The Pakistani secret service, the ISI, helped create the Taliban and has been manipulating them ever since, even as Pakistan is supposedly a U.S. ally against the Taliban. For an Oct. 7 Wall Street Journal article "Pakistan Spy Agency Urges On Taliban," citing various sources to the effect that the ISI is telling the Taliban to go on fighting, not negotiate, click here. Recently the ISI  arrested some top Taliban leaders, including Abdul Baradar, to chastise them for negotiating with Afghan President Karzai behind Pakistan's back. The Pakistanis want to retain a strong influence over the Taliban in anticipation of the U.S. departure. It is beyond scary that the U.S. maintains the fantasy that Pakistan is an ally against the Taliban when it has long been obvious Pakistan is just playing the U.S. Click here for August 23 NYT's article by Dexter Filkins.  For an article by Eric Schmitt, also from the August 23 issue of the NYT's, about Afghan president Karzai defyng the U.S. over anti-corruption efforts, click here.  For a Wall Street Journal article on the talks going on between the Taliban, the ISI, Karzai, warlords, and the U.S. click here. For this site's page on U.S. policy in the Muslim world, which includes articles on how Pakistan agents sent nuclear technology and bomb plans to Iran, Lybia and North Korea, click here. Pakistan refused to let the U.S. investigate the Pakistani network of government agents that disseminated these materials under the leadership of Abdul Khan, who led the program to develop nuclear weapons and is revered as a hero by Pakistanis.

U.S. strategy for winning Kandahar (Afghanistan) is now less military, more political. LA Times, July 7, click here. The U.S. now says that the Afghan military and police cannot maintain against the Taliban after the U.S. leaves. The U.S. should have figured this out with respect to their overall strategy in Afghanistan a long time ago. Kabul's army is hopeless. Local police are just as bad. One problem is they get paid so little that they turn to extortion, like third world police everywhere. It is also clear that civilian government officials are as corrupt and as despised by the people as are the military and police. General Patraeus, who started the Awakening Councils in Afghanistan, which convinced many Sunni's to take part in the Shia-led government rather than continue as insurgents, has declared a program to cultivate local local militias. New York Times, July14, click here.

Click here for a short essay with links on the futility of  U.S. operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, given that the governments of Maliki, who seems to want a civil war in Iraq, and Karzai, who is a swaggering, corrupt nutcase despised by Afghans, will not survive after the U.S. leaves. Below is a Feb., 2010 picture of a crowd gathered to hear the Afghan forces declare that they have liberated Marja from the Taliban. Don't they look thrilled to know that the corrupt, cowardly, incompetent, abusive Kabul military, supported by the despised, abusive (household raids), civilian-slaughtering (airstrikes) U.S. military, has displaced the ruthless, merciless, despised Taliban?