KABUL, Afghanistan – August has become the deadliest month for U.S. troops in the nearly 10-year-old war in Afghanistan

http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110830/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2028169/U-S-close-signing-deal-troops-Afghanistan-2024.html

America and Afghanistan close to signing strategic pact allowing thousands of United States troops to remain until 2024

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Was_afghanistan_ever_colonized

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8712701/US-troops-may-stay-in-Afghanistan-until-2024.html

GOOGLE NEWS SEARCH TERMS: "strategic pact Afghanistan" PAST 24 HOURS:

http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&btnmeta_news_search=1&q=strategic+pact+afghanistan#q=strategic+pact+afghanistan&hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:d&sa=X&ei=PIlPToXPGdOlsAKQqPXVBg&ved=0CAwQpwUoAg&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=5e3eacb6af5a0521&biw=1280&bih=610

WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE IN OUR NATION??
IN AFGHANISTAN GUYS SITTING IN COMFORTABLE CHAIRS IN FLORIDA ARE CONTROLLING THE KILLING DRONES?

http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/19/eyewitnesses-to-kabul-explosions/

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NavyTimes.com | Corps to use more lethal ammo in Afghanistan

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/02/marine_SOST_ammo_021510w/

UN: Afghans forced to pay billions in bribes – A.P.

January 19, 2010
The Associated Press is reporting in the Boston Globe this afternoon in a piece entitled UN: Afghans forced to pay billions in bribes that our “allies” in the Afghan government are more corrupt than politicians in Chicago and New York and the entire state of Pennsylvania combined. That is no small statement. Our people in uniform have been in combat and have been maimed and killed to support this? Are you kidding me?

Here is an excerpt:

“LONDON – Corruption in Afghanistan is so entrenched that Afghans had to pay bribes worth nearly a quarter of the country’s GDP last year, according to a United Nations report.

Afghans paid $2.5 billion to bribe public officials over the past 12 months, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in a report on corruption in the country to be released today.”

Bring those troops home now.

If our national defense interests are entwined with this debacle, with this disgrace for a “government” with which we have allied ourselves, our young people do not need to be killed like so many Mafia soldiers defending a piece of drug turf in one of our inner cities.

How would you like to be a mother of a dead trooper or marine or airman and read this story?

Our leaders need to understand what they did when they put our young people into harm’s way in order to facilitate “defending” this corruption and death-inducing governmental decay in an artificial nation that we constructed ourselves after World War I that conducts its internal business like a mob congress covened to settle a gangland war.

How in the name of all that is reasonable and righteous did these people who govern our nation ever think that this was worth even one American life?

Afghanistan: only the first move in the grand chess game for control of Central Asian resources

The specific Central Asian region of which I speak, rich in natural gas and oil, includes India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, among others. Russia, which borders the region and Iran are also key players. Transport of these critical resources via current and planned pipelines is at the center of the struggle to determine who will control them into the future. To understand the magnitude of this struggle we need to begin by examining the strategy that the U.S. is pursuing in Afghanistan and Pakistan as related to its greater objectives in Central Asia...

...

We are just in the beginning stages of a new chapter in this grand chess game that pits the U.S. against China in achieving dominance in the world's natural resources, primarily oil and gas, for many years to come. So far, China has used diplomacy and negotiations around the world and has stayed completely away from involvement in wars. Conversely, the U.S. has initiated wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan at staggering costs to achieve its goals.

We are going to hear more and more reports of various types of incursions into Pakistan by various means; the use of drones will greatly intensify, and Blackwater (now renamed XE) is actively setting up clandestine operations in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. Whether U.S. and/or NATO troops will actually make incursions into Pakistan is anyone's guess but, if that happens , then the situation could become very dire indeed.

What I'm describing is not an unsubstantiated theory. It has been well documented, not in the Western press, but by major Asian news outlets; the Asia Times, headquartered in Hong Kong, is closely monitoring this grand chess game being played out. There is no great secret in that area of the world as to what is really happening and why.

