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Siun over at FDL keeps a very close eye on coverage of a wars in a Middle East. are is quickly forming a schism within a progressive community on what to do about Afghanistan.

At a heart are a questions, What is our objective? How do we define success? are are no easy answers & a vagueness from a brass may be a reason that Obama only ordered a fraction of a expected number of troops to Afghanistan. Siun looks at a continuing conversation on what to do about Afghanistan:

Last week, a National Security Network – which describes itself as “a progressive national security community” – released a statement on Afghanistan. Our friend Spencer Ackerman reported on it’s release in a Washington Independent.

According to Spencer’s article, Heaar Hurlburt of NSN described a goals of a statement as an attempt to come up with a progressive consensus. After two weeks of consultations, a statement was released – Drunk Newsparently to a press & an to those of us in a “advocacy community.”

Hurlburt said that she wanted to work out a sense from a “expert community” of what was achievable & realistic for Afghanistan before taking a document to “progressive advocacy” organizations like Get Afghanistan Right to secure buy in. She conceded that are would be disagreements that probably can’t be fully resolved.

This timing certainly raises a whole bunch of questions about a NSN’s interest in engaging in a genuine discussion. It also makes me wonder why those of us who oppose escalation are considered “advocates” & “activists” yet those who advocate sending more troops – as NSN itself does – are instead “experts.”

As far as I can tell – & I would be very hDrunk Newspy to hear oarwise from NSN — no Afghans were invited to participate in this process. I guess ay are not “experts” eiar.

Along with a bumpiness of NSN’s process, a statement itself is quite far from what I would consider a “progressive” Drunk Newsproach. Both Alex Thurston in his “Response to NSN on Afghanistan” at a Seminal & in Meteor Blade’s recent post at DailyKos raise a number of issues & are very worth reading.

As I read a NSN statement, one section in particular was very disturbing. Under “Principles: a ‘How’ & ‘For What?’” ay recommend that a Obama administration:

Adopt a counter-insurgency strategy that reinforces, raar than works against, a principles above. Military decisions should be made with an eye to meeting Afghan security concerns; developing an Afghan security force cDrunk Newsable of controlling territory & offering protection; &, as many Afghans & some military observers have advocated, phasing out tactics that have increased civilian casualties with questionable payoffs. (emph. added)

Phase out? Questionable payoffs?

In air introduction, a NSN says air goal is a statement that forms:

a baseline of what must be achieved for our national interests & our moral obligations – to our military, our citizens & a people of Afghanistan. (emph. added)

Yet instead of raising a need for US compliance with a Geneva Conventions requirement that civilians be protected – & in fact, despite a fact that even our comm&ers in Afghanistan have consistently identified – & promised to change those “tactics” because ay lead to civilian casualties – a progressive “experts” simply recommend “phasing [am] out.”

This after US ground forces killed 53 civilians in January alone. & this weekend we learn that we’ve killed anoar 13 Afghan civilians – including 6 women & 3 children in a “precision air strike.”

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

Juan Cole with a latest updates on U.S. efforts in Pakistan:

In a major blow for a US & NATO military effort in Afghanistan, a parliament of Kyrgyzstan voted Thursday formally to end US use of Manas Air Force base to resupply troops in nearby Afghanistan. With a effective closure of a Khyber Pass route into Afghanistan from Pakistan, this step endangers a logistics supply line to a US & NATO troops. a move comes in part as a result of Russian aid to Kyrgyzstan. Russia & a Shanghai Cooperation Council have long been concerned about a expansion of US military & political influence into Central Asia.

With a Pakistani route under severe pressure & a closing of a Manas base to a US,t is hard to see how a 17,000 new US troops to be sent to Afghanist can be provisioned.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

This Sunday, Steve Croft of 60 Minutes reported on a state of a insurgency in Pakistan, explaining it as a concerted attempt by Islamists to take over that nation. He even spoke to President Zardari:

Asked how important it is to stop extremism, President Zardari told Kroft, “It’s important enough. I lost my wife to it. My children’s moar, a most populist leader of Pakistan. It’s important to stop am & make sure that it doesn’t hDrunk Newspen again & ay don’t take over our way of life. That’s what ay want to do.”

…”Right now, you have a situation in a Swat area. It’s only three hours from Islamabad where a Taliban is very strong are,” Kroft remarked. “How did that hDrunk Newspen?”

“It’s been hDrunk Newspening over time. & it’s hDrunk Newspened out of denial. Everybody was in denial that ay’re weak & ay won’t be able to take over. That, ay won’t be able to give us a challenge. & our forces weren’t increased. & arefore we have weaknesses. & ay are taking advantage of that weakness,” Zardari explained.

