The destruction by US bombs of the Medecins Sans Frontieres hospital in Kunduz – killing doctors, nurses and patients – comes as a stinging corrective to the media pretence that Russian bombs are somehow uniquely evil and destructive. The West has inflicted far more damage in recent years. But the Russians also showed just how ruthless they can be in their brutal suppression of the legitimate desire for national independence of the Chechen people. It is the Americans who today expose most starkly the evils of attempting to solve complex political questions by bombs.
Kunduz is ethnically Uzbek. I have written of it as the place where Alexander Burnes met the fierce Uzbek chief Murad Beg. Burnes was disguised as an Armenian, and would very probably had been killed if his disguise had been penetrated. Today it is very much the territory of an equally fierce Uzbek warlord, General Dostum, the narcotics kingpin, murderer and serial war criminal who has for decades been a key CIA asset and is now Vice President of Afghanistan. That Dostum can lose Kunduz to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, even temporarily, shows how weak the central authority still is. The decade long official western occupation has brought no significant progress, at a cost of billions in money and the waste of many young lives: except progress in achieving a 1200% increase in heroin production.
“Dostum would not be on a list of people I suspect of being a CIA asset. He is somebody I know for certain to be a CIA asset. You forget my previous employment history.”
Would you agree that it is very likely that Dostum knew of Richard Conroy’s mission in Termez and that he had his little finger in his demise?
“I suppose not if you think that the US want their allies to think they are happy to murder their medical staff”
History suggests that the US does not care. It does what it has to do and then brazens out the backlash, if there is one. It knew what it was attacking and did not stop until the job was done. A successful operation.
Its all Laura Kuennsbergs fault. Instead of JC, Cameron would have been the suckling pig kneeling at a red button roti joint.
MJ
The US may not have given two in the past but they are in a tricky situation just now in both Iraq and Syria. Do you think their allies are going to put civilian medical workers in or even get any to volunteer is the US now come out and say look if your guys get caught up with some colateral shit there’s not a lot we can do about it.
Cameron has had to rethink the revote on Syria because of the public’s concern that Cameron is going to help the Russians fight ISIS but if Brits get in the way of anybody else that the Russians want to kill the Brits will get wacked, thats if the US haven’t wacked us first.
The US are selling the idea that there are good terrorists and bad ones and they only want to kill the bad ones and now you are saying its transpired they don’t give a fuck (or two) whether their allies get in the way of what they want to achieve?
And this from the other side of the coin, the stream of refugees fleeing their divided country Syria, thrown into chaos just like Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are now forced upon a few countries that opened their borders and hearts.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/berlin-needs-to-reform-or-abolish-its-current-refugee-policy-a-1053275.html
NCFC today gave a small proportion of their vast profits, £1,- for every ticket price and merchandise sold to refugee children, a commendable gesture which the rest of the premiere league troughers could take as an example.
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/norwich_city_to_help_syria_appeal_1_4257724
“now you are saying its transpired they don’t give a fuck (or two) whether their allies get in the way of what they want to achieve?”
I’m saying they obviously knew what they were doing. They knew what the target was and did not stop until it was destroyed. I don’t understand how this can seriously be interpreted as a mistake. Not sure that civilian hospitals in Afghanistan or MSF are allies.
Very true MJ. You are smoking today!
Kerry is threatening the Russians with a fate worst than worst than death at the moment, clearly indicating US is totally impotent in protecting their own “good terrorist” they pass as “moderate opposition”! Hence the heckling form the sidelines.
Peter Beswick
I wasn’t just told he was a spook. I should be grateful if you could refrain from contradicting me on matters which I plainly have good reason to know about and you do not. Mind you, Dostum’s CIA links are widely published so I have no idea why on earth you and others are continuing to spout off. Dostum’s relationship with the CIA is a very great deal deeper than you pointlessly pontificate about.
Laguerre yes Dostum’s organisation is indeed based at Mazar, but Kunduz is also his. The two are not far apart. Mazar has also traditionally been the IMU’s strongest recruiting area.
My guess is that thew ‘target list’ was drawn up by Dostum’s people who don’t care about public opinion- remember the massacre of 3000 Taliban prisoners?
It is not just another case of the American dog being wagged by the tail but of the real problem which is not Russia’s ‘dumb bombs’ but America’s dumb diplomats and dumb political class.
They think that they can afford to be dumb because they are unassailable- Shakespeare would have loved Washington DC.
Letter from a occupied country, manacled to a doomed rogue state on a dying planet:
Scotland, 2015.
Help!
The US and UK and their favoured chums conduct suggests it’s almost as if they’re pleading for someone to stop them, to call them out, to put them out of their misery as they get more brazen careless and vile. We have to go back to the arguments of the delinquent child case -to understand that we are not dealing with rational actors but with a gang of incorrigible lunatics, armed to the teeth. Can the rest of the world, whilst themselves hostages of sorts, organise a boycott, a blockade, anything to take them down? Have humanity exceeded their luck, their meager wisdom become sorely wanting, threadbare platitudes can’t soothe so many so greatly troubled minds. We have gone over the precipice, the bottom of the abyss rushes towards us exponentially, suspended thashing impotently, we blink, then nothingness. All this evolution, progress, wonders, beauty, was for nout.
It is very simple just to google “Dostum CIA” and though you won’t get the entire story, there is a huge amount of stuff mostly pretty accurate.
