Regey Massacre - Investigation Underway

An investigation has begun into another major massacre of civilians by Nato in Helmland Province. Details are still becoming clear since Nato claimed to have investigated and found nothing. Details here.

Unusually Long But Justified Rant By Tony

The acts of official betrayal at the heart of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are being exposed by the week. The former head of MI5 Eliza Manningham-Buller confirmed to the Iraq inquiry this week that the security services had indeed warned Tony Blair's government that aggression against Iraq, "on top of our involvement in Afghanistan", would radicalise a generation of Muslims and "substantially" increase the threat of terror attacks in Britain. A few days earlier, Carne Ross, Britain's former representative at the UN responsible for Iraq before the invasion, told the inquiry that the British government's statements about its assessment of the threat from Saddam Hussein "were, in their totality, lies". My recent posts have links to both statements.

Nine years into the ‘war on terror’ and its litany of torture, kidnapping, atrocities and mass killing these testimonies combine to highlight the utter disgrace of the British political and security establishment who deceived the public about both invasions.

Of course the UK commitment to join the attack on Iraq was clearly never driven by the supposed menace of Saddam or the legal casuistries advanced at the time, but by an overriding commitment to put Britain at the service of US power, under whichever political leadership and wherever that might take it. The "blood price", as Blair called it, for this – David Cameron made explicit last week – subservient relationship had to be paid. Someone said that the special relationship Cameron has been trumpeting in recent days(Brown parroted the same script), is so special that only one side knows about it.

Blair’s blood price is now being paid again in Afghanistan , as the ConDem coalition claims, against all the evidence, that UK troops are dying to keep the streets of Britain safe from terrorism. Cameron and his ministers have pulled out the stops in recent weeks to give the impression that Britain 's commitment to the Afghanistan war isn't open-ended. Yesterday, in the wake of yet another meaningless international conference on Afghanistan , the prime minister pledged to end the British combat role by 2015 while holding out the possibility of a start to withdrawal next year, depending on "conditions on the ground".

It's hardly surprising he feels the need to talk withdrawal. Up to 77% of the British public want troops out in a year. The £4bn annual cost is hard to justify when you're slashing public services. And the rising rate at which British troops are being killed is now proportionally far higher than their US counterparts. If this were maintained for the next five years, the British death toll would rise to over 1,000.

What is Cameron asking those soldiers to die for? Not a single terror attack in Britain – or plot, real or imagined – has been sourced to Afghanistan . Al-Qaida has long since decamped elsewhere – Pakistan , Iraq , Somalia , Yemen . Meanwhile, the strength of the Taliban continues to grow as the number of occupation troops increases, while Afghan civilians are dying in their thousands every year. There's no reason to believe the situation will be fundamentally different in four years' time.

Obama's presidency is now dangerously in hock to hawkish generals such as James Mattis (see posts passim) who declared it was "a hell of a lot of fun to shoot" Afghans

The public been accustomed to the fact that Iraq has been a disaster; now they are getting used to seeing the war in Afghanistan in the same light. It has failed in every one of its ever-changing objectives – from preventing the spread of terrorism and eradicating opium production to promoting democracy and the position of women, which has actually deteriorated under NATO according to Afghan women's groups.

What is now taking place in Afghanistan reinforces what has already been demonstrated in Iraq - namely the limits of US power to impose its will by force. If the might of the American military can be seen off by a militia on old motorbikes in one of the poorest countries of the world, the implications for the new international order are profound. Which is why the US and its closest allies will do everything to avoid the appearance of defeat – and why many thousands more Afghans and NATO troops will pay the price of a war their leaders now accept can never be won.

One For All You Droneheads Out There

Recent Pentagon accident reports reveal that the pilotless aircraft suffer from frequent system failures, computer glitches and human error.Design and system problems were never fully addressed in the haste to push the fragile plane into combat over Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks more than eight years ago. Air Force investigators continue to cite pilot mistakes, coordination snafus, software failures, outdated technology and inadequate flight manuals.Thirty-eight Predator and Reaper drones have crashed during combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and nine more during training on bases in the U.S. -- with each crash costing between $3.7 million and $5 million. Altogether, the US Air Force says there have been 79 drone accidents costing at least $1 million each. So much for the state of the art, high tech warfare we are always being spun. Obama, the Peace Laureate, as one poster on here recently reminded us, likes them.