POTUS Effigy Burned in Afghanistan

Rahmat GulAn Afghan protestor beats a burning effigy of U.S. President Barack Obama during a rally in Jalalabad, Afghanistan on Sunday, April 3, 2011.

Afghan Protesters Behead 2 UN Workers Kill 8

An Afghan mob infuriated by a Florida pastor's burning of a Koran last month stormed United Nations offices and killed at least 10 workers, beheading two of them. After noon prayers, hundreds of demonstrators poured out of mosques and headed to the U.N. headquarters in the northern Afghanistan city of Mazar-i-Sharif. After disarming the guards, they entered the compound, where they shot and killed eight workers and captured and beheaded two others. A police spokesman said 15 people have been arrested so far in connection with the attack. Tolo TV news in Kabul reported that the head of the U.N. mission in the city was among those killed, but that hasn't been confirmed. The crowd was angry over Florida pastor Terry Jones' burning of a Koran on March 20. Jones had garnered international attention for threatening to burn a Koran last September 11, then promised not to, but then went ahead and burned a copy last month.

Read it at New York Times

Has Britain Lost Her Nerve?

by Benedict Brogan
On Tuesday night, William Hague found himself alongside Hamid Karzai at the British Museum to mark the opening of a showstopper of an exhibition from Afghanistan. A place of war and destruction, which struggles to maintain a semblance of government, has sent the remnants of its most prized treasures on tour to prove that it has a past – and a future – more interesting than its difficult present. Proximity to objects of such fragile beauty must have provided the Foreign Secretary with a moment of respite on an otherwise difficult day.

And what treasures they turn out to be. These delicate relics, brought to the banks of the Oxus via more than 2,000 years of trade, migration and conquest, remind us that the hidden valleys of Bactria, Aria and Arachosia were the nexus of antiquity’s version of globalisation: carved amber from Siberia; a translucent piece of engraved chalcedony from western Turkey; paper-thin enamelled glass from eastern Egypt; a ribbed bowl of a type found as far west as Britain; and gold in great quantities, culminating in a magnificent folding crown, its delicate discs and flowers shimmering in the light.

How it is that we are able to admire them after two decades of violence and vandalism is even more remarkable. The most moving part of the exhibition is the video showing the disbelief on the curators’ faces when they jemmied open the old safes from Kabul’s National Museum in 2004. These men had worked by torchlight during the bombings to retrieve scattered shards of pottery, and survived by seeking work in the bazaar as potato-sellers and buggy drivers. Yet while everything else had been smashed and blown up by the Taliban’s iconoclasts, the core of their collection – and of Afghanistan’s national and cultural identity – had defied the odds.

That these treasures can be seen in London is, of course, a direct result of British and American military intervention nearly a decade ago. The immediate objective – the defeat of the Taliban – was in retaliation for the attacks of Septemeber 11. But the slow emergence of a legitimate and roughly democratic government, and its maintenance ever since, are in large part the products of Tony Blair’s decision to make good on the idea of liberal interventionism that defined his premiership. To further that goal, we have invested our own treasure: hundreds of lives, and billions of pounds.

The Blair doctrine, first set out in a speech in Chicago in 1999, expanded the idea of the national interest to include the threat posed by failing states, and the moral obligation of those with the means and the will to act against tyranny. He emerged from the Kosovan refugee camps that same year as a passionate advocate of military intervention. Months later, he successfully sent British forces into Sierra Leone, and then Afghanistan, and then Iraq.
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Cameron and Obama discuss how to depose Gaddafi
25 Feb 2011
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Libya: no-fly zone plan to stop attacks by Gaddafi loyalists
28 Feb 2011

There are still those who hold that Mr Blair was right to champion Britain’s willingness to combat tyranny, even if what began with small-scale, defensible interventions spiralled into grandiose, reckless schemes that destroyed Britain’s credibility abroad and contributed to his downfall at home. But David Cameron was not among them. In Opposition, he could see the damage that Mr Blair’s adventures had done. He mapped out a different course, more pragmatic, less prone to delusional excess. There was to be none of the messianic zeal, the “glint in the eye” that Lord Wilson, the former cabinet secretary, claimed to have spotted in Mr Blair.

So, in Berlin in 2007, the then Leader of the Opposition proposed two principles that would govern his thinking: national security and, in lieu of Mr Blair’s liberal interventionism, the “doctrine of liberal conservatism”. Mr Blair had the correct moral impulse, Mr Cameron argued, but had got the balance between idealism and realism completely wrong. He, on the other hand, was “sceptical of grand utopian schemes to remake the world”.

