Afghanistan: Troops Guarding the Poppy Fields

Paul Joseph Watson

Friday, November 20, 2009

Not content with savaging American taxpayers with two huge new financial burdens during an economic recession, in the form of health care reform and cap and trade, close allies of Barack Obama have proposed a new war surtax that will force Americans to foot the bill for the cost of protecting opium fields in Afghanistan, paying off drug lords, and bribing the Taliban.

Warning that the cost of occupying Afghanistan is a threat to the Democrats’ plan to overhaul health care, lawmakers have announced their plan to make Americans pay an additional war tax that will be taken directly from their income, never mind the fact that around 36 per cent of federal taxes already go to paying for national defense.

“Regardless of whether one favors the war or not, if it is to be fought, it ought to be paid for,” the lawmakers, all prominent Democratic allies of Obama, said in a joint statement on the “Share The Sacrifice Act of 2010 (PDF),” reports AFP.

The move is being led by the appropriately named House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey, Representative John Murtha, who chairs that panel’s defense subcommittee; and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank.

The tax would apply to anyone earning as little as $22,600 per year in 2011.

The proposal is described as “heavily symbolic” with little chance of passing, but it once again illustrates the hypocrisy of an administration that swept to power on the promise of “change” to the Neo-Con imperial agenda and a resolve to reduce U.S. military involvement overseas. In reality, there are more troops in Iraq and Afghanistan now under Obama that at any time during the Bush administration.

At the height of the Bush administration’s 2007 “surge” in Iraq, there were 26,000 US troops in Afghanistan and 160,000 in Iraq, a total of 186,000.

According to DoD figures cited by The Washington Post last month, there are now around 189,000 and rising deployed in total. There are now 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, over double the amount deployed there when Bush left office.

What precisely would this extra tax be used to pay for? Namely, bribing the Taliban, paying off CIA drug lords, and protecting heroin-producing opium fields.

Numerous reports over the past two weeks have confirmed that the U.S. military is paying off the Taliban with bags of gold to prevent them from attacking vehicle convoys, proving that there is no real “war” in Afghanistan, merely a business agreement that allows the occupiers to continue their lucrative control of record opium exports while they finalize construction of dozens of new military bases from which to launch new wars.

The Afghan opium trade has exploded since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, following a lull after the Taliban had imposed a crackdown. According to the U.N., the drug trade is now worth $65 billion. Afghanistan produces 92 per cent of the world’s opium, with the equivalent of at least 3,500 tonnes leaving the country each year.

This racket is secured by drug kingpins like the brother of disputed president Hamid Karzai. As a New York Times report revealed last month, Ahmed Wali Karzai, a Mafia-like figure who expanded his influence over the drug trade with the aid of U.S. efforts to eliminate his competitors, is on the CIA payroll.

As Professor Michel Chossudovsky has highlighted in a series of essays, the explosion of opium production after the invasion was about the CIA’s drive to restore the lucrative Golden Crescent opium trade that was in place during the time when the Agency were funding the Mujahideen rebels to fight the Soviets, and flood the streets of America and Britain with cheap heroin, destroying lives while making obscene profits.

Any war surtax will merely go straight to maintaining the agenda that Obama inherited from Bush, the continued looting of Afghanistan under the pretext of a “war on terror” that, as revelations about bribing the Taliban prove, doesn’t even exist.

Source

Afghanistan opium poppy cultivation 1994-2007

The Taliban has almost eradicated the poppy fields. No sooner did the war begin and the poppy fields wee reborn.

Children work the poppy fields young as 8 or 9

Narco-Nation Building

By Paul L. Williams, Ph.D

July 7 2009

Hey, guys, don’t pick the poppies.

That’s the order from the Obama Administration to the 4,000 Marines presently engaged in Operation Khanjar or “Strike of the Sword,” an invasion of the Taliban infested Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan.

The Marines of Bravo’s Company 1^st Platoon sleep beside groves of poppies Troops of the 2^nd Platoon walk through the fields on strict orders not to swat the heavy opium bulbs. The Afghan farmers and laborers, who are engaged in scraping the resin from the bulbs, smile and wave at the passing soldiers.

The Helmand province is the world’s largest cultivator of opium poppies – the crop used to make heroin.

Afghanistan grew 93 percent of the world’s poppy crop last year, with Helmand alone responsible for more than half of the opium production in the country, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Heroin, as it turns out, represents the only staple of the Afghan economy. The country manufactures no domestic products for exportation and the rocky terrain yields no cash crops – – except, of course, the poppies.

The poppies fuel the great jihad against the United States and the Western world. More than 3,500 tons of raw opium is gleaned from the poppy crops every year, producing annual revenues for the Taliban and al Qaeda that range from $5 billion to $16 billion.

Destroying the fields could very well put an end to terrorist activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But the Obama Administration remains intent upon protecting the poppies so that the Afghan farmers and local drug lords can reap the benefits of what purports to be a bumper crop.

Many Marines in the field are scratching their heads over the situation.

Jason Striuszko a journalist embedded with the U.S. Marines in Garmser, reports that many of the leathernecks are scratching their heads at the apparent contradictions — calling in airstrikes and artillery on the elusive Taliban while assuring farmers and drug lords that they will protect the poppies.

“Of course,” Striuszko says, “those fields will be harvested and some money likely used to help fuel the Taliban, and the Marines are thinking, essentially, ‘huh?’”

“It’s kind of weird. We’re coming over here to fight the Taliban. We see this. We know it’s bad. But at the same time we know it’s the only way locals can make money,” said 1st Lt. Adam Lynch, 27, of Barnstable, Mass.

Richard Holbrooke, the Obama Administration’s top envoy in Afghanistan, says that poppy eradication – for years a cornerstone of U.S. and U.N. anti-drug efforts in the country – has only resulted in driving Afghan farmers into the hands of the Taliban.

The new approach, Holbrooke maintains, will try to wean the farmers of the lucrative cash crop by giving them help to grow other produce, like wheat, corn and pomegranates.

Most of the 33,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan operate in the east, where the poppy problem is not as great. But the 2,400-strong 24th Marines, have taken the field in this southern growing region during harvest season.

An expert on Afghanistan’s drug trade, Barnett Rubin, complained that the Marines are being put in such a situation by a “one-dimensional” military policy that fails to integrate political and economic considerations into long-range planning.

“All we hear is, not enough troops, send more troops,” said Rubin, a professor at New York University. “Then you send in troops with no capacity for assistance, no capacity for development, no capacity for aid, no capacity for governance.”

Staff Sgt. Jeremy Stover, whose platoon is sleeping beside a poppy crop planted in the interior courtyard of a mud-walled compound, said the Marines’ mission is to get rid of the “bad guys,” and “the locals aren’t the bad guys.”

“Poppy fields in Afghanistan are the cornfields of Ohio,” said Stover, 28, of Marion, Ohio. “When we got here they were asking us if it’s OK to harvest poppy and we said, ‘Yeah, just don’t use an AK-47.’”

Source

U.S. soldiers inspect a cache of opium that was seized at a border police station on the outskirts of Herat,  October 23 2007. Afghan border police in the western Afghan city have seized 644 kilograms of opium. Afghanistan accounts for over 93 percent of the world’s supply of opium, the main ingredient in heroin, a lucrative trade whose proceeds in part fund some of the Taliban-led insurgency.    AFP PHOTO/STR (Photo credit should read STR/AFP/Getty Images)

They don’t tell you about this, about Afghanistan’s growing domestic drug problem – an estimated 1.5 million addicts, including 120,000 women, according to the Ministry of Narcotics – all those advocates of legalizing the country’s robust opium crop – a yield that provides some 93 per cent of the world’s heroin. This heroin, which is refined opium, ends up on streets across the globe but also is destroying families here. Source

They also fail to mention the problem now in Iran , Iraq,
Russia, Europe and North America.

