It's been a question that has lingered in my mind for the last 5 years in this 7 year conflict so far. What are we doing there? Why is it taking this long to go in circles in Afghanistan??? What's the 'real' end game in this???? MONEY! GAS LINES!!! MIND CONTROL!!!!!!

Have I missed something??? Please add what you think.



http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/bacon6.html

Operation Enduring Pipeline

by Don Bacon
(Don Bacon is a retired army officer who founded the Smedley Butler Society several years ago because, as General Butler said, "war is a racket.)


Operation Enduring Freedom is the official label for the US military invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. After almost seven years of fighting, what has been gained? What might be gained?

Militarily, US frustration with heavy casualties and lack of progress came to a head recently when Defense Secretary Robert Gates blamed NATO allies for US casualties. “I know I’ve been a big nag, and I know I’ve been a pain, … but for NATO to continue to be tied up in politics [because of a lack of public support] and issues between governments that are irrelevant to whether we are making progress in Afghanistan, I just don’t have patience any more . . .We’ve got kids dying because of the gaps.”

Freedom? There's no progress there, either, for women, journalists and Afghanis in general.



The American company Unocal has a ten-year history of interest in the Turkmenistan gas field and a pipeline through Afghanistan. The Taliban wasn't interested, but the Hamid Karzai government is more amenable. On April 28 Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov met in Kabul, where they signed an agreement on extension of a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

A key political objective of the TAPI pipeline, one that changed it from TAP to TAPI, was to involve India and keep it away from a proposed Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline. This would receive a boost from a civil nuclear energy pact with the United States.

But India has its politics also. The future of the nuclear energy pact between New Delhi and Washington appears bleak, and last month, reports Downstream Today, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said that, after a visit from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project is moving toward the "final stage" of its implementation. "The direction of the project is positive," said Sadiq at a weekly news briefing. The US$7.5-billion IPI gas pipeline project, which has been under discussions since 1994, is to deliver natural gas from Iran to Pakistan and India. Last month, the long-stalled talks on the gas pipeline project made a breakthrough when Ahmadinejad made whistle-stop visits to Pakistan and India. The three countries are expected to sign agreements on the IPI project soon.

Yikes, foiled again, outflanked by Iran? Again, there are options. The IPI pipeline wouldn't of course pass through war-torn Afghanistan but it would pass through Balochistan, the largest of Pakistan's provinces and the scene of recent unrest including pipeline bombings. (I wonder who financed the unrest?) In fact, Balochistan might opt to become an independent state if it is not granted provincial autonomy, Senate Deputy Chairman Jan Muhammad Jamali said recently. “The time is running out ... there is no other option left but to grant provincial autonomy to all the provinces including Balochistan,” Jamali told the Upper House while speaking on a point of order. He said he had been forced to raise the voice of the people of his province, as the situation was rapidly deteriorating. “The four brothers (provinces) will not be able to live together if the situation remains the same,” he added.

Is there any chance that Jamali's threats might come true? Do the Jamalis have any clout? Could Pakistan break up? It's possible. The Jamali family has in the past collaborated with the CIA and the ISI (Pakistan Intelligence) in countering the activities of two other tribes and their Marxist influence in Balochistan. During the course of this collaboration, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali became friendly with Nancy Powell (no relation to Colin), who was then a young member of the diplomatic corps in Pakistan and then served as US ambassador to Pakistan 2002–2004. She is currently the ambassador to Nepal.

An independent Balochistan would balkanize Pakistan, create a US-friendly state between Iran and India, and hurt Iran badly by stymieing the IPI pipeline. It would also provide a side benefit by isolating the large new port that the Chinese are financing in Gwadar, on Balochistan's coast. In March 2002, Chinese vice premier Wu Bangguo laid the foundation for Gwadar port, which is intended be a key Chinese facility on the Arabian Sea, not far from the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. The US might consider this a threat to The Carter Doctrine, which dictates that the US shall be the big dog in the Middle East.

Operation Enduring Freedom? With John McCain and Barack Obama now arguing about widening the Afghanistan war and invading Pakistan, the TAPI natural gas pipeline has a better chance than freedom ever had. It would be an American-controlled cash cow that would hurt Iran. All the US needs to do is pacify Afghanistan with more troops (to safeguard TAPI) and balkanize Pakistan (to stymie IPI) while widening the war and antagonizing India. Freedom be damned. Freedom was never an option anyhow, especially when there's money to be made by endless war.

Oh.... my my my..... 5 weeks before 9/11 our State Dept threatened the Taliban with being bombed if they did not cooperate with UNOCAL over pipelines in Afghanistan!!!!!!!

Why hasn't this been pointed out by MSM???????



After the fall of the Soviet Union, the first western oil company to express interest and take action in the Basin was the Bridas Corporation of Argentina. It acquired production leases and exploration contracts in the region, and by November of 1997 had signed an agreement with General Dostum of the Northern Alliance and with the Taliban to build a pipeline across Afghanistan.

Not to be outdone, the American company Unocal fought Bridas at every turn, even spurning an invitation from Bridas to join an international consortium in the Basin. Unocal wanted exclusive control of the trans-Afghan pipeline, and hired a number of consultants in its conflict with Bridas: Henry Kissinger, Richard Armitage (now Deputy Secretary of State in the Bush Administration), Zalmay Khalilzad (a signer of the PNAC letter to President Clinton) and Hamid Karzai. (Eventually Bridas sued Unocal in the U.S. courts, and won.)

Unocal stayed on the attack until 1999, frequently wooing Taliban leaders at its headquarters in Texas, and hosting them in meetings with federal officials in Washington, D.C.

Unocal and the Clinton Administration hoped to have the Taliban cancel the Bridas contract, but were getting nowhere. Mr. John J. Maresca, a Unocal Vice President, testified to a House Committee of International Relations on February 12, 1998, asking politely to have the Taliban removed and a stable government inserted. His discomfort was well placed.

