{"id":162791,"date":"2020-06-15T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2020-06-15T11:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=162791"},"modified":"2020-06-14T09:11:32","modified_gmt":"2020-06-14T08:11:32","slug":"nyt-erases-us-occupations-role-in-prolonging-taliban-insurgency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/06\/nyt-erases-us-occupations-role-in-prolonging-taliban-insurgency\/","title":{"rendered":"NYT Erases US Occupation\u2019s Role in Prolonging Taliban Insurgency"},"content":{"rendered":"

12 Jun 2020 – <\/em>The New York Times<\/b>\u2019 senior correspondent in Afghanistan, Mujib Mashal<\/a>, somehow managed to write a 3,700+ word article \u201cHow the Taliban Outlasted a Superpower: Tenacity and Carnage\u201d (5\/26\/20<\/a>) that purported to explain how the Taliban managed to \u201coutlast a superpower through nearly 19 years of grinding war,\u201d without examining at all how the US contributed to reviving and sustaining the Taliban insurgency.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Times <\/b>credited a variety of reasons\u00a0 to explain how the Taliban outlasted the US, ranging from an expansion of an \u201cillicit funding regime built on crimes and drugs,\u201d to a \u201csystem of terrorism planning and attacks\u201d that pressured the US-backed Afghan government. \u201cPositioning themselves as a shadow government,\u201d the \u201ccorruption and the abuses of the Afghan government,\u201d and their success with an \u201cincreasingly sophisticated information operation\u201d designed to \u201censure that recruitment streams would not dry up\u201d were also cited as explanations.<\/p>\n

Curiously, all these explanations exclude the US\u2019s illegal occupation and state terrorism as the reason for the Taliban\u2019s longevity and persistence. Instead, the Times <\/b>condemned the Taliban for changing \u201clittle of its harsh founding ideology\u201d and \u201cclinging to its old ways of repressing women, art and culture,\u201d as well as other offenses:<\/p>\n

They have never explicitly renounced their past of harboring international terrorists, nor the oppressive practices toward women<\/a> and minorities that defined their term in power in the 1990s. And the insurgents remain deeply opposed<\/a> to the vast majority of the Western-supported changes in the country over the past two decades.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although the Times <\/b>mentioned that the US supported Osama bin Laden and the reactionary Mujahedeen extremists against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, it never explicitly acknowledged that the US is responsible for the Taliban\u2019s rise, after they defeated other factions in the \u201cvacuum left behind by the Soviet withdrawal.\u201d There\u2019s no indication that the US itself is responsible for the Taliban\u2019s oppressive practices, even though the US intervened in a civil war against the Afghan Communist Taraki government<\/a>\u2014which had made advances towards ostensible US goals like educating girls and eliminating opium production\u2014six months before<\/a> the US baited the Soviet Union into invading Afghanistan in 1979 (FAIR.org<\/b>, 3\/21\/14<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The Times <\/b>also distorted history when it claimed that, after the US\u2019s illegal invasion in 2001, the<\/p>\n

Taliban reorganized as a decentralized network of fighters and low-level commanders empowered to recruit and find resources locally while the senior leadership remained sheltered in neighboring Pakistan.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Taliban didn\u2019t \u201creorganize\u201d as a \u201cdecentralized network of fighters,\u201d they surrendered shortly after the invasion. Not long after the Taliban\u2019s leader at the time, Mullah Omar, resigned and went into hiding on December 5, 2001, the newly appointed leader, Mullah Obaidullah, reached an agreement with former Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the Taliban to surrender their weapons, as well as their last stronghold in Kandahar, in exchange for amnesty for Afghan Taliban fighters (ABC<\/b>, 1\/6\/06<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\n

