As of 1pm, the BBC were still running a piece recorded about twelve hours ago on McChrystal’s sacking. It included the observation that the military strategy was not plainly succeeding, given the 76 NATO dead in June alone.
Keep up. That was twelve hours ago. It is now 83 dead, including 4 more Brits.
That does not mention the 412 Nato wounded in June alone as well.
When will they stop this madness?
War
en.trend.az/regions/world/usa/1707605.html
War
israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=21385
Vronsky,
re. the pipeline. What happens if the US are not there? Doesn’t someone else get to build the pipeline? I think it’s about control.
But there’s also the borders with Iran, and nuclear Pakistan.
Not to mention a border with China, perhaps the ultimate destination.
I’ve linked to that map again below. I don’t know how accurate it is, so I’m open to correction on that. Note how the oil producing area is ringed, by Russia of former USSR states to the north and US bases to the south. With one exception. Iran.
Clark
Apostate: “It’s a war orchestrated-even callibrated-by Zionist bankers-shit I didn’t mean to say that……..”
Absolutely right Apostate, “calibrate” is spelt with only one “l”. Good to see that there are people with standards.
Sorry, messed the link up.
Clark.
While I completely agree with Craig that occupying Afghanistan (or for that matter anywhere in Asia) is absolute madness, it seems that Obama is going into self-destruct overdrive. He was elected, to a great extent, in the hope that he would call a halt to the killing and bring US troops home; but he has done pretty much the opposite.
Yet sacking McChrystal shows he’s not even a competent warmonger. Contrast Abraham Lincoln’s response to what Fletcher Pratt splendidly called “a delegation of old women of both sexes” when they demanded General Grant’s removal on the grounds that he drank. “What brand of whiskey does he drink?” inquired the President. “I must send a barrel of it to my other generals”.
Lincoln could see the only important thing in a real war: find the most competent commander and keep him, supporting him to the hilt and guarding his back against all threats. Strikingly, Obama has done exactly the opposite.
MJ,
I think you’re right and wrong about China. The US probably doesn’t want that fight. They are just sitting put, preventing the oil going where they *don’t* want it to; it’s an essentially negative operation.
They don’t want to open any more holes in that fence, and they’d like to close the hole that is Iran.
The Human race, a violent destructive piece of garbage. Not all, I believe, but most of us. Including me. I am not sure how any of this surprises people, why would it. Maybe that is simply the way we are and will always be.
Kabul circles say the dismissal of US commander was over leaking information including NATO’s connection with the executed leader of the Jundallah terrorist group, Abdolmalek Rigi.
Head of Press TV’s office in Kabul, Mohammad Ruhi, says US commander General Stanley McChrystal was sacked for acknowledging NATO’s connection with the executed leader of the Pakistan-based Jundallah terrorist group, Abdolmalek Rigi.
He dismissed the official reasons for the firing of McChrystal, saying his growing friendship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and intelligence leaks may have triggered the replacement.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=131827§ionid=3510203
Ishmael,
the trouble is, aggression is a response to threat. Urges to cooperation *and* competition coexist in all humans.
The current problem with humans is lack of advancement, we are dependent upon limited resources like fossil fuels. If/when humanity become able to satisfy all requirements from the Sun’s immediate output alone, the threat will have been eliminated and the aggression will be redundant.
Didn’t one general talk of being in Afghanistan for “a generation”? Isn’t that just about the timescale for exhausting the hydrocarbons?
It seems only the best security contractors that murder civilians get the lucrative contracts.
Blackwater (Xe) have been awarded a protection contract in Afghanistan worth $120 million according to AP.
I hope they stay out of Kabul else we might witness another ‘Nisoor Square’ massacre.
Since this has essentially become a 911 Truth blog (and, no, Craig, really not wholly at my instigation) and otherwise a paranoid self-important nutjob blog, I’m just wondering …
Why do you nutjobs think that Obama and Rahm Emanuel don’t go anywhere near 911 Truth? They could bury the Republican Party forever if they presented plausible evidence (at trial and otherwise).
