Obama finally gets to have his own war!

[Imbar]

Afghan death toll more than doubles in 2009


January 1, 2010



(AP)

U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan doubled in 2009 compared with a year ago as 30,000 additional troops began pouring in for a stepped-up offensive and the Taliban fought back with powerful improvised bombs.
A tally by The Associated Press shows 304 American service members had died as of Dec. 30, up from 151 in 2008. The count does not include eight U.S. civilians killed by a suicide bomber on a base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday.

Also, the annual death toll of international troops, including U.S. forces, surpassed 500 for the first time in the war. The total this year was 502 compared with 286 in 2008, according to AP’s count.

Among other forces, Britain took the worst blow in 2009 with 107 deaths and Canada lost 32, including four who died Wednesday when their vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb. Other countries in the international military operation lost a total of 59 service members.

U.S. military officials acknowledge that the insurgency has the momentum and that more troops on the battlefield means the death toll is likely to remain high in the near term. Another 30,000 reinforcements are due in coming months, raising the American presence to 100,000.

In contrast, U.S. deaths in Iraq dropped by half as troops largely remained on bases and the United States prepares to withdraw from that country by the end of 2011. There, 152 American service members died, down from 314 a year earlier, according to figures compiled by AP from Defense Department information.

The sharply rising death toll in Afghanistan was an obstacle for President Barack Obama as he decided in November to send more forces to the war, which is increasingly unpopular in both America and Europe.

Afghan civilian deaths are more difficult to track, but according to the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, 2,021 were killed in the first 10 months of the year, nearly 1,400 of them by insurgents and 465 by U.S. and other pro-government forces.

Over the past eight years, at least 933 U.S. service members have died in the military campaign that was launched in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to U.S. Defense Department figures that include deaths in Pakistan, Uzbekistan and support operations elsewhere.
As the second surge gets underway, the potential carnage troops face from improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, is a major worry.

The AP count, based on daily reports from NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, found that 129 of the U.S. fatalities in 2009 — or more than 40 percent — were caused by IEDs. The homemade bombs are hidden along the roadside or near buildings and detonated by remote control or triggered when troops cross simple pressure plates.

The Taliban were slower than Iraqi insurgents to adopt IEDs, but they now appear to be the weapon of choice against the Americans’ superior artillery and armored vehicles, said a senior intelligence official with the international force. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

There were more than 7,000 IED incidents in 2009 — including explosions, the discovery and defusing of the bombs or civilians turning them in — compared to just 81 in 2003, the official said.

He estimated that more than three-quarters of all American deaths and injuries in Afghanistan were due to the improvised explosives.

IEDs also take a harsh toll on civilians. In the last four months of the year, 117 were killed by the devices, either deliberately or inadvertently, including 30 who died when a bus ran over an IED in September.

Although the Defense Department established a body in 2006 to oversee anti-IED efforts, a report by the Government Accountability Office in October criticized it for lacking “full visibility and coordination.”

The Defense Department’s top weapons-buyer, Ashton Carter, told reporters in November that the United States was “just beginning to get set” in developing a full-scale strategy against the bombs.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced in November that a new task force on the matter was being formed.

One initiative underway is shipping a more maneuverable version of the heavily armored vehicles known as MRAPs — Mine Resistant Ambush Protected — to Afghanistan. Although these can withstand blasts better than other military vehicles such as Humvees and Strykers, the Taliban are responding by building bigger IEDs.

The intelligence official said that 18 months ago, the explosive charges typically weighed about 25 pounds, but charge weights in some recent cases have been upward of 1,000 pounds — enough to destroy an MRAP.

—————
Associated Press writers Rahim Faiez and Deb Riechmann in Kabul and Rebecca Santana in Baghdad contributed to this report.

[Imbar]

(Sigh)



Courts-Martial for Navy SEAL Heroes Moved to Iraq Despite Pressure, Questions

13. Jan, 2010




NORFOLK – Unlike his two comrades, the third Navy SEAL accused of mistreating a suspected terrorist will not be tried in Iraq, a military judge ruled Wednesday.

The court-martial for Special Warfare Operator 2nd Class Matthew McCabe will be held May 3 at Naval Station Norfolk, said Navy Capt. Moira Modzelewski.

Attorneys for McCabe declined to comment after the hearing.
McCabe is accused of punching terror suspect Ahmed Hashim Abed in the stomach while Abed was in U.S. custody. Authorities believe Abed planned the March 2004 ambush and massacre of four Blackwater employees in Fallujah, Iraq. The victims’ bodies were later hanged for the world press to photograph.

The two other SEALs who face charges are Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Julio Huertas and Special Warfare Operator 2nd Class Jonathan Keefe, who is from Yorktown.
All three are based in Norfolk.

