US gets punked by 'fake Taliban'

If anything summararizes why the hell we need out of A-stan, this is it.

The big question is, who's behind the punk job, of course.

Is it:

Door No. 1, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, reaching new levels of kleptomania?

Door No. 2, Pakistan's ISI, reaching new levels of monkey-wrenching U.S. efforts?

or ...

Door No. 3, the Taliban, stringing us and Karzai both along, while perhaps getting ISI backing on this project?

Time to negotiate with the Taliban?

Richard Barrett from the UN says yes, and that now is indeed the time. An uptick in drone strikes has killed more top leaders, while more boots on the ground has restricted travel, thereby fragmenting the Taliban. He adds that the Taliban recognizes a U.S. pullback next year will be just that - pullback, not pullout.

At the same time, he says now is the time, before the Taliban gets too fragmented, and senior members who are still alive are unable to get regional leaders to impose terms of any deal with the Karzai government.

Why Afghan-Taliban negotiations will likely fail

The idea sounds nice:

But, there's two main holdups.

One's mentioned in the article. We, standing behind Afghan President Hamid Karzai, want the Taliban to finger bin Laden's location. That's just not happening.

The second? The Taliban wants a timetable for our withdrawal. That's certainly not happening.

Our Vietnam?

A better analogy would be: Our Palestine, our West Bank.

Karzai ups ante on West

With NATO member states upping the push for Afghan President Hamid Karzai to root out corruption, he's responded.

But, not by agreeing; instead, he's fighting back.

Karzai's pushback against Western demands he crack down on corruption? Demand "contractors" leave within 4 months.

Theoretically, this includes local "contractors," but, really, it's targeted at Western companies.

Karzai knows NATO can't directly run operations that quickly. This is either a tit-for-tat, or a move to get his own "contractors" into play. Or both!

Treat Karzai like Marcos?

A former Reagan-era officer in the State Department has some interesting ideas on how to marginalize Afghan President Hamid Karzai, all while meeting President Barack Obama's putative timetable for a surge then de-escalation.

Of course, Bing oversells Reagan's role in undercutting Marcos, ignores that Reagan was pressured into doing this, and ignores that Reagan gave Ferdinand and Imelda red-carpet treatment the moment they hit U.S. soil. Other than all that, and without Bing's attempt at enshrining St. Ronald of Reagan, the general idea is good.

Our man in Afghanistan backstabs again

Unfortunately, the New York Times officially editorializes that we have no choice but to work with Hamid Karzai.

Wrong, wrong and wrong. We have plenty of choice. It's just that The One has opted not to make the smart and right choice.

Our man Karzai laughs at us

In a rare actually good, and not just snarky, column, Maureen Dowd notes how much egg Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai put on U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates' face, and by extension, President Barack Obama's. The column goes on to talk about his work in the greater Middle East in general.

Karzai would 'fall in weeks'

If the US and NATO forces pull out of Afghanistan, that is.

That’s not my prediction of the possible future of Afghanistan’s president, either, though I largely concur. Rather, it’s the words of British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. Miliband argues that’s why the UK, and the US, and the rest of NATO, need to stay in Afghanistan. But, he offers no guarantees as to how long it will take for Hamid Karzai to strengthen his position — or if he even thinks that’s possible.

The Guardian repeats Karzai's own three-five year time frame, but why wouldn't he repeat that again in three-five years?

US suborns Afghan corruption

Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s brother is on the CIA payroll. Ahmed Wali Karzai is also believed to be a major player in Afghan opium smuggling.

“If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” the American officer said of Mr. Karzai. “Our assumption is that he’s benefiting from the drug trade.”

And, given the part of Afghanistan in which he’s most active, he’s probably connected with the Taliban, too.

Ted Rall asks why we’re fighting in A-stan

I agree with the overall gist of his article, that we’re risking measuring “success” by using a more esoteric version of Vietnam War-type metrics. What next? Warlord contracts instead of body counts?

And, as for propping up President Hamid Karzai, what if top campaign opponent Abdullah Abdullah beats him? Do we stay even longer?

Our man in A-stan – religious AND gender bigot

Afghanistan’s new “women are sexual property” law? The one that President Hamid Karzai claims in no way restricts women’s rights?

Well, it’s anti-Shi’ite as well as anti-woman.

