Two weeks ago, nine Afghan children between the ages of nine and fifteen were killed by a NATO strike after being mistaken for insurgents. General Petraeus issued an apology and promised to investigate the killings, but news of their deaths quickly sparked anti-U.S. protests. They were killed in the Pech Valley, an area of Afghanistan once considered vital to U.S. military strategy. But now the U.S. military will soon be withdrawing from the Pech Valley after realizing that our presence was destabilizing the area.

The reality is our presence is destabilizing more than the Pech Valley — it’s propping up a corrupt regime and fueling an insurgency, all while Afghan’s see little to no improvement in their lives. And it’s destabilizing Americans at home. While vital services and benefits get cut — such as the Community Development Block Grants and the WIC program which provides low-income expecting mothers and infants with proper nutrition — we continue to fund an expensive war with no end in sight.

Last Wednesday, joined by members of both parties including Representatives Ron Paul, Walter Jones, Pete Stark, Bob Filner, and Barbara Lee, I announced a new bill to bring an end to the war in Afghanistan by the end of this year. Our legislation invokes the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which, if enacted, would require the President to withdraw U.S. Armed Forces out of Afghanistan by December 31, 2011. This legislation has bi-partisan support and, according to a recent Rasmussen poll, a majority of Americans want us out of Afghanistan by the end of the year. A vote will be held on Thursday. We could end the war this week.

Full Story Here: OpEdNews – Article: Act Now to End the War in Afghanistan.

The United States expects to spend about $6 billion a year training and supporting Afghan troops and police after it begins pulling out its own combat troops in 2011, The Associated Press has learned.

The previously undisclosed estimates of U.S. spending through 2015, detailed in a NATO training mission document, are an acknowledgment that Afghanistan will remain largely dependent on the United States for its security.

Full Story: US expects to subsidize Afghan training for years | Raw Story.

Afghanistan’s embattled president Hamid Karzai said on Sunday that U.S. taxpayers were indirectly funding “mafia-like groups” and terrorist activities with the American government’s support of private contractors inside his country.

In a rare U.S. media appearance, Karzai continued to press for the removal of the vast majority of U.S. private contractors by the end of this year. He argued that their continued presence inside Afghanistan was “an obstruction and impediment” to the country’s growth, a massive waste of money, and a catalyst for corruption among Afghan officials.

“The more we wait the more we lose,” Karzai said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” “Therefore we have decided as an Afghan government to bring an end to the presence of these security companies… who are not only causing corruption in this country but who are looting and stealing from the Afghan people.

Full Story: Hamid Karzai: U.S. Taxpayer-Funded Private Contractors Engaging In Terrorist, Mafia-Like Activity.

With just over 10 weeks before nationwide elections that could define the remainder of Obama’s first term, only 38 percent say they support his expanded war effort in Afghanistan — a drop from 46 percent in March. Just 19 percent expect the situation to improve during the next year, while 29 percent think it will get worse. Some 49 percent think it will remain the same.

The numbers could be ominous for the president and his Democratic Party, already feeling the heat for high unemployment, a slow economic recovery and a $1.3 trillion federal deficit. Strong dissent — 58 percent oppose the war — could depress Democratic turnout when the party desperately needs to energize its supporters for midterm congressional elections.

Full Story: Poll: Nearly 6 in 10 oppose war in Afghanistan.

The discovery of the basin between northern Balkh and Shiberghan provinces was made after a survey conducted by Afghan and international geologists, said Jawad Omar, a spokesman for the ministry of mines.

“I do not know its price in the market. But the initial survey says there are 1.8 billion barrels of oil and I think there will be more than what it is estimated,” he told Reuters.

Full Story: Afghanistan says finds 1.8 billion barrel oilfield | World | Reuters.

OPS: Don’t you wonder how long ago this was actually identified?  The timing of this ‘news’ is interesting.  Now we will never leave.

(video at link below)

Subject: I will remember Sangin when I vote this November.

Brave New Foundation’s latest Rethink Afghanistan video confirms what NATO has denied for weeks–dozens of civilians were killed in Sangin district of Helmand Province, Afghanistan, on July 23, and NATO forces were responsible. I’m outraged that NATO continues to deny an incident for which they are obviously responsible based on witness accounts, and that because of that, we have to rely on independent sources like Brave New Foundation to get the truth. Please watch the video and read the transcripts of the survivors’ stories, available at http://rethinkafghanistan.com

This incident shows that the debate about war isn’t about abstract concepts. It’s about a constant trickle of moral and strategic disasters, just like this one.

I want you to know that I vote, and when I vote, I think about incidents like the one at Sangin and what my representatives did to prevent other catastrophes like it. I will remember how you react to the Sangin incident when I vote this November.

The Afghanistan War is a brutal conflict that’s not making us safer and isn’t worth the cost. I expect my elected officials to act swiftly and forcefully to bring our troops home.

Full Story: Rethink Afghanistan War – Rethink Afghanistan Footage Exposes One of the Worst Civilian Casualty Incidents of the War.

MASSIVE SEARCH UNDERWAY FOR MISSING US TROOPS

U.S. and NATO officials confirmed that two American Navy personnel went missing Friday in the eastern province of Logar, after an armored sports utility vehicle was seen driving into a Taliban-held area.

The two left their compound in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in a vehicle Friday afternoon, but never returned, NATO said in a statement. Vehicles and helicopters were dispatched to search for the two, who may have been killed or captured by the Taliban after getting lost in Charkh district of southern Logar province, said district chief Samer Gul.

In a telephone interview Sunday with the Associated Press, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the pair drove into an area under insurgent control, prompting a brief gunfight in which one of the Americans was killed and the other was captured. He said both were taken to a “safe area” and “are in the hands of the Taliban.” The Taliban offered to exchange the body of the U.S. Navy sailor they said was killed in exchange for insurgent prisoners.

Full Story: US Troops Captured In Afghanistan: Report.

Here’s how to draw down in Afghanistan.

Full Story: Haass: Time to Get Out of Afghanistan – Newsweek.

Fareed Zakaria criticized the Afghanistan war in unusually harsh terms on his CNN program Sunday, saying that “the whole enterprise in Afghanistan feels disproportionate, a very expensive solution to what is turning out to be a small but real problem.”

His comments followed CIA director Leon Panetta’s admission last week that the number of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan may be down to just 50 to 100 members, or even fewer.

“If Al Qaeda is down to 100 men there at the most,” Zakaria asked, “why are we fighting a major war?”

Full Story: Fareed Zakaria Criticizes ‘Disproportionate’ Afghanistan War On CNN (VIDEO).

The House Democrat who oversees funding for Afghanistan’s redevelopment and reconstruction said on Monday that she is stripping money from her foreign aid bill in reaction to pervasive corruption. Dave Obey, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, supports the move made by subcommittee chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), according to an Obey spokesman.

Lowey cited pervasive corruption in Afghanistan as the cause for her decision to pull the funding from the appropriations bill working its way through her State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee.

“I do not intend to appropriate one more dime for assistance to Afghanistan until I have confidence that U.S. taxpayer money is not being abused to line the pockets of corrupt Afghan government officials, drug lords and terrorists,” said Lowey.

Full Story: House Dems, Citing Corruption, Block Reconstruction Funds For Afghanistan.

CIA Director Leon Panetta said on Sunday there may be less than 50 al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan, with “no question” that most of the terrorist network is operating from the western tribal region of Pakistan.

Panetta’s remarks came as President Barack Obama builds up U.S. forces in Afghanistan to prop up the government and, in his words, “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda.” About U.S. 98,000 troops will be in Afghanistan by fall.

Asked by ABC’s Jake Tapper to estimate the number of al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan, Panetta said, “I think the estimate on the number of Al Qaeda is actually relatively small. At most, we’re looking at 50 to 100, maybe less. It’s in that vicinity.”

via Leon Panetta: There May Be Less Than 50 Al Qaeda Fighters In Afghanistan.

Using the McChrystal Moment to Raise a Forbidden Question

There are many questions to ask about the war in Afghanistan. One that has been widely asked is whether it will turn out to be “Obama’s Vietnam.”1 This question implies another: Is this war winnable, or is it destined to be a quagmire, like Vietnam? These questions are motivated in part by the widespread agreement that the Afghan government, under Hamid Karzai, is at least as corrupt and incompetent as the government the United States tried to prop up in South Vietnam for 20 years.

Although there are many similarities between these two wars, there is also a big difference: This time, there is no draft. If there were a draft, so that college students and their friends back home were being sent to Afghanistan, there would be huge demonstrations against this war on campuses all across this country. If the sons and daughters of wealthy and middle-class parents were coming home in boxes, or with permanent injuries or post-traumatic stress syndrome, this war would have surely been stopped long ago. People have often asked: Did we learn any of the “lessons of Vietnam”? The US government learned one: If you’re going to fight unpopular wars, don’t have a draft –  hire mercenaries!

There are many other questions that have been, and should be, asked about this war, but in this essay, I focus on only one: Did the 9/11 attacks justify the war in Afghanistan?

Full Story: Did 9/11 Justify the War in Afghanistan?.

Here’s some free advice: Never buy shares in a gold mine from a guy operating out of a house trailer.

Likewise, never buy a story from the Pentagon about an incredible discovery of gold in Afghanistan. From out of nowhere, a recent news report excitedly tells us that a Pentagon task force has discovered an astonishing trillion dollars worth of untapped mineral deposits in that war-ravaged, impoverished country. Gold! Copper! Iron! And more! “An economic boon is seen,” declares a newspaper headline. “There is stunning potential here,” exclaimed General David Petraeus, the top commander of America’s war effort.

