The Beginning Of The End Of The War On Afghanistan

'Reformed' Taliban will include 'reformed' Al Qaeda, and whoever else has to paid off to stop killing NATO troops :

Backing Afghan President Hamid Karzai's efforts to 'reach out' to the Taliban through the peace jirga, President Obama's Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke has said that Washington accepts that the final political solution in the war ravaged country could involve 'reformed' Taliban in the government if certain "red lines" are respected.

"The door is open...." he said.

"Let me be clear on one thing, everybody understands that this war will not end in a clear-cut military victory. It's not going to end on the deck of a battleship like World War II, or Dayton, Ohio, like the Bosnian war."

He also noted that while it was impossible to negotiate with Al-Qaeda, the case was different with the Taliban.

"It's going to have some different ending from that, some form of political settlements are necessary ... you can't have a settlement with Al Qaeda, you can't talk to them, you can't negotiate with them, it's out of the question. But it is possible to talk to the Taliban leaders," Holbrooke said.

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Officially, 1000 American soldiers have now been killed in the War On Afghanistan. The toll of Afghans is in the tens of thousands.

Sebastian Jungler on what war does to the human body :

"...an irony of modern combat: it does extraordinarily violent things to the human body but requires almost dead calm to execute well. Complex motor skills start to diminish at 145 beats per minute, which wouldn't matter much in a swordfight, but could definitely ruin your aim with a rifle. At 170 beats per minute you start to experience tunnel vision, loss of depth perception, and restricted hearing. And at 180 beats per minute you enter a netherworld where rational thought decays, bowel and bladder control are lost, and you start to exhibit the crudest sorts of survival behaviours: freezing, fleeing and submission."

Go Here To Read A Chunky Excerpt From Sebastian Jungler's New Book 'War'

New York Times Publishes Column By War Machine Employee Demanding US Stop Thinking About All The Innocent Afghans Killed And Ramp The Fuck Up The Bombing

Glenn Greenwald of Salon uncovers a brutal mindfuck of gruesome pro-civilian bombing positive influence in the pages of the New York Times. A defence corporation employee demands the US blow more money terror bombing the civilian populace of Afghanistan.

New York Times column excerpt :

So in a modern refashioning of the obvious -- that war is harmful to civilian populations -- the United States military has begun basing doctrine on the premise that dead civilians are harmful to the conduct of war. The trouble is, no past war has ever supplied compelling proof of that claim. . . .

[A]n overemphasis on civilian protection is now putting American troops on the defensive in what is intended to be a major offensive. . . .

Of course, all this is not to say that the United States and NATO should be oblivious to civilian deaths, or wage "total" war in Afghanistan. Clearly, however, the pendulum has swung too far in favor of avoiding the death of innocents at all cost.

General McChrystal’s directive was well intentioned, but the lofty ideal at its heart is a lie, and an immoral one at that, because it pretends that war can be fair or humane. . . .

Wars are always ugly, and always monstrous, and best avoided.

Once begun, however, the goal of even a "long war" should be victory in as short a time as possible, using every advantage you have.

She means unleash the Flying Killer Robot drones, the ones with very expensive bomb payloads.

Greenwald :

Does anyone need it explained to them why causing large civilian deaths through air attacks in Afghanistan is not only morally grotesque but also completely counter-productive to our stated goals?

No.

But those bombs and missiles have to be dumped somewhere, so the warehouses and new orders can be filled and re-filled, over and over again.

Stephen Walt At Foreign Policy Responds


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Afghanistan : "International Forces" Handcuffed Then Executed Children

An extraordinary series of claims leveled at western military forces in Afghanistan that have received a suspiciously thin amount of mainstream media coverage.

News of the massacre was no doubt overshadowed by the priority of covering the deaths of 8 CIA officers by a suicide bomber at their Afghanistan base, from where the drone attacks were launched that killed hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan, Waziristan and Pakistan in 2009.

TimesOnline :

American-led troops were accused yesterday of dragging innocent children from their beds and shooting them during a night raid that left ten people dead.

Afghan government investigators said that eight schoolchildren were killed, all but one of them from the same family. Locals said that some victims were handcuffed before being killed.

President Karzai sent a team of investigators to Narang district, in eastern Kunar province, after reports of a massacre first surfaced on Monday.

“The delegation concluded that a unit of international forces descended from a plane Sunday night into Ghazi Khan village in Narang district of the eastern province of Kunar and took ten people from three homes, eight of them school students in grades six, nine and ten, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead,” a statement on President Karzai’s website said.

Another account :

“At around 1 am, three nights ago, some American troops with helicopters left Kabul and landed around 2km away from the village.

“The troops walked from the helicopters to the houses and, according to my investigation, they gathered all the students from two rooms, into one room, and opened fire.”

"I spoke to the local headmaster. It’s impossible they were al-Qaeda. They were children, they were civilians, they were innocent"

The headmaster of the school : “First the foreign troops entered the guest room and shot two of them. Then they entered another room and handcuffed the seven students. Then they killed them. Abdul Khaliq [the farmer] heard shooting and came outside. When they saw him they shot him as well. He was outside. That’s why his wife wasn’t killed.”

Eight of the victims were aged 11 to 17.

In Kabul, outraged protesters chanted “Death to Obama”. One of their signs read "Stop Killing Us."

"I Don't Know How They Can Smoke It Before A Battle, You'd Think It'd Make It Worse, But They Love It"

Cannabis/Hashish/Opium has been used for thousands of years by warriors :

Afghan Smack Kills 100,000 A Year

A few stunning facts from this BBC story about Afghanistan heroin and the worldwide illegal opium market :

The world market is worth $US65 billion.

Opium and heroin addicts number 15 million globally.

100,000 people die from heroin or opium overdoses every year.

Only 2% of Afghanistan opiates are seized in country.

3500 tonnes of opium are exported from Afghanistan every year, representing 92% of the world's opium.

Estimates for the price of one gram of heroin in Kabul - $3. In London or Moscow - $100.

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