michelle
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Post by michelle on Oct 11, 2007 13:25:00 GMT 4
Six Years Later, US Expands Afghan Base By Jason Straziuso The Associated Press Sunday 07 October 2007 Bagram, Afghanistan - Six years after the first U.S. bombs began falling on Afghanistan's Taliban government and its al-Qaida guests, America is planning for a long stay. Originally envisioned as a temporary home for invading U.S. forces, the sprawling American base at Bagram, a former Soviet outpost in the shadow of the towering Hindu Kush mountains, is growing in size by nearly a third. Today the U.S. has about 25,000 troops in the country, and other NATO nations contribute another 25,000, more than three times the number of international troops in the country four years ago, when the Taliban appeared defeated. The Islamic militia has come roaring back since then, and 2007 has been the battle's bloodiest year yet. Barnett R. Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan at New York University, said U.S. leaders in Washington "utterly failed" to understand what was needed to consolidate that original Taliban rout, which started with airstrikes on Oct. 7, 2001, less than a month after the Sept. 11 attacks in Washington and New York. "The Bush administration did not see Afghanistan as a long-term commitment, and its leaders deceived themselves into thinking they had won an irreversible victory. They did not consider Afghanistan important and always intended to focus on Iraq," he said. "Now the U.S. and international community have fallen way behind, and the Taliban are winning strategically, even if we defeat them in every tactical engagement," he added. At Bagram, new barracks will help accommodate the record number of U.S. troops in the country. "We've grown in our commitment to Afghanistan by putting another brigade (of troops) here, and with that we know that we're going to have an enduring presence," said Army Col. Jonathan Ives. "So this is going to become a long-term base for us, whether that means five years, 10 years - we don't know." Insurgents have launched more than 100 suicide attacks this year, an unprecedented pace, including a bombing in Kabul on Saturday against a U.S. convoy that killed an American soldier and four Afghan civilians - the third suicide blast in Kabul in a week. Separately on Saturday, two Afghan civilians were killed in Kunar province after speeding toward a checkpoint without stopping, NATO said. A "suspicious" man was also shot and killed in Paktia province after being asked to halt, it said. More than 5,100 people - mostly militants - have died in insurgency related violence so far this year, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and Western officials. That far outpaces last year's violence, when the AP count topped 4,000 for the entire year. Some 87 U.S. troops have also died so far this year, also a record pace. About 90 U.S. servicemembers were killed in all of last year. Wide areas of the south - in Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan provinces - are controlled by the Taliban, and the fighting is migrating north, into Ghazni province - where 23 South Koreans were kidnapped in July - and Wardak, right next door to Kabul, the capital. Osama bin Laden, whose presence here was a trigger for the U.S.-led attack, is still at large, possibly hiding in the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. And Afghan farmers this year grew a record amount of opium poppy, prompting officials to draw up plans to use the military in drug interdiction missions against traffickers. Rubin said Washington ignored how difficult the fight would be and wanted to prevent U.S. forces from being tied down in nation-building exercises as in the Balkans. "Since 2005, U.S. generals have told me (former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld) was drumming his fingers on the table trying to find out when he could take the troops out," Rubin said. "Now the administration has completely reversed itself, but of course without ever admitting it was wrong and still without a strategy that has a serious chance of success." Still, U.S. commanders point out that military operations have killed more than 50 mid- and high-level Taliban commanders this year, causing at least a temporary disruption in the militants' abilities. The Afghan army participated in its first jointly planned and executed operation, in Ghazni province, earlier this summer. Originally, Pentagon planners thought Bagram would be a "temporary" camp, Ives said, but an increased U.S. commitment to Afghanistan means Bagram needs to grow. "Where we designed a base around 3,000 (troops), it quickly moved to 7,000 and now we're housing about 13,000, so just in a very short period of time you've grown not necessarily exponentially but you've definitely doubled just about every two years," Ives said. A new runway accommodates heavier C-5 cargo planes and Boeing 747s. New soldiers' barracks - safer and more comfortable than the wooden structures that dot Bagram - are being built. And more workers are flowing in. Two years ago, some 1,500 Afghans worked in support roles at Bagram; today 5,000 walk through its front gates daily. Six years after CIA agents and Special Forces soldiers helped the Northern Alliance swoop down from their northern stronghold toward Taliban-controlled Kabul, President Hamid Karzai is increasingly asking that Taliban militants join the government through peace talks. And the U.N. has said an increasing number of fighters want peace. But the Taliban and factional warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the militant group Hezb-i-Islami, have rejected those offers, saying that international troops must first leave the country. Although the Taliban seems to have an endless recruiting base in the ethnic Pashtun heartland in southern and eastern Afghanistan and the Pakistan border region, some fighters are laying down their arms and joining the government. Officials in Ghazni province on Saturday said some 50 militants from Andar District - a Taliban stronghold where some of the Korean hostages were held - will join the government's reconciliation process. But the U.S. will mentor Afghanistan's military for years to come, Ives said. He said America's military and aid commitments to Afghanistan are "speaking volumes." "Our commitment to them is really saying we will be here until you have the security and stability that allows you to be a developing country on your own, and if that's 10 years then it's 10 years," he said. "But I think the thing is we're looking to help them as much as we can." Source: www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100707C.shtml
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Nov 18, 2007 20:32:51 GMT 4
Ahhh geeze...I hate posting about this kind of happening Gunfire hit most of Afghan bomb victims By ALISA TANG JASON STRAZIUSO and FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer Sat Nov 17, 3:57 PM ET Up to two-thirds of the 77 people killed and 100 wounded in a suicide bombing last week were hit by bullets from visiting lawmakers' panicked bodyguards, who fired on a crowd of mostly schoolchildren for up to five minutes, a preliminary U.N. report says. Afghanistan's Interior Ministry says only a "small number" of the victims were hit by gunfire, but an Afghan official in Baghlan province told The Associated Press that bodyguards were "raining bullets" on the crowd. The suicide bomb contained ball bearings, the Interior Ministry said, which may have caused wounds that look like bullet holes. An Afghan doctor who treated patients after the Nov. 6 blast, meanwhile, told the AP that a high-ranking government official told him not to publicly reveal the number of gunfire victims, suggesting a possible government cover-up. Separate teams of U.N. investigators have uncovered conflicting information about the number of people hit by gunfire and are trying to reconcile the differences, according to two Western officials who have seen the internal reports. The two spoke to the AP on condition they not be identified talking about preliminary findings. But at least one of those reports — based on interviews with witnesses and medical authorities and a reconstruction of the bomb scene — says that of the roughly 77 people killed and 100 wounded, up to two-thirds were hit by the three to five minutes of gunfire the bodyguards fired into the crowd, one official said. "A large number of people — and quite probably a majority — were killed and wounded as a result of gunfire after the blast," said the second official, a U.N. employee. The official said one internal report is highly critical of the bodyguards' reaction. Among the dead were 61 students and five teachers, said Education Ministry adviser Hamid Almi. Six members of parliament and five bodyguards also died. The deadliest previous suicide bombing in Afghanistan was in June, when 35 people were killed in a bomb attack on a police bus. Among the parliamentarians killed was Sayed Mustafa Kazimi, the chief spokesman of Afghanistan's only opposition group, the National Front. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and Afghan officials say they don't know who was behind the bombing. The Taliban has denied it was responsible. A government investigation is also under way. Sayed Mohammad Bakir Hashimi, a Shiite cleric who performed a religious ceremony on Kazimi after the blast, told the AP the lawmaker had three bullet wounds. However, Kazimi's family now denies he was hit by bullets. Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said most of the victims were hit by ball bearings from the bomb, and not bullets. Bashary gave different casualty numbers than the Education Ministry, saying 59 people in total were killed and 100 wounded. "There was small number of people injured by bullets," Bashary said. "Bodyguards of lawmakers opened fire into the air and hit some people." Adrian Edwards, the spokesman for the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, said there is "very, very conflicting" information on the number of gunfire victims. "The reports we're hearing are that significant numbers were victims of gunfire, but defining who died from gunfire, who died from the explosion is pretty difficult," Edwards said. Hundreds of children had crowded onto the tree-lined driveway leading to the New Baghlan Sugar Factory to greet visiting lawmakers when the blast went off. Witnesses and survivors describe bodyguards firing into the thick black smoke for up to five minutes after the attack. "One guy pointed his gun at me, but I put my hands up and said, 'Don't shoot!'" 