Tag Archives: taliban

My Goodness Me

The government of Pakistan, a Pakistan that created and controls the Taliban, is incensed that we are sending drones into Paki airspace to dispose of the Taliban we are lucky enough to find, all the while professing to be our friend and happily accepting our money. The Paki government has recently closed the route through Pakistan for our supply columns, and the columns have come under attack by Taliban forces, whom the Paki government insists are not in Pakistan. Our State Department and the UN and assorted EU weenies deplore the drone attacks as counter-productive and reckless, preferring the age old failed policy of talking nicely to someone who is trying to kill you.

 

 

My goodness me, I feel so faint

These cold war types would like to paint

The Pakistani folk as not our friends

Believe me when I say that I

Could sit right down and softly cry

When thinking how this crisis likely ends

We send our drones into their space

With no regard for Paki face

What sovereign nation wouldn’t take offense

Such actions on our part I fear

Will hinder peace that’s very near

And cause relations that grow very tense

What we at State would like to see

Is just a change of policy

From warring, bombing, killing and the rest

To talking calmly with the tribes

And taking note of nuanced vibes

While recognizing we at State know best

Of course there’s danger in this tack

We’re not assured they’ll love us back

But I am quite prepared to bet my life

But just in case push comes to shove

I know that I will come to love

The burqa and the veil I bought my wife

 

 

 

Teherananana

Iran will very soon have nuclear weapons, and the question is, who will be the first to get one, the Taliban or al Qaeda? My guess is the Taliban. Many years ago Harry Belafonte had a hit song called Day-o, the lyric of which went, “Come Mr. Tallyman, tally me banana.” The tallyman will now be counting out nukes, and not bananas.   

 

 

Come Mr. Tallyman, tally me banana

Is now Come Mr. Taliban let me show you this

Nice little thing we’ve got here’n Teherananana

For the right price we are sure you cannot miss

Think of the joy you will bring to Muslim masses

Think of the laughter the Arab street will find

Think of the tears as you kick those Yankee asses

Think of the fears you will raise in Kaffir’s mind

Don’t think of price for we know you can afford it

We know you’ve got resources out the old kazoo

Just sign your name here and then we can record it

Then after that you’ll just have to holler boo

Everyone knows that you never show no mercy

Everyone knows that you mean just what you say

One little bomb could take out all of New Jercy

Two little bombs and you own the USA

Come Mr. Taliban to Teherananana

Come Mr. Taliban cross my palm with gold

Come Mr. Taliban tally me banana

Soon everyone will be doing as he’s told

 

 

 

Which Is It – Man The Stan Or Stan the Man

General Stanley McChrystal apparently convinced the politicians in Pakistan that the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban were conspiring to overthrow the government in Islamabad, and that is why the Pakis suddenly remembered where the leader of the Pakistani Taliban was and arrested him. No one could have been more surprised at the arrest than Mullah Baradar, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, who had regularly attended meetings with Pakistani Intelligence officials, and who thought he was perfectly safe. Double dealing like this goes on all the time. Sometimes the Afghan and Pakistani politicians betray us, sometimes they betray the Taliban, sometimes they betray each other. But that’s life in the Stans. My question is, if we are in Afghanistan because it borders Iran and we want air bases in easy flying distance, then why not say so? If there is no strategic or geopolitical reason for being there that benefits the United States, then we should get out of those backwater and useless Stans and stick to our own Stans.

 

 

How did we get here, how and why

This Stan, this place of clans

This place where Muslim killers rule

Just like in other Stans

We’ve had our own Stans in the past

Stan Laurel comes to mind

Stan Musial was a lefty but

One of the hitting kind

The purest hitter I did see

And that includes DiMag

Not like the hitters in these Stans

Who come back from the hajj

All full of hate and fear and spite

Determined just to kill

And if they die those virgins wait

No sweat, it’s Allah’s will

I’ll take our Stans and they keep theirs

Stan Laurel makes me laugh

As General Stan McChrystal writes

The Taliban epitaph

 

 

Predator And Pray

Complaints are coming in from the field that response times are too slow. A few weeks ago a high level Taliban commander was determined to be in a certain house drinking tea. Special Ops guys and Afghan commandos were ready to go, helicopters revved up, the capture of the Taliban commander a certainty. But the force never left. The American unit commander spent hours on the phone trying to get permission from eleven different officers, some of them not available, some of them not American but Nato. At dawn he shut down the helicopters and told everybody to get some sleep. He never did get permission to capture the Taliban commander, who finished his tea and vanished. Such are the rules of engagement in Afghanistan, where the thought of injuring a civilian while killing the Taliban gives shivers of horror to higher headquarters, who know full well the New York Times would full page front page a picture of an Afghan or Pakistani child injured by the heartless and brutal Americans, notwithstanding the Taliban hide behind little girls. It was thus from the first. We all remember how Mullah Omar raced down the road, escaping, unaware a Predator had him in its sights. But the order to fire was not forthcoming. There were civilian cars on the road, and someone might get hurt.     

