Could Afghanistan Break NATO?

[Disco_Destroyer]

[TonyGosling]

NATO accused of sheltering Afghan heroin trade

September 24, 2008
http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/30901

Since NATO forces invaded Afghanistan, the production of heroin in the country increased by 2.5 times and Afghanistan has become the world leader in heroin production. Eighteen tonnes of heroin from Afghanistan ends up in Russia each year.

Russia at war with heroin

As a result of this war Russia has become one of the main markets for Afghan opiates, involuntary acknowledged Russian Federal Drugs Control Service, and drug traffickers are financing terrorist organizations worldwide, says the Interfax news agency.

The Director of FDCS, Viktor Ivanov, tolds journalists that a drug addict’s life is limited to 5-7 years from the moment he becomes one.

He also said that those 400,000 drug addicts officially registered in Russia in 2001 are already dead and the number of new ones is growing by 30% every year. That is why the losses should be regarded as Russia’s direct casualties in the war that NATO wages on Afghanistan.

“The problem of Afghan opiates has a geopolitical character,” stressed Ivanov.

While in Russia up to 90% of drug addicts depend on Afghan opiates, in Europe this volume is up to 10%.

Strategic drug trafficking

The head of the FDCS insists that it is not just the Taliban that manages the heroin traffic but the Afghan governmental and security services’ officials known by name.

The fact that dozens of high-ranking Afghan officials are known to be involved in the drug industry means that corrupted authorities work hand in hand with the Taliban terrorist movement, which in turn means that NATO military forces support the current Afghan regime.

Within the framework of the Russia-NATO Council Russia is financing and conducting special training for Afghan police squads dealing with drug trafficking. Unfortunately, for more than a year not a single Afghan policeman came to Russia for training which is no wonder considering the fact that all actions of Afghanistan’s security services should be sanctioned by the U.S.

[TonyGosling]

August 26, 2008, 9:22
Russia ready to ditch NATO - Medvedev
President Medvedev says Russia is ready to break off relations with NATO if necessary. His comments came after a meeting with Russia's ambassador to the alliance, Dmitry Rogozin. NATO has been highly critical of Russia’s handling of the conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia.

http://www.russiatoday.com/medvedev/news/29470

Speaking after a meeting with Rogozin in Sochi, Medvedev said there could be no confusion about NATO’s plans. He also said that Russia could see through “the illusion of partnership”.

”When they are building up their military forces, surrounding us with bases and drawing into the alliance more and more countries - convincing us that everything is ok... Of course we don't like it,” President Medvedev said on Monday.

NATO vessels are in the Black Sea to provide humanitarian aid for Georgia and give a helping hand. Russia views their presence with suspicion.

NATO had warned that relations with Russia would not improve until it pulled all its troops out of Georgia.

The future of joint Russia-NATO programmes remains unclear. One of them involves the delivery of humanitarian aid through Russia to Afghanistan.

”NATO is more interested in this partnership then we are. Even if it will mean the end of our cooperation, it’s nothing to us,” Medvedev said.

At the last meeting of NATO foreign ministers, the alliance was looking for ways to punish Russia.

The U.S. wanted to convince member states to exclude Russia from the G8.

In another development, Washington and Warsaw sealed a deal on the deployment of interceptors in Poland as a part of the U.S. missile defence project. The talks ended years of negotiations, with Washington agreeing to all Poland’s conditions.

Western countries could bar Russia’s entry to the World Trade Organisation. Russia has been seeking to join the WTO for more than 10 years, but it’s not desperate for entry and is prepared to halt talks.

”Our economy, I mean some of its industries, including agriculture, bears a rather heavy load. It turns out we neither see nor feel any pluses from this membership of the WTO, if there are any at all, but we do bear a load,” Prime Minister Putin said.

Meanwhile, the British Foreign Ministry announced that breaking NATO-Russia ties would be a mistake, as the alliance need links with Moscow.

[QuitTheirClogs]

French troops: We won't go to Afghanistan

http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=71254&sectionid=351020603
Sat, 04 Oct 2008 06:58:27 GMT

Troops in a military base in France have opposed their deployment to Afghanistan amid dwindling support of French forces being there.

According to French media, troops in the 27th battalion stationed in a southern France military base said on Friday that they were unwilling to go to Afghanistan as part of France's mission in the central Asian country.

The troops' refusal to go to the war-ravaged country comes as 10 French soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in August.

The August ambush is the deadliest ground attack on international forces since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the heaviest single death toll for the French military since the 1983 bombing of a barracks in Beirut killed 58 French paratroopers.

The Taliban and Former PM Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who leads Hezb-i-Islami group, separately claimed responsibility for the attack on the French troops amid speculation that they were killed by 'friendly-fire' from NATO planes that had come to help them escape the ambush.

The attack shocked France and sparked fierce debate about the country's presence in Afghanistan. Despite calls to withdraw, French lawmakers have recently approved an extension of the country's involvement in the Afghan conflict.

