State Department official: Negotiations to extend U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan starting soon

Foreign Policy
Josh Rogan

Despite statements by Vice President Joe Biden, the State Department is about to begin formal negotiations over the extension of U.S. troops past 2014, a top State Department official said Tuesday.

Last week, U.S. and Afghan negotiators met in Kabul to talk about the Bilateral Security Agreement that will govern the extension of U.S. troops past 2014, when President Barack Obama said the combat mission in Afghanistan will end and the U.S. will complete the transition of the entire country to Afghan government control.

Also last week, Biden told Americans during his Oct. 11 debate with Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan that U.S. troops were leaving Afghanistan by 2014.

"We are leaving in 2014, period, and in the process, we're going to be saving over the next 10 years another $800 billion," Biden said. "We've been in this war for over a decade. The primary objective is almost completed. Now all we're doing is putting the Kabul government in a position to be able to maintain their own security. It's their responsibility, not America's."

Marc Grossman, the State Department's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, explained today that's not the whole story.

Grossman said Tuesday that the point of the upcoming negotiations is to agree on an extension of the U.S. troop presence well past 2014, for the purposes of conducting counterterrorism operations and training and advising the Afghan security forces.

In May, Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement that promised an ongoing U.S. commitment to Afghanistan through 2024. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Oct. 3 that Grossman's deputy, James Warlick, will be the lead U.S. negotiator for the Bilateral Security Agreement that will follow. Karzai's Ambassador to Washington Eklil Hakimi will lead the negotiations for the Afghan side.

Grossman said that while meetings on "how we will manage our forces going forward in Afghanistan," have already taken place, formal negotiations have not yet begun. Once the negotiations formally start, the Bilateral Security Agreement must be completed within one year, according to the Strategic Partnership agreement, Grossman explained.

Some U.S. military officials have said the plan is to keep 25,000 American troops in Afghanistan past 2014, but Grossman insisted that there is no number yet and the 25,000 figure quoted in reports is speculative. NATO announced Monday that it will also keep international troops in Afghanistan past 2014 alongside U.S. troops, not for combat but strictly for the mission of training and advising the Afghans.

Grossman was speaking on a panel at the annual summit of the International Stability Operations Association in Washington. Also on the panel was Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy, who said that the State Department would need U.S. military troops in Afghanistan to protect them and help them well past 2014.

"Rather than developing our own capabilities, we will be depending on DOD support for functions such as a quick reaction force, personnel recovery, fuel support, explosive ordinance disposal, and medical assistance, by 2015," Kennedy said.

The Cable also asked Kennedy why he testified in a hearing last week that he was "inclined" to support the requests for more security in Libya before the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi that killed Amb. Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Kennedy declined to comment.

HACKED STRATFOR EMAILS: DEA Told To Back Off From The Brother Of Afghan President Hamid Karzai

Business Insider
Michael Kelley

Newly released internal emails from the U.S. private security firm Stratfor state that in 2007 the Bush Administration and CIA ordered the Drug Enforcement Agency to back off a major drug trafficking investigation of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's half brother.

Ahmed Wali Karzai was an influential power broker in Afghanistan before he was assassinated in July 2011.

In June 6, 2007 email, titled "RE: Humint - Afghanistan - Karzai (Strictly Protect - Confidential," Stratfor vice president of intelligence Fred Burton wrote: 

The brother of President Karzai of Afghanistan is under investigation by DEA as a major narcotics trafficker. For political reasons, DEA has been told to backoff [sic] by the White House and CIA. DEA is seeing a direct nexus between terrorism and narcotics in Afghanistan with narcotics sales being used to fund jihadist operations.

After a Stratfor analyst asks "how close is karzai to this brother?" Burton replies:

Was described to me as close. Karzai will end up being another Noreiga.
Off the record --

DEA will proceed and take 'em (both?) down anyway, once this White House disappears. 
As I've said before, every country we have touched, turns to shit.

The crackdown on narcotics in Afghanistan has not yet occurred as opium production rose by about 61 percent from 2010 to 2011 and continued to rise in 2012 as U.S. troops have patrolled the poppy fields during this time.

WikiLeaks has published 2,694 out of what it says is a cache of 5 million internal Stratfor emails (dated between July 2004 and December 2011) obtained by the hacker collective Anonymous around Christmas.

UPDATE: As redditor WhoShotJR notes, current and former American officials told the New York Times in 2009 that Ahmed Karzai received regular payments from the CIA since 2001.

US suspends joint military operations with Afghanistan after attacks

Joint US-Afghan missions halted after US and other Nato soldiers killed in an 'insider attack' on the weekend

Guardian

Chis McGreal

The US military has suspended joint operations with Afghan forces because of a collapse in trust after a surge in the number of Americans and other Nato soldiers killed by the men they are fighting alongside or training.

The chief US military officer, General Martin Dempsey, described the sharp rise in "insider attacks" by rogue Afghan soldiers and policemen, which saw four American and two British soldiers killed at the weekend, as "a very serious threat to the campaign" against the Taliban.

American commanders said that joint operations on the ground will be suspended "until further notice" in a dramatic admission that the strategy to shift responsibility for fighting the insurgents to local forces has been deeply compromised by Afghan government soldiers and policemen killing 51 Nato soldiers in 36 attacks this year. At least 12 attacks were carried out last month alone, leaving 15 dead.

