The Taliban are Cheering
"This clearly is a defeat for the U.S. in Afghanistan, and the start of the return of the Taliban, [its supreme leader] Mullah Omar, and an Islamic sharia state,” a senior member of the Taliban’s military council told The Daily Beast ... “We can’t believe that in the short time of ten years the Taliban are forcing the superpower of the century to pull out its troops.” ...
A Taliban field commander in southern Zabul province, Mullah Jamal Khan, told The Daily Beast by cell phone that when he heard the news of Obama’s speech on Thursday morning he immediately went to a nearby mosque and offered “a special prayer of thanks to God.” “My soul, and the souls of thousands of Taliban who have been blown up, are happy,” he says. “I had more than 50 encounters with U.S. forces and their technology,” he adds. “But the biggest difference in ending this war was not technology but the more powerful Islamic ideology and religion.”
- Comment (20)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
Comments:
Dec '10
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
Playing Devil's Advocate here, they credit Islam for a sunny day. The mistake, really, was giving a speech.
Obama could have easily drawn down troops without making a speech. Even a written announcement, as much as it would have been publicized, would not have had the same impact as that speech.
Nov '10
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
The one image that always brings a tear to my eye...
Thanks a lot, Claire.
Mar '11
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
Unfortunately, our "enemy" (if I may use the word) understand that we are in a "war" (if I may use the word), and that they will "win" (if I may use the word).
Kinetic military actions are meaningless without a belief in our ideology (which is? - oh, yes, apology!).
Edited on June 25, 2011 at 11:13amApr '11
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
Take a close look at that helicopter in the video clip...it's not military. It's an Air America bird, meaning it's flown by civilians. And that, perhaps, suggests something about Afghanistan too.
That Taliban Commander is right that the inherent nature of the battle being ideological. The troops have done their job but the civilian side has not. To win a battle of ideologies you need to present a compelling counter argument, and offering an alternative to Islamic ideology is a job for something like The Voice of America or the old Radio Free Europe. This is not a job for the Internet. There are no cafes or WiFi outlets in the villages of the Hindu Kush. It requires a low-tech approach like short wave radio.
Mar '11
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
"Once again, a democratic country demonstrates its most fundamental weakness: resolve."
Nov '10
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
Take a close look at the people on that ladder. Most of them are South Vietnamese, desperate to flee their country because the barbarians are at the gate. Over the next few years, millions of them will take to the ocean in unseaworthy boats, praying to avoid rape by Thai pirates or the slow death of dehydration while they await rescue that may never come. At the height of this exodus, fifty thousand of them will be dying on the ocean every month. There's no need to convince them of anything--freedom doesn't need a sales pitch.
This was Saigon in 1967. Those are women walking in front of campaign posters. (Free elections!) And in 1973.
Now this was Saigon in 1980, five years after the communists had taken it. And in 1985 - note the empty street. 1990.
Now this is Kabul. See what's at stake?
Edited on June 25, 2011 at 3:46pmApr '11
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
Jan-Michael Rives
Now this is Kabul. See what's at stake? · Jun 25 at 6:44am
Edited on Jun 25 at 06:46 am
Thank you. But I've been to Kabul, and Mazar-i-Sharif, and Kandahar, and Herat and a dozen other parts of the country. I think I have a grasp of what's at stake. The problem is that you cannot defeat an idea using only firearms. If you want to defeat the Islamist ideology you are going to have to attack it at the level of its Truth Claims. Instead of soldiers, or more correctly only soldiers, you need Script Writers and Presenters tackling subjects like, "Mysteries of the Koran" and "In Search of the Historical Muhammad."
Nov '10
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
Herkybird
The problem is that you cannot defeat an idea using only firearms. If you want to defeat the Islamist ideology you are going to have to attack it at the level of its Truth Claims. Instead of soldiers, or more correctly only soldiers, you need Script Writers and Presenters tackling subjects like, "Mysteries of the Koran" and "In Search of the Historical Muhammad."
These people are believers, Herkybird. You're about as likely to change their minds with "In Search of the Historical Muhammad" as you are to turn around a column of NVA tanks with a public showing of "Free to Choose."
Apr '11
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
Jan-Michael Rives
These people are believers, Herkybird. You're about as likely to change their minds with "In Search of the Historical Muhammad" as you are to turn around a column of NVA tanks with a public showing of "Free to Choose." · Jun 25 at 7:40am
Do you know what REALLY ended the Cold War? CNN. Why CNN? Because for the first time people behind the Iron Curtain could actually see for themselves what life in the West was like. It didn't matter what the talking head in front of the camera was saying, people could look over the reporter's shoulder and see the cars and the clothes and the streets without potholes and they decided they wanted that too. They too wanted to be Free To Choose.
And don't forget, those people too, right up to Gorbachev, were True Believers, until they found out that they were following a false doctrine. The world aspires to a Western lifestyle. Someone needs to show them how to achieve it.
