Political leanings

[Torurot]

But instead you have destabilised Pakistan, creating over 1million "refugees" out of the swat valley. Yet another US own goal.

[Tomcat]

Pakistan has long been unstable, long before NATO arrived. And this is a NATO mission isnt it... not a US mission...

[Torurot]

Come on Tomcat, it IS a US mission. Don't try and say NATO has piss all to do with it. It's only the US using drones in the border area. You know that!!!! Britain or other forces other than US are NOT in Pakistan. The US has destabilised Pakistan. FFS Yet another US own goal.

[Tomcat]

Nothing to do with the Muslims themselves then! .  I do not have one ounce of sympathy for Pakistanis or any of the Islamic crowd whatsoever and never will do. I hate them.. period...

Europes biggest enemy will be inside its own borders very soon. The Muslim population is out of control and slops in charge are doing nothing

The more drones the merrier IMO

[geezer]

(Torurot @ Sep. 04 2009,16:30) The US has destabilised Pakistan. FFS Yet another US own goal.  

Rubbish. What has ruined Pakistan is the billions of Saudi money pumped into Madrassas all around Pakistan preaching that the west is evil and must be purified by Islam. It's an extreme Wahabbi view being taught. Add to that very high unemployment and huge % of the polulation under 25. It's a recipe for trouble.

Why do you think the Pakistan security forces were so heavily envolved in creating the Taliban in the first place? They knew these guys were a bunch of lunatics so give them a war across the boarder and they can meet Allah there rather than in Pakistan. Now it's tough across the boarder for the Taliban. They get bombed all the time. Much better now to fight in Pakistan, hence the recent trouble in Swat.

[jimslim]

(fleeing @ Sep. 04 2009,05:28) I thought Trotsky advocated perpetual revolution, which is of course entirely different to perpetual war.

Close , Trotsky invented the theory of permanent revolution where he argued the working class should seize power then spread the revolution on an international basis .
Lenin always believed that a middle class revolution would precede the workers seizing power but quickly adopted Trotsky's assessment to build the 1917 revolution , both were committed Marxists who correctly believed socialism could only survive on an international basis .

After Lenin died ol' uncle Joe Stalin set about building socialism in one country , and a dictatorship . Trotsky stood against that so was exiled then murdered in Mexico by Stalins agents .

[Torurot]

I love the smell of Blowback in the morning

More Blowback From 1980s Afghan War
Taliban's Tank-Killing Bombs Came From CIA, Not Iran
http://counterpunch.org/porter09042009.html
By GARETH PORTER Weekend Edition September 4-6, 2009

In support of the official U.S. assertion that Iran is arming its sworn enemy, the Taliban, the head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Dennis Blair, has cited a statement by a Taliban commander last year attributing military success against NATO forces to Iranian military assistance.

But the Taliban commander's claim is contradicted by evidence from the U.S. Defense Department, Canadian forces in Afghanistan and the Taliban itself that the increased damage to NATO tanks by Taliban forces has come from anti-tank mines provided by the United States to the jihadi movement in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The Taliban claim was cited by ODNI in written responses to questions for the record from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence following testimony by Blair before the Committee Feb. 12, 2009. The responses were released to the Federation of American Scientists under the Freedom of Information Act Jul. 30.

ODNI wrote that Iran was "covertly supplying arms to Afghan insurgents while publicly posing as supportive of the Afghan government". As evidence of such covert Iranian arms supply, the ODNI said, "Taliban commanders have publicly credited Iranian support for their successful operations against Coalition forces".

That statement was taken almost word for word from the subtitle of an article in The Daily Telegraph Sep. 4. "A Taliban commander has credited Iranian-supplied weapons with successful operations against coalition forces in Afghanistan," read the subtitle.

The single Taliban commander quoted became plural in the ODNI version.

In the article, British journalist Kate Clark quoted an unnamed Taliban commander as saying, "There's a kind of landmine called a Dragon. Iran's sending it. It's directional and it causes heavy casualties."

The commander said the new mine would "destroy" large tanks "completely", whereas "ordinary" anti-tank mines had only caused "minor damage".

If true, the revelation that an improved Iranian anti-tank weapon had been killing U.S. and NATO troops in larger numbers would have been a major development in the war in Afghanistan. Roadside bomb attacks are acknowledged by U.S. and NATO officials to be the cause of most of the casualties and deaths of foreign troops in the country.

