter. That shows a terrifying lack of understanding about how Pathan society and something called Pashtunwali works. Pathan society works as an absolute democracy. Anyone trying to impose upon them just gets shot. The men doing the shooting are doing the shooting because they want to do the shooting. Their families respect thatd ecision even if they don't agree with it. Leaders are selected by the jirga (an assembly of all the men involved) based, usually, on wealth and reputation. -- William Black I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach Time for tea. |
#25
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The Battle for Marjah: US Must Win with Both Hands Tied Behindit's Back
On Feb 15, 8:12*pm, "Jonathan" wrote:
Someone seems to have untied those hands. But of course everyone knows that Obama is so soft on terrorism and is unable to do anything in Afghanistan. Hey, Ali, have you seen my rolladex? Or maybe Mr. Baradar just likes to chat. Sans augment interrogation techniques. Pfffft! February 19, 2010 In Blow to Taliban, 2 More Senior Leaders Are Arrested By DEXTER FILKINS KABUL, Afghanistan — Two senior Taliban leaders have been arrested in recent days inside Pakistan, officials said Thursday, as American and Pakistani intelligence agents continued to press their offensive against the group’s leadership after the capture of the insurgency’s military commander last month. Afghan officials said the Taliban’s “shadow governors” for two provinces in northern Afghanistan had been detained in Pakistan by officials there. Mullah Abdul Salam, the Taliban’s leader in Kunduz, was detained in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad, and Mullah Mir Mohammed of Baghlan Province was also captured in an undisclosed Pakistani city, they said. The arrests come on the heels of the capture of Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s military commander and the deputy to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the movement’s founder. Mr. Baradar was arrested in a joint operation by the C.I.A. and the ISI, Pakistan’s military intelligence agency. The arrests were made by Pakistani officials, the Afghans said, but it seemed probable that C.I.A. officers accompanied them, as they did in the arrest of Mr. Baradar. Pakistani officials declined to comment. Together, the three arrests mark the most significant blow to the Taliban’s leadership since the American-backed war began eight years ago. They also demonstrate the extent to which the Taliban’s senior leaders have been able to use Pakistan as a sanctuary to plan and mount attacks in Afghanistan. A senior United States official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the arrest of the two shadow governors was unrelated to Mr. Baradar’s capture. Even so, Muhammad Omar, the governor of Kunduz Province, said in an interview that the two Taliban shadow governors maintained a close working relationship with Mr. Baradar. “Mullah Salam and Mullah Mohammed were the most merciless individuals,” said Gen. Razaq Yaqoobi, police chief of Kunduz Province. “Most of the terror, executions and other crimes committed in northern Afghanistan were on their orders.” The immediate impact of the arrests of the two Taliban governors was unclear. In the short term, it could probably be expected to hurt the Taliban’s operations somewhat and possibly demoralize their rank-and- file fighters, but probably not for long. In the past the Taliban have proved capable of quickly replacing their killed or captured leaders. The three recent arrests — all in Pakistan — demonstrate a greater level of cooperation by Pakistan in hunting leaders of the Afghan Taliban than in the entire eight years of war. American officials have complained bitterly since 2001 that the Pakistanis, while claiming to be American allies and accepting American aid were simultaneously providing sanctuary and assistance to Taliban fighters and leaders who were battling the Americans across the border. In conversations with American officials, Pakistani officials would often claim not to know about the existence of the “Quetta Shura,” the name given to the council of senior Taliban leaders that used the Pakistani city of Quetta as a sanctuary for years. It was the Quetta Shura — also known as the Supreme Council — that Mr. Baradar presided over. It is still far from clear, but senior commanders in Afghanistan say they believe that the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies, led by Gens. