Pepe Escobar at Asia Times online clarifies some aspects of Obama’s AfPak strategy. For instance, he says that the focus on destroying poppies to cut off Taliban funding is not the whole picture: drugs also generate much income for warlords, druglords and politicians in government today, who are allies of the US and NATO–so that makes it hard to destroy poppy production and stop the drug trade. Also, the Taliban get funding from groups and individuals in the Gulf countries and Saudia Arabia, which are US allies. That’s in part why Robert Gates was recently in Saudia Arabia to try to convince them to reduce support for the Taliban.
It’s amazing how it is US allies who are supporting the Taliban enemies, but they suffer no consequences from the US.
Pepe Escobar at Asia Times online clarifies some aspects of Obama’s AfPak strategy. For instance, he says that the focus on destroying poppies to cut off Taliban funding is not the whole picture: drugs also generate much income for warlords, druglords and politicians in government today, who are allies of the US and NATO–so that makes it hard to destroy poppy production and stop the drug trade. Also, the Taliban get funding from groups and individuals in the Gulf countries and Saudia Arabia, which are US allies. That’s in part why Robert Gates was recently in Saudia Arabia to try to convince them to reduce support for the Taliban.
It’s amazing how it is US allies who are supporting the Taliban enemies, but they suffer no consequences from the US.
Escobar also says that "Pakistani public opinion overwhelmingly abhors the Taliban as much as it abhors yet another military dictatorship". Indeed, "over the past few weeks Pakistani public opinion as a whole shot up to around 95% against the Taliban because Sufi Muhammad said democracy is an infidel thing; and because videos of Taliban floggings for the fist time were all over Pakistani media."
