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Latest Articles: War, War, War
US Commander: No Sign of al-Qaeda Presence in Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-09-12 10:37:10 by F.A. Hayek Fan
9 Comments
Speaking on the eight-year anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attack, top US commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal says that he sees no indication of any large al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan. Gen. McChrystal’s comments come at a time when the Obama Administration is facing an increasing revolt over the ongoing war in Afghanistan, and officials have used the “threat” posed by al-Qaeda as their primary justification for continuing the conflict. Seemingly oblivious to having already dismissed the conflict’s ostensible raison d’etre, the general continued to defend the war, maintaining that it was winnable given increased effort and insisting ...
Enduring Freedom until 2050
Post Date: 2009-09-12 07:47:24 by Ada
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And it's one, two, three what are we fighting for? Don't ask me, I don't give a damn next stop is Vietnam - Country Joe and the Fish, 1969 After eight long years, now more than ever, the United States invasion and (partial) occupation of Afghanistan is on a roll, courtesy of US President Barack Obama's "new strategy". This - which Pentagon supremo Robert Gates insists is "working" - includes US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) staging mini-Guernicas, al la the bombing of Guernica, Spain, by German and Italian warplanes in 1937, as painted by Pablo Picasso. It also includes General Stanley McChrystal - the former number one hit man ...
Losing Ground: Taliban Cover 97% of Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-09-11 21:37:08 by abraxas
9 Comments
Losing Ground: Taliban Cover 97% of Afghanistan By Virginia M. Moncrieff September 11, 2009 "Huffington Post" -- New research indicates that 80% of Afghanistan now has a permanent Taliban presence and that 97% of the country has "substantial Taliban activity." The International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) has followed the movement of the Taliban throughout Afghanistan since 2007, by tracking third party public daily reports of incidents that indicate Taliban presence. Presence is defined by: "(An) average of one (or more) insurgent attacks (lethal and non-lethal) per week." Even with this new data outlining a 97% presence, ICOS President Ms. ...
Obama Faces Party Opposition Over Afghan War
Post Date: 2009-09-11 10:01:30 by christine
2 Comments
WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she sees little congressional support for boosting troop levels in Afghanistan, putting the Democratic majority in Congress on a possible collision course with the Obama administration over the future conduct of the war there. The remarks Thursday by Pelosi (D., Calif.) make her the highest-ranking Democrat to signal opposition to the administration's handling of the Afghan war, a top national-security priority. The remarks also underscored the increasingly complex political dynamics confronting President Barack Obama as he considers whether to send additional U.S. forces to Afghanistan. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander ...
Art as Resistance
Post Date: 2009-09-11 01:41:01 by Max
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Art as Resistance by Dahr Jamail September 7th, 2009 | T r u t h o u t “Throughout history, culture and art have always been the celebration of freedom under oppression.” - Author unknown Soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have tough truths to tell, and it has been well demonstrated that the establishment media does not want to broadcast these. Given the lack of an outlet for anti-war voices in the corporate media, many contemporary veterans and active-duty soldiers have embraced the arts as a tool for resistance, communication and healing. They have made use of a wide range of visual and performing arts - through theater, poetry, painting, writing, and other ...
Under the Gun
Post Date: 2009-09-10 22:43:49 by ncObserver
1 Comments
A song relevant to today...from 20 years ago...
US Military: Iranian Arms Found In Afghanistan, Including IEDs
Post Date: 2009-09-10 14:49:03 by Brian S
4 Comments
WASHINGTON (AFP)--Afghan security forces found a cache of weapons manufactured in Iran, but it is uknown whether the arms indicate an effort by Iran to aid insurgents, the Pentagon said Thursday. The weapons seized last month in western Herat province included rockets, firing devices for bombs and powerful armor-piercing explosives known as explosively-formed penetrators (EFPs), said the Defense Department. "They arrested two individuals at the time affiliated with this particular weapons cache," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters. It is unclear when the weapons were brought into Afghanistan and whether the Iranian government played a role in shipping the arms, ...
