Once again, a nation walks through fire
to give the West its 'democracy'
Democracy doesn't seem to work when countries are occupied by Western troops.
The West has always preferred this system in the Middle East, knowing that such "democracy" will produce governments according to the confessional power of each community.
We've done this in Northern Ireland. We did it in Cyprus. The French created a Lebanon whose very identity is confessional, each community living in suspicious love of each other lest they be destroyed.
Even in Afghanistan, we prefer to deal with the corrupt Hamid Karzai – held in disdain by most of his fellow Pushtuns – and allow him to rule on our behalf with an army largely made up of paid tribal supporters.
This may not be – in the State Department's laughable excuse – "Jeffersonian democracy", but it's the best we are going to get ...
Independent 08 Mar 2010Iran ... a strategy for regional dominance
Why They Really Hate Us
More
And while we think that election results – however fraudulent or however complex (Iraq's next government may take months to form) – are an improvement, we do not stop to ask who really wins these elections.Who really wins these elections?
Iran, whose demented president knows how to handle "democratic" polls, is of course the victor.
Its two enemies, the "black Taliban" and Saddam, have both been vanquished without a single Iranian firing a shot ...
Robert Fisk 08 March 2010Robert Fisk
The Truth Seeker
Iran
C.I.A. Secrets Could Surface in Swiss Nuclear Case
A seven-year effort by the Central Intelligence Agency to hide its relationship with a Swiss family who once acted as moles inside the world’s most successful atomic black market hit a turning point on Thursday when a Swiss magistrate recommended charging the men with trafficking in technology and information for making nuclear arms ...
The three men — Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, Urs and Marco — helped run the atomic smuggling ring of A. Q. Khan, an architect of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb program, officials in several countries have said.
In return for millions of dollars, according to former Bush administration officials, the Tinners secretly worked for the C.I.A. as well, not only providing information about the Khan network’s manufacturing and sales efforts, which stretched from Iran to Libya to North Korea, but also helping the agency introduce flaws into the equipment sent to some of those countries.
The Bush administration went to extraordinary lengths to protect the men from prosecution, even persuading Swiss authorities to destroy equipment and information found on their computers and in their homes and businesses — actions that may now imperil efforts to prosecute them ...
NYT 23 Dec 2010Swiss man secretly helped CIA in nuclear sting
Black Market Nukes! Part four: The Tinner Circle
Nuclear bomb blueprints for sale on world black market
US proxy war in Yemen exposed by Wikileaks
The release of ‘secret’ US State Department documents has revealed that the US has been conducting a proxy war in Yemen with the agreement of the Yemeni authorities.
Until this time, the US has been very keen to distance itself from any accusation that it has been behind the programme of targeted assassinations in Yemen.
The revelations show that there has been a direct agreement between the two countries that the US army would be permitted to bomb suspected al-Qaeda targets and evidently will not be held to account.
Rather, as another revealed cable explicitly states, that the Yemen government will take responsibility for any bombing operations conducted by the US, the Yemeni president Abdullah Saleh explicitly stating, “We’ll continue saying they are our bombs, not yours.”
Once again the US is not officially bringing its activities within the purvey of the laws of armed conflict and is flouting international law in the process.
By failing to declare it is operationally involved in a conflict, the US has not fulfilled its obligation to abide by the required conduct of hostilities as required under the Geneva conventions.
More disturbingly, it has manipulated one of the poorest countries in the world into taking responsibility for a crime that it is itself responsible for: extrajudicial killings.
CagePrisoners 29 Nov 2010 Corporate MediaYemen offered US 'open door' to attack al-Qaida on its soil
Robert Fisk
Spy planes and second-class citizens
It was with great interest that I read your report (Foreign fighters in the shadows, 25 November) on how spy planes have been patrolling British skies trying to pick up voice signatures of British citizens suspected of travelling to Afghanistan to fight against Nato forces, after Yorkshire and Birmingham accents were detected by RAF spy planes in Helmand.
If this is true, it raises a number of serious questions.
First, how often have these flights been taking place and under what authority?
Second, which areas have these spy planes been operating over?
One can only presume that they would be targeting Muslim majority areas in Yorkshire and Birmingham.
If so, it makes a mockery of the apology offered by the West Midlands chief constable, Chris Simms, after a secret police operation to place thousands of Muslims in Birmingham under secret camera surveillance was uncovered (Report, 1 October).
If spy planes are indeed also operating over Muslim areas in Britain, it once again highlights how little the government really cares about the dignity of its Muslim citizens.
Third, how is the information gathered from such surveillance being used by the authorities?
Is it being used as "secret evidence" against terror suspects brought before draconian Special Immigration Appeals Commission courts, where they are unable to see or challenge the allegations against them?
One of the justifications often put forward in support of the use of "secret evidence" is that to disclose it to the accused would be to compromise the intelligence services and their methods and strategies.
If this is indeed one of those methods, it is understandable why the government is fighting to keep it secret.
For were it to become public knowledge, it would further underline the fact that Muslims in Britain are being deliberately targeted by the authorities as a suspect community and treated as second-class citizens.
Fahad Ansari
Cageprisoners
Guardian 30 Nov 2010 Police State BritainRobert Fisk
Afghanistan's foreign fighters in the shadows
CagePrisoners
... the North Atlantic alliance ... two-day summit ... has three main agenda items: agreement on a new Strategic Concept, the war in Afghanistan, and relations with Russia, including revised plans for a missile defence system.Nato ... what is it actually for?
The elephant in the room, unmentioned in any of these reports, is Israel
This disparate collection of priorities can be seen either as justification for Nato's continued existence or as proof that the alliance is out of time and has lost its way ...
If, as sometimes appears, the problematic Afghan war is all that holds the alliance together, it is worth asking whether that war is an aberration or the shape of things to come ...
Independent 20 Nov 2010• Mission statement takes in nuclear weapons and Turkey'Fit for purpose' Nato looks to Russia for help with missile defence shield
• Alliance to co-operate with Russia on missile defence ...
The alliance said it would develop a new missile shield to protect Europe and North America against potential ballistic rocket attacks from countries such as Iran, Syria or North Korea ...
... Obama and European leaders were still wrestling last night over the detail of the missile shield pact.
Officials said that several European leaders appeared to be stepping back at the last minute, worried that the cost could spiral at a time of defence cuts across Europe.
"The costs could be a showstopper," said a Nato official.
"The Americans could come back later and present the bill. Some leaders want real assurances on that."
Guardian 19 Nov 2010Nato's new "strategic concept" is the third revision that the organisation's mission statement has undergone since the Berlin Wall came down.Missile defence shield for all Nato members
Hence Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen's quip about this being "Nato 3.0".
But is this a speedy new software version with added bells and whistles or an attempt to re-package an older product for very different market conditions?
Nato's much-vaunted new missions - specifically defence against cyber-warfare and ballistic missile attack - look a little bit like being a case of "Back to the Future" since they hark back in many ways to Nato's traditional role - the defence of its own territory and populations.
On crucial (and divisive) issues like the fate of Nato short-range or battlefield nuclear weapons in Europe, the new strategic concept offers only limited guidance.
No doubt a full-scale nuclear review will be needed to determine the role of these weapons - which many critics see as outdated - and to ascertain the broader circumstances in which they might be withdrawn.
BBC NEWS 19 Nov 2010Be under no illusion
In Lisbon, they talk. In Afghanistan, they die.
Missile defence: the $270m 'protective umbrella' for 28 Nato allies
Israel has crept into the EU without anyone noticing
Afghanistan - behind enemy lines
Three years ago, the Taliban's control over this district, Chak, and the 112,000 Pashtun farmers who live here, was restricted to the hours of darkness – although the local commander, Abdullah, vowed to me that he would soon be in full control.
As I am quickly to discover, this was no idle boast.
In Chak, the Karzai government has in effect given up and handed over to the Taliban.
Abdullah, still in charge, even collects taxes. His men issue receipts using stolen government stationery that is headed "Islamic Republic of Afghanistan"; with commendable parsimony they simply cross out the word "Republic" and insert "Emirate", the emir in question being the Taliban's spiritual leader, Mullah Omar ...
... Abdullah, operating within Katyusha rocket range of the capital – and with a $500,000 bounty on his head – has managed to evade coalition forces for almost four years ...
Independent 14 Nov 2010
America vs al-Qaida: the widening war
... trends in the long-term heartlands of the “war on terror” have tended to be overshadowed by the drama surrounding the discovery in Dubai and England of explosives primed by a Yemen-based group to detonate on US-bound cargo and passenger planes.
But there is also a connection between the various theatres: al-Qaida’s response to proposed Pakistani army assaults is reported to include encouraging units elsewhere in the world (not least Yemen) to ignite local actions, and the group’s leadership appears to have put in charge of international operations a figure (the Egyptian, Saiful Adil [Saif al-Adel]) who favours numerous small operations rather than spectacular atrocities such as 9/11 ...
This combination of circumstances - setbacks in “AfPak”, dispersal of the al-Qaida threat, near-miss mid-air operations, individual radicalisation, the spreading out of young paramilitaries trained in Iraq - again points to a long war ...
Afghanistan and Iraq played little part in the United States’s mid-term elections, but they may have a much greater influence on the presidential election in 2012.
Indeed, as George W Bush returns to the stage with his political memoir, it is appropriate to suggest that these wars could still turn out to be the most toxic of all the legacies left by this former US president to his successor.
openDemocracy 11 Nov 2010Sun sets on US influence in Iraq
Parcel bombs point to al-Qaeda switch
The thirty-year war, revisited
A thirty-year war
Bush to Obama: a toxic legacy
UK and US spend millions to counter Yemeni threat
Military and social aid aims to shore up the government ...
For almost two years, since CIA director Leon Panetta warned that Yemen could become a "safe haven for al-Qa'ida", British special forces have been operating in the country "in significant numbers".
Defence chiefs relocated several Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR) soldiers from Afghanistan to Somalia and Yemen in 2009, amid concerns that the states were becoming alternative bases for Islamic extremists ...
Britain and the US, in particular, have been ploughing in millions to help the Yemeni economy and society recover from their parlous states.
But the real international campaign looks more like a military operation than a humanitarian effort ...
"Yemen is running out of oil and water and their population is exploding," a senior official at the Department for International Development (DfID) said last night.
"The security situation is deteriorating rapidly. It is a natural target for an organisation like al-Qa'ida."
The coalition has ordered that 30 per cent of DfID's overseas spending must fund "failed states and conflict prevention" – making Yemen a priority ...
The DfID programme, worth £30m last year, includes familiar items such as sanitation, schools and hospitals.
But the campaign goes beyond traditional aid ... funding from the US Defense Department – more than $144bn – now dwarfs all other US spending in Yemen.
Independent 31 Oct 2010Yemen’s Drive on Al Qaeda Faces Internal Skepticism
The Saudi tip-off and the cargo bomb plot
In Mideast House of Cards, U.S. Views Lebanon as Shaky
There are limits to what the administration can do to stabilize a country as divided as Lebanon.
The United States has given the Lebanese armed forces $670 million in military aid since 2006. But last August, several members of Congress put a hold on further funds after a skirmish between Lebanese and Israeli soldiers raised suspicions that parts of the Lebanese Army were in league with Hezbollah.
