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May 21, 2013
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 The Taliban’s Glossy New Front in the Battle for Hearts and MindsPosted on Apr 2, 2010
By Robert Fisk This article was originally printed in The Independent. It’s sleek, it’s glossy, it’s in eloquent Arabic, Pashto and Dari, and it pours derision on American and Nato forces in Afghanistan; it is the brand new propaganda wing of the Taliban: not just internet video of attacks on the western armies in Helmand and Kandahar, but professionally produced magazines, carrying stories of the Taliban’s own “martyrdom” operations and the names of its dead fighters. For once, the cliché “well-oiled publicity machine” is correct. Nureddin—or Abu Ahmed, as he preferred to be called, to denote that he is Ahmed’s father—is one of the creators of Al-Samoud, which roughly translates as “Resistance” or “Stay Put!” The latest front page of the Taliban’s monthly Arabic-language house magazine is adorned with photographs of a grim-faced General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, and the headline: “A surprise is awaiting the enemy in Helmand.” Inside, an editorial asks: “Is the battle of Marja as decisive as they claim?” while an article on casualties is accompanied by a coloured photograph of a British military cortège passing through the village of Wootton Basset. Abu Ahmed is from Logar province in Afghanistan but his Arabic is fluent and his arguments straightforward. “In the West,” he says to me, “they say they have freedom of speech—so why shouldn’t we have freedom of speech?” We are talking over lunch in the weird company of three pink storks and a peacock that prowl the Afghan-Tajik-Uzbek restaurant in Islamabad where he has chosen to meet me, wearing a white robe, a white cap and a carefully combed beard. His spectacles give him a student’s complexion, his arguments are exceptionally dry. When I ask him why he doesn’t produce an English edition of Al-Samoud and sell it to the 150,000 Nato troops in Afghanistan, he shakes his head with the words: “They are seeing everything live and they would have no time to read it—they are too busy fighting for their lives.” Advertisement Abu Ahmed believes that the “Islamic Emirate’s” magazines will continue in their own right after Western forces leave Afghanistan. “Whenever we get news, we do not rush it into print,” he says. “We are checking this news with our sources in different provinces. Most of us are young people, doing different jobs—for the political as well as the military side of our organisation, although we are not fighters. As you know, the media is controlled by the West—so we decided to try and counter their propaganda. Of course, we also follow what their military says: details of their operations, attacks, and details of what they are going to do next—this is very interesting to us.” The “Islamic Emirate’s” internet “Shariah radio” is also part of Abu Ahmed’s remit: tough, hard-edged programmes intended to appeal to rural Afghans. “We have proved that Afghans can adjust themselves to learning about the situation,” he says. “Most of our websites are run by professionals. That’s why the Americans have tried to block them so many times, using different “gates” in Afghanistan and other areas—but we have been able to unblock them every time.” Abu Ahmed admits that illiteracy presents a major problem—he doesn’t mention, of course, that the Taliban made a major contribution to this by banning female education—but says that Afghans who can read pass on the information in the magazines to all members of their families. He says that women are now involved in the magazines’ production and in the military struggle. “From our point of view, a woman is the property of one person—if she is my wife, she is mine. But our women are cleaning the Kalashnikovs, carrying ammunition. In Kandahar, they are carrying mines under their burqas because that way they cannot be checked.” Al-Samoud in many ways mimics Western propaganda. The “military commander” in Helmand, for example, is quoted as saying that “the mujahedin (holy warriors) are fighting the enemy in Marja with high spirits”. The latest issue carries special features on the 20th anniversary of the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan, an interview with the rebel commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, and America’s use of dogs to torture prisoners (a practice employed at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison). One story claims that US servicewomen are used to abuse and humiliate Taliban prisoners. There are even profiles of hundreds of Taliban “martyrs”—identifying, for the very first time, with names and photographs, those who have died fighting Nato. Saad al-Haq (code-named “Jenaan”), for example, died in a follow-up attack against the Kandahar Nato base on 20 March 2008. Mullah Abdel Manon was killed on 14 September of the same year “in a martyrdom attack” against the same “Crusader fort”. Maulawi Abdul Salam died last year during an attack on the fort of Zaal in Moudiriya. Oddly, Al-Samoud even names its editorial board—Hamidullah Amin is the “president of the board of publishing”, and Ahmed Shah Halim is the chief editor, assisted by three journalists, Ikram Maiwandi, Salahedin Momand and Arfan Balchi. Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai keeps a keen eye on the Taliban’s propaganda. “Their magazines and websites are targeted at different audiences,” he says. “They are keen to tell of their battlefield achievements—that is how they will impress their donors. Their articles didn’t used to be so good, but they’ve improved tremendously. Now they are very well written, though of course one-sided. Nowadays, the magazines even contain poetry.” The propaganda wing of the Taliban calls itself the “Information and Cultural Department” which is run by Abdul Hai Mutmain from Zabul. He was once head of the Taliban’s “information department” in Kandahar where, though not a minister, he was close to the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar. “The Americans say they came to save Afghanistan from war,” Abu Ahmed continues. “But this war is only harvesting our civilians. The Americans are coming with their war planes and killing civilians. The Americans see everything from the sky—surely they can tell the difference between two or three cars of civilians and military targets? So this means they are either doing it deliberately or they do not know how to fight.” And as the peacock on the lawn tries to attack the remains of our food, Abu Ahmed adds his own personal warning. “My father and grandfather told me: ‘You have to fight the Russians’. Now I tell my son: ‘You must fight the Americans’. The first thing we teach our children is ‘Allah’. The second is fighting the Americans. As for the British, they are making the same mistakes they made before—they will experience a second Maiwand.” Afghan forces routed a British army at Maiwand in the Second Afghan War. Only later, however, does Abu Ahmed tell me that his son is just three years old. By the time he grows up, I ask him, doesn’t he think the Nato forces will have left Afghanistan? In return, I get a thin-lipped smile and a raising of eyebrows. I suspect that means they will be staying.  TAGS:
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Too Soon to Tell: The Case for Hope, Continued
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By Inherit The Wind, April 8, 2010 at 4:59 pm Link to this comment
“Nemesis”
Report thisThe WORST Star Trek movie EVER!!!!
Even worse than
“The Motion Picture”
“Insurrection”
Or the dog William Shatner directed. (V?)
By Inherit The Wind, April 8, 2010 at 2:16 pm Link to this comment
nemesis2010, April 8 at 1:36 pm #
@ ITW:
ITW, you really need to get a grip on reality. Are you a twenty-something years old who hasn’t left the city limits except for an “overseas” trip to the county on the other side of the lake?
Life is not either-or. It’s not black and white. Between the two extremes of light and dark there exist many, many different shades of colors and hues; each one fading into the other. The spectrum is wide.
In that wide spectrum of possibilities it is possible to detest both the Taliban and the evil empire. The Taliban being evil doesn’t automatically make AmeriCorp and its actions good. That’s not how it works. Have you heard the old adage of two wrongs not making a right? Afghanistan is the perfect allegory to that adage.
Afghanistan, Afghans, Iraq, and Iraqis never attacked AmeriCorp. What is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq is public funded access being provided for private profit. There is no good vs. evil; there is no Satanic vs. Godly spiritual forces doing battle for little Israel. It’s a fight for access and exploitation of crude resources—and opium production—in a world whose economy is based on a shrinking supply of crude.
Afghanistan is a millennia’s long story of feudalism. The Taliban came into power by providing protection against the other group of thugs, the feudal warlords. They’re simply a more religious group of thugs than those prior to them. The West doesn’t care one hoot about establishing a civil and moral society in Afghanistan. The Taliban, like any other group of thugs, want to regain power because power is money and money is power and Big Corp needs that port so that their easy access to crude supplies isn’t affected. For both sides it’s all about money and power. You can’t have one without the other!