At this point, China is winning the grand chess game because of its apparent ability to use diplomacy in securing critical resources. The danger is that the U.S., rather than using diplomacy, is committed to using military "persuasion" to achieve its objectives. Carrying out such aggressive military policies in a region where four nations with nuclear capabilities -- Russia, China, India and Pakistan -- exist is moving this game into a highly dangerous phase.

READ MORE

Iran demands UK accountability for Afghan drug problem

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=115816&sectionid=351020101

Jordanian doctor killed CIA agents in eastern Afghanistan last week

Last updated 11:04 05/01/2010

The suicide bomber who killed eight people inside a CIA base in eastern Afghanistan last week was a Jordanian doctor recruited by Jordanian intelligence.

The bombing killed seven CIA employees - four officers and three contracted security guards - and a Jordanian intelligence officer, Ali bin Zaid, according to a second former US intelligence official.

A former senior intelligence official and a foreign official said the bomber was Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year old doctor from Zarqa, Jordan. NBC News first reported the bomber's identity.

He was arrested more than a year ago by Jordanian intelligence and was thought to have been persuaded to support US and Jordanian efforts against al Qaeda, according to the NBC report.

He was invited to Camp Chapman, a tightly secured CIA forward base in Khost province on the fractious Afghan-Pakistan frontier, because he was offering urgent information to track down Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's right-hand man. READ MORE

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/middle-east/3206502/Jordanian-doctor-killed-CIA-agents

BlackListedNews.com | Afghanistan is Not the Right War

Published on 01-03-2010

By James Corbett - The Corbett Report

TRANSCRIPT: If history has taught us anything, it is that we need to beware those populist politicians who claim to be men of peace by nature but men of war by necessity. The most violent wars this planet has ever seen, the most brutal regimes that have ever sought to repress their own citizens, the most genocidal schemes have always been nurtured under the leadership of politicians who offer war, violence and domination as a way of achieving peace.

Napoleon waged wars of agression in country after country, terrorizing the peoples of Europe and ravaging their lands in the name of a continent-wide peace under the French flag.

Hitler, too, assured the world that his conquests were born of necessity, a means to achieve the "living space" that the German people required to live in peace.

Vietnam, too, was a war to achieve peace. If Vietnam fell to the communists, the world was told, the dominoes would begin to fall in country after country and it would not be long before the red tide flooded Western shores.

Wars are always waged in the name of utopia. Blood is always spilt in the name of the noble cause.

READ MORE ....
http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-6879-0-5-5--.html

Eerie outpost unnerves US Marines with strange lights and whispers in the night

Sunday, December 27, 2009 5:11:03 PM

London Time

The Marines found the bone as they scraped a shallow trench. Long, dry and unmistakably once part of a human leg, it was followed by others. They reburied most of them but also found bodies. Three of the graves were close together; in another was a skeleton still wearing a pair of glasses. The Marines covered the grave and told their successors to stay away from it. Observation Point Rock sits a few hundred metres south east of Patrol Base Hassan Abad, where a company from 2/8 Marines has been stationed for the past seven months. It is a lonely...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6969122.ece

U.S. Recruits Worldwide For Afghan War

End Of The Year: U.S. Recruits Worldwide For Afghan War - by Rick Rozoff - 2009-12-24

The first of 33,000 more U.S. troops have arrived in Afghanistan for a Christmas surge and they will soon be joined by as many as 10,000 additional non-American troops serving under NATO in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Washington will have over 100,000 uniformed personnel and tens of thousands of new military contractors in the South Asian war zone, and with more than 50,000 other NATO and NATO partner forces present total troop strength will exceed 150,000.

