Afghanistan

Bullitt;521765 wrote:

Looks like Yon might be suing Michael Moore.. awesometastic.

classicman;521885 wrote:

Link/info please...

During my trip to Washington, D.C., I had a chance to catch up on some matters neglected while I was overseas. My attorney may have to file a lawsuit against Mr. Michael Moore. In May we contacted Mr. Moore, through his counsel, about Mr. Moore’s unauthorized use of my work on his website. He did not respond. My attorney has written again. If Mr. Moore and his counsel continue to ignore our correspondence, we will proceed with a lawsuit.

This lawsuit, though, should not be a distraction from combat reporting; the proceedings should be easy and require almost zero hands-on work from me. But it will be potentially costly. I’ve never sued anyone in my life. Looks like Mr. Moore might be the first. I told one very important person recently about the possible upcoming lawsuit and he said something like, “Someone should drive a stake through that guy’s heart.” It won’t be that bad, but copyright cases are interesting and we have to deal with them often. If you want to help me as I both prepare to return overseas and take on this lawsuit with Mr. Michael Moore, please hit the PayPal button. This lawsuit could be expensive for Mr. Moore, as well. My attorney advises that our position is strong. It is senseless for Mr. Moore to ignore this matter.

Foreign Policy
January 1, 2009
Pg. 48

The General's Next War

The FP interview with Gen. David H. Petraeus


As America’s most famous warrior-scholar looks to export his Big Ideas about fighting wars from Iraq to the arguably even tougher battlefield of Afghanistan, FP’s executive editor, Susan Glasser, spoke with him in the Pentagon days after he took over his new command.

Gen. David Petraeus: In looking at which lessons learned in Iraq might be applicable in Afghanistan, it is important to remember a key principle of counterinsurgency operations: Every case is unique. That is certainly true of Afghanistan (just as it was true, of course, in Iraq). While general concepts that proved important in Iraq may be applicable in Afghanistan—concepts such as the importance of securing and serving the population and the necessity of living among the people to secure them—the application of those ‘big ideas’ has to be adapted to Afghanistan. The ‘operationalization’ will inevitably be different, as Afghanistan has a very different history and very different ‘muscle memory’ in terms of central governance (or lack thereof). It also lacks the natural resources that Iraq has and is more rural. It has very different (and quite extreme) terrain and weather. And it has a smaller amount of educated human capital, due to higher rates of illiteracy, as well as substantial unemployment, an economy whose biggest cash export is illegal, and significant challenges of corruption. Finally, it lacks sufficient levels of basic services like electricity, drinking water, and education—though there has been progress in a number of these areas and many others since 2001.

One cannot adequately address the challenges in Afghanistan without adding Pakistan into the equation. In fact, those seeking to help Afghanistan and Pakistan need to widen the aperture even farther, to encompass at least the Central Asian states, India, Iran, and even China and Russia.

FP: Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that U.S. efforts in Afghanistan were really on the verge of failure. What’s your incoming assessment?

DP: I told [then] Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in September 2005 that Afghanistan would be the longest campaign in the so-called ‘long war.’ That judgment was based on an assessment I conducted in Afghanistan on my way home from my second tour in Iraq. And having been back to Afghanistan twice in recent months, I still see it that way. Progress there will require a sustained, substantial commitment. That commitment needs to be extended to Pakistan as well, though Pakistan does have large, well-developed security institutions and its leaders are determined to employ their own forces in dealing with the significant extremist challenges that threaten their country.

FP: I was rereading an account of an Afghan veteran from Soviet operations there. After every retaliatory strike, he said, ‘Perhaps one mujahideen was killed. The rest were innocent. The survivors hated us and lived with only one idea—revenge.’ Clearly [U.S.] engagement in Afghanistan didn’t start out in the same way as the Soviets’ did, but one of the questions is whether all these occupations wind up similarly after seven years.

DP: A number of people have pointed out the substantial differences between the character of Soviet involvement in Afghanistan and that of the coalition forces in Afghanistan, especially in the circumstances that led to the respective involvement, as well as in the relative conduct, of the forces there. Foremost among the differences have been the coalition’s objectives: not just the desire to help the Afghans establish security and preclude establishment of extremist safe havens, but also to support economic development, democratic institutions, the rule of law, infrastructure, and education. To be sure, the coalition faces some of the same challenges that any of the previous forces in Afghanistan have faced: the same extreme terrain and weather, tribal elements that pride themselves on fighting, lack of infrastructure, and so on. In such a situation, it is hugely important to be seen as serving the population, in addition to securing it. And that is why we’re conducting counterinsurgency operations, as opposed to merely counterterrorism operations.

FP: Tell me where you see lessons from Iraq that might not apply in Afghanistan, and things that you will export.

DP: We cannot just take the tactics, techniques, and procedures that worked in Iraq and employ them in Afghanistan. How, for example, do you communicate with the Afghan people? The answer: very differently than the way you communicate with the Iraqi people, given the much lower number of televisions and a rate of illiteracy in the Afghan provinces that runs as high as 70 to 80 percent. Outside Kabul and other big Afghan cities, Afghans don’t watch much television; they don’t have televisions. In Iraq, one flies over fairly remote areas and still sees satellite dishes on many roofs. In Afghanistan, you not only won’t see satellite dishes; you also won’t see electrical lines, and you may not even find a radio. Moreover, you can’t achieve the same effect with leaflets or local newspapers because many Afghans can’t read them. So, how do you communicate with them? The answer is, through tribal elders, via hand-crank radios receiving transmissions from local radio stations, through shura councils, and so on.

FP: What people most want to know, of course, is: Where does this end? The counterinsurgency principles, your own statements in the past, have focused on the idea that such wars end with political solutions—you don’t kill your way out of it.

DP: One of the concepts we embraced in Iraq was recognition that you can’t kill or capture your way out of a complex, industrial-strength insurgency. The challenge in Afghanistan, as it was in Iraq, is to figure out how to reduce substantially the numbers of those who have to be killed or captured. This includes creating the conditions in which one can have successful reconciliation with some of the elements fighting us. Progress in reconciliation is most likely when you are in a position of strength and when there are persuasive reasons for groups to shift from being part of the problem to becoming part of the solution. In Iraq, that was aided by gradual recognition that al Qaeda brought nothing but indiscriminate violence, oppressive practices, and an extremist ideology to which the people really didn’t subscribe. Beyond that, incentives were created to persuade the insurgents that it made more sense to support the new Iraq.

The challenge in Afghanistan, of course, is figuring out how to create the conditions that enable reconciliation, recognizing that these likely will differ somewhat from those created in Iraq.

FP: Do you think that does involve speaking with warlords, people like [Gulbuddin] Hekmatyar, who up to now have been absolute non-starters?

DP: Any such outreach has to be an Afghan initiative, not the coalition’s. In Iraq, frankly, it was necessary for the coalition to take the lead in some areas where there was no Iraqi government or security presence.

FP: Do you think there is something qualitatively or quantitatively new and different about the insurgencies that U.S. forces have encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan?

DP: We looked at this issue closely when we were drafting the counterinsurgency manual. And we concluded that some aspects of contemporary extremist tactics are, indeed, new. If you look, as we did, at what [French military officer] David Galula faced in Algeria, you find, obviously, that he and his colleagues did not have to deal with a transnational extremist network enabled by access to the Internet. Today, extremist media cells recruit, exhort, train, share expertise, and generate resources in cyberspace. The incidence of very lethal suicide bombers and massive car bombs is vastly higher today. It seems as if suicide car bombs have become the precision-guided munition of modern insurgents and extremists. And while there has been a religious component in many insurgencies, the extremist nature of the particular enemy we face seems unprecedented in recent memory.

FP: The counterinsurgency manual, an object of huge praise, is seen as a key moment in the rethink that put the war in Iraq on a different course. But it has not been uncontroversial. There are people on the left who see it as a form of neocolonialism; conservatives are skeptical of anything they see as nation-building, while others believe that by organizing to fight this kind of war, the United States risks not being prepared for a more conventional conflict in the future. How much of an intellectual debate have these principles stirred up? What do you say to these critics?

DP: It’s important to recognize the most important overarching doctrinal concept that our Army, in particular, has adopted—the concept of ‘full spectrum operations.’ This concept holds that all military operations are some mix of offensive, defensive, and stability and support operations. In other words, you’ve always got to be thinking not just about the conventional forms of combat—offensive and defensive operations—but also about the stability and support component. Otherwise, successes in conventional combat may be undermined by unpreparedness for the operations often required in their wake.

The debate about this has been a healthy one, but we have to be wary of arguments that imply we have to choose—or should choose—between either stability-operations-focused or conventional-combat-focused training and forces. It is not only possible to be prepared for some mix; it is necessary.

A wonderful essay that I read as a graduate student captures the essence of my view on this. The essay discussed the different schools of international relations theory, and it concluded that ‘the truth is not to be found in any one of these schools of thought, but rather in the debate among them.’ That is probably the case in this particular discussion. We would do well to avoid notions that we can pick and choose the kinds of wars in which we want to be involved and prepare only for them.

FP: You said [that] even in 2005 when you were in Afghanistan, you reported to Secretary Rumsfeld that this could be the longest part of the long war.

DP: I didn’t say it could be. I said it would be. My assessment was that Afghanistan was going to be the longest campaign of the long war. And I think that assessment has been confirmed by events in Afghanistan in recent months.

FP: Just how long did you have in mind?

DP: Those are predictions one doesn’t hazard.

WASHINGTON – New steps are urgently needed to broaden and accelerate work to keep
nuclear weapons and the materials needed to make them out of terrorist hands, according
to Securing the Bomb, 2007, a report released today.
“With al-Qaeda’s central command reconstituting in the mountains of Pakistan, we
urgently need a stepped-up global campaign to secure every nuclear weapon and every
significant cache of potential nuclear bomb material worldwide to stringent standards,”
said Dr. Matthew Bunn of Harvard University’s Managing the Atom Project, the report’s
author. “We need to make sure these stocks are locked down before thieves and terrorists
can get to them – and that they stay that way for the long haul.”

While Russia takes American money and gains influence over our Afghan efforts, we will continue to spend lives and tens of billions of dollars per year on Afghanistan in an attempt to civilize what amounts to Jurassic Park.
~~~~~~
The sum of many factors leaves me with a bad feeling about all this. The Iraq war, even during the worst times, never seemed like such a bog. Yet there is something about our commitment in Afghanistan that feels wrong, as if a bear trap is hidden under the sand.
~~~~~~~
Predicting the trajectory of a war is fraught with peril, like predicting next season’s hurricanes. Anything can happen, and often what changes the course of a war has little or nothing to do with the war. For instance, a failing global economy, or supervention of some chain of events perhaps still unimagined could cause the Af-Pak war to become less relevant. Caveats behind us, it seems that 2009 will see the sharpest fighting so far. That much has been clear for some time, and 2009 is now within our headlights. We can already resolve from the fog much of what is likely coming this year. Imagining what is beyond the headlights, my guess is that 2010 might bring the sharpest fighting of the entire war. My guess is that 2010-11 will likely be crucial years in this process, and that many allies will be making decisions during those years whether to stick it out or to punch out. By the fall of 2010, we should be able to resolve whether our renewed efforts under President Obama are working or failing.

