NATO announces it’s take-over date and clarifies what has been reported as a “peace treaty” negotiated between UK forces and Taliban. Apparently the incident was “misreported” (how could that be?).
Further to misreporting, it turns out that Senator Frist did not say what was reported that he said about the Taliban and the Afghan process. News broke recently that he had suggested that the Taliban be brought into the Afghan government.
Meanwhile in the UK, the opposition Tories claim that failure in Afghanistan would be catastrophic while American forces count 278 dead in the Afghan theater, and prepare to come under foreign command for the first time since WW2.
Canadians come under a third day of attacks. One attack took the lives of two soldiers. The soldiers were guarding a road construction crew; engaged in exactly the type of activity that Lollipop Jack Layton would have them do.
For details and much more, check out MediaRight.ca. and don’t miss the opinion buffet, where we give voice to an interesting cross-section of views.
cross-posted @ Celestial Junk
We have a third of the number troops in afghanistan, are we stronger then the old soviet union was?
The Soviets brought in over one hundred thousand soldiers, secured Kabul quickly and installed Babrak Karmal as their puppet leader. However, they were met with fierce resistance when they ventured out of their strongholds into the countryside. Resistance fighters, called mujahidin, saw the Christian or atheist Soviets controlling Afghanistan as a defilement of Islam as well as of their traditional culture. Proclaiming a “jihad”(holy war), they gained the support of the Islamic world. The US gave them weapons and money. The mujahidin employed guerrilla tactics against the Soviets. They would attack or raid quickly, then disappear into the mountains, causing great destruction without pitched battles. The fighters used whatever weapons they could take from the Soviets or were given by the US. Decentralized and scattered around Afghanistan, the mujahidin were like a poisonous snake without a head that could be cut off. There was no one strong central stronghold from which resistance operated.
Outside or inside the major centres our troops are at risk also.
Contractors in Afghanistan are making big money for bad work
A highway that begins crumbling before it is finished. A school with a collapsed roof. A clinic with faulty plumbing. A farmers’ cooperative that farmers can’t use. Afghan police and military that, after training, are incapable of providing the most basic security. And contractors walking away with millions of dollars in aid money for the work. The Bush Administration touts the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan as a success story. Perhaps, in comparison to the violence-plagued efforts in Iraq and the incompetence-riddled efforts on the American Gulf Coast, everything is relative. A new report “Afghanistan, Inc.,” issued by the non-profit organization CorpWatch, details the bungled reconstruction effort in Afghanistan.
Massive open-ended contracts have been granted without competitive bidding or with limited competition to many of the same politically connected corporations which are doing similar work in Iraq: Kellogg, Brown & Root (a subsidiary of Halliburton ), DynCorp, Blackwater, The Louis Berger Group, The Rendon Group and many more. Engineers, consultants, and mercenaries make as much as $1,000 a day, while the Afghans they employ make $5 per day.
These companies are pocketing millions, and leaving behind a people increasingly frustrated and angry with the results.
Fariba Nawa is an Afghani women reporting on the rebuilding efforts in her country, she’s had to move back to the states because of the violence and fear the women feel over there.
Who’s gonna stand up to Pakistan, the real terror centre?
Good question neutralsam.
They are playing both sides and they have nukes. Pakistan is also a very loosely held together federation of tribes that don’t particularly like each other.
Tough situation.
neutral sam: Your comments about contracts are very accurate. It seems that contracts that are delivered and provided under military supervision, go off very well. Those that are handed out to third then fourth parties are a recipe for corruption. We see this Iraq on a massive scale. There are no checks and balances; which is typical of the entire developing world. The US army has been firing a lot of Afghan police; dismissing entire detachements over corruption. I think more of the same is in order. As well, the US have been working ever more closely with local elders when setting up recontruction… this will likely be the way of the future.
