Just One Left Behind

POW Bowe Bergdahl

Given the unconventional nature of the two most recent wars in Asia, no American soldiers were left behind in Iraq and there is only one prisoner of war in Afghanistan, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban in June 2009 and he has largely become a forgotten man as his time in captivity has grown ever longer. His story has some unusual aspects, a tale that in some respects reflects the ambiguities of fighting wars where there is no clear national interest coupled with the unfortunate transformation of some in the United States who seek to justify America’s never ending wars by blaming the numerous victims of the conflict. Bergdahl, together with the many other soldiers killed or maimed, is as much a victim of Washington’s destructive global war on terror as the numerous civilians killed by drones or the Taliban and the continued carnage in “liberated” Iraq. http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2013/04/10/just-one-left-behind/

Trained Killers, From the Americas to Afghanistan

For most Americans the death squads and torture chambers that killed thousands in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua in the 1980’s are difficult to understand and easy to forget because, aside for an apology by President Bill Clinton in 1999 – the United States has never fully acknowledged nor taken responsibility for its role in them. So, aside from some outstanding reporting by American and foreign journalists to the contrary, the mainstream has treated this dark period of U.S foreign policy as a sidebar story, and continues to do so until this day. What do the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have to do with any of this? Well, it’s simple. Since we’ve never really learned from our history, as they say, it was doomed to repeat. In fact, as we transition out of Afghanistan as a conventional military force, myriad reports suggest the CIA will continue to train and support local militias and paramilitary “counterterrorist” teams, embedded no doubt with U.S Special Operations Forces, long after we’re allegedly gone. http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2013/03/18/trained-killers-from-the-americas-to-afghanistan/

The Outpost

Though I find current levels of military spending obscene and deplore the exaltation of the military as an aspect of the growing national security state, I am not among those who believe that war itself is unthinkable. I just do not accept that it be a first or even a second option in a country’s interaction with the rest of the world and think that it should only be entered into if truly vital interests are threatened. The wars that America has fought since 9/11 have been particularly senseless as measured by any reasonable standard. If the United States extends its twelve year-long losing streak by attacking Iran our nation truly deserves to share the fate of the empires that have preceded it on the world stage. One has to ask how the apparently intelligent people we elect to high office can ultimately be so ignorant as to believe that one nation should assume the responsibility for “leading” the rest of the world. I have no good answer for that, but if one reads The Outpost an understanding of just how the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan makes no sense now and has not made sense for many years will certainly emerge. http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2013/02/27/the-outpost/#.US9lr5Qa-Zg.email

Prince Harry’s Mental Problem: Murdering Afghans is Like a Video Game

After frolicking naked with a nude nubile in Las Vegas, Captain Harry Wales was sent to Afghanistan to co-pilot an Apache attack helicopter and fight the CIA-created opposition, the Taliban. The dashing young grandson of the aging monarch Queen Elizabeth and the second son of heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles has since compared killing Afghan insurgents to playing video games. Taking out officially designated enemies with Hellfire missiles is a “joy for me because I’m one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox,” Harry told the BBC. “So with my thumbs I like to think I’m probably quite useful.” http://www.infowars.com/prince-harrys-mental-problem-murdering-afghans-is-like-a-video-game/

Afghan Peace Activist: Drones Bury Beautiful Lives

I think drones are not good. I remember how, in my village, a drone attack killed my brother-in-law and four of his friends. It was truly sad. A beautiful life was buried and the sound of crying and sorrow arose from peaceful homes. I say that this is inhumane. Today, the idea of humanity has been forgotten. Why do we spend money like this? Why don’t we use an alternative way? The international community says that drones are used to kill the Taliban. This is not true. We should see the truth. Today, it’s hard to find the truth and no one listens to the people. http://original.antiwar.com/kathy-kelly/2013/01/13/afghan-peace-activist-drones-bury-beautiful-lives/

It’s Time to Challenge the Propaganda Regarding Who is Killed by U.S. Drones

The U.S. claims that drone missiles are aimed at potential terrorists but because the ground rules of who can be targeted is both vague and has been loosened, the number of innocents being killed has risen sharply. Furthermore, the information that is used to target people, appears to be the result of a system of bribery at the local level, which is of questionable reliability. http://www.alternet.org/world/its-time-challenge-propaganda-regarding-who-killed-u-s-drones

The Fall of the American Empire (Writ Small)

Afghanistan followed as he maneuvered to box a new president, Barack Obama, into a new “surge” in another country. Then, his handpicked war commander General Stanley McChrystal, newly minted COIN believer, “ascetic,” and “rising superstar” (who would undergo his own Petraeus-like media build-up), went down in shame over nasty comments made by associates about the Obama White House. In mid-2010, Petraeus would take McChrystal’s place to save another president by bringing COIN to bear in just the right way. The usual set of hosannas — and even less success than in Iraq — followed. But as with Saddam Hussein’s mythical WMDs, it seemed scarcely to matter when there was no there there. Even though Afghanistan’s two COIN commanders had visibly failed in a war against an under-armed, undermanned, none-too-popular minority insurgency, and even though the doctrine of counterinsurgency would soon be tossed off a moving drone and left to die in the Afghan rubble, Petraeus once again made it out in one piece. In Washington, he was still hailed as the soldier of his generation and President Obama, undoubtedly fearing him in 2012, either as a candidate or a supporter of another Republican candidate, promptly stashed him away at the CIA, sending him safely into the political shadows. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33135.htm#.ULIbojm7-zs.email

Coming to Terms With the Taliban

Washington’s playbook has been reduced to “drop back and punt” in Afghanistan. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/coming-to-terms-with-the-taliban/

Children Under Attack in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Six children were attacked in Afghanistan and Pakistan this past week. Three of them, teenaged girls on a school bus in Peshawar, in the tribal region of western Pakistan, were shot and gravely wounded by two Taliban gunmen who were after Malala Yousufzai, a 14-year-old girl who has been bravely demanding the right of girls to an education. After taking a bullet to the head, and facing further death threats, she has been moved to a specialty hospital in Britain. Her two wounded classmates are being treated in Pakistan. The other three children were not so lucky. They were killed Sunday in an aerial attack by a US aircraft in the the Nawa district of Helmand Province in Afghanistan, not so far from Pakistan. The attack, described by the military as a “precision strike,” was reportedly aimed at several Taliban fighters who were allegedly planting an IED in the road, but the strike also killed three children, Borjan, 12; Sardar Wali, 10; and Khan Bibi, 8, all from one family, who were right nearby collecting dung for fuel. Initially, as is its standard MO, the US denied that any children had been killed and insisted that the aircraft had targeted three “Taliban” fighters, and had successfully killed them. Only later, as evidence grew indesputable that the three children had also been killed, the US switched to its standard fallback position for atrocities in the Afghanistan War and its other wars: it announced that it was “investigating” the incident and said that it “regretted” any civilian deaths. http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/18/children-under-attack-in-pakistan-and-afghanistan/

America’s Longest Ever War Moves Into Its 12th Year

11 years ago today, the United States first invaded Afghanistan, starting what would turn out to be America’s longest war and indeed one of the longest wars in modern history. That means we are now entering year number 12 of the war, meaning 11 straight years of NATO saying the war is on track, and 11 straight years of the war very much not being on track. http://news.antiwar.com/2012/10/07/americas-longest-war-moves-into-12th-year/

With ‘Surge’ Over, a Long War Still Looms in Afghanistan

The Afghan surge is over, and while U.S. officials insist that the mission was accomplished, the Taliban has not only weather the major increase in foreign ground troops but actually managed to grow by some estimates, remaining a force to be reckoned with across Afghanistan. Where does that leave Afghanistan 11 years into a NATO war of occupation? Looking down the barrel of an even bloodier civil war, according to some experts, who say that as NATO reduces its presence the Taliban may pick up the pace of attacks against the Karzai government. http://news.antiwar.com/2012/10/05/with-surge-over-a-long-war-still-looms-in-afghanistan/

Afghan Soldier Kills 2,000th U.S. Troop, 4 Others

It is almost fitting, given how much the green-on-blue attacks have sent the Pentagon scrambling, that this weekend’s bloody milestone for the 11-year-long occupation should also come with an insider attack. An Afghan soldier opened fire on a group of US and Afghan forces today, killing the 2,000th US soldier to die in Afghanistan since the war began. He also killed a civilian contractor and three Afghan soldiers. http://news.antiwar.com/2012/09/30/afghan-soldier-kills-2000th-us-troop-4-others/

