The event on the House floor Wednesday afternoon was monumental — the first major congressional debate about U.S. military operations in Afghanistan since lawmakers authorized the invasion of that country in autumn 2001. But, as Rep. Patrick Kennedy noted with disgust on Wednesday, the House press gallery was nearly empty. He aptly concluded: “It’s despicable, the national press corps right now.” Sure enough, the Thursday edition of the New York Times had no room for the historic debate on its front page, which did have room for a large Starbucks ad across the bottom. Despite the news media and the lopsided pro-war tilt on Capitol Hill (reflected in the 356-65 vote Wednesday against invoking the War Powers Act), antiwar organizing has a lot of hospitable terrain at the grassroots. National polling shows widespread opposition to the Afghanistan war effort — a far cry from the dominant lockstep conformity in Congress." Tags: af-pak Media Bias Congress Posted by: ampedstatus

Today in classrooms, as in the streets, there is too much silence. It has never been easy to integrate “current events” into the curriculum. In many high school history classes, the current world doesn’t show up until the last few weeks of the year, if it makes it at all. In elementary and middle schools, social studies has been squeezed out of classrooms by the NCLB-fostered obsession with testing. Too many of us face increasingly tense and restricted teaching situations with escalating pressure on standardized tests and scripted curricula, rising class sizes, and an explosion of discipline problems as outlets for creative and physical expression are eliminated. Soaring levels of unemployment, foreclosure, homelessness, and incarceration affect the school environment in many parts of the country. Figuring out how to have your class read a whole book or sneaking in a field trip are enormous feats. In this context, teaching kids about the ever-expanding landscape of war from Africa through Asia seems too much to ask. " Tags: Student af-pak Iraq Peace movement Posted by: ampedstatus

The House on Wednesday soundly rejected an effort by anti-war lawmakers to force a withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year. The outcome of the vote, 356-65 against the resolution, was never in doubt. (click here for the roll call) But the 3 1/2 hours of debate did give those who oppose President Barack Obama's war policies a platform to vent their frustrations. Opposing the resolution was easy for almost all Republicans, who have been solidly behind Obama's decision to increase U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan from 70,000 to 100,000. Only five Republicans supported the measure. Tags: af-pak Congress Posted by: ampedstatus

The anti-war movement in the US is in a deep funk. To date, even news of a surge in troops to Afghanistan has not really awakened it. The new book The Bases of Empire may help to clarify what we are trying to do. Many suggest that the problem with the anti-war movement today is that it does not break with the Democratic Party, but this argument is somewhat ahistorical. When the movement was stronger in the sixties (against the Vietnam war) and the eighties (against intervention in Central America) painful debates raged on about the relationship of the movement to the Democrats. There were similar voices–sometimes the same people!–on each side. What was different was not that the movement had a great deal of clarity about this (I’m not sure that is possible in a non-revolutionary time in a two party state) but that the movement was larger and livelier. What was different was that a sense of purpose animated the movements then that is lacking now. " Tags: af-pak Peace movement Military Bases Posted by: ampedstatus

It's been a long winter for the peace movement. Waiting for Obama has proved fruitless. The Great Recession has strengthened Wall Street and diverted attention from the wars. The debate over healthcare still won't go away and has demoralized progressive advocates. Given a chance to exit from Afghanistan when the Karzai election proved to be stolen, President Obama escalated anyway, but also promised to "begin" exiting almost before an opposition could mobilize at home. Representative Dennis Kucinich will step into the crosswinds this week and force the House of Representatives to wake up, pay attention, and vote up or down on the Afghanistan war. The Kucinich initiative at least will reveal where Congress stands. Whether it will energize the peace movement for upcoming March protests or beyond is unpredictable. Kucinich, interviewed along with other members of Congress by The Nation last week, is introducing a so-called privileged resolution requiring the House to hold a three-hour debate this coming Wednesday, followed by a vote on the Afghanistan war. The vote is expected to authorize the war, but passage of Kucinich's initiative would require a withdrawal in thirty days. If the president rejected such a decision, the withdrawal would be delayed until the end of 2010, nine months from now. Tags: af-pak Iraq Posted by: ampedstatus