Six months later terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden bombed the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and two weeks after that President Clinton launched a cruise missile attack into Afghanistan. Clinton issued an executive order on July 4, 1999, freezing the US held assets and prohibiting further trade transactions with the Taliban.

Mr. Maresca could count that as progress. More would follow.

Immediately on taking office, the new Bush Administration actively took up negotiating with the Taliban once more, seeking still to have the Bridas contract vacated in favor of Unocal. The parties met three times, in Washington, Berlin, and Islamablad, but the Taliban wouldn’t budge.

Behind the negotiations, however, planning was underway to take military action against the Taliban. The State Department sought and gained concurrence from both India and Pakistan to do so, and in July of 2001 three American officials met with Pakistani and Russian intelligence people to inform them of planned military strikes against Afghanistan the following October.

State Department official Christina Rocca told the Taliban, at their last pipeline negotiation in August of 2001, just five weeks before 9/11, “Accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs.”

sorry, I left out the url to my last post.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1203-21.htm

President Karzai was close to President GHW Bush and during the '90s had been associated with UNOCAL until later calls for UNOCAL to be the leader of pipeline(s) in Afghanistan. This went against the Taliban's wishes and contract with Bridas. This is sooooo Dick Cheney. Karzai was with the Taliban, then jumps fence over to our neocons and with UNOCAL. We now are at war with Afghanistan (Taliban) that seems to drag out forever with no end in sight.




http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context...53002dealsigned

Afghanistan’s interim leader, Hamid Karzai, Turkmenistan’s President Niyazov, and Pakistani President Musharraf meet in Islamabad and sign a memorandum of understanding on the trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline project. [Dawn (Karachi), 5/31/2002; Alexander's Gas & Oil Connections, 6/8/2002] Afghan leader Hamid Karzai (who formerly worked for Unocal) calls Unocal the “lead company” in building the pipeline. [BBC, 5/13/2002] The Los Angeles Times comments, “To some here, it looked like the fix was in for Unocal when President Bush named a former Unocal consultant, Zalmay Khalilzad, as his special envoy to Afghanistan late last year .” [Los Angeles Times, 5/30/2002] Unocal claims that it has no interest in any Afghanistan pipeline after 9/11. However, Afghan officials say that Unocal will be the lead company in funding the pipeline. The Afghan deputy minister of mines comments on Unocal’s claim of disinterest: “Business has its secrets and mysteries. Maybe… they don’t want it to be disclosed in the media.” [Toronto Star, 3/2/2003]




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamid_Karzai

Karzai was a member of the Mujahideen and took active part in driving the
Soviets out of Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion in the out of Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion in the 1980s. The Mujahideen were secretly supplied and funded by the United States, and Karzai was a top contact for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at the time. He had close personal contact with CIA Director William Casey and George H. W. Bush, who was Vice President of the United States.[citation needed] Karzai's brothers immigrated to the U.S. however Hamid Karzai stayed in Afghanistan and Pakistan working for the jihad against the soviet occupation.



When the Taliban emerged in the 1990s, Karzai was at first one of their supporters but later he broke with them and refused to serve as their U.N. ambassador. However on August 20, 1998, after an attempt by the United States to kill Osama bin Laden with a cruise missile, Karzai praised the Taliban saying,
“ ...[b]there were many wonderful people in the Taliban.[11] ”

He lived in exile in Quetta, in Pakistan where he worked to reinstate the Afghan king, Zahir Shah. His father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, was assassinated, presumably by Taliban agents, on July 14, 1999, and Karzai swore revenge against the Taliban by working to help overthrow them.[citation needed] In 2001, Hamid Karzai worked closely with the Ahmad Shah Massoud to help gather support for the anti-Taliban movement.

On February 11, 2005, in an interview with the Oxford International Review, Karzai criticizes the role the U.S. played in empowering the Taliban to take control in Afghanistan. He claims he spent many years before the 9/11 attacks warning embassies about the threat, but the West failed to respond, an act of “neglect, selfishness and short-sightedness." While he highlights the key role the United States and other donors have played in rebuilding and developing Afghanistan, his tone is not without bitterness.
“ It’s just that we could have done all this before September 11th. We could have had these improvements here and the Twin Towers...We could have stopped terrorism before it reached you. ”

Lies and more lies, how many more will it take before the american people wake up and smell the coffee?


These wars are about oil, not democracy

PIPELINE DEAL

In 1998, the Afghan anti-Communist movement Taliban and a western oil consortium led by the U.S. firm Unocal signed a major pipeline deal. Unocal lavished money and attention on the Taliban, flew a senior delegation to Texas, and hired a minor Afghan official, Hamid Karzai.

Enter Osama bin Laden. He advised the unworldly Taliban leaders to reject the U.S. deal and got them to accept a better offer from an Argentine consortium. Washington was furious and, according to some accounts, threatened the Taliban with war.

In early 2001, six or seven months before 9/11, Washington made the decision to invade Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and install a client regime that would build the energy pipelines. But Washington still kept sending money to the Taliban until four months before 9/11 in an effort to keep it "on side" for possible use in a war against China.

The 9/11 attacks, about which the Taliban knew nothing, supplied the pretext to invade Afghanistan. The initial U.S. operation had the legitimate objective of wiping out Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida. But after its 300 members fled to Pakistan, the U.S. stayed on, built bases -- which just happened to be adjacent to the planned pipeline route -- and installed former Unocal "consultant" Hamid Karzai as leader.

Washington disguised its energy geopolitics by claiming the Afghan occupation was to fight "Islamic terrorism," liberate women, build schools and promote democracy. Ironically, the Soviets made exactly the same claims when they occupied Afghanistan from 1979-1989. The Iraq cover story was weapons of mass destruction and democracy.

Work will begin on the TAPI once Taliban forces are cleared from the pipeline route by U.S., Canadian and NATO forces. As American analyst Kevin Phillips writes, the U.S. military and its allies have become an "energy protection force."

ADDED BENEFIT

From Washington's viewpoint, the TAPI deal has the added benefit of scuttling another proposed pipeline project that would have delivered Iranian gas and oil to Pakistan and India.