Fast-forward to Tuesday, when Mr Cameron was having to row back desperately in the face of the uproar caused by his offer to lead military action against Muammar Gaddafi. Downing Street tried to blame an over-eager media, which in turn blamed inept briefing. But there was no masking the streak of recklessness in the Prime Minister’s Commons statement the previous day, when he talked of not tolerating the Gaddafi regime and of setting up a no-fly zone. Scepticism, it seemed, had been replaced by over-confidence.

Within 24 hours, Nato and the UN had made it plain that Mr Cameron could go whistle, and yet more evidence had emerged of what a shambles has been made of our defence capability in the wake of the ill-thought-out Strategic Defence and Security Review. The Armed Forces can still manage to get oil workers out of the desert, but 13 years of Labour incompetence, coupled with hasty judgments last autumn, have left us unable to do anything beyond what we are already committed to.

When we discovered that nearly all Servicemen on active duty in Afghanistan were being told they faced possible redundancy, a Government that was talking big was left looking small. And that was before the Tory-dominated Foreign Affairs Committee lashed Mr Cameron for offering “inconsistent” reasons for staying in Afghanistan, and bungling the announcement of the “arbitrary” withdrawal date of 2015.

At Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, Ed Miliband did not need to press his point about the wisdom of making new commitments at a time of fast-reducing military capability. It is Tory MPs who are reacting in horror at the sight of a prime minister reaching for the military option to distract from his troubles at home. They fear their leader has been seduced by the temptations of foreign affairs when his focus, in terms of national security, should remain fixed on the vital issue that he himself has stressed – getting us out of the indebted mess that is reducing Britain to a bit player on the world stage.

Arguably, what should be exercising us just as much is the argument that Jim Murphy, the thoughtful shadow defence secretary, has begun to sketch out. In an age where the pain and cost of British entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan have sapped the public and political will for armed intervention, how does one make the case for using force? The horrified reaction to Mr Cameron’s sabre-rattling may be justified by the amateurishness shown by his government. But it should also worry us that a country and a political class that used to be at ease with the idea of projecting force now gets the vapours the minute someone suggests it.

This, I sense, is the dilemma that will dog Mr Cameron. We invested our treasure in Afghanistan and Iraq, for no obvious return. Now we want to bring what’s left home, and lock it in the vault, far from harm. Yes, financial circumstances of our own making mean that we would struggle to mount a substantial operation, even if we wanted to. But the real danger is not that Mr Cameron has suddenly developed a Blair-like desire to meet our responsibilities abroad – it’s that the rest of us no longer want to.

Will the World End? Part 5 of 9

Every time Washington is threatened with annihilation, the authorities sponsor new peace initiatives. Who can forget the Cuban missile crisis?
For years we fiddled with various Cold War ruses to end the Red Menace. The Soviets collapsed under their own accord. The Chinese converted to capitalism eliminating them as a gross threat to our way of life. In fact, they are better at capitalist expansionism than we are.
To continue tension in Asia, we sided with Afghanistan against Russia by selling our nuclear secrets to Pakistan. They needed a decade to develop a meaningful nuclear capability. Since they consider India as the major threat, war between them could destroy the planet without American participation.
[As few as fifty detonations during the war between them could punch holes in the ionosphere. This would end planetary food production for ten years.]

Afghanistan: Red Cross Betrays Employee

The Red Cross continues to fumble and stumble in its misson.

Recently I blogged on the unspeakable treatment of Christian convert at the hands of his Muslim tormentors. Afghan convert to Christianity is charged with Apostasy: "Crimes punishable by death ... and Afghan Convert Out of Islam Pleads for Mercy.

Now we hear that the Red Cross joins the cabal of savages by its complicity. Afghan judicial officials refused to bat an eye at the humiliation he endured in the hands of his fellow prisoners. Beatings, sleep-deprivation and sexual abuse are all a part of the nightmare that has unfolded after his arrest.

The Red Cross has failed in its mission in Afghanistan. It has repeatedly refused to intervene in its employee Sayed Mossa's case. It has even refused to deliver his mail. This once-great Christian organization has submitted itself to Islam and Sharia law. Yet it screams and cries about the US treatment of Guantanamo Bay prisoners -- prisoners who have not been beaten and sexually abused for their faith, but are being held because they wish to destroy us. During the holiday giving season, people need to be encouraged to support other disaster relief groups, since the Red Cross has obviously lost its moral compass. (hat tip Danielle B)

I would not send then my hard earned dollars this holiday season. I would not.

The Red Cross won't intervene on behalf of Gilad Shalit, either. Posers. Hypocrites.

