Afghanistan 2011

[bizjets101]

Click Here IMF wants Afghanistan's largest bank sold off.

[Dash-Ate]

history books are always written by the victors...there is zero independent reporting allowed from afghanistan in the West so everything we get is propaganda.

Remember how at one time germans citizens' lives were considered worthless?

[bizjets101]

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=28f_1297870022 Air Strike in Afghanistan - no details other than it was posted on February 16/2011.

By the time your hear the jets - they've already dropped their bombs 20 seconds ago, and they are 20 more seconds from impact.

[Shiny Side Up]

I was just wondering how secure the airspace in Afghanistan is? For the amount of flying that goes on there you don't hear of many aircraft getting shot down, especially fixed wing. With all those Taliban running around with rocket launchers how do they secure the airspace?

The airspace is more secure here than in many countries. The bad guys use restraint, and do not attack aircraft. Not even bullets, except on a few occasions. The same people who blow up civilians and IM indiscriminately, with IEDs do not even fire at planes and helicopters flying overhead. Strange, but a lot of things are strange here.

Not so strange as one would think. While aircraft might seem like tempting targets for ground fire there are small windows where small arms fire would be effective. Without very effective means available to attack them, one assumes that the risks invloved in the attack and exposing oneself to countering fire outweigh the possible gains as they see it. Given that the bad guys are as ill supplied as it seems, small arms ammo might even be in short supply to use in such ventures. Anyone know when they do catch these guys how much ammo each of them typically carries? Do they have access to larger weapons?

[sky's the limit]

Shiny,


They could shoot down civi a/c at will if they so chose, and they do shoot at civi helicopters all the time. Don't ever think there isn't one eye on the future here, to stat downing civi a/c would have some pretty large ramifications down the road.

They have access to plenty of heavy machine guns and RPG's, not hard to take down civi machines if they wanted.

I'm in Kabul now, nice to be back...

stl

[bizjets101]

Here is Simon Fraser Universities 'Afghan Conflict Monitor'
that tracks many of the emerging stories and current events
as well as Facts and Figures regarding the conflict.

Click Here

[sky's the limit]

A few quick Iphone shots from a couple walks around Kabul and leaving BAF.

stl

Stepping off the base - which so many foreigners never get to do - is great at Bagram, it's like leaving Texas and rolling straight into Afghanistan... Quite the juxtaposition.

IMG_0676.jpg (309.1 KiB) Viewed 1338 times

Looking off the top of the house the Wall St Journal staff live in, quite a few news agencies in this area, and several embassies are just down the road. Just walked back from the Canadian Embassy where I had lunch with a friend.

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Just around the corner from my place.

IMG_0692.jpg (431.68 KiB) Viewed 1337 times

And finally some of the best bread on earth... still hot from the oven, about $0.20 Also have been buying lots of nuts and dried mullberries, too good to pass up.

IMG_0696.jpg (401.36 KiB) Viewed 1337 times

[Beefitarian]

It's very strange how much better the flat bread is fresh from a clay oven. It's been so long since I was in Cairo that I'm starting to wonder if I imagined it being so good.

[Dash-Ate]

I can't wait to spread our freedom around the world!! Send little girls to school.

Let them graduate college with $50,000 of debt, then buy a 1 bedroom condo with a 300,000 mortgage, and then spend on a 25% interest rate credit card!! Sweet freedom.

Let them have the freedom of writing a letter to the editor knowning will accomplish exactly Nothing. The backroom government contracts will still be signed. Billions wasted on G20, prisons, overpriced and overbudget jets. Imagine the swell feeling.

Let them enjoy their hydro rates rise by 20% in Ontario and BC in the coming years, plus the yearly 3-5% property tax increase. And insurance going up 5% each year. Before they may walk their dog they need a city Dog Licence, and a Permit before reparing their deck railing. $40 parking ticket? It's all good. And no smoking within 10 metres of any building!! I cry for those who do not experience our joys.

I think everyone should enjoy the right of paying 50% per litre in gas prices in taxes. And paying 5c for a plastic bag. Bring it on!!!
Get 'em all their kids on ADD medication. Whoops, no snowball fights in the playground, the insurance company said no

Complete religious freedom: if a teacher mentions the word in school they will be FIRED for being "non-inclusive".
Let them have the whopping choice of 2 or 3 party leaders where the lobbyists spend billions every year convincing them. But every vote counts!!???


In USA you can elect anyone!! Anyone can become President or VP. Like Bush I, then Clinton, then Bush II, and then Hitlery Clinton as VP. OVer 20 years.

SEE We have the freedom to vote for who we choose?!?!

