The Afghan people will win - Part 11

U.S. cedes control of Afghan province to the Taliban:

Jason Ditz wrote:

Following an all-out assault by several hundred insurgents on two US outposts in Nuristan earlier this month, the US abandoned both sites...

... Those two outposts were America's last in the area, and this has meant that the eastern province has only a handful of US troops now, protecting the governor, and that Nuristan Province is now under de facto control of a Taliban faction run by Qari Rahman.

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/10/28/us-cedes-de-facto-control-over-east-a...

U.S. escalation to focus on controlling Afghan population centers:

Jason Ditz wrote:

According to officials, President Obama's top advisers are now eyeing a strategy whereby they would concentrate all additional troops sent under the planned escalation on controlling the 10 largest population centers in Afghanistan, as well as the Helmand River Valley.

The strategy is being presented as a compromise, though it seems to be so only in the sense that it acknowledges that the US doesn't have enough additional troops to try to fight militants on all fronts across the entire country.

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/10/28/us-escalation-to-focus-on-controlling...

Obama seeks study on local leaders for troop decision:

Scott Wilson and Greg Jaffe wrote:

President Obama has asked senior officials for a province-by-province analysis of Afghanistan to determine which regions are being managed effectively by local leaders and which require international help, information that his advisers say will guide his decision on how many additional U.S. troops to send to the battle...

... Administration officials say that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and national security adviser James L. Jones, a retired four-star general, support Obama's request for a more detailed status report on each province that could identify potential U.S. allies among Afghanistan's local leaders, some with less-than-sterling human rights records...

... The weeks-long White House review has been shaped by a central tension between the broad counterinsurgency strategy endorsed by the military and a narrower counterterrorism campaign against al-Qaeda that some senior administration officials favor.

McChrystal, who took command of the 100,000 U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan in May, is promoting a plan that calls for concentrating forces around urban areas to better protect the Afghan population and pulling back from remote regions...

... Even after weeks of review, administration officials say a range of options is still under consideration, including whether additional U.S. forces could be deployed in phases...

... In reviewing McChrystal's bracing assessment of the war, the president and his senior advisers have concluded that the Taliban cannot be eliminated as a military and political force, regardless of how many more troops are deployed.

The acknowledgement is behind Obama's request for an analysis of which of Afghanistan's 34 provinces can be left to local leaders, perhaps including elements of the Taliban unaligned with al-Qaeda...

... Obama's interest in provincial allies also reflects the administration's growing disenchantment with President Hamid Karzai and his inability to extend his government's authority beyond Kabul during his nearly eight years in office.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/28/AR200910...

(Bold lettering added.)

What's interesting is that a major mainstream paper (The Washington Post) is finally admitting the obvious.

America's Drug Crisis: Brought to you by the CIA

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff10282009.html

"Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of Afghanistan's stunningly corrupt President Hamid Karzai, a leading drug lord in the world's major opium producing nation, has for eight years been on the CIA payroll.."

CBC News wrote:

A Canadian soldier who had spent less than a week in Afghanistan was killed Friday by an improvised explosive device while on foot patrol in Kandahar.

Sapper Steven Marshall, 24, from 11 Field Squadron, 1 Combat Engineer Regiment, based in Edmonton, was patolling 10 kilometres southwest of Kandahar City in the Panjwai district when the bomb exploded,...

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/10/30/canadian-soldier-afghanistan193...

Followed by the obligatory bullshit statement "Having arrived in the theatre of operation less than a week ago, he was eager to get out and begin making a difference." - Brig. Gen. Jonathan Vance.

No wonder they don't want to legalize drugs. The CIA and their mafia friends, drug dealing Brits,  and now apparently Canadians have been dealt in,  would all lose a lot of money in the illicit drug trade. 

It's a phony war on drugs, too.

Sorry, double post.