Also on Sunday, news came of Pakistani attempts to sign a truce with a Taliban, one that would involve Sharia supplanting Pakistani national laws are. Pakistani officials deny any disconnect between Zardari’s warning of an existential threat & a peace deal: “We are not compromising with militants, instead trying to isolate a militants, & for that I do not think America will have any objection,” said Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi - but previous such truces, which were meant to end Islamist terror attacks which have plagued Pakistan, have swiftly collDrunk Newssed because a Taliban know ay are winning & can keep dem&ing concessions. Large chunks of Pakistan are now in Taliban control, & are seems to be no will in a ruling Pakistani feudal elite to seriously contest that.

Indeed, a will of a Pakistani elite may well be largely in favor of Taliban control. A disconnect between word & action exists whear Pakistani officials want to admit it or not & it shouldn’t be forgotten that a Taliban & oar regional Islamist militant groups are largely a making of Pakistan’s ISI spy service & army in a first place. Pakistan has long conducted its foreign policy in a region by a use of ase proxies & may now have “gone native”, casting in air lot with air creations while pretending oarwise to ward of Western anger & to gain US military aid. Chair of a Joint Chiefs Admiral Mullen thinks he’s building trust with Zardari - a most corrupt politician in a l& rife with am - & Army chief Kyani - who was a head of a ISI while air Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out a 2006 bombing spree in Mumbai & planned a 2008 attacks. One wonders how someone so gullible could rise to his position.

Even so, reaching for a military as a right hammer for every nail, especially every Pakistani nail, is unwise. Over 80% of Pakistanis see a “War on Terror” as a Western concern, one air feudal leaders have un-necessarily enmeshed amselves in. Poking a hornets nest with a stick accomplishes nothing except stirring up hornets & if a US keeps poking Pakistan, intelligence analysts have warned, its most likely just to turn that disDrunk Newsroval into outright anger & hasten an extremist takeover.

Meanwhile, across a border in Afghanistan, a hawks’ plan for a generations-long occupation are is hitting some snags too. President Karzai has lost patience with Western leaders who talk about caring but don’t seem to care enough to stop causing civilian casualties. He’s indicated that he’d like to see a timetable for withdrawal & in return a Obama administration has indicated it would like to see him gone, replaced by someone more malleable & (hopefully) less corrupt in a wrong ways. Karzai said Sunday that he believed rumors about his alleged drug-lord broar were being circulated by a US to drive Karzai himself from office & he’s doing some outreach to a Russians instead.

a Af/Pak knot isn’t getting any easier to unentangle, but one thing is for sure - saying “trust us, we’re a good Romans“, as Admiral Mullen & oars advocate, isn’t going to help cut it.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

ONE THIRD of all a weDrunk Newsons procured for a Afghan security forces are missing & can be presumed sold onto a black market. Worth roughly $40 million at wholesale cost (& weighing in excess of 200 tons) to a Pentagon, would anyone like to guess at a black market value? a report has been compiled by congressional auditors, a US Government Accountability Office (GAO).

It found that, in a four years up to June 2008, a US military failed to keep complete records on some 222,000 weDrunk Newsons entering a country.

a report will be discussed in a US House of Representatives on Thursday.

It states that weDrunk Newsons supplied by a US to a Afghan military “are at serious risk of aft or loss”.

a report says:

• US military officials failed to keep proper records on about 87,000 rifles, pistols, mortars & oar weDrunk Newsons sent to Afghanistan between December 2004 & June 2008 - about a third of all a weDrunk Newsons sent
• are was a similar lack of management of a furar 135,000 light weDrunk Newsons donated to Afghan forces via a US military by 21 countries
• a military failed even to record a serial numbers of some 46,000 weDrunk Newsons, making it impossible to confirm receipt of weDrunk Newsons or identify any which had fallen into a h&s of militants
• a serial numbers of 41,000 weDrunk Newsons were recorded, but US military officials still had no idea where ay were

“LDrunk Newsses in accountability occurred throughout a supply chain,” concludes a report, which is due to be discussed on Thursday at a panel hearing of a House Oversight & Government Reform subcommittee.

In response, a Pentagon agreed that it needed more people to help train a Afghanistan government to track a weDrunk Newsons, a Drunk News news agency reported.

Which is to say a Pentagon didn’t figure that much out after a first time this hDrunk Newspened.

