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Latest Articles: War, War, War
Can an attack on a military base constitute "terrorism"?
Post Date: 2009-11-10 05:54:07 by Ada
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If attacks on soldiers now qualify, how is it possible to exclude many American actions? The incomparably pernicious Joe Lieberman said yesterday on Fox News that he intends to launch an investigation into "the motives of [Nidal] Hasan in carrying out this brutal mass murder, if a terrorist attack, the worst terrorist attack since 9/11." Hasan's attack was carried out on a military base, with his clear target being American soldiers, not civilians. No matter one's views on how unjustified and evil this attack was, can an attack on soldiers -- particularly ones in the process of deploying for a war -- fall within any legitimate definition of "terrorism," which ...
Obama's Afghan Plan: About 40K More Troops
Post Date: 2009-11-09 20:13:41 by Jethro Tull
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(CBS) Tonight, after months of conferences with top advisors, President Obama has settled on a new strategy for Afghanistan. CBS News correspondent David Martin reports that the president will send a lot more troops and plans to keep a large force there, long term. The president still has more meetings scheduled on Afghanistan, but informed sources tell CBS News he intends to give Gen. Stanley McChrystal most, if not all, the additional troops he is asking for. Special Report: Afghanistan McChrystal wanted 40,000 and the president has tentatively decided to send four combat brigades plus thousands more support troops. A senior officer says "that's close to what [McChrystal] ...
Why Ugandans want to work in Iraq
Post Date: 2009-11-09 12:31:53 by Prefrontal Vortex
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Why Ugandans want to work in Iraq By Joshua Mmali BBC News, Kampala At the Watertight security training ground in Uganda, a group of men and women are doing target practice with their AK47s. Nearby, another group are listening to a lecture under the shelter of a tree. Watertight Security Services has been sending Ugandan security guards to Iraq since 2007. So far, more than 10,000 Ugandans have gone to work in the country. Moses Matsiko worked in Iraq for more than three years before returning to Uganda to set up the company. "Since we do security, we start by screening the criminal background of people, hand in hand with Interpol," he told the BBC World Service. ...
EXCLUSIVE: Rare virus (Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever) poses new threat to troops
Post Date: 2009-11-07 09:44:57 by Horse
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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan | U.S. military officials sent a medical team to a remote outpost in southern Afghanistan this week to take blood samples from members of an Army unit after a soldier in the unit died from an Ebola-like virus. Dr. Jim Radike, an expert in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Role 3 Trauma Hospital at Kandahar Air Field, told The Washington Times that Sgt. Robert David Gordon, 22, from River Falls, Ala., died Sept. 16 from what turned out to be Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever after he was bitten by a tick. The virus is transmitted by infected blood and can be carried by ticks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Radike, ...
The Evil Empire
Post Date: 2009-11-07 08:29:07 by Ada
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The US government is now so totally under the thumbs of organized interest groups that "our" government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate. Voters will vent their frustrations over their impotence on the president, which implies a future of one-term presidents. Soon our presidents will be as ineffective as Roman emperors in the final days of that empire. Obama is already set on the course to a one-term presidency. He promised change, but has delivered none. His health care bill is held hostage by the private insurance companies seeking greater profits. The most likely outcome will be cuts in ...
Pentagon Expected to Request More War Funding
Post Date: 2009-11-05 19:11:34 by Horse
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WASHINGTON — The nation’s top military officer said Wednesday that he expected the Pentagon to ask Congress in the next few months for emergency financing to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though President Obama has pledged to end the Bush administration practice of paying for the conflicts with so-called supplemental funds that are outside the normal Defense Department budget. The financing would be on top of the $130 billion that Congress authorized for the wars just last month. The military officer, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not say how much additional money would be needed, but one figure in circulation within the ...
So much for Europe
Post Date: 2009-11-05 05:59:18 by Ada
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NATO ministers were hot to trot for Gen. Stan McChrystal’s Afghanistan escalation scheme, but Europe isn’t likely to send any more troops to the fray. Opinion polls in most European countries show clear majorities in favor of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso says, "Honestly in Europe there is not great enthusiasm for sending more troops to Afghanistan." NATO members currently field 42,000 troops in Afghanistan. American troops there currently number 67,000. It’s a wonder NATO and Europe will play with us at all. Donald Rumsfeld infamously referred to "old Europe" as "irrelevant." ...
5 British soldiers killed in southern Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-11-04 06:27:07 by Disgusted
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5 British soldiers killed in southern Afghanistan The Associated Press Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009 | 2:43 a.m. An Afghan policeman opened fire on British soldiers in the volatile southern province of Helmand, killing five, British and Afghan authorities said Wednesday, raising concerns about discipline within the Afghan forces and possible infiltration by insurgents. The incident came almost exactly a month after an Afghan policeman on patrol with U.S. soldiers opened fire on the Americans, killing two before fleeing. Training and operating jointly with Afghan police and soldiers is key to NATO's strategy of dealing with the spreading Taliban-led insurgency and, ultimately, allowing ...
