Freden är över Sverige i krig

[Fromm]

CIA Hired Private Military Firm Blackwater for Secret Assassination Program
Utdrag från interjuv med Jeremy Scahill http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/20/r ... kwater_was

I think a central point here, though, is that it shows how there was no wall between the administration and Erik Prince of Blackwater. They knew that this guy was going to be a loyal foot soldier. And you take this, combined with the fact that a former Blackwater executive has alleged that Erik Prince viewed himself as a sort of crusader fighting a holy war in defense of Christianity in an attempt to, quote, “eliminate Muslims and Islam globally,” the idea that then he was working or voluntarily working on some kind of an assassination program makes perfect sense.
Remember also, Juan, that one of the top executives at Blackwater right now is a guy named Cofer Black, twenty-eight-year veteran of the CIA. He was running the assassination program for the CIA in 2002, when Blackwater first started working for the CIA. Cofer Black was head of the CIA’s counterterrorism center. He was the guy who gave orders to the CIA jawbreaker teams:go into Afghanistan, chop off Osama bin Laden’s head with a machete, and bring it back to me in a box with dry ice,  because I told the President I would present it to him. He now is running Prince’s private CIA. The notion that Blackwater wouldn’t have developed that kind of a relationship and now has on its payroll three of the biggest clandestine operators of the CIA in modern history, it’s just—it’s incredible.

Cofer Black, when he was head of the CIA’s counterterrorism center, said, shortly after Blackwater started working for the CIA, that they had killed thousands of people and that they either killed or detained thousands of people as part of their covert program. Blackwater is alleged to have been working under the CIA’s paramilitary assassination program.
I think that before we go off to the races with declarations about how programs of this nature didn’t work, let’s remember one very important fact. These guys are former Navy Seals. They are the most sophisticated, highly trained operatives in the US military. That was the bonus of hiring Erik Prince. You are getting, off the books, off the map, unknown, plausibly deniable paramilitary operatives, who were the most seasoned veterans of US covert operations, to work essentially a black program in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I doubt very seriously that, if Blackwater was involved, no one got killed.

Part of what could be happening here is that they’re trying to really say Blackwater was actually responsible for all of it, when I think there’s a lot of evidence to indicate that this was an official policy, that Dick Cheney, if he didn’t create the program, was involved with the concealment of the program from the Congress. Look, I had somebody in Congress tell me last night, “Erik Prince was apparently trusted more than the US Congress by the White House, because he knew about this program, and we didn’t.” So, I mean, I think, yes, Blackwater—there’s ample evidence to suggest that Blackwater was involved with this program. And I think we need to probe the role. But there’s also the political reality that the Cheney folks are circling the wagons in an attempt to try to absolve themselves of any criminal culpability.

The Obama administration increased the value of that contract in late July by $20 million to $187 million. So Blackwater has made over a billion dollars in Iraq on diplomatic security, as they call it, though some would say they’re involved in the most undiplomatic work possible. They have that contract.
In Iraq, they’re on the third year of a five-year contract for private security services for the US State Department, where they are one of the premier forces transporting US diplomats around the country. When Ambassador Holbrooke, for instance, goes to Afghanistan, his security detail is in part made up of private soldiers. Hillary Clinton, who said that she would ban Blackwater, if elected president, now is the employer of Blackwater in Afghanistan. For the Department of Defense, Blackwater works in a capacity training the Afghan military forces. These are massive, massive contracts that Blackwater still has with the Obama administration.

Vengeance
See them standing in the foothills
Waiting for the kill
On wings of fear the terror sweeps
Into the city beat
To defend
This is the pact
But when life's scorned
And damage done
To avenge
This is the pact
On wings of vengeance
Taarna finds them
Death for barbarians
To defend
This is the pact
But when life's scorned
And damage done
To avenge
This is the pact

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t1NuAQj ... re=related

[Fromm]

Svenska soldater attackerades igen För andra gången på ett dygn har svenska soldater angripits i Afghanistan. Ingen skadades vid attacken mot en finländsk-svensk enhet natten till i dag. Attacken och den efterföljande eldstriden inträffade i den västra delen av det svensk-finländska ansvarsområdet i Afghanistan, uppger Försvarsmakten. Uppgiften bekräftas av det finländska försvaret. Striderna började när en vägbomb detonerade då det svenska militärfordonet körde förbi. Även i går attackerades en svensk patrull.


