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Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Churchill’s First War: Young Winston and the Fight Against the Taliban, by Con Coughlin

“Morally it is wicked . . . politically it is a blunder”: does Churchill’s verdict on making war in Afghanistan still hold true?
From The Irish Times - Books
By David Murphy

Mark Twain once allegedly stated that “history does not repeat itself but it does rhyme”. For historians, politicians and military commanders it is very tempting to make comparisons between historical military campaigns and modern conflicts. This can be an inherently dangerous practice but perhaps nowhere offers more potential for such comparison than the former North-West Frontier region of British India, which now forms the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Since 2001 we have seen the conflict in Afghanistan develop in ways that bear startling similarities to previous conflicts in that troubled land. A key factor for successful campaigning in this region is establishing control of the North-West Frontier, an objective that remains as elusive for modern armies as it did for the forces of the British Empire in the late 19th century. 

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Not a Single Christian Church Left in Afghanistan, Says State Department

Ten years after the US invasion of this country we still ask, what are we fighting for here, and is Afghanistan worth the life of a single American soldier?   We have bankrupted the United States fighting these pointless and endless wars; better to let their hateful ideology consume them and not us.

By Edwin Mora
There is not a single, public Christian church left in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department.

This reflects the state of religious freedom in that country ten years after the United States first invaded it and overthrew its Islamist Taliban regime.

Read the rest of this entry at CNSNews.com

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Pat Buchanan: 'Who Are We Fighting For?'

By Patrick J. Buchanan

On March 20, , who heads a congregation of 30 at his Dove World Outreach Center church in Gainesville, Fla., conducted a mock trial of the Quran “for crimes against humanity.”

Pronouncing Islam’s sacred book guilty, Jones soaked a Quran in kerosene and set it ablaze in a portable fire pit.

Few noticed. But did.

On March 24, the president of , our presumed ally in the war with and the Taliban, condemned this “crime against the religion and the entire nation,” called on the United States to bring Jones to justice and demanded “a satisfactory response to the resentment and anger of over 1.5 billion Muslims around the world.”

Thus the firebrand here is not just Jones, who perpetrated the sacrilege, but Karzai, who made certain his countrymen knew what happened 10,000 miles away and four days before.

Friday, after prayers in Mazer-e-Sharif, a mob, inflamed by imams denouncing Jones, descended on the U.N. compound. When they left, seven U.N. employees lay dead, two reportedly beheaded.

President Obama denounced Jones’ “act of extreme intolerance and bigotry,” and added that “to attack and kill innocent people in response is outrageous and an affront to human dignity and decency.”

deplored the Quran-burning as “hateful, disrespectful and enormously intolerant.”

Still, on Saturday, rioters waving Taliban flags and shouting “Death to America” and “Death to Karzai” went on a rampage in Kandahar that ended with nine Afghans dead and 80 injured when they tried to march on the U.N. compound and security troops fired on them.

Three more were killed Sunday as riots continued in Kandahar and spread to Jalalabad. Forty more suffered gunshot wounds.

Petraeus then met with Karzai, who issued a new statement demanding that “the U.S. government, Senate and Congress clearly condemn (the Rev. Jones’) dire action and avoid such incidents in the future.”

In short, our ally seized this opportunity to rub America’s nose in what the Rev. Jones did, as though the U.S. government, whose highest civilian and military officials had condemned Jones, is morally culpable for not preventing his Quran-burning and not punishing him for it.

Nor is this sufficient. Henceforth, the U.S. government is to police its citizenry to ensure no such anti-Islamic sacrilege takes place again.

Intending no disrespect, who do these people think they are?

Undeniably, it was an incendiary insult to a religion professed by almost a fourth of the world’s people for Jones to do what he did. But what does this murderous reaction to a book-burning tell us about the people for whose right of self-determination Americans are fighting and dying in Afghanistan?

Candidly, it affirms what we already knew.

Many Afghans believe beheading or stoning is the right response to an insult to Islam. And not only that. Five years ago, Abdul Rahman, an Afghan convert to Christianity, faced the death penalty for apostasy and was forced to flee his own country.

In some Muslim countries, death is the prescribed punishment for Muslims who convert, for who seek converts and for any who insult Islam, like that Danish cartoonist who sketched a caricature of the Prophet with a fused bomb for a turban.

Stoning is also seen as proper punishment for women who commit adultery.

In recently, the governor of Punjab and the Cabinet minister for religious minorities, both Catholics, were assassinated. Why? Both had opposed a law under which a Christian woman had been sentenced to death after some farmhands accused her of blasphemy.

The governor was murdered by his own bodyguard, who was then hailed by 500 religious scholars who urged all Muslims to boycott the governor’s funeral ceremony, as he had gotten what he deserved.

