Category Archives: Mission to Afghanistan

Democracy in Afghanistan

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The idea that democracy is a foreign ideal perpetrated on the people of Afghanistan by outsiders is a misconception writes Khorshied Samad in the March 7 edition of the Ottawa Citizen. On the eve of International Women’s day, the wife to the Afghanistan ambassador to Canada and former correspondent and Kabul bureau chief for Fox news is clear in her assessment on democracy in the war torn and much troubled country: “while Afghans remain critical of some aspects of the NATO mission over the past eight years, they believe in further developing democratic values and structures as a safeguard against extremism and injustice that are considered universal threats”.

Samad continues to write: ” the misconception that democracy is alien to Afghanistan’s society is wrong. Afghan women fought for and achieved certain important rights prior to the Taliban”. In fact, the 1964 Afghan constitution recognized men and women as equal citizens under the law with equal rights and women were active in all professional fields until the Taliban takeover. Now, ” the volatile security situation and certain archaic norms continue to put pressure on women and limit women’s and girl’s roles in public life, denying them the full enjoyment of their rights. Human right’s violations including domestic violence, rape, child marriage and honour killings are still reported”.

” Increasing U.S. military forces and reinforcing NATO coalition troops are a necessary strategy, especially during an election year, in overcoming the Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgency plaguing Southeastern Afghanistan”. Samad believes that military action is not the sole solution to Afghan’s reformation. To ensure that Afghanistan does not fall into failed state status, focused nation-building and reconstruction which would allow for the seeds of democratic values to flourish must  be implemented by outside efforts. ” This is necessary to ensure that a healthy civil society can grow and develop, protecting such ideals as freedom of speech and equal rights for all citizens, which are upheld in the 2004 Afghan constitution. Afghans do not want to abandon these accomplishments”.

What is there to dispute? How can there be opposition to the will, testament and hope of the ordinary Afghani?

We are told time and again that culture is relative and that we have to allow for this relativity; to understand the actions of these cultures within the context of the modern world. That is fine, insofar as we can strive to make those allowances. But by the same token, we surely cannot see this culture effectively understanding or applying the necessary responsibilities required to establish a true democracy in the modern sense, Taliban or not.  The overall illiteracy rate is astonishing despite apparent strides in eduation. Afghanistan guarantees women equal rights and a quarter of the parliamentary and provincial council seats yet few candidates are women. Girls are forced into hiding for seeking an open education and their teachers either beaten or killed. Does Khorshied Samad consider the abundant failings of an ancient culture incapable in it’s ability to realize the obligations and responsibilities that democracy demands a fruitful stride? Is there any recognition of the loss of troops in aiding this seemingly endless transition? What role does the Afghan government play in the perpetual dysfunction of a nation constantly on the brink of collapse and it’s failure to acknowledge women as full persons?

Today Canada realized it’s 112th troop lost. A good friend of mine stated that if we don’t go into Afghanistan to win, then one soldier’s life lost is one too many; if we go to win, then 10,000 lost is very few.

“As we celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, we are reminded that Afghanistan still has much work ahead. Hopefully with the continued support of the international community its young, fragile democracy will flourish so the Afghan people can become truly self-sufficient, live in peace and security and with hope for the future” Samad writes and I couldn’t agree more. We can hope that this fragile democracy finds it’s surest footing and lasting promise first and foremost from the Afghani people themselves supported not by outside forces but by it’s own government committed to a future of stability, equality and peace.

Obama declares war lost in Afghanistan, reaches out to taleban?

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This from MSNBC and NYT

Image: U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan

Spencer Platt / Getty Images
U.S. strategy against the Taliban now focuses on rooting extremists out, as in this patrol on Feb. 18 where villagers in Afghanistan’s Shembal Valley were asked whether any fighters were nearby. President Barack Obama is weighing whether to modify that strategy to also reach out to more moderate Taliban elements.
By Helene Cooper and Sheryl Gay Stolberg

updated 51 minutes ago

WASHINGTON – President Obama declared in an interview that the United States was not winning the war in Afghanistan and opened the door to a reconciliation process in which the American military would reach out to moderate elements of the Taliban, much as it did with Sunni militias in Iraq.

Mr. Obama pointed to the success in peeling Iraqi insurgents away from more hard-core elements of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a strategy that many credit as much as the increase of American forces with turning the war around in the last two years. “There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani region,” he said, while cautioning that solutions in Afghanistan will be complicated.

In a 35-minute conversation with The New York Times aboard Air Force One on Friday, Mr. Obama reviewed the challenges to his young administration. The president said he could not assure Americans the economy would begin growing again this year. But he pledged that he would “get all the pillars in place for recovery this year” and urged Americans not to “stuff money in their mattresses.”

Women in Swat.

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Feminists, human rights groups, damn it people in general where the hell are you? Where is the apartheid week on campus for woman’s rights?

Fear of death stalks women in Swat. From Dawn.com

Saturday, 07 Mar, 2009 | 11:27 AM PST |

Veiled young women sit attend a class at a vocational training center at Gulkada area in Swat valley. —AFP


Veiled young women sit attend a class at a vocational training center at Gulkada area in Swat valley. —AFP


PESHAWAR: Terrified, locked up at home and courting death if they go out alone, women oppressed by extremists in Swat have nothing to celebrate on International Women’s Day.

