Why Obama Is Ignoring Europe

I'm too fucking lazy to grab all the links, but it ain't only Europe.

Try Russia, China, Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Japan... ad nauseam.

Any instances where Obama has improved US relationships with foreign countries after Shrub's horrible administration he's pretty much pissed away by now.

There's an old (really) routine by Mort Sahl where he says the President is standing before a globe with all the trouble spots colored black. He continues, "So the President is standing in front of this black globe..."

Its all black out there, folks.

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Note: Headline links to source.

Taliban dig in for big assault, say Afghan villagers

Hey, this shit is looking better than the Super Bowl. Is it too late to get some fucking tickets? We'll have a tailgate party outside town and then hunker down for some macho kick ass fighting.

USA!, USA!, USA! NATO! NATO! NATO!

Football people speak in military jargon all the time. Attack! Kill! Assault! Enemy! No prisoners! You probably know most of the rest.

But this is the real shit. Real combat with real killing and something the NFL doesn't have... things exploding. Fireworks? We'll give you fireworks up the ass until you can't hobble to work on Monday.

Taliban militants are massing and preparing for a big fight ahead of a major NATO offensive in an insurgent stronghold in southern Afghanistan, villagers fleeing the area said on Sunday.

U.S. Marines are set to launch a massive operation within days to take Marjah, a dense warren of canals and lush farmland in the centre of Helmand, the country's most violent province.

Military commanders are dubbing the area the last big Taliban enclave in the province. The offensive, one of the biggest of the eight-year-old war, will mark the first major show of force since U.S. President Barack Obama ordered in 30,000 extra troops.

Washington hopes the Marine operation will help decisively turn the momentum this year in a war that commanders accept has not been going their way. They have also not kept the planned offensive a secret, hoping the militants will give up the fight.

"It has to do with letting people know what's coming in the hope that the hardcore Taliban, or a lot of the Taliban, will simply leave, and maybe there will be less of a fight," U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in Turkey on Saturday.

According to some of the villagers escaping Marjah in fear of their lives, fighters are digging in rather than fleeing.

Two questions: Will there be cheerleaders? Will they have on undies?

I always find dark humor preferable to unmanly crying or actually cheering for death and destruction.

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Note: Headline links to source.

Afghan villagers caught in the middle of conflict

I can't even relate to this. Sorry.

Just off Afghanistan's main highway, Taliban insurgents regularly visit the village of Khele Malal. So do Afghan and U.S. forces, leaving local farmers caught between the two sides.

The Taliban and Western-backed Afghan troops are locked in a battle for Highway One, Afghanistan's main trade route that runs south from the capital Kabul to the second city Kandahar before swinging northwest towards Iran.

Securing the highway means securing the villages either side of it through which the Taliban infiltrate from their mountain hideouts to launch ambushes and roadside bomb attacks against Afghan and international forces, or man impromptu checkpoints to demonstrate their presence.

"Security is not good," says village elder Haji Abdul Qader. "Yesterday there was fighting close by. The people are scared."

"Security is not good," No shit.

Note: Headline links to source

Deaths in Afghan prisoner search

This little blurb was taken from a story about how Iraqi and "combined forces" are trying to hunt down escapees from a Kandahar prison.

"The combined forces used precision air strikes to destroy the compound after insurgents attacked with small-arms fire."

Please stop using the term "precision air strikes". Thank you.

There's absolutely nothing precise about the fucking' air strikes. They're killing far more innocent Iraqis than insurgents. That's like trying to shoot one cat among 50 cats with a goddamn shotgun. The prime target ain't the only one that will be hit.

Hmmmm. Killing cats. Works for me.

Its a fucking joke, folks. I don't care much for cats, but don't want to kill any of them. K?

Well that last isn't entirely true. There's one slutty female cat around here who seems to constantly be in heat and yowls at all hours of the night. I blame the yowling on the tom cats which I am ready to kill.

Another fucking joke. Gawd you guys have to lighten up.

Note: Headline links to source.

Taliban attack helps inmates escape Afghan prison

A guard watches over inmates in the
courtyard at Kandahar jail in 2001.
Suspected Taliban militants attacked
a prison in the southern Afghan city
of Kandahar late Friday and freed a
number of prisoners, intelligence and
police officials said. (AFP/File/
Banaras Khan)
Yes, you're memory is correct. That's the same Taliban the moron and other leaders of countries who supplied coalition forces said had been defeated years ago. To all those leaders I say, "Use a fucking dictionary before throwing around words like 'defeated' next time."

"In Afghanistan, coalition forces and their Afghan allies drove the Taliban from power in less than two months."

-- The moron in the White House
-- Addressing US Air Force Academy
-- Graduating class of 2008
-- May 28, 2008

Its comforting to know all those Taliban militants are were behind bars.