Hmmm… not so fast, slick. Isn’t it at least curious that this “discovery” comes when the war is going so badly for us and both the public and Congress are questioning why we’re there? Suddenly, the Pentagon gives us a trillion reasons to keep spending American lives and tax dollars. There’s money in them thar hills!

Full Story: Jim Hightower | A GOLDEN WAY OUT OF AFGHANISTAN.

Karzai made his proclamation during a five-day visit to Japan. Over that same time period, news reports surfaced that Afghanistan and Pakistan planned to negotiate with U.S.-NATO enemies, the U.N. reported that insurgent violence is surging, and Reuters tried to parse the Pentagon’s mixed messages over U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.

During an appearance at Japan Institute for International Affairs, Karzai focused on his country’s mineral deposits. He Pointed to Japan’s status as Afghanistan’s second-biggest donor, and reasoned that Japan should enjoy special access to Afghan resources with estimated values that range from $1-3 trillion dollars.

Full Story: Japan Has ‘Priority’ On Rights To Mine Afghanistan Mineral Deposits, Says Hamid Karzai.

OPS: even for an idiot conservative (DLC, Blue Dog or Republican -  take your pick) this has to be a wake-up call. WE are getting OUR kids killed and maimed,  and going bankrupt as a nation, so Japan, China and others can grab the loot. WTF are WE doing there?

He’s a concern troll. He’s kowtowing to the principle of civilian control of the military, but his function in the debate is to constantly hem and haw, sapping support for strong action in favor of a position with which he does not (and maybe never did) agree.

Now, Petraeus is a cool customer and an experienced hand at testifying before Congress. When faced with an adversarial questioner, he rarely shows his cards and tends to filibuster them out of time, sticking closely to the “I support the president” talking point. That’s what makes his performance this week slightly shocking. The masked slipped.

Full Story: Derrick Crowe: General Petraeus Starts Moving the Goalposts on Afghanistan Withdrawal.

An article in Sunday’s New York Times announces that “previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.”

The article cites an “internal Pentagon memo” as saying Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium” — the mineral used in the production of rechargeable batteries, such as those found in cell phones and laptops. It cites “a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists” as having made the discovery.

Full Story: ‘Discovery’ of Afghan riches a pro-war PR scam? | Raw Story.

The Afghan population in the Taliban heartland is not cooperating with U.S. and NATO forces.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal confronts the specter of a collapse of U.S. political support for the war in Afghanistan in coming months comparable to the one that occurred in the Iraq War in late 2006.

On Thursday, McChrystal’s message that his strategy will weaken the Taliban in its heartland took its worst beating thus far, when he admitted that the planned offensive in Kandahar City and surrounding districts is being delayed until September at the earliest, because it does not have the support of the Kandahar population and leadership.

Equally damaging to the credibility of McChrystal’s strategy was the Washington Post report published Thursday documenting in depth the failure of February’s offensive in Marja.

The basic theme underlined in both stories – that the Afghan population in the Taliban heartland is not cooperating with U.S. and NATO forces – is likely to be repeated over and over again in media coverage in the coming months.

Full Story: McChrystal Faces Massive Failure in Afghanistan in Next Few Months | | AlterNet.

It is Matiullah Khan, the head of a private army that earns millions of dollars guarding NATO supply convoys and fights Taliban insurgents alongside American Special Forces.

In little more than two years, Mr. Matiullah, an illiterate former highway patrol commander, has grown stronger than the government of Oruzgan Province, not only supplanting its role in providing security but usurping its other functions, his rivals say, like appointing public employees and doling out government largess. His fighters run missions with American Special Forces officers, and when Afghan officials have confronted him, he has either rebuffed them or had them removed.

Full Story: Rule of the Gun – With U.S. Aid, Warlord Builds Afghan Empire – NYTimes.com.

OPS: Your tax dollars at work

Then he challenges:

Ann Jones, a former humanitarian worker in Afghanistan, not long ago blew the whistle on this scam. The author of Kabul in Winter, she reported that between 2002 and 2008 the U.S. pledged $10.4 billion for development but delivered only $5 billion of that amount, 47 percent of which was paid to American experts, who often were unqualified, instead of going to unemployed Afghans who were supposed to benefit from this aid.

Two more of Ms. Jones’ revelations:

1) Public teachers and administrators often leave Afghan institutions to work for private contractors for more money. The Afghan institutions are therefore weakened not strengthened. U.S. money often goes to private contractors for their “literacy programs,” etc.

Full Story: $260 Billion U.S. Aid Already Spent to “Rebuild” Afghanistan? A laugh and a half! | Corrente.

A suicide bomb attack in Kabul overnight claimed the lives of 18 people, including five U.S. servicemen. This attack pushed the war effort in Afghanistan past one of those grim milestones. Per today’s New York Times:

On Tuesday, the toll of American dead in Afghanistan passed 1,000, after a suicide bomb in Kabul killed at least five United States service members. Having taken nearly seven years to reach the first 500 dead, the war killed the second 500 in fewer than two. A resurgent Taliban active in almost every province, a weak central government incapable of protecting its people and a larger number of American troops in harms way all contributed to the accelerating pace of death.

This grim occasion — and the Times noting of the acceleration in U.S. deaths — reminds me that I’m often left with the impression that most observers regard counterinsurgency as a “soft” form of military engagement, more public relations than warmaking. This isn’t the case. The strategy actually demands that countersurgent forces accept greater risks. Here’s the relevant material from the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.

Full Story: 1,000 American Deaths In Afghanistan: A Sad Milestone.

President Obama told reporters on May 12, 2010, that “we’re beginning to reverse the momentum of the insurgency” in Afghanistan.

According to his administration’s own report given to Congress last week, that’s not true. The insurgency is growing in size and capabilities. Simply put, the president’s continued troop increases aren’t working.

Full Story: President Obama, Bringing the Truthiness on Afghanistan | MichaelMoore.com.

A spokesman for foreign forces in Afghanistan said Western and Afghan troops had raided a house in the area and shot dead an armed man but was not able to comment on whether the house belonged to a member of parliament.

Night-time raids by Western troops and civilian casualties are among the most incendiary issues in Afghanistan, and the targeting of a female parliamentarian would raise the political temperature at a time when NATO is preparing a large offensive.

Full Story: Afghan MP says U.S. troops raid home, kill relative – thestar.com.

Dozens of Afghan schoolgirls have fallen ill in recent days after reporting a strange odor in their classrooms in northern Afghanistan, prompting an investigation into whether they were targeted by militants who oppose education for girls or victims of mass hysteria.

Either way, the reports from three schools within 2 miles (3 kilometers) of one another in Kunduz province have raised alarm in a city threatened by the Taliban and their militant allies.

The latest cases occurred Sunday, when 13 girls became sick, Kunduz provincial spokesman Mahbobullah Sayedi said. Another 47 complained of dizziness and nausea the day before, and 23 fell ill last Wednesday.

All complained of a strange smell in class before they fell ill.

Full Story: Afghan Schoolgirls Fall Ill, Poison Feared.

Small bands of elite American Special Operations forces have been operating with increased intensity for several weeks in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan’s largest city, picking up or picking off insurgent leaders to weaken the Taliban in advance of major operations, senior administration and military officials say.

The looming battle for the spiritual home of the Taliban is shaping up as the pivotal test of President Obama’s Afghanistan strategy, including how much the United States can count on the country’s leaders and military for support, and whether a possible increase in civilian casualties from heavy fighting will compromise a strategy that depends on winning over the Afghan people.

It will follow a first offensive, into the hamlet of Marja, that is showing mixed results. And it will require the United States and its Afghan partners to navigate a battleground that is not only much bigger than Marja but also militarily, politically and culturally more complex.

Full Story: Elite U.S. Units Step Up Drive in Kandahar Before Attack – NYTimes.com.

An IoS poll shows 77 per cent of Britons want our forces to come home and a majority believe our presence makes UK streets less safe from terrorist attack. Yet all three parties are ducking this most critical issue

It is one of the few genuine issues of life and death during this general election campaign. It will not dictate how much any British school improves, how many police appear on the streets of a city, or how quickly patients are allowed to leave hospitals around the country. But it will, literally, decide the fate of thousands of British service personnel and, ultimately, how many of them live and die.

Yet nobody wants to talk about Afghanistan.

When Nick Clegg “won” the televised party leaders’ debate on Thursday night, his victory owed nothing to his limp response to a question about support for British troops serving in Afghanistan. The Liberal Democrat leader agreed that British troops in Afghanistan were under-paid and under-equipped, but he did not question why they had lost 281 colleagues in that country, or why they were there in the first place.

Full Story: Afghanistan: A conspiracy of silence – UK Politics, UK – The Independent.

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal. The war in Afghanistan has claimed more than one thousand American lives and in the last two years alone the lives of more than four thousand Afghan civilians. It's costing American taxpayers over three-and-a-half billion dollars every month—a total of some $264 billion so far. But for all that, in the words of one policy analyst quoted by the New York Times this week, “there are no better angels about to descend on Afghanistan.”

The news from that torturous battleground continues to dismay, discourage and enrage. America's designated driver there, Hamid Karzai, is proving increasingly unstable behind the wheel. The United States put Karzai in power and our soldiers have been fighting and dying on his behalf ever since. Despite widespread corrupton in his government. Now he's making threats against the western coalition that is shedding blood and treasure on his behalf.

