Afghanistan War

Prisoners' Hunger Strike In Kyrgyzstan

2012-01-28T06:18:00.000-08:00

The Trench - White House Propaganda Machine Set To Turbo

2012-01-28T04:40:00.000-08:00

Yesterday a senior Israeli official confirmed that Ross met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after requesting a “private” meeting to jumpstart Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The State Department's Victoria Nuland would tell reporters on Friday, "Dennis has been a good partner to administrations of all kinds, whether he was in government or out of government, and always remains in close touch." Via Reality Zone HERE.

Joint Enterprise On Torture

2012-01-27T15:17:00.000-08:00

Of course, I realise that the Crown Prosecution Service and the Met will,three years hence, claim there were no grounds to prosecute anybody. I am not that naive. But the fact of a formal police investigation will force some attention on whether or not my account is true. Ignoring the facts and just being rude about me is less easy in a criminal investigation. From Craig Murray.

Another Ex-US Ally

2012-01-27T13:01:00.000-08:00

Many of the US allies from the time of jihad have subsequently turned against the US - bin Laden being the most prominent.
Another of the visiting leaders to Washington that year, the late Mawlawi Yunus Khalis, is considered a spiritual father to the Taliban. His claim to fame was inviting Reagan to convert to Islam from the podium of the White House.
But one of the most feared US enemies today, Jalaluddin Haqanni of the so-called Haqqani Network, was actually a very cooperative ally in the 1980s.
When a girl's school for Afghan refugees was closed down in Peshawar and the guard was shot dead, most likely by elements close to Hekmatyar, Malinowski says, it was Haqqani who helped them reopen it.
"We needed one of the leaders to give a speech, and ensure the families that nothing [would] happen to the girls. The school did not even belong to his party, but Haqqani agreed to come and give the speech. He was in no way the guy that he is now."
Opinion is divided as to why Hekmatyar, despite giving clear red signals, remained a major US ally. More.

Buzkashi Boys

2012-01-27T12:46:00.000-08:00

Trailer for the film :-

Paula Broadwell - Petraeus Whitewashed

2012-01-26T08:44:00.000-08:00

If you think the US-led debacles and bloodbaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are a 'great success' (copyright NATO, ISAF and Obamya's speechwriters), Paula Broadwell's book about General Petraeus is for you. She is not so much an embed-journalist as an embed-author. With a US special ops background she was given an ~~undiluted propaganda~~ 'unlimited access' pass by Petraeus' assistants and PR team. Guess what the written results were. Yes, it's thumbs up for Diamond Dave, surges, COIN, nation-building and regime change across the board. No time for those pesky 'terrorists'. The 'bad guys' get the written equivalent of a ~~botched~~ 'precision guided' drone attack. I hope nobody in Iran is reading Paulyanna's stuff. I doubt it to be honest and would be embarrassed to even put up a link to it.

Jack Idema Dies In Mexico

2012-01-25T14:37:00.000-08:00

Idema was, among other things, a plaintiff in numerous unsuccessful lawsuits, including one against filmmaker Stephen Spielberg, who Idema claimed stole his life story for a movie. He also spent three years in jail in the 1980s after being convicted of a fraud charge.
"He had charisma," Penny Alesi, a former girlfriend, told The Fayetteville Observer. "He was funny. He was smart — oh, my God, smart and well-read, but toxic. Truthfully, he was a sociopath."
Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Idema traveled to Afghanistan, claiming he was close to catching Osama bin Laden. His claims led to his being featured in several books and television programs.
In 2004, he returned to the country along with another former Fayetteville soldier and a freelance videographer. They ran a private jail in which terrorism suspects were tortured for information. More here.

Winter In Afghanistan

2012-01-25T08:12:00.000-08:00

Photo montage here.

Anniversaire De La Revolution Egyptienne

2012-01-25T07:26:00.001-08:00

Nato Successful In Afghanistan According To Nato

2012-01-25T01:26:00.000-08:00

Jacobson said Afghan forces were clearly in control of the city, as part of a phased transition ahead of a pullout of NATO combat troops in 2014. His remarks came in stark contrast to perceptions that security has worsened in the Afghan capital over the last 12 months with a series of spectacular attacks on Western targets, such as the US embassy siege.
The United Nations has also disagreed with NATO assessments, saying in September that the number of security incidents was up 39 percent on the first eight months of 2010, while ISAF said they were down two percent. Link.

Is Afghan Constitution Worth The Paper It's Printed On?

2012-01-24T08:24:00.000-08:00

The Afghan parliament is at loggerheads with President Karzai, and the anniversary offered his political opponents another chance to accuse him of imposing unconstitutional decisions. One of their central complaints concerns his move to review some results of the September 2010 parliamentary election following allegations of fraud. (SeeAfghanistan's Troublesome Parliament for background on this.)
Sardar Mohammad Oghli, a vocal critic of Karzai and a former member of parliament from the northern province of Faryab, alleged that the president had violated the constitution at least 20 times, for example by changing the scheduled dates of elections, and keeping ministers in their posts despite votes of no confidence by legislators.
Abdullah Abdullah, leader of the opposition Coalition for Change and Hope, said the president encouraged others to ignore the constitution by breaching it himself. LINK.

Drones And Democracy

2012-01-23T05:21:00.000-08:00

Yet this operation has never been debated in Congress; more than seven years after it began, there has not even been a single vote for or against it. This campaign is not carried out by the Air Force; it is being conducted by the C.I.A. This shift affects everything from the strategy that guides it to the individuals who oversee it (civilian political appointees) and the lawyers who advise them (civilians rather than military officers).
It also affects how we and our politicians view such operations. President Obama’s decision to send a small, brave Navy Seal team into Pakistan for 40 minutes was described by one of his advisers as “the gutsiest call of any president in recent history.” Yet few even talk about the decision to carry out more than 300 drone strikes in the very same country. Read More.

Afghan Killed French Soldiers Over US Corpse Abuse Video

2012-01-22T06:41:00.000-08:00

Danger - Morons At Work

"In his initial confessions, he said that he was strongly motivated to kill the soldiers when he saw the video of a foreign soldiers urinating on Afghan corpses," the intelligence source said.
French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet said during a visit to Kabul at the weekend that he had been told the soldier who killed the four soldiers and wounded 15 others was a Taliban infiltrator.
But President Hamid Karzai did not make the same accusation in a statement Sunday, describing the attack as "an isolated and individual action".
The video, posted online earlier this month, showed four US soldiers urinating on three bloodied corpses, and one of the men, apparently aware he was being filmed, saying: "Have a great day, buddy," referring to one of the dead. More.

