CHINA GETS THE CENTRAL ASIAN GAS PIPELINE INSTEAD OF U.S.

"China's President Hu Jintao on Monday unveiled a landmark pipeline to transport Turkmen natural gas to China, a key victory for Beijing in its drive for access to Central Asian resources.... The 7,000 kilometre (4,350 mile) gas pipeline is a significant victory for Beijing, marking the culmination of years of lobbying for influence over the region's strategic energy resources... It first runs for 1,800 kilometres in Central Asia -- snaking through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan -- before linking up with a further 5,000-plus kilometres of pipeline in China's far-west Xinjiang region. The China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) will eventually import up to 40 billion cubic metres of gas a year through the pipeline when it reaches full capacity in 2012-2013..."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h2ySwtf_yx7ojznvMBz0S0wmqFvg

"A common explanation for the US presence in Afghanistan is Washington's interest in Central Asian fuel sources-- natural gas in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and petroleum in Kazakhstan. The idea... was to bring a gas pipeline down through Afghanistan and Pakistan to energy-hungry India... For this reason some on the political Right in the US actually supported the Taliban as a force for law and order. If that was the plan, it has failed. Instead, China has landed the big bid to develop a major gas field in Turkmenistan, along with a pipeline to Beijing... So the US is bogged down in an Afghanistan quagmire, and China is running off with the big regional prize."
http://www.juancole.com/2009/12/china-wins-struggle-for-pipelinestan.html

U.S. FIGHTS IN AFGHANISTAN WHILE CHINA INVESTS

"... the China Metallurgical Group Corporation, a Chinese state-owned conglomerate, bid $3.4 billion... for the rights to mine deposits near the village of Aynak. Over the next 25 years, it plans to extract about 11 million tons of copper — an amount equal to one-third of all the known copper reserves in China... In a single move, Beijing strengthened its hold on a vital resource, engineered the single largest investment in Afghan history, promised to create thousands of new Afghan jobs and established itself as the Afghan government’s pre-eminent business partner and single largest source of tax payments... While the United States spends hundreds of billions of dollars fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda here, China is securing raw material for its voracious economy. The world’s superpower is focused on security. Its fastest rising competitor concentrates on commerce..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/world/asia/30mine.html?_r=2&sudsredirect=true

INSURGENTS LEARN TO DESTROY MRAPs

"... insurgents in Afghanistan have devised ways to cripple and even destroy the expensive armored vehicles (Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles, or MRAPs) that offer U.S. forces the best protection against roadside bombs... The insurgents' success in attacking the hulking machines, which can cost as much as $1 million each, also raise questions about how vulnerable a new, lighter MRAP, the M-ATV, which is now being shipped to Afghanistan, are to the massive explosive charges... The Pentagon has spent more than $26.8 billion to develop and build three versions of the largest MRAPs, totaling some 16,000 vehicles... Another $5.4 billion is being spent to produce 5,244 M-ATVs, the smaller version..."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/336/story/78443.html

TIME RUNNING OUT IN AFGHANISTAN

"... intelligence officials are warning that the Taliban -led insurgency is expanding and that "time is running out" for the U.S... the Taliban now have... "a full-fledged insurgency" and shadow governors in 33 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, including those in the north, where U.S. and other officials had thought the Islamic extremists posed less of a threat. The Taliban's return to the northern provinces, including Baghlan, Kunduz and Taqhar... poses serious security, logistical and political problems for the U.S... (because they) now threaten the northern supply route..."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20091228/wl_mcclatchy/3386724

HUMAN TERRAIN WORKERS FEDERALIZED

"... Since the inception of the project in 2006... interpreters, researchers and managers, deployed overseas (in Iraq and Afghanistan) as part of the Army’s social science program, the Human Terrain System... have been generously-paid contractors, serving as cultural counselors to combat units... (Now) they’re all becoming government employees... Which means that Human Terrain pay is suddenly not all that generous. One linguist, previously pulling in an annual salary $270,000, will now make about $91,000 — if that person continues his warzone work for the Human Terrain project... The dollar amount reduction is more than 60%... the switch was ostensibly triggered by the American military’s new Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government. The pact, which went into effect in January, gives Baghdad officials broad new powers to control contractors on their soil (but not U.S. civil servants)..."
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/02/more-hts-mania