Even more disturbing,for the moment, are the civilian deaths from nighttime raids andaerial bombings by American and other NATO troops. Just this week, we learned of an apparent cover-up following a Special Forces raid in February that killed five civilians, including three women, two of whom were pregnant. It's believed bullets were gouged from the women's bodies to conceal evidence of American involvement.

Full Story: Bill Moyers Journal . Transcripts | PBS.

Henry Kissinger once observed that it was more dangerous being America’s ally than its enemy.

The latest example: the U.S.-installed Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who is in serious hot water with his really angry patrons in Washington.

The Obama administration is blaming the largely powerless Karzai, a former CIA “asset,” for America’s failure to defeat the Taliban. Washington accused Karzai of rigging last year’s elections. True enough, but the U.S. pre-rigged the Afghan elections by excluding all parties opposed to western occupation.

Full Story: U.S. puppet cuts his strings | Eric Margolis | Columnists | Comment | Toronto Sun.

And, according to the former deputy United Nations envoy in Afghanistan, he may be on drugs.

The counterinsurgency strategy chosen by the Obama Administration in Afghanistan requires a legitimate local partner. There’s no way around it. It’s a prerequisite for success. This week, it’s become abundantly clear that we not only lack a local partner, but the partner we have is perfectly willing to stab us in the back when it’s politically convenient.

Full Story: From Huffington Post to Rethink Afghanistan.

With the President of Afghanistan campaigning against us, it is time we learn that Afghanistan is not necessary – that it’s necessary to “be gone.”

One of the best writers and observers of the war in Afghanistan, David Ignatius of The Washington Post, writes,: “The coming battle for control of this ancient crossroad city [Kandahar] will be the toughest challenge of the war in Afghanistan – not because it will be bloody, necessarily, but because it will require the hardest item for U. S. commanders to deliver, which is an improvement in governance.” Question: Are we to ask GIs to lay down their lives for “an improvement in governance?” Is this kind of war necessary? After eight years of trying?

I was “a hard charger” on the war in Vietnam. In fact, the motion for the last $500 million that went into the Vietnam War was made by me on the Senate Appropriations Committee. I thought the Vietnamese were willing to fight and die for democracy. Some were, but a lot more were willing to give up their lives over ten years for communism. Now I have learned people want different types of government other than democracy. I’ve been to Hanoi; visited John McCain’s prison, and the people of Vietnam are happy.

In 1966, I was off shore Hanoi on the aircraft carrier, Kitty Hawk – as our brave pilots bombed POL supplies in Hanoi, only to precariously land back on the carrier and be court-martialed if they strayed to other targets. I felt the strategy of “build and destroy” at the same time was wrong. In World War II we cleared the area and kept it cleared. In Vietnam, we cleared the area in the daytime and let the Viet Cong come in at night. Are we to spend another eight years force feeding democracy in Afghanistan?

Full Story: Afghanistan – Not Necessary | Economy In Crisis.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has slammed Western backers for the second time in a week, accusing the United States of interference, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

In a private meeting with up to 70 Afghan lawmakers Saturday, Karzai also warned that the Taliban insurgency could become a legitimate resistance movement if foreign meddling in Afghan affairs continues, the Journal said, citing participants in the talks.

During the talks, Karzai, whose government is supported by billions of dollars of Western aid and 126,000 foreign troops fighting the Taliban, said he would be compelled to join the insurgency himself if the parliament does not back his bid to take over Afghanistan's electoral watchdog.

Full Story: No joke: Karzai threatens to join the Taliban | Raw Story.

On February 12 of this year, U.S. forces entered a village in the Paktia Province in Afghanistan and, after surrounding a home where a celebration of a new birth was taking place, shot dead two male civilians (government officials) who exited the house in order to inquire why they had been surrounded, and then shot and killed three female relatives (a pregnant mother of ten, a pregnant mother of six, and a teenager) who sought to help the victims. The Pentagon then issued a statement claiming that (a) the dead males were “insurgents” or terrorists, (b) the bodies of the three women had been found by U.S. forces bound and gagged inside the home, and (c) suggested that the women had already been killed by the time the U.S. had arrived, likely the victim of “honor killings” by the Taliban militants killed in the attack.

Although numerous witnesses on the scene as well as local investigators vehemently disputed the Pentagon’s version, and insisted that all of the dead (including the women) were civilians and were killed by U.S. forces, the American media largely adopted the Pentagon’s version, often without any questions. But enough evidence has now emerged disproving those claims such that the Pentagon was forced yesterday to admit that their original version was totally false and that it was U.S. troops who killed the women:

Full Story: How Americans are propagandized about Afghanistan – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

The admission immediately raised questions about what really happened during the Feb. 12 operation — and what falsehoods followed — including a new report that Special Operations forces dug bullets out of the bodies of the women to hide the true nature of their deaths.

A NATO official also said Sunday in an interview that an Afghan-led team of investigators had found signs of evidence tampering at the scene, including the removal of bullets from walls near where the women were killed. A senior NATO official later denied on Monday that any evidence tampering occurred.

women during the nighttime raid.

Full Story: U.S. Admits Role in February Killing of Afghan Women – NYTimes.com.

Those deaths have been accompanied by a dramatic spike in the number of wounded, with injuries more than tripling in the first two months of the year and trending in the same direction based on the latest available data for March.

U.S. officials have warned that casualties are likely to rise even further as the Pentagon completes its deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and sets its sights on the Taliban’s home base of Kandahar province, where a major operation is expected in the coming months.

Full Story: US Troop Deaths DOUBLE In Afghanistan.

Six billion dollars later, the Afghan National Police can’t begin to do their jobs right—never mind relieve American forces.

Mohammad Moqim watches in despair as his men struggle with their AK-47 automatic rifles, doing their best to hit man-size targets 50 meters away. A few of the police trainees lying prone in the mud are decent shots, but the rest shoot clumsily, and fumble as they try to reload their weapons. The Afghan National Police (ANP) captain sighs as he dismisses one group of trainees and orders 25 more to take their places on the firing line. “We are still at zero,” says Captain Moqim, 35, an eight-year veteran of the force. “They don’t listen, are undisciplined, and will never be real policemen.”

Poor marksmanship is the least of it. Worse, crooked Afghan cops supply much of the ammunition used by the Taliban, according to Saleh Mohammed, an insurgent commander in Helmand province. The bullets and rocket-propelled grenades sold by the cops are cheaper and of better quality than the ammo at local markets, he says. It’s easy for local cops to concoct credible excuses for using so much ammunition, especially because their supervisors try to avoid areas where the Taliban are active. Mohammed says local police sometimes even stage fake firefights so that if higher-ups question their outsize orders for ammo, villagers will say they’ve heard fighting.

Full Story: Afghan Cops: A $6 Billion Fiasco – Newsweek.com.

Feb. 23 press release reports:

“AIHRC is concerned at the loss of life and civilian harm already caused by this operation. AIHRC found that in the first 12 days of Operation Mushtarak 28 civilians, including 13 children, were killed and approximately 70 civilians, including 30 children, were injured. “Witnesses suggested the majority of the casualties were caused by PGF artillery and rocket-fire.”

Full Story: From the Huffington Post to Rethink Afghanistan.

Original cosponsors of the Kucinich resolution include John Conyers, Jr. (D-Michigan); Ron Paul (R-Texas); José Serrano (D-New York); Bob Filner (D-California); Lynn Woolsey (D-California); Walter Jones, Jr. (R-North Carolina); Danny Davis (D-Illinois); Barbara Lee (D-California); Michael Capuano (D-Massachusetts); Raúl Grijalva (D-Arizona); Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin); Timothy Johnson (R-Illinois); Yvette Clarke (D-New York); Eric Massa (D-New York), Alan Grayson (D-Florida) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine).

The Pentagon doesn’t want Congress to debate Afghanistan. The Pentagon wants Congress to fork over $33 billion more to pay for the current military escalation, no questions asked, no restrictions imposed for a withdrawal timetable or an exit strategy.

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Kucinich Forces Congress to Debate Afghanistan.

Sign The Petition: HERE -

Kucinich Announces Introduction of Privileged Resolution to End Afghan War. Launches an on-line petition requesting the U.S. Congress to stop funding additional troops in Afghanistan.

Full Story: In Afghanistan, U.S. plans major push into Kandahar – washingtonpost.com.

Speaking a day after his coalition government collapsed over the issue, Balkenende said the Netherlands will end its role in Uruzgan province, where 21 Dutch soldiers have been killed since the mission was first deployed in 2006.

“Our task as the lead nation ends in August this year,” he said on Dutch television.

Full Story: Dutch Troops To Pull Out Of Afghanistan This Year, Following Government Collapse, Says Prime Minister.

What do you know about Marine Corps military operations? What do you know about the accuracy of any of the weapons in their arsenal? We are not talking about the CIA lobbing missiles at some Taliban bad guys from a UAV. We are talking about precision guided weapons.

I don’t often call out commenters like this, but at least 10 people including 5 children were butchered today because someone bought this kind of thinking in Marjah, Afghanistan:

An errant American rocket strike on Sunday hit a compound crowded with Afghan civilians in the last Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province, killing at least 10 people, including 5 children, military officials said.

…Officers said the barrage had been fired from Camp Bastion, a large British and American base to the northeast, by a weapons system known as Himars, an acronym for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. Its munitions are GPS-guided and advertised as being accurate enough to strike within a yard of their intended targets.