\"Intercept:<\/p>\n

Ryan Grim (Intercept, 8\/22\/17<\/a>) on the Taliban: \u201cWhen they were driven from power, the population was happy to see them go. The US managed to make them popular again.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Not only did the US make no attempt to prevent war by ignoring the Taliban\u2019s overtures to surrender bin Laden to the US for trial both before<\/a> and after<\/a> the September 11 attacks, the US also rejected the Taliban\u2019s efforts to end the war by ignoring the publicly agreed upon amnesty in favor of persecuting, torturing and killing suspected former Taliban members, who had stopped fighting and returned to civilian life, or fled to Pakistan (New York Times<\/b>, 12\/7\/01<\/a>; Intercept<\/b>, 8\/22\/17<\/a>). The Times <\/b>itself acknowledged that the Taliban had effectively disbanded when it noted that the \u201cTaliban\u2019s fighters went home as the Islamic Emirate disintegrated,\u201d while simultaneously asserting that its leaders were planning \u201ca longer war of attrition\u201d against the US from safe havens in Pakistan.<\/p>\n

According to journalist Anand Gopal (Foreign Policy<\/b>, 11\/10\/10<\/a>), even after fleeing to Pakistan, large segments of the Taliban leadership were still open to \u201creturning to Afghanistan and abandoning the fight.\u201d It wasn\u2019t until May 2003 that the Taliban announced that it had regrouped under new leadership, and was prepared to expel the US through guerilla warfare (Christian Science Monitor<\/b>, 5\/8\/03<\/a>). It began to dramatically escalate violence in 2006\u201307 (Washington Post<\/b>, 12\/9\/19<\/a>). The Taliban\u2019s resurgence wasn\u2019t inevitable, as the Times<\/b> acknowledged that many Taliban commanders interviewed for the article could \u201cscarcely even dream of a day they might be able to fight off the US military\u201d in the initial months after the invasion. It was the US\u2019s insistence on rejecting amnesty in favor of finding and punishing Taliban fighters that led to that revival.<\/p>\n

According to the Times<\/b>, it wasn\u2019t until 2007 that the Taliban began more \u201cserious territorial assaults\u201d by reviving and refining for use against the US military the \u201cold blueprint the United States had funded against the Soviets in the same mountains and terrain.\u201d After the Taliban\u2019s resurgence in 2006\u201307, the Times <\/b>noted that \u201cfighters keep signing up\u2026in part because of deep loathing for the Western institutions and values the Afghan government has taken up from its allies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"NYT:<\/p>\n

In a New York Times op-ed (2\/20\/20<\/a>), Taliban deputy leader Sirajuddin Haqqani<\/span> said the Taliban stuck with talks despite an \u201cintensified bombing campaign against our villages by the United States.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

If that\u2019s part of the answer, what else explains how the Taliban were able to \u201ckeep recruiting enough young men to continue fighting,\u201d even at the \u201cpeak of the long American military presence and the coordinating effort to help the Afghan government win hearts and minds in the countryside\u201d? It\u2019s no secret that the Taliban\u2019s most important goal is the withdrawal of foreign military forces, and it\u2019s patronizing to think the US ever had a shot at tricking Afghans into being content with imperial domination by winning \u201chearts and minds<\/a>.\u201d Their leaders even published an op-ed in the Times <\/b>(2\/20\/20<\/a>) explaining what motivates their insurgency, and why they keep pursuing a peace deal with the US:<\/p>\n