Despite the fact that 50 percent of the French people oppose the deployment of thousands of troops to Afghanistan, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced at the last NATO summit in April that he would send an additional 700 French soldiers to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, bringing the total to about 3,000.

Criticism of Sarkozy's policies increased following the death of the 10 French soldiers. He has also faced severe criticism for being too close to US President George W. Bush's administration.

[TonyGosling]

War on Taliban can't be won, says army chief
British commander in Afghanistan says aim is now to reduce insurgency to low level

# Mark Oliver and agencies
# guardian.co.uk,
# Sunday October 05 2008 15:48 BST

The most senior British commander in Afghanistan has said the British public should not expect a "decisive military victory" by coalition troops and has spoken about the possibility of holding security talks with the Taliban.



In an interview published today, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said "we're not going to win this war" and the aim was not total victory but reducing the insurgency to a low level, something which could involve talks with the Taliban.

Carleton-Smith, the commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, said the objective was to enlarge the Afghan army so it could take over the security of the country.

While paying tribute to his troops in Helmand province, and describing successes against insurgents, the brigadier told today's Sunday Times: ""We're not going to win this war. It's about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army."

He went on: "If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that's precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this. That shouldn't make people uncomfortable."

The Observer reported last month that the Taliban had already been engaged in secret talks about ending the conflict in Afghanistan in a wide-ranging "peace process" sponsored by Saudi Arabia and supported by Britain.

There have been 120 British military fatalities in Afghanistan since military operations began in the country following the US-led invasion to topple the Taliban in 2001 following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US.

The UK has around 8,000 troops in Afghanistan, mainly concentrated in the volatile southern province of Helmand.

[TonyGosling]

BBC - The mystery of the missing opium

It's a mystery that has got British law enforcement officials and others across the planet scratching their heads. Put bluntly, enough heroin to supply the world's demand for years has simply disappeared.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) describes the situation as "a time bomb for public health and global security"......

Theory 1: is the BBC Conspiracy 'The Iranians did it' Theory so we'll pass on that one.

Theory 2: Vast quantities of heroin and morphine are being stockpiled. Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UNODC is convinced that is the only explanation. In a recent bulletin he issues an urgent order: 'Find the missing opium.' "As a priority, intelligence services need to examine who holds this surplus, where it may go, and for what purpose" he says. "We know little about these stockpiles of drugs, besides that they are not in the hands of farmers."..........



http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2008/10/map_of_the_ week_the_mystery_of.html

[TonyGosling]

MORE?
Is he MAD?
Does he want a war with Russia?

Targets in the UK now then!!!!!!!
Get out of Opium land and stop sleepwalking NOW!

[Disco_Destroyer]

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

'The Taliban are closing in’
Chris Sands, Foreign Correspondent - February 02. 2009
The former governor of Maidan Wardak, Abdul Jabbar Naeemi, is fearing the worst. KABUL// As provinces across southern Afghanistan began to fall into the hands of the Taliban, Abdul Jabbar Naeemi realised that sooner or later the unrest would hit closer to home.
“The thing was coming from that part of the country with a very powerful wind. We stopped it for almost two years, from the end of 2006 and the whole of 2007,” he said.
“In 2008 [the situation was] a little bit disturbed, now I don’t know what’s happened.”
Mr Naeemi is the former governor of Maidan Wardak, a province bordering Kabul that is among the most dangerous areas in the country. It is a place that has come to symbolise the strength of the insurgency, with Afghans in the nation’s capital quick to point out that the Taliban are only a few kilometres away.
The trouble has not developed overnight, though. While the world is finally waking up to the seriousness of events, people here have been watching the bloodshed edge nearer for quite some time.
Speaking in English, Mr Naeemi, 41, said insecurity had spread gradually throughout the south...............
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090202/FOREIGN/908717842/1002

[QuitTheirClogs]

NATO seeks Iran help over Afghanistan

http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=84514&sectionid=351020403
Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:12:18 GMT

NATO says member states can use Iran as a safe supply path to forces in Afghanistan, amid increasing attacks on its routes through Pakistan.

“NATO is looking at flexible, alternate routing. I think that is healthy,” top NATO military commander Gen. John Craddock said, in response to a question about using Iranian territory for supply.

"Options are a good thing, choices are a good thing, flexibility in military operations is essential…What nations will do is up to them," he added.

Craddock's comments came as Pakistani militants blew up a bridge in northern parts of the country, cutting off the Khyber Pass, a key NATO route where up to 75% of the coalition's supplies cross over to Afghanistan.

Last week, the chief of NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said West could only win the war in Afghanistan if it engages with all the countries neighboring Afghanistan, including Iran.

"To my mind, we need a discussion that brings in all the relevant regional players: Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, Russia, and yes, Iran. We need a pragmatic approach to solve this very real challenge," Scheffer said.

Later on the week, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen and the commander of US forces in the Middle East, General David Petraeus joined the NATO secretary general in calling for a 'regional approach' to calm Afghanistan's volatile situation.

