"The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." - Condo Leaser Rice (hereafter Mushroom Sally); 8 Sep 2002
Mushroom Sally now baby oh Lord!
Guess you better slow that Mushroom down
Huh! oh Lord! Look here
You been runnin all over town
Oow!
I got to put your flat feet on the ground
Huh! what I said now hey-a
Let me say it one more time yall
- Wilson Picket (with slight editing)
She's still talking. Mushroom Sally, AKA Condo Leaser* Rice, tells us we better not leave Afghanistan unless we want terrorist attacks on our soil. She should know something about both, because she was a prime enabler of each.
In a weekly news article, there are reports from the front. Here is what certain members of the Taliban had to say about how it was going for them in the time between 9-11 and 2003. (Identities of the following speakers available through the above link.)
---
HAQQANI: Two days before the September 11 attacks on America, we were all celebrating the death of [Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah] Masood, [who was assassinated by Qaeda agents posing as television reporters]. His forces were already on the verge of defeat, so his death all but assured us of total victory in Afghanistan. But the September 11 attacks turned our cheer into deep concern. We gave those camels [a derogatory Afghan term for Arabs] free run of our country, and they brought us face to face with disaster. We knew the Americans would attack us in revenge.
Realizing the danger, I immediately sent my wife and children to Pakistan. The entire government started to fall apart. I never thought the Taliban would collapse so quickly and cruelly under U.S. bombs. Everyone began trying to save themselves and their families. When the bombing began, I changed out of my usual white mullah's garb, put on an old brown shalwar kameez, and headed for Pakistan. I crossed the mountains on foot, and at the top I turned around and said: "God bless you, Afghanistan. I'll never come back to you under our Islamic regime."
MASIHUDDIN: To make matters worse, the Peshawar police were harassing and arresting us. They didn't hold us for long, though—I think they just wanted to frighten us. We began praying for the survival of the Taliban who had fled. There was no reason to pray for victory, since such a return seemed inconceivable.
AKHUNDZADA: Once proud Taliban mullahs and fighters changed the way they dressed so they wouldn't be recognized. No one wanted to be identified as a Talib. Friends and relatives who had respected me while I was a commander now turned away. I had no money or job. I moved my family to a village in Punjab, far from Afghanistan, to become a day laborer, but I was a failure at it. I couldn't speak the local language, and no one would hire me. So I returned to Peshawar and started selling vegetables from a basket in the market. I began making money. But I couldn't get over the Taliban's collapse, the death of my men. My wife said I was crying in my sleep. I went to a doctor, who gave me some medicine. I was so distracted that when a customer would ask me for potatoes, I'd give him tomatoes.
---
Aha, but help was on the way! Many miles away, across great seas, an insipid little gnome saw a great opportunity to become an actual hero in a Second City sort of enterprise where spending and suffering and dying was assigned to those forced to tread where he feared while he sat on his ranch and waited. You see, there was no Lex Luther for this synthetic Superman to vicariously vanquish in Afghanistan. But just down the street there was a cartoon character who was would do nicely. Poppy had shown how easy it was to defeat the Iraqi army. So Boy George would go one better; he'd have Lex Luther taken out once and for all. All he had to do was order his armies out of Afghanistan, where they had the culprits responsible for attacking us that September bottled up, and move them into Iraq for more photo opportunities. And so the siege of Tora Bora was lifted, and off we went to Baghdad, and the Cowboy Cretin began his vigil down on the ranch, periodically calling the White House staff: "Am I a hero yet?"
His mouthpiece ("I'm the smart one!") Mushroom Sally was a prime cheerleader in the march out of Tora Bora. The early rationale was WMD, you may remember. But there was no time to wait for evidence; the Cowboy Cretin's numbers were falling now! Off to the races.
And just look how the wisdom of the profits worked such wonders - for the Taliban.