The US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, described the attacks as the "last gasp" of a weakened Taliban. But the admission that Nato troops are no longer safe from the forces they are relying on to keep the Taliban at bay after the final US pullout in 2014 is a severe blow to Washington's military plans.

Under the strategy, members of the soon to be 350,000 strong Afghan security forces gain experience patrolling and fighting alongside American and other foreign soldiers. But the killings have led to a collapse in trust.

The US army said it is "not walking away" from Afghan military units and will continue to advise them. But Nato troops will patrol with them only when specific approval is given by a regional commander.

American officials say the insider attacks are carried out by a mix of Taliban infiltrators dressed as soldiers, by insurgents who have got themselves recruited and Afghan soldiers angry about their treatment because of personal insults or cultural differences.

US commanders had already assigned soldiers to guard their comrades as they slept, ate or interacted with Afghan forces because of the increasing number of "insider killings". American troops were also ordered to carry loaded weapons at all times, even inside their own bases.

Nato attacks on Afghan civilians have added to the strain. In the latest, an air strike killed eight women and girls collecting firewood.

The loss of trust in the force the US is relying on to prevent the Taliban taking control of Afghanistan again, compounds other concerns about Washington's strategy. The additional 33,000 soldiers Barack Obama despatched two years ago as part of the "surge" are expected to complete their withdrawal this week. The remaining 68,000 US troops are supposed to gradually shift responsibility to Afghan forces which, under the American strategy, are to take the lead in combat as early as next year.

But despite gains on the battlefield, questions persist about whether the Afghan forces will have the ability and will to keep an undefeated Taliban at bay once Nato forces have left.

Afghan parliament committees reject partnership pact with US

PressTV

A member of the National Assembly of Afghanistan says the recent strategic partnership agreement signed between the US and Afghanistan has so far been rejected by two parliamentary committees.

Qorban-Ali Erfani said Tuesday that the agreement is being considered by various committees of the assembly and has already been rejected by two of them including the judicial committee for being against the national interests of Afghanistan.

US President Barack Obama and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement in Kabul on May 1, which extends the US presence in Afghanistan to another decade beyond 2014.

The agreement is yet to be approved by the 249-member Afghan Parliament.

Meanwhile, an informed source says that the Afghan government and US Embassy in Kabul are lobbying Afghan lawmakers to encourage them to support the agreement, including by promising financial assistance and US Green Cards to Afghan parliamentarians.

Referring to the recent NATO summit meeting in Chicago on May 20-21, Erfani said the meeting was completely useless.

He stated that although participants talked about the withdrawal of their forces from Afghanistan, ceding responsibility for security affairs to Afghan forces and training them, “such remarks will only be useful when they are followed in practice, which does not seem to be the case.”

The lawmaker said the United States has paid no attention to rebuilding the Afghan army in the past 11 years and has so far avoided providing it with advanced weaponry, including modern planes and helicopters.

All these propaganda, he said, is aimed at influencing the public opinion, but the United States does not aim to make the Afghan army completely self-sufficient. 

Kucinich: "NATO Talks a Sham: War in Afghanistan is Not Ending"

OpEdNews

Washington D.C. (May 21, 2012) -- Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today released the following statement as world leaders meet in Chicago for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit. 

"The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is not a benevolent organization. NATO is not about the North Atlantic and it's not about our collective defense.

"NATO is a cost-sharing organization that finances aggressive military action. By hiding behind the claim that the organization provides for "common defense,' NATO allows us to wage wars of choice under the guise of international peacekeeping. The most recent example was the unconstitutional war in Libya where NATO, operating under a United Nations mandate to protect civilians, instead backed one side in a civil war and pursued a policy of regime change.

"Today, NATO leaders are meeting in Chicago to discuss the future of Afghanistan. The talks are being billed as discussions of plans to end the war. The war in Afghanistan is not ending. These talks are simply about financing the next phase of the war.

"The Strategic Partnership Agreement between the U.S. and Afghanistan commits us to the country for at least another decade, despite public support for the war being at an all time low. The United States will pay for half of the estimated $4.1 billion per year cost of supporting 352,000 Afghan army and police officers. Afghanistan's contribution will be $500,000. The rest will be financed by our "NATO partners.' It is not surprising that support for the war among NATO members is waning, with France threatening to pull out its troops by the end of this year.

"Our participation in NATO comes at a great financial cost to the U.S. We contribute the majority of funds for NATO's common budget, including 25% of the military budget.  Between fiscal years 2010 and 2012 alone, we contributed more than $1.3 billion to NATO's military budget.  We also incur significant costs through the deployment of our forces in support of NATO missions.  According to The Atlantic, the war in Libya cost the United States $1.1 billion.

"NATO was originally founded to provide a strategic counterbalance to the Soviet Union. Its founding purpose no longer exists, but NATO continues to circumvent the authority of the United Nations and to provoke other nations. NATO is an anachronism. Instead of trying to bolster the organization, we should begin serious discussions to dismantle it."

While In Afghanistan Obama Quietly Signed An Important Foreign Policy Deal

Business Insider
Eloise Lee

During President Obama's "surprise visit" to Afghanistan yesterday, he met with President Karzai to sign off on a deal outlining U.S. commitment to Afghanistan beyond 2014.