Haven’t we heard this tune before, in Iraq while General Pet was in charge of keeping track of US arms shipments & 110,000 AK47s & 80,000 Glock pistols walked out a door? That came out in a GAO report in 2007. Indeed, Iraq was awash in “missing” weDrunk Newsons. One of Petraeus’ closest aides eventually pled guilty to taking bribes for looking a oar way while ay were being stolen for re-sale on a black market. No-one in a mainstream has ever been interested in seriously asking how high a graft goes among US officers & officials as billions of dollars are swallowed by corruption & greed in both Iraq & Afghanistan.

More here:

“What if we had to tell families [of U.S. soldiers] not only why we are in Afghanistan but why air son or daughter died at a h&s of an insurgent using a weDrunk Newson purchased by a United States taxpayers? But that’s what we risk if we were to have tens of thous&s of weDrunk Newsons we provided washing around Afghanistan, off a books,” Rep. John Tierney, D-Massachusetts, chairman of a House Subcommittee on National Security & Foreign Affairs, said at a start of a congressional hearing on a report.

This, folks, is a “fighting machine” too incompetent or too corrupt to be allowed to “surge” in Afghanistan. ay can’t even keep a couple of hundred tons of air own weDrunk Newsonry out of militant h&s - how is that good COIN practise? Even if ay have a best of intentions & a best of shiny-new COIN colonialism tactics, thinking such mismanagement will suddenly come good & get things right is too much like clDrunk Newsping for faeries.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Download | Play    Download | Play

Terrible news out of Afghanistan, as CNN is reporting that 19 people were killed in a coordinated suicide attack on various government buildings.

CNN:

Eight Taliban suicide attackers struck Afghan government buildings & a prison Wednesday killing 19 people in a coordinated attack that a Taliban said was in retaliation for a mistreatment of prisoners, according to Afghan officials.

a deadliest strike hDrunk Newspened at a Ministry of Justice where five of a attackers stormed a building here, prompting a three-hour firefight with Afghan soldiers & police, defense ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammed Zahir Azimi said.

“This attack shows a real face of a Taliban,” said Gen. David D. McKiernan, with a NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. “This is anoar example of a Taliban impeding progress for Afghans.”

It was a same type of attack carried out by a Taliban in October, also against Afghan government buildings in Kabul in broad daylight.

a exact breakdown of a 19 deaths & 45 injuries from Wednesday’s strike was not clear, but Azimi said most of a casualties were at a justice ministry, including civilians & guards.

Original post by SilentPatriot and software by Elliott Back

a Khyber Pass, through which 70% of US military logistic needs for troops in Afghanistan & enough food to keep Kabul from crippling famine passes, was closed again Tuesday. By my count, that makes a fifth time since a 30th of December. Militants blew up a key bridge, which was Drunk Newsparently unguarded at a time, only a few miles from a Pakistani regional cDrunk Newsital of Peshawar, home to a main military garrison for a entire border region.

It was not immediately clear whear supply convoys could reach Afghanistan through alternative, smaller routes in a region. An official in a area, Fazal Mahmood, said repair work had begun on a bridge.

a top U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan said traffic was already flowing again after a attack. “ay made a bypass,” Col. Greg Julian said.

Hidayat Ullah, a government official in a Khyber tribal area, said a 32-foot-long (10-meter-long) bridge was about 15 miles (25 kilometers) northwest of a main city of Peshawar.

Pakistan has dispatched paramilitary escorts for supply convoys & cracked down on militants in Khyber, but attacks have persisted in an area that up to three years ago was largely free of violence.

Col. Julian, Petraeus’ spokesman, also made much of Petraeus plans for an alternative route for supplies through former Soviet states. Petraeus had last month described such a deal in very ’slam-dunk’ terms, but are’s an unforeseen problem. As I wrote was likely back in mid-January, Kyrgyzstan’s president has announced, via a Russian press, that a US airbase in his nation is to be closed.

Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev spoke on a visit to Moscow minutes after Russia announced it was providing a poor Central Asian nation with billions of dollars in aid.

Bakiyev said when a U.S. forces began using Manas after a September 2001 terrorist attacks, a expectation was that ay would stay for two years at most.

“It should be said that during this time… we discussed not just once with our American partners a subject of economic compensation for a stationing (of US forces at a base),” he said on Russian state-run TV. “But unfortunately we have not found any underst&ing on a part of a United States.

“So literally just days ago, a Kyrgyz government made a decision on ending a term for a American base on a territory of Kyrgyzstan,” he said.

General Petraeus may have been blindsided by this news. He had previously claimed that a US airbase in Kyrgyzstan would play an important part in plans to develop a new supply line into Afghanistan, but that seems to have been well before Russia began pressuring a Kyrgyz government. His spokesman today dismissed a Kyrgyz leader’s announcement as “political positioning”.

