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Pentagon's War Pitch Belied by Taliban-Qaeda Conflict
WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen argued in Senate Testimony Wednesday that the 30,000-troop increase is necessary to prevent the Taliban from giving new safe havens to al Qaeda terrorists.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, left, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen testify on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009, before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) But that argument is flatly contradicted by the evidence of fundamental conflicts between the interests of the Taliban and those of al Qaeda that has emerged in recent years, according to counterterrorism and intelligence analysts specializing in Afghanistan.
Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee that, "Taliban-ruled areas could in short order become once again sanctuary for al Qaeda, as well as a staging area for resurgent militant groups on the offensive in Pakistan."
Mullen made the same assertion in even more pointed terms. "[T]o argue that should they have...power the Taliban would not at least tolerate the presence of al Qaeda on Afghan soil is to ignore both the recent past and the evidence we see every day of collusion between these factions on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border," he said. "Put simply, the Taliban and al Qaeda have become symbiotic," said Gates, "each benefiting from the success and mythology of the other."
It is well known among government officials working on Afghanistan and al Qaeda, however, that serious tensions between the two organizations emerged after the attack on the "Red Mosque" in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad in July 2007. Western intelligence quickly discovered the attack was an al Qaeda operation, and that it marked the beginning of an al Qaeda campaign calling for the overthrow of the Pakistani government and military.
That created a serious conflict between al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, according to specialists who followed the issue closely. The Taliban leadership, which is based in Quetta, Pakistan, had been depending on assistance from the Pakistani military to increase its military capabilities and did not look kindly on that al Qaeda policy.
Despite widespread confusion over the two, the Tahreek-e-Taliban, the Pakistani jihadist group that has been an umbrella organization for the military campaign against the Pakistani military, is not related to the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Pakistani group, which has now changed its name, is a close ally of al Qaeda, but does not see eye to eye with the Afghan Taliban.
Ignoring these turning points in the Taliban's relationships with both al Qaeda and other Pakistani jihadi groups, Gates suggested that the three groups are closer than ever before. "What we have seen in the last year develop is an unholy alliance, if you will, of al Qaeda, the Taliban in Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan," he said.
Two former counterterrorism intelligence specialists who followed the Taliban closely until earlier this year told IPS this week that the facts do not support the portrayal by Gates and Mullen of the Taliban and al Qaeda as ideologically united.
"We make a serious mistake in equating the two organizations," said Arturo Munoz, who was a supervisory operations officer in the Central Intelligence Agency's Counterterrorism Center from 2001 to 2009 and is now a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation.
Munoz called the Taliban "a homespun Pashtun, locally-based revolutionary movement with a set of goals that are not necessarily those of al Qaeda".
"It is well known that deals have been made between the Taliban and Pakistani commanders," said Munoz. "Obviously the Quetta Shura [the top Taliban leadership organ] is located there because of a deal with the Pakistani government."
But al Qaeda's view has been different. "The more fanatical al Qaeda types say 'let's tear apart Pakistani society'," he observed.
Veteran specialist on counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan Rick "Ozzie" Nelson agreed that the relationship between al Qaeda and the Taliban that has evolved in recent years is very different from the one they had up to 2001.
"The Taliban is a nationalist organization, which wants to govern Afghanistan under Sharia law, not attack the United States," said Nelson, who was on the inaugural staff of the National Counter-Terrorism Center's Directorate of Strategic Operational Planning in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence from 2005 to 2007.
Nelson directed a Joint Task Force in Afghanistan until early 2009 and is now in the International Security Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"The Red Mosque was a big deal," Nelson recalled. The al Qaeda-directed assault on the mosque and subsequent Taliban reaction to its jihadist campaign in Pakistan were what convinced officials that "their goals have become more divergent", he said.
More recently, counterterrorism analysts have noted that the gap has widened even further, as the Taliban leadership has gone public with a "nationalist" line that openly departs from al Qaeda's global jihadist stance.