"With respect to Afghanistan, a regional approach is critical… Iran, as a bordering state, plays a role as well," said Mullen.

A number of analysts believe that direct engagement with Iran, a country with a vast and secure border with Afghanistan, makes sense as Tehran has a real interest in a secure neighbor.

This could also serve as an opportunity for Western states to get closer to Iran which is now seen a key power in the Middle East.

[QuitTheirClogs]

SAS chief -- Major Sebastian Morley -- equates Afghanistan with the start of the Vietnam War. But the Telegraph leads on the Land Rover issue.

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
Last Updated: 6:45PM GMT 07 Mar 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/4951560/SAS-chief-says-MoD-has-blood-o n-its-hands.html

The commander of SAS troops in Afghanistan Major Sebastian Morley who resigned over "unsafe" Snatch Land Rovers has accused the Government of having "blood on its hands".

In wide-ranging interviews with The Daily Telegraph and Tatler magazine, Major Morley, a contemporary of David Cameron at Eton, raises considerable doubts over the current conduct of the campaign that he believes is being severely undermined by a lack of troops and resources.

Major Morley, who started his Army career in the Black Watch, says: "The operations that we are conducting are so worthless. It's just crazy to think we hold that ground or have any influence on what goes on beyond the bases."

The significant increase in the death toll over the last nine months, that has seen the number of British fatalities increase by 50 per cent to 149 dead, has suggested that this summer could be the bloodiest so far.

"I don't think we have even scratched the surface as far as this conflict goes," the SAS officer said. He added: "This is the equivalent to the start of the Vietnam conflict, there is much more to come."

[TonyGosling]

Leaders have not shown the courage to explain what the war really means

As British soldier deaths in Afghanistan become horribly routine, it grows clearer that no one knows what they are fighting for

Does the name Christopher Harkett mean anything to you? Or Thomas John or Graeme Stiff? They are the three casualties who took the total loss of British soldiers in Afghanistan over the 150 mark last week. Every week there is another; we glimpse the blurred shots of a young man smiling and hear the brief reference to Helmand, the regiment and the next of kin being informed.

As these deaths have become horribly routine in one of Britain's longest wars, it has become clear that no one knows what these men are dying for. It is now commonly accepted that this is a war which Nato is not winning; some go further and say it is unwinnable in any conventional sense. Barack Obama has declared the former, and is presumably pondering the latter as part of the review of Afghanistan policy in Washington expected to be announced in the next few weeks. David Miliband conceded last Friday on the Today programme that there is "strategic stalemate in some parts of the country".

That can be translated. It means British soldiers are conducting highly skilled, dangerous assaults that are largely well-planned and achieve narrow objectives of securing a particular village or road; they often involve casualties on both sides. The problem is these operations are almost entirely pointless - they serve no broader strategic purpose.

Take a case in point, at Nad-e-Ali just before Christmas, when three weeks of hard fighting in Operation Sond Chara (Red Dagger) secured several key areas from the Taliban, five British soldiers died and a reported 100 Taliban - it was declared a great victory. By the end of February there were reports that the Taliban had slipped back into much of the area. There is complete confusion as to what these soldiers are trying to achieve, argues Professor Anthony King, author of a book to be published later this year on European military force, From the Rhine to the Hindu Kush. .......................

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/23/afghanistan-milita ry-terrorism

[Thermate911]

I guess Brzezinski is not a popular author amongst military 'policy setters' judging by this article? They don't even know why they're in Afghanistan?

Such ignorance is alarming. Just think, $8.75 gets you the complete NWO game plan for the next few years yet military planners can't afford it? Hmm, the view from Redneckistan must be obscured by chemtrails and smog...

http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Chessboard-American-Geostrategic-Imperativ es/dp/0465027261/ref=sr_1_2/191-5428192-0216946?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=12 37904000&sr=1-2
http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-autho r=Zbigniew%20Brzezinski&page=1

[TonyGosling]

WHAT ATTRACTS USA IN AFGHANISTAN?
Written by Farhat Abbas
Monday, 30 March 2009 02:04

USA and USSR remained at logger-heads for almost three to four decades in a bid to dominate each other through commonly known “Cold War”. This cold war was more than a war between these two countries; it was a war between two different ideologies. Each ideology threatened other, each denounced other and each tried to saddle other. In the USA a “witch hunt” was carried out against communists and similarly, In the USSR, proponents of capitalism were “fenced in.” Although no “Hot War” was fought, yet proxy wars were the order of day.. This saber rattling came to halt for a while at the collapse of USSR, but under the carpet, itching and dislike continued and is still going on for that matter. Now USSR has, once again, started flexing its muscles and USA is trying to prolong its hegemony in this uni-polar world. This effort of prolongation can be traced even in Afghanistan at present.

