Archive for the 'Afghanistan' Category

From the Times:

It began before dawn — a devastating, well-planned attack. About 300 insurgents swarmed out of a village and mosque and attacked a pair of isolated American outposts in a remote mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan with machineguns, rockets and grenades.

They first stormed the Afghan police post at the foot of the hill in the province of Nuristan, a Taleban and al-Qaeda stronghold on the lawless Pakistan border. They then swept up to the Nato post. The battle lasted all day. American and Afghan soldiers finally repelled them, with the help of US helicopters and warplanes — but at heavy cost.

Eight American soldiers and two Afghan policemen were killed, with many injured. It was the worst attack on Nato forces in 14 months, and one of the deadliest battles of the eight-year war. The insurgents seized at least 20 Afghan policemen whose fate last night remained unclear.

Domestic opposition to a US “surge” is increasing as the death toll rises. About 400 coalition troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year — the majority of them American. Saturday’s death toll was the highest suffered by Nato’s International Security Assistance Force since August 2008, when ten French troops died in an ambush in Kabul province.

I’m not one of the people whose support for the war in Afghanistan has wavered with the rising body count. I think war with Afghanistan was inevitable when the Taliban government continued to shelter al-Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks, and allowing them to come back into power would be a disaster for the US, for the region, and, most of all, for the people of Afghanistan.

But I think that this shows that the Taliban and their allies have grew more powerful while the Iraq war escalated. Partly, that’s because of the propaganda windfall they received when the US made an unprovoked attack on a Muslim country. And partly, it’s because American and British resources were diverted from Afghanistan to Iraq. That leads me to conclude that the situation is likely to improve quickly as the US continues to disengage from the ongoing conflict in Iraq.

And right on cue, we have Lindsay Graham, one of the “reasonable” Republicans, calling for an attack on Iran. Is he trying to create a stalemate in Afghanistan, or is he really that stupid?

A further 15 British soldiers have lost their lives in just the last ten days in southern Afghanistan, whilst continuing Operation Panther’s Claw, a major assault against the Taliban. At least, 15 is still the number as we sit safely here at home on this sunny Sunday afternoon, and type.

As if this isn’t absolutely awful enough in itself, today we are told the astonishing truth by the ‘Mail on Sunday’ regarding Gordon’s Brown’s government’s continuing fatal, effing fowl-ups.

We wonder what the hell Gordon Brown and his fat-cat & fraudster “honourable friends” want? To beat (once, Great), Britain’s ‘Bloody Hands’ record still held by the traitorous turd Tony Blair?!

Read the revolting rest about our British Army’s downright betrayal by it’s own boss of bosses.

Read it and weep : and rage.

Then write.

Write to the Queen. Write to Prince Charles. Write to the Prime Minister. Write to your member of parliament. Write to the national newspapers. Write to your local papers. Write on blogs. And write on web sites and forums.

In fact, write where ever you damned well can write.

And when you write, write the same simple things.

Enough is enough. Bring our brave boys (and girls), back home. And, bring them home now. Before many more of them end up being bourne back in bloody, flag draped boxes.

After all, surely we Brits are, at the very least, just as sodding sensible as the Russians?

(Cross posted from across at How This Old Brit Sees It)

This isn’t the best way to win hearts and minds:

At least 45 people have died in a missile strike by a US drone aircraft in a Taliban stronghold area of Pakistan, officials there have said.

The people killed in South Waziristan had been attending a funeral for others killed in a US drone strike earlier.

Intelligence officials said at least 45 people had been killed and dozens more injured in the later strike, when two missiles were fired, but a local official told BBC News the death toll was more than 50.

And that’s not all the bad news:

The region is a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.

Also on Tuesday, tribal leader Qari Zainuddin, who often criticised Mehsud, was shot dead by a gunman in north-western Pakistan. Earlier this month, Zainuddin criticised Mehsud after an attack on a mosque, which killed 33 people.

The Pakistani army is preparing to launch an offensive against Taliban fighters under Mehsud’s command, who are blamed for a number of deadly attacks, but Zainuddin’s killing is being seen as a setback for the government in its efforts to isolate Mehsud ahead of the security forces’ next phase of their anti-Taliban offensive in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, says the BBC’s Mike Wooldridge in Islamabad.

The civilian death toll in Afghanistan is turning the local populace against the Coalition, and against the Afghan government. To minimize civilian casualties, American forces will no longer fight near Afghan homes:

The U.S. commander in Afghanistan will soon order U.S. and NATO forces to break away from fights with militants hiding among villagers, an official said Monday, announcing one of the strongest measures yet to protect Afghan civilians.

