Our Glorious Afghan Mission

[dancing-loon]

Thursday, 7 February 2008, 06:56 GMT

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband have arrived in Afghanistan on an unannounced visit. It comes a day after they held talks in London, at which they discussed ways of getting Nato allies to share the burden of the fighting in the country's south.
They are expected to meet President Hamid Karzai and military leaders.
Earlier, the US defence secretary said Nato's future was at risk due to the refusal of some members to participate.

Map of main troop deployments
Robert Gates warned that without reinforcements, the willingness of those engaged in combat would disappear and Nato might become a "two-tier alliance".

Last week, the US government sent letters to European states pressing them to send troops to southern Afghanistan.
Mr Gates reluctantly agreed recently to send an extra 3,200 US marin

Last week, the US government sent letters to European states pressing them to send troops to southern Afghanistan.
Mr Gates reluctantly agreed recently to send an extra 3,200 US marines to the country, having previously suggested the extra troops should be provided by other countries


Full article under here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7231959.stm
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Gates WAS serious earlier! Germany has already respondet with an extra 250 troops for a Rapid Deployment Unit.

 

[dancing-loon]

MacKay to stress demand for 1,000 troops from NATO


Defence Minister Peter MacKay is trying to convince his NATO counterparts to cough up the 1,000 additional troops required in southern Afghanistan if Canada is to extend its combat role in the war-torn nation.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he wants to extend Canada's military commitment beyond the February 2009 deadline, but only if NATO countries contribute 1,000 extra troops -- the amount recommended in a recent report by John Manley.

"He was very blunt. He said this is not negotiable. And if Canada doesn't get this kind of commitment from NATO then it will walk out. What's interesting about this is it's very rare you see Canada at the centre of attention at meetings like this," Kennedy told CTV's Canada AM.

On Wednesday, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates told a Senate committee that international disagreements over Afghanistan threatened to make NATO a two-tier alliance, with some members risking lives on the front lines while others sit back.

http://tinyurl.com/ynv8cw
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How many troops did the Russians have in Afghanistan?? I just checked:
<<In all, the initial Soviet force was comprised of around 1,800 tanks, 80,000 soldiers and 2,000 AFVs. In the second week alone, Soviet aircraft had made a total of 4,000 flights into Kabul. The Soviet force rose with the arrival of the two later divisions to over 100,000.>>

Wow!! And they were defeated? Or did they get tired and left?

 

[data]

Judical murder's not a serious cause of death in Afghanistan right now.

If you would be an US citizen, I could understand your statement. There people believe, the death sentence belongs to democracy, since it is a way to get rid of unconfomable political discussions. Just accuse someone else of having killed an policeman.
But you indicate Canadian citizenship, where judical murder should be considered not just as a mistake (ooops), but as an indication of a mafia style, criminal government. In Afghanistan is religion heavily misused as power instrument of the leading dogs, who wanted to exercise rape a critical woman in the parliamentary assembly. First came the offer to rape her and then she named them to be still the same dogs.

What kind of a hell gets kept up for the ordinary people there? Drug hell, Koran hell, corruption hell, warlord hell (probably all together)? Just today with the blessing of modernest UN troups, like Canadian or German?

Canadians would pull their troops out of Afghanistan this year, if other NATO members don’t step aside to help them in the south. Germans still refuse to go to the south, but the Polish and Romanian governments are ready to jump in. The excuse for the still growing drug business is, troops are not influential and strong enough risking to fight it, as the taliban once did.
At the border to Waziristan one ceasefire hunts the next, that taliban and Al Kaida can recover their forces due to humanitarian reasons. Darkbeaver, you say, weapons get sold to both sides, as it was in both world wars. Do you have a source or do you just assume it?

 

[darkbeaver]

If you would be an US citizen, I could understand your statement. There people believe, the death sentence belongs to democracy, since it is a way to get rid of unconfomitable political discussions. Just accuse someone else of having killed an policeman.
But you indicate Canadian citizenship, where judical murder should be considered not just as a mistake (ooops), but as an indication of a mafia style, criminal government. In Afghanistan is religion heavily misused as power instrument of the leading dogs, who wanted to exercise rape a critical woman in the parliamentary assembly. First came the offer to rape her and then she named them to be still the same dogs.