The rapid rise in casualties over the past two years is attributed in part to the increased lethality of the Taliban mines.

But according to the Pentagon agency responsible for combating roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, the increased Taliban threat to U.S. and NATO vehicles comes not from any new technology from Iran but from Italian-made mines left over from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's military assistance to the anti-Soviet jihadists in the 1980s.

In response to my inquiry, the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) said in an e-mail that Italian-manufactured TC-6 anti-tank mines are "very common" in the Taliban-dominated areas of the country and that they have been modified to increase their lethality in IED attacks.

The JIEDDO response said TC-6 mines are being "arrayed in two or three in tandem to ensure the charge is large enough to inflict damage against Coalition vehicles." The TC-6 mines "continue to pose a significant threat to Coalition Forces", JIEDDO said.

The combining of two or three anti-tank mines into a single, more destructive bomb would account for the increased lethality of the anti-tank mines being used by the Taliban.

The claim by the alleged Taliban commander of new, more effective weaponry supplied by Iran appears to have been deliberate misinformation for the Western press.

British writer Jason Elliot, who has traveled extensively in Afghanistan since 1979, reported in a 2001 book Min(d)ing Afghanistan that the Italian-made TC-6 was the most commonly used anti-tank mine used in Afghanistan. The 15-pound charge of TNT, wrote Elliot in the TC-6, he wrote, could "flip a tank the way a seagull flips a baby turtle."

Millions of mines remained buried in the ground from the Soviet occupation period, Elliot observed. However, only some 20,000 anti-tank mines have been destroyed since 1989, according to the United Nations.

Further evidence that the Taliban are relying heavily on the TC-6 to damage NATO tanks is a picture published by al-Jazeera on May 1, 2007 in a Taliban storeroom of explosives in Helmand province. The photograph, taken by a cameraman accompanying correspondent James Bays, showed two insurgent bomb-makers working on what was clearly identifiable as an Italian TC-6 anti-tank mine.

The insurgents told the photographer that the explosives in the room were in the process of being converted into "anti-tank bombs".

Canadian forces in Kandahar province have encountered some of the heaviest Taliban use of anti-tank mines in Afghanistan. According to casualty data on the website of the Canadian Forces, since the beginning of 2007, 57 of 81 deaths of Canadian troops in Afghanistan have come from roadside bombs and anti-tank mines.

Capt. Dean Menard, a spokesman for Canadian forces in Kandahar, told me in a telephone interview that some of the ordnance used by the Taliban against Canadian tanks "are definitely attributable to the Soviet occupation era" €“ a reference to mines supplied by the United States through Pakistan during the anti-Soviet war.

The insurgents have obtained anti-tank weapons from "legacy minefields" dating from the period of Soviet occupation, according to Menard. Canadian forces also have intelligence that the Taliban obtain such mines from a "vast black market", he said.

The Canadian spokesman confirmed that the Taliban are "making bigger mines" from the ordnance obtained from those sources.

In 2007 and 2008, Afghan military and police discovered two major caches of weapons in Herat province on the Iranian border that included anti-tank mines which some Afghan officials suggesting had originated in Iran.

But one picture of mines discovered in Herat, published by the Revolutionary Women's Association of Afghanistan, clearly shows nine Italian TC-6 mines and one which resembles the top from a U.S. M-19 landmine, which was among those found in Afghanistan over the past two decades.

One mine cannot be clearly identified from the picture, but it does not resemble any known Iranian mine.

A picture of the 2007 cache in Herat published by AFP shows more Italian C-6 mines, along with a number of what appear to be U.S. M-19 anti-tank mines. The picture shows an Afghan policeman pointing to a mark on one of the latter, suggesting that it is of Iranian origin.

A copy of the U.S. M-19 mine has been manufactured by Iran, according to Jane's Mines and Mine Clearance 2005-2006. However, long-buried Iranian-made M19s provided to the Jamiat-I Islami Mujahedin faction fighting more extremist Hezb-e Islami fighters in the 1992-96 period exploded accidentally in Kabul as recently as 2006.