The most contentious civilian casualty cases in recent years occurred during battles in Afghan villages when U.S. airstrikes aimed at militants also killed civilians. American commanders say such deaths hurt their mission because they turn average Afghans against the government and international forces.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has pressed U.S. forces for years to reduce civilian casualties, but his pleas have done little to stem the problem. The U.N. says U.S., NATO and Afghan forces killed 829 civilians in the Afghan war last year.

Let’s hope that American forces can abide by these restrictions and still effectively fight the war. If not, then it’s probably time to force President Karzai to the bargaining table so we can begin withdrawing from Afghanistan.

While we readily admit that today we’re taking a sarcastic sort of swipe at the pretty dumb practice of stating the sodding obvious, we ourselves wish to make it perfectly obvious that we are in no way “having a go” at Ireland’s excellent ex President, Mary Robinson.

Since the sad truth is that there are still millions of westerners convinced that bums like George Bush and Tony Blair, to mention just a pair, always told us all the truth.

Just take a look at this.

GENEVA (Reuters)

Washington’s “war on terror” after the September 11 attacks has eroded human rights worldwide, creating lingering cynicism that the United Nations must now combat, international law experts said on Monday.

Mary Robinson, who was the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights when al Qaeda militants flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001, said the United States caused harm with some of the ways it responded.

“Seven years after 9/11 it is time to take stock and repeal abusive laws and policies,” the former Irish president said, warning that harsh U.S. detentions and interrogations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba gave a dangerous signal to other countries that could easily follow suit.

While new U.S. President Barack Obama has announced he will close Guantanamo to break from the practices of his predecessor George W. Bush, Robinson said sweeping changes needed to take place to ensure Washington abandons its “war paradigm.”

“There has been severe damage and it needs to be addressed,” she told a news conference in Geneva. “We are not more secure. We are more divided, and people are more cynical about the operation of laws.”

Arthur Chaskalson, former chief justice of South Africa, said that the United States should launch an inquiry into its counter-terrorism practices, including acts of torture by individual security and intelligence agents.

Although counter-terrorism issues have faded from the front pages since the change of government in Washington, Chaskalson said such practices have shifted around the world and could keep restricting liberties if they are not confronted head-on.

“We all have less rights today than we had five or 10 years ago, and if nothing happens, we will have even less,”

So here’s to you, Mrs Robinson, we have to say that we like your style. Like it a lot, in fact. Truth be told, maybe we even love it.

Now read the rest of this Reuters’report.

(Cross posted from How This Old Brit Sees It)

Afghan children gather plastic bags that they will sell for a fraction of a cent apiece to merchants in Kabul’s markets. Despite billions of dollars in American aid, Afghanistan’s people remain mired in poverty.
(photo via RAWA)

From the International Herald-Tribune:

When it comes to governing this violent, fractious land, everything, it seems, has its price.

Want to be a provincial police chief? It will cost you $100,000.

Want to drive a convoy of trucks loaded with fuel across the country? Be prepared to pay $6,000 per truck, so the police will not tip off the Taliban.

Need to settle a lawsuit over the ownership of your house? About $25,000, depending on the judge.

“It is very shameful, but probably I will pay the bribe,” Mohammed Naim, a young English teacher, said as he stood in front of the Secondary Courthouse in Kabul. His brother had been arrested a week before, and the police were demanding $4,000 for his release. “Everything is possible in this country now. Everything.”

Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption and graft. From the lowliest traffic policeman to the family of President Hamid Karzai himself, the state built on the ruins of the Taliban government seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than the enrichment of those who run it.

A raft of investigations has concluded that people at the highest levels of the Karzai administration, including the president’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, are cooperating in the country’s opium trade, now the world’s largest. In the streets and government offices, hardly a public transaction seems to unfold here that does not carry with it the requirement of a bribe, a gift, or, in case you are a beggar, “harchee” - whatever you have in your pocket.

The corruption, publicly acknowledged by Karzai, is contributing to the collapse of public confidence in his government and to the resurgence of the Taliban, whose fighters have moved to the outskirts of Kabul, the capital.

By simply handing out billions without demanding any kind of oversight or accountability, the Bush administration has created exactly the sort of conditions in which extremist groups like the Taliban thrive. Poverty is endemic, but corrupt government officials and their cronies hoard millions of dollars. Confidence in and support for the government has been eroded down to nothing, and the government’s primary function appears to be collecting money from the American government in exchange for allowing the Americans to conduct airstrikes that kill scores of civilians. Is it any wonder that the Taliban have been steadily gaining support for the past five years?