You see me now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars
Ive been living on the edge so long
Where the winds of limbo roar
And Im young enough to look at
And far too old to see
All the scars are on the inside
Im not sure if theres anything left of me

Dont let these shakes go on
Its time we had a break from it
Its time we had some leave
Weve been living in the flames
Weve been eating up our brains
Oh, please dont let theses shakes go on

You ask me why Im weary, why I cant speak to you
You blame me for my silence
Say its time I changed and grew
But the wars still going on dear
And theres no end that I know
And I cant say if were ever...
I cant say if were ever gonna to be free

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrd2xf5D ... re=related

[Fromm]

Fortsätter med stycket Military Strategy as Urban Planning

Alongside these phantasmagoric commercial and residential structures that Afghans build for themselves stand equally outrageous and aggressive fortified compounds built by foreigners. Overwhelming the public realm with bladed barbed wire, video cameras, floodlights, and elaborately designed walls of con-crete, these well-guarded enclaves have become the hallmark of the NGO and military presence in the city. Located in the heart of Kabul, many compounds employ extreme defensive measures that have adverse effects many blocks be-yond their own location. These include: the confiscation and razing of public spaces for the creation of "killing fields" (a term used by the security and military community to describe cleared areas where attacking enemies are left without cover), the closure of nearby streets to thwart car bombers, and the intimidation of members of the general population who stray too close to cleared areas. In ad-dition, the reckless driving and strong-arm tactics practiced by heavily armed convoys that move from compound to compound has blurred the distinction be-tween the ordinary residents of Kabul and "enemies of the state." Many Kabul’s are left with the feeling that they are under constant attack in a city that has come to resemble a prison in which the guards live among the inmates. In fact, the col-lective actions of the international donor/ NGO communities along with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the U.S. and NATO military forces all either deliberately or inadvertently contribute to the terrorization of the local population.
Their frustration and anger exploded into a riot on May 31, 2006, following a hit-and-run traffic accident involving a U.S. military convoy Crashing into twelve cars in the space of five hundred meters, the careening convoy killed five people. Carlotta Gal reported for the New York Times that "the crash tapped into a latent resentment of the American military presence here, and violence radiated quickly through the city as rumors circulated that the crash might have been de-liberate."" Fourteen people were killed in the ensuing riots (including a seven-year-old boy), and dozens of buildings were torched, among them international NGO offices that were intentionally targeted.
In a regression to Soviet-style tactics and policies that focused on conducting both military operations (destroying) and development programs (rebuilding), the international forces have created PRTs (Provincial Reconstruction Teams) that have the dubious task of simultaneously attacking while reconstructing the provinces. In a context where reconstruction is often indistinguishable from ur-ban destruction, the occupying international forces have increasingly alienated the local population instead of "winning hearts and minds." In a recent interview, Ali Seraj, a businessman and a member of the Afghan royal family, contended that "the American military showed a careless attitude toward human life that was becoming a growing problem, whether it was the bombing of villages in counterinsurgency activities in southern Afghanistan or car accidents in the capital, and that this type of attitude has created a great deal of mistrust and ha-tred."" Yet Washington and the international community seem to pay little heed to the devastating effects of their military tactics.
They seem especially unaware of how their own actions thwart the civil soci-ety frameworks that the occupation forces officially seek to create. Yet this is painfully self-evident to pedestrians in Kabul, who are often confronted by armed guards who aggressively deter them from approaching so-called sensitive areas, streets, and buildings. Paradoxically, the U.S. government repeatedly reprimanded Saddam Hussein for locating his military installations in civilian areas, where they might avoid allied bombing. Yet the coalition forces in Kabul have used similar tactics, with the result that the civilian population has been repeatedly injured or
killed.
In a 2004 suicide attack against the offices of DynCorp (President Karzai's pri-vate foreign bodyguards, subcontracted by the U.S. Department of Defense), nine 1wople were killed and several bystanders were injured . Located in a heavily populated residential area, the company's compound was described as "highly visible, with M-16-carrying employees streaming from it to roam Kabul in armored cars. DynCorp guards, many of whom are former SWAT team officers, have become notorious for their rudeness—breaking reporters' cameras, bossing around dig-nitaries, and disrespecting the polite Afghan culture."" In response to growing unrest and public demonstrations against the effects caused by these urban usurpations, President Karzai finally demanded that international organizations dismantle their security barriers and return the streets and sidewalks to the public. Unfortunately many of the culprits are military installations that are immune t,, this presidential decree, which is applicable only to international NGOs and aid agencies.
In perhaps the greatest fear raised by the occupation and militarization of Kabul that the current patterns of infrastructural and urban development, will become  permanent—i.e., the current strategies of exclusion will be institutionalized in ways that will have both symbolic and practical repercussions in the long term. Serving as a gateway into the country, Kabul houses the regional headquarters of many organizations associated with the reconstruction projects in Afghanistan. In a perverse turn, the reconstruction of Kabul is being done for the benefit of those rebuilding it. Projects blatantly disregard local priorities and needs, in favor of those of those who have come to "help." A prime example is the widening and repaving of the 2.8 kilometer-long road connecting Kabul airport ,-) the U.S. Embassy. Estimated to cost US$16 million (U.S. taxpayer funded), the road project is widely seen as having been implemented only for the benefit and security of the U.S. diplomatic corps.
Kabul in addition has new shopping districts dominated by English signage on storefronts, beer and liquor advertisements, stores stocked with Western goods that are affordable and available only to Westerners. Circulation and access to these districts are controlled by countless military checkpoints, and large "no-go zones are accessible only to the rich or foreign who move between them in luxury vehicles. These transformations force many Afghans to conclude that Kabul is an alien entity, built by and catering to "infidels" and local unbelievers. They view the city as a haven for those advancing ideologies alien to a poor Muslim nation, and imposing inappropriate cultural norms through the institutions and support of a local government more concerned with American public opinion I than the welfare of its own people.

