Afghanistan Watch

Parallels of Conquest, Past and Present

2010-03-01T06:13:00.001-08:00

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=37514

2010-02-26
Parallels of Conquest, Past and Present

Like William the Conqueror who ignored the English battlefield dead, the US government has not identified – nor even made a good-faith effort to estimate – the number of Iraqis and Afghanis who have been killed. By suppressing the human toll, the war still can be sold as benefiting the Iraqi people. The reality of their intense suffering, however, is much different from the generally positive image that US propagandists seek to present, notes Douglas Valentine.

After the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror’s army buried its fallen comrades, but left the corpses of the English defenders to rot in the fields.

Such is the brutal nature of war: the victor inflicts all manner of suffering and humiliation on the vanquished. Nearly a millennium later, what the United States is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan is only marginally different.

William the Conqueror made no pretense about his brutal subjugation of the English. They hated him and resisted his occupation for 20 years, during which time he took their property and gave it to the Norman upper class.

Over 300,000 English people were murdered and starved (one fifth of the population) and some 300,000 French and Normans were planted in England in positions of authority.

During the repression, an English nobleman was likely blinded, castrated, and thrown into a dungeon in one of the hundreds of castles that William built across the countryside to defend Norman interests. The overall strategy was to eliminate native leadership and to terrorize the population into submission.

By the time William repented his sins on his deathbed in 1087, England had ceased being England.

While the US-led occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are different in many details, there are disturbing parallels in the extent of the carnage and the strategy of coercion, in the innocent blood that has flowed and the number of survivors who have been terrorized.

Like William the Conqueror who ignored the English battlefield dead, the US government has not identified – nor even made a good-faith effort to estimate – the number of Iraqis and Afghanis who have been killed.

That’s because the Bush administration – and now the Obama administration – have had an official policy of not counting the number of people killed, crippled, rendered homeless, starved, or condemned to disease and possibly insanity.

US government officials have claimed that this policy has been followed to escape the “body count” mindset that became notorious during the Vietnam War. But it also has made it impossible to quantitatively measure the amount of misery that US policymakers have inflicted on Iraq and Afghanistan.

The lack of official numbers also has enabled the US government to cast doubt on unofficial estimates that put the number of Iraqi dead in the hundreds of thousands or possibly over one million. Most reports in the mainstream US news media cite much lower estimates, presumably to avoid offending the powers-that-be in Washington.

Out of the Press

As much as possible, US leaders have sought to keep the ugliness of these wars – the mangled bodies, the burned-off faces, the squalid refugee camps, the abused captives – out of the press and away from the public’s consciousness, thus to preserve the pretense of moral superiority that defines American “exceptionalism.”

But the principal advantage of having no official casualty estimates and few photos of atrocities in Iraq is that the American people aren’t reminded of the horrendous consequences of a war launched by President George W. Bush under the false claim that Iraq possessed WMD stockpiles.

By suppressing the human toll, the war still can be sold as benefiting the Iraqi people. The reality of their intense suffering, however, is much different from the generally positive image that US propagandists seek to present.

And that is one big difference between the slaughter of Englishmen by William the Conqueror and the carnage unleashed by George W. Bush, the modern-day conqueror. William’s cruelty was done in the light of day.

Yet, it is not as if the US government doesn’t keep tabs on those killed, maimed or rendered as orphans. The government simply doesn’t want the American people to know the quantity or the specifics, all the better to strip the two conflicts of their human dimensions.

In Afghanistan, for example, the CIA and military have been conducting a census of every village, town and city in the country – much like William’s infamous Doomsday (or Domesday) Book, which assessed the property of every English landowner for the purpose of levying taxes or confiscation.

As commander of the US occupation army, General Stanley McChrystal wants to know the name of every Afghan, so his analysts can decide who is a Taliban and who is not, or in the even vaguer vernacular favored by the US military, who are the “bad guys.”

McChrystal’s survey seeks to determine where each man lives, how many people are in his family, who his wife and children and relatives are, where he works and where his property is.

In places like Marjah, considered a Taliban stronghold where a US-led offensive is currently underway, McChrystal is at a bit of a loss, but he still tries to obtain actionable intelligence through networks of spies and via all manner of electronic surveillance, including satellites.

Tracking the Taliban

This biographical information and other data about Afghanis are entered into a computer in McChrystal’s office, where the material is carefully monitored by the CIA and military special operations units.

Within a separate folder for suspected Taliban, every man is identified by the same biographical criteria as every other Afghan. In addition, each Taliban is categorized by his rank and position within the organization.

Low-level fighters are left to the Marines, while “high-value targets” get their own folder and are handled by the CIA and military special operations.

These “high-value targets” are given the kind of special attention that William the Conqueror reserved for English noblemen, who were viewed as especially important to kill or otherwise neutralize in order to pacify the countryside.

“High-value targets” in Afghanistan have the property (intellectual as well as physical, such as opium fields) that McChrystal wants to deny the Taliban. So, more biographical information is gathered about them, and their movements are tracked 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Through spies and sophisticated electronic surveillance, McChrystal even has a very good idea when they are leaving one safe house and traveling to another. The jets are fueled, and the drones are in the sky, waiting.

And this is how and why 27 Afghan civilians were slaughtered on Feb. 21 while traveling between remote provinces in a caravan of minibuses. The CIA and military special operations forces were alerted that some “high-value target” was traveling with his family, and McChrystal seized the opportunity to kill them all.

In a dirty war like the one in Afghanistan, killing “high-value targets” almost always involves murdering them while they are at home or while traveling with their families; otherwise they are much less accessible and thus harder targets.

Killing enemy leaders along with their entire families has a psychological-warfare impact, too, putting this secret policy under the intelligence rubric of “black propaganda.”

It is psychological warfare because these mass killings have a sobering effect on low-level Taliban who wish to rise in the ranks. It is a form of propaganda that every Afghan citizen is aware of, and it is “black” because it is not officially acknowledged, keeping the American people in the dark.

The mainstream US news media plays along by rarely citing the obvious facts of this dirty war. The killing of civilians is dismissed as an accident that is accompanied by a routine apology from General McChrystal or some other US spokesman.

Savagery, Past and Present

Though US media propagandists treat McChrystal as an honorable and hard-working warrior, the truth is that he is no less savage than William the Conqueror. Both spread terror by killing their enemies, dismembering bodies and inflicting death and cruelty on non-combatants as well.

The primary difference is that William and his army did their killing up close with battle axes and swords for everyone to see, while McChrystal and his high-tech killing machine inflict carnage from far away with 2,000-pound bombs or with missiles fired from drones – and then cloak the horror behind censorship and propaganda.

These cover-ups are essential because the American public might otherwise bolt against Washington’s imperial adventures, which often end up with working-class American soldiers dead or maimed while US corporations snake away with valuable resources from the conquered countries or otherwise use them for economic or geopolitical ends.

This strategy works because most Americans don’t know – and many may not care to know – the names and biographies of the victims.

Douglas Valentine is author of The Phoenix Program as well as The Strength of the Wolf and the new book Strength of the Pack. His Web site is DouglasValentine.com.

Blackwater likely to receive contract

2010-02-27T15:10:00.000-08:00

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33544.html

By: Laura Rozen
February 26, 2010 05:07 AM EST

Former officials familiar with the deal say that Blackwater is likely to get a Defense Department-issued contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars to train and mentor Afghan police.

The police training contract is supposed to be decided next month, and the company has not been officially notified that it’s getting it. But the only competing bid for the contract, submitted by Northrop with MPRI, has been disqualified, a former official knowledgeable about the contract said.

“We have no knowledge that the contract will be awarded to us,” Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Blackwater, now known as Xe, told POLITICO Thursday.

Lockheed, meanwhile, is quite likely to be awarded an associated logistics contract to support the Afghanistan police training effort (a contract known as TORP 166), for which Blackwater also bid, the former officials said.

While a Blackwater subsidiary’s activities in Afghanistan were the subject of a scathing hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee Wednesday, the U.S. Central Command and the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, are said to be very happy with the company’s work in Afghanistan, the former official familiar with the contracting deal told POLITICO. Blackwater has contracts to do intelligence support, counternarcotics support (with the Drug Enforcement Administration) and work on the Afghan-Pakistani border, the former official said.

The DoD has five “primes” — companies eligible to bid on contracts in Afghanistan: Raytheon, Lockheed, Northrop, Arinc (owned by Carlyle) and Blackwater. Of those, only Blackwater bid for both parts of the Afghan police training contract — involving training/mentoring and logistics. Its only competitor for the logistics contract was Lockheed. The former official said the Army had Lockheed resubmit its proposal to make it more suitable for the logistics contract.

The death of a child or adult in Afghanistan is worth $1,500-$2,500

2010-02-27T12:24:00.000-08:00

http://cbs13.com/wireapnational/The.price.of.2.1505077.html

Christopher Torchia
Associated Press
Fri, 19 Feb 2010 22:17 EST

The fallout of war has a price in southern Afghanistan.

U.S. Army units fighting the Taliban in Helmand province have a compensation system for any death, injury or damage to crops and buildings caused by American forces to Afghan civilians and their property.

The suffering of a population caught between combatants during the Afghan war is a politically sensitive issue, and NATO troops have sought to make amends for deadly airstrikes and other instances in which civilians were killed.

In turn, they accuse insurgents of using civilians as human shields, making it harder to distinguish between enemies and innocents. Financial compensation in desperately poor Afghanistan is at least one way to alleviate distress and show good intentions, military commanders say.

The American units carry a list that gives guidance on payouts:

The death of a child or adult is worth $1,500-$2,500, loss of limb and other injuries $600-$1,500, a damaged or destroyed vehicle $500-$2,500, and damage to a farmer's fields $50-$250.

The system is also useful for gathering intelligence on insurgents, says 1st Sgt. Gene Hicks of Tacoma, Washington.

The military pays villagers in local currency for information about the location of roadside bombs as well as "where they've seen people at, where they've seen people moving, where they've seen people shooting from," Hicks said.

His Alpha Company of 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment of the 5th Stryker Brigade has paid out nearly $500 so far, though they also have yet to compensate landowners for compounds they have occupied and turned into patrol bases. They have not had to pay any "condolence" payments for injury or loss of life.

One Afghan landowner stands to reap a windfall because his compound has been occupied by British, Canadian and American troops.

"They've all used the same compound," Hicks said. "So he gets his money from whoever's occupying his compound at the time."

It's not an exact science, but some Afghan civilians in the area of Badula Qulp, northeast of the contested Taliban stronghold of Marjah, have been quick to exploit it. In any casualty case, the Americans are mindful that they might be asked to compensate for the death of an insurgent, rather than a civilian.

"It's really kind of hard," Hicks said. "You have to determine whether the guy was a good guy or a bad guy. It's a benefit of the doubt kind of thing."

A few days ago, a company with the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment got into a firefight with the Taliban, and a helicopter destroyed a mosque from where troops had received fire. The 15-year-old son of the local religious figure died in the air strike; the U.S. military agreed to pay compensation in a meeting with village leaders, though commanders privately speculated that the son might have been a combatant.

At that meeting, one of the elders initially objected to the idea of putting a price on someone's death, or damage to a holy religious site. By the end of the meeting, the elders seemed content with the idea of a payout.

The compensation process requires completed claim forms, and is sometimes complicated by the fact that many villagers don't know how to write and can't sign their names. In that event, soldiers take their fingerprint on the document or photograph them with the form.

During a mission in neighboring Kandahar province, Alpha Company once ran into an enterprising man who showed them where to find a roadside bomb that could have caused serious damage to one of their Stryker infantry carriers. The man wouldn't settle for a few hundred dollars; he wanted the amount of the armored vehicle that had possibly been saved from destruction - a cool $2 million or more.

He didn't get it.

Blackwater guards stole weapons in Kabul and went on deadly rampage

2010-02-27T11:36:00.000-08:00

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7040078.ece

The Times
February 25, 2010
Blackwater guards stole weapons in Kabul and went on deadly rampage
Giles Whittell, Washington

Private American security guards working for the US military in Afghanistan removed hundreds of handguns and automatic weapons from stores intended for the exclusive use of the Afghan police and used them on drunken shooting rampages that killed two Afghan civilians and injured at least two more.

The guards included a former US Marine with a criminal record of assault and battery and a former soldier discharged from the US Army after testing positive for cocaine, Congress heard yesterday.

Justin Cannon, Christopher Drotleff and a guard using the name “Eric Cartman” from the cartoon South Park were employees of a subsidiary of the Blackwater Worldwide group, implicated in a litany of extrajudicial shootings since 2003 in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Cannon and Drotleff have been charged with killing two Afghans and injuring a third in an incident last May when they opened fire on a car carrying four civilians in Kabul, while under the influence of alcohol. The men, who were hired to train Afghan soldiers, had no permission from US authorities to carry guns.

The investigation found that more than 500 AK47 rifles had been removed from the bunker by Blackwater staff without permission. Blackwater has been renamed Xe Services since its staff killed 17 civilians in Baghdad in 2007. Its licence in Iraq has been withdrawn by the Iraqi Government.

US Steps Deeper Into Afghan Quagmire

2010-02-27T11:34:00.000-08:00

http://rense.com/general89/stes.htm

US Steps Deeper Into Afghan Quagmire
By Joel Skousen
Editor - World Affairs Brief
2-27-10

Begin Excerpt

With the ongoing attack on Marjah, the US military began its first major assault on a Taliban controlled town in Afghanistan and simultaneously entered a new and expanded phase of the war. The resulting military victory was predictable but the side effects of civilian casualties and property destruction won't allow the coalition forces to win any local "hearts and minds," nor increase the acceptability of the Karzai regime. ''

Gareth Porter writes about the political motives behind the choice of target. "The primary goal of the offensive, they write, is to 'convince Americans that a new era has arrived in the eight-year long war...' U.S. military officials in Afghanistan 'hope a large and loud victory in Marjah will convince the American public that they deserve more time to demonstrate that extra troops and new tactics can yield better results on the battlefield.' Some advisers to Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force, told him last June that Kandahar City is far more important strategically than Marjah," But that city would be far too difficult to tackle. ''

Astute scholar and commentator Juan Cole poses four important questions about this latest Afghan Surge; "Gen. David Petraeus admitted on Meet the Press Sunday that the Afghanistan War will take years and incur high casualties... The Marjah Campaign, the centerpiece of the new counter-insurgency strategy, is over a week old, and some assessment of this new, visible push by the US military in violent Helmand Province is in order. The questions are:''

"1. Can the stategy of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, of taking, clearing, holding and building be extended deep into the Pashtun regions? Marjah is only a stepping stone to the key southern city of Qandahar, which has a population of a million, more the size of Detroit. This outcome has yet to be seen. But for rural Pashtuns to come to love foreign occupiers is an unlikely proposition. Even the WSJ admits that in Marjah, the Marines are not exactly feeling the love from the civilians they have supposedly just liberated. Since the Taliban are typically not as corrupt as the warlords, in fact, to any extent that the US and NATO re-install corrupt warlord types in power, they may alienate the locals. And keeping civilian casualties low so as to win hearts and minds is key here [and failing rapidly]. That task will become more difficult as the US inserts itself more deeply into Pashtun territory, since insurgent villages will have to be defeated. A campaign in Qandahar could easily displace half a million people, and they might mind. Meanwhile, on Monday, the governor of Dai Kundi asserted that a US airstrike killed 27 persons, mostly civilians. There is also the question, raised by Tom Englehardt, of whether the US is capable of good governance in Afghanistan when it is not in Washington, DC.''

"2. Can the demonstration of vitality and of a sense of progress mollify NATO publics long enough to fight a prolonged war and do intensive training of troops and police over several years? No. Over the weekend, the center-right government of the Netherlands fell over whether to keep Dutch troops in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan war is universally unpopular in continental Europe, and governments have troops there mostly in the teeth of popular opposition, because NATO invoked article 5 of its charter, 'an attack on one is an attack on all' with regard to the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks [which was totally falsified by US intelligence]. Australia is already refusing to take up the Dutch slack, and its government is under public pressure to get out, itself. While it is entirely possible that scandal-plagued rightwing billionaire Silvio Berlusconi will survive the next elections in Italy, it is also possible that he will not, and his successor may well want out of the unpopular Afghanistan quagmire. ''

"3. Can an Afghan army be stood up in short order that has the capacity to patrol independently and keep order after the US and NATO troops withdraw? Unlikely. The answer to the question about Afghan military preparedness-- after nearly a decade of training and an investment of $1 billion that Afghan troops are not ready for prime time. In the Marjah campaign, they showed no initiative, no ability to fight independently. They are poorly served by their junior field officers, and they are 90% illiterate. There is often bad blood between Tajiks and Pashtuns, the group that predominates in Marjah. The same skill set of the ANA most prized by the US Marines during the assault-- the ability to sniff out which households are Taliban-- may be a liability in the holding and building phase, since it stems from a decade and a half of Tajik Northern Alliance battles against the Taliban.''

"4. Can the Afghan public, which includes many groups (Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks) deeply harmed by Taliban rule, accept reconciliation, as well? Unlikely. Former Northern Alliance leader popular among Tajiks, Abdullah Abdullah, warned Karzai against reconciling with the Taliban this weekend. Abdullah dropped out of last fall's presidential contest in protest against alleged ballot fraud in Karzai's favor. There is general hostility toward reconciliation with the Taliban among the parties representing northern, non-Pashtun ethnic groups. [Karzai has damaged his credibility further by taking personal control of the electoral watchdog council that overseas election fairness] ''

Next it is important to consider how crucial are US and Pakistani successes in capturing and killing major Taliban leaders. Bill Roggio gives a summary of the latest apprehensions: "The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that four additional members of the Afghan Taliban's Quetta Shura have been captured. And one of them may be none other than Mullah Abdul Qayum Zakir, the former Guantanamo Bay detainee who serves as the leader of one of the four regional military shuras. According to the Monitor." This brings up the question of why did the US let Zakir go while holding others that are not much threat at all?''

The capture of Taliban leaders has had one predictable effect which may further success more difficult. "Top US defense officials briefed Congress about the move of the Afghan Taliban's top council, the Quetta Shura, from Quetta to Karachi. 'Elements of the Afghan Taliban high command are beginning to relocate from Quetta to Karachi, due in large part to drone attacks,' said Lt. Gen. John Paxton, director for operations at the US Joint Chiefs of Staff." This obviously makes it more difficult to target other senior Taliban leaders. Karachi is a very large city of some 3 million inhabitants, mostly Pashtuns.''

The capturing of terrorist leaders goes both ways. This latest one will prove embarrassing to the US and its covert operations inside Iran working to overthrow the existing government. Asia Times M K Bhadrakumar has the story: "It was the morning after the dramatic capture of the 31-year-old leader of the dreaded Pakistan-based terrorist group Jundallah, Abdulmalik Rigi, in a stunning operation by Iranian intelligence. In turn, that would have implications for the United States-Iran standoff. But that is only one aspect. The fact is that Tehran has put Washington on the back foot at a critical juncture. Rigi is bound to spill the beans - he may already have begun - and much is going to surface about the covert activities by the US forces based in Afghanistan to subvert Iran by hobnobbing with Jundallah, which, incidentally, is also known to have links with al-Qaeda. Rigi apparently had a meeting with his US mentors in an American base just a day before his journey to the UAE. It seems he was traveling with a fake Afghan passport provided by the Americans. A lot of highly embarrassing details are trickling in already that will be eagerly lapped up by the so-called 'Arab street' and which will make the entire American position on the situation around Iran look rather weak." --Unless the story never gets much press in America, which is rather certain.''

End Excerpt

World Affairs Brief - Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World

Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted.

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Nato Admits That Deaths of 8 Boys Were a Mistake

2010-02-27T07:39:00.000-08:00

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7040166.ece

Clockwise from top left: Sebhanullah, 17; Attahullah, 15; Rahimullah, 17; Matiullah, 16; guest Samar Gul, 12; Ismael, 12; Atiqullah, 15; and (not shown) Samiullah, 12

Jerome Starkey
The Times
Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:02 EST

A night-time raid in eastern Afghanistan in which eight schoolboys from one family were killed was carried out on the basis of faulty intelligence and should never have been authorized, a Times investigation has found.

Ten children and teenagers died when troops stormed a remote mountain compound near the border with Pakistan in December.

At the time, Nato claimed that the assault force was targeting a "known insurgent group responsible for a series of violent attacks". Officials said that the victims were involved in making and smuggling improvised explosive devices. But Western sources close to the case now agree that the victims were all aged 12 to 18 and were not involved in insurgent activity.

When reports of the raid first surfaced eight weeks ago, The Times contacted the police chief in Kunar province and then the boys' head-master and uncle, Rahman Jan Ehsas.

Two men whose children and other relatives were killed agreed to come to Kabul to describe the incident. They provided pictures of their dead sons, a sketched map of the compound and copies of the compensation claim forms signed by local officials detailing their sons' names, relatives and positions at school. Their story was supported by Western military sources.

Farooq Abdul Ajan, who lost two sons, two brothers, three nephews and a cousin in the raid, said that the soldiers had had no idea whom they were killing. Afghan investigators, local officials and MPs from the province all maintain that the boys were innocent.

Nato's statement, issued four days after the event, said that troops were attacked "from several buildings" as they entered the village. Yesterday it said that ultimately, we did determine this to be a civilian casualty incident".

Anger is growing over civilian casualties. General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander, has warned that Nato risks "strategic defeat" by causing civilian deaths. The Independent Human Rights Commission said that more than 63 civilians had died in the past two weeks, including 27 killed when US special forces ordered an airstrike on a convoy of minibuses in the central Daikundi province. Nato recently introduced a new tactical directive to limit the use of night raids, the coalition's chief legal adviser, Colonel Richard Gross, said. "General McChrystal realised that this was one of the areas where we had to change the way we do business, or else we would not win this war," he said.

Exactly who carried out the Narang raid is unclear. Colonel Gross said that US forces were present but did not lead the operation. Nato insists that the troops were not part of the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf). US forces based in Kunar denied any knowledge of the raid.

Senior Western officers have hinted that the "trigger pullers" were Afghan; the Afghan Defence Ministry said its troops were not involved. Mohammed Afzal, Narang's district police chief, insisted that US special forces were involved. Assadullah Wafa, who led an Afghan investigation into the incident, said that relatives would get $2,000 compensation for each person killed.

The Warlord's Tune

2010-02-22T03:36:00.001-08:00

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2010/s2824501.htm

"A documentary that tells how thousands of young Afghani boys are now being hunted and groomed to become sex slaves."

The Warlord's Tune
Reporter: Jamie Doran and Clover Films
Broadcast: 22/02/2010

Over six months an Afghani journalist, Najibullah Quraishi, has risked his life to document the practice of Bacha Bazi (boy play), where young men are forced into prostitution serving the needs of rich and powerful men.

The filmmaker follows those who make a living procuring young boys, and those who abuse them. The result is a deeply disturbing portrait of a society that publicly promotes a strict moral code while effectively condoning systematic child abuse.
Imagine being nine or ten years old. You are orphaned and living on the streets of a city in Afghanistan. You are approached by a man you do not know. He will clothe, feed and "protect" you. All you must do is learn to dance.

At first you will practice your routine with another young man. After weeks of training you will make your debut dancing before a crowd of men. Many are former warlords who helped the Karzai Government make its way to power. Others might be powerful businessmen.

Before you dance you will be given clothes and make up to make you look feminine. After the dancing, the men are excited and they bid for your company. If you please a warlord or businessman they will pay highly for your favours. Ultimately you will be traded, violated and abused by a large number of men.

This is the world of the Bacha Bereesh, which means "beardless boys". These children are groomed to become sex slaves. It is not a new practice. In Afghanistan the Warlords often kept young boys as their sexual partners. But in modern Afghanistan the practice has evolved into a lucrative and expanding business. In a country ravaged by war orphaned boys are being openly targeted by paedophiles. Some families are so poor that they are willing to sell their sons into slavery. Official reports now suggest thousands of children are at risk.

For the first time on television this practice is finally exposed. A locally born reporter has taken a camera and gone inside the world of the dancing boys. He goes with the "protector" as this man buys children. The reporter is told how the boys are trained and he is told how the "protector" will rent them out and take his "cut".

The documentary finds evidence that this practice is not confined to any one area of Afghanistan. Although it is popular in the north it is now spreading across the country.

The investigation also shows what happens when the boys mature or fall out of favour with the men who desire them. Some are abandoned, others are killed. Asked what impact this life has on the boys, one local says: "They are just boys, they will forget about it."

It is an investigation that has a special resonance for anyone watching in Australia. The people committing the abuse on these children are powerful figures in Afghan society. They are given license to commit these criminal acts by the very governments that are supposed to be our allies in the war on terror and the lethal contest against the Taliban.

"The Warlord's Tune" is produced and scripted by award winning documentary maker Jamie Doran.

It goes to air on Four Corners on Monday 22nd February at 8.30pm on ABC1. It is repeated on Tuesday 23rd at 11.35pm. Also available online.

Europeans Want Out Of Afghanistan

2010-02-20T18:56:00.000-08:00

http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/02/20/europeans-want-out-of-afghanistan/

Europeans Want Out Of Afghanistan
Gilbert Mercier
News Junkie Post
Sat, 20 Feb 2010 00:38 EST

This Saturday, the Dutch government of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende collapsed over The Netherlands involvement with NATO operations in Afghanistan. NATO head Anders Rasmussen had asked The Netherlands earlier this month to extend Dutch's Afghan military mission until August 2011, which is a year later than the originally planned pull out of the Dutch troops.

Just like elsewhere in Europe, the deployment of Dutch troops in Afghanistan is very unpopular with voters. The Netherlands has currently around 2,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan under NATO command, 21 Dutch soldiers have been killed so far in the conflict.

Overall in Europe, the war in Afghanistan is so unpopular that it has become a dangerous political gamble for European governments to support it. For its part, Germany will only send an additional 500 troops to complement the 4,330 German troops already in Afghanistan.

On January 26, Chancellor Merkel had to do a balancing act between NATO's request for more troops with the fact that a majority of Germans are becoming staunch opponent to the war, and think the mission is not worthwhile.

"This will be a new approach in the future, namely protecting the civilian population and training Afghan soldiers. This is a much more defensive approach for which the German army's offensive capacity will be rearranged," said Merkel at a press conference a few weeks ago.

For his part, French President Sarkozy was even more blunt.

"France will not send another single soldier," said Sarkosy, none less reaffirming France's commitment to maintain its 3,300 troops in the country.

Britain will only send an additional 500 British troops to Afghanistan due to the ever growing opposition tho the war in the UK. The extra 500 troops will bring the total number of British troops deployed to over 10,000. It is by far the single largest European's Afghan contingent. The fact that Britain has an election coming up this year explains why Prime Minister Gordon Brown did not want to commit more troops despite Washington's pressure to do so.

President Obama, when he made the decision to send an additional 30,000 troops was originally counting on Washington's European allies to send an additional 10,000 troops. President Obama's hope will not be met, he will only get an additional 1,000 troops.

In Britain, just like in Germany, France, The Netherlands, Italy and Spain, voters consider that sending additional troops will not do any good, and could even fan the flames of the Taliban insurgency. The numbers of troops from other European countries are 2,850 Italians and just 780 Spanish troops. The current number of NATO-US led force in Afghanistan is 133,000, which half is composed by US troops.

Dutch Government Collapses Over Afghanistan Mission

2010-02-20T18:45:00.001-08:00

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/Dutch-Government-Collapses-Amid-Disagreement-on-Afghan-Troop-Withdrawal-84830287.html

VOA News
Sat, 20 Feb 2010 20:31 EST

The Dutch coalition government has collapsed amid a political row over whether to extend the country's military mission in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende was due to submit his government's resignation to Queen Beatrix later Saturday, leaving the future of its 1,600 soldiers stationed there uncertain.

After marathon talks that lasted till dawn Saturday, a visibly upset Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende announced there was in his words not enough trust to continue his three-party alliance, amid a row over the future of his country's military mission in southern Afghanistan.

The left-leaning Labor Party leaves the government because it wants the Netherlands to adhere to a scheduled military withdrawal of the bulk of its 1,600 troops from the Afghan province of Uruzgan by the end of August, 2010 despite a request from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to stay longer.

Mr. Balkenende told reporters he would offer the resignation of the current cabinet to the Dutch ceremonial head of state, Queen Beatrix. He says that he will offer the resignation of the ministers because there is "unfortunately no way forwards" for the coalition between his Christian Democrats and junior partners, the Labor Party and the Christian Union. He makes clear that Labor Party statements about Afghanistan have not only put the coalition under pressure but also what he calls "the care due" to Dutch men and women in Afghanistan and "the relationship with NATO partners."

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen had asked the Netherlands to maintain a smaller presence, including a provincial reconstruction team in Uruzgan, to build on the perceived success Dutch troops had there and help guarantee a smooth transition to an eventual Afghan-led operation.

The Christian Democrats and Christian Union made clear they wanted to consider the request and at least come up with a carefully formulated government statement.

But Labor leader, and current Finance Minister, Wouter Bos, said this was unacceptable, as in his words, voters were promised that the last Dutch soldier would be home at the end of the current troop commitment. His party wants other NATO soldiers to replace the Dutch mission in Uruzgan, where 21 soldiers have been killed since the deployment began in 2006.

The withdrawal of the Labor Party leaves the largest party, the Christian Democrats, and its junior partner Christian Union with just 47 seats in the 150-member parliament. With no viable prospects for other coalitions, an early election is expected within three months, most likely in May.

Analysts say that could see a further rise in power of the far-right party of anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders, whose ranking in the polls rivals that of Mr. Balkenende's.

Dutch residents, who woke up with news of their government's collapse, have expressed different opinions about the crisis. Edo van Boer, for instance, said the break up of the coalition was expected. "It was unavoidable, those two parties, those big parties can't work together they have separate opinions about things. So it was unavoidable," he said.

Yet another Dutch person, who only identified herself as Lydia, believes the government crisis over Afghanistan comes at the wrong time. "They (Dutch soldiers) were building hospitals, schools etc. It was not a military mission. So I think it is very good for the peace in Afghanistan that they should stay but now I think they don't stay," she said.

The Dutch debate comes ahead of municipal elections in the Netherlands and at a time when opinion polls in many troop-providing European countries indicate growing public discontent with NATO operations in Afghanistan, amid a global financial crisis and shrinking defense budgets.

A possible Dutch withdrawal from Afghanistan is seen as another challenge for NATO. The Western defense alliance is already struggling to assemble 10,000 additional troops that its top commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, demands to accompany the 30,000 extra American troops being deployed there.

Dollars for Death, Pennies for Life

2010-02-20T12:03:00.001-08:00

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/15

February 15, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
Dollars for Death, Pennies for Life
by Norman Solomon

When the U.S. military began a major offensive in southern Afghanistan over the weekend, the killing of children and other civilians was predictable. Lofty rhetoric aside, such deaths come with the territory of war and occupation.

A month ago, President Obama pledged $100 million in U.S. government aid to earthquake-devastated Haiti. Compare that to the $100 billion price tag to keep 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan for a year.

While commanders in Afghanistan were launching what the New York Times called "the largest offensive military operation since the American-led coalition invaded the country in 2001," the situation in Haiti was clearly dire.

With more than a million Haitians still homeless, vast numbers -- the latest estimates are around 75 percent -- don't have tents or tarps. The rainy season is fast approaching, with serious dangers of typhoid and dysentery.

No shortage of bombs in Afghanistan; a lethal shortage of tents in Haiti. Such priorities -- actual, not rhetorical -- are routine.

Last summer, I saw hundreds of children and other civilians at the Helmand Refugee Camp District 5, a miserable makeshift encampment in Kabul. The U.S. government had ample resources for bombing their neighborhoods in the Helmand Valley -- but was doing nothing to help the desperate refugees to survive after they fled to Afghanistan's capital city.

Such priorities have parallels at home. The military hawks and deficit hawks are now swooping along Pennsylvania Avenue in tight formation. There's plenty of money in the U.S. Treasury for war in Afghanistan. But domestic spending to meet human needs -- job creation, for instance -- is another matter.

Joblessness is now crushing many low-income Americans. Among those with annual household incomes of less than $12,500, the unemployment rate during the fourth quarter of last year "was a staggering 30.8 percent," Bob Herbert noted in a February 9 column. "That's more than five points higher than the overall jobless rate at the height of the Depression."

Herbert added: "The next lowest group, with incomes of $12,500 to $20,000, had an unemployment rate of 19.1 percent. These are the kinds of jobless rates that push families already struggling on meager incomes into destitution."

The current situation is akin to the one that Martin Luther King Jr. confronted in 1967 when he challenged Congress for showing "hostility to the poor" -- appropriating "military funds with alacrity and generosity" but providing "poverty funds with miserliness."

Such priorities are taking lives every day, near and far.

Early this month, the National Council of Churches sent out an article by theologians George Hunsinger and Michael Kinnamon, who wrote: "What the Haitians obviously need most is massive humanitarian relief. They need food, water, medical supplies. They need shelter and physical reconstruction. . . . Over half of Haiti's population are children, 15 years old or younger. Many were already hungry and homeless before the earthquake hit."

But the warfare state, with vast budgets for military purposes, has scant funds for sustaining life.

These priorities kill.

Norman Solomon is national co-chair of the Healthcare Not Warfare campaign, launched by Progressive Democrats of America. His books include "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." For more information, go to: www.normansolomon.com

Battle for Marjah: The US has Already Lost

2010-02-20T04:43:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Battle-for-Marjah-The-US-by-Dave-Lindorff-100218-548.html

February 18, 2010
By Dave Lindorff

The fighting is still underway in the town of Marjah, in what is being described as the first battle in Obama's War in Afghanistan, or alternatively as the biggest battle of the US War in Afghanistan. But already, the US has lost that battle.

It lost it from day one, when troops fired missiles in to a Marjah house, killing 12 civilian occupants--half of them children. And it lost it further when another three more civilians were blown away by US-led forces. Finally, it lost the battle as much of the town has been simply destroyed by the fighting.

The supposed goal of the assault on Marjah was to demonstrate that the US would bring the wonders of good government and peace to the Pashtun tribal people who have endured a generation or more of war, and who have been living under the "cruel tyranny" of the Taliban in recent years. The new strategy of President Barack Obama and his hand-picked military leader in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, was to show that the US military could fight the Taliban without causing civilian deaths and casualties. Protecting civilian lives would be a priority, they claimed.

The problem with such a strategy is that the whole reason American forces have been able to crush resistance, as they did in the lighting invasion of Iraq in 2003, or the overthrow of the Taliban government of Afghanistan in late 2001, has been their callous disregard for civilian lives, which have been coldly labelled "collateral damage." 
In the war in Iraq, and in Afghanistan until recently at least, the American war-fighting style has been for troops to go into an area, seeking to draw enemy fire, and then to call in long-range artillery or air support, and simply blow up the area with heavy explosives, devastating anti-personnel bombs that shower an area in flesh-shredding flechettes, burning white phosphorus projectiles, and a brutal rain of machine-gun fire from fixed-wing and helicopter gunships. Inevitably with such tactics, countless innocent men, women and children get killed and maimed.

In Iraq, US forces ended up killing far, far more civilians than actual enemy fighters thanks to this approach. While information about deaths in the Afghan War is harder to come by, it is likely that the same holds true there also. In addition to the well-known incidents, where air strikes have been called in which ended up butchering entire wedding parties in both Iraq and Afghanistan, or where farm families engaged in routine activties have been blown away thinking they were terrorists, US forces have for years thought nothing about assaulting compounds and killing the inhabitants, innocent civilians or not, children or adults, if it was thought that even one "terrorist" was in the building at the time.

Such tactics, reminiscent of what years ago used to be attributed to vicious military regimes like the German Nazis or the Imperial Japanese, have become the norm for US forces, as has the tactic of "spray and pray," under which US forces, if they take fire or feel threatened, simply unload all their weapons in every direction, killing every living thing within range, including people who might be seeking shelter behind mud walls of their homes.

These tactics, while criminal in the extreme under the Geneva Conventions, which require that civilians in any conflict be protected, do work in the short term, which is why American forces have prevailed in their initial assaults. But long-term, they inevitably become self-defeating, since they only turn a population into bitter enemies, many with an understandable desire for vengeance.

Thus, the "new" strategy of trying to minimize civilian casualties.

But once US troops are denied their air support, and are barred by commanders from simply blowing away buildings from which they are taking enemy fire, because of fears that there may be civilians in those buildings, US forces lose any advantage they may have had over local enemy fighters. It becomes a battle of guns vs. guns and person vs. person, and becomes more of a case of who is more willing to die.

Clearly the Taliban then gains an edge. Its fighters, or at least many of them, believe they are fighting for Allah, or for their country's survival and independence, or for both, and they are willing to die for those causes. What are American forces fighting for in Afghanistan? Hard to say. I suspect many, if asked, would say they have no idea. Some, I'm sure, would say they are "defending America" if asked thanks to their indoctrination, but I also suspect that as they survey the primitive society in which they are fighting, and see the poverty of the people, they will have a hard time perceiving Afghanistan as any kind of threat to their own country or families. Some may say they're avenging the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon "by Al Qaeda" in 2001, but then, even the US government admits that the foreign fighters of Al Qaeda have long ago left Afghanistan, and no Taliban were involved in the 9-11 attacks. So it's hard to see American troops being willing to die for these trumped up "causes." I suspect, again, that most US troops are understandably trying really hard mainly to make sure they don't get hurt or killed.

And that's why, in the end, the US is losing this war. It's why those deadly Himars rockets were fired and why air assaults are being called in after all in Marjah, and why civilians are again being slaughtered by American forces in this battle.

