Afghanistan and the Taliban Terrorists

                                                                       

Our USA State Department was not sure whether or not the Taliban are still terrorists 3 years ago in 2013.

They had opened an office in Qatar to bring on stability without the USA's help.  Afghan President Hamid Karzai has halted talks with the United States “to protest the way the Americans are reaching out to the Taliban in efforts to find a political solution to the war.” Karzai expressed his disappointment with the U.S. government for holding direct talks with the Taliban before bringing Afghan officials into the negotiations.  Not terrorists?  Then why did they kill " 14 Hazaras in Ghor Province? in 2014?  Violent attacks in Afghanistan cause a surge in child civilian casualties and impeded access to medical care then.  "The Taliban view the country's minority Shia community as apostates, and have targeted Hazaras in the past with suicide bombings and other attacks."  In this case, they stopped a bus and killed the Hazaras on it who are Shi'ites.  Are they really that much different from IS?  

The Taliban has taken over much of Afghanistan and does not want their competitor, Daesh (IS) to enter this country, so they have warned them to stay away.  "Afghan policemen stand guard near the site of a Taliban attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 27, 2015."  The Taliban has been losing some of its fighters to Daesh in the last few months, something Western countries have also noticed in some of their population.  In their letter to Bagdadi, they have appealed to him saying that the Taliban is based on "religious brotherhood "and asks him to understand and let them have a pass. Being the Taliban is a band of terrorists, there is more to it than brotherhood.  They even attack Afghanis and Pakistanis.  
                                                                               

The Taliban "is an Islamic fundamentalist political movement in Afghanistan currently waging war (an insurgency, or jihad) within that country.  From 1996 to 2001, it held power in Afghanistan and enforced a strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law, of which the international community and leading Muslims have been highly critical.
                                                                             

Their ideology has been guilty of many outlandish acts  "which resulted in the brutal treatment of many Afghans, especially women.   During their rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban and their allies committed massacres against Afghan civilians, denied UN food supplies to 160,000 starving civilians and conducted a policy of scorched earth, burning vast areas of fertile land and destroying tens of thousands of homes.  In its post-9/11 insurgency, the group has been accused of using terrorism as a specific tactic to further their ideological and political goals.   According to the United Nations, the Taliban and their allies were responsible for 75% of Afghan civilian casualties in 2010, 80% in 2011, and 80% in 2012.  

They are worse than the Mafia was in the United States in the 20's and 30's, fighting off other 

equally nasty mobs aiming to take over.  

Osama bin Laden was taken out by the USA in Pakistan in May 2011.  This also brought on 

the  assassination of many important Afghanis by the Taliban insurgents.  

"The Afghan Taliban's main goal is a full withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan and the fall of the Afghan central government under Ashraf Ghani. The Taliban leadership operates in so-called leadership councils (shuras). The main Taliban leader was Mullah Omar, who reportedly died in April 2013. He was replaced by Mullah Akhter Mansoor, although some senior Taliban members do not recognize him as their leader."

Afghanistan is not doing well.  It is one of the poorest countries in the world with a population of about 28,395, 716 people who are 99% Sunni and some Shi'a.  It's an Islamic state following the Hanafi and Jafari fiqhs like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, etc.  It is the 12th largest Muslim majority state, whereas Pakistan is the 2nd largest with 172,800,000 population and 97% Sunni and Shi'a, also another Islamic state.  Afghanistan is one of the least developed and most corrupt states in the world.  .  
                                                                              

Pashtos "Afghan Amir Sher Ali Khan (in the center with his son) and his delegation in Ambala, near Lahore, in 1869.

Out of Afghanistan's population, about 13,750,117 were Pashtuns in 2008, just a little less than half the population.  Some, no doubt, belong to the Taliban, but not all of them.  Those that don't have suffered harm from them.  The Pashtos are made up of several different tribes claiming descent from several different groups.  An interesting point  is that several tribes come from the Lost 10 Tribes of Israel.  "According to Ethnologue, the total population of the group is estimated to be around 50 million,  but an accurate count remains elusive due to the lack of an official census in Afghanistan since 1979.   Estimates of the number of Pashtun tribes and clans range from about 350 to over 400."
                                                                                

Indian Bollywood actor, Saif Ali Khan's paternal ancestors were Pashtuns.
The movie, Eklavya-The Royal Guard, stars Saif, of which is the only Indian video I possess.  Born in New Delhi, India,  he is the son of Sharmila Tagore, and Indian cricketer, Mansoor Ali Khan. Both his grandfather, Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, and father were professional cricketers. His mother, Sharmila Tagore, an actress within her own rights, is the grand-niece of renowned Rabindranath Tagore, who converted to Islam after marrying Saif's father. 

"Many high-ranking government officials in Afghanistan are Pashtuns, including: Zalmay Rasoul, Abdul Rahim Wardak, Omar Zakhilwal, Ghulam Farooq Wardak, Anwar ul-Haq Ahady, Yousef Pashtun and Amirzai Sangin. The list of current governors of Afghanistan, as well as the parliamentarians in the House of the People and House of Elders, include large percentage of Pashtuns. The Chief of staff of the Afghan National Army, Sher Mohammad Karimi, and Commander of the Afghan Air Force,Mohammad Dawran, as well as Chief Justice of Afghanistan Abdul Salam Azimi and Attorney General Mohammad Ishaq Aloko also belong to the Pashtun ethnic group."