This is an easy question for the nutjob right wing in the States, as they’ll also argue that Obama is part of the NWO.
Also, it’s been almost 9 years since 911. Have any of your scientists been able to use thermite (whether superthermite or nanothermite) to burn through a steel column?
There he goes again. This website is an excellent forum for all manner of political discussion. I would recommend it to anyone.
I just did a word search on this thread.
The only one who mentioned 911 here was you.
So Larry, you are the 911 truther.
The reason why you keep bringing it up is because the Zionist brain cell is unable to store information on more than one topic.
So whatever ever anythread is about, your reply is 911.
Ok, you are here to defend Zionism. So if you bring up 911 I’ll bring up Zionism.
And that is what the Afghan disaster is all about. Israel will fight Afghanistan till the last American soldier. And now that the British soldiers have been put under american command, The british will be the cannon fother.
So lets take a vote on it.
Now that the British soldier have been placed under America(Israeli) command will british deaths :
1 Go up?
2 Stay the same?
3 go down?
4 who gives a shit?
Radio 4 just said 79 nato troops dead! They obviously aren’t keeping up
I like that map Clark it reminds me that one day a visionary America leader, might turn all those many US military bases including the secret torture centres into academies.
One day eh?
Let’s return to the subject of Afghanistan. Every violent death there is a tragedy. Therefore the USA and UK should get out ASAP. But they won’t leave, if they think that there is a chance of Al-Qaeda returning. Therefore the Afghan state needs to become capable of adequately guarding he country’s security first, which is a tough one because corruption has to be tackled adequately, and corruption was one of the reasons for the Taleban’s success in the first place. General Petraeus has a difficult job before him, with no guarantee of success. Good luck to him.
With respect Abe the presence of NATO forces in Afghanistan antagonises the situation. This may be difficult to understand since in simple terms America made a brief ‘encounter’ into Afghanistan in 2001 to knockout known training camps (CIA) and ‘look’ and then lose Bin Laden when he was ‘allowed’ to escape from Spin Ghar. The Bush manipulators eyes were on lucrative and strategically important Iraq. Hence Bush remarked he “doesn’t care where Bin Laden is”.
The Taliban commanders are quite capable of booting out foreign (Saudi)fighters (they are very good, resilient fighters) and many are funded by Pakistan’s ISI to prevent India gaining a greater presence in Afghanistan (it already funds separatists in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan) and some say some elements of the Pakistan Taliban which India denies. So I hope from this short essay you can see the situation is more complex with the Afghan Taliban quite simply wanting sharia law, justice and security and an honest government not a puppet of America. Unfortunately they want separation of men and women including at work but realise that women must be educated so change might well arrive in the future.
I am not an expert on Afghanistan – these facts are compressed from the book: “My Life with the Taliban” by Abdul Salam Zaeef
Michael Hastings Interview
http://antiwar.com/radio/2010/06/23/michael-hastings-5/
“We are paying a high price for keeping our country safe, for making our world a safer place, and we should keep asking why we are there and how long we must be there.” David Cameron
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/7843188/David-Cameron-Britain-paying-high-price-in-Afghanistan.html
Totaslly off topic, but I admire this lady’s spirit and think that she is saying things that the planet really does need to reflect on….http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxH5uAK1A3g&feature=player_embedded
Chagos: a wrong to right?
Asked by DanielSimpson on Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:44:31
I understand your concerns on this general issue. There is ongoing legal action so I don’t want to comment on the legality of all this. But I recognise that there is a moral issue here. We cannot undo any mistakes of the past, but we must do all we can to correct them now.
I recognise the importance of the air base on Diego Garcia, which was used in the recent conflicts in *Afghanistan* and Iraq, and the Gulf War of the early 1990s, and the security concerns that prevent islanders from returning to Diego Garcia itself. But we do need to look at why Islanders are prevented from returning to the outlying islands, which are clearly some distance from the air base.