It's why, despite promises to the contrary from Gen. McChrystal and Commander in Chief Obama, the town is being wrecked.

And in the end, it will be all for naught, since the US is supporting a wholly corrupt and criminal regime in Kabul which will not follow up the ultimate "victory" in Marjah with some kind of honest and well-functioning government in the destroyed city.

We will no doubt see some photogenic reconstruction in Marjah when the fighting subsides. We'll see some demonstration projects which will be dutifully praised by the journalistic shills flown in by Pentagon flaks. But the people of Marjah will remember the destruction of their town, and will remember their neighbors and relatives who were killed. And when the Taliban return to the town, as they inevitably will after the Americans withdraw or draw down, they will probably be welcomed, or at least tolerated.

The reality is that America cannot prevail in Afghanistan except by applying the massive, oppressive power of its military killing machine, with its robotic rocket-firing drone aircraft, its bombers and attack aircraft, its fixed-wing and helicopter gunships, its indiscriminate anti-personnel weapons, and its massive bombs. It cannot prevail, in other words, without terrorizing the population.

And even then, in the end, it cannot succeed.

The Meaning of Marjah

2010-02-17T13:33:00.001-08:00

They can call it what they want, but it's still going to be a bloodbath - a Surprise Bloodbath. I am 'Psychic' and had a 'near death experience' where I saw the future. My Visions show me that it's gonna be Real Ugly and even More Ugly when they attack Iran (and they will). My nephew just began an 18 month tour there. He left on President's Day. I don't think he's gonna come back alive...

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100216_meaning_marjah?utm_source=GWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=100216&utm_content=readmore&elq=f6fd0d65f8f44d2ab02

February 16, 2010 | 2119 GMT

By Kamran Bokhari, Peter Zeihan and Nathan Hughes

On Feb. 13, some 6,000 U.S. Marines, soldiers and Afghan National Army (ANA) troops launched a sustained assault on the town of Marjah in Helmand province. Until this latest offensive, the U.S. and NATO effort in Afghanistan had been constrained by other considerations, most notably Iraq. Western forces viewed the Afghan conflict as a matter of holding the line or pursuing targets of opportunity. But now, armed with larger forces and a new strategy, the war — the real war — has begun. The most recent offensive — dubbed Operation Moshtarak (“Moshtarak” is Dari for “together”) — is the largest joint U.S.-NATO-Afghan operation in history. It also is the first major offensive conducted by the first units deployed as part of the surge of 30,000 troops promised by U.S. President Barack Obama.

The War in Afghanistan

The United States originally entered Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. In those days of fear and fury, American goals could be simply stated: A non-state actor — al Qaeda — had attacked the American homeland and needed to be destroyed. Al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan at the invitation of a near-state actor — the Taliban, which at the time were Afghanistan’s de facto governing force. Since the Taliban were unwilling to hand al Qaeda over, the United States attacked. By the end of the year, al Qaeda had relocated to neighboring Pakistan and the Taliban retreated into the arid, mountainous countryside in their southern heartland and began waging a guerrilla conflict. In time, American attention became split between searching for al Qaeda and clashing with the Taliban over control of Afghanistan.

But from the earliest days following 9/11, the White House was eyeing Iraq, and with the Taliban having largely declined combat in the initial invasion, the path seemed clear. The U.S. military and diplomatic focus was shifted, and as the years wore on, the conflict absorbed more and more U.S. troops, even as other issues — a resurgent Russia and a defiant Iran — began to demand American attention. All of this and more consumed American bandwidth, and the Afghan conflict melted into the background. The United States maintained its Afghan force in what could accurately be described as a holding action as the bulk of its forces operated elsewhere. That has more or less been the state of affairs for eight years.

That has changed with the series of offensive operations that most recently culminated at Marjah.

Why Marjah? The key is the geography of Afghanistan and the nature of the conflict itself. Most of Afghanistan is custom-made for a guerrilla war. Much of the country is mountainous, encouraging local identities and militias, as well as complicating the task of any foreign military force. The country’s aridity discourages dense population centers, making it very easy for irregular combatants to melt into the countryside. Afghanistan lacks navigable rivers or ports, drastically reducing the region’s likelihood of developing commerce. No commerce to tax means fewer resources to fund a meaningful government or military and encourages the smuggling of every good imaginable — and that smuggling provides the perfect funding for guerrillas.

Rooting out insurgents is no simple task. It requires three things:

Massively superior numbers so that occupiers can limit the zones to which the insurgents have easy access.
The support of the locals in order to limit the places that the guerillas can disappear into.
Superior intelligence so that the fight can be consistently taken to the insurgents rather than vice versa.

Without those three things — and American-led forces in Afghanistan lack all three — the insurgents can simply take the fight to the occupiers, retreat to rearm and regroup and return again shortly thereafter.

But the insurgents hardly hold all the cards. Guerrilla forces are by their very nature irregular. Their capacity to organize and strike is quite limited, and while they can turn a region into a hellish morass for an opponent, they have great difficulty holding territory — particularly territory that a regular force chooses to contest. Should they mass into a force that could achieve a major battlefield victory, a regular force — which is by definition better-funded, -trained, -organized and -armed — will almost always smash the irregulars. As such, the default guerrilla tactic is to attrit and harass the occupier into giving up and going home. The guerrillas always decline combat in the face of a superior military force only to come back and fight at a time and place of their choosing. Time is always on the guerrilla’s side if the regular force is not a local one.

But while the guerrillas don’t require basing locations that are as large or as formalized as those required by regular forces, they are still bound by basic economics. They need resources — money, men and weapons — to operate. The larger these locations are, the better economies of scale they can achieve and the more effectively they can fight their war.

Marjah is perhaps the quintessential example of a good location from which to base. It is in a region sympathetic to the Taliban; Helmand province is part of the Taliban’s heartland. Marjah is very close to Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second city, the religious center of the local brand of Islam, the birthplace of the Taliban, and due to the presence of American forces, an excellent target. Helmand alone produces more heroin than any country on the planet, and Marjah is at the center of that trade. By some estimates, this center alone supplies the Taliban with a monthly income of $200,000. And it is defensible: The farmland is crisscrossed with irrigation canals and dotted with mud-brick compounds — and, given time to prepare, a veritable plague of IEDs.

Simply put, regardless of the Taliban’s strategic or tactical goals, Marjah is a critical node in their operations.

The American Strategy

Though operations have approached Marjah in the past, it has not been something NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) ever has tried to hold. The British, Canadian and Danish troops holding the line in the country’s restive south had their hands full enough. Despite Marjah’s importance to the Taliban, ISAF forces were too few to engage the Taliban everywhere (and they remain as such). But American priorities started changing about two years ago. The surge of forces into Iraq changed the position of many a player in the country. Those changes allowed a reshaping of the Iraq conflict that laid the groundwork for the current “stability” and American withdrawal. At the same time, the Taliban began to resurge in a big way. Since then the Bush and then Obama administrations inched toward applying a similar strategy to Afghanistan, a strategy that focuses less on battlefield success and more on altering the parameters of the country itself.

As the Obama administration’s strategy has begun to take shape, it has started thinking about endgames. A decades-long occupation and pacification of Afghanistan is simply not in the cards. A withdrawal is, but only a withdrawal where the security free-for-all that allowed al Qaeda to thrive will not return. And this is where Marjah comes in.

Denying the Taliban control of poppy farming communities like Marjah and the key population centers along the Helmand River Valley — and areas like them around the country — is the first goal of the American strategy. The fewer key population centers the Taliban can count on, the more dispersed — and militarily inefficient — their forces will be. This will hardly destroy the Taliban, but destruction isn’t the goal. The Taliban are not simply a militant Islamist force. At times they are a flag of convenience for businessmen or thugs; they can even be, simply, the least-bad alternative for villagers desperate for basic security and civil services. In many parts of Afghanistan, the Taliban are not only pervasive but also the sole option for governance and civil authority.

So destruction of what is in essence part of the local cultural and political fabric is not an American goal. Instead, the goal is to prevent the Taliban from mounting large-scale operations that could overwhelm any particular location. Remember, the Americans do not wish to pacify Afghanistan; the Americans wish to leave Afghanistan in a form that will not cause the United States severe problems down the road. In effect, achieving the first goal simply aims to shape the ground for a shot at achieving the second.

That second goal is to establish a domestic authority that can stand up to the Taliban in the long run. Most of the surge of forces into Afghanistan is not designed to battle the Taliban now but to secure the population and train the Afghan security forces to battle the Taliban later. To do this, the Taliban must be weak enough in a formal military sense to be unable to launch massive or coordinated attacks. Capturing key population centers along the Helmand River Valley is the first step in a strategy designed to create the breathing room necessary to create a replacement force, preferably a replacement force that provides Afghans with a viable alternative to the Taliban.

That is no small task. In recent years, in places where the official government has been corrupt, inept or defunct, the Taliban have in many cases stepped in to provide basic governance and civil authority. And this is why even the Americans are publicly flirting with holding talks with certain factions of the Taliban in hopes that at least some of the fighters can be dissuaded from battling the Americans (assisting with the first goal) and perhaps even joining the nascent Afghan government (assisting with the second).

The bottom line is that this battle does not mark the turning of the tide of the war. Instead, it is part of the application of a new strategy that accurately takes into account Afghanistan’s geography and all the weaknesses and challenges that geography poses. Marjah marks the first time the United States has applied a plan not to hold the line, but actually to reshape the country. We are not saying that the strategy will bear fruit. Afghanistan is a corrupt mess populated by citizens who are far more comfortable thinking and acting locally and tribally than nationally. In such a place indigenous guerrillas will always hold the advantage. No one has ever attempted this sort of national restructuring in Afghanistan, and the Americans are attempting to do so in a short period on a shoestring budget.

At the time of this writing, this first step appears to be going well for American-NATO-Afghan forces. Casualties have been light and most of Marjah already has been secured. But do not read this as a massive battlefield success. The assault required weeks of obvious preparation, and very few Taliban fighters chose to remain and contest the territory against the more numerous and better armed attackers. The American challenge lies not so much in assaulting or capturing Marjah but in continuing to deny it to the Taliban. If the Americans cannot actually hold places like Marjah, then they are simply engaging in an exhausting and reactive strategy of chasing a dispersed and mobile target.

A “government-in-a-box” of civilian administrators is already poised to move into Marjah to step into the vacuum left by the Taliban. We obviously have major doubts about how effective this box government can be at building up civil authority in a town that has been governed by the Taliban for most of the last decade. Yet what happens in Marjah and places like it in the coming months will be the foundation upon which the success or failure of this effort will be built. But assessing that process is simply impossible, because the only measure that matters cannot be judged until the Afghans are left to themselves.

Afghanistan’s outsourced war

2010-02-17T11:47:00.001-08:00

http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2010/02/09/afghanistans-outsourced-war.html

Le Monde diplomatique, February 9, 2010
Afghanistan’s outsourced war

A British contractor said recently that the Americans, the British and other armed forces were in Afghanistan to win the war, but for his firm, the more the security situation deteriorated the better
by Marie-Dominique Charlier

A worrying two-thirds of the Pentagon’s personnel in Afghanistan are private military contractors, unaccountable to military law or ethics, swaggeringly overbearing, and not in any hurry to help improve the poor security situation that assures their firms’ current and future profits

The Central Intelligence Agency hired staff from a private military company called Blackwater in 2004 as part of a secret programme to track down and assassinate al-Qaida leaders, according to the New York Times of 19 August 2009. The paper’s sources among current and former US government officials said that Blackwater had helped the CIA with planning, training and surveillance, for which it had charged several million dollars, but the programme had failed to capture or assassinate a single al-Qaida figure.

The “training” element is highly profitable. The PMCs are recruiting and training 800 instructors as part of a programme to combat illiteracy in the ANA, but their determination to secure the greatest possible return on investment has encouraged them to extend the duration of the training provided. It would seem that fostering the ANA’s own training capabilities is not a priority. The same applies to logistics (currently provided by RM Asia), another key element of the PMC monopoly: no deadlines have been set for the training of Afghan technicians.
Here again, the financial interests of the PMCs, which employ several thousand contract staff, differ from the military interests of ISAF: but they do not wish to see operational systems change too rapidly any more than they hope for a swift victory. They need to be able to influence events and, if necessary, to steer policy at the operational and strategic levels.
Le Monde diplomatique, Feb. 9, 2010
Blackwater changed its name to Xe Services following the controversy over its role in Iraq. Five of its guards escorting a US State Department convoy through Baghdad on 16 September 2007 were accused of shooting civilians in al-Nousour Square, killing 14 (the US count) or 17 (the Iraqi count). In spite of this blunder, and many others, the contractors headed for Afghanistan, where they have continued in the same manner. (The case against them was dismissed on 31 December 2009 owing to procedural errors; the US Department of Justice has decided to appeal against the decision.) On 5 May 2009 four employees of Blackwater/Xe (operating under the name Paravant) reportedly shot at a car in Kabul, killing at least one person and wounding four. On 7 January federal prosecutors in the US announced that two of the Xe employees had been charged with killing two Afghan men and wounding another. The opacity of their employment contracts has not allowed them to escape prosecution.

Private military companies (PMCs) (1) ( #footnote ) have evolved rapidly since they first appeared in the 1990s and now play a key military and economic role in armed conflicts. The global market for private military services is worth more than $100bn a year. This growth has been encouraged by drastic cuts in US army manpower at the end of the cold war and the decision under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (2001-06) to “rationalise” defence spending by outsourcing many of the not specifically military functions to the private sector. The aim was to circumvent Congress control and US public opinion, and also to allow greater flexibility in hiring contractors for clandestine operations.

High numbers

Estimates of the numbers of PMC personnel in Afghanistan vary from 130,000 to  160,000 (2) ( #footnote ), the second-largest deployment after Iraq (3) ( #footnote ), which it is set to overtake in the near future. The 30,000 extra US troops bound for Afghanistan could be accompanied by up to 56,000 additional contractor personnel. PMC contractors will then account for nearly two-thirds of all the Pentagon’s personnel in Afghanistan, the highest ratio in any conflict  in the history of the US.

The best known PMCs, Xe (Blackwater), DynCorp, MPRI (Military Professional Resources Inc) and Kellog Brown and Root (4) ( #footnote ), are all part of a grouping known as Private Security Companies of Afghanistan. Their involvement takes a big bite out of the funds intended for the reconstruction of the Afghan National Army (ANA).

Although they are supposed to play an auxiliary role to the coalition, and to the US army, the legal status of the PMCs is vague. But behind the “turnkey” solutions they offer lie big business interests, which influence military decisions in the field. There is a convergence of financial interests between the PMCs and big US industrial conglomerates: most PMCs have been bought up by conglomerates through mergers and acquisitions, many since 2001.

Moreover, the boom in outsourcing coincides with the need of the US military to assure their own redeployment: most of the senior management of the PMCs are former military officers, who find it easy to make the transition from the public to the private sector. Former senior officers of US armed forces working for PMCs enjoy a close relationship with the Pentagon, which gives them easy access to classified information and guarantees a degree of impunity.

A British contractor said recently that the Americans, the British and other armed forces were in Afghanistan to win the war, but for his firm, the more the security situation deteriorated the better (5) ( #footnote ). This is not necessarily compatible with conflict stabilisation and the “Afghanisation” of peace.

Thanks to their manpower, their  representation at the headquarters of inter-allied organisations and their international connections, the PMCs are in a position to influence military decisions on operational matters. Employees of MPRI (6) ( #footnote ) can be found throughout the hierarchy of ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) and the Afghan security forces. They serve as mentors to armed forces general staff and to governments, help to draft doctrine for the ANA as part of the Combined Training Advisory Group (CTAG), train officers at the Kabul Military Training Centre (KMTC) and provide instruction to specialists.

With in-depth knowledge of the Afghan theatre from tours of duty lasting two to four years, PMC personnel have unrivalled experience of local conditions. Their experience is a vital asset to the inter-allied staff officers whose tours of duty are rarely longer than six months. It allows them to co-ordinate, regulate and even promote the involvement of other PMCs and to steer the perceptions of the military in any direction that suits them.

According to official sources in the French ministry of defence, the budget allocated to MPRI for drafting the ANA’s military doctrine is some $200m; the training of ANA troops will cost nearly $1.7bn. So the PMCs have no interest in stabilising the situation or in the successful Afghanisation of the ANA. That would lessen the need for contractors, which would be against their financial interests. So they take great care not to pass on their knowledge, and prefer to deputise for Afghan organisations rather than giving them useful advice.

Solidarity among PMCs

“General” Gulbahar, in charge of doctrine at the Afghan National Army Training Command’s doctrine office, says he has been given no target date for the handover of the drafting of ANA military doctrine to Afghan control. Gulbahar is not unhappy to be supervised: he is in fact a colonel serving in a position normally occupied by a general and has everything to lose by questioning the status quo.

MPRI, therefore, has what amounts to a monopoly on the drafting of Afghan army doctrine, which allows it to justify the prolongation of its assisting role. But MPRI also shows solidarity with other PMCs: the ANA’s logistical doctrine, drafted by MPRI, names DynCorp as the organisation responsible for providing logistics support to the ANA’s air corps, without specifying any restrictions or limitations on the duration of this role.

The “training” element is highly profitable. The PMCs are recruiting and training 800 instructors as part of a programme to combat illiteracy in the ANA, but their determination to secure the greatest possible return on investment has encouraged them to extend the duration of the training provided. It would seem that fostering the ANA’s own training capabilities is not a priority. The same applies to logistics (currently provided by RM Asia), another key element of the PMC monopoly: no deadlines have been set for the training of Afghan technicians.

Here again, the financial interests of the PMCs, which employ several thousand contract staff, differ from the military interests of ISAF: but they do not wish to see operational systems change too rapidly any more than they hope for a swift victory. They need to be able to influence events and, if necessary, to steer policy at the operational and strategic levels.

New opportunities

They will soon have a new opportunity to consolidate their position. Brigadier Neil Baverstock, the British commander of CTAG (located near Kabul), has launched a drive to systematise the training provided to ANA  units by public and private instructors. This development will lead to greatly increased  demand for instructors and open up new opportunities for the principal contractors, who are already planning to use in Afghanistan the manpower and resources no longer needed in Iraq.

New contractors have recently been recruited to draw up “return of experience report” (retex) procedures for the ANA. The precious information gathered from retex reports will give the PMCs an overview of the theatre and the opportunity to consolidate their strategic position in the drafting of doctrine for the ANA as well as in its training.

As in Iraq, the use of “rent-a-soldier” companies is undermining the credibility of international armed intervention. You only have to drive through the streets of Kabul to see this is so. The provocative, aggressive behaviour and attitude of some PMC personnel, and the equipment they carry, are disturbingly like the caricature action heroes of Hollywood films (portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger etc). The effect is devastating: “People in Afghanistan can’t tell the difference between ISAF soldiers and contractors,” says a member of the Afghan parliament. “The two are easily confused and this does not do the coalition any good since the ‘private soldiers’ are often very aggressive in their behaviour.”

How can efforts to put down an insurgency be effective or credible when the countries contributing to the intervention force, and representing the UN, use mercenaries whose motivation is not necessarily the restoration of peace? There are questions about the ethics of contractors and how safe it is to use them. More than half of the interrogators and all of the interpreters implicated in the Abu Ghraib scandal were recruited “externally” and worked for CACI International or Titan. The scandal revealed a complete absence of the military ethic among PMCs. PMCs do not operate within the same legal framework as state armed forces and are sullying the image of ISAF among the people of Afghanistan. It’s another question raised by the transition from the outsourcing of services to the outsourcing of war.

Footnotes:

(1) See Sammi Makki, “Silence of a very grand grave”, Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, November 2004.

(2) According to a study by the Congressional Research Service quoted by Walter Pincus in the Washington Post, 16 December 2009.

(3) In 2007 the US Department of Defence deployed up to 185,000 contractors in Iraq, as compared with 160,000 regular troops.

(4) Formerly a subsidiary of Halliburton.

(5) Renй Ourdant, “Les mercenaires mettent le cap sur l’Afghanistan”, Le Monde, Paris, 21 August 2009.

(6) MPRI, a division of L3 Communications, was founded by generals Carl Edward Vuono, former chief of staff of the US army during the first Gulf war, and Harry Edward Soyster, a former director of US military intelligence. The company employs more than 300 former generals.

Civilians Die in Afghan Offensive

2010-02-16T13:18:00.000-08:00

I didn't know it but there is another pentagon term for 'collateral damage'. The innocent victims are also called 'bug splat'. Human beings don't seem to have any value at all to the evil elite psychopathic rulers behind the wars...

February 14, 2010 by Reuters
NATO has confirmed that two rockets fired at militants during its offensive in Helmand, south Afghanistan, missed their target and killed 12 civilians.
by Golnar Motevalli

MARJAH - NATO rockets killed 12 Afghan civilians on Sunday, missing Taliban militants attacking NATO and Afghan troops as they press ahead with a major offensive that must win over the local population to succeed.

"It's regrettable that in the course of our joint efforts, innocent lives were lost. We extend our heartfelt sympathies and will ensure we do all we can to avoid future incidents," NATO commander U.S. General Stanley McChrystal said in a statement.

The offensive, one of NATO's biggest against the Taliban since the Afghan war began in 2001, comes at the start of a campaign to impose government control on rebel-held areas before U.S. forces start a planned 2011 withdrawal.

U.S. Marines came under intense fire on Sunday after taking over a building in the heart of the last major Taliban bastion in Helmand province.

Taliban fighters unleashed automatic gunfire at NATO helicopters flying in and out of the town of Marjah, and fired on Marines during a ceremony to raise the Afghan flag over the compound to mark progress in the offensive.

Captain Ryan Sparks compared the intensity of the fighting to the U.S.-led offensive against militants in the Iraqi town of Fallujah in 2004.

"In Fallujah, it was just as intense. But there, we started from the north and worked down to the south. In Marjah, we're coming in from different locations and working toward the center, so we're taking fire from all angles," Sparks said.

INVESTIGATION INTO DEATHS

NATO forces had advised civilians not to leave their homes, although they have said they do not know whether the assault will lead to heavy fighting.

Heavy civilian casualties could put them under pressure from human rights groups, who say that since NATO has encouraged people to stay, it bears an additional legal and moral responsibility to avoid heavy fighting that would harm them.

Most of the population of the area, estimated at up to 100,000, has stayed put.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed sadness at the incident. He said a family was killed.

"Upon hearing the news, Hamid Karzai immediately ordered an investigation as he had previously ordered that the operation should be carefully done to prevent innocent civilians being killed," a statement from the president's office said.

Unlike Fallujah, where massive U.S. firepower demolished the city and left great bitterness against the U.S.-backed Iraqi government, the Marjah assault aims to eliminate militants while building goodwill for Afghan forces who will take over the area.

McChrystal has strongly emphasized precautions to avoid killing civilians, and the number of civilians killed by NATO troops has declined since he took command in mid-2009.

At the same time, U.S. commanders are under pressure to achieve decisive military gains this year to turn the tide in the war, before troops begin to withdraw.

As the flag incident demonstrated, it will not be easy.

"I have always dreamed of raising the Afghanistan flag over Marjah," said 22-year-old Afghan soldier Almast Khan, before Marines protecting the building started coming under fire.

MILITANTS KILLED

U.S. forces fired mortar rounds against a Taliban position, and the militants fired a round back which landed in the Marines' compound but failed to explode. The Marines responded by firing rockets at the suspected militant position.

Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said on the group's website it had launched direct attacks on NATO-led troops in several parts of Marjah and had surrounded some in one area.

Marjah has long been a breeding ground for insurgents and lucrative opium poppy cultivation, which Western countries say funds the insurgency. The scale of the problem was glaring at the compound taken over by the Marines.

Bags of drugs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars had been discovered, as were sacks of chemicals capable of producing 100 pounds of explosives, said Tim Coderre, a civilian adviser to Marine officials.

NATO commanders flagged the operation well before it kicked off, hoping to persuade the Taliban to flee and thereby avoid a prolonged and destructive fight that could anger residents.

But it gave militants time to lay mines, booby-traps and improvised explosives. NATO said troops had recovered 250 kg of ammonium nitrate, used for making explosive, detonation cord and various other bomb-making ingredients during searches.

The 15,000-troop NATO operation is named Mushtarak, or "together," suggesting that NATO and Afghan forces are determined to work closely to restore stability to Afghanistan.

The Last Station: Surging Into the Savage Past in Afghanistan

2010-02-14T13:22:00.000-08:00

It is February 14, 2010. My name is Martha Rose Crow and I am a Mystic. I had a 'near-death' experience on August 29, 1999 and in this Experience, I went on a long, Dantean Journey into the Future. Since I came back, everything I saw has either come true or is coming true. The surge that is coming up will be a BLOODBATH. Bodies and broken bodies will come back to America in droves. The American People will be aghast but there is more blood to come. Unless the American People band together to stop it, there will be a WAR IN IRAN. This war will kills us all!!!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Last-Station-Surging-by-Chris-Floyd-100213-684.html

February 13, 2010
By Chris Floyd

I.
The current Nobel Peace laureate is continuing his noble and inspiring work of war this week in the latest PR blitz in Afghanistan: "Operation Moshtarak," the much-ballyhooed, extravagantly telegraphed "attack" on the city of Marja. Is it even worth discussing this monstrous sham? The perpetrators of the attack know full well that there will be no "battle." Even the American commanders cannot be so sealed in their arrogant ignorance that they do not know their insurgent opponents will do what every guerrilla army does when facing concentrations of conventional military force: disperse into the countryside, and into the urban populace, biding their time until the occupiers draw down their forces -- and in the meantime launching small ambushes with sniper fire and roadside bombs aimed at the sitting-duck cannon fodder placed in harm's way by their publicity-driven commanders.

And yet, the Western media has fully bought into the hackneyed, transparently false narrative of "the largest military operation of its kind since the American-backed war began eight years ago," with a plucky band of Marines and their faithful Afghan allies facing down "hundreds" of hardened fighters in the "largest Taliban sanctuary inside Afghanistan." The embedded media tracked the countdown to the attack as if they were hunkered down in the landing craft on their way to Omaha Beach. Except, of course, when one is genuinely planning an actual major attack on a strong, entrenched enemy -- as at Omaha Beach -- one does not normally advertise it around the clock for weeks on end beforehand.

If, however, one is attempting to galvanize public support for a long, grinding, bloody war of domination and occupation that has no discernible purpose (none that can be stated in public, anyway), why then, a nice set-piece "battle" which will end in a guaranteed, low-cost "victory" is just the ticket. It will demonstrate that the "new and improved" strategy of your "new and improved" president is "working," and that we are "winning" -- so we can't quit now!

This is of course the same message conveyed many years -- and many thousands of lives -- ago by the fall of Kabul, the "conquest" of Kandahar, and other great triumphs that "cleaned out" the various "largest Taliban sanctuar[ies] inside Afghanistan." But as any ad man can tell you, a commercial brand needs to be refreshed periodically in order to keep pulling in the profits. And the Afghan War brand has been a veritable bonanza, a cornucopia of contracts, corruption, profiteering and political pull for all of the interested parties involved: the various militaries and security apparats (and their contractors), the political elites, the many insurgent factions (loosely and falsely given the single rubric "Taliban"), the warlords, the druglords, organized crime, violent religious extremists -- in short, all those who traffic in hate, death, conflict and fear.

Or as "retired American military officer working in security in Afghanistan" put it to Nir Rosen in Mother Jones:

"Every time our boys face them, we win," he told me grimly. "We're winning every day. Are we going to keep winning for 20 years?"
Yes, mister retired American military officer, that is indeed the plan -- if they can swing it:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb. 17, 2017 -- President David Petraeus' "New Way Forward" in the Af-Pak War got off to a rousing start today as a combined force of U.S. Marines and Frontier paramilitaries launched a new 'warfighter/nationbuilder' offensive against this stonghold of Taliban insurgency. The attack is seen as a vital test of what the president has called his "Counterinsurgency 2.0" strategy, an updating of the highly successful approach that President Petraeus implemented in Iraq, where the 75,000 remaining U.S. advisors and trainers recently marked the 10th anniversary of his victorious surge.....
II.
The true context of the present operation, and the many that preceded it, and the many that will follow it, was put in stark relief by Scott Horton at Harper's last week, when he did us the great service of posting an excerpt from the correspondence between Lev Tolstoy and Mohandas Gandhi. The exchanges between the young Hindu lawyer and the aging Russian writer burn with a moral fervor and compassion that in our day seem to have come from another planet, not just another century. Here is an excerpt from that excerpt, taken from a letter that Tolstoy wrote (in his strong if imperfect English) just weeks before his death in 1910:

The longer I live especially now when I clearly feel the approach of death the more I feel moved to express what I feel more strongly than anything else, and what in my opinion is of immense importance, namely, what we call the renunciation of all opposition by force, which really simply means the doctrine of the law of love unperverted by sophistries. ...

This law was announced by all the philosophies Indian as well as Chinese, and Jewish, Greek and Roman. Most clearly, I think, was it announced by Christ, who said explicitly that on it hang all the Law and the Prophets. More than that, foreseeing the distortion that has hindered its recognition and may always hinder it, he specially indicated the danger of a misrepresentation that presents itself to men living by worldly interests namely, that they may claim a right to defend their interests by force or, as he expressed it, to repay blow by blow and recover stolen property by force, etc., etc. He knew, as all reasonable men must do, that any employment of force is incompatible with love as the highest law of life, and that as soon as the use of force appears permissible even in a single case, the law itself is immediately negatived.

The whole of Christian civilization, outwardly so splendid, has grown up on this strange and flagrantpartly intentional but chiefly unconsciousmisunderstanding and contradiction. At bottom, however, the law of love is, and can be, no longer valid if defence by force is set up beside it. And if once the law of love is not valid, then there remains no law except the right of might. In that state Christendom has lived for 1,900 years. Certainly men have always let themselves be guided by force as the main principle of their social order. ...

The clear-eyed idealism -- the belief in constant, relentless, non-violent resistance to evil -- that drove Tolstoy, Gandhi and their many spiritual descendants, such as Martin Luther King Jr., are now openly mocked, or else condescendingly discarded as quaint relics, unsuitable for our own tough, savvy times. We saw a prime example of this derision only a few months ago, when Barack Obama, the loudly self-proclaimed Christian, accepted his Nobel Peace Prize with a ringing endorsement of state violence on a massive, savage, overwhelming scale, and an explicit renunciation of non-violence. (For more, see "Miraculous Organ: Blair, Obama and the Narcissists' Defense")

How far we have travelled in the wretched century since Tolstoy's last letter to Gandhi -- a journey into the past, back to the caves, back to the dark forests, where "there remains no law except the right of might."

Shooting Fish in a Barrel in Helmand Province

2010-02-12T11:33:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Shooting-Fish-in-a-Barrel-by-Ralph-Lopez-100211-734.html

February 12, 2010
By Ralph Lopez

In the summer of 2006 journalist Ann Jones wrote in "The Road to Taliban Land"

Most Afghans, after the dispersal of the Taliban, were full of hope and ready to work. The tangible benefits of reconstruction -- jobs, housing, schools, health-care facilities -- could have rallied them to support the government and turn that illusory "democracy" into something like the real thing. But reconstruction didn't happen. When NATO-led forces moved into the southern provinces this summer to keep the peace and continue "development," Lieutenant-General David Richards, British commander of the operation, seemed astonished to find that little or no development had so far taken place.

After 5 or 6 years of literal starvation, in 2006 the Taliban insurgency once again began to take off. Previous to that, suicide bombings were nearly unheard of, but the Taliban's promised wage of $10 per day became sorely tempting. Even former commander of US forces in Afghanistan, and now ambassador the country General Karl Eikenberry told the House Armed Services Committee in 2007: "Much of the enemy force is drawn from the ranks of unemployed men looking for wages to support their families."

Today as the world's mightiest empire deploys its helicopter gunships, F-16s, and other fearsome weaponry on young "insurgents," the vast majority of which would rather not be there, something called "Afghan-ness" is being challenged, much to the delight of the war machine, which guarantees a fight and no surrender, no matter how they really feel about the Taliban. This seems to be the Falluja model unfolding, that way we have of making ourselves loved in the world by bombing people with no air force, deploying supersonic jets at combatants armed with what might as well be slingshots against the jets. AP today reports "US troops close Taliban escape route before attack," which means, it's going to be a turkey shoot.

Make no mistake. I have friends on that American battle line this very moment, one of who told me, for all the money we spend there "we could hire the whole damned country."

"I'm pissed," he said.

No one wants this but the generals. Pull back. If the point is to empty the Taliban from the town, than why seal the escape routes? AP says:

"NATO officials say the goal is to seize the town quickly and re-establish Afghan government authority, bringing public services in hopes of winning support of the townspeople once the Taliban are gone."

So what does it matter how they are gone? It's because the point is not to get them gone to show the villagers a better life. The point is to get the cycle of revenge stoked for a long war. All they need to do is surrender. But they won't now, being Afghans. These are the same people who could be our best friends in the "war on terror," if we weren't so busy making them hate us.

Please go to Robert Naiman's End the War in Afghanistan Action Page and send an email to your representatives. The diarist is the co-founder of Jobs for Afghans.

U.S. Inches Closer to Major Afghan Assault

2010-02-11T14:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/10/world/main6194408.shtml

KABUL, Feb. 10, 2010
U.S. Inches Closer to Major Afghan Assault
U.S. Marines are preparing a massive full-scale invasion against the Taliban which will consist of over 30,000 American and NATO troops in the Afghanistan town of Marjah. Mandy Clark reports.

(CBS/ AP) U.S. Marines fired smoke rounds Wednesday and armored vehicles maneuvered close to Taliban positions to test insurgent defenses ahead of an anticipated attack on the biggest militant-controlled town in southern Afghanistan.

A NATO spokesman in Brussels called on Taliban militants holding Marjah to surrender. But a Taliban spokesman boasted that the militants were prepared to "sacrifice their lives" to defend the town against the biggest NATO-Afghan offensive of the eight-year war.

The date for the main attack by thousands of Marines and Afghan soldiers has not been announced for security reasons. However, preparations have accelerated in recent days, and it appeared the assault would come soon.

Unlike previous military offensives here, coalition forces are telegraphing their punch, dropping thousands of pamphlets warning civilians to distance themselves from Taliban fighters, reports CBS News correspondent Mandy Clark.

Marjah Marines Brace for Offensive
U.S. Tightens Noose around Taliban Town

U.S. mortar crews fired two dozen smoke rounds Wednesday at Taliban positions on the outskirts of the farming community, a center of the opium poppy trade about 380 miles (610 kilometers) southwest of Kabul in Helmand province. Marine armored vehicles also drove closer to Taliban positions. Both moves are designed to lure the militants into shooting back and thus reveal their positions. The Marines did draw small arms fire but suffered no casualties.

"Deception is pretty important because it allows us to test the enemy's resistance," said Lt. Col. Brian Christmas, the commander of 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines Regiment. "There's a strategy to all this show of muscle."

The U.S. goal is to quickly retake control of Marjah to enable the Afghan government to re-establish a presence. Plans call for civilian workers move quickly to restore electricity, clean water and other public services in hopes of weaning the inhabitants away from the Taliban.

Civilians could be seen fleeing their mud brick farming compounds on the outskirts of Marjah as soon as the American and Afghan forces appeared, though vast numbers do not seem to be leaving. The moves did not draw much of a response from the fighters, who appeared to be waiting behind defensive lines for the Marines to come closer to the town.

To the north, a joint U.S.-Afghan force, led by the U.S. Army's 5th Stryker Brigade, pushed into the Badula Qulp region of Helmand province to restrict Taliban movement in support the Marjah offensive.

But bombs planted along a canal road slowed progress of a convoy Wednesday, damaging two mine-clearing vehicles and delaying the Stryker infantry carriers and Afghan vehicles from advancing for hours. There were no casualties.

"It's a little slower than I had hoped," said Lt. Col. Burton Shields, commanding officer of the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment.

Shields said the joint force was facing "harassing attacks" by groups of seven to nine insurgents.

"They're trying to buy time to move their leaders out of the area," he said.

U.S. officers estimate between 400 and 1,000 Taliban and up to 150 foreign fighters are holding Marjah, which is believed to have a population of about 80,000. It's unclear how many of them will defend the town to the end and how many will give up once the main assault begins.

In Brussels, a NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the Taliban garrison in Marjah had the options of surrendering, leaving or fighting, adding they "are well advised to take up options one or two."

"The area which is the focus of this operation has been known for years as an insurgent stronghold. It is actively defended and will require a large military operation to clear," he said.

Marjah is key to Taliban control of vast areas of Helmand province, which borders Pakistan and is major center for Afghanistan's illicit poppy cultivation, which NATO believes helps finance the insurgency.

Officials said Afghan soldiers and police would join the operation in greater numbers than in any previous one. Appathurai said the offensive was designed to show that the Afghan government can establish its authority anywhere in the country and "will establish a better life to the people who are there."

But Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi scoffed at NATO threats, saying American and Afghan forces would face a hard fight to take Marjah.

"The Taliban are ready to fight, to do jihad, to sacrifice their lives. American forces cannot scare the Taliban with big tanks and big warplanes," Ahmadi told The Associated Press by telephone. "American forces are here in Afghanistan just to create problems for Afghan people. This operation is to create problems for the villagers in winter weather."

So far, there are few signs of a major exodus of civilians from Marjah, although U.S. aircraft have been dropping leaflets in the town for days warning of the offensive. Some residents contacted by telephone said the Taliban were preventing people from leaving, telling them it was unsafe because the roads had been mined.

Helmand provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi said about 300 families — or an estimated 1,800 people — have already moved out of Marjah in recent weeks to the capital of Lashkar Gah, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) northeast.