Letter From Doomed Soldier Helped Change Congressman’s Mind on Afghan Withdrawal Date

Sarah Sitton knew her husband Matt, an Army staff sergeant, was upset he and his men were forced to trudge through fields laden with improvised explosive devices. She knew he was so concerned he wrote a letter essentially predicting his own death to U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young, who attended the same Largo church as the Sittons. What surprised her was how much impact the letter would have. Young this week reversed his position on Afghanistan, a change of heart he says came in part because of Sitton’s letter. In a position opposite that held by most leaders of his party, the influential Republican is now calling for U.S. troops to leave the country ahead of the 2014 deadline called for by President Barack Obama. He also has called a hearing for 10 a.m. Thursday to ask the agency in charge of protecting troops against IEDs to explain why so many are still dying and suffering horrific injuries despite an annual budget of nearly $3 billion. Sitton was killed Aug. 2 by an IED in the same field he had complained about in his letter. He was 26. http://www.stripes.com/news/us/letter-from-doomed-soldier-helped-change-congressman-s-mind-on-afghan-withdrawal-date-1.190070

U.S. Gulag Prisons Aim to Liquidate Dissidents

Prison is a business of profit for the United States, not just imprisoning Muslims, militant fighters, cooks, women kidnapped off the streets with their small children; all are just “numbers” to fill the ranks of “terrorists” when it comes time to ask Congress for funding. Supporting the worldwide network of prisons are friendly despots, glad to accept and torture for “foreign aid.” It doesn’t stop with torture, with no accounting; no Red Cross or Red Crescent oversight of condition, with no legal representation, a hundred, a thousand, even a million can simply disappear, limited only by how large a hole in the desert the heavy machinery can build. Behind this still is a network of private airlines, some contracted to the CIA, some nameless and unsupervised. These planes can hold dozens or hundreds, they can hold prisoners and they can hold tons of narcotics shipped around the world, part of the $80 billion dollar industry American Envoy Richard Holbrooke helped build to “stabilize Afghanistan.” http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/09/19/us-gulag-prisons-aim-to-liquidate-dissidents/

Soap Opera Over Kabul

Oh lordy, lordy, how I love the Afghan war: It just goes on and on, without end. By comparison death and taxes seem long shots. In the latest episode of this long-running sitcom, the Afghan army is killing GIs. Yes. Blowing them away right and left. In Washington, the Five-Sided Wind Tunnel is in shock and maybe awe. It has stopped training Afghan troops because it is scared of them. It has ordered our soldiers to stay armed to protect themselves against our devoted allies, to whom we are bringing democracy, because they want to kill us. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32359.htm

The Best-Laid Plans

You undoubtedly know the phrase: the best laid plans of mice and men. It couldn’t be more apt when it comes to the American project in Afghanistan. Washington’s plans have indeed been carefully drawn up. By the end of 2014, U.S. “combat troops” are to be withdrawn, but left behind on the giant bases the Pentagon has built will be thousands of U.S. trainers and advisers, as well as special operations forces to go after al-Qaeda remnants (and other “militants”), and undoubtedly the air power to back them all up. Their job will officially be to continue to “stand up” the humongous security force that no Afghan government in that thoroughly impoverished country will ever be able to pay for. Thanks to a 10-year Strategic Partnership Agreement that President Obama flew to Kabul to seal with Afghan President Hamid Karzai as May began, there they are to remain until 2020 or beyond. In other words, it being Afghanistan, we need a translator. The American “withdrawal” regularly mentioned in the media doesn’t really mean “withdrawal.” On paper at least, for years to come the U.S. will partially occupy a country that has a history of loathing foreigners who won’t leave (and making them pay for it). http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2012/08/26/the-best-laid-plans/

Mission Failure: Afghanistan

What we’re seeing in the most violent form imaginable is a sweeping message from our Afghan allies, the very security forces Washington plans to continue bolstering up long after the 2014 drawdown date for U.S. “combat forces” passes. To the extent that bullets can be translated into words, that message, uncompromising and bloody-minded, would be something like: your mission’s failed, get out or die. If the Aurora shootings got all the attention here last week, far more Americans are dying at the hands of Afghan allies than died in James Holmes’s hail of gunfire. And yet the message from the more deadly of those rampages is barely in the news and few here are paying attention. In reality, the American mission in Afghanistan failed years ago. It’s as if we refused to notice, but the Afghans we were training did. http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2012/07/31/mission-failure-afghanistan/

Should We Ask God To Bless the Troops?

The war Afghanistan, like the war in Iraq, is a monstrous evil. U.S. troops are not defending our freedoms, protecting America, upholding the Constitution, keeping us safe from terrorists, preserving our way of life, fighting them “over there” so we don’t have to fight them “over here,” or any of the other blather that passes for reality now a days. To those on the receiving end of American bombs, missiles, and bullets in Afghanistan (and Pakistan, Yemen, etc.), U.S. troops are attackers, invaders, trespassers, occupiers, aggressors, and killers. I conclude with Jacob Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation that after 10 years of invasion, occupation, torture, killings, incarcerations, renditions, assassinations, death, destruction, anger, hatred, and the constant threat of terrorist retaliation, it’s time to admit that the military invasion of Afghanistan, like that of Iraq, was horribly wrong. And as much as Americans also don’t want to admit it, because these wars and military operations are unnecessary, immoral, and unjust, and U.S. troops have innocent blood on their hands. http://lewrockwell.com/vance/vance296.html

How Many Weddings Does the U.S. Government Have to Bomb Before Realizing Its Destructive Ways?

“Do you do this in the United States? There is police action every day in the United States… They don’t call in airplanes to bomb the place.” — Afghan President Hamid Karzai denouncing U.S. air strikes on homes in his country, June 12, 2012. http://www.alternet.org/world/155903?page=entire

America is Deluded By Its Drone Warfare Propaganda

Unmanned droned strikes are all about American domestic politics rather than about the countries where they are used. They cater to illusions of power, giving Americans a sense that their technical prowess is unparalleled, despite the Pentagon’s inability to counter improvised explosive devices, which are no more than old-fashioned mines laid in or beside roads. The drones have even been presented as being more humanitarian than other forms of warfare, simply by claiming that any dead males of military age killed in a strike must have been enemy combatants. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-america-is-deluded-by-its-dronewarfare-propaganda-7834089.html

Increase in Multiple Amputations For Troops in Afghanistan

The Army Surgeon General’s office data reveals that amputations resulting in multiple limb-loss rose for U.S. troops serving in the Afghan war. Nearly half of last year’s record 226 combat amputations ended with the troop losing two or more of their arms and legs, compared with only a quarter in 2009. http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/938830/increase_in_multiple_amputations_for_troops_in_afghanistan/

Afghanistan – The Warlords of Washington Forgot History and Repeated It

The Western forces that occupied Afghanistan in 2001 have failed to achieve their military or political objectives and are now sounding the retreat. All the empty oratory in Chicago about “transition,” Afghan self-reliance, and growing security could not conceal the truth that the mighty U.S. and its dragooned western allies have been bested in Afghanistan by a bunch of mountain warriors from the 12th Century. The objective of war is to achieve political goals, not kill people. The US goal was to turn Afghanistan into a protectorate providing bases close to Caspian Basin oil, and to block China on a strategy level. After an eleven-year war costing $1 trillion, this effort failed as dismally as the much ballyhooed “liberation” of Iraq. http://lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis294.html

How to Forget on Memorial Day

As the endlessly plummeting opinion polls indicate, the Afghan War is one Americans would clearly prefer to forget — yesterday, not tomorrow. It was, in fact, regularly classified as “the forgotten war” almost from the moment that the Bush administration turned its attention to the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and so declared its urge to create a Pax Americana in the Greater Middle East. Despite the massive “surge” of troops, special operations forces, CIA agents, and civilian personnel sent to Afghanistan by President Obama in 2009-2010, and the ending of the military part of the Iraq debacle in 2011, the Afghan War has never made it out of the grave of forgetfulness to which it was so early consigned. Count on one thing: there will be no Afghan version of Maya Lin, no Afghan Wall on the National Mall. Unlike the Vietnam conflict, tens of thousands of books won’t be pouring out for decades to come arguing passionately about the conflict. There may not even be a “who lost Afghanistan” debate in its aftermath. Few Afghan veterans are likely to return from the war to infuse with new energy an antiwar movement that remains small indeed, nor will they worry about being “spit upon.” There will be little controversy. They — their traumas and their wounds — will, like so many bureaucratic notices, disappear into the American ether, leaving behind only an emptiness and misery, here and in Afghanistan, as perhaps befits a bankrupting, never-ending imperial war on the global frontiers. http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2012/05/24/how-to-forget-on-memorial-day/

War Without End

“What are we really doing there? Who are we helping?” asks Chris Solomon, an independent from Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina referring to the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan in an interview with the Associated Press. Support for the war in Afghanistan has reached an all-time low, with only 27 percent of Americans saying they back the war. Solomon was among the respondents to a new AP-GfK poll, released today, that shows support for the war in Afghanistan has reached an all-time low, with only 27 percent of Americans saying they back the war and roughly half of those say that the ongoing American occupation is doing more harm than good. Despite this growing lack of support, President Obama has promised to keep combat troops in Afghanistan until 2014, and the status agreement recently signed with his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzia, will keep U.S. troops on the ground until at least 2024. http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/09

A Decade of War – For What?

