President Obama, who campaigned behind a thin veil of peace, dragged two heads of client states into the White House to demand “that both Afghanistan and Pakistan allow their citizens to be murdered and or displaced in the thousands” – or else. Obama read Presidents Zardari and Karzai “the riot act” to let them know who is boss in the military theater called “AfPak.”
Editorial note:
President Obama, who campaigned behind a thin veil of peace, dragged two heads of client states into the White House to demand “that both Afghanistan and Pakistan allow their citizens to be murdered and or displaced in the thousands” – or else. Obama read Presidents Zardari and Karzai “the riot act” to let them know who is boss in the military theater called “AfPak.” Obama claims to “want to respect their sovereignty, but” – there’s always the imperial ‘but’ – America has “huge national security interests” in the region. Afghanistan’s Karzai later wondered, “How can you expect a people who keep losing their children to remain friendly?”
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Af-Pak Is Obama's War
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis and Afghans are now refugees or living
under the constant threat of American military violence.”
Two central Asian nations bordering one another, Afghanistan and Pakistan, have the grave misfortune of being American client states. They get lots of money and political support, if they’re lucky, but always with terrible strings attached. The current President of the United States, Barack Obama, is demanding that both Afghanistan and Pakistan allow their citizens to be murdered and or displaced in the thousands. In order to accept that a huge body count is necessary, we are told that the two countries, nicknamed AfPak, are on the verge of being over run by the Taliban or al-Qaeda or both.
Afghanistan and Pakistan have been rebranded with a name seemingly devised by a Madison Avenue marketer who could just as easily be referring to a health insurance company or an overnight delivery service. Americans don’t know very much about the rest of the world, but they have a vague notion that brown-skinned Muslims are a crazy bunch who must be kept under control by Washington. So AfPak it is, and the bloodshed instigated by the United States continues. Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis and Afghans are now refugees or living under the constant threat of American military violence.
President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan were recently summoned to Washington for the purpose of being informed that their opinions do not count. It doesn’t matter if their countrymen and women don’t want to be chased from their homes or maimed by killer drones and bombing missions. Uncle Sam read them the riot act and dared them to complain. Obviously they didn’t, because the slaughter began anew as soon as the photo ops ended.
“Uncle Sam read Zardari and Karzai the riot act and dared them to complain.”
Obama always knows how to make the terrible sound benevolent. In this case he says that we “must defeat al-Qaeda.” Most Americans had never heard of the word al-Qaeda until September 11, 2001 and will forever connect it with the death of 3,000 people. It is useful for Obama to phrase his assault in terms that will win him popular approval.
The Obama administration has openly undermined Ali Asif Zardari, the elected Pakistani president. Zardari’s main claim to legitimacy comes via his in-laws, the Bhutto family. If he were not Benazir Bhutto’s widower, this convicted embezzler, known as Mr. 10%, would not be president. Nevertheless, he is the president of a country that is allegedly an ally, and he should be treated with the respect he is due.
Yet the New York Times reports that Zardari has been told that his opposition will be courted and if necessary put into power with him if he balks at slaughtering his people on Washington’s command. In his 100 days press conference, Obama made himself crystal clear. "We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear-armed militant state."
Not only are we supposed to be whipped into a frenzy at the very mention of words like al-Qaeda and Taliban, but we are now supposed to believe that Pakistan is on the verge of a mysterious “collapse” and that its nuclear weapons will fall into the hands of terrorists who will carry them around in briefcases, as in the plots of Hollywood thrillers. Zardari gets the thumb screw treatment, and we get outright lies.
“How can you expect a people who keep losing their children to remain friendly?”
“Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, is equally hapless and helpless in keeping his people safe from the demands of the United States. He has long complained about civilian deaths caused by attacks on the Taliban and he repeated himself in vain on Meet the Press. “Our villages are not where the terrorists are. And that's what we kept telling the U.S. administration, that the war on terrorism is not in the Afghan villages, not in the Afghan homes. Respect that.
Civilian casualties are undermining support in the Afghan people for the war on terrorism and for the, the, the relations with America. How can you expect a people who keep losing their children to remain friendly?” Obviously, such a people will not remain friendly but that has never been America’s concern. National Security Adviser James Jones said as much. “We can’t fight with one hand tied behind our back.”