In his new book he delivers “the seven deadly sins of Bush-Cheney” (lust, greed, pride, etc.), as well as a “12-step recovery program for American grand strategy

"Stabilization and reconstruction missions must become a core competency of both the Departments of Defense and State. The military services need to reshape and rebalance their forces to provide a stabilization and reconstruction capability."

Mr. Barnett suggests … “we’re playing against ‘younger’ versions of ourselves in many instances.” He counsels a kind of parental Zen patience.

it is hard to disagree with his nonfoxy observation that “the world desperately wants America back.”

TheMercenary;534898 wrote:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-090213-pakistan-us,0,1099409.story

tw;534927 wrote:

Because America has so harmed relations with most every nation, even that last Central Asian air base will be closed.

xoxoxoBruce;534933 wrote:

The Russian promises of debt relief and billions of dollars in aid to Kyrgyzstan probably had more to do with the closing of the Manas Air Base.

tw;534936 wrote:

Why have relations with Russia been so soured these past eight years.

classicman;534942 wrote:

Um, cuz they're Russians??

classicman;534942 wrote:

Um, cuz they're Russians??

classicman;534969 wrote:

It was a joke tom - Geez - go get yer frickin tinfoil hat back wouldja?

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) - The United States was on the verge of being kicked out of its only military outpost in Russia's historic backyard after Kyrgyzstan Friday gave U.S. forces six months to vacate an air base that serves as a key supply hub for troops in Afghanistan.
The Manas base, created shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, at first served as a symbol of what seemed like a budding strategic partnership between the U.S. and Russia.

But as relations between the two countries soured in recent years, the base came to represent the renewed competition between the two former Cold War rivals.

Maj. Damien Pickart, a spokesman for the U.S. base, said he expected military officials to begin preparations for leaving.

"If they tell us that our time is up—which they've done today—then we'll start the necessary preparations to move operations," he added. "I don't know if it will take the full six months," he said.

xoxoxoBruce;534961 wrote:

Soviets? Since the USSR no longer exists I think Soviets is passé.

We didn't beat 'em, we bankrupted 'em. Now the oil/gas business has refilled the coffers, Putin wants to return Russia to their place as a World power, an influential player. With NATO, which use to be the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, pushing far from the North Atlantic, I can understand Russia's concern.

Kyrgyzstan Allows Limited U.S. Access
Kyrgyzstan, which four months ago said it would close an American air base central to the NATO mission in Afghanistan, appeared Tuesday to partially reverse its decision. ...

Kyrgyz officials said the United States could use the base in Central Asia as a transit center to supply NATO forces in Afghanistan. Official details of the agreement were not immediately available, but it appeared that the United States had sharply increased the rent that it paid to avoid complete closure.

In February, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev gave the United States six months to vacate the airbase, which has been used since 2001 as a refueling stop and transit hub for about 15,000 troops and 500 tons of cargo a month headed for Afghanistan.

Under the plan approved Tuesday by a Kyrgyz parliamentary committee, the United States will more than triple the rent that it pays to use the Manas airbase.

Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Kadyrbek Sarbayev has told lawmakers the U.S. will pay the Kyrgyz government $60 million a year for rent. The previous rent was just under $17.5 million. Sarbayev says the U.S. has also agreed to pay at least $36 million for airport improvements, $30 million for new navigational equipment and more than $40 million for economic development and anti-drug trafficking measures.

The deal appears to place new restrictions on U.S. activities at the base, only shipping of non-military supplies.

classicman;576794 wrote:

[B][U][
What a deal! I'm thrilled - Who was the sharp tack who negotiated that?

tw;576888 wrote:

Blah blah blah

classicman;576914 wrote:

By the way, I think you set a new ponal record for the number of times you got wacko extremists in one post.

tw;576888 wrote:

Who was the mental midget (and his wacko extremist supporters) who turned every K'stan nation so adversarial against us? In 2001, every K'stan nation was a strong American supporter. Who is the idiot who converted an American military victory into a years of Taliban victories?

Considering the prices they were demanding (something below $1billion), this new price tag is a fire sale. But then we are again paying the price for wackos whose brain is so minuscule as to encourage these problems. Same wackos even voted for George Jr because they love pissing off the entire world.

sugarpop;576952 wrote:

I think we need to get the fuck outta both Iraq and Afghanistan.

tw;577089 wrote:

excessive mental midgetism.

Al Qaida: Western Spies Multiply “Like Locusts”
July 13th, 2009
From the point of view of an al Qaida military leader, Western intelligence agents are now ubiquitous in the lands of Islam, and their operations have been extraordinarily effective. The Western spies are unfailingly lethal, leaving a trail of dead Islamist fighters behind them. Worst of all, they have managed to recruit innumerable Muslims to assist their war efforts.

“The spies… were sent to penetrate the ranks of the Muslims generally, and the mujahidin specifically, and [they] spread all over the lands like locusts,” wrote Abu Yahya al-Libi, an al Qaida field commander in Afghanistan, in a new book called “Guidance on the Ruling of the Muslim Spy” (pdf).

“The spies are busy day and night carrying out their duties in an organized and secret manner… How many heroic leaders have been kidnapped at their hands? How many major mujahidin were surprised to be imprisoned or traced? Even the military and financial supply roads of the mujahidin, which are far from the enemy’s surveillance, were found by the spies.”

Al Qaida operations have been severely impeded by the intelligence war against them, al-Libi said. “As soon as the mujahidin get secretly into an area on a dark night, they are confronted by the Cross forces and their helpers. Many are killed or captured.”

Western spies are found under every conceivable cover, al-Libi wrote. “They have among them old hunchbacked men who cannot even walk, strong young men, weak women inside their house, young girls, and even children who did not reach puberty yet. The spy might be a doctor, nurse, engineer, student, preacher, scholar, runner, or a taxi driver. The spy can be anyone….”

In a statement to the US Senate intelligence committee, obtained by the Secrecy News blog last week under freedom of information rules, Blair said Iran was covertly supplying weapons to the Taliban while publicly supporting the Afghan government.

“Shipments typically include small arms, mines, rocket-propelled grenades [RPGs], rockets, mortars and plastic explosives,” said Blair. He added: “Taliban commanders have publicly credited Iranian support for successful operations against coalition forces.”

British military intelligence sources were more cautious. “It is an undefined amount of explosives that has come in from Iran,” said one source. “But, yes, there is concern that some of the mines and explosives the Americans are talking about may have been used in the Taliban bombs.”

ZenGum;593065 wrote:

I am more concerned about the extremely dodgy election they just had.

Many poeple were too scared of retaliation by the talleban to vote, showing that in many places the rule of law is definitiely not estalished.

Many people who wanted to vote complain that their ballot papers never arrived. Yet those areas have recorded full returns with big turnouts, and almost all voting for Karzai.

There are many serious "irregularities" of this sort that materially affect the result.

Karzai will probably continue to be president, but his percieved legitimacy has evaporated.

This will further undermine the authority of the Afghan government, and worse, the constitution; people will be more inclined to flout central authority, and less inclined to risk their lives serving its armies.

This is very bad. Almost 8 years on, and we are at least as far from a viable exit strategy as we have ever been.

So what are we going to do? Walk away and let the talleban continue thier shennanigans, and probably end up in control, if not of the whole country, then of some "tribal regions" like in Pakistan? Or are we going to stay there and bleed indefinitely, continuing to piss off the locals with the occasional regrettable collateral damage incidents?

Anyone got any better ideas? How many troops would it take to "surge" Afghanistan, and for how long?

TheMercenary;593094 wrote:

I agree with much of what you said. A Western style democracy is doomed to failure in Afghanistan. I think we need to stop the ramp up of troops and move back to a Special Forces style of intervention.

xoxoxoBruce;593186 wrote:

Following Mike Yon's blog, they don't have to wait. Taliban are everywhere and pop up everytime troops leave their compounds.

TheMercenary;593094 wrote:

I agree with much of what you said. A Western style democracy is doomed to failure in Afghanistan. I think we need to stop the ramp up of troops and move back to a Special Forces style of intervention.

ZenGum;593253 wrote:

Yeah, but for how long? and then what?

WASHINGTON — Does the United States need a large and growing ground force in Afghanistan to prevent another major terrorist attack on American soil?

In deploying 68,000 American troops there by year’s end, President Obama has called Afghanistan “a war of necessity” to prevent the Taliban from recreating for Al Qaeda the sanctuary that it had in the 1990s.

But nearly eight years after the American invasion drove Qaeda leaders from Afghanistan, the political support for military action that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has faded. A war that started as a swift counterattack against those responsible for the murder of 3,000 Americans, a growing number of critics say, is in danger of becoming a quagmire with a muddled mission.

In interviews, most counterterrorism experts said they believed that the troops were needed to drive Taliban fighters from territory they had steadily reclaimed. But critics on the right and the left say that if the real goal is to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States, there may be alternatives to a large ground force in Afghanistan. They say Al Qaeda can be held at bay using intensive intelligence, Predator drones, cruise missiles, raids by Special Operations commandos and even payments to warlords to deny haven to Al Qaeda.

After all, they point out, the Central Intelligence Agency has killed more than a dozen top Qaeda leaders in the lawless Pakistani tribal areas, disrupting the terrorists’ ability to plot and carry out attacks against the United States and Europe.

Andrew J. Bacevich, professor of international relations at Boston University, said the alternatives would have at least as much chance of preventing attacks on the United States as a large-scale counterinsurgency effort, which he said would last 5 to 10 years, require hundreds of billions of dollars, sacrifice hundreds of American lives and have a “slim likelihood of success.”

glatt;593328 wrote:

Do we have a goal in Afghanistan? Is it just to keep killing Al Q there so they won't hit us here? Is it to eliminate the Taliban? Is it to set up a stable government so we can get out? What is our goal? Do we even have one?

classicman;593329 wrote:

Interesting questions, glatt. Perhaps the administration could explain.

DanaC;593435 wrote:

I can see that there was true justification for going into Afghanistan. But the aims of the administration at the time flounder, for me, on the fact that they chose to also to invade Iraq. Iraq hadn't declared war on America, had no connection whatsoever with the 9/11 attacks, had no weapons of mass destruction, posed no threat to America, had no Al Quaeda connections.

None of this is an attack on the military. It is a criticism of the political war-aims, not the military war-aims.

TheMercenary;593534 wrote:

Different subject altogether.

Panel Calls Program of NASA Unfeasible
NASA, under its Constellation program, is developing a new rocket called Ares I and a new astronaut capsule called Orion, and the system is to begin carrying astronauts to the International Space Station in March 2015. After that, development of a larger rocket, the Ares V, and a lunar lander was to lead to a return to the moon by 2020.

The panel said that those plans were “reasonable” when they were announced in 2005, but that largely because NASA never received the expected financing, the first manned flight of Ares I would probably be delayed until 2017, and the International Space Station is to be discarded by 2016 under current plans. And the projected financing for NASA would not allow enough money for development of Ares V and the Altair lunar lander.

The panel in fact could find no program that “permits human exploration to continue in any meaningful way” within the $100 billion for human spaceflight over the next decade.

For $30 billion more, the current Constellation program is feasible, but would still not reach the moon until 2025, the panel said.

tw;593553 wrote:

the strategic objective now involves so many peripheral issues - including the integrity of NATO. The objective has not changed.

