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 2010    War on Terror Log

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 Spiegel 

The 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 

The 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 Spiegel 

Intelligence Agents Flooding in Data

Der Spiegel  25 July 2010    War on Terror Log    

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

Pakistan Aids Insurgency

Afghanistan war logs

Cameron denies 'mixed messages' on Afghan pull-out

The prime minister, his deputy Nick Clegg and foreign secretary William Hague have all said UK forces will not stay beyond that date in a combat role.

But Mr Cameron has also said the withdrawal would be "conditions-based" ...

"I certainly think there's a danger of mixed messages," ... (Tory backbencher Andrew Tyrie) ... told BBC Radio 4's The World at One.

"Do we have a fixed timetable or do we have a policy based on conditionality? I was also left a little unclear about what exactly we're leaving behind after 2015.

"There's certainly a risk that if we are locked into a timetable, we could empower the Taliban."

Conservative MP Julian Lewis said setting a date for withdrawal put pressure on the Afghan government, not the Taliban ...

BBC NEWS  21 July 2010

Two British soldiers shot dead in Afghanistan

Mixed messages over Afghanistan mission timetable?

In quotes: Timetable for UK withdrawal from Afghanistan

Foreign aid diverted to stabilise Afghanistan

There's something odd here.

The UK is to increase aid, while across the pond Obama's cut US aid by $4bn

Britain is to cut aid worth hundreds of millions of pounds to countries around the world to help pay for projects aimed at speeding the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan ...

Mitchell will stress that an aid expansion to Afghanistan from £500m to £700m over the next four years will help the country stand on its own feet – improving stability, the economy and government, and allowing UK troops to come home within David Cameron's target of five years.

That target appeared a long way off yesterday when an airman for the RAF Regiment died in a road accident near Camp Bastion in Helmand, a marine from 40 Commando Royal Marines died in an explosion in Sangin, and a member of the Royal Dragoon Guards died in a blast in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand.

A soldier from the Royal Logistics Corps was last night also killed in another blast in Nahr-e Saraj ...

Observer  18 July 2010    

White House shifts Afghanistan strategy towards talks with Taliban

Foreign aid diverted to stabilise Afghanistan

Troops out of Afghanistan by 2014

Four UK forces deaths in 24 hours

US to cut $4bn in Afghan aid over corruption fears

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 2010    A Violent Aggressive Culture    War on Terror Log

Losing more than Afghanistan

Afghanistan UK soldier deaths

Afghan soldier murders British troops

UN may trim Taliban blacklist

Afghanistan: Now it's America's war

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.

Indpendent  08 July 2010

Afghan 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    War on Terror Log

In Afghanistan, signs of crony capitalism

War veterans should be helped to adjust to civilian life, say MPs

Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of Napo, the probation and family court staff union, said:

"Two surveys undertaken by Napo suggest that 8% of the prison and probation population have seen military service. For the vast majority that service occurred in the past 10 years. It is clear that advice, help and counselling is not reaching soldiers in a worrying number of cases.

"It is critical that the government develops policies to ensure soldiers who enter the criminal justice system receive proper advice and healthcare. If soldiers are willing to risk their lives for their country then they deserve proper help and welfare on return" ...

Other recommendations in the action plan are:

• All service personnel should have access to advice on issues ranging from housing and welfare benefits to relationship skills, debt management and domestic violence, if needed, followed by a one-to-one assessment six months later.

• A resettlement assessment six months before discharge.

• A follow-up assessment, where help is needed, six months after discharge.

• Funding for veterans support officers in prison and probation services.

• A service record should become an automatic part of court reports ...

Guardian  05 July 2010

Iraq war veteran: Haunted, in prison, now homeless

New arrests data for veterans reveals 'massive problem'

Keep our war veterans out of prison

Veterans in Prison

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 2010    War on Terror

Afghanistan: an impossible choice

Nato's grand experiment

US to cut $4bn in Afghan aid

UK set to be among last out of Afghanistan

Dr Fox in Washington getting his orders from the U.S. Don't mention the 13th Century, Dr Fox.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox says British troops may be among the last to leave Afghanistan and "strategic patience" is required.

He told the BBC that he believed Helmand, where British troops are, was likely to be "one of the last places they will be able to transition from" ...

In a speech in Washington, he said that it is important for people to keep their nerve about the mission.

To leave before the job was done would send a message to the enemy, he said.

"It would send the signal that we did not have the moral resolve and political fortitude to see through what we ourselves have described as a national security imperative." ...

BBC NEWS  30 June 2010    

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    War on Terror Log

'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 2010    War on Terror Log

No, 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    War on Terror

British advances in Afghanistan have escalated conflict

As the death toll of UK troops in the conflict reached 299 on Friday, the former UK counter-terrorism chief, Richard Barrett, told the Observer: "Most people reckon there's a deterioration." ...

Barrett's analysis coincided with an official update to the UN security council yesterday which recorded a dramatic escalation of violence in Afghanistan during the first four months of the year. Roadside bomb attacks rose by 94% compared with the same period in 2009, according to a UN assessment ...

... after his latest fact-finding tour, Barrett said that the Afghan army's organisation was still "extremely weak". He said:

"It needs a more professional officer corps, I think the Afghan ministry of defence would be the first to admit this.

"Can you really get the Afghans to take on a significant role? There are still problems with retention [in the army], still problems with ethnic mix.

