"7 held, 1 killed in arrests of suspects in Afghan attacks; Coordinated raids in Feb. left 21 dead, hurt 50" by M. Karim Faiez and Laura King, Los Angeles Times | March 19, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO's secretary-general warned that existing troop commitments would not be sufficient to secure Afghanistan's presidential election, which is scheduled for August. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters in the capital that about 4,000 extra troops would be needed to ensure the vote can take place peacefully.
Germany has said it will provide about 600 more troops to help secure the balloting, but that falls far short of the secretary-general's call. North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials said a major American infusion of 17,000 more troops planned for the coming months already had been factored in.
Western military leaders in Afghanistan also have been wrestling with assaults on the supply line that runs through Pakistani territory. Months of attacks, most of them in northwestern Pakistan, have resulted in the loss of hundreds of containers and military vehicles.
Another part of the route, in Pakistan's south, came under attack yesterday when motorcycle-borne assailants damaged a truck carrying heavy equipment.
Looks like Pakistan is going to need to be occupied soon, huh?
Meanwhile, Afghan authorities announced yesterday that they had arrested seven men and killed an eighth who were suspected of having helped carry out an attack last month on the Justice Ministry and other government buildings in Kabul.
The coordinated Feb. 11 raids by gunmen and suicide bombers, in which 21 people were killed and more than 50 others were injured, illustrated the apparent ease with which insurgents were able to penetrate even the most heavily guarded corners of the capital. Eight attackers died as well.
The arrests were announced by Sayed Ansari, a spokesman for Afghanistan's intelligence agency, the National Directorate for Security. Ansari repeated allegations made last month by Afghan officials that the attack had involved the intelligence service of "a neighboring country," widely assumed to be a reference to Pakistan.
Why would they do that? How does Pakistan benefit from this? Yeah, I am tired of MSM garbage, propaganda, and lies, how did you know?
Afghanistan repeatedly has accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency of helping insurgents carry out attacks on its soil. Pakistan has denied the allegations.
Ansari said the seven suspects were rounded up in Kabul and adjoining Lowgar province, which has emerged as a major center of unrest on the capital's doorstep. Several thousand US troops from the 10th Mountain Division have been attempting to restore order there.
The slain suspect was killed in Lowgar, Ansari said at a news conference. He added that the assailants were believed to have trained in Pakistan's tribal areas and communicated with Pakistan-based handlers before and during the onslaught.
That was the CIA case officer they were communicating with, right?
WASHINGTON - President Obama and his advisers have decided to significantly expand Afghanistan's security forces in the hope that a much larger professional army and national police force could fill a void left by the central government and do more to promote stability in the country, according to senior administration and Pentagon officials.
After eight years they are just coming up with this now?
A plan awaiting final approval by the president would set a goal of about 400,000 troops and national police officers, more than twice the forces' current size, and more than three times the size that American officials believed would be adequate for Afghanistan in 2002, when the Taliban and Al Qaeda appeared to have been routed.
The officials said Obama was expected to approve a version of the plan in coming days as part of a broader Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy. But even members of Obama's national security team appeared taken aback by the cost projections of the program, which range from $10 billion to $20 billion over the next six or seven years.
Of course, you have money falling out of your asses, American taxpayers, so this is no big deal. How about ENDING the OCCUPATION and BRINGING the TROOPS HOME, 'bamer?!
By comparison, the annual budget for the entire Afghan government, which is largely provided by the United States and other international donors, is about $1.1 billion, which means the annual price of the program would be about twice the cost of operating the government of President Hamid Karzai.
Administration officials also express concerns that an expanded Afghan Army could rival the corruption-plagued presidency of Karzai. The American commanders who have recommended the increase argued that any risk of creating a more powerful Afghan Army was outweighed by the greater risks posed by insurgent violence that could threaten the central government....
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I'm so sick of my country murdering innocent people over a lie and having horse shit papers report on it. As for omissions, here is an exposing op that checks all the false-flags and 9/11 truth at the MSM door.
"How we helped create the Afghan crisis" by Stephen Kinzer | March 20, 2009
WITH THE United States facing a terrifying set of challenges in Pakistan and Afghanistan, this is an opportune moment to look back at how the United States itself helped create the crisis. It is an all-too-familiar tale of the behemoth lashing out in ways that seem emotionally satisfying and even successful at first, but that in the end decisively weaken its own security.