Once again the United State repeats its long history of killing people and claiming it is for their own good. Afghanistan and Pakistan are just the latest on that awful list. While that dynamic doesn’t change, neither will the reaction of people around the world. They do hate us, and they have good reason to do so.
* Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com.
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UK policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan: the way forward
16.05.2009 10:03
excerpts from:
HM Government
UK policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan: the way forward
Cabinet Office website, 29 April 2009
(Note: The link to the full text of this report is posted at the end)
"The UK’s counter-terrorism strategy – CONTEST – sets out our overall approach to counterterrorism, covering activity overseas, including cooperation and capacity-building with security forces in Pakistan. […]Our cooperation is designed to help the Pakistani government deal with the challenge it faces from local terrorist and insurgent groups, and the international terrorist networks that are linked with, and supported by, those groups. [...] The UK and Pakistan have worked together in tackling numerous important terrorist plots which could affect either of our countries, or both, or third countries as well. […]
In December 2008, we announced our largest bilateral programme of counter-terrorism support and capacity-building, worth £10m. [...] We are working to build increasingly close connections between police forces in the UK with specialist expertise on counter-terrorism, and the Federal Investigation Agency and police forces in Pakistan. [...]
We are also working with the Pakistani government, media, civil society and others to build resilience to violent extremism and tackle the grievances that drive radicalisation; and we are deepening our understanding of the links between counter-radicalisation in Pakistan and in Pakistani communities in the UK."
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related links:
[1] SAS and other special forces to be expanded to defeat al-Qaeda
by Sean Rayment, Daily Telegraph, 25 April 2009
[2] UK “Terror Plot”: Gordon Brown points finger at Pakistan
Dandelion Salad, 11 April, 2009
[3] The United Kingdom’s Strategy for Countering International Terrorism
Home Office website, 24 March 2009
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from the archives:
NATO Genocide in Afghanistan (January 2008)
US Alliance Afghan Genocide - Six Million Excess Deaths? (November 2007)
The War in Afghanistan: Drugs, Money Laundering and the Banking System (October 2006)
Heroin is "Good for Your Health": Occupation Forces support Afghan Narcotics Trade (April 2007)
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FULL TEXT: UK policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan: the way forward
or at this link:
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dandelion salad
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Haha
16.05.2009 15:47
Danny
Scared of US Marines?
16.05.2009 16:16
Now there is a tendency to assume that a stand based on an absolute moral judgment shows high principle in a way that's not shown in a stand taken on what are disparagingly referred to as "tactical grounds." I think this is a pretty dubious assumption. If tactics involves a calculation of the human cost of various actions, then tactical considerations are actually the only considerations that have a moral quality to them. So I can't accept a general and absolute opposition to violence, only that resort to violence is illegitimate unless the consequences are to eliminate a greater evil.
Danny
Homepage:
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C'mon
16.05.2009 16:29
So, explain the policy to me. You repeatedly call for violence against police etc, you repeatedly call for an end to violence in Afghanistan, but when someone posts a way to stop that murderous, genocidal violence with a less damamging slution, that gets hidden?
That isn't brave and it isn't rational, it's the opposite.
Danny
This man is a child killer
16.05.2009 16:50
Obamas' sadistic child killer
"Whatever makes a soldier sad will make a killer smile"
Miminal violence which is aimed at stopping greater violence is both legal and moral.
US soldiers have been slaughtering women and children in Afghanistan for eight years. They are still doing it. A change in US presidents hasn't curtailed these massacres or punished any of the perpetrators. and UK politicians are US corporate employees. No demonstration has paused the carnage and nobody here has suggested any tactic that will stop it, yet it can't be allowed to continue...
Danny
Little steps
16.05.2009 16:54
Danny
Copy, right?
16.05.2009 17:00
MarSOC was created three years ago on the express orders of Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary at the time, despite opposition from within the Marine Corps and the wider Special Forces community. An article in the Marine Corps Times described the MarSOC troops as "cowboys" who brought shame on the corps.
The first controversial incident involving the unit happened just three weeks into its first deployment to Afghanistan on 4 March 2007. Speeding away from a suicide bomb attack close to the Pakistan border, around 120 men from Fox Company opened fire on civilians near Jalalabad, in Nangahar province. The Marines said they were shot at after the explosion; eyewitnesses said the Americans fired indiscriminately at pedestrians and civilian cars, killing at least 19 people.
