U.S. soldier goes on shooting rampage in Afghanistan

A U.S. soldier walked off base in the Kandahar Province  of Afghanistan and went on a shooting rampage, killing 16 people.  It is unknown what pushed this soldier over the edge.  U.S. officials vow to get to the bottom of the incident.

Is an act like this terrorism, even though it is in a war zone?  Perhaps.  I don’t know what else to call the killing of unarmed civilians.  

According to the Washington Post:

President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta called Karzai on Sunday to discuss the incident. Obama expressed “shock and sadness” and vowed to “hold fully accountable anyone responsible” for the killings, the White House said in a statement.

“This incident is tragic and shocking and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan,” Obama said.

U.S. officials shed no light on the motive or state of mind of the alleged shooter. The Associated Press reported Sunday that the suspect was from Fort Lewis, in Washington state. He was taken into custody shortly after the shooting rampage.

“It appears he walked off post and later returned and turned himself in,” said Lt. Cmdr. James Williams, a military spokesman.

What causes this kind of fugue from reality?  American troops will be on high alert across the region following the incident.  Things were just calming down from the Koran burning incidents where locals rioted and fired on US troops for days.  This rogue soldier’s behavior has endangered all of our troops.

Restrepo: Birds Eye View of Afghanistan

I just finished watching Restrepo.  It is available on Netflix.  It will also be shown again on NatGeo Monday night at 9 pm.  We have been so protected from our wars.  Only military families have suffered.  Industry and defense contractors have gotten rich.  The rest of us have basically remained untouched.

The war in Afghanistan is costing 2 billion dollars a week.  Our troops are being asked to be social workers.  Meanwhile, those same troops are suffering death, horrible brain injuries, loss of limb and overall life-altering injuries.  Military families have suffered because also because of the multiply deployments.  Children have grown up without a parent and spouses have spent 10 years with partners popping in and out of their lives. 

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Congress goes on break after NPR ‘Fiscal Emergency’

Many currently in Congress ran on promises to tackle jobs and the budget.  Instead, they have taken on NPR and Planned Parenthood.  Many experienced Republicans have been frustrated by the newcomers who don’t seem to understand Washington protocol.  Republicans have ended up blocking Republicans. 

According to Washington Post  columnist Dana Milbank:

The lack of grown-up behavior is driving Americans to despair. In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, only 26 percent said that they were optimistic about the future when “thinking about our system of government and how well it works.” That’s less than half the level of optimism felt in 1974, during Watergate.

The Democrats are only showing themselves to be slightly more adult.  The party leaders opposed Dennis Kucinich’s bill to just dump Afghanistan at the end of the year and bring everyone home.   Many Democrats felt his plan was foolish and irresponsible and most voted against it.

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WHAT are we thinking? The Fox Guards the Hen House in Afghanistan

Totally insane!  WHAT are we thinking?  The New York Times exposé of Afghan contractors guarding our military bases is beyond anything stupid.  We are wasting billions of dollars a year in a war that has no goals and we have given the fox the keys to the hen house. 

According to the New York Times:

Afghan private security forces with ties to the Taliban, criminal networks and Iranian intelligence have been hired to guard American military bases in Afghanistan, exposing United States soldiers to surprise attack and confounding the fight against insurgents, according to a Senate investigation.

The Pentagon’s oversight of the Afghan guards is virtually nonexistent, allowing local security deals among American military commanders, Western contracting companies and Afghan warlords who are closely connected to the violent insurgency, according to the report by investigators on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The United States military has almost no independent information on the Afghans guarding the bases, who are employees of Afghan groups hired as subcontractors by Western firms awarded security contracts by the Pentagon. At one large American airbase in western Afghanistan, military personnel did not even know the names of the leaders of the Afghan groups providing base security, the investigators found. So they used the nicknames that the contractor was using — Mr. White and Mr. Pink from “Reservoir Dogs,” the 1992 gangster movie by Quentin Tarantino. Mr. Pink was later determined to be a “known Taliban” figure, they reported.

In another incident, the United States military bombed a house where it was believed that a Taliban leader was holding a meeting, only to discover later that the house was owned by an Afghan security contractor to the American military, who was meeting with his nephew — the Taliban leader.

 

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A Few BAD Men

Every war must produce a rogues gallery–rogue troops who dishonor and shame our country. Stories of these pitiful few, unfortunately, seem to take on a life of their own and almost define the war, like stories of My Lai and Lt. Calley during the Vietnam War. Abu Ghraib certainly got its fair share of publicity during the heat of the Iraq War. Now a few bad men seem to be tarnishing the work of all those brave men and women who have served in Afghanistan.

