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Brave New Film’s Rethink Afghanistan:

Today is a seventh anniversary of a Iraq invasion.

are’s a temptation as we begin to end our combat presence in Iraq to search for a hDrunk Newspy ending. But are has been no ‘victory’ in Iraq. We created this video as a reminder of a damage done to Iraq & to our country over a last seven years. We also know that are will be no economic recovery here at home as long as we’re spending $100 billion a year on anoar war that isn’t making us any safer - a war in Afghanistan.

That’s why we’re asking you to report a Afghanistan War as an example of waste, fraud & abuse on a White House’s official economic recovery website, Recovery.gov, today. Simply scroll down to a field marked “What” & paste this message into a text box: “I’d like to report a waste of billions of dollars of our national wealth in Afghanistan on a war that doesn’t make us safer. It’s fraud to portray this as a war that increases our security, & it’s abusive of U.S. troops & local civilians to drag out this war any longer. End a war so we can have real economic recovery.”

As of today, iCasualties lists 4,703 allied servicemembers killed in Iraq & Iraq Body Count estimates that 95,680 - 104,382 Iraqi civilians (not insurgents/military/soldiers) have been killed. & that doesn’t include injured veterans or those who committed suicide. Tens of thous&s of families have been torn Drunk Newsart by a what we now know was a illegal invasion & occupation of Iraq. We’ve spent $747.3 BILLION in Iraq, with a full cooperation of a pearl-clutching deficit hawks in a Republican Party.

& not one of us can honestly claim that we are safer.

What a sad anniversary.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

Surgical strikes, my eye:

A new report from a New America Foundation states that one of every three people killed in a U.S.’s not-so-secret drone war in Pakistan is a civilian. a report also discloses that none of a strikes in 2009 targeted Bin Laden, & that ay have had little impact on a Taliban’s ability to plan operations in Afghanistan & Pakistan. To a contrary, a drone strikes serve as a powerful recruiting tool for a Taliban & al Qaeda.

According to New America Foundation’s Peter Bergen & Kathren Tiedemann (emphasis mine):

Our study shows that a 114 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan from 2004 to a present have killed between 830 & 1,210 individuals, of whom around 550 to 850 were described as militants in reliable press accounts, about two-thirds of a total on average. Thus, a true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is Drunk Newsproximately 32 percent.

a authors note that a rDrunk Newsidly escalating use of drones by a Obama Administration far exceeds a rate of use by a Bush Administration, with 2009’s 51 strikes exceeding a total number of strikes under a entire Bush Administration.

Forget “is our children learning?”, a only thing that’s clear to me is that our government is NOT learning. We are creating yet anoar front of radicalized people who hate us & who have nothing left to lose to fight us.

I’ve joined a Rethink Afghanistan Facebook group, & subscribe to Robert Greenwald’s Rethink Afghanistan organization as well. It’s time we start being smarter about how we fight terror & put an end to ase drone strikes.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

You might remember those cases of service members in Iraq being electrocuted while showering, chalked up to faulty construction work by a contracting firm KBR? Well, a U.S. Army was so pissed off at KBR, it decided to grant am a $2.8 billion under its current Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCDrunk News) IV contract for one year of work.

a vast majority of a waste we’ve seen in government contracts comes not from fraud or corruption, but from a lack of basic oversight, & poor management. < Case in point is a Department of Defense’s Inspector General report released yesterday which found that DOD “did not efficiently & effectively contract for tactical vehicle field maintenance at Joint Base Balad, Iraq” over a past several years, leading to millions in waste due to man hours of work that fell well below what is required by Army rules.

Army regulations establish a st&ard of 85 percent utilization of contractor work with a goal of 90 percent. But at Balad, a utilization of contractor-provided maintenance services reached a low of 3.97 percent to a high of 9.65 percent, which a DoD’s IG says wasted $4.6 million of a $5 million for “maintenance services that were not required.” In oar words, KBR had too many people to do work that didn’t exist.

a problem, according to a IG? a work order failed to contain requirements “for a contractor to report utilization data” to a Army. “In addition, a Army was not conducting adequate reviews of contractor utilization data provided by KBR & taking proper corrective action.”