Soldats Francais - Le Processus De Retrait

2012-01-21T02:41:00.000-08:00

Botched Wars - More Invisible Victims

2012-01-20T15:39:00.000-08:00

A jury convicted Lynch, 22, last year for first- and second-degree murder in the deaths of his 19-year-old wife, Racquell, and 8-month-old daughter, Kyirsta. Lynch's lawyer, public defender Dan Lowery, said Lynch has accepted the verdict, even though he doesn't remember what happened. From here.

Etta James - Immortal

2012-01-20T12:03:00.000-08:00

Not enough will be written about Etta this weekend in the light of the sad news. One thing is for sure to me - Etta James will never die.

Unfriendly Fire Incidents Increasing

2012-01-20T09:40:00.000-08:00

A Crisis Of Trust And Cultural Incompatibility

2012-01-20T08:07:00.000-08:00

This is a damning report on the chaos within NATO and ISAF in Afghanistan. It could carry a sub-title along the lines: 'We Kill Each Other Too, Not Just Poor Afghan Villagers'

France Threatens Early Afghan Withdrawal

2012-01-20T07:35:00.000-08:00

Of course they won't withdraw early. Posturing in the face of French military groupies and public opinion whose interest in the latest deaths will last all of 24 hours. Sarkozy will do what the Americans tell him as always. You would never guess he was in the middle of an election would you?

Sarko Has Just Seen The Latest Poll Figures
Four unarmed French soldiers have been shot dead by an Afghan soldier who attacked them during training. The attack, at a base in Kopisa province, came less than a month after an Afghan soldier gunned down two French Foreigh Legion members serving in the Nato force.It is not known if the attacker, who is in the custody of the army's third brigade, is a Taliban member.The French foreign minister described the incident as an "assassination". President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that France would suspend training operations in Afghanistan.Sarkozy was unclear as to which part of the French army's role in training Afghan troops and police would be affected and hinted that the French might withdraw sooner than the 2014 target."If the conditions of security are not clearly restored, then the question of an early withdrawal of the French army would arise," he added."The French army is in Afghanistan at the service of the Afghans against terrorism and against the Taliban. The French army is not in Afghanistan so that Afghan soldiers can shoot at them."French defence minister Longuet and the chief of staff of the French army will investigate the killings.They came a day after six US marines were killed when their helicopter crashed in Afghanistan's Southern province.An official told Associated Press that there was no indication that the helicopter had been shot down.Nato secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said it was "a very sad day for our troops in Afghanistan and for the French people". He insisted, however, that they were isolated incidents.

It is thought that Sarkozy will discuss the French role in Afghanistan when he meets the country's president, Hamid Karzai, in Paris.

Price Tag Journalism And The Israel Firsters

2012-01-19T11:16:00.000-08:00

by Chris Toensing | published January 19, 2012 - 12:58pm

The Washington Post today features a hit piece on the Center for American Progress, the largely Clintonite think tank whose Middle East division employs some good reporters and which also published an excellent report on Islam-bashing Astroturf campaigns funded by right-wing moguls in the US.
Under the headline “Liberal Think Tank Tied to Obama Accused of Anti-Semitic Language,” the Post airs the huffing and puffing of pro-Israel activists about tweets and other statements by junior CAP staffers, in which they used the term “Israel-firster” and compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the treatment of blacks under Jim Crow.
Complaints about the CAP tweets first surfaced in a Politico story on December 7. Senior CAP staffers promptly pushed back, touting the think tank’s support for a two-state solution and rather gratuitously taking “nothing off the table” when it comes to Iran (though, of course, sounding all the acceptable-in-Washington notes about why bombing Iran would be a bad idea). The statement offered no backing for the above criticisms of Israel and its defenders, however; in fact, those staffers had to retract their statements and one soon left CAP’s employ.

A few points about the Post story:
1) The substance of the “Israel-firster” allegation -- some people who opine on the Middle East are driven primarily by their views of what is good for Israel -- goes completely unexamined. Readers are left to assume that “Israel-firster” must indeed be an ad hominem attack.
2) The article admits to controversy only over the issue of whether or not “Israel-firster” is an anti-Semitic canard, which in the piece boils down to whether or not CAP’s critics and Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street are offended by the term.
3) The desultory discussion of even this meta-question is buried at the end of the piece, after many readers will have stopped reading.
4) Finally, aside from the offending tweets’ retraction and the departure of the tweeter from CAP, there has been no new development since the original Politico story that warrants a fresh look from the Post. Presumably, what pushed the Post to run the story is that the pro-Israel advocates’ anti-CAP agitation “could complicate the president’s reelection outreach to some Jewish voters, just as he is seeking to assure them of his commitment to Israel’s security amid fears of an Iran nuclear threat.” In other words, the agitation is now the story.
To clarify: The Israel Lobby is a flawed book that was nonetheless quite important for its timing and who wrote it. The pro-Israel lobby wields considerable clout, particularly regarding the question of Palestine, but it did not drag the US into war in Iraq for Israel’s sake. The US government controls US Middle East policy, not Israel.
But the CAP story is a particularly egregious example of the pro-Israel lobby at work to produce badly slanted coverage of Middle East policy debates that, in effect, equates the lobbyists’ view of Israeli interests with American interests. All while demonstrating that, while space has opened for a wider range of views about the Middle East, hard-hitting criticism of Israel still comes with a price tag.

The US Fatal Attraction For The GCC

2012-01-19T10:07:00.000-08:00

'The GCC, essentially, is the core of the empire in the Arab world. Yes, it's essentially about oil; the GCC will be responsible for over 25% of global oil production within the next few decades. Their tiny ruling classes - from monarchies to business associates - function as a crucial annex to the mighty projection of US power all across the Middle East and beyond.
That explains, among other things, why in October last year Washington closed a juicy US$67 billion deal - the largest bilateral deal in US history - to supply the House of Saud with a prime collection of brand new F-15s, Black Hawks, Apaches, bunker-buster bombs, Patriot-2 missiles and warships.
It explains why Washington will shower the UAE with thousands of bunker-buster bombs, and Oman with Stinger missiles. Not to mention another juicy mega-deal - worth $53 billion - with Bahrain, which has not gone through yet because human-rights associations - to their credit - have fiercely denounced it.' More.