There are millions of new heroin addicts around the world.

Karima leaned to one side and rubbed her temples with half-painted pink fingernails. The smile that was wide and infectious for her visitors had now surrendered to the internal darkness that ruled her addiction.

The day had started like most in her life: With an opium tea that she drinks to “feel happy.” On bad days, she needs it three or four times.

Karima is 13.

She is bright, and confident, but left school during fourth grade. From the two narrow rooms they call home in an otherwise abandoned building, she cannot see a future that is either clean or normal — a hard assessment for a girl who is barely a teenager.

“There is no one but me to support the family and we have nothing to live easily,” she said. “I feel sad most of the time and the tea makes me feel better.”

Her mother, Najiba, raised five children on a steady diet of narcotics to ease their hunger pains and winter chills and her own grief from losing a son. The whole family has been through drug treatment — twice — and Najiba claims to be healthy.

Karima is still addicted. She buys the drugs herself with money from her father and boils the opium tea the way her mother long did for her.

Her wild-eyed youngest sister, Raisa, is three years old and clicks her tongue while fidgeting with a red patent purse. Raisa had opium in her veins before she was born. Najiba cut her off months ago, but Raisa remembers the “dizzy” tea and craves it. I asked her why.

“Because I miss it,” she said in the tiniest voice. “I like it.” Source

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. Source

Opium production is one of the chief sources of revenue for the warlords that occupy the Afghan parliament and is one of the main reasons why the government is seen as corrupt by the Afghan people. As long as NATO continues to bomb civilians in an effort to extend the control of those warlords, the Afghan people will continue to join the resistance to the foreign occupation.

This reality led to the recent resignation of Matthew Hoh, a former US army captain and Foreign Service official in Zabul province. Hoh resigned because he said that the presence of the foreign troops was the main reason why the resistance was growing and he believed that the war needed to end.  Source

They have never connected Bin Laden to 9/11

Bin Laden has been dead since December of 2001

9/11 was just an excuse to go to war in Afghanistan nothing more.

The results of the invasion of Afghanistan is devastating to say the least.

The radiation will have a very devastating impact on Afghans. The testing proved the use of radioactive weapons. Source

The end result will be as it is in Iraq and other countries Nato and the US have invaded.

Doctors report “unprecedented” rise in deformities, cancers in Iraq

Kosovo

Since its dealings with the Meo tribesmen in Laos during the Vietnam era, the CIA has protected narcotics traffic in key locations in order partly to finance its covert operations. The scale of international narcotics traffic today is such that major US banks such as Citigroup are reported to derive a significant share of their profits from laundering the proceeds. Source

CIA Drug  Operations a little history

Bush – Cheney and drugs

Pipelines in the Middle East Afghanistan included/ Maps as well

Drug money used as a geopolitics weapon by CIA-RAW-Mossad

March 12, 2010

By Brig Asif Haroon Raja

US Administration under George Bush senior had formulated New World Order in 1989 in anticipation to assuming world leadership. Among several aspects how to go about harnessing world resources and to micro manage world affairs, Islam was identified as the next threat to US interests after the imminent collapse of communism which by that time was gasping for breath. Afghanistan figured high in US security paradigm. After the Taliban captured power in 1996 and declared Sharia and refused to abide by terms and conditions of US economic tycoons with regard to shipment of oil and gas from Central Asia through Afghanistan, it was circled for invasion in 1997. In August 1998, Osama bin Laden’s camps in Khost province of Afghanistan were struck by cruise missiles. In July 2001, some high US officials declared that Afghanistan would be invaded in October that year. Going by this sequence of events, it becomes evident that neo-cons in connivance with Jews manufactured 9/11 to achieve their global ambitions. Jewish controlled media played a key role in triggering world wide condemnation of 9/11 attacks and in fomenting hatred against Muslims among the non-Muslim world.

9/11 was an excuse to formulate draconian laws and policies of pre-emption and unilateralism. Terrorism became the most sinful and unforgivable offence. Under the buzzword of terrorism, world cooperation was harnessed to fight global war on terror and supposedly free the world from this menace which in their view posed the biggest threat to world security. Freedom movements within Muslim world were converted into terrorism and terrorism became synonymous to Islam. Al-Qaeda was created from nowhere and transformed into a faceless monster that would appear like a ghost in all areas of US interest. Islamic threat was demonized to justify existence of NATO that had lost its rationale and locus standi after end of Cold War and expiry of Warsaw Pact in 1991.

Afghanistan was not invaded to avenge terror attacks allegedly master minded by Afghanistan based Osama bin Laden and those who harbored him. The real intention was to convert Afghanistan into a permanent US military station wherefrom it could promote its strategic interests. These interests included tapping unexplored mineral resources of Central Asia and shipping gas and oil to Europe and USA through Afghanistan and Pakistan; monitoring China and Russia; remaining within turn round distance of Persian Gulf; preventing Iran from going nuclear and affecting a regime change of its choice; subverting and denuclearizing Pakistan; making India the regional policeman; restoring and controlling world largest supply of opium for world heroin markets and to use drugs as a geopolitics weapon against opponents, especially Russia. In pursuit of its multiple objectives Afghanistan was ruthlessly destroyed and till to-date has not been vacated.

CIA has a track record of using drug money to support its covert operations all over the world. It toppled Mossadeq led regime in Iran in 1953. It armed Iraqi Kurds in 1975 to destabilize Iraqi regime. It also used drug money to back Contras movement in Nicaragua in 1980 to bring democracy. Cocaine being the most sought drug became the favorite production of CIA. Unprecedented volume of cocaine trafficking took place in the 1980s but no eyebrow was raised in Washington. Drug money was extensively utilized by CIA to finance Afghan jihad against Soviet troops in Afghanistan from 1979 till 1989. Commercial production of opium began in 1980s, replacing cocaine with heroin and this new product flooded the US and European markets. By the time Afghan war came to an end, Afghanistan had become the second largest opium producing country. Its production rate had swelled to 1350 metric tons.

When the Taliban under Mullah Omar captured power in 1996, the Islamic regime carried out host of social reforms including imposition of ban on opium production. There was steep decline in this practice for the first time. The Taliban during their rule till October 2001 suffered from worst economic crisis due to severe sanctions imposed by USA and western countries but they never used opium to build their economy. Interestingly, this ban became one of the core reasons for the US to invade Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has now become a narco-state and the largest opium producing country in the world. Younger brother of Hamid Karzai Ahmad Wali Karzai in Kandahar has been the main player exporting heroin to Europe through Turkmenistan. Indian Embassy in Kabul has been working as the coordinating centre for drug trade. Countries like Pakistan and Iran lying in the path of drug trade route are the worst affected since drugs destroy social norms and values as they have in the west. It has made a debilitating impact on societal fabric. By 2008, 8000 metric tons had been exported to world markets. Afghanistan is producing 8250 metric tons per year, which makes 90-92% of world opium supply. Illegal opium production is worth $ 65 billions. Afghan warlords involved are deeply involved in enriching their coffers through drug trade.