Oopsie!

Taliban militants staged a brazen bomb and rocket attack on the main prison in southern Afghanistan late Friday, blowing down the gate and helping hundreds of suspected insurgents flee, officials said. Many police officers were reported killed.

The complex attack included a truck bombing at the main gate, a suicide bomber who struck a back wall and rockets fired from outside, setting of a series of explosions that rattled Kandahar, the country's second biggest city.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said 30 insurgents on motorbikes and two suicide bombers attacked Sarposa Prison and freed about 400 Taliban members.

Abdul Qabir, chief of the Sarposa Prison, also said hundreds of prisoners escaped, but did not provide an exact figure. He said some inmates stayed at the jail, which also held criminals.

Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai who is president of Kandahar's provincial council, said the prison held about 350 suspected Taliban fighters.

He said "all" the prisoners escaped, but also had no specific number. "There is no one left," he said.

BTW, if you search Google News for "Taliban Defeated" you get screen after screen of stories stating the Taliban can not be defeated. Everyone knows it except the idiot and his cabal of neocons. Oh yeah, and John McSame.

Note: Headline links to source.

Here's something that can make you feel proud

Bagram prison in Afghanistan
Well, maybe I'm wrong about the proud bit.

The Pentagon is moving forward with plans to build a new, 40-acre detention complex on the main American military base in Afghanistan, officials said, in a stark acknowledgment that the United States is likely to continue to hold prisoners overseas for years to come.

The proposed detention center would replace the cavernous, makeshift American prison on the Bagram military base north of Kabul, which is now typically packed with about 630 prisoners, compared with the 270 held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Until now, the Bush administration had signaled that it intended to scale back American involvement in detention operations in Afghanistan. It had planned to transfer a large majority of the prisoners to Afghan custody, in an American-financed, high-security prison outside Kabul to be guarded by Afghan soldiers.

But American officials now concede that the new Afghan-run prison cannot absorb all the Afghans now detained by the United States, much less the waves of new prisoners from the escalating fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The proposal for a new American prison at Bagram underscores the daunting scope and persistence of the United States military’s detention problem, at a time when Bush administration officials continue to say they want to close down the facility at Guantánamo Bay.

Apparently with a proclivity for incarcerating people (one in 100 adult Americans are in jail or prison), its hard not to export such a mindset to other parts of the world.

Note: Headline links to source which links to the NYT.

Courage under pressure

Just watched a blurb on CNN showing the attack on Hamid Kazai, and the Afghan troops running for cover like so many children.

Yeah, they're ready to protect the fucking country.

UK withdraws Prince Harry from Afghanistan

Prince Harry sits in his position on a Spartan armoured vehicle in the Helmand province, southern Afghanistan on Monday, Feb. 18, 2008. (John Stillwell/PA [AP?] Wire)
I have mixed feelings about this.

Britain's ministry of defence announced that the prince, who is third in line to the throne, would be withdrawn from Afghanistan 'immediately' amid fears for his safety and that of his comrades after a US website breached a deal with media outlets to keep his activities secret.

I agree its important for websites to put out the information they have which might be unavailable elsewhere.

However, it borders on the unethical to leak information others have agreed not to release and thus put Prince Harry and those around him in a very precarious position.

Sometimes its best to say nothing if that will do no harm, but speaking out can do great damage.

Via Financial Times.

Rice: NATO mission in Afghanistan 'bumpy'

Condoleezza Rice at age 5

I can think of many words to describe the situation in Afghanistan. But "bumpy" ain't one of them.

Where do they find these Pollyannas? Just asking.

And I wonder if she still believes in Santa Claus.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the NATO-led military mission in Afghanistan is "bumpy," and the international aid effort needs firmer coordination among the many nations participating.

Rice said she hopes a new candidate will be chosen quickly to replace a respected British diplomat who had accepted a job as overall international coordinator of aid, government and economic projects in Afghanistan but backed out because of objections from Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The choice for the job would probably be a European, not an American, Rice said as she traveled to Britain for meetings Wednesday on Afghanistan strategy and other matters. The United States is trying to bridge a rift among NATO allies participating in unequal measure in Afghanistan.

"It's bumpy and it's a lot of maturing that the alliance is having to do to do this," Rice told reporters.

Why can politicians never come out and say they are optimistic in the long run because..., but right now its the equivalent of a shit storm and it doesn't look good?

Via Chicago Sun-Times.

UK sending 'half-trained' troops to Afghanistan, says report

This should give aid and comfort to the families and friends of these troops.