"Even if we withdraw from front-line activity, we still have this long-term training commitment." ...

Guardian  20 June 2010    Blog

Security in Afghanistan has not improved

Death rate of UK soldiers in Afghanistan 'four times higher' than US

Cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan tops £20bn

Iraq car bombings leave dozens dead

Soldier killed by blast is 299th to die in Afghanistan

Public must do more to support armed forces

As Cameron continues to believe that Afghanistan is 'Britain's most important foreign policy and national security issue' it's perhaps as well that he 'promises better treatment' for veterans with mental health issues, since this has been sorely lacking.

It's a matter of record that - as of Oct 2008 - 95 per cent of the 8,500 ex-service people in prison suffered from PTSD.

David Cameron, the Prime Minister, tells the public it has a duty to provide more support to the Armed Forces ...

Mr Cameron signals that the forthcoming review of the military covenant, the contract between the forces and the Government, will do more to help military families, including obligations to provide decent levels of housing and measures to stop them being “pushed down” NHS waiting lists when they move bases.

He also promises better treatment for veterans, particularly “those who gave years of their life to mental illness, alcoholism or just a persistent feeling of alienation once they get home”.

Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, is trying to ensure the NHS and the Ministry of Defence work together to better co-ordinate services for ex-Servicemen with mental health problems.

Telegraph  19 June 2010

Veterans in Prison

Afghan Officials Elated by Minerals Report

Sorry to be a party pooper, guys, but neoliberalism doeson't do fair shares for all.

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.

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    War on Terror Log

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!

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 ...

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    Eating the Future    War on Terror Log

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 2010    War on Terror

Pakistan 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    War on Terror Log

David Cameron sets stage for eventual UK withdrawal from Afghanistan as he visits Kabul

British and US troops need to move 'further and faster' in stabilising the country, prime minister says in press conference with Hamid Karzai ...

Cameron announced a series of measures to help stabilise the country and to strengthen the British military effort to hasten the withdrawal:

• A doubling of the number of teams, from 10 to 20, dealing with improvised explosive devices. This will cost £67m and will be paid for from the Treasury reserve.

• An extra £200m to be diverted to Afghanistan from the existing international development budget.

• More efforts to inform people in Britain of progress. There will be quarterly reports to parliament by the foreign secretary, William Hague, or the defence secretary, Liam Fox.

• A declaration that further deployments of British troops are "not remotely" on the agenda.

Speaking alongside Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, Cameron said that Afghanistan was Britain's "most important foreign policy issue, the most important national security issue facing our country, and it is that national security approach I want to stress here today ... "

Guardian  10 June 2010

The Whitehall mandarins who set up the bloodiest mission since Korea

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    War on Terror Log

British army's bomb disposal chief quits after speaking of Afghan pressures

Colonel Bob Seddon stood down as principal ammunition technical officer of the Royal Logistics Corps after telling the BBC's Panorama programme he needed more people on the ground and raising fears over the job's psychological impact.

In the programme, to be broadcast tonight, he said the army was looking to bring more people into disposal teams to tackle improvised explosive devices, but the measures would take "some time".

He added: "It means the existing cohort are going to be under pressure. I'm very concerned that in the longer term some of my people who have done phenomenally difficult and dangerous work in Afghanistan may pay a deeper psychological price for the work that they've conducted." ...

The documentary was made by the widow of a bomb disposal expert killed in Afghanistan, who used the programme to question whether the army had failed in its duty of care towards her husband ...

Guardian  24 May 2010

Widow of bomb expert Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid says fatigue played part in his death

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    War on Terror Log

'Nobody is winning,' admits McChrystal

Taliban: the indistinguishable enemy

Soldier's widow attacks poor equipment for troops in Afghanistan

Joanne McAleese calls upon new government to urgently review army's equipment and budget ...

Speaking at the end of the hearing yesterday, Mrs McAleese said:

"As Mac's wife it's been very hard to hear some of the evidence today. In my opinion the device that killed Mac was impossible to detect with the equipment provided to our soldiers. Many more soldiers have died since Mac's death in a very similar way. How can this be allowed to continue?"

... The new defence secretary, Liam Fox, said in a statement:

"Our sympathies remain with the families of Serjeant Paul McAleese and Private Johnathon Young at this difficult time.

"Afghanistan is my top priority and it is unacceptable for our troops to ever lack the equipment they require. The new government will ensure that the new and better equipment will be provided for them."

Guardian  15 May 2010

Afghanistan

Afghan mother case 'inexcusable'

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said the treatment of a woman who sought answers about her son's death in Afghanistan had been "inexcusable".

Gordon Brown told Ann Probyn in March that officials would look again into the death of her son Daniel, killed by a roadside bomb in 2007.

Mrs Probyn, who says his vehicle had inadequate protective equipment, said she had heard nothing for seven weeks ... rather than being contacted in person, she said all she had received since then was a Labour manifesto and a standard letter ...

BBC News  02 May 2010    

Drugs and desertion: how the UK really rates Afghan police

'Ghost recruits' and widespread corruption are hampering the fight against the Taliban and delaying Britain's withdrawal plans ...

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    War on Terror Log

Troops to get half the expected vehicles to replace Snatch

Gordon Brown’s pledge to replace vulnerable Snatch Land Rovers will result in troops receiving only half the number of new patrol vehicles they were originally promised.