Taliban leader Mullah Omar's Sept. 19 message for Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan, called the Taliban a "robust Islamic and nationalist movement" which "wants to maintain good and positive relations with all neighbors based on mutual respect".
The message went on to assure "all countries" that a Taliban state "will not extend its hand to jeopardize others, as it itself does not allow others to jeopardise us".
In October, the Taliban sent a letter to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization repeating its offer of good relations, despite the fact that at least three of its member states (China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) are the targets of armed resistance by jihadi allies of al Qaeda.
That line of thinking has created a firestorm among commentators associated with the al Qaeda global jihad worldview, according to Vahid Brown, research associate at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. In an article published on the Foreign Policy magazine website Oct. 21, Brown cited a series of angry responses to the Taliban leader's message from jihadi publicists across the Middle East.
One rejoinder from one of the most influential jihadi ideologues referred to the Omar message as "dangerous utterances", likening the nationalist line taken in it to the refusal of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal to support the Chechen jihad against the Russian government, which is anathema to the global jihadi community.
Later discussions on several jihadi internet forums clearly recognized that a major rift had developed between al Qaeda and the Taliban. One commenter even referred to "the beginning of the end of relations" between the two.
Gates tired to minimize such evidence by suggesting that Taliban officials are engaging in deception. He said Taliban leaders "recognize that the reason they are not in power right now is because they allowed al Qaeda to launch attacks against the United States", and referred to reports that "the Taliban is saying, 'Well let's downplay the relationship with al Qaeda so we don't get hit again'."
What Gates failed to mention is that Taliban officials are furious at Osama bin Laden's attacks against the United States, because he had given a written pledge, referred to by Mullah Omar in a June 2001 interview with conservative journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave, not to attack any other country from his Afghan base.
President Barack Obama appears to have been informed about the evidence of divergent Taliban and al Qaeda interests. Senior administration officials told the New York Times in early October, evidently with the encouragement of the White House, that the Taliban was now viewed by the national security team as a group that did not have "ambitions to attack the United States".
68 Comments so far
Show AllSo what else is new?
We know that lying, dissimulation of truth, distortion of facts, and disinformation are second nature to people such as Gates (he received a very thorough, paid education in that department under his former boss G. W. Bush).
Gates goes way back.
"Gates’s history as a career intelligence officer began under Nixon. But, as Robert Parry chronicles, it was as a senior CIA official in the 1980s under Reagan that Gates broke the back of the CIA analytical division’s commitment to objective intelligence.
"In a recent book, Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA, former CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman identifies Gates as “the chief action officer for the Reagan administration’s drive to tailor intelligence reporting to White House political desires.” As chief analyst under CIA director William Casey, Gates “guided the first institutionalized ‘cooking of the books’ at the CIA in the 1980s, with a particular emphasis on tailoring intelligence dealing with the Soviet Union, Central America, and Southwest Asia,” says Goodman, in order to justify increased US military spending and US support for bloody brushfire wars —central elements of Reagan’s foreign policy.
"Gates’s 1991 confirmation hearing for George H.W. Bush’s CIA director marked an extraordinary outpouring of career CIA officers going public with inside stories about how Gates had corrupted the intelligence product. There also were concerns about Gates’s role in misleading Congress regarding the secret Iran-Contra operations in the mid-1980s, an obstacle that had prevented Gates from getting the top CIA job when Casey died in 1987. Gates funneled support to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, covertly supplying chemical weapons, arms and equipment.
"Gates served on the board of directors of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), which reported $7.5 billion earnings in 2005. SAIC is involved in everything from intelligence gathering to Iraq reconstruction for the Pentagon."
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/7-obamas-military-appointments-have-corrupt-past/
Very informative post! Thank you!
But as Abendland stated, GHW Bush was part of the "picture". He was highly involved with the CIA before becoming director, the first civilian to ever be placed in this position without previously serving, officially, that is, in the CIA. He was then there as director, and during the Reagan admin., he was a powerfully influential VP; probably or surely more than Pres. Reagan was powerful (or puppet).
