Index on Afghanistan and Pakistan - Murder & Security, Aug/Sept. ’08

by Sarah Meyer Index Research

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We cannot kill our way to victory. Admiral Michael Mullen

1. Preface

afghan grave pictures

The occupation in Afghanistan is about security for US bases and US strategic interests.

The occupation is not about security for the Afghan people, any more than the occupation in Iraq is about security for the Iraqi people. Hiring of intelligence staff wont help the present unintelligent US-NATO activities.

Nor will the present U.S. bombing campaign in Pakistan bring them "democracy" -- the many "apologies" for killing civilians ring hollow.

Too many innocent civilians have suffered murder for this U.S.-NATO security in the so-called War on Terror. In the last two months, civilian deaths have multiplied exponentially. US contempt for life is evident.

The world is correct in worrying about the two page notethat holds NATO in wedlock with Afghanistan. This same Washington Post article also writes about security for the death dealers: "the conduct of ongoing military operations gives U.S. troops "a status equivalent" to diplomatic immunity and exempting them from any Afghan "disciplinary authority" or legal jurisdiction. For this reason, immunity will be a problem in Afghanistan, just as it is in Iraq.

Afghanistan has never been and is not a Just War; is not the Right War; is not a Good War. Unfortunately, many Good people believe that it is.

Following is a Timeline of US Policy Disasters.

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INDEX

1. Preface
2. Murder in Azizabad
3. Further deaths in Afghanistan
4. Afghanistan (Refugees, Women and Children, Opium)
5. Pakistan (General; Refugees; Dead in Pakistan)
6. Oil and Gas
7. Aid, Military Contracts, Contractors
8. United States: Reports, General, Bush - Troops, 9/11
9. US-NATO (General; Transportation)
10. NATO Coalition
11. US-NATO deaths
12. Human Rights (Reports, General, Rendition, Guantanamo)
13. References

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2. Murder in Azizabad

no reason can justify killing of civilian in military operations. AIHRC (23.08.08)

Peace Alliance, Winnipeg

AFGHANISTAN: More than 90 killed in coalition strikes: investigation
24.08.08. AFP/INL.

The initial reports released by the US military boasted that it had successfully attacked a meeting of Taliban militants in Herat province, killing at least 30. James Cogan (26.08.08, Global Research)



Anti-US demonstrations in Afghanistan
24.08.08. Euronews/INL. Angry protests have broken out in Afghanistan following the deaths of scores of civilians in an air attack by US-led coalition forces on Friday.

We want our children. We want our relatives. Can you give [them] to us? You cannot, so go away. " Quote from Afghan citizen.

Pouring Gas on the Afghanistan Bonfire
25.08.08. CHRIS HEDGES, truthdig. Coalition forces carried out an airstrike that killed up to 95 Afghan civilians in western Afghanistan on Friday, 50 of them children, And the mounting bombing raids and widespread detentions of Afghans are rapidly turning Afghanistan into the mirror image of Iraq. / Ghulam Azrat, the director of the middle school in Azizabad, said he collected 60 bodies after the bombing. / "Most of these dead bodies were children and women. It took all morning to collect them." / The seven-year war in Afghanistan has not gone well.

Pentagon Calls Air Strike in Western Afghanistan 'Legitimate'
25.08.08. VOA / Inl.

US investigating civilian deaths in Afghanistan
26.08.08. AP/InI.

UN Finds Evidence 90 Civilians Dead in US-Led Strikes
26.08.08. Agence France-Presse/truthout. "A United Nations team has found 'convincing evidence' that 90 civilians, including 60 children, were killed in US-led air strikes last week, the body's representative in Afghanistan said Tuesday. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) human rights team was sent to the western province of Herat after local claims that scores of civilians were killed in Friday's strikes."

How should international forces in Afghanistan be governed?
26.08.08 Your views. Aljazeera.

Afghanistan demands end to Nato air strikes on villagers
26.08.08. D. Pallister, Guardian.

U.S. Officials Describe Afghan Airstrike
27.08.08. E. Schmitt, NY Times. American military officials sought on Wednesday to refute claims that as many as 90 civilians among them 60 children were killed in airstrikes on a village in western Afghanistan last Friday. / United States officials maintain that 25 militants and 5 civilians were killed in airstrikes called in after Afghan and American commandos came under heavy fire during a raid on the compound of a top Taliban commander. /several American military officials gave this version of what took place.

US Massacres Afghan Kids
27.08.08. R. Dreyfuss, The Nation. So how, exactly, did the United States come to slaughter nearly a hundred Afghans, two-thirds of whom were children aged three months to sixteen years, while they slept? (summary of different news reports). / By all rights, this ought to be a turning point for the Afghan war. the United States and NATO should get out and let the regional powers help Afghanistan deal with its problems--that means Pakistan, India, Russia, and Iran.

Home Destroyed

Children Killed By U.S. Airstrike In Afghanistan Were Guilty Of Sleeping
27.08.08. Winter Patriot, uruknet.

They are human too Mr Bush!
28.08.08. Aijaz Zaka Syed, khaleej times. But is this the first incident of its kind when the brave soldiers of the coalition of the willing mistook women and children for the militants? As far as the Afghan people are concerned, there's little difference in the Soviet occupation and the current reign of terror. Only the markings on those fighter jets have changed from Russian to English.

Russia takes up US attack in Afghanistan at UNSC
28.08.08. daily times.pk. Drafts statement seeking condemnation of US airstrike that killed 90 civilians; Afghanistan says wants to regulate US troops presence and use of air strikes.

Only a Two-Page 'Note' Governs U.S. Military in Afghanistan
28.08.08. K. DeYOUNG, Washington Post. Civilian casualties, long a recurring problem in Afghanistan, tripled last year as thinly spread U.S. and NATO forces grew more dependent on air power against a resurgent Taliban. / casualties due to airstrikes have reached more than 200 through the first eight months of this year, compared with 321 in 2007 and 116 in 2006. / According to the U.S. Air Forces Central Combined Air and Space Operations Center, the number of strikes this year in which munitions were dropped totaled 2,368 as of Aug. 4. The equivalent number for the same period in Iraq was 783.

No tears in west for 60 Afghan children
29.08.08. Ameen Izzadeen, dailymirror.lk./ICH. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), as this force is properly known, is responsible for thousands of civilian deaths in Afghanistan. August 22, the US troops in ISAF killed 95 civilians, including 60 children and 19 women, adding to the ever increasing number of civilian deaths.

US says civilian deaths were overstated 28.08.08. AP. After reviewing a disputed airstrike on a village in Afghanistan, U.S. officials have concluded that the civilian death toll was far lower than claimed by the Afghan government and the U.N., three U.S. defense officials said Thursday. / Details of how the U.S. review was conducted were not immediately available. Pentagon Reports U.S. Airstrike Killed 5 Afghan Civilians, Not 90 29.08.08. Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post

Afghan official 'saw bodies of 50 children' killed in US strike
30.08.08. daily star. An Afghan politician told AFP Friday how he had helped dig out the bodies of women and children after US-led air strikes a week ago, reiterating with another official that around 90 civilians were killed.

Civilian casualties strain NATO
30.08.08. Washington Times. Death toll in recent strike cited. An errant attack last week on civilians by U.S.-led coalition forces has widened a rift between the Afghan government and the international community that may change the nature of foreign military operations in Afghanistan.

US, UN launch joint probe into deadly Afghan raid
30.08.08. AP. A top NATO official says the U.S.-led coalition, the U.N. and Afghan officials will launch a joint probe into a deadly raid in western Afghanistan. (see below 03.09.08)


Afghan puppet army: " US only defended themselves from Afghan sleeping children"
31.08.08. AP / uruknet. Afghan Commission: U.S. Troops Were Fired on First in deadly raid. An Afghan army commander said that U.S. and Afghan troops were fired on first from a village where a government investigative commission says scores of civilians were killed, according to a report released Sunday. / There were no "foreign or internal Taliban" among the victims, the report said. The commission found that 15 men, 15 women and 60 children were killed. That finding was backed by a preliminary U.N. report. The commission said eight houses were destroyed and seven damaged...

Collateral Killing
31.08.08. Washington Post editorial. Too many innocent Afghans are dying in U.S. airstrikes. [editorial supports sending more troops to Afghanistan]

The massacre at Azizabad, Herat" 01.09.08. Professor Marc Herold, uruknet. 76-91 civilians killed (61 children, 15 women, 15 men) including [Substantial list of names of those killed and wounded in Azizabad] Authoritative report on the massacre.

Pentagon denies responsibility for US massacre of Afghan villagers
01.09.08. Tom Eley, uruknet. All the evidence suggests that US claims are utterly bogus. According to an anonymous NATO official, the US assault on Azizabad lasted for several hours, and involved ground troops, gunships, and drones. The battle destroyed or damaged 15 houses. And yet the US military wishes world opinion to believe that it was the victim of an attack that resulted in only a single American injury, and that virtually all those who died in the building were "Taliban."... The criminal and reckless US bombardment of Azizabad has been largely buried by the US media, which has been far more preoccupied with the "disproportionate" Russian response to Georgias invasion of South Ossetia.

Ongoing Afghan battle kills over 220 militants in South
01.09.08. xinhuanet. The Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and the U.S.-led Coalition forces have killed more than 220 militants during clean-up operations in southern Afghan province of Helmand since Aug. 25, said a Coalition statement released hereon Monday.

AFGHANISTAN: Endless Massacre
01.09.08. AGI / uruknet. WITNESSES SAY 70+ CIVILIANS KILLED IN AIR STRIKE. Over 70 civilians have reportedly been killed in an air strike by international forces in the Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. Reuters received reports of this from a number of residents in Sangin, the district where the bloodshed allegedly occurred. At the moment the news has not yet been confirmed by the Afghan government, which last week threatened to reconsider the role of foreign troops after another air strike on 22 August, killed 90 civilians, including over 50 children. / The command of the US-led contingent has not commented on the charges but said that last week in the Helmand province 220 suspected Taliban fighters had been killed.

US probe finds fewer Afghan deaths than UN claimed
02.09.08. Jason Straziuso, AP. A U.S. investigation [ by whom? ] into U.N. and Afghan allegations that dozens of civilians were killed in fighting around a village found Tuesday that seven of the dead were civilians. / No Afghan officials have confirmed that the Afghan government would take part in a three-way investigation [see 03.09).

Nato tries to hide Afghan massacres
02.09.08. socialist worker / INI. Latest attacks destroy second Afghan village killing 70 | Over 500 civilians killed by Nato forces this year. / Nato is attempting to cover up a series of massacres committed by its forces in a murderous campaign of airstrikes on Afghanistan.

Afghans accept U.S. probe offer on civilian deaths
03.09.08. Reuters / Wired.

VIDEO. Pressure Mounts in Afghanistan (Reuters, 04.09.08,)

Afghans seek punishment for civilian deaths in raid
04.09.08. Reuters. Hundreds of Afghans gathered near a village bombed by U.S.-led coalition forces to call on the government to punish those responsible for civilian deaths in the raid.

Karzai says NATO Ties Strained as US Continues to Dispute Herat Toll
04.09.08. anti-war. Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited the scene of last months deadly US air strike in Herat Province today. During the visit President Karzai vowed swift punishment for those responsible for the incident, and warned that relations with NATO had been strained by the large number of civilian deaths

Bush 'Regrets' Civilian Casualties In US Strike
04.09.08. AFP / ICH.

Photo Fraidoon Pooyaa / AP

AP IMPACT: Afghans fed up with government, US
05.09.09. Kathy Gannon, AP. Mohammed makes it clear that the tribal chiefs have lost all faith in both their own government and the foreign soldiers in their country. / Such disillusionment is widespread in Afghanistan

Collateral Tragedies
05.09.08. Mark Thompson, Time. There is no fog of war at 20,000 ft. above Afghanistan. .. / On the ground, the picture is much less clear. .. / As U.S. air strikes doubled from 2006 to 2007, the number of accidental civilian deaths soared, from 116 to 321. / The military dismisses such tallies as exaggerated, and their provenance is often murky. In no case is it murkier than in the Aug. 22 strike on the western Afghan village of Azizabad. ..

Atrocity in Azizabad: More Child Sacrifices on the Terror War Altar
08.09.08. CHRIS FLOYD, uruknet. Every day, the shame mounts, the lies grow more brazen and more brutal, and the dishonor spreads and deepens -- ineradicable, like a white garment soaked with blood. But the mass death visited upon the sleeping, defenseless citizens of Azizabad encapsulates many of the essential elements of this global campaign of "unipolar domination" and war profiteering: the callous application of high-tech weaponry against unarmed civilians; the witless attack that alienates local supporters and empowers an ever-more violent and radical insurgency; and perhaps the most quintessential element of all -- the knowing lies and deliberate deceits that Washington employs to hide the obscene reality of its Terror War..-

THE 2 Videos Evidence Points to Civilian Toll in Afghan Raid 07.09.08. CARLOTTA GALL, NY Times. The Afghan government, human rights and intelligence officials, independent witnesses and a United Nations investigation back up their account, pointing to dozens of freshly dug graves, lists of the dead, and cellphone videos and other images showing bodies of women and children laid out in the village mosque. / Cellphone images seen by this reporter show at least 11 dead children, some apparently with blast and concussion injuries, among some 30 to 40 bodies laid out in the village mosque. Some differing accounts given. US has new information on Afghan civilian deaths 07.09.08. Reuters. Afghan and Western officials say Afghanistan's intelligence agency and the U.N. both have video of the aftermath of the Aug. 22 U.S. airstrikes on the village of Azizabad showing dozens of dead women and children. US to begin new inquiry into Afghan civilian deaths 08.09.08. AFP. US General David McKiernan said in a statement late Sunday there was "emerging evidence" about the incident. / In light of this, "I feel it is prudent to request that US Central Command send a general officer to review the US investigation and its findings with respect to the new evidence," he said. Harrowing video film backs Afghan villagers' claims of carnage caused by US troops 08.09.08. Tom Koghlan, timesonline. (edited) video of massacre. These are the images that have forced the Pentagon into a rare U-turn. Until yesterday the US military had insisted that only seven civilians were killed in Nawabad on the night of August 21. / .. In the video scores of bodies are seen laid out in a building that villagers say is used as a mosque / The US military said that its findings were corroborated by an independent journalist embedded with the US force. He was named as the Fox News correspondent Oliver North / .. Sources close to one of the investigations said that a video film was shot by Afghan officials the morning after the attack. It corroborates the doctors footage but has not been made public. / .. list of civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Raw Video: Afghans Civilians Killed by U.S.? (edited) same video on youtube. Afghan Children Killed In US-Led Raid Appear On New Video 08.09.08. Huff Post / ICH. A second video shows three young children wrapped in white shrouds. A fourth child has gruesome head wounds. In total, the bodies of at least 10 children can be seen. / The two videos, both obtained by The Associated Press, give weight to Afghan and U.N. findings that scores of civilians, including 60 children and 15 women, died in the Aug. 22 U.S.-led raid in the village of Azizabad. U.S. special forces and Afghan commandos carried out the operation [ NB: 09.08.08 Youtube video of massacre was removed by 5 am. At 7 am, the notice reads: This video is not available in your country" (ie, UK). On the Huff Post, the BBC video has this message: "THIS CONTENT IS NOT AUTORIZED INSIDE THE UNITED KINGDOM."] VIDEO: Afghans Civilians Killed by U.S.. AP. This is one of two videos obtained by AP that appear to show the bodies of children and adults covered in blankets and white shrouds lend weight to Afghan and U.N. allegations that a U.S.-led raid killed scores of civilians. (Sept. 8)..

Afghanistan: U.S. backs off the air war
08.09.08. Military Watch, Baltimore sun. The Air Force has cut back sharply on the number of daily air strikes it is flying in Afghanistan, as civilian casualties from bombing have risen sharply along with protests from the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai and from the United Nations.

[note air strikes in section 3.]

Afghans say will open graves to show civilian deaths
09.09.08. Sharafuddin Sharafiyaar, Reuters/uruknet. Relatives of Afghans killed in a U.S.-led coalition raid in western Herat province offered on Tuesday to dig up graves to support claims of large-scale civilian deaths. But they said that U.S.-led forces must leave Afghanistan "in shame" if it was proven that an American account of the Aug. 22 air strike in Shindand district that most of the victims were Taliban fighters was wrong. The incident has ou! traged Afghans and opened a rift between coalition forces on the one hand and the Afghan government and the U.N. on the other, which both say that more than 90 civilians were killed...

Fox News & Oliver North Involved with U.S. Afghanistan Massacre Cover-up
09.09.08. Invictus/uruknet. Perhaps the most amazing political news surrounding the Nawabad massacre is that the Pentagon says it relied for its account, in part, on corroborative evidence by the embedded journalist on the scene: Fox News "reporter" Oliver North! [see above 08.09]

Afghans hail Bush's move to send more troops
10.09.08. Reuters. "The government has a common stance on this: we need and welcome more foreign troops to tackle the war along with local forces," said chief presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzadan/"In the long term, the strengthening of national entities, their training and equipping, is the solution," he added.
[see below. Bush Troop Surge, Section 8]

Afghanistan After Seven Years of War: You Call This a Good War?
11.09.08. Sharon Smith, uruknet. In early September, the Pentagon closed its investigation into allegations that U.S. bombs killed 92 Afghan civilians, including as many as 60 children, as they slept peacefully in the village of Nawabad on the night of August 21st. [history of atrocities] ... Obama did not utter a word of criticism about rising civilian casualties ... The war on Afghanistan is no more justified than the war on Iraq.

Tom Engelhardts superb roundup with succinct comments on Azizabad Slaughter, Lies, and VIDEO in Afghanistan 11.09.08. TOM ENGELHARDT, Tomgram. The Value of One, the Value of None: An Anatomy of Collateral Damage in the Bush Era. The incident in Azizabad may represent the single deadliest media-verified attack on civilians by U.S. forces since the invasion of 2001. not just Vice President Cheney but the President and his top officials have remained self-protectively embunkered throughout their years in office. The 60 or so children slaughtered in Azizabad, each of whom belonged to some family, don't matter to them. But they do matter. And when you kill them, and so many others like them, you surely play with fire.

Afghans arrested over disputed air strike deaths
12.09.08. Reuters. Afghan police have arrested three men on suspicion of giving false information which led to the death of civilians in a U.S. air strike in western Afghanistan last month, the interior ministry said on Friday. / Anger has mounted over the August 22 raid in the village of Azizabad in western Herat's Shindand district in which the Afghan government says more than 90 people, mostly women and children, were killed, an allegation backed by the United Nations.

Afghanistan: US killed civilians after false tip
15.09.08. J. STRAZIUSO, AP. An American bombing that killed up to 90 Afghan civilians last month was based on false information provided by a rival tribe and did not kill a single Taliban fighter, the president's spokesman said Sunday. / "There was total misinformation fed to the coalition forces," Humayun Hamidzada, the spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, told The Associated Press.

3. Further Deaths in Afghanistan

REPORT

Afghanistan: Civilian Deaths From Airstrikes
08.09.08. Human Rights Watch. Link to 43-page report. Rapid response airstrikes have meant higher civilian casualties, while every bomb dropped in populated areas amplifies the chance of a mistake. "Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch

Summary
08.09.08. Richard Norton Taylor, Guardian. Civilian deaths in Afghanistan from US and Nato air strikes have nearly tripled over the past year, with the onslaught continuing in 2008 and fuelling a public backlash, a leading human rights group says today. / The report by Human Rights Watch says that despite changes in the rules of engagement which had reduced the rate of civilian casualties since a spike in July last year, air strikes killed at least 321 civilians in 2007, compared with at least 116 in 2006. In the first seven months of this year at least 540 Afghan civilians were killed in fighting related to the armed conflict, with at least 119 killed by US or Nato air strikes, such as this July's attack on a wedding party which killed 47, says Human Rights Watch.


GENERAL

NB: No suicide attacks listed

Sangin, Helmand

Coalition forces kill more than a dozen Taliban in Afghanistan
27.08.08. topnews.in. Afghan and coalition forces on Monday spotted a large number of heavily armed militants gathering in small groups and preparing to attack soldiers in Sangin district of the restive Helmand province, the US military said in a statement.

Paktika

Nearly 50 Taliban killed in Afghanistan-officials
27.08.08. Reuters / Wired. An air strike killed 30 Taliban in southeastern Afghanistan close to the border with Pakistan and Afghan police killed 18 more militants in the south of the country, officials said on Wednesday.