The US Army commander in Nangahar at the time, Colonel John Nicholson, said he was "deeply ashamed" and described the incident as "a stain on our honour". The Marines' tour was cut short after a second incident on 9 March in which they allegedly rolled a car and fired on traffic again, and they were flown out of Afghanistan a few weeks later.
The top Special Operations officer at US Central Command, Army Major General Frank Kearney, refuted MarSOC's claims that they had been shot at. "We found no brass that we can confirm that small-arms fire came at them," he said, referring to ammunition casings. "We have testimony from Marines that is in conflict with unanimous testimony from civilians."
At the military hearings on the incident, which were held back in the US, soldiers said the MarSOC troops, who called themselves Taskforce Violence, were gung-ho and hungry to prove themselves in battle. The inquiry also heard testimony suggesting there were tensions between the Marine unit and its US Army counterparts in Nangahar province.
Col Nicholson told the court the unit would routinely stray into areas under his control without telling him, ignoring usual military courtesies. "There had been potentially 25 operations in my area of operations that I, as a commander, was not aware of," he said. Asked about the moment he was told of the March shootout, he added: "My initial reaction was, 'What are they doing out there?' " The three-week military inquiry ultimately spared the Marine unit from criminal charges.
There are around 2,500 troops in MarSOC. Around half are frontline troops, the rest are support and maintenance. Originally the unit was used to plug gaps in the Special Forces world and it has operated in more than 16 countries since being set up by Mr Rumsfeld in 2006. However, in a recent interview, its commanding officer, Major General Mastin Robeson, revealed he has been ordered to focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Today MarSOC answers to the Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command, based in Kabul. That in turn answers to US Forces Afghanistan, which is led by the top US commander, David McKiernan, who is soon to be replaced by General McChrystal.
In August last year, a 20-man MarSOC unit, fighting alongside Afghan commandos, directed fire from unmanned drones, attack helicopters and a cannon-armed Spectre gunship into compounds in Azizabad, in Herat province, leaving more than 90 people dead – many of them children.
And just last week, MarSOC troops called in the Bala Baluk air strikes to rescue an Afghan police patrol that had been ambushed in countryside in Farah province. US officials said two F18 fighter jets and a B1 bomber had swooped because men on the ground were overwhelmed. But villagers said the most devastating bombs were dropped on compounds some distance from the fighting, long after the battle was over, and when Taliban forces were retreating. Afghan officials said up to 147 people were killed, including more than 90 women and children.
US officials dispute the number of people killed in each of the MarSOC incidents, which sparked angry public demonstrations and condemnation from Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Greg Julian, denied reports that commanders have lost confidence in the Marine unit. "MarSOC was involved in these incidents, but it's not all the same guys. They get the lessons passed on from all of the rotations and experiences. Yet, they are human," he said. "They have the same rules of engagement that everyone has."
The so-called "tactical directive" was introduced last September in the wake of the international uproar that followed the Azizabad deaths. It requires troops to exercise "proportionality, restraint, and utmost discrimination" when calling in air strikes. Claims that bombs were dropped in last week's incident in Farah long after the fighting finished suggest those directives may not have been followed by MarSOC.
Meanwhile, Afghan MPs have called for new laws to regulate the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan, and limit use of air strikes, house searches and Special Forces operations. Sayed Hussein Alemi Balkhi, one of the chief proponents of the planned legislation, said: "Special Forces, all forces, should be regulated by the law. If they won't accept that we have to ask bigger questions about what they are doing here."
Danny
15,000 killed by warplanes and drones
16.05.2009 19:44
Keith Harris
Homepage:
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The Independent: "Afghanistan is a worthwhile mission"
16.05.2009 22:24
Leading article: Afghanistan is a worthwhile mission
leading article, Independent, 16 May 2009
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Girls targeted in ‘Taliban gas attack’
Militants blamed after 90 pupils poisoned in third attack on girls’ school in three weeks
Fears of renewed terror campaign to drive young women out of education
by Jerome Starkey, Independent, 13 May 2009
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excerpt from: Protect women: a new mission for America
by Kim Sengupta, Independent, 13 May 2009
"There would not appear to be an obvious connection between the mass poisoning of schoolgirls and the new US military commander in Afghanistan. However, the appointment this week of Lieutenant-General Stanley McChrystal is supposed to signal that America is getting serious about a new policy of “protecting the people” – in other words, combating just such outrages.
