December 2011, Pages 24, 74

Special Report

Afghanistan: Ten Years of Aimless War

By Eric S. Margolis

Afghan relatives cry over the coffins of victims of a fuel tanker blast near Bagram air base, north of Kabul, Oct. 26, 2001. At least 10 people were killed and two dozen wounded in the attack on the civilian-operated tanker bound for the NATO military base. (Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images)

The renowned military strategist Maj. Gen. J.F.C. Fuller defined war's true objective as achieving desired political results, not killing enemies.

But this is just what the U.S. has been doing in Afghanistan. After 10 years of war costing at least $450 billion, 1,600 dead and 15,000 seriously wounded soldiers, the U.S. has achieved none of its strategic or political goals.

Each U.S. soldier in Afghanistan costs $1 million per annum. CIA employs 80,000 mercenaries there, cost unknown. The U.S. spends a staggering $20.2 billion alone annually air conditioning troop quarters in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The most damning assessment comes from the U.S.-installed Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai: America's war has been "ineffective, apart from causing civilian casualties."

Washington's goal was a favorable political settlement producing a pacified Afghan state run by a regime totally responsive to U.S. political, economic and strategic interests; a native sepoy army led by white officers; and U.S. bases that threaten Iran, watch China, and control the energy-rich Caspian Basin.

All the claims made about fighting "terrorism and al-Qaeda," liberating Afghan women and bringing democracy are pro-war window dressing. CIA chief Leon Panetta admitted there were no more than 25 to 50 al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan. Why are there 150,000 U.S. and NATO troops there?

Washington's real objective was clearly defined in 2007 by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher: to "stabilize Afghanistan so it can become a conduit and hub between South and Central Asia—so energy can flow south."

The Turkmenistan-Afghan-Pakistan TAPI gas pipeline that the U.S. has sought since 1998 is finally nearing completion. But whether it can operate in the face of sabotage remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Washington has been unable to create a stable government in Kabul. The primary reason: ethnic politics. Over half the population is Pashtun (or Pathan), from whose ranks come the Taliban. Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara minorities fiercely oppose the Pashtun. All three collaborated with the Soviet occupation from 1979-1989; today they collaborate with the U.S. and NATO occupation.

Most of the Afghan army and police, on which the U.S. spends $6 billion annually, are Tajiks and Uzbek, many members of the old Afghan Communist Party. To Pashtun, they are bitter enemies. In Afghanistan, the U.S. has built its political house on ethnic quicksands.

Worse, U.S.-run Afghanistan now produces 93 percent of the world's most dangerous narcotic, heroin. Under the Taliban, drug production virtually ended, according to the U.N. Today, the Afghan drug business is booming. The U.S. tries to blame the Taliban; but the real culprits are high government officials in Kabul and U.S.-backed warlords.

A senior U.N. drug official recently asserted that Afghan heroin killed 10,000 people in NATO countries last year. And this does not include Russia, a primary destination for Afghan heroin.

So the United States is now the proud owner of the world's leading narco-state and deeply involved with the Afghan Tajik drug mafia.

The U.S. is bleeding billions in Afghanistan. Forty-four cents of every dollar spent by Washington is borrowed from China and Japan. While the U.S. has wasted $1.283 trillion on the so-called "war on terror," China has been busy buying up resources and making new friends and markets. The ghost of Osama bin Laden must be smiling.

The U.S. can't afford this endless war against the fierce Pashtun people, renowned for making Afghanistan "the Graveyard of Empires." But the imperial establishment in Washington wants to hold on to strategic Afghanistan, particularly the ex-Soviet air bases at Bagram and Kandahar. The U.S. is building its biggest embassy in the world in Kabul, an $800 million fortress with 1,000 personnel, protected by a small army of mercenary gunmen. So much for withdrawal plans.

The stumbling, confused U.S. war in Afghanistan has now lasted longer than the two world wars. The former U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McCrystal, just said Washington's view of that nation is "frighteningly simplistic." That's an understatement.

Facing the possibility of stalemate or even defeat in Afghanistan, Washington is trying to push India deeper into the conflict. This desperate ploy, and nurturing ethnic conflict, will ensure another decade of misery for Afghanistan.

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Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist and author of American Raj: Liberation or Domination (available from the AET Book Club). Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2011.

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Taliban statement -Statement of Islamic Emirate regarding the desecration of the Holy Quran by the American invaders in Bagram

Taliban statement
Statement of Islamic Emirate regarding the desecration of the Holy Quran by the American invaders in Bagram

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

February 22, 2012 Last night, the American invaders, in accordance with their barbaric characteristics once again burnt copies of the sacred book of the Muslims (Holy Quran) with the purpose of desecration and with this perverted action, aroused the sensitivities of one billion Muslims worldwide including the Afghans. Ever since the invasion of Afghanistan by the American savages, this is almost the tenth time that they have carried out such barbaric actions and violated the sanctities of the Muslims in Afghanistan for the defense of which, the Muslim Afghan nation have repeatedly shown strong reactions and have taken to the streets to protest in every corner of the country. The puppet regime propped up in Kabul by the Americans, instead of backing the beliefs of its people and condemning or preventing such actions; it endorses them by harassing, shooting and dispersing the Muslim demonstrators and torments the Muslim Afghan people by supporting the unlawful acts of the Americans. This is the third time since the commencement of this year that the American invaders have carried out such inhumane and immoral actions which are against the beliefs, customs and Islamic culture of the Muslim Afghans. Besides desecrating the dead of Afghans, they carry out violations against their innocent children and leave them burning in flames by their airstrikes. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, on top of condemning the desecration and burning of the Holy Quran by the American invaders, calls on all Human Right organizations to prevent such barbaric actions of the Americans from taking place as part of their ethical and moral duty and to prosecute the criminals who commit such historical offenses. Wasalam Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan 21/02/2012 29/03/1433

Taliban's spokesman interview with CNN

Taliban's spokesman, Zahibullah Mujahid, 's interview with CNN

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

The spokesman of Islamic Emirate, Zabihullah Mujahid in interview with CNN February 15, 2012 Alemarah website presents to its viewers the interview of Zabihullah Mujahid done with CNN news network on the 14/02/2012 where a range of questions regarding the current ongoing situation and political issues are answered. Q. Is it possible for the Taliban to renounce international terrorism in one of its written statements as per the American demand? A. All praise is due to Allah and may his peace and blessings be upon his chosen servant. To proceed, I must first and foremost say that we do not work according to the guidelines of America or any other country but all of our decisions are based on Islamic principles while giving consideration to our national interests however based on mutual respect, we do believe in reaching an understanding with all the countries of the world. Now, regarding the issue of terrorism: If America and its allies consider the current Jihad and struggle in Afghanistan against the eradication of the occupation and its continuation until all foreign troops leave and an Islamic government is established as terrorism, then we cannot shun this as it would be an un-Islamic act because we consider this Jihad and struggle as our Islamic obligation, the shunning of which is not possible in any circumstance. However, as we continue with this obligation (Jihad and struggle) we are religiously held responsible in preventing civilian casualties. Q. Do you have delegates based in Qatar at the moment who are engaged in talks with America? If you don’t, do you have plans to send delegations in the near future? A. A representative of Islamic Emirate has held meetings with American delegates in Qatar regarding confidence building measures. As for when we will send or not send delegations to Qatar, then it all depends on when we reach the negotiation stage. Up until now, this has not officially occurred and naturally, as we reach the negotiation stage, a delegation or a team of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will be chosen and sent to Qatar. Q. Have you yet been asked to meet with the Karzai administration in Saudi Arabia? If not, will you accept to meet with them in Saudi Arabia if requested? A. Before I answer your question I firstly must say that in order to reach an understanding with America, Qatar was chosen as an intermediary nation by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. This was our own choice and not on due part to the behest or pressure of another nation, a selection which America also accepted. In regards to Saudi Arabia, no one has put forward such a request to us and even if such a thing was requested, our answer will be that the government of Karzai is not independent and meeting with it will not benefit in any way in solving the problem. Q. Do you believe that the active lower level Taliban will accept you accord if you were to reach a positive outcome with America in Qatar? A. In our system, no consideration is given to the issue of high rank or low rank but rather the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan works as a cohesive administration. All of its offices, its officials and members work for a mutual goal under the leadership of the Commander of the Faithful. The current talks or future negotiations all take place with the permission and guidance of the Amir and all agreements which all done with the consent of the Amir in the light of Islamic principles and national interests are happily accepted by all and they who work earnestly to implement them. Q. Do you think talking with the Karzai administration will be beneficial or do you want to directly talk with the Americans? A. I must say that Karzai, Kabul administration, Afghans and the Americans or Washington is not concerned here as some people say, as a form of protest, that the Taliban only want to talk with the Americans instead of their own Afghans. In reality, the concern is of one exercising power and one with no power. It is well known to the Afghan people as well as the world that the real power holder fighting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan is America. It has used Karzai and his administration as an instrument to maintain its grip and continue its occupation. Q. If those Taliban that are being held in Guantanamo are not released, will your negotiations with the Americans still continue? A. Negotiations have not yet began with the Americans so talking about it continuing does not mean much. Now the question is, when will negotiations begin? I must say that before any negotiations can take place, confidence building measures must first succeed so an atmosphere can be created for negotiations and this confidence building measure rests entirely with the Americans and they must take steps for it which are; exchange of Guantanamo prisoners, the opening of a political office and the termination of the black list of the United Nations as well as the bounty lists of America and her allies.

