Facing popular unrest at yesterday’s announcement of a massive escalation of the war in Afghanistan, officials in the Obama Administration are on the attack and issuing claims of dubious veracity aimed at convincing the public of the necessity of continuing the war, already in its ninth year.
Questions about the need to have 100,000 American troops occupying the nation to combat what intelligence estimates say are at most 100 al-Qaeda fighters have been met on two fronts, most directly with the claim that even 100 of them “can do a hell of a lot of damage.”
But perhaps even more incredibly, officials have taken the pre-invasion Taliban ties with al-Qaeda to a whole new level, implying that the Taliban are “taking orders” from the handful of al-Qaeda fighters left in Afghanistan.
Portraying both groups as an undifferentiated mass known as “the enemy” is of no small political value, transforming less than 100 fighters into an army with tens of thousands of full time members and even more auxiliaries. But is it accurate?
Not if all those reports officials have advanced about peace talks with the Taliban are true. Indeed, as far back as October of 2008 officials were saying the Taliban had severed all ties with al-Qaeda. Even putting aside these reports, the claim that the former Afghan government is “taking orders” from the remnants of a small terrorist outfit seems to fly in the face of all evidence on their mutual relationship.
The real AlQaida is just two men (maybe only one) hiding in cave somewhere. The hundred fighters is just a made up figure — Why didn't they kill them instead of just counting? Then there are thousands of Taliban which is added to AlQaida to increase the stature of the boogeyman, but that is not enough, so the rest of the 26 Million or so Pashtuns are counted as supporters and affiliates, and any incidence that happens anywhere in the world is attributed to AlQaeda. The right wing propagandists throw in all the Wahabis in the mix and some don't hesitate to blame the entire population of Muslims. This then becomes a generational struggle of life and death for the Western civilization. If it really is that great of an existential threat why send just 30,000 troops?
"Those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad "
The last twitch of a declining empire . To try to restore whats left of their "authotity"
If only we put this much effort into preventing the 40,000 deaths caused by auto accidents every year in the U.S. But no, what we need is more vehicles with differing bumper heights, more vehicles with tinted windows so as to hinder the line of sight of surrounding drivers, more vehicles with bubbly bodies the impede the line of sight of their fellow drivers and more vehicles that are really trucks without mudflaps.
This USAToday article from 2002 shows that there were only 200 Al Qaeda left back then. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-09-09-1ac… – According to the FBI. So I guess about 100 retired.
I is vewy afwaid, awent yoo?
There you go trying to think rationally. This is 2009, you need to get into the 1984 groove… think doublethink.