EFFECT OF DRONE STRIKES

"... far more civilians are being injured or dying than the Americans and Pakistanis admit... the strikes not only kill the innocent but injure untold numbers and radicalise the population. "There are just pieces of flesh lying around after a strike. You can't find bodies. So the locals pick up the flesh and curse America. They say that America is killing us inside our own country, inside our own homes, and only because we are Muslims. The youth in the area surrounding a strike gets crazed. Hatred builds up inside those who have seen a drone attack. The Americans think it is working, but the damage they're doing is far greater."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/17/us-drone-strikes-pakistan-waziristan

U.S. TO KEEP CONTROL OF PARWAN PRISON

"The United States will remain in control of Afghanistan’s highest-profile prison well beyond January 2012, missing a key milestone in the plan to transfer judicial and detention operations to Afghans... over the past three years, the number of detainees has tripled. Parwan now holds 2,600 inmates... the Taliban has successfully used the prison for propaganda to galvanize insurgents, drawing on reports of harsh interrogation methods... U.S. officials decided that the Afghan legal system is still too weak to permit the hand-over of the Parwan Detention Center, even after the United States spent millions attempting to improve the country’s judiciary... U.S. officials say that giving Afghans control over the fates of suspected insurgents would allow dangerous Taliban fighters to slip through the cracks of an undeveloped legal system..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/afghan-prison-transfer-delayed/2011/08/12/gIQApCGMBJ_story.html?hpid=z2

AFGHAN GUARD KILLS 2 NATO PERSONNEL

"An Afghan guard opened fire at a NATO-escorted reconstruction convoy... killing a service member and a civilian working for the coalition.. (the guard) worked as a bodyguard for the second-ranking official in Afghanistan's intelligence service — Gen. Assam Din Assam, the deputy director for National Directorate for Security..."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/afghanistan/2011-07-09-afghanistan-nato-troops-killed_n.htm

U.S. SURGE FAILING, PEACE DEAL NEEDED

"... a new quarterly report from the United Nations... (shows) the American troop surge appears to be dangerously close to flunking... violence is up 51 percent since this time last year... Compared to the spring of 2010, civilian deaths and injuries are up 20 percent, with 1,090 dead and 1,860 wounded. Over 435,000 Afghans are displaced by the war, a 4 percent rise... the U.S. military’s biggest effort to rescue Afghanistan — the troop surge — failed. Now that the surge is ending, the best the U.S. can do is hope that drones, commando raids, trained Afghan soldiers and some sort of peace deal can end the war."
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/07/u-n-report-shreds-militarys-claim-of-afghanistan-progress/

U. S. HAS LOST THE AFGHANISTAN WAR

"... the United States has lost the ten-year Afghan conflict, its longest war. Afghanistan remains the “graveyard of empires.” The US has failed to install an obedient regime in Kabul that controls Afghanistan. It has made foes of the Pashtun majority, and, in pursuing this war, gravely undermined Pakistan... America, for all its B-1 heavy bombers, strike fighters, missiles, helicopter gunships and drones, armor, super electronics, spies in the sky and all the other high tech weapons of modern war has failed to defeat some 30,000 tribal fighters with nothing more than small arms and legendary valor. The US has lost the all important military initiative in Afghanistan. It may linger there, but it cannot win."
http://www.ericmargolis.com/political_commentaries/a-real-pullout-or-a-shell-game.aspx

KARZAI CONFIRMS PEACE TALKS

"President Hamid Karzai acknowledged that the U.S. and Afghan governments have held talks with Taliban emissaries in a bid to end the nation's nearly 10-year war..."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-06-18-karzai-taliban-us_n.htm

KARZAI SAYS U.S. USING AFGHANISTAN

"... Much of Mr. Karzai’s speech, an address to the Afghanistan Youth International Conference, was devoted to broad criticisms of coalition forces in Afghanistan, saying their motives were suspect and their weapons were polluting his country... “They’re here for their own purposes, for their own goals, and they’re using our soil for that,” Mr. Karzai said..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/world/asia/19afghanistan.html?_r=2

U.S. IN SECRET TALKS ON STAYING FOR DECADES

"American and Afghan officials are locked in increasingly acrimonious secret talks about a long-term security agreement which is likely to see US troops, spies and air power based in the troubled country for decades..."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/13-8