Nearly 100 years after the annual day was created to mark the struggle for equal rights for half the world’s population, most women in Swat look blank and go silent when asked about gender rights and discrimination.

They’re too frightened to speak in public. They can only leave the confines of their homes accompanied by a male relative, their bodies hidden in veils.

‘How can I tell you my name, are you crazy? I was told not to give my name to anyone because the Taliban could hurt me,’ one girl in the ninth grade told AFP by telephone from the former ski resort.

The girl’s dreams of becoming a doctor are over. She worries the Taliban will stop her finishing school, regardless of her parents’ support.

‘My mother told me I can do anything, but my inner soul is shattered.’

‘Tell me if you stop women getting an education where will a sick woman go? Do you want her to go to a male doctor? I was told that education is compulsory for every man and woman in Islam but the Taliban destroyed our schools.’

Militants have destroyed 191 schools in the valley, 122 of them for girls, leaving 62,000 pupils with nowhere to study, local officials say.

Huma Batool – not her real name – is a 42-year-old mother of two who dices with death to teach girls at a private school in the region’s main town Mingora.

‘We have to veil ourselves and wear shuttlecock burqas. We are not safe even at home.
We fear the Taliban all the time. Life is becoming worse and worse for women in Swat,’ she told AFP by telephone.

Educated and financially self-sufficient, she cannot even pop to the shops without a male relative, leaving her frequently couped up at home for hours, waiting for a suitable escort to become available.

‘You cannot imagine how I manage to get to school, practically every day I think about leaving the job and sitting at home.’

‘Life bores us to tears. There is no entertainment. We can’t even think about cable TV, cinema, film and music. Imagine I can’t even go shopping or to the bazaar as women are banned by Taliban.’

Salma Javed, 35, is a nurse at a local hospital, where women – however sick – can only be admitted if accompanied by a male relative.

‘Every woman fears she will be killed if she comes out, so even sick and pregnant women have to visit hospital with their husbands.’

Salma would love to leave, but she cannot scrape together the money to set herself up in Peshawar.

‘Now we are waiting to see what will happen after the peace deal, but let me tell you things will not change for women,’ she said.

The only light in Shahnaz Kousar’s life is that the Taliban – at least for now – are allowing her to go to school in Mingora. But outside her 10th grade classroom, the daily pleasures of shopping and make-up are gone.

‘We are now totally depending on Taliban. There’s not a single shop left where I can go and buy cosmetics, all shops selling women’s things are either closed or empty.’

‘I remember when I used to go to this market with my mother and sisters, but now it seems like a dream.’

Iran giving taliban missiles capable of taking out helicopters

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I wonder if this explains the recent statement from the Harper Government in Canada about Canada’s position on troop deployment and untenability of the war in Afghanistan.

From Stratfor.com

Canada: Afghan Insurgency Can’t Be Defeated – Harper
March 1, 2009
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on March 1 said the insurgency in Afghanistan will not ever be defeated, and that Canada will not send more troops to the country without an exit strategy, Reuters reported. Afghanistan needs a government that is able to manage the insurgency, can improve its governance, and is not viewed as foreign-installed, Harper said in a CNN interview.

From The Times of India
Iran is supplying the Taliban in Afghanistan with surface-to-air missiles capable of destroying a helicopter, according to American intelligence sources.

They believe the Taliban want to use the SA-14 Gremlins missiles to launch a “spectacular” attack against coalition forces in Helmand, where insurgents claim to be gaining the upper hand.

Although British and American helicopters operating in southern Afghanistan are equipped with defensive systems to deflect an attempted strike, the SA-14 can evade such counter-measures.

It was a shoulder-held SA-14 supplied by Iran that was used by Iraqi insurgents to shoot down a helicopter over Basra in May 2006. Although the Iranians are not natural supporters of the Taliban, they have been willing to assist them in the past in order to prevent Britain and the US gaining influence in the region.

Special forces have previously intercepted arms shipments from Iran that would have helped the Taliban intensify a roadside bombing campaign that has killed 40 British troops over the past 18 months, including three last week.

However, coalition forces only became aware of the presence of SA-14s two weeks ago when parts from two of them were discovered during an American operation in western Afghanistan.

“The weapons are out there and we thought it was only a matter of time before they got one or two into the south,” said a defence source. “A Taliban spectacular against British or American troops would reinforce an increasing view among ordinary Afghans that the Taliban are gaining the upper hand.”

In the past eight months, small arms and rocket-propelled grenade attacks on British helicopters in Helmand have increased.

More on Pakistan from Stratfor.com

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This from Stratfor.com

Anyone who is interested in non partizan geopolitics really should get a membership. These guys get a lot right and just the raw news without the analysis is worth the price of admission. This is the best source of information on geopolitics and military activities as well as political there is out there. Below is the two paragraphs I may post on this issue without violating terms of use. But its worth trying them out and reading the whole thing.

February 25, 2009 | 1731 GMT

Summary
Pakistan’s federal government imposed governor’s rule in Punjab, the country’s largest province, Feb. 25 after the Supreme Court ruled Punjab’s chief minister as ineligible for office. This is a preemptive move by the central government to try and contain large-scale protests by the country’s legal community, which is demanding the restoration of the judiciary. The tussle comes at a time when the country is already politically and economically weak and the military is likely far too distracted with the jihadist insurgency to step in and quell such political brawls, boding ill for the security of the country and the wider region.

