So the Iranians are backing the Taliban in Afghanistan and nobody wants to acknowledge it. The West really *is* committing suicide.
War on two fronts in Afghanistan
By Con Coughlin
22/12/2006
Just when it seemed matters could not get any worse in Afghanistan, along comes an altogether more alarming threat to Nato's attempts to restore order to that strife-torn region — in the form of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
Ever since the US-led coalition overthrew the Taliban and their al-Qa'eda allies in late 2001, it has been assumed that the biggest threat to the successful restoration of Afghanistan as a functioning state was posed by the surviving remnants of the former regime and their sponsors in Pakistan.
Indeed, the main thrust of last summer's Nato offensive was concentrated along the Pakistani border, where a hard core of about 1,000 Taliban fighters have been attempting to re-establish a power base that could be used for an attempt to seize Kabul.
The British Army — which is in the vanguard of Nato's efforts to control the south — fought the fiercest engagements it has encountered since the Second World War in its campaign to subjugate the Taliban, and has been, in the main, successful in defeating a determined enemy.
The entire Nato effort in Afghanistan, moreover, has been predicated on the assumption that the key to success lies in suppressing the Taliban resurgence in the south, and persuading the Pakistanis to take effective action to dismantle the Taliban's training infrastructure in its lawless North-West Frontier provinces.
At no point have Nato's planners paid any serious attention to the other country whose border stretches for hundreds of miles along Afghanistan's western border, even though Iran's visceral hostility to the presence of a massive Western force so close to home is hardly a secret. This is despite the fact that the Iranians have actively supported, equipped and trained the insurgent groups that have caused coalition forces so much discomfort in southern Iraq.
But whenever I have raised the issue of Iranian involvement in Afghanistan on my visits to Nato headquarters over the past year, I have invariably been greeted with either blank stares or an eagerness on the part of senior commanders to move quickly to another, more amenable topic of conversation.
That state of affairs is unlikely to persist following the appearance in court earlier this week of a top British military aide on spying charges. Cpl Daniel James, who acted as the official translator for Lt-Gen David Richards, the British commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, has been charged with "prejudicing the safety of the state" by passing information "calculated to be directly or indirectly useful to the enemy" to a foreign power, whose identity sources have suggested is Iran.
Irrespective of the outcome of the James case, the mere suggestion that Iran should be seeking to recruit someone with access to the innermost counsels of Nato's high command is indicative both of Teheran's intense interest in Nato's activities in Afghanistan, and its determination to ensure that the West is not allowed to succeed in transforming the country from Islamic dictatorship into stable democracy.
It also makes a mockery of the recent suggestion, advanced in both Washington and London, that the only way to resolve the region's difficulties is by engaging in a constructive dialogue with Teheran. Whether it be in Iraq or Afghanistan, the over-riding priority of the regime of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is to ensure the coalition's efforts at nation-building end in failure.
As in Iraq, the history of Iran's involvement in Afghanistan has been complex, but rarely benign. During the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, the Iranians supported one of the fiercest Mujahideen groups. More recently, the Iranians helped hundreds of al-Qa'eda fighters to escape from Afghanistan following the coalition's military campaign to remove the Taliban from power in 2001. Recent intelligence reports have indicated that many senior al-Qa'eda leaders — including two of Osama bin Laden's sons — are still living in Teheran under the protection of the Revolutionary Guards, where they are being groomed for a possible takeover of the al-Qa'eda leadership.
Nor is Iran's involvement in the region confined to Afghanistan. The Iranians also have close links with Pakistan, where they have been identified as one of the countries that bought blueprints for making nuclear weapons from A. Q. Khan, the so-called "father" of Pakistan's nuclear bomb.
Given the extent of Iran's interests in the region, it might appear strange that Nato commanders have appeared reluctant even to discuss the possibility that the Iranians might have their own agenda in upsetting coalition attempts to establish an effective government, particularly when commanders in Iraq have been frank in blaming the Iranians for helping to orchestrate the roadside bombs that have killed and maimed so many soldiers.
The reason for this apparent reticence on the part of Nato commanders is that, given the limited resources at their disposal, they have a big enough challenge dealing with the threat posed by the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, without running the risk of extending their field of operations elsewhere. But all that might soon change if, as some intelligence reports suggest, concrete evidence emerges that Iran is actively supporting and providing equipment to Taliban-related groups fighting Nato forces in Afghanistan.