If not achieved, then we let bin Laden and his peers win – directly traceable to wacko extremism that made decisions based in a political agenda rather than in reality and the lessons from history.

tw;593553 wrote:

Patton said he only had six months to establish roads, electricity, phones, and sewers. If not, then the allies lose Germany. It was not fiction.

Anarea of concern for Obama is Afghanistan. Critics have questioned whether he's deploying enough troops, or whether his strategy can contain rising violence and a resurgent Taliban.

Recently, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, warned that more troops are needed there within the next year or the nearly 8-year-old war "will likely result in failure," according to a copy of a 66-page document obtained by The Washington Post.

Bob Woodward, who wrote the Post's article, called it "a striking thing for a general to say to the secretary of defense and the commander-in-chief."

McChrystal "really takes his finger and puts it in their eye -- 'Deliver or this won't work.'

"He says if they don't endorse this full counterinsurgency strategy, don't even give me the troops, because it won't work."

Gen McChrystal, who heads the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan as well as the 100,000 Nato forces, flatly rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against al-Qaeda.

He told the Institute of International and Strategic Studies that the formula, which is favoured by Vice-President Joe Biden, would lead to "Chaos-istan". When asked whether he would support it, he said:
"The short answer is: No."

He went on to say: "Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support."

A military expert said: "They still have working relationship but all in all it's not great for now."

Relations between the general and the White House began to sour when his report, which painted a grim picture of the allied mission in Afghanistan, was leaked. White House aides have since briefed against the general's recommendations.

The general has responded with a series of candid interviews as well as the speech. He told Newsweek he was firmly against half measures in Afghanistan: "You can't hope to contain the fire by letting just half the building burn."

As a divide opened up between the military and the White House, senior military figures began criticising the White House for failing to tackle the issue more quickly.

They made no secret of their view that without the vast ground force recommended by Gen McChrystal, the Afghan mission could end in failure and a return to power of the Taliban.

"They want to make sure people know what they asked for if things go wrong," said Lawrence Korb, former assistant secretary of defence.

White House aides have since briefed against the general's recommendations.

wrote:

Afghanistan is poised to enact legislation that will outlaw the trading of women to settle a debt, spousal abuse and child marriages along with other violence targeting women - a bittersweet victory in a country where many victims say they don't expect laws to change such traditional practices, but one that its backers say nudges forward women's rights

xoxoxoBruce;603654 wrote:

This is very disturbing to me. We can't even supply our troops with new boots? :mad:

TheMercenary;604170 wrote:

Naw, I vote we just take it out of one of the many socialist welfare programs.

TheMercenary;604164 wrote:

Tell it to those who are left without insurance.

TheMercenary;604170 wrote:

Naw, I vote we just take it out of one of the many socialist welfare programs.

Shawnee123;604176 wrote:

Yeah, we don't want our soldiers caught, um, dead, in bad boots. :eyebrow:

ZenGum;604373 wrote:

Most of these whackos do not fear death; death in battle in the service of Islam (or their messed up interpretation of it, at least) is automatic entry to paradise. Victory or paradise!

Meanwhile the secular forces all discretely want to survive so they can enjoy the victory. Which force is going to fight most doggedly, and win?

xoxoxoBruce;604423 wrote:

Faulty reasoning. Because they feel righteous and willing to die, the majority throw themselves into battle without thinking about it. We've seen clips of these clowns in Iraq, run out and stand in the middle of the street firing their AK wildly, until a .50 blows them right out of their Nikes.
Afghan Taliban are a little smarter, but it's the leaders. That's why taking the leaders out, is effective against them, it takes them awhile to reorganize.

xoxoxoBruce;604423 wrote:

We've seen clips of these clowns in Iraq, run out and stand in the middle of the street firing their AK wildly, until a .50 blows them right out of their Nikes.

TheMercenary;604443 wrote:

IMHO no form of central government in Afganistan will ever unite the numerous factions of warlords, nor would it have enough centralized power to prevent various warlords and their ethnic groups from having relationship across the artificial boundries drawn on a map. The best we can hope for is some form of support to allow us to attack the elements which are detrimental to our collective interests where ever they may hide. I suspect even a large scale ramp up of troops would only have a temporizing effect and without long term commitment to bring what is basically a feudal country into the 21st Century we will eventually have to withdraw. As in Iraq the American people can't stomach long term commitments of troops.

TheMercenary;604443 wrote:

IMHO no form of central government in Afganistan will ever unite the numerous factions of warlords, nor would it have enough centralized power to prevent various warlords and their ethnic groups from having relationship across the artificial boundries drawn on a map. The best we can hope for is some form of support to allow us to attack the elements which are detrimental to our collective interests where ever they may hide. I suspect even a large scale ramp up of troops would only have a temporizing effect and without long term commitment to bring what is basically a feudal country into the 21st Century we will eventually have to withdraw. As in Iraq the American people can't stomach long term commitments of troops.

The best we can hope for is some form of support to allow us to attack the elements which are detrimental to our collective interests where ever they may hide.

xoxoxoBruce;604565 wrote:

Maybe it's better to loudly announce, "WE WON", and go home now.

ZenGum;604622 wrote:

Don't ask me what we should do though, I can't think of anything that looks like it will work.

ZenGum;604622 wrote:

So we allow some tribal/political dude to take over, withdraw all "boots-on-the-ground" type troops (who may actually be doing useful nation-building work, building and guarding schools, clinics, utilities, etc) and just have a strike force that roams about striking perceived enemies.

Problems:
(1) we can't even find the enemies now, it would be harder under this plan.

(3) doing the bombing without the rebuilding would just make us more resented and hated than already. Watch the enemy's recruitment soar.

(4) whichever central government allows foreigners to use their country as a shooting range will be despised by their own people and fairly quickly overthrown, leading to an end to any co-operation with the west.

(5) if the strikes against the enemy do have an impact, they can just move over the border into the tribal areas of Pakistan. Thus we would be contributing to the destabilisation of nuclear-armed Pakistan.

tw;604642 wrote:

George Jr did that twice.

ZenGum;604697 wrote:

Hiya Bruce ... interesting, some responses.
Being ambushed is not what I had in mind by "finding the enemy". Finding the ones we want at time when we have the advantage is the trick. I also note you describe how hard it is to tell enemy from neutral later on; you seem to refute yourself.

Limited bombing... a long slow admission of pinpricks will piss someone off, especially if they are already disposed to resent you as a foreigner. Do you seriously think the Afghans wouldn't mind having their country (or territory, or area, whatever) bombed or otherwise struck at?

Howdy TW:
The thing that struck me in your post was the goal "to go after" Bin Laden (etc).
Going after them means we are always a few steps behind, playing catch-up as they recruit new suicide fodder.
The only way to defeat the taliban is to cut off their supply of recruits by shutting down their religious schools (Madrassas) and replacing them with reasonably good quality secular schools. But the taliban know this and violently resist modern education, so this approach wont work without extensive (international) security to protect all schools for a generation, and that is about as likely to happen as the run-off election producing an effective and honest government.

TheMercenary;604170 wrote:

Naw, I vote we just take it out of one of the many socialist welfare programs.

xoxoxoBruce;603654 wrote:

This is very disturbing to me. We can't even supply our troops with new boots? :mad:

Perry Winkle;604711 wrote:

Like the interstate highway system?

W.HI.P;604429 wrote:

if somebody invades into your house, any reaction you use against the invader is justifiable...you are the good guy.

The president has said with increasing frequency in recent days that a big piece of the rethinking of options that he ordered had to do with building an exit strategy into the announcement — in other words, revising the options presented to him to clarify when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government and under what conditions.

As White House press secretary Robert Gibbs put it to reporters on Monday, it's "not just how we get people there, but what's the strategy for getting them out."

Republicans on Clinton and Kosovo

"President Clinton is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be
away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."

-Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"No goal, no objective, not until we have those things and a compelling case is made, then I say, back out of it, because innocent people are going to die for nothing. That's why I'm against it."

-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/5/99

"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy."

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy."

-Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of presidential candidate George W. Bush

I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning...I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area."

-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)


"You think Vietnam was bad? Vietnam is nothing next to Kosovo."

-Tony Snow, Fox News 3/24/99


"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years"

-Joe Scarborough (R-FL)


"I'm on the Senate Intelligence Committee, so you can trust me and believe me when I say we're running out of cruise missles. I can't tell you exactly how many we have left, for security reasons, but we're almost out of cruise missles."

-Senator Inhofe (R-OK )

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarifiedrules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our overextended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

"I don't know that Milosevic will ever raise a white flag"

-Senator Don Nickles (R-OK)

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"

-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."

-Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)


"This is President Clinton's war, and when he falls flat on his face, that's his problem."

-Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN)

"The two powers that have ICBMs that can reach the United States are Russia and China. Here we go in. We're taking on not just Milosevic. We can't just say, 'that little guy, we can whip him.' We have these two other powers that have missiles that can reach us, and we have zero defense thanks to this president."

-Senator James Inhofe (R-OK)


"You can support the troops but not the president"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)


"My job as majority leader is be supportive of our troops, try to have input as decisions are made and to look at those decisions after they're made ... not to march in lock step with everything the president decides to do."

-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)


For us to call this a victory and to commend the President of the United States as the Commander in Chief showing great leadership in Operation Allied Force is a farce"
-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

Bombing a sovereign nation for ill-defined reasons with vague objectives undermines the American stature in the world. The international respect and trust for America has diminished every time we casually let the bombs fly."

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)


"Once the bombing commenced, I think then Milosevic unleashed his forces, and then that's when the slaughtering and the massive ethnic cleansing really started"

-Senator Don Nickles (R-OK)

"
Clinton's bombing campaign has caused all of these problems to explode"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)


"America has no vital interest in whose flag flies over Kosovo's capital, and no right to attack and kill Serb soldiers fighting on their own soil to preserve the territorial integrity of their own country"

-Pat Buchanan (R)


"These international war criminals were led by Gen. Wesley Clark ...who clicked his shiny heels for the commander-in-grief, Bill Clinton."

-Michael Savage


"This has been an unmitigated disaster ... Ask the Chinese embassy. Ask all the people in Belgrade that we've killed. Ask the refugees that we've killed. Ask the people in nursing homes. Ask the people in hospitals."

-Representative Joe Scarborough (R-FL)


"It is a remarkable spectacle to see the Clinton Administration and NATO taking over from the Soviet Union the role of sponsoring "wars of national liberation."

-Representative Helen Chenoweth (R-ID)


"America has no vital interest in whose flag flies over Kosovo's capital, and no right to attack and kill Serb soldiers fighting on their own soil to preserve the territorial integrity of their own country"

-Pat Buchanan (R )


"By the order to launch air strikes against Serbia, NATO and President Clinton have entered uncharted territory in mankind's history. Not even Hitler's grab of the Sudetenland in the 1930s, which eventually led to WW II, ranks as a comparable travesty. For, there are no American interests whatsoever that the NATO bombing will
either help, or protect; only needless risks to which it exposes the American soldiers and assets, not to mention the victims on the ground in Serbia."

-Bob Djurdjevic, founder of Truth in Media

Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America's new strategy for Afghanistan. It seemed like a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric -- and left both dreamers and realists feeling distraught.

One can hardly blame the West Point leadership. The academy commanders did their best to ensure that Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama's speech would be well-received.

Just minutes before the president took the stage inside Eisenhower Hall, the gathered cadets were asked to respond "enthusiastically" to the speech. But it didn't help: The soldiers' reception was cool.

