Bomb Kills 2 Soldiers in Afghanistan

[Rose Siding]

KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 7 -- Two U.S. soldiers and their Afghan interpreter were killed Saturday when their vehicle struck an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan, a statement issued by the U.S.-led military said.

A third soldier was wounded in the blast in Ghazni province, south of Kabul, the capital, according to the statement. The wounded soldier was flown to Kandahar airfield hospital and was in stable condition.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48720-2004Aug7.html

[NMDemDist2]

1. great they learned from their Iraqi cousins

:cry:

[countmyvote4real]

4. Like all "Christians" are related. Give me a puking break.

Maybe the perps picked it up off their satellite news. Maybe they have a copy of the AQ training booklet. Maybe they profess to have the same faith. And somehow that links them with family ties to actions in another country?

I see that you have 1K+ posts. I apologize, but I don't know where you're going or coming from in this post.

[NMDemDist2]

5. no it makes them insurgents against US troops

Our guys still have targets on their backs and are dying in Iraq for no reason

Afghanistan is a mess, but at least we had a shot at doing some good there. Now we are bogged down where we shouldn't be and both theaters are undermanned for the mission

It's a crying shame that lands right on the Oval Office's desk.

[bluestateguy]

2. Meanwhile, over there where the "clean" war is being fought...

This is the most dishonest president since Richard Nixon, the worst commander in chief since LBJ, the dumbest since Warren Harding and the most corrupt since Ulysses S. Grant.

[saigon68]

16. Yikes

[DemoTex]

3. Where? Afghanistan? Where on earth is that?

Were those soldiers lost? The war is on Terra and it is being held in Eye-Rack. Why was that in the news anyway? Sneak those coffins in Karl. Let me tellya about turnin' the corner! We've turned the corner!

[saigon68]

6. "BRING EM ON" shouted the AWOL CHIMPANZEE

THIS ISN'T GOING TO END SOON.

THE RUSSIANS PUT UP WITH THIS CRAP FOR 10 YEARS

[UpInArms]

7. related article: Roadside Bomb Kills Two U.S. Soldiers

excerpt:

The deaths bring to about 58 the number of American soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan since U.S. forces entered the country in 2001 to drive the Taliban from power and attack its al-Qaida allies.

With accidents and deaths elsewhere, including several planes crashes, more than 130 American soldiers have died since Operating Enduring Freedom was launched in response to the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

Twenty-three of the combat deaths in Afghanistan have occurred this year, making 2004 the deadliest year yet and undermining assertions by American and Afghan officials that militants are on the defensive and security is improving.

Violence has intensified in recent months as the country prepares for its first post- Taliban election a vote for president on Oct. 9 which U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai is widely expected to win.

...more...

[saigon68]

8. U.S.-backed (PUPPET) President Hamid Karzai

Remember PRESIDENT THIEU OR VICE -PESIDENT KY----

PUPPETS ONE AND ALL


And now the CAPPER--- THE MAYOR OF KABUL IS ABOUT TO BE ELECTED PRESIDENT.


THIS ASSHOLE has $100,000,000.00 PER YEAR worth of "MERCENARY GUARDS" in Place in KABUL to PROTECT his SORRY ASS.

[UpInArms]

9. the puppet and the puppeteers

Unocal has two other important operatives. One is Hamid Karzai, Unocal’s former representative in Afghanistan who was handpicked by Bush to become head of Afghanistan’s interim government. The other is Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, another former Unocal aide, whom Bush appointed special envoy to Afghanistan. As a Unocal adviser, Khalilzad participated in Unocal’s talks with the Taliban in 1997. In a 1998 column in The Washington Post, Khalilzad argued that the Taliban was not a sponsor of terrorism and that the United States should reengage the regime. This was, of course, just what Unocal wanted.

Once in office, Afghan leader Karzai wasted little time trying to help his former employer. During his first visit to Pakistan on February 8, Karzai announced that he and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had agreed to revive the pipeline.

http://www.freepress.org/journal.php?strFunc=display&strID=54&strJournal=10

and here's an interesting little piece from Jan 2002:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2002/01/14/ncguest2.htm

and here's another:

http://www.rferl.org/features/2002/09/18092002154755.asp

here's an especially interesting part:

The political context for BTC may also have shifted with the growing cooperation between Russia and the United States on energy. During a speech in Washington last week, U.S. Senator Conrad Burns (Republican, Montana) promoted the idea of relying on both Russia and the Caspian for energy resources instead of the Middle East.

Burns said, "Russia and the Caspian states present the biggest opportunity in oil exploration and production for America," the London-based "Financial Times" reported. He added that the new trust between Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush "affords America a historic opportunity to share new technologies and modern management with our Russian ally."