Canadians would pull their troops out of Afghanistan this year, if other NATO members don’t step aside to help them in the south. Germans still refuse to go to the south, but the Polish and Romanian governments are ready to jump in. The excuse for the still growing drug business is, troops are not influential and strong enough risking to fight it, as the taliban once did.
At the border to Waziristan one ceasefire hunts the next, that taliban and Al Kaida can recover their forces due to humanitarian reasons. Darkbeaver, you say, weapons get sold to both sides, as it was in both world wars. Do you have a source or do you just assume it?

I'll get you a source, there are lots of them. You could start by looking at the Swiss banking deals during the WWII. I'm not arguing the evils of execution for religious reasons just your approach to the problem. There needs to be enormous change in Afghanistan before that social prblem is addressed and I 'm convinced that the Taleban will be that force for change this time arround.http://thirdworldtraveler.com/ It's in there, gig site. When I find it precisly I'll drop the link here in this thread, it makes for interesting reading especially about the movement of money. For instance engines in trucks where GM and Ford on both sides allies and axis during the Normandy landings.

 

[CDNBear]

I'll get you a source, there are lots of them. You could start by looking at the Swiss banking deals during the WWII.

As a casual observer here, could you make them Op/Ed free sources.

That would be something that is a tracable document, an actaul article free of innuendo, suposition, conjecture, emotion, accusations and extremism. In other words, the exact opposite of what you usually post.

Just some nice cold, hard facts. That would be nice.

Thanx in advance.

 

[darkbeaver]

As a casual observer here, could you make them Op/Ed free sources.

That would be something that is a tracable document, an actaul article free of innuendo, suposition, conjecture, emotion, accusations and extremism. In other words, the exact opposite of what you usually post.

Just some nice cold, hard facts. That would be nice.

Thanx in advance.

You get nice cold hard facts all the time Bear but you spit them out. There is no source that you trust because you don't have the necessary discrimination or the criticle thought processes necessary to construct reason. This is why you are a dinosaur.

 

[darkbeaver]

As a casual observer here, could you make them Op/Ed free sources.

That would be something that is a tracable document, an actaul article free of innuendo, suposition, conjecture, emotion, accusations and extremism. In other words, the exact opposite of what you usually post.

Just some nice cold, hard facts. That would be nice.

Thanx in advance.

You get nice cold hard facts all the time Bear but you spit them out. There is no source that you trust because you don't have the necessary discrimination or the criticle thought processes necessary to construct reason. This is why you are a dinosaur.


"(c) American foreign policy must be chiefly guarded against the danger of the sovietization of the Far East. More than ever we must supervise by Congress what the State Department does. Rapprochement with Germany, while unpopular, is a necessity, if we consider the strong proSoviet agitation going on and finding patronage in the United States. It is of the greatest importance that leading and influential figures in our business life and the policy-making bodies of both political parties should be appraised of this first conversation and prevailed upon to discuss the possibilities of a non-partisan cooperation on the subject."

The importance of the foregoing memorandum, the first of a proposed series of notes upon which a political-commercial pact between the Nazi regime and pro-fascist Americans could be arranged, was recognized at the time.

p287
The importance of the document lies largely in the prominence and importance of the nine men who attended the conference and the forces and corporations they represented. Of these nine, their governments, and their corporations and other interests ...

p287
General Motors Representative. General Motors was completely involved in Nazi affairs. Until Pearl Harbor it was the owner of the Adam Opel A. G., worth more than $100 million. It had paid $30 million for 80 percent of the stock. It had made 30 percent of Germany's peacetime passenger cars. After Hitler came into power, it began manufacturing the trucks and panzer division equipment with which Hitler waged war. In 10 years it had made a profit estimated at $36 million. But, since Hitler banned the export of capital, and American stockholders were thereby denied these dividends, General Motors invested at least $20 million in other industries, all owned or controlled by Goering and other Nazi officials, and thus General Motors was completely affiliated with Nazi success or failure. (Source for statistics: Poor's Manual.)

p288
DuPont Representative. The four most important facts about the DuPont Empire are:

a. that it controls General Motors, owning $197 million of General Motors stock;

b. that it financed the Liberty League, Sentinels, Crusaders and one dozen native American fascist outfits;

c. that it knowingly and secretly and in violation of the U. S. and other laws, aided Hitler to arm for this war;

d. that the DuPonts betrayed military secrets to Hitler.