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s jubilant reception in Lebanon has only added to the resistance on Capitol Hill.
Representative Eliot L. Engel, a Democrat from New York who sponsored a bill imposing sanctions on Syria, said he would consider voting to block aid because of fears that it could end up helping Hezbollah.
“We need to be careful about what we do there, so we’re not strengthening the hand of a terrorist group like Hezbollah and its allies,” Mr. Engel said in an interview.
“We just don’t want to use our monies to enhance policies that are bad for Americans and bad for the people of Lebanon.” ...
NYT 27 Oct 2010Lebanon – land of phantom oil deals, spies and political murder
Israel provokes Palestinians and US by going ahead with new settlements
Plan for 238 new houses in East Jerusalem comes at a time when peace talks are stalled ...
Netanyahu agreed last year to a 10-month settlement freeze but that deadline expired last month and Netanyahu has since rebuffed US calls to extend it.
The 238 houses are in Pisgat Ze'ev and Ramot, both in East Jerusalem and both with predominantly Israeli residents.
The Israeli government regards both as part of Israel but the Palestinians, and almost all of the international community, see them as illegal, built on Palestinian land occupied by Israeli in 1967.
The Israeli paper Yediot Aharonot today reported that the Israeli government kept Washington up-to-date with its planned new housing and quoted an Israeli cabinet member saying that Washington would issue only a weak condemnation.
Guardian 15 Oct 2010
US soldier who 'murdered Afghan civilians for sport' linked to Iraqi deaths
A US soldier facing murder charges for allegedly killing Afghan civilians for sport has been linked to the 2004 deaths of several unarmed Iraqis, it has emerged ...
Sgt Calvin Gibbs is accused, along with four other soldiers, of opening fire on Afghan civilians in unprovoked assaults between January and May in Kandahar province. Seven others are accused of dismembering bodies and removing bones.
The career of the alleged ringleader of a self-described "kill team" is now being scrutinised after he allegedly boasted to fellow soldiers of his exploits in Iraq, where he served two terms.
During interrogation, Sgt Gibbs revealed a tattoo on his left calf of a crossed pair of pistols framed by six skulls, which he told investigators was his way of keeping count of his victims ...
Sgt Gibbs allegedly told investigators that three of the skulls, coloured red, represented kills in Iraq, while the other three in blue were from Afghanistan.
Special agents from the US army's criminal investigations command are now re-examining an incident in 2004, when Sgt Gibbs and other soldiers allegedly fired on an Iraqi family in a car, killing two adults and a child.
The US army is understood to be searching for dozens of digital photos allegedly taken by soldiers showing their colleagues posing with Afghan civilian corpses.
If released in public, they could create a worldwide furore ...
Telegrap 30 Sept 2010Grisly allegations in war-crimes probe of Army Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs
So far this year, Army officials have confirmed that 14 soldiers at Fort Hood have committed suicide.Four Suicides in a Week Take a Toll on Fort Hood
Six others are believed to have taken their own lives but a final determination has yet to be made.
The highest number of suicides at Fort Hood occurred in 2008, when 14 soldiers killed themselves, said Christopher Haug, a military spokesman.
About 46,000 to 50,000 active officers and soldiers work at the base at any given time, making this year’s suicide rate about four times the national average, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates at 11.5 deaths per 100,000 people ...
... advocates for soldiers who have suffered mental breakdowns said the programs were not effective.
Cynthia Thomas runs the Under the Hood Café, an organization of antiwar activists and veterans who provide referrals for soldiers to mental health professionals.
She said a stigma remained among soldiers about seeking help from Army counselors for suicidal thoughts or other mental problems.
And those soldiers who do seek counseling are often given medication and put back on duty, she said.
“You don’t get counseling, you get medication,” Ms. Thomas said. “These soldiers are breaking.”
NYT 29 Sept 2010
As part of its covert war in the region, the C.I.A. has launched 20 attacks with armed drone aircraft thus far in September, the most ever during a single month, and more than twice the number in a typical month.C.I.A. Steps Up Drone Attacks on Taliban in Pakistan
This expanded air campaign comes as top officials are racing to stem the rise of American casualties before the Obama administration’s comprehensive review of its Afghanistan strategy set for December.
American and European officials are also evaluating reports of possible terrorist plots in the West from militants based in Pakistan ...
... Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has recently issued veiled warnings to top Pakistani commanders that the United States could launch unilateral ground operations in the tribal areas should Pakistan refuse to dismantle the militant networks in North Waziristan, according to American officials.
“Petraeus wants to turn up the heat on the safe havens,” said one senior administration official, explaining the sharp increase in drone strikes.
NYT 28 Sept 2010 Police State BritainPakistan drone attacks kill nine
Has the West declared cyber war on Iran?
Experts say the computer virus found in a nuclear plant is the work of a foreign power ...
... a new kind of online sabotage has reached its zenith with a self-replicating "worm" that started on a single USB drive and has spread rapidly through industrial computer systems around the world.
So sophisticated that many analysts believe it can only be part of a state-sponsored attack, the Stuxnet worm - or "malware" – is the first such programming creation designed with the specific intention of causing real world damage.
And if the experts are right, it could herald a new chapter in the history of cyber warfare.
The worm ... has now been detected on computers in Indonesia, India and Pakistan, but more significantly Iran; 60 per cent of current infections have taken place within the country, with some 30,000 internet-connected computers affected so far, including machines at the nuclear power plant in Bushehr, due to open in the next few weeks.
Independent 28 Sept 2010
Pope visit: Six men held over papal terror alert
A sixth man has been arrested in London by police in relation to a potential threat to Pope Benedict XVI's visit.
His arrest, at 1345 BST, came after five men were seized at 0545 BST after counter-terrorism officers received intelligence of a potential threat.
All six, who were street cleaners, have been taken to a London police station.
The BBC's Danny Shaw said the arrests were carried out as a precaution. Police are searching a number of premises.
At least five of the men were not British nationals.
BBC NEWS 17 Sept 2010MI5 chief warns of terror threat from Britons trained in Somalia
Just how big is the terror threat?
Political Ties Shielded Bank in Afghanistan
Kabul Bank sits at the center of a financial crisis that has exposed the shadowy workings of the country’s business and political elite, and how such connections shielded the bank from scrutiny.
The panic surrounding Kabul Bank is threatening to pull down the Afghan banking system and has drawn in the United States.
And it is driving a wedge between the Fahims and the Karzais, the two Afghan political families that benefited most.
Now, the financial-familial arrangement is teetering on the edge of collapse.
"The brothers orchestrated the political deal to serve their business interests," said a prominent Afghan businessman in Kabul who, like virtually everyone interviewed for this article, spoke only on condition of anonymity.
"Fahim became vice president, and the bank financed Karzai’s re-election ... "
In the early 1990s, during the tumultuous years of the Afghan civil war, Hamid Karzai was arrested and detained by the Afghan intelligence service — then being run by General Fahim. Mr. Karzai was released, but only after a rocket struck the jail where he was being held.
General Fahim is also suspected of involvement in serious human rights violations during the 1990s, according to several advocacy groups.
In particular, he was a key commander during the Ashfar massacre in 1992 in Kabul, when an estimated 800 ethnic Hazaras were killed and raped ...
NYT 07 Sept 2010
Al-Qaida and Taliban threat is exaggerated
The threat posed by al-Qaida and the Taliban is exaggerated and the western-led counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan risks becoming a "long, drawn-out disaster", one of the world's leading security thinktanks warned today.
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the west's counter-insurgency strategy has "ballooned" out of proportion to the original aim of preventing al-Qaida from mounting terrorist attacks there, and must be replaced by a less ambitious but more sensible policy of "containment and deterrence" ...
In an effort to ignite a fresh debate and bring about a new approach towards Afghanistan, they challenge claims, not least from David Cameron, that the presence of thousands of British troops in Afghanistan is necessary to prevent al-Qaida from returning and thus increasing the threat to the UK ...
Guardian 07 Sept 2010
Blair should take responsibility for Iraq. But he won't. He can't
Having conquered Saddam, he wants to conquer Ahmadinejad.
"I am saying that it is wholly unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons capability," he told poor old Andrew Marr.
It was necessary for the Iranians," quoth he, "to get that message, loud and clear."
Thus did our Middle East peace envoy prepare us for war with Persia.
But I rather fear the Iranians got his "message" a long time ago: if you want to avoid threats from the likes of Lord Blair, you'd better buy a bomb pdq ...
Sometimes, Blair sounded like the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman.
He and his Israeli boss believe Ahmadinejad is worse than Hitler – which takes some doing – and Lord Blair, as we know, is no appeaser.
Oddly, however – since he's supposed to be our peacemaker between the two sides – "Israel" and "Palestine" were two words that went totally unmentioned, even though Blair blurted out to the Chilcot inquiry that there had been "phone calls" with Israelis during his decision-making conference with Bush over Iraq.
Marr missed out there. What on earth were Blair and Bush talking to the Israelis about as they prepared to take us into this catastrophe? ...
Independent 03 Sept 2010 Tony Blair
Should Tony Blair step down from the Middle East Quartet?
Tony Blair, in last night’s interview with Andrew Marr [UK], whilst trying to deflect criticism on the legality of the Iraq war said “we are about to face, in respect of Iran a very similar type of decision.”
No, we’re not. As Marc Lynch, amongst others has argued:•a military strike is not likely to put an end to Iran’s nuclear potential, or to provide any significant sense of certainty (I do not find Goldberg’s notion of Israeli commandos quickly darting in from Iraqi Kurdistan to check things out especially reassuring).Blair drew clear red lines around the possibility of a nuclear Iran, on which the following exchange took place:
•the idea Israel has a fixed deadline is not credible. Israeli officials and American Iran hawks have paraded a never-ending series of such immutable deadlines over the last decade — of 2006, of 2007, of 2008, and now of December 2010. None proved quite so immutable.Marr: But what can we do about it?randomvariable.co.uk 02 Sept 2010 Tony Blair
Blair: And, um, and um I think we’ve got to be prepared to confront them, er
Marr: Militarily?
Blair: If necessarily militarily
Marr: Militarily?
Blair: If necessary militarily. I – I think there is no alternative to that um if they continue to develop nuclear weapons and and they need to get that message loud and clear.Andrew Marr interviews Tony Blair
Master Manipulator
Blair: world leaders need to take urgent action over Iran
Tony Blair accused of putting war with Iran on the electoral agenda
Blair: Iran now a bigger threat than in 2003
Depositors Panic Over Bank Crisis in Afghanistan
Afghan leaders promised to guarantee deposits in an attempt to arrest the panic, which began earlier this week when the country’s top banking officials demanded the resignations of Mr. Frozi, the bank’s chief executive, and the bank’s chairman, Sherkhan Farnood.
Afghan and American officials say the two men presided over the bank in a reckless and freewheeling manner, doling out millions to allies of President Hamid Karzai and pouring money into risky investments that crashed.
The bank’s troubles — and the corruption associated with them — are posing a direct challenge to the country’s fledgling financial system, which was built under American guidance after the collapse of the Taliban government in 2001.
Kabul Bank, which counts a brother of President Karzai among its politically connected shareholders, illustrates the intertwining of political and economic interests in Afghanistan.
Afghan and American regulators said the bank’s political connections had shielded it from scrutiny until now.
