Afghanistan: les choses s'empirent

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Afghanistan: les choses s'empirent

Pour ceux qui se demandent ce qui se passe réellement en Afghanistan, voici plusieurs articles qui vont vous montrer l'autre côté de la médaille que les médias de masse ont oublié de vous présenter. C'est que la guerre est une bonne opportunité d'enrichissement pour certains et il ne faudrait quand même pas leur nuire... tss tss tss La paix, ça ne rapporte pas gros...

Afghanistan and Iraq: it’s the same war

Four years ago the U.S. and Britain unleashed war on Iraq, a nearly defenseless Third World country barely half the size of Saskatchewan.

For twelve years prior to the invasion and occupation Iraq had endured almost weekly U.S. and British bombing raids and the toughest sanctions in history, the “primary victims” of which, according to the UN Secretary General, were “women and children, the poor and the infirm.” According to UNICEF, half a million children died from sanctions related starvation and disease.

Then, in March 2003, the U.S. and Britain — possessors of more weapons of mass destruction than the rest of the world combined — attacked Iraq on a host of fraudulent pretexts, with cruise missiles, napalm, white phosphorous, cluster and bunker buster bombs and depleted uranium (DU) munitions.

The British Medical Journal The Lancet published a study last year estimating Iraqi war deaths since 2003 at 655,000, a mind-boggling figure dismissed all-too readily by the British and American governments despite widespread scientific approval for its methodology (including the British government’s own chief scientific adviser).

True US Bush Iraq-Afghan Wars Deaths At 21,000

"In the last four years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the unreported death toll of American military personnel is in excess of 20,000 (20, 871) and the wounded who had to be evacuated from the combat areas for out-of-theater hospitals are in excess of 56,000. This is from a highly classified report sent by the Pentagon to the White House and is of a severely restricted circulation."

Libre opinion: Rebâtir l'Afghanistan et protéger notre société ?

Les intérêts des États-Unis en Afghanistan

EXPOSÉ DE JOHN J. MARESCA, VICE PRÉSIDENT DES RELATIONS INTERNATIONALES POUR LA COMPAGNIE UNOCAL SUR LES INTÉRÊTS ÉTASUNIENS EN AFGHANISTAN

Oxfam warns of humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan

"There has been undoubted social and economic progress in Afghanistan, but it has been slow and is being undermined by increasing insecurity," wrote Oxfam International's director Barbara Stocking.

"Afghans turn to narcotics, criminality, or even militancy, if they cannot feed their families. Military action addresses symptoms, not the underlying causes or conditions," she wrote.

Again, the booby prize for geopolitical unintended consequences goes to........(drum roll please) The current administration!

Take a bow, folks, for unfathomable ignorance of this country and its culture, and for imposing a guy so crooked as its president, that he makes that Taliban look good to the Afghani people!

Way to go!

U.N.: Violence in Afghanistan up almost 25 percent in '07

Afghanistan is currently suffering its most violent year since the 2001 U.S.-led intervention, according to an internal United Nations report that sharply contrasts with recent upbeat appraisals by President Bush and his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai.

In pockets of Afghanistan, U.S. losing ground

The warnings have been coming for months to the craggy mountains of northeastern Afghanistan: Taliban militants are eager to step up the war here in the province of Nuristan, with its guerrilla-friendly terrain of thick pine forests.

Afghanistan has slipped backward into a political "danger zone," the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies warned in March. In the broadest published evaluation of Afghans' attitudes, the center said Afghans are facing worsened physical security, greater threats from warlords, criminal gangs and corrupt officials, and more difficulty in supporting their families. Such alarms are ringing from every side: UN agencies, non-government aid organizations, scholars, some U.S. officials and ordinary Afghans.

Defeat a "real possibility" in Afghanistan:

NATO is in disarray and the West faces defeat in Afghanistan unless it overhauls its counter-insurgency and reconstruction strategy, Britain's Paddy Ashdown wrote in an article published on Wednesday.