Liberals in the House, who have spent much of the past year complaining that other congressional Democrats and the White House are insufficiently progressive, will get a chance this week to vent about one of their biggest concerns: the war in Afghanistan. House leaders will allow three hours of formal debate, probably Wednesday, on an antiwar resolution written by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), one of the leading antiwar voices in Congress. The resolution, which has 16 co-sponsors, calls for the United States to remove all of its troops from Afghanistan in 30 days -- or by the end of the year, if it is determined that trying to do so in a month would be too dangerous. The resolution will invoke the 1973 War Powers Act, which Congress passed in protest of the escalation of the Vietnam War by a series of presidents without formal congressional authorization. It requires congressional approval for a president to put troops in a military conflict for more than 90 days. Congress passed a resolution authorizing military force in Afghanistan in 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks, and some congressional scholars doubt Congress can invoke the act now to force changes to President Obama's war policy. " Tags: af-pak Congress Posted by: ampedstatus

A California-based reservist recently died in Afghanistan, the Defense Department announced Friday. Lance Cpl. Nigel K. Olsen, 21, of Orem, Utah, was killed March 4 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, a volatile area where Marines continue to battle against Taliban fighters for control of Marjah. Olsen was assigned to the 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion from Camp Pendleton. Another reservist with 4th LAR — Lance Cpl. Carlos A. Aragon, 19 — was killed March 1. Aragon was also from Orem, Utah. Tags: US Soldiers af-pak Posted by: ampedstatus

"Since 2005, the people of Pakistan, no strangers to upheaval, have been suffering near-constant food and water shortages, rampant power-outages and bodily harm as formerly peaceful cities are besieged by extremist violence. All the while, American leadership continues to direct criticism and threats at the troubled nation, allocating most of its monetary aid for Pakistan to its army, and openly endorsing India as blameless in the endless brinkmanship between the two equally culpable South Asian nations." Tags: af-pak Posted by: ampedstatus

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is concerned about possible misconduct in Afghanistan by the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater and has promised to review the issue, the Pentagon said. Gates made the pledge to lawmakers after receiving a letter from Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who urged the defense secretary to reconsider awarding a possible one billion dollar contract to the firm, now known as Xe, due to allegations of wrongdoing. "He is looking into it and he takes it seriously," press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters Friday. Tags: af-pak private military Blackwater war crimes Posted by: ampedstatus

A senior Senate Democrat said Thursday the Pentagon should consider barring Blackwater, now called Xe Services, from a new $1 billion deal to train Afghan police because of "serious questions" about the contractor's conduct. The comments by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin suggests thinning patience in Congress for the Pentagon's heavy reliance on contractors on the battlefield. U.S. efforts to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan using independent contractors has been a boon for companies like Blackwater and saved money and time for the Defense Department, whose forces are busy in combat." Tags: Blackwater af-pak Congress Military Spending Posted by: ampedstatus

The report, by the Washington-based New America Foundation, will fuel growing criticism of the use of unmanned drones in the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, who use Pakistan as a base for attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan. Critics say their use not only takes innocent lives, but amounts to unlawful extra-judicial killing of militants. The report by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann found that 32 per cent of those killed in drone attacks since 2004 were civilians. Their report, The Year of the Drone, studied 114 drone raids in which more than 1200 people were killed. Of those, between 549 and 849 were reliably reported to be militant fighters, while the rest were civilians. "The true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 32 per cent," the foundation reported. Tags: Drones war crimes af-pak Posted by: ampedstatus

A Washington-based think tank says that US drone attacks have killed over 1200 people in Pakistan over the past six years. In a report issued on Tuesday, the New American Foundation said that the US military has launched 114 airstrikes in Pakistan since 2004 and stated that one third of the people who have been killed were Pakistani civilians. However, the US military claims that the airstrikes target militants. " Tags: af-pak Drones Posted by: ampedstatus

Nearly 70 percent of Afghan police recruits drop out during training, the top US army officer in charge of shaping the new Afghan security forces said Tuesday. Lieutenant General William Caldwell said the 67-percent "attrition rate" among police recruits was "far too high" and revamping the way the police works to avoid burn-out was one of his main priorities. The high drop-out rate meant that in order to grow the Afghan police and army from their current level of about 200,000 to 300,000, far more than 100,000 recruits would be required because many would fall by the wayside." Tags: af-pak Posted by: ampedstatus

According to international media reports, the Kabul Puppet Administration have warned media outlets not to publish or transmit live reports of events without obtainment of prior permission. In case of violation, they have threatened to arrest relevant reporters, seize their equipment and impose ban on activities of the concerned media outlet in a given area. International media outlets, civil societies and human rights organizations have condemned the irrational warning of the Kabul puppet administration. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers this measure of the surrogate administration as a flagrant violation of the recognized principle of freedom of speech and wants to announce as follows. Tags: af-pak Censorship Posted by: ampedstatus