13-year-old Nezamuddin said this week from his hospital bed. He said a bullet had passed through his ankle, which was bandaged with gauze. "A lot of bullets were fired. ... My friends were hit by bullets." The trees near the blast are pockmarked from the impact of bomb's ball bearings, and a nearby wall is scarred with bullet holes. Mourners set up a small memorial, including a red plastic flower wreath from the British Embassy. Visitors lit candles on the site, leaving puddles of white wax around the tree. Dr. Khalil Narmgui, director of the Baghlani-jadid hospital, said his staff treated 11 gunfire victims — five killed and six wounded. In the nearby city of Pul-i-Khumri, Dr. Mohammad Yousuf Fayyez of the provincial hospital said his staff were not able to differentiate between gunfire and bomb wounds, while Dr. Habib Rahman Fazli said none of those treated at the Pul-i-Khumri Textile Hospital suffered from gunfire. However, the U.N. official who asked not to be identified said that doctors told investigators that "we know how to differentiate between the bullet and blast wounds, we know how to tell the difference." One doctor who helped treat patients said he was pressured to hide the truth. "One of the deputies of the ministry — I won't say which ministry — said please don't reveal the high number of casualties by the bullets," the doctor said. He asked not to be named out of fear of reprisals. The head of Baghlan's elected provincial council said he found it hard to believe that so few people admitted to the hospital were gunfire victims. "The people said it was raining bullets from the gunmen and security guards," said Sarajuddin, who goes by one name. "It is surprising a mine or suicide bomb could hurt 200 people," he said. At the Baghlani-jadid hospital this week, six boys and one man lay in a room, recovering from wounds. Ahmad Fareed pulled up his left pant leg to show where surgeons removed a bullet lodged in his left knee. A doctor held up the silver-colored, inch-long bullet. Outside on the hospital steps sat Mohammad Gul, who buried his 5-year-old son, Nazir. His older son Nassir, 13, is recovering from shrapnel that ripped through his legs. "Nassir doesn't know about his younger brother. He asked me just now, 'Where is my brother?' ... I told him, 'He's fine. He's at home,'" Gul, 55, said, his voice cracking. "Half of Nazir's head was blown off, and he was hit in the shoulder by a bullet." Afghanistan's north has been relatively quiet compared with the violence-plagued south, but a handful of attacks, including at least five suicide bombs in neighboring Kunduz province, indicate some anti-government presence here. This was the first suicide bombing in Baghlan province, officials said. Security officials and elders in Baghlan suspect that the Taliban or militant group Hezb-i-Islami — both of which still have supporters in the area — are behind the attack, although the Taliban denied involvement. "We have no al-Qaida here. Just Hezb-i-Islami and Taliban," an intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Baghlan police chief Gen. Abdul Rahman Syed Kheil said five suspects have been arrested, but he would not say if the suspects belong to a militant group. "No faction has claimed responsibility yet," Syed Kheil said, though he believes the attack is "definitely" linked to violence in Kunduz. "There is a network, and they are organizing." _____ Straziuso and Abrashi reported from Kabul. Amir Shah in Baghlani-Jadid contributed to this report.Source:news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071117/ap_on_re_as/afghan_bombing_aftermath
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Nov 21, 2007 15:11:12 GMT 4
Afghan children were deliberately shot after suicide attack, UN says The Associated Press Monday, November 19, 2007 KABUL, Afghanistan: An internal U.N. report obtained Monday said lawmakers' bodyguards fired indiscriminately into a crowd after a suicide bombing, and that school children suffered most from the "onslaught." The report also suggests some in the U.N. want legal action taken against the gunmen. The United Nations mission in Afghanistan, however, said the report is one of several conflicting views inside the world body and has not been officially endorsed. The report by the U.N. Department of Safety and Security, obtained by The Associated Press, said it was not clear how many people died in the suicide bombing and how many died from subsequent gunfire after the Nov. 6 attack in Baghlan province. Sixty-one students and six lawmakers were among those killed. But the report said as many as two-thirds of the 77 people killed and more than 100 wounded were hit by gunfire; however, some estimates said the number of people shot was much lower. It described the gunmen's actions as "crimes." "Regardless of what the exact breakdown of numbers may be, the fact remains that a number of armed men deliberately and indiscriminately fired into a crowd of unarmed civilians that posed no threat to them, causing multiple deaths and injuries," the report said. "It is believed that at least 100 rounds or more were fired into the crowd with a separate group of school children off to one side of the road bearing the brunt of the onslaught at close range," it said. Though the U.N. report described the firing as deliberate, some witnesses told the AP that there was a blanket of smoke at the blast site so thick that they couldn't see who was shooting. Other witnesses, though, could see clearly enough to identify the gunmen as the lawmakers' bodyguards. Adrian Edwards, the world body's spokesman in Afghanistan, confirmed the internal report's validity, but said it was one of several conflicting views inside the U.N. and that its findings had not been endorsed. "What you are seeing at the moment represents part of the picture only. What hasn't been resolved is that there is widely diverging, contrary views on this, and until those have been resolved, there is no complete finding," he said. According to Afghan authorities, most of the casualties were the result of the suicide attack. Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary has said most of the victims were hit by ball bearings from the bomb, and not bullets. The AP first reported Saturday that a preliminary U.N. report said as many as two-thirds of the 180 bombing casualties were from gunfire. The weekly report obtained Monday provided a more complete picture of the view of the U.N. Department of Safety and Security. The report said that in the chaos following the suicide attack, bodyguards protecting the lawmakers opened fire into the crowd for several minutes. "It has been confirmed that eight of the teachers in charge of this group of school children suffered multiple gunshot wounds, five of which died," it said. The report said that investigations "are being hampered by restrictions on witnesses and officials" and that despite several arrests, there have not yet been any reports of who is responsible, "particularly those who fired into the group of school children, being identified and brought to account for their crimes." The attack happened as about a dozen lawmakers from the parliament's economic committee were being greeted by hundreds of children on a visit to a sugar factory in Afghanistan's normally peaceful north. Among the parliamentarians killed was Sayed Mustafa Kazimi, the chief spokesman of Afghanistan's only opposition group, the National Front. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and Afghan officials say they do not know who was behind the bombing. The Taliban has denied it was responsible. A government investigation is also under way. One doctor who helped treat patients after the bombing told the AP that he was pressured by a government official to hide the truth about how many gunshot victims he attended to. The doctor refused to identify the official and spoke only on condition he wasn't identified because of fear of reprisals. Source:www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/19/asia/AS-GEN-Afghan-Bombing-Aftermath.php
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Jan 10, 2008 15:09:20 GMT 4
US to Send 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan Thursday January 10, 2008 5:31 AM By LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon is preparing to send at least 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan in April to bolster efforts to hold off another expected Taliban offensive in the spring, military officials said Wednesday. The move represents a shift in Pentagon thinking that has been slowly developing after months of repeated insistence that the U.S. was not inclined to fill the need for as many as 7,500 more troops that commanders have asked for there. Instead, Defense Secretary Robert Gates pressed NATO allies to contribute the extra forces. Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday that a proposal will go before Gates on Friday that would send a ground and air Marine contingent as well as a Marine battalion - together totaling more than 3,000 forces - to southern Afghanistan for a ``one-time, seven-month deployment.'' Gates, he said, will want to review the request, and is not likely to make a final decision on Friday. ``He will take it and consider it thoroughly before approving it,'' said Morrell. ``I just want to get people away from the idea that this is going to be imminently approved by the secretary.'' He said Gates ``has some more thinking to do on this matter because it's a serious allocation of forces.'' Morrell added that Gates' thinking on the issue has ``progressed a bit'' over time as it became clear that it was politically untenable for many of the NATO nations to contribute more combat troops to the fight. ``The commanders need more forces there. Our allies are not in the position to provide them. So we are now looking at perhaps carrying a bit of that additional load,'' the spokesman said. Morrell said the move, first reported Wednesday by ABC News, was aimed at beating back ``another Taliban offensive'' that is expected this spring - as has occurred in previous years. When Gates was in Afghanistan last month, commanders made it clear they needed the additional forces. Last year was the most violent since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The number of attacks has surged, including roadside bombings and suicide assaults. Currently there are about 27,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, including 14,000 with the NATO-led coalition. The other 13,000 U.S. troops are training the Afghan forces and hunting al-Qaida terrorists. Morrell said that while the Marine ground and air contingent would be put in place to prevent a spring Taliban offensive, the Marine battalion likely would be used to train Afghan forces. The shift in U.S. thinking on sending more combat forces to Afghanistan has appeared inevitable in recent weeks, based on the political realities in many of the NATO nations. In meeting after meeting during his Afghanistan visit in early December, Gates heard pleas from both Afghan and U.S. military leaders for up to 7,500 more forces, with about half needed for training. About a week later, Gates was asked by a reporter after a NATO meeting in Scotland whether the Bush administration was considering sending more troops to Afghanistan, in the event that the shortfalls are not bridged by NATO allies. Gates replied, ``Not in the short term.'' But by Dec. 21, Gates acknowledged during a press briefing that the Pentagon would ``be looking at the requirement ourselves.'' Bush administration officials pressed NATO allies for months to fill gaps in troops levels in Afghanistan, but many allied governments face public opposition to deeper involvement there. Gates said at the Scotland meeting that the administration had decided to tone down its appeals to allies, taking into account ``political realities'' faced by some European governments whose citizens may see less reason to intervene in Afghanistan. The Bush administration has launched a wide-ranging review of its policy in Afghanistan to ensure that gains made since the radical Islamist Taliban regime was ousted in 2001 are not lost and to bolster Afghan President Hamid Karzai's nascent government. --- AP Military Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report. --- On the Net: Defense Department: www.defenselink.mil Source:www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7212938,00.