Infinite Unknown

A Pentagon official has been accused of hiring a secret network of private contractors to spy on militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan so they could be hunted and killed.

The employee is said to have paid firms using former members of the special forces and CIA under the cover of an innocuous government scheme to gather tribal and cultural information.

Their reports were then passed to military and intelligence units so they could kill militants and target insurgent camps, officials told The New York Times.

It was not clear if Michael D Furlong, the Pentagon official at the centre of the accusations, had approval for the scheme but officials said they had become alarmed he was running an off-the-books spy agency.

The network is alleged to have been blown when the CIA chief in Kabul personally complained to the US Defence Department.

His operation has now been shut down and he is subject to criminal investigation for offences including contract fraud.

One official said: “While no legitimate intelligence operations got screwed up, it’s generally a bad idea to have freelancers running around a war zone pretending to be James Bond.” Government officials alleged Mr Furlong could have improperly siphoned off funds from a scheme to supply commanders with information on the region’s tribes.

In 2008, he was put in charge of a £15m ($22m) budget to hire private contractors to glean political and tribal information for Nato commanders. Continue reading »

Tags: Afghanistan, CIA, Defense Department, Global News, Government, Pakistan, Pentagon, Politics, U.S., War

Added: March 10, 2010

More on the war on terror:

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Tags: Afghanistan, Constitution, Dennis Kucinich, Global News, Government, Military, Osama Bin Laden, Politics, Ron Paul, Taliban, Terrorism, Terrorists, U.S., War

- Washington increases drone missile strikes in Afghanistan (Radio Australia)

Winning the hearts and minds of the people in action.

The US military has used drones to attack suspected terrorists in Pakistan since at least 2004. Proponents of the small, unmanned planes say they are capable of “surgical strikes” that reduce civilian casualties and effectively combat terrorism.

Is that true? Well, not really, according to a new report from the New America Foundation, a non-profit research institute.

The percentage of civilians killed by drones in Pakistan is at about 32 percent, or one out of three, the report states, and the strikes themselves have little effect in deterring terrorist activities in either Pakistan or Afghanistan. Researchers do not believe any of the reported strikes targeted Osama bin Laden.

An excerpt:

Our study shows that the 114 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan, including 18 in 2010, from 2004 to the present have killed approximately between 834 and 1,216 individuals, of whom around 549 to 849 were described as militants in reliable press accounts, about two-thirds of the total on average. Thus, the true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 32 percent.

The group’s report is titled “The Year of the Drone,” referring to 2009. According to the figures obtained by the foundation, the Obama administration has increased the use of drone strikes considerably when compared to the previous years of the Bush administration.

There were 114 reported drone strikes from 2004 through 2009, but only 45 during the Bush years. The other 51 were during last year. Continue reading »

Tags: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Civilians, Global News, Government, Military, Obama administration, Pakistan, Politics, Terrorism, Terrorists, U.S., War

KABUL — A blizzard of bank notes is flying out of Afghanistan — often in full view of customs officers at the Kabul airport — as part of a cash exodus that is confounding U.S. officials and raising concerns about the money’s origin.

The cash, estimated to total well over $1 billion a year, flows mostly to the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, where many wealthy Afghans now park their families and funds, according to U.S. and Afghan officials. So long as departing cash is declared at the airport here, its transfer is legal.

But at a time when the United States and its allies are spending billions of dollars to prop up the fragile government of President Hamid Karzai, the volume of the outflow has stirred concerns that funds have been diverted from aid. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, for its part, is trying to figure out whether some of the money comes from Afghanistan’s thriving opium trade. And officials in neighboring Pakistan think that at least some of the cash leaving Kabul has been smuggled overland from Pakistan.

“All this money magically appears from nowhere,” said a U.S. official who monitors Afghanistan’s growing role as a hub for cash transfers to Dubai, which has six flights a day to and from Kabul.

Meanwhile, the United States is stepping up efforts to stop money flow in the other direction — into Afghanistan and Pakistan in support of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Senior Treasury Department officials visited Kabul this month to discuss the cash flows and other issues relating to this country’s infant, often chaotic financial sector. Continue reading »

Tags: Afghanistan, Drug Enforcement Administration, Drugs, Dubai, Global News, Government, Hamid Karzai, Kabul, Politics, U.S.

More than 500 AK47 rifles had been removed from the bunker by Blackwater staff without permission.

Private American security guards working for the US military in Afghanistan removed hundreds of handguns and automatic weapons from stores intended for the exclusive use of the Afghan police and used them on drunken shooting rampages that killed two Afghan civilians and injured at least two more.

The guards included a former US Marine with a criminal record of assault and battery and a former soldier discharged from the US Army after testing positive for cocaine, Congress heard yesterday.

