The Dignity of Moral Indignation

Pakistan is well and truly fed up. Their faultless assistance to the West in the interests of halting international jihad has been questioned once too often. Pakistan has made many sacrifices, all of them for naught, since the innuendos and accusations continue to mount. While Pakistan must continue to protect itself from the slurs and the slanders it has undergone in the process a humiliating and undeserved blow from its erstwhile partner in the war on terror.

Pakistan's parliamentarians will no longer facilitate American-led operations in their country. For their sovereignty has been breached once too often, and they have no intention of absorbing any further, future insults on this magnitude of order and insult. The adventure that blind-sided Pakistan's military and its secret service must never be permitted to repeat itself; the U.S. raid that culminated in the death of Osama bin Laden was intolerable.

What self-respecting country could, after all, abide the insult to its lawful autonomy suffered by Pakistan as a result of the "situation arising for unilateral U.S. action in Abbottabad". No consultation, no assistance requested, no permission to invade sovereign territory - unsupportable, insufferable, hubristic scorn of a trusted friend and staunch ally.

As for the drone strikes which Pakistan has made known at the very highest levels of American authority that it will no longer tolerate: "Such drone attacks must be stopped forthwith, failing which the government will be constrained to consider taking necessary steps including withdrawal of (the) transit facility allowed to NATO".

Now that's hitting them where it counts. It's been done before, on a strictly petulantly temporary basis, but this time it will be a permanent withdrawal of agreement - should NATO and specifically the United States not deign to apologize and to withhold from future such strikes. The NATO troop supplies transiting across the northwestern border crossings already under militant attacks may be withdrawn.

What then, NATO? Complete withdrawal of NATO troops, a suitable conclusion for all concerned. And then, of course, Afghanistan will be at the complete mercy of the Afghan Taliban, trained, protected, armed and given haven by official Pakistan which never dreamed that their own Pakistani Taliban would arise to offer them untold grief.

Still, with the Afghan Taliban back in place, Pakistan would be assured that its plans to possess its neighbour's 'trust', turning off any potential inroads by its political nemesis India, might very well eventuate. And then, emboldened by success, Pakistan could then return its attention to booting India out of Kashmir. And from there forward - who knows?

Perhaps it would be a matter of effectively striking India with nuclear weaponry before that country had the opportunity to respond with alacrity; that the damage done India would suffice to lend Pakistan the ultimate advantage....

Devious to the end ... and the end is deadly.

How Corrupt?

Is anyone naive enough to think that there was no government hand in the prison tunnel break-out in Kabul?

President Hamid Karzai is intent on eventually driving an existential, government-sharing bargain with the Taliban. He really does believe that he is capable of surviving any such agreement. It would represent an indication of his 'good-will' toward the Taliban were he to be known as having permitted political prisoners, Taliban, to negotiate their freedom.

That no one might have been alerted to the presence of the scheme, none of the details revealed and shared, the reconnaissance, the physical effort of burrowing under a major highway, with the escape of almost 500 prisoners, a time-consuming, all-night occurrence of amazing success. Initiated five months earlier, the lengthy passage was 360 meters in length.

No hint of activity ever noticed by prison guards, as construction of the tunnel was ongoing, even though it was dug beneath various police checkpoints. And right into a prison cell. With the knowledge, so the exultant Taliban claim, of only three inmates. The exfiltration of prisoners began at 11:00 p.m. and took all night.

The following morning, at 7:30 a.m. a member of the Kandahar Provincial Council, Haji Agha Lali Dastagiri, was fielding telephone calls about the prison break. When he sought further information, contacting high-placed government officials, they were completely unaware of what was occurring. They said.

“I would call this a shameful incident for the Afghan government,” says Ahmad Shah Khan Achakzai, a former member of parliament in Kandahar. “It is impossible for the Taliban to get 500 men out of prison without anyone’s help. I believe there are some people from the prison or the government who gave the Taliban support.… It’s now clear to everyone how corrupt the government is.”

The government of Canada spent $5-million a few years back, fortifying the prison. After another, earlier prison break-out of Taliban prisoners.

NATO plans to leave Afghanistan after having trained the national police and the Afghan military in the finer points of applying military expertise to defending the country against the Taliban, purportedly. Claiming that they will leave the situation of the country's security in good hands.

Strong Stands Against Terrorism

Why would Canada's relationship with Colonel Moammar Gadhafi have been any different than that of Canada's allies? The Western world reacted in lock-step horror after the monumental disbelief that overtook everyone, witnessing by remote the unspeakable carnage and convulsive destruction that fanatical ideological religious hatred was capable of producing.

And when the Western world recognized through the conclusive evidence that soon followed that the incendiary hatred of jihadists through the efforts of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda was directed without equivocation at all vestiges of "Western imperialism" traditionally feasting off the natural resources of the Arabian Peninsula as violent jihad stated, they joined in a self-protective phalanx of security.

Muslim countries took notice, and some, like Libya, decided that it would volunteer to give up its nuclear program initiated courtesy of Pakistan's Q.Khan and offer to co-operate with the West since it too was struggling with the fanatical extremists in Libya motivated by political Islam, not matching the violent ideological "socialism" that Moammar Gadhafi espoused linked to his own resentment of the colonialist West.

So there we were, in the wake of full knowledge of Libya's former investment in funding, inciting and spreading violence against the West exemplified by the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 with the Canadian military, under the influence of Britain, France, Italy and the U.S., viewing Libya as a willing and helpful bulwark against al-Qaeda, a mutual enemy of Libya.

Much was forgiven Libya when Gadhafi agreed to pay restitution to the families of those who died in the Lockerbie bombing. France and England sold advanced weaponry to their new ally against Islamist extremism, and British special forces trained Libya's government troops. The irony cannot be lost on many that Gadhafi blamed al-Qaeda for the popular uprising in his country.

This time around, however, as a result of his tyrannical and brutal repression of a popular peoples' revolt, the tide has turned and the former allies have been busying themselves urging the the UN, NATO, the African Union and the Arab League join forces in the just support of the peoples' rebellion in Libya to enable human rights to prevail.

The jaunty self-assurance of the rebels insisted initially there was no need for foreign intervention on the ground though they would appreciate the courtesy of some assistance in detaining Libyan warplanes and helicopter gunships from decimating their numbers as they steadily advanced on Tripoli.

Canada's Department of National Defence, echoing the attitudes of other NATO member-countries, no longer views Gadhafi as a front-line defence against radical Islam. Canadian warplanes are flying missions over Libya along with a few other NATO member-nations, and Qatar. And the U.S. has added more accurate, low-flying unmanned drones to the armoury.

And, confoundingly to NATO and its members, al-Qaeda in eastern Libya, long viewed by Gadhafi as an Islamist stronghold, continues to provide the rebels with recruitment, training and other assistance in the battle against the government. While al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is taking the opportunity to take possession of surface-to-air missiles and other looted military equipment from government munition stores in rebel-controlled areas.

Which weaponry will most certainly continue to be trafficked out of Libya, taken to safe sites like Yemen and stockpiled for future use against the infidel crusaders who are even now occupying yet another Muslim country for their own nefarious needs.

