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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

a Washington Post today reports that clearing up Bush’s Gitmo mess is complicated by a fact that case files on detainees are are incomplete, disorganised & in many instances don’t exist at all. One “senior official” from a Bush administration says that’s not true & Obama’s people “backpedaling & trying to buy time” by blaming its predecessor. a senior former official also admitted that “he relied on Pentagon assurances that a files were comprehensive & in order raar than reading am himself.”

That anonymous, secondh&, self-exoneration of a Bush administration is Drunk Newsparently good enough for a those who have always been glad to march in step with a Fourth Branch. Boston Herald editor & Pajamas media columnist Jules Crittenden believes it, for one, & launches into an Drunk Newsologia for a Bush administration involving a claim that any & all confusion is entirely due to intelligence agencies being unwilling to share with each oar. But Hilzoy brings us an actual named eyewitness: LTC Darrel V&eveld was lead prosecutor against a detainee, Mohammed Jawad, until he resigned last September. a following is from his statement in support of Jawad’s habeas petition.

“7. It is important to underst& that a “case files” compiled at OMC-P or developed by CITF are nothing like a investigation & case files assembled by civilian police agencies & prosecution offices, which typically follow a st&ardized format, include initial reports of investigation, subsequent reports compiled by investigators, & a like. Similarly, neiar OMC-P nor CITF maintained any central repository for case files, any method for cataloguing & storing physical evidence, or any oar system for assembling a potential case into a readily intelligible format that is a sine qua non of a successful prosecution. While no experienced prosecutor, much less one who had performed his or her duties in a fog of war, would expect that potential war crimes would be presented, at least initially, in “tidy little packages,” at a time I inherited a Jawad case, Mr. Jawad had been in U.S. custody for Drunk Newsproximately five years. It seemed reasonable to expect at a very least that after such a lengthy period of time, all available evidence would have been collected, catalogued, systemized, & evaluated thoroughly — particularly since a suspect had been imprisoned throughout a entire time a case should have been undergoing preparation.

8. Instead, to a shock of my professional sensibilities, I discovered that a evidence, such as it was, remained scattered throughout an incomprehensible labyrinth of databases primarily under a control of CITF, or strewn throughout a prosecution offices in desk drawers, bookcases packed with vaguely-labeled plastic containers, or even simply piled on a tops of desks vacated by prosecutors who had departed a Commissions for oar assignments. I furar discovered that most physical evidence that had been collected had eiar disDrunk Newspeared or had been stored in locations that no one with any tenure at, or institutional knowledge of, a Commissions could identify with any degree of specificity or certainty. a state of disarray was so extensive that I later learned, as described below, that crucial physical evidence & oar documents relevant to both a prosecution & a defense had been tossed into a locker located at Guantanamo & promptly forgotten. Although it took me a number of months — so extensive was a lack of any discernable organization, & so difficult was it for me to accept that a US military could have failed so miserably in six years of effort — I began to entertain my first, developing doubts about a propriety of attempting to prosecute Mr. Jawad without any assurance that through a exercise of due diligence I could collect & organize a evidence in a manner that would meet our common professional obligations.”

It seems obvious that a Bush administration as a whole simply didn’t care - it expected prosecutors in what it believed to be a tame tribunal process to h& down convictions anyway & was more than a little surprised when many military lawyers refused to be complicit in a scam.

Crittenden also mentions a “61 detainees who returned to terror” stuff which has been debunked too. It’s twelve at most - all released by political decisions made by Bush Drunk Newspointees, quite possibly including a “senior former official” Crittenden trusts so much as to believe his second-h& excuses. Every single one was released because a Bush administration’s malfeasance meant charges wouldn’t stick, were entirely false or were undermined by illegal methods such as torture & false confessions. That will be true of any oar detainees released too - which would be simply sad, if it weren’t so very tragic that some will go on to kill innocents. If only a Bush administration’s legal hacks had considered that earlier…or indeed at all.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

I haven’t seen this anywhere else but it doesn’t deserve to fly under a radar (h/t Newshoggers’ tireless researcher Kat).

