"a US military that believes if it can only kill enough Talibs surely they will sue for peace"
Then we have already lost.
"Afghans decry 14 civilian deaths; Officials say NATO strike missed Taliban" by Ray Rivera, New York Times / May 30, 2011
KABUL — Afghan officials said yesterday that an errant NATO airstrike killed 14 civilians, all of them women and children, in the southern province of Helmand.
I heard 52, but who is quibling, right?
Local officials said the strike late Saturday night was aimed at Taliban fighters and missed. NATO confirmed the operation and said it was investigating the report of casualties.
Civilian deaths have strained relations for years between the NATO-led military coalition and the Afghan government, and NATO has made efforts to reduce them.
President Hamid Karzai, who has frequently condemned NATO for civilian casualties, called the deaths in Helmand shocking. “NATO and American forces have been warned repeatedly that their arbitrary and improper operations are the causes of killing of innocent people,’’ he said.
Witnesses said an unknown number of bombs fell about 11 p.m., landing on two family compounds in the Salam Bazaar area of Nawzad district, a small farming community about 50 miles north of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province.
Five girls, seven boys, and two women were killed as they slept, the provincial governor’s office said in a statement. Another six people were wounded.
Grieving friends and relatives drove through the night transporting eight bodies to the provincial hospital in Lashkar Gah, a resident of the village, Haji Janan, said. The other bodies remained buried under rubble, he said.
The governor’s office released photographs of men carrying the dead children swaddled in sheets into the hospital. “We brought the dead bodies to show it to the officials, to show that the dead are innocent civilians, not the Taliban,’’ Janan said....
Local officials said the raid came in response to an insurgent attack on a nearby US Marine base earlier in the night, but that the strike hit the wrong homes.
NATO was also investigating an air assault last week in Nuristan Province that drove out Taliban fighters after they had overrun part of a district center. A joint force of NATO soldiers and Afghan commandos called in airstrikes Wednesday when they came under fire in the district center of Do Ab. The airstrikes drove hundreds of insurgents out of the town and killed more than 10 of them, NATO said then.
But provincial officials now say that NATO helicopters also killed more than 20 police officers. Qazi Anayatullah, head of the provincial council, said that as coalition forces arrived, the Taliban fled, leaving their white flags flying over police checkpoints they had overrun. When the officers in civilian clothes reentered the checkpoints, the Taliban flags were still flying, and NATO helicopters bombed them, he said.
See: NATO's Afghanistan Knee-Jerks
Civilian deaths have undermined Afghan support for the war....
As if there were any.
But we in the West don't care or matter, is that the implication?
The latest episode came at an emotionally turbulent time. As images of the children killed in the Salam Bazaar attack were broadcast on television yesterday, the nation was still reeling from a suicide attack a day earlier at the governor’s compound in the northern province of Takhar.
Oh, you never see that on TV in AmeriKa.
The attack killed six, including the northern region’s senior police commander, General Daoud Daoud, a revered figure from his days as an anti-Taliban fighter.
His death complicates transition efforts as NATO forces begin transferring security responsibilities to Afghan forces in seven areas of the country this July. One of those areas is Mazar-i-Sharif, where Daoud was based.
In a statement yesterday, the United States Embassy in Kabul said Daoud “was in the forefront of his country’s efforts to defeat the insurgents and bring peace and stability to Afghanistan.’’
His death could bolster opposition among northern leaders to Karzai’s fledgling efforts to strike a peace deal with the Taliban.
I want that more than anything.
Sensitive to that concern, the president’s spokesman, Wahid Omar, blamed foreign fighters for planning and carrying out the string of attacks that have jolted the country in recent months, trying to deflect blame from Afghan Taliban, even though the Taliban have claimed responsibility for most of the attacks.
“No one from Afghanistan carries out such attacks,’’ he said. “All evidence shows these operations are planned outside Afghanistan and led from outside Afghanistan.’’
Karzai knows it is CIA contractors.
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In a separate development yesterday, an Afghan government commission blamed regulators for financial mismanagement at the nation’s largest private bank, saying monitors should have kept Kabul Bank from making hundreds of millions in questionable loans that forced the bank into receivership.
The bank has been in turmoil since this past fall when it was discovered that shareholders — some of them relatives or backers of Karzai — had lent themselves millions to invest in luxurious mansions in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and risky prestige projects like an airline and shopping malls in Kabul. Many of the loans were undocumented, so there was no system to ensure they were paid back....
They were not intended to be paid back.
Related: Making Some Afghan Withdrawals
Hey, what is one more bailout, American taxpayers?
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So how is that killing thing working out?
"Afghan protest turns violent after NATO raid kills four; Clash at base, street fighting claim more lives" May 19, 2011|By Ray Rivera and Sangar Rahimi, New York Times
KABUL — A normally peaceful northern Afghan city erupted in violence yesterday, as thousands of protesters clashed with security forces after a NATO night raid that local officials say killed four civilians. NATO defended the night operation and said the four who were killed, two of them women, were armed insurgents who fired on its troops.
Another NATO knee-jerk, 'eh?
At least a dozen people were killed yesterday as protesters armed with Kalashnikov rifles, axes, grenades, and gasoline bombs battled with police on the streets of Taliqan, the capital of Takhar Province in the northeast, then assaulted a small NATO base on the city’s outskirts, local officials and witnesses said.
The protesters chanted “Death to Americans’’ and “Death to Karzai,’’ referring to President Hamid Karzai, as they hurled firebombs and rocks at the German-run NATO outpost, officials said. Some also fired guns. Smoke rising from the base could be seen across the city.
Security forces quelled the riot after several hours, but not before dozens of people, including women and children, had been killed or injured....