Taliban View Of The Talks

2012-01-19T04:27:00.000-08:00

A commander from Ghazni province, also in eastern Afghanistan, agreed. "Everybody in Afghanistan wants peace," he said. "There are very intelligent scholars in the Taliban leadership, and we believe they won't make any decision against Islam and Afghanistan. They are our leaders and we are their followers."
The Taliban say their goals in any negotiations are the withdrawal of all the foreign troops and the establishment of a more rigorously Islamic regime.
"Whatever the Taliban leadership and the Leader of the Believers decides will be in accordance with Islam and Afghanistan's national interests," said Mullah Ayubi, a Taliban commander in Khost province, in eastern Afghanistan. "He is our guide and we are obligated to obey his orders. But if he makes a decision against Islam we won't follow him and he wouldn't be our guide anymore." More here.

Taliban Talks Falter

2012-01-19T04:16:00.000-08:00

Aside from friction with the United States, Pakistan faces a slowing economy heavily dependent on foreign aid and is struggling with militant violence.
Exploratory peace talks between the homegrown Taliban, which is close to al Qaeda, and Islamabad, raised hopes that Pakistan's leaders could eventually have one less major problem to deal with.
But the talks have made little headway, a senior security official told Reuters on Thursday, after the Taliban flatly rejected a demand that it work through tribal elders to reach a deal whereby fighters approach authorities and lay down their arms.
"They felt it would be humiliating. The talks are not making progress," the official said. "If they want to be included in the political system, that is what they will have to do." Link.

Iran May Negotiate With Obama

2012-01-19T02:52:00.001-08:00

Afghanistan To Get 'Decades Of Additional Assistance'!

2012-01-18T08:07:00.000-08:00

Sir Simon insisted that NATO would have to learn the mistake from the failed Soviet occupation — apparently not the “don’t occupy Afghanistan” mistake. Instead, he sees the mistake coming three years after the Soviet troops left, when they withdrew funding from the Najibullah regime. From Here.

Political Murder In Iran - Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan

2012-01-17T04:40:00.000-08:00

"On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear programme in Iran turn up dead," bragged the Republican nomination candidate Rick Santorum in October. "I think that's a wonderful thing, candidly." On the day of Roshan's death, Israel's military spokesman, Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai, announced on Facebook: "I don't know who settled the score with the Iranian scientist, but I certainly am not shedding a tear" – a sentiment echoed by the historian Michael Burleigh in the Daily Telegraph: "I shall not shed any tears whenever one of these scientists encounters the unforgiving men on motorbikes." Not much mention in our newspapers about nuclear scientists in Israel or the boffins manufacturing the white phosphorous for Israel to use in Gaza. Read More.

Scottish Army Officer Cleared Of Mutilations In Afghanistan

2012-01-17T03:27:00.000-08:00

A SCOTTISH 'war hero' has been cleared of cutting off dead Taliban fighters' fingers as trophies. The 25-year-old Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders lieutenant, the youngest officer to receive the Military Cross, was investigated along with a captain and a private.
But the Service Prosecuting Authority have now dropped the inquiry, accepting the three men's explanation they removed the fingers for 'identification purposes.' This is against the army's own guidelines and procedures.
The MoD said the men made a "serious error in judgment" under heavy fire in Afghanistan but were not collecting trophies.
New training guidelines have been ~~scrambled~~ introduced to ensure there is no repeat of the 'error.'
The men said they did not have time to set up a biometrics camera, used to collect ID data, after the Taliban fighters were killed in Helmand province.
Fingerprints and identifiying marks are important to identify key Taliban targets.
The MoD said Army basic training had been adapted to reinforce the guidelines on the acceptable treatment of fallen foes.
He said: "This incident is one we would not like to see repeated. The dropping of the charges in this instance is good news for the regiment but it is being regarded as a lesson learned." Hero, eh?

War Prayers

2012-01-17T03:06:00.000-08:00

Mark Twain (1835-1910) recognized the true nature of war prayers a hundred years ago. In his brief story called "The War Prayer," Twain tells of a church service held on the Sunday before "the battalions would leave for the front." A "war chapter" was read from the Old Testament, followed by a long prayer from the pastor that God would protect the "noble young soldiers," encourage them "in their patriotic work," and "bear them in His mighty hand." At the end of the prayer a mysterious stranger appears and addresses the congregation. He claims to be from the throne of God. After explaining that he was "commissioned of God" to put into words the other part of the pastor’s prayer that he and the congregation prayed in their hearts. What happened next?

AQ In The Islamic Maghreb

2012-01-16T12:46:00.000-08:00

One year ago last weekend, two young French men were seized from a restaurant in the middle of Niamey, Niger, and hustled quickly north towards Mali by members of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Yet unlike the normal AQIM kidnapping, which ends in ransom demands and months of waiting, this kidnapping ended quickly and tragically, with an ambush just inside Mali by French Special Forces, and two dead hostages — longtime friends Antoine de Léocour and Vincent Delory. De Léocour was supposed to get married that week to a Nigerien woman, and Delory had just arrived in Niger for the wedding.
While the investigation into their deaths, initially attributed solely to their kidnappers by French authorities, quickly faded from the news, events this week have brought the incident back into the public eye in France. The paper Libération first broke the story Friday that a French anti-terrorism judge, Yves Jannier, interviewed in November 2011 a young AQIM member arrested in Nuakchott the previous February (his name is Mohamed al-Amine ould Mouhamedou ould M’Balle, known as “Mouawiya”).
And what a story Mouawiya told.

Nation Building Budget Runs Out - Strategy Ran Out Years Ago

2012-01-16T10:30:00.000-08:00

Pentagon spokesman George Little suggested it was premature to predict what changes might be made. "Absolutely no decisions have been reached by anyone on the final size of Afghanistan's security forces," he said.
Last year Obama administration quietly put forward the idea of a "transition dividend," which would reinvest some of the military savings created by Western troop reductions, to its NATO allies. But the concept has ~~not gained much traction~~ been toiletted.
Last week, Poland's defense minister said that Afghanistan shouldn't expect NATO nations to 'subsidize its security forces indefinitely.'