No one knows what will happen when 23,000 more U.S. troops come home by Sept. 30, and all combat troops are out in 2014. The odds are that, after a “decent interval,” like the one in Vietnam from 1973 to 1975, the Taliban will return to take vengeance on all who abandoned them, and Afghanistan will come again to resemble the land we invaded a decade ago. Why is this probable? First, because the Taliban have shown themselves to be, though fewer in number, a superior fighting force to the Afghan army. They have not needed foreigners to motivate, train, advise or lead them. Nor have they needed foreign money to fight. Yet they have battled the best army in the world for a decade and repeatedly sacrificed their lives in suicide attacks. How many Afghans on our side have launched suicide attacks? http://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2012/05/03/a-decade-of-war-for-what/

Back-to-Back Killings Between U.S.-Afghan Forces

Another Afghan police officer opened fire on American troops on Thursday, injuring two of them in the latest indication that Washington’s claim that the training mission is going well is a lie. Also on Friday, it was revealed that an elite Afghan soldier shot dead an American trainer and his translator at a U.S. base on Wednesday. This is the first such rogue attack reported to have been carried out by the “closely vetted” special forces of Afghanistan. http://news.antiwar.com/2012/04/27/back-to-back-killings-between-us-afghan-forces/

Why I Refused to Return to Fight in Afghanistan’s Brutal Occupation

Recent attacks in Kabul confirm the occupation is falling to pieces. Claims about “decisive years” and “turned corners” are little more than cant. Instead for all their lack of air power, drones and high-tech equipment, the Taliban are gaining ascendancy. The ability to attack up to seven different locations, to hold one for 20 hours, and to attack the fortified compounds of the occupiers and local supporters cannot sensibly be read as a sign that the insurgency is losing ground. Fighting in Afghanistan is seasonal and the Kabul attacks were the season’s opening game. No insurgency can survive without broad support from the local population. The insurgent relies upon the people for intelligence, support, safety and more. The fact that insurgents now control great swaths of the country virtually unchallenged tells us the people have been lost, partially due to the occupiers’ bumbling efforts. The argument that Afghans are rejecting the Taliban falls flat. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31182.htm

Memory Failure at the Pentagon

The conflict in Afghanistan began with its American commander declaring, “We don’t do body counts,” but a quick glance at recent U.S. military press releases touting supposed “high-value kills” or large numbers of dead insurgents indicates otherwise. As in Vietnam, the U.S. is once again waging a war of attrition, even as America’s Afghan enemies employ their own very different attrition strategy. Instead of slugging it out toe-to-toe in large suicidal offensives, they’ve planned a savvy, conservative campaign meant to save fighters and resources while sending an unmistakable message to the Afghan population, and simultaneously exposing the futility of the conflict to the American public. http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2012/04/24/memory-failure-at-the-pentagon/

Still Killed and Killing in the Lost Afghanistan War

Has anyone told the media that the NATO forces are losing the war in Afghanistan? The capital city, Kabul, supposedly the safest place in the country was faced with a sustained and deadly attack on Sunday which lasted 18 hours and attacked among other places the parliament building, the German and British embassies and NATO headquarters. This was the worst attack in 11 years of war. Dozens of fighters managed to evade elaborate security systems, highly paid western security guards, Afghan army and police, NATO forces, and high levels of electronic surveillance to hole up in a high rise building as their base. Yet the media have by and large reported this as nothing much out of the ordinary. They quote President Karzai as saying that it was down to intelligence failures. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31139.htm

The Afghan Syndrome

The “lessons of Vietnam,” fruitlessly discussed for five decades, taught Washington so little that it remains trapped in a hopeless war on the Eurasian mainland, continues to pursue a military-first policy globally that might even surprise American leaders of the Vietnam era, has turned the planet into a “free fire zone,” and considers military power its major asset, a first not a last resort, and the Pentagon the appropriate place to burn its national treasure. After Vietnam, the U.S. at least took a few years to lick its wounds. Now, it just ramps up the latest military flavor of the month — at the moment, special operations forces and drones — elsewhere. Call it not the fog, but the smog of war. http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2012/04/10/the-afghan-syndrome/

The Massacre of the Afghan 17 and the Obama Cover-Up

After the cold-blooded murder of the 17 Afghan villagers in Kandahar Province the U.S. military and the ever-complicit Obama regime constructed an elaborate cover-up, exposing the Administration up to charges of conspiracy to suppress the essential facts, falsify data and obstruct justice: All are grounds for criminal prosecution and impeachment. This massacre is just one of several hundred committed by U.S. armed forces according to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. It could ruin the Obama presidency, by putting him on trial for conspiracy to obstruct justice and arguably send him to jail for war crimes. http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2012/03/28/the-massacre-of-the-afghan-17-the-obama-cover-up/

‘This Is Not Who We Are’ – Oh Yeah?

As if the winds of war weren’t already approaching gale force in the wrong direction for the U.S. and its NATO counterparts in Afghanistan, contrary to Administration talking points designed to polish this turd of an Occupation, Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales went on a village-to-village, house-to-house killing spree. With whatever thought process he had at his disposal after three combat tours in Iraq, he permanently liberated by summary execution 16 Afghan villagers from the Taliban. To make matters worse for embattled U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Bales admitted it. Not even a shot, excuse the double entendre, at an effective cover-up. http://original.antiwar.com/gene-marx/2012/03/23/this-is-not-who-we-are-oh-yeah/

America, Afghanistan, and American imperialism

Robert Bales

What is most revealed by the decision to remove Robert Bales from Afghanistan is the American belief that no other country — including those its invades and occupies — can ever impose accountability on Americans. This was seen most recently, and vividly, in Iraq. President Obama’s most swooning supporters love to credit him with “ending the war in Iraq,” but that is simply not what happened. It was President Bush who entered into an agreement with the Iraqi government mandating the removal of all US forces by the end of 2011. Rather than comply with that agreement, the Obama administration tried desperately to persuade and pressure the Iraqis to allow American troops to remain beyond that deadline. But those efforts failed because of one cause: the refusal (or, more accurately, the inability) of the Malaki government to agree that US troops would be immunized and shielded from Iraqi law for any future crimes they commit on Iraqi soil. One prime prerogative of all empires is that it is subject to no laws or accountability other than its own, even when it comes to crimes committed on other nations’ soil and against its people. That was the imperial principle that finally compelled America’s withdrawal from Iraq, and it is apparently what caused the US to quickly remove the accused shooter from Afghanistan. It may be understandable why the US perceives it in its interest to preserve this imperial power, but it should be equally understandable why its victims react with increasing levels of suspicion, resentment and rage. http://www.opednews.com/articles/America-Afghanistan-and-A-by-Glenn-Greenwald-120321-901.html

George Packer and the Unfathomable

We’ve heard all about staff sergeant Robert Bales, who murdered 16 Afghan civilians – most of them children – and is now being held by the U.S. military, although he has yet to be formally charged. We’ve heard about his alleged PTSD, his marital problems, his “good deeds,” the shock and surprise of his friends and neighbors who thought he was a wonderful guy. But what about the victims? Who are they? What about their families? Why haven’t we heard much of anything about them? The answer to this last question is fairly obvious: with the American media, it’s all about … the Americans! Never mind the Afghans: they’re just “collateral damage.” The real “human interest” story here is about Bales, for whom the excuse-making has already begun. He’s hired himself an expensive lawyer – the same one who defended the “Barefoot Bandit” – and Fox News is already playing him up as some kind of hero, or, at least, a sympathetic figure to be pitied rather than punished. As for the victims, they are nameless, faceless stick figures, at least in nearly all U.S. news accounts: their fate is no more a concern than the fate of the hundreds of thousands who died in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else the U.S. boot alights. http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/03/20/george-packer-and-the-unfathomable/