Analysis

Pakistan’s federal government, led by the Pakistan’s People’s Party (PPP), on Feb. 25 suspended the provincial legislature and government and imposed governor’s rule for two months in Punjab, the country’s largest and most powerful province. Punjab is controlled by the country’s other major political force, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), led by two-term former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Earlier, Pakistan’s Supreme Court declared Sharif and his younger brother, Punjab’s chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, as ineligible for public office. The elder Sharif had previously been barred from holding public office; his younger brother’s disqualification represents the central government’s intention to go for the PML-N’s jugular, thereby destabilizing Punjab’s provincial government. Supporters of the PML-N are protesting the central government’s decision, holding demonstrations across the country. Protesters reportedly burned tires and damaged public property.

This from Spiegel.de on Swat and Pakistan:

Bowing Down to the Taliban

By Susanne Koelbl

Pakistan is capitulating to the Taliban in the picturesque Swat Valley, where the Islamists have introduced Sharia law. Now the militants’ triumph threatens to encourage radicals throughout the region.

The defeat was celebrated as if it had been a victory. The chief minister of the North-West Frontier Province greeted a delegation from the local Taliban. The Taliban officials, with their long beards and turbans, had come to the chief minister’s house to sign a treaty. After arriving in pickups and large limousines, the men were seated on velvet armchairs and served food on silver trays.

Then the pious foes of the government in Islamabad were given a coveted piece of Pakistan as a gift.

Under the agreement, which the men and the governor signed with much ceremony, the Taliban will be permitted to implement their interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, in the Swat Valley and other adjacent districts at the foot of the Hindu Kush mountain range. “Today is a historic day,” said Amir Haider Khan Hoti, the chief minister of the provincial government, clearly straining to put a positive spin on the Taliban’s assumption of power. “An old demand of the people has been met. The new regulation will provide a more efficient legal system.”

It was a blatant lie. Most Pakistanis are shocked by the prospect that, in the Swat Valley, thieves could have their hands cut off and adulterers could face stoning in the future. Such punishments were in fact already possible under Pakistani law, but have never been carried out in the past.

Visit the link above to read the rest of the article and view the photo gallery. But the best thing is the film from Australia’s Four Corners a few posts down from here. This situation must not be under estimated for its severity and implications to the rest of the world.

Pakistan. If you read or see nothing else this week…

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Make it this post. This is the most accurate and detailed documentary done so far on the deteriorating situation in Pakistan concerning Taliban and Al Queda in the Swat valley. This is extremely serious. I will be adding information all night on this but watch the documentary for the love of god, freedom, your wife and children, any Jewish friends you may have, for anything you hold sacred. If you think this isn’t going to happen here, wherever here is, I have news for you. It already is.

Add to this new information about the near total impotence of the civilian government in Pakistan, the army’s likely inability to step in and stabilize the country as it did in the early 90s, and today’s dismissal of the premiere of the largest province in Pakistan the Punjab.

I will be adding more to this post over the next 24 hours. There is a lot of information about Pakistan emerging rapidly but I want this video up now. Everyone simply has to see this.
Special thank you to Muslims against Sharia, a most excellent blog for providing me the embed code and for Australia’s four corners for making this. Sit down, get a drink, and watch.

Afghanis shout ‘death to Canadians’

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Imagine. The Taliban kills 2 Afghan kids and the locals all yell death to Canadians. You know Canadians, the guys building all the schools hospitals and public facilities there, paying tens of millions if not the low billions to local authority to have decent security, the people who have to tolerate being killed by pretty much any random guy anywhere in any sort of clothing cause you never know who is an enemy or not. Those guys. My patience as a Canadian citizen is pretty much stretched to breaking. They want us to leave. Either you fight a war to win it, and this means a lot of killing, or you dont go. I say we leave a note on a rock that says everytime a terrorist training camp appears somewhere in Afghanistan we will send a drone over and wipe out a town. Everytime terrorist funding from an attack is found to be from the poppy fields we take out 20 fopium farms from the air with agent orange. Everytime there is a Taliban or Afghani connection to western terroror we will come in like a jove and smite a city. Other than that, they should never see us short of the underside of a bomber.

From the Vancouver Sun:

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Dozens of angry protesters shouted “death to Canadians” and paraded the bloody bodies of two dead boys in front of a government office in Kandahar Monday, after an explosion southwest of the city near a village for disabled people.

Canadian and NATO reports said two children were also injured in the explosion, but officials at Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar said it may have been as many as five.

The Canadian military says the blast came from an undetonated explosive on the ground, possibly from a firing range where they practised in the area the previous day. But some villagers and the Afghan police believe it was an incoming mortar round — either from the Taliban or foreign troops — that did the damage.

Maj. Mario Couture said they are conducting an investigation to find out exactly what happened, but added that the area is known as a perilous one for villagers and soldiers.

“It’s littered with all kinds of unexploded ordnance and mines. It’s a very dangerous area, so anything is possible at this point.”

Couture said Canadians fired small arms, artillery and tanks in the area the day before, but did a thorough sweep after they left the practice range.

“We have very strict policies in place to prohibit leaving behind any unexploded ordnance, and make every effort to ensure the safety of Afghan civilians,” he said.