If the loss of confidence spreads beyond Kabul Bank, it seems almost certain to strain the resources of the Afghan government — and make it more likely that the United States will be forced to intervene ...
NYT 02 Sept 2010Security stepped up at Kabul Bank
A study by a German military think tank has analyzed how "peak oil" might change the global economy ...Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis
Message: Be nice to countries that export oil
The study is a product of the Future Analysis department of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center, a think tank tasked with fixing a direction for the German military.
The team of authors, led by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Will, uses sometimes-dramatic language to depict the consequences of an irreversible depletion of raw materials. It warns of shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the "total collapse of the markets" and of serious political and economic crises ...
According to the German report, there is "some probability that peak oil will occur around the year 2010 and that the impact on security is expected to be felt 15 to 30 years later."
The Bundeswehr prediction is consistent with those of well-known scientists who assume global oil production has either already passed its peak or will do so this year ...
The scenarios outlined by the Bundeswehr Transformation Center are drastic.
Even more explosive politically are recommendations to the government that the energy experts have put forward based on these scenarios.
They argue that "states dependent on oil imports" will be forced to "show more pragmatism toward oil-producing states in their foreign policy."
Political priorities will have to be somewhat subordinated, they claim, to the overriding concern of securing energy supplies ...
Der Spiegel 01 Sept 2010 Energy Policy
Life in Baghdad's Slums
Fighting to Survive in Sadr CityIraq's poorest people live on trash heaps, sleep amongst the rats and drink polluted water. In the country with the world's third largest oil reserves, a million people live in misery ...
In the past seven years, the United States has pumped around $53 billion in civilian aid into Iraq through a program that is roughly tantamount to a modern Marshall Plan.
The money was intended to create a flourishing economy, supported by a strong agricultural sector and a strong middle class.
But that's not the reality today. Every fourth household has no running water.
Close to 60 percent of all sewage is pumped, without being treated, into the desert.
The electricity supply in Baghdad has deteriorated again to the point that power is only available to customers for up to three hours a day, making any normal business life in the capital city impossible.
The reason for the misery is the political standstill.
The government is incapable of acting, and the national parliament hasn't passed a single act of legislation in nine months.
On top of that comes mass corruption, which has proven all-corroding in Iraq.
Transparency International has named Iraq one of the fifth most corrupt countries in the world.
Not far from the slums, politicians can lead a luxury life that couldn't seem any more remote.
The lion's share of the reconstruction money has been funnelled in to the wrong pockets and projects, claims Christine McNab of the United Nations Development Program in Iraq ...
Der Spiegel 01 Sept 2010 Chilcot Inquiry
Karzai Aide in Corruption Inquiry Is Tied to C.I.A.
Mr. Salehi’s relationship with the C.I.A. underscores deep contradictions at the heart of the Obama administration’s policy in Afghanistan, with American officials simultaneously demanding that Mr. Karzai root out the corruption that pervades his government while sometimes subsidizing the very people suspected of perpetrating it.
Mr. Salehi was arrested in July and released after Mr. Karzai intervened.
There has been no suggestion that Mr. Salehi’s ties to the C.I.A. played a role in his release; rather, officials say, it is the fear that Mr. Salehi knows about corrupt dealings inside the Karzai administration.
The ties underscore doubts about how seriously the Obama administration intends to fight corruption here.
The anticorruption drive, though strongly backed by the United States, is still vigorously debated inside the administration.
Some argue it should be a centerpiece of American strategy, and others say that attacking corrupt officials who are crucial to the war effort could destabilize the Karzai government ...
NYT 25 Aug 2010
UN reviews security after Pakistani Taliban 'threat'
The UN says it is reviewing security measures for its aid workers in Pakistan, after a warning of new threats from the Pakistani Taliban ...
The militant group Tehrik-e Taliban "plans to conduct attacks against foreigners participating in the ongoing flood relief operations in Pakistan", a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the BBC.
The official also said "federal and provincial ministers" may be at risk ...
BBC NEWS 26 Aug 2010Floods in Pakistan Carry the Seeds of Upheaval
Taliban Hint at Attacks on Relief Workers
Can Flood Aid Weaken the Taliban in Pakistan?
Disaster is the worst in the UN's history
Survivors refused aid
Doctors Working Around the Clock
'Timber mafia' made floods worse
Christian Aid
Blackwater fined $42m
Private defence company Blackwater has been fined $42m (£27m) for violating US export and arms traffic laws ...
Blackwater has provided security forces in almost every part of the world but the company has been mired in controversy because of reports of excessive use of force by some of its staff in Iraq.
The company was last year re-named as XE Services and is now up for sale.
XE has not commented on the settlement of this case. But its directors have recently stressed that XE is a different company to Blackwater, having implemented a number of management and procedural changes.
BBC NEWS 24 Aug 2010Blackwater_Xe
Tracing the Paths of 5 Who Died in a Storm of Gunfire
Other Killings By Blackwater Staff Detailed
Iraq Probe of U.S. Security Firm Grows
Erik Prince and Blackwater
Both President Hamid Karzai and NATO exude confidence when talking about the parliamentary elections scheduled for next month.Afghanistan Looks with Dread at Approaching Elections
If Karzai wants the West to stay, an election fiasco is in his interests!
But security in the country is worsening by the day -- and many polling stations have been abandoned completely ...
Whether and how Afghanistan's 17.5 million eligible voters can cast their ballots remains extremely uncertain.
Despite a boost in the number of NATO troops and an accelerated training program for the Afghan army, the number of attacks, Taliban raids and security breaches is on the rise.
In addition, there are almost daily reports of attacks on candidates (three have been killed in recent weeks), their offices and their campaign helpers ...
... the looming election puts the Afghan government under President Hamid Karzai as well as NATO itself under enormous pressure.
Karzai wants to use the elections to demonstrate just how far his security forces have come and that they are able to control large areas of Afghanistan.
Indeed, he has recently announced his intention to expel all private security companies from Afghanistan.
For the United States and the rest of NATO, on the other hand, free and fair elections are seen as an important step on the road to eventual withdrawal.
Should the vote end in fiasco, any pull-out by Western troops in the near future becomes unlikely ...
Der Spiegel 24 Aug 2010Graft Dispute in Afghanistan is Test for U.S.
Iraq’s political elite, empowered by the American invasion and entrusted with the country’s future, has begun to deliver a damning critique of itself, a grim harbinger for a country rife with fears of more crises, conflicts and even coups as the American military withdraws ... the failure of the elite that the United States helped to choose may serve as a lasting American legacy here, raising fundamental questions about the body politic it leaves behind as the American military departs by 2012 ...Iraqi Leaders Fear for Future
An elite "that the Americans helped to choose" ... in a word: 'Quislings'
Between a flurry of meetings, another leading politician called his colleagues ineffective, overly impressed with the trappings of power and so greedy as to “border on being kleptocrats.”
He added, “They put the immediate above the important and tactical issues above strategic matters.”
He was reluctant to speak on the record; to do so might upset potential allies.
“The same people, coming and going,” lamented Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker who served on the American-appointed Governing Council in 2003. “If someone died, he’s no longer around, but that’s it.”
As he spoke, his generator failed, plunging his house into the claustrophobic heat of a Baghdad summer.
For a few hours, he suffered as does much of the rest of Baghdad, where electricity lasts for but a few hours, water is sometimes contaminated, trash piles up in the streets and the infrastructure is crumbling ...
NYT 17 Aug 2010 Tony Blair
An ambitious military operation that Afghan officials had expected to be a sign of their growing military capacity instead turned into an embarrassment, with Taliban fighters battering an Afghan battalion in a remote eastern area until NATO sent in French and American rescue teams.Showcase Afghan Army Mission Turns Into Debacle
This report needs to be read in full, since there are differing reports about casualties ...
The fighting has continued so intensely for the past week that the Red Cross has been unable to reach the battlefield to remove the dead and wounded.
The operation, east of Kabul, was extraordinary in that it was not coordinated in advance with NATO forces and did not at first include coalition forces or air support.
The Afghans called for help after 10 of their soldiers were killed and perhaps twice as many captured at the opening of the operation nine days ago ...
An official of the Red Crescent in the area said that casualties were very heavy on the government side and that the Taliban had destroyed 35 Ford Ranger trucks, the standard Afghan Army transport vehicle, which typically carry six or more soldiers each ...
NYT 13 Aug 2010Gates: US exit from Afghanistan on course
'Hardline' groups step in to fill Pakistan aid vacuum
Right-wing organisations, including banned extremist groups, are leading the relief and rescue effort in flood-hit Pakistan.
Three of the most prominent groups, Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Sipah-e-Sahaba have thousands of activists who have fanned out across the country.
All are very powerful on the ground despite having limited or no officially recognised political representation.
Their relief effort comes as Pakistan's government is dogged by accusations that it has been slow to respond to the crisis ...
"We have 100,000 activists deployed in flood-affected areas across the country," says Naimatullah Khan, head of the Al-Khidmat (The Service) organisation, the social welfare wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's largest and most influential right-wing political party.
The party is a staunch opponent of Pakistan's military co-operation with the US and favours "reconciliation" with the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan ...
BBC NEWS 10 Aug 2010Race to Provide Aid Emerges Between West and Extremists
Civilian victims of Afghan war 'rises by 31% in six months'
UN report released today expresses concern that the human cost of conflict is 'paid too heavily by civilians' ...
According to the report, 1,271 Afghans died and 1,997 were injured – mostly from roadside bombings – in the first six months of the year.
The UN said anti-government forces were responsible for 76% of the casualties – up from 53% last year.
"If they want to be part of a future Afghanistan, they cannot do so over the bodies of so many civilians," De Mistura said.
The report said that 386, or 12%, of the Afghan casualties were due to US, Nato and other pro-government forces.
It added that, overall, the number of children killed or wounded has risen 55% over the same six-month period last year, with 176 children killed and 389 injured.
Guardian 10 Aug 2010Karzai 'to scrap private security firms'
Afghan civilian toll points to Isaf mission dilemma
Israel’s security trap
These rocket-firings had a macabre timeliness in the sense that they were launched at a moment when Israel is preparing to deploy its new Iron Dome anti-missile system designed to intercept short-range missiles and mortars ...
The missile’s initial operational capability is scheduled for November 2010; the first two batteries will protect an area of around 150 square kilometres, though it will take several years to build the twenty batteries needed to secure the entire territory to be defended.
The close Israeli relationship with the United States is revealed in the fact that Washington is expected to contribute $205 million in 2010 alone for another eight or nine batteries ...
It proved very difficult for most Israelis even to acknowledge one of the principle conclusions of the [Oxford Research Group] report: that an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities would most likely make the Iranians determined to develop nuclear weapons as quickly as possible.
The idea that a military attack on Iran intended to prevent Tehran’s nuclear-weapons development could in reality accelerate their development - that, most Israelis were unable to consider.
This goes to the heart of the problem: namely, Israel has developed over the sixty-two years of its existence into a state that is defined by conflict and the risk of war, and has learned no other way but to maintain security through overwhelming military power.
It is an outlook made possible because it can depend on a superpower’s unstinting support; it is also a recipe for permanent insecurity masquerading as armed peace (“After Gaza: Israel’s last chance”).