Discussing the Motives of the Afghan Shooter

Robert Bales

Here’s a summary of the Western media discussion of what motivated U.S. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales to allegedly kill 16 Afghans, including 9 children: he was drunk, he was experiencing financial stress, he was passed over for a promotion, he had a traumatic brain injury, he had marital problems, he suffered from the stresses of four tours of duty, he “saw his buddy’s leg blown off the day before the massacre,” etc. Here’s a summary of the Western media discussion of what motivates Muslims to kill Americans: they are primitive, fanatically religious, hateful Terrorists. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/03/19-1

Up to 20 U.S. Troops Behind Kandahar Bloodbath

An Afghan parliamentary investigation team has implicated up to 20 U.S. troops in the massacre of 16 civilians in Kandahar early on Sunday morning. It contradicts NATO’s account that insists one rogue soldier was behind the slaughter. The team of Afghan lawmakers has spent two days collating reports from witnesses, survivors and inhabitants of the villages where the tragedy took place. “We are convinced that one soldier cannot kill so many people in two villages within one hour at the same time, and the 16 civilians, most of them children and women, have been killed by the two groups,” investigator Hamizai Lali told Afghan News. http://rt.com/news/massacre-kandahar-soldier-american-705/

Insane Afghanistan War Creating More Insanity

This past week, a PTSD afflicted, “transitory brain injury” victim and totally berserk U.S. Army sergeant on his fourth deployment blasted 16 adults and children to death in a killing spree that reminds us of Lt. William Calley at My Lai in Vietnam. The 10 year war in Afghanistan is driving them crazy and it is driving our own troops mad. One of our U.S. Army sergeants in Colorado Springs was killed last year while serving his 13th deployment in those war zones. He left three girls and a wife that barely knew him. This past week in Denver, Captain Ryan Hall, 30, after 1,300 combat missions and his seventh deployment to the Middle East was buried with full honors. Are we crazy or are Obama and Congress nuts? These young men and women serve our country, but our country is NOT serving our military personnel. No one should serve seven to 13 deployments. It is inhuman. It’s sickening, really. http://www.newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frosty749.htm

Massacre As Metaphor

The Western media is already running this clichéd narrative up the flagpole, and there are no doubt plenty of Americans ready to salute. After all, we’re being told, he had a “breakdown” – a rite of passage for every normal American these days, whether the precipitating incident is a divorce, impending bankruptcy, or the sudden discovery that their tattooed –and-pierced daughter is having a sex change operation right after she aborts her out-of-wedlock baby. Having a breakdown is now a sacred and legally-protected “right,” right up there with the “right” to healthcare, cheap gas, and a federally-insured home mortgage, a “Get out of jail free” card every American gets to play at least once in their lives. So, you had a “breakdown” and massacred 16 civilians, most of whom were young children? Don’t worry, my friend – the “safety net” will catch you. As a good citizen of America’s “therapeutic state,” this soldier embodies the idea that every trauma, or major discomfort, gives us permission to commit acts that would normally be frowned upon. If we apply this operating principle to the realm of foreign policy, what we come up with is the exact course of American foreign policy during the last decade. http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/03/15/massacre-as-metaphor/

Who Are the ‘Terrorists’?

What is it about American troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan? From Abu Ghraib to the Mahmudiyah killings to the Hamdania murder of a crippled old man to the horrors of the Haditha massacre, it’s been one atrocity after another (see here, here, and here). More recently it was the “rogue” team of killers that murdered Afghan civilians in the Maywand district for sport. Then it was U.S. troops urinating on corpses, followed shortly afterward by the Koran-burning incident, the second such example of American contempt for the people they are supposed to be “liberating.” Now we have this, which – we’re told – is the result of a U.S. soldier having a “breakdown.” Was it a breakdown, or merely the logical extension of the soldier’s training and inclination, that caused him to go on a murderous rampage? That hardly a month goes by without some kind of atrocity being committed should tell us something. What it tells me is that America is a depraved nation, a country where the very worst-of-the-worst flock to join the military, free to kill and maim and rape to their heart’s content. http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/03/11/who-are-the-terrorists/

U.S. Soldiers Massacre 16 Afghan Civilians in Killing Spree

An American soldier in Afghanistan murdered at least 16 civilians, including nine children, in a killing spree President Hamid Karzai called an “assassination” that “cannot be forgiven.” Some reports claim there were multiple U.S. soldiers involved, who witnesses said were laughing throughout the massacre and appeared drunk. One Afghan father whose children were killed in the incident accused the soldiers of later burning the bodies. The soldiers entered a number of homes in two villages in southern Kandahar during the night, killing 16 and wounding nine, although there have been differing reports of the number of casualties. The victims included women, elderly men, and children, one of whom was just two years old. http://news.antiwar.com/2012/03/11/us-soldiers-massacre-16-afghan-civilians-in-killing-spree/

Tell the Truth Already

“Dismounted complex blast injuries” caused by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Afghanistan are felling our soldiers and Marines so frequently today that men are routinely banking their sperm as another item on the checklist before they deploy for the war. They’re doing that because a dismounted complex blast injury — now being called the “new signature wound” of the Afghan conflict — can not only cause the amputation of multiple limbs, but often results in irreversible genital and pelvic injuries, meaning urinary tracts, genitals and bowels are being destroyed even as the victim stays alive. Emergency amputations in these cases sever the legs so close to the hip that it’s sometimes impossible to fit a prosthesis, and sexual function is gone forever. http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2012/03/05/tell-the-truth-already/

Afghanistan — Failed War From a False Empire

Historically, Afghanistan is probably one of the least desirable locations to carry on maneuvers. However, the imperialist empire must demonstrate its ability to project and drone anyone to death. It seems that all the hard-learned lessons of Vietnam are lost. The memory banks of the officers that direct and carry out the dictates of a civilian authority, who loves to play soldier, pervert their command. Playing video games is not entertainment when human body parts explode from bombs that rain down from the sky. http://batr.org/gulag/030412.html

Blown Away

Is it all over but the (anti-American) shouting — and the killing? Are the exits finally coming into view? Sometimes, in a moment, the fog lifts, the clouds shift, and you can finally see the landscape ahead with startling clarity. In Afghanistan, Washington may be reaching that moment in a state of panic, horror, and confusion. Even as an anxious U.S. commander withdrew American and NATO advisors from Afghan ministries around Kabul last weekend — approximately 300, military spokesman James Williams tells TomDispatch — the ability of American soldiers to remain on giant fortified bases eating pizza and fried chicken into the distant future is not in doubt. No set of Taliban guerrillas, suicide bombers, or armed Afghan “allies” turning their guns on their American “brothers” can alter that — not as long as Washington is ready to bring the necessary supplies into semi-blockaded Afghanistan at staggering cost. But sometimes that’s the least of the matter, not the essence of it. So if you’re in a mood to mark your calendars, late February 2012 may be the moment when the end game for America’s second Afghan War, launched in October 2001, was initially glimpsed. http://www.nationofchange.org/blown-away-1330525550

For What, All These Wars?

What price in blood and billions should we expend on what appears a dubious enterprise at best – creating a pro-American democracy in a country that seems mired in some distant century? It is time we took inventory of all of these wars we have fought since the Army of Desert Storm restored the emir of Kuwait to his throne. http://lewrockwell.com/buchanan/buchanan220.html

Do Afghan Riots Spell E-X-I-T?

