The Return of CENTCOM

[randolph85]

Initially, I was against the idea of a dialogue with aria simply because he is centcom and is here for propaganda reasons and that alone. now, i would like to have an honest discussion with him and its not because he is anyone of importance or what we have to say means anything to "central control" but because he isn't a spam bot and is a person. he might be afghan or he might not be but if real dialogue begins i am sure the intellectual heavyweights like barakzai, revo, khwazun can provoke some response or emotions from this guy, or at least pose some legit questions like they have been.

this is an online forum, we can't be bombed, imprisoned, or silenced otherwise. not yet anyways. if there is any legitimacy from centcom agent codenamed aria, then we await the responses from the questions asked and won't play the role of "yessa massa" like badlun.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Initially, I was against the idea of a dialogue with aria simply because he is centcom and is here for propaganda reasons and that alone. now, i would like to have an honest discussion with him and its not because he is anyone of importance or what we have to say means anything to "central control" but because he isn't a spam bot and is a person. he might be afghan or he might not be but if real dialogue begins i am sure the intellectual heavyweights like barakzai, revo, khwazun can provoke some response or emotions from this guy, or at least pose some legit questions like they have been.

this is an online forum, we can't be bombed, imprisoned, or silenced otherwise. not yet anyways. if there is any legitimacy from centcom agent codenamed aria, then we await the responses from the questions asked and won't play the role of "yessa massa" like badlun.

Alas Randolph; the reality of the American law code is mind boggling and silencing is rather easy.

For instance, I bet most Americans dont know that federal authorities can utilize a law on the books that bans labelled t shirts or emblems in the supreme court building:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...served-arrest/

Most Americans probably say to themselves: "Well crap, its the supreme court building I got my first amendment rights!"

Thats not the reality at all. There are a great number of laws that are utilized by authorities to inflict economic damage and ruin onto people that are generally not rich enough to defend themselves and end up having to reach some sort of plea deal.

The reality is that Aria and his boys own the internet and they know it. It is not and has never been a virtual land of complete freedom, except perhaps for groups that understand its limitations and are savvy enough to navigate it in a way that gaurds your identity. Remember, one can kick Aria off, but one cannot stop the Aria equivalents from reading what is written.

The academic freedom dilemma here is that Aria's discussion cannot and will not be in the presence of the opposing party - and I dont think we need to advocate for that alternative voice's presence either for general forum safety. If for instance Aria's adversaries, the Taliban every opened up an account here what would occur is Aria would immediately turn over that information to his colleagues who would trace where the poster was - and in the right circumstances - if they could confirm it was not a troll - that person might be rubbed out. Additionally, Aria knows full well that if his presence here attracts the black turbaned ones in the way that Khwazun has mentioned - the fact that they can post puts everyone on here in a legal gray zone:

http://library.cqpress.com/globalres...30s0iupdvn7tj2


Read the section in the link above about Sami Al Husseyen and the clause in the patriot act that they tried to use to ruin the kid's life.

Julian Assange has addressed this recently and advocated that to protect freedom of speech, internet users in general need to explore cryptography.

http://cryptome.org/2012/12/assange-crypto-arms.htm

I agree that Aria is a bit more interactive than the Noorzai character and I hope he answers the questions posed because I do think dialogue is important and that would impressive.

However, I think we will find ourselves in a situation where Aria is, by the nature of his employment, constrained on providing concrete answers or thoughtful answers. For instance, service members cannot overtly even criticize the president of the US - and by extension their commentary on policy and military orders are often limited. Thats probably why you dont see SiiNii commenting in great detail on political particulars.