Full Story At Least 10 Civilians, 5 Children, Killed by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan – Rethink Afghanistan War Blog.

Twelve Afghans died Sunday when two rockets fired at insurgents missed their target and struck a house during the second day of NATO’s most ambitious effort yet to break the militants’ grip on the country’s dangerous south.

Thousands of U.S. and Afghan forces encountered pockets of resistance, fighting off sniper attacks, as they moved deeper into Marjah, a town of 80,000 people that is the linchpin of the militants’ logistical and opium-smuggling network in Helmand province.

Marines and Afghan troops used metal detectors and sniffer dogs, searching compound to compound for explosives rigged to explode. Blasts from controlled detonations could be heard about every 10 minutes north of Marjah.

Full Story NATO Rockets Miss Target, Kill 12 Afghan Civilians – ABC News.

U.S. Marines spearheaded one of NATO’s biggest offensives against the Taliban in Afghanistan on Saturday, in an early test of President Barack Obama’s troop surge policy.

Marines in helicopters landed in Marjah district, the last big Taliban stronghold in Helmand province, in the first hours of a NATO campaign to impose government control on rebel-held areas before U.S. forces start a planned 2011 drawdown.

They fired at least four rockets at militants who attacked from compounds near the bazaar in Marjah town. Hours later, the area was still gripped by the firefight.

There was one Marine casualty in the unit in which a Reuters correspondent was embedded. In their house nearby, a family huddled in one room, laundry flapping on the line outside.

Full Story U.S. Marines spearhead major Afghanistan offensive | Reuters.

U.S.-led NATO forces are planning one of the 8-year-old war’s biggest offensives to seize Marjah, a patchwork of desert canals and opium fields that is now the last large Taliban-held bastion in Helmand, Afghanistan’s most violent province.

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

Full Story NATO to Afghan assault villagers: keep heads down | Reuters.

Evacuation of most civilians will give commanders leeway to use air-to-ground missiles which have enraged Afghans

Ten of thousands of Afghan civilians are abandoning an area of central Helmland where UK and US forces are set to launch one of the biggest operations of the year.

The evacuation of most civilians from the town of Marjah and surrounding areas will give commanders greater leeway to use mortars-and-air-to ground missiles which have enraged Afghans in the past when responsible for civilian deaths.

US generals have unusually made no secret of their plan for a major onslaught against the town close to Helmand’s besieged provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.

Full Story Thousands of civilians flee Afghan region as Nato plans onslaught | World news | The Guardian.

Platts should request a copy of the report obtained by NBC News which was prepared for General Petraeus on the Afghan National Army (ANA). The report details the massive shortcomings of a corrupt and often truant ANA, saying that “corruption, nepotism, and untrained/unmotivated personnel make success all but impossible.”

By the way, American Taxpayer…you’re funding that corrupt ANA with your tax dollars.

Video at link

Full Story Watch U.S. Rep. Platts (R-PA) Cheer the Corrupt, Unmotivated Afghan National Security Forces – Rethink Afghanistan War Blog.

OPS:  Ok, can we go home now?
“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”   – John Kerry April 22, 1971

Ray McGovern

No longer is it possible to suggest that Obama was totally deprived of good counsel on Afghanistan; Eikenberry got it largely right.

Sadly, the inevitable conclusion is that, although Obama is not as dumb as his predecessor, he is no less willing to sacrifice thousands of lives for political gain.

Ambassador Eikenberry, a retired Army Lt. General who served three years in Afghanistan over the course of two separate tours of duty, was responsible during 2002-2003 for rebuilding Afghan security forces. He then served 18 months (2005-2007) as commander of all U.S. forces stationed in the country.

Full Story Consortiumnews.com.

That’s right. $1 billion:

Blackwater Worldwide’s legal woes haven’t dimmed the company’s prospects in Afghanistan, where it’s a contender to be a key part of President Barack Obama’s strategy for stabilizing the country.

Now called Xe Services, the company is in the running for a Pentagon contract potentially worth $1 billion to train Afghanistan’s troubled national police force. Xe has been shifting to training, aviation and logistics work after its security guards were accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians more than two years ago.

Yet even with a new name and focus, the expanded role would seem an unlikely one for Xe because Democrats have held such a negative opinion of the company following the Iraqi deaths, which are still reverberating in Baghdad and Washington.

Blackwater was basically kicked out of Iraq for wantonly killing civilians in Baghdad while providing “security” for the State Department in 2007. Even though a US court failed to bring them to justice, Iraq is still pursuing the case and has so little trust in Blackwater or the people it hires that the government has explicitly said former Blackwater employees are not welcome in the country.

Full Story The Seminal » Blackwater wants $1 billion to train the new Afghan police force.

The graphic from the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff looks like a tangled ball of multicolored yarn, or perhaps it is the military’s depiction of the all-powerful, all-knowing Flying Spaghetti Monster…

Whatever the case, it documents the complex relationships between Tribal leaders, soldiers, aid workers, drug dealers, militants, ethnic groups, government leaders, etc.

“For some military commanders, the slide is genius,” wrote NBC’s Richard Engel, “an attempt to show how all things in war – from media bias to ethnic/tribal rivalries – are interconnected and must be taken into consideration. It represents a new approach to war fighting, looking beyond simply killing enemy fighters. It underscores what those fighting wars have long known, that everything matters.”

Full Story McClatchy blog: Checkpoint Kabul.

The reinforcements begin arriving next week, and the bulk of the troops are scheduled to be in Afghanistan by the end of summer. But it will probably be nine to 11 months before all the troops are in place, Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez said.

The timing is important. The sooner the full complement of 30,000 can get there, the sooner the added firepower might have an effect on turning around the war and creating conditions that will allow the Pentagon to proceed with Obama’s promise to begin withdrawing troops in July 2011.

“We’re still working the speed at which they can come in, and so we’ll see how much faster that they can come in,” said Rodriguez, the second-highest U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

Full Story General David Rodriguez: Afghanistan Troop Surge Will Take Longer.

OPS: Well, that lie didn’t last very long

President Barack Obama insists that his decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan by sending in 30,000 more troops is not Vietnam all over again.

Well, it sure reminds me of the perils and the price of that unwinnable war and the political chaos it wreaked at home.

In Afghanistan, the designated enemies are remnants of the weakened al-Qaida network and the native Taliban, which has been growing in strength despite the eight-year war started by President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 catastrophe.

Obama is too young to remember the national turmoil during the Vietnam War that resulted in the deaths of more than 58,000 Americans and thousands of Vietnamese. That war also ended the political career of President Lyndon Johnson, who decided not to seek re-election in 1968.

In his remarks Tuesday, Obama rejected any comparison between Afghanistan and Vietnam, calling it “a false reading of history.” He claimed that the U.S. effort in Afghanistan is supported by “a broad coalition of 43 nations,” that “unlike Vietnam, we are not facing a broad-based popular insurgency” and, unlike Vietnam, “the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan.”

Well, yes and no.

Full Story Albany, N.Y.: Timesunion.com – Print Story.

Inside Afghanistan – well; when do we ever hear from anyone actually in Afghanistan? I mean the Afghans themselves? Obama claims, as the Bush administration did, that The U.S. will be heading an international peacekeeping force representing more than 40 nations in an all-out effort to, in the words of both Obama and Bush “get the job done”. What job? That’s a question the media, by and large seems reticent to ask.

In the few days immediately following 9-11 ( September 11th, 2001, that is) I had occasion to be in New York City. The Pacifica Radio network was in a state of crisis as self-appointed rogue national board of directors had assumed control of the 5-station network and was busy scuttling its best programs and dismantling Pacifica station by station.

Pacifica’s flagship program, Democracy Now, was being produced in exile and had been banned at all 5 Pacifica stations by the national program director. Long-time dedicated Pacifica employees and volunteers, with precious few resources were trying to provide coverage of the tragic events while reporting at each of the 5 stations suffered, beginning, even, to resemble the sensationalist yet shallow treatment being offered on the commercial networks.

Full Story The Free Press — Independent News Media – International Issues.

Hundreds of troops from the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines and the Marine reconnaissance unit Task Force Raider were dropped by helicopter and MV-22 Osprey aircraft behind Taliban lines in the northern end of the Now Zad Valley of Helmand province, scene of heavy fighting last summer, according to Marine spokesman Maj. William Pelletier.

A U.S. military official in Washington said it was the first use of Ospreys, aircrafts that combine features of helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, in an offensive involving units larger than platoons.

Full Story US Marines Launch Large Offensive In Afghanistan.

U.S. Marines and Afghan troops on Friday launched the first offensive since President Barack Obama announced an American troop surge, striking against Taliban communications and supply lines in a southern insurgent stronghold, a military spokesman said.

Hundreds of troops from the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines and the Marine reconnaissance unit Task Force Raider were dropped by helicopter and MV-22 Osprey aircraft behind Taliban lines in the northern end of the Now Zad Valley of Helmand province, scene of heavy fighting last summer, according to Marine spokesman Maj. William Pelletier.

A U.S. military official in Washington said it was the first use of Ospreys, aircrafts that combine features of helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, in an offensive involving units larger than platoons.

Full Story US Marines Launch Large Offensive In Afghanistan.

With New Surge, One Thousand U.S. Soldiers and $300 Million for Every One al Qaeda Fighter

As he justified sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan at a cost of $30 billion a year, President Barack Obama’s description Tuesday of the al Qaeda “cancer” in that country left out one key fact: U.S. intelligence officials have concluded there are only about 100 al Qaeda fighters in the entire country.