India's energy needs are expected to triple over the next decade. Delhi, which has its own designs on Afghanistan, is cock-a-hoop over the new pipeline plan.

Russia, by contrast, is grumpy, having hoped to monopolize Central Asian energy exports.

Energy is more important than blood in our modern world. The U.S. is a great power with massive energy needs. Domination of oil is a pillar of America's world power. Let's be realistic. Afghanistan and Iraq are about oil, nothing else.



http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/...5953041-sun.php

US military deaths in Afghanistan region at 451

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g3dO01z...-SJuvQD91EPLR80

Wonder what the count of wounded are?

What a waste

doesnt obama agree with being here? doesnt he want to boost this war instead of Iraq?

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/masterspropaganda.html

----------------------

Does that make it right?
You got two picks, Obama and McShame. The thing the american people have to decide which will do the least destruction to this country. Or is it they truly do not care seeing only a select few have to go and fight these stupid wars time in and time out. Price of Gas is more important to most than their neighbors blood based on propaganda.
Easy enough to say lets go to war and kill them all. the question should be asked would I send my child off to war for this reason?

How Can Americans Sleep Through So Many Wake

WAKE UP, America.

Do you remember the 2006 elections? Do you remember the DNC promises to END the war in Iraq?

America took the House and Senate away from the Republicans, gave it to the Democrats, and nothing was done to even pretend to stop the war. Zero.

We have the most impeachable president and administration in the history of the United States, literal war criminals, and both sides of the aisle abjectly, irrefutably refuse to repair America's destroyed image throughout the world.

America is dying of cancer and these Congressional lap dog cretins refuse to perform the operation (impeachment) that would begin to restore some of the damage Bush has done to America and the rest of the world. That is why the approval rating for Congress is right there in the sewer with Bush - they are just as despicable.

Bush has stated repeatedly that the 'Axis of Evil' is Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Remember that? I submit the true axis of evil is the US, UK and Israel. I submit that any nation that makes war and kills over one MILLION people based on a lie is evil. It is not 'war', it's called Genocide...and it is NOT 'defending' America.

Many have come forward ­ Bush and Cheney lied. The entire Bush Administration and Congress were/are just one Big Lie Machine. O'Neill and McClellan have both made it clear: Bush and Cheney LIED. Furthermore, Blair lied to the UK. Colin Powell lied to the UN. Rice lied/lies every time she moves her lips.

9-11 was a huge lie. They needed an excuse to attack Afghanistan and take over the Caspian Basin oil and have a pipeline route to get it to world markets. Not because America needs it, but because certain people in America want those trillions of dollars in their pockets.

Over 3,000 American troops (13,000?) and countless others have been murdered because someone wanted those trillions of dollars.

Do we really have to have a debate in America on the definition of what a LIE is? Are we are a point in the course of our nation that Americans do not know the difference between the truth and a lie, fact versus fiction?

I have heard it said that many Americans prefer to believe almost any lie over the simple truth...if it is more 'comfortable' for them. There was a time I did not believe that, but I do now.

I am a devout Ecumenical Christian but have major disagreements with the Zionist Christians who think "thou shalt not kill" was a suggestion, not a Commandment. Killing based on lies is way past evil. I do not think they will win the debate with God on Judgment Day that the Iraqi genocide they supported was okay due to semantics and splitting hairs over what the definition of genocide or murder is.

Now we are in 2008, the White House is up for grabs, and both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have mumbled 'stay the course' in Iraq. Defending America, NOT.

Of course McCain will stay the course because he is too stupid to come up with an alternative and besides, the idiot Christian Far Right still thinks Bush is hot, and is out defending America - while the truth of the matter is he is destroying America and knee-deep in heinous in war crimes.

I thought America would be up in arms about the torture, the mass death, the genocide...but evidently American Christians are okay with torture so long as it is not them being tortured.

At the gas pump, cash only is about to be required because the gas stations are tired of giving 3% to 8% to the credit card companies on the sale. It is affecting their bottom line, too.

What is torture to me?

Watching another lie uttered by Wall Street or Washington DC and certain Americans holding them up high as the great leaders they are not.

I fear that about 90% of Americans cannot connect those dots and come up with the right answer ­ the DNC lied about ending the travesty of Iraq.Will they continue to lie? You can bet everything you have on it.

Do they care one iota that your gasoline, home utilities and food prices are putting you deeper in the hole and bankrupting you and your family? Again, you can bet all you have that they could not care less.

So, why does the treasonous Democrat Congress not impeach Bush and just be done with it?

Because he has the ultimate defense. He would expose the other side of the aisle as being just as complicit in 9-11; for their support of the lies about why we needed to attack Afghanistan for a pipeline; and the hideous lies about Iraq and the genocide of !.2 million people. Both sides of the aisle are guilty...and that is why Bush smirks.

Just this week the Democrat-controlled Congress voted (approved) another $165 billion for a war the entire world (except most of America) knows was based on total lies.

Of course, the quid pro quo was they would approve that $165 billion so Bush could "victory" and not veto an obese pork spending package of DNC pet projects. Both the pork projects and the wars are funded with debt, folks, not cash. The American hole just got deeper.

Did anyone notice that with passage of the $165 billion bill the US dollar took a nose dive in world markets because that money did not come from the US Treasury? It is yet more DEBT and the rest of the world is sick and tired of funding the excesses of Washington, DC and its endless lies.

If you have not traveled outside of the US since Bush took office, you should. There are places in Europe that one cannot get the currency exchange windows to even accept US dollars at ALL. It's that bad, folks. But still America laughs, plays, sleeps, eats fast 'food', shops at the malls...and continues to sink just like the unsinkable Titanic did.

'The worst of the credit crisis is behind us.'

If you believe that, you are the type of fool that Washington DC salivates over.

According the Morgan Stanley, the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of England, you had better hold onto your socks because what is coming is an F5 economic tornado.

Wow, Britney Spears' father won a court order allowing him to sell her home. That's news...but the dying economy isn't even mentioned.

