GORDON DUFF: DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS, DUPLICITY IN AFGHANISTAN

WHAT OUR MILITARY LEADERS ONLY SAY BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
Open today’s newspaper and get a map of the battle zones in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  You say they aren’t there?  Open today’s newspaper and find out how many troops our enemies have, who their leaders are.  Can’t find that either?  Look in [...]

When friends and enemies act alike, it is time to leave.

In AOL News today we read a piece entitled Pakistan’s Border War Grows Murkier we read that the Pakistani Army is as duplicitous as ever relative to roping in forces which have, can and will continue to kill Americans. 
To put this simply, the Pakistani Army cannot be trusted to defend American interests there while at [...]

JEFF GATES: CROTCH BOMBER’S “RADICAL CLERIC,” ANWAR AL-AWLAKI WORKED FOR FBI

Agent Butler paid rent and cashed checks for the two hijackers while they were being advised by Al-Awlaki. What did Butler want to know? Was Ghazal funding Mel Rockefeller with whom he had traveled to Iraq in 1997. While in Baghdad they confirmed that Saddam Hussein had mothballed his WMD program after the 1991 Gulf War and that he was prepared to negotiate his departure—without this war. The FBI has yet to speak with Mel Rockefeller.

TALIBAN: RETURN KIDNAPPED AND RAPED HOUSEWIFE OR WE WILL EXECUTE AMERICAN POW

SOLD TO THE CIA TO FOR BUSH “TERROR QUOTA”

 
RAPED, TORTURED, ONE OF HER CHILDREN MURDERED, NOW CONVICTED OF IMPOSSIBLE CRIME

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
As a Marine, combat veteran, disabled vet and proud American I am sickened.  The Taliban is holding an American soldier prisoner and is threatening to execute him.  The Taliban is using Afghani [...]

Even Where Pakistani Law Exists, Taliban Find a Porous Border

The way the Taliban use Pakistan’s tribal areas to launch cross-border attacks inside Afghanistan is perhaps the most contentious issue between Pakistan and the United States. But the problem is hardly contained to Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas.

Gaping holes in security checks along the border also remain at heavily trafficked crossings, like this one, in Baluchistan Province, where, American officials say, the Taliban’s leaders have taken refuge, out of reach of American and NATO forces.

U.S. commanders in Afghanistan face tougher discipline for battlefield failures – Washington Post

In today’s Washington Post in an article entitled U.S. commanders in Afghanistan face tougher discipline for battlefield failures we learn that there is a new sheriff in town relative to holding battlefield commanders directly responsible for high death tolls on Afghani battlefields.
This is certainly a new departure for American military thought.  I am not sure [...]

NEW PATRIOTISM: RESTORING OUR REAL FREEDOMS

NO MORE CORPORATE RUN “MILITIA” GROUPS
NO MORE CONTROLLED PRESS AND “POLITICS AS USUAL”

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
I am sick and tired of what I see around me, like most Americans.  Trillions of dollars and thousands of lives and we have more enemies, with better weapons every day.  Every time I listen to the news [...]

3 U.S. Soldiers Die in Attack by Pakistan Militants

Update: Soldiers’ Deaths in Pakistan Raise Questions on U.S. Presence - The deaths of three American soldiers in a Taliban suicide attack Wednesday lifted the veil on United States military assistance to Pakistan that the authorities here would like to keep quiet and the Americans, as the donors, chafe at not receiving credit for.  The soldiers [...]

U.S. Intel: Al-Qaeda ‘certain’ to attack U.S. within months

By Joby Warrick
The Obama administration’s top intelligence officials on Tuesday described it as “certain” that al-Qaeda or its allies will try to attack the United States in the next six months, and they called for new flexibility in how U.S. officials detain and question terrorist suspects.
The officials, testifying before the Senate intelligence committee, also warned [...]

