Taliban on the ropes...the beginning of the End?

[ToadBrother]

Notice how each successive regime is nothing compared to the one before it?

No, I haven't noticed. I haven't heard that the warlords of the Northern Alliance were gathering people in soccer stadiums to watch thieves get their hands cut off, nor did the Northern Alliance destroy irreplaceable cultural monuments. Are they, from our point of view, fairly harsh in their religious and social leanings. No doubt about it. But one thing they weren't doing, even when it would have been expedient to do so, was taking money and aid from an international Islamist terrorist group.

To my mind, the primary goal of Afghanistan is not saving the children or helping farmers, it's making sure that the Taliban, which had been operating for several years as essentially an Afghani national branch of Al Qaeda, don't again allow the area to be used to launch attacks on the West or Pakistan (which is brittle enough as it is, and would be an absolute disaster for everyone if it fell to the Taliban and their ideological brethren in that country).

[eyeball]

To my mind, the primary goal of Afghanistan is not saving the children or helping farmers, it's making sure that the Taliban, which had been operating for several years as essentially an Afghani national branch of Al Qaeda, don't again allow the area to be used to launch attacks on the West or...

I'm pretty sure the planes used on 9/11 were launched from the U.S. not Afghanistan.

...Pakistan (which is brittle enough as it is, and would be an absolute disaster for everyone if it fell to the Taliban and their ideological brethren in that country).

So...you do notice the trend towards things getting worse after all.

[ToadBrother]

I'm pretty sure the planes used on 9/11 were launched from the U.S. not Afghanistan.

No one claimed they were. Are you denying that Al Qaeda was using Afghanistan, with the blessing of the Taliban, as a training and ops center?

So...you do notice the trend towards things getting worse after all.

I'm sorry. Could you please clarify the words you're attempting to put in my mouth?

[eyeball]

No one claimed they were. Are you denying that Al Qaeda was using Afghanistan, with the blessing of the Taliban, as a training and ops center?

That depends on what you mean by training, I've seen a few pictures of people doing calisthenics and running obstacle courses with guns in their hands but no evidence of things like flight simulators. As for an ops center...you mean the Internet and satellite phones?

I'm sorry. Could you please clarify the words you're attempting to put in my mouth?

It's not obvious? I said...

Notice how each successive regime is nothing compared to the one before it?

You said...

No, I haven't noticed.

...Pakistan (which is brittle enough as it is, and would be an absolute disaster for everyone if it fell to the Taliban and their ideological brethren in that country).

You don't think this would be worse?

[ToadBrother]

That depends on what you mean by training, I've seen a few pictures of people doing calisthenics and running obstacle courses with guns in their hands but no evidence of things like flight simulators. As for an ops center...you mean the Internet and satellite phones?

So let's get this straight. In your view, there's no evidence the Taliban were in an alliance with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda?

[eyeball]

So let's get this straight. In your view, there's no evidence the Taliban were in an alliance with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda?

No, I'm simply saying so what. There's evidence that bin Laden and Al Qaeda had a more influential and important alliance with a regime we were also allied with. A regime that got a free pass and a kiss on the cheek as I recall.

[M.Dancer]

No, I'm simply saying so what. There's evidence that bin Laden and Al Qaeda had a more influential and important alliance with a regime we were also allied with. A regime that got a free pass and a kiss on the cheek as I recall.

Yah sure..lots of evidence...

2004

May 29–31, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: terrorists attack the offices of a Saudi oil company in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, take foreign oil workers hostage in a nearby residential compound, leaving 22 people dead including one American.

June 11–19, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: terrorists kidnap and execute Paul Johnson Jr., an American, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 2 other Americans and BBC cameraman killed by gun attacks.

Dec. 6, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: terrorists storm the U.S. consulate, killing 5 consulate employees. 4 terrorists were killed by Saudi security.

[ToadBrother]

No, I'm simply saying so what. There's evidence that bin Laden and Al Qaeda had a more influential and important alliance with a regime we were also allied with. A regime that got a free pass and a kiss on the cheek as I recall.

Really? What regime was that? If you're referring to Saudi Arabia, bin Laden had basically been in exile for years. In fact, he was rather open in his views on the House of Saud and its alliance with the United States.

[eyeball]

Really? What regime was that? If you're referring to Saudi Arabia, bin Laden had basically been in exile for years. In fact, he was rather open in his views on the House of Saud and its alliance with the United States.

Well sure, after he turned on us.

The point is bin Laden was our ally and like every shitty ally that preceded him, he was...worse.

repeat...rinse....repeat, and stay tuned for more of the same.

