The Double-edged Sword

We are engaged in "Saigon in slow motion," as Tammy Swofford opined in Pakistan's Daily Times on August 18, 2012, well before the filmifada.

A taste of the essay:

It is pleasant to consider that the Pentagon remembers the lessons of the past, those learned in Vietnam. It is where the US military first put a ‘win hearts and minds’ paradigm into play. Vietnam was the initial military laboratory for a two-pronged foreign engagement for a regional conflict that sought to beat back communism whilst also making our policies palatable within a distinct cultural setting.

Military planners have also sought the same in Afghanistan...

[...]

As we wind down in Afghanistan, there will not be a defining ‘win’, rather a lot of spin. This may not be Saigon. But it is Saigon in slow motion for the families receiving back their dead, killed in such manner as meted out in Afghanistan.

Read Tammy Swofford's entire essay HERE. Worth your time.

Consider the following video, which aired on September 23, 2012 (Apologies for the commercial that may appear at the beginning):

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[source]Has American involvement in Islamic countries become the double-edged sword? Stay, we lose? Leave, we lose?

Ten Long Years In Afghanistan

And even Afghan lawmakers are in despair:

Afghans: Obama wasting time talking to terrorists

A group of senior Afghan lawmakers says the Obama administration is wasting its time in trying to make peace with the Haqqani Network, a Pakistan-based terrorist group U.S. officials have accused of killing Americans and attacking the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan.

Washington should instead increase pressure on Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to cut its ties to the Haqqanis, withhold millions of dollars of aid to Islamabad and attack the militants in their safe havens, the lawmakers told The Washington Times this week.

The Haqqani Network, which is led by Sirajuddin Haqqani and operates from Pakistan's North Waziristan province, is supported by the ISI, according to Afghan and Western officials. Pakistani officials deny these accusations.

The Afghan lawmakers said the United States should use a combination of sanctions and travel bans against top ISI officers and the Pakistani military to break their support for the Haqqani Network.

The group of 10 lawmakers is in Washington for meetings at the Pentagon and State Department and on Capitol Hill.

U.S. officials met with representatives of the Haqqani Network over the summer.

In congressional testimony late last month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton defended the Obama administration's strategy of "fight, talk and build" while dealing with the terrorists. She said part of the reason for the administration's approach is to test whether the terrorist groups "have any willingness to negotiate in good faith."

The Afghan lawmakers were pessimistic about the prospects of such an approach....

The rest HERE.

Ten long years of our blood and treasure, and the final result is going to be a complete loss as far as I can see.

Funding The Taliban In Afghanistan?

With a hat tip to Sam Huntington of Praesidiumn Respublicae, citing this source:

The U.S. military estimates that $360 million spent on combat support and reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan has ended up in the hands of people the American-led coalition has battled for nearly a decade: the Taliban, criminals and local power brokers with ties to both…

Some "war," huh? Our tax dollars are funding the enemy!

Bin Laden: AQ leader calls for creation of new relief body to help... Muslims

My Way:

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden called for the creation of a new relief body to help Muslims in an audiotape released Friday, seeking to exploit discontent following this summer's devastating floods in Pakistan by depicting the region's governments as uncaring.
It was the third message in recent weeks from al-Qaida figures concerning the massive floods that affected around 20 million people in Pakistan, signaling a concentrated campaign by the terror group to tap into anger over the flooding to rally support.
But while the earlier messages by subordinates were angry, urging followers to rise up, bin Laden took a softer, even humanitarian tone - apparently trying to broaden al-Qaida's appeal by presenting his group as a problem-solving protector of the poor.
"What governments spend on relief work is secondary to what they spend on armies," bin Laden says on the 11-minute tape titled "Reflections on the Method of Relief Work."
"If governments spent (on relief) only one percent of what is spent on armies, they would change the face of the world for poor people," he said.

Interesting. Will AQ leader give the money he spents on terrorism to "the poor of the world"? I guess not. If he wouldn't have "listened to Allah's calling", he will be living amid luxury as all the others Saudi multi-millionaires. He's just exploiting (again) Western leaders' culpability complex.

