Afghans Believe US Is Funding Taliban
Guardian.co.uk - 052510
Intellectuals and
respected Afghan professionals are convinced the west is prolonging
conflict to maintain influence in the region ...
Bill For Afghan War Could Run Into The Trillions
InformationClearinghouse.info, by
Eli Clifton
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda Bilmes
estimated that the long-term costs - taking into account the costs of taking
care of wounded soldiers and rebuilding the military - of the war in Iraq will
ultimately cost three trillion dollars. ...
Earlier this year, blurry pictures were released by the French magazine Air & Cosmos of a previously
unknown stealth drone taken at Kandahar in Afghanistan. The photos, snapped in
2007, prompted a wave of speculation about the classified aircraft. That
speculation
grew even more intense this week, when a blog belonging to the French
newspaper Libération released an even better
photograph. But while
the new picture may answers some questions, it also creates a heap of new
mysteries. Chief among them: Why use such a fancy, stealthy aircraft in
Afghanistan? The Taliban have neither the radar to spot the plane, nor the
weaponry to shoot it down. ...
What I Learned in Afghanistan - About the United States
InformationClearinghouse.info, byDana Visalli -
050710 Do you want to spend your life paying for the death of
people (executed by the US military) that you would probably have loved if you
have met them? Do you want to spend your life paying for the arsenal of hydrogen
bombs that could very well destroy most of the life on the planet.
...
Sixty-five congress members, including 60 Democrats and 5 Republicans, voted
to end the occupation of Afghanistan on Wednesday. But 356 congress members,
including 189 Democrats and 167 Republicans voted to keep the war going. The
vote followed three hours of debate created by Congressman Dennis Kucinich's
introduction of a privileged resolution. ...
Kucinich on Afghanistan
Ron Paul On Afghanistan
Re-Think War
An American soldier speaks out with the
truth
From IVAW: U.S Soldiers Are
Waking Up!
U.S. in Afghanistan : 1979-2009
TheRagBlog.Blogspot.com - 122709 The pain and suffering of the
peoples of Afghanistan has a long history before and since the United States
intervened in their political lives in 1979. Many outside powers share
responsibility for their plight. But today’s situation directly relates to the
covert war the United States encouraged and funded from the summer of 1979
...
Michael
MooreTakes on Obama's
Afghanistan Escalation
MichaelMoore.com,
December 3rd, 2009
'Obama's Vietnam'; "We have been in this war for twice as long now as the
U.S. was in World War II, twice as long as World War II. We defeated Hitler and
Tojo and Mussolini in half the time it's taken us to find Osama bin Laden." –
Michael Moore on Larry King Live
Examining Obama's Rationale for Escalating The Afghanistan War
Intel Daily, 120409
Outlining his rationale for the decision to send yet
more troops to Afghanistan, President Barack Obama on Tuesday began with a
familiar refrain: “We did not ask for...
Some Simple Questions After Obama's Afghanistan War
Speech
InformationClearinghouse.info, By David Sirota
Would you be OK sending yourself or a loved one over to face combat and
potentially death for the mission Obama articulated in Afghanistan? If not, how
could you support sending other people?
Continue
Obama's War Is He Taking Ownership Or Just Cleaning Up A
Huge Bush Mess?
InformationClearinghouse.info, By Jim Hightower
Obama has been taken over by the military industrial hawks and national security
theorists who play war games with other people's lives and money.
Continue
How do you ask a Man to be the Last Man to Die for a
President's Political Image?
InformationClearinghouse.info, By David Sirota
120409
There are 68,000 U.S. troops and 42,000 from other countries in Afghanistan. The
U.S. Army's recently revised counterinsurgency manual estimates that an all-out
counterinsurgency campaign in a country with Afghanistan's population would
require about 600,000 troops.
Continue
"As commander in chief, I have determined that
it is in our vital national interests to send an additional
30,000 troops to Afghanistan," Obama said, but offered an
immediate signal the US mission was not open ended.
"After 18 months, our troops will begin to
come home."
Employee of the Month MichaelMoore.com New York Times reports Afghan president's brother is
major opium dealer on CIA payroll. ...
