The Afghan people will win - part 14

Attacks against NGOs record high in 2009

Afghanistan NGO Safety Office Weekly Report

This year alone there have been over 115 incidents, including 42 during the three month period between July - September. The year of 2009 has seen 18 NGO staff be killed and 6 injured. With the latest killing of at least 5 UN international staff and 9 injured, the numbers have increased to 23 killed and 15 injured, which exceeds the total number of aid worker victims of attacks in 2008. Attacks and threats by AOG still account for 70% of all NGO incidents and produce most NGO casualties.

No, you are correct. I should have post the complete article, I will do as you wish from now on. It was rude of me not to post the full article. I will now cease to post in this thread.

Gotta love Hillier's US political connections

One year to turn Afghanistan around, Hillier says
McCain predicts Obama will send 'tens of thousands' of additional troops to the war-torn country

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/729049--one-year-to-turn-afghanistan-around-hillier-says?bn=1

Webgear wrote:

Attacks against NGOs record high in 2009

Afghanistan NGO Safety Office Weekly Report

This year alone there have been over 115 incidents, including 42 during the three month period between July - September. The year of 2009 has seen 18 NGO staff be killed and 6 injured. With the latest killing of at least 5 UN international staff and 9 injured, the numbers have increased to 23 killed and 15 injured, which exceeds the total number of aid worker victims of attacks in 2008. Attacks and threats by AOG still account for 70% of all NGO incidents and produce most NGO casualties.

Outrage as U.S. forces attack Afghan hospital:

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/09/06/outrage-as-us-forces-attack-afghan-ho...

I'm sorry, but the argument that we are dispensing humanitarian aid through the barrel of a gun and improving the lives of Afghans at the point of a bayonet (in other words, the militarization of humanitarian aid) doesn't cut it with me.

And in case there are any Charleton Heston wannabe types frequenting this thread, the Taliban covet the [url=http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/09/taliban-seek-rifles-with-more-pu... armor-piercing Kalakov[/url] according to at least one weapons dealer. And back in the 1980's, bullets supplied to the mujahideen were said to have cost US taxpayers $5 dollars apiece. Of course, those were the days when every red-blooded armchair warmonger believed in evey Afghan's right to armed struggle, and to be armed to the eye teeth by the CIA and friends. At the same time, Oliver North and CIA were swinging covert deals with the Ayatollah and running drugs from Colombia in order to fund armed struggle in a tiny Central American country. And like the proxy war taking place at the same time in Afghanistan, most of the Contras were mercenaries, who were basically unemployed thugs recruited from around Latin America and paid $2000 American dollars a month to murder Nicaraguans. And very often they shot off the legs and arms of innocent bystanders, and many of them women and children,  as instructed by military officers, and some who were graduates of the infamous school of the Americas university of terror. That's when they weren't bombing schools and hospitals built by Marxists and political neutrals in Central America. The tactics in all US-CIA orchestrated dirty wars share eery similarities with tactical m.o.'s

Here's more of the usual bullshit:

Michel Comte wrote:

HALIFAX, Canada (AFP) - Despite fierce public pressure to end the war in Afghanistan eight years on, politicians and experts on Saturday decried calls for setting an exit date they say would embolden the Taliban.

"History shows us that if you set dates for when you're going to leave, the enemy waits until you leave," US Senator John McCain said at the Halifax International Defense Forum in easternmost Canada.

"I think benchmarks are important," he said. "But if we set a date for when we are going to withdraw, I don't want to go, if we are going to set a date so that the Taliban and others can just sit back and wait until we leave."

"The exit strategy is success," he insisted. "The exit strategy is not time-date certain."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091121/pl_afp/afghanistancanadaussummitunr...

Oliver Moore wrote:

Time is running out in Afghanistan, Canada's former top soldier warned, arguing that the next 18 months is crucial to turning around the country.

Retired general Rick Hillier said that there would be "one shot" at changing the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.

"The surge, in my view, is fundamental here," he said Saturday. "It's absolutely essential."

His comments came at the Halifax International Security Forum, a gathering of top-level policymakers and military leaders,...