One didn't have to be a cadet on Tuesday to feel a bit of nausea upon hearing Obama's speech. It was the least truthful address that he has ever held. He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics. He demanded sacrifice, but he was unable to say what it was for exactly.

An additional 30,000 US soldiers are to march into Afghanistan -- and then they will march right back out again. America is going to war -- and from there it will continue ahead to peace. It was the speech of a Nobel War Prize laureate.

Just in Time for the Campaign

For each troop movement, Obama had a number to match. US strength in Afghanistan will be tripled relative to the Bush years, a fact that is sure to impress hawks in America. But just 18 months later, just in time for Obama's re-election campaign, the horror of war is to end and the draw down will begin. The doves of peace will be let free.

The speech continued in that vein. It was as though Obama had taken one of his old campaign speeches and merged it with a text from the library of ex-President George W. Bush. Extremists kill in the name of Islam, he said, before adding that it is one of the "world's great religions." He promised that responsibility for the country's security would soon be transferred to the government of President Hamid Karzai -- a government which he said was "corrupt." The Taliban is dangerous and growing stronger. But "America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars," he added.

It was a dizzying combination of surge and withdrawal, of marching to and fro. The fast pace was reminiscent of plays about the French revolution: Troops enter from the right to loud cannon fire and then they exit to the left. And at the end, the dead are left on stage.

ZenGum;614530 wrote:

I have wondered if maybe it would help to excise the tribal regions from both Afghanistan and Pakistan, thus letting the more orderly areas of those countries stabilise, and lumping all the trouble together in a new third country, Fubaristan, in which whacko extremists can do whatever they like but should be aware that western powers will bomb them if we don't like the look of what they are up to.

Dunno about that idea, though. Sounds like it could go wrong.

classicman;614605 wrote:

What could possibly go wrong??? That sounds like a great idea!

Spexxvet;614332 wrote:

It's all partisan politics. I'd laugh, if I weren't so disgusted

TheMercenary;614795 wrote:

Damm! that sounds just like the Demoncrats during Bush. :lol:

regular.joe;613954 wrote:

If I understand this correctly, to leave Afghanistan before some kind of country stabilizing victory, would only give fire to and embolden our Fundamental Islamic enemies. When speaking about countries where the people with the most get up and go are the insurgents and U.S. Soldiers, I personally laugh at the term "exit strategy". The Taliban definitely has an entrance strategy, all Americans want is an exit strategy. Hmmm......I wonder who will win this one in the long run?

piercehawkeye45;614802 wrote:

Terrorism and freedom is just the excuse to go there.{Pakistan}

There are places with just as much terror and lack of freedoms yet we are not doing anything there.

There are places with just as much terror and lack of freedoms yet we are not doing anything there.

xoxoxoBruce;614818 wrote:

There are a number of places we are doing something, it's just not in the news. The main difference is, each of those places had a central government, and an army, we are working with. Afghanistan is a whole different critter.

TheMercenary;614807 wrote:

How would you know those 2 things?

piercehawkeye45;614835 wrote:

I don't know those two things but I can still analyze a situation and come up with conclusions. It doesn't mean they are right, but what I support. I'm not going to write I think or IMO every time I make a statement.

classicman;614854 wrote:

Out of curiosity what do you guys think about Obama sending in another 30,000 troops? IIRC many were very upset that Bush escalated the troop numbers. Now that Obama has done essentially the same thing, do you all feel differently about it or ... ?

TheMercenary;614858 wrote:

Ok. I think you have over analyzed it. But thanks for responding.

This little surge will have but a temporizing effect and in 10 or 20 years it will be just like it was before, fuedal and generally living like they have for the last 200.

classicman;614854 wrote:

Out of curiosity what do you guys think about Obama sending in another 30,000 troops? IIRC many were very upset that Bush escalated the troop numbers. Now that Obama has done essentially the same thing, do you all feel differently about it or ... ?

ZenGum;614965 wrote:

I just want to say, I disagree with the idea that Afghanistan can be a strong point or asset in any kind of global political struggle a la Kipling's Great Game. I think it is a liability that will bleed any foreign power that moves into it, until they get tired of the bleeding and go home with loss of prestige, resources, opportunities, and human lives.

Urbane Guerrilla wrote:

I think Pierce's thinking is a little too limited, too early-twentieth-century in its framing. He's not thinking in terms of the dramatic globalization that is the salient feature of the world's economy. Globalization makes talk of a nation not being "self sufficient/sustainable" moot.

Gwadar (Urdu: گوادر) is located on the southwestern coast of Pakistan, on the Arabian Sea. It is strategically located between three increasingly important regions: the oil-rich Middle East, heavily populated South Asia and the economically emerging and resource-laden region of Central Asia. The Gwadar Port was built on a turnkey basis by China and signifies an enlarging Chinese footprint in a critically important area. Opened in spring 2007 by then Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf, in the presence of Chinese Communications Minister Li Shenglin, Gwadar Port is now being expanded into a naval base with Chinese technical and financial assistance. Gwadar Port became operational in 2008, with the first ship to dock bringing 52000 tonnes of wheat from Canada. Minister of Ports and Shipping Sardar Nabil Ahmed Khan Gabol officially inaugurated the port on 21 December 2008.[2]. China has acknowledged that Gwadar’s strategic value is no less than that of the Karakoram Highway, which helped cement the China-Pakistan nexus. In addition to Gwadar serving as a potential Chinese naval anchor, Beijing is also interested in turning it into an energy-transport hub by building an oil pipeline from Gwadar into Chinese-ruled Xinjiang. The planned pipeline will carry crude oil sourced from Arab and African states. Such transport by pipeline will cut freight costs and also help insulate the Chinese imports from interdiction by hostile naval forces in case of any major war.

Strategically, Balochistan is mouth-watering: east of Iran, south of Afghanistan
, and boasting three Arabian sea ports, including Gwadar, practically at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz.

Gwadar - a port built by China - is the absolute key. It is the essential node in the crucial, ongoing, and still virtual Pipelineistan war between IPI and TAPI. IPI is the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, also known as the "peace pipeline", which is planned to cross from Iranian to Pakistani Balochistan - an anathema to Washington. TAPI is the perennially troubled, US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, which is planned to cross western Afghanistan via Herat and branch out to Kandahar and Gwadar.

Washington's dream scenario is Gwadar as the new Dubai
- while China would need Gwadar as a port and also as a base for pumping gas via a long pipeline to China. One way or another, it will all depend on local grievances being taken very seriously. Islamabad pays a pittance in royalties for the Balochis, and development aid is negligible; Balochistan is treated as a backwater. Gwadar as the new Dubai would not necessarily mean local Balochis benefiting from the boom; in many cases they could even be stripped of their local land.

To top it all, there's the New Great Game in Eurasia fact that Pakistan is a key pivot to both NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which Pakistan is an observer. So whoever "wins" Balochistan incorporates Pakistan as a key transit corridor to either Iranian gas from the monster South Pars field or a great deal of the Caspian wealth of "gas republic" Turkmenistan.

The second view sees a deeper game at work, one in which the United States has been playing an important, covert, role. This role has consisted in quietly encouraging Baloch separatists to give the province a semi-autonomous profile. Such a profile would help the U.S. build a unique bridge between Balochistan and West Asia and Central Asia, and gain influence in the two regions with their huge natural resources. An additional US motive might be to open another potential front against Iran.

Washington's dream scenario is Gwadar as the new Dubai

xoxoxoBruce;616153 wrote:

.., when Rumsfeld blew it, in Afghanistan.

Tuba Loons;616166 wrote:

I thought totalitarians only drank tea.

Kinda boring if you ask me.

That thought of the perfectibility of the human condition, in lieu of deterrence and military preparedness, throughout history has gotten millions killed. The human condition can be improved, but only by acknowledgment of the lethal propensities of some — and by readiness to prevent those propensities’ becoming manifest. Most of the great wars of the 20th century were fought against those who were convinced that “the human condition can be perfected.”

In short, Obama, in a mere 4,000 words, was trying to explain that even Noble Laureates [sic] like himself have to use force, but that they will do so in a way unlike that of George Bush.

piercehawkeye45;615695 wrote:

From what I understand, global capitalism is based on the assumption of sufficient global resources. So, if resources are insufficient, we will regress towards a more mercantile mindset assuming we want to keep the same standards of living or don't progress on our needs.

Urbane Guerrilla;617001 wrote:

That looks like a pretty big if. Dr. Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome were extrapolating resource exhaustion circa 1980-85. Didn't even come close to happening; their model had its defects. All that really seems to be going on is increased viability of mining lower-grade ores, extracting more and more difficult oil, and so on across the board. Start accessing the Solar System, and iron among other things gets rather suddenly very very abundant.

The biggest military operation of US President Barack Obama's new Afghan surge will be a test not just for American troops, but also for the Afghan authorities expected to rush with them into the breach.

US Marines are planning a massive operation within days to take Marjah, a warren of canals that forms the last big Taliban enclave in the southern part of Helmand, in the first major show of force since Mr Obama ordered in 30,000 extra troops.

SNIP

The district governor of Marjah, Haji Zair, who has been able to visit but cannot live in the Taliban-held town, says residents repeatedly beg him to bring foreign and Afghan troops.

SNIP

People in Marjah have been informed of plans to secure their town, Mr Zair said, through air-dropped leaflets, radio broadcasts and meetings with tribal elders.

SNIP

Although commanders planning the operation do not disclose the size of the forces that will be involved, taking Marjah will be one of NATO's biggest operations ever in Afghanistan, and by far the biggest for Afghan troops since the war started in 2001.


SNIP

ZenGum;632447 wrote:

I hope this works. ...
Will the talleban make a stand? or fade away into the mountains?

ZenGum;632685 wrote:

Nibble away at their political support base ... good, good.

Town and district about 40km (25 miles) south-west of Lashkar Gah
Lies in Helmand's 'Green Zone' - an irrigated area of lush vegetation and farmland
Last remaining major Taliban stronghold in southern Helmand
Area considered a centre for assembling roadside bombs
Key supply centre for opium poppies - lucrative revenue source for Taliban
Estimates of Taliban numbers range up to 1,000
Population of Marja town put at 80,000 while the whole of Marja district is thought to have 125,000

ZenGum;633437 wrote:

Well that explains why no-one in Marjah ever gets a parking ticket.

Monday, 08 March 2010
Kandahar, Afghanistan

Yesterday, an American involved in the war effort handed me a document. It was an email from a Lieutenant Colonel in the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan. His unit is in combat seven days a week. To be clear, I did not get the email from the officer and I have never met him.

The email is about the abysmal, unsafe conditions which some of our most dedicated troops are living in, at a remote base run by the Spanish military in Afghanistan. All deletions [xxx] are by me. I have the entire email. The serious and disturbing allegations are found in the second and third paragraphs.

Please note, that the failure to support permanent US troops at this Spanish base constitutes real negligence about their ultimate safety. And that comes on top of a degree of harassment that is shocking among allies.