The front page of the Washington Post tells a horror story of rogue soldiers who killed Afghans for sport. The father of one of the men accused tried to alert the army after being told of atrocities by his son on the Internet. The father reported that he had been rebuffed and now his son stands accused along with others. The military has also been accused of ignoring warnings.

 
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Florida Minister Endangers the Troops

Gen. David Petraeus said a church's Quran-burning "is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses."
Gen. David Petraeus said a church's Quran-burning "is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses."

Koran-Crusade

Several weeks ago we put up a thread about a minister in Florida who planned to burn copies of the Quran on 9/11. To date, there seems to be mo change in his misguided plans.

CNN reports:

CNN) — The U.S. commander in Afghanistan on Monday criticized a Florida church’s plan to burn copies of the Quran on September 11, warning the demonstration “could cause significant problems” for American troops overseas.

“It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort in Afghanistan,” Gen. David Petraeus said in a statement issued Monday.

The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, plans to mark the anniversary of al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington by burning copies of the Muslim holy book. The church insists the event is “neither an act of love nor of hate,” but a warning against what it calls the threats posed by Islam.

Good for General Petraeus. Its time someone called out this arrogant man. Who better than the commander of all US troops in Afghanistan.

More from CNN:

With about 120,000 U.S. and NATO-led troops still battling al Qaeda and its allies in the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban movement, Petraeus warned that burning Qurans “is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems — not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community.”

And one of his deputies, Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, told CNN’s “The Situation Room” that event “has already stirred up a lot of discussion and concern” among Afghans.

“We very much feel that this can jeopardize the safety of our men and women that are serving over here in the country,” said Caldwell, the head of NATO efforts to train Afghan security forces.

Caldwell said American troops “are over here to defend the rights of American citizens, and we’re not debating the First Amendment rights that people have.” But he added, “What I will tell you is that their very actions will in fact jeopardize the safety of the young men and women who are serving in uniform over here and also undermine the very mission that we’re trying to accomplish.”

“I would hope they would understand that there are second- and third-order effects that will occur that will affect that young man and woman who’s out there on point for America, serving their nation today, because of their actions back in the United States,” he said

The stupidity and arrogance of this minister is almost unspeakable. When the U.S. Commander tells you that you are endangering the troops, you should listen. If even one of our men or women is killed because of this ignoramous, his entire ministry should be held responsible. How sad that Americans would involve themselves with book burning. Sounds Third Reich to me. I would have no problem with the press being ordered to stay away and the minister barred from his bonfire on 9/11, as a matter of national security. The first amendment is not without some limitations.

Meanwhile, we can only hope that our troops will be safe.

Pentagon Says at Least a Trillion in Mineral Deposits in Afghanistan

 

 

From the NY Times:

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.

The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.

While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.

“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”

The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.

“This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy,” said Jalil Jumriany, an adviser to the Afghan minister of mines.

 

We have already know about the Afghanistan lapis lazuli, better known as just lapis.  It has become increasingly more costly since the Afghanistan war, mainly because it is harder to get the mineral.   Afghan miners go far up into the mountains where the vast lapis deposits are and bring out the rough on mules and human packs.  The best lapis in the world comes out of Afghanistan.  I got my stash from a friend’s husband who has a good eye for jewelry. 

Now what about all this lithium, iron, copper, cobalt, gold, etc?  Supposedly trillions of dollars worth.  How would a primitive country like Afghanistan ever develop to the point where some of these riches could be mined and distributed world wide?  What would keep the Taliban and Al Quada from taking control of the wealth? 

It sounds to me like if anything is done with these riches, the Americans out to put on their ugly American hat and simply be the big, bad watch dog.  Besides, that war has cost us a small fortune.  Pay backs are expensive.  Royalties are expensive.

The Mystery Dead-RIP

No pictures.  No names.  No job descriptions.  No Such Agency.

Last week we learned of 7 C.I.A. agents who were killed in Afghanistan in one of the remote camps. The agents were killed by a suicide bomber who apparently was working as a double agent. Today, the news showed the bomber’s wife on TV, bragging about her husband and saying he would never work for the Americans or help them. Yet, our people, trained in espionage, trusted this man and allowed him on base with few questions asked.