While international drug mafia is fully controlled by Zionists, CIA is complicit in global drug trade. Without active support of Pentagon and CIA, it is simply not possible to export opium in thousands of tons. Free licenses are liberally issued to drug producers and traffickers. There are credible reports that US military planes have been made use of and even some coffins were filled with heroin instead of bodies. Truckloads of heroin transfer heroin daily. Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, silenced for years by George W. Bush Administration, testified to the use of NATO planes transporting drugs as well as international terrorists.

Under the pretext of hunting al-Qaeda, CIA has made deep inroads in Pakistan. Drug money is not only used by CIA to finance its illegal operations in Pakistan and elsewhere but also US economy also which because of economic crunch is badly in need of liquidity in its banks that are closing down at an alarming rate. Russia has lashed out at US and NATO for refusing to destroy poppy crops in Afghanistan and not fighting drug production which implies that raw drug sources will remain sacrosanct. The US however puts blame on Taliban for poppy cultivation in Afghanistan for financing insurgency and to snatch this source, it has mounted massive offensive in Helmand, a stronghold of Taliban and major opium growing region.

Under the pretext of hunting al-Qaeda, CIA has made deep inroads in Pakistan. Drug money is not only used by CIA to finance its illegal operations in Pakistan and elsewhere but also US economy also which because of economic crunch is badly in need of liquidity in its banks that are closing down at an alarming rate. Russia has lashed out at US and NATO for refusing to destroy poppy crops in Afghanistan and not fighting drug production which implies that raw drug sources will remain sacrosanct. The US however puts blame on Taliban for poppy cultivation in Afghanistan for financing insurgency and to snatch this source, it has mounted massive offensive in Helmand, a stronghold of Taliban and major opium growing region.

Like the CIA, RAW and Mossad are also heavily involved in narcotic business. Indian drug barons have cultivated close ties with Afghan drug warlords and with Laos which is among the leading drug trading country. India ranks fifth largest illegal opium producing country in the world.  Illicit poppy is being cultivated in large quantity in Himachal Pradesh, Arunchal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Mizoram. India is using profits made out of drug trafficking towards covert operation in Pakistan. Operation aimed at destabilizing Pakistan codenamed CIT X had been jointly conceived by RAW and Mossad for which criminal elements, mercenaries and drug mafia were engaged. 57 training camps were established in East Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Assam, Gujarat, Rajasthan and occupied Kashmir to train and launch terrorists inside Pakistan. Training was imparted to dissident elements from MQM, Jiye Sindh Mahaz, Jiye Sindh Students Federation and Baloch nationalists and other nationalist groups. Source

The so called war on drugs also fuels the US prisons.  The more drugs on the streets the more profit and slaves for prisons.

The Prison Industry in the United States Costs Taxpayers Billions

Just added this November 7 2012

A few facts, new and old.

Afghanistan, Heroin, Addiction, Death

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They Can’t win the war in Afghanistan

The War in Afghanistan Is A No-Win Situation
By Stephen C. Rose

The situation in Afghanistan weighs more and more heavily on us. I took it up in a Huffington Post piece a while back titled Could Barack Obama Suffer The Fate of LBJ?

Many wish the war on terror to be translated from a military trap into a POLICE ACTION, something sane observers believe it should have been from the very start.

Today, comes a sad vindication of the reality and a stark warning that there can be no winning in Afghanistan. It will be Barack Obama’s task to cut a deal and be honest about why
Violence in Afghanistan has reached its highest levels since the U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime in 2001 Source

A Pakistani decision to temporarily bar some trucks from a key passageway to Afghanistan threatened a critical supply route for U.S. and NATO troops on Sunday and raised more fears about deteriorating security in the militant-plagued border region.
The suspension of oil tankers and trucks carrying sealed containers came as U.S.-led coalition troops in eastern Afghanistan reported killing five al-Qaida-linked fighters and detaining eight others, including a militant leader.

Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters are behind much of the escalating violence along the lengthy, porous Afghan-Pakistan border, and both nations have traded accusations that the other was not doing enough to keep militants out from its side.

The tensions come as violence in Afghanistan has reached its highest levels since the U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime in 2001 and as a surge in U.S. missile strikes on the Pakistani side of the border has prompted protests from Pakistan government leaders.

And this piece from UK notes that the answer lies in cutting a deal with the Taliban, period. Source

There is no question that British troops win almost every battle and firefight, but the Taliban refuse to go away.
For every 10 men they lose, there are 10 more waiting to take their place.

The insurgents have a saying: “You have the clocks, we have the time.”

The British and American strategy seems to be to fight on with increased numbers of troops and try to train the Afghan forces to take over.

Building a country virtually from scratch, containing the Taliban and developing a national army in a land that’s riven by ethnic rivalries and feuding warlords is probably a challenge too far.

Cutting and running is not an option – so cutting a deal may have to be.

Repeat: The War in Afghanistan is a no-win situation. The answer lies in talking to the Taliban, something Barack has already advocated. A protracted military engagement should be avoided like a plague.

Source

Afghanistan: Why NATO cannot win

A comparison with the 1980s is in order. The 100,000-strong Soviet army operated alongside a full-fledged Afghan army of equal strength with an officer corps trained in the elite Soviet military academies, and backed by aviation, armored vehicles and artillery, with all the advantages of a functioning, politically motivated government in Kabul. And yet it proved no match for the Afghan resistance.

In comparison, there are about 20,000 US troops in Afghanistan, plus roughly the same number of troops belonging to NATO contingents, which includes 5,400 troops from Britain, 2,500 from Canada and 2,300 from the Netherlands. Nominally, there is a 42,000-strong Afghan National Army, but it suffers from a high rate of defection.

Source

War on Taliban cannot be won, says army chief

Britain’s most senior military commander in Afghanistan has warned that the war against the Taliban cannot be won. Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said the British public should not expect a “decisive military victory” but should be prepared for a possible deal with the Taliban.

Source

US Kills Dozens of Wedding Guests in Afganistan

Who profits from WAR?

Tactics versus strategy in Afghanistan

The Terrible Plight of Afghan Children

The U.S. bombing upon Afghanistan has been a low bombing intensity, high civilian casualty campaign [in both absolute terms and relative to other U.S. air campaigns]. Secondly, this has happened notwithstanding the far greater accuracy of the weapons because of U.S. military planners decisions to employ powerful weapons in populated regions and to bomb what are dubious military targets. Thirdly, the U.S. mainstream corporate media has been derelict in its non-reporting of civilian casualties when ample evidence existed from foreign places that the U.S. air war upon Afghanistan was creating such casualties in large numbers. Fourthly, the decision by U.S. military planners to execute such a bombing campaign reveals and reflects the differential values they place upon Afghan and American lives. Fifth, this report counters the dangerous notion that the United States can henceforth wage a war and only kill enemy combatants. Sixth, the U.S. bombing campaign has targeted numerous civilian facilities and the heavy use of cluster bombs, will have a lasting legacy born by one of the poorest, most desperate peoples of our world. In sum, though not intended to be, the U.S. bombing campaign which began on the evening of October 7th, has been a war upon the people, the homes, the farms and the villages of Afghanistan, as well as upon the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Source

Injuries and Deaths From Landmines and Unexploded Ordnance in Afghanistan, 2002-2006

At least 706,899 people have been killed, and
1,354,224 seriously injured in Afghanistan and Iraq
since the U.S. and coalition attacks, based on lowest credible estimates.

Source

The estimate that over a million Iraqis have died received independent confirmation from a prestigious British polling agency in September 2007. Opinion Research Business estimated that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed violently since the US invasion.

We must not forget these people who died at the hand of the US.