And Aria, I dont think its fair of you to brush concerns and legitimate questions that center on America's role in the conflict under the rug of "useless back and forth" so as to simply make a thread listing things you think are accomplishments. I realize it may be hard to answer so many questions in a timely fashion - but in the least you should try and discuss these important questions that take on the KEY thing you are here to represent: the moral imperitive. Your moral imperitive, or the argument for one that you make is: Hey we are doing stuff like building schools - the Taliban were not - they were wrecking schools... so whats the problem? Well the questions center around "the problem" and try to ask you about the intellectual honesty and underpinnings of that moral imperitive and take it head on. I would think that if you were convinced of a cause, you would want to show us faulty logic in the questions themselves.

[khwazun]

The reality is that Aria and his boys own the internet and they know it. It is not and has never been a virtual land of complete freedom, except perhaps for groups that understand its limitations and are savvy enough to navigate it in a way that gaurds your identity. Remember, one can kick Aria off, but one cannot stop the Aria equivalents from reading what is written.

The academic freedom dilemma here is that Aria's discussion cannot and will not be in the presence of the opposing party - and I dont think we need to advocate for that alternative voice's presence either for general forum safety. If for instance Aria's adversaries, the Taliban every opened up an account here what would occur is Aria would immediately turn over that information to his colleagues who would trace where the poster was - and in the right circumstances - if they could confirm it was not a troll - that person might be rubbed out. Additionally, Aria knows full well that if his presence here attracts the black turbaned ones in the way that Khwazun has mentioned - the fact that they can post puts everyone on here in a legal gray zone:

http://library.cqpress.com/globalres...30s0iupdvn7tj2

These two paragraphs cut to the core of my problem with CENTCOM presence. Quintessentially, we are looking at a situation that is one-dimensional in almost every aspect and Abdali's post details the how-and-why factor. I assume that Taliban operatives possess a functioning knowledge of how to mask themselves and their true location when revealing themselves in potential enemy territory on the internet. Nonetheless, even if Taliban did emerge, the scenario Admin Khan envisions where PF is used as a platform for the two opposing sides to engage in ideological debate is not even a wise move for the community because of the potential legal risks to US-based forum members as outlined above. And again, this strikes at the heart of the matter - CENTCOM, the entire American military machine has the unchallenged advantage and they know it. Their propaganda is much more polished and well produced, it reaches a far wider audience than that of their opponent and quite frankly they have every feasible advantage in the realm of politics and power, both on the global stage as well as on the internet.

[Admin Khan]

In Computer Science, Big Oh,the upper-bound of a function, which is transitive, is known as the worst case scenario. The Big-Oh for us will simply be a loya-jirga, where we decide the fate of such scenarios. Khwazun, I can assure you that we will eventually do what is in our strategic interest, the same way prior to you being a member here, BarakzaiAbdali conducted a loya-jirga and we all agreed on his suggestion.

I want to emphasize that this is our community, our board, and I personally can not decide on something without the say of our masharan(you, Ba, and others). I, so to speak, am simply the person who foots the bill every month, aside from that, BA and you are the owner of this board just as much as I am. This is our home, and we should build our e-space with respect to our interests. At the same time, we will try our best to foster though-provoking discussions from which we can learn.

[Badlun]

Aria,

I have some basic questions that I think a military afficionado like yourself might be able to help out with and I encourage a serious heart felt back and forth:

1) Why wont CENTCOM instead work on democratizing, occupying, and civilizing Pakistan? If the general premise that was given for the Afghan invasion and occupation was that a government sympathetic to Bin Ladin had to be done away with to avoid safe havens (i.e. our own national security goal) - has Pakistan with its various safe havens not met that criteria at this point? Moreover, when it comes to the other premise of human rights etc, once again why not utilize military force to change Pakistani society since Pakistan also meets that criteria?

2) What are your thoughts on the CIA's analysis and stated documentation that US interventionalism world round has sparked many of the qualms and attacks that have occurred? For instance, the CIA writes about blowback in the context of our government backing the brutal totalitarian Shah of Iran who gave way to the Ayatollahs due to the concept of blowback. Michael Scheuer head of Alec Station wrote his magna opus, Imperial Hubris documenting open source evidences to this effect.

