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POPSOpium, Rape and the American Way
Truth from the women in Afghanistan: (read the whole article for the real story) "In eight years less than 2,000 Talib have been killed and more than 8,000 innocent civilians has been killed," she went on. "We believe that this is not war on terror. This is war on innocent civilians. Look at the massacres carried out by NATO forces in Afghanistan. Look what they did in May in the Farah province, where more than 150 civilians were killed, most of them women and children. They used white phosphorus and cluster bombs. There were 200 civilians on 9th of September killed in the Kunduz province, again most of them women and children. You can see the Web site of professor Marc Herold, this democratic man, to know better the war crimes in Afghanistan imposed on our people. The United States and NATO eight years ago occupied my country under the banner of woman's rights and democracy. But they have only pushed us from the frying pan into the fire. They put into power men who are photocopies o
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POPS Bush Bad Most important, the American people will quickly lose faith in a war that they conclude their Commander in Chief is ambivalent about fighting. Reports of puzzled commanders and troops in the field are already multiplying as they wonder why they’re risking death by IED if Mr. Obama isn’t sure about the mission. AP, apparently getting it: “Karzai’s election increases pressure on Obama.” It’s getting bad when even the AP wants to know what gives with the “marathon deliberations.” GOP’s Boehner actually gets in the first and only opinion on those deliberations in this AP article … “The White House has no further pretext for delaying the decision on giving Gen. McChrystal the resources he needs” … a highlighting which I can assure you, based on long experience reading between AP’s lines, is not insignificant.
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POPS Hunt For 9.11 Killers Finds Trail In Pakistan
where his trail was just picked up by the Pakistan forces clearing out the hornet’s nest that is South Waziristan Agency: The suspected 9/11 plotter whose German passport was found in a mud hut in western Pakistan this week has not been in touch with his family for two years, his mother, Anneliese Bahaji, said in an telephone interview Friday. The Pakistani military said it found his German passport five days ago in a mud hut in the village of Sherwangai in South Waziristan, during a search operation. To me this is a good sign that Pakistan, US, NATO, Afghan forces are circling the last remnants of the al Qaeda brain trust and that we may finally get our hands on some long sought targets. Since being pushed out of Afghanistan, it has been my contention al Qaeda has been holed up in the tribal areas of Pakistan. This evidence, however, is a clear indication we may be marching to the big nest of bad guys. The violent responses in Pakistan to the military actions indicate we
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POPSMurderous US drones condemned by UN. Americans who are confused by the grotesque transformation of the modest aim of capturing a few bad men into a conflagration that has destroyed the lives of millions echo the Guardian of the 1920s, which asked why the British government had to send "all this machinery, all these forces...if we were establishing a political system on the basis of popular consent?" Without distinguishing between drones that protect our troops and those that drop bombs and hover menacingly over an occupied people, The Economist taunts, "like them or not, drones are here to stay." Now, who are the terrorists here and which is the rogue state ?
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POPSCIA and the U.S. "War On Drugs" Doublespeak
This is a classic case of "Forked Tongue". The following is from the article. "This is a pattern for the CIA. In an earlier era they were in partnership with a different set of drug dealers in South America. These drug dealers were interested in selling cocaine and the CIA needed money to finance its secret wars against the people of South and Central America. A natural alliance evolved between cocaine cartels and the CIA, since both had identical interests, namely to crush any popular government that considered land reform or nationalization of industries." One of the more prominent drug dealers in that story was Manuel Noriega, Panama’s military strongman. Noriega was on CIA payroll from the 1950’s until the mid-80’s. He was also a coke dealer, an ally of Pablo Escobar of the Medellin Cartel. The CIA needed some extra cash to fund its covert operations against freely elected governments in South America, notably Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega (who was freely elected again in 200
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POPSAfghan Pres. Karzai's Brother on CIA Payroll Watch for an overthrow of the Karzai puppet government in total. Even Pres. Karzai (propped up in Congress by Bush in post-9/11 addresses) has become caught between U.S. and Afghan native interests, and increasingly at odds with U.S. military and the White House.
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POPSZinnie to Obama: Time's Up on Afghanistan Decision If Zinni is calling for more troops Now then things are more serious than we're hearing. And I bet he didn't use the word "dillydallying". I just read that 8 US soldiers were killed today by roadside bombs. Either support our people there or throw our integrity to the wind and leave.
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POPSThe Flip Flop is back Same old Kerry. He was for the war before he was against it. Kind of like our cowardly president votes "present" rather than take a stand.
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POPSAfghanistan: 'No Democracy~Just Islam' and Burn Obama Effigy Afghan university students shout anti-US slogans and hold a banner reading 'No Democracy; We want just Islam!' during a demonstration in Kabul on October 25, 2009. ISLAMIZATION WATCH More than 100,000 foreign troops are battling a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, where violence this year reached its highest level since the austere Islamists were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in 2001. Thick plumes of smoke rose above the crowd as protesters set fire to a large effigy of what they said was U.S. President Barack Obama. "Death to America. Down with Israel," chanted one man at the rally, which was organized mainly by university students. Others threw stones and clashed with police but no casualties were reported. "No to democracy. We just want Islam," said one banner carried by protesters, many of whom shook their fists in the air. Captain Elizabeth Mathias, a media officer for U.S. and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan,
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POPSThe Cost of Delay And the Commander-in-Chief is deliberately placing the lives of those already in Afghanistan by failing to give them the extra support they need.