Taliban Did Not Refuse to Hand Over Bin Laden
InformationClearinghouse.info,
by Ralph Lopez 120409 Obama slipped past a real doozy Tuesday night when he said the Taliban
refused to hand over bin Laden. It just ain't so. They tried three times to open
negotiations for this, but Bush refused each time. He wanted to bomb people so
bad it hurt.
Continue
Karzai set to replace most of his cabinet Globe and Mail -
Dec 3, 2009
If he doesn't do that, he will lose all respect here and
abroad.” A close Karzai adviser confirmed that the President is
looking to purge most of his ...
45,000 More U.S. Troops To Afghanistan
By BBC Newsnight
The Obama administration had told the British government that it
will soon announce a substantial boost to its Afghanistan force
and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that Britain will
send a further 500 soldiers.
Continue
NewsFocus:This has never
been about the Taliban or Al Qaeda. It's all about a gas and oil
pipeline.
US military suicides reach new high
WSWS.org, by By James
Cogan 120209
The number of serving American military personnel who took their
lives in 2009 has already exceeded last year’s record. These suicides are first
of all tragic. Secondly, they indicate the immense psychological harm that the
neo-colonial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have inflicted on members of the armed
forces. ...
Saving Face in Afghanistan
InformationClearinghouse.info, by
Ron Paul - October 14, 2009
We overthrew the Taliban government in 2001 with less than
10,000 American troops. Why does it now seem that the more
troops we send, the worse things get? If the Soviets bankrupted
themselves in Afghanistan with troop levels of 100,000 and were
eventually forced to leave in humiliating defeat, why are we
determined to follow their example?
Continue
Who is funding the Afghan Taliban? You
don’t want to know
GlobalPost and Reuters, by Jean MacKenzie 081709
KABUL — It is the open secret no one wants to
talk about, the unwelcome truth that most prefer to hide. In
Afghanistan, one of the richest sources of Taliban funding is
the foreign assistance coming into the country.
Virtually every
major project includes a healthy cut for the insurgents. Call it
protection money, call it extortion, or, as the Taliban
themselves prefer to term it, “spoils of war,” the fact remains
that international donors, primarily the United States, are to a
large extent financing their own enemy.
“Everyone knows
this is going on,” said one U.S. Embassy official, speaking
privately. (Read
More)
They did not attack us on 9/11. Like Iraq, this is an illegal war for oil and
profits.
Fighting the Taliban
What, Exactly, is Being Fought in Afghanistan?
InformationClearinghouse.info, by M.
Reza Pirbhai
Washington insiders do not mention that the Taliban’s “harsh
form of oppression on women and others,” which everyone from
Madeleine Albright to Hillary Clinton have argued provides cause
for war, is not a concern when relations with ‘Wahhabi’ Saudi
Arabia are pursued.
Continue
Classified McChrystal
Report: 500,000 Troops Will Be
Required Over Five Years in Afghanistan InformationClearinghouse.info,
By Tom Andrews - September 24, 2009 Congress should immediately convene
hearings to discuss alternatives to General McChrystal's
proposal for such a massive escalation of the war in
Afghanistan. It is time for the administration and Congress to
demilitarize U.S. policy in Afghanistan and strike out in a new,
sustainable, direction.
Continue
McChrystal: More Forces
or 'Mission Failure'
InformationClearinghouse.info,
By Bob Woodward The top U.S. and NATO commander
in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of
the war that he needs more forces within the next year and
bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict "will
likely result in failure," according to a copy of the 66-page
document obtained by The Washington Post.
Continue
America Has Been Here
Before
InformationClearinghouse.info,
By Eric Margolis American and NATO generals
running the Afghan war amazingly warn they risk being beaten by
Taliban tribesmen in spite of their 107,000 soldiers, B-1 heavy
bombers, F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, Apache and AC-130 gunships, heavy
artillery, tanks, radars, killer drones, cluster bombs, white
phosphorus, rockets, and space surveillance.Continue
CIA Adding Bases in Afghanistan
Bloomberg News
The growing strength of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan
prompted the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to establish more
bases there, the agency’s director said.
US accepts Hamid Karzai as Afghan
President Despite poll fraud claims InformationClearinghouse.info,
By Giles
Whittell in Washington 092909 The White House has ended weeks
of hesitation over how to respond to the Afghan election by
accepting President Karzai as the winner despite evidence that
up to 20 per cent of ballots cast may have been fraudulent.