One great cartel of the merchants of death is called Dynamit-AktienGesellschaft (DAG). Exhibit 456 in the Nye-Vandenberg munitions investigation shows that DuPonts not only own stock but a voting right and a voice in the management of the cartel. Exhibit 456 also shows DuPont has a financial interest in I. G. Farbenindustrie, the Nazi cartel which ties up with the Aluminum monopoly, Standard Oil, synthetic rubber, Sterling and other drug concerns.

p289
The DuPonts knew that according to the Thyssen plan German Fascism was nothing more than a system by which the biggest German industries got control of the nation, smashing small business, seizing political rule. Wendell R. Swint, director of DuPont foreign relations, testified the DuPonts knew of the "scheme whereby industry would contribute to the (Nazi) Party Organization funds, and in fact industry is called upon to pay one-half percent of the annual wage or salary roll to the Nazi organization." (Munitions Hearing, Vol. XII.)

The relationship of the DuPonts to Nazi Germany-the story of how they armed Hitler with the help of Mr. Hoover-as exposed by the munitions investigation, gives valuable support to the foregoing.

On 4 December 1938 the Associated Press, Moscow bureau, sent out a list issued by the official Tass government press bureau of a "fascist clique" in the United States, which list follows with explanatory facts about each person:

"War Industry Magnate" DuPont. The official statement said the DuPonts had "great capital investments in fascist Germany."

William S. Knudsen, president of General Motors. Knudsen told a New

York Times reporter (6 October 1933) on arriving from Europe that Hitler's Germany was "the miracle of the 20th Century." Nevertheless paragraph "c" in our memorandum was not written by Knudsen, but by another GM official of equal prominence.

Colonel Charles Lindbergh. In addition to collaborating with the British Cliveden Set, Lindbergh had written an article for the reactionary Reader's Digest stating Hitler's Aryan myth and other fascist doctrines.

Former President Herbert Hoover.

Ambhttp://thirdworldtraveler.com/

 

[data]

I'll get you a source, there are lots of them.

Thanks. I was still astonished, that these weapons game is still running today with Afghanistan. But your quote was just truncated. So I complete it here:

The worse part of the whole dirty scandal is that allegedly some heroin is purchased from Taliban guerillas, in exchange for weapons. Thus, the ISAF (NATO) is selling weapons to the enemy, who later uses them against soldiers of the Alliance in battle. It is exactly the same corrupt practice that had been so popular (and still is) in Chechnya, where the Russian forces were selling Russian weapons to their enemy--the Chechen Jihadists they fought against. The main motive is, of course, money. But the Russian soldiers are poor devils, while the U.S. Air Force troops by comparison are elite, well paid and equipped.

Arkady Dubnov wrote: "Paradoxically as it is, British servicemen and their American colleagues have found themselves now dragged into the international mafia that buys drugs made in Afghanistan and smuggles them abroad."

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/148481-Trading-with-the-Enemy-US-AF-serving-Afghani-drug-dealers

That would be something that is a tracable document, an actaul article free of innuendo, suposition, conjecture, emotion, accusations and extremism. In other words, the exact opposite of what you usually post. Just some nice cold, hard facts. That would be nice.
Thanx in advance.

It would be a major human progress, if this would become a requirement to call nations to war. At the moment that is only demanded for pulling troops out of a somehow build up mess.
Up today some babys in the white house play with razors (war) and start crying, if blood comes out. Who gives them always razors to play with? (people, who like that for their business)

 

[CDNBear]

You get nice cold hard facts all the time Bear but you spit them out. There is no source that you trust because you don't have the necessary discrimination or the criticle thought processes necessary to construct reason. This is why you are a dinosaur.

Ahh yes, that must be it...it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the bulk of your supporting evidence is conjecture or anything.

"(c) American foreign policy must be chiefly guarded against the danger of the sovietization of the Far East. More than ever we must supervise by Congress what the State Department does. Rapprochement with Germany, while unpopular, is a necessity, if we consider the strong proSoviet agitation going on and finding patronage in the United States. It is of the greatest importance that leading and influential figures in our business life and the policy-making bodies of both political parties should be appraised of this first conversation and prevailed upon to discuss the possibilities of a non-partisan cooperation on the subject."

What a refreshing change up.

And how do you know that I wasn't already aware of this...along with the complicity, co-opertive nature and actions of groups like Krupp, Ford and so on, as well as ties to both Canadian and American foriegn policy makers.

I just see the facts in a different light. You see them a Global conspiracy against Socialism and feel slighted, because you're a commie. I see them as the mechanizations of wiping the Socialist morons off the map, which is a good thing.

And I think that is likely your biggest issue with the US. You're a raving Socialist and me and the US think Socialism a complete farce. Which is and lucky for all of us, the US and me will do everything we can to keep Socialism relogated to the third world nations and scum holes it belongs in.