Over 100 Killed in Fighting Along Afghan-Pakistan Border
27.08.08. anti-war.com. 40 Taliban were reported killed in airstrikes after attacking government-run checkpoints in Paktika, not far from Waziristan. Further west, in southern Helmand province, another 18 Taliban were killed by provincial police. It was also reported today that the Taliban are gaining an increasing level of influence in the city of Kandahar. More

Afghan opposition wants international crisis meet
27.08.08. Reuters / wired. Afghanistan is going through a critical period and an international meeting including Taliban-led insurgents should be held to ward off crisis, the country's main opposition group said on Wednesday.


Khost

Occupation forces kill ex-Afghan cricketer - officials
29.08.08. daily news.lk / ICH. Rahmat Wali, 32, who played for the war-torn country's national team between 2001 and 2006, was killed when troops attacked his home in the eastern province of Khost, the national team captain, Nawrooz Khan Mangal said. He said Wali had no ties to Taliban or other insurgents.

Waziristan

US missile attack in Waziristan injures 4
29.08.08. daily times.pk. A missile fired from a United States drone injured a woman and three children in South Waziristan late on Wednesday night, officials and residents told Daily Times on Thursday.

Uruzgan and Paktika

U.S. says at least 24 militants killed in Afghanistan
29.08.08. AP / usa tody/ICH. More than a dozen militants were killed after they attacked a coalition base in Shaheed Hasas district of the southern Uruzgan province on Thursday, the coalition said. Two Afghan guards died during the attack. / Separately, about a dozen militants were killed during a raid by coalition troops in the eastern Paktika province, also on Thursday, the coalition said.

N. Kunduz

A Woman and Two Children Shot Dead at German Checkpoint in Afghanistan
29.08.08. DPA news ageny / uruk. An Afghan woman and two children were killed and four other children injured as German soldiers opened fire on a civilian vehicle in the northern province of Kunduz, Afghan police said Friday, Aug. 29. The incident -- which occurred south-east of the provincial capital city, also called Kunduz -- took place Thursday evening in a region where German troops lead operations for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force! (ISAF), Defense Ministry spokesman Thomas Raabe said in Berlin.

Kapisa

Another 5 Afghan Civilians Killed In US-led Strikes
30.08.08. AFP/uruknet. Two senior Afghan police officers alleged Saturday that the U.S.-led coalition killed five civilians in air strikes aimed at Taliban insurgents, but the force denied causing any civilian casualties. / "Five civilians, including two women and a child, were killed in an air strike by coalition forces early this morning," Sayed Sakhidad, criminal investigation police chief for Kapisa province outside Kabul, told AFP.

Sarwan Qala, Sangin

500 civilians killed, injured in Afghanistan
01.09.08. The int. news. "Foreign forces have been conducting operation in Sarwan Qala area of Sangin district for the last five days in which artillery and aircraft are being used," Dad Muhammad Khan, member of Wolesi Jirga (lower house of parliament), told Afghan Islamic Press. / "The dead and injured were lying in the area and there is no one to shift the injured. Yesterday, I raised the issue in the parliament but the government has done nothing so far," he said.

E. Kabul Afghan family killed in house raid 01.09.08. Aljazeera.net/uruknet. A family of four, including two children, have been killed in an overnight raid by international troops, a police official and witnesses said. / Residents in Hud Kheil in the east of the capital said one of the two children was eight months old and grenades killed the family members during a joint Afghan-US special forces operation. / US special forces said they were not involved. Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said they were investigating media reports. Afghans demonstrate after children die in troop raid 01.09.08. AFP/uruknet. Hundreds of Afghans took to the streets Monday in protest at what they said was the murder of four civilians, including two baby boys, in an early morning raid by international troops. / The demonstrators showed journalists the bloodied bodies of the children shot dead with their father on the eastern outskirts of the capital, an AFP reporter said. .. / A press office official at NATO, whose troops are in charge of security in Kabul, said: "We have no indication whatsoever that NATO forces were involved in this incident." Afghan children killed by Nato fire 01.09.08. al jazeera. Nato officials said that the attack on Monday happened by accident. NATO admits strike (02.09.08. Guardian) Killings of 5 Afghan children inflame tensions 01.09.08. AMIR SHAH, AP / uruknet. The Afghan War's Heavy Toll On Children 03.09.08. Brian McAfee, Counter Currents. Again today reports coming out of Afghanistan indicate more dead children. / Rebuilding Afghanistan's infrastructure, food aid and agricultural support are common sense endeavors we should be engaged in.

'US troops are committing war crimes'
02.09.08. Parwiz Shamal, quqnoos/ICH. Afghan rights group accuses foreign troops of deliberately killing civilians,. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) said on Tuesday that, according to their own investigations, civilians are killed in most operations conducted by US forces.

Helmand

British soldiers kill 200 Taliban in Afghan dam operation
02.09.08. telegraph / ICH. A major secret British operation to boost the economy in Afghanistan's Helmand province has been completed after a force of 5,000 troops fought for a week to drive a huge dam turbine through Taliban lines. [see transportation]

Herat

Two civilians, eight Taliban killed in Afghan raid: army
05.09.08. Reuters / ICH. A U.S.-led coalition air strike killed a woman and child and eight Taliban fighters in western Afghanistan on Friday, a top Afghan army official said.

U.S. says 2 civilians among 8 dead in Afghan strike
05.09.08. Reuters. Two civilians were among eight people killed in a U.S.-led coalition operation in western Afghanistan on Friday, the U.S. military said, the latest in a mounting toll of civilian deaths that has outraged Afghans. / The military said fighting erupted after coalition and Afghan army troops were ambushed by militants during a reconnaissance patrol in Farah province. / Troops backed by close air support killed six militants, it said in a statement. "Two civilians were killed and two wounded during the conduct of the insurgent ambush operation."

Afghans fed up with government, U.S.
05.09.08. AP. Mohammed makes it clear that the tribal chiefs have lost all faith in both their own government and the foreign soldiers in their country. Such disillusionment is widespread in Afghanistan, feeding an insurgency that has killed 195 foreign soldiers so far this year, 105 of them Americans.

Waziristan (?) FOCUS | Scores Killed by Pilotless US Aircraft 05.09.08. Pir Zubair Shah, Jane Perlez, NY Times / Truthout. : "A missile strike from a remotely piloted United States reconnaissance aircraft killed 6 to 12 people in a group of houses in southern Afghanistan, very close to the border with Pakistan, Pakistani residents of the area said Friday." [ The New York Times report below states that the damage and civilian deaths were the result of, "A missile strike from a remotely piloted United States reconnaissance aircraft ..." Reconnaissance aircraft do not carry missiles. That contradiction is not addressed by The Times. - ma/TO] The Attack on the Haqqanis 10.09.08. Moon of Alabama, uruknet. Haqqani, an Afghan, is currently one of the Talibans most senior commanders battling the Americans in eastern Afghanistan. His father, Jalaluddin, is a longtime associate of bin Ladens. The Haqqanis are believed to be overseeing operations from a hiding place in the Pakistani tribal agency of North Waziristan. Two days later the U.S. attacked the residence of the Haqqani clan: The drones were apparently targeting the house or the madrassa established by former Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani during the 1978-88 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, residents said. At least 23 people died in that attack. The Haqqani men are said to be in Afghanistan at the time of the attack and were not hit... Another criminal US missile strike inside Pakistan 10.09.08. Peter Symonds, WSWS/uruknet.

US's 'good' war hits Pakistan hard
10.09.08. Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times/uruknet. Seven years after the United States led the invasion of Afghanistan in search of al-Qaeda and to topple the Taliban government, US President George W Bush has added neighboring Pakistan to the list of countries that are "a major 'war on terror' battleground", while also announcing a "quiet surge" of troops into Afghanistan. / What Bush didn't spell out is that it is also in the US's interests that Pakistan get tough on militants, and that the US is increasingly taking matters into its own hands inside Pakistan. In the the latest incident on Monday, at least 25 people were killed in a missile attack by unmanned Predator drones on a Pakistani village near the Afghan border.

Khost

Troops kill 10 insurgents in Afghanistan: coalition
07.09.08. AFP.

Reuters says

U.S. forces, Afghan police kill over 20 Taliban
07.09.08. Reuters

More dead in Khost

2 killed, 10 injured by errant NATO bomb
09.09.08. CBC. The bomb was aimed at a site in eastern Khost province used by insurgents to fire rockets. However, the weapon malfunctioned and struck a civilian house two kilometres away, according to a NATO statement.

Off-Target NATO Bomb Kills 2 Afghan Civilians
09.09.08. Rahim Faiez, AP / ABC. As Karzai decries civilian deaths, NATO bomb misses target by 1 1/2 miles and kills 2 Afghans

2 killed, 10 injured in Afghanistan by errant NATO bomb
10.09.08. CBC. the weapon malfunctioned and struck a civilian house two kilometres away, according to a NATO statement.

Tirin Kot, Uruzgan

Afghanistan bombing kills three coalition troops, local contractor
10.09.08 AFP. The new deaths raise to 201 the number of international soldiers to die in Afghanistan this year. / Meanwhile, in the southern Uruzgan Province, troops were tipped off about a Taliban gathering on the outskirts of the town of Tirin Kot and sent in a strike early Tuesday, provincial police chief Juma Gul Himat said. "The coalition forces bombed them and killed 16 Taliban and wounded another nine," Himat said./ .. And late Monday aircraft bombed a group of Taliban militants who had attacked a district center in eastern Paktia Province, a spokesman for the provincial government told AFP. "Twelve Taliban were killed in the NATO air strike. Nine of them are Chechens and three are Afghans and Pakistanis," the spokesman said.

Uruzgan and Paktika

27 militants killed in Afghan airstrikes
09.09.08. Rahim Faiez, AP. Over 27 militants killed in 2 separate Afghan airstrikes. Uruzgan: 15 militants killed; Paktika: 12 militants, including nine Chechen fighters killed.

TALIBAN Secrets of the Taliban's success 10.09.08. SAYED SALEEM SHAHZAD, , asia times / uruknet. ...In an interview with Asia Times Online, Mullah Abdul Jalil, a pioneer of the Taliban movement in Kandahar, elaborated. "There is a lot of rhetoric out of anger and frustration against the West because of the NATO oppression of the Afghan people, but the Taliban leadership still strictly abides by its code of conduct for the resistance against foreign occupation forces in our country," said Jalil, who served as deputy foreign minister and foreign minister during the Taliban regime (1996-2001). US at the 'edge of historical defeat': Taliban 11.09.08. Hindustan times. Taliban call for unity against US 11.09.08. The News International/uruknet. ..."The United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) must avoid killing innocent people in Afghanistan and stop bid to divide its people on race, language, ethnic and regional lines," the Taliban said in a statement on the occasion of the 7th anniversary of 9/11 attacks. Afghans always remained united against infidelity, foreign aggression and never accepted foreign interference, the Taliban said. "All the international organisations, governm! ent and nations should unite against the cruel policies of US, extend their moral role in the independence of occupied countries and put an end to the insecurity, fighting and injustices in the world," the Afghan Islamic Press quoted the Taliban as saying. The Taliban said the US and Nato had failed in Afghanistan as the West had admitted that all the country except Kabul was in the control of Taliban... American Imperialism v/s Talibanisation 12.09.08. Farooq Tariq, Kashmir Watch. Pakistan is under imperialist siege. Parts of Pakistan are targeted regularly by the NATO forces based on the Afghani-Pakistan border. Killings by missiles have become an everyday event. Innocent tribal men, women and children are the targets of this imperialist aggression. ../ The 3 August 2008 direct attack by NATO forces at Anghoor Ada in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan left 20 dead and scores injured. The excuse is curbing individual terrorism. However this is state terrorism in open collaboration with American imperialism

Death Squads

From Afghanistan to Africa: The Return of U. S. Death Squads
10.09.08. C. Hallinan, uruknet. United Nations officials charge that secret "international intelligence services" are conducting raids to kill Afghan civilians, then hiding the perpetuators behind an "impenetrable" wall of bureaucracy. /..Suspicion has fallen on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which led such teams into Afghanistan during the 1990s in an attempt to capture or kill Osama bin Ladin, and again during the 2001 invasion.

Tagab district, Kapisa

10 militants killed in Afghanistan
12.09.08. AP.

U.S. to include Pakistan in Afghanistan strategy 10.09.08. Reuters. The U.S. military, faced with rising insurgent violence in Afghanistan, will revise its strategy for the region to include militant safe havens in neighboring Pakistan, the top U.S. military officer said Wednesday.

Tagab district, Kapisa

10 militants killed in Afghanistan
12.09.08. AP.

Report: U.S.-NATO Airtrikes Over Afghanistan Are Killing Innocent Civilians
12.09.08. Ali Gharib, IPS News/alternet. "Civilian deaths act as a recruiting tool for the Taliban and risk fatally undermining the international effort to provide basic security."

Does killing Afghan civilians keep us safe?
12.09.08. LA Times/ICH. This week, as we remember the nearly 3,000 American citizens who died in the rubble of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or in a remote field in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, we also should think about the civilians who are still dying in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan Is in Its Worst Shape Since 2001, European Diplomat Says
15.09.08. A. Smale, NY Times. The envoy, Francesc Vendrell, a Spanish diplomat with eight years experience in Afghanistan, especially criticized the growing number of civilian deaths in attacks by American and international forces. / Those deaths have created a great deal of antipathy and widened the distance between the Afghan government and citizens, he said

Wardak

NATO forces kill 11 militants, detain 20 in Afghanistan
16.09.08. South Asia News.

General: far more US troops needed in Afghanistan
16.09.08. AP. The senior U.S. general (Gen. David McKiernan) in Afghanistan said Tuesday he is fighting the war with too few ground troops, and that even the reinforcements President Bush announced last week are insufficient. He said the shortage compels him to use more air power, at the cost of higher civilian casualties.

Gates and Mullen signal US concern at Afghan violence
17.09.08. Financial times. The US's two most senior defence officials made separate visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan yesterday marking the mounting concern in Washington about extremist havens in the ungoverned border areas.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates apologizes for Afghan civilian casualties
18.09.08. J. BARNES, LA Times. He pledges additional steps by the U.S. to avoid errant bombings and to compensate families of the dead more quickly.

Tirin Kot

Karzai ally killed in battle with NATO troops
18.09.08. Noor Khan, AP.

Senate Passes $612 bln Defense Spending Bill 18.09.08. Jim Wolf, Reuters / ICH. including $70 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. US wants $20bn to fund Afghanistan effort 19.09.08. Richard Norton-Taylor and Ian Black, Guardian. Thousands more soldiers will head for country; Allies who do not send troops should give money.

4. Afghanistan: Refugees, Women, Opium

REFUGEES

Al jazeera

Afghanistan's refugee challenge
12.08.08. Aunohita Mojumdar, al jazeera. With five million refugees repatriated since 2001 and three million still harboured mainly in Pakistan and Iran, Afghanistan continues to face formidable challenges in addressing the needs of its refugee population.

AFGHANISTAN: REMEMBERING AFGHAN REFUGEES
11.09.08. M. Ashraf Haidari, eurasianet. the international commitment to Afghanistan seems to have lost traction. One way that Americans can honor the September 11 victims is by keeping Afghan reconstruction efforts on course, and doing their part to ensure that millions of Afghan refugees feel secure enough to return home.


FAMINE

Photo Chris Sands

Good security, but empty stomachs
28.08.08. the national.ae. For villagers across the central province of Bamiyan, life is a constant battle for survival.

Afghanistan faces humanitarian crisis -UK's Oxfam
30.08.08. Reuters / Wired. Afghanistan needs urgent help to avert a humanitarian crisis this winter, with millions facing some of the worst conditions for more than 20 years, [Oxfam] said on Saturday. / Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world with more than half of the population living below the poverty line and millions of Afghans facing constant food shortages. / About 1,000 people died in the last, exceptionally severe winter marked by bitter cold and heavy snowfall.

Disaster in Afghanistan
O1.09.08. John W. Warnock, Global Research, ca. .. The focus of the mass media is almost entirely on the military activities of the Canadian and NATO forces. There is absolutely no coverage of political developments. The news on the economy is limited to the state of the poppy industry. This is no accident. The North American media, including the CBC, has strongly supported the U.S./NATO strategy and the administration of President Hamid Karzai. Contrary to the mainstream message, things are not going well. Topics include: Rise in civilian casualties; The approaching famine; What is happening to womens rights? Change of regime in Afghanistan; Canadian government stresses militarism;

War and Drought Threaten Afghan Food Supply
18.09.08. CARLOTTA GALL, NY Times. A pitiable harvest this year has left small farmers all over central and northern Afghanistan facing hunger, and aid officials are warning of an acute food shortage this winter for nine million Afghans, more than a quarter of the population.


WOMEN AND CHILDREN

Malalai Joya Wikimedia

An Afghan Woman Who Stands Up to the Warlords
18,08.08. Farooq Sulehria, counterpunch. Afghanistan lives in the fear of the US-sponsored war lords. These hated warlords are not scared by the Taliban-monster raising its head in the south. Ironically, they live in the fear of an unarmed girl in her late twenties: Malalai Joya. [interview with Malalai Joya]

Taking Stock: Afghan Women and Girls
4 reports

Afghan Women Behind Closed Doors
28.08.08. ANN JONES, Tomgram. Now, a promised new American surge in Afghanistan threatens to be too much, too late. Bent on victory again, Americans are easily manipulated by false information to call in air strikes and wipe out whole villages -- men, women, and children -- even with no enemy in sight. / You don't see women among the protesters because they are at home behind closed doors, confined, just as they were before the American "liberation."

Afghanistan's opium crop sowing misery for women
30.08.08., chron com. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said Afghanistan now produces about 93 percent of the world's opium, yielding an estimated $3 billion a year. / The UNODC statistics also indicate the amount of opium cultivated here has increased every year since 2001, when the U.S. military first deposed the Taliban. [stories of women]

Self-Immolation On The Rise Among Women
09.09.08. IRIN. Human Security Report Project. EXCERPT: "Over the past six months, at least 47 self-immolation cases have been recorded by Herat city hospital alone, of whom seven were saved but 40 died.

Rape

Afghanistan's Epidemic of Child Rape
01.09.08. life Afghanistan. Child rape is on the rise in Afghanistan's northern provinces, part of a general increase in crime that is largely overshadowed by an equally disturbing spread of insurgency.

Facing Up to Rape in Afghanistan
11.09.08. Washington Post. Rape is an endemic problem in Afghanistan. Whether women are forced into arranged marriages as child brides, or attacked by family members or local warlords, they are often held responsible for their own victimization. / Zarghuna, who ran the BBC's Afghan Women's Hour for three years, has spoken to dozens of abused women and is currently writing a book about women in Afghanistan. Here, she tells the story of the family of one rape victim and their search for justice.

Trafficking

Rise in Trafficking Facts in Afghanistan
17.09.08. trendaz.


OPIUM

Report

Afghanistan Opium Survey, 2008
August 2008. Relief Web. "The total opium cultivation in 2008 in Afghanistan is estimated at 157,000 hectares (ha), a19% reduction compared to 2007.

General

Karzai 'protecting drug lords'
24.07.08. AlJazeera.net/uruknet. Hillary Mann Leverett, a former US National Security Council official for Afghanistan told Al Jazeera that the US knew that government ministers in Afghanistan, including the minister of defence in 2002, were involved in drug trafficking. .. / She added that the US government chose to work with them in an attempt to stop Afghanistan becoming a haven for al-Qaeda.

Leader denies Afghanistan shields drug trade
25.07.08. radio Australia

from BBC

Bad weather, prices drive down Afghan drug crop
26.08.08. wired. Opium production dropped in Afghanistan this year for the first time since 2001, the United Nations said on Tuesday, but that may have more to do with the weather than international efforts to cut the drug crop.

Afghan harvest
28.08.08. financial times. The Afghan economy is still almost entirely dependent on narcotics revenue and aid. The US-led Nato mission is not winning against the Taliban. And this graveyard of empires is once again in danger of failing as a state and being overrun by insurgents sustained by almost limitless drugs funds / The US and Nato's reliance on air power is killing too many civilians.

Despite Slight Decrease, Afghanistan Opium Production Near Record High
29.08.08. csdp. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime recently released the executive summary of its annual Afghanistan Opium Survey. The UN's spin: land area devoted to opium production in Afghanistan dropped by about one-fifth from the year before, a dramatic decrease. The rest of the story: 2008's estimated opium crop was the second largest in Afghan history.

AFGHANISTAN'S POPPY FIELDS
29.08.08. Scott Deveau , Canwest News Service / INL. Drugs and the insurgency feed each other so they must be fought together if the western forces are going to succeed, officials say

The Real Drug Lords
30.08.08. William Blum, revolution radio. A brief history of CIA involvement in the Drug Trade. France, SE Asia, Indochina, Australia, Panama, Central America, Afghanistan, Haiti.