Afghanistan-The NATO stratagem

The NATO stratagem

The Frontier Post

February 3, 2012 The NATO command in Afghanistan could be excused. After all, over all these years it has fought the Afghan war not on the battlefield but mostly on the airwaves of the embedded western corporate media. And now that the pay time has come, it has nothing spectacular on its slate to show its peoples back home for the enormous treasures they have spent on its upkeep. Throughout, it in fact has only fiddled with its war in Afghanistan, not fought it in reality. As the US-led invaders, hardly a little over 6,000 under the ISAF command and barely 12,000 under the American command, descended on the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, the Soviet Afghan war veterans were mirthfully amused at this puny force for as difficult a country as their invaded land and were no lesser stunned by the attackers’ hubris that it reflected so pungently. The Soviet invaders, some 200,000-strong had come riding on a formidable war machine backed up by powerful air support. As an ally, they had an equally strong Afghan army and air force, both trained and equipped by them lethally. And yet the Soviet invaders had to kiss humiliation of defeat at the end at an indomitable Afghan resistance’s hands. No different was it going to be for the US-led invaders of Afghanistan, had the Soviet veterans predicted then. And their prediction of years ago is now imminently coming true palpably. The Soviet invaders had at least the control of major cities. The US-led NATO occupiers cannot lay claim even to this much credibly after ten years of their invasion. Lately, they are making so much of the Kandahar "triumph". But the American intelligence community itself in its latest Afghan war assessment terms this "victory" as at best "tenuous". And their once-shrilly-touted Mirjah showcase success of the troop surge has turned out to be such a damp squib that none of them now even talks of it.It is not just that Afghanistan’s south and east are restive, out of the US-led occupiers’ control and under the Taliban’s and other insurgent groups’ sway. Even the rest of the country is under the thumb of former mujahideen commanders, on whose sweet will are dependent both the occupiers and Kabul regime alike, not vice versa. While Ustad Atta Mohammad Noor is a jealous overlord of the northern Balkh province, its capital city Mazar-i-Sharif and its periphery are held by Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum who had fought along the Soviet invaders against the Afghan resistance and now brooks no meddling with his fiefdom. And whereas the western province of Herat is largely Tajik-origin warlord Ismail Khan’s sultanate, the central highlands region of Hazarajat stands parceled out between ethnic Hazara strongmen. By every reckoning, the US-led invaders’ occupation of Afghanistan has been such a huge collapse in every manner that their commanders will have no face to show their peoples if the reality is told in all truthfulness. The NATO’s Afghan war is no tale of heroic deeds and impressive soldiering, as been brought home by the embedded media to the western publics. It has been a shameful story of its trepidation and spinelessness. And it has been a narrative of the most devious kind of deceit and deception right from the outset. As the ISAF knights were cooling their heels in their Kabul redoubt and the American warriors in their Bagram nestle immovably for years, fattening their bellies with endless pints of beer and rolls of hamburgers, they kept crying that Taliban had fled and settled in safe havens in Pakistan from where they launched attacks on them and Afghan territories. Neither they themselves explained nor their bosses back home or media or even their people asked them critically why had they not corralled and nabbed the fleeing Taliban rumps in the first place, and if at all they were coming from Pakistan to attack them and the Afghans what were they doing in their nestling places and not moving out to intercept them and decimate them. No questions were they asked and their fictional stories of heroic deeds and brave fighting were lapped up pridefully by their folks back home just like that. It was years later, in late 2005, that they condescended to move out of their redoubts, amid a lot of reluctance, and wrangling and bickering among themselves, to take on the Taliban and other insurgent groups who had lethally regrouped in their erstwhile strongholds in the Pakhtun-dominated southern and eastern Afghanistan unshakably. Yet so delusional were they all, both the pamper-wearing Tarzans and their folks, that when the British army moved out to the Helmand region, a puffed-up British defence secretary squawked blithely that his men would capture the restive province without firing a shot. Over six years down the road, the British army is nowhere nearer even distantly that objective. The leaked NATO report of the ISI’s collusion may give some leeway to the NATO armies to delude and beguile their own peoples, greatly perturbed over their disgraceful fall in Afghanistan. But the pulsating ground realities it too would not be able to change, as couldn’t earlier the similarly misleading BBC documentary. For, up against the US-led occupiers are not just Taliban. It is the Pakhtun nationalism that is pitted against them. And this formidable force has now come to be joined in by disgruntled elements of the Afghan minorities.

Ahmed Wali Karzai killing

Ahmed Wali Karzai killing sparks fears of turmoil in Kandahar

Brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai shot dead by security guard was seen as keystone of security in the south

• Lianne Gutcher in Kabul and Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 July 2011 16.33 BST

Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, was shot dead in his home by a security guard. Photograph: S Sabawoon/EPA
Ahmed Wali Karzai, the powerful half-brother of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has been killed by one of his security guards inside his house in Kandahar, raising the prospect of turmoil in a city widely seen as the key to the war in Afghanistan. The president confirmed the death at a press conference in Kabul intended to mark the visit of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to the capital. "Ahmed Wali Karzai was killed at about 11.30am," General Abdul Razaq, Kandahar's chief of border police, said. "He was killed by his bodyguard inside his house." Officials said the assassin, named as Sardar Mohammed, reportedly Ahmed Wali Karzai's chief of security, had been killed on the spot. "After Sardar Mohammed killed Ahmed Wali Karzai, other bodyguards shot Sardar Mohammed," Colonel Mohammad Mohsen, of the Afghan national army 205 Atal (Hero) Corps in Kandahar, said. "The bodies have been taken to the [local] hospital. We expect some officials including President Karzai to come to Kandahar for his brother's funeral." Razaq said an investigation into the assassination was under way, but according to initial reports from Kandahar, Sardar entered his boss's home and approached him with papers to sign, shooting him at close range with a pistol concealed under the papers. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the assassination, saying it was one of their "biggest and most successful" operations. However, western officials said it was possible that he could have been killed as part of a settling of scores among tribal leaders or drug traffickers. Ahmed Wali Karzai had frequently been accused by western officials of being a regional kingpin and warlord in the opium trade. He also faced allegations of being on the CIA's payroll. He rejected all the charges, claiming they were made by western forces to cover their own shortcomings. Ahmed Wali Karzai was a powerful figure in Afghan politics. He had been a member of the provincial council in Kandahar since 2005 and was its chief at the time of his death, although his family, tribal and business contacts gave him influence far beyond his official title. "He was the president of Kandahar," said provincial elder Abdul Samat Zarih. "The governor, police chiefs and other officials all had to discuss things with him before they made a decision." Zarih added that Ahmed Wali Karzai had many enemies, including the Taliban. "Maybe the Taliban killed him because he was close to the government. Maybe he didn't obey or follow whatever the foreigners said to him. It's a situation in which you can't figure out what is going on," he said. Ahmed Wali Karzai was also seen as a keystone of security in the south and his assassination will raise fears about a potential power and security vacuum in the insurgent-ridden region. President Karzai also valued him as a trusted liaison between the government in Kabul and the nation's second-biggest city. "People are asking what tomorrow will bring," said a senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Who is capable of replacing Ahmed Wali on the provincial council? As an intermediary between Kabul and Kandahar? Who is going to try and keep at bay the different rivalries bandaged over for the last few years? Who will fill the various holes occupied by AWK? These are all important questions." He added his death was "first and foremost a setback for Afghanistan as a whole". Other western officials predicted that although there would be "turbulence" in the short term, while a new power structure took shape in Kandahar, in the longer term the absence of Ahmed Wali Karzai as a power broker could provide an opportunity to strengthen legitimate local government. Ahmed Wali Karzai had been the target of previous assassination attempts. In 2009 four suicide bombers stormed the provincial council office in Kandahar, killing 13 people. Departing US commander General David Petraeus said the International Security Assistance Force had halted the Taliban's momentum in key areas. However, the Taliban strategy of targeted assassinations in Kandahar province demonstrates its continued ability to strike Isaf and the Afghan government where it hurts. The Kandahar deputy governor, Abdul Latif Ashna, and provincial police chief, General Mohammad Mojayed, were killed in suicide attacks this year. The Taliban claimed responsibility for both deaths. The Isaf spokesman, Carsten Jacobson, agreed it was not yet certain the Taliban had carried out the attack. He denied the assassination was a setback for Isaf. "We must find out how he was killed," Wahid Mujda, a former member of the Taliban turned analyst, said. "We don't know whether it was carried out by a power rival or by the Taliban." Mujda added the death would have an impact on the government and the progress being made in reconciliation talks with the Taliban. Karzai supported the peace process and had chalked up a few reintegration successes in the province. Haji Padsha, an elder of the Alikozai tribe in Kandahar province, said Karzai had been shot on his return from a meeting with foreigners at the former house of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the fugitive leader of the Afghan Taliban. Karzai had come under criticism in the past from Afghans for renting the property to international officials. It was reported in the New York Times in 2009 that he received rent from the CIA and American special operations forces for allowing them to occupy a large compound outside the city that is the former home of Mullah Mohammed Omar. The Kandahar Strike Force, a militia run by the CIA, also shares the compound.