Continue
At Least 90 Killed In US Attack Stench of Death Hangs over Afghan Riverbank InformationClearinghouse.info,
By Ameen Salarzai and Angor Bagh The stench of burnt flesh hung over the banks of the Kunduz river in the
early hours of Friday, the ground scattered with the body parts of villagers who
just wanted something for free.
Continue
US attack killed at least 40
civilians in Afghanistan
The United Nations on Friday called for an investigation into a NATO airstrike
that killed as many as 90 people - nearly half of them civilians - during an
attack on two hijacked fuel tankers.
It's not temporary. It's three stories of concrete.
Eight years after American forces scattered the Taliban and effectively
conquered Afghanistan, the United States is embarked on a frenzied $220
million building campaign at this sprawling and still expanding military air
base. Just to meet the base's demand for fresh concrete, it has two of its
own cement factories working full time.
Read more
Digging In
Mother Jones
Does the Department of Defense have a bigger agenda in Iraq? Brig. General
Robert Pollman, chief engineer of base construction in Iraq, caused a
stir—and ...
The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases
Jul 1, 2007 ... In a second section of this article, Worldwide popular resistance movements
directed against US military bases and their various projects ...
Major Military Bases World-Wide
Major Military Bases World-Wide ....
Navy, USA, Naval Base Point Loma. Navy, USA, Naval Postgraduate
School. Navy, USA, Naval Shipyard
Portsmouth ...
America's Empire of Bases
Jan 15, 2004 ... The first post-Soviet-era Russian airbase in Kyrgyzstan has
just been completed forty miles from the U.S.
base at Bishkek, and in December ...
Afghanistan, Another Untold Story
by Michael Parenti December 7, 2008
GlobalResearch.com
Barack Obama
is on record as advocating a military escalation in Afghanistan. Before
sinking any deeper into that quagmire, we might do well to learn something
about recent Afghan history and the role played by the United States.
Less than a month after the 11 September 2001 attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, US leaders began an all-out aerial
assault upon Afghanistan, the country purportedly harboring Osama bin Laden
and his al Qaeda terrorist organization. More than twenty years earlier, in
1980, the United States intervened to stop a Soviet "invasion" of that
country. Even some leading progressive writers, who normally take a more
critical view of US policy abroad, treated the US intervention against the
Soviet-supported government as "a good thing." The actual story is not such
a good thing.
Obama says US is losing war in Afghanistan Times Online - 2
hours ago 030809 President Obama conceded today that the US
was not winning the war in Afghanistan and opened the way for
negotiations with moderate elements of the Taliban, much as
America did with Sunni tribes in Iraq. ...
Afghan leader Karzai backs Obama's call on
Taliban Reuters - By
Sayed Salahuddin 8
hours ago 030809
KABUL, March 8 (Reuters) - With violence in
Afghanistan at its highest since the Taliban was ousted, Afghan
President Hamid Karzai on Sunday welcomed US counterpart Barack
Obama's openness to adapting tactics used to deal with
...
Afghans turn "new page" as US sends more troops
Reuters - 1 hour ago 021809
By Sayed
Salahuddin KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan is turning a new page
in relations with the United States, an Afghan presidential
spokesman said on Wednesday, as US President Barack Obama
ordered 17000 more troops deployed to battle Taliban ...
Afghanistan hails 'new US ties'BBC News
US Sends More Troops To
Afghanistan
Afghan relations are reported to be improving.
Finally: Pentagon To Allow Coverage of War
Coffins Obama Administration Will Do What The Bush
Administration Wouldn't Do, Honor Our War Dead In The Media CNN - 1
hour ago 022609
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon will lift its
longtime ban on media coverage of the flag-draped coffins of war
victims arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, according
to a senior US defense official with direct knowledge of the
decision.
Officials: Pentagon OKs media photos of war deadThe Associated Press
Kyrgyz government prepares to shut US base
Reuters - 5
hours ago 020409
BISHKEK (Reuters) - Kyrgyzstan's government has
submitted a decree to parliament to shut down a US airbase in
the Central Asian state, an official spokesman ...
Pentagon Stunned by Threat to Close Crucial Base
Wired News - 2
hours ago 020409
As the United States prepares to send more
troops to Afghanistan, the Pentagon faces the loss of a crucial
staging area in the region. ...