...Such a surge was heavily backed by U.S. Senator John McCain, who shared the stage with gen. Hillier and said he expects a decision as early as Friday...

... An equally gloomy take was offered by the fourth panellist, Najam Sethi, the editor-in-chief of Pakistan's Daily Times.

"I think this troop surge is too little, too late," Mr. Sethi said. "Nobody wants to be on the losing side, they all hedge their bets. And so far the Taliban is winning."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/time-running-out-in-afghanista...

Here is the view from the L.A. Times:

Julian E. Barnes wrote:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was in Canada on Friday as part of an effort to strengthen the alliance with a partner considered vital to the war effort.

But with the U.S. strategy still undecided, Gates was hardly in a position to ask Canada to reconsider or modify its decision to withdraw its 2,800 troops by 2011. Instead, the trip to Halifax, in the Maritime province of Nova Scotia, was billed by officials as more an effort to build goodwill over the long term.

Gates arrived in the midst of a national furor over the conduct of Canadian troops in Afghanistan. A senior Canadian diplomat has charged that the country's troops handed military prisoners over to Afghanistan's intelligence service, under which they faced a high likelihood of torture.

The outcome of the debate over those charges could help determine Canada's decision on its troops, who are concentrated in Kandahar province...

... Public sentiment in Canada has turned against the Afghanistan mission. Still, U.S. officials believe that with improvements in Kandahar and the surrounding area next year, Canada might be more open to extending its stay.

http://freedomsyndicate.com/fair0000/latimes00064.html

Our Corrupt Occupation of Afghanistan

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/23199

"Is it just me or is the pontification of Western leaders about corruption in Afghanistan growing rather tiresome...?"

Obama's troop surge to be announced December 1:

Jason Ditz wrote:

White House officials announced today that President Barack Obama will address the nation on December 1 to unveil his new Afghanistan escalation strategy, putting an end to months of speculation and allowing NATO to approve its own escalation later that week.

Though the final decision took over three months for the administration to make the announcement does not appear to be far outside the expected range of options, and the 34,000-man escalation that was reportedly favored for the past month is said to be the plan of choice.

the exact details of the announcement will not be made public for another week, but it is said to include a handful of largely artificial benchmarks [much like in Canada, I daresay] designed to make the appearance that the war is moving forward. It does not however appear that it will include any concrete timeline for withdrawal.

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/11/24/white-house-afghan-escalation-to-be-a...

The Taliban know all about making servants of Afghans. [url=http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16256]Malalai Joya[/url] said in Halifax recently:

Quote:

"They [the occupying forces] say if troops leave, the Taliban will eat us. But they are supporting the Taliban today, supporting warlords. Both of them are eating us. To fight against one enemy is easier than two. We are between two enemies [the occupiers and the extremists]," she said, urging an immediate troop withdrawal. •

It's the "war on terror drama", according to Joya. The war on terror is a fraudulent war. It's code for the war on democracy and great gamemansship. NATO is a relic of the cold war and should be disbanded.

Unionist wrote:

Well, it seems from the last two posts that both Mullah Omar and Malalai Joya (who don't like each other much) are calling for immediate troop withdrawal.

Not one single Canadian political party agrees. Some of them call for "negotiations". Others lie about withdrawal in 2011

At least one leftist, Tariq Ali, who is from one of the countries deeply involved in this protracted phony war on terror says transparent negotitations mediated by the UN are exactly what's needed. As things are now,  backchannel talks have been mediated by the Saudis and Pakistani ISI, notorious cold war allies of the CIA and US military and probably still controlling the USA's former proxies, the Taliban. Two years ago a CBC news broadcast quoted one Kandaharian as suggesting that the CIA and Paksistan's army intelligence were probably aiding and abetting the Taliban. And this same view is held by Malalai Joya today.

And to suggest that Afghans are oblivious as to what's been happening in their own country for the last 30 years would be as insanely derisive and racist as those comments made by Zbigniew Brzezinski who described the CIA's meddling in Afghanistan as having produced "a bunch of stirred up Muslims" in the 1980's.

