Possible tribal revenge in Afghanistan

We've heard lately that Mullah Dadullah's death in Afghanistan is a setback for the Taliban.

Dadullah had escaped death so many times that, to dispel any doubts, Afghan authorities displayed his blood-splattered corpse to reporters in the southern city of Kandahar.

I'm thinking that maybe Dadullah went too far in permitting a young boy beheading an alleged spy.

Ghulam Sakhi, confirmed his [dead] son's identity ...
"The Taliban are not mujahedeen. They are not fighting for the cause of Islam," the 70-year-old said. "If I got my hands on them I would kill them and even tear their flesh with my own teeth."
... his son called at the end of January to reveal that a tribal council had sentenced him to death on charges of tipping off U.S. forces about Osmani's movements, despite his denials.
His son passed the phone to Dadullah, but the militant leader ignored his pleas for clemency, Sakhi said.

Maybe Sakhi got his revenge. Perhaps tribal vendetta led to someone informing the West as to Dadullah's location. It would be ironic if vengeance over a presumed tip-off lead to an actual tip-off in retaliation.

Dreaming of a Cold War

Last week I woke up from a dream in which I was experiencing a geopolitical analysis. In it, I concluded that a major rationale of the preemptive invasion of Iraq was grounded in the Cold War, a move to keep it from falling into Russian influence.

At first I was incredulous of my dream, but I decided to google a bit, and quickly encountered some mainstream media stories (a few of which I had seen before in some form or another) which backed my dream's conclusion.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/04/13/MN20786.DTL

The documents found Thursday and Friday in a Baghdad office of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi secret police, indicate that at least five agents graduated Sept. 15 from a two-week course in surveillance and eavesdropping techniques, according to certificates issued to the Iraqi agents by the "Special Training Center" in Moscow.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041229-113041-1647r.htm

A Pentagon official who publicly disclosed information showing Russian involvement in moving Iraqi weapons out of that country has been dismissed.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/IraqCoverage/story?id=1734490

Two Iraqi documents from March 2003 -- on the eve of the U.S.-led invasion -- and addressed to the secretary of Saddam Hussein, describe details of a U.S. plan for war. According to the documents, the plan was disclosed to the Iraqis by the Russian ambassador.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0820/p01s03-woeu.html

Amid uncertainty about US war plans toward Iraq, Russia is poised to sign a $40 billion economic cooperation deal with the regime of Saddam Hussein ... The Moscow daily Kommersant wrote yesterday that if sanctions against Iraq are lifted, Russia is set to renew arms sales to the regime.

So, in the end, plenty of documented links between Saddam and Russia, yet no links to al Qaida that have withstood scrutiny. I suppose this narrative will be obvious to historians decades from now.