US loses the war

[billcoe]

Good news, the longest us war is about over. Bad news: we lose it. Debka file is calling it for the Taliban:

 

The Afghan War nears end with Pakistan-aided Taliban victory

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis June 13, 2010, 9:33 PM (GMT+02:00)

Taliban fighters with ISI-supplied weapons

 

After eight years and four months, America's longest war is about to end, debkafile's military and intelligence report - although not in victory for the US-led NATO forces but at best in a draw, or at worst, in a win for the Taliban, al Qaeda's extremist partner. The repercussions of the US exit in these circumstances will impinge on American influence worldwide including the Middle East.

The allies owe their reverses to five factors: Postponement of the Kandahar offensive, Taliban's acquisition of anti-air missiles and ability to strike anywhere in Kabul, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Agency's extensive support for the Taliban, and a UN proposal to "de-list" some key Taliban and al Qaeda figures designated as terrorists. debkafile elaborates on these factors:

 

1. The big Kandahar offensive in southern Afghanistan this month, the centerpiece of the new strategy President Barack Obama approved last December along with a 40,000-troop surge, has been postponed until the fall - at the earliest. With the participation of American, British, Canadian and Afghan forces, this offensive was billed as the operation for turning the tide of the Afghanistan war.

 

Washington was understandably reluctant to announce the postponement although, according to debkafile's military analysts, it was unavoidable after the disappointment of Operation Mushtarak in Marjah, which was to have been a dress rehearsal in another part of the South, Helmand Province, for the big show in Kandahar.

In Marjah, the combined US-UK force and the Afghan army, which most of the time refused to fight, were unable to loosen the Taliban's grip on the town or prevent the insurgents from using it as a springboard for grabbing the whole of southern Afghanistan.

Sunday, June 13, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and US commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal paid a visit to Kandahar to assure the local tribes they had not been abandoned. Karzai spoke with gusto about the coming offensive; he only "forgot" to mention a date.

With the Kandahar delay, the bottom is about to drop out of Obama's overall war strategy.

2. Another deadly turning-point in the conflict was marked last week with the discovery that Taliban had acquired the missiles for downing Western helicopters and low-flying aircraft.

The British Prime Minister David Cameron had to cancel his helicopter flight to the main British base of Camp Bastion on June 12 after receiving intelligence that the Taliban was preparing to shoot it down.

Three days earlier, on June 9, an American Chinook crashed near Sangin in the Helmand Province killing all four US servicemen aboard. It was then that US and NATO commanders first realized that an unknown party had given the Taliban those anti-air missiles and instructed them in their use.

This means that US helicopters can no longer provide ground forces with close air support and must fly at higher altitudes out of missile range.

3. In their White House talks of May 10-14,Karzai and Obama glossed over their differences by agreeing that the Afghan president would convene a "peace jirga" (a conference of tribal leaders) that would include chieftains and commanders associated with the Taliban as the first step toward national reconciliation.

The conference did take off in Kabul on June 2, attended by 1,400 heads of tribes and factions. But when President Karzai's speech was in full flow, Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen burst in, hurling rockets and grenades. The President just managed to finish his speech before being whisked off the platform by security guards and driven away in a convoy of armored cars.

The tribal chiefs saw for themselves that neither Afghan nor American forces were capable of promising security for any peace conference, whereas the Taliban were clearly able to operate freely in the Afghan capital and any other part of the country.

4. At the same time, Staffan de Mistura, the top U.N. representative in Afghanistan, put in a good word for the Taliban when he told reporters Saturday, June 12. "The U.N. is listening to what the peace jirga is saying. Some of the people in the list may not be alive anymore. The list may be completely outdated."

 

Fueling momentum for a political solution to the nearly nine-year-old Afghan war, a U.N. committee is reviewing whether certain people could be removed from blacklist that freezes assets and limits travel of key Taliban and al-Qaida figures, the top U.N. representative said Saturday.

5. On Sunday, June 13, The Sunday Times of London ran a long article under the heading: Pakistan puppet masters guide the Taliban killers. It was based on a new report by the London School of Economics according to which Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency is providing extensive funding, training and sanctuary to the Taliban in Afghanistan. The report cites concrete evidence suggesting that support for the Taliban is the "official policy" of the ISI, which not only trains and funds the Afghan insurgents, but is officially represented on the their leadership council.