And I must say that I find it strange to say the least that an anti-gun crusader would be beating his own drum for more war, and for more phony war at that. Observers have said that neither the Taliban nor foreign the occupiers refusing to leave can win this protracted conflict. Malalai Joya says her people hate the Taliban and that they hate the illegitimate warlord government propped-up by the USA. It matters not that either of the two bad apples wins this phony war on terror as long as the weapons are laid down and organized murder stopped. The NDP and leftwing commentators in Central Asia are correct in their appraisals of this no-win US-led quagmire in Afghanistan which Canada's so-called leaders are refusing to do anything but continue to be just another proxy army fighting for Uncle Sam.

Unionist wrote:

Fidel wrote:

And I must say that I find it strange to say the least that an anti-gun crusader would be beating his own drum for more war, and for more phony war at that.

I'm not opposed to guns, but some of your posts about the right to individual armed struggle would certainly give me pause.

So how do you feel about the Taliban's right to armed struggle? Who do imagine is funding the Taliban's right to pursue armed struggle and maintaining a profitable pace for the military-industrial complex simultaneously?  

Quote:

As for beating the drum for more war, you're mistaken. Malalai Joya and I call for immediate withdrawal of all invaders from Afghanistan. You call for negotiations between all the different enemies of the Afghan people. That much is very clear.

But as Tariq Ali has said, Pakistan is also deeply involved in this phony war as are surrounding countries affected by the drug smuggling and weapons dealing, and with violence spilling over the borders into their countries.  The US Military and CIA have worked for years to destabilize the entire region. This is a UN matter and not to be left to the USA's "former" proxies, the Taliban, to decide the outcome some time five or ten years from now and perhaps never if the Taliban do decide to share power with their "brothers in creed", the pro-mujahideen Karzai and US-backed warlord government. If that is the eventual outcome, then all of the senseless killing by long guns and other destructive methods will have been for nothing regardless of whether of the imperialist occupiers or the theocratic feudalists seize power.

The NDP and Tarqiq Ali are arguing for UN mediated transparent negotiations to end this protracted phony war on terror. You, the self-described anti-gun crusader, are arguing for more bloodshed and senseless killing in order to achieve one of two same inevetable and bad conclusions to phony war either way. Your pro-Taliban and pro-US military way costs lives. The NDP and Tariq Ali are advocating a sane solution.

Unionist wrote:

The NDP and Tariq Ali, like you, have no business dictating "solutions" to the Afghan people - especially when your country, and his, maintain occupation forces in Afghanistan murdering the people there. I can't believe Tariq Ali doesn't stand for immediate withdrawal, without negotiations - but maybe you could find me a quote.

All leftists stand for immediate troop withdrawal first and foremost. But the Taliban, the US military and NATO countries,  and you, too, apparently, are for solving things with the barrels of non-registered illegal long guns, IED's, suicide bombings, aerial drone attacks, dirty war etc

Unionist wrote:

Our only right is to stop interfering in their country - immediately.

You seem to be under the illusion that only Uncle Sam and Afghanistan are involved in this phony war.  That's not true. Other countries are deeply involved and have a responsibility to negotiate a ceasefire and to guarantee Afghanistan's sovereignty.

Unionist wrote:

You're still focused on saving the Afghan people from the Taliban. But the more you try, the more credibility you will give the Taliban as the only ones fighting the invaders. Malalai Joya, whom you quote when it suits your needs, speaks clearly on behalf of her people.

False. There are many people more interested in putting a stop to the organized murder in Afghanistan and Pakistan by dragging all countries involved into transparent, UN-mediated peace negotiations to solve this 30 year-long protracted conflict in Central Asia.

Unionist wrote:

Fidel wrote:

All leftists stand for immediate troop withdrawal first and foremost.

Excellent. Let the Canadian troops withdraw "first and foremost", and then let the negotiations begin! I owe you a bottle of champagne the day Jack Layton gets up in front of a camera and says that.

