Afganistan, A war of Lies.

President Barack Obama and Congress are wrestling with widening the war in Afghanistan. After eight years of military operations costing US $236 billion, US commander in

Afghanistan just warned of the threat of “failure,” aka defeat.

Truth is war’s first casualty. The Afghan War’s biggest untruth is, “we’ve got to fight terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them at home.” Politicians and generals keep using this canard to justify a war they can’t otherwise explain or justify.

Many North Americans still buy this lie because they believe the 9/11 attacks came directly from the Afghanistan-based al-Qaida and Taliban movements.
Not true. The 9/11 attacks were planned in Germany and Spain, and conducted mainly by US-based Saudis to punish America for supporting Israel’s repression of the Palestinians.

Taliban, a militant religious, anti-Communist movement of Pashtun tribesmen, was totally surprised by 9/11. Osama bin Laden, on whom 9/11 is blamed, was in Afghanistan as a guest because he was a national hero for fighting the Soviets in the 1980’s and was aiding Taliban’s struggle against the Afghan Communist-dominated Northern Alliance afterwards.

Taliban received US aid until May, 2001. The CIA was planning to use Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida to stir up Muslim Uighurs against Chinese rule, and to employ Taliban against Russia’s Central Asian allies. Most of the so-called “terrorist training camps” in Afghanistan were being run by Pakistani intelligence to prepare mujahidin fighters for combat in Indian-held Kashmir.
In 2001, Al-Qaida only numbered 300 members. Most have since been killed. A handful escaped to Pakistan. Only a few remain in Afghanistan. Yet President Obama insists 68,000 or more US troops must stay in Afghanistan to fight al-Qaida and prevent extremists from reacquiring “terrorist training camps.”

This claim, like Saddam’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, is a handy slogan to market war to the public. Today, half of Afghanistan is under Taliban control. Anti-American militants could more easily use Somalia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, North and West Africa, or Sudan. They

don’t need remote Afghanistan. The 9/11 attacks were planned in apartments, not camps.
However backwards and oafish its Pashtun tribesmen, they have no desire or interest in attacking America. Taliban are the sons of the US-backed mujahidin who defeated the Soviets in the 1980’s. Taliban never was America’s enemy. Instead of invading Afghanistan in 2001, the US should have paid Taliban to uproot al-Qaida – as I wrote in the Los Angeles Times in 2001.
The Pashtun tribes want to end foreign occupation and drive out the Afghan Communists and drug lords, who now dominate the US-installed Kabul regime. But the US has blundered into a full-scale war not just with Taliban, but with most of Afghanistan’s fierce Pashtun tribes, who comprise over half the population.

This conflict is now spreading into Pashtun regions of Pakistan. Last week, the US Ambassador in Islamabad actually called for US air and missile attacks on the Pakistan’s city of Quetta, where some senior Taliban figures are said to be located.
The US is sinking ever deeper into the South Asian morass. Washington is trying to arm-twist Pakistan into being more obedient and widening the war against its own independent-minded Pashtun tribes – wrongly called “Taliban.”

Washington’s incredibly ham-handed efforts to use US $7.5 billion to bribe Pakistan’s feeble, corrupt government and army, take control of military promotions, and get some sort of control over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, sparked a firestorm of anger. Pakistan’s soldiers are on the verge of revolt.
So, too, Washington’s plans to build a 1,000-person fortress embassy in Islamabad, a consulate in Peshawar that will clearly serve as an intelligence base, and the deployment of growing numbers of US mercenaries in Pakistan.

It’s all a neat circle. Washington says it will need more personnel and a bigger embassy to supervise the distribution of the increased aid to Pakistan, and more mercenaries (AKA “contractors”) to protect them.
President Obama has been under intense pressure to expand the war from flag-waving Republicans, much of the media, and the hawkish national security establishment. Israel’s supporters, including many Congressional Democrats, want to see the US seize Pakistan’s nuclear arms and expand the Afghan war into Iran. Israel’s hawkish foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, recently identified Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq as the main threats to Israel.