I have to make multiple posts; not being able to make any other than very short (similar with sending emails). GHW Bush surely continued his powerful "relations" with the CIA during the Reagan years and then became President. Etcetera. This is not to say, however, that he directly managed or controlled Robert Gates.
Obomber said the 9/11 attacks were planned in Afghanistan, that may be true in a general sense, but specifically they were planned in Spain, Germany, Florida and Virginia.
A recent rightwing parody movie of Michael Moore informed me of one right wing motivation in supporting the slaughter of Pastuns.
This being their not being able to resolve the defeat in Vietnam,
Thereby supporting an endless slaughter in Afghanistan so as not to have to cope with another defeat.
One question I have for the 9/11 experts ------
I heard NPR's real time reporting of 9/11 beginning with the very first newsflashes.
Within an hour of reporting there was a real time cell call from an female NPR reporter standing across the street form the White House.
She reported live that there was smoke eminating from the "old oval office".
What is this about?
Was the White House actually hit?
Without getting into the physical details, all circumstantial and motivational evidence points to 9/11 being some sort of false flag operation. History has shown a precedent for false flag attacks. Who benefitted from the attacks?
Like the USS Maine, USS Liberty, Pearl Harbor, JFK, MLK, (and all the other assasinations), 9/11, we will likely not know the truth for many years. One thing is for sure the official story is BS. Bottom line: we do not know what really happened. Saying otherwise is a conspiracy theory.
We are led to beleive that anyone questioning the official propaganda is a whacko conspiracy theorist. They doth protest too much, what are they hiding?
O, you guys and your conspiracy theories.
Surely it’s the self-absorbed upper half of society we must battle, they having all our wealth and just in love with no-change Obama’s way of doing things.
Are you questioning the status quo? You must be a conspiracy theorist ;)
Well, there are many low priority conspiracy theories that dilute our efforts and take our mind off of the highest conspiracy theory of all. The richest half of society keeping everyone below them impoverished and enslaved.
That's just a Marxist conspiracy theory. Everyone knows we live in the world's best democracy and we have the most egalitarian society on earth ;)
But truth uses absolute things to establish a conspiracy theory that is true without exception or contradiction.
Whereas, darkness uses relative things to establish a conspiracy theory that has one or more exceptions or contradictions.
I was trying to be sarcastic, I guess I just ainto no good at it.
"History has shown a precedent for false flag attacks." [A] precedent? Try many, instead.
"Bottom line: we do not know what really happened." We can be confident that the WTC towers didn't collapse because of the jets hitting and the fire from the fuel of these planes. And we can be considerably confident that Flight 77 went MIA, but didn't hit the Pentagon.
"We are led to beleive that anyone questioning the official propaganda is a whacko conspiracy theorist."
Not quite. Like the Bush Jr-Cheney admin., Obama said anyone questioning the "official story" on 9-11 is a "terrorist"; not just "a whacko conspiracy theorist".
I guess that I must be on the "terrorist watch list".
yohocoma 1:01 -------
Thanks for answering. I have thought about this so I might have gone deeper.
First I do not have an agenda either pro or con false flag.
That said anyone who believes it definitely could not be a false flag operation, I would consider overly trusting.
One recent poll said 66% of USAns think the feds were involved.
One question I asked previously, was could it have been smoke from the pentagon.
From a person familiar with the landscape I understand that is not possible.
Secondly I would think that perhaps the white house was hit and in order to calm the public etc. it was not reported.
This would be evidence for an external attack.
If it was a common occurrence, one would have to find the source of the mirage to support that proposition.
A reporter is expected to have observation skills that would make one hesitant to conclude it was pure imagination.
"Secondly I would think that perhaps the white house was hit and in order to calm the public etc. it was not reported."
If it was hit, couldn't the damage have been easily seen from either E-Street to the South or Pennsylvania Ave to the North? The White House is hardly a hidden building. I grew up and lived in the DC area, by the way. I am very familiar with the landscape.