 

Washington was shocked by this evidence so soon after President Asif Ali Zardar assured President Obama when they met in Washington last month that he could count on the commitment of the Pakistani government and intelligence resources to fight Taliban and al Qaeda, as a solid prop of US strategy for the Afghan war.

But all the time, it transpired, behind their false face to US military and intelligence chiefs, the ISI has been collaborating with Taliban commanders in their operational planning and selection of targets, supplying them with weapons, explosives and roadside bombs and making grants to the bereaved families of suicide killers who murdered American and British troops.

 

According to the LSE report, half at least of the 15 members of the Taliban's Quetta Shura (the council which runs the war from its seat in Quetta, the capital of Pakistani Baluchistan) are active officers of Pakistani military intelligence.

"It is impossible to be a member of the Quetta Shura without membership of the ISI," said a high-ranking Taliban fighter.

Given the depth of the ISI's integration in the Afghanistan Taliban's war effort against NATO, the US military might as well drop their efforts to cut the Afghan Taliban's weapons supply route from Pakistan.

The revelations of the LSE are not new, debkafile reports, except for the fact that a prominent Western publication was willing to print them.

They were covered fairly exhaustively in previous issues of DEBKA-Net-Weekly in the past two years.

Most recently, on February 28, 2010, DNW 434 exposed a shady Pakistan intrigue behind the handover to the Americans of Abdul Ghani Baradar, whom they represented as Mullah Omar's first lieutenant the lost of whom would seriously impair Taliban's fighting ability - so they claimed

It was in fact an ISI trick. Baradar was no longer important to the Taliban and his handover no great loss because he had turned coat and was looking for an opening for peace talks with the Americans. The ISI needed to get rid of him before he succeeded to keep the Afghan War on the boil, because as long as it lasts, both the Taliban and the Americans will be dependent on Islamabad and the Pakistanis will carry on pulling wires and playing one side against the other.

 

The longer the Obama administration clings to the assumption that cooperation with Pakistan and its intelligence agency is the only course for beating the Taliban and al Qaeda, the more elusive an Afghanistan triumph will be for the US and its allies.

 

http://www.debka.com/article/8846/

[rob]

debka. I didn't know you read that site, bill. BIG SURPRISE!!!

 

Edited June 17, 2010 by rob

[ivan]

the more important question is: will this increase the price of my medicinal heroin?

[tvashtarkatena]

That, and the Vietnam war lasted longer.

 

Debka!

[rob]

none of this even matters, though. 2012!!!!!

[olyclimber]

[tvashtarkatena]

Billcoe: kitchen sink strainer for the internet.

[ivan]

would that make you that funky device that shits waste water from the dishwasher into my sink, pat?

[sobo]

You talking about the air gap/vacuum breaker thingie that sits in the corner of the top of the sink? Those things can get pretty fuq'n nasty...

[rob]

I think he means one of these, for a portable dishwasher

 

[billcoe]

none of this even matters, though. 2012!!!!!

 

This is the second time you've posted this, I'll bite. What does this mean? Does it involve the Presidential elections or elections in general? Is it the end of the earth Mayan calender thing? Also, if it involves you still getting off on hot pictures of Sarah Palin don't respond as I don't want to hear about that again if it does.

 

...jus sayin.... 2012 baby.

[billcoe]

That, and the Vietnam war lasted longer.

 

I'd agree, however it depends how it's measured Pat.

 

http://www.democrats.com/the-longest-us-war-the-harshest-blow-to-the-rule-of-law

 

 

[billcoe]

debka. I didn't know you read that site, bill. BIG SURPRISE!!!

 

You thought I surfed porn and CC.com all day?

 

Here's another site I often check, it's a little difficult to follow today - author is former Soviet Lev Navrozov: for myself, I don't agree with it all but there is an interesting point or 3. Try to read it with an open mind and not be offended by the title of Levs article.

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2010/lev0540_06_17.asp

 

 

[rob]

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2010/lev0540_06_17.asp

 

 

most retarded article I've read in a while. Made me lol. It's the sort of rot that my father would like, though. I'll forward it to him. Thanks!

[Off_White]

Bill, after reading that article, with as open a mind as I could muster, I was somehow reminded of this bit of logic:

 

[video:youtube]

[billcoe]

I think one has to consider Lev Navrozov's personal history (as a Soviet intellectual and dissident and working during Stalins reign of terror), after walking a mile in his shoes, things look different and priorities which may not be on our radar as we take them for granted - arise and are seen fresh.