But I'm not blind beave, despite what you think.. You just think I am, like your counter parts gopher and Mikey.

 

[darkbeaver]

Ahh yes, that must be it...it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the bulk of your supporting evidence is conjecture or anything.


What a refreshing change up.

And how do you know that I wasn't already aware of this...along with the complicity, co-opertive nature and actions of groups like Krupp, Ford and so on, as well as ties to both Canadian and American foriegn policy makers.

I just see the facts in a different light. You see them a Global conspiracy against Socialism and feel slighted, because you're a commie. I see them as the mechanizations of wiping the Socialist morons off the map, which is a good thing.

And I think that is likely your biggest issue with the US. You're a raving Socialist and me and the US think Socialism a complete farce. Which is and lucky for all of us, the US and me will do everything we can to keep Socialism relogated to the third world nations and scum holes it belongs in.

But I'm not blind beave, despite what you think.. You just think I am, like your counter parts gopher and Mikey.

You are blind and dumb and deaf, your wonderfull capitalist utopia is crashing and burning right now as it phucking well deserves and you are very welcome to go down with it. You never met a capitalist boot you didn't lick the crap off. I have better genetic material in me left nostril.:lol:

 

[Zzarchov]

Uh huh. Don't you think its odd you keep talking about "Capitalism falling, by this time next year" over the last two years or there abouts I've been here Db?

When is this sky gonna finish falling Chicken Litte/Dark Beaver?

 

[darkbeaver]

Advice on prolonging the war: Part II

>by Roger Annis
February 6, 2008
The report issued by John Manley recommends, as described in Part I, extending Canada's participation in the war in Afghanistan. But it comes down hard on the government's mishandling of the information and propaganda side of the war effort.
As criticism of the war has mounted, including from its supporters, the government has reacted by closing down access to information. Panel member Derek Burney, a highly placed official of the governing Conservative Party, said, "I'm not opposed to a more controlled message." But he and the commission are concerned that a total clampdown on information does more harm than good.
Torture
By far the most serious political damage to the war effort has been non-stop revelations of the use of torture by Canada and NATO as a weapon of war. A damning editorial by the Globe and Mail on January 30 listed no less than seven occasions in 2006 and 2007 when the Conservative government lied about or misrepresented the Canadian military's collusion with torture agencies of the Afghan government, police and armed forces.
The government's latest subterfuge was an announcement on January 23 that as of November 2007, the Canadian military is no longer turning over prisoners to Afghan authorities. The announcement baffled observers who wondered why it was not announced when it supposedly came into effect. The government answered by saying that it was not told of the change by the military. But this story had to change because military leaders reacted angrily to the implication that they are operating outside of the control and direction of the government.
The announcement begged a series of questions. If it was true, what is the military now doing with those it detains? Releasing them? Has it created its own detention facilities in Afghanistan? Is it turning prisoners over to the U.S.?
If the latter is the case, then torture has come full circle because the U.S. openly admits to the practice. Its torture centers in Afghanistan are notorious. Canada is already deeply implicated in the torture center operated in Guantanamo, Cuba because of its firm refusal to seek the release of a Canadian citizen, Omar Khadr, who was imprisoned there five years ago at the age of 15.
A reminder of the horrifying conditions inside Afghanistan's prisons was reported in the Globe and Mail on January 24. A secret memo by an official of Corrections Canada to the department of foreign affairs was leaked to the media last November. The officials were due to inspect a prison as part of the then-latest promise by Canada to monitor prison conditions in the country. They asked for special boots to wear because they learned that a walkabout inside the prisons would involve walking through prisoners' blood and fecal matter.
In December, army officials were arguing publicly that any relaxation of the torture policy would gravely compromise the safety and security of the Canadian mission. Speaking to a committee of the Canadian Parliament on December 14, Brigadier-General Andre Deschamps, army chief of staff to Canada's mission in Afghanistan, declared, "The insurgents could attack us with impunity knowing that if they fail to win an engagement they would simply have to surrender…"
But controversy over the torture policy will not go away. On February 1, the Globe and Mail reported that the governor of Kandahar province, Asadullah Khalid, has personally engaged in torture practices, that the Canadian government knew of this since at least the spring of 2007, and has kept the information hidden. In an article the following day, the newspaper reported that the head of Canada's armed forces, Rick Hillier, praised Khalid as a good friend and ally of Canada and that it was up to the government of Afghanistan to investigate the allegations.
Court challenge to torture
The January 23 announcement of a supposed change in torture policy stems from the government's growing concern about a legal challenge in the Federal Court of Canada brought by the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) and Amnesty International that would oblige the military to treat prisoners according to the post-World War II Geneva conventions. Like the U.S., Canada says its presence in Afghanistan is not bound by the conventions.
The government is trying to negotiate an end to legal challenge. The sticking point is the insistence by Amnesty and the BCCLA that any change to detention policy must be publicly announced seven days in advance.
Manley recommends against vote
The report recommends strongly against any vote in the Canadian parliament on the future of the war. The Liberals say they want a withdrawal from the combat mission in Kandahar by 2009. But the review panel wants the Liberals and the governing Conservatives to reach an agreement to continue selling the war by "leveraging" more commitment from Canada's imperialist allies in Europe.
Manley says the best outcome in Afghanistan that can be hoped for is a shattered country where imperialist interests are nonetheless preserved. "We're not going to have a VE day here with parades in the streets," he cautioned journalists on January 23.
Growing numbers of Canadians are questioning the war's aims and rationale. More and more can be won to what is the only principled and humanitarian end to the carnage: a withdrawal of foreign occupation forces and the recognition of the right of the Afghan people to freely determine their political future.
Of course, Manley was never even asked to consider the option of pulling out troops immediately. Instead, his report was designed to bolster support for Canadian involvement in the occupation. It the days and weeks ahead, it will continue to be used by those who are pushing for an indefinite extension of this costly and illegitimate war.
Roger Annis is a trade union activist in Vancouver and a member of the Stopwar.ca coalition in that city.