Federal Prosecutors Say Blackwater ‘Specifically Intended to Kill’ Civilians
Post Date: 2009-09-10 06:43:17 by Ada
3 Comments
The US government's allegations back-up the explosive testimony of two former Blackwater employees. Gov't says Blackwater shot Iraqis as "payback for 9/11" A month ago, most major, corporate media outlets ignored the sworn statements of two former Blackwater employees, one of whom — identified in court papers as John Doe #2 — alleged that the company’s owner Erik Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince’s companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life." Most media outlets ignored the numerous, specific allegations contained ...
Are US taxpayers funding the Taliban?
Post Date: 2009-09-10 06:19:54 by Disgusted
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Are US taxpayers funding the Taliban? USAID probes the possibility that contractors give a cut to the Taliban. By Jean MacKenzie - GlobalPost Published: September 2, 2009 20:56 ET Updated: September 4, 2009 12:24 ET-A +AKABUL — The United States Agency for International Development has opened an investigation into allegations that its funds for road and bridge construction in Afghanistan are ending up in the hands of the Taliban, through a protection racket for contractors. And House Foreign Affairs Committee member, Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) vowed to hold hearings on the issue in the fall, saying: "The idea that American taxpayer dollars are ending up with the Taliban is ...
Afghanistan by the Numbers Measuring a War Gone to Hell
Post Date: 2009-09-09 14:36:11 by Horse
3 Comments
Costs Annual funding for U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan, 2002: $20.8 billion. Annual funding for U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan, 2009: $60.2 billion. Total funds for U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan, 2002-2009: $228.2 billion. War-fighting funds requested by the Obama administration for 2010: $68 billion (a figure which will, for the first time since 2003, exceed funds requested for Iraq). Funds recently requested by U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry for non-military spending in Afghanistan, 2010: $2.5 billion. Funds spent since 2001 on Afghan "reconstruction": $38 billion ("more than half of it on training and equipping Afghan security forces"). ...
Obama must send more troops to Afghanistan: US senator
Post Date: 2009-09-09 13:27:19 by christine
12 Comments
WASHINGTON — The United States has a new Afghan war strategy that will "turn the tide" against the Taliban, but requires more troops to join the eight-year-old conflict, a US senator said Tuesday. "I feel very strongly, having just been there in August, that we see now how to turn the tide in our favor, and in the favor of the Afghan people, and against the Taliban," said independent Senator Joseph Lieberman. "That requires more personnel -- military and civilian -- and the sooner we do it, the sooner the Afghans will be able to take over themselves and Americans and our allies will come home," he told reporters. Lieberman said he expected the top US ...
'We're pinned down:' 4 U.S. Marines die in Afghan ambush
Post Date: 2009-09-09 10:24:19 by christine
32 Comments
GANJGAL, Afghanistan — We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition. "We will do to you what we did to the Russians," the insurgent's leader boasted over the radio, referring to the failure of Soviet troops to capture Ganjgal during the 1979-89 Soviet occupation. Dashing from boulder to boulder, diving into trenches and ducking behind stone walls as the insurgents maneuvered to outflank us, we waited more than an hour for U.S. helicopters to arrive, despite earlier assurances that air cover ...
Reviewing David Swanson's Daybreak
Post Date: 2009-09-09 05:57:21 by Stephen Lendman
0 Comments
Reviewing David Swanson's "Daybreak" - by Stephen Lendman David Swanson is co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org and Washington Director of Democrats.com. He's also a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, the Backbone Campaign, and Voters for Peace as well as a member of the legislative working group of United for Peace and Justice. Subtitled "Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming A More Perfect Union, Daybreak" is Swanson's first book, a timely and impressive account of presidential extremism, congressional complicity, the urgency for progressive change, and how to do it. Swanson exposes what was wrong under George Bush and provides a ...