We did not choose our war with the foreign coalition led by the United States. We were forced to defend ourselves. The withdrawal of foreign forces has been our first and foremost demand.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is consistent with University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape\u2019s finding that over 95% of all suicide bombing attacks since 1980 are motivated by a desire to expel foreign occupiers from their homeland (Foreign Policy<\/b>, 10\/18\/10<\/a>). When Matthew Hoh, a former top State Department official in Afghanistan, resigned in protest over continual US involvement in Afghanistan\u2019s decades-long civil war, he noted in his resignation letter that many Afghans are fighting the US simply because its troops are there (Washington Post<\/b>, 10\/27\/09<\/a>; Extra!<\/b>, 12\/09<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Noam Chomsky (The Nation<\/b>, 5\/10\/16<\/a>) pointed out that studies of insurgencies reveal familiar cycles of violence. First, invaders are naturally disliked by the native population, whose resistance elicits increasingly forceful responses by the occupiers, which then escalates native opposition to their occupation until the occupiers either withdraw, or commit sufficient violence to subdue the occupied\u2014up to and including genocide.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The violence US-backed forces have inflicted on Afghanistan includes horrific torture in CIA black sites<\/a>, CIA-backed Afghan militias<\/a> torturing and killing Afghans with near impunity, bombing Afghans with drone strikes<\/a>, and alliances with brutal warlords<\/a> that were once suppressed by the Taliban and are despised by the Afghan people. The Costs of War Project (1\/20<\/a>) found that while 2,300 US soldiers have died in the Afghanistan War, over 157,000 people have died since the invasion in 2001 (including 43,000 civilians).<\/p>\n

Under international law<\/a>, those who start a war of aggression, as the US did in Afghanistan<\/a>, are responsible for all of the atrocities that subsequently occur, including the Taliban\u2019s violence against US soldiers and Afghan civilians to compel US withdrawal. Yet nowhere does the Times <\/b>article acknowledge that the \u201cmilitary invasion\u201d the Bush administration sought for \u201cimmediate revenge\u201d was a war crime in violation of international law. Indeed, seven out of nine references to \u201cviolence\u201d in the article are reserved exclusively for violence committed by Afghans, with none referring exclusively to US violence (FAIR.org<\/b>, 3\/29\/19<\/a>). Mashal refers at one point to \u201cinstances of US or Afghan forces causing civilian casualties,\u201d only to qualify them as \u201cwhether real cases or made up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Times <\/b>also demonstrated a commitment to the propagandistic narrative of the \u201cWar on Terror\u201d when it condemned the Taliban for not showing \u201cremorse for its past cooperation with Al Qaeda,\u201d and using terms like \u201cterrorism\u201d and \u201cterrorist\u201d exclusively as descriptors for Muslims and their activities. The US is arguably the biggest sponsor and perpetrator of terrorism on the planet (FAIR.org<\/b>, 3\/13\/19<\/a>, 2\/13\/20<\/a>), and has also cooperated with Al Qaeda with the support of corporate media (FAIR.org<\/b>, 3\/18\/15<\/a>, 1\/4\/17<\/a>).<\/p>\n

When an article purporting to explain how the Taliban outlasted the US doesn\u2019t mention that the abuses under the illegal US occupation are what revived and currently sustains their insurgency\u2014despite it being Osama bin Laden\u2019s stated strategy to ensnare the US in protracted and expensive wars (Washington Post<\/b>, 5\/3\/11<\/a>; Extra!<\/b>, 7\/11<\/a>)\u2014it is imperial propaganda. Although it\u2019s too early to say that the Taliban \u201coutlasted\u201d a superpower, because the US hasn\u2019t withdrawn yet, the Times<\/b>\u2019 analysis ultimately fails because it doesn\u2019t acknowledge how it\u2019s logically impossible for the US to \u201cwin\u201d a \u201cWar on Terror\u201d in Afghanistan, when its occupation and state terrorism are the Taliban\u2019s secret weapon.<\/p>\n

____________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/h4>\n
\n

 <\/p>\n

Joshua Cho is a writer based in Virginia.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original – fair.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

12 Jun 2020 – The New York Times\u2019 correspondent in Afghanistan, Mujib Mashal, somehow managed to write the article \u201cHow the Taliban Outlasted a Superpower: Tenacity and Carnage\u201d to explain how the Taliban \u201coutlasted a superpower through 19 years of war,\u201d without examining at all how the US contributed to reviving and sustaining the Taliban insurgency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":162794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[93,1855,1232,484,1365],"class_list":["post-162791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-afghanistan","tag-mainstream-media-msm","tag-new-york-times","tag-taliban","tag-war-journalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}