Woolwich Attack

A few thoughts amongst the shit-storm and terror-fest in the MSM. One of the guys who carried out the attack explained the reasons for it. The motive would have been obvious to any informed person even if he hadn't explained it. Terror is wrong whether by machete in Woolwich or drone/missiles/bullets in NATO-occupied Muslim countries. The connection between the two is glaring. The securocrats-for-hire and laptop bombardiers are having a field day. Will there be any comment on innocent deaths yesterday in Afghanistan, for example, other than on sites like this (not that there are many)? Have a guess.

US Admits Killing 4 US Citizens With Drones

Seminary Students Killed By US Troops

US-led forces opened fire on a group of seminary students in western Afghanistan, killing at least two and injuring several others.

Security sources in the Herat province said the students were attending a ceremony at the Aziz-Abad village when the shooting happened.

Following the incident, a group of protesters, including local elders, gathered outside the governor™s office, demanding the arrest of the culprits.

'Exhausted' Karzai To Retire

Karzai addressed concerns that Afghanistan might suffer as Iraq did from an increase in violence after the departure of foreign troops. "We are pained to see Iraq suffer. I can tell you with a strong measure of confidence that Afghanistan will not see that," he said."But we do fear the continuation of terrorism as it has been affecting us for years now," he said. LINK

 He really is exhausted.

The CIA's Bags Of Cash

The Real Costs of CIA Cash | Human Rights Watch: 

"The CIA has a long history of using cash to buy allegiance in Afghanistan. A retired CIA officer once told me unabashedly over lunch at the Cosmos Club in Washington of payments in the late 1990s to the anti-Taliban leader Ahmed Shah Massoud. As Human Rights Watch's Afghanistan researcher ten years ago, I saw firsthand how the CIA paved the way with cash during the military campaign against the Taliban in late 2001. While investigating abuses by a warlord named Ismail Khan in western Afghanistan, I learned the CIA had provided him with enough cash and weapons that he was soon in control of this part of the country (which also gave him control of 70 percent of national revenue derived from customs taxes on the Iranian border). Khan became so powerful that he soon called himself the "Emir of Herat.""

Afghan Interpreters

It is undeniable that the interpreters who have served their NATO masters so well deserve some kind of reward.
But the subtext of the asylum for interpreters story is a different one. What happened to the 'New Afghanistan', the viable, democratic, vibrant society that the US and NATO have been spinning to the world for nearly 12 years of their disastrous occupation. Why don't the interpreters want to stay there? Quite simply because it doesn't, never has and never will exist. NATO/ISAF have been killing Afghans and getting killed for 11 years on the back of a fantasy. 
The intepreters know that the Taliban are just biding their time.

Afghan interpreters to be offered chance to settle in Britain

Afghan interpreters to be offered chance to settle in Britain - UK - News - London Evening Standard: 
"The proposals could see all interpreters who have been in the job more than 12 months and put themselves in physical danger offered a resettlement package.
They will need to have worked between December 2012 and December 2014, when troops are due to leave, to be eligible.
It is estimated that about half the interpreters - roughly 600 - will qualify for resettlement in the UK."

'Britain sent seven children to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq'

'Britain sent seven children to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq' - UK - News - London Evening Standard: 
In the period 2007-10, a total of seven personnel, who were all 17 years old, were confirmed as having entered an area of operations, four on Op Telic, Iraq, and three on Op Herrick, Afghanistan.
"We take immediate action to correct any breach of our policy as soon as it is discovered.

Torture Victim’s Body Is Found Near U.S. Base, Afghans Say - NYTimes

Torture Victim’s Body Is Found Near U.S. Base, Afghans Say - NYTimes.com: 
"Mr. Mohammad’s body was found about 200 yards outside the perimeter of the Nerkh base, which is now occupied by Afghan special forces after the American unit was removed following protests by Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai. Mohammad Hanif Hanafi, the Nerkh District governor, said it was found by laborers digging a water ditch when they unearthed what appeared to be a military-style black body bag.
Relatives of Mr. Mohammad said his corpse was largely complete, except both of his feet had been cut off. They took his remains to the Nerkh district government center in protest. The partial remains and clothing of another missing person were earlier found near the base, family members and Afghan officials have said."