Most moved in with relatives but about 60 families are sheltering in a school, where the government provides them with tents, blankets, food and other items. Ahmadi said preparations have been made to receive more refugees if necessary.

NATO to Innocent Afghan Villagers: 'Keep Your Heads Down' by Peter Graff

2010-02-11T11:39:00.000-08:00

Stay inside and keep your head down when DU (Depleted Uranium) bullets can rip through houses as fast as superman? There's gonna be a lot of casualties and staying inside and keeping your head down won't save you. A stiff bullet has no conscience!!!

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6181IP20100209

February 9, 2010 by Reuters
NATO to Innocent Afghan Villagers: 'Keep Your Heads Down'
by Peter Graff

KABUL - Afghan villagers should stay inside and "keep their heads down" when thousands of U.S. Marines launch a massive assault on a densely-populated district in coming days, NATO's civilian representative to Afghanistan said Tuesday.
U.S.-led NATO forces are planning one of the 8-year-old war's biggest offensives to seize Marjah, a patchwork of desert canals and opium fields that is now the last large Taliban-held bastion in Helmand, Afghanistan's most violent province.

A U.S. Marine cleans his weapon at a company operation base (COB) in Afghanistan. Under international law, NATO forces are obliged to provide humanitarian assistance to anyone who chooses to flee the assault, said Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch.

Having advised civilians to stay instead -- helping ensure the area remains heavily populated during the offensive -- NATO forces bear an extra responsibility to control their fire and avoid tactics that endanger civilians. (Baz/Getty)

The assault, the first since U.S. President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan in December, is the start of a campaign to impose government control on rebel-held areas this year, before U.S. forces start to draw down in 2011.

Western countries hope military success this year will persuade Taliban fighters to lay down arms and their leaders to accept invitations to talk.

Hundreds of civilians have fled, but most of the area's population, estimated at up to 100,000, remain in their homes in the face of what could be an unprecedented level of fighting.

NATO civilian representative Mark Sedwill said "sufficient" plans were in place to feed and house any civilians who flee, but declined to give details of how many displaced people NATO or the Afghan authorities had the capacity to assist.

"There are good reasons not to go into the exact numbers of details of the operation at this stage," Sedwill, a former British ambassador who arrived this week to take up the beefed-up post of chief NATO civilian in Kabul, told a news briefing.

"What we can say is that we are confident there are sufficient resources there to accommodate and feed anybody who chooses to leave the area," he said.

Helmand's governor, Gulab Mangal, said so far about 164 families have fled the area in recent days. A commission had been set up that has the capability to cope with any crisis, he said.

NATO forces have decided to advise civilians in Marjah not to leave their homes, although they say they do not know whether the assault will lead to heavy fighting.

HEADS DOWN, STAY INSIDE

"The message to the people of the area is of course, keep your heads down, stay inside when the operation is going ahead," Sedwill said.

"We very much hope that the military phase of this operation will go ahead swiftly and with as little incident as possible. This of course very much depends on the conduct of those people who are in Marjah at the moment, their choices about whether to resist or to lay down their weapons."

Unlike previous military operations, the assault on Marjah has been widely flagged for months. Commanders say they hope this will persuade many fighters to lay down their arms or flee, reducing the eventual death toll.

Civilians who have left the area, however, report that fighters are digging in and preparing for battle.

Under international law, NATO forces are obliged to provide humanitarian assistance to anyone who chooses to flee the assault, said Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch.

Having advised civilians to stay instead -- helping ensure the area remains heavily populated during the offensive -- they bear an extra responsibility to control their fire and avoid tactics that endanger civilians.

"I suspect that they believe they have the ability to generally distinguish between combatants and civilians. I would call that into question, given their long history of mistakes, particularly when using air power," Adams said.

"Whatever they do, they have an obligation to protect civilians and make adequate provision to alleviate any crisis that arises," he said. "It is very much their responsibility.... They are going to be carrying the can if this goes badly."

Lifting the Veil on US Troops in Pakistan

2010-02-11T11:35:00.000-08:00

Reveals the 'War in Afghanistan' also means Pakistan! The Pakistanis haven't done anything to deserve this! Neither has Afghanistan or the rest of the countries in the region. Can we say dreaming, elite hard-ons of E-M-P-I-R-E are behind this?

http://lauraflanders.firedoglake.com/2010/02/08/the-f-word-us-pakistan-troops/

February 9, 2010 by GRITtv
by Laura Flanders

“The deaths of three American soldiers in a Taliban suicide attack on Wednesday lifted the veil on United States military assistance to Pakistan.” So began a Feb 4th piece by Jane Perlez in the New York Times.

But even all these days on, it’s been a very discreet unveiling.

Lest we forget, US servicepeople are not supposed to be dying in Pakistan. It’s not Iraq, it’s not Afghanistan. There’s no agreement for combat troops to operate. Until recently, U.S. officials have repeatedly officially denied having any combat troops in place. This month’s killing exposed that lie — so what were the US troops doing there?

What we’ve learned so far is the soldiers were part of what federal officials say is a small contingent of American soldiers who’ve been training Pakistan’s army for 18 months now.

As the Times puts it, “the trainings has been acknowledged only gingerly by both the Americans and the Pakistanis…..so as not to trespass onto Pakistani sensitivities about sovereignty and not to further inflame high anti-American sentiment.”

For a taste of that gingerly-acknowledging, read the Times story. In more than 1, 000 words Perlez quotes roughly a dozen sources, all but two of them US officials, or Pakistanis working implicitly or explicitly with the US embassy. Of two non-official sources, one makes the obvious point:

The American soldiers were probably made targets as a result of the drone strikes, said Syed Rifaat Hussain, professor of international relations at Islamabad University. “The attack seems a payback for the mounting frequency of the drone attacks,” Professor Hussain said.

It’s an obvious point because the Pakistani press and local activists have been making it loudly, n the press and in street protests for months now. In the same week that Perlez’s piece appeared, the country’s English daily, The News, ran a long editorial on the rapid increase in US drone attacks, making the point that roughly 41 civilians have been killed for every alleged Al Qaeda or Taliban target.

The Taliban’s rewarding its fighters with new cars when they bring down US drones — “The shooting down of the drone has lifted the morale of our fighters. It’s a huge success for the poorly armed Taliban against a powerful enemy,” remarked a senior Taliban commander, at the car-award ceremony.

Among the Pakistani public, surveys constantly show that Pakistanis consider the US a greater threat than the Taliban, despite 3,021 Pakistani deaths in terrorist attacks last year. If the drones are controversial, the presence of US soldiers on Pakistani soil is far more so.

If the US war is quietly shifting, it’s not quiet inside Pakistan. People are kicking up a stink. Yet Perlez’s piece, which is bylined Islamabad, reads more like an Embassy hand-out than a Pulitzer Prize-winner’s research. Times readers get only the barest whiff of local reaction, and that may be the most dangerous strike yet.

The 700 Military Bases of Afghanistan: Black Sites in the Empire of Bases

2010-02-10T10:21:00.000-08:00

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175204/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_america%27s_shadowy_base_world/

Nick Turse
TomDispatch
Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:00 EST

An Introduction by Tom Engelhardt:

Once is an anomaly; twice is the beginning of a pattern. Right now, we're seeing the same sequence of events for the second time in less than a decade, and it looks like the signature American way of war in our time is coming into focus.

In 2003, when the Bush administration invaded Iraq, the Pentagon already had on its drawing boards plans for building a series of permanent mega-bases in that country. (They were charmingly called "enduring camps.") Once Baghdad fell and it turned out that, Saddam Hussein or no, the U.S. was going to have to fight rather than settle in and let the good times roll, hundreds of micro-bases were added to the mega ones -- 106 of them by 2005, more than 300 in all. Then, in 2005, Washington decided to trade in its embassy in one of Saddam's old palaces for something a little spiffier. In its place, on a 104-acre plot by the Tigris River in the middle of Baghdad, for at least three-quarters of a billion dollars after cost overruns, it built the largest, most expensive embassy on the planet. It was planned for a staff of 1,000 "diplomats" with all the accoutrements of the good life and plenty of hired help. (Even now, despite much discussion about "ending" the American role in Iraq, further plans are reportedly being made for the embassy's staff to double.) This was clearly to be U.S. mission control for the Greater Middle East.

Building of this expansive kind is, of course, a staggering imperial undertaking. It implies a global power with resources beyond measure, for which waste means nothing. The mega-bases and the embassy were, in that sense, American wonders of the world, our own ziggurat-equivalents in Mesopotamia, right down to the multiple PXs, familiar fast food outlets, and miniature golf. No empire had ever launched a base-building program quite like it (if, that is, you leave out the precursor to this whole experience, the U.S. in Vietnam in the 1960s).

The Iraqi base-building project alone had already absorbed several billion taxpayer dollars in just the first half-year of construction in 2003. But it did look like a one-of-a-kind architectural adventure -- until, that is, the "forgotten war," the one in Afghanistan, came back into view. Starting in 2008, base building ramped up there, went into overdrive in 2009, and hasn't come out of it yet. The result: according to Nick Turse, author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, an even more staggering base-construction splurge, and with it, the announcement last year that another monster embassy would go up, this time in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, for another cool near-billion. (The already large U.S. embassy in the Afghan capital, Kabul, would also be further expanded to the tune of $175-200 million). And keep in mind that none of this even includes the huge ring of supporting bases for America's Afghan and Iraq operations in the Persian Gulf, South and Central Asia, and even on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Does anyone see a pattern here? The American military must be the heaviest occupation force in history. According to reports, it now has 1.5 million pieces of equipment, micro to mega, to get out of Iraq as U.S. forces draw down. This is war and occupation of Guinness World Records proportions, a veritable Ripley's Believe It Or Not of imperial military construction. The only thing that won't make the record books, of course, is the results: in war-fighting terms, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the world's mightiest military has been battled to at least a draw by rag-tag, lightly armed, minority insurgencies.

Who would believe any of this, if it weren't happening? Given how our media reports on such things, who would even know about it if you didn't read it first here at TomDispatch.com?

The 700 Military Bases of Afghanistan
Black Sites in the Empire of Bases
By Nick Turse

In the nineteenth century, it was a fort used by British forces. In the twentieth century, Soviet troops moved into the crumbling facilities. In December 2009, at this site in the Shinwar district of Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province, U.S. troops joined members of the Afghan National Army in preparing the way for the next round of foreign occupation. On its grounds, a new military base is expected to rise, one of hundreds of camps and outposts scattered across the country.

Nearly a decade after the Bush administration launched its invasion of Afghanistan, TomDispatch offers the first actual count of American, NATO, and other coalition bases there, as well as facilities used by the Afghan security forces. Such bases range from relatively small sites like Shinwar to mega-bases that resemble small American towns. Today, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one in Shinwar, are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom that began last year.

Existing in the shadows, rarely reported on and little talked about, this base-building program is nonetheless staggering in size and scope, and heavily dependent on supplies imported from abroad, which means that it is also extraordinarily expensive. It has added significantly to the already long secret list of Pentagon property overseas and raises questions about just how long, after the planned beginning of a drawdown of American forces in 2011, the U.S. will still be garrisoning Afghanistan.

400 Foreign Bases in Afghanistan

Colonel Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), tells TomDispatch that there are, at present, nearly 400 U.S. and coalition bases in Afghanistan, including camps, forward operating bases, and combat outposts. In addition, there are at least 300 Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) bases, most of them built, maintained, or supported by the U.S. A small number of the coalition sites are mega-bases like Kandahar Airfield, which boasts one of the busiest runways in the world, and Bagram Air Base, a former Soviet facility that received a makeover, complete with Burger King and Popeyes outlets, and now serves more than 20,000 U.S. troops, in addition to thousands of coalition forces and civilian contractors.

In fact, Kandahar, which housed 9,000 coalition troops as recently as 2007, is expected to have a population of as many as 35,000 troops by the time President Obama's surge is complete, according to Colonel Kevin Wilson who oversees building efforts in the southern half of Afghanistan for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. On the other hand, the Shinwar site, according to Sgt. Tracy J. Smith of the U.S. 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, will be a small forward operating base (FOB) that will host both Afghan troops and foreign forces.

Last fall, it was reported that more than $200 million in construction projects -- from barracks to cargo storage facilities -- were planned for or in-progress at Bagram. Substantial construction funds have also been set aside by the U.S. Air Force to upgrade its air power capacity at Kandahar. For example, $65 million has been allocated to build additional apron space (where aircraft can be parked, serviced, and loaded or unloaded) to accommodate more close-air support for soldiers in the field and a greater intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability. Another $61 million has also been earmarked for the construction of a cargo helicopter apron and a tactical airlift apron there.

Kandahar is just one of many sites currently being upgraded. Exact figures on the number of facilities being enlarged, improved, or hardened are unavailable but, according a spokesman for ISAF, the military plans to expand several more bases to accommodate the increase of troops as part of Afghan War commander Stanley McChrystal's surge strategy. In addition, at least 12 more bases are slated to be built to help handle the 30,000 extra American troops and thousands of NATO forces beginning to arrive in the country.

"Currently we have over $3 billion worth of work going on in Afghanistan," says Colonel Wilson, "and probably by the summer, when the dust settles from all the uplift, we'll have about $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion worth of that [in the South]." By comparison, between 2002 and 2008, the Army Corps of Engineers spent more than $4.5 billion on construction projects, most of it base-building, in Afghanistan.

At the site of the future FOB in Shinwar, more than 135 private construction contractors attended what was termed an "Afghan-Coalition contractors rodeo." According to Lieutenant Fernando Roach, a contracting officer with the U.S. Army's Task Force Mountain Warrior, the event was designed "to give potential contractors a walkthrough of the area so they'll have a solid overview of the scope of work." The construction firms then bid on three separate projects: the renovation of the more than 30-year old Soviet facilities, the building of new living quarters for Afghan and coalition forces, and the construction of a two-kilometer wall for the base.

In the weeks since the "rodeo," the U.S. Army has announced additional plans to upgrade facilities at other forward operating bases. At FOB Airborne, located near Kane-Ezzat in Wardak Province, for instance, the Army intends to put in reinforced concrete bunkers and blast protection barriers as well as lay concrete foundations for Re-Locatable Buildings (prefabricated, trailer-like structures used for living and working quarters). Similar work is also scheduled for FOB Altimur, an Army camp in Logar Province.

The Afghan Base Boom

Recently, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Afghanistan District-Kabul, announced that it would be seeking bids on "site assessments" for Afghan National Security Forces District Headquarters Facilities nationwide. The precise number of Afghan bases scattered throughout the country is unclear.

When asked by TomDispatch, Colonel Radmanish of the Afghan Ministry of Defense would state only that major bases were located in Kabul, Pakteya, Kandahar, Herat, and Mazar-e-Sharif, and that ANA units operate all across Afghanistan. Recent U.S. Army contracts for maintenance services provided to Afghan army and police bases, however, suggest that there are no fewer than 300 such facilities that are, according to an ISAF spokesman, not counted among the coalition base inventory.

As opposed to America's fast-food-franchise-filled bases, Afghan ones are often decidedly more rustic affairs. The police headquarters in Khost Farang District, Baghlan Province, is a good example. According to a detailed site assessment conducted by a local contractor for the Army Corps of Engineers and the Afghan government, the district headquarters consists of mud and stone buildings surrounded by a mud wall. The site even lacks a deep well for water. A trench fed by a nearby spring is the only convenient water source.

The U.S. bases that most resemble austere Afghan facilities are combat outposts, also known as COPs. Environmental Specialist Michael Bell of the Army Corps of Engineers, Afghanistan Engineer District-South's Real Estate Division, recently described the facilities and life on such a base as he and his co-worker, Realty Specialist Damian Salazar, saw it in late 2009:

"COP Sangar... is a compound surrounded by mud and straw walls. Tents with cots supplied the sleeping quarters... A medical, pharmacy and command post tent occupied the center of the COP, complete with a few computers with internet access and three primitive operating tables. Showers had just been installed with hot [water]... only available from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m...

"An MWR [Morale, Welfare and Recreation] tent was erected on Thanksgiving Day with an operating television; however, the tent was rarely used due to the cold. Most of the troops used a tent with gym equipment for recreation... A cook trailer provided a hot simple breakfast and supper. Lunch was MREs [meals ready to eat]. Nights were pitch black with no outside lighting from the base or the city."

What Makes a Base?

According to an official site assessment, future construction at the Khost Farang District police headquarters will make use of sand, gravel, and stone, all available on the spot. Additionally, cement, steel, bricks, lime, and gypsum have been located for purchase in Pol-e Khomri City, about 85 miles away.

Constructing a base for American troops, however, is another matter. For the far less modest American needs of American troops, builders rely heavily on goods imported over extremely long, difficult to traverse, and sometimes embattled supply lines, all of which adds up to an extraordinarily costly affair. "Our business runs on materials," Lieutenant General Robert Van Antwerp, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, told an audience at a town hall meeting in Afghanistan in December 2009. "You have to bring in the lumber, you have to bring in the steel, you have to bring in the containers and all that. Transport isn't easy in this country -- number one, the roads themselves, number two, coming through other countries to get here -- there are just huge challenges in getting the materials here."

To facilitate U.S. base construction projects, a new "virtual storefront" -- an online shopping portal -- has been launched by the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). The Maintenance, Repair and Operations Uzbekistan Virtual Storefront website and a defense contractor-owned and operated brick-and-mortar warehouse facility that supports it aim to provide regionally-produced construction materials to speed surge-accelerated building efforts.

From a facility located in Termez, Uzbekistan, cement, concrete, fencing, roofing, rope, sand, steel, gutters, pipe, and other construction material manufactured in countries like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan can be rushed to nearby Afghanistan to accelerate base-building efforts. "Having the products closer to the fight will make it easier for warfighters by reducing logistics response and delivery time," says Chet Evanitsky, the DLA's construction and equipment supply chain division chief.

America's Shadowy Base World

The Pentagon's most recent inventory of bases lists a total of 716 overseas sites. These include facilities owned and leased all across the Middle East as well as a significant presence in Europe and Asia, especially Japan and South Korea. Perhaps even more notable than the Pentagon's impressive public foreign property portfolio are the many sites left off the official inventory. While bases in the Persian Gulf countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates are all listed, one conspicuously absent site is Al-Udeid Air Base, a billion-dollar facility in nearby Qatar, where the U.S. Air Force secretly oversees its on-going unmanned drone wars.

The count also does not include any sites in Iraq where, as of August 2009, there were still nearly 300 American bases and outposts. Similarly, U.S. bases in Afghanistan -- a significant percentage of the 400 foreign sites scattered across the country -- are noticeably absent from the Pentagon inventory.

Counting the remaining bases in Iraq -- as many as 50 are slated to be operating after President Barack Obama's August 31, 2010, deadline to remove all U.S. "combat troops" from the country -- and those in Afghanistan, as well as black sites like Al-Udeid, the total number of U.S. bases overseas now must significantly exceed 1,000. Just exactly how many U.S. military bases (and allied facilities used by U.S. forces) are scattered across the globe may never be publicly known. What we do know -- from the experience of bases in Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea -- is that, once built, they have a tendency toward permanency that a cessation of hostilities, or even outright peace, has a way of not altering.

After nearly a decade of war, close to 700 U.S., allied, and Afghan military bases dot Afghanistan. Until now, however, they have existed as black sites known to few Americans outside the Pentagon. It remains to be seen, a decade into the future, how many of these sites will still be occupied by U.S. and allied troops and whose flag will be planted on the ever-shifting British-Soviet-U.S./Afghan site at Shinwar.

America's Secret Afghan Prisons

2010-02-03T14:03:00.000-08:00

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100215/gopal/print

by ANAND GOPAL
This article appeared in the February 15, 2010 edition of The Nation.
January 28, 2010

The research for this story was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. This article also appears online at TomDispatch.com. You can listen to an interview with Anand Gopal here.

One quiet, wintry night last year in the eastern Afghan town of Khost, a young government employee named Ismatullah simply vanished. He had last been seen in the town's bazaar with a group of friends. Family members scoured Khost's dusty streets for days. Village elders contacted Taliban commanders in the area who were wont to kidnap government workers, but they had never heard of the young man. Even the governor got involved, ordering his police to round up nettlesome criminal gangs that sometimes preyed on young bazaargoers for ransom.

But the hunt turned up nothing. Spring and summer came and went with no sign of Ismatullah. Then one day, long after the police and village elders had abandoned their search, a courier delivered a neat handwritten note on Red Cross stationery to the family. In it, Ismatullah informed them that he was in Bagram, an American prison more than 200 miles away. US forces had picked him up while he was on his way home from the bazaar, the terse letter stated, and he didn't know when he would be freed.
In the past few years Pashtun villagers in Afghanistan's rugged heartland have begun to lose faith in the American project. Many of them can point to the precise moment of this transformation, and it usually took place in the dead of night, when most of the country was fast asleep. In its attempt to stamp out the growing Taliban insurgency and Al Qaeda, the US military has been arresting suspects and sending them to one of a number of secret detention areas on military bases, often on the slightest suspicion and without the knowledge of their families. These night raids have become even more feared and hated in Afghanistan than coalition airstrikes. The raids and detentions, little known or understood outside the Pashtun villages, have been turning Afghans against the very forces many of them greeted as liberators just a few years ago.

One Dark Night in November

November 19, 2009, 3:15 am. A loud blast woke the villagers of a leafy neighborhood outside Ghazni, a city of ancient provenance in the country's south. A team of US soldiers burst through the front gate of the home of Majidullah Qarar, the spokesman for Afghanistan's agriculture minister. Qarar was in Kabul at the time, but his relatives were home, four of them sleeping in the family's one-room guesthouse. One of them, Hamidullah, who sold carrots at the local bazaar, ran toward the door of the guesthouse. He was immediately shot but managed to crawl back inside, leaving a trail of blood behind him. Then Azim, a baker, darted toward his injured cousin. He, too, was shot and crumpled to the floor. The fallen men cried out to the two relatives--both of them children--remaining in the room. But they refused to move, glued to their beds in silent horror.

The foreign soldiers, most of them tattooed and bearded, then went on to the main compound. They threw clothes on the floor, smashed dinner plates and forced open closets. Finally they found the man they were looking for: Habib-ur-Rahman, a computer programmer and government employee. Rahman was responsible for converting Microsoft Windows from English to the local Pashto language so that government offices could use the software. The Afghan translator accompanying the soldiers said they were acting on a tip that Rahman was a member of Al Qaeda.

They took the barefoot Rahman and a cousin to a helicopter some distance away and transported them to a small American base in a neighboring province for interrogation. After two days, US forces released Rahman's cousin. But Rahman has not been seen or heard from since.

"We've called his phone, but it doesn't answer," said his cousin Qarar, the agriculture minister's spokesman. Using his powerful connections, Qarar enlisted local police, parliamentarians, the governor and even the agriculture minister himself in the search for his cousin, but they turned up nothing. Government officials who independently investigated the scene in the aftermath of the raid and corroborated the claims of the family also pressed for an answer as to why two of Qarar's family members were killed. American forces issued a statement saying that the dead were "enemy militants [who] demonstrated hostile intent."

Weeks after the raid, the family remains bitter. "Everyone in the area knew we were a family that worked for the government," Qarar said. "Rahman couldn't even leave the city, because if the Taliban caught him in the countryside they would have killed him."

Beyond the question of Rahman's guilt or innocence, it's how he was taken that has left such a residue of hatred among his family. "Did they have to kill my cousins? Did they have to destroy our house?" Qarar asked. "They knew where Rahman worked. Couldn't they have at least tried to come with a warrant in the daytime? We would have forced Rahman to comply."

"I used to go on TV and argue that people should support this government and the foreigners," he added. "But I was wrong. Why should anyone do so? I don't care if I get fired for saying it, but that's the truth."

The Dogs of War

Night raids are only the first step in the American detention process in Afghanistan. Suspects are usually sent to one of a series of prisons on US military bases around the country. There are officially nine such jails, called Field Detention Sites in military parlance. They are small holding areas, often just a clutch of cells divided by plywood, and are mainly used for prisoner interrogations.

In the early years of the war, these were but way stations for those en route to Bagram prison, a facility with a notorious reputation for abusive behavior. As a spotlight of international attention fell on Bagram in recent years, wardens there cleaned up their act, and the mistreatment of prisoners began to shift to the little-noticed Field Detention Sites.

Of the twenty-four former detainees interviewed for this article, seventeen claim to have been abused at or en route to these sites. Doctors, government officials and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, an independent Afghan body mandated by the Afghan Constitution to investigate abuse allegations, corroborate twelve of these claims.

One of these former detainees is Noor Agha Sher Khan, who used to be a police officer in Gardez, a mud-caked town in the eastern part of the country. According to Sher Khan, American forces detained him in a night raid in 2003 and brought him to a Field Detention Site at a nearby US base. "They interrogated me the whole night," he recalled, "but I had nothing to tell them." Sher Khan worked for a police commander whom US forces had detained on suspicion of having ties to the insurgency. He had occasionally acted as a driver for this commander, which made him suspicious in American eyes.

The interrogators blindfolded him, taped his mouth shut and chained him to the ceiling, he alleges. Occasionally they unleashed a dog, which repeatedly bit him. At one point they removed the blindfold and forced him to kneel on a long wooden bar. "They tied my hands to a pulley [above] and pushed me back and forth as the bar rolled across my shins. I screamed and screamed." They then pushed him to the ground and forced him to swallow twelve bottles of water. "Two people held my mouth open, and they poured water down my throat until my stomach was full and I became unconscious," he said. "It was as if someone had inflated me." After he was roused, he vomited uncontrollably.

This continued for a number of days. Sometimes he was hung upside down from the ceiling, other times he was blindfolded for extended periods. Eventually he was moved to Bagram, where the torture ceased. Four months later he was quietly released, with a letter of apology from US authorities for wrongfully imprisoning him.

An investigation of Sher Khan's case by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and an independent doctor found that he had wounds consistent with the abusive treatment he alleges. American forces have declined to comment on the specifics of his case, but a spokesman said that some soldiers involved in detentions in this part of the country had been given unspecified "administrative punishments." He added that "all detainees are treated humanely," except for isolated cases.

The Disappeared

Some of those taken to the Field Detention Sites are deemed innocuous and never sent to Bagram. Even then, some allege abuse. Such was the case with Hajji Ehsanullah, snatched one winter night in 2008 from his home in the southern province of Zabul. He was taken to a detention site in Khost Province, some 200 miles away. He returned home thirteen days later, his skin scarred by dog bites and with memory difficulties that, according to his doctor, resulted from a blow to the head. American forces had dropped him off at a gas station in Khost after three days of interrogation. It took him ten more days to find his way home.

Others taken to these sites seem to have disappeared entirely. In the hardscrabble villages of the Pashtun south, where rumors grow more abundantly than the most bountiful crop, locals whisper tales of people who were captured and executed. Most have no evidence. But occasionally a body turns up. Such was the case at a detention site on a US military base in Helmand Province, where in 2003 a US military coroner wrote in the autopsy report of a detainee who died in US custody (later made available through the Freedom of Information Act): "Death caused by the multiple blunt force injuries to the lower torso and legs complicated by rhabdomyolysis (release of toxic byproducts into the system due to destruction of muscle). Manner of death is homicide."

In the dust-swept province of Khost one day this past December, US forces launched a night raid on the village of Motai, killing six people and capturing nine, according to nearly a dozen local government authorities and witnesses. Two days later, the bodies of two of those detained--plastic cuffs binding their hands--were found more than a mile from the largest US base in the area. A US military spokesman denies any involvement in the deaths and declines to comment on the details of the raid. Local Afghan officials and tribal elders steadfastly maintain that the two were killed while in US custody. American authorities released four other villagers in subsequent days. The fate of the three remaining captives is unknown.

The matter could be cleared up if the US military were less secretive about its detention process. But secrecy has been the order of the day. The nine Field Detention Sites are enveloped in a blanket of official secrecy, but at least the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations are aware of them. There may, however, be other sites whose existence on the scores of US and Afghan military bases that dot the country have not been disclosed. One example, according to former detainees, is a detention facility at Rish-Khor, an Afghan army base that sits atop a mountain overlooking the capital, Kabul.

One night last year US forces raided Zaiwalat, a tiny village that fits snugly into the mountains of Wardak Province, a few dozen miles west of Kabul, and netted nine locals. They brought the captives to Rish-Khor and interrogated them for three days. "They kept us in a container," recalled Rehmatullah Muhammad, one of the nine. "It was made of steel. We were handcuffed for three days continuously. We barely slept those days." The plain-clothed interrogators accused Muhammad and the others of giving food and shelter to the Taliban. The suspects were then sent to Bagram and released after four months. (A number of former detainees said they were interrogated by plainclothed officials, but they did not know if these officials belonged to the military, the CIA or private contractors.)

Afghan human rights campaigners worry that US forces may be using secret detention sites like the one allegedly at Rish-Khor to carry out interrogations away from prying eyes. The US military, however, denies even having knowledge of the facility.

The Black Jail

Much less secret is the final stop for most captives: the Bagram Theater Internment Facility. These days ominously dubbed "Obama's Guantánamo," Bagram nonetheless now offers the best conditions for captives during the entire detention process.

Its modern life as a prison began in 2002, when small numbers of detainees from throughout Asia were incarcerated there on the first leg of an odyssey that would eventually bring them to the US detention facility in Guantánamo, Cuba. In later years, however, it became the main destination for those caught within Afghanistan as part of the growing war there. By 2009 the inmate population had swelled to more than 700. Housed in a windowless old Soviet hangar, the prison consists of two rows of serried, cagelike cells bathed continuously in light. Guards walk along a platform that runs across the mesh tops of the pens, an easy position from which to supervise the prisoners below.

Regular, even infamous, abuse in the style of Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison marked Bagram's early years. Abdullah Mujahid, for example, was apprehended in the village of Kar Marchi in the eastern province of Paktia in 2003. Although Mujahid was a Tajik militia commander who had led an armed uprising against the Taliban in their waning days, US forces accused him of having ties to the insurgency. "In Bagram we were handcuffed, blindfolded and had our feet chained for days," he recalled. "They didn't allow us to sleep at all for thirteen days and nights." A guard would strike his legs every time he dozed off. Daily, he could hear the screams of tortured inmates and the unmistakable sound of shackles dragging across the floor.

Then one day a team of soldiers dragged him to an aircraft but refused to tell him where he was going. Eventually he landed at another prison, where the air felt thick and wet. As he walked through the row of cages, inmates began to shout, "This is Guantánamo! You are in Guantánamo!" He would learn there that he was accused of leading the Pakistani Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (which in reality was led by another person who had the same name and who died in 2006). The United States eventually released him and returned him to Afghanistan.

Former Bagram detainees allege that they were regularly beaten, subjected to blaring music twenty-four hours a day, prevented from sleeping, stripped naked and forced to assume what interrogators term "stress positions." The nadir came in late 2002, when interrogators beat two inmates to death.

According to former detainees and organizations that work with them, the US Special Forces also run a second, secret prison somewhere on Bagram Air Base that the Red Cross still does not have access to. Used primarily for interrogations, it is so feared by prisoners that they have dubbed it the "Black Jail."

One day two years ago, US forces came to get Noor Muhammad outside the town of Kajaki in the southern province of Helmand. Muhammad, a physician, was running a clinic that served all comers, including the Taliban. The soldiers raided his clinic and his home, killing five people (including two patients) and detaining both his father and him. The next day villagers found the handcuffed body of Muhammad's father, apparently killed by a gunshot.

The soldiers took Muhammad to the Black Jail. "It was a tiny, narrow corridor, with lots of cells on both sides and a big steel gate and bright lights," he said. "We didn't know when it was night and when it was day." He was held in a windowless concrete room in solitary confinement. Soldiers regularly dragged him by his neck and refused him food and water. They accused him of providing medical care to the insurgents, to which he replied, "I am a doctor. It's my duty to provide care to every human being who comes to my clinic, whether they are Taliban or from the government."

Eventually Muhammad was released, but he has since closed his clinic and left his home village. "I am scared of the Americans and the Taliban," he said. "I'm happy my father is dead, so he doesn't have to experience this hell."

Afraid of the Dark

In the past two years American officials have moved to reform the main prison at Bagram, if not the Black Jail. Torture has stopped, and prison officials now boast that the typical inmate gains fifteen pounds while in custody. In the early months of this year, officials plan to open a dazzling new prison that will eventually replace Bagram, one with huge, airy cells, the latest medical equipment and rooms for vocational training. The Bagram prison itself will be handed over to the Afghans in the coming year, although the rest of the detention process will remain in US hands.

But human rights advocates say that concerns about the detention process remain. The US Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that inmates at Guantánamo cannot be stripped of their right to habeus corpus, but it stopped short of making the same argument for Bagram (officials say that since it is in the midst of a war zone, US civil rights legislation does not apply). Inmates there do not have access to a lawyer, as they do in Guantánamo. Most say they have no idea why they have been detained. They do now appear before a review panel every six months, which is intended to reassess their detention, but their ability to ask questions about their situation is limited. "I was only allowed to answer yes or no and not explain anything at my hearing," said former detainee Rehmatullah Muhammad.

Nonetheless, the improvement in Bagram's conditions begs the question: can the United States fight a cleaner war? That's what Afghan war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal promised last summer: fewer civilian casualties, fewer of the feared house raids and a more transparent detention process.

The American troops that operate under NATO command have begun to enforce stricter rules of engagement: they may now officially hold detainees for only ninety-six hours before transferring them to the Afghan authorities or freeing them, and Afghan forces must take the lead in house searches. American soldiers, when questioned, bristle at these restrictions--and have ways of circumventing them. "Sometimes we detain people, then, when the ninety-six hours are up, we transfer them to the Afghans," said one marine who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "They rough them up a bit for us and then send them back to us for another ninety-six hours. This keeps going until we get what we want."

A simpler way of dancing around the rules is to call in the Special Operations Forces--the Navy SEALs, Green Berets and others--which are not under NATO command and thus not bound by the stricter rules of engagement. These elite troops are behind most of the night raids and detentions in the search for "high-value suspects." Military officials say in interviews that the new restrictions have not affected the number of raids and detentions at all. The actual change, however, is more subtle: the detention process has shifted almost entirely to areas and actors that can best avoid public scrutiny--small field prisons and Special Operations Forces.

The shift signals a deeper reality of war, say American soldiers: you can't fight guerrillas without invasive raids and detentions, any more than you can fight them without bullets. Seen through the eyes of a US soldier, Afghanistan is a scary place. The men are bearded and turbaned. They pray incessantly. In most of the country, women are barred from leaving the house. Many Afghans own an assault rifle. "You can't trust anyone," said Rodrigo Arias, a marine based in the northeastern province of Kunar. "I've nearly been killed in ambushes, but the villagers don't tell us anything. But they usually know something."

An officer who has worked in the Field Detention Sites says that it takes dozens of raids to turn up a useful suspect. "Sometimes you've got to bust down doors. Sometimes you've got to twist arms. You have to cast a wide net, but when you get the right person, it makes all the difference."

For Arias, it's a matter of survival. "I want to go home in one piece. If that means rounding people up, then round them up." To question this, he said, is to question whether the war itself is worth fighting. "That's not my job. The people in Washington can figure that out."

If night raids and detentions are an unavoidable part of modern counterinsurgency warfare, then so is the resentment they breed. "We were all happy when the Americans first came. We thought they would bring peace and stability," said Rehmatullah Muhammad. "But now most people in my village want them to leave." A year after Muhammad was released, his nephew was detained. Two months later, some other residents of Zaiwalat were seized. It has become a predictable pattern in Muhammad's village: Taliban forces ambush American convoys as they pass through it, and then retreat into the thick fruit orchards nearby. The Americans return at night to pick up suspects. In the past two years, sixteen people have been taken and ten killed in night raids in this single village of about 300, according to villagers. In the same period, they say, the insurgents killed one local and did not take anyone hostage.

The people of Zaiwalat now fear the night raids more than the Taliban. There are nights when Muhammad's children hear the distant thrum of a helicopter and rush into his room. He consoles them but admits he needs solace himself. "I know I should be too old for it," he said, "but this war has made me afraid of the dark."

Why We Should Get Out Of Afghanistan

2010-02-03T10:55:00.000-08:00

http://www.globalpost.com/webblog/diplomacy/quotwhy-we-should-get-out-afghanistanquot

STOP THE WAR COALITION Meeting 27 January 2010 - Speakers: Tony Benn, George Galloway MP, Kate Hudson (CND), Lindsey German (Stop the War), 7pm, Camden Centre, Bidborough Street, London WC1H 9DB

Afghan 'Geological Reserves Worth a Trillion Dollars'

2010-02-01T17:21:00.000-08:00

Well this explains a lot of things! I wondered about this - had a 'Feeling' about this, but could never prove it until now. This is not very 'good news for Afghans' because it means that the Anglo-American empire will stay there (it's called 'occupation') and steal the country blind! What else are the puppet masters hiding?

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/01-6

February 1, 2010 by Agence France-Presse
Afghan 'Geological Reserves Worth a Trillion Dollars'

Karzai exclaims 'very good news for Afghans', but perhaps history tells us that regular Afghans should be very cautious of such news

KABUL - Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, is sitting on mineral and petroleum reserves worth an estimated one trillion dollars, President Hamid Karzai said Sunday.
Miners work in the Anyak copper mine in Afghanistan. While Afghanistan is not renowned as a resource-rich country, it has a wide range of deposits, including copper, iron ore, gold and chromite, as well as natural gas, oil and precious and semi-precious stones. (Afghan Government photo)

The war-ravaged nation could become one of the richest in the world if helped to tap its geological deposits, Karzai told reporters.

"I have very good news for Afghans," Karzai said.

"The initial figures we have obtained show that our mineral deposits are worth a thousand billion dollars -- not a thousand million dollars but a thousand billion," he said.

