"US names detainees held at Bagram base" by New York Times | January 17, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan - The US military released the names of 645 detainees held at the main detention center at Bagram Air Base, giving up its long-held position that information about detentions could not be made public.
The release of the detainee list was prompted by a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in September by the American Civil Liberties Union, whose lawyers had also demanded detailed information about conditions, rules, and regulations at the prison.
“Releasing the names of those held at Bagram is an important step toward transparency and accountability at the secretive Bagram prison, but it is just a first step,’’ said Melissa Goodman, an ACLU lawyer.
For human rights lawyers attempting to represent Bagram prisoners, as a practical matter, having detainees’ names without other information means little, said Tina Foster, a lawyer for the International Justice Network. The group represents five Bagram detainees who have pending cases in US courts.
Good old Obama!
While the majority of the detainees at Bagram are Afghan, a small number are foreigners who are accused of fighting with the Taliban. Also held there are a handful of detainees captured in other countries, according to human rights lawyers and military officials. The current detainee population is about 750.
All being tortured.
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Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/The First Abu Ghraib
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/Perversion
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/Dilawar and Habibullah
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/Chamber of Horrors
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/American Amnesty
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/Bagram
Afghanistan Torture Chamber
The Globe's Weekend Movie
"US backs Afghanistan in war on poppy crop; Shifts focus from eradication to smuggling routes" by Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times | January 17, 2010
Farmers listened last fall as the district governor of Nawa, Afghanistan, talked about problems associated with poppies. (Tony Perry/Los Angeles Times)
I'm sorry, folks, I'm just not seeing terrorists, 'kay?
NAWA, Afghanistan - The district governor’s appearances are part of a counternarcotics strategy that has changed dramatically since the Bush administration but remains crucial to the war effort.
The poppy crop provides the money that allows the Taliban to carry on its insurgency against the government in Kabul and its American and NATO allies.
You just get tired of it after a while: WHAT OUR CHILDREN ARE DYING FOR IN AFGHANISTAN
The United States and United Nations estimate that drug traffickers pay insurgents as much as $500 million a year to grow and protect the crop and then smuggle it into processing labs in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Related:
Also see: Drug Money Saving Banks
Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor
Yeah, it's Taliban, yup.
At the presentation in Nawa, Manaf was at a Marine compound. Manaf was accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel William McCollough, whose troops descended on Nawa in July with the primary mission of protecting the civilian population from Taliban brutality and a secondary mission of putting a dent in the region’s poppy crop.
The Obama administration believes previous counter-narcotics efforts that focused on destroying crops drove many farmers and influential tribesmen into supporting the Islamist insurgency. Instead, US and British special forces troops are active in finding and interdicting the routes used to smuggle poppy resin from Afghanistan to processing plants thought to be in Iran and Pakistan.
Or PROTECTING THEM as the case may be!
And look at where -- cui bono -- they say the stuff is going!
The Afghan government also is trying to persuade farmers to stop growing poppies and shift to other crops. The US and British governments are underwriting a program to give farmers high-grade wheat seed and fertilizer at a reduced price, enough for several plantings....
What, they get sick of dumping chemicals on them?
Related: U.S. Wages Chemical Warfare on Afghanistan
U.S. Pushes For More Chemical Warfare on Afghanistan
And where is YOUR HELP, American farmers, huh?
It is a speech that Manaf, at the behest of the Americans, makes frequently at open-air meetings of farmers and elders....
Oh, we all know how those go over at a town meeting, huh?
This usually goes over pretty well in AmeriKa, though:
"UN: Afghans forced to pay billions in bribes" by Associated Press | January 19, 2010
LONDON - Corruption in Afghanistan is so entrenched that Afghans had to pay bribes worth nearly a quarter of the country’s GDP last year, according to a United Nations report....
“Drugs and bribes are the two largest income-generators in Afghanistan,’’ the program’s executive director, Antonio Maria Costa, said in London. The country’s opium trade last year was worth an estimated $2.8 billion....
Costa said the lack of trust in public officials was prompting Afghans to look for alternative providers of security and welfare.
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KABUL, Afghanistan - The government banned a fertilizer chemical yesterday that was used in the devastating Oklahoma City bombing and in most of the homemade explosives that have killed and maimed hundreds of American soldiers in the country.
Oh, for crying out loud!!!
NATO troops have seized tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in raids over the last five months in southern Afghanistan, and the government has been discouraging farmers from using it for years for environmental reasons. Still, the government believes the new ban will make it more difficult for the Taliban to replenish supplies of ammonium nitrate, which the US think tank GlobalSecurity.org says has been used in more than 90 percent of the homemade bombs, the biggest killer of NATO troops in Afghanistan. NATO announced yesterday that another service member was killed in a blast in southern Afghanistan but did not release the victim’s nationality.