Photo: 20minutes.fr.

Cross-posted from T&P.

General McChrystal Apologizes

From MSNBC:

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan was ordered back to the U.S. Tuesday to explain explain controversial remarks critical of the Obama administration.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal apologized for a magazine profile in which his aides are quoted mocking Vice President Joe Biden and Richard Holbrooke, the special U.S. representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

An article published this week in Rolling Stone magazine depicts McChrystal as a lone wolf on the outs with many important figures in the Obama administration and unable to convince even some of his own soldiers that his strategy can win the war.

In the article, McChrystal was also quoted as saying he felt betrayed by the man the White House chose to be his diplomatic partner, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry.

[...]

The article portrays McChrystal's team as disapproving of the Obama administration, with the exception of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who backed McCrystal's request for additional troops in Afghanistan.

The article claims McChrystal has seized control of the war "by never taking his eye off the real enemy: The wimps in the White House."...

Read more at the above link.

How bad is the situation in Afghanistan for a general to openly blast a Presidential administration?

Then, there's the following too:

Rolling Stone interviewed troops frustrated by McChrystal's strict rules for combat that are intended to reduce the number of civilian casualties.

At one outpost, a soldier McChrystal had met earlier was killed in a house that the local U.S. commander had repeatedly asked to destroy. The request was denied, apparently out of concern that razing the house would anger locals whose allegiance the U.S. is trying to win.

"Does that make any (expletive) sense?" Pfc. Jared Pautsch asks. "We should just drop a (expletive) bomb on this place. You sit and ask yourself, 'What are we doing here?'"

Afghanistan: Support for Taliban Hits 25%

Public support for the Taliban hit an “all time high” in Kandahar province last spring.

Polling data compiled by the Canadian Military shows 25 per cent of respondents said they had a favourable view of the Taliban, including six per cent with a “very favourable” opinion.

The Canadian Press reports the data says “International economic assistance is heavily preferred over military assistance.”

The survey was part of the 2009 military spring campaign assessment.

The survey also finds one-third of respondents said they had an unfavourable impression of foreign soldiers.

via 580 CFRA News Talk Radio.

Can this be the reason why recently Karzai threatened to join the Taliban? Or was that reaction caused by another causes?

25% of support means than one out of four have a favourable view of the Taliban while one out of three have the opposite opinion of foreign troops, that is NATO. It's an important part of the population, specially because there is a growing trend of support for the Taliban:

"The Taliban (is) not winning public consent," said the study. "Afghans still strongly prefer the (government of Afghanistan), but confidence is waning due to lack of security, justice, basic services."

The report's analysis focused on the tide of rising violence that followed the spectacular attack on Sarpoza prison in June 2008, a seminal event that ground commanders hoped would only dent public confidence.

As it turned out, the perception of insecurity it created was long-standing and the numbers did not "bounce back" as expected, the survey noted.

"Fewer Kandaharis report feeling safe than in previous polls; more believe that security is worsening than improving," said the study, carried out in February 2009.

So, this means that actually the Taliban are not winning the people's favour, but rather that the foreign troops are losing it.

Ajmal Samadi, director of the Human Rights group Afghanistan Rights Monitor, defends that foreigners have not understood Afghan politics and that there are people in the country who considered that, even if they were harsh, they made them feel strong and protected.

Meanwhile Kandahar's governor considers that people in villages are "hostages" of the Taliban and that they can't do anything but supporting them.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Martin: Harper joins chorus condemning Afghan leader's defection threat (calgaryherald.com)
• Karzai's threat to join Taliban misunderstood: envoy (ctv.ca)
• Karzai seeks tribal support for military operation (cnn.com)

Cross-posted from T&P.

Lollipops and Bombs

One photo that sums up the whole American enterprise in Afghanistan

From Jihad Watch:

Afghan police trainee eats lollipop, Marines search house for explosives.