He based his assertion, he said, on a survey being carried out by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), due to be completed in "a couple of months".

The USGS, the US government's scientific agency, has been working on the 17-million dollar survey for a number of years, Karzai said.

While Afghanistan is not renowned as a resource-rich country, it has a wide range of deposits, including copper, iron ore, gold and chromite, as well as natural gas, oil and precious and semi-precious stones.
Little has been exploited because the country has been mired in conflict for 30 years, and is embroiled in a vicious insurgency by Islamist rebels led by the Taliban.

More than 100,000 foreign troops under US and NATO command are battling the insurgents, with another 40,000 due for deployment this year.

China and India have bid for contracts to develop mines, with the Chinese winning a copper contract. An iron ore contract is due to be awarded later this year.

In 2007, China's state-owned metals giant Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) signed a three-billion-dollar contract to develop the Aynak copper mine -- one of the world's biggest -- over the next 30 years.

First discovered in 1974, the site, 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of Kabul in Logar, is estimated to contain 11.3 million tonnes of copper.

The Hajigak iron ore mine in Bamiyan province, north of Kabul, is currently under tender, with one Chinese and half a dozen Indian firms bidding.

The contract is for exploitation of almost two billion tonnes of high-grade ore, involving processing, smelting, steel production and electricity production.

Karzai says Afghans will need '15 years of help'

2010-01-30T05:26:00.000-08:00

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7006138.ece

January 28, 2010
Karzai says Afghans will need '15 years of help'
Tom Coghlan

President Karzai of Afghanistan warned today that his country's security forces would require another 15 years of Western support before they are able to sustain themselves.

Ahead of the opening of the London Conference on Afghanistan, Mr Karzai told the BBC that he foresaw a gradual reduction in support over a lengthy timeframe.

“With regard to training and equipping the Afghan security forces, five to 10 years will be enough,” he said. “With regard to sustaining them until Afghanistan is financially able to provide for our forces, the time will be extended to 10 to 15 years.”

His comments were at odds with the tone of Gordon Brown’s opening address to the conference, which sought to stress a timeframe of less than a year until Western forces begin a transition of responsibility to their Afghan counterparts.

The Communique that will end the conference, a document already leaked to The Times, forsees a gradual transfer starting late this year or early next in the more benign provinces. Afghan forces will be in the lead of the majority of provinces within three years and overall control will pass to Afghan forces within five years.

Concurrent with the military surge, led by 30,000 new US troops, the Prime Minister set out details to leaders from more than 60 countries of a complementary “civilian and political surge” that will include a drive to reconcile and reintegrate Taliban fighters.

After a bloody year for Nato forces in Afghanistan, during which 520 troops died including 108 from Britain, Mr Brown told delegates: “By the middle of next year, we have to turn the tide in the fight against the insurgency.”

Standing alongside Mr Karzai, the Prime Minister went on to detail plans that Western leaders hope will lead to the reintegration of what the Afghan President called the “disenchanted brothers” of the Taleban.

The Prime Minister detailed a new £500million fund that is to offer inducements to Taleban fighters who promise to lay down their arms and sever their ties with Al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks.

The exact nature of the proposed engagement remains unclear, with Afghan officials and some British officials appearing to push a more conciliatory line than is coming from Washington.

Speaking at the start of the conference President Karzai told leaders that he wished to “reach out to all” and asked that the Saudi leader King Abdullah act as an intermediary in a process of engagement with the Taleban leadership. Saudi Arabia, one of only three countries to recognise the original Taleban government, has played a discreet role in previous unofficial talks between the Karzai government and representatives of the Taleban

The Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said yesterday that any reconciliation with the Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was "probably a bridge too far" after he gave safe haven to al-Qaeda to launch the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

"He has the blood of thousands of Americans on his hands," he told reporters in Washington.

But Mark Sedwill, the former British Ambassador and newly appointed Nato civilian representative in Afghanistan, suggested that talks with the Taleban would inevitably lead to engagement with “unsavoury characters.”

"If we are going to bring conflicts like Afghanistan, civil conflicts, to an end, that means some pretty unsavoury characters have to be brought within the system," he said.

The Taleban has been dismissive of suggestions that fighters can be “bought” by the new plan and today restated on its website that the withdrawal of Western forces is a precondition to any negotiation with the leadership. However, the insurgent movement has been careful in recent months to distance itself from Al-Qaeda’s agenda stressing that it poses “no threat to the West”.

Among the measures that are to accompany the reconciliation drive as part of a concurrent “civilian surge” in Afghanistan are plans for a new training programme for some 12,000 Afghan bureaucrats, a key deficiency in a country beset by both literacy rates of less than 30 per cent and endemic corruption. Agriculture, the mainstay of the Afghan economy, is to receive another £72 million from the British taxpayer.

As the West tries to accelerate a transition to Afghan control that will provide an ultimate exit strategy, Mr Brown said that the proportion of development money channelled through the Afghan government is to be increased to 50 per cent of the total, a move matched by Afghan government commitments to clamp down on endemic corruption. The International Monitory Fund and the World Bank are to announce further debt relief for Afghanistan totalling $1.6 billion.

British police training and mentoring teams are to be doubled from April, Mr Brown said, as part of an international effort to build Afghan forces that will see the Afghan Army expanded from 134,000 this October to 171,600 by October 2011. The Afghan police are to grow in number from 109,000 in October to 134,000 by October 2011.

NATO's Role in the Afghanistan Escalation

2010-01-29T10:47:00.000-08:00

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100208/hayden

January 28, 2010 by The Nation
by Tom Hayden

NATO countries are poised to add 7,000 soldiers to the 30,000-troop US escalation in Afghanistan, providing a cover of multilateralism for the Obama administration and the NATO commander, US General Stanley McChrystal. The NATO decision is expected to be ratified January 28 at a conference called by the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Karzai administration and the United Nations Afghan Mission (UNAM).

To assuage European public hesitation, McChrystal is describing the troop surge for the first time as a step towards negotiating a political settlement with the Taliban . The London paper points out that "the prospect that an eight-year war could end with some Taliban leaders in power represents a remarkable turnaround" in US and NATO policy.

While NATO escalates its troop commitment, the London conference is billed as a display of "soft power" that will stabilize Afghanistan. One of the conference sponsors, the discredited Afghan president Hamid Karzai, will ask the conference for a $1 billion commitment to lure Taliban fighters onto the Kabul regime's payroll, a replica of the payments to 99,000 Sunni insurgents during the Iraq surge of 2007-8.

Afghanistan and Iraq are not identical conflicts, however. Iraq's Sunnis were a 20 percent minority fighting a majority Shi'a government and army, which the United States installed in power. In Afghanistan, the Taliban are powerful among the 45 percent Pashtun population, and cannot be defeated by Karzai's dysfunctional government or the northern Hazara, Tajik or Uzbek minorities. The situation resembles an ethnic-based stalemate, which Secretary of Defense Robert Gates acknowledged this week , in saying the Taliban are woven into the "political fabric" of Afghanistan.

One reason for the dovish hints is that European and Canadian public opinion strongly oppose the escalation. In Germany 71 percent are opposed, and in the UK 56 percent . In France, 82 percent are against increased troop commitments. Canada is committed to withdrawing troops in 2011, and pressure is building for other NATO nations to follow.

Obama's escalation is causing increased US and NATO casualties, a toll that is sure to increase rapidly as more troops arrive. In January, twenty-five Americans and twelve Europeans and Canadians have died, compared to twenty-four Americans and nine Europeans and Canadians during the same month last year. The 57 percent spike shows that the Afghan "fighting season" is becoming year-around rather than concentrated in the summer months.

Twenty-five deaths may seem a small number in the so-called war on terror, but the toll accumulates. The American dead in the war so far number 972, and will pass the 1,000 mark in the coming weeks. At that rate, an additional 1,000 Americans will die before the Obama administration's planned date for beginning withdrawals, in summer 2011. The numbers of American wounded leaped to 350 per month last summer. The cumulative European and Canadian death number is 617, doubling in a single year.

The cost of the eight-year war so far is $250 billion, and roughly $1 million per US soldier. It will become another trillion-dollar war by the end of Obama's second term. Along the way, the budget costs are likely to capsize Obama's domestic agenda and intensify inflationary pressures.

In keeping with the new tone of the escalation, the UK's Gordon Brown describes the London plan as "fully aligning military and civilian resources behind an Afghan-led political strategy," an echo of McChrystal's recent strategic plan. Brown promises that Afghan troops will begin replacing NATO units as early as this year. But beneath the rhetoric, Brown is pledging 500 additional British troops, bringing the number up to 9,500.

The London-based Stop the War Coalition is calling for mass protests in London this week, at both the conference and Friday's so-called Chilcott inquiry, an official investigation of the deceptions British and American officials employed in launching the Iraq War. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to testify Friday. Protests in several other European capitals are being organized as well.

Germany is particularly conflicted because both constitution and custom forbid the deployment of troops in war zones for aggressive purposes. Yet a German commander ordered the September 4, 2009, airstrike that killed some 142 Afghan civilians. The civilian deaths were denied at first, then acknowledged, then defended, resulting in the German official's resignation and widespread German debate. This week the Angela Merkel government is expected to send 500 more German troops, raising the total to 5,000. And Germany will train another 30,000 Afghan police and soldiers, doubling its current commitment.

The Karzai government recently raised alarms by predicting that NATO will remain in Afghanistan until 2024, to train and protect the still-weak Afghan security forces.

The current "talk about talks" runs counter to the neoconservative espousal of the "long war" doctrine, but there is no reason to believe that peace is at hand. Instead, the Obama/Pentagon plan is for brutal combat, including an emphasis on drones and special operations, for eighteen to twenty-four months, in the belief that the Taliban can be pounded into accepting an American-imposed peace settlement, and to permit Karzai's Afghan army time to grow into an effective force.

The sides are far apart. The Taliban, the Karzai government, some Europeans and the peace movement all agree that the United States and NATO must set a deadline for ultimate withdrawal of its forces, to be replaced by nonaligned peacekeeping troops. Further, negotiations must include the Taliban leadership, particularly Mullah Omar, who currently are headquartered in the Pakistan state of Baluchistan, over the Afghan border. They demand a lifting of the UN's so-called blacklist, which classifies 144 Taliban leaders as criminals and bars them from travel. Until the blacklist is suspended, no direct talks will be possible. Peace advocates also demand that 750 detainees be granted due process to avoid another Guantánamo. As an incentive towards peace, the Taliban have implied in recent statements that they may separate themselves from any Al Qaeda agenda in exchange for a power-sharing role in the future Afghanistan.

The United States and many in NATO, on the other hand, refuse so far to set a deadline for withdrawal, although Obama has announced a timeline to begin withdrawing. Nor will they negotiate with the Taliban leadership, viewing Omar as an ally of Al Qaeda. The United States has demanded that Pakistan "eliminate" Omar and the Taliban leadership in Baluchistan, or permit it to launch a military assault there. Recent statements by Gates and other US officials insist that the Taliban is linked irrevocably to Al Qaeda. Any US offer to negotiate at present is aimed at lower-echelon Taliban fighters in Afghanistan's villages. Although the United States has promised to identify the 750 detainees, any semblance of the rule of law is at best a work in progress in occupied Afghanistan.

The present quagmire is likely to result in bloodshed through 2011, reaching a crisis point when Obama is scheduled to begin the withdrawal of US troops. The Europeans and Canadians will be packed and ready to go by that point, and likely will linger no later. But the Pentagon, and the domestic hawks, could be predicting catastrophe if the United States departs, leaving Obama and the Democrats to choose between a deeper stalemate and the politics of strategic disengagement as the 2012 elections approach.

Research for this article was contributed by Emily Walker, of the Peace and Justice Resource Center.

© 2010 The Nation

Report slams U.S. for building power plant Afghans can't run

2010-01-22T14:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/82667.html

January 20, 2010
By Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — A $300 million power plant in Afghanistan paid for with U.S. tax dollars was an ill-conceived and mismanaged project that the Afghan government can't afford to switch on now that it's almost finished, a watchdog agency has found.

The project in Kabul has ballooned $40 million over budget and is a year behind schedule because of missteps by the American contractors and the U.S. government, according to an audit released Wednesday by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

If the plant ever runs to full capacity, it could provide tens of thousands of Afghans in the Kabul region with electricity, which would be an achievement in a country in which only 10 percent of the population has it.

Even when the plant is completed in March, however, the Afghan government is unlikely to be able to pay the millions of dollars for diesel fuel that's needed to power the plant and maintain it, the auditors concluded. The U.S. Agency for International Development has agreed to pay for the fuel temporarily.

"USAID may face the difficult decision of whether to continue funding the plant's operations or terminating U.S. involvement with the project and placing the plant's future operation at risk," the report says.

The special inspector general's office questioned the wisdom of building a diesel and heavy fuel plant that has a "technically sophisticated fueling operation that they (the Afghans) may not have the capacity to sustain."

The audit is the latest to find fault with the USAID's oversight of projects by two U.S.-based contractors, Louis Berger and Black & Veatch.

Last week, the special inspector general's office found while the U.S. has spent more than $732 million to improve Afghanistan's electrical grid since 2002, delays and rising costs have plagued many of the two companies' projects, in part because of a lack of scrutiny by the American government.

In November, another watchdog, the USAID's inspector general, found similar problems with the Kabul project and a plant in Helmand province, in southern Afghanistan.

The two projects are part of a five-year, $1.4 billion contract to build many of the roads and energy projects that now are under way in Afghanistan. The USAID awarded it jointly to Louis Berger and Black & Veatch in 2006.

The series of audits confirms McClatchy's earlier reporting that delays and cost overruns had plagued projects built by Louis Berger and Black & Veatch.

Carl Petz, a spokesman for Black & Veatch, said his company had completed most of the Kabul project and the power plant could be turned on now. The plant is expected to be used as backup during the winter months.

When Petz was asked whether the company now questions the wisdom of building a diesel-powered plant, he said the USAID had made the decision and "diesel was determined to be the best option."

The special inspector general's report Wednesday says that a number of factors drove the USAID's decision to build the Kabul plant, including U.S. bureaucrats' worry that a lack of power in Afghanistan's capital "could affect national election results" in the country.

Among Afghans, the Kabul power plant became known as "Karzai's winter coat" — designed to keep him comfortably in power through the winter of 2009 — and a project that the Bush administration could hold up as a success before President George W. Bush left office.

The plant in Helmand province so far generates enough electricity to meet only about 20 percent of the demand in the region. The Chinese subcontractor deserted the project in November 2008 because of security threats.

Auditors for the special inspector general, however, gave the USAID and the two companies credit for working to solve the problems and reduce cost overruns in the Kabul project since they heard the criticism.

However, critics say the projects reveal that the U.S. government continues to ignore the hard lessons of Iraq, where contractors received billions of dollars with little oversight and inspectors have found rampant waste, fraud and abuse.

It was less corrupt under the Taliban, say Afghans

2010-01-21T13:03:00.000-08:00

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/it-was-less-corrupt-under-the-taliban-say-afghans-1873169.html

January 20, 2010
By Kim Sengupta, Diplomatic Correspondent

Corruption in Afghanistan has become so entrenched that the population is being forced to pay out the equivalent of a quarter of the country's GDP in bribes, according to a UN report published yesterday.

Six out of 10 Afghans view corruption as a bigger problem than violence, the dossier, compiled by the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), found. It showed that many illicit payments - totalling $2.5bn (£1.5bn) - were made to officials in order to obtain essential public services.

"Baksheesh culture" permeates every strata of society, with average bribes coming in at $160, compared to the average per capita income of $425 a year. Asked whether Afghan President Hamid Karzai should bear responsibility for this, UNODC head Antonio Maria Costa said: "We live in a society where those who are in charge bear responsibility unless they are blind."

He added: "According to Afghans who have taken part in this report, it is almost impossible to obtain a public service without greasing a palm; bribing authorities is part of everyday life. During the past 12 months, one Afghan out of two had to pay at least one kickback to a public official."

The report came the week before the London Conference on Afghanistan, aimed at formulating international strategy towards a country which is now causing major foreign policy headaches for the West.

Last year's elections, in which Mr Karzai was declared victor amid claims of widespread ballot stuffing, have led to questions in Europe and the US about soldiers' lives being lost to prop up a government branded as corrupt.

According to the report, policemen, judges, prosecutors and MPs were the most active in soliciting and receiving bribes. "Unfortunately, those who are supposed to be protecting the people from this sort of lawlessness are themselves seen as most guilty of violating the law," Mr Costa said.

The size of the "bribery economy" roughly corresponded to that of Afghanistan's opium trade, which was estimated to be worth $2.8bn in 2009. The "explosion" in opium production which started in 2005 corresponded with the spread of illegal payments to officials and parts of the economy being swamped by "black money", said the report.

Researchers found that many Afghans believed that NGOs were also involved in corruption and Mr Costa said he acknowledged that Nato forces had made payments to "shady characters" to receive information about the Taliban. He insisted, however, that paying money to Taliban fighters in an effort to get them to change sides was not a corrupt practice.

Corruption in Afghanistan

2010-01-21T11:30:00.000-08:00

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,672828,00.html

01/19/2010
UN Report Claims Bribes Equal to Quarter of GDP
By Matthias Gebauer and Carsten Volkery

Need a driver's license in Kabul? $180 will get you one within hours. $60,000 will get you out of jail in Afghanistan. A new UN study shows just how rampant corruption has become in the war-torn country. Indeed, bribery is equal to a quarter of the Afghan GDP.

Afghanistan's leading anti-corruption crusader wears a broad smile and speaks perfect German. Mohammed Eshaq Aloko, the attorney general of Afghanistan, spent years in Hamburg -- indeed, his wife still lives in Germany. But Aloko elected to return to his homeland. "The country was lawless for decades," Aloko is fond of telling visitors from the West, "which is why one can't expect a law-based society to appear out of nowhere." First, he points out, one must make a reliable diagnosis before a therapy can be decided upon.

It is clear to everyone in Afghanistan exactly what needs to be diagnosed. Afghans have learned from their daily lives that the rules of life are quite simple: Everything is possible, but everything has a price.

A passenger needs to get to the airport quickly without any bothersome security checks? No problem, for a price of $20 at the first checkpoint.
You need a driver's license immediately and without any tests? Such express service will set you back $180.
A family wants their son, in prison for drug smuggling, to return home? The necessary papers will be filled out the same day for a price of $60,000.
The list of such examples is endless -- nothing is accomplished in Afghanistan without the payment of bribes. Foreigners can even obtain an Afghan passport as a souvenir, if they're willing to fork out a bit of cash. Every government agency employs official commissionkars, the Persian word for intermediary. Without these helpful assistants, no application would reach its intended destination, no building permits would be issued and no stamps would be placed on any documents. Afghans can't even choose for themselves the five witnesses they want for their wedding. It is often the case that the justice of the peace has a relative who is only too happy to take on the duty -- for a fee of course.

The Country's Greatest Problem

Just how extreme corruption has become in Afghanistan can be seen in a new study released by the United Nations. According to the paper, 59 percent of Afghanistan citizens point to corruption as the greatest problem facing the country -- that ranks the problem even higher than security (54 percent) and unemployment (chosen by 52 percent of those polled). The study, released on Tuesday, was put together by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and includes the responses of 7,600 people from 1,600 villages questioned between August and October of last year.

The study shows just how omnipresent the payment of bribes has become in everyday life in Afghanistan. In the last 12 months, Afghan citizens have paid $2.5 billion in bribes -- roughly a quarter of the country's gross domestic product. "The Afghans say that it is impossible to obtain a public service without paying a bribe," UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa writes on the organization's Web site. The "cancer of corruption" is "metastatic," he says, and can be found even in the highest echelons of government. Afghans who have had recent contact with government representatives report that, in 40 percent of the cases, they were asked for bribes.

Every second person surveyed reports having bribed someone in the last year -- usually after having been requested to do so. The average payment is $158 -- a generous sum for a country in which average annual income is a mere $425. According to the report, the most corrupt officials are those allegedly overseeing law and order: Twenty-five percent of those surveyed report having bribed a policeman in 2009, 18 percent a judge and 13 percent a public attorney. "The Afghan people are under the impression that it is cheaper to buy a judge than to hire a lawyer," the report says.

Powerful Atlas of Dishonesty

Such widespread corruption among police and in the judiciary is dangerous, the report says: People lose their trust in the state and look for security elsewhere. Resignation is also spreading. Sixty-three percent believe that filing complaints against corrupt officials is a waste of time. Only 9 percent have even tried. Even village elders have given up and do little to protest against the problem.

The report is a powerful atlas of dishonesty in the country -- bribery is lowest in the western part of the country and at its highest in the north and the south. The more rural the areas, the higher the corruption, the report found, with big cities such as Kabul and Hirat much less affected. The problem is intensified by the long tradition of patronage in Afghanistan -- corruption is considered to be socially acceptable. Fully 38 percent think it is legitimate for a government official to ask for a "present." Forty-two percent find nepotism unproblematic.

The UN sees the battle against corruption as a vitally important element of its strategy to turn the country back over to the Afghans. Such a corrupt country could never function on its own, international aid workers fear. It is hoped that the new report will raise the already intense pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to do something about the problem. Karzai, says Costa, should "urgently administer tough medicine based on the UN Convention against Corruption, which he pushed so hard to ratify."

Reducing the Temptation

First and foremost, the UN would like to see an anti-corruption agency. Each new civil servant should also be made to sign an oath against corruption. Those who violate the law should be jettisoned and the salaries of public servants should be made transparent. "Let's see how senior officials can afford flashy cars and fancy villas with salaries of less than $500 a month!" Costa writes in the report. At the same time, however, he recommends that salaries be increased significantly to reduce the temptation to take bribes.

So far, little has happened to dampen corruption in Afghanistan, aside from a few weak statements of intention from Karzai. In a November speech on the occasion of his inauguration for a second term in office, he promised the West he would kick off an offensive against corruption. Since then, however, he has done nothing. Even a strategy paper outlining a possible anti-corruption agency, originally set to be finished prior to next week's Afghanistan conference in London, has yet to materialize. Western diplomats say that Karzai has disappointed them once again. Few are willing to accuse Karzai himself of corruption, but members of his family have been fingered.

When Karzai is asked about his promise, he is fond of referring people to Attorney General Aloko. Just as Karzai was being sworn in, Aloko began proceedings against five government ministers for corruption and announced that trials would begin soon. Since then, however, little has been heard about the five cases. Aloko's diagnosis, one is left to assume, isn't finished yet.

Blackwater Wants to Surge Its Armed Force in Afghanistan

2010-01-19T19:01:00.001-08:00

http://rebelreports.com/post/343056085/blackwater-wants-to-surge-its-armed-force-in

January 19, 2010 by RebelReports
A newly released State Department audit of Blackwater praises the firm’s work as the US government weighs expanding Blackwater’s operations in Afghanistan.
by Jeremy Scahill

A just-released US State Department Inspector General's report [PDF] on Blackwater's work in Afghanistan reveals that Blackwater is proposing increasing its private armed forces in Afghanistan, particularly in Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat where the US is opening consulates. Blackwater is currently in the running for a $1 billion contract to train Afghanistan's national police force.

In general, the report praises Blackwater's work in protecting US diplomats and aid officials, saying its "personal protective services have been effective in ensuring the safety of chief of mission personnel in Afghanistan's volatile and ever-changing security environment." The Inspector General, however, criticized Blackwater for providing "inappropriate" training for its Afghanistan personnel pre-deployment, saying "before arriving in the country, personal security specialists did not receive a speciﬁc type of security training unique to operating in the Afghanistan environment," saying that "rather than taking courses in cultural awareness for Afghanistan, the specialists had been trained in Iraq cultural awareness."

The IG's report, which was completed in August, makes no mention of the May 2009 incident where Blackwater operatives allegedly killed two Afghan civilians sparking their arrest in the US on murder charges. That could be because those men worked on a Department of Defense training contract (not a State Department diplomatic security contract) for Blackwater subsidiary Paravant. Blackwater works for multiple federal agencies in Afghanistan. The IG's report focuses on the work of Blackwater's recently renamed US Training Center (USTC). "No one under U.S. Training Center's protection has been injured or killed, and there have been no incidents involving the use of deadly force," according to the report. The report was released before the December 30 suicide bombing of the CIA station in Khost, Afghanistan where at least two Blackwater operatives were killed while reportedly doing security for the CIA.

Since 2006, the State Department has spent $110 million on 119 Blackwater personnel in Afghanistan. It notes that earlier this year, 54 additional Blackwater personnel were added. Blackwater "has conducted missions in 24 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces," according to the report. As of April 2009, Blackwater had 94 Americans and 20 Colombians working on the State Department contract. Most of the Americans, according to the IG, had a special forces background.

According to figures provided to the Inspector general by Blackwater, in 2008 the company "conducted 2,730 personal protection missions in support of staff from the Department of State, including the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, USAID, and various Congressional delegations."

In March 2009, the State Department decided to deploy 14 Foreign Service Ofﬁcers to the new consulates in Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif. Blackwater subsequently submitted a proposal to add 67 personnel to each location, which seemed to raise some eyebrows at the State Department. The Regional Security Officer in Kabul, according to the IG report, "has reported that the security threat in Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat is considerably lower security than in Kabul."

In a revelation that should certainly spark another audit, the IG found that the State Department's Diplomatic Security (DS) division is not independently verifying Blackwater's invoices for the labor of its forces. "DS does not review or verify the accuracy of personnel rosters (muster sheets) prepared by USTC before they are submitted to USTC program management and subsequently to DS in the United States to ensure that contractor charges for labor are accurate." These "muster sheets" are "the basis for the [State] Department's payment" to Blackwater.

© 2010 Jeremy Scahill

Afghanistan: NATO Intensifies Its First Asian War

2010-01-19T16:10:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Afghanistan-NATO-Intensif-by-Rick-Rozoff-100116-15.html

January 18, 2010
By Rick Rozoff

-----------
With former Joint Special Operations Command chief General Stanley McChrystal in charge of what will soon be over 150,000 U.S. and NATO troops in the Afghanistan-Pakistan war theater, Washington will conduct its largest counterinsurgency operations since those in Indochina in the 1960s and early 1970s.

NATO, established in 1949 supposedly to confront the Soviet Union and its allies in Central Europe, is waging its first land war almost 3,000 miles east of its former border with the Warsaw Pact.

The world's sole military superpower...is extending its troop deployments, bases, missile shield components, warplanes and warships to all six inhabited continents, over the past decade to Afghanistan, Australia, Bulgaria, Colombia, Djibouti, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Mali, the Philippines, Poland, Romania and Seychelles.
-----------

On January 8 the Washington Post provided North Atlantic Treaty Organization secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt a column in which the two, while deferring to their big brother in Washington - "The United States has played a central role in defending the values and the security of the Euro-Atlantic community" - nevertheless asserted that "Europe can deliver and can be a real partner for the United States. That is what is happening now in the global mission in Afghanistan." [1]

Unquestioned loyalty to the trans-Atlantic partnership with the United States is synonymous with subordination to NATO, and currently the touchstone for fealty to the military bloc is blind willingness to follow the U.S. further and yet deeper into the increasingly bloody imbroglio in Afghanistan.

In addressing the ongoing and by all appearances interminable colonial war in South Asia, one which cost the U.S. and its NATO allies more lives last year than in any of the seven full years preceding it, the joint propaganda puff piece by Bildt and Rasmussen included the boast that "U.S. allies and partners in the NATO-led military operation have responded clearly to President Obama's decision to significantly increase American troop levels in the mission. In early December, the other members of the mission pledged an additional 7,000 troops, on top of the almost 40,000 non-U.S. troops already on the ground. Non-U.S. forces will eventually be about 40 percent of the total; they already endure about 40 percent of the casualties. There should be no more doubt in the United States on whether America can count on its allies; we are proving that in blood and treasure every day in Afghanistan." [2]

Their arithmetic matches that of U.S. permanent representative to NATO, Netherlands-born Ivo Daalder, who four months ago quantified what it means to be a dependable member of the bloc: "Over 40 percent of the bodybags that leave Afghanistan do not go to the U.S. They go to other countries...." [3] Daalder has long been an advocate of NATO not so much supplementing as replacing the United Nations as arbiter of international conflicts and indeed of all important world issues. [4]

It is uncertain whether leading Western governments have formally determined what the optimal distribution and division of blood and currency, deaths and dollars/euros between the United States and its NATO partners should be in order to preserve solidarity between members of the "military alliance of democratic states in Europe and North America." Perhaps someone in Brussels and Washington computes that lethal calculus.

Bildt, whose country is not yet a full member of NATO notwithstanding the efforts of himself and co-conspirators to surreptitiously pull Sweden into full integration with the world's only military bloc [5], presumably spoke on behalf of the European Union - though his nation does not currently hold the EU presidency. Spain does.

However, Swedish troops serve under NATO command in Afghanistan and in recent months have been involved in several firefights in the north of the nation, where with fellow former (officially) neutral Finland it is in charge of four provinces for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. Bildt's nation has lost two soldiers in the Alliance's Asian war, the first it has sacrificed in an armed conflict since the Norwegian-Swedish War of 1814.

On February 4 and 5 the defense chiefs of all 28 full NATO member states and no doubt counterparts from many of the more than twenty partner nations - from Australia to the United Arab Emirates, Mongolia to Colombia, Bosnia to Singapore, Georgia to South Korea - that have provided or pledged troops to the bloc for its first Asian war will meet in Istanbul, Turkey to plan the next phase of the escalation of the the Afghan campaign. "The situation in Afghanistan and sending military reinforcements to join the International Security Assistance Force are expected to be the key matters of the meetings." [6]

5,000 NATO Casualties Predicted For New Year

What reinforcements from NATO member and partner states will encounter was indicated by retired U.S. general Barry McCaffrey, who earlier this month projected that "US forces in Afghanistan should brace themselves for up to 500 casualties a month this year." The Times of London added "The anticipated increase would produce around 3,000 American casualties this year, and a total for Western forces in Afghanistan of around 5,000 killed and wounded - the equivalent of seven infantry battalions." [7]

By way of comparison, in 2009 there were 512 U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom and NATO International Security Assistance Force deaths in Afghanistan, more than a third of the 1,500 Western fatalities since the war began in October of 2001. McCaffrey's numbers allow for some multiple of last year's combined U.S. and other NATO member and partner combat deaths to occur later this year.

Such is the test - and the price - of the "Euro-Atlantic" partnership touted by Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Recent developments substantiate predictions of heightened NATO casualties this year, even before planned spring and summer offensives commence.

The New Year has begun with NATO announcing the deaths of over a dozen soldiers, including six in attacks on January 11. The pace of combat deaths this year already promises a total exceeding the previous high in 2009.

The main victims of the expansion of the war in South Asia by the U.S. and NATO will remain Afghan civilians and their opposite numbers in Pakistan [8], but Western military occupation forces will not fare much better.

As deployments increase so will casualties, and both are growing steadily.

NATO Recruits Middle East Partners For Afghan War

On December 30 the Jordanian Army announced that one of its officers became the nation's first fatality in Afghanistan. Before that the United Arab Emirates was thought to be the only Arab country to supply troops to NATO for that war theater, but on the day of the loss a German news agency revealed that "NATO's website listed 90 Jordanian soldiers alongside other contributions to the multinational force." [9] It was later reported that the captain killed in Afghanistan lost his life along with seven Americans in an attack on a CIA forward operating base and was the alleged handler for what has been described as a double agent, a physician from Jordan.

Nine days after its first military loss, Jordan in the person of its foreign minister, Nasser Judeh, asserted "our presence in Afghanistan will be enhanced and increased in the coming phase. This is something that is ongoing. Jordan was one of the first countries there." [10] U.S. Secretary of State Hillary was in the nation's capital on January 8 "to discuss strategic cooperation." [11]

Jordan is a member of NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue partnership along with Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. The United Arab Emirates is a carefully cultivated NATO, American and French military ally in the Persian Gulf and a mainstay of the Alliance's Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. [12]

NATO chief Rasmussen recently gave an interview to a Danish newspaper in which he "urged Muslim nations to contribute troops for service in Afghanistan." The likely recruits are the six Arab members of the Mediterranean Dialogue and the six Gulf Cooperation Council states targeted by the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.)

Afghan War Used To Train Caucasus Armies For Local Wars

The bloc has also secured troop commitments from all three former Soviet republics in the South Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Azerbaijan, bordering both Iran and Russia, has doubled its contingent under pressure from NATO's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia Robert Simmons [13] and recently the vice speaker of its parliament said "At the recent meeting of NATO foreign ministers a proposal was made to increase the number of servicemen in Afghanistan. If we receive an appeal, the issue on increasing the number of Azerbaijani servicemen in Afghanistan may be considered." [14] Azerbaijani officials, including President Ilham Aliyev, routinely threaten war with neighboring Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Georgia hosted U.S. Marines late last year to train the first new installment of troops from that nation to be deployed to Afghanistan. [15] Georgian troop strength is projected to reach 1,000 within months, thereby rendering the state the largest per capita contributor to NATO's war in Afghanistan. "By March, the Georgian contingent will become about 1,000 strong, according to the Defense Ministry." [16]

The nation's mercurial and bellicose head of state, U.S.-educated Mikheil Saakashvili, said of the Afghan deployment: "This is a unique chance for our soldiers to receive a real combat baptism. We do not need the army only for showing off at military parades." [17] Saakashvili meant that crack Georgian military forces trained by the U.S. Marine Corps and serving under NATO in Afghanistan will be better prepared for the next war with Russia over South Ossetia and Abkhazia when they return home.

On January 10 the first Afghanistan-bound Armenian troops "depart[ed] for Germany for training before joining the ISAF mission in Afghanistan" and "will be in Afghanistan in mid-February." [18]

Unlike its neighbors Azerbaijan and Georgia, Armenia is a member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), seen by many observers as a bulwark against further NATO expansion into former Soviet space. Although Armenia sent a small contingent of troops to Iraq earlier, they were deployed under a bilateral arrangement with the U.S. and did not serve under NATO command as they will in Afghanistan. Armenian troops will be the first from the CSTO to do so.

Another former Soviet republic, Estonia, a full member of NATO since 2004, announced this month that in keeping with other Alliance members and partners from five continents it was prepared to increase its Afghan war contingent. "150 soldiers from the Baltic country are involved in the conflict and it's likely that more troops are going to be sent." [19]

NATO's War Trajectory: From Southeastern Europe To South Asia

The North Atlantic military bloc, the only one in the world since the formal dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, effected its transition from an alleged defensive organization to an active out of area perpetrator of armed aggression with the 78-day Operation Allied Force air war against Yugoslavia in 1999. Slightly over two years after that conflict ended NATO invoked its Article 5 mutual military assistance provision to join the U.S. in Afghanistan and in the general global war on terror announced by the American administration.

Currently all six former Yugoslav federal republics except for Serbia, which is also marked for further NATO integration and will in turn be pressured for troops, have committed forces to serve under NATO in the Afghan war zone.

Late last month Defense Minister Selmo Cikotic confirmed that "Bosnia is planning to send troops next year to join the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan." [20]

A Croatian soldier was injured in Afghanistan on December 30 in an attack of an undisclosed nature.

Macedonia is a perennial candidate for full NATO membership that has attempted to prove its bona fides to the Alliance by sending troops to, first, Iraq and now Afghanistan. It will not be accepted until it changes its name under foreign pressure and effectively cedes its northwest region to Kosovo, an artificial political entity violently forged by NATO.

On January 8 the country dispatched 150 troops for a new rotation. The forces will join a British military unit. Earlier the Macedonian Defense Ministry announced that it was increasing troop strength to over 243, a fifty percent boost.

In neighboring Bulgaria a news source recently divulged that the nation was adding deployments to Afghanistan which will bring the country's troops there to over 300.

Poland: NATO Uses Afghan War To Train Army For Combat, Warfare

Late in December Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski made a tour of inspection to the NATO Joint Force Training Center in Bydgoszcz and said, "I think that slowly but consistently we are implementing our strategy in Afghanistan. We have completed our missions in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Chad and strengthened the one in Afghanistan. I think that, as a result, the Polish Army is getting an experience there and entering NATO's first league...." [21]

Poland has pledged an additional 600 troops for the war this year and the total number will reach 2,600, the largest overseas military deployment in the nation's history, 100 more than it had deployed in Iraq where it lost 22 soldiers.

For Poland, as with fellows neighbors of Russia like Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Latvia and Lithuania [22], NATO is supplying military training and combat experience for future action nearer home. Toward the end of last year a Polish officer, speaking of his country's National Forces Reserve, said that "in the event of war, the reserve units could be mobilised" and that they will "train on a regular basis to keep up their combat skills in the event of warfare." [23] The application of such training is not for Afghanistan.

The major, older NATO nations are also stepping up their roles in the Afghan conflict.

Even before the January 28 conference on Afghanistan to be held in London, at and after which it is expected that NATO troop contributions will expand even beyond the additional 7,000 pledged since U.S. President Obama's troops surge announcement last December 1, the host nation Britain has assigned several hundred more troops. The country's death toll reached 246 early this year.

France: Back In NATO Military Command, In Afghanistan For The Duration

On January 8 French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has already sent 2,600 soldiers to Afghanistan, "defended his country's military force in Afghanistan, saying...that now is not the time to pull out."

He also "insisted on the importance of France's participation in NATO. France rejoined NATO's integrated military command in 2009, more than 40 years after quitting it and kicking American military bases off French soil." [24]

On January 4 Der Spiegel reported that the U.S. "has decided to send 2,500 soldiers to Kunduz," where German forces called in a NATO air strike in early September of last year that killed 150 civilians [25], "the region under German command in the northern part of the country. The move is sure to increase the pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin." Pressure, that is, to dispense with the limit of 4,500 troops imposed by the parliament, the Bundestag, and "intensify the debate in Germany about sending more troops. Internally, the government in Berlin has already decided to increase German troop numbers by up to 2,000 soldiers...." [26] American troops would serve under German command for the first time in Afghanistan or anywhere else.