The Huertas and Keefe trials are set for April in Iraq. Because Abed is being held in Iraq, the two SEALs will have the chance to confront him in open court. The opportunity for face-to-face questioning — instead of relying on taped deposition — was the reason for the change of location.
The change-of-location decision came from the judge who presided over those two cases: Navy Cmdr. Tierney Carlos.
All three SEALs are charged with dereliction of duty and making false official statements.

Huertas is also charged with impeding the investigation by trying to influence the testimony of a witness.

Prosecutors wanted to keep all three cases tied together, and because the McCabe case was originally set for Jan. 19 in Norfolk, they sought to continue it..

Norfolk, not Iraq, selected as site for third SEAL trial - dailypress.com

[Imbar]

You Can Take That To The Bank

YouTube- Obama Promise To End The War, 2007 - "You Can Take That To The Bank"

YouTube- Obama Promise To End The War, 2007 - "You Can Take That To The Bank"

But whose bank? Haliburton's?

Or his bank?

Or this bank?

What's that about voting again? How about that change? The blight wing is already crying about not enough troops, but this strategy is a mirror image of the Iraqi Surge. What does that mean? It means that the Great Satan is going to pay off the tribal leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That's right. One of the tactics in this strategy is that Satan's filthy lucre won't go directly to the Afghan central government. The Greatest of all Satans knows that the love of money is the root of all evil, and money corrupts. Everyone has their price. Just look at Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, while the cost of every soldier will approach GSD (Great Satan Dollar) 1 million, White folks all over the country are losing everything:

Health care benefit for the jobless to soon end
By Patrick May

Posted: 12/01/2009 05:15:41 PM PST
Updated: 12/01/2009 05:33:41 PM PST


Jim Kvek packs the family belongings in his San Jose home... (Patrick Tehan, Bay Area News Group)«1234»The happy holidays just got a little unhappier for Jim Kvek.

After losing his job in February, and now facing a possible foreclosure sale of his San Jose house three days before Christmas, the unemployed operations manager learned Tuesday that his monthly government-subsidized health insurance premiums will immediately jump 65 percent to $775.

Kvek, along with thousands of other Americans, will have to pay a lot more for COBRA, the federal program that allows workers to keep their company's health insurance plan after they leave their job. The reduced-cost premiums, one of the goodies in the economic stimulus package signed by President Barack Obama in February, stopped Tuesday for the first wave of recipients.

"I don't have the $500 extra dollars and I'll have to find somebody to borrow the money from before I lose my coverage," said Kvek, 61, who suffers from Parkinson's disease. "This is a huge hardship for me, and I have no Plan B."

Anyone have a Plan B?

[Imbar]

Might as well mix it up a bit:


(Telegraph)

February 1, 2010

Taiwan’s envoy to the US has claimed Washington is still considering whether to add fighter jets and submarines to the £4 billion weapons package it intends to sell the island.

The comments by Jason Yuan will further fuel the escalating row between the US and China, which responded furiously to the arms deal at the weekend by suspending military exchanges with the US and slapping sanctions on the companies supplying the weapons.

Washington has already agreed to sell 114 Patriot anti-missile batteries, 60 Blackhawk helicopters and two minesweepers to Taiwan. But Mr Yuan, Taipei’s de facto ambassador to the US, said F16 fighter jets and submarines may yet be included.

“The US government is expected to complete its evaluation report on Taiwan’s military strength in a week or two. Until then it will be considering the issues, like the type of aircraft and the design of the submarines,” said Mr Yuan in a statement quoted by Taiwan’s Central News Agency.
His remarks are certain to enrage Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province and part of China’s territory. Chinese officials continued to denounce the proposed arms sale, which was submitted to the US Congress for approval on Friday. Yang Jiechi, China’s foreign minister, said the US move “had damaged China’s national security”.

He called on Washington to “truly respect China’s core interests and major concerns, and immediately rescind the mistaken decision”.

The US has sought to diffuse the row by claiming that the arms are needed to maintain the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, the world’s most militarised waters. China is believed to have up to 1,500 missiles aimed at Taiwan and has refused to rule out retaking the island by force.

P J Crowley, a State Department spokesman, said: “We believe our policy contributes to stability and security in the region.”

Taiwan has been self-governing since 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party took control of mainland China. Under a 1979 Act of Congress, Washington is legally obliged to help Taiwan defend itself. That responsibility extends only to supplying defensive weapons, which makes it highly unlikely that the US will risk further damage to its relationship with Beijing by giving Taipei the jets and submarines it wants.

