“Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governance over GIRoA [the Afghan government], usually as a result of government corruption, ethnic bias and lack of connection with local religious and tribal leaders”.
That is a direct quote from a NATO report. This blog has been telling you for six years that the Afghan government rigged its elections, is enormously corrupt, full of warlords and deeply implicated in the heroin trade. That the “Afghan army” is a tribal construct based on the Northern Alliance, and channels weapons to warlords. That no development is really happening. That the government of Afghanistan is comprised of individuals who make money from war and have no interest in peace.
All this has been at odds with the mainstream media narrative, which consists of embedded journalists and visiting ministers telling us that British troops are bringing civilisation to Afghanistan, roads are being built, markets opened and little girls going to school. The leaking of a candid NATO report on the genuine situation has brought us one day of reporting which jars with the general narrative flow.
Watch the propaganda machine go into top gear and more of the same old lies pouring forth in the next few days.
I wonder which other crops would thrive there as opium seems to. Maybe olives?
‘aidworker1
has it occurred to you that people in Kabul who speak to foreign aid workers are a small and very particular subset of the people of Afghanistan?’
The BBC yesterday gave us a radio interview with an Alawite woman who insisted that the UK sponsored insurgency did not threaten the safety of the Alawite community.
British special forces are sniping at civilians in Syria and training Al Qaida (stupidism ) forces in Turkey to depose Alawite Assad in a bloody coup like Gaddafi.
It would be a good idea for the BBC to put out some favourable propaganda for the coming bloodbath.
Kashmiri
There are two places in world other than the Holy Land which are are intimitely bound up with the Children of Israel, resulting from the two great exoduses after God’s punishment. The first was the Captivity 500 BC which resulted in the area of Babylon now occupied by Kurdistan, Northern Iraq becoming populated by Jewish people, adopting Judaism and giving their language, Aramaic to the Jewish people. The second was the scourge of the Roman Empire which dismantled the fabulous wealth that rebuilt the temple of Solomon on the site of AlAqsa at the time of Jesus pbuh. Both were the result of the Jewish people exceeding all bounds in their religion.
At the time of Jesus, pbuh they had adopted Indian polytheistic beliefs in re-incarnation ( are you Elias reborn? – Gospels ) and Greek Demeter worship accompanied by Sufist special sacrificial roles for youth and Cabbalistic, sexual predation on males and females, a form of monasticism gone mad.
These people fled East to Afghanistan, taking the names MushTariq, way of Moses, and Khorasan, ( greek name for the garlanded youth devotees of Demeter )
The war in Afghanistan is above all a spiritual battle between Islam and the Zionists trying to revive the lost culture of their deviant ancestors. The war in Iraq was above all an attempt by Zionists to revive their previous physical and spiritual relationship with Kurdistan, punish its oppressors and revive its spiritual importance.
Both wars are designed to maintain Judaism to a previous period of prosperity, like restoring your laptop to the settings of a previous time. This ignores the fact that we know and they know that the teachings of Islam have totally replaced the traditions of Judaism, with a new prophet SAW and similar ways to old Judaism.
The West have been hijacked into this vast enterprise of religious sentimentalism, because wars and colonialism make money, but the principle cause of these two wars is totally misguided, and utterly desperate Zionism, trying to put the clock back to previous supposedly glorious times.
All Pakistanis dream of the Mughal age, as Brits do about earlier times. Dangerous woffle, fantasy dreams.
Both of these wars have a subtext, which all Muslims have to believe, that Islam will prevail.
The mad mullahs of political Islam, Al Qaida, friends of CIA and MI6, which I call stupidism, have tried to take power from the Zionists’ partners in the West, by supplying terror and blodshed from the Muslim side. Nobody believes that they are anything but ntraitors to Islam now, after the collaboration of NATO and Al Qaida in Libya and Afghanistan. Islam will not be hijacked by nutters, however much it suits the disbelievers to empower their stupid, selfish plans.
The beautiful and totally truthful religion of Islam will prevail in spite of the political machinations of CIA and AlQaida. Taliban is at the centre of that success, and they will be betrayed, persecuted and massacred by CIA/MI6/Zionism/AlQaida before Western troops leave. Ultimately the fog will clear and real Islam will prevail.
Kashmiri
Please look up the attempt to import Sufi monasticism from Afghanistan to Konya in Turkey, several centuries ago. This Sufi-ing of Turkey directly paved the way for the Zionist created Young Turk destruction of the Ottoman Empire by atheist homosexual Attaturk.