President Obama should admit Taliban is not and never was a threat to the west; that the wildly exaggerated al-Qaida has been mostly eradicated; and that the US-led war in Afghanistan is causing more damage to US interests in the Muslim world – now 25% of all humanity – than Bin Laden and his few ragtag allies. The bombing in Madrid and London, and conspiracy in Toronto, were all horribly wrongheaded protests by young Muslims against the Afghan War.
We are not going to change the way Afghans treat their women by waging war on them, or bring democracy through rigged elections. We are not going to win hearts and minds by imposing a Communist-dominated Kabul regime on pious Muslims, bombing their villages and sending Marines to kick down their doors and violate their homes.

US Afghan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal is demanding 40,000–80,000 more troops. Even this number will not win the war in which Washington cannot even define the terms of victory. The only way to get out of this situation is that they will have to hand over the charge to Afghan people and go to thier homes.

American Attack in Afganistan why?????

Over the years I have heard 10 or more reasons, but not one that is convincing. “This

will not end well,” George Will wrote, and I agree with that. Yes, President Obama inherited the Afghanistan war, but he has dug himself in deeper, and as they say he owns it now. It will be hard for him either to win it or to extricate us.
At first it was retaliation for 9/11. They should “get the people who attacked them,” as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. It is the one reason that Americans understand and do accept. I was certainly in favor of the Afghanistan invasion of 2001, and perhaps that’s why Obama called it the necessary war. Striking at al Qaeda made sense in a way that invading

Iraq never did. But that was a reason for going into Afghanistan, not a reason for still being there eight and a half years later.

When Their bombing missions and commando raids met with uncertain success, the rationale for expanding the war shifted. It was said that They couldn’t let this evil thing called al Qaeda have the run of a whole nation to plot further attacks. That meant They had to get control of the whole country.
Of course you don’t need a whole country — Afghanistan is about the area of Texas, with a population of 30 million — to plan an assault. And even if you do, it doesn’t have to be Afghanistan. How about Yemen or Somalia? Or failing that, an American motel. Some of the Saudi hijackers met shortly before 9/11 in a Florida motel, others at various addresses in Virginia.

The plot succeeded not because they were free of a meddling government but because they enjoyed the element of surprise. They were willing to commit suicide in the planes they had seized — something new in the history of hijacking. The pilot’s cabin won’t be so easily reached in the future.
It would have been nice if their 2001 aerial bombardment of Afghanistan and cave raids on al Qaeda had killed Osama bin Laden right away. Then They could have withdrawn victoriously. I’m afraid that in the end they may be reduced to retreating indecisively, even ignominiously.

Incidentally, Americans can’t rule out the possibility that bin Laden is dead, as Angelo Codevilla has argued. The CIA, surely, has too readily accepted recordings of “his” voice as genuine. Why not insist on video before accepting anything? The national security establishment may want to preserve a formidable foe, just as the WHO loves a new flu virus. Some may recall that the CIA grossly exaggerated Soviet GNP — by a factor of 10, I believe — right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Analysts may be playing the same game now with bin Laden.In November, Obama agreed to a troop buildup in Afghanistan, opting for “counter-insurgency” rather than “counter-terrorism.” Probably not one American in a thousand understood that. It means “enhancing the military, governance, and economic capacity” of the region, Obama said.

Americans cannot win this war for an important cultural reason: theirs is an increasingly feminized culture, so they cannot take the casualties.
For Americans Asian wars will not be sustainable. If the (masculine) British and Soviet empires of the 19th and 20th centuries could not handle Afghanistan then, I don’t see how their feminized culture can do so now.

It is not their duty to give Obama cover on the grounds that a war calls for patriotism, not partisanship. Great errors of judgment must be pointed out, not glossed over. Democrats in Congress will probably want to get out of this war ahead of the Republicans.

Should there be audit for Social Media

In addition to constant listening and alerting to their market, brands should conduct an initial, then annual social media audit to be successful in their endeavors.Just as brands conduct audits of inventory, employees, and budgets on an often annual basis, they should also survey the landscape to find out what customers,

influencers, partners and employees are participating on the social web. Audits are key for identifying priorities, benchmarking previous efforts, and planning for future efforts; the same applies for social media. I’ve been reviewing social media strategy documents from a variety of large brands, and I’ve noticed the following three common traits:

Understanding the Type of Social Media Audit.