[Fromm]

Reconstruction as Myth

One could argue that the hype associated with the reconstruction of Kabul has had more of an impact on Kabul than the physical process of reconstruction it self. The myth of Kabul's rebuilding has caused a mass influx of Afghans from the provinces and beyond. Attracted by the UN's repatriation policy and inspired by the international community's claims that Afghanistan is well on its way to stability and democracy, Afghans are arriving by the tens of thousands from Iran, Pakistan, and other countries.
According to UNHCR figures, an estimated 4.14 million Afghans have re turned since 2002, highlighting fears that refugees are being returned prematurely into insecure areas that lack the necessary institutions to provide needed services. Simultaneously, and in an apparently unrelated move, the Pakistani government is forcibly closing refugee camps across the Afghani border, some of which have existed for over twenty years, on the pretext that they pose a security threat. Between 2003 and 2004, an estimated five hundred thousand to one mil lion returnees arrived in Kabul alone. With minimal aid and a promise of work to assist them through the transition, millions of Afghans are being lured back by hype alone into what most responsible observers view as a precarious situation at best. They reach Kabul only to find themselves abandoned and left to their own devices. According to UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis, "returning Afghans receive between US$4 and US$37 in travel grants—depending on the distance to their destination and, regardless of age, US$12 to assist with short-term rewards upon arrival in Afghanistan," the equivalent of two days' supply of food blot a family of six (average family size)." As a result, makeshift container and tent settlements have emerged throughout the city. Instant ghettos have appeared Charnan-e-Hazoori, Gozargah, Taimani, Khoshal Khan Mina, and countless other areas.
This epic migration into Kabul has drastically increased the burden on an al-1VAdy overpopulated and devastated city. It is estimated that of the 3.7 million 1wople currently living in Kabul, 58 percent live in informal settlements with very hinted, if any, services. With nearly 40 percent of its buildings destroyed in the international fighting between 1992 and 1996, barely functioning sewage systems, and whit standard streets and roads, Kabul is in desperate need of new urban infrastructure. In a surreal response to these shocking conditions, a faction within the Afghan government is pushing for the creation of a new satellite city on the fringes of Kabul. The planning of this development, which is intended to address the mass influx of people arriving in the city, has itself been compromised by facts -.11 the ground: armed men shooting at survey teams, etc.
Although the rebuilding of Afghanistan should ideally include the construc-t ton of institutions, laws, and norms of social and economic welfare, all too often reconstruction is expressed purely in terms of physical rebuilding. In this context, what is being reconstructed in Afghanistan is the construction industry itself. Four main sectors are currently thriving: major military-related projects subcon-tracted to foreign companies (seen as safe in the current climate of distrust); small-scale governmental projects usually subcontracted to insiders, the relatives of officials, or other interested parties in exchange for hefty kickbacks; a mush-rooming private sector, which uses both legitimate and dubious resources to fund larger-scale developments; and small-scale retail and residential developments.
To add to the already chaotic conflation of reconstruction with construction, (IN agencies—which include the United Nations Office for Project Services UNOPS, the only self-financing entity within the UN) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM)—have continued to administer postwar re-construction projects, despite the fact that such activities fall outside their man-date. Considered both trustworthy and transparent, these organizations fund-raise directly in the donor countries and then establish frameworks to ensure that the distribution of funds is channeled exclusively through their own agency essence, they have created a monopoly over certain types of reconstruction funds that allow them to dictate conditions to the Afghan government. Local authorities that resist the agencies' conditions are threatened with the withdrawal of aid These agencies, which are notorious for the scrappy jobs known in Kabul as "hit and run" affairs, often operate outside internationally accepted standards and sometimes draw as much as a 30 percent "overhead" on each project. An independent consulting economist, Mark Watson, summed up the current UN operation and its history in Afghanistan as follows:
Until the transition government (2001) was formed, the UN was effectively in charge. The modus operandi of most UN agencies reflected their grueling experi-ence ... [and] most tried to minimize their exposure to government and were, and to some extent still are, deeply distrustful of its motives.