Biz-Jirgah: A Tool for Bottom-Up Approach in Afghanistan

Day by day a growing chorus of voices is heard saying that the tribes are the solution in Afghanistan. This very powerful grassroots movement is blossoming; and it can give the Afghan people new hope, self-esteem and a sense of belonging. As Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) told the news media Russia Today; “For about one billion dollars we could…(obtain)… the good will of all the tribal leaders and all the ethnic leaders in Afghanistan, and for another billion dollars, we could put nice projects in local villages.” But, to make sure that there is success to this notion, an effective bottom-up approach tool is required to match the existing top-down approach so that jointly both approaches can rescue the nation.

Seven Days in January

So it was, undoubtedly, with New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller, who accompanied Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as he stumbled through a challenge-filled, error-prone two-day trip to Pakistan. Gates must have felt a little like a punching bag by the time he boarded his plane for home having, as Juan Cole pointed out, managed to signal “that the U.S. is now increasingly tilting to India and wants to put it in charge of Afghanistan security; that Pakistan is isolated… and that Pakistani conspiracy theories about Blackwater were perfectly correct and he had admitted it. In baseball terms, Gates struck out.”

Pakistan’s Wealth Divide and Rising Militancy

Pakistan is a country with a very fast-growing young population. 60% of its population is between 15-35 years and we no program for them. We have no direction set for them.

New U.S. air strategy in Afghanistan: First, do no harm

In Afghanistan’s Khost and Helmand provinces, Afghanistan’s most violent, U.S. jets more frequently drop bombs that are intended to maim and kill.

Afghan govt condemns NATO airstrike on soldiers – AOL News

AOL News is reporting this morning that a combined American-Afghan commando unit called in NATO air support which killed a regular Army Afghan border security unit along the Pakistani border.  The government is calling the slain soldiers “martyrs” and is also calling for an investigation of the commando unit’s actions. 
The piece is entitled Afghan govt condemns NATO [...]

Report: Pashtun Men Defy West’s Sexual Categories

AOL News  is reporting today that stereotypical Western sexual categories (gay and straight) simply do not apply to Pashtun men.  I have to tell you, this is not the normal news that comes out of Afghanistan.
The piece is entitled Report: Pashtun Men Defy West’s Sexual Categories.  After reading the piece, I would have to say, [...]

London Afghanistan Summit Glosses Over the Cracks-Time Magazine

In today’s Time Magazine online we find an article entitled London Afghanistan Summit Glosses Over the Cracks .  Essentially the West has decided to buy off the Taliban.  We could have done this nine years ago, saved hundreds of billions of dollars and countless Western and Asian lives.  Why now?
Why?  My guess is that because [...]

Afpak Study Group: CONSOLIDATING AFGHANISTAN

These larger groups are partially divided as Northern Pashtun, Southern Pashtun, Northern Tajik, Western Tajik, Southwestern Tajik, etc., etc, and the list goes on. Further, the many mini-tribes each have their own, independent tribal leaders, tribal laws to fit their local conditions, and a fierce determination to protect their real or imagined boundaries and their real or imagined ability to traverse wherever they wish, whenever they wish.

Anand Gopal, Afraid of the Dark in Afghanistan

I’m proud to say that Anand Gopal, who has been reporting for the Wall Street Journal from Kabul, produces here the single most extensive report so far on American night raids in Afghanistan and the military holding areas that are the“black sites” of this moment. (His investigation, a shared project of TomDispatch.com and the Nation magazine, appears in print in the latest issue of the Nation.

Kabul residents say U.S. soldiers kill imam sitting in car – Washington Post

The Washington Post is running an article this morning entitled Kabul residents say U.S. soldiers kill imam sitting in car in which Afghanis claim that American troops shot and killed an imam sitting in his cars with his children. There seems to be some confusion however whether or not it was American troops or coalition [...]

NATO struggling to fulfill commitments for more troops in Afghanistan – Washington Post

Okay.  Here is the situation and it is not what we were told would happen by our friends.
NATO either cannot or will not send the troops to Afghanistan that they promised Obama that they would send.  There is stiff opposition among the European governments to any increase in troop levels for this unpopular war.  Simply [...]

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