---
HAQQANI:Arab and Iraqi mujahedin began visiting us, transferring the latest IED technology and suicide-bomber tactics they had learned in the Iraqi resistance during combat with U.S. forces. The American invasion of Iraq was very positive for us. It distracted the United States from Afghanistan. Until 2004 or so, we were using traditional means of fighting like we used against the Soviets—AK-47s and RPGs. But then our resistance became more lethal, with new weapons and techniques: bigger and better IEDs for roadside bombings, and suicide attacks.
MOHAMMAD:Those first groups crossing the border were almost totally sponsored, organized, and led by Arab mujahedin. The Afghan Taliban were weak and disorganized. But slowly the situation began to change. American operations that harassed villagers, bombings that killed civilians, and Karzai's corrupt police and officials were alienating villagers and turning them in our favor. Soon we didn't have to hide so much on our raids. We came openly. When they saw us, villagers started preparing green tea and food for us. The tables were turning. Karzai's police and officials mostly hid in their district compounds like prisoners.
YOUNAS: After these first few attacks, God seems to have opened channels of money for us. I was told money was flowing from the Gulf to the Arabs.
KHAN: The Americans and their Afghan allies made mistakes after mistake, killing and arresting innocent people. There was one village in Dayak district near Ghazni City where the people had communist backgrounds, from the days of the Russians, and had never supported us. But the police raided the village, beat the elders at a mosque and arrested them, accusing them of being Taliban. They were freed after heavy bribes were paid. After that incident the whole village sent us a message asking forgiveness for the abuses of the communist era.
HAQQANI: In 2007 I returned to Afghanistan for the first time. I visited the south and spoke to Taliban units, to elders and villagers, and raised new recruits. Mullah Omar has entrusted me with the job of touring towns and villages on both sides of the border to encourage people to support, contribute to, and join the jihad. Between 2006 and 2009 I have personally raised hundreds of new recruits to join the resistance. [In August] I traveled to eight Afghan provinces in 20 days. The unpopularity of the Karzai regime helps us immensely. In 2005 some Afghans thought Karzai would bring positive change. But now most Afghans believe the Taliban are the future. The resistance is getting stronger day by day.
I admit Taliban commanders are being captured and killed, but that hasn't stopped us, and it won't. Our jihad is more solid and deep than individual commanders and fighters—and we are not dependent on foreigners, on the ISI [Pakistan's intelligence agency], or Al Qaeda. Personally I think all this talk about Al Qaeda being strong is U.S. propaganda. As far as I know, Al Qaeda is weak, and they are few in numbers. Now that we control large amounts of territory, we should have a strict code of conduct for any foreigners working with us. We can no longer allow these camels to roam freely without bridles and control.
---
There you have it, cause and effect, the sterling advice of Mushroom Sally and how it has played out in the real world beyond the reach of teevee. Oh, I forgot to mention, Mushroom plays the piano. Quite well, we are told. It's part of the reclamation project. You are encouraged to like her despite all the death and destruction because she plays the piano. Like one of the Five Fixers who rendered us a banana republic, ex-inJustice O'Connor, who is depicted on the cover of her autobio meant to make you like her better as a little girl riding a horse. See? goes the message. This monstrous destruction of everything which has quality and meaning in our public life, the handmaidens who helped create and maintain the worst disaster ever to befall the Offal Office, why, they're ust like you and me. I'm touched.
---
Condo Leaser: As you may know, in California there are development laws which may require a portion of any project be set aside for low-income housing. In academia, this works out to apportioning a set percentage of faculty and facilities to low-rent bottomfeeders of failed policies, called the Bilge Bracket. Stanford, which somehow maintains a status as a major institute in our land, has a Hooverville, a dilapidated tarpaper structure built on the worn and rejected materials of the past. Mushroom Sally is on the staff at Stanford. For parity, UC Berkeley just across the Bay was forced to accept the Torture Tout, John Yoo. It's a bloody job, but apparently somebody has to house these undesirables.