The Spears family clearly did not do a very good job of raising Britney. Seems she did not have enough discipline to teach her right from wrong, manners, civility, and how to dress and conduct herself in public, etc. No rational mind would categorize her problems as newsworthy.

One of the email update members informed me that their home in Arizona has depreciated from $549,000 to under $212,000. In financial circles, they call that "a very big hit"...it is also called "mark to market". Their mortgage has gone unside down...they now owe more on the home than the mortgage debt. Even better, Boeing is moving the husband's job to Mexico, so Boeing can make critical jet engine parts cheaper.

Does anyone wish to ride on a Boeing jet with critical parts made in Mexico for $1.75 an hour by an illiterate Mexican? I certainly do not even, if his name is Jesus.

And then we have McCain speaking in Canada. He is fully-backing NAFTA and will resist those who want it abolished. America has done the Free Trade routine and it has put America straight into the poor house. There is a big difference in Free Trade...and FAIR Trade.

Oh, yes, Bush and Congress have granted Big Pharma total immunity. The drug giants can now legally kill you with no worry about being sued. If you missed the news, LEGAL prescription medication kills more Americans than do illegal drugs.

Bush and Congress have also allowed Big Defense to hide behind the immunity of the Feres Doctrine. Big Defense has never been forced to bear responsibility for criminal negligence or for non-stop defrauding of the American taxpayers.

This Democrat-controlled Congress also just granted the telecom companies total immunity. So, spying on you as if you are Al Qaeda is now okay, too.

If you have not been paying attention, what they are doing in Washington, DC is legalizing criminal conduct so Americans cannot hang them as they deserve.

Get this straight America ­ The Department of Homeland Security exists for one reason...and it has nothing to do with foreign threats. It exists to defend these lying thugs from the wrath of the American people when the proverbial fertilizer hits the proverbial fan.

One of the email list members is a retired colonel, USAF. He provided this quote to share with you.

"Absolutely nothing will restore our freedom or save our country until Americans develop the courage to tell government bureaucrats at all levels to---Kiss My Ass!"

Amen to that.

Another is a publisher in Australia, and provided this quote.

DEMOCRACY & DIPLOMACY, WHERE ART THOU?
PEOPLE TELL ME WORRY NOT.

HOWEVER, I WORRY MOST WHEN PEOPLE WORRY NOT WHATSOEVER.

Amen to that!

So, go back to surfing channels, shopping, eating...whatever it is that Americans do to ignore their wake-up calls and patriotic responsibilities.

Make no mistake, the day is fast-approaching for that final wake-up call: 'America passed away last night in its sleep.'


http://www.picassodreams.com/poets_priests...an-america.html

Not until the neocon Republicans have ruined us past saving. We're knocking on that door of no return now.







That is why I feel that the US/Afghanistan War is also based on mostly lies and BushCo should be held responsible for our destructive invasion there as well. Such an invasion was premeditated by our US govt before 9/11 took place.

Apparently yes to both your questions.

Even with all the BS that put us in Afghanistan (US refuses Taliban offer to hand Bin Laden to third party for trial). The case could be made that the operation in Afgahnistan is a touch more on the noble side. If only we'd done it right. Instead we went in half assed, empowered warlords that many segements of the populace despised and failed to secure our supposed primary objective. If on the other hand we had actualy caught Osama and then flooded the country with engineers. mediocal staff etc etc (instead of christain missionaries). If we had begun local firms that hired locals to build roads, schools and clinics, found some new cash crops and helped export them (other than opium). We might have generated some good will. If we had looked at any energy deals as good for Afgahnis first US second same might have occured. But what can you expect from a group of frat boys who still shout USA USA like they were at WWE event when they craft forigen policy? The addition of blind adherence to basement christianity makes it worse. It reminds me of my little brother telling me that his study group was working from orignal Hebrew and Greek-my response not bad for a dyslexic HS drop out ex speed freak with a GED in a group led by a guy with an AA in Medical Technology (Midland TX ambulance crew, lil bro sold couches). Thats as deep as they go-'the smart guy said it so it must be true'.

BBC News
Thursday, 30 May 2002

Afghan Pipeline Given Go-ahead.........

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2017044.stm
BBC NEWS | Business | Afghan pipeline given go-ahead

Department of Energy Information July 2002
Caspian Sea Region: Natural Gas Export Options
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/caspgase.html
Caspian Sea Region: Natural Gas Export Options

The Debate
http://www.thedebate.org/thedebate/afghanistan.asp
The Debate: Did oil influence America's decision to invade Afghanistan? Were the true motives for war declared? Read our detailed report and sign the online petition for a public statement from the American government. TheDebate.org - Debating current aff

Timeline of Competition between Unocal and Bridas for the Afghanistan Pipeline
http://www.worldpress.org/specials/pp/pipeline_timeline.htm
Unocal and Bridas Woo the Taliban for Oil Pipeline Project

Ah! Iran is a rival!

http://www.upi.com/Energy_Resources/2008/0...43221213907455/
TAPI pipeline new containment tool? - UPI.com

Ya know, they were building this pipeline when the Iraq war started. I've always believed the Iraq war was nothing more than a distraction from the pipeline.
http://archive.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=6458
Bush's Homeland Security Pipeline

Great stuff in those archives...there should be a CD.
Remember when links started being removed from the web and the information "classified"? That's when they were building the pipeline...and scattering pallets of $100 bills from planes flying over Afghanistan. Seems like decades ago, no?

I wonder how the plan is going.....
http://www.cursor.org/stories/karzai.htm
Karzai & Associates: Afghanistan's Trickle-Down Reconstruction

Something like this......



http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stor....htm?tab=latest

US military chief wants more Afghanistan troops


The chief of the US military says he needs three more brigades in Afghanistan to battle Taliban fighters and train Afghan forces.

Admiral Michael Mullen, says they are currently short of soldiers in Afghanistan and a training brigade is needed.

The United States has urged NATO allies for months to deploy reinforcements to Afghanistan.