U.S. SHOULD HAVE LET TALIBAN SURRENDER AL QAEDA

"... In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the United States government decided to respond militarily, and began to prepare its armed forces to overthrow the Taliban regime it believed was harboring al-Qaeda. Before the United States attacked, it offered Taliban leader Mullah Omar a chance to surrender bin Laden and his top associates. The first forces to be inserted into Afghanistan were Paramilitary Officers from the CIA's elite Special Activities Division (SAD).
The Taliban offered to turn over bin Laden to a neutral country for trial if the United States would provide evidence of bin Laden's complicity in the attacks. U.S. President George W. Bush responded by saying: "We know he's guilty. Turn him over", and British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned the Taliban regime: "Surrender bin Laden, or surrender power". Soon thereafter the United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan..."
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda#September_11_attacks


"... After 9/11, the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, assembled a council of clerics to judge his claim that Mr. bin Laden was the country’s guest and could not be surrendered. The clerics countered that because a guest should not cause his host problems, Mr. bin Laden should leave. But instead of keeping pressure on the Taliban to resolve the issue in ways they could live with, the United States ridiculed their deliberation and bombed them into a closer alliance with Al Qaeda. Pakistani Pashtuns then offered to help out their Afghan brethren..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/opinion/13atran.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=scott%20Atran&st=cse

AFGHAN SECURITY FORCES TO COST U.S. $10 BILLION PER YEAR

"... Gen. David H. Petraeus,... estimated that building and maintaining a combined army and police force of 400,000 — a size that American commanders believe may eventually be needed to fully secure the country — would cost more than $10 billion a year... (He said) “There’s no question... that Afghanistan will require substantial international funding for years to come in a whole host of different areas, not the least of which is their security forces.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/10/general-david-petraeus-wa_n_387371.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/world/asia/10policy.html?ref=world

OBAMA IGNORES TALIBAN OFFER ON AFGHANISTAN

"The Barack Obama administration is refusing to acknowledge an offer by the leadership of the Taliban in early December to give "legal guarantees" that it will not allow Afghanistan to be used for attacks on other countries... The Taliban... has chosen to interpret the Obama administration's position as one of rejection of its offer. The Taliban offer, included in a statement dated Dec. 4 and e-mailed to news organizations the following day, said the organization has "no agenda of meddling in the internal affairs of other countries and is ready to give legal guarantees if foreign forces withdraw from Afghanistan". The statement did not mention al Qaeda by name or elaborate on what was meant by "legal guarantees" against such "meddling", but it was an obvious response to past U.S. insistence that the U.S. war in Afghanistan is necessary to prevent al Qaeda from having a safe haven in Afghanistan once again. It suggested that the Taliban is interested in negotiating an agreement with the United States involving a public Taliban renunciation of ties with al Qaeda..."
http://www.ipsnews.net/login.asp?redir=news.asp?idnews=49701
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/16

U.S. TO BUILD AFGHAN ARMY FOR 5 YEARS, PAY IT FOR 15 YEARS

"... Afghan President Hamid Karzai said it may be five years before his army is ready to take on insurgents — a blunt warning that the planned exit strategy for U.S. troops from Afghanistan 18 months from now could grind slowly through 2014.
Karzai also said it will be at least 15 years before his government can bankroll a security force strong enough to protect the country from the threat of insurgency...."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091208/ap_on_re_as/as_gates_afghanistan

FT. HOOD SHOOTER BOTHERED BY WAR CRIMES

"... In the weeks before the rampage, the accused gunman, Maj. Nidal M. Hassan, an Army psychiatrist, told colleagues and Army lawyers that he wanted to report soldiers who had admitted in counseling sessions that they witnessed or committed war crimes in Iraq or Afghanistan. War crimes can include acts like torture, murder, sexual assault and cruel treatment. Though Major Hasan was discouraged from filing reports on his patients, military officials say, he would have been within his rights as an Army psychiatrist to have done so. Major Hasan’s efforts to report war crimes were first reported by ABC News..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/us/07therapists.html?_r=1&sudsredirect=true

