Afghan Taliban say they pose no threat to the west

[FireFighter]

This statement comes at a time when Obama is contemplating on increasing troops to Afghanistan. Interesting, isn't it?

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KABUL: The Afghan Taliban pose no threat to the west but will continue their fight against occupying foreign forces, they said on Wednesday, the eighth anniversary of the US-led invasion that removed them from power.

US-led forces with the help of Afghan groups overthrew the Taliban government during a five week battle which started on October 7, 2001, after the militants refused to hand over al-Qaeda leaders wanted by Washington for the September 11 attacks on America.

‘We had and have no plan of harming countries of the world, including those in Europe...our goal is the independence of the country and the building of an Islamic state,’ the Taliban said in a statement on the group's website ? ????????? ?????? ?????.

‘Still, if you (Nato and US troops) want to colonise the country of proud and pious Afghans under the baseless pretext of a war on terror, then you should know that our patience will only increase and that we are ready for a long war.’

US President Barack Obama has said defeating the militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan is a top foreign policy priority and is evaluating whether to send thousands of extra troops to the country as requested by the commander of Nato and US forces.

In a review of the war in Afghanistan submitted to the Pentagon last month, US General Stanley McChrystal, in charge of all foreign forces, said defeating the insurgents would likely result in failure unless more troops were sent.

There are currently more than 100,000 foreign troops in the country, roughly two-thirds of who are Americans.

The Taliban statement comes at a time when western officials warn that deserting Afghanistan could mean a return to power for the Taliban and the country could once again become a safe haven for al-Qaeda militants, who could use it as a base to plan future attacks on western countries.

DAWN.COM | World | Afghan Taliban say they pose no threat to the west

 

[Righteous_Fire]

Afghan Taliban say, they "pose no threat to the West"​

The Afghan Taliban pose no threat to the West but will continue their fight against occupying foreign forces, they said on Wednesday, the eighth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion that removed them from power.

U.S.-led forces with the help of Afghan groups overthrew the Taliban government during a five week battle which started on October 7, 2001, after the militants refused to hand over al Qaeda leaders wanted by Washington for the September 11 attacks on America.

"We had and have no plan of harming countries of the world, including those in Europe ... our goal is the independence of the country and the building of an Islamic state," the Taliban said in a statement on the group's website.

"Still, if you (NATO and U.S. troops) want to colonize the country of proud and pious Afghans under the baseless pretext of a war on terror, then you should know that our patience will only increase and that we are ready for a long war."

U.S. President Barack Obama has said defeating the militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan is a top foreign policy priority and is evaluating whether to send thousands of extra troops to the country as requested by the commander of NATO and U.S. forces.

In a review of the war in Afghanistan submitted to the Pentagon last month, U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, in charge of all foreign forces, said defeating the insurgents would likely result in failure unless more troops were sent.

There are currently more than 100,000 foreign troops in the country, roughly two-thirds of who are Americans.

SAFE HAVEN​

The Taliban statement comes at a time when Western officials warn that deserting Afghanistan could mean a return to power for the Taliban and the country could once again become a safe haven for al Qaeda militants, who could use it as a base to plan future attacks on Western countries.

The Taliban have made a comeback in recent years, spreading their attacks to previously secure areas. The growing insecurity has further added to the frustration of ordinary Afghans with the West and President Hamid Karzai's government, in power since the Taliban's ouster.

Since 2001, each year, several thousand Afghans, many of them civilians, have been killed in Afghanistan, with Taliban and al Qaeda leaders still at large despite the rising number of foreign troops.

In the statement, the Taliban said the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan for its refusal to hand over al Qaeda leaders, was hasty and unjustified. Washington had not given leaders of the movement any proof to show the involvement of al Qaeda in the September 11 attacks, it said.

Washington was using the so-called war on terror in Afghanistan and in Iraq as part of its expansionist goals in the Middle East, central and southeast Asia, it said.

It recalled the defeat of British forces in the 19th century and the fate of the former Soviet Union in the 1980s in Afghanistan as a lesson to those nations who have troops in the country.

Qari Mohammad Yousuf, a spokesman for the Taliban, said the withdrawal of foreign troops was the only solution to a conflict that has grown in intensity and has pushed some European nations to refuse to send their soldiers into battle zones or to speak about a timetable to withdraw from the country.

Some 1,500 foreign troops have also died in Afghanistan since the Taliban's ouster causing many nations to question the presence of its soldiers in the country and whether stability can ever be achieved eight years after the overthrow of the militants.
​

Reuters; Breaking News

 

[BATMAN]

But they pose threat to popy cultivation!!!
Drug money fill pockets of many decsion makers, war support arms industry again money fills more pockets and IMF and world bank issue loans termed as aid and this enslave a nation and than foreign investors fly in and cheap local labor produce cheap things and EU and US make free trade agreement with that state and slam sanctions on countries who don't take loans or don't start war.
This is how cunning Western people have been enslaving the simple minded nations and Muslims are easy victims.

