More on Afghanistan.

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Two Cents About COIN

by Ryan McCarl, at Antiwar.com

The war in Afghanistan, according to Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s recent assessment, is "a situation that defies simple solutions or quick fixes. Success demands a comprehensive counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign." McChrystal and other American leaders calling for a "surge" of additional U.S. troops into Afghanistan to mirror the alleged success of the "surge" in Iraq are voicing their belief that the doctrinal framework for the original surge – COIN, or manpower-intensive counterinsurgency warfare – is a widely-applicable tool in asymmetric warfare that the U.S. ought to employ in Afghanistan.

(Actually General, without over embellishing your position and self importance with regard to the war in Afghanistan, the solutions to the Afghan problem are quite simple.

The Afghans want peace, tranquility and a semblance of a government/governance------if we could just look at the "problem" from that perspective for a short while, after 30 years of war and invasion by RUSSIA, installing their puppet the Communists of Babrak Kamal/Nazibullah, Parcham fraction of 1980--1989{1.5 million dead, 5 million refugees},

The Afghan civil war.....many factions 1989---1996 {100,000 dead} Russian, Indian, Iranian, and Pakistani interference.

PAKISTAN, installing the Taliban puppets, with American backing. Mad regionalised SUNNI Islam faction. 1994--2001{100,000 dead }

....and the current bunch led by America 2001---2009. Wholly corrupt, American SOB/UNICOL faction {100.000 dead since 2001}

....a reasonable Afghan central government in Kabul would under cut the position of the Taliban, and allow a functioning Central Afghan government to emerge, running the whole of the country, and at the same time be strong enough to withstand external interference, especially against Pakistan. This is what Afghanistan needs.

What the Afghans, and the world have had however is an CLEAR disconnect between public rhetoric by especially American public officials in the military, and the reality of the actual situation in Afghanistan.

The Taliban militia of 40,000--50,000 in 2001 were easily defeated by American air power, special forces and the Northern Alliance, with little or no cost to lives.

If you used about a few thousand special forces against 40,000--50,000 Taliban, and defeated them in about a couple of weeks, why then do you need a future projected force of 500,000 Afghan and coalition forces to defeat a much smaller number of Taliban, fighting over a few years presumably, starting from now, after 8 years of occupation and consolidation in Afghanistan?

Whats/where is the rationale and logic of this?

"al-Qaeda" which is an intelligence hoax hollogram of Western/Israeli intelligence, no longer exists in Afghanistan, and admitted as such by the latest intelligence assessments of 2009.

Osama has been dead since December 2001. Osama's codename was "Tim Osman", and he had extensive liaison with his Western intelligence handlers right until his death in 2001. This suggests he was a puppet of Western intelligence. His real organization consisted of no more than a dozen Arab friends and fellow travelers.

NOT 5,000 men from such diverse backgrounds as Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Chechnya, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Indonesia.............He would have had to have been a truly remarkable leader to have wielded and led such a desperate, diverse, variegated type of nationals under his sole leadership. As suggested/hinted he clearly did not lead such a group...at best he may have liaised with some of them for HIS WESTERN/ISRAELI intelligence handlers knowingly....each of the nationals in the Afghan foreign jehadi movement had their own leadership, or even not. They did not recognize him as their leader; tortured confessions not withstanding. "al-Qaeda" does not exist, never did.

They did not attack/undertake 9/11 on American soil. Their sole objective if there ever was one was to fight infedals on Muslim soil using conventional weapons in irregular warfare....in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and later Kosovo, with guidance and encouragement from America/Israel as the hidden hand to create an "al-Qaeda" hoax hologram.

The events of 9/11 in America were carried out by remote controlled planes (twin towers case.....remember space orbs by NASA are sent to Mars and back by remote control)..........pre-existing demolition teams in place a few weeks before 9/11 in Trade Center Buildings 1,2 and 7. Finally in the case of the Pentagon attack it could have been either a cruise missiles or a Predator.

These types of highly specialized technology, their theft from the American secret arsenal, their expert handling and final use,the mythical non-existent hologram "al-Qaeda" could not have had access to ALL at the same time, so coincidentally, hitting their targets with such precision..........Arabs are not superhuman, Saudi twenty something youths who are dysfunctional, unremarkable, taking dope, binging on alcohol prior to that sad event could not have had access to such technology, or the capacity to carry out such profound expert action in tandem, without fail, on their very first attempt, on a foreign soil in New York, and its hinterland.

This was the work of Israel and their agents in America, within American security. Their agents in America had the capacity and security clearance to steal these highly specialised equipment, and use them as professional experts who knew how to use them, as experts. Not 20 something Ay-Rabs.

Means, motive, opportunity---strategic objectives:

Summary real intended outcome:

1) 9/11 was primarily a criminal financial act by elements in the USA and Israel, a high percentage of those who were really involved being Jewish.

2) From an Israeli perspective 9/11 would help Israel get closer to America, 'Were in this together'. "Our war is your war"

3) 9/11 would enable the Israel first Bush administration launch a Crusade for Israel and smash countries deemed to be a threat to Israel.-------7 countries in 5 years was the talk in late 2001, at the Pentagon.

4) 9/11 would allow the Israelis to more openly pursue their agenda's without the critical Western media being too scrutinizing. Dealing with the Palestinians more harshly, as they have done so since 2001, and then attacking Lebanon and there after Syria---'A Clean Break' document 1996.

5) 9/11 would allow the Jew greater control over America, by creating a security police state, with them setting and deciding the agenda's in America.

Some perspectives on 9/11

The 5,000 international Jihadi fighters who were falsely identified as "al-Qaeda" in Afghanistan in 2001 are NOW mostly dead, or have returned to their native countries via Iran, or Pakistan/Maldives or Pakistan/Oman.

There are about 10,000 regular "Taliban" fighters fighting in the East and South East of the country, backed by the Pakistan military.......BUT this is not because these people are waging a global jihad, where upon when they finish their task in Afghanistan they are going to head towards America. Hardly; the leadership and the rank and file of the Taliban have local objectives. Indeed many of the rank and file of the Taliban are not true Taliban, but have joined because of some bad experience with the occupation forces, or grievances against the UNICOL puppet, and its security forces....eg Afghan police enter and occupy a village and rape the boys in that area, which enrages the locals into joining the Taliban....a local warlord extorts a % of the annual harvest from local Afghans which makes their lives unbearable, so they join the Taliban to fight the warlord who is allied to the occupation force.........NOTHING TO DO WITH HARMING THE WEST/ATTACKING THE WEST.

The Taliban in turn is CONTROLLED/SUPPLIED by the Pakistani military, period.

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Once this true scenario is understood, then American politicians must decide whether they wish to continue fighting an unnecessary war, or they begin to put in place a system that will preserve a realistic civilian Kabul government, which can stand alone and fight and defeat the Taliban eventually.

There are various alternative "real reason" arguments put forward as to why America is in Afghanistan:

1) To protect the pipelines from Central Asia carrying gas and oil----well it doesn't make sense to have a state of the art military machine MERELY guarding pipelines, especially where each of these boys cost $750,000---$1,000,000 each year to maintain in Afghanistan. Much more practical to have the locals, with the added incentives do the protecting.

Now I appreciate many people have subsequently questioned the "intelligence" of the Bush administration, in the full holistic sense of the word......but the passage of time and experience should allow us to adjust how strategies are pursued, and not get into policy ruts. You know Iraq, we invade and own Iraqi oil, the second largest reserves on earth......"Its mine, mine, mine, mine mine.....you hear me...no one else can have it, no one, its mine, mine....free, free, free".....under International law, this is illegal appropriation. An occupying power has certain legal obligations, lest the legal experts at the State Department forget, and one of them is that states clearly that are occupying powers, beyond reasonable requests for reparations, cannot just grab the local resources and do with them as they wish.....like in the good old days of European colonialism........But that was the presumption of the Bush administration, it seemed as they legislated away Iraqi oil rights. So not a stretch to see the rational of the Bush administration over the pipelines/and American military protection for them in the context of Afghanistan as the real reason for the invasion of that country.

2. $50--80 billion annual opium/narcotics profit from Afghanistan:----again as with the above argument, the American military does not have to be in Afghanistan to secure the profits for the criminal few in the Pentagon and their civilian contacts. The main issue for the international narcotics business is who controls the international routes and end sale business in the profitable European, North American and Russian markets. Maybe the narcotics profits from South America is about $200 billion enabled by the American military/security into North America.....and growing every year, but as with the case of South America, and so thus with AFGHANISTAN, American security personnel do not have to be in place there to secure the business for the criminal elites of America/UK.....Small military missions under the guise of fighting left-wing guerrillas in South America and the narcotics trade in those countries is enough. "Its mine, Its mine...its mine...I'm rich, very rich.....soo rich....the eyes light up and flash......pent houses in Manhattan, ........."

Top decisionmakers in the U.S. military, including Gen. McChrystal and Gen. David Petraeus, continue to express their faith in the doctrine, which they played major roles in creating. Prominent Republicans in Congress, who almost unanimously support sending more troops to Afghanistan, have endorsed a nation-building strategy that relies heavily on COIN over a counterterrorism strategy that focuses on targeting al-Qaeda and other militants from a distance. Several key figures in the Obama administration also appear to favor that approach.