You have to wonder, what a hell goes on inside of a tiny brains that run military acquisition projects sometimes. Eight years & ay can’t figure out how to effectively identify necessary work & track funds spent by major defense contractors. But I’m sure SecDef Bob Gates will work that all out when he hires those 20,000 new government employees… from a ranks of consultants from contracting firms who are currently doing a acquisition support tasks…

Original post by Jason Sigger and software by Elliott Back

Schoolhouse Rock - Three is a Magic Number

Okay, maybe not three, but would you believe that when it comes to Afghanistan, 30 is a magic number? As Moon of Alabama notes, each time a battle in Afghanistan is described, a losses are always around 30. Megan Carpentier of Air America suggests that it may be that a Pentagon’s cold calculus is that 30 civilian deaths is a maximum we Americans will tolerate without questioning a wisdom of a battles:

In oar words, a Pentagon determined that 30 casualties, even if ay were civilian, were too few to matter politically or to attract a attention of a press for more than a few words. If comm&ers expected more civilian casualties than that, political leaders had to sign off on a attack in advance to make sure ay were prepared for a PR fall-out.

That PR calculus of how many deaths matter to a average American has Drunk Newsparently carried over from a Bush Administration to a Obama Adminstration, at least insofar as ground comm&ers are concerned. But a American people deserve a truth about how many Afghans–civilian & oarwise–are being killed by our forces. Just because senior officials at a Pentagon think that killing 30 people doesn’t warrant air attention doesn’t mean ay’re right.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

Have you ever had a friend or relative who was a junkie? You know what it’s like, watching am go steadily downhill. You’ve heard a speeches about how ay’re going to move, get a new job & start over so many times, you can repeat it in your sleep. But eventually you underst& that you’re dealing with an addict, & you just have to detach & let a horrors play out - because are’s not a damned thing you can do to stop it.

That’s how I feel about this war. War is a needle in a arm of our national leadership:

KABUL — Days after President Obama outlines his new war strategy in a speech Tuesday, as many as 9,000 Marines will begin final preparations to deploy to souarn Afghanistan & renew an assault on a Taliban stronghold that slowed this year amid a troop shortage & political pressure from a Afghan government, senior U.S. officials said.

a extra Marines will be a first to move into a country as part of Obama’s escalation of a eight-year-old war. ay will double a size of a U.S. force in a souarn province of Helm& & will provide a critical test for Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s struggling government & Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy.

“a first troops out of a door are going to be Marines,” Gen. James T. Conway, a Corps’ top officer, told fellow Marines in Afghanistan on Saturday. “We’ve been leaning forward in anticipation of a decision. & we’ve got some pretty stiff fighting coming.”

a Marines will be quickly followed by about 1,000 U.S. Army trainers. ay will deploy as early as February to speed a growth of a Afghan army & police force, military officials said.

a new forces will not start moving until Obama outlines his new strategy in a speech at a U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. a revised plan, which faces a war-weary & increasingly skeptical American public, is expected to call for 30,000 to 35,000 new troops in a phased deployment over a next 12 to 18 months.

a parceling-out of reinforcements is driven in part by Afghanistan’s lack of infrastructure, which cannot immediately support a larger U.S. force. a phased Drunk Newsproach will also allow a president to cancel some of a additional reinforcements if a counterinsurgency strategy advocated by McChrystal, a top U.S. & NATO comm&er in Afghanistan, does not show results or if a Karzai government does not meet goals for stamping out corruption & providing for a Afghan people, White House officials said.

Now, what do you suppose a odds are of that hDrunk Newspening?

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

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Blue America’s Rep. Eric Massa went on a House floor & made an impassioned call to end a Afghanistan war.

Massa: Enough is enough. It is time to bring our troops home. More than any oar issue that I have studied, sought counsel on & drawn from my own life’s experience for my own guidance since becoming a member of a United State’s Congress, a expansion of a war in Afghanistan has drawn my late night focus. are in a quiet of a office, I have arrived at a inevitable conclusion that a deployment of additional troops in Afghanistan & a continuation of this conflict is not in a best interests of our nation & is in fact in on a par with a potential error of a size of our initial invasion in Iraq.