German Troops "Trained To Kill"

The following day the new Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, in recent years German ambassador to the United States and to Britain, was quoted as saying that "Germany must confront the reality that its soldiers are trained to kill" and that "certain military facts had to be confronted."

Ischinger stated in his own words: "Soldiers are trained to kill others, or at least to threaten people in a way that they consider it plausible that they will be killed if they don't do what is expected of them."

He urged a troop increase in Afghanistan and added, "If we send too many, it can't get so bad. If we send too few, it could be that the whole thing doesn't work...We are building fewer wells, and unfortunately have to shoot more." [27]

The war in Afghanistan, like that against Yugoslavia in 1999, is providing Germany the opportunity of reemerging on the world military stage. [28]

Scandinavia, Spain: Killing And Dying In South Asia

The Norwegian press this year has reported on the heightened combat role of its nation's troops. On New Year's Eve a "Norwegian patrol came under fire from several directions. The fighting lasted for seven hours." [29] The country's Defense Ministry claimed that several Afghan insurgents were killed. Norwegian troops are also not constructing wells; neither are their Finnish and Swedish counterparts who have been in regular firefights in northern Afghanistan.

"The Christmas period has seen troops from Norway involved in several battles across northern Afghanistan," one of which "led to NATO being called on to provide assistance from the air."

"On Christmas Day a mission with drone and helicopter support was deployed to an under siege Afghan border post by Norwegian and Afghan troops." [30]

At the beginning of January "it was announced that Norwegian forces, which number around 500 in Afghanistan, were involved in fighting every third day on average." [31]

On January 8 a Danish soldier was killed and five were injured in Helmand province. Denmark, which has 700 troops assigned to NATO, has lost 29 military personnel in the Afghan war.

On January 8 the Spanish contingent in Afghanistan - "Spain currently has about 800 troops serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, and plans to deploy an additional 220 soldiers to that nation" [32] - lost a soldier, an Ecuadorian national, to a non-combat injury, bringing Spain's toll to 90 Afghan war-related deaths. Another 150 soldiers have been seriously injured.

The Spanish government refuses to name a withdrawal date and "[J]udging by the amazing Spanish base being built close to the airport of the capital of the Province of Badghis, the withdrawal will not come soon.

"This base will have a capacity to accommodate around 300,000 soldiers and its cost will exceed 44 million euros. The base will have an extension of around 173 acres and a perimeter of 3 miles." [33]

Spanish troops killed one Afghan civilian and wounded another in late December in Herat province.

During the same period "The Dutch television channel RTL news...obtained evidence that, it claims, shows that Dutch troops in Afghanistan have been responsible for more than 100 civilian deaths." [34]

On December 30 four more Canadian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, bringing Canada's death tally to 138, the third largest of any NATO state and the largest per capita.

Two Italian troops were among those wounded on December 28 when an Afghan National Army soldier fired on NATO troops. Italy has lost 22 soldiers in the war and will add 1,000 more troops this year to the 3,200 already in Afghanistan.

....

With former Joint Special Operations Command chief General Stanley McChrystal in charge of what will soon be over 150,000 U.S. and NATO troops in the Afghanistan-Pakistan war theater, Washington will conduct its largest counterinsurgency operations since those in Indochina in the 1960s and early 1970s.

The New York Times reported in late December that "Secretive branches of the militarys Special Operations forces have increased counterterrorism missions...in Afghanistan and, because of their success, plan an even bigger expansion next year, according to American commanders."

"Senior military officials say it is not surprising that the commandos are playing such an important role in the fight, particularly because Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the senior American and NATO officer in Afghanistan, led the Joint Special Operations Command for five years.

"In addition to the classified American commando missions, military officials say that other NATO special operations forces have teamed up...." [35]

NATO, established in 1949 supposedly to confront the Soviet Union and its allies in Central Europe, is waging its first land war almost 3,000 miles east of its former border with the Warsaw Pact.

Associated Press reported on January 12 that the Obama White House is to request a record $708 billion for the Pentagon for next year and the first of what will become regular emergency requests for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, overwhelmingly for the first: $33 billion.

The integration of U.S. armed forces and those of the other fifty nations providing troops for NATO in Afghanistan, a global NATO in embryo [36], is not limited to the war in Afghanistan.

Last week it was reported that the chief of the U.S. Joint Forces Command, Marine Corps General James Mattis, who was also NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation [ACT] until last September, "pitched to Defense Secretary Robert Gates a proposal to rename the Norfolk, Va.-based organization, aiming to reflect how much it works with non-American entities and officials.

"34 senior officers from both NATO and 'Partnership for Peace member nations, as well as Asia Pacific, African and Middle Eastern nations,' are hosted by the command. Nearly 90 officials from 48 nations 'routinely collaborate' with the joint organization," according to Mattis. [37]

His memo to Pentagon chief Gates contained this core recommendation:

"In alignment with our mission and consistent with the continued importance of partnership with multinational partners, request your approval to immediately pursue the renaming of U.S. Joint Forces Command to U.S. Joint and Coalition Forces Command. This [proposed] name will better reflect the day-to-day reality of this non-geographically-oriented command and signify a command focused on more than internal U.S. priorities." [38]

The world's sole military superpower, as President Barack Obama referred to the nation whose commander-in-chief he is on the occasion of receiving the now even further tarnished Nobel Peace Prize, is extending its troop deployments, bases, missile shield components, warplanes and warships to all six inhabited continents, over the past decade to Afghanistan, Australia, Bulgaria, Colombia, Djibouti, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Mali, the Philippines, Poland, Romania and Seychelles.

The U.S. has the mightiest and most lethal military arsenal in human history at its disposal and the world's second-largest standing army (only China's having more troops). It intends to spend over $700 billion next year on its defense budget and will continue to add on special appropriations for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

It also is in charge of the world's first global military bloc, NATO, which is participating with the U.S. in an expanding war in Asia with forces from over a quarter of the world's nations under its command.

1) Washington Post, January 8, 2010
2) Ibid
3) Reuters, September 14, 2009
4) West Plots To Supplant United Nations With Global NATO
Stop NATO, May 27, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/154
5) Stop The Stealthy Accession To NATO!
http://www.stoppanato.se
English: http://www.stoppanato.se/english/guides.htm
6) Aysor, January 11, 2010
7) The Times, January 7, 2010
8) West's Afghan War: From Conquest To Bloodbath
Stop NATO, January 5, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/wests-afghan-war-from-conquest-to-bloodbath
9) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, December 30, 2009
10) Agence France-Presse, January 8, 2010
11) Trend News Agency, January 10, 2010
12) NATO In Persian Gulf: From Third World War To Istanbul
Stop NATO, February 6, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/nato-in-persian-gulf-from-third-world-war-to-istanbul
13) Mr. Simmons' Mission: NATO Bases From Balkans To Chinese Border
Stop NATO, March 4, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/mr-simmons-mission-nato-bases-from-balkans-to-chinese-border
Eurasian Crossroads: The Caucasus In U.S.-NATO War Plans
Stop NATO, April 7, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/118
Azerbaijan And The Caspian: NATO's War For The World's Heartland
Stop NATO, June 10, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/azerbaijan-and-the-caspian-natos-war-for-the-worlds-heartland
14) Azeri Press Agency, December 24, 2009
15) U.S. Marines In The Caucasus As West Widens Afghan War
Stop NATO, September 3, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/u-s-marines-in-the-caucasus-as-west-widens-afghan-war
16) Interfax, January 13, 2010
17) The Telegraph, December 8, 2009
18) PanArmenian.net, January 9, 2010
19) Estonian Free Press, January 8, 2010
20) Reuters, December 28, 2009
21) Polish Radio, December 31, 2009
22) Afghan War: NATO Trains Finland, Sweden For Conflict With Russia
Stop NATO, July 26, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/afghan-war-nato-trains-finland-sweden-for-conflict-with-russia
23) Polish Radio, December 28, 2009
24) Associated Press, January 8, 2010
25) Following Afghan Election, NATO Intensifies Deployments, Carnage
Stop NATO, September 6, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/following-afghan-election-nato-intensifies-deployments-carnage
26) Der Spiegel, January 4, 2010
27) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, January 5, 2010
28) New NATO: Germany Returns To World Military Stage
Stop NATO, July 12, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/new-nato-germany-returns-to-world-military-stage
29) Norway Post, January 3, 2010
30) IceNews, January 3, 2010
31) Ibid
32) EFE, January 8, 2010
33) Prensa Latina, December 28, 2009
34) Radio Netherlands, December 24, 2009
35) New York Times, December 27, 2009
36) Afghan War: NATO Builds History's First Global Army
Stop NATO, August 9, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/afghan-war-nato-builds-historys-first-global-army
37) Defense News, January 6, 2009
38) Ibid

Afghanistan: only the first move in the grand chess game for control of Central Asian resources

2010-01-19T15:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Afghanistan-only-the-firs-by-michael-payne-100108-123.html

January 9, 2010
By michael payne

Though not being reported in the mainstream American press, there is a very intense struggle going on between the U.S. and China to determine which nation will emerge as the dominant presence in Central Asia. These two economic giants, the U.S. declining and China rapidly growing, know full well that their economic future depends entirely on their ability to acquire critical resources; in the case of the U.S., it's primarily oil, while with China it's both oil and natural gas.

The specific Central Asian region of which I speak, rich in natural gas and oil, includes India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, among others. Russia, which borders the region and Iran are also key players. Transport of these critical resources via current and planned pipelines is at the center of the struggle to determine who will control them into the future. To understand the magnitude of this struggle we need to begin by examining the strategy that the U.S. is pursuing in Afghanistan and Pakistan as related to its greater objectives in Central Asia.

Our president talks about a surge in Afghanistan; but that represents only the initial stage in the overall strategy that America is pursuing in Central Asia. The real surge will follow as the U.S. becomes more involved with military actions to establish a presence in Pakistan. There has been constant pressure by the U.S. on the Pakistani government to have their troops increase actions against insurgents in South Waziristan near the Afghan border as well as in other Taliban-controlled areas.

The U.S. is also increasing the use of drones in Pakistan in remote areas with the reluctant permission of the Pakistani military. But, apparently, that's not enough and now those operating the drone program want to extend it into Balochistan, the largest province in Pakistan; and in its largest city, Quetta. If the leadership of Pakistan allows this very aggressive, misguided use of drones within its cities, then they are opening the door to massive civil violence that could lead to domestic disaster.

So, it becomes apparent where Mr. Obama's surge is heading. Without a doubt, all these moves into Afghanistan and the increasing pressure on the government of Pakistan portend that America will become involved in yet one more war in another sovereign nation. It is also evident that Obama has now fully adopted the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war; that is to strike within the borders of any nation where the U.S. deems the "enemy" exists.

Existing pipelines in Central Asia are currently capable of getting only a fraction of the total potential oil and gas wealth to market. Central Asian nations and Iran are very anxious to sell more gas and oil. The U.S., Europe, Russia, India, Pakistan and China are anxious to buy more. The only thing holding back the desired transport of gas and oil is the construction of new pipelines. That's what this grand chess game is all about and why the U.S. and NATO are right in the middle of all the action and activity.

The reason the U.S. is setting its sights on Balochistan and the city of Quetta is that this area has been identified as a key transit corridor for both natural gas and oil. There are plans for two pipelines that would transit through Balochistan; the IPI is the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline that the U.S. is dead set against because of Iran's involvement. Then there is the U.S. backed TAPI, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline. Unfortunately, the Taliban tribes in Afghanistan are not being cooperative and that's why they must be pacified. This is easier said than done.

In Balochistan, China has provided funds and expertise to construct a deep sea port at Gwadar, which provides China with a transit terminal for crude oil imports from Iran and Africa to China's Xinjiang region. This strategic port, together with rail and road links connecting Pakistan with Afghanistan and Central Asian nations will give China an important opening into Central Asian markets and energy sources. The U.S. is trying to counter these moves by China in every way possible because of its own competing interests.

China has also been aggressively negotiating to buy natural gas in Central Asia which has just resulted in the commissioning of a 1,833 kilometer pipeline connecting gas fields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. By 2013, the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong will be receiving substantial quantities of gas. This amounts to a resounding defeat for the U.S. whose competitive proposals were rejected.

So if anyone still thinks that the surge in Afghanistan is strictly intended to defeat the Taliban and the remnants of Al-Qaeda, it's time to think again. This is the new launching point for the eventual control of the Balochistan region. The threat of Iran becoming a major player because of its gas and oil resources and the desire of China to also become involved in that area must be neutralized at all costs.

We are just in the beginning stages of a new chapter in this grand chess game that pits the U.S. against China in achieving dominance in the world's natural resources, primarily oil and gas, for many years to come. So far, China has used diplomacy and negotiations around the world and has stayed completely away from involvement in wars. Conversely, the U.S. has initiated wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan at staggering costs to achieve its goals.

We are going to hear more and more reports of various types of incursions into Pakistan by various means; the use of drones will greatly intensify, and Blackwater (now renamed XE) is actively setting up clandestine operations in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. Whether U.S. and/or NATO troops will actually make incursions into Pakistan is anyone's guess but, if that happens , then the situation could become very dire indeed.

What I'm describing is not an unsubstantiated theory. It has been well documented, not in the Western press, but by major Asian news outlets; the Asia Times, headquartered in Hong Kong, is closely monitoring this grand chess game being played out. There is no great secret in that area of the world as to what is really happening and why.

At this point, China is winning the grand chess game because of its apparent ability to use diplomacy in securing critical resources. The danger is that the U.S., rather than using diplomacy, is committed to using military "persuasion" to achieve its objectives. Carrying out such aggressive military policies in a region where four nations with nuclear capabilities -- Russia, China, India and Pakistan -- exist is moving this game into a highly dangerous phase.

Afghan Govt. Demands Arrest of US "Death Squad" Who handcuffed, executed 8 children. US refuses

2010-01-18T13:28:00.000-08:00

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24403.htm

Afghan Govt. Demands Arrest of US "Death Squad" Who handcuffed, executed 8 children. US refuses
By Carl Herman

January 15, 2010 "LA County Nonpartisan Examiner" -- Kai Eide, UN Representative to Afghanistan confirmed the Afghan government’s investigative conclusions that US troops handcuffed and then executed eight students enrolled in grades 6 through 10 in a night raid on December 27, 2009. The US military and NATO responded the troops involved were non-official. The most likely source of para-military “non-official” troops in Afghanistan is Blackwater/Xe.

President Hamid Karzai demanded arrest of the US troops engaged in the break-in and mafia-style execution of their children. The US responded to the Afghan demand of January 1 by rejecting the findings of the Afghan government and UN with a vague promise of their own self-investigation at some later date.

Dave Lindorff caught corporate media in repulsive disinformation by quoting the NY Times titling and introducing this incident as:

Attack Puts Afghan Leader and NATO at Odds
KABUL, Afghanistan -- The killing of at least nine men in a remote valley of eastern Afghanistan by a joint operation of Afghan and American forces put President Hamid Karzai and senior NATO officials at odds on Monday over whether those killed had been civilians or Taliban insurgents.

Please consider my analysis in the below “Comment Policy” section of why corporate media frames the news in this way.

For further analysis of this "My Lai" kind of incident, I suggest here, here, here, and here.

Policy response: Gandhi and Martin Luther King advocated public understanding of the facts and non-cooperation with evil. I’m among hundreds who advocate:

Understand the laws of war. These were legislated after WW2 and are crystal-clear that only self-defense, in a narrow legal meaning, can justify war. This investment of your time takes less than an hour and empowers you to legally stand for ending these Wars of Aggression.

Communicate. Trust your unique, beautiful, and powerful self-expression to share powerful information as you feel appropriate. Understand that while many people are ready to embrace difficult facts, many are not. Anticipate your virtuous response to being attacked and give it in the spirit of competition, just as you do in other fields.

Refuse and end all orders and acts associated with these unlawful wars and constant violation of treaties. Those involved with US military, government, and law enforcement have an oath to protect and defend the US Constitution. Unlawful acts only move forward with sufficient cooperation and public tolerance. Stop cooperating with the most vicious crime a nation can commit: war.

Support global security through cooperation, dignity, justice, and freedom. End poverty through global cooperation to achieve the UN Millennium Goals by developed countries investing 0.7% of their income. End extremism by providing all humanity with an opportunity to live a life of peaceful creativity.

Prosecute the war leaders for obvious violation of the letter and spirit of US war laws. You can only understand how these wars are specifically unlawful by investing the time to do so. Because the crimes are so broad and deep, I recommend Truth and Reconciliation (T&R) to exchange full truth and return of stolen US assets for non-prosecution. This is the most expeditious way to understand and end all unlawful and harmful acts. Those who reject T&R either by volunteering their name and/or responding when named are subject to prosecution after the window of T&R closes.

Please share this article with all who can benefit. If you appreciate my work, please subscribe by clicking under the article title (it’s free). Please use my archive of work to help build a brighter future.

I include the PuppetGov 8-minute video, "How you ended the war."

Comments policy: I welcome questions and comments that are civil and pertain to the article topic. Impolite and impertinent comments will be deleted.

Please also consider that I’m among hundreds of writers who have documented our own government’s disclosure of propaganda programs to support their wars. I suspect my articles are under such propagandistic attack from comments that use typical rhetorical fallacies to distract readers from the facts. I invite readers to sharpen their ability to discern such propaganda. They are characterized by a combination of: never addressing the facts, diverting attention through unsubstantiated belief in an alleged expert, irrelevant data, straw-man attack that distorts the facts, ad hominem attack of insults to the messenger, and lies of omission and commission.

I will use such comments to point-out the propaganda or delete them at my discretion. Again, all relevant and polite questions and factually accurate comments are welcome. As a professional educator I’m in agreement with my experience and research: we learn best from multiple perspectives in mutual commitment to understand the facts, see those facts from diverse points-of-view, and consider various policy proposals of what we should do.

U.S. spending in Afghanistan plagued by poor U.S. oversight

2010-01-18T12:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/82448.html

Posted on Fri, Jan. 15, 2010
U.S. spending in Afghanistan plagued by poor U.S. oversight
Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers
January 15, 2010 01:08:41 PM

WASHINGTON — The U.S. has spent more than $732 million to improve Afghanistan's electrical grid since 2002, but delays and rising costs have plagued many of the projects in part because of poor oversight by the American government, a watchdog agency reports.

Of six projects under way in 2009, only one has been completed on time.

In the report released Friday, auditors with the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction blamed poor communication between U.S. officials and the two companies that are working on the majority of the projects.

While the U.S. Agency for International Development has relied on the companies, Louis Berger and Black & Veatch, for updates on projects, "that reporting has not always been timely or sufficient," the auditors said.

The companies also had trouble meeting deadlines for projects because of dangerous conditions.

In addition, Afghanistan began rebuilding its electrical grid without a concrete plan for how to approach such a complex effort, the auditors said.

In 2006, the USAID awarded the two U.S. companies a five-year, $1.4 billion joint contract to build many of the roads and energy projects that now are under way in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan's electrical capacity has increased in the last eight years from 430 megawatts to more than 1,028 megawatts, a significant achievement in a country in which only about 6 percent of rural citizens have electricity, the auditors said.

However, it's unclear whether Afghanistan will be able to operate the system without foreign aid, they said.

One major hurdle is collecting enough money to keep the grid running, the report said. The reason: systemic corruption.

Afghans are more likely to try to bribe officials or rely on personal favors to connect to the system because of the country's byzantine bureaucracy. To get electricity legitimately, Afghans have to obtain as many as 25 signatures.

Friday's report came after another watchdog, the inspector general for the USAID, last fall found cost overruns and delays in two power plant projects overseen by Louis Berger and Black & Veatch.

In one case, a $300 million Kabul generating plant might not be able to operate to capacity because the Afghanistan government can't afford the diesel fuel to power it, which auditors said indicated poor planning by the U.S. government.

Auditors also blame lackluster oversight for about $40 million in cost overruns on the Kabul project. The U.S. government still can't calculate how much was lost on other projects because of inefficiency and waste, the officials said.

The audits confirm a McClatchy report in October that delays and cost overruns had plagued projects by Louis Berger and Black & Veatch.

The companies and the USAID say they've since taken steps to improve their oversight.

Afghanistan Reconstruction Inspector General Arnold Fields told McClatchy that his agency should have been created before 2008 so that waste and fraud could have been better detected.

The U.S. government "should have been more aggressive years ago," he said. "We're behind in terms of providing the oversight."

His agency currently has 41 ongoing investigations.

Deadly Protest in Afghanistan Highlights Tensions

2010-01-18T12:30:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/world/asia/13afghan.html?ref=todayspaper

January 13, 2010
Deadly Protest in Afghanistan Highlights Tensions
By DEXTER FILKINS

KABUL, Afghanistan — A volatile town in southern Afghanistan erupted Tuesday as rumors spread that American servicemen had desecrated a Koran and defiled local women in a nearby village. Taliban provocateurs on the scene whipped up a crowd and goaded it to violence, local officials said.

When the riot was over, at least eight protesters were dead and about a dozen wounded, shot by Afghan intelligence officers. Much of the town of Garmsir blamed the Americans.

The episode, which American officers said they were investigating, highlighted how easily suspicions and resentment can flare out of control in an area as contested as the Helmand River Valley.

Separately, two United States service members were killed Wednesday in a bomb blast in eastern Afghanistan, NATO said in a statement without giving details, The Associated Press reported.

Their deaths brought to 12 the number of American troops killed in Afghanistan so far this month; 16 other soldiers from the international coalition have died this month. The A.P. said.

Thousands of American Marines and soldiers — the majority of the reinforcements President Obama has sent so far to try to turn the tide of the war — are moving into areas there that had previously stood as uncontested Taliban strongholds.

In Kabul, American commanders denied that their service members had engaged in any offensive conduct. But the damage, it seemed, had been done.

The protest began when several thousand Afghans gathered in the central bazaar in Garmsir, after reports of abuse by American servicemen during a raid at a nearby village two nights before. Local officials said the protest was organized by the Taliban’s shadow governor for Garmsir, Mullah Mohammed Naim.

“The Taliban were provoking the people,” Kamal Khan, Helmand Province’s deputy police chief, said in a telephone interview. “They were telling the people that the Americans and their Afghan partners are killing innocent people, bombing their homes and destroying their mosques and also blaspheming their religion and culture.

“The Taliban were telling the people, ‘This is jihad; you should sacrifice yourselves.’ ”

No witnesses to the disputed raid could be located; it took place Sunday night in the village of Darweshan. American officers in Kabul said that Afghan soldiers conducted a nighttime operation in the village, with the Americans in support. But they said that no shots had been fired and that no one had engaged in any inappropriate conduct.

The protesters in Garmsir began shouting “Death to America” and “Death to Kamal Khan” and overturned several cars. They set a school on fire. Then they stormed the local office of the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan domestic intelligence service.

The N.D.S. is sometimes blamed for providing faulty intelligence to the Americans, who then detain the wrong people. As the crowd moved in, N.D.S. officers opened fire, Mr. Khan said.

In addition to the 8 protesters killed and 13 wounded, an Afghan intelligence officer and two police officers were killed.

As the chaos unfolded, American officials said, a Taliban sniper began firing into a nearby American base, Forward Operating Base Delhi, a few hundred yards away. American officers said they killed the sniper but no one else. In a statement, the Americans denied that they had fired on any protesters.

Mr. Khan, the deputy police chief, seconded that. “There were no Americans there,” he said.

Still, the episode appeared to have soured relations between the Americans and at least some Afghans.

“The Americans are blaspheming the holy Koran and violating and disrespecting our culture,” said Jan Gul, a farmer whose son was killed in the protest. “We cannot tolerate such behavior. We will defend our religion.”

Indeed, some Afghans at the demonstration maintained that the American forces were present with the N.D.S. agents and fired on the crowd. But Mr. Khan and American officers in Kabul said that was not true.

“While denying these allegations, we take them very seriously and support a combined investigation with local Afghan authorities,” Maj. Gen. Michael Regner said in Kabul.

“I.S.A.F. is an international force that includes Muslim soldiers, and we deplore such an action under any circumstances,” he said, using the abbreviation for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

At least 363 American and other NATO service personnel have been killed in Helmand, more than in any other Afghan province. Helmand received the bulk of the 17,000 additional soldiers Mr. Obama sent to the region after taking office last January, and it will get at least some of the 30,000 reinforcements that he ordered last month.

Garmsir is an especially difficult area. It was under Taliban control until May 2008, when a force of American Marines swept in and cleared the town. Since then, the Marines have been trying to secure the area and establish a government. In fact, they have brought a measure of calm to Garmsir and its environs, an area six miles long and six miles wide. But outside Garmsir — and sometimes inside it — the Taliban are still operating.

Also Tuesday, 16 people suspected of being insurgents were killed in a pair of Hellfire missile strikes launched by unmanned aerial vehicles, otherwise known as drones.

Airstrikes by drones have drawn great attention in Pakistan, where the C.I.A. has used Predator drones and the larger Reaper drones to find and kill Taliban and Qaeda fighters in the rugged areas along the border.

In Afghanistan, by contrast, the strikes carried out by the United States Air Force are rarely publicized. In 2002, officials with the C.I.A. used a drone to fire a missile at a warlord, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, outside Kabul, but missed. Until Monday, there had been very few publicized drone strikes on the Afghan side of the border.

In a statement, the American command in Kabul said the more lethal of the two drone strikes took place in Now Zad, where the missile was fired at a group of men moving military equipment. The attack killed 13 people suspected of being insurgents, the statement said. An Afghan in the area who was interviewed by telephone said that those killed had in fact been insurgents, and that no civilians had been harmed.

A second missile was fired in the Nad Ali District, killing three insurgents, the command said.

In both instances, the drones fired Hellfire missiles.

Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Iran says US, UK, Canadian governments assist Afghan drug trade

2010-01-18T11:37:00.000-08:00

http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=116144&ionid=351020101

Press TV
Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:13 EST

A senior Iranian anti-drug official has accused the US, Britain and Canada of playing a major role in Afghanistan's lucrative drug trade.

On the sidelines of an anti-drug conference in Tehran, deputy head of Iran's Drug Control Headquarters Taha Taheri said that Western powers are aiding the drug trade in Afghanistan.

"According to our indisputable information, the presence of the United States, Britain and Canada has not reduced the dug trade and the three countries have had major roles in the distribution of drugs," IRIB quoted Taheri as saying on Thursday.

Iranian officials have always criticized Western countries over their policies towards Afghanistan, where poppy cultivation has drastically increased since the US-led military occupation of the country in 2001.

Taheri added that drug catalysts are being smuggled into Afghanistan through borders that are controlled by US, British and Canadian troops.

Some 13,000 tons of drug catalysts are brought into Afghanistan every year as the war-torn country is the producer of 90 percent of the world's opium.

The UN office on drugs and crime said last month that the 2009 potential gross export value of opium from Afghanistan stood at $2.8 billion.

Iranian police officials maintain that drug production in Afghanistan has had a 40-fold increase since the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.

"More than 340 tons of drugs have been seized all over Iran in the past nine months," IRNA quoted the commander of the drug squad, General Hamid Reza Hossein-Abadi, as saying earlier this month.

The UN has praised Tehran for its commitment to the fight against drug trafficking.

Taliban 1, CIA 0

2010-01-15T15:17:00.000-08:00

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/taliban_1_cia_0/

George Friedman and Scott Stewart | Monday, 11 January 2010
The loss of several CIA agents in an Afghanistan suicide bombing was the equivalent of losing an aircraft carrier.

This article was first published on the Stratfor website. The author, George Friedman, is chairman and CEO of Stratfor, the world’s leading online publisher of geopolitical intelligence.

As Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi exited the vehicle that brought him onto Forward Operating Base (FOB) Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan, on Dec. 30, 2009, security guards noticed he was behaving strangely. They moved toward al-Balawi and screamed demands that he take his hand out of his pocket, but instead of complying with the officers’ commands, al-Balawi detonated the suicide device he was wearing. The explosion killed al-Balawi, three security contractors, four CIA officers and the Jordanian General Intelligence Department (GID) officer who was al-Balawi’s handler. The vehicle shielded several other CIA officers at the scene from the blast. The CIA officers killed included the chief of the base at Khost and an analyst from headquarters who reportedly was the agency’s foremost expert on al Qaeda. The agency’s second-ranking officer in Afghanistan was allegedly among the officers who survived.

Al-Balawi was a Jordanian doctor from Zarqa (the hometown of deceased al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). Under the alias Abu Dujanah al-Khurasani, he served as an administrator for Al-Hesbah, a popular Internet discussion forum for jihadists. Jordanian officers arrested him in 2007 because of his involvement with radical online forums, which is illegal in Jordan. The GID subsequently approached al-Balawi while he was in a Jordanian prison and recruited him to work as an intelligence asset.

Al-Balawi was sent to Pakistan less than a year ago as part of a joint GID/CIA mission. Under the cover of going to school to receive advanced medical training, al-Balawi established himself in Pakistan and began to reach out to jihadists in the region. Under his al-Khurasani pseudonym, al-Balawai announced in September 2009 in an interview on a jihadist Internet forum that he had officially joined the Afghan Taliban.

A Lucky Break for the TTP

It is unclear if al-Balawi was ever truly repentant. Perhaps he cooperated with the GID at first, but had a change of heart sometime after arriving in Pakistan. Either way, at some point al-Balawi approached the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the main Pakistani Taliban group, and offered to work with it against the CIA and GID. Al-Balawi confirmed this in a video statement recorded with TTP leader Hakeemullah Mehsud and released Jan. 9. This is significant because it means that al-Balawi’s appearance was a lucky break for the TTP, and not part of some larger, intentional intelligence operation orchestrated by the TTP or another jihadist entity like al Qaeda.

The TTP’s luck held when a group of 13 people gathered to meet al-Balawi upon his arrival at FOB Chapman. This allowed him to detonate his suicide device amid the crowd and create maximum carnage before he was able to be searched for weapons.

In the world of espionage, source meetings are almost always a dangerous activity for both the intelligence officer and the source. There are fears the source could be surveilled and followed to the meeting site, or that the meeting could be raided by host country authorities and the parties arrested. In the case of a terrorist source, the meeting site could be attacked and those involved in the meeting killed. Because of this, the CIA and other intelligence agencies exercise great care while conducting source meetings. Normally they will not bring the source into a CIA station or base. Instead, they will conduct the meeting at a secure, low-profile offsite location.

Operating in the wilds of Afghanistan is far different from operating out of an embassy in Vienna or Moscow, however. Khost province is Taliban territory, and it offers no refuge from the watching eyes and gunmen of the Taliban and their jihadist allies. Indeed, the province has few places safe enough even for a CIA base. And this is why the CIA base in Khost is located on a military base, FOB Chapman, named for the first American killed in Afghanistan following the U.S. invasion. Normally, an outer ring of Afghan security around the base searches persons entering FOB Chapman, who the U.S. military then searches again at the outer perimeter of the U.S. portion of the base. Al-Balawi, a high-value CIA asset, was allowed to skip these external layers of security to avoid exposing his identity to Afghan troops and U.S. military personnel. Instead, the team of Xe (the company formerly known as Blackwater) security contractors were to search al-Balawi as he arrived at the CIA’s facility.

A Failure to Follow Security Procedures

Had proper security procedures been followed, the attack should only have killed the security contractors, the vehicle driver and perhaps the Jordanian GID officer. But proper security measures were not followed, and several CIA officers rushed out to greet the unscreened Jordanian source. Reports indicate that the source had alerted his Jordanian handler that he had intelligence pertaining to the location of al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri. (There are also reports that al-Balawi had given his handlers highly accurate battle damage assessments on drone strikes in Pakistan, indicating that he had access to high-level jihadist sources.) The prospect of finally receiving such crucial and long-sought information likely explains the presence of the high-profile visitors from CIA headquarters in Langley and the station in Kabul — and their exuberance over receiving such coveted intelligence probably explains their eager rush to meet the source before he had been properly screened.

The attack, the most deadly against CIA personnel since the 1983 Beirut bombing, was clearly avoidable, or at least mitigable. But human intelligence is a risky business, and collecting human intelligence against jihadist groups can be flat-out deadly. The CIA officers in Khost the day of the bombing had grown complacent, and violated a number of security procedures. The attack thus serves as a stark reminder to the rest of the clandestine service of the dangers they face and of the need to adhere to time-tested security procedures.

A better process might have prevented some of the deaths, but it would not have solved the fundamental problem: The CIA had an asset who turned out to be a double agent. When he turned is less important than that he was turned into — assuming he had not always been — a double agent. His mission was to gain the confidence of the CIA as to his bona fides, and then create an event in which large numbers of CIA agents were present, especially the top al Qaeda analyst at the CIA. He knew that high-value targets would be present because he had set the stage for the meeting by dangling vital information before the agency. He went to the meeting to carry out his true mission, which was to deliver a blow against the CIA. He succeeded.

The Obama Strategy’s Weakness

In discussing the core weakness in the Afghan strategy U.S. President Barack Obama has chosen, we identified the basic problem as the intelligence war. We argued that establishing an effective Afghan army would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, because the Americans and their NATO allies lacked knowledge and sophistication in distinguishing friend from foe among those being recruited into the army. This problem is compounded by the fact that there are very few written documents in a country like Afghanistan that could corroborate identities. The Taliban would seed the Afghan army with its own operatives and supporters, potentially exposing the army’s operations to al Qaeda.

This case takes the problem a step further. The United States relied on Jordanian intelligence to turn a jihadist operative into a double agent. They were dependent on the Jordanian handler’s skills at debriefing, vetting and testing the now-double agent. It is now reasonable to assume the agent allowed himself to be doubled in an attempt to gain the trust of the handler. The Jordanians offered the source to the Americans, who obviously grabbed him, and the source passed all the tests to which he was undoubtedly subjected. Yet in the end, his contacts with the Taliban were not designed to provide intelligence to the Americans. The intelligence provided to the Americans was designed to win their trust and set up the suicide bombing. It is therefore difficult to avoid the conclusion that al-Balawi was playing the GID all along and that his willingness to reject his jihadist beliefs was simply an opportunistic strategy for surviving and striking.

Even though encountering al-Balawi was a stroke of luck for the TTP, the group’s exploitation of this lucky break was a very sophisticated operation. The TTP had to provide valuable intelligence to allow al-Balawi to build his credibility. It had to create the clustering of CIA agents by promising extraordinarily valuable intelligence. It then had to provide al-Balawi with an effective suicide device needed for the strike. And it had to do this without being detected by the CIA. Al-Balawi had a credible cover for meeting TTP agents; that was his job. But what al-Balawi told his handlers about his meetings with the TTP, and where he went between meetings, clearly did not indicate to the handlers that he was providing fabricated information or posed a threat.

In handling a double agent, it is necessary to track every step he takes. He cannot be trusted because of his history; the suspicion that he is still loyal to his original cause must always be assumed. Therefore, the most valuable moments in evaluating a double agent are provided by intense scrutiny of his patterns and conduct away from his handlers and new friends. Obviously, if this scrutiny was applied, al-Balawi and his TTP handlers were still able to confuse their observers. If it was not applied, then the CIA was setting itself up for disappointment. Again, such scrutiny is far more difficult to conduct in the Pakistani badlands, where resources to surveil a source are very scarce. In such a case, the intuition and judgment of the agent’s handler are critical, and al-Balawi was obviously able to fool his Jordanian handler.

Given his enthusiastic welcome at FOB Chapman, it would seem al-Balawi was regarded not only as extremely valuable but also as extremely reliable. Whatever process might have been used at the meeting, the central problem was that he was regarded as a highly trusted source when he shouldn’t have been. Whether this happened because the CIA relied entirely on the Jordanian GID for evaluation or because American interrogators and counterintelligence specialists did not have the skills needed to pick up the cues can’t be known. What is known is that the TTP ran circles around the CIA in converting al-Balawi to its uses.

The United States cannot hope to reach any satisfactory solution in Afghanistan unless it can win the intelligence war. But the damage done to the CIA in this attack cannot be overestimated. At least one of the agency’s top analysts on al Qaeda was killed. In an intelligence war, this is the equivalent of sinking an aircraft carrier in a naval war. The United States can’t afford this kind of loss. There will now be endless reviews, shifts in personnel and re-evaluations. In the meantime, the Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan will be attempting to exploit the opportunity presented by this disruption.

Casualties happen in war, and casualties are not an argument against war. However, when the center of gravity in a war is intelligence, and an episode like this occurs, the ability to prevail becomes a serious question. We have argued that in any insurgency, the insurgents have a built-in advantage. It is their country and their culture, and they are indistinguishable from everyone else. Keeping them from infiltrating is difficult.

This was a different matter. Al-Balawi was Jordanian; his penetration of the CIA was less like the product of an insurgency than an operation carried out by a national intelligence service. And this is the most troubling aspect of this incident for the United States. The operation was by all accounts a masterful piece of tradecraft beyond the known abilities of a group like the TTP. Even though al-Balawi’s appearance was a lucky break for the TTP, not the result of an intentional, long-term operation, the execution of the operation that arose as a result of that lucky break was skillfully done — and it was good enough to deliver a body blow to the CIA. The Pakistani Taliban would thus appear far more skilled than we would have thought, which is the most important takeaway from this incident, and something to ponder.