Afghanistan as a bailout state
Post Date: 2009-11-03 18:59:04 by christine
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In the worst of times, my father always used to say, "A good gambler cuts his losses." It's a formulation imprinted on my brain forever. That no-nonsense piece of advice still seems reasonable to me, but it doesn't apply to American war policy. Our leaders evidently never saw a war to which the word "more" didn't apply. Hence the Afghan war, where impending disaster is just an invitation to fuel the flames of an already roaring fire. Here's a partial rundown of news from that devolving conflict: In the past week or so, Nuristan, a province on the Pakistani border, essentially fell to the Taliban after the US withdrew its forces from four key bases. (See ...
The American Way of Abandonment
Post Date: 2009-11-03 06:05:57 by Ada
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When America is about to throw an ally to the wolves, we follow an established ritual. We discover that the man we supported was never really morally fit to be a friend or partner of the United States. When Chiang Kai-shek, who fought the Japanese for four years before Pearl Harbor, began losing to Mao’s Communists, we did not blame ourselves for being a faithless ally, we blamed him. He was incompetent; he was corrupt. We did not lose China. He did. When Buddhist monks began immolating themselves in South Vietnam, the cry went up: President Diem, once hailed as the “George Washington of his country,” was a dictator, a Catholic autocrat in a Buddhist nation, who had lost ...
Gen Stanley McChrystal faces Pat Tillman book allegations
Post Date: 2009-11-03 05:57:24 by Ada
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The actions of the general demanding thousands of new US troops for the war in Afghanistan have been called into question by a new book on an alleged Pentagon cover-up of the death of Pat Tillman, an American footballer turned soldier. The actions of the general demanding thousands of new US troops for the war in Afghanistan have been called into question by a new book on an alleged Pentagon cover-up of the death of Pat Tillman, an American footballer turned soldier The actions of the general demanding thousands of new US troops for the war in Afghanistan have been called into question by a new book on an alleged Pentagon cover-up of the death of Pat Tillman, an American footballer ...
The Generals' Revolt
Post Date: 2009-11-03 05:47:53 by Ada
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As Obama rethinks America's failed strategy in Afghanistan, he faces two insurgencies: the Taliban and the Pentagon URL: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30493567/the_generals_revolt In early October, as President Obama huddled with top administration officials in the White House situation room to rethink America's failing strategy in Afghanistan, the Pentagon and top military brass were trying to make the president an offer he couldn't refuse. They wanted the president to escalate the war — go all in by committing 40,000 more troops and another trillion dollars to a Vietnam-like quagmire — or face a full-scale mutiny by his generals. Obama knew that if he ...
NY Times: Afghan Opium Kingpin On CIA Payroll
Post Date: 2009-11-02 12:34:06 by christine
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A bombshell article in today’s edition of the New York Times lifts the lid on how the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a suspected kingpin of the country’s booming opium trade, has been on the CIA payroll for the past eight years. However, the article serves as little more than a whitewash because it fails to address the fact that one of the primary reasons behind the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was the agenda to reinstate the Golden Crescent drug trade. “The agency pays (Ahmed Wali) Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, ...
U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division protecting Chinese copper mine in Afghanistan.
Post Date: 2009-11-02 12:26:19 by Jethro Tull
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U.S. Army57;s 10th Mountain Division protecting Chinese copper mine in Afghanistan.What will he get from a Chinese copper mine in Afghanistan?WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following was released today by Hartco Strategies:Geologist James R. Yeager, who served as Advisor to the Ministry of Mines in Afghanistan, will host a news conference to release his report on the Aynak Copper Tender in Logar Province which shows how a flawed process, the bias of a government official and lack of concern by U.S. officials led to China gaining a huge foothold in exploiting Afghanistan's natural resources.DATE: Thursday, October 15, 2009TIME: 1 p.m.PLACE: National Press Club, ...
Warship Forged With '9/11 Steel' Sails Into New York
Post Date: 2009-11-02 11:34:35 by Brian S
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The USS New York, a naval vessel whose bow was forged in part with steel from the World Trade Center towers destroyed on 9/11, sailed for the first time Monday into the city's harbor. The newly built 684-foot (208-meter) amphibious assault ship, designed to carry up to 800 marines and helicopters, marked its maiden voyage into New York with a 21 gun salute just off Ground Zero. Thousands gathered along the Hudson River to remember the nearly 3,000 people killed on September 11, 2001 and to salute the ship, whose bow section contains 7.5 tons of steel from the towers destroyed by the hijacked airliners. "I am here because my son Michael was killed on 9/11. He was a ...
Pakistanis to Clinton: War on terror is not our war
Post Date: 2009-11-02 10:43:07 by tom007
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Pakistanis to Clinton: War on terror is not our war By Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- After three days of encounters with America-bashing Pakistanis -- who rejected her contention that the U.S. and Pakistan face a common enemy -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that "we're not getting through." Prominent women and tribesmen from the North West Frontier Province delivered the same hostile message that she'd heard the two preceding days from students and journalists: Pakistanis aren't ready to endorse American friendship despite an eight-year-old anti-terrorism alliance between the countries and a multi-billion-dollar new U.S. ...