This is all codespeak for 'we're looking for the cheapest option available that doesn't make this clusterfuck look like a total failure.' Full article (ISAFspeak Warning)

Short Taliban Propaganda Film - January 2012

2012-01-16T04:49:00.001-08:00

AFGHANISTAN : La force réside dans le tir . by MOUHAJIROON

De Gaulle On Indochina, America And National Self-Determination

2012-01-16T04:35:00.000-08:00

On 1 September 1966, in the Cambodian capital, General De Gaulle delivers to over 200,000 people, the "Speech of Phnom Penh." This speech is one of the most forward-thiniking of the postwar years. Recalling the independence of France, he asserts the existence of a third track represented by the non-aligned nations, one of independent sovereignty .De Gaulle also indicated a turning point in the approach to international relations for the former colonial powers. These words were felt at the time as a slap and a betrayal by the Americans at war in Vietnam. In 1968, it was in Paris of course where the conference which was to end the Vietnam War took place, the most futile in the history of the United States until the Afghanistan and Iraq wars). What is impressive is that after over 45 years, De Gaulle's words about the sovereignty of nations still echo in an original way and are more relevant than ever. Unfortunately the political pygmies who pass for 'world leaders' today could not match De Gaulle's levels of statesmanship if they were all added together.

Some Scenes From Ordinary Afghan Life

2012-01-16T01:35:00.001-08:00

Afghanistan – touch down in flight from Augustin Pictures on Vimeo.

Guantanamo - Interview With Lakhdar Boumedienne

2012-01-15T13:56:00.001-08:00

Armadillo - Afghanistan Documentary

2012-01-15T04:18:00.000-08:00

Film about Danish soldiers in Afghanistan. Guess what, they're boneheads like all the others.

Is Karzai's Hat A Grey Wolf's Vagina?

2012-01-14T07:57:00.000-08:00

Not my choice of words. It's what the US Military brass ask about the 'man in the funny hat'. Nation building, diplomacy, urinating on bodies. Is there nothing the US Army can't do?

Chomsky - Why Is US Military In Afghanistan?

2012-01-14T06:22:00.001-08:00

Israeli False Flaggers

2012-01-14T06:03:00.000-08:00

Interviews with six currently serving or recently retired intelligence officers over the last 18 months have helped to fill in the blanks of the Israeli false-flag operation. In addition to the two currently serving U.S. intelligence officers, the existence of the Israeli false-flag operation was confirmed to me by four retired intelligence officers who have served in the CIA or have monitored Israeli intelligence operations from senior positions inside the U.S. government.

The CIA and the White House were both asked for comment on this story. By the time this story went to press, they had not responded. The Israeli intelligence services -- the Mossad -- were also contacted, in writing and by telephone, but failed to respond. As a policy, Israel does not confirm or deny its involvement in intelligence operations.

Read More

US General James Mattis

2012-01-14T03:30:00.001-08:00

Wonder where the urinating US Marines get their core values? "Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." Yes, General Mattis is a bonehead's bonehead.

Afghanistan Stalemate Deepening

2012-01-14T03:00:00.001-08:00

Vote of Confidence In Pakistan Government

2012-01-14T02:58:00.001-08:00

Desecration Of Afghan Dead - Atrocities Didn't Start Here

2012-01-13T14:05:00.000-08:00

Many of these war crimes were reported by the corporate media, though they were not described as such. For example, the New York Times reported on 8 November 2004 that American forces "seized" the Fallujah general hospital. An incident that I witnessed, as did Paul Wood and Robbie Wright from the BBC, was when my unit fired grenades into a house until it collapsed – with full knowledge that there were two resistance fighters and a young boy (roughly 10 years old) inside. Paul Wood interviewed the lieutenant at the scene, and he acknowledged that they had killed the young boy. In both of these reports, war crimes and Geneva Conventions were never mentioned, and the façade of honorable conduct was preserved. More.

Intel Report - Afghan Dead End

2012-01-13T08:28:00.000-08:00

Two current and one former US official speaking on condition of anonymity told AP the intelligence community’s take on the war is that the Taliban may only be paying lip service to peace talks with NATO and Afghan government.
The classified Afghan National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) declares the war at a stalemate, with NATO security gains far outweighed by corruption at all levels of Afghan government.
The report also finds special operations raids and programs to bolster local Afghan security are somewhat effective in degrading the Taliban, but it returns as soon as NATO forces withdraw from an area. The assessment also questions the overall success of the longest war in US history. Full story.

Robert Fisk On Desecration By US Soldiers

2012-01-13T02:51:00.000-08:00

Obama At Ceremony Where He Hands Back The Nobel

The US Marines' response to the pissing pictures was oh so typical. These men were not abiding by the "core values" of the Marines, we were informed. Same old story. A "rogue" unit, a few "bad apples", rotten eggs. Maybe. But if there is one game of pissing on the dead, how many others happened without pictures? How many other shepherds got fragged in Iraq? How many other Hadithas have there been? There were plenty of other My Lais. Read More.

US Military And Their Core Values

2012-01-12T10:05:00.000-08:00

By Tariq Ali.
It’s now official. Urinating on dead insurgents, the US Marine Corps informs the world, is ‘not consistent with its core values’. I think we need a list of non-core values as soon as possible. Pissing on the dead is considered loathsome in most cultures, but clearly can be a morale-booster for demoralised troops in an occupied country where the war is going badly for western civilisation. What better way to assert civilisational values against the barbarians and win local hearts and minds? And why stop here? The next stage surely is to excrete on them and use their beards as toilet paper. That would enhance the value of the videos and might even win the innovators the Santorum Prize for Moral Superiority.
Urinating on the dead is bad enough, but what of those who do it on the living? One of the earlier complaints in this regard came from Gitmo (happy 10th birthday dear) prisoners who alleged that their guards pissed on them from above and that some of the drops fell not just on them, but the Korans they were reading. At the time nobody thought fit to say that such acts ‘were not consistent with core values’. Limited progress has been made. Why the employees of imperial powers feel obliged to act in such a way requires psychiatric investigation. During the British occupation of India it was common practice for British police officers to order their men (who included Muslims, Sikhs and ‘low-caste’ Hindus) to unbutton themselves and let fly at non-violent Gandhian protesters occupying railway tracks to enforce a strike and non-co-operation call by the Congress Party. Nobody talked about core values at that time. Most Indians knew what they were.

US Marines Desecrate Corpses - Outrage Spreads

2012-01-12T02:25:00.001-08:00

Desecration Outrage Spreads

2012-01-12T02:22:00.000-08:00

The footage shows four men in military fatigues appearing to urinate on three apparently lifeless men. They have brown skin, bare feet and are dressed in loose-fitting outfits. One appears to be covered in blood.
A man's voice is heard saying: "Have a great day, buddy."
The origin of the video is not known, nor is it clear who posted it online.
The men in military fatigues seem to be aware they are being filmed. From BBC News here.