The tale begins in 1979, when Americans were caught in a sense of defeat and malaise. They were still recovering from the shock of losing the Vietnam War, only to absorb another one with the stunning overthrow of the Shah of Iran and the seizure of American diplomats in Tehran.
On Christmas Eve, however, something happened that seemed to open a new horizon for the United States. Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan and installed a pro-Moscow regime. Here, suddenly, was a chance for the United States to fight a war against the Red Army.
Of course, the U.S. baited them in there by funding the Islamic radicals. Imagine if history were different an it was the Soviets who started an Islamic movement in Mexico. What would the U.S. have done, hmm?
In order to forge an Afghan force that would wage this war, the United States needed camps in Pakistan. Pakistan was ruled by General Zia al-Huq, who had proclaimed two transcendent goals: imposing a "true Islamic order" in his country and building a nuclear bomb. He had also just hanged the elected leader he deposed, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This was the man the United States would have to embrace if it wanted Pakistan to support the anti-Soviet rebellion it hoped to foment in Afghanistan. It eagerly did so.
The United States also accepted Zia's demand that all aid sent to Afghan warlords be channeled through his intelligence agency, the ISI, and that the ISI be given the exclusive right to decide which warlords to support. It chose seven, all of them in varying degrees fundamentalist and anti-Western.
The ISI also came up with the idea of recruiting Islamic militants from other countries to come to Pakistan and join the anti-Soviet force. Its director, Hamid Gul, later said his agency recruited 50,000 of these militants from 28 countries. One was Osama bin Laden. Most of the others - brought to the region as part of a US-sponsored project, then armed and trained with US funds - shared bin Laden's radical anti-Americanism and fundamentalist religious beliefs.
Related: The Boston Globe Knows About "Al-CIA-Duh"
During the 1980s, the CIA waged its most expensive and largest-scale campaign ever, pouring a staggering $6 billion into its anti-Soviet guerrilla force. Saudi Arabia, at Washington's request, contributed another $4 billion. Finally, in 1989, the insurgency succeeded and the Red Army withdrew from Afghanistan in defeat. One million Afghans died in the decade-long war. Five million fled to refugee camps in neighboring countries. Many found food and shelter at religious schools sponsored by Saudi Arabia, where they were taught the radical Wahhabi brand of Islam. Those schools were the cradle of the Taliban.
After the last Soviet unit withdrew from Afghanistan, the overseer of the CIA project there, Milt Bearden, sent a two-word message to his superiors at Langley: "WE WON." For a while, that seemed true. In 1998, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who had helped conceive the project, dismissed those who worried about its long-term effects.
"That secret operation was an excellent idea," he said. "What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?"
That's globalist Zbig of "Grand Chessboard, we need another Pearl Harbor" fame.
Those "stirred-up Muslims" are now the enemy that the US faces in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They threaten America's national security far more profoundly than the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan ever did.
Jimmy Carter approved the idea of sponsoring anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. Ronald Reagan poured billions of dollars into it. George H. W. Bush turned his back on Afghanistan, allowing it to degenerate into the chaos from which the Taliban emerged. Bill Clinton refused to confront the looming threat with anything more than an ineffective cruise missile raid on one of bin Laden's camps. George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan, succeeded in toppling the Taliban regime, and then, rather than staying engaged, immediately turned his attention to Iraq. Their policies showed the short-sightedness that has for more than a century been a hallmark of American foreign policy.
These American policies, more than any other factor, created the daunting crisis President Barack Obama now faces.
--more--"I like Kinzer, he is very knowledgable about Iran (among other things); however, when you only tell half the truth what good are you? 9/11 was an INSIDE JOB and the failure to acknowledge it only exposes those controlled-opposition outlets and writers.
Related: France's Mass-Murdering Holocaust Deniers
"Official: Troop shift ahead in Afghanistan" by Associated Press | March 21, 2009
WASHINGTON - The United States will change the way its forces are arrayed in Afghanistan as part of an overhaul of US strategy in the war, a senior defense official said yesterday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the review is not complete, said it would call for new garrisons in far-flung Afghan communities....
That would help the United States hold ground against a Taliban-led insurgency, the official said. Under today's hub-and-spoke system, US forces leave protected bases to conduct anti-insurgent operations. When they leave, insurgents come back. The forthcoming plan also places an onus on Pakistan to confront the threat of insurgents who use its territory as a sanctuary from attack by US and allied forces, officials familiar with the program have said....
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So HOW LONG before PAKISTAN is OCCUPIED by U.S. TROOPS?