RAPE IN AFGHANISTAN A PROFOUND PROBLEM

"Rape in Afghanistan is under-reported, concealed and a human rights problem of "profound proportions"... field research conducted late last year and early this year found rape affected all parts of Afghanistan, across all communities and social groups.... Women and girls are at risk of rape in their homes, in their villages and in detention facilities... Rape occurs within the family and beyond and victims are often prosecuted for committing adultery..."
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Afghanistan-Pakistan/idUSTRE5AT26N20091130

TALIBAN OPEN NEW FRONT IN NORTH

"... the Taliban have steadily staged a resurgence in Kunduz, where they now threaten a vital NATO supply line and employ more sophisticated tactics... The turnabout vividly demonstrates how security has broken down even in unexpected parts of Afghanistan... the government, and American military trainers, failed to remain vigilant to signs of Taliban encroachment, and reduced deployments in the northern provinces.."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/world/asia/27kunduz.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&sudsredirect=true

U.S. UNVEILS EXTENDED BAGRAM PRISON

"... The new prison wing cost some $60 million to build... could hold up to 1,000 detainees, but was at present holding around 700 inmates, including 30 foreign prisoners... a former detainee at Bagram and Guantanamo Bay, said the Bagram prison resembled a concentration camp. "People were beaten, dragged, tortured in it..." an investigator of secret prisons and renditions from the human rights organisation, Reprieve, said Bagram is seen as "Guantanamo's lesser-known evil twin".
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/11/20091115114337109563.html

U.S. AMBASSADOR ADVISES OBAMA NOT TO SEND MORE TROOPS

"... the US ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, has sent classified messages to Washington in the last few days, advising President Obama not to send more troops to Afghanistan... The substance of Eikenberry’s advice went directly against the plan the military commander in Afghanistan, General McChrystal, has been pushing for in recent months. Eikenberry’s intervention is highly significant. A Harvard and Stanford-educated general, he had served in Afghanistan twice before retiring and was immediately appointed America’s envoy in that country in April 2009..."
http://www.juancole.com/2009/11/tripathi-afghanistan-and-presidential.html

U.S. INDIRECTLY FUNDING THE TALIBAN

"New Report Reveals US Indirectly Funding the Taliban... the Pentagon’s civilian contractors in Afghanistan end up paying insurgent groups to protect American supply routes from attack... The practice of buying the Taliban’s protection is not a secret. US military officials in Kabul... (say) that a minimum of ten percent of the Pentagon’s logistics contracts consists of payments to the Taliban... That translates into millions of dollars being funneled to the Taliban. This summer, anticipating a surge of US troops, the military expanded its trucking contracts in Afghanistan by 600 percent to a total of over $2 billion... (but) if these companies did not pay these bribes or this extortion, then the US military would have to actually defend these convoys to be able to get supplies to its troops, which would mean more American casualties, so this is, in effect, a way to avoid more American casualties in the war..."
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/12/taliban

FOLLOWING IN RUSSIA'S FOOTSTEPS

"The highly decorated general sat opposite his commander in chief and explained the problems his army faced fighting in the hills around Kabul: “There is no piece of land in Afghanistan that has not been occupied by one of our soldiers at some time or another,” he said. “Nevertheless much of the territory stays in the hands of the terrorists. We control the provincial centers, but we cannot maintain political control over the territory we seize. Our soldiers are not to blame. They’ve fought incredibly bravely in adverse conditions. But to occupy towns and villages temporarily has little value in such a vast land where the insurgents can just disappear into the hills. Without... (extra equipment), without a lot more men, this war will continue for a very, very long time... About 99 percent of the battles and skirmishes that we fought in Afghanistan were won by our side. The problem is that the next morning there is the same situation as if there had been no battle. The terrorists are again in the village where they were — or we thought they were — destroyed a day or so before.”
--Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, the commander of the Soviet armed forces, to the Soviet Union’s Politburo on Nov. 13, 1986