Investigation Into Desecration Of Taliban Corpses

2012-01-11T14:01:00.000-08:00

Marine Corps officials said they are investigating a YouTube video that allegedly shows four servicemembers urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters.
The video, posted Tuesday on YouTube , shows four men in U.S. military uniforms standing above the corpses, joking and making references to relieving themselves on the dead men.
Capt. Kendra Hardesty, a spokeswoman for the Corps, said officials have not verified any details of the incident but added, “The actions portrayed are not consistent with our core values and are not indicative of the character of the Marines in our Corps. This matter will be fully investigated and those responsible will be held accountable for their actions."
It was unclear who shot the video, when it was filmed,or who posted it online.
"Regardless of the circumstances or who is in the video, this is egregious, disgusting behaviour," Pentagon spokesman Capt. John Kirby said in a statement to CNN. "It's hideous. It turned my stomach."
The incident harkens back to the infamous Abu Ghraib prison scandal, where Iraqi detainees were photographed while being abused and tormented by U.S. military guards at the facility. When photographs of the abuse were made public, they caused an uproar throughout the Middle East, inciting violence among Muslims both supporting and fighting against the U.S. presence there.

$73b Afghan Aid Wasted?

2012-01-11T06:28:00.000-08:00

The national debate about whether to engage in Afghanistan and for how long is likely to continue in Washington. But everyone can agree that, with a staggering $15 trillion national debt and facing budget austerity, U.S. taxpayers have a right to know where the money is going in Afghanistan. And to turn off the spigot if necessary.

Alarmingly, it appears that those charged with policing the cookie jar and those who spent $73 billion of our money have failed us.

Read more

Freedom In '14

2012-01-10T13:49:00.000-08:00

ON TO FREEDOM IN FOURTEEN, BROTHERS AND SISTERS. SAORSA AIRSON ALBA.

Scots Guards In Helmland

2012-01-10T05:22:00.000-08:00

Embed/Army point of view video but once again interesting:

Afghan War Slideshow

2012-01-10T05:19:00.000-08:00

From an embed point of view but sad and interesting nonetheless:

German NATO Soldiers 'Operating' In Kunduz

2012-01-10T05:04:00.001-08:00

In this clip, they are firing smokescreen shells into the desert. A symbol of their futile and failed presence there, if ever there was one.

Who Is Really Running Yemen?

2012-01-10T01:41:00.001-08:00

Death Of A Chinese-American Soldier

2012-01-10T01:24:00.000-08:00

He entered the tower at about 8 a.m. The soldier he was relieving asked him if he was okay. “No sweat,” Chen answered. The other soldier left. At 11:13, from inside the tower, the sound of a gunshot echoed through the Palace.Read the entire story here.

US Negotiation Approach 'Flawed'

2012-01-09T08:38:00.000-08:00

'Reciprocal measures from the Taliban side are, perhaps significantly, much less developed, and reportedly include requests for the Taliban to formally cut ties with al-Qaeda, to accept the elected Afghan government, and to agree to bargain in good faith. A proposal for eventual consideration would be a declaration of "ceasefire zones", perhaps to be established in conjunction with the turnover of local security responsibility to Afghan government forces in the areas concerned.US officials, speaking strictly without attribution, are careful, nonetheless, to stress the difficulties going forward. One such official rates the chances of ultimate success in reaching a negotiated solution to the conflict at no more than 30 per cent.I wish I could share his optimism.' Link.

Afghanistan's Abu Ghraib?

2012-01-09T03:37:00.001-08:00

45% Of World Refugees From Afghanistan Or Iraq - Thanks For The Freedom

2012-01-08T11:08:00.000-08:00

Remember Operation Enduring Freedom? Thanks for that one, America.

Of the world's 10.5Million refugees, 45% are from Afghanistan(3.05M) or Iraq(1.68M). There are 200 thousand more Afghan refugees each year. New report from UNHCR HERE.

US Use Of Paramilitaries Causing Concern

2012-01-08T10:54:00.000-08:00

The issue is becoming central as the withdrawal and the transition to Afghan-run security in 2014 approaches. One senior western diplomat said: "Whether you are optimistic or pessimistic about Afghanistan really depends on what you think of the ALP." ALP units are set up in communities where the local council, or shura, has requested them. They are screened by shura members and given a criminal check, and 40 hours' training. They wear brown uniforms to distinguish them from the grey of the regular police, earn 60% of regular police pay, and do not have the power of arrest. They are organised in 150-strong units, each mentored by about a dozen US Green Berets or sometimes British Royal Marines. From here.

Endgame In Afghanistan - Pepe Escobar

2012-01-08T02:49:00.000-08:00

Having posted palpable nonsense from Donald Trump and Thomas Friedman recently, it's time for someone who knows what he is talking about - Pepe Escobar on the Afghan endgame:

As in all things AfPak, wishful thinking remains the law of the land. Washington has been abuzz with "secret discussions between US and Taliban officials".
Not so secret after all. Washington wanted the Taliban to renounce all weaponry. The Taliban said "no". Washington wanted the Taliban to renounce any links to al-Qaeda - and in this case Taliban prisoners would be released from Guantanamo. The Taliban said "let's talk".
Wishful thinking also pervades the notion that the political office in Doha will somewhat isolate Pakistan from the Taliban leadership. Mullah Omar, as every grain of sand in the Balochi deserts know, lives in Quetta, undisturbed by ubiquitous US surveillance.
Even though Islamabad was not consulted about the Doha office, Washington assumes the Pakistani ISI is not monitoring each one of these steps - as it keeps monitoring its ironclad Taliban connections. Read more.

Donald Trump On Libya, Iraq, Iran

2012-01-07T09:40:00.000-08:00

Insane but probably typical, mainstream rant from prominent US Republican:

Afghan Committee Points Up US Prison Abuses

2012-01-07T05:39:00.000-08:00

KABUL – An Afghan investigative commission has accused the U.S. military of abusing detainees at its largest prison, and says those held without evidence should be freed.
Commission members at a press conference Saturday repeated a demand made by President Hamid Karzai that the U.S. turn over all detainees to Afghan custody.
Karzai had charged the ad hoc commission with investigating the detention of hundreds of suspected militants held near Bagram air base north of Kabul.
Commission head Gul Rahman Qazi says that prisoners complained of freezing cold, humiliating strip searches and being deprived of light.
The status of detainees is a key unresolved issue in negotiations to leave a small U.S. security force in Afghanistan after most foreign troops withdraw in 2014. Reuters.