There is so much to improve on in Afghanistan, where does one begin;  from the culture comes this corruption that is running amok.  No wonder terrorists do well here.  Wherever people do not follow their  law, it develops; here, Mexico, wherever.  It must start with politicians, and then expect others to do the same.  


Resource: http://www.newsweek.com/taliban-warns-isis-dont-come-afghanistan-343651
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban_insurgency
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtuns
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2013/06/19/state-dept-unsure-if-taliban-still-considered-terrorists/
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2014/07/afghanistan-attack-201472553221541767.html
****http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2015/10/pashtuns-and-jews-who-have-lived-in.html

When Arabs Went to Palestine

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                          

In 70 CE, the Romans burned down the 2nd Temple in Jerusalem besides the city itself.  Jewish independence had come to an end.  The Jewish population at that time was at least 5 million to 7 million, with the higher number claimed by Josephus's figures.
                                                                   

60 years later, the Jewish General Bar Kokhba faced a depleted  Jerusalem of only 3 million according to the figures of Dio Cassius.  He fought from 132 to 135 to take it back and was killed.  The Romans had never faced such strong forces before.  There were no Arabs there.
                                                                               

Arabs lived in Arabia made up of 1,027,000 square miles or 2,630,000 square kilometers and today is broken up into the states of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Bahrein, Qatar, Trucial Oman on the Persian Gulf, Muscat and Oman, and South Yemen.  They stayed there until the 7th century when Mohammad died in 632.
                                                                                 

Arabs then emerged from their desert country with a new goal of conquest in order to spread Islam.  They established an empire that over 100 years extended over 3 continents, from the Atlantic Ocean to the border of China.  The Arabs, led by the Sasanians in 614 by Khosrow Prviz, sacked Jerusalem and thus  conquered Palestine from the Byzantines who had stepped in to fill the void. Actually, the Sasanians were rulers of the Persians (Iranians) heirs of the ancient Achaemanean Empire.   The Byzantines were the Eastern Roman Empire with its capital in Constantinople, Turkey AKA Istanbul,  and held Palestine until the year 637, 5 years after the death of the Islamic leader. In 1165 Benjamin of Tudela found 2,000 Jews and 500 Karaites living there.  The Turks captured it in 1453.  The Jewish population had grown to 90,000 by 1919 but was reduced to 20,000 by 1990 by WWII and the creation later of Israel.

 Emperor Justinian (527-565) besides including elaborate anti-Jewish laws in his Code, issued a decree in 553 which interfered with the conduct of the synagogue services.  Heraclius is reported in about 614 to have issued an edict ordering the conversion of the Jews.  The practice of Judaism was formally forbidden by successive emperors;  Leo in 723, Basil 1st from 873 to 874;  Romanus Lucapenus in 932-936, and so on.  On each occasion, Jewish life reestablished itself, and in 1170, Benjamin of Tudela found Jewish communities throughout the Empire.  He emphasized that in Constantinople itself, Jews were treated with contempt.  Jews remained in the Byzantine Empire until the last group was conquered by the Turks in 1453, but continued to live in Constantinople.

Let's face it.  The Byzantine Empire was absolutely horrible for the Jews.  Then the Arabs took over.  Their headquarters was in Damascus, Syria.  The Arabs were from the Omayyad dynasty and their rule lasted a little over 100 years.  They in turn were overthrown in 750 by their bitter enemies and antagonists, the Abbasids who ruled for 200 years.  The Abbasids were dominated 1st by the Persians, then by the Turks.  Finally,  they were defeated by the Fatimids, who were Arabs that were not accustomed to governing anything.
                                                                     

During all this period, those subjected to these strangers ruling them had to learn Arabic which became the dominant language.  They were also forced to convert to Islam.  Those that converted did so because they had been suffering from social and economic discrimination if they didn't.  The Arabs called this period THE GOLDEN AGE OF ARABIC CULTURE.

All they really brought to people was what they had set out to bring;  Islam.  People learned to translate from their original language to Arabic.  Great volumes on mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and philosophy were simply translated materials into Arabic and thus claimed as originating from Arabs.  At least the Romans had brought aquaducts of which some still stand.  If some Arab sought a higher form of learning in those days, they had to go to Damascus or Egypt.  It wasn't offered in Palestine, which was always considered the backwater of any of the empires.  Jerusalem, where the Moslems built their Temple over the Jews' 2nd Temple, never achieved any political or cultural status.  The people there were useful only for forking over taxes to the rulers.

In the early Arab period, Arab immigrants from Arabia were encouraged, and later  given the Jewish lands.  When the Crusaders came to Palestine after 460 years of Arab and non-Arabic Moslem rule, they found an Arabic-speaking population.  The people were from at least 12 different races apart from the Jews and Druzes.  They were  practicing 5 different versions of Islam and 8 of Christianity.