The incident occurred near the village of Salehan, about 15 kilometres southwest of Kandahar City in the Panjwaii District. The victims apparently lived in a nearby village known to locals as “the handicapped village,” but formally called Sheik Mohammed Bin Rashid Village, after the wealthy ruler of Dubai who paid for its construction. It was built specifically for disabled people including those who have been maimed by landmines and bombs.

One protester said the children were returning from school when the rocket hit.

Enraged protesters made their way from the village to Kandahar City, eventually blocking the road near the provincial council office where a news conference was being held on government corruption.

They carried the dead boys, who looked to be about 10 or 12 years old, in a motorbike with a plywood box on the back. Their bodies were badly mangled. One boy’s glassy brown eyes remained open; his face was caked with dried blood.

Protesters, some hobbling on crutches, yelled “death to Canadians,” and “death to Americans,” along with slogans against their local government. Afghan police eventually arrived to disperse the protest.

Kandahar’s police chief, Matiullah Qati, said it was a mortar round that hit the children, but it wasn’t a Canadian one.

“We have seen the area and the wreckage of the mortar. It is actually a mortar which is shot by the Taliban not (NATO) or Afghan officials,” Matiullah said. “It is a tragedy for these Afghan people who have lost their loved ones, but I blame the Taliban for shooting these kind of rockets which bring civilian casualties.”

But people at the protest were convinced foreign troops were responsible for the incident. They say Canadians based to the west of their village, often shoot nearby for practice. They want it to stop.

“This is not the first time they have targeted our community. In the past they have also targeted our village, but with no human casualties,” said Muhammad Ghus. “We want them to stop firing at us.”

“We are crippled and the foreign troops want to make our children crippled,” said Abdul Matin. “For God sake, won’t you let us live in peace? We don’t want help from them, we just don’t want them to kill our children.”

Civilian deaths have become a flashpoint for anti-Western sentiment here. According to a recent United Nations report, civilian deaths were up 40 per cent last year, to a record 2,118 people. The report said insurgents were responsible for 55 per cent of those deaths. NATO disputes the total number of deaths, and says the percentage killed by insurgents is much higher.

In nearby Helmand Province Monday, insurgents ambushed a NATO patrol, resulting in “a number” of civilian injuries. All of the injured civilians were taken to hospital and NATO says they are conducting an investigation.

Couture said Canadian troops do everything they can to avoid incidents like Monday’s deaths.

“As a parent myself, when situations like that occur I can’t help but think of my own children. And I can’t help thinking of the families who are devastated by the tragedy.”
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

Links for February 18 2009 tennis and Pakistan

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Two stories about Israel and tennis. A match in Dubai where Israeli teams had qualified had to be re worked when the nation of Dubai refused to allow in any Israeli’s despite having signed an agreement to abide by all rules of the world class tennis championships. The Israeli players qualified and where to be allowed to play. Dubai cancelled the visa to let the Isreali’s enter the UAE. I didn’t blog that actually at the time but now that Sweden, while allowing the match to go forward, has banned any spectators from attending for ‘safety reasons’ much like many Scandinavian cities told Jewish kids not to attend school for their own safety and we have something that looks a lot like late 30s Germany despite the thin veneer of a reason. Apparently, so many Muslims in Sweden created such a ‘Fuhrer’ that the authorities felt they had to prevent any attendees at all.

Here is a rather prophetic posted essay from Gates of Vienna dating back to 2004. I think given the events since then especially the response by the Muslim community starting during the defense against attacks from Gaza by Isreal and continuing to this day, its a worthwhile read.

The big story I think of the week so far, (and it’s only Wednesday) is the question of the ‘peace deal’ with the Taliban over the implementation of sharia law in the Swat Valley. I also have not posted a great deal about it because there is just too much wrong with the articles I have read. Firstly, I cannot understand how allowing a  hostile force to implement a reign of terror on the people of Swat is anything other than a surrender. How is it a peace deal or a compromise of any kind? The Taliban has already blown up as many schools for girls as they can. What makes Pakistan think they will stop? This is a large part of sharia law. No education for women except Quoran. Many are fleeing the area mostly women, artists and anyone not wishing to be killed by the flimsiest whims of some Muslim cleric for a seemingly arbitrary breach of this 7th century law. One man was killed for having his pant cuff to low down and he was apparently a good observant Muslim. Also, according to www.stratfor.com some reports seem to show the US very against this deal while other stories show the Obama Administration as supporting it.

No matter how you look at it, it is very bad. Add to this the admission that the Mumbai attacks where planned at the top of the Pakistani military machinery and we have a serious question as to the degree to which Pakistan is any kind of ally at all. Not to mention recent revelations about Musharaff’s known collusion’s with Al Queda and the Taliban using US money and materials to aid them.

Some sites are suggesting that the Pakistanis should allow Taliban to have Swat in exchange for peace with Pakistan. This is absurd of course. Anyone following Pakistan would know that just as one example, The Taliban have threatened to blow up any bus playing Music or movies if they did not stop this practice immediately. They did of course. This was just the first victory. Taliban/Al Queda will not stop until Pakistan is another sharia state and similar to the Afghanistan of the Taliban. Not to mention control of the nukes. Given that the ISI Pakistan’s intelligence inter service agency may have planned and trained the Mumbai attackers as well as supplied the attacks on India of serial concurrent bombings of commercial and tourist areas with commercial explosives its insane to think that giving them a state on the doorstep of Pakistan will do anything except accelerate the process of the destruction of Pakistan as a nation state altogether.