(Well a counter terrorism campaign is a waste of time if everybody has concluded that "al-Qaeda" is not present in Afghanistan. So from the the Pentagon's point of view a different rational and strategies have to be put forward and that seems to be COIN. There are military men who want their moment of glory....their chance to be the next MacArthur, Patton, and Grant, and be recognised for it......just amazing how General MacCrystal went about "selling" his war....and so it will be difficult to convince them that there is no real enemy to fight in Afghanistan; the politicians ultimately must decide whether America continues with this military charade and fantasy. 9/11 was a sad charade, but must it continue for ever?)

It may be true that, as military expert Stephen Biddle said in recent Congressional testimony, "the U.S. is an unusually experienced counterinsurgent force today," and "the new Army/Marine counterinsurgency doctrine…is the product of a nearly unprecedented degree of internal debate, external vetting, historical analysis, and direct recent combat experience."

(Has America won a real counter-insurgency campaign yet?......Can you be so blatantly in your face brutal to the Afghans re: Karzai, and tolerate his ilk, and their deeds....and think we can "win" in Afghanistan. The Basic premise and pattern of behavior is wrong........if you spend 98% of ALL your expenditure on the military in Afghanistan, can you win a counter-insurgency? To be sure dear fat, nasty friends.....Pashtun dominated, Eastern/South Western Afghanistan is difficult to "reach out" to but what about the rest of the country....the Central Hazara, the Persian East around Herat, The Uzbek North, or the Tajik North East?..........How many fucking schools have you built with our fucking Jew NARCO $.....How many hospitals, roads, bridges, houses, factories, offices,...............farms)

But these very factors that have encouraged so many highly capable U.S. leaders to sign on to "COIN" should cause observers to be wary of the doctrine and the currency it increasingly enjoys in the American political debate. After all, the more enthusiastic we are about the potential of COIN warfare, the more blind we will be to its costs, which are enormous.

(You might just fail, all the Iranians, Chinese or Pakistanis have to do is start supplying light SAMS to the Taliban.......they have not had these yet)

We can and must think about contemporary problems – such as what strategy the U.S. should pursue in Afghanistan – through the lenses of relevant theories and historical analogies. But it is foolish to think within the box of a single analogy, such as the Iraq "surge," or a single theory, such as the idea that we can succeed at counterinsurgency and nation-building by deploying generous numbers of ground troops and focusing on winning the "hearts and minds" of local communities.

(Very nice academic semantics about the art of war....whilst ordinary Afghan's, and yes Americans are suffering...."Through the lenses of relevant theory....." like he was lecturing at West Point or something)

Our need to make quick decisions and cope with a complex world creates a powerful incentive for us to create "rules of thumb," default beliefs, habits, choices, or courses of action that we adopt almost without thinking. And yet when those in the halls of power make major decisions on the basis of such "rules of thumb," the results can sometimes be disastrous. It behooves political observers to be aware of new decision-making habits, and the spread of some new piece of "conventional wisdom," in their leaders.

It is important to remember that military leaders have a major incentive to endorse a COIN approach in Afghanistan. According to General Petraeus and other experts, most successful COIN operations require very high numbers of U.S. troops on the ground – numbers that may be politically and logistically impossible for the Obama administration to accept.

(Once they get their quota, they'll ask for more, and more...and when they finally don't, they'll blame the politicians)

Because the number of troops that can be reasonably demanded for a COIN operation is essentially limitless, mission failure can be blamed on the executive branch for not sending enough troops rather than on military leaders, the combat environment, or the COIN playbook itself. As Gen. McChrystal wrote in his assessment: "Success is not ensured by additional forces alone, but continued under resourcing will likely cause failure."

Organizational psychology and the logic of bureaucracies provide more clues into the wave of COIN-fever that appears to have struck so many of our political and military leaders. Simply put, it was neither easy nor cheap for the military to develop COIN doctrine as we attempted to salvage the war in Iraq in recent years, and now COIN feels like hard-won wisdom that we should put to the test in another theater of war. It’s a classic case of sunk costs: it is felt that we paid too much for COIN to abandon it now.

Policymakers’ belief in the power of COIN may encourage them to see military solutions where none exist. If the U.S. opts to send tens of thousands of additional ground troops to Afghanistan in order to pursue a comprehensive COIN strategy, it will be taking on a great deal of risk and incurring substantial additional costs in pursuit of a highly uncertain outcome.

Scott Ritter on Afghanistan.

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McChrystal Doesn’t Get It—Does Obama?

By Scott Ritter at Truthdig.com
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There is a curious phenomenon taking place in the American media at the moment: the lionization of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the American military commander in Afghanistan. Although he has taken a few lumps for playing politics with the White House, McChrystal has generally been sold to the American public as a “Zen warrior,” a counterinsurgency genius who, if simply left to his own devices, will be able to radically transform the ongoing debacle that is Afghanistan into a noble victory that will rank as one of the greatest political and military triumphs of modern history. McChrystal’s resume and persona (a former commander of America’s special operations forces, a tireless athlete and a scholar) have been breathlessly celebrated in several interviews and articles. Reporters depict him as an ascetic soldier who spouts words of wisdom to rival Confucius, Jesus and Muhammad.

(Yes there is NOTHING to win against in Afghanistan. America "won" in 2001, when "al-Qaeda" was defeated there, and Osama was allowed to escape from Tora Bora. Osama has since died probably in December 2001, because since that time he has not given direct media interviews to any journalists of note, which he had a habit of doing prior to that time.

The 40,000--50,000 Taliban militia assisted/guided by the Pakistani military with Washington's approval prior to 2001, is at best now about 10,000 regular fighters who want their country back from foreign rule......nothing inherently wrong in that under International Law. And the 5,000 foreign fighters in Afghanistan at that time from various Arab countries, Chechnya, Uzbekistan and other places often referred to as "al-Qaeda", are mostly dead, gone home or not worth bothering about-----100 in Afghanistan, and about 350 Pakistan......The Pakistani security people, who sold 650 innocents to the Americans under GWOT like to over inflate this figure, and continue with the lie that Osama is alive, but this is not the case. Pakistani assessments of foreign fighters figures must be taken with a pinch of salt.

In the current Waziristan campaign they claimed that upwards of 1500 "al-Qaeda' affiliated fighters were massed waiting in that region. Hopefully perhaps the Pakistani military will produce some of them.)

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent Gen. McChrystal to “fix” the war in Afghanistan in the way that his boss, that earlier military prophet Gen. David Petraeus, “fixed” Iraq. Whether by accident or design, McChrystal’s mission became a cause célèbre of sorts for an American media starved for good news, even if entirely fabricated, coming out of Afghanistan. One must remember that the general has accomplished little of note during his short tenure to date as the military commander in Afghanistan. His entire reputation is built around the potential to turn things around in Afghanistan. And to do this, McChrystal has said he needs time, and 40,000-plus additional American troops. There are currently around 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s request would raise that number to around 110,000 troops – the same number as the Soviets had deployed in Afghanistan at the height of their failed military adventure some 20 years ago.

McChrystal, or more accurately, his staff, has authored a not-so-secret report that outlines the reasoning behind this massive increase in American military involvement in Afghanistan. Rightly noting that the American-led effort is currently failing, McChrystal argues that only a massive infusion of U.S. troops, and a corresponding “surge” of American civilians, can achieve the stability necessary to transform Afghanistan from the failed state it is today. A viable nation capable of self-government, the new Afghanistan could maintain internal security so that terrorist organizations like al-Qaida will not be able to take root, flourish and once again threaten American security from the sanctuary of a lawless land. This concept certainly looks good on paper and plays well in the editorial section. And why shouldn’t it? It touches on all the romantic notions of America as liberator and defender of the oppressed. The problem is that the assumptions made in the McChrystal report are so far removed from reality as to be ludicrous.

(I'll bet the moon that America can never stabilize Afghanistan, and turn it into a functioning democracy.....because the real players in the Afghan play ground have other intentions, not withstanding the good people amongst the occupation forces......narcotics etc....if narcotics is the main reason you are there how can you have a normal functioning democracy in that country? Obviously you must make do with amoral crooks fronting your operations.............the type that sell their grandmother for a $......and there in lies the BASIC failure of the Afghan misadventure.

By the way I happen to think democracy is an universal gift that can work with ANY types of people......with some people it takes longer to take root, but democracy CAN work in any given society. If however you knowingly front crooked puppets, then democracy has a little struggle to take hold in that society....and then what you do is blame the people, because that's the easiest cop out, short of looking at your own actions and failures..."oh these people are primitive"..."We can't transfer our cultural values on to them"....."They have their own way of doing things")

McChrystal operates under the illusion that American military power can provide a shield from behind which Afghanistan can remake itself into a viable modern society. He has deluded himself and others into believing that the people of Afghanistan want to be part of such a grand social experiment, and furthermore that they will tolerate the United States being in charge. The reality of Afghan history, culture and society argue otherwise. The Taliban, once a defeated entity in the months following the initial American military incursion into Afghanistan, are resurgent and growing stronger every day. The principle source of the Taliban’s popularity is the resentment of the Afghan people toward the American occupation and the corrupt proxy government of Hamid Karzai. There is nothing an additional 40,000 American troops will be able to do to change that basic equation. The Soviets tried and failed. They deployed 110,000 troops, operating on less restrictive lines of communication and logistical supply than the United States. They built an Afghan army of some 45,000 troops. They operated without the constraints of American rules of engagement. They slaughtered around a million Afghans. And they lost, for the simple reason that the people of Afghanistan did not want them, or their Afghan proxies.