"With fighting in Afghanistan now entering its seventh year, no agreed international strategy, public support on both sides of the Atlantic crumbling, NATO in disarray and widening insecurity in Afghanistan, defeat is now a real possibility..."

NATO never, ever began to have enough boots on the ground to cause this military campaign to be successful.

What we are seeing now in Afghanistan is the beginning of a complete meltdown

The US, bogged down both here and in Iraq, doesn't have more troops to send.

Meanwhile, other NATO countries have governments which do, occasionally, listen to their people when they say that they don't want their countrymen and women fighting, getting maimed and dying in what is essentially the US's war.

US steps up efforts to rescue 'war on terror' in Afghanistan

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Britain next week for high-stakes talks on Afghanistan amid US fears its NATO allies could abandon a strategic cornerstone of its "war on terror."

Memo to Secretary Rice; as an expert on the now-defunct Soviet Union, somewhere, in your educational process, there must have been some reading about the Viet Nam War.

It was there that the US should have learned (we had hoped) that it is futile to attempt to win a land war from the air.

We have never had enough boots on the ground to make a military victory happen here, and the Taliban retreat, early in the process of the US led invasion and occupation, was merely tactical.

So short of bombing the country into complete collapse and declaring "victory", what do we do?

Here's a novel concept: start a dialogue with the Taliban, rather than excluding and killing them.

Remember, they were our friends when we were trying to get the old Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, right?

Under the Taliban's watch, Afghanistan got nearly rid of its opium production.

So, Secretary Rice, here are your three options at this point: force NATO member countries to send thousands upon thousands more troops (a highly unlikely bet at this moment), bomb the crap out of the entire country, walk away and declare victory, or talk with the people you're currently bombing.

There's really nothing else left.

"There is No Way for NATO to Win This War"

When the U.S. or NATO finally go on the offensive, the coalition's lack of troops means they must rely on artillery and air power, which translates into a greater number of civilian casualties. Louise Arbour, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, says that civilian casualties caused by military activity has reached "alarming levels" this past year. " These not only breach international law but are eroding support among the Afghan community for the government and the international presence, as well as public support in contributing states for continued engagement in Afghanistan."

It appears that those who "planned" this war and occupation seemed to have collectively developed "Military History Alzheimer's".

You cannot, absolutely, win what is essentially a ground war from the air.

You can, however, enrage the civilian population with multitudes of non-combatant deaths, causing them to side with the Taliban. And if, "According to the U.S.'s counterinsurgency doctrine, Afghanistan would require 400,000 troops to pacify, although the country's history suggests that even that number is probably wildly optimistic," what the hell are we doing here?

Afghanistan 'putting Nato's future in peril'

The commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan has given warning that the survival of the alliance is at risk amid signs that several key members are re-evaluating their roles against the insurgency.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, American General Dan McNeill said that Nato troops were "gaining the upper hand" against the Taliban, but progress was limited by not having a "force big enough to clear and hold every part of this country".

His comments come as political pressure grows in Canada and Holland to downgrade the combat status of their soldiers in southern Afghanistan, where British troops are based.

The governments of Germany and Italy are also under huge pressure over their deployments in the north.

Attacks Spark Fears of Taliban Defeating NATO

Afghanistan Fight Will Only Get Tougher

Afghan war may be lost: experts

Afghanistan is lost, says Lord Ashdown

Nato has "lost in Afghanistan" and its failure to bring stability there could provoke a regional sectarian war "on a grand scale", according to Lord Ashdown.

The last military commander to conquer and keep Afghanistan was Alexander the Great.

What the U.S. doesn’t want you to know about “War on terror”: Taliban retuning to Afghanistan, NATO, U.S. forces losing ground!

NATO Looks to Exit Afghanistan Whether U.S. Approves or Not

Much to the dismay of Washington war planners, there has been a growing weariness in Europe with the Afghan conflict and reluctance by NATO members to expand troop commitments.