It was not immediately known whether NATO forces were involved in trying to subdue the protesters, or opened fire on them. Abdul Jabar Taqwa, the provincial governor, condemned the NATO raid that precipitated the riot but also blamed Taliban agents for stirring up the crowd of 3,000 to 4,000 people during what was intended to be a peaceful demonstration.
At one point, the protesters carried coffins with the bodies of the four people killed in the raid through the streets, the governor said. They were buried later in the day. According to witnesses, people in the crowd grew infuriated when a protester introduced a 10-year-old girl. “This is the only remaining member of the family killed by foreigners last night,’’ the protester announced.
Night raids have been a source of tension between NATO and Afghan officials....
See: Afghans Despise AmeriKan Detention Dungeons
Yeah, they will sort you out later.
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"10 Afghan workers die in explosion; NATO reiterates its commitment against terrorists" May 25, 2011|By Jon Gambrell, Associated Press
KABUL — A roadside bomb killed 10 workers in southern Afghanistan yesterday, and NATO again promised that the coalition would not abandon the country even if some members plan to withdraw their forces....
What if they want you to leave?
NATO also acknowledged yesterday that soldiers shot dead an Afghan holding a flashlight during a raid, something that could add to the growing antiforeigner sentiment in Afghanistan after nearly a decade of war....
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While we are on the road:
"Insurgents ambush Afghan highway crew; A two-hour battle leaves at least 35 dead" May 20, 2011|By Ray Rivera and Sangar Rahimi, New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — Insurgents ambushed an Afghan construction crew working on a road project in southeastern Afghanistan early yesterday morning, leaving at least 35 security guards, laborers, and engineers dead.
Security guards tried to fight off the attackers in a gunfight that lasted two hours in a remote part of Paktia Province, local officials said. Of the 80 workers and guards at the construction camp, only eight are known to have escaped unharmed. Twenty were wounded, and 17 are missing, the officials said.
The attack began around 2 a.m., about 30 miles east of the provincial capital, Gardez, in an area under the sway of the Haqqani network, an offshoot of the Taliban.
Haqqani again?
"Haqqani.... credited with introducing suicide bombing to the region.... cultivated as a "unilateral" asset of the CIA and received tens of thousands of dollars in cash for his work.... He may have had a role in expediting the escape of Osama Bin Laden.... In July 2008, CIA officials confronted Pakistan officials with evidence of ties between Inter-Services Intelligence and Haqqani. Haqqani has been accused of involvement in the 2008 Indian embassy bombing in Kabul.... The Haqqani Network is based in Pakistan and is believed to have links to Al Qaeda."
The group, based across the border in Pakistan’s tribal areas, has been responsible for attacks throughout eastern Afghanistan. In an e-mail to reporters, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack without mentioning the Haqqani network.
Local officials said they did not begin learning the full scope of the carnage until late morning, when villagers sent to investigate discovered the bodies....
Zamari Zadran, subgovernor of the Wazie Zadran district, where the attack occurred, said members of the construction crew never called for help. One reason may be that the Taliban, either through threats or violence, often force cellphone companies to cut off service at night in many volatile areas to make it easier to move without local residents informing the authorities....
Related: Hitting the Road in Afghanistan
Construction contractors trying to build in many of these volatile areas have been accused of paying off local insurgent groups, including the Haqqani network, to allow work to continue, which in turn helps to finance the insurgency. Some security outfits have also been accused of facilitating attacks in order to extort more money for security.
They sound just like the U.S. government.
Related: The Boston Globe's Invisible Ink: False Flags Flying High in Afghanistan
Good way to keep a war going, huh?
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"Karzai’s legitimacy dilemma" by H.D.S. Greenway, May 7, 2011
AFGHANISTAN PRESIDENT Hamid Karzai has to wonder if his own people are not becoming so sick of foreigners running their endless wars that a tipping point may be approaching....
One-third of the coalition’s fatalities last month came from Afghans wearing Afghan army uniforms. Some of them may have been secret Talibs, but by no means all....
Related: Slipping Into Something More Comfortable in Afghanistan
The Talibs know their history. Dost Mohammed was the Afghan ruler whom the British pushed out in the 19th century in order to put their puppet, Shah Shuja, on the throne instead. In due course, the British were forced to retreat, losing an entire army to the Afghans on the way. Shah Shuja was assassinated and Dost Mohammed was returned to his rightful place.
And they also brought down the Soviets.
Boy, are you globe-kicking neo-con war-planners of AmeriKa stoo-pid!
This helps explain why Karzai so frequently lashes out at the Americans. He hopes to lessen the image of puppethood. In turn, no American ally in memory has been so castigated and reviled by US officials as has Karzai. Were it not for the memory of Ngo Dinh Diem, the Vietnamese leader whom President Kennedy decided to overthrow in 1963, only to make matters worse, I suspect Washington would have engineered Karzai’s ouster years ago.
Kennedy was shocked and horrified when he was told Diem had been killed -- and three weeks later, he would be dead himself.
Special envoy Richard Holbrooke, shortly before he died, told me that he had made it clear to the Obama administration that he would have nothing to do with a coup against Karzai.
And he had come out against continuing the war -- then he died.
Karzai is said to have stolen the last election....
Elections are the holy grail for Americans....
For Americans, elections confer legitimacy....
Which Americans is he talking about?
I certainly don't feel that way about rigged selections.
Development assistance: $4 billion last year....
As your country crumbles and its social programs are cut, American.
with a US military that believes if it can only kill enough Talibs surely they will sue for peace....
Then we are there forever.
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Also see: Once worlds apart, now sharing a goal
Oh, well, then it has all been worth it.