A minority in Israel recognises this and advocates a different path involving negotiation and compromise; but it is very much on the margins of public debate ...
openDemocracy 05 Aug 2010
UN: Israel was on its own side before border clash
The real problem is twofold. The "Blue Line" was inadvisedly drawn on the orders of an ambitious UN civil servant who would one day like to be UN Secretary General.
In his haste to draw an "accurate" border, for example, he put the entire area of Shebaa farms – which was Lebanese during the post-First World War French mandate – south and east of the line, effectively putting it under Israeli occupation (which had in military terms been the case since the 1967 Middle East war).
But political errors of this kind led to other mistakes and sapped the belief of Lebanese authorities in the UN's maps.
Add to this the entire regional hostility – Hamas versus Israel, Israel's threats against Syria and Iran and Syria's and Iran's threats against Israel, not to mention the wreckage of George Bush's adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq – and you can see how a tree can start a war ...
The UN announced it was still investigating what went wrong. Many UN troops mount foot and vehicle patrols along the frontier road where the shooting took place.
They often spend their time trying to prevent journalists taking photographs of the great vista of Israeli countryside in northern Galilee.
They can stop cameras shooting pictures, it seems. But not guns shooting bullets.
Independent 05 Aug 2010Few Answers in Border Skirmish
Israel-Lebanon tensions flare
... back to the tree.
It was a miserable, scrawny thing, probably a spruce and – after a 46-degree heatwave in Lebanon – its foliage blocked the Israeli security cameras on the Israeli-Lebanese border near Addaiseh.
The Israelis decided to use a crane to rip it out ...
The moment the crane's arm crossed the "technical fence" ... Lebanese soldiers opened fire into the air.
The Israelis, according to the Lebanese, did not shoot in the air.
They shot at the Lebanese soldiers ... the Israelis would like to have a file of "incidents" before the next Hizbollah-Israel war, when they have promised to smash up Lebanon's infrastructure for the sixth time in 32 years – on the grounds that Hizbollah is now represented (as it is) in the Lebanese cabinet ...
Hizbollah, the Iran-backed militia movement that fought Israel in 2006, took no part in yesterday's skirmish, but its leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said his group would react if the Lebanese army was attacked again ...
Independent 04 Aug 2010
A Benchmark of Progress, Electrical Grid Fails Iraqis
From the beginning of the war more than seven years ago, the state of electricity has been one of the most closely watched benchmarks of Iraq’s progress, and of the American effort to transform a dictatorship into a democracy.
And yet, as the American combat mission — Operation Iraqi Freedom, in the Pentagon’s argot — officially ends this month, Iraq’s government still struggles to provide one of the most basic services ...
Iraq now has elections, a functioning, if imperfect, army and an oil industry on the cusp of a potential boom.
Yet Baghdad, the capital, had five hours of electricity a day in July.
The chronic power shortages are the result of myriad factors, including war, drought and corruption, but ultimately they reflect a dysfunctional government that remains deadlocked and unresponsive to popular will ...
Before Mr. Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait 20 years ago this month, Iraq had the capacity to produce 9,295 megawatts of power.
By 2003, after American bombings and years of international sanctions, it was half that.
The shortages since have hobbled economic development and disrupted almost every aspect of daily life ...
NYT 01 August 2010 Tony BlairThe US isn't leaving Iraq, it's rebranding the occupation
Targeted Killing Is New U.S. Focus in Afghanistan
Faced with that reality, and the pressure of a self-imposed deadline to begin withdrawing troops by July 2011, the Obama administration is starting to count more heavily on the strategy of hunting down insurgents.
A senior White House official said the administration hoped that its targeted killings, along with high-level contacts between Mr. Karzai and Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Pakistan’s army chief and a former head of its intelligence service — which is believed to have close links to the Taliban — would combine to pressure Taliban leaders to come to the negotiating table.
A long-awaited campaign to convert lower-level and midlevel Taliban fighters has finally begun in earnest, with Mr. Karzai signing a decree authorizing the reintegration program.
With $200 million from Japan and other allies, and an additional $100 million in Pentagon money, American military officers will soon be handing out money to lure people away from the insurgency ...
NYT 01 Aug 2010Veterans For Peace
Wounded Afghan civilians
The unsustainable in pursuit of the unbeatable
At midnight last night, the United States formally recorded its most lethal month in the seemingly endless war in Afghanistan.
Some 66 servicemen died – at least two a day, every day, for 31 days. That was July.
June was the deadliest for the coalition as a whole, and the first six months of 2010 were among the bloodiest for civilians since records began in 2007 ...
By ... [October} ... the war will have gone into its 10th year, and so will move towards, and beyond, the landmark when it will have lasted longer than the First and Second World Wars combined ...
... upbeat talk is not new, and is often followed, weeks or months later, by news that successes have been undone by Taliban resurgence, Afghan government corruption, or the day-to-day survival instincts of a war-weary population whose hearts and minds have never been lastingly captured.
The US documents made public by WikiLeaks have only added to the sense that the Afghan war against an elusive enemy unaccountable to any democracy is the unsustainable in pursuit of the unbeatable ...
Independent 01 Aug 2010Targeted Killing Is New U.S. Focus
Veterans For Peace
Wounded Afghan civilians
Israel has crept into the EU without anyone noticing
... I'm not comparing Israel and Hamas.
Israel is the country that justifiably slaughtered more than 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza 19 months ago – more than 300 of them children – while the vicious, blood-sucking and terrorist Hamas killed 13 Israelis (three of them soldiers who actually shot each other by mistake).
But there is one parallel.
Judge Richard Goldstone, the eminent Jewish South African judge, decided in his 575-page UN inquiry into the Gaza bloodbath that both sides had committed war crimes – he was, of course, quite rightly called "evil" by all kinds of justifiably outraged supporters of Israel in the US, his excellent report rejected by seven EU governments – and so a question presents itself.
What is Nato doing when it plays war games with an army accused of war crimes? ...
Israel, by the way, has been praised for its "logistics" help to Nato in Afghanistan – where we are annually killing even more Afghans than the Israelis usually kill Palestinians ...
The EU funds millions of pounds' worth of projects in Gaza.
These are regularly destroyed by Israel's American-made weaponry.
So it goes like this. European taxpayers fork out for the projects. US taxpayers fork out for the weapons which Israel uses to destroy them.
Then EU taxpayers fork out for the whole lot to be rebuilt. And then US taxpayers... Well, you've got the point.
Israel, by the way, already has an "individual co-operation programme" with Nato, locking Israel into Nato's computer networks.
All in all, it's good to have such a stout ally as Israel on our side, even if its army is a rabble and some of its men war criminals.
Come to that, why don't we ask Hizbollah to join Nato as well ...
Independent 31 July 2010
Witnesses bent on self-exoneration
The Chilcot inquiry, which marks its first anniversary this weekend, was flawed from the start ...
I ... committed the easy error of believing that senior army officers largely supported the venture. I should have known better.
Theirs was a mix of ire and disdain, seeing in their leader a man who was both weak in the face of an extreme US administration and a man who used the military to posture on the world stage.
But the criticisms of Tony Blair and those around him were made in typically establishment fashion, off the record and deniable.
Experiences such as these helped to inform my view of Whitehall as I watched the inquiries on the Iraq war over the years.
Alongside the parliamentary investigations by MPs hopelessly out of their depth, there has been the whitewash of Hutton and the lost opportunity of the Butler inquiry, to which I was asked to give evidence.
In each case, the evidence was laid out for all to see.
A compelling narrative emerged of a prime minister desperate not to be outflanked by the Conservative opposition and desperate to keep on the right side of his mentor in the White House.
Blair's instruction to his advisers, the military, security chiefs and diplomats was to do whatever it took not to let Saddam Hussein off the hook.
If that meant massaging the evidence, exaggerating the threat and preparing for war while insisting until late on to the armed forces that no such plans were being hatched, then so be it ...
Independent 31 July 2010 Chilcott InquiryPrescott: files on Iraq's WMD made me nervous
Chilcot inquiry has already exposed the folly of the invasion
Sir John and team to visit Iraq
David Cameron: Israeli blockade has turned Gaza Strip into a 'prison camp'
Prime minister intervenes in Middle East dispute and hopes Turkey can stop Iran's nuclear weapons programme
Cameron's comments, in a speech to business leaders in Ankara, prompted the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to issue another strong condemnation of how Israel dealt with the flotilla.
Erdogan likened the behaviour of Israeli commandos, who shot dead nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists, to Somali pirates.
Cameron's criticism of Tel Aviv came when he called for Israel to relax its restrictions on Gaza. "The situation in Gaza has to change," he said. "Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp."
He strongly condemned Israel after the assault on the Gaza flotilla.
"The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable," he said. "I have told prime minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous. "Let me also be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change." ...
Cameron also said Turkey should use its links with Iran to persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons programme ...
Guardian 27 July 2010Gaza remark signals Cameron's kick-and-run diplomacy
A tale of three wars
Should Israel Bomb Iran?
An Attack on Iran: Back on the Table
Leaks Add to Pressure on White House Over Strategy
The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, struck a similar note on Monday in responding to the documents ...
“We are in this region of the world because of what happened on 9/11,” Mr. Gibbs said. “Ensuring that there is not a safe haven in Afghanistan by which attacks against this country and countries around the world can be planned. That’s why we’re there, and that’s why we’re going to continue to make progress on this relationship.” ...
Three administration officials separately expressed hope that they might be able to use the documents to gain leverage in efforts to get more help from Pakistan.
Two of them raised the possibility of warning the Pakistanis that Congressional anger might threaten American aid.
“This is now out in the open,” a senior administration official said. “It’s reality now. In some ways, it makes it easier for us to tell the Pakistanis that they have to help us.” ...
NYT 26 July 2010A tale of three wars: Afghanistan, Iraq...Iran
The Afghanistan Protocol
Explosive Leaks Provide Image of War from Those Fighting It
Britain's Guardian newspaper, the New York Times and SPIEGEL have all vetted the material and compared the data with independent reports.
All three media sources have concluded that the documents are authentic and provide an unvarnished image of the war in Afghanistan -- from the perspective of the soldiers who are fighting it.
The reports, from troops engaged in the ongoing combat, were tersely summarized and quickly dispatched. For the most part, they originate from sergeants ...
Nearly nine years after the start of the war, they paint a gloomy picture ...Task Force 373: The Secret Hunters
A report on June 17, 2007, for example, includes a warning in the second sentence that this operation of the TF 373 must be "kept protected."
Details about the mission could not be provided to other countries contributing to the ISAF forces.
The aim was to kill prominent al-Qaida functionary Abu Layth Al Libi. The special forces suspected that the top terrorist and several of his followers were present at a Koran school the soldiers had been staking out for a number of days.
But after the impact of five American rockets, instead of finding Al Libi, the ground forces discovered six dead children in the rubble of the school.
A further seriously injured child was also found but could not be saved ...
Der SpiegelThe Flaws of the Silent Killer
... the secret memos reveal the drawbacks of a weapon that has been lauded by the US military as a panacea, a view shared by the president.
In his short time in office, Barack Obama has unleashed double the number of drone missions ordered by his seemingly trigger-happy predecessor, George W. Bush ...
Each crash costs the government between $3.7 million (€2.8 million) and $5 million.