Some pundits and observers make note of the fact that the Afghan people were able to prevail over the Soviets only because of billions of dollars of U.S. aid, which together with similar funding from Saudi Arabia and the logistical support of Pakistan, allowed the Afghan resistance to coalesce, grow and ultimately defeat the Soviets and their Afghan allies. They note that there is no equivalent source of empowerment for the Taliban in Afghanistan today. But they are wrong. The Taliban receive millions of dollars from sympathetic sources in the Middle East, in particular from Saudi Arabia, and they operate not only from within Afghanistan, but also out of safe havens inside Pakistan.

Indeed, one of the unique aspects of the Afghan conflict is the degree to which it has expanded into Pakistan, making any military solution in one theater contingent on military victory in the other. But the reality is that the more one employs military force in either Afghanistan or Pakistan, the more one strengthens the cause and resources of the Islamic insurgents in both places. Pashtunistan, once a fanciful notion built around the concept of a united Pashtun people (the population in eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan are primarily drawn from Pashtun tribes), has become a de facto reality. The decision by the British in 1897 to separate the Pashtun through the artificial device of the so-called Durand Line (which today constitutes the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan) has been exposed today as a futile effort to undermine tribal links. No amount of military force can reverse this.

Thus the solution itself becomes the problem, thereby creating a never-ending circular conflict which has the United States expending more and more resources to resolve a situation that has nothing to do with the reality on the ground in Afghanistan, and everything to do with crafting a politically viable salve for what is in essence a massive self-inflicted wound. It is the proverbial dog chasing after its own tail, a frustrating experience made even more so by the fact that any massive commitment of troops brings with it the fatal attachment of national pride, individual hubris and, worst of all, the scourge of domestic American politics, so that by the time this dog bites its tail, it will be so blinded by artificialities that rather than recognize its mistake, it will instead proceed to consume itself. In the case of Afghanistan, our consumption will be measured in the lives of American servicemen and women, national treasure, national honor, and, of course the lives of countless Afghan dead and wounded.

The manner in which McChrystal has peddled his plan for Afghanistan to the American media, and to Congress, may be politically savvy. It is certainly insubordinate. The decision to employ American military power is the sole prerogative of the American president. A general may offer advice, but any effort to engage the machinery of politics to pressure a sitting president defies the basic constitutional tenet of civilian control over the military. President Obama, once a constitutional law professor, should know as much, and would do well to severely reprimand McChrystal for his actions. Or better yet, Obama should fire McChrystal and replace him with someone who respects the rule of law and the chain of command.

Obama may have won the Nobel Peace Prize, but if he allows himself to be bullied into supporting McChrystal’s foray into Afghanistan, he will reveal himself as the worst kind of warmonger. True, he didn’t invent the Afghan quagmire. That honor resides with George W. Bush, who also is to blame for the American fiasco in Iraq. But history will be surprisingly gentle toward America’s 43rd president. Bush will share the blame for his calamitous military decisions with the mistaken policies of previous administrations, a compliant Congress, headstrong advisers, servile intelligence agencies and, of course, the shock of the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Bush will be seen more as a useful idiot than a ruthless ideologue. Obama, with his obvious intelligence, soaring rhetorical skills and Nobel credentials, does not readily fit such a characterization. If he decides to reinforce failure in Afghanistan by dispatching tens of thousands more American troops to that disaster, America’s 44th president will cement himself as a grand fraud, a hawk hiding in dove feathers. Given his potential for doing good, one clearly would not want such a scenario to play out.

The president’s lack of military experience screams out when he calls America’s involvement in Afghanistan a “good war.” He would have been better off trying to make the case for a justifiable war, or even a necessary war, but to label a process that brings about the death and injury of thousands as “good” makes me wonder about Obama’s fitness to be commander in chief. His seeming inexperience on national security affairs and foreign policy leave him vulnerable to domestic political pressures that emanate from these arenas. The president does possess the vision to see a world in which America stands side by side with other nations as an equal, operating with a shared notion of due process and respect for the rule of law, but that doesn’t square with any decision to deploy more troops to Afghanistan. Expanding the war in Afghanistan will lend credence to the central worry about Obama: that, at the end of the day, this man of vision might in fact be little more than an Illinois politician who is willing to barter away American life, treasure and good will for political gain on the domestic front. And, in doing so, it will undermine his noble vision of an America “resetting” its relationship with the world following eight years of unilateralist militarism.

A true leader, one with substance and gravitas, would be able to stand up to the combined pressure of the military, the right-wing of Congress and the American media. He would draw the correct conclusions from the lessons of history, which prove again and again that Afghanistan is not a problem that can be solved by foreign military intervention. The fact that Obama might be compelled to alleviate the political pressure he is receiving from these sources by condemning America to another decade of death and destruction in Afghanistan and, most probably, Pakistan, reinforces any perception of his weakness as a national leader.

Afghanistan has, over the centuries, earned its reputation as the graveyard of empires. Just ask the Greeks, Mongols, British and Russians. If Barack Obama ultimately agrees to dispatch more American troops to Afghanistan, he will ensure not only that America will add its name to the list of those who have failed in their effort to conquer the unconquerable, but also that his name will join the ranks of those leaders throughout history who succumbed to the temptations of hubris when given the choice between war and peace. The Nobel committee will have failed in its gambit to motivate America’s 44th president to embrace the mantle of peacemaker, and the American people will be left to sort through the detritus of war brought on by yet another failed president.

Of course, the future is not yet set in stone. The decision to dispatch more troops, although the subject of much rumor and speculation, has been delayed pending the final dispensation of Afghanistan’s controversial presidential election. One can only hope that President Obama will take advantage of this timely “pause” to reconsider his options regarding Afghanistan beyond the single-minded rush to reinforce a current policy the U.S. military has acknowledged as having gone nowhere in the eight years of American military engagement.

Vice President Joe Biden had earlier proposed a policy course that would have de-emphasized military engagement with the Taliban, focusing instead on rooting out the forces of al-Qaida still operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan. President Obama was reportedly not sold on Biden’s thinking when it was first presented last March. Perhaps now, upon reflection, the president will do the right thing and reduce America’s military involvement in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, either along the lines proposed by Vice President Biden, or through some other mechanism. There is no military solution to the problems facing the United States today in Afghanistan, and thus the correct course of action is to de-militarize the situation by reducing, not expanding, America’s military presence.

Clearly Gen. Stanley McChrystal is not the man for this task. He should be replaced by someone within the ranks of the U.S. military who shares Obama’s vision of peace, and with it the need to redefine the mission in South Asia. The legitimate requirements of American national security will not be satisfied by any massive military commitment to the region. Hopefully, President Obama will recognize this fact and get out. That would be a sign of greatness, and present to the American people and the rest of the world a leader worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Scott Ritter is a former Marine intelligence officer, chief U.N. weapons inspector and the author of numerous books on foreign policy.

The $1,500 billion military industrial complex of the USA.

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Bleep NATO

By Jeff Huber at antiwar.com

Tom Shanker of the New York Times tells us that NATO defense ministers have given their "broad endorsement" to Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s plan to escalate the Afghanistan war into a full-Monty counter insurgency effort. NATO defense ministers love Afghanistan; it justifies their phony-baloney jobs.

(generally NATO nations, bar America/UK, are reluctant to get involved in pseudo-colonial wars, which serve no real obvious purpose for their countries; Wars which have no definitive objectives but quite the contrary seem to be open ended fair weather, ever changing explanations for why they must be in Afghanistan; Military operations which are well beyond the borders of NATO countries and their traditional operational mandate. Such disparities of issues gives NATO nations ample opportunity to reflect on the long term necessity of NATO, after the demise of the Soviet Union. The wishes of the Jewish one world government concept not withstanding-----instituted around the Protocols, which were written in the 19th century by the Rothschilds of England with agreement with all the rest of them, and the need to build security structures around that single desire and ideology for the future )

Like much of the U.S. military, NATO became irrelevant when the Cold War ended. Pseudo-counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen, who has been an adviser to David Petraeus and McChrystal (He is not American, but useful if you are thinking of building a global military force, which follows the Jewish master plan, which is not constrained by irritating debating and voting procedures of the UN. Yet yet another Celtic person.......This sounds like another Jewish instituted, albeit subliminal, race war.....Celts verses who though?) says one of the major reasons to press for a larger effort in Afghanistan is to preserve the NATO alliance. He doesn’t think counterterrorism is a particularly important reason to be in Afghanistan. (It’s not at the top of his list.)