Except for a modest amount of troops assigned to the NATO Training Mission - Iraq in Baghdad, the U.S. with its 120,000 troops is now largely alone in that country. NATO, especially new NATO, member and candidate states were ordered to transfer their forces from Iraq to Afghanistan starting approximately a year ago and are now redeploying soldiers from missions in Kosovo, Lebanon and Chad to the same destination. The Afghan battlefront, then, currently has the largest amount of military forces stationed in any war zone in the world. [1]

Troops from NATO countries stationed in Bosnia, the Central African Republic, Chad, Lebanon and off the coast of Somalia are currently assigned to European Union missions (European warships also participate in NATO's Ocean Shield naval interdiction in Somali waters and the Gulf of Aden) and their transfer to the South Asian war front indicates the virtual interchangeability of armed units assigned to NATO and the European Union. [2]

Since the beginning of this year's escalation of the war in Afghanistan and into neighboring Pakistan, Western public figures and media have dwelt frequently and at length on the war being a - or the - test for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, ostensibly the major watershed and crucible in its 60-year history.

When the bloc, the world's only military alliance, invoked its Article 5 mutual assistance clause in September of 2001 to support its leading member, the U.S., in its invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the Alliance was fresh on the heels of its first-ever war: The 78-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in early 1999, the first all-out military assault targeting a European nation since Hitler's and Mussolini's attacks and invasions of 1939-1941.

By activating Article 5 - "The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all [and] will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith" - NATO enlisted for its first land war and its first war in Asia.

It also exploited its effective war provision to launch Operation Active Endeavor in early October of 2001, a comprehensive, airtight naval surveillance and interdiction program throughout the entire Mediterranean Sea that monitors all activity in NATO's new mare nostrum (our sea) and dominates all access points into the world's most important sea: The Strait of Gibraltar, the Dardanelles Strait and the Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean with the Atlantic Ocean, the Black Sea, the Red Sea and thence to the Indian Ocean, respectively.

The U.S.-led military alliance gained control over that vast stretch of strategic waterways by adopting the American post-September 11, 2001 pretexts of combating terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. The first was the rationale for invading Afghanistan, the second for invading Iraq. READ MORE

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16653


RELATED:

Manpower Expands Military Recruitment for Australia - GlobalResearch.ca

- 2009-12-25

Escalating War in Afghanistan Apt to Hurt Fragile U.S. Economy

- by Sherwood Ross - 2009-12-25 If Iraq war spending helped plunge the U.S. economy into its worst slump since the Depression, what does President Obama think his escalation of the Afghan war will do it? Besides forcing taxpayers to cough up fresh billions to enable the Pentagon to chase down a few hundred Taliban fighters, the Afghan war is liable to continue to inflate oil prices---and this means more than the ongoing swindle of motorists at the pump. Higher oil prices also slow the global economy, causing our trading partners to buy fewer Made-in-USA goods, thus reducing demand for our products and leading to layoffs. Spending money on war also siphons billions of dollars from truly productive uses. “Today, no serious economist holds the view that war is good for the economy,” write Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard government finance expert Linda Bilmes in their book “The Three Trillion Dollar War: the True Cost of The Iraq Conflict.” Referring to Iraq, they write, “The question is not whether the economy has been weakened by the war. The question is only by how much.” They note, “Oil prices started to soar just as the war began, and the longer it has dragged on, the higher prices have gone.” Even so, by their estimate, (a word they stress,) the increased price of oil attributed to the war comes “to somewhat in excess of $1.6 trillion.” Not only consumers but State and local governments “have had to cut back other spending to pay the higher prices of oil imports.” READ MORE.... http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16646

Hillary Clinton: We'll Still Be In Afghanistan in 50 or 60 Years

On December 1st, President Obama talked about withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan within 18 months.

Everyone now knows that there is no firm withdrawal date from Afghanistan. See this and this.

But in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on December 2nd, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton actually gave a much longer horizon for the presence of U.S. troops in America:

Senator UDALL.— So, in an ideal world, we would get the job done militarily in the short term; in the medium and long term, we would have a presence in the region, economically, diplomacy, and politically.

Secretary CLINTON. Well, as we have with so many other countries— obviously, we have troops in a limited number of countries around the world; some have been there for 50, 60 years, but we have long-term economic assistance and development programs in many others. And we think that’s a likely outcome in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, that we would be there with a long-term commitment.

