Tag: afghanistan

AMERICA MUST SWALLOW ITS EGO; LET THE WISDOM PREVAIL By General Mirza Aslam Beg General McChrystal, having read ’s Memoirs, has opted for the new strategy...

GULBUDDIN HIKMATYAR, "BUSH TERRORIST MASTERMIND" AND BIN LADEN ASSOCIATE WORKING FOR U.S.? WHAT ELSE HAVE WE BEEN LYING ABOUT? By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor For many...

ARMED AND FINANCED ALMOST ENTIRELY BY AMERICA AND INDIA THE  TALIBAN "ENEMY" IS OUR OWN CREATION By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor Two years ago analysts claimed...

The fourth round of ‘strategic –dialogue’ between the United States and Pakistan ended on March 25, 2010 in Washington, bringing a win-win situation for both sides. The US seems upbeat that its key ally in the region combating terrorism has finally intensified its efforts to root out the al-Qaida affiliated Islamist militants on its own soil and truly distancing itself from its proxy, the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.

By Khalil Nouri STAFF WRITER/EDITOR VETERANS TODAY “All a man can betray is his conscience,” says Joseph Conrad, and there is...

Normally, if two countries with powerful nuclear arsenals were openly musing about attacking a third country over mere suspicions that it might want to join the nuclear club, we’d tend to sympathize with the non-nuclear underdog as the victim of bullying and possible aggression.

Between 2002 and 2008, nearly 50,000 veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars received diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder. But fewer than 10 percent of those completed the recommended treatment of 10 to 12 weekly sessions within four months; the number only grew to fewer than 30 percent over a year, the study authors found.

Formerly homeless Veteran, Jeffery Anderson has stabilized home and family thanks to his new job at the Waco, Texas, VA Regional Office. In response to Secretary Shinseki’s charge to end homelessness among Veterans within five years, the Waco VA Regional Office began a Homeless Veterans Hiring Initiative.

U.S. forces hope to control Kandahar and surrounding areas by late summer, the Washington Post reports. Officials have pressed local leaders to eject the Taliban or their areas will be the focus of expanding military operations. Among those specifically warned by U.S. military commanders is Ahmed Wali Karzai, the elected head of Kandahar's provincial council, the unquestioned power broker in the province and brother of President Hamid Karzai [and also President Karzai's representative in talks with Taliban leader Mullah Baradar weeks before Baradar's arrest, a fact curiously unmentioned by the Post or the very similar New York Times story - JFP.]

CHARGED WITH:  "engaged in deceptive and illegal marketing practices by suggesting that all concert ticket sale revenue goes directly to scholarships for children of...

The Marines known as "America's Battalion" were sent to Afghanistan last year as part of a contingent of 21,000 additional forces President Obama deployed in the administration's strategy to counter the Taliban insurgency. NPR followed the 2nd Battalion, 8th Regiment over the months of their deployment. They have since returned home and are settling into post-combat life.

Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is demanding prompt removing of the Bible codes on rifle scopes used by the American armed forces...

After a year of cautious debate and costly deployments, President Obama finally launched his new Afghan war strategy at 2:40 am on February 13, 2010, in a remote market town called Marja in southern Afghanistan's Helmand Province. As a wave of helicopters descended on Marja's outskirts spitting up clouds of dust, hundreds of U.S. Marines dashed through fields sprouting opium poppies toward the town's mud-walled compounds.

By Khalil Nouri STAFF WRITER VETERANS TODAY Democracies make elections, elections don’t make democracies, and as Winston Churchill pointed out, “democracy...

US and NATO troops firing from passing convoys and military checkpoints have killed 30 Afghans and wounded 80 others since last summer, but in no instance did the victims prove to be a danger to troops, the New York Times reports. "We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat," said Gen. McChrystal. Such shootings have not dropped off, despite new rules from McChrystal intended to reduce them. The persistence of the shootings has led to growing resentment among Afghans angry at the impunity with which the troops operate - a friction that has turned villages firmly against the occupation, the Times says.

A Washington think tank that bills itself as "independent and nonpartisan" actually "played a key role in selling the escalation of the...

IS THE ENEMY OUR OWN STUPIDITY? By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER, Senior Editor America's recent attack, augmented by top line Afghan army troops,  against the massive...

American forces have begun operations to push back Taliban insurgents in this most important southern province, the birthplace and spiritual home of the Taliban, and a full-scale offensive is expected in coming weeks.

FROM WAR CORRESPONDENTS TO EMBEDDED REPORTERS TO PAID PUNDITS TO RODEO CLOWNS WARTIME JOURNALISM ENTERS AN ABYSS By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor The best known and...

According to reports from Politico, Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed “guarded optimism” yesterday, 26 March, about U.S. progress in Afghanistan but predicted “many tough...