At the center of the agreement is U.S. funding, year after year, to equip and sustain Afghan security forces. After American troops withdraw, the U.S. will still be bound to the counterinsurgency. The war goes on.

But on page 4, the deal also affirms the U.S. will not set up a permanent military base in Afghanistan and will not use Afghan territory or facilities "as a launching point for attacks against other countries."

Aside from defense commitments and enhanced intelligence sharing, the two countries will strengthen relations with cultural efforts, including cooperation between their universities, and opportunities for Afghan youth and women. This could help ingrain more Western ideals in Afghanistan, or at least bolster some much needed cultural awareness between the two countries. The fight against Islamic extremism, while winning the hearts and minds of the local population, is a delicate and difficult mission that has been handled, at times, roughly over the last decade — causing protests and attacks on U.S. personnel by their own allies.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement following the signing, "It is a further expression of our shared goal of defeating al Qaeda and its extremist affiliates. It is a tangible sign of the strength and the resilience of the partnership that has been built between the United States and the Afghan people."
There's more outlined in the US Afghan Agreement, so check it out here, complete with Obama's and Karzai's signatures below:

US Afghan Pact

AP: U.S. Soldiers Promised Massacre, Including Children, Days Before Bales' Alleged Rampage

War is a Crime
Ralph Lopez

Anatomy of a Massacre - Afghanistan


This article is an update to previous "MSNBC: Evidence of Multiple Shooters, Night Raid in Sgt. Bales Case"

In a striking omission to mainstream coverage of the Afghan massacre which took the lives of 17 Afghans including many children, one as young as two, the AP has reported that US soldiers came to their villages after a roadside bombing two days before and promised retaliation.   The Pentagon has denied that any bombing took place, putting it in direct contradiction to the attorney for Sgt. Robert Bales, who alone is being accused of the rampage.
AP said on March 23d:

"KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Several Afghans near the villages where an American soldier is alleged to have killed 16 civilians say U.S. troops lined them up against a wall after a roadside bombing and told them that they, and even their children, would pay a price for the attack."

The Pentagon updated the number of dead to 17 after initial statements.  The attorney for Bales has long said that before Bales' alleged one-man rampage, he was upset over a close friend having lost a leg to a roadside bomb on March 9th.  The massacre was in the early morning hours of March 11th.
From KKTV Southern Colorado:

"Staff Sgt. Robert Bales met with his attorney, John Henry Browne, for the first time Monday. The meeting, which Browne described as one of the most emotional of his life, lasted three and a half hours....During the meeting, Browne said Bales confirmed a story first recounted by Bales' family, that a friend's leg had been blown off by a roadside bomb. Bales' clarified that it happened two days prior to the Afghan shootings."

AP writes on March 23d:

"One Mokhoyan resident, Ahmad Shah Khan, told The Associated Press that after the bombing, U.S. soldiers and their Afghan army counterparts arrived in his village and made many of the male villagers stand against a wall.

"It looked like they were going to shoot us, and I was very afraid," Khan said. "Then a NATO soldier said through his translator that even our children will pay for this. Now they have done it and taken their revenge."

Neighbors of Khan gave similar accounts to the AP, and several Afghan officials, including Kandahar lawmaker Abdul Rahim Ayubi, said people in the two villages that were attacked told them the same story.

Mohammad Sarwar Usmani, one of several lawmakers who went to the area, said the Afghan National Army had confirmed to him that an explosion occurred near Mokhoyan on March 8.

On March 13, Afghan soldier Abdul Salam showed an AP reporter the site of a blast that made a large crater in the road in Panjwai district of Kandahar province, where the shootings occurred. The soldier said the explosion occurred March 8. Salam said he helped gather men in the village, and that troops spoke to them, but he was not close enough to hear what they said.
....
Ghulam Rasool, a tribal elder from Panjwai district of Kandahar province, where the shootings occurred, gave an account of the bombing at a March 16 meeting in Kabul with President Hamid Karzai.

"After the incident, they took the wreckage of their destroyed tank and their wounded people from the area," Rasool said. "After that, they came back to the village nearby the explosion site.

"The soldiers called all the people to come out of their houses and from the mosque," he said.

"The Americans told the villagers, 'A bomb exploded on our vehicle. ... We will get revenge for this incident by killing at least 20 of your people,""

The reason for the discrepancy between the date given by the soldier and the one given by Bales' attorney for the bombing is not clear.

‘US illegally occupies Afghanistan’

PressTV

The rising number of casualties in Afghanistan has caused widespread anger in the US and members of the Western military alliance of NATO, undermining public support for the US-led war.

As anti-American sentiment is growing among Afghans, the US and Afghanistan government have agreed on a draft for a strategic partnership deal.

The accord, which has not been made public, outlines the US role in the country for a decade after 2014, when most foreign combat forces are expected to leave.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Allen Roland, online columnist, to further discuss the issue. The following is a transcription of the interview.

Press TV: The US has finally made it official to stay in Afghanistan beyond the withdrawal date. Did you see this agreement coming?

Roland: Yes, but remember, first of all, let’s get a couple of things straight, this is not a war in Afghanistan, it’s an illegal occupation. This is not a war in Iraq, it’s an illegal occupation.

The government of Pakistan is illegal like your last [Afghanistan] speaker said. It’s an illegal government setup by the American government. This is all political.