Furthermore, we really don’t know who these people were. The C.I.A. has not released their names. We know a few names only because their families have spoken to the press. The C.I.A. is known for being a tight knit community and for being very proprietary about their intelligence. Yet, somewhere in this mix we find out that there were 2 Blackwater (now known as Xe LLC) C.I.A. agents also killed. 2 of the C.I.A. agents were women. This too, is highly unusual.

Unfortunately, our glimpse into this tight-knit society is only because of their deaths. One of the women who was killed will probably never be known. The New York Times, after consulting with the C.I.A. has agreed to not release her name. This is serious stuff. The other woman’s name was released by her father.

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President Obama Orders 34,000 More Troops to Afghanistan

President Obama has ordered approximately  34,000 more troops to Afghanistan.   In September General McCrystal requested 40,000 more in order to get the job done.  President Obama will surely have difficulty with his liberal base over sending more troops. 

The New York Times states:

Mr. Obama conveyed his decision to military leaders late Sunday afternoon during a meeting in the Oval Office and then spent Monday phoning foreign counterparts, including the leaders of Britain, France and Russia.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, declined to say how many additional troops would be deployed, but senior administration officials previously have said that about 30,000 will go in coming months, bringing the total American force to about 100,000.

 

President Obama will ask NATO nations to help fill in the additional 6,000 needed troops. While he has suffered criticism from the left, the President has also been criticized from the right for deliberating for what some see \as too long. He was accused of ‘dithering’ by some Republicans.  President Obama will address the nation tonight from the United States Military Academy at West Point at 8:00 PM.

What should happen here? Should a time line be announced? Should Obama have sent troops immediately without the many meetings with his military advisors?  Does it endanger the existing troops in Afghanistan if there are not enough boots on the ground?  Should generals always get what they ask for?  How many troops are still in Iraq?

Washington Post

White House Contradicts CBS News on Troops

From CBS News:


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Tonight the following was released from the White House:

Editor’s note, 9:57 p.m. EDT: The White House has issued the following response to this story, attributed to White House National Security Advisor James Jones:

“Reports that President Obama has made a decision about Afghanistan are absolutely false. He has not received final options for his consideration, he has not reviewed those options with his national security team, and he has not made any decisions about resources. Any reports to the contrary are completely untrue and come from uninformed sources.”

And back to CBS News:

Tonight, after months of conferences with top advisors, President Obama has settled on a new strategy for Afghanistan. CBS News correspondent David Martin reports that the president will send a lot more troops and plans to keep a large force there, long term.

The president still has more meetings scheduled on Afghanistan, but informed sources tell CBS News he intends to give Gen. Stanley McChrystal most, if not all, the additional troops he is asking for.

 

It sounds like someone stumbled out of the gate, we just aren’t sure who.

Should President Obama send additional troops into Afghanistan?

More Troops Requested in Afghanistan

General Stanley McCrystal has asked for additonal troops in Afghanistan. It was his opinion:

that the U.S. effort in Afghanistan “will likely result in failure” without an urgent infusion of troops has been endorsed by the uniformed leadership. That includes Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command and architect of the troop “surge” strategy widely seen as helping U.S. forces turn the corner in Iraq.

Meanwhile, President Obama has said that the administration needs time to assess the situation and look again at options and objectives. According to the Washington Post,

Obama’s public remarks on Afghanistan indicate that he has begun to rethink the counterinsurgency strategy he set in motion six months ago, even as his generals have embraced it. The equation on the ground has changed markedly since his March announcement, with attacks by Taliban fighters showing greater sophistication, U.S. casualties rising, and the chances increasing that Afghanistan will be left with an illegitimate government after widespread fraud in recent presidential elections.

Should we risk getting bogged down even further in the war in Afghanistan by sending in more troops? Is it possible to win in Afghanistan? Must we get Bin Lauden to be successful? What would really denote ‘winning?’ Should the Taliban be totally removed?

The Afghanistan government seems corrupt and the elections were questionable. Must the Afghanistan governement be stable? Must the Afghanistan army be able to defend the country before we go? Have there been efforts to make this happen?

The drug situation is still deplorable. The Taliban almost eradicated poppy growing in 2001. Now they do not seem to be quite the intense opponents of the poppy industry as they used to be. This past year was a bumper crop. Much of the world’s opium comes from this area of the world. Can we turn our backs on this cash crop?

Politically speaking, will President Obama lose his liberal support if he continues the war in Afghanistan? Did he make promises about the Afghanistan front or did he mainly speak about the Iraqi war? What does American stand to gain or lose by either action?