Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates indicated Thursday that he is open to
increasing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, voicing a shift in
his position as the administration ponders a military assessment
expected to lead to a formal request for additional forces.
Gates, in a briefing at the Pentagon, also defended the U.S. mission
in Afghanistan, rebutting suggestions that it is time to pull out. His
remarks came just hours before the Army announced that it will extend
the tours of about 3,000 soldiers in Afghanistan for between two weeks
and two months amid an intensifying Taliban insurgency.
The report exposed that the Taliban takes a percentage of the billions of dollars in aid that goes to large organizations
and their subcontractors for development projects, in exchange for
protection in remote areas controlled by the insurgency.
With the deaths of four U.S. soldiers Tuesday, the U.S.-led NATO
coalition in Afghanistan now has lost more troops this year than in all
of 2008, and August is on track to be the deadliest month for American
troops there since U.S. operations began nearly eight years ago.
The numbers reflect the rising pace of combat in Afghanistan and come
at a difficult time, just as Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S.
commander in Afghanistan, is considering asking for more U.S. troops
even as opinion polls show that a majority of Americans think the war
in Afghanistan isn't worth the cost.
In fact, this fatalistic view is wrong empirically and morally. Empirically, because war clearly stems less from some hard-wired "instinct" than from mutable cultural and environmental conditions; much can be done, and has been done, to reduce the risks it poses. Morally, because the belief that war will never end helps perpetuate it.
The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating along with U.S. public
support for the war, Washington's top military officer said as he left open the possibility of another increase in troops.
"I think it is serious and it is deteriorating, and I've said that over
the past couple of years -- that the Taliban insurgency has gotten
better, more sophisticated," said Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.
American military commanders with the NATO mission in Afghanistan told President Obama’s chief envoy to the region this weekend that they did not have enough troops to do their job, pushed past their limit by Taliban rebels who operate across borders.
The theory is: expanded by the American ideal of government, that the "PEOPLE" of a nation can, threw elections, run a country. This ideal is flawed in countries where the government in that country have been destroyed by outsid
The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan says many Taliban insurgents,
particularly in the violence-plagued south, could be persuaded to stop
fighting if they could find jobs in a stabilized country.
The Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan, the top American
commander there said, forcing the U.S. to change its strategy in the
eight-year-old conflict by increasing the number of troops in heavily
populated areas like the volatile southern city of Kandahar, the
insurgency's spiritual home.
A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."
The House would prohibit use of funds to reduce strategic nuclear
weapons under a new treaty with Russia -- unless the president
certified there were sufficient verification measures and that neither
U.S. missile defense systems nor conventional offensive weapons were
under limits. It would also have to be determined that the U.S. nuclear
weapons programs were adequately funded.
The dismal verdict on the UK's all-round performance in Afghanistan came as Britain's most senior diplomat warned that Britain's involvement in the country will last for "decades". Sir Nigel Sheinwald, British ambassador to Washington...
It would have been the most far-reaching case of computer sabotage in history. In 2003, the Pentagon and American intelligence agencies made plans for a cyberattack to freeze billions of dollars in the bank accounts of Saddam Hussein and cripple his government’s financial system before the United States invaded Iraq. He would have no money for war supplies. No money to pay troops.
The story focuses on a single battalion based at Fort Carson in
Colorado Springs, the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment. Soldiers
from the brigade have have been involved in brawls, beatings, rapes,
drunk driving, drug deals, domestic violence, shootings, stabbings,
kidnapping and suicides. The Army unit’s murder rate is 114 times the
rate for Colorado Springs.
The Democratic-controlled House is poised to give the Pentagon dozens of new ships, planes, helicopters and armored vehicles that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says the military does not need to fund next year, acting in many cases in response to defense industry pressures and campaign contributions under an approach he has decried as "business as usual" and vowed to help end.
U.S. military authorities in Afghanistan may hire a private contractor
to provide around-the-clock security at dozens of bases and protect
vehicle convoys moving throughout the country. The possibility of awarding a security contract comes as the Obama
administration is sending thousands of more troops into Afghanistan to
quell rising violence fueled by a resurgent Taliban. As the number of
American forces grow over the next several months, so too does the
demand to guard their outposts.
