In a shocking indication of a split between the White House and the Pentagon over the war in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates believes that the U.S. military will never leave the war-torn country. During a dinner hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for Afghan President Hamid Karzai in May, Gates reminded the group that he still feels guilty for his role in the first President Bush's decision to pull out of Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, according to Bob Woodward's new book, "Obama's Wars." And to express his commitment to not letting down the country again, he emphasized:

"We're not leaving Afghanistan prematurely," [Gates finally said.] "In fact, we're not ever leaving at all."

A district government official in Afghanistan’s Ghazni Province is confirming today that NATO attack helicopters targeted a group of civilians in an orchard near the town of Andar, killing four children and wounding three other civilians. Civilian deaths have been on the rise for months in Afghanistan, with fighting between insurgent and occupation forces taking an increasing toll on those caught in between them. The Afghan government has repeatedly complained about civilian killings by NATO troops, but the recent trend has been toward relaxing the rules of engagement amid claims it was harming morale.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday that most Americans have grown too detached from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and see military service as "something for other people to do." To attract and retain recruits, the Defense Department finds itself spending more money, including handsome recruiting and retention bonuses and education benefits. The money spent on personnel and benefits has nearly doubled since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, from $90 billion to $170 billion. "That is our sacred obligation," Gates told the audience of compensating troops. "But given the enormous fiscal pressures facing the country," the nation must devise "an equitable and sustainable system of military pay and benefits that reflects the realities of this century." [How would a mass murderer know anything about "sacred obligations"?]

Stars & Stripes: Study: Wars could cost $4 trillion to $6 trillion.

Seven servicemen with the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have lost their lives in a militant attack in volatile southern Afghanistan. The ISAF service members were killed following an attack in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar, a Press TV correspondent reported on Thursday. Roadside bombs, or Improvised Explosive Device (IEDs), are by far the most lethal weapon Taliban militants use against foreign troops, Afghan forces as well as civilians.

The latest deaths bring to 59 the number of fatalities among foreign troopers in war-ravaged Afghanistan this month. June, nonetheless, remains the worst month for foreign military casualties with a death toll of 103. A total of 549 foreign soldiers have been killed in the Afghan war so far this year. The American army has lost 1,307 soldiers since October 2001 when Washington unleashed the US-led invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow Taliban militants. Thousands of civilians have died and many others sustained injuries in US-led operations in Afghanistan.

Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with inventing the world wide web, warned Tuesday of the "blight" of new laws being introduced across the globe allowing people to be cut off from the Internet. "There's been a rash of laws trying to give governments and Internet service providers (ISPs) the right and the duty to disconnect people," he told a conference on web science at the Royal Society in London. The "current blight" includes a French law that comes into effect this year that threatens to cut people off if they illegally download from the Internet, and a new British law passed in April which could see similar action, he said.

"If a French family can be forcibly disconnected from the Internet by law for a year because one of their children downloaded something that some company asserts that they should not have downloaded, without trial -- I think that's a kind of inappropriate punishment," [Berners-Lee said.] [He added:] "I'd like to go on using the Internet. If it gets cut off, or for some reason things go wrong, in some cases, for me, my social life would disintegrate, for other people it may be access to medical information."

AWIP: U.S. should be able to shut Internet, former CIA chief says
(AWIP: POLICE STATE: White House Seeks Broad Powers to Wiretap Internet)

The Next Stage: Global Naked Body Scanners - U.S. DHS boss Napolitano will urge 190 nations to adopt the dangerous machines. The U.S. Homeland Security chief will urge 190 nations today to improve aviation security with body scanners and other innovations to stop terrorists from carrying plastic and powdered explosives onto airplanes.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the push aims to counter terrorists who might use international flights for attacks by smuggling explosives through overseas metal detectors. Such devices can't stop suicide bombers from hiding unconventional weapons under their clothes. A Nigerian man is under federal indictment for trying to blow up an international flight headed for Detroit in December by igniting powdered explosives in his underwear.

US intelligence services would be allowed to tap text messages, emails and networking websites under new powers being considered by Barack Obama's administration. The FBI says "extremists" and "drug cartels" [This is not about extremists and drug cartels. It's about you.] are increasingly communicating online rather than using telephones, leaving US investigators struggling to keep track of them. A new bill requesting the additional powers to investigate suspected criminals and terrorists will be presented next year. It is likely to face stiff opposition from civil liberties advocates who say the security services have historically abused extensions of power.

Tracy Molm sometimes has a hard time paying rent, so it came as a surprise when American security forces banged on her door at 7am one morning, and searched her apartment under suspicions she provided "material support to a terrorist organisation". Warrants indicate that investigators believe Molm and at least seven other activists from the Minnesota anti-war committee and other groups provided material support to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), groups the US considers terrorist organisations.

"My assumption is that material support means money and guns, but they [police] wouldn't explain anything," Molm told Al Jazeera. "I think the real thing is that they are trying to intimidate those of us who are standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Colombia."

Activists from Minneapolis and Chicago have been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury investigation in October, after coordinated police raids on September 24.

