Top general says US withdrawal from Iraq on track

[cal04]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100418/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_us_iraq


The top U.S. military commander in Iraq says the planned withdrawal of nearly 45,000 U.S. troops by the end of August is on track despite a recent increase in attacks by militant forces.

Army Gen. Ray Odierno (oh-dee-EHR'-noh) also says that al-Qaida's capabilities in Iraq is being degraded.

He tells "Fox News Sunday" that unless there's a dramatic and unforeseen change in the security condition, the U.S. troop drawdown will go ahead as scheduled.

Odierno says there are now about 95,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. The U.S. plans to cut that number to 50,000 by Aug. 31, when it will end combat operations.

[flyarm]

1. WHEN DO WE LEAVE AFGHANISTAN? oh yeah,..never

and how many Sundays do we have to see 21 yr olds and 23 years olds even 31yr olds..names in memoriam..one from my state today........

And please don't say they are there to stop AlQueada..they are no longer in Afgan..or less than 100..

And spare me the we have to be there to protect the women and children from the Taliban..when our own appointed pres of Afghan just threatened to join the Taliban..and women..2 pregnant even were murdered by our special opps..and the bullets were dug out of their dead carcasses to cover up the fucking murder.

We all know why we are there and why our soldiers are being used to babysit the poppy fields..

We are there for the greed of our US corps and MIC..and some sick MF power trips.

And our kids will continue to die day by day..as these fuckers Cannon Fodder..and we will continue to murder innocent Afghan citizens! Daily..it is now on our watch...and our democratic name is on it!



Please spare us the naivety, we are never leaving Iraq or Afghan..peak oil is beginning to hit and those countries are our lifeline of oil..we own them now..and no president has the fucking guts to leave.

Unless there are air lifts out of there like there were in Vietnam..we are never leaving..soldiers will be there for my entire lifetime..and yours! Less of them.,but they will be replaced by mercenaries...in our name.

[ClarkUSA]

3. Wrong ---> 'Afghanistan war "July 2011 withdraw date called 'firm'"

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/70799-july-2011-withdraw-date-called-firm

[flyarm]

4. wow do I have great swamp land for you in Fla ..alligators included! spare me!

and Hamid Karzai is a great guy and never worked for Conoco Oil corp..right????????? and we had nothing to do with stealing any elections for him..

Oh and pink pigs fly with red white and blue uniforms!

Please spare me pissing on my leg and telling me it is raining!

[ClarkUSA]

7. You're as full of folksy sayings as Sarah Palin, aren't you? BTW, I just proved your polemic wrong.

:eyes:

[flyarm]

8. Nice work,every time you want to stop a discussion you use Sarah Palin and make her relevant,Me?

myself , I could give a rats ass about Sarah Palin..she has no power to do anything about these wars and she has no relevance in this discussion.

[flyarm]

10. let go down memory lane shall we ? Why did Bush airlift Al Qaeda into Pakistan after we invaded

and then tell me..why are we still at war in Afghanistan..

Why did Bush airlift Al Qaeda into Pakistan after we invaded Afghanistan?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1243928

This is yet another story that disappeared under the radar and serves as a reminder to just how much Bush is intent on going after our true enemy. It's also important to remember this story now that we see the rightwing lambaste the Spaniards for giving in to the terrorists.

JANE WALLACE: Let's talk about Konduz. During the war with Afghanistan--

SY HERSH: Great story.

JANE WALLACE: -- you reported that during a key battle our side in that battle had the enemy surrounded. There were a reported perhaps 8,000 enemy forces in there.

SY HERSH: Maybe even more. But certainly minimum that many.

JANE WALLACE: It's your story, take it.

SY HERSH: Okay, the cream of the crop of Al Qaeda caught in a town called Konduz which is near ... it's one little village and it's a couple hundred kilometers, 150 miles from the border of Pakistan. And I learned this story frankly-- through very, very clandestine operatives we have in the Delta Force and other very...

