For the last month we have had the back and forth with the looming governmental shutdown. Some have even asked if all this drama is truly necessary?
So to answer the question I went to Vox for their take on the whole enchilada….
The United States has a time bomb written into federal law, and no one knows whether it is constitutional or not.
As anyone who has paid attention to the last dozen years of fighting over the federal budget knows, Congress must periodically raise the nation’s debt ceiling, the amount of money that the US Treasury is allowed to borrow, because the US spends more than it takes in. If the debt ceiling is raised or repealed on schedule, nothing happens. The Treasury will continue to pay for all federal expenses Congress has ordered it to pay, and it will continue to borrow money to pay for these obligations when necessary.
…
This completely unnecessary threat to the US economy arises from the odd way Congress manages the federal budget. As a general rule, Congress enacts one set of laws that govern taxation and revenue; these laws determine how much money the United States brings in every year. It enacts another set of laws, known as appropriations, that determine how much money the United States will spend every year. If appropriations exceed revenue, then the United States will run a budget deficit and will need to borrow money to cover the gap.
But, rather than automatically authorizing the Treasury to borrow however much money is necessary to cover this deficit, Congress also enacted a third law — the debt ceiling — that prohibits Treasury from borrowing more than a set amount of funds. Once this limit is hit, the country is unable to pay its bills unless Congress raises the debt ceiling. And that will cause the United States to default on at least some of its financial obligations, triggering the same spiral of reduced creditworthiness that faces consumers who refuse to pay their credit card bills.
With all the info then you decide if it is constitutional for yourself.
My thoughts here are…..with some time the US could make this less a problem by enacting two simple things…..1–corporations should be paying their way in this society through taxation….2–rein in the military adventurism world wide.
This will not immediately fix the debt problem but it would be a good road to find that solution all seem to be looking for with all this dramatics from Congress.
Time for the ‘untaught’ history of the United States….Part One….
Back in my university days I studied Political History….focusing on the years 1750-1820….I have always been interested in the early history of this country…..the years leading up to the revolution….the founding….the years after the founding….war of 1812….and all the events in between.
George Washing was he a true American hero or just a construct of historians?
One event that has been overlooked about Washington….in his early years he may have helped ignite the 7 Years War (French and Indian War)…..
In the early 1750s, tensions between the French and British in North America were at an all-time high. In the area of the Ohio River Valley, forces from both sides were vying for control over the region as the French began to establish forts there. Virginia Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie took it upon himself to meet the French threat by sending a force to demand their withdrawal (via History). Washington, then a major of the Virginia provincial militia, was initially tasked with delivering this demand to the French in 1753. When the demand was rebuffed, Washington was ordered to attack them the following year, per the National Park Service.
At the age of just 22, Major Washington led his men in what became known as the Battle of Jumonville Glen (Jumonville Glen being a French fort). Certain that nearby French soldiers and allied Natives intended to attack, Washington struck the first blow in what was, initially, a very successful surprise attack (via Britannica). This was his first time seeing combat and might have earned him great accolades from the crown. However, several of Washington’s Iroquois allies began to kill the French prisoners in brutal fashion, leaving nine dead before they were stopped. The French learned of the brutal executions after a prisoner managed to escape, after which they attacked Washington’s position and caused him to withdraw.
At the subsequent Battle of Fort Necessity, Washington was forced into his first and only surrender. While he and his men were released soon after, the skirmish led to an immediate build-up of British and French soldiers in North America, marking an escalation of the conflict that would lead to the French and Indian War (though a formal state of war was not established until 1756). This conflict was substantial in its own right, lasting for years as British, French, and Native tribes fought one another until 1763. The French were ultimately defeated and were forced to surrender all of their territory, leaving French-speaking communities, such as the Cajuns, under British authority. However, this became just one theater of the larger Seven Years’ War.
There are other incidents about Washington’s life that go untaught for the most part….like his use of booze to help convince people to his way of thinking….or his forcing Native Americans to join the US….all this and he was the richest presidents….
I am one of those that think all aspects of our Founders and president’s lives should be taught….what better way to understand how they fit into history…instead we sanitize their history which does no favors to anyone.
I wish I could state that it was the only problem we are having….but sadly it is not and that is why I decided to continue the series.
This post is about the political parties and their role in grinding this country to a halt.
