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Ron Paul Urges Afghanistan Withdrawal (Video)

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US 'strongly condemns' Kabul hotel attack

The Inter-Continental hotel in seen in the dark as tracer
bullets are shot during an attack in Kabu

© AFP Massoud Hossaini

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States condemned Tuesday a Taliban suicide attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, offering condolences to victims but providing no details on the number of casualties.

At least one suicide bomber and several gunmen attacked the hotel typically frequented by foreigners and Afghan officials, police and officials said, in a brazen strike claimed by the Taliban.

Witnesses reported hearing three explosions late Tuesday at the high-security hotel on a hill overlooking the Afghan capital, as gunmen penetrated the building and sparked a shootout.

How About a Real “Drawdown?”

David S. D'Amato

War is a Racket - Smedley Butler

Center 4 a Stateless Society


“President Barack Obama,” reports CNN, “is expected to announce this week that 30,000 U.S. ‘surge’ forces will be fully withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of 2012.” As the latest installment of the Afghanistan “timetable” chronicles, the President’s speech can be expected to include all of the standard doublespeak bromides about “shifting responsibility” and “achieving our mission.”

Despite all of the White House’s solemn talk of drawdowns and “sustainability here at home,” the changes we’re supposed to regard as big news take place on the narrowest margins of United States foreign policy. Way out on the periphery of the neocolonialist agenda, a negligible tweak here or there is quite acceptable to the state capitalist elite, for whom there is never a real danger.

Policy shifts — even personnel changes — occur within a framework where the underlying assumptions of empire are taken for granted, and where an entire economy has been built upon what Dwight Eisenhower famously dubbed the “military-industrial complex.” For the power elites who formulate foreign affairs, whether Democrat or Republican, “liberal” or “conservative,” the war industry itself — the economic engine driving our endless wars — is as American as apple pie.

US confirms 'outreach' to Taliban

Afghan Taliban fighters pose for a picture
© AFP/File Mohammad Yaqubi

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that US officials were involved in preliminary talks with the Taliban to seek a political solution to the Afghan war but said he didn't expect significant progress for months.

Gates also said recent gains on the ground in Afghanistan meant President Barack Obama would have "a lot of room for maneuver" when deciding how many troops to withdraw as he begins a limited US drawdown next month.

Almost a decade into the Afghan conflict, the American public has grown increasingly war-weary and the killing of Osama bin Laden and other leading Al-Qaeda figures in recent months is fueling calls for a rapid pullout.

US 'holding talks with Taliban': Karzai

Karzai says talks between US and Taliban are "going on well"
© AFP Aamir Qureshi

AFP

KABUL (AFP) - The United States is holding talks with the Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Saturday, in the first official confirmation of such contacts after nearly ten years of war.

Although diplomats and officials say the talks are at a very early stage, Karzai's remarks highlight the increasing focus on finding a political settlement in Afghanistan as foreign combat troops prepare to pull out by 2014.

"Talks with the Taliban have started... the talks are going on well," Karzai said, addressing a conference in Kabul.

Obama says sorry to Karzai for civilian deaths

Afghan Abdu Rahman, 7
© AFP/File Mauricio Lima

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President Barack Obama on Wednesday expressed his "sorrow" in a video conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai over recent civilian casualties in Afghanistan, his spokesman said.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama spoke to Karzai for an hour and discussed a number of topics, including the implications of the death of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a US special forces raid in May.

"The president expressed his sorrow over tragic civilian casualties, most recently in Helmand province," Carney said.

Gates: 'Premature' to eye faster Afghan pullout

© AFP/File Bay Ismoyo

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said accelerating troop withdrawals from Afghanistan because of Osama bin Laden's death would be "premature."

The US covert raid that killed Al-Qaeda's chief has fueled calls to scale back the massive US presence in Afghanistan, just as President Barack Obama reviews plans to begin pulling out some of the 100,000 troops there in July.