This from Persecution.org:

Red Cross Neglects Arrested Afghan Employee for Converting to Christianity

Refuses to Deliver Prisoner’s Mail

Washington, D.C. (December 14, 2010) – International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that the Red Cross in Afghanistan (ICRC) has not intervened on behalf of a long-term employee who was arrested and imprisoned because he is Christian. This, despite that the Red Cross mandate includes “visiting prisoners” and “helping victims of conflict and internal violence, whoever they are.”

Sayed Mossa worked 15 years in ICRC’s orthopedic department in Kabul assisting amputees. In late May, footage of Muslim converts to Christianity being baptized was aired in Afghanistan. The broadcast triggered nationwide protests and a government-led crackdown against Christians. On May 31, being a Muslim convert to Christianity, Mossa was arrested by security officers working with the Ministry of Interior.

Aid workers in Kabul immediately contacted the Red Cross after hearing of the arrest. “The Protection office told us that Mossa will be visited like the others and that we must not interfere with their job. We are not his family and they will not tell us anything. We told them that he has been sexually abused and his condition has deteriorated badly, but nothing could move them,” said a friend of Mossa’s who inquired about his safety. When Mossa’s wife asked for help, the Red Cross paid her Mossa’s salary, but reportedly said they would not intervene to liberate her husband. It was two months before Mossa’s wife had heard where he was being held. She was not notified by the Red Cross, but by a released prisoner who had served time with Mossa.

In a final meeting with Reto Stocker, head of the Red Cross in Kabul, Mossa’s friends were again told that ICRC is neutral and would not intervene. They were also asked to not make the case public.

In another breach of the Red Cross’ mission, they refused to deliver hundreds of letters addressed to Mossa. Westerners organized the letter-writing campaign to both encourage the Christian and to publicly display the international community’s concern over his plight. “They won’t deliver the letters to Sayed. The Red Cross does not have the right to keep the letters from him. It’s their responsibility to ensure he receives letters written to him via the Red Cross address,” said an aid worker in Kabul who helped organize the campaign.

“If the Red Cross refuses to do something they stand for, shouldn’t the world know about such a gross violation of their stated practices?” said another aid worker. “I mean, if donors support the Red Cross’ work because of what they declare they do, shouldn’t the Red Cross be reproved for their refusal to do (the work they are supposed to do)?”

Aidan Clay, ICC Regional Manager for the Middle East, said, “Sayed Mossa has now been in prison for nearly six months without legal representation or equal protection. The Red Cross, his employer, did not visit Mossa in prison until two months after his arrest, and would not intervene because he was arrested on religious grounds. Moreover, they have blatantly refused to deliver letters to Sayed which are rightfully his. We urge those concerned about the Red Cross’ behavior to call the Red Cross in their country and politely express their views.”

Red Cross headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland +41 (22)734 60 01
United States & Canada +1 (202) 587 4600
United Kingdom (+44 207) 877 75 81
France (+33 1) 56 54 11 11

Afghan Christian Convert Pleads for Life

Obama is strangely silent on the apostasy case I posted on here. As you know, apostasy (conversion out of Islam) is punishable by death in Islamic law. In a similar case back in 2006, Abdul Rahman was spared the penalty of death and granted asylum in Italy after the Bush administration intervened. President Bush and others had insisted Afghanistan protect personal beliefs.

American blood and treasure in Afghanistan .......... for what?

Where is President Obama? His silence is deafening and dangerous. Silence is complicity.

In October a letter delivered by an unnamed Westerner and addressed to “the international Church of the world and to the President Brother [Barack] Obama” found its way to the U.S. and Europe from an Afghan prison. The writer, Sayed Mossa, described being imprisoned for his Christian faith when a co-worker gave him over to Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, often called “the secret police,” back in late May. In spite of Mossa’s disability as an amputee, Afghan judicial officials refused to bat an eye at the humiliation he endured in the hands of his fellow prisoners. Beatings, sleep-deprivation and sexual abuse were all a part of the nightmare that unfolded after his arrest. (more at OWIW)

Mindy Belz reports:

Deeds done in darkness The World (hat tip Danielle)

A prison epistle sheds light on otherwise unknown Christians suffering in secret cell

In October Sayed Mossa handed a letter to a Westerner who came to visit him several times in jail in Afghanistan. He also asked the visitor not to come back, fearing that any misstep could lead to his death.

The letter, a copy of which WORLD received in late October, begins with a plea "to the international church of the world and to the President Brother [Barack] Obama and to the heads of ISAF force in Afghanistan." It describes his imprisonment since late May "due to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, saviour of the world." It also describes daily beatings and torture: "They did sexual things with me, beat me by wood, by hands, by legs, mocked me ("he's Jesus Christ"), [spit] on me. No body let me for sleep night and day." He also has received death threats.