Moreover, a 2009 study of arms deliveries to Afghanistan in the 1990s by the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies shows that Iran's large-scale arms aid to the Northern Alliance forces in 1999 included anti-tank mines.

The prominence of the Italian-made mines among weapons found in Herat indicate that the anti-tank mines discovered in Herat in 2007 and 2008 were not assistance from Iran to the Taliban but weapons provided either to the Mujahedin during the Soviet occupation or to the Northern Alliance troops fighting the Taliban in the late 1990s.

Former CIA officer Phil Giraldi, who monitors U.S. intelligence analysis on Iran, told me he doubts the ODNI statement on Iranian policy in Afghanistan accurately reflects the analysis.

"If you were to read the original analytical report," said Giraldi, "you would probably find that it's caveated like mad."

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist with Inter-Press Service specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.

[Torurot]

Yet another "own goal"! Note the "kill" rate is over 50% INNOCENT!! Why do "they" hate us??


Nato air strike in Afghanistan kills scores
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...nistan-taliban
At least 90 believed dead including 40 civilians after jets blow up fuel tankers hijacked by Taliban
* James Sturcke, David Batty and agencies
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 4 September 2009 13.47 BST

[strocube]

Hey Sev7en, is your avatar inspired by that German film, "The Baader Meinhof Affair?"

I saw that horrible thing last week, and all I can say is, well, there goes two and a half hours of my life I won't get back.

[sev7en]

Rote Armee Fraktion ,which described itself as a communist "urban guerilla" group, founded by the Baader meinhof.

The movie The Baader Meinhof complex wasn´t so bad, i think.

[alan1chef]

Article from the most recent edition of The Weekly Standard....

Pakistan Still Isn't Serious about the Taliban

For some time I've argued that the Pakistani military, despite its operation against the Taliban in Swat, has no intention of going into the real Taliban strongholds of North and South Waziristan. And just one day after Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud's death was reported, I said the Pakistani military may actually use his death as a reason to declare victory against the Taliban and avoid going into South Waziristan. US officials agree:


The problems in Afghanistan have been aggravated by what the American commanders call the Pakistani military€™s limited response to the threat of militants based there. Although General Scaparrotti said that cooperation by Pakistan and the United States against the militants had improved recently, he stressed that it was important for the Pakistanis to keep up the pressure, particularly after the reported killing of the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud.

That echoed concerns from Obama administration officials who worry that with the absence of Mr. Mehsud, who was the Pakistani government€™s enemy No. 1, the military would shift its emphasis away from the tribal areas where the Taliban and Al Qaeda operate. €œThey think it€™s €˜game over,€™ € one senior administration official said. €œIt€™s more like, €˜game over, next level.€™€


Last week, the Pakistani Army said it needs "months" before it could move into South Waziristan and that an operation against the Taliban may not start until after the winter. If the Pakistani governemnt really believes the Taliban is in disarray after the death of Baitullah and is serious about taking out the Taliban, it would have struck while the iron was hot. Instead, the military and intelligence services appear to be relying on a clumsy and ineffective information campaign designed to cause Taliban infighting while these services continue to support Taliban leaders that have sworn allegiance to Mullah Omar and vowed to fight the NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Posted by Bill Roggio on August 24, 2009 12:35 PM


We need to take action against the Taliban in Afghanistan because Pakistan is doing nothing. Pakistan has never been stable and that is a fact. Our action is a wake up call to the Pakastani regime to get their act together because we will not stand by and let the Taliban get back in power. I think the goal of the Taliban is to get control of Pakistan. That is something that cannot be allowed to occur.

[Torurot]

"We"?? Who is "we"? The "west" has helped to destabilise Swat and other border tribal areas. Thanks for nothing, creating between 1-2 MILLION refugees. Who do you think they blame?? The Taliban or US!!! Read the book "three Cups of tea" by Greg Mortenson (it's quite a good read) and you will see that for the price of a couple of US high tech missiles and jets you at one stage had the opportunity to build schools ALL OVER in the border areas of Pakistan, along with schools in Afghanistan. That's REAL influence. Instead you dropped more bombs than in WW2 & Madrassas got built instead!!! FFS

All you are doing is a new version of the "Domino" theory, and we all know how that one turned out!