1980s to early 1990s, AFGHANISTAN: ClA-supported Moujahedeen rebels engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting against the Soviet-supported govemment and its plans to reform the very backward Afghan society. The Agencys principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading druglords and leading heroin refiner. CIA supplied trucks and mules, which had carried arms into Afghanistan, were used to transport opium to laboratories along the Afghan Pakistan border. The output provided up to one half of the heroin used annually in the United States and three-quarters of that used in Western Europe. US officials admitted in 1990 that they had failed to investigate or take action against the drug operabon because of a desire not to offend their Pakistani and Afghan allies. In 1993, an official of the DEA called Afghanistan the new Colombia of the drug world.

Video
Afghans resorting to heroin (al jazeera)

Poppy fields, Hampshire

UK produces more opium than 24 of Afghanistan's 35 provinces
02.09.08. bluelight. According to Dr. Liam Fox, Shadow Defence Secretary, in 2007 the UK was the 11th largest producer of opium poppy. / the UK ranks an astonishing 11th place in the amount of opium poppy production in 2007. Figures released by the U.S. State Department show that in 2007 the UK grew more opium poppy than Pakistan.'

Top Afghan Anti-Drugs Judge Murdered
04.09.08. afghan conflict monitor. Gunmen shot dead Alim Hanif, chief judge of the Central Narcotics Tribunal appeals court, soon after he left home to go to work.

Accused Afghan Drug Lord Goes on Trial in New York
10.09.08. albertbenjaminhoward. Jury selection began in the case of Bashir Noorzai, 47, a former tribal leader suspected of smuggling more than $50 million worth of heroin into the United States and Europe. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Failed Afghan drug policy harming us, says Iran
11.09.08. J. Borger, Guardian. Heroin addiction on rise, Tehran official warns Britain points to decrease in land used for cultivation. ran's deputy foreign minister, Mehdi Safari, made the complaint at the end of a three-day visit to Britain, after talks with the foreign secretary, David Miliband, and other Foreign Office and Downing Street officials, in an attempt to improve relations. One of the few areas of cooperation between Iran and Britain is counter-narcotics, but Safari expressed frustration at what the Iranian government sees as a lack of progress. / "Unfortunately the situation in Afghanistan every day is getting worse and worse. If you compare it to five or six years ago, it is more than gloomy," Safari told the Guardian.

India on US` 20 major illicit drug transit/producers list
17.09.08. asia news. The US has placed India and 19 other nations on a list of major drug transit or major illicit drug producing countries while noting New Delhis strong track record of regulating its licit opium production. / Pakistan, Afghanistan and Burma also figured among the countries so identified for fiscal year 2009 in a report sent to Congress Tuesday by President George Bush under Foreign Relations Authorisation Act 2003.

5. Pakistan

REPORTS

"Pakistan-U.S. Relations,"
updated August 25, 2008 (pdf)

Securing Pakistans Tribal Belt
Daniel Markey, Council on Foreign Relations Special Report no. 36,
July-August 2008. (pdf)

comment on this report

17.09.08, G. Asgar Mitha, counterurrents). The result of an offensive by either Pakistans military or US/ NATO would be to push the insurgents from FATA into other areas of Pakistan thus sacrificing its national security but ensuring security for US in Afghanistan. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda will have no difficulty in finding shelter and support in Pakistans rural and urban areas. The net effect may be anarchy or at the worse a civil war requiring the army to use firepower against their own people.


GENERAL

Pentagon brass meet secretly with Pakistanis: US coalition 28.08.08. AP / ICH. With violence worsening in Afghanistan and Pakistan, top U.S. military officers conducted a secret strategy session with commanders from Islamabad on an aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean. / The meeting aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln was the latest of several between Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and General Ashfaq Kayani, chief of staff of the Pakistani army. (Also attended: Gen. David Petraeus, Adm. Eric T. Olson, Gen. David McKiernan, NATO's commander in Afghanistan and Rear Adm. Michael LeFever, American military liaison in Pakistan.) Afghanistan's war has a new battlefield 06.09.08. SYED SALEEM SHAHZAD, asia times. Barely a week after a meeting on the US aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Indian Ocean American special forces carried out two attacks inside Pakistan.

Pakistan: "The Taliban's Godfather"?
31.08.08. National Security Archive/Global Research. Documents Detail Years of Pakistani Support for Taliban, Extremists

Video
Bordering on Chaos: Pakistan's porous state lines (03.09.08. James Bays, al jazeera video)

Poll: US seeking to grab Pak nukes
04.09.08. presstv / ICH. Many people believe that the United States is wreaking mayhem in Pakistan to take control of its nuclear arsenal, a new poll indicates.

Three judges reappointed to Pakistan high court
05.09.08. The Jurist.

Nato pledge over cross-border raids
11.09.08. The Press Association
Nato troops in Afghanistan will not launch raids into Pakistan, an alliance spokesman said. /.. The United States maintains a counterterrorism force of several thousand in Afghanistan operating outside the Nato mission.

Zardari is the New Musharraf
15.09.08. Eric S. Margolis, khaleej times / ICH. The US has been in a bizarre state of semi-war against its 'ally' Pakistan for months, launching covert ground and air raids into its territory while claiming to be a close ally of Islamabad in the so-called war on terror. This week, it was revealed that President George Bush has given the Pentagon the green light to launch major ground attacks inside Pakistan's tribal territory.


REFUGEES

Al jazeera

Refugee crisis brews in Pakistan
17.08.08. Kamran Rehmat , aljazeera. News of clashes in Pakistan's tribal areas and the fate of thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting have been overshadowed by the country's focus on Islamabad's growing power struggle.

Pakistani Push in Tribal Areas Triggers a Flood of Refugees
27.08.08. Candace Rondeaux, Washington post. An estimated 200,000 people from the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan have been displaced since the Pakistani army launched the Bajaur operation early this month in response to growing U.S. pressure to take action against the Taliban in the region, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. / Local officials say the flood of refugees into northwestern and central Pakistan has overwhelmed cities such as Peshawar. And as the army began to push into the tribal area of Kurram last week, government officials in cities as far away as Karachi were bracing for more waves of people. / The political and economic fallout from Pakistan's push against the Taliban and al-Qaeda has widened into a major humanitarian crisis, analysts and local officials here say.

Cease-fire by Pakistan in attacks on militants
31.08.08. Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah, IHT. The Pakistani military, which has been criticized by Washington for not pushing hard enough against Taliban militants, has used jet fighters and helicopter gunships in the past three weeks to strike at insurgents who pour over the border to attack American forces in Afghanistan. .. / But as a result of the air campaign, more than 200,000 civilians have fled their homes, according to the World Health Organization and Unicef, which are providing assistance in the area. Many of the refugees, who are now squatting in makeshift camps or bunking with extended families, are angry at the deaths of relatives and the destruction of property. More than 40,000 people from Bajaur are now refugees in Afghanistan, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

Thousands displaced by Pakistans war on terror
03.09.08. gulf times / INL. As many as 300,000 people have fled from their homes in a matter of weeks. Some are staying with friends and family in safer areas, but many are relying on temporary camps and assistance from NGOs and the government.

AP Photo/Sherin Zada

Pakistan's counter-insurgency quandary
11.09.08. Barbara Plett, BBC. More than 2,000 people have fled to the camp to escape an army bombing campaign against the local Taleban in the Bajaur tribal area near the Afghan border. More civilians were killed than militants, they say.

VIDEO
Pakistan's refugees on the border of chaos (al jazeera, 04.09.08)


DEAD IN PAKISTAN

[ NB: Most suicide attacks have been omitted ]

Fighting flares along Pakistan border
27.08.08. MSNBC. Security forces repel Taliban attack, claim 49 insurgents killed.

Around 150 Killed in Fighting Along Afghan-Pakistan Border
27.08.08. anti-war. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, fighting continued in the restive Bajaur agency. Pakistani military spokesman said 30 were killed in a shelling after militants holed up in a health center.

Roadside bombing, clashes leave 31 dead in Pakistan (2nd Roundup)
28.08.08. monsters and critics. Islamabad - Government forces killed 23 militants in three separate clashes while eight people, most of them policemen, were killed Thursday in a roadside bombing in Pakistan's restive North- West Frontier Province (NWFP), officials said.

Swat Valley

Two-dozen "Taliban militants" killed in Pakistan's Swat valley
-.08.08. RTT / ICH. An aerial raid targeting Maulana Fazlullah, who has been leading an Islamic insurgency in Pakistan's Swat region for the enforcement of Taliban rule since last year, resulted in the death of two dozens of pro-Taliban militants, reports quoting security officials said.

S. Waziristan

Missile strike kills five near Afghan border
30.08.08. AP. PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) At least five people were killed when a missile fired from Afghanistan hit a suspected rebel hideout Saturday in Pakistan's South Waziristan / There has been a series of missile attacks on militants in Pakistan in recent weeks attributed to US-led coalition forces or CIA drones based in Afghanistan.
And/or?
Six dead in Pakistan missile strike
01.09.08. news com.au. A MISSILE fired from an unmanned aircraft hit a house in a restive Pakistani tribal area overnight, killing six people including a woman and a young girl, residents and officials said.

Kurram Agency

Kurram clashes claim 95 lives
31.08.08. int news. In the last one and half years of tribal clashes in Kurram Agency 1500 people have been killed and about 5000 injured.

Bajaur

10 killed in shelling in Pakistan's tribal area
01.09.08. xinhuanet. 10 killed in shelling in Pakistan's tribal area
The 10 people, mostly women and children belonging to the same family were killed when a shell fired by security forces against the militants landed at their house at the town of Enayat Qila in Bajaur tribal region, according to NNI.

Peuchar, Swat Valley

US-led forces alleged involved in Pakistan attack
02.09.08. Ishtiaq Mahsud, AP / anti-war. US-led forces alleged involved in Pakistan attack; at least 15 said killed
and/or
15 militants among 25 killed in Swat
03.09.08. the int. news. Fifteen militants, including a leading commander, and 10 civilians were killed and 25 others injured in heavy bombardment carried out by jet fighters on the Taliban strongholds in Peuchar area of the troubled Swat Valley on Tuesday.


FIRST US INVASION OF PAKISTAN (03.09.07)

"From this day forward any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." George Bush (20.11.01)

U.S., Afghan Troops Kill 20 in Pakistan
03.09.08. Washington Post. At least 20 people were killed in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday after U.S. and Afghan troops crossed from Afghanistan to pursue Taliban insurgents in an early morning attack that marked the first known instance in which U.S. forces conducted an operation on Pakistani soil since the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan began, according to witnesses and a Pakistani official. / But the arrival of three U.S. helicopters in the village of Musa Nika, clearly inside the Pakistani border, drew a sharp response from Pakistani officials. Hafiz Wazir says this assault included women and children. Anti-war.com has links to stories of officials who confirmed the attack.

American Forces Attack Militants on Pakistani Soil
03.09.08. NY Times. But the commando raid by the American forces signaled what top American officials said could be the opening salvo in a much broader campaign by Special Operations forces against the Taliban and Al Qaeda inside Pakistan, a secret plan that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has been advocating for months within President Bushs war council. / While most American troops in Afghanistan operate under a NATO chain of command, the Special Operations forces who carried out this attack answer only to American commanders. .. / There were conflicting reports about civilian casualties in the operation. American officials said one child had been killed in the strike; a Pakistani military spokesman said the American troops had opened fire on villagers, killing seven people. .. / The Pakistani official said that American military officers in the field had become increasingly vocal about the need for unilateral strikes inside the tribal areas, but that their intelligence [sic] about the location of militant leaders was no better than it had been in the past.


U.S. Commandos Hit Pakistan; Islamabad Howls
04.09.08. Noah Shachtman, Reuters. U.S. and Afghan special operations troops attacked militants in Pakistan yesterday -- "the first publicly acknowledged case of United States forces conducting a ground raid on Pakistani soil," according to the New York Times. / Dawn, the Pakistani paper, claims "20 people, most of them women and children, were killed" in the assault.

Civilians killed in Pakistan attack
04.09.08, aljazeera.

Pakistanis furious over U.S.-led border raid
04.09.08. Reuters / ICH. "We will not compromise on any violation of our sovereignty," [foreign minister] Qureshi told the National Assembly.

Pakistan Summons U.S. Ambassador Over Raid on Village
04.09.08. Bloomberg. Pakistan's military said seven``innocent civilians'' were killed in the raid on Angoor Adda in South Waziristan in the tribal area bordering Afghanistan.

Pakistani parliament condemns US-led attack
04.09.08. isp / ICH. Parliament passed resolutions Thursday condemning an American-led attack in Pakistani territory after the government summoned the U.S. ambassador to protest the unusually bold raid that officials say killed at least 15 people.

US invade Pakistan but no complaints from the international community.
04.09.08. William Bowles, Peoples Voice. Talk about double-standards! Note that the BBC puts the US assault in single quotes and talks of an alleged cross-border raid which calls into question whether or not the US-led coalition of the willing did in fact assault, invade or otherwise use its helicopter gunships against yet another sovereign nation killing perhaps twenty people some of which are, by one report, children (US forces kill 20 in Pakistan cross-border raid). / Predictably of course, the US denies that it assaulted Pakistan. The BBC is not merely the mouthpiece for the UK state but also for the US.

U.S. special forces carried out Pakistan raid
04.09.08. Reuters. The Bush administration has not officially acknowledged any involvement in the Wednesday attack on the village of Angor Adda that killed up to 20 people, including women and children, according to Pakistani officials. / Pentagon officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the raid by special operations forces targeted suspected al Qaeda operatives and signaled a possible intensification of American efforts to disrupt militant safe havens in Pakistan.

Number variants: AFP and Press Trust of India report three children killed; Express India reports five children killed; a later AFP story reports 5 killed

US Attack Inside Pakistan Threatens Dangerous New War
05.09.08. Peter Symonds, countercurrents. A ground assault by US Special Forces troops on a Pakistani village on Wednesday threatens to expand the escalating Afghanistan war into its neighbour.

US forces 'violate' Pakistan territory with attack on Taliban
05.09.08. Telegraph / INL. American forces have conducted a raid inside Pakistan the first known foreign ground assault [read invasion] in the country against a suspected Taliban haven.


Tom Feeley (ICH) writes: Try not to laugh.

US respects Pakistan's sovereignty, always grieves loss of innocent life- White House
05.09.08. app.com,.pak / ICH. The United States respects Pakistan's sovereignty and always grieves loss of innocent life, a White House official said Friday without specifically commenting on any US-led coalition forces action on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border. "We respect their sovereignty and we support their new civilian government,"White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said.


Intel Council Warned Against Raids in Pakistan
09.09.08. Gareth Porter, anti-war. The National Intelligence Council, the U.S. intelligence community's focal point for estimating future developments, warned the George W. Bush administration last month that a decision to launch commando raids by U.S. troops against al-Qaeda-related targets in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier region would carry a high risk of further destabilizing the Pakistani military and government, according to sources familiar with the intelligence community's response to the issue.

Quagmire, Phase 2: The Invasion of Pakistan
11.09.08. William Pfaff, truthdigg. The United States has just invaded Cambodia. The name of Cambodia this time is Pakistan, but otherwise its the same story as in Indochina in 1970.

The Gloves Have Come Off - US Attack in Pakistan No Isolated Incident
14.09.08. anti-war.. An early morning attack on a South Waziristan village by US helicopters and ground forces on September 3rd may have been unprecedented, but according to a report by National Public Radio, this was no isolated incident but rather phase one of a three stage plan to escalate attacks in Pakistani tribal regions aimed at targeting al-Qaeda safe havens. NPR quotes one source as saying the gloves have come off./ Though neither the Pentagon nor the Bush Administration would discuss the report, it is in keeping with other reports received in the past few days regarding a secret directive by the Bush Administration which came to light last week. The directive came entirely without approval from Pakistans recently elected civilian government or its military, according to officials.

N. Waziristan [Kills 4 / 6]

Four killed in suspected U.S. drone attack in Pakistan
04.09.08. Reuters.

As Pakistan Election Looms, Fresh US Strike in Waziristan Kills Six Civilians
04.09.08. anti-war.

Drone planes air strike kills six in North Waziristan
05.09.08. the news.pk./ICH. At least six more people have been killed and four injured as another missile strike was lodged by spy plane in Muhammad Khale area of Miramshah on Thursday.

anti-government and anti-U.S slogans in Karachi,

Photo REUTERS/MOHSIN RAZA

Rallies condemn US attacks on Pak soil
06.09.08. the int.news. The protestors, led by Saad Khan, gathered near Bilal Mosque in Hayatabad. .. Saad Khan said the US commandos had killed innocent women and children but the rulers had failed to protect the sovereignty of Pakistan. /Though neither the Pentagon nor the Bush Administration would discuss the report, it is in keeping with other reports received in the past few days regarding a secret directive by the Bush Administration which came to light last week. The directive came entirely without approval from Pakistans recently elected civilian government or its military, according to officials.

Waziristan

Civilian deaths in Pakistan attack
08.09.08. aljazeera. At least 17 people have been killed in a missile attack on a Pakistani village near the Afghan border, witnesses and officials say. A religious school founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a Taliban leader, was the apparent target of the attack on Monday near Miranshah, capital of North Waziristan. Witnesses said two unmanned aircraft fired six missiles at the school and nearby houses. / Doctors reported that more than 20 wounded - mostly women and children - were taken to Miranshah's main hospital. / Monday's raid is the fourth suspected cross-border strike in the rugged tribal region by the US in almost a week.

US Attack Kills Several in Pakistan
08.09.08. J. Perlez and P. Zubair Shah, NYT / Truthout: "Five missiles fired from an American pilotless drone aircraft Monday hit a large compound in North Waziristan belonging to one of Pakistans most prominent Taliban leaders, a Pakistani intelligence official and a local resident said. The missile attack at about 10:20 Monday morning killed nine people, including two children, and injured up to 18, according to the account from the intelligence official.

(Pakistan Pretends to Fight Taliban, for U.S. Cash
08.09.08. Noah Shachtman, wired. Perhaps, despite all the evidence, you still believe that Pakistan is an authentic American ally, against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Dexter Filkins' remarkable story in this week's New York Times Magazine ought to cure you of any such notions )

Missiles stir Pakistani fury at US 'invaders'
09.09.08. Australian news/ICH. The attack .. was the fourth such assault in less than a week. / Pakistani officials say such attacks are counter-productive in the war against terror, since they provoke widespread outrage and increase support for the militants among local people. / Despite Pakistani outrage, Washington is reportedly determined to press ahead with cross-border raids targeting militants.

Intel Council Warned Against Raids in Pakistan
09.09.08. Gareth Porter, anti-war. The National Intelligence Council, the U.S. intelligence community's focal point for estimating future developments, warned the George W. Bush administration last month that a decision to launch commando raids by U.S. troops against al-Qaeda-related targets in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier region would carry a high risk of further destabilizing the Pakistani military and government, according to sources familiar with the intelligence community's response to the issue.

Bush Said to Give Orders Allowing Raids in Pakistan 10.09.08. E. Schmitt and M. Mazzetti, NY Times. President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials. Pakistan Did Not Agree to New Rules, Officials Say 12.09.08. Karen DeYoung, Washington Post. New rules of engagement authorizing U.S. ground attacks inside Pakistan, signed by President Bush in July, were not agreed to by that country's civilian government or its military, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials. / ... Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said at a news conference in Kabul that he approved of the new U.S. strategy, citing the need to "remove and destroy" insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan. But NATO said it had no intention of sending any of the 48,000 troops under its command in Afghanistan across the border. US officials evade queries on Bush's approval to Pak raids 13.09.08. Ptinews. Amid strong reactions from Pakistan to US-led coalition forces' raids against militants on its soil, the Bush administration has refused to comment on the issue, evading queries on the reported go-ahead given to American special forces by President George Bush./ ..Asked whether the forces operating in Afghanistan had the powers to launch cross-border attacks, Defence Secretary Robert Gates refused to address the issue but said the commanders had the authority to protect their troops in Afghanistan. / "I would just say that our commanders, I think, have the authorities that they need to protect our troops in Afghanistan, and just leave it at that," Gates replied.

ANALYSIS-US strikes on Pakistan border may not halt al Qaeda
10.09.08. Reuters / anti-war. Renewed U.S. efforts to defeat al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban fighters based in the rugged, lawless Pakistan-Afghanistan border area may fall short because of an incomplete strategy and lack of local support.