Bob Gates Bad Bet
Post Date: 2009-11-01 19:44:08 by Ada
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Author Victor Sebestyen notes in a recent New York Times editorial that in 1988, then deputy director of the CIA Robert Gates bet $25 that the Russian army would not leave Afghanistan. Now, Gates is assuring our NATO allies that the US "has no intention of pulling out of Afghanistan or abandoning our core mission there. It is a mission we deem critical to our national security and vital national interests." It’s worth mentioning that Gates is a bureaucratic twit who got where he’s gotten by accommodating up and down, knowing how to make both his seniors and subordinates happy and not knowing much of anything else. Every time he makes a public announcement you get a ...
America's Drug Crisis: Brought to You by the CIA
Post Date: 2009-10-30 06:50:29 by Ada
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Next time you see a junkie sprawled at the curb in the downtown of your nearest city, or read about someone who died of a heroin overdose, just imagine a big yellow sign posted next to him or her saying: “Your Federal Tax Dollars at Work.” Kudos to the New York Times, and to reporters Dexter Filkins, Mark Mazzetti and James Risen, for their lead article today reporting that Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of Afghanistan’s stunningly corrupt President Hamid Karzai, a leading drug lord in the world’s major opium-producing nation, has for eight years been on the CIA payroll. Okay, the article was lacking much historical perspective (more on that later), and the dead hand of ...
Drug-War Assassinations
Post Date: 2009-10-30 06:35:03 by Ada
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The U.S. government has now extended its assassination program to the drug war. According to the New York Times, the Pentagon now has an assassination list for suspected drug dealers in Afghanistan. No arrests. No hearings. No attorneys. No judges. No trials. Just kill them. Great! So now the occupation of Afghanistan has expanded not only to CIA drone assassinations but also now to Pentagon’s drug-war assassinations. U.S. officials are justifying the drug-war assassinations as part of their counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan. They say that they’re only going to be assassinating those drug dealers whose drug trafficking is benefiting the terrorists. I wonder how they ...
AfPak--illegal, immoral and fattening
Post Date: 2009-10-30 06:29:49 by Ada
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Missing from the debates regarding our wars these days is their moral and legal aspects. UN human rights investigator Philip Alston says the U.S. needs to explain the legal basis for assassinating suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan with drone strikes. That’s an explanation I’d like to hear. It probably starts with "hamana, hamana, hamana…" Alston says the CIA needs to be accountable to international laws that ban arbitrary executions. The CIA won’t be able to do that, nor will the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s old outfit that whacked people in the Middle East on the arbitrary orders of Dick Cheney’s ...
Alas Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-10-29 06:06:41 by Ada
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The New York Times tells us that Obama’s advisers are curling themselves around a strategy that will protect "about 10 population centers" in Afghanistan. The debate is no longer over whether to send more troops but over how many more to send. Obama hasn’t made his mind up yet, the Times reports, but the story is a sanctioned leak, so you know he’s pretty close to a decision. This is a propaganda technique known as "desensitizing." By the time official word comes down the pike, we’ll already be used to the idea and will have moved on to caring about something else. The Times story comes on the heels of the news of the resignation of Matthew Hoh, a ...
Brother of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll
Post Date: 2009-10-28 14:11:46 by scrapper2
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KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials. The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home. The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, ...
McCain Exhorts Obama To Make Afghan Decision Now
Post Date: 2009-10-28 11:25:09 by Brian S
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(10-28) 07:59 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Sen. John McCain is exhorting President Barack Obama to make a decision quickly on sending additional troops to Afghanistan, saying U.S allies are nervous and military commanders are frustrated. McCain said in a nationally broadcast interview Wednesday that the war policy in Afghanistan "has been reviewed time and again" and that it's now time to act. Interviewed on CBS's "The Early Show," the Arizona Republican said the drawn-out decision-making process on Afghanistan "is not helpful to our effort" in the wartorn nation. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that Obama will announce ...
Pakistan's Deadliest Bombing in Two Years Kills 97 as Clinton Begins Visit
Post Date: 2009-10-28 11:14:56 by Brian S
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By Farhan Sharif and Indira A.R. Lakshmanan Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan’s deadliest bombing in two years shattered a crowded market in Peshawar, killing at least 97 people as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began a mission to calm tensions in the countries’ relations. The explosion ripped through the Meena Bazaar, where small shops selling women’s clothes line narrow lanes in Peshawar’s historic walled city. “Bodies are scattered and badly burned,” Mohammed Naeem, a spokesman for the Edhi Ambulance Service said today by phone from Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province. The bombing, and two attacks by militants in ...
MSNBC: Iraq bombing - inside job
Post Date: 2009-10-28 10:29:58 by randge
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Largest Iraq bombing in two years may have been inside job By David Edwards and Daniel Tencer Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 -- 9:50 am Share on Facebook Stumble This! Sunday's twin suicide bombings in Baghdad that killed at least 155 people and wounded 500 others may have had help from within Iraq's security apparatus, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reported Monday. "This was a really well coordinated attack on an area in Baghdad that's supposed to be well protected," Maddow told viewers. "In order to reach their targets, the bombers driving these truck bombs had to pass through several checkpoints that were guarded by security forces and those security forces were ...
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