 

 

Mullah Omar on the road

To Pak from Kandahar

A Predator with a full load

Caught sight of Omar’s car

Permission asked to fire, then

A longish strangled pause

As conference calls went out to men

To see if there was cause

To worry if collateral

Infliction might occur

And if there might the matter’ll

Be deemed to be no sir

So Mullah Omar got away

Not knowing just how near

He came to death that very day

From that Hellfire spear

And when he heard how he was spared

He closed his eyes and wept

So thankful that the Yankees cared

That civil norms be kept

He wept and bathed and went to bed

Alive and without sin

And thanked his God he wasn’t dead

And knew that he would win

 

 

Afghan Flyby

Pictures of the CIA’s latest drone flying in daylight over Afghanistan has raised some serious questions. Why was this top secret airplane flying in daylight and at low altitude for everyone to see and photograph? Did President Obama deliberately and with forethought expose an indispensable CIA asset that caught top level Al Qaeda in places they thought they were safe? Did he do it to mollify Pakistan’s ISI, who objected to our taking out high value targets? Or did he do it to ingratiate himself with the Taliban who he rightly believes will resume power in Afghanistan after he leaves? The evidence that he deliberately dropped a dime on the CIA’s wonder UAV is unclear, but who else had the authority or motive, the motive being what has driven his foreign policy since taking office, which is to be nice to our enemies in the hope they will one day embrace Barack Obama in return.  

 

 

And now it seems Barack Hussein

Has stepped into the brambles

His humble bowing now in vain

His policy a shambles

He showed the Paks our UAV

That caught Al Qaeda big shots

In daylight for the world to see

Just setting up for MiG shots

One wonders what Obama thinks

When lying late abed

I fear when crisis comes he blinks

And we will all be dead

 

 

The Price Of Success

The Australian government recently asked the United States government if there were a plan to bribe, buy, hire or otherwise convert Afghan warlords to our side in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, much as the Sunni sheikhs in Anbar were brought over to our side in Iraq. The question was a reasonable one, since turning your enemies into friends is the first rule of counter-insurgency warfare. When told there was no plan to bribe or hire Afghan warlords since to do so was contrary to our ideals and ethics, the Australians just shook their heads and walked away.

 

 

The Aussies looked a bit askance

When told there was no plan

They asked if there might be by chance

A savvy old Afghan

Who knew the countryside quite well

And who if pressed could say

The price the warlords need to sell

The price we need to pay

To get the locals on our side

To fight the Tal’ban vice

We said we reasoned with their pride

But money is the price

With that the Aussies put the ball

Into the US court

And said that you must make the call

But O is not the sort

Of guy who takes advice and such

From guys who like as not

Are really asking not too much

For the best allies we’ve got

 

 

Nostradamus, Guest Blogger, Vol 2

I, Nostradamus, sage, scholar, clairvoyant, renowned for a magical ability to predict everything, up to, but not including, six furlongs, see many things, though dimly and fleetingly, as through a glass darkly. I see the Middle East shimmering, as the summer heat shimmers on the horizon. I see the sub-continent fracturing along religious and ethnic lines. In short, things don’t look so hot right now.

 

 

Pakis crumble dust to dust

Taliban a sudden gust

Pakis fearing O’s rebukes

Give Taliban just half their nukes

 

In Middle East the fear grows long

Shadows cloud the growing strong

Persians smile say Jews bye bye

But not before the 15s fly

 

Afghan warlords cannot read

But they are of their fathers’ seed

In their hills they sit and wait

To see who’s next to tempt the fate

 

 

The Great Game

The Obama administration is currently anguishing over whether or not to send more troops to Afghanistan. The Generals want more troops, the left wing of the Democratic party wants out, and Obama himself seems entirely unclear on what he wants to do. The situation on the ground is not favorable to US interests: the Taliban enjoy the support of a large part of the population, and seem to have no difficulty in enlisting martyrs for suicide missions. We kill 100 Taliban and Taliban supporters for every American killed, but they can take the casualties and we cannot, and for one simple reason: no one has satisfactorily explained why we should be there taking casualties in the first place. Certainly not a single American life is worth trying to bring a stone age culture into the 21st century, particularly when that stone age culture is happy where they are. And so President Obama is in a dilemma. He spent years undermining the war in Iraq while saying we should be in Afghanistan, the good war, and now he’s there and finds it is not so good after all. But then he never did think it was a good war, it was just a stick with which to beat George Bush.

 

 

Obama claims that it was Bush

Who bogged us down in Hindu Kush

Not understanding that it’s just a game

Between the Paki ISI

And all the other little fry

Who cares when you’ve got Georgie Bush to blame

Obama says we should have been

Engaged in a war we could win

Instead of messing up in old Iraq

A war Obama says was wrong

And claims he was right all along

To go after bin Laden and his claque

So now he wants to put our guys

Into a place where most supplies

Must come by road and if its cut what then?

And yes we know the Taliban

Still rule the roads and so they can

Decide not just the where but also when

To close the road through Pakistan

To all our guys in far Afghan

And then we’ll say in closin’ au revoir

To Obie’s foolish thought that he

Could talk his way to victory

Just hope it’s not a Chosin reservoir