(From a Jewish one world master plan perspectives Kilcullen's logic is perfectly reasonable....but obviously not for "ordinary" Americans out of the Jewish master plan loop......you use unnecessary wars to forge future global forces which will without question follow your dictates..."Starship troopers" (1997)..mocking anti-American satire from an European director, which unfortunately has become the reality with the USA, UK.......and even European countries, including the movie directors country Netherlands.....the insects in the desert are the rag heads who are faceless, dehumanised things which must be destroyed.....invaded....based on the thinest and wildest excuses straight from the colonial era.........in the movies case asteriods being sent by the primitive insects at Earth.

Afghanistan is profitable for them obviously, since it generates narcotics profits in the region of $50--80 billion annually.................The Afghans harvest it and they get about 5%....Hamid Karzai's brother: The American and British military protect and transport it. The proceeds are laundered in NY and London high street banks, and finally of course a select few in the Pentagon and in the UK profit from it.)

To escalate our woebegone war in Afghanistan because NATO wants us to would be the dumbest foreign policy choice our country has ever made, and we’ve made a lot of dumb foreign policy choices. (My favorite example is becoming involved in World War I. We should have stiff-armed that fandango, let the Europeans bleed themselves ashen, then offered to feed them on strict conditions. Alas.)

("Dumb choices" is the wrong adjective because it suggests the people in power who make such choices were MERELY misguided, but for their choices.......I would argue otherwise........the people who make the "dumb choices" for America are actually not that "dumb", but have priorities which shall we say do not run parallel with the general true interests of the USA overall.......they are highly intelligent, articulate, aggressive, amoral criminals who have over time amassed power and privilege in American society.

..........This means that these criminals can both fund the Soviet Union covertly, giving it a decisive push in its creation in 1918, AND at the same time run a $6 trillion Cold War HOAX, involving many unnecessary proxy wars around the world in Korea, Vietnam, Cuban missile crisis, fighting their created monsters......etc etc, over 40 years. Saddam's Iraq, and Taliban/"al-Qaeda" Afghanistan thus, along this line of facts isn't a new phenomenon.



Getting perfectly intelligent capable gentiles all heated up, doing the woggy sun dance around their set of fake agenda's, without the hindsight of being able to see their overall covert picture.

Funding the Nazis into power; providing the materials and finance for German rearmament, and then building the coalition to defeat the Nazis...after 60 million people have perished.

These games are not new)

The world needs NATO like fish need hammers. I had fun galore getting pie-faced with Brits and Germans and other Europeans at after-hour planning sessions for international combat exercises, but fun galore isn’t a reason to escalate our war in Afghanistan. How much more blood and treasure do we need to pour into one of the bleakest parts of the world in order to throw a party for our European pals?

(No America does not need to be in Afghanistan. Osama is dead...his fictional non-existential organization constitutes no clear threat to the USA, and the Taliban can be managed via the Pakistan military comprehensively if America is serious about it)

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been consistently critical of NATO involvement in Afghanistan to date. Gates has danced on a lot of laps in regard to this subject. He always wants more help from NATO, but he doesn’t like the help he gets. NATO doesn’t know how to do counterinsurgency, Gates has complained. But now, they’re all lovey-dovey about counterinsurgency, now that they realize how manpower-intensive it is and how much throwing in with the McChrystal plan will defend their defense budgets. NATO, like much of the U.S. military, hasn’t had a reason to exist since the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in the early 1990s.

(Iran/Contra Gates is merely doing his duty for his real masters/constituency.....ensuring the Afghan narcotics flows into Europe and Russia, and his friends in the Pentagon, and UK profit from their sale.......$50---80 billion annually...presumably that is why he has been left at this vital post as a Republican appointee, and a crony of the Bush clan out of Texas. If Obama was really serious about curtailing this $1,500 billion gravy train which is the MIC, then he would have appointed a close trusted Democrat in that vital position, and not a left over from the Bush era.....this merely signals continuity, surely)

Ludicrous Dick Cheney has asserted that the Obama administration’s "dithering" on what course to take in Afghanistan will "embolden" the evil ones. Everybody who can find the ends of their noses knows Dick Cheney is a dithering idiot; he’s never been right about anything. The only entity that has been emboldened is the Western alliance’s military industrial complex, led by the Pentagon, who are fighting not for the safety of their countries but for their own existence.

(There we go again, calling "Darth Vader" Dick a dithering idiot.......the guy is a billionaire who has made is money through the American MIC, serving in several administrations, gradually shifting to the loony right as he progressed with age and senility. Dick makes money through war,......and did not become a billionaire from humble beginnings by being a dithering idiot full stop...a former lineman of humble background, who is now a billionaire....for him war is profitable.....obviously he is going to "fight" for America to continue on-going unnecessary wars, using what ever cock and bull snarling, grimace, hardball, nose expanding excuses he can think of ....but certainly not a dithering idiot---this gives a misleading analysis; as if he is somehow a cuddly man, who is inherently honest, forever doing the right and decent thing for America, selflessly at his post working away for America, but somehow quite not up to the job----NOT. He is a businessman first and foremost, making money through war and conflict....merchant of death, looking after number one)

The Pentagon’s long-war grand strategy is good for everybody’s war business. The Afghanistan conflict is particularly suitable; it’s the kind of Orwellian war that can go on forever without getting too obnoxious, and in the case of America, it’s one that the Democrats, not the Republicans, have ownership of. Or at least it can be sold that way.

(Do you really need 500,000 Afghan and coalition forces to fight 10,000 poorly armed Taliban militia?---Obviously not.......to really fight the Taliban you squeeze the Pakistan military first and foremost, the Taliban's main backers, and then arm the Afghan's who don't like the Taliban SINCERELY, and who do not have a criminal background, not tongue in cheek...and I am so JEW clever kind of way, and that is it....without the backing of the Pakistan military the Taliban cannot exist. Of course here we must talk about intentions...what are the true intentions.......of the occupation forces? Let us not leave out the $50--80 billion annual narcotics profits. Maybe this later fact can be circulated to the NATO members beyond the USA/UK........a pimp force for international narco traders)



Shanker writes, "Mr. Gates, who has kept his views about additional troops close to his vest and has discouraged his commanders from lobbying too publicly for their positions, declined to be drawn out on this assessment." That’s the biggest lie out of the New York Times since the Nigergate hoax that led to the invasion of Iraq. The media campaign the Pentagon has been waging to pressure Obama into acceding to McChrystal’s demands amounts to a soft coup.

(Obama has yet to make his decision. Let us hope that he is not fixed by the MIC too quickly and early in this new administration, which then fetters his policy options for the future, in Afghanistan, and domestically; both very linked you see.......guns or butter? You can't have both. For Obama to realize his health care initiatives, education, social welfare programs he has to cut the real security budget of $1.5 trillion eventually...he can't have both)

Candidate Obama stuck his nose in the wringer when he deflected criticism of his vote against the surge in Iraq by saying it took vital assets away from the effort in Afghanistan, the "war of necessity." That may turn out to be the tragic flaw of his presidency. The war in Afghanistan is no more necessary than most other American wars have been. None of the 9/11 attackers came from Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda isn’t there any more. As best we can tell, what remains of al-Qaeda is in Pakistan, and very little remains of it.

(No they came from Israel and America. al-Qaeda does not exist. Doubtful if any of the 19 Arabs "hijackers" were actually involved.....remote controlled planes...the list of 19 hijackers was created/provided by Indian intelligence and forwarded to the FBI (as per Jewish desire for one world government, where international security/intelligence "cooperate" with each other around the Jewish master plan) never mind that Indian intelligence were dubiously unqualified to identify who the real perpetrators of 9/11 were IN AMERICA.........far, far away in India....and that mysteriously some of the said identified hijackers are still alive in their countries.......GWOT reduced to its simple form is a Jewish war, instituted to enforce their agenda around the world, and for one world government. Thus when you have such an ambition security institutions play an important role obviously, because you need the sheep to follow your orders, whether they like it or not....as it was with Gestapo Nazi Germany...and the NKVD Soviet Union.)

America and its NATO allies account for about 90 percent of global arms sales. We have no competitors.

(Global arms sales are here to stay no matter what. The main issue rather is that rich powerful nations should not commit to war against Third World nations on dubious false grounds, and then attempt to continue with these military adventures with even more ever shifting dubious explanations, thereafter, through the Jewish controlled MSM)

There’s a lot of money to be made now on body and vehicle armor that don’t work. So the more kids we send to Afghanistan to get blown up, the more the folks who make the body and vehicle armor that don’t work make.

(The MIC in America could be worth $1.5 trillion annually.....a lot of money, power and lobbying goes behind that using the American MSM. As with the Soviet Union this is harmful for America in the long term. A society that invests in war, and arms, but not in health care, education and welfare must slowly deteriorate, as happened with the Soviet Union.......which on the eve of collapse in 1989 was spending maybe around 14% of GDP on defense, 5.5 million men under arms, 65,000 tanks, 30,000 artillery, 12,000 nuclear warheads, 8500 combat jets, .....ALL this despite the best efforts of Gorbachov, after four years in power.