The current ruling two-party duopoly is so ubiquitous that we take it as a given. We teach the “two-party system” in government classes. Taxpayers pay for their primary elections, notwithstanding that legally, parties are private associations. We have allowed the two ruling parties to institutionalize themselves in our political and governing systems. They get preferential ballot access and legislative committee assignments and camaign finance laws are rigged in their favor . . . . just to name a few of the advantages they are afforded. Given this dominance, one might conclude that the two-party system arises from our constitutional roots. But in fact, the opposite is the case. Virtually every one of the Founding Fathers eschewed the idea of political parties and fretted over what might happen to the country if political parties were to come to dominate the country.
It appears that their reservations were well founded.
Let’s start with everyone’s hero our first president, George Washington….
“[Political parties] serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests. . . .Let me now . . . warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party
. . . . It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeebles the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption . . . A fire not to quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into flame . . .”
Then there was John Adams’ thoughts on parties….
“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”
Now the ever popular Alexander Hamilton…..
“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a political party, I would decline to go.
Then to Thomas Paine the original Father of the United States….
“Party knows no impulse but spirit, no prize but victory. It is blind to truth, and hardened against conviction. It seeks to justify error by perseverance, and denies to its own mind the operation of its own judgment. A man under the tyranny of party spirit is the greatest slave upon the earth, for none but himself can deprive him of the freedom of thought.”
As you can see the Founders at least some of them could not see any redeeming qualities in the party system….and recent events are proving these people right.
And yet with Jefferson presidency run parties became the rule of the day…..an identity if you will…..
“Two political sects have arisen within the U. S. The one believing that the executive is the branch of our government which the most needs support; the other that like the analogous branch in the English Government, it is already too strong for the republican parts of the Constitution; and therefore in equivocal cases they incline to the legislative powers: the former of these are called federalists, sometimes aristocrats or monocrats, and sometimes tories, after the corresponding sect in the English Government of exactly the same definition: the latter are styled republicans, whigs, jacobins, anarchists, disorganizers, etc. these terms are in familiar use with most persons.”
Hamilton and the Federalists….
Federalists
Committed to a fiscally sound and nationalistic government
Favored a National Band, Tariffs, and Good Relations with Britain
Supported Implied Powers – those powers authorized by a legal document (from the Constitution) which, while not stated, seem to be implied by powers expressly stated.
More conservative views
Composed of the elite class
Jefferson and the ‘Republicans’……
(Jeffersonian) Republicans
Committed to the rights of states, the primacy of yeoman farmers, and the principles of republicanism (liberty and inalienable rights)
Opposed the Jay Treaty, wanted good relations with France, not Britain
Opposed the ideas of a National Bank or implied powers
Predominately “Anti-Administration”
As you can see in the early days of the republic in spite of the dire warnings political parties became the center of our political world….and now we have a system that is as useless as it can be…..because of the influence of political parties……which has brought this nation into the world of political tribalism.
As this country continues to travel this path the nation will splinter and fall apart……
Is that what we want?
Does this country have a future that the Founders intended?
AS our next election looms large on the horizon….there are many questions that need to be asked and they all deserve an answer…..
I want to look at a little history.
Ever wonder where the whole Left/Right thing began?
Well boys and girls the Old Professor can help with that answer….
Depending on the country you live in, political opinion may be varied, or biased in one direction. In democratic countries, you obviously have the option to actually decide what direction your state should move towards via voting. And while a lot of political parties may opt for a safer middle ground usually more relatable for a wider demographic, there will always be the ones standing on, and for, the far right or far left.
But why do we call them that? It turns out the terms actually come with a rich history of their own and while they may mean different things in different countries and plenty of nuance on each side, a general classification comes from Scottish sociologist Robert Morrison MacIver, who in his 1947 treatise ‘The Web of Government’ classified things as such: “The right is always the party sector associated with the interests of the upper or dominant classes, the left the sector expressive of the lower economic or social classes, and the centre that of the middle classes. Historically this criterion seems acceptable. The conservative right has defended entrenched prerogatives, privileges and powers; the left has attacked them. The right has been more favorable to the aristocratic position, to the hierarchy of birth or of wealth; the left has fought for the equalization of advantage or of opportunity, for the claims of the less advantaged. Defence and attack have met, under democratic conditions, not in the name of class but in the name of principle; but the opposing principles have broadly corresponded to the interests of the different classes.”