Such “fertilizer bombs’’ have also been used in Iraq in attacks against government security forces. The US military said yesterday that seven 55-gallon drums of ammonium nitrate were recovered after a truck bomb only partially detonated during an attack the day before at an Iraqi Army checkpoint in the northern city of Mosul. This month, Iraqi security forces in Baghdad arrested 25 people and seized 66 gallons of ammonium nitrate....
Oh, is that where the Afghans are getting the stuff?
In September, the government gave US and allied forces permission to confiscate ammonium nitrate fertilizer, compensating farmers if the use appeared to be legitimate.
How much is this lying f***ing war going to cost you, Americans?
At least the drug crops will die, right?
This month, troops seized 10 tons of the fertilizer from a truck in the southern province of Kandahar and 250 more tons in Kandahar city in November. Nevertheless, some farmers said they preferred ammonium nitrate fertilizer and expressed frustration over the ban.
Hey, who are they?
Only the people we went to liberate and bring democracy, right?
“If the government and NATO forces want to stop fertilizer which they think is used in explosives, they should invest money and make a deal with some other country to import good quality fertilizers,’’ said Ezatullah, a farmer from Kandahar Province who like many Afghans uses only one name. “We haven’t received any improved seeds or fertilizers. We are not happy.’’
There's another lost heart and mind.
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"Rocket hits embassy area in capital of Afghanistan" by Amir Shah, Associated Press | January 16, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan - A rocket slammed into a Kabul district housing several embassies yesterday, the latest in a series of attacks in the Afghan capital despite heavy security measures.
No casualties were reported in the nighttime blast, which occurred in the Wazir Akbar Khan district that includes the German, Japanese, and British embassies. Police said the rocket landed on a side street and broke a few windows.
Reeking of a false flag firing. Either that or Taliban have bad aim.
Such attacks are far rarer in Kabul than in Baghdad during the height of the Iraq war, when the Iraqi capital was shaken daily by numerous explosions.
What does Iraq have to with Afghanistan, MSM? WTF, hey?!!
However, a rocket exploded Dec. 26 inside the grounds of the Afghan Defense Ministry in the center of Kabul near the presidential palace, causing no casualties.
Pffft!
On Dec. 15 a suicide car bomber struck near the home of a former Afghan vice president and a hotel frequented by Westerners. Eight people were killed and nearly 40 were wounded.
Also yesterday, NATO revealed that five Afghan civilians were wounded two days before when US Marines and Afghan forces opened fire during a protest outside a military base in southern Afghanistan.
Related: US Troops Shot Civilian Protesters in Afghanistan’s Garmsir District
It was the second demonstration to turn violent this week in the Garmsir District of the southern Helmand Province, a Taliban-influenced area expected to be a major focus of President Obama’s troop surge.
See: The Only War in Town
Tensions have been high in the area over allegations that international forces desecrated a Koran during a raid there. Six people were killed Tuesday in another demonstration in the same place.
Yeah, but my Zionist MSM won't investigate.
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They turn to "politics" instead.
"Afghan lawmakers reject Cabinet nominees; Karzai suffers setback amid Taliban threat" by Robert H. Reid and Rahim Faiez, Associated Press | January 17, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan’s parliament yesterday rejected more than half of President Hamid Karzai’s second list of Cabinet nominees - including two of three women - dealing him a fresh political blow as his government struggles to face the growing Taliban threat....
Continued political turmoil has distracted Karzai, even as the insurgency grows more virulent. A NATO service member was killed by a roadside bomb yesterday in southern Afghanistan, according to the international force. It did not provide more details. The international community had hoped last year’s August presidential election would usher in a strong government to help keep disenchanted Afghans from siding with Taliban insurgents.
Why would disenchanted people side with "terrorists," anyway?
Wouldn't they want to be with us good guys?
Instead....
Oh.
"Afghan lawmakers adjourn despite standoff with Karzai" by Kim Gamel, Associated Press | January 18, 2010
KABUL - In the latest violence, gunmen opened fire on a local government convoy yesterday, killing six people, including a district chief. Police blamed Taliban militants for the attack, which occurred in a relatively safe area in the western province of Herat.
Which is why I instantly look elsewhere.
Also, international forces killed two Afghan civilians in separate checkpoint shootings, underscoring the dangers facing Afghans caught in the middle of escalating combat....
I'll bet those happen all the time and are concealed by the war-promoting press.
Continued political turmoil threatens to distract Karzai from the fight against the Taliban even as Washington and NATO steps up the war against the Taliban....