"The Iranians are playing a very clever game in Afghanistan," a Western intelligence official based in Kabul recently told me. "On the surface, they give the impression they have no interest in what is going on, but behind the scenes they are working hard to influence groups such as the Taliban who are causing Nato the most problems."
Which would explain why the heavily fortified Iranian embassy in central Kabul, which is located less than a mile from the British mission, is second in size only to that of the sprawling American embassy.
If, as now seems likely, the Iranians are to become serious players in the new Great Game taking place in Afghanistan, then it is essential that Nato be given sufficient numbers of combat troops to ensure that the hazardous mission it has been asked to undertake ultimately ends in victory.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Georgia Chain Gang
This is a really disturbing story. In Georgia, a seventeen year old boy has been sentenced to ten years imprisonment for having consensual oral sex with a 15 year old girl.
The presiding judge argued that he had to lock the boy up for ten without parole:
"...while I am very sympathetic to Wilson's argument regarding the injustice of sentencing this promising young man with good grades and no criminal history to ten years in prison without parole and a lifetime registration as a sexual offender because he engaged in consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old victim only two years his junior, this Court is bound by the Legislature's determination that young persons in Wilson's situation are not entitled to the misdemeanor treatment now accorded to identical behavior..."
As Andrew Sullivan says 'A decade for a consensual "act of oral sodomy"? I suppose the lad's lucky he isn't being castrated.'
The presiding judge argued that he had to lock the boy up for ten without parole:
"...while I am very sympathetic to Wilson's argument regarding the injustice of sentencing this promising young man with good grades and no criminal history to ten years in prison without parole and a lifetime registration as a sexual offender because he engaged in consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old victim only two years his junior, this Court is bound by the Legislature's determination that young persons in Wilson's situation are not entitled to the misdemeanor treatment now accorded to identical behavior..."
As Andrew Sullivan says 'A decade for a consensual "act of oral sodomy"? I suppose the lad's lucky he isn't being castrated.'
Sunday, December 10, 2006
British armed forces poorly treated by their own government
This is another one where I just can't understand what our government is up to. I suspect Keegan is right that there is "an anti-military clique in the Treasury".
God help our poor bloody soldiers
The Sunday Times
December 10, 2006
Minette Marrin
...
The newly retired General Sir Mike Jackson emerged from years of discretion to say on Wednesday in his Dimbleby lecture that our armed forces are underpaid, under-equipped and poorly housed; they are shabbily treated and absurdly overstretched, attempting impossible tasks with inadequate means. We do not offer enough of our treasure for their blood.
Many people think he should have said this while he was still in charge of the army ... One could argue that despite his duty of discretion he should in extreme circumstances have spoken out, as has Sir Richard Dannatt, his brave successor. For these are extreme circumstances. Even though this country is involved in two difficult wars, there seems to be a cultural agreement in Whitehall that our troops can be fobbed off with second or third best. According to John Keegan, the military historian, there is an anti-military clique in the Treasury.
Gordon Brown must answer for this; it was the chancellor who personally took part in cutting the army’s infantry battalions at a time when infantry was urgently needed to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. But generally, too, there seems to be a remarkable lack of understanding or sympathy for the armed forces.
If the government had deliberately set out to demoralise them and undermine recruitment it could hardly have done a better job. Only a couple of weeks ago the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had to admit that it had supplied British soldiers in Afghanistan with duff ammo. Shortly after our charming prime minister had been out to schmooze the troops fighting the Taliban, it emerged that they had been sent cheap and defective machinegun bullets made in Pakistan or the Czech Republic instead of the usual more expensive stuff. These cheap bullets kept jamming their machineguns during heavy fighting. British soldiers had to scrounge rounds from the Canadians and Americans. It was only when the Paras kicked up a fuss that anything was done.
Then there was the body armour scandal of 2003. The government sent troops into Iraq without enough enhanced body armour, having ignored requests from the army for two months. Sergeant Steven Roberts was killed by bullets on the fifth day of the invasion; he had selflessly given his own body armour to a colleague because there was not enough for everyone in his regiment. With body armour he would have survived. It has taken three years for the MoD to accept liability. Such prevarication only adds insult to bereavement.
The same goes for the delay in holding inquests into army deaths. There is, incredibly, a backlog going back to 2003, meaning that families have to wait years for an account of what happened.