It’s got to be hard for most Americans looking at the fleeting images of angry Afghans today shouting “death to America” and not think, “What the hell are we still doing there?” Certainly it’s not a stupid question — in fact it’s a pretty relevant one. After a weekend of our media mavens insipidly wagging on about whether or not President Barack Obama showed “weakness” when he offered apologies to the Afghans for the NATO forces who “unintentionally mishandled” (read: burned) copies of the Quran, a fresh angle has emerged in the U.S. news market: will the ensuing riots in Afghanistan speed up our final exit? http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2012/02/27/do-afghan-riots-spell-e-x-i-t/

Slowly, Toxic Vets Get Recognition

Some two million men and women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since the wars began in 2001. Little did these individuals know that surviving the improvised explosive devices and insurgent gunfire wouldn’t necessarily guarantee their health or survival once they got home. http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2012/02/06/slowly-toxic-vets-get-recognition/

A Fitting Symbol of the American Empire

The image of four U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Afghan fighters is a fitting symbol of American intervention in Central Asia and the Middle East. That picture will live forever in the memories of people in the region, along with the pictures from Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. http://www.fff.org/comment/com1201n.asp

France Pulls Troops From Afghan Training Mission

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday that he was suspending training operations in Afghanistan after an Afghan soldier killed four French soldiers and wounded a dozen more in a shoot out. Sarkozy also said the shooting raises serious doubts about the efficacy of NATO’s training mission in Afghanistan and could possibly lead France to withdraw its 3,600 troops from the mission sooner rather than later. http://news.antiwar.com/2012/01/20/france-pulls-troops-from-afghan-training-mission/

Lessons from Lost Wars in 2012

As it turned out, the power of the U.S. military was threateningly impressive, but only until George W. Bush pulled the trigger twice. In doing so, he revealed to the world that the U.S. could not win distant land wars against minimalist enemies or impose its will on two weak countries in the Greater Middle East. Another reality was exposed as well, even if it has taken time to sink in: we no longer live on a planet where it’s obvious how to leverage staggering advantages in military technology into any other kind of power. In the process, all the world could see what the United States was: the other declining power of the Cold War era. Washington’s state of dependence on the Eurasian mainland is now clear enough, which means that, whatever “agreements” are reached with the Afghan government, the future in that country is not American. Over the last decade, the U.S. has been taught a repetitive lesson when it comes to ground wars on the Eurasian mainland: don’t launch them. The debacle of the impending double defeat this time around couldn’t be more obvious. The only question that remains is just how humiliating the coming retreat from Afghanistan will turn out to be. The longer the U.S. stays, the more devastating the blow to its power. All of this should hardly need to be said and yet, as 2012 begins, with the next political season already upon us, it is no less painfully clear that Washington will be incapable of ending the Afghan War any time soon. http://www.nationofchange.org/lessons-lost-wars-2012-1325610678

Lessons From the Dead in a No-Learning-Curve World

Think of all this as just a partial one-week’s scorecard of American-style war. While you’re at it, remember Washington’s high hopes only a decade ago for what America’s “lite,” “shock and awe” military would do, for the way it would singlehandedly crush enemies, reorganize the Middle East, create a new order on Earth, set the oil flowing, privatize and rebuild whole nations, and usher in a global peace, especially in the Greater Middle East, on terms pleasing to the planet’s sole superpower. That such sky-high “hopes” were then the coin of the realm in Washington is a measure of the way delusional thinking passed for the strategic variety and a reminder of how, for a time, pundits of every sort dealt with those hopes as if they represented reality itself. And yet, it should have come as no shock that a military-first “foreign policy” and a military force with staggering technological powers at its command would prove incapable of building anything. No one should have been surprised that such a force was good only for what it was built for: death and destruction. http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/12/01/he-was-22-she-was-12/

The Fruits of Liberation

I read about the death of these children yesterday and had decided not to write about it because I don’t have anything particularly new to say about it, but then all day, that decision irritated me because it just seems wrong to allow this to go unobserved (and in Southern Afghanistan, “NATO” in the vast majority of cases means: “American”). Whichever version is correct, the U.S. devastated these families forever and ended these children’s lives in a region where even U.S. officials say that there is a grand total of two Al Qaeda leaders and the group is “operationally ineffective.” What’s particularly notable, I realized, is how we’re trained simply to accept these incidents as though they carry no meaning: we’re just supposed to chalk them up to regrettable accidents (oops), agree that they don’t compel a cessation to the war, and then get back to the glorious fighting. Every time that happens, this just becomes more normalized, less worthy of notice. It’s just like background noise: two families of children wiped out by an American missile (yawn: at least we don’t target them on purpose like those evil Terrorists: we just keep killing them year after year after year without meaning to). http://www.salon.com/2011/11/25/the_fruits_of_liberation/singleton/

Obama Declares Victory in Iraq, But Will It Win Votes?

Now that we are leaving, someone should tell former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz that we taxpayers are still waiting for the war’s estimated $5 trillion costs to be repaid from Iraqi oil revenue. The 4,479 American dead won’t be coming back, unfortunately, nor will the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis. The hundreds of children deformed from all the depleted uranium used in pounding Fallujah will probably have lives that are both short and tragic, as will the U.S. soldiers missing arms and legs. But it was a glorious adventure, wasn’t it? And the Iraqis will be so grateful someday. http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2011/10/26/obama-declares-victory-but-will-it-win-votes/

America’s Endless Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

The 10th anniversary of Washington’s invasion, occupation and seemingly endless war in Afghanistan was observed Oct. 7, but despite President Barack Obama’s pledge to terminate the U.S. “combat mission” by the end of 2014, American military involvement will continue many years longer. The Afghan war is expanding even further, not only with increasing drone attacks in neighboring Pakistani territory but because of U.S. threats to take far greater unilateral military action within Pakistan unless the Islamabad government roots out “extremists” and cracks down harder on cross-border fighters. Washington’s tone was so threatening that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had to assure the Pakistani press Oct. 21 that the U.S. did not plan a ground offensive against Pakistan. The next day, Afghan President Hamid Karzai shocked Washington by declaring “God forbid, If ever there is a war between Pakistan and America, Afghanistan will side with Pakistan…. If Pakistan is attacked and if the people of Pakistan needs Afghanistan’s help, Afghanistan will be there with you.” http://weeklyintercept.blogspot.com/2011/10/americas-endless-wars-in-afghanistan.html

Putin Versus the American Drug Cartel

In several recent communications with US, Ukrainian and Russian friends, about the current set of conditions within the former Soviet Union I have been able to confirm that the CIS Countries are under covert assault by the CIA, Mossad, and Drugs Inc. It appears that the cold war has gone into a new and deadly direction. http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/10/11/putin-versus-the-american-drug-cartel/

Blundering Forward in the Graveyard of Empires

After ten years of military and civil operations costing at least $450 billion, over 1,600 dead and 15,000 seriously wounded soldiers, the US has achieved none of its strategic or political goals. As for Afghanistan, it has suffered untold civilian casualties, villages shattered by US bombing, night raids by death squads, over two million refugees and a 30-year civil war. At a time when 44 million Americans subsist on government food stamps and lack the kind of medical care common to other developed nations, each US soldier in Afghanistan costs $1 million per annum. CIA employs 80,000 mercenaries there, cost unknown. The Pentagon spends a staggering $20.2 billion annually air conditioning troop quarters in Afghanistan and Iraq. The most damning assessment comes from the US-installed Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai: America’s war has been “ineffective, apart from causing civilian casualties.” http://lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis262.html

German General Says NATO Mission in Afghanistan Has ‘Failed’

A top German general who was instrumental in planning the Bundeswehr’s mission in Afghanistan has said that the intervention has failed and the Taliban will regain power within months of withdrawal. Ten years after the invasion, he is far from alone with his critique. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,790539,00.html

U.S. Night Raids Aimed at Afghan Civilians

U.S. Special Operations Forces have been increasingly aiming their nighttime raids, which have been the primary cause of Afghan anger at the U.S. military presence, at civilian noncombatants in order to exploit their possible intelligence value, according to a new study published by the Open Society Foundation and the Liaison Office. The study provides new evidence of the degree to which the criteria used for targeting individuals in night raids and for seizing them during raids have been loosened to include people who have not been identified as insurgents. http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2011/09/20/study-us-night-raids-aimed-at-afghan-civilians/

U.S. to Build Massive New Prison in Afghanistan

As the Obama administration announced plans for hundreds of billions of dollars more in domestic budget cuts, it late last week solicited bids for the construction of a massive new prison in Bagram, Afghanistan. http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m81592&fb=1

