A Hellfire from Heaven won’t Smash the Taliban
From the keyboard of Pepe Escobar
Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666
Friend us on Facebook
Originally published in Counterpunch on June 2, 2016
So Taliban supremo Mullah Mansour’s white Toyota Corolla was rattling across the Baluchestan desert just after it had crossed the Iranian border when a Hellfire missile fired from a US drone incinerated it into a charred / twisted wreck.
That’s the official narrative. The Pentagon said Mansour was on Obama’s kill list because he had become “an obstacle to peace and reconciliation.”
There’s way more to it, of course. Mansour was a savvy businessman who was extensively traveling to Dubai – the Taliban’s historic clearing house where all sorts of dodgy deals are made. He was also in close connection with Jundullah – a.k.a. the hardcore Sunni anti-Tehran militia very much active in Sistan-Baluchestan province in Iran.
This time Mansour was in Sistan-Baluchestan on a medical visit – allegedly to eschew hospitals in Pakistan heavily monitored by the ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence]. Yet arguably Pakistan intel knew about it – so US intel also may have known about it and thus were able to track him.
But then there’s the real ace in the hole: the New Opium War.
The usual suspects in the Beltway insist that the Taliban profit handsomely from overseeing the opium trade out of Afghanistan –and now operate as a multi-billion-dollar drug cartel. That’s nonsense.
Bets can be made that Mansour’s kill will not reduce Afghanistan’s opium production – which has been steadily on the rise for years now. Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada, Mansour’s former number two, has been designated as the new leader.
The fact is, poppy production in Afghanistan remains at the highest levels in provinces that are – in thesis – controlled by Kabul. More opium was produced last year – also in thesis the last year of NATO’s Enduring Freedom operation – than in any other year since the UN started tracking it way back in 2002. In 2016 Afghanistan will produce more opium – thus heroin – than the entire global consumption.
An inkling of what’s really going on in the New Opium War is provided by a recent book (in Italian) by Enrico Piovesana. He tells of shady military operations conducted by NATO in which massive quantities of opium have been sequestered by helicopter – never to be seen again.
So we’re back to the same old CIA opium rat line, which translates into control of the Afghan opium market in collusion with local police, military high brass in Kabul and the Karzai family, of former President a.k.a. «mayor of Kabul» Hamid Karzai. Doing business with narco traffickers has also handily provided liquidity – as in dirty money – to Western big banks. None of this has anything to do with the Taliban, which actually brought down opium production to near zero in 2001, before 9/11 and the American bombing/occupation of Afghanistan.
Those shadowy Af-Pak players
The first US drone strike ever in Baluchestan (another Obama «first») remains something of a mystery. A credible working hypothesis is that this was a covert US-Pakistani co-op. The hit allegedly came via the Pentagon, not the CIA. Mansour’s Corolla was something like 40 km inside Baluchestan after it had crossed the border – in an area where US drones would have been quite vulnerable to upgraded (in 2011) Pakistani air defenses.
A plausible – but unconfirmed – scenario would see RQ-170 Sentinels tracking Mansour’s Toyota, with the coordinates then fed to Reaper drones flying out of Kandahar airfield. Assuming the drones began tracking the Toyota at the Iran-Pakistan border, they would have been in action over Baluchestan air space for hours on end, undisturbed.
But then there are the incongruities. Pakistani sources mention that the Toyota – as in any real drone hit – was not totally smashed, but was still on its wheels. And a mysterious passport (Mullah Mansour’s) also showed up on the scene, unscathed.
As for the original HUMINT that led to Mansour’s trail, the notion that Washington had scored it stretches credulity. It would be more like a very well placed/rewarded asset somewhere – be it a military in Kabul or a disgruntled ISI operative.
What was Mansour really up to? He was quite savvy in playing for time. He clearly saw through the US «strategy» – which boiled down to encouraging Afghan president Ashraf Ghani to convince Islamabad to get the Taliban to the negotiating table.
Mansour though knew the Taliban could always advance militarily without negotiations; that’s why he duly announced the 2016 spring offensive – an annual Taliban ritual. At the same time he was very careful not to antagonize Islamabad so Taliban safe havens in Pakistan would not be compromised.
As far as what Islamabad is up to, that’s way hazier. Islamabad’s man in the Taliban succession was actually Sirajuddin Haqqani. After the death of his notorious father, Haqqani leads the homonymous network – which is very cozy with the ISI, arguably closer than the traditional Kandahar/Quetta Shura, a.k.a. the historic Afghan Taliban.
The new Taliban supremo will now have a handy window of opportunity to consolidate power. By early 2017 there will be a new US president, a new Pakistani army chief but the same Afghan so-called National Unity Government still disunited. The Taliban know what they want; be part of the government in Kabul, and get their cut in case the fractious Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline will ever be built. The more things change in Afghanistan, the more they hark back to two decades ago, during the second Clinton administration.
Meanwhile, former CIA asset, former pal of Osama bin Laden and still one of the US’s Public Enemies, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, defined by Washington as a «global terrorist» and the leader of the Hezbi Islami organization, is about to close a deal with Kabul.