 

[darkbeaver]

Uh huh. Don't you think its odd you keep talking about "Capitalism falling, by this time next year" over the last two years or there abouts I've been here Db?

When is this sky gonna finish falling Chicken Litte/Dark Beaver?

No I don't think it's odd at all, in fact when I think of odd I think of you and that smelly bear you're stuck to. What's up with that Zzarchov are you two some kind of freakish genetic experiment, a large talking pimple growing on a militant bears arse shareing the same pair of overtaxed snot cells subbing as braincells.:lol:

 

[dancing-loon]

Sorry, Gentlemen, I don't mean to interrupt your most interesting conversation, but I've got this article in my mouse which I would like to set down... if you don't mind? Just keep going with whatever you were going at!

Tories introduce motion to extend Afghan mission
The Conservative government introduced a confidence motion today on extending Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan -- a move that could prompt a spring election if the Liberals vote against it.

"The motion presents a clear choice to the members of the House of Commons -- strengthen the military mission in Afghanistan or abandon the commitment we have made to the people of Afghanistan and our international allies," said Van Loan.
He said Prime Minister Stephen Harper invited Liberal Leader Stephane Dion to suggest changes to the motion before the government initially planned to submit it -- on Thursday.

Dion, speaking to CTV's Canada AM on Friday, said Harper did not give the Liberals enough time.
"On Afghanistan, the prime minister had weeks to prepare his amendments and all of a sudden he suggested to me amendments, behind closed doors, within hours," he said. "So no, it will not work this way."

"There's the possibility that there will be an election and there's the possibility that there will not be an election."

See full story here: http://tinyurl.com/yv9aow
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Well, isn't that interesting? Are the Tories that confident?? Or is it just a pressure and scar tactic? What do you think about this latest maneuver?
I think the confidence vote should go ahead. What have the Liberals to lose?

 

[darkbeaver]

Sorry, Gentlemen, I don't mean to interrupt your most interesting conversation, but I've got this article in my mouse which I would like to set down... if you don't mind? Just keep going with whatever you were going at!

Tories introduce motion to extend Afghan mission
The Conservative government introduced a confidence motion today on extending Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan -- a move that could prompt a spring election if the Liberals vote against it.

"The motion presents a clear choice to the members of the House of Commons -- strengthen the military mission in Afghanistan or abandon the commitment we have made to the people of Afghanistan and our international allies," said Van Loan.
He said Prime Minister Stephen Harper invited Liberal Leader Stephane Dion to suggest changes to the motion before the government initially planned to submit it -- on Thursday.

Dion, speaking to CTV's Canada AM on Friday, said Harper did not give the Liberals enough time.
"On Afghanistan, the prime minister had weeks to prepare his amendments and all of a sudden he suggested to me amendments, behind closed doors, within hours," he said. "So no, it will not work this way."

"There's the possibility that there will be an election and there's the possibility that there will not be an election."