Once again, it appears that the "Coalition of the Willing" is turning into the "Coalition of the Non-Existent"

Force 'cannot solve Afghanistan'

Does NATO Want Out of Afghanistan?

In public, NATO is demanding that all allies contribute their fair share to the ongoing effort in Afghanistan. But behind closed doors, a paper has been circulated that may provide the beginnings of an exit strategy. Germany is pushing the plan.

Berlin slaps down US demand to send troops to fight the Taleban

Could NATO lose in Afghanistan?

The military "planners" who allegedly planned this campaign never, ever had enough boots on the ground to begin to win this kind of conflict.

You cannot win what is essentially a ground war from the air.

Other NATO countries refuse to allow their fighters to go into the southern part of Afghanistan.

So, what are the options?

Declare "victory" and go home?

Bomb the entire country to smithereens, declare "victory" and go home?

Include the people you're fighting against into the political dialogue and create some kind of fabric of agreement about what the future government will really look like?

Send in mercenaries, courtesy of DYNCORP and BLACKWATER, because there are no more actual troops available and ready?

The most logical option would be a political dialogue, which is why it will be completely ignored by NATO (and particularly US) leaders.

Unfortunately, the most likely outcome will be either bombing the country into oblivion, declaring victory, and leaving, or the introduction of mercenaries, who answer to no one, to hold off the Taliban.

Those who presented us with with the war scenario, and told the world how "easy" this campaign, and subsequent victory would be here, had absolutely no grasp of either this area's history, nor the people with whom they would be dealing.

And that is hubris of the highest order.

Rice pushes for more troops in Afghanistan

These "frequent flier miles", being racked up by Secretary Rice And Foreign Secretary Miliband, will come to no avail.

The other NATO countries will not provide more troops than they already have (except for a small symbolic number) because they can't.

Unfortunately for the US and the UK, other NATO members are part of governments which still believe that listening to the will of the people is critical, because not doing it will mean a major opposition win in the next election.

So, Secretaries Rice and Miliband, here are your options.

You can involve the Taliban into the political process.

You can bomb the smithereens out of the country, declare victory, and go home.

Or, you can count on private mercenary providers (like DYNCORP and BLACKWATER) to supply the troop strength you need.

After all, as has been clearly demonstrated, they are accountable to no one except their corporate masters.

Not a pretty group of scenarios, is it?

But the fact the NATO planners didn't see this coming kind of makes you wonder about the degree of hubris which prevented NATO and US military to understand that they never, ever had enough boots on the ground to begin with to accomplish their mission.

Deep flaws in Afghan peace drive

Regional powers show no interest in taking note of the enormous groundswell of Pakistani public opinion desperately desiring a "regime change" in their hapless country. The regional powers are inclined to accept that democracy should take a back seat in the current circumstances in the overall interest of "regional stability". They are disinclined to react to the highly intrusive role being played by the United States, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Meanwhile, the sense of urgency is palpable in Washington somehow to seek a political settlement of the war in Afghanistan. Battle fatigue is setting in among the coalition forces in Afghanistan. It has been crystal-clear that the operations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are going nowhere. There is growing frustration that peace is nowhere on the horizon.

The Taliban have Kabul in their sights

Asia Times Online investigations show that the Taliban's three-pronged plan for their spring offensive comprises cutting off NATO's supply lines running from Pakistan to Afghanistan, recruiting fresh volunteers and, most importantly, the creation of a strategic corridor running from Pakistan all the way to the capital Kabul.

A logical choice, from a standpoint of the flailing governments in Islamabad and Kabul, would be to find a way to bring the Taliban into political negotiations.

Of course, because this is logical, it will be ignored completely.

NATO is refusing to send more troops into the very dangerous regions of South Afghanistan, Pakistani troops are barely holding their own against the Taliban in their western region, and the US is bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq..

If the Taliban are successful, you could see a complete rout of the respective governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan

Ans, as we are all aware: Pakistan has nukes.

Oh, and just a thought: no power on earth can possibly win a land war with an air campaign.

You would think that the military strategists in both the US and NATO just might have taken a clue from the Vietnam War.

