Onward to Victory
Posted 10 weeks 1 day ago byPosted on Fri, Jun. 27, 2008
Fears rise that key Pakistani city will fall to Islamic militants Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: June 27, 2008 07:13:41 PM
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Heavily armed Islamic militants have massed on the outskirts of Peshawar, the strategic provincial capital in northwest Pakistan, and the Pakistani government has dramatically stepped up security around the city amid fears that it could fall.
Taliban groups and other extremist warlords now threaten Peshawar from three sides. Should they take over Peshawar, the rest of the North West Frontier Province could follow, leaving Islamic extremists in control of a region that borders Afghanistan and sits astride one of the main supply routes to U.S. and coalition troops there.
Residents of Peshawar, a city of 3 million, have become alarmed at recent developments. Militants have begun entering Peshawar to threaten record shops and other businesses of which they disapprove. Last week, a band of warriors loyal to warlord Mangal Bagh arrived in Peshawar in pick-up trucks and kidnapped a group of Christians, whom they released 12 hours later.
The government has deployed a paramilitary force to guard Peshawar's boundaries, sent in police from other provinces and put the army on standby.
Malik Naveed Khan, the provincial police chief, acknowledged in an interview that "no-go" areas for police had sprung up around some major cities, but he said the situation had been brought "under control" this week.
Yeah right, Sorry, but i grew up listening to one pundit, one general after another telling us that "Victory in Vietnam was just around the corner" "We can see the light at the end of the tunnel."
These Muslims are way worse than the Viet Cong, because the Vietnamese had no friends. The Muslims are on fifth of the world, and the more we hit them, the more they hate us.
Caligula said "Let them hate me, so long as they fear me." But people who are willing to die, fear nothing.
And Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, or elements thereof created Al Qaeda. And they are still thick as thieves. And we are still winning. Watch what happens when we "Turn over power to the Iraqis." They will find it in their interest to become the most Anti-American government in the Mideast, and either become Sunni Wahhabi's allied with Saudi Arabia, or Shiite Fundamentalists allied with Iran.
And we still won't get the oil we went to war for.
And the great government we were rooting for in Pakistan? They are caving in to the Taliban, they still haven't reinstated the judges, and the "War on Terrorism" is on hold.
Weeee.... Boy are we winning.














Thoughts
So Why are you the problem and not the solution?
Submitted on June 29th, 2008 by PabloInstead of complaining about the problems, why not write your representatives!
Tell them you want results in Afganistan and Pakistan and are tired of the wasted opportunities and mismanagement of certain officials as to hunting down OBL and other terrorist groups!
If enough people say to congress and to the media, look its time that the government and the military put an all out effort in dealing with these issues, then something will finally get done and done right!
People like Rumsfeld were world class screw ups and Bush was a moron because he did not fire those who were screwing up early on but allowed the early success to be waisted.
But its high time that America gets serious and actually does an all out effort. I would rather see America send another 100,000 troops into Afganistan for 9 months to clean out the trouble makers and remove the bad tribal warlords who have been against the US and for the terrorist!
In Iraq, America could in the districts which are still US controlled hands add way more troops most of which could be pulled from positions around the US who are doing nothing for the most part. I know of units which are quick response units who are trained better than the reserves but have never left the US at all since the Vietnam war! Why are they not rotated and allow the reserves to stay state side for 12 to 18 months at some base! Makes no sense in my book!
The Military needs to stop using reserve personnel more than active duty personnel. Its high time that the professional full timers get off their butts and go to Iraq and have the reserves cover the jobs of the state side jobs that the active personnel have been holding on to.
The US need a larger standing full time army to deal with the issues of the modern times. Because sending small units here and there take more personnel and support, than sending a massive army to just one place.
The problems in Pakistan is one where the Pakistani government although claims a section of land, does not control it, does not police it, does not collect taxes from it nor has any representational influience there.
If America decided to do something in the lawless part of Pakistan, there is little that the government could do about! However, the government is more worried about the terrorist coming to kill them than fearing what the US could do.
America should just send 100,000 troops to clean out the border region and eastern Pakistan! After they finished, then allow the Pakistani troops and police take control of the region for the first time in its short history!
We are not saying the Talibans are" the good guys".
Submitted on June 28th, 2008 by MercyphotographyHamilton,
You are going on a research rampage( between your comments on Wish's blog and the one on my last blog).
I think the Talibans are a sad excuse for human beings, and I am pretty sure that the folks from the left on RBA share my views.
This is not the point here,the real question is: can we win in Afghanistan or are we just waisting 250 billion dollars and counting? Sadly enough, I don't think it is going to work for the US, NATO & Canada.
We need to learn from history... It did not work for the British Empire or the Soviet Union and the latest gave it a very good shot in a real brutal way.
Folks in Afghanistan understand and like a few things:
1- An archaic brand of Islam that doesn't tolerate anything else and, as noted in your comment, apply strict Sharia law.