This is Obama’s occupation, not Obama’s war. It’s Obama’s occupation. He’s doing everything to make it seem like we’re making progress right up until his election, if he makes it. I personally feel he will not be reelected.

Everything is going to fall apart after the election. This are [band aids] going on here…

We’re spending two billion dollars a month in Afghanistan, 120 billion dollars last year. There’s a reason Afghanistan is called the ‘graveyard of empires’, it’s going to be the graveyard of the American empire.

Press TV: Your answer basically clarified your views on the Afghan government but still having said that, how can the government of Afghanistan completely ignore the aspirations of its own people, and the rage and anti-American sentiments that Afghans harbor day by day now?

Roland: Remember, this is freedom fighters. The Taliban are freedom fighters. Think of it in those terms, you’ve got the picture. Anything that’s [being a victory], etc, and the slow deterioration of Afghanistan is not being reported in the mainstream press, only in the alternative press.

It’s sinking. It’s a moral [deterioration] that’s happening over there - all the outrageous treatment. The soldiers, most of our military over there, the large majority of them are dealing in drugs with the Taliban.

The Taliban army is no such army. It’s all [a show] to somehow put the impression that we’re winning or we’re on the right track.

We’re not. We’re sinking into the quagmire of Afghanistan. It’s Obama’s occupation. He’s going to go down with it. 

Tensions With Pakistan A New Excuse for Keeping Afghan War Going

US Offers $10 Million for Capture of Head of Banned Pakistani Charity

AntiWar
Jason Ditz

The Obama Administration’s strategy for the war in Afghanistan centers on a policy of securing an agreement with President Hamid Karzai to keep ground troops in the nation through 2024. At the same time, officials have to keep up the public pretense of an imminent drawdown.

The excuses for the drawdown’s delay have usually been that the war is going too well or too poorly to change troop levels. The excuse now, it seems, is “anti-American” sentiment of Pakistan is making the withdrawal inconvenient.

Pakistan has been keeping the border to Afghanistan closed since November in retaliation for a random (and still inexplicable) US attack on a pair of their military bases. The Pakistani government has made reopening the border conditional on the US apologizing and also stopping the drone strikes against the tribal areas.

There was a surprising well of political support for the United States in Pakistan, and it has taken over a decade for the Bush and Obama Administrations to successfully burn through it all. Now, the US is so politically untouchable that Pakistani MPs fear nothing so much as being branded an “ally” of the US.

Though this has been a public relations nightmare for US diplomats and no small source of destabilization in Pakistan, it gives the administration a fresh new excuse for why Afghan troop levels are staying flat, even though there was no indication before the border’s closure that any US troops were going to leave the country by way of Pakistan and it seems a ridiculously unsafe route at any rate.
Of course, keeping Pakistanis so angry that they’ll hold massive anti-US rallies on a near-weekly basis takes some unkeep. To that end, the State Department today announced a $10 million bounty on Hafiz Mohammed Saeed. Saeed, a founding member of the Lashkar-e Taiba is being accused by the US of being behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Saeed is currently the head of a banned charity in Pakistan, the Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD). The group has run afoul of the Pakistani government as many other Islamist charities have, for being a successful foil to the government’s mostly inept attempts at humanitarian efforts. The JuD’s Islamist policies may make them an enemy to be targeted in the West, but the group’s history of charitable effort, particularly in helping refugees from US and Pakistani military adventures, has made them a lot of friends.

Pakistan’s government is unlikely to do much about Saeed either, having tried and failed to tie him to Mumbai and eventually being forced to abandon his house arrest over lack of evidence. The sudden US interest is likely to be one more reason Pakistani officials won’t want to touch him.

US forces raped two women in Kandahar carnage: Probe mission

PressTV

The Afghan parliamentary mission investigating the recent massacre of 16 civilians by US forces in Afghanistan says two women were raped during the deadly incident, Press TV reports.

Two members of the fact-finding mission, Hamidzi Lali and Shakiba Hashemi, told the general meeting of Afghanistan’s parliament on Saturday that the American troopers raped two Afghan women before starting the massacre.

They said between 15 to 20 US soldiers were involved in the carnage.

This is while Washington claims that the 38-year-old Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, who has just arrived in the US, was the only American military personnel responsible for the massacre.

Earlier on Friday, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai criticized the United States for not cooperating with the Afghan fact-finding team and said the killing of civilians by foreign forces in Afghanistan “has been going on for too long.”

On March 11, a group of US soldiers went from house to house in three villages in Kandahar’s Panjwaii district and gunned down Afghan civilians inside their homes, killing at least 16 people -- mostly women and children -- and injuring several others. 

"Massacre carried out by 15 to 20 soldiers"

 

Demorgan
[Translation]

 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai at a meeting with tribal elders and senior officials lashed out at the lack of cooperation from the Americans to the investigation into the massacre of last Sunday.

In connection with the massacre in Panjwai, where at least 16 civilians were killed, showed Karzai is unhappy that the occupying powers attributed the massacre to a single, "runaway" military.  "According to our people, the act is not performed by a single man and it was a conscious and deliberate act," said Karzai.  He suspects that the massacre was a carefully planned action.

The Afghan president, thus confirming the finding of a parliamentary inquiry team that the atrocities were carried out by "fifteen to twenty American soldiers."  According to MP Lali Hamizai the massacre lasted over an hour and was performed by two groups of soldiers. The deaths in two villages, about a mile apart.  From 11 of the 16 victims, the corpses were burned.  Lali would like that the perpetrators be tried in Afghanistan.