A very recent example, perhaps in our own hemisphere of such actions is as follows:
In Guatamela, we backed the dictator Jose Effron Rios Montt who in turn began a campaign of brutalization and extermination of the indigenous peoples:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...os-montt-trial

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...b49_story.html

Based on the aforementioned, can you enlighten us as to why, with such a track record:
eg. the removal of Mossadegh by force in Iran, the removal of Allende by coup, the backing of Batista in Cuba, the initial buttressing of Saddam in Iraq, the backing of Mubarak and his predecessor in Egypt, Saudi Royals, now Maliki etc

The average Afghan, seeing this track record might wonder how and why Karzai is different and why his team, that you have a stake in, is better for indigenous peoples in the long run when the former dictators also infused capitalism with some degree of success coupled to dictatorial and corrupt leadership and ended up doing much wrong in the long term for their people (e.g. once again refer to Guatamala example above).

3) Regarding the successes of democracy and capitalism and what not... one of our closest allies is Saudi Arabia, a dictatorial monarchy nation state with many human rights abuses on its record. However, our military has friendly ties with Saudi and in fact buttressed and observed their troops in Bahrain suppressing democratic revolt. So with that in mind, how does CENTCOM reconcile its conflicing narrative regarding attempts to democratize and secularize Afghanistan by force but yet maintaining strong ties of friendship with Saudi Arabia? Should we not be invading and occupying Saudi Arabia for A) toppling its monarchy B) infusing the country with womens rights and C) ensuring human rights are observed?

4) The Brits also had a record of nation building projects and expressing with Kiplingesque glee about how it was civilizing the far reaching corners of the earth... yet nearly half a century after the demise of that empire we see problems world round in hot zones that were created because the British generally supplemented nation building with machinations and designs that altered regional balances in favor of perpetual war when they drew the lines that demarcated nation states. In Iraq, with the rise of Maliki and his suppression of free speech in a manner similar to that of Saddam Hussein - and the current conflageration in Libya can you address any concerns that the track record of the US is going along a british trajectory?

Aria may come out with better response to these important questions but here I would like to share my take on these issues.
1. Presence of Bin Laden in Afghanistan and his alliance with Taliban is totally different story as compared to presence of hidden Al Qaida in Pakistan. Pakistani forces are continuously fighting against terrorists and its a reality that they have lost thousands of lives in this fight. Pakistan is a democratic country and again this is a reality that their government has recently completed its full tenure and now they will have their regular elections on 11 May 2013. Pakistan is front line ally of US in the fight against terror and how US can attack its ally. It will be the same if US attacks Karzai who is a similar ally. Pakistan do have problems like sectariaisnm and presence of Taliban and its support mainly by Pashtuns but a parallel fight is going on with political forces like ANP and PPP as well as by the half million fully trained armed forces of Pakistan. Pakistan not at all fulfills the criteria as that of Afghanistan in Taliban time.

2. US support to Shah of Iran, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Bautista of Cuba etc can be simply justified by the notion of national interest at that time. A stance in past may seem a mistake today but context of events and decisions is of paramount importance. In wars and international politics one does not always win. One may lose also. One can create Frankenstein monsters and may commit mistakes but having a policy for example for promoting terrorism globally is one thing and supporting a dictator at one juncture of time is another thing. Al Qaida has the manifesto of terrorism or radical Islam while US always stands for democracy, human rights and development but may have some exceptions in few cases in the larger national interests.

Saudi is no doubt a dictatorial state but again an ally of US. Saudi may indirectly promoting terrorism by its extremist Islam but is not harboring a Bin Laden as Taliban did.

Reports published by CIA can be eye opener for US policy makers as there is a full fledged system to devise and implement policies where all stake holders like Congress, White House, State department, Pentagon, CIA, CENTCOM etc are involved.

