Adam Vs The Man; Video- Politicians not listening to troops, Military spending in Afghanistan, "Atlas Shrugged"

Video- Afghans protest against burning of the Koran

Video- Important to respect all religions

Video- Six U.S. Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan

‘Death Squad’: Full horror emerges of how rogue U.S. brigade murdered and mutilated innocent Afghan civilians – and kept their body parts as trophies

UK Daily Mail
March 28, 2011

• - Rolling Stone reveals how U.S. troops murdered Afghan civilians
• - Soldiers cut off 15-year-old boy’s finger and kept it as trophies
• - Video captures U.S. troops cheering as airstrike kills two Afghan civilians

Shocking new details emerged today of how American troops formed a ‘death squad’ to randomly murder Afghan civilians and mutilate their corpses.

An investigation by Rolling Stone magazine details how senior officers failed to stop troops killing Afghans and keeping their body parts as trophies.

In one horrific episode, the magazine claims troops chopped off a dead Afghan boy’s finger and later used it as ‘gambling chip’ in a game of cards.


The damning dossier is likely to prove to be highly damaging for the Army still reeling from last week’s revelations about the brutal acts of violence carried out by the notorious ‘Death Squad’.

The investigation by Rolling Stone also revealed how:

• Troops shot dead civilians and tried to cover their tracks
• U.S. soldiers hacked off part of a dead man’s skull
• Soldiers cheered as they filmed a U.S. airstrike blowing up two Afghan civilians
• A video showed two Afghans on a motorcycle being gunned down

The magazine claims the men hacked off bits of skull from their victims and kept them as trophies of their kills.

Full article here

US Army ‘kill team’ in Afghanistan posed for photos of murdered civilians

Jon Boone
London Guardian
March 21, 2011

Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of “trophy” photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed.

Senior officials at Nato’s International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly Der Spiegel to the images of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq which sparked waves of anti-US protests around the world.

They fear that the pictures could be even more damaging as they show the aftermath of the deliberate murders of Afghan civilians by a rogue US Stryker tank unit that operated in the southern province of Kandahar last year.

Some of the activities of the self-styled “kill team” are already public, with 12 men currently on trial in Seattle for their role in the killing of three civilians.
Five of the soldiers are on trial for pre-meditated murder, after they staged killings to make it look like they were defending themselves from Taliban attacks.

Full article here





 

U.S. Planning Military Presence and Operations in Afghanistan Beyond 2014

Edwin Mora
CNSNews.com
March 16, 2011

Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that the Obama administration is planning to maintain “joint” U.S.-Afghan military bases in Afghanistan after 2014 and it plans to conduct what Flournoy described as “joint counter-terrorism operations” with the Afghan military after that date.

The revelation came in response to a question from Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.).

“I wonder if you’ll comment on the possibility of some continuing base presence, perhaps a jointly operated system of bases, in Afghanistan between us and the Afghans?” Lieberman asked.

Read entire article
 

Poll: Nearly two-thirds of Americans say Afghan war isn’t worth fighting

Washington Post

By Scott Wilson and Jon Cohen, Tuesday, March 15, 12:20 AM

Nearly two-thirds of Americans now say the war in Afghanistan is no longer worth fighting, the highest proportion yet opposed to the conflict, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Read the rest of the article.

Bradley Manning: Hero or villain?

Cousin of Afghan President Is Killed in NATO Raid

ALISSA J. RUBIN and JAMES RISEN
The New York Times
March 11, 2011

KABUL, Afghanistan — A cousin of Afghanistan’s president was killed Wednesday during a night raid by NATO and Afghan forces in which they detained the man’s son as a suspected Taliban commander, as well as at least two of the family’s bodyguards.
 
The case brought the delicate issue of civilian casualties into the presidential palace and added to the already tense relationship between the Afghans and the Americans. It also raised questions about whether a member of the extended family of President Hamid Karzai might have Taliban ties, or whether bad intelligence led to a deadly raid on the home of an innocent family.

