America acknowledges role in empowering Talibans, etc.

Lifted from Hillblogger 3:

If we were to go by what Hilary Clinton has been saying (watch You Tube video below, H/T Marina Mahathir), America indeed has acknowledged its role in empowering the Talibans, and by extension, Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.

Stalwarts of the US Republican Party seem to have been suffering from memory loss these last few years but this space has never forgotten that the rise of the Talibans in the terrorism power realm was a result of America's aggressive, almost vindicative but short-sighted forward defence policy that was a cornerstone of the Reagan administration.

The short sighted approach that was America's, in its desire to defeat the Russians at all costs, inevitably led to the formation of a fundamentalist-extremist terrorism oriented movement inspired by the Talibans, the Al Qaeda.

There were two real major factions in Afghanistan fighting against Russia's occupation of the country in the late 70s until the late 80s, the Talibans and the Northern Alliance. America supported and heavily funded the Talibans and encouraged the recruitment of fighters from fundamentally Islamist countries.

France, on the other hand, was supporting, financing and advising the Northern Alliance, led by Ahmed Shah Masood, popularly known as the “The Lion of Panjshir” (shown), the coalition that eventually became the West's real major ally in the run up to America's war against the Talibans.

The rest is history -- the Talibans turned against America leading to the infamous 9/11.

Recommended read: Examining the U.S. foreign policy missteps leading up to 9/11

Headline grabbers this week: Sarkozy-Dalai Lama meet, 2 million American jobs destroyed, US contempt for rule of law, cluster bombs

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Despite vulgar threats threats from Peking, President Nicolas Sarkozy keeps meeting with the Dalai Lama in Poland.

From Le Figaro: Première rencontre entre Sarkozy et le dalaï-lama First meeting between Sarkozy and the Dalai Lama

(Eric Feferberg / AFP)

[...] «Il convient de ne dramatiser aucun rendez-vous. Je suis libre de mon agenda», a tranché le président de la République, avant de s'entretenir avec le leader spirituel tibétain samedi en Pologne. [...] "There's no reason to over-react about any meeting. I'm free to do as I please", so decided the president of the Republic before meeting with the Tibetan spiritual leader in Poland today.

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[...] C'est fait. Après des mois d'attentes, de polémiques et de menaces de Pékin, le président français Nicolas Sarkozy a rencontré le dalaï-lama, pour la première fois, samedi à Gdansk, au nord de la Pologne. L'entretien entre les deux hommes a débuté peu après 16h30 et se poursuit actuellement. Peu avant, lors d'une conférence de presse, le chef de l'Etat français avait affirmé qu'il convenait de «ne pas dramatiser» cette rencontre. [...] Done. After months of waiting, of controvery and of threats from Peking, France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Dalai Lama met for the first time on Saturday (today) in the Polish town of Gdansk. The meeting between the two men began at around 4.30 PM and is still going on. More here.

Well, well... that will learn 'em Chinese not to go around threatening leaders of sovereign European states with whatever.

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Of course, it didn't stop Chinese authorities attacking France, qualifying Sarkozy's decision to meet with the Dalai Lama as opportunistic and hasty for not only ruffling Chinese feelings but also for weakening Sino-Franco relations. Frankly, who cares!

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On the other side of the pond, things are going from bad to worse. Reports have it that the US has almost reached the two million job loss mark for the year, the highest in the last 15 years. More than half a million jobs were lost for the month of November alone and still counting.

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From Le Monde: Le chômage aux Etats-Unis au plus haut depuis quinze ans The highest unemployment rate in the United States in the last 15 years.

Meanwhile in the :

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Roger Cohen writes about the "snub symbol of U.S. contempt for the rule of law."

[...] THE HAGUE: Of the many issues that have soured relations between Europe and the United States under the Bush administration, few have been as poisonous as America's refusal to join the world's first permanent war crimes court here. The snub symbol of U.S. contempt for the rule of law.

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In one of his last acts, Bill Clinton signed the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court, but the signature never led to U.S. ratification. On the contrary, President Bush withdrew the signature.

.../...

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The effect of U.S. rejection of the court, combined with the trashing of habeas corpus at Guantánamo Bay, has been devastating. Allies from Canada to Germany that are court members have been dismayed by the U.S. dismissal of an institution they see doing evident good.

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Other smaller nations from Latin America to Africa, browbeaten by the United States on the issue, have looked elsewhere for lost military or financial support. The American idea, grounded in legal principles, has been undermined. [...] More here.

Human rights be damned? Let's hope the incoming US administration will prove to be as good as the world expects them to be.

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And the good news is from Oslo: Afghans sign treaty banning cluster munitions

In a surprising last-minute change of policy, the government of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan agreed Wednesday to join about 100 nations signing a treaty banning the use of cluster munitions, Afghan officials said.

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The decision appeared to reflect Karzai's growing independence from the Bush administration, which has opposed the treaty and, according to a senior Afghan official who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, had urged Karzai not to sign it.

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Taliban at the gates of Peshawar and threatening to hit Paris

From Le Figaro:

Des officiers de la police pakistanaise sont en état d'alerte, à un croisement à Shabqadar, à 30 kilomètres au nord de Peshawar, le 12 novembre. Un attentatsuicide venait d'y faire 3 morts à l'entrée d'une école. Crédits photo : AP (On 12th November, Pakistani police were in a state of alert at the junction of Shabkadar 30 kms north of Peshawar. A suicide bombing had killed 3 people at the gates of a school.)

Refuge des habitants des zones tribales chassés par les bombardements, la capitale du Nord-Ouest frontalière de l'Afghanistan est devenue la cible des talibans pakistanais. (Refuge for tribes who were driven away by the bombings, the capital of the North-West border of Afhganistan has become the target of Pakistani Talibans.)

Comment: The Talibans should be decimated. Extremism has no place in a society that wishes to survive. They are a menace to every man, woman and child who simply want to go about living their lives.

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The bloody Talibans even had the audacity to threaten to bomb Paris if we didn't withdraw our forces from Afghanistan! Do they really want to end up like Bush?

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So they want to bring their poppy cultivating war right to our doorstep? Well, here's what... I have no doubt that President Sarkozy will follow Jacques Chirac's nuke doctrine if these Taliban weasels even if they remotely try: France will make potholes every single square foot of land these Taliban weasels inhabit!

Reuters video