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US Designates Haqqani Network as Foreign Terror Organization

    • The designation of the Haqqani Taliban as a "terrorist organization" shows the U.S. desperation of fashioning a face-saving withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Obama's need for some frothy Afghan announcements during the presidential campaign . The U.S. had tried to defeat the Haqqani network and failed. Then it tried to bribe it into an alliance with the Karzai regime, but the Haqqanis didn't want to help the U.S. keep their country occupied for a monthly U.S. salary. Maybe we are descending into a new era where the losing party in a war declares his undefeated enemy a "terrorist organization," and then go home!

      Would the U.S. scare the Haqqanis with its "terrorist designation" label? Not really. Given the standing anti-U.S. animosity in the Muslim world, that label translates into a badge of honor for them! They could have joined the Karzai's regime, and start sending bags of $ millions out to Dubai as Karzai's corrupt buddies do! They didn't, because they put their country's sovereignty ahead of $$$$$$$. As for the U.S. hope that its rich Gulf allies would refrain from supporting the Taliban with its "terrorist label" slapped on them, that notion is misguided. They would do it clandestinely as they did during the Mullah Omar Taliban rule.

      The U.S. "terrorist label" on the Haqqani Taliban, therefore, is an indisputable U.S. admission that they are unbeatable on the battlefield, and the U.S. sanctions are just the last gasp of its upcoming defeat. The U.S. "terrorist" label will actually raise their prestige, and -with Pakistani help- it will establish them as the undisputed future rulers of Afghanistan! Nikos Retsos, retired professor

    • ...and this took so long why? I'm sure there weren't too many character witnesses.

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