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Poland to expand role in Afghanistan Thu, 10 Jan 2008 04:40:18 Poland's Defense Minister Bogdan Klich says his country will boost its role in Afghanistan after it reaches an accord with NATO partners. "We have just finished the first round of negotiations on this with NATO. My talks with Defense Secretary Gates would actually only aim to seal the proposal we have been made (by NATO in response to Polish requests)," Klich said. "(The) Americans know we would like to boost our mission's visibility in Afghanistan by taking responsibility for a province under ISAF's jurisdiction," Klich told Reuters in an interview. Having about 1,200 troops in Afghanistan as a part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Poland has agreed to send 400 more soldiers. Poland would also like a Polish commander to receive a senior overall role in the 41,700-strong ISAF force, which includes representatives from 39 countries, Klich said. "If Poles take responsibility for a certain territory in Afghanistan and can fly a Polish flag there, a Polish general should become a deputy operational commander in ISAF," he concluded. AGB/RA Source: www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=38169§ionid=351020403
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Feb 14, 2008 14:55:03 GMT 4
Top US Lawyer And UNICEF Data Reveal Afghan GenocideBy Dr Gideon Polya 08 February, 2008 Countercurrents.org The United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 with the ostensible excuse of the Afghan Government’s “protection” of the asserted Al Qaeda culprits of the 9/11 atrocity that killed 3,000 people. In the light of as many as 6.6 million post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan as of February 2008 (see below), it is important to consider the major problems with this Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite version of events as summarized below: 1. The US has a long history of “questionable” excuses for war e.g. the explosion of the Maine (the Spanish-American War), the sinking of the US arms-carrying Lusitania (entry into World War 1), the Pearl Harbor attack with now recognized US foreknowledge (entry into World War 2), North Koreans provoked into invading their own country (the Korean War), the fictitious Gulf of Tonkin incident (the Vietnam War; recently similarly but unsuccessfully attempted in the Persian Gulf as an “excuse” to attack Iran) and the extraordinary 1,000 post-9/11 lies told by Bush Administration figures, most notoriously about non-existent Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (the Iraq War; post-invasion excess deaths now about 1.5-2 million). 2. The US supported and funded Al Qaeda and the Taliban from the late 1970s to the early 1990s associated with its anti-Soviet policies (see William Blum’s “Rogue State”). 3. Oil- and hegemony-related plans for the invasion of Afghanistan were all ready to go before 9/11. 4. No Afghans were involved in the 9/11 attack according to the “official 9/11 story” of the egregiously dishonest Bush Administration. 5. Even the right-wing, neo-Bush-ite Democrat Al Gore in his recent book “The Assault on Reason” (Chapter 6, National Insecurity, pp178-179) condemns the Bush Administration for effective passive complicity in the 9/11 atrocity i.e. they let it happen, just as a fore-warned US Administration permitted the Pearl Harbor attack to happen in 1941: “Their behaviour, in my opinion, was reckless, but the explanation for it lies in hubris, not in some bizarre conspiracy theory …These affirmative and repeated refusals to listen to clear warnings [prior to 9/11] constitute behaviour that goes beyond simple negligence. At a minimum, it represents a reckless disregard for the safety of the American people.” 6. However, further to point #5, the extremely eminent former 7-year President of Italy, law professor, senator for life and long-term Western intelligence intimate Francesco Cossiga recently (November 2007) told one of Italy's top newspapers that (a) the US CIA and Israeli Mossad committed the 9/11 outrage in order to further US and Zionist aims and that (b) major Western intelligence agencies are well aware of this (for details and documentation see: mwcnews.net/content/view/18569/26/ ). As of February 2008, analysis of UNICEF data (see UNICEF statistics on Occupied Afghanistan: www.unicef.org/infobycountry/afghanistan_statistics.html ) allows the following estimate of 3.3-6.6 million post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that should not have happened) in Occupied Afghanistan: 1. annual under-5 infant deaths 370,000. 2. post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 2.3 million (90% avoidable). 3. post-invasion avoidable under-5 infant deaths 2.1 million. 4. post-invasion non-violent excess deaths 3.2 million (2.3 million /0.7 = 3.3 million; for impoverished, worst case Third world countries the under-5 infant deaths are about 0.7 of total non-violent excess deaths (see A Layperson’s Guide to counting Iraq deaths: mwcnews.net/content/view/5872/26/ ). 5. post-invasion violent deaths about 3.3 million (assuming roughly 1 violent death for every non-violent avoidable death i.e. roughly as in US-occupied Occupied Iraq where the ratio of violent deaths to non-violent excess deaths is 0.8-1.2 million to 0.7-0.8 million; see Continued Australian and US Coalition war crimes in Occupied Iraq: ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/2008/01/rudd-australia-report-card-1-continued.html ). 6. upper estimate of non-violent plus violent post-invasion excess deaths 3.3 million + 3.3 million = 6.6 million excess deaths. For detailed documentation of the above see “Australian complicity in continuing Afghan genocide”: ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/ . A major cause of the carnage is revealed by WHO (see: www.who.int/en/ ) – the “total annual per capita medical expenditure” permitted by the Occupiers in Occupied Afghanistan is a mere $19 – as compared to as compared to $2,560 (the UK), $3,123 (Australia) and $6,096 (the US). This is in gross contravention of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (see: www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ) which unequivocally demands that the Occupier must provide life-sustaining food and medical requisites to its Conquered Subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”. Compounding this is the appalling reality of 4 million Afghan refugees. What is happening in Afghanistan is an Afghan Holocaust. One sees that post-invasion under-5 infant deaths in Occupied Afghanistan (2.3 million) vastly exceeds the number of Jewish children murdered by the Nazis in World War 2 (1.5 million). The upper estimate of post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan (6.6 million out of an average 2001-2008 Afghan population of about 25 million) exceeds the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis in World War 2 ( 5.6 million out of 8.2 million Jews in German-occupied Europe in the period 1941-1945) (see: Gilbert, M. (1969), Jewish History Atlas (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London) and Gilbert, M. (1982), Atlas of the Holocaust (Michael Joseph, London)). Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ) states “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” From the data summarized above, it is apparent that the Afghan Holocaust is also an Afghan Genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention. Outstanding US Law academic Professor Ali Khan of the Washburn University School of Law, Topeka, Kansas has also described what is going on in Afghanistan as genocide i.e. an Afghan Genocide (see “NATO Genocide in Afghanistan”: mwcnews.net/content/view/19831/42/ ). The key legal verdict of Professor Khan is as follows: “The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (entered into force, 1951) is binding on all states including the 26 member states of NATO. The Genocide Convention is jus cogens, the law from which no derogation is allowed. It provides no exceptions for any nation or any organization of nations, such as the United Nations or NATO, to commit genocide. Nor does the Convention allow any exceptions to genocide "whether committed in time of peace or in time of war." Even traditional self-defense - let alone preemptive self-defense, a deceptive name for aggression – cannot be invoked to justify or excuse the crime of genocide.” Professor Khan proceeds to analyse the campaign of extermination of the Indigenous Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan in relation to International law. He states that in relation to Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention “In murdering the Taliban, NATO armed forces systematically practice on a continual basis the crime of genocide that consists of three constituent elements - act, intent to destroy, and religious group.” His detailed analysis can be succinctly summarized as follows: 1. “The Genocidal Act” is prohibited as defined in the Genocide Convention as “a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” – but is is clearly occurring on a huge scale as indicated by the above data. 2. “The Genocidal Intent” is expressed in the Genocide Convention as “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”- but is clearly present in the statements of the NATO leaders. The “Intent” is also apparent from the sustained, resolute conduct of this horrendously bloody war for over 6 years. 