The excessive expenditure on defense starved out the expenditure on all the other necessary investment areas such as infrastructure, education, healthcare, social welfare, and innovation in technology which results in manufacturing better cars, tv, hi-fi...etc...America is no longer the leader this vital area. The best engineers and innovators invariably end up working in the defense industry, rather than creating things which have real social value, and which contribute to the expansion of the economy in a meaningful way.

Obviously since 1950 there has been a steady motion in this direction, but a strong administration can put a decisive break into that and forever save America from inevitable economic ruin. You simply can't have a $1500 billion MIC and not want to twitch and itch for war to justify such a huge expenditure.........the MIC and their Jewish overlords will find that excuse always, as they have.....so I say to the peace movement of America that the ultimate objective for America is not merely the withdrawal from the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the dismantling of the MIC, and a reorientation of the American culture away from war)

The neoconservatives who push our war agenda are invested in it, and they have, incredibly, gained a toehold in intellectually elite circles. That the "dumbest freaking human being on the planet," Cheney sycophant Doug Feith, managed to become a visiting lecturer at Columbia University gives you an idea of how badly the national brain trust has been damaged by neoconservative influence. He eventually got canned, but he never should have been hired in the first place.

(Jewish Israeli Zealot Douglas Feith with the Celtic name is not dumb.......he is an accomplished lawyer, with connections to the MIC. He is a ardent Zionist Israeli firster, holding an Israeli Passport, and who penned the "Clean Break" 1996 document with other Neo-cons for Benjamin Netanyahu to be more bold in foreign policy, and then the PNAC 2000. He lived in Israel for many years.

Merely dismissing him as, "dumbest freaking human being on the planet," is a dangerously misleading disinformation, unintentional though it is. Feith knew perfectly well what he was doing FOR LIKUD ISRAEL, whilst serving in the Pentagon with Wolfowitz..........this very fact of his real agenda's led to his removal from that position in 2005, along with the rest.......as potential Israeli spys at the center of American security)

The Obama administration has finally had direct talks with Iran. As physicist Gordon Prather wrote recently, "Director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency Secretariat Mohamed ElBaradei is seeking approval by the Obama-Biden administration of an agreement which ‘could open the way for a complete normalization of relations between Iran and the international community.’"

Is it possible that the war crowd will allow that to happen? Prather notes that we’re on the verge of getting the kind of transparency on Iran’s nuclear program that Iran offered early on in the Bush administration, only to be shunned.

(2001, and 2003...everything America could have wished for Iran offered, but America at that time was not interested)

Let’s pray that Obama doesn’t make the mistake of listening to NATO or his generals or the right-wing noise machine, and does the smart thing by beginning to back out of Afghanistan, and continues toward normalizing relationships with Iran.

(There has been progression, no doubt borne by actual experience and the passage of time.....there was initial talk of invading Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and so forth within a few years in 2001.....Bush reiterated as much to Blair confidentially in January 2003. But this has not happened...so we must be grateful. Now Obama is in power, and hopefully significant new shifts can take place in American military planning under the new president/administration as he attempts to do the right thing domestically)

And, oh, mainstream media – especially the New York Times and the Washington Post – stop letting unnamed "officials" drop propaganda into your "news." That sort of thing gets us into wars we don’t need to fight.

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Zardari Pakistan.

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In Serving US Interest, This Pakistani Govt. Is In A Class Of Its Own

AHMED QURAISHI.com

You must be hearing a lot these days from the apologists of expanded US influence in Pakistan that every government in the past has accepted humiliating US conditions.

(between 1950---1969 Pakistan received about $4 billion in USA aid, and at today's currency rate that could be about $25 billion; half for military and half for economic aid. Doubtless the aid was welcomed by the Pakistan military who were the main instigators of friendship with the USA from the early 1950's......because it gave them, confidence viz India with the new American arms, which the Pakistan military subsequently used against India in 1965...if you remember.

Field Marshal Ayub Khan of the Pakistan Military was one of the first and most enthusiastic initiators of friendship with the USA. However over time he became very cynical when he experienced the reality of "co-operation" with the USA...Why do you think he wrote the auto-biography, "Friends not Masters"? (1967) Clearly a man writing from first hand experience.

.....have a good look at the Pakistani military Ahmed beta, and see if you can see any American influence over them. Little details like name tags on their uniforms, which give you the clues as to who runs the Pakistani military as their regional slave soldiers.......where the senior officers are trained/indoctrinated (USA/UK)..........who runs the Taliban?........Who created the recent mess which killed 175 innocent Pakistanis in a short time, for specific agenda goals?........one surmises that it was elements within the Pakistan military acting on orders from the USA.........The Taliban has always been a proxy of the Pakistan military; their logistics is from the Pakistan military......the recent terrorist attacks generate sympathy for and around the Pakistan military as a national institution which ordinary Pakistanis can rely on, and for America, which further engages the Pakistan Taliban in an ceaseless war......that will also wear down the Pakistan military in Waziristan.

The recent terrorist attacks also deflect attention away from the failures of the present regime....and the public's focus to do something about the Taliban problem. So I think the recent spate of attacks in Pakistan were instigated by the supporters of the current regime, clearly interested in maintaining them in power, and as victims of terrorism.

The Indian army of the Raj was the great military tool which the British used around the globe to enforce the British empire. With independence and Partition that useful tool of the British Raj disappeared.......but not completely. In the case of the Pakistan military it continued to play that role, albeit in a more limited sense. The Indian military after independence was never allowed to play that role again for the British, given the strict control the Congress party exercised over the Indian military, and over all civilian control. The Pakistan military since 1947 has served as a proxy of British and later USA interests in the Middle East/Gulf region, and South Asia.

Once you "understand " the Pakistan military, you Ahmed Beta will understand Pakistan's problems much better. Its one thing for the Pakistan military to truly defend Pakistan in real situations of national threats, it is quite another for the Pakistan military to be used for the agenda's of gora powers from the other side of the world, against Pakistan's interests and the interests of Pakistan's neighbors.

Why did the Pakistan military back Jundallah against Iran. Because America told them to? Is that it? How does that fundamentally benefit Pakistan the nation; the neighbor of Iran.

Why did the Pakistan military back the Taliban against Afghanistan from 1994?

Why does the Pakistan military back insurgency groups against India.)

In fact, on Wednesday, government's PR wizards working under the direction of the PPP media team published a preposterous propaganda piece on the front page of one of the national dailies alleging that, "Jinnah also appealed for US aid."

(Doubtful......in his short time as head of Pakistan, it is unlikely he developed close relations with Americans, he was an archetypal Anglophile, pre-occupied as he was with creating Pakistan. I do know however that he did try to get his hands on the Nizam of Hyderabad's wealth, who at that time was one of the richest men in the world, with an estimated personal wealth of $2 billion or more...which at today's prices would be around $220 billion?. The Muslim League's upper echelon were not that concerned with taking the begging bowl to the USA, again because most of them were products of Mackauley's Brown Sahibs Anglophiles, however after Liaqat Ali Khan's assassination in 1951, the Pakistan military with urgings from senior British officers became more enthusiastic about courting the USA, and a source of arms which would counter balance the power of India in South Asia.)

The government media team is keen to convince Pakistanis that humiliating foreign conditions on aid are kosher because that is what previous Pakistani governments have been doing. Shamelessly, even the Quaid-e-Azam has been dragged into this government propaganda.

(There is no solid proof that foreign aid actually helps a country economically in the long run. In poor failed states foreign aid often becomes a political tool of the rich country rather than as a real economic assistance to help the whole nation.

......AND people keep telling me Pakistan is poor and in need of aid, but is it really that poor? Its GDP must be close to $500 billion, measured by PPP...of which only $300 billion PPP probably belongs to the registered official economy...and of which only $50 billion PPP is covered by the national budget. Perhaps $150---$300 billion PPP of Pakistan's wealth is abroad under capital flight as a result of the actions of the corrupt disloyal elite....Tamindars/Zamindars............the 30 Business families and the military multi-millionaires.....when you look at that overall economic scenario Pakistan is rich, and can be very rich if its own resources were put to good effective, efficient use.

It is in that sense, with the effective domestic mobilization of resources that foreign aid is both irrelevant, distorting and counter-productive, because they induce and bribe key government officers into making the wrong decisions which harm Pakistan's long term overall interests.)

While the record of previous governments is debatable, what's beyond doubt is that this is the first government in Pakistan that came through a 'deal' brokered by US and UK diplomats, whitewashing the illegal wealth of individuals who enjoy a dubious record. This has never happened before in the history of any Pakistani government.

(The regime of General Zia ul Haq which came to power with active American backing in 1977, could be described in many respects as similar to the current regime.....in fact worse, when you think of what they did overall in 11 years:

• Primitive Islamisation of Pakistan society......which takes Pakistan backwards, rather than looking to the future progressively as a modern state.
• The funding of Afghan mujaheddin of the worst Islamic type, instead of moderate Afghan's.
• The creation of proxy internal SUNNI hardline Islamic groups, which wage jihad against Shia Pakistanis, Iran, and India, without proper control and supervision by the state.
• The entry of Israeli intelligence and military personnel into Pakistan for the first time in the 1980's, who train some of the Mujaheddin, and become major players in the supply and control of the arms of ex-Soviet equipment to the Mujaheddin....Israel had stockpiles of it from the Arab/Israeli wars, and finally later become involved with supplying Pakistan parts for its nuclear program. The recruitment of Pakistani military officers to work for MOSSAD.......Busharaf being the most significant success for Israel, slowly being maneuvered into power as head of state in 1999.
• The killing of political figures by the Pakistan military in Pakistan because it was suitable for the foreign powers.
• The introduction of Islam into the military, and the promotion of an officers career based on his Islamic beard/tabligi credentials.....not smart.