Community Policing, Afghan-Style

Lal Mohammed says his 9-year-old son was stabbed and shot and left to die in a raid on his home. Another Afghan villager reported that a 17-year-old boy had been detained, beaten, and had nails driven into his feet. His injuries were so bad that his family packed up and left the country to get medical treatment. A 13-year-old boy was walking home after evening prayers when he was allegedly gang-raped by a local commander and his henchmen. Stunningly, the accused perpetrators in these crimes were not Taliban but local Afghans the U.S. military helped to recruit and arm as part of a local “community policing” effort to protect Afghans from the Taliban scourge. http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2011/09/19/when-afghan-militia-programs-go-bad/

Major Discovery: A Purpose of the War in Afghanistan

To summarize: our invasion and occupation is what enables the Taliban to recruit massive numbers of Afghan teenagers into their cause. And now, we have to stay until we either kill all the people who hate us and want us gone from their country or propagandize deradicalize them into meekly accepting our presence. Once there are no more Afghans left who want us gone, then we can leave. For those of you who have been cynically claiming that this war has no discernible purpose other than the generalized benefits of Endless War for political officials and the Security State industry, now you know. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/09/16/afghanistan/index.html

They Died in Vain; Deal With It

Many of those preaching at American church services Sunday extolled as “heroes” the 30 American and 8 Afghan troops killed Saturday west of Kabul, when a helicopter on a night mission crashed, apparently after taking fire from Taliban forces. This week, the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) can be expected to beat a steady drumbeat of “they shall not have died in vain.” But they did. I know it is a hard truth, but they did die in vain. As in the past, churches across the country will keep praising the fallen troops for protecting “our way of life,” and few can demur, given the tragic circumstances. But, sadly, such accolades are, at best, misguided — at worst, dishonest. Most preachers do not have a clue as to what U.S. forces are doing in Afghanistan and why. Many prefer not to think about it. There are some who do know better, but virtually all in that category eventually opt to punt. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/08-1

‘Bin Laden’ Heroes Probably Murderered to Keep Them Quiet

Today 31 NATO troops, 20 of them Navy Seals from the Osama bin Laden operation died in what is reported as a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. The chances of this story being true is almost nil. The chances of this being a staged coverup is over 80%. We believe these people were murdered to silence them. This is why. http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/08/06/breaking-news-bin-laden-troops-probably-murderered-to-keep-them-quiet/

Truth Emerges About IED Carnage

Gen. David Petraeus has been gone but a month from his role as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, yet we’re already seeing the paint on his Potemkin village peel away to reveal an unseemly rot underneath. That may sound a bit harsh, but there is no better way to describe one of the greatest meme-smashing, not to mention heartrending realities now emerging from embeds and soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan today: coalition soldiers being blown apart by insurgent IEDs more frequently, and with more deadly precision than any other time in the nearly 10-year conflict. Searching for IEDs (U.S. Central Command, 2010)The “rotten” thing is that this has been going on for more than a year and getting worse, yet Congress and the mainstream media have allowed Petraeus and his message machine to not only distort the number, frequency and effectiveness of IED attacks, but de-emphasize the increase in life-altering injuries, particularly amputations, among coalition and Afghan soldiers. http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2011/08/01/truth-emerges-about-ied-carnage/

Multi-Billion-Dollar Terrorists and the Disappearing Middle Class

The U.S. government (White House and Congress) spends $10 billion dollars a month, or $120 billion a year, to fight an estimated “50 -75 ‘Al Qaeda types’ in Afghanistan ”, according to the CIA and quoted in the Financial Times of London. During the past 30 months of the Obama presidency, Washington has spent $300 billion dollars in Afghanistan , which adds up to $4 billion dollars for each alleged ‘Al Queda type’. If we multiply this by the two dozen or so sites and countries where the White House claims ‘Al Qaeda’ terrorists have been spotted, we begin to understand why the U.S. budget deficit has grown astronomically to over $1.6 trillion for the current fiscal year. During Obama’s Presidency, Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment has been frozen, resulting in a net decrease of over 8 percent, which is exactly the amount spent chasing just 5 dozen ‘Al Qaeda terrorists’ in the mountains bordering Pakistan. It is absurd to believe that the Pentagon and White House would spend $10 billion a month just to hunt down a handful of terrorists ensconced in the mountains of Afghanistan . So what is the war in Afghanistan about? The answer one most frequently reads and hears is that the war is really against the Taliban, a mass-based Islamic nationalist guerrilla movement with tens of thousands of activists. The Taliban, however, have never engaged in any terrorist act against the territorial United States or its overseas presence. The Taliban have always maintained their fight was for the expulsion of foreign forces occupying Afghanistan . Hence the Taliban is not part of any “international terrorist network”. If the U.S. war in Afghanistan is not about defeating terrorism, then why the massive expenditure of funds and manpower for over a decade? http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25574

Killing Our Way To Defeat

They’re known as “JSOC” — Joint Special Operations Command. They report directly to the president and, as National Journal reporter Marc Ambinder put it “operate worldwide based on the legal (or extra-legal) premises of classified presidential directive.” John Nagl, a former counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. Petraeus, described JSOC’s kill/capture campaign to FRONTLINE as “an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28166.htm

Afghanistan: What Defeat Looks Like

Critics of the war in Afghanistan are fond of asking: “What would victory look like? How will we know when we’ve won?” In view of the latest events in that war-torn country, it’s fair to stand that question on its head and ask: What would defeat look like? It looks like this. http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/06/30/afghanistan-what-defeat-looks-like/

U.S. Cost of War at Least $3.7 Trillion and Counting

When President Barack Obama cited cost as a reason to bring troops home from Afghanistan, he referred to a $1 trillion price tag for America’s wars. In addition to the incalculable cost of human life, the financial cost to support ten years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq will likely exceed $4 trillion. Worse still, there’s no end in sight. (AP) Staggering as it is, that figure grossly underestimates the total cost of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the U.S. Treasury and ignores more imposing costs yet to come. http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/29-0

Afghanistan and Iraq — Where The Glorious Imperial Multicultural Empire Dies

History clearly shows that all empires collapse. They fail. They die. They cease to exist because they overextend themselves in wars, in debt, in borrowing and in loss of a comprehension of reality. Today, the United States embroils itself in three wars that sap and bleed the life blood out of its people, its financial foundation and its understanding of reality. http://newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frosty673.htm

Who’s To Blame For Losing Washington’s Unnecessary Wars In Afghanistan And Iraq?

Make no mistake. Obama is headed for the exit ramp, and the Karzai government and Afghan army will not succeed where that same government and army, backed by 150,000 U.S. and NATO troops, could not succeed. McCain and the neocons will blame what is coming, a terrible day in Kabul and across Afghanistan, on those who refused to soldier on, no matter the cost in blood and treasure. But the people who should be indicted by history are not those who, after half a trillion dollars and a decade of bleeding, decided to cut America’s losses, but those who stampeded this country into two of the longest and least necessary wars in the history of the republic. http://vdare.com/buchanan/110623_afghanistan.htm

Bored to Death in Afghanistan (and Washington)

At home and abroad, whether judging by airline pilots or Washington’s war policy, Americans seem remarkably incapable of doing anything other than repeating the same self-defeating acts, as if they had never happened before. Hence Afghanistan. Almost 10 years after the Bush administration invaded Afghanistan and proclaimed victory, like imam-paralyzed airline pilots, we find ourselves in a state that might otherwise be achieved only if you mated déjà vu with a Mobius strip. If you aren’t already bored to death, you should be. Because, believe me, you’ve read it all before. Take the last month of news from America’s second Afghan War. If nobody told you otherwise, you could easily believe that almost every breaking Afghan story in the last four weeks came from some previous year of the war. http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/05/19/bored-to-death-in-afghanistan-and-washington/

David Frum and the Winds of War

keyboard neo-con chickenhawk David Frum

While Frum was a mere White House speechwriter in the Bush years, in no position to be in on the administration’s secret pacts, he could conceivably have learned of the pact in leak-prone Washington, where the neocons had no compunctions about divulging secrets if it served their political ends. I wouldn’t be too surprised if Frum knew about this all along, and is taking the opportunity to target Pakistan anyway, secure in the knowledge that Islamabad could never acknowledge their agreement with Washington. He’s that kind of person. Aside from that, however, the secret agreement certainly undermines the whole premise of Frum’s argument that Pakistan is now the main enemy of the United States. The outrageousness of this line of argument is apparent when we note that Pakistan has captured far more top al-Qaeda operatives than the intelligence services of the US and all other Western nations combined. Under General Pervez Musharraf, and continuing under the present government, the Pakistanis have been doing our dirty work in the region ever since 9/11. They have faithfully executed policies dictated to them by Washington – albeit often a little resentful at being required to do most of the heavy lifting – and how are they being rewarded? With slander, not only from the politically irrelevant Frum, but out of the mouths of anonymous administration officials who whisper their calumnies in the dark. http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/05/10/david-frum-and-the-winds-of-war/