Britain is proposing to send up to 1,000 new army recruits to Afghanistan without full combat training due to a massive shortage in manpower, a leading UK daily reported Thursday.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn the US is doing the same thing. They don't need no "full training". This is your uniform. This is your rifle. That is your troop plane. Write when you get a chance and keep your head down.

Why not? The US has sent mentally injured (PTSD) back in there. They need bodies. All the bodies they can get their hands on and they'll take any they can find or recruit.

Via Mathaba

Bush ignores Afghan school violence

OK, anyone out there. You were surprised by this? Just asking.

The US economy is fine. Afghanistan is secure. Iraq is peaceful. The Taleban is defeated. Mission Accomplished.

You still believe this lying asshole?

Are you in the market to buy a bridge? I have a great one.

In his State of the Union address, President Bush called Afghanistan a young democracy where children go to school and Afghans are hopeful. But he didn't mention the violence that has killed 147 students and teachers, and closed 590.

Bush's rosy outlook for a country that once hosted al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden didn't contain any falsehoods. New roads and hospitals are being built, just as he told the nation Monday night.

Boys and girls are going to school in record numbers. Some 5.8 million students, including 2 million girls, are now in class, compared with less than a million under the Taliban.

But some here might say Bush glossed over the bad news. Last year saw a record level of violence, and military leaders and analysts expect the suicide bombings, clashes and kidnappings to increase in 2008.

"The security is going from bad to worse, especially in the south and the east," said Abdul Kaiyoom, 47, who works for Afghanistan's Education Ministry. "International forces have very modern equipment, but the Taliban have a heavy influence in the outlying areas, and they are taking territory from the government."

Bush said the sending of an additional 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan — a decision made just this month — would help continue the country's successes. But in reality, it came only after U.S. officials couldn't persuade other NATO countries to send more soldiers to bolster the 28,000 U.S. forces already there.

Via Yahoo! News.

U.S.-led air raid kills 11 in Afghanistan: doctor

Of course more will come out about this in the days/weeks ahead.

But who is more likely to know the local people? A provincial doctor? A US-led coalition force? Just asking.

I've been in provinces in several countries that are primarily rural and I couldn't possibly tell you who are police, if not in uniform and that isn't always reliable, and who are farmers. OK, the farmers are probably in rubber boots and are not carrying firearms.

Locals I trust can tell me who I'm meeting and what they do for a living. Hell, some may be relatives.

Nine police and two civilians were killed in an air strike by U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, a provincial doctor said on Thursday, but the coalition said Taliban fighters had been killed.

BTW: Why no mention of injured? You don't kill people with 500 lb. (227 kg) bombs and not injure bystanders, do you?

My suspicion for a very long time is air raids aren't the way to go. I readily admit to having no military expertise and would love comments from anyone who does.

This is opinion only. It seems to me Afghanistan and Iraq require boots on the ground. Yes, that tragically results in more coalition deaths than dropping bombs.

Air-strikes are indiscriminate. The only way to know who is where you're attacking is through intelligence and I believe much of it comes from people with a hidden, or not so, agenda. They fucking target people they want killed and not necessarily "the enemy".

Via Boston Globe.

Pentagon weighs sending 3,000 more troops to Afghanistan

Hey, ya doing anything for the next year or so? Wanna fight in Afghanistan? Pay's piss poor and ya could get your ass shot off, sand storms are a bitch, the heat can kill you, but you do get free clothing and food.

Just where the hell is Gates gonna find 3,000 additional troops. At least ones without PTSD.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Marine band and there must be thousands of paper pushers. I guess he does have options.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is considering sending some 3,000 additional marines to Afghanistan to boost forces ahead of a Taliban spring offensive, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday.

Via AFP.

Afghans: US airstrikes kill 14 workers

Let's all hope Jalili is right and the Americans were misled by Afghanistan's enemies and the Afghans can be convinced its true. It won't calm most down , but many will take that as a mitigating factor. Just the fact the workers were employed by the military should also be a huge factor.

We don't need more enemies in Afghanistan.

U.S.-led coalition troops killed 14 road construction workers in airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan after receiving faulty intelligence, Afghan officials said Wednesday.

The coalition said only that it was looking into the incident.

The engineers and laborers had been building a road for the U.S. military in mountainous Nuristan province, and were sleeping in two tents in the remote area when they were killed Monday night, said Sayed Noorullah Jalili, director of the Kabul-based road construction company Amerifa. There were no survivors, he said.

"All of our poor workers have been killed," Jalili said. "I don't think the Americans were targeting our people. I'm sure it's the enemy of the Afghans who gave the Americans this wrong information."

Via Yahoo News.

War on poppy succeeds, but cannabis thrives, in one Afghan province

Ya can't make up this shit. Hahaha

As the Afghan and Western governments focused on the soaring Afghan opium production, cannabis cultivation increased 40 percent.

