This Week in Gitmo & Torture

Oh, shed a tear for Robert Gates who woefully laments that the Bush administration just can't shut down Gitmo. It's "stuck", you see, because some countries either refuse to repatriate their prisoners or are willing to but might set them free. The fact that Bushco created a hellish legal limbo by asserting that the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War does not apply to the so-called Gitmo "unlawful enemy combatants" has brought the Pentagon to where it is now which is, as one of my favourite bloggers Marisacat would put it: is one huge "congealing fuckball".

Come to think of it, has anyone asked Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton how they will go about fulfilling their promises to close Gitmo considering these prisoners are basically men without a country now?

Meanwhile, a defiant Afghan prisoner became the 6th to boycott the sham military tribunal system this week:

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — An Afghan detainee was dragged from his cell to his first pretrial hearing at Guantanamo on Wednesday, then refused to participate, telling the judge he felt "helpless."

Mohammed Kamin joined a growing detainee boycott of the war-crimes trials at the Guantanamo Bay Navy base in southeast Cuba. The military judge, Air Force Col. W. Thomas Cumbie, said Kamin tried to bite and spit on a guard on the way to the courtroom.

Wouldn't you? The fact is that Kamin is helpless. These are nothing but show trials.

And, shouldn't this fact be a matter of huge concern to the American public?

The U.S. military says it plans to prosecute roughly 80 of the 270 men imprisoned at Guantanamo on suspicion of links to terrorism, the Taliban or al-Qaida.

What of the rest of them? Detained indefinitely without charge? Is there anyone, besides the staunchest, delusional, neocon bedwetters out there who still thinks what's going on in Gitmo is anything near humane?

I'm sorry. I forgot that the US public is too wrapped up in election fever right now while it tries to survive the war-created recession and ridiculous gas prices to pay attention to a little thing like the human rights of people its government has shipped off to some prison in Cuba to rot forever. And protesting and impeachment are just so passé. The Dems are so busy, after all. (Apparently, it's taking years for them to actually find their collective spine. Don't hold your breath. It's probably somewhere underneath that table that Pelosi took impeachment off of before the last election.)

And yet there are still those who believe the Democrats will actually do something quickly about what's happening there (just wait until they win the White House back...next year...maybe...they say) and are quite happy to natter on about superdelegates and Michigan and Florida - as if that's all going to mean anything in the scheme of things considering the torture, death, and destruction this administration has brought to the world. All of the candidates crow "the US does not torture" as if it's true and these people are America's next best hope? And their supporters actually let them get away with saying that without challenging it?

Just how many Americans even heard about this testimony this week?

Bremen, Germany - In a landmark congression-al hearing Tuesday, former Guantánamo detainee Murat Kurnaz described abuses he said he endured while in US custody – among them electric shock, simulated drowning, and days spent chained by his arms to the ceiling of an airplane hangar.

Lawmakers were also provided with recently declassified reports, which show that US and German intelligence agencies had determined as early as 2002 that Mr. Kurnaz had no known links to terrorism. Still, he was held for four more years.

And the Pentagon's reaction to the torture allegations:

Commander Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, refused to comment on his treatment, but said in a written statement, "The abuses Mr. Kurnaz alleges are not only unsubstantiated and implausible, they are simply outlandish."

Implausible? Outlandish? They were policy at the time, sir. Your president has even admitted that. There are memos that prove it. Maybe you should talk to the FBI:

Does this sound familiar? Muslim men are stripped in front of female guards and sexually humiliated. A prisoner is made to wear a dog’s collar and leash, another is hooded with women’s underwear. Others are shackled in stress positions for hours, held in isolation for months, and threatened with attack dogs.

You might think we are talking about that one cell block in Abu Ghraib, where President Bush wants the world to believe a few rogue soldiers dreamed up a sadistic nightmare. These atrocities were committed in the interrogation centers in American military prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. And they were not revealed by Red Cross officials, human rights activists, Democrats in Congress or others the administration writes off as soft-on-terror.