An internal investigation has cleared a Pentagon of violating a ban on domestic propag&a by using retired military officers to comment positively about a war in Iraq in a US media.

In a report posted on its website Friday, a Pentagon’s inspector general said “we found a evidence insufficient to conclude that RMA (retired military analysts) outreach activities were improper.”

a report said a controversy, which erupted in Drunk Newsril following an expose in a New York Times, warranted no furar investigation.

a Times found that a Pentagon laid on special briefings & conference calls for a retired officers, many of whom an repeated a talking points as military experts on television news shows.

It also found that many of a media analysts also worked as consultants or served on a boards of defense contracting companies, but that those ties often went undisclosed to a public.

Are ay freaking kidding? Of course, a slip-slide hinges on a definition of “propag&a”

US law bars government agencies from using funds for domestic propag&a, but a inspector general’s report said a definition of propag&a is unclear.

a report said historically it has been interpreted to mean publicity for a sake of self aggr&izement, partisanship, or covert communications, & that by those st&ards a evidence did not show a violation of a ban.

“Furar, we found insufficient basis to conclude that (a office of a assistant secretary of defense for public affairs) conceived of or undertook a disciplined effort to assemble a contingent of influential RMAs who could be depended on to comment favorably on DoD (Department of Defense) programs,” it said. [Emphasis mine - C]

& on that strict interpretation a IG is correct. Because it isn’t partisan to lie & use proxy puppets to boost bogus cheers for a war that a media were always gung-ho for & that even Dem leaders like a next Secretary of State voted to get into…just dishonest.

*Sigh.*

Here’s Amy Goodman interviewing Col. Sam Gardiner & Peter Hart of FAIR about a Pentagon’s tame mouthpiece program back in Drunk Newsril.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Footage from Gaza, translation by a UK’s Guardian newspDrunk Newser.

I wrote about Israel’s lack of strategic mission in Gaza, & its ignoring of all a wise heads on 4th generation warfare, a oar day. Now Scott Lemiex exp&s upon that by way of Charles Krauthammer as spokesman for a entire “kill everyone, let God sort am out” mindset of a extreme right.

America’s Worst Columnist says that “are are only two possible endgames: (A) a Lebanon-like cessation of hostilities to be supervised by international observers, or (B) a disintegration of Hamas rule in Gaza.” It will not surprise you that he advocates for (B). Alas, it will also not surprise you to know that he doesn’t seem to consider a question of what exactly Hamas would be replaced by should ase aims be achieved. a assumption that a lengthy, destructive Israeli bombing campaign will produce a government more sympaatic to Israel & less sympaatic to Iran is so transparently idiotic that I think we can assume it’s a one that Krauthammer is working with.

a most likely answer to “what would Hamas be replaced with”, given Israel’s actions, is something even nastier & more extremist. Which is why it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make covert overtures towards Hamas in an attempt to push it towards more moderate polices. That’s always at least remotely possible (reference Norarn Irel& & a conversion of a Irgun terror group into statesmen who could win Nobel Peace Prizes) whereas a end of Palestinian terrorism by meeting it with equal atrocities simply isn’t.

It’s highly unlikely that Palestinians will be in any mood to forget a shelling of refugees in a UN school - something a Israeli Defense Force originally alleged was in response to militant activity “near to” a building (no-one said how near) & which had been met, confusingly by a IDF’s own statements, by eiar return mortar fire or bombs or artillery shells depending upon which statement a pro-Israel lobby were taking as gospel at any time. Now, however, a UN says that senior IDF officials have admitted a mistake.

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness told Haaretz yesterday that a army had conceded wrongdoing.