We were operating very heavily with a small number of men, three, 400 really in the first days of the war. And suddenly one night when they had everybody cornered in Konduz-- the special forces people were told there was a corridor that they could not fly in. There was a corridor sealed off to-- the United States military sealed off a corridor. And it was nobody could shoot anybody in this little lane that went from Konduz into Pakistan. And that's how I learned about it. I learned about it from a military guy who wanted to fly helicopters and kill people and couldn't do it that day.

JANE WALLACE: So, we had the enemy surrounded, the special forces guys are helping surround this enemy.

SY HERSH: They're whacking everybody they can whack that looks like a bad guy.

JANE WALLACE: And suddenly they're told to back off--

SY HERSH: From a certain area--

JANE WALLACE: -- and let planes fly out to Pakistan.

SY HERSH: There was about a three or four nights in which I can tell you maybe six, eight, 10, maybe 12 more-- or more heavily weighted-- Pakistani military planes flew out with an estimated-- no less than 2,500 maybe 3,000, maybe mmore. I've heard as many as four or 5,000. They were not only-- Al Qaeda but they were also-- you see the Pakistani ISI was-- the military advised us to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. There were dozens of senior Pakistani military officers including two generals who flew out.

And I also learned after I wrote this story that maybe even some of Bin Laden's immediate family were flown out on the those evacuations. We allowed them to evacuate. We had an evacuation.

JANE WALLACE: How high up was that evacuation authorized?

SY HERSH: I am here to tell you it was authorized — Donald Rumsfeld who — we'll talk about what he said later — it had to be authorized at the White House. But certainly at the Secretary of Defense level.

JANE WALLACE: The Department of Defense said to us that they were not involved and that they don't have any knowledge of that operation.

SY HERSH: That's what Rumsfeld said when they asked him but it. And he said, "Gee, really?" He said, "News to me." Which is not a denial, it's sort of interesting. You know,

JANE WALLACE: What did we do that? Why we would put our special forces guys on the ground, surround the enemy, and then-- fly him out?

SY HERSH: With al Qaeda.

JANE WALLACE: With al Qaeda. Why would we do that, assuming your story is true?

SY HERSH: We did it because the ISI asked us to do so.

JANE WALLACE: Pakistani intelligence.

SY HERSH: Absolutely.

JANE WALLACE: Yeah.

SY HERSH: Yeah. That's why. You asked why. Because we believe Musharraf was under pressure to protect the military men of — the intelligence people from the military, ISI, that were in the field. The Pakistanis were training the Taliban, and were training al Qaeda.

When the war began, even though this is-- again, you know, this is complicated. Musharraf asked, as a favor, to protect his position. If we suddenly seized, in in the field, a few dozen military soldiers, including generals, and put them in jail, and punished them, he would be under tremendous pressure from the fundamentalists at home.

So, to protect him, we perceive that it's important to protect him, he asked us-- this is why when I tell you it comes at the level of Don Rumsfeld, it has to. I mean, it does. He asked-- he said, "You've got to protect me. You've got to get my people out."

The initial plan was to take out the Pakistani military. What happened is that they took out al Qaeda with them. And we had no way of stopping it. We lost control. Once there planes began to go, the Pakistanis began-- thousands of al Qaeda got out. And so-- we weren't able to stop it and screen it. The intent wasn't to let al Qaeda out. It was to protect the Pakistani military.

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_hersh.html

[flyarm]

13. a little more memory lane for you..

so please..tell me why our kids are still in Afghan dying?

( and i don't think Sarah is against these wars..as I am! and have always been..after all it was my co-workers death that WERE USED AS AN EXCUSE FOR THESE FUCKING ILLEGAL WARS OF AGRESSION AND OCCUPATION!)


thanks to IndianaGreen for many of his past threads! on truth and facts!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x21881#23086
IndianaGreen (1000+ posts) Sat Nov-28-09 12:17 AM
Original message
Do you think you really know what is happening in Afghanistan?
Edited on Sat Nov-28-09 01:08 AM by IndianaGreen
Have you paid more attention to the British press, particularly recent reports of what the British military and diplomats have had to say about Afghanistan recently?

Have you bothered to find out what the Afghans are saying about NATO and the US?

Does it bother you that we are being asked to put our trust in the same military commander that played a leading role in the cover up of Pat Tillman's death?