[M.Dancer]

The point is bin Laden was our ally and like every shitty ally that preceded him, he was...worse.

There is no evidence outside of the reynolds wrap box we ever had any dealings with him

[eyeball]

There is no evidence outside of the reynolds wrap box we ever had any dealings with him

Maktab al-Khidamat was established by Abdullah Azzam and Bin Laden in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1984. From 1986 it began to set up a network of recruiting offices in the United States, the hub of which was the Al Kifah Refugee Center at the Farouq Mosque in Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue. Among notable figures at the Brooklyn center were "double agent" Ali Mohamed, whom FBI special agent Jack Cloonan called "bin Laden's first trainer,"[38] and "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel-Rahman, a leading recruiter of mujahideen for Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda evolved from the Maktab al-Khidamat...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda

Edited to highlight you-know-who.

Edited March 12, 2010 by eyeball

[eyeball]

If you're referring to Saudi Arabia...

Bin Laden became a "major financier" of the mujahideen, spending his own money and using his connections with "the Saudi royal family and the petro-billionaires of the Gulf" in order to improve public opinion of the war and raise more funds

From the same Wiki page Mo is now probably trying to edit.

[ToadBrother]

From the same Wiki page Mo is now probably trying to edit.

That was during the Soviet occupation. Bin Laden's relationship not only with the House of Saud, but with his own family, long ago soured, and is effectively terminated. If Osama bin Laden were to show up on Saudi soil now, he'd probably be shot on site, or (worse for him) turned over to the Americans. The guy hates the Saudis, in large part because they allow American troops to be stationed in the holiest of Muslim lands. That bin Laden and the nucleus of what was to at some future point become Al Qaeda was funded by the Saudis (and the Americans too) is undeniable. That the Saudis have basically maintained relative peace within their own borders by exporting their nutjobs is also undeniable. But to assert that the Saudis were responsible for 9-11 because of a past relationship with Osama bin Laden, an event that happened over a decade after the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, is ludicrous.

Save that claptrap for anti-American meeting. I'm not a swirly-eyed kool-aid drinker here.

Edited March 12, 2010 by ToadBrother

[bloodyminded]

That was during the Soviet occupation. Bin Laden's relationship not only with the House of Saud, but with his own family, long ago soured, and is effectively terminated. If Osama bin Laden were to show up on Saudi soil now, he'd probably be shot on site, or (worse for him) turned over to the Americans. The guy hates the Saudis, in large part because they allow American troops to be stationed in the holiest of Muslim lands. That bin Laden and the nucleus of what was to at some future point become Al Qaeda was funded by the Saudis (and the Americans too) is undeniable. That the Saudis have basically maintained relative peace within their own borders by exporting their nutjobs is also undeniable. But to assert that the Saudis were responsible for 9-11 because of a past relationship with Osama bin Laden, an event that happened over a decade after the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, is ludicrous.

Save that claptrap for anti-American meeting. I'm not a swirly-eyed kool-aid drinker here.

But this does pull us back into the issue of alliances-for-expediency-sake.

Arming a whole lot of extremist fundamentalists--that is, the Northern Alliance/Warlords--can have blowback.

Probably will, too.

This has happened so many times--with rebel groups, with state dictators--that it is facile to too-easily defend US actions (and by extension, the actions of go-along allies). That's not "anti-American"--a term that is very rarely used in any reasonable, logical sense. That's just reportage.

[M.Dancer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda

Edited to highlight you-know-who.

Is that an acknowledgement that Al Qaeda has never been our ally or some non sequitor to impress the toaster listening readers?

[Moonlight Graham]

Dont worry, the ISI and Iran will get them some more ammo.

[eyeball]

That was during the Soviet occupation. Bin Laden's relationship not only with the House of Saud, but with his own family, long ago soured, and is effectively terminated. If Osama bin Laden were to show up on Saudi soil now, he'd probably be shot on site, or (worse for him) turned over to the Americans. The guy hates the Saudis, in large part because they allow American troops to be stationed in the holiest of Muslim lands. That bin Laden and the nucleus of what was to at some future point become Al Qaeda was funded by the Saudis (and the Americans too) is undeniable.

I trust Morris will be correcting you on this point given his assertion that our side had nothing to do with bin Laden or Al Qaeda.

That the Saudis have basically maintained relative peace within their own borders by exporting their nutjobs is also undeniable. But to assert that the Saudis were responsible for 9-11 because of a past relationship with Osama bin Laden, an event that happened over a decade after the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, is ludicrous.

Save that claptrap for anti-American meeting. I'm not a swirly-eyed kool-aid drinker here

.