The message begins:
[QUOTE]
Gentlemen,
I just finished spending a couple days with TF [xxx] at [xxx] and visiting all of our sites that we have troopers located at. Great progress continues to be made in the [xxx], but several items need some help ASAP:

[Para 1 deleted]

2) Qal E Naw: The Spanish are not interested in helping in anyway, and are trying to make us decide to leave based on their unacceptable treatment of Americans. Our refuelers [soldiers who refuel helicopters] that are living there have to run out, unroll the hoses, pull security, and roll everything back up. They have asked for gravel along the FLS as it is currently calf deep mud, but the Spanish refuse to make any improvements. They asked for a T barrier (just one) to put at a 45 degree angle outside the fence where the FARP [Forward Arming and Refueling Point; where helicopters land for ammo and gas] has to be set up so they can run for cover in case there is small arms fire, the Spanish say no and refuse to make any improvements. They asked for a small gate where their billets are located so they can access the FARP directly rather than going a half mile loop to get out the gate, but the Spanish said no and refuse to make any improvements. They [sic] guys are living hard (we understand that) but have to do laundry by hand as all of their stuff is stolen if they turn it into the laundry, they discussed this with the Spanish, but they refuse to many any improvements.

USFOR-A needs to energize someone to develop a viable, enduring plan for this FARP that isn’t reliant on the Spanish. This is a key hub for fuel (since we can’t get trucks to [xxx] or [xxx]) so let’s improve this location to better support those guys living out there on the edge by themselves. They refused to allow a Marine detachment that was dropped there to come into the wire or feed them overnight. Our refuelers had to fight the Spanish to bring them in and squeeze them into the two small tents that they have and give them MREs as they [sic] Spanish wouldn’t feed them. Is this how we allow our Coalition partners to treat Americans?

3) BmG: Who ever briefed that they have gravel there has never been there. We arrived during a TIC [fighting] and a MEDEVAC mission. The aircraft have to land/park in a field that has no gravel and then they sink into the ground. They have to be moved everyday to pull them back out of the mud. If we can’t get gravel, how about putting some AM2 matting, stakes and a couple of Red Horse guys on a CH-47 and fly them in to build a couple of pads just big enough to park an individual UH-60 on? We’ve been pushing the gravel issues since last fall and are no closer to a solution. Those guys are living in fighting positions. When it begins to warm up in the next month, that field will be untenable without gravel or AM2 matting. We don’t want to lose MEDEVAC capability there because we couldn’t put in two pads. We did a MEDEVAC [troop(s) wounded] and Hero [troop(s) killed] mission while I was there and the next day as well, let’s not forget that they are on the tip of the spear, we owe them more.

I would like to discuss these Saturday to see what the way ahead is going to be.

ATW!

On that note, the email closes.

A documentary made by a Norwegian journalist embedded with Taliban fighters has provided a rare glimpse of the other side of the Afghanistan conflict.

The raw footage - captured by Paul Refsdal - shows the Afghan militants attacking U.S. convoys on a road below their mountainous hide-out and celebrating hits with a high-five.

The men also show their softer side to the Norwegian journalist by singing, reciting verses from the Koran and even brushing their long hair as he quietly records their day-to-day activities.

Refsdal informs viewers that a price of $400,000 has been placed on Dawran's head, and the commander himself tells the story of how he was almost killed by a traitor.

Later their perilous position is exposed when the men become concerned by the sight of the U.S. gunship flying nearby.

The narrator says: 'One aircraft that scared them is a transport plane transformed into a gunship.

'When this was in the air Dawran was very concerned.'

During the night, the fighters flee into the mountains when it becomes apparent their hide-out is to be attacked.

And the next day U.S. special forces achieve a successful raid on the house of Dawran's deputy, killing him and a dozen fighters and relatives.

This action ends Refsdal's filming of the unit, and he is told to go back to Kabul.

But at the end of the film, the documentary-maker reveals he was tempted back to the hills by another fighter called Omar, and kidnapped, but released six days later.

The US and Saudi Arabia are in advanced talks on transferring Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda fighting force out of Afghanistan and Pakistan to a new location. His removal would clear Taliban leader Mullah Omar's path to a negotiated end to the war in Afghanistan.

Read more about this proposal and find out what the drums of war beating in Beirut and Damascus are all about in our next issue out Friday.

Shawnee123;684205 wrote:

I thought Bin Laden died years ago?

Shawnee123;684205 wrote:

I thought Bin Laden died years ago?

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's army got its first female officers in decades on Thursday when 29 women graduated in a class of new recruits who hope to help take the lead role in national security from foreign forces by 2014.
...

The women will not be sent to the frontline of the fight against the insurgency, which is raging at its strongest since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban government, and instead will largely be doing administrative work.

Women served in the army of Afghanistan's communist-backed regime in the 1980s but retreated from military service during the civil war and hardline Taliban rule that followed the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan in 1989.

xoxoxoBruce;531563 wrote:

for several years, Mike Yon detailed at some length what we had to do to win in Afghanistan. It appears he has changed his mind.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/afghanistan-a-dream-that-will-not-come-true.htm

daviddwilson;687695 wrote:

An apparent mishap during efforts to develop a biological or chemical weapon forced a branch of al-Qaeda to shutter a base in Algeria, a high-level U.S. intelligence official told the Washington Times on
reports that the accident had killed 40 terrorist operatives were accurate, but rejected the claim in the London Sun tabloid that the cause of death was bubonic plague.

BAMYAN CITY (PAN): A teenage student, who has made what is being called the country’s first home-made plane, is waiting for government permission to fly his aircraft, an official said on Tuesday.
Sabir Shah, a 10th-grader from Jaghori district in southern Ghazni province, was summoned to the capital Kabul by President Hamid Karzai who wanted the plane to undergo a technical check up before allowing it to take flight, district chief, Zafar Sharif, said.

To the U.S. Army soldiers and Marines serving here, some things seem so obviously true that they are beyond debate. Among those perceived truths: Tthe restrictive rules of engagement that they have to fight under have made serving in combat far more dangerous for them, while allowing the Taliban to return to a position of strength.

"If they use rockets to hit the [forward operating base] we can't shoot back because they were within 500 meters of the village. If they shoot at us and drop their weapon in the process we can't shoot back," said Spc. Charles Brooks, 26, a U.S. Army medic with 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, in Zabul province.

Word had come down the morning Brooks spoke to this reporter that watch towers surrounding the base were going to be dismantled because Afghan village elders, some sympathetic to the Taliban, complained they were invading their village privacy. "We have to take down our towers because it offends them and now the Taliban can set up mortars and we can't see them," Brooks added, with disgust.

Weightlifting was introduced to Afghanistan in the 1960s thanks to the international popularity of muscle-celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, it has become one of Afghanistan's most popular sports. The pinnacle of the country's bodybuilding competitions is the annual Mr. Afghanistan pageant, but smaller contests are held year-round.

More on the Tanks to Afghanistan

This article also talks more about Petraeus's mindset on war fighting. There is a wide misconception that Petraeus is all about a soft approach, but I've been clearly reporting since at least 2007 that Petraeus is a straight-up killer. The man doesn't play. He's using more force now than anyone since... the war began. I saw him do this in Iraq. After he kills a bunch of bad guys, he comes back and says, "Hey, care to talk now? Doesn't have to be like this." If they don't want to talk, he goes back to killing.

Mark my words and watch.

Michael Yon

xoxoxoBruce;695157 wrote:

That's because he learned in Iraq, he can only form alliances with, and garner support from, people that believe he's the baddest motherfucker in town.

tw;695225 wrote:

The tank is a minor asset in the soldier’s arsenal.

...they will provide the Marines with an important new tool in missions to flush out pockets of insurgent fighters. A tank round is far more accurate than firing artillery, and it can be launched much faster than having to wait for a fighter jet or a helicopter to shoot a missile or drop a satellite-guided bomb.

"Tanks give you immediate, protected firepower and mobility to address a threat that's beyond the range" of machine guns that are mounted on the mine-resistant trucks that most U.S. troops use in Afghanistan,...

fo0hzy;695237 wrote:

Say what, Willis?

You cannot be serious. :facepalm:

fo0hzy;695237 wrote:

You cannot be serious.

tw;695365 wrote:

Very serious. And some think otherwise only because a big tank inspires a big penis. Emotions do not create reality or facts.

Others who better understand these concept understand why tanks were so necessary in Normandy or in Desert Storm. But have minor value in Afghanistan.

KABUL, Afghanistan — For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the repeated appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement.

But now, it turns out, Mr. Mansour was apparently not Mr. Mansour at all. In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little.

“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”

American officials confirmed Monday that they had given up hope that the Afghan was Mr. Mansour, or even a member of the Taliban leadership.

NATO and Afghan officials said they held three meetings with the man, who traveled from across the border in Pakistan, where Taliban leaders have taken refuge.

The fake Taliban leader even met with President Hamid Karzai, having been flown to Kabul on a NATO aircraft and ushered into the presidential palace, officials said.

ZenGum;696301 wrote:

I find it very worrying that it is our side in the war that just got scammed. It appears we don't even know what our enemies leadership looks like, and are hopelessly lost among the politics of Afghanistan.

Even the toned-down, public version of the one-year progress report
released by the White House on Thursday makes clear President Obama is still in search
of the leverage he needs to persuade, or compel, Pakistan to close down
the safe haven for terrorists and insurgents that has let a battered al Qaeda leadership
and a vigorous Taliban survive.

The classified version runs more than 50 pages, and the White House is holding it
so tightly that it is unlikely to be widely distributed on Capitol Hill;
senior members of Congress can request classified briefings, officials said.

Lamplighter;700476 wrote:

They spent a year developing this report, but I should done it for them
My report has been stuck on the back of my truck for about a year:

xoxoxoBruce;700496 wrote:

Your cutsie bumper sticker, ... has no bearing on the realities or consequences of any actions taken but the coalition in Afghanistan.

xoxoxoBruce;700496 wrote:

Uh, no. They didn't spend a year developing the report. They report is where they stood when it was completed, 5 months after Petraeus took command, and may not even be valid now.
Your cutsie bumper sticker, is just a less than clever statement of your opinion, and has no bearing on the realities or consequences of any actions taken but the coalition in Afghanistan.

Any political movement needs a symbol and a motto. The American abolitionists found theirs in the kneeling slave in chains, surrounded by the words "Am I Not a Man and a Brother." First adopted by the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in England, it became the enduring emblem of abolitionists and antislavery activists on both sides of the Atlantic. Josiah Wedgwood manufactured unglazed stoneware cameos like this medallion [at right] by the thousands and gave them away to supporters of the movement. Benjamin Franklin, always one to recognize good publicity when he saw it, thought the cameos would be an effective weapon against the slave trade.

xoxoxoBruce;700496 wrote:

Your cutsie bumper sticker, is just a less than clever statement of your opinion, and has no bearing on the realities or consequences of any actions taken but the coalition in Afghanistan.

DanaC;700651 wrote:

This kind of sloganizing in European and American popular and political culture has deep roots. I don't see it as trivialising.

Lamplighter;700822 wrote:

What does it appear the US is doing diplomatically ?
Afghanistan:
We are whining about their corrupt government
We are distributing money at an incredible pace, mainly as bribes

"You've got to stop the war in Afghanistan"

xoxoxoBruce;700850 wrote:

Sure, but how, the devil's in the details.

Lamplighter;700831 wrote:

Re Richard Holbrooke, I don't know if it's true or not...but the first reports of his "last words"
before surgery and his death were said to be: "You've got to stop the war in Afghanistan".

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley attempted to correct the record on the Holbrooke quote. He elaborated on the ambassador's words, which were apparently part of a lengthy exchange during which Mr. Holbrooke bantered with hospital staff.

