Rosanne Klass’s reissued memoir describes Afghanistan in a more innocent time.

By Phyllis Chesler

Land of the High Flags: Afghanistan When the Going Was Good, by Rosanne Klass (Odyssey, 358 pp., $19.95)

The history of Afghanistan, once known as the “crossroads of the world,” is riven with brutal invasions and world abandonment. Barbarism, slavery, ruthlessness, and disease existed side by side with the country’s enormous physical beauty and the elaborate, formalized hospitality of its people. Conquerors razed Afghanistan’s extraordinary ancient cities and exquisite court palaces — Herat, Ghazni, and Balkh. Genghis Khan, and later Tamerlane, slaughtered significant portions of the Afghan population and returned to the country to conduct raids on the survivors, leaving precious little in the way of art or architecture. Alexander the Great also conquered Afghanistan on his way to India, though his soldiers tended to leave behind descendants rather than smoldering ruins.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Maybe I’ll be eating my critical words of the Bush administration which I posted yesterday. Still, I’d like to see the evidence of Iranian arms transfers to the Taliban, as who wants a repeat of the Iraq WMD debacle? With a U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf, we may be inching towards an all-out confrontation with Iran’s Islamists. From the Washington Post:

NATO has intercepted Iranian weapons shipments to Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents, providing evidence Iran is violating international law to aid a group it once considered a bitter enemy, a senior U.S. diplomat said Wednesday.

“There’s irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this,” Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said on CNN. “It’s certainly coming from the government of Iran. It’s coming from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps command, which is a basic unit of the Iranian government.” …

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Today, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns accused Iran of supplying weapons to the Taliban. I wish it weren’t so, but I just can’t get enthusiastic about the Bush Administration’s latest claims. It is not that I doubt Iran is stoking the flames in Afghanistan. It is whether I — or anyone else, especially among our allies — have any reason to believe that Bush’s people can provide evidence. The U.S. has been flexing its military muscle in the Persian Gulf, and now in the field of diplomacy — but will it have the desired effect of quieting down Iran’s Islamists? I’ve heard a few too many officials crying wolf; I’ve seen a lot of bad spin control and awful public relations. The President has squandered his post-9/11 political capital.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

We’ve seen many an Islamist commander killed, only to be replaced by another schmuck/murderer/kook. Nonetheless, there is a certain satisfaction in seeing another one sent to paradise hell — and his death has not been greatly exaggerated:

The Taleban’s top military commander in Afghanistan, Mullah Dadullah, has been killed in fighting in the south.

His body was shown to reporters in Kandahar, and Taleban sources confirmed the death, after initial denials. …

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Remember Nick Berg? His murderers chanted “Allah Akbar!” (God is Great!) while they sawed the poor man’s head off. I’ve seen the tape. I saw and heard Berg gurgling and screaming. We knew about beheading in the name of Islam. Then we had decapitation in the name of ice cream. Isn’t beheading enough? No. Now the Islamo-fascists are using children to decapitate “infidels.” This is a culture? From the BBC:

The Taleban in Afghanistan have used a boy of around 12 to behead a man they accused of spying for the US.

Parts of a video of the beheading were broadcast on the Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV network.

The Taleban said the dead man, Ghulam Nabi, had given the US information which led to an air strike in which a senior Taleban commander died.

The video footage shows Mr Nabi being blindfolded with a chequered scarf and making what is said to be a confession.

The boy, wearing a camouflage jacket and wielding a large knife, denounces him as a spy and then cuts off his head. …

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Germany and Austria stayed out of Iraq. Germany has 2,700 troops in Afghanistan. Austria “has just five officers” there. All Western forces face the threat of Islamo-fascist attacks in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, some al-Qaeda-linked group feels the need to threaten the two European nations:

“Germany will face more threats and dangers if it doesn’t withdraw its troops from Afghanistan…”

“Austria has always been one of the most safe countries in Europe, depending on tourism both in summer and winter,” the unidentified speaker said. “But if it doesn’t withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, it may be among targeted nations.”

There’s no way to play it safe. The West’s mere existence is a threat to the Muslim radicals. Might as well choose to finish the good fight for preserving civilization.

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By Douglas Farah*

It is difficult in the best of times to get good information from the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, but my sources who visit the region regularly said the situation is even worse than the dire situation already written about in numerous publications.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Bringing stability to Afghanistan is certainly not a lost cause, if Pakistan helps put a stop to Islamists (Tabiban and al-Qaeda) operating in the Wild West — that is, the tribal areas of western Pakistan. NATO announced today it had killed 150 Taliban terrorists along the border with Pakistan’s Wild West. Most notably, “Nato said Pakistan had helped Nato monitor the fighters, who were then hit with artillery and air strikes…” “…Nato officials said they had the close co-operation of the Pakistani authorities in monitoring the insurgents before they entered Afghanistan.”