Links for Feb 16 2009

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First, some good news. As readers here may know, we have had a continuing thread questioning the value of the Canadian support of the current government in Afghanistan. There have been so many incidents of Islamic sharia implemented under the new more ‘liberal’ government that one wonders if we aren’t just replacing one theocratic brutal regime with ‘Taliban Lite’. Here is a photo shoot and article about a peace march, for once actually wishing for peace as opposed to being for war but on the other side, from of all places, Toronto. Pashtun’s, one of the indigenous tribes of Pakistan and Afghanistan and actually one of the tribes for which the anagram name of Pakistan was forged, are trying to raise awareness of how the Taliban is in fact destroying all attempts to build civilization by the Pashtun, destroying all schools for girls and you can bet changing the curriculum for boys to limit it to Quran, Islamic studies and basic rocketry. This is encouraging. Where is the media? same place as always. Out for a drink and looking through their Rolodex for someone at the CIC or Canadian Arab federation to tell them what they are allowed to print. From Atlas Shrugs. The article itself seems a little hastily written but the facts are solid. The Swat Valley in Pakistan is now a Taliban stronghold so much so that the Taliban, now a solid partner of Al Queda is successfully making demands on Pakistan proper to implement sharia. At least this article makes an excellent counter position to ours at Vlad as to why we should be in Afghanistan. If for nothing else, for the Pashtun.

Im sorry to have to post this one. Obama’s administration is taking the US into Durban II, the anti western and anti Semitic hate fest this one based on the preparatory statements made, seem to show it as being far more virulent than Durban I was. Here is an article which shows the best case scenario. Naivete on the part of the Obama admin. I hope Anne Bayefsky, the author of this article is correct and it is nothing more insidious or opportunistic than merely a deluded sense of what he can accomplish for western liberal democracy by US attendance. Thanks to Fred at Gayandright for sending me this. Sample below:

In a major foreign-policy decision taken over the weekend, President Obama has decided to legitimize the United Nations’s “anti-racism” forum known as Durban II. State Department officials announced in a press release buried on Saturday, that starting today the United States will attend for the first time the preparatory meetings of this controversial U.N. conference. The “Durban Review Conference,” scheduled for April in Geneva, is the progenitor of the anti-semitic hatefest that took place in South Africa in early September 2001.

The searing images of the demonization of America and Jews on the U.N.’s global stage, and the terrorism in New York 72 hours later, should have made joining this revived forum for U.N.-driven hate inconceivable. But President Obama seems intent on learning the lessons of history — and the relationship between hatemongering and violence — the hard way.

Here is a depressing article but well backed up with facts and stats about the use of rape of women by Islamists as a weapon of jihad. Te clip below deals with the issue in Australia but goes into detail about how rape was a central tool of Islamics in India along with links to chapter and verse of hadith explaining the ‘logic’ behind it.

The Sydney gang rapes, committed by groups of Muslim men upon Australian women, are still fresh in memory. The men taunted the women while raping them, saying that the women “deserved it” because they were not covered and staying at home as Islam commands women to do.

Now this phenomenon, already so pronounced with small muslim populations (The 2001 census showed the UK had 1.5 million muslims), evolves into something even more sinister as the muslim population rises. Women are kidnapped (they simply vanish in the vast network of “Islamic centers”), used to commit terrorist acts, and so on. Let us look at some such incidents in India in the past few months. First, a bit of historical and theological background.

The very first accounts of the muslim invasions of India, by Mohammed Bin Qasim in 712AD, talk in some detail about the women captured and sexually enslaved. Indeed, it is described as one of the major accomplishments of the subjugation of the Hindus…

Do go to the link to read the rest it’s crucial that we in the west examine India for a template of what is occurring in western lands now. The article ends with this caveat: “Remember, women are always Islam’s first victims.” I am not personally sure if they are the first, but they are certainly the most numerous.

Below, please find a video discussion from FOX news with Robert Spencer, Frank Gaffney, Tarek Fatah and Nonie Darwish Discussing stealth jihad and Islamic Radicals in the United States.





Links for Feb 15 09

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Below are a few links. The first is a video I must confess I myself did not watch. I link to the site which offers it and it suggest you do not watch as well. I respect and agree with the logic of them posting it. To pretend this is not happening does not make it not happen. Perhaps its better to be aware of the horrors being perpetuated before they are endemic than see them in black and white movies after they happen to millions scored with a cello in a minor key. Maybe if we see now, we act and stop it. Is it possible to change a historical cycle with foreknowledge as we surely have, or is Mark Twain right when he says that history does not repeat, it rhymes.

Here it is, a beheading in Somalia for apostacy. Someone decided they didnt want to be Muslim anymore and so where excruciatingly beheaded while bieng filmed.