Permanent US Iraq and Afghanistan Occupations Planned

Permanent US Iraq and Afghanistan Occupations Planned

by Stephen Lendman

June 24, 2011 Nothing reveals Washington's imperial agenda better than its global empire of bases. Sixty-six years post-WW II, America maintains dozens in Germany, Japan, Italy, and South Korea alone. In total, known Pentagon bases way exceed 1,000, as well as perhaps hundreds of other shared and secret ones in about 150 countries on every continent despite no enemies anywhere justifying them. In his 2006 book, "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic," Chalmers Johnson discussed the known numbers at the time by size and branch of service. He also highlighted the fallout, including oppressive noise, pollution, environmental destruction, expropriation of valuable public and private land, and drunken, disorderly, abusive soldiers committing rape, murder, and other crimes, often unpunished under provisions of US-imposed Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs). Currently, Pentagon bases infest Middle East/North African/Central Asian countries. In fact, at least 88 dot Iraq alone, including: -- permanent, city-sized Main Operating Bases (MOBs); for example, Balad Air Base in northern Iraq covers 16 square miles plus another 12-mile security perimeter; these are large and permanent, have extensive infrastructure, command and control headquarters, accommodations for families in combat-free areas, hospitals, schools, recreational facilities, and nearly everything found in US cities; similar MOBs include Camp Adder in southern Iraq, Al-Asad Air Base in the west, and Victory Base Complex, compromising nine bases, including Camp Victory around Baghdad's International Airport; -- Forward Operating Sites (FOSs), also major but smaller than MOBs; and -- Cooperative Security Locations (CLSs) - smaller facilities to preposition weapons, munitions, and modest troop numbers. These type bases span Afghanistan, besides ongoing expansion and construction of major facilities for permanent occupation. Known major sites include Bagram, Kandahar, and Mazar-e-Sharif air bases. Frontline airfields include Herat, Jalalabad, and a dozen or more others, besides hundreds of large and smaller Pentagon facilities according to Tomdispatch.com writer Nick Turse in his February 10, 2010 article titled, "Totally Occupied: 700 Military Bases Spread Across Afghanistan." Citing "official sources," he said a "base-building boom" began in 2009 for US and Afghan forces. It's ongoing for permanent occupation, including a new Camp Leatherneck and Camp Bastion 11,500 foot all-weather concrete/asphalt runway and air traffic control tower, as well as a Shindand Air Field 9,000 foot runway completed last December. Moreover, spare parts and other supplies have been stockpiled for permanency, not departure, Obama's withdrawal duplicity notwithstanding. More about it below. Washington, in fact, came to Iraq and Afghanistan to stay. Doing so confirms a hostile presence occupied populations detest, including angry South Koreans and Japanese against continued US occupation. In less developed countries, social movements want America pushed back or expelled altogether to regain their sovereign independence, free from US imperial wars, injustice, fallout, and shame when their own nations participate. Last February, puppet president Karzai confirmed Washington's demand for permanent bases, claiming they're in Afghanistan's interest. In fact, US and other NATO leaders agreed on a "transition strategy" last year in Lisbon to hand over control to Afghan forces by 2014. At the time, vice president Biden called it a "drop dead date." He lied. So did Obama like he did earlier, saying withdrawing US forces would begin in July 2011. In December 2009, Obama announced 30,000 more troops for Afghanistan to enable withdrawals beginning in 18 months, insisting at the time America has no permanent occupation plans. He lied again like he's repeatedly done throughout his tenure, knowing America came to Iraq and Afghanistan to stay. Moreover, when he took office in January 2009, 34,000 troops were in Afghanistan. By December, he tripled the number to 100,000. Cutting back incrementally by a third if, in fact, done, will still leave double the force in place from when his tenure began. Nonetheless, on June 22, he addressed the nation, saying: "(S)tarting next month, we will be able to remove 10,000 of our troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, and we will bring home a total of 33,000 by next summer (to let) Afghan security forces (take) the lead. Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014, this process of transition will be complete...." False! A large US presence will remain permanently. Drone and other air attacks will continue, killing civilians called militants. Obama's duplicity is politically motivated with November 2012 in mind to assure enough support for reelection despite falling approval ratings. War-weary Americans, in fact, are increasingly burdened during economic hard times. As a result, polls show growing opposition to conflicts. Congressman Dennis Kucinich said "Things are falling apart at home while we (keep) searching the world looking for dragons to slay." Pollster Peter Brown added: "I do not think there is any doubt (that) Afghanistan, the involvement in Iraq, and now (in) Libya has for many Americans raised questions about the wisdom of these policies." The Brookings Institution's Stephen Hess explained that "(a) trio of wars is not exactly what Americans are interested in at this time when they have a very full platter of problems at home," harming them gravely. In fact, when unpopular wars take precedence over pocket book issues, people react angrily, perhaps enough to deny Obama a second term if conditions deteriorate more between now and November 2012. Obama also bogusly claimed significant Afghanistan gains, saying "we've inflicted serious losses on the Taliban and taken a number of its strongholds....(T)he tide of war is receding (and) the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance" when it's nowhere in sight in an endless cauldron of death and destruction, affecting US forces like Afghans. In fact, according to a US Army colonel wishing to remain anonymous, telling Time magazine: "The mendacity is getting so egregious that I am fast losing the ability to remain quiet. These yarns of 'significant progress' are being covered up by the blood and limbs of hundreds - HUNDREDS - of American uniformed service members each and every month, and you know that the rest of this summer is going to see the peak of that bloodshed." He added that America's ability to achieve a secure handover to Afghan forces is "sheer madness, and so far as I can tell, in the mainstream media and reputable publications, it is going almost entirely without challenge." Moreover, the same holds for Pakistan where drone kills enrage people to resist, perpetuating endless conflict. After a decade of war and occupation, in fact, America won't admit it lost and leave. Instead, massive bloodshed continues to create the illusion of progress Obama hopes will help reelect him, mindless that what matters most are pocket book issues, especially when during hard times they go begging. June 7 - 9 Zogby International polling numbers reflect growing voter disapproval, showing 43% approve Obama's performance. Only 38% say he deserves reelection. Besides domestic issues, it reflects growing disenchantment with endless wars, including against Libya that most Americans oppose. Once closer to November 2012, force-fed austerity to finance them may cost sitting politicians their jobs, even Obama if voters think he spurned them when they most need help. For beleaguered Iraqis and Afghans, however, it hardly matters if America came to stay. A Final Comment Controlling Eurasia's vast oil and gas reserves explains why America plans permanent Iraq and Afghanistan occupations, terror bombs Libya, and heads toward possible general war by threatening Syria, Iran, and perhaps other states to fuel its insatiable military-industrial appetite. Washington's strategy also includes encroaching close to Russian and Chinese borders to diminish their military and economic challenge, as well as potential greater dominance by establishing closer ties, thereby weakening America. The policy is fraught with dangers, the same ones Barbara Tuchman explained in her 1962 book, "The Guns of August," on how WW I began and its early weeks. Once started, things spun out of control with cataclysmic consequences, including over 20 million dead, many millions wounded, and a generation of young men lost before it ended. As a result, igniting another global conflict should give everyone pause, including militarists and war profiteers sacrificing sanity, security, and prosperity for inconsequential ephemeral gains by comparison.