Either way, the raid raises the prospect of another intense flare-up between NATO and Afghan officials, coming after two other cases of civilian casualties in the past three weeks. Night raids on family compounds, in particular, have long been controversial for their intrusiveness and the civilian casualties associated with them. Startled Afghan men, who commonly keep weapons at home, often react by reaching for their guns and are then shot, often by Special Operations forces.

Read entire article

Gates: US military to stay in Afghanistan

Press TV
March 7, 2011

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is on a surprise visit to Afghanistan, says the American military should stay in the conflict-riddled country despite the rising human costs.

“Obviously it would be a small fraction of the presence that we have today, but I think we’re willing to do that,” AP quoted Gates as saying in a speech before a group of US troops at Bagram air field, which is the headquarters for US-led forces in eastern Afghanistan.

The Pentagon chief flew into Kabul on Monday to assess the US-led war amid tensions with Afghan President Hamid Karzai over the increasing number of civilian deaths in the country.

“The civilian casualties are a main cause of worsening the relationship between Afghanistan and the US,” a statement from the Afghan presidency quoted Karzai as saying on Sunday.

Gates also plans to hold talks with Karzai as well as top US commander General David Petraeus.

The defense secretary’s trip comes at a time of heightened tension between the Afghan government and the US over the killing of nine children during a NATO raid last week.

Karzai rejected Washington’s apology over the incident, calling on NATO to do more to prevent such incidents during airstrikes.

The children were killed in a NATO helicopter raid while collecting firewood in the northeastern province of Kunar.

Hundreds of Afghans rallied on Sunday in capital Kabul to condemn civilian killings by foreign troops.

The Afghan president, during his February 9 press conference, did not give a date for finalizing a deal with the US on the American military presence in Afghanistan, but said any long-term partnership would need to be approved by the parliament and the grand tribal council known as the Loya Jirga.
There are now over 150,000 US-led troops in Afghanistan.

“Humanitarian” Aid?: Child air strike deaths stir fury in Afghanistan

Child air strike deaths stir fury in Afghanistan
 
AFP
March 7, 2011

Two of Nasim’s sons went into the hills to collect firewood last week to warm the family’s humble home against the biting Afghan winter chill. They never returned, killed along with seven other children in a NATO air strike.

“The Americans are wild,” said the boys’ father, who uses only one name and whose sons were aged 11 and 12, crying as he spoke. “They don’t value humanity and don’t care about our children.

“The men who carried out the air strike and the ones who ordered it should be brought to court.”

The nine killings outside Asadabad in Kunar province have unleashed public fury over civilian casualties at a crucial time for foreign forces in Afghanistan.

Full article here

'US enters into direct Taliban talks'

'US enters into direct Taliban talks'

PressTV.Ir
 

The US administration is holding direct, secret talks with senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan as part of an effort to forge a political settlement with the group, a report says.

According to the report by The New Yorker magazine on Saturday, the administration of US President Barak Obama has entered into direct and secret negotiations in order "to assess which figures in the Taliban's leadership, if any, might be willing to engage in formal Afghan peace negotiations, and under what conditions."

The report comes a day after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that only a political solution will end the war in Afghanistan as she expressed hope for splitting off the rank-and-file Taliban from al-Qaeda, a Press TV correspondent reported.

For the first time, Clinton has sent a direct message to the Taliban demanding they lay down their arms and join an Afghan government-led reconciliation, or face utter defeat from US led troops, the correpondent added.

She made the remarks in a speech at the Asia Society in New York on the same day that two US-led foreign soldiers lost their lives in Afghanistan's troubled north after a man wearing an Afghan national army uniform opened fire on the foreign troops in Baghlan province.

Clinton also expounded on US plans to begin the gradual withdrawal of troops in July and complete the drawdown by the end of 2014. 


Read the article

Rumsfeld blames us all for Iraq War

Rumsfeld blames us all for Iraq War

by revolutiontoday

Donald Rumsfeld Opens Up About Mistakes in Iraq Former Secretary of Defense Says "We All Were Responsible" for What Went Wrong With War

As long ago as 1971, Richard Nixon was heard on the Oval Office tapes grousing about "the Rumsfeld problem."