I seriously would questions the sanity of someone who suggests that planes weren't flown into the Pentagon and the WTC towers. Did the many thousands of witnesses see a holographic projection? So, any credible conspiracy theory has to start with the fact that three aircraft were purposefully flown into buildings. Next, I know conspiracy theorists consider any claim of expertise as incriminating and reason NOT to trust the expert, but, as a civil engineer, the manner in which the buildings collapsed was completely consistent with the crash damage and fire, and not at all consistent with explosive demolition. So, this too must be incorporated into any conspiracy theory.
No "holographic projection". Planes were flown into the WTC towers, and remote control tech. could've been used for this. The Pentagon, however? Flight 77 went or became MIA, but there's no actual proof that any plane, even a small one, hit the Pentagon.
"I seriously would questions the sanity of someone who suggests that planes weren't flown into the Pentagon and the WTC towers. Did the many thousands of witnesses see a holographic projection?"
No, in the case of the Pentagon, thousands of witnesses did not see the crash into the Pentagon. Those witnesses who did see, witnessed something other than a crash into the Pentagon. Please do yourself a favor, and see witnesses come forward and tell what they did see:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5FhQc-LJ-o
"That said anyone who believes it definitely could not be a false flag operation, I would consider overly trusting."
Or worse.
"One recent poll said 66% of USAns think the feds were involved."
That's good news.
"This would be evidence for an external attack."
Not necessarily. Maybe an official there was smoking a large cigar.
And NPR is not a particularly reliable "news" media.
To quote General Smedley D. Butler: "War is just a racket. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket".
It is turning out Obama administration's tactics are the same as Bush's and Fox News:
Throw enough misleading statements out there and the press and public won't be able to keep up to correct them; thus black is white and reality is fiction.
Why let facts get in the way of a starting, or continuing a war. It is well known political tactic that a lie repeated enough will be believed to be a truth by the majority of the public. It works like a charm almost every time.
How can anybody ever trust a lie based government? Do the gangsters in charge think the American people are as stupid as they are?
Actually, the gangsters are overestimating the public. They are even stupider. Go to a teabag event or check out the birther blogs and see for yourself.
A MUST READ POST:
OldUncleDave December 5th, 2009 12:06 pm below.
That posting puts Gates in proper perspective.
As others point out: the lie and myth that "Al-Quaeda" (bin Laden/Al Zawahiri) planned the attacks in Afghanistan lacks any evidence to support and is repeated by the Obama regime.
So-called Al-Quaeda (if defined by Arab speaking combatants left over from the Soviet occupation era) was there years BEFORE the so-called Taleban took over. Many of the same folks we call "Al Quaeda" received lots of money from the CIA back in the late 80s to fight the Soviets.
And it goes on and on... the same tired lies are being re-hashed to scare people into supporting escalating imperial occupation.
The so-called Taleban are resistance fighters, normative judgements aside, they are fighting for freedom: to rid their land of foreign invaders, pure and simple.
The TAP pipeline, and strategic position in central Asia vis a vis China and Russia are the real reasons the US/NATO occupies, or attempts to occupy the place.
So, whenever I hear "Al-Quaeda" I know it is complete BS, a pack of discredited lies after another.
Don't believe me, just ask Pepe Escobar, Tariq Ali, Adam Curtis, Chris Hedges, Robert Fisk, John Pilger and Noam Chomsky
"The so-called Taleban are resistance fighters, normative judgements aside, they are fighting for freedom: to rid their land of foreign invaders, pure and simple."
Though I have little conflict weith the rest of your statements, I believe you'll find the Taliban are a bit different than your picture. They are traditionalists that want to impose an extremist religious government on the Afgan people. It includes but is not restricted to....beheadings, honor killings, wife abuse, forced marriages of girls as youg as eight, stoning and other lovely practices from the middle ages.
Freedom fighters usually fight for freedom. The Afghan people are not fond of the Taliban themselves.
You obvioulsy missed my point: "normative judgements aside" do you know what that means?