The US Department of Defense accident reports show that system failures, computer glitches and human errors are common occurrences during drone missions.
It seems that serious problems were ignored because of the need for the drones to be deployed as quickly as possible ...
It is not just the costs incurred by these crashes that worry the US military.
Even the smaller reconnaissance drones are packed with complicated computer technology ... out of fear that important information could fall into the hands of the Taliban, each drone crash necessitates elaborate -- and dangerous -- salvage operations.
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel 25 July 2010The Secret Enemy in Pakistan
The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's secret service, originally helped to build up and deploy the Taliban after Afghanistan descended into a bitter and fratricidal civil war between the mujahedeen who had prevailed over the Soviets and forced their withdrawal.
Despite all of the reassurances from Pakistani politicians that the old ties are cut, the country is still pursuing an ambiguous policy in the region -- at once serving as both an ally to the US and as a helper to its enemy ...
The documents clearly show that the Pakistani intelligence agency is the most important accomplice the Taliban has outside of Afghanistan ...
The country is an important safe haven for enemy forces -- and serves as a base for issuing their deployment. New recruits to the Taliban stream across the Pakistan-Afghan border, including feared foreign fighters -- among them Arabs, Chechnyans, Uzbekis, Uighurs and even European Islamists.
According to the war logs, the ISI envoys are present when insurgent commanders hold war councils -- and even give specific orders to carry out murders ...
Der SpiegelFarzana Shaikh: The man who really matters
Intelligence Agents Flooding in Data
Pakistan Aids Insurgency
Pakistan’s Elite Pay Few Taxes, Widening Gap
Pakistan
How US marines sanitised record of bloodbath
Wikileaks reveals Afghan civilian deaths
Afghanistan war logs: the unvarnished picture
Combat Outpost Keating
Inside the Fog of War
Afghanistan war logs
Ex-MI5 boss says war raised terror threat
"Our involvement in Iraq radicalised a whole generation of young people, some of them British citizens"The invasion of Iraq "substantially" increased the terrorist threat to the UK, the former head of MI5 has said.
Giving evidence to the Iraq inquiry, Baroness Manningham-Buller said the action "radicalised" a generation of young people, including UK citizens.
As a result, she said she was not "surprised" that UK nationals were involved in the 7/7 bombings in London.
She said she believed the intelligence on Iraq's threat was not "substantial enough" to justify the action.
She said she had advised officials a year before the war that the threat posed by Iraq to the UK was "very limited" and believed that assessment "turned out to be the right judgement" ...
In a newly declassified document, published by the inquiry, Baroness Manningham-Buller told the senior civil servant at the Home Office in March 2002 that there was no evidence that Iraq had any involvement in the 9/11 attacks ...
BBC NEWS 20 July 2010 Chilcott InquiryEliza Manningham-Buller at the Iraq inquiry
Saddam terror threat limited says ex-spy chief
Iraq War Inquiry
Much of Pakistan’s capital city looks like a rich Los Angeles suburb. Shiny sport utility vehicles purr down gated driveways. Elegant multistory homes are tended by servants. Laundry is never hung out to dry ...Pakistan’s Elite Pay Few Taxes, Widening Gap
Looks like Pakistan has Washington over the proverbial barrel
But behind the opulence lurks a troubling fact. Very few of these households pay income tax.
That is mostly because the politicians who make the rules are also the country’s richest citizens, and are skilled at finding ways to exempt themselves.
That would be a problem in any country. But in Pakistan, the lack of a workable tax system feeds something more menacing: a festering inequality in Pakistani society, where the wealth of its most powerful members is never redistributed or put to use for public good.
That is creating conditions that have helped spread an insurgency that is tormenting the country and complicating American policy in the region.
It is also a sorry performance for a country that is among the largest recipients of American aid, payments of billions of dollars that prop up the country’s finances and are meant to help its leaders fight the insurgency ...
NYT 18 July 2010White House shifts Afghanistan strategy towards talks with Taliban
America: hooked on war and getting poorer
America: hooked on war and getting poorer
With record foreclosures and child poverty at a shameful level, can we really afford to stay in Afghanistan and Iraq for 10 years? ...
Why is nobody talking about the Afghanistan adventure as a cause of our plunging recession? Or at least citing the 30-year-old endless war as a major contributory factor in wasting our money to "nation-build" in the Hindu Kush while our own country falls to pieces on food stamps, foreclosures and child poverty – one in five kids – that would put the world's poorest nations to shame?
Iraq was George Bush's war. But, as Republican party chairman Michael Steele correctly says, "Afghanistan is Obama's war of choice", and a losing proposition ...
Our Afghanistan war, which began in 1980 under the Democrats (by weaponising Afghan resistance to the Soviets), and is now truly a bipartisan war, is as bankrupt as our economy. No connection? ...
... hardly anybody in public life dares to make a connection between teachers' pink slips, personal bankruptcies (6,000 a day now), our rotting infrastructure, lengthening queues at unemployment offices, child poverty ... and the war ...
Guardian 13 July 2010Afghanistan UK soldier deaths
Afghan soldier murders British troops
UN may trim Taliban blacklist
David Cameron has said he wanted troops back home by 2015, the time of the next election, while Foreign Secretary William Hague has talked about 2014. The Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, initially stated they should be out as quickly as possible from what he described as a "13th-century state", but has since stressed they should stay for as long as it takes. Yesterday he announced that 300 extra troops, from a reserve battalion based in Cyprus, 2nd Battalion, the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment will be sent on a temporary basis.Afghanistan: Now it's America's war
Indpendent 08 July 2010Afghan Companies Say U.S. Did Not Pay Them
As Sangin shows, British troops were never geared up to make a lasting difference
America's Afghan dilemma
Corruption in Afghanistan
Billions of dollars are being secreted out of Kabul to help well-connected Afghans buy luxury villas in Dubai.
Amid concerns that the money could be the result of corruption, American politicians have temporarily cut off aid to the Afghan government.
Brigadier General Mohammed Asif Jabarkhel sits ... in his office, just a few steps away from the security checkpoint at Kabul International Airport.
"Of course I know what's going on here," the 59-year-old head of the airport's customs police grumbles ... "But, in this country, who's allowed to speak the truth?"
Jabarkhel is referring to the huge amounts of money regularly being secreted out of Afghanistan by plane in boxes and suitcases.
According to some estimates, since 2007, at least $3 billion (€2.4 billion) in cash has left the country in this way.
The preferred destination for these funds is Dubai, the tax haven in the Persian Gulf.
And, given the fact that Afghanistan's total GDP amounts to the equivalent of $13.5 billion, there is no way that the funds involved in this exodus are merely the proceeds of legal business transactions.
Jabarkhel complains that all of his many attempts to stop this hemorrhaging have failed.
"The central bank has reached an agreement with the government that makes these kinds of transfers supposedly legal," he says. "And whenever we try to look into where the money is coming from, pressure comes from the very top." ...
Der Spiegel 05 July 2010 AfghanistanIn Afghanistan, signs of crony capitalism
Nudge on Arms Further Divides the U.S. and Israel
It was only one paragraph buried deep in the most plain-vanilla kind of diplomatic document, 40 pages of dry language committing 189 nations to a world free of nuclear weapons. But it has become the latest source of friction between Israel and the United States ...
At a meeting to review the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in May, the United States yielded to demands by Arab nations that the final document urge Israel to sign the treaty — a way of spotlighting its historically undeclared nuclear weapons ...
In addition to singling out Israel, the document, which has captured relatively little public attention, calls for a regional conference in 2012 to lay the groundwork for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
Israel, whose nuclear arsenal is one of the world’s worst-kept secrets, would be on the hot seat at such a meeting ...
NYT 04 July 2010
War in Iraq Defies U.S. Timetable for End of Combat
The August deadline might be seen back home as a milestone in the fulfillment of President Obama’s promise to end the war in Iraq, but here it is more complex.
American soldiers still find and kill enemy fighters, on their own and in partnership with Iraqi security forces, and will continue to do so after the official end of combat operations. More Americans are certain to die, if significantly fewer than in the height of fighting here.
The withdrawal, which will reduce the number of American troops to 50,000 — from 112,000 earlier this year and close to 165,000 at the height of the surge — is a feat of logistics that has been called the biggest movement of matériel since World War II.
It is also an exercise in semantics.
What soldiers today would call combat operations — hunting insurgents, joint raids between Iraqi security forces and United States Special Forces to kill or arrest militants — will be called “stability operations.” ...
The complex and flexible mission of cutting down forces while simultaneously keeping up the fight with a festering insurgency could prove a model for Afghanistan, where withdrawal is scheduled to begin next year ...
NYT 02 July 2010
Why did Goldsmith change his mind?
Biggest new revelation is the publication of Lord Goldsmith's initial advice saying that invasion would be illegal.
Like so much else in this fascinating inquiry, the revelation is not new as such. Lord Goldsmith has already said that he changed his mind before giving his final advice in support of the war.
But it does raise all sorts of questions as to why the Attorney General underwent quite such a radical conversion. Whether the Chilcot committee ends up concluding that the war was illegal, I doubt.
But one wonders whether the Cabinet Secretary would have allowed publication if Chilcot was still sitting under Labour.
What sticks in my craw, however, is the inquiry's claim to be full and comprehensive. It spent, it boasts, part of the period during the election when it was in purdah visiting France and the US to find out recollections there.
The one place it didn't get to, of course, was Iraq itself and the one set of people it is not going to interview is the Iraqis themselves.
How a so-called independent committee, which includes two historians (admittedly neither of them known for expressing any sympathy with the Arab point of view) can claim to understand what went on without finding out the view from the other side beats me.
But until we do, we'll never learn the lessons of these conflicts, in Afghanistan no more than in Iraq.
Independent 01 July 2010 Chilcott InquiryHow Goldsmith changed advice on legality of war
The end of the Afghan venture
We're on our way out of Afghanistan. The politicians know it. The generals know it. The Afghans know it, as do their neighbours.
The only people who are apparently not meant to know it are the soldiers fighting this hard-slogging war and the public ...
David Cameron has now put the time frame at five years, which is at least some indication of allied thinking.
The Americans won't give any commitment – although there is the strong suspicion that Obama wants his forces out before his re-election campaign in 2012, which puts an even harder deadline on the nine-year-old venture.
It all depends on how the surge goes and how ready the Afghans are to take over. Announcing target dates would only encourage the "enemy" and make withdrawal more difficult ...
Every country is now rethinking its defence budgets and strategies. Before we get too carried away with the idea that old-fashioned Cold War armaments should be replaced by the fleet-footed forces for ventures abroad, we need to think whether we should embark on foreign interventions at all.
Independent 01 July 2010Nato's grand experiment
US to cut $4bn in Afghan aid
Pakistan Is Said to Pursue a Foothold in Afghanistan
Pakistan is exploiting the troubled United States military effort in Afghanistan to drive home a political settlement with Afghanistan that would give Pakistan important influence there but is likely to undermine United States interests ...
The dismissal of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal will almost certainly embolden the Pakistanis in their plan as they detect increasing American uncertainty, Pakistani officials said.
The Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, preferred General McChrystal to his successor, Gen. David H. Petraeus, whom he considers more of a politician than a military strategist ...
Pakistan is presenting itself as the new viable partner for Afghanistan to President Hamid Karzai, who has soured on the Americans.