1- Initial Kickoff Audit.

Brands should audit their social sphere as part of their initial planning process. Brands should work with a partner to find out the conversation index, top competitors, top discussed phrases, and customer experiences with products and services.
2- Conduct Annual Audits:

Social media teams should work with management and marketing managers to understand how and why the social web responded to activities in the market. Benchmark top advocates and detractors, and determine which topics or products are most talked about. Most importantly, benchmark your own social efforts, measuring the change and analyze what caused them, you’ll need this data as your budgets are questioned. Finally, use this knowledge to set quantitative and qualitative goals of where you want to be next year.
3- Conduct Ongoing Monitoring:

This really isn’t an audit but is key as listening doesn’t just happen in spurts. Brands should be constantly monitoring their brand using alerts and reports. Ongoing monitoring is helpful in responding to the real time web (crises can breakout even on a weekend) but may miss out in seeing the bigger picture and macro changes.
Key TakeawaysI was involved (I come from practice within corporate) in the brand monitoring when I was running the social program at Hitachi Data Systems, I leaned on Converseon and Factiva, now owned by Dow Jones as well as setup Google Alerts and tracked Technorati links. Here’s a few things you’ll need to take into account:
Don’t conduct your audit in a vacuum. Identify the keywords and phrases to measure by involving a variety of stakeholders. Be sure to distribute the findings to stakeholders as well as conduct a findings meeting to discuss next steps
Find a brand monitoring vendor as a long term partner. Find a listening platform that understands your business, and gets the social web –beyond just mainstream media. Forrester has conducted research Wave on this topic to find the right listening platform vendors to meet your needs.
Appropriately Staff and Fund. Don’t expect this partner to understand the nuances of your markets’ discussion, assign a few part time resources internally to champion this audit internally –and don’t forget to budget. I’ve seen many annual pricing proposals at the 100k range –varying on services and number of keywords used.
Love to hear your tips, best practices, and pitfalls to avoid in the comments when it comes to developing an active listening strategy.
Conducting the Audit.
Key to the audit is identifying two or three competitors. One competitor should be similar in size and scope to the entity audited and the second should be larger. If a business chooses to include a third competitor, it is advisable to use one smaller in size and scope.
Identify the metrics for each audit category. For instance, a Twitter audit should include the number of followers and the number following the Twitter account. The number of Tweets is certainly important as it indicates how active the account is with updating followers. Whether the Twitter account is listed may or may not also be important to the business.
Identify the basics of each audit category. For instance, YouTube has many elements beyond simply posting a video that help deliver brand messaging, and each should be identified and explained so the recipient of the audit understands the impact of ignoring or embracing those options. Depending on the type of entity audited, LinkedIn should include a comparison of the company profile, the groups belonged to, and the naming conventions of the groups.
The information is incredibly easy to collect and collate. The most difficult decision is how to analyze the data and what factors are important to an individual entity.

should media Be Trialed????

Should media be trailed that is the question which arises in the Mind of the peoples of pakistan and subcontinent.People’s response was a tight slap on the face of the some group of electronic media people who were desperately trying to arm media with a new function ’Media Trial. Is there any need to mount pressure on Judiciary or influence the judicial system by creating hype in any case? According to the constitution of Pakistan, the judiciary has the power to decide who is culprit in any matter and to the punish offenders through the due process of law.
Recourses the media cannot and should not influence the judiciary in any case. Media, by presenting the both sides of the coin, may build pressure on the administration to look into the matter with honesty. How can media decide who is victim and who is accused.
The media must not claim of being a hope for justice in the country when it cannot get its facts right. We all know what reporter says is not always the truth.
Now, if we believe on media reports, the lot of History of Pakistan and subcontinent may be changed. Is not it….
This may be said that the judiciary is over-burdened and it is in a horrible state but the media no way can fill in. The media is giving mega-publicity to the riots by using words like genocide. This can be said as a practice to add fuel in the fire. Media is not meant for doing any kind of trial but to present the truth to the public and administration in some cases. Some people may say that because of media hype, justice delivered in some cases. But, it doesn’t happen all the time. We don’t need media trials