Toronto -- Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley issued a 60-page ruling today that slams the federal government for attempting to ban former British MP George Galloway from entering Canada. The ruling vindicates Galloway and his Canadian supporters who argued that Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney made a political decision to try to keep Galloway out of Canada, not one based on national security claims. According to Justice Mosley, "the main reason why the respondents [the Federal government] sought to prevent Mr. Galloway from entering Canada was that they disagreed with his political views."

rabble.ca: New information surfaces on Minister of Citizenship and Immigration's involvement in George Galloway banning

rabble.ca: U.K. politician George Galloway flies to Toronto on Saturday after court decision. Former British MP George Galloway will now arrive in Toronto on Saturday, Oct. 2, to resume his pan-Canada speaking tour after being prevented from entering the country in March 2009. A welcome rally will assemble at 5 p.m. at the Terminal 1 arrivals gate at Lester B. Pearson International Airport, where Galloway will hold a 15-minute press conference. On Sunday, Oct. 3, at 3 p.m., Galloway will address a public meeting at Trinity-St. Paul's United Church, 427 Bloor Street, in downtown Toronto. This event is sponsored by rabble.ca, and will be livestreamed on rabbleTV.

So what if they don´t know how many sides a triangle have? Or who Tony Blair is? That is not fair...just because their president is as intelligent as a door...

[This video was made during the Bush presidency, so here's a question for you: What president is being referred to here as "intelligent as a door"? - Difficult, you say? If you don't know the answer to that question, you must be an American...].

U.N. rights body backs critique of Gaza flotilla raid. United States is the only country voting "No". The United Nations Human Rights Council Wednesday endorsed a fiercely critical report on Israel's raid on a Gaza aid flotilla in May but stopped short of pressing for an international criminal inquiry. It also renewed the mandate of separate investigation team that has been looking into whether Israelis and Palestinians have been properly investigating alleged rights abuses during the 3-week Gaza conflict in 2008-2009. But there was no indication in two separate resolutions tabled at the 47-nation council by the Organisation of Islamic States (OIC) that Israel's critics were aiming to have it taken soon before the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Locals in an Israeli-occupied neighborhood find traces of banned weaponry, used by Israeli forces in their crackdown on a recent wave of protests. The Silwan neighborhood of East al-Quds (Jerusalem) has been swept with outrage at a curfew imposed following the troops' killing of two Palestinians on September 22, the Palestinian Ma'an news agency reported. The order prevented movement between al-Quds' neighborhoods. The area of the clashes was scattered after the suppression with expired and oxidized tear gas canisters. Medical staff said those injured in the incidents displayed signs of poisoning. Residents, meanwhile, reported an increase in the symptoms of fatigue, high fever, vomiting and shortness of breath. A 14-month-old infant has also died due to its inhalation of tear gas fired by Israeli forces, confronting the protests in East al-Quds that followed the recent killings. A preliminary probe has been launched into the use of the weapons, while further investigation is planned.

With the resumption of settlement construction in the West Bank yesterday, Israel’s powerful settler movement hopes that it has scuttled peace talks with the Palestinians. It would be misleading, however, to assume that the only major obstacle to the success of the negotiations is the right-wing political ideology the settler movement represents. Equally important are deeply entrenched economic interests shared across Israeli society. These interests took root more than six decades ago with Israel’s establishment and have flourished at an ever-accelerating pace since Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the 1967 war. Even many Israeli Jews living within the recognised borders of Israel privately acknowledge that they are the beneficiaries of the seizure of another people’s lands, homes, businesses and bank accounts in 1948. Most Israelis profit directly from the continuing dispossession of millions of Palestinian refugees.

For me the deportation process was humiliating. Jew against Jew is totally against the dreams of so long ago, what we imagined how our beloved Israel would evolve. That dream was for me a safe haven, a country of compassion. Tolerance for all, and a completely open society. I can imagine that Israel would have become a beacon of light for the world to follow. In this dream there would be tolerance for political difference. Now sadly, Jews have become divided against one another and it is no longer a safe haven. We from the Jewish boat were treated as traitors and people to get rid of. We were not "good Jews," but "bad Jews to deport without being allowed to enter Israel again." Only in Fascist regimes are people forced to think the same. I experienced humiliation when arrested. I was not physically mistreated but suffered emotionally. I suffered when the immigration person asked me if I was Jewish after I told him I was a refugee from the Nazis, the last generation to be able to tell the heinous story. He wanted me to prove that I was Jewish. How was I to do that and yes, how deeply humiliating. When I witness the Israel of today, I feel enormous pain. I was deported because of my human rights beliefs and non violent actions. In detention I no longer felt safe or cared about. I don't even think it mattered that I am Jewish. Now I will not be allowed to return to Israel as the cycle of hate and fear goes on and on. Those of us who dreamed of a different kind of Israel can only weep.

Nathan Thrall has a great article in the current issue of the New York Review of Books on an issue that has received scant attention in the US press - US support for Salam Fayyad's anti-democratic crackdown in the West Bank. US support has come mainly through the work of Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, who has been training the Palestinian security forces being used to round up, arrest and intimidate the Palestinian Authority's opponents. One of the most notable, though understated, points of the article is the continuity from the Bush to Obama administrations in supporting this misguided and dangerous policy.

This project has more or less amounted to an US attempt to instigate a Palestinian civil war, similar to the contra policy in Nicaragua during the 1980s (Elliott Abrams ring any bells?). The result, as Mustafa Barghouti describes it in the last line of Thrall's article, is that Palestinians are now having to live "not [under] one occupation but two."