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Ahmed Shuja Pasha, may finally be coming around to the belief that the Taliban — in Pakistan and Afghanistan — constitute a threat to the existence of the Pakistani state. “I believe that General Kayani and his leaders have come to the conclusion that they want us to succeed,” a senior NATO officer in Kabul said. Word of the arrests of the shadow governors came as American, Afghan and British forces continue to press ahead with their largest military operation to date, in the Afghan agricultural town of Marja. Earlier this month, on the eve of the Marja invasion, Afghan officials also detained Marja’s shadow governor as he tried to flee the country. The Taliban figures are commonly referred to as “shadow governors” because their identities are secret and because they mirror the legitimate governors appointed by the Afghan government. The Taliban’s shadow governors oversee all military and political operations in a given area. Even before the arrests in Pakistan, the American and Afghan military and intelligence services appeared to have been enjoying a run of success against Taliban leaders inside Afghanistan. The senior NATO officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said American forces had detained or killed “three or four” Taliban provincial governors in the past several weeks, including the Taliban’s shadow governor for Laghman Province. Another NATO officer, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Mullah Zakhir, the Taliban’s military commander for southern Afghanistan, had been ordered back to Pakistan before the Marja offensive. Indeed, the capture of two Taliban governors inside Pakistan may reflect the greater level of insecurity that all Taliban leaders are feeling inside Afghanistan at the moment. “The Taliban are feeling a new level of pain,” the senior NATO officer said. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/wo...gewanted=print |
#26
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The Battle for Marjah: US Must Win with Both Hands Tied Behindit's Back
On Feb 17, 5:57*am, Jack Linthicum
wrote: On Feb 17, 4:27*am, "William Black" wrote: "Andrew Swallow" wrote in message ... Ray O'Hara wrote: "William Black" wrote in message {snip} The Taliban is not a dictatorship. *What is it? its certainly not a republican form of government. a theoracy is a type of dictatorship From the outside the Taliban feels like a group of war lords. No no no... That's our side... -- William Black I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate All these moments will be lost in time, *like icecream on the beach Time for tea. Seems more like what Americans call a "Yard Sale", everyone participates until the profits start to dwindle. Yard sales yield a profit? Heck I thought yard sales were for getting rid of stuff that you think others may want that you haven't donated to charity or thrown out, and that aren't worth putting on eBay. |
#27
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The Battle for Marjah: US Must Win with Both Hands Tied Behindit's Back
On Feb 18, 5:06*pm, Eric Chomko wrote:
On Feb 17, 5:57*am, Jack Linthicum wrote: On Feb 17, 4:27*am, "William Black" wrote: "Andrew Swallow" wrote in message ... Ray O'Hara wrote: "William Black" wrote in message {snip} The Taliban is not a dictatorship. *What is it? its certainly not a republican form of government. a theoracy is a type of dictatorship From the outside the Taliban feels like a group of war lords. No no no... That's our side... -- William Black I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate All these moments will be lost in time, *like icecream on the beach Time for tea. Seems more like what Americans call a "Yard Sale", everyone participates until the profits start to dwindle. Yard sales yield a profit? Heck I thought yard sales were for getting rid of stuff that you think others may want that you haven't donated to charity or thrown out, and that aren't worth putting on eBay. In the neighborhood yard sales I have participated in the "good" stuff goes early, pretty much at the listed price. Towards the third or fourth hour items are sold for the buyer's price, finally the junk is given away. |
#28
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The Battle for Marjah: US Must Win with Both Hands Tied Behind it's Back
"William Black" wrote in message ... "Jonathan" wrote in message Any top down or rigid control structure is a dictatorship. Whether that dictatorship is economic, religious or military doesn't really matter. That shows a terrifying lack of understanding about how Pathan society and something called Pashtunwali works. Pathan society works as an absolute democracy. And you think that's what is going on in Marjah today? Are these tribal elders responsible for the ...92 ...tons...of poppy seed the US confiscated from Marjah just last spring? Did the people consent, or are they being forced to plant poppy and arm insurgents? The US has respect for the tribal system used in the region as it reflect many democratic principle. For example.... Fallujah "The new mayor of the city Taha Bidaywi Hamed, selected by local tribal leaders was strongly