Pakistani officials say they can deliver the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, an ally of Al Qaeda who runs a major part of the insurgency in Afghanistan, into a power-sharing arrangement.
In addition, Afghan officials say, the Pakistanis are pushing various other proxies, with General Kayani personally offering to broker a deal with the Taliban ...
NYT 24 June 2010'Washington Can't Afford any More Failures in Afghanistan'
Central Asia: the erupting volcano
There is ... a potential for chaos and uncertainty on the very border with Afghanistan.
In ordinary circumstances this would be a situation which all interested parties and nearby powers would try to neutralise and bring under control.
However, the timing of the announcement of the “discovery” of “a trillion USD worth” of valuable minerals in the very regions of Afghanistan closest to this potential new area of conflict could bring about a change of attitude in all the parties concerned.
The existence of these mineral deposits have been an open secret, but the official disclosure - possibly decided for an eventual justification of a prolonged Western military presence in Afghanistan - means that, from now on, “the gloves are off”.
Even Iran, which has kept its distance from the Afghan conflict, could display an understandable interest.
Of course, no exploitation or even deeper exploration of the area will be possible unless the country and the region are pacified, and this could mean an intensification of the war effort by the sides engaged in the conflict, and a hand in muddying the waters on the part of those who would prefer not to see such riches fall exclusively into Western (i.e. American) hands.
The Russians, in spite of having been badly burned in Afghanistan, have always considered that country part of their sphere of influence (shades of the “Great Game”), and the Chinese have been quietly enhancing their presence in the area ...
openDemocracy 23 June 2010No, the U.S. Didn’t Just ‘Discover’ a $1T Afghan Motherlode
U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan
U.S. Said to Fund Afghan Warlords to Protect Convoys
American taxpayers have inadvertently created a network of warlords across Afghanistan who are making millions of dollars escorting NATO convoys and operating outside the control of either the Afghan government or the American and NATO militaries, according to the results of a Congressional investigation released Monday.
The investigation ... found that money given to these Afghan warlords often amounts to little more than mafia-style protection payments, with some NATO convoys that refused to pay the warlords coming under attack.
The subcommittee ... also uncovered evidence suggesting that American taxpayer money is making its way to the Taliban.
Several trucking company supervisors told investigators that they believed the gunmen they hired to escort their convoys bribed the Taliban not to attack.
The warlords who are paid with American money, the investigators said, are undermining the legitimate Afghan government that Americans soldiers and Marines are struggling to build, and will most likely threaten the government long after the Americans and NATO leave ...
NYT 21 June 2010
Government officials sounded headily optimistic Monday as they fielded questions from local and international reporters about a new report on the extent of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth that suggests considerable potential for products other than opium, which until now has been the country’s most lucrative export.Afghan Officials Elated by Minerals Report
Sorry to be a party pooper, guys, but neoliberalism doeson't do fair shares for all.
The report, produced by the American military and the United States Geological Survey, found that Afghanistan had at least $1 trillion in mineral wealth ...
As they waited to hear Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, some Afghan reporters excitedly calculated among themselves how much each Afghan would theoretically get if the mineral treasure trove were divided equally.
Assuming the $1 trillion valuation and Afghanistan’s population of 29 million, that would give each Afghan man, woman and child $34,482.76 ...
NYT 14 June 1020 Eating the Future
The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe ...U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan
"Afganistan ... has little or no history of environmental protection ... "
Welcome to the world of Bhopal and Deepwater Horizon, guys!
An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys ...
The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Just last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine ...
Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul and provincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts.
Afghanistan has a national mining law, written with the help of advisers from the World Bank ...
At the same time, American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth ...
Another complication is that because Afghanistan has never had much heavy industry before, it has little or no history of environmental protection ...
NYT 13 June 2010 Corporate Sociopathy
Pakistani agents 'funding and training Afghan Taliban'
Links between the Taliban and Pakistan's intelligence service have long been suspected, but the report's author - Harvard analyst Matt Waldman - says there is real evidence of extensive co-operation between the two.
"This goes far beyond just limited, or occasional support," he said. "This is very significant levels of support being provided by the ISI.
"We're also saying this is official policy of that agency, and we're saying that it is very extensive. It is both at an operational level, and at a strategic level, right at the senior leadership of the Taliban movement."
Mr Waldman spoke to nine Taliban field commanders in Afghanistan earlier this year.
Some alleged that ISI agents had even attended meetings of the Taliban's top leadership council ...
BBC NEWS 13 May 2010Pakistan spy agency accused over Taliban
Karzai Is Said to Doubt West Can Defeat Taliban
Two senior Afghan officials were showing President Hamid Karzai the evidence of the spectacular rocket attack on a nationwide peace conference earlier this month when Mr. Karzai told them that he believed the Taliban were not responsible ...
... a prominent Afghan with knowledge of the meeting ... said that Mr. Karzai suggested in the meeting that it might have been the Americans who carried it out ...
Minutes after the exchange, Mr. Saleh and the interior minister, Hanif Atmar, resigned ...
... underlying the tensions, according to Mr. Saleh and Afghan and Western officials, was something more profound: That Mr. Karzai had lost faith in the Americans and NATO to prevail in Afghanistan.
For that reason, Mr. Saleh and other officials said, Mr. Karzai has been pressing to strike his own deal with the Taliban and the country’s archrival, Pakistan ...
A senior NATO official said the resignations of Mr. Atmar and Mr. Saleh, who had strong support from the NATO allies, were “extremely disruptive.” ...
NYT 11 June 2010
Iran sanctions 'will not affect' Russia missile deal
Russia agreed to supply Iran with S-300 systems several years ago but has not delivered them.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed the missiles were not subject to the limits set by the UN on cooperation with Iran.
He said Moscow was in talks on building further nuclear reactors in Iran.
The US and Israel are concerned the S-300 missiles, designed to counter both aircraft and cruise missiles, might be used to protect Iran's nuclear facilities from possible attack ...
BBC NEWS 10 June 2010
Officers’ mess: military chiefs blamed for blundering into Helmand with ‘eyes shut and fingers crossed’
... a two-month investigation by The Times, which includes interviews with 32 senior military, political and Civil Service figures, reveals that there was deep disquiet over the handling of the mission from the start.
Top ranks within the Ministry of Defence and other Whitehall departments are accused of:
* grossly underestimating the threat from the Taleban;
* ignoring warnings that planned troop numbers were inadequate;
* offering only the military advice they thought ministers wanted to hear;
* signing off on a confused command-and-control structure.
The allegations come as a critical defence review gets under way and David Cameron decides how to plot the way ahead in Afghanistan’s most dangerous province.
One senior serving officer who asked not to be named said of the planning stage: “There was institutional ignorance and denial. We who had bothered to put a bit of work in and had done the estimate realised that we needed much more than we were being given.” ...
Times 09 June 2010
Gaza blockade: Iran offers escort to next aid convoy
• Aide threatens use of Revolutionary Guard
• Netanyahu warns of Jerusalem missile danger ...
The threat came as the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, dismissed a UN proposal for an international commission to investigate last week's commando assault on aid ships, in which nine people died.
Another aid ship, the Rachel Corrie, carrying Irish and other peace activists, was boarded peacefully by Israeli forces on Saturday, escorted to the port of Ashdod, and its passengers deported.
Netanyahu has defended Israel's right to maintain the blockade by arguing that without it Gaza would become an "Iranian port" and Hamas missiles would strike Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Israel's undeclared aim is to weaken or bring down the Hamas government.
Iran continued to exploit the "freedom flotilla" affair to lambast Israel. Its foreign minister, Manuchehr Mottaki, told the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Jeddah on Sunday that Israel's crime was "another instance of the Zionist regime's brazen and merciless treatment of Muslims, especially the oppressed Palestinian people." ...
Guardian 06 June 2010Israeli navy kills four Palestinians off Gaza coast
U.S. Is Said to Expand Secret Military Acts in Mideast Region
The top American commander in the Middle East has ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region, according to defense officials and military documents.
The secret directive, signed in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, authorizes the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to gather intelligence and build ties with local forces.
Officials said the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate ...
NYT 24 May 2010
Taliban insurgents attack Bagram airbase in Afghanistan
• American contractor killed and nine troops wounded
• Dozen suicide bombers dead in attack on military base
The fighting came the day after a suicide bomber attacked a military convoy in Kabul, killing 12 Afghan civilians and six foreign service personnel.
A spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) would not identify the American contractor until next of kin had been told ...
Guardian 19 May 2010Toll in Kabul Suicide Attack
In Ambush, a Glimpse of a Long Afghan Summer
Iran faces fresh sanctions as Russia and China support UN resolution
Surprise move comes as security council was preparing for lengthy negotiations over Tehran's uranium programme ...
Guardian 18 May 2010Iran: blind man's bluff
Netanyahu pulls out of nuclear conference
Israel spurns nuclear watchdog's call to open atomic sites to inspection
Israel pressured on nuclear sites
Death tolls set to spiral as allied forces face 40 attacks every day
Attacks by the Taliban between September 2009 and March 2010 leapt by 83 per cent compared with the same period last year, according to a new report released this month by the US Government Accountability Office.
This in turn is greater than the 75 per cent increase between 2008 and 2009, when the Taliban launched 21,000 attacks. Worse, the violence is expected to grow even more ferocious in the coming months as US and British forces fight to retake Taliban-held territory in the south of the country.
Ineffective governance and money from the opium trade are cited as factors behind the continuing resilience of the insurgency ...
Independent 16 May 2010'Nobody is winning,' admits McChrystal
Taliban: the indistinguishable enemy
MI5 faces allegations over torture of British man in Bangladesh
Security service accused of involvement in abuse of Birmingham businessman Gulam Mustafa, who was arrested in Dhaka ...
Mustafa appeared to have a swollen face when he was paraded before television cameras shortly after his arrest, according to his family.
When he appeared in court 11 days later, a journalist working for the Guardian could see that he was unable to stand throughout the proceedings, at one point sinking to his knees.
The businessman told a British consular official he had been forced to assume stressful positions for long periods during questioning at a detention centre known as the Taskforce for Interrogation Cell, where the use of torture is alleged to be common.
Lawyers for Mustafa's family said there were strong grounds to believe that British officials had been complicit in his mistreatment and they were considering bringing legal action against the government.
They were angry that the UK High Commission in Dhaka had failed to secure consular access to Mustafa for more than two weeks after his arrest or arrange for him to be seen by a doctor ...
Guardian 11 May 2010 Torture
US drone missiles kill nine ... in Pakistan
An American drone killed at least nine people in Pakistan's tribal belt this morning in the first such strike since a Pakistani-American man was linked to last weekend's failed Times Square bombing ...
The US has stepped up pressure on Pakistan to attack militant hideouts in the tribal belt in recent days, particularly North Waziristan. Using unusually belligerent language, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, warned of "very severe consequences" if a successful attack was linked to Pakistan.
... the US is already engaged in its most ferocious campaign on Pakistan soil for decades through the CIA drone strikes, which are currently averaging about two per week.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official said there had been 40 drone attacks so far this year, compared with 49 in the whole of 2009. Other tallies have counted just over 30 strikes in 2010.
