Colonel Lawrence Sellin.
But, since he asked me, I have taken it down. However, I am still going to summarize what he wrote. But first, I'll point out that he's a bit famous for getting fired for going on a rant, complaining about the Power-Point presentations at the Command Center in Afghanistan. His Op-Ed was published by United Press International, although you can't find it any more. It has vanished. But, I did find this page with excerpts from it, including:
For headquarters staff, war consists largely of the endless tinkering with PowerPoint slides to conform with the idiosyncrasies of cognitively challenged generals in order to spoon-feed them information. Even one tiny flaw in a slide can halt a general’s thought processes as abruptly as a computer system’s blue screen of death.
https://danwin.com/2010/08/col-lawrence-sellin-ph-d-f-powerpoint-afghanistan-edition/Wow. He really doesn't think much of the generals and the way we're waging war over there. But, it doesn't bother him that we're waging war over there. It doesn't bother him that, based on nothing more than an accusation that Osama bin laden was responsible for 9/11, that we crossed an ocean and two seas to devastate a third world country. Colonel Sellin doesn't question the legality or the morality of the war, just the way we're fighting it.
His letter to me was in response to one that I sent him through the CCNS website that he writes for. He referred to the Taliban website as propaganda, which I fully agree, except that I think that it's all propaganda, truth being the first casualty of war. In his first response, he said that most of the Taliban are Pakistani nationals, and when I provided a reference to them being Afghan Pashtuns, he acknowledged that, yes, they are Pashtuns, a mixture of Afghans and Pakistanis. But, then he expressed his opinion that what is going on in Afghanistan is not an indigenous uprising against a foreign occupation, but rather, "Pakistan's proxy war against Afghanistan."
So, he thinks the Afghan Taliban are really just an agent of Pakistan?
That is ridiculous. I don't doubt that there are some non-Afghans, including Pakis, fighting because Osama bin laden was Saudi, and he fought with them against the Soviets. The uprising against the U.S. and NATO is no different than the uprising against the Soviets, and it's going to end the same way.
Colonel Sellin may be right that the Afghan Taliban is getting a lot of support from Pakistan, but, it's hardly surprising when you consider all the death and destruction we have rained down on Pakistan.
Colonel Sellin accepts the official story of 9/11, even though over 3000 architects and engineers say that the Towers were brought down by explosives. He says that the Taliban allowed 9/11 to be launched from Afghanistan, even though there is no evidence that they knew anything about it. And he says that they refused to turn over bin laden, even though there was no extradition treaty, and even though no evidence was provided, (just us saying he did it, so turn him over), and even though they did offer to turn him over to a neutral third country for trial.
And then, he had the nerve to say that more Americans were killed on 9/11 than at Pearl Harbor. Well, first, Colonel Sellin needs to read Day of Deceit; The truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor by Robert Stinett, that like the Luistania in WW1, Pearl Harbor was a setup to provoke war. FDR deliberately moved the Pacific fleet from San Pedro to Pearl Harbor, against the objections of the Admiral there, whom he fired, just to lure the Japanese to attack.
Even if it were true that bin laden planned 9/11, which he didn't, what could the Taliban have done? There were no Afghans among the 9/11 hijackers. If bin laden was communicating with Mohammed Atta, who I guess was in Germany, and then he and others went to the U.S. to learn flying, what does that have to do with the Taliban? There is not a shred of evidence that the Taliban conspired with Osama bin laden to attack the United States. And the only evidence against him was put forward after the war was launched, a phony video tape of "Fatty bin laden" bragging about having done it. Fatty bin laden is on the left.
Colonel Sellin said that the generals are cognitively challenged. It's not just them, Colonel Sellin.
And then, he had the nerve to tell me that more civilians have been killed by anti-government forces in Afghanistan than by the U.S. and NATO forces, and that is NOT true. Even in 2019, it wasn't true. This is from the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/world/asia/afghanistan-civilian-casualties.html
The UN has always said that the coalition forces have killed more civilians than the Taliban.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/afghanistan-us-nato-coalition-kill-more-civilians-first-3-months-2019-taliban-un/
It's all over the net, for goodness sake.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-afghanistan-civilian-casualties-20190802-jrnl7po655hprht4uluqs4upmq-story.html
This from the LA Times: "Trump's brand of war killing more civilians than before"
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-09-07/trumps-shameful-rules-of-engagement-are-killing-civilians
But, I bet there was no blood at those power-point presentations, eh, Colonel Sellin?
https://solidarity.scot/u-s-kills-more-civilians-in-afghanistan-than-the-taliban-shameful-shocking/
Colonel Sellin, I'll give the last word to a legal professor. YOU were involved in an illegal war of aggression that took hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, and is still taking them. We have bombed 9 wedding parties in Afghanistan!!!!! We recently killed 30 pine nut harvesters!!!! These are atrocities! How dare you speak as a moral authority.
"The UN Charter is a treaty ratified by the United States and thus part of US law. Under the charter, a country can use armed force against another country only in self-defense or when the Security Council approves. Neither of those conditions was met before the United States invaded Afghanistan. The Taliban did not attack us on 9/11. Nineteen men – 15 from Saudi Arabia – did, and there was no imminent threat that Afghanistan would attack the US or another UN member country. The council did not authorize the United States or any other country to use military force against Afghanistan. The US war in Afghanistan is illegal.
— Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president of the National Lawyers Guild[
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