Admiral Mullen says violence has increased this year.

This month has already been the bloodiest of the year for international forces with 32 soldiers killed so far.

You bring up a great point. Iraq did serve as a diversion! It worked. Don't forget thet HUGE poppy crop that still grows there too. That's just not for the Afghanis to relieve a little of their health problems!! Anybody seen our CIA lately??

Funny thing how they managed to bomb everything in the country but the poppy fields, eh?

You betcha..... can't destroy the CIA's cash crop.

The WHY of Afghanistan becomes the ut oh of Afghanistan!!



http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m45156&hd=&size=1&l=e

Losing Afghanistan (It Can’t Be Won)

Nato has to win in Afghanistan, the Taliban only needs not to lose
Tony Karon

June 24, 2008

Back in April, Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, dodged a bullet. A fusillade of them, actually, plus a few rocket-propelled grenades, when a ceremony he was addressing came under Taliban attack in the heart of Kabul. Nato spin-doctors immediately dismissed the incident as a case of the Taliban getting lucky. Such increased reliance on terror attacks, they insisted, were signs that the Taliban had grown desperate, having been forced onto the back foot by effective Western counterinsurgency.

Similar sentiments were expressed last week – a week in which Britain’s casualty toll for its Afghan mission passed 100 – after Taliban fighters attacked Kandahar prison and freed 400 of their comrades, and began to take control of a string of villages around the southern city that had once been their spiritual capital.

No amount of wishful thinking can hide the reality, however, that six and a half years after the US-led military intervention that scattered the Taliban, the presence of some 50,000 Nato troops has not prevented the movement from regrouping and mounting a resurgence that has sabotaged plans to rebuild the country on Western-friendly terms.

There may have been a symbolic irony in the April assassination attempt on Karzai: it occurred during a speech to celebrate the 16th anniversary of the fall of Najibullah, the leader of the last Soviet client regime in Kabul, who was butchered when the Taliban arrived.

Karzai’s situation is not unlike that of Najibullah’s; he, too, has led a supposedly modernising regime but one riddled with corruption. Like Najibullah, his authority does not extend much beyond the capital, earning him the nickname of "Mayor of Kabul". And like Najibullah, he is dependent for survival on the presence of a large foreign army – a toxic liability in a country with a visceral resentment of foreign armies.

There are important differences between them, of course: Najibullah never won an election; Karzai may have proven himself more adept at assembling an uneasy coalition of warlords; and the Karzai government enjoys far wider domestic and international support. Still, none of those factors may be enough to ensure his regime a fate substantially different from Najibullah’s.

The Taliban, in fact, is banking on the fundamental weaknesses of the Karzai regime and the security arrangements that keep it in place. As Henry Kissinger famously noted as the Vietnam war drew to a close, "the guerrilla wins if he does not lose; the conventional army loses if it does not win". And there’s no indication for the foreseeable future of the Taliban losing or the Nato forces winning. The Taliban needn’t try to hold territory; it simply needs to consistently demonstrate the inability of the Nato and government forces to control most of the country, always aware of the finite appetite of foreign armies for costly and futile expeditionary ventures. The Taliban knows this.

In the Western mindset, Afghanistan remains the "good war" in contrast to Iraq. Sending reinforcements to Afghanistan has become the standard gesture of consolation to Washington by US allies pulling troops out of Iraq (Britain, Spain, Italy and Australia) or those like France and Germany that refused to go at all. But the fact that two thirds of the Nato force in Afghanistan is American, and the bulk of the remainder of the responsibilities are shared by Britain, Canada and the Netherlands, testifies to the squeamishness of European polities about overseas military commitments. And the sense throughout the West that the Nato mission in Afghanistan is simply treading water in increasingly treacherous conditions won’t help muster more troops.

The conventional Western explanation for Nato’s struggles in Afghanistan are two-fold: not enough troops, and Pakistan’s continued support for the Taliban. These explanations miss the long history of the Afghans confounding far more committed colonial missions – the British and the Soviets. Sure Nato has not sent enough troops, but the Soviets failed with twice as many.

Pakistan’s enduring support for the Taliban is simply part of its traditional statecraft: Islamabad views Afghanistan as an important strategic support in its confrontation with India. It is for that reason that Pakistan helped nurture the Taliban and install it in power in 1996, and the fact that Karzai came to power on the back of the Northern Alliance – allies of India, Iran and Russia – made continued Pakistani support for reinstating the Taliban almost inevitable.

Karzai is presiding over a state riddled with corruption and patronage, to the extent that Western governments question the extent of progress achieved by the more than $16 billion in aid that has flowed into the country. Opium cultivation today accounts for more than half of GDP, according to UN figures. And it is a state unable to defend itself, despite having 140,000 men under arms. The US Government Accountability Office recently concluded that only two Afghan units can really be counted as combat ready.

The Taliban swept to power in 1996 because most local warlords chose to make common cause with the movement rather than resist when it appeared to have the momentum; many of the same warlords had a similar reaction to the US-led drive to force out the Taliban. Many of those the government currently counts in its corner will make their calculations according to their perception of the prevailing winds. By that measure, the most telling sign of the times may be the revelation that Burhanuddin Rabbani, the former president of Afghanistan and a key leader of the Northern Alliance that helped bring Karzai to power, has begun holding talks with the Taliban. He’s unlikely to be the last to do so.

Tony Karon is a New York-based analyst and editor, who blogs at Rootless Cosmopolitan www.tonykaron.com

:: Article nr. 45156 sent on 25-jun-2008 08:29 ECT

Afghanistan

This June has seen the highest number of foreign soldiers killed since the invasion happened in 2001. 39 soldiers have been killed in June this year.

Didn't we 'win' this war in 2001? Oh, that must have just been post 9/11 propaganda combined with a poorly understood definition of what 'winning' was.

Do you think Afghanistan will become another Vietnam like Iraq has or.... has it already done that?

http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m45208&hd=&size=1&l=e

U.N.: Opium Trade Soars in Afghanistan


UNITED NATIONS, June, 26 2008 -- Afghan opium cultivation grew 17 percent last year, continuing a six-year expansion of the country's drug trade and increasing its share of global opium production to more than 92 percent, according to the 2008 World Drug Report, released Thursday by the United Nations.