They were described in a painful report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, based on the accounts of hundreds of F.B.I. agents who saw American interrogators repeatedly mistreat prisoners in ways that the agents considered violations of American law and the Geneva Conventions. According to the report, some of the agents began keeping a “war crimes file” — until they were ordered to stop.

These were not random acts. It is clear from the inspector general’s report that this was organized behavior by both civilian and military interrogators following the specific orders of top officials.

[and on the article goes...]

And what did the White House do about those warnings from the FBI? It ignored them, as expected. And we're not talking about low-level staffers here. We're talking about officials like John Ashcroft and Condoleezza Rice. They knew what was happening and did nothing. So, excuse me for wanting to scream when I see some Pentagon hack feign outrage about a man's torture allegations by sticking his head up his ass while mumbling "the US does not torture". Only an inhumane fool in the deepest denial believes that. Apparently, there are still far too many people in the United States who also fit into that category or who simply don't care anymore as they wait, wait, wait for the next presidential daddy (or mommy) to fix everything. Guess who else is waiting? All of those unseen prisoners who don't have a voice. Just how much longer should they be expected to wait?
 

Quote du Jour: Gates Slams the NATO Allies - Again

You'd think Robert Gates would have learned a bit about humility when he had to backpeddle from insulting comments he made about NATO allies not knowing how to run counterinsurgency operations.

Apparently, he didn't learn a thing. Or perhaps, more correctly stated, he continues to believe that only the Great American Empire understands military realities.

How else can you explain this?

He [Gates] said when NATO took on the task of helping stabilize all of Afghanistan few or none of the allies "understood what we were getting into as an alliance, that the nature of the mission would change from what they anticipated it was likely to be, being much harder and taking much longer."

The only rational conclusion I can come to, looking at this criticism of his NATO allies, is to posit that Secretary Gates is involved (whether he knows it or not) in projecting the US administration's major mistakes in Afghanistan onto those countries who continued to take on the burden long after Bush basically abandoned the mission.

It was a US government decision to bail on Afghanistan, leaving any hope of mounting an effective counterinsurgency in the dust by choosing to focus militarily on Iraq. It was the US government that decided that taking care of Afghanistan after the initial shock and awe that it manifested there would be a much smaller task. It was the US government that chose to be ignorant in the face of Afghanistan's history with invaders. It was the US government that chose the same war plan (or severe lack thereof) and the same tactics in Afghanistan that it went on to use in Iraq. It's the US government that has failed on both fronts.

And yet Gates has the audacity to insult America's allies once again while only committing to helping Canadian troops in Kandahar after strong-arming France into sending troops to eastern Afghanistan to replace American soldiers posted there? A move was only made, btw, to ensure that Canada's minority Conservative government would follow through on its commitment to extend the mission to 2011 as expressed in a recent motion which was supported by the spineless Liberal party. If those American troops hadn't been pledged to Kandahar, Canada's mission would have ended in February, 2009.

The US only has 17,000 soldiers in Afghanistan. It has 160,000 in Iraq.

Canada lost its 82nd soldier in Afghanistan today.

We don't need to be told by Gates or anyone else about how long or hard this fight has been or that our government was clueless when it signed up for this war in the first place (a decision I was and remain opposed to).

Is it any wonder that US allies are extremely reluctant to send more troops into this failed war zone considering the hubris displayed by people like Gates who would rather lecture and cast blame on every other country than his own?

On top of all of that, we have Bush acting as if he's still going to be the president in 2009:

MUSCAT (Reuters) - President George W. Bush pledged at a NATO summit to provide a "significant" number of extra U.S. troops to the alliance mission in Afghanistan in 2009, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday.
[...]
"The president indicated that he expected in 2009 that the United States would make a significant additional contribution," Gates said.