Kyrgyzstan May Close US Air Base
Associated Content, CO -
1 hour ago 020409
Russia has agreed to give Kyrgyzstan a two
billion dollar loan, write off 180 million dollars in debt, and
add 150 million dollars in foreign aid. ...
A
Report On The Afghanistan War
We already taught these guys how to fight a super power
U.S. to arm local Afghans to
fight Taliban By Barbara Starr, CNN
Pentagon Correspondent 122708
(CNN) -- The U.S. military
plans to help the Afghanistan government recruit, train and arm
local Afghans to fight a resurgent Taliban, U.S. military
officials say.
U.S. will give free weapons to Afghan civilians
Afghan leader sends demands to US on
troop conduct
The Afghan president has sent a list of demands to the United
States government about troop conduct ahead of the arrival of
more U.S. forces, pressing for cooperation with his government.
Rachel
Maddow Takes A Look At The Road Ahead In Afghanistan
The prolonged occupation is not what many are hoping for.
Taliban in dress, 52 others
killed in Afghanistan
The Associated Press
By HEIDI VOGT – 1 day ago
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Gunbattles and airstrikes by NATO and
Afghan troops killed 53 militants in Afghanistan, including a
wanted Taliban commander who tried to hide from soldiers under a
woman's burqa, officials said Saturday.
Pakistan may pull troops
from Afghan border to India's
Kansas City Star, MO -
3 hours ago
By SAEED SHAH
Pakistan has warned that it will divert troops fighting the
Taliban and al-Qaida on its western border with Afghanistan
to its eastern ...
German general breaks
silence on Afghanistan
International Herald
Tribune, France - 8 hours ago
The comments
came from General Hans-Christoph Ammon, head of the army's elite
special commando unit, or KSK, whose officers are in
Afghanistan fighting ...
Britain to consider
Afghanistan troop request
The Associated Press -
Nov 28, 2008
LONDON (AP) —
Britain will carefully examine any request from the incoming US
administration to send more troops to Afghanistan,
Foreign Secretary David ...
Computer Virus Hits US
Military Base in Afghanistan
U.S. News & World Report,
DC - Nov 28, 2008
By Anna Mulrine
KABUL—The largest US military base in Afghanistan was hit
by a computer virus earlier this month that affected nearly
three quarters of the ...
The Taliban Is a Drug Cartel and Should
Be Attacked as Such
U.S. News & World Report,
DC - Nov 28, 2008
By Sam Dealey,
Thomas Jefferson Street blog. The latest report on Afghanistan's
opium economy from the UN's drug tsar, Antonio Maria Costa, only
confirms ...
Sharp drop in Afghan
poppy crop
BBC News, UK -
Nov 27, 2008
There has been a
sharp decrease in poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, according to
the latest UN report. The report says cultivation in 2008
dropped 19% ...
UN Reports That Taliban
Is Stockpiling Opium
New York Times, United
States - Nov 27, 2008
By KIRK
KRAEUTLER UNITED NATIONS — Afghanistan has produced so much
opium in recent years that the Taliban are cutting back poppy
cultivation and ...
Afghan opium supply
outstrips demand
United Press International
- Nov 27, 2008
UNITED NATIONS,
Nov. 27 (UPI) -- The Taliban has been working to keep the price
of opium up by cutting poppy production in Afghanistan, a UN
report released ...
UN: Taliban could clear
$500M from 2008 drug trade
The Associated Press -
Nov 28, 2008
KABUL,
Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban and other warlords could clear
almost half a billion dollars from Afghanistan's opium trade
this year — money that ...
Taliban kill "US spy" in
Pakistani tribal area
Antara, Indonesia -
5 hours ago
Miranshah, Pakistan (ANTARA News) - Taliban militants hanged and
shot dead an Afghan man in a restive Pakistani tribal area
bordering Afghanistan, ...
Karzai's many demands
Toronto Star, Canada -
18 hours ago
Karzai took aim
at the United States and its allies last week for failing "to
fight the Taliban properly. He demanded that they set a firm
deadline for ...
Karzai offers Taliban leader
'protection' for peace
KABUL (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid
Karzai said Wednesday he would protect the fugitive
leader of the insurgent Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar,
in return for peace whether his international partners
liked it or not.