I strongly urge all of you to read the speeches and writings of Malalai Joya, a champion of women's rights in Afghanistan.

Here is one of her recent speeches:


Eight years ago, the U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan under the banner of women's rights. Today, the situation for women--half of the population of the country--is hell in most of the provinces. Killing a woman is as easy as killing a horse. A few days before I come here, in Sar-e Pol province in the north of Afghanistan, a 5-year-old girl was kidnapped and killed. The rape of women and kidnapping and acid attacks--all of this violence is increasing rapidly, even at historical levels. And all of these crimes are happening in the name of democracy, women's rights and human rights.

I'm saying that as long as these warlords are in power along with these occupation forces, there is no hope to make positive changes in the lives of the men and women of my country.

It's not only women who are suffering. If I talked only about conditions for women, it would be all morning, but I wouldn't even be finished. All of this shocking news that the media never even gives to the people around the world. Women don't even have a human life.

But today, women and men don't have liberation. Millions of Afghans suffer from injustice, insecurity, corruption, joblessness, etc. Your government says that it sent troops there so that girls can go to school, but according to official figures from the government, more than 600 schools have been closed. When the girls go to school, they throw acid on their faces.

I think education is important--very important in my country. I always say that it's the key to our emancipation. But security is more important than food and water. They keep the situation dangerous like this so they can stay longer in Afghanistan because of their strategy and policies.

To know more about the deep tragedy of Afghanistan, during these eight years, they changed my country to the capital of the center of drug trade.

http://socialistworker.org/2009/11/03/no-nation-can-lib...


For the benefit of those that suffer from a Pavlovian response to any stimulii having the word socialist in it:


The big lie of Afghanistan

My country hasn't been liberated: it's still under the warlords' control, and Nato occupation only reinforces their power

Malalai Joya
The Guardian, Saturday 25 July 2009

You must understand that the government headed by Hamid Karzai is full of warlords and extremists who are brothers in creed of the Taliban. Many of these men committed terrible crimes against the Afghan people during the civil war of the 1990s.

For expressing my views I have been expelled from my seat in parliament, and I have survived numerous assassination attempts. The fact that I was kicked out of office while brutal warlords enjoyed immunity from prosecution for their crimes should tell you all you need to know about the "democracy" backed by Nato troops.

In the constitution it forbids those guilty of war crimes from running for high office. Yet Karzai has named two notorious warlords, Fahim and Khalili, as his running mates for the upcoming presidential election. Under the shadow of warlordism, corruption and occupation, this vote will have no legitimacy, and once again it seems the real choice will be made behind closed doors in the White House. As we say in Afghanistan, "the same donkey with a new saddle".

So far, Obama has pursued the same policy as Bush in Afghanistan. Sending more troops and expanding the war into Pakistan will only add fuel to the fire. Like many other Afghans, I risked my life during the dark years of Taliban rule to teach at underground schools for girls. Today the situation of women is as bad as ever. Victims of abuse and rape find no justice because the judiciary is dominated by fundamentalists. A growing number of women, seeing no way out of the suffering in their lives, have taken to suicide by self-immolation.

This week, US vice-president Joe Biden asserted that "more loss of life (is) inevitable" in Afghanistan, and that the ongoing occupation is in the "national interests" of both the US and the UK.

I have a different message to the people of Britain. I don't believe it is in your interests to see more young people sent off to war, and to have more of your taxpayers' money going to fund an occupation that keeps a gang of corrupt warlords and drug lords in power in Kabul.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/25/afg...



IndianaGreen (1000+ posts) Sat Nov-28-09 01:22 AM
Response to Original message
21. Robert Fisk: 'Nobody supports the Taliban, but people hate the government'
Robert Fisk was the first correspondent in Kabul, reporting on US bombing of Al-Jazeera. He also reported about entire villages destroyed by US bombing. Here ia an article he wrote back in 2008 as he left Afghanistan. One thing should be clear to all us: no American Messiah can change the FUBAR that is Afghanistan!

