11/22/13

Permalink Obama signs deal to keep troops in Afganistan until 2024

Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Wednesday that the United States and Afghanistan had finalized the wording of a bilateral security agreement that would allow for a lasting American troop presence through 2024 and set the stage for billions of dollars of international assistance to keep flowing to the government in Kabul. The deal, which will now be presented for approval by an Afghan grand council of elders starting on Thursday, came after days of brinkmanship by Afghan officials and two direct calls from Mr. Kerry to President Hamid Karzai, including one on Wednesday before the announcement. Just the day before, a senior aide to Mr. Karzai had said the Afghan leader would not approve an agreement unless President Obama sent a letter acknowledging American military mistakes during the 12-year war. But on Wednesday, Mr. Kerry emphatically insisted that a deal was reached with no American apology forthcoming. “President Karzai didn’t ask for an apology. There was no discussion of an apology,” Mr. Kerry said. “I mean, it’s just not even on the table.”

AllGov: Troops Stay 10 More Years and Allowed to Raid Afghan Homes if Obama Apologizes


11/20/13

Permalink Perpetual occupation of Afghanistan: US to keep troops in place and funds flowing, perhaps indefinitely

While many Americans have been led to believe the war in Afghanistan will soon be over, a draft of a key U.S.-Afghan security deal obtained by NBC News shows the United States is prepared to maintain military outposts in Afghanistan for many years to come, and pay to support hundreds of thousands of Afghan security forces. The wide-ranging document, still unsigned by the United States and Afghanistan, has the potential to commit thousands of American troops to Afghanistan and spend billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. The document outlines what appears to be the start of a new, open-ended military commitment in Afghanistan in the name of training and continuing to fight al-Qaeda. The war in Afghanistan doesn’t seem to be ending, but renewed under new, scaled-down U.S.-Afghan terms.


11/19/13

Permalink The bloody disaster of Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan is laid bare

Simon Jenkins: The bloody disaster of Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan is laid bare: Bombs and militia violence make clear the folly of Britain's wars – the removal of law and order from a nation is devastating In each case – Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan – it was easy to see evil in the prevailing regime. These are bad guys that we need to go after, said the Americans. Yet the removal of law and order from a nation is devastating, however cruel that order may have been. Iraqis today repeat that, whatever the ills of Saddam Hussein, under his rule most ordinary citizens and their families could walk the streets at night without fear of murder or kidnap. Religious differences were tolerated. Iraq should have been an oil-rich modern state. Even the Kurds, scourged by Saddam in the past, enjoyed autonomy and relative peace. In each of these cases Britain and its allies, chiefly America, intervened to overthrow the army, disband government, dismantle the judiciary and leave militias to run riot. Little or no attempt was made to replace anarchy with a new order. "Nation building" was a fiasco. The British bombs that flattened government buildings in Kabul, Baghdad and Tripoli did not replace them, or those who worked in them. Those who dropped them congratulated themselves on their work and went home.


11/18/13

Permalink How Opium Greed Is Keeping US Troops in Afghanistan

Abby Martin takes a look at a shocking statistic that puts opium production in Afghanistan at a record high, and puts into perspective the different corporate interests that could be keeping US forces in Afghanistan well beyond 2014.


11/13/13

Permalink Afghanistan opium harvest at record high - UNODC

Afghan opium cultivation has reached a record level, with more than 200,000 hectares planted with the poppy for the first time, the United Nations says. The UNODC report said the harvest was 36% up on last year, and if fully realised would outstrip global demand. Most of the rise was in Helmand province, where British troops are preparing to withdraw. One of the main reasons the UK sent troops to Helmand was to cut opium production. The head of the UN office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Kabul, Jean-Luc Lemahieu, said that production was likely to rise again next year, amid uncertainty over the withdrawal of most foreign troops and the presidential election. He said that the illegal economy was taking over in importance from legitimate business, and that prices remained high since there was a ready availability of cash in Afghanistan because of aid.

Russia Today: Record opium output boosts Afghan warlords’ power base


11/09/13

Permalink 18 die in US-led airstrike in south Afghanistan - Video

At least 18 people have been killed in an airstrike carried out by US-led forces in southern Afghanistan, Press TV reports. The attack was launched on Saturday in the Arghandab district in the restive southern province of Zabul. Local officials said the victims of the airstrike were all members of the Taliban militant group. The Taliban have not yet commented on the report. On October 31, six people died in a US-led airstrike in Afghanistan’s southeastern province of Paktia. Three people had lost their lives in a similar incident in the eastern province of Wardak on October 28. Afghans have become increasingly outraged at the seemingly endless number of the deadly US airstrikes.