Autopsy reports reveal homicides of detainees in U.S. custody up to October 2005

Many of the prisoners that died of “Natural Causes” may have died because they didn’t receive Medical treatment or Medication, which is still Murder. Others died because they were tortured.  There are many ways to kill a person.  Cause and Affect.

There have been more deaths since then. How many,  well that is yet to be determined.

The death toll in both wars is staggering to say the least. The number of civilian deaths alone is enough to infuriate anyone.

There no winners in War.

Obama’s Afghan War Plans May Run Into Weary Public, Deficits

November 11 2008

Staff Sergeant Brendan Kearns went through urban combat training six months ago with the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division, preparing for a planned return to Iraq. In January, his brigade is heading to Afghanistan instead.

While Iraq has long dominated headlines, Afghanistan will demand more immediate attention, as President-elect Barack Obama becomes the first commander-in-chief since Richard M. Nixon in 1969 to take charge during wartime.

Intensifying violence is ramping up U.S. involvement, costing money and lives when America faces a record budget deficit and the public is weary of war. Backing off may allow al-Qaeda and the Taliban to return to power.

“The most pressing problem for the next president will be the Afghan-Pakistan conundrum,” says retired Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl, lead author of the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.

“A resurgent Taliban threatens stability and perhaps survival of the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s a nightmare scenario, and we may have reached a tipping point where the Taliban is winning.”

The Bush administration is reviewing its military and humanitarian strategy in Afghanistan and will offer recommendations to Obama’s transition team before he takes office Jan. 20.

Refocus Attention

On the campaign trail, the Illinois senator vowed to refocus attention there while pulling out most of the 152,000 troops in Iraq within 16 months. That’s becoming increasingly possible as deadly attacks have dropped dramatically since 2007, when President George W. Bush sent 30,000 additional U.S. troops.

The surge — along with the so-called Sunni awakening, in which tribes turned against al-Qaeda and formed U.S.-funded, government-allied militias — is credited with stabilizing the country. The Iraqi and U.S. governments have tentatively agreed on a phased withdrawal of American combat forces by 2011, subject to conditions.

Obama, 47, has said a “responsible drawdown” from Iraq would allow the U.S. to upgrade military equipment, pay for veterans’ care and redirect expenditures — which currently top $10 billion a month — to Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden and top al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be operating along the porous border with Pakistan.

Funding Decisions

Deciding what the U.S. can afford to spend is complicated by the $700 billion the Treasury is using to rescue the financial system, which may push the federal budget deficit next year to more than $1 trillion, following a record $455 billion this year.

“I know there’s a lot of economic problems in the U.S.,” says Kearns, 40, who’s based at Fort Drum, New York, and has served in both wars. “But the military at this point doesn’t need its budgets cut. With seven years of war, there’s a lot of wear and tear on equipment and personnel.”

Meanwhile, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated, with a reconstituted and emboldened Taliban mounting more attacks on American forces. Neighboring, nuclear-armed Pakistan — threatened by domestic extremists, assassination attempts and a financial crisis — hasn’t been able to control border security in its autonomous tribal areas where militants take shelter.

General David McKiernan, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has asked for 20,000 more American troops next year; the 3,500-person 3rd Brigade Combat Team deploying in January from Fort Drum will be the tip of that spear.

Opium Production

The view of U.S., European and United Nations officials is that more foreign soldiers won’t be enough to save Afghanistan. The country needs a sustained international effort to shrink opium production, build roads and establish basic utilities including running water and electricity. The Afghan government, widely criticized as weak, corrupt and inefficient, needs to better deliver services and secure its territory.

Obama will face a balancing act with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which commands a force in Afghanistan that uses 13,000 of the 31,000 American troops now in the country. European leaders have made clear they aren’t keen on sending more soldiers into a widening war.

Still, there’s no doubt Afghanistan needs better security. In Iraq, there are 800,000 local, U.S. and international forces. In Afghanistan, there are at most 210,000 combined troops, and many of the Afghans lack training and equipment.

Clear, Hold, Build

“Classic counterinsurgency strategy is `Clear, Hold and Build’: You clear enemy forces, you hold the area, generally with the host nation’s security forces, and then you build a better society,” Nagl says. “In Afghanistan we have not had enough forces to hold and have not put proper emphasis on build. We’ve cleared the same towns over and over and over.”

Every time U.S. forces leave a village they have cleared without Afghan soldiers to take their place, “the Taliban comes back and they shoot people who worked with us in the head,” he says. “After the second or third time that happens, there aren’t enough people left to work with us.”

Analysts say the best solution would be to greatly expand the Afghan army, supported by U.S. military advisers, and enlist militias into something like the “Sons of Iraq,” which turned enemy forces into associates.

What worked in Iraq may not work in Afghanistan, however, where the terrain is rougher, the country poorer, corruption more visible and the insurgency more complicated because of hundreds of tribes — many living in autonomous territories along the Pakistan border.

Military Strikes

Obama has consistently said that if Pakistan fails to act against militants on its soil, he would support unilateral military strikes — something the Bush administration has already begun. In the past two months, Pakistan has accused the U.S. of launching 15 missile strikes in the Waziristan tribal area along its Afghan border, and late last month Islamabad lodged a formal protest.

Soldiers at Fort Drum say if they had the ear of the president-elect, they would tell him that while military involvement in Afghanistan is necessary, it isn’t sufficient.

“We need to focus on the basics: infrastructure, food, building roads and security,” says Captain Matthew Burnette, 29, who commands a Howitzer unit headed back to Afghanistan as Obama takes office. “If the three villages you’re working in are happy, they talk to each other, they talk to us, and the Taliban can’t take hold again.”

Source

JALALABAD, Afghanistan

February 15, 2001

U.N. drug control officers said the Taliban religious militia has nearly wiped out opium production in Afghanistan — once the world’s largest producer — since banning poppy cultivation last summer.

A 12-member team from the U.N. Drug Control Program spent two weeks searching most of the nation’s largest opium-producing areas and found so few poppies that they do not expect any opium to come out of Afghanistan this year.

“We are not just guessing. We have seen the proof in the fields,” said Bernard Frahi, regional director for the U.N. program in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He laid out photographs of vast tracts of land cultivated with wheat alongside pictures of the same fields taken a year earlier — a sea of blood-red poppies.

A State Department official said Thursday all the information the United States has received so far indicates the poppy crop had decreased, but he did not believe it was eliminated.

Last year, Afghanistan produced nearly 4,000 tons of opium, about 75 percent of the world’s supply, U.N. officials said. Opium — the milky substance drained from the poppy plant — is converted into heroin and sold in Europe and North America. The 1999 output was a world record for opium production, the United Nations said — more than all other countries combined, including the “Golden Triangle,” where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet.

Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban’s supreme leader, banned poppy growing before the November planting season and augmented it with a religious edict making it contrary to the tenets of Islam.

The Taliban, which has imposed a strict brand of Islam in the 95 percent of Afghanistan it controls, has set fire to heroin laboratories and jailed farmers until they agreed to destroy their poppy crops.

The U.N. surveyors, who completed their search this week, crisscrossed Helmand, Kandahar, Urzgan and Nangarhar provinces and parts of two others — areas responsible for 86 percent of the opium produced in Afghanistan last year, Frahi said in an interview Wednesday. They covered 80 percent of the land in those provinces that last year had been awash in poppies.

This year they found poppies growing on barely an acre here and there, Frahi said. The rest — about 175,000 acres — was clean.