The Persians and the Turks of the Abbasid empire; and the Berbers and the Egyptians of the Fatimid empire; none had an interest in Palestine except for what they could extract from it for their treasuries or their imperial armies.  
                                                                                         

The Christian Crusaders were followed by the Mamluks in 1250.  They had divided the land to administer.  All the people were being exploited and the administrators were hostile and indifferent.  Arabs had no part or direct influence in the Mamluk regime anymore than Jews had.  They were just conquered subjects.
                                                                         

Turks changed Arabic-style Turkish alphabet  in 1928 to ABC style.  

When the Ottoman Turks took over, nothing changed for the Arabs.  The Ottomans even replaced Arabic with Turkish as the language of the country.  Arabs hated the Turks just slightly less than the heavily taxed Jews.  Because the Arabs came from a rugged desert and were familiar only with sand, they had no respect for soil and what it could do.  They caused the land to become devastated.  They in turn were helped by the Turks, Persians or Egyptians and Crusaders and by the invading hordes of Mongols or Kharezmians.  The revolts of chieftains, civil strife, and inter-tribal wars that went on in this land ruined it..
                                                                             

Camel Caravan

 









                                             

Bedouin of today in Negev where about 200,000 live

Today Bedouins serve in IDF and make excellent trackers.  

Arabs that were Bedouins, like the Hashemite tribe of Jordan, would raid upon communities and destroy land.  The land was depleted and eroded over the 15 centuries of constant misuse.  Bedouins destroyed the land more than ever during the Abbasids and Fatimid eras.  Palestine was one big wasteland.  Time went by and the Bedouins continued to raid others, plunder their livestock, destroyed crops and plantations, and were a plague to farmers.  This started in the 13th century and grew worse under Ottoman mis-rule.  Bedouins camped along the countryside where they would attack people on the highway who were traveling, especially attacking  caravans carrying merchandise, or on pilgrim cavalcades.

They are no longer nomadic.  "Today, many Bedouin call themselves 'Negev Arabs' rather than 'Bedouin', explaining that 'Bedouin' identity is intimately tied in with a pastoral nomadic way of life – a way of life they say is over. Although the Bedouin in Israel continue to be perceived as nomads, today all of them are fully sedentarized, and about half are urbanites.  They now keep sheep and goats.  " Ishmael Khaldi, who has a master’s degree in Political Science from Tel Aviv University and serves in Israel’s Foreign Service, describes his own people, the Bedouin. “The Bedouin are more tribal than nationalistic,” Khaldi adds. It’s that deeply ingrained tribal culture that has allowed the Bedouin to survive centuries of nomadic existence, but it’s also the trait that presents barriers to their continued well -being in modern Israel."

It is my opinion that Hamas must be made up of such descendants of hostile Arab Bedouins, as their only skill seems to be attacking Israelis.  Fatah, too, for where is a farmer among them who values land?  Arabs on the whole were not educated city-folk, but wild  hot-tempered tribal people, easily stirred up by their leaders such as the Sherif of Jerusalem who was against Jews.  He had led many riots in the 1920s.

In 1785 the land was described as ruined and desolate country.  Pilgrims and travelers continued to report on its poor condition and barrenness.  Again in 1835 Alphonse de Lamartine wrote that he and his group saw no living object outside the gates of Jerusalem.  All was silent, like a tomb of a whole people.  1867 was when Mark Twain visited the land who saw and felt a rich soil that was full of weeds.  He didn't see any human being after traveling a great stretch to Tabor.He saw hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere, even the olive and the cactus were rarities.  He stated that he thought Palestine would never come to life again.  He wrote:

   "Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes.  Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies.  Palestine is desolate and unlovely."   Mark Twain.

So, now tell me again about this country called Palestine that the Arabs demand to "return to" and create their own state and still be against Israel?  What state-the state of weeds and mosquitoes and swamps?  Jews have returned after 2,000 years, yes, but they were kept out by the prevailing powers.  WWI's defeat was their chance and the Arab's defeat once again.  If they wish, they could always live in the other 48 Muslim  states in the world. For Jews, there is only one Jewish state, and that is Israel.   They all could have had their own state in 1948 when offered half of the Jewish land but THEY REFUSED IT.  They had entered Palestine when the Jews started returning and building in the late 1880s looking for work.  They called themselves Syrian Arabs.  They didn't just come from Syria, either, but from all the neighboring lands.

Now we have ISIS creating an empire out of Iraq and Syria, but what an empire called Islamic State!  They're busy killing off Muslim sects they don't approve of,  the Sunni, as they are Salafists, and any Christians found in the area.  Then we now have Russians in Syria killing off anyone not Alawites as they are propping up the Syrian President Assad.  In reaction to the bedlam, the Palestinian Arabs led by Fatah and Hamas leaders are copy cats-trying to start a 3rd round of an Intifada.

Resource;Battleground, fact and fantasy in Palestine by Samuel Katz
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/israels-bedouins/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negev_Bedouin
2nd edition, Middle East, past & present by Yahya Armajani, Thomas M. Ricks, Textbook for college