04/02/2008

Britain finances the Taliban

The Independent ran a story today entitled: Five men jailed for aiding 21/7 bombers which reassures you, if you’re that way inclined, that the British government is doing its bit in the war on terror. But then you read another headline in the same paper -Revealed: British plan to build training camp for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan - and you wonder just what the hell is going on. Aren’t the Taliban also terrorists? Yes, so we are told. Well? Well the piece commences:

“Britain planned to build a Taliban training camp for 2,000 fighters in southern Afghanistan, as part of a top-secret deal to make them swap sides, intelligence sources in Kabul have revealed. The plans were discovered on a memory stick seized by Afghan secret police in December.

“The Afghan government claims they prove British agents were talking to the Taliban without permission from the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, despite Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain will not negotiate. The Prime Minister told Parliament on 12 December: "Our objective is to defeat the insurgency by isolating and eliminating their leaders. We will not enter into any negotiations with these people."

The British response is that the Aghan government knew all along which, on the face of it is neither here nor there. But there's more. There’s method in Downing Street’s madness. Seemingly these are the more affable type of Taliban, the ones that can be befriended and turned against the nastier brand.

The Independent reports: “An Afghan government source said the training camp was part of a British plan to use bands of reconciled Taliban, called Community Defence Volunteers, to fight the remaining insurgents. "The camp would provide military training for 1,800 ordinary Taliban fighters and 200 low-level commanders," he said.

I seem to recall it was not that many years ago that the US financed ant-Soviet forces, many the modern day Taliban , to the tune of $6 billion. The training they were given and the weapons they were provided with have killed many an allied soldier.

The real logic behind all of this is that with NATO casualties unacceptable, what better way to keep British deaths low than to train Afghans to fight Afghans. Divide and rule, and its much cheaper!

You can just see a Tory Party election campaign poster saying : "If you want a terrorist for a neighbour, vote Labour!"

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