11/06/13

Permalink HRW urges US to probe ‘human remains’ of 18 Afghans

Human Rights Watch has called on the US government to investigate thoroughly and impartially the deaths of 18 people allegedly killed by American forces in Afghanistan. “The Nerkh incidents should be investigated rigorously, impartially, and transparently,” Andrea Prasow, senior counterterrorism counsel and advocate at Human Rights Watch, said on Wednesday. “While it is clear that crimes occurred, US authorities need to establish what exactly happened and who is responsible,” Prasow added. Rolling Stone magazine earlier on Wednesday reported that US forces were implicated in the killings in Nerkh district, Wardak province in late 2012 and early 2013. In November 2012, many local residents claimed they were connected to operations by a new US Special Forces unit in the district, known as ODA 3124. In February, the body of a man named Nasratullah was found in Nerkh with his throat slit. His family said that US forces had earlier arrested him.


11/05/13

Permalink Obama's Illegal Drones Kill Innocents, but at least He Aint Hitler, Right !?!

In Washington, 13 year old Zubair Rehmen along with his 9 year old Nabeela, spoke with members of Congress in a briefing organized by Alan Grayson, to send a message to our elected representatives who authorize our blowback inducing bull in a geo-political china shop of military budget what the rest of the world can see as plain as day: Drone attacks in countries that have not declared war on us and pose no threat to us are illegal, immoral, and create more enemies then they kill.

From Huffpo: He thought little of the U.S. drone buzzing over his family's house one day last year, its incessant sound just one more addition to the rhythm of daily life in northwest Pakistan. As he walked home from school, his grandmother told him to eat a snack before coming to the field to help her pick okra. It was the eve of one of the holiest holidays in Islam, when they would gather for a favorite family dish. He went outside. Dum, dum -- the sounds of missiles pierced the air.

"All of a sudden things became very dark," Zubair Rehman, 13, remembered. The next thing he knew, his grandmother, Mamana Bibi, was gone. "It was like she was exploded to pieces."

Zubair traveled from his home in mountainous North Waziristan with his father, Rafiq ur-Rehman, and sister Nabeela, 9, to Washington for a grim first on Tuesday. The drone victims will appear before Congress to explain for the first time the human fallout of the U.S. program. The briefing was organized by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.). The Rehmans' story, documented extensively in a report released last week by Amnesty International and in a new documentary from filmmaker Robert Greenwald, serves as a wrenching, first-hand rebuke to the Obama administration's frequent claims that drone strikes have caused few if any civilian casualties. Bibi was the only person killed in the strike. Nine people, including the two children, were hurt.

Medea Benjamin: Drones Have Come Out of the Shadows


11/04/13

11/01/13

Permalink "These Drones Attack Us and the Whole World is Silent": New Film Exposes Secret U.S. War

A U.S. drone strike killed three people in northwest Pakistan earlier today, marking the first such attack since Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif publicly called for President Obama to end the strikes. Just last week, Amnesty International said the United States may be committing war crimes by killing innocent Pakistani civilians in drone strikes. Today we air extended clips from the new documentary, "Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars," and speak to filmmaker Robert Greenwald. The film looks at the impact of U.S. drone strikes through more than 70 interviews with attack survivors in Pakistan, a former U.S. drone operator, military officials and more. The film opens with the story of a 16-year-old Tariq Aziz, who was killed by a drone just days after attending an anti-drone conference in Islamabad. We are also joined by human rights attorney Jennifer Gibson of Reprieve, co-author of the report, "Living Under Drones." ( + Transcript)


10/29/13

Permalink Royal Marines court martial hears Afghan was still alive when he was shot

Pathologist gives evidence to trial of three marines accused of murdering wounded prisoner in Afghanistan's Helmand province An injured Afghan insurgent was still alive when he was allegedly shot by a Royal Marine, a pathologist has told the court martial of three marines accused of his murder. Dr Nicholas Hunt said that although the Afghan was seriously injured and covered in blood he was clearly alive when a British serviceman shot him in the chest at close range with a 9mm pistol. The pathologist was giving evidence in the court martial of three marines, known only as A, B and C, who are accused of murdering the unknown Afghan national on 15 September 15 2011 in Helmand province.


10/26/13

Permalink US Dismisses UN Criticism, Insists Drone Strikes ‘Just’

UN Urges More Transparency in Killings The UN conference on drone strikes opened today in New York with calls from UN experts to see more transparency around the use of drones for extraterritorial executions by nations, and condemnations by several nations of the unlawful use of the attacks en masse by the United States. The Obama Administration was quick to dismiss any complaints, insisting the killings of several thousand people worldwide without any legal oversight by CIA drones was “legal and just.”


10/25/13

Permalink Families suspect SEAL Team 6 crash in Afghanistan was inside job

Larry Klayman, who runs the nonprofit watchdog group Freedom Watch, has filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Pentagon, as well as the Air Force, Army and Navy. He wants a judge to order the military to turn over an array of documents under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. He said the Defense Department stonewalled his written requests, so Freedom Watch went to court last month and succeeded in forcing the government to turn over records.