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"Militants launch assault in Afghanistan capital; Two bombers unleash blasts, paralyzing city" by Dexter Filkins, New York Times | January 19, 2010
Ah, the leading pusher of poop propaganda.
KABUL - A team of militants launched an assault at the heart of the Afghan government yesterday, with two men detonating suicide bombs and the rest fighting to the death only 50 yards from the gates of the presidential palace. The attack paralyzed the city for hours as hundreds of Afghan commandos converged and opened fire....
As the gun battle raged, another suicide bomber, this one driving an ambulance, struck a traffic circle a half-mile away, sending a second mass of bystanders fleeing in terror....
I'm sorry, readers. This could be God's own Truth and I wouldn't believe it because it is in these lying newspapers.
The assault was the latest operation by insurgents meant to shatter the calm of the Afghan capital. The Taliban run mostly rural operations in a mostly rural country; the overwhelming majority of US troops are deployed in small outposts in the countryside. On most days, the war does not reach the urban centers. But increasingly the Taliban are bringing the fight into the cities, further demoralizing Afghans and lending to the impression that virtually no part of the country is safe from the group’s penetration.
The effect of yesterday’s attack seemed primarily psychological, designed to strike fear into the usually quiet precincts of downtown Kabul - and to drive home the ease with which insurgents could strike the US-backed government here. In that way the assault succeeded without question.
This is getting STINKIER with each sentence!
Five hours after the attack began, gunfire was still echoing through the downtown as commandos searched for holdouts in a nearby office building. The Faroshga market, one of the city’s most popular shopping malls and where some militants holed up, lay in ruins, shattered and burning and belching black smoke. The seven militants who carried out the attack died; five were gunned down and two killed themselves.
I'm sorry again, readers. I'm no longer buying this cui bono bullcrap.
The streets of Kabul emptied. Merchants closed their shops, and Afghans ran from their offices. Even guards assigned to Karzai came to join the fighting; it was that close. “All of a sudden three men came in wrapped in shawls - and then they pulled them off and we could see their guns and grenades,’’ said an Afghan man who witnessed the attack and who had been in the market. “They told us to get out, and then they went to the roof and started firing.’’
So who were they working for? CIA? Blackwater? Mossad? Which western intelligence agency was employing them? Or was it India's RAW? Maybe it was Pakistan's ISI acting for our puppet president there? CUI BONO?
Not Taliban.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. Reached by telephone, a spokesman said the group had sent 20 suicide bombers for the operation. That was an exaggeration....
Yeah, give us a break, will you, NYT?
Can't send a missile to those coordinates, huh?
At the height of the battle, women and men, some of them clutching babies, ran down the streets, some bleeding, some sobbing. Even a stray dog, frightened by one of the blasts, dashed wildly down a street.
I'm not believing Muslims did this, sorry, *ewspaper.
You ruined it with the Muslim-hating lies.
A second Taliban representative, also reached by telephone, said the attack was intended to answer American and Afghan proposals to “reconcile’’ with and “reintegrate’’ Taliban fighters into mainstream society. The plan is a central part of the US-backed campaign to turn the tide of the war, and it will be showcased this month at an international conference in London. “We are ready to fight, and we have the strength to fight, and nobody from the Taliban side is ready to make any kind of deal,’’ Mujahid said. The style of yesterday’s attack has become increasingly familiar....
PFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTT!!
The attack began at 9:30 a.m., when the streets of downtown Kabul were jammed with traffic. A man wearing a suicide belt approached the gates of the Central Bank, which regulates the flow of currency in the country, and tried to push past the guards. The guards shot him, but not before the bomber managed to detonate his explosives in the street. The other militants, apparently intending to follow the suicide bomber into the bank, took cover in the Faroshga market, a five-story building next door.
They truly expect us to believe this bulls***?
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Oh, right, NYT. I forgot.
"Day after Kabul attack, 2 US service members killed; Afghans tighten security amid surge in violence" by Amir Shah, Associated Press | January 20, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan - Two US service members were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan yesterday, a day after a brazen Taliban attack on the capital showed that militants are stepping up their fight against the United States and its allies....
Also yesterday, Afghan forces increased the number of checkpoints and patrols in the capital amid public anger over security lapses that enabled a small group of militants to mount a series of suicide explosions and gun battles the day before....
Always with the "security lapses."
Troops searched vehicles entering the capital as well as on the main streets in the city center, verifying documents and pulling suspicious cars aside with an increased number of checkpoints, foot patrols, and vehicle patrols. Analysts said the attack didn’t reflect a stronger Taliban but did expose deficiencies in the security apparatus....