Update: Like clockwork, huh?
"Suicide car bomber kills 6 in Afghanistan; US will push for boost in nation's police, envoy says" by Sebastian Abbot, Associated Press | March 22, 2009
KABUL - A suicide car bomber attacked a police checkpoint in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, killing six people, police said, as the American envoy to the country said the United States would push for a "very significant increase" in the country's police force to improve security and stability....
European countries, not eager to send additional troops to fight, are being urged by Washington to provide military and police trainers, cash, or other expertise to help stabilize Afghanistan....
Greater numbers of well-trained police would allow international troops in the country to focus on military operations rather than law enforcement....
A NATO soldier was killed in a "hostile incident" in southern Afghanistan on Friday, and four Canadian troops serving with the NATO-led force were killed in two separate explosions, the alliance said.
Don't you love how they stick the actual war in the middle of the piece, hoping you'll miss it? And what about the AFGHAN CIVILIANS the "alliance" is KILLING, huh? NOTHING about THEM in my Jew War Daily!!!
The suicide car bombing that targeted the police checkpoint in the country's eastern Nangarhar Province yesterday killed five civilians and one policeman, said police spokesman Gafor Khan. The blast also wounded four civilians and a policeman at the security post, set up to search cars entering Chaparhar district to celebrate the Persian new year.
Also in eastern Afghanistan, a bomb detonated by remote control killed five people near a shrine in Khost Province as they celebrated the new year, known as Nowruz, said provincial police spokesman Wazir Pacha. The blast on the outskirts of Khost city wounded five people, he said.
Nowruz is celebrated in many countries, including Afghanistan, that were once part of the powerful Persian empire. The Taliban discouraged Afghan citizens from celebrating the holiday when it ruled the country in the 1990s because it deemed the holiday un-Islamic. But people began celebrating Nowruz more openly again after the militant group was toppled by a US-led invasion in 2001, when many Taliban fled to Pakistan.Is that the Zionist propaganda line? Yeah, Muslims have lived, intermarried, and worshiped together for centuries and I'm supposed to buy this paragraph of Zionist bullshit?
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AHEM!!!!!!
See: Occupation Iraq: Israel's IEDs for why I no longer believe in "suiciders" or anything else the agenda-pushing, war-promoting, Zionist AmeriKan war press has to report about Muslims!!
Oh, yeah, and about the TALIBAN:
"The U.S. government was well aware of the Taliban's reactionary program, yet it chose to back their rise to power in the mid-1990s. The creation of the Taliban was "actively encouraged by the ISI and the CIA," according to Selig Harrison, an expert on U.S. relations with Asia. "The United States encouraged Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to support the Taliban, certainly right up to their advance on Kabul," adds respected journalist Ahmed Rashid. When the Taliban took power, State Department spokesperson Glyn Davies said that he saw "nothing objectionable" in the Taliban's plans to impose strict Islamic law, and Senator Hank Brown, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Near East and South Asia, welcomed the new regime: "The good part of what has happened is that one of the factions at last seems capable of developing a new government in Afghanistan." "The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis. There will be Aramco [the consortium of oil companies that controlled Saudi oil], pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that," said another U.S. diplomat in 1997."
Who are the Taliban, anyway?
"Something of a catchall term for loosely affiliated insurgents without a singular command structure. Often, the Afghan government favors the phrase 'enemies of the state' (New York Times July 24, 2007)."
"The Taliban is growing and creating new alliances not because its sectarian religious practices have become popular, but because it is the only available umbrella for national liberation," says Pakistani historian and political commentator Tariq Ali. "As the British and the Soviets discovered to their cost in the preceding two centuries, Afghans never like being occupied."
Also see: Afghanistan's Other Government
And today, readers?
"More and more, people here look back to the era of harsh Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, describing it as a time of security and peace."
Oh, oh, oh!!!! I'm so offended by the AmeriKan MSM and its bullshit!
Also see: How I Came to Love the Veil
And consider this:
"They sat in one girl’s home telling their story, their faces uncovered only because no man was present. But when Mohammed Matloob, the father of one of the girls, walked into the room, the other three quickly pulled their head scarves over their faces. His daughter, Nagina, 16, ordered him to leave the room, which he did, with a surprised shrug."
Aren't the children beautiful?
Oh, what LIES we have been told about Muslims by our Muslim-hating Zionist AmeriKan MSM, Americans!!!!!!
Honestly, I'm tired of the MSM lying? Aren't you, AmeriKa?