The CIA has received permission to strike a much wider range of suspected militants than before, including those whose identities have not been established, the Los Angeles Times reported last week. Previously, the CIA could only attack individuals on a vetted list of Taliban and al-Qaida leaders ... the nature of any link between the Taliban and the Times Square attack remains unclear.
The crude nature of the bomb, the bungled nature of its execution and the fact that Shahzad so readily admitted his terrorist links suggest the Pakistani-American had little training ...
Guardian 09 May 2010Pakistan
Guantanamo damages claimants win secrecy ruling
Six former Guantanamo Bay detainees have overturned a ruling that allowed government use of secret evidence to defend itself against a damages claim.
The men had been told that parts of MI5 and MI6's defence could be kept secret.
The men are suing the UK government, saying their detention by the US could have been stopped.
But on Tuesday the Court of Appeal said it would "take a stand" against secrecy that would undermine the "most fundamental principles of common law" ...
BBC NEWS 04 May 2010 Torture
Accessing MI5 files on July 7 'impossible'
Revealing top secret MI5 files about the July 7 bombers to the families of those killed in the attacks would be "impossible", it was claimed today.
Investigating whether the security service could have prevented the atrocities would involve "handing over the keys" to MI5's Thames House headquarters in London, a hearing to decide the format of the inquests for the 2005 bombings was told.
Neil Garnham QC, counsel for the Home Secretary and MI5, argued that examining MI5's involvement was outside the scope of the inquests.
He said there would be no problem with providing highly sensitive intelligence material to the coroner and counsel to the inquests.
But any jurors could only see the material if they all underwent intrusive "developed vetting" and neither the bereaved families nor their lawyers would be allowed to see it, he said.
"It would be the security service's position that disclosure of sensitive information to a jury is simply not possible," he said.
"For the same reasons as for juries, disclosure to the families would be impossible." ...
Mr Garnham said there was "overwhelming" public interest in not having top secret MI5 documents revealed in the hearings ...
Independent 28 April 2010
The charity Reprieve is today launching a legal battle to force the British Government to name a suspected terrorist who is being held in AfghanistanCharity launches legal bid to name terror suspect
The man, who Reprieve today said is thought to be Yunus Rahmatullah, was one of two alleged terrorists captured by British soldiers in Iraq in February 2004.
They were handed to the US authorities, who flew them to Afghanistan where it is thought they are being held at Bagram Air Base.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the Data Protection Act prevents it from disclosing their names.
Former shadow home secretary and civil liberties campaigner David Davis said he believed the identities were being kept secret to avoid political embarrassment ...
Independent 15 Apr 2010 Torture
Last year a study by the National Association of Probation Officers estimated that the number of veterans in prison, or on probation or parole, was 20,000 – more than double the total British deployment in Afghanistan.MoD is failing its war veterans, leaving many to face jail terms, peer says
It concluded that 8,500 – 8% of the prison population – were in prison. Nearly half were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or depression as a result of their wartime experiences.
However, a study by the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Justice in January concluded that veterans make up 3%, of the prison population, 2,500 in number.
Ramsbotham, who believes the true figure lies somewhere in between, said the revelation should be a catalyst for positive action ...
Guardian 14 Apr 2010 Veterans' Care
Iraq has become a toxic issue that is avoided at all costs by the two largest parties in their election campaigns.Forgetting Iraq in the election
The Labour manifesto outlined that "there is no more important part of the world for global security than the Middle East", but the 76-page document only mentions Iraq once in passing, with reference to defence spending.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives, bound to Iraq by their support for the war, didn't mention it once in their 131-page manifesto ...
According to the UNHCR in January this year, there are still more than 1.3 million Iraqi refugees living across the region, including some 747,910 in Syria and 500,000 in Jordan ...
In October, the UNHCR expressed its concern over the British attempt to forcibly return 44 Iraqi men to Baghdad.
Here, responsibility towards Iraqi refugees clashes with the parties' policies towards immigration, an issue that both manifestos have plenty to say about ...
So what hope for is there for a British foreign policy that is fair for all, or one where we're all in it together?
To abandon those worst affected by a foreign policy failure is what the absence of Iraq from the party manifestos is committing ourselves towards.
Guardian 14 Apr 2010UNHCR - Iraq
Nato plans for a massive operation in southern Afghanistan suffered a setback yesterday when soldiers opened fire on a bus, killing four civilians including a woman and child, and wounding more than 12 others ...Nato Taleban blitz in jeopardy after troops shoot woman and child on bus
Elders in Kandahar — where the latest Nato operation will be focused — said that what little faith people still had in the coalition had evaporated ...
President Karzai — who has wept in public while demanding that Nato should stop killing innocent people — issued a statement condemning the attack ...
Soon after the incident, scores of protesters tried to block the road through Zhari, chanting “Death to America”, and “Death to Karzai” and burning tyres on the road ...
Times 13 Apr 2010Afghanistan News
While the US and Britain slide towards oligarchy, the forced elections in Afghanistan and Iraq have brought no good ...As democracy unravels at home, the west thuggishly exports it elsewhere
The high-minded attacks on corruption in Muslim states from London and Washington is futile. In most countries corruption is the lubricant of power.
Nor is the west that clean. Britain showered corruption on the Saudis to obtain arms contracts. The activities of American firms in "rebuilding" Iraq were wholly corrupt ...
The Tories and Liberal Democrats are dishonest to say that the Afghan war is justified "provided" Karzai ends corruption, stops rigging elections, and trains his army and police.
None of this will happen, and is merely cover to avoid saying what these politicians know to be true – that British soldiers are dying for a dud hypothetical ...ConstituentGuardian 08 Apr 2010
8 Apr 2010, 9:26PM
To work, democracy needs to work from the bottom up.
People choose local representatives to represent them at higher levels. People turn up at local meetings and speek, and votes are counted.
Forget the press attacks and look how trade unions work. They are democratic.
All we do now is vote for dictators, or mouthpieces for the people really in charge.
Democracy also expects those voting to understand and accept the responsibility for their decisions.
The great thing about straightforward dictatorships is that the dictator isn't your fault. You can absolve yourself from responsibility.
Half of these places where we are trying to enforce democracy aren't natural countries, just lines on the map.
The parties represent different areas with nothing in common.
As long as the rich can buy political parties who select "representatives" there is no democracy.
US special forces soldiers dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath of a botched night raid, then washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened ...US special forces 'tried to cover-up' botched Khataba raid
Two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother were shot on February 12 when US and Afghan special forces stormed their home in Khataba village, outside Gardez in eastern Afghanistan. The precise composition of the force has never been made public.
The claims were made as Nato admitted responsibility for all the deaths for the first time last night.
It had initially claimed that the women had been dead for several hours when the assault force discovered their bodies ...
In a statement yesterday, Brigadier-General Eric Tremblay, a Nato spokesman, said: “We deeply regret the outcome of this operation, accept responsibility for our actions that night, and know that this loss will be felt forever by the families.
“The force went to the compound based on reliable information in search of a Taleban insurgent, and believed that the two men posed a threat to their personal safety. We now understand that the men killed were only trying to protect their families.”
Times 05 April 2010 A violent aggressive cultureUN report criticises covert troops
The president's tone was stern, angry, and carried a veiled warning to the international community about its involvement here.Karzai accuses UN over election fraud
His foreign allies will reject his accusations, and raise questions about his motives and mindset. But they know it's a political reality they must deal with.
His closest aides say he is still bitter about last year's controversial presidential election. He believed then that key allies like the US and UK were determined to oust him - his suspicion hasn't completely gone away.
Efforts like Barack Obama's visit to Kabul help ease tension and underscore a realisation on both sides that this relationship must be repaired. Too much is at stake.
The president's sudden outburst may have been provoked by the Lower House of Parliament's rejection of his decree giving him the power to appoint all five members of the Electoral Complaints Commission - a move he said was necessary to let Afghanistan control this key process.
BBC NEWS 01 April 2010Karzai poll body power grab
Karzai blames west for Afghanistan election 'fraud'
'Ghost recruits' and widespread corruption are hampering the fight against the Taliban and delaying Britain's withdrawal plans ...Drugs and desertion: how the UK really rates Afghan police
A series of internal Foreign Office papers obtained by The Independent on Sunday ... warn that building an effective police force "will take many years", also reveal how non-existent "ghost recruits" may account for up to a quarter of the purported strength of the police force, often the front line against the Taliban insurgency.
The "attrition rate" among police officers – including losses caused by deaths, desertion and dismissals, often due to positive drug tests – is as high as 60 per cent in Helmand province ...
Independent 28 Mar 2010
The government's assessment of the threat of terrorism in the UK is overstated and has undermined the case for imposing tough new anti-terror laws, an influential committee of MPs and peers has warned ...Ministers are exaggerating the terrorist threat, say MPs
The Committee ... criticised the head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, for his failure to appear before the committee.
"It is unacceptable that the Director General of the Security Service refuses to appear before it to give public evidence – despite giving public lectures and media interviews – that would allow the Committee to make judgements about the necessity and proportionality of counter-terrorism measures," the report said.
The committee also criticised the Government's narrow definition of complicity in torture as "significant and worrying".
It said that in light of details published in the case of Binyam Mohammed, the case for an urgent independent inquiry into the allegations of complicity in torture was now "irresistible".
Independent Mar 2010
David Miliband said today that there was "compelling evidence" that Israel was responsible for misuse of British passports as part of a plot to kill a prominent member of Hamas.'Compelling evidence' Israel was behind misuse of UK passports
The foreign secretary confirmed that Britain had demanded the withdrawal of an Israeli diplomat following the "intolerable" use of 12 forged British passports by a hit squad that killed the founder of Hamas's military wing in Dubai.
Miliband attacked the "profound disregard" for UK sovereignty and said the apparent involvement of a friendly nation "added insult to injury" ...
Guardian 23 Mar 2010
The United States is reportedly considering whether to detain international terrorist suspects at Bagram air base in Afghanistan after the closure of Guantanamo Bay ...Bagram air base in Afghanistan 'could be new Guantanamo'
Any decision to expand the existing detention facility at Bagram would be expected to draw heavy criticism from allies and human rights groups.
Bagram currently holds around 800 prisoners, the vast majority captured in Afghanistan.
Control of the prison is due to be handed over to the Afghan government in January, but that would have to be delayed if the US decided to use it to hold foreign terrorist suspects captured elsewhere ...
Telegraph 22 Mar 2010Bagram Air Base
Is The Bagram Air Base The New Guantanamo?
Afghan workers protest at Bagram base
Torture Allegations Re-surface
Guantanamo's evil twin
Under the cover of a benign government information-gathering program, a Defense Department official set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants ...Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants
While it has been widely reported that the C.I.A. and the military are attacking operatives of Al Qaeda and others through unmanned, remote-controlled drone strikes, some American officials say they became troubled that Mr. Furlong seemed to be running an off-the-books spy operation. The officials say they are not sure who condoned and supervised his work.
It is generally considered illegal for the military to hire contractors to act as covert spies. Officials said Mr. Furlong’s secret network might have been improperly financed by diverting money from a program designed to merely gather information about the region.
Moreover, in Pakistan, where Qaeda and Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding, the secret use of private contractors may be seen as an attempt to get around the Pakistani government’s prohibition of American military personnel’s operating in the country ...