Afghanistan: Responsible Crimes of Obama & Our Irresponsible Alternative

Afghanistan: Responsible Crimes of Obama & Our Irresponsible Alternative

by Mike Ely

June 24, 2011 "Obama is 'winding the war down’  (!) by barely chipping away piecemeal at his own escalation – while planning a permanent occupation force. This is called 'responsible withdrawal.’" "A police action becomes an invasion, becomes an occupation, becomes a permanent outpost of empire. And at every step there is the mix of whining disappointment and ongoing participation among official liberals." "Would U.S. withdrawal mean that their puppets are exposed? Yes. Is that so bad? No. "Would U.S. withdrawal mean that its future ability to threaten is weakened? Yes. Is that so bad? No." "They will call our logic and demands 'irresponsible’ — well, so be it. We are responsible to a different set of people and a different future. Humanity doesn’t need or want some strutting capitalist 'global policeman’ (whose corruption, murder and plunder masquerades as self-defense and selfless aid.)" by Mike Ely Obama announced his Afghanistan plans this week, and it was all posed as a "responsible withdrawal" — slow, paced, preserving U.S. "gains," protecting U.S. puppets, maintaining the dignity of a superpower. And  the official media arena is filled with debate over whether it is "responsible" enough. So we are presented with a (typical and deceptive) ruling class debate where the most basic realities are shoved to the side. The  facts remain: Obama’s "responsible pace of withdrawal" may will leave troop in Afghanistan forever. And for the foreseeable future they are not far from where Bush-era levels of invasion force. Obama’s plan is a token shift of 10,000 soldiers (leaving by the end of 2011) and maybe (maybe!)  23,000 in another year. Compare these numbers to the current size of the occupation force which is  250,000  military forces by the U.S. and its invasion partners (100,000 U.S. troops, 50,000 NATO troops and 100,000 Pentagon-paid contractors). This is a plan for a continuing war and brutalization of Afghanistan’s people (and of nearby Pakistan) — all while claiming that the invaders "provide the people with the security they need for normal life"! Obama’s plans apparently envision at least 25,000 occupation troops remaining after 2014. Meaning that there is zero discussion involving ending this occupation, but instead plans to make it permanent. Doublethink: Winding down his own escalation, Continuing the war Obama is "winding the war down" (!) by barely chipping away piecemeal at his own escalation – while planning a permanent occupation force. Compare Obama’s withdrawal numbers to his own initial escalation of this invasion: He opened his presidency by sending 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan (a pro-war campaign "pledge" that his antiwar supporters seemed to overlook/excuse). Then that was followed by another 33,000. This "surge" (double-speak for escalation) went parallel with Obama’s expansion of the war into Pakistan (with drone spying, aerial strikes, military raids, covert operations, massive espionage, infuriating killing of civilians and wholesale bribery of military and government officials). A liberal state of calculated disappointment? A police action becomes an invasion becomes an occupation becomes a permanent outpost of empire. And at every step there is the mix of whining disappointment and ongoing participation of official liberals. The candidate who won support (in 2008 election campaign) by presenting himself as the only Democrat to oppose the Iraq war forcefully and publicly — now is the commander in chief of an escalated (and seemingly permanent) Afghanistan War (now the longest war in U.S. history). He continues the massive U.S. occupation and domination of the Persian Gulf (including its northern component of occupation in Iraq). He maintains Guantanamo Bay facilities.  He threatens Iran. And has launched yet another war in North Africa, attacking Libya. It is worth pointing out how massively unpopular this is. The Afghanistan war (which had overwhelming-if-temporary support as a revenge act after  9/11) now has 64% opposition. The decision to continue this war is a cold decision of empire, it is a calculation based on imperialist politics of an establishment elite (not on popular politics). "Responsible" means an empire’s gangster logic The "responsibility" the White House insists it has (like a broken record) is not responsibility toward a) the people of Afghanistan, b) the people dying in this occupation, c) the interests of the broad population of the United States… it is "responsibility" to the empire. Any imperialist who flinches and runs in the face of mere villagers has lost superpower status (some commentators worry), and so the U.S. cannot leave without some form of "victory" or permanence. Meanwhile, left liberals are expressing disappointment.  That is a bit of outrageous double think in its own right. If you don’t want disillusionment, don’t promote illusions. No. Obama is not a "disappointment" — he is a war criminal defending history’s greatest empire of exploitation. It is shameful when liberal opinion-makers play these endless games of disappointment and compromise (as they so-so-methodically prepare minds to support Obama next year!) When they excuse for slow withdrawal (or make pathetic arguments for slightly faster withdrawal) they are (really) participating in global games of budget and power:  How to maintain superpower status and dominance with fewer and less costly forces. We should reject (and expose) that kind of "responsible" logic. There is no "responsible pace of withdrawal." These are unjust, criminal wars of dominance and empire. The wars  must be ended, and we must oppose them. Nothing here is an issue of "American national security" or "national defense" — these are the double-think words of empire, and used to justify threatening and dominating whole regions all around the world. All is in service to American capitalism, profit, and its exploitation of "cheap" resource and labor (with a "cheapness" that  requires global armed force to maintain.) Funds should be cut off, soldiers should resist, protests should be organized, the machinery of war exposed, the complicity in empire called out, and we should participate in the mobilization of global public opinion: Yankee  go home! They will call our logic and demands "irresponsible" — well, so be it. We are responsible to a different set of people and a different future. Humanity doesn’t need or want some strutting capitalist "global policeman" (whose corruption, murder and plunder masquerades as self-defense and self-less aid.) Would U.S. withdrawal mean that their puppets are exposed? Yes. Is that so bad? No. Would U.S. withdrawal mean that its future ability to threaten is weakened? Yes. Is that so bad? No. We should all (on the contrary) be expressing a determination to demand "U.S. out Now!" Out of Afghanistan. Out of the Persian Gulf. Out of Libya. Not at some  pace that preserves empire (and its capacity for the next aggression). Withdraw the nuclear navy threatening Iran and the whole Middle East. Dismantle the "Central Command" which raids and invades half the globe like it was "our backyard." Remove U.S. troops and bases from the heart of Europe (from which the logistics train threatens war anywhere in the planet). Dismantle Diego Garcia. Dismantle the CIA. Destroy the nukes, and drones, and spy satellites. Shut down Guantanamo Bay — not just the notorious prison facility but the forward Marine base itself — and return that Cuban soil to Cuban hands. Out Now. Immediately. In shame and defeat if possible. (The clearer the defeat and exposure of imperialism the better for the consciousness of the people everywhere, including in the U.S. — look at the Vietnam experience!) Leave countries and peoples to their own self-determination and conflicts. Leave people to unfold their own futures (and social transformations) without the cynical shaping by invasion forces and global corporate economics. Don’t thank that soldier "for your service" — ask if they understand who they are serving, ask if they are resisting. Expose the empire to oppose the empire. Oppose the empire to end the empire. This empire won’t dismantle itself As we make such demands, we don’t assume that agreement will come from the White House, or Pentagon or congress. It takes bankruptcy, major upheaval and defeat to end empires.  And this empire too won’t be dismantled until radically different forces come to power dedicated to its destruction. And in that process, even at it beginning stages, as right is clarified from wrong, it needs to be pointed out that those political forces who want a more economical "responsible" empire, or a more multilateral defense of empire, or a more "friendly" or "democratic" face of empire…. what is that but policies of illusion and oppression?