One hardly knows where to begin with the substandard treatment offered to the armed forces. Dannatt has been bold enough to speak about this. So many military hospitals have been closed (largely under the Conservatives) that servicemen and women have to go into civilian wards and take their chances. One wounded paratrooper in uniform was screamed at by a Muslim visiting a patient. “You have been killing my Muslim brothers in Afghanistan,” he shrieked at a man who should have been enjoying a hero’s welcome. Another wounded soldier was told to remove his uniform for fear of “offending” anyone.
Lord Bramall, former chief of the defence staff, has reported claims that wounded soldiers face long delays on general National Health Service waiting lists and poor aftercare. This lack of respect is astonishing. If anyone has been brave enough to risk death and injury in the service of our country, the least we could do is to provide top-quality specialised hospital care in dedicated military hospitals or wards, as the Americans do. We don’t.
As for what servicemen and women are paid, it is pitiful: £1,000 a month is hardly an incentive to risk your life in Iraq. And it is pointless perhaps to compare the derisory £2,400 bonuses offered to combat troops with the £41m paid to MoD civil servants over the past four years. As for what service families live in, it can in many cases only be called slum housing — “frankly shaming” as Jackson said. Our government — and our society — cannot seriously be bothered with our armed forces.
This is not just wrong. It is decadent. For if we lack the will to defend ourselves, or rather to defend those who are there to defend us and to fight for us, then we are simply rolling over to display the soft underbelly of decadence to the world’s predators and scavengers. Those who think that our armed forces don’t matter will soon discover that other people’s do.
God help our poor bloody soldiers
The Sunday Times
December 10, 2006
Minette Marrin
...
The newly retired General Sir Mike Jackson emerged from years of discretion to say on Wednesday in his Dimbleby lecture that our armed forces are underpaid, under-equipped and poorly housed; they are shabbily treated and absurdly overstretched, attempting impossible tasks with inadequate means. We do not offer enough of our treasure for their blood.
Many people think he should have said this while he was still in charge of the army ... One could argue that despite his duty of discretion he should in extreme circumstances have spoken out, as has Sir Richard Dannatt, his brave successor. For these are extreme circumstances. Even though this country is involved in two difficult wars, there seems to be a cultural agreement in Whitehall that our troops can be fobbed off with second or third best. According to John Keegan, the military historian, there is an anti-military clique in the Treasury.
Gordon Brown must answer for this; it was the chancellor who personally took part in cutting the army’s infantry battalions at a time when infantry was urgently needed to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. But generally, too, there seems to be a remarkable lack of understanding or sympathy for the armed forces.
If the government had deliberately set out to demoralise them and undermine recruitment it could hardly have done a better job. Only a couple of weeks ago the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had to admit that it had supplied British soldiers in Afghanistan with duff ammo. Shortly after our charming prime minister had been out to schmooze the troops fighting the Taliban, it emerged that they had been sent cheap and defective machinegun bullets made in Pakistan or the Czech Republic instead of the usual more expensive stuff. These cheap bullets kept jamming their machineguns during heavy fighting. British soldiers had to scrounge rounds from the Canadians and Americans. It was only when the Paras kicked up a fuss that anything was done.
Then there was the body armour scandal of 2003. The government sent troops into Iraq without enough enhanced body armour, having ignored requests from the army for two months. Sergeant Steven Roberts was killed by bullets on the fifth day of the invasion; he had selflessly given his own body armour to a colleague because there was not enough for everyone in his regiment. With body armour he would have survived. It has taken three years for the MoD to accept liability. Such prevarication only adds insult to bereavement.
The same goes for the delay in holding inquests into army deaths. There is, incredibly, a backlog going back to 2003, meaning that families have to wait years for an account of what happened.
One hardly knows where to begin with the substandard treatment offered to the armed forces. Dannatt has been bold enough to speak about this. So many military hospitals have been closed (largely under the Conservatives) that servicemen and women have to go into civilian wards and take their chances. One wounded paratrooper in uniform was screamed at by a Muslim visiting a patient. “You have been killing my Muslim brothers in Afghanistan,” he shrieked at a man who should have been enjoying a hero’s welcome. Another wounded soldier was told to remove his uniform for fear of “offending” anyone.
