Goodbye Taliban, hello Mujahideen

If ever the Realpolitik adage "Your enemy's enemy is your friend" needed a real world example it is the opportunity, yes opportunity, that now presents itself in central Asia.

Let's raise the telescope to our eye, and through the fog of war scan the enemy's battle line and list their contingents on this field of glory - clockwise from North ...

- Russia

- China

- Pakistan

- Iran

All four of them fear the Taliban for various reasons: all have deep vulnerabilities to the Taliban.

Vlad is terrified of renewed conflict in the Stan's, his south eastern "near abroad" buffer zone.  Connecting to Islamist groups in the Stan's would be straightforward for the Taliban to achieve and a bloody thorn in Vlad's side.

Ping-a-Ling is fearful of the same: Taliban and Uyghur Islamism in collaboration.

"It's not cricket" Khan has beaten the Pakistan Taliban for now while simultaneously supporting the Afghan Taliban and taking development and anti-terrorism support from the West!  In the world of Realpolitik that's an A*, you have to say.  But in the Great Game everything has changed now and all bets are off.  It's ding-ding round 2 - or round 22 more like - and there is no reason why a victorious Afghan Taliban cannot revisit the quarter lost to "It's not cricket" Khan.

The Mad Mullahs are the Taliban's greatest infidel enemy, the Shia splitters from the true Sunni Islam, and with a pesky minority in Afghanistan that the Taliban would do well to oppress and isolate from Iranian influence.

And turning the telescope to our own battle line, who's there? ...

- Turkey

- Saudi Arabia and the Emirates

Well, there's a gift!  Dirty Erdy and the Camel Boys are all Sunni and thereby the brethren of the Taliban!  That makes it easier.

So what's to do and how to do it?

Firstly, swallow pride, suppress emotion, step away from the event, and let is pass into the mere status quo of history.  You got beat.  Get over it and don't be a Shushka.

Secondly, opium.  Immediately the whole of the West needs to reduce the local price of heroin to zero by putting a dispenser machine outside every newsagent, GP surgery, pharmacy, and hospital, whereby you simply press the button and your baggy drops into the tray, like a bag of crisps or a Snickers bar, absolutely free of charge.  That will destroy the domestic heroin drug trafficking industry stone dead.  It is the only known way to kill a market: reduce the price to zero.

To supply the dispenser machines the West needs to buy the poppy crop of Afghanistan, or at least, as much of it as is required to sate the domestic usage.  That buys us huge influence with the Taliban, we will be their biggest customer.

And then there's the surplus heroin we don't need, and here's the rub: this one's a leaf right out of the pages of the British Empire: allow and encourage the supply of heroin to Vlad, Ping-a-Ling, and "It's not cricket" Khan.  But let them keep paying full whack street price.

Blighty already pulled this trick with Ping-a-Ling's crew way back when, as said.  We rubber ducked them up big time with this one.  They're addictive people, gambling, getting high, they're mad for it up for it.  Here's a little piccie from the past to remind you ...

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/History_of_opium_in_China

The Rooskies, Chinks and Pak's are deeply conservative societies unlikely to be able to lever the Liberal ethos required to take the logic to its conclusion: you destroy a market by reducing the price to zero.  They won't be fitting smack dispensing machines in public places any time soon.  And even if they do, they'll be buying at the Taliban's street price until they can get a poppy crop of their own going.  Their societies will be wrecked and their economy too as they pay "top whack for smack" into the bargain.

Thirdly, get those Talib chaps au fait with the oodles of mil kit we've left behind, and get them busy doing nasty in the Stan's, Xinxiang province, and Pakistan.  There's great synergy here with step two: the heroin smuggling routes where all the wonga is made are the same routes down which the Talibs will be going to do the nasty.  The smugglers need security and the Talibs are it, and the Talibs need covert passage and networks and the smugglers are it.  Nice.  See that smug grin wiped off "It's not cricket" Khan's fizzog in round 2 (or 22) - double nice.

Fourthly, we need to embrace the Taliban as our prime actor against ISIS and more extreme Islamist groups.  The Talibs hate them already, so this one's a no brainer.  "There shall be no-one more extreme than the Taliban".  We'll take that now.  So let's back it up.  The synergy with the weaponry left behind in Afghanistan is obvious.  Any Talibs wanting some foreign service in Africa against Boko Haram, or with the Hairies in Syria against Assad and Vlad, or in Yemen against AQ: speak to Dirty Erdy and the Camel Boys and roll-up roll-up!