Justin Cannon, Christopher Drotleff and a guard using the name “Eric Cartman” from the cartoon South Park were employees of a subsidiary of the Blackwater Worldwide group, implicated in a litany of extrajudicial shootings since 2003 in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Cannon and Drotleff have been charged with killing two Afghans and injuring a third in an incident last May when they opened fire on a car carrying four civilians in Kabul, while under the influence of alcohol. The men, who were hired to train Afghan soldiers, had no permission from US authorities to carry guns. Continue reading »

Tags: Afghanistan, Blackwater, Civilians, Global News, Kabul, mercenaries, Xe

Related articles:

- Dutch exit could leave key Afghan area vulnerable (Washington Post)

- Dutch Government Has Collapsed In Dispute Over Afghanistan (BBC NEWS)

The Dutch troops were to have returned in 2008

A day after his cabinet collapsed, the Dutch prime minister says he expects Dutch troops to end their mission in Afghanistan in August as expected.

“If nothing else will take its place, then it ends,” Jan Peter Balkenende told Dutch television.

The cabinet fell after the two largest parties failed to agree on a Nato request to extend the tour of the almost 2,000-strong Dutch contingent.

A Nato spokesman said it would provide support to Afghans whatever happened.

The uncertainty over their deployment comes as Nato, US and Afghan forces are engaged in a large military offensive against the Taliban in neighbouring Helmand.

The governor of Uruzgan province said peace and reconstruction efforts would suffer a setback if the Dutch left.

Asadullah Hamdam told the BBC they were playing a vital role building roads, training the Afghan police and providing security for civilians.

“If they withdraw and leave these projects incomplete, then they will leave a big vacuum,” he added. Continue reading »

Tags: Afghanistan, Global News, Government, Holland, Military, NATO, Politics, War

An elite puppet worse than Bush! Change!

Date: 21st Feb 10

Tags: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Bush administration, Constitution, George Bush, Global News, Government, International Law, Iraq, Law, Military, Obama administration, Pakistan, Politics, U.S., War

Dutch forces have been in Uruzgan since 2006

The Dutch government has collapsed over disagreements within the governing coalition on extending troop deployments in Afghanistan.

After marathon talks, Christian Democratic Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende announced that the Labour Party was quitting the government.

He offered his government’s resignation to Queen Beatrix in a telephone call.

The premier had been considering a Nato request for Dutch forces to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2010.

But Labour, the second-largest coalition party, has opposed the move.

Just under 2,000 Dutch service personnel have been serving in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan since 2006, with 21 killed. Continue reading »

Tags: Afghanistan, Global News, Government, Holland, Military, NATO, Politics, War

Must-see!

Cynthia McKinney speaks at Munich Germany NATO Peace Rally during her visit to receive the ‘Peace through Conscience’ award from the Munich American Peace Committee.

“President Obama has drones killing innocent people in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia. And Administration lawyers are trying to figure out how to legally kill U.S. citizens.”

“You even have U.S. assassination teams on German soil!”

“Sadly, President Obama is guilty of every item I cited in my Articles of Impeachment against President Bush.”

Added: 9. Februar 2010

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Tags: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Civil liberties, Condoleezza Rice, Constitution, Cynthia McKinney, Dick Cheney, Drones, George Bush, Government, Impeachment, Interrogation, Obama administration, Pakistan, Politics, Torture, U.S., War, War Crimes

The US is totally broke and the only asset left is the military.

Change you can believe in!

Suicide bombers inside the United States. Nuclear-armed nations collapsing and losing control of nuclear weapons. Bloody new conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan. American troops under attack at bases around the world. Terrorist attacks using unknown new diseases. Chinese missile attacks on Taiwan.

The Obama administration has unveiled a scary new view of the global security landscape and a new strategy intended to protect Americans and U.S. allies. It is a sharp change from previous Pentagon strategic assessments in that it focuses on the wars Americans are currently fighting, rather than on future conflicts in which the United States might be involved.

And that future, in the Pentagon’s view, is quite grim.

The new assessment — reflecting “a bracing dose of realism,” said Defense Secretary Robert Gates — promises no respite from today’s conflict-wracked world, and no backing away from the billions of dollars for new hardware and new capabilities that the administration says it will take to stay safe. On Gates’ short list: new long-range attack aircraft, armed air and ground robots, attack submarines, more special forces commandos, two new Army combat brigades, a new military task force to snatch up loose nuclear weapons, and updated battle concepts for coordinated air and sea attacks into the territory of adversaries equipped with high-tech defenses

This is the heart of two new documents released Monday by Gates, the former CIA director who was chosen to head the Pentagon by President George W. Bush in late 2006 and held in office by President Obama. One paper is the awkwardly named Quadrennial Defense Review, or QDR in Pentagon-speak, a study mandated every four years by Congress to assess security threats and defense capabilities. The other, also released Monday was the Pentagon’s 2011 defense budget proposal ($708.2 billion, a 1.8 percent real increase over current spending) and a request for $3 billion to help pay for combat operations in Afghanistan this year.

Neither should be a surprise. As a presidential candidate 18 months ago, Obama accepted an anti-war mantle because of his announced determination to end to the war in Iraq and bring the troops home. But Candidate Obama also spoke of Afghanistan as a righteous war that must be won. As president, Obama, having grappled for months with the nasty reality of war in Afghanistan, acknowledged in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in December that in a brutal world, armed force is essential.

“We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes,” Obama said. “There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.” Continue reading »

Tags: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, China, Iran, Iraq, Military, Obama administration, Pentagon, Politics, Robert Gates, Terrorism, U.S., War