Mercenaries, Robot Planes and the CIA Produce Lethal Mix for Secret Afghan War

2010-01-12T17:29:00.001-08:00

By Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse, Tomdispatch.com
January 12, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145054/

It was a Christmas and New Year’s from hell for American intelligence, that $75 billion labyrinth of at least 16 major agencies and a handful of minor ones. As the old year was preparing to be rung out, so were our intelligence agencies, which managed not to connect every obvious clue to a (literally) seat-of-the-pants al-Qaeda operation. It hardly mattered that the underwear bomber’s case -- except for the placement of the bomb material -- almost exactly, even outrageously, replicated the infamous, and equally inept, “shoe bomber” plot of eight years ago.

That would have been bad enough, but the New Year brought worse. Army Major General Michael Flynn, U.S. and NATO forces deputy chief of staff for intelligence in Afghanistan, released a report in which he labeled military intelligence in the war zone -- but by implication U.S. intelligence operatives generally -- “clueless.” They were, he wrote, "ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced... and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers... Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy."

As if to prove the general’s point, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a Jordanian doctor with a penchant for writing inspirational essays on jihadi websites and an “unproven asset” for the CIA, somehow entered a key Agency forward operating base in Afghanistan unsearched, supposedly with information on al-Qaeda’s leadership so crucial that a high-level CIA team was assembled to hear it and Washington was alerted. He proved to be either a double or a triple agent and killed seven CIA operatives, one of whom was the base chief, by detonating a suicide vest bomb, while wounding yet more, including the Agency’s number-two operative in the country. The first suicide bomber to penetrate a U.S. base in Afghanistan, he blew a hole in the CIA’s relatively small cadre of agents knowledgeable on al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

It was an intelligence disaster splayed all over the headlines: “Taliban bomber wrecks CIA’s shadowy war,” “Killings Rock Afghan Strategy,” “Suicide bomber who attacked CIA post was trusted informant from Jordan.” It seemed to sum up the hapless nature of America’s intelligence operations as the CIA, with all the latest technology and every imaginable resource on hand, including the latest in Hellfire missile-armed drone aircraft, was out-thought and out-maneuvered by low-tech enemies.

No one could say that the deaths and the blow to the American war effort weren’t well covered. There were major TV reports night after night and scores of news stories, many given front-page treatment. And yet lurking behind those deaths and the man who caused them lay a bigger American war story that went largely untold. It was a tale of a new-style battlefield that the American public knows remarkably little about, and that bears little relationship to the Afghan War as we imagine it or as our leaders generally discuss it.

We don’t even have a language to describe it accurately. Think of it as a battlefield filled with muscled-up, militarized intelligence operatives, hired-gun contractors doing military duty, and privatized “native” guard forces. Add in robot assassins in the air 24/7 and kick-down-the-door-style night-time “intelligence” raids, “surges” you didn’t know were happening, strings of military bases you had no idea were out there, and secretive international collaborations you were unaware the U.S. was involved in. In Afghanistan, the American military is only part of the story. There’s also a polyglot “army” representing the U.S. that wears no uniforms and fights shape-shifting enemies to the death in a murderous war of multiple assassinations and civilian slaughter, all enveloped in a blanket of secrecy.

Black Ops and Black Sites

Secrecy is, of course, a part of war. The surprise attack is only a surprise if secrecy is maintained. In wartime, crucial information must be kept from an enemy capable of using it. But what if, as in our case, wartime never ends, while secrecy becomes endemic, as well as profitable and privitizable, and much of the information available to both sides on our shadowy new battlefield is mainly being kept from the American people? The coverage of the suicide attack on Forward Operating Base (FOB) Chapman offered a rare, very partial window into that strange war -- but only if you were willing to read piles of news reports looking for tiny bits of information that could be pieced together.

We did just that and here’s what we found:

Let's start with FOB Chapman, where the suicide bombing took place. An old Soviet base near the Pakistani border, it was renamed after a Green Beret who fought beside CIA agents and was the first American to die in the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. It sits in isolation near the town of Khost, just miles from the larger Camp Salerno, a forward operating base used mainly by U.S. Special Operations troops. Occupied by the CIA since 2001, Chapman is regularly described as “small” or “tiny” and, in one report, as having “a forbidding network of barriers, barbed wire and watchtowers.” Though a State Department provisional reconstruction team has been stationed there (as well as personnel from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of Agriculture), and though it “was officially a camp for civilians involved in reconstruction,” FOB Chapman is “well-known locally as a CIA base” -- an “open secret,” as another report put it.

The base is guarded by Afghan irregulars, sometimes referred to in news reports as “Afghan contractors,” about whom we know next to nothing. (“CIA officials on Thursday would not discuss what guard service they had at the base.”) Despite the recent suicide bombing, according to Julian Barnes and Greg Miller of the Los Angeles Times, a “program to hire Afghans to guard U.S. forward operating bases would not be canceled. Under that program, which is beginning in eastern Afghanistan, Afghans will guard towers, patrol perimeter fences and man checkpoints.” Also on FOB Chapman were employees of the private security contractor Xe (formerly Blackwater) which has had a close relationship with the CIA in Afghanistan. We know this because of reports that two of the dead “CIA” agents were Xe operatives.

Someone else of interest was at FOB Chapman and so at that fateful meeting with the Jordanian doctor al-Balawi -- Sharif Ali bin Zeid, a captain in the Jordanian intelligence service, the eighth person killed in the blast. It turns out that al-Balawi was an agent of Jordanian intelligence, which held (and abused) torture suspects kidnapped and disappeared by the CIA in the years of George W. Bush’s Global War on Terror. The service reportedly continues to work closely with the Agency and the captain was evidently running al-Balawi. That’s what we now know about the polyglot group at FOB Chapman on the front lines of the Agency’s black-ops war against al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and the allied fighters of the Haqqani network in nearby Pakistan. If there were other participants, they weren’t among the bodies.

The Agency Surges

And here’s something that’s far clearer in the wake of the bombing: among our vast network of bases in Afghanistan, the CIA has its own designated bases -- as, by the way, do U.S. Special Operations forces, and according to Nation reporter Jeremy Scahill, even private contractor Xe. Without better reporting on the subject, it’s hard to get a picture of these bases, but Siobhan Gorman of the Wall Street Journal tells us that a typical CIA base houses no more than 15-20 Agency operatives (which means that al-Balawi’s explosion killed or woundedmore than half of the team on FOB Chapman).

And don’t imagine that we’re only talking about a base or two. In the single most substantive post-blast report on the CIA, Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times wrote that the Agency has “an archipelago of firebases in southern and eastern Afghanistan,” most built in the last year. An archipelago? Imagine that. And it’s also reported that even more of them are in the works.

With this goes another bit of information that the Wall Street Journal seems to have been the first to drop into its reports. While you’ve heard about President Obama's surge in American troops and possibly even State Department personnel in Afghanistan, you’ve undoubtedly heard little or nothing about a CIA surge in the region, and yet the Journal’s reporters tell us that Agency personnel will increase by 20-25% in the surge months. By the time the CIA is fully bulked up with all its agents, paramilitaries, and private contractors in place, Afghanistan will represent, according to Julian Barnes of the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest “stations” in Agency history.

This, in turn, implies other surges. There will be a surge in base-building to house those agents, and a surge in “native” guards -- at least until another suicide bomber hits a base thanks to Taliban supporters among them or one of them turns a weapon on the occupants of a base -- and undoubtedly a surge in Blackwater-style mercenaries as well. Keep in mind that the latest figure on private contractors suggests that 56,000 more of them will surge into Afghanistan in the next 18 months, far more than surging U.S. troops, State Department employees, and CIA operatives combined. And don’t forget the thousands of non-CIA “uniformed and civilian intelligence personnel serving with the Defense Department and joint interagency operations in the country,” who will undoubtedly surge as well.

Making War

The efforts of the CIA operatives at Forward Operating Base Chapman were reportedly focused on “collecting information about militant networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and plotting missions to kill the networks’ top leaders,” especially those in the Haqqani network in North Waziristan just across the Pakistani border. They were evidently running “informants” into Pakistan to find targets for the Agency’s ongoing drone assassination war. These drone attacks in Pakistan have themselves been on an unparalleled surge course ever since Barack Obama entered office; 44 to 50 (or more) have been launched in the last year, with civilian casualties running into the hundreds. Like local Pashtuns, the Agency essentially doesn’t recognize a border. For them, the Afghan and Pakistani tribal borderlands are a single world.

In this way, as Paul Woodward of the website War in Context has pointed out, “Two groups of combatants, neither of whom wear uniforms, are slugging it out on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Each group has identified what it regards as high-value targets and each is using its own available means to hit these targets. The Taliban/Qaeda are using suicide bombers while the CIA is using Hellfire missiles.”

Since the devastating explosion at FOB Chapman, statements of vengeance have been coming out of CIA mouths -- of a kind that, when offered, by the Taliban or al-Qaeda, we consider typical of a backward, “tribal” society. In any case, the secret war is evidently becoming a private and personal one. Dr. al-Balawi’s suicide attack essentially took out a major part of the Agency’s targeting information system. As one unnamed NATO official told the New York Times, “These were not people who wrote things down in the computer or in notebooks. It was all in their heads... [The C.I.A. is] pulling in new people from all over the world, but how long will it take to rebuild the networks, to get up to speed? Lots of it is irrecoverable.” And the Agency was already generally known to be “desperately short of personnel who speak the language or are knowledgeable about the region.” Nonetheless, drone attacks have suddenly escalated -- at least five in the week since the suicide bombing, all evidently aimed at “an area believed to be a hideout for militants involved.” These sound like vengeance attacks and are likely to be particularly counterproductive.

To sum up, U.S. intelligence agents, having lost out to enemy “intelligence agents,” even after being transformed into full-time assassins, are now locked in a mortal struggle with an enemy for whom assassination is also a crucial tactic, but whose operatives seem to have better informants and better information.

In this war, drones are not the Agency’s only weapon. The CIA also seems to specialize in running highly controversial, kick-down-the-door “night raids” in conjunction with Afghan paramilitary forces. Such raids, when launched by U.S. Special Operations forces, have led to highly publicized and heavily protested civilian casualties. Sometimes, according to reports, the CIA actually conducts them in conjunction with Special Operations forces. In a recent American-led night raid in Kunar Province, eight young students were, according to Afghan sources, detained, handcuffed, and executed. The leadership of this raid has been attributed, euphemistically, to “other government agencies” (OGAs) or “non-military Americans.” These raids, whether successful in the limited sense or not, don’t fit comfortably with the Obama administration’s “hearts and minds” counterinsurgency strategy.

The Militarization of the Agency

As the identities of some of the fallen CIA operatives at FOB Chapman became known, a pattern began to emerge. There was 37-year-old Harold Brown, Jr., who formerly served in the Army. There was Scott Roberson, a former Navy SEAL, who did several tours of duty in Iraq, where he provided protection to officials considered at high risk. There was Jeremy Wise, 35, an ex-Navy SEAL who left the military last year, signed up with Xe, and ended up working for the CIA. Similarly, 46-year-old Dane Paresi, a retired Special Forces master sergeant turned Xe hired gun, also died in the blast.

For years, Chalmers Johnson, himself a former CIA consultant, has referred to the Agency as “the president’s private army.” Today, that moniker seems truer than ever. While the civilian CIA has always had a paramilitary component, known as the Special Activities Division, the unit was generally relatively small and dormant. Instead, military personnel like the Army’s Special Forces or indigenous troops carried out the majority of the CIA’s combat missions. After the 9/11 attacks, however, President Bush empowered the Agency to hunt down, kidnap, and assassinate suspected al-Qaeda operatives, and the CIA’s traditional specialties of spycraft and intelligence analysis took a distinct backseat to Special Activities Division operations, as its agents set up a global gulag of ghost prisons, conducted interrogations-by-torture, and then added those missile-armed drone and assassination programs.

The military backgrounds of the fallen CIA operatives cast a light on the way the world of “intelligence” is increasingly muscling up and becoming militarized. This past summer, when a former CIA official suggested the agency might be backing away from risky programs, a current official spit back from the shadows: “If anyone thinks the CIA has gotten risk-averse recently, go ask al-Qaeda and the Taliban... The agency's still doing cutting-edge stuff in all kinds of dangerous places.” At around the same time, reports were emerging that Blackwater/Xe was providing security, arming drones, and “perform[ing] some of the agency’s most important assignments” at secret bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It also emerged that the CIA had paid contractors from Blackwater to take part in a covert assassination program in Afghanistan.

Add this all together and you have the grim face of “intelligence” at war in 2010 -- a new micro-brew when it comes to Washington’s conflicts. Today, in Afghanistan, a militarized mix of CIA operatives and ex-military mercenaries as well as native recruits and robot aircraft is fighting a war “in the shadows” (as they used to say in the Cold War era). This is no longer “intelligence” as anyone imagines it, nor is it “military” as military was once defined, not when U.S. operations have gone mercenary and native in such a big way. This is pure “lord of the flies” stuff -- beyond oversight, beyond any law, including the laws of war. And worse yet, from all available evidence, despite claims that the drone war is knocking off mid-level enemies, it seems remarkably ineffective. All it may be doing is spreading the war farther and digging it in deeper.

Talk about “counterinsurgency” as much as you want, but this is another kind of battlefield, and “protecting the people” plays no part in it. And of course, this is only what can be gleaned from afar about a semi-secret war that is being poorly reported. Who knows what it costs when you include the U.S. hired guns, the Afghan contractors, the bases, the drones, and the rest of the personnel and infrastructure? Nor do we know what else, or who else, is involved, and what else is being done. Clearly, however, all those billions of "intelligence" dollars are going into the blackest of black holes.

Tom Engelhardt, editor of Tomdispatch.com, is co-founder of the American Empire Project and author of The End of Victory Culture.

Nick Turse is the associate editor and research director of Tomdispatch.com. His first book, The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, an exploration of the new military-corporate complex in America, was recently published by Metropolitan Books. His website is Nick Turse.com.

CIA Killings Spell Defeat In Afghanistan

2010-01-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24350.htm

By Douglas Valentine
January 08, 2010

“Why?” The grieving family members ask. “Why did the terrorists kill our loved ones?”

The hardnosed colleagues of the four fallen CIA officers comfort the wives and children (and one husband). They shake off their sorrow, huddle together by the graves, and vow vengeance. They bathe themselves in their seething anger like it was the blood of the lamb.

Why? The American public and its officials ask. Why? The media repeats, adding in shock and awe, “Don’t the terrorists know that you can’t kill CIA officers?”

Why, everyone wonders, did a Jordanian suicide bomber target the CIA, knowing that the wrath of the biggest, baddest, bloodthirstiest Gang on Planet Earth is going to start dropping bombs and slitting throats until its lust for death and suffering is satisfied?

Over the course of its sixty year reign of terror, in which it has overthrown countless governments, started countless wars costing countless lives, and otherwise subverted and sabotaged friends and foes alike, the CIA has lost less than 100 officers.

On a good day, one CIA drone, and one CIA hit team, kills 100 innocent women and children, and nobody bats an eye.

Why would the terrorists suddenly deviate from the norm – the sacred accommodation – and throw the whole game into chaos?

Why?

OK, I’ll Tell You Why

There is a phenomenon called The Universal Brotherhood of Officers. It exists in the twilight zone between imagination and in reality, in the fog of war. It is why officers are separated from enlisted men in POW camps and given better treatment. It is why officers of opposing armies have more in common with one another than they have with their own enlisted men.

Officers are trained to think of their subordinate ranks as canon fodder. Their troops are expendable. They know when they send a unit up a hill, some will be killed. That is why they do not fraternize with the lower ranks. This class distinction exists across the world, and is the basis of the sacred accommodation. No slobs need apply.

It is why the Bush Family flew the Bin Laden Family, and other Saudi Royals, out of the United States in the days after 9-11. If anyone was a case officer to the 9-11 bombers, or had knowledge about the bombers or any follow-up plots, it was these “protected” people.

CIA officers are at the pinnacle of the Universal Brotherhood. They are the Protected Few, blessed with false identities and bodyguards, flying in jet planes, living in villas, eating fancy food and enjoying state of the art technology. CIA officers tell army generals what to do.They direct Congressional committees. They assassinate heads of state and innocent children equally, with impunity, with indifference.

In Afghanistan they manage the drug trade from their hammocks in the shade.They know the Taliban tax the farmers growing the opium, and they know that Karzai’s warlords convert the opium into heroin and fly it to the Russian mob. They are amused by the antics of earnest DEA agents, who, in their ignorant patriotic bliss, cannot believe such an accommodation exists.

CIA officers are trained to exist in this moral netherworld of protected drug dealers, for the simple reasons that the CIA in every conflict has a paramount need to keep secure communication channels open to the enemy. This is CIA 101. The CIA, as part of its mandate, is authorized to negotiate with the enemy, but it can only do so as long as the channel is secure and deniable.

No proof will ever exist, so the American public can be deceived.

Take Iran Contra, when Reagan vowed never to negotiate with terrorists, then a team to Tehran to sell missiles to thee Iranians and use the money to buy guns for the drug dealing Contras.

There’s stated and unstated policy – and the CIA is always pursuing the unstated, which is why it relies so heavily on its patriotic and witless assets in the mainstream media.

In Afghanistan the accommodation is the environment that allows the CIA to have a secure channel to the Taliban to negotiate on simple matters like prisoner exchanges.

The exchange of British journalist Peter Moore for an Iraqi “insurgent” in CIA custody was an example of how the accommodation works in Iraq. Moore was held by a Shia group allegedly allied to Iran, and his freedom depended entirely on the CIA reaching an accommodation with America’s enemies in the Iraq resistance. The details of such prisoner exchanges are never revealed, but involve secret negotiations by the CIA and the resistance over issues of strategic importance to both sides.

The accommodation is the intellectual environment which provides a space for any eventual reconciliation. There are always preliminary negotiations for a reconciliation or ceasefire, and in every modern conflict that’s the CIA’s job.

And the Afghanis want reconciliation. Apart from the US and CIA, Karzai and his clique at every level have filial relations with the Taliban.

No matter how powerful the CIA is, it can’t overcome that.

Ed Brady, an Army officer detailed to the CIA and assigned to the Phoenix Directorate in Saigon in 1967 and 1968, explains how the accommodation worked in Vietnam.

While Brady and his Vietnamese counterpart Colonel Tan were lunching at a restaurant in Dalat, Tan pointed at a woman eating noodle soup and drinking Vietnamese coffee at the table next to them. He told Brady that she was the Viet Cong province chief’s wife. Brady, of course, wanted to grab her and use her for bait.

Coolly, Colonel Tan said to him: “You don’t understand. You don’t live the way we live. You don’t have any family here. You’re going to go home when this operation is over. You don’t think like you’re going to live here forever. But I have a home and a family and kids that go to school. I have a wife that has to go to market…. And you want me to go kill his wife? You want me to set a trap for him and kill him when he comes in to see his wife? If we do that, what are they going to do to our wives?”

“The VC didn’t run targeted operations against them either,” Brady explains. “There were set rules that you played by. If you went out and conducted a military operation and you chased them down fair and square in the jungle and you had a fight, that was okay. If they ambushed you on the way back from a military operation, that was fair. But to conduct these clandestine police operations and really get at the heart of things, that was kind of immoral to them. That was not cricket. And the Vietnamese were very, very leery of upsetting that.”

Obama’s Dirty War in Afghanistan relies largely on such clandestine CIA operations, in which wives and children are used as bait to trap husbands – or are killed as a way of punishing men in the resistance.

The CIA plays the same role in Afghanistan that the Gestapo played in the cities and the Einsatzgruppen performed in the countryside for the Nazis in World War Two – killing and terrorizing the urban resistance and partisan bands.

Its unstated object is to rip apart working and middle class families and thus the whole fabric of Afghan society, until the Afghan people accept American domination, through its suppletif ruling class.1

And this is why the CIA was targeted.

The CIA is utterly predictable. It will invoke the “100-1 Rule” used by the Gestapo and Einsatzgruppen and go on a killing spree until its vengeance is satisfied. At the end of the day, the Afghan people will only hate the Americans more. This makes the CIA happy, on the premise that terror will make the people submit. But in Afghanistan it spells protracted war, and as in Vietnam, eventual defeat.

Lord of the Flies in Kabul Embassy

2010-01-11T08:57:00.000-08:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32644749/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

Private security contractor faces inquiry over allegations of lewd conduct

Video

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Contractors in Kabul under fire for 'lewd' photos
Sept. 2: Disturbing photos emerged Wednesday of brutal hazing by private security contractors hired to provide security at the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.

NBC News and news services
updated 9:41 p.m. ET Sept. 2, 2009
WASHINGTON - A wide-ranging State Department inquiry into allegations of lewd behavior and sexual misconduct among the private security contractors guarding the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan could lead to the termination of the company's $189 million contract, a department spokesman said Wednesday.

The allegations made by an independent watchdog group describe "Lord of the Flies" conditions that include threats and intimidation and scenes of guards and supervisors in various stages of nudity at parties flowing with alcohol.

In at least one case, supervisors brought prostitutes into the quarters where the guards live, a serious breach of security and discipline, the Project on Government Oversight said. In other instances, members of the guard force have drawn Afghans into activities forbidden by Muslims, such as drinking alcoholic beverages.

"We expect to see prompt and effective action taken as a result of these investigations," the spokesman, Ian C. Kelly, told reporters. Other possible actions include rebidding the contract or replacing individual guards and supervisors employed by the contractor, ArmorGroup North America, he said.

Report alleges hazing
The State Department inspector general is leading the investigation of ArmorGroup. U.S. officials in Kabul also are conducting a review, Kelly said. And a team from the State Department's diplomatic security, management and contracting offices will go to Kabul to examine the situation.

ArmorGroup and the State Department came under fire Tuesday after the watchdog group said that the nearly 450 ArmorGroup guards live and work in an oppressive environment in which they are subjected to hazing and other inappropriate behavior by supervisors.

The situation has led to a breakdown in morale and leadership that compromises security at the embassy, where nearly 1,000 U.S. diplomats, staff and Afghan nationals work, according to the nonprofit group.

With insurgent attacks in Afghanistan increasing, any lapses in security put the diplomatic mission there at risk, the group said in a 10-page letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that details the results of its investigation of the guard force.

The State Department has been aware of ArmorGroup's failings, the letter said, but has failed to correct the problems. Instead, it has renewed the contract twice, with the most recent installment good through July 2010.

Kelly acknowledged that ArmorGroup has been notified eight times of poor performance since the original contract was awarded in March 2007.

Wackenhut Services, ArmorGroup North America's parent company, has not responded to requests for comment.

In a statement on Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy said it was aware of the POGO report. "Nothing is more important to us than the safety and security of all Embassy personnel — Americans and Afghan — and respect for the cultural and religious values of all Afghans," the embassy said.

"We have taken immediate steps to review all local guard force policies and procedures and have taken all possible measures to ensure our security is sound. We will work closely with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to investigate the issues raised in this report, but cannot comment further on this ongoing investigation."

Danielle Brian, the Project on Government Oversight's executive director, said Wednesday the investigation of ArmorGroup should be handled by Congress, not the State Department.

"I do not have faith that the State Department will do a good job because they are equal partners in the problem," she said. "They've let this happen."

POGO via NBC News
Scenes of the alleged hazing by guards at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

‘Lord of the Flies’
Brian also said that she was given a copy of an e-mail that an ArmorGroup manager sent to guards telling them not to talk to government inspectors unless a supervisor is present. Such a restriction will make it difficult to do a thorough investigation, she said.

The Project on Government Oversight's findings are based on interviews with ArmorGroup guards, documents, photographs and e-mails that it said depict a "Lord of the Flies" environment. The reference is to the 1954 novel by William Golding about a group of British schoolboys who are stranded on a desert island and try, but fail, to govern themselves in a chaotic setting.

One e-mail from a guard describes lurid conditions at Camp Sullivan, the guards' quarters a few miles from the embassy. The message described scenes of abuse, including guards and supervisors urinating on people and "threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity."

Photographs show guards and supervisors in various stages of nudity at parties that took place near the housing of other supervisors.

Multiple guards say these conditions have created a "climate of fear and coercion." Those who refuse to participate are often ridiculed, humiliated or even fired, they contended.

"There were some things going on in Kabul that we were not aware of, but we frankly should have been aware of," Kelly said.

ArmorGroup's management is aware of the conditions but has not stopped it or disciplined those responsible, the letter said. Two supervisors alleged to be the worst offenders have been allowed to resign and may now be working on other U.S. contracts, the group said.

The group's investigation found sleep-deprived guards regularly logging 14-hour days, language barriers that impair critical communications, and a failure by the State Department to hold the contractor accountable.

The Shadow War: Making Sense of the New CIA Battlefield in Afghanistan

2010-01-11T08:31:00.000-08:00

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175188/tomgram%3A_engelhardt_and_turse%2C_the_cia_surges/

Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse
TomDispatch
Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:30 EST

It was a Christmas and New Year's from hell for American intelligence, that $75 billion labyrinth of at least 16 major agencies and a handful of minor ones. As the old year was preparing to be rung out, so were our intelligence agencies, which managed not to connect every obvious clue to a (literally) seat-of-the-pants al-Qaeda operation. It hardly mattered that the underwear bomber's case -- except for the placement of the bomb material -- almost exactly, even outrageously, replicated the infamous, and equally inept, "shoe bomber" plot of eight years ago.

That would have been bad enough, but the New Year brought worse. Army Major General Michael Flynn, U.S. and NATO forces deputy chief of staff for intelligence in Afghanistan, released a report in which he labeled military intelligence in the war zone -- but by implication U.S. intelligence operatives generally -- "clueless." They were, he wrote, "ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced... and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers... Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy."

As if to prove the general's point, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a Jordanian doctor with a penchant for writing inspirational essays on jihadi websites and an "unproven asset" for the CIA, somehow entered a key Agency forward operating base in Afghanistan unsearched, supposedly with information on al-Qaeda's leadership so crucial that a high-level CIA team was assembled to hear it and Washington was alerted.

He proved to be either a double or a triple agent and killed seven CIA operatives, one of whom was the base chief, by detonating a suicide vest bomb, while wounding yet more, including the Agency's number-two operative in the country. The first suicide bomber to penetrate a U.S. base in Afghanistan, he blew a hole in the CIA's relatively small cadre of agents knowledgeable on al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

It was an intelligence disaster splayed all over the headlines: "Taliban bomber wrecks CIA's shadowy war," "Killings Rock Afghan Strategy," "Suicide bomber who attacked CIA post was trusted informant from Jordan." It seemed to sum up the hapless nature of America's intelligence operations as the CIA, with all the latest technology and every imaginable resource on hand, including the latest in Hellfire missile-armed drone aircraft, was out-thought and out-maneuvered by low-tech enemies.

No one could say that the deaths and the blow to the American war effort weren't well covered. There were major TV reports night after night and scores of news stories, many given front-page treatment. And yet lurking behind those deaths and the man who caused them lay a bigger American war story that went largely untold. It was a tale of a new-style battlefield that the American public knows remarkably little about, and that bears little relationship to the Afghan War as we imagine it or as our leaders generally discuss it.

We don't even have a language to describe it accurately. Think of it as a battlefield filled with muscled-up, militarized intelligence operatives, hired-gun contractors doing military duty, and privatized "native" guard forces. Add in robot assassins in the air 24/7 and kick-down-the-door-style night-time "intelligence" raids, "surges" you didn't know were happening, strings of military bases you had no idea were out there, and secretive international collaborations you were unaware the U.S. was involved in. In Afghanistan, the American military is only part of the story. There's also a polyglot "army" representing the U.S. that wears no uniforms and fights shape-shifting enemies to the death in a murderous war of multiple assassinations and civilian slaughter, all enveloped in a blanket of secrecy.

Black Ops and Black Sites

Secrecy is, of course, a part of war. The surprise attack is only a surprise if secrecy is maintained. In wartime, crucial information must be kept from an enemy capable of using it. But what if, as in our case, wartime never ends, while secrecy becomes endemic, as well as profitable and privitizable, and much of the information available to both sides on our shadowy new battlefield is mainly being kept from the American people? The coverage of the suicide attack on Forward Operating Base (FOB) Chapman offered a rare, very partial window into that strange war -- but only if you were willing to read piles of news reports looking for tiny bits of information that could be pieced together.

We did just that and here's what we found:

Let's start with FOB Chapman, where the suicide bombing took place. An old Soviet base near the Pakistani border, it was renamed after a Green Beret who fought beside CIA agents and was the first American to die in the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. It sits in isolation near the town of Khost, just miles from the larger Camp Salerno, a forward operating base used mainly by U.S. Special Operations troops. Occupied by the CIA since 2001, Chapman is regularly described as "small" or "tiny" and, in one report, as having "a forbidding network of barriers, barbed wire and watchtowers." Though a State Department provisional reconstruction team has been stationed there (as well as personnel from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of Agriculture), and though it "was officially a camp for civilians involved in reconstruction," FOB Chapman is "well-known locally as a CIA base" -- an "open secret," as another report put it.

The base is guarded by Afghan irregulars, sometimes referred to in news reports as "Afghan contractors," about whom we know next to nothing. ("CIA officials on Thursday would not discuss what guard service they had at the base.") Despite the recent suicide bombing, according to Julian Barnes and Greg Miller of the Los Angeles Times, a "program to hire Afghans to guard U.S. forward operating bases would not be canceled. Under that program, which is beginning in eastern Afghanistan, Afghans will guard towers, patrol perimeter fences and man checkpoints." Also on FOB Chapman were employees of the private security contractor Xe (formerly Blackwater) which has had a close relationship with the CIA in Afghanistan. We know this because of reports that two of the dead "CIA" agents were Xe operatives.

Someone else of interest was at FOB Chapman and so at that fateful meeting with the Jordanian doctor al-Balawi -- Sharif Ali bin Zeid, a captain in the Jordanian intelligence service, the eighth person killed in the blast. It turns out that al-Balawi was an agent of Jordanian intelligence, which held (and abused) torture suspects kidnapped and disappeared by the CIA in the years of George W. Bush's Global War on Terror. The service reportedly continues to work closely with the Agency and the captain was evidently running al-Balawi. That's what we now know about the polyglot group at FOB Chapman on the front lines of the Agency's black-ops war against al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and the allied fighters of the Haqqani network in nearby Pakistan. If there were other participants, they weren't among the bodies.

The Agency Surges

And here's something that's far clearer in the wake of the bombing: among our vast network of bases in Afghanistan, the CIA has its own designated bases -- as, by the way, do U.S. Special Operations forces, and according to Nation reporter Jeremy Scahill, even private contractor Xe. Without better reporting on the subject, it's hard to get a picture of these bases, but Siobhan Gorman of the Wall Street Journal tells us that a typical CIA base houses no more than 15-20 Agency operatives (which means that al-Balawi's explosion killed or wounded more than half of the team on FOB Chapman).

And don't imagine that we're only talking about a base or two. In the single most substantive post-blast report on the CIA, Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times wrote that the Agency has "an archipelago of firebases in southern and eastern Afghanistan," most built in the last year. An archipelago? Imagine that. And it's also reported that even more of them are in the works.

With this goes another bit of information that the Wall Street Journal seems to have been the first to drop into its reports. While you've heard about President Obama's surge in American troops and possibly even State Department personnel in Afghanistan, you've undoubtedly heard little or nothing about a CIA surge in the region, and yet the Journal's reporters tell us that Agency personnel will increase by 20-25% in the surge months. By the time the CIA is fully bulked up with all its agents, paramilitaries, and private contractors in place, Afghanistan will represent, according to Julian Barnes of the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest "stations" in Agency history.

This, in turn, implies other surges. There will be a surge in base-building to house those agents, and a surge in "native" guards -- at least until another suicide bomber hits a base thanks to Taliban supporters among them or one of them turns a weapon on the occupants of a base -- and undoubtedly a surge in Blackwater-style mercenaries as well. Keep in mind that the latest figure on private contractors suggests that 56,000 more of them will surge into Afghanistan in the next 18 months, far more than surging U.S. troops, State Department employees, and CIA operatives combined. And don't forget the thousands of non-CIA "uniformed and civilian intelligence personnel serving with the Defense Department and joint interagency operations in the country," who will undoubtedly surge as well.

Making War

The efforts of the CIA operatives at Forward Operating Base Chapman were reportedly focused on "collecting information about militant networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and plotting missions to kill the networks' top leaders," especially those in the Haqqani network in North Waziristan just across the Pakistani border. They were evidently running "informants" into Pakistan to find targets for the Agency's ongoing drone assassination war. These drone attacks in Pakistan have themselves been on an unparalleled surge course ever since Barack Obama entered office; 44 to 50 (or more) have been launched in the last year, with civilian casualties running into the hundreds. Like local Pashtuns, the Agency essentially doesn't recognize a border. For them, the Afghan and Pakistani tribal borderlands are a single world.

In this way, as Paul Woodward of the website War in Context has pointed out, "Two groups of combatants, neither of whom wear uniforms, are slugging it out on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Each group has identified what it regards as high-value targets and each is using its own available means to hit these targets. The Taliban/Qaeda are using suicide bombers while the CIA is using Hellfire missiles."

Since the devastating explosion at FOB Chapman, statements of vengeance have been coming out of CIA mouths -- of a kind that, when offered, by the Taliban or al-Qaeda, we consider typical of a backward, "tribal" society. In any case, the secret war is evidently becoming a private and personal one. Dr. al-Balawi's suicide attack essentially took out a major part of the Agency's targeting information system. As one unnamed NATO official told the New York Times, "These were not people who wrote things down in the computer or in notebooks. It was all in their heads... [The C.I.A. is] pulling in new people from all over the world, but how long will it take to rebuild the networks, to get up to speed? Lots of it is irrecoverable." And the Agency was already generally known to be "desperately short of personnel who speak the language or are knowledgeable about the region." Nonetheless, drone attacks have suddenly escalated -- at least five in the week since the suicide bombing, all evidently aimed at "an area believed to be a hideout for militants involved." These sound like vengeance attacks and are likely to be particularly counterproductive.

To sum up, U.S. intelligence agents, having lost out to enemy "intelligence agents," even after being transformed into full-time assassins, are now locked in a mortal struggle with an enemy for whom assassination is also a crucial tactic, but whose operatives seem to have better informants and better information.

In this war, drones are not the Agency's only weapon. The CIA also seems to specialize in running highly controversial, kick-down-the-door "night raids" in conjunction with Afghan paramilitary forces. Such raids, when launched by U.S. Special Operations forces, have led to highly publicized and heavily protested civilian casualties. Sometimes, according to reports, the CIA actually conducts them in conjunction with Special Operations forces. In a recent American-led night raid in Kunar Province, eight young students were, according to Afghan sources, detained, handcuffed, and executed. The leadership of this raid has been attributed, euphemistically, to "other government agencies" (OGAs) or "non-military Americans." These raids, whether successful in the limited sense or not, don't fit comfortably with the Obama administration's "hearts and minds" counterinsurgency strategy.

The Militarization of the Agency

As the identities of some of the fallen CIA operatives at FOB Chapman became known, a pattern began to emerge. There was 37-year-old Harold Brown, Jr., who formerly served in the Army. There was Scott Roberson, a former Navy SEAL, who did several tours of duty in Iraq, where he provided protection to officials considered at high risk. There was Jeremy Wise, 35, an ex-Navy SEAL who left the military last year, signed up with Xe, and ended up working for the CIA. Similarly, 46-year-old Dane Paresi, a retired Special Forces master sergeant turned Xe hired gun, also died in the blast.

For years, Chalmers Johnson, himself a former CIA consultant, has referred to the Agency as "the president's private army." Today, that moniker seems truer than ever. While the civilian CIA has always had a paramilitary component, known as the Special Activities Division, the unit was generally relatively small and dormant. Instead, military personnel like the Army's Special Forces or indigenous troops carried out the majority of the CIA's combat missions. After the 9/11 attacks, however, President Bush empowered the Agency to hunt down, kidnap, and assassinate suspected al-Qaeda operatives, and the CIA's traditional specialties of spycraft and intelligence analysis took a distinct backseat to Special Activities Division operations, as its agents set up a global gulag of ghost prisons, conducted interrogations-by-torture, and then added those missile-armed drone and assassination programs.

The military backgrounds of the fallen CIA operatives cast a light on the way the world of "intelligence" is increasingly muscling up and becoming militarized. This past summer, when a former CIA official suggested the agency might be backing away from risky programs, a current official spit back from the shadows: "If anyone thinks the CIA has gotten risk-averse recently, go ask al-Qaeda and the Taliban... The agency's still doing cutting-edge stuff in all kinds of dangerous places." At around the same time, reports were emerging that Blackwater/Xe was providing security, arming drones, and "perform[ing] some of the agency's most important assignments" at secret bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It also emerged that the CIA had paid contractors from Blackwater to take part in a covert assassination program in Afghanistan.

Add this all together and you have the grim face of "intelligence" at war in 2010 -- a new micro-brew when it comes to Washington's conflicts. Today, in Afghanistan, a militarized mix of CIA operatives and ex-military mercenaries as well as native recruits and robot aircraft is fighting a war "in the shadows" (as they used to say in the Cold War era). This is no longer "intelligence" as anyone imagines it, nor is it "military" as military was once defined, not when U.S. operations have gone mercenary and native in such a big way. This is pure "lord of the flies" stuff -- beyond oversight, beyond any law, including the laws of war. And worse yet, from all available evidence, despite claims that the drone war is knocking off mid-level enemies, it seems remarkably ineffective. All it may be doing is spreading the war farther and digging it in deeper.

Talk about "counterinsurgency" as much as you want, but this is another kind of battlefield, and "protecting the people" plays no part in it. And of course, this is only what can be gleaned from afar about a semi-secret war that is being poorly reported. Who knows what it costs when you include the U.S. hired guns, the Afghan contractors, the bases, the drones, and the rest of the personnel and infrastructure? Nor do we know what else, or who else, is involved, and what else is being done. Clearly, however, all those billions of "intelligence" dollars are going into the blackest of black holes.

