The closest thing the war has to a report card comes in the form of a new quarterly report from the United Nations. And the American troop surge appears to be dangerously close to flunking.
#2
And once again, Virginia, we learn why God invented or combined MilPol "Imperialism" wid "Nation Building" = National Reconstruction + similar.
Its called "... IN ONE'S OWN INTERESTS + SECURITY".
* ION DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > PAKISTAN TELLS US AGAIN TO LEAVE DRONE BASE.
versus
* SAME > IFF PAKISTAN DENIES US ITS DRONE BASE [Shamsi], THERES A BACKUP PLAN [Base(s)] NEXT DOOR, in Afghanistan.
FYI it appears the claims on this subject as per MSM-Net News may be BOGUS = NEVER HAPPENED, + the US operates drones from other Pak Bases besides Shamsi???
[Tolo News] Top Afghan commander of border forces in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday resigned amid deadly missile attacks from Pakistain into Afghanistan.
Gen. Aminullah Amarkhil, senior commander of border forces in eastern zone, told TOLOnews that he resigned because Pakistain missile attacks into Afghanistan's soil have been neglected by the government and the international community.
Gen. Amarkhil said the government has yet to approve his resignation.
Gen. Amarkhil told TOLOnews by phone: "Neither the international community, nor Pakistain -- from president to army chief -- listened to our voice. They [Pakistain] deny attacks into Afghanistan, and I'm responsible as the commander in eastern zone, because people with bodies of their loved ones on their backs come to me."
He urged the Afghan Interior Ministry to confirm his resignation.
On Wednesday National Directorate of Security (NDS) accused Pakistain of launching missiles into Afghan soil and said more than 400 missiles have landed in Kunar and Nangarhar ...on the main road from Lovely Peshawar. The capital is Jalalabad. The population of 1,334,000 consists mostly of Pashtuns with a few Arabs and Pashais... provinces over the past couple of weeks.
In a statement this week Afghan defence ministry said Afghan national army was ready to retaliate the attacks, but the government should authorise it.
More than 60 people have been killed, and many others have been reported injured and displaced.
The Afghan general had earlier sought permission from the government for a counterattack, but the government still holds back defence institutions from carrying out attacks against the Pak assaults.
On Wednesday for the second time Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... called on Pak government to put the brakes on their missile attacks into Afghan territory.
But Pakistain denies firing missiles into Afghanistan saying its army is not involved in the attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/01/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Life would certainly get even more interesting in that part of the world, should Pakistan goad Afghanistan into going to war. Have the Generals of the Pure forgotten that it was the Moghul-Turks of Afghanistan who last conquered their little corner of India? And several previous conquerors of Afganistan who came pouring south to continue in that vein? And each time the people who are now Pakistani succumbed...
Of course, in those long-ago days the Afghans didn't have blue-eyed Jannisaries of their own, already in the habit of hunting down jihading Pakistanis and killing them, whether by dozens or on at a time. Now things are a bit different.
Plummage: Range Dependent
Range: Everywhere they want to be
Habitat: Anywhere there's free oxygen, frequently under your bed
Song: Varies by range, excellent mimics.
Do not disturb their nests or young. Usually social and open to friendly contact. Not afraid of fire.
#6
#5 ..but usually high maintenance. Posted by: Procopius2k 2011-07-01 14:44
Not necessarily. A box of MREs, a backpack full of ammo, an extra pair of socks, and a few hand grenades and they're good for two weeks, at least. It's only when you want to scare the sh$$ out of someone, as well as kill lots of them cheaply, that you use "high maintenance" techniques. ARCLIGHT comes to mind... 8^)
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/01/2011 22:29 Comments ||
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[An Nahar] Two French television journalists were flying home Thursday from Afghanistan after spending 18 months as Taliban prisoners and becoming the longest held Western hostages in the war-torn nation.
Cameraman Stephane Taponier and news hound Herve Ghesquiere of state network La Belle France 3 were seized in November 2009 in the mountains of Kapisa, an unstable region east of the Afghan capital Kabul.
The two were expected at Villacoublay air base outside Gay Paree on Thursday around 8:00 am (06:00 GMT) to be reunited with their families, a French embassy official in Kabul told Agence La Belle France Presse.
They were "surprisingly well, both physically and mentally", the official added.
Ghesquiere's overjoyed partner Beatrice Coulon said: "Obviously, I'll be there to welcome them."
"It's a shock. Hearing about it like this, it's hard to talk," added Taponier's brother Stephane.
"It's wonderful," declared Taponier's mother Arlette. "I know that they're free, I don't know much else," she told AFP after being given the news by President Nicolas Sarkozy's ...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... office.
To a chorus of cheers, Prime Minister Francois Fillon told parliament earlier that the freed hostages were in the hands of French forces at a base in Tagab, Afghanistan.