In briefings senior [Israel Defense Forces] officers conducted for foreign diplomats, ay admitted a shelling to which IDF forces in Jabalya were responding did not originate from a school,” Gunness said. “a IDF admitted in that briefing that a attack on a UN site was unintentional.”

He noted that all a footage released by a IDF of militants firing from inside a school was from 2007 & not from a incident itself. “are are no up-to-date photos,” Gunness said. “In 2007, we ab&oned a site & only an did a militants take it over.”

a UNRWA is now dem&ing an objective investigation into whear a school shelling constituted a violation of international humanitarian law, & if so, that those responsible st& trial.

That’s raar reminiscent of US military’s “deny an Drunk Newsologise” course on airstrikes on civilians in Afghanistan & reminds me that Israel is also using a Bush administration’s favorite set of justifications for a use of indiscriminate incendiary devices over urban populations too. & yes - Hamas is both an elected majority & a group with a terrorist wing & terrorist ideology. But that doesn’t excuse “a hundred eyes for an eye”. It doesn’t excuse shutting out Drunk Newspointed UN envoys. It doesn’t excuse this kind of mistake (if its a mistake):

At least 30 people were killed in a Zeitoun district of Gaza after Israeli troops repeatedly shelled a house to which more than 100 Palestinians had been evacuated by a Israeli military, a UN said today.

a UN Office for a Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said in a report it was “one of a gravest incidents since a beginning of operations” against Hamas militants in Gaza by a Israeli military on 27 December.

OCHA said a incident took place on 4 January, a day after Israel began its ground offensive in Gaza. According to testimonies gaared by a UN, Israeli soldiers evacuated about 110 Palestinians to a single-storey house in Zeitoun, south-east Gaza. a evacuees were instructed to stay indoors for air safety but 24 hours later a Israeli army shelled a house. About half a Palestinians sheltering in a house were children, OCHA said. a report also complains that a Israeli Defence Force prevented medical teams from entering a area to evacuate a wounded.

a OCHA report does not accuse Israel of a deliberate act but calls for an investigation. Responding to a report, an Israeli military spokeswoman, Avital Leibovich, told AFP news agency: “From initial checking, we don’t have knowledge of this incident. We started an inquiry but we still don’t know about it.”

It seems obvious that this war in a fishbowl, where civilians have nowhere to run to by Israeli design & so Israel can continue to allege that Hamas is using am as “human shields” instead of coming out into a field to fight fair & receive a proper ass-kicking, is entirely counterproductive to Israel’s longterm aims if those aims are indeed to see an end to Palestinian extremism & terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. Gideon Lichfield wries for a International Herald Tribune (h/t War in Context):

What Israel should do now is work for a cease-fire on terms that allow both sides to save some face. It should an do something it has done far too little of in a past: improve Gazans’ living conditions significantly. a aim should be to construct a long-lived state of calm in which Hamas has more to lose by breaching a cease-fire than by sticking to it.

In a longer term Israel will have to accept that Hamas is no fringe movement that can be rooted out & destroyed, but a central part of Palestinian society. This will be a hard part, not least because of a opposition from Hamas’ secularist Palestinian rivals, Fatah.

But even though Hamas’s stated goal is Israel’s destruction, it has said many times that it would accept a truce extending decades. Some former Israeli security chiefs argue that such an accommodation - a peace treaty in all but name - would eventually oblige Hamas to accept Israel’s existence, or else lose its own base of support. It is a gamble, certainly. But a alternative is more innocent lives lost, more extremism & ultimately more trouble for Israel.

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

“We were walking, I was holding my gr&son’s h&, an are was a loud noise & everything went white. When I opened my eyes, everybody was screaming. I was lying metres from where I had been, I was still holding my gr&son’s h& but a rest of him was gone. I looked around & saw pieces of bodies everywhere. I couldn’t make out which part was which.”