Gaza Memorial

2012-01-07T04:00:00.001-08:00

The Gaza Massacre from Sana Kassem on Vimeo.

Karzai Still Calling For End To Night Raids. Yes Again.

2012-01-07T03:40:00.000-08:00

The night raids are not the only possible deal breaker, it seems. The other remaining hot issue is Karzai’s request that the U.S. immediately transfer control of the prison it runs at Parwan, and all Afghan prisoners in U.S. custody in Afghanistan, to the Afghan government. “These we consider to be a violation of our sovereignty,” he said, “and we want them to end all that before we sign the partnership deal.” In a surprise statement that Karzai’s palace released late this week, the president said he wanted control of the prison and the custody of the prisoners transferred into Afghan hands within one month. The U.S. had not seen the prisons and prisoner issue as a serious sticking point in the negotiations. Link here.

Peace Trumps Dollars In Pakistan

2012-01-06T09:36:00.000-08:00

Over the past few years, Pakistan has depended heavily on financial assistance provided by the US
However, the U.S. Congress recently ratified a new bill reducing the amount of financial assistance to Islamabad. According to the bill, hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance to Pakistan will be suspended because the country has decreased support for the US campaign against AQ and the Taliban.
The U.S. has laid down one major condition for the restoration of the financial assistance, demanding that the Pakistani army launch military operations against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militants and terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network in the North Waziristan region.
However, the Pakistani army is opposed to the demand since it would engulf the country in a civil war.
Moreover, North Waziristan, which is located in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, is not the only place where the TTP operates. The group has allies in some cities and towns, which allows them to carry out terrorist operations against civilians.
The army’s unwillingness to get involved in such a wrong–headed adventure means that the Pakistani government should forget about the U.S. dollars. Islamabad will now have to look for new sources of financial assistance because without foreign support, the country will have great difficulty handling its economic situation.
China and Iran are viewed as the main candidates to replace the U.S. as providers of financial assistance.
If this happened, Islamabad would be aligning itself with Eastern countries, which would reduce U.S. interference in the region.
U.S.-Pakistan relations are probably not going to return to the previous situation in the foreseeable future. The two sides are making accusations against each other, and this will certainly have serious repercussions for the entire region.
Pakistan’s decision to attempt to maintain peace and stability indicates that the era when the U.S. had a free hand to interfere in the country has drawn to a close.
Islamabad has finally decided to stop playing the role of Washington’s proxy in the region.
Pir-Mohammad Mollazehi is an expert on Pakistan and Afghanistan based in Tehran.

New Taliban Office Opened In Qatar

2012-01-06T09:28:00.001-08:00

I wonder if there's a nice range of magazines in the waiting room.

US Opens Dialogue With Muslim Brotherhood

2012-01-06T09:14:00.000-08:00

Acoustic Sniper Localisation System - Spray And Pray In Other Words

2012-01-06T08:34:00.000-08:00

US-Operated 'Precision Weapons' In Afghanistan

'When integrated into the VAB, this assembly allows very fast response times against sniper type of attack. As soon as a gunshot is detected, the VAB’s crew can decide to cue the turret automatically in the direction of the danger. The target can be identified and fire returned immediately.' This is coded arms industry-speak for spray and pray. The suggestion that this new method of killing innocent bystanders can identify precisely who has fired a shot, if it is a shot, and where they are, is of course ludicrous. From here. As is often the case with the stuff we highlight (or lowlight), it is advisable to have a paper bag handy when reading the article.

Michael Hastings on McChrystal And The Afghanistan Debacle

2012-01-06T08:16:00.000-08:00

'I'll have that resignation on your desk right away, Mr. President.'

The Operators is an angry book. Part wartime memoir, part polemic, part score-settling with his critics, Hastings argues that the Afghanistan war is a debacle and that counterinsurgency is a liberal-sounding sham that conceals a bloodthirsty agenda. It’s the book’s big blind spot. If the problem is the Afghanistan war’s waste of human life, it’s odd to attack the general who restricted air strikes and ordered U.S. troops to drive friendly.
But The Operators is also a good, thorough and insightful book about the Afghanistan war. Which makes it rare: the few good ones either focus on the human dimensions of the war at the expense of its policy complexities (Sebastien Junger’s War) or vice versa (Ahmed Rashid’s Descent Into Chaos). You might not agree with all of Hastings’ conclusions, but few other books are ambitious enough to survey the entire war and go down to the squad level. Full story here.

Where Is Lebanon's Arab Spring?

2012-01-06T04:24:00.001-08:00

International sanctions recently imposed against Syria are being felt in the Lebanese economy, since a third of Lebanon's trade is either with Syria or transported through Syria. Ahmad Fayyad, a trader at Beirut's wholesale fruit and vegetable market, tells me that "a kilo of lemons used to be 3,000 lira (2 US$), now it's down to 2,000." Citrus fruits and apples are big exports to Syria, but only a small portion of Fayyad's produce is actually leaving Lebanon, and prices have dropped. Exports to Egypt, Libya and Iraq are also down, and produce to the Gulf is now mostly flown. "There is fear," Fayyad says, "and it effects us in Lebanon." From here.

Karzai Demands Prison Handover

2012-01-06T04:04:00.000-08:00

The transfer of prisons to Afghan control has been a thorny issue in the talks between Afghanistan and US for a Strategic Partnership Document that will determine the US role in Afghanistan after 2014.
Among the conditions that Karzai has set is an end to night raids by international troops and complete Afghan control over detainees.
Karzai’s demand for prison control also comes amid reports that the US is considering releasing a number of Taliban prisoners in Guantanamo to Qatar, a condition the Taliban have laid out ahead of opening an office in Doha, the Qatari capital, for peace talks. More here.

US and Iran - Just Who Is Threatening Who?

2012-01-05T03:29:00.000-08:00

The Stars mark US Bases in the Vicinity of Iran's Borders

Werritty/Gould And The Miliband Dimension

2012-01-05T03:24:00.000-08:00

There is a silent cross-party agreement among the political establishment to ally the UK strongly with the interests of Israel (and thus against the interests of the Palestinians). Werritty’s activities were therefore countenanced by both New Labour and Conservative leaderships, and the nebulous “Establishment”, including the mainstream media, have closed ranks around this. From Craig Murray HERE.