Atlas Shrugs

Afghan Christian Convert Charged with Apostasy

Afghan convert to Christianity is charged with Apostasy: "Crimes" punishable by death

Tell me again why we are expending priceless blood and billions in treasure on this sharia state. If we are not fighting this, we are wasting out time.

For more than a decade, the second Sunday in November has been commemorated in churches worldwide as the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. This year it is also the day that Sayed Mossa, an Afghan convert from Islam to Christianity, has been scheduled to stand trial.

Afghan government officials announced earlier this week that they have scheduled that court date for Mossa’s case—which WORLD has been covering (see “Fugitives,” Aug. 28, 2010, and “Deeds done in darkness,” Nov. 20, 2010)—even though the charges and his legal representation remain in doubt.

According to Westerners closely following his case in Kabul, Mossa is likely to be charged with espionage and with conversion to Christianity, or apostasy—crimes that may be punishable by death under Islamic law. The court session may be televised, officials have said, and it is likely that Mossa will be asked to renounce his faith.
Atlas Shrugs

Read the article here.

Burka'ed Homicide Bombers hit UN Base in Afghanistan

Once again, using the burka as a weapon, a device of war.

Bombers dressed in burkas hit U.N. base in Afghanistan Toronto Sun hat tip John

HERAT, Afghanistan - Four Taliban suicide bombers dressed as police and women attacked the main United Nations compound in western Afghanistan on Saturday, officials said, but there were no casualties among U.N. staff.

The attack with rockets, machine guns and bombers hit the U.N. compound in Herat, a commercial hub and the largest city in the country's west where Taliban and other Islamist insurgents are usually less active than in other areas.

Afghan forces and U.N. security guards at the compound repelled the insurgents. Two attackers, including a car bomber, blew themselves up at the entrance and another detonated his bomb just inside, while a fourth was shot and killed, police, government and U.N. officials said.

It was the highest profile attack on the United Nations since last year and will raise questions about security in a city that NATO officials believe could be among the first to see Afghan forces take responsibility for security from NATO troops.

"This was a complex attack with rockets, machine guns plus suicide bombers. The attack was repelled, they did not succeed," U.N. envoy to Afghanistan Staffan de Mistura told Reuters.

Muslim Gangster Busted with One Kilo Uranium

Gangster Busted with a Kilo of Uranium Rantburg hat tip Armaros

Terrorism? Or just criminal business? Not sure, but certainly of interest.
A criminal with alleged links to gangs across the country and even Afghanistan was nabbed in Purulia with nearly 1 kg of uranium on Sunday. The market value of the radioactive element is said to be about $7 million.

When police raided Ishtaq Ahmed's house at Dubra village in the Maoist-dominated Para area after a tip-off, they found a box with 'URM, Made in USA' stamped on it.
Sounds a little odd - real or a scam?
An automatic revolver [sic], a pipegun and 21 rounds of ammunition were also discovered during the search. Ahmed was arrested and a case filed at Para police station mentioning uranium seizure.

Police haven't opened the sealed box as the substance inside could be dangerously radioactive. It is being sent to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory for tests.
Gang with A'stan connections and location with Maoist connections -trouble either way.
Atlas Shrugs

Obama: Imminent Terror Threat, "Bring it on!"

A new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward describes the Obama administration as barraged with warnings about the threat of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. President Obama told Woodward in an interview for his "Obama's Wars," "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever. . . we absorbed it and we are stronger." More at washingtonpost.com

I have been researching this man for years (read the book) and this is by far, the scariest and creepiest thing of all.

It's as if ...............he wants it

A classified exercise in May showed that the government was woefully unprepared to deal with a nuclear terrorist attack in the United States. The scenario involved the detonation of a small, crude nuclear weapon in Indianapolis and the simultaneous threat of a second blast in Los Angeles. Obama, in the interview with Woodward, called a nuclear attack here "a potential game changer."

"Coward alert (and remember he campaigned on war in Afghanistan, that was where we really needed to be - the good war)... Ugh

President Obama urgently looked for a way out of the war in Afghanistan last year, repeatedly pressing his top military advisers for an exit plan that they never gave him, according to secret meeting notes and documents cited in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward.



Is it any wonder our troops are dying at record levels?



According to Woodward's meeting-by-meeting, memo-by-memo account of the 2009 Afghan strategy review, the president avoided talk of victory as he described his objectives.

UPDATE:

Obama on Afghan War: "I'm Done doing This!"

Here's an excerpt:

When asked about sending in 4,500 more troops to save lives, the President erupted, yelling, "I’m done doing this!" The President's decision to end Afghan war in 2011 is also shown as a political move. Speaking about why he decided he cannot push back the 2011 withdrawal date, the President stated that he wanted to keep his liberal support. “I can’t let this be a war without end, and I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party,” the President said.