What would you do if foreign troops invaded your home-town and called you a terrorist for fighting back? I know what I would do.
True, for the only Afghans who want foreign troops on
their soil are those of the intelligent elite, and all
for the purpose of keeping the working class enslaved.
There are other analysts and reporters besides the ones you specified and there's plenty at www.globalresearch.ca on not only the TAP pipeline, but all other pipelines that are part of the Central Asian "picture"; including a hypothetically potential pipeline (or two) from Iran to Pakistan and India, which U.S. ruling "elites" don't want to see happen.
There's another pipeline, for natural gas, to go to China without passing through Afghanistan. GR has enough articles about all of these pipelines. Some are by Pepe Escobar, but there are fine videos with him for TheRealNews.com posted at Youtube on these pipelines and the real purpose of the GWoT war on Afghanistan and which we can read plenty about in articles by other people at GR.
Yes, thanks I am aware of that. There is also a historical precendent.
Globalresearch.ca is an excellent source
Everything the Pentagon/Obama say(s) about Afghanistan is untrue:
TAPI--the Afghanistan gas pipeline, That's why we're there. And yet it's never mentioned.
(Google Afghanistan Pipeline --615,000hits!)
Why are we in Afghanistan ? Or, is there a pony to be found in the dung at the Augean stables?
The usual reasons given (this is the dung part):
1. They'll get us here if we don't get them there.
2. 9/11
3. support democracy, women's rights.
4. "they tried to kill my father..” whoops, that was George Bush on why he invaded Iraq.
OK, let's look into the top 4 reasons…
“They" can get us from anywhere in the world. However, the 9/11'ers prepared in Dresden and the US. Do we need to invade and occupy many countries before we begin to feel secure? (Let's face it, many Americans will never feel entirely secure: gated communities, yachts, etc. and assorted high living for some has given our rich ruling class the jitters—for them and others, it’s terror on all the channels, 24/7.
And then there's 9/11: They (the Muslims, the Osamaites, the terrorists, the Saddamists) blew up the WTC and we need to wreck revenge. Forever? Everywhere?
Women's rights, democracy. They say, women's rights; I say, (and here’s the pony!) oil and gas. They say democracy, ; I say world rule. (our imperialists are always cloaking their aims in high-falutin terms!)
And then there’s “They tried to kill my father...” More rubbish.
Let's cut to the chase... we're there because of the energy supplies that are there and the pipelines that bring these goodies to the USA.
"President Obama (as did George Bush,) says 9/11, I say, oil and gas.”
True, for the moment Empire USA no longer controls
Middle East oil, it is just one nation among many equals.
The Afghanistan pipeline was about oil, but maybe the rulers of this war have added natural gas, as well. The oil pipeline became a U.S. foreign policy project during the Clinton admin. The or a Unocal chief spoke about this need before Congress in, I think, 1996. He said there were two possible routes, the other being down to Iran, but it was listed as a terrorism sponsoring state by the U.S. DoS, so only Afghanistan remained.
CHOMSKY ---- LAST WEEK -- EXCELLENT AFGHAN HISTORY
“The core issue in the Middle East is fairly straightforward, namely, oil. Since World War One when the world moved on to an oil based economy, the Middle East has become central in world affairs. For an obvious reason, that it has by far the largest and most excisable petroleum resources primarily in Saudi Arabia, secondly in Iraq and thirdly in the Gulf Emirates and else ware.
It is as the State Department describes it during the Second Word War when the U.S. was taking over, “A stupendous source of strategic power and the greatest material prize in world history.” Strategically it’s the most important part of the world as the President of Columbia University described it, as he was making his transition from the supreme commander of Allied Forces in Europe to supreme commander of the world in the White House, which I guess says something about Columbia’s rank in the world order.
The smaller more expensive reserves like the North Sea and Alaska are declining, the role of the Middle East and the world energy system is accordingly increasing, and it will become critical probably in the not to distant future if as widely anticipated the current excess oil proves to be temporary, which is most likely as the rate of discovery has been declining since the 1960’s despite high technology and deep-sea drilling and so on, and the usage of energy has been sharply increasing.