3. “The Genocidal targeting of a Religious Group” is clearly prohibited by the Genocide Convention by “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” – but is clearly being carried out with the accompaniment of immense Islamophobic propaganda in the West. Professor Khan concludes: “It may, therefore, be safely concluded that NATO combat troops and NATO commanders are engaged in murdering the Taliban, a protected group under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to physically and mentally destroy the group in whole or in part. This is the crime of genocide.” As an agnostic humanist I certainly don’t care for the Taliban beliefs – but what agnostic humanists (such as myself) or people of other philosophic persuasions think about the religious beliefs and interpretations of the Taliban is beside the point from the perspective of the UN Genocide Convention. And while I strongly object to human rights violations by the Taliban (especially in relation to women and application of their extreme interpretations of Sharia Law) one has to objectively give credit to the Taliban for (a) bringing Peace through victory in the middle 1990s and (b) for destroying 95% of the Afghan opium production in 2001 (as well of course banning the vastly more deadly use of alcohol and for prohibiting Afghan Government employees from the even more deadly practice of smoking tobacco in 1997). Smoking, alcohol and illicit drugs kill about 7 million people annually, the breakdown being 5 million (tobacco), 1.8 million (alcohol) and 0.2 million (from illicit drugs, about half opiate drug-related). It can be estimated that 0.6 million people have died world-wide due to opiates in the last 6 years, about 0.5 million of these deaths being due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 5% of world market share (2001) to 93% (2007) (see UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, World Drug Report 2007: www.unodc.org/unodc/world_drug_report.html ). The 0.5 million global US-NATO-linked opiate drug-related deaths plus 6.6 million post-invasion Afghan excess deaths bring an upper estimate of the carnage due to the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan to 7.1 million deaths. If we include excess deaths associated with UK-US actions against Iraq in the period 1990-2008 (about 4 million) then the gruesome carnage of the Bush I plus Bush II Asian Wars now totals about 11 million excess deaths (and this ignores the impact of the Bush Wars through oil price rises and other factors on Third World avoidable deaths). Occupied Afghanistan is the New Auschwitz of the US and its complicit allies (including former Axis countries Germany and Japan who have on US instigation joined the US-NATO Afghan Genocide) (see: mwcnews.net/content/view/7616/26/ ). Those Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite politicians, military and Mainstream media executives complicit in the Afghan Genocide should be arraigned before the International Criminal Court (see: ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/ ). In his 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (see: www.countercurrents.org/arts-pinter081205.htm ), UK playwright Harold Pinter urged the arraignment of Bush and Blair before the International Criminal Court for war crimes and stated “How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought.” Eleven million? More than enough, I would have thought. Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ). Source: www.countercurrents.org/polya080208.htm
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Feb 20, 2008 16:17:13 GMT 4
The new Auschwitz14 - 20 February 2008 Issue No. 884 In addition to a bumper opium harvest, the US is reaping the whirlwind in Afghanistan, warns Eric Walberg According to Gideon Polya, based on UNESCO data, the US invasion of Afghanistan has led to as many as 6.6 million unnecessary deaths. [see report, last post...M] According to Washburn University law professor Liaquat Ali Khan, the "crime of genocide applies to the intentional killings that NATO troops commit on a weekly basis in the poor villages and mute mountains of Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban." The occupation forces, which ironically include former Axis powers Germany and Japan, have created the New Auschwitz. During a recent visit to Kabul by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Afghan President Hamid Karzai defended his rule, saying the economy and education systems had improved and there was more democratic freedom under the new constitution. "It is not right that Afghanistan was forgotten," he said. Meaning, in diplo-speak, of course, it was, except by the drug-crazed bomber pilots, who made a record- breaking 3,572 bombing raids last year, 20 times the level two years earlier. But it has popped back into the news recently with a string of gloomy reports, a series of terrifying shoot-outs in Kabul, and a high-profile NATO meeting where words were had, and not pretty ones. The invasion -- well into its seventh year and approaching the 1979-88 Soviet nine-year occupation record -- is increasingly being compared to the ill-fated British 19th century invasions, intended to undermine Russian influence in the so-called Great Game. Ironically, the current fiasco was similarly inspired by a Western desire to undermine Russian influence, and, taking a different and as it turned out extremely risky tack, began in 1979 to massively fund Osama bin Laden and other Muslim terrorists, something the 19th century Brits were not so foolhardy as to do. The result, of course, was the 2001 invasion and occupation, at first hailed as a new chapter for the hapless Afghans, but now seen as doomed, according to that pesky string of reports. Paddy Ashdown, the US choice as United Nations "proconsul", "superenvoy", whatever in Kabul, declared: "We are losing in Afghanistan." Quelle surprise, his appointment was vetoed by Karzai, who is desperately trying to portray himself as an independent leader of a country that has "turned the corner", despite the six million plus and the recent tiff over British military policy in the south, which Karzai claims led to the return of the Taliban. He complains that he was forced by the British to remove the governor of Helmand with disastrous consequences, and was furious that at the same time, Britain was secretly negotiating with the Taliban to set up "retirement camps" there for possible rebel defectors. But then what should he expect? A US citizen and UNOCAL oil executive, he was parachuted into Afghanistan when the Americans invaded in 2001 and confirmed in US-orchestrated elections three years later. Widely regarded as a US-British stooge, the "mayor of Kabul" surely remembers the fate of his pre-Taliban predecessor, Mohamed Najibullah, who spent four years in a UN basement in Kabul until liberated -- castrated and hung from a lamp-post by the Taliban in 1996.Armed resistance to foreign occupation is growing and spreading. NATO figures show that attacks on Western and Afghan troops were up by almost a third last year, to more than 9,000 "significant actions", the highest level since the invasion. Seventy per cent of incidents took place in the southern Taliban heartland of Helmand, though the Senlis Council estimates that the Taliban now has a permanent presence in 54 per cent of Afghanistan, arguing that "the question now appears to be not if the Taliban will return to Kabul, but when." Watch out, Mr Karzai. In addition to the 3,572 bombing raids in 2007, suicide bombings climbed to a record 140, compared to five between 2001 and 2005. The Taliban's base is increasingly the umbrella for a revived Pashtun nationalism on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border, as well as for jihadists and others committed to fighting foreign occupation. The UN estimates the Taliban have just 3,000 active fighters and about 7,000 part- timers, in contrast with more than 50,000 US and NATO troops. Their command structure is diffuse and when it comes to guerrilla tactics -- suicide attacks, roadside bombs, kidnapping and assassination -- the militants have become frighteningly proficient. "Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan," said a report issued 30 January by the Atlantic Council of the United States, chaired by retired General James Jones, who until 2006 served as the supreme allied commander of NATO in Afghanistan. "It remains a failing state. It could become a failed state," warned the report, which called for "urgent action" to overhaul NATO strategy in coming weeks before an anticipated new offensive by Taliban insurgents in the spring. The Afghanistan Study Group, created by the Center for the Study of the Presidency, which was also involved with the Iraq Study Group, concluded, "the United States and the international community have tried to win the struggle in Afghanistan with too few military forces and insufficient economic aid," and lack a clear strategy to "fill the power vacuum outside Kabul and counter the combined challenges of reconstituted Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a runaway opium economy, and the stark poverty faced by most Afghans." Whoa. Did it ever occur to these thinktankers that just maybe they can never "win"? That the US invaded Afghanistan illegally, and the Taliban, still the legitimate government there, will continue to battle on, to wait it out, no matter how many bombs and dollars the US et al throw at it? As if these reports aren't enough for the frazzled president, on 15 January rebels attacked Kabul's swish five-star Serena Hotel, targeting the ex-pat elite in the most fortified site in the capital, killing seven guests and staff. This was no straightforward suicide bombing, but an armed attack which allowed the gunmen to carry out a shooting spree before they were stopped, the one phenomenon security agencies have no defence against. Kabul, relatively incident-free in the first two years after the removal of the Taliban, now sees regular rocket attacks, shootings, kidnappings, explosions and suicide bombings. A few weeks after Serena, Kabul witnessed dozens of armed police laying siege to the house of Uzbek warlord and Chief of Staff to the Afghan commander-in-chief General Abdul-Rashid Dostum, in the heart of the diplomatic district, after 50 of his followers abducted political rival Akbar Bai and several others, beating them to a pulp. "This is a conspiracy by the government against General Dostum," loyalist Mohamed Alim Sayee said. "If any harm occurs to Dostum, seven to eight provinces will turn against the government." Watch out, Mr Karzai. Major cracks are appearing every day, and not only in the statues of the Bamyan Buddha, but in impregnable fortress-NATO, the latest triggered by America's closest ally Canada. It set off the current crisis by threatening to withdraw all its troops this year unless other NATO members could be conned into deploying troops in the dangerous southern province of Kandahar, where in a brief two years, Canada lost 80 of its 2,500 troops, its highest casualty rate since native tribes were mowed down in the 19th century by the British army. This tantrum forced an emergency NATO meeting -- in Vilnius -- 7-8 February, to be followed by a summit in -- yes -- Romania in April. US generals meeting deep in Eastern Europe pushing Western Europeans to cough up troops for Central Asia. Most interesting.