Hamid Karzai move closer to Iran and Pakistan

Karzai surrounding himself with narrow circle of advisers urging a shift from US to Iran

By Associated Press

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar June 24, 2011 KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai is increasingly isolated and has surrounded himself with an inner circle of advisers who are urging him to move closer to Iran and Pakistan as the U.S. draws down its role in Afghanistan, several friends and aides tell The Associated Press. Their advice is echoed in Karzai’s anti-West rhetoric, which has heightened both in his public speeches and in private. He met recently with Iran’s defense minister, and constantly cautions against trusting the U.S. to have Afghanistan’s best interests at heart. Several of Karzai’s close friends and advisers now speak of a president whose doors have closed to all but one narrow faction and who refuses to listen to dissenting opinions. They say people allowed to see the president are vetted by an inner circle of religious conservatives who belong to a nonviolent wing of Hizb-i-Islami, a radical Islamic group whose relentless attacks on American soldiers forced the U.S. to withdraw from bases in northeastern Kunar and Nuristan provinces. The group’s leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, was once an American ally but has since been declared a terrorist by the United States. Although Hekmatyar shares the Taliban’s goal of an Islamic regime, his men have also fought Taliban militants over the past year, and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is said to despise him. When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, Hekmatyar spent five years in exile in Iran. Inside Afghanistan’s presidential palace, Iran, Pakistan and China are most often referred to as reliable allies, according to Karzai’s friends and advisers. Last year, Karzai openly acknowledged taking "bags" of money from Iran to finance his administration. "A lot of Afghans are very concerned about the direction the country is taking, moving away from the international community ... toward a more conservative practice in which the religious people and warlords have more power," Human Rights of Afghanistan Commissioner Nader Nadery said. "Consistently his aides are pushing him toward Iran and Pakistan," Nadery said. "All those who are managing and controlling his schedule, providing appointments, all see the advantages of breaking with the international community." Karzai seemed to go out of his way to snub the United States in the days leading up to President Barack Obama’s address Wednesday announcing an initial withdrawal of 30,000 U.S. soldiers by next summer. He stood shoulder to shoulder this week with Ahmad Vahidi, the first Iranian defense minister to visit Afghanistan since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. He also announced he would attend an anti-terrorism conference in Tehran later this month, while at the same time questioning the sincerity of U.S. and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan. "His timing is confusing," Nadery said. "It is not wise for a politician to come out with such statements at a time when the troop contribution to Afghanistan is being hotly debated in Washington." One adviser whose friendship with Karzai spans decades said he had consistently warned the president against engaging in public battles with the United States, urging closed-door diplomacy instead. Six months ago, he says an angry Karzai called him to the presidential palace. "The president said, 'You are always saying be careful, be careful, telling me what is wrong.’ And then he told me to never call him again. And since then I have not been able to see him and I am still an 'adviser,’" he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he says he still values his friendship with Karzai. "He will always be my friend but I am worried about him." Others have expressed similar concerns. They say over the last year Karzai has gradually distanced himself from confidantes who urged a more cooperative and less strident approach to U.S. relations. A second adviser told the AP that participants at a recent Afghan security council meeting left "shaking their head at the flip the president has made" away from the U.S. and its Western allies and toward Iran and Pakistan. "We are worried about our old friend," he said. Kabul is rife with speculation about the president’s recent behavior and statements of late, as well as the growing influence of Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i-Islami organization. In part, Nadery blamed Karzai’s disappointment at not getting a strategic forces agreement with the United States that would allow for U.S. bases in Afghanistan as well as give the president protection and negotiation room with Washington. Instead, the document the U.S. gave to Karzai spoke only of a complete withdrawal, he said. The United States has said it will have all its fighting forces out of Afghanistan by 2014 and that the security of Afghanistan will be turned over to Afghan forces. The U.S. has not asked for any bases or centers to remain under its control. "I think the reality of their complete withdrawal has struck home," Nadery said. "Now he sees they may go and they don’t want a (military) presence here, there were no bases that they requested and perhaps now he is thinking, 'Who will protect me?’ And he has turned to Hizb-i-Islami and conservative elements in the country like those on the Ulema (clerics) Council, former warlords, as well as getting closer to Pakistan and to Iran." A nonviolent faction of Hizb-i-Islami was created last year with the express purpose of registering as a political party. Although its members publicly disavowed violence, they have privately said they supported Hekmatyar. "We have a proverb of sorts in Afghanistan: Once a Hizb-i-Islami, always a Hizb-i-Islami," Nadery said. Hizb-i-Islami used widespread intimidation to elect dozens of its candidates in provincial elections. The group has also infiltrated government administration, and at least five of the country’s governors are members of its nonviolent faction, according to Nader and others who closely follow Afghan politics. The growing influence of Hizb-i-Islami, some analysts warn, is also possibly paving the way for another civil war in Afghanistan once the U.S. and NATO withdrawal is complete. Animosity between Hizb-i-Islami and leaders of Afghanistan’s minority ethnic groups runs deep. Hizb-i-Islami and the Taliban are both dominated by Pashtuns, the country’s largest ethnic group. Fahim Dashti, an ethnic Tajik and former editor of the defunct Kabul Weekly, told the AP that militia groups in northern Afghanistan have rearmed, frightened by the growing influence of Hizb-e-Islami in the government and the future implications of peace negotiations with the Taliban. Karzai’s attempts to bring Hekmatyar’s party into an earlier Afghan government got him into trouble with the Northern Alliance, which loosely represents minority ethnic groups. At the height of Afghanistan’s civil war in the early 1990s, Karzai sought to bring Hekmatyar into Kabul to bridge the differences between him and Ahmed Shah Masood, an ethnic Tajik who was ruling the capital at the time. Karzai’s attempts at mediation landed him in jail, beaten by members of the Northern Alliance. He escaped in a vehicle provided by Hekmatyar and driven by Gul Rahman, who was arrested by the United States in 2004 for his alleged links to terrorism. The AP revealed that he was the first Afghan to die in U.S. custody from ill treatment in a facility near the Kabul airport known by inmates as the Saltpit. Hekmatyar, who is in his mid-60s, has been an on-again, off-again ally of the United States over the past several decades. He was a key beneficiary of the U.S. in the 1980s during the fight against invading Russian soldiers. According to testimony from Guantanamo prisoners, Hekmatyar sheltered Osama bin Laden for nearly one year after the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001. From his bases in Kunar and Nuristan provinces, Hekmatyar kept bin Laden safe until sometime in 2003 when he helped the al-Qaida leader escape to Pakistan, where he was killed by U.S. commandoes last month. Hekmatyar, whose men have also attacked Afghan security forces, sent a delegation to Kabul last year to discuss a formal reconciliation. The delegation has since delivered a blueprint which calls for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan as well as an interim government until new elections can be held. Some think Hizb-i-Islami may be achieving at least some of its goals more effectively from within the existing government. "What I see is very dangerous not just for Afghanistan and the region but for the world," Dashti said. He called the U.S. phased withdrawal "a strategy of escape."

60 dead in car bomb blast at Afghan hospital

60 dead in car bomb blast at Afghan hospital

Press Association

June 25, 2011 The death toll from a car bombing outside a medical clinic in eastern Afghanistan has risen to at least 60, authorities said. The Afghan health ministry said 120 people also were wounded in the blast in the Azra district of Logar province, 25 miles east of Kabul. Din Mohammad Darwesh, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said the blast hit a hospital in the Azra district of Logar province. Afghan officials said they were planning a helicopter trip to the remote area to help dig victims out of the rubble and transport them to better medical facilities. Meanwhile, authorities said at least 10 people, including a police officer, were killed when a bicycle rigged with explosives blew up in a bazaar in northern Afghanistan yesterday. The Afghan Interior Ministry said the blast struck the bazaar in the Khanabad district of Kunduz province. The ministry said in a statement today that 24 other people were injured in the attack, including five women and a policeman. A sport utility vehicle packed with explosives blew up outside the clinic, levelling the 10-bed medical centre, Afghan authorities said. The massive blast in the mountainous district also wounded at least 120, the Afghan Health Ministry said. Dr Mohammad Zaref Nayebkhail, the provincial health director, said the clinic guards tried to prevent the bomber from driving into the compound. "The driver didn't stop and he entered the compound and reached the main building of the health centre, where the truck detonated," Dr Nayebkhail said. The force of the blast caused the building housing the clinic to collapse, trapping at least 15 people underneath the rubble. "Right now, local people are helping to dig out bodies or wounded people from the ruined buildings," he said. Dr Nayebkhail said the clinic had recently been expanded to meet the health needs of the far-flung district's population. An emergency response team of nurses, doctors and other provincial officials was to fly by helicopter to the area to help search for survivors in the rubble of the remote clinic, he said. Din Mohammad Darwesh, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said 25 people were killed and more than 40 wounded in the blast. It was not possible immediately to reconcile the difference, but differing casualty figures are common immediately following such an attack. The Taliban denied responsibility for the bombing. Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the movement, told The Associated Press in a phone interview said that "this attack was not done by our fighters". Late yesterday, another blast - this one caused by a bicycle rigged with explosives - ripped through a bazaar in the Khanabad district of Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan, killing at least 10 people, including a police officer. At least 24 people were wounded in the attack, according to an interior ministry statement. Also, Nato said an alliance service member was killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan today. Nato did not release any other details about the death. The death brings to 47 the number of Nato service members killed in June and more than 200 killed this year.