This is an old story, seen countless times before, where merging, supporting then fractured alliances come back to haunt the West in its attempts to make common cause with the East.

Reforming The Taliban

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai loves all his people. His people also comprise the Taliban. They have no love for him.

But President Karzai is well aware that time is running down where he can depend on the international community to sacrifice its military on behalf of his government. Training of the national police and the Afghanistan military by foreign military associated with NATO and the UN ISAF mission is ongoing and it is hoped that Afghans will finally be able to cope on their own in controlling violent jihadists among them.

The Taliban believe otherwise. They have nothing but contempt for Karzai, his corrupt instruments of administration, and his police and his military. Covertly they have proven themselves quite capable of infiltrating both the military and the police. In uniform as trainees or as simple impostors they have continued their jihadist agenda of wreaking vengeance against foreign interlopers, with Afghans in uniform turning against their foreign trainers.

Three police chiefs have been assassinated thus far, in Kandahar, along with a governor of the province in Kunduz - and police stations are continually being assaulted, new recruits slaughtered. Some of these attacks are not successful, many more are; some are "martyrdom" attacks, and with some the attackers successfully escape to go on to other exploits as Talib faithful.

The Taliban show no mercy, quite capable of the task they have set themselves, attacking and murdering villagers whom they suspect of working with foreign forces, laying traps for foreign forces through the expert manufacture and placing of improvised explosive devices, and withdrawing over the border to sanctuary within the mountainous badlands of Pakistan to regroup and spend the winter before beginning spring assaults.

When they lose members there are always more, eager new recruits to take their place, to be trained and energized in the struggle of the mujahadeen against the foreign elements who have once again invaded their country. A Taliban by the name of Toor Jan was recently interviewed for the National Post by Brian Hutchinson, in Kandahar City.

This commander of the Taliban troops decided he would take advantage of President Karzai's appeal to the militantly violent 'scholars' that if they abandoned their war with Afghanistan they would be welcomed back to normal society, given good employment and protection, cars and housing. Jan was actively involved manufacturing and setting IEDs at a time that Canadian forces were installed in Kandahar. During the 7 years he fought there, 126 Canadian soldiers died.

"We seized opportunities. Sometimes we ambushed. We would sit in a trench, waiting for the foreigners to approach, and then attack. Then we would run away fast, so they had no chance to counterattack. Sometimes we succeeded, sometimes we failed. But the IEDs were fantastic. We would plant them in areas where we knew the foreign troops were coming, and when they came we would just blow them up. From Iran we received RPGs and machine guns."

He described also how he and his men had no compunction about beheading 26 Afghan civilians in a small village. Encouraging them through fear and lies to join them, or at least not to betray their activities to the foreign soldiers. "We told them the foreigners were destroying their houses, their fields, their orchards, and killing their children. That is why the people became angry against them. They became violent against them."

That made recruitment among the villagers far easier. "We had 60 groups of Taliban fighters in Panjwaii. Each group had five to ten Talibs, and they were spread around the district. When we lost someone more fighters would arrive to take their place." He was himself so successful at what he did, he was given the post of district commander.

Finally he decided that the ongoing slaughter on both sides accomplished nothing at all for Afghans and Afghanistan. "The benefits only go to neighbouring countries. The sufferers and the casualties are Afghans. So I decided to switch sides. I heard about this reconciliation process. The government claimed that anyone who comes forward will be saved and can live in Afghanistan in peace."

Although he took part in the interview, and he was candidly clear about what he had done, with no apologies, no hesitation about revealing the atrocities he was involved with, he clearly felt he had nothing to apologize for, even while speaking to a representative of a foreign country, many of whose soldiers he had personally gone out of his way to kill.

But he was clearly less than satisfied with the bargain he had made with the government of Afghanistan. He was under Taliban threat, and had no bodyguards. ISAF had arrested one of his men who had surrendered with him, and his brother remains imprisoned. These are the factions of a country that is expecting that reconciliation will finalize a peace.

Once Again, Into The Maelstrom

Escaping battle and improvised explosive devices in Kandahar, which has already killed 155 Canadian soldiers, a Canadian news reporter and a diplomat, the Canadian military is preparing to send into the relatively safer precincts of Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif a select group of Canadian soldiers to train Afghanistan soldiers in the finer points of Western-style battle techniques.

In the treacherous atmosphere of a country riven by tribal antipathies, sectarian violence and the Islamist political ideologies of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, regrouping and gaining strength even as the clock ticks down to NATO member-countries planning to send their troops back home, the plan is to ensure that the Afghan police and Afghanistan's military become capable of defending their own.

Language difficulties, endemic corruption, security breached by suicide bombers, illiteracy - all conspire to make the job very difficult indeed. But NATO requires military trainers around that large geography bordering on Pakistan - where in the lawless tribal mountainous areas both the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban have safe haven - be available to teach military techniques of prime value to Afghan recruits.

There, where the foreign military trainers are stationed in various provinces of Afghanistan, the areas are more secure, less likely to be hosting IEDs. Rather, there is the potential of infiltration among the recruits by Taliban and al-Qaeda, posing as military recruits, and mounting attacks on their trainers when situations permit.

Risks are reduced considerably in the new initiatives to train before departing. But no military personnel sent out to do their duty on behalf of NATO can be entirely assured that they are in safe territory in Afghanistan. Any time a crazed or blistering angry Christian decides to burn a Koran in emulation of Muslims trashing and burning churches, the local populace feels entitled to rampage and target Western Christians for abusing Islam.

That aside, it is the Afghan soldiers on their own recognizance, or those mujahadeen posing as Afghan soldiers, deciding to obey their Islamist-jihad conscience rather than their Muslim leaders' dictates, deciding to kill foreigners, including those humanitarians working out of United Nations posts, the Canadian military has got to be aware of.

The Peoples' War

They were described as ordinary people, store owners, doctors, lawyers, clerks. People with one thing in common. They were fed up with living in a police state ruled by a tyrant with little resort to basic human rights and they weren't prepared to take it any longer. They had the example of Egypt, their populous neighbour in North Africa which had undergone a successful revolt of the ordinary people against their far more tolerant dictator.

And before Egypt, Tunisia.

So why not Libya? The rulers of Egypt and Tunisia had some compunction about conducting a reprisal campaign of mass murder against their own people. Their own ruler is possessed of a far less troublesome conscience. He was and is more than prepared to sacrifice as many Libyan lives as necessary to beat back the revolutionary zeal. The initial days of the rebels' attacks against government forces were surprisingly successful.

Encouraging the rebels to forge on, determined to reach success and eventually Tripoli, to unseat Moammar Gadhafi, his family and his supporters. Encouraged even further by the defection of key government ministers, diplomats and military personnel. They were on a roll to successfully combating Gadhafi and his forces and reaching the victory of the deserving.

The outside world looking on was perturbed at what they saw and what they anticipated was yet to come. A certain slaughter of civilians. So France and Britain urged the UN Security Council to condemn Moammar Gadhafi and to exact sanctions. And finally a no-fly zone, which China and Russia abstained from voting for, but did not defeat.