“I can't relax. I'm worried about Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said, lightly, when the medical team asked how they could make him comfortable before his heart surgery.

After some additional exchanges, someone in the medical staff said, “Well, tell you what: We'll try to fix this challenge while you're undergoing surgery.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Holbrooke replied. “See if you can take care of that, including ending the war.”

Was it a great joke? Not really. But it was a brave joke to make. Its author was brave to be joking at all. He knew the serious nature of the surgery he was about to undergo and he sought to lighten the mood for everyone around him.

Lamplighter;700921 wrote:

Well, I see the White House now suddenly has gained credibility. :rolleyes:

Lamplighter;700925 wrote:

Didn't you just source them as the true quote ?

(P.J. Crowley: Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs)

The Obama administration has completed its third review
in two years of U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It argues the current approach is making progress, with success defined
as building up Afghan national army and police forces until they can hold their own
against a Taliban that is being weakened by ongoing combat.
Some officials also believe that several more years of military pressure
will persuade many Taliban fighters to switch sides rather than fight.

There are good reasons to be skeptical...<snip>

Lamplighter;701014 wrote:

... Wall Street Journal
BY RICHARD N. HAASS
Dec 20, 2010

... Some officials also believe that several more years of military pressure
will persuade many Taliban fighters to switch sides rather than fight.

There are good reasons to be skeptical ...

Biden's unannounced visit brings him to the Afghan capital at a time of uncertainty in the war.
Military commanders claim progress against the Taliban in the areas where they've concentrated U.S. troops,
particularly in the southern Afghan provinces of Kandahar and Helmand.
And President Obama last month called the war effort "on track."

But the insurgency remains potent in wide swaths of the country.
The Afghan government has strongly opposed parts of the U.S.
military strategy and not yet addressed its own problems with corruption.
Insurgent leaders, meanwhile, operate safely from sanctuaries in Pakistan.

Obama has also moved away from the deadline he set of July 2011 for those troops to begin pulling out. <snip>

Afghan officials meanwhile continue to push for more authority
over how the war is fought and how billions of dollars of foreign aid is spent.
Karzai supports a less intrusive U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, and has pushed
to curtail inflammatory Special Operations forces night raids and reduce civilian casualties.
He also wants his country to benefit from development projects and not
just serve as a battlefield against terrorism.

Lamplighter;701014 wrote:

... Some officials also believe that several more years of military pressure will persuade many Taliban fighters to switch sides rather than fight.
There are good reasons to be skeptical ...

New US envoy to Afghanistan: No rush for the exits

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press &#8211; 3 days ago

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) &#8212; The new U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan said Monday that the United States is not rushing to leave the country and cautioned that what happens in the months ahead will have far-reaching effects across the globe.

Ryan Crocker takes over as America's top diplomat in Afghanistan as President Barack Obama begins withdrawing some of the 33,000 American reinforcements he sent in December 2009 as part of an effort to reverse the Taliban's momentum. Some Republican lawmakers called the withdrawal plan too risky, saying it did not leave enough coalition troops in the country to deal a decisive blow to the insurgency.

Speaking after being sworn in at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Crocker tried to allay Afghan fears about Obama's plan to bring 10,000 U.S. troops home by year's end, as many as 23,000 more by September 2012 and a formal end to the combat mission by the end of 2014.

"We must proceed carefully," he said. "There will be no rush for the exits. The way we do this in the months ahead will have consequences far beyond Afghanistan and far in the future."

He said the U.S. was wrong to withdraw support from Afghanistan in the early 1990s, but stressed the U.S. had no interest in having permanent bases in the nation.

Many Afghans felt abandoned by the U.S. after 1989, when the Soviet Union withdrew its army from Afghanistan and U.S. support to mujahedeen fighters battling the Soviets dried up. Afghanistan then sank into years of brutal civil war, which was followed by the rise of the Taliban, al-Qaida's use of Afghanistan as a sanctuary and the Sept. 11 attacks.

"The coming year will be critical in setting the right glide path," Crocker told hundreds of embassy employees, diplomats and military leaders gathered outdoors in a red tent where a light breeze tempered the morning heat.

Crocker, who has held top diplomatic postings in Iraq, Pakistan, Kuwait, Syria and Lebanon, submitted his credentials to Afghan President Hamid Karzai in a ceremony at the presidential palace later Monday.

He came out of retirement to replace Karl Eikenberry, who left Afghanistan earlier this month.

Crocker has served in Afghanistan before, reopening the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in 2002, after the fall of the Taliban. He also helped bury a piece of the World Trade Center, which was toppled during the Sept. 11 attacks, at the base of a flagpole on the embassy grounds.

"We will never forget and 10 years on, I'm here to join all of you in doing our utmost to ensure that such an attack never happens again," said Crocker, who recalled being in New York on Sept. 11 and watching the twin towers collapse.

He acknowledged that many citizens of troop-contributing nations, including the United States, were weary of the war.

"My answer to that is to remind those who say 'We should be done' of the incalculable, long-term effects and costs of getting it wrong" in Afghanistan, he said. "We owe nothing less to the next generation of Afghans, Americans and others not to repeat the mistakes of 20 years ago."

He said it also was imperative to allay the fears of Afghans who believe that the gradual transfer of security responsibility to Afghan forces means the international community is ready to make a hasty retreat. In recent days, Afghan security forces have taken the lead for securing seven areas of the nation. By 2014, they are to be in charge across the country, allowing foreign combat troops to either leave or take on supportive roles.

"Beyond 2014 &#8212; even when Afghans have transitioned to a full security lead &#8212; I'm confident that we and the international community will be in a position to work with Afghanistan to prevent any forcible return of the Taliban to power," he said. "Those days are gone."

The Taliban on Monday claimed they shot down a U.S.-led coalition helicopter that crashed in eastern Afghanistan. The coalition said it was investigating the cause of the crash.

NATO said rescue forces came under fire from insurgents but safely moved all crew and passengers to a nearby base by early morning.

Kunar provincial spokesman Safiullah Wasifullah Wasify said the helicopter went down before dawn in Kunar's remote mountainous Chapa Dara district. He said that his report showed it was shot down by a rocket.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said that troops were dropping out of the helicopter for an assault on militant fighters when the helicopter was targeted.

In the west, meanwhile, an Italian paratrooper was killed in an insurgent attack and two wounded Monday, officials said. Forty-one Italian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since the country first sent troops in 2004.

The latest death brings to 44 the number of international service members killed in Afghanistan this month.

Also Monday, Britain's Defense Ministry said five children were injured Saturday when an Apache helicopter opened fire on suspected insurgents in southern Helmand province.

Officials said insurgents had been positively identified, and the five children were in an adjoining field. The children were being treated at a coalition medical facility.

The British Defense Ministry said it was reviewing the incident and the provincial government was being kept informed.

26 July 2011
Zhari District, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan

Over the past several days there have been news stories here in Afghanistan about the Taliban strangling an 8-year-old boy. The reports say that his father refused to turn over a police vehicle to the enemy, and so they murdered his son. Late last night, a courageous Afghan journalist named Mustafa Kazemi emailed an image of the boy that Mustafa said had been murdered. Afghans are enraged. They hate this behavior as much as we do. The boy appears to have had his eyes gouged out before being strangled to death. This image is graphic. (please scroll down)

And so last night I walked to the Headquarters of 4-4CAV here in Zhari District, the most active district in Afghanistan at this time. I asked what was going on tonight. A noncommissioned officer filled me in on the day’s events. We had been in a minor ambush resulting in a slight injury and a damaged MRAP, so I knew about that one. But then he explained about a boy whom he said the Taliban forced to step on an IED just down the road from here. Apparently, according to Afghans, the Taliban may have been testing a new bomb made from a soda bottle. The boy’s name is Jalil, and our people estimate that Jalil is 6 to 8-years-old. Jalil was picking grapes with his brother when the Taliban, according to reporting, told the boy to step on the bomb. It blew off his right leg below the knee, leaving hamburger on the stump, and fractured his femur. Afghans brought Jalil to the nearby American base called COP Kolk, where 4-4CAV Soldiers treated him. A helicopter took Jalil and his father to Kandahar Airfield for advanced treatment.

There was no flight the next day, or the day after that. It was all happening like the air coordinator said. I called the two Afghan National Police officers on my Roshan phone and told them to be at the gate at 8 a.m. the next day. We were speaking in Pashto, and when I hung up, one of the soldiers asked me, “God damn, sir! How many times you been deployed?” I told him this was my first, but that I had gone native.

A female lieutenant spoke from an office behind me: “That was you? I thought one of them had gotten in here.”

BigV;746997 wrote:

??? need a better link.. don't see that story.

BigV;747133 wrote:

those aren't militants...

...those are simple brutal criminals. that is nothing like a political statement, or a military action.

hanging the son of a police officer for not being given a police vehicle is just criminal.

The response to such crimes should be from the law enforcement part of the government--not the military, though in Afghanistan, there is considerable overlap there.

it is a terrible tragic story, but not about a military situation, just about cruel fucking criminals.

gvidas;747147 wrote:

It's definitely a salient point. I think the more finessed answer is, you use the military to create a system of justice. Because, ultimately, the problem with a military solution is that people can look at it and say: but that isn't just.

Michael Yon's two most recent actual dispatches (albeit hard to find amongst his book promoting and etc) were about just this:

Rule of Law

Left of Bang

SOON AFTER HE DEPLOYED to southern Afghanistan this spring, Lieutenant Commander Nathan Solomon, a Navy chaplain, learned of a disconcerting and persistent belief among the locals in northern Marja: the Afghan soldiers stationed there weren’t Muslim. The Taliban had convinced many in this stretch of Helmand province that the Afghan soldiers—most of whom were from northern and eastern Afghanistan and spoke Dari instead of Pashto, the local language—were nearly as foreign as the U.S. marines patrolling alongside them.

Solomon and his Afghan liaison, Abdul Khabir, a mullah and an army captain, suggested that installing audio speakers at the joint patrol bases to announce the five-times-daily Muslim call to prayer might help. The first speakers brought quick results. “We didn’t know they pray like we do,” one man told a joint patrol of marines and Afghan soldiers. “It makes us trust them more, knowing we all share the same faith.”

The American debate on Afghanistan seems to be framed by two diametrically opposed definitions of success. One says that we have effectively won the war already&#8212;that the death of Osama bin Laden and the increase in targeted drone attacks have achieved the goal of preventing transnational terrorists from once again using sanctuaries in Afghanistan to attack the United States. The other view holds that success is impossible&#8212;that the goal of a stable Afghan government in control of its own territory is beyond our reach.

Enlarge Image

Getty images
Look to Colombia, where the U.S. helped the government in Bogota achieve success short of complete victory.

Both views lead to the same result: a premature abandonment of Afghanistan that could return it to the control of the Taliban and allow al Qaeda and other extremists to regain sanctuaries. Even targeted drone strikes would be much less effective without the human intelligence needed to support them.

But there is an alternative: the"Colombia standard" of success. It's probably unrealistic to think that the Afghan government can completely control Afghan territory by 2014 or even some later date. But, like the Colombian government, it could achieve success short of complete victory.

