As a general rule, U.S. wars are based on lies. Some of these are soon exposed; the lies about Saddam Hussein\u2019s weapons of mass destruction and al-Qaeda links used to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq were exposed (to anyone paying attention) within a few months, or at least by the end of 2003. The lie that Spaniards mined the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898, used to justify U.S. war and the colonization of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii and the Philippines, was exposed much later. The lies about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident of 1964, used to justify the escalation of the Vietnam War, were only exposed in the 80s and 90s. The Big Lie surrounding the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan has not yet been adequately exposed and discussed.<\/p>\n
The lie was hinted at, rather than expressed outright. The lie was there that was no distinction between the Taliban and al-Qaeda. \u201cWe make no distinction between terrorists and those who harbor them,\u201d declared George W. Bush. This is the heart of the Bush Doctrine. The point was to justify the overthrow of a regime by actively confusing distinctions, encouraging people to see the Taliban as actively in cahoots with al-Qaeda plots, hence enemies of America and \u201cterrorists\u201d by definition.<\/p>\n
Most people in the U.S. initially bought Barack Obama\u2019s differentiation between the second Iraq War as \u201cwar of choice\u201d and \u201cstrategic blunder\u201d and the Afghan War as a \u201cnecessary war\u201d to punish and crush al-Qaeda.. (That\u2019s what the polls suggested; they never, unfortunately, allowed those polled to describe either conflict as neither a necessary war nor a war of choice but as a \u201ccriminal war.\u201d)<\/p>\n
But now (or as of February, according to a Gallop poll) 49% of people in this country consider the war beginning in 2001 as a \u201cmistake,\u201d while 48% disagree. If there was once a consensus that Iraq was a mistake, but Afghanistan a good cause, there is a growing realization that there is no \u201cgood war,\u201d or at least little likelihood that U.S. troops will enter one on the right side anytime soon. Look at the splendid results of the U.S.\/NATO assault on Libya, and the ongoing agony of an Iraq wrecked by its encounter with would-be \u201cliberators.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sen. John McCain, who is not one to apologize for any war or acknowledge the lies behind them, recently called the five Taliban leaders released from Guantanamo \u201chard-core military jihadists who are responsible for 9\/11.\u201d This is patently false; there is no evidence that any of these men even knew what bin Laden was up to, or had any stake in or desire for attacks on the U.S. Only if you believe that al-Qaeda and the Taliban are one, the distinctions between them unworthy of your attention, can you blithely assign responsibility for the attacks on the released men.<\/p>\n
It needs to be repeated again and again: the Taliban is not al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is not the Taliban.<\/p>\n
Al-Qaeda is an Islamist global terror outfit that wants to provoke and intensify conflict between the Muslim world and the West (and Israel). It had bases in Afghanistan dating back to the 1980s, when Osama bin Laden was cooperating with the CIA to overthrow the pro-Soviet regime. Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan in 1996, having been expelled at U.S. order from Sudan; he was welcomed by anti-Taliban friends. When the Taliban swept to power later that year, they allowed bin Laden to remain out of appreciation for his role in the mujahedeen efforts in the 1980s, and in accordance with the Pashtunwali code of hospitality. They accepted funds and other assistance from al-Qaeda but neither steered the other. In all likelihood the regime of Mullah Omar knew nothing about an al-Qaeda attack on the U.S. and subsequent U.S. attack.<\/p>\n
The Taliban is a xenophobic Pashtun-nationalist movement rising out of the disorder of the period from 1978 to 1996. It is dedicated to the implementation of Sharia law in Afghanistan, which it thinks the only way to maintain peace and order. For better or worse it has a broad social base, rooted in the traditional religiosity of the culture.<\/p>\n
(Of course the Taliban is not alone in implementing Sharia law. Saudi Arabia, once one of the Taliban regime\u2019s major supporters\u2014with Pakistan\u2014also cuts off thieves\u2019 hands and stones adulterers. But are administrators of a system of draconian punishment, specified according to the Qur\u2019an or to their interpretation it by God Himself, necessarily \u201cterrorists\u201d? Does the word retain any utility when applied so broadly?)<\/p>\n
Afghan-born U.S. State Department official Zalmay Khalilzad, who served as ambassador to both Afghanistan (2003-5) and Iraq (2005-7)\u2014a neocon close to Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle\u2014once welcomed the overthrow of the Northern Alliance regime and the ascension of the Taliban to power. \u201cThe Taliban does not practice the anti-US style of fundamentalism practiced by Iran,\u201d he wrote in a Washington Post op-ed in 1996. \u201cIt is closer to the Saudi model.\u201d As a UNOCAL executive after temporarily leaving government Khalilzad attempted to negotiate with Taliban members to construct an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea through Afghanistan to the Indian Ocean. He entertained Taliban with a barbeque at his Texas ranch. Should he be detained for consorting with terrorists?<\/p>\n