Taliban announce beginning of spring offensive

Taliban announce beginning of spring offensive

Associated Press

April 30, 2011 KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban announced the beginning of their spring military offensive against the U.S.-led coalition Saturday, a day after a new Pentagon report claimed that the militants' fighting spirit was low after sustaining heavy losses on the battlefield. In a two-page statement, the Taliban said that beginning Sunday they would launch attacks on military bases, convoys and Afghan officials, including members of the government's peace council, who are working to reconcile with top insurgent leaders. "The war in our country will not come to an end unless and until the foreign invading forces pull out of Afghanistan," said the announcement released by the leadership council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which is what the Taliban calls itself. Senior officers with the U.S.-led coalition said on Friday that the Taliban — aided by the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network — have plans to conduct a brief series of high-profile attacks, such as suicide bombings, across the country in a display of power as fighting gears up with the warmer weather. The senior officers spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss recent intelligence that lead to the assessment. Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the coalition, said the Taliban planned to use the spate of violence as a "propaganda ploy" to try to demonstrate their relevance and create the perception of momentum despite recent setbacks. NATO claims the insurgents have suffered a number of setbacks in recent months, losing weapons caches, being pushed out of their traditional strongholds, and suffering the loss of thousands of insurgent fighters and field commanders. In Brussels, a NATO official said international forces had already tightened security due to the threat. They anticipated increased use of assassinations, spectacular attacks, and claims of infiltration, said the official who could not be named in line with standing regulations. The Pentagon report said the insurgents' momentum had been "broadly arrested" and their morale had begun to erode. Hundreds of insurgent leaders have been killed or captured and since last July, 700 former Taliban have officially reintegrated into Afghan society and another 2,000 insurgents are in various stages of the process, the report said. But recent weeks have seen a number of bold attacks suggesting that the insurgent group is still well-organized and has friends helping them out from inside government offices and bases. Since mid-April, insurgents have launched deadly attacks from inside the main military airport in Kabul, the Afghan Defense Ministry, the police headquarters for Kandahar city in the south and an Afghan-U.S. base in the east. And earlier this week, The Taliban tunneled into the Kandahar city jail and spirited out more than 480 inmates — most of them insurgents. The Taliban said insurgents will target "foreign invading forces, members of their spy networks and other spies, high-ranking officials of the Kabul puppet administration ... and heads of foreign and local companies working for the enemy and contractors." The Taliban ordered its fighters to pay "strict attention" to protecting civilians during the spring offensive. A recent U.N. report said about three-quarters of the estimated 2,777 civilians killed in Afghanistan last year died at the hands of insurgents, not international forces. The Afghan intelligence agency said that the government has also been tightening its security in anticipation of more attacks. "We have taken significant steps to prevent terrorist attacks from the enemy," said Latifullah Mashal, a spokesman for the agency. However, he said that suicide bombers continue to be a threat because they often approach on foot and can more easily slip past military and government defenses. Also on Saturday, the coalition released initial findings of the April 27 attack at the Kabul airport where a veteran Afghan military pilot opened fire, killing eight U.S. troops and an American civilian contractor who had been training the nascent Afghan air force. The shooting was the deadliest attack by a member of the Afghan security forces, or an insurgent impersonating them, on coalition troops or Afghan soldiers or policemen. Seven of the eight U.S. airmen killed were commissioned officers. The gunman was severely wounded by gunfire and was bleeding heavily when he left the room where most, but not all, of the trainers were killed, according to a senior NATO official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is not complete. The gunman was found dead in another part of the building, he said. The attack occurred at an Afghan facility, the air force headquarters, so the usual coalition weapons procedures would not have been in place and the trainers would have had their weapons — with magazines in place — in their possession, the official said. The trainers would not have had to load their guns to defend themselves, he said. All the NATO trainers killed were armed at the time of the attack, he said. According to the initial findings, the gunman appeared to be carrying two handguns. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, but the coalition said it has uncovered no evidence to suggest that the insurgency was behind it. "At this point in the investigation, it appears that the gunman was acting alone," the coalition said. "Beyond that, no Taliban connection with the gunman has been discovered. However, the investigation is still ongoing and we have not conclusively ruled out that possibility." Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi declined comment Saturday, saying the joint investigation by the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan and the Afghan government was still under way. In a statement issued late Friday, the U.S. Defense Department identified those killed as: —Lt. Col. Frank D. Bryant Jr., 37, of Knoxville, Tennessee. —Maj. Philip D. Ambard, 44, of Edmonds, Washington. —Maj. Jeffrey O. Ausborn, 41, of Gadsden, Alabama. —Maj. David L. Brodeur, 34, of Auburn, Massachusetts. —Maj. Raymond G. Estelle II, 40, of New Haven, Connecticut. —Capt. Nathan J. Nylander, 35, of Hockley, Texas. —Capt. Charles A. Ransom, 31, of Midlothian, Virginia. —Master Sgt. Tara R. Brown, 33, of Deltona, Florida. The civilian contractor was James McLaughlin Jr., 55, of Santa Rosa, California. McLaughlin was a helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft pilot who spent 32 years in the Army before retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 2007. In recent years, he trained Afghan helicopter pilots as an employee of L-3 MPRI, a consulting company based in Alexandria, Virginia. Meanwhile, a roadside bomb killed two Afghan police officers Saturday in southern Uruzgan province, said provincial spokesman Ahmad Milad Mudassir. Further details were not immediately available. Associated Press writers Amir Shah in Kabul and Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed to this report