Watson goes on to say that "something of a power struggle has emerged. The government believes, with a good degree of justification, that it is competing for the same aid resources as the UN agencies." He also points out that certain UN operations "in a cash-strapped world, seem to see Afghanistan as a cash cow, to be taken for all it is worth. Overheads are on occasion excessive, and 'mission creep' seems to be the order of the day." Not only are these agencies skimming off thy cream the most lucrative projects but they also often lack the technical expertise or experience to carry out the job. According to Watson, "One organization proposed a US$30 million schools building program, despite having no track record in large-scale building of schools." Most important, the UN determines how a large portion of aid that comes through its agencies is to be distributed, just as it also decides who is to carry out the work. Calling the shots in this fashion, the UN continuously alienates the Afghan government. According to Watson, "The government wants UN agencies to focus principally on humanitarian and not reconstruction activities, and to compete as a supplier of services. No more monopolies, and much greater transparency! This is highly desirable, but
hardly popular among the agencies. Creating a new ethos is bound to also create resistance and resentment from some quarters.
Although less lucrative than the multibillion-dollar reconstruction boondoggles in oil-rich Iraq, Afghanistan is still a Klondike for foreign companies who do not dare venture into the killing fields of the Iraqi insurgency Kabul is the center NA A web of intrigue as foreign multinationals exploit "reconstruction" in partnership with fly-by-night local construction outfits. As in Iraq, a large portion of investment quickly disappears into a black hole. Recently the U.S. Embassy in Kabul sent an alarming cable back to the State Department accusing the united States Agency for International Development (USAID) of incompetence in a multimillion-dollar reconstruction projects. In 2002, USAID selected Berger, a private engineering firm, to lead the U.S. effort in rebuilding Afghanistan, granting the company a contract worth US$73 million to build schools and clinics. In article titled 'A Rebuilding Plan Full of Cracks," Joe Stephens and David B. Ottoway quoted an internal memo written by Patrick Fine, head of USAID's Afghanistan operation:
The numbers of schools and clinics to be constructed were not determined through careful analysis, instead, they were based on back-of-the-envelope calcula-tions outside USAID.... the schools and clinics program has been marked by a se-rious of missteps and miscalculations that resulted in a flawed business model, inadequate supervision, and poor execution."
As a result of this mismanagement, only 138 of the 1,000 schools and clinics, Scheduled for completion by the end of 2004 were handed over to the Afghan government by November 2005. Concerned individuals are astonished that this same company currently holds another US$665 million contract to build infrastructure, including dams, power plants, and roads.
The Karzai administration is no less culpable in sending out unrealistic mes-sages to the international community about the potentials for urban growth in Afghanistan. His preposterous claims that Kabul would become the Dubai of central Asia within a decade have only added to the confusion, demonstrating that his administration is out of touch with the realities on the ground. influenced by World Bank and IMF, international advisors in the Ministry of Finance have pushed for Public-Private Partnerships in order to free the government of its obligation to provide services by subcontracting or, in certain instances, by selling off entire segments of state operations and assets to the private sector. For example, the local bus service, owned and operated by the state until 2004, was contracted out to the private operators, resulting in widespread cuts in lines and services. By encouraging the move toward privatization of state assets in such all unstable environment, the administration is gambling with Afghanistan's economic future on the basis of unrealistic and outdated models that have proven disastrous for many African and Latin American countries.
Although the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was accompanied by ill Hated promises about the reconstruction of Kabul, there are today no master plans to debate nor large-scale public initiatives to consider. Instead, there at( fragmentary and independently pursued urban schemes—a hodgepodge of every scenario imaginable. Kabul is a city of fragments simultaneously held together and torn apart by an invisible web of interests that has been spun by groups as diverse as warlords, NGOs, government officials, and destitute widows with children. Occupying the blurry periphery of a vaguely articulated vision of the city's future, while attempting to survive in the absence of viable economic, security, health, and social frameworks, the citizens of Kabul fluctuate between euphoric and desperation. This manic-depressive succession of highs and lows in itself reflects the contradictory processes currently at work in the city. And it is in this maelstrom of default urbanity that the reconstruction of everyday life—an abnormal normality—unfolds.

