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Re: The 10th Anniversary of Ahmed Shah Massoud's Assassination: Would Afghanistan Be Any Different Had He Lived? No - Global Spin - TIME.com

CrazyHorse — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 09:07:40 -0000

Obviously this article's writer understands little of the man that was Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Massoud fended off the Red Army in the north nine times. He averted a Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (brutal monster) dictatorship in the mid-1990s and he protected up to one million refugees who had fled from the Taliban. Unlike many of the other commanders (including some who worked with him) he was never interested in wealth and money. He died without having accumulated any monetary wealth. His wealth was of another kind. Unlike the other leaders, he had only one wife whom he treated in the best way and whom he introduced to Western women right's activists who nowadays are her friends.

By early 2001, he had gained the respect from large portions of the population and of course, if he were alive today, it would make a huge difference. For 25 years his presence in Afghanistan made all the difference in the world.

Re: Afghan Role for Taliban, if They Play by Rules: Amrullah Saleh - Bloomberg

CrazyHorse — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:06:18 -0000

If it lay only in the hands of Amrullah Saleh (or Hanif Atmar), I am sure he (or Atmar) personally would prefer an Afghanistan at peace with itself. But since Mullah Omar, Hekmatyar and Haqqani cannot breath nor move without the ISI, the end to foreign intervention does not lie in Saleh's (nor Atmar's) hands but in the hands of the Taliban.

Taliban leaders are not even living in Afghanistan.

Where are most Taliban leaders living?

In luxury districts of Pakistan's cities protected by the ISI.

Amrullah Saleh is living in Afghanistan among his own people.

Imagine, what you would say if Saleh was living in New York's West Side under the protection of the CIA sending his kill teams to Afghanistan ... So, you are directing this speech towards the wrong address.

If Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Great, was alive, no foreign GROUND troops would have been needed in Afghanistan.

Re: Afghan Role for Taliban, if They Play by Rules: Amrullah Saleh - Bloomberg

CrazyHorse — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:51:22 -0000

Ethnicity does not matter, character and mindset matter.

When you say "end to foreign intervention" you surely mean the intervention by Pakistan, right?

Who started the war in April 1992 against the Islamic State of Afghanistan?

PAKISTAN through Gulbuddin HEKMATYAR

Who supported the two-year Taliban bombardment of Kabul 1995-1996?

PAKISTAN & SAUDI ARABIA

Who kept the Taliban in power to keep Afghanistan as a vasal state from 1996-2001?

PAKISTAN (with 28,000 Pakistani nationals fighting inside Afghanistan)

Who supported the re-emergence of the Taliban around 2003?

PAKISTAN

According to the latest UN investigation who is responsible for 82 % of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan?

TALIBAN backed by PAKISTAN

Now, tell us all, what happens when NATO immediately leaves Afghanistan without Pakistan ending its interference at the same time?

Amrullah Saleh has said publicly that he wants responsibility to be handed over to Afghans "not from today but it should have happened from YESTERDAY."

BUT, he is not as naive as you propose he should be. He knows that intereference first and foremost has to end from Pakistan's side. If you end NATO involvement on this very day without a gradual security transition, you are stuck with the terrible "civil" war situation 1992 - 2001. From the current situation take only NATO away and you are pushing the rewind button. Most Afghans would agree that they do not want past times to return.

Re: Afghan Role for Taliban, if They Play by Rules: Amrullah Saleh - Bloomberg

CrazyHorse — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 10:15:51 -0000

1) Amrullah Saleh wasn't even born when Pakistan first started interfering in Afghanistan's domestic affairs on a massive scale. So what kind of question is that: "If you burn your neighbor how would expect brownies points from them?"

2) Amrullah Saleh's movement is NON-ETHNICAL, meaning, it includes Tajiks, Pashtuns and others. Stop trying to create further divide.

3) Pakistan is harming itself in the long-run with its disastrous policies.

Re: Afghan Role for Taliban, if They Play by Rules: Amrullah Saleh - Bloomberg

CrazyHorse — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 10:05:22 -0000

Amrullah Saleh's analysis is brilliant.

The following points stick out:

1) AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN STRATEGIC AGREEMENT
"Pakistan must stop its support of the
Taliban. The U.S., which supplied Pakistan with $4.5 billion in
economic and security aid last fiscal year, would need to offer
carrots and sticks to ensure that country’s compliance. Pakistan
and Afghanistan would sign an agreement guaranteeing the
cessation of interference in each other’s affairs, both directly
and indirectly."

2) NO MORE STATE WITHIN THE STATE
"the Pakistan-Taliban-al-Qaeda alliance wants a deal
that would allow the Taliban to remain armed and mobilized so
that it could again have the capacity to dominate Afghanistan,
as both a political and military force. [...] Pakistan would feel
safe having its proxy control the border areas [...] and would use its influence with the
Taliban to gain maximum concessions from the government in
Kabul. [...] But the Afghan state
alone must have a monopoly on force. It isn’t permissible to
allow the Taliban to become a Hezbollah-type entity within
Afghanistan -- an armed state within a state. If they agree to
just a cease-fire with Karzai or his replacement, it will only
bring a deceptive stability that will prove short-lived."

3) RELOCATION OF TALIBAN LEADERSHIP TO AFGHANISTAN OUT OF ISI HQ
"Taliban
leaders involved in talks should be relocated to Afghanistan
from their current locations in Pakistan, where they are
protected by Pakistan’s intelligence service."

4) PROBLEM: MAFIA-GOVERNMENT
"That government, today, is a conglomerate of small and big
interest groups surviving through manipulation, abuse of power
and criminal commerce. Its overt outreach wing for the
reconciliation talks is the so-called High Peace Council."

5) HEALING PROCESS
"Many years of war have wounded the psyche of the Afghan
nation. Burying the facts will not help us heal those wounds. An
internationally funded truth-finding commission should
investigate human-rights violations, massacres and major crimes
of the past 20 years. Knowing the facts would help the Afghan
people reconcile with themselves. A full report may take years
to compile, but the process would create hope."