The anger does not stop at the top. In a heated conversation about Richard Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Vice President Joe Biden called him "the most egotistical bastard I've ever met."

Ridiculous America

Here is a country whose still-lingering greatness was born on the backs of workers who unionized against the will and wishes of the great powers of capitalism. Yet here also is a country where the vital lessons of that effort have been largely disparaged and forgotten, because the truth of those lessons still discomforts those great powers. This week, the progeny of those early organizers used the democratic process to make progress for themselves and their fellow members, and even in defeat were magnificent.

Here is a country that makes men of such courage that they volunteer to die thousands of miles from home, who scramble to save each other when the bullets are flying, and can still smile about it. Yet here also is a country that takes men of this caliber and throws them - not once, not twice, not three but four times - into a meat-grinder based on lies and the desire for profit and power. If the man I met hadn't been shot, like as not he'd either still be in Afghanistan, or would be gearing up for a fifth trip to the other side of the world.

Happy birthday, you ridiculous nation. You are a great and terrible place, and you must do better. Not just because you have to, which you do, but because you can. You have the necessary pieces, and you have the potential. I know, because I saw it all week long on my sidewalk.

William Rivers Pitt, Truthout [excerpt]

Gassing Girls for Denying God

NUCLEAR, BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL WEAPONS

May 10, 2010: Recently, 17 students at a Kabul, Afghanistan, girls high school fell ill and had to be hospitalized, along with several teachers. Doctors at the hospital agreed that it was some kind of poison, but have not been able to identify it yet. All the victims smelled something odd when they got to school, then fell ill, with some of the students losing consciousness. This is the second such incident at this school, and there was a similar attack at a girls high school further north. The Taliban have been known to attack girls schools, including injuring or killing students with gunfire, explosives and, in at least one case, acid thrown into the faces of students. Now it appears that poison gas has been added to the Taliban arsenal.

The Taliban do not believe in education for girls (which they believe is forbidden by Islam), but do believe in chemical weapons (which they do not believe is forbidden by Islam). When the Taliban ran Afghanistan in the late 1990s, they hosted al Qaeda, and al Qaeda set up a chemical warfare research facility. If the Taliban are using some kind of poisonous chemical for these attacks, they could have gotten them from their better educated friends in al Qaeda. American military personnel collected air and soil samples from the schools, but have not announced any results yet.
Atlas Shrugs

American Empire Ends at Durand Line

Evidence of the strain facing America’s cold war-trained bureaucrats now appears regularly as the contradictions deepen. Defense Secretary Robert Gates crossed his own personal zero line in an address to the National Defense University in February when he criticized Europe’s growing anti-war sentiment as a dangerous threat to peace. The Obama administration rails at the Karzai government’s corruption but denies it the guidance and expertise necessary to make it effective at governance. The U.S. then diverts power and money to regional tribal leaders whom many fear (including U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry) will simply become a new class of warlord, once the U.S. departs.

Since January 2009, U.S. Predator Drone strikes are reported to have killed at least 529 people in the tribal areas of Pakistan of whom 20 percent may have been civilians. Considered to be a clear violation of international law by American legal scholars, the cross border strikes inflame Pakistani opinion against the U.S. Yet, the Pentagon praises their new anti-terror weapon while at the same time continuing to deny that the program even exists.

As the Obama administration struggles to reconcile Washington’s special interests with those posed by Iran, Pakistan, India, China and Russia, it should be remembered that the Soviet Union faced a similar challenge in Afghanistan. But in the end the biggest enemy the Soviets faced was not the Stinger missiles or the disunited Mujahideen Jihadis. The Soviet Union’s biggest enemy was the archaic cold war structure of the Soviet system itself, and that is a lesson that Washington refuses to accept.

The United States has fought on both the Pakistani and Afghan sides of the Durand line. In the 1980s it fought on the side of extremist-political Islam. Since September 11, 2001 it has fought against it. But the border separating the two seemingly incompatible behaviors remains largely a dark mystery. It is therefore appropriate to think of Zero line as the vanishing point for the American empire, the point beyond which its power and influence disappears; the line where 60 year’s worth of American policy in Eurasia confronts itself and ceases to exist. The Durand line separating the two countries is visible on a map. Zero line is not.
Sibel Edmonds, Boiling Frogs

Guns and Butter 2010

The LA Times offers an eye-opening example of just how far our mission in Afghanistan has "creeped," describing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff telling an Afghan leader that the goals of the upcoming surge in Kandahar include "providing jobs." Is that really why we are still fighting a war there nine years later, spending American blood and treasure? The Bush-era rationale for these overseas misadventures was always: We'll fight 'em over there, so we don't have to fight 'em over here. Today, it seems, we're fighting to create jobs for 'em over there, while we don't have enough jobs for our people over here. At a time when so many hardworking middle class families are reeling from the economic crisis that seems like the most perverted of priorities.
Arianna Huffington, HuffPo

Defund Afghan War

Defund Afghan War $33 billions on the horizon.
We are inflicting horrible suffering on the people of Afghanistan, making our own nation less safe, and spending resources we badly need.

