Taliban warn Obama: Leave Afghanistan

[Adsos Letter]

Source: Christian Science Monitor
by David Montero
posted January 21, 2009 at 10:15 am EST

As President Barack Obama steps into the White House and into history, the Taliban have a message for him: Leave Afghanistan.

"The insurgent Taliban said Wednesday that US President Barack Obama should learn from the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan and pull his troops out of the country to allow Afghans to decide their own fate," reports The News, a popular English-language daily in Pakistan.

"We have no problem with Obama," a spokesman for the extremist Islamist movement after the inauguration of the new US president. However, "he must learn lessons from and before that the Soviets," Yousuf Ahmadi said by telephone.

Their remarks come as militants in neighboring Pakistan widened a bloody campaign in the country's North West Frontier Province, blowing up girls' schools and engaging in pitched battles with Pakistani military forces.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0121/p99s01-duts.html

[leftstreet]

1. Opium

Obama to State Dept employees today:

"The American people and the international community must understand that the situation is perilous and progress will take time. Violence is up dramatically in Afghanistan. A deadly insurgency has taken deep root. The opium trade is far and away the largest in the world."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/22/AR2009012202550.html

[shintao]

2. Cripes! Don't give up the Opium!!!

It's been business as usual in Afghanistan and Just Say No never caught on. So who is supplying the taliban with the weapons and ammo? China?

[leftstreet]

3. LOL The CIA is telling the Taliban to tell the M$M that Iran is supplying the weapons

:crazy:

Welcome to the new wars, same as the old wars.

[angrycarpenter]

4. This one issue where I don't really know where to stand.

I am anti war but this has the potential to overthrow Pakistan and give the Taliban the nukes. Should we have a surge? Should we destroy Pakistan's nukes? Obama's toughest decisions lie in this place where we should have already come and gone.

[napoleon_in_rags]

5. Stand with the world on it.

That's who I think should deal with it. Unilateralism is another one of the Bush dogmas I think might be getting flushed soon here.

[EFerrari]

6. The nukes are safe for the moment with the establishment military.

The Taliban mostly operates in the hinterlands and is not a threat to those weapons. They do want territory, though. That's the real problem there. And, there is an Afghan Taliban and a Pakistani Taliban. They're somewhat networked but not the same guys.

The bottom line for me is that there is no military solution in Afghanistan. We either help them walk out of the 19th century or we don't. Those seem to be the choices.

[ConsAreLiars]

8. Continuing to kill Afghans only strengthens the religious righties there

and in Pakistan. If you are really interested in learning more, the Wikipedia entry has a lot of information, which I recommend, but for a more direct view, take a look at the photos at http://www.lukepowell.com/ . And for a personal view (mine) read through the relevant entries in my journal.

The short version of the answer to you question is that killing more of them is neither just nor effective. The people there are no less human than you or me or our families. And not killing them is less likely to encourage them to kill back than continuing to kill them.

[SpartanDem]

7. Somehow I doubt

that Afghans consider being threatened to remove their daughters from school or be killed deciding their own fate. This is the war we should've been fighting all along. Now clearly the military can't solve the entire situation, it's going take a huge international humanitarian effort to rebuild the country. But to leave the country and let these disgusting, repressive assholes takeover again would be wrong.