There is nothing to win in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a cesspool and will still be a cesspool long after the West has been forced out because of bankruptcy. Your problem isn’t Afghanistan or the Taliban. Your problem—as it is and will be for your children, and your grandchildren—is to find work in order to pay for all the cost that Big Corp has passed on to the public instead of paying for all that access with corporate funds.
**********************************************
Nemesis?
I have NO idea what you are talking about. Either you are fantasizing about what you imagine I’m thinking, or you are mistaking me for someone else.
Where did you get the idiot idea that I see the world in B&W? Just the opposite. I see many people here downplaying the evil of the Taliban because they oppose the US government, especially those who believe it was the CIA and/or Mossad that destroyed the WTC, not Al Qaeda, hosted by the Taliban.
Yet, if YOU had grip on reality, you’d have read that I STILL oppose our staying in Afghanistan. I argued FREQUENTLY that once GWB gave up and put all the resources into the illegal, destructive and imbecilic Iraq war, any HOPE of achieving the original goals of the Afghan invasion were lost. Therefore we need to get out. I’ve said this over and over and over. I guess you were busy fantasizing about what you THOUGHT I wrote.
Whose out of touch with reality then?
If the Afghan people want the evil Taliban as their leaders, it’s not MY fault or the fault of the USA that they are idiots, who will get what they want. Let THEM throw the Talis out!
Report thisBy nemesis2010, April 8, 2010 at 10:36 am Link to this comment
@ ITW:
ITW, you really need to get a grip on reality. Are you a twenty-something years old who hasn’t left the city limits except for an “overseas” trip to the county on the other side of the lake?
Life is not either-or. It’s not black and white. Between the two extremes of light and dark there exist many, many different shades of colors and hues; each one fading into the other. The spectrum is wide.
In that wide spectrum of possibilities it is possible to detest both the Taliban and the evil empire. The Taliban being evil doesn’t automatically make AmeriCorp and its actions good. That’s not how it works. Have you heard the old adage of two wrongs not making a right? Afghanistan is the perfect allegory to that adage.
Afghanistan, Afghans, Iraq, and Iraqis never attacked AmeriCorp. What is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq is public funded access being provided for private profit. There is no good vs. evil; there is no Satanic vs. Godly spiritual forces doing battle for little Israel. It’s a fight for access and exploitation of crude resources—and opium production—in a world whose economy is based on a shrinking supply of crude.
Afghanistan is a millennia’s long story of feudalism. The Taliban came into power by providing protection against the other group of thugs, the feudal warlords. They’re simply a more religious group of thugs than those prior to them. The West doesn’t care one hoot about establishing a civil and moral society in Afghanistan. The Taliban, like any other group of thugs, want to regain power because power is money and money is power and Big Corp needs that port so that their easy access to crude supplies isn’t affected. For both sides it’s all about money and power. You can’t have one without the other!
There is nothing to win in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a cesspool and will still be a cesspool long after the West has been forced out because of bankruptcy. Your problem isn’t Afghanistan or the Taliban. Your problem—as it is and will be for your children, and your grandchildren—is to find work in order to pay for all the cost that Big Corp has passed on to the public instead of paying for all that access with corporate funds.
Report thisBy firefly, April 7, 2010 at 11:21 am Link to this comment
This is a fascinating story and clearly demonstrates that American control (not just military, but propaganda, corporate and cultural) is not going to hold for much longer. The fact is that America went bad a long time ago (probably around the time of the Vietnam war) where its compulsion to dominate and overthrow every single leftwing government on planet earth, at ANY cost, has finally reaped its rewards. You can’t pretend to be a saint if you don’t behave like one. If America wants respect, it must earn it.
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, April 6, 2010 at 12:32 pm Link to this comment
Since this looks like a threat, I’ve reported it.
Report thisBy jack, April 6, 2010 at 9:50 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
“Tin foil hats for everyone!” (?)
Not for everyone… ITW clearly prefers “blinders.”
And, I, for one, prefer a nice Chianti with my porky, sold-out Democrat. Having been so well fattened at the corporate trough, what else is he good for?
