Our Bastard
"Of course, he's a bastard, but he's our bastard!"
President Franklin D Roosevelt
President Roosevelt was referring to a Latin-American dictator backed by the United States, but the same could be said of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan today. Despite widespread corruption and drug-dealing, and charges that Karzai stole the 2009 presidential election, President Barack Obama has decided to send an additional 30,000 US soldiers to help his administration defeat the Islamist fanatic Taliban movement.
Who is this guy? Hamid Karzai was born near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December of 1957. His father and uncles were prominent members of the Pashtun tribe, and served in the government of King Zahir Shah. After the Soviet invasion of the country in 1980, Karzai worked with the CIA to transfer funds to the Islamist mujahadeen militants, who were fighting the Soviets. After the Soviet-backed government fell, Hamid Karzai was appointed Deputy Foreign Minister of Afghanistan by President Rabbani. When the Taliban took over a few years later, they offered Karzai the post of Ambassador to the United Nations, but he declined the job. Karzai became increasingly hostile to the Taliban, and later joined the Northern Alliance, a Pashtun-led confederation of tribes determined to oust the Taliban.
After the Northern Alliance, with the help of American and allied armed forces, deposed the Taliban in December, 2001, leaders of the Alliance selected Hamid Karzai as interim President of Afghanistan, and he has governed the country ever since. (1)
As noted in our September 25, 2009, posting (Obama's War), helping the Karzai government defeat the Taliban is our only hope of preventing Afghanistan from again becoming a safe-haven for Al Qaeda terrorists. If, God forbid, the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the allied Taliban fighters in Pakistan would have a base from which to continue their struggle indefinitely. Even the slightest risk that a crackpot group like the Taliban might someday get their hands on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is ample reason to keep fighting against them in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Although I have no first-hand knowledge of affairs in that remote mountain nation, I am willing to believe the worst about Karzai and his regime. While I loathe risking American lives to keep that regime in power, I consider the real alternative----Taliban rule-----far worse. Although we would like to have a working democracy on our side, sometimes we must support a non-democratic ally. Just as the US backed the Stalinist Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, we must continue to back the Karzai government against the Taliban.
But will the people of Afghanistan risk their lives to defend a regime that probably stole the last election from them? Unless they want to live under Sharia (Islamic) law as interpreted by Mullah Omar and his minions, that is exactly what they will have to do!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Wikipedia biography.
President Franklin D Roosevelt
President Roosevelt was referring to a Latin-American dictator backed by the United States, but the same could be said of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan today. Despite widespread corruption and drug-dealing, and charges that Karzai stole the 2009 presidential election, President Barack Obama has decided to send an additional 30,000 US soldiers to help his administration defeat the Islamist fanatic Taliban movement.
Who is this guy? Hamid Karzai was born near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December of 1957. His father and uncles were prominent members of the Pashtun tribe, and served in the government of King Zahir Shah. After the Soviet invasion of the country in 1980, Karzai worked with the CIA to transfer funds to the Islamist mujahadeen militants, who were fighting the Soviets. After the Soviet-backed government fell, Hamid Karzai was appointed Deputy Foreign Minister of Afghanistan by President Rabbani. When the Taliban took over a few years later, they offered Karzai the post of Ambassador to the United Nations, but he declined the job. Karzai became increasingly hostile to the Taliban, and later joined the Northern Alliance, a Pashtun-led confederation of tribes determined to oust the Taliban.
After the Northern Alliance, with the help of American and allied armed forces, deposed the Taliban in December, 2001, leaders of the Alliance selected Hamid Karzai as interim President of Afghanistan, and he has governed the country ever since. (1)
As noted in our September 25, 2009, posting (Obama's War), helping the Karzai government defeat the Taliban is our only hope of preventing Afghanistan from again becoming a safe-haven for Al Qaeda terrorists. If, God forbid, the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the allied Taliban fighters in Pakistan would have a base from which to continue their struggle indefinitely. Even the slightest risk that a crackpot group like the Taliban might someday get their hands on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is ample reason to keep fighting against them in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Although I have no first-hand knowledge of affairs in that remote mountain nation, I am willing to believe the worst about Karzai and his regime. While I loathe risking American lives to keep that regime in power, I consider the real alternative----Taliban rule-----far worse. Although we would like to have a working democracy on our side, sometimes we must support a non-democratic ally. Just as the US backed the Stalinist Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, we must continue to back the Karzai government against the Taliban.
But will the people of Afghanistan risk their lives to defend a regime that probably stole the last election from them? Unless they want to live under Sharia (Islamic) law as interpreted by Mullah Omar and his minions, that is exactly what they will have to do!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Wikipedia biography.
Labels: Afghanistan, Karzai
posted by Gerald S Glazer at 9:50 AM
4 Comments:
What is there to gain by sending troops to Afghanistan and defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan?
Afghanistan is nothing but a big rock. Afghanistan has nothing that we need or want. It has no oil, no strategic location, no weapons to worry about, no economy, NOTHING.
Afghanistan is a 10th century country. It has no central rule and never has. It is ruled by a few military tribes across the country.
Who cares what the Taliban do or do not do? The Taliban have no power to do anything to the USA especially when one compares them to other islamofascist groups or other countries. The Taliban are NOTHING.
Now you might say that the Taliban had something to do with 9/11. We were attacked on 9/11 by 19 Muslims who had entered the USA illegally, were taught to fly planes but not land them by Americans, and had highjacked planes using box cutters.