In the last two years, Christians have been burned alive by Muslims in Gorja, Pakistan, and by Hindu extremists in Orissa, India. Christian churches have been torched and scores of the faithful massacred on holy days in Iraq and Egypt. Few of these atrocities have received the media attention of the Rev. Jones’ stupid stunt or the Danish cartoonist’s irreverent scribbles.

Before America sends more of her sons to die for the freedom of Arabs and Muslims, perhaps we ought to have a better idea of what these folks intend to do with that freedom. For across that Muslim world, the faith that created our world, Christianity, is being persecuted and in some sectors annihilated.

To and liberal interventionists, the goal of U.S. foreign policy should be to use our wealth and power to advance freedom until the whole world is democratic. Only then can we be secure.
But if democracy means rule by the people, ought we not to inquire a little more closely what it is these people, down deep, really want, before we bleed and bankrupt ourselves to win it for them?

Maybe had a point.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Is Hillary Paying Protection Money to the Taliban?


Report Reveals ‘Protection Payments’ From Taxpayer-Funded Private Security Contract

It appears that the Secretary of State is conducting U.S. foreign affairs in much the same way she managed her husband's affairs -- those who can't be destroyed are bought off.

CNS News reports that $2 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds "spent on a Defense Department contract for the private security of 'vital' U.S. military supplies in Afghanistan may be making its way to the Taliban as protection payments for safe passage.”


Wednesday, June 23, 2010

McChrystal Out; Petraeus Picked for Afghanistan



President Barack Obama sacked his loose-lipped Afghanistan commander Wednesday, a seismic shift for the military order in wartime, and chose the familiar, admired — and tightly disciplined — Gen. David Petraeus to replace him. Petraeus, architect of the Iraq war turnaround, was once again to take hands-on leadership of a troubled war effort.

Read the rest of this entry >>


Tuesday, June 22, 2010

White House Summons US General to Explain Himself


A General and Commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan who voted for Obama and shares inside gossip on the pages of Rolling Stone magazine -- it seems to us he and The One deserve each other.


The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan has been summoned to Washington to explain derogatory comments about President Barack Obama and his colleagues, administration officials said Tuesday.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who publicly apologized Tuesday for using "poor judgment" in an interview in Rolling Stone magazine, has been ordered to attend the monthly White House meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan in person Wednesday rather than over a secure video teleconference, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. He'll be expected to explain his comments to Obama and top Pentagon officials, these officials said.


Read the rest of this entry >>


Monday, June 14, 2010

U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

A bleak Ghazni Province seems to offer little, but a Pentagon study
says it may have among the world’s largest deposits of lithium.


From The New York Times

By James Risen

T
he United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in
Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

Read the rest of this entry >>



Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Taliban Using HIV Bombs

Wayne Owers received the Queen's Gallantry Medal for his bomb disposal work in Afghanistan. Photo: Cpl Rupert Frere
From The Sun
By Tom Newton Dunn

T
aliban fighters are burying dirty needles with their bombs
in a bid to infect British troops with HIV, The Sun can reveal.

Hypodermic syringes are hidden below the surface pointing upwards to prick bomb squad experts as they hunt for devices.

The heroin needles are feared to be contaminated with hepatitis and HIV. And if the bomb goes off, the needles become deadly flying shrapnel.

The tactic, used in the Afghan badlands of Helmand, was exposed by Tory MP and ex-Army officer Patrick Mercer.

Senior backbencher Mr Mercer said yesterday: "Are there no depths to which these people will stoop? This is the definition of a dirty war."

Razor blades are also being used. All Royal Engineer and Royal Logistic Corps bomb search teams have been issued with protective Kevlar gloves.


Friday, January 29, 2010

How Muslims Defeated the United States


I have often wondered why Obama, who I truly believe hates America and all that it has stood for, has been so keen to have the United States fight in Afghanistan. The following, which includes a dramatic report from a soldier stationed in Iraq, provides an explanation.

From The Brussels Journal
By Diana West


T
oday, I am posting an extraordinary letter from a soldier currently s
tationed in Iraq, a sometime penpal of mine to whom I sent my three-part series on the aftermath of the surge to elicit his opinion. Knowing how thoughtful he is, I expected a substantive response. Given his time constraints alone, I did not expect an essay of this scope and I decided, with his permission, to present it here. It is unlike any commentary I have read from Iraq; it is both coolly reasoned and deeply passionate, and certain to challenge and disturb readers across the political spectrum: PC-believing liberals, Iraq-as-success-believing conservatives, Islam-as-a-religion-of-peaceniks of both Left and Right.

So be it.

He writes:

Read the rest of this entry >>


Saturday, August 2, 2008

US-Led Poppy Destruction Aiding Taliban, Says Think-Tank



AKI has an interesting story about how US policy forcing the destruction of poppy crops in Afghanistan "is fuelling support for the Taliban and the insurgency."

The London-based Senlis Council, recommends "that poppies should be cultivated for the village-based production of morphine."