Robert Fisk: 'Nobody supports the Taliban, but people hate the government'

As he leaves Afghanistan, our correspondent reflects on a failed state cursed by brutal fundamentalism and rampant corruption

Thursday, 27 November 2008

The collapse of Afghanistan is closer than the world believes. Kandahar is in Taliban hands – all but a square mile at the centre of the city – and the first Taliban checkpoints are scarcely 15 miles from Kabul. Hamid Karzai's deeply corrupted government is almost as powerless as the Iraqi cabinet in Baghdad's "Green Zone"; lorry drivers in the country now carry business permits issued by the Taliban which operate their own courts in remote areas of the country.

The Red Cross has already warned that humanitarian operations are being drastically curtailed in ever larger areas of Afghanistan; more than 4,000 people, at least a third of them civilians, have been killed in the past 11 months, along with scores of Nato troops and about 30 aid workers. Both the Taliban and Mr Karzai's government are executing their prisoners in ever greater numbers. The Afghan authorities hanged five men this month for murder, kidnap or rape – one prisoner, a distant relative of Mr Karzai, predictably had his sentence commuted – and more than 100 others are now on Kabul's death row.

This is not the democratic, peaceful, resurgent, "gender-sensitive" Afghanistan that the world promised to create after the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. Outside the capital and the far north of the country, almost every woman wears the all-enshrouding burkha, while fighters are now joining the Taliban's ranks from Kashmir, Uzbekistan, Chechnya and even Turkey. More than 300 Turkish fighters are now believed to be in Afghanistan, many of them holding European passports.

"Nobody I know wants to see the Taliban back in power," a Kabul business executive says – anonymity is now as much demanded as it was before 2001 – "but people hate the government and the parliament which doesn't care about their security. The government is useless. With so many internally displaced refugees pouring into Kabul from the countryside, there's mass unemployment – but of course, there are no statistics.

"The 'open market' led many of us into financial disaster. Afghanistan is just a battlefield of ideology, opium and political corruption. Now you've got all these commercial outfits receiving contracts from people like USAID. First they skim off 30 to 50 per cent for their own profits – then they contract out and sub-contract to other companies and there's only 10 per cent of the original amount left for the Afghans themselves."

Afghans working for charitable organisations and for the UN are telling their employers that they are coming under increasing pressure to give information to the Taliban and provide them with safe houses. In the countryside, farmers live in fear of both sides in the war. A very senior NGO official in Kabul – again, anonymity was requested – says both the Taliban and the police regularly threaten villagers. "A Taliban group will arrive at a village headman's door at night – maybe 15 or 16 of them – and say they need food and shelter. And the headman tells the villagers to give them food and let them stay at the mosque. Then the police or army arrive in the day and accuse the villagers of colluding with the Taliban, detain innocent men and threaten to withhold humanitarian aid. Then there's the danger the village will be air-raided by the Americans."

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/...

[dmosh42]

2. We have to wait for the corporations to suck up more Gov't money! n/t

[dipsydoodle]

5. al-Qaida's capabilities in Iraq is being degraded

which I guess means the USA is ceasing to pretend they were a significant issue to help justify continued presence there.

Did he really say "is" and not "are" ?

[flyarm]

6. there are less than 100 Al Queda in Afghan..there are more in our country than Afghan!

and the new propaganda that was unleashed in the EU by the USA propaganda depts.. was we stay to protect the women and children of Afghan from the Taliban..well now in the EU, where many nations leaders are in deep shit with the people..over this bogus war..have to be asking themselves..who killed pregnant women and cut the damn bullets out of their dead carcasses...that wouldn't be the taliban ..that would be the USA!

[neverforget]

9. This quote from my Army major friend stationed in Iraq seems to disagree

"I can’t tell you the exact number of Forces we have here right now other than to say it’s significantly higher than 100,000." He's a battalion operations officer who is planning their redeployment to the US in August while conducting day to day operations with the Iraqis.

just saying.....

[NNN0LHI]

11. Not saying your friend is wrong in this instance but ...

... I do remember posters here quoting Army friends and relatives stationed in Iraq who were reporting finding huge caches of WMDs from there some years ago.

So you have to take anything you read on an anonymous website such as this one with a grain of salt.

Don

[neverforget]

12. It's always good to take anything with a grain of salt especially on the

internet.