I guess he can make those kinds of predictions considering that he will never be held responsible for anything and we know that even if a Democrat wins the presidency (if Bush in fact decides to actually vacate the WH) that both Clinton and Obama have both promised to sink ever more money into the military-industrial complex - feeding the corporate beast almost on par with the Republicans should John McSurge win. But to pledge a "significant" number of troops? What does Bush know that the public doesn't? And what does "significant" mean?

The US military is so completely stretched to the limits thanks to the decisions of the Bush/Cheney/neocon administration and Rumsfeld's Pentagon (with Gates continuing down Rumsfeld's road) that experts have testified that it will take years to restore its capabilities. So, don't count on anything of significance happening on the Afghanistan front any time soon. The only thing we know is that the fighting will go on for a long time to come and soldiers from other NATO countries will continue to die while Gates, apparently, will continue to insult them.

CENTCOM's Commander Resigns

Statement by Admiral William Fallon:

Recent press reports suggesting a disconnect between my views and the President’s policy objectives have become a distraction at a critical time and hamper efforts in the CENTCOM region,” Fallon said in a written statement.

“And although I don’t believe there have ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy in the Central Command Area of Responsibility, the simple perception that there is makes it difficult for me to effectively serve America’s interests there.” Fallon’s statement read. “I have therefore concluded that it would be best to step aside and allow the Secretary and our military leaders to move beyond this distraction… and focus on the achievement of our strategic objectives in the region. I have submitted my request to retire to the Secretary of Defense.”

The "recent press reports" Fallon is referring to have to do with this article that appeared in Esquire magazine.

Although that profile makes it seem as if Fallon was the only military man publicly disagreeing with the White House saber rattling about Iran, SecDef Robert Gates and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of staff have also advocated diplomacy and Fallon's quotes in Esquire don't appear to make him out to be a peacemonger either:

Fallon is in no hurry to call Iran's hand on the nuclear question. He is as patient as the White House is impatient, as methodical as President Bush is mercurial, and simply has, as one aide put it, "other bright ideas about the region." Fallon is even more direct: In a part of the world with "five or six pots boiling over, our nation can't afford to be mesmerized by one problem."

And if it comes to war?

"Get serious," the admiral says. "These guys are ants. When the time comes, you crush them."

I think the bottom line is that Fallon was simply seen as being expendable and that he was pressured to resign. Surely, he could have just come out and clarified what appeared in the Esquire article while continuing in his role as CENTCOM commander, thus making this "distraction" yesterday's news.

When Gates was asked during today's press conference whether this resignation meant that war with Iran is on, he dismissed that assertion as being "ridiculous". We'll see, I suppose.
 

Gates, The North Atlantic Treaty, and the Afghanistan War

Robert Gates has been on a steady PR tour to pressure NATO allies to send more military combat troops to Afghanistan the past couple of months.

This has been his rallying cry:

Mr. Gates said NATO could not afford "the luxury" of letting some nations conduct less dangerous missions while others did more fighting and dying...

While pushing that guilt trip, Gates seems to have forgotten what the North Atlantic Treaty actually says:

The Parties of NATO agreed that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all. Consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence will assist the Party or Parties being attacked, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

We're already quite aware of the disdain the US government has for other countries' expressions of their own sovereignty and that is more than obvious in the message Gates, Rice, and others have been pitching in order to shift responsibility from US mistakes.

As Gates confesses:

Mr. Gates said the Sept. 11 attacks were especially poignant as the United States had been heavily involved in Afghanistan in the 1980s only to turn its back on the country after Soviet troops withdrew and it become a safe haven for al-Qaeda.

He described the decision to abandon Afghanistan as "a grievous error, for which I was at least partly responsible".

Mr. Gates was a senior official in the CIA when it helped mujahideen guerrillas fight the Soviets and later served as U.S. deputy national security adviser and then CIA director.

So, while Gates is on his personal redemption tour trying to force others to clean up his mess and to take responsibility for what was "a grievous error" made by himself and successive administrations of the United States government, why should other countries be willing to ease his conscience? Why should we be his personal saviour?