US occupation in Afghanistan hit by string of bombings

US occupation in Afghanistan hit by string of bombings

By Bill Van Auken

WSWS, April 19, 2011 A series of bombings have signaled the beginning of a spring offensive by the Afghan resistance forces, while inflicting the greatest single-day casualties on US-led occupation forces in nearly a year. Two separate attacks last Saturday claimed the lives of eight NATO soldiers, the deadliest day for the occupation since June of last year. The bloodiest attack was at a desert base near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. A man wearing the uniform of the Afghan army walked into a room where about 40 US and Afghan troops were meeting and detonated an explosive vest he was wearing. Five US soldiers were killed together with four Afghan troops and an interpreter. A number of others were wounded. A spokesman for the Taliban said that the attacker was a soldier who had been in contact with the armed resistance for a "long time" and had been assigned to the base where the bombing took place about a month ago. Three more soldiers were killed Saturday by an improvised explosive device in the south of the country. While NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) did not announce the nationality of the dead, the US has the vast majority of troops in the area. High-profile attacks continued on Monday, with an assault on the Afghan Defense Ministry, one of Kabul’s most heavily guarded buildings, which sits adjacent to the presidential palace. There another man wearing an Afghan army uniform and an explosive vest—and equipped with a Defense Ministry pass—managed to breach security. He opened fire in the ministry offices, killing two people and injuring seven, including high-level officials. He was shot dead before he could detonate the explosives. Among the wounded were an assistant to the defense minister and the secretary of the Afghan army’s chief of staff. The Taliban took credit for this attack as well, announcing that its intended targets had been the Afghan defense minister and his visiting French counterpart, Gerard Longuet. After the bombing, Longuet cancelled a scheduled meeting at the ministry. In a separate incident Monday, a roadside bomb killed seven Afghan police officers in the Ghazni province of central Afghanistan. The attack on the ministry marked the tenth suicide bombing or bombing attempt in barely a week. In one of these attacks, a man wearing a police uniform managed to sneak into the heavily guarded police compound in Kandahar city and kill the provincial police chief, Khan Mohammad Mujahid. US and Afghan officials tried to minimize the significance of the attacks, claiming that they were an indication that the armed resistance groups were unable to mount major battles against the US-led forces and therefore were forced to resort to assassinations. "The insurgents took significant losses in the past year, 2010, and what they will try to do is re-infiltrate those areas," ISAF spokesman Lt. Col. John Dorrian told the media. "One of the ways they will attempt to do this is through assassinations." The success of these attacks, however, calls into question the central contention of the Pentagon and the Obama administration: that US-trained Afghan security forces will be ready to take over from the 100,000 American and 30,000 other foreign troops the task of suppressing the armed resistance. Supposedly, this process is set to begin in July, with the Obama administration promising to withdraw an unspecified number of American soldiers and Marines. Last Friday, in an interview with the Associated Press, President Barack Obama refused to give any indication of how many troops would be withdrawn. "I’m not going to give a number yet," said Obama. "Gen. [David] Petraeus is providing me with an assessment. Obviously all these things depend on the conditions on the ground." While promising the troop withdrawal would be more than "just a token gesture," he reiterated that he was waiting for "Gen. Petraeus to give me a clear recommendation." Clearly, the US military brass, which remains convinced that the correct application of sufficient American fire power and the execution of the right set of counterinsurgency tactics can defeat the Afghan resistance, will set the agenda, meaning that there will be no major reduction of the US occupation. The military command wants to maintain present troop levels indefinitely. Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared last month that the onset of Afghanistan’s traditional fighting season would be the "acid test" for the Obama administration’s "surge" of troops into the nearly 10-year-old US war. The warmer weather in Afghanistan allows the Afghan resistance to cross through mountain passes from sanctuaries on the Pakistan border and launch attacks. The Pentagon and US commanders in Afghanistan have claimed that the "surge," which saw the Obama administration pour 30,000 more US troops into the country last year, has fundamentally changed the strategic situation, making it impossible for the so-called insurgents to make headway in their traditional strongholds of Helmand and Kandahar in the south, where the bulk of the American forces were deployed. "We start this year in a very different place from last year," Gen. Petraeus told the Washington Post. In an article published Saturday, the Post provided some insight into the "success" of the US occupation in the south, which it said was the "result of intense fighting and the use of high-impact weapons systems not normally associated with the protect-the-population counterinsurgency mission." It described the attack on one village, Tarok Kolache, upon which the US military dropped 25 tons of explosives. The battalion commander who directed the offensive bragged that he had turned it into "a parking lot." According to the Post, "the unit went on to flatten parts of three other nearby villages." Whatever temporary peace may be bought by such scorched earth tactics in the south—Petraeus described the supposed gains as "fragile and reversible"—US officers acknowledge that the resistance is making gains in the east, resuming control over areas evacuated by the American military. Meanwhile, the spiraling hostility of the Afghan population toward foreign occupation continues to erupt into bloody clashes. A protest Monday over the arrest by US-led occupation troops of religious scholars accused of being insurgents turned into a mass demonstration numbering at least 3,000 in the town of Charikar, about 30 miles north of Kabul. The crowd blocked the Kabul—Mazar-i-Sharif for several hours. Police and troops fired on the demonstration, killing three people and wounding another 25. In what appears to reflect growing frustration with US policy in both Afghanistan and the region, the government of Pakistan has launched a high-level initiative to broker a peace deal between the Taliban and other armed resistance groups and the government of US-backed President Hamid Karzai. Last weekend, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, the country’s military intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha and the head of the army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, traveled jointly to Kabul for talks with the Afghan government. The two governments agreed to set up a joint commission for "reconciliation" in Afghanistan. "A war in Afghanistan can destabilize Pakistan and vice versa," said the Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani. "We are firmly supporting the strategy of reconciliation and we are with our brother Pakistan," he added. For his part, Karzai described the talks as "a fundamental departure from our meetings in the past." Coming at a time that is universally described as the most acrimonious in terms of US-Pakistani relations since September 11, 2001, when US officials threatened to attack Pakistan, the initiative appears to be an attempt to undercut Washington’s policy in the region. As the New York Times noted: "The Americans have been coaxing the Afghan and Pakistani leaderships to talk to each other, but not at the cost of keeping the United States out of the loop, or of concocting solutions that are against American interests." These "interests" are understood within Pakistan to include a permanent US military presence in Afghanistan for the purpose of exerting American hegemony over the energy resources of—and pipeline routes from—the Caspian Basin and countering the influence of both China and Pakistan itself. Speaking on Monday after a meeting with a US congressional delegation led by House Speaker John Boehner, Prime Minister Gilani reiterated Pakistan’s demand for a halt to CIA drone attacks in the tribal areas near the Afghan border. The Obama administration has more than doubled the number of these attacks over the last year, killing at least 670 people in over 100 separate strikes. This slaughter from the air has provoked rising popular anger throughout Pakistan. The Pakistani daily Dawn reported Monday that, in a ratcheting up of pressure on Washington, the Pakistani government will halt supplies passing through Pakistan to US-led troops in Afghanistan for two days, on April 23 and 24. The reason given for the blockade is a sit-in demonstration called in Peshawar by a political party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (Pakistan Movement for Justice), to protest the drone attacks. Citing government sources, Dawn reported that "the federal and provincial government decided to stop NATO oil tankers and food supplies during the protests to avoid any incidents of violence."

CENTRAL ASIA-human right's inferno

U.S. State Department has released its 2010 Country Reports on Human Practices. As expected, Central Asian states did not make a significant progress in human rights practices. Vice versa, majority of our region’s countries turned their backs to what we call respect to human rights.

We will start with Uzbekistan because the situation with human rights and political freedoms in this coutnry was “granted” a huge paragraph in the Introduction to the Report. Along with Afghanistan and Pakistan, this Central Asian country, motherland for more than 28 million people, represented a South and Central Asia chapter.

UZBEKISTAN
Human rights problems in Uzbekistan included citizens’ inability to change their government peacefully; tightly controlled electoral processes with limited opportunities for choice; instances of torture and mistreatment of detainees by security forces; incommunicado and prolonged detention; occasional life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; denial of due process and fair trial; restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association; governmental control of civil society activity; restrictions on religious freedom including harassment and imprisonment of religious minority group members; restrictions on freedom of movement for citizens; violence against women; and government-compelled forced labor in cotton harvesting.

According to the report, human rights activists and journalists who criticized the government were subject to physical attack, harassment, arbitrary arrest, and politically motivated prosecution and detention. (Read neweurasia’s coverage of one of such cases — Abdumalik Boboev, stringer at Voice of America, has been fined several hudnred minimum monthly wages, adding up to $11,000)

(TAKEN FROM THE INTRODUCTION; we split it in few parts with some minor edits): Uzbekistan continued to incarcerate individuals on political grounds. While one political prisoner, human rights activist Farhad Mukhtarov, was released during the year, 13 to 25 political prisoners remained in custody, and family members reported that many prisoners were tortured. Human rights activists, their family members, and members of certain religious groups reported harassment and arrest by police and other members of the security forces.

Freedom of expression was severely limited and harassment of journalists increased during the year. Police and security services subjected print and broadcast journalists to arrest, intimidation, and violence, as well as to bureaucratic restrictions on their activity.

The criminal and administrative codes imposed significant fines for libel and defamation and the government used charges of libel, slander, and defamation to punish journalists, human rights activists, and others who criticized the president or the government. Freedom of association also was restricted.

The government tightly controlled NGO activity and regulated Islamic and minority religious groups with strict legal restrictions on the types of groups that could be formed and registered. Forced adult and child labor was used during the cotton harvest.

KAZAKHSTAN
Human rights situation in this country was reported by the following problems: severe limits on citizens’ rights to change their government; military hazing that led to deaths; detainee and prisoner torture and other abuse; unhealthy prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; lack of an independent judiciary; restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and association; pervasive corruption, especially in law enforcement and the judicial system; prohibitive political party registration requirements; restrictions on the activities of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); discrimination and violence against women; trafficking in persons; and societal discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender persons, and those with HIV/AIDS.

KYRGYZSTAN
The list of human rights problems in Kyrgyzstan included: arbitrary killings, torture, and abuse by law enforcement officials; impunity; poor prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; lack of judicial independence; pressure on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and opposition leaders, including government harassment; pressure on independent media; government detention of assembly organizers; authorities’ failure to protect refugees adequately; pervasive corruption; discrimination against women, persons with disabilities, ethnic and religious minorities, and other persons based on sexual orientation or gender identity; child abuse; trafficking in persons; and child labor.

TAJIKISTAN
This country’s report included following human rights issues: restricted right of citizens to change their government; torture and abuse of detainees and other persons by security forces; impunity for security forces; denial of right to fair trial; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; prohibition of international monitor access to prisons; restrictions on freedoms of speech, press, association, and religion; corruption, which hampered democratic and social reform; violence and discrimination against women; arbitrary arrest; and trafficking in persons.

TURKMENISTAN
Country report for this authoritarian state says that although there were modest improvements, the government continued to commit serious abuses, and its human rights record remained poor. Authorities continued to severely restrict political and civil liberties. Human rights problems included: citizens’ inability to change their government; torture and mistreatment of detainees; incommunicado and prolonged detention; arbitrary arrest and detention; house arrest; denial of due process and a fair trial; arbitrary interference with privacy, home, and correspondence; restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association; restrictions on religious freedom, including continued harassment of some religious minority group members; restrictions on freedom of movement for some citizens; violence against women; and restrictions on free association of workers. Documentation of abuses was very limited.