Tell congress members we need them to publicly commit to voting No, and to urge their colleagues to do the same. Call your Representative at (202) 224-3121.
AfterDowningStreet.org

Afghanistan: Humvees in a China Shop

Afghan Soldier
140 Oops Afghanistan
By Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung

updated

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the newly arrived top commander in Afghanistan, has concluded that the Afghan security forces will have to be far larger than currently planned if President Obama's strategy for winning the war is to succeed, according to senior military officials.
Such an expansion would require spending billions more than the $7.5 billion the administration has budgeted annually to build up the Afghan army and police over the next several years, and the likely deployment of thousands more U.S. troops as trainers and advisers, officials said.
Obama has voiced strong commitment to the ongoing Afghan conflict -- which this year surpasses Vietnam as America's longest combat engagement -- but has been cautious about making any additional military resources available beyond the 17,000 combat troops and 4,000 military trainers he agreed to in February. That will bring the total U.S. force to 68,000 by fall.
Instead, Obama has emphasized the need to pay equal attention to other aspects of the U.S. effort, including bolstering Afghanistan's economy and governance. Announcement of any additional military resources this year would raise questions from Congress and the American public about whether his overall strategy is working as intended.
McChrystal has not yet completed a 60-day assessment of the war due next month. But Defense Department officials here and in Kabul, the Afghan capital, said he has informed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, in weekly updates, of the need to increase the Afghan force substantially, as was first reported yesterday on washingtonpost.com. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss findings that have not yet been made public.
The Afghan army is already scheduled to grow from 85,000 to 134,000, an expansion originally expected to take five years but now fast-tracked for completion by 2011. Several senior Pentagon officials indicated that an adequate size for the Afghan force may be twice the expanded number.
More police, army forces needed
"There are not enough Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police for our forces to partner with in operations . . . and that gap will exist into the coming years even with the planned growth already budgeted for," said a U.S. military official in Kabul who is familiar with McChrystal's ongoing review.
Without significant increases, said another U.S. official involved in training Afghan forces, "we will lose the war." Gates would have to agree to any request from McChrystal for additional funding or troops, and recommend it to Obama.
U.S. commanders in southern Afghanistan told National Security Adviser James L. Jones late last month that additional Afghan forces are needed. But Jones made clear to them that Obama wants to give the nonmilitary elements of his strategy the time and resources to progress before considering new troop requests.
In a telephone interview Thursday from Italy, where he was traveling with Obama, Jones said, "It was never my intention to stifle anybody in the future, but to remind everyone that we have a strategy. . . . And it would be good to see how we're doing on all aspects of the strategy before we start focusing, as we always seem to do, on how more troops are going to solve the problem."
Jones and others agreed, however, that both reconstruction and competent governance cannot be achieved until the Afghan people are secure. The strategy calls for U.S. and Afghan forces to clear areas of the Taliban and then hold them. Commanders leading a Marine operation launched last week to drive Taliban forces from Helmand province in southern Afghanistan are already asking: "Where are the Afghan troops? Where's the economic plan? Where is the government?" Jones said.
Concerns about larger U.S. presence
About 4,000 Marines are involved in the current offensive, along with about 650 Afghan soldiers.
Despite concerns that too large a U.S. military presence would undermine efforts to eventually put the Afghans in charge of their own security, Jones said McChrystal is "perfectly within his mandate as a new commander to make the recommendation on the military posture as he sees it. We have to wait until he does that. There was never any intention on my visit [to Afghanistan] to say, 'Don't ever come in with a request or to put a cap on troops.' "

By Anna Husarska
Friday, July 10, 2009
KABUL -- The new commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, announced: "The Afghan people are at the center of our mission. In reality, they are the mission." The four-star general was wearing military fatigues, but his wording sounded civilian. Indeed, when President Obama explained in March how the United States plans "to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan," he ordered a "civilian surge" in Afghanistan. But make no mistake: The civilian part of the coalition operations here is subservient to the military arm, and the two are known together as an "integrated approach."
The problem with this approach is that when military structures perform or oversee civilian tasks, the nonmilitary humanitarian work often gets politicized and militarized, and the difference between the two is blurred. If executed as planned, the "civilian surge" may worsen the situation here.
Integrating more civilians into military structures means further militarizing what has traditionally been humanitarian work. This is not in the interest of the Afghan people, who expect security from coalition forces and assistance from civilian aid agencies.
The main destination of this "surge" will be the U.S.-led provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs), whose performance in Afghanistan has been criticized by humanitarian groups on the ground: One aid worker from a European nongovernmental organization said they behave like "Humvees in a china shop."