In fact about half of the total usage in history has been since the oil price rise in the 1970’s and its going up. Its expected the magic halfway point as its called, when half of the known accessible resources are used up is coming fairly soon. All of this spells crisis. Its possible of course that some unpredictable breakthrough will take place and things will change, but policy planning is not based on unpredictable technological breakthroughs.
So we can pretty confidently expect that the United States will continue as in the past to do everything it can to make sure that the greatest material prize in world history remains firmly in its hands."
Audio: http://www.mediafire.com/?fjnvwtz0czj
Our Senators procured for our state a drone missile command center,
But they could not get Obomber to cough up the expected federal bucks for our Governor's and state's new green smart grid.
Obvious priorities.
Oil, natural gas, and mineral resources; oh, and some extra heroin for tax-exempt profits and enslaving populations of the west. Afghanistan's rich in mineral reserves and is strategically useful for oil and natural gas pipelines, for western corporations. China doesn't need Afghanistan for natural gas; its pipeline project passes through countries north of Afghanistan, I believe. www.globalresearch.ca
Henry8 says, “Taliban… impose an extremist religious government on the Afghan people.”
Justice in Empire USA is a million times worse then Taliban “traditionalist” justice.
For our government tortures, bombs babies, allows wives to use the deadly force of divorce court to castrate the family disciplinarian so the women of the family can run loose after dark and thereby corrupt the morels of society.
But the Taliban do not allow any of our above corruption to take place. And our legalized killers gun down in cold blood thousands of unarmed laboring men each year, and murder on death row hundreds of laboring men each year.
Whereas, capital punishment by the Taliban is severally restricted to criminals, and well over 99% accurate.
Interesting photograph with this article. Both Gates and Mullen seem to be wearing the patented Bush smirk.
"the relationship between al Qaeda and the Taliban that has evolved in recent years is very different from the one they had up to 2001"
And so has evolved the relationship of people WITHIN the Taliban itself toward America no doubt since invading...
Published on Thursday, March 1, 2001 by Agence France Presse
Afghan Taliban Begin Destruction of Ancient Buddha Statues
..."Taliban officials also privately said they were not happy with Omar's decree, which is seen as absolute law in more than 90 percent of the country under the militia's rule.
"It is causing big damage to our history," said a senior [Taliban] official, refusing to be named for fear of retribution from the hardline [Taliban] militia.
"The war had taken everything else. We had only these (monuments) which are now fading."
Another Taliban official added: "Personally I am against a brick of Afghanistan being destroyed. It is very sad."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0301-04.htm
Empire USA is bombing into body parts babies like crazy,
showing itself to insane and absolutely crazy,
and you want to tell us about statues?
The destruction of the Buddhist monuments wasn't a good act, it shouldn't be committed. But I otherwise agree with you.
TRUTH ---- A CONSPIRACY THEORY
DARKNESS ---- A CONSPIRACY THEORY
For truth is light that forces the darkness to give way.
For darkness is an illusion of good hiding misery.
For darkness is a pretense of good hiding a liars intent
to enrich himself upon your misery.
Now the difference is, truth uses absolute things to
establish a conspiracy theory that is true without
exception or contradiction.
Whereas, darkness uses relative things to establish
a conspiracy theory that has one or more exceptions
or contradictions.
LAW OF ABSOLUTE LOGIC
Two things known to be true,
establish an unknown thing as equally true.
The results of self delusion are inverse and over time self correcting. The question is, can we survive the correction?
Self delusion is what our self-absorbed majority is suffering from.
The delusion that they deserve more, which gives them a guilt-free
conscience as they take all they can take.
A delusion that increases in direct proportion to wealth,
as the more they have the more they feel deserving of wealth.
And as they are the upper 51% of society with all the wealth,
how can such darkness ever be “over time self correcting”?
They are self correcting because delusion leads to breakdown and the mitigation of breakdown leads to corrective action. Time is the wildcard.