The speech, reportedly written in consultation with the Bush administration, suggests that significant changes have taken place in the years since the BTC pipeline was first planned. It may still be too soon to conclude that Russia and the United States will extend their cooperation to the Caspian, but some of the causes of controversy over the pipeline seem to have eased.

and some info on Khalizad:

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/april03/0304012.html

Zalmay Khalilzad: The Neocons’ Bagman To Baghdad



By Issam M. Nashashibi

In addition to “weakening, containing and even rolling back Syria,” Israel should “focus on removing Saddam Hussain from power in Iraq—an important Israeli objective in its own right.”

These recommendations were contained in a 1996 paper prepared for then-incoming Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. The paper’s authors included the current Under Secretary for Defense Policy and chair of the Defense Policy Board, Douglas Feith and Richard Perle, respectively.

Perle whet his neo-conservative whistle under Albert Wohlstetter, a University of Chicago mathematician who was key in drawing up the Pentagon’s strategic and nuclear blueprints during the Cold War. That same Wohlstetter mentored many of the Bush administration’s reigning neo-conservatives, including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, one of the most pro-Zionist of the so-called chickenhawks, and Zalmay Khalilzad.

Who? “Precisely,” said a former associate of the 52-year-old Afghan American and Pashtun native who was appointed last December as the president’s “special envoy and ambassador at large for free Iraqis.” “Part of his genius is that the people who are supposed to know about him, don’t even know he exists.”

...more...

and this one is one of my very favorites:

http://www.halliburton.com/news/archive/2001/esgnws_051501.jsp

2001 Press Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 15, 2001

HALLIBURTON SUBSEA OPENS CASPIAN MARINE BASE

ABERDEEN, Scotland - Halliburton International Inc. and KASPMORNEFTELOT (KMNF), the marine division of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR), have entered into a 12-year contract for a marine base and associated services to support Halliburton Subsea offshore construction activity in the Caspian region. Halliburton Subsea is a business unit of Halliburton Company's (NYSE: HAL) Energy Services Group.

The base, with a 6,000-square metre lay down area, is located at KMNF's Southern Basin adjacent to Caspian Shipyard. The base will be primarily utilized to support Halliburton Subsea's catamaran crane vessel Qurban Abbasov (previously known as the Titan 4) during the restoration and upgrade of the vessel and during the forthcoming offshore construction, pipelay and subsea activities. The site will also be developed to provide warehouse, office and training facilities that will include advanced diver and life support technician training, utilizing the company’s 16-man modular saturation system.

...more...

[MaineDem]

10. The biggest revelation, for me, in Fahrenehit 9/11 was this

I somehow had missed the Karzai/Unocal connection. It all makes perfect sense now!

[UpInArms]

12. that pipeline was opened in Sept 2002

http://www.rferl.org/features/2002/09/18092002154755.asp

Caspian: Presidents Launch Construction Of Oil Pipeline

By Michael Lelyveld

Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey are marking the start of the Baku-Tbilisi- Ceyhan oil-pipeline project today after years of planning and political controversy. But the westward oil route from the Caspian Sea has gained commercial support over the years and lost some of the causes of conflict that made it a major regional issue between Russia and the United States.

Boston, 18 September 2002 (RFE/RL) -- After eight years of debate, the presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey are set to launch construction of a Caspian pipeline later today, beginning a project that may tie their countries together for decades to come.

<snip>

Burns said, "Russia and the Caspian states present the biggest opportunity in oil exploration and production for America," the London-based "Financial Times" reported. He added that the new trust between Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush "affords America a historic opportunity to share new technologies and modern management with our Russian ally."

The speech, reportedly written in consultation with the Bush administration, suggests that significant changes have taken place in the years since the BTC pipeline was first planned. It may still be too soon to conclude that Russia and the United States will extend their cooperation to the Caspian, but some of the causes of controversy over the pipeline seem to have eased.

...more at link...



http://aztlan.net/judwatch.htm

[shadu]

19. Excellent Information!

I was not even aware of new construction on this pipeline.

[saigon68]

11. Security for sale in Afghanistan

By David Isenberg

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/EA04Ag01.html

The role of private military companies received a significant, if little noted, boost late last year when the Virginia-based US contractor DynCorp received a new assignment: protecting Afghan President Hamid Karzai. While this is undoubtedly good news for DynCorp, the jury is still out as to how positive a development it is for Karzai.

According to the US State Department, in mid-November the department's Diplomatic Security Service assumed responsibility for Karzai’s protection from the military's Special Operations Forces, upon which a portion of the work was contracted to DynCorp.

