It's what happens when you are fed an endless diet of bullshit.
"Petraeus points to Afghan successes" by Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times / January 26, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan —The military machine here had gained the edge or were on the cusp of doing so on every front. He described victory as attainable only through a vast, coordinated effort to bring Afghanistan security, good governance, and economic development....
His call for this expansive effort comes just as some policy makers both in the United States and Europe are questioning the breadth and cost of the mission....
Overall, his assessment strikes a more bullish tone than the White House report on the war....
Good word choice there.
Petraeus’s war assessment focuses primarily on the positive trends on the military side, where there have been far more gains than in the area of governance or economic development. He says that the troops have “halted a downward security spiral in much of the country’’ and points specifically to Kabul Province, the area around the capital, where there have been few violent events over the last year.
Petraeus noted areas where security has declined — in the north and northeast — saying that those “insurgent advances must be reversed.’’
The timetable for accomplishing these many goals is 2014. By then, he hopes, Afghan forces will be in the lead.
I'm gagging on the media and government dung.
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"Taliban target US firm, kill 8 in Afghanistan; Foreigners are among dead in attack at store" by Heidi Vogt and Amir Shah, Associated Press / January 29, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan — A Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up yesterday inside a supermarket popular with Westerners, killing eight people — some of them foreigners — in an attack that showed insurgents can still strike forcibly in the capital despite tightened security.
The Taliban said their target was an official with the US security contractor formerly known as Blackwater, whom they followed into the store. Although the insurgent group regularly attacks those allied with NATO forces or the Afghan government, it was not clear why they specifically targeted the company, now known as Xe Services....
Not clear to whom?
Afghan officials have said that the relatively low level of violence in Kabul in the last half of 2010 could be credited to stepped-up raids on insurgent cells and the highly publicized “ring-of-steel’’ of checkpoints surrounding the capital.
Ah, freedom!
The Finest supermarket sells American staples such as corn flakes, peanut butter, and pasta sauce but also delicacies like brie, caviar, and chocolate....
Related: Hunger and Anger in Afghanistan
The dead included two Afghan women, a male Afghan child, and two or three foreigners, said Deputy Kabul Police Chief Daud Amin....
:-(
The store is on the edge of a heavily guarded neighborhood full of embassies and luxurious homes, but faces out on an intersection that is busy with all types of vehicles at any time of day. Police man a checkpoint outside the store where they regularly pull aside suspicious-looking cars.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack, saying the “enemies of Afghanistan are so desperate that they are now killing civilians, including women, inside a food market.’’
All the hallmarks of a false-flag attack by some intelligence agency.
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"Blast kills Kandahar’s deputy governor; Taliban claims responsibility for suicide attack" by Rahim Faiez, Associated Press / January 30, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber riding a motorcycle packed with explosives rammed into a car carrying the deputy governor of Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province yesterday, killing him and wounding three of his bodyguards, the Interior Ministry said.
The attacker struck as the official, Abdul Latif Ashna, was being driven to work in the provincial capital, said a ministry spokesman, Zemeri Bashary.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. In a text message to reporters, Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef said the suicide bomber killed the deputy governor as well as three of his guards and his driver.
US ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, who was traveling in Kandahar, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the assassination.
Kandahar, in the Taliban’s traditional southern stronghold, has been the scene of several attacks recently. Two weeks ago a bicycle bomb targeting police vehicles near the city center wounded at least 10 people — six civilians and four police. Last month, a suicide car bombing in the city center killed three people and wounded 26 others, most of them police.
“The enemies of Afghanistan cannot stop the Afghan people from development and progress by killing such personalities,’’ Karzai said in a statement. “There are thousands of other brave Afghans who will stand against the enemy and serve the people.’’
Separately, two NATO service members died in a roadside bomb attack in southern Afghanistan yesterday. NATO did not disclose any further details of the deaths or the nationalities of the troops killed. Their deaths bring to 29 the number of coalition troops killed so far this month in Afghanistan. At least 20 are Americans.
Also yesterday, Karzai expressed his sadness over the deaths of six members of a prominent Afghan family who were killed when a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up Friday at Kabul supermarket frequented by affluent Afghans and foreigners.
In a statement, Karzai said Dr. Massoud Yama, a young doctor at a military hospital, his wife, Hamida Barmaki, a political science professor at Kabul University, and their four children died in the attack. She was an activist and served on the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.
Yama’s mother and Barmaki’s mother-in-law is former Afghan senator Maboba Hoqiqmal, who currently is Karzai’s legal affairs adviser.
Afghan police officials said initially that two or three foreigners were among eight people killed in the bombing. However, the Kabul Police Department released a statement last evening saying that no foreigners died in the incident. So far, no foreign embassy has confirmed the death of any foreign victims.
Oh, the STENCH of a FALSE FLAG OPERATION GROWS!!
Mohammad Zahir, the chief of criminal investigation for the Kabul police, said one man, one boy, and six females — all Afghan — died in the blast. Fifteen other people were injured in the explosion — 10 Afghans and five foreigners, he said.