Karzai versus others: who are others? Taliban! Will you then prefer Taliban to Karzai? Aat least karzai has a democratic base, international recognition and support of majority of Afghans and their parliament. Karzai in pite of his some shortcomings is thousands time better than Taliban. Afghanistan should learn from Pakistan as they had military rules but are now totally on democratic track. We may have a better leader than Karzai in Afghanistan if we stop Taliban not to take Kabul once again. Average Afghan will understand the reality when she or he will see the difference between Taliban and karzai as now media and education is reaching everywhere. So far only they see Taliban in his mosque and village market. They need more exposure to the modern democratic world.

3. US should support democracy and human rights in Saudi and the whole world but all this century old system in Middle east and Muslim world will take time. Astart has been taken from Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and now Syria. A new Middle East is emerging. No doubt there will be qualms and issues but time will prove it that removal of Mubarak, Sadam and Qadafi was the first step in the journey towards a democratic Arab world. Maliki with his some problems is again thousands time better than Sadam as he will not rule for decades and we have hope for better leadership in future. Saudi being the custodian of Kaaba is a sensitive place and its turn may come at the end after Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and others.

4. Although I am not in favor of the theory of white man burden to civilize the colonized people by British in past but civilizations, cultures and nations always learn from each other. Arabs learnt from Persia, Central Asia and India and they taught to Europe. What we see today in Australia, Canada, India, Pakistan and even USA, all this is because of their colonization by British. Railway system, Postal system, network of canals, educational system, legal codes etc in Pakistan are all provided by British. Even some people opine that the perpetual problems of Afghanistan, tribal society, warlords, drugs, no communication system etc are all because of the reason that British did nor rule there.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

And by the way, you are completely wrong about Maliki being better than Saddam. Maliki is basically allowing open air flights between Tehran and Syria to arm the US's opponents there and is also delaying elections and rigging them.

He arrested the top elections officials and was denounced by the Wash Po:
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2...al-maliki-ihec

From a summary of the article:
"Maliki had previously clashed with Haidari after the 2010 elections resulted in the prime minister’s party losing out to the Iraqiya bloc, a clash that led to months of impasse as Maliki contested the initial outcome. As the head of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), Haidari rejected Maliki’s petition to have thousands of votes for Iraqiya thrown out.
Maliki now seems to be teaching Haidari a lesson: never oversee an election that provides Maliki with less votes than others."

He also had further criticism for clamping down on freedom of speech and social media:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...juS_story.html

Europe and America also criticised him for falsely accusing his sunni VP of terrorism and trying to arrest him:

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/12/19/m...inst-sunni-vp/

So I am going to ask you nicely to quit doing that idiotic thing you do where you repeat platitudes and stupid phrases such as:

I, Badlun think Maliki is a thousand times better so therefore he is. You then repeat this phrase about a hundred times, providing little if any evidence and then expect us all to swallow this Uncle Tom style garbage. You look at it as healthy debate and reasoning and logic, but the latter depends on evidence based statements.

That war created havoc in Iraq and even now 10 years later Iraqis are still suffering and Al Qaeda is now in Iraq where as it was not before.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawren...b_2910619.html

And your answer above once again inserts YOUR OPINION of what terrorism is and was as if the creation of Saddam Hussein and his arming to the teeth to kill Iranians was simply a national security goal and not a form of terrorism. Al Qaeda, according to the CIA has, in and of itself stated its goals were retaliatory. What was the retaliation of arming Saddam in the first place??? Ill tell you what it was for... for when the Iranian people overturned the Shah who had overturned their liberal secular democratic leader Mossadegh. So once you call that terrorism, I will start to take you seriously. Until then you are just a miniCENTCOM and dont even deserve the time of day because all of your arguments rest on reptitively calling people you find unpalatable: terrorists etc. but not even scratching beneath the surface of the actions of others who may have created such a backlash in the first place.