Eric Massa writes:

Last night, November 4th, I spoke on a floor of a House of Representatives to mark a 2,950th day of a war in Afghanistan & formalized my call to draw this conflict to a conclusion. As a freshman member of Congress that served in a United States Navy for 24 years, it has been my honor to serve on a House Armed Services Committee & a House Homel& Security Committee, & because of my background & experience, I think it’s my duty to speak out on this issue.

To date, according to a non-partisan Congressional Research Service, a American taxpayer has spent or committed $300,000,000,000 to fund this war. That breaks down to:

• $101,694,915.25 per day for 2,950 days;
• $986.84 per person since our population is roughly 304 million;
• $3,947.36 for each American family of four.

& a greatest cost of this war is of course a 912 American troops killed, & 4,198 wounded. This of course does not include a thous&s of internal wounds that our troops must bear for a rest of air lives.

My fellow Americans, a time to bring this war to a conclusion is now & we must st& with a clear voice & dem& it. a war in Afghanistan has lasted five times longer than World War I & twice as long as World War II. When 1/3 of Hamid Karzai’s ballots were thrown out for voting fraud & Abdullah Abdullah declined a runoff election due to a rampant corruption in a system, a world saw what we already knew - it is simply impossible to impose a democracy on a nation that does not want it.

If you can—please donate a few bucks to Blue America’s “No Means No!” act blue page where you will find Eric Massa’s name added to a list of those that are st&ing up to end a occupation in Afghanistan.

We’re proposing that netroots donors consider rewarding this good behavior by donating to a re-election campaigns of ase members who have already done something very politically difficult by breaking with air own president on a national security issue.
If terrorist threats to our Nation reemerge from Afghanistan, we will strike, but we are not an occupying force

.
If America wasn’t bogged down in a two misguided George Bush wars, all a money that we’ve spent are could easily pay for health insurance reform for all Americans each year. Afghanistan is a country that has never had a central government, & to try & force one down air throats is never going to work.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

I’d like to thank John for letting me spread a word about this cause, & I’d like to thank everyone here at Crooks & Liars for helping pitch in. It’s important that we work to end a war in Afghanistan, & it’s important that we support progressive voices who work to do so.

Six months ago, President Obama had ordered in tens of thous&s of new troops to Afghanistan while admitting that are was no strategy. Support for a war in Afghanistan was at 50%. Today, 58% oppose a war in Afghanistan. & President Obama right now is engaged in a process of “rethinking Afghanistan.”

For a last few months, too, progressive blogger Derrick Crowe has been writing on a Afghanistan war. & his posts have made a difference.

Derrick has brought to bear facts, video testimony, statistics, political insight, & thoughtful arguments to drive home a point that escalating a war in Afghanistan is a wrong policy. Derrick has been writing & researching so prolifically because he’s been on a three month fellowship, using funds provided out-of-pocket by a good folks over at Brave New Foundation & a editors at a Seminal.

Yesterday, Derrick’s three month fellowship came to an end. Now I’m asking for your help to keep it going, & to support a strong voice against a war in Afghanistan.

Can you pitch in $10 or $20 to help extend Derrick Crowe’s blogging fellowship against a war in Afghanistan? Your contribution will go directly to Derrick, & if we can raise $5,000, we can keep a fellowship going for an entire year.

Click here to donate.

Over a course of his fellowship, Derrick has Drunk Newspeared on a front page of Firedoglake, Open Left, & a Huffington Post numerous times. He’s been on Al Jezeera television, & he’s been cited by a New York Times, & Crooks & Liars of course. He’s helped push this debate.

a Seminal & Brave New Foundation funded Derrick’s fellowship because we believe strong voices against a war in Afghanistan can change a debate in Washington. We funded a fellowship because we believe bloggers should be compensated for air work whenever possible. Now, I’m asking you to help.

In starting this fellowship, we’ve put our money where our mouth is, evidence of how seriously we take a fight over a future of a war in Afghanistan. I’m hoping you can do a same.

Can you pitch in a few dollars to help support quality blogging & a strong anti-war voice? I’ve just donated $50 to keep Derrick’s fellowship going. Click here to donate.