We have a right to decide what our participation will consist of, Mr Gates, and the fact that your government has no use for international treaties is not our problem. Contrary to what you may believe, all of the NATO allies in Afghanistan are living up to their obligations - not to you and your neocons who orchestrated this disaster, but to the North Atlantic Treaty which they signed on to.
 

Afghanistan: Tories Introduce Their Motion; Gates Insults Europeans (again)

As expected, the Harper government has introduced a confidence motion on the fate of Canada's role in Afghanistan (full text) that would extend the mission to 2011 while calling for the heralded 1,000 extra troops and equipment that are apparently supposed to make all the difference for our soldiers over there.

The motion reads, in part:

whereas, as set out in the Speech from the Throne, the House does not believe that Canada should simply abandon the people of Afghanistan after February 2009;

Pack your bags. You're going on a guilt trip.

that Canada should build on its accomplishments and shift to accelerate the training of the Afghan army and police so that the government of Afghanistan can defend its own sovereignty and ensure that progress in Afghanistan is not lost and that our international commitments and reputation are upheld;

And who screwed up the training? The Pentagon, when it hired Dyncorp. Once again, Canadians are expected to clean up their mess or our "reputation" will be tarnished. We're like glorified janitors.

whereas their Report establishes clearly that security is an essential condition of good governance and lasting development and that, for best effect, all three components of a comprehensive strategy - military, diplomatic and development - need to reinforce each other;

whereas the government accepts the analysis and recommendations of the Panel and is committed to taking action, including revamping Canada's reconstruction and development efforts to give priority to direct, bilateral project assistance that addresses the immediate, practical needs of the Afghan people, especially in Kandahar province, as well as effective multi-year aid commitments with concrete objectives and assessments, and, further, to assert strong Canadian leadership to promote better coordination of the overall effort in Afghanistan by the international community, and, Afghan authorities;

Well, that all sounds fine and dandy but, as I've noted here before, 80% of America's money in Afghanistan is going towards military expenditures. That doesn't leave much in terms of reconstruction money.

On top of that, CIDA minister Bev Oda refuses to give straight answers about Canada's reconstruction efforts there. No wonder:

Cup half full, half empty in Canada's development work for Afghanistan

Jan 31, 2008

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - You can give a man a fish and feed him for a day, the proverb goes, or you can teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime.

If that's the mantra of development work in Afghanistan, Canada's approach is failing.

Millions of dollars are eaten up by corruption and mismanagement, and even successful programs do not seem to have a long-term impact, according government documents, non-governmental organizations and a former aid official.

Nipa Banerjee said 50 per cent of the $300 million allocated during her three years as head of aid in Afghanistan for the Canadian International Development Agency brought little or no results.

Yet, this government expects that the Canadian and Afghan people will be satisfied by more of the same?

As for "revamping" Canada's mission, here's what Robert Gates had to say about that on Friday, while he was insulting the Europeans by proclaiming they were "confused" about the difference between the Iraq and Afghanistan missions. Considering that Gates tried to shame NATO countries a year ago and that he also recently insisted that NATO troops don't know how to fight the insurgency in Afghanistan while at the same time announcing a measly enhanced US fighting force of just 3,200 soldiers, it's clear that the Bush administration intends to keep bullying and guilt-tripping tactics to deal with this war.

Mr. Gates said there was no need to rethink the NATO strategy in Afghanistan or to reshape the mission.

Just how does Harper think he can "assert strong Canadian leadership" in the face of a blunt statement like that, especially since he hasn't shown anything like "strong Canadian leadership" on our role there thus far? Just who is he trying to fool? And does anyone out there really believe that Canada's in charge of what's happening in Afghanistan when it comes to the fate of our troops and that of the Afghan people? There is no doubt that the Harper government and, to a lesser extent, the Liberals will be led by the nose by the Bush administration as long as we continue to participate in this war.