Setting the stage the day before his junket to an obscure country which just happens to border Russia, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told the House Armed Services Committee that the alliance could split into countries that were "willing to fight and die to protect people's security and those who were not. You can't have some allies whose sons and daughters die in combat and other allies who are shielded from that kind of a sacrifice." Did this blackmail work? Did Germany, Britain, Poland et al cough up? In the UK 62 per cent want all 7,800 troops withdrawn within a year. Similar polling results keep German Chancellor Angela Merkel from signing on the dotted line. She said it would send around 200 combat soldiers to north Afghanistan but no way would she bail out the Canadians. In Paris a spokesman for President Nicolas Sarkozy did not confirm reports that 700 paratroopers could go to the south. The Polish chief of the defence staff said the government is considering increasing their forces, despite being elected only last October expressly on a policy of bringing its troops home from Iraq and, presumably, Afghanistan. Only the US itself made any real effort to mollify the Canucks, agreeing to deploy 3,200 US Marines temporarily, but warning that the others must come through before the end of the year. Stay tuned. At the love-in in Lithuania, Gates softened his undiplomatic language somewhat: "I don't think that there's a crisis, that there's a risk of failure." Which, in diplo-speak of course means there is a crisis, etc. Gates also squelched early suggestions that the US would take over command of combat operations in southern Afghanistan. "I don't think that's realistic any time soon," Gates said. Why bother? At present, an American four- star general is in overall command of the NATO mission. Americans are in command of the regional mission in eastern Afghanistan, while a Canadian is in command of the south. "I worry that for many Europeans the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are confused," Gates said as he flew to Munich to deliver a speech at an international security conference 10 February. "Many of them, I think, have a problem with our involvement in Iraq and project that to Afghanistan and do not understand the very different -- for them -- the very different kind of threat." But wait! The US coordinator on Iraq, David Satterfield, suggested only last month that Iraq would turn out to be America's "good war", while Afghanistan was going "bad". Can't these guys get their story straight? Which is it, Mr Gates? Is good bad? Or is bad good? Just maybe bad is bad? Is that too hard to believe?The original aims of the US-led invasion were the capture of Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, and Osama bin Laden, along with the destruction of Al-Qaeda. None of those aims has been achieved. Instead, the two leaders remain free, while Al-Qaeda has spread from its Afghan base into Pakistan, Iraq and elsewhere, and Afghanistan has become the heroin capital of the world. For the majority of Afghans, occupation has meant the exchange of obscurantist theocrats for brutal and corrupt warlords, rampant torture and insecurity, depleted uranium bombing and the 6.6 million deaths -- all thanks to Western altruism. Even the early limited gains for women and girls in some urban areas are now being reversed, offset by an explosion of rape and violence against women.
What we see is a classic case of blowback. With the decision to expand NATO and use it as its proxy in illegal invasions after the collapse of the SU -- notably Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan and again Iraq -- instead of dissolving it, the West is merely reaping its whirlwind in the form of unending war and now internal squabbles. "Events in Afghanistan have become a motor for the transformation of the alliance," said a senior NATO diplomat. In fact, the collapse of Afghanistan is just another domino in a long line since the "victory over Communism". "Fail" a state (remember Bill Clinton's "grow the economy"?) and what do you get? The resurgence of Pashtun nationalism in southern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, just like in the soon-to-be republics of Kosovo and Kurdistan. Long live independent Pashtunistan! Will NATO bombs soon be raining down on Islamabad, demanding that Pakistan allow the heroic, suffering Pashtuns to unite with their brothers in a just liberation struggle? God knows there are Pashtun guerrilla groups who, like their Kosovan and Kurd soulmates, would eagerly accept US/NATO arms and protection. After all, the US once generously equipped them with Stinger missiles in their struggle to "liberate" Afghanistan. Afghanistan in a nutshell- Policies of the "international community" put immediate gains and Western interests before sustainable goals. In security, US Operation Enduring Freedom focussed solely on routing the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, while NATO forces were confined largely to Kabul. Not until 2004 was security for the country considered. The global "war against terror" is conducted by US-led Coalition Forces; the counter-insurgency war is waged by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force; the war against drugs is led by the Afghan police. - The lack of troops means heavy reliance on air power with its concomitant "collateral damage", a euphemism for killing civilians. - Instead of creating a strong national army and police force, occupiers now endorse the rearming of communities through the "auxiliary police". - Relations with the Taliban follow the pendulum principle. All dissenters are lumped with the Taliban and policy swings between making peace with the Taliban to deporting those who dare talk to them, as the recent retirement camp scandal and deportation of German diplomats in December 2007 reveal. - The 2004 constitution established a strong presidential system, stoking tensions in a war-torn state with tribal divisions, putting too much formal power in the hands of the winner, who has heavy responsibilities but little real authority, creating a breeding ground of nepotism and corruption. Karzai relies heavily on his Northern Alliance Tajik and Uzbek comrades, who make up 27 and 10 per cent of the population respectively, though Karzai is nominally Pashtun, the largest ethnic group. At present, Karzai really only answers to a fractious cluster of foreign donors. - Finally there is the one flourishing industry -- opium and marijuana production. Opium production was up 34 per cent last year, 10 per cent of proceeds being tithed by the Taliban. Worse yet, it is not at all clear whether this is good or bad from a Western point of view, despite loud protestations about the evils of drugs. It is well documented that many governments in the region, not to mention the CIA, are deeply involved in both sides of the so-called war against drugs. The Taliban actually wiped out all drug production in 2000. Some critics of US foreign policy argue that the 2001 invasion was actually prompted by a distaste for this successful campaign, which led to a crisis in the European drug blackmarket. © Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reservedSource:weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/884/in21.htm
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Aug 27, 2008 16:04:11 GMT 4
Afghanistan demands end to Nato air strikes on villagersUN backs Karzai concerns over loss of civilian life in allied raidsDavid Pallister and agencies guardian.co.uk, Tuesday August 26 2008 13:17 BST Tensions increased today between Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, and US and Nato troops, with the government ordering a review of foreign military activities amid claims that dozens of civilians have died in raids and air strikes over the past week. The ministries of foreign affairs and defence said they would seek to regulate raids with a status of forces agreement and a negotiated end to "air strikes on civilian targets, uncoordinated house searches and illegal detention of Afghan civilians". The UN mission in Afghanistan has backed the government. Afghan and foreign soldiers entered the village of Nawabad in Shindand district last Friday and called in air strikes, villagers told UN investigators. The UN special envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said in a statement that an investigation "found convincing evidence, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses and others, that some 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, 15 women and 15 men. Fifteen other villagers were wounded. "The destruction from aerial bombardment was clearly evident with seven to eight houses having been destroyed, with serious damage to many others," Eide said. "Local residents were able to confirm the number of casualties, including names, age and gender of the victims. "This is matter of grave concern to the United Nations. I have repeatedly made clear that the safety and welfare of civilians must be considered above all else during the planning and conduct of all military operations. "The impact of such operations undermines the trust and confidence of the Afghan people in efforts to build a just, peaceful and law-abiding state." The US military has launched an investigation after saying it was unaware of any civilians killed. An American spokesman said the strike targeted a known Taliban commander and killed 30 militants. Captain Mike Windsor, a spokesman for Nato, said the force had not received any official notification about the government decision. He said Nato's mission was based on a UN mandate and carried out at the invitation of the Afghan government. In an angry statement, the government said officials had "repeatedly discussed the issue of civilian casualties with the international forces and asked for all air raids on civilian targets, especially in Afghan villages, to be stopped". "The issues of uncoordinated house searches and harassing civilians have also been of concern to the government of Afghanistan, which has been shared with the commanders of international forces in Afghanistan," it said. "Unfortunately, to date, our demands have not been addressed. Rather, more civilians, including women and children, are losing their lives as a result of air raids." Source: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/26/afghanistan.nato------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ U.N. says has evidence air strikes killed 90 AfghansTue Aug 26, 2008 1:25pm EDT By Sayed Salahuddin KABUL (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Tuesday it had found convincing evidence that 90 Afghan civilians, most of them children, were killed in air strikes by U.S.-led coalition forces in western Afghanistan last week. The issue of civilian casualties has driven a rift between the Afghan government and its NATO backers, with President Hamid Karzai saying earlier this month that air strikes had achieved nothing and had only succeeded in killing ordinary Afghans. "Investigations by UNAMA (United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan) found convincing evidence, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, and others, that some 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, 15 women and 15 men," U.N. Special Envoy to Afghanistan Kai Eide said in a statement.The U.S. military has launched an investigation into the incident, after first saying it was unaware of any civilian casualties in what it said was an air strike on a known Taliban commander that killed 30 militants. The Afghan government on Monday ordered the review of operations by foreign forces amid mounting discontent over civilian casualties nearly seven years after U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban, the presidential spokesman said. The order foresees a set of laws to be drafted in consultation with foreign forces and then approved by the Afghan parliament, Humayun Hamidzada told a regular press briefing. "STATUS OF FORCE AGREEMENT"It says the presence of the international community in Afghanistan must be reviewed through mutual agreement and reiterates previous government demands on banning air strikes on civilian targets, un-coordinated house searches and the illegal detention of Afghan civilians.