DynCorp will be under great scrutiny as it tries to carry out this new, high-profile assignment without any glitches. While it has been involved in providing military services for some years, notably in the Balkans and Colombia, it has come under fire recently for the actions of some of its employees. It was recently involved in a scandal when some of its employees were involved in a prostitution ring in Bosnia. DynCorp personnel contracted to the United Nations police service in Bosnia were implicated in buying and selling prostitutes, including girls as young as 12. Some DynCorp employees were also accused of videotaping the rape of one of the women.


MOST pEOPLE HAVE NO IDEA WTF THIS CORPORATION IS DOING.

[UpInArms]

14. also securing Halliburton and KBR?

http://corpwatch.radicaldesigns.org/article.php?id=3049

excerpt:

For the first six months that American troops were at Khanabad, the logistical support was provided by the Army's First Corps Support Command. Mr. Cole, the contract manager for the joint command in Kuwait, said the contract would initially cost 10 to 20 percent more than if the Army had done the work itself.

He said that he and his staff recommended using the contractor because "they do a better job of maintaining the infrastructure." In addition, he said, the contractor should provide long-term flexibility, an asset in a war with many unknowns,and cost savings by avoiding Army troop transfers.

Ms. Smith said that the criticisms by the G.A.O. had led the Army to build additional controls into the contract.

At its base in Cuba, the Navy has followed the same pattern as the Army: use the military first and augment it with KBR. The Navy's construction brigade, the Seabees, built the first detention facility for battlefield detainees at Guantnamo Bay. Then the Navy activated a recently awarded $300 million, five-year logistic support contract with KBR to construct more permanent facilities, some 600 units, built mostly by workers from the Philippines and India, at a cost of $23 million.

John Peters, the Navy Facilities Engineering Command spokesman, said the permanent camp was "bigger, more sophisticated than what Seabees do." But the Seabees built the facilities for the troops guarding the detainees, and in the 1990's the Seabees built two tent cities capable of housing 20,000 refugees in Guantnamo Bay.

...more at link...

[saigon68]

13. DynCorp: The Future of National Security

http://rainbowfish.typepad.com/ronandroger/2004/03/dyncorp_the_fut.html

DynCorp represents nothing less than the future of national security. While outfits like Raytheon make their money developing weapons systems, DynCorp offers the military an alternative to itself. In 2002, the company took in $2.3 billion doing what you probably thought was Pentagon work. DynCorp planes and pilots fly the defoliation missions that are the centerpiece of Plan Colombia. Armed DynCorp employees constitute the core of the police force in Bosnia.

DynCorp troops protect Afghan president Hamid Karzai. DynCorp manages the border posts between the US and Mexico, many of the Pentagon's weapons-testing ranges, and the entire Air Force One fleet of presidential planes and helicopters. During the Persian Gulf War, it was DynCorp employees, not soldiers, who serviced and rearmed American combat choppers, and it's DynCorp's people, not military personnel, who late last year began "forward deploying" equipment and ammunition to the Middle East in preparation for war with Iraq.

DynCorp inventories everything seized by the Justice Department's Asset Forfeiture Program, runs the Naval Air Warfare Center at Patuxent River, Maryland, and is producing the smallpox and anthrax vaccines the government may use to inoculate everyone in the United States

[UpInArms]

15. so that is who got the $700 million

that *Co stole from the Afghanistan money to start his nasty illegal war in Iraq.

t's DynCorp's people, not military personnel, who late last year began "forward deploying" equipment and ammunition to the Middle East in preparation for war with Iraq.

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=46962

Bush's Legal Obligation to Tell Congress About $700M for Iraq

April 21, 2004

Since Bob Woodward disclosed that President Bush in July of 2002 diverted $700 million into Iraq invasion planning without informing Congress, the Bush Administration has failed to provide one shred of evidence to rebuff the charge. According to Woodward, Bush kept Congress "totally in the dark on this" leaving lawmakers with "no real knowledge or involvement." Not only does the Constitution vest the power of the purse with Congress, but whichever of the two supplemental bills passed between 9/11 and July 2001 the President drew the money from had explicit language obligating him to inform key congressional leaders.Unfortunately, instead of opening an investigation, White House allies on Capitol Hill actually told USA Today that the move was acceptable because "the $700 million was small compared" with the overall spending bills.

...more...

(edited because I haven't had enough coffee)

[yelladawg]

17. Yet we never jear anything

The media is very quite about the other front.

[goclark]

18. How many of our soldiers have died now?

They don't even bother to give us the count.

[saigon68]

20. Too many have died

[Zynx]

21. They were national guardsmen.

http://icasualties.org/oef/Afghanistan.aspx