[grimey]

history books are always written by the victors...there is zero independent reporting allowed from afghanistan in the West so everything we get is propaganda.

Remember how at one time germans citizens' lives were considered worthless?

The Dresden death toll was wildly over-estimated. It's far more likely that it was around 20,000. Avoiding using idiots like Jeff Rense as sources will help avoid that problem.

And no, that doesn't make it more excusable to bomb a civilian target.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... ought.html

For decades historians have accused the Allies of killing up to 500,000 civilians on the night of February 13 1945, when British and American planes destroyed the old city centre.

But a special commission, comprising 13 prominent German historians, has now revealed that the previous figures were exaggerated or derived from dubious sources.

Instead, they concluded that no more than 25,000 people died during the attacks, debunking the claims of many revisionist historians who wished to compare the bombing to the Holocaust.

[bizjets101]

According to The New Yorker (from today Feb 19) they are reporting that
the US Government is in direct negotiations with the Taliban.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2 ... _talk_coll

'The Obama Administration has entered into direct, secret talks with senior Afghan Taliban leaders, several people briefed about the talks told me last week. The discussions are continuing; they are of an exploratory nature and do not yet amount to a peace negotiation.'

[TheCheez]

I can't wait to spread our freedom around the world!! Send little girls to school.

Let them graduate college with $50,000 of debt, then buy a 1 bedroom condo with a 300,000 mortgage, and then spend on a 25% interest rate credit card!! Sweet freedom.

Let them have the freedom of writing a letter to the editor knowning will accomplish exactly Nothing. The backroom government contracts will still be signed. Billions wasted on G20, prisons, overpriced and overbudget jets. Imagine the swell feeling.

Let them enjoy their hydro rates rise by 20% in Ontario and BC in the coming years, plus the yearly 3-5% property tax increase. And insurance going up 5% each year. Before they may walk their dog they need a city Dog Licence, and a Permit before reparing their deck railing. $40 parking ticket? It's all good. And no smoking within 10 metres of any building!! I cry for those who do not experience our joys.

I think everyone should enjoy the right of paying 50% per litre in gas prices in taxes. And paying 5c for a plastic bag. Bring it on!!!
Get 'em all their kids on ADD medication. Whoops, no snowball fights in the playground, the insurance company said no

Complete religious freedom: if a teacher mentions the word in school they will be FIRED for being "non-inclusive".
Let them have the whopping choice of 2 or 3 party leaders where the lobbyists spend billions every year convincing them. But every vote counts!!???


In USA you can elect anyone!! Anyone can become President or VP. Like Bush I, then Clinton, then Bush II, and then Hitlery Clinton as VP. OVer 20 years.

SEE We have the freedom to vote for who we choose?!?!

Possibly my fave Dash-Ate post evar!

However, when it comes down to it, in the big picture around the world, this stuff is peanuts vs the crap the average human has to deal with.

[Dash-Ate]

They will throw flowers at our feet, their children will sing songs of praise? How many civillians have been killed so far. Do we care? NOPE! Rumsfeld said We do not do body counts.

Of course not. To us an arab life is worth little some say nothing. I mean, I don't see anyone here shedding tears over it?
No wonder these soliders have PTSD. War is sick, satanic and there are no good guys, no matter what the bleeding hearts tell us.



By Rohullah Anwari Rohullah Anwari – Sun Feb 20, 2:17 pm ET

ASADABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) – More than 60 civilians, including women and children, were killed in four days of operations by NATO-led troops and Afghan forces in eastern Afghanistan, a provincial governor said on Sunday.

Governor Fazlullah Wahidi told Reuters that 64 civilians were killed by ground and air strikes in the Ghazi Abad district of eastern Kunar province.

An Afghan presidential palace statement said more than 50 civilians had been killed, based on information from religious leaders, local officials and security forces.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110220/wl_ ... _civilians

[sky's the limit]

That operation is the one I was accompanying last week, and the scenery shots above are from the valley next to where it took place. There were cancellations and bumps due to wx, illumination, etc.

There is an article on CNN that talks about it, and of course is misleading saying it's a remote,but Gov't controlled valley in the Kunar. In reality, it is a valley we have never been into right on the border, and is a huge IED production area, and marshaling point for cross border Ops. "Gov't controlled" is about as far from the truth as one gets, but media access since Gen Patreaus took over is suffering in a huge way, so it is not surprising that whoever wrote the piece simply took a quote from a military press conference and ran it.

stl

[flyinggreasemonkey]

My brother spent a week at the embassy in Kabul installing the audio\video for the conference centre a few weeks ago. It was quite the culture shock and he was pretty nervous seeing all the AK47's around, considering he's a tech geek and far from the military type. He's going back in September to do the entertainment system in the cafeteria, including a 12ft screen, a high def projector and high end sound system. He's going to try to bring his XBox to give it a go.