Hezbi Islami is the second largest «insurgency» in Afghanistan. Most of the top brass have defected to the Taliban. Hekmatyar lives in exile somewhere in Pakistan; the ISI, of course, knows all about it. So if Ghani in Kabul can’t bag the Taliban, at least he bags a currently much smaller fish, Hekmatyar. Does it help? Not really. It will fall eventually to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – as in Russia-China joint leadership – to solve the Taliban riddle. Certainly not to Operation Enduring Freedom Forever – no matter the size of their kill list.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).
NEW SURVEY
VISIT AND FOLLOW US ON DINER SOUNDCLOUD
" As a daily reader of all of the doomsday blogs, e.g. the Diner, Nature Bats Last, Zerohedge, Scribbler, etc… I must say that I most look forward to your “off the microphone” rants. Your analysis, insights, and conclusions are always logical, well supported, and clearly articulated – a trifecta not frequently achieved."- Joe DGlobal Population Stats
Enter a Country Name for full Population & Demographic Statistics
Quote from: RE on Today at 09:48:50 AMhttps://www.globalresearch.ca/short-road-democracy-fascism/5695865The Short Road: Democra...
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.While I won't argue that plenty of medical mistakes happen, you have to consider that many of the people who die from them are quite sick in the first place, and that 100% of medical patients eventually die of...
Quote from: knarf on Today at 07:49:11 AMSAYS BRAZIL'S NEW HEAD OF NATIONAL ARTS FOUNDATION.Dante Mantovani, the head of Brazil's National Arts Foundation, released a video on his YouTube page in which he connected rock...
Jump to the 11:00 min. mark of the vid for the session notes reading. WOWzeeeerrrrrr
Scientists have discovered an ingenious way to restore life to the dead patches of the Great Barrier Reef.ELIAS MARATTMU) — Dead coral reefs have become one of the major horrors resulting from human impact, with thousands of miles of coral ecosystem...
- Surly on A Bloody Week in Doom– March 17, 2019
- Karl on A Bloody Week in Doom– March 17, 2019
- Kevin Hester on A Bloody Week in Doom– March 17, 2019
- Surly1 on Machinery for a post collapse world
- MountainHiker on This Week In Doom Feb. 6, 2019
- William Hunter Duncan on This Week In Doom Feb. 6, 2019
- MountainHiker on This Week In Doom Feb. 6, 2019
- RE on How business as usual has been pursued since 2006 by escalating fraud and environmental vandalism
- Change Focus on How business as usual has been pursued since 2006 by escalating fraud and environmental vandalism
- Russ on Collapse? It’s already here.
No recent Facebook posts to show
- RT @FTFonFS1: "Giannis, Harden or LeBron aren't load managing. The best players, if they're healthy, are going to play at least 75 games. E… 04:08:45 AM December 04, 2019 ReplyRetweetFavorite
- RT @rolandscahill: All those Republicans who called for Katie Hill and Al Franken to resign will of course be calling for Stephen Miller to… 09:01:19 AM November 12, 2019 ReplyRetweetFavorite
- RT @JackiSchechner: Interesting. Roger Stone couldn't STFU, even when under gag orders and threatened with being held in contempt of court.… 09:00:30 AM November 12, 2019 ReplyRetweetFavorite
- Surly
- Agelbert
- Knarf
- Golden Oxen
- Frostbite Falls
- Two Ice Floes
- Jumping Jack Flash
- From Filmers to Farmers
Missing In Action By Cognitive Dissonance As a very young pup, whenever I was overdue and not ho [...]
Politicians’ Privilege By Cognitive Dissonance Imagine for a moment you work for a small or medi [...]
Shaking the August Stick By Cognitive Dissonance Sometime towards the end of the third or fourth [...]
Empire in Decline - Propaganda and the American Myth By Cognitive Dissonance “Oh, what a tangled [...]
Meanderings By Cognitive Dissonance Tis the Season Silly season is upon us. And I, for one, welc [...]
http://jumpingjackflashhypothesis.blogspot.com/2012/02/jumping-jack-flash-hypothesis-its-gas.htmlThe [...]
http://jumpingjackflashhypothesis.blogspot.com/2012/02/jumping-jack-flash-hypothesis-its-gas.htmlThe [...]
http://jumpingjackflashhypothesis.blogspot.com/2012/02/jumping-jack-flash-hypothesis-its-gas.htmlThe [...]
http://jumpingjackflashhypothesis.blogspot.com/2012/02/jumping-jack-flash-hypothesis-its-gas.htmlThe [...]
Category: Fires And Explosions2019-11-01 - California wildfires signal the arrival of a planetary fi [...]
Industrial-scale renewable energy goes faux-green to the max while LEGO joins the sham with its new [...]
With fusion energy perpetually 20 years away we now also perpetually have [fill in the blank] years [...]
My mea culpa for having inadvertently neglected FF2F for so long, and an update on the upcoming post [...]
NYC plans to undertake the swindle of the civilisation by suing the companies that have enabled it t [...]
MbS, the personification of the age-old pre-revolutionary scenario in which an expiring regime attem [...]