See full story here: http://tinyurl.com/yv9aow
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, isn't that interesting? Are the Tories that confident?? Or is it just a pressure and scar tactic? What do you think about this latest maneuver?
I think the confidence vote should go ahead. What have the Liberals to lose?

Not to worry about the interruption Dancing -Loon I just have to turn arround every once in a while and throw a few rocks at the barking foaming mad dogs behind me. Jeezus they're like ravenous hyenas.
I don't think it matters wheather Dion or Harper run the country for big bizz as it's quite plain they are the counterparts of the Dems and Reps, Canadas slightly different though as we have a three sided coin with the NDP, no substaintial change from sleeping with NATO and the western armed and dangerous coalition will happen no matter which of our quizzling partys wins an election. They all suck the transnationals.

 

[darkbeaver]

Top US Lawyer And UNICEF Data Reveal Afghan Genocide

By Dr Gideon Polya

08/02/08 "Countercurrents" -- - The United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 with the ostensible excuse of the Afghan Government’s “protection” of the asserted Al Qaeda culprits of the 9/11 atrocity that killed 3,000 people. In the light of as many as 6.6 million post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan as of February 2008 (see below), it is important to consider the major problems with this Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite version of events as summarized below:​

1. The US has a long history of “questionable” excuses for war e.g. the explosion of the Maine (the Spanish-American War), the sinking of the US arms-carrying Lusitania (entry into World War 1), the Pearl Harbor attack with now recognized US foreknowledge (entry into World War 2), North Koreans provoked into invading their own country (the Korean War), the fictitious Gulf of Tonkin incident (the Vietnam War; recently similarly but unsuccessfully attempted in the Persian Gulf as an “excuse” to attack Iran) and the extraordinary 1,000 post-9/11 lies told by Bush Administration figures, most notoriously about non-existent Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (the Iraq War; post-invasion excess deaths now about 1.5-2 million).
2. The US supported and funded Al Qaeda and the Taliban from the late 1970s to the early 1990s associated with its anti-Soviet policies (see William Blum’s “Rogue State”).
3. Oil- and hegemony-related plans for the invasion of Afghanistan were all ready to go before 9/11.
4. No Afghans were involved in the 9/11 attack according to the “official 9/11 story” of the egregiously dishonest Bush Administration.
5. Even the right-wing, neo-Bush-ite Democrat Al Gore in his recent book “The Assault on Reason” (Chapter 6, National Insecurity, pp178-179) condemns the Bush Administration for effective passive complicity in the 9/11 atrocity i.e. they let it happen, just as a fore-warned US Administration permitted the Pearl Harbor attack to happen in 1941: “Their behaviour, in my opinion, was reckless, but the explanation for it lies in hubris, not in some bizarre conspiracy theory …These affirmative and repeated refusals to listen to clear warnings [prior to 9/11] constitute behaviour that goes beyond simple negligence. At a minimum, it represents a reckless disregard for the safety of the American people.”
6. However, further to point #5, the extremely eminent former 7-year President of Italy, law professor, senator for life and long-term Western intelligence intimate Francesco Cossiga recently (November 2007) told one of Italy's top newspapers that (a) the US CIA and Israeli Mossad committed the 9/11 outrage in order to further US and Zionist aims and that (b) major Western intelligence agencies are well aware of this (for details and documentation see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18569/26/ ).
As of February 2008, analysis of UNICEF data (see UNICEF statistics on Occupied Afghanistan: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/afghanistan_statistics.html ) allows the following estimate of 3.3-6.6 million post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that should not have happened) in Occupied Afghanistan:
1. annual under-5 infant deaths 370,000.
2. post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 2.3 million (90% avoidable).
3. post-invasion avoidable under-5 infant deaths 2.1 million.
4. post-invasion non-violent excess deaths 3.2 million (2.3 million /0.7 = 3.3 million; for impoverished, worst case Third world countries the under-5 infant deaths are about 0.7 of total non-violent excess deaths (see A Layperson’s Guide to counting Iraq deaths: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/5872/26/ ).
5. post-invasion violent deaths about 3.3 million (assuming roughly 1 violent death for every non-violent avoidable death i.e. roughly as in US-occupied Occupied Iraq where the ratio of violent deaths to non-violent excess deaths is 0.8-1.2 million to 0.7-0.8 million; see Continued Australian and US Coalition war crimes in Occupied Iraq: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/2008/01/rudd-australia-report-card-1-continued.html ).
6. upper estimate of non-violent plus violent post-invasion excess deaths 3.3 million + 3.3 million = 6.6 million excess deaths.
For detailed documentation of the above see “Australian complicity in continuing Afghan genocide”: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/ . A major cause of the carnage is revealed by WHO (see: http://www.who.int/en/ ) – the “total annual per capita medical expenditure” permitted by the Occupiers in Occupied Afghanistan is a mere $19 – as compared to as compared to $2,560 (the UK), $3,123 (Australia) and $6,096 (the US). This is in gross contravention of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ) which unequivocally demands that the Occupier must provide life-sustaining food and medical requisites to its Conquered Subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”. Compounding this is the appalling reality of 4 million Afghan refugees.