Does this mean that U.S. troops will be in Afghanistan in 50 year?

On the surface, Clinton's statement could be interpreted to mean that troops will leave sooner, but that America will have long-term economic assistance and development programs in Afghanistan for many decades to come.

However, U.S. charities working in Afghanistan report that they are subject to Pentagon sponsorship and control, and so the Afghani people view them as part of the U.S. military (which hampers their aid work).

Therefore, whether or not troops will remain in Afghanistan for a half century or more, the Afghani people and the rest of the world may consider it a permanent occupation.

Remember also that - while the U.S. government has promised to withdraw by December 31, 2011 from Iraq - the U.S. is building numerous permanent military bases in that country. (see this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this). So talk is cheap.

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2009/12/hillary-clinton-well-still-be-in.html

Rense.com | Obama Has 189,000 US Personnel In Afghanistan NOW

December 20, 2009 - by Jeremy Scahill - A hearing in Sen. Claire McCaskill's Contract Oversight subcommittee on contracting in Afghanistan has highlighted some important statistics that provide a window into the extent to which the Obama administration has picked up the Bush-era war privatization baton and sprinted with it. Overall, contractors now comprise a whopping 69% of the Department of Defense's total workforce, "the highest ratio of contractors to military personnel in US history." That's not in one war zone-that's the Pentagon in its entirety.

In Afghanistan, the Obama administration blows the Bush administration out of the privatized water. According to a memo [PDF] released by McCaskill's staff, "From June 2009 to September 2009, there was a 40% increase in Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan. Â During the same period, the number of armed private security contractors working for the Defense Department in Afghanistan doubled, increasing from approximately 5,000 to more than 10,000."

At present, there are 104,000 Department of Defense contractors in Afghanistan. According to a report this week from the Congressional Research Service, as a result of the coming surge of 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, there may be up to 56,000 additional contractors deployed. But here is another group of contractors that often goes unmentioned: 3,600 State Department contractors and 14,000 USAID contractors.

That means that the current total US force in Afghanistan is approximately 189,000 personnel (68,000 US troops and 121,000 contractors). And remember, that's right now. And that, according to McCaskill, is a conservative estimate. A year from now, we will likely see more than 220,000 US-funded personnel on the ground in Afghanistan.

The US has spent more than $23 billion on contracts in Afghanistan since 2002. By next year, the number of contractors will have doubled since 2008 when taxpayers funded over $8 billion in Afghanistan-related contracts.

Despite the massive number of contracts and contractors in Afghanistan, oversight is utterly lacking. "The increase in Afghanistan contracts has not seen a corresponding increase in contract management and oversight," according to McCaskill's briefing paper. "In May 2009, DCMA [Defense Contract Management Agency] Director Charlie Williams told the Commission on Wartime Contracting that as many as 362 positions for Contracting Officerâ¤s Representatives (CORs) in Afghanistan were currently vacant."

A former USAID official, Michael Walsh, the former director of USAID's Office of Acquisition and Assistance and Chief Acquisition Officer, told the Commission that many USAID staff are â¤administering huge awards with limited knowledge of or experience with the rules and regulations. According to one USAID official, the agency is sending too much money, too fast with too few people looking over how it is spent. As a result, the agency does not â¤know â¤S where the money is going.

The Obama administration is continuing the Bush-era policy of hiring contractors to oversee contractors. According to the McCaskill memo:

In Afghanistan, USAID is relying on contractors to provide oversight of its large reconstruction and development projects. Â According to information provided to the Subcommittee, International Relief and Development (IRD) was awarded a five-year contract in 2006 to oversee the $1.4 billion infrastructure contract awarded to a joint venture of the Louis Berger Group and Black and Veatch Special Projects. USAID has also awarded a contract Checci and Company to provide support for contracts in Afghanistan.

The private security industry and the US government have pointed to the Synchronized Predeployment and Operational Tracker(SPOT) as evidence of greater government oversight of contractor activities. But McCaskill's subcommittee found that system utterly lacking, stating: "The Subcommittee obtained current SPOT data showing that there are currently 1,123 State Department contractors and no USAID contractors working in Afghanistan."