During his visit to Afghanistan at the weekend, the Prime Minister announced that 200 new Light Protection Patrol Vehicles (LPPVs) would be dispatched to replace the much-derided Snatch models which have led to dozens of deaths.

The Ministry of Defence has now confirmed that the original procurement contract for the LPPVs had suggested that up to 400 would be commissioned ...

Telegraph  08 Mar 2010

Nato draws up payout tariffs for Afghan civilian deaths

Twenty compensation claims relating to the killing of innocent Afghan civilians during operations by the UK armed forces are being investigated by the Ministry of Defence.

In the past, Britain has paid an average of £7,300 for every civilian death in war, although the last figures available, for the year ending April 2009, show that figure had fallen to £2,900.

The issue of compensation for civilian casualties has moved to the top of the political agenda as Nato commanders place an increasing emphasis on securing the support of the Afghan population. Officials are already negotiating to establish a standard system of compensation payments among member states operating in Afghanistan.

Sarah Holewinski, executive director of ... Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, said: "We've been working to get a uniform system set up for four years now, and we are hopeful that nations are finally prepared to push this through."

Britain still offers one of the most generous schemes to Afghan civilians. The US, for instance, pays a maximum "condolence" payment of £1,660 for civilian casualties, while Germany opts for a system of community aid rather than payments to individuals ...

Observer  28 Feb 2010

Top general says Afghanistan army in morale crisis

In a confidential draft memo prepared for ministers, General Sir David Richards, chief of the general staff (CGS), said that recent cuts to the defence budget are having a “cumulative and corrosive effect on our soldiers and their families”.

Cuts to housing, shortages of training equipment and even the cancellation of sports events between soldiers’ tours of duty were making them and their families feel “undervalued”, the army chief wrote ....

Times  28 Feb 2010

Afghan ministers voice anger after civilians killed in 'unjustifiable' Nato airstrike

More than 30 civilians were killed in a Nato airstrike in southern Afghanistan yesterday, sparking an angry response from the Afghan government.

The airstrike – in which four women and a child are known to have died – brought a personal apology from General Stanley McChrystal, the Nato commander in Afghanistan, to the president, Hamid Karzai.

It added to growing anger over the number of civilian casualties in the Afghan conflict, and came hours after Karzai had urged Nato to do more to protect civilians.

In a statement, the Afghanistan council of ministers condemned the airstrike as "unjustifiable".

The cabinet said initial reports indicated that Nato had fired on a convoy of three vehicles, killing at least 33 people and injuring a further 12.

Guardian  22 Feb 2010

Errant U.S. Rocket Strike Kills Civilians in Afghanistan

Officers said the barrage had been fired from Camp Bastion, a large British and American base to the northeast, by a weapons system known as Himars, an acronym for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.

Its munitions are GPS-guided and advertised as being accurate enough to strike within a yard of their intended targets.

General McChrystal said in a statement that he was suspending use of the weapon system “until a thorough review of this incident has been conducted.”

There were conflicting reports about the number of dead in the strike. Daoud Ahmadi, the spokesman for Helmand Province’s governor, said in a telephone interview that 10 people had been killed.

But American soldiers in the area said 11 civilians had died, and the joint military command, known as the International Security Assistance Force, put the toll at 12 ...

NYT  14 Feb 2010

Nato strike 'kills Afghan police'

Marines in Afghan Assault Grapple With Civilian Deaths

Civilian death toll reaches 20

Afghan civilian deaths a serious setback

Nato launches major anti-Taliban offensive

Nato Commander Maj Gen Nick Carter told the BBC the initial operation had gone well.

"It's been so far extremely successful," he said. "There have been no battle casualties as yet from any of the combined forces.

"And indeed it would appear that we've caught the insurgents on the hop - he appears to be completely dislocated." ...

Afghanistan: propaganda of the deed The military campaign now being waged in the Afghan province of Helmand is being described in much of the world’s media as the biggest such operation since the one which secured “regime-change” in Kabul in October-November 2001 ... Why ... is the assault getting so much advance publicity? At first sight this seems puzzling, for it evidently gives Taliban strategists detailed warnings of what they are about to face. The rationale is fourfold: to intimidate some militants into abandoning the fight; to encourage civilians to evacuate the area (thereby reducing casualties); to make the best of the fact that the Afghan security services are so penetrated by Taliban sympathisers that it is pointless to keep operations secret; and - a crucial domestic consideration in the United States and Britain - to wring some positive publicity from a situation of diminishing popular support for the war. For Nato’s military planners and their political overlords, it is essential to demonstrate that the war can be won; what better way than to depict Operation Moshtarak as the instrument that breaks Taliban control of a key province? The problem is that this narrative of anticipatory semi-triumphalism in no way corresponds to current signals from elsewhere in Afghanistan ... openDemocracy  11 Feb 2010 CNAS Policy Brief - Afghanistan 2011: Three Scenarios As Marines Move In, Taliban Fight a Shadowy War MoD 'is not capable' of winning war THE former head of the Armed Forces in Scotland has warned that the Ministry of Defence is "institutionally incapable" of succeeding in Afghanistan because of its failure to adapt to 21st century conflicts. Major-General Andrew Mackay, the former commander of the Helmand Task Force, said the British Army on the ground had "consistently failed" to understand the motivations of local Afghans. He added that messages from the MoD in London often had "no relevance at ground level" to troops engaged in contact with the enemy, describing them as "a diluted and distant memory" by the time they reached the front line ... He says that the way the MoD is set up is failing to keep pace with wars fought in "the information age" when every action and assault is open to immediate scrutiny. The pair warn that the West has lost the local propaganda war on the ground. "The reality is that we have consistently failed to understand that what seems to us irrational behaviour (on the part of the Afghans] is entirely rational to the individual facing tough choices," he notes. He gives as an example the offer of democracy to Afghans, saying such an ideal is "largely irrelevant" to many local people, as they struggle through their daily lives. Mackay expresses deep pessimism that the MoD will be able to learn the lessons from campaigns over the past two decades. Careers in the army are built on "budgetary and management competence" rather than an understanding of how tomorrow's conflicts are being fought ... Scotland on Sunday  03 Jan 2010