The Taliban said their target was an official with the US-based Xe security contractor, formerly known as Blackwater. A representative for USTC Holdings, which recently bought the North Carolina-based Xe, said no one associated with the company was killed or wounded in the bombing.
EL STINKO!!
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Also see: Blackwater Flowing Into Afghanistan
Turns the rivers red, if you know what I mean.
And look who else is pitching in:
"Officials back ban on child soldiers
KABUL — Afghanistan is expected to sign a formal agreement with the United Nations today to stop the recruitment of children into its police forces and ban the common practice of boys being used as sex slaves by military commanders, according to Afghan and UN officials.
Also see: UN Gets a Piece
The effort by Afghanistan’s international backers to expand the country’s police and military forces rapidly has had the consequence of drawing many underage boys into service, the officials conceded (New York Times)."
I'll bet they are still counted in the AmeriKan figures of "progress."
Related: Soccer Match Monday: Somalia's Kid Soldiers
Colombia's Kid Soldiers
Seems like SOP when it comes to AmeriKa.
"US arming Afghan villagers against Taliban; Experiment risks adding to number of potent warlords" by Joshua Partlow, Washington Post / February 8, 2011
SHAHBUDDIN, Afghanistan — Operating from a small US Special Forces base on a snow-speckled field is a newly minted US ally who represents either a brighter future or everything that is wrong with Afghanistan’s troubled past.
The former Afghan insurgent is despised by the head of the provincial council, who calls him “a thief, a kidnapper, and out of control.’’ He is disparaged by police, who view him as a dangerous fighter and dissolute hash smoker.
But to the US military, Noor ul Haq’s past means less than his willingness to fight the Taliban. In these dangerous villages of northern Afghanistan’s Baghlan province, Haq has been installed as a leader of the nascent Afghan Local Police, overseeing dozens of ragtag gunmen backed by US military muscle.
Related: Ghani's Gift
We sure can pick'em, American.
No wonder the Taliban is winning.
This US experiment gives villagers AK-47s and a three-week training course and encourages them to protect their neighborhoods from the Taliban. The experiment, being replicated around the country, is the latest and most ambitious US effort to build grass-roots opposition to the insurgency in rural areas where US troops and Afghan security forces are spread thin....
Related: Petraeus' Progress in Afghanistan
Noor ul Haq and his 70 fighters, from a force that is expected to ultimately triple in size, have been accused of robbing and beating villagers, breaking into homes at night, and carrying out revenge arrests and even killings. While only recently approved to officially join the local police, they have worked with US troops for months....
They learned from the best!
By empowering Haq and his allies, the US Special Forces have essentially chosen sides in a complex web of longstanding feuds and rivalries....
Why do we always choose the wrong ones?
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"Afghans mourn death of a detainee" by Associated Press / February 8, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan — Hundreds of mourners, some chanting anti-American slogans, turned out yesterday for the funeral of an Afghan prisoner at Guantanamo Bay who collapsed and died while exercising at the US detention center last week.
Is that the cover story for his murder?
The mourners ran alongside a vehicle carrying the body of 48-year-old Awal Gul, the seventh detainee to die at the detention center in Cuba since it was opened in January 2002. Gul’s body was wrapped in white cloth, but his face and long, black beard were visible inside the coffin, which was buried in Jalalabad, east of Kabul.
Also see: Afghanistan's Salt Pit
That was different Gul.
The US military said he was an “an admitted Taliban recruiter’’ who met several times with Osama bin Laden. Matthew Dodge, one of the attorneys who had been fighting for Gul’s release, has called the allegations “outlandish.’’
Separately, Afghanistan’s High Peace Council has asked for the release of Khairullah Khairkhwa, a former Taliban official who has been held at Guantanamo for more than eight years, so he can help facilitate peace talks between the government and Taliban leaders.
Related: Karzai seeks release of Taliban official jailed at Guantanamo
Despite Afghanistan’s efforts to reconcile with insurgents, violence there continues.
A suicide bomber killed one person and wounded five others in southern Afghanistan’s largest city of Kandahar yesterday, hours after attackers gunned down a local government chief in the country’s volatile eastern borderlands. The Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks.
A homemade bomb also claimed the life of a NATO service member in a separate attack in the country’s south, the sixth coalition member killed this month....
What I'm most apathetic about.
Related: Three die in attacks in Afghanistan
Don't like it?
Then f***ing leave!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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"19 killed in Afghanistan attack; Bombs, grenades strike Kandahar police station" by Alissa J. Rubin and Taimoor Shah, New York Times / February 13, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan — Four would-be suicide bombers attacked police headquarters in the southern city of Kandahar yesterday, killing at least 19 people, most of them police officers, in a complex attack involving three car bombs and a battery of rocket-propelled grenades, according to Afghan officials and witnesses....
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Also see: Karzai says he won’t stall Parliament
Karzai swears in Afghan Parliament
Officer hailed as he waits to deploy
