Posts Tagged ‘Taliban’
Posted by M. C. on October 6, 2018
The forever war.
https://news.antiwar.com/2018/10/05/afghan-warplanes-attack-wedding-convoy-kill-four-civilians/
Jason Ditz
Afghan officials are promising an investigation after a Thursday airstrike in the Kandahar Province killed at least four civilians, including women and children, and wounded eight others. Indications are that this was an Afghan military airstrike.
The officials say they were targeting Taliban militants in the area, but ended up hitting a wedding procession at a nearby village. They claimed the Taliban were “mixed up with the villagers,” though this doesn’t make sense as the airstrike was called in during a Taliban offensive against Afghan troops.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Afghanistan, airstrike, Taliban, wedding convoy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by M. C. on September 30, 2018
Launched in the early 1990s, the F-35 program is considered the most expensive weapons system in US history,
And it still doesn’t work. The helmet cost $400K three years ago. That has likely gone up.
Multiple Marine Corps F-35s struck Taliban targets in Afghanistan. Defending US by attacking someone that never attacked US.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-f-35-destroyed-in-apparent-first-ever-crash-for-the-stealth-jet/
by AFP and TOI staff
Marine Corps pilot ejects unharmed in North Carolina training accident; cause of crash not clear; Israel operates 12 of the advanced planes
WASHINGTON — A US F-35 fighter was completely destroyed in a crash while training Friday, officials said. The pilot safely ejected.
The crash appears to be the first of its kind for the troubled F-35 program, marking an unfortunate moment for the most expensive plane in history. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: F-35 Program, Marine Corps, pilot ejects, Taliban | Leave a Comment »
Posted by M. C. on September 5, 2018
When one adds up the U.S. dead and wounded from the wars we have launched since 2001 with the Arab and Muslim wounded, killed, orphaned, widowed, uprooted and turned into refugees, as well as the trillions of dollars lost, what benefits are there on the other side of the ledger?
https://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2018/09/04/balance-sheet-of-the-forever-war/
by Patrick J. Buchanan
“It is time for this war in Afghanistan to end,” said Gen. John Nicholson in Kabul on his retirement Sunday after a fourth tour of duty and 31 months as commander of U.S. and NATO forces.
Labor Day brought news that another U.S. serviceman had been killed in an insider attack by an Afghan soldier.
Why do we continue to fight in Afghanistan?
“We continue to fight simply because we are there,” said retired Gen. Karl Eikenberry who preceded Gen. Nicholson.
“Absent political guidance and a diplomatic strategy,” Eikenberry told The New York Times, “military commanders have filled the vacuum by waging a war all agree cannot be won militarily.”
This longest war in U.S. history has become another no-win war… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Afghanistan, Forever War, Gen. John Nicholson., Idlib province, no-win war, Taliban | Leave a Comment »
Posted by M. C. on August 19, 2018
The United States has inadvertently become one of the world’s leading drug dealers. This is one of the most shameful legacies of the Afghan War. But just one. Watching the world’s greatest power bomb and ravage little Afghanistan, a nation so poor that some of its people can’t afford sandals, is a huge dishonor for Americans.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/08/eric-margolis/afghanistan-graveyard-of-empires/
By Eric Margolis
After 17 bloody years, the longest war in US history continues without relent or purpose in Afghanistan.
There, a valiant, fiercely-independent people, the Pashtun (Pathan) mountain tribes, have battled the full might of the US Empire to a stalemate that has so far cost American taxpayers $4 trillion, and 2,371 dead and 20,320 wounded soldiers. No one knows how many Afghans have died. The number is kept secret…
The whole thing smells of the Vietnam War. Lessons so painfully learned by America in that conflict have been completely forgotten and the same mistakes repeated. The lies and happy talk from politicians, generals and media continue apace… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Afghan war, graveyard of empires, Pashtun, Taliban | Leave a Comment »
Posted by M. C. on August 14, 2018
The surprise Ghazni offensive has exposed the Pentagon’s misperception of the the wider challenges still at play in Afghanistan, according to Mr. Roggio.
These guys started out 17 years ago using cell phones and VCRs. After 17 years the pentagram still doesn’t have a clue. The Taliban pulled a Tet offensive on US.
Maybe after another 17 years someone will get smart, declare victory and send US troops back where they belong.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/aug/13/taliban-surprise-offensive-afghanistan-catches-us-/
By Carlo Muñoz
The Taliban is on the verge of dramatically expanding its control over southern and eastern Afghanistan in a surprise offensive that has caught Afghan and U.S. forces off guard and thrown a vexing new wrench into the Trump administration’s strategy for ending the nearly 17-year-old war there.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said Monday a Taliban assault on the city of Ghanzi — a key provincial capital linking other areas under the Islamic militant group’s control just 75 miles southeast of Kabul — has killed roughly 100 Afghan security forces and some 20 civilians over the past three days. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Afghan offensive, Ghanzi, NATO, Taliban | Leave a Comment »
Posted by M. C. on August 14, 2018
Winning hearts and minds one bombed out village and funeral procession at a time.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/08/patrick-j-buchanan/americas-lengthening-enemies-list/
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Friday, deep into the 17th year of America’s longest war, Taliban forces overran Ghazni, a provincial capital that sits on the highway from Kabul to Kandahar.