10/23/13

Permalink Reports document US slaughter of civilians in drone strikes

Barry Grey: Reports document US slaughter of civilians in drone strikes A series of reports released over the past several days document the killing of thousands of people, including hundreds of non-combatant civilians, in US drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and other countries. The reports, issued by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on Tuesday and the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions last Friday, expose as lies the claims of President Obama and administration officials that the drone strikes are “surgical” attacks that kill few civilians. All three reports suggest that the United States is concealing the extent of the carnage caused by its program of extrajudicial executions and is in violation of international humanitarian law. The reports were timed to coincide with a United Nations General Assembly debate on drone attacks to take place this Friday. Amnesty International devoted its report, “Will I be Next?” US Drone Strikes in Pakistan, to the results of an on-the-spot investigation into nine of the 45 reported strikes that occurred in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal agency, which borders Afghanistan, between January 2012 and August 2013.

Reuters: U.S. drone strikes killed Pakistani grandmother, laborers: Amnesty
Drone Victims Recount Horror of Follow-Up Strikes Launched Against People Rescuing Wounded
CNN: In Swat Valley, U.S. drone strikes radicalizing a new generation
Jason Ditz: White House Defends Drone Strikes
David Swanson: A New Kind of War Is Being Legalized


10/10/13

Permalink Taliban mock US over government shutdown

Taliban militants fighting US troops in Afghanistan taunted Washington over the government shutdown on Wednesday, accusing US politicians of "sucking the blood of their own people". The Islamist militants issued a statement describing how US institutions were "paralysed", the Statue of Liberty was closed and a fall in tourist numbers had hit shops, restaurants and hotels in the capital. "The American people should realise that their politicians play with their destinies as well as the destinies of other oppressed nations for the sake of their personal vested interests," the Taliban said.


10/07/13

Permalink Afghan civilians reportedly killed in NATO airstrike

At least five civilians, including three children, were killed overnight in a NATO airstrike in eastern Afghanistan after they went hunting for birds with air guns, local officials said Saturday. "Last night around 11:00 pm, five civilians aged between 12 and 20 carrying air guns wanted to go hunting birds some eight kilometers (five miles) from the center of the city of Jalalabad. They were targeted and killed by a foreign forces airstrike," said Hazrat Hussain Mashreqiwal, a provincial police spokesman. A NATO spokesman said Afghan and Coalition forces had responded to an attack with a "precision strike" and that "initial reports indicate there were no civilian casualties." Civilian deaths have been a source of friction between the Afghan government and U.S.-led NATO troops, who are winding down operations as they prepare to withdraw by the end of 2014.


10/04/13

Permalink Mineral wealth could harm, not aid, Afghanistan's future

Radio Free Europe/Turkish Weekly Afghanistan's mineral wealth is closely tied to its future prospects. If managed well, the theory goes, the mining sector could be the backbone of a sustainable economy, fund national security, and stabilize the government. The Mines and Petroleum Ministry estimates that Afghanistan boasts oil, gas, iron ore, copper, and gold deposits worth about $1 trillion. Kabul hopes to generate about $4 billion a year in mining and energy revenue over the next decade. Yet in 2012, the two sectors brought in less than $150 million combined. Stephen Carter, the Afghanistan campaign leader at Global Witness, a London-based nongovernmental organization that investigates links between natural resources, conflict, and corruption, says the government has lacked control over its resource wealth.

Charles Glass: Afghan Mine Field Afghanistan is sitting on an estimated trillion dollars worth of gold, copper, silver, graphite and cobalt. There is also lithium, which may come in handy to treat depression among those who will be ordered to die for the new wealth. Let’s suppose for a moment there really are minerals worth $1 trillion dollars waiting to be plucked from the Afghan earth. (I love the figure $1 trillion. It smells like… victory.) Nobody is going to get his hands on all that rock without a fight. Not in Afghanistan.

New York Times: An Afghan Mystery: Why Are Large Shipments of Gold Leaving the Country?
Alex Lantier: Washington discovers Afghanistan’s mineral wealth
Michel Chossudovsky: Afghanistan's Vast Reserves of Minerals and Natural Gas


09/23/13

Permalink US-led soldiers kill Afghan schoolchild, injure several others

US-led soldiers have opened fire on a group of Afghan schoolchildren in the central-eastern province of Maidan Wardak, killing at least one pupil and injuring several others, security sources say. Local provincial officials said the teenager student was killed in Syedabad district of the volatile province on Thursday. An investigation has been launched into the fatal incident.

