Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Remember the "Brutal Afghan Winter"?

Taliban for sale or rent? The myth of the fanatical religious "insurgent" (scumbag?) is exposed (by a Toronto Star reporter!).

The going rate for blowing up a Canadian, or any other component of the NATO takeover of southern Afghanistan, is a little less than a year's salary.

That works out to about $300, payable after the fact, in Pakistani rupees or Afghanis — bomber's choice...

...how real is a Taliban jihad that buys at least some of its recruits under false pretences from the bargain basement of Afghan despair?

A similar account was heard yesterday by Radio-Canada reporter Manon Globensky, who was told by a Kandahari seamstress that at least some of those responsible for torching Afghan schools — ostensibly an act of pious retribution against the education of women — actually have zero ideological motivation. They just desperately need the money.

Mohammadi said that whatever the circumstances, an act of violence involving conflict with the fledgling Afghan army or U.S.-led coalition troops invariably is characterized as an encounter with the Taliban. Each time the word is set in type, it deepens the impression of an ambiguous yet somehow monolithic foe...

It is not that the raw material isn't there for a more substantial jihad. Austere Saudi theology and its variants, which were covertly disseminated at madrassas along the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands as part of the anti-Soviet jihad, have quarter-century roots...

The big difference now, [Kandahar Deputy Governor] Jelani said, is that the majority of Afghans have had enough. They can see that whatever the Canadians and other troops represent, it is not Soviet-style occupation. There are nearly 2,200 Canadians deployed to southern Afghanistan...


Please absorb this simple reality, all ye critics of the US, NATO and, without even in most cases knowing it,the UN: there is no foreign occupation of Afghanistan. NATO ISAF troops should number around 16,000 by this summer; US Operation Enduring Freedom numbers will be around 16,500. So some 33,000 troops are "occupying" Afstan?

Puhleez! Get a historic grip.

Cross-posted to Daimnation!

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