Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, writing in Foreign Policy, are sceptical about the loudly-hailed “victory” for US forces, taking the town of Marja in Helmand Province in Afghanistan, and the detention of Taliban leaders in Pakistan:
The release of Tim Burton’s new blockbuster movie, Alice in Wonderland, is days away. The timing could not be more appropriate. Lewis Carroll’s ironically opium-inspired tale of a rational person caught up inside a mad world with its own bizarre but consistent internal (il)logic has now surpassed Vietnam as the best paradigm to understand the war in Afghanistan.
The war in Afghanistan, as we have written here and in Military Review (pdf), is indeed a near replication of the Vietnam War, including the assault on the strategically meaningless village of Marjah, which is itself a perfect re-enactment of Operation Meade River in 1968.But the callous cynicism of this war, which we described here in early December, and the mainstream media’s brainless reporting on it, have descended past these sane parallels. We have now gone down the rabbit hole.
In the past week, American, British and Afghan troops launched a major campaign around the southern Afghan city of Marjah in Helmand province – part of the counter-insurgency program begun in earnest last year. Shortly thereafter, far to the south in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, a major Taliban figure was taken into custody. The two events may help bring about a negotiated settlement.
All go in Marjah
Operations began near the central Helmand town with little prospect of a large-scale battle with Taliban bands that had operated freely there. The much-publicized buildup to the operation might have been throwing down the gauntlet and challenging the Taliban to a major battle, but the Taliban know such engagements go badly for them as their levies are no match or a Western unit’s cohesion and firepower – a lesson learned repeatedly over the years.
Evidence now available from various sources, including recently declassified U.S. State Department documents, shows that the Taliban regime led by Mullah Mohammad Omar imposed strict isolation on Osama bin Laden after 1998 to prevent him from carrying out any plots against the United States.
The evidence contradicts the claims by top officials of the Barack Obama administration that Mullah Omar was complicit in Osama bin Laden’s involvement in the al Qaeda plot to carry out the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sep. 11, 2001. It also bolsters the credibility of Taliban statements in recent months asserting that it has no interest in al Qaeda’s global jihadist aims.
A primary source on the relationship between bin Laden and Mullah Omar before 9/11 is a detailed personal account provided by Egyptian jihadist Abu’l Walid al-Masri published on Arabic-language jihadist websites in 1997.
Writing for Foreign Policy, Gilles Dorronsoro looks over the political and military strategy discussed at last week’s London Conference between Afghan leaders and “Western” powers and comes away unimpressed:
Washington, Paris and Berlin made their best efforts to keep up appearances during last week’s Afghanistan conference here, but the gap between official rhetoric and reality could not have been wider. Participants called for reintegrating members of the Taliban who accept the Afghan constitution, enacting measures against government corruption, and building more regional cooperation.
Yet the coalition is systematically undermining what’s left of the Afghan state. The New York Times reports that the Shinwari tribes have agreed to fight the Taliban — in exchange for about $1 million. What’s lesser known and less understood is that Washington didn’t even feel obligated to notify the Karzai government of this decision.
On the surface, it would seem unlikely that Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who presides over a politically feeble government and is highly dependent on the U.S. military presence and economic assistance, would defy the United States on the issue of peace negotiations with the leadership of the Taliban insurgency.
But a long-simmering conflict between Karzai and key officials of the Barack Obama administration over that issue came to a head at last week’s London Conference, when the Afghan president refused to heed U.S. signals to back off his proposal to invite the Taliban leaders to participate in a nationwide peace conference.
The peace negotiations issue is imbedded in a deeper conflict over U.S. war strategy, which has provoked broad anger and increasing suspicions of U.S. motives among Afghans, including Karzai himself.
The current source of tension is Karzai’s proposal, first made last November, to invite Taliban leaders – including Mullah Omar – to a national “Loya Jirga” or “Grand Council” meeting aimed at achieving a peace agreement.
Juan Cole is scathing about the most recent political effort by the Obama Administration in Pakistan:
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates’s trip to Pakistan this weekend has in many ways been a public relations disaster, and I think it is fair to say that he came away empty-handed with regard to his chief policy goals in Islamabad. Getting Pakistan right is key to President Barack Obama’s policy of escalating the Afghanistan War, and judging by Gates’s visit to Islamabad, Obama is in worse shape on the AfPak front than he is even in Massachusetts [after the unexpected Republican victory in the US Senate vote]. Since he has bet so heavily on Afghanistan and Pakistan, this rocky road could be momentous for his presidency.
The Pakistani public has a widespread resentment against US incursions against the country’s sovereignty (64% say the US is a danger to the country’s stability). But it also has a sort of paranoid obsession with Blackwater, which they suspect of covert operations to disrupt security in the country (i.e. they blame Blackwater for bombings that Americans see as the work of the Taliban). Thus, Gates’s statement produced a media frenzy. (Jeremy Scahill has alleged in The Nation that Blackwater is in fact in Pakistan in a support role to CIA drone attacks in the country’s mountainous Northwest on Taliban and al-Qaeda targets).
UPDATE 0900 GMT: President Hamid Karzai has said in his Eid al-Adha message, “I once again call upon our brothers, the Taliban, Hezb-e-Islami and everyone who is away from their land and who have taken up arms against their soil, to come back to their country for peace, stability, prosperity so that we Afghan people join hand in hand together to rebuild and prosper our beloved country.”
On the occasion of the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha), Mullah Omar, the leader of the “Old Taliban” in Afghanistan, put out a message. From the US Government Open Source Center via Juan Cole:
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. [Verse in Arabic]
I congratulate the mojahed [holy-warrior] nation of Afghanistan, the respectable families of martyrs, those who live in captivity of the enemy, the brave mojahedin [holy warriors] and all members of the Islamic Ummah [nation] on the auspicious occasion of Eid al-Adha. May this sacred day be the day of eternal freedom, pride, happiness, well-being and success for the entire Islamic Ummah. May Allah accept the hajj, acts of worship and prayers of hajjis [pilgrims to Mecca] and make their religious gathering a cause for unity among members of the Ummah.
On the auspicious occasion of Eid al-Adha and based on the needs of time, I would also like to mention a few necessary issues: Read the rest of this entry »
Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, writing in Foreign Policy, are sceptical about the loudly-hailed “victory” for US forces, taking the town of Marja in Helmand Province in Afghanistan, and the detention of Taliban leaders in Pakistan:
UPDATE 0900 GMT: President Hamid Karzai has said in 
As the Obama Administration near its decision on troop escalation, the White House correspondent of The Onion
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