Anyone in the world could have dome what they did and the Taliban were irrelevant to this.
Moreoever actually we did this to ourselves. We easily could have prevented 9/11 at many points along the way, IF ONLY Americans had done their jobs.
9/11 could easily happen again by anyone whenever Americans who are paid to provide security to the USA fail miserably as they did on 9/11.
Why should 100,000 Americans put their lives on the line for NO reason, NO purpose?
The Afghan war is useless and we need to pull out ASAP.
Gerry, this is one time that I agree with you and not Ivan!
In addition to the reasons you list is that American credibility is on the line. Osama bin Laden has said that America is a paper tiger - that if we sustain enough casualties we won't have the will to win. How can we expect anyone - the Afghans, or anyone else, to put up a fight if they think that they will be slaughtered by the Taliban or other tyrants after the U.S. reneges on its commitment and withdraws because we don't have the stomach for a long and difficult fight. And AFghanistan is more than just "a big rock," as Ivan says. It has human beings there. Some of them happen to be girls who face having acid thrown in their face for the crime of attending school. Do we just ask abandon these people to their fate at the hands of these barbarians after teeling them we will stand with them?
Here is another reason going to Afghanistan is suicide and why we will lose and why we shoud not be there.
Ivan
FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN
WorldNetDaily Exclusive
It's not just the enemy killing U.S. soldiers ...
You won't believe new rules of engagement in Afghanistan
Posted: December 13, 2009
7:26 pm Eastern
WorldNetDaily
WASHINGTON – New military rules of engagement ostensibly to protect Afghan civilians are putting the lives of U.S. forces in jeopardy, claim Army and Marine sources, as the Taliban learns the game plan based the rules' imposed limits.
The rules of engagement, or ROEs, apply to all coalition forces of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Their enactment is in response to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's complaints over mounting civilian deaths apparently occurring in firefights.
Despite the fact that the newly arrived U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, imposed the more restrictive ROEs to minimize the killing of innocent civilians, however, the Taliban is well aware of them and has its own forces acting in ways to counteract them.
The impact of new restrictions has created increasing frustration and concern among U.S. Army and Marine Corps troops who now are compelled to follow these rules despite the danger of letting the Taliban live to fight again another day.
Critics see the new ROEs being more oriented toward defensive rather than offensive operations, as evidenced by recent charges of murder against two U.S. Army snipers because they had targeted a Taliban commander who reportedly wasn't holding a weapon.
The actual ROEs are said to be classified U.S. and NATO secrets, but based on individual soldier accounts, those restrictions include the following:
1. No night or surprise searches
2. Villagers are to be warned prior to searches
3. Afghan National Army, or ANA, or Afghan National Police, or ANP, must accompany U.S. units on searches
4. U.S. soldiers may not fire at insurgents unless they are preparing to fire first
5. U.S. forces cannot engage insurgents if civilians are present
6. Only women can search women
7. Troops can fire on insurgents if they catch them placing an IED but not if insurgents walk away from where the explosives are.
Often, rules of engagement require varying levels of approvals before action can be taken. In one case, villagers had tipped off U.S. forces of the presence of a Taliban commander who was threatening village elders.
To get permission to go after him, U.S. troops had to get 11 separate Afghan, U.S. and international forces' approval to the plan. The approval, however, did not come until well into the next day. By then, the Taliban commander had moved on, to the consternation of the villagers who had provided the tip. Observers have claimed that it can take some 96 hours to acquire all the permissions to act.
In other cases, the use of force against insurgents may be blocked if they lower their guns, only to have those insurgents return later to attack.
8. Also, ISAF troops cannot engage insurgents if they are leaving an area where an IED has been planted. In one case, insurgents planting an IED had detected the presence of U.S. forces and immediately began leaving the area, tossing evidence of their preparations along the way. U.S. forces could not fire on them.
The ROEs in some cases have gone beyond limiting ISAF troops in their operations. In one case, ROE restrictions were in effect when four U.S. Marines twice pleaded by radio for artillery support in combat action in Kunar Province in Afghanistan – and twice they were refused, before they were killed.
F. Michael Maloof, a frequent G2B contributor, is a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He can be contacted here.
Regarding Jim's reason for sending 100,000 American troops to Afghanistan to protect girls from having acid thrown in their face, if this is the reason to send 100,000 American troops then we will have to send few million troops to combat islamic atrocities all over the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
I favor sending troops where we can win, and when it is appropriate to fight and die. For example, Irag, to eliminate the biggest mass murderer (400,000) in history since Pol Pot from the world, i.e. Saddam Hussein; to eliminate a tyrant who had attacked 3 surrounding countries (Kuwait, Israel Saudi Arabia) and was seeking nuclear weapons, to eliminate a tyrant who started two major wars (Iran and Kuwait) that resulted in over 1,000,0000 dead, to secure one of the major oil fields in the world (oil=life for Americans), and to begin to introduce democracy into the Arab world.
Islam is persecuting girls all over the globe, so should we send troops to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Syria, Morocco, Tajkistan, Somalia, Uzbekistan, etc to prevent this?
The Taliban are not a threat to the USA and have never harmed the USA and Afghanistan is not a strategically placed country, has no natural resources, has no poltical power, and contains no population that poses any risk to the USA or the world.
There are other ways to get Muslims to stop throwing acid at girls.
Post a Comment
<< Home