On the other hand, he came in a telephone conversation with President Barack Obama agree that the international occupation force itself, as agreed, withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2014 and not, as Karzai Thursday had demanded in 2013.  For his political survival, Karzai is in fact dependent on the U.S..

 

Report: More Than One Shooter in Afghan Murders

Reader Supported News
Ahmad Nadem and Ahmad Haroon, Reuters

Sixteen Afghan civilians, including nine children, were shot dead in what witnesses described as a nighttime massacre on Sunday near a U.S. base in southern Afghanistan, and one U.S. soldier was in custody.

hile U.S. officials rushed to draw a line between the rogue shooting and the ongoing efforts of a U.S. force of around 90,000, the incident is sure to further inflame Afghan anger triggered when U.S. soldiers burned copies of the Koran at a NATO base.

U.S. officials said an American staff sergeant from a unit based in Washington state was in custody after the attack on villagers in three houses. Multiple civilians were also wounded, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) coalition said

President Barack Obama called his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai promising to establish the facts quickly and "to hold fully accountable anyone responsible."

There were conflicting reports of how many shooters were involved, with U.S. officials asserting that a lone soldier was responsible, in contrast to witnesses' accounts that several U.S. soldiers were present.

The incident was one of the worst of its kind since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul said anti-U.S. reprisals were possible following the killings, just as the Koran burning incident a few weeks earlier had touched off widespread anti-Western protests in which at least 30 people died.

Neighbors and relatives of the dead said they had seen a group of U.S. soldiers arrive at their village in Kandahar's Panjwayi district at about 2 a.m., enter homes and open fire.

An Afghan man who said his children were killed in the shooting spree accused soldiers of later burning the bodies.

Obama said he was deeply saddened. "This incident is tragic and shocking and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan," Obama said in a statement.

"Intentional Murders"

Afghan President Karzai condemned the rampage as "intentional murders" and demanded an explanation from the United States. His office said the dead included nine children and three women.

Afghan officials also gave varying accounts of the number of shooters involved. Karzai's office released a statement quoting a villager as saying "American soldiers woke my family up and shot them in the face."

Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs Asadullah Khalid said a U.S. soldier had burst into three homes near his base in the middle of the night, killing a total of 16 people including 11 people in the first house.

U.S. soldier kills 16 Afghans, deepening crisis

Army Times

An armored military vehicle from the NATO-led
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)
is seen at right, as the covered body of a person
who was allegedly killed by a
U.S. service member is seen inside a van
in Panjwai, Kandahar province south of
Kabul, Afghanistan on March 11.

BALANDI, Afghanistan — An American soldier opened fire on villagers near his base in southern Afghanistan Sunday and killed 16 civilians, according to President Hamid Karzai, who called it an “assassination” and furiously demanded an explanation from Washington. Nine children and three women were among the dead.

The killing spree deepened a crisis between U.S. forces and their Afghan hosts over Americans burning Muslim holy books on a base in Afghanistan last month. The Quran burnings sparked weeks of violent protests and attacks that left some 30 dead. Six U.S. service members have been killed by their Afghan colleagues since the burnings came to light, and the violence had just started to calm down.

Related reading

U.S. soldier suspected of Afghan shooting spree (March 11)

“This is an assassination, an intentional killing of innocent civilians and cannot be forgiven,” Karzai said in a statement. He said he has repeatedly demanded the U.S. stop killing Afghan civilians.

President Barack Obama phoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai to express his shock and sadness at the killing and wounding of Afghan civilians. He offered condolences to the grieving families of those killed and to the people of Afghanistan.

In a statement released by the White House, Obama called the attack “tragic and shocking” and not representative of “the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan.” He vowed “to get the facts as quickly as possible and to hold accountable anyone responsible.”

The violence over the Quran burnings had already spurred calls in the U.S. for a faster exit strategy from the 10-year-old Afghan war. Obama even said recently that “now is the time for us to transition.” But he also said he had no plan to change the current timetable that has Afghans taking control of security countrywide by the end of 2014.

In the wake of the Quran burnings, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, visited troops at a base that was attacked last month and urged them not to give in to the impulse for revenge.

Soldiers just back from Iraq get new orders: Afghanistan

CNN
Chelsea J. Carter

Soldiers who just returned from Iraq are among several thousand being ordered to Afghanistan in six months as part of a mission designed to beef up Afghan forces ahead of a planned 2014 U.S. military withdrawal, officials said.


News of the pending Afghanistan deployments came as families at bases across the country were celebrating the return in recent days of troops who turned off the lights at a number of U.S. bases ahead of an end-of-the-year deadline to leave Iraq.

U.S. general brings Baghdad standard home

"We are glad that we have brought all soldiers back home in time for Christmas to spend with loved ones. We do have to put information out about an upcoming mission, though," the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, said Tuesday on its Facebook Page.

In the posting, the brigade said it was one of four selected to "support a Security Force Assistance Mission to Afghanistan in early summer."

"We just received initial planning orders so lots of details are unknown," it said. "...The mission is part of the transition from combat operations to advisory mission as we did in Iraq and is a sign of progress."

