I met GG, fake tan and all during the Hillhead Bye-election. Suave, smooth, articulate, full of himself and about to win. Who cares about any of that. 
With the West's rush for the exit from the war depending on building up the size of Afghan security forces, some Afghan officials say that corners were being cut when it came to security checks. "The foreigners just want the numbers keep going up so that they can say they have finished their job and it is time to go," said one official. "In such situations it is not surprising that some bad people are slipping through."General John Allen, the American head of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (Isaf ) insisted that these types of attacks are to be expected in this type of war. "We experienced these in Iraq. We experienced them in Vietnam. On any occasion where you're dealing with an insurgency and where you're also growing an indigenous force... the enemy's going to do all that they can to disrupt both the counterinsurgency operations and the developing nation's security forces." READ MORE
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| Team America Cleaning Up the Last Talibs in 2005 |
Grand claims are made for public opinion by the media, by politicians and by policymakers. The day after the worldwide Iraq protests in 2003, The New York Times declared that “there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion.”
The Ministry of Defence makes the link between warfare and popular consent quite explicit in its definitive policy document on Strategic Communication, published last year:
“War...requires the political and majority support of the population in whose name it is waged. The authority to use the military instrument is nuanced and can occur without prior approval by Parliament. However, for major operations such approval is expected by the wider UK population and it is important to maintain public support.”
In fact, as we shall see, the authority to use the military instrument can only be exerted without prior approval by Parliament. The constitution provides no mechanism by which Parliamentary approval may be given at the point at which decisions to deploy military forces are taken. More
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His face had been clear and smooth, his smile almost shy. It was a statement of happy expectation, as though Afghanistan were a playground. He was the de facto leader of a platoon I will call Destroyer, and although he is a real person, not a composite, I have heard his words in many variations, from many American combat troops. But he and some of his men were the first I had met who seemed very near to committing the dumb and vicious acts that we call war crimes.We marched on, toward houses the soldiers planned to raid and doors that would soon be blasted open, toward men who would be ripped awake, blindfolded, and hauled away. The sergeant’s words rattled in my head. I hoped the men would not do anything terrible. READ MORE
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| Siege of Teruel, April, 1938 |
Afghan doubts about an exclusively American investigation are surely inflamed, again understandably, by the history of untruths by the US military about episodes of violence in Afghanistan. As the war correspondent Jerome Starkey documented: "US-led forces in Afghanistan are committing atrocities, lying, and getting away with it."
In the last six weeks, this is the seventh killing of an American soldier by an Afghan partner. Following the burning of Muslim holy books at Bagram Air Base, an Afghan soldier gunned down two US troops on February 23. Eight days later, two more American combatants were killed inside an Afghan ministry and two Army paratroopers were shot by Afghan soldiers in Kandahar province.
But Pentagon casualty announcements never mention the friendly-hand-gone-foe. Thus, the two soldiers killed on February 23 were said to have died of "wounds suffered when their unit came under small arms fire."
Though US officials claim that the latest anti-American outrage in Afghanistan was provoked by the Koran incident, the killing of Lance Cpl. Dycus shows this is not a momentary issue. FROM HERE
General Allen told his men that "now is not the time for revenge for the deaths of two US soldiers killed in Thursday's riots". They should, he said, "resist whatever urge they might have to strike back" after an Afghan soldier killed the two Americans. "There will be moments like this when you're searching for the meaning of this loss," Allen continued. "There will be moments like this, when your emotions are governed by anger and a desire to strike back. Now is not the time for revenge, now is the time to look deep inside your souls, remember your mission, remember your discipline, remember who you are."
The ability to conduct full-spectrum operations and transition to humanitarian activities proved how unique Stryker Soldiers are, he said.That sentiment was shared by the NCOs who were there, many of them in the Patriot Battalion."I've never been more proud to be a part of this unit than that day," Bales said now a member of 2-3 Inf. headquarters, "for the simple fact that we discriminated between the bad guys and the noncombatants and then afterward we ended up helping the people that three or four hours before were trying to kill us. I think that's the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy, someone who puts his family in harm's way like that."Clemmer, who won a Silver Star for his leadership through all phases of the complex battle, saw it as a moral victory as well as a tactical one."There is not an army in the world, in my opinion, that can go from taking pins out of grenades and throwing them over trenches to receiving wounded, treating the wounded and taking care of an enemy that we had killed throughout the night - treating enemy combatants with that humanity."For its actions in the Battle of Zarqa, 2-3 Inf. has been submitted for the Valorous Unit Award. The recommendation received the endorsement of the current commanding general of Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, and is awaiting final approval at Human Resources Command.Don Kramer is a reporter with Fort Lewis' Northwest Guardian. READ MORE CRAP