Fifthly, and last but not least, some PR and positioning with the domestic audience.  Can't be without PR these days of course, and the Taliban need a rebranding.  From now on they are to be called the Mujahideen once again.  Nice retro spin with plenty of preserved value, we are conservatives after all.

And from a positioning perspective, we need to acknowledge and project that Dirty Erdy and the Camel Boys are at least as nasty to the Laydeez and devoid of human rights, possibly more so, than the Taliban after 20 years of having had nail bars, beauty parlours, kids tranny clinics, chicks with dicks in girls changing rooms, and Save the Whales offices (or is it "Save the Cats and Dogs"? - what a Shushka that Pen Farthing bloke is) thrust upon them.  If Dirty Erdy and the Camel Boys are our friends then the Mujahideen are welcome.  If you served and gave over these 20 years it was not in vain: none of the above would be possible without your sacrifice, particularly the comparatively moderate Taliban of today versus two decades ago.

Of course, Dirty Erdy, the Camel Boys, and Mujahideen are not our friends.  They are our enemies' enemies.  When our current enemies are destroyed these friends will become our enemies and we will destroy them too - if we haven't worn them down with nail bars, beauty parlours, kids tranny clinics, etc. etc. and assimilated them into us by then.

Well there it is.

Sound like a plan?

SoD

Comments

[Whitewall]

One thing we know about Russia and China when it comes to dealing with bothersome Muzzies, they gather what force they need and go kill them. No media in tow, no UN approval, no nothing. Turkey is not above doing the same to their own kind or to their neighbors. The Armenian Genocide is a good reminder.

[Loz]

Yep Whiters, the Mujahideen are going to need our helping hand.

Blighty's ambassador to Afghanistan gets the picture - he can't wait to get back in there ...

The UK’s ambassador to Afghanistan has pledged to return embassy operations to Kabul “as soon as we can” as the final British evacuation flights left the country.

Sir Laurie Bristow was among the last UK troops and diplomatic staff who arrived at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on Sunday morning, drawing to a close Britain's 20-year engagement in Afghanistan.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/08/29/afghanistan-latest-news-taliban-kabul-airport-evacuation/

SoD

[Whitewall]

A reminder to the West and Sell Out Joe Biden. From a longer article:

"Joe Biden apparently thinks, or says he thinks, the Taliban will make nice because it is in their interest to do so.

No wonder the Taliban are busy trolling the Biden Administration, posing with ice-cream cones, re-enacting the iconic flag-raising at Iwo Jima in American uniforms but with a Taliban flag, vowing to battle “climate change” and ensure women’s rights “under Islamic law.” Ha ha ha. That’s the playful side of an ideology whose dark purpose was summed up by an Islamic radical in the aftermath of 9/11. “We are not fighting so that you will offer us something,” he said. “We are fighting to eliminate you.”

Accordingly, the proper response to this ideology is not to offer it partnerships in the hope that you can make a mutually satisfying deal that caters to everyone’s “self-interest.” On the contrary, the proper response is to understand, as Benjamin Netanyahu put it, that we are dealing here with “a war to reverse the triumph of the West.”

Our leaders, from a mentally compromised president through the puffed-up woke triumvirate of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd “stand down” Austin, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark “white-rage–I-read-Karl-Marx” Milley, are constitutionally incapable of taking that reality on board. They are figures fit to lead the Eloi, not patriotic Americans." End of article.

The Islamists believe they will rule the world. China and the Western Left believe some form of communism will rule the world.

The rest of us freedom lovers are left hoping to be heard.

[Loz]

Mmm, don't disagree with that, Whiters.

But let's smash them into each other - the Islamists vs Rooskies and China - and spare ourselves the effort, like we did - eventually - in Syria.

SoD

[Whitewall]

SoD, yes I agree. Also the same way we did elsewhere in the world through proxies during the Cold War.

[Whitewall]

We in the West are imitating the some of the forces we are supposedly against.

https://www.newgeography.com/content/007156-its-not-just-taliban-we-west-are-embracing-medievalism-too

[Loz]

Mmm, the Mujahideen have announced a poppy ban, sending price through the roof ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/08/29/opium-prices-triple-afghanistan-taliban-announces-poppy-ban/

Opium prices have reportedly spiked in some parts of Afghanistan as the Taliban vow to crack down on poppy production, one of several edicts that suggests the group may repeat its hardline and repressive rule of the late 1990s.

After Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told an August 18 press conference in Kabul that the new government would stop Afghanistan’s drug trade, Afghan farmers in several provinces told The Wall Street Journal that raw opium prices had tripled from about £50 per kilogramme to nearly £150.

When combined with the co-operation and restraint the Talibs have applied during our evacuation they seem mighty keen to honour the Don's deal. That can only mean two things ...

One - the frozen Afghan funds will be released very shortly.

Two - they must have been hurting nearly as bad as we were in the end.

This augurs well for the future with our new Mujahideen friends and I hope we honour our side of the bargain.

The skyrocketing price of heroin not good though. Muggings and burglaries will be up all over the West as the druggies have to work harder for their fixes. Go the other way, Muppets.

SoD

[Loz]

Looks like Blighty's got a new regiment ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/08/29/afghan-commandos-could-fight-british-army-like-gurkhas/

Afghan special forces personnel could become a new regiment of the Army akin to the Gurkhas under proposals put forward to ministers, The Telegraph understands.

Hundreds of commandos from Afghanistan have arrived in the UK this month after training and serving with British troops for more than a decade.

The former head of the Army, former ministers and Tory select committee chairmen are backing calls for the Government to incorporate the specialist soldiers into the British Armed Forces.

This could go the way of India and Ireland. Old colonial assets that never gave up and fought us to a standstill. Then with both sides having found a balance of power that meant gains couldn't be extended by military force, we worked together.

Irish troops were among the best in the Brit army, and via the special arrangements between UK and Ireland and Maggie's single market the relationship bloomed.

Likewise India and it's northern periphery: we got the Gurkhas permanently, the India army for WWI and II, and a long term positive relationship.

Uncle Sam, you seem to have missed a trick here, I think? You're new to empire, aren't you?

SoD

[Jack the dog]

Definitely some grains of good sense in there although the free opium dispenser in every school playground might not pass muster with the crustier elements of the Daily Mail readership.

Even if we had a government with at least a rudimentary understanding of market economics it would be a bigs ask.

With the current lot...

Still FWIW I think you're on the right track!

[Bob]

The free opium dispenser is on the right track for over here. However, heroin might relax us just a little too much. What we need are anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic pills in our dispensers.

[Whitewall]

The Left used to worship him:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/woke-generation-is-rewriting-rules-on-what-can-be-said-legendary-monty-python-actor-to-release-series-on-cancel-culture?%3Futm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dwtwitter

[Loz]

"the free opium dispenser in every school playground might not pass muster with the crustier elements of the Daily Mail readership."

Hehehe, made me laugh JtD! Can just imagine the tea and coffee splutters and spills at breakfast when the DM is plucked up from the doormat and that manifesto promise headline is read and inwardly digested!

But it just needs explaining. There will be no increase in new heroin addicts because there will be no dealers pushing it any more. If anything the dealers will be pushing coke and meth instead and dissing smack because they can't make any money on it. It will become the loser's recreational narcotic.

The existing stock of addicts will no longer be mugging, robbing and burgling for their fix. Without the trials and tribulations around mugging, robbing and burglary, the addicts might find the time to reflect and the bandwidth to muster their energies and have a half decent go at kicking the habit. And with all the cost savings in police, social workers, and court time there'd be plenty for rehab services. Those hooked on coke, meth or other drugs who wanted out of the cost and mugging, robbing and burgling to pay for it could switch over to heroin as the first step in their exit strategy. Might help with the pain of cold turkey from stopping those other narcs, it is morphine after all. They'd be half way on the road to recovery, with a new zero cost base and oodles of rehab resources lined up and ready for the final "knock it on the head" phase.

And we'd be helping the West to help the Taliban keep ISIS, Boko Haram and AQ knocked on the head *and* be giving the Rooskies, Chinks, and Paks a headache into the bargain. Keeping the Talibs busy on anything that stops them reverting to 20 years ago (i.e. bombing us) is a good thing, but when that busying thing also happens to be causing grief to our enemies, even better.

I'm sure the DM / DT reader could be swayed!

But the readership of the Moscow and Beijing Morning Stars and whatever they read in Islamabad? They are that far conservative you'll have no chance persuading them to fit opium dispensers in public places.

And it's in that gap of conservative sensibility that our opportunity lies: we are moderate enough to park the emotive reaction and just look coldly at the logic and reason. Our enemies are not.

SoD

[Glesga]

It is easy to bomb the shit out of the Islamists but not so easy when we allow thousands into the UK.

[Loz]

See my post in reply, Glezza!

SoD