And there are leftists also demanding an end to the organized murder dragging on for 30 years to-date since the CIA, Saudis, and Pakistani ISI began meddling with proxy war in Afghanistan. The left is very flexible as to how to end the organzed murder and dirty war. But some of us are insisting on more bloodshed by way of phony war which expert observers have agreed is a pointless war, a deniable war and for which there is no end in sight.

Unionist wrote:

No, Fidel, if you listened - ever - you might have heard me call for Canada to get the hell out.

And good luck with that. No one seems to be listening to this noble call to end the warfiteering or the senseless killing as a result of Zbigniew and company's long phony war to setup another US military occupation in preparation for colder war encirclement of Russia, Iran, and China. The Talian are not wanted in Pakistan, and no one seems to want them in Afghanistan either except for perhaps their Pakistani ISI and Saudi masters and some other people we both know,.

Unionist wrote:

Nonsense. The insurgents have stated, time and time again, that they will only negotiate with Afghans.

You mean the Pakistani ISI and Saudi-controlled Taliban orchestrating the insurgency and to maintain "strategic depth" in Afghanistan, just to be clear.

Quote:

...Not foreign invaders. I fully support that call. You think the U.S. and Canada can't find the exit door without "negotiations"? All those who call for "negotiations" are desperately terrified that the puppet regime will collapse the instant the invaders leave. Which of course it will. Which of course is why they won't leave. Until they are driven out. Which will happen sooner than you think.

This is just another way of supporting the pro-warfiteering and pro-illicit drug export agenda of the CIA and Afghan warlords profiting by this phony war and illegal occupation of Afghanistan. Very many leftists believe that this is not a legitimate war on terror. And Malalai Joya herself describes it as the "war on terror drama" used by Uncle Sam to extend the illegal military occupation of her country. It is a phony war, and it is a deniable war on terror that now requires all countries involved to negotiate an end to their involvement in proxy war and to support and promote Afghanistan's sovereignty. The UN does have a purpose since WW II when certain countries marched into other countries and violated sovereign borders and perpetrated free for all genocides. The principals in this phony war need for the world to stand up to them but not to abandon desperately poor Afghans to gangster nations violating their sovereignty for 30 years and counting.  

Unionist wrote:

Fidel wrote:

The principals in this phony war need for the world to stand up to them but not to abandon desperately poor Afghans to gangster nations violating their sovereignty for 30 years and counting. 

This, and every single other sentence you write on the subject, is a long-winded way of opposing immediate withdrawal of Canadian troops.

No. True lefties are able to hold two entirely compatible opinions for both troop withdrawal and for peace negotiations, whichever comes first.

You, on the other hand, seem to be rigid in expressing an opinion of the phony war that is compatible with both the leftist view for withdrawal and for extending the protracted phony war prolonging the illegal US military occupation and using the Taliban as a ruse for doing so. There is no chance for peace and end to the organized murder while promoting what is now a 30 year-long US military involvement in Central Asia. You say that the end is in sight, but expert observers to this conflict say there can be no clear winner anytime soon.

Unionist wrote:

Opinions like yours provide the pretext that Layton needs to continue to ignore the decision of the delegates in 2006. That leaves us with no parties in parliament, not one, calling for withdrawal of the troops.

And here we have Uncle Sam's cold war ally and now courted warlord, [url=http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/10/2009106175023363406.html]... Hekmatyar[/url] telling the world of Uncle Sam's false pretext for waging phony war:

Quote:

 Hekmatyar, who is alleged by the US to have aided Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, said that the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were planned on US soil.

"Those who carried it out were people born in the US and Europe and they were trained there. They were not Afghans and they never got training in Afghanistan," he said.

"Everyone knows the pilot training was done in the US and the plan of the operation was hatched there."

So if no Afghans or Iraqis were involved in perpetrating 9/11, then that means the US bombing and invasion of two sovereign countries since 2001 and 2003 are illegal and violations of international law. And yet here you are condemning the NDP and Pakistani leftist Tariq Ali for suggesting a UN mediated end to the organized murder in Central Asia.

Would you have also suggested that the international community had no business intervening in Hitler's affairs when the Nazis marched into Poland uninivited? Czechoslovakia? France? Ukraine? Russia?