North Waziristan: Haqqani U.S. drones kill 23 in missile attack in Pakistan 08.09.08. Reuters. Those killed included one of the several wives of Haqqani, his sister-in-law, a sister, two nieces, eight grandchildren and a male relative. A son-in-law of Haqqani was wounded. At Least 23 Killed as US Drones Attack School in North Waziristan 08.09.08. Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com.uruknet. This morning two US Predator Drones attacked a small village two miles north of Miramshah in Pakistans North Waziristan Agency, killing at least 23 and wounding 20 others. Ten of those killed were said by officials to be militants although a previous official was quoted as saying "no foreign militant was killed" in the strike. At least four women and two children were reported among the dead and most of the wounded are also reported to be women and children... U.S. Slaughters Family of Former CIA Asset in Waziristan 08.09.08. Kurt Nimmo, info wars / legitgov. It doesnt pay to have worked with the CIA. Jalaluddin Haqqani apparently found that out after missiles fired by U.S. drones killed several of his wives, his sister-in-law, a sister, two nieces, eight grandchildren and a male relative in North Waziristan. Haqqani is described as a Taliban leader with close ties to the dead Osama bin Laden... Haqqanis links with bin Laden go back to the late 1980s." In other words, Haqqani was a CIA and Pakistan ISI asset. US's 'good' war hits Pakistan hard 10.09.08. Syed Saleem Shahza, Asia Times. Seven years after the United States led the invasion of Afghanistan in search of al-Qaeda and to topple the Taliban government, US President George W Bush has added neighboring Pakistan to the list of countries that are "a major 'war on terror' battleground", while also announcing a "quiet surge" of troops into Afghanistan. Subtitle: In the line of US fire: That the US set its sights on the Haqqanis is perplexing, and - given the failed outcome - indicates that it struck with inadequate, if any, input from Pakistan.

Swat Valley

10 Militants Killed In Northwest Pakistan Fighting Army
09.08.08. nasdaq/ICH. Fighting between soldiers and militants erupted in the Kabal district of Swat valley late Sunday and continued until dawn, a military spokesman said. / "We have confirmation that at least 10 militants were killed," spokesman Col. Nadeem Anwar said. / .. The clashes erupted after militants hurled a grenade into a group of soldiers on a golf course in Kabal, wounding two soldiers.

US to focus on Pakistani border
10.09.08. BBC. The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff has called for a new strategy in Afghanistan which will deny militants bases across the border in Pakistan. Adm. Mike Mullen said he had asked for "a new, more comprehensive military strategy for the region that covers both sides of that border".

N. Waziristan

Officials: Al-Qaida operatives killed in Pakistan
10.09.08. Ishtiaq Mahsud, AP. Two top al-Qaida operatives were among four foreign militants killed in a suspected U.S. missile strike in Pakistan's volatile northwest, Pakistani intelligence officials said Wednesday.

End to loss of life, property in tribal areas demanded 10.09.08. InI news. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has asked the government to take meaningful steps to prevent loss of life and property in the tribal areas in raids by US-led coalition forces operating in Afghanistan. Pakistan's sovereignty, territorial integrity to be defended at all cost: Gen Ashfaq Kayani 10.09.08. AP. "There is no question of any agreement or understanding with the Coalition Forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border", says an ISPR press release issued here . Kayani warns US to keep its troops out 11.09.08. Iftikhar A. Khan, dawn. Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has rejected US claims that the rules of engagement gave the coalition forces in Afghanistan the right to enter Pakistan and declared that the countrys sovereignty and territorial integrity will be defended at all costs. Pakistan condemns US attack 11.09.08. aljazeera. General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani warned that the cross-border raid into the South Waziristan region could backfire, stoking militancy in a region Washington regards as a haven for al-Qaeda and the Taliban. / "Falling for short-term gains while ignoring our long-term interest is not the right way forward," he said on Wednesday. Pakistan capable to tackle terrorism within its boundaries: PM 12.09.08. InI news. He [Yousuf Raza Gilani] said Pakistan enjoys amicable relations with all the countries and we will be able to bring the UK and US round to the fact that we are fully capable of tacking the scourge of terrorism ourselves. Pakistan could end cooperation in war on terror 12.09.08. Paul Alexander, AP. Opposition says Pakistan could end cooperation in war on terror after cross-border US raids

South Waziristan

Pakistani fury as suspected US drone attack kills 12
12.09.08. Aislinn Simpson, Telegraph A missile from a suspected US drone has killed 12 people in the lawless Pakistani tribal area linked to al-Qaeda, fuelling angry protests and threats of a withdraw from George W Bush's 'war on terror'.

Rashkai area of Bajaur district (Nwest)

36 militants, six troops killed in fierce clashes in Pakistan
-.09.08. nasdaq. Fierce clashes between security forces and militants in north-west Pakistan resulted in the death of 36 militants and six troops Wednesday, reports quoting an army spokesman said.

Pakistani forces kill up to 100 militants
11.09.08. Reuters, MSNBC/ ICH. Pakistani security forces killed up to 100 al-Qaida-linked militants in fierce clashes in a volatile tribal region near the Afghan border on Thursday, a security official said.

Miramshah, N. Waziristan

Suspected missile strike kills 8 in Pakistan
12.09.08. AP. Two intelligence officials told The Associated press that the missiles struck a home near Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region, before dawn.

&

Latest US Drone Strike in North Waziristan Kills at Least 14
12.09.08. Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com/uruk. Pakistans military has confirmed that at about 5:30 AM this morning a US drone struck a home and a former government school near the North Waziristan town of Miramshah. The strike killed at least 14 people and injured 12 others.

Another US Raid Kills 12 in Pakistan
12.09.08. Pir Zubair Shah and Alan Cowell, NY Times / truthout: "As the American campaign against suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Pakistan's tribal areas seemed to intensify on Friday, two missiles fired from a remotely piloted American aircraft killed 12 people on Friday in an attack on a village compound in North Waziristan, according to a local journalist and television reports."

Any U.S. blunder in Pakistan could aid al Qaeda
12.09.08. Reuters

Tribesmen threaten to scrap deal if US strikes continue
12.09.08. int news.

Army ordered to hit back
12.09.08. Afzal Khan/uruk. The Pakistan Army has been ordered to retaliate against any action by foreign troops inside the country, army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said on Friday.

Pakistan could end cooperation in war on terror
12.09.08. Paul Alexander, AP, uruk. The furor intensified Friday over Washington's decision to pursue Islamic militant targets inside Pakistan, with opposition lawmakers threatening the country could pull out of the war on terror if the U.S. refuses to respect its borders. About 100 protesters burned American flags after the latest missile attack left at least 12 people dead in the North Waziristan region of the troubled northwest. Residents said they heard the sound of propeller-driven U.S. Predator drones circling overhead before the explosions. President Bush secretly approved more aggressive cross-border operations in July, current and former American officials have told The Associated Press...



Afghanistan: Pakistan fury at US cross-border attacks
14.09.08. Raymond Whitaker, Independent. Raids by US forces based in neighbouring Afghanistan risk undermining Islamabad's new civilian government.

U.S. COMMANDER CALLS FOR OPERATIONS IN PAKISTANI TRIBAL REGIONS 12.09.08. eurasianet. The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Admiral Michael Mullen, has announced that he is commissioning a new military strategy that will cover both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border. President Bush authorises US ground operations inside Pakistan 12.09.08. Peter Symonds, global research.ca. In a reckless and criminal attempt to suppress the growing insurgency in Afghanistan, President Bush has secretly authorised the use of US Special Forces against targets inside the border areas of Pakistan. The first publicly acknowledged operation took place on September 3 when helicopter-borne soldiers landed at a village in South Waziristan, attacked three compounds and slaughtered at least 20 people. Bush secret order to send special forces into Pakistan 12.09.08. Guardian / ICH. Simon Tisdall. The unprecedented executive order, signed by Bush in July after an intense internal administration debate, comes amid western concern that the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and its al-Qaida backers based in "safe havens" in western Pakistan's tribal belt is being lost; White House seeks British backing US officials evade queries on Bush's approval to Pak raids 13.09.08. press trust of India/legitgov. Amid strong reactions from Pakistan to US-led coalition forces' raids against militants on its soil, the Bush administration has refused to comment on the issue, evading queries on the reported go-ahead given to American special forces by President George Bush. / Asked whether the forces operating in Afghanistan had the powers to launch cross-border attacks, Defence Secretary Robert Gates refused to address the issue but said the commanders had the authority to protect their troops in Afghanistan. "I would just say that our commanders, I think, have the authorities that they need to protect our troops in Afghanistan, and just leave it at that," Gates replied. .. / The Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto also parried questions on the President's secret approval to the cross-border raids inside Pakistan. Pakistan army ordered to hit back at U.S. forces 13.09.08 tehran times. Army Spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas confirmed the orders in a brief interview with Geo News on late Thursday night. Editorial: US strategy: excessive and unnecessary 13.09.08. dailytimes.pk. Moscow eyes Afghanistan in fear 13.09.08. Dmitry Shlapentokh, asia times. And while Russia is convinced it can withstand considerable pressure from the West, this is not the case with the danger posed by Afghanistan.

Miran Shah, N. Waziristan

US persists with attacks despite Pakistani protests
13.09.08. Hindu. Pakistani media reported at least ,12 people were killed in the attack near the North Waziristan town of Miranshah. The identities of the dead are unclear. Some reports said several women and children died in the strike, while others said most of the dead were militants.

Eight dead in missile strike
13.09.08. Scotsman. Two intelligence officials said the missiles struck a home near Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region, before dawn today.

Baujaur

[Bajur is a suspected hide-out of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and one of the regions the U.S. fears is a safe haven for al-Qaida and Taliban fighters involved in attacks in Afghanistan. AP, 15.09]

?85 terrorists killed in Bajaur offensive
13.09.08. Daily Times. At least 85 heavily armed terrorists were killed in an air and land offensive in Bajaur Agency on Friday, a Frontier Corps (FC) statement said. In an encounter with terrorists at Inayat Qila, the troops backed by air, killed 60 terrorists and destroyed 16 vehicles, said the press statement issued by the Media Cell at the FC headquarters.

Pakistan military kills 30 militants in Bajaur fighting (2nd Roundup)
14.09.08. South Asia News/monsters and Critics.

&

Official: Women among 32 dead in Pakistan clashes
15.09.08. Zarar Khan, AP. The attack Sunday [14 Sept.?] came in the latest round of a bloody military offensive that has reportedly killed hundreds of people in recent weeks in the Bajur tribal region bordering Afghanistan. / at least three (killed) were women.

Pakistani troops, jets target border militants
15.09.08. AP. Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships and fighter jets killed 24 militants Monday, an official said, in an operation praised by U.S. commanders worried about Taliban sanctuaries near the Afghan border.

Kurram

One killed, five injured in Kurram clashes
15.09.08. daily times/pk.

No al-Qaeda or Taliban leader was killed in recent US strikes 15.09.08. the int. news/anti-war.

Pakistani tribal chiefs threaten to join Taliban
15.09.08. Saeed Shah, The Guardian. US warned of uprising if armed incursions continue; New counter-terror policy backfires on Washington. Pakistani tribesmen representing half a million people vowed to switch sides and join the Taliban if Washington does not stop cross-border attacks by its forces from Afghanistan.

Waziristan

Pakistan sends fighter jets to tribal region
13.09.08. Xihuanet. Pakistan Air Force (PAF) on Saturday sent its fighter aircraft to the northwestern tribal region as the U.S.-led coalition forces are increasing cross-border raids, local media reported. The fighter jets conducted flights in North Waziristan tribal region, News Network International (NNI) news agency said.

US faces the F-16s it supplied Pakistan
14.09.08. times of India. The United States is suddenly faced with the uncomfortable scenario of confronting the very same weapons and military hardware, including F-16 fighter jets, it has armed Pakistan with for decades.

General Kiyanis Handicap
15.09.08. the star / ICH. Much has been made of the recent statement by General Kiyani about stopping US attacks on Pakistani territory. Yesterday it was reported PAF jets have started flights over North Waziristan suggesting Pakistan was ready to strike back at US forces. But is it really the case? If we look back at the recent F-16 deal, it appears there is no such possibility and these F-16 flights are just for public consumption.

When a big power acts with impunity?
15.09.08. M. Khor, the star. The increasing frequency of missile attacks on villages in Pakistan and the continuing high civilian casualties of attacks in Afghan villages call into question the lack of accountability of American forces in the two countries.

Raids into Pakistan: What U.S. authority?
15.09.08. Howard LaFranchi, CSM/anti-war / The new orders reflect flagging confidence in Pakistan's civilian and military leadership to address the problem of the Taliban and terrorist havens, which are thought to harbor Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. For seven years the Bush administration focused its Pakistan policy on President Pervez Musharraf and his assurances that he was battling the militant sanctuaries. But Mr. Musharraf was forced to resign last month after suffering a crushing electoral defeat earlier in the year, and the US appears to have little confidence in the new civilian and military leaders. / According to intelligence sources, officials from the National Intelligence Council recently briefed the Bush administration's national security team on the potentially dire consequences of US actions that could destabilize the government of a country with nuclear weapons.

" Could begin?" HAS Begun

US Army general warns Pakistan of new war
15.09.08. dailytimes.pk. A new war could begin if Pakistan does not step up its fight against terrorists, Maj Gen Jeffrey J Schloesser of the US Army said in a report published in an American weekly on Sunday.

When a big power acts with impunity?
15.09.08. M. Khor, the star. The increasing frequency of missile attacks on villages in Pakistan and the continuing high civilian casualties of attacks in Afghan villages call into question the lack of accountability of American forces in the two countries.

Raids into Pakistan: What U.S. authority?
15.09.08. Howard LaFranchi, CSM/anti-war / The new orders reflect flagging confidence in Pakistan's civilian and military leadership to address the problem of the Taliban and terrorist havens, which are thought to harbor Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. For seven years the Bush administration focused its Pakistan policy on President Pervez Musharraf and his assurances that he was battling the militant sanctuaries. But Mr. Musharraf was forced to resign last month after suffering a crushing electoral defeat earlier in the year, and the US appears to have little confidence in the new civilian and military leaders. / According to intelligence sources, officials from the National Intelligence Council recently briefed the Bush administration's national security team on the potentially dire consequences of US actions that could destabilize the government of a country with nuclear weapons.

S. Waziristan

Officials: Pakistani Troops Fired on US Helicopters Trying to Cross Border
15.09.08. anti-war. Early this morning, US helicopters crossed the border into Pakistans South Waziristan Agency and attempted to land in Angor Adda, in a raid reminiscent of September 3rds unprecedented attack by US helicopters and ground forces in the same region, which killed 20 civilians.

Pakistan Says US Forces Repulsed by Military
15.09.08. Reuters/triuthout. "Firing by Pakistani troops forced two US military helicopters to turn back to Afghanistan after they crossed into Pakistani territory early on Monday, Pakistani security officials said."

US Denies Reports That Helicopters Crossed Into Pakistan
15.09.08. VOA News. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman Monday said he investigated the alleged incident and found it "did not happen." Tribal leaders in South Waziristan say Pakistani soldiers fired warning shots at the U.S. helicopters before dawn Monday.

Bajaur

64 Taliban militants killed near Afghan border:
15.09.08. ia.rediff/ICH. Pakistani security forces claimed to have killed 64 Taliban [Images] militants in an intensified operation in various parts of the troubled Bajaur tribal region near Afghan border, as the locals continued shifting to safer places.

No foreign force allowed to fight terrorism in Pakistan: Fehmida
15.09.08. Pakistan link / ICH. Acting President Dr Fehmida Mirza on Sunday reiterated the government's policy that no foreign force would be allowed to fight the war against terrorism on Pakistani soil.

Pakistan orders troops to fire on US cross-border raids
16.09.08. M. Tran, Guardian. Army official says field commanders have been told to take action against further raids launched from Afghanistan

Bajaur

Official says Pakistan fighting kills 8 militants
16.09.08. ZARAR KHAN, AP. Security forces, backed by air support, pounded suspected militant hide-outs in a Taliban stronghold in Pakistan's northwest, killing eight alleged insurgents Tuesday, an official said.

Pakistan orders troops to fire on US cross-border raids
16.09.08. M. Tran, Guardian. Army official says field commanders have been told to take action against further raids launched from Afghanistan

Pakistan bombs militants; U.S. commander arrives
16.09.08. Reuters/ICH. Pakistani aircraft bombed militant strongholds on Tuesday killing 14 insurgents and a suicide car-bomber attacked a security force camp killing three soldiers, military officials said. The violence came as the top U.S. military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, arrived in Pakistan where stepped up U.S. strikes on militants on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border have angered Islamabad and strained relations between the allies. / There were no reports of U.S. strikes in Pakistan on Tuesday and Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, said in London he did not believe the United States would carry out more raids.

Gilani Says Pakistan Will Protect Its Soil, U.S. Raids Must End
17.09.08. Khaleeq Ahmed and Paul Tighe, Bloomberg. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be safeguarded at all costs,'' the official Associated Press of Pakistan cited Gilani (Pakistan's Prime Minister) as telling U.K. Justice Secretary Jack Straw in the capital, Islamabad, yesterday. [ see NATO coalition, UK]

U.S. Military Vows to Respect Pakistani Sovereignty (Update1) 17.09.08. Khalid Qayum and Khaleeq Ahmed, Bloomberg. U.S.-Pakistani cooperation will be developed on issues that challenge the security and wellbeing of the people of both countries,'' the embassy said, citing comments by Admiral Michael G. Mullen a day after Pakistan demanded that the U.S. and NATO stop raids on its soil. Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs, spoke during a meeting with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani today in Islamabad. Pakistan defence minister terms US forces incursion blatant violations 19.09.08. mathaba. Pakistan Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar has said physical incursions into Pakistani territory by the US forces are against the initial agreements agreed between Pakistan and United States. Confidence in U.S. Statements 18.09.08. Moon of Alabama, uruknet. On 16/17 September, Admiral Mullen reiterated the U.S. commitment to respect Pakistans sovereignty. [since then,] At least five people have been killed in a suspected missile attack by a US drone on a village in north-west Pakistan, local officials say. .. / it is easy to imagine how this looks for the rest of the world. One can not trust any official U.S. voice anymore.

South Waziristan - missile strike

Suspected US missile strike kills 6 in Pakistan
16.09.08. Ishtiaq Khan, AP/uruknet. A suspected U.S. missile strike killed at least six people Wednesday, hours after the top U.S. military officer told Pakistani leaders that America respected Pakistan's sovereigntyamid a furor over American strikes into Pakistan's northwest. / Two Pakistani intelligence officials told The Associated Press that several missiles hit a compound in the South Waziristan tribal region early Wednesday evening. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak openly to the media. [sixpeople were dead and three more injured]

Pakistani Officials Report 5 Dead in Suspected US Missile Strike
17.09.08. VOA News

CIA Chief Speaks of Trying to Provoke Terrorists as Latest Drone Strike Kills Seven in South Waziristan
17.09.08. anti-war.

Pakistan Invades America --"Without Permission"
17.09.08. M. Junaid Levesque-Alam, uruknet. The U.S. State Department lodged a sharp protest over ongoing Pakistani missile strikes and ground raids today, saying the Islamic Republic was violating American sovereignty. "We will try to convince Pakistan . . . to respect [the] sovereignty of the United States -- and God willing, we will convince," State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.1

Pakistan: US did not warn of missile strike
18.09.08. Munir Ahmad, AP.

Taliban to abide by Wana peace deal
17.09.08. Iqbal Khattak, daily times, pk. / ICH. Ahmedzai Wazirs say Taliban should avenge drone attacks from US, not Pak troops

Tribesmen to fight US if incursions continue
18.09.08. Iqbal Khattak, dailytimes/pk. 3,000-strong jirga accuses Kabul of misleading US about Qaeda presence in FATA

A wild frontier
18.09.08. Economist. It will take more than American missiles to bring order to Pakistans north-western border region

Islamabad

I do not write about "suicide attacks" because I am not sure WHOSE death squad is in action. However, the Marriott Hotel explosion made my nose twich. See Index Research: The Bomb at The Marriott Hotel, Islamabad


6. Oil and Gas

Pipelines Linked to 9/11 Attacks
28.08.08. Rudo de Ruijter, mathaba. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, followed by the war in Afghanistan and the 'War on Terror' have changed the world. However, like the presumed Weapons of Mass Destruction had nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq, Osama bin Laden had nothing to do with the war in Afghanistan. The real reasons are oil, gas and pipelines around the Caspian Sea. 'Operation September 11' aimed to give a new impulse in the US conquests to gain control over foreign oil and gas. / This article is about the background of the US war against Afghanistan. It is about oil, gas and pipelines around the Caspian Sea. / To transport oil and gas from the east side of the Caspian Sea, pipelines had been planned to go through Afghanistan. Because a US company, UNOCAL, had failed to control the Afghan route, the war was prepared.