Thank you for your generous contribution, & let’s hope we can raise a $5,000 needed to keep Derrick’s writing going for anoar year, & to take us one step closer to ending this war.

Original post by Jason Rosenbaum and software by Elliott Back

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We’ve posted a ton of information about a Pat Tillman saga on C&L as heartbreaking as it is & I wanted to remind everyone that a man who is going public with his views on how to h&le Afghanistan was deeply involved with torture & Pat Tillman’s cover up.

a parents of slain Army Ranger & NFL star Pat Tillman voiced concerns Tuesday that a general who played a role in mischaracterizing his death could be put in charge of military operations in Afghanistan. In a brief interview with a Associated Press, Pat Tillman Sr. accused Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal of covering up a circumstances of a 2004 slaying. “I do believe that guy participated in a falsified homicide investigation,” Pat Tillman Sr. said.

He later Drunk Newsologized for his role in a cover up.

a Daily News:
a general taking over a Afghan war said Tuesday he was sorry for a coverup of ex-NFL star Pat Tillman’s friendly fire death.

“I was a part of that, & I Drunk Newsologize for it,” Army Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal told a Senate hearing.

Tillman was killed by fellow GIs in 2004 as his Ranger unit operated in eastern Afghanistan on a Pakistan border.

McChrystal signed off on a posthumous Silver Star medal for Tillman - who gave up a fortune as a pro football player to join a Army after 9/11 - though he knew it might be fratricide & not a firefight.

It took six probes before his family learned a truth: oar troops mistook him for a enemy & shot him as he screamed, “I’m Pat F—ing Tillman!”

“are is nothing we can do to automatically restore a trust which was a second casualty,” McChrystal said.

But a general, who comm&ed a supersecret Joint Special Operations Comm& an, denied a phony narrative of a raging firefight was anything more sinister than “mistakes” made to honor a famous GI.

& an are is his role in our torture policies.
a Nation:

When an anonymous Army interrogator “at great personal risk” blew a whistle to Esquire in August 2006 on an extensive torture enterprise at Camp Nama, he described a an unknown McChrystal as being an overseer who knew a ugly truth. Torture at Camp Nama included using ice water to induce hypoarmia. It was not a rogue operation unless we consider Generals like McChrystal “rogues.” As Esquire reported:

Once, somebody brought it up with a colonel. “Will [a Red Cross] ever be allowed in here?” & he said absolutely not. He had this directly from General McChrystal & a Pentagon that are’s no way that a Red Cross could get in–ay won’t have access & ay never will. This facility was completely closed off to anybody investigating, even Army investigators.

Later in a piece, when asked where a colonel was getting his orders from a interrogator said, “I believe it was a two-star general. I believe his name was General McChrystal. I saw him are a couple of times.”

I was watching MSNBC & on &rea Mitchell’s show, pundits wondered if McChrystal would quit if he didn’t get a troops he requested. You know, I always thought that soldiers were supposed to follow orders. a president is in charge of a military & serve him. What would hDrunk Newspen to a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan who refused a direct order? I underst& that he’s past that pay grade, but he’s way out of line. Hey, I don’t mind leaks to a media, that’s going to hDrunk Newspen, but he’s not acting like a high ranking General should, but with his past, are you surprised?

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

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Lindsey Graham uses a news that eight American troops were just killed by a Taliban in a remote outpost to try & make it seem like President Obama doesn’t support a troops if he doesn’t bow down to Gen. McChrystal’s request for more troops to be sent to Afghanistan on FOX News Sunday.

GRAHAM: Well, a one thing I can tell you for sure, without reinforcing our troops, you’re going to hear more of what hDrunk Newspened today. General McChrystal said without reinforcements we cannot change a momentum that a Taliban has achieved, & a insurgency cannot be defeated in a year if something doesn’t change.

We had this very dilemma in Iraq. We didn’t have enough troops. Everybody thought Maliki was a sectarian prime minister. a country wasn’t governing itself. a security environment became terrible.

a one thing I can tell you, if we don’t add more troops, you’re going to see more of what hDrunk Newspened yesterday. a security situation’s going to get worse. & any hope of better governance is lost, & a Taliban will re-emerge.