Gates, in an interview broadcast on the CBS news show "60 Minutes," said it's too early to consider speeding the pace of withdrawal.

"I think it's premature," he said. "I think we just don't know. It's only been a week. And people are already drawing historical conclusions. I think that's a little quick."

Clinton warns Taliban 'you cannot wait us out'

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
© AFP Paul J. Richards

AFP 

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday warned the Taliban it cannot defeat the United States in Afghanistan, using Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's killing in Pakistan to press for an end to their insurgency.

The chief US diplomat also said cooperation with Pakistan led to bin Laden's death despite doubts she and other US officials have voiced about Islamabad's willingness to work with Washington to root out Al-Qaeda.

In neighboring Afghanistan, "we will continue taking the fight to Al-Qaeda and their Taliban allies, while working to support the Afghan people as they build a stronger government," Clinton told reporters.

Obama remakes Afghan war braintrust

US Marines on patrol in Helmand Province
© AFP/File Adek Berry

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President Barack Obama will Thursday unveil new military and diplomatic commanders for the increasingly unpopular US Afghan war effort, in a sweeping reshuffle of his national security team.

Obama will use a White House Rose Garden event to nominate a new defense secretary, ambassador to Kabul and top war commander, engineering a shake-up permitted by the June retirement of powerful Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

The president will recall talismanic General David Petraeus from Afghanistan to head the CIA in place of veteran Washington bureaucrat Leon Panetta, who will be nominated as defense secretary as Obama seeks Pentagon spending cuts.

The Price of War (Graphic Video)

Youtube
Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio covers the U.S. sport killing in Iraq and Afghanistan. "When you cheer war, this is what you are cheering."



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How much did YOU pay for war this year? (Video)

Youtube - BraveNewFoundation

Ever wonder how much you paid to fund the war? Use the Afghanistan War Tax Calculator to find out. We'll give you an I.O.U. for what you paid that you can forward to your Member of Congress. Ask for your money back! http://rethinkafghanistan.com/



RELATED ARTICLE:
The Military Tax Collector is Here Again

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US apologizes for more Afghan 'kill team' photos

Der Spiegel/Wikimedia Commons image

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US military apologized again Monday after Rolling Stone published more photos and videos of members of an alleged rogue army unit "kill team" accused of killing Afghan civilians for sport.

A week after one soldier was jailed after striking a plea bargain to testify against the alleged ringleader, the weekly magazine published a series of graphic images and a long story including extensive detail of the allegations.

"The photos published by Rolling Stone are disturbing and in striking contrast to the standards and values of the United States Army," said a Pentagon statement.

US soldier pleads guilty over Afghan killings

US Corporal Jeremy Morlock
© AFP/US Army/File

AFP

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Washington (AFP) - A US soldier pleaded guilty Wednesday to targeting Afghan civilians for execution, as part of a rogue US army unit in southern Afghanistan last year.

Corporal Jeremy Morlock, who is set to testify against four co-accused, admitted murdering or helping to kill three men, and using illegally obtained Afghan weapons to make it appear that the victims were enemy combatants.

Morlock is the first soldier to face court martial out of five members of a rogue US Army unit from the Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Division's Stryker brigade, based out of Fort Lewis, Washington.

They were deployed in the southern Kandahar region of Afghanistan over several months early last year.

US lawmakers seek big Afghan withdrawal in July

© AFP Peter Parks

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Eighty-one US lawmakers, mostly Democratic allies of the White House, pressed President Barack Obama on Wednesday to make a "significant and sizeable" drawdown of US forces from Afghanistan in July.

"Let us be clear. The redeployment of a minimal number of US troops from Afghanistan in July will not meet the expectations of Congress or the American people," the group, all members of the US House of Representatives, said in a letter to Obama.

The lawmakers, just four of whom were Republicans, expressed support for Obama's plans to start withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan no later than July 2011 with an eye to transferring security to Afghan forces by 2014.

Ron Paul: Stop the Illegal, Immoral, Unconstitutional Afghan War (Video)

Youtube

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