- Peak Surfer
- SUN
- Transition Voice
"The drift towards near-term human extinction must be averted at all costs."I confess. I a [...]
"Since 2005, winters in Mexico have been my Hemingway Machine." As winter descends upon m [...]
"Serious oxygen loss between 100 and 600-meter depths is expected to cover 59–80% of the ocean [...]
"We need wooden ships, char-crete buildings, bamboo bicycles, moringa furniture, and hemp cloth [...]
"Restoring normal whale activity to the oceans would capture the CO2 equivalent of 2 billion tr [...]
The folks at Windward have been doing great work at living sustainably for many years now. Part of [...]
The Daily SUN☼ Building a Better Tomorrow by Sustaining Universal Needs April 3, 2017 Powering Down [...]
Off the keyboard of Bob Montgomery Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666 Friend us on Facebook Publishe [...]
Visit SUN on Facebook Here [...]
What extinction crisis? Believe it or not, there are still climate science deniers out there. And th [...]
My new book, Abolish Oil Now, will talk about why the climate movement has failed and what we can do [...]
A new climate protest movement out of the UK has taken Europe by storm and made governments sit down [...]
The success of Apollo 11 flipped the American public from skeptics to fans. The climate movement nee [...]
Today's movement to abolish fossil fuels can learn from two different paths that the British an [...]
- Our Finite World
- Economic Undertow
I wonder whether this has been fully thought through. If something goes wrong, clearly the whole thi [...]
One of the big questions is, "Do you count all of these things with virtually no value as part [...]
There was no Iranian missile attack. That claim is pure Israeli propaganda, designed to further thei [...]
How DARE THEY! World’s Biggest Oil-Refining Tower Completes 11,000-Mile Voyage Anthony Osae-Brown, T [...]
Gail, I once again display my ignorance of modern economic theory. So, we pay people to create [...]
Steve wrote a couple of articles last year, Marx & Debtonomics: https://www.economic-undertow.co [...]
Wait - when did Steve say that about Marx? I must have missed an interesting discussion along the wa [...]
@Ellen, I concur with Steve that Marx understood the problems with capitalism but failed to place th [...]
Well said. I would only argue that we, in effect, have MMT already. It hasn't failed yet. [...]
PS I really like herring and potatoes - and turnips. We will be lucky to have even those IMHO. [...]
- Diner Facebook
- Diner Twitter
- Forum Roundup
- Podcasts
- Diner TV
- Daily News
- Join!
- Blogger Buffet
- Economic Undertow
- Daily Impact
- Our Finite World
- Resource Crisis
- Peak Surfer
- From Filmers to Farmers
- The Slog
- Pray for Calamity
- Two Ice Floes
- Towards a Better World
- Automatic Earth
- Yanis Varoufakis
- Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
- Financial Armageddon
- Dmitri Orlov
- Brandon Smith
- Global Research
- Naked Capitalism
- Of Two Minds
- Off the Grid in Minneapolis
- Decolonization
- Peak Oil
- Nomi Prins
- Urban Scout
- FEASTA
- Land Destroyer
- John Pilger
- F W Engdahl
- Steve Lendman
- Sea Gypsy
- Guy McPherson
- Testosterone Pit
- ENE News
- Dark Ages America
- The Oil Age
- Question Everything
- Economic Reason
- Thoreau Farm
- The Archdruid Report
- Pattern Literacy
- Resilience Science
- Clusterfuck Nation
- A View from the Trenches
- Jaded Prol
- Boiling Frog
- Dark Mountain
- Chasing the Squirrel
- Epiphany Now
- The Butterchurn
- Paul Chefurka
- The Burning Platform
- Deflationland
- The Economic Collapse
- 22 Billion Energy Slaves
- George Washington
- Global Economic Intersection
- First Rebuttal
- Zero Hedge
- Multiplex
- Diner Webzine
- FAQ
- Collapse Cafe
Going Cashless
Off the keyboard of RE Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666...
Simplifying the Final Countdown
Off the keyboard of RE Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666...
Bond Market Collapse and the Banning of Cash
Off the microphone of RE Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666...
Do Central Bankers Recognize there is NO GROWTH?
Discuss this article @ the ECONOMICS TABLE inside the...
Singularity of the Dollar
Off the Keyboard of RE Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666...
Kurrency Kollapse: To Print or Not To Print?
Off the microphone of RE Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666...
SWISSIE CAPITULATION!
Off the microphone of RE Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666...
Of Heat Sinks & Debt Sinks: A Thermodynamic View of Money
Off the keyboard of RE Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666...
Merry Doomy Christmas
Off the keyboard of RE Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666...
Peak Customers: The Final Liquidation Sale
Off the keyboard of RE Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666...
Deterministic–stochastic empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is used to obtain low-frequency (n [...]
At the sub-national level, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) proposes [...]
The recent droughts in the American Southwest have led to increasing risks of wildfires, which pose [...]
To date, top-down approaches have played a fundamental role in expanding the comprehension of both e [...]
The effect of urbanization on microclimatic conditions is known as “urban heat islands”. [...]