2- Warfare: It is a way of life for Afghans, they do enjoy it, have nothing to lose and a very low level of fear.
3- Growing poppy for opium production.
As you see, Hamilton, a very " simple life".
A little anecdote to understand the brutality of this culture: The sport of Polo was invented in that part of the world. However, in the original version the cut off head ( put in a burlap bag) of the defeated tribal chief was used as...the ball.
What can I say, Afghans are a tough breed.
Most but not all!
Submitted on June 28th, 2008 by HamiltonThese are the good guys the left wants to leave be:
Taliban
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The overwhelming majority of Taliban movement were ethnic Pashtuns from southern Afghanistan and western Pakistan, along with a smaller number of volunteers from elsewhere, for example Europe or China.
While in power, the Taliban implemented the "strictest interpretation of Sharia law ever seen in the Muslim world,"[6] and became notorious internationally for their mistreatment of women.[7] Women were forced to wear the burqa in public.[8] They were allowed neither to work nor to be educated after the age of eight,[7] and until then were permitted only to study the Qur'an.[7] Women seeking an education were forced to attend underground schools, where they and their teachers risked execution if caught.[7] They were not allowed to be treated by male doctors unless accompanied by a male family member or husband chaperone, which led to illnesses remaining untreated. They faced public flogging in the street,[9] and both men and women faced public execution for violations of the Taliban's laws.[10][11]
Life under the Taliban regime
Sharia law was interpreted to ban a wide variety of activities hitherto lawful in Afghanistan: employment and education for women, movies, television, videos, music, dancing, hanging pictures in homes, clapping during sports events. One Taliban list of prohibitions included:
pork, pig, pig oil, anything made from human hair, satellite dishes, cinematography, and equipment that produces the joy of music, pool tables, chess, masks, alcohol, tapes, computers, VCRs, television, anything that propagates sex and is full of music, wine, lobster, nail polish, firecrackers, statues, sewing catalogs, pictures, Christmas cards."[44]
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
religious police
Men were required to have a beard extending farther than a fist clamped at the base of the chin. On the other hand, they had to wear their head hair short. Men were also required to wear a head covering.[45]
Possession was forbidden of depictions of living things, including photographs of them, stuffed animals, and dolls.[45]
Rules which according to some Muslims had no validity in the Qur'an or sharia included a ban on clapping during sports events, kite flying, beard trimming, and sports for women.
These rules were issued by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Suppression of Vice (PVSV) and enforced by its "religious police", a concept thought to be borrowed from the Wahhabis. In newly conquered towns hundreds of religious police beat offenders — typically men who shaved and women who were not wearing their burqa properly — with long sticks.[46]
Theft was punished by the amputation of a hand, rape and murder by public execution. Married adulterers were stoned to death. In Kabul, punishments were carried out in front of crowds in the city's former soccer stadium.
Treatment of women
Main article: Taliban treatment of women
A member of the Taliban's religious police beating a woman in Kabul on September 13, 2001. The footage, which was filmed by RAWA, can be seen here.
Women in particular were targets of the Taliban's restrictions. They were prohibited from working; from wearing clothing regarded as "stimulating and attractive," including the "Iranian chador," (viewed as insufficiently complete in its covering); from taking a taxi without a "close male relative"; washing clothes in streams; or having their measurements taken by tailors.[47]
Employment for women was restricted to the medical sector, since male medical personnel were not allowed to examine women. One result of the banning of employment of women by the Taliban was the closing down in places like Kabul of primary schools not only for girls but for boys, because almost all the teachers there were women.[48]
Women were also not permitted to attend co-educational schools; in practice, this prevented the vast majority of young women and girls in Afghanistan from receiving even a primary education.
Women were made to wear the burqa, a traditional dress covering the entire body except for a small screen to see out of. Taliban restrictions became more severe after they took control of the capital. In February 1998, religious police forced all women off the streets of Kabul and issued new regulations ordering "householders to blacken their windows, so women would not be visible from the outside."[49] Home schools for girls, which had been allowed to continue, were forbidden.[50] In June 1998, the Taliban stopped all women from attending general hospitals,[51] leaving the use of one all-women hospital in Kabul. There were many reports of Muslim women being beaten by the Taliban for violating the Sharia.
Prohibitions on culture
Movie theaters were closed and music banned. Hundreds of cultural artifacts that were deemed polytheistic were also destroyed including major museum and countless private art collections.
A sample Taliban edict issued after their capture of Kabul is one decreed in December 1996 by the "General Presidency of Amr Bil Maruf and Nahi Anil Munkar" (or Religious Police) banning a variety of things and activities: music, shaving of beards, keeping of pigeons, flying kites, displaying of pictures or portraits, western hairstyles, music and dancing at weddings, gambling, "sorcery," and not praying at prayer times.[47] In February 2001, Taliban used sledgehammers to destroy representational works of art at the National Museum of Afghanistan.[52]
Non-Western festivities were not exempt from bannings. The Taliban banned the traditional Afghan New Year's celebration of Nowruz as anti-Islamic, and "for a time they also banned Ashura, the Shia Islamic month of mourning and even restricted any show of festivity at Eid."[53] The Afghan people were not allowed to have any cultural celebrations if the women were there. If there were only men at the celebration it would be allowed to go forth, so long as it did not go over the curfew time of 9:00 pm.