Here is a link to Jihad watch about an Afghan diplomat who beat his wife for fifteen solid hours. A Muslims beating his wife sadly is not news. I think most of us know enough about Koran at this point to know that in orthodox Islam, women are not technically people at all and so are treated worse than animals, as typically animals are bought and valued. Much as in the days of the building of the canals in New Orleans, black slaves where not used to do the work as malaria killed so many. So they used the Irish instead. No one had to pay for them. However I post this story because here on VTB there is a continuing thread about the new Afghanistan we are fighting for, and paying for and of course, dieing for. I often have a difficult time distinguishing between modern Afghanistan under the Karzai government and the Taliban except for the degree and frequency of brutality. But the failure to remove political Islam from the constitution of modern Afghanistan makes the exorcise in my opinion, utterly pointless. The fact that this particular Afghan diplomat happened to be in New York makes it that much worse. One would imagine Kabul sending someone like this to Saudi where his actions would be applauded. Search Vlad for several other stories of people being sentenced to death for merely questioning Islam and one wonders why we are there at all at this point. Why not leave a not on a rock that says any more terrorist training centers and we use a tactical nuke on it. Do what you want to each other till then. Iraq appears to be a great success as the last election showed, where people elected a much more secular government. However pre Baath, Iraq was a democracy. It has some history as such.

Is this what we are fighting for in Afghanistan?

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According to MSNBC two men face a death sentance for ‘misinterpreting quoran‘ by writing a pocket size edition of it. I don’t care if they had wonderful intentions by Islamic standards meaning a Koran that’s easier to carry or if they like Salmon Rushdie meant to mock it and raise awareness of what a god awful piece of crap it is (pun intended with apologies) either way how dare western troops be in Afghanistan to support a government that would kill a person for writing something down. This is not the first incident under the Karazai Government. A man was sentenced to death last year as written about here on Vlad for bringing a piece of paper into class questioning whether Islam was in opposition to woman’s rights. This was at a university. Students are supposed to ask questions of their societies. He was sentenced to death and the judges at his ‘trial’ actually where shocked to discover that it was possible to print something off of the internet. This means either printers or the internet will not be legal long in Afghanistan I wager.

afghan1

Here is an excerpt from the article…

KABUL – No one knows who brought the book to the mosque, or at least no one dares say.

The pocket-size translation of the Quran has already landed six men in prison in Afghanistan and left two of them begging judges to spare their lives. They’re accused of modifying the Quran and their fate could be decided Sunday in court.

The trial illustrates what critics call the undue influence of hardline clerics in Afghanistan, a major hurdle as the country tries to establish a lawful society amid war and militant violence.

The book appeared among gifts left for the cleric at a major Kabul mosque after Friday prayers in September 2007. It was a translation of the Quran into one of Afghanistan’s languages, with a note giving permission to reprint the text as long as it was distributed for free.

Some of the men of the mosque said the book would be useful to Afghans who didn’t know Arabic, so they took up a collection for printing. The mosque’s cleric asked Ahmad Ghaws Zalmai, a longtime friend, to get the books printed.

But as some of the 1,000 copies made their way to conservative Muslim clerics in Kabul, whispers began, then an outcry.

Many clerics rejected the book because it did not include the original Arabic verses alongside the translation. It’s a particularly sensitive detail for Muslims, who regard the Arabic Quran as words given directly by God. A translation is not considered a Quran itself, and a mistranslation could warp God’s word.

‘Zalmai is an infidel. He should be killed’
The clerics said Zalmai, a stocky 54-year-old spokesman for the attorney general, was trying to anoint himself as a prophet. They said his book was trying to replace the Quran, not offer a simple translation. Translated editions of the Quran abound in Kabul markets, but they include Arabic verses.

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Video of largest gun bazaar on earth in Kyber pass.

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Anyone at all who thinks about the war in Afghanistan should at least consider the information in this video before rendering an opinion.

Thanks Nick for sending me this.

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Stratfor: On continued efforts in Afghanistan and the cost of the goals there.

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Another great article By George Friedman of Strtfor

RELATED SPECIAL TOPIC PAGE

The Devolution of Al Qaeda

Washington’s attention is now zeroing in on Afghanistan. There is talk of doubling U.S. forces there, and preparations are being made for another supply line into Afghanistan — this one running through the former Soviet Union — as an alternative or a supplement to the current Pakistani route. To free up more resources for Afghanistan, the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq probably will be accelerated. And there is discussion about whether the Karzai government serves the purposes of the war in Afghanistan. In short, U.S. President Barack Obama’s campaign promise to focus on Afghanistan seems to be taking shape.

We have discussed many aspects of the Afghan war in the past; it is now time to focus on the central issue. What are the strategic goals of the United States in Afghanistan? What resources will be devoted to this mission? What are the intentions and capabilities of the Taliban and others fighting the United States and its NATO allies? Most important, what is the relationship between the war against the Taliban and the war against al Qaeda? If the United States encounters difficulties in the war against the Taliban, will it still be able to contain not only al Qaeda but other terrorist groups? Does the United States need to succeed against the Taliban to be successful against transnational Islamist terrorists? And assuming that U.S. forces are built up in Afghanistan and that the supply problem through Pakistan is solved, are the defeat of Taliban and the disruption of al Qaeda likely?

Al Qaeda and U.S. Goals Post-9/11
The overarching goal of the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, has been to prevent further attacks by al Qaeda in the United States. Washington has used two means toward this end. One was defensive, aimed at increasing the difficulty of al Qaeda operatives to penetrate and operate within the United States. The second was to attack and destroy al Qaeda prime, the group around Osama bin Laden that organized and executed 9/11 and other attacks in Europe. It is this group — not other groups that call themselves al Qaeda but only are able to operate in the countries where they were formed — that was the target of the United States, because this was the group that had demonstrated the ability to launch intercontinental strikes.