PressTV: Breaking: US assassination drone strike kills 4 in Afghanistan
Antiwar.com: US Drone Strike Kills Seven People in North Waziristan (Pakistan)


09/21/13

09/13/13

Permalink US terror drone campaign displaces thousands across Afghanistan - Video

The US terror drone campaign has displaced thousands of civilians in the troubled southern and eastern regions of war-ravaged Afghanistan, Press TV reports. Thousands of people fled their homes in Helmand, Kandahar, Kapisa and several other provinces after the US escalated drone strikes across the troubled regions. The Afghan government plans to relocate thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) currently living in camps on the outskirts of Kabul. The latest US-led airstrike killed a young girl and injured three other civilians in the east of Afghanistan. The attack took place on September 11 in Nejrab district in the northeastern province of Kapisa. Thousands of people have died in US-led airstrikes and drone attacks in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion of the country.


Permalink One dead, five injured in US consulate attack in Afghanistan

Taliban militants attacked a US consulate in western Afghanistan Friday, killing an Afghan guard and injuring six others, police said. "Two attackers detonated their explosives-laden truck at the first entrance of the US consulate at 5:30 am (0100 GMT) in Herat city, injuring four guards of a private security company and two policemen," Rahmatullah Safi, police chief for Herat province said. "Following the explosion, three others who were in another vehicle opened fire on the guards," Safi told dpa. "One of the injured guards died due to bleeding," he said.The three remaining assailants were killed when the police returned fire, he said. Another police officer said consulate staff were evacuated by helicopter, but Safi denied this, saying the diplomats were safe inside the compound. Earlier news reports said three security personnel were killed. The US State Department confirmed the attack, but not the casualties.


09/12/13

Permalink US-led airstrike kills Afghan girl, injures 3 civilians - Video

A US-led airstrike has killed a young girl and injured three other civilians in Afghanistan, which has been occupied by foreign forces since 2001. The attack took place on Wednesday in Nejrab district in the northeastern province of Kapisa, reports said. According to local sources, the injured are all in critical condition. The US military confirmed the attack, claiming that it targeted Taliban "militants". The attack came just a day after a US airstrike left six people dead in Ghazni province. Civilian casualties from US and NATO operations have been a serious bone of contention between Kabul and Washington.


08/21/13

Permalink US prosecutors: Manning “does not deserve the mercy of a court of law”

Army PFC Bradley Manning’s sentencing hearings concluded Monday as US government prosecutors and Manning’s defense presented closing arguments. Earlier this month, Manning was convicted on 19 criminal counts—including five violations of the Espionage Act—for making public information detailing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The government used the final pre-appellate phase of the trial to call for a 60-year prison term for the young whistleblower. Army Colonel Judge Denise Lind is expected to issue a sentence today. If you “betray your country, you do not deserve the mercy of a court of law,” said the government’s lead prosecutor, Army Captain Joe Morrow. Repeating the government refrain that Manning is a traitor, Morrow declared that Manning’s leak “wasn’t a greater good. It wasn’t a good at all. It was destructive,” and that the whistleblower serves as an example of “arrogance meet[ing] access to sensitive information.” Morrow emphasized that the sentence “must send a message to any soldier contemplating stealing classified information” to “ensure we never see an act like this again.”


08/03/13

Permalink Manning's Afghan massacre video that WikiLeaks never released

The verdict is in and the sentencing phase has begun in the trial of Bradley Manning, the young Army private who transferred more than 700,000 pages of classified data to WikiLeaks. Retired Brig. Gen. Robert Carr said [...] [the] relationship [between the US military and the local Afghan population] had already been damaged by the numerous airstrikes and night raids that caused thousands of civilian deaths — how many has never been adequately documented, but researchers estimate the total number of civilian casualties to be close to 20,000. One such incident, an airstrike near the village of Garani, in Farah province, in May 2009, figured prominently in Manning’s trial. He was charged with having leaked a video of the raid, which, according to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, "documented a massacre, a war crime." The Garani airstrike allegedly killed as many as 147 villagers, making it the worst civilian casualty incident up to that time. The US military never acknowledged the full scale of the tragedy, insisting that 20 to 30 civilians had died, along with 60 to 65 militants. They did, however, issue a report documenting procedural errors that could have led to the deaths.


08/02/13

Permalink Kerry: US Not Withdrawing From Afghanistan

Insists US Committed to Stay Beyond 2014. - Secretary of State John Kerry was the latest in the Obama Administration to undercut claims that a “zero option” was being seriously considered, insisting today that the US was absolutely not going to leave by the end of 2014. “We have been very clear about that. We are not withdrawing,” Kerry insisted. He didn’t provide any specifics on how long the US intends to remain in Afghanistan, but President Obama has signed a deal to potentially stay through 2024. Kerry’s comments echoed similar statements from the Pentagon, which insisted that they didn’t even consider leaving a real option. This is in contrast to official claims from the White House that the “zero option” is real.


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