As to the Taliban and our troops. There is no comparison between the NATO and USA forces of 2006 and the soviets. The soviet army was a low-tech draft army with very little capability compared to what the relatively small NATO and US forces have. The NATO force there now would have completely slaughtered that Soviet force that was there if they were to face off… it’s just not militarily comparable. Furthermore, and by all accounts, to date the Taliban (I use this term loosely) do not have universal support. During the Soviet occupation, the Taliban were not the Taliban, but a hodge podge of tribes… many of those same tribal groups are now part of the government and are anti-Taliban. The Taliban do not have anywhere near the base of support that the tribal coalitions had during the Soviet occupation.
But, with Pakistan acting as the new Cambodia, you are completely correct in asking… who is going to deal with Pakistan. On mediaright I posted a story a few days back that also shows a growing trickle of Iranian fighters showing up. Now that, is very concerning as well. Iran is fully capable of engaging in reconstruction and trade while pouring Jihadists into the country. Iran can also supply the Taliban with anti-tank and anti-air missiles… like in Lebanon.
I think we can win Afghanistan; over about a ten year period, but it’ll take incredible skill and adaptibility. I don’t believe for a minute that 3 years from now, circumstances will be as they are now so NATO had better be flexible.
Starting in the 1950s, the USSR began giving aid to Afghanistan. The Soviets built roads, irrigation and even some oil pipelines. In the 1970s, a Communist party overthrew the monarchy and tried to institute social reforms. The rural populations saw land distribution and women’s rights as alien to their traditional Islamic culture, a culture in which polygamy, covering of women, and blood for blood practices are accepted. The Communist governments in Kabul in the 1970s lacked the popular support of the rural population.
This sounds alot like what we’re trying to do, with the same outcome. We have the support of the urban population but the rural people feel the same towards us.
The people we put in power are the sameones that the al qaeda removed because the people didn’t care for the crooks.
Plus 20,000 new Taliban are ready to fight each month. This is just an estimate, based on 2 students from each Pakistani school a month.
As long as the American companies are allowed to steal from the Taxpayer and the people of Afghanistan we’ll fare no better then the soviets.
It’s funny how it worked out that as soon as the Taliban refused to guarantee the safety of the American pipeline, 2 months before 911 when they came to Texas to see Bush’s father, that all hell broke lose. The US is the largest investor in Kazakhstan’s oil and gas industry and the pipeline is to cross afghanistan. Now northern afghanistan is seeing fighting and attacks on schools.
London: British forces in southern Afghanistan came within hours of retreating from a key base because they suffered a critical shortage of helicopters, the task force commander has disclosed.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph Brigadier Ed Butler said Taliban fire was so heavy and accurate at Musa Qala, a key forward base in northern Helmand, that Army helicopters faced a serious risk of being hit.
He said the loss of such crucial equipment – together with the political impact of a large loss of life – meant he came close to ordering his soldiers to abandon the base. Brigadier Butler said he had warned his superiors early last month that the intensity of Taliban attacks was such that mounting air supply and casualty evacuation missions was likely to lead to the loss of Chinook helicopters.
Another Afghan women speaks out against the war she wants peacekeepers. Read the book or watch the interview.
Democracy Now, todays lending interview.An Afghani Womens point of view…
Five years later, neither objective has been realized. In recent months the Taliban has seized control of entire regions of the country. The security situation has worsened as suicide bombings are up 600 percent this year. Opium and poppy cultivation are at record highs. NATO forces are suffering their highest casualty rate in five years. The number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan has now reached about 20,000 — the highest number of U.S. forces in the country since the invasion. Meanwhile, the Bush administration continues to hold hundreds of prisoners without charge at Bagram airbase.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/06/1350253
The UK tossed in a ill prepared force. The UK is in virtual scandal now, because key UK resources were held back, not to mention that it was a UK only philosophy that set up the isolated forward bases. It wasn’t a matter of lack of capability, but a matter of not provided the capability. Tony Blair is notorious for talking the talk; but starving his military in the process.