British Fatalities In Afghanistan

2012-01-04T14:14:00.001-08:00

New American Cold War

2012-01-04T03:53:00.000-08:00

Via Reality Zone :

2012 And Lessons From Lost Wars

2012-01-03T08:11:00.000-08:00

Only when the Iraqis simply refused to guarantee those troops immunity from local law did the last Americans begin to cross the border into Kuwait. It was only then that our top officials began to hail the thing they had never wanted, the end of the American military presence in Iraq, as marking an era of “accomplishment.” They also began praising their own “decision” to leave as a triumph, and proclaimed that the troops were departing with -- as the president put it -- “their heads held high.”
In a final flag-lowering ceremony in Baghdad, clearly meant for U.S. domestic consumption and well attended by the American press corps but not by Iraqi officials or the local media, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta spoke glowingly of having achieved “ultimate success.” He assured the departing troops that they had been a “driving force for remarkable progress” and that they could proudly leave the country “secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people begin a new chapter in history, free from tyranny and full of hope for prosperity and peace.” Later on his trip to the Middle East, speaking of the human cost of the war, he added, “I think the price has been worth it.” More

Chomsky On Afghanistan's Future

2012-01-03T06:40:00.000-08:00

My opinion is that as long as the military forces are there now, they will probably increase the tensions and undermine the possibilities for a longer term settlement. I think that’s been the record of the past 10 years largely, and that’s the record in other places as well—in Iraq, for example. So, my feeling is that a phased withdrawal of the kind that’s actually contemplated may well be the least bad of the bad options, but combined with other efforts. It’s not enough to just withdraw troops. There have to be alternatives put in place. Full interview.

NATO To Pull $38.6Billion Of Equipment From Afghanistan

2012-01-03T06:35:00.000-08:00

Nato military planners are trying to figure out the logistics of how to ship out the massive quantities of alliance vehicles, weapons and other equipment from the mountainous landlocked country.
The operation requires the removal of US$30 billion (S$38.6 billion) worth of state-of-the-art military gear by the end of 2014, when US and other coalition troops are to end their combat role, a senior Nato official said on Tuesday.
Most of the American equipment will be shipped to military depots in the United States for refurbishment and then redistributed to bases around the country, but some assets will go to bases in Europe, primarily Germany, or in Asian nations such as S.Korea.
'The stuff we have here is the very best the US has ever produced,' the Nato official said. 'It's better than anything available (to military units) in the United States.' He spoke on condition of anonymity because the planning for the equipment pullout is still in its initial stages.

Soudan - Plusieurs Milliers Fuient Les Violences

2012-01-02T14:11:00.001-08:00

Selon les Nations unies, des milliers de villageois sud-soudanais ont fui l’État de Jonglei, région limitrophe du Soudan du Sud où deux communautés rivales s'affrontent violemment depuis plusieurs jours. Video ici.

Drones - Killing With No Accountability

2012-01-02T05:16:00.000-08:00

In Yemen, for instance, the CIA and the military's Joint Special Operations Command pursue the same adversary with nearly identical aircraft. But they alternate taking the lead on strikes to exploit their separate authorities, and they maintain separate kill lists that overlap but don't match. CIA and military strikes this fall killed three U.S. citizens, two of whom were suspected al-Qaeda operatives...
Obama himself was "oddly passive in this world," the former official said, tending to defer on drone policy to senior aides whose instincts often dovetailed with the institutional agendas of the CIA and JSOC. Full article here.

US Strengthens Saudi Ties

2012-01-01T07:31:00.001-08:00

US Strengthens Saudi Ties as Iranian Relations... by NewsLook

Robert Fisk On Les Indigènes

2011-12-31T13:50:00.000-08:00

''Indigènes means "natives" but the English version of the movie was called Days of Glory, which rather took the sting away. Yet the French have still largely ignored their massive empire armies of both world wars. And so have we. Where are the great films, the great novels about the Indians who fought for King and Empire at the Somme, and in North Africa and Italy?'' The French attack on Turkey is as hypocritical (Algeria and Vietnam) as it is true. Read More.

Afghanistan - A Longer Term View

2011-12-31T04:32:00.000-08:00

From Doha to Islamabad to Tehran, Kabul’s relations are strained by Washington’s strategic mistakes: Despite its extensive military, political and developmental engagement Washington has no viable and reliable friend in the region. For years, the US has filled the coffers of rogue Pakistani military and intelligence institutions with billions of dollars. In return Pakistan has sent improvised bombs and suicide attackers that kill Americans troops in Afghanistan. Inside Afghanistan, the US has partnered with some warlords and has waged an open-ended war against others. America is also lying to Afghans. It says the Taliban are defeated, the government is competent and democratic, and foreign-sponsored development is great. The reality, at least from an Afghan perspective, is quite the opposite.
Afghanistan was once butchered by great powers in the 19th Century’s Great Game. It is being abused again. Read More.

IDF Veteran On The Nakba

2011-12-31T04:16:00.000-08:00

Pakistan Investigating 'Memogate'

2011-12-31T04:03:00.000-08:00

The government has become increasingly unpopular since Zardari took office in 2008, failing to tackle myriad problems from crippling power cuts to suicide bombings and a struggling economy. Speculation had swirled of an imminent coup, but all sides have since dismissed the rumours as baseless. Analysts say the military has plenty of other ways to pressure Zardari to step down.
Human Rights Watch said justice must be seen to be done in the investigation. "In a sense, 'memogate' is a litmus test for all actors – particularly the judiciary and the army," it said in a statement. "It remains to be seen whether the rule of law or the law of the jungle prevails in Pakistan." Link.

Petraeus Book - Good Door Stopper

2011-12-30T15:11:00.001-08:00

Pepe Escobar On Arab Spring Et Al

2011-12-30T10:43:00.000-08:00

This is being applied now after the “Arab Spring,“ and that’s incredible because nobody is talking about it also. Everybody was saying at the beginning: Wow, finally the Arabs are “awakening,“ but that is too hard a term, as it means that the Arabs were sleeping for the past 100 years – that is not true.
“Spring“ is also not really the right word, I would say that it is a process of enhanced conciousness of the working classes and the middle classes in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Bahrain and other parts of the Middle East as well. And then came the counter-revolution, and this process of counter-revolution is leading directly to the implementation of further steps of the “Full Spectrum Dominance“ doctrine.
We can go back to this later on, but basically what I’m trying to say is that the counter-revolution, orchestrated by the U.S. and especially by the House of Saud, re-instrumentalized what has happened in Tunisia and Egypt, they unleashed the counter-revolution in the Persian Gulf, they try to bribe the military dictatorship in Egypt to keep it that way as a military dictatorship (they gave already 4 billion U.S. dollars to the Tantawi junta, and more is coming from Saudi Arabia), and meanwhile in Central Asia the United States is trying to re-organize itself because suddenly they have noticed that they are losing terrain to who else? China and Russia. Read More.