The rebels were overjoyed, knowing that foreign intervention in the form of fly-overs that would target government planes, helicopters, armoured vehicles and tanks that were bombing, strafing and attacking them would decimate the Libyan armaments. They were equally adamant that they had no wish to see foreign troops on their land.

This was their war, and they would be more than adequate in numbers and determination to successfully prosecute it.

That was then, when they were fully confident, fully zealous and fully motivated to their task. Now, the Libyan rebels who cheered on lustily with news that NATO had taken over responsibility for enforcing and co-ordinating the no-fly zone and wiping up Col. Gadhafi's mechanized artillery, are well and truly embattled.

And bitter that the advantage they anticipated would result from NATO intervention has not yet won the war for them.

While the intervention has enabled them to certain advantages, the successfully aggressive push-back from government forces has disabled their progress. And they are now accusing the NATO-led air mission of not sufficiently aiding them. While NATO's chief of allied operations claims the alliance is doing all it can to protect civilians under the UN mandate, the rebels are bitter.

They are furious over their loss of territory at the advance of government troops; the loyalists' artillery barrages are too fast and furious for them, causing them to fall back from their early advances. This is a stinging reversal. "There is no revolution without setbacks", sighed a spokesman for the Transitional National Council.

Which hasn't stopped them from berating NATO for not accelerating attacks and bailing them out of their dilemma.

What If?

It's not all that far a stretch of probability. It happened in Afghanistan with the U.S. and Pakistan conspiring to aid the mujahadeen, training and arming them to confront Soviet forces in the invasion of Afghanistan. And those mujahadeen formed the core of the Taliban which then ruled Afghanistan when the Soviet troops left.

And from among the mujahadeen another corps was formed, that of al-Qaeda. The alliance between the Taliban and al-Qaeda was a natural one.

And the flaming enmity of al-Qaeda toward the West and specifically the United States became the most evident turning point of the Islamist revival. Which has since spread incorrigibly throughout the Muslim world. The Islamists have succeeded in overturning moderate Islam to reflect a fundamentalist, fanatic version of Islam which conducted its own internal war within the ummah.

Islamists who fought in Afghanistan were recruited from all over the Muslim and Arab world. Many of them returned to their source, and one of those sources was eastern Libya. In 2009 a Canadian intelligence report described eastern Libya as an "epicentre of Islamist extremism", where "extremist cells" were well represented.

Canada's Integrated Threat Assessment Centre identified "several Islamist insurgent groups" based in mosques in Benghazi, urging its members to fight in Iraq. They are suspected of having infiltrated the ranks of the rebel forces now battling Moammar Gadhafi's forces. And, like a nightmare recurring, the United States, Britain , France and Qatar are considering arming the rebels.

A recently-convened conference of 40 governments and international bodies reached agreement to continue the NATO-led aerial bombing of Libyan forces, hoping to force Gadhafi to comply with the United Nations resolution to end its violence against its civilians. The conflict in Libya is between the West and the East of the country; a tribal conflict.

In many of the cities that rebound from government control to rebel occupation and then back again, there are citizens who battle on the government side, against the rebel forces. This is a country that has been riven by clan warfare and tribal antipathies, a reflection of what exists in every Arab and Muslim country globally.

It is into this melee that the West has intervened, focusing on the presence of a maniacal tyrant determined to continue his personal ownership of a country, violating the human rights of his own exploited people, celebrating his ownership of the proceeds of the country's natural resources. In the West this is considered moral anathema; in the Middle East it reflects tradition.

International aid agencies are on the scene, concerned that the conflict has cut off medical supplies, water, electricity and food to countless civilians. The focus of concern from within the international community and the reason for their involvement has been the security and safety of the civilian population. But the civilian population appears fractionated by loyalties, further complicating matters.

And through all of this, while the West and their Arab and African state allies remain anxious to have Western powers involved and commit to what they will not, Moammar Gadhafi keeps insisting that he is concerned for his peoples' welfare: "Stop your brutal and unjust attack on our country ... Hundreds of Libyans are being killed because of this bombardment. Massacres are being mercilessly committed against the Libyan people."

And on their part, the spokesmen for the rebels deny al-Qaeda links, despite damning admissions seen elsewhere. And the head of the U.S. European Command informs the U.S. Senate that American intelligence on rebel forces, while demonstrating some involvement of al-Qaeda or Hezbollah, they are lacking "detail sufficient to say there is a significant al-Qaeda presence."

Just Too Precious

What a coalition this is! Western powers and a few Arab countries united in opposition to Moammar Gadhafi's determination to remain in power and to punish those of his people with the temerity to oppose his continued rule. The united front is anything but united. It is fractious and querulous.

While France and Britain took the initiative with huge umbrage at the prospect of Gadhafi targeting his own people with wild brutality, insisting that the United Nations pass a resolution for a no-fly zone as a humanitarian necessity, they rely on the fire-power of the United States.

The United States, willing enough to be involved - but unwilling this time around to be the presumptive leader where it remains a target of Arab loathing for interfering in the affairs of Middle Eastern countries in its zeal to protect its oil interests - awaits leadership from elsewhere.

Standing ready and eager to hand that leadership over to France, to Britain, to NATO. But NATO's participation requires all 28 of its members to agree. And Turkey, the sole Muslim member of NATO, is abrasively resistant to NATO's involvement in the battering and bombing of Libya.

Along with China and Russia, both of whom have their own internal dissents to cope with. Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has described the Allied bombing of Libya's military as "indiscriminate force", as "a medieval call for a crusade". No one has mentioned Russia's brutal incursion into Georgia and its support of South Ossetia.

China for its part, describes the air strikes on Libya as comparable to "the blood-soaked tempests that Iraq has undergone for eight years and the unspeakable suffering of its people". No one has made any mention of the blood-soaked tempests in Tibet and the unspeakable suffering of the Tibetans with the loss of their culture, their heritage, their lives. And perhaps that is just as well.

The Arab League has now back-tracked on its complaints that in calling for the United Nations to authorize a no-fly zone, it had no intention of seeing civilians killed - as they contend was occurring under the coalition attacks. It has now re-affirmed its commitment to ensuring that mad-dog Gadhafi no longer wages war on his own.

Although that sentiment has not yet been communicated to Moammar Gadhafi and his forces are busily engaged doing just that.

Italy now threatens to take back control of its air bases. Italy doesn't mind being militarily subservient and at the service of the United States' forces, but it takes umbrage at being used and taken-for-granted by France and by Great Britain. Italy foresees the feasibility of NATO taking charge in the absence of American leadership.

Germany, along with Turkey, has no wish to see NATO involved. That would force Berlin to backtrack on its refusal to become involved in the entire inconvenient mess.

And so, what's the agenda? Protection of the rebels? The long shilly-shallying until the Arab League decided to back a no-fly option gave the Gadhafi regime ample opportunity to strengthen and consolidate its resources, and weaken the initial successful advance of the rebels.

What happens if there is a stand-off between the government forces and the rebels? And a division of the country ensues? Leaving Gadhafi in control of the north, the rebels the south. That would result in a waiting game. The coalition will not be around forever. And the battle will re-commence.