"Soviet forces were then in the seventh year of their nine-year-long Afghan conflict, and Marshal Akhromeyev, a hero of the Leningrad siege in World War II, was trying to explain why a force of nearly 110,000 well-equipped soldiers from one of the world’s two superpowers was appearing to be humiliated by bands of “terrorists,” as the Soviets often called the mujahideen."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/opinion/29sebestyen.html?_r=2&sudsredirect=true

U.S. TO BE IN AFGHANISTAN FOR ANOTHER TEN YEARS

"... The United States has spent more than $223 billion on the Afghan war since 2001, and it now costs roughly $65 billion annually... these figures omit the replacement cost of military equipment, veterans' benefits and other war-related expenses... And we are not close to winning... a recent pro-war report from the Center for American Progress said success will require "prolonged U.S. engagement using all elements of U.S. national power" for "as long as another ten years." Success also requires creating an army and police force larger than the Afghan government can afford, which means Kabul will need US assistance indefinitely..."
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091109/walt

30,000 SINGLE MOTHERS DEPLOYED

"More than 30,000 single mothers have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army, the most heavily deployed branch of the military, gives women just four months to stay stateside with their newborns before deploying to the war zone, leaving them little time to bond with or nurse their infants. The divorce rate for female soldiers is nearly triple that of the men who wear the same uniform..."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-glantz/report-30000-single-mothe_b_322185.html

DIFFICULTIES IN ADDING MORE TROOPS

"... General Stanley McChrystal's call for 40,000 more soldiers... will take up to a year (to deploy)... (due to) the country's lack of sea ports (the nearest harbor is some 400 miles away) and a dearth of airports. Beyond geography, the flow of troops is limited by the U.S. military's requirements for training and dwell time - R&R at home, between deployments. And then, perhaps most critically, there is the enemy. The Taliban's lengthening shadow across Afghanistan is making it increasingly difficult to supply the 65,000 troops there now or to send in reinforcements...

"We're resupplying between 30% and 40% of our forward operating bases by air because we just can't get to them on the ground," says a senior Army logistician, speaking on condition of anonymity, referring to the roughly 180 U.S. outposts around the country. That's because the Taliban control much of the "ring road," a circular route that links Afghanistan's few major cities. "Trucking contractors trying to supply some of them aren't making it," he adds. "The Taliban are just wiping them out." Such constraints will limit the flow of troops to Afghanistan to about one brigade - some 4,000 troops - a month...

"Jittery over repeated attacks on its supply convoys traveling through Pakistan, the Pentagon wants to shift much of its resupply effort to its new Northern Distribution Network, which runs through several central Asian states, including Tajikistan and Uzbekistan... such stepped-up U.S. shipping will lead to attacks on convoys by terrorist groups including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Islamic Jihad Union. "The problem with the Northern Distribution Network is obvious; it turns Central Asia into a part of the theater of war."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091014/us_time/08599193009700

MORE TROOPS NOT A SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY

"... it is time to a return to the successful strategy that we had used when we first invaded Afghanistan right after the 9/11 attack but that has been forgotten or ignored in the eight years since then. That strategy was to send in CIA operatives with bags of money to buy off the warlords rather than troops with weapons. John Lehman, the former Secretary of the Navy, noted in an editorial in The Washington Post in 2006 that, "What made the Afghan campaign a landmark in the U.S. Military's history is that it was prosecuted by Special Operations forces from all the services, along with Navy and Air Force tactical power, operations by the Afghan Northern Alliance and the CIA were equally important and fully integrated. No large Army or Marine force was employed."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dagobert-l-brito/for-a-solution-in-afghani_b_319182.html