Just look how Condi Rice is framing this in typical neocon terms:

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan—On a surprise, 10-hour visit here Thursday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice thanked a crowd of multinational soldiers in a dusty compound, telling them their service in Afghanistan is helping to protect "the future of your own countries, your own people, and indeed, the security and the future of the world."

Will Canada bend to that fearmongering or will this government (and the Liberals) take a long, hard look at this situation, refusing to bow to American economic and global domination pressures?

Liberal leader Stephane Dion said today that his party will submit its own proposals next week in an attempt to amend the bill. Just how far will those amendments go and how does he plan to whip the vote when 24 MPs voted with the government last time to extend the mission to 2009, despite the fact that debate was so limited on such an important issue?

In the end, will this really be about Afghanistan or is it all hinging on whether the Liberals feel they're ready for an election? I guess we'll find out soon enough when the budget is presented to the house in March.
 

Afghanistan: What's wrong with this picture?

Take a look at all of those US flags - up against Pakistan's border.

Yes, that's right. While Robert Gates and Condi Rice (who just arrived in Afghanistan for a surprise visit) have both been threatening the demise of NATO if Afghanistan becomes a "failed state" by not having other countries sending in more combat troops because they won't be bullied into it, US troops are busy fighting along the Pakistani border because their useless commander-in-chief has been busy propping up Pervez Musharraf to the tune of $10 billion the past few years. And what, exactly, has he gotten in return?

Musharraf, who has been protecting the notorious AQ Khan from international scrutiny, is now reportedly relaxing Khan's house arrest rules. The Bush administration has forgiven Musharraf every step of the way for his refusal to take control of Waziristan and if you're wondering why the US military won't commit more troops to Kandahar, where our Canadian troops are dying, it's probably because they'll be too busy training Pakistan's army.

Michael Vickers, assistant defense secretary for special operations and low-intensity conflict, said training sites are being chosen for a five-year program to train and equip the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary unit, to confront al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region.

"That is just getting under way," he told reporters at a briefing. "There may be other training assistance as well, subject to continuing discussions with the Pakistanis."

The training is part of a new $750 million U.S. development effort to make Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) less hospitable for al Qaeda and the Taliban. Washington has given Pakistan $10 billion, mainly in military aid, since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

As usual, this is too little way too late considering the situation in Afghanistan. But, both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have been planned for on the fly at the behest of Donald Rumsfeld:

As the United States prepared to respond to the attacks of September 11, Rumsfeld pushed a reluctant military to think unconventionally about going to war in Afghanistan. Dissatisfied with the plan for a large-scale invasion that he received from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Rumsfeld turned to the Pentagon's Special Operations forces.

"He is willing to start military operations in Afghanistan before most of the military thinks that we're ready to do so. And [a] small number of special forces soldiers combined with CIA support for indigenous Afghan resistance forces brings about spectacular results," Krepinevich says.

When the president's attention turned towards Iraq, Rumsfeld pushed his war planners to think outside the box. Emboldened by his success in Afghanistan, the secretary once again pushed aside Pentagon critics and demanded an unconventional war plan.

"Rumsfeld thinks you can re-invent [the] war plan," The Washington Post's Bob Woodward tells FRONTLINE, "And anything that smacks of the old way or something that looks conventional to him, he asks questions about. Doesn't necessarily oppose it, but will ask questions about it, and is looking to make this quicker, with less force and with less casualties."

So, if the Afghanistan war is lost, it certainly isn't NATO's fault. And, just how much of a difference will 1,000 more soldiers make?

This is all on the Bush administration and no amount of guilt-tripping by Gates and Rice at this point is going to change that.

“I do think the alliance is facing a test here,” Ms. Rice said in a visit to London. “Populations have to understand that this is not just a peacekeeping fight.”

Can she possibly be any more condescending?