[Torurot]

Death and Dying in the Age of No Change's Non War
It's Time to be Impolite About Afghanistan
http://counterpunch.org/jacobs09112009.html
By RON JACOBS September 11-13, 2009

In Germany, Chancellor Merkel defends a murderous attack on civilians siphoning fuel from two stuck oil tankers, telling her countrymen that the war in Afghanistan is not really a war at all. In Washington, Bush administration holdover Robert Gates (whose role in carrying on the mission of the Empire is clearer by the day) tells the press that Washington will not "abandon" Afghanistan or Pakistan. In the White House, the current set of deciders discusses how many more troops to send into the mountains and plains of Afghanistan to fight an enemy in Chancellor Merkel's non-war while they add private mercenaries working for the dollar in their other zone of occupation, Iraq. The occupying soldiers have suffered more casualties in the Afghan non-war this past year than ever before. Yet, the big fool says to push on.

The phrase from Tacitus comes to mind with only a slight modification. "They make desolation," he wrote. "and call it peace." In Afghanistan, they make desolation and call it freedom. Enduring freedom. This is the lesson the Afghans must learn. When you are the occupied, the native, the wog, you are subject to the occupier's definitions. He will kill your wives and children and call it pacification. He will choose your leaders, tell you to vote and call it democracy. He will kick in the doors to your home, arrest you and your sons, and call you insurgents. Of course, it is this very practice which turns many of your men into said insurgents.

If the leaders he chooses for you oppose the more murderous of the occupier's actions, that leader will be subverted. Some, like Mr. Diem in Vietnam and Patrick Lumumba in the Congo, will be murdered outright. Others, like those that came before al-Maliki in Iraq, will merely disappear from the scene, often with a newly expanded bank account. Mr. Karzai of Afghanistan may or may not make it through the show election he is currently fixing. If he does, Washington will install a newly-created executive in Kabul whose role will be to undermine any attempts by Mr. Karzai to actually rule in the interests of his nation as he sees it instead of how Washington prefers. If he doesn't win, he will retire somewhere where deposed friends of Washington go.

The citizenry on the US homefront are quiet. Allowing themselves to be fooled by the myth of a new day, the old order continues. Now they wait for the new strategy to unfold. A strategy that is no newer than the last war to be sure and probably as old as the first, but the citizens€™ historical memory is intentionally short. If the civilized nations of the world can finally pacify the restless occupied, then the world can truly move to the next new frontier. A new frontier with energy capturing and transporting facilities located wherever the corporate executives of the frontier believe them to be useful and defensible by the cavalry. If the citizenry at home continue to receive the fuel necessary for their lifestyle, those dead and maimed children have even less meaning in their lives. It is, after all, the price they pay so we can (in the words of an earlier president), €œrecreate however we want.€

Recreating has become a challenge for may citizens who wonder where their money went while they cheer the wars that provide the answer. One trillion plus for the wars and occupations and children live in shelters in the land of plenty. Still, the believers in their vote for change refuse to see the change for what it is. Nothing changed here, only the family in the Great White House. While the right wing leads its unthinking nincompoops towards fascism, the rest of the mainstream political populace refuses to examine the cause of their problems--modern day capitalism--and continues to bet their lives on it despite the ever-diminishing returns.

We've been told there is no alternative for so long that those who suggest that there might be are excluded from the conversation. Their opinion is not only unimportant, it is a non-opinion because it doesn't fit into the box designed by capital. So, like those who are dying in the non-wars of capital, those who oppose them are non-existent. Is there a solution to this enforced irrelevance? Yes, but it doesn't lie in being polite. Indeed, it doesn't exist within the rules of the game. Are those of us who oppose capital and its wars willing to take the risk required to turn the aforementioned box upside down and thereby empty the world of capital's illusions? Or will we settle for standing outside it and wishing it away?

[smuttleydfs]

You can provide money for thousands of schools T but you can't force an education down the throats of those who refuse to accept the opportunities provided. Great ideas and maybe in another millenium or two it might work...............


 

[Torurot]

But you didn't even TRY to build SCHOOLS (read the book), and instead Madrassas got built (with Saudi money), all for the price of a few US missiles. USA had the CHANCE, it wanted the INFLUENCE, in the end the armaments industry won the prize, and look where we are today!! Not only that, double "own goal", it's the USA that props up the house of Saudi!!