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Stratfor: Obama’s first real challenge. really really good read.

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Obama Enters the Great Game www.stratfor.com

January 19, 2009 | 1942 GMT


Graphic for Geopolitical Intelligence Report

By George Friedman

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama will be sworn in on Tuesday as president of the United States. Candidate Obama said much about what he would do as president; now we will see what President Obama actually does. The most important issue Obama will face will be the economy, something he did not anticipate through most of his campaign. The first hundred days of his presidency thus will revolve around getting a stimulus package passed. But Obama also is now in the great game of global competition — and in that game, presidents rarely get to set the agenda.

The major challenge he faces is not Gaza; the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is not one any U.S. president intervenes in unless he wants to experience pain. As we have explained, that is an intractable conflict to which there is no real solution. Certainly, Obama will fight being drawn into mediating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his first hundred days in office. He undoubtedly will send the obligatory Middle East envoy, who will spend time with all the parties, make suitable speeches and extract meaningless concessions from all sides. This envoy will establish some sort of process to which everyone will cynically commit, knowing it will go nowhere. Such a mission is not involvement — it is the alternative to involvement, and the reason presidents appoint Middle East envoys. Obama can avoid the Gaza crisis, and he will do so.

Obama’s Two Unavoidable Crises

The two crises that cannot be avoided are Afghanistan and Russia. First, the situation in Afghanistan is tenuous for a number of reasons, and it is not a crisis that Obama can avoid decisions on. Obama has said publicly that he will decrease his commitments in Iraq and increase them in Afghanistan. He thus will have more troops fighting in Afghanistan. The second crisis emerged from a decision by Russia to cut off natural gas to Ukraine, and the resulting decline in natural gas deliveries to Europe. This one obviously does not affect the United States directly, but even after flows are restored, it affects the Europeans greatly. Obama therefore comes into office with three interlocking issues: Afghanistan, Russia and Europe. In one sense, this is a single issue — and it is not one that will wait.

Obama clearly intends to follow Gen. David Petraeus’ lead in Afghanistan. The intention is to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan, thereby intensifying pressure on the Taliban and opening the door for negotiations with the militant group or one of its factions. Ultimately, this would see the inclusion of the Taliban or Taliban elements in a coalition government. Petraeus pursued this strategy in Iraq with Sunni insurgents, and it is the likely strategy in Afghanistan.

But the situation in Afghanistan has been complicated by the situation in Pakistan. Roughly three-quarters of U.S. and NATO supplies bound for Afghanistan are delivered to the Pakistani port of Karachi and trucked over the border to Afghanistan. Most fuel used by Western forces in Afghanistan is refined in Pakistan and delivered via the same route. There are two crossing points, one near Afghanistan’s Kandahar province at Chaman, Pakistan, and the other through the Khyber Pass. The Taliban have attacked Western supply depots and convoys, and Pakistan itself closed the routes for several days, citing government operations against radical Islamist forces.

Meanwhile, the situation in Pakistan has been complicated by tensions with India. The Indians have said that the individuals who carried out the Nov. 26 Mumbai attack were Pakistanis supported by elements in the Pakistani government. After Mumbai, India made demands of the Pakistanis. While the situation appears to have calmed, the future of Indo-Pakistani relations remains far from clear; anything from a change of policy in New Delhi to new terrorist attacks could see the situation escalate. The Pakistanis have made it clear that a heightened threat from India requires them to shift troops away from the Afghan border and toward the east; a small number of troops already has been shifted.

Apart from the direct impact this kind of Pakistani troop withdrawal would have on cross-border operations by the Taliban, such a move also would dramatically increase the vulnerability of NATO supply lines through Pakistan. Some supplies could be shipped in by aircraft, but the vast bulk of supplies — petroleum, ammunition, etc. — must come in via surface transit, either by truck, rail or ship. Western operations in Afghanistan simply cannot be supplied from the air alone. A cutoff of the supply lines across Pakistan would thus leave U.S. troops in Afghanistan in crisis. Because Washington can’t predict or control the future actions of Pakistan, of India or of terrorists, the United States must find an alternative to the routes through Pakistan.

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Maher Arar identified as terrorist by Omar Khadr by photo and name. I WANT MY MONEY BACK

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Omar Khadr ID’d Maher Arar as visitor at al-Qaida facilities, agent testifies

This is the terrorist bastard that got ten and one half MILLION dollars from the government because he was allegedly ‘tortured’ (although there was zero evidence of it) in Syria. Why he didn’t sue Syria is anyone’s guess

1 hour, 27 minutes ago

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba – Maher Arar, the Ottawa computer engineer whose 2002 deportation and torture in Syria made him a symbol of the perils of post-9-11 hysteria, was identified by Omar Khadr as someone he’d seen at al-Qaida safehouses and possibly an Afghan training camp, an FBI special agent testified Monday.

The teenaged, Toronto-born Khadr immediately identified Arar from a black-and-white photo he was shown during two weeks of interrogation that got underway Oct. 7, 2002, at a U.S. base in Afghanistan, FBI Special Agent Robert Fuller told Khadr’s war-crimes trial in Guantanamo Bay.

“He identified him by name,” Fuller testified. “He said he had never seen him in Canada.”

