By TOM ENGELHARDT & NICK TURSE Common Dreams.org International Posted by Bulatlat It was a Christmas and New Year’s from hell for American intelligence, that $75 billion labyrinth of at least 16 major agencies and a handful of minor ones. As the old year was preparing to be rung out, so were our intelligence agencies,…
Tags: Afghanistan
Children Afraid of the Night
By VIJAY PRASHAD CounterPunch International More US troops are being prepared for Afghanistan. The President charged them with (1) defeating or degrading the Taliban; (2) building the Afghan National Army. We have thrown in our lot with Hamid Karzai’s government. Its association with warlords is uncontestable (his own brother is an opium kingpin). Our enemy…
Strategy and Logistics in Afghanistan: Flawed Thinking
By MELVIN A. GOODMAN Truthout International Logistics will be the key to introducing 30,000 soldiers and Marines into Afghanistan in the next six to seven months and to confronting the Taliban over the next 18 months. This reflects an old saying in the military – amateurs study strategy and professionals study logistics. Nevertheless, no one…
Bring Them Home, Mr. President
By EUGENE ROBINSON Truthout International Posted by Bulatlat.com WASHINGTON – The most dreadful burden of the presidency – the power to send men and women to die for their country – seems to weigh heavily on Barack Obama these days. He went to Dover Air Force Base to salute the coffins of fallen troops. He…
What’s Really Behind Conservative Pundit George Will’s Call for Total Withdrawal From Afghanistan?
By BYARD DUNCAN AlterNet International Posted by (Bulatlat.com) On Sept. 1, conservative columnist George Will published a seemingly out-of-nowhere, eye-popping op-ed for the Washington Post titled, “Time to Get out of Afghanistan.” The piece, which called for “a comprehensively revised policy” involving drastic troop reductions, prompted a battery of rebuttals from right-wing pundits.??But although Will…
Afghanistan for Dummies
By RAY MCGOVERN truthout International Posted by (Bulatlat.com) I’m going to ask for my money back. I’ve seen this Afghanistan movie before. The first time, Vietnam was in the title. As in an early scene from the Vietnam version, U.S. military officials are surprised to discover that the insurgents in Afghanistan are stronger than previously…
Afghanistan War Resister to ‘Put the War on Trial’
By DAHR JAMAIL truthout International Posted by Bulatlat US Army Specialist Victor Agosto served a 13-month deployment in Iraq with the 57th Expeditionary Signal Battalion. “What I did there, I know I contributed to death and human suffering,” Agosto told Truthout from Fort Hood, in Killeen, Texas, in May, “It’s hard to quantify how much…
Escalation Scam: Troops in Afghanistan
By Norman Solomon Truthout/Perspective International Posted by (Bulatlat.com) The president has set a limit on the number of US troops in Afghanistan. For now. That’s how escalation works. Ceilings become floors. Gradually. A few times since last fall, the Obama team has floated rising numbers for how many additional US soldiers will be sent to…
Filipinos and Other Foreign Civilians Die, Uncompensated, for US Army in Iraq
Tens of thousands of civilian contract workers from poverty-stricken countries — among them Filipino Rey Torres (left) — were hired to support the U.S. war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. In case of injury or death, they are supposed to be covered by workers’ compensation insurance financed by American taxpayers. But the program has failed to deliver medical care and other benefits.
Can Treasury Sneak IMF Money Through the Supplemental?
By ROBERT NAIMAN International Posted by Bulatlat Almost completely lost in the drama over the war supplemental for Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan is a sneaky play by the US Treasury Department to get $108 billion in tax dollars for the International Monetary Fund through the supplemental. Of course, if Treasury can get the money through…
The New York Times Publishes Roadmap for Taliban Talks
The problem with the reconciliation process, officials say, is that it demanded that the Taliban lay down their arms in return for security guarantees, which they did not trust either the government to enforce or the Americans to honor. BY ROBERT NAIMAN Truthout/Perspective INTERNATIONAL Posted by Bulatlat If you’re interested in a “way forward” in…