Children's deaths spark anti-US outrage in Afghanistan

2010-01-08T13:26:00.000-08:00

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/200601-Children-s-deaths-spark-anti-US-outrage-in-Afghanistan

Children's deaths spark anti-US outrage in Afghanistan
Bill Van Auken
World Socialist Web Site
Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:41 EST

More than 5,000 people demonstrated in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad Thursday to protest the deaths of four children and wounding of scores of others in an explosion that ripped through a crowd in a nearby village the day before.

The crowd blockaded the main highway to the Pakistan border for hours, shouting "Death to America" and burning US President Barack Obama in effigy.

Despite NATO denials of responsibility for the carnage and a claim by local police that the blast was caused by a police vehicle hitting a landmine, Afghans blamed the deaths on the US-led occupation.

The incident took place Wednesday as a group of US soldiers were visiting a road-construction site in the village of Mazzina. The village lies south of Jalalabad, which is the capital of Nangarhar Province.

Witnesses reported that the soldiers had begun throwing candy to local children when the blast took place.

The New York Times quoted a 38-year-old Afghan, Naimtullah, who said he had witnessed the incident: "I saw them throwing chocolate to the students and then suddenly they threw a grenade, followed by shooting."

The Times also quoted the uncle of one of the boys killed in the explosion, Salim, who denounced the occupation forces. "These people are here to help and protect us, or they are here to kill us - we don't want them anymore."

US military spokesmen and representatives of the security forces of the Afghan puppet regime pointed out that several American soldiers had also been wounded by the blast.

While the precise cause of the explosion may be in dispute, the significance of this sudden, violent transformation of what was intended as a "hearts and minds" mission to win over the local population into a provocation igniting mass anti-US protests is clear.

It is a telling expression of the mounting popular hostility to foreign occupation and the growing crisis confronting the US military as the Obama administration embarks on its 30,000-troop escalation of the eight-year-old war.

The killing of the four children Wednesday was far from an isolated incident. Afghan children are dying at the rate of at least three a day as a result of the US war and account for the majority of its civilian victims, according to a report released this week by an Afghan human rights group.

"At least three children were killed in war-related incidents every day in 2009, and many others suffered in diverse but mostly unreported ways," said Ajmal Samadi, the director of the Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM) in the report.

According to the figures compiled by ARM, more than 1,050 children under the age of 18 were killed in war-related violence in 2009.

The report singled out the killing of eight students in eastern Kunar Province by US special operations forces on December 26 "an appalling act of crime against civilian people" by foreign forces and their Afghan supporters.

The massacre in Kunar also triggered mass protests against the US occupation.

While NATO initially insisted that all those killed in the raid were "insurgents," subsequent investigation by both the United Nations and the US-backed regime of President Hamid Karzai found that eight of the victims were children, ages 11 through 17, all enrolled at local elementary and secondary schools. A ninth child, a 12-year-old shepherd boy, was also killed, along with a farmer.

The Times of London interviewed the local school principal, who described the killings. After landing in helicopters at one in the morning, the US commandoes assaulted a house where seven of the students were sleeping in one room, while the eighth student and the shepherd boy were in a guest room.

"First the foreign troops entered the guest room and shot two of them," the school principal said. "Then they entered another room and handcuffed the seven students. Then they killed them. Abdul Khaliq [the farmer] heard shooting and came outside. When they saw him they shot him as well."

Following the UN investigation, the international body's special representative in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, condemned the US military's night-time raids on Afghan homes.

"The United Nations remains concerned about night-time raids given that they often result in lethal outcomes for civilians, the dangerous confusion that frequently arises when a family compound is invaded, and the frustration of local authorities when operations are not co-ordinated with them," he said. He added that the raids "are a source of great distress to the families which are directly affected as well as communities throughout Afghanistan given safety and cultural concerns."

In a subsequent article from Kabul, the Times reported that the Afghan regime's security council, chaired by Karzai, had demanded that the occupation forces "hand over" those responsible for the killings.

The newspaper also cited unnamed NATO sources as saying that "the foreigners involved were non-military, suggesting that they were part of a secret paramilitary unit based in the capital."

The newspaper did not clarify the nature of this secret unit. The Central Intelligence Agency is carrying out its own "surge" in Afghanistan, and could potentially have mounted such a raid.

And, as the recent suicide bombing that killed seven CIA operatives made clear, the private security firm Xe - formerly known as Blackwater - remains active in Afghanistan. Two of the dead were Blackwater employees working as CIA contractors. Their presence has exposed as a lie the agency's claim that it had terminated its contracts with the company.

Whether the execution-style slaying of handcuffed school children was carried out by the US military, the CIA or hired mercenaries, it constitutes an atrocity and a war crime for which the Obama administration bears political responsibility.

The pouring into Afghanistan of 30,000 more US troops - including a substantial increase in the number of special operations forces - will mean a steady increase in the number of such atrocities and the deaths of thousands, if not tens of thousands, more Afghan children.

U.N. envoy Eide warns U.S., allies not to ignore civilian goals in Afghanistan

2010-01-08T11:31:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/06/AR2010010604698.html?hpid=sec-world

By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 7, 2010; A10

UNITED NATIONS -- The top U.N. envoy to Afghanistan on Wednesday delivered a gloomy assessment of the U.S.-led effort to restore stability in the country and warned "we will fail" if the strategy there relies too heavily on military force.

In a presentation to the U.N. Security Council, envoy Kai Eide called on the United States and its Western allies to invest heavily in Afghanistan's economy and its civilian institutions. He said the Obama administration's "military surge must not be allowed to undermine" those goals.

"What we need is a strategy that is politically and not militarily driven," Eide said in his final briefing to the council before he steps down in March. "If we do not take these civilian components of the transition strategy as seriously as the military component, then we will fail."

Eide's assessment comes just three weeks before the United States and its military allies meet in London for a conference on security in Afghanistan. His remarks, which stressed greater investment in education, agriculture and infrastructure, marked one of his final efforts to leave an imprint on Afghanistan policy.

He also advocated for better salaries for Afghan government administrators, and a peace and reconciliation process that would allow the integration of Taliban insurgents who renounce violence.

After Eide's remarks, Rosemary A. DiCarlo, the U.S. representative for special political affairs, sought to underscore the Obama administration's avowed commitment to beefing up civilian participation in the Afghanistan transition. She said the United States, which is preparing to send 30,000 additional troops there, will soon triple its civilian presence in Afghanistan, from 320 last year to nearly 1,000.

"U.S. experts are also working with their Afghan partners to help rehabilitate Afghanistan's key economic sectors so that Afghans themselves can defeat the insurgents, who promise only more violence," she said. "To help reverse the Taliban's momentum, we are focusing our reconstruction effort in areas where we can quickly create jobs, especially agricultural ones."

The United States also has supported Afghan calls for integrating reformed Taliban insurgents into society if they lay down their weapons. Afghanistan's U.N. ambassador, Zahir Tanin, asked the council to lift sanctions on Taliban members "willing to renounce violence and join the peace process."

The United States and European countries have sought to drop sanctions against former Taliban members who have cooperated with the government, but Russia has resisted such a move.

Eide said that he is "deeply worried" about waning public support in the West for the mission in Afghanistan, the failure of Western forces to counter the Taliban insurgency and the growing frustration among Afghans over what they see as the failure of the international community to improve their lives.

"If these negative trends are not soon reversed, then there is a risk that they will become unmanageable," he told the 15-nation council.

Eide said the Western alliance operates "in a way that Afghans perceive as disrespectful and sometimes arrogant." Such behavior, he said, "fuels suspicions of unacceptable foreign interference and breeds a sense of humiliation."

The United Nations is concerned that billions of dollars in foreign assistance for Afghanistan have not been used to strengthen the nation's institutions. Less than 10 percent of foreign aid has gone directly to the Afghan government, and most of that is earmarked for projects supported by donors.

U.N. officials said they think Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has settled on a replacement for Eide, Staffan di Mistura, a dual Italian and Swedish national who headed the world body's mission in Iraq. Jean-Marie Guéhenno, a French national who headed the U.N. peacekeeping department, and Ian Martin, a former U.N. representative in Nepal and East Timor, also have been under consideration for the job.

Afghan War Kills 3 Children a Day: Report

2010-01-07T14:35:00.000-08:00

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/01/07

January 7, 2010 by Agence France Presse
Afghan War Kills 3 Children a Day: Report
by Lynne O'Donnell

KABUL - Children are the biggest victims of the war in Afghanistan, with more than 1,050 people under 18 years old killed last year alone, according to an Afghan human rights watchdog.

Afghan children watch a US soldier in the mountains of Nuristan Province, December 19. Children are the biggest victims of the war in Afghanistan, with more than 1,050 people under 18 years old killed last year alone, according to an Afghan human rights watchdog. (AFP/File/Tauseef Mustafa) Taliban-linked militants caused around 64 per cent of all violent child deaths last year, the Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM) said in a report.

Children were also press-ganged, sexually exploited, deprived of health and education, and illegally detained by all sides in a war that is dragging into its ninth year since the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime.

"At least three children were killed in war-related incidents every day in 2009 and many others suffered in diverse but mostly unreported ways," ARM director Ajmal Samadi said.

Children died in suicide attacks and roadside bombings - at the crux of the Taliban's arsenal against U.S., NATO and Afghan troops fighting the increasingly virulent insurgency as it spreads across the impoverished country.

The Taliban "reportedly caused more harm and intentionally abused more children for illegal purposes than pro-government Afghan and international forces," the report said.

"Through a horrible anti-education policy of heinous attacks, intimidation and terror the insurgents deprived hundreds of thousands of children, boys and girls, from education mostly in the insecure south and east of the country."

On the other hand, the Western-backed government has failed to introduce or implement laws to protect children against the abuses of war or "bring alleged criminals and abusers to justice," Samadi said.

ARM called on the Afghan authorities to set up an official child protection body and liaise with the warring parties on child rights.

The report by ARM, an independent rights monitoring group set up in Kabul in 2008, comes after the United Nations said civilian deaths in Afghanistan rose 10.8 per cent in the first 10 months of 2009, most caused by the Taliban.

The United Nations put civilian deaths at 2,038 for that period, up from 1,838 for the same period of 2008, with the vast majority killed by insurgents.

It said 468 deaths were caused by pro-government forces, including NATO and U.S.-led forces, and 166 by "other actors."

ARM released the report as a suspected roadside bomb attack killed four children and wounded more than a dozen in volatile eastern Nangahar province.

Reports that foreign forces killed eight students in Kunar province on December 26 caused widespread outrage, including U.S. flag-burning demonstrations in two cities, though reports of what happened varied widely.

A government investigation found the teenagers were unarmed and killed in cold blood, while Western military sources said the group were armed, opened fire at foreign and Afghan forces, and were killed in self-defence.

Civilian deaths at the hands of foreign forces fuel distrust between the Afghan population, the government and U.S. and NATO troops, even though most are caused by insurgent tactics such as homemade bombs.

The Taliban regularly exploit deaths caused by foreign and Afghan forces, and Western military intelligence officials say the militants have gained the upper hand in a sophisticated propaganda war.

Militant leaders, based largely in Pakistan, rarely claim responsibility for operations that kill large numbers of civilians but routinely exaggerate losses among foreign forces.

The United States and NATO are boosting their troop numbers in Afghanistan to 150,000 over the course of 2010, as part of a new strategy determined to clear and secure insurgent strongholds.

U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, has ordered civilian casualties be kept to a minimum, yet as more troops pour in, a higher death rate is inevitable, experts say.

Two Ex-Blackwater Staff Charged With Afghan Murders

2010-01-07T14:34:00.001-08:00

They'll probably get off their charges like the Blackwater (Xe) employees got off their murder charges in Iraq.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/01/07-9

January 7, 2010 by Agence France Presse
Two Ex-Blackwater Staff Charged With Afghan Murders

WASHINGTON - Two former Blackwater employees have been charged with the murder of two Afghans in Kabul last year and could face the death penalty, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Justin Cannon, 27, of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Christopher Drotleff, 29, of Virginia Beach, Virginia, have been charged with 13 counts including second-degree murder following the shooting deaths of the two Afghan nationals.

They also were charged with attempted murder, after a third person was wounded in the Kabul incident on May 5, when Cannon and Drotleff were working as contractors for the Department of Defense in Afghanistan.

Both men, who had provided training to the Afghan army in using and maintaining weapons systems, were arrested Thursday after the grand jury indictment, the statement added.

West's Afghan War: From Conquest To Bloodbath

2010-01-07T11:53:00.002-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/West-s-Afghan-War-From-Co-by-Rick-Rozoff-100107-30.html

January 7, 2010
By Rick Rozoff

---------

"When the commander in Kabul asked Obama for the extra troops, he knew the USA would end up with one achievement, and that is more civilian casualties."

"Every time an American soldier gets killed, they bomb an entire village."

"This thing is going to be $5 billion to $10 billion a month and 300 to 500 killed and wounded a month by next summer. That's what we probably should expect. And that's light casualties."

---------

On December 29 the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released figures demonstrating that Afghan civilian deaths had risen by 10 percent in the first ten months of 2009, from 1,838 during the same period a year earlier to 2,038. The majority of the killings were attributed to insurgent attacks, including those directed against U.S., NATO and government targets, but almost 500 civilians were killed by American and NATO forces.

Matters only grew worse last November and December, culminating in several massacres of Afghan civilians by Western forces at the end of the year.

In early December a NATO air strike killed thirteen civilians in Laghman province. One account also documents a deadly raid by American special forces there. "According to witnesses, US troops entered a number of houses near the provincial capital, Mehtar Lam, in an overnight operation. The victims included Mohammed Ismail, whose 10-year-old son, Rafiullah, described what happened: 'When the soldiers came to our house, my father asked them, "Who are you?" Then they shot him in the head and told us, "Be quiet and tell us where the weapons are."'" [1]

The chairman of the Laghman provincial council presciently commented on the killings that "When the commander in Kabul asked Obama for the extra troops, he knew the USA would end up with one achievement, and that is more civilian casualties." [2]

On the same day that the above-cited UN report was made public an air attack by U.S.-led warplanes killed four Afghans in the northern province of Baghlan. According to one report "A father and his three sons were reportedly among the [fatalities]. The raid also wounded eight others." [3]

A member of parliament from a neighboring province, Haji Farid, said after the aerial onslaught that "Every time an American soldier gets killed, they bomb an entire village." [4]

The following day a NATO missile strike killed seven Afghan civilians in Helmand province. According to the New York Times, "Neither NATO forces nor the Helmand governor's office gave a definitive number of dead, but reports from local people said that five to seven civilians had been killed, including three children." [5] Later a spokesman for the governor of the province confirmed that seven civilians had been slain and another wounded.

Far more atrocious news broke the same day, December 30, when, according to the next day's edition of The Times of London, "American-led troops were accused...of dragging innocent children from their beds and shooting them during a night raid that left ten people dead" in Kunar province near the Pakistani border. [6]

U.S.-installed and -supported President Hamid Karzai dispatched an investigative team headed by former governor of Helmand province Assadullah Wafa to the scene of the massacre, dubbed by at least one news source as an Afghan My Lai.

A statement was later issued on the official website of the Afghan president that said in part: "The delegation concluded that a unit of international forces descended from a plane Sunday night into Ghazi Khan village in Narang district of the eastern province of Kunar and took ten people from three homes, eight of them school students in grades six, nine and ten, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead."

The delegation's head, Wafa, added that "US soldiers flew to Kunar from Kabul, suggesting that they were part of a special forces unit," and was quoted as saying "I spoke to the local headmaster. It's impossible they were al-Qaeda. They were children, they were civilians, they were innocent. I condemn this attack." [7]

The investigation he led established that eight of the victims were between the ages of 11 and 17. The slain students' headmaster, Rahman Jan Ehsas, described the details of Barack Obama's and top U.S. and NATO military commander Stanley McChrystal's new special operations-led counterinsurgency approach as it was applied to his pupils:

"Seven students were in one room. A student and one guest were in another room, a guest room, and a farmer was asleep with his wife in a third building.

"First the foreign troops entered the guest room and shot two of them. Then they entered another room and handcuffed the seven students. Then they killed them. Abdul Khaliq [the farmer] heard shooting and came outside. When they saw him they shot him as well. He was outside. That's why his wife wasn't killed." [8]

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) attempted to both widen and evade responsibility for the murders by claiming "the raid was a joint operation and it was still under investigation," a ploy quickly exposed when "Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman Zaher Azimy said Afghan troops had not taken part." [9]

Demonstrators, particularly university students and their instructors, took to the streets in the provinces of Kabul and Nangarhar denouncing the rapidly escalating and by now routine slaughter of civilians, including children, by U.S. and NATO troops and warplanes. Their chants included "Obama! Obama! Take your soldiers out of Afghanistan!" and "Stop killing us!"

Professors and students at Kabul University passed a resolution demanding that NATO troops leave Afghanistan. [10]

Referring to the first of December's massacres, a Middle Eastern newspaper wrote, "The raid in the eastern province of Laghman this month followed a pattern that has become sadly familiar in Afghanistan over recent years. As is often the case, international forces insisted militants were killed, but local officials and villagers claimed the dead were civilians." [11]

With the increase of U.S. and other NATO nations' and partners' troops to over 150,000 in the near future and the announced shift from counterterrorism to counterinsurgency operations, the killing of Afghan civilians will grow exponentially.

On the other side of the border, Washington's and NATO's proclaimed AfPak war is no less murderous.

On January 2 Dawn News, Pakistan's first 24-hour English news channel, reported on its website that 44 CIA-directed Predator drone missile attacks last year had killed 708 people, only five of them alleged al-Qaeda and Taliban targets. "According to the statistics compiled by Pakistani authorities, the Afghanistan-based US drones killed 708 people in 44 predator attacks targeting the tribal areas between January 1 and December 31, 2009.

"For each Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorist killed by US drones, 140 innocent Pakistanis also had to die. Over 90 per cent of those killed in the deadly missile strikes were civilians, claim authorities....On average, 58 civilians were killed in these attacks every month, 12 persons every week and almost two people every day." [12]

There has been no diminution of such attacks. In the waning days of 2009 they were intensified. On December 27 "At least 13 people were killed in a suspected United States drone attack" in North Waziristan. "Following the strike, a U.S. B-52 jet plane, along with other spy planes, continued their flights over the tribal areas...." [13]

The preceding day another U.S. missile attack in North Waziristan killed three and wounded two people. "A statement from the [Pakistani] military Saturday said that a targeted airstrike at a compound in Orakzai had killed some civilians along with eight suspected militants." [14]

The U.S. launched deadly drone missile attacks in Pakistan's North Waziristan on both ends of the New Year. On December 31 "Five people were killed and at least two more injured" and on January 1 "A US pilotless aircraft fired a missile into Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal district" and "the attack destroyed [a] car and killed three people." [15]

In the second case a regional security official was quoted by Reuters as stating "The bodies were burned beyond recognition. We are trying to determine their identity." [16]

On January 3 five more people were killed in the same part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas by American drone attacks. However much the U.S., NATO and the Western media attempt to sanitize these killings, the Pakistani government figure - that over 99 percent of the victims are civilians - is a damning indictment of what can only be characterized as wanton war crimes.

A yearender feature in the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes reflected on 2009 and looked forward to this year.

"When President Barack Obama took office in January, he inherited a drifting and under-resourced war in Afghanistan, being fought with roughly 35,000 U.S. troops.

"Obama ordered 21,000 additional troops in March and then 30,000 more in December.

"In a little over a year, he will have nearly tripled their numbers, taking ownership of what he calls 'the war we must win.'

"[E]very step the president has taken represents an escalation of the war, now in its ninth year." [17]

Afghan and Pakistani civilians deaths have climbed correspondingly. They will rise even more in 2010 as the war, in its tenth calendar year, is broadened further and intensified in earnest.

For all the carnage wreaked on innocent Afghans and Pakistanis, a senior NATO intelligence officer told Western media representatives at a briefing on December 27 that "The Afghan Taliban have expanded their influence across Afghanistan and are now running a "full-fledged insurgency' with their own "governors' in all but one of the country's provinces." [18]

"In 33 out of 34 provinces, the Taliban has a shadow government...has a government-in-waiting, with ministers chosen" for the day the government falls in the unnamed official's words. [19]

Over eight years of bombing villages, conducting deadly raids against civilian households, multiplying projected American and NATO troops strength by a factor of fifteen since 2003 and extending the war into Pakistan have produced this result.

NATO's first ground war and its first armed conflict outside Europe has also cost the citizens of its own member states both blood and treasure.

Jeff Loftin, press officer of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, was recently quoted as confirming that last year 512 Western troops were killed in Afghanistan, the highest total for any year in the over eight-year war.

That number is over a third of the 1,481 ISAF fatalities (excluding American troops assigned to Operation Enduring Freedom) since the war began on October 7, 2001. The deaths include those of soldiers from NATO partner states Finland, Sweden and South Korea.

Germany, engaged under NATO command in its first combat operations since World War II, lost five soldiers last year, its highest number to date, and "Some 13,900 German soldiers served in Afghanistan this year [2009], up 1,700 from in 2008." [20]

"At least 70 Western soldiers died each month from July through October, virtually double the rate of the previous summer. In the past year, nearly 500 foreign troops have lost their lives in Afghanistan, including more than 300 Americans." [21]

On December 27 NATO announced the death of an American service member in a bomb attack in Afghanistan and the icasualties.org website calculated it to be the U.S.'s 310th of the year, double the 155 figure for 2008.

That number was also twice that of U.S. military deaths in Iraq in 2009, 148, the first time since 2003 that deaths in the first theater have been higher than in the second, and "Afghanistan is likely to become an even deadlier place for American forces as reinforcements are rushed there to battle insurgents." [22]

How much deadlier was first revealed on January 3 when four U.S. soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack in southern Afghanistan.

Former U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey, now an adjunct professor of international affairs at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, recently "traveled to the war zone...as an academic from West Point at the invitation of theater commander Gen. David Petraeus, commander of Central Command, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the operational commander in Afghanistan" and upon returning was cited by an armed forces news source as asserting that "Americans should prepare to accept hundreds of U.S. casualties each month in Afghanistan during spring offensives with enemy forces."

Regarding the New Year's surge, which will push U.S. troop strength to over 100,000 and combined U.S. and NATO numbers to over 150,000, he predicted that "this thing is going to be $5 billion to $10 billion a month and 300 to 500 killed and wounded a month by next summer. That's what we probably should expect. And that's light casualties." [23]

As many 500 American soldiers killed and injured monthly is in McCaffrey's estimate light casualties.

Another milestone in U.S. losses was marked on December 30 when a reported suicide bombing at the Forward Operating Base Chapman killed seven CIA agents, including the agency's station chief. The Wall Street Journal quoted a former American intelligence official describing the event as "Pearl Harbor for the agency," the second-largest loss in one day in the CIA's history, only the 1983 attack on the U.S.'s embassy in Lebanon, which resulted in eight agency deaths, exceeding it. "The base played a critical role in the CIA's significant operations in the country, including helping with drone attacks and informant networks in Pakistan." [24]

According to a former agency official interviewed by the newspaper, "That was one of the bases where they were paying people and running people and sending them into Pakistan." [25]

The White House of last year's Nobel Peace Prize recipient and the Pentagon of former CIA director Robert Gates, who in the past boasted of funding and arming the founders of two of the three groups he is now waging war against in Afghanistan and Pakistan [26], have promised to increase the bloodshed in South Asia this year to an unprecedented level. In this instance if in no other the government can be trusted to faithfully fulfill its pledge.

1) The National (United Arab Emirates), December 28, 2009
2) Ibid
3) Press TV, December 29, 2009
4) Ibid
5) New York Times, December 31, 2009
6) The Times, December 31, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6971638.ece
7) Ibid
8) Ibid
9) Reuters, December 30, 2009
10) Pakistan Observer, January 4, 2010
11) The National, December 28, 2009
12) Dawn News, January 2, 2010
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/18-over-700-killed-in-44-drone-strikes-in-2009-am-01
13) Xinhua News Agency, December 27, 2009
14) Associated Press, December 26, 2009
15) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, January 1, 2010
16) Press TV, January 1, 2010
17) Stars and Stripes, December 31, 2009
18) Reuters, December 27, 2009
19) Agence France-Presse, December 28, 2009
20) Brunei News, Agencies, January 1, 2010
21) Stars and Stripes, December 31, 2009
22) USA Today, December 31, 2009
23) Army Times, January 4, 2010
24) Wall Street Journal, January 1, 2010
25) Ibid
26) Afghan Warlords, Formerly Backed By the CIA, Now Turn Their Guns
On U.S. Troops
U.S. News & World Report, July 11, 2008
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/world/2008/07/11/afghan-warlords-formerly-backed-by-the-cia-now-turn-their-guns-on-us-troops.html?PageNr=2

Blackwater and the Khost Bombing: Is the CIA Deceiving Congress?

2010-01-07T11:53:00.001-08:00

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100111/scahill2

by JEREMY SCAHILL
January 6, 2010

A leading member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has told The Nation that she will launch an investigation into why two Blackwater contractors were among the dead in the December 30 suicide bombing at the CIA station at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan. "The Intelligence Committees and the public were led to believe that the CIA was phasing out its contracts with Blackwater and now we find out that there is this ongoing presence," said Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, in an interview. "Is the CIA once again deceiving us about the relationship with Blackwater?"

In December, the CIA announced that the agency had canceled its contract with Blackwater to work on the agency's drone bombing campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan and said Director Leon Panetta ordered a review of all existing CIA contracts with Blackwater. "At this time, Blackwater is not involved in any CIA operations other than in a security or support role," CIA spokesman George Little said December 11.

But Schakowsky said the fact that two Blackwater personnel were in such close proximity to the December 30 suicide bomber--an alleged double agent, who was reportedly meeting with CIA agents including the agency's second-ranking officer in Afghanistan when he blew himself up--shows how "deeply enmeshed" Blackwater remains in sensitive CIA operations, including those CIA officials claim it no longer participates in, such as intelligence gathering and briefings with valuable agency assets. The two Blackwater men were reportedly in the room for the expected briefing by the double agent, Humam Khalil Muhammed Abu Mulal al-Balawi, who claimed to have recently met with Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri.

"It's just astonishing that given the track record of Blackwater, which is a repeat offender endangering our mission repeatedly, endangering the lives of our military and costing the lives of innocent civilians, that there would be any relationship," Schakowsky said. "That we would continue to contract with them or any of Blackwater's subsidiaries is completely unacceptable."

Under the Obama administration, Blackwater continues to work for the Department of Defense, the State Department and, as evidenced by the December 30 bombing, the CIA in Afghanistan. The company even maintains its own forward operating bases in Afghanistan, including one along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. "This is the closest base to the [Pakistani] border," Blackwater's owner Erik Prince recently bragged to Vanity Fair. "Who else has built a fob along the main infiltration route for the Taliban and the last known location for Osama bin Laden?"

Blackwater has been working for the CIA since at least April 2002. Prince recently claimed he was personally a CIA asset, conducting clandestine black operations around the globe. In June, Leon Panetta reportedly told Congress he had canceled the CIA assassination program involving Blackwater.

While the CIA said in December that Blackwater only continues its security and support role for the CIA, NBC News reported that the Blackwater men were not doing security at the time of the blast. The two Blackwater operatives killed in the bombing have been identified as Jeremy Wise, a 35-year old ex-Navy SEAL, and 46-year-old Dane Clark Paresi.

Slow Start for Military Corps in Afghanistan

2010-01-06T18:53:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/world/06mullen.html?pagewanted=print

January 6, 2010
Slow Start for Military Corps in Afghanistan
By ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON — The military’s effort to build a seasoned corps of expert officers for the Afghan war, one of the highest priorities of top commanders, is off to a slow start, with too few volunteers and a high-level warning to the armed services to steer better candidates into the program, according to some senior officers and participants.

The groundbreaking program is meant to address concerns that the fight in Afghanistan has been hampered by a lack of continuity and expertise in the region among military personnel. But some officers have been reluctant to sign up for an unconventional career path because they fear it will hurt their advancement — a perception that top military leaders are trying to dispel as they tailor new policies for the complex task of taking on resilient insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Each military branch has established career paths, and the type of focus envisioned by the program would take people off those routes.

The difficulties with the program came to light when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, in an unusual rebuke within the Pentagon’s uppermost circle, chided the chiefs of the four armed services three weeks ago for not always providing the best people.

The program — which is expected to create a 912-member corps of mostly officers and enlisted service members who will work on Afghanistan and Pakistan issues for up to five years — was announced with much fanfare last fall. So far, 172 have signed up, and Admiral Mullen has questioned whether all of them are right for such a critical job.

The initiative was championed by Admiral Mullen and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the senior commander in Afghanistan. It is intended not only to bolster the war effort, but also to signal a long-term strategic partnership with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Some military officials argue that it takes time to make such a significant change, and that the program is not lagging at all.

In a memo sent last month to the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, Admiral Mullen expressed concern that the services were not consistently providing the “best and the brightest leaders” for the program’s corps, whose members will work in the field and at headquarters.

“In many cases, the volunteers have been the right people for this very critical program,” Admiral Mullen said in the one-page memo, dated Dec. 14. “However, I am concerned that this is not the case across the board.”

Admiral Mullen emphasized to the chiefs that the program was the “military’s number-one manpower priority and requires your constant attention.” He stressed that volunteers should be rewarded for participating, and that their involvement should enhance, not hurt, their careers.

The program was conceived as a way to develop a pool of uniformed experts who would spend several years rotating between assignments in Afghanistan or Pakistan, and desk jobs in Washington or other headquarters working on the same regional issues. At the outset, volunteers receive cultural training and 16 weeks of language instruction in Dari, Pashto or Urdu. In time, they are expected to provide a deep bench for assignments that could significantly alter the course of the war.

The military expects to fill all of the positions by the summer of 2011. The first 304 positions — including trainers, military planners and advisers to Afghan ministries — will be assigned in Afghanistan and Pakistan by November 2010.

The first class of volunteers started instruction in November and included 102 people, but the second class, which started Monday, has only 60. Military officials say the smaller second class did not reflect a lack of interest in the program, but was indicative of refinements to the program and a recognition that the first class had grown too rapidly.

But General McChrystal said through a spokesman that the effort had been “understaffed,” and that he had also asked the branches of the military for their top performers. “We have to be willing to break traditional career models; we’ve literally got to break systems to do this,” General McChrystal said.

So far, the Army has provided 69 volunteers for the 363 positions it has been assigned to fill; the Navy, 30 for 183 jobs; the Air Force, 45 for 225 positions; the Marines, 19 for 63 slots; and civilian agencies, 9 for 78 positions, according to a Pentagon tally.

Admiral Mullen’s spokesman, Capt. John Kirby, said his boss, a former chief of naval operations, recognized the challenges faced by each of the armed services in meeting internal personnel needs while also adjusting to the nation’s war footing in Afghanistan.

“Since he is asking for the best, he wants to ensure that those people remain competitive throughout their career,” Captain Kirby said. “Again, if left to their own devices, our systems wouldn’t necessarily support this.”

Captain Kirby said that Admiral Mullen had consulted with the service chiefs before issuing his memo and “has been very encouraged by the way the services are responding.” The Navy, for example, now includes specific language on its promotion boards that discusses the value of the program, Captain Kirby said.

The Air Force has promised to accelerate its participation. “He has encouraged all to have a sense of urgency,” Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, said by e-mail. “I believe his memo conveys that well.”

Indeed, one highly regarded Air Force officer recommended for the program happens to be Admiral Mullen’s chief speechwriter, Lt. Col. Timothy R. Kirk. Admiral Mullen approved his transfer, and Colonel Kirk started language training on Monday.

US-Led Forces Accused of Executing Schoolchildren in Afghanistan

2010-01-06T18:30:00.001-08:00

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/6/us_led_forces_accused_of_executing

In Afghanistan, hundreds have taken to the streets of Kabul and elsewhere to protest the US killing of civilians. The incident that has sparked the most outrage took place in eastern Kunar on December 27th, when ten Afghans, eight of them schoolchildren, were killed. According to the Times of London, US-led troops dragged innocent children from their beds and shot them during a nighttime raid. Afghan government investigators said the eight students were aged from eleven to seventeen, all but one of them from the same family. [includes rush transcript]

Guest:
Jerome Starkey, the Times of London correspondent in Afghanistan.
Website: JeromeStarkey.com

ANJALI KAMAT: Afghan President Hamid Karzai had harsh words for US and NATO forces on Tuesday in the wake of a string of attacks that has killed dozens of civilians. His comments came in an interview on Al Jazeera.

PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI: We are going to ask the international community to end nighttime raids on Afghan homes. We are going to ask them to stop arresting Afghans. We are going to ask them to reduce and eliminate civilian casualties. We are going to ask them not to have Afghan prisoners taken. Those are the most sensitive areas of sovereignty for any nation, and we want to have that sovereignty retained and taken back.

ANJALI KAMAT: On Monday, hundreds of people, mostly students, protested in Kabul and in the province of Nangarhar against the US killing of civilians. Nearly thirty civilians have died over the past two weeks alone in US-led air strikes and ground operations.

But the incident that has sparked the most outrage took place in eastern Kunar province on December 27th, when ten Afghans, eight of them schoolchildren, were killed. According to the Times of London, US-led troops dragged innocent children from their beds and shot them during a nighttime raid. Afghan government investigators said the eight students were aged from eleven to seventeen, all but one of them from the same family. The headmaster of the local school said seven of the children were handcuffed and then executed. A preliminary investigation by the United Nations reinforced Afghan claims that most of the dead were schoolboys.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Afghanistan now to speak with Jerome Starkey. He’s the Times of London correspondent in Afghanistan who reported on this story. He’s joining us on the telephone from Kabul.
Jerome, welcome to Democracy Now! Lay out the story for us. What is exactly being alleged happened?

JEROME STARKEY: Well, the Afghan investigators believe that an Americans unit—they’re not sure which one, possibly a company with [inaudible]—flew from Kabul to Narang district in Kunar province. They say—Assadullah Wafa, the former governor who led the investigation—they probably landed about two kilometers outside the village where these killings are alleged to have taken place and then walked on foot into the village.

They then say that when they got there—this is where the version of events vary. Some people say that the victims were killed in three separate buildings. Some say they were three separate rooms, all part of the same compound. What most of the people on the scene agree on, though, is that at least eight of them were schoolchildren enrolled in a local—in two schools, one—some in a local high school and some in a local primary school. One of the victims was apparently a local shepherd boy who was staying as a guest in the compound overnight. And the tenth victim was a farmer, a day laborer who was working on the nearby fields, who came out when he heard the shooting and was shot where he stood.

ANJALI KAMAT: Jerome, what’s been the response from US and NATO forces?

JEROME STARKEY: Well, initially, US and NATO forces here were very slow to say anything at all, and that possibly reflects the most secret nature of this raid. The fact that, according to Afghan investigators, these troops appear to have flown to the scene from Kabul appears to confirm speculation that this was an operation carried out by some sort of Special Forces unit, possibly even by some sort of paramilitary unit attached to one of the intelligence agencies, the foreign intelligence agencies, which operate occasionally out of the capital.

They have, however, confirmed that there was an incident. Off the record, speaking on background, a number of NATO officials have insisted that they believe the people who were killed were part of a Taliban network making improvised explosive devices, homemade bombs, the roadside explosives, which has exacted such a deadly toll against their forces in Iraq and in Afghanistan here. They’ve also issued a statement suggesting that they believe there is nothing to suggest that these people were unarmed. They say that they were shot at as they approached the village and that they killed the ten Afghans by when they returned fire.

AMY GOODMAN: You also spoke with the headmaster of the school, explaining his version of what happened?

JEROME STARKEY: That’s right. He was very keen to give the names of all of the students. He even gave what he said were their enrollment numbers, their registration numbers at the school, as sort of corroborating evidence that they were indeed students. I think even the United Nations’ investigations have confirmed that they believe at least some of the victims were enrolled in local schools. Now that doesn’t necessarily prove that they weren’t involved in any other nefarious sort of activities, but it does corroborate the fact that they were indeed children. And much of the outrage that this attack has caused comes from the fact that the victims were children, ranging from just eleven to seventeen years old. But the headmaster, as I said, he was also an uncle to about eight of the boys. These village communities often—families are very sort of interlinked. But he was very adamant to stress that the victims were innocent schoolchildren.

AMY GOODMAN: Were the kids handcuffed?

JEROME STARKEY: Well, this is one of the facts which is in dispute. But certainly, we spoke to the headmaster. We also spoke to another local called Jan Mohammed from the area. And both of them gave versions of events which suggested that some of the victims, at least some of the victims, had been handcuffed before they were shot. But this is where the exact details of what happened appear to break down, and not all the stories completely corroborate one another. Given the nature of the environment, we haven’t been able to travel there ourselves, and we’ve been relying on telephone interviews with people who are there and people who’ve visited the scene.

ANJALI KAMAT: And Jerome Starkey, can you describe the mood in Kabul? A number of civilians have been killed in recent weeks. The President, Hamid Karzai, has come out strongly against these killings. What does it feel like on the streets of Kabul? There have been protests.

JEROME STARKEY: Civilian casualties is, without doubt, one of the key, touchstone issues that is very quick to inflame public anger. Right across Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of this attack, there were a number of protests. There was one here in Kabul that we went to where there were schoolchildren of a similar age as these—to these victims on the street demanding an immediate withdrawal. They listed a series of incidents in the last few years where large numbers of innocent civilians have been killed. In some cases, more than a hundred civilians have been killed in single attacks. And they question whether or not international forces attach the same value to Afghan lives as they do to the lives of their own soldiers.