Before the murders started, Anthony Marquez’s mom dialed his sergeant at Fort Carson to warn that her son was poised to kill.
It was February 2006, and the 21-year-old soldier had not been the same since being wounded and coming home from Iraq
8 months before. He had violent outbursts and thrashing nightmares.
He was devouring pain pills and drinking too much. He always packed a
gun.
In the meantime the phrase ‘Strategic Nuclear Weapons’ is an oxymoron when the only plausible posture is stalemate and no realistic tactical option except mutual suicide. We have ourselves fought in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq making full use of conventional force. Of what consequence was possession of nuclear weapons in the conduct of these wars?
Yes, I couldn’t help but note the long and generally favorable obits on
Robert “the Strange” McNamara, at age 93. The obituaries ranged from
glowingly positive to, at worst that I read, neutral. I was shocked and
disgusted by these things. I considered the man to be a classic
sociopath and a war criminal, among other things. He was one of the
worst human beings ever to have lived.
An American soldier, who disappeared after walking off his base in eastern Afghanistan with three Afghan counterparts, is believed captured, officials said today.
Spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said the soldier disappeared Tuesday.
"We
understand him to be have been captured by militant forces. We have all
available resources out there looking for him and hopefully providing
for his safe return," Mathias said.
Thousands of U.S. Marines poured from helicopters and armored
vehicles into Taliban-controlled villages in southern Afghanistan on
Thursday in the first major operation under President Barack Obama's
strategy to stabilize the country.
The offensive was launched shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday local time
(4:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday, 2030 GMT Wednesday) in Helmand province, a
Taliban stronghold and the world's largest opium poppy-producing area.
The goal is to clear insurgents from the hotly contested region before
the nation's Aug. 20 presidential election.
National security adviser James L. Jones told U.S. military commanders
here last week that the Obama administration wants to hold troop levels
here flat for now, and focus instead on carrying out the previously
approved strategy of increased economic development, improved
governance and participation by the Afghan military and civilians in
the conflict.
The Iraqi government stumbled once again in its frequently
delayed effort to award development rights to its most valuable oil
fields. In a public auction it largely failed to attract the lucrative
offers it sought from dozens of international oil companies invited to
the bidding.
(This BBC video explains how the US Military has moved from inside the cities to just outside the cities out of sight where they'll be waiting for..... The media is being scrubed of the many new large US military bases around the country. If there is any sort of an uprising against the 'USA approved' government there will be intervention... immediately. Just as with Vietnam, this war will continue until it is no longer funded.)
Despite the pullback from cities and towns, due to be completed on Tuesday, US troops will still be embedded with Iraqi forces. ...while the pullback is significant, the actual withdrawal of US combat troops in 2010 will pose a greater challenge.(They aren't really leaving,... the troops are now populating the new US military bases instead of the cities)
Iraqi forces assumed formal control of Baghdad and other cities Tuesday
after American troops handed over security in urban areas in a defining
step toward ending the U.S. combat role in the country. A countdown
clock broadcast on Iraqi TV ticked to zero as the midnight deadline
passed for U.S. combat troops to finish their pullback to bases outside
cities.
"The inability to discern the presence of civilians and assess the
potential collateral damage of those strikes is inconsistent with the
US government's objective of providing security and safety for the
Afghan people," the report prepared by US Central Command said.
Hitler's sexual dysfunction was
responsible for war and his persecution of the Jews, according to Kurt
Kreuger M.D. who claims he was Hitler's psychiatrist from 1919 to 1934.
I stumbled on his 1941 book, "I was Hitler's Doctor" not
suspecting he was a psychiatrist. I wasn't prepared for the intimate
revelations, including one that Hitler hated Jews because a grocer
named Sachs had "desecrated" his mother.
Professor Robert Waite
says the book is a hoax. There was no Jewish grocer in Leonding and
Kreuger couldn't possibly have remembered pages of intimate
conversations verbatim. ("The Psychopathic God," p. 434)
I
don't know about the grocer but it seems to me that after treating a
very special patient for 15 years, a gifted man like Kreuger could
reproduce his words. Hitler's problem with women is widely known. Also,
the Introduction was written by Ot