The government initiated a broad effort to revise a variety of national laws to bring them into conformity with relevant international conventions. Other measured improvements in human rights included: the registration of two evangelical Christian groups; the pardoning of at least 22 prisoners of interest to the international community, some of whom were associated with the 2002 attack on President Niyazov’s motorcade; removal of external travel restrictions for at least four citizens; elimination of restrictions on internal movement for citizens; reinstatement of a 10th year of mandatory schooling; and establishment of a government commission tasked with bringing Turkmenistan’s practices in line with commitments in international human rights covenants.

US to spend $1.3 billion on Afghanistan bases

US to spend $1.3 billion on Afghanistan bases

By Bill Van Auken

WSWS, August 24, 2010

The Pentagon is embarking on a major base construction effort in Afghanistan even as Obama administration and military officials are making it clear that the US "surge" will last well past the July 11 deadline for beginning a drawdown of US troops.

The Washington Post reported Monday that the US Congress is preparing to pass legislation providing "$1.3 billion in additional fiscal 2011 funds for multiyear construction of military facilities in Afghanistan". These funds would cover, in part, $100 million expansions for each of three major US air bases in different parts of the country.

These projects, the Post stated, are indicative of plans "to support increased US military operations well into the future."

A notice seeking contractor bids placed on a US government web site last week maps out plans for the expansion of one of these US bases in Shindand, an airfield in western Afghanistan that had been used by the Soviet Army during its occupation of Afghanistan more than two decades ago.

The project is to include new runways, hangars, barracks, storage areas, a "weapons arming area" and other facilities. They are being built to accommodate the Special Operations troops used by Washington to carry out "targeted killings," i.e., assassinations, which have become a key component of the US war. They will also house a unit operating pilotless drone aircraft for purposes of "Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance" as well as missile attacks.

The request for bids states that the contract will not be issued until January of next year and that the job itself will not be completed until at least a full year after that, i.e., January 2012, six months after the deadline set by President Barack Obama for the beginning of the drawdown of US troops from Afghanistan.

The House of Representatives and the Senate Appropriations Committee have already approved the $1.3 billion base construction package, which is awaiting only a vote by the full Senate.

This money does not include another $5.3 billion in allocations for the construction of new facilities for the Afghan security forces, the Post reports, citing a Pentagon news release stating that most of these "enduring facilities [are] scheduled for construction over the next three to four years."

Also to be expanded with the $1.3 billion appropriation is Camp Dwyer, a Marine base and air field in Helmand province. A Pentagon document justifying the expenditure to Congress describes the facility as "a key hub" for special forces operations in southern Afghanistan, the scene of ongoing US offensives in both Helmand and Kandahar provinces. The base is to be expanded to accommodate more helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft for expanded attacks on Afghan villages.

The third facility set for a $100 million expansion is at Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan’s fourth-largest city and the capital of Balkh province in the north. The project, the Pentagon told Congress, was needed "in order to expand major logistical and combat support operations into the region."

Meanwhile, other major US military facilities continue to expand exponentially. Among them is the Kandahar air base just outside the city of Kandahar, which is being targeted for a major military offensive.

Last month, Time magazine published a profile of the Kandahar facility, describing it as "a small Western city in the Taliban heartland" housing some 25,000 troops and contractors. With an average of "5,000-plus military and commercial takeoffs and landings a week," Kandahar has become "the busiest military base in the world today," according to the report. The base’s 10-mile security perimeter requires substantial forces to patrol. Armed opposition groups have staged repeated attacks, wounding scores of military and civilian personnel over the past year.

While President Obama insisted when announcing his plans for an Afghanistan "surge" that the US had no intentions of permanently occupying the country, the base construction proposals suggest the opposite. Plans are being implemented based on the assumption that US military forces will be fighting there for years if not decades to come. This protracted war is being waged not to defeat "terrorism" or promote democracy in Afghanistan, but to secure US hegemony in the energy-rich and geo-strategically vital region of Central Asia.

Even as the latest polls indicate that at least 60 percent of the US population opposes the Afghanistan war and seven out of ten do not believe it can be won, top administration and military officials made a series of statements Monday all driving home the same message: do not expect any rapid withdrawal to begin with Obama’s supposed deadline in July 2011.

Speaking to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Indianapolis Monday, Vice President Joseph Biden stressed that the US war in Afghanistan is "only beginning with the right general and the right force."

"We are not leaving in 2011," Biden insisted. "We are beginning the transition."

The top US commander in charge of training Afghan security forces spoke at a Pentagon briefing Monday, stressing that this "transition" is still a long way off. Lt. Gen. William Caldwell told reporters that it would take at least another year to recruit a sufficient number of Afghan soldiers and police.

The Associated Press commented: "Caldwell’s assessment is likely to help dim hopes among Democrats that the planned US withdrawal next year will be significant in size."

The American general spelled out the immense difficulties confronting the US occupation as it attempts to set up a viable puppet Afghan force. The military newspaper Stars and Stripes quoted him as saying that the illiteracy rate among Afghan recruits is over 85 percent and the attrition rate among some units is well over 50 percent.

"We really don’t know where they go to, to be completely honest. It’s difficult to track over here," said Caldwell. Many of these Afghan soldiers disappear shortly after completing 17 weeks of training.

Caldwell said that to bring the Afghan security forces up to a proposed head-count of 305,000, another 56,000 recruits were needed. But, because the desertion rate is so great, it would be necessary to put another 141,000 through training. He said that the target date for meeting this goal was October 2011.

Asked how this October 2011 goal squared with the July 2011 deadline set by Obama, Caldwell stressed that the Afghan forces would not be able to operate independently any time soon. "We have not even finished building the Afghan National Army or the police force or the air force, at this point," he said. He added that for Afghan troops to operate on their own, "key enablers," including logistics, maintenance, transportation, and intelligence units would have to be in place. "None of those organizations have been built and brought online," he said.

The top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, gave an interview in Kabul to the BBC Monday stressing that the July 2011 deadline would not be a fundamental turning point. "That’s a date when a process begins—nothing more, nothing less," said Petraeus. "It is not the date when the American forces begin an exodus and look for the exit and the light to turn off on the way out of the room."

The general continued: "It’s a date when the process of transition of some tasks to some Afghanistan forces—in those areas where conditions allow it, and at a pace allowed by the conditions—that’s what begins then."

Petraeus’ comments were the latest in a series of media appearances in which he emphasized that any US troop drawdown would depend on military "conditions on the ground."

The general has coupled the clear warning that the Afghanistan "surge" will continue well after next July with claims of progress in the US war against the Afghan resistance. He told the BBC that "the momentum that the Taliban have established over the course of recent years has been reversed in many areas of the country."

In the face of continuing high casualties, he added, "It gets harder before it gets easier." Four US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan on Sunday and another four NATO troops, one of them reportedly American, were killed on Monday.

Petraeus’ feigned optimism notwithstanding, the crisis and contradictions confronting the US occupation appear to be deepening.

Over the weekend, Afghan President Hamid Karzai reiterated his order banning the operation of private security contractors inside the country, giving them four months to leave.

In an interview on ABC Television’s "This Week" program, Karzai charged that the contractors were destabilizing the country by "running a parallel security structure to the Afghan government." He accused the contractors of "looting and stealing from the Afghan people" and "causing a lot of harassment to our civilians."

The "surge" of private security contractors into the country has paralleled that of the US military. Contractors now outnumber US troops in Afghanistan.

Directed by US mercenaries, the security contractors employ as many 50,000 Afghans. They have been accused of killing Afghans with impunity as well as making payoffs to the Taliban and other armed anti-government groups to protect convoys bringing supplies to US forces from attack.

The Defense Department employs some 17,000 private security contractors in the country, a five-fold increase in their number since the beginning of 2009. The State Department employs thousands more.

Karzai said that he would exempt from his order those security contractors "providing protection to embassies and to aid organizations within their compounds and who escort diplomats or representatives of foreign governments in Afghanistan from place to place." He himself is guarded by private mercenaries.

Last June, the State Department signed a $120 million contract with the notorious Blackwater group, now rebranded as Xe Services, to provide protection for its regional offices in Afghanistan, while the CIA signed a $100 million deal with the company to provide security at its Kabul station.

The firm earned international infamy after its mercenaries massacred 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007 in Baghdad’s Nisour Square.

The State Department announced Monday that it had reached an administrative settlement with Blackwater under which the company will pay a $42 million penalty for violating hundreds of export rules over the past seven years, including making illegal arms shipments to Afghanistan. Two former Blackwater mercenaries still face federal murder charges for killing two Afghans civilians. Several former company executives have been indicted on criminal charges.