Posts in "Taliban"

By Elliot Engstrom at 3:22PM

Feb 13, 2010

US Forces Launch "Largest Invasion Since the War Began"

The Wall Street Journal reports:

U.S. and Afghan troops invaded this Taliban-held town early Saturday, launching the main thrust of the largest coalition offensive since 2001, a test of whether America's surge strategy can rescue the faltering war effort.
British, Afghan and U.S. troops were poised to begin an even larger thrust to take over one of the last Taliban-controlled bastions in the volatile Helmand River Valley. The offensive in Marjah began with small teams dropping into the town around midnight to kill or capture insurgent leaders.

The invasion has been planned and announced fairly publicly for over a month, according to antiwar.com. Both US and Taliban forces asked civilians to stay put. However, this was certainly not the case.

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By Brian Beyer at 4:53PM

Feb 8, 2010

Hide and Go Seek

The Taliban are hiding pretty darn well in Baluchistan province in Pakistan. So well, in fact, that they're not even there.

"Interviews with residents and officials in and around Quetta, a dusty frontier city of 1.2 million, reveal widespread skepticism that Pakistan's vast Baluchistan province harbors Afghan Taliban commander Mullah Omar, his aides or their foot soldiers.
It's a disconnect that does not bode well for Washington-Islamabad relations — and America's already tattered reputation among Pakistanis — as Baluchistan grows in strategic importance for the United States."

It looks like the US isn't all that great at finding things, let alone looking in the right places. After all, who could forget those pesky WMD's? (Actually, one was recently found by Iraqi prison guards. Turns out, it wasn't even a warhead.)

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By Jihan Huq at 7:44AM

Dec 31, 2009

Taliban Calls 2009 "Successful"

That's right. Your eyes did not deceive you.

In an official written statement, the Taliban or "students" declare 2009 " a successful year for the mujahadeen."

The Taliban also claimed that it is working on driving the coalition forces out of Afghanistan by next year:

Last year the guerrilla warfare, frontline war, attacks and road mines against the invaders increased as the enemy began to cry out for reconciliation. The enemy does not have a constant policy. Sometimes they talk about sending more soldiers and other times they speak of an early withdrawal. Their thinking is irrational.

The Taliban also launched a new website with multiple languages, including English. It also included a 37 minute footage of a captured American soilder and mentioned the year's disastrous elections which had little voter turnout.

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By Brian Beyer at 10:55PM

Nov 30, 2009

Make the Right Choice, Mr. President

As more and more young Americans are killed in Afghanistan each and every day, President Obama faces a decision that could decide his presidency: to stay or not to stay. American soldiers are presented with the enormous, probably impossible task of eradicating the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and building a nation of literal sticks and stones in to a “stable democracy.” If President Obama does choose to stay, he seriously needs to consider how he is going to justify such a war.

The morality of this war has hardly been talked about by anyone. Discussion of this war is largely limited to tactics and numbers with little, if any, talk about the skewed moral compass this war is being fought with. Just at cursory glance at the war thus far reveals something a bit distressing. While this may be something hard to comprehend for the many who believe that the US has done no harm, America does in fact kill civilians. And lots of them. The debate over whether these attacks are intentional or unintentional is besides the point: thousands of Afghan civilians have died as a result of the war, many more than 9/11, the justification for entering the war in the first place. Disproportionate force has been used and is consequentially immoral, all American Exceptionalism aside. Speaking of exceptional, does this apply to our morals or just our military?

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By Brian Beyer at 6:23AM

Nov 5, 2009

The Great Puppeteer

The Obama team has outlined a new "Afghanistan Compact" which hopes to reform and eradicate corruption in the US-backed, fraudulently elected, puppet government of Hamid Karzai. This new compact is not only a waste of time, but a blatant disregard of the past. In 2006, the first "Afghanistan Compact" was signed and has yielded little, if any, results. Illegal militias have not been eradicated, the opium trade has not disappeared (especially as Karzai's own brother, Ahmed Wali, Karzai, is involved in the trade and happens to have received payments from the C.I.A.), and the country's infrastructure continues to be reminiscent of the biblical past.

Sporting another election win on his belt, President Karzai said, "We call on our Taliban brothers to come home and embrace their land." The Taliban are undoubtedly seeing a mixed message: Karzai supports the US occupation of Afghanistan and the combat efforts against the Taliban, while at the same time claiming to open his arms to the Taliban (this directly contradicts the original Afghanistan compact of abolishing illegal militias).

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By Brian Beyer at 5:56AM

Sep 28, 2009

Another War?

It appears as though the war in Afghanistan will now be spilling over into Pakistan. This is very disheartening since 59% of Pakistanis consider the US their greatest threat. The supposed justification for this terrible move is to eliminate Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan. As we are seeing right now, it is nearly impossible to eradicate these two groups. They are ingrained in the tribal structure of the region and "eradicating" would mean the genocide of a sizable portion of Afghanistan's Pashtun tribe. This would only fuel hatred towards the US and serve as a rallying cry for the two groups.

Pakistan is large enough to take care of itself. The US is now giving them $1.5 billion in aid despite being considered its biggest threat. It would greatly help the US to cut off aid to India and Pakistan (and all other countries, for that matter) in order to eliminate this conflict of interest. More money and more blood are not remedies for this situation. Withdrawal and minding our own business are.