Donald Rumsfeld was a Presidential aide and maybe too big for his britches.

"Rumsfeld is a different cup of tea," President Nixon said.

Nearly three decades later, "the Rumsfeld problem" came to the Pentagon with orders from President Bush to shake the place up.

"Change is hard for people," Rumsfeld said.

"Change is hard. But did you make it harder than it had to be by alienating people?" asked Martin.

"If you don't want to change and someone above you wants to, it's not fun, replied the ex-Secretary of Defense.

The former college wrestler grappled with a military establishment he viewed as unimaginative and cumbersome. What started as a bureaucratic battle became a matter of life and death after 9/11.

He wanted small commando teams on the ground in Afghanistan to call in air strikes, but when the bombing started they still hadn't made it in.

And his famous impatience boiled over. In his book he writes, "We are sitting here like little birds in a nest waiting for someone to drop food in our mouths."

Of the comment Rumsfeld quipped, "Sometimes I'm colorful."

And he wrote this memo to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs: "I am seeing nothing that is thoughtful, creative or actionable. How can that be?"

"That was a good memo," Rumsfeld commented. "And what I wanted to do is to put some sense of urgency into this big Department of Defense, the bureaucracy."

"Why did you call it the 'Goose Egg Memo'?" asked Martin.

"Because I think in the memo I said, 'What are we coming up with? A Goose Egg. We haven't got any new creative ideas that we -- how this department can contribute to the Global War on Terror.'"

In public he relished the role Special Forces played in the swift ouster of the Taliban. In private, he was warning President Bush: "Afghanistan risks becoming a swamp for the United States."

"This is what keeps guys like me in business," suggested Martin. "You're urging patience ... in public and in private you're writing things like the Goose Egg Memo. Do you see the disconnect between the public and private statements?" asked Martin.

"No," said Rumsfeld. "There's no disconnect at all."

Read more....http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/ ... rPromoArea

Gates: ‘No idea’ on Afghan drawdown size

Kevin Baron
Stars & Stripes
February 16, 2010

Don’t read too much into the Pentagon’s 26 percent slash to the overseas war budget. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon does not yet know how many troops will draw down from Afghanistan this year. Instead, the Defense Department is budgeting to hold level at 98,000 troops through 2012. Just don’t bet on that.

Though most of the $42 billion drop can be attributed to the pullout from Iraq, Gates said the DOD is not taking chances.

“What we have done is what we have done in the past: We have budgeted an FY12 for 98,000 troops. It’s a conservative approach to budgeting,” Gates said Monday at the Pentagon. “…But that’s not to say that we will have 98,000 troops at the end of FY12. In fact, it’s a lead-pipe cinch that we won’t.”

Read entire article

Afghan war costs $300 million a day: Pentagon

Monday, February 14, 2011

Afghan war costs $300 million a day: Pentagon

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The withdrawal of American troops from Iraq will allow for a reduced US defense budget in 2012 but the war in Afghanistan still costs the United States close to 300 million dollars a day.

Under the Pentagon's proposed budget, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will drop to $117.8 billion for fiscal year 2012, a reduction of 41.5 billion from the previous year.

As the US war effort winds down in Iraq, the budget sets aside $10.6 billion for "Operation New Dawn," with the remaining 50,000 US troops there due to withdraw by the end of 2011.

Spending for the Afghan mission calls for $107.3 billion, down slightly from the last budget, which requested $113.5 billion.

Rep. Jones pushes for end to Afghanistan War

Sue Book
ENC Today
February 14, 2011

They are faces, not numbers, for Rep. Walter B. Jones, R-NC.
Jones has signed more than 9,803 letters to immediate and extended family members of the fallen. And he regularly visits those wounded in battle.
 
At least 1,462 U.S. military personnel have died since the 2001 beginning of war in Afghanistan, Department of Defense numbers through Feb. 7 show. American military wounded in action in Operation Enduring Freedom now totals 10,308, according to the DoD.

Read entire article