The big news from the Afghan-Pakistani border region is the capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar there a few days ago by a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation. This is good news — Baradar was a bad guy. It is also big news for a lot of reasons.
First, Baradar was the number two man in the Old Taliban network led by Mullah Omar, the guys we toppled earlier, the ones we’ve been fighting ever since, and the ones most closely tied to al Qa’ida. Number two is misleading. He’s the operations chief, actually directed the entire show. Mullah Omar has been in hiding for months, ever since the U.S.-run Predator missions started lowering the life expectancy of Taliban kingpins, and he’d put Baradar in charge of the entire organization. Baradar was the guy who wrote the new Taliban behavior manual – the so-called “kinder and gentler” Taliban – in response to the U.S. counterinsurgency tactical shift. (See my January 21st blog on that subject.)
Second, this was a combined U.S.-Pakistani mission, which means despite some genuine differences in goals and policies, we’re still working with the Pakistanis closely enough to pull something like this off – and keep it secret.
Third, it turns out we captured him days before the announcement was made. Why the delay? To enable us to execute other related operations based on the same intelligence before word got out and spooked the targets. In other words, for this administration operational necessity takes precedence over an immediate feel-good political bump.
Now that’s a novel idea.
Here’s a link to a Juan Cole’s February 16th Informed Comment column on the subject. Cole is one of the smartest guys on this region of the globe there is.
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amylu said:
what a childishly simplistic way of loking at things! BAD GUYS !!!
Grow up, darling! Get real!
How’d you feel if it had been some one you knew who’d been shot dead, I wonder???
would you still be playing Hollywood?
February 16th, 2010 at 11:41 pm
jose said:
I can only say to the previous comment (amylu) Well, they ARE bad guys. If more of these ‘bad guys’ are shot dead the world would be a much better place. Amylu, when you can boast the same credentials as the author of this piece, then you can criticize. SO, why don’t YOU grow up, …’darling’.
February 17th, 2010 at 8:05 am
Brian King said:
I would feel bad if it was someone I knew that was shot dead. But, if that person was responsible for an organization waging war, beheading journalists, cutting off limbs of patients who were helped by the “West”, laying IED’s for allied troops, sending Women back to the stone age, and generally making life miserable for millions of people – then I’d say to hell with him. If you don’t consider this guy bad – then your moral compass has no bearings.
February 17th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Frank Chadwick said:
Not to mention the fact that Baradar was not shot dead — he was apprehended. There will be times that we come into conflict, even violent deadly conflict, with people who are decent people fighting for what they believe in, but that doesn’t mean that everyone out there is “just misunderstood.” I don’t have any angst over calling Baradar exactly what I believe he is: a dangerous and really bad guy.
February 18th, 2010 at 6:46 am
komik resimler said:
taliban good administrator
February 22nd, 2010 at 4:35 pm