Afghanistan is a mountain capped country, almost a barren and desolate, which produces nothing except weapons and opium. It is not a mineral laden land, it does not produce oil, so why The U.S., despite teetering on the edge of national insolvency, is still trying to increase military force in the region where every invader in history has failed to achieve his objectives. To find an answer to this question, one needs to glance at geographical location of Afghanistan . It is a landlocked state that shares its borders with very important countries like Iran, Pakistan, china and central Asian states, so on the basis of its geo-strategic position, it has been a focus of U.S. and international interest. Dick Cheney, current vice president and former chief executive of Halliburton, speaking in 1998 said,” I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian”. He was in no uncertain terms, referring to Afghanistan. Osama Bin Ladin and his Al-Qaida, whether exist in Afghanistan or not , they have certainly given a pretext to the USA to spread its tentacles in the entire region and that is just because of the region's geo-political significance.

Interests of the USA in the region are multi-pronged. It believes that it is its prime obligation to contain neighboring countries of Afghanistan. Containment of China, control over Central-Asian states to explore Caspian Basin, access to sprawling Indian market, vicious eye on Pakistani Nuclear Nukes and bridling nuclear Iran are the contents of American Prolonged Status-quo programme in Afghanistan. As a matter of fact, Security and Business are two main US interests in the region. All afore mentioned neighboring countries have adverse and antithetical interests than that of the US or for that matter US interests are not in consonance with these countries...............

http://www.daily.pk/world/asia/9678-what-attracts-usa-in-afghanistan.h tml

[Disco_Destroyer]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/afghans-riot-over-airstri ke-atrocity-1681070.html
Afghans riot over air-strike atrocity

Witnesses say deaths of 147 people in three villages came after a sustained bombardment by American aircraft. Patrick Cockburn, in Herat, reports
Friday, 8 May 2009


A girl injured in the Farah air strike
Shouting "Death to America" and "Death to the Government", thousands of Afghan villagers hurled stones at police yesterday as they vented their fury at American air strikes that local officials claim killed 147 civilians.


The riot started when people from three villages struck by US bombers in the early hours of Tuesday, brought 15 newly-discovered bodies in a truck to the house of the provincial governor. As the crowd pressed forward in Farah, police opened fire, wounding four protesters. Traders in the rest of Farah city, the capital of the province of the same name where the bombing took place, closed their shops, vowing they would not reopen them until there is an investigation.

A local official Abdul Basir Khan said yesterday that he had collected the names of 147 people who had died, making it the worst such incident since the US intervened in Afghanistan started in 2001. A phone call from the governor of Farah province, Rohul Amin, in which he said that 130 people had died, was played over the loudspeaker in the Afghan parliament in Kabul, sparking demands for more control over US operations.

Related articles
Presidents Zardari and Karzai's US visit ends - but doubts remain
Hamid Karzai: My aim is to turn Afghanistan into a First World country
The protest in Farah City is the latest sign of a strong Afghan reaction against US air attacks in which explosions inflict massive damage on mud-brick houses that provide little protection against bomb blasts. A claim by American officials, which was repeated by the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates yesterday in Kabul, that the Taliban might have killed people with grenades because they did not pay an opium tax is not supported by any eyewitnesses and is disproved by pictures of deep bomb craters, one of which is filled with water. Mr Gates expressed regret for the incident but did not go so far as to accept blame.

The US admits that it did conduct an air strike at the time and place, but it is becoming clear, going by the account of survivors, that the air raid was not a brief attack by several aircraft acting on mistaken intelligence, but a sustained bombardment in which three villages were pounded to pieces. Farouq Faizy, an Afghan radio reporter who was one of the first to reach the district of Bala Baluk, says villagers told him that bombs suddenly, "began to fall at 8pm on Monday and went on until 10pm though some believe there were still bombs falling later". A prolonged bombing attack would explain why there are so many dead, but only 14 wounded received at Farah City hospital.

The attack was on three villages – Gerani, Gangabad and Koujaha – just off the main road. It is a poppy growing area of poor farmers and there were several fields of poppies near the villages. The Taliban are traditionally strong here and the police and soldiers waiting around the villages were said by eyewitnesses to be frightened. This would explain why Afghan army commanders might have been eager to call for US airstrikes, though they would have needed the agreement of American special operations officers.

Provincial officials, including the governor Rohul Amin, say that in the lead-up to the bombing there was heavy fighting between hundreds of Taliban and the Afghan Army and police. Going by Mr Faizy's account there had been, "a fight some seven or eight kilometres from the three villages in which two Afghan Army and a US Humvee were destroyed. A third Afghan Army vehicle was captured." Three police were killed and four wounded, as was one American and one Afghan army soldier. This was hardly a major military engagement, but the pro-government forces seem to have got the worst of it and their burned out vehicles still stand in the road.

The loss of life in Afghanistan from air strikes is often worse than in Iraq where houses are more modern and usually have basements. In the villages in Farah, people were living in compounds with mud brick walls which crumbled easily. Pictures of the aftermath of the attack show people standing beside the remains of a relative which often only looks like a muddy pile of torn meat. One elderly white bearded man, said by neighbours to have lost 30 members of his family, squats despairingly beside a body that has been torn into shreds. Among the few wounded to stay alive is a child with a badly burned face.