"Our two hostages are in good health," he said, paying tribute to French forces and agents serving in Afghanistan as part of the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... -led coalition.
La Belle France has nearly 4,000 troops in Afghanistan fighting against the Taliban, alongside a much larger U.S. force and contingents from European allies and Canada.
In a statement, Sarkozy's office said: "The president is delighted at the liberation of our two compatriots, Stephane Taponier and Herve Ghesquiere, as well as their interpreter Reza Din."
The abduction had been claimed by the Taliban, the hardline Islamist group that ruled Afghanistan until a US-led invasion in 2001, now in revolt against the Kabul government. The guerrillas accused the journalists of spying.
"We congratulate the journalists themselves as well as the French government and the French nation," Siamak Heravi, a front man for President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai, ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... told AFP in Kabul. "This is an achievement ... we welcome their release."
In January, al-Qaeda leader the late Osama bin Laden He's dead, Jim! threatened La Belle France in an audio tape message and said that the journalists' release would depend on La Belle France withdrawing soldiers from Afghanistan.
Bin Laden was killed in a U.S. commando raid in Pakistain in May, and Sarkozy announced last week that "several hundred" French troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan before the end of the year in line with US pullouts.
There was no immediate word, however, on why the kidnappers had decided to release the men and whether La Belle France had many any concessions.
Foreign Minister Alain Juppe insisted that La Belle France does not pay ransom for hostages.
Juppe said Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai had helped Gay Paree secure the return of Taponier and Ghesquiere.
Juppe also sought to clear up confusion over the fate of two Afghan assistants captured with the French crew when they were ambushed on a road east of Kabul while covering the guerrilla war being fought in the region.
"The two other helpers were freed some time ago, but this was not made public," Juppe explained, citing the need for secrecy in resolving hostage situations.
The pair's release brought relief to French media colleagues, some of whom shed tears of joy when they heard the news at a pre-planned vigil held in Gay Paree to draw attention to their plight.
French officials appealed for the release of other kidnapped Frenchies still thought to be held by gangs around the world.
Three French aid workers -- two women and a man -- were kidnapped last month in Yemen's lawless Hadramut province.
Four French expatriates working for the nuclear firm Areva and one of its subcontractors have been held hostage in the Sahara by al-Qaeda's North African affiliate AQIM since September 2010. A female hostage was released.
A French agent from the DGSE foreign intelligence service, identified by the pseudonym Denis Allex, has been held in Somalia by Islamist Islamic fascistisince he was kidnapped from his Mogadishu hotel in July 2009.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/01/2011 00:00 ||
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[Tolo News] Two former executives of the Afghan leading private bank, Kabul Bank, have been incarcerated on Wednesday, Officials said on Thursday.
According to Afghan deputy attorney general Rahmatullah Nazari, the former executives of Kabul Bank Sherkhan Farnood and Khalilullah Frozi were incarcerated on Wednesay in connection with the crisis that nearly caused the bank to collapse last year.
Mr Nazari has said the two are being held at the Attorney General's Office for investigation, but he has not specified that charges against them.
The arrests are the first to be made after the bank's huge losses were exposed in August last year.
It is believed that the international community may welcome the move, as some international aid to Afghanistan was put on hold over the bank crisis.
According to auditors some $900 million in loans were made to insiders with little or no collateral and even no repayment plan.
Meanwhile, ...back at the bake sale, Umberto's Mom's cannoli were a big hit... Head of Afghanistan's Central Bank (DAB) Abdul Qadir Fitrat who recently decamped the country and announced his resignation in Washington has also been accused of taking millions in bribes to overlook the bank fraud.
Mr Fitrat has claimed to have made efforts to expose the fraud for which he faced threats in Kabul.
He has said he will not return to Afghanistan over fears of threats against his life.
Deputy Attorney General said the two former executives of Kabul Bank are presently in jug of Kabul detention facility and that they will soon be taken to attorney general detention facility.
"Because we didn't want the case of Mr Fitrat to get repeated, and in order to prevent these two from fleeing the country, they were incarcerated yesterday and are now in Kabul detention facility,"
The fleeing governor of Afghanistan's Central Bank has also been accused by President Karzai's brother, Mahmoud Karzai, and other shareholders of Kabul Bank of having role in the crisis in the bank.
Mahmoud Karzai has called on the United State to refuse to support Mr Fitrat.
"Kabul Bank management was paying them money so they could stop reporting the issue. And after the reports reached the Attorney General's office, he decamped the country saying his life was in danger and he was threatened. It is all a big lie," Mahmoud Karzai said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/01/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
"Mr Nazari has said the two are being held at the Attorney General's Office for investigation, but he has not specified and said that charges against them will be for "letting the cat out of the bag."
Posted by: American Delight ||
07/01/2011 9:30 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