U.S. SERVING CHINESE INTERESTS IN AFGHANISTAN

"In Afghanistan’s Logar Province, just south of Kabul, the geopolitical future of Asia is becoming apparent: American troops are providing security for a Chinese state-owned company to exploit the Aynak copper reserves, which are worth tens of billions of dollars... China has its eyes on some of world’s last untapped deposits of copper, iron, gold, uranium and precious gems... China has a vision of Afghanistan as a secure conduit for roads and energy pipelines that will bring natural resources from the Indian Ocean and elsewhere... while America is sacrificing its blood and treasure, the Chinese will reap the benefits. The whole direction of America’s military and diplomatic effort is toward an exit strategy, whereas the Chinese hope to stay and profit... Afghanistan should be the very last place where we are a land-based meddler, caught up in internal Islamic conflict, helping the strategic ambitions of the Chinese and others... This is exactly how an empire declines, by allowing others to take advantage of its own exertions..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/opinion/07kaplan.html?_r=1&hp

AFGHANISTAN: NATO'S GRAVEYARD

"... Most embarrassingly for NATO, a recent surge of alliance troops seems only to have made the Taliban stronger. Nearly eight years of alternating destruction (air bombardment, over 100,000 troops on the ground) and reconstruction ($38 billion in economic assistance appropriated by the U.S. Congress since 2001) have all come up desperately short. A new counterinsurgency campaign doesn't look any more promising. What was once billed as the most powerful military alliance in history has been thwarted by an irregular set of militias and guerrilla groups without the backing of a major power in one of the poorest countries on Earth..."
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175120/john_feffer_will_nato_s_60th_anniversary_be_its_last_

AFGHAN WAR DECISIONS TINGED WITH FEAR OF BLAME FOR DEFEAT

"... President Barack Obama will preside over a series of meetings in the coming weeks that will determine whether the United States will proceed with an escalation of the Afghanistan War or adjust the strategy to reduce the U.S. military commitment there... the decisions that emerge from the coming meetings are more likely to be shaped primarily by the concerns of the military and of the White House about being blamed for a defeat in Afghanistan..."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48621

BIN LADEN HAS THE U.S. WHERE HE WANTS IT TO BE

"Osama Bin Laden told me, 'I can’t fight the Americans on the American mainland. It is too far. But if I succeed in bringing the Americans where I can find them, where I can fight them on my own terms, on my turf, this will be the greatest success'."

"... So President Bush fulfilled this wish for Osama bin Laden.... that’s the latest achievement of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, to make the Americans part of the Middle East, instead of far away..."

--Abdel Bari Atwan, editor in chief of Al-Quds Al Arabi, a London-based daily newspaper, remembering his interview with Osama Bin Laden in Tora Bora, Afghanistan in 1996.
http://www.stateofnature.org/abdelBariAtwan.html

MCCHRYSTAL REPORT: IT WILL TAKE 500,000 TROOPS AND FIVE YEARS TO DO JOB

"... Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC's Morning Joe... (said) "embedded in this report by McChrystal, is they would need 500,000 troops - boots on the ground - and five years to do the job". Mitchell got the figure from an independent source. It was not revealed in the redacted version of the once classified report released by the Pentagon earlier this week..."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-andrews/classified-mcchrystal-rep_b_298528.html

CANADIAN PROGRESS IN KANDAHAR

"... Canada's army will be leaving Afghanistan in 2011, but so far only five of the 50 schools in its school-building project have been completed. Just 28 more are "under construction". But of Kandahar province's existing 364 schools, 180 have been forced to close..."
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-everyone-seems-to-be-agreeing-with-bin-laden-these-days-1790058.html

U.S. GENERAL: NO MAJOR AL-QAIDA PRESENCE IN AFGHANISTAN

"Gen. Stanley McChrystal... top commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan said... he sees no signs of a major al-Qaida presence in the country but says the terror group still maintains close links to insurgents... "
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gOXo7WvE7S3U5zC88Rc6DGBSr9bwD9AL5UVG0

UNRELIABLE AFGHAN ALLIES

"... Four U.S. Marines were killed... assigned as trainers to the Afghan National Army... and the Marine commander's Afghan interpreter also died in the ambush and the subsequent battle... U.S. officers said they suspected that the insurgents had been tipped off by sympathizers in the local Afghan security forces or by the village elders... "Whatever we do always leaks,. You can't trust even some of their soldiers or officers."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/staff/jonathan_landay/story/75036.html