The ferocity of the Taliban offensive brought U.S. advisers along with U.S. air power, including a B-1 bomber, into the battle.
“As the casualty toll in Ghazni appeared to soar on Sunday,” The Wall Street Journal reported, “hospitals were spilling over with dead bodies, corpses lay in Ghazni’s streets, and gunfire and shelling were preventing relatives from reaching cemeteries to bury their dead.”
In Yemen Monday, a funeral was held in the town square of Saada for 40 children massacred in an air strike on a school bus by Saudis or the UAE, using U.S.-provided planes and bombs… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Enemies List, Syria, Taliban, U.S. sanctions, Yemen | Leave a Comment »
Posted by M. C. on July 30, 2018
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/399187-secretary-mattis-heres-a-roadmap-to-peace-in-the-middle
BY SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY.)
You see, every time I run into the secretary of Defense, I try my best to make the point that we’ve been at war too long in too many places.
Gen. Mattis, as well as the head of NATO, the head of the UN, and virtually every voice of reason in the foreign policy world, acknowledges that there is no military solution to the unending Afghan War.
For that matter, most agree that there is no military solution to the Syrian civil war or the Yemeni civil war. And yet . . . the same voices that admit there is no military solution keep sending more troops…. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Afghanistan, Mattis, Middle East, Syria, Taliban, Yemeni | Leave a Comment »
Posted by M. C. on July 11, 2018
It Still Doesn’t Get Worse Than Afghanistan
BY STEPHEN M. WALT
…These are all valid contenders — and there are no doubt others — but for my money (and yours), the single most indefensible and brain-dead aspect of U.S. foreign policy today remains the fruitless but never-ending effort to defeat the Taliban and achieve some sort of meaningful victory in Afghanistan. The United States has been trying to do this for so long that the arrival of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Kabul on Monday, on the heels of the country’s latest broken ceasefire, went unnoticed by most Americans. Many have probably forgotten (or never knew) how America’s involvement in Afghanistan even started — including some of the troops now being sent there… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Afghanistan, defense policy, Taliban, U.S. foreign policy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by M. C. on March 29, 2018
The comments tell the story. Below are samples.
The military always lies about laser guided bomb success rates…come think of it the military always lies, especially to US. How many tries did it take? How many civilians died to get this one success? Is the building really a Taliban “compound” or some poor family’s (used to be) home?
The Taliban attacked US when?
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/03/28/watch-u-s-trained-afghan-air-force-drops-laser-guided-bomb-taliban-jihadists-first-time
by EDWIN MORA
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No.Spending 17 years training one pilot to drop a bomb – makes really good sense. And for only $75 billion, not counting the cost of the planes, we’re well on our way to victory. Thank God we had a lot “dumber” people back in WW2, as we didn’t have a “minute to spare”, in order to start “winning a war”. I guess the only good news we’ve learned, is that we could take a real long nap, before having to wake up and fight back against a “Muslim Military”.
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Afghanistan used to be a mix of Hindus and Buddhists living peacefully together with some Zoroastrians thrown onto the mix.
The history of islam is the slaughter of around 100 million Hindus and we don’t know how many Buddhists and Zoroastrians they’ve murdered.
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This stopped me in my tracks. We gave them technology and training. At the end of the day, they are muslims first. I fear Afghans will either attack our military or give the technology and training to our enemies, or both.
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Does anyone else recall how we trained militants a few decades back, and then they became our enemies and used those tactics against us?
Why the hell are we training other countries? Let them sort their own problems. If they can’t win and become a threat to us, they won’t have the training to fight back and we can bomb them back to the stone age. That’s a policy that actually makes sense, and saves money at the same time. Two birds with one stone.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Afghan Air Force, Laser-Guided Bomb, Taliban | Leave a Comment »
Posted by M. C. on November 9, 2017
The Bush admin was famous for making war expenditures ‘off budget’ items. There is the CIA budget which is always a question. How much is taxpayer funded and how is is covered by their drug ops? Remember when it came out that we were bribing the Taliban not to attack truck convoys in Afghanistan? What accounting category is bribery? This estimate is no doubt conservative.
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/11/08/cost-u-s-wars-5-6-trillion-7000-deaths-52500-injuries/
Nevertheless, the Brown study notes that its “estimate is also conservative,” adding:
This report has not included here state and local government expenses related to medical care of veterans and homeland security. Nor does this report calculate the macro economic costs of war for the US economy. And while this report discusses some of the ways that families bear the burden of caring for seriously veterans [sic], I have not added a value for the costs of their uncompensated care.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Brown University’s Cost of War, CIA, Jihadists, Neta Crawford, Taliban, U.S. War | Leave a Comment »
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