July 30, 2015
By Jon Lee Anderson
...The international conflict (click here) that Mullah Omar helped to start in 2001 is still going on, having cost, thus far, the lives of an estimated ninety-one thousand Afghans, twenty-six thousand of them civilians. Three thousand three hundred and ninety-three soldiers from twenty-nine different countries died, too, the majority of them—two thousand three hundred and sixteen—Americans. The financial cost to U.S. taxpayers alone has been around a trillion dollars, with billions more to come, in the years ahead, in medical bills and other long-term costs for Afghan-war veterans....
The Afghan war has been invisible. Mullah Omar has been dead for two years and no one seemed to have known anything about it until some of his words turned up in some reports overseas. That is a lot of dead people.
...Along the way, the Taliban spun off a lethal franchise in neighboring Pakistan. Among their targets: the schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who survived a bullet in the head in 2012....
I really think the Taliban had taken over Pakistan. They may have taken over Karachi even before the Afghan invasion. It was no time before Daniel Pearl fell victim to them. That was very early on.
The ISI has always had this precarious position in Pakistan. They were always between the official government and the street government. I think it was the Taliban.
After the US invasion into Afghanistan the Taliban ran into Pakistan in large measure. They populated the country expecting to take over the government. There was a National Geographics edition that explored the presence of the Taliban in Lahore. That is the second largest city only smaller to Karachi. My heart fell to my feet when I read that article. BUT. The people of Pakistan never agreed with the Taliban's brutal regime. The people never had to do anything except live their lives on their own terms and the Taliban left and went back to Afghanistan.
But, let's face it, bin Laden was among friends all the years he lived near a military academy at Musharraf's back door. Bin Laden was fine while the Taliban tried to kill then President-General Musharraf.
A very odd part of the world. They have all winter to plan for war and deaths at the first blush of spring. It used to be a magnificent place. It was once a beautiful country.
By Jon Lee Anderson
...The international conflict (click here) that Mullah Omar helped to start in 2001 is still going on, having cost, thus far, the lives of an estimated ninety-one thousand Afghans, twenty-six thousand of them civilians. Three thousand three hundred and ninety-three soldiers from twenty-nine different countries died, too, the majority of them—two thousand three hundred and sixteen—Americans. The financial cost to U.S. taxpayers alone has been around a trillion dollars, with billions more to come, in the years ahead, in medical bills and other long-term costs for Afghan-war veterans....
The Afghan war has been invisible. Mullah Omar has been dead for two years and no one seemed to have known anything about it until some of his words turned up in some reports overseas. That is a lot of dead people.
...Along the way, the Taliban spun off a lethal franchise in neighboring Pakistan. Among their targets: the schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who survived a bullet in the head in 2012....
I really think the Taliban had taken over Pakistan. They may have taken over Karachi even before the Afghan invasion. It was no time before Daniel Pearl fell victim to them. That was very early on.
The ISI has always had this precarious position in Pakistan. They were always between the official government and the street government. I think it was the Taliban.
After the US invasion into Afghanistan the Taliban ran into Pakistan in large measure. They populated the country expecting to take over the government. There was a National Geographics edition that explored the presence of the Taliban in Lahore. That is the second largest city only smaller to Karachi. My heart fell to my feet when I read that article. BUT. The people of Pakistan never agreed with the Taliban's brutal regime. The people never had to do anything except live their lives on their own terms and the Taliban left and went back to Afghanistan.
But, let's face it, bin Laden was among friends all the years he lived near a military academy at Musharraf's back door. Bin Laden was fine while the Taliban tried to kill then President-General Musharraf.
A very odd part of the world. They have all winter to plan for war and deaths at the first blush of spring. It used to be a magnificent place. It was once a beautiful country.