Our correspondent says ... (there) appears to be little sign of either the Taliban or the local population, and both appear to have taken heed of warnings from Nato and left in advance ...

A senior Nato official ... said it was "probably the definitive operation" of the counter-insurgency strategy outlined last year by the commander of both Nato and US forces in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal.

"If it goes well, this operation could potentially define the tipping point, the crucial momentum aspect in the counter-insurgency," the official said ...

BBC NEWS  13 Feb 2010

Helicopter armada heralds Afghan surge

Taliban plans to melt away

Wounded Afghanistan troops leave hospitals 'stretched'

Hospitals in Afghanistan and the UK are under pressure from the large number of troops injured in Helmand province, a National Audit Office report has said ...

The NAO said in general the government needed to plan more carefully for a rise in casualties in Afghanistan.

It raised concerns about contingency planning should Afghanistan casualty numbers overwhelm the specialist military facility at Selly Oak Hospital ...

The NAO estimated that the cost of medical care as a result of Britain's military operations was £71m in 2008-09.

It found that rates of minor injury and illness among troops deployed to Afghanistan nearly doubled between 2006 and 2009, increasing from 4% to 7% of the total ...

The watchdog ... suggested that possible reasons for the rise could include the intensity of operations, basic living conditions at some forward-operating bases or improved reporting of medical data.

But the NAO also said the MoD's limited data meant it could not judge the significance of these individual factors ...

BBC NEWS  10 Feb 2010

A killer above the law?

The UK use of drones to kill "high-value targets" in Afghanistan should have come as no surprise ... drones have great attractions. They are a relatively cheap way of killing people in areas that are otherwise largely inaccessible ...

Drones lend themselves to secrecy. Used without fanfare in remote and inaccessible areas, they are invisible to all but their potential victims.

The military advantages are obvious, but so too are the potential rule-of-law problems. Unless governments voluntarily disclose information, human rights monitors and independent journalists are unable to verify claims that there are limited or no civilian casualties ...

That is the situation in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the CIA is operating a secret drone killing programme about which we have been particularly critical because the US refuses to disclose the programme's legal justification, the safeguards designed to minimise civilian harm, or the follow-up inquiries conducted ...

Secrecy ... provides incentives to push the margins in problematic ways.

Two examples will suffice.

First, the US, with reported Nato agreement, has already added Taliban-supporting drug traffickers – alleged criminals – to its kill list.

Second, in the wake of the December suicide bombing of CIA operatives in Khost, American drone killings have surged dramatically.

In a zone of secrecy, there is no way to know if the 90 people reportedly killed in 11 subsequent strikes were legitimate targets or simply retaliatory killings.

Equally discomfiting is the "PlayStation mentality" that surrounds drone killings. Young military personnel raised on a diet of video games now kill real people remotely using joysticks ...

Guardian  08 Feb 2010

Iran to make 'advanced' attack drones

RAF 'relying' on drones

UK troops could be in Afghanistan for 15 years, says Hamid Karzai

In a BBC interview before the start of the London conference on the future of Afghanistan, Karzai said that although Afghan police and soldiers could be trained and equipped within five to 10 years, "sustaining" them would take longer.

Gordon Brown said that the number of troops and police officers would rise to 300,000 by 2011, and the number of British troops in the country could be gradually reduced.

But Karzai said: "With regard to training and equipping the Afghan security forces, five to 10 years would be sufficient. With regard to sustaining them ... the time period extends to 10 to 15 years." ...

Iran was invited but announced yesterday that it would not attend ...

There will also be representatives from Nato itself, the United Nations, the European Union and other international organisations such as the World Bank.

America will be represented by Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state ...

Guardian  28 Jan 2010    Afghanistan

War Plan for Karzai: Reach Out to Taliban

Allies ... departure is a long way off

President Hamid Karzai calls for increasing Afghan control over security and international aid

Talk to the Taliban?

Afghan Tribe to Fight Taliban in Return for Aid

U.S. Envoy’s Cables Show Concerns on Afghan War Plans

The United States ambassador in Kabul warned his superiors here in November that President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan “is not an adequate strategic partner” and “continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden,” according to a classified cable that offers a much bleaker accounting of the risks of sending additional American troops to Afghanistan than was previously known ...

On Nov. 6, Mr. Eikenberry wrote:

“President Karzai is not an adequate strategic partner. The proposed counterinsurgency strategy assumes an Afghan political leadership that is both able to take responsibility and to exert sovereignty in the furtherance of our goal — a secure, peaceful, minimally self-sufficient Afghanistan hardened against transnational terrorist groups.