U.S. Says

KABUL, Afghanistan &#8212; President Hamid Karzai&#8217;s denunciation
last week of abuses at the main American prison in Afghanistan
&#8212; and his abrupt demand that Americans cede control of the site within a month &#8212; surprised many here.
The prison, at Bagram Air Base, is one of the few in the country where
Afghan and Western rights advocates say that conditions are relatively humane.

American officials, caught off guard by the president&#8217;s order,
scrambled to figure out the source of the allegations.
Now they have at least part of an answer: the Afghan commission
that documented the abuses appears to have focused mainly
on the side of the prison run by Afghan authorities, not the American-run part,
according to interviews with American and Afghan officials.

Mr. Karzai was, in essence, demanding that the Americans cede control of a prison
to Afghan authorities to stop abuses being committed by Afghan authorities.
But the American snickering subsided quickly as it became apparent that the Afghans
were not backing off their demand, the officials said, and instead appeared intent
on turning it into a test of their national sovereignty.

The matter is exposing the deep vein of mutual mistrust and suspicion
that runs beneath the American and Afghan talk of partnership, and
officials characterize the prison dispute as a critical complication for the United States&#8217;
intent to withdraw from the Afghan war on its own terms.<snip>

The U.S. military left Nangalam base last February, handing over to Afghan forces. But within weeks, things went badly wrong.

Enemy forces returned to roam freely through the valley. The Afghan commander deserted. Hundreds of his soldiers followed.

"I believe there was some of (feeling of abandonment) amongst the (Afghan) soldiers. It's probably what led to some of their leadership leaving," Guillen said.

The Afghan forces that remained ransacked their own base.

All the electric wires have been pulled out. Anything of any value was taken. You can see the wiring hanging out of the light.

Just about everything else that could be moved was sold for cash.

Without American support, the Afghan army refused to resupply the base. The soldiers were living in filth.

For the U.S. military, it was an embarrassing example of what might happen when security is handed over to Afghan forces across the country, and so four months after leaving, a small group of U.S. troops was sent back in.

Today, American contractors are back on the base repairing the damage, with U.S. taxpayers footing the bill, again.

regular.joe;787324 wrote:

I would like to make one thing clear, this is not an embarrassing example of what might happen when security is handed over to the afghans. It is just what will happen. We need to get over it and move on, or just plan on staying.

sexobon;787356 wrote:

I'm hoping we embedded enough tactical nukes for remote detonation.

regular.joe;787324 wrote:

It is just what will happen. We need to get over it and move on, or just plan on staying.

classicman;787390 wrote:

This happened when we tried to give a country ruled by religious zealots democracy. They couldn't handle it.

tw;787396 wrote:

You mean god cannot teach his followers democracy?

ZenGum;787399 wrote:

IMHO, Afghanistan was never rebuildable as a modern democratic nation.

Democracy is hard to teach because it requires patience, self-control and accepting that you don't always get what you want, even though you could just do what you always did and go out with some guns and take it. The fruits come slowly.

Like I keep telling you, we need to [size=1] mumblemumblemuble [/size] immediately!

ZenGum;787404 wrote:

You Yanks would be happy to supply 50,000 troops for 50 years and another few hundred trillion bucks to pay for it all, wouldn't you? :right: We'll send a few guys with a flag and a sharpened boomerang.

ZenGum;787436 wrote:

Oh I've heard these things can be done "on the cheap"... :D

ZenGum;787404 wrote:

Actually, I was thinking, the problem is that they've had a variety of incompetant govenrments, periods of anarchy and civil war, and occasional religious nutter dictatorships. What they need is a century of a single, solid dictatorship (such as India had under British Colonial rule) to get them used to the idea of obeying the government. Said dictatorship would foster education and gradually - over a few generations - introduce democracy.

ZenGum;787404 wrote:

Actually, I was thinking, the problem is that they've had a variety of incompetant govenrments, periods of anarchy and civil war, and occasional religious nutter dictatorships. What they need is a century of a single, solid dictatorship (such as India had under British Colonial rule) to get them used to the idea of obeying the government. Said dictatorship would foster education and gradually - over a few generations - introduce democracy.<snip>

ZenGum;788239 wrote:

Okay, here's the plan.

We pump a few million barrels of oil under Afghanistan. Then we "discover" it and get all excited. Then the Chinese get interested and we do a deal with them that they take over maintaining security in exchange for access to the mineral rights. We bugger off, China gets to bleed out in the mountains for a decade.

Whaddaya think?

infinite monkey;788254 wrote:

well now THEY know

Time to Leave Afghanistan
Michael Yon
Today, 9:42 AM
21 January 2012

This war is going to turn out badly. We are wasting lives and resources while the United States decays and other threats emerge. We led the horse to water.

Importantly, there is no value in pretending that Pakistan is an ally. We should wish the best of luck to the Afghans, and the many peaceful Pakistanis, and accelerate our withdrawal of our main battle force. The US never has been serious about Afghanistan. Under General Petraeus we were starting to gain ground, but the current trajectory will land us in the mud.

The enemies will never beat us in Afghanistan. Force on force, the Taliban are weak by comparison. Yet this is their home. There is only so much we can do at this extreme cost for the many good Afghan people. We must reduce our main effort and concentrate on other matters. Time to come home.

Sincerely,

Michael Yon

gvidas;789661 wrote:

I wonder what changed his mind. ... I thought even as recently as mid 2011 he was optimistic about our chances of effecting lasting good.

(Reuters) - If all goes as hoped, U.S. and Qatari negotiators will meet soon
to nail down final details for transferring Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo prison
- a momentous step for President Barack Obama, the Afghan war and perhaps U.S. foreign policy as well.

Should U.S., Afghan and Qatari officials reach agreement, the Obama administration's
careful diplomatic choreography then calls for the Afghan Taliban to open an office in Qatar
to conduct peace talks with the Western-backed Afghan government.
The Taliban would be expected to make a statement condemning international terrorism.

And at some point - exactly when is unclear - the United States would start sending
the first of five senior Taliban members it has held for a decade to Qatar.

On the way to the first-ever peace negotiations to end the long and
bloody Afghan war, much could go wrong - indeed much already has.
The peace talks have been beset by fits and starts, and U-turns,
and there is a good chance that even these initial good-faith measures won't ultimately come off.
<snip>
[COLOR="DarkRed"]"Two years ago the hope at the Pentagon was that we were going to
defeat these guys so seriously they would no longer be a military force.
No one expects that to happen anymore," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA and
White House official who chaired Obama's 2009 review of Afghan policy.[/COLOR]

US troops in Afghanistan have been placed on alert following the killings of 16 Afghan civilians by a US soldier.

[ SNIP ]

The soldier, believed to be a staff sergeant, is reported to have walked off his base at around 03:00 Sunday (22:30 GMT Saturday).

In the villages of Alkozai and Najeeban, about 500m (1,640 feet) from the base, he reportedly broke into three homes.

At one house in Najeeban, 11 people were found shot dead, and some of their bodies set alight. At least three of the child victims are reported to have been killed by a single shot to the head.

The US military said reports indicated that the soldier returned to his base after the shootings and turned himself in. His motives are unclear - there is speculation that he might have been drunk or suffered a mental breakdown.

The soldier is being detained in Kandahar and the military is treating at least five people wounded in the attacks, officials said.

The detained soldier has not been identified, although US officials quoted by AP news agency said he was from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, 38 years old, married with two children, and had served three tours in Iraq and was on his first deployment in Afghanistan.

ZenGum;801068 wrote:

Yep. In this country the closest thing they have to justice is tribal payback. Retaliation is bound to come.

infinite monkey;801088 wrote:

I thought they were going to start doing better at assessing some of the bonker yo-yo's hanging around in the service.

fargon;801073 wrote:

Give that soldier to the Afghans and let them try him.

infinite monkey;801093 wrote:

... Why would someone volunteer for 4 tours? ... Do they get more money each tour? Are there not opportunities in other capacities? ...

TheMercenary;801092 wrote:

I am constantly reminding people that the all voluntary service is nothing more than a slice of society. We can't eliminate all the crazies.

The Taliban movement announced Thursday that it was suspending dialogue
with the United States, and President Hamid Karzai demanded that NATO troops pull back
to major bases and accelerate Afghan responsibility for safeguarding the country.

The Taliban statement, posted on its website and emailed to journalists,
represented a major blow to hopes for a negotiated end to the 10-year war.

The group's leadership blamed a U.S. representative for presenting conditions
that were "unacceptable" and "in contradiction with earlier agreed-upon points."
It did not specify what those conditions were, but said the movement was
"compelled to suspend all dialogue with the Americans."
<snip>

Karzai's demand for a retreat to major bases and an end to operations
in rural areas appeared to be in response to Sunday's shooting rampage,
which took place in two tiny villages not far from a U.S.-run base in Kandahar province.
Karzai's office said he had conveyed the demand to visiting Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]He also called for moving forward by a year -- to the end of 2013 -- the target date
for Afghan forces to take responsibility for safeguarding the country.[/COLOR]

regular.joe;801271 wrote:

That would lead me to believe there have been problems with internal leadership and unit culture driven by personalities.

infinite monkey;801093 wrote:

Maybe 4 tours is too much? Why would someone volunteer for 4 tours? Is that normal? I'm asking, because I really don't know.

Happy Monkey;801671 wrote:

You volunteer to join the military; you non't necessarily volunteer to do everything they have you do.

Anyway, back to the recent incident. What was the guy's supervising officer up to? His base commander? Medical staff? Even his buddies? Did no one notice any warning signs that he was losing it? IMHO, that is where the responsibility lies.

The US soldier accused of shooting dead 16 Afghans had received body and brain injuries while serving in Iraq and was unhappy about going for another tour of duty, a lawyer has said.

John Henry Browne said the 38-year-old soldier, who has not been named, had already completed three tours in Iraq.

He also said the accused had witnessed his friend's leg blown off the day before the killings.

regular.joe;801721 wrote:

Happy, I know I've been a dick and an arrogant ass lately. I am not coming from that space right now. I just really need to let you know that we do indeed volunteer to do everything asked of us when we join the military. Man, speaking as a former Drill Sergeant, it takes all of the nine weeks of Basic Training to get this idea out of the heads of new soldiers.

ZenGum;801724 wrote:

Reg Joe, I think you and HM are actually in agreement, witha slight miscommunication.

His lawyer, John Henry Browne of Seattle, also says that [COLOR="DarkRed"]when the 11-year veteran heard
he was being sent to Afghanistan late last year, he did not want to go.[/COLOR]
He also said that a day before the rampage, the soldier saw a comrade's leg blown off.

The 38-year-old staff sergeant is married with two small children.
He lost part of one foot because of injuries suffered in Iraq during one of his three tours of duty there.

The soldier was en route Friday to the maximum-security military prison
at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., a senior defense official said.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of security surrounding the move.
Browne said the sergeant is originally from the Midwest
but now lives near Joint Base Lewis-McChord. His children are 3 and 4.

The sergeant's family says they saw no signs of aggression or anger. "They were totally shocked,"
by accounts of the massacre, Browne said. "He's never said anything antagonistic about Muslims.
He's in general very mild-mannered."
<snip>

footfootfoot;826755 wrote:

Who will lead us in our Haka?

ZenGum;826668 wrote:

New Zealand have just lost three more soldiers in Afghanistan, bringing their losses to ten.