In the overall scheme of things, spanning 11 years the Zia ul Haq military regime did more harm to Pakistan in surrendering the sovereignty of Pakistan to foreign hostile powers, MOSTLY INFORMALLY, in comparison to the current civilian criminal government of Zardari bhai, attempting to formally surrender. But at least as civilian government parliament is debating the big serious issues and the Pakistani public is getting a look-in {not under Zia, Busharaf}. The folly of the Zia ul Haq regime initially, has allowed foreign hostile powers subsequently to impose brazenly disadvantageous terms on Pakistan which will have negative effects on Pakistan's future...............the current set of demands by America merely formalizes what was set by Zia ul Haq informally before, originally in the 1970's. The Kerry/Lugar aid package is the product of 40 years of American experience with Pakistan, not yesterday, not merely by dealing with Zardari bhai only now. He has been power for little over one year)

I bet even the Americans have never seen before this kind of an 'easy' pro-US government in their decades-old record of meddling in other countries.

This alone should put to shame anyone who defends these shady characters in this government.

(The problem is not merely the civilians politicians, but that the civilian politicians are annexes, and part and parcel of the "game" of revolving doors where the military fuck it up yet again big time, or are simply removed because they have displeased their puppet masters, and the civilian politicians are brought in as time fillers, into power, until the military have recovered their confidence.

In that sense in this game of revolving doors of military/civilian, the main villain is the Pakistan military, as they are the most proactive group in Pakistani politics very often working in conjunction with hostile alien foreign powers.

It is very natural that Pakistanis must want to believe that there is something good in their society, an institution which is loyal to Pakistan.......that institution is not the Pakistan military however....it is the worst enemy of Pakistan. It is simply naive given clear historical facts to think otherwise.

Once ordinary Pakistanis have emotionally detached themselves from the Pakistani military (most Baluchis, Bengali's, Sindhi's, and a sizable portion Pashtuns already have) then the forces of true Pakistani nationalism can move forward. Expecting the Pakistani military to be arbiters and guarantors of Pakistan's sovereignty, ruling Pakistan in a judicious balanced way is BOTH naive and illogical.

The Pakistan military created the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban.....and they control these two organizations, as they did the FATA Taliban, on the advice of foreign hostile alien powers.

The Pakistan military often use the Taliban as a cover for their destabilization programs against AND WITHIN Pakistan, and civilian governments...which invariably results in the death of huge numbers of Pakistanis, both innocent civilians, and when the Pakistan military fight their own created monsters in the mountains of the NWFP, on the advice/orders of hostile alien powers.......a wholly stupid scenario.

The Pakistan military often conducts its large military operations ONLY because of pressure and "orders" from Washington, and not because they themselves believe whole heartedly that they are fighting and undertaking a just war against their own controlled and created monsters, the Pakistan Taliban, the Afghan Taliban.

Intellectual Pakistani Punjabis must drop their naive pretensions about their military........the Pakistani military is the main problem in Pakistan......the 1000 pound guerrilla in the room......a force of 800,000 backed by 300,000 paramilitary, which use's illegal force and violence within Pakistan, as de juere manual policy, declared and undeclared to carry out its objectives, very often at the behest of and guidance of hostile alien foreign entities.

Removing Zardari and his criminal clowns does not begin to address the real problems of Pakistan, but will merely be an useful start. As long as we don't think that some how removing Zardari will solve all Pakistan's problems, there after. After Zardari is removed, the military problem has to be solved. Zardari makes the military look good, but that is merely deceptive and not the reality. )

Pakistanis should rest assured of one thing. The challenge of governing Pakistan and subduing this nation in the service of a foreign agenda is a difficult task. It's above and beyond the intellectual capacity of the rulers in Islamabad today.

(The eternal struggle of many in Third World nations, not just Pakistan. Clearly the rulers of Pakistan, the Tamindars, Zamindars, the 30 business families and the military aren't doing their job...............Pakistan is failed state number 9, with a whole array of problems...socio-economic and political.

In that sense, with a holistic perspective of the reality of power in Pakistan, Pakistanis, just like millions of others around the Third World must struggle for their country, and its sovereignty, and its true development. Predatory powers such as the USA/UK will naturally attempt to undermine that, as they done so over so many decades.

The key in all this is Islamabad, the seat of power in Pakistan. One would like to see Pakistanis peacefully reoccupy Islamabad, .............{unlike the actions of the Pakistan Taliban carried out at the behest of the Pakistan military and their foreign masters to distract and defect from the real national issues and failings.....Zardari is corrupt puppet...sorry we must fight the Taliban first......America is taking over Pakistan....sorry we must fight the Taliban.....the economy is in a mess.....sory we must fight the Taliban first......etc}.....How does one get rid of an alien imposed government which displays clear criminal intent under Zardari........Zardari merely disappearing from media view will not solve the fundamental problems, but ONLY through people power, and the occupation and direct usurpation of power by the people peacefully can Pakistanis finally regain control of their country from the hostile alien powers.

PLEADING, BEGGING, RATIONALIZING, RIDICULING FOREIGN BACKED CRIMINALS WILL NOT GET PAKISTAN ANYWHERE. ONLY PEOPLE POWER ACTION IN ISLAMABAD will, PEACEFULLY.)

As the challenge mounts, these shady characters will run away abroad in a few months' time with their fat bank accounts and will never look back. They will leave and never look back sooner or later.

(The standard pattern......Shaukat Aziz in the USA....and all the rest to MOSSAD Busharaf waiting in London to see if his been "chosen" to lead Pakistan again........Altaf Hussain in London......Zardari will also go to his $ 10 million Surrey mansion London, and maybe meet up with MOSSAD Busharaf over tea at a five star hotel. So we know from the simple fact OF where the criminals run to, which are the true hostile alien powers in internal Pakistan politics since 1947....you don't have to be Einstein. Which are the true hostile alien powers which interfere with Pakistani politics to its long term detriment, who provide safe havens for these national criminals)

While criticizing this ruling class, we need to send a note of thank you to Mr. Musharraf for 'dealing' us this hand as a parting gift to the nation.

Pakistanis should recognize this distinction about the current Pakistani government in the debate over the record of past Pakistani rulers in dealing with Washington.

(No they shouldn't..............this is the fruit of a long process that began in 1954, when Mohammed Ali Bogra with Ayub Khan signed the Treaty with the USA in 1954 for military/economic aid, with the tacit encouragement of the UK in the background.............Zaradri is merely the last and worst fruition of a long on-going process which has been primarily aided by the PAKISTAN MILITARY)

The current government, in this debate, is in a class of its own.

http://mostaqueali.blogspot.com/2009/10/its-not-question-of-mere-honor-its.html

Brzezinski's perspectives on Afghanistan.

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Brzezinski on the endless Afghan quagmire:
Interviewed by Josh Rushing of al-Jazeera.


Brzezinski with a Pakistani military officer in the early 1980's.
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The architect of the policy to fund the Fundamentalist Islamic Afghan resistance groups, aka Mujaheddin via Pakistan's military from July 1979 with presidential approval, against the Communist Kabul government in Afghanistan which had just come into power in 1978, and backed by the Soviet Union, gives a short significant interview.
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The primary purpose of Operation Cyclone which may seem odd on the surface (Capitalist Liberal Democratic America backing Islamic fundamentalists) was to 1) Defeat a Soviet backed Satellite state. 2) Draw the Soviet Union into a military quagmire, which consequently depletes its resources, and thus weakens the state......the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 had a little to do with the 9 year Afghan adventure by the Soviet Union. 3) Revenge for Vietnam, whose primary military backer with advisers was the Soviet Union.
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.......So the man who has focused on the area for 30 odd years, quite pertinently, as national security adviser to President Carter initially, certainly knows what he is talking about, without all the emotional attachment of working in that field now, and the attendant vested interests, or political interests. Note the language is quite sober and precise, without relying on the crutch of sensationalism, trying to appeal to emotion.......like...."We are 45 minutes away from a Iraqi WMD attack against America."........."If we don't fight them over there, we'd have to fight them over here."
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What does he have to say on the matter?


at 15 seconds into interview......."We want a POL--I--TICALLY acceptable outcome.......We want a POL--I--TICALLY acceptable outcome..... something we can live with; in terms of our national interests. Its something in my judgment obtainable, in the regional context, and it is something specifically which reduces the risks posed to us by "al-Qaeda"."
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(America can achieve its objectives in Afghanistan, which I must surmise includes a friendly local Afghan central government that is competent, effective governance wise, not corrupt, is security wise cohesive and can hold its own against the Taliban, backed by effective state institutions.....so that America does not have to be there for ever.
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However this cannot be achieved with the present installed puppet regime of Hamid Karzai of UNICOL, with his brother in the background as the biggest drugs runner in the country, and his VP is no better. If "American occupied" South Korea with 37,000 American soldiers can have competent government why not Afghanistan? If "American occupied" Japan with 50,000 American soldiers can have competent government why not Afghanistan? If "American occupied" Germany with 70,000 American soldiers can have competent government why not Afghanistan?
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.........we hope in answering such a question we don't fall back on racist, religiously biased answers to provide an explanation for our current set of problems in Afghanistan (casual racism is OK over dinner within the intimacy of friends and family, but not as a serious state policy)....It will be great for America's image if it can prove that despite being Israel's butt buddy number one, it can manage and effectively run a Muslim country with rationality, with a modicum of good intentions (doesn't have to be outright love) and fairness.
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A failed state generates armed groups whether with criminal intentions or political intentions, and it is within this failed state scenario it is said that groups like "al-Qaeda" thrive, as had happened during the Afghan civil war of 1991--1996. You can have failed states under foreign military occupation as with the case of Iraq, Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Vietnam.............or China under Japanese occupation. The condition of a occupied state depends primarily on the intentions and activities of the superior occupation force with military power......and not on the puppets they install.)