Afghanistan's emergence as the world's largest supplier of opium and heroin Afghanistan's emergence as the world's largest supplier of opium and heroin represents a serious setback to the U.S. policy in the region. The opium trade has soared since the U.S.-led 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, which had eradicated almost all of the country's opium poppies in 2001.


The Taliban earned $200 million to $400 million dollars in revenues last year through a 10 percent tax on poppy growers and drug traffickers in areas under its control, Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime, said in an interview. He estimated that farmers and drug traffickers last year earned about $4 billion, half of the country's national income. Afghanistan's high-yielding variety of opium poppies has helped double world opium production since 2005. With production far outpacing world demand last year, U.N. anti-drug officials and government intelligence agencies worry about massive stockpiling of the drug.


"There will be 2 or 3 thousand tons of extra supply this year," Costa said. "We are talking all together about 6 or 7 thousand tons of opium, somewhere."

Does the U.S. do anything anywhere in the world for any reason except to control the drug trade or the arms trade or the price of oil. (Pushing it up not down.)?

I'd say no, except you left out controlling their banks/currencies and ELECTIONS to your list. Since the US dollar has become a near worthless note on the planet, we've lost lots of control over the global banks/currencies.

More than an increase of poppies in Afghanistan, are the deaths of Afghanis. This just has to bare guilt on the US citizens.


http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-06-29-voa23.cfm?rss=asia

UN Official: Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan Up 60 Percent This Year
By VOA News
29 June 2008

A top United Nations official says the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan has increased by more than 60 percent so far this year.

U.N. humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes said Sunday nearly 700 Afghan civilians have been killed in fighting between insurgents and foreign troops in 2008, compared to 430 civilians over the same period in 2007.

Holmes said the majority of civilian casualties were caused by insurgents, who he said appear to have no regard for human life. He also said the proportion of civilian casualties caused by government or foreign troops has decreased.

Not being a Vietnam veteran but from being an era veteran (stationed in Thailand) I believe both Afghanistan and Iraq have become Vietnam's. Nothing to win except for the war profiteers and greedy politicians.

How long will this bloody foolishness go on? As long as we americans let it and fund it.

Very good question. I do not think the U.S. does anything in this world without a profit motive.

US military deaths in Afghanistan region at 461

As of Sunday, June 29, 2008, at least 461 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures June 21 at 10 a.m. EDT.

Of those, the military reports 324 were killed by hostile action.

Outside the Afghan region, the Defense Department reports 65 more members of the U.S. military died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, two were the result of hostile action. The military lists these other locations as Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba; Djibouti; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Jordan; Kenya; Kyrgyzstan; Philippines; Seychelles; Sudan; Tajikistan; Turkey; and Yemen.

There were also four CIA officer deaths and one military civilian death.



http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g3dO01z...-SJuvQD91K41MO0

Like you, I see the similarities also. Scary isn't it?

I thought that you might find this interesting. Turkey, our close ally.



http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-07-01-...?rss=topstories

Government-Controlled Opium Production Is Way of Life in Turkey

By Dorian Jones
Afyon, Turkey
01 July 2008

Preliminary information from Turkey indicates opium production will be up this year. But all of the harvest will be raised under a unique government sponsored program that lets farmers grow the crop legally. The drugs are then processed for medical use and sold through a U.N. agency that regulates sales. As Dorian Jones reports, the success of the program in Turkey has some wondering if the lessons could be applied in other countries, like Afghanistan, where illegal drug production has exploded.

But could such success be repeated in places like Afghanistan? Gevenkiris voices caution.

If production is legalized in Afghanistan the world market will be flooded with opium, he says, which would cause a collapse in prices.

You got it thaivet

Nope

Aghan official says US strikes killed 22 civilians
The U.S. military said airstrikes by its attack helicopters hit two vehicles carrying insurgents in eastern Afghanistan. The province's governor said 22 civilians, including a woman and a child, were killed.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080705/ap_on_...afghan_violence

Must of been an intelligence flaw or maybe it was just meant to be.
The U.S. way of making life better for what they see as pions.

Hunkering down in Afghanistan, watching 'NATO bleed to death on the Afghan plains'

Afghanistan was supposed to be the "good war"; a "just response" to the attacks of September 11. It was supposed to bring Bin Laden to justice and quash the threat of terrorism where it originated. Ninety-five percent of the American people supported the invasion of Afghanistan. Now less than half think the U.S. will prevail.

The war was promoted as a way to replace a repressive fundamentalist regime with a democratic government based on western ideals. Bush promised to rebuild war-torn country, transform its feudal system into a free market economy, and liberate its women from the oppression of Islamic extremism. But none of the promises have been kept and none of the goals have been achieved. The "good war" has turned out to be what Tariq Ali calls "a brutal war of revenge."

After seven years of fighting, the country is in ruins and its future is more uncertain than ever. The Taliban have regrouped and taken over strategically vital areas in the south. They have launched attacks on US supply lines coming from Pakistan and taken control of Khost. Presently, they are inching their way north and a battle for the capital appears to be inevitable.

The US does not have the manpower to establish security in Afghanistan, so it has stepped up its bombing campaign making 2008 the most deadly year on record. Civilian casualties have skyrocketed and millions of Afghans have become refugees. The careless killing of civilians has only strengthened the Taliban and swollen their ranks. The US has lost the struggle for hearts and minds; the Afghans have grown tired of foreign occupation.

Michael Scheuer: "We are closer to defeat in Afghanistan than Iraq at the moment."

At a recent conference at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, Michael Scheuer, former CIA chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station, made this statement: "Afghanistan is lost for the United States and its allies. To use Kipling's term, 'We are watching NATO bleed to death on the Afghan plains.' But what are we going to do? There are 20 million Pashtuns; are we going to invade? We don't have enough troops to even form a constabulary that would control the country. The disaster occurred at the beginning. The fools that run our country thought that a few hundreds CIA officers and a few hundred special forces officers could take a country the size of Texas and hold it, were quite literally fools. And now we are paying the price."

