by Juan Cole
"10. "There has been significant progress in tamping down the insurgency in Afghanistan."
9. Afghans want the US and NATO troops to stay in their country because they feel protected by them.
Fact: In a recent [pdf] poll, only 36% of Afghans said they were confident that US troops could provide security. Only 32% of Afghans now have a favorable view of the United States over-all.
8. The "surge" and precision air strikes are forcing the Taliban to the negotiating table.
Fact: The only truly high-ranking Taliban leader thought to have engaged in parleys with the US, Mulla Omar's number 2, turns out to have been a fraud and a con man.
7. The US presence in Afghanistan is justified by the September 11 attacks.
Fact: In Helmand and Qandahar Provinces, a poll found that 92% of male residents had never heard of 9/11......
1. The US is in Afghanistan to fight al-Qaeda.
Fact: CIA director Leon Panetta admitted that there are only 50-100 al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan! The US is mainly fighting two former allies among the Mujahidin whom Ronald Reagan dubbed "freedom fighters" and the "equivalent of America's founding fathers:" Gulbaddin Hikmatyar and his Hizb-i Islami, and Jalaluddin Haqqani and his Haqqani Network. These two organizations, which received billions from the US congress to fight the Soviets in the 1980s, are more deadly and important now than the ‘Old Taliban' of Mulla Omar. The point is that they are just manifestations of Pashtun Muslim nationalism, and not eternal enemies of the United States (being former allies and clients and all). Hikmatyar has roundly denounced al-Qaeda. "
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