Every school in Turkey has a government appointee in charge to enforce secularism in Turkish education. This is now being replaced by a US-sponsored version of Islam, the Gulen network.
You will find that this is in reality Zio-Qaida stupidism, the abuse of boot-camp jihadism by Zionists in education to indoctrinate young people in the values of global war and financial domination.
Sweet dreams.
Hi Craig long time reader, first time commenter. I was wondering if you had any comment on this news article:
http://www.defencetalk.com/us-lifts-ban-on-uzbek-military-aid-40279/
Seeing as you were formerly the British ambassador to Uzbekistan and you’ve been concerned with the continued human rights violations by the government I thought it might interest you.
Afganistan, the graweyard of empires.
What did anyone expect, that the Afgan people sould automaticly bend ower because, here We come.
And states that If they dont aply, We just Humanise them bact to the stone age.
The propblem is propaganda, a forced vision on a world that is not there, nothing is improving, and Afganistan IS a warsone, dont forgett that.
Nothing “normal” with that.
Afgan people have lived in a warsone for decades, people born into war, grow up in a warsone, and thrying as best they can with what litle they have left to create a living. In a envirioment that is pulverised thru decades of war.
And stil people belive the News and the “itegrety” of our Goverments spokesperson.
Evevry thing we know is based on what the MSM feed us, 24/7.
And all this sufferings are the result of Lies and forgerys. We all know that, but stil nothing happens, nothing.
The Afgan people have al my respect for what they are enduring under grim conditions: Lett the Afgan people deside whos the one to rule, Taliban as portrayed in the west, my winn the war, but the Peace demands others that are more pragmatic. Afganistan was not a “conservative” comunety before, it became that after all the missery and pain inflicted in wars and the ugly Heroin/raw opium farming and abuse. Heroin is a bigg propblem for Afganistan, and thats thanks to Us.
The hypocracy and dobbelspeak is staggering, the Lies are utterly despecable and based on the sinple fact that comon people are stupid and dont know nothing.
Exept for whos judges at Idol and so on.
And a staggering amount of utter drivel. Spoonfed thru years of mindless shitt on the tube, lately relocated to the Net, same lame shitt, just new wrapping.
I can only hope and dream of an Afganistan, like it was before, revitalized.
But it wil take time, but first they must be left alone, redraw all foreign trops and lett the Afgan people solve their own problems, in what ever way they see fitt.
Its not our bissenisse.
Capice
peace
Afghans have consistently supported the forces opposing the Western occupation by around 70%. On BBC R4’s Today programme yesterday some state propagandist suggested that the popular support was obtained through ‘terrorising’ people, although he conceded that recently a large number had fallen ‘victim’ to a Taleban hearts and minds operation – meaning schools, health-care and social service provision in the mode of Hezbollah and Hamas. The state propagandist suggested that military operations should “put a stop” to these tactics (I think the subtext was that more civilians need to be killed in Taleban controlled areas)
The BBC just lets this nonsense roll out unquestioned. A bit like how they concede that NATO helped Al Qaeda take down Libya and has also been influential in the destabilisation of Yemen but still insists that they are a threat to Western civilization. How stupid do they think people are? Al Qaeda was created and is controlled by the western Intelligence services CIA, Mossad and MI6.
Anyone familiar with N.I. terrorism may have seen the recently released UK intelligence reports that show MI5/MI6 were controlling the IRA during the height of the troubles. This will not surprise those that have followed the career of Martin McGuiness.
VOICE OF AMERICA: Why don’t you expel Osama bin Laden?
MULLAH OMAR: This is not an issue of Osama bin Laden. It is an issue of Islam. Islam’s prestige is at stake. So is Afghanistan’s tradition.
VOA: Do you know that the US has announced war against you & they are going to destroy your country?
OMAR: I am considering two promises. One is the promise of God, the other is that of Bush. The promise of God is that my land is vast. If you start a journey on God’s path, you can reside anywhere on this earth and will be protected… The promise of Bush is that there is no place on earth where you can hide that I cannot find you. We will see which one of these two promises is fulfilled.
VOA: But aren’t you afraid for the people, yourself, the Taliban, your country?
OMAR: Almighty God… is helping the believers and the Muslims. God says he will never be satisfied with the infidels. In terms of worldly affairs, America is very strong. Even if it were twice as strong or twice that again, it could not be strong enough to defeat us. We are confident that no one can harm us if God is with us.
