Saturday, October 9, 2010
The Worthless War Chronicles - Afghanistan, Year Ten
Rethink Afghanistan
Auntie thinks we should all ruminate on what we've achieved in those ten long years.
Corrupt colonial governments?
Yes.
Peace?
No.
Security?
NOT!
Dead soldiers?
Absofuckinglutely!
Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard is tended to by fellow U.S. Marines in Afghanistan.
Photograph: Julie Jacobson/AP
But the Pentagon and the other monetarily interested parties in America's wars to feed the gaping maw of the Military-Financial-Educational-Industrial Complex want you to just simply play along with their murderous imperial wars like "Good Americans-cum-Germans" and certainly don't want you to think about... REALLY think about, those Absofuckinglutely dead soldiers.
(Here's what Stars and Stripes thinks too!)
They want you to think of...
"Little America In Afghanistan" (click)
[Pre-1942 American Classroom Salutes Flag]
Source, PoP dEFECT Radio, Courtesy of Skidmark Bob Freek Radio Santa Cruz |
The Way It Was, one day after, October 08, 2010:
Seven more fuel tankers have been burned in Pakistan as the country's security service, the ISI, is being accused of supporting the Talib in those attacks... and in Afghanistan the Talib have killed a politician ostensibly associated with the Northern Alliance (CIA affiliated Opium grower's army) and the Peace Commission/truce meeting is still in it's infancy with much secrecy and no word yet.
Juan Cole with more on our FUBAR involvement in the region:
Sen. Carl Levin of the Senate Armed Services Committee announced a report on Thursday on the way the private security contractors hired by the US military (even to guard bases!) are subject to little oversight, are corrupt, and sometimes pass on money or resources to what are essentially Taliban.[Quote Source]
That is, the US may be indirectly hiring the Taliban to hit US bases.
At the same time, the some 3000 Afghans serving in the private CIA army in Afghanistan have been accused of carrying out among the worst attacks in that country. Erica Gaston of the Open Society Institute talks about her own experiences on the ground in this regard.
The Open Society Foundation reports the finding of Open Society Institute social scientists that ordinary Afghans blame US and NATO military actions as much or more than they blame the Taliban for civilian losses.
The tendency to blame the US is visible in Todd Pitman’s excellent piece revisiting Marjah.
Remember Marjah?
This cluster of farm houses in the Taliban poppy-growing region of Helmand Province was supposed to be a demonstration project for Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s counter-insurgency campaign (take, clear, hold and build). All these months later, the US forces have not dislodged the Taliban, and it seems clear that there are places that GIs cannot go without incurring a firefight.
That is, the ‘clear’ phase has hit a Himalayan-sized snage. Much less hold and build. It was on the “success” of the Marjah campaign that the long-delayed attack on the major southern city of Qandahar was to have been modeled. I wouldn’t advise the US to try to attack and occupy Qandahar if they cannot even deal with Marjah.
While it won’t yield results soon, the negotiations of the Karzai government with insurgents are likely to point the way toward the end of the foreign military presence and the establishment of a new, more inclusive government in the medium to long term. [In Full @ Informed Comment]
One Last Thing... from Razer, with Auntie Imperial seconding:
An un-indicted co-conspirator in "Torture under the color of law" dies an early death.
He and his traitorous ilk WILL NOT be mourned.
Scott Caplan, a Portland lawyer who was caught up in a scandal over flying terror suspects to secret prisons, died this week after suffering a heart attack. He was 49.
As reported in The Lake Oswego Review, Caplan was playing tennis Monday at the Lake Oswego Tennis Center when he collapsed from a heart attack. He died on Tuesday morning.
In 2007, WW reported on Caplan’s ties to the CIA’s so-called “extraordinary rendition” program flying terror suspects to countries that practice torture.
Caplan’s law practice in large part consisted of acting as a registered agent for companies. In 2003 he set up Bayard Foreign Marketing LLC, a company whose listed owner—Leonard T. Bayard—had no official history and didn’t appear to exist.
In 2004, days after reporters blew open the story of the CIA’s secret flights, Bayard bought one of the program’s busiest planes from a company in Dedham, Mass., that reporters determined was a CIA front. The tail number of the Gulfstream V executive jet was changed, but it continued to make flights to countries like Egypt and Iraq... [More]
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