Return of The Taliban

The Taliban are already running a proxy government in Afghanistan. Seen that on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, France 24 or read it in the Murdoch or AIPAC press? Thought not. This is not good, but it doesn't justify the continued pretence and fantasy that something has been, or is being, achieved in Afghanistan. What remains of the mission, if there ever really was one, is a travesty and debacle. CLIP HERE

Afghan Parliament Blocks Women's Rights Bill

When it all started to crumble in Afghanistan many years ago, NATO/ISAF started to spin the 'mission' as a campaign for women and girls' education and rights. They were a dollar short and a day late with that bright idea of trying to save face. This development buries their desperate ploy even deeper in the scrapheap of history. Even Afghan women voted against it.

Deadly car bombs kill at least 31 people in Iraq

Deadly car bombs kill at least 31 people in Iraq - Independent.ie:

Baghlan Provincial Council Head Killed in Suicide Attack

Baghlan Provincial Council Head Killed in Suicide Attack: 
Baghlan Police Chief, General Asadullah Shirzad said that the incident happened at 10 am which killed 13 and injured 10 civilians. The killed included four bodyguards of the Council Head and eight civilians.
Several visitors at the Council Head's office are also among the injured and killed. They were there in the office for various works.
The injured have been rushed to the Pul-e-Khumri and Nasaje hospitals in the province.

Benghazi - This is what US Foreign Policy Discourse Has Descended To

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Soldier Box - New Book By Joe Glenton

Attacks kill 10 police in Afghanistan

Attacks kill 10 police in Afghanistan - thenews.com.pk: 

The victims were members of the 18,000-strong Afghan Local Police, a village-level force formed in 2010 to provide security in areas where the better-trained national police and army are scarce.
Also on Sunday, four Afghan border police were killed when their vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb in eastern Nangarhar province.

Karzai to seek military aid on visit to India amid border tensions with Pakistan

Afghan president to seek military aid on visit to India amid border tensions with Pakistan

"Karzai spokesman Aimal Faizi says the president will discuss recent border skirmishes with Pakistan when he visits New Delhi starting Monday. He added that Karzai would seek Indian help in "strengthening of our security forces.""

District Police Chief Killed

Ghani had led an anti-Taliban campaign in Farah that had resulted in the killing or capture of several local Taliban leaders.No one has assumed responsibility for the attack.
The attack comes as the Taliban has stepped up their attacks against international and Afghans security forces ahead of NATO’s pullout next year. LINK

Boston Bomber Cited Iraq, Afghanistan Invasions as Motive

Endless War with No Borders

Washington gets explicit: its 'war on terror' is permanent | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: 
"Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade. Given the way al-Qaida continues to metastasize, some officials said no clear end is in sight. . . . That timeline suggests that the United States has reached only the midpoint of what was once known as the global war on terrorism.""

CIA Agent Tried To Recruit Russian

Two Nato truck drivers gunned down near Afghan border

Two Nato truck drivers gunned down near Afghan border - thenews.com.pk: 

"The first driver was killed in the Jamrud area of Khyber. “Two gunmen on a motorcycle fired at a Nato truck and killed its driver,” local official Asmatullah Wazir told AFP.
 In a separate attack, gunmen opened fire on another Nato supply truck in a suburb of Peshawar, killing its driver, senior police official Muhammad Faysal Murad told AFP."