“Yet Karzai continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden, whether defense, governance or development. He and much of his circle do not want the U.S. to leave and are only too happy to see us invest further,” Mr. Eikenberry wrote. “They assume we covet their territory for a never-ending ‘war on terror’ and for military bases to use against surrounding powers.”

He continued, “Beyond Karzai himself, there is no political ruling class that provides an overarching national identity that transcends local affiliations and provides reliable partnership.” ...

NYT  25 Jan 2010

Corruption in Afghanistan

Just how extreme corruption has become in Afghanistan can be seen in a new study released by the United Nations. According to the paper, 59 percent of Afghanistan citizens point to corruption as the greatest problem facing the country -- that ranks the problem even higher than security (54 percent) and unemployment (chosen by 52 percent of those polled).

The study, released on Tuesday, was put together by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and includes the responses of 7,600 people from 1,600 villages questioned between August and October of last year.

The study shows just how omnipresent the payment of bribes has become in everyday life in Afghanistan. In the last 12 months, Afghan citizens have paid $2.5 billion in bribes -- roughly a quarter of the country's gross domestic product.

"The Afghans say that it is impossible to obtain a public service without paying a bribe," UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa writes on the organization's Web site. The "cancer of corruption" is "metastatic," he says, and can be found even in the highest echelons of government.

Afghans who have had recent contact with government representatives report that, in 40 percent of the cases, they were asked for bribes.

Every second person surveyed reports having bribed someone in the last year -- usually after having been requested to do so.

The average payment is $158 -- a generous sum for a country in which average annual income is a mere $425 ...

Der Spiegel  19 Jan 2010

UNODC

Now Geoff Hoon savages Gordon Brown over Afghanistan war

Geoff Hoon, the former defence secretary behind last week’s attempted leadership coup, is set to inflict further damage on Gordon Brown with the disclosure that the prime minister vetoed the purchase of vital military helicopters.

Leaked ministerial letters ... show Brown personally overturned earlier Treasury assurances that the Ministry of Defence would be free to spend extra cash on troop-carrying helicopters for Iraq and Afghanistan ...

In one letter sent in 2004, Hoon warned that, if Brown refused to back down, “We would have to scale back on major equipment programmes.”

He went on to claim that the helicopter programme in particular would suffer.

Last night, Hoon refused to comment on the letters, passed to The Sunday Times by Royal Air Force sources ...

Times  10 Jan 2010

British Army chief: Afghanistan war under-resourced for years

... when Hitler's forces marched through Europe, everyone understood why Britain needed to fight the Nazi enemy.

Today the threat is hard to see and more complex to understand. It is natural that people should question why we are asking our troops to put themselves in harm's way.

This war is every bit a war of necessity. Afghanistan was a haven for terrorists in the Nineties. The badlands of the Afghan-Pakistan border are the breeding ground for terrorist plots against Britain ...

If the international forces were to pull out before the Afghan government was able to provide security, global terrorism would have free rein again.

In its current form the Afghan National Army would be unable to fill the security vacuum we would leave behind. Most of the south would fall to the Taliban.

Al Qaeda, weakened in Pakistan's tribal areas, would be free to move back over the porous border into Afghanistan.

Pakistan's population is six times greater than that of Afghanistan. It has nuclear weapons. Islamist victory in Afghanistan would spur Pakistani Taliban ambitions for overthrowing what they see as an 'apostate regime' in Islamabad ...

Mail on Sunday  08 November 2009

Removing troops from Afghanistan would "significantly increase" the number of asylum seekers coming to the UK, the immigration minister has said ...

Mr Woolas told the Commons home affairs committee: "If this country and others were to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan and the Taliban were able to take control of Afghanistan, our evidence is that the number of asylum seekers coming to the EU would significantly increase.

"An argument that is not aired strongly enough in my view is the benefit of the presence of our armed forces and other countries' is to help us control immigration." ...

Former Labour minister Kim Howells has called for the "great majority" of British troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan.

The intelligence and security committee chairman said efforts should focus on securing the UK's borders against terrorist attack, rather than concentrating on preventative measures abroad.

But Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth said the Afghan mission was "inextricably tied" to UK security.

BBC NEWS  05 November 2009

Even as President Obama leads an intense debate over whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, administration officials say the United States is falling far short of his goals to fight the country’s endemic corruption, create a functioning government and legal system and train a police force currently riddled with incompetence ...

Afghanistan is now so dangerous, administration officials said, that many aid workers cannot travel outside the capital, Kabul, to advise farmers on crops, a key part of Mr. Obama’s announcement in March that he was deploying hundreds of additional civilians to work in the country.

The judiciary is so weak that Afghans increasingly turn to a shadow Taliban court system because, a senior military official said, “a lot of the rural people see the Taliban justice as at least something.” ...

Since 2001, the United States has allocated nearly $13 billion for civilian aid to Afghanistan, officials at the State Department said, and other countries have given or promised billions more. But in a sign of the difficulties of working with one of the poorest countries in the world, the Defense Department report in January noted that although the Afghan Ministry of Finance is responsible for tracking international aid, there is “no reliable data on the total amount of international assistance that has been pledged or dispersed to the country.” ...

NYT  11 October 2009

buddha9
17 Aug 09, 12:21am

thought the more discerning readers might be interested in this take from a blogging site www.iraq-war.ru

Published on Thursday, August 13, 2009 by The Toronto Star

Afghanistan and the New Great Game

Prized pipeline route could explain West's stubborn interest in poor, remote land
by John Foster

Why is Afghanistan so important?