Contractors of a spy program that the Pentagon is investigating gathered word of a meeting between Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother and Mullah Baradar, a top Taliban leader who was arrested weeks later in Pakistan, CNN reports. [This CNN report raises the question of whether this intelligence contributed to Baradar's arrest, and whether some US officials sought with the arrest to deliberately undermine the talks, which were supported by other US officials - JFP

THE "SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP" REDEFINED AS CLEARLY ANTI-AMERICAN WHY ARE SOME "PATRIOTIC GROUPS" SOFT ON AMERICAN VALUES? By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor Are some of America's...

GENERAL BARNO, THE MAN WHO LED THE HUNT FOR LONG DEAD BIN LADEN NOW IN HOT WATER By Josh Rogin  for The Cable (thecable.foreignpolicy.com) Retired Lt....

A PROGRAM FOR REASSESSING AND MOVING FORWARD By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor This week an expose' in Newsweek showed us that our new Afghan police...

The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight Six billion dollars later, the Afghan National Police can't begin to do their jobs right never mind relieve American...

* From: A warrior poet - Los Angeles Times * Brian Turner's 'Here, Bullet' is a soldier's view, in verse, of the war in Iraq. Brian...

KABUL, Afghanistan — The effort to win over Afghans on former Taliban turf in Marja has put American and NATO commanders in the unusual position of arguing against opium [MarinesOpiumNYT] eradication, pitting them against some Afghan officials who are pushing to destroy the harvest.

In the Marjah offensive of the Afghanistan war, a reporter hears echoes of the Soviet war. By Edward Girardet, / Chrisitan Science Monitor Correspondent / March...

SAYS BIN LADEN "WON'T" BE TAKEN ALIVE...DOES HE MEAN "CAN'T?" HOLDER SEEN AS SOFTENING PUBLIC TO ACCEPT BIN LADEN'S DEATH IN 2001 By Gordon Duff STAFF...

More than three decades ago, there were social movements in Afghanistan to improve the standard of living of its people and to provide greater equality for women. There was even a functioning, if imperfect, democracy. But the U.S. government – using subversion, weapons and money – contributed to the halt in progress in these areas of human welfare. Indeed, many gains that had been made were reversed.

THE "SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP" IS DEAD LEARN SOME OF THE "WHY" BEING KEPT FROM YOU By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State...

Many veterans like Mr. Oldani have returned from Afghanistan and Iraq burdened by post-traumatic stress, drug dependency and other problems. As veterans find themselves skirmishing with the law, judges are increasingly finding ways to provide them with a measure of leniency.

THE ABOMINATION OF "FAITH BASED " WARFARE By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor The "war on terror" has been like no other.  America has kidnapped and...

This video from Brave New Films: Rethink Afghanistan is related to the article I posted mentioning “Operation Moshtarak”, called Marja, Afghanistan:...

By Khalil Nouri STAFF WRITER VETERANS TODAY Major Jim Gant, an Army silver star...

Secretary of State Clinton warned Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Friday that Israel had sent a "deeply negative signal" about the U.S.-Israeli relationship and urged him to take immediate steps to demonstrate it was interested in renewing efforts at a Middle East peace agreement, the Washington Post reports. Her call, made in the wake of the embarrassment suffered by Vice President Biden when Israel announced it would build 1,600 housing units in a disputed area of Jerusalem, was an unusually tough message for the longtime U.S. ally, the Post says.

PRECONCEPTIONS, MISCONEPTIONS AND "NO FEEDBACK LOOP" LEADS TO AMERICAN DISASTER IN AFGHANISTAN By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor I have only recently returned from the region...

CIA drones are killing terrorists -- and civilians -- in Pakistan almost every day. The unmanned aircraft are becoming the weapon of choice in the fight against al-Qaida and its allies. But the political, military and moral consequences are incalculable. SPIEGEL ONLINE has investigated Barack Obama's remote-controlled campaign against terrorism.

An open diplomatic row with Israel during the visit of Vice President Biden has shined a spotlight on the U.S. failure to rein in Israeli settlement ambitions and deepened Palestinian suspicions the US is too weak to broker a deal, AP reports. The Palestinians largely lost faith in the U.S. as a broker after Obama tried - and failed - to get the Netanyahu government to stop building on lands Palestinians claim for a future state, AP says.

Individuals in the upper level of the Pentagon and media polloi are beginning to commit a cardinal sin. They’re blurting the truth – sort of. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the military’s senior spin surgeon (his father was a Hollywood publicity agent), says that "Afghans are in the lead" of the Marjah offensive. But not everybody involved in writing the narrative is willing to tell a lie that big.

THIS IS "BETWEEN US" By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor I just returned from the region after a REMF "combat tour" of my own, 5 star...

The cancellation of Bill Moyers journal is another stake in the heart of American journalism. The Nation pays tribute to the journalist who "refuses to treat Americans as imbeciles." Justine Sharrock at Mother Jones takes aim and fires at the Oathkeepers, the militant wing of the Tea Party and Rachel Maddow publicly dismantles Lynn Cheney over commentary on the "values" of defense attorneys in her 'Al Qaeda 7' Attack Ad. Those stories and more in today's picks.