Fascinatingly, despite seeming to be diametrically opposed on the surface, both sides of the political spectrum show manifestations of populism and may find a strong base in people belonging to each class of people from impoverished to rich.
In fact, there are proponents of the so-called ‘horseshoe theory’, which essentially says that the political far ‘left’ and far ‘right’ are, well, far closer to each other than they are to the ones traditionally holding the center. The reason for this is that the extremists on both sides tend to favour authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
Today is Columbus Day, a Federal holiday….so why not look into the naming of ‘America”?
“In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue”…….
Every child knows the tale of Columbus and his discovering of American….the fact is that he may have set sail but the closest he ever got to American was the Bahamas……so what is the truth of the discovery?
If you’re like most people, you’ll dimly recall from your school days that the name America has something to do with Amerigo Vespucci, a merchant and explorer from Florence. You may also recall feeling that this is more than a little odd — that if any European earned the “right” to have his name attached to the New World, surely it should have been Christopher Columbus, who crossed the Atlantic years before Vespucci did.
But Vespucci, it turns out, had no direct role in the naming of America. He probably died without ever having seen or heard the name. A closer look at how the name was coined and first put on a map, in 1507, suggests that, in fact, the person responsible was a figure almost nobody’s heard of: a young Alsatian proofreader named Matthias Ringmann.
How did a minor scholar working in the landlocked mountains of eastern France manage to beat all explorers to the punch and give the New World its name? The answer is more than just an obscure bit of history, because Ringmann deliberately invested the name America with ideas that still make up important parts of our national psyche: powerful notions of westward expansion, self-reinvention, and even manifest destiny.
And he did it, in part, as a high-minded joke.
Matthias Ringmann was born in an Alsatian village in 1482. After studying the classics at university he settled in the Strasbourg area, where he began to eke out a living by proofing texts for local printers and teaching school. It was a forgettable life, of a sort that countless others like him were leading. But sometime in early 1505, Ringmann came across a recently published pamphlet titled “Mundus Novus,” and that changed everything.
The pamphlet contained a letter purportedly sent by Amerigo Vespucci a few years earlier to his patron in Florence. Vespucci wrote that he had just completed a voyage of western discovery and had big news to report. On the other side of the Atlantic, he announced, he had found “a new world.”
The phrase would stick, of course. But it didn’t mean to Vespucci what it means to us today: a new continent. Europeans of the time often used the phrase simply to describe regions of the world they had not known about before. Another Italian merchant had used the very same phrase, for example, to describe parts of southern Africa recently explored by the Portuguese.
Like Columbus, Vespucci believed the world consisted of three parts: Europe, Africa, and Asia. He also knew that the world was round, a fact that had been common knowledge since antiquity. This meant, he realized, that if one could sail far enough to the west of Europe, one would reach the Far East.
Nothing is more American than the hamburger, right?
Personally I truly love a good burger…..and there are more crappy ones than good…..mine is about 8 oz cooked on a grill….served with a bun with brown mustard and mayo…..the garden is served on the side with blue cheese dressing…..cheese is optional……
All that said I thought I would look at the origins and the history of that all-American burger………..
1200s The earliest burger ancestor is invented (modern historians surmise) by Mongol horsemen, who stash raw meat under their saddles while wreaking havoc across Asia. Postride, the pounded meat is tender enough for the cavalry to eat raw.
1747 A hamburger prototype—called Hamburg sausage—crops up in the pages of Hannah Glasse’s English cookbook, The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy. The recipe calls for minced beef seasoned with suet, pepper, cloves, nutmeg, garlic, wine vinegar, bay salt, red wine and rum, smoked for a week in a chimney.
1802 The Oxford English Dictionary defines the Hamburg steak as a “hard slab of salted, minced beef, often slightly smoked, mixed with onions and bread crumbs.”
1829 The first documented patent for a mechanical meat cutter is granted to someone now known only as E. Wade. One G.A. Coffman of Virginia improves on Wade’s invention, receiving a patent 16 years later for his meat-grinding apparatus.
1840s Sailing on the Hamburg-America Line, German emigrants chow on minced, salted beefsteak, a recipe borrowed from the Russians. The dish becomes known as the Hamburg steak and later goes mainstream in the U.S.
1873Delmonico’s in NYC advertises a Hamburg steak on its dinner menu—the first printed menu in America—for the then-princely price of ten cents.