[Admin Khan]

[Un-related posts are now branched, stick to the thread, and avoid off-topic conversations]

[JAMALUDEEN]

Is it just me or all of centcom member's post sound like bots? ...

Banning is an extreme measure, and Aria2013 hasn't broken any of the forum rules. Centcom members will be monitoring the forum regardless of whether they are banned or not. If people disagree with their post, they can simply counter them.

[RevolutionThroughReason]

Is it just me or all of centcom member's post sound like bots? ...

Banning is an extreme measure, and Aria2013 hasn't broken any of the forum rules. Centcom members will be monitoring the forum regardless of whether they are banned or not. If people disagree with their post, they can simply counter them.

This is true ...but banning isn't to stop CENTCOM from Monitoring; but to pressure CENTCOM to stop talking down to us like we're all easily deluded fools by parroting inane jargon and propaganda. If CENTCOM can't cogently and honestly address the issues which arise, they shouldn't have a platform for their propaganda.

there are members like Badlun who want to keep the propaganda locomotiion alive but thankfully he's in the minority.

[Badlun]

It seems the whole Centcom including Arias are unable to reply to the queries of Dr Abdali and other members. Their silence speaks volumes

[Aria2013]

It seems the whole Centcom including Arias are unable to reply to the queries of Dr Abdali and other members. Their silence speaks volumes

Badlun, my appologies for the delay in response to some of the questions posed. We are still here and plan to remain here in the forum as long as we possibly can. I have actually just returned back to the office today as I was out all of last week. My colleague Hashmat, however, has been here and engaging in discussions with members in the forum, so we are not silent. I read through some of the questios this morning and they are very lengthy and I will try my best to get to all of them, or at least as far as I am able to answer. As you do understand I must keep discussions limited to my area which is primarily Afghanistan. Anything pertaining to the middle east or central asian countries, as i noticed there were some references made, I am not in a position to answer. Having said that, perhaps the best way to do this is to answer each part of the questions seperately and one at a time. It may take time but rest assure we will do our best to get to all of them. Moving forward, perhaps it would be best, if there are questions, to keep them short and focused so we can better answer them and also it will be more interactive if we could focus on a current event and discuss it rather than simply questions and answers (this is simply a suggestion, and not to avoid or evade anything as some might be eager to assume). Thanks for your patience and understanding and I do wish there were more hours in the day as I do enjoy talking to my fellow Afghans.

Aria2013
DET-CENTCOM

[Badlun]

Look Aria with due apology I am really shocked by your lukewarm approach to the discussion and your participation here in these forums.

You promised that you will comment on my article Public Diplomacy but after lapse of so many days, no response from your side. Here in this thread your absence is conspicuous.

Please avail this opportunity as this site is visited by thousands of Afghans/Pashtuns and you can have a wonderful window for your public diplomacy and positive propaganda as well as creating good image of your country and organization.

After your participation you can have more viewers and readers here who will find some one to answer their questions in a real human way, in a dialog manner not just one way propaganda. This will be an ideal model for Centcom and others to engage people in real world.



Talk to your seniors to let you participate more and more with substantial stuff . Take start from the queries of Dr Abdali above, Give your comments on my article . Let the people know what are you doing in Afghanistan. Justify your presence there. Do some research and share it with us here.

[JAMALUDEEN]

He is copy pasting the same.. thing.. in different threads.... which is spam..

[Aria2013]

He is copy pasting the same.. thing.. in different threads.... which is spam..

FYI: We are not copying and pasting in different threads. And we are not spam or anything else. We are real people conversing with forum members on various topics of interest.

Thanks for providing those links though, I will check them out.

Aria2013
DET-CENTCOM

[Badlun]

FYI: We are not copying and pasting in different threads. And we are not spam or anything else. We are real people conversing with forum members on various topics of interest.

Thanks for providing those links though, I will check them out.

Aria2013
DET-CENTCOM

Please prove it. Deeds speak louder than words.