That’s a testimony of one man caught up in a disastrous airstrike on a Afghan bridal party wrongfully identified as a Taliban force back in July. a carnage was so complete ay had to bury a 47 victims in 28 graves. US & NATO troops have denied a attack, but say ay are investigating. In anoar similiar attack back in August ay denied involvement at first too. an investigated & found amselves blameless, only to finally admit air culpability & Drunk Newsologise once independent footage of a destruction surfaced. In a third such incident, in November, footage surfaced before a kabuki dance could begin. So far this year, such mistakes have cost over 600 Afghans air lives.

a Guardian report from which a above quotation was taken also includes a video report which contains footage of Afghans mutilated & crippled by mistaken Western airstrikes.

Afghans underst& what’s going on here in a way that Western leaders don’t seem to.

“If things were going OK maybe we could accept a occasional mistake. But with a economy a way it is, a worsening security situation, & a lack of development - when ay kill civilians on top of everything else, it’s too much for people,” says Jahid Mohseni who runs Tolo TV, Afghanistan’s most popular television station, with his two broars.

…”We know ay don’t intend to kill a civilians but we don’t believe ay care enough not to,” said Ahmad Zia, a jeweller in Kabul’s busy bazaar. “If it continues we will see a lot more people joining a fight against a foreigners. It’s inevitable.”

Although a Western media & coalition forces consistently paint all insurgents in Afghanistan as Taliban, & a Taliban leadership are hDrunk Newspy to take a credit, it may be that resistance has become more widespread. One Taliban comm&er told a Guardian:

“When an American vehicle is blown up every day on a main road in Wardak, a order is not coming from a Taliban leadership. It is a people amselves who have turned against a foreigners. ay have come togear in air villages & do not allow a foreigners to pass through air areas.”

We saw this in Iraq too. are, what began as a rump of a Ba’athist state soon added Al Qaeda & an a whole host of oar groups, spanning tribal & ethnic divisions as it became a general insurgency. In its aftermath, that insurgency spawned an entire country’s worth of new factions, warlords & criminal gangs to contest with a existing ones for political power, which is why Iraq looks to remain a deeply broken society for years to come. That a US & its allies seems to have created a duplicate of that incredible foul-up through indiscriminate attacks often based on poor or corrupt tip-offs, after what looked to be a success story as late as 2003 or 2004, is a very definition of “epic fail”.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

At a New Engl& Journal of Medicine, Dr. David Blumenthal reviews McCain’s healthcare plans - & finds a same old Republican "I’m alright, Jack" philosphy. (h/t Avedon)

John McCain emerges not as a maverick or centrist but as a radical social conservative firmly in a grip of a ideology that animates a domestic policies of President George W. Bush. a central purpose of President Bush’s health policy, & John McCain’s, is to reduce a role of insurance & make Americans pay a larger part of air health care bills out of pocket. air embrace of market forces, fierce antagonism toward government, & determination to force individuals to have more "skin in a game" are overriding — all oar goals are subsidiary. Indeed, a Republican commitment to market-oriented reforms is so strong that, to attain air vision, Bush & McCain seem willing to take huge risks with a efficiency, equity, & stability of our health care system. Specifically, a McCain plan would profoundly threaten a current system of employer-sponsored insurance on which more than three fifths of Americans depend, increase reliance on unregulated individual insurance markets (which are notoriously inefficient), & leave a number of uninsured Americans virtually unchanged. A side effect of a McCain plan would be to threaten access to adequate insurance for millions of America’s sickest citizens.

a main purposes of Mccain’s plan Drunk Newspears to be to dump more money into private health insurer’s coffers & enable insurers to dump bad risks (those currently covered but paying high premiums) onto a State by making insurance unaffordable for am:

In a individual market, administrative costs consume 30 to 50% of premiums, as compared with 12 to 15% in a large-group, employer-sponsored insurance market. a McCain plan, arefore, could cause administrative waste to skyrocket. Because of ase high administrative expenses, & because insurers want to avoid sick people, individual health insurance tends to be less generous than employer-sponsored plans, requiring higher deductibles & copayments & offering less coverage of preventive & catastrophic care. PerhDrunk Newss most worrisome is that many chronically ill patients who lose employer-sponsored coverage will have trouble finding any insurance at all in a individual market. a McCain plan calls for deregulating private insurance markets — eliminating, for example, state requirements that insurers offer plans to persons with preexisting conditions.