Apparently, the chapter on that spectacular failure, and why it happened, was not in their military history books. - M. R.

Civilians suffer as fighting spreads in Afghanistan: ICRC

Combat spreading across Afghanistan has made life more precarious for civilians and put many areas on the verge of becoming too dangerous for aid workers, the international Red Cross said Thursday.

The Taliban's clashes with the U.S.-led coalition and the Afghan army have spread from southern Afghanistan into the southeast and northward, leaving many civilians without shelter and aid, said Reto Stocker, the Kabul delegation head of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Real Cost Of Defeat In Forgettistan

It was supposed to be "the good war"; a war against terror; a war of liberation. It was intended to fix the eyes of the world on America's state of the art weaponry, its crack troops and its overwhelming firepower. It was supposed to demonstrate—once and for all-- that the world's only superpower could no longer be beaten or resisted; that Washington could deploy its troops anywhere in the world and crush its adversaries at will.

Then everything went sideways.

Afghan violence at highest level since US invasion

The United Nations Secretary-General says the war in Afghanistan is now at its most violent since the US/British overthrow of the Taliban regime in late 2001.

In a report to the UN Security Council, Ban Ki-moon says at least 8,000 people were killed in conflict-related deaths last year, more than 1,500 of them civilians.

Heroin is "Good for Your Health": Occupation Forces support Afghan Narcotics Trade

The occupation forces in Afghanistan are supporting the drug trade, which brings between 120 and 194 billion dollars of revenues to organized crime, intelligence agencies and Western financial institutions.

The proceeds of this lucrative multibllion dollar contraband are deposited in Western banks. Almost the totality of revenues accrue to corporate interests and criminal syndicates outside Afghanistan.

Interesting how the alleged (and miserably failed) "war on drugs" appears to be the "war for drugs", in an economic context.

Afghan poppy set for another big year, UN report warns

And you have to wonder: for precisely whom are we making Afghanistan "safe"?

Who is really profiting from the sale of these poppy plants?

U.S. Militarism & the Drug Trade: the Afghan Dossier

The UN's Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) believes this year's crop will be similar to, or slightly lower than, last year's record harvest. ... In 2007 Afghanistan had more land growing drugs than Colombia, Bolivia and Peru combined.

This is the sad face of the "new" Afghanistan, "liberated" from the ISI-linked Taliban and hailed by the toxic Bush regime as the first "success" of its ballyhooed (and malign) "war on terror."

Welcome to the "new Afghanistan", courtesy of George Bush and his minions!

Marines ignore Afghan opium so as not to upset locals

The Marines of Bravo Company's 1st Platoon sleep beside a grove of poppies. Troops in the 2nd Platoon playfully swat at the heavy opium bulbs while walking through the fields. Afghan laborers scraping the plant's gooey resin smile and wave.

the Marines are not destroying the plants. In fact, they are reassuring villagers the poppies won't be touched.

Translation: What we have here is US and NATO soldiers in the uncomfortable position of literally guarding the poppies and the routes to the poppy fields for those who will profit the most from the sale of heroin.

Either this is yet another one of this administration's insane unintended consequences, or -with never, ever enough boots on the ground to finish the job - perhaps it was just as intended as was the "control" of the "Golden Triangle" in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.

Is the CIA helping itself to the Afghan heroin harvest?

Since the fall of the Taliban regime, which had seriously honoured an agreement to close down the trade, heroin production in Afghanistan has surged. In 2006 there was a 50 per cent increase in the poppy harvest and it created a new record for world production, my contact in the UN Office on Drugs and Crime told me. Afghanistan now accounts for 92 per cent of the world’s illicit production. She expected it would take another leap upwards this year.

So where is the stuff ending up? So far, not in Australia, but that’s only a matter of time. Once again, the streets of Western Europe and Russia are awash with the stuff and that fact got me thinking about the CIA

Shock toll of British injured in Afghan war

In a graphic illustration of the intensity of the conflict in Helmand province, more than 700 battlefield soldiers have needed treatment since April - nearly half of the 1,500 on the front line. The figures, obtained from senior military sources, have never been released by the government, which has faced criticism that it has covered up the true extent of injuries sustained during the conflict.