And here's a funny thing; the coalition heads of state all favour the elimination of Moammar Gadhafi. That he flee with his family, which he is not inclined to do, or that he be 'eliminated', which is to say dispatched, or rather assassinated, or killed by bombing. The bombing of his compound did not succeed in dispatching him.

And while the heads of state anticipate his removal by means fair and foul, it is their military chiefs who want no part of anything like that, considering it to be an 'unwise' move, and not within their mandate.

Isn't that just too precious?

Afghanistan Belongs to Afghans

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has experienced yet another of his fed-up moments. He had previously ordered private security operators out of Afghanistan. That did create somewhat of a problem for the foreign entities present who relied on those operators, as well as the NGOs who also hired them for security and protection amidst the violence that continues to prevail in the country.

President Karzai does appreciate, he says now and again, the efforts extended on the part of NATO and international humanitarian groups on behalf of his country's stability and security. He would dearly love to see them depart, but is yet dependent on their presence for his own longevity.

Yet he is also prepared to speak with the Taliban, covertly and overtly, to bargain and make co-governing overtures to them. None of which have as yet been accepted.

Currently, foreign troops consider the most valuable aspect of their operations in the country to be represented by a newer initiative; the provincial reconstruction teams. Where, they feel, they have the opportunity to ensure that remote villages are kept safe from the Taliban, where they aid in building schools and medical clinics, and general civil infrastructure.

In short, the kinds of activities that any responsible, self-respecting government would normally undertake on its own initiative, ably representing the needs of the people they govern. But which the Government of Afghanistan has been abysmally incapable of doing, let alone providing any measure of security.

But now, he has decided that those activities should come to a halt. He bridles at having been by-passed, that his government stands idly by while other countries perform the vital tasks the population in 27 of the country's 34 provinces require to have faith in their future, absent the Taliban, still resolutely lingering.

"Afghanistan belongs to Afghans", he fulminated at a news conference in Kabul. "Afghans don't want government from abroad. Afghans don't want a European government. Afghans don't want an American government. Afghans don't want a Pakistan government. Afghans don't want an Iranian government."

Most assuredly. Wouldn't we all love to have Afghanistan rule itself and take responsibility for its own security. Wouldn't all the foreign elements now in place there anxiously await the relief that departure from that geography would endow them with. An Afghan government ready and capable of looking after its own.

Over to you now, President Karzai.

How Germany's Euro economic angst could disturb strategic considerations.

There is a very interesting report on EurActiv, linked here, titled Central European fears and the German 'question mark' which concludes with the following paragraphs:

The lack of guarantees extends beyond the American obsession with the Middle East. Central Europeans are having difficulty finding another Western European power, outside of Sweden, with an ear for their security concerns. They feel they need to counter Russia on their own, with limited backup.

There is always Germany, which Central Europeans should theoretically be able to turn to for support. At least on paper, Berlin is an EU and NATO ally. However, specific to the Central European fears — and a reality that is rarely spoken publicly in Central Europe — is the fact that Germany is becoming unhinged from the Cold War-era institutions.

Russia may be the obvious security threat, but it is Germany's evolving role — and, crucially, its warming relations with Moscow — that troubles Warsaw and other Central European capitals, most precisely because it is unclear which way Berlin is heading. Or, as Araud put it in 2007, Germany may have been 'America's model ally' during the Cold War, but it is quickly becoming a 'question mark'.

The mis-governance in the economic sphere now evident on both sides of the Atlantic will become ever more dangerous when such stunning incompetence is seen to spread to more critical areas of concern!

Patronage Supreme

"With his legitimacy in question and his hold on power more tenuous by the day, Karzai now spends much of his time juggling the competing interests of his family, regional commanders, wealthy powerbrokers and international stakeholders.
"This precarious balancing act in which corruption and patronage reign supreme has neutralized the president's potency and hindered government reform." International Crisis Group: "Afghanistan: Exit vs Engagement"

If there is anyone who is conflicted in every sense of the word; emotionally, morally, ideologically, ethically, it is Afghan president Hamid Karzai. He is an impotent nationalist in a country that is not a nation, a monumentally concerned leader incapable of taking the helm as a credible leader, a paranoid psyche who cannot identify which turn his agenda should be taking to benefit the country, instead conferring benefits to his family, supporters, companions, political peers.

There is nothing new in any of this. Years ago he petulantly informed NATO that he will be friendly with whom he chooses, and he chose to greet Iran as a good neighbour and future support when NATO departs. He cannot possibly be ignorant of the knowledge that official Iran tasks members of its elite Republican Guard to train the Taliban, to provide it with weapons, including IED materials.

Yet President Karzai embarks on state visits to NATO countries to implore them to remain in his country, to help him defeat the insurgent, resurgent Taliban, and in the process please render increased financial aid, preferably directly to his coffers. So that his vice-president can be tasked with carrying tens of millions into Dubai, so patronage and bribes can be doled out to his supporters and the parliamentary war lords already rich with the avails of the poppy fields.

While Iran plots to increase its influence in Afghanistan, and hands over cash-stuffed valises through diplomatic interaction, and President Karzai jovially entertains his honoured guest Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on state visits where they mutually declare undying faith in one another's administrations, NATO soldiers and Afghan children die by IED roadside explosions.

The Taliban destroy schools and medical clinics that the international community funds and humanitarian groups build, and President Karzai toys with the notion of sharing governance with them.

The urban centres of Afghanistan enjoying a relaxed new standard of living, and President Karzai agrees to implement laws that fiercely Islamist Shia Afghan groups insist their women abide by, requiring the wearing of all-encompassing burqas, and that women submit to the reality of 'enjoying' conjugal rights with their husbands, no options other, under any circumstances.

Canada's ambassador in Kabul admits to fury at the level of unreconstructed corruption in the Karzai government, in the elections, in the nonsensical decision-making in the face of NATO sacrifices in human life and nations' treasuries invested in a dysfunctionally dismal administration, warning that Mr. Karzai "continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden, whether defence, governance or development."

Finally, with the illicit release of classified U.S. government diplomatic documents, the potential for an enraged Karzai to sunder his dependence on NATO - the funnelling of cash and incentives, the foreign-based humanitarian work, the addiction to luxurious villas and vehicles for his colleagues and family aside - concerns the U.S. as likely fallout. Where the U.S. had stifled its outrage and contempt for Karzai, it is now in the public realm.

The pretense of the NATO diplomats and governments that all is well, and that there is nothing concerning them other than the push into the near future to ensure Afghanistan is capable of standing on its own, is now in the tender balance of possible collapse. The question being, will Karzai swallow his rage and chagrin and focus instead on what he may still purloin to advantage his family, or decree that NATO decamp?

Reformation of Afghan Aid Mechanisms

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has long agitated for international funding to go directly to his government. It would, after all, make sense for international donors to directly fund government initiatives, giving it more credibility with the population once the government is seen to be fulfilling its role in adequately governing. As matters stand, international funding is funnelled primarily through international groups set up within the country to provide needed services, and the ISAF countries fund their own programs, permitting relatively modest amounts to go directly to the Afghan government.