1885 Running out of pork, Frank and Charles Menches make do by serving a ground-beef sandwich at the Erie County Fair in Hamburg, New York. The brothers claim to have invented the hamburger, as does 15-year-old Charlie Nagreen of Seymour, Wisconsin, who delivers a similar sammie at the Outagamie County Fair that same year.
1900 Louis Lassen of Louis’ Lunch in New Haven serves ground beef cooked on a vertical boiler and sandwiched between two slices of toast. A century later, the Library of Congress officially credits Louis’ Lunch for selling the first hamburger in the States.
1904 The hamburger makes its national debut at the St. Louis World’s Fair, thanks to a burger stand by Fletcher Davis of Athens, Texas.
1916 A fry cook named Walter Anderson creates a short, squat bun specifically made for hamburgers. Five years later, Anderson cofounds White Castle, the world’s first burger chain.
1928 An early example of a cheeseburger turns up on the menu at O’Dells diner in Los Angeles, served with cheese and chili for 25 cents.
1935 The trademark for the word cheeseburger is awarded to Louis Ballast of the Humpty Dumpty Drive-In in Denver. However, good-guy Ballast never enforces his exclusivity rights, leading to widespread use of the term.
1940 Richard and Maurice McDonald open McDonald’s Bar-B-Que in San Bernardino, California. Eight years later, the brothers renovate the restaurant, refocusing the menu on their 15-cent hamburger.
1948 With the launch of In-N-Out in Baldwin Park, California, Harry and Esther Snyder open the first drive-through burger joint. In 1976, the Snyders’ son Rich takes over the family business. A devout Christian, Rich starts printing discreet references to Bible verses on the chain’s paper containers (e.g., John 3:16 shows up on the bottom of beverage cups and Revelation 3:20 on the crease of burger wrappers).
1950s New York’s ‘21’ Club unveils the first “haute” burger, made with duck fat and fennel seeds. It costs $2.75 (today, it sells for $30). Fifty years later, Daniel Boulud introduces the $32 foie gras– and truffle-laced DB Burger to the menu at DB Bistro Moderne.
1968 The world gets a taste of McDonald’s newest creation, the Big Mac, sold for 49 cents.
1984 Wendy’s debuts its famous “Where’s the beef?” commercial, starring Clara Peller. The memorable catchphrase is borrowed by former Vice President Walter Mondale during that year’s presidential election.
1989 Seymour, Wisconsin’s Burger Fest serves the world’s largest hamburger, weighing a whopping 5,520 pounds (a record that still holds). A forklift is used to place cheese atop the behemoth patty, enjoyed by an estimated 13,000 diners.
1994 Quentin Tarantino releases the cult classic Pulp Fiction and John Travolta schools the world on the “Royale with cheese.”
2001 Burgers make up 71 percent of all beef served in commercial restaurants.
2004 Danny Meyer’s burger-stand superstar, Shake Shack, debuts in New York’s Madison Square Park.
2009 PETA offers Hamburg, New York, $15,000 worth of nonmeat patties to change the town’s name to Veggieburg. Hamburg declines.
2013 Maastricht University physiologist Mark Post debuts an “in vitro” burger, a five-ounce patty composed of synthetic meat grown in a Netherlands lab from cow stem cells. The test-tube burger is the world’s most expensive—not to mention the grossest-sounding—coming in at a cool £250,000 (about $385,000).
There you have a short history of the burger….now when you consume your favorite burger you will know the history behind the juicy treat……
In closing I will let Jimmy Buffet sing you out the door….
Everyone has been exposed and.or sang this song about the exceptionalism of America……it was written and sung originally by Woodie Guthrie……
But this song is not what you think it is……(Yep history lesson coming)……
Few songs are more ingrained in the American psyche than “This Land Is Your Land,” the greatest and best-known work by folk icon Woody Guthrie. For decades, it’s been a staple of kindergarten classrooms “from California to the New York island,” as the lyrics go. It’s the musical equivalent of apple pie, though the flavor varies wildly depending on who’s doing the singing.
On its most basic level, “This Land Is Your Land” is a song about inclusion and equality—the American ideal broken down into simple, eloquent language and set to a melody you memorize on first listen. The underlying message, repeated throughout the song, makes the heart swell: “This land was made for you and me.”
But there’s more to “This Land Is Your Land” than many people realize—two verses more, in fact. Guthrie’s original 1940 draft of the song contains six verses, two of which carry progressive political messages that add nuance to the song’s overt patriotism. These controversial verses are generally omitted from children’s songbooks and the like, but they speak volumes about Guthrie’s mindset when he put pen to paper 80 years ago.