Lord Bramall, former chief of the defence staff, has reported claims that wounded soldiers face long delays on general National Health Service waiting lists and poor aftercare. This lack of respect is astonishing. If anyone has been brave enough to risk death and injury in the service of our country, the least we could do is to provide top-quality specialised hospital care in dedicated military hospitals or wards, as the Americans do. We don’t.
As for what servicemen and women are paid, it is pitiful: £1,000 a month is hardly an incentive to risk your life in Iraq. And it is pointless perhaps to compare the derisory £2,400 bonuses offered to combat troops with the £41m paid to MoD civil servants over the past four years. As for what service families live in, it can in many cases only be called slum housing — “frankly shaming” as Jackson said. Our government — and our society — cannot seriously be bothered with our armed forces.
This is not just wrong. It is decadent. For if we lack the will to defend ourselves, or rather to defend those who are there to defend us and to fight for us, then we are simply rolling over to display the soft underbelly of decadence to the world’s predators and scavengers. Those who think that our armed forces don’t matter will soon discover that other people’s do.
James Baker's Iraq Study Group report
Well said. I'm still waiting for the explanation of why Sunnis are shooting Shi'ites in the back of the head because of what Israel does to other Arabs. Or why Iran, invaded by a strong Iraq, would not want the bloody chaos there to extend indefinitely.
A Commission’s Folly
FrontPageMagazine.com
December 7, 2006
Headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, the Iraq Study Group issued its highly anticipated report yesterday, stating that the “situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating” and “violence is increasing in scope and lethality.” So far, the obvious. While not an absolute failure, as some analysts assert, the ISG report is nonetheless a self-contradictory mix of recommendations that affirms some of President Bush’s Iraq policy in the short term, while threatening to undermine the War on Terror by calling for a “new diplomatic offensive” [1] that will only empower Iran, Syria and, by extension, their terrorist proxies who are responsible for the “scope and lethality” of Iraqi violence.
...
Already, terrorists are rejoicing at the report, calling the new plan a victory for “Islamic resistance.” Hamas asset Abu Abdullah exclaimed, “The big superpower of the world is defeated by a small group of mujahedeen. Did you see the mujahedeens' clothes and weapons in comparison with the huge individual military arsenal and supply that was carrying every American soldier?” In this, he sounds very much like Osama bin Laden's assessment of Vietnam, Beirut, and Mogadishu.
...
Although the report avoids confirming the prejudices of the antiwar Left in terms of withdrawal, its recommendation that the Bush administration reverse policy in regard to Iran and Syria mistakes the nature and interests of the enemy we face. On this count, moreover, the study actually contradicts itself, since it says at another point that promoting unrest in Iraq allows Iran to frustrate American aims in the region. The report calls for the immediate launch of a “diplomatic offensive” to engage Iran and Syria by appealing to “their interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq.” [4] However, bogging our forces down in Iraq and focusing international attention on the supposed failure of U.S. foreign policy particularly suits Iranian and Syrian interests. Chaos in Iraq only deflects international attention from Iran’s nuclear program as well as Iran and Syria’s covert war against Lebanon and Israel, through its terror proxy Hezbollah. For these reasons, Iran has worked so diligently to further chaos in Iraq. Why would anyone presume that they would change their way when their strategy is fnally paying off?
The other option that the report gives for engaging these two terror regimes is the use of incentives. But we have already offered both countries various economic incentives, which they have spurned. On top of this, believing that “incentives” or “disincentives” can influence Islamist fanatics like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who avow that the United States must submit to Islam or be destroyed, is folly. Rewarding the leading state sponsors of terrorism for facilitating the killing of Americans is a recipe for increased militancy, as the terrorsts' reactions demonstrate.
The report also ridiculously demands a “sustained commitment by the United States to a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace,” including a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. [5] How settling a sixty-year-old Arab-Jewish dispute will settle a civil war between Muslim sectarians, fueled by Iran and Syria, defies comprehension. Nor does it make sense to push for a two-state solution at a time when the Palestinians have so clearly demonstrated, in Gaza in particular, that they will merely convert any acquired territory into a staging ground for their own terrorist war against Israel. There have, in fact, been reports of al-Qaeda assets in “Palestine.”