Killing America's Kids (AP photo of Marine) [Full Thread]
Post Date: 2009-09-08 13:03:49 by TooConservative
50 Comments
Killing America's Kidsby Fred Reedby Fred Reed Recently by Fred Reed: TSA and Its BrethrenThe web is covered in stink today because of a reporter for the Associated Press, Julie Jacobson, who photographed the death of a Marine whose legs had just been blown off. The kid was Joshua Bernard, a Lance Corporal of 21 years. When the photo appeared, Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense [sic] furiously tried to get the AP to quash the photo. It didn’t, to its everlasting credit. To quote one of many accounts on the web:BEFOREJoshua BernardSomewhere there is a picture of me, looking almost exactly the same.“Gates followed up with a scathing letter to Curley [of AP] yesterday ...
Get Ready: Big Push For Liberals To Support Iran War This Fall PLUS Response From "The Israel Project"
Post Date: 2009-09-08 12:32:03 by Brian S
4 Comments
I hear that the war-with-Iran crowd is determined that Israel attack Iran this fall and that the United States give its blessing. Check out this column from Friday by American emigre and rightist Caroline Glick who writes for the Jerusalem Post. In the column called "Time's Up on Iran," the Netanyahu confidante writes, "The question then is whether Israel has the ability to effectively attack Iran even if the US opposes such a strike. Based on open source material, the answer to this central question is yes, Israel can launch an effective strike against Iran....With each passing day, Iran moves closer to the bomb and closer to initiating war on its terms. The ...
Roadside Bombs Kill 4 US Soldiers In Iraq
Post Date: 2009-09-08 11:16:51 by Brian S
1 Comments
(09-08) 07:54 PDT BAGHDAD, (AP) -- Roadside bombs killed four U.S. soldiers in Iraq on Tuesday, the military said, in the deadliest day for American troops in the country in weeks, as a series of bomb attacks along roads claimed eight Iraqi lives. The first roadside bomb struck a patrol in southern Baghdad, killing one American soldier, the military said. A short time later, another bomb targeting a patrol in northern Iraq killed three soldiers, the military said. The U.S. military, which pulled back from populated areas of Iraq before the end of June, has suffered fewer casualties in recent weeks. In August, seven U.S. troops died — the lowest monthly toll since the war began in ...
Myth v. Fact: Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-09-07 17:39:35 by F.A. Hayek Fan
2 Comments
While “Change” has been Barack Obama’s mantra, as of late he has been channeling his predecessor. “Afghanistan,” according to Obama, “is a war of necessity… If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans.” President George W. Bush was adept at keeping the American public in an elevated state of panic. That tactic may be useful for advancing controversial policies. But if policymakers continue to downplay the drawbacks of our current course of action, America risks intensifying the region’s powerful jihadist insurgency and entangling itself deeper into a ...
What happened to Mohammed Hanashi, and why? (Another dirty raghead "given what he deserved" by our military heroes. God rejoices in America's Christian values)
Post Date: 2009-09-07 16:41:40 by F.A. Hayek Fan
3 Comments
Mohammed al-Hanashi was a 31-year-old Yemeni citizen who was held at Guantanamo Bay without charge for seven years. On June 3, while I was visiting Guantanamo with other journalists, the press office there issued a terse announcement that Hanashi had had been found dead in his cell – an “apparent suicide.” Because my commercial flight was canceled, I got a ride back to the United States on a military transport. I happened to be seated next to a military physician who had been flown in to do the autopsy on Hanashi. When would there be an investigation of the death, I asked him? “That was the investigation,” he replied. The military had investigated the military. ...
George Will Takes on NeoCons on Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-09-07 15:07:41 by F.A. Hayek Fan
3 Comments
George Will sparked a debate with Defense Secretary Gates this week with his call to pull out of Afghanistan, first on 'This Week' then in the Washington Post. And he drew fire from fellow conservatives, including Robert Kagan, who called it a “double surrender” policy in the Washington Post. On the Roundtable today, Will struck back saying "we are going to have a debate and there will be plenty of brass on my side." He quoted from a recent letter he received from Marine Commandant General Charles Krulak. In the letter, Krulak said he read Will's column and is in "total agreement" with his assessment. See letter HERE. Kagan, Bill Kristol, Dan ...