A senior U.S. intelligence official told ABCNews.com the approximate estimate of 100 al Qaeda members left in Afghanistan reflects the conclusion of American intelligence agencies and the Defense Department. The relatively small number was part of the intelligence passed on to the White House as President Obama conducted his deliberations.

President Obama made only a vague reference to the size of the al Qaeda presence in his speech at West Point, when he said, “al Qaeda has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same number as before 9/11, but they retain their safe havens along the border.”

Full Story President Obama’s Secret: Only 100 al Qaeda Now in Afghanistan – ABC News.

OPS:  Well, if  this was a secret to you, or even news, Stop Watching ABC and start watching Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann , and start listening to Thom Hartmann and spend more time at The One Penny Sheet.

“Even if they bring the whole of America, they won’t be able to stabilize Afghanistan,” said the young construction worker out on a Kabul street corner on Wednesday morning. “Only Afghans understand our traditions, geography and way of life.”

U.S. President Barack Obama‘s announcement of a massive new escalation of the eight-year-old war seemed to have impressed nobody in the Afghan capital, where few watched the speech on TV before dawn and fewer seemed to think new troops would help.

Full Story Afghans unimpressed by Obama’s troops surge | International | Reuters.

President Obama has ordered his top military commanders to begin carrying out his new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, the White House announced yesterday, a move that will mean the deployment of at least 30,000 additional US troops.

Now that Mr Obama has formally set in motion an expansion of the war, attention turned to what his new strategy will actually look like on the ground and the chances it has for success, given the unreliability of the Afghan Government and growing opposition to the conflict at home. The first wave of new troops is expected to comprise 9,000 US Marines and an additional 500 British troops in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, a Taleban stronghold and heart of the opium industry, which funds much of the Taleban’s war effort.

“The first troops out the door are going to be Marines,” General James Conway, the Marines’ top officer, told troops in Afghanistan at the weekend. “We have been leaning forward in anticipation of a decision. And we have got some pretty stiff fighting coming.”

Full Story Obama sends Marines to spearhead surge into the Taleban’s heartland – Times Online.

Glen Ford –

“U.S.-allied drug dealers are put in charge of the police and border patrol, while their rivals are placed on American hit lists.”

If you’re looking for the chief kingpin in the Afghanistan heroin trade, it’s the United States. The American mission has devolved to a Mafiosi-style arrangement that poisons every military and political alliance entered into by the U.S. and its puppet government in Kabul. It is a gangster occupation, in which U.S.-allied drug dealers are put in charge of the police and border patrol, while their rivals are placed on American hit lists, marked for death or capture. As a result, Afghanistan has been transformed into an opium plantation that supplies 90 percent of the world’s heroin.

An article in the current issue of Harper’s magazine explores the inner workings of the drug-infested U.S. occupation, it’s near-total dependence on alliances forged with players in the heroin trade. The story centers on the town of Spin Boldak, on the southeastern border with Pakistan, gateway to the opium fields of Kandahar and Helmand provinces. The chief Afghan drug lord is also the head of the border patrol and the local militia. The author is an undercover U.S.-based journalist who was befriended by the drug lord’s top operatives and met with the U.S. and Canadian officers that collaborate with the drug dealer on a daily basis.

Full Story Americans Are Deeply Involved In Afghan Drug Trade | Black Agenda Report.

The case for an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan.

For all the talk of polarization and partisanship in U.S. politics, what’s remarkable is the extent to which President Obama has continued policies and practices of his predecessor, George Bush, in domestic economics and military affairs.

Economically, Obama has continued the bailout of Wall Street, maintained Bush-era tax cuts, pursued “stimulus” through large deficit spending and re-appointed Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman who was a Bush favorite.

In defense, Obama has broken with Bush on a few critical matters, notably by canceling expensive weapons systems and dropping (in September) an aggressive plan to impose a “missile shield” in Eastern Europe that Russia intensely opposed. Yet Obama has carried over Bush’s secretary of defense, Robert Gates; essentially stuck with Bush timetables on Iraq; and maintained historically record levels of Pentagon spending. The president has continued the war in Afghanistan, raising the number of American combat troops. In a speech on August 17, Obama even tried to construct a moral basis for the war, described it as “not a war of choice,” but “a war of necessity.” And as a necessary war, “a war worth fighting,” Obama has declared that only through the democratization of Afghanistan can the terrorist threat to the United States—in the form of al Qaeda—be eliminated from the country.

Full Story Get Out Now — In These Times.

Afghan refugees who fled the war-torn south have claimed they are so neglected by the government in Kabul that their children are dying from hypothermia for want of the most basic supplies.

Families that left Helmand, Kandahar and other provinces to escape the fighting between US-led forces and a resurgent Taliban say the cold is much more lethal.

Living in a make-shift camp on the edge of Kabul, residents told Al Jazeera’s James Bays that no government official has ever come to see how they have been forced to live.

The claim comes as UN officials say Afghan children are suffering disastrous levels of abuse and deprivation.

At a news conference marking the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child this week, officials said childrens rights were being neglected despite vast flows of Western aid into the country.

Afghanistan has the highest infant mortality rate in the world, said Catherine Mbengue, country representative for the UN childrens fund UNICEF.

Seventy percent of the population has no access to safe drinking water. Thirty percent of children are involved in child labour. Forty-three percent of girls are married under-age, she said.

More than one in four children born in Afghanistan die before the age of five, according to UNICEF estimates.

Full Story YouTube – Afghan children die of ‘neglect’ – 27 Nov 2009.

The coming U.S. troop surge around Kandahar city will liberate Canadian troops to focus more of their energies on development programs and training of local Afghan forces, Canadian government officials and experts said.

U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to lay out his new Afghan strategy next week, sending another 25,000 to 34,000 troops who are expected to be heavily concentrated in Kandahar, where the Canadian Forces are currently operating.

The reinforcements will be politically useful for the Harper government, which is getting ready to pull out of combat operations in Afghanistan in 2011.

“Canada welcomes the arrival of additional troops, especially in the south of the country,” a Canadian official said. “The increased presence in the south has allowed the Canadian Forces to consolidate their efforts in key districts, and to help Canada focus on its priorities, namely reconstruction and development.”

Full Story U.S. troops to free up Canadians for rebuilding – The Globe and Mail.

OPS: So Canada will do the building and the US will do the Destroying – great.

Humanitarian groups’ study of 700 civilians reveals shocking pattern of continuing misery

For most of her life, the young Afghan woman was fleeing war. But everywhere she went it stalked her.

“She was very quiet and shy, and you could barely hear her speak,” said Ashley Jackson of Oxfam. “When the civil war began in the early 1990s, she left Kabul and went to the border. But her son was killed by a rocket attack.

“She went to Pakistan and lived in a refugee settlement, and her daughter was taken by a man who wanted her. When the Taliban fell and the family finally got back to Kabul, her husband was killed.

“For Afghans, there is no refuge.”

The story of the Afghan woman is one of 700 that form a shocking pattern of abuse, trauma and death suffered by Afghans caught in three decades of war – misery that did not end with the defeat of the Taliban and entry of thousands of Canadian and international troops.

Full Story ‘For Afghans, there is no refuge’ – thestar.com.

The other casualty was a civilian worker, it said without giving further detail.

One of the soldiers died in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast in southern Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.

“In a separate incident an ISAF service member and a civilian contractor, both from the United States, died in an IED strike in eastern Afghanistan,” the statement said, without elaborating.

Friday’s casualties bring to 470 the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the start of the year. More than half the dead are Americans.

IEDs are the number one killer of international troops, who are battling a Taliban insurgency at its worst since US-led troops overthrew the Taliban regime in 2001.

US President Barack Obama on Friday promised a decision soon on whether to send thousands more US troops to Afghanistan, where they would join more than 100,000 foreign soldiers already in the country.

Full Story AFP: Three Americans killed in Afghanistan.

…one reason Afghan villagers prefer to deal with the Taliban rather than the government security forces is that the latter have a habit of seizing their sons at checkpoints and sodomizing them.

By PATRICK COCKBURN

Just when President Barack Obama looked as if he might be railroaded into sending tens of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan the American envoy to Kabul has warned him not to do so. In a leaked cable to Washington sent last week, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Gen Karl W. Eikenberry, argues that it would be a mistake to send reinforcements until the government of President Hamid Karzai demonstrates that it will act against corruption and mismanagement. General Eikenberry knows what he is talking about because he has long experience of Afghanistan. A recently retired three star general, he was responsible for training the Afghan security forces from 2002 to 2003 and was top US commander in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007.

There is a dangerous misunderstanding outside Afghanistan about what ‘corruption and mismanagement’ mean in an Afghan context and a potentially lethal underestimation of how these impact on American and British forces. For example, the shadow British Defense Secretary Liam Fox argued that though ‘corruption and establishing good governance’ are not unimportant, ‘we need to recognize that Afghan governance is likely to look very different from governance as we knows it in the West.’

Leaving aside the patronizing tone of the statement, this shows that Mr Fox fundamentally misunderstands what is happening on the ground in Afghanistan.  Corruption and mismanagement do not just mean that the police are on the take or that no contract is awarded without a bribe. It is much worse than that. For instance, one reason Afghan villagers prefer to deal with the Taliban rather than the government security forces is that the latter have a habit of seizing their sons at checkpoints and sodomizing them.     None of our business, Mr Fox, who may be British Defense Secretary by this time next year, would presumably say. We are not in Afghanistan for the good government of Afghans: ‘Our troops are not fighting and dying in Afghanistan for Karzai’s government nor should they ever be.’ But the fact that male rape is common practice in the Afghan armed forces has, unfortunately, a great deal to do with the fate of British soldiers.