Music In Afghanistan

2011-12-30T04:32:00.000-08:00

Just over one-year-old, the Afghan National Institute of Music is something of a revival of musical traditions that have been battered by years of war, and sometimes, religious prohibition. Students at the Institute practice Western instruments as well as traditional ones, like the tabla (drums well known in Indian classical music) or the rubab (a sort of cross between a banjo and a sitar with sympathetic strings that drone along with the melody and a resonating chamber that is covered with skin and sometimes filled with egg shells). From here.

Taliban Embuscade

2011-12-29T15:07:00.001-08:00

Taliban embuscade by MOUHAJIROON

Deux Legionnaires Francais Tues

2011-12-29T15:04:00.000-08:00

Deux légionnaires français tués par un soldat... by Nouvelobs

World Arms Spending Out Of Control

2011-12-29T13:00:00.000-08:00

Excellent graphic here on Reality Zone.

US Web of Drones Is Accountable To Nobody

2011-12-29T12:54:00.000-08:00

In the space of three years, the administration has built an extensive apparatus for using drones to carry out targeted killings of suspected terrorists and stealth surveillance of other adversaries. The apparatus involves dozens of secret facilities, including two operational hubs on the East Coast, virtual Air Force cockpits in the Southwest andclandestine bases in at least six countries on two continents. More here.in

Clandestine drones: Obama administration’s critical tool

Gallery

The emergence of hunter-killer and surveillance drones as revolutionary new weapons in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in counterterrorism operations in places such as Pakistan and Yemen, has spawned a multibillion-dollar industry.

US Foreign Policy March. Right, Right....Right, Right, Right.

2011-12-29T09:04:00.001-08:00

Stratfor Hacking - Australians Kowtow To CIA

2011-12-29T08:59:00.000-08:00

THE Australian Federal Police will assist US authorities if needed to investigate a widening hacking scandal that has engulfed hundreds of prominent Australians including politicians, businessmen and defence and security experts
The hacking of the customer database of international security intelligence service Stratfor is set to escalate following threats by the hackers to release as many as 2.7 million emails obtained from the firm's servers.
These emails are alleged to include off-the-record correspondence between Stratfor and US defence and intelligence officials, which has the potential to embarrass the US government and cause concern in Canberra.
Millionaire politician Malcolm Turnbull, billionaire businessman David Smorgon and veteran journalist Sam Lipski are among more than 300 Australian subscribers to the US-based Stratfor who have had their credit card and other personal details published on the internet. Read more.

Petraeus 'Almost' Resigned Over Drawdown

2011-12-29T07:21:00.000-08:00

The new book depicts Petraeus' rise at an unrelenting, near-superhuman pace. He started his career as a fiercely competitive West Point cadet known as 'Peaches', where he famously wooed the school superintendent's daughter, Holly Knowlton.
He went on to command the 101st Airborne Division as part of the invasion of Iraq, then masterminded the rewrite of the Army and Marine Corps' counterinsurgency training manual before returning to command the surge in Baghdad.
He was then appointed to head Central Command, overseeing the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as military affairs across much of the Gulf and the Middle East. More here.

Christopher Hitchens Interviewed By Richard Dawkins

2011-12-29T04:42:00.000-08:00

Chris Hitchens Thought This Man Did A Great Job

Richard Dawkins One of my main beefs with religion is the way they label children as a "Catholic child" or a "Muslim child". I've become a bit of a bore about it.
Christopher Hitchens You must never be afraid of that charge, any more than stridency.
RD I will remember that.
CH If I was strident, it doesn't matter - I was a jobbing hack, I bang my drum. You have a discipline in which you are very distinguished. You've educated a lot of people; nobody denies that, not even your worst enemies. You see your discipline being attacked and defamed and attempts made to drive it out.
Stridency is the least you should muster . . . It's the shame of your colleagues that they don't form ranks and say, "Listen, we're going to defend our colleagues from these appalling and obfuscating elements."
FROM HERE

Britain's Imperial Hopes For 2012

2011-12-27T15:16:00.000-08:00

Britain's assumption of an ancestral role in passing judgment on Kipling's "lesser tribes without the law" seems genetically embedded. Hague might as well have been quoting from The White Man's Burden, how he must "fill full the mouth of famine / And bid the sickness cease", even if it meant watching "sloth and heathen Folly / Bring all your hopes to nought". His tour of the horizon boasted of "saving lives" in Libya, but he was more detached over Syria. He glided past Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, preferring the clearer ethical waters of Sudan, Somalia, Burma and Muslim women's rights.
None of the areas of Hague's concern had anything to do with Britain, let alone being within Britain's sovereign domain, nor have they been for over half a century. The power has gone. The legitimacy has departed. Only the language of implied command echoes through the Foreign Office's post-imperial dusk. Read More.

Drones - US Weapon Of Choice In 2012

2011-12-27T12:43:00.001-08:00

NATO's Pakistan Carnage - Unexplained 90 Minute Delay

2011-12-27T11:49:00.000-08:00

The full report alters and expands upon the impression of the inquiry’s findings created by General Clark’s briefing, which had emphasized how checks on both sides failed. Among the reason the checks failed, he said, were because American officials did not trust Pakistan enough to give it detailed information about American troop locations in Afghanistan, and Pakistan had not informed NATO of the locations of its new border posts.
The details released Monday add to those failures unexplained delays and a lack of urgency by NATO officers in notifying their superiors of the unfolding late-night debacle that has plunged relations between the two countries to new lows. Read More.

250,000 Died In Armed Conflicts In 2011

2011-12-27T11:45:00.000-08:00

The Global Governance Monitor is a tool that shows how the international community is doing in addressing the most daunting threats that it faces. For each issue area, the monitor provides:

a cinematic overview of the challenge, which explains why international cooperation is needed;

an interactive timeline that traces the world's efforts to craft collective responses to the challenge;

an issue brief that evaluates the overall performance of the regime and suggests potential reforms to improve international cooperation;

an interactive map that details critical countries and groups; and

a resource guide for further information on the topic.

Interactive resource here.