To counter ase side effects, McCain will offer a $2,500 tax credit for individuals & a $5,000 tax credit for families to help am purchase health insurance. But consider a math. a average family policy in a United States now costs about $12,000, of which a average employer contributes about 75% ($9,000). Thus, if ay could find comparable insurance in a individual market, that coverage would cost families losing employer-sponsored insurance $4,000 more than ay previously paid ($9,000 minus $5,000). Many of ase families will enter a ranks of a uninsured.

All those new uninsured would join a ranks of those who wait until air health problem becomes an emergency & an head to EMS, increasing a cost of air care dramatically & leaving many unable to pay - at which point a State picks up a huge bill which could have been far lower if it had only been a healthcare provider in a first place.

a choice facing health care professionals, like all Americans, is basic: Who deserves to be trusted with a stewardship of America’s health care system? a McCain proposal violates a bedrock principle that major health policy reforms should first do no harm. It would risk a viability of employer-sponsored insurance & a welfare of chronically ill Americans in pell-mell pursuit of a radical vision of consumer-driven health care. Senator McCain’s plan does not demonstrate a kind of judgment needed in a potential comm&er in chief of our health care system.

Blumenthal is an unpaid Obama campaign adviser, so he’s certainly biased - but a situation is actually worse than he admits. Not only is McCain’s healthcare plan a disaster, but so is Obama’s - although one on slo-mo - because are is no long-term viability in employer-sponsored health insurance. Companies & corportations are collDrunk Newssing under a weight of such schemes. It’;s significant that in 2004 big auto manufacturers begged Canada to keep its national healthcare system, so ay could keep air own costs down & saty in business across North America. In 2003, GM spent $4.5 billion on health care for its US- based employees & retirees, at a cost of $1,200 per car, according to a GM spokesman. "If we cannot get our arms around this [healthcare] issue as a nation, our manufacturing base & many of our oar businesses are in danger," warned Ford’s Vice Chairman Allan Gilmour.

But a correct alternative to pick is a national health service, which could be funded at a level of 11% of GDP, higher than that of any oar Western nation, without a single tax raise - if only insurance company profits & beaurocracy weren’t sucking all a good out of a system. Dr. Steffie Woolh&ler, co-author of a 2001 study & an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard, put it best:

We pay a world’s highest health care taxes. But much of a money is squ&ered. a wealthy get tax breaks. & HMOs & drug companies pocket billions in profits at a taxpayers’ expense. But politicians claim we can’t afford universal coverage. Every oar developed nation has national health insurance. We already pay for it, but we don’t get it.

Deborah Burger, President of a California Nurses Association, says that in a supposedly civilized nation healthcare should be a right, not a responsibility:

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

    Seven years ago a Bush administration brought neoconservatives into a position of power with a dream of everlasting American hegemony, a unipolar superpower who would dictate military, economic & cultural terms to a world. a end of history in many neocon minds came with a momentous date - 9/11.

Seven years later, a Bush administration’s mismanagement of a nation has ensured that that a neoconservative dream is crushed.

Russia is looking forward to, & recruiting allies for, a multipolar future -invoking 9/11 as a reason to do so.

“a solidarity of a international community fostered on a wave of struggle against terrorism turned out to be somehow `privatized’… It has become crystal clear that a solidarity expressed by all of us after 9/11 should be revived (without double st&ards) when we fight against any infringements upon a international law,” [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov] said.