It applies to them only, and gives Shi’ite clerics absolute control over women.

Now, I look fairly askance on nation-building, but, on the other hand, propping up the Mayor of Kabul much longer is ridiculous.

Especially since the law is an election-time pander for Shi’ite voters – and Shi’ite clerics in Afghanistan are strongly influenced by those in Iran, we need to ease Herr Karzai out of power, now.

Afghanistan, meet Russia

The office of Afghan Presidetn Hamid Karzai said that country had reached a defense agreement with Russia. I’m sure the U.S. and other Western powers are just loving this one.

Didn’t we support the mujahedeen against this 25 years ago

Karzai threatens Taliban negotiations

That's the ultimate angle behind his statement that the "international community" needs to set a timetable for withdrawing from Afghanistan.

Karzai, taking a page from Obama's book, thinks he needs to talk to all players in Afghanistan, no more preconditions. And, we and NATO can either go along, or be left in the dust, no matter how many more troops Obama sends there.

Because, if $25 million didn't magically produce bin Laden's head on a pike, neither will 25,000 troops.

My personal belief is that partition is at least as good for Afghanistan as for Iraq. Let Pakistan have the Taliban areas to add to its North West Frontier. Of course, the Inter-Services Intelligence might find the Afghani Taliban plus the NWF to be strong enough to secede.

Let Karzai (until the former Northern Alliance topples him) have the center and north, except for northern areas that might join the "stan" to the north.

Karzai follows Maliki onto Obama bandwagon

Just after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said, it’s time for an Obama-style 16-month deadline for U.S. troop withdrawals, Afghan President Hamid Karzai says Obama would be “a strong partner.”

It wasn ‘t a cutdown of McCain; Karzai said either candidate would be a “strong partner.” Nonetheless, it helps Obama’s foreign policy chops.

At the same time, four years ago, John Kerry was practically getting official endorsement from several world leaders, so don’t read much into this.

Is Hamid Karzai about to screw himself?

British support for military operations in Afghanistan is reportedly on the wane after Karzai criticized the performance of British troops, and seems set to stake out more policy independence.

Canada is already threatening to pull out in a year if other NATO members don’t supply it more heavy weapons/equipment and don’t put more boots on the ground. If that happened, and the British joined them, it would be hard put to “hold the middle” in Afghanistan without serious additional U.S. troops.

Afghanistan: Majority Taliban, and Kabul could fall next year

At least if you go by land area. The Guardian reports the Taliban now control more than half the country at an estimated 54 percent.

The Senlis Council, an independent British think tank, warns the country could be lost entirely, even as the Taliban front line creeps closer and closer to Kabul:

“It is a sad indictment of the current state of Afghanistan that the question now appears to be not if the Taliban will return to Kabul, but when ... and in what form. The oft-stated aim of reaching the city in 2008 appears more viable than ever and it is incumbent upon the international community to implement a new strategic paradigm before time runs out.”

Its 110-page report coincides with an equally severe warning from Oxfam. In a report for the House of Commons International Development Committee the humanitarian and aid agency warns that the security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating significantly with the country's problems exacerbated by corruption in central and local government.

Senior British and US military commanders privately agree despite their public emphasis on short-term successes against Taliban fighters.

Senlis recommends urgent action, as does Oxfam, but nobody seems to listen or care:

It says that the NATO-led International Security Force of some 40,000 troops should be at least doubled and include forces from Muslim countries as well as Nato states which have refused to send troops to the country.

There is no sign of any move within NATO to send reinforcements to Afghanistan.

While western governments, like the Senlis Council and Oxfam, are increasingly concerned about the lack of effectiveness of President Hamid Karzai's government, there is no agreement about how to solve the problems.

Also interesting to note that “our boy” in Kabul is more and more perceived as less and less effective, kind of like the whole succession of “our boys” in Baghdad.

The domestic political fallout will be huge if the Taliban occupies Kabul in, say, mid-summer 2008, after primaries are over but before the party national conventions. That holds true in spades if Bush’s soul-gazed bosom buddy in Karachi, Pervez Musharraf, continues to dig in his heels about not taking serious action against the Taliban and allies in the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands.

Ted Rall was right: If there was a country to invade six yeas ago, it was Pakistan. But, THAT most definitely would have required a military draft.