Washington’s Endless War Shuffle

Someday, when historians look back, they will undoubtedly be struck by the utter inanity, not to say collective insanity, of the United States fighting what our president has called a “war of necessity,” now in its tenth year, in Afghanistan, as well as a “covert” war in the Pakistani tribal borderlands. It will undoubtedly look like a classic case of a declining empire overextending itself, squandering its treasury, and then, in its moment of crisis, extending itself yet further. After all, the date to get U.S. “combat troops” out of Afghanistan has already been officially put off to the end of 2014, more than three years away, and that doesn’t even include U.S. trainers and other supposedly noncombat troops, possibly numbering in the tens of thousands, who may remain for years more. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/04-1

David Petraeus Rides Again

Imagine a military historian visiting here from five hundred years into the future. What could he possibly think of an Army general who is endlessly feted and promoted while the war he has been most closely associated with, not to mention in command of, chokes and wheezes along like an asthmatic, by many accounts a foregone failure? Not to mention that this particular general’s closest brush with major “victory” was holding off a rag-tag insurgency long enough to save “face” for the Army and his political handlers back home. Despite that, whenever he leaves his command for another top slot in the war machine, the establishment applauds as though the shift presages a way out instead of a mere shifting of deck chairs on a clearly sinking ship.Though he has never seen combat, his power points seemingly yield ancient magic code, and his sycophants among politicians, media scribes and so called “think tanks” craft elaborate panegyrics in his name, hagiographies and calls for a fifth star, presumably for leaving behind “fragile and reversible” conditions on the ground in every command before leaving for another every year or so. http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2011/05/02/david-petraeus-rides-again/

Pilot Kills Eight U.S. Soldiers, One Contractor in Kabul Airport Attack

NATO has declined to release the nationalities of any of the slain but multiple sources confirmed all were Americans. It is the second time in as many week that eight NATO soldiers have been killed in a single day, and raised the already record April death toll even further. http://news.antiwar.com/2011/04/27/pilot-kills-eight-us-soldiers-one-contractor-in-kabul-airport-attack/

U.S. Atrocities Reach All Time High in Afghanistan

Even as American officials optimistically talk about starting troop withdrawal from Afghanistan according to schedule in July, news about their atrocities continue to send shock waves globally. Recent reports and photos of torture and mutilation of Afghan civilians make Abu Ghraib look like a mild affair. These crimes are compounded by denials that the Americans have done or are capable of doing anything wrong since these are contrary to American “standards and values.” Their victims know better. http://www.opednews.com/articles/US-atrocities-reach-all-ti-by-Zia-Sarhadi-110423-501.html

U.S. Drone Strike Kills Two U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan

The ridiculous inaccuracy of the U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan has taken another turn for the worse. Reports are now emerging that a U.S. drone strike in Helmand Province actually killed two U.S. soldiers. The official explanation is that they were mistaken for Taliban. http://news.antiwar.com/2011/04/11/us-drone-strike-kills-two-us-soldiers-in-afghanistan/

Army Kill Team Posed for Photos of Murdered Civilians

Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of “trophy” photographs of U.S. soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed. http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/21/us-army-kill-team-afghanistan-posed-pictures-murdered-civilians?cat=world&type=article

Never Again: On Not ‘Going In’ in the First Place

Talking about secretaries of defense. Oh, we weren’t? Well, let’s. After all, they’re in the news. Take former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who, on leaving government service — and I hope you don’t mind if I mangle a quote from General Douglas MacArthur here — refused to die, or even fade away. Instead, he penned Known and Unknown, a memoir almost as big as his ego and almost as long — 832 pages — as the occupation of Iraq, which promptly hit the bestseller lists (making the American reader a Known Unknown). Now, Mr. Known Knowns, etc., is duking it out on Facebook, Sarah-Palin-style, with “the chief gossip-monger of the governing class,” the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward. Amusingly enough, Woodward has just savaged Rumsfeld for pulling a Woodward in his memoir by playing fast and loose with reality. He posted his review at the Best Defense (as in, you know, a good offense), the war fightin’ blog of former Washington Post reporter and bestselling author Tom Ricks. Small world down there in Washington! It’s enough to make you nostalgic for… well, I have no idea what. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/07

Government Says Oded Orbach Tried to Sell Missiles, Grenade Launchers to Terrorists

Oded Orbach

Oded Orbach, born in Israel, was arrested in an international sting operation to buy weapons for Taliban in Afghanistan, authorities said. http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local-beat/116513488.html

‘U.S. Wars to Continue Until Its Economy Busts’

Roughly 48,000 American troops are still based in Iraq seven years after the start of the war, according to the Washington Post. Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, 4,435 U.S. troops have been killed and more than 31,827 wounded in Iraq, according to the media. The total cost of the Iraq war has been estimated to be over $3 trillion. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27313.htm

War Is A Drug — The Urge to Surge

In Central and South Asia, we could now be heading for the end of the age of American surges, which in practical terms have manifested themselves as the urge to destabilize. Geopolitically, little could be uglier or riskier on our planet at the moment than destabilizing Pakistan — or the United States. Three decades after the American urge to surge in Afghanistan helped destabilize one imperial superpower, the Soviet Union, the present plans, whatever they may turn out to be, could belatedly destabilize the other superpower of the Cold War era. And what our preeminent group of surgers welcomed as an “unprecedented strategic opportunity” as this century dawned may, in its later stages, be seen as an unprecedented act of strategic desperation. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27193.htm

History is Repeating Itself in Afghanistan

During the mid-1960s, America’s goal during a crucial stage in the Vietnam war was to defeat the enemy militarily. But it had no realistic political strategy to underpin the goal, and it was this which ultimately led to failure. America’s strategy in Afghanistan is now suffering from a similar weakness. Barack Obama made the edgy claim this week that the U.S. army is stabilising the military situation, but neither he nor his national security advisers show any signs of understanding the speed at which,politically, the U.S. is losing ground. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-history-is-repeating-itself-in-afghanistan-2163641.html

Napolitano Promises to Protect Afghan Border, Ignores U.S. Borders

Some observers are less enthusiastic about Napolitano’s visit to Afghanistan. Local law enforcement officials in border states such as Arizona and New Mexico wonder why Napolitano doesn’t spend time at the U.S.-Mexico border with her own “troops” — the men and women serving as U.S. Border Patrol agents and as Customs officers. http://www.newswithviews.com/NWV-News/news235.htm

America’s Longest War Gets Worse

The government and media have colluded to paint the picture of a noble, patriotic, heroic, flag-waving American crusade in Afghanistan that is, alas, very far from reality. As the 19th century cynic Ambrose Bierce pointedly observed of patriots – “the dupe of statesmen; the tool of conquerors.” And now we are being told by senior administration officials that al-Qaida’s new base and center of activity is…wait for it…in Yemen! http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis219.html

TAPI Pipeline — The Real Reason for Four More Years of War

As I have reported since shortly after 9/11, the real reason for the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is to build and secure a 1,080-mile long gas pipeline designed to carry trillions of dollars of Israeli-owned gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India. In a 2009 article entitled “Why Afghanistan” I wrote about the role of Israeli intelligence in the TAPI gas pipeline project and its connection to 9/11: Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Israeli agents sought to gain control of the strategic assets of the newly independent Soviet republics. In mineral-rich Turkmenistan, a Mossad agent named Yosef A. Maiman was very successful in gaining control of the republic’s immense resources of natural gas. http://www.bollyn.com/index.php#article_12617

Lindsey Graham — U.S. Should Stay in Afghanistan ‘in Perpetuity’

Big Government “conservative” advocates permanent war. http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=13307

Afghanistan is About Perpetual War

The war in Afghanistan is about perpetual war, not Afghanistan. It’s about preventing democracy in the United States, not bringing it to Southwest Asia. And it is the tombstone of the Obama Presidency. http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m72248&hd=&size=1&l=e