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, April 6, 2010 at 9:25 am Link to this comment
V777:
Troll?
I was here long before you appeared and I’ll be here after you move on to other forums that cater more to your tastes.
You disappoint me. I actually LIKE how you defend Obama against the left-wing cannibals who LOVE to dine on Democratic Presidents.
Report thisBy Virginia777, April 6, 2010 at 8:48 am Link to this comment
Inherit the Wind, you are a troll, and yes you are inconsistent and I am not surprised you like this article.
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, April 6, 2010 at 4:58 am Link to this comment
Tin foil hats for everyone! On the house!
Report thisBy jack, April 5, 2010 at 8:14 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Since ITW refuses to abandon the straw-man polemic, whether or not ITW is the
one to answer them or not, here are a couple of questions:
1. Did the neocons “pretend the Taliban is anything but what it is: As extreme a
totalitarian dictatorship as has ever existed…” when, just 6 months before 9/11,
they gifted them $40,000,000 (to grease the wheels for the UNICAL pipeline deal -
long since kaput), then threatened, as asserted in the book ‘‘Bin Laden, la verite interdite” (“Bin Laden, the forbidden truth”) “At one moment during the negotiations, the U.S. representatives told the Taliban, ‘either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs’,’’ Brisard said in an interview in Paris.”
http://makethemaccountable.com/articles/U_S_Policy_Towards_Taliban_Influenced_by_Oil_Say_Authors.htm
2. And, was all that CIA-issue ammo found on dead Taliban in the Swat Valley
fighting, really pilfered, as was spun out through the MSM?
http://www.blacklistednews.com/?news_id=6270
Moreover, 2 things to never forget:
1. “Deception is a state of mind and the mind of the state.” - James Jesus Angelton
- Director of CIA Counter Intelligence (1954-74)
2. “The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major
Report thismedia.” - William Colby - Director of the CIA (1973-76)
By Inherit The Wind, April 5, 2010 at 2:38 pm Link to this comment
I am not inconsistent.
While I think The Taliban is a monstrous and evil organization, if the Afghans are stupid enough to WANT to be ruled by it, I’ll be damned if I want to stop them. Nor do I want my children to die trying to defeat them over there.
Just don’t pretend the Taliban is anything but what it is: As extreme a totalitarian dictatorship as has ever existed, evil to its core, corrupting everything fine and beautiful in Islam so a few mad, power-hungry fanatics can force 25 millions to live in misery to satisfy THEIR perverted concept of God.
Report thisBy jack, April 5, 2010 at 11:01 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
RE: “Let’s cheer for the organization that gave aid and comfort and a base of
operations to Al Qaida, which launched THE deadliest attack on our nation
ever.”
ITW, your Straw Man is Cheering like there’s no tomorrow.
But, to be clear: it’s Al CIA-Duh! Langly’s Arab Foreign Legion - provocateur
and patsy stable - served up religiously through the MSM to shill The Global
War Of Terror - history’s most heinously tragic duping of the so-call Free
World.
INDEED! It takes mega-duping to get citizens of the so-called Free World to
willfully send their progeny into a senseless meat grinder on the other side of
the world, that serves one and only one class: The Global Finance Oligarchy.
Q: ITW - you sacrificing your children to this suicidal insanity?
Report thisBy JDmysticDJ, April 5, 2010 at 7:49 am Link to this comment
Inherit The Wind
Cheering for the Taliban? I don’t see that pointing out global realities is cheering for the Taliban.
A dissertation on the history of the western powers intervention into the affairs of Muslim nations is beyond the scope, except to say that those interventions have all related to oil and the preservation of capitalist interests.
Suffice it to say that these interventions have included: Western protectorates, arbitrary borders, overthrowing democratically elected governments, alliances with the most brutal and repressive of governments and jihadist movements, military actions and sanctions that have resulted in destabilization, displacement of millions, the deaths of millions, and incalculable human suffering, not to mention the economic costs of pursuing these self destructive policies.
You have only restated the justifications for continuing the madness.