 

[BATMAN]

Afghan Taliban Not a Threat to U.S.

All hands on deck, Obama Nation. The ship of state is turning.

The New York Times reports:

President Obama's national security team is moving to reframe its war strategy by emphasizing the campaign against Al Qaeda in Pakistan while arguing that the Taliban in Afghanistan do not pose a direct threat to the United States, officials said Wednesday.
This shift means that President Obama will not have to approve General McChrystal's request for 40,000 more troops:

the shift in thinking, outlined by senior administration officials on Wednesday, suggests that the president has been presented with an approach that would not require all of the additional troops that his commanding general in the region has requested.
Finally, the Administration is going to distinguish between the Afghan Taliban, an indigenous Afghan movement with Afghan goals, and Al Qaeda, a global movement with a global agenda of attacking the United States:

"Clearly, Al Qaeda is a threat not only to the U.S. homeland and American interests abroad, but it has a murderous agenda," one senior administration official said in an interview initiated by the White House on Wednesday on the condition of anonymity because the strategy review has not been finished. "We want to destroy its leadership, its infrastructure and its capability."
The official contrasted that with the Afghan Taliban, which the administration has begun to define as an indigenous group that aspires to reclaim territory and rule the country but does not express ambitions of attacking the United States. "When the two are aligned, it's mainly on the tactical front," the official said, noting that Al Qaeda has fewer than 100 fighters in Afghanistan.

The Taliban cannot be removed from Afghanistan, Team Obama says:

The officials argued that while Al Qaeda was a foreign body, the Taliban could not be wholly removed from Afghanistan because they were too ingrained in the country.
As Team Obama shifts, we can expect vicious attacks from Republicans in Congress and sniping from some close to the military and some right-wing pundits.

But here's a key fact: the top official in the Obama Administration who is actually a leading scholar with long experience in Afghanistan is leading the charge against sending more troops.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Administration officials in the Biden camp fear they too could close off the path to a more peaceful resolution of the conflict if 40,000 more troops are sent. They believe most of the Taliban fighters, and some of their leaders, are neither hard-core, violent Islamists nor sympathetic to al Qaeda.
Some are nationalists trying to rid their country of foreigners. Some leaders are willing to flip sides depending on the deals on offer or the momentum on the ground. Many more are simply doing it for the money paid by Taliban leaders.

According to senior administration officials, among those pressing the case most effectively is Barnett Rubin, a top aide to Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special representative to the region.

If you've been reading Juan Cole's blog for some time, you probably know who Barnett Rubin is. Before he joined Holbrooke's team, he blogged at Juan Cole's "sister blog" Informed Comment Global Affairs.

Barnett Rubin actually knows something about Afghanistan. From New York University's website:

Barnett R. Rubin is Director of Studies and Senior Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation of New York University, where he directs the program on the Reconstruction of Afghanistan. He has worked at CIC since July 2000. During 1994-2000 he was Director of the Center for Preventive Action, and Director, Peace and Conflict Studies, at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Rubin was Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for the Study of Central Asia at Columbia University from 1990 to 1996. Previously, he was a Jennings Randolph Peace Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University.
Dr. Rubin is a Director of Gulestan Ariana Ltd., a private company manufacturing essential oils and related consumer products in Afghanistan. In November-December 2001 he served as special advisor to the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, during the negotiations that produced the Bonn Agreement. He advised the United Nations on the drafting of the constitution of Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Compact, and the Afghanistan National Development Strategy.

Dr. Rubin is the author of Blood on the Doorstep: the Politics of Preventing Violent Conflict (2002). He is also the author of The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System (2002; first edition 1995), Calming the Ferghana Valley: Development and Dialogue in the Heart of Central Asia (1999), Stabilizing Nigeria: Sanctions, Incentives, and Support for Civil Society (1998); Post-Soviet Political Order: Conflict and State Building (1998); Cases and Strategies for Preventive Action (1998); Toward Comprehensive Peace in Southeast Europe: Conflict Prevention in the South Balkans (1996), and The Search for Peace in Afghanistan: From Buffer State to Failed State (1995). Dr. Rubin has written numerous articles and book reviews on conflict prevention, state formation, and human rights. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Orbis, Survival, International Affairs, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New York Review of Books.

And apparently Barnett Rubin, a leading scholar on Afghanistan with long experience in the country, is counseling President Obama against sending 40,000 more troops.

Many hoped that in the Obama Administration, actual knowledge about reality would take precedence over ideology. Perhaps this New York Times report suggests that actual knowledge about Afghanistan is about to trump the dogmas of military counterinsurgency theory.

Godspeed, Barney Rubin. From your mouth to Obama's ear.


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Read more at: Robert Naiman: Team Obama: Afghan Taliban Not a Threat to U.S.

 

[BATMAN]

WTF.....
Does this means all claims of Taliban reported in media were fake!