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

The U.S. nailed another Islamist scumbag today — this time in Afghanistan. This guy had a hand in destroying an ancient statue of the Prince of Peace, the Buddha. What would the terror apologists say about that? His death may set back Taliban plans for their usual spring rampage of terror. Good riddance. No negotiating with people who would slit our throats before we could utter a diplomatic word. From JournalTimes.com:

KABUL, Afghanistan - A U.S. airstrike near the Pakistan border killed the Taliban’s southern military commander, a U.S. military spokesman said Saturday, calling him the highest-ranking Taliban ever slain by American forces.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

An Indian investigator on Saturday blamed Pakistan’s spy agency of orchestrating the July train bombings that killed at least 207 people in Mumbai, an accusation that could threaten the already shaky peace process between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

- AP, Sept. 30, 2006

If true, Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, has put President Musharraf in an awkward position, more so than he is in already. Just today, he claimed to be the West’s “main ally,” yet a string of events this week involving Pakistan makes his claim slightly incredulous. I believe that he truly believes that a parliamentary/republican democracy is a goal for Pakistan, that Islamism is the world’s most dangerous problem, and that he fully intends to one day turn over power to the people. But putting these noble goals into practice is a high-stakes game for him because of: 1) the number of radical Islamists in Pakistan; and, 2) and because of the supposed “middle ground” he walks between appeasing the radical Muslims, and at the same time, trying to nudge Pakistan into the 21st century.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

So many Muslims are angry because the Pope accused Islam of having a problem with violence? But they are silent when Muslims kill other Muslims. Here’s a kicker, from the AP:

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber struck outside the compound of a southern Afghan governor on Tuesday, killing 18 people, including several Muslim pilgrims seeking paperwork to travel to Mecca, officials said. …

Meanwhile, a bomb attack Tuesday against a NATO patrol south of the Afghan capital killed an Italian soldier and a child, officials said.

Killing Muslim pilgrims and children… These are the killers — “minutemen” — that people like Michael Moore praise?

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

With the anniversary of 911 soon approaching, it is good to hear some positive news from the war against Islamo-fascism. NATO forces killed at least 200 Taliban in Afghanistan and Iraqi security forces captured al-Qaeda’s #2 man (and I mean #2 in the bathroom-humor sense). The weak hand in the West would bemoan the lives lost, except the lives of Westerners killed by the enemy (e.g., “How did we bring this terror on ourselves?”). But this is war against barbarians who understand nothing except death and destruction: the Islamo-fascists. Here are the highlights, from the BBC.

From Iraq:

The Iraqi authorities have announced the arrest of a man they say is the second-in-command of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Iraq’s national security adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, told a news conference the man, Hamad Jama al-Saedi, was detained a few days ago. …

Mr Saedi was responsible for organising the bombing of the al-Askari shrine in February, Mr Rubaie said.

From Afghanistan:

More than 200 Taleban fighters have been killed in a major offensive by Afghan and Nato forces in southern Afghanistan, Nato says. …

Nato spokesman Maj Scott Lundy said the coalition forces had gained ground and disrupted the Taleban command and control.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

The Taliban, supposedly some of the most ardent adherents to Sharia, continue to profit from opium. Wait a minute; doesn’t a strict observance of Islamic law prohibit the use of intoxicants? Obviously, the Islamists we’re now fighting make exceptions to the Law of G#d when it suits their needs. But Islamism is just another ism, like communism and fascism; a “utopian” ideology in which “the ends justify the means.” Yesterday, the BBC reported:

The Vienna-based Office on Drugs and Crime said in its report that poppy cultivation in Helmand province alone, which has seen a sharp rise in Taleban-led attacks on international troops, had risen by 162% since last year.

Only six of the country’s 34 provinces are opium-free, the report says.

This is nothing new:

“Narcotics-linked income strengthens the Taliban’s capacity to provide support for international terrorism,” [US Department of State Coordinator for Counter-terrorism] Sheehan testified. “The Taliban admit to imposing the same ushr, a 10 percent tax, on poppy as they impose on other agricultural crops.”

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By Randy A. Sprinkle

At the time I began writing this piece, though many news organizations and commentators have weighed in on several recent events that have caught the world’s attention lately, there is one commentator that has been quiet. His absence poses a question that is asked about him every now and then, but mostly every now: Just where is Osama bin Laden? No one can definitively answer that question - at least no one who is talking; but for me it is time to ask that question again.

One reason why I revisit the question is the recent revelation of a planned al Qeada attack on the New York City Subway system. A New York Times article citing author Ron Suskind, reported that in 2003, U.S. intelligence had discovered a design for a makeshift device that could produce deadly cyanide; furthermore, that there was a plan to use a series of such devices in a coordinated attack on the New York City subway system.

U.S. intelligence learned of the plot after an informant close to Al Qaeda leaders told U.S. officials that bin Laden Ayman al-Zawahiri (Osama’s #2) had canceled the plan in January 2003. (Hmmmm… Binny Boy out of the office at the time?)

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

After a tragic auto accident today, involving U.S. military vehicles, several Islamo-fascists decided to start a riot, and lash out against those working hard to help Afghanistan climb out of the Stone Age. Here is the mentality of the rioters:

…”We are looking for foreigners to kill,” one protester in his late 20s, Gulam Ghaus, said near where rioters burned a police post.

These “protesters” went after a building housing CARE, a group who is trying to teach Afghanis the principles of self-reliance and self-determination:

…chanting protesters marched on the presidential palace and rioters smashed police guard boxes, set fire to police cars and ransacked buildings, including the compound of aid group CARE International. Computers were set on fire and smoke billowed from the buildings…

What a sickness: yearning for the Stone Age.

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