Taliban official Mullah Mohammed Hassan explained that "of course we realize that people need some entertainment but they can go to the parks and see the flowers, and from this they will learn about Islam." The Education Minister Mullahs Abdul Hanifi told questioners that the Taliban "oppose music because it creates a strain in the mind and hampers study of Islam."[53]
Ethnic massacres and persecution
The worst attack on civilians came in summer of 1998 when the Taliban swept north from Herat to the predominantly Hazara and Uzbek city of Mazar-i-Sharif, the largest city in the north. Entering at 10 am on 8 August 1998, for the next two days the Taliban drove their pickup trucks "up and down the narrow streets of Mazar-i-Sharif shooting to the left and right and killing everything that moved — shop owners, cart pullers, women and children shoppers and even goats and donkeys."[54] More than 8000 noncombatants were reported killed in Mazar-i-Sharif and later in Bamiyan.[55] Contrary to the injunctions of Islam, which demands immediate burial, the Taliban forbade anyone to bury the corpses for the first six days while they rotted in the summer heat and were eaten by dogs.[56] In addition to this indiscriminate slaughter, the Taliban sought out and massacred members of the Hazara, a mostly Shia ethnic group, while in control of Mazar.
B. Hamilton Langrehr:
The Hamilton Post: www.thehamiltonpost.blogspot.com
Pashtuns first.
Submitted on June 28th, 2008 by MercyphotographyWishnevsky,
As you know ( few people are aware of that in the US ), Talibans are Pashtuns.
The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan doesn't mean anything to them....this is why the border will remain porous.
Pashtuns could care less if they are in Afghanistan or in Pakistan. The only people that have any kind of control are tribal leaders and war lords...the area if of course a perfect hiding place for Osama Bin Laden.
There is a great article in today's New-York Times about your blog's topic, check it out.
Best.
some music to read and write by
Submitted on June 28th, 2008 by John 2000http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSw0DBT8S...
McClatchy Newspapers
Submitted on June 28th, 2008 by HamiltonGreat Sources; doom and gloom…America is evil and stupid and everybody that lives here is ignorant and deserves to be as miserable as you are. Another fun and informative post wish…your version of reality is so much fun…thanks.
B. Hamilton Langrehr:
The Hamilton Post: www.thehamiltonpost.blogspot.com
You hit it on the head
Submitted on June 28th, 2008 by DCook36It really bugs me when people say that the war in Iraq is another Veitnam because as you stated they are not the same at all. What gets me is why the US can't make the general public understand the differance or even why they can not see it on thier own, because the differance are so clear that anyone should be able to see it, anyone who makes the statement that they are the same just does not know what they are talking about and are not paying attention to the reallaity of the issuse.
Been watching too much CNBC!
Submitted on June 27th, 2008 by PabloThe problems in Vietnam was way beyond what you think and obviously you are very ignorant of the truth!
You should visit Texas Tech University which has the most complete set of historical documents on that war!
Vietnam had friends and still does!
They were supplied by the Chinese, Russians and Chu Ho Marxist group!
Vietnam had chinese pilots who flew for vietnam for 2 year! Had thousands of Russian so called advisors who did take part in some fights much like our special forces who are advisors in certain places!
The problem in Pakistan was one that has been brewing for sometime now! Because the Pakistani government was unwilling to confront the taliban and the terrorist, they allowed those groups to grow and become armed and to pose a significant threat not only to the whole country of Pakistan but to the neighboring country of Afganistan.
Unlike the vietnam war, these terrorist or extremist groups do not have a country or a government right now! Thus this is a push by taliban to take control of the Pakistani government in a mirror immage of how they did it after the Russian pull out!
Fighting an unconvential war is different than a convential one!
The people of America will just have to understand that the extremist will always wage war against the US because of what former President Carter did! Carter is the root cause of all this trouble with the terrorist today!
But America should not allow an enemy which has as you pointed out extensive network whose goals are the destruction of America to go unchecked!
In vietnam, the VietCOng just wanted the foreigners out of the country! A totally different issue and a totally different war.
Here you have many of the same people who are the leaders of the rebels, warlords and terrorists who have openly declared war on the US who are trying to move toward another front in their open war.
Even if the US pulled out of Iraq and Afganistan or the middle east totally, the truth is that type of thing will make America even more a target!
Not because I say so, But you should read and listen to what the terrorist and the extremist say! Because unlike our politicians, the terrorist mean what they say even if what they say is nuttier than a fruitcake!