Taliban

Remember when Bush told us that Saddam Hussein was linked to al-Qaeda? Well I was one of those who was saying back then that was impossible. Hussein, a secularist who spent a fair amount of time torturing and oppressing the religious extremists of Iraq, and the religious extremists of al-Qaeda who spent a fair amount of time killing and oppressing secularists, had nothing in common. I spoke out as much as possible saying that Bush was lying. And, in the end, the only link between Iraq and al-Qaeda was al-Qaeda support for one of the anti-Hussein Kurdish groups. Bush lied to get us into a war we never should have been in and look where it has taken us.

Well, it's happening again as Bush is trying to expand the war into Iran. This comes from Guysen Israel News:

The American Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns has said that Iran was transferring arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan. He added that talks regarding new sanctions against Tehran would start in the UN in a few weeks. (Guysen.Isra×›l.News)

No. Iran is NOT transferring arms to the Taliban. The Taliban is a group of Sunni fanatics linked to al-Qaeda who have spent a great deal of time oppressing and killing Shi'ites in Afghanistan. Iran is a Shi'a theocracy that would love to see the Shi'a of Afghanistan independent of the Sunnis of Afghanistan, including the Taliban. After 9/11 I felt that one of our best strategies would have been to work with Iran to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban because if there is one nation on earth that hates al-Qaeda as much as America it is Iran. Instead Bush has done his best to prove correct the accusations that America is conducting a crusade against all Islam by picking fights with the most prominent secularist (Saddam Hussein), the most prominent Shi'a extremists (Iran) and the most prominent Sunni extremists (al-Qaeda and the Taliban), all of whom hate eachother as much as they hate America.

How many years has it been since we invaded Afghanistan? And what have we accomplished? The latest news indicates we accomplished little. The Taliban still exist and the war in Afghanistan is once again threatening to pour over into neighboring nations. From Salon.com:

Asserting a right to self-defense, American forces in eastern Afghanistan have launched artillery rounds into Pakistan to strike Taliban fighters who attack remote U.S. outposts, the commander of U.S. forces in the region said Sunday.

The skirmishes are politically sensitive because Pakistan's government, regarded by the Bush administration as an important ally against Islamic extremists, has denied that it allows U.S. forces to strike inside its territory.

The use of the largely ungoverned Waziristan area of Pakistan as a haven for Taliban and al-Qaida fighters has become a greater irritant between Washington and Islamabad since Pakistan put in place a peace agreement there in September that was intended to stop cross-border incursions.

Army Col. John W. Nicholson, commander of the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, said in an Associated Press interview that rather than halt such incursions, the peace deal has led to a substantial increase.

Pakistani border forces, which had been active in stopping Taliban incursions into Afghanistan as recently as last spring, stopped offensive actions against them once the peace deal took effect, he said.

Current TV, Al Gore's innovative TV channel, has done some pretty amazing things. They got film crews into North Korea, into places in Iraq far from the Green Zone, and were the first journalists into a Somalia arms market before the Islamic Fundamentalists took Mogadishu. It is their willingness to go where most journalists don't have the balls to go that makes the network worth watching.

Back when they went in to film Mogadishu in chaos, with battling warlords and their factions making arms dealing a major industry, it was astonishing the constant aura of threat that permeated Mogadishu under the warlords. These are the people Clinton had nearly defeated, but lack of Congressional support led to a withdrawal that allowed a resurgence of chaos. And Bush sat back allowing that chaos to happen, making the Islamic Fundamentalists the ONLY option Somalis had for stability.

When I participated in a live radio broadcast some months back discussing the initial takeover by the Islamic Fundamentalists, most of the Somalis who participated considered the Islamic takeover a good thing for one reason: it promised stability. They expressed their appreciation for the American intervention and a sense of betrayal at the American withdrawal. In the absence of American influence, they saw the fundamentalists as the only way to end the chaos.

And so Mogadishu and the whole Southern half of Somalia fell to fundamentalists and Bush did nothing. By and large the Western Press did nothing but report from a distance. But CurrentTV went in to see what life was like under the Somali Taliban.

Germans find radiation linked to ex-spy contact | Top News | Reuters.com or Trace spread of nuclear death.

Jupiter, Mercury and Mars Conjunction Visible with Naked Eye - Science News - Playfuls.com - Science & Technology or triple celestial clusterfuck.

Second Russian hospital hit by fatal fire - CNN.com or Siberia is burning.

globeandmail.com : globeinvestor.com : World's richest 2% own 40% of all household wealth or a yawning global gap that invites screams of horror.

Saddam's nephew escapes Iraqi prison - Yahoo! News or it will be a Sunninsurgent christmas.

For some time I have been writing about the fact that Bush has lost the war on terrorism and has, in fact, pretty much been enabling the rise of a new, extremist Caliphate that aims to control lands from Africa to Pakistan (and hence to have a nuclear capability). Some of my writings even came to the attention of BBC radio some time back.

Well, now even Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is admitting that the Republicans have lost the war against terrorism. From Salon.com:

Frist: Taliban Should Be in Afghan Gov't

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By JIM KRANE Associated Press Writer

October 02,2006 | QALAT, Afghanistan -- U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan war against Taliban guerrillas can never be won militarily and called for efforts to bring the Islamic militia and its supporters into the Afghan government.

The Tennessee Republican said he learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated on the battlefield.

"You need to bring them into a more transparent type of government," Frist said during a brief visit to a U.S. and Romanian military base in the southern Taliban stronghold of Qalat. "And if that's accomplished, we'll be successful."