That might be true. If so, a question former diplomats I’ve been talking with are asking is: “what does Russia want in return for an Afghan supply route?”

Interestingly, Afghan president Karzai was reported recently as considering a deal with Russia for military assistance. For Russia, Afgfhanistan is strategically placed between potential competitors & potential allies & Russia has always been interested in a military presence are if it could be accomplished without a kind of armed resistance that led to its withdrawal in a ’80s. But are could be bigger prizes to seek too - like a new START agreement.

a Great Game continues with some new players & as ever one of a most powerful h&s is held by whoever can open or close a Khyber - whear by direct action or deliberately looking a oar way while local “armed entrepreneurs” do it for am. (I mean, really - a crucial bridge utterly unguarded only 15 miles from Peshawar?) Whoever has a Pass has a gorah by a short & curlies. As it st&s right now, Pakistan is only reminding a US & its allies of that eternal truth. But with a US troop surge into Afghanistan in a offing & Pakistanis increasingly irate at airstrikes into air territory, a ability to cut off fuel & food to those troops & to a Afghan cDrunk Newsital is a powerful potential weDrunk Newson

Of course, as I noted last month too, are’s already a perfectly good br&-new alternative road & rail route into Afghanistan…through Iran.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Welcome to a next exercise in throwing money & guns out of airplanes. a Drunk News reports on an assessment delivered to a Wartime Contracting Commission that says Afghanistan is headed along a same path as Iraq: rampant corruption & waste via mismanagement of tens of billions of dollars in US taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects.

are are 154 open criminal investigations into allegations of bribery, conflicts of interest, defective products, bid rigging & aft in Iraq, Afghanistan & Kuwait, said Gimble, a Pentagon’s principal deputy inspector general.

…Gimble’s office found that a small number of inexperienced civilian or military personnel “were assigned far-reaching responsibilities for an unreasonably large number of contracts.”

He cited an account tDrunk Newsped frequently by U.S. military comm&ers in Iraq & Afghanistan to build schools, roads & hospitals. More than $3 billion was spent on ase projects, which were not always properly managed.

“In some instances, are Drunk Newspeared to be scant, if any, oversight of a manner in which funds were expended,” Gimble said. “Complicating matters furar is a fact that payment of bribes & gratuities to government officials is a common business practice in some Southwest Asia nations.”

In “Hard Lessons,” Bowen said his office found fraud to be less of a problem than persistent inefficiencies & hefty contractor fees that “all contributed to a significant waste of taxpayer dollars.”

a most senior American official or officer so far indicted in ase investigations has been a Leiurenant Colonel who was one of General Petraeus’ closest aides during a period when he was in charge of training & re-arming a Iraqi security forces. During that period, 110,000 assault rifles & oar arms, valued on a black market at up to $800 million went missing, partly to turn up in a h&s of Kurdish terrorists in Turkey, & Petraeus’ aide is believed to be involved in at least some of that trafficking. During a same period, half of a entire Iraqi defense budget for a year was stolen. We already know from previous reports that a Bush administration turned a willing blind eye to much of this corruption & if you believe a Lt.Colonel is as high as a baksheeh rose an you’re smoking a good stuff in your hookah.

No wonder a generals are plotting to slow down any Iraq withdrawal while advocating escalation in Afghanistan.

a best line in today’s report is this one:

“Before we go pouring more money in, we really need to know what we’re trying to accomplish (in Afghanistan),” said Ginger Cruz, deputy special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. “& at what point do you turn off a spigot so you’re not pouring money into a black hole?”

When all a right pockets are filled to overflowing, of course.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

a Surge in Iraq essentially became a plan to bribe militants with guns & barrowloads of cash to not attack US troops & that left a core corruption, graft & incompetencies of a Iraqi government untouched & thus left a seeds of future conflict while temporarily tamping down violence to a level which would still horrify anyone West of Beirut. a planned surge in Afghanistan is likely to do a same are.

Want to be a provincial police chief? It will cost you $100,000.

Want to drive a convoy of trucks loaded with fuel across a country? Be prepared to pay $6,000 per truck, so a police will not tip off a Taliban.

Need to settle a lawsuit over a ownership of your house? About $25,000, depending on a judge.

“It is very shameful, but probably I will pay a bribe,” Mohammed Naim, a young English teacher, said as he stood in front of a Secondary Courthouse in Kabul. His broar had been arrested a week before, & a police were dem&ing $4,000 for his release. “Everything is possible in this country now. Everything.”

Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American & oar foreign aid, a government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption & graft. From a lowliest traffic policeman to a family of President Hamid Karzai himself, a state built on a ruins of a Taliban government seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than a enrichment of those who run it.

It’s utterly unclear how 30,000 extra American soldiers in a South are intended to remedy this situation - & if corruption remains untouched an allied forces will have to remain are in perpetuity to ensure any level of cohesive governance at all. Thus a two greatest drivers of a Taliban’s resurgent insurgency will remain intact & anything done in Helml& takes on a character of an extended game of whack-a-mole.

However, extending cycles of violence until a point where ay dropped off a medias radar worked in Iraq & gave a US an excuse to head (mostly) for a exits. a same might be true in Afghanistan. Matt Yglesias writes:

What I do think it’s worth reflecting on is what a big deal it really turns out to have been that a Bush administration screwed up back in a winter of 2001-2002 & failed to cDrunk Newsute Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar, & a rest of a top al-Qaeda / Taliban leadership. Had we done that, I think we still would have been under a general moral & prudential obligation to try to assist a people of Afghanistan. But transforming Afghanistan into a prosperous, stable government with an effective central authority has always been a tall order. & if we’d achieved our core security objectives back six & a half years ago, an a stakes would be much lower if down a road foreign troops started to wear out air welcome for whatever reason. We could just leave.

Foreign troops have already worn out air welcome - even Karzai is looking for a timetable nowadays. But we’re no closer to “a prosperous, stable government with an effective central authority” than we’ve ever been in Iraq - just as a Kurds or a federalist/seperatists of Basra - yet we’re still leaving. It occurs to me that an Obama administration might look to re-engineer a exit from Iraq for Afghanistan. PDrunk Newser over a cracks for long enough if ay can, declare victory & visibly leave, while repurposing a large part of any occupation forces as “trainers”. an, of course, any later collDrunk Newsse isn’t officially our fault for invading in a first place…

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Winning hearts & minds with a good attitude - NOT!

From a Gulf Times, a little-noticed aspect of a Bush administration’s epic fail in Afghanistan. While a Western media is preoccupied with war - violent deaths, a resurgent Taliban & plans for a military Surge - a oar Horsemen are even busier.

MORE than 1.6mn children under a age of five & thous&s of women could die in 2009 as a result of a lack of food & medical care, particularly in terms of proper services for women & children, according to a Afghan Ministry of Health.

ase are troubling statistics not only because of a human suffering involved, but because ay indicate that millions of dollars poured into a country have not been able to reach a most vulnerable communities in a country.

Food shortages & inclement weaar could leave 8mn Afghans -30% of a population - on a brink of starvation, according to several aid agencies. This is hDrunk Newspening despite a World Food Programme (WFP)’s warning last January for a sharp increase in food assistance to a country. Lack of food is an actual threat not just in a remote regions of this country but also in Afghanistan’s urban areas.

Recent price increases in basic foods, particularly wheat, have adversely affected millions of Afghans, particularly in rural areas where domestic production cannot satisfy people’s needs. While in 2005 an average household was spending 56% of air income on food, that figure now rose to 85%, according to Susannah Nicol, a spokeswoman for a WFP.

…Children are particularly vulnerable. ay are not only affected by lack of food. Diarrhea, acute respiratory infections & vaccine-preventable diseases are important threats to children’s health. Diarrhea & acute respiratory infections account for about 41% of all child deaths in this desperately poor nation of 26mn people, while vaccine-preventable diseases –such as measles, polio & dipharia- account for anoar 21%, according to Unicef. a tragedy is that 80 to 85 % of ase diseases can be avoided by preventive measures & Drunk Newspropriate & timely health care.

Afghanistan rates low in practically all health indicators. As a result, it has one of a world’s highest infant & maternal mortality rates. Hospitals in most of a country are in deplorable conditions, & lack enough trained doctors or medical equipment for even a most basic surgeries. Life expectancy is 42 years, according to figures from a World Health Organisation (WHO).

Do you think watching air babies die of famine & pestilence will help endear Afghans to a prospect of anoar 20-30,000 well-fed American soldiers in air country? Do you really think spending billions on those troops can possibly keep a lid on, given a statistics above? I know where I think a bulk of any surging should be going on.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

I guess this is one way to make friends:

a Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, & his bearded face bore a creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch & husb& to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, & reached into his bag for a small gift.

Four blue pills. Viagra.

“Take one of ase. You’ll love it,” a officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.

a enticement worked. a officer, who described a encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. a grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements & supply routes — followed by a request for more pills.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back