In Canada, as expected, the Conservative government will table a motion on Thursday for parliament to consider Canada's future role in Afghanistan beyond February, 2009. Stephane Dion said this week the debate will be "civil". Just how do you debate civilly with a bullying government armed with Bush talking-points and insults that any opposing opinion equals siding with the Taliban? While Dion hopes to play chess with Harper - hoping he'll accept a non-combat role extension - "The NDP and the Bloc Quebecois have said flatly that they will vote against any extension of the mission."

As I wrote here last week, there's much more to this debate than whether or not the troops will continue fighting. There's an economic component that's important to both the Conservatives and Liberals in terms of US/Canada relations and I believe that's what's fueling the Harper/Dion meetings this week ie. how to stay on the so-called good side of the US without getting dinged financially.

But that's not what the general public will hear about in this upcoming "debate". It will be all about NATO's credibility and the idea that Canada is responsible for saving it.

Somehow, the Afghanistan people have been forgotten in all of this.

Related:

The war that can bring neither peace nor freedom; The crisis of the Afghan occupation is a reminder of its fraudulent claims, growing cost in blood, and certainty of failure

Pakistani News Channel Goes Off Air

Intrigue takes Afghanistan to the brink
 

Gates Backtracks on NATO Criticism

Robert Gates is in hot water. Here's what he told the Los Angeles Times this week about NATO troops in Afghanistan:

"I'm worried we're deploying [military advisors] that are not properly trained and I'm worried we have some military forces that don't know how to do counterinsurgency operations," Gates said in an interview.

Canada's government was quick to provide cover for Gates by trying to reassure Canadians that he wasn't talking about Canada's troops but his press secretary, in an attempt to backtrack, said this:

Mr. Gates "most certainly did not" finger Canada, Mr. Morrell said.

Mr. Morrell said Mr. Gates's view, that NATO members lack counterinsurgency training and combat effectiveness, was general and applied across the entire 26-member alliance, including, to some extent, the United States.

In other words, he reinforced Gates' criticism by including all allies and that does include Canada. Somehow, in the mind of the US defence department, that explanation makes everything better.

"The secretary never criticized any specific member of the alliance," Mr. Morrell added, although he declined to release a transcript of the interview with the Times.

Jason Motlag and Jim Lobe writing for the Asia Times offer a different perspective on the counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan:

Washington hopes that the additional troops will help both stabilize Afghanistan and shame its reluctant NATO allies into sending more troops to the same end. Of the 3,200 new troops, about 1,000 will be used for training the Afghan army, and the rest will be deployed to southern Afghanistan to fight the Taliban alongside British, Australian, Dutch and Canadian troops, who have taken record casualties during the past year.

Tainted record

Commandant General James Conway first pitched the plan last year after hostilities in Iraq's al-Anbar province in Iraq calmed down, saying marines on the ground there could either return home or "stay plugged into the fight" and head to Afghanistan.

Marines with a "more kinetic bent", Conway said, are needed to take the fight to the enemy.

But trend lines show that in an Afghan-style counter-insurgency, strength in numbers may not apply. In fact, successive troop buildups since the Taliban were ousted in late 2001 have been matched by a steady increase in insurgent-related violence.

Overall, attacks increased from nine in 2002 to 103 last year, according to the Rand Corporation, and some 300 foreign troops have died in the past two years.

While north and west of Afghanistan are today relatively safe, the Pashtun-dominated southern and eastern provinces are much worse. Six years on it's understood that the crucial window to inject development and win over disillusioned Pasthuns when the Taliban fled was diverted by the Iraq war. According to the Congressional Research Service, Washington has spent about US$3.4 billion a year on reconstruction, or less than half of what went to Iraq.

The aid that has trickled into Afghanistan has gone almost wholesale towards military expenditures. But the integrated "light footprint" strategy used so effectively to topple the Taliban, in which special forces on horseback and small ground units reinforced Northern Alliance irregulars, was replaced by blast-walled compounds and heavy armor vehicles.

Security efforts stood to receive a big shot in the arm from the US Congress' latest military spending package, which exceeded $10 billion - a massive upgrade from years past. Yet about 80% of the total was earmarked for military purposes versus just 20% for reconstruction. This makes little sense in an agrarian country where infrastructure has been shattered by 30 years of war.

