RAW STORY– How can a company allegedly responsible for killing 17 unarmed civilians in Baghdad in 2007 continue to get State Department and CIA contracts? CIA Director Leon Panetta says there is “not much choice” because few companies have the capabilities of Blackwater. “Since I have become director, I have asked our agency to review every contract we have had … Read More
WIRED– The U.S. mission in Afghanistan centers around swaying locals to its side. And there’s no better persuasion tool than an invisible pain ray that makes people feel like they’re on fire. OK, OK. Maybe that isn’t precisely the logic being employed by those segments of the American military who would like to deploy the Active Denial System to Afghanistan. … Read More
RAW STORY– US Defense Secretary Robert Gates rejected suggestions Sunday that US forces will move out of Afghanistan in large numbers in July of next year under a deadline set by President Barack Obama. “That absolutely has not been decided,” Gates said in an interview with Fox News Sunday. His comment was the latest indication that the magnitude of the … Read More
GUARDIAN– President Hamid Karzai has lost faith in the US strategy in Afghanistan and is increasingly looking to Pakistan to end the insurgency, according to those close to Afghanistan’s former head of intelligence services. Amrullah Saleh, who resigned last weekend, believes the president lost confidence some time ago in the ability of Nato forces to defeat the Taliban. As head … Read More
MR: This article is more of an acknowlegment from the Afghani people of what we already know to be true. In late ’09, Obama signed a supplemental war bill that included a provision allowing Taliban members to be “paid off” by the US in the hope that the money will make them “switch sides” and become loyal to the US. … Read More