At the recently-concluded Lisbon G20 meeting which Hamid Karzai was invited to attend, he made yet another sincere pitch for direct funding, recommending that at least 50% of pledged international funding go to his government. Prime Minister Stephen Harper had other ideas and did not shirk from directly addressing the topic. He made it quite clear that he and his government had no intention of directing funding to the Karzai government at this time. Due consideration would be given to the request when Mr. Karzai was able to prove that he has finally tackled his country's endemic corruption.

More to the point, the corruption that exists within his government, within his cabinet and his parliament, let alone the civil service and encompassing every aspect of government services. It is a conundrum, a never-ending, roundabout of frustration. The state of Afghanistan is in a tenuous position, the population has no firm reason to trust a government that cannot deliver basic necessities of which security is the first element. Without security the country is unable to advance toward fulfilling the other needs of the populace.

It would make good sense for the Karzai government to be given direct funding aid, if it could be relied upon to use the funding wisely and trustfully in a manner that does justice to the needs of the country. For far too long however, the machinery of state has played second fiddle to the kleptocracy that Mr. Karzai assembled around him from his brother, to tribal chieftains, and warlords, and those heavily engaged in drug profiteering which generally encompasses most of those in positions of power and influence in the country - including the Taliban.

Aid continues to be delivered through the well funded auspices of international aid groups who can be relied upon to do the job, while government figures simply have a tradition of pocketing whatever they can, and whatever is left over is dribbled into government programs. The government has been starkly ineffective at governing, at administering needed civil and development programs. It simply is not yet feasible that they be entrusted with developing a budget and implementing and controlling most projects. And while they are emasculated in this manner there is no reason for the population to respect them.

If there is a strategy that no one has yet thought of, neither the UN nor NATO nor the United States, no one appears any the wiser with respect to a workable approach. How to expunge the traditions of corruption in the country and infuse the lawmakers with an enthusiasm to work on behalf of the country and its people, without resorting to spiriting away funding for themselves? Yet until and unless the government is finally deemed capable of responsible apportioning of international aid funding, and dispersing it and controlling it successfully nothing is achieved to give them legitimacy in the eyes of the Afghan population.

There are no reliable, working Afghan government operations to give credibility to the government and assurances to the population. There is the Taliban always in the background, and sometimes in the foreground, depending on the provinces being viewed, repositories of a fanatically stringent ideology prepared to restore itself to power - and with the help of neighbouring Pakistan - as soon as the international community lets its guard down. Which it is anxious enough to do in a sense, eager to depart the troubled country to let it get on with its own future.

In the meantime, the tedious and cumbersome work of trying to persuade the Karzai government that it must determine its own fate by cleaning up its disreputable and nation-harmful corruption to earn the right to take full control of international funding must be a goal to advance before all the international groups finally decamp. Concerned international groups can demand accountability, and emphasize the need for the Afghan government to be responsible to itself and to the country but it is the government itself of Afghanistan that must commit itself to its future.

Due Caution Rewarded

Sounds peculiar does it not, that an Emirates flight would not respond to in-flight enquiries? As though the captain and crew had knowledge that something was not quite right, and that to open themselves to enquiries might result in embarrassment.

Not, though, if they suspected, one might imagine, that they were carrying in their cargo a lethal message of which they comprised the personally-lethal suicide component. Should the concealed explosives on board have been meant to be detonated while in flight, that is.

So NATO called Canadian CF-18 fighter jets into action from Canadian Forces Base Bagotville for tracking duty, more or less escorting the "aircraft of interest" as it negotiated the wide blue skies that the United Arab Emirates are so dedicated to opening even wider, on its way toward its destination within the United States.

Over American airspace, the tracking and escort duty was delegated to two U.S. F-15s from the 104th Fighter Wing at Barnes International guard base in Massachusetts.

And as it happened, the cause for concentrated attention on the cargo aboard Emirates Airlines Flight 201 from the United Arab Emirates, carrying cargo from Yemen was soon enough unveiled, as packages of a suspicious nature were removed; one from the plane in question, another from a plane in Britain and yet another still in Dubai.

Destined for synagogues (or, as President Obama put it, Jewish places of worship), in Chicago. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been busy. From Yemen, which source it would appear makes the Saudis, due to unfortunate proximity, and lethal antipathies, extremely nervous.

Suspicious activity has since been reported as having been witnessed at Sana'a International (El Rahaba) airport in Yemen. Where unauthorized and uniformed boys were hauling bags away from X-ray machines, and porters were removing them to the personal baggage terminal. Further sourced information was that all women on the Yemen-to-Dubai flight wore full face coverings even as they moved through security.

It has also been reported that women in Yemen have been arrested, a mother and daughter, as being the source, if not the inspiration of the suspicious bags being moved onto various flights. With additional bags and explosives intended for other flights. All now in a state of apprehension.

U.S. intelligence was evidently alerted by their Saudi counterparts, of an explosives-plot emanating from Sana, Yemen. The intelligence data was complete enough so that American agents knew where to look and what to look out for. Which meant they were able to single out copier cartridges as having been transformed to explosives, to be detonated by cellphone.

Forensics examinations have thus far been successful in identifying the explosives, and in matching them with similar explosives used in an earlier, Christmas-day attempt to blow up an in-flight airliner. For which al-Qaeda earlier took proud responsibility.

American Islamist Anwar al-Awlaki must be chuckling to himself in utter delight. The plot may not have succeeded in its intent to destroy American synagogues and take the lives of accursed Jews, but it most certainly has caused an international furor and great consternation, let alone having succeeded in its foremost intent; to create an aura of terrorism.

His inspiring role for the Christmas Day plot and his encouragement and direction to the U.S. Army psychiatrist who succeeded in murdering 13 American Forces personnel at a medical facility at Fort Hood Texas must be another huge source of immense satisfaction to him.

On the other hand, he might not be quite so ecstatic about the failed plot were he to realize that Jews, regardless of where they live - Israel or anywhere in the diaspora - are so accustomed to being singled out, slandered, threatened and placed in danger that they have developed a different kind of attitude over the course of their recent history.

Ask the Jews in Chicago whose synagogues may have been among those targeted. Rabbi Michael Balinsky of the Chicago Board of Rabbis calmly asserts: "It's obviously disturbing, but certainly the Jewish community will proceed as it proceeds. We'll just exercise caution."

Come to think of it, perhaps that's also what Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Cabinet were exercising, when they refused to submit to the demand from Dubai that Emirates and its sister airlines of the UAE be allowed more frequent flight opportunities in and out of Canada.

Collaboration With The Enemy

Pakistan is true to form, reverting to what and how it has always valued and practised. Its relationship with NATO and the United States is one that is highly dependent on extracting as much funding as it possibly can, under the guise of collegiality. That it is equally concerned with combating terrorism as its purported allies is a useful fiction. The United States is dependent on Pakistan for assisting it in identifying and isolating and, finally, destroying the Taliban and by extension, al-Qaeda.

Neither of which have been accomplished, mostly because of the reluctance of Pakistan to forego its sovereignty, to allow an actual U.S. presence on its soil. This would not be popular with the population. And the country's sense of pride would be afflicted by any semblance of close co-operation. Pakistan appears to be fairly complacent over the fact that in its border mountainous regions next to Afghanistan, the Afghan Taliban find refuge.