"The authorities and responsibilities of the international forces in Afghanistan must be regulated through a 'status of force agreement' consistent with both international and Afghan laws," the order says.Hamidzada did not have a figure for civilian killed in foreign military operations. But he said: "The patience of the Afghan people has ran out. We no longer can afford to see the killing of our children."UNAMA said it sent its human rights team to the Shindand area to investigate the latest incident, meeting local officials, elders and villagers. Afghan and foreign soldiers entered the village of Nawabad in Shindand around midnight on August 21. Operations lasted several hours and air strikes were called in, the villagers told UNAMA. "The destruction from aerial bombardment was clearly evident with some 7-8 houses having been totally destroyed and serious damage to many others," the U.N. statement said. "Local residents were able to confirm the number of casualties, including names, age and gender of the victims. "This is matter of grave concern to the United Nations, I have repeatedly made clear that the safety and welfare of civilians must be considered above all else during the planning and conduct of all military operations," Eide said.(Writing by Jon Hemming; Editing by Alex Richardson)Source:www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSISL1312420080826?sp=true
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Sept 19, 2008 10:49:02 GMT 4
Slaughter, Lies, and Video in Afghanistan
The Value of One, the Value of None: An Anatomy of Collateral Damage in the Bush EraBy Tom Engelhardt September 11, 2008 In a little noted passage in her bestselling book, The Dark Side, Jane Mayer offers us a vision, just post-9/11, of the value of one. In October 2001, shaken by a nerve-gas false alarm at the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney, reports Mayer, went underground. He literally embunkered himself in "a secure, undisclosed location," which she describes as "one of several Cold War-era nuclear-hardened subterranean bunkers built during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, the nearest of which were located hundreds of feet below bedrock…" That bunker would be dubbed, perhaps only half-sardonically, "the Commander in Chief's Suite." Oh, and in that period, if Cheney had to be in transit, "he was chauffeured in an armored motorcade that varied its route to foil possible attackers." In the backseat of his car (just in case), adds Mayer, "rested a duffel bag stocked with a gas mask and a biochemical survival suit." And lest danger rear its head, "rarely did he travel without a medical doctor in tow." When it came to leadership in troubled times, this wasn't exactly a profile in courage. Perhaps it was closer to a profile in paranoia, or simply in fear, but whatever else it might have been, it was also a strange kind of statement of self-worth. Has any wartime president -- forget the vice-president -- including Abraham Lincoln when southern armies might have marched on Washington, or Franklin D. Roosevelt at the height of World War II, ever been so bizarrely overprotected in the nation's capital? Has any administration ever placed such value on the preservation of the life of a single official? On the other hand, the well-armored Vice President and his aide David Addington played a leading role, as Mayer documents in grim detail, in loosing a Global War on Terror that was also a global war of terror on lands thousands of miles distant. In this new war, "the gloves came off," "the shackles were removed" -- images much loved within the administration and, in the case of those "shackles," by George Tenet's CIA. In the process, no price in human abasement or human life proved too high to pay -- as long as it was paid by someone else. Recently, it was paid by up to 60 Afghan children. The Value of None If no level of protection was too much for this White House, then no protection was what it offered civilians who happened to be living in the ever expanding "war zones" of the planet. In the Middle East, in Somalia, in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, the war to be fought -- in part from the air, sometimes via pilotless unmanned aerial vehicles or drones -- would, in crucial ways, be aimed at civilians (though this could never be admitted). "Collateral damage," the sterile, self-exculpating phrase the Pentagon chose to use for the anything-but-secondary death and destruction visited on civilians, would be the name of the game in the President's chosen war almost from the moment the Vice President disappeared into his bunker. In a world where death came suddenly in that vast swath of the planet the neoconservatives once called "the arc of instability" (before they made it one), civilians had few doctors on hand, no less full chemical body suits or gas masks, when disaster struck. Often they were asleep, or going about their daily business, when death made its appearance unannounced. Throughout these years, the stories of these deaths, when they appeared at all, normally were to be found on the inside pages of our newspapers in summary war reports. Regularly, they had "women and children" buried somewhere in them. We have no idea just how many civilians have been blown away by the U.S. military (and allies) in these years, only that the "collateral damage" has been widespread and far more central to the President's War on Terror than anyone here generally cares to acknowledge. Collateral damage has come in myriad ways -- from artillery fire in the initial invasion of Iraq; from repeated shootings of civilians in vehicles at checkpoints, and from troops (or even private mercenaries) blasting away from convoys; during raids on private homes; in village operations; and, significantly, from the air. In Afghanistan, in particular, as the Taliban insurgency grew more quickly than U.S. and NATO troop strength, so did the use of air power. From 2004 to 2007, air strikes increased tenfold. Over the past year, civilian deaths from those air strikes have nearly tripled. According to Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon official and military analyst at Human Rights Watch, 317,000 pounds of bombs were dropped this June and 270,000 this July, equaling "the total tonnage dropped in 2006." As with all figures relating to casualties, the actual counts you get on Afghan civilian dead are approximations and probably undercounts, especially since the war against the Taliban has been taking place largely in the backlands of one (or, if you count Pakistan, two) of the poorest, most remote regions on the planet. And yet we do know something. For instance, although the media have seldom attended to the subject, we know that one subset of innocent civilians has been slaughtered repeatedly. While, for instance, Americans spent days in October 2006 riveted to TV screens following the murders of five Amish girls by a madman in a one-room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania, and weeks following the mass slaughter of 32 college students by a mad boy at Virginia Tech in April 2007, between 2001 and this year, three Afghan and one Iraqi wedding parties were largely wiped out from the air by American planes, the latest only months ago, to hardly any news coverage at all. The message of these slaughters -- an estimated 47 people, mostly from "the bride's party," including the bride herself, died in the latest such "incident" -- is that if you live in areas where the Taliban exists, which is now much of the country, you'd better not gather. Each of these events was marked by something else -- the uniformity of the U.S. response: initial claims that U.S. forces had been fired on first and that those killed were the enemy; a dismissal of the slaughters as the unavoidable "collateral damage" of wartime; and, above all, an unwillingness to genuinely apologize for, or take real responsibility for, having wiped out groups of celebrating locals. And keep in mind that such disasters are just subsets of a far larger, barely covered story. In July alone, for example, the U.S. military and NATO officials launched investigations into three air strikes in Afghanistan in which 78 Afghan civilians (including that wedding party) were killed. Since the Afghan War began in 2001, such "incidents" have occurred again and again. Not surprisingly, the Bush administration, in combination with the Pentagon, has devised a method for dealing with such happenings. After all, the Global War on Terror is premised on an unspoken belief that the lives of others -- civilians going about their business in distant lands -- are essentially of no importance when placed against American needs and desires. That, you might say, is the value of none. Incident in Azizabad Another gathering of Afghans recently ended with the slaughter of civilians on a startling scale. For once, it's gotten far more than minimal coverage and hasn't (yet) gone away. Remaining in the news, it has also opened a window into just how the U.S. military and the Bush administration have dealt with most incidents of "collateral damage" that made it into the news over these last years. Here are the basic facts as best we know them. On the night of August 21st, a memorial service was held in Azizabad, a village in the Shindand District of Afghanistan's Herat Province, for a tribal leader killed the previous year, who had been, villagers reported, anti-Taliban. Hundreds had attended, including "extended families from two tribes." That night, a combined party of U.S. Special Forces and Afghan army troops attacked the village. They claimed they were "ambushed" and came under "intense fire." What we know is that they called in repeated air strikes. According to several investigations and the on-the-spot reporting of New York Times journalist Carlotta Gall, at least 90 civilians, including perhaps 15 women and up to 60 children, died that night. As many as 76 members of a single extended family were killed, along with its head, Reza Khan. His compound seems to have been specially targeted. Khan, it turns out, was no Taliban "militant," but a "wealthy businessman with construction and security contracts with the nearby American base at Shindand airport." He reportedly had a private security company that worked for the U.S. military at the airport and also owned a cell phone business in the town of Herat. He had a card "issued by an American Special Forces officer that designated [him] as a 'coordinator for the U.S.S.F.'" Eight of the other men killed that night, according to Gall, worked as guards for a private American security firm. At least two dead men had served in the Afghan police and fought against the Taliban. The incident in Azizabad may represent the single deadliest media-verified attack on civilians by U.S. forces since the invasion of 2001. Numerous buildings were damaged. Many bodies, including those of children, had to be dug out of the rubble. There may have been as many as 60 children among the dead. The U.S. military evidently attacked after being given false information by another tribal leader/businessman