Its the Afghan version of crop rotation.

Via Seattle Times.

Bush's Free-Fire Zones

Because ya just can't kill enough innocent Iraqis and Afghans fast enough.

Frustrated by the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, George W. Bush has unleashed U.S. forces to strike at suspected enemy positions with fierce firepower, even in populated areas. Two recent cases in Iraq reveal how civilians often end up as the victims -- and how brutal lessons of Vietnam are being applied to these new wars.

I'm pretty sure there are no suspected enemy positions in Iowa and Arkansas. Bring 'em home.

Via Consortiumnews.

Thought police

Not really, but I liked the headline anyway.

In his book, The Biology of Belief, cell biologist Bruce H. Lipton states that thoughts “directly influence how the physical brain controls the body’s physiology … The fact is that harnessing the power of your mind can be more effective than the drugs you have been programmed to believe you need.”

Perhaps the most common proof of Lipton’s hypothesis is the placebo effect. “The critical factor,” says Irving Kirsch, a psychologist at the University of Connecticut, “is our beliefs about what’s going to happen to us. You don’t have to rely on drugs to see profound transformation.” Current research seems to support the claim that a person’s beliefs, sensory experience, and thoughts can affect neurochemistry — and thus impact outcomes.

The question is, what's the threshold? For example, with Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, PTSD?

There has to be a point where the drugs are definitely required. Just thinking the world is sane, things will get better, or it isn't about white rabbits and mushrooms, won't help.

If one is relatively sane, whatever that means, its possible to wake up in the morning and say, "Today's gonna be great". And it probably will be better than it might have been.

In Iraq, I'm sure no one wakes up to that thought and they have to get through the day without drugs. Afghanistan has all the opium.

Addendum: Dammit! That was a fucking flippant post. I hate it when I do that.

The more important point I should have made is, if and when the US leaves Iraq and Afghanistan, there are going to be thousands of mentally disturbed people. Many of those will be children.

More than half of Iraq's health-care providers have fled. This includes pharmacists.

People can't see a doctor and couldn't get medication if they did. Who knows how many are dying from hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, dysentery, infection and other medical problems?

Afghanistan is no better off.

Via Daily Scare.

Opium in Afghanistan: Eradicate or subsidize?

This is working in Turkey. The report I saw (and lost) stated almost no one grows opium and sells illegally to drug dealers. They lose their licenses to grow opium for, I believe three years, and the farmers can't afford that. The government also closely watches over the farmers.

Its good income for the farmers and for the government which buys the crops and produces morphine.

Eradication causes loss of income, resentment and pushes the people to embrace the Taleban.

As opium harvests in Afghanistan have steadily increased, some politicians and think tanks have raised a trenchant question: Rather than trying to eradicate Afghanistan's poppies, why not buy them and make morphine?

Now there has to be some graft and corruption. I mean huge sacks of morphine have to be tempting.

Via IHT.

6 years into Afghan war, U.S. expanding main base as troop levels, violence grow

Bagram Air Force base, Afghanistan.
Make no mistake about it. Even though success has been illusive at best, the US is intent on staying in Afghanistan and Iraq for an open-ended time period.

Six years after the first U.S. bombs began falling on Afghanistan's Taliban government and its al-Qaeda guests, America is planning for a long stay.

Originally envisioned as a temporary home for invading U.S. forces, the sprawling American base at Bagram, a former Soviet outpost in the shadow of the towering Hindu Kush mountains, is growing in size by nearly a third.

Today the U.S. has about 25,000 troops in the country, and other NATO nations contribute another 25,000, more than three times the number of international troops in the country four years ago, when the Taliban appeared defeated.

The Islamic militia has come roaring back since then, and 2007 has been the battle's bloodiest year yet.

Via SignOnSanDiego.

Senate approves $150B in war funding

I'm gonna jump to what is probably a logical conclusion that the MRAPs in my last post were not included.

Again, do they realize this is "real" money?

Thwarted in efforts to bring troops home from Iraq, Senate Democrats on Monday helped pass a defense policy bill authorizing another $150 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 92-3 vote comes as the House planned to approve separate legislation Tuesday that requires President Bush to give Congress a plan for eventual troop withdrawals.

The developments underscored the difficulty facing Democrats in the Iraq debate: They lack the votes to pass legislation ordering troops home and are divided on whether to cut money for combat, despite a mandate by supporters to end the war.

First off it wasn't a "mandate by supporters to end the war" it was the American voters telling them to get the hell out.

Second off (is that right?), why the fuck are they divided? The damn voters spoke. It wasn't a USA Today poll, it was the voting booths. Do your jobs or go home.

OK, less coffee and more medication. Got it. So get off my case!

Via Yahoo! News.