“We have to look at the situation with careful optimism,” said Sandro Tucci of the U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention in Vienna, Austria.

He said indications are that no poppies were planted this season and that, as a result, there hasn’t been any production of opium — but that officials would keep checking.

The State Department counternarcotics official said the department would make its own estimate of the poppy crop. Information received so far suggests there will be a decrease, but how much is not yet clear, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We do not think by any stretch of the imagination that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has been eliminated. But we, like the rest of the world, welcome positive news.”

The Drug Enforcement Administration declined to comment.

No U.S. government official can enter Afghanistan because of security concerns stemming from the presence of suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden.

Poppies are harvested in March and April, which is why the survey was done now. Tucci said it would have been impossible for the poppies to have been harvested already.

The areas searched by the U.N. surveyors are the most fertile lands under Taliban control. Other areas, though they are somewhat fertile, have not traditionally been poppy growing areas and farmers are struggling to raise any crops at all because of severe drought. The rest of the land held by the Taliban is mountainous or desert, where poppies could not grow.

Karim Rahimi, the U.N. drug control liaison in Jalalabad, capital of Nangarhar province, said farmers were growing wheat or onions in fields where they once grew poppies.

“It is amazing, really, when you see the fields that last year were filled with poppies and this year there is wheat,” he said.

The Taliban enforced the ban by threatening to arrest village elders and mullahs who allowed poppies to be grown. Taliban soldiers patrolled in trucks armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers. About 1,000 people in Nangarhar who tried to defy the ban were arrested and jailed until they agreed to destroy their crops.

Signs throughout Nangarhar warn against drug production and use, some calling it an “illicit phenomenon.” Another reads: “Be drug free, be happy.”

Last year, poppies grew on 12,600 acres of land in Nangarhar province. According to the U.N. survey, poppies were planted on only 17 acres there this season and all were destroyed by the Taliban.

“The Taliban have done their work very seriously,” Frahi said.

But the ban has badly hurt farmers in one of the world’s poorest countries, shattered by two decades of war and devastated by drought.

Ahmed Rehman, who shares less than three acres in Nangarhar with his three brothers, said the opium he produced last year on part of the land brought him $1,100.

This year, he says, he will be lucky to get $300 for the onions and cattle feed he planted on the entire parcel.

“Life is very bad for me this year,” he said. “Last year I was able to buy meat and wheat and now this year there is nothing.”

But Rehman said he never considered defying the ban.

“The Taliban were patrolling all the time. Of course I was afraid. I did not want to go to jail and lose my freedom and my dignity,” he said, gesturing with dirt-caked hands.

Shams-ul-Haq Sayed, an officer of the Taliban drug control office in Jalalabad, said farmers need international aid.

“This year was the most important for us because growing poppies was part of their culture, and the first years are always the most difficult,” he said.

Tucci said discussions are under way on how to help the farmers.

Western diplomats in Pakistan have suggested the Taliban is simply trying to drive up the price of opium they have stockpiled. The State Department official also said Afghanistan could do more by destroying drug stockpiles and heroin labs and arresting producers and traffickers.

Frahi dismissed that as “nonsense” and said it is drug traffickers and shopkeepers who have stockpiles. Two pounds of opium worth $35 last year are now worth as much as $360, he said.

Mullah Amir Mohammed Haqqani, the Taliban’s top drug official in Nangarhar, said the ban would remain regardless of whether the Taliban received aid or international recognition.

“It is our decree that there will be no poppy cultivation. It is banned forever in this country,” he said. “Whether we get assistance or not, poppy growing will never be allowed again in our country.

Source

Caspian Region 1993 The Pipeline Debate

The Caspian Sea shelf is considered one of the largest sources of petroleum outside the Persian Gulf and Russia.

September 18, 2001

US ‘planned attack on Taleban’  In July 2001 well before 9/11

The wider objective was to oust the Taleban

By George Arney A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week’s attacks.

Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October. Mr Naik said US officials told him of the plan at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan which took place in Berlin.

Mr Naik told the BBC that at the meeting the US representatives told him that unless Bin Laden was handed over swiftly America would take military action to kill or capture both Bin Laden and the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar.

The wider objective, according to Mr Naik, would be to topple the Taleban regime and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place – possibly under the leadership of the former Afghan King Zahir Shah.

Mr Naik was told that Washington would launch its operation from bases in Tajikistan, where American advisers were already in place. He was told that Uzbekistan would also participate in the operation and that 17,000 Russian troops were on standby.

Mr Naik was told that if the military action went ahead it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.

He said that he was in no doubt that after the World Trade Center bombings this pre-existing US plan had been built upon and would be implemented within two or three weeks.

And he said it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taleban.

May 13, 2002,

Afghanistan plans gas pipeline

The pipeline is Afghanistan’s biggest foreign investment project

Afghanistan hopes to strike a deal later this month to build a $2bn pipeline through the country to take gas from energy-rich Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India.

Afghan interim ruler Hamid Karzai is to hold talks with his Pakistani and Turkmenistan counterparts later this month on Afghanistan’s biggest foreign investment project, said Mohammad Alim Razim, minister for Mines and Industries told Reuters.

“The work on the project will start after an agreement is expected to be struck at the coming summit,” Mr Razim said.

The construction of the 850-kilometre pipeline had been previously discussed between Afghanistan’s former Taliban regime, US oil company Unocal and Bridas of Argentina.

The project was abandoned after the US launched missile attacks on Afghanistan in 1999.

US company preferred

Mr Razim said US energy company Unocal was the “lead company” among those that would build the pipeline, which would bring 30bn cubic meters of Turkmen gas to market annually.

Unocal – which led a consortium of companies from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Japan and South Korea – has maintained the project is both economically and technically feasible once Afghan stability was secured.

“Unocal is not involved in any projects (including pipelines) in Afghanistan, nor do we have any plans to become involved, nor are we discussing any such projects,” a spokesman told BBC News Online.

The US company formally withdrew from the consortium in 1998.

“The Afghan side assures all sides about the security of the pipeline and will take all responsibilities for it,” Mr Razim said.

Reconstructing

Afghanistan plans to build a road linking Turkmenistan with Pakistan parallel to the pipeline, to supply nearby villages with gas, and also to pump Afghan gas for export, Mr Razim said.

The government would also earn transit fees from the export of gas and oil and hoped to take over ownership of the pipeline after 30 years, he said.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has been surveying routes for transferring local gas from northern Afghan areas to Kabul, and to iron ore mines at the Haji Gak pass further west.

“ADB will announce its conclusion soon,” Mr Razim said.

The pipeline is expected to be built with funds from donor countries for the reconstruction of Afghanistan as well as ADB loans, he said.

May 30 2002,

Afghan pipeline given go-ahead

The leaders hope for future oil profits

The leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan have agreed to construct a $2bn pipeline to bring gas from Central Asia to the sub-continent.

The project was abandoned in 1998 when a consortium led by US energy company Unocal withdrew from the project over fears of being seen to support Afghanistan’s then Taliban government. The President of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Nayazov, the chairman of Afghanistan’s interim administration Hamid Karzai and Pakistan’s President General Pervez Musharraf signed a memorandum of understanding in Islamabad on Thursday.

President Musharraf said the 1,500km pipeline would run from Turkmenistan’s Daulatabad gas fields to the Pakistani port city of Gwadar.

The Pakistani leader said once the project is completed, Central Asia’s hydrocarbon resources would be available to the international market, including East Asian and other far eastern countries.

Pakistan has plans to build a liquid-gas plant at the Gwadar port for export purposes.