[bizjets101]

What a quagmire - I've read that Pakistan Army Chief General Kayani and ISI Chief General Paha have been meeting with Karzai and Rasool - they are attempting a reconciliation between the Haqqani and Hikmatry groups to denounce Al-Qaeda and then share power with Karzai . . . with the talks being promoted by the Americans.

[Dash-Ate]

War is not a charity, it is business.
This is interesting:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=14046


After the Soviet Union's dissolution in late 1989, America had a choice. As the sole remaining superpower, it could have worked for a new era of peace and prosperity, ended decades of Cold War tensions, halted the insane arms race, turned swords into plowshares, and diverted hundreds of billions annually from "defense" to "rebuild(ing) civilian infrastructure and repair(ing) impoverished cities."


Instead, Washington, under GHW Bush and his successors, "chose stealth, deception, lies and wars to attempt to control the Eurasian Heartland - its only potential rival as an economic region - by military (political, and economic) force," and by extension planet earth through an agenda later called "full spectrum dominance."

As a result, the Cold War never ended and today rages with over a trillion dollars spent annually on "defense" in all forms even though America has no enemy, nor did it after the Japanese surrendered in August 1945. So the solution was to invent them, and so they were.

Post-Soviet Russia, "The 'new' Cold War assumed various disguises and deceptive tactics until September 11, 2001" changed the game. It let George Bush "declare (a) permanent (Global War on Terror) against an enemy who was everywhere and nowhere, who allegedly threatened the American way of life, justified (police state) laws," and is now destroying our freedoms and futures.

The roots of the scheme go back decades - at least to 1939 when powerful New York Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) insiders planned a post-war world with one nation alone triumphant and unchallengeable.

Engdahl's book is a geopolitical analysis of the past two decades - peering into "the dark corners of Pentagon strategy and actions and the extreme dangers ('full spectrum dominance' holds for) the future," not just to America but the entire world.

Things are so out-of-control today that democratic freedoms and planetary life itself are threatened by "the growing risk of nuclear war by miscalculation" or the foolhardy assumption that waging it can be limited, controlled, and safe - like turning a faucet on and off. The very notion is implausible and reckless on its face, yet powerful forces in the country think this way and plan accordingly.

[grimey]

As a result, the Cold War never ended and today rages with over a trillion dollars spent annually on "defense" in all forms even though America has no enemy, nor did it after the Japanese surrendered in August 1945. So the solution was to invent them, and so they were.

I was unaware that 1989 was the next year after 1945.

[bizjets101]

Any updates on our Chinooks????, how about we lift our arms embargo to Pakistan and sell them our Choppers - I know they want them

I think the CH-47D's is on the wish list for the Pakistan Army - and they'd like to buy them from anyone other than the USA!!!

Could be a win, win. Other than Turkey or Afghanistan - who would want them???

[bizjets101]

After years of fighting for control of a prominent valley in the rugged mountains of eastern Afghanistan, the United States military has begun to pull back most of its forces from ground it once insisted was central to the campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The withdrawal from the Pech Valley, a remote region in Kunar Province, formally began on Feb. 15.

New York Times story

[TheCheez]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011 ... ml?ref=rss

Hopefully this is not anyone we know? Paging Expat/stl!

[grimey]

The guy's only 27, doesn't sound like either Expat of STL.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat ... le1922635/

[flyinggreasemonkey]

Right around the same view as the one from the Wall St Journal house, you can see a high diving platform at a pool that was built but never filled up. You can't see the pool in that picture, but it never got filled because it would cost too much money to haul the water to the top of the hill. Now they use the highest platform as a place to execute people by basically making them walk the plank. If they survive, they're allowed to go free...go figure...

[sky's the limit]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011 ... ml?ref=rss

Hopefully this is not anyone we know? Paging Expat/stl!

I'm good thanks.

Made the trip home, jet lagged as hell. Had a nice few days wandering around Kabul, the last day felt a bit odd where I was - more guys with guns, more cops out, etc, etc, so I cut it a bit short. Really long trip home though, and I made the cardinal mistake of sleeping on the trans-atlantic leg... thus arriving in YVR wide awake. Ooops.

That swimming pool is no longer used as described FGM, that was a while ago now.

Nice to see good participation on the thread, thanks for everyone's input.

stl

[Moose47]

"Welcome back STL!"