Afghanistan today said it would clarify newly announced restrictions on media coverage of insurgent attacks. The Afghan National Directorate of Security intelligence agency on March 1 summoned journalists to its headquarters and threatened to arrest anyone filming while attacks are under way. A spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, Wahid Omar, then said today that the new guidelines had not yet been drawn up, and promised they would not amount to "censorship." Tags: af-pak Censorship Posted by: ampedstatus

"Iraq remains a mess from which the U.S. military seems increasingly uninterested in withdrawing fully and Afghanistan a disaster area, but it’s never too soon to think about the next war. The subject is already on the minds of Pentagon planners. The question is: Are they focusing on how to manage future wars so that they won’t last longer than the American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II combined? There’s reason to worry, especially since the lessons of both Iraq and Afghanistan are clear: it takes years after a war has been launched for the U.S. military to develop tactics that lead to stasis. (“Victory” is a word that has gone out of fashion.) Here, then, are three modest suggestions for recalibrating the American way of war. All are based on a simple principle -- “preventive war planning” -- and are focused on getting the next war right before it begins, not decades after it’s launched." Tags: Iraq af-pak Posted by: ampedstatus

Defying US, Pakistan won't extradite captured Taliban leaders The US Air Force plans to deliver 1,000 laser-guided bomb kits to Pakistan this month to help Islamabad in its offensive against militants on the Afghan border, a spokesman said on Tuesday. The Air Force is providing the kits after having delivered 1,000 MK-82 bombs last month to Pakistan's military, Lieutenant Colonel Jeffry Glenn told AFP. The US military assistance underscored Washington's role in backing Pakistan's months-long campaign against Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants. Tags: af-pak Weapons Sales Posted by: ampedstatus

Future U.S wars in the Third World will involve massive use of drones to police the territory, employ local satrap[1] forces (like those of Karzai’s Afghan Army) and once the territory has been pacified sufficiently, the deployment of “Government Ready-to-Rule (GRR)” kits. The drones provide the critical and the weak link: critical insofar as they represent the ultimate American-style war where only the “Others” (opponents and civilians) die but weak insofar as this type of warfare only works against an opponent without any anti-drone/aircraft capability. In other words, this type of technological warfare can only be carried out upon weak opponents lacking independent industrial capacities (not against China, Russia, and India). This approach represents the culmination of disconnecting the delivery of deadly force – the rain of Hellfire missiles - upon the Others and incurring no human (physical or psychological – PTSD) costs. Or put in other terms, it represents the quintessential American way of “solving” problems with technological short-cuts, a military effort begun in 1942 with the Allied fire-bombing of German cities.[2] The current American war in Afghanistan is a harbinger of what is to come, America’s electronic, troop-less war. Prophetically the first victims in 2010 of Obama in his Afghan war were a teacher in a government school, Sadiq Noor, and his nine-year old son, Wajid as well as three other persons. Both were killed on Sunday night, January 3, 2010 in a U.S. drone strike involving two missiles fired into the home of Sadiq Noor in the village of Musaki, North Waziristan in Pakistan.[3] During January 2010, a record number of twelve deadly missile strikes were carried out on Pakistan’s tribal areas. Three Al-Qaeda leaders were killed and 123 innocent civilians.[4] During 2009, 44 U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan killed 708 people but only five Al Qaeda or Taliban; that is for each enemy fighter 140 civilian Pakistanis had to die.[5] Those who pull the gray trigger to fire are located in Nevada, Tags: Drones Military Spending af-pak Iraq Posted by: ampedstatus

New US-sponsored Pakistani media will raise awareness and build a brand for America, according to sources in the international press. The Obama administration is set to spend $50 million on media in Pakistan. The goal is to raise awareness of projects aimed at reversing anti-American sentiments. The US Special Representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke believes that a substantial amount of monies spent on media, especially private TV channels, will reduce tension and may even bring Pakistan-US relations back on the right path, according to Examiner.com. Tags: af-pak Propaganda Posted by: ampedstatus

Legal headaches are growing exponentially for the security firm formerly known as Blackwater – once the darling of the military-industrial community. In separate developments, two former employees of the company charged that the security firm committed "systematic fraud" under its contracts with the U.S. State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan; the Iraqi government announced it would seize heavy weapons from foreign security firms and expel ex-Blackwater contractors still in the country; and a U.S. Senate hearing learned that Blackwater employees stole more than 500 assault rifles intended for the Afghan police force. The accusations of fraud came from two former employees who filed a false claims lawsuit that allows the employees, acting as whistleblowers, to win a portion of any public money the government recovers as a result of the information. Tags: Blackwater war crimes private military Iraq af-pak Posted by: ampedstatus