Josh Rushing: "Do you think a full blown counter-insurgency effort could actually work? Would you see Western style democracy version in Afghanistan..........."

Brzezinski: starts laughing........"Well excuse me for laughing but the combination of the two I just find bizarre; and its so ahistorical (goes against historical experience and facts).....a foreign occupation tends to mobilize opposition (from the locals), and the more intense and large scale it is, the larger the (local) opposition becomes...........therefore when we talk about counter-insurgency we have to feed into the equation, how will the people in that country react at some point.........if we become the principle mechanism for the counter-insurgency. In other words if Afghans are fighting the Taliban, counter-insurgency can succeed. If we are fighting the Taliban (as has been the case for the last 8 years) the chances are if we give 40,000 more troops for counter-insurgency against the existing levels of the Taliban, and a year from now we may be fighting Taliban levels which are 25% higher. Then we have to send more troops in...etc etc"
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I disagree with Brzezinski on the issue of democracy. For me it is a universal gift which ALL societies can benefit from and learn to accept to different degrees depending on their level of economic development and education level.

But he is right on the military issue.......in October 2001, America succeeded in Afghanistan against 40,000---50,000 Taliban and Arab Afghanis ("al-Qaeda") with some special forces, and the Northern Alliance......after the victory it was augmented to 9,000 troops by December 2001..........and now swollen to 70,000 (Obama has already promised 21,000 more after initially coming to office......in my opinion a hasty decision). The Americans are backed by 35,000 NATO....so 100,000 occupation forces + 200,000 Afghan government military, and paramilitary forces + 50,000 tribal militia loyal to the warlords on the government side ..............VERSES about 10,000 Taliban regular fighters. If there is STILL a problem now after 8 years of occupation in Afghanistan, then it is political problem of mismanagement in Afghanistan and Pakistan, AND not a military problem.
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Once it is identified as a political problem and possibly even a socio-economic problem then the correct solutions using the relevant experts can be applied.
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Obama has a duty to look at the Afghan problem through a different lens, and apply solutions which are markedly different than those of his predecessor, both for ideological reasons and for practical reasons. In all events he must not be painted into a corner prematurely with certain actions and decisions which tie his hands policy wise, and reduce his ability to maneuver in this critical area.......more troops, more casualties, more costs, more media uproar and criticism to do something usually more drastic, in the future.
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He can wait.....and according to Senator John Kerry no major policy decisions should be made whilst the Afghan elections are on-going.

Josh Rushing: "Could a further build-up (of troops) in Afghanistan lead to this being Obama's Vietnam?"

Brzezinski: "Well...If you pursue wrong policies (from the Bush era), you can call it Obama's Vietnam or you can call it anything else, or it might be quite new, but it will still be pretty bad.......When we went into Afghanistan eight years ago to over throw the Taliban, after 9/11, we did it largely with some airforce; 300 special forces, and Afghans who were enthusiastically on our side, because they viewed us as the people who helped them against the Soviets.......we overthrew the Taliban quickly, and now eight years later we have 60,000 American troops, and our military commanders are telling us that we are not winning....what does that tell you?
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"Where is the resistance? Obviously from the Taliban, but Afghans who increasing identify themselves with something which they were pleased to see overthrown eight years ago; that is a bad trend"
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Some what paradoxical that the very strategy Brzezinski had devised against the Soviets in Afghanistan, in order to weaken the Soviet Union, and revenge Vietnam.....is being foolishly pursued textbook style by the Pentagon...along the same failed path.

Clearly Karzai, his team of international drug smugglers, his Pentagon handlers with the other foreign advisers aren't doing their job adequately. We often focus on the failure of Afghanistan on the Afghans themselves......oh these people are primitive, from the stone age you know....blah blah...blah ...which supposedly explains why Afghanistan is a failed state number 7 from the bottom...but what if 90% of the reason for this failure after 8 years of occupation was primarily because of the occupation forces themselves?
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In all events Karzai needs to be got rid of, and new Afghan players brought in, who are more effective, AND who are given more responsibility. I don't think power sharing with the Taliban is the correct solution, that will be a sign of failure, and if enough Afghan are still disgruntled with the occupation they will fight, regardless of the orders of Mullah Omer.....realistically can't see him sitting in the Afghan cabinet under a coalition/national unity government anyway.
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Josh Rushing: "Does it look to you like a similar trend the Soviet Union followed in Afghanistan?"


Brzezinski: "Oh, I've been saying that for the last three years. I've been saying that the Soviets went into Afghanistan on the erroneous assumption that using Communists; Afghan Communists from the big cities; they could create a Communist society in Afghanistan....and they discovered within a year that they were viewed as universal enemies. Well we are to some extent the same based on whether we view as Western Afghans, democratic Afghans, or even imposing elections on them for which they are not prepared....and eight years after our involvement we are beginning to discover that its rough going, so I think it is high time we draw some lessons from it. And those lessons should not involve the mechanical transfer to Afghanistan our own experience, or our own values, our own political system. I am baffled why we preceded with these elections.....based on the American model of polling stations, candidates, debates.....and now perhaps even a run off election....why not a Jirga which is a traditional way Afghans elect their leaders......why impose this mechanism?"
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(America primarily did not go into Afghanistan with the intention of nation building.

Is there a comprehensive policy paper from the State Department which in minute detail states how Afghan society will be transformed into a modern function democracy?

.....no I don't think so.....what America is doing is going through the motions of democracy window dressing, BUT is not investing realistically and earnestly, where it matters, which would indicate to us that they are serious about creating a truly democratic society in Afghanistan............To this end 95% of American expenditure in Afghanistan is spent on the military....and war...and "counter-insurgency".......and the result of this American expenditure is quite obvious for all to see........and the Afghans living in the country know this to be the fact.......The Americans aren't spending on infrastructure, roads, bridges, canals, public buildings, schools, hospitals, factories, dams, power stations, warehouses........etc etc......The greatest and best contributions to Afghan infrastructure is being carried out by India and Iran.....NOT the USA.
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However this bit of Bush II legacy does not have to continue. All Obama has to do is create a realistic and comprehensive marshal plan for Afghanistan, which is fully monitored and followed through.....SPENDING CONSTRUCTIVELY ON THE AFGHAN PEOPLE, which Americans can be proud off.......long after they have left the country.
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To do that you don't need more military, but more investments into the Afghan people. You don't need 100,000 occupation forces and the defense expenditure of $65 billion....or is it actually $80 billion annually......or is the actual annual military expenditure on Afghanistan ....$100 billion.....fighting ...what?.............10,000 tribesmen armed with AK-47.
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This is a sham and yet another Pentagon scam...and hopefully Obama can turn this around with his set of new policies viz Afghanistan.

For America, or for Likud Israel?

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Long Wars and Peace Prizes
by Jeff Huber, October 13, 2009 at Antiwar.com


Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who has become the point man for the long-war mafia, delivered his ultimatum to President Barack Obama on Friday, Oct. 9. As has been his practice over the past several weeks, McChrystal proxy-leaked details of his demands through the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and other sources. The Journal says one of McChrystal’s proposed options calls for 60,000 additional troops, and "several officials" say the "maximum variant" is even larger.

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(This won't solve the Taliban problem, unless you are seriously talking about invading Pakistan proper, and dealing with them in Baluchistan, and the NWFP, which the Pakistan army will never do themselves, and can never do, and nor will they countenance American intervention......otherwise, therefore the Taliban "problem" will always linger........AND if you are thinking about invading Pakistan then you will require a heck of a lot more troops than a mere 60,000 more, unless after this escalation is granted you subsequently shout for more troops and more..............if later the American recession begins then your options for troop escalation and sustaining them will be limited anyway)

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How odd it will seem to future historians that the world’s sole superpower seriously considered escalating a war in a country that is not a threat to anyone. The most insane tenet of McChrystal’s proposals is to train up 400,000 Afghan security forces. 400,000 armed and trained Afghans is the last thing we want. Five years from now we’ll have to deploy 60,000 troops to defend Iran from Afghanistan. Won’t that be a kick in the cup?