McCain calls the Taliban Five \u201cthe worst of the worst, the hardest of the hardest\u201d and \u201cthe hardest and toughest of all.\u201d He wants us to think that Obama has just unleashed five Osama bin Ladens intent on striking America at the earliest opportunity. Who are they really?<\/p>\n
There are three considered \u201cfirst tier\u201d: one Taliban cabinet minister (former Minister of the Interior, Khalrullah Khairkhwa), and two deputy ministers (former Deputy Minister of Intelligence Abdul Haq Wasiq, and Deputy Minister of Defense Mullah Mohammed Fazl). The other two are considered \u201csecond tier\u201d in terms of importance, both senior military commanders: Muhammed Nabi Omari and Mullah Horullah Noori.<\/p>\n
Guantanamo documents indicate that they all had (or might have had) some connection to al-Qaeda, mostly following the U.S. invasion when the Taliban united with other, including rival, groups to resist. Wasiq, Fazl and Omari are accused of al-Qaeda ties, but also of ties to Hezb-e-Islami, a formerly a bitter foe of al-Qaeda but willing, from October 2001, to join a sort of coalition. One should not imagine that every attack on U.S.\/NATO forces that occurs in Afghanistan today is staged by the Taliban. Many others oppose occupation as well.<\/p>\n
Wasiq as intelligence minister reportedly sought al-Qaeda assistance to train his ministry\u2019s staff in \u201cintelligence methods\u201d at some point. But he was also in contact with Hezb-e-Islami. Khairkhwa is accused in a 2006 \u201cthreat assessment\u201d of probable association with the mysterious al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but he is also identified as a member of a delegation that met with Iranian officials to discuss Iranian aid to the Taliban and a possible Tehran-brokered alliance between the Northern Alliance (which Iran had supported) and the Taliban against the U.S. (This came to naught.) He is also accused of narco-trafficking. (A number of warlords governing parts of Afghanistan and some of Karzai\u2019s relatives are accused of this as well.)<\/p>\n
In one document Noori is described as \u201cassociated with\u2026senior al-Qaeda members and other extremist groups.\u201d He \u201cfought alongside al-Qaeda as a Taliban general\u201d versus the Northern Alliance. This makes it sound like the Taliban played a supporting role to al-Qaeda. But the conflict then was principally between the Northern Alliance (the former rulers, who\u2019d toppled the pro-Soviet regime) and the Taliban, with al-Qaeda playing a supporting role.<\/p>\n
The worst of the worst? Kate Clark of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network disagrees. \u201cFazl,\u201d she declares, \u201cis the only one of the five to face accusations of explicit war crimes\u2026 \u201d But these are crimes (against Shiite Hazzara civilians) that occurred in Afghanistan before the U.S.\/NATO invasion. They have nothing to do with the U.S. and were not a cause for that invasion. They are simply grounds to declare Fazl some sort of \u201cterrorist\u201d hoping the public paying attention assumes his terror was somehow directed at the U.S. (and thus the justification for his long confinement).<\/p>\n
Defending the Bergdahl-Taliban Five trade, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf explains that \u201cbeing, you know, mid-to-high-level officials in a regime that\u2019s grotesque and horrific also doesn\u2019t mean they themselves directly pose a threat to the United States.\u201d (She is perhaps thinking of the grotesque and horrific regimes that are dear friends of Washington.)<\/p>\n
The former chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo, Air Force Col. Morris Davis from 2005 to 2007, says, \u201cI wasn\u2019t familiar with any of these [Taliban Five] names \u2026 we had more than 12 years. If we could have proven that they had done something wrong that we could prosecute them for, I\u2019m confident we would have done it, and we didn\u2019t.\u201d The unprosecutable detainees languished as hostages until they were exchanged for Bergdahl. I doubt they were sent off with apologies for years of detention and torture, during which they were not found guilty of any crimes in any court.<\/p>\n
For years U.S. military commanders have acknowledged that the Taliban cannot be defeated militarily. There will have to be a negotiated settlement. Current Afghan president Hamid Karzai, while wary of U.S.-Taliban talks that sideline his weak government, favors negotiations with the Taliban (and even occasionally, when piqued by the U.S., threatens to join the group again, as he had in 1996 as their first foreign minister). As negotiations take place, likely in Qatar, U.S. representatives will have to treat the Taliban with some modicum of respect. (A Taliban report on the handover of Bowe Bergdahl expresses contempt for one of the three U.S. Special Forces involved for refusing to shake hands.)<\/p>\n
Respect for reality requires that we clearly distinguish forces and resist such simplistic thinking as that represented by Sen. McCain\u2019s remarks. You cannot tell yourself, \u201cWell, the Taliban and al-Qaeda were aligned at the time of 9\/11, so it\u2019s true enough to say these freed men were responsible for 9\/11. Or if not, there\u2019s no harm done by saying it\u2014since they\u2019re all evil. You\u2019re either for us or against us.\u201d Such is the culture of lies that continues to churn out wars.<\/p>\n
Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a general rule, U.S. wars are based on lies. Some of these are soon exposed; the lies about Saddam Hussein\u2019s weapons of mass destruction and al-Qaeda links used to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq were exposed (to … Continue reading