At what point and after how many countries Uncle Sam invades militarily would you suggest that the international community speak up about the situation in general? Or is that none of our business as far as you, and somewhere on the political left that I cannot fathom, is concerned?

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Enough of the speaking for "true lefties".  Try IMO instead.

Well I know for certain that I am a lefty. And I know that the NDP and Tariq Ali are on the left. I can't be certain about certain anonymous babblers however convoluted their argument is for prolonging the US-led phony war on terror. 

Unionist wrote:

 Every single one of them has a good reason why Canada invaded and why (and in what form) it should stay. It's the culture of imperialism, and those "leftists" like Tariq Ali share that culture, when they look for Russia and India and Pakistan and China and (of course) the U.S. to rule Afghanistan.

False. It is NATO who has no business being there on the other side of the planet and destabilizing Afghanistan and surrounding countries' backyards. If you read Ali's essay, he says, in so many words:

1. The war on terror is not real, and that the imperialists have other motives for occupying Afghanistan(ditto for Chomsky and Malalai Joya, and, of course, myself as well as the NDP)

2. Tariq Ali, like Canada's federal NDP advocates, says that all of the countries involved in this proxy war need to participate in peace talks and hammer out an exit strategy for NATO.

Unionist wrote:

What you all share in common is an ability to let people determine their own destiny.

And is that so terrible?

There needs to at least be the same transparency that existed during the Paris peace talks between the NVA and the doctor and the madman's regime. The world as well as ordinary Afghans need to be informed as to what the sticking points are in the current illegitimate negotiations happening between the Taliban and US-led NATO occupiers and with Saudis and Pakistani ISI/CIA mediating phony peace talks - the same backchannel negotiations which you said would never take place. And apparently they were never supposed to take place, because you took offense to the notion that this is anything but a legitimate US war on US-orchestrated terror in Central Asia, or whatever.

Unionist wrote:

And no, I have no respect for "mainstream leftists" (reminds me of "mainstream Jews" who are constantly thrown in our face on this board and wherever Israel apologists dwell). If they do not side with the self-determination of the people, there is nothing "left" about them. They will lose. They always have.

And coindidentally, there are hawks in the US and their rigthwing supporters protesting the very idea that the 9/11 "masterminds" will be given a chance to defend themselves in a kangaroo trial in NYC. Right-rightists say a legitimate trial to convict those already presumed guilty by virtue of confessions tortured out of them,  will allow those presumed guilty to use the trial as a platform to express their radical views. And apparently the alleged masterminds are expected to state the reasons for their alleged terrorist actions as a response to US-backed oppression in the West Bank and Gaza. This, some leftists say, can't be allowed to happen when mainstream newz media have effectively maintained a pro-US and pro-Israeli bias to-date. 

Similarly, the US military and NATO desire that no public discussion takes place as to the reasons for phony war in Afghanistan. As all of Tariq Ali, Malalai Joya, RAWA,  Chomsky, and the NDP have stated, the imperialists have other unstated motives for occupying Afghanistan and Iraq militarily. The US military wants to avoid similar embarrassment that occurred as a result of  transparent peace talks with the North Vietnamese during that illegal war. It is a phony war on terror, but at the same time, US war hawks and NATO allies don't want any more people figuring this out than already have.

Europe Backs Afghanistan Strategy Aimed at 'Regionalization'

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/pers-n27.shtml

"The new strategy of 'regionalization' is aimed at dividing Afghanistan into individual cantons-in a similar manner to what took place in Lebanon and the former Yugoslavia..."

With or without the US and its stooges, the "Afghan people will win" nothing. The notion is nothing more than emotional drivel. Russia, China and India all stand to replace the US as dictator du jure should the ancien regime falter while Iran and Pakistan actively destabilise any attempt at a functioning nation.

Until Afghanistan can put its past behind and cultivate its entrepreneurial spirit free of the violence inspired by myriad indiginous factions fighting to profit from chaos," the Afghan people will win" nothing.

Unionist wrote:

Entrepeneurial spirit. LOL!

Haste makes waste. LOL