AMY GOODMAN: And the significance, Jerome Starkey, of President Karzai speaking out against the United States right now, as well as his security chiefs? And the question of who these forces were—were they paramilitary secret, covert forces? Were they US soldiers?

JEROME STARKEY: Well, it’s impossible for me to tell you absolutely who these soldiers were. I spoke to Assadullah Wafa, who led the investigation, just this morning and asked him that question again, whether or not he had any more information as to exactly who these people were who had carried out this raid. And he said he didn’t. He found speaking to the foreign military very difficult to get any sort of information from them.

Crucially, it is interesting and it is unusual that the National Security Council should have demanded that the soldiers behind the—or the gunmen behind this attack be handed over to face Afghan justice. Foreign forces in Afghanistan aren’t governed by a legal status of forces agreement, as foreign troops, as most American troops, usually are in other countries around the world, including Iraq. It’s not unusual for the President to come out and criticize America and criticize foreign forces, particularly when they are behind civilian casualties. He has come not many times in the past, often very emotional statements.

He has been known to cry, publicly weep, as he mourns the loss of innocent civilians. But what is unusual this time is there appears to be an escalation. There has been a suggestion from the security chiefs that they want these people responsible to be handed over. Now, Afghan justice is certainly not a particularly transparent process, and even Assadullah Wafa, who led the investigation, admitted to me this morning he thinks it’s absolutely very unlikely that these soldiers or these gunmen will be handed over.

AMY GOODMAN: Jerome Starkey, we want to thank you very much for being with us. He is the Times of London correspondent in Afghanistan. He’s speaking to us from Kabul.

Did U.S. Forces Execute Kids in Afghanistan?

2010-01-06T07:22:00.000-08:00

Did U.S. Forces Execute Kids in Afghanistan?
By Dave Lindorff, OpEdNews.com
January 6, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/144955/

The Taliban suicide attack that killed a group of CIA agents in Afghanistan was big news in the U.S. over the past week. The attack took place on a base that was directing U.S. drone aircraft used to attack Taliban leaders. The airwaves and front pages were filled with sympathetic stories referring to the fact that the female station chief, who was among those killed, was the "mother of three children."

But the apparent mass murder of Afghan school children, including one as young as 11 years old, by U.S.-led troops, was pretty much blacked out in the American media. Especially blacked out was the claim by UN investigators that the students had not just been killed but executed, many of them after having first been rousted from their bedrooms and handcuffed.

Here is the excellent report on the incident that ran in the Times of London (like Fox News, a Rupert Murdoch-owned publication) on Dec. 31: 

Western troops accused of executing 10 Afghan civilians, including children

By Jerome Starkey in Kabul

American-led troops were accused yesterday of dragging innocent children from their beds and shooting them during a night raid that left ten people dead.

Afghan government investigators said that eight schoolchildren were killed, all but one of them from the same family. Locals said that some victims were handcuffed before being killed.

Western military sources said that the dead were all part of an Afghan terrorist cell responsible for manufacturing improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have claimed the lives of countless soldiers and civilians.

"This was a joint operation that was conducted against an IED cell that Afghan and US officials had been developing information against for some time," said a senior Nato insider. But he admitted that "the facts about what actually went down are in dispute."

The article goes on to say:

In a telephone interview last night, the headmaster [of the local school] said that the victims were asleep in three rooms when the troops arrived. "Seven students were in one room," said Rahman Jan Ehsas. "A student and one guest were in another room, a guest room, and a farmer was asleep with his wife in a third building.

"First the foreign troops entered the guest room and shot two of them. Then they entered another room and handcuffed the seven students. Then they killed them. Abdul Khaliq [the farmer] heard shooting and came outside. When they saw him they shot him as well. He was outside. That's why his wife wasn't killed."

A local elder, Jan Mohammed, said that three boys were killed in one room and five were handcuffed before they were shot. "I saw their school books covered in blood," he said.

The investigation found that eight of the victims were aged from 11 to 17. The guest was a shepherd boy, 12, called Samar Gul, the headmaster said. He said that six of the students were at high school and two were at primary school. He said that all the students were his nephews.

Compare this article to the one mention of the incident that appeared in the New York Times, one of the few American news outlets to even mention the incident. The article, which appeared on Dec. 28, focused entirely on the difficulty civilian killings cause for the U.S. war effort, and not on the allegations of a serious war crime:

Attack Puts Afghan Leader and NATO at Odds

By Alissa J. Rubin and Abdul Waheed Wafa

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The killing of at least nine men in a remote valley of eastern Afghanistan by a joint operation of Afghan and American forces put President Hamid Karzai and senior NATO officials at odds on Monday over whether those killed had been civilians or Taliban insurgents.

In a statement e-mailed to the news media, Mr. Karzai condemned the weekend attack and said the dead had been civilians, eight of them schoolboys. He called for an investigation.

Local officials, including the governor and members of Parliament from Kunar Province, where the deaths occurred, confirmed the reports. But the Kunar police chief, Khalilullah Ziayee, cautioned that his office was still investigating the killings and that outstanding questions remained, including why the eight young men had been in the same house at the time.

"There are still questions to be answered, like why these students were together and what they were doing on that night," Mr. Ziayee said.

A senior NATO official with knowledge of the operation said that the raid had been carried out by a joint Afghan-American force and that its target was a group of men who were known Taliban members and smugglers of homemade bombs, which the American and NATO forces call improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.'s.

According to the NATO official, nine men were killed. "These were people who had a well-established network, they were I.E.D. smugglers and also were responsible for direct attacks on Afghan security and coalition forces in those areas," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue.

"When the raid took place they were armed and had material for making I.E.D.'s," the official added.

While the article in the New York Times eventually mentions the allegation that the victims were children, not grown men, it nonetheless begins with the unchallenged assertion in the lead that they were "men." There is no mention of the equally serious allegation that the victims had been handcuffed before being executed, and the story leaves the impression, made by NATO sources, that they were armed and had died fighting. There is no indication in the Times story that the reporters made any effort, as the more enterprising and skeptical London Times reporter did, to get local, non-official, sources of information. The New York Times reporters attributed the claim that the victims had been making bombs to an anonymous NATO source, even though there was no legitimate reason for the anonymity ("because of the delicacy of the situation" was the lame excuse offered). Indeed, the use of an anonymous source here would appear to violate the Times' own standards.

It's not that American newsrooms lacked the knowledge that a major war crime may have been committed. Nearly all American news organizations receive the AP news wire. Here is the AP report on the killings, which ran under the headline "UN says killed Afghans were students":

The United Nations says a raid last weekend by foreign troops in a tense eastern Afghan province killed eight local students.

The Afghan government says that all 10 people killed in a village in Kunar province were civilians. NATO says there is no evidence to substantiate the claim and has requested a joint investigation.

UN special representative in Afghanistan Kai Eide said in a statement Thursday that preliminary investigation shows there were insurgents in the area at the time of the attack. But he adds that eight of those killed were students in local schools.

Once again, the American media are falling down shamefully in providing honest reporting on a war, making it difficult for the American people to make informed judgments about what is being done in their name.

If the charges are correct -- that American forces, or American-led forces, are handcuffing their victims and then executing them -- they are committing egregious war crimes. If they are killing children, they are committing equally egregious war crimes. If they are handcuffing and executing children, the atrocity is beyond horrific. If true, this incident would actually be worse than the infamous war crime that occurred in My Lai during the Vietnam War. In that case, we had ordinary soldiers in the field, acting under the orders of several low-ranking officers in the heat of an operation, shooting and killing women, children and babies. But in this case we appear to have seasoned special forces troops actually directing the taking of captives, cuffing them, herding them into a room and spraying them with bullets, execution-style.

Given the history of the commanding general in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal -- who is known to have run a massive death squad operation in Iraq before being named to his current post by President Obama, and who is known to have called for the same kind of tactics in Afghanistan -- it should not be surprising that the U.S. would now be committing atrocities in Afghanistan. If this is how this war is going to be conducted, the U.S. media should be making a major effort to uncover and expose the crime.

On January 1, the London Times' Jerome Starkey, in Afghanistan, followed up with a second story, reporting that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is calling for the U.S. to hand over the troops who killed the students. Starkey quoted a "NATO source" as saying that the "foreigners involved" in the incident were "non-military, suggesting that they were part of a secret paramilitary unit based in the capital" of Kabul. He goes on to quote a "Western official" as saying: "There's no doubt that there were insurgents there, and there may well have been an insurgent leader in the house, but that doesn't justify executing eight children who were all enrolled in local schools."

Good enterprise reporting by the London Times and its Kabul-based correspondent. Silence on these developments in the U.S. media.

Meanwhile, it has been a week since New York Times reporters Rubin and Wafa made their first flawed report on the incident, and there has been not a word since then about it in the paper. Are Rubin and Wafa or other Times reporters on the story? Will there be a follow-up?

On the evidence of past coverage of these U.S. wars and their ongoing atrocities by the Times and by other major U.S. corporate media news organizations, don't bet on it. You'll do better looking to the foreign media.

By the way, given that we're talking about allegations of a serious war crime, it is important to note that, under the Geneva Conventions, it is a legal requirement that the U.S. military chain of command immediately initiate an official investigation to determine whether such a crime has occurred. One would hope that the Commander-in-Chief, President Obama, would order such an inquiry.

Any effort to prevent such an inquiry, or to cover up a war crime, would be a war crime in itself. We just had one administration that did a lot of that. We don't need another one.

As Afghan War Escalates, Military Expert Predicts 300-500 U.S. Troops To Be Killed or Wounded Per Month

2010-01-05T11:50:00.001-08:00

As Afghan War Escalates, Military Expert Predicts 300-500 U.S. Troops To Be Killed or Wounded Per Month
By Zaid Jilani, Think Progress
Posted on January 4, 2010, Printed on January 5, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://www.thinkprogress.org//144937/

Last month, President Obama announced that he would send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. Shortly after the decision was made, General David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, warned of increased violence in the Central Asian country as the new troops arrived. Now, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who teaches international affairs at West Point and who has repeatedly visited Afghanistan to assess the situation there, is estimating that American casualties could go as high as "300 to 500 killed and wounded a month by next summer":

Americans should prepare to accept hundreds of U.S. casualties each month in Afghanistan during spring offensives with enemy forces.

The dire forecast was made by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, an adjunct professor of international affairs at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, in a periodic assessment of political and security issues he has conducted in the war zone since 2003.

"What I want to do is signal that this thing is going to be $5 billion to $10 billion a month and 300 to 500 killed and wounded a month by next summer. That's what we probably should expect. And that's light casualties," said McCaffrey, who is also president of his own consulting firm in Arlington, Va., and has conducted numerous trips to the war zones to assess the political and military challenges at hand.

2009 was the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, with 312 soldiers losing their lives.

Surge in Casualties Predicted in Afghanistan

2010-01-04T17:05:00.001-08:00

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/01/army_casualties_010410w/

January 4, 2010 by the Army Times
by Gina Cavallaro

Americans should prepare to accept hundreds of U.S. casualties each month in Afghanistan during spring offensives with enemy forces.

The dire forecast was made by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, an adjunct professor of international affairs at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, in a periodic assessment of political and security issues he has conducted in the war zone since 2003.

"What I want to do is signal that this thing is going to be $5 billion to $10 billion a month and 300 to 500 killed and wounded a month by next summer. That's what we probably should expect. And that's light casualties," said McCaffrey, who is also president of his own consulting firm in Arlington, Va., and has conducted numerous trips to the war zones to assess the political and military challenges at hand.

As of Dec. 20, there had been 305 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in 2009, the large majority of those due to hostile action. The number of wounded as of the same date for 2009 was 2,102, with more than half of those unable to return to duty.

A month-by-month breakdown using data compiled by Army Times shows that in 2009, the highest number of wounded and dead in Afghanistan occurred from June, with 210 wounded and killed through October, when 318 were listed as wounded or killed.

October was the deadliest month for U.S. troops, with 50 killed in hostile action; but September saw the most wounded with 457 taken out of the fight.

McCaffrey predicts those numbers will go higher, up to 500 casualties per month, as the winter thaw permits enemy and coalition forces to launch their respective offensives.

McCaffrey, a three-time recipient of the Purple Heart medal who also earned the Distinguished Service Cross twice during combat in Vietnam, told Army Times that "people are shocked when I add the numbers up," but what he's discussing, he said, is not significantly higher than what is being suffered by U.S. in Afghanistan now.

His reports are compiled with information gathered in theater and from research conducted beforehand. McCaffrey traveled to the war zone for this report as an academic from West Point at the invitation of theater commander Gen. David Petraeus, commander of Central Command, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the operational commander in Afghanistan, he said.

Building a viable Afghan state with its own security force, he said, is a three- to 10-year commitment, as it is unlikely the U.S. will achieve the political and military goals set forth by President Barack Obama in his Dec. 1 speech announcing a 30,000-troop increase.

Plans to grow the Afghan national army to 240,000 by 2013, McCaffrey said, "is a growing success story," but the police force, which is now up to 92,000, continues to be a "work in progress" that is six years behind the army in development. To increase the police force to a level of integrity that can operate at village level in a competent manner, he said, will take a decade.

The addition of 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, he said, will enable McChrystal to put soldiers on the ground in areas that have been impossible to cover because of the size of the country, which he described as "bigger than the state of Texas" with 28 million people and hostile terrain.

He noted that until last year the U.S. had been in Afghanistan with only one brigade.

"In theory they're going to partner with Afghan units and [that will] get the Afghans out there," he said.

And, he said, the enemy has been attacking in battalion-sized formations. He recommended that U.S. units make sure they have supporting artillery whether they're in a combat outpost or on the move.

Afghanistan and Global Dominance

2010-01-04T16:28:00.000-08:00

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4680&updaterx=2010-01-04+03%3A54%3A16

Engdahl: US China strategy driving Afghan war, but no real long range thinking in place

Interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan Set to Collide, With Global Implications

2010-01-04T14:22:00.000-08:00

http://www.oilprice.com/article-interests-in-afghanistan-and-pakistan-set-to-collide-with-global-implications.html

29th December 2009
Interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan Set to Collide, With Global Implications

The coming year: 2010, will see a growing clash of conflicting mega-trends in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater; trends which will ultimately have long-term impact not only on the region, but on all of Eurasia and global energy and political arenas.
These main mega-trends are:

1. Obama’s Needs: The desperate efforts of the US White House of Pres. Barack Obama to appease and negotiate with any element of the “Taliban” — and the label “Taliban” is used with great looseness by most observers of the Afghanistan and Pakistan scene — willing to in order to expedite a US withdrawal and legitimize a “modern” Afghan state. The Obama White House is determined to start an irreversible disengagement by mid-2011 and to complete the bulk of the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan a year later, just before Obama runs for re-election. Since a US military victory is inconceivable, the White House argues, a negotiated settlement with the “Taliban” would provide the sole key to bringing the war to a “closure”. Toward this end, the US is empowering, and handsomely paying, a rapidly expanding cottage industry of mediators and go-betweens of dubious reach and reliability. This undertaking further disrupts the delicate tapestry of the region tribal populace and the competing indigenous leaderships because these mediators throw around huge sums of money and empower the crooks and criminals.

2. Pakistan’s Needs: The need for Pakistan to regain its influence over the “Taliban” in order to ensure Pakistani dominance over its own territory and much of Afghanistan has to be a priority for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) organization. Islamabad has little option but to strive to regain such control in order to reverse the growing Indian influence in Afghanistan and to improve Pakistani ability to withstand a forthcoming crisis, even war, with India . There is evidence that many in Islamabad are convinced that such a war is imminent. The strategic ascent of the PRC and the ensuing effective encirclement of India by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its allies (east to west: Myanmar-Bangladesh-PRC-Nepal-Pakistan) will ultimately compel India to attempt a strategic breakout. In an effort to contain India , the PRC is increasing pressure by supporting Maoist and secessionist movements in northeastern India , as well as empowering Pakistan to intensify the ISI’s support for the jihadist insurgency in Kashmir . For its part, India is intensifying support for Pushtun and Baluchi insurgencies inside Pakistan from facilities in Afghanistan . A vicious cycle of wars-by-proxy is rapidly escalating. The PRC is thus instigating crises which might possibly lead to a wider war in which Pakistan will inevitably be involved. Under such conditions, it is vital for the ISI to ensure Islamabad ’s control over the strategically crucial terrain and pertinent population.

3. The PRC’s Energy Transit Priorities: The PRC’s drive to control the pipeline routes across Afghanistan with Pakistan — the PRC’s closest ally — as the implementer mean that the Chinese-sponsored undertakings in Pakistan and quest for control over Afghanistan are an integral part of the PRC’s drive to consolidate long-term strategic posture in Central Asia. Beijing must secure privileged access to the region’s energy resources because these reserves are crucial for the sustenance of the PRC’s economic growth and modernization. Beijing is committed to a rejuvenated Silk Road built around a web of hydrocarbon pipelines and railroads. Running pipelines from Central Asia to Arabian Sea seaports via Afghanistan and Pakistan is a critical component of the PRC’s grand design. Ultimately, the Chinese intend to encircle India , challenge Russia ’s hegemony in Central Asia , and, to a lesser extent, undermine the EU’s economic presence. Beijing is cognizant that this grand-strategic ascent will not go unnoticed or without resistance. However, the PRC considers this surge the sole undertaking capable of facilitating and sustaining the historic ascent of China as a global “hegemon” (a recently revived Imperial-era term), and the PRC is willing to take the risks and pay the price.

4. The Reinvigoration of Pushtun and Baluch Tribalism: The transformation of the Pushtun and Baluchi tribal population, and the ensuing impact on the jihadist movement in their midst, is assuming significant proportions. There are about 42- to 45-million Pushtuns (in an estimated 60 major tribes and more than 400 sub-clans) and about 20-million Baluchis (in two distinct sub-nations and a convoluted system of tribes and sub-tribes), and all are determined to return to Pushtunwali-based tribalism as the quintessence of society and beliefs. This grassroots determination is the outcome of more than a half-century of ceaseless conflicts with modernity and governance which cost both Pushtuns and Baluchis a lot of blood. There is now a discernable grassroots conviction that an historic watershed has been crossed; a conviction which manifests itself in a profound rejection of both the centralized state-government and its localized governance authorities (be it “ Pakistan ” or “ Afghanistan ”) to the point of launching armed uprising. But this revival of Pushtunwali-based tribalism is also the cause of profound rejection of the neo-salafites’ monolithic Arabization of Islam in the name of jihad, and consequently, the harbinger of schism with the jihadist movement (commonly called al-Qaida).

This pattern of Pushtunwali-based tribal revivalism goes back some 2,500 years. This is a recurring phenomenon throughout history; always an indigenous reaction to outside pressure and coercion with which the grassroots population has refused to compromise. However, since the Pushtunwali-driven tribal society is the grassroots level — with which everybody must deal and contend — the dynamic within the multifaceted tribal society will continue to have a singular impact on the bigger mega-trends. Simply put, in their pursuit of their world-changing grand-strategic future interests, the dominant powers will have to come to terms with the 2,500 year old Pushtunwali-driven tribal society. All efforts to coerce or cajole the Pushtunwali-driven tribal society into modernity — especially Westernization — will come to naught.

Hence, although the PRC and Pakistan are committed in principle to a centralized state and governance by institutions (albeit mainly security/intelligence dominated rather than civil-democratic), consolidating and sustaining control over the strategically crucial territories without resistance and disruption from the indigenous population is of far greater importance. The ISI — the principal on-the-ground implementer of this grand design — knows this better than anybody else. Hence, the ISI will reach compromises on coexistence and cohabitation with the human tapestry which makes up the Pushtunwali-based tribal society. Pakistan has a long record of doing this quite effectively, until Islamabad was coerced by the Obama Administration into launching offensives into the Pushtun areas against all advice from Pakistan ’s own experts and senior officials. It won’t be long before Islamabad and Beijing can move away from the Washington demands, and revive this proven pattern of compromise and cooperation if only because these arrangements will also result in the grassroots suppression and rejection of jihadist networks as they increase their anti-Pakistan surge.

The sole explosive and disruptive ingredient is the Obama policy in Afghanistan . The US seeks to break indigenous population patterns and alliances through its support for a viable Kabul . This approach disturbs all other key players particularly because this US policy is being implemented through the COIN (Counter-Insurgency) strategy. These efforts to build Kabul’s power on the coat-tails of the US and NATO COIN operations needlessly alienate wide segments of indigenous population and drive the grassroots to not only take-up arms against the US/NATO forces, but also shield and shelter jihadists in the name of solidarity and hospitality code. The locals know that the US is leaving soon and are therefore ready for interim compromises in order to ascertain and expedite the US withdrawal. What is still uncertain is just how much will they — the locals — be willing to suffer and risk before the withdrawal happens.

Islamabad wants to see the US leaving as quickly as possible, and is therefore willing to endure interim setbacks as the US attempts to consolidate a government in Kabul and to coerce Pakistan to continue its offensives in the Pushtun lands. But the US reaching out to the “Taliban” for negotiations is too destabilizing, and thus threatening for the ISI’s necessary and proven tapestry of protégés. And this tapestry is so crucial to the success of the grand designs of the PRC and Pakistan that Islamabad cannot compromise or sacrifice it. Therefore, the ISI is increasingly manipulating and truncating existing “negotiations” via US-empowered emissaries. Meanwhile, the ISI is also encouraging and assisting the so-called “good Taliban” of Pakistan to deploy their forces to help the so-called “bad Taliban” of Afghanistan in escalating the war against the US/NATO and so-called Afghan forces, thus failing ongoing “negotiations” which are not under the ISI control and reversing whatever progress made in the empowerment of Kabul.

Thus, the recent US initiatives, while essentially futile, have nevertheless increased the fear in Beijing and Islamabad of US conspiracies, as well as engendered their apprehension of a possible US challenge to their long-term vital interests. Both Beijing and Islamabad will not take a chance and wait for the US to fail and disengage on its own. Instead, it is probable that they will opt for a war-by-proxy; that is, sponsoring a marked escalation of anti-US/NATO insurgency and even cooperation with foreign neo-salafite jihadists despite repeated calls by radical Islamist leaders such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri for the jihadists to take on Islamabad. Even with the forthcoming “surge” in mind, US and NATO forces are woefully insufficient and under-equipped to meet the current level of fighting, let alone the anticipated escalation. The restrictive ROE (rules of engagement) in the name of pro-people COIN further diminish the effectiveness, and undermine the deterrence, of the US/NATO military forces without any tangible contribution to building bridges to the frustrated and increasingly hostile population.

But the West cannot just drop everything and walk away from Afghanistan and Pakistan as the Obama White House yearns to do.

The West has vital interests in the energy resources and strategic stability in Central Asia . Simply put, Europe’s ability to rely on “the Persian Gulf of the 21st Century” — Central Asia — for its long-term secure energy supplies depends on containing the PRC’s strategic ascent and quest for the same energy resources and the southwards transportation routes (there is a limit to the quantities of hydrocarbons which can be piped westwards through Russia). These interests can be secured through the Russian political-security hegemony in Central Asia , which, in turn, is facilitating the Western economic outreach. The European Union-Russian Federation (EU-RF) “Eurasian Home” grand strategy codifies such cooperation. The PRC’s containment can also be achieved in part by ensuring a strategic balance between India and the PRC, a policy supported by Russia . As well, Western interests would be furthered by the stifling of the continued spread of jihadism, a key objective of Russia as well. Moscow is most apprehensive about the jihadist attrition of socio-political stability in Central and South Asia and the ensuing spread into Russia ’s sizeable Muslim population.

Ultimately, however, there is no substitute for the West’s long-term direct presence and military involvement at the Heart of Asia. A US withdrawal would abandon the Heart of Asia to a Russian-Chinese condominium with the EU — being dependent on the region’s energy resources — playing a pliant supportive rôle. Apprehensive as it is of China ’s strategic ascent, Russia does not have the means to singlehandedly block the PRC. To remain in Central Asia, Russia will have to compromise with China against its own better judgment. Russia would rather have the West in the area to jointly contain China .

It is therefore crucial for Russia and the West to demonstrate US-led Western commitment through long-term military presence and continued fighting against the primary foes. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the crux of such presence for they are outside Russia ’s strategic domain in Central Asia, and they constitute both the vital corridor for independent Western access to Central Asia and the primary route of pipelines transporting the region’s hydrocarbons to the West (or China ). Moreover, Western military presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan would calm down India ’s warranted anxieties of strategic encirclement and the imperative of an audacious breakout, thus significantly reducing the threat of Indo-Pakistani crisis and war.

The Obama White House, however, is going to undermine these vital interests of the entire West and abandon everything.

The Obama White House is focusing on instant-gratification steps — an inexplicable mix of near-term “defeat” of, and negotiated “compromise” with, the “Taliban” — in order to provide domestic political fig-leaf for the withdrawal. Although several major NATO and EU governments are cognizant of the strategic significance of Afghanistan , Pakistan and the road to Central Asia, Europe is too weak and lacking military resources to do anything without US leadership and dominance.

Nevertheless, the PRC-led contenders remain apprehensive that the US might realize the real stakes at hand, and, at the last minute, decide to stay. Therefore, it is in the vital interest of Beijing and Islamabad to expedite the US/NATO withdrawal by facilitating a combination of pressure — “Taliban” escalation — and political enticement — “Taliban” negotiations — under their tight control. Adamant on bringing the war to a swift “closure” at all cost, the Obama White House is walking straight into this “Taliban” trap.

Analysis. By Yossef Bodansky, Senior Editor, GIS.
Extract from Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis
© 2009 Global Information System, ISSA

Afghan authorities distance themselves from CIA 'black ops'

2010-01-04T14:18:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=104112

by Lynne O'Donnell
Fri Jan 1, 1:24 pm ET

KABUL (AFP) – Afghan authorities were distancing themselves Friday from investigations into a suicide bomb attack that killed seven CIA agents, the US spy agency's biggest single loss of life in almost 30 years.

As questions swirled about how the attacker managed to penetrate security at the base in Khost province, near the Pakistani border, the Afghan defence ministry again denied reports that any ministry personnel were involved.

The government had no comment and a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said there would be no official involvement in any investigation.

The CIA agents were killed on Wednesday when a suicide bomber breached the forward operating base (FOB) Camp Chapman and detonated an explosives-filled vest in a basement gym.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

Zahir Azimi, defence ministry spokesman, again denied reports that the bomber was an Afghan army officer or posed as one.

"This is the Taliban talking and nothing the Taliban says should be believed," he said.

The CIA uses FOBs to collect intelligence and conduct direct drone attacks along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, said a Western diplomat, who referred to the activities as "CIA black ops".

"It should come as no surprise that the Afghan government wants nothing to do with this," he said, on condition of anonymity.

"Karzai is not interested in the security of these places. He has zero control over the FOBs that are located along the border. As far as the Afghan state is concerned it's a black hole and whatever happens is the CIA's lookout."

A Western military official who also asked not to be named said the CIA "is on its own" in conducting operations on the US FOBs dotted around Afghanistan.

"There's not a great deal of visibility for what they do except at the State Department," the official said.

CIA operations were part of the "overall plan" for eradicating the Taliban and developing the country, he said, but were not part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) or US military operations.

The New York Times said CIA officers at the base recently had begun an aggressive campaign against a militant group run by Sirajuddin Haqqani.

Citing current and former intelligence officials, it said early indications were that the bomber was brought onto the base as a possible informer and might not have been subjected to rigorous screening.

Afghan political analyst Waheed Mujda said it was the focus on the Haqqani network, which is close to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, that prompted the attack.

The CIA lowered the flag to half-mast at its tightly guarded headquarters in the Washington suburbs, but did not release the names of the casualties, who died cloaked in the same anonymity in which they lived.

"Your triumphs and even your names may be unknown to your fellow Americans, but your service is deeply appreciated," President Barack Obama wrote in a letter to CIA employees.

Obama said that since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, "the CIA has been tested as never before".

The attack comes as the United States increasingly relies on the CIA and other covert forces to pursue strategic goals.

Intelligence operatives are seen as crucial in laying out the groundwork as Obama and NATO allies send in another 36,800 troops as part of a surge expected to last until late 2010.

Meanwhile, two French journalists kidnapped on Wednesday by suspected Taliban in the east of the country are thought to be alive and in good health, a source involved in efforts to free them said.

But the condition of three Afghan assistants abducted with the journalists from France's public television broadcaster was unclear, the source told AFP from Kabul.

Britain's ministry of defence said a British soldier died on Thursday of injuries from a roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan, taking the British toll for 2009 to 108.

ISAF said an American soldier died of non-battle related injuries in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday.

The deaths bring to 507 the total number of foreign troops to have died in Afghanistan in 2009, according to an AFP tally based on that from independent icasualties.org website.

Shooting Handcuffed Children

2010-01-03T11:53:00.000-08:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Shooting-Hancuffed-Childre-by-David-Swanson-100102-54.html

January 2, 2010
Shooting Handcuffed Children
By David Swanson

The occupied government of Afghanistan and the United Nations have both concluded that U.S.-led troops recently dragged eight sleeping children out of their beds, handcuffed some of them, and shot them all dead. While this apparently constitutes an everyday act of kindness, far less intriguing than the vicious singeing of his pubic hairs by Captain Underpants, it is at least a variation on the ordinary American technique of murdering men, women, and children by the dozens with unmanned drones.

Also this week in Afghanistan, eight CIA assassins (see if you can find a more appropriate name for them) were murdered by a suicide bombing that one of them apparently executed against the other seven. The Taliban in Pakistan claims credit and describes the mass-murder as revenge for the CIA's drone killings. And we thought unmanned drones were War Perfected because none of the right people would have to risk their lives. Oops. Perhaps Detroit-bound passengers risked theirs unwittingly.

The CIA has declared its intention to seek revenge for the suicide strike. Who knows what the assassination of sleeping students was revenge for. Perhaps the next lunatic to try blowing up something in the United States will be seeking revenge for whatever Obama does to avenge the victims (television viewers?) of the Crotch Crusader. Certainly there will be numerous more acts of violence driven by longings for revenge against the drone pilots and the shooters of students.

In a civilized world, the alternative to vengeance is justice. Often we can even set aside feelings of revenge as long as we are able to act so as to deter more crime. But at the same time that the puppet president of Afghanistan is demanding the arrest of the troops who shot the handcuffed children, the puppet government of Iraq is facing up to the refusal of the United States to seriously prosecute the Blackwater assassins of innocent Iraqis. Justice will not be permitted as an alternative to vengeance -- the mere idea is anti-American.

No one so much as blinks at the CIA's avowal of vengeance for the recent suicide attack, never mind the illegality, because the entire illegal war on Afghanistan/Pakistan was launched and is still maintained as a pretended act of revenge for the crimes of 9-11. Of course, we're not bombing the flight schools or the German and Spanish hotels. Of course , we admit that there are fewer than 100 members of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Of course we openly seek massive permanent bases and an oil pipeline. Of course, Obama's decisions are all electoral calculations computed by the calculus of cowardice. Of course, we're prosecuting the Butt Bomber as a criminal, just as we always used to prosecute criminals as criminals. Of course, revenge would not be a legal justification for war even if we could persuade ourselves it was a sane one. But the war is publicly understood as revenge, the resistance by its victims is understood as revenge, the escalation is understood as revenge for the resistance, and an eye for an eye slowly makes the whole world blind.

But here's what we've forgotten: nothing is ever remotely as horrible as war. So, nothing can ever constitute a justification for launching or escalating or continuing a war. Dragging children out of bed and killing them is not a freak blip in the course of a war. It is war reduced to a comprehensible scale. It's less war, not worse war. Everything we are spending our grandchildren's unearned pay on, borrowed from China at great expense, all of it is for the murdering of human beings. And it will remain so for eternity, no matter how many times you chant "Support Duh Troops."

I know many soldiers and mercenaries had few other options, given our failure to invest in any other industries. I know they've been lied to. I know they're scared and tired. But they wouldn't be there if we brought them home. And I support a full investment in their physical and mental and economic recovery. What I don't support is anyone participating in these wars, and that includes every single American who is not putting every spare moment into demanding that Congress stop forking over the money.

It's blood money. It's payment for murder. It cannot be defended. It cannot be permitted. We must stop it now. We must shut down the place it comes from.

Not another dime. Not another dollar. Not another death. Not another thought of revenge.

Silly me. I thought I could comment on something that was in the news without proving that it was in the news. Maybe this will help:

UN says Afghans slain in troop raid were students
By DUSAN STOJANOVIC, Associated Press Writer, Thu Dec 31, 1:26 pm ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091231/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan_un

KABUL The United Nations said Thursday that a weekend raid by foreign troops in a tense eastern Afghan province killed eight local students and warned against nighttime actions by coalition forces because they often cause civilian deaths.

The Afghan government said its investigation has established that all 10 people killed Sunday in a remote village in Kunar province were civilians. Its officials said that eight of those killed were schoolchildren aged 12-14. . . .

UN special representative in Afghanistan Kai Eide said in a statement that the preliminary UN investigation showed "strong indication" that there were insurgents in the area at the time of the attack.

But, he added, "based on our initial investigation, eight of those killed were students enrolled in local schools." . . .

Eide said the UN remained concerned about nighttime raids by coalition troops "given that they often result in lethal outcomes for civilians, the dangerous confusion that frequently arises when a family compound is invaded." . . .

A statement issued Thursday by the Afghan National Security Directorate said the government investigation showed no Afghan forces were involved and "international forces from an unknown address came to the area and without facing any armed resistance, put 10 youth in two rooms and killed them.

"They conducted this operation on their own without informing any security or local authorities of Afghanistan," the statement said.

___

Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez in Kabul contributed to this report.

I've excerpted much of the above article, but not the military denials. Go read them at the link above. Here's the Los Angeles Times:

Western troops killed civilians, Afghan investigators say
The government investigators say eight of those killed over the weekend in a remote eastern province were boys under 18. Western military officials say there is no evidence to back the claim.
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2009

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan - Afghan government investigators asserted Wednesday that foreign troops had killed 10 civilians in a raid this week, including eight students younger than 18. Western military officials called the charge unsubstantiated and urged a joint investigation. . . .

A statement from the presidential palace said Karzai had offered condolences to the families of the dead, and endorsed the initial findings of an investigative panel that had traveled to Kunar at his behest.

The head of the Afghan delegation, Asadullah Wafa, said 10 males, all civilians, were taken from their homes in Ghazikhan village, in the Narang district, and then shot dead by foreign troops. The report cited the village schoolmaster as identifying eight of them as pupils between the ages of 12 and 17. . . .

Wafa, a close aide to Karzai, suggested that an informant had provided misleading information to Western forces, triggering the strike. Afghan villagers have sometimes tried to settle scores with rival clans or tribes by falsely reporting insurgent activity to the authorities. . . .

laura.king@latimes.com
Copyright 2010, The Los Angeles Times

The above article has been dismissed by commenters on progressive websites because it was posted by the progressive website Common Dreams. Never mind that Common Dreams has been right far more often than the Los Angeles Times. Below is a collection of sources put together (and presumably thereby tarnished) by Talking Points Memo:

Afghan Children Handcuffed, Then Killed By American Soldiers
January 1, 2010, 7:38AM
Talking Points Memo
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/r/u/rutabaga_ridgepole/2...

TPM starts with the Times:

From the London Times, December 31, 2009...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6971638.e...

President Karzai sent a team of investigators to Narang district, in eastern Kunar province, after reports of a massacre first surfaced on Monday.

"The delegation concluded that a unit of international forces descended from a plane Sunday night into Ghazi Khan village in Narang district of the eastern province of Kunar and took ten people from three homes, eight of them school students in grades six, nine and ten, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead," a statement on President Karzai's website said.

Assadullah Wafa, who led the investigation, said that US soldiers flew to Kunar from Kabul, suggesting that they were part of a special forces unit.

Mr Wafa, a former governor of Helmand province, met President Karzai to discuss his findings yesterday. "I spoke to the local headmaster," he said. "It's impossible they were al-Qaeda. They were children, they were civilians, they were innocent. I condemn this attack."

In a telephone interview last night, the headmaster said that the victims were asleep in three rooms when the troops arrived. "Seven students were in one room," said Rahman Jan Ehsas. "A student and one guest were in another room, a guest room, and a farmer was asleep with his wife in a third building.

"First the foreign troops entered the guest room and shot two of them. Then they entered another room and handcuffed the seven students. Then they killed them."

Directly from Karzai's website...
http://president.gov.af/Contents/91/Documents/1124/phone_talks_kunar_eng...

President Karzai in a telephone contact expressed condolences and shared grief with the families of the victims of the recent attack in Kunar province.

Following the attack, President Karzai tasked a delegation on Monday led by the Chief of Complaints Commission and composed of representatives from the ministries of Defense, Interior, National Directorate of Security and the Office of Administrative Affairs for an immediate investigation of the incident.

The findings by the delegation concluded that a unit of international forces descended from a plane Sunday night into Ghazi Khan Village in Narang district of the eastern province of Kunar and took 10 people from three homes, eight of them school students in grades six, nine and 10, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead.

Eight of those shot dead were confirmed as school students by the village school principle.

From the New York Times...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/world/asia/29afghan.html

The governor of Kunar, Fazullah Wahidi, said that "the coalition claimed they were enemy fighters," but that elders in the district and a delegation sent to the remote area had found that "10 people were killed and all of them were civilians."

From the United Nations...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34644227/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asi...

The United Nations said Thursday that a weekend raid by foreign troops in a tense eastern Afghan province killed eight local students and that it warned against nighttime actions by coalition forces because they often cause civilian deaths.

That last quote is simply from the same AP story I quoted above, but posted on the MSNBC website. The UN special representative, you'll recall, is named and quoted above.