Fedup, I was being facetious about ‘desert’, a bit like when I call the Falklands a ‘rock’ but I guess the opium trade way outstripped any mineral wealth, and some say it was because they were destroying their poppy-fields that NATO went in. But yes, it is uniquely positioned geographically and has been seen as a crown jewel for many an imperialist.
Regarding the comments by Aidworker 1, Craig’s response, and later comments by Kashmiri:
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Craig’s sentiments echo those of Rory Stewart, who probably knows Afghanistan as well as any Brit. In his recent book on intervention he suggests that all western visitors to Afghanistan, including aidworkers, are allowed to meet very few Afghanis.
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I would have expected like Craig and Kashmiri that the Taliban would be more efficient than Karzai’s mob.
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However I do suspect that the treatment of women at least with regard to freedom of expression and especially education has been significantly better under Karzai and I would love to know what the ‘average’ Afghani really feels about this. By the average Afghani I mean women as well as men, whereas I think most estimates of the average Afghani might be biased towards male views.
Craig (and others)
Someone on this thread (Aidworker1)claims to have been to Afghanistan and spoken to Afghanis – you have to respect that and not just dismiss their evidence as invalid.
May be the situation isn’t straight forward. May be it requires something more than a choice between two corrupt and oppressive alternatives.
Thanks for that poem M.Culver. the historical references and elucidations of Guano are also appreaciated. Most of us do not know how far zionism has spread, dare I use the word tentacle, Kahsmir being one of the places zionism is very involved, no doubt they will be doing more than training the Indian pilots, at arms lenght to both countries nuclear weapon stores.
I fear that any flagration that occurs in the middle east, whether its on Cyprus, the Turkish Syrian border or in the starits of Hormuz, chances are that this will ignite Pakistan and Afghanistan, with India sitting on hot coals, most likely getting involved over the 50 year old Kashmir dispute that has cost hundreds if not thousands of life’s already.
What do you recon on the chances that a ME war could cause the world to ignite, Guano?
@ Crab: this was a report published in 2001, since then with the invasion, not only growing poppy has sky rocketed, but the heroin producing workshop/factories have increased ten fold.
Iran and Pakistan are the two countries (being next door to Afghanistan) that are seeing a huge surge in heroin addicts..
I hated the Taliban and their policies but destroying poppy fields was one good thing they did, no one can deny that. After the invasion Taliban went back to fund their war with growing and selling poppy again (so it is reported)
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JALALABAD, Afghanistan (February 15, 2001 8:19 p.m. EST
U.N. drug control officers said the Taliban religious militia has nearly wiped out opium production in Afghanistan — once the world’s largest producer — since banning poppy cultivation last summer.
A 12-member team from the U.N. Drug Control Program spent two weeks searching most of the nation’s largest opium-producing areas and found so few poppies that they do not expect any opium to come out of Afghanistan this year.
“We are not just guessing. We have seen the proof in the fields,” said Bernard Frahi, regional director for the U.N. program in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He laid out photographs of vast tracts of land cultivated with wheat alongside pictures of the same fields taken a year earlier — a sea of blood-red poppies.
A State Department official said Thursday all the information the United States has received so far indicates the poppy crop had decreased, but he did not believe it was eliminated.
Ingo
I am only speculating about the spread of Zionism my friend.
I have no other way of explaining why our politicians would make war on innocent and harmless populations for apparently great loss and no gain. Pure speculation.
Bankers create the illusions of recessions and Politicians create the illusions of tensions. Somebody draws up a plan which will bring the price of land down through war, and up again after the war. They do it to speculate on land. I speculate only because you have to use the same mind as they have, a mind of speculative gaming/gambling, even to begin to understand what is going on in their minds. I have always said on this blog that that was my way of trying to work out what is going on.
The police and judges have to second-guess criminals, or they’d just be rubber-stamping lies all the time. I try to put my mind into the most contorted state that cross-eyed insanity will tolerate, and then I can see hidden shapes in the picture.
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Wars don’t get sparked off by tensions. Tensions get sparked off by politicians. They know what to do to cause problems that benefit them. Dirty, conniving, scumbag, lying Pussticians.
My Muslim political friend told me that Assad was lying when he said that the world would ignite if Syria was invaded. And he, my friend, not Assad, always lies. So in my simple mind it follows that they have a neat little plan that will contain a lot of bloodshed against Muslims within Syria, to satisfy the blood lust of Zion, leaving the corpse of Islam in the form of Freemason Turkey, and the Satanist Israelis – unharmed.