Report thisBy MvGuy, April 4, 2010 at 8:44 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Why are commenters coming down on Robert Fisk..?? Is it because he examines the Taliban resistance in a favorable light..?? When one of the poorest countries in the world gets attacked by the No.1 aggressive and acquisitive superpower and their Europeean lackeys for letting a rogue CIA asset stay in their country too long, thinking people are bound to have SOME sympathy.
When the aggressor exploiter murders and TORTURES the poor backward folks we should show at least some pity.
And if none other than Seymore Hirsh, who exposed the Mai Lai massacre,says that the “coalition” was raping children to get their parents in an informative mood,
then we can imagine how the war affects these people.
I can understand how the people in the depraved empire out to control all the energy in the world hate those who don’t lay down when the tanks roll. The only question becomes how to tell the story..
Report thisBy howiebledsoe, April 4, 2010 at 9:13 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
OH-MY-GOD!!! The Taliban have their oun version of CNN/Fox news!!! The very thought!!! Lets start another war, I say!!!!
Report thisBy Virginia777, April 4, 2010 at 8:51 am Link to this comment
I’m with you, felicity: “And Mailer’s still right: “Fighting a war to solve anything is like going to a whore house to get rid of the clap.”
This article is suspect. Why carp about the Taliban, on Truthdig?
We have such massive problems with “glossy New’s “fronts” right here!!
Report thisBy some78, April 4, 2010 at 4:49 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
@ Inherit The Wind - as it is at the moment, the women have it worse off than they had it before, and the young boys too.
but tell the truth, the reason the west is in afghanistan, has sweet fuck all to do with the well being of afghan women, or anyone else who lives there.
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, April 4, 2010 at 4:01 am Link to this comment
Yes, let’s all cheer for an organization that beats women if they don’t walk around as blue cones, if they trip and show an ankle, considers it a sin to educate them and brands them “adulteress” and stones them to death if they are raped.
Let’s cheer for this “ecumenical” bunch who dynamites a priceless ancient unique relic because it’s from a different religion.
Let’s cheer and root for what was THE most totalitarian regime in modern history—and let’s all go there and live in “freedom” under the Taliban.
Let’s cheer for the organization that gave aid and comfort and a base of operations to Al Qaida, which launched THE deadliest attack on our nation ever.
Sorry. Not me.
Report thisBy JDmysticDJ, April 3, 2010 at 7:40 pm Link to this comment
It amazes me that the, richest, most powerful, and best militarily equipped nations in the world will attack and destroy poor nations, and kill their people, while journalists, and the people of these attacking nations, assume an attitude of political, cultural, moral, and religious superiority.
One can only speculate about the amounts of time, money, misery, and death that will be required before the western boot is firmly in place on the Muslim neck.
Personally, it would not surprise me if the expenditures were to be cripplingly and horrifically immense, nor would I be surprised if the firm placement of the boot were never to be achieved.
Report thisBy GoyToy, April 3, 2010 at 7:13 pm Link to this comment
For a far better analysis of our involvement in
Afghanistan read William Polk’s article in The Nation
magazine.
In the end, after much bloodshed, the US and other
outsiders will leave Afghanistan for the simple reason
they don’t belong there. In this age, you can’t occupy
a country indefinitely.
Peace!
Report thisBy doublestandards/glasshouses, April 3, 2010 at 2:13 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Arundhati Roy said on democracynow, “The Taliban is not a group of people; it is an ideology. You can’t bomb an ideology.”
Obama sounds like LBJ on Vietnam. By March 2012 he will be ready to announce that he isn’t going to run for reelection. “The Best and the Brightest” all over again.
Report thisBy rjg1971, April 3, 2010 at 1:37 pm Link to this comment
Well, if you really want the war to end, then you
shouldn’t be ridiculing any efforts of the parties
in the conflict to get their message out by means
other than the gun.
One wonders how a British writer would
characterize Brits dying in combat while fighting
a foreign occupying army. He certainly wouldn’t be
ridiculing them the way Fisk ridicules the Taliban
here. Not the best effort we’ve seen from Fisk.