The Left’s unremitting criticism of a war its elected officials voted to launch, fueled by its hatred of President Bush personally, has spread dissatisfaction throughout the nation and amplified the calls of those who demand we get out. Their rhetorical success has forced the president to consider quick solutions in Iraq. President Bush has repeatedly told the American public that Iraq is part of a long War on Terror, requiring sacrifice and patience. It will take time to stabilize Iraq and fend off our enemies. To declare failure and urge a significant retreat by 2008 when Iraq’s present government has only been six months in office will only embolden our enemy and hand Iraqis into the hands of those who seek to perpetrate a massive bloodbath before establishing a new Caliphate, from whence they may export terrorism to new vistas. At this stage, it will be the greatest folly for us to abandon this central front in the War on Terror and, along with it, the hope for democracy in the Middle East.
A Commission’s Folly
FrontPageMagazine.com
December 7, 2006
Headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, the Iraq Study Group issued its highly anticipated report yesterday, stating that the “situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating” and “violence is increasing in scope and lethality.” So far, the obvious. While not an absolute failure, as some analysts assert, the ISG report is nonetheless a self-contradictory mix of recommendations that affirms some of President Bush’s Iraq policy in the short term, while threatening to undermine the War on Terror by calling for a “new diplomatic offensive” [1] that will only empower Iran, Syria and, by extension, their terrorist proxies who are responsible for the “scope and lethality” of Iraqi violence.
...
Already, terrorists are rejoicing at the report, calling the new plan a victory for “Islamic resistance.” Hamas asset Abu Abdullah exclaimed, “The big superpower of the world is defeated by a small group of mujahedeen. Did you see the mujahedeens' clothes and weapons in comparison with the huge individual military arsenal and supply that was carrying every American soldier?” In this, he sounds very much like Osama bin Laden's assessment of Vietnam, Beirut, and Mogadishu.
...
Although the report avoids confirming the prejudices of the antiwar Left in terms of withdrawal, its recommendation that the Bush administration reverse policy in regard to Iran and Syria mistakes the nature and interests of the enemy we face. On this count, moreover, the study actually contradicts itself, since it says at another point that promoting unrest in Iraq allows Iran to frustrate American aims in the region. The report calls for the immediate launch of a “diplomatic offensive” to engage Iran and Syria by appealing to “their interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq.” [4] However, bogging our forces down in Iraq and focusing international attention on the supposed failure of U.S. foreign policy particularly suits Iranian and Syrian interests. Chaos in Iraq only deflects international attention from Iran’s nuclear program as well as Iran and Syria’s covert war against Lebanon and Israel, through its terror proxy Hezbollah. For these reasons, Iran has worked so diligently to further chaos in Iraq. Why would anyone presume that they would change their way when their strategy is fnally paying off?
The other option that the report gives for engaging these two terror regimes is the use of incentives. But we have already offered both countries various economic incentives, which they have spurned. On top of this, believing that “incentives” or “disincentives” can influence Islamist fanatics like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who avow that the United States must submit to Islam or be destroyed, is folly. Rewarding the leading state sponsors of terrorism for facilitating the killing of Americans is a recipe for increased militancy, as the terrorsts' reactions demonstrate.
The report also ridiculously demands a “sustained commitment by the United States to a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace,” including a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. [5] How settling a sixty-year-old Arab-Jewish dispute will settle a civil war between Muslim sectarians, fueled by Iran and Syria, defies comprehension. Nor does it make sense to push for a two-state solution at a time when the Palestinians have so clearly demonstrated, in Gaza in particular, that they will merely convert any acquired territory into a staging ground for their own terrorist war against Israel. There have, in fact, been reports of al-Qaeda assets in “Palestine.”
The Left’s unremitting criticism of a war its elected officials voted to launch, fueled by its hatred of President Bush personally, has spread dissatisfaction throughout the nation and amplified the calls of those who demand we get out. Their rhetorical success has forced the president to consider quick solutions in Iraq. President Bush has repeatedly told the American public that Iraq is part of a long War on Terror, requiring sacrifice and patience. It will take time to stabilize Iraq and fend off our enemies. To declare failure and urge a significant retreat by 2008 when Iraq’s present government has only been six months in office will only embolden our enemy and hand Iraqis into the hands of those who seek to perpetrate a massive bloodbath before establishing a new Caliphate, from whence they may export terrorism to new vistas. At this stage, it will be the greatest folly for us to abandon this central front in the War on Terror and, along with it, the hope for democracy in the Middle East.
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