Notice a very interesting aspect of this story.

In the photo above the text, you see a picture of a British soldier who "patrols in poppy fields."

One has to wonder, in the days of the the alleged global "war on drugs", just for whom that poppy field is being guarded.

In other words, who's going to be making money off the opium produced when these poppies are harvested which the British soldier is guarding?

U.K. Says Three Soldiers Killed in U.S. Air Strike

South Korea denies paying Taliban ransom

At the face-to-face negotiations with the Taliban, Seoul reiterated its pledge to withdraw its contingent of around 200 medics and engineers from Afghanistan, and agreed to ban all Korean Christian mission work in the Muslim country.

Taliban was paid $2.46m for hostages

Citing unidentified sources in Afghanistan, a Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun said Afghan mediators persuaded South Korea's ambassador in Kabul that there was no other way to end the six-week kidnap ordeal.

Suicide Bomber Kills 80 in Afghanistan

U.S. mistakenly kills 7 Afghan police

US prepares to increase occupation forces in Afghanistan

The problem is, perhaps even with a draft/ excuse me/ "National Service Act", there may never be enough boots on the ground to quell the anger of Afghanis who have been saddled with a corrupt a government as humanly possible, under the thumb of the American Shill, Karzai.

Given the added instability with Pakistan erupting after the assassination of Bhutto, the entire region could explode in an uprising that would be literally uncontainable.

Yes, we can continue to bomb from the air.

But you can't win a land war from the air, as one might hope that the US learned from Viet Nam.

Unfortunately, it appears that policy makers in Washington seem to suffer from "selective memory repression" when it comes to actually learning the lessons of history.

Afghanistan war is just beginning: report

THE Taliban has seriously rejoined the fight in Afghanistan, an NGO security group said in a report that concluded the country was at the beginning of a war, not the end of one.

The US-lead NATO forces have no where near enough boots on the ground to combat this.

So what now?

CIA death squads killing with "impunity" in Afghanistan

A United Nations investigator released a preliminary report last week citing widespread civilian deaths in Afghanistan, often at the hands of unaccountable units led by the CIA or other foreign intelligence agencies.

The Afghanis do not hate us because we are free: they hate us for what they have done to their families, their friends, and their country.

Killing Civilians, Carefully

The Washington Post reports that as the President was walking, troops under his command were bombing Iraq and Afghanistan with increasing intensity.

It's part of the return to the post-Vietnam tactics that worked so well for Washington, substituting US bombs for US troop deaths: lessening the political damage in the US by increasing the physical damage in the place you're bombing.

Walking in the alleged footsteps of Jesus, while the US military is bombing the heck out of unarmed men, women, and children at the same time.

Painfully ironic.

Afghan officials say coalition strikes killed road workers

140 Afghans killed in 2 days of bombings

A suicide car bomber killed 38 Afghans at a crowded market Monday, pushing the death toll from two days of militant bombings to about 140.

The back-to-back blasts in the southern province of Kandahar could be a sign insurgents are now willing to risk high civilian casualties while attacking security forces.

Make no mistake about this; the UN-lead NATO force has not "defeated" the Taliban.

The Taliban simply made a tactical retreat in 2001.

Now, they are back, stronger than ever.

Foreign air strikes kill 65 Afghan civilians: mayor

Probes find 50 Afghan civilians killed in US-led action

Investigations into a US-led offensive in western Afghanistan at the weekend found around 50 civilians were killed, officials said Wednesday, as President Hamid Karzai summoned the top US general over the casualties.

The Afghanis do not hate us "because we are free": they hate us because we seem to be doing a very good job of killing their wives, their husbands, sons, daughters, and loved ones.

There will be a "tipping point" in this war where the Afghani people start believing that throwing their lot in with the Taliban is an infinitely better choice than backing Hamid Karzai's government.