Scheuer is right. The violence is only getting worse and the prospects for success are nil. The US is just digging a deeper hole by staying. The problem is more ideological than it is strategic. War is not an instrument for positive social change; it's about killing people and blowing up things. Dolling-up military aggression and calling it "preemption" can work for a while, but eventually the truth comes out. Democracy and modernity don't come from the barrel of a gun.

Scheuer's pessimism is more widespread among military and political elites than many realize. The situation on the ground is hopeless. The Afghan resistance is getting stronger while the US is getting more desperate. A recent article in the Toronto Globe and Mail pointed out that the rising popularity of the Taliban has nothing to do with an "allegiance to Mullah Omar or the Taliban leadership." The people are simply fed up with "the presence of western troops" and the "deaths of relatives or neighbors". This raises the question of whether the occupation is in fact breeding more jihadis than they are killing.

By every objective standard, conditions are worse now than they were before the invasion in 2001. The economy is in shambles, unemployment is soaring, reconstruction is minimal, security is non-existent and malnutrition is at levels that rival sub-Saharan Africa. Afghanistan is not safer, more prosperous, or freer. The vast majority of Afghans are still living in grinding poverty exacerbated by the constant threat of violence. The Karzai government has no popular mandate nor any power beyond the capital. The regime is a sham maintained by a small army of foreign mercenaries and a collaborative media which promotes it as a sign of budding democracy. But there is no democracy or sovereignty. Afghanistan is occupied by foreign troops.

According to The Senlis Council's report, "Stumbling into Chaos: Afghanistan on the brink": "The security situation in Afghanistan has reached crisis proportions. The Taliban's ability to establish a presence throughout the country is now proven beyond doubt; 54 percent of Afghanistan’s landmass hosts a permanent Taliban presence, primarily in southern Afghanistan.

"The Taliban are the de facto governing authority in significant portions of territory in the south and east, and are starting to control parts of the local economy and key infrastructure such as roads and energy supply. The insurgency also exercises a significant amount of psychological control, gaining more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people who have a long history of shifting alliances and regime change."

It is not even clear that women are better off now than they were under the Taliban.

According to Afghan Parliament member, Malalai Joya, "Every month dozens of women commit self-immolation to end their desolation. . . . The American war on terror is a mockery and so is the US support of the present government in Afghanistan which is dominated by Northern Alliance terrorists. . . . Far more civilians have been killed by the US military in Afghanistan than were killed in the US in the tragedy of September 11. More Afghan civilians have been killed by the US than were ever killed by the Taliban . . . The US should withdrawal as soon as possible. We need liberation not occupation." ("The War on Terror is a Mockery", Elsa Rassbach, Z Magazine Nov 2007)

The Taliban had effectively eradicated poppy cultivation before the invasion in 2001. Now, after six years of war, the opium trade is back with a vengeance and Afghanistan accounts for 93 percent of world's heroin production. 2007 was a particularly good year yielding 20 percent more opium than a year before. Heroin is now Afghanistan's number one export; the nation has become a US narco-colony.

Bush could care less about drug trafficking. What matters to him is stabilizing Afghanistan so that the myriad US bases that are built along pipeline corridors can provide a safe channel for oil and natural gas heading to markets in the Far East. The administration has staked America's future on a risky strategy to establish a foothold in Central Asia in order to control the flow of energy from the Caspian to China and India.

But US policymakers are no longer confident of victory in Afghanistan. In fact, according to a Pentagon report released last week, the Taliban have "coalesced into a resilient insurgency" and security conditions are expected to "deteriorate sharply" in the near future. As the situation becomes direr, Bush will have to decide whether to move more troops from Iraq or face growing losses in Afghanistan. (For the second month in a row, the number of combat troops killed in Afghanistan has exceeded Iraq.) Pentagon warlords now believe the only way they can defeat the Taliban is by striking at bases in Pakistan. But it's a reckless plan that could inflame passions in Pakistan and trigger a region-wide conflict. Gradually, the US is being lured into a bigger quagmire.

Obama to the rescue?

Presidential candidate Barak Obama supports a stronger commitment to the war in Afghanistan and has proposed "sending at least two additional combat brigades -- or 7,000 to 10,000 troops -- to Afghanistan, while deploying more Special Operations forces to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. He has also proposed increasing non-military aid to Afghanistan by at least $1 billion per year." [Wall Street Journal] Obama, backed by Brzezinski and other Clinton foreign policy advisers, has focused his attention on the "war on terror," that dismal public relations coup which conceals America's desire to become a major player in the Great Game, the battle for supremacy on the Asian continent. Obama appears to be even more eager to repeat history than McCain.

Since neither of the two presidential candidates support the rapid withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, the killing will likely persist and the country will slip further and further into chaos. The end however, is not in doubt. As Scheuer assures us, the occupation of Afghanistan will end as it did for "the British, the Soviets, and Alexander 400 years before Christ."

Even if McCain is wrong in that we'll be there 100 years, I have this sinking feeling it may be 50 years.

How long was the buildup to war in Vietnam before it was declared a 'war'? I wonder if that buildup took over 5 years before it became a raging war.

Eisenhower sent "advisers" into Vietnam. So yes, you are right. But we did not stay there 50 years. The American people, mostly young people, stopped that war. That was when patriots marched and bled in the streets and demanded that the government respond to their demands for peace.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/timeline/AAafghanwar.html

Spring 2001: The Sydney Morning Herald later reports, "The months preceding September 11 [see] a shifting of the US military's focus ... Over several months beginning in April [2001] a series of military and governmental policy documents [are] released that [seek] to legitimize the use of US military force in the pursuit of oil and gas." Michael Klare, an international security expert and author of Resource Wars, says the military has increasingly come to "define resource security as their primary mission." An article in the Army War College's journal by Jeffrey Record, a former staff member of the Senate armed services committee, argues for the legitimacy of "shooting in the Persian Gulf on behalf of lower gas prices." He also "advocate[s] the acceptability of presidential subterfuge in the promotion of a conflict" and "explicitly urge[s] painting over the US's actual reasons for warfare with a nobly high-minded veneer, seeing such as a necessity for mobilizing public support for a conflict."