What is really sad isn’t the efforts of the
Report thisTaliban to enter the political arena in
Afghanistan. Fisk never comments on this, but it’s
the fact that any secular alternative was murdered
out of existence, with U.S. backing. This was U.S.
policy throughout the Muslim world, from the
Middle East to Indonesia, and the baneful effect
it has had on politics in Muslim world are quite
obvious.
By marcus medler, April 3, 2010 at 1:09 pm Link to this comment
I think there is a fifty fifty chance this mag is
Report thisfunded by the CIA. Drugs, guns and lies are the
innards of the CIA.
By felicity, April 3, 2010 at 11:36 am Link to this comment
My Afghani contacts describe the Taliban (at least the minions on the ground) as thugs. Given that in war-torn countries (Afghanistan) gainful employment is scarce and, therefore, boredom (especially among young men) is rife, there will continue to be ‘thugs’ acting out the somewhat lofty words of their self-styled principled leaders.
And Mailer’s still right: “Fighting a war to solve anything is like going to a whore house to get rid of the clap.”
As far as the self-exalted West is concerned, it tried for 200 years (the Crusades) to wipe out the Muslin population and we all know how that turned out.
Report thisBy gerard, April 3, 2010 at 10:10 am Link to this comment
“As the peacock on the lawn tries to attack the remains of ...” my sanity, I have to admit that old Heraclitus (535 BC) had it right: “The more things change, the more they are the same.”
Information mixed with propaganda—who can tell the difference these days? Everybody is killing everybody else “in high spirits.” They are “keen to tell of their battlefield achievements” and “impress their donors.” This war is only “harvesting civilians.” And last but not least: “The first thing to teach your children is Allah. The second is to fight Americans.”
Hang in there, McChrystal. Real Progress is Being Made! Laugh to keep from crying!
Report thisBy bogi666, April 3, 2010 at 6:16 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I don’t think the Afghans will drive out the invaders for the reasons previously mentioned. They don’t have to, all they have to do is to continue their struggle which will eventually bankrupt the USA. Just as the Great Wall of China, which took 25 years to build, bankrupt China and lead to the collapse of society and invasion the Pentagons budget is already bankrupting the USG. The Great Electronic Wall of Space and its attendant 1000’s of worldwide outposts will bankrupt the USG. The fact of the matter being that the Pentagons purpose is to protect the investments of the CORPORATE WELFARE KINGS worldwide. The USA will not be invaded, of course. The Pentagons consume 60% of the tax dollars to protect the CORPORATE WELFARE KINGS while they pay 7% of the taxes. This corporate welfare is attribed to the USG deficit spending, financed with Treasury bond proceeds and then DOLED OUT TO THE CORPORATE WELFARE KINGS which are paid for by individual taxpayers. Currently the cost of oil props up the value of the $ and control of it is necessary to continue to prevent USG bankruptcy by propping up the $ thereby continuing the demand for it as it is the medium of exchange for energy transaction. The USG is going bankrupt to prevent it from going bankrupt. Insanity.
Report thisBy jerrygates7, April 3, 2010 at 5:34 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Robert Fisk is doing what he accuses the Taleban of
doing, expressing a one sided narrative of a two
sided affair, war, as it were is the subject.
Fisk is an Lebanon based journalist who has seen
his share of carnages over the years and knows, as
first hand as it gets, that the war of words does
translate to destruction on the ground, some of it
viewable or at least recognizable from the balcony of
Fisk’s flat in Lebanon, during Israel;s numerous
assaults their, often at the behest of the brits and
US.