“Everyone in Afghanistan is Muslim, barring a handful of Sikhs.”
Including Al Qaeda? And, the Taliban?
How Muslim are the sheikhs of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar….the ones who finance Daesh?
Yes, why are the Muslims in Europe not marching in the streets or protesting at these embassies on Sundays for their role in all this bloodshed?
“Lesson from Kunduz”
When will we ever learn< when will we ever learn"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYii6nxhvUk
Laguerre, Jermand may be a bigot, but his outstanding quality is his stupidity, as exemplified in his reply to you. Why bother discussing things with someone who not only knows nothing but is motivated solely by a childish desire to score cheap points.
The available information on Dostum suggests that he’s had a troubled relationship with the US to the point of having to be threatened by having a bomber repeatedly buzzing his house. There is widespread suspicion that his intention is to re-arm his private army and re-establish the fiefdom he once had.
The advertised accuracy of Paveway laser guided bombs is plus or minus 9 metres. In real combat situations I would expect it to be much worse. Accusations have been made that Russian forces in Syria are using unguided “iron” bombs and footage showing direct hits on open fields would appear to bear that out. If it is true we can expect far worse collateral damage.
Just heard on the radio that 12 doctors from Med.sans frontiers were killed, plus nurses and helpers.
This is too much brown matter flying for it not to hit the US full in the face with a big fat splat.
Maybe ‘our’ new Saudi UN human rights rapporteur, so ardently promoted and seconded by their UK arms lackeys, who does not want to inquire into Yemeni war crimes as that might result in more brown splats for the Saudi Government, wants to call the US UN ambassador Ms. Powers in to his office for a soiree, for a good talking to…..there there.
The US and the UK, sensing the end of the US-UK-Israeli axis of terror, seem now to be targeting not hypothetical nonsensical ‘threats’ or hapless non-combatants. This hospital attack, Cameron’s drone strikes in Syria, seem to be killing those who might prove embarassing at the eventual, inevitable reckoning, people who know too much, who they’d rather didn’t come back to point the finger, to name names, their backers, to testify to their aims and instructions, in return for non-capital sentences, to sing like canaries.
Inviolable witness protection for states’ crimes whistleblowers, even for admitted active participants in such crimes, must be developed to counter attempts by elites to disown their own and their minions many evil deeds and walk away to gilded splendour and elude justice. Heads (of state) must roll.
Craig
If you believe UK ambassadors are always given truthful US Intelligence then I probably can’t dissuade you, I cam point you a footnote on the cia website as to why they are not. And whilst alot of stuff cam be found on the web as you point out alot can’t.
Offering a different assessment is not contradiction when there are good reasons to hold that view.
Peter Beswick
I have had enough of this. I am telling you I have certain knowledge that Dostum is a CIA asset, and not just from something I was told. Without possibility of being mistaken. If you continue to contradict me, you are calling me a liar or a fool, and your welcome on this blog will be over.
I do not know what your profession is, but if you tell me a basic fact within your professional competence why would I contradict you?
Peter Beswick
03/10/2015 5:30pm
“Offering a different assessment is not contradiction when there are good reasons to hold that view.”
Can you please give us these good reasons, Peter? I think all we’ve seen from you on the matter so far is (3:25pm):
“And just because Craig was told bloke was a spook doesn’t mean he was, I suspect he probably was an asset in much the same way Mangold was used as an asset by the CIA. poor bloke didn’t have a clue if what he was being told was true or false, he didn’t care, he just made a career from it.”
Have you any more detail than this?
Thanks,
John
Kempe
A great many of the CIA’s assets have a very on/off relationship – Osama Bin Laden being the most glaring example. But despite the bumps, the fascinating thing about the Dostum/CIA relationship is its longevity and durability.
” If you believe UK ambassadors are always given truthful US Intelligence ”
Gien the level of mistrust that has existed between the US and UK on intelligence matters in the past and they way security services act on a strict need to know basis I’m surprised they shared any information at all.
” A great many of the CIA’s assets have a very on/off relationship – Osama Bin Laden being the most glaring example. ”
I suppose you’ve got inside information on that as well although the only support you have seems to be the crackpot conspiracy sites so beloved by most of the posters here. Dostum’s relationship seems to have been more off than on, you’d have expected him to have had a nasty accident by now.
Craig
I’ve had enough also, enough of the unpleasantness and paranoia that you personally foster on here. I’m not surprised that UK ambassadors are not trusted by the US.
Good bye
Are you alleging Kempe that Osama bin Laden, was not, never was at any time a prime US asset?
Peter Beswick
03/10/2015 5:30pm
Don’t trouble. I don’t want you chucked off for responding to me.
John
Check this out for the COSTS OF WAR:
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/
We are medieval man, that’s what we are. A Type Zero Global Civilisation
Anyone disagree?
Kind-Regards-John, grow up. Stop and think for yourself, instead of analysing, for a change.
Craig you are talking to some people whom are ignorant of the facts on the ground and have no idea of the machinations of US in Afghanistan. The fact that Dostum has survived to this date, whilst Ahmad Shah Masood cashed his chips in before (two days before 9/11) making way for operation bounce rubble (invasion) in Afghanistan itself should be enough of a clue for anyone.
This line is the best comedy performance so far. It should be in the fringe this!