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(Afghanistan given its level of governance, management, corruption, economic size and national resources can at best sustain a 100,000 military, and an additional 100,000 police and paramilitary; total 200,000; the projected 400,000 is way too unrealistic, and unsustainable.....creating more problems rather than actually solving anything in Afghanistan. Investing huge amounts of money on security when the money could be better spent on the Afghan people, and nation through infrastructure projects, education, health care, agricultural subsidies.....which permanently ingratiates them to America)

A "senior military official" says McChrystal is concerned that some of Obama’s advisers are telling him the Taliban are not a threat to the United States. That would be tantamount to Obama’s advisers telling him the sun doesn’t rise in the West. The Taliban want us to leave their country, that’s all. They may or may not get back control of Afghanistan if we leave it, but why should we care? Afghans have been controlling their own affairs for thousands of years, and not once have they invaded Poland or France.
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(The Taliban created by America in 1994, through the Pakistan military, and initially funded by certain Gulf countries was never a threat to the USA....It is a regional insurgency outfit controlled by the Pakistan military to achieve strategic depth viz India in Afghanistan, and envisaged as a force for stability, after the civil war which ensued when the Soviets departed Afghanistan.....The Taliban does not have any globalist pretensions and ambitions, factually stretched embellishments from Neocons aside.

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The Taliban realistically numbers about 10,000 armed with AK-47, operating for the last 15 years in Afghanistan, Baluchistan and the NWFP, areas where significant numbers of ethnic Pashtun dominate. So although an Islamic fundamentalist movement its true root/base is as an ethnic vehicle for the Pashtun community based in Afghanistan and Pakistan.........beyond this limited ethnic theater it has no further ambitions.)

The Times quotes the senior military official (he insisted on anonymity because he’s a sanctioned leaker) as saying, "The real question is, do you want the Taliban to be in power in Afghanistan? If you don’t, then they have to be addressed through a counterinsurgency campaign."

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(The Taliban don't have to be in power in Kabul....the Taliban is an ethnic Pashtun political/military vehicle controlled by the Pakistan military, which represents 40% of Afghans.......or to put it another way 60% of Afghan's are not Pashtun. The Northern Alliance is a credible center of power which is not Taliban, and there must be other centers of power within Afghan civil society which is not Taliban.

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Obviously when you promote murderers, criminals, drug trafficking warlords into the mainstream power structure of Afghanistan under foreign occupation, and project these very same people to ordinary Afghan's as sanctioned allies of American OVERTLY, and when ordinary Afghan's can patently observe and see them for what they really are, pure unadulterated criminals, there will obviously be a certain level of disenchantment which will set in, and a misguided yearning for sections of Afghan society out of sheer desperation to want to wish the old Taliban back into power in Afghanistan....................BUT this does not have to happen, when America leaves eventually....as they surely must.

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America should not waste its time fighting the Taliban, a thankless theoretically endless task given that there are 36 million Pashtun's in Af/Pak (6/7 million Pashtun men of military age?), but rather concentrate politically in grooming alternative credible leaders within Afghanistan who are effective, competent, have a mass support base, and finally who are organized militarily, and can seriously challenge the Taliban......The Northern Alliance shorn of its colorful characters; Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, RAWA and many other groups....America enables "good" moderate Afghans to both run their own country, and withstand the onslaught of the Pakistan military controlled Taliban.
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This does not mean ignoring the ethnically dominant Pashtuns, but finding moderate characters within their community who will work with a new government.

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Finally it must mean ditching Karzai and the sham election circus for a better set of political leaders in Afghanistan. There sheer corruption, ineptitude fuels decisively a significant portion of the insurgency, which is then managed by the Pakistani military)

Poppycock. There are ways to address the Taliban other than through the kind of nation-birthing counterinsurgency campaign that McChrystal and his allies – who include Gen. David Petraeus and Adm. Mike Mullen – are trying to cram up our nose pores. Our counterinsurgency doctrine is a crock of beans. In the case of Afghanistan, it purports that we can transport a culture from the Middle Age to the 21st century by flooding it with teenagers armed with M-16s, Oakley sunglasses, and inferior body armor.

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(It will create a greater mess)

If the Taliban take back power in Afghanistan, so what? Hamid Karzai, the guy in power whom we’re backing now, is a knock-knock joke (Who’s there? Nobody). We’d have been far better off after 9/11 to tell one-eyed, illiterate Taliban leader Mohammed Omar to cough up Osama bin Laden in return for a shiny new Cadillac. At the cost of many millions of Cadillacs later, we’re no further along in Afghanistan than we were from the outset.

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( Mullah Omer head of the Taliban requested evidence of Osama's culpability in 9/11 before they considered handing him over to be tried in a court of law, from the American government........which was not forth coming, and hasn't been produced since; The FBI don't have him as a suspect on their website of the 9/11 culprits......so the refusal to hand him over to America was taken as a no, and America attacked Taliban Afghanistan in October 2001)

Obama’s National Security Adviser James Jones says al-Qaeda now has fewer than 100 fighters, and even McChrystal admits they aren’t in Afghanistan. Someone needs to explain why we should escalate a foreign war to counter a threat that is insignificant.

Pouring more troops into Afghanistan would be a travesty. We need to go back to a global security posture that looks like the one we had before we got into the business of nation-birthing, one in which we strike surgically with naval, air, and special operations forces, and step away. Invading and occupying countries as a national pastime is a grand strategy for fools.

Fred Kagan, the darling of the military-industrial-congressional complex, was a key contributor to McChrystal’s Afghanistan analysis. Neocon Kagan is a professional warmonger who never saw a war he didn’t like or couldn’t justify. (Defense contracts for all my friends!)

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(Ah the Jewish neo-cons......what would we do without them?)

The Pentagon’s blatant media assault on President Obama continues. It began around Sept. 18 when a McClatchy article noted that the military is growing "impatient" with Obama on Afghanistan and cited unnamed "officers at the Pentagon in Kabul" as saying McChrystal will resign if he doesn’t get what he wants. The leak of his analysis to Bob Woodward came on Sept. 21, in a story that warned "More Forces or Mission Failure." McChrystal’s 60 Minutes infomercial on Sept. 27 was a Douglas MacArthur-like act of blatant insubordination. McChrystal followed that with a speech in London to a warfare-centric think-tank in which he repeated his position: if Obama doesn’t give me what I want, it will be his fault when we lose.

Among the latest assaults is an Oct. 11 article from right-wing media maven Rupert Murdoch’s Times of London that heralds "Barack Obama ready to pay fighters to ditch the Taliban." Times doesn’t mention that bribing insurgents is precisely how "King David" Petraeus created the illusion of success in the Iraq surge. The article notes that "Despite five war councils in two weeks, President Barack Obama has so far failed to come up with a strategy for the conflict." The Pentagon has had eight years to come up with a strategy for Afghanistan and failed to come up with anything better than its long-war mantra, a policy that says we can’t win, we just want to keep fighting. Now, the lack of a coherent strategy is somehow the fault of Obama, who has been commander in chief for less than a year.

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(Paying money to Taliban members to stop fighting occupation forces is a loser .....how do you determine which of the 6/7 million Pashtuns of fighting age in Af/Pak is a member of the Taliban?....whats to stop all of them coming forward to volunteer not to fight again as Taliban.........in a region with very low incomes this might work out as a good scam for many impoverished Pashtuns......but, how do you guarantee that once money is taken as a bribe they won't fight again, whats to stop them reneging on their promise....speaking of financial scams this is exactly the sort of thing which allows sticky fingered Pentagon/military officials to make some war profits on the side.........."Monday 2,000 Taliban came forward........we gives them $1,000 each......so total $4 million.......yea yea write that down on the receipt book..........there's Abdul, and Abdul, and Abdul, and Abdul, and his brother Abdul, and his cousin Abdul, and his nephew Abdul, and his friend Mohammed, and .........Tuesday $5 million....Wednesday $10 million big ones...........Woowoa, Mr. President keep it coming, we're winning ."
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If we recall a few trillion $ are unaccounted for in the Pentagon ledger, as stated in 10th September 2001 by Donald Rumsfeld. "al-Qaeda" helpfully killed ALL the accountants in the one room, out of thousands in the Pentagon, looking for those Pentagon zillions, unfortunately the next day on 9/11.

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Seriously.........lets fund Afghan's who are really honest, effective and not corrupt to run their own country instead......lets give these types the money.....they are not difficult to find, because most Afghan's belong to this category.......lets get rid of Karzai finally....then put the squeeze on the Pakistan military to stop funding the Taliban.)

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Obama made an enormous mistake when he called the Afghanistan conflict a "war of necessity." We need to fight in Afghanistan like fish need running shoes. Afghanistan is a discombobulated society that couldn’t work itself out of a paper bag. Al-Qaeda consists of fewer than 100 fighters, and the Taliban, which our intelligence describes as a "franchise operation," has no interest in or capability of invading the United States.

Let’s hope our Nobel winner finds the courage to stand up to the media blitz he’s facing.