I admit I was wrong for singling out the Saudi regime for 9/11, I was a little quick to associate them with the fact that 15 of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Some of those exported nut-jobs you were talking about I guess.

In any case, there's no doubt the Saudis are as entangled in the root causes of what created the Taliban as anyone including the U.S., and it is the Taliban that's on the ropes here after all, not bin Laden or even Al Queda.

The point still stands that cozying up to dictators makes things worse. The Taliban is on the ropes...so what?

Edited March 13, 2010 by eyeball

[wyly]

Perhaps keeping Al Qaeda from using Afghanistan as a training and planning base to launch attacks from. That is, after all, why the Taliban were toppled and why we keep fighting them.

so the Toronto 18 operated out of Afghanistan? the underwear bomber came from Afghanistan, no wait that Nigeria via Yemen...the England subway bombers,the millennium bomber Afghanistan? no Montreal...they can strike from and come from anywhere...every general in the world knows we cannot win this war with the Taliban and the American in charge has admitted as much...

[wyly]

Dont worry, the ISI and Iran will get them some more ammo.

gunsmiths in the region have been making their own weapons and ammunition for over a century...

"In Darra Adam Khel alone - the most famous of the North-West Frontier Province's gun-producing towns - there are believed to be 3,500 gunsmiths working in 900 factories, with 150 gun shops. The local gunsmiths can produce everything from imitation Kalashnikovs ... to antiaircraft guns."

[M.Dancer]

gunsmiths in the region have been making their own weapons and ammunition for over a century...

And their expertise ends with blow back breaches. For plastic explovives, hollow charges and alike, they import.

[wyly]

And their expertise ends with blow back breaches. For plastic explovives, hollow charges and alike, they import.

most Canadian deaths have come from very low tech IED's, their supply is endless and their expertise in design and improvisation is 2nd to none...

[M.Dancer]

most Canadian deaths have come from very low tech IED's, their supply is endless and their expertise in design and improvisation is 2nd to none...

Sure is. The tech probably comes from Iran.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/IraqCoverage/story?id=1692347&page=1

The same Explosively-Formed Penetrator IEDs Iran ships to Iraq are turning up in western Afghanistan, a previously quiet area compared to the eastern border with Pakistan. There have been 15 U.S. deaths in western Afghanistan in the last five months. One Taliban commander told BBC News in mid-2008 that Iranian businessmen sell Explosively Formed Penetrators, called “Dragons,” at a premium price to select Taliban commanders.

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2009/11/irans-second-front-in-afghanistan/

[ToadBrother]

so the Toronto 18 operated out of Afghanistan? the underwear bomber came from Afghanistan, no wait that Nigeria via Yemen...the England subway bombers,the millennium bomber Afghanistan? no Montreal...they can strike from and come from anywhere...every general in the world knows we cannot win this war with the Taliban and the American in charge has admitted as much...

That the Taliban were letting Al Qaeda operate there does not mean that they were the only ones. Yemen and Somalia, in particular, seem to have become new centers because Afghanistan is no longer safe for Al Qaeda. Terrorism is a "whack-a-mole" problem. You never really can eliminate it, but you can make it as difficult as possible for it to organize.

You seem to be arguing that because we cannot win a war, it's pointless to fight it, but I say that some wars, even if there is no "flag on the hill" kind of victory, are still useful. The Middle (Canada, the UK, etc.) and Great Powers (US, Russia, China) have far more resources at their disposal in every possible way than Al Qaeda and other similar terrorist organizations. We can't hope to beat organizations which have very loose structures (much as the Brits never really seemed able to beat the IRA or keep the Protestant paramilitaries in check because in both cases it was a multiheaded beast), but keep flinging overt and covert force at them, and they expend more and more of their own resources on simply surviving rather than planning attacks.

The alternative is what? Bow down? Give up? I'm not even sure what you're arguing for. Heck, I'm not even sure what you're arguing against.

[wyly]

You seem to be arguing that because we cannot win a war, it's pointless to fight it, but I say that some wars, even if there is no "flag on the hill" kind of victory, are still useful.

it's pointless without an end game...they will bleed us to death in a human and financial costs

The alternative is what? Bow down? Give up? I'm not even sure what you're arguing for. Heck, I'm not even sure what you're arguing against.

the alternative has already been proposed by the US miltary, negotiate...this war can not be won...

[M.Dancer]

it's pointless without an end game...they will bleed us to death in a human and financial costs

Interesting...that youn think the terrorists have access to more capital than us.

the alternative has already been proposed by the US miltary, negotiate...this war can not be won...

They propose negotiations in tandem to fighting...as in bomb the buggers to the negotiating table...