Saturday 7 August 2010

Afghan resistance 'will defeat USA'


THE AFGHAN resistance will defeat the US-led occupation of their country, Pakistan's former intelligence chief has told CNN.

Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul said the United States and its allies won't win the war in Afghanistan and referred to U.S. NATO allies as "pallbearers."

Supply lines through Pakistan are shaky, said Gul, who blamed U.S. ally India for contributing to his country's destabilization.

Combined with what Gul termed poor U.S. intelligence and a home-field advantage for the Taliban, it all adds up to a losing combination for the United States in his estimate.

"Time is on the side of the resistance," he said.

The career military officer, who supported the U.S.-backed Taliban resistance against Soviet occupation during the 1980s, called the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan "unjust" and said he sees legitimacy in the Afghan insurgency against Western forces.

"This is a national resistance movement. It should be recognized as such," he said. "They are Mujahedeen of Afghanistan as they were during the occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union."

The attacks of September 11 were a pretext to a war already under consideration, Gul said. "I think some of the neocons, who were very close to President [George W.] Bush, they wanted that he could embark on a universal adventure of Pax Americana, and they thought that the world was lying prostrate in front of them," he said.

The 2001 terrorist attacks helped win the public support for the neocon plans, he said.

There was no legitimate reason for the United States to attack Afghanistan, Gul said, because the FBI had no solid evidence that Osama bin Laden was involved in the attacks on New York and Washington.

"Why has not a single individual connected to 9/11 been caught in America so far, and why hasn't Osama bin Laden been charged?"

With no evidence anyone in Afghanistan was involved, there is no way to legitimize the U.S. occupation, Gul said.

Gul's comments were also picked up by the informative War in Iraq website.