Some 1,600 displaced after US air raidss

US-led raid kills 40 civilians in Afghanistan: witnesses

US Casualties in Afghanistan Hit Record

U.S. military deaths, suicide bombings and opium production hit record highs in 2007. Taliban militants killed more than 925 Afghan police, and large swaths of the country remain outside government control.

'Press TV' reporter in Afghanistan beaten by US forces

A reporter of Iranian English TV network 'Press TV' was arrested by the US security forces Sunday night in Kabul when he was returning home from office.

Faez Khurshid was freed after 18 hours while having bruises on the face showing he was beaten by the American soldiers.

This is the face of the occupation: brutal, venal, and so terrified of what that report might have seen that US forces beat him up, nice and proper, as a warning.

If truth or justice were on our side, it wouldn't matter what this man saw, or reported.

Insurgencies spread in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Afghans hold secret trials for men that U.S. detained

The prisoners are being convicted and sentenced to as much as 20 years' confinement in trials that typically run between half an hour and an hour, said human rights investigators who have observed them. One early trial was reported to have lasted barely 10 minutes, an investigator said.

US justifies Afghan wedding bombing

A US airstrike that killed dozens of guests at a wedding party in Afghanistan in July was justified, a US military investigation has concluded.

"They MADE us do it, mommie!"

Bring back Taliban to end police corruption, say Afghan truckers

When the Taliban first rose to power in the mid-1990s, it was in part a response to the rampant lawlessness on Afghanistan's roads, which had been dominated by the illegal checkpoints of warlords. Travelling anywhere was a gamble, and leading figures in the transport industry supported Mullah Mohammed Omar's fundamentalists because they longed for security. According to today's truck drivers, history is in danger of repeating itself.

One can see, from this article, just how magnificently well the NATO "occupation" of Afghanistan is going in terms of ridding the country of crippling corruption.

Six Years Later, U.S. Expands Afghan Base

Six years after the first U.S. bombs began falling on Afghanistan's Taliban government and its al-Qaida guests, America is planning for a long stay.

Originally envisioned as a temporary home for invading U.S. forces, the sprawling American base at Bagram, a former Soviet outpost in the shadow of the towering Hindu Kush mountains, is growing in size by nearly a third.

Translation: the US government has absolutely no plans to leave Afghanistan.

Rumsfeld Calls Afghanistan 'Big Success'

In an interview billed as his first since leaving the top Pentagon post, Donald Rumsfeld calls Afghanistan ``a big success,'' but says U.S. efforts in Iraq are hampered by the failure of Iraq's government to establish a foundation for democracy.

Unflipping believable.

And this begs the question: is the man absolutely delusional, or completely out of touch with reality?

Polish Troops Face War Crimes Charges

Karzai calls Iran a 'very close friend'

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan gave Iran his full embrace yesterday, saying it has been his country's "very close friend," even as US officials meeting with him here repeated their accusation that Iranian-made weapons were flowing to Taliban fighters.

Robert M. Gates, who was in Afghanistan for nearly 24 hours to meet with US commanders and Afghan officials. Gates said he raised the issue of the Iranian munitions in his meeting with Karzai, but acknowledged that there was no evidence the Iranian government was behind the alleged shipments.

Absolutely nothing this admnistration is saying can get traction in terms of anyreal, tangible reason to "strike" Iran militarily because of their nuclear program.

So, what's next?

Well, let's see :Olmert is due to meet with Bush in Washington on the 19th of this month.

Cheney has been doing everything possible to push some kind of military 'solution' on Iran. I would almost bet real money that one of the big things on Olmert's to-do list is to get Bush to see any US lead strike (which Israeli officials have wanted, so their kids don't do the fighting, dying, and getting maimed) Israel's way.

Of course, there's also that little issue of Bush having pledged US military support for Israel no matter what, and no matter who starts a confrontation.

If Israel strikes Iran, the US military is pledged by Bush to support it, and we're off and running.