Afghans tell of US soldier's killing rampage

Afghans tell of US soldier's killing rampage: 
"The soldier wasn't listening. He pointed his pistol at Masooma to quiet her and pushed her husband into the living room.
"My husband just looked back at me and said, 'I will be back.'" Seconds later she heard gunshots, she recalled, her voice cracking as she was momentarily unable to speak. Her husband was dead.
Masooma, who like many Afghans uses only one name, defied tribal traditions that prohibit women from speaking to strangers to talk to The Associated Press while — half a world away — the military prepares to court-martial a U.S. serviceman in the killing of her husband and 15 other Afghan civilians, mainly women and children." LINK

Kabul Attack - Report Clip

Six Americans Killed in Kabul Car Bomb Attack

Six Americans Killed in Kabul Car Bomb Attack - ABC News: 
"The attack happened just after 8 a.m. The bomber drove a car filled with explosives directly into a military convoy as it drove through the city. The explosion was so powerful it reduced a series of vehicles to piles of twisted, mangled metal, and set nearby buildings on fire. The scene was quickly secured by NATO troops, as fires smoldered on the freshly blackened street. Some of the bodies were so badly burned they were difficult to identify."

Attack On NATO Convoy in Kabul

Early reports say that 6 'locals' including 2 children were killed in the suicide attack on the convoy this morning. Details sparse on Nato casualties but it seems inevitable from remarks by officials that there are some. The picture was taken by Afghan TV at the scene.

 

Obama Calls Benghazi Media Frenzy a 'Circus'

The Kill Team: Murderous Reality of the US war in Afghanistan

The Kill Team: The murderous reality of the US war in Afghanistan: 
"Gibbs may have been the immediate instigator of the crimes and deserves punishment, but he is also something of a scapegoat. The real criminals, responsible for the rivers of blood in Afghanistan and elsewhere, are those who decided on and carried out the policy of aggressive, illegal war. They are to be found in the White House, the Pentagon, Congress and the comfortable offices of America’s leading media outlets."

Troops 'humiliated' Afghan detainees

Troops 'humiliated' Afghan detainees: 
"In February last year, the Australian monitoring team reported via cable from Kabul that detainees at Parwan had raised ''serious concerns'' about searches of ''groin and buttocks areas'' being carried out in open view. ''The US advised that, in accordance with US policy, these searches were not invasive enough to be conducted in private by medical personnel'', the cable says. ''As such they would continue to be conducted in public by the guardforce.''"

Drones - The Future of 'Warfare'? Future of 'Tragedies' They Mean

The war-porn pundits drool over this kind of hardware sales-pitch. These machines and the clowns who operate them are the ones who call their frequent mistakes (dead villagers, wood-gatherers, wedding parties etc.) 'tragedies'. The first tragedy is that there are dupes willing to buy the arms industry/securocrat PR.

A Flag-Burning In Afghanistan

More trivial than what we usually report but interesting for the condescending attitude of the WSJ as much as anything. Apols for the advert.

Twin bombs strike at Afghan checkpoint near governor's compound

Twin bombs strike at Afghan checkpoint near governor's compound, killing 1, wounding 9:
"The explosions struck in the early morning in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province. The first bomb wounded a policeman, and the second was remotely detonated minutes later as police swarmed to the blast scene to secure it.
The second explosion killed one police officer and wounded five policemen and three civilian passers-by who were on their way to a nearby park, said Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, a spokesman for the governor"

Afghans Claim to Have Video of U.S. Special Forces Torturing Civilians

Afghans Claim to Have Video of U.S. Special Forces Guy Torturing Civilians | Danger Room | Wired.com: 

"The video is only one component of the evidence Afghans told the paper they’ve compiled against Kandahari and the Special Forces A-Team that was in Wardak’s Nerkh District. A 16-year old named Hikmatullah said Kandahari picked him up on incorrect suspicion of being an insurgent. “Mr. Kandahari beat and kicked him until his shoulder was dislocated. He was released after three days, he said,” the paper reports, “but his brothers are missing.”
The suspicion helps explain why President Hamid Karzai abruptly called in February for U.S. special operators to leave Wardak Province. It took only a few weeks for Karzai, the recipient of CIA money, to soften his position: the elite troops immediately left Nerkh, but they’re still working out a timetable with the Afghan government to vacate Wardak entirely."