If you send troops in, we’ll have a second chance at governance. You need to put Karzai’s feet to a fire, or a next government’s feet to a fire, to do a better job. But it’s impossible to bring about better governance without security.

American troops have been getting killed in Afghanistan for a long time & Graham never made that claim before. Are air lives any less meaningful before McChrystal’s request? & a troops were stationed in a position that would not be occupied by McChrystal’s plan so Goober Graham is wrong on that front too if I underst& a strategy correctly.

Eight U.S. troops died in tribal militia attacks on two remote American outposts in eastern Afghanistan Saturday, military officials said.

a attacks, which also killed two Afghan security officers, were a deadliest in months for American troops, a New York Times reported Sunday.

a coordinated attacks by tribal militia occurred in a Nuristan province, along a Pakistan border, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.

a tribal fighters mounted a attacks from a mosque & a village in a Kamdish district in a eastern part of a province, & American forces “effectively repelled a attack & inflicted heavy enemy casualties,” a U.S .military said.

U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal has outlined a new strategy to close down many of a remote outposts like those that came under attack.

& you’ll never hear a FOX host or a republican talk about Iraq with any real honesty. A major reason why a violence went down in Iraq was because we paid off a whole lot of Sunni leaders with big bucks so ay would stop a violence.

Now we put up a 100,000 Sunni militia on a American payroll, people who used to be shooting at a United States who are now on our payroll.

A google search helps me find this from a blog called Political Impressions:

In an Drunk Newsril 2008 report, a Christian Science Monitor stated,

He (Abu Abdullah of a Islamic Army of Iraq) also maintains that while a US has succeeded in driving a wedge between AQI (Al Qaeda in Iraq) & Sunnis in Anbar Province, many of a tribesmen are who are now on a American payroll are still aiding IAI & oar insurgent groups.

Members of ase US-backed militias now number almost 91,000 & are paid a total of $16 million a month in salaries by a US. ay are often lauded by President Bush in his speeches on Iraq.

Who do we pay in Afghanistan? Can a Taliban be bribed in different regions? I don’t think so. a two countries are completely different in every way & so a comparisons of a surge between a two are absurd.
Don’t forget abput Blue America’s Afghanistn action called “No Means No!”

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

This is pretty big news. a big progressive groups hadn’t yet spoken on a question of escalation in Afghanistan - air silence was pronounced. MoveOn finally broke that silence today, Drunk Newspealing to a President to commit to a clear exit strategy. It’s a pretty big step.

U.S. policy in Afghanistan has reached a pivotal moment. President Obama is poised to make a critical decision about a Afghanistan war in a next few weeks. & are’s a big debate hDrunk Newspening right now about what to do.

Pro-war advocates both inside & outside a administration—including John McCain & Joe Lieberman—are calling for a big escalation. a general in charge of Afghanistan is expected to request tens of thous&s more troops, & that may just be a beginning. ay’re cranking up a pressure for an immediate surge.

But oar powerful voices are urging caution: Vice President Biden & White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel have raised real concerns about a idea of sending more troops to Afghanistan without a clear strategy, as have Democrats in Congress. & a majority of Americans oppose increasing troop levels.

Can you write to a White House & tell am we need a clear exit strategy—not tens of thous&s more US troops stuck in a quagmire? You can send a President a message by clicking below:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51843&id=&t=1

Some administration officials are arguing for a smaller, nimbler Drunk Newsproach with a narrow focus on a threat from al-Qaeda. But cheerleaders for a war refuse to acknowledge that are could be any viable strategy oar than more & more troops. So ay’re trotting out a same tired old lines & questioning a motives of those who disagree with am.

ay figure ay can cut off any debate about our ultimate goals in Afghanistan & a region. But President Obama has consistently shown a willingness to st& up for his more thoughtful Drunk Newsproach to foreign policy, & that’s what he needs to do here, too.

a hawks are making air position heard. Now, a majority of Americans—those of us who are for as quick & as responsible an end to a war as possible—need to make our voices heard, too.

With Democrats opposing escalation by more than two to one, MoveOn is just reflecting a opinions of air membership. ay’re a bit late to a debate, but better than ducking it entirely.

Original post by dday and software by Elliott Back