NATO might and most certainly will leave Afghanistan but it is also certain that this will not bring peace to Afghanistan. One should be very naive as to think that when NATO leaves Afghans will start successful state building and emerge as united peaceful nation. This is illusion. The civil war will last for decades to come.
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There are at least 2 major lessons to be learned from Afghan tragedy.
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First is that irresponsible superpowers geopolitics and involvement of third party states into proxy war and zero sum games can result to serious security issues in the future. USSR has long been history, Berlin Wall was torn down 22 years ago but Afghanistan is still war torn country, source of security concerns for the rest of the world from drugs production to radical Islam. Afghanistan should serve as a reminder to those who put short term interests before long term strategy. This is particularly important considering the developments in the Middle East and North Africa. However, it seems that in future with rise of China and decaying US influence such short term interests will most probably dominate geopolitics in the next 20 years.
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Second is that even for the most technically advanced armies in the world it is not possible to win a war (or in this case peace) against two decades of poverty, lawlessness, disorder which is historically backed by intolerance to any kind of order and foreign in particular. If even the most advanced countries with billions spent on various development projects were not able to fix Afghanistan then what else can be done? This is the question that needs answering before any future failed state fixing project involvements is put on a table.
Not a word in British Media re continued anti regime demonstration in Bahrain and Saudi. I am surprised (NOT)!
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/224428.html
Germany has largely remained out of ‘the great game’ and continues to aid the reconstruction in North Afghanistan. Germany was opposed to military intervention in Iraq and Libya.
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Germany’s trade with China ranks first, more than that, Sino-German relations are at an all time high. With these assets in hand Chancellor Merkel has once again arrived in Beijing, a visit the West’s propaganda machine headlines with ‘Germany urges China to press Iran over nukes’ and ‘China pressed to support UN sanctions on Syria’ in the hope Merkel can secure both aims in a dead-locked situation with Russia standing firm, saying she will veto any resolution on Syria that calls for military intervention.
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However Merkel is really in China to save her bacon. The European debt crisis is getting worse. On Jan. 26, International Monetary Fund forecasted that European economy may shrink by 0.5 percent in 2012 due to the crisis, and the global economy may fall in another recession. The euro is terminal decline; Merkel wants China to invest more of its foreign exchange reserves in EU nations. Empathy is the key. For example, China has become a member of the World Trade Organization for 10 years, but the EU has still neither recognized its market status to date nor abolished its arms embargo against China.
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However the dragon is a sign of evil in the West and reaching the soft belly of the dragon to encourage China to assist in the destruction of two countries, Syria and Iran, will only cause the West to witness a contemptuous, sharp and rather long tongue.
Mark Golding
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You of course understand that North Afghanistan is slightly different from the rest of the country. It is like Iraqi Kurdistan. For Germany it was much more productive to fund development projects in the North where security concerns are least challenging and role of Taliban virtually inexistent.
Azra
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It is also true that drug trafficking was major source of income for Taliban in their fight against Northern Alliance. Fair to say that both parties used drugs to fund a war and it is certainly true that since 2001 drug trafficking had doubled if not tripled. And this is largely due to the fact that with NATO invasion centralised power in the south of the country run by Taliban has diminished and poppy production and drug trafficking was out of control.
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The major debate that NATO and the rest of the world is now facing what major priorities should now be? Afghanistan under centralised power which of course mean Afghanistan under Taliban, or whether Taliban is not to be trusted again.
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It seems that the former is leading its way. But this of course will not bring an end to the civil war as North opposes to any pro-Taliban policies and will unlikely accept Taliban’s rule over their territory. And North will be supported here not only by its neighbours in Central Asia but most probably by Russia too which is very much concerned with possible security deterioration on its southern borders.
Chienfou,
You are talking out of your hat.
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Kashmiri,
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The reason for the police shooting up the place is, in Afghanistan local police do not get paid a regular salary. they are recruited and sold a uniform and let loose on the population to enforce the law, which in practice means to earn their living through bribes and on the spot taxation/liberation/sharing of goods and chattel of sorts.
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FAO All,
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The reason underlying the farming of high value crops such as opium lie entirely in the total lack of distribution and transport infrastructure. Afghanistan’s harsh climate, and hard soil, in parallel with the difficulties in getting the standard crops into the markets forces Afghan farmers to get on with farming opium, and marijuana crops. These farmers often have to borrow the money for the seed crops as well as their personal expenses, and eventually sell the opium/marijuana back to the money lender at pathetically low prices, that in turn keeps these farmers in a condition akin to bonded labour.