Remember, there are officially 14,000 USAID contractors and the official monitoring and tracking system found none of these people and less than half of the State Department contractors.

As for waste and abuse, the subcommittee says that the Defense Contract Audit Agency identified more than $950 million in questioned and unsupported costs submitted by Defense Department contracts for work in Afghanistan. That's 16% of the total contract dollars reviewed.

http://www.rense.com/general88/obmii.htm

The Great Game: U.S., NATO War In Afghanistan - Fifty or more countries in a single war theater

The U.S. (and Britain) began bombing the Afghan capital of Kabul on October 7, 2001 with Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from warships and submarines and bombs dropped from warplanes and shortly thereafter American special forces began ground operations, a task that has been conducted since by regular Army and Marine units. The bombing and the ground combat operations continue more than eight years later and both will be intensified to record levels in short order.

The combined U.S. and NATO forces would represent a staggering number, in excess of 150,000 soldiers. By way of comparison, as of September of this year there were approximately 120,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and only a small handful of other nations' personnel, those assigned to the NATO Training Mission - Iraq, remaining with them.

"Secretary Gates has made clear that the conflicts we're in should be at the very forefront of our agenda. He wants to make sure we're not giving up capabilities needed now for those needed for some unknown future conflict. He wants to make sure the Pentagon is truly on war footing....For the first time in decades, the political and economic stars are aligned for a fundamental overhaul of the way the Pentagon does business." ....

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16422

AFGHANISTAN: 650 Quake-affected families become internally displaced persons (IDPs) in east

JALALABAD, 3 December 2009 (IRIN) - Dozens of families who lost their homes after earthquakes in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar in April 2009 have moved to an informal settlement for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and called for urgent assistance.

Two earthquakes measuring 5.5 and 5.1 on the Richter scale rocked Sherzad and Hesarak districts in Nangarhar Province on 16-17 April, killing 22 people, injuring 59 and destroying 290 houses; 300-600 livestock were also lost and 650 families made homeless, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“We lost everything in the quakes so we could not live in Sherzad without a house in the cold winter,” said an IDP, Jamaluddin.

“We left our village because of recurrent tremors in the region and also because we were unable to rebuild our damaged houses,” Haji Wahab Jan, a representative of the quake-affected IDPs from Sherzad, told IRIN. He said hundreds of families whose houses and properties were destroyed in the quakes had moved to the edge of Chamtala Desert, about 30km from the provincial capital, Jalalabad.

Abdul Rahman Shams, director of Nangarhar refugees’ department, confirmed that “some families from Sherzad District” had gone to Chamtala Desert.

Aid agencies responded quickly after the earthquakes with food and non-food aid in April and May, according to OCHA and government officials.

However, some of the affected said the aid was too little and only met their immediate food and shelter needs.


Some quake-affected IDPs have moved to an informal settlement in Chamtala Desert in the eastern province of Nangarhar

“We lived under tents for several months but no one showed up to help us rebuild our houses and get back to normal,” said Haji Khair Mohammad, an elder from Sherzad District.

Plea for help

IDPs at the Chamtala settlement also complained about lack of access to drinking water, health services, education and jobs.

They were also worried about the onset of winter. According to the Famine Early Warning System of the US Agency for International Development, Afghanistan is already experiencing sub-zero temperatures.

“We call on the government and aid organizations to hear our voice and help us quickly,” said Haji Ajmal, another IDP representative.

Government officials said an assessment team would visit Sherzad and Hesarak districts in the near future to gauge needs.

“The governor has decided to assist the most vulnerable families after assessments are completed,” said provincial spokesman Ahmad Zia Ahmadzai, adding that land plots would be distributed in Chamtala Desert for IDPs unable to return to their homes.

The desert is also home to hundreds of returnees from Pakistan who are either landless or unable to go home due to insecurity and other socio-economic problems. They have been living in mud huts or tents there for over a year.