A glance at a map and a little knowledge of the region suggest that the real reasons for Western military involvement may be largely hidden.

Afghanistan is adjacent to Middle Eastern countries that are rich in oil and natural gas. And though Afghanistan may have little petroleum itself, it borders both Iran and Turkmenistan, countries with the second and third largest natural gas reserves in the world. (Russia is first.)

Turkmenistan is the country nobody talks about. Its huge reserves of natural gas can only get to market through pipelines. Until 1991, it was part of the Soviet Union and its gas flowed only north through Soviet pipelines. Now the Russians plan a new pipeline north. The Chinese are building a new pipeline east. The U.S. is pushing for "multiple oil and gas export routes." High-level Russian, Chinese and American delegations visit Turkmenistan frequently to discuss energy. The U.S. even has a special envoy for Eurasian energy diplomacy.

Rivalry for pipeline routes and energy resources reflects competition for power and control in the region. Pipelines are important today in the same way that railway building was important in the 19th century. They connect trading partners and influence the regional balance of power. Afghanistan is a strategic piece of real estate in the geopolitical struggle for power and dominance in the region.

Since the 1990s, Washington has promoted a natural gas pipeline south through Afghanistan. The route would pass through Kandahar province. In 2007, Richard Boucher, U.S. assistant secretary of state, said: "One of our goals is to stabilize Afghanistan," and to link South and Central Asia "so that energy can flow to the south." Oil and gas have motivated U.S. involvement in the Middle East for decades. Unwittingly or willingly, Canadian forces are supporting American goals.

The proposed pipeline is called TAPI, after the initials of the four participating countries (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India). Eleven high-level planning meetings have been held during the past seven years, with Asian Development Bank sponsorship and multilateral support (including Canada's). Construction is planned to start next year.

The pipeline project was documented at three donor conferences on Afghanistan in the past three years and is referenced in the 2008 Afghan Development Plan. Canada was represented at these conferences at the ministerial level. Thus, our leaders must know. Yet they avoid discussion of the planned pipeline through Afghanistan.

The 2008 Manley Report, a foundation for extending the Canadian mission to 2011, ignored energy issues. It talked about Afghanistan as if it were an island, albeit with a porous Pakistani border. Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he "will withdraw the bulk of the military forces" in 2011. The remaining troops will focus mostly on "reconstruction and development." Does that include the pipeline?

Pipeline rivalry is slightly more visible in Europe. Ukraine is the main gateway for gas from Russia to Europe. The United States has pushed for alternate pipelines and encouraged European countries to diversify their sources of supply. Recently built pipelines for oil and gas originate in Azerbaijan and extend through Georgia to Turkey. They are the jewels in the crown of U.S. strategy to bypass Russia and Iran.

The rivalry continues with plans for new gas pipelines to Europe from Russia and the Caspian region. The Russians plan South Stream - a pipeline under the Black Sea to Bulgaria. The European Union and U.S. are backing a pipeline called Nabucco that would supply gas to Europe via Turkey. Nabucco would get some gas from Azerbaijan, but that country doesn't have enough. Additional supply could come from Turkmenistan, but Russia is blocking a link across the Caspian Sea. Iran offers another source, but the U.S. is blocking the use of Iranian gas.

Meanwhile, Iran is planning a pipeline to deliver gas east to Pakistan and India. Pakistan has agreed in principle, but India has yet to do so. It's an alternative to the long-planned, U.S.-supported pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India.

A very big game is underway, with geopolitics intruding everywhere. U.S. journalist Steven LeVine describes American policy in the region as "pipeline-driven." Other countries are pushing for pipeline routes, too. The energy game remains largely hidden; the focus is on humanitarian, development and national security concerns. In Canada, Afghanistan has been avoided in the past two elections.

With the U.S. surge underway and the British ambassador to Washington predicting a decades-long commitment, it's reasonable to ask: Why are the U.S. and NATO in Afghanistan? Could the motivation be power, a permanent military bridgehead, access to energy resources?

Militarizing energy has a high price in dollars, lives and morality. There are long-term consequences for everyone.

Canadian voters want to know: Why is Afghanistan so important?

This blog was subsequently removed by the Cif moderator, but The Guardian does not control the link to the main article in: The Toronto Star

Guardian 16 August 2009

Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline

Vast sums of money are being lavished by Western aid agencies on their own officials in Afghanistan at a time when extreme poverty is driving young Afghans to fight for the Taliban ... foreign consultants in Kabul, who are paid out of overseas aids budgets, can command salaries of $250,000 to $500,000 a year.

The high expenditure on paying, protecting and accommodating Western aid officials in palatial style helps to explain why Afghanistan ranks 174th out of 178th on a UN ranking of countries' wealth. This is despite a vigorous international aid effort with the US alone spending $31bn since 2002 up to the end of last year.

The high degree of wastage of aid money in Afghanistan has long been an open secret. In 2006, Jean Mazurelle, the then country director of the World Bank, calculated that between 35 per cent and 40 per cent of aid was "badly spent". "The wastage of aid is sky-high," he said ...

Whole districts of Kabul have already been taken over or rebuilt to accommodate Westerners working for aid agencies or embassies. "I have just rented out this building for $30,000 a month to an aid organisation," said Torialai Bahadery, the director of Property Consulting Afghanistan, which specialises in renting to foreigners. "It was so expensive because it has 24 rooms with en-suite bathrooms as well as armoured doors and bullet-proof windows," he explained, pointing to a picture of a cavernous mansion.

