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Title: 5 U.S. troops killed as Afghan violence swells
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URL Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw ... nce7-2009aug07,0,6266361.story
Published: Aug 7, 2009
Author: LA Times
Post Date: 2009-08-07 10:13:15 by christine
Keywords: None
Views: 121
Comments: 7
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan -- The pace of American combat deaths in Afghanistan has quickened anew as roadside bombs killed five U.S. troops in 24 hours in the same western province, the American military said Thursday. The deaths bring to 11 the number of American troops killed in Afghanistan so far in August, on the heels of what was the worst month for Western and U.S. troop fatalities since the conflict began in 2001. Forty-three American military personnel died in July. Violence has been surging in advance of Afghanistan's presidential and provincial assembly elections, which are two weeks away. In addition to the troop fatalities, a total of 26 Afghans, most of them members of a wedding party, were reported killed in roadside bombings Thursday. The U.S. deaths occurred in Farah province, bordering Iran, where a force consisting mainly of U.S. Marines staffs a string of small forward operating bases set deep in the desert. They are connected by a route American forces have been struggling for months to keep free of roadside bombs, which have made travel extremely dangerous for villagers and military convoys alike. One of the fatalities occurred Wednesday, and the other four, in a single incident, came Thursday, the U.S. military said. Such "clusters" of fatalities are becoming less uncommon; three American soldiers were killed over the weekend in a roadside bombing in the south. Some American field commanders have said that more insurgents may be moving into Farah in response to a major U.S.-led offensive in Helmand province, to the east, which began in early July. But insurgents had been tightening their grip on Farah even before the Helmand offensive. Faced with a far stronger force of 4,000 Marines who have seized the lower Helmand River valley, insurgents have avoided a full-on battlefield confrontation, melting away into the countryside while redoubling their efforts to seed the roads with explosives. The roadside bombings in Helmand on Thursday killed 21 members of a wedding party and five police officers, Afghan officials said. The wedding-party blast also injured at least five other people, said Helmand's police chief, Asadullah Sherzad. The roadside bomb that hit the wedding party was almost certainly aimed at coalition troops. A tractor carrying the party, which included women and children, set off the buried bomb on a road in Garmser district, which Western troops have repeatedly tried to clear of insurgents. Marines occupied the district for much of last year and returned last month with the current offensive. Elsewhere in Helmand, a vehicle carrying Afghan police officers struck a roadside bomb in Nad Ali district, another insurgent stronghold. Five officers were killed and three others injured, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. Meanwhile, controversy erupted over allegations that a Western airstrike late Wednesday resulted in civilian deaths in Kandahar province, which borders Helmand. The police chief in Zhari district said five farmers were killed as they loaded produce into a truck, preparing to take it to Kandahar city. The U.S. military, however, said it was believed the five were loading the truck with munitions. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, a U.S. military spokeswoman, said the incident would be investigated, including a review of cockpit video from the Apache attack helicopter that carried out the strike. Civilian casualties are a point of major tension between Western forces and Afghan officials. A United Nations report said noncombatant deaths rose nearly 25% in the first half of 2009, with about 60% of them blamed on insurgents and most of the remainder on coalition forces. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's new secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, on a visit to Afghanistan, said at a news conference Wednesday in Kabul, the capital, that the alliance would do everything in its power to avoid causing civilian casualties. The new commander of American and Western forces, U.S. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, has also ordered field commanders to make safeguarding civilian lives their top priority.
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#1. To: All, White House Struggles to Gauge Afghan Success (#0)
WASHINGTON — As the American military comes to full strength in the Afghan buildup, the Obama administration is struggling to come up with a long-promised plan to measure whether the war is being won. Those “metrics” of success, demanded by Congress and eagerly awaited by the military, are seen as crucial if the president is to convince Capitol Hill and the country that his revamped strategy is working. Without concrete signs of progress, Mr. Obama may lack the political stock — especially among Democrats and his liberal base — to make the case for continuing the military effort or enlarging the American presence. That problem will become particularly acute if American commanders in Afghanistan seek even more troops for a mission that many of Mr. Obama’s most ardent supporters say remains ill defined and open-ended. Senior administration officials said that the president’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, approved a classified policy document on July 17 setting out nine broad objectives for metrics to guide the administration’s policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Another month or two is still needed to flesh out the details, according to officials engaged in the work. General Jones and other top National Security Council aides, including Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, gave an update to top Congressional leaders over recent days. But as the Bush administration learned the hard way in Iraq, poorly devised measurements can become misleading indicators — and can create a false sense of progress. That is especially difficult in a war like the one in Afghanistan, in which eliminating corruption, promoting a working democracy and providing effective aid are as critical as scoring military success against insurgents and terrorists. For instance, some of the measures now being devised by the Obama administration track the size, strength and