Afghanistan is vulnerable to natural disasters such as floods, avalanches and earthquakes which affect some 400,000 people a year, according to OCHA.

Source:

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87302

InfoWars.com | Limbaugh Admits the Obvious: Osama bin Laden is Dead

December 1, 2009

Rush Limbaugh admits he believes Osama bin Laden is dead on todays show – plus Thom Hartmann DRG interview – so what is the mission in AFPAKistan?

Given: The news today that our peaceful President Obama is sending a bunch more troops to AFPAKistan to die for nothing as in the following article:

“Obama will try to sell a skeptical public on his bigger, costlier war plan Tuesday by coupling the large new troop infusion with an emphasis on stepped-up training for Afghan forces that he says will allow the U.S. to leave.

Obama formally ends a 92-day review of the war in Afghanistan Tuesday night with a nationally broadcast address in which he will lay out his revamped strategy from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. He began rolling out his decision Sunday night, informing key administration officials, military advisers and foreign allies in a series of private meetings and phone calls that stretched into Monday.”

As the realization dawned on me that yes, indeed, we really are going to continue this AFPAK war based on falsehoods – I decided to take a drive and listen to what the pundits on AM radio had to say. My expectations – the leftys would come up with all kinds of excuses to explain why the President of Peace is morphing into just another Wager of War. The righties would ignore the fact that they started this loser of a war and find ways to pin it on the Democrats. But now – Obama has no way out – instead of ending it – he’s getting right in line making the right-wing propaganda stick. Although the following is disorganized – it matches the jumble of memories as I flipped through the various stations – left and right wing. ....

LINKS:

http://www.infowars.com/limbaugh-admits-the-obvious-osama-bin-laden-is-dead/

http://americansjourney.blogspot.com/2009/12/rush-limbaugh-admits-he-believes-osama.html

Spiegel.de | Searching in Vain for the Obama Magic

Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America's new strategy for Afghanistan. It seemed like a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric -- and left both dreamers and realists feeling distraught.

December 2, 2009 - One can hardly blame the West Point leadership. The academy commanders did their best to ensure that Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama's speech would be well-received.

Just minutes before the president took the stage inside Eisenhower Hall, the gathered cadets were asked to respond "enthusiastically" to the speech. But it didn't help: The soldiers' reception was cool.

One didn't have to be a cadet on Tuesday to feel a bit of nausea upon hearing Obama's speech. It was the least truthful address that he has ever held. He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics. He demanded sacrifice, but he was unable to say what it was for exactly.

An additional 30,000 US soldiers are to march into Afghanistan -- and then they will march right back out again. America is going to war -- and from there it will continue ahead to peace. It was the speech of a Nobel War Prize laureate.

Just in Time for the Campaign

For each troop movement, Obama had a number to match. US strength in Afghanistan will be tripled relative to the Bush years, a fact that is sure to impress hawks in America. But just 18 months later, just in time for Obama's re-election campaign, the horror of war is to end and the draw down will begin. The doves of peace will be let free ....

Source:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,664753,00.html

Cave Editor's Note:

Der Spiegel ("The Mirror") is a German weekly magazine, published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest weekly magazines.

Obama’s Speech at West Point on Afghanistan: What He Dare Not Tell Us

Ron Larsen | What Obama will not tell us is that additional troops are needed to guard the opium poppy fields.

November 30, 2009 - During his address before the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday, December 1, expect President Obama to ask the American people to support his sending an additional 34,000 U.S. troops to fight for freedom in Afghanistan so that we do not have to fight radical, militant Islamic terrorism in the American homeland in coming years. He will probably refer to the shootings at Camp Hood allegedly committed by an Islamic military officer and psychiatrist with al-Queda connections earlier this month this month to convince us that al-Queda based terrorism constitutes a genuine threat to the safety of Americans, even those living in the homeland.