One reason why US bombing inflicts such heavy civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq is that both are very poor countries in which houses are very crowded. When the US used air strikes and heavy artillery with little restraint in the siege of Fallujah in 2004 it caused serious loss of life. Wedding parties in both countries have often been mistaken for "terrorist" gatherings and bombed.

In Afghanistan opinion polls show that support for the Taliban and for armed attacks on foreign forces rises sharply after events like the bombing in Farah. President Hamid Karzai frequently criticises the US military for wantonly inflicting civilian casualties, attacks which his opponents say is an opportunistic effort to burnish his nationalist credentials.

The Taliban increasingly use tactics developed by insurgents in Iraq, notably suicide bombing on a mass scale and IEDs, or mines in the road detonated by a control wires or electronically. In Helmand province yesterday a suicide bomber killed 12 civilians in an attack on a foreign military convoy near the bazaar of the town of Gereshk. No foreign troops were killed by the explosion, though two were wounded.

[James C]

Afghanistan is possibly about many things but no one has yet discussed the building of the TAPI pipeline.

TAPI stands for Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India and the pipeline will deliver 30 billion cubic metres (bcm) a year from the Caspian region in Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan from west to south-east, and on to northern Pakistan and India. Afghanistan will take a cut in profits and a small amount of gas and Pakistan and India will have access to the rest; all countries signed the final go ahead for the pipe last year. It's possible some gas will be routed elsewhere in Asia, perhaps to China, or even as LNG shipments from sea ports in Pakistan to the US and UK.



The US has been negotiating over this pipeline for more than a decade starting with Unocal's attempts to wine and dine the Taliban back in the late 90's which came to an abrupt end in August of 2001 when the Taliban withdrew. Of course, 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan shifted the power back to America (and ourselves) who wish to exploit the oil and gas being produced by US and UK oil companies in the Caspian basin. TAPI is important to the US because it directly challenges the Iranians proposal to supply Pakistan and India with gas with the construction of its own IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India) pipeline which has been mooted for 15 years. If TAPI is built it will give greater authority to the US in the Middle East (as well as profits) and be a direct challenge to the power Iran and Russia might hope to gain by exploiting their energy supplies.

There are many articles on the TAPI pipe but it's never mentioned by mainstream media. Seems they don't want to reveal the truth.

The following article sheds more light on the subject.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/bacon6.html

[Moon-in-Taurus]

During the question and answer session which followed David Ray Griffin's 9/11 lecture in London the other evening, one questioner told of a friend of his, a Frenchman I think, who had been part of a geological survey in Afghanistan some years ago, was it 25?

He said his friend had told him that Afghanistan was "floating on oil".

He asked David Ray Griffin if he was aware of this oil. Mr Griffin said that he was aware of it, and so were many other people in the United States.

[Thermate911]

[Moon-in-Taurus]

Thank you Thermate, that was a bit of an eye-opener, pass the brandy, open the cigars won't you just.. Peak oil? Ha.
Rather explains why the people living there have been having such a lousy time for years.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2006/1253/

[chek]

[Disco_Destroyer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dGuFfMZS8U


Link

[Disco_Destroyer]

Also somewhat linked if not more far reaching

Moscow warns of future energy wars


Russia, the world's biggest gas producer, believes conflicts could arise over resources [GALLO/GETTY]

Russia has warned that military conflicts over energy resources could erupt along its borders in the near future, as the race to secure oil and gas reserves gains momentum.

A Kremlin policy paper, which maps out Russia's main challenges to national security for the next decade, said "problems that involve the use of military force cannot be excluded" in competition for resources.

The National Security Strategy's release coincides with a deadline for countries around the world to submit sea bed ownership claims to a United Nations commission, including for the resource-rich Arctic.

The paper, signed off by Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, says international relations in the next 10 years will be shaped by battles over energy reserves.

"The attention of international politics in the long-term perspective will be concentrated on the acquisition of energy resources," it said.

In depth

The Arctic fight for survival
Gallery: Arctic adventure
Video: The Arctic scramble
From the edge of the world

"Amid competitive struggle for resources, attempts to use military force to solve emerging problems can't be excluded.

"The existing balance of forces near the borders of the Russian Federation and its allies can be violated," it added.

The document said regions including the Middle East, the Barents Sea, the Arctic, the Caspian Sea and Central Asia could all be at the centre of competing claims for resources.

Russia, the world's biggest natural gas producer, has already accused the United States, with which it shares a small sea border, of coveting its mineral wealth.

But Moscow is also finding its control over natural gas exports under threat, as the European Union seeks alternative supply routes that would bypass Russia and the Ukraine.

The country is also embroiled in a territorial dispute with Norway over claims to the Arctic sea bed, where around 25 per cent of the world's untapped reserves are believed to lie underneath the ice.