The Specter of Defeat Haunts Lisbon

In a moment of unusual candor, British Defense Chief Gen. Sir David Richards, warned, “NATO now needs to plan for a 30 or 40 year role.” In short, permanent occupation. It’s worth recalling that US forces have been implanted in South Korea and Japan since the end of World War II. Afghan president Hamid Karzai is demanding the US scale back military operations, including night raids and death squads, that inflict heavy civilian casualties. Washington counters that Karzai is mentally unstable. America’s rational for invading Afghanistan was to destroy al-Qaida. But CIA chief Leon Panetta recently admitted there were no more than 50 al-Qaida operatives left in Afghanistan. The rest – no more than few hundred – fled to Pakistan years ago. So what are 110,000 US troops and 40,000 NATO troops doing in Afghanistan? Certainly not nation-building. Most reports show Afghanistan is in worse poverty and distress than before the US invasion. http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis215.html

Afghanistan Has ‘No Military Solution,’ German Envoy Says

Germany has laid out the stark reality for Afghanistan in stronger terms than before, with its special representative to the conflict-riven country saying on Friday that the war could not be won militarily. http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20101119-31281.html

Imperial War Without End: 30 to 40 Years of Occupation in Afghanistan Ahead

The foreign policy bait-and-switch continues. First, President Barack Obama declared the end of combat in Iraq, withdrawing some U.S. troops but leaving many others behind, possibly for decades, and redefining their role as “advise and assist” — whereupon they continued engaging in combat. Now, with Obama having publicly stated his intent to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan next July, both Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus are arguing for a long-term, if not permanent, U.S. presence in Afghanistan. On top of that, British Defense Chief Gen. Sir David Richards, echoing their sentiments, has stated that “Nato now needs to plan for a 30 or 40 year role to help the Afghan armed forces hold their country against the militants,” according to the Daily Mail, though he “stuck to the government’s plans to withdraw combat troops by 2014 but made clear that thousands of troops will be needed long after that date.” http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/europe-mainmenu-35/5229-british-defense-chief-30-to-40-years-of-afghanistan-occupation-ahead

Support the Troops?

There was a time, not so long ago, when the decision to seek a career in the military did not involve becoming such a monster. That time has long since passed. To put on an American uniform today is to become complicit in a criminal enterprise, and this characterization is not by any means limited to the thrill-killer platoon but to the entire killing machine deployed to carry out Washington’s grand design. http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/10/07/support-the-troops/

The Long War: Year Ten

Happy Anniversary, America. Nine years ago today — on October 7, 2001 — a series of U.S. air strikes against targets across Afghanistan launched the opening campaign of what has since become the nation’s longest war. Three thousand two hundred and eighty five days later the fight to determine Afghanistan’s future continues. At least in part, “Operation Enduring Freedom” has lived up to its name: it has certainly proven to be enduring. As the conflict formerly known as the Global War on Terror enters its tenth year, Americans are entitled to pose this question: When, where, and how will the war end? http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2010/10/07/the-long-war-year-ten/

Oceania Watch: Pentagon Says More War Will Promote Reconciliation

Speaking today at a Defense Department briefing, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell insisted that there was no chance in the near term for reconciliation with the Taliban and that the only thing that could promote such a move was more conflict. http://news.antiwar.com/2010/10/05/pentagon-more-war-will-promote-reconciliation/

Study: Vets Are a Massive ‘Unfunded Liability’

Experts say the projected cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has gone up another trillion dollars, but the general sound we hear from Congress isn’t outrage. More likely it’s the sound of crickets. Crickets most definitely from the empty chairs at the House Veterans Affairs Committee, a clear majority of which didn’t bother to show up Thursday for a full panel meeting on Capitol Hill regarding the “True Cost of War.” Granted, Congress had just adjourned until mid-November that morning, and most members had one foot out the door before 10 a.m., itching hard to hit the campaign trail in their home districts. They do have priorities, you know. http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2010/10/04/study-vets-are-a-massive-unfunded-liability/

Dodge City Meets Pakistan

Bob Woodward, the investigative reporter of Watergate fame, has a new book, Obama’s War, that gives new insights into the White House’s struggle over Afghan War policy. Woodward’s most interesting revelation: the US Central Intelligence Agency is operating a secret, 3,000-man Afghan mercenary force whose mission is assassinating Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. The hunter-killer force described by Woodward was set up to operate inside Pakistan, where US troops are officially not allowed to go. The mercenaries are mostly Afghan Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazara – all traditional enemies of the majority Pashtun – as well as renegades, common criminals, and mercenaries. Their raids into Afghanistan’s tribal territory are sometimes coordinated with CIA’s intensifying drone attacks on Pakistani tribesmen that are causing heavy civilian casualties. http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis207.html

All the King’s Bull Feather Merchants

establishment ultra-insider Bob Woodward

Bob Woodward embodies the kind of power the press had when the Washington Post was the leading element of a genuine fourth estate in this country, acting as a check on our official branches of government. When Bob contacts you, you know he already has a story about you, and it’s a real good one or he wouldn’t have bothered to call. If you have any hope of getting your side of the story out, you better play ball with him. The rest of the war pool, and the rest of the press in general, have been maneuvered into a position of needing to play ball with its sources, and lamentably that’s true of both the reporters and their outlets. That’s how Dick Cheney and his hooligans managed to bamboozle us into going along with their Iraq madness: by channeling unfiltered false propaganda through conduits like Judith Miller and Michael R. Gordon into the supposedly “liberal” New York Times. Miller and Gordon’s infamous Nigergate piece that fraudulently convinced the world that Saddam Hussein was acquiring uranium from Niger supported the claim with nearly 30 citations of unnamed “officials.” http://original.antiwar.com/huber/2010/09/27/all-the-kings-bull-feather-merchants/

Pentagon Paid $47,000 to Buy-Up Copies of Veteran’s Memoir – and Destroy Them

The Department of Defense paid $5 per book to burn the 9,500 copies of “Operation Dark Heart,” Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer’s memoir about going undercover in Afghanistan that the Pentagon claims revealed too many national security secrets.

A source confirmed to Fox News that while the Defense Department is making significant budget cuts, it spent in excess of $47,000 in taxpayer money to destroy the book that had earlier been cleared by the U.S. Army.

The Defense Intelligence Agency objected to the book’s publication, spurring a review that resulted in its being blocked over recollections in the book about the controversial pre-Sept. 11, 2001, data mining project called “Able Danger.”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/26/pentagon-paid-destroy-sept-memoir/

One and a Half Cheers for American Decline

I’d put money on the fact that the United States is indeed “in a state of decline” and I’d make a wager at odds that U.S. troops won’t be in Afghanistan in nine or ten years. And I’d venture to suggest as well that the two bets would be intimately connected, and that the American people understand at a visceral level far more than Washington cares to know about our real situation in the world. And I’d put my money on one more thing: however lousy it may feel, it’s not all bad news, not by a long shot. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/21-7

‘Dizzy With Success’ — The Accelerating Degeneration of Life in America’s Afghanistan

“Dizzy With Success.” That was the phrase used by Stalin to describe the “few excesses” that had taken place in the “historic drive to collectivization,” i.e., the Bolshevik war on the rural poor that had led to massive famine and the deaths and uprooting of millions of people. The campaign had left such a swathe of ruin that some of those who saw its effects went mad, or turned dissident, or subsided into horrified, soul-drained silence. “Dizzy With Success” would be also be an apt description for the epochal ruin that has been visited on the people of Afghanistan in nine years of military occupation by the United States and its European allies. Or as Nick Turse puts it in a searing new article at TomDispatch, “How Much ‘Success’ Can Afghanistan Stand?” http://www.chris-floyd.com/articles/1-latest-news/2023-qdizzy-with-successq-the-accelerating-degeneration-of-life-in-americas-afghanistan.html

How Much ‘Success’ Can Afghans Stand?

Almost a decade after the U.S. invasion, life for Afghan civilians is not a subject Americans care much about and so, not surprisingly, it plays little role in Washington’s discussions of “success.” Have a significant number of Afghans found the years of occupation and war “successful”? Has there been a payoff in everyday life for the indignities of the American years – the cars stopped or sometimes shot up at road checkpoints, the American patrols trooping through fields and searching homes, the terrifying night raids, the imprisonments without trial, or the way so many Afghans continue to be treated like foreigners, if not criminal suspects, in their own country? For years, American leaders have hailed the way Afghans are supposedly benefiting from the U.S. role in their country. But are they? http://www.lewrockwell.com/engelhardt/engelhardt406.html