Arar was on his way from Zurich to Montreal when he was detained Sept. 26, 2002, at JFK Airport in New York City. He was roused from his cell in the early hours of Oct. 8 and told he was being deported to Syria on suspicion of terrorist activity.

Arar has steadfastly denied any links to terrorism or al-Qaida, and says he has never been to Afghanistan. His 10-month ordeal in Syria became the subject of a commission of inquiry in Canada, which publicly cleared him of any terrorist links and paid him a $10.5-million settlement.

The U.S., however, has refused to clear his name and Arar is suing American authorities over his deportation.

Neither Arar nor his spokesman Richard Swain were commenting Monday on the Guantanamo Bay hearing.

Kerry Pither, who has written about Arar’s case and served as his spokeswoman when he returned from Syria, questioned the timing of the testimony.

“The real story here is, why is this happening now? It’s very clear that this is a gratuitous swipe against Maher Arar’s reputation at a time when his case is before the courts in the U.S.”

Calling Arar “one of the most investigated citizens in this country,” Pither noted then-public safety minister Stockwell Day saw the American file on Arar before Canada apologized to the engineer and compensated him.

No mention of Khadr’s testimony came up at the time, she said. “And if the RCMP, CSIS, the FBI, the CIA, anybody, had any proof of any wrongdoing on the part of Maher Arar, you can be sure that it would’ve been made as public as possible as quickly as possible, and it never has been. It’s always been baseless allegations.”

Lead prosecutor Maj. Jeff Groharing said the photograph Khadr was shown came from FBI files in Massachusetts.

Groharing said the prosecution did not talk among themselves about the possible impact Khadr’s evidence would have in Canada.

“We have not discussed that, no,” he said. “Our focus is not on what happened to Maher Arar. It’s what Omar Khadr did in Afghanistan.”

Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, the Pentagon lawyer who is defending Khadr before a military commission, was blunt in his assessment of the situation.

“I guess as far as the U.S. government is concerned, (Arar) is still a terrorist,” Kuebler said.

However, Kuebler stressed, Khadr often lied to his interrogators to get them to stop abusing him.

Lorne Waldman, Arar’s former lawyer, dismissed Fuller’s testimony given Khadr’s mistreatment in Afghanistan, saying it “shouldn’t have been given any credibility at all.”

“I’m convinced that any reasonable person hearing this would treat it for what it is, an allegation that has no basis in fact.”

Added Paul Cavalluzzo, who served as chief counsel for the Arar inquiry, “Was the statement a product of torture? Because if it was it’s completely useless.

“I think we need a lot more information before we even consider it further.”

A military intelligence agent identified only as Interrogator 11 also testified Monday that Khadr recounted throwing the grenade that killed an American soldier outside an Afghan compound in July 2002.

The incident occurred after three other men at the bombed-out compound had been killed by American forces and Khadr, then 15 and partially blinded from shrapnel, cowered under a bush as the soldiers moved in, she said he told her.

“He pulled the pin and just chucked it over his shoulder,” Interrogator 11 told the hearing. “He had never thrown one before, so he just threw it over his shoulder, like he had seen in the movies.”

The intelligence agent interviewed Khadr about a dozen times – some sessions lasting as long as five hours – after he arrived at this infamous prison in more than six years ago.

“He explained that entire day in minute detail,” said the agent, the first witness to testify at the proceedings.

Now 22, Khadr was found under the rubble and badly injured with gunshot wounds following a four-hour firefight. The agent said Khadr initially expressed pride in having killed an American soldier, but later came to realize it was the Americans who saved his life.

Kuebler called Khadr’s account of the firefight “demonstrably false” and said it was proof Khadr’s stories were not to be believed.

Parts of a 27-minute video seized by U.S. forces after the firefight show a baby-faced, grinning Khadr in the company of al-Qaida leaders helping assemble and lay improvised explosive devices.

As the video played, Fuller said Khadr told him he was happy to be with the men.

The defence has maintained Khadr’s incriminating statements were the result of coercion and are trying to get the judge to throw them out.

Both agents, however, denied there was any abuse of Khadr or threats against him.

On the contrary, said Interrogator 11, Khadr was “very happy” to see her and she considered the information he provided reliable.

“When he would come to the room, he was always smiling. He would willingly speak to me,” she told Col. Patrick Parrish, who is presiding over the case.

While Khadr’s leg irons were shackled to the floor, the intelligence agent said she took off his handcuffs to make him feel comfortable and never felt that he posed a threat.

Khadr, dressed in the all-white uniform of Camp 4, where “highly compliant” prisoners are kept, appeared relaxed during the proceedings.

He smiled broadly, chatted with his lawyers, and read documents intently. Sporting a neatly cropped full beard, the six-foot Khadr looks far different than the now-familiar photo of him at 15.

Khadr described in detail how he had been trained by top al-Qaida figures – associates of his father – in surveillance techniques and in making and laying explosive devices aimed at American forces.

His father was killed in a 2003 raid in Pakistan. The Khadr family often stayed with terrorist financier Osama bin Laden.

The defence argues intelligence agents abused Khadr, while a “clean” set of law-enforcement interrogators later took incriminating statements from the Canadian.

“The fact that he could provide me with so much detail of everything . . . I thought that information was very reliable,” Interrogator 11 said.

(With files from Jim Bronskill in Ottawa)