President Obama is making statements which he is in the best position of all to know are untrue, such as “as a result of our efforts (in Afghanistan) the 21st century will be the American century, just like the 20th.”
During his attendance at the ASEAN summit Obama’s preferred form of words was ignored in the final communiqué which used the general form preferred by most ASEAN leaders, without mentioning Aung San Su Ki by name. His town hall meeting in (was it Shanghai?) was similarly ignored by China, which didn’t even broadcast it on state TV, strange treatment for a personal appearance by the leader of the self styled “most powerful country in the world.” The 21st century is already visibly the Chinese century.
The US has the most restricted press coverage of any western nation, (and so Guardian readers in Britain, for example, have known for some weeks that the US is paying the Taliban to protect and guide – into ambushes in some cases – their convoys) and more restricted than, for example, India, where interesting ideas on the single captured Mumbai bomber were very openly discussed, and so the many snubs – if you wish to regard them in that way – that Obama experienced on his trip to Asia were never allowed to penetrate into the awareness of the average American in whatever minutes in the busy day they can devote to “news.”
America retains massive resources, such as a large educated and highly skilled middle layer of technocrats, but that the tide of its full spectrum dominance is receding beyond hope of retrieval is an open secret outside America, and its involvement in Afghanistan is a lost cause; “No one can beat the Afghans” said a Russian general who had fought them, “it’s like fighting sand.”
The Taliban in Afghanistan have been fighting for well over a century, certainly since Churchill described them as the most dangerous of opponents in 1897 when he was working there as a war correspondent, with one single aim, to get the foreigners out of their country.
December 5, 2009 Here is what Mullah Omar said in his letter of a few days ago:
“Obey the commands of your superiors in all matters of jihad. Be very careful not to harm civilians and public property. Pay special attention to targeting occupiers, their mercenaries and important targets only while launching martyrdom (self-sacrificing) operations. It is a religious duty of every Muslim to avoid harming ordinary people. There is no Islamic justification for killing and injuring ordinary people nor is there any space in our holy religion for such an act.
“The cunning enemy wants to defame mojahedin by launching bloody attacks among the people (in religious centres, mosques and similar places) and then call their attacks martyrdom attacks. Mojahedin should be vigilant about enemy tactics and never engage in this kind of activity.”
The address by Mullah Omar to the Taliban can be found at
http://www.juancole.com/2009/11/mullah-omar-rejects-talks-with-us.html
a striking contrast to the politicians in all western nations and an effective way of winning hearts and minds that can not be aimed at western audiences, who will never be allowed to see it.
It makes no sense for terrorist groups to commit terrorist acts and then deny doing it. The Taliban are continually denying that they have anything to do with many of the attacks against civilians and mosques for which they are blamed. There is no reason to disbelieve them. Whether one likes the Taliban or not is neither here nor there. They have a track record of telling the truth whereas our side has a long track record of lying through their teeth every time they open their mouths.
A bomb has just gone off at a mosque Pakistan. If the Taliban deny involvement I'd be inclined to believe them. Even at the height of The Troubles in Ireland the Protestants and Catholics never bombed each others churches. Only the war fomenting foreigner does that. If any interest in creating stability actually existed, India would be forced - at gun point if necessary - to allow the plebiscite in Kashmir long demanded by the UN, but in fact a permanently suppurating open wound is what is in the interests of the war fomenting foreigner.
That the open US espousal of torture will serve to justify whatever is done to captured Americans (“It seemed the way grown ups did, and we had not made the world”) is only one of many disastrous results of that policy, another example of the relentless operation of divine justice.