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POPSMalalai Joya, Afghanistan Woman Speaks Out For expressing my views I have been expelled from my seat in parliament, and I have survived numerous assassination attempts. The fact that I was kicked out of office while brutal warlords enjoyed immunity from prosecution for their crimes should tell you all you need to know about the "democracy" backed by Nato troops. In the constitution it forbids those guilty of war crimes from running for high office. Yet Karzai has named two notorious warlords, Fahim and Khalili, as his running mates for the upcoming presidential election. Under the shadow of warlordism, corruption and occupation, this vote will have no legitimacy, and once again it seems the real choice will be made behind closed doors in the White House. As we say in Afghanistan, "the same donkey with a new saddle".
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POPSUS Marines facing reality
They ought to read this blog, they and their inept and idiotic political masters. I had a US former Marine Sgt work for me in Namibia. He could not understand that his two year enlistment did nowhere equate to that of a 15 year regular soldier. Very few of the lessons in soldiering can be gained from the library of military literature. They are gained in the field, from those who have experienced all that service has to offer. The British made an enormous mistake when, after the Falklands, the major slice of experienced senior nco's were forcibly retired. That single instrument allowed second class senior officers to kowtow to their political masters, with disastrous procurement of everything essential from personal weapons to food, through footwear to transport. When General Jackson and his cronies were feathering their pension pots, the skills and loyalty of the squaddie were evaporating on a maelstrom of political correctness and Health & Safety. I heard not a beep out of th
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POPSThe Obama-McChrystal Gap He answered, “I’m always worried about using the word “victory” because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur.” … Obama either doesn’t understand " or, worse " doesn’t take seriously McChrystal’s report when it says, “While not a war in the conventional sense, the conflict in Afghanistan demands a similar focus and an equal level of effort, and the consequences of failing are just as grave.” Obama is neither smarter nor more politically astute than his generals. He tried to snooker McChrystal by requiring the general to send three options for Afghanistan catalogued as “low”, “moderate” and “high” risk. That way, he thought, he could accept a lower number of troops to be sent and still say that he followed McChrystal’s advice. But the general " seeing through that (according to a senior House member who I spoke to last week) " beat the president at his own game. The “moderate risk plan . . .
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POPSThe Long Road to Indecision (we need a "Decider") selecting Gen. Stanley McChrystal to implement it, the administration began to get very cold feet about the war it had described as a strategic necessity. Consider this quick timeline: March 27 . Accompanied by Gen. David Petraeus, author of the Iraq “surge” and head of U.S. Central Command, President Obama announces the conclusion of the “Af-Pak” review: a “comprehensive strategy” to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda” and “combat insurgents”"i.e., the Taliban. May 11 . McKiernan is fired and replaced by Gen. Stanley McChrystal. “We have a new strategy, a new mission and a new ambassador. Late June . Traveling in Afghanistan with Bob Woodward"who has by now simply opened an office in the West Wing"National Security Adviser (and ex-Marine general) Jim Jones tells on-the-ground commanders “that the Obama administration wants to hold troop levels here flat for now, . . .
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POPSPakistan Dawn, Pakistan Trutherism Obama's military problem is getting worse President Obama is presiding over a slow-motion civil-military crash occasioned by his meandering Afghanistan strategy review. The crash has not yet happened and is avoidable, but it also foreseeable. Of concern, the latest reports out of the White House suggest that Obama's team is not yet fully aware of the dangers. If it happens, it will be a problem entirely of Obama's own making and it could have a lasting impact on the way his administration unfolds. As Rich Lowry has observed, President Obama rarely misses a chance to blame a challenge he is confronting on his predecessor. This rhetorical tic served Obama well during the campaign and probably still resonates with partisans who post anonymous comments on blogs or who suffer from chronic Bush Derangement Syndrome. . . .
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POPSBomber Strikes at Pakistan Air Force On Thursday morning, a senior army officer, Brig. Moinuddin Haider, was assassinated by two gunmen who attacked his jeep during rush-hour traffic in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. The Taliban had warned before the start of the campaign in South Waziristan that they planned to unleash attacks against Pakistan’s military assets. The Taliban attacked the headquarters of the Pakistani Army, in Rawalpindi, in a commando-style raid on October 10. The insurgents took more than 40 civilians and soldiers hostage for 20 hours, and more than 20 people were killed in the siege.
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POPSThe Other Thing Obama Inherited But rapidly deteriorating conditions and a widely disputed and unresolved election in Afghanistan gave the Obama administration pause and led to the current policy review. “Having announced his Afghanistan strategy last March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission,” (Cheney) said, calling on Obama to fulfill a promise he made in August to armed forces in a speech at the VFW to give them the support and resources need to get the job done. “It’s time for President Obama to make good on his promise,” he said. “The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger.” “Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries,” he added. “Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.”
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POPSWaziristan Displaced Crave for Help "“Everyone was running from here to there to get transport. Through there were a few vehicles owned by local people they were useless because of the curfew as all main roads are closed for traffic,” he added. “All had to travel on feet to reach here, with women carrying their kids and men carrying their belongings on their heads and shoulders.” Khan said the journey was difficult. “We would rest for a few minutes after every two to three hours as we could not risk our lives due to the bombings and artillery shelling.” The UN Higher Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) says that around 250,000 out of South Waziristan’s total population of 800,000 left. However, independent sources believe 60 percent of the populace has been displaced in the new operation."
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