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Someone has already mentioned the dirty dollars business, a whole story on its own, however as a hint; one third of the Pakistan economy was geared towards narcotics business, that was before US aircraft flights out of Afghanistan.
On Obama and state assassinations which are secret unless he boasts about them.
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ACLU sues Obama administration over assassination secrecy
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/02/aclu_sues_obama_administration_over_assassination_secrecy/singleton/
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Glenn Greenwald
Thanks Passerby
Yeh! So what if someone has actually been to the country and spoken to real people there. What do they know? I bet they haven’t seen half the websites you have or quote the statistics like you can.
Thanks Guano. Passerby’s apt description of the deep feudal realtionship these opium/hashish farmers have with their moneylenders, which in many cases are also the landowner and banker to these very poor people, are the relationships most people in rural Afghanistan have, contrary to the City dwellers in Kabul, a city of its very own subset of people from all wakes of society and tribes, but settled in the capital. Kandahar is totally under Pashtun control, whether the military is stationed there or not, its controlled by the Taliban, peace there, means trade and smuggling can commence. One w/should not like to guess how popular the Talibs are amongst the established warlords there but I know that the Pashtuns operate with impunity across the border with Pakistan, they are well organised and always trust their own kind before they trust anybody else.
The closest european comparisson would be large Italian/Albanian families, some deeply into organised crime, who have for 300 years lived by the code of silence.
@Clark Brian Haw would be standing out there in front of Parlaiment shouting and booing politicians accuse them of being war mongers and ask them how they can afford to go to war but have no money for the disabled. He would give the tourists somthing to snap. He also had humour, I’m almost sure that he would have worn some Olympic rings as glasses or something like that, he knew how to play to the crowd. RIP, he should have his statue erected on that space.
@chienfou
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That’s remarkably similar to a put-down I’ve received twice in arguments. “What do you know? All you ever do is read books!”
Re “aidworker1”
One point to bear in mind is the nature of the Taliban. It’s heartland is in the South and it is very Pushtun dominated. Therefore in the North (Kabul inc) with Dari speakers, never mind the Uzbek speakers, they are bound to be less happy with the possibility of the Taliban returning to power. Of course in a Hazzara districts where the people are mainly Shias the thought of a return to the militant Sunni agenda must fill them with dread.
I do recommend Taliban by James Fergusson for anyone wanting to find more about the Taliban.
I feel sorry for the poor souls in E Europe at the moment, many homeless, enduring temperatures down to -30C. Unimaginable.
@Vronsky
No – books are good. I am saying that first hand experience is good too.
My point is that if someone has first hand knowledge (and I am referring to Aidworker1 here) you should listen to what they say not dismiss their experience or put THEM down by suggesting that they spoke to the wrong people or visited the wrong part of Afghanistan.
Chienfou Said; “…….What do they know? …..”
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Evidently more than you.
What about the stories of other Afghans?
Your/Aid worker1 attempt in window dressing, is an attempt; to cover up/obfuscate/discount the monumental failure of US/UK/NATO in making any difference in Afghanistan, despite the huge costs of the failed enterprise, other than, having killed hundreds of thousands of Afghans.
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Paul,
Currently US is talking to Taliban, who have set up an office in Qatar, and are getting Saudi/UAE funding; reminiscence of the status quo anti. However, you have correctly pointed out; the other factions within the Afghan political arena, most certainly will not be happy to give up their grip on power and hand over to Mullah Omar and co. just because Al Suad wish so, under the tutelage of the US. This is a separate issue from the wishes of ordinary Afghans.
“Currently US is talking to Taliban, who have set up an office in Qatar”
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I don’t think so. Last I heard the US had demanded a cease fire first, and the Taliban said No. Not even sure the ‘office’ in Qatar exists yet.
“ethnic bias and lack of connection with local religious and tribal leaders”.”
I wonder why?
Why would they prefer their OWN leaders after all? Why prefer their own TRUSTED people known for generations?
And WHY, oh, WHY, can’t these…these…NATIVES (looking down with contempt)…. can’t simply accept American and Brit OVERLORDS!
And last, why can’t these dirty, unkempt Natives, just accept the DNA mutations, of the DP bombs, the West drops on them? It’s a good trade-off for bringing them civilization, no?
Well, too bad if they don’t like it! They gotta pay with their oil, for the cost of the wars, the West is graciously bringing to them!
These NATIVES have better settle down, the more they scream, rant and fight with their Freedom Fighters, the more war they will get!
It’s waht the West is good for, ever since a couple of centuries ago, with the Brit invasion of China, India and American invasion of Hawaii, et al.