I like Robert well enough, he has added much to my
work over the years and has a penchant for seeing
escalation’s early phased rhetorics, and what they
mean to people in their homes and farms, in this case
poppy growers with incentives to grow, made such by
US warring with adversaries in their yards. They make
dope to sell, and buy goods with cash from others in
the region, meat, grain and fabric, building
materials and labor are paid out in poppy economics
here and the system stays intact to serve both
interlopers and indigeonous people at once, with guns
being toted about to secure the pathways to market, a
shared vision then of a corrupt and profitable realm
where on one side of the vision comes education for
women and children and from the other, A different
sort of education, one of carrying ordinance in
Burkas to their respective markets as resisters of
occupation, but with a few stipulations. When the man
leaves, the EIDS leave, when the US leaves, the
economics and culture remain the same, as ever, but
the profit goes then, strictly to the Taleban.
This is a religious war, No, Not at all, that’s
the ruse, this is buisness, with implications for
those who do it with violence useing women and
children and young men as the pawns in the chess
games, shame is shared in this dichotomy drawn
between two paradigms, neither virtuous nor honestly
seeking the best for all Afghanistanis and their
families, but seeking the best for themselves and
their respective tribes of profiting on the awful
horrors of war.
Stopping such evil competition to do evil with an
evil substance, addictive and deprecating in the
extreme, it is the abuse of such human efforts that
shows clearly that conscription to side with one
despot over another is a game, well played with a
smirk and wink, but who benefits? I would say that
investors who make guns and EID’s do, they get a
return for their investments in huge profits on both
death and misery, all to gain access to minerals and
fruits of earthly bounty in the possesion of others,
thieves, marking to market wares stolen by others,
extracting bloods where neccessary to make drug
addicts of school children in every land, .
Eisenhower warned clearly of this impending doom
to civilization, militants and armories are the
problem, agressors make for defenders who then become
agressors, all supported by one group or another, the
refrain from asking themselves and admitting to us by
so doing, Why do we fight? The answer must be an
honest one and if we are wise, we answer thus, we
kill for pride of authorship of the best defense of
the people we love, be they our own or others, it is
greed that forces children from cradle to war and
pride that sells war as virtue and such a virtue as
defending honor as the work of Godly men and wmomen,
defending their rites of authorship of the one true
way of life, for which none hates us.
It is neither the Taleban or the USA who owns this
Report thisright of righteousness. but the ones who fight not,
for they are meek and gentle souls, selling peace as
the path to peace, not war for the right to profit
from an international disgrace.
By balkas, April 3, 2010 at 4:48 am Link to this comment
Afghanistan2010 is not Afghanistan1980. In previous wars ?all afghans fought or were against invaders.
But not now.
Nato now is much stronger econo-militarily than any previous invader. It can now use drones;kill innocent people with apologies-grins to boot.
So, military resistance by weak and isolated pashtunstan can only end in eventual failure.Nato, if frustrated enough, may even use wmd against pashtuns.
Partisan resistance succeeded because mighty empires also fought germany. Partisans were also helped with arms.
Report thisNobody is helping or fighting with pashtuns. If they remain alone, i can’t see how wld they drive out the invaders.tnx
By jack, April 3, 2010 at 4:25 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
GoyToy, you give Mr. Fisk too much credit - like most players in the ME, he’s not
what he seems, with a mission and role to spin his limited hangout along a certain
biased affectation - serving to sell a lot of folks on his depth of analysis, but at
days end it’s just one more angle from which to shill The Global War Of Terror,
adding another measure of legitimacy to the enemy status of all these
pseudogangs,
Where’s his in-depth article on why in last year’s Swat Valley battles so many dead
Report thisTaliban fighters were found packing CIA-issue ammo?
By GoyToy, April 3, 2010 at 1:46 am Link to this comment
While I do admire quite a bit of Fisk’s reporting from the ME, I think he’s starting to show his true Brit colors.
Why does be choose to put martyr or martyrdom in quote marks? Would be also put the word hero in quote marks if a western country said that a soldier died a hero fighting the Taliban?
And then there is this from Fisk: “For once, the cliché “well-oiled publicity machine” is correct.”
Ah, so the Taliban have a “well-oiled publicity machine?” Do tell what superlatives Fisk would use to describe western or any other propaganda?
Aw, come on, Fisk…you were once a pretty decent journalist but I guess age/senility is catching up with you. Too bad.
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