NATO says roadside bomb kills 4 US troops in South

NATO says roadside bomb kills 4 US troops in southern Afghanistan - The Washington Post:
"The attack follows a truck bombing a day earlier on a NATO outpost in Helmand province that killed three Georgian soldiers. So far this year, 58 international service troops have been killed in Afghanistan, according to an Associated Press count. Of those, 44 are U.S. service members.
Earlier Tuesday, a bomb hidden in a parked motorcycle ripped through a packed market in the village of Safar in Helmand, according to Omer Zawak, the spokesman for the provincial governor. Three people were killed and seven were wounded in the blast, he said, warning that the toll could rise."

La Turquie Embourbée dans la Crise Syrienne

Three Georgian Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan Attack

Three Georgian Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan Attack: 
"It was the second bloodiest encounter for Georgian forces in Afghanistan, after a September 2010 attack that left four troops dead.

In all, 22 Georgian military personnel have been killed in Afghanistan.

With some 1,600 troops, Georgia has the largest non-NATO contingent in Afghanistan."

Afghans Say an American Tortured Civilians

Afghans Say an American Tortured Civilians - NYTimes.com: 
"They say they have testimony and documents implicating Mr. Kandahari and his unit in the killings or disappearances of 15 Afghans in Wardak. Mr. Kandahari is of Afghan descent but was born and raised in the United States, they say. Included in the evidence, the Afghan officials say, is a videotape of Mr. Kandahari torturing one of the 15 Afghans, a man they identified as Sayid Mohammad.
Mr. Mohammad was picked up by the unit in Wardak six months ago and has not been seen since, the officials said. The partial remains of Mohammad Qassim, another of the 15 Afghans, were found in a trash pit just outside the fence around the unit’s base in the Nerkh district, according to Mr. Qassim’s family and Afghan officials."

US-Afghan Relations strained over Charges of Soldier's role in Torture, Killings

PressTV - US-Afghan ties strained over charges of soldier's role in torture, killings: 

"These officials say, according to the report, they have “testimony and documents” implicating Kandahari and his unit in the killings or disappearances of 15 Afghans in Wardak, further noting that Kandahari is “of Afghan descent but born and raised in the United States.”
At the center of the allegations mentioned by Afghan officials is an American Special Forces A team that has been based in the Nerkh district until recently. "

Pakistan Election Result - A Backward Step

Pakistan appears to have turned the clock back with this result. It is questionable whether any real inroads will be made into endemic corruption or building economic recovery. On the plus side, Sharif, at least ostensibly, does not appear to be a US stooge. Imran Khan's loss is a lost opportunity for the Pakistani people. 

Blast kills top Afghan Intelligence Official

Blast kills top Afghan intel. official: 
"The deputy intelligence chief of Afghanistan™s Nuristan province has been killed when an explosive device went off in his residence, Press TV reports.
Provincial governor’s spokesman, Mohammad Zahir Bahand, said the attack took place at around noon on Saturday in the Waygal district as Mohammad Faiz was leaving home to go to his workplace.
Faiz was rushed to a local hospital, where he succumbed to his grave injuries after an hour and was pronounced dead."

Occupations Expose Soldiers As Jailers

Army Lessons Observed…But Not Learned | TIME.com:
"The real lesson of America’s participation in World War I — a war that cost the United States 318,000 casualties in only 110 days of fighting — was for the U.S. to stay out of the war. Once in, Woodrow Wilson’s neocon-like commitment to an ideological crusade, mired in the worst sort of wishful thinking, resulted in a postwar treaty and a set of international financial arrangements that guaranteed a second world war that might otherwise had been avoided."