Over there nine years and they still haven't gotten it right?
Afghans expressed frustration that a handful of gunmen and suicide bombers could paralyze the city of 4 million for hours....
Good thing U.S. troops are coming, huh?
Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh also said the militants were increasing suicide attacks in populated areas to cover up their weaknesses and to undermine the leadership of national institutions. He said the success rate of security forces against suicide bombings has increased to 60 percent over the past year, meaning they foil six of every 10 attempts.
On Monday, seven attackers either blew themselves up with suicide vests or died in gun battles. The civilian casualty toll, meanwhile, was relatively low. One man who owned a store in a shopping center that was the site of one of the fiercest standoffs on Monday said the militants told the manager to evacuate the building before the fighting started. “They did not take anyone hostage. They had Kalashnikovs, but we came out without any harm,’’ Abdul Ghafar said.
Maybe they REALLY WERE Taliban then!
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And CUI BONO?
KABUL, Afghanistan - The Afghan government and its international partners agreed yesterday to increase significantly the country’s security forces and outlined plans to lure Taliban militants from the fight in a bid to turn the tide of the war....
Why would you have to "lure" anyone AWAY from "terrorists," huh?
The country’s international partners were concerned over how to pay for such a large force and sustain it after the United States and its allies leave.
You think we are leaving, huh?
In an interview at his office surrounded by 20 foot concrete blast walls topped with barbed wire and defended by a dozen heavily armed men, Afghanistan’s defense minister, Rahim Wardak, said there is a lot of work ahead before his soldiers can take over countrywide security. The Defense Ministry is now trying to reduce the desertion rate prompted by low pay and prolonged deployments in the deadliest arenas.
Same problem AmeriKa's army is having, although you never hear much about it in the war-promoting press.
The salary for new army recruits has been increased from $120 to $160, Wardak said. But those fighting in the deeply dangerous south and east of the country receive an additional $2 a day, he said.
Oh, that would convince me to kill my cousin or brother.
“We’re slowly getting over the high desertions,’’ he said. Since the beginning of December, 209 of 15,000 military recruits have deserted - a drop from previous months, he said, although comparative figures were not immediately available. The new incentives have also brought 2,038 deserters back to their posts, Wardak said. Yet Gregory Smith, a NATO spokesman and US Navy rear admiral, said more needs to be done to keep the Afghan Army soldiers in the fight as well as to combat a troubling level of drug abuse in the Afghan military....
How about leaving? When can that be done?
President Obama’s administration believes the key to stability in Afghanistan is a strong national security force that can protect the country and allow US and other foreign troops to go home. Obama has said he plans to begin withdrawing forces in July 2011 if conditions permit.
Yeah, well, we no longer believe in him or his promises, either.
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KABUL, Afghanistan - A roadside bomb killed two US service members in southern Afghanistan yesterday as the country’s top NATO commander acknowledged an increased risk to foreign troops will accompany an influx of reinforcements aimed at routing the Taliban.
The deaths brought to at least 22 the number of American service members killed this month - compared with 14 for January last year. A mild winter has brought no respite to the fighting, which traditionally drops off during the cold months....
Also yesterday, militants kidnapped a district police chief, Jamtullah Khan, and two other officers on a nighttime foot patrol near the eastern border with Pakistan - the latest in a series of attacks against Afghan officials. General Khalilullah Zaiyie said reinforcements had been sent to help with a search for the three men, who were seized in the Shigal district of Kunar Province just after 1 a.m. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, but Zaiyie blamed Taliban militants who are active in the area.
It occurred a day after the governor of Wardak province escaped an assassination attempt when his convoy struck a roadside bomb, killing four Afghan soldiers and wounding another. Governor Halim Fidai, who was unharmed, was on his way to inspect a school after meeting with elders in Jagatu district. Two armed men, including a local Taliban commander, were arrested as they tried to flee the scene, according to the governor’s spokesman.
In other violence, militants fired on police yesterday, sparking a gunbattle in the middle of a protest over the deaths of four men in a NATO-Afghan raid, officials said. At least two people were wounded in the fighting in the Qara Bagh district of Ghazni province.Translation: The U.S. and NATO shot up another protest after another night raid!
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Gates: Taliban Part of ‘Political Fabric’ of Afghanistan
Just days after declaring the Taliban “insidious” and a “cancer” on Afghanistan that needs to be eliminated, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates insisted that the group was part of the “political fabric” of Afghanistan that needed to be willing to take a legitimate role going forward.
"Translation: the US and NATO are losing, big-time, in Afghanistan." -- Wake the Flock Up
Also see: Taliban I Told You So