It is not quite so complacent about its own home-bred Taliban. Not since the mountain tribes and their warlords have aligned themselves with al-Qaeda, and challenge the nuclear-armed Pakistani government for control and for the eventuality of fanatical Sharia to be enacted country-wide. Islamism is on the march everywhere, and it is largely thanks to Pakistan and its madrasses funded by Saudi Arabia that jihadi training camps have thrived.

Now Pakistan has dug in its heels, refusing to permit NATO vehicles access to one of its highway passes,disrupting supply routes and in the process assisting the Pakistani Taliban to torch dozens of oil tankers, and in the further process murder at least five truckers, who have no protection from these deadly raids, as they patiently await the re-opening of the northwest Pakistan route.

This is the government of Pakistan, allying itself with the Pakistan Taliban, a resurgent enemy of the administration whose armed forces clashed with the Taliban in an effort to protect areas perilously close to their nuclear installations. Angered over the U.S. incursion of several hundred yards across the border into Pakistan, where several of their soldiers opened fire on the Americans and the Americans returned fire.

And there is the government of Afghanistan, with its President, Hamid Karzai, suddenly deciding not only to attempt to entice the Afghan Taliban foot soldiers to abscond from their commitment to the Taliban for cash and integration, but conferring as well with the Afghan Taliban leaders with whom Karzai once stated he would never bargain. The women of Afghanistan may be aghast at this turn of events, but this is the manner in which events have turned.

The Americans and the British and NATO in general are putting a brave face on things. After all, they have been engaged for ten years in a battle against the Afghan Taliban whom they succeeded in routing from governance when the Taliban refused to surrender al-Qaeda. And in the last several years the resurgent Taliban have succeeded in gaining a larger territory in the country than they have ever previously controlled.

Mullah Mohammed Omar, in his brutal totalitarian administration of the country enacted Sharia laws that stoned women to death who were accused of adultery, crushed homosexuals under brick walls, amputated the hands of thieves, publicly executed by victims' families murderers, denied women from leaving their homes, refused schooling and jobs for girls and women, imposed full body coverings, and sentenced to death any who sought to religiously convert.

And this is the executive controller of the Afghan Taliban, the protector of al-Qaeda, with whom Hamid Karzai's administration is talking a cessation of 'hostilities', with an invitation to join his government, and in senior posts, at that. This is labelled the "reconciliation and reintegration" process. Which can only make an onlooker wonder why NATO troops have been troubling themselves to contain the Taliban for ten years.

And why NATO and UN-sponsored countries - that have signed on to the humanitarian task of helping to build a civil society, fund and erect civic infrastructure, train civil servants, and deploy members of their armed forces, facing the ongoing carnage of IED-caused deaths - committed themselves to the situation to begin with.

To Go, Or Not To Go - Is That The Question?

U.S. President Barack Obama as Commander in Chief of his country's armed forces, felt that the casual disregard of his authority and that of his civilian advisers had suffered an unforgivable slight by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, formerly chief of the U.S. military situation in Afghanistan. Gen. McChrystal's military confidantes and supporters were publicly dismissive of interference on the part of the executive branch of government in the war against Afghan 'insurgents'.

Out with the old, in with the new-old. And the trusted and admired General David Petraeus, the hero of the hugely successful Iraq 'surge', which succeeded in turning Iraqi Sunnis away from support of al-Qaeda in Iraq, to fight alongside the Americans to defeat the foreign Arab-Islamist fighters who had, in any event, outraged the Iraqi Sunnis by their brutality toward even their Sunni brethren.

The reward for the "Awakening" Sunni militia with the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq has been to be handed over to the majority Shia - and distrust reigns supreme. But previously, their having agreed to fighting the al-Qaeda factions alongside American troops was deemed a huge success in turning the tide in Iraq. A tide which has slowly re-surged and appears to be turning the other way.

For with Ramadan, the most sacred month in the pantheon of Islamic religious traditions, has come increased violent attacks, suicide bombings and mass murder successfully mounted by al-Qaeda in Iraq. The fierceness of the determination of fanatical Islamists spilling blood to inspire the country to become fully Islamicized under Sharia is only matched by the lethal antipathy between Iraqi Sunni and Shia factions.

But this is Afghanistan, in somewhat similar circumstances, with the government of President Hamid Karzai, having failed to build confidence among the population, because of failure to build government infrastructure and to maintain it across the width and breadth of the country, hampered hugely by graft and corruption throughout the administration, pondering acceding to some of the demands of the Taliban.

Which would certainly occur, if a deal is eventually struck between the 'democratic' government of Afghanistan and some elements of the Taliban. Meanwhile, the direct issue is the stand-off between coalition forces in Afghanistan and the fundamentalist leaders of the Taliban who have increasingly targeted Afghan civilians, causing death and disruption, imperilling the lives of girls and women within the country with their brutal application of Sharia law.

The Taliban have successfully regrouped, thanks hugely to the Pakistan national army and the ISI and their trained, equipped-and-supported Taliban contingents. Al-Qaeda remains elusive in the border regions, and General Petraeus, now in command of 140,000 coalition troops, does not think too highly of his government's advising the Taliban that they will be free to take back the country with U.S. withdrawal projected for 2011.

He has admiringly referenced former president George W. Bush for the "tough call" and "very courageous decisions" with respect to the Iraq troop surge, obviously contrasting unfavourably with President Obama's decisive instruction to the international community, the corruptly-ineffective Afghan government and incidentally the Taliban and al-Qaeda that they will shortly have free rein.

The reality "on the ground" in Afghanistan would, in the final analysis, determine whether President Obama's 2011 departure decision would be feasible. "Certainly I am aware of the context within which I offer that advice. But that just informs the advice, it doesn't drive it. The situation on the ground drives it." Take that, Commander in Chief. And hand over the time and necessary material to prevail.

"My marching orders", he stressed from NATO headquarters in Kabul, in an NBC Meet the Press interview, "are to do all that is humanly possible to help us achieve our objectives." It may be necessary, in other words, to convince President Obama that withdrawal plans for next year would not be advisable.

The president required, once again, to backtrack from his rash statements of administrative intent, looking rather indecisive in the process. "Clearly the enemy is fighting back, sees this as a very pivotal moment, believes that all he has to do is outlast us through this fighting season. That is just not the case."

Clearly they do. Is that not the case?

Revelations?

So what really has been revealed by the WikiLeaks? Who was unaware that Pakistan's ISI remained heavily involved in arming and directing the Taliban operations in Afghanistan? Or that the ISI did likewise with LeT, and was responsible for the Mumbai atrocities? Or that officials at the municipal, provincial and federal level in Afghanistan are ingloriously corrupt?

What is new, perhaps, is the fact that those Afghans who saw fit to align themselves with NATO forces in a helpful bid to alert and inform against the Taliban may now find themselves perilously close to being extinguished. Since some of those leaked documents helpfully name names, including parental names and village-of-origin names.

Mind, Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, insists that he has had the documents thoroughly vetted and where such information exists, the documents withheld from publication. "We have read more leaked documents than any other organization that's not a spy agency on earth. If someone can apply this policy, surely we can do it."

With his professional assurance, we can be assured on that angle, presumably.