Global security threats

The National Security Strategy also pointed to the US and Nato as major threats to global security.

It criticised a US plan to deploy a global missile shield in Eastern Europe, which has already infuriated Russia.

"The opportunity to uphold global and regional security will substantially narrow if elements of the US worldwide missile defence system are deployed in Europe," the document said.

But it added Russia would pursue a "rational and pragmatic" foreign policy and avoid a new arms race.

The document said Moscow would seek an "equal and full-fledged strategic partnership" with Washington "on the basis on coinciding interests".

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/05/2009513141243951766.h tml

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

When foreign policy is well-reasoned, we see attention given to humanitarian issues like housing, jobs, health care and education. When that policy consists of applying a military solution to a political problem, however, we see death, destruction, and suffering. Director Robert Greenwald witnessed the latter during his recent trip to Afghanistan--the devastating consequences of U.S. airstrikes on thousands of innocent civilians.

The footage you are about to see is poignant, heart-wrenching, and often a direct result of U.S. foreign policy.


Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krHV9iT20zw

We must help the refugees whose lives have been shattered by U.S. foreign policy and military attacks. Support the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, an organization dedicated to helping women and children, human rights issues, and social justice. Then, become a Peacemaker. Receive up-to-the-minute information through our new mobile alert system whenever there are Afghan civilian casualties from this war, and take immediate action by calling Congress.

http://rethinkafghanistan.com/

Digg this video:
http://digg.com/world_news/Video_of_Casualties_Will_Piss_You_Off_and_B reak_Your_Heart_2

and this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UX7Xn9Zp0M

[TonyGosling]

A British Army officer has launched a devastating attack on the UK's "failing" strategy in Afghanistan.
By Sean Rayment - 20 Jun 2009 - Daily Telegraph

The officer, who works in defence intelligence, has described the British presence in Helmand as an "unmitigated disaster" fuelled by "lamentable" government spin and naïvety.

Writing in the British Army Review, an official MoD publication, Major SN Miller, stated: "Lets not kid ourselves. To date Operation Herrick [the British codename for the War in Afghanistan] has been a failure".

He claimed that hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers money had been wasted on a war which had failed to deliver any real reconstruction, governance or security.

Rather than "winning hearts and minds", Major Miller, who serves in the Defence Intelligence Staff serving Intelligence Corps, said the British presence had had the opposite effect.

But his most blistering attack was on the UK's counter-narcotics policy, where the illicit sale of drugs has been successfully used by the Taliban to fund the insurgency and kill British troops...........

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/5587822/Bri tish-Army-officer-launches-stinging-attack-on-failing-UK-strategy-in-A fghanistan.html

[Thermate911]

[Pugwash]

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[TonyGosling]

Brilliant Guardian article, from embedded journalist, about the futility of the entire Afghan mission. How times have changed.
The only people who don't get it are our nation's decision makers.
Who are busily and traitorously preparing the way for some sort of New Order.

Battle of Babaji: A fight for hearts and minds in Afghanistan, but none are to be found
Soldiers from the Black Watch on patrol in a Viking APC in Helmand province, Afghanistan

The plan was simple: with overwhelming force, the British soldiers would arrive in Babaji – one of the most dangerous insurgent strongholds in southern Afghanistan - and scare away the local Taliban without a fight, leaving a permanent military presence in the area for the first time, winning over local people and persuading them to stand up to their Taliban masters .

But Operation Panchai Palang (Panther's Claw) – the biggest air assault mounted by British troops since 2001, involving hundreds of soldiers being dropped from Chinooks – did not go quite according to plan.



The aim was to claim a lawless part of Afghanistan's troublesome south for the distant and disliked government far away in Kabul. They would seize the area, put up fortifications to limit movement and impose some order and authority.

But, despite the strict secrecy that cloaked the operation, the local people seemed to have got wind of it and – scared by the prospect of intense fighting – voted with their feet.

The day before the soldiers began their operation, drones monitoring the area showed people evacuating their homes, leaving Babaji in the hands of militants.

During the first three days of their two-week stay in the area, which will end when troops from the Welsh Guards relieve them, the men of the Black Watch battalion endured persistent attacks of small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. With the enemy hiding at a distance, in bushes and abandoned compounds, most soldiers never saw their foes. Only the snipers and the men monitoring the live video feeds from circling drones got sight of their quarry.

"They are so well camouflaged you can't see anything," said Rob Colquoun, a section leader, in charge of a team of snipers who killed 18 Afghans in one afternoon.

Insurgents had also laid a number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in advance of the troops' arrival, often marked rather obviously by piles of rocks as a warning to local people. As a result, patrols were forced to move at the pace of a soldier waving a metal detector back and forth. Some protection was afforded by the vehicles used to scoot around the battlefield, including Vikings – sauna-like metal boxes on caterpillar tracks whose fetid interiors made the heat of high noon in Helmand feel like a refreshing breeze.