TALIBAN FIGHT BETTER THAN OUR AFGHAN ARMY

"... "their" Afghans are the fierce fighters of history books and legend and "ours", despite billions of dollars and massive training efforts, are not. This puzzling situation had its parallel in Vietnam decades ago when American military advisors regularly claimed they would give up a division of U.S.-trained South Vietnamese forces for a single battalion of "VC."
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175111

ALCOHOL BANNED AT U.S. HEADQUARTERS AFTER DEADLY AIR STRIKE
( Rest of bases not affected)

"After a Nato airstrike killed as many as 125 people last week, General Stanley McChrystal... tried to contact his underlings to find out what had happened, however, he found, to his fury, that many of them were either drunk or too hungover to respond... The Isaf headquarters is only half a mile square but it has at least seven bars that serve tax-free beer and wine... (now) General McChrystal, head of International Forces in Afghanistan (Isaf), banned alcohol at his headquarters... the civilian staff, who are free to leave the base, were not concerned. “It’s only on HQ that they’ve banned it. All the other bases that served it, still do..."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6825321.ece

U.S. TROOPS STORM SWEDISH HOSPITAL

"... the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan said the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division forced their way into the charity's hospital without permission to look for insurgents in Wardak province, southwest of Kabul... a clear violation of internationally recognized rules and principles... it also went against an agreement between NATO forces and charities working in the area.... The U.S. troops came to the hospital looking for Taliban insurgents late at night... kicked in doors, tied up four hospital guards and two people visiting hospitalized relatives, and forced patients out of beds during their search... also barged into women's wards... strange men entering rooms where women are in beds is a serious insult to the local Pashtun culture and word of it could turn the community against international troops..."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/07/us-troops-stormed-through_0_n_278627.html

TALIBAN ANTI-TANK MINES FROM U.S.

"... evidence from the US Defense Department, Canadian forces in Afghanistan and the Taliban themselves (indicates) that the increased damage to NATO tanks by Taliban forces has come from anti-tank mines provided by the United States to the jihadi movement against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s...

"according to the Pentagon agency responsible for combating roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan ( JIEDDO or Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, a unit of the US Department of Defense), the increased Taliban threat to US and NATO vehicles comes not from any new technology from Iran but from Italian-made TC-6 mines left over from the US Central Intelligence Agency's military assistance to the anti-Soviet jihadists in the 1980s.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KI05Ak02.html

NATO AIRSTRIKE KILLS 40 CIVILIANS

"... An Afghan police officer said the 90 dead included about 40 civilians who were siphoning fuel from trucks.... Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said insurgents hijacked the trucks... the vehicles became stuck in the mud and the insurgents opened valves to release fuel and lighten the loads. He said about 500 villagers swarmed the trucks to collect the fuel despite warnings that they might be hit with an airstrike. Mujahid said no Taliban died in the attack...

"Kunduz Gov. Mohammad Omar, who also gave the 90 deaths figure, said a local Taliban commander and four Chechen fighters were among those killed...

"NATO command said a "large number of insurgents" were killed or injured... after determining that there were no civilians in the area..."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/04/AR2009090400543_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009090400002

AFGHAN WOMEN'S SEX LAW

"Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands...the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work."It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the US charity Human Rights Watch said..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/14/afghanistan-womens-rights-rape

45,000 MORE US TROOPS NEEDED

"... Anthony Cordesman, an influential American academic who is a member of a team that has been advising General Stanley McChrystal... (said) The United States should send up to 45,000 extra troops to Afghanistan... This would bring the total American military presence in Afghanistan to about 100,000..."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6789142.ece

KHALILZAD TO BE KARZAI'S CEO AGAIN?