 

Good book: Lenin's Tomb. Almost too much data, but excellent.

[Off_White]

Right, like the part where he advocates for discarding elections? The convoluted equation with the result that Obama=Mao? His personal history results in his bias, but it doesn't make his fears true.

 

She's a witch! Burn her!

[billcoe]

Well, you could send him an e-mail telling him what a bitch he is, it's at the bottom of this long diatribe.

 

" How to save the United States and the other free countries?

I have been receiving many e-mails from my readers who write that I am one of the few voices in the West who has been warning about the danger of the military growth of China for the past 20 years. The U.S. Defense Department has been complaining that this military growth "lacks transparency," that is, no one in China responsible for this growth explains why China needs to develop a military might exceeding that of the United States in post-nuclear weapons, such as global molecular nano technology, the space destruction of space satellites, etc.

 

Does the U.S. Defense Department assume that every country can be expected to explain beforehand its strategy? The Chinese strategist Sun Tse taught more than 2000 years ago that secrecy and surprise are the key prerequisites for the military victory.

 

The previous U.S. president ignored the "China danger" throughout his 8-year presidency and fought against Iraq, a backward country whose population was 26 million, out of which the Sunni, who were pro-Hussein and against the war, accounted for one third of the population of Iraq. On the other hand, the population of China is 1.3 billion, and please note that prior to post-nuclear weapons, already in 1976, China had thermonuclear 4-megaton bombs, the test of which could not be concealed from detection abroad.

 

As for President Obama, he has borrowed money from China to fight the recession, which thus seemed to be incomparably more disastrous in his view than China's post-nuclear attack that will strike from behind the "lack of transparency" the U.S. Defense Department complains of.

 

No wonder my readers ask me what they can and must do. The only rescue is the enlightenment of the people of the U.S.A. and of the other free countries via a film that will include documentary evidence and be otherwise of great interest to a considerable segment of the population of the free countries and of all who value freedom.

 

Money? In 1978, I founded the Center for the Survival of Western Democracies, Inc. a non-profit organization, including in its Advisory Board quite a few world-known thinkers, intellectuals, scientists, and politicians.

 

Of course, the donations to CSWD, Inc. are tax-exempt. No donation is too small, for a majority of the population of the free countries are not indifferent to their survival versus their conversion into nano dust, and if this majority donates, the sum will be sufficient to produce the best film possible even if every donation is small.

 

The film, apart from its emotional impact, will show on the basis of the best documentary evidence (1) how far the dictatorship of China has gone and is to go in the development of crucial weapons of the 21st century; and (2) how determined the dictatorship of China is to establish its world domination and thus, inter alia, to prevent domestic revolts like the Tiananmen movement of 1998 or the mass withdrawal from the Communist Party of China in the past two years.

 

There is no doubt that the film will wake up the major media and many politicians. Nor is President Obama hopeless: Once he has realized the scope of the movement in defense of the free countries against the dictatorship of China, he is sure to join in.

 

If you consider donating to this cause to save the free countries from the imminent danger of post-nuclear annihilation, please let us know via e-mail: navlev@cloud9.net, and we will mail to you all the relevant information necessary to make a tax-exempt donation to our non-profit Center for the Survival of Western Democracies, Inc.

 

CSWD, Inc.

Center for the Survival of Western Democracies, Inc.

Citibank

5671 Riverdale Avenue

Bronx, NY 10471

 

Thank you!

 

Lev Navrozov, President, CSWD, Inc.

E-mail: navlev@cloud9.net "

[prole]

[G-spotter]

for bill, quantity is quality.

[olyclimber]

[j_b]

Most serious analysts who don't shill for hawks and the MIC have been saying for a long time that the only possible positive outcome involved negotiating with the moderate Taliban. Although corporatist Democrats claim that national politics demand staying the course in Afghanistan, it is patently untrue. Despite continual propaganda, most Americans have wanted withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan for years.

[Choada_Boy]

Get them some electricity and televisions. Problem solved.

[prole]

More like get them some legal weed and gay sex. It works for American liberals!

[JoshK]

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2010/lev0540_06_17.asp

 

 

Gotta agree that this article was nothing more than an "lol." For a guy who is supposedly educated and has lived here for decades, his English writing skills are terrible. That's on top of the fact that the article is baseless and hardly even makes sense.