[Kallekula]

Nä Kalle lilla, boken handlar om att USA saknar en plan för kriget, de anlitar privata marknadsekonomi vilket skapar en drömvärld för neoliberaler.
Har du svårt med engelskan be mor/far läsa för dig. Vem vet ni kanske flyttar dit.  8)

Ja men det är väl bara bra i så fall. Hade de haft en plan hade ju extremvänstern tyckt det varit etter värre.

Fast det är väl så (vad du tagit upp) att boken hitintills.......konspirationerna kommer. Det gör de alltid. Kör på.

[Fromm]

Avslutande stycket Impunity as Democracy ur boken:  Evil Paradises

In the chaotic political context of Afghanistan, it is difficult to assess who actually holds greater influence: the national government, the warlords, or the United States and the international forces. The unholy alliances that were initially forged between various ruling factions, the government, and the international forces in order to defeat the Taliban in 2001 continue to have profound repercussions oil
tie post conflict environment, posing significant problems for the Afghani gov-ernment and its international allies. Warlords, in particular, continue to play de-cisive roles in the current administration. While the Karzai government and U.S. forces attempt to gain legitimacy by invoking the rule of law, "warlords and their troops in many areas have been implicated in widespread rape of women and children, murder, illegal detention, forced displacement, human trafficking, and forced marriage."" As outlined in a report before the UN Commission on Hu-man Rights, "local military and police forces, even in Kabul, have been involved in arbitrary arrests, kidnapping, extortion, torture, and extra juridical killings of criminal suspects." The warlords' abuse of power, with the central government's complicity, is perhaps the single most dangerous threat to stability.
It is customary for American spokespeople to excuse and explain away the cur-rent situation in Afghanistan as the "growing pains" of a nascent democracy. Yet one has to wonder if democracy, in the form in which it is being dictated to Afghanistan, was not stillborn. While much of the local population has been pes-simistic from the outset about the prospects for security and economic develop-ment, a now similar attitude is emerging amongst foreign aid works. A senior western diplomat in Kabul recently stated, "If we fail now we will have a narcotic error paradise and a population of 15 million people who will be even more
miserably off than they are now, and a lot angrier to boot ... [and Afghanistan] will be a small chunk of hell on earth in the middle of Asia.""
When President Karzai was interviewed by a local television station prior to the parliamentary elections in 2006, he was asked why the government was al- lowing people with criminal backgrounds to stand as candidates instead of bring-ing them to justice. His reply, which shocked the Afghan population, was that if the public considered certain candidates to be war criminals or drug traffickers, they should simply vote for someone else. Karzai's extraordinary nonchalance
fall clear the assumption that has been tacitly held by the government since the fall of the Taliban, i.e., if the transition from anarchy to democracy is to succeed, then justice for those responsible for past and, in instances, continuing crimes would have to be set aside. For many Afghans, this automatic amnesty for all anti- 'Taliban leaders, no matter how heinous their past crimes or current criminal activities, seriously undermines any possibility of forging a democracy and reduces the democratic process to a hollow drama. Recently, the Afghan Human Rights Commission conducted a nationwide consultation with the Afghan people to survey their views concerning transitional justice in general and the prosecution of past and current violators of human rights in particular. Their report, 'A Call for Justice," concluded that: "[a] vast majority of people ... have a deeply eroded trust in public authorities due to the absence of justice and protection of their rights, and they desire deeply that their suffering be recognized ... to date, this past has not been confronted."" When asked what impact the prosecution of war criminals would have on Afghanistan, 76 percent of the people surveyed be-lieved that it would "increase stability and bring security." (Quite tellingly, 41 per-cent of those surveyed believed that the international community supported war criminals.)
If the state of Kabul is a cipher of the current political realities in Afghanistan, then there is little reason to be encouraged. The stalled political process and the discernible growth in support for the insurgency only justify the fears of many Kabulis that the country will again collapse into chaos. Consequently, the hap-less American, Canadian, and British contingents in Afghanistan are now being reinforced by even more troops who will have to take on the daunting task of patrolling the most dangerous stretches of Afghanistan. This, in turn, only ex-acerbates the default urbanism of Afghanistan's capital. Suspended within a web of larger political and military relations, Kabul cannot extricate itself from this vicious circle and so continues to bear the stigmata of the so-called international War on Terror.