Jul '10
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
Jan-Michael Rives
Herkybird
The problem is that you cannot defeat an idea using only firearms. If you want to defeat the Islamist ideology you are going to have to attack it at the level of its Truth Claims. Instead of soldiers, or more correctly only soldiers, you need Script Writers and Presenters tackling subjects like, "Mysteries of the Koran" and "In Search of the Historical Muhammad."
These people are believers, Herkybird. You're about as likely to change their minds with "In Search of the Historical Muhammad" as you are to turn around a column of NVA tanks with a public showing of "Free to Choose." · Jun 25 at 7:40am
In fairness, that kind of propaganda works here, so why not there?
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
Really? A decade of warfare manifests a lack of resolve or weakness?
Jul '10
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
I'd just like to point out that we didn't go to war against the Taliban, we went to war against Al Qaeda.
If you'll recall, George W Bush demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden. Had they done so, he would have been quite willing to leave them alone.
Dec '10
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
Herkybird
And don't forget, those people too, right up to Gorbachev, were True Believers, until they found out that they were following a false doctrine. The world aspires to a Western lifestyle. Someone needs to show them how to achieve it.
The difficulty is that the core of True Believers arrayed against us today have all seen CNN and SkyBSB and all of the output of Hollywood, and they see the allure of the Western lifestyle as the threat in itself. Maybe in the 1910s the pop song "How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down On The Farm (After They've Seen Paree)?" was a rhetorical or whimsical observation about worldly temptations, but the Salafists don't see it as rhetorical: the West tempts their children, so the West must be destroyed.
One of the members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors a few years ago called for the abolition of the US Armed Forces. Asked how we could defend ourselves without a military, his suggestion was that we offer the Muslim world our blue jeans and Big Macs, like we did the Soviet world. To our current enemies, blue jeans are cultural weapons attacking them, not consumer goods.
Dec '10
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
Claire, the Taliban aren't just cheering: they're acting on their new freedom.
Suicide bomber kills 25 in attack on Afghan maternity ward
A deadly car bomb ripped through an Afghan hospital on Saturday, heightening the fears of many in the country about President Barack Obama’s new troop withdrawal order.
Oh, and the Taliban claim to be as shocked and outraged as anyone at this attack. Why, they say, they would NEVER attack a hospital and kill innocent civilians!
Dec '10
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
There's a specific bit of technology I'd like to introduce to the majority of that country.
Correctly applied, it's aftermath requires no COIN (or any other) strategy.
When faced with a culture that worships death and hates life, all you can do is oblige them.
Honestly though, to hell with the lot of them.
At this point, I think it is far crueler to just leave and let the hard liners have their way with the population, so I'm all for it. You want us to leave? Fine, we're leaving. Enjoy your acid attacks, honor killing, rape, stoning, pedophilia, and bestiality.
All filed under the heading "Be careful what you wish for."
Let the barbarians have that crap pile of a country, and wreak great bloody havoc on any that try to set foot outside it.
Be safe Claire. You live just outside the dragon's lair, and as the saying goes, "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with onions."
Being female and western puts a target on your back, so please keep your head up and your eyes moving. If something looks hinky, get out.
With the crew we've got in charge at present, nobody from the .gov is coming to fetch you, so unless we here at Ricochet can put together a competent paramilitary force and move it across the world on very short notice (something I'm not prepared to rule impossible, given the clientele here), you ought to be prepared to fend for yourself, should things go all pear shaped.
Edited on June 26, 2011 at 4:14amMay '10
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
Afghanistan. I don't know. I wish I knew. Does anybody know?
Mar '11
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
John: yes.
Mar '11
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
John: But I suspect that your question was rhetorical.
The reason the sentence is in quotes in my original post is that it could be placed in the mouths of a number of people.
We know for a fact that this was exactly the lesson that senior Al Qaeda leadership took from their study of American military involvement throughout the world from Vietnam forward. "We just have to wait them out."
Apr '11
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
Stuart Creque
The difficulty is that the core of True Believers arrayed against us today have all seen CNN and SkyBSB and all of the output of Hollywood, and they see the allure of the Western lifestyle as the threat in itself. Maybe in the 1910s the pop song "How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down On The Farm (After They've Seen Paree)?" was a rhetorical or whimsical observation about worldly temptations, but the Salafists don't see it as rhetorical: the West tempts their children, so the West must be destroyed.
There are a billion and a half Muslims in the world. You gonna shoot 'em all?
Let me tell you, those "Truths" that we hold as "Self Evident" are a complete mystery to most of the rest of the world. If we actually believe them we should be willing to profess them. And let me assure you, as I cris-crossed over the mountains in Afghanistan I didn't see a single TV antenna. People there are not watching CNN or BSkyB, but they do listen to Shortwave radio.
Jul '10
Re: The Taliban are Cheering
as Bing West and Ralph Peters have said, why bother? The only thing the Afghani's have is stubbornness and we can't compete. We need to look at this as triage and realize it's not worth the effort and lives. Bismark's remark about being not worth the life of a single Pomeranian Grenadier was spoken from a realist PoV. As long as they don't come after us, let them stew in their own special broth of hate and mysogyny and ignorance.