Analysts: Questions remain as U.S. troops leave Iraq

Maj. Carla Thomas, a brigade spokeswoman, confirmed the validity of the Facebook announcement.
The new mission is part of an overall U.S. military exit strategy from Afghanistan that moves troops from a combat role to advise-and-assist positions that commanders and analysts say will significantly scale back operations ahead of President Barack Obama's self-imposed deadline to leave the country.
Earlier this year, the United States outlined its plan to withdraw its troops, beginning by pulling 33,000 "surge" troops deployed to help quell the violence by the end of 2012. The remaining 68,000 troops would be withdrawn by the end of 2014.

News of the deployments comes as the Obama administration pushes to accelerate the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, a plan that many military commanders have said is unreasonable in a country still trying to gain its security footing.

America's Endless Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

Global Research
Jack A. Smith

The 10th anniversary of Washington's invasion, occupation and seemingly endless war in Afghanistan was observed Oct. 7, but despite President Barack Obama's pledge to terminate the U.S. "combat mission" by the end of 2014, American military involvement will continue many years longer.

The Afghan war is expanding even further, not only with increasing drone attacks in neighboring Pakistani territory but because of U.S. threats to take far greater unilateral military action within Pakistan unless the Islamabad government roots out "extremists" and cracks down harder on cross-border fighters.

Washington's tone was so threatening that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had to assure the Pakistani press Oct. 21 that the U.S. did not plan a ground offensive against Pakistan. The next day, Afghan President Hamid Karzai shocked Washington by declaring "God forbid, If ever there is a war between Pakistan and America, Afghanistan will side with Pakistan.... If Pakistan is attacked and if the people of Pakistan needs Afghanistan’s help, Afghanistan will be there with you.”

At the same time, Washington has just suffered a spectacular setback in Iraq, where the Obama Administration has been applying extraordinary pressure on the Baghdad government for over a year to permit many thousands of U.S. troops to remain indefinitely after all American forces are supposed to withdraw at the end of this year.

President Obama received the Iraqi government's rejection from Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki Oct. 21, and promptly issued a public statement intended to completely conceal the fact that a long-sought U.S. goal has just been obliterated, causing considerable disruption to U.S. plans. Obama made a virtue of necessity by stressing that "Today, I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year."

This article will first discuss the situation in Afghanistan after 10 years, then take up the Iraq question and what the U.S. may do to compensate for a humiliating and disruptive rebuff.

The United States is well aware it will never win a decisive victory in Afghanistan. At this point, the Obama Administration is anxious to convert the military stalemate into a form of permanent truce, if only the Taliban were willing to accept what amounts to a power sharing deal that would allow Washington to claim the semblance of success after a decade of war.

In addition President Obama seeks to retain a large post-"withdrawal" military presence throughout the country mainly for these reasons:

• To protect its client regime in Kabul led by Karzai, as well as Washington's other political an commercial interests in the country, and to maintain a menacing military presence on Iran's eastern border, especially if U.S. troops cannot now remain in Iraq.

• To retain territory in Central Asia for U.S. and NATO military forces positioned close to what Washington perceives to be its two main (though never publicly identified) enemies — China and Russia — at a time when the American government is increasing its political pressure on both countries. Obama is intent upon transforming NATO from a regional into a global adjunct to Washington's quest for retaining and extending world hegemony. NATO's recent victory in Libya is a big advance for U.S. ambitions in Africa, even if the bulk of commercial spoils go to France and England. A permanent NATO presence in Central Asia is a logical next step. In essence, Washington's geopolitical focus is expanding from the Middle East to Central Asia and Africa in the quest for resources, military expansion and unassailable hegemony, especially from the political and economic challenge of rising nations of the global south, led China.

There has been an element of public deception about withdrawing U.S. "combat troops" from Iraq and Afghanistan dating from the first Obama election campaign in 2007-8. Combat troops belong to combat brigades. In a variant of bait-and-switch trickery, the White House reported that all combat brigades departed Iraq in August 2010. Technically this is true, because those that did not depart were simply renamed "advise and assist brigades." According to a 2009 Army field manual such brigades are entirely capable, "if necessary," of shifting from "security force assistance" back to combat duties.

In Afghanistan, after the theoretical pullout date, it is probable that many "advise and assist brigades" will remain along with a large complement of elite Joint Special Operations Forces strike teams (SEALs, Green Berets, etc.) and other officially "non-combat" units — from the CIA, drone operators, fighter pilots, government security employees plus "contractor security" personnel, including mercenaries. Thousands of other "non-combat" American soldiers will remain to train the Afghan army.

According to an Oct. 8 Associated Press dispatch, "Senior U.S. officials have spoken of keeping a mix of 10,000 such [special operations-type] forces in Afghanistan, and drawing down to between 20,000 and 30,000 conventional forces to provide logistics and support. But at this point, the figures are as fuzzy as the future strategy." Estimates of how long the Pentagon will remain in Afghanistan range from 2017 to 2024 to "indefinitely."

Obama marked the 10th anniversary with a public statement alleging that "Thanks to the extraordinary service of these [military] Americans, our citizens are safer and our nation is more secure"— the most recent of the continuous praise of war-fighters and the conduct of these wars of choice from the White House since the 2001 bombing, invasion and occupation.