As you see this was not some chest thumping tune of patriotism or nationalism….it was about the inequalities in American society……and most remain to this very day….
As the weekend begins and I am still in the process of cleaning up after Ida and dealing with a screwy family situation…….. I thought a little history would be good.
There are those people in history that are credited with amazing accomplishments…..but did they will do all they are said to have done?
It can be pretty annoying when someone else gets credit for your hard work, particularly when the fakers go down in the history books and become the ones best known for your invention.
Leading R&D Tax Credit specialists, RIFT Research and Development Ltd, have looked at some of the most famous inventions which are widely believed to have been invented by the wrong people.
In today’s world, inventors are among the most revered people of all. We almost can’t help but admire someone who came up with a useful app or created a cool tech solution to a common problem.
That same admiration extends back through history, as well. Few accomplishments throughout history seem as impressive as inventing something that changed the world.
However, inventions often come with a healthy side dose of scandal. A new idea or product might arrive alongside heated debate as to who really came up with it. History has also unfairly credited some well-known inventors with creations that other people made first. We’re here to set the record straight—check out the real stories behind these famous inventors’ legacies.
Throughout history, people have come up with incredible inventions which have achieved global success without reaping the full rewards of their genius. Sir Tim Berners-Lee famously refused to patent his invention more than 30 years ago, and never monetised it, instead gifting it freely to the world. Click or scroll through inventors who definitely could have got rich off their creations but, for various reasons, didn’t.
Since most of the news is redundant these I thought I would give my readers a break and force some history down their throats….
Most Americans are taught the the American Revolutionary War was won on the back of George Washington…..he became the savior of the idea of a republic and for his brilliance he became the first president of the United States of America.
Among the hundreds of eulogies delivered after the death of George Washington in 1799, Timothy Dwight, president of Yale College, averred that the general’s military greatness consisted principally in his “formation of extensive and masterly plans” and a “watchful seizure of every advantage.” It was the prevailing view and one that has been embraced by many historians.
In fact, Washington’s missteps revealed failings as a strategist. No one understood his limitations better than Washington himself who, on the eve of the New York campaign in 1776, confessed to Congress his “want of experience to move on a large scale” and his “limited and contracted knowledge . . . in Military Matters.”
In August 1776, the Continental Army was routed in its first test on Long Island in part because Washington failed to properly reconnoiter and he attempted to defend too large an area for the size of his army. To some extent, Washington’s nearly fatal inability to make rapid decisions resulted in the November losses of Fort Washington on Manhattan Island and Fort Lee in New Jersey, defeats that cost the colonists more than one-quarter of the army’s soldiers and precious weaponry and military stores. Washington did not take the blame for what had gone wrong. Instead, he advised Congress of his “want of confidence in the Generality of the Troops.”
In the fall of 1777, when Gen. William Howe invaded Pennsylvania, Washington committed his entire army in an attempt to prevent the loss of Philadelphia. During the Battle of Brandywine, in September, he once again froze with indecision. For nearly two hours information poured into headquarters that the British were attempting a flanking maneuver—a move that would, if successful, entrap much of the Continental Army—and Washington failed to respond. At day’s end, a British sergeant accurately perceived that Washington had “escaped a total overthrow, that must have been the consequence of an hours more daylight.”
Later, Washington was painfully slow to grasp the significance of the war in the Southern states. For the most part, he committed troops to that theater only when Congress ordered him to do so. By then, it was too late to prevent the surrender of Charleston in May 1780 and the subsequent losses among American troops in the South. Washington also failed to see the potential of a campaign against the British in Virginia in 1780 and 1781, prompting Comte de Rochambeau, commander of the French Army in America, to write despairingly that the American general “did not conceive the affair of the south to be such urgency.” Indeed, Rochambeau, who took action without Washington’s knowledge, conceived the Virginia campaign that resulted in the war’s decisive encounter, the siege of Yorktown in the autumn of 1781.
Much of the war’s decision-making was hidden from the public. Not even Congress was aware that the French, not Washington, had formulated the strategy that led to America’s triumph. During Washington’s presidency, the American pamphleteer Thomas Paine, then living in France, revealed much of what had occurred. In 1796 Paine published a “Letter to George Washington,” in which he claimed that most of General Washington’s supposed achievements were “fraudulent.” “You slept away your time in the field” after 1778, Paine charged, arguing that Gens. Horatio Gates and Greene were more responsible for America’s victory than Washington.