Call for interest

The three countries have agreed to invite international tenders and guarantee funding before launching the project.

Unocal has repeatedly denied it is interested in returning to Afghanistan despite having conducted the original feasibility study to build the pipeline.

There is also a question mark over stability in Afghanistan, but interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai said peace was prevailing all over the country.

Afghan officials believe the pipeline could yield significant revenues for the impoverished country in the form of transit fees.

The pipeline could eventually supply gas to India.

President Musharraf also said he was committed to a proposed gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan to India as it was in his country’s economic interest.

Source

Timeline on Afghanistan

Elusive threats boost PTSD risk in Afghanistan

A Canadian soldier stands guard at the side of a suicide

attack in the city of Kandahar, Afghanistan on

Sept. 11, 2008. (AP / Allauddin Khan)

A Canadian soldier carries an improvised explosive device out of the grape field in which Taliban fighters had hidden it, on Oct. 8, 2008 in Nakoney, Afghanistan. (THE CANADIAN PRESS / Bob Weber)

November 8 2008

Stefania Moretti

Canadian troops fighting in Afghanistan are up against two dangerous adversaries. The first, the elusive enemy; the second, the less-tangible threat of mental breakdown.

Indeed, new studies suggest soldiers deployed to Afghanistan are more likely to suffer from mental illness because of the high degree of uncertainty that characterizes the NATO-led mission.

Traditionally, wars have been fought on the front lines of the battlefield with an identifiable enemy in uniform. But in Afghanistan, the enemy is “elusive,” said one mental health expert. Threat can come from anywhere.

Afghanistan has been described as a 360-degree war with virtually no safe zone. Suicide bombers dressed in civilian garb, improvised explosive devices strewn across the treacherous “Highway of Death” connecting Kabul and Kandahar and entire communities surrounded by deadly land mines means soldiers face around-the-clock danger.

As a result, Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan are likely at higher risk of developing post-traumatic disorder than their comrades serving in other missions, Dr. Alain Brunet, of the Douglas Research Centre and McGill University, recently told CTV.ca in a telephone interview from Montreal.

British troops sent to Afghanistan last year were nine times more likely to suffer from PTSD, according to that country’s Ministry of Defence in a study released this month. Most British troops are stationed in Helmand province — a less volatile region than Canadians stationed in the Taliban hotbed of Kandahar province.

Veterans Affairs Canada pegs the number of Canadian war vets who will experience PTSD as high as 10 per cent.

But the figure only represents former soldiers, and does not reflect soldiers currently on duty in Afghanistan, where the risk of PTSD is likely much different, Brunet said.

As many as 28 per cent of troops come back from armed combat with one or more mental health issues, according to data complied by the head of the Canadian military’s deployment health section last year. Of those:

• seventeen per cent exhibited signs of high-risk drinking
• five per cent showed symptoms of PTSD
• five per cent had signs of serious depression

Since the mission in Afghanistan began in 2002, the number of Veterans Affairs members with a PTSD condition has more than tripled, up from roughly 1,800 to 6,500, according to a Veterans Affairs briefing note obtained by The Canadian Press in March. Veterans Affairs expect the numbers will continue to climb with troops scheduled to stay until at least 2011.

In 2007, the number of suicides among regular and reserve members of the Canadian Forces rose to 36, the highest in more than a decade, military police records from earlier this year show.

There is a sense that there has been a recent surge in PTSD, and it can be attributed to a number of factors, Brunet said.

The spike in military PTSD cases may also stem from fewer cases going unreported, thanks to education and screening programs implemented by the army in recent years.

Within two months of returning from a tour of duty in Afghanistan soldiers undergo a mandatory PTSD assessment followed by several weeks off and counseling.

Brunet, whose research focuses on the risk and remission factors associated with the disorder, said an officer with PTSD symptoms should not be re-deployed because the risks are “cumulative.”

“The more you go (to Afghanistan) the more likely you are to develop the disease,” he said, adding the diagnosis of PTSD in the army is “amazingly important.”

Dozens of soldiers have already completed two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and some could face a third if the mission is extended.

But significant barriers preventing PTSD diagnoses among soldiers remain, despite efforts made by the Canadian Armed Forces to educate soldiers about the disease.

Having PTSD can be a career-ender for a soldier, Brunet said.

A combination of this fear of dismissal from duty and the “macho culture” that permeates the force makes officers hesitate to disclose their problems, Brunet said. “We are sending mixed messages.”

The “hallmark” of PTSD is persistent nightmares, but symptoms can also include, flashbacks, gaps in memory, detachment from loved ones, little control over impulses, problems concentrating, anger and irritability.

Although it’s natural to experience any or all of these symptoms after witnessing a traumatic event, PTSD sufferers become incapacitated by their frequency and severity.

“Personally, I wouldn’t want to have a comrade working with me and to have to rely on someone with PTSD,” Brunet said.

Source

Afghan veterans more likely to suffer from mental illness

Iraq condemns US raid on Syrian village

The raid was carried out by the CIA

October 29 2008

By Patrick Cockburn

The Iraqi government has unexpectedly denounced a CIA raid on a compound in a Syrian border village that killed an al-Qa’ida commander who dispatched fighters into Iraq.

“The Iraqi government rejects US aircraft bombarding posts inside Syria,” said an Iraqi government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, in a surprise rebuke to Washington. “The constitution does not allow Iraq to be used as a staging ground to attack neighbouring countries.”

The raid, the first on Syrian territory by the US since the invasion of Iraq five years ago, highlights the way the US carries out military operations without consulting the Iraqi government. This is humiliating for the Iraqi government and reinforces Iraqi doubts about signing a security pact with the US by the end of the year. The operation on Sunday, in which US helicopters landed 24 special forces troops in Sukkariyeh, five miles inside Syria near the border town of Abu Kamal, was carried out by the CIA according to US officials in Washington. The US soldiers reportedly killed Abu Ghadiyah, the nom de guerre of Badran Turki Hishan al-Mazidih, who had been denounced by the US for facilitating the “flow of terrorists, weapons and money from Syria to al-Qa’ida in Iraq”. His body was flown back to Iraq, officials said.

Syria denied the presence of al-Qa’ida in Sukkariyeh and claimed the dead were local farmers. The Syrian government yesterday ordered the closure of an American school and a US cultural centre in Damascus in retaliation.

Abu Ghadiyah, aided by close family members, had his assets frozen by the US Treasury in February in a directive claiming he was the head of logistics in Syria for al-Qa’ida. The most surprising aspect of the US attack was its timing. Syria has been a conduit for anti-US insurgents since the Sunni Arab uprising against the US occupation started after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

But the Sunni rebellion has largely subsided since 2007 and Syria has become more co-operative in stopping the movement of fighters across the border. The US and Iraqi governments also claim to have succeeded in largely eliminating al-Qa’ida in Iraq in Anbar province, which has a long common border with Syria. Abu Ghadiyah’s smuggling activities would have been less significant than in the past. The CIA-led raid into Syrian territory will deepen suspicions in Syria and Jordan that, so long as the US has a military presence in Iraq, it will be used as a launching pad for operations against them. Iran has already made clear that it is against the Status of Forces Agreement (Sofa), negotiated by Iraq and the US over the past eight months. The decision on signing the agreement has divided the Iraqi government, and the cabinet is looking for amendments. In theory Sofa would increase Iraqi control but its critics claim it would formalise the occupation.