"There is nothing worse for soldiers' morale than suffering casualties without being able to inflict them on the enemy," said Major Al Steele, the commander of B Company.

The night before the Black Watch set off, the troops watched a gut-wrenchingly moving photographic tribute to a young private killed on 12 June, killed by an IED that was placed in a position the insurgents guessed a soldier would rush into when under fire.

The slideshow, projected on to a huge screen on the wall in the battalion's Camp Gordon headquarters, featured pictures of Robert McLaren in the field, and of the repatriation of his union flag-draped coffin back to Scotland.

With those images seared on their brains, the men, weighed down with weapons, ammunition and the rations that would sustain them for the coming 24 hours, wolfed down a meal of greasy hamburger and chips before clambering aboard the Chinooks that would take them for the seven-minute hop to Babaji. Served up amid the dust of the Afghan desert, it was the last cooked meal most of the soldiers would have for 11 days.

With the normal seats stowed away, the Jocks – as the men are known – arranged themselves on the floors of the helicopters, legs tucked around the man in front of them and the bulky rifles, rocket launchers, radios and other kit.

As the powerful engines gathered speed, the eerie green cabin lights were cut – leaving them in darkness, save for the occasional flash of anti-missile flares detonated from the side of the helicopters – and the Chinooks headed away from Bastion, the vast British base in Helmand, for the heart of green zone, the irrigated farmland that is home to swaths of poppy fields and large numbers of Taliban insurgents.

From Kandahar airfield to the east came another six of the massive twin-rotor helicopters, all equally crammed.

"We are dropping 340 people in one wave, with 30 seconds' notice. The Chinooks will then take off and they are not coming back," said Lt Col Stephen Cartwright, commanding the men preparing to go into battle.

After their short journey the soldiers spread out into the areas surrounding the helicopter landing zones. The first sign of resistance – 15 men carrying a belt-fed anti-aircraft machine gun – was quickly spotted and dealt with by the constellation of planes, helicopters and unmanned drones circling the night skies. The men were annihilated by an attack from the sky of which they could have had no warning.

"Serves them right. They weren't out doing the shopping, were they?" said a voice in the darkness, watching through night vision goggles.

With British Chinooks in short supply (six were on loan from the Americans), the simultaneous landing of 10 helicopters was a rare event, testament to the huge importance placed on the operation and the enormous risks involved.

A shortage of troops and equipment has long hampered the three-year British deployment in Helmand, all but barring a major attempt such as Operation Panchai Palang to install a permanent troop presence in such a hostile area. But the arrival of 21,000 Americans into the south, including Helmand, has made it possible for the British to free up troops elsewhere and concentrate their efforts in smaller areas.

The first victim of the operation was an Afghan national army soldier accompanying the British, who was killed after he wandered into an area that had not been cleared for IEDs.

"It's bad that it happens – but it's a weird feeling of relief that it's not one of us. A lot of people feel guilty about that," said Captain Mike Goodall.

Because getting the local people onside was the most important aspect of the mission, enormous pains were taken to avoid using the more destructive weapons systems in the British arsenal.

"I never use mortars – they are good for raising the morale of the troops, but you risk injuring civilians," said Major Steele. "When, later, we meet the village elder of the family of a child that we have killed, it just sours everything and undermines everything we are trying to do."

However, the inhabitants of Babaji showed little interest in meeting the British, with compound after mud-walled compound abandoned.

The box of pencil cases, school bags and other goodies known in military jargon as "consent-winning goods" was left undistributed and the bazaar that had been one of the main targets of the operation, because its role in the local opium industry made it a "key insurgent logistics and financing node", was deserted.

The wide street, lined on each side with garage-like concrete alcoves that serve for shops, was strewn with rubbish and, the Jocks discovered, eight separate IEDs. The only people in the shops were youthful members of A Company, who spent their time frying up some of the potatoes the traders left behind.

In a place like Babaji, where the flags of officialdom are the white banners of the Taliban fluttering above key buildings, the usual mixture of grocers and tailors is mixed in with shops peddling drug processing equipment, needles for local addicts, and pharmacies with field dressings and morphine suggesting they do good business with local fighters.

By the end of the second day the lack of local engagement was beginning to worry the officers.

"Running around, getting into fights and killing a few enemy is all very well and good, but my main concern at the moment is that we haven't talked to any local nationals or really got out our main message to the community that this time we are here to stay," said Major Steele.

His company finally found two local people to engage with on the fourth day – an exercise that required the troops to start walking into a nearby village at 2am, under the cover of darkness, across fields of poppy stubble and irrigation ditches, and then retreat in armoured vehicles.

The first was a teenage boy caught foraging for stale bread in an empty compound whose constantly shifting story suggested to the British that he might have been an insurgent sympathiser or even a "dicker" – a watchman providing a steady stream of intelligence on the movements of foreign forces.