self-reliance of the Afghan National Army, which the United States has been struggling to train for seven years. They include the number of operations in which Afghan soldiers are in the lead, or the number of Afghan soldiers who have received basic instruction. White House officials say they are taking the time to get the measurements right. In some cases, old measurements are being thrown out. Commanders in Afghanistan say they no longer pay much attention to how many enemy fighters are killed in action. Instead, they are trying to count instances in which local citizens cooperate with Afghan and allied forces. And in drafting a metric important to senior members of Congress, the administration is considering conducting an opinion poll to determine Afghan public perception of official corruption at national, provincial and district levels. This would give insight into how Afghan citizens view police performance at the neighborhood level all the way up to the quality of national political appointments. But as the architects of similar metrics in Iraq learned, even the best- constructed measures can miss the larger truth. In 2005 and 2006, for example, the White House was often citing the “rat rate” in Iraq, a measure of good tips from Iraqis about the location of insurgents or the planting of roadside bombs. “We thought this was a good measure of how well the public was turning against” Al Qaeda and other insurgents, said Peter D. Feaver, a professor at Duke University who served in the National Security Council at the time. “What we discovered was that the rat rate numbers steadily improved over the course of 2006 — and the violence was rising.” That experience helps to explain why the Obama administration has taken so much time. But some frustrated lawmakers said the delay might prove costly. “We have been in Afghanistan now for more than seven and a half years,” said Representative Ike Skelton, a Democrat of Missouri and the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “These metrics are required to help make the case for the American people that actual progress is being made, or if we need to change the course to another direction. I think that time is not on our side.” When President Obama unveiled his new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan in March, he emphasized the importance of these measures. “We will set clear metrics to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable,” Mr. Obama said. “We’ll consistently assess our efforts to train Afghan security forces and our progress in combating insurgents. We will measure the growth of Afghanistan’s economy and its illicit narcotics production. And we will review whether we are using the right tools and tactics to make progress towards accomplishing our goals.” All that now seems unlikely to be completed before his field commanders finish their proposals for carrying out their marching orders. Their recommendations were originally due at the Pentagon within the next two weeks, but Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates issued expanded instructions for the assessment to the commanders last weekend and gave them until September to complete their report. Skeptical lawmakers have implored Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to produce what Mr. Obama promised, and they have made specific recommendations of their own. “The metrics are critically important to keep everyone’s feet to the fire on this and for the public to know how we’re doing and have some ways to measure it and not have just rhetoric,” said Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We all share the president’s goal of succeeding in Afghanistan,” said Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. “The challenge here is how we are going to define success in the medium term, given the difficult security environment we face.” Senior White House officials say their objectives are grouped in three main categories: counterterrorism, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The counterinsurgency objectives are highly classified and cover a “full range” of efforts to help Pakistan combat the militant threat in its tribal areas. Others address Pakistan’s ability to maintain and strengthen democratically elected civilian government; the country’s ability to confront and defeat an internal insurgent threat; and international support for Pakistan, including international donors, the United Nations and the World Bank. In Afghanistan, they would assess suppression of the insurgency; building and strengthening Afghan security forces; shoring up support for the government and reviving the economy; and garnering support from NATO, the European Union, the United Nations and international donors.
www.drudgereport.com/ PRESIDENT STRUGGLES TO COME UP WITH BENCHMARKS IN AFGHAN WAR... (Developing)
Most news sources used this as a "filler" or after thought on their front page. It was more important that the stock market closed up..... No mention of five more families devastated for life, not a word. Who cares, they volunteered, therefore they must have been stupid. No consideration of a lifetime of grief for so many people. One hundred and thirty million Americans voted for more war, war we have.
I think Big O needs a surge! I reckon Ferret Mike would have to agree!
TRAITORS TO AMERICA AND BRAINWASHED IDIOTS SUPPORT AND DEFEND ISRAEL. TO HELL WITH ZIONISTS AND THIER AMERICAN FRONTS: AIPAC/PNAC/ADL/JPCA/NAACP/CFR/FEDERAL RESERVE/NWO/SPLC/JINSA/ACLU/FPI/CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS/AEI/FEDERAL MEDIA/HOLLYWOOD, et. al.
I reckon Ferret Mike would have to agree! Well, Mike, is it time for you to reconsider the wisdom of voting for that mulatto or just tell us that you're busy going out with your g/f and her son and that you'll get back to us later??
_________________________________________________________________________ More gasoline! I mean, more troops!
Anti-racism is code for white genocide
www.nytimes.com/2009/08/0...d/asia/07policy.html?_r=1
#2. To: christine (#1)
#3. To: christine (#0)
The deaths bring to 11 the number of American troops killed in Afghanistan so far in August,
#4. To: christine (#1)
(Edited)
#5. To: Cynicom (#3)
One hundred and thirty million Americans voted for more war, war we have.
#6. To: Ferret Mike, All (#4)
I think Big O needs a surge!
"This man is Jesus,” shouted one man, spilling his Guinness as Barack Obama began his inaugural address. “When will he come to Kenya to save us?”
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#7. To: christine (#0)
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