The Cost of Bush-Cheney on COIN

What happens when you start late...:

The events provided another example of how fragile relations between Afghans and Americans have become, and how ready Afghans angered over civilian casualties are to blame American forces in virtually any circumstance.

While the first reaction to the explosion was shock, within a few hours an angry crowd gathered, chanting anti-American slogans. The crowd blocked the road to the border for several hours to protest the episode.

-NYT

If this can be generalized, then "long, hard, slog" was just a prelude to "long, hard, slog"...

Imunity for Murder

US Federal Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed the charges against the five [Blackwater defendants], saying prosecutors violated their rights by using incriminating statements they had made under immunity during a US State Department probe.

Cheney's no-blame zone is apparently bigger than anyone could dream ...

Civilian Self-Pity Meet Command Performance

O'Donnell, 29, stood at attention yesterday as the litany of broken bones was read off — then bounded up onto a makeshift stage as if none of that had ever happened, as he took command of about 290 soldiers that make up Headquarters and Headquarters Company.

Interesting because ...

..the injuries that Capt. Ray O'Donnell suffered in a 2007 Humvee rollover in Afghanistan.

... included facial fractures, traumatic brain injury, a crushed pelvis, spinal damage, a fractured hip, dislocated femur and severe nerve damage.

Yup, Once Again, We've Got Nothing

When is someone - anyone - going to admit that the USA just cannot (and never has) been able to 'do intelligence right'?

latest recognition of failure

Is "the" reason that we play too much politics with our intelligence, both outside and inside the agencies? Probably.

Everyone's a fly-boy

OPERATION ENDURANCE

The price tag, by Newsweek.

Housekeeping: Casualty Lists, Apologies

I have not been able to keep up the regular discipline. I want to get back to that.  It's important. 

I'm sorry that the country flags on older postings have disappeared.  The image hosting service that held them is defunct and it will take a long while to load up all the images again and to fix the old posts. 

How many times can we "lose" Afghanistan and still "win"?

Can you believe that some people are still arguing about when Operation Enduring Freedom became Operation Enduring, when it 'officially' jumped the shark?

They need to take some Viagra.  We knew this time last year that there was very little al-qa'ida in Afghanistan.  

The Romance is Gone

The days of sending nongay soldiers off to fight and die, "over there", while their gay countrymen remain stateside-safe is over, to the extent it ever really existed.

See here, a British platoon in Afghanistan loves their gay comrade, apparently. With luck, someday we can write the same, even about Christianist America.

Finally

By DEXTER FILKINS

NYT: June 21, 2009

KABUL, Afghanistan — The new American commander in Afghanistan said he would sharply restrict the use of airstrikes here, in an effort to reduce the civilian deaths that he said were undermining the American-led mission.

The Truth of the Situation, Part II

LESSON: ALWAYS LISTEN TO RADICAL DOUBT

Fascinating and instructive:

It has now emerged that Mr Kurras, the former West Berlin police officer who shot the young student protester Benno Ohnesorg in 1967, was actually a spy working for East Germany's secret police, the Stasi.

For years, Mr Kurras deceived his colleagues in the West Berlin police service and the German public.

The death of Ohnesorg on 2 June 1967 during a demonstration against a visit by the Shah of Iran sparked the student protest movement in West Germany and the turmoil of 1968.

...

"The Stasi merely described the shooting as an 'unlucky accident' in the file and they broke off contact with Kurras after the shooting," he adds.

The Truth of the Situation

...is beyond our eyes.

But, in one version of it, a guy who was tortured by al-qa'ida - tortured - was held at Gitmo for ... wait for it ... being an al-qa'ida sympathizer / operative.

Of course, releasing someone in such circumstances quickly and unharmed would be more "proof" he was a spy, enough to keep him 'off the battlefield' or 'out of the hands of the enemy', so there would be little reason, absent other evidence, to detain them indefinitely ... unless you didn't know anything, in which case detention would be dicey anyway.

What a mess.

The living for the dead?

So far, this (U.S. frees suspect) doesn't look like it is working so well (two bodies named) ...

Why Cheney Is Talking

LIKE DeLAY, HE THINKS IT'S ALL A POLICY DIFFERENCE

He doesn't want to leave the field to his "enemies", in particular, the FBI testimony. It's classic Rove-DeLay.

Except, it is really Geobbles.

Re, "We do not torture":

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

-Joseph Goebbels

Just for the record, there could well be criminal referrals for torture, despite how you view the "policy pronouncements".

WHY TORTURE IS A POLITICAL PARTY FIT

As for constantly telling the American public they are under treat and need the "safeguards" of torture to remain "safe", it's Goering rather than Goebbels:

“Naturally the common people don't want war... That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists [cf. also Krauthammer's Excusionism in which he singles out pacifists] for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

-- Hermann Goering

And that is how you get a very generous and giving people, Americans, to behave like rats and embrace torture.

Taliban To be Smoked Out With Cell Phone War

There will be a cell phone war for the Taliban, soon.

If it was half as provocative as the one that caused Hizb'allah to charge, it could be a stroke of genius. (Assuming it doesn't turn into another Tora Bora ... humph!).

True or false: you don't have to jam all the time, just intermittently, to be effective.