in the area with a grudge against Khan and his brother. As one tribal elder, who helped bury the dead, put it: "It is quite obvious, the Americans bombed the area due to wrong information. I am 100 percent confident that someone gave the information due to a tribal dispute. The Americans are foreigners and they do not understand. These people they killed were enemies of the Taliban." Repeated U.S. air attacks resulting in civilian deaths have proven a disaster for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He promptly denounced the strikes against Azizabad, fired two Afghan commanders, including the top ranking officer in western Afghanistan, for "negligence and concealing facts," and ordered his own investigation of the incident. His team of investigators concluded that more than 90 Afghan civilians had indeed died. Along with the Afghan Council of Ministers, Karzai also demanded a "review" of "the presence of international forces and agreements with foreign allies, including NATO and the United States." Ahmad Nader Nadery, commissioner of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, similarly reported that one of the group's researchers had "found that 88 people had been killed, including 20 women." The U.N. mission in Afghanistan then dispatched its own investigative team from Herat to interview survivors. Its investigation "found convincing evidence, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, and others, that some 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, 15 women and 15 men." (The 60 children were reportedly "3 months old to 16 years old, all killed as they slept.") The American Response Given the weight of evidence at Azizabad, the on-site investigations, the many graves, the destroyed houses, the specificity of survivor accounts, and so on, this might have seemed like a cut-and-dried case of mistaken intelligence followed by an errant assault with disastrous consequences. But accepting such a conclusion simply isn't in the playbook of the U.S. military or the Bush administration. Instead, in such cases what you regularly get is a predictable U.S. narrative about what happened made up of outlandish claims (or simply bald-faced lies), followed by a strategy of stonewalling, including a blame-the-victims approach in which civilian deaths are regularly dismissed as enemy-inspired "propaganda," followed -- if the pressure doesn't ease up -- by the announcement of an "investigation" (whose results will rarely be released), followed by an expression of "regrets" or "sorrow" for the loss of life -- both weasel words that can be uttered without taking actual responsibility for what happened -- never to be followed by a genuine apology. Now, let's consider the American response to Azizabad. CLIP - Please go to www.tomdispatch.com/post/174975 to read the rest of this article which has many embedded links
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Dec 17, 2008 19:26:44 GMT 4
Afghanistan: A Way ForwardTuesday 16 December 2008 by: Maya Schenwar, t r u t h o u t | Interview An interview with Stephen Kinzer. Last week, with President-elect Obama's blessing, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the beginning of a troop "surge" in Afghanistan. As the US embarks on a slow redeployment of troops away from the widely condemned occupation of Iraq - though that occupation is not by any means ending - it is easy to frame Afghanistan as a milder war, a war that can even, perhaps, be "won." However, sending more American forces to Afghanistan is a peculiar first project for a supposedly peacemaking president-elect, according to Stephen Kinzer, a former New York Times correspondent who has covered more than 50 countries on five continents, and has written extensively on US interventionism around the world. In the following interview, Kinzer puts forth a new approach to Afghanistan. He calls for a framework that acknowledges cultural differences, considers Afghanistan in its geographical context and confronts the Taliban - and the poppy trade - in a realistic way. As Obama gears up to assume his role as commander in chief, Kinzer challenges him to ponder what "real change" might actually mean when it comes to Afghanistan. Maya Schenwar: Afghanistan tends to be viewed as the "Good War," in comparison with Iraq. What's behind that image? Stephen Kinzer: We first became militarily involved in Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 attacks. It was a very emotional moment, and it was understandable that most Americans wanted a sense of revenge against the perpetrators of those attacks. It might, in retrospect, have been possible to dislodge the Taliban from power in Afghanistan without a military operation. That, however, did not suit the tenor of those times. As a result of the operations that followed the September 11 attacks, the United States has become more and more deeply enmeshed in Afghanistan. What seemed at first like it might be a relatively quick operation turned out to be one that is dragging us ever deeper in, all these years later. Before we allow inertia and a general momentum, cloaked in our emotions, to drag us even deeper into Afghanistan, we need to stop and ask ourselves, "Is this a military problem, or does it need a different kind of solution?" So, the solution to our situation in Afghanistan will probably have to involve some serious diplomacy. How can the United States begin the process of negotiating with the Taliban? In the first place, increasing the number of American troops in Afghanistan is sending the wrong signal. The very presence of foreign troops in aggressive, frontline military roles in Afghanistan is an incitement for reaction from local people. The first thing we need to do is decide to maintain our troop strength at the relatively modest level that it's at now, and not increase it. Resisting foreign armies is something Afghans have been doing for thousands of years - they're probably better at it than anyone else in the world. The British learned this in the 19th century, the Soviets learned this in the 20th century. We shouldn't have to repeat those very painful lessons. So that's the first part: we should not be escalating our military presence there. What do we do instead of that? I think we need a dual process; a process that goes on within Afghanistan and a process that goes on in a much broader region. Within Afghanistan, it's important to understand that what we call the Taliban is actually a very broad coalition of tribal factions and warlords and other groups. Afghanistan is a place of constantly shifting factions. A faction that might be on your side today might not be tomorrow. A Taliban-allied warlord may not necessarily be anti-American, and if he is today, he might not be tomorrow. This system of flexible alliances holds out great opportunity for sophisticated diplomacy. There's a great possibility that once the United States is not seen as an invading force, it will be able to persuade a number of these warlords or factional leaders to shift their alliances. We ought to test that. At the same time, we need to be negotiating throughout this region. This is not a problem anymore that can be solved within Afghanistan. It has long since become a regional problem. Just in the last week, after this recent attack on a concentration of American trucks, the American commanders started talking about alternative routes into Afghanistan for their supply convoys. They're talking about doing that from central Asian countries or even from places originating in Russia. So this shows you what a regional dimension is involved here. Pakistan is a deeply influential player in Afghanistan. We need Pakistan to take a more resolute position, but Pakistan, like any country in the world, is only willing to make security concessions when it feels safe. Right now, Pakistan's security focus is - and has been for nearly all of its existence - on India. Its policy of insisting on having a pliant government in place in Afghanistan, and supporting favorable factions inside Afghanistan, is based almost entirely on its desire to counter India. India has been opening up consulates in Afghanistan, and there's talk about Indian military aid and Indian development aid in Afghanistan. Until the Pakistan-India confrontation can be ratcheted down several levels, there probably won't be peace in Afghanistan. Iran is another country that can have great influence inside of Afghanistan. Parts of Afghanistan used to be in Iran - it has tremendous ability to influence some large regions of Afghanistan. So, we need a policy, first of all, of not increasing our troops in Afghanistan, and pulling the troops we have there out of offensive roles. And second, trying to negotiate among factions within the country. Third, we need to produce a regional framework in which some kind of stable Afghanistan is possible. You've said you don't recommend a quick withdrawal. Why maintain current troop levels instead of decreasing them? Unfortunately, Afghanistan has become so destabilized now that some of the worst warlords, the most grotesque criminals, are now in positions of great power. The presence of the United States is something Afghans feel will prevent an immediate explosion. If we leave immediately, I fear that violence would devastate that country. I don't think the problem is necessarily that there are American troops in Afghanistan. It's more what they're doing. The tactics that we're following there, of carrying out aggressive raiding and bombing places with predator aircraft is very counterproductive. The region where the conflict is unfolding in Afghanistan is generally thought of as a Muslim region. And it is. However, it's more productive to think of it as a Pashtun region. Pashtun tradition is the dominant force there, even more powerful than Islam. Pashtun tradition, embodied in a relatively simple and ancient code they call Pashtunwali, is based on a particular form of honor, the offense against which is considered a great crime. This honor is defined very simply in a series of what might be described as concentric circles. You do not violate a woman's dressing space. You do not violate my home. You do not violate my compound. You do not violate my village. And you do not violate my country. As long as you observe that principle, you can make all kinds of accommodations with the Pashtun. But we're not doing that, and the nature of our policy is to violate that very fundamental cultural code. So, we are not seen how we'd like to be seen. We'd like Afghans to compare what we want for Afghanistan with what the Taliban wants, and see that what we're trying to do for them is better. But they don't see it that way. They are not judging these different factions according to what they're offering. Instead, they're judging them by another standard: Who's from here, and who's an outsider? Well, if you're an outsider, no matter what you're pushing in Afghanistan, you're always seen through that lens. So, emphasizing by military escalation that we are the outsider only further weakens our position. In your video that came out a couple of days ago, you talk