So, who's really responsible for the current situation in Afghanistan? That answer seems obvious.

And, will the infusion of 3,200 US marines save the day? Don't count on it.

Today these four basic principals of counter-insurgency, based on army and marine doctrine, are taught to Afghan security forces at the Afghanistan Counter-insurgency Academy in Kabul. However, it is the marines themselves who have courted controversy in the country for being too heavy-handed.

Last March, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, the former top US commander, expelled a marine special operations company after their convoy was ambushed and they went on a "rampage" in Nangarhar province that left 12 civilians dead, including an infant and three elderly men, according to a report by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. One man was said to be so riddled with bullets that he could not be identified.

"In failing to distinguish between civilians and legitimate military targets, the US Marine Corps special forces employed indiscriminate force," the report said. "Their actions thus constitute a serious violation of international humanitarian standards."

Faced with mounting public anger over the shootings and a series of botched air attacks, President Hamid Karzai is said to have pushed for the expulsion. The unit had been the first marine special operations company sent overseas before the incident, and US officials noted that an order for all 120 men to be redeployed was unprecedented, stressing the gravity of the incident. At present, only 300 marines are stationed in Afghanistan.

The bottom line is that it doesn't matter how much counter-insurgency training you have if you can't or won't use it in an environment as challenging as Afghanistan and it bears repeating that this is yet another war that officials and commanders have admitted won't be won militarily.

By focusing so much money on military efforts while not dealing with extreme poverty, leading farmers who have reverted to growing poppies while making deals with the Taliban to protect them, the US has hamstrung its own efforts and those of its allies. It's hard to get people to trust you when you've admitted torturing their neighbours and family members.

So, no matter how much the Canadian government wants to apply cover for its conservative brothers in Washington, it can't be denied that US actions and inaction over the past 6 years in Afghanistan have led to what NATO is dealing with today. Add to that the Bush administration's backing of Musharraf, who has not dealt with insurgent forces in Waziristan, and anyone can clearly see where the blame really lies. Sending in a few extra US marines will certainly not fix the problem - especially since only 1,000 of those 3,200 marines will actually be joining NATO allies in the south.

...violence has continued to rise in the south, which is controlled by a 11,700-soldier NATO force largely made up of the British, Canadian and Dutch forces. Britain saw 42 soldiers killed last year, almost all in southern Afghanistan, its highest annual fatality count of the war; Canada lost 31, close to the 36 from that country killed in 2006. American forces lost 117 troops in 2007, up from 98 in 2006, but U.S. forces are spread more widely across Afghanistan.

The latest news:

Seven Canadian soldiers received minor injuries in two incidents involving suspected roadside bombs in southern Afghanistan, the military said Thursday.
[...]
Seventy-seven Canadian soldiers and one Canadian diplomat have been killed in Afghanistan since the mission began in 2002.

What are you going to do about that, Mr Gates, besides blaming training for all of your problems?

Related:

Germany and the United States Failed to Train Afghanistan's Police

Canada eyes leaner role in Afghanistan
 

Random News & Views Roundup

- So much for Obama's hawkish foreign policy:

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan accused Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama of "sheer ignorance" for threatening to launch US military strikes against Al-Qaeda on Pakistani soil.

- So the White House thumbed its nose at having Karl Rove testifying before the senate committee investigating the US attorneys scandal and his aide, Scott Jennings, showed up and refused to answer "at least a dozen questions". Like getting blood from a stone.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, asked Jennings, "Where is Karl Rove? Why is he hiding? Why does he throw a young staffer like you into the line of fire while he hides behind the White House curtains?"

Because he's an arrogant asshole, Dick. Next question?

- I'd sure like to know where the Bush administration finds these clueless people who apparently all live on Fantasy Island:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday that he was discouraged by the resignation of the Sunnis from Iraq’s cabinet and that the Bush administration might have misjudged the difficulty of achieving reconciliation between Iraq’s sectarian factions.