US officials are trying to get the pact signed before the UN mandate for the US occupation runs out at the end of the year. The decision on whether or not to sign Sofa has split the Iraqi politicians. The ministers of defence, interior, foreign affairs and finance are in favour; so too are the Kurdish parties. But the Shia religious parties are dubious or against it. The US raid into Syria is likely only to increase those doubts.

Source

US shows it is ready to take the war across boundaries

October 27 2008

The US commando attack inside Syrian territory appears to amplify an emerging message to countries giving safe passage to terrorists: Take action, or America will.

A Washington military official said special forces conducted the raid in Syria to target the network of al Qaida-linked foreign fighters moving through Syria to help fight in the war in Iraq.

Syria said troops in four helicopters attacked a building and killed eight people, including four children.

“We are taking matters into our own hands,” the official said.

Although the flow of foreign fighters from Syria to Iraq has been declining, Americans have been unable to shut down the network in the area struck because Syria was out of the military’s reach.

The move appears to echo one taken recently in America’s other current war. President Bush in July secretly approved military raids inside anti-terror ally Pakistan, which has been unwilling or unable to stem the flow of militants hiding in Pakistan and waging cross-border raids into Afghanistan.

Helicopter-borne US special forces conducted a raid in September inside Pakistan – the only one known so far following Mr Bush’s order. Islamabad has complained bitterly about the move, which it says killed two dozen people, including civilians.

The US has become frustrated with the use of Pakistan’s north-western tribal areas as a haven for militants nearly seven years since the Taliban was rousted from Afghanistan for harbouring Osama bin Laden.

The weekend’s raid came just days after the commander of US forces in western Iraq said American troops were redoubling efforts to secure the Syrian border, which he called an “uncontrolled” gateway for fighters entering Iraq.

Syria called the raid a “serious aggression,” and its foreign ministry summoned the charges d’affaires of the United States and Iraq in protest.

Government newspapers also published scathing criticisms of the raid today. Tishrin splashed its front pages with a headline denouncing it as a “US war crime,” while Al-Baath newspaper described the attack in an editorial as a “stunning, shocking and unprecedented adventure.”

Source

Syrian minister warns US after raid
October 27 2008

A US military raid inside Syria was an act of “criminal and terrorist aggression”, Syria’s foreign minister said today

Speaking at a news conference in London, Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem warned of retaliation if Syria’s borders were violated again.

He said Syria “would defend our territories” if there were a repeat of the weekend raid.

The US military said it was targeting the network of al-Qaida-linked foreign fighters moving through Syria to help fight in Iraq. Syria said troops in four helicopters attacked a building and killed eight people, including four children.

“They know full well that we stand against al-Qa’ida,” Mr al-Moallem said. “They know full well we are trying to tighten our border with Iraq.”

He was in London today for talks with the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. The two were supposed to hold a joint press conference but this was cancelled at the last minute.

The Foreign Office said that it had been agreed with the Syrians that it would “not be appropriate” to hold a formal press conference following their talks in London. A spokeswoman said the press conference had been abandoned because both sides had been concerned that it would be dominated by questions about the US raid.

The Foreign Office confirmed that the meeting between Mr Miliband and Walid al-Muallem, the Syrian foreign minister, was still going ahead as planned.

Mr al-Moallem called for a new US administration to “learn from the mistakes of this administration.”

“I hope the American people would elect a president who can bring a good reputation in the world, not like this reputation we are witnessing in this administration,” he said.

Source

Seems George Bush thinks he can do anything he wants to anyone he wants.

This will also backfire on the US as did the attacks on Pakistan. The US does not have the legal right to attack anyone they please. This is yet another illegal act of aggression ,  of the US Government.

Bush is in fact causing more war. He is also Trying to get him and his cohorts immunity from crimes against humanity and those under the Geneva Convention.

Bush Trying to Avoid War Crimes Charges

Violations under the Geneva Convention are a Felony.  So they want to pass a bit of legislation so they can’t be prosecuted. So in essence Bush thinks he can murder, maim, torture, commit acts of Genocide and get away with it.  I firmly believe Bush and those responsible should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and they should not be given any immunity for his crimes. Why should they be above the law when the rest of the people around the world are not?

Bush secret order to send special forces into Pakistan

Pakistani tribal chiefs threaten to join Taliban

Tactics versus strategy in Afghanistan

From September 15 2008

US Deliberately causing Hostility in Pakistan

From September 15 2008

A controversial new US “tactic” to mount counter-terrorist operations inside Pakistan has met with fresh hostility, it emerged yesterday, as Pakistani tribesmen representing half a million people vowed to switch sides and join the Taliban if Washington does not stop cross-border attacks by its forces from Afghanistan.

Reacting to American missile attacks in north Waziristan last week, which followed an unprecedented cross-border ground assault earlier this month, tribal chiefs from the area called an emergency meeting on Saturday.

“Seems their Tactics are causing more problems then solving.” Of course for many in the White House keeping the war going means more money in their pockets there are something like 151 congressmen who have invested heavily in companies that supply weapons for the US Government which is a total conflict of interest. The “Carlyle Group(George Bush SR)” makes a fortune from the weapons industry. Expanding their war is profitable. They make millions and millions of dollars from it. Why ever would they want to stop it?

Oct 11 2008

By Myra MacDonald

Reading the latest spate of news reports about U.S. policies in Afghanistan, one thing strikes me as troubling — the failure to distinguish between tactics and strategy. Military boffins argue about the exact meaning of those two words, but for the purposes of argument, let’s say that tactics are a means to an end, while strategy contains within it an understanding of the end to be attained.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave us an idea of the end earlier this week when he talked of reconciliation with the Taliban, while excluding anyone belonging to al Qaeda. ”There has to be ultimately, and I’ll underscore ultimately, reconciliation as part of a political outcome to this,” Gates said. ”That’s ultimately the exit strategy for all of us.”

Now let’s look at tactics.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the United States is considering training up Afghanistan’s tribal militias to fight the Taliban.  “The plan is controversial because it could extend the influence of warlords while undermining the government of President Hamid Karzai in Kabul,” the newspaper says. It adds that, “by focusing on tribal militias and local security, the approach resembles the U.S. campaign in Iraq, where former Sunni insurgents are paid to guard their neighborhoods.”

The New York Times picks up the same theme in its own story about the forthcoming National Intelligence Estimate – a report by American intelligence agencies due to be finished after the November presidential election — which it says concludes that Afghanistan is in a “downward spiral” and casts serious doubt on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban.

“The administration is considering whether the United States should devote more effort to working directly with tribal leaders in far-flung provinces, and possibly arming tribal militias, to fight the Taliban in places where Afghanistan’s army and police forces have been ineffective,” the New York Times says.

“The Bush administration had long resisted making tribal elders a centerpiece of American strategy in Afghanistan. American officials had hoped instead that strong national institutions like the Afghan Army could protect the Afghan population, but the escalating violence this year has forced a reassessment of the value of the tribal system for counterinsurgency operations.”

As a tactic, training or arming tribal militias does not contradict an overall strategy of forcing the Taliban into peace talks, presumably after they have been suitably weakened by their fellow Afghans. Even the 19th century Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz argued that one of the objectives of war was to destroy the effective strength of the enemy.

But it does beg the question of the kind of Afghanistan the United States wants to leave behind. Does it want a strong central government, in which a tamed Taliban, minus al Qaeda, has a share of the power and a stake in the prosperity of a unified country? Or a decentralised Afghanistan in which tribal militias hold the power — potentially recreating the tensions that led to the outbreak of civil war after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989?

