Taliban's Got Spokesmen

Ain't no sound but the sound of his feet,
Machine gun ready to go
Are you ready, hey are you ready for this?
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat? 
--Another One Bites the Dust, 
Queen

 So when you hear it thunder
Don't run under a tree
There'll be pennies from Heaven
For you and me 
--Pennies From Heaven, 
Bing Crosby
 __________________

When another one bites the dust, the happy-yippy media cues up applause. So when the United States vaporized Pakistani Taliban head honcho Hakimullah Mehsud last November, the audience's neon sign lit up predictably.

But the Pakistan Taliban -- like all such groups -- self-generates, and every slot can be filled by another, one-each.  As we at RAW have written before (when "taking out" the No. Two's was big deal), if the 7th "No. Two" is taken out there will be an 8th.

The media crowed that the latest leader is the hardest of the hard, Mullah Fazlullah. Feh -- just another day at the office, but there is meaning here for U.S. taxpayers.

Fazlullah is reported to be supported by Afghan intelligence, noteworthy since Afghan intel is a creature of 12 years of support provided to Afghan National Forces. Afghan intel is supporting Pakistan Taliban in order to punish Pakistan for supporting the Afghan Taliban. (Sounds like a line from a Gilbert and Sullivan Opera.)  So U.S. monies are now supporting the Taliban, which is in turn trying to destabilize Pakistani interests.

Get that? Simply put, the Taliban flourishes in theatre with the support of U.S. tax dollars. -- the same guys who used to be the bad dudes. (What, no applause?)

The Pakistani Taliban's spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, has recently announced a month-long ceasefire of the affiliated groups (theTehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or "TTP") aimed at reviving stalled peace talks with the Pakistani government, and to coerce them into accepting conservative religious sharia law. So even the Taliban is ingratiating itself into governmental tactics by offering to stop breaking the law in order to twist the arm of the reigning rulers to do what it wants. The statement released by spokesman Shahid said the groups should "restrain themselves from all kinds of [fun] jihadist activities," like killing polio team workers.

However, the New York Times reports, "The announcement of the truce came just hours after two bombings killed 13 people and wounded 10 in an attack on a polio vaccination team in the northwestern Khyber region." We at RAW do not think it is because they are anti-vaxxers who got word on Jenny McCarthy's anti-mercury-in-vaccines crusade.

But beyond the local Taliban wars, does it even matter that U.S. policy destroyed Saddam or Qaddafi? Where is the progress in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria? Are the new regimes better than those deposed with U.S. tax dollars? Were those tax dollars well-spent?

An old military axiom is to never mistake motion for progress nor to move laterally under effective enemy fire, yet that comprises the entirety of the Phony War On Terror (PWOT ©). Afghan President Karzai recently called the war for what it was, an exercise for 'Western interest', and gave his version of The Romantics' "Goodbye to You" in a recent WaPo interview:

"To the American people, give them my best wishes and my gratitude. To the U.S. government, give them my anger, my extreme anger."

So, whence the progress for the hapless taxpayer, who was told he would become a safer Plebe if the Taliban could be combated?