While working in the eastern city of Jalalabad last year, I heard many tales that amounted to such porcelain-breaking. The main victims were the communities the PRTs were seeking to help. An Afghan working for an Asian NGO recounted how 15 Humvees entered their compound unannounced and the uniformed "farenjee" (Afghan for "foreigners") began conducting quick medical examinations -- 45 seconds per patient -- while photographing the process to document their outreach. (After complaints from the NGO, the Americans said they spent 105 seconds per patient, not 45.) There was the time that armed, uniformed Americans arrived at an orphanage, I was told, to distribute pencils and notebooks. In the process, the Americans terrified the female employees of the orphanage and the young children. An Afghan doctor from an American NGO told me his concerns about the welfare of communities where the PRTs distribute medicines from their Humvees: The labels are in English or Urdu, he noted, not Pashto, the language spoken in the region.
I visited Jalalabad again in May. The aid agency I work for, the International Rescue Committee, continues to implement programs there, but even now the ever-deteriorating security environment means we mostly have to rely on our trusted staff of Afghans. I did get to visit the American PRT in Jalalabad, where I was received by a senior civil affairs officer. He told me and an Afghan colleague of mine that Americans were no longer going out to villages uninvited. I suggested that the danger still existed for locals contacted by the PRTs -- these Afghans could be branded collaborators. But the officer saw no problem. "Our presence forces them to make a choice: Either they support the government or they support the Taliban," he said. And he added, "It takes a little bit of courage if you want to be free; freedom does not come free."
My Afghan colleague later told me of recent incidents in which a mullah was killed in Chaparhar, apparently for working with government and coalition forces, and another mullah was decapitated in Khogyani for allowing his two sons to serve in the Afghan National Army, which was trained by the U.S.-led coalition.
Contact with the foreign troops, it seems, does not come free, either.
The PRT in Jalalabad has not had significant run-ins with nongovernmental organizations over the past year, but problems persist. Staff changes are frequent, and the handovers are poor, so Afghans watch the civilians who are arriving continually try to reinvent the wheel. I am confident that the civil affairs officer I spoke with and his colleagues from the National Guard have the best of intentions, but theirs is a mission impossible. The PRTs' directive to "win the hearts and minds" -- known as WHAM -- and to implement "quick-impact projects" is better suited for charity handouts than a strategy for reconstruction and development.
Simply put, PRTs are a military tool attempting to perform civilian tasks. Inherently, they undermine the necessary distinction between the development objectives of humanitarian aid workers and the political-military objectives of coalition forces.
Relief and development work is more effectively done by experienced and independent aid agencies, working in partnership with the communities they serve. Staff members at the main NGOs in Afghanistan are mostly national (99 percent of IRC staff is Afghan) and know the local languages and culture. As such, they do not require expensive protection. They are also experienced in aid delivery. Most NGOs have been working with Afghans for many years and are committed to long-term stabilization and recovery.
Civilians in Afghanistan are caught between the Taliban and coalition forces. Humanitarian groups cannot be "force multipliers" or "post-battle cleanup" teams; they are the only ones with enough impartiality to provide assistance to the Afghan people. And for the aid community there is no question: The Afghan people are definitely "our mission."


Obama's hunger for a diplomatic success, such as it is, allowed the Russians to exact a price: linkage between offensive and defensive nuclear weapons.
This is important for Russia because of the huge American technological advantage in defensive weaponry. We can reliably shoot down an intercontinental ballistic missile. They cannot. And since defensive weaponry will be the decisive strategic factor of the 21st century, Russia has striven mightily for a quarter-century to halt its development. Gorbachev tried to swindle Reagan out of the Strategic Defense Initiative at Reykjavik in 1986. Reagan refused. As did his successors -- Bush I, Clinton, Bush II. – Charles Krauthammer

In my view, the word reset doesn't mean anything in real political terms. It is a word of deception, the usual soap bubble [---]. It appears on all our screens and means nothing new, but a return to the past, to business as usual. And previously, our relations with the Americans were either one of confrontation or domination - on their part, by the way. So, what will we be returning to after a "reset"? [---] Aren't they just fooling us as usual... [...]