What is happening in Afghanistan is an Afghan Holocaust. One sees that post-invasion under-5 infant deaths in Occupied Afghanistan (2.3 million) vastly exceeds the number of Jewish children murdered by the Nazis in World War 2 (1.5 million). The upper estimate of post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan (6.6 million out of an average 2001-2008 Afghan population of about 25 million) exceeds the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis in World War 2 ( 5.6 million out of 8.2 million Jews in German-occupied Europe in the period 1941-1945) (see: Gilbert, M. (1969), Jewish History Atlas (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London) and Gilbert, M. (1982), Atlas of the Holocaust (Michael Joseph, London)).
Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ) states “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
From the data summarized above, it is apparent that the Afghan Holocaust is also an Afghan Genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention.
Outstanding US Law academic Professor Ali Khan of the Washburn University School of Law, Topeka, Kansas has also described what is going on in Afghanistan as genocide i.e. an Afghan Genocide (see “NATO Genocide in Afghanistan”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/19831/42/ ).
The key legal verdict of Professor Khan is as follows: “The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (entered into force, 1951) is binding on all states including the 26 member states of NATO. The Genocide Convention is jus cogens, the law from which no derogation is allowed. It provides no exceptions for any nation or any organization of nations, such as the United Nations or NATO, to commit genocide. Nor does the Convention allow any exceptions to genocide "whether committed in time of peace or in time of war." Even traditional self-defense - let alone preemptive self-defense, a deceptive name for aggression – cannot be invoked to justify or excuse the crime of genocide.”
Professor Khan proceeds to analyse the campaign of extermination of the Indigenous Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan in relation to International law. He states that in relation to Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention “In murdering the Taliban, NATO armed forces systematically practice on a continual basis the crime of genocide that consists of three constituent elements - act, intent to destroy, and religious group.” His detailed analysis can be succinctly summarized as follows:
1. “The Genocidal Act” is prohibited as defined in the Genocide Convention as “a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” – but is is clearly occurring on a huge scale as indicated by the above data.
2. “The Genocidal Intent” is expressed in the Genocide Convention as “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”- but is clearly present in the statements of the NATO leaders. The “Intent” is also apparent from the sustained, resolute conduct of this horrendously bloody war for over 6 years.
3. “The Genocidal targeting of a Religious Group” is clearly prohibited by the Genocide Convention by “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” – but is clearly being carried out with the accompaniment of immense Islamophobic propaganda in the West.
Professor Khan concludes: “It may, therefore, be safely concluded that NATO combat troops and NATO commanders are engaged in murdering the Taliban, a protected group under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to physically and mentally destroy the group in whole or in part. This is the crime of genocide.”
As an agnostic humanist I certainly don’t care for the Taliban beliefs – but what agnostic humanists (such as myself) or people of other philosophic persuasions think about the religious beliefs and interpretations of the Taliban is beside the point from the perspective of the UN Genocide Convention.
And while I strongly object to human rights violations by the Taliban (especially in relation to women and application of their extreme interpretations of Sharia Law) one has to objectively give credit to the Taliban for (a) bringing Peace through victory in the middle 1990s and (b) for destroying 95% of the Afghan opium production in 2001 (as well of course banning the vastly more deadly use of alcohol and for prohibiting Afghan Government employees from the even more deadly practice of smoking tobacco in 1997). Smoking, alcohol and illicit drugs kill about 7 million people annually, the breakdown being 5 million (tobacco), 1.8 million (alcohol) and 0.2 million (from illicit drugs, about half opiate drug-related).
It can be estimated that 0.6 million people have died world-wide due to opiates in the last 6 years, about 0.5 million of these deaths being due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 5% of world market share (2001) to 93% (2007) (see UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, World Drug Report 2007: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/world_drug_report.html ).
The 0.5 million global US-NATO-linked opiate drug-related deaths plus 6.6 million post-invasion Afghan excess deaths bring an upper estimate of the carnage due to the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan to 7.1 million deaths. If we include excess deaths associated with UK-US actions against Iraq in the period 1990-2008 (about 4 million) then the gruesome carnage of the Bush I plus Bush II Asian Wars now totals about 11 million excess deaths (and this ignores the impact of the Bush Wars through oil price rises and other factors on Third World avoidable deaths).
Occupied Afghanistan is the New Auschwitz of the US and its complicit allies (including former Axis countries Germany and Japan who have on US instigation joined the US-NATO Afghan Genocide) (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/7616/26/ ).
Those Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite politicians, military and Mainstream media executives complicit in the Afghan Genocide should be arraigned before the International Criminal Court (see: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/ ).
In his 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/arts-pinter081205.htm ), UK playwright Harold Pinter urged the arraignment of Bush and Blair before the International Criminal Court for war crimes and stated “How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought.”
Eleven million? More than enough, I would have thought.
Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).