Though 77 per cent of Afghans lack access to clean water, Mr Bahadery said that aid agencies and the foreign contractors who work for them insist that every bedroom should have an en-suite bathroom and this often doubles the cost of accommodation.

In addition to the expensive housing the expatriates in Kabul are invariably protected by high-priced security companies and each house is converted into a fortress ...

... much of the aid money goes to foreign companies who then subcontract as many as five times with each subcontractor in turn looking for between 10 per cent and 20 per cent or more profit before any work is done on the project. The biggest donor in Afghanistan is the US, whose overseas aid department USAID channels nearly half of its aid budget for Afghanistan to five large US contractors.

Examples cited in an Oxfam report include the building of a short road between Kabul city centre and the international airport in 2005 which, after the main US contractor had subcontracted it to an Afghan company, cost $2.4m a kilometre – or four times the average cost of road construction in Afghanistan. Often aid is made conditional on spending it in the donor country.

Another consequence of the use of foreign contractors is that construction has failed to make the impact on unemployment among young Afghans which is crucial if the Taliban is to be defeated ...

Go figure: The West's spending in Afghanistan

$57 The foreign aid per capita to Afghanistan, compared with $580 per capita in the aftermath of the Bosnian conflict.

$250,000 Typical salary of foreign consultants in Afghanistan, including 35 per cent hardship allowance and 35 per cent danger money. Afghan civil servants typically receive less than $1,000 a year.

$22bn The shortfall in donations compared to the international community's estimate of Afghanistan's need – around 48 per cent.

40 per cent Share of international aid budget returned to aid countries in corporate profit and consultant salaries – more than $6bn since 2001.

$7m Daily aid spend in Afghanistan. The daily military spend by the US government is around $100m.

The Independent 01 May 2009

'When are you leaving?'

Gordon Brown today signalled a shift in the UK strategy for Afghanistan, announcing that greater effort will be directed towards the border with Pakistan, which he described as "a crucible for terrorism" responsible for fostering up to three-quarters of terror threats faced by the UK ...

His warning today mirrors the new strategy adopted by the US since Barack Obama became president. It places the Afghanistan-Pakistan border as central to the UK's future operations in the region ...

Brown said: "There is a crucible of terrorism in the mountainous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Our approach to those countries is different but must be complementary. Our strategy for dealing with this breeding ground of terrorism will mean more security on the streets of Britain." ...

Guardian 27 April 2009

Although it has yet to come clean on the issue, the Government believes that our commitment in Afghanistan will last for generations. Our ambassador to Kabul blithely mentioned us being there for "30 years".

But what are we there for? Any discussion of strategy among commentators tends to revolve around one of two opposed views. The first adheres, doggedly, to the post-9/11 mission: to ensure no return to when the Taliban harboured the mass murderers of al-Qaeda ...

But the second view is voiced less often – except by generals in private. That is because a depressing uniformity of outlook prevails among politicians in the two major parties, namely that a critical view of what is happening in Afghanistan might undermine the western alliance. Our young soldiers are being killed just to show willing in Washington, doubly so now that a popular Obama has replaced Bush ...

It is impossible to build a central government in a country where local leaders resent all outsiders, and whence anyone of any ability has fled. With an abundance of opium, rather than oil, there is little prospect of creating an Afghan national army equivalent to that now patrolling Iraq. Hence further confusion. Is it the West's task to engage in drug eradication – without giving Afghan farmers any alternative – let alone to reverse the religious Reformations the Islamists represent? ...

Recent events in Pakistan's Swat Valley illustrate the extent of our logistical dilemmas. Without informing the US, the Pakistani government concluded an open-ended deal with the Taliban, who were outnumbered four to one by the Pakistani army.

The Taliban militants were convinced to lay down their arms in exchange for the restoration of Islamic law to the region. US officials called it a "surrender disguised as a truce", concerned that the agreement could create a haven for extremists. The shops reopened and a "caravan of peace" arrived to celebrate the return of justice and order. But the caravan's Taliban escorts shot dead a Pakistani TV journalist covering the spectacle, flagrantly violating the 10-day ceasefire they had just agreed. So much for talking to the Taliban, and al-Qaeda now has another potential enclave to move into, should Waziristan prove too hot or Somalia too remote ...

Telegraph 20 February 2009

Slipping out of control

UK military costs in Afghanistan and Iraq soar to £4.5bn

Civilian dead are a trade-off in Nato's war of barbarity

Afghan aid blunders 'waste millions'

Afghanistan: the dynamic and the risk

The next US Vice-President, Joe Biden, was in Kabul yesterday for talks with the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, and the commander of Nato-led forces in the country, General David McKiernan. General McKiernan is demanding more troops and equipment from the US and other Nato countries. He seems likely to be successful because Barack Obama has made it clear that stabilising Afghanistan is one of his administration's key foreign policy objectives.

This is the right priority for the incoming US President. Before the toppling of the Taliban in 2001, Afghanistan was a safe haven for extremists and international terror groups. Unless the country is stabilised, it will become one again. That would be a disaster both for the West and the Afghan people.