Afghanistan itself, via its Foreign Affairs Ministry is mortified, horrified, angered and damned. "The U.S. is both morally and legally responsible for any harm that the leaks might cause to the [named] individuals... It will further limit the U.S./international access to the uncensored views of Afghans".

Perhaps what is of more troubling interest is the fact that the Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives are sophisticated enough to take advantage of the information now available to them on line. All the more so in view of the growing apprehension that not all is flowing according to plan. And that the claims of having the insurgency in hand lack credibility.

That Iran has had a sinister hand in providing arms and explosives to the Taliban and working alongside al-Qaeda has long been suspected from other sources. Perhaps it's the fact that these documents were exclusionarily withheld from public knowledge and they have abruptly become available through an illegal source represents the true story here.

And likely as not throwing the light of recognition on the persona of former Pakistani general Hamid Gul's ferocious hatred of the West and the U.S. in particular, and the hand he has played and continues to do, in planning and encouraging and directing the Taliban is of far more interest in the revelations. Rogue bull elephants are fascinating.

The documents' usefulness are only as good as the intelligence that they conveyed in the first place, and it seems that some of that routine intelligence was flawed opinion, unreflective of reality. It's the scandal-quotient of airing classified intelligence, not the quality of the data itself that has value and currency.

Just confirming what was already known, for the most part, but doing it righteously and with clamour aforethought.

Set To Go

Nine long years of trying to pacify a population comprised of Pashtun warriors invested in violent religious fundamentalist priorities, to retake Afghanistan as Pakistan envisaged when it formed, trained and armed the Taliban, is enough for war-weary Westerners. Besides, politics in Muslim countries of the world is too complex, erratic and morale-stifling for people not having been immersed in that kind of exotica since birth. This is the enigma that puzzles even successfully seasoned riddle-solvers.

So, it didn't prove as palatable to the vast majority of Afghan's people as thought, to bring them onside. To build schools and health clinics and the kind of civic infrastructure that never existed before, for a population that needs it, but a government that doesn't quite value it as they should, else it would all have been in place beforehand. The hearts and minds scenario simply didn't pan out. Now the emphasis is on producing a reliably competent Afghan National Army.

So everyone else can get the hell out of that Gehenna. Horrible, come to think of it, to leave the women to their fate. Desperate to be seen as equals; at the very least as human beings deserving of decent treatment by their menfolk, the girls to be educated and not seen as future breeders before they're out of adolescence. But the Taliban now control an awful lot of the country outside the capital. And they're intent on burning schools and throwing acid in the faces of children, and tormenting women.

And the Afghan men? Well, the police continue their honoured traditions of corruption for this is their heritage in living colour. Besides which, they take their direction from the government itself and all its bureaucratic administrators. That too is tradition and heritage, and a proud culture of self-availment. What's really been going on while NATO commanders boast of the Afghan National Army shaping up and beginning to take control?

Well, naught. As in they're definitely, truthfully, not. Lacking a sense of order and responsibility. No commitment, little interest. Kind of laid back, y'know? All those enterprisingly useful battlefield actions said to have been led by the ANA? A myth, an attempt to build some pride into an army that prefers its lackadaisical pace to that of a self-respecting professional army.

Acting independently without international guidance? Not yet. Perhaps not ever. Not enough of them, in any event, another 60,000 required, and a real need to beef up the contingent of Afghan non-commissioned officers, who have an idea of what should be transpiring, and how to convince their troops in the manner in which they should be behaving.

Meanwhile, the Afghan National Army doesn't take to army rations. They like their food just so, freshly prepared and right on time. Out on a manoeuvre? Well, it takes second place to din-din. Mysterious absences from the ranks? Well, they had prior commitments. Reconstruction of an important bridge, assigned to the Afghan National Army? Well, there were a few Afghan soldiers sitting around while NATO troops did the work.

There are a few un-tribal things that the AFN isn't fond of, and in fact will not engage in. Like patrolling at night, because, damn, you're vulnerable, anything could happen, step on an IED, be confronted by a Taliban fighter. Better the NATO types do that kind of thing. March in the midday heat? Are you crazy, that's for mad dogs and Englishmen, not Afghan soldiers.

Haul their own kit? Come on, what're the Gurkha Rifles for?

Assault On Kandahar Base Repelled

Oh. Repelled. That's good. Isn't it? NATO security forces managed to repel an attack by "a small number of insurgents attempting to enter the base on the north side". Good thing their attempt was foiled. "No insurgents have penetrated the base perimeter", according to a NATO statement. Now that is a huge relief. And we also learn that no Canadians were involved in repelling the attack, according to the chief Canadian military spokesman.

"All military and civilian personnel on the base are being instructed to stay in safe locations as a precaution"; again a NATO statement. As it was, several NATO troops and civilians were wounded in the attacks. Evidently they were unable to take precautionary action to ensure their personal safety because the Taliban made no effort to pre-warn them of an impending attack. Not very civil, but then what can you expect from "13th-Century failed state" representatives?

They are skilled in a type of predatory, no-holds-barred, warfare that civilized countries simply do not engage in. When they strike, it is for the jugular. Or for the unwary military personnel on duty travelling along dusty provincial roads that have been booby-trapped very effectively by 'home-made' explosive devices. Many of which can be identified with constituent parts from Iran, one takes it. Many of whom were trained in the border regions of Pakistan, one takes it.

Spurred on by their irredentist, fanatical-religious-jihadist mentality to coax foreign troops from their home geography. Figures, right? NATO military members, on the other hand, are polite and well-behaved and follow orders. They also, quite logically, inform the enemy well beforehand that strikes are in the planning stages and will be mounted on specific, well-publicized dates.

The latest are efforts to secure Kandahar City and four other districts. So here's the plan. We'll simply expand on the successes seen thus far by those intrepid Canadian troops who have unfortunately had ramp ceremonies for 146 members of the Canadian military ... and counting. "The first guys on the beach here are the Canadians." And the Canadian forces are providing counsel for the U.S. surge-troops.

"History will write that the Canadians came here and for years fought and struggled as the situation got worse. Their brigade did what four brigades-plus are going to be doing and their hands were full." So went the comradely homage to Canadian efforts in war-ravaged Kandahar province by U.S. marine Col. David Bellon. It does present as an existential dilemma; well trained and armed Western troops unable to completely repel a rag-tag guerrilla army.

And in Canada, troop morale is getting a big lift out of carefully watching the unfolding military court trial of Captain Robert Semrau, accused of second-degree murder in the death of a Taliban fighter. Who had, mere moments before been stationed up in a tree with his companions, firing on the Afghan National Army troop to which Captain Semrau and his buddies were attached, as advisers.

The court martial sitting in judgement must sift through the witness accounts that conflict with statements made by others, some in Captain Semrau's defence, others condemning him. For executing a severely wounded-unto-death Taliban fighter whom Afghan fighters refused to treat, left to die in agony of his wounds. A mercy killing, said Captain Semrau.

Had he and his buddies been accurately targetted by the Taliban fighter and his crew it would have been quite without mercy.