MoD blocked warning that Britain faces Afghan defeat
Post Date: 2009-09-07 14:12:23 by F.A. Hayek Fan
3 Comments
THE Ministry of Defence has suppressed a report which warned that British troops are facing “strategic defeat” in Afghanistan. The decision to block publication of the critical academic paper in the army’s in-house journal coincides with a scathing attack by a senior US military officer on the “arrogance” of UK tactics in Iraq. Colonel Peter Mansoor, who worked closely with General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq until a year ago, said Britain’s political and military leaders had “abdicated responsibility” in Basra by failing to protect local people. Mansoor’s comments are made in the latest edition of the British Army Review ...
Outrage as US Forces Attack Afghan Hospital - No Explanation Given as Troops Force Their Way in, Tie Up Staff
Post Date: 2009-09-07 12:37:05 by F.A. Hayek Fan
12 Comments
The charity group Swedish Committee for Afghanistan expressed outrage today in reporting a US attack on a remote hospital being operated by the group. The troops burst in to the hospital without explanation and conducted a full and rather violent search of the facility. The troops reportedly tied up several employees and the family of some of the patients, ordered the bed-ridden patients out of their rooms and smashed down several doors, including the door to the malnutrition ward. They did not arrest anybody, but upon leaving ordered the staff to report anybody coming to the hospital to seek treatment before the treatment was provided. NATO spokesmen confirmed the raid, but said they had ...
Aid group says U.S. troops raid Afghan hospital
Post Date: 2009-09-07 12:22:18 by F.A. Hayek Fan
3 Comments
KABUL (Reuters) – U.S. troops burst into a Swedish charity-run hospital in Afghanistan and tied up patients' relatives and staff, the charity said on Sunday, in what it called a breach of deals between the military and aid groups. In a statement issued on Sunday, the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) said soldiers had entered its hospital in Wardak, south of Kabul, on Wednesday evening without explanation and conducted a search, including of female wards and toilets. "Upon entering the hospital they tied up four employees and two family members of patients at the hospital. SCA staff as well as patients (even those in beds) were forced out of rooms/wards throughout the ...
U.S. Service Member Dies in Afghanistan Bombing
Post Date: 2009-09-06 20:31:40 by christine
4 Comments
KABUL — NATO says a U.S. service member has died as the result of a bomb blast in southern Afghanistan. The death Sunday marked the sixth U.S. fatality in as many days in the widening war, according to an Associated Press count. No other details were released. Violence has surged across much of the country since President Barack Obama ordered 21,000 U.S. troops to the country this year, shifting the focus of the U.S.-led war on Islamic extremism from Iraq. Fifty-one U.S. troops died in Afghanistan in August, the deadliest month in the deadliest year for American forces there since the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001.
And you thought taking your shoes off was a pain...
Post Date: 2009-09-06 09:42:43 by robnoel
1 Comments
Bomb in anal cavity raises new airline concern A terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia has raised fresh concerns about airline security after the bomber detonated an explosive device concealed in his anal cavity. The terrorist, a wanted militant from al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP), pretended to renounce terrorism and repent in order to get close to Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia's deputy interior minister who leads the kingdom's counter-terrorism campaign. In the attack on August 28, the bomber obliterated himself but the prince survived shaken but unharmed. AQAP claimed credit for the attack in an internet statement but was coy about the method, declaring: ...
And you thought taking your shoes off was pain...
Post Date: 2009-09-06 09:40:22 by robnoel
9 Comments
Bomb in anal cavity raises new airline concern A terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia has raised fresh concerns about airline security after the bomber detonated an explosive device concealed in his anal cavity. The terrorist, a wanted militant from al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP), pretended to renounce terrorism and repent in order to get close to Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia's deputy interior minister who leads the kingdom's counter-terrorism campaign. In the attack on August 28, the bomber obliterated himself but the prince survived shaken but unharmed. AQAP claimed credit for the attack in an internet statement but was coy about the method, declaring: ...
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