 

[BATMAN]

Obama shifting focus to Al Qaeda over Taliban

Reporting from Washington - President Obama and his top advisors are moving toward a strategy on Afghanistan that defines Al Qaeda as a greater threat to U.S. security than the Taliban, a view that could help them avoid the major troop increase sought by military commanders.

The evolving strategy represents a subtle shift for the administration, which has considered Osama bin Laden's network its top enemy while viewing the Taliban as a close ally of Al Qaeda that supports its ambitions. White House officials now are taking pains to make distinctions between the two groups, branding Al Qaeda a global terrorist group and the Taliban a local movement.

Such a strategy could let U.S.-led forces concentrate on their successful strategy of using unmanned aircraft and missile strikes against Al Qaeda operatives and outposts in the remote region along the Afghan-Pakistani border.


A senior administration official indicated that in the fight against the Taliban, at a minimum the extremists would not be allowed to regain the strength to control Afghanistan or offer help to Al Qaeda, whose leadership is thought to be based in Pakistan.

"Are they violent adversaries? Yes," the official wrote of the Taliban in an e-mail exchange. "And we would not tolerate their return to power as they were before 9/11."

The new emphasis rekindled an 8-year-old debate about how closely Al Qaeda and the Taliban are aligned. Many experts agree they are distinct, but others see them as virtually interchangeable sets of militants.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration considered Al Qaeda a "global, transnational, jihadist movement" that has attacked the U.S. before and would again.

The Taliban, meanwhile, is an "indigenous" movement centered in Afghanistan and Pakistan that includes "homegrown political actors with localized ambitions and concerns," the senior administration official said.

In comments this summer, Obama indicated that the administration saw a link between the two groups.

In an address Aug. 17 to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Obama said:

"We must never forget. This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which Al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans."

Bruce Riedel, a CIA veteran who led the Obama administration's overhaul of its Afghanistan and Pakistan policies this year, said it was "a fundamental misreading of the nature of these organizations to think that they are anything other than partners."

"Al Qaeda is embedded in the Taliban insurgency, and it's highly unlikely that you're going to be able to separate them," he said.

Obama meets today with national security advisors as part of his review of Afghanistan strategy, and officials said he is at least a week away from any decisions on a new U.S. policy or troop levels. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has recommended sending up to 40,000 American troops, in addition to the 68,000 already there.

Top administration officials are skeptical about sending so many troops without a close examination of U.S. aims. That view has been influenced by a series of dismal developments, including the extremist violence in Afghanistan, a fraud-tainted presidential election there, and plummeting support for the war among the U.S. public and lawmakers.

Influential Democrats on Capitol Hill have expressed unease about a strategy that requires a major increase in the number of troops. But it is far from clear that they would undercut Obama by refusing an administration request for funds to pay for the conflict.

"People are unsure what do to," said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), a critic of the war who gathered more than 50 signatures on a letter to Obama opposing a troop increase. "I think people want to give the president more space and wait for his decision. But I thought it was important to try to send something to him before a final decision is made to let him know there is a lot of concern."

Daniel Markey, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the White House emphasis on Al Qaeda may be a sign that the administration is unlikely to send the full complement of troops sought by McChrystal. The views of Al Qaeda and the Taliban are "presumably an argument for why a heavy emphasis on Afghanistan and the Taliban is misplaced," said Markey, a former State Department official.

The Taliban inserted itself into the debate this week by posting a statement in English on one of its websites asserting that the group poses no threat to the West.
"We did not have any agenda to harm other countries, including Europe, nor do we have such agenda today," said the statement, according to a report in the British newspaper the Guardian. "Still, if you want to turn the country of the proud and pious Afghans into a colony, then know that we have an unwavering determination and have braced for a prolonged war."

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, in an appearance at George Washington University this week, said it was unclear whether Al Qaeda would move back into Afghanistan if given the opportunity.

But he added, "There's no question in my mind that if the Taliban . . . took control of significant portions of Afghanistan, that would be added space for Al Qaeda to strengthen itself and [begin] more recruitment, more fundraising."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton views the Taliban as a foe as well.

"They're not just a threat to the people of Afghanistan," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Thursday. "The Taliban hosted and encouraged Al Qaeda. And the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- the idea for them -- was hatched in the Taliban-run Afghanistan. So I think that we do see the Taliban as a threat to U.S. security for that reason."

A strategy centered on eliminating extremist enclaves in Pakistan carries additional risks. Though the U.S. and the Pakistani government have been successful in killing senior insurgents, U.S. officials acknowledge that they have limited influence in Pakistan. The U.S. strategy of using drone airstrikes there is deeply unpopular with Pakistanis.

This week, even U.S. aid sparked controversy. Pakistani political figures and military leaders were offended by the strings attached to a just- approved $1.5-billion-a-year aid package, and some have been pressing for revision of the U.S. legislation.

cparsons@latimes.com

paul.richter@latimes.com