Full Story Patrick Cockburn: Meet Our Afghan Ally.

The most dreadful burden of the presidency — the power to send men and women to die for their country — seems to weigh heavily on Barack Obama these days. He went to Dover Air Force Base to salute the coffins of fallen troops. He gave a moving speech at the memorial service for victims of last week’s killings at Fort Hood. On Veterans Day, after the traditional wreath-laying at Arlington National Cemetery, he took an unscheduled walk among the rows of marble headstones in Section 60, where the dead from our two ongoing wars are buried.

As he decides whether to escalate the war in Afghanistan, Obama should keep these images in mind. Geopolitical calculation has human consequences. Sending more troops will mean more coffins arriving at Dover, more funerals at Arlington, more stress and hardship for military families. It would be wrong to demand such sacrifice in the absence of military goals that are clear, achievable and worthwhile.

And what goals in Afghanistan remotely satisfy those criteria?

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the U.S. ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, recently sent two classified cables to officials in Washington expressing what the newspaper described as “deep concerns” about sending more troops now.

Full Story Eugene Robinson – Eugene Robinson on withdrawing the troops from Afghanistan – washingtonpost.com.

Chris Hedges

Success in Afghanistan is measured in Washington by the ability to create an indigenous army that will battle the Taliban, provide security and stability for Afghan civilians and remain loyal to the puppet government of Hamid Karzai. A similar task eluded the Red Army, although the Soviets spent a decade attempting to pacify the country. It eluded the British a century earlier. And the United States, too, will fail.

American military advisers who work with the Afghan National Army, or ANA, speak of poorly trained and unmotivated Afghan soldiers who have little stomach for military discipline and even less for fighting. They describe many ANA units as being filled with brigands who terrorize local populations, exacting payments and engaging in intimidation, rape and theft. They contend that the ANA is riddled with Taliban sympathizers. And when there are combined American and Afghan operations against the Taliban insurgents, ANA soldiers are fickle and unreliable combatants, the U.S. advisers say.

American military commanders in Afghanistan, rather than pump out statistics about enemy body counts, measure progress by the swelling size of the ANA. The bigger the ANA, the better we are supposedly doing. The pressure on trainers to increase the numbers of the ANA means that training and vetting of incoming Afghan recruits is nearly nonexistent.

Full Story Truthdig – Reports – Afghanistan’s Sham Army.

Britain should start withdrawing, not reinforcing, its troops in Afghanistan. Sending extra troops is unnecessary and will prove counter-effective. The additional number of British troops is small, but the US is poised to send tens of thousands more soldiers to the country. The nature of the conflict is changing. What should be a war in which the Afghan government fights the Taliban has become one which is being fought primarily by the American and British armies. To more and more Afghans, this looks like imperial occupation.

With regard to disputes in Washington and London about sending more troops, it is seldom mentioned that Afghans are against the deployment. Contrary to Western plans, just 18 per cent of Afghans want more US and Nato/Isaf forces in Afghanistan, according to an opinion poll carried out earlier this year by the BBC, ABC News and ARD of Germany. A much greater number of Afghans – 44 per cent – want a decrease in foreign forces.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the Taliban have been able to win some support. The cruelty of their rule before 2001 is becoming a distant memory and they are successfully portraying themselves as the defender of the country against foreign occupation. Matthew P Hoh, the senior American civilian representative in Zabul Province east of Kandahar, resigned last week convinced that the US military should not be in Afghanistan. As a former US marine officer who served in Iraq, he says in his resignation letter that the US has joined in on one side in a 35-year-old civil war between the traditional Pashtun community and its enemies. “The US military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency,” he says. “Our backing of the Afghan government in its current form continues to distance the government from the people.”

Full Story Afghanistan: Time to leave – Asia, World – The Independent.

As Americans, including President Obama’s top advisers, tensely debate whether to send more American troops to Afghanistan, Afghans themselves are having a similar discussion and voicing serious doubts.

In bazaars and university corridors across the country, eight years of war have left people exhausted and impatient. They are increasingly skeptical that the Taliban can be defeated. Nearly everyone agrees that the Afghan government must negotiate with the insurgents. If more American forces do arrive, many here say, they should come to train Afghans to take over the fight, so the foreigners can leave.

“What have the Americans done in eight years?” asked Abdullah Wasay, 60, a pharmacist in Charikar, a market town about 25 miles north of Kabul, expressing a view typical of many here. “Americans are saying that with their planes they can see an egg 18 kilometers away, so why can’t they see the Taliban?”

Full Story Prospect of More U.S. Troops Worries Afghan Public – NYTimes.com.

A series of internal government reviews have presented the Obama administration with a dire portrait of Afghanistan’s military and police force, bringing into serious question an ambitious goal at the heart of the evolving American war strategy — to speed up their training and send many more Afghans to the fight.

As President Obama considers his top commander’s call to rapidly double Afghanistan’s security forces, the internal reviews, written by officials directly involved in the training program or charged with keeping it on track, describe an overstretched enterprise struggling to nurse along the poorly led, largely illiterate and often corrupt Afghan forces.

In September, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American and allied commander in Afghanistan, recommended increasing the Afghan Army as quickly as possible — to 134,000 in a year from the current force of more than 90,000, instead of taking two years, and perhaps eventually to 240,000. He would also expand the police force to 160,000. The acceleration is vital to General McChrystal’s overall counterinsurgency plan, which also calls for more American troops but seeks more protection against the Taliban for the Afghan population than the Pentagon could ever supply.

Full Story Reviews Raise Doubt on Training of Afghan Forces – NYTimes.com.

Matthew P. Hoh, a former U.S. combat marine captain and Department of Defense civilian in Iraq starting in 2004 and until September a political officer in the Foreign Service stationed in Afghanistan is giving some consternation to President Obama’s advisors as the Commander in Chief considers sending more soldiers to that war-torn country next to Pakistan.

Mr. Hoh wrote a letter of resignation to the State Department in September. His four page letter frames his doubts about what he said is the “why and to what end” behind “the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan. He notes that like the Soviets’ nine year occupation, “we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people.”

Mr. Hoh focuses on the giant Pashtun society composed of 42 million people and moves to his conclusions. Read his words:

“The Pashtun insurgency, which is composed of multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups, is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified. In both RC East and South, I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul.

Full Story Why and to what end in Afghanistan – The Nader Page.

Abdullah Abdullah, Mr Karzai’s main rival, effectively handed Mr Karzai victory on Sunday when he said he would not participate in a planned second round on November 7 because he could not be sure the vote would be free and fair.

Azizullah Lodin, the head of the Independent Election Commission, declared Mr Karzai the winner at a news conference in Kabul, saying he had won the majority of votes in the first round.

Full Story FT.com / Asia-Pacific – Karzai elected as Afghan poll called off.

obamahonorsfallensoldier Obama orders more options on AfghanistanUS President Barack Obama has asked the Pentagon for more options on troop levels in Afghanistan including sending less than the roughly 40,000 new soldiers requested, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

Citing two unnamed US officials, the newspaper said the request came at Obama’s meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the White House on Friday.

The military chiefs have been largely supportive of a resource request by General Stanley McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, that would by one Pentagon estimate require the deployment of 44,000 extra troops, it said.

But opinion among members of Obama’s national security team is divided, and he now appears to be seeking a compromise solution that would satisfy both his military and civilian advisers, the paper said.

Full Story Obama orders more options on Afghanistan | Raw Story.

Abdullah Abdullah stopped short of calling for his supporters to boycott the vote and urged them not to take to the streets in protest, leaving a window open for a power-sharing deal to be brokered by the international community.

“In protest against the illegal actions of the Government and the electoral commission, I will not participate in the run-off of the second round of the presidential election,” Dr Abdullah told a gathering of several hundred supporters in a huge tent in Kabul.

Full Story Afghanistan poll chaos as Abdullah quits run-off – Times Online.

Officials in Abdullah’s campaign team said the former foreign minister would announce he was pulling out of the November 7 contest on Sunday in the absence of any U-turn by Karzai on measures to combat fraud.

“If by the end of today we do not receive a positive response to our conditions from the government, then Dr. Abdullah himself will announce his reaction to it tomorrow,” Sayed Aqa Fazel Sancharaki, a spokesman for Abdullah’s campaign, told AFP.

Abdullah is due to make his announcement at an address in Kabul at 9:30 am (0500 GMT) on Sunday, which the media have been invited to attend.

Following widespread fraud in the August first round, Abdullah has demanded Karzai sack the head of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and suspend four ministers who campaigned for the incumbent.

Full Story Afghan challenger threatens to quit run-off unless demands are met | Raw Story.

Women are made for homes or graves. –Afghan saying

Gen. Stanley McChrystal says he needs more American troops to salvage something like winning in Afghanistan and restore the country to “normal life.” Influential senators want to increase spending to train more soldiers for the Afghan National Army and Police. The Feminist Majority recently backed off a call for more troops, but it continues to warn against US withdrawal as an abandonment of Afghan women and girls. Nearly everyone assumes troops bring greater security; and whether your touchstone is military victory, national interest or the welfare of women and girls, “security” seems a good thing.