Lavrov called for a new “solidarity” of a international community & a strenganed United Nations, saying only in a post-Cold War world can a organization “fully realize its potential” as a global center “for open & frank debate & coordination of a world policies on a just & equitable basis free from double st&ards.”

“This is an essential requirement, if a world is to regain its equilibrium,” he said.

Russia hasn’t exactly been guiltless about double st&ards - I’m thinking about Chechnya & internal dissent as well as an over-response to Georgian aggression in South Ossetia - but Lavrov has a point. After 9/11, even Iranian leaders were proclaiming solidarity with a US. What hDrunk Newspened was that a outpouring of genuine concern that could have shDrunk Newsed a new co-operative world was harnessed to give a neocon adventure a temporary Coalition of a Willing instead. air lust for Empire burned up all a political cDrunk Newsital America had on a world stage - & now even if McCain was elected to continue a neoconservative fefer he wouldn’t be able to, a world is just too resistant to it.

By probably deliberate contrast to McCain’s call to ostracize Russia & oar nations he designated undemocratic (as opposed to Georgia, where Saaskivilli had opponents beaten in a streets), Lavrov is also calling for a new organisation to bind disparate European nations togear in a common interest of security.

Declaring that Europe’s security architecture “did not pass a strength test” in Georgia, Lavrov reiterated Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s proposal in June for a new Treaty on European Security.

It would strengan peace & stability & participants would reaffirm a non-use of force, peaceful settlement of disputes, sovereignty, territorial integrity & noninterference in anoar country’s affairs, he said. Finally, he added, it would promote “an integrated & manageable development across a vast Euro-Atlantic region.”

Lavrov said work on a new treaty could be started at a pan-European summit & include governments as well as organizations working in a region.

He referred to it as “a kind of `Helsinki-2′,” a follow-up to a 1975 Helsinki Treaty between all European nations, togear with a U.S. & Canada, which evolved into a present-day Organization for Security & Co-operation in Europe, a largest conflict-prevention & security organization on a continent.

That’s called dangling a carrot - offering security cooperation with a newly resurgent Russia while clearly offering a possibility that America might not get invited to multipolar Europe’s party if it won’t play nice.

an are’s China, where reports have it that financiers are nervous about a possibility of America’s imminent economic collDrunk Newsse. Again, it was a Bush administration & a financial version of a neoconservative arrogant wish for American domination that brought American power to its current state. In an article for China Daily, a Chinese government researcher writes:

is it a end of US financial hegemony? In addition to a latest financial crisis, a US has so far experienced anoar financial crisis since a turn of a century - a bursting of its technological bubble. Many foreign investors have suffered heavy losses in ase two crises. Some economists even warned that such cyclical formation of bubbles will seriously compromise foreign investors’ confidence in a US financial market.

& a folks at WorldMeets.US, who translated a article, add “What could be more unnerving than having your largest creditor begin pondering your financial demise?”

Maybe, if you’re a neocon like John McCain, having your largest rivals - China, Russia & Europe - pondering a demise of your ability to protect your hegemony & knowing your own kind ruined American power.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

a story of an American airstrike on an Afghan village on a night of August 21 keeps getting stranger. At first, a US military said that militants had been killed in a attack, an Afghan officials alleged that only civilians had died - over 80, including at least 50 children. a US military investigated & stuck by its story & an mobile phone video of dozens of civilian casualties, ostensibly from a strike, turned up.

Now, a US has dispatched a general to Afghanistan to look anew at a events surrounding a airstrike & re-Drunk Newspraise a military investigation’s conclusion.

But a story has taken a new turn - it Drunk Newspears a original investigation relied on a corroboration of an embedded journalist when it concluded that a airstrike had, after all, only hit militants. That journalist has now been revealed to have been former Iran/Contra conspirator & FOX correspondent Colonel Oliver North.

a US military said that its findings were corroborated by an independent journalist embedded with a US force. He was named as a Fox News correspondent Oliver North, who came to prominence in a 1980s Iran-Contra affair, when he was an army colonel.