But we must be in no doubt what a perilous and difficult job it will be for the international community to put Afghanistan back on the right track. Militarily, the Taliban is anything but beaten. Even before yesterday's death of a Royal Marine, there has been a high casualty toll among British troops stationed in Helmand province this winter. This is ominous because winter is supposed to be the quiet season. There is every reason to expect more serious fighting over the coming year.

Greater military resources to put down the threat and protect vulnerable villages are necessary, and yet force can only be one part of the strategy. Diplomatic pressure will be needed too. The only long-term solution to Afghanistan's instability can be a regional one. As long as the Taliban is able to flit across the border to Pakistan it will prove impossible to defeat. Pakistan needs to better police its western frontier.

On the political front, the allegations of corruption that circle President Karzai's administration make matters vastly more complicated. It would be fatal for Nato forces to be seen as propping up a corrupt regime. Unless President Karzai takes action to root out venal ministers, the whole game could easily be lost.

Hope for Afghanistan is still not extinguished, but only a sustained and intelligent effort on all fronts by the new US administration and its allies, including Britain, can prevent the light going out for good.

Independent 12 January 2009

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, will today set out the clearest exposition yet of Labour's recast foreign policy when he will argue that mistakes made in Iraq and Afghanistan must not cloud the moral imperative to intervene - sometimes militarily - to help spread democracy throughout the world.

He will warn that the rise of China means that the world can no longer take "the forward march of democracy for granted", and that Britain must unambiguously be on the side of what he describes as "civilian surges" for democracy.

In a speech in Oxford today entitled The Democratic Imperative, Miliband will say that he believes the debate about the Iraq war "has clouded the debate about promoting democracy around the world. I understand the doubts about Iraq and Afghanistan, and the deep concerns at the mistakes made." But he will add: "My plea is not to let divisions over those conflicts obscure our national interest, never mind our moral impulse, in supporting movements for democracy." ...

Guardian 12 February 2008

For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel.

The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world.

This situation has no equal in American political history.

Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state?

One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.

Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’ ...

Washington also provides Israel with consistent diplomatic support. Since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members.

It blocks the efforts of Arab states to put Israel’s nuclear arsenal on the IAEA’s agenda. The US comes to the rescue in wartime and takes Israel’s side when negotiating peace ...

London Review of Books 23 March 2006

Britain's biggest national security problem isn't so much law enforcement as a cycle of mutual hostility and alienation

International terrorism, overwhelmingly promoted by Muslim extremists, represents a long-term threat to western democracies.

It will get worse before it gets better, by which time most of us will be dead, hopefully of natural causes.

The means by which the threat can be diminished - let us not pretend that it can be removed - impinge upon every corner of government and society ...

buddha9
November 14, 2006 02:14 AM

Max - your interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying article, raises some points which need rebutting -

1 - Why are Muslims the only underclass disaffected by economic deprivation, while white w/class are simply driven by race hatred? Neo-liberalism has created a situation where dissatisfaction is being increasingly felt by everyone (middle class included) and in fact, you could argue this widespread dissatisfaction is precisely what is being averted and headed off by being transformed into race hatred.

2- none of the chattering/political classes of whom you are member, have yet proved why the so called Muslim threat is any different than the much more potent IRA threat - after all that lasted generations, they were citizens of Britain. No one asked why Catholics weren't integrated/ couldn't integrate. Indeed the IRA threat lasted many years and let off more bombs and didn’t require, despite their open threat to UK sovereignty, the sort of exaggerated anti-terrorism legislation which is routinely considered now.

3- Why is it that when Muslims question the official narratives concerning the 9/11 and 7/7 bombings, they are automatically labelled terrorists sympathisers? 40% of Americans according to various polls think the US govt. knew off or sponsored in some form the attacks on the twin Towers. Are they all terrorists? Well perhaps they will be in a few years.

4 it is not Pakistan’s radicals who pose a threat to the population of Britain, but the Pakistan intelligence service as various articles tacitly admit. They are the ones rearming the resurgent Taliban, they are the ones who seem constantly to have some sort of connection to every claimed crazy radical caught in Britain. What do you propose to do about them? Well nothing of course.

5 your ref to the New East End is warranted, its a very good book. The liberals (and we're all liberals now) do dump people in areas of already existing poverty, without consulting the residents and when unrest happens the very same liberals from their sanctuaries in west and north London, utter pious homilies against the racism of the working class. Considering they are confronting the problems and they're under resourced already, I'm amazed (and I've worked in the east end) how little racism there is in these areas. Dump a lot of any sort of foreigners in Hampstead and see what you get.

6 i notice you claim al qaida (al-CIA-da) are indiscriminate, where the IRA weren't. Well Max some of us have long memories, and I don't recall the daily tele discriminating in this manner when the IRA bombs were going off.

Still, after all of that, I’ve seen much worse and more stupid articles about this topic than yours. The standard of the debate is getting better. The problem with your pious ending which of course everyone would wish were true, is that it fails to take into account the officially endorsed and ongoing violence that this system perpetuates on everyone, every day. Until that is resolved violence will occur. It’s just a matter of how you label it. The first step away from this sort of violence is for the rich to admit that their 20 year endeavour to stuff as much of the GNP cake into their mouths as they possibly can without paying any social cost what so ever, has in fact endangered everyone including them. That's the root course of the problem: neo-liberalism and the rich’s greedy, anti-social behaviour that goes with it. No amount of finger pointing and scapegoating of Muslims will alleviate that.

Guardian 14 November 2006