In one of his bluntest assessments of the progress of the administration’s Iraq strategy, Mr. Gates said, “I think the developments on the political side are somewhat discouraging at the national level.” He said that despite the Sunni withdrawal, “my hope is that it can all be patched back together.”

I guess democracy's a quilt now.

He acknowledged that when the Bush administration decided to send the additional troops, “We probably all underestimated the depth of the mistrust and how difficult it would be for these guys to come together on legislation, which, let’s face it, is not some kind of secondary issue.”

"might have"? "probably"?? Sheesh.

- Proof that Republicans are partisan idiots:

WASHINGTON -- Congress struggled Thursday over giving the government more power to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists, bogged down by concerns about the man who would oversee the plan _ Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
[...]
Gonzales "is clearly one of the concerns that has been expressed by the Democratic leaders," House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio told reporters.

"But at the end of the day, there has to be a way for our intelligence and counterintelligence agencies to collect data from known terrorists," Boehner said. "And we shouldn't let personalities get in the way of protecting the American people."

One of the most corrupt and torture-loving AGs ever and Boehner thinks it's a personality issue? That's exactly why America is so bloody screwed up.
 

Will Bush Attend These Memorial Services?

Baghdad Bombings Kill at Least 131

BAGHDAD, April 18 -- Four car bombs killed 131 people and wounded 164 others across Baghdad Wednesday, the U.S. military said, as bloodshed spiked two months into a U.S.-led crackdown meant to placate the Iraqi capital.

Some news accounts suggested the death toll may be higher. The Reuters news agency, quoting local officials, said as many as 170 people had been killed, and the Associated Press said at least 183 had been killed.

Cue the talking points:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, on a tour of the Mideast, called the bombings "horrifying" and accused al-Qaeda of being behind the attacks, the AP reported. He said the attackers were trying to demonstrate that the U.S. security plan for Baghdad was failing.

I think they've successfully demonstrated that fact.

The deadliest attack Wednesday occurred when a car bomb ripped through the Sadriyah market in a predominantly Shiite area of central Baghdad, killing 115 Iraqis and wounding 137 others, the U.S. military said in a statement. The blast also damaged 40 vehicles. The same market was the site of a Feb. 3 bombing that killed more than 125 people, the gravest single bombing since the war in Iraq began.

And what was it Rep Pence said about Baghdad markets? Oh yes:

And so it went, up and down the street, in between tents and tables, squeezing past pedestrians to inspect the offerings in one booth after another, we milled around this marketplace in downtown Baghdad for more than an hour. I told reporters afterward that it was just like any open-air market in Indiana in the summertime. I didn’t mean that Baghdad was as safe as the Bargersville Flea Market; I just meant that that was what it looked and felt like…lots of people, lots of booths and a friendly relaxed atmosphere.

And bombs and dead people, unlike Indiana's.

Reuters has photos of the aftermath of today's carnage and is now reporting that "nearly 200" people were killed.

"The street was transformed into a swimming pool of blood," said Ahmed Hameed, a shopkeeper near the carnage in Sadriya.

As for whether Bush will attend those memorial services, the answer if obviously "NO". Just as well because if he did and quoted from the Bible as he did on Tuesday at the Va Tech convocation, his absolute hypocrisy would be met with the scorn it so obviously deserves.

Bush: As the Scriptures tell us, "Don't be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

I'd sure like to know what his definition of "good" is when it comes to waging a pre-emptive war against a country that was not a direct threat to the United States.

Just how "good" is it to end up being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the displacement of millions more while children - and every Iraqi - will suffer from this endless trauma for their entire lifetimes due to the ignorant arrogance of a small group of PNAC neocons whose only concern was oil profiteering?

P.S.: You will not see wall-to-wall coverage of these bombings on any of the cable news networks. This is just another day in Baghdad, after all.