I confess that I agonize over competing proposals now commanding President Obama’s attention because I’ve spent years in Afghanistan working with women, and I’m on their side. When the Feminist Majority argues that withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan will return the Taliban to power and women to house arrest, I see in my mind’s eye the faces of women I know and care about. Yet an unsentimental look at the record reveals that for all the fine talk of women’s rights since the US invasion, equal rights for Afghan women have been illusory all along, a polite feel-good fiction that helped to sell the American enterprise at home and cloak in respectability the misbegotten government we installed in Kabul. That it is a fiction is borne out by recent developments in Afghanistan–President Karzai’s approving a new family law worthy of the Taliban, and American acquiescence in Karzai’s new law and, initially, his theft of the presidential election–and by the systematic intimidation, murder or exile of one Afghan woman after another who behaves as if her rights were real and worth fighting for.

via Remember the Women?.

Roadside bombs — the biggest killer of U.S. soldiers — claimed eight more American lives Tuesday, driving the U.S. death toll to a record level for the third time in four months as President Barack Obama nears a decision on a new strategy for the troubled war.

The homemade bombs, also called improvised explosive devices or IEDs, are responsible for between 70 percent and 80 percent of the casualties among U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan and have become a weapon of “strategic influence,” said Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz in Washington.

The attacks Tuesday followed one of the deadliest days for the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan — grim milestones likely to fuel the debate in the United States over whether the conflict is worth the sacrifice.

Obama has nearly finished gathering information on whether to send tens of thousands more American forces to quell the deepening insurgency, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. A meeting Friday with the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be among the last events in the decision-making process, Gibbs said.

via October deadliest month for US in Afghan war – Yahoo! News.

Now, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan is asking for tens of thousands more troops to stem the escalating insurgency, raising the question of how many more troops it would take to succeed.

The commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says the extra forces are needed to implement a new strategy that focuses on protecting civilians and depriving the militants of popular support in a country where tribal militias may be Taliban today and farmers tomorrow.

via Troops In Afghanistan Outnumber Taliban 12-1.

OPS: and we still can’t beat them?

Only about 6 percent of Afghans are estimated to have electricity, and in his appearance with President Hamid Karzai east of Kabul, Eikenberry hailed the project as part of the country’s emergence out of the “darkness” of oppression and isolation.

To some U.S. experts, however, the project is the latest example of exaggerated political expectations and wasted American taxpayers’ dollars in the effort to rebuild Afghanistan.

Full Story: Costs for U.S. project in Afghanistan balloon, benefit hyped | McClatchy.

Here, the Declaration of Independence scorned King George III for elevating his army over our colonial legislatures. The Founders opposed a standing army. Our first Commander George Washington warned against military entanglements. So did Dwight Eisenhower nearly two centuries later. These “quaint” monuments to civilian rule form the core of our constitutional culture.

So when the Pentagon wants to trash inconvenient opposition and escalate yet another war, it seeks subtler means. For example: the “virtual coup” now being staged in league with the New York Times, aimed at plunging us catastrophically deeper into Afghanistan.

It’s how they drove us into the abyss in Vietnam and Iraq. It demands we decide who will rule—the Pentagon, or the public.

Full Story: Beware a Times/Pentagon ‘Virtual Coup’ on Aghanistan | CommonDreams.org.

Asked in a CNN interview about comments by Karzai that he would welcome his rival in his government, Abdullah said he had “absolutely no interest in such a scenario.”

Abdullah, a former foreign minister, said his intention in seeking the presidency was to bring change to the impoverished country, not to be “part of the same deteriorating situation.”

Full Story: Karzai Rival Says Won’t Join Afghan Government – NYTimes.com.

A man in the car also was killed when a U.S. military convoy opened fire on the civilian vehicle, Kandahar police official Shah Agha told Reuters. He said a U.S. Special Forces convoy appeared to be involved.

A spokeswoman for NATO in Afghanistan was not able to confirm the nationality of troops involved. A statement from the provincial governor of Kandahar confirmed the casualties.

A NATO spokesman in Afghanistan said three civilians were killed and two were wounded when NATO forces fired on the car because it failed to stop when repeatedly signaled to do so.

The spokesman was unable to confirm if children were among the casualties.

Full Story: U.S. forces kill four Afghans in car: police – Yahoo! News.

Second round run-off scheduled for November 7

Hamid Karzai, the Afghanistan president, on Tuesday bowed to international pressure and agreed to a run-off presidential election against challenger Abdullah Abdullah.

The announcement came in a press conference where Mr Karzai, flanked by US Senator John Kerry, said the run-off was both “legal and constitutional”.

It came less than 24 hours after a UN-backed electoral body – which had been investigating fraud allegations that followed the August 20 election – said that Mr Karzai had failed to secure enough votes for an outright victory.

Full Story: FT.com / Asia-Pacific – Karzai forced to accept new Afghan poll.

“It would be reckless to make a decision on U.S. troop levels if in fact you haven’t done a thorough analysis of whether in fact there’s an Afghan partner ready to fill that space that U.S. troops would create and become a true partner in governing,” said the president’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

Emanuel gave no timetable for a presidential decision in Afghanistan. He said the White House plans to have additional strategy sessions this week and next, extending a review process that began after the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, reported that more U.S. troops are required.

Full Story: Rahm Emanuel: No Troop Escalation Until “Careful Assessment” Of Afghan Government (VIDEO).

We haven’t learned a thing.

You can see the myopia in our leaders’ talking points. “Our goal (in Afghanistan) is to disrupt, dismantle, defeat al-Qaida and its extremist allies,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ABC News’ “Nightline.” “But not every Taliban is al-Qaida. There are people who are Taliban, who are fighting because they get paid to fight. They have no other way of making a living.”

So few words. So much stupidity. Where to start? Here: Al-Qaida’s presence in Afghanistan in 2001 was negligible. Al-Qaida was a Pakistani phenomenon. Still is.

You’re welcome, have another: Not only is every Taliban not al-Qaida, there’s no such thing as a Taliban, as in: “That guy is a Taliban.” Members of the Taliban are called Talibs. You invade a country, send in 100,000 troops, presume to decide what form of government it should have and who should rule it — yet you still don’t know something as basic as what the members of the nation’s majority political movement are called? Still wondering why “they” hate us?

Full Story: Ted Rall: Eight years later, we still don’t get it in Afghanistan – Springfield, IL – The State Journal-Register.

Evans was among those attending a sold-out Democratic Party fundraiser at San Francisco’s Westin St. Francis Hotel, with a Code Pink supporter paying $30,400 for a pair of tickets to the dinner. The tickets included a photo opportunity with the President.

She said she had collected signatures of Afghani women during a trip there last week on a petition that asked for a role in the peace process and demanding that the U.S. abandon plans to send in additional troops.

“The women there are really upset that they are not at the negotiating table,” said Evans, who was wearing a pink shirt with “End The Afghan Quagmire” stenciled on it. “He said: ‘What do you mean, I have (Secretary of State) Hilliary (Clinton)?’… I said no the Afghan women want to be at the negotiating table. He looked at me and said: ‘Oh.’”

Evans also said she showed Obama the message her t-shirt.

Full Story: Code Pink Delivers Afghan Petition To President – News Story – KTVU San Francisco.

“It’s not true,” Gibbs said, insisting “the president has not made a decision.”

According to news reports, Obama huddled with his war council Wednesday for the fifth time, debating whether to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan as he maps a new strategy to quell the conflict.

Obama has said he hopes to unveil his plans in the coming weeks as he desperately seeks to contain the violence in Afghanistan fueled by the resurgent Taliban ousted from power eight years ago and al Qaeda militants.

Full Story: BBC claims Obama to send 45,000 extra troops to Afghanistan | Raw Story.

Then he came to Afghanistan and shook his head.

“It has deteriorated significantly,” he said. “It’s going to be a very heavy lift.”

That was six days before Mr. Biden was sworn in as vice president in January, and just after he had met with President-elect Barack Obama, who had sent him on the fact-finding mission to figure out just what the new administration was inheriting. Mr. Biden’s assessment was even grimmer during his private meeting with Mr. Obama, according to officials.

Full Story: Biden No Longer a Lone Voice on Afghanistan – NYTimes.com.

Corruption in Afghanistan became public knowledge after the presidential election in Afghanistan was revealed as rigged by independent election observers. Fraud investigations discovered that 1.1 million ‘questionable votes’ were given to President Hamid Karzai, and that the subtraction of these votes was enough to push Karzai below 50 percent.

Though McChrystal states that fewer troops will bring less risks, he believes that any new deployment has a high risk of failure. The report outlines three deployment options, the largest hypothetical deployment being one of 80,000 new soldiers. There are now 67,000 American troops in Afghanistan, with 1,000 more coming in December. McChrystal prefers the ‘compromise’ option of a 40,000 troop increase.

Full Story: Rampant corruption in Afghanistan is key issue: top general | Raw Story.

Editor’s Note: President Obama is under growing pressure from Washington power centers to escalate the war in Afghanistan and accept the recommendation from his field commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, for about 40,000 more troops.

From the Washington Post to Sen. John McCain, Obama is getting excoriated simply for taking time to weigh the various options. However, in this guest essay, the Independent Institute’s Ivan Eland says the President should resist the pressure and just say “no.”

Although the politicians, media and public believe few things are more important than preventing another al-Qaeda attack on America, defending the founding principles of the republic would seem to be one of them.