[Fromm]

Afghanistan har inga större mängder värdefull råvaror men det går som texten visar bra ändå att omvandla skattepengar (USA och EU) till grova vinster för utvalda företag och personer. Kriget är ett typexempel på hur man utnyttjar naiv mänsklig välvilja i USA/EU till ett kallblodigt plågande av medborgarna i Afghanistan.


Färska siffror på privata legoknektar i Afghanistan/Irak typ Blackwater

Census: Contractors Outnumber Troops in Afghanistan
New figures meanwhile show military contractors in Afghanistan are now far outnumbering US troops. A Pentagon census shows there were nearly 74,000 contractors in Afghanistan in June, compared to the estimated 58,000 troops there at that time. In Iraq, there were nearly 120,000 contractors and around 132,000 US troops.

[Fromm]

Generals: More US Troops Needed in Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, US military commanders have reportedly told the White House they don’t have enough troops for their fight against the Taliban. The New York Times reports the assessment was relayed to Obama administration envoy Richard Holbrooke this weekend. On Sunday, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said violence is worsening in Afghanistan.

Adm. Mike Mullen: “It’s the mission that the military has right now to focus—and General McChrystal is doing this—focus on the security for the people, focus on the Afghan people. And that’s a significant change from where we were just a few months ago. And it is in that focus that both understands what they feel about their security, which is pretty bad right now and getting worse, and moving to a direction—moving in a direction that provides security, so then we can develop governance, so then we can develop an economy, and they can take over their own destiny.”

President Obama has already escalated the Afghan war with around 17,000 troops. The new US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, could still request additional forces. A poll last week showed a majority of Americans now see the Afghan war as not worth fighting.

[Fromm]

Som ett brev på posten  :?

“The Safe Haven Myth”–Harvard Prof. Stephen Walt Takes on Obama’s Justification for Escalating the Afghanistan War

It’s a myth, or at least a set of claims that should be taken with some skepticism, because it rests on a set of worst case assumptions, which, if you link them all together, makes it appear that unless we are completely successful in defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan, we’re going to end up with another 9/11.


It’s very effective rhetoric, because if you, you know, use the phrase “al-Qaeda,” which immediately alarms people, and then you talk about something worrisome like a safe haven for al-Qaeda, people put those things together and don’t ask just how serious the problem is, just how much a less-than-complete rout of the Taliban in Afghanistan would be for American national security.