pro-American" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah Only a city of sociopaths would voluntarily consent to the mass processing of the most addictive drug on the face of the planet, painting a deadly target over the entire city and all it's people? Even Evo Morales understands the immorality of doing something like that. The Taliban have forcibly taken over and rule as any dictatorship would, by the few imposing their decisions by fear and force. Not by the consent of the people, where legitimacy resides. Anyone trying to impose upon them just gets shot. And I think the reality is that the Taliban are imposing themselves in order to profit from the massive drug trade. We are the ones freeing them from a recently imposed dictatorship. Or more accurately a large criminal entrerprise. The men doing the shooting are doing the shooting because they want to do the shooting. Their families respect thatd ecision even if they don't agree with it. Leaders are selected by the jirga (an assembly of all the men involved) based, usually, on wealth and reputation. Without the Taliban that could become a reality, but not if we let the entire country become controlled by the largest Drug Cartel in the world. Is that what your arguing for? Like it was before 9/11? -- William Black I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach Time for tea. |
#29
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The Battle for Marjah: US Must Win with Both Hands Tied Behind it's Back
"Jack Linthicum" wrote in message ... On Feb 15, 8:12 pm, "Jonathan" wrote: Someone seems to have untied those hands. But of course everyone knows that Obama is so soft on terrorism and is unable to do anything in Afghanistan. Hey, Ali, have you seen my rolladex? Or maybe Mr. Baradar just likes to chat. Sans augment interrogation techniques. Pfffft! February 19, 2010 In Blow to Taliban, 2 More Senior Leaders Are Arrested By DEXTER FILKINS Well, remember that Clinton tended to defer to the military. He was quoted as saying his lack of service meant he didn't have enough credibility to ignore the Pentagon's advice. I think the same thing is going on here. They seem to be applying all the lessons learned in Iraq to this operation. It was clear during most of Iraq that the Pentagon brass wanted more troops and nation building then Bush/Cheney wanted. So far so good. Hopefully our military has finally figured out how to 'win the hearts and minds'. And today I read the US claims to already have control over most of they city. The paper also said the insurgents were forcing civilians to stand in the windows and on the roofs of buildings they were using to fire at our troops. s KABUL, Afghanistan - Two senior Taliban leaders have been arrested in recent days inside Pakistan, officials said Thursday, as American and Pakistani intelligence agents continued to press their offensive against the group's leadership after the capture of the insurgency's military commander last month. Afghan officials said the Taliban's "shadow governors" for two provinces in northern Afghanistan had been detained in Pakistan by officials there. Mullah Abdul Salam, the Taliban's leader in Kunduz, was detained in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad, and Mullah Mir Mohammed of Baghlan Province was also captured in an undisclosed Pakistani city, they said. The arrests come on the heels of the capture of Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's military commander and the deputy to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the movement's founder. Mr. Baradar was arrested in a joint operation by the C.I.A. and the ISI, Pakistan's military intelligence agency. The arrests were made by Pakistani officials, the Afghans said, but it seemed probable that C.I.A. officers accompanied them, as they did in the arrest of Mr. Baradar. Pakistani officials declined to comment. Together, the three arrests mark the most significant blow to the Taliban's leadership since the American-backed war began eight years ago. They also demonstrate the extent to which the Taliban's senior leaders have been able to use Pakistan as a sanctuary to plan and mount attacks in Afghanistan. A senior United States official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the arrest of the two shadow governors was unrelated to Mr. Baradar's capture. Even so, Muhammad Omar, the governor of Kunduz Province, said in an interview that the two Taliban shadow governors maintained a close working relationship with Mr. Baradar. "Mullah Salam and Mullah Mohammed were the most merciless individuals," said Gen. Razaq Yaqoobi, police chief of Kunduz Province. "Most of the terror, executions and other crimes committed in northern Afghanistan were on their orders." The immediate impact of the arrests of the two Taliban governors was unclear. In the