Everything you need to know about oil pipelines


The Eurasian Corridor: Pipeline Geopolitics and the New Cold War
22.08.08. MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY. Global Research. The ongoing crisis in the Caucasus is intimately related to the strategic control over energy pipeline and transportation corridors.

• War in Georgia Timeline;


• Introduction: The GUAM Summit Venue [with map 1]


• Undermining Russia;


• The US-Guam Summit


• US-Georgia War Games;


• Russias War Games in the North Caucasus;


• PIPELINE GEOPOLITICS


• The Guam Transportation Corridor (with map 2 & 3):


• Map 4: Eastern Europe. Plock on the Vistula


• The Baku Tblisi Ceyan (BTC) Pipeline [map 5]


• Pipeline Geopolitics and the Role of Israel. [Map 6: Trans-Israel Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline] Israel is now part of the Anglo-American military axis, which serves the interests of the Western oil giants in the Middle East and Central Asia. Not surprisingly, Israel has military cooperation agreements with Georgia and Azerbaijan.


• America's Silk Road Strategy: The Trans-Eurasian Security System. The Silk Road Strategy (SRS) constitutes an essential building block of US foreign policy in the post-Cold War era.


• The Kazakhstan-China Natural Gas Pipeline (KCP); Map 7.


• Competing Eurasian Strategy protected by the SCO-CSTO Military Alliance


• Full Circle: The US-NATO protected SRS Eurasian transport and energy corridors, are slated to link Central Asia to the Far East, as outlined in the Silk Road Strategy. At present, the Eastward corridors linking Central Asia to China are protected militarily by the SCO-CSTO.

The Pipeline Guardians: NATO, SCO
01.09.08. Kostis Geropoulos, Europe News / ICH. Washington has long hoped that the energy-rich Caspian region would help reduce Iran's role in the global oil market, diversify supplies away from Russia, and provide an alternative to Saudi Arabian oil. "

Fuel supply to Nato forces suspended
05.09.08. Ibrahim Shinwari, dawn.com. LANDI KOTAL, Sept 5: The government is reported to have decided to stop fuel supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan via the Torkham highway with effect from Saturday. / .. Sources said the federal government did not cite any reason for the move, but the decision was apparently taken in the wake of the US ground and missile attacks in North and South Waziristan tribal regions. [ see Transportation]

Peace Alliance, Winnepeg

Why Canada Should Leave Afghanistan
06.09.08. peace alliance Winnipeg. If you look at a map you will see that Afghanistan is the gateway to the Caspian basin, hence the US has to control this country in order to build oil and natural gas pipelines to transport these resources from the Caspian Basin to Pakistans warm water ports via Afghanistan. / The following documents shed light on key US goals in Afghanistan and elsewhere [see documents] While the Bush administration implements a war on terrorism the evidence (including mountains of official documents) amply confirms that successive US administrations have supported, abetted and harbored international terrorism. / This fact, in itself, must be suppressed because if it ever trickles down to the broader public, the legitimacy of the war on terrorism collapses like a deck of cards. In the process, the legitimacy of the main actors behind this system is threatened, so they enact new laws to protect themselves:

Global Implications of Chinas Big Investment in Iraq and Afghanistan
09.09.08. peakoil. This article assesses the significance of Chinas recently announced investments in large copper and oil development in Afghanistan and Iraq respectively, with potential significance not only for development and peace in the two war-torn nations, but also for Chinas global role and the US-China relationship. With foreign and domestic investment in both nations barely trickling in despite UN, World Bank, NATO and US efforts, the Chinese plans are highly significant.

US and NATO forces in Afghanistan "pipeline protection troops"
10.09.08. G. Montgomery. U.S. energy giants Chevron and Unocal negotiated gas and oil pipeline deals with Afghanistans Taliban. In 2001, Washington gave $40 million in aid to Taliban --until four months before 9/11. The U.S. only turned against Taliban when it gave a major pipeline deal to an Argentine consortium rather than an American one. / .. Fast forward to 2008. Today, U.S. and NATO forces are not fighting "terrorists" in Afghanistan but a loose alliance of Pashtun warrior tribes whose resistance to foreign occupation is legendary./ They are descendants of the same Pashtun mountain warriors who battled Alexander the Great, the Mongols, the British Empire and the Soviet Union. All these invaders were eventually defeated.

INTERIOR: Sex, drugs, booze and industry cash in MMS ethics scandal
10.09.08. Noelle Straub, E&E News/common tragedies. Interior Department employees accepted gifts from oil and gas companies, participated in "a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" and considered themselves exempt from federal ethics rules, new reports by the department's inspector general say. / The reports -- the result of three different investigations against more than a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually -- found a "relatively small group of individuals" wholly lacking in government ethical standards and management that provided passive or purposeful ignorance, Inspector General Earl Devaney wrote in a memo to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. The US Secretary of the Interior promises swift response to corruption report (12.09.08. Jurist )

Pak to halt oil supply to NATO in case of attack
-.09.08. onlinenews. Pakistan in unequivocal terms has said that it would halt supply of oil and other commodities to NATO in Afghanistan if the US troops continue to violate countrys border.

7. Aid, Military Contracts, Contractors

AID

Afghan police hunt for kidnapped Japanese aid worker
26.08.08. AFP. It was the latest in a string of attacks on aid workers that have left 25 dead in Afghanistan and raised alarm about the state of the country seven years after the removal of the Taliban regime in 2001.
Dead. (27.08.08)

Urgent aid for Pakistan
07.09.08. Anatol Lieven, IHT. The Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Senator Joe Biden, has drawn up an excellent long-term plan for the United States to help Pakistan economically, thereby strengthening the state against Islamist extremism. .. / He and others have warned that mass anger at rising food prices and lengthening electricity cuts could combine with hostility to the government's campaign against the insurgents and to Pakistan's alliance with America.

Afghanistan: NATO Troops Face Extreme Difficulty in Providing Aid
09.09.08. Nima Maleki. There has been a lot of controversy and difficulty around the delivery of aid to civilians by international forces in Afghanistan. The program of the military delivering aid, commonly called winning hearts and minds, has largely been a failure. There is little to no cohesive plan in delivering aid, and what aid is given often places Afghan civilians at risk. The program often appears superficial, a slapped on to legitimize military presence and action, while a desperate people risk Taliban reprisal by swallowing their pride and asking for humanitarian aid from international armies that often do not deliver on promises and seem incapable or disinterested in protecting those who risk exposure by collaborating with them. Link to PBS file,
Afghanistan: The Other War.

EU planning anti-terror aid for Pakistan
12.09.08. daily times.

Two UN officials killed in Afghanistan
13.09.08. thaiindian. Two people were killed and 15 injured when a car bomb hit a convoy of vehicles belonging to UN aid agencies in southern Afghanistans Kandahar province Sunday morning, the provincial police said.

Attacks on aid challenge Afghan reconstruction
18.09.08. Reuters / Anti-war. Attacks on aid agencies in Afghanistan have spiraled this year, hampering reconstruction efforts just as the country faces both frustration from ordinary Afghans over slow development as well as one of its worst food crises and droughts in years.

Videos

International aid for Afghanistan
Part 1
Part 2 Corporations Not Paying Income Tax
12.08.08Lynnley Browning, NY Times / ICH. Two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005, according to a report released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

$357 Million U.S. Army Contract Extends HELLFIRE II Missile Production
25.08.08. market watch. Lockheed Martin (LMT: Lockheed Martin Corporation (Holding Company) under HELLFIRE Services Limited Liability Company (HSLLC), will produce additional combat-proven HELLFIRE(R) II precision-strike, laser-guided air-to-ground missiles for U.S. and international armed forces under a $357 million contract with the U.S. Army. Delivery of missiles produced under this contract will begin in 2010. The contract also provides options for major additional orders in 2009 and 2010.

DynCorp awarded $18.1M contract in Afghanistan
26.08.08. AP / MONEY CNN. Dyncorp will build facilities for the Afghanistan National Civil Order Police in the country's Helmand province, including offices, living and operational facilities, motor pool guard towers and a perimeter wall for 305 police personnel [security companies?] with the Patrol Unit Brigade Headquarters and Patrol Battalion.

Mesa's Talley wins $51 mil contract for rocket launcher
27.08.08. az central. .. The launcher now in service is based on the Israeli B-300 and was introduced to the U.S. military in 1984. It has seen duty in Operation Desert Storm and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

2 US military accused of Afghan contract bribery
27.08.08. AP. Two U.S. military personnel and four contractors [ with what corporation?] have been indicted on bribery and conspiracy charges involving Department of Defense contracts in Afghanistan.

Northrop gets Pentagon order to fast track Green Dart
27.08.08. biz journals. Northrop Grumman Corp. received a $6.5 million U.S. Army order to fast track construction of what is thought to be super-secret drone used by the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan. The work will be done in Sierra Vista, home to the U.S. Army's Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca.

MILITARY CONTRACTS August 26, 2008
summary

Elbit awarded contract for UAV technology
02.09.08. UPI. Subscription

General Dynamics gets $32M contract from Army
03.09.08. AP. General Dynamics Corp. said Wednesday its information technology business received a $32 million contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for work in Afghanistan.

Navistar Defense Wins $752 Million Contract for Lighter, More Mobile MRAP Variant
04.09.08. market watch. The MaxxPro Dash maintains the survivability system used on all MaxxPro MRAP variants while also allowing for greater mobility in a smaller, lighter weight vehicle optimized for Afghanistan operations.

Defence axes $150m Boeing drone deal
05.09.08. Australian news.

Continuous Surveillance in Afghanistan
06.09.08. milstuff. The expansion of what military officials call "intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance," or ISR, efforts is part of a push by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to use military force with more precision in the two counterinsurgency campaigns.

Raytheon wins military surveillance contract
09.09.08. Bizjournals.

New Mastiff 2 vehicles to be rolled out
08.09.08. Jeffrey Bradford, defense industrial base. A £60million contract to deliver the new generation of Mastiff vehicles - the Mastiff 2 - has been announced by Defence Secretary Des Browne on a visit to NP Aerospace, today, Monday 8 September 2008.

U.S. approves $330 million in arms deals for Israel
Reuters. The U.S. government on Tuesday said it had approved up to $330 million in three separate arms deals for Israel, and sources tracking a much bigger deal for 25 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets said that agreement could be approved later this month.

Pentagon halts bitter Air Force tanker competition in setback for Northrop Grumman
11.09.08. Latimes. Defense Secretary Robert Gates cancels a lengthy contest that had been marked by scandal. The decision gives new life to an effort by Boeing, which had been expected to lose to Northrop.

Security still main obstacle for Afghan business
11.09.08. Jonathon Burch, Reuters.

U.S. Arms Sales Climbing Rapidly
13.09.08. E. Lipton, NY Times.

U.S. to sell Israel Air Force new bunker-buster bombs
14.09.08. haaretz.

Defense Contracts
14.09.08. NY Times Summary of Defense Contracts.

"In Case You Missed It"

Frida Berrigan, The Pentagon Takes Over
27.05.08. TOMGRAM. PART 1. Entrenched, Embedded, and Here to Stay: The Pentagon's Expansion Will Be Bush's Lasting Legacy. But when the countdown ends and George W. Bush vacates the Oval Office, he will leave a legacy to contend with. Certainly, he wills to his successor a world marred by war and battered by deprivation, but perhaps his most enduring legacy is now deeply embedded in Washington-area politics -- a Pentagon metastasized almost beyond recognition.

The Army's Totally Serious Mind-Control Project
MARK THOMPSON, Time. Soldiers barking orders at each other is so 20th Century. That's why the U.S. Army has just awarded a $4 million contract to begin developing "thought helmets" that would harness silent brain waves for secure communication among troops. Ultimately, the Army hopes the project will "lead to direct mental control of military systems by thought alone." If this sounds insane, it would have been as recently as a few years ago...

A Blind Eye for Botched Contracts
16.09.08. David Axe, The Washington Independent/truthout. examines the lack of government oversight over private contractors, citing examples of gross mismanagement of contracts given to Lockheed Martin during the Deepwater scandal.

Department of Defense Contracts, Sept. 16 '08
16.09.08. blog.Americas news today.

Schwartz slams retired generals in contracting
17.09.08. Michael Hoffman, air force times. Im speaking of the unfortunate deterioration of the relationship between the Air Force and industry that of late has manifested a hyperbole of insensitivity and a lack of proper communication, he said (at the Air Force Associations annual conference in Washington D.C.)

TS2 Satellite Technologies Lands Contract for U.S. Army Project in Afghanistan
17.09.08. satellite.tmcnet.

Navistar Defense to Provide More Medium Tactical Vehicles for Iraq and Afghanistan
18.09.08. marketwatch. TACOM Delivery Orders Total More Than $39 Million

Navmar Applied Sciences wins $10M defense contract
18.09.08. bizjournals.

MILITARY CONTRACTS September 18, 2008
18.09.08. military-online.blogspot


CONTRACTORS

Private contractors hold lots of US intel jobs
27.08.08. AP. The number of government employees at U.S. intelligence agencies is classified, but Sanders confirmed it is more than 100,000. Contractors are not included in that total. / Sanders said the average U.S. intelligence employee costs the government about $125,000 a year, including long-term benefits. The average contractor costs the U.S. government about $207,000 for labor, not including overhead. / Congress required the report because of concern that spy agencies might be relying too heavily on outside contractors to conduct sensitive intelligence work. [ the article does not state WHO made the survey, nor does it list the contracting companies . ??]

U.S. troops, contractors indicted in Afghan bribery scheme
28.08.08. CNN.

Help Wanted: War-Zone Contractors
01.09.08. Walter Pincus, Washington Post. Contracting out traditional military functions continues to be the practice when it comes to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as illustrated last month by new offerings from the State Department and the Army.

Blasts leave 5 dead in Afghanistan
02.09.08. presstv.ir. Three security guards from a private company were killed in a Taliban militants attack on a convoy supplying international troops in Wardak province. / In another bomb blast, two Afghan police officers were killed and two others wounded when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle in eastern province of Khost.

Unintelligence In Federal Intelligence Agencies
04.09.08. Joel S. Hirschhorn, Countercurrents. According to a survey of activities in 2007 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, about a third of the federal professional intelligence workforce now consists of contractors, mostly in the Washington, DC area. Out of a total workforce of about 100,000 people some 37,000 are private employees that cost the government (we taxpayers) about $207,000 annually, compared with about $125,000 for civilian federal employees salaries and benefits.

Taliban abduct two Indians in Afghanistan
07.09.08. the int news. According to the Afghan Islamic Press, an Afghan security official confirmed to it that the two kidnapped Indians were working with an Indian company as security personnel.

Military contractors await new defense budget
08.09.08. CNN. Congress will race to finish defense spending bill; keep close eye on $35 billion tanker deal.

Afghan Taliban Attack US Security Convoy, at Least 15 Dead
12.09.09. Voice of America. At least three guards were believed to have been abducted following the clash between guards and Taliban militants.IN FARAH province. NB: various numbers dead given by media, eg. 23 (Reuters)

Military Contractors Are Still Getting the Kid Glove Treatment
12.09.08. Nick Schwellenbach, Right Web/alternet. A government agency tasked with managing private contracts is bending under the weight of its misplaced priorities.

Defense Contracts Foretell Military Buildup in Afghanistan
14.09.08. Walter Pincus, Washington Post. The Defense Department is seeking private contractors to carry out a variety of tasks -- such as clearing land mines, building detention facilities and providing fuel -- to assist U.S. forces in Afghanistan, which are set to grow following President Bush's announcement last week that he will expand military operations there.

Frida Berrigan, The Pentagon Legacy of the MBA President
14.09.08. TOMGRAM. Part 2: Military Industrial Complex 2.0; Cubicle Mercenaries, Subcontracting Warriors, and Other Phenomena of a Privatizing Pentagon. As we prepare to close the book on the Bush presidency, it is worth exploring just how, in the last seven-plus years, the long War on Terror has actually helped build a new, privatized version of the Pentagon. / .. Fast forward to 2007 and the top 10 companies on the Pentagon's list of private contractors were sharing $125 billion in DoD contracts, out of a total of $239 billion being shared among the top 100 contractors. / .. contracts to the top 10 more than doubled, the size of the total pay-out pie increased by two-thirds, and the lowest contract among the top 100 went up almost four-fold. Topics include contracting companies.

Swat Taliban likely to free kidnapped security personnel
15.09.08. daily times, pk./ anti-war.

Afghanistan freezes ties with regional security group
15.09.08. en.rian.ru. The CSTO is a security grouping comprising Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. / "There has been no cooperation with the Afghan side over the past year. A year ago, the Afghan side stopped all diplomatic contacts with CSTO representatives on the issue of a post-conflict settlement," Nikolai Bordyuzha.

8. United States: Reports, General, Bush troops speech, Election, 9/11

REPORTS

Does America Need A New Grand Strategy?
15.07.08. James Dobbins, Rand Report.

Mission Creep: US Military Presence Worldwide
08.08. MOTHER JONES. The ***** map animation that opens this package uses Pentagon worldwide troop data from every half-decade since 1950, plus 2007, the latest year for which the data is available. / the map, and the associated research, should give you a good feel for what the Pentagon is up to around the world.

SENATORS CALL FOR NEW INTELLIGENCE APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
12.09.08. SECRECY NEWS, from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy Volume 2008, Issue No. 89. Stating that "dozens of billions of dollars" had been secretly wasted on misconceived intelligence programs, Senator Christopher Bond (R-MO) and other members of the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday called for creation of a new subcommittee on intelligence within the Senate Appropriations Committee that would exercise greater control on intelligence spending.


GENERAL

THE BUSH YEARS 2001 - 2008

'America's Outrageous War Economy!'
18.08.08. Paul Farrell, market watch. Pentagon can't find $2.3 trillion, wasting trillions on 'national defense.' Yes, America's economy is a war economy. Not a "manufacturing" economy. Not an "agricultural" economy. Nor a "service" economy. Not even a "consumer" economy.

US Special Forces Southern Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Handbook 2006
22.08.08. Wikileaks. This handbook provides guidance to the commanders and staffs of combined-arms forces that have a primary mission of eliminating insurgent forces and discusses the nature of organized guerrilla units and underground elements and their supporters. This handbook provides information on organization; training; and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) combined-arms forces, in conjunction with civil agencies, can employ to destroy large, well-organized insurgent forces in active counterinsurgency (COIN) conflicts. The focal point is the COIN fight in southern Afghanistan. Many of the examples in this handbook are derived from actual experiences of a United States Special Forces task force during its four deployments in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Only a Two-Page 'Note' Governs U.S. Military in Afghanistan 28.08.08. KAREN DeYOUNG, Washington Post. For the past six years, military relations between the United States and Afghanistan have been governed by a two-page "diplomatic note" giving U.S. forces virtual carte blanche to conduct operations as they see fit. / Although President Bush pledged in a 2005 declaration signed with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to "develop appropriate arrangements and agreements" formally spelling out the terms of the U.S. troop presence and other bilateral ties, no such agreements were drawn up. / But after a U.S.-led airstrike last week that United Nations and Afghan officials have said killed up to 90 civilians -- most of them children -- Karzai has publicly called for a review of all foreign forces in Afghanistan and a formal "status of forces agreement," along the lines of an accord being negotiated between the United States and Iraq. / The prospect of codifying the ad hoc rules under which U.S. forces have operated in Afghanistan since late 2001 sends shudders through the Bush administration, which has struggled to finalize its agreement with Baghdad. "It's never been done because the issues have been too big to surmount," said one U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the subject on the record. "The most diplomatic way of saying it is that there are just a lot of moving parts," the official said. .. / The other side of the equation is even more complicated. Of the 33,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, 19,000 operate under U.S. Central Command, while 14,000 form the largest single component of a 40-nation force led by NATO under a U.N. resolution./ The disparate command structures have frustrated every government involved in the effort, but according to Afghan officials, they have also allowed diffused responsibility for civilian casualties, such as those of last week in the western part of the country. U.S. forces operate up to 90 percent of all strike aircraft in the country, and it is rarely clear whether an individual strike has been conducted as part of a NATO or U.S. operation. The note delves into arcane issues such as customs duties and driver's licenses. It devotes only a few sentences to "the conduct of ongoing military operations," giving U.S. troops "a status equivalent" to diplomatic immunity and exempting them from any Afghan "disciplinary authority" or legal jurisdiction. /

U.S. marines shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan
26.08.08. L. Stack, CS Monitor. The redeployment of only 1,500 troops raises concerns that Taliban offensives in Afghanistan are over-extending US forces.