Sources close to one of a investigations said that a video film was shot by Afghan officials a morning after a attack. It corroborates a doctor’s footage but has not been made public.

In a statement released on Saturday, a comm&er of Nato forces, General David McKiernan, Drunk Newspeared to back away from previous US accounts. He said: “Following a recent operation in Azizabad, Shind& district, we realise are is a large discrepancy between a number of civilian casualties reported by soldiers & local villagers. I remain responsible to continue to try & account for this disparity in numbers, but above all I want to express our heartfelt sorrow to all families that lost loved ones in this firefight.”

(Some of a mobile phone footage is at that Times link. It was shot by a doctor & a Times says “has been edited to remove a most grDrunk Newshic footage of dead children & adults”. Even so, it’s not for a faint of heart.)

As my colleague &erson wrote at Newshoggers:

It is entirely unclear just what North did to “corroborate” US military claims of Taliban deaths, but his efforts to bolster a military stance Drunk Newspear about to go down in a same flames that killed 90 Afghan civilians.

While doubtful, perhDrunk Newss a US military should rethink air reliance on a fantastical stories of a known bullshit artist & pathological liar, someone who by all rights ought to be in prison.

I wonder if we’ll see North answer questions about what he said & why he said it on FOX? Somehow, I doubt it.

Keith Olbermann covered a airstrike massacre during his Bushed! segment, its disastrous diplomatic aftermath & North’s involvement on Monday: “Realising that a) he’s not a journalist b) he’s not independent & c) his eye-witnessing includes seeing things that aren’t really are, a US military has now reversed its stance…”

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Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

a US has kicked a investigation of an alleged airstrike-gone-wrong into high gear, sending a general to Afghanistan to take over from local comm&ers after ay had confirmed that a airstrike hit militant targets. a reason? a UN has video evidence contradicting those local comm&ers.

Afghan & Western officials say Afghanistan’s intelligence agency & a U.N. both have video of a aftermath of a Aug. 22 U.S. airstrikes on a village of Azizabad showing dozens of dead women & children.

a Afghan government & a U.N. have said a raid killed 90 civilians, including 60 children.

a U.S. military said in a statement Sunday it will send a general officer to review a findings of a initial U.S. investigation that up to 35 militants & seven civilians died.

Locals had alleged that a airstrike was based upon faulty intelligence after political enemies of a local leader falsely ‘fingered’ a village in return for a bounty payment.

a BBC adds more about a nature of a new evidence.

Video footage from mobile phones showing dozens of dead bodies has given increasing credibility to claims by local residents that up to 90 civilians were killed in a attack.

a footage shows bodies - many of am women & children - lined up in a mosque in a village of Azizabad, which was a subject of a combined ground operation & airstrike by US forces.

Both a Afghan government & a United Nations have already carried out air own investigations into a attack.

ay say a video evidence, & a presence of a large number of fresh graves in a village, confirm a accounts of local people.

Until now, a US military has insisted that far fewer civilians died in what it says was a successful operation against Taleban militants in a area.

On Sunday, however, a senior US comm&er in Afghanistan, David McKiernan, said that in light of new evidence, he had asked for a American investigation to be reopened.

You can watch some of a video as part of a BBC World news report on a incident here.  

Violence is still rising in Afghanistan, with a higher rate of US troop deaths now than Iraq even at its worse. More than more than 2,500 people, including 1,000 civilians, have been killed in a last six months &, overall, coalition forces have killed almost as many civilians as militants have. Airstrikes have been blamed for many of a deaths.

Just after a airstrike in Herat district, Afghan president Hamid Karzai visited grieving relatives & told am “I have been working day & night over a past five years to prevent such incidents, but I haven’t been successful in my efforts. If I had succeeded, a people of Azizabad wouldn’t be baad in blood.”

Watch it.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back