short term, it could probably be expected to hurt the Taliban's operations somewhat and possibly demoralize their rank-and- file fighters, but probably not for long. In the past the Taliban have proved capable of quickly replacing their killed or captured leaders. The three recent arrests - all in Pakistan - demonstrate a greater level of cooperation by Pakistan in hunting leaders of the Afghan Taliban than in the entire eight years of war. American officials have complained bitterly since 2001 that the Pakistanis, while claiming to be American allies and accepting American aid were simultaneously providing sanctuary and assistance to Taliban fighters and leaders who were battling the Americans across the border. In conversations with American officials, Pakistani officials would often claim not to know about the existence of the "Quetta Shura," the name given to the council of senior Taliban leaders that used the Pakistani city of Quetta as a sanctuary for years. It was the Quetta Shura - also known as the Supreme Council - that Mr. Baradar presided over. It is still far from clear, but senior commanders in Afghanistan say they believe that the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies, led by Gens. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Ahmed Shuja Pasha, may finally be coming around to the belief that the Taliban - in Pakistan and Afghanistan - constitute a threat to the existence of the Pakistani state. "I believe that General Kayani and his leaders have come to the conclusion that they want us to succeed," a senior NATO officer in Kabul said. Word of the arrests of the shadow governors came as American, Afghan and British forces continue to press ahead with their largest military operation to date, in the Afghan agricultural town of Marja. Earlier this month, on the eve of the Marja invasion, Afghan officials also detained Marja's shadow governor as he tried to flee the country. The Taliban figures are commonly referred to as "shadow governors" because their identities are secret and because they mirror the legitimate governors appointed by the Afghan government. The Taliban's shadow governors oversee all military and political operations in a given area. Even before the arrests in Pakistan, the American and Afghan military and intelligence services appeared to have been enjoying a run of success against Taliban leaders inside Afghanistan. The senior NATO officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said American forces had detained or killed "three or four" Taliban provincial governors in the past several weeks, including the Taliban's shadow governor for Laghman Province. Another NATO officer, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Mullah Zakhir, the Taliban's military commander for southern Afghanistan, had been ordered back to Pakistan before the Marja offensive. Indeed, the capture of two Taliban governors inside Pakistan may reflect the greater level of insecurity that all Taliban leaders are feeling inside Afghanistan at the moment. "The Taliban are feeling a new level of pain," the senior NATO officer said. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/wo...gewanted=print |
#30
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The Battle for Marjah: US Must Win with Both Hands Tied Behindit's Back
On Feb 18, 8:07*pm, "Jonathan" wrote:
"Jack Linthicum" wrote in message ... On Feb 15, 8:12 pm, "Jonathan" wrote: Someone seems to have untied those hands. But of course everyone knows that Obama is so soft on terrorism and is unable to do anything in Afghanistan. Hey, Ali, have you seen my rolladex? Or maybe Mr. Baradar just likes to chat. Sans augment interrogation techniques. Pfffft! February 19, 2010 In Blow to Taliban, 2 More Senior Leaders Are Arrested By DEXTER FILKINS Well, remember that Clinton tended to defer to the military. He was quoted as saying his lack of service meant he didn't have enough credibility to ignore the Pentagon's advice. I think the same thing is going on here. They seem to be applying all the lessons learned in Iraq to this operation. It was clear during most of Iraq that the Pentagon brass wanted more troops and nation building then Bush/Cheney wanted. The key may well have been McCain's opposition to Rumsfeld, who had been behind the small footprint strategy, which worked great in initial attack and capture of Iraq and Afghanistan but was criticised fro too low a footprint after. So far so good. Hopefully our military has finally figured out how to 'win the hearts and minds'. Agreed, and to combine it with the tactics that work in the field to isolate guerrillas, drive off support, marginalize them and dry their support base. Force them to either quit or stand in place in ground where they can't move well enough to hit and run. |
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