"Zalmay Khalilzad, former U.S. envoy to both Afghanistan and Iraq... (is) angling for a job as a sort of “chief executive officer” of Afghanistan... Afghan President Hamid Karzai brought the subject up during meetings with President Barack Obama... Khalilzad... (was) U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan... between 2003 and 2005... (and was) the real power behind the scenes... U.S. diplomats described his role as the country’s chief executive — with Karzai as the figurehead chairman — for the 19 months of his ambassadorship..."
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/diplos-heart-afghanistan-ceo-khalilzad-not/

AFGHAN LAWMAKERS WANT RESTRICTIONS ON FOREIGN FORCES

"Afghan lawmakers... demanded legal restrictions on foreign forces fighting in their country, to prevent further civilian deaths... they had given the government one week to come up with a way of regulating foreign fighters... The U.S. military has conceded that civilians were killed in its attack aimed at the Taliban... civilian toll from the strikes could be as high as 130, but the head of the lower house of parliament, Mohammad Younus Qanuni put it even higher, at 140... A deputy... said 95 of the victims were children under 18 years old. "When a foreign soldier acts contrary to the law of Afghanistan, he should be prosecuted according to Afghanistan's law."
http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSISL367759._CH_.2400

U.S. STRIKE: TRACTOR TRAILERS FULL OF BODY PARTS

"... The US military now seem to have dropped their previous suggestion that Taliban gunmen had run through the village streets lobbing grenades into houses because villagers had failed to give them a cut of the profits from the opium crop. No evidence was produced for this unlikely tale. Witnesses saw no signs of grenade blasts or machine gun fire. A US official source in Washington eventually admitted that the claim was "thinly sourced".
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-these-killings-will-only-strengthen-the-taliban-1685705.html

"... a US bombing massacre... may have killed as many as 130 Afghans... After US Strikes, Afghans Describe "Tractor Trailers Full of Pieces of Human Bodies"... the International Committee of the Red Cross has stated bluntly that US airstrikes hit civilian houses and revealed that an ICRC counterpart in the Red Crescent was among the dead. “We know that those killed included an Afghan Red Crescent volunteer and 13 members of his family who had been sheltering from fighting in a house that was bombed in an air strike”... the Pentagon was seeking to blame the Taliban for “staging” the massacre to blame it on the US..."
http://rebelreports.com/post/104594733/after-us-strikes-afghans-describe-tractor-trailers

CHRISTIAN KNIGHTS TEMPLAR ON CRUSADE
Extremists seek war of civilizations

"... efforts of fundamentalist Christian churches... (seek to) turn our armed forces into a modern-day Knights Templar, fighting infidels on behalf of the Church... (But)... When an armed man seeks to share his beliefs with you, it is not about spreading enlightenment, but about domination and control. To go into other countries with a rifle in one hand and a Bible in the other, can only create fear, resentment and backlash... Even worse, the image of the soldier-preacher fits directly into Al-Qaeda's meme that Americans are engaged in a new Crusade to destroy Islam. And to the extent that these fundamentalist churches are allowed to exert influence in our military, our enemies are proven right. Both Muslim extremists and their Christian counterparts seek to ignite a war of civilizations, a zero-sum game in which their ideology will ultimately destroy their adversaries completely..."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kamran-pasha/bible-and-guns-why-soldie_b_195973.html

SOLDIERS FOR JESUS IN AFGHANISTAN
Hunting for Muslims to convert...



"... US military forces in Afghanistan have been instructed by the military’s top chaplain in the country to “hunt people for Jesus” as they spread Christianity to the overwhelmingly Muslim population... In a video obtained by Al Jazeera... Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, the chief of the US military chaplains in Afghanistan, is seen telling soldiers that as followers of Jesus Christ, they all have a responsibility “to be witnesses for him"... Soldiers also have imported bibles translated into Pashto and Dari... On the tape... one soldier describes how his church in the US helped raise money for the bibles..."

"Trying to convert Muslims to any other faith is a crime in Afghanistan... It is likely to add more credence to the perception that the US is engaging in a war on Islam with neo-crusader forces invading Muslim lands..."