It’s a question that needs to be asked. What is the strategy for Afghanistan — not just for the United States getting out, but also for the fate of the country after western troops leave? Only when you know that, can you judge which tactics make sense.

And there is all the more reason to ask that question given that the jury is still out on the sustainability of U.S. gains in reducing violence in Iraq, which Washington attributes partly to its policy of arming Sunni insurgents there.  According to this McClatchy story, a nearly completed National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing security gains achieved over the last year.

Arming one group of people to fight against their countrymen may or may not be a useful tactic.  But it’s not nation-building. So how does it fit into the overall strategy for Afghanistan? Or is the main objective of this war, seven years after the U.S.-led invasion, now to find an “exit strategy”?

Source

NATO to consider talks with the Taliban?

An Afghan soldier holds his weapon at a check point in Arghandab district, recaptured from the Taliban militants, in Kandahar province, south of Kabul, Afghanistan on Sunday June 22, 2008. (AP / Musadeq Sadeq)

Oct. 8 2008

LONDON — When NATO defence ministers meet in Budapest on Thursday, they will face a worsening situation in Afghanistan and vexing questions about whether the war can be won.

Increasingly, military commanders and political leaders are asking: Is it time to talk to the Taliban?

With U.S. and NATO forces suffering their deadliest year so far in Afghanistan, a rising chorus of voices, including U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the incoming head of U.S. Central Command, have endorsed efforts to reach out to members of the Taliban considered willing to seek an accommodation with President Hamid Karzai’s government.

“That is one of the key long-term solutions in Afghanistan, just as it has been in Iraq,” Gates told reporters Monday. “Part of the solution is reconciliation with people who are willing to work with the Afghan government going forward.”

Gen. David Petraeus, who will become responsible for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan as head of U.S. Central Command on Oct. 31, agreed.

“I do think you have to talk to enemies,” Petraeus said Wednesday at an appearance at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, when asked about potential dialogue with the Taliban.

“You’ve got to set things up. You’ve got to know who you’re talking to. You’ve got to have your objectives straight,” he said. “But I mean, what we did do in Iraq ultimately was sit down with some of those that were shooting at us. What we tried to do was identify those who might be reconcilable.”

In terms of Afghanistan, he said: “The key there is making sure that all of that is done in complete co-ordination with complete support of the Afghan government — and with President Karzai.”

But entering negotiations with the Taliban raises difficult issues.

It is not clear whether there is a unified Taliban command structure that could engage in serious talks, and the group still embraces the hardline ideology that made them pariahs in the West until their ouster from power in 2001.

During its 1996-2001 rule, Afghan women and girls were barred from attending school or holding jobs, music and television were banned, men were compelled to wear beards, and artwork or statues deemed idolatrous or anti-Muslim were destroyed.

In an assault that provoked an international outcry, Taliban fighters blew up two giant statues of Buddha that had graced the ancient Silk Road town of Bamiyan for some 1,500 years.

Seven years after the U.S. invasion, what was originally considered a quick military success has turned into an increasingly violent counterinsurgency fight.

An unprecedented number of U.S. troops — about 32,000 — are in Afghanistan today, and the Pentagon plans to send several thousand more in the coming months. Gates is expected to press for additional troops and money for the fight in Afghanistan at this week’s NATO meeting.

At least 131 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan this year, surpassing the previous annual high of 111 in 2007. An additional 100 troops from other NATO countries have died in 2008.

Canada, which has some 2,500 troops in southern Kandahar province, has lost 23 soldiers so far this year.

NATO commander says peacemaking up to Afghan gov’t

Speaking in London on Monday, U.S. Gen. John Craddock, NATO’s supreme operational commander, said he is open to talks with the Taliban as long as any peacemaking bid is led by the Afghan government, not western forces.

“I have said over and over again this is not going to be won by military means,” Craddock said, adding that NATO’s goal is to create a safe environment so responsibility for security can be transferred to Afghan authorities.

The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, added his voice to the rising chorus, saying Tuesday it was “desirable” to have direct talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and offering to host any such meeting.

The problem, say some analysts, is identifying who within the Taliban can be a reliable negotiating partner.

“The Taliban are no longer a monolithic force; with whom do you negotiate if you want to talk with the Taliban?” asked Eric Rosenbach, executive director of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

Rather than high-level, high-profile negotiations, “the Afghan government should pursue talks with individual commanders and warlords” who have renounced violence, he said.

“This approach is much more likely to succeed, will further fracture the opposition, and will place the Afghan government in a position of strength for future negotiations.”

Charles Heyman, editor of Armed Forces of the United Kingdom, said there is widespread agreement that the original U.S. and British goal of building a liberal, western-style democracy in Afghanistan is not attainable because the Taliban never were routed or forced to disband.

“There is going to be an accommodation with the Taliban whether people like it or not,” he said. “Everyone knows this is going to be very, very difficult.”

He said the West’s long-term interest would be served by ensuring that al-Qaida doesn’t have a presence in Afghanistan. That would mean making sure any future Afghan leadership, even if it includes Taliban elements, understands that it will come under sustained attack if it allows al-Qaida to set up training camps there.

Ayesha Khan, an associate fellow at the Chatham House research group in London, said it is possible that clerics close to fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar could meet with Afghan government representatives.

“This desire to engage the Taliban started last year and has gained momentum,” she said. “The British government is involved in strategizing it. They are trying to separate the more moderate Taliban from the more extremist ones.”

Source

US military admits killing 33 civilians in Afghanistan air strike

October 9. 2008

The US military has admitted killing 33 civilians in an air strike on a village in Afghanistan in August, far more than it has previously acknowledged.

Following the attack on August 22 on Azizabad, in Heart province, the Afghan government claimed that 90 civilians, mainly women and children, were killed, a figure backed by the UN.

Until now the US has estimated that that no more than seven civilians died in the attack. It launched an inquiry after it emerged that film recorded on mobile phones showed rows of bodies of children and babies in a makeshift morgue.

The inquiry found that of the 33 dead civilians, eight were men, three women and 12 children. The 10 others were undetermined. It also claimed that 22 Taliban fighters were killed in the attack.

The inquiry dismissed the Afghan government’s estimate as over reliant on statements from villagers.

“Their reports lack independent evidence to support the allegations of higher numbers of civilian casualties,” the US report said. A spokesman for the Afghan government said it stood by its estimate.

The US expressed regret for the civilian losses but blamed the Taliban for having chosen to take up fighting positions near civilians.

“Unfortunately, and unknown to the US and Afghan forces, the (militants) chose fighting positions in close proximity to civilians,” the report said.

The acting commander of US forces in the Middle East, lieutenant general Martin Dempsey, said the attack was based on credible intelligence and was made in self defence.

“We are deeply saddened at the loss of innocent life in Azizabad. We go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties in Afghanistan in all our operations, but as we have seen all too often, this ruthless enemy routinely surround themselves with innocents,” he said.

US central command said its investigation was based on 28 interviews resulting in more than 20 hours of recorded testimony from Afghan government officials, Afghan village elders, officials from nongovernmental organisations, US and Afghan troops, 236 documents and 11 videos.

The issue of civilian deaths has outraged Afghans and strained relations with foreign forces in Afghanistan to help fight the insurgency. Afghan president Hamid Karzai has warned US and NATO for years that they must stop killing civilians on bombing runs against militants, saying the deaths undermine his government and the international mission.

Following the raid on Azizabad Nato’s commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, issued a revised tactics and procedures for air and ground assaults against insurgents.

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