NYT 14 Mar 2010Privatising war
With more than 300 Palestinian children being held in Israeli prisons, human rights groups and Palestinian officials are increasingly concerned about the actions of the Israeli military.Jail ordeal of hundreds of Palestinian children arrested for throwing stones
The Israeli group B'Tselem said that security forces had "severely violated" the rights of a number of children, aged between 12 and 15, who had been taken into custody in recent months.
The family of one 13-year-old boy from Hebron who was arrested on 27 February by a military patrol and detained for eight days have brought a legal case against the authorities. The teenager, Al-Hasan Muhtaseb, described how he had been interrogated without a lawyer late into the night, forced to confess to throwing stones, made to sign a confession in Hebrew that he couldn't read, jailed with adults and brought before a military court.
He was only released on bail eight days later, after considerable legal effort by several human rights groups. As he had signed a confession, he still faces a possible indictment for throwing stones – a charge that usually brings several months in jail but carries a maximum penalty of 20 years' jail ...
Observer 14 Mar 2010The best political weapon is the weapon of terror.
Cruelty commands respect.
Men may hate us.
But, we don't ask for their love; only for their fear.
Heinrich HimmlerB'Tselem
Scarred, trapped, vengeful
A BBC investigation in Iraq has confirmed a disturbingly high number of birth defects among children in the town of Falluja ...Birth defects 'have risen since US Falluja operation'
It was hard to find doctors at the brand-new, US-funded hospital in Falluja who were prepared to talk about the problem.
I was told they were scared to speak because the Iraqi government did not want to create trouble for the Americans.
The official line is that Falluja has only two or three cases of birth defects a year more than normal.
But, in the children's ward, I spoke to a paediatrician who told me he saw as many as two or three cases a day, mainly cardiac defects ...
BBC NEWS 04 Mar 2010
Many Dubaians believe that the collapse of the emirate's economy last year was the revenge of Western banks – spurred on, of course, by the Americans – to punish them for allowing Iranian shell companies to use Dubai as a sanctions-busting base during the cold-hot war between the US-Israeli alliance and Iran.Passport to the truth in Dubai remains secret
Now the Americans (or the Israelis – you can take your pick) want to turn Dubai into the Beirut of the Gulf. That was actually a headline last week – in The Jerusalem Post, of course – which painted Dubai as dangerous as it was economically calamitous ...
According to a Dubai "source" of The Independent – readers will have to judge what this means – the security forces of the aforesaid emirate informed a "British diplomat" in Dubai ... of the UK passport details almost six days ago and "did not receive an appropriate reply".
If this is true – the Foreign Office will be wrathful in its denials – then why didn't the British immediately express their outrage at the use of forged British passports and cough up details of the equally outrageous frauds a week ago? ...
Far too many police forces are now sending their minions to Israel to learn about "terror".
The Canadians actually dispatched a team of cops to Tel Aviv who allowed themselves to wear "suicide vests" for publicity pictures.
Air France now hands the US details of all its passengers' profiles – which, of course, go straight to the Israelis – despite the fact that Israeli security officers (like hundreds of Arab security officers in the Middle East) may well be involved in war crimes ...
Independent 17 Feb 2010Britain's explanation is riddled with inconsistencies
Britain summons Israeli ambassador
Hallmarks of a classic Israeli operation
The moment Mossad agents got their man?
The soldiers were among at least 60 to 100 members of a Special Operations team that trains Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps in counterinsurgency techniques, including intelligence gathering and development assistance ...Soldier Deaths Draw Focus to U.S. in Pakistan
At least 12 other American service members have been killed in Pakistan since Sept. 11, 2001, in hotel bombings and a plane crash ... but these were the first killed as part of the Special Operations training, which has been under way for 18 months.
That training has been acknowledged only gingerly by both the Americans and the Pakistanis, but has deliberately been kept low-key so as not to trespass onto Pakistani sensitivities about sovereignty, and not to further inflame high anti-American sentiment.
Even though the United States calls Pakistan an ally, the country ... has not allowed American combat forces to operate here, a point that is stressed by the Pentagon and the Pakistani Army ...
Instead, the Central Intelligence Agency operates what has become the main American weapon in Pakistan, the drones armed with missiles that have struck with increasing intensity against militants with the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the lawless tribal areas.
The American soldiers were probably made targets as a result of the drone strikes, said Syed Rifaat Hussain, professor of international relations at Islamabad University ...
NYT 03 Feb 2010Pakistan ... to Pursue Role in Afghan Talks ...
Obama's new 'AfPak' strategy – the view from Pakistan
From Pakistan To AfPak?
Deal with Taliban would not tackle terror's 'root source'
... Ahmed Davutoglu, the foreign minister of Turkey, said al-Qaeda's global operations would survive the end of conflict in Afghanistan and even a split in the radical Islam movement. A far reaching effort to eliminate the sources of popular Muslim grievance would still be needed to neutralise al-Qaeda ...
Mr Davutoglu said a much more comprehensive strategy was needed that must include a settlement of the Israeli-Arab conflict as well as other disputes that inflame Muslims. "If the situation in Palestine continues or if there is another [dispute] ... which provokes the feeling of Muslim communities left unresolved, then it will be difficult to contain this [terror] issue," he said.
"We think there should be a global vision of peace as well as regional perspectives and regional peace. If there is a just and sustainable peace many of these groups will not have a suitable atmosphere to get traction." ...
Telegraph 29 Jan 2010
Every year a very grand lunch is given by the Conservative Friends of Israel at a central London hotel. Anyone who is anyone in the Conservative party makes it their business to be there. It is normally addressed by the party leader.Friends in high places
This year's event took place in June, with the main speech by David Cameron, and the shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, in attendance.
The dominant event of the previous 12 months had been the Israeli invasion of Gaza.
We were shocked Cameron made no reference in his speech to the massive destruction it caused, or the 1,370 deaths that resulted, or for that matter the invasion itself. Indeed, our likely future prime minister went out of his way to praise Israel because it "strives to protect innocent life".
This remark was not intended satirically ...
Guardian 16 November 2009CFI
Al-Qaida: the Yemen factor
Four elements of the Yemeni context are relevant in clarifying a complex situation:
* Many Yemenis fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s and were welcomed back afterwards. Osama bin Laden himself is half-Yemeni. More recently, a Saudi clampdown and conflict in western Pakistan have encouraged many more Yemeni paramilitaries to return home (see Ginny Hill, “Yemen: the weakest link”, 31 March 2009)
* The Yemeni state does not control much of its territory, and its capabilities are further limited by a rebellion in the north; the latter is being waged with Saudi aid, including cross-border bombing raids by Royal Saudi air force F-15 strike-aircraft (see Michael Horton, “Borderline Crisis”, Jane’s Intelligence Review, January 2010). A separatist movement in the south presents yet further problems to a beleaguered government
* The government lacks the resources to maintain security. Yemen faces severe economic difficulties, in part because its oil reserves are now severely depleted and because it has been badly affected by the international financial downturn (see Fred Halliday, “Yemen: travails of unity”, 3 July 2009)
* There has long been an Islamist paramilitary movement within the country; past attacks include the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden harbour in 2000 and the attack on the Limburg tanker in 2002 (see Fred Halliday, "Yemen: murder in Arabia Felix", 13 July 2007) ...
openDemocracy 02 Jan 2009Al-Qaeda group in Yemen gaining prominence
U.S. fears Yemen a safe haven for al Qaeda
Yemen: travails of unity
A historic day for Iraq
One hundred and seventy-nine dead soldiers. For what? 179,000 dead Iraqis? Or is the real figure closer to a million? We don't know. And we don't care. We never cared about the Iraqis. That's why we don't know the figure. That's why we left Basra yesterday.
I remember going to the famous Basra air base to ask how a poor Iraqi boy, a hotel receptionist called Bahr Moussa, had died. He was kicked to death in British military custody. His father was an Iraqi policeman. I talked to him in the company of a young Muslim woman. The British public relations man at the airport was laughing. "I don't believe this," my Muslim companion said. "He doesn't care." She did. So did I. I had reported from Northern Ireland. I had heard this laughter before. Which is why yesterday's departure should have been called the Day of Bahr Moussa. Yesterday, his country was set free from his murderer ...
The Independent 01 May 2009The hotel receptionist who was killed after a 'routine' raid
Lest we forget Baha Mousa
A cry for justice
This is what happens when a crime is redefined as war
The sun never sets on the war on terror, even as it degenerates into blood and recrimination. The Woolwich trial of eight members of a supposed 13-member gang all but collapsed on Monday. Despite evidence of intent to blow up an airliner, the jury convicted three defendants of conspiracy to commit murder but failed to reach a verdict on the central allegation.
It has been an open secret in police circles that Operation Overt, the most complex in counter-terror history, was sabotaged by the American vice president, Dick Cheney, desperate for a headline boost to the Republicans' 2006 mid-term elections. British intelligence was following trails and acquiring evidence against 20 suspects. They needed American surveillance help in Pakistan and shared their information, foolishly it now appears, with Washington.
Nobody was sure if the plot was more than half-baked game-playing and it would certainly need evidence to stand up in court. The British were "treating it all as a criminal matter rather than a historic, and terrorist-glamorising, clash of power and ideology", Suskind writes.
Cheney then privately dispatched the CIA's operations director, Jose Rodriguez, to Islamabad to secure the arrest of one of the British suspects, Rashid Rauf, believed to be a possible link with al-Qaida. The British had been watching him and preparing his extradition. They did not want him rendered useless through CIA or Pakistani torture. Within days, news of Rauf's capture reached the British plotters. In a panic, the police had desperately to round up as many suspects as they could find overnight. According to Suskind, "top officials in British intelligence cursed, threw ashtrays and screamed bloody murder".
Months of work, which might have unpicked an entire al-Qaida network back to the Pakistani training camps, was ruined by "forced, foolish hastiness" - and all for the mid-term elections. Bush was soon boasting of having "foiled a plot to blow up passenger planes headed for the United States". ...
Guardian 10 September 2008
Economists Debate Link Between War, Credit Crisis
Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who wrote the new book "The Three Trillion Dollar War," contends that the connection is real. Even with a growing energy demand from China, the United States and elsewhere, oil traders anticipated before the war that the price of oil would remain about $25 a barrel.
Instead, it has soared to more than $100 a barrel. Iraqi oil production has not risen with demand, in part because investment in the Middle East has been stunted by war-related unrest.
Those price increases are self-perpetuating, Stiglitz argues. Oil-rich Persian Gulf states are so awash in money that they are not sure what to do with it all. By holding back oil production, they make more off what they do produce and keep their greatest asset -- oil -- in the ground as they search for ways to spend their cash.
That cash, through state-owned sovereign wealth funds, has flowed into stocks, bonds and other investments, creating incentives for lenders to offer low-interest loans, many of which have now gone sour. But that is only one factor, by Stiglitz's accounting.
The federal government has sunk deeply into debt, first with tax cuts, then with accelerating war expenditures that have easily topped half a trillion dollars.
That limited the government's ability to keep the economy on track through tax cuts or domestic investments, so the Federal Reserve Board used low interest rates and the free flow of money to keep the economy growing.
Cheap credit sparked rash loans, a housing bubble and the current crisis. "The war played a very important role," Stiglitz said. ...Washginton Post 15 April 2008