Void in U.S. strategy for Afghanistan
29.08.08. CSM. there is increasing fear in the Pentagon that sending in more forces is just a stopgap measure that masks the absence of a broader, viable strategy. / "To a certain extent, we have boxed ourselves into the idea that additional troops is a panacea for revising strategy," says a senior Pentagon official. "That in and of itself becomes the strategy."

General: US forces to up Afghan winter offensives
03.09.08. J. Straziuso, Reuters.

Neither respected nor feared
03.09.08. Geoffrey Wheatcroft, IHT. In an exalted phrase, the keynote speaker at the Republican convention reviewed the record of the administration, and asked, "When have we rested more secure in friendship with all mankind?" That wasn't in St. Paul, where the Republicans are gathered this week, but at the 1904 Republican convention in Chicago, when the speaker was Elihu Root, a past Secretary of War and future Secretary of State.

Plan Would Shift Forces From Iraq to Afghanistan
04.09.08. NY Times. The United States would carry out a modest shift of American forces from Iraq to Afghanistan by early next year under a confidential recommendation to President Bush by the Pentagons top civilian and military leaders, according to Bush administration officials.

Capitalist Meltdown

Capitalist Meltdown A Roundup of News 16 September, 2008

Capitalist Meltdown A Roundup of News 17-18 September, 2008

Capitalist Meltdown A Roundup of News 19-20 September, 2008


VIDEOS

Mapping the future of US global power (09.09.08. aljazeera.) John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, is a leading international relations theorist and outspoken critic of elements of US foreign policy. He speaks to Al Jazeera about how he sees the US' changing role as a global superpower.

BUSH TROOP SURGE Do the cheerleaders for an expanded war in Afghanistan know any history? Have they studied what happened to the Soviets, who lost 15,000 Red Army soldiers between 1979 and 1988, or even the British in the 19th century? Do they remember why we went into Afghanistan? It was, we were told, to hunt down Osama bin Laden, who is now apparently in Pakistan. Has anyone asked what our end goal is in Afghanistan? Is it nation-building? Or is this simply the forever war on terror? CHRIS HEDGES Bush Troops speech Excerpts from Prepared Text of Bush Speech 08.09.08. VOA. reduced combat tours in Iraq. AFGHANISTAN: And for all the good work we have done in that country, it is clear we must do even more. As we learned in Iraq, the best way to restore the confidence of the people is to restore basic security and that requires more troops. In November, a Marine battalion that was scheduled to deploy to Iraq will instead deploy to Afghanistan. It will be followed in January by an Army combat brigade. The mission of these forces will be to work with Afghan forces to provide security for the Afghan people, protect Afghanistans infrastructure and democratic institutions and help ensure access to services like education and health care. They will show citizens that the Afghan government and its partners stand with them in the battle against the terrorists and the Taliban. And they will help clarify a stark contrast in Afghanistan: While the terrorists and extremists deliberately target and murder the innocent, Coalition and Afghan forces risk their lives to protect the innocent. What the establishment say Afghanistan's army to double to 134,000: UN 10.09.08. AFP / ICH. The Afghan government and its international partners agreed Wednesday to expand the national army to 134,000 soldiers, almost double its current strength, the United Nations said. Admiral: US military 'running out of time' in Afghanistan 10.09.08. E. Schor Guardian / ICH. The US military is not winning the war in Afghanistan and is "running out of time" for a workable strategy to combat the insurgency there, the Pentagon's uniformed leader [ Mike Mullen] said today U.S. to include Pakistan in Afghanistan strategy 10.09.08. Reuters. The U.S. military, faced with rising insurgent violence in Afghanistan, will revise its strategy for the region to include militant safe havens in neighboring Pakistan, the top U.S. military officer said Wednesday. Afghanistan welcomes 'war on terror' shift on 9/11 anniversary 11.09.08. AFP. Karzai also called for an end to civilian casualties in the fight against extremists after a US strike last month which Afghan and UN officials say left 90 villagers dead. Karzai will visit with Bush on 26 September. [Karzai has unsuccessfully pressured Bush before about civilian casualties.] Petraeus: more than troops needed in Afghanistan 14.09.08. AP. U.S. Gen. David Petraeus said Sunday that experience in Iraq shows it will take political and economic progress as well as military action to tackle increased violence in Afghanistan. / "You don't kill or capture your way out of an industrial strength insurgency," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. US Army general warns Pakistan of new war 15.09.08. daily times/pk. A new war could begin if Pakistan does not step up its fight against terrorists, Maj Gen Jeffrey J Schloesser of the US Army said in a report published in an American weekly on Sunday. US expert cautions against cross-border attacks 15.09.08. the int.news / anti-war. "We need to get the Pakistanis to see this as their war. And that is going to require some major new initiatives on the American side. Commando raids and Predator strikes are not a long-term solution to this problem," said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think-tank. Pakistani tribal chiefs threaten to join Taliban 15.09.08. Saeed Shah, The Guardian. New counter-terror policy backfires on Washington. Pakistani tribesmen representing half a million people vowed to switch sides and join the Taliban if Washington does not stop cross-border attacks by its forces from Afghanistan. [see above, Pakistan Dead] Negroponte against unilateral actions inside Pakistan 19.09.08. the int news.

What Commentators Say

Still No Exit
09.09.08. NY Times editorial.[Bush] he made it clear that he has no plan at all for ending the war in Iraq and no serious plan for winning the war in Afghanistan.

Seven years on, Afghanistan again 'war on terror' frontline
09.09.08. AFP / anti-war. Seven years after the attacks on the World Trade Centre, Afghanistan is again the frontline of the US-led "war on terror" with extremist unrest intensifying and a new focus on Pakistan's tribal areas. / .. US allies are meanwhile concerned about their own growing casualties, and the difficulty of winning "hearts and minds" as Afghans grow weary of reports of civilians killed in error by military air strikes./ .. "The enemy routinely exaggerates [see videos, abovethe number of civilian casualties as propaganda, just pure and simple," said Schloesser [US commander in Afghanistan],

U.S. Shifts Tactics in Hunt for Bin Laden
10.09.08. Washington Post / legitgov. Frustrated by repeated dead ends in the search for 'Osama bin Laden,' U.S. and Pakistani officials said they are questioning long-held assumptions about their strategy and are shifting tactics to intensify the use of the unmanned but lethal Predator drone spy plane in the mountains of western Pakistan. The number of Hellfire missile attacks by Predators in Pakistan has more than tripled, with 11 strikes reported by Pakistani officials this year, compared with three in 2007.

Afghanistan 'needs more than extra troops'
10.09.08. news.com.au. But "in the long term and as the only solution, it is the building of the Afghan state institutions that matters", [Karzai] said, addressing a joint news conference in Islamabad with Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari./ "We must diagnose the roots of the problems and cure them and not only resort to cannons, tanks and fighter planes and calling everybody 'enemies'," ex-general Noorulhaq Olumi] said. "A healthy government needs to be formed, the rule of law needs to be enforced to avoid swelling the group of people exhausted by corruption, insecurity and injustice and adding to the opposition

VIDEO
aljazeera

US sees 'endgame' in Iraq
11.09.08. aljazeera. Afghanistan focus: While the Bush administration has said that Iraqi security has improved in recent months, US and Nato forces in Afghanistan are facing increasingly frequent attacks from fighters linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. / "I am not convinced we are winning yet in Afghanistan but I am convinced we can," Mullen [Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff] said. / "That is why I intend to commission and am looking at a more comprehensive military strategy for the region that covers both sides of that border." / But Mullen said that Afghanistan needs more than just "boots on the ground". / "It needs more trucks on the roads, teachers in schools, trained judges and lawyers in courts, foreign investments, alternative crops, sound governance, the rule of law - these are the keys to success in Afghanistan," he said. / "We cannot kill our way to victory." [also: see comments]

Afghanistan welcomes 'war on terror' shift on 9/11 anniversary
11.09.08. AFP. Karzai also called for an end to civilian casualties in the fight against extremists after a US strike last month which Afghan and UN officials say left 90 villagers dead. Karzai will visit with Bush on 26 September. [Karzai has unsuccesfully pressured Bush before about civilian casualties.]

Move to defuse tension in Pakistan-US ties
12.09.08. Anwar Iqbal, dawn. [On Ambassador Haqqanis meeting at White House] Under this new policy, the US military will notify Pakistans government when it conducts raids, but will not seek its permission.

At All Costs, We Must Avoid a 'Surge' in Afghanistan
13.09.08. Joseph STIGLITZ, The Guardian/alternet. America's Iraq adventure led it into a moral vacuum. Will the error be repeated in the renewed US Afghan campaign? / ... True, the war in Iraq distracted America's attention from Afghanistan. But the failures in Iraq are a matter of strategy, not troop strength. It is time for America, and Europe, to learn the lessons of Iraq -- or, rather, relearn the lessons of virtually every country that tries to occupy another and determine its future.

The US strategy for Afghanistan won't work
15.09.08. PATRICK COCKBURN, Belfast telegraph / ICH. "Covert action is frequently a substitute for policy," was an aphorism first coined by the former director of the CIA Richard Helms. Its truth is exemplified by the decision of President Bush in July to secretly give orders that US special forces will in future carry out raids against ground targets inside Pakistan, without getting the approval of the Pakistani government. / Mr Bush's order is fraught with peril for the US and Nato forces in Afghanistan.

Has the U.S. Invasion of Pakistan Begun?
16.09.08. Tariq Ali, TOMGRAM. As Andrew Bacevich tells us in the latest issue of the Atlantic, there's now a vigorous debate going on in the military about the nature of the "next" American wars and how to prepare for them. / .. "The decision to make public a presidential order of last July authorizing American strikes inside Pakistan without seeking the approval of the Pakistani government ends a long debate within, and on the periphery of, the Bush administration." Barack Obama, aware of this ongoing debate during his own long battle with Hillary Clinton, tried to outflank her by supporting a policy of U.S. strikes into Pakistan. Senator John McCain and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin have now echoed this view and so it has become, by consensus, official U.S. policy

Is A US Attack On Pakistan Imminent?
17.09.08. Usman Khalid, countercurrents. Pakistan is nervous; it cannot believe that the USA can turn on its ally so fast and easy. The escalation of the terror war to include Pakistan was announced by President Bush himself. He proclaimed a new war theatre in Pakistan alongside Iraq and Afghanistan.

Washington Is Risking War with Pakistan
17.09.08. Robert Baer, Time / ICH. As Wall Street collapsed with a bang, almost no one noticed that we're on the brink of war with Pakistan. And, unfortunately, that's not too much of an exaggeration.

Vested interests drive US's Pakistan policy
19.09.08. Gareth Porter, asia times.

The Empire

Empire and Imperialism and the USA
11.09.08. JAMES PETRAS, ICH. Modern empires and therefore imperialism which constructs them are ubiquitous: Whether through large-scale multinational corporations or through technologically advanced massive military power, the peoples and nations of the worlds confront the problem of great concentration of corporate and state power on an unprecedented scale. / This stark reality and the evidence of US prolonged wars of conquest and occupation has forced a general recognition of the relevance of the concept of imperialism to understanding global power relations.

9/11 and the "American Inquisition"
11.09.08. MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY, Globalresearch. Anybody who opposes the American Inquisition is a heretic conspiracy theorist or an accomplice of the terrorists. / .. The GWOT is the ideological backbone of the American Empire. It defines US military doctrine, including the preemptive use of nuclear weapons against the "state sponsors" of terrorism.

Life And Death
17.09.08. Peter Chamberlin, countercurrents. The life or death struggle I am referring to is not with some shadowy terrorist group, or with an axis of foreign governments, but with our own government. We are in an existential struggle with the Bush Administration and everyone in government who supports the violence they carry-out upon the world

Election: Why the world worries Barack Obama and Afghanistan 06.08.08. Marc Herold, billtotten / counterpunch / INL. More of the Same, Packaged as Change Defense budget will stay large under Obama 28.08.08. the hill Obamas Acceptance Speech: The American Promise 28.08.08. Truthout. The Democrats endorse the "Global War on Terrorism": Obama "goes after" Osama 29.08.08. M. CHOSSUDOVSKY, Global Research. The Democrats have endorsed the "Big Lie". Bin Laden is upheld as the "outside enemy" who threatens the American Homeland. The fact that bin Laden is US sponsored intelligence asset, created and sustained by the CIA, is never mentioned. Obama gave Petraeus Afghanistan advice 30.08.08. AP / boston herald. Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama reportedly told the top military commander in Iraq that some U.S. forces should be pulled out of Iraq and deployed to Afghanistan when the two met in July in Baghdad. / At the July meeting, Petraeus did not disclose his opinion on moving troops from one war to the other, according to an article in the Sept. 8 edition of The New Yorker magazine. Both US vice-presidential candidates vow to back Israel 03.09.08. Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News/uruknet. Obama denounces Bush for sending too few troops to Afghanistan 11.09.08. B. van Auken, WSWS / bellaciao. Obama calls for US military mobilization 13.09.08. P. Martin, WSWS. A Swarm of Lobbyists Would Run McCain's White House 01.09.08. Jim Hightower, Alternet. McCain has already assembled his clique of advisors, and they don't have our best interests in mind. Charley Black, Rick Davis, Randy Scheunemann, Wayne Berman, Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, Phil Gramm, Palin Links Iraq to Sept. 11 In Talk to Troops in Alaska 12.09.08. Washington post. The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself. John McCain Supports Torture 12.09.08. David Swanson, global research.ca. Christian Fundamentalism Permeates the Republican Party: Sarah Palins links to the Christian Right 13.09.08. F. William Engdahl, global research.ca. Assessing the Republican Party Platform 14.09.08. Prof. Stephen Zunes, globalresearch.ca. VP contender Sarah Palin hacked 16.09,08. Wikileaks, exposure of Gov Palins shady dealings. and/or I Apologize 17.09.08. D. Truskoff, countercurrents. [not voting for either candidate] What to do about it? See Shadow Government here . VIDEO: US 'in need of rebellion' 08.09.08. Al Jazeera speaks to Howard Zinn, Questions: Where is the United States heading in terms of world power and influence?; Q: Is there any hope the US will change its approach to the rest of the world?; How did the US get to this point?; What should the world know about the United States? ... more TRY TO LAUGH, PLEASE" 11.09.08. John Pilger, anti-war. A Murderous Theater of the Absurd. Try to laugh, please, at the recent happy-clappy Nurembergs from which will come the next president of the United States. Those paid to keep the record straight have strained to present a spectacle of choice. Barack Obama, the man of "change," wants to "build a 21st-century military... to stay on the offensive everywhere." Here comes the new Cold War, with promises of more bombs, more of the militarized society with its 730 bases worldwide, on which Americans spend 42 cents of every tax dollar. / Thousands of decent Americans came to the two nominating conventions to express the dissenting opinion of millions of their compatriots who believe, with good cause, that their democracy is evaporating. They were intimidated, arrested, beaten, pepper-gassed; and they were patronized or ignored by those paid to keep the record straight. / In the meantime, Justin Webb, the BBC's North America editor, has launched a book about America, his "city on a hill." It is a sort of Mills & Boon view of the rapacious system he admires with such obsequiousness. The book is called Have a Nice Day. Try to laugh, please. ABC NEWS POLL: NUMBER ONE ISSUE FACING AMERICANS IS LIPSTICK 11.09.08. Satire by R J Shulman, My Space / legitgov. Pentagon to draft full 2010 budget plan for next president 13.09.08. army times. VIDEOS US Elections 2008 Aljazeera. on-going. Very good. Also on aljazeera - US Election Beat

9/11

9/11 Magnum photobook

9/11 Rumors That Become Conventional Wisdom
09.09.08. Michael Slackmen, NY Times. Seven years later, it remains conventional wisdom here that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda could not have been solely responsible for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that the United States and Israel had to have been involved in their planning, if not their execution, too. / Americans might better understand the region .. if they simply listen to what people are saying and try to understand why rather than taking offense.

VIDEO

America and Al Qaeda, Part 1 (10 Sep 08, al jazeera)

America and Al Qaeda Part 2 (10.09.08, aljazeera)

9/11 Plus Seven
09.09.08. Andrew J. BACEVICH , TomDispatch.com: "The events of the past seven years have yielded a definitive judgment on the strategy that the Bush administration conceived in the wake of 9/11 to wage its so-called Global War on Terror. That strategy has failed, massively and irrevocably.

On 7th Anniversary Of Attacks, White House Claims Bin Laden Was Not The Mastermind of Sept.11
10.09.08. In a press conference today, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Dana Perino about the administrations ongoing efforts to find Osama bin Laden, calling him the mastermind of 9/11. Perino interrupted the reporter, claiming bin Laden was not the true mastermind of the attacks (VIDEO):

• Q But Osama bin Laden is the one that you keep talking about his lieutenants, and, yes, they are very important, but Osama bin Laden was the mastermind of 9/11


• PERINO: No, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind of 9/11, and hes sitting in jail right now.
  

VIDEO
Olbermans Disgust with the Neocon Tribute to 9/11 (10.09.08. rebel news)

9/11 and the Great American Decline
11.09.08. Glen Ford, countercurrents. In its convulsive "response" to 9/11 - the worldwide "War on Terror" - the United States seized the opportunity to put in motion planetary aggressions that already existed in the blueprints of the neo-con's Project for a New American Century (PNAC).

American Airlines Flight 77The Key to the 9/11 Enigma?
11.09.08. Edward F. Mazur, globalresearch.ca.

VIDEO.

9/11 The Falling Man (Not yet released in the U.S.)

Falling

Where are the hands, as in Rilke's poem, that can hold up all this falling? There are none. And so we keep falling, down and down and still farther down. Chris Floyd

The Falling Land
11.09.08. CHRIS FLOYD, uruknet. There is, apparently, to be no end to our falling. No bottom to the pit of moral nullity through which we keep plunging, no act of evil which we will not accept, and countenance, and even cheer. At one time, it required great lies -- elaborate, monstrous deceits, wrapped in myths of goodness and light -- to disguise the brutal machinations of raw power. Otherwise, it was thought, the people might rise up in anger at the crimes being committed in their name, thus threatening the primacy and privilege of the elite. But this proved to be unnecessary in the end. The foulest deeds could be done in broad daylight, in full view of the world, before the eyes of our children, without the slightest consequence for the perpetrators. The crowd would applaud, or, at worst, simply shrug and move on...' / All of these things, and many more besides, have been done and are being done by the government of the United States today, with either the full-throated approval or the meek acquiescence of the political opposition and the nation's institutions. The people too seem largely in agreement, or completely indifferent. We have just finished a primary campaign in which tens of millions of people voted for candidates who support the system described above in almost every particular -- quibbling about some of the details and tactics perhaps, but expressing absolutely no dissent from its basic premises./ The two major candidates left standing after this appalling process are as similar in policy and philosophy as it is possible to be.

Poll shows many still doubt 9/11
11.09.08. Alex Sehmer, aljazeeera. More than 50 per cent of people reject the official belief that the attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, were carried out by al-Qaeda, a new survey has revealed.

9/11 Truth Film To Be Broadcast On Prime Time Russian TV
11.09.08. Russia Today/uruknet. Who was involved in 9/11? Documentary reveals shocking facts.

On the anniversary of 9/11, an Italian-produced documentary called ZERO, investigating the tragedy, is opening in Russia. The authors believe that the U.S. official version of events surrounding the attacks can't be true. U.S. networks have rejected the film. VIDEO ZERO: 2.29. The makers of the documentary claim that the report of the official U.S. commission into the tragedy of September 11, 2001 is false. The Filmmaker Urges International Tribunal to Probe 9/11 (08.09.08. dw.) Also See trailer of Zero: an investigation into 9/11 here .

The Truth behind 9/11: Who Is Osama Bin Laden?
11.09.08. Michel CHOSSUDOVSKY, globalresearch.ca.

Arrogance, Ignorance, And Cowardice: Lessons From 9/11
11.09.08. Robert Jensen, countercurrents.

Afghans say life no better after invasion
11.09.08. Reuters. .. many Afghans say life is no better and some say its worse.

Bush's bitter legacy
11.09.08. Andy Worthington, Guardian. The administration's response to September 11 was to entrench injustice at home and around the world. Now, this must change.