Just two days earlier a surprising Pew Social Trend poll of post-9/11 veterans was made public casting doubt about such a characterization. Half the vets said the Afghanistan war wasn't worth fighting in terms of benefits and costs to the U.S. Only 44% thought the Iraq war was worth fighting. One-third opined that both wars were not worth waging. Opposition to the wars has been higher among the U.S. civilian population. But it's unusual in a non-conscript army for its veterans to emerge with such views about the wars they volunteered to fight.

The U.S. and its NATO allies issued an unusually optimistic assessment of the Afghan war on Oct. 15, but it immediately drew widespread skepticism. According to the New York Times the next day, "Despite a sharp increase in assassinations and a continuing flood of civilian casualties, NATO officials said that they had reversed the momentum of the Taliban insurgency as enemy attacks were falling for the first time in years.... [This verdict] runs counter to dimmer appraisals from some Afghan officials and other international agencies, including the United Nations. With the United States preparing to withdraw 10,000 troops by the end of this year and 23,000 more by next October, it raises questions about whether NATO’s claims of success can be sustained."

Less than two weeks earlier German Gen. Harald Kujat, who planned his country's military support mission in Afghanistan, declared that "the mission fulfilled the political aim of showing solidarity with the United States. But if you measure progress against the goal of stabilizing a country and a region, then the mission has failed."

Afghanistan to back Pakistan if wars with U.S.: Karzai

MSNBC

ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan would support Pakistan in case of military conflict between Pakistan and the United States, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview to a private Pakistani TV channel broadcast on Saturday.

The remarks were in sharp contrast to recent tension between the two neighbors over cross-border raids, and Afghan accusations that Pakistan was involved in killing the chief Afghan peace envoy, former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, by a suicide bomber on September 20.

"God forbid, If ever there is a war between Pakistan and America, Afghanistan will side with Pakistan," he said in the interview to Geo television.

"If Pakistan is attacked and if the people of Pakistan needs Afghanistan's help, Afghanistan will be there with you."

Such a situation is extremely unlikely, however. Despite months of tension and tough talk between Washington and Islamabad, the two allies appear to be working to ease tension.

In a two-day visit to Islamabad, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued stern warnings and asked for more cooperation in winding down the war in Afghanistan, but ruled out "boots on the ground" in North Waziristan, where Washington has been pushing Pakistan to tackle the Haqqani network.

The Haqqani are a group of militants Washington has blamed for a series of attacks in Afghanistan, using sanctuaries in the Pakistani tribal region along the Afghan border.

Afghan peace council head killed in Kabul

(Reuters) - A Taliban suicide bomber on Tuesday killed former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani and head of a council tasked with trying to negotiate a political end to the war, in what analysts called a blow to peace efforts.

The killing underscored doubts over the ability of fledgling Afghan security forces to protect even the most prominent politicians as U.S.-led forces ready to pull out by 2014.

"A Taliban member who went to Rabbani's house (in the heavily guarded diplomatic enclave) for peace talks detonated a bomb hidden in his turban," a statement by the Kabul police chief's office said.

President Barack Obama called the killing of Rabbani, head of Afghanistan's High Peace Council, a tragic loss but said work needed to continue to bring elements of Afghan society together to end the years of violence.

A police source said Masoom Stanekzai, a senior adviser to President Hamid Karzai, was badly injured in the attack.

It was the highest profile assassination in Afghanistan since the younger half-brother of President Hamid Karzai, Ahmad Wali Karzai, was killed at his home in July by a highly trusted family security guard.

It also came just a week after a deadly 20-hour siege by militants in the fortified capital, which illustrated the strength of the Taliban after nearly a decade of war.

"The killing of Rabbani is a serious blow against President Karzai and the government's peace and reconciliations efforts. It also underscores the inability of the government to protect even the most prominent Afghan politicians," one diplomat said.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility, saying that the killer had gone to Rabbani's home for talks.

"As soon as Rabbani came three steps forward to hug Mohammad Masoom, he triggered his explosive-filled jacket killing Rabbani, (another) Taliban militant Wahid Yar and four security guards present at the house," he told Reuters.

Commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, General John R. Allen, called the killing "another outrageous indicator that, regardless of what Taliban leadership outside the country say, they do not want peace, but rather war."

"WILL NOT DETER US"

President Karzai, at the start of talks with Obama on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, said Rabbani's death "will not deter us" from continuing the quest for peace.

Karzai, meeting Obama for the first time since the U.S. president announced a troop drawdown plan earlier this year, planned to cut short his New York visit to return home.

"It is a tragic loss," Obama said with Karzai at his side. "We both believe that despite this incident, we will not be deterred from creating a path whereby Afghans can live in freedom, safety and security and prosperity."

"It is going to be important to continue the efforts to bring all of the elements in Afghanistan society together to end the senseless cycle of violence," he said.

Rabbani, a former leader of a powerful mujahideen party during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, was chosen last October by Karzai to head the High Peace Council.

His plan included offering amnesty and jobs to Taliban foot soldiers and asylum in third countries to leaders.

The assassination comes after a series of suicide bombings and other major attacks believed to be the work of the Haqqani network, a Taliban-allied insurgent faction based along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

One analyst said the peace council had not been seen as effective and that Rabbani himself was viewed by many as an impediment to a deal because he was so loathed by the Taliban.

"But, his assassination might mean that the networks Rabbani led or influenced within Afghanistan .... may resist a deal with the Taliban even more," said Caroline Wadhams, a security expert at the Center for American Progress in Washington.