US-Chinese ties have already been soured by a series of recent disputes. The two powers clashed earlier this month over internet freedom, and remain poles apart on issues such as the strength of the Chinese currency, human rights and trade. Both countries are dependant on each other economically, but Beijing has grown increasingly assertive in its dealings with Washington since President Barack Obama came to power.
While the decision to impose sanctions on the companies involved in the arms deal is largely symbolic, as US firms are barred by Washington from selling weapons to China, Beijing could also retaliate by blocking any US-sponsored attempt to move against Iran’s nuclear programme.

The US also needs China’s help to rein North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

[housefull]

Originally Posted by FL Patriot

Between 1809 and 1945, the Prussian and, later, German armies developed what is often called maneuver warfare of Third Generation warfare. For the past quarter century, the U.S. military has been trying to adopt this German way of war, and failing. Instead, we now appear to be copying two fatal German mistakes: thinking that a lower level of war trumps a higher, and initiating a war on two fronts. There are several ways of defining levels of war. One is John Boyd's trinity of moral, mental and physical. Another is the more traditional strategic, operational and tactical. One of the reasons Germany lost both world wars was that she thought operational excellence would trump strategic failure. In reality, a higher level of war always trumps a lower.

America seems now to have taken this German error and extended it. The present American way of war assumes that superiority at the tactical (or perhaps merely technical) level, manifested in high technology, will overcome massive failures at the strategic and moral levels. Strategically, a war with Iraq will help, not hurt, our real enemies, non-state forces such as al-Quaeda. Morally, we are launching an aggressive war against a weak enemy for no clear reason. Putting the two together leads to self-isolation, which is exactly what happened to Germany. The notion that Wunderwaffe will somehow overcome isolation and strategic failure will prove as viable for Washington now as it did for Germany in 1944-45.

Not content with duplicating just one fatal German mistake, we are moving to add a second by getting into a war on two fronts. Our eastern front may be Korea. The situation there is steadily getting hotter, and Washington's response so far has been to pretend it is not happening while saying Kim Jong II is a nut case.

Strategically, what North Korea is doing makes perfect sense. North Korea knows it is part of the "axis of evil," and it sees the United States preparing to attack another member of that axis, Iraq. The same voices in Washington that have demanded war with Iraq are beginning to make noises about Iran, accusing it of attempting to develop nuclear weapons and suggesting it should be next on the hit list. If I were a North Korean general, I would certainly assume an American attack is at some point a very real possibility, perhaps an inevitability.

On that basis, North Korea has decided it needs one of two things: a formal, legally binding non-aggression pact with the United States, or nuclear weapons. Washington has turned the idea of a non-aggression pact down flat, which can only lead to greater fear in Pyongyang. So, North Korea is going to build nukes. What other choice does it have?

Everyone in the region—Russia, China, Japan and even South Korea—is desperately urging Washington to talk with North Korea. Washington continues to refuse. Adding fuel to what may soon become a conflagration, President Bush last week spoke openly about the possibility of a military "solution" to the problem of the North Korean nuclear weapons program. Far from solving anything, such an action would probably give us a two-front war.

As was the case with Germany, a war on two fronts would leave the American military stretched dangerously thin. Our war plan for Korea assumes South Korea will carry the main burden of a war while Japan offers safe logistical bases. But those assumptions could prove wrong. North Korea has indicated it might attack American forces in the region while offering peace with South Korea; the new South Korean president has said that if the U.S. and North Korea went to war, South Korea might offer to mediate. A North Korean threat of a nuke on Osaka might leads Japan to declare neutrality, in which case we could not use Japanese bases. In such a situation, our options might be initiating the use of nuclear weapons or trying to stage a Dunkirk. Either one would be yet another strategic disaster.

It would be an historical oddity if the United States, having failed to copy the Germans in what they got right, instead duplicated what they got wrong. In view of the almost lighthearted military optimism that currently prevails in Washington, one cannot help remembering Marx's comment about history occurring as tragedy, then repeating itself as farce.

Do they think that Iran is going to be like Iraq? Obama has been listening to the wrong people. He will stand by and salute many time more if he keeps up this non-sense.

[Imbar]

Might as well take on the whole planet to cover up the looting......

February 9, 2010

(AFP)

The United States on Tuesday denied Moscow’s latest charge that US missile defense plans in Europe are aimed at Russia, insisting they are directed at Iran.

“The emerging missile defense architecture in Europe is not aimed at Russia, but rather the emerging threat from Iran,” said State Department spokesman Philip Crowley. “We continue to discuss ways in which we can cooperate with Russia on missile defense.”

The head of Russia’s armed forces, General Nikolai Makarov, was earlier quoted by Russian news agencies as saying, “The development and deployment of missile defenses is aimed against the Russian Federation.”