What stands out, from these and similar comments, is how little significance is given to the outcome of the US-Russian summit. It is like simply going through the motions, whereas the real issues at hand seem to be of little consequence. So, judging from Russian blogger reactions, the Moscow 2009 Obama-Medvedev summit could hardly be seen as a reset in US-Russian relations. The question is: Was it even rapproachement? –Vilhelm Konnander, Global Voices

• Afghans: Taliban have escaped Helmand and Marines
Taliban fighters and their commanders have escaped the Marines' big offensive in Afghanistan's Helmand province and moved into areas to the west and north, prompting fears that the U.S. effort has just moved the Taliban problem elsewhere, Afghan defense officials have told McClatchy.

America Resumes Cold War

America's foolish misadventures in Asia have invited the Russians to restore the USSR. The Georgians started it. The Ambassador is lying.

If the massive US Navy force makes a preemptive strike against Iran, we'll see if Putin is bluffing with his assertion to defend that country.

If China has any common sense, she will collect the $4.6 trillions owed her before the US becomes a radioactive cinder.

Statesman Obama

Statesman Obama

The world sees America bumbling about as a rogue nation with no discipline. In a moment the behemoth can set whole continents aflame, or crush all hope for an economically secure future with justice.
Barack Obama offers hope to the world. Even before he set a foot in Asia he had come to an agreement to propose a 16-month systematic withdrawal from Iraq.

The lunatic right howls at the loss of their chances for continued war profiteering. They accuse Obama of consorting with the enemy. The common people wanting to stop the bloodshed, I remember them as the folks we invaded to help.

Throughout the conflict McCain looks like a Handi-Wipe gone wrong. He has the lost look of the last of his Party to run for President.

The Arrogance of Losers

The Arrogance of Losers

How many times do we bankrupt ourselves for a WWII defense only to lose to Third World nations? Our military has floundered in three Asian land wars without a clear vision of the mission.

Our leaders are hard put to find the enemy on a road map. They showered Vietnam with Agent Orange that returned home with our troops. We gave toxic agents to Saddam only to have the prevailing winds blow them back to our bases. We handed out 500,000 small arms to Iraqis without any record.

We put Osama on the map as an Afghan resistance leader fighting the Russians.

To finance our wars, we borrowed from the Chinese. Now, they can buy a number of US States, proclaim them as colonies to employ slave labor and sell trinkets to the white people.

In the coming election the Republicans could lose every office up for grabs.

Street corner bums could do better.

US/Iraq Long Term Security Deal Collapses

US Iraq Long Term Security Deal Collapses
HuffPost
The Washington Post reports that the U.S. and Iraq have abandoned attempts to forge a long-term security agreement. The focus is now on a "bridge document" that would provide for basic military operations after the UN mandate expires at the end of this year, and it would fall to the next administration to deal with any extended security agreement:
U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have abandoned efforts to conclude a comprehensive agreement governing the long-term status of U.S troops in Iraq before the end of the Bush presidency, according to senior U.S. officials, effectively leaving talks over an extended U.S. military presence there to the next administration.
In place of the formal status-of-forces agreement negotiators had hoped to complete by July 31, the two governments are now working on a "bridge" document, more limited in both time and scope, that would allow basic U.S. military operations to continue beyond the expiration of a U.N. mandate at the end of the year.
The failure of months of negotiations over the more detailed accord -- blamed on both the Iraqi refusal to accept U.S. terms and the complexity of the task -- deals a blow to the Bush administration's plans to leave in place a formal military architecture in Iraq that could last for years.
Although President Bush has repeatedly rejected calls for a troop withdrawal timeline, "we are talking about dates," acknowledged one U.S. official close to the negotiations. Iraqi political leaders "are all telling us the same thing. They need something like this in there. . . . Iraqis want to know that foreign troops are not going to be here forever."
The increasing need for more troops in Afghanistan to combat a resurgent Taliban may force the Bush Administration to accelerate the rate of troop withdrawal from Iraq:
The Bush administration is considering the withdrawal of additional combat forces from Iraq beginning in September, according to administration and military officials, raising the prospect of a far more ambitious plan than expected only months ago.

Such a withdrawal would be a striking reversal from the nadir of the war in 2006 and 2007.
One factor in the consideration is the pressing need for additional American troops in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and other fighters have intensified their insurgency and inflicted a growing number of casualties on Afghans and American-led forces there.
More American and allied troops died in Afghanistan than in Iraq in May and June, a trend that has continued this month...
...The desire to move more quickly reflects the view of many in the Pentagon who want to ease the strain on the military but also to free more troops for Afghanistan and potentially other missions.