"It could make it that much more difficult to get greater buy-in from key Afghan leaders, who have been deeply skeptical of talks with the Taliban for some time."

Vali Nasr, a former senior official in the State Department's Afghanistan/Pakistan office, said: "The Taliban wants to send a very powerful message that the Karzai government is not in charge."

"That is important because people begin to waver and shift their allegiances ... And it makes it very difficult to say the Taliban is serious about negotiations if they keep killing people they should be negotiating with," Nasr said.

Rabbani served as president in the 1990s when mujahideen factions waged war for control of the country after the Soviet withdrawal.

As a leading figure among Tajiks, the second largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, there were also concerns his death could worsen ethnic tensions.

The assassination comes a week after a 20-hour gun and grenade attack on Kabul's diplomatic enclave by insurgents, and three suicide bomb attacks on other parts of the city -- together the longest-lasting and most wide-ranging assault on the city.

Last week's siege was the third major attack on the Afghan capital since June.

All three of those attacks are believed to be the work of the Haqqani network, a Taliban-allied insurgent faction, based along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

US-led troops kill more Afghan civilians

PressTV

At least three Afghan civilians have been killed in an attack by US-led foreign forces in troubled northeastern Afghanistan, local authorities say. 

The incident happened as US-led French troops opened fire on a vehicle in the Nijrab district of Afghanistan's Kapisa Province, a Press TV correspondent reported on Wednesday.

Najrab District Chief, Sultan Mohammad Safi, said a woman and a child were among the victims.

So far, US-led French troops have remained silent on the shooting which also injured several individuals.

There has recently been a surge in civilian casualties resulting from attacks by US-led foreign troops in Afghanistan. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in US-led airstrikes and ground operations in various parts of Afghanistan over the past few months.

Civilian casualties by US-led foreign forces have also been a major source of friction between Kabul and Washington.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly condemned the attacks and called on US-led foreign forces to stop killing civilians.

Afghans have held several angry protests against NATO over the issue of civilian casualties.

The invasion of Afghanistan took place with the official objective of curbing militancy and bringing peace and stability to the country. More than nine years on, however, Afghanistan remains unstable and civilians continue to pay the price.
 

Breaking: Karzai blocking probe of missing U.S. $billions in Afghanistan

Examiner
Jim Kouri

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is blocking efforts by U.S. officials to locate billions of dollars given to aid Afghanistan's economy, stymieing efforts to combat money laundering of drug money, corruption and funding terrorists.

 

Karzai is prohibiting U.S. Treasury agents from accessing the Afghan government's central bank by allowing and even contributing to “hostile working conditions” for advisers there, according to a new report by the U.S. Inspector General's Office for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

“The United States has poured billions of aid dollars into a country plagued by corruption, insurgency and the narcotics trade,” Inspector General Herbert Richardson told reporters.

Afghanistan must become a “full partner” fighting corruption, he told U.S. news media such as Fox News' national security correspondent Catherine Herridge.

Two months ago, the Law Enforcement Examiner reported on what had been characterized as the largest theft of funds in U.S. history, taxpayers' money earmarked for Iraq had disappeared, according to a Washington, D.C., public-interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse.

In a mind-boggling example of government corruption, billions of dollars flown to Iraq for post-invasion “reconstruction” have vanished and may never be recovered, say officials from Judicial Watch.

Bundled in chunks of $100 bills, the cash was sent from the United States to Iraq in turboprop military cargo planes known as C-130 Hercules. About $2.4 billion fit in each aircraft and 21 flights made trips, transporting a total of $12 billion in American currency to Iraq by 2004

For years federal audits have determined that more than half of that money could not located by auditors, but there seemed to be some hope that some of the funds could be retrieved.

Karzai assassin had been CIA contact

Afghan President Hamid Karzai attended
trilateral talks with Pakistan's President
Asif Ali Zardari (unseen) and Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (unseen) in
the presidential palace in Tehran, Iran
on June 24, 2011. Karzai scheduled to
participate in the Global Fight against
Terrorism International Summit which will be held
on June 25 and 26 in Tehran, Iran.

UPI

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 16 (UPI) -- The guard who assassinated Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother was a trusted CIA contact before he joined forces with the Taliban, The Independent reported.

Sardar MohaHmmad, who shot Ahmed Wali Karzai Tuesday in Kandahar, also attended regular meetings with U.K. officials, and two of his brothers-in-law worked in a CIA-run paramilitary unit, the newspaper said.

Mohammad's action was initially believed to be motivated by personal circumstances, but security officials soon learned Taliban intelligence operatives had infiltrated Afghan security and reached Karzai's innermost circle.

The insurgents "get these very big victories quite often and I think probably we underestimate the [Taliban's] intelligence components," one Western analyst told the newspaper.

"Our investigation shows that for the last three months he was acting out of character, not normal, erratic," said Mahmoud Karzai, another of Karzai's brothers.

"He wasn't sleeping, he was nervous, he was getting phone calls in the middle of the night, and our information shows he made a trip to Quetta [in Pakistan] and met with some Taliban. His father was a mullah. So all these things combined, plus the Taliban claim of responsibility ... but our preliminary investigation indicates this was the work of the Taliban."

The Washington Post reported Ahmed Wali Karzai met with Mohammad six days a week and had even taken his mother to Mohammad's house.