Evils of manipulated history
17.09.08. Osama Al Sharif, arab news. The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, where thousands of innocent lives were lost, have justified the Bush administrations so-called war on terror. It has been an open-ended crusade which so far has destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq, many believe beyond repair. / This is not to deny that the Taleban era was a dark and gruesome chapter in Afghanistans history, which the world was only too happy to see uprooted. That country has had more than its fair share of obnoxious rule, both at the hands of native and foreign leaders..

Make Up Your Own Mind 9/11 Truth org. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth Investigating 9/11.com CLG 9/11 Exposition Zone google search 9/11 facts google search 9/11

9. US-NATO (Report, General; Transportation)

REPORT

US Army Releases 2008 Modernization Strategy
09.09.08. Defense Industry Daily

GENERAL

Nato flounders in Afghanistan
19.08.08. M Williams, Guardian comment. The alliance cannot promote security while it has to focus so intently on protecting its own soldiers.

NATOs Defining Moment
20.08.08. Newsweek. The history of grand alliances and global politics is rarely decided by a single skirmish, and the Uzbin Valley ambush by itself could hardly determine the fate of NATO. But it happened at a defining moment as day by day, hour by hour, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization finds itself under greater pressure to define its purpose and prove the worth of its far-flung missions from the Caucasus to the Hindu Kush.

NATO passes over Kabul security to Afghan troops
28.08.08. ABC. In practical terms there will be little difference to the number of Afghan and international troops on the streets of Kabul, but it is a symbolic move to show the confidence in Afghanistan's security forces. But Weak Afghan police threaten NATO plan (Washington Times 28.08.08)

Global Famine Is It A Conspiracy?
31.08.08. Eric Walberg, New Dawn / countercurrents / INI. once the US succeeded in amassing overwhelming economic might in the world and in splitting up the Soviet Union, it proceeded to use NATO as just such a world body, successfully tempting the resultant statelets to join it, i.e., to cede effective control over their foreign affairs to the US. The plan was for Russia to be coaxed into the fold as well, though this part of the plan has, as it turns out, hit a snag.

Alliance divided as members ponder plea of 'Nato come home'
09.09.08. Michael Evans, David Charter and Catherine Philp, timesonline. The division between those who still want to focus the main effort on Afghanistan and others who believe that resources should be switched back to confronting Russia's rediscovered imperialist ambitions has created turmoil within the alliance. Key to this conflict are the tough decisions to be made over who gets to join the alliance, and when.

BELIEVE THIS?

Nato tightens rules of engagement to limit further civilian casualties in Aghanistan
09.09.08. R. Norton-Taylor, Guardian. The orders were issued by General David McKiernan, the Nato commander in Afghanistan, who also asked the US central command to reopen an inquiry into the air strike in the western district of Shindand, as video footage surfaced showing the bodies of child victims. / The rules of engagement for Nato troops will focus on house searches, saying they should be led by Afghan forces, and that permission from homeowners should first be sought./ It was an attempt "to re-educate commanders, to re-emphasise how careful everyone should be" in carrying out air strikes and air support for ground troops./ .. "Killing civilians is not the best way to attract hearts and minds," one European official noted sarcastically yesterday.


Disaster in Afghanistan
09.09.08. John W. Warnock, uruknet. It is difficult to find out what is really going on in Afghanistan. The focus of the mass media is almost entirely on the military activities of the Canadian and NATO forces. There is absolutely no coverage of political developments. The news on the economy is limited to the state of the poppy industry. This is no accident. The North American media, including the CBC, has strongly supported the U.S./NATO strategy and the administration of President Hamid Karzai. Contrary to the mainstream message, things are not going well...

NATO Orders Lethal Force Review to Cut Afghan Deaths (Update1)
17.09.08. Ed Johnson and Gregory Viscusi, bloomberg.

NATO to suspend aggressive operations in Afghanistan on Int'l Peace Day
20.09.08. Xxinhuanet.

Future in NATO?

Sweden and Finland consider joining NATO
05.09.08. cabalamat / INL

Pressure mounts on India to send troops to Afghanistan
14.09.08. times of India. India is resisting renewed pressure from the West to send its troops into Afghanistan to boost the coalition troops there.

Georgia
Cheney backs membership in NATO for Georgia
05.09.08. IHT / INI.

NATO: Georgia Not Democratic Enough to Join
15.09.08. Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com/uruknet.

TRANSPORTATION

Taliban Ambushes Threaten Nato's Vital Logistics Route Into Afghanistan
30.08.08. War news updates. Taliban fighters are trying to strangle Nato's mission in Afghanistan by stepping up attacks on convoys in the Khyber Pass, the perilous mountain trail that carries most supplies into the country.

Taliban celebrating

Taliban move on Khyber Pass
31.08.08. Nick Meo Peshawar/ uruknet. TALIBAN raiders are trying to strangle NATO's mission in Afghanistan by stepping up attacks on convoys in the Khyber Pass, the perilous mountain trail that carries most supplies into the country.

Government issued notice to stop Afghanistan reports
03.09.08. ANDREW LOYD, Times on line. They [British commanders] already knew that carrying a delicate, multimillion-dollar cargo of machinery along 75km (47 miles) of road to the power plant at Kajaki would be beset with obstacles. / In spite of misgivings, Nato came under pressure from Washington to secure visible progress in the Kajaki hydroelectric project to safeguard future funding lines before the US presidential elections. When The Times tried to publish a story reporting these concerns among US and other Nato officials, the article was blocked by a Ministry of Defence D notice, on the ground that it would endanger forthcoming operations. [also see above and here.]

Canadian troops help escort dam turbine through Taliban territory
03.09.08. CBC /INI.

Kajaki dam: Contentious, costly, and a failure
04.09.08. Reuters / wired. The Kajaki dam is a monument to failed foreign dreams in Afghanistan. It was built by the Americans in the early 1950s as a cold war showcase, the sort of mega-scheme that was supposed to modernise the developing world.

Pakistan cuts supply lines to NATO troops in Afghanistan
05.09.08. int.news/pk. In a major development, the federal government on Friday announced disconnection of supply lines to the allied forces stationed in Afghanistan through Pakistan in an apparent reaction to a ground attack on a border village in South Waziristan agency by the Nato forces [see above Pakistan / death] / Political authorities of the

See Khyber Agency

Photo EPA, aljazeera

Fuel supply to Nato forces suspended
05.09.08. Ibrahim Shinwari, dawn.com. LANDI KOTAL, Sept 5: The government is reported to have decided to stop fuel supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan via the Torkham highway with effect from Saturday. / Sources said the federal government did not cite any reason for the move, but the decision was apparently taken in the wake of the US ground and missile attacks in North and South Waziristan tribal regions. But then Supplies to Nato forces restored (07.09.08. the int news.)

FBR Hasnt Blocked POL Supplies To Nato
07.09.08. apakistannews.

Tanker supplying oil to Nato attacked; driver killed
08.09.08. pak tribune.

Tribesmen warn of blocking NATO supplies
17.09.08. Daud Khattak, daily times.pk.

10. US_NATO Coalition ) (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Holland, United Kingdom)

We do not have the power or the knowledge, nor do we have the right under international law, to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan. Chris Hedges

AUSTRALIA

DOG PENS Cultural misunderstandings in a war zone 03.09.08. theage.com.au. AUSTRALIAN soldiers detaining Taliban prisoners in dog pens in Afghanistan may seem, in the wider context of war, a curiosity or at worst a slight misdemeanour. However, there is in the action, and in the defence of that action by the Defence Force and Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon, a more disturbing picture. / The incident occurred in April, but was revealed in an army inquiry only last week. Australian government defends troops who kept Taliban suspects in dog pen (02.09.08, Canadian press) Afghanistan: The bloodletting continues 06.09.08. Tony Iltis, green left weekly. On September 2, nine Australian soldiers were wounded one left in a critical condition in an ambush in southern Afghanistan. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) claims the Australian soldiers killed several of the alleged Taliban fighters responsible for the attack. / The incident has been used by the Rudd Labor government and Coalition opposition to promote the ongoing US-led occupation of Afghanistan as a noble cause helping liberating the country from terrorists. The attack came amid revelations that Australian soldiers had kept captured suspected Taliban fighters in dog cages. / Defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon initially denied the accusation, then admitted it (describing it as a cultural misunderstanding), then denied it again.

Taliban 'targeting Aussie journalists'
08.09.08. the age. Journalists in Afghanistan may be targeted by terrorists, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade warns.


CANADA

Photo by Cpl Robert Bottrill , Canadian Forces Combat Camera.

U.S. terrorism experts to teach troops
26.08.08. globe and mail. The federal government is hiring U.S. terrorism experts to deepen Canadian soldiers' understanding of how their Taliban enemies think - saying it needs to prepare troops better as they wage a counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan. Ottawa announced that it is bypassing the normal route for contracting and awarding the job to Arlington, Va.-based Terrorism Research Center on a sole-source basis, saying it's the only firm capable of doing the job. The one-year contract has a maximum annual payout of $848,250 (U.S.), but may be extended.

Pakistan probes deaths of alleged Canadian militants
03.09.08. globe and mail / INL.

The soldiers are doing their part; what of the international players?
04.09.08. Christie Blatchford, globe and mail. But as a recent after-action report on the state of Afghanistan, written July 30 by retired U.S. Army general Barry McCaffrey, points out in blunt soldierly language, the extraordinary difficulty of the job there is compounded at almost every turn by incompetence and bureaucratic dithering at high levels.

VIDEO: Public support for Afghan mission lowest ever: poll

Inside the Taliban's deadly ambush
05.09.08. Graeme Smith, globe and mail. The ambush that killed three Canadians this week was a carefully planned trap, using an elite team of Taliban fighters and the insurgents' most powerful weapon to strike in a symbolic location near the scene of Canada's bloodiest battles of the mission. / This detailed account of the attack, from a well-informed Afghan government official in Kandahar with strong Taliban contacts, suggests the insurgents were frighteningly organized for the Sept. 3 ambush.

Why Canada should leave Afghanistan
06.09.08. Val Gaffray, peace alliance Winnipeg. It seems to me, the only way we will get our Canadian troops out of Afghanistan, is to demonstrate to the Canadian public the illegitimacy of the US-led war on terrorism and hence the illegitimacy of the US-led war in Afghanistan. [extensive footnotes]

Bodies of fallen soldiers return to Canada from Afghanistan
07.09.08. Canadian press.

Canada to vote October 14
07.09.08. AFP. Canada's conservative prime minister has called a snap general election to try to firm up his minority government, in what is expected be a heated ideological contest between the right and left. / But a slowing economy, rising Canadian combat casualties in Afghanistan -- including a soldier's death announced only hours after the election writ was dropped -- and the Conservatives' lackluster efforts to stem climate change could dash Harper's bid for an absolute majority in the 308-seat Parliament. / As the campaign got underway, support for Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan was dealt a blow with the announced death Sunday of another Canadian soldier -- the fourth this week. It was the 97th Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan since 2003. / There are some 2,500 Canadian soldiers currently in Afghanistan. Ottawa's mission was extended in March to 2011 by the Conservatives with qualified support from the Liberals, but recent opinion polls suggest a slight majority of Canadians oppose Canada's role in the mission.

Canada PM: Troops home from Afghanistan in 2011
10.09.08. Rob Gillies, AP.

[NB: interesting how Presidents and Prime Ministers play around with troop numbers at the time of an election? ]

Pentagon eyeing Canadian satellite technology
10.09.08. David Pugliese , Canwest News Service

Relatives of 9/11 victims mixed on Harper's Afghan pledge
11.09.08. National Post - Toronto,Ontario,Canada.

More answers needed on Afghanistan
13.09.08. Letter to the Editor, the star.

One Third of Canadians Back Afghan Mission
13.09.08. Angus-reid.

Pessimism seizes PM
-/09.08. Winnepeg sun. On Saturday he [Harper] told Sun Media in an exclusive interview that not only will Canada leave Afghanistan in 2011 but that NATO should be planning an exit as well, which is something he has not said before.

Afghan war costs could be thorny election issue
15.09.08. Mike Blanchfield, Canwest News Service.

Harper agrees to release of Afghan war cost report
17.09.08. ctv.


CZECH REPUBLIC

Czech Military Elite Unit Again Operates In Afghanistan
03.09.08. afghan conflict monitor / INL. The deployment of 100 soldiers from the elite unit who participate in anti-terrorist operations was approved by the Czech parliament this year.


FRANCE

Sarkozy and Bush, photo by Shealah Craighead

In Case you missed it

Operation Sarkozy : how the CIA placed one of its agents at the presidency of the French Republic
26.07.08. Thierry Meyssan, Voltairenet. [also in 18.09.08 Current Concerns]. All the information included in this article is provable, except for two assertions signalled by the author who alone takes full responsibility.

More on the French Casualties
24.08.08. J. L. Krueger, complex topics. So this is what I've heard about the ambush that killed ten French Soldiers on Monday, 18 August. / Like the attack last month that killed nine Americans, our complacency may have contributed significantly to the casualties. On the battlefield, complacency gets you killed. There is no redo when you screw up. The only time the Taliban try to take on a NATO unit head on, is when they believe they have an immediate advantage. The Taliban watch our patrols. If they determine that our patrols are being complacent, then they believe that they can achieve surprise and tactical advantage.

France eyes bigger military role in Afghanistan
27.08.08. AFP.

Photo Véronique de Viguerie, ParisMatch

Taliban ambush trophy photos shock France
04.09.08. Reuters / Wired. A French magazine {Paris Match] published photos on Thursday of Taliban fighters with trophies taken from French soldiers killed last month in Afghanistan, setting off a new round of pained debate about France's presence there.

The Afghan Impasse and How to Get Out of It
04.09.08. Christophe Jaffrelot, Le Monde / Truthout. The ambush that cost ten French soldiers their lives on August 18 reminded our country what other nations engaged in the ISAF (such as Canada, which has lost 93 men) already knew: "We are witnessing the return of war operations," to use the terms the head of the French armed services' General Staff, General Jean-Louis Georgelin, [discussions on] What Are the Roots of the Evil?; What Alternative to the Present Strategy?

New security database angers many in France
09.09.08. AP. Edvige opens up "the possibility of tracking the entire population of France." A new French security database that could track anyone deemed a "possible threat to public order" -- even minors as young as 13 -- has outraged privacy crusaders and put France's conservative government on the defensive.

France slams missile strikes in Pakistan
10.09.08. int news. France warned on Tuesday that missile strikes by suspected US drones in the tribal areas were undermining international efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

France wants Europe to lift Afghan troop restrictions
17.09.08. Reuters.

France wants Europe to lift Afghan troop restrictions
17.09.08. Reuters.


GERMANY

German soldier dies in Afghanistan
27.08.08. Reuters. 3 more injured.

German military proposes new Afghan rail link
30.08.08. IHT. The proposed 67 km (42 mile) stretch would link the northern city of Mazar-I-Sharif with the Uzbek town of Termez, where the German air force has a base, Der Spiegel magazine reported.

Germany's Afghanistan Mission Questioned after Civilian Deaths
30.08.08. dw world. After three Afghan civilians, a woman and two children, were killed when German soldiers opened fire on a suspicious civilian vehicle politicians at home have renewed appeals for a withdrawal of German troops. German army pays compensation for Afghan shooting (Reuters 03.09.08)

German minister says Afghan pullout debate dangerous
03.09.08. AFP. The German defence minister [Franz Josef Jung] said in Kabul Wednesday that calls in Germany for troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan because of recent attacks would only heighten risks for the soldiers.

German Defense Minister Slams US Ground Strike in Pakistan
05.09.08. dw-world. During a visit to Pakistan Friday, German Defense Minister Jung slammed US ground strikes in the country that killed civilians but said Islamabad needed to do more to curb militants operating near the Afghanistan border.

Germany Discovers a War in Afghanistan
08.09.08. Speigel on line/anti-war. For years, Germans have preferred to see their country's presence in Afghanistan as armed development assistance. That myth is now becoming more difficult to maintain as the violence spreads to the north where the Germans are based.


HOLLAND

Dutch Envoy Sees True Progress in Afghanistan
17.09.08.


UK

Report: British to boost troops in Afghanistan
24.08.08. AP / uruk.

Afghan Base is worlds busiest trauma hospital
29.08.08. Reuters. In the past week more than 100 casualties have been shuttled in to the British-run Camp Bastion hospital in southern Afghanistan, more than half with major trauma from explosions and requiring surgery, according to medics.The wounded, and sometimes dead, have included British, American and Danish soldiers, members of the Afghan army and police, and civilians caught up in the crossfire as the battle against the Taliban has intensified across Helmand province.m / in the pristine ward lay a small Afghan child, barely 18 months old, breathing heavily through a respirator. She'd been hit in the abdomen by a fragment of shrapnel. Nurses said she was not faring well. / Asked how she was wounded the nurse said "by a strike", then explained that she'd been hit by U.S. munitions in a mistaken attack on civilians.

Hamid Karzai blames Britain for Taliban resurgence
07.09.08. world affairs board. His remarks, made to Afghan MPs, follow a clash with Gordon Brown over the Kabul regimes links with warlords and drugs barons. / Karzai claims Brown has threatened to withdraw British troops from Helmand province, where 31 of them have died this year, if the president reinstates two provincial governors sacked for alleged dealings in the heroin trade.

ANALYSIS-Britain and NATO struggle for Afghanistan numbers
10.09.08. Luke Baker, Reuters. Two-and-a-half years into an operation to secure vast desert reaches of Afghanistan from the Taliban, British commanders quietly admit they are seriously undermanned.

Fear By Fantasy
12.09.08. Yvonne Ridley, ICH. Once again the wretched racists and Islamaphobes in the Metroplitan Force and the British Government have further demonised Muslims and resulted in further ethnic and religious profiling at airports through their fear by fantasy policies.

Britain pays for surge of spin doctors in Kabul to counter Taliban propaganda
13.09.08. N. Meo, Telegraph. Britain is funding a surge of spin doctors in Afghanistan to counter fears that the Taliban is winning the propaganda war.

New London terror warning
14.09.08. Christina Lamb and Michael Smith, times on line. AMERICAN raids on Taliban and Al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan could provoke terror attacks in London, Pakistans high commissioner to the UK warned yesterday.

Allied forces can conduct operation only inside Afghanistan: Straw
-.09.08. online news. Addressing a one-day workshop organised by Fazl Dad Institute of Human Rights here on Tuesday, Jack Straw opined that terrorists who took shelter in the tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan are the enemies of the humanities.

11. US-NATO Deaths (Americans, Australians, Canadians, Danish, Dutch, English, Indian, Romanian)

GENERAL

Coalition Deaths by Nationality

iCasualties.org: Operation Enduring Freedom
August 2008. i casualties.


AFGHANISTAN

Afghan governor dies in suicide blast near Kabul
13.09.08. Reuters. Abdullah Wardak died outside his house in Paghman, some 20 km (12 miles) west of the capital.

UN: 1,445 Afghan civilians killed in 2008 violence
16.09.08. J. Straziuso, Huff Post.

[more deaths in AFGHANISTAN: See Sections No. 2, 3]


AMERICA

A bloody month in Afghanistan
02.09.08. James Cogan, WSWS/uruknet. The August death toll of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan reached 45 on Sundaythe equal highest monthly total of the near seven-year war.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKISL23676220080905

Taliban turns lethal: 101 US deaths in Afghanistan
24.08.08. J. STRAZIUSO, AP / uruk.

Oregon soldier killed in Afghanistan
28.08.08. AP/Army Times. 20 yrs. Old.

GI from St. Louis dies in Afghanistan
09.09.08. St. Louis Post-Dispatch - MO

Marine Lt. from Bothell dead in Afghanistan
10.09.08. Montana news sta.

US death in Afghanistan makes 2008 deadliest year
11.09.08. J. Straziuso. AP. The NATO-led force said the soldier was killed in eastern Afghanistan "when insurgents attacked a compound." It provided no other details, but a Western military official told The Associated Press that the soldier was American. Thursday's death brings to 112 the number of troops who have died in Afghanistan this year, surpassing last year's record toll of 111.

US military deaths in Afghanistan region at 512
29.08.08. AP. As of Friday, Aug. 29, 2008, at least 512 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department.

GI from St. Louis dies in Afghanistan
09.09.08. St. Louis Post-Dispatch - MO

Deadly incidents for US troops in Afghanistan
11.09.08. AP.

Marine Lt. from Bothell dead in Afghanistan
10.09.08. Montana news sta.