There was some truth to Paine’s acid comments, but his indictment failed to recognize that one can be a great military leader without being a gifted tactician or strategist. Washington’s character, judgment, industry and meticulous habits, as well as his political and diplomatic skills, set him apart from others. In the final analysis, he was the proper choice to serve as commander of the Continental Army.
(Smithsonian.com)
While Washington was the best choice to lead the army he was far from a brilliant tactician.
I will be writing about other myths from the American Revolution.
As most historians say ……history is written by the victors”
We all have seen the stories of the collapse of Afghanistan and the horrific chaos that has ensued.
Some have asked just how the collapse of the Afghan army was possible with 20 years of training and equipment and money ($2.3 trillion) spent……the MSM is spending lots of endless hours looking at what went wrong and the crush of people trying to leave the country….but none are asking about the brave Afghans that will stand up to the Taleban….
Is there anybody that will stand up to the Taleban?
Back in the days of Soviet occupation of Afghanistan there was a small but very successful group that was called the ‘Northern Alliance’.
This is for the youngsters out there that have no damn idea what I am talking about….
Since early 1999, Ahmad Shah Massoud was the only main leader able to defend his territory against the Taliban, and as such remained as the main de facto political and military leader of the United Front recognized by members of all the different ethnic groups. Massoud decided on the main political line and the general military strategy of the alliance. A part of the United Front military factions, such as Junbish-i Milli or Hezb-e Wahdat, however, did not fall under the direct control of Massoud but remained under their respective regional or ethnic leaders.
Before the forming of the United Front Massoud led a very successful resistance to Soviet occupation.
The short history lesson was given because the answer to the question of who will oppose the Taleban…the answer is….the Northern Alliance.
The Panjshir Valley, in the Hindu Kush mountains north of the Afghan capital Kabul, has long been the heart of military resistance in Afghanistan and looks like it is becoming the centre of a gathering of “resistance” forces against Taliban rule.
Since mid-August, forces opposed to the rule of the Afghan Taliban have gathered in the valley under the leadership of Ahmad Massoud, son of the famed Afghan resistance fighter Ahmad Shah Massoud.
Between 1980 and 1985, the Panjshir Valley witnessed at least nine unsuccessful major Soviet offensives to retake the region, with Ahmad Shah Massoud’s forces resisting wave after wave of military operations that involved ground forces, airborne units and helicopter assaults.
A common tactic by Ahmad Shah Massoud’s forces at the time was to allow Soviet forces into the valley and to then cripple or cut them off with harassing fire from the higher ground of the mountains.
After the Soviet withdrawal, the collapse of the Afghan government at the time, and the first Taliban takeover, the area saw renewed fighting from 1996 as Massoud’s forces fought against the Taliban under the banner of the multi-ethnic Northern Alliance.
The Baghlan districts of Bano, Deh Saleh, Pul e-Hesar are near the neighboring province of Panjshir and the Panjshir Valley, where an anti-Taliban resistance group is forming.
It’s estimated that there are about 6,000 fighters in or near the Panjshir Valley. Ahmad Massoud, the son of the late mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, has emerged as a figurehead of the Panjshir resistance.
Massoud told Reuters on Sunday that while his group is ready to fight, that he hopes to hold talks with the Taliban to reach a solution. “We want to make the Taliban realize that the only way forward is through negotiation,” he said. “We do not want a war to break out.”
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Monday that Taliban forces were established in areas near Panjshir and that the anti-Taliban fighters were blockaded inside the Panjshir valley. Mujahid said the Taliban was trying to resolve the situation peacefully. “The Islamic Emirate is trying to resolve the issue peacefully,” he said.
The region of Afghanistan around Panjshir appears to be the only area where there is armed resistance to the Taliban, and the Taliban controls virtually all of the country. Taliban leaders are engaged in talks with some former Afghan officials on the structures of a future government, which is expected to be announced soon.
(antiwar.com)
This is the story that should be foremost in the reporting….gain US support will go a long way to confronting the Taleban…but no the media prefers to keep reporting the same stories with minor adjustments to make it appear fresh and breaking news.
More writers should jump on this and help spread the word that there are some Afghans that will not willing accept the Taleban.
In Saner Thought 