a little bit about how our presence in Afghanistan has not only rallied the Taliban, but has also become a recruitment device for other anti-American groups, like al-Qaeda. How do we defuse that inspiration for recruitment, if our troops stay in Afghanistan? We can do it by making our troops less visible. If our troops are simply out training Afghan military units, or even helping to carry out engineering projects in the countryside, our presence alone is not seen as hostile. It's when we're smashing down doors and making people lie on their stomachs while we search their homes; it's when we send predator bombs to attack targets which may be real - but which also involve the killing of civilians - that we incite this hatred toward ourselves. Being in the country itself is not a violation of this Pashtun code; in fact, the opposite is true. The obligation to protect and embrace a guest is a very profound part of Pashtun culture. There's a difference between being a guest and a violator. We should make sure we stay on the right side of that line. In your video, you make some pretty big suggestions about our policy on the Afghan poppy trade. Could you describe your ideas on that? We're now spending $4 billion per month on our war effort in Afghanistan. The total annual value of the poppy crop in Afghanistan is also about $4 billion. Today, the proceeds from nearly all the poppies growing in Afghanistan go into the pockets of the warlords. We are very rightly concerned about that. The money that's being used to finance the war against us is in part coming from the Afghan poppy crop. In addition, we're turning the poor farmers who grow most of these poppies into enemies by pursuing our traditional policy of burning fields and spraying with them from above with herbicides. How can we resolve all these problems together - not to mention that people are dying on the streets of Hamburg and Chicago every day from the heroin that comes from Afghan poppies? My suggestion is that we abandon the idea of wiping out the poppy fields. That's like wiping out the Taliban. It's a great idea, but it's just not practical. Therefore, since it's not possible to do what we would like to do in our fantasies, what would be a realistic approach? I'd like to see the United States buy the entire Afghan poppy crop. We would be paying as much as we pay each month for our war effort in Afghanistan. We could use some of that crop to make morphine for medical use, and the rest, we could burn. This will have the effect of, A, dramatically reducing the income that pours into the coffers of many of the most brutal Afghan warlords; B, showing poor Afghan peasants that we're actually buying something from them, giving them some money to live on rather than firing predator drones into their wedding parties; and C, presumably impacting the heroin supply worldwide. Obviously we have made some mistakes in Afghanistan. If we're going to learn from history, what are the lessons here? How can future generations look at what's happened in Afghanistan and avoid repeating today's mistakes? Let me focus on one big lesson that I hope we learn. It is that, when you are trying to bring a country to do what you want it to do, military action is not always the best course. We need to understand the culture of each country before we go in. These countries are in many ways quite different from us; people think in different ways than how we think. We have certain ways of approaching security problems. We use methods against others that we think would be effective if they were used against us. But those methods aren't necessarily effective against people with different cultural backgrounds. So, the number one lesson I'd hope we would learn is: Instead of acting reflexively to confront security threats in ways that seem to allow us to use our own advantages to the fullest, let's be more careful in analyzing the places we're going into. Let's see if there are ways we can achieve our security goals without inadvertently undercutting our own security. In so many of these places - and Afghanistan is a great example - we sense a security threat, act against it, and then, after awhile, wake up and realize we've only made the threat worse. Every time we do that, whether it's in Central Asia or the horn of Africa or Central America or Southeast Asia, we are confronted with the same lesson, but we just don't learn it. The lesson is, countries are different. They have to be dealt with in ways that are in harmony with their own cultures. Once you understand other countries, you have a much greater ability to extract from them the understandings that you need to live safely with them. So don't charge ahead with your prefixed idea about what's going to solve your security problem. Stop and think about what will really be in America's interest over the long run. Maya Schenwar is an editor and reporter for Truthout.Source: www.truthout.org/121608RNote from Michelle: The video mentioned is available @ the source. There are also some very thoughtful comments to the article.....Some of the comments at the article offer more enlightened thinking than do our representative thinkers!...Please check them out.
I am close to the point where I will cease reporting on news items such as this one above. You might not agree with, or more than that, like what I'm going to say here. Here goes:
The sorting of humanity has begun and to continue to attempt to reach others concerning the ills of a dying society is futile at this point. We see that by 2015/2016 people that support war, greed, the plundering of Earth's[Terra's] resources, etc., will have died off due to diseases these thoughtforms create and the toxic environments created, plus their inability to ascend with Earth and humans who dream the new dream with Terra [Earth]. They will be able to continue their 'lessons' within creations that are resonant to their DNA.
Part of the ascension process would be to distinguish between resonant and non-resonant DNA. Earth would be a magnetic creation and only the DNA that is magnetic can resonate with Earth during her ascension process. All non-magnetic DNA and thought forms would have to be returned to where they came from.
As a planet, we will have much to do towards the creation of a new dream. Those who depend on current technology will not make the transition...All electrical/electronic based technology is non-resonant with Earth as a magnetic creation. At this time, there is vast conflict between the pyramidal energy flow in the human dream and Terra's ascending flow. The pyramidal flow is at the foundation of all human dreams at this time and includes the monetary system, the educational system, the health and beauty system, the work system, the housing and construction system, the farming and food distribution system, the religious system and the marriage/family system. The pyramidal flow associated with all of these dreams are in conflict with Terra’s new emerging energy flow and Language of ONE. The end result is that the pyramidal flow holding the human dreams in all of civilization are collapsing.
It has been in each time period that humans withdrew from working the land that little attention was paid to the needs of Terra and consumption of her grew to be so great. In this time period again humans have vacated the land and moved into cities and become overly consumptive. More of Terra's resources are harvested each year than she can regenerate. Soon and if this continues, Terra will become so compromised that she cannot carry on in her ascension. Therefore the consumptive era must conclude and a new era of spiritual awakening amongst humans must take off.
The dance of consumption is also a ridged pyramidal dream that does not easily change. Therefore Terra is intending a deep recession and economic depression ahead for humanity. In the depression, humans will learn to conserve more and recycle rather than continue to plunder Terra's resources. The reality is that there has already been so much harvested that you could recreate everything already made three times over. All that is required is that humans gather up your garbage and recreate and recycle what you need from it. Therefore the times ahead will bring about a large resurgence of greater recycling which will help to conclude the dream of the great consumption of Terra's resources enough that she may carry on in her ascent.
The reality is that many kingdoms have gone extinct due to the consumption of Terra along with the toxic pollutants that have entered the land, waterways and air from human endeavors. For each kingdom that goes extinct and in however many numbers their populations have ceased to exist, equal number of humans must perish in order to balance the scales of karma accrued with nature. For each kingdom that has starved and in however many numbers, so many humans must also starve to balance the scales of karma with nature. This is the difficult karma that humanity now faces; and many shall either suffer and perish or ascend and forgive what your ancestors have done in all the time periods that have paralleled.
There is great karma to be settled ahead. The karma will drive the human dream in a particular direction that may be very difficult for many to bear, and hard to witness as an awakening human upon the spiritual path. One can learn to forgive and in the forgiveness transcend the need to participate in the trauma that the masses of humans may experience. One can also learn to accept that there is karma that each is settling in the difficult circumstances that they find themselves within. No one can forgive for another. Each experience allows for the spiritual lessons of the individual and whole to be understood and completed upon. In the greater understanding of how and why this is so, it is easier to have compassion and accept, and sit in peace within. This is the gift of the conscious path of ascension through the difficult times ahead.
I offer this to any who have come here looking for analysis of current world news. While I appreciate your past visits here, know that it is not in my best interest nor Earth's to continue to fret over world events.....Any postings that I continue with will be concerned with ascension and/or where humanity is making true progress in their relations with one another and Earth/Terra.
Namaste, MichellePost Note From Michelle, Dec 28, 2008: Concerning my statement in last paragraph above....It seems that I have not been able to commit to my own words completely. Please bear with me; I am struggling with how to continue posting here at the FH Forum....Or, if I should continue at all. Perhaps my dilemma is better explained by reading my comments at today's postings:Re: Your Next Target, Dear Americans « Reply #40 Today at 7:45pm » Gaza strikes: About the current escalation airdance.proboards50.com/index.cgi?board=anwrart&action=display&thread=50&page=3#3252Re: Indo-Pak Leadership « Reply #3 Today at 4:27pm » Herding Humans For Profitairdance.proboards50.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=pakind&thread=131&page=1#3251
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