The bodies of the fallen were received back at their base by a giant haka or ceremonial dance. This video shows it very well, not too intrusively, and with absolutely no inane commentary.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-27/nz-soldiers-perform-giant-haka-in-honour-of-dead-comrades/4225346

Spine chilling.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan wants good relations
with all the countries of the world including the neighbouring countries,
on the basis of mutual respect and while desiring security at the country level,
the Islamic Emirate wants security and justice at the world level.

Of course the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considerers it
its religious and national duty to [COLOR="DarkRed"]gain independence from the occupation[/COLOR]
and for that purpose has utilised every legitimate way and will utilise it in future too.

Similarly at world level, it considers the struggles and efforts by the
miserable and oppressed nations for achievement of their legitimate rights
and independence as their due rights, because people have
[COLOR="DarkRed"]the right to liberate their countries from colonialism[/COLOR] and obtain their rights.

In order to elucidate this policy the Islamic Emirate has
deemed it essential to open the political office in the
Islamic country of Qatar, for the attainment of the following objectives.

One: to reach understanding and initiate talks with countries
of the world for the purpose of improving relations with them.

Two: to support a political and peaceful solution which
includes [COLOR="DarkRed"]the end of the occupation of Afghanistan[/COLOR]
and the establishment of an independent Islamic system and
true security which is the want and aspiration of the nation.

Three: to hold meetings with Afghans as times may demand.

Four: to initiate contact with the United Nations as well as
with the international, regional and non-governmental organisations.

Five: to put political statements at the disposal of media regarding current
political developments.

It is worth mentioning that to thank the Emir of Qatar,
his highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani who agreed
to the opening of the political office of the Islamic Republic
in his country and provided facilities in this regard.

These five prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, could be the key
to whether the negotiations the United States has long sought
with the Taliban are a success, or even take place.

A Taliban spokesman in Qatar said Thursday that exchanging them for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl,
an American prisoner of war who has been held by militants since 2009,
would be a way to &#8220;build bridges of confidence&#8221; to start broader peace talks.
<snip>
The five Taliban members are considered to be among the most senior
militants at Guantánamo and would otherwise be among the last in line to leave.
<snip>
The details of what the government believes about what the five
former Taliban leaders have done were made public in classified military files
given to WikiLeaks by Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is now being court-martialed
and faces a possible life sentence if convicted of the most serious charges against him.

Because the five men have never been given a trial, the quality of the evidence
and the credibility of the claims against them in the files
&#8212; some of which they deny &#8212; have not been tested.

The U.S. State Department issued a worldwide travel alert warning citizens of potential
terror attacks in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia by al-Qaeda or its affiliates.

The U.S. will close 21 embassies and consulates in those regions this weekend as a precaution.

[QUOTE]“Current information suggests that al-Qaeda and affiliated organizations
continue to plan terrorist attacks both in the region and beyond, and that
they may focus efforts to conduct attacks in the period between
now and the end of August,” the department said yesterday.

The warning surfaced as President Barack Obama’s administration argues
that National Security Agency surveillance programs are essential to fight terrorist threats.
<snip>
Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL), US Airways Group Inc. and AMR Corp.’s American Airlines
are monitoring the travel situation and haven’t issued waivers
letting passengers rebook flights without paying fees, spokesmen said.
United Airlines, a unit of United Continental Holdings Inc., declined to comment.
<snip>

The State Department warning came days after al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri
urged his followers in a speech posted on jihadist websites to attack U.S. sites
as a response to American drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen,
according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors terror groups.<snip>

In all, the U.S. has conducted almost 50 such strikes in Yemen since the beginning of 2012,
killing some of the group’s leaders, including its deputy emir, Said al-Shihri,
whose death the group acknowledged in a video last month.
<snip>
Documents purportedly from al-Qaeda fighters in Mali and obtained by the Associated Press
outline a strategy of kidnapping “in exchange for the drone strategy.”

Kidnappings would “bring back the pressure of the American public opinion in a more active way”
against drone strikes, according to the papers, which the New York-based news service
translated from Arabic. The document is focused on Yemen.

Griff;872415 wrote:

The warning surfaced as President Barack Obama’s administration argues
that National Security Agency surveillance programs are essential to fight terrorist threats.

My gut says this is the biggest factor.

The continued closure of embassies and the travel alerts across the Middle East was apparently prompted not by a simple conversation between two top al-Qaeda leaders, but by an intercepted conference call between top leadership and affiliates across the region. That's been followed by a noticeable uptick in drone strikes over the past few days.

The U.S. and Britain evacuated their embassies in Yemen yesterday and urged nationals to leave the country as soon as possible over their fears of an imminent al-Qaeda attack. It had previously been reported that U.S. intelligence picked up a conversation between al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, his top counterpart in Yemen, discussing Zawahiri's wish to see a terrorist attack launched from the region.

But apparently the intelligence that was intercepted was much more than that. "This was like a meeting of the Legion of Doom," an intelligence source told The Daily Beast's Josh Rogin and Eli Lake. U.S. intelligence intercepted a major conference call between up to 20 al-Qaeda affiliates across the Middle East during which Zawahiri promoted Wuhayushi to a "general manager" position, giving him control over most of the group's smaller operations in the region. The top al-Qaeda leaders said teams were already in place for an attack, though they were vague when discussing the target, which prompted the swift and wide-ranging response from the U.S.

In the wake of the attacks, the drone operation in Yemen has also been taken up a notch. There have been five drone strikes over the last five days targeting suspected al-Qaeda operatives, breaking a seven week stretch of drone silence in the area. The BBC also reports that Yemeni officials claim to have broken up an al-Qaeda plot to take over the country's oil pipelines. Whether or not that was the attack U.S. officials have been planning against is unclear.

He didn't specify which countries posed the greatest threat. He also wouldn't say whether the U.S. learned of the threat through National Security Agency Surveillance programs.

Lamplighter;872592 wrote:

Sunday, I'm in sympathy with your thinking.
Two guys talk on the telephone, and Osama Bin Laden gets what he wanted all along...
<snip>

<snip>&#8220;God is great!
America is in a condition of terror and fear from Al Qaeda,&#8221;
wrote one jihadist in an online forum.
Another one rejoiced:
&#8220;The mobilization and security precautions are costing them billions of dollars.
[COLOR="DarkRed"]We hope to hear more of such psychological warfare,
even if there are no actual jihadi operations on the ground.&#8221;[/COLOR]

The jihadists are not the only ones who see the new terrorist alert in a caustic light. <snip>

Yemen&#8217;s government has worked closely with the United States on counterterrorism measures,
and American officials, who had a troubled relationship with Yemen&#8217;s former longtime president,
Ali Abdullah Saleh, have voiced confidence in Mr. Hadi and increased aid to the country.

&#8220;When you do evacuations, you signal that all the effort to build up trust in
the Yemeni security establishment amounts to nothing,&#8221; said one Yemeni official,
who spoke on condition of anonymity. [COLOR="DarkRed"]&#8220;And all the development projects by U.S.A.I.D.
and its counterparts in Britain, Germany and elsewhere &#8212; everything stops.&#8221; [/COLOR]

“And all the development projects by U.S.A.I.D.
and its counterparts in Britain, Germany and elsewhere — everything stops.”

Eighteen of 19 of U.S. embassies and consulates across
the Middle East, Asia and Africa closed recently will reopen on Sunday,
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki announced in a statement released Friday evening.

The U.S. embassy in Sanaa, Yemen, will remain closed, Psaki added,
because of continuing concerns about a threat for potential terrorist attacks by al Qaeda.

The U.S. consulate in Lahore, Pakistan, which shut down yesterday
do [sic] to a separate threat also will remain closed, Psaki announced in the statement.
<snip>

xoxoxoBruce;872890 wrote:

Who the fuck cares why they close or open embassies, except conspiracy theorists. The world keeps spinning around and there's a shitload of more important things to worry about. :rolleyes:

Lamplighter;872892 wrote:

such as ?

regular.joe;872896 wrote:

Because Embassies are an instrument of our national power and influence overseas. Wether we want to admit it or not we are an international player and how we conduct business, how we are perceived, what we do or don't do and why we do what we do are important. We can't be an isolated entity, even if we want to be.

xoxoxoBruce;872917 wrote:

... Yo, there's stuff in the sky that talks to places on the ground without pigeons. ...

Griff;872919 wrote:

Did you see where we cancelled Obama's one-to-one talks with Putin so we're having talks with Russia instead? ...

Lamplighter;872922 wrote:

Geesh Griff, I don't think things are quite that bad !!

Griff;872935 wrote:

I need to stop reading the news.

Lamplighter;872886 wrote:

The government tells the world it had significant information that warranted the closing of 19+ embassies over the past weekend.

Some reporter needs to ask what significant information they have today that warranted the opening of 18 of those embassies ? (The 19th is staying closed due to yet another threat.)

The end of Ramadan was cited as one part of their evaluations. Was just the end of Ramadan sufficient to believe that the terrorists would have to cancel their intentions on 18 of these embassies ?

Methinks "Snowden October Surprise" better describes the situation,
or was it a "Tail Wagging the Dog"

Griff wrote:

We do need to turn down our overseas operations. Our government is fully corrupted and we have to figure out how to reclaim it. Our fascist foreign policy is a big part of the problem, but Mussolini's influence goes far beyond that... If you are what you eat of late we've eaten fascists, communists, religious nutters, drug cartels, terrorists... We're all those things and more.

Griff;873019 wrote:

I wouldn't call our foreign policy pragmatic as that implies a sensible balance.

Big Sarge;884319 wrote:

Afghanistan would make a great air base that would project a military presence in the area, especially Iran

The real reason was probably that Saddam was a PITA to deal with,
and viewed as a repressive dictator...

The last couple of paragraphs...

Lamplighter;884359 wrote:

???

which say...

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Obama’s national security adviser, Susan E. Rice,
told President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan on Monday to stop his delay in signing
a security agreement or potentially face the complete and final pullout of American troops
by the end of 2014, according to American and Afghan officials.

But while Mr. Karzai was said to have assured her he would sign the deal at some point,
he gave no time frame for it. And he insisted on difficult new conditions as well,
[COLOR="DarkRed"]including the release of all inmates at the American prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,[/COLOR]
adding to the perception of crisis between the two nations, officials from both countries said.<snip>

American ambassador, James B. Cunningham <snip> voiced objection
to an extra demand by the loya jirga: the release of all Guantánamo inmates.
He insisted that United States law governs the release of the prisoners and
that the issue had no bearing on the bilateral security agreement, or B.S.A. [Bilateral Security Agreement]

“That made the president very angry; his reaction was very strong and intense,” Mr. Faizi said.
“The president said we cannot separate the recommendations of the loya jirga from the B.S.A. now
— we cannot pick and choose. All those recommendations have to be taken seriously.”<snip>

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Mr. Karzai’s strongest language was again said to be over American counterterrorism raids on private Afghan homes[/COLOR]
<snip> Such raids are the main combat activity remaining to American forces in Afghanistan now,
and have been identified by American commanders as a crucial, continuing mission.<snip>

The only point of agreement from the talks, according to Mr. Faizi’s account,
was on another demand that Mr. Karzai made during the security negotiations: [COLOR="DarkRed"]transparency in elections.[/COLOR]
Mr. Karzai was referring to what he has called American interference in the 2009 presidential vote,
when pressure by American officials in response to allegations of election irregularities
led Mr. Karzai to agree to a second round of elections.