 

[darkbeaver]

U.S. Militarism & the Drug Trade: the Afghan Dossier


Global Research, February 9, 2008


In The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, whose 1972 edition the CIA tried to suppress, Alfred W. McCoy writes,

Although the drug pandemic of the 1980s had complex causes, the growth in global heroin supply could be traced, in large part, to two key aspects of U.S. policy: the failure of the DEA's interdiction efforts and the CIA's covert operations. By attacking heroin trafficking in separate sectors of Asia's extended opium zone in isolation, the DEA simply diverted heroin exports from America to Europe and shifted opium production from southern Asia to Southeast Asia and back again--raising both global consumption and production with each move. Moreover, the increasing opium harvest in Burma and Afghanistan, America's major suppliers were largely the product of CIA covert operations. [Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Brooklyn, NY: Lawrence Hill Books, 1991 edition, p. 440]
​

Fast-forward 30 years. Writing in today's Guardian, Patrick Wintour informs us:

Afghanistan's opium economy will take up to 20 years to eradicate and require a £1bn investment from world leaders, according to a government study published yesterday. ... Its conclusions came as the UN produced fresh figures on the opium trade. The UN's Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) believes this year's crop will be similar to, or slightly lower than, last year's record harvest. ... In 2007 Afghanistan had more land growing drugs than Colombia, Bolivia and Peru combined.
​

 

[dancing-loon]

Not to worry about the interruption, Dancing -Loon, I just have to turn around every once in a while and throw a few rocks at the barking, foaming, mad dogs behind me. Jeezus, they're like ravenous hyenas.

At least you know how to deal with them!!;-) I get quite the kick out of your "battles"! It always has me rolling on the floor... just about... laughing away all stress and tension. Keep it up, boys.....it is so therapeutic!:lol::lol:

I don't think it matters whether Dion or Harper run the country for big bizz, as it's quite plain they are the counterparts of the Dems and Reps, Canada's slightly different though as we have a three sided coin with the NDP, no substantial change from sleeping with NATO, and the western armed and dangerous coalition will happen no matter which of our quisling parties wins an election. They all suck the transnationals.

More or less, yes, that seems to be the picture. The Liberals are too weak right now to present a real force against the current trend of staying in Afghanistan. I have an article here which gives a good overview of the Government's dilemma. I particular llike this part...

Press reaction to the government’s decision to proclaim the vote on the motion extending the CAF combat mission a confidence vote has been divided. The editors of the National Post, the voice of Canada’s neo-conservatives, have declared it a “strategic masterstroke”: “The Grits (Liberals) may defeat the motion and force an election they do not want (and cannot afford), abstain and look as pathetic as they did when they sat out last fall’s vote on the Throne Speech, or vote in favour of the mission and lose it as a wedge issue when an election finally does come.”

Now I understand why Harper isn't the least bit worried! How clever politicians have to be!:roll:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/feb2008/cana-f09.shtml

 

[gopher]

European Union is considering leaving Afghanistan while its war and the CIA created drug trade grows.

Nope, things ain't looking so good for traitor Bush's wars.

 

[MikeyDB]

Hey Gopher..

No the proponents of continued bloodshed here at CC don't want to look any further than their own focus on the immediate...

Colpy and some here abouts think it's perfectly acceptable that our strategic and tactical attention be limited to those nasty Taliban.....Forget about a drug trade that's arming warlords and escalating violence and death in Afghanistan.... Don't bother with the issue of Pakistan providing the men and materiel to the "enemy" in Afghanistan.... Just focus on what a wonderful humanitarian altruistic venture we're involved in in Afghansitan.....