The conventional wisdom is that the war in Afghanistan is a “war of necessity” that cannot be lost if the war against al-Qaeda is to be won. This proposition is only now being questioned because the fraud-plagued Afghan election makes a legitimate government almost impossible and because the war in Afghanistan has turned into an eight-year quagmire that is getting worse by the day.

Not only is the conventional wisdom wrong, but Gen. Stanley McChrystal should be fired, even if it means losing the war.

Full Story: Consortiumnews.com.

Despite five war councils in two weeks, President Barack Obama has so far failed to come up with a strategy for the conflict that may define his presidency. Fierce infighting continues between his own generals and advisers.

Obama has been handed three options by General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the US forces in Afghanistan. These range from 20,000 to 60,000 more troops, which would almost double the US military presence. McChrystal is said to favour an increase of 40,000 men, without which he warns the mission will fail.

Full Story: Barack Obama ready to pay Afghan fighters to ditch the Taliban – Times Online.

OPS:  Ok, but how long will that last?

Many of us who marched against the Vietnam War 40 years ago have a terminal case of déjà vu over Afghanistan as we blunder into our ninth year of bombing and occupation. More than 90 percent of U.S. funding there goes to military purposes, and we still aren’t winning hearts or minds. Our Nobel Prize-winning president promised to “forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan,” but so far he has only threatened to escalate our troop level by tens of thousands.

In the film, Greenwald and his team ask Afghans themselves if American troops are making them safer. The answers are no, no, no, a thousand times no.

So thank goodness for documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald, a latter-day saint in my book. It took Greenwald 40 years to figure out how to be the activist he was not during Vietnam. But he’s making up for lost time by getting us to rethink what’s going on in Afghanistan.

Greenwald was born into the back end of the Silent Generation, in 1943. Despite being raised in the hot pink sandbox of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, he joined a common fraternity for boomers in college—those whose only resistance was to the draft.

Full Story: Can This Film Save Afghanistan? – Page 1 – The Daily Beast.

Here’s hoping he will feel more worthy after announcing a new strategy for Afghanistan.

Wednesday marked the beginning of Year Nine of the war. In the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator John Kerry, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee and a Vietnam vet who knows a thing or two about the costs and consequences of a quagmire, convened a hearing titled “Confronting Al Qaeda: Understanding the Threat in Afghanistan and Beyond.”

It was timely, considering the United States went to war with the express purpose of “disrupting, dismantling and defeating the terrorist organization that attacked us on September 11,” Kerry said. Timely too because the president now faces increasing pressure to double down on US military presence there, rather than seek alternatives to escalation, including a drawdown of US forces. Two of the witnesses, Robert Grenier and Dr. Marc Sageman–both of whom served in the CIA, as station chief in Pakistan and on the Afghan Task Force, respectively–concurred that escalation would only further spread anti-American sentiment among Afghans and other Muslims, and that nonmilitary initiatives to contain Al Qaeda and foster civic development in Afghanistan would prove far more effective.

Full Story: Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

At the same time, Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for additional troops to prosecute the war is being studied by the White House, which will soon make a decision that could define the Obama presidency, as The Nation’s editorial laying out the case against escalation, notes.

Meanwhile, just like the administration, antiwar activists are reallocating their attention from Iraq towards Afghanistan, determined to preempt McChrystal’s proposed troop surge. A broad coalition of groups is co-ordinating protests and demonstrations for the coming weeks, hoping to emulate the successes of the Vietnam protests in ways that the anti-Iraq war movement never managed. There will be vigils, rallies, memorials, teach-ins, film festivals, demonstrations, direct action and marches. The activities will range from a few individuals to events where many thousands of people are expected to turn up.

Full Story: End the War in Afghanistan.

Last week, the United Nations fired its number two official in Afghanistan, U.S. diplomat Peter Galbraith, after he wrote a “scathing” letter accusing the U.N. mission leader of concealing election fraud that benefited Afghan President Hamid Karzai. On ABC’s Good Morning America today, Galbraith stood by his complaint. “The flaw that took place in Afghanistan was preventable,” he said, adding that the U.N. “did not exercise its responsibility” in ensuring a fair election.

Later in the segment, Galbraith argued strenuously against flooding more troops to Afghanistan:

GALBRAITH: In the absence of having a credible Afghan partner…it makes no sense to ramp up. On the other hand we cannot afford to pull out. … At this point, no surge. … [W]e also don’t have unlimited resources and unless those troops can secure an area in a way that then Afghan partners, the government, the Afghan army, the Afghan police can come in and fill in after them, we’re going to be there as an occupying force for a very long time and that to me doesn’t make sense.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Galbraith: ‘It Makes No Sense To Ramp Up’ Troops In Afghanistan.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that walking away isn’t a viable option to deal with a war that is about to enter its ninth year.

“I don’t think we have the option to leave. That’s quite clear,” Gibbs said.

Full Story: White House: Leaving Afghanistan Not An Option | CommonDreams.org.

Fired Envoy: One in Three Karzai Votes Was Fraudulent

Former US Ambassador Peter Galbraith, who was fired from his role as second ranking official at the UN Mission to Afghanistan last week, says he was ordered by mission chief Kai Eide to cover up the extent of the voter fraud by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Galbraith says his public falling out with Eide was a result of repeated orders by Eide to keep secret data that the mission had gathered regarding the enormity of Karzai’s voting fraud. Eide reportedly told Karzai after the vote that he supported the president’s re-election campaign.

Full Story: Galbraith Was Ordered to Cover Up Karzai Fraud — News from Antiwar.com.

- NYTimes.com -

The attack took place in the Nuristan province, a remote area on the border with Pakistan. It began Saturday morning, when insurgents stormed the area, pounding the two American base camps with guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

Americans fought back, striking their attackers with helicopters, heavy guns and airstrikes, but the insurgents were persistent and the battled lasted into the afternoon, said Col. Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Full Story: Eight U.S. Soldiers Dead in Bold Attack in Afghanistan – NYTimes.com.

The LA Progressive – The United States Senate is our version of a house of lords, where time slows down in the name of a “deliberative process” even when the world seems on fire to the ordinary eye.

And so the other day, with concern about Afghanistan rising, with American troops dying at record rates, with the U.S.-supported Kabul regime in tatters, it was typical of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to declare that “the thing I’m going to do and recommend to my caucus is let’s just take it easy. I’m going to wait until the president makes up his mind as to what he thinks should be done.”

Then there is Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold. By everyday standards, he is a cautious person, calling for a “flexible timetable” for American troop withdrawals but also for “continued strikes on Taliban and al-Qaida leaders.” Sounds like an uncertain trumpet. But in the culture of the Senate, Feingold is considered downright hyperactive, often accused of being a loner who doesn’t play well with the senior oligarchs.

Full Story: Bold Feingold Could Lead the Way Out of Afghanistan | The LA Progressive.

Sen. Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings - economyincisis.org

Editor’s Note: The following article was contributed by Former Senator Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings, author of Making Government Work.

During the war in Vietnam, Peter, Paul and Mary sang a song that asked the question: “When will they ever learn?” Going to Vietnam in 1966, I was briefed by Cy Vance, Deputy Secretary of Defense. Vance cautioned that General Westmoreland would be asking for more troops. We were trying to secure Vietnam, a country of 16 million, with 535,000 troops and, sure enough, the first thing General Westmoreland asked for was 35,000 more troops. With 35,000 more troops, Westmoreland said, we’ll have “Operation Meatgrinder” and bring this war to an end. The strategy in Vietnam was to build and destroy — never securing the country. And the measure of success was body count. Westmoreland was proud that we were killing 10 to 1 – ten Vietnamese killed to one GI lost. We ended up with about 600,000 troops in Vietnam.

Now in Afghanistan, we’re trying to secure a country of 31 million with 64,500 troops – and think that 40,000 more will do the job. It’s the same strategy of build and destroy and body count, with GIs expendable. After eight years, we’re now going to be more careful to kill less civilians. In short, GIs are expendable so long as we kill less civilians. When will we ever learn that a majority of a country will sacrifice for a government over democracy. Take a trip to Hanoi. The people are happy. You can walk around the streets at night with no concern for safety – something you can’t do in Washington, D.C. And when will we ever learn that you can’t build and destroy at the same time. It’s a flawed strategy. You must totally secure the place – “own it” as we said in World War II – before you do anything; or today hold elections. After eight years the Afghan election is a fraud.

Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

NZ Prime Minister John Key announced Monday that 71 New Zealand Special Air Service (SAS) troops have already arrived in the war-torn country, the first stage of three rotations of SAS troops during the next 18 months.

Mr Key, who is to meet NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen to discuss Afghanistan later this week, said the assignment was dangerous and told the NZ people to prepare for possible casualties.

He confirmed that the elite troops were being deployed to support the current Afghan government which has been accused of widespread voter fraud in recent elections, adding there was little choice.

“Yes, we are supporting that administration,” he told reporters.

Full Story: NZ Confirms SAS Sent to Afghanistan | theangle.org.

While almost 100 members of the House (including many conservative Republicans) have signed on to Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern’s call for the development of an Afghanistan exit strategy, Feingold has been a relatively lonely Senate advocate for a rethink of the eight-year occupation.

At the annual Fighting Bob Fest gathering in Baraboo, however, Sanders drew cheers from the crowd of 8,000 when he said, “We need to take a very, very hard look at our war in Afghanistan. We need to be clear in our goals and we need a real discussion about an exit strategy to bring our troops home.”

Full Story: Sanders’ call for Afghanistan exit strategy draws cheers.