So, again, it’s an effective argument for the President to make, but you have to unpack the various claims that are embedded in it and examine each one to see if there really is a serious national security threat and, most importantly, whether or not the national security threat that’s being presented there is worth an open-ended commitment of American forces and American money. And my judgment was that if you look at this carefully, it probably doesn’t.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/25/t ... rvard_prof

[Fromm]

Någon som vet hur många svenskar som dött i år?

US Deaths Make 2009 Deadliest Year for Foreign Troops
Meanwhile, four US troops were killed in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan. The deaths make 2009 the deadliest year for foreign troops in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion of 2001. At least 295 foreign troops have died this year, surpassing last year’s toll of 294. This month is also the war’s second-deadliest for US troops, with forty-one casualties.

43 Killed in Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, at least forty-three people have been killed and another sixty-five wounded in a bombing in the city of Kandahar. It was one of the deadliest single attacks Afghanistan has seen in months.

[Fromm]

U.S. Attacks Afghan Medical Clinic
In Afghanistan, U.S. forces have attacked a medical clinic where an injured Taliban leader had reportedly sought treatment. Afghan officials say the assault in the eastern province of Paktika killed up to twelve Taliban militants. The U.S. military says it fired on the clinic after ensuring no civilians were inside. Seven people including the alleged wounded commander have been jailed.

Feingold Calls for Withdrawal Timetable from Afghanistan
Meanwhile Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin has become the first Senator to call for a withdrawal timetable from Afghanistan. Feingold made the proposal in a videotaped interview with the Appleton Post-Crescent, a Wisconsin newspaper.

Sen. Russ Feingold: “Most people like to have their own country, and the Afghans are no exception. So the idea of an open-ended commitment with no vision of when it will end is a problem. Again I’m suggesting a flexible timetable than can be changed but a vision, a public vision of what we might intend and when we intend it.”

Feingold is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. He was also the first Senator to call for a withdrawal timetable from Iraq.

[Fromm]

Mass Graves Discovered in Pakistan’s Swat Valley
In Pakistan, human rights groups say they’ve discovered mass graves in areas of intense fighting between Pakistani troops and Taliban fighters. Over two million Pakistanis have been displaced since the Pakistani military launched an offensive against the Taliban in the Swat Valley earlier this year. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says it founds mass graves in two sub-districts of the Swat Valley. The group has accused the military of scores of extra-judicial killings. The Pakistani government says Taliban fighters buried their dead in the graves.


US Troop Deaths Tie Monthly Record
Meanwhile, a US soldier was killed earlier today in a militant attack in southern Afghanistan. The death brings this month’s US troop toll to forty-four, tying last month’s record high of the eight-year war.

[Fromm]

CIA lägger numera ut tråkiga spion jobb på offert  :roll:  

Pentagon Hires Rendon Group to Profile and Rate Journalists Covering Afghanistan War

The US Army in Afghanistan has admitted it pays a private company to produce background profiles on journalists covering the war. The Pentagon has been on the defensive ever since the Army newspaper Stars and Stripes revealed this week that journalists were being screened by the Washington-based public relations firm, the Rendon Group, under a $1.5 million contract with the military. Documents obtained by the paper reveal journalists were evaluated with pie charts breaking down their coverage into percentages of “positive,” “neutral” or “negative.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/28/p ... to_profile

[Fromm]

US Criticized for Bombing Afghan Medical Clinic
An Afghan lawmaker has publicly criticized the US military for using a helicopter gunship to attack a medical clinic in eastern Afghanistan where an injured Taliban leader had reportedly sought treatment. Afghan Parliamentarian Khalid Faroqi said, "There must have been another way or tactic to use to get to him without destroying the hospital.” The US military said its troops only opened fire on the clinic after they were fired on and had ensured there were no civilians inside. Amnesty International has urged NATO forces to launch an investigation into the attack.

[Fromm]

Military Recruiters Increasingly Targeting High School Teens
As millions of students prepare for the start of another school year, we focus on an issue that concerns many parents: the increasing presence of military recruiters in the nation’s high schools and the military’s ability to gather information about students. We speak with journalist David Goodman about his Mother Jones article “A Few Good Kids?” and with the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Ari Rosmarin, who works on the organization’s Project on Military Recruitment and Students’ Rights.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/4/ba ... creasingly