The Foreign Office say long-term resettlement of the islands is unfeasible. But I don’t want simply to take those claims at face value. I have asked my Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, to investigate this matter thoroughly. Geoffrey will be visiting the Chagossian community in Mauritius (where most were transferred), and meeting diplomatic and humanitarian representatives. He will look at the feasibility of a return, and the conditions in which Chagossians currently live, and report back to me and William Hague.
We will then consider the best way forward. So I don’t want to commit to a Parliamentary motion at this stage.
David Cameron MP
Archived from http://www.webcameron.org.uk
Michael wrote–“China colonises other countries like a boa constrictor. It doesn’t invade them,it just strangles and absorbs them so subtly that you don’t notice they’re gone and no-one remembers them after they’ve been Sinified.”what has China got to do with th emess ina central asia?though china has every right to be concerend about what happens in her neighbours especially dire enemy anglosaxon playing up at door step.
the same argument is put forward about the salvery and british exploitation saying that indian has caste system-let me tell you one thing-indian caste system has never been like slavery and though i have no time at the mommnet no time to write about it-let me tell one fact simple-during the british raj about 400 low income castes weere delcared criminal caste by the british -not by the Indians.Now those castes are given speacial fasvour and quotas in job by govt. and rightly so. so deflecting attention from british atrocity to cite example of china or other country does nto hold water.
I was watching some documentary about Afgan warriors and they asked one of their komandants about who was stronger: Russians or Americans. He aswered in split second: Russians. I remember he said, “we split Russian in to 16 pieces ( i think he said 16) but we gonna split U.S.A in to 50 pieces”. The interview was about 3 or 4 years ago.
War is a necessity for dominant powers.
What else would they do?
If they were merely to sit down on international committees and discuss issues in a rational way, then they wouldn’t be dominant powers anymore.
Eternal war is as much a part of power as economic crises are of the capitalist system itself.
When were we not at one war or another?
War is a necessity for no-one, except maybe those defending their own territory from invaders and occupiers. It is a bad attitude to be so accepting of brutality on this scale.
The US and Israel want respect and power, but for example healthy respect for the father or big brother in a family does not come from wife or child beating. The beaten wife or child will certainly show fear, and I suppose that is respect in a perverse way.
Watching US policy in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, next Iran is like watching a drunk driver in a fast car driving the wrong way down the motorway. Everyone notices the car and gets out of the way if they can. That is not really respect for a dominant power, it is an expression of desire to survive in the short term – probably in the expectation something will stop them further down the road sooner or later. Either a police road-block (in this case the UN, consequently unlikely) or else sooner or later it is inevitable they’ll end up squashed against an oncoming truck, rammed into a bridge or in a ditch.
David Cameron seems happy for the UK to be a front seat passenger in this drunk driver’s car for the excitement of the ride. Time to wake up Dave. The British electorate chose you as leader to make changes, not to be another Blair. Reading the daily list of British Forces’ deaths and mutilations is making the public (across political party allegiances) feel very sick, very sad and very powerless.
Did you hear the Afghan Minister of Mines on Radio 4 today laying out his plans for the extraction of minerals? He cleverly avoided answering questions about corruption and used that NuLabour word ‘transparency’ when saying that that was his object in the negotiations with the ‘investors’.
My question – How can you carry out mining in a war zone?
0735
Afghanistan has an estimated one trillion dollars of mineral wealth, such as gold and lithium used in hi-tech batteries. Afghan Minister of Mines Wahidullah Shahrani has been talking to potential investors.
‘one trillion dollars’
Three trillion dollars.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19784
It is unrelated, but usually my physical observations regards military amovres practise by the RAF is right.
For some days now practise is going on here along the east coast of England, our airforce is preparing for some of other activity. They are practising attacks on surface to air missile bases and high altitude bombing.
Low flying aircraft rise up into the air, turn 180 degrees, roughly 4 miles before target, to observe what they are going to hit and swoop down on it with a follow up evasive action after the strike.
I’m living right next to a markant point, underneath this turning point in the air, all these manouvres are clearly visible.
be prepared.