In April, Tommy Franks, the commander of US forces in the Persian Gulf/South Asia area, testifies to Congress in April that his command's key mission is "access to [the region's] energy resources." The next month US Central Command begins planning for war with Afghanistan, plans that are later used in the real war (see May 2001 (F)). [Sydney Morning Herald, 12/26/02] Other little noticed but influential documents reflect similar thinking (see September 2000 and April 2001 (D)).

April 2001 (D): A report commission by former US Secretary of State James Baker entitled "Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century" is submitted to Vice President Cheney this month. "The report is linked to a veritable who's who of US hawks, oilmen and corporate bigwigs." The report says the "central dilemma" for the US administration is that "the American people continue to demand plentiful and cheap energy without sacrifice or inconvenience." It argues that "the United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma," and that one of the "consequences" of this is a "need for military intervention" to secure its oil supply. It argues that Iraq needs to be overthrown so the US can control its oil. [Sunday Herald, 10/5/02] In what may be a reference to a pipeline through Afghanistan, the report suggests the US should "Investigate whether any changes to US policy would quickly facilitate higher exports of oil from the Caspian Basin region... the exports from some oil discoveries in the Caspian Basin could be hastened if a secure, economical export route could be identified swiftly." [Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century, 4/01] Could the Bush administration have let 9/11 happen to get access to Central Asian oil, and gain support for a war with Iraq, amongst other reasons?

(snip)

The Bushes, the CIA and the U.S. government are indeed interested in the illegal narcotics trade. It's no accident that cocaine helped pay for the illegal wars in Central America and it's no surprise that the poppy crop is bigger than ever in Afghanistan since the U.S. invaded. It's not just about oil!

http://www.madcowprod.com/10292007.html

In the 1950's the United States began to send troops to Vietnam. During the following 25-years the ensuing war would create some of the strongest tensions in US history. Almost 3 million US men and women were sent thousands of miles to fight for what was a questionable cause. In total, it is estimated that over 2,5 million people on both sides were killed.

What stopped the war? The fear of getting drafted stipped the war which was an undeclared war.

I am certain that having the draft really hurt the moral of that war, but if I am not mistaken, I think I read once that Congress stopped funding that war in 1972 or 1973. If today's Congress stopped these war funds, the wars would soon stop in the Middle East for the US.

I suppose if they could, the innocent civilians killed in Afghanistan would ask why while also wondering for how long this all must go on!!!


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7498041.stm

9 July 2008 16:37 UK

Alarm over Afghan civilian deaths


At least 250 Afghan civilians have been killed or wounded in insurgent attacks or military action in the past six days, the Red Cross says.

It has called on all parties to the conflict to avoid civilian casualties.

Nato said separately that more than 900 people including civilians had died in Afghanistan since the start of 2008.

On Monday a suicide bombing in Kabul killed more than 40 people, while officials say two coalition air strikes killed dozens at the weekend.

The issue of civilian casualties is hugely sensitive in Afghanistan.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly urged foreign forces to exercise more care.

An Afghan government investigation has concluded that 45 women and children and two men were killed when a US aircraft bombed a wedding party in eastern Afghanistan last Sunday, .

The nine-man investigation team appointed by the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, found that only civilians were hit during the airstrike.

Burhanullah Shinwari, the leader of the investigation team and the deputy speaker of Afghanistan's Upper House, said: "We found that 47 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed in the airstrikes and another nine were wounded."

The claims of civilian casualties were initially strongly rebutted by the US military. A US military statement released last Sunday claimed: "intelligence revealed a large group of militants operating in Deh Bala district. Coalition forces identified the militants in a mountainous region and used precision air strikes to kill them."

read it all -

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle4315724.ece

This is why as NATO escalation increases in Afhganistan, so will such useless casualties. We also can bet that we're not getting all reports of collateral civilian deaths like this either. With as much bombings going on, this is only a fraction of the thousands of villagers being killed by such bombing raids. Sad and sickening!

Will Iraq morph into Afghanistan?? What if binLaden is found and killed? Will this end US/NATO military action in Afghanistan??



http://www.adn.com/uspolitics/story/466220.html

More US troops may go to Afghanistan this year

By LOLITA C. BALDOR / Associated Press Writer

Published: July 16th, 2008 10:25 AM


Pentagon leaders said Wednesday they are looking for ways to send additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan this year, signaling an acceleration in what had been plans to shift forces there no earlier than next year.

Faced with an increasingly sophisticated insurgency, particularly along the Pakistan border, defense officials said sending more troops would have a significant impact on the violence.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who recently returned from meetings with commanders in Afghanistan, said they clearly want more troops.


"It's a tougher fight, it's a more complex fight, and they need more troops to have the long-term impact that we all want to have there," said Mullen, who also met last week with Pakistani leaders.

The Pentagon has been wrestling with how to provide what they say is a much needed military buildup in Afghanistan, while they still have 150,000 troops in Iraq.

however, the MOST sad & sickening thing is the way moslem extremists are behaving in Afghanistan - and of course, elswhere in the world.

And even Obama recognizes the need to send more troops there..

do you actually believe such action on Congress' part would be responsible ?

Unless you want the USA to be buried in the "Graveyard of Empires."

It's been a question that has lingered in my mind for the last 5 years in this 7 year conflict so far. What are we doing there? Why is it taking this long to go in circles in Afghanistan??? What's the 'real' end game in this???? MONEY! GAS LINES!!! MIND CONTROL!!!!!!

Have I missed something??? Please add what you think.


All of the above plus

Heroin!

Osama's dead!

Don't agree w/ BHO on this one. We need to leave people that haven't bothered us alone.