I don't even listen to it anymore.
"Afghanistan clipped talks between US, Taliban" by Kathy Gannon, Associated Press / August 30, 2011
KABUL - Direct US talks with the Taliban had evolved to a substantive negotiation before Afghan officials, nervous that the secret and independent talks would undercut President Hamid Karzai, scuttled them, Afghan and US officials said.
Featured prominently in the talks was US Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl of Hailey, Idaho, who was captured more than two years ago in eastern Afghanistan, according to a senior Western diplomat in the region and a childhood friend of the Taliban negotiator, Tayyab Aga.
See: Taliban TV
Another AmeriKan medium I've been tuning out.
The US negotiators asked Aga what could be done to gain Bergdahl’s release. The discussion did not get into specifics but Aga discussed the release of Afghan prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan at Bagram Air Field.
Published reports about the clandestine meetings ended the talks abruptly, and sent Aga into hiding.
Collapse of the direct talks between Aga and US officials probably spoiled the best chance yet at reaching Mullah Mohammed Omar, considered the linchpin to ending the Taliban fight against the US-backed government in Afghanistan.
The contacts were preliminary but had begun to bear fruit, Afghan and US officials said.
Why can't they start again then?
Perhaps most importantly they offered the tantalizing prospect of a brokered agreement between the United States and the Taliban - one that would allow the larger reconciliation of the Taliban into Afghanistan political life to move forward.
The United States has not committed to any such deal, but the Taliban wants security assurances from Washington.
Aga is said to be hiding in Europe and is afraid to return to Pakistan fearing reprisals. The United States has had no direct contact with him for months.
A senior US official acknowledged that the talks imploded because of the leak and that Aga, while alive, had disappeared.
The United States will continue to pursue talks, the official said.
Current and former US officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the talks.
The United States acknowledged the meetings after Karzai, who apparently fears being sidelined by US-Taliban talks, confirmed published accounts about them in June, but has never publicly detailed the content, format, or participants....
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What else they are talking about in Afghanistan:
"Bomb kills four at Afghan mosque" August 27, 2011|Associated Press
KABUL - A bomb exploded yesterday at an outdoor mosque in northwest Afghanistan, killing four worshippers, police said....
In the city of Herat in western Afghanistan, a bomb placed on a small cart exploded yesterday, killing an Afghan woman and wounding seven other civilians, said Sayad Agha Saqeb, police chief in Herat Province.
No one claimed responsibility for the blast....
The hallmark of intelligence agency false flags.
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"Five are killed in three car bombings
KANDAHAR - A car bomb exploded outside a bank in a major southern Afghan city yesterday, killing four people and wounding more than 20, officials said. The bomb went off as soldiers and police officers were lined up to collect their salaries at the bank in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province. All of those killed were civilians. Less than three hours later, a car bomb exploded outside the main hospital of Kandahar, wounding seven people. Soon after, a suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle near a police compound in the city, killing one civilian and wounding about 20 people."
"Taliban bomb wounds 77 US troops; Strike occurred along crucial route to Kabul" September 12, 2011|By Patrick Quinn, Associated Press
KABUL - A powerful Taliban truck bomb wounded 77 American soldiers and killed five Afghans outside a combat outpost, serving as a reminder yesterday that 10 years after the Sept. 11 attacks, nearly 100,000 US troops are still fighting a war that shows no signs of slowing down....
:-(
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. Earlier, they had issued a statement vowing to fight until all foreign troops leave. The radical Islamic movement, which gave shelter to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda when it ruled Afghanistan, also stressed that it had no role in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and it accused the United States of using them as a pretext to invade the country.
Yeah, we know.
“The Afghans have an endless stamina for a long war,’’ the statement said. “Through a countrywide uprising, the Afghans will send the Americans to the dustbin of history like they sent other empires of the past.’’
AmeriKa's leaders haven't learned, and hubris destroys empires.
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Although the Taliban were swiftly driven from power by the US-led coalition in October 2001, they managed to use the years of the Iraq war - when America focused its military strength on the conflict against Saddam Hussein - to regroup, rearm, and reorganize.
And here you were told we were winning, American.
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Yeah, I don't really have much to say anymore, either.
"Death toll from siege in Kabul doubles to 16; Attack linked to Pakistani group ; assault’s effect is downplayed" September 15, 2011|By Alissa J. Rubin and Jack Healy, New York Times
KABUL - Raising the death toll sharply, American and Afghan officials said yesterday that the complexity and execution of the siege of the US Embassy and NATO’s headquarters in Kabul bore the hallmarks of a militant group based in Pakistan that has become one of the American military’s most implacable foes....
The militant group that General John R. Allen, the NATO commander here, and other officials blamed for the attack, the Haqqani network, is a crucial ally of Al Qaeda in the Pakistani border region and has been a longtime asset of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services in Afghanistan....
Ah, Haqqani!!
"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."
Some have argued that the Haqqanis have split from the CIA and are now fighting the CIA's anti-Taliban Taliban in the area.
The Haqqanis have been blamed for high-profile attacks in Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan, including the bombing of the Indian Embassy in 2008, which killed 54 people. Afterward, American intelligence officials confronted their Pakistani counterparts with evidence that Haqqani fighters had received support and direction from Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI....
Allen acknowledged that the insurgents had scored a propaganda victory with the attack....
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Where do these guys come from?
"Former detainee arrested in raid
KABUL - NATO and Afghan forces have arrested a former prisoner of the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, a tribal elder said yesterday. Said Amir Jan was arrested during the same raid in which another former Guantanamo detainee was killed a week ago in Jalalabad. Jan, 30, was suspected of being a low-level member of Al Qaeda before he was sent to Guantanamo in 2003, according to his military file. He was assessed as medium risk in 2005 by military officials and sent back to Afghanistan in 2007 (AP)."
"NATO troops kill former Guantanamo prisoner; He was deemed a ‘medium risk’ at release in 2007
Also see:
Local soldier is killed in Afghan fighting
Life of slain soldier Timothy J. Steele celebrated in Duxbury
August deadliest month for US troops
US civilian killed in Kabul region
Three Afghanistan bombings kill eight people
Next Day Update:
"Three NATO troops died in separate attacks, and a patrol of Afghan and international forces killed more than 10 insurgents during a raid on a major narcotics lab in southern Afghanistan, NATO said yesterday....
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