"The broadcast of this video comes just days after a new poll of White Americans found that, in the US, church going Christians are more likely to support the use of torture than other segments of the population..."

http://rebelreports.com/post/103330614/us-soldiers-in-afghanistan-told-to-hunt-people-for

IRANIAN CORRIDOR FOR U.S. TO AFGHANISTAN

"Talks on Iranian corridor for US troops, supplies to Afghanistan on fast track... Barack Obama's plans to ... (ask) Tehran to permit the passage to Afghanistan of fresh US troops, weapons and supplies across Iranian territory... the US Air Base at Al Udeid in Qatar would be the main hub for the air corridor taking US transport planes over the Persian Gulf, crossing the Iranian border and flying over southern and central Iran up to their destination, the US airbase near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. The sea route would hinge on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' main naval base at Chah-Bahar, which is situated on the Arabian Sea near Iran's border with Pakistan... an ideal port of call for US provisions to reach Afghanistan by a predominantly sea route. From this Arabian Sea port, consignments would head north through Iran's Sistan-va-Baluchistan up to the Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan border intersection and then turn east by convoy to their destination at Kandahar..."
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=6048

CIVILIAN POSTS TO BE FILLED WITH MILITARY

"... announcing a new strategy last month, President Obama promised “a dramatic increase in our civilian effort” in Afghanistan that would include “agricultural specialists and educators, engineers and lawyers”... the requirement for the “civilian surge” eventually would include hundreds of people with experience in such areas as small-business management, legal affairs, veterinary medicine, public sanitation, counter-narcotics efforts and air traffic control... to work on civilian reconstruction in combat zones. But enough of those civilians are not readily available... forcing the administration to turn to the military, Pentagon civilians and private contractors..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/world/asia/23military.html?_r=1&hp

U.S. LACKS CAPACITY TO WIN OVER AFGHANS

"U.S. military and civilian agencies lack the skills and training as well as the institutional framework necessary to carry out culturally and politically sensitive socio-economic programmes at the local level in Afghanistan, or even to avoid further alienation of the population... the U.S. government does not even have a minimum corps of people capable of speaking Pashto, the language of the 14 million ethnic Pashtuns who represent about 42 percent of the population of Afghanistan... 5,000 U.S. officials had learned Vietnamese by the end of the Vietnam War. The Foreign Service Institute should be turning out 200 to 300 Pashto speakers a year... (but) the United States has turned out a total of only 18 Foreign Service officers who can speak Pashto, and only two of them are now serving in Afghanistan (which) belies the U.S. commitment to a nation-building and counter-insurgency approach..."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46578

EFFECT OF DRONES

"American drone attacks on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan are causing a massive humanitarian emergency... As many as 1 million people have fled their homes in the Tribal Areas to escape attacks by the unmanned spy planes as well as bombings by the Pakistani army... 546,000 have registered as internally displaced people (IDPs)... there are thousands more unregistered people who have taken refuge with relatives and friends or who are in rented accommodation..."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6036512.ece

NEW LAW FOR WOMEN

"A new law for Shi'ite Muslims in Afghanistan... passed by parliament and signed by President Hamid Karzai... is meant to legalise minority Shi'ite family law... could legalise marital rape and prohibit women from leaving the home without the permission of their husbands... it contained several articles that would seriously damage women's rights. One would legalise the marriage of girls from the age of nine and another said a woman had to wear make-up if her husband demanded it.... Some parliamentarians said the law is a major step backwards for Afghan women and that Karzai approved it to appease Shi'ite voters..."
http://www.reuters.com/article/asiaCrisis/idUSL2330877

MAJOR BASES = LONG COMMITMENT IN FACE OF UNCLEAR POLICY

"The Army is building $1.1 billion worth of military bases and other facilities in Afghanistan and is 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..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/12/AR2009011203015.html

AFGHANISTAN: A LONG SLOG WITH LOW EXPECTIONS

"Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday signaled sharply lower expectations for the war in Afghanistan, warning the conflict will be "a long slog" and that U.S. and allied military forces, even at higher levels, can achieve limited goals... The U.S. force in Afghanistan numbers about 36,000..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/27/AR2009012700472.html