The second was a grey-bearded old man the British found sitting under a tree, outside a tiny mud-brick home the size of two telephone boxes – the only inhabitant of an otherwise entirely deserted village to have stayed behind. Only his bad legs, and the trouble he has walking, had prevented him joining the exodus.

No fewer than three British officers set about trying to extract information and to deliver their key messages.

Major Steele tried to reassure him by pointing to the British effort in Musa Qala, a town in northern Helmand which UK forces helped to dislodge from Taliban control in late 2007 and have been painstakingly trying to stabilise ever since.

The old man wasn't having any of it: "Last year a big British bomb in Nowzad killed 600 people," he said. "Another 170 were killed at a wedding party."

Major Steele tried using a story about a recent battle group operation in an area that saw the fiercest fighting of their tour. "I was in the Upper Sangin Valley recently where there was heavy fighting and there were several occasions when I had the opportunity to kill enemies of the peace, and some I did kill because they are not friends of Islam, but others we could not because there was a danger that we would hurt innocent civilians.

"In order for you to help properly we need your help. I know it is very difficult and the elders here will potentially risk their lives to come and talk to us." But the old man dismissed the idea that the British could bring security where so many others have failed.

"I'm 80 years old and I have seen many governments and none of them have been any help. Why should I believe that this one will help?"

Conscious of the need to get back to their recently established forward operating base, set up in an abandoned compound before they were attacked, the British officer gave up on the old man with a resigned smile.

"I understand your scepticism, but all you need to know is that this is the next area we are trying to improve. I hope we can prove you wrong, but it will take a long time."

Despite the limited success of the effort to engage the residents, the mood back at the base was buoyant after the expected stiff resistance to their presence in the village failed to materialise. Small arms fire on the compound the British had taken over allowed the men to strip off and swim in the canal behind the building.

Part of the reason was the dropping from a B1 bomber of a 500lb bomb on to a compound from which there had been day-long fire.

"We had no choice," said Major Rupert Whitelegge . "Every time he would fire a shot to initiate an attack, he would drop down behind his enormous 3ft-thick wall. We just couldn't get through and so we dropped the bomb. It's been very quiet today, strangely."

[QuitTheirClogs]

U.S. Faces Resentment in Afghan Region

[TonyGosling]

Mr Barnet was a must-read author when I was studying for the Army Staff College, and he has lost nothing in the years which have passed since. I agree with every word he has written, and James Mackie of Edinburgh has endorsed. Get our troops out, or give them everything they need to succeed, including more manpower. Montgomery refused to settle for less in North Africa, why should our soldiers do so now.

Who has the guts to pull out? By Correlli Barnet
Last updated at 3:28 AM on 11th July 2009
Comments (82) Add to My Stories Yesterday came the truly tragic news that eight of our young soldiers had been killed in a single Taliban ambush.

We had already lost seven men in as many days. The total of British dead in Afghanistan since Tony Blair took Britain into this misconceived adventure in November 2001 alongside George W Bush now stands at 184.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1198976/Who-guts-pull-out.ht ml

Gordon Brown yesterday warned that there will be many more young Britons killed and wounded in the hard campaigning to come - though whether that campaigning may last for weeks, months or years he refused to say. And for what purpose are these brave young men losing limbs and even life?

For what purpose are their families suffering such grief? It is certainly not in the cause of liberating British people living in a British sovereign territory, as during the Falklands War in 1982.
Instead, the Prime Minister, other ministers or anonymous spokespersons in the Ministry of Defence (almost certainly civilian bureaucrats) give us various glib, but quite simply unbelievable, justifications for our ever more bloody military entanglement in Afghanistan.
They say our soldiers are dying in order to achieve peace and stability in Afghanistan in time for presidential elections in November, in which that politically impotent clown 'President' Karzai will stand again.
These elections are supposed to mark an important step towards the stated long-term Western objective in Afghanistan - a stable democratic regime ruling a united country.
What a hope! Afghanistan is an ancient society of fierce tribal rivalries and has no democratic 'DNA' whatsoever.
How can pursuit of the Westernliberal fantasy of Afghanistan as a future democracy justify the loss of a single British soldier's life?
Then again, we are told that our occupation forces 'are winning hearts and minds' among the local people, when the truth is that support for the Taliban is growing.
Only a fool would believe that villagers are won over by foreign soldiers in full combat gear fighting house-by-house and calling in air-strikes that kill women and children instead of Taliban.
I say 'foreign' soldiers, but the better word would be 'alien', given that very few of them are Muslim or Asian, and most are Christians and of European or American nationality.
They must make much the same impression on the locals as Taliban fighters in black turbans and draped with machine-guns would make on entering a Norfolk village.

[Thermate911]

A clear example of the endless propaganda war:-



When bankers and oilmen run wars of aggression with no humane idealogical outcome, the home deaths always seem utterly pointless, however larged up.

Word from the troops on the ground:-
http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=621084

and a useful commentary:-
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2009/07/its-not-just-afghanistan-its-eve rywhere.html