Names of the Dead, NY Times

Names of the Dead
02.09.08. NY Times. The Department of Defense has identified 578 American service members who have died as a part of Operation Enduring Freedom

Names of the Dead 579 (07.09.08)

581 (10.09.08)

587 .

suicides Ann Wright | Army Cover-Up of Rape and Murder? 28.04.08. Ann Wright, Truth out. The Department of Defense statistics are alarming - one in three women who join the US military will be sexually assaulted or raped by men in the military. / The military has characterized each death of women who were first sexually assaulted as deaths from "noncombat related injuries," and then added "suicide." / Yet, the families of the women whom the military has declared to have committed suicide strongly dispute the findings and are calling for further investigations into the deaths of their daughters. US Military Keeping Secrets About Female Soldiers' "Suicides"? 26.08.08. Truthdig / truthout. Fourteen U.S. military women, including five in the Army, one in the Army National Guard, two in the Army Reserves, three in the Air Force, two in the Navy (on ships supporting U.S. forces in Afghanistan) and one in the Marine Corps, one British military woman and six U.S. civilian women have been killed in Afghanistan. According to the Department of Defense, four U.S. military women in Afghanistan died in noncombat-related incidents, including one now classified as a suicide. Four military women of color (three African-Americans and one Latina) have been killed in Afghanistan. / The deaths of 14 U.S. military (13 Army and one Navy) women and one British military woman who served in Iraq, Kuwait or Afghanistan have been classified as suicides. Army suicide rate may hit new high: officials 04.09.08. AFP. The US Army is on track to break last year's all-time record for suicides, a pace that would top the civilian suicide rate for the first time since the Vietnam war, army officials said Thursday. / The officials said 93 soldiers have taken their own lives so far this year, approaching last year's 115 suicides, the most ever on record in a single year for the army. U.S. Military Is Keeping Secrets About Female Soldiers' 'Suicides' 10.09.08. Col. Ann Wright, Truthdig/alternet. Our soldiers' families deserve better than that.

CANADA

Canada nears 100 dead in Afghanistan
23.08.08. IHT.

Taliban Plan Massive Attack On Kabul; Nine Canadian Soldiers Killed
26.08.08. jihad unspun.

Canadian occupation force soldier killed in Kandahar
03.09.08. Canada com/ICH. Canada has lost another occupation force soldier in Afghanistan, just days after he received a medal for bravery.

Canadian death toll in Afghanistan: 96 soldiers, one diplomat
04.09.08. Canadian press.

Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan
07.09.08. presstiv.ir.


DENMARK

Danish soldier killed in Afghanistan
25.08.08. standard.com.hk.


HOLLAND

Roadside bomb kills one Dutch soldier, wounds five in Afghanistan
07.09.08. monsters and critics.


ENGLAND

British soldier killed in Afghanistan: NATO
18.08.08. AFP.

British soldier killed by landmine in Afghanistan
04.09.08. telegraph.

British soldier killed in Afghanistan
11.09.08. times on line. The unidentified soldier, from the Royal Logistic Corps, was on a routine patrol near Musa Qala yesterday when he was caught in the blast. The cause of the explosion is being investigated.

British soldier shot dead in Afghanistan firefight: ministry
13.09.08. AFP

British army suffers third casualty in a week in Afghanistan: MoD
14.09.08. AFP. ../ The deaths bring to 120 the number of British soldiers who have died in Afghanistan

IRELAND

Irish citizen killed in Afghanistan
05.09.08. An Irish citizen serving with the British army's Royal Irish Regiment has been killed in Afghanistan, the Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed. / According to reports, the soldier was killed in an explosion while on a routine foot patrol near Sangin, in the south of the country.


ROMANIA

Romanian soldier is killed in Afghanistan
31.08.08. monsters and critics/Sasia news.

12. Human Rights

REPORTS

"Improving Detainee Policy: Handling Terrorism Detainees Within the American Justice System,"
Senate Judiciary Committee, June 4, 2008:

"Torture and the Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment of Detainees: the Effectiveness and Consequences of 'Enhanced' Interrogation,"
House Judiciary Committee, November 8, 2007:

"Knowledge Management Section,"
29.08.08. U.S. Army Field Manual 6-01.1 (pdf)

Secrecy Report Card
2008. Open Government. The report describes the mostly unfavorable trends across a range of quantitative indicators, including classification and declassification activity, "black budget" spending, invention secrecy, Freedom of Information Act processing, and more.

Afghanistan: Civilian Deaths From Airstrikes
08.09.08. Human Rights Report, "Troops in Contact: Airstrikes and Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan

GENERAL

Afghan President Pardons Men Convicted of Gang Rape
24.08.08. Kate Clark, Independent UK/alternet.

Military Sending Foreign Fighters to Home Nations
28.08.08. Mark Mazzetti, Eric Schmitt, NY Times / Truthout: "The United States military has secretly handed over more than 200 militants to the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other countries, nearly all in the past two years, as part of an effort to reduce the burden of detaining and interrogating foreign fighters captured in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to American military officials. The system is similar in some ways to the rendition program used by the Central Intelligence Agency since the Sept. 11 attacks to secretly transfer people suspected of being militants back to their home countries to be jailed and questioned."

Offensive in Bajaur displaces journalists
29.08.08. daily times, pk. A military offensive against militants in Bajaur has displaced almost all journalists working there who are now covering the story from other districts. [ one way to get rid of journalists reporting civilian deaths? ]

Legal bid over RAF Nimrod dead
01.09.08. the herald. Earlier this year, a coroner ruled that the entire RAF fleet of Nimrod aircraft had never been airworthy and should be grounded.

Pakistani woman suspect refuses US strip search
04.09.08. Reuters / ICH. She was due to appear in Manhattan federal court Thursday where her lawyer, Elizabeth Fink, said Siddiqui was "unbelievably damaged" and in need of psychological care. The lawyer also denied allegations that Siddiqui was plotting to attack New York City landmarks.

Pakistani Tortured, Her Attorney Says
05.09.08. Washington Post / ICH. The attorney for an American-trained behavioral scientist charged with trying to kill U.S. personnel in July said in court Thursday that she believes that her client was imprisoned and tortured for several years before the incident and now could be mentally incompetent.

Wrong tactics hurt fight against Al-Qaeda
12.09.08. Sam Makinda, Business Daily Africa. The US and its partners have been unable to contain terrorism because of major weaknesses in their approach. / First, their diagnoses of the causes of transnational terrorism have been shallow and misleading./ Second, the US and its partners have pursued counter-terrorism measures that target individuals as if the capture of such people would make the problem disappear. / Third, while the US and its partners have claimed that they cannot give in to terrorists, they have adopted domestic policies that reduce human rights and inconvenience their own citizens.

No habeas corpus
-/09.08. Ingrid Massage, Himal Southasian. In Pakistan, an increase of disappearances has taken place since October 2001, as hundreds have gone missing in the context of counter-insurgency measures in the US-led war on terror, including through renditions to US authorities.

Pakistan human rights body asks UN help to avert humanitarian crisis
17.09.08. South Asia News

Aafia Siddiqui AAFIA SIDDIQUI is shown after her graduation from MIT in 1995 Photo: AP Al-Qaida suspect's U.S. son held 26.08.08. UPI. U.S. officials say the 11-year-old American son of a suspected Pakistani militant is being held by authorities in Afghanistan. Aafia Siddiqui's son, Ahmed, is a U.S. citizen by birth and has been in Afghan custody since July when his mother was arrested after a shootout with Afghan police in Ghanzi, the Washington Post (NYSE:WPO) said Tuesday. To be released soon . (30.08.08) opinion: Six Pakistani women 06.09.08. Rafia Zakaria, daily times, pk. Six Pakistani women have fuelled international headlines in the past week. Five of them are the hapless victims of the grotesque live burial that took place in rural Balochistan earlier this month, punished for going against tribal tradition and flouting the will of the men for whom they were mere chattel. / The sixth is Dr Aafia Siddiqui, the MIT-trained Pakistani neuroscientist who was recently indicted in a court in New York for attempting to murder and assault US nationals while incarcerated at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. / In a grotesque juxtaposition of the global and the local, a short moment in time saw Pakistani women victimised both by the American war on terror and a local tribal custom of appalling moral decrepitude. NY terror trial of Pakistani woman may lead to first investigation of US secret intelligence techniques 07.09.08. Jerusalem post. "There's all the noise of terrorism, but it's not in the charges," said Joanne Mariner, an attorney with Human Rights Watch in New York who has followed the case. .. / "We are really in a predicament here," he [Prosecutor David Raskin] told US District Court Judge Richard Berman. When truth and rights are crucified for US security 07.09.08. Thalif Deen, Sunday Times. .. most wars are justified on the strength of blatant lies deployed by both warring parties in any conflict. If insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan resort to pure political hogwash to bolster their cause, are the US and NATO forces, presided over by legitimate governments, justified in resorting to similar tactics in lying about the successes and failures in the battlefield? [examples]. / .. Last month there was yet another incredible story about a US-educated Pakistani neuro-scientist, Aafia Siddiqui, 36, who was apparently nabbed "lingering" outside the house of the governor of Ghazni province in Afghanistan. [examples of lies and human rights abuses]. The Strange and Terrible Case of Aafia Siddiqui 08.09.08. JOANNE MARINER, findlaw. Everyone agrees that she's a 36-year-old mother of three young children. But while the New York Post calls her the "Al Qaeda mom," and federal prosecutors claim that when she was arrested in July she was carrying a bag packed with chemicals and handwritten notes about a "mass casualty attack," Aafia Siddiqui's lawyers say she's a victim. "This woman has been tortured and she needs help," explained Elizabeth Fink, one of her defense counsel, at an August 11 court hearing. Afghanistan hands over son of Pakistani scientist 15.09.08. AFP. The Afghan government Monday handed to Pakistan diplomats the young son of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist suspected of links with Al-Qaeda who was arrested with the boy two months ago. Foreign ministry officials handed over the child, identified by the foreign ministry as 11-year-old Ali Hassan who was born in the United States, in front of media in Kabul. He would be returned to his family, the Pakistan embassy said.

Lights Out On Liberty
05.09.08. cyber pastor. email, Mark Steyn. Every day of the week, somewhere in the West, a Muslim lobbying group is engaging in an action similar to what Im facing in Canada. / .. Thus we see that todays multicultural societies tolerate the explicitly intolerant and avowedly unicultural, while refusing to tolerate anyone pointing out that intolerance. .. / I wrote my book America Alone because I wanted to reframe how we thought about the War on Terroran insufficient and evasive designation that has long since outlasted whatever usefulness it may once have had.


Bashir Noorzai

Afghan tribal leader set for trial in NYC
07.09.08. To, Hays, AP. Afghanistan is in anarchy," the one-time Taliban ally recalls telling his tribesmen. "Americans are establishing our future government." / Rather than thank him, Noorzai claims the U.S. government betrayed him: In 2005, he was branded a most-wanted drug kingpin, lured to New York and arrested.

Mohammed Ahmad

Boy Detained In Afghanistan, UN Must Intervene Says Human Rights Group
13.09.08. mindanaoexaminer. The Asian Human Rights Commission is concerned to hear from the United States Department of Justice that an 11-year old boy, and US-Pakistani Citizen, Mohammed Ahmad, has been illegally detained in Afghanistan since 17 July 2008, when his mother was allegedly arrested by the FBI.

Watch this space

ZADARI

Mad and bad but the West will turn a blind eye
07.09.08. Jemima Khan, Independent. The man who now has his finger on the nuclear button was only last year declared unfit to stand trial in a UK court on account of multiple mental problems. He suffers from dementia, major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress after spending 11 of the past 20 years in jail in Pakistan. ./ Zardari has long been dogged by allegations of crime and corruption.

Asif Ali Zardari: The Godfather As President
08.09.08. countercurrents. Tariq Ali, counter currents. He may be a pliant partner for the west, but with his record of corruption, Zardari is the worst possible choice for Pakistan

Dick Cheney; No Paper Trails?

Lawsuit to Ask That Cheney's Papers Be Made Public
08.09.08. Christopher Lee, The Washington Post/truthout. "Months before the Bush administration ends, historians and open-government advocates are concerned that Vice President Cheney, who has long bristled at requirements to disclose his records, will destroy or withhold key documents that illustrate his role in forming U.S. policy for the past 7 1/2 years. In a preemptive move, several of them have agreed to join the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in asking a federal judge to declare that Cheney's records are covered by the Presidential Records Act of 1978 and cannot be destroyed, taken or withheld without proper review."

RENDITION

Mexico drug plane used for US 'rendition' flights: report
04.09.08. AFP. A private jet that crash-landed almost one year ago in eastern Mexico carrying 3.3 tons of cocaine had previously been used for CIA "rendition" flights, a newspaper report said here Thursday, citing documents from the United States and the European Parliament.

U.S. builds new detention center in Afghanistan
26.08.08. CSM. The new facility, which will hold up to 1,100 detainees, is aimed at replacing the controversial existing one at Bagram

Pentagon to expand intel ops at U.S. prison in Afghanistan
16.09.08. Peter Eisler, USA TODAY. Interrogators and analysts are being sought for a bigger Bagram prison scheduled to open next year. They will be hired to question prisoners and provide intelligence that can be used on the battlefield, according to contract solicitations reviewed by USA TODAY. The Army also is seeking a "trained Mullah" to conduct Islamic services for detainees and advise U.S. officials on religious issues. / The developments are the latest indication of U.S. plans for a long-term presence in Afghanistan, where the fundamentalist Muslim Taliban militants have regained strength since U.S. forces ousted them in 2001.

GUANTANAMO

Tortured in Egypt, Rendered to Guantánamo: Pakistani Heads Home After Six Years
04.09.08. A. Worthington, anti-war.com

Pakistan ambassador to US seeks release of nationals from Guantanamo Bay
09.09.08. The JURIST. The Pakistani Ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, met with US officials on Sunday to discuss the release of six Pakistani citizens currently being held at the US military detention center at Guantanamo Bay. / .. According to reports, any Pakistani prisoners facing terrorism charges upon their release would be tried by Pakistani courts.

US army is breaking rules to make terrorists talk
11.09.08. new scientist.

Abdul Nasir, right, and his brother in Kabul.
"Photograph: Jason Burke

Shadow of Guantanamo follows freed inmates back to their homes
14.09.08. Jason BURKE. Observer. After years in detention, Afghan returnees have bitter memories as they face new hardships.

US denies Pakistan delegation access to Guantanamo detainees
15.09.08. JURIST. The US has denied a Pakistani delegation's request to meet with Pakistani detainees held at the US military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, according to a Daily Times report published Sunday. According to the report, the US said that it does not permit delegations to meet with specific detainees held at the center.

Fate of Guantanamo to be left to next US president
16.09.08. Sue Pleming, Reuters / wired.

Psychologists Vote to End Interrogation Consultations
17.09.08. NY Times.

Binyam

British Court Rules Against UK and US in Guantánamo Case
01.09.08. Andy Worthington, anti-war. When justice finally came for Binyam, it was not at Guantánamo, but in London's High Court, where, last Thursday, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr. Justice Lloyd Jones delivered a stinging rebuke to both the British and the American governments: to the British for the complicity of the UK intelligence services in the U.S. administration's post-9/11 policies of "extraordinary rendition" and torture, and to the Americans for the lawless conduct of the trials by military commission that were established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to deal with "terror suspects" like Binyam (even though the judges professed in their ruling that they "did not consider it necessary to form any view about the overall fairness of the military commissions procedure").

Obaidullah

U.S. charges Afghan prisoner at Guantanamo
10.09.08. Jane Sutton, Reuters. Obaidullah, who like many Afghans is known by one name, is charged with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism.

US military charges Afghan detainee at Guantanamo with war crimes
12.09.08. JURIST. US military prosecutors have brought war crimes charges against a detainee at Guantanamo Bay who they allege stored and concealed anti-tank mines in Afghanistan. The detainee, named Obaidullah, was charged Wednesday with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism.

Omar Khadr

Khadr military judge bars Hartmann from legal advisor role
05.09.08. The Jurist.

Military Judge In Guantanamo Bay Postpones Omar Khadr's Trial
11.09.08. allheadine news / legitgov. The U.S. military judge in Guantanamo Bay postponed the Oct. 8 trial of half-Canadian, half-Afghan youth Omar Khadr. An earlier hearing slated Wednesday was also canceled because the flight of Khadr's lawyers, prosecutors and military judge did not push through due to Hurricane Ike.

Canadian officials frustrated in efforts to ensure care for Omar Khadr
11.09.08. canadian press / legitgov. A Canadian government representative complained as recently as a few months ago that her efforts to ensure proper medical and other care for Omar Khadr in Guantanamo Bay were being stymied by his American captors, newly released documents reveal.

Canadian won't be tried at Guantanamo until after election
16.09.08. mcclatchy / legitgov. now scheduled for 10 November (17.09.08)

Genocide and War Crimes

How Genocides Are Covered Up By Western media
07.09.08. huliq. 1. Japan China, Russia-Georgia. It is not a secret that Western media is far from offering the freedom of speech and expression for which it overtly fights around the world. Going against the so called opinion of the majority is as fatal as it is going against the will of the ruling party in a dictatorial regime.

VIDEO
Afghan Massacre - The Convoy of Death
(50 min -Jamie Doran) Produced and directed by Irish filmmaker and former BBC producer Jamie Doran, the film tells the story of thousands of prisoners who surrendered to the US military's Afghan allies after the siege of Kunduz. According to the film, some three thousand of the prisoners were forced into sealed containers and loaded onto trucks for transport to Sheberghan prison. When the prisoners began shouting for air, U.S.-allied Afghan soldiers fired directly into the truck, killing many of them.

Welcome to the final stages of the coup...
20.09.08. Larisa Alexandrovna, Huff Post. In 2000, the long fought for and long admired democracy of the United States of America began a slow and steady decline toward fascism - a Bush family tradition - with the installment of a president - a man the citizens overwhelmingly rejected (although the funny math told a still believed myth) - by a few corrupt judges on the US Supreme Court. That coup is now nearly complete and checkmate is all but unavoidable.

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13. References

Descent into Chaos
How the War against Islamic Extremism is being Lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia; By Ahmed Rashid; (Allen Lane London 2008) This is a BOOK REVIEW: The inside track on Afghan wars by Khaled Ahmed. See also Descent into Chaos (Amazon), The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, Ahmed Rashid, Jun 3, 2008

The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism
Andrew Bacevich, Metropolitan Books (August 5, 2008). Robert Kaiser (Washington Post) says: This compact, meaty volume ought to be on the reading list of every candidate for national office. / .. Bacevich is argumentative, and his case is not proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but at the end of this book, a serious reader has a difficult choice: to embrace Bacevich's general view or to construct a genuinely persuasive alternative. For many years our leaders have failed to do either. The price of their failure has been high and could go much higher.

The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: The Definitive Treatment of 9/11
12.09.08. Tod Fletcher, globalresearch.ca. A Review of David Ray Griffin's book

S. Brysac asked me to include the following: Kingmakers: The Invention of the Modern Middle East by Karl E. Meyer and Shareen B. Brysac W.W.Norton, 2008.

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INDEX ON AFGHANISTAN APRIL 2008: FAMINE

INDEX on AFGHANISTAN: DISASTER, A WINTERS TALE I: FEBRUARY 2008

INDEX ON AFGHANISTAN, NATO FAILURE: A WINTERS TALE, PART II

Autumn '07 in Afghanistan

Security Companies in Afghanistan (updated 10.09.08)

Afghanistan: Cleared of Wrongdoing

Afghanistan's New "Kinetic" Team

Schisms: Index on Afghanistan, August 2007

Index on Afghanistan: May 2007: Part II - NATO; Human Rights

Index on Afghanistan: May 2007 Part I

Dead in Afghanistan: May 2007

Index on Afghanistan: April 2007: Murder in Nangarhar (updated)

Index on Afghanistan : March 2007

Index on Afghanistan : February 2007

Index on Afghanistan : January 2007

Index on Afghanistan : December 2006

Index on Afghanistan : November 2006

Index on Afghanistan : October 2006

Index on Afghanistan : September 2006

Index on Afghanistan (Updated to 31/08/06)

Index Research: The Pentagon and Oil

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Sarah Meyer is an independent researcher living in the UK

The url to Index on Index on Afghanistan and Pakistan - Murder & Security, Aug/Sept. 08 is http://indexresearch.blogspot.com/2008/09/index-on-afghanistan-and-pakistan.html
The smaller url is http://tinyurl.com/49rmxj

Difficulties with publishing this Index Research = September final week will be in next Index on Afghanistan. Thank you.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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Tags: Index Research, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Canada, France, Germany, UK, Security, US: Bush, Oil, Contracts, Contractors, NATO, NATO Coalition and Deaths, Human Rights, Rendition, Guantanamo, Siddiqui