Obama will probably go on to say that the heroic American military troops fighting for freedom in Afghanistan since shortly after 9/11, have significantly reduced the numbers of al-Queda and Taliban insurgents fighting there and add that, nevertheless, the still pose of significant threat to the security of the people of that nation and so must be eliminated. Furthermore, he will likely add that to honor the American who died fighting there, he intends to finish the job started by President Bush shortly after the 9/11, which is to rid Afghanistan of al-Queda and Taliban fighters and then train Afghanistan troops to defend their own homeland.

That’s sweet Obama rhetoric. Let the violins play. But how does all of it square with the assertions General James Jones, Obama’s national security advisor, made on October 4 concerning the current strength of Taliban and al-Queda forces in Afghanistan and their danger to American troops and that nation’s people? According to an article published that day in the Washington Times, General Jones said that Afghanistan is not imminent danger of falling to the Taliban. Furthermore, he estimated total al-Queda presence in Afghanistan at 100, a drop in a bucket.

What Obama will not tell us is that additional troops are needed to guard the opium poppy fields because of record yields now achieved each year and expansion of growing area and that the opium industry there was designed by the United States over thirty years ago.

The opium trade is big business there and worldwide and revenues are comparable with energy industry levels. Professor writes in a 2006 article titled, Who benefits from the Afghan Opium Trade?, published by GlobalResearch.ca, “…what distinguishes narcotics from legal commodity trade is that narcotics constitutes a major source of wealth formation not only for organized crime but also for the US intelligence apparatus, which increasingly constitutes a powerful actor in the spheres of finance and banking. This relationship has been documented by several studies including the writings of Alfred McCoy.”

What Obama will also not tell us is that the growing presence of the U.S. is all consistent with Zbigniew Brzezinski’s master plan for America’s securing control of Central Asia and Caspian Sea gas and oil producing nations. Brzezinski, elitist master strategist and founder of the Trilateral Commission along with George Soros and David Rockefeller and well as former national security advisor to President Carter, see control of that corridor, which includes the old Silk Route, is the key to control of the world’s commerce. His plan was laid out in masterful detail in his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, which may be read free online at Scribd.

The presence of the U.S.military in Afghanistan is pivotal to execution of this plan. Whoever controls Afghanistan controls access to all of the major gas and oil pipelines in this region. It also serves from a logistical standpoint as the perfect staging area for U.S. military troop forays into Pakistan and neighboring countries in Central Asia and into the oil and gas rich Caspian Sea Region.

According to historian and author Webster Tarpley, Brzezinski met Obama when he was a student at Columbia University, became his political mentor and was responsible for Obama’s winning the U.S. presidency. Brzezinski still serves as Obama’s unnamed strategist and advisor. During the 2008 presidential campaign season, Obama’s focus on what he believe was a vital need of the U.S. to switch its military focus from Iraq to Afghanistan. This lends credibility to Tarpley’s contention that Brzezinski is guiding if no specifying Obama policy decisions in Afghanistan and Pakistan and, if fact, all of Central Asia, South Caucasus and the Caspian basin.

Source:

http://www.libertycalling.com/Ron-LC-ObamaSpeechWP120109.htm

CounterPunch.org | A "Necessary War" -- for a Gas Pipeline It's Obama's War Now

November 30, 2009

There are now at present some 68,000 U.S. troops and 42,000 allied forces occupying Afghanistan, in league with the Northern Alliance warlords and the corrupt and feeble Karzai regime in Kabul. President Obama clearly wishes to increase the figure and will announce before an audience of West Point cadets Tuesday that he will add over 30,000 more while pushing the Europeans to add 10,000. This will bring the total number of occupation forces to around the level of the Soviet deployment at its peak in the 1980s.

The Soviets were trying to protect the secular government in Afghanistan and to discourage Islamic fundamentalism, a potential threat to the neighboring Soviet Central Asian republics such as Uzbekistan. What is Obama trying to do?

Because make no mistake about it, this is Barack Obama’s war now. With this announcement he will have personally increased the force in Afghanistan by over 50,000 troops in response to appeals from his generals ...

Source:

http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp11302009.html