Bombs Kill 11 As Pakistan Votes

Suicide Bomb in Kapisa Kills, Injures 6

The suspected suicide bomber detonated his explosives near a police check post, killing two people including a woman together with her son and wounding four others.In the meantime provincial security chief said Afghan police officers were also among those injured during the incident and were taken to the nearest hospital for treatment purposes. LINK

Afghan police demand weapons amid tension with Pakistan

Afghan police demand weapons amid tension with Pakistan: 

"The commander of border police in Goshta district in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province, Bakht Jamal Eshaaqzai, said his 250-strong forces were armed with mortars and machine guns, but that it would be difficult to match Pakistan’s heavy artillery and tanks, visible on the other side of the border.
Eshaaqzai says Pakistan had 12 manned outposts in Goshta, while Afghanistan had three. “We are under threat from their superior equipment. We urge the government to send us more as soon as possible,” he told reporters and members of Kabul-based think tank Afghan Analysis Awareness, who drove from the capital to Goshta on Wednesday. Shahzada, who only goes by one name, is one of hundreds of border police who have taken up positions over the last two days in Goshta."

Rehabilitation of Bush And Cheney

Karzai: Afghanistan ready to let US have 9 bases

Karzai: Afghanistan ready to let US have 9 bases - San Jose Mercury News:

"Speaking at a ceremony on Thursday at Kabul University, Karzai said Afghanistan is ready to sign a partnership agreement to that effect.
Karzai says: "When they (the U.S.) do this, we are ready to sign."
The remarks are the first time the Afghan leader has offered any insight into ongoing talks over a deal that would outline American presence in Afghanistan after 2014."

Security Incidents 8th May

Fifteen persons were injured when an explosion occurred in the main market area of Hangu while casualties are also feared, FP News desk reported. According to police, a blast occurred in the main market area of Hangu where 15 persons have been injured while casualties are also expected.

Two people were killed and 23 others were wounded on Wednesday when a suicide bomber crashed his explosives-packed car into a barrier outside a police station in Bannu district. “Two people including one woman and a policeman have been killed in the suicide attack near Domail police station in Bannu,” local police chief Abdul Ghafoor Afridi said.

Three Afghan civilians were killed and five others were wounded Wednesday morning in a roadside bombing in the country's southern province of Helmand, said a provincial government spokesman. "A civilian vehicle was traveling along a road to a local marketplace in Nahri Sarraj district at around 7:30 a.m. local time. The ill-fated vehicle ran over a roadside bombing, leaving the casualties," spokesman Omar Zhwak told Xinhua.

23 protestors killed, wounded in Kandahar

Wakht News Agency - 23 protestors killed, wounded in Kandahar: 
"KANDAHAR CITY (WNA): At least five were killed and 20 other wounded as the security forces opened fire on the people protesting against what they said have been beaten and insulted in last day’s Maiwand district protests, southern Kandahar province.
The rally was staged following the last days’ demonstration against Pakistani forces incursion into the border Ghoshta district, where they have installed security gate and checkpoints.
The protesters said the government and foreign troops have entered their houses overnight insulting women and children and beating men, prompting them to take to the streets today (Wednesday) to protest the misbehaviour.
But, the provincial official said insurgents misused the demonstrators and opened fire on the troops killing and wounding several in Bazarki area of the district.
Five dead bodies and 20 wounded some of them in critical condition had been evacuated to the nearby hospital, an on-duty doctor said."

ISAF investigates misconduct from operation in Afghanistan

ISAF investigates misconduct from operation in Afghanistan - UPI.com: 

"I have informed the Afghan government of the situation. ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] will do a very thorough investigation and, if appropriate, we will take action against the personnel involved," U.S. Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, ISAF commander, said in a release."

7 Afghan Soldiers Killed in Blasts

TEHRAN (FNA)
Seven Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers were killed in different parts of the country, the defense ministry said. 

A statement from the ministry said six soldiers were killed in two blasts in the Bala Baluk district of Western Farah province and one in a clash with the Taliban in the Zurmat district of Paktika. 

Meanwhile, the Taliban claimed responsibility for Farah blasts. The group's spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said nine soldiers were killed in the attacks, Pajhwok Afghan News reported.