Battling Endemic Corruption

There's that old adage that you stick with the one who brung you to the dance. A civil courtesy. And, one supposes, the reverse must also be true; stick with the one you brought along to the event.

In the case of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, it's hard to tell which should apply. He is ensconced where he is right now, at the head of government in Afghanistan because NATO, and specifically the United States thought he was the best bet to serve his country and the West's purpose. In his turn, he has visited most NATO countries to thank them for their sacrifices, and to implore them to continue their useful work in his beleaguered country.

That was before his Western allies and supporters began to tire and become exceedingly unhappy about the extent of revealed corruption within his government, and which President Karzai is perfectly in tune with, from nepotism and drug-dealing, to warlordism holding sway in parliament, and women continuing to be viewed as vassals, and the ravaging of young boys and pay-offs to the national police along with just plain everyday favour-purchasing bribes.

But graft on the scale of absconding with a major portion of the billions in foreign aid that has flooded the country has tipped the scale substantially, aided and abetted by the too-visible election fraud re-electing Hamid Karzai back to his primary position in governance. The shrill cries of vote-rigging, the denunciations and clamouring for clean-ups were simply too presumptuous and irritating beyond acceptance.

Who are they to tell him how he and his cronies must comport themselves? Foreign interests do not always mesh with those of Afghanistan with its intrigues and sinister alliances, prepared to re-integrate the Taliban back into mainstream society, and to continue currying favour with Iran, a country intent on consolidating its strategy for threatening the stability of the entire region to spite all its critics. They make a fundamentally solid duo of common purpose.

Except that cute-as-a-fox Karzai has many cards yet to play, and fully understanding how vital the security of his country is to the West, calibrates his rants and his position quite carefully. For the funding and the human capital he is offered is still valuable. Depending on his perception that he still appears to the West as the only viable candidate for the office he holds, while others sit forlornly on the sidelines, their attempts to persuade the West that they represent more wholesome alternatives, ignored.

Former cabinet minister Ramazan Bashardost has embarked on his own anti-corruption campaign, ignored by both the Government of Afghanistan as totally irrelevant to the country's aspirations, and by NATO as totally inconveniently, headache-inducing. Starting all over again, from the word go? How to proceed? Best stick with the one brought to the dance. The vast international funds that were funnelled into the country have, he claims, gone to "warlords, corrupt government officials, Karzai cronies."

"With this money, we can build three or four new Afghanistans", Mr. Bashardost explained. "Yet that hasn't happened." Because all the Western diplomats have given their backing to Hamid Karzai solidly over the years, they simply receive his overtures with a lack of enthusiasm because what he proposes would result in radical change. He wants the position of a special prosecutor to be established, police and courts capable of bringing corrupt officials and war criminals holding positions in the Karzai government to justice.

As far as the Western-educated Mr. Bashardost is concerned, the war against the Taliban comes second to a far-more-needed war against endemic corruption in his country. "It is Canadian taxpayer money, it's American taxpayer's money that arrives in Afghanistan" he explained* with a good degree of frustration, "And it's an Afghanistan mafia group that shares it. It is not for Afghan people."So why aren't foreign countries concerned about how their treasuries are being looted instead of used to benefit the country and its people?

The Afghan government is decidedly unamused by this thorn in their plans for business as usual. Afghan parliamentarian Ramazon Bashardost was elected in 2006, but was refused an office. He set up his office in a tent in a parking lot just outside Afghanistan's legislative buildings. Since receiving 17% of the vote in last year's presidential election he has transferred his tent outside a two-room office near government buildings, where he serves Afghans on a daily basis, seeking help.

His chances of ascending to power are shrugged off by most western diplomats, even while they recognize the respect he has gained for resisting the country's endemic corruption and insisting that it be dealt with for the good of the people and their future in a stable, advanced country. It represents a conundrum that this determined and resolutely honest man who rages against corruption, struggles for human rights and fights for equality for women, finds no support from the west.

"He is a great man, he is for the poor people. He is brave", commented one of his supporters. For whatever that will avail him.

*Report from David Pugliese writing out of Kabul, Afghanistan

Unequivocal Defeat to the Colonialist Armies!

The Taliban and their religious-ideological brethren wherever they are on the globe, keep close tabs on the manner in which the West views their enterprise to vanquish the infidels and establish a world-wide caliphate with Islamic sharia law governing the lives of all, not merely the world's Muslims. That, of course, is the end-game, and the various wars in progress are meant to lead up to that final solution to the existing reality of different religions, ideologies, political systems and social customs currently existing in international debased decadence.

It pleases al-Qaeda no end to hear the hopeful declarations emanating from Western sources that it has run out of steam, even while the tentacles of Internet enablement and involvement continues to recruit eager young jihadists anxious to do the bidding of their heroic instructors to battle the demonic forces of the West. Just as it delights Mullah Omar, the resourceful leader of the Taliban, to crow that Afghanistan exists as - as history has proven time and again - a graveyard for colonial troops.

"The more the enemy resorts to increasing forces, the more they will face an unequivocal defeat in Afghanistan", celebrates the Taliban's supreme commander. The resurgence of Taliban forces within Afghanistan - supported by Pakistan's Taliban and foreign Islamists - ferociously maintaining the use of guerrilla tactics while keeping traditional combat to a minimum, has had the desired effect of bringing fear anew to Afghans, and destabilizing the intent of the 100,000 NATO troops assigned to battle them.

"The West does not have to wage this war", Mullah Omar croons softly, denying the prevailing and common understanding that in permitting the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and their cohorts to prevail, the countries of the West leave themselves open to further and ongoing attacks on their own soil. The presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan is meant to forestall and to ultimately totally squelch the possibility of any further attacks on the West, in their own countries by fanatic Islamists.

Moreover, Mullah Omar asserts, the NATO forces are suppressing freedom for Afghans in supporting the corrupt and tyrannical government of President Hamid Karzai. As opposed to the humanely charitable, kindly administration of the Taliban when they oppressed the Afghan population, and welcomed the leadership of al-Qaeda to make themselves comfortable in an environment suited to their purpose. Afghan civilians may have a different take on the levels of corruption and totalitarian rule between one and the other.

Now U.S. General McChrystal has forwarded an assessment of the engagement to the U.S. defense secretary to be reviewed by President Obama and his national security team. They have been studying the contents for several weeks. General McChrystal has not been shy to state his professional opinion that the tide of success will not turn in favour of NATO forces without a substantial increase in troops deployed to the country. He does not portray the Taliban as without considerable resources. In this way he respects what NATO confronts.

President Obama claims to be awaiting "absolute clarity about what the strategy is going to be" before making his decision on whether or not to commit a substantial number of additional U.S. troops to the mission. The strategy is clear enough; to overwhelm the Taliban by sheer numbers of troops able to confront and deny them the opportunity to retake ground won and then left unprotected. To completely rout the Taliban, seek them where they find shelter and destroy them.

Leave them in a state of utter disarray so they may no longer be successful predators on the population so weary of a constant state of warfare. And while they're about it, turn the Afghan government itself toward the clarity of service to the country and its people, as a departure from traditional corruption and sieving of international funds into private hands. Above all, instilling, through sheer perseverance, a respect for the human rights of women and children.

And good luck to all that.