General McChrystal was the right-hand man of General David Petraeus, whose “surge” tactics … [won] plaudits in Iraq."
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dandelion salad
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The Times: Taleban using British white phosphorus
16.05.2009 22:28
excerpts from: Taleban using British white phosphorus (*)
by Michael Evans, Times, 12 May 2009
"Taleban fighters have been using deadly white phosphorus munitions, some of them manufactured in Britain, to attack Western forces in Afghanistan, according to previously classified United States documents released yesterday. […]
Last night the US military in Kabul condemned the use of white phosphorus by the insurgents as “reprehensible”. […]
Major Jennifer Willis, a spokeswoman for the US Army at Bagram, near Kabul, said that markings on some of the white phosphorus munitions that had been recovered showed that they had been manufactured in a number of different countries, including Britain, China, Russia and Iran."
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(*) title of the print edition
dandelion salad
Homepage:
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Contractors, airstrikes and children
18.05.2009 07:34
Just like in Iraq, a "shadow army" has been serving alongside American servicemen and women in Afghanistan. So far, it is at least 70,000 strong. Private contractors – now indispensable to the U.S. military as it wages war – are expected to grow and much surpass that number as U.S. troops there double from 35,000 to nearly 70,000 by 2010...
Just this month, April Stephenson, director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), told the commission that that the number of fraud investigations tied to KBR are "unprecedented" and suggested that as much as $4.3 billion might have been over-billed by the former Halliburton subsidiary, while some $3.3 billion in expenses wasn’t "supported" and another $550 million in expenses wasn’t "allowable." This all took place under the U.S. Army’s LOGCAP III (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) contract, which covers all of the operations in the current war theater, including Afghanistan and is worth more than $16 billion to KBR...
When Obama was elected president, it wasn’t immediately clear to the American public what he had in mind for Afghanistan, but it became obvious – though not very well-publicized – back in January, when Walter Pincus of the Washington Post reported that the Army was building $1.1 billion worth of military bases and other facilities in Afghanistan and planning to start an additional $1.3 billion in projects this year. "Massive construction of barracks, training areas, headquarters, warehouses, and airfields for use by U.S. and Afghan security forces – which could reach $4 billion – signals a long-term U.S. military commitment at a time when the incoming Obama administration’s policy for the Afghan war is unclear," according to Pincus.
At some point in the late afternoon or early evening, the decision was made to call in airstrikes, a measure most often taken when Western commanders believe an outpost or a field contingent is in danger of being overrun. Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai, say the tactic is overused in populated areas. But the Obama administration has rejected Karzai's calls for an end to airstrikes, saying they are an essential part of the Western arsenal. The aircraft summoned to Garani, two F-18 fighter jets and a B-1 bomber that U.S. officials said were based outside Afghanistan, took aim at three targets. In strikes that came about 20 minutes apart, three village landmarks, the mosque and two large compounds, were hit, residents said...
One family gave her 19 names, another 11. The toll she compiled quickly grew to 100, then 150. She alerted news media and human rights contacts in Kabul, the Afghan capital.
Almost immediately, cracks began to show within the provincial government. Roshan, along with some others, complained that the governor, Rohul Amin, initially downplayed the extent of the disaster because he has close ties to the Americans. By late afternoon, angry villagers showed up outside the governor's compound with two truckloads of bodies, about three dozen in all. Two days later, hundreds of angry demonstrators besieged the governor's compound, shouting anti-American slogans...
"I don't see how the West or the government can bring us peace," he said, cradling his son, who was wearing tattered trousers and a tunic secured with a safety pin. When Dawajan reached for a dirty baby bottle, the father fumblingly mixed a batch of sugared water and fed it to him. He hoped to use his condolence money to arrange another marriage, he said, because he did not know how to care for an infant. Seeing the eyes of two foreign visitors on him, he looked up hopefully.
"Do you want this child?" he asked.
Danny