Arriving unannounced today in Iraq Gordon Brown announced that British soldiers will be out of that (criminally, cold bloodedly, premeditatedly and sickeningly mercilessly), quite callously ‘crucified‘ country — inside 7 months.

UK troops to leave Iraq ‘by July’

While that’s certainly the sort of of cheerful news that will make for many of us being able to have at least a little happier Christmas, all aint exactly as it first appears.

But what’s new?

Remember this though — only British boys & girls still surviving (and still in one piece) at the selected time, will be coming back to Britain under their own steam. Since, sadly, between now and July’s end some are sure to have to be stretchered back to ‘dear old blighty. Sadder still, some others are bound to be borne back by bearers, in bloody boxes.

But what’s new?

Moreover, the British government’s ever eager to spin to please, directly as dictated by Downing Street, partners in propaganda, the once so highly respected BBC, will continue to comply and play down the fact that many more members of our brave British forces are already earmarked for an unbelievably, flat out f*cked up Afghanistan.

So, once again a conspiracy of assorted slimy, snidey, shitty, soulless, cowardly, completely compliant, conniving, conscienceless spinners seeks to sucker us.

Shame?

Scruples?

Such sods as recently have serially professed to sincerely and honestly represent, and to selflessly serve this country’s substantial majority of decent citizens, quite simply, have neither any semblence of shame, nor the slightest sign of scruples.

And that’s for sure.

Furthermore, on said (so sad) score you can (quite categorically) quote us.

(Cross posted from How This Old Brit Sees It)

Oy, Obama!

Oy, Brown!

Oy, every-bloody-body!

Look!

Look over ‘ere!

Everyone!

Right!

Now that we’ve attracted your attention, we hope, read this report from today’s UK’s ‘Independent’ .

And, read it right now!

So, what are we fighting for today? Soldiers demand an end to ‘farcical’ lack of war leadership

Right?!

Getting the message?

Understand the mess?

See how serious it is?

“Support” our troops?

Jesus!

Just DON’T sodding start us

(Cross posted from How This Old Brit Sees It)

Amid today’s unbridled American presidential election celebrations, we learn that another, now all too familiar, almighty US military f*ck up has once again wiped out many innocent men, women and children. Ordinary/regular people whose only ‘crime’ seems to have been celebrating something special of their own.

And after all, lets face it, such long suffering, sad & sorry civilian souls have had precious little to celebrate since the dark day that the evil Saudi Arabian, Osama bin Laden’s 9/11 bait was so eagerly swallowed (hook, line and sinker) by bloodsucking BushCo and mighty M.I.C. mates.

If ever “even the stones cry out” in Afghanistan, then the din will be deafening. And we do mean damned well deafening.

Surely, it must, by now, be more than bloody obvious even to the most moronic among the wantonly warmongering and (futile) cold-blooded vengeance wreaking retards, that criminal negligence and/or incompetence of epic proportions, is, alas, now endemic in America’s modern day military.

And so, we wonder if the word ‘accountability’ is to be included anywhere among Barack Obama’s many recently promised changes.

US Afghan air strike ‘killed 40′

US air strikes have been blamed for many civilian deaths

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said about 40 people were killed in a US air strike in southern Kandahar province.

Many more were wounded when a wedding party was hit. US officials confirmed civilian deaths and are investigating.

“We cannot win the fight against terrorism with air strikes,” Mr Karzai said in comments directed at US President-elect Barack Obama.

Mr Karzai has repeatedly criticised the high level of civilian casualties in such bombings.

The latest civilian deaths underline the challenges facing the US president-elect and future commander-in-chief.

Read the rest of this report right here.

(Cross posted from How This Old Brit Sees It)

Now, please read some of these seriously salient messages being sent from the wider world.

(Cross posted from How This Old Brit Sees It)

From Radio Australia:

Foreign troops have killed nine Afghan soldiers and injured several others in a mistaken air strike during an operation in the southeastern province of Khost. A district chief says helicopter gunships pounded an Afghan army post on a road in Dowa Manda district, a Taliban stronghold.

The US military admitted coalition forces “may have mistakenly killed and injured” the soldiers, and says it is investigating.

Hundreds of civilians and Afghan forces have been killed in friendly fire incidents this year by foreign forces hunting al-Qaeda-backed militants.

(cross posted at This Old Brit)