MEDIA ROOTS – The Pentagon disseminates propaganda through many different avenues: embedded reporting, press conferences, active cooperation with Hollywood, and through American Forces Press Service. The capstone of AFPS is a daily report known as “Face of Defense,” which glorifies the fighter, omits the horrors of war, and hypes creative accounts of military life. Examples include:

“Passion for Cooking Drives Marine’s Service”
“Nebraska Native Mentors Afghan Farmers”
“Airman Saves Little Girl at Beach”
“Togolese-born Army NCO Lives His Dream”

The Pentagon also issues daily reports through AFPS, which are intended to quantify the individuals detained and killed by the U.S. military, and the weaponry it confiscates during operations in Afghanistan. One may deem them Detained-Killed reports for convenience. Through the distillation of all fifteen Detained-Killed reports, which were issued in March 2012, many lessons are deduced regarding the Pentagon’s choice of nomenclature, the locations of its battles with the Afghan resistance, and its professed reasons for occupying Afghanistan.

Use of Nomenclature  

In keeping with the Pentagon’s desire to arrogate progress in Afghanistan, each report described all operations as “Afghan-led” or led by “Afghan special units.” In extremely gratuitous cases, reports referred to “Afghan provincial response team with coalition mentors” or “an Afghan provincial response company advised by coalition forces.” However, in most instances, reports stuck with the standard reference to Afghan-led and coalition-supported forces.

In total, the Pentagon used thirteen distinct labels to describe the individuals it detained. These labels include Haqqani leader, Taliban leader, senior Taliban leader, Taliban facilitator, Taliban weapons supplier, Taliban insurgent, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan leader, IED manufacturer, insurgent, insurgent leader, suspected insurgent, insurgent commander, and suspect. Despite this great variety, the reader is left with no understanding of the standards the Pentagon uses to label its captives. In fact, Wired.com reports that the Pentagon has no formal criteria to delineate “leaders” from general insurgents. While the Detained-Killed reports provide some understanding of why certain individuals were detained, they don’t provide any indication of what distinguishes accused insurgents from suspects, facilitators from suppliers, or leaders from commanders.

Questions arise when assessing the variety of labels that are applied to these individuals. Once detained, is the humanity of an individual’s treatment gradated in proportion to the severity of his assigned moniker? For instance, are generic insurgents treated with the same disdain as confirmed Taliban members? How many of these detainees have access to any semblance of legal procedures or due process? When was the last time a confirmed, genuine Al-Qaeda member was captured in Afghanistan?

Locations and Reasons

These thirteen distinct types of enemy were detained across thirty-one specific locations throughout Afghanistan. The most active provinces where captures occurred were Helmand and Kandahar. Fourteen separate captures occurred in Helmand and seven separate captures occurred in Kandahar. The most active district was Nad ‘Ali in Helmand province, where individuals were captured on six separate instances.

The Pentagon’s Detained-Killed reports provide many reasons to justify capturing individuals. Some of the reasons for capture are quite specific. For example, in one instance Afghan judicial officials had issued an arrest warrant for a suspect who was linked forensically to IED components. In another instance, an individual was wanted for participation in illegal drug trafficking. Another individual was an alleged supervisor of Taliban finances. Aside from these examples, justifications for capturing the enemy were blurry.

The Pentagon’s reports didn’t distinguish how activities are qualified. For example, different individuals were arrested for allegedly organizing roadside bombings, overseeing the construction of roadside bombs, coordinating roadside bombings, and preparing suicide bombers. Although these descriptions vary, the Pentagon reports never clarify the difference between organizing, overseeing, coordinating, and preparing a bombing. One may speculate that the Pentagon keeps these lines blurred in order to provide Afghan/Coalition Forces (ACF) with sufficient flexibility to detain anyone they wish.

According to the cumulative total of these press releases, every individual was detained because of alleged involvement in plots or attacks against the foreign militaries, which occupy Afghanistan. Moreover, nobody was detained for plotting against the U.S. mainland or any other country. The implications of these statements are manifold.

Others individuals are captured simply because they’re “suspects.” One individual was suspected to have planned suicide attacks, while another was suspected of involvement in a bombing at Jalalabad airfield. Six individuals were captured for allegedly attacking or targeting ACF. Twenty-six individuals were captured for allegedly planning, coordinating, organizing, directing, or controlling insurgent attacks. Seventeen others were captured for allegedly providing or supplying weaponry, materiel, or funds to insurgents. No information was given regarding how the Pentagon determined the intent of the individuals who were detained for simply “planning” attacks.

Some individuals were captured as a by-product of search operations undertaken by Afghan/Coalition Forces. These captures occurred when ACF searched for a Haqqani “facilitator” and for a Haqqani “leader.” At least nine individuals were captured when ACF were searching for various Taliban leaders. At least two individuals were captured during searches for Taliban insurgents. Other captures occurred during an ACF search for an Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan leader. No reasons were given for detaining any of these particular individuals.

Manipulation of Paraphernalia

Afghan/Coalition Forces confiscate and destroy certain items, which they encounter during the course of their operations. Sometimes the Detained-Killed reports give little detail and just note that confiscated items were “weapons.” Other times, Detained-Killed reports are quite specific. For example, Afghan/Coalition Forces confiscated 4,500 pounds of ammonium nitrate in Marjah, Helmand on 26 March.

Based on analysis of March’s Detained-Killed reports, everything destroyed or confiscated by Afghan/Coalition Forces fell into two categories: weaponry and “illegal drugs.” The weaponry included shotguns, rifles, hand grenades, ammonium nitrate, blasting caps, detonation cord, pressure plates, “suicide vests,” anti-tank mines, RPGs, and rockets. The “illegal drugs” were opium, heroin, hashish, marijuana, and marijuana seeds. Helmand province led the way with seven separate instances of confiscated weaponry or drugs. Nangarhar, Ghazni, Paktika, and Uruzgan provinces also witnessed confiscations.

Confiscating or destroying drugs that the U.S. government deems “illegal” does not change the fact that Afghanistan is economically dependent upon opium and marijuana cultivation. No amount of American-led destruction or confiscations will change that. Similarly, Afghan/Coalition Forces can seize all the bomb-making equipment they can find in Afghanistan and still not make a dent in the amount of weaponry available in the country. Furthermore, confiscating rifles and ammunition directly violates a fundamental norm of Afghan society; taking away a male’s weapon simultaneously confiscates their perceived masculinity, working against the very “hearts and minds” that the Pentagon’s Counterinsurgency Manual (FM 3-24) claims to help. Over eleven years into the war, these basic issues are still up in the air.

License to Kill

Afghan/Coalition Forces killed individuals during patrols, search operations, and confiscations. In the month of March, ACF killed the following enemy labels: a senior Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan leader, “multiple insurgents,” “several insurgents,” an insurgent leader, eight individual insurgents, and a Taliban bomb maker. After the killings subsided, ACF detained “several suspected insurgents,” a wounded insurgent, and two separate insurgents. Individuals were killed in the provinces of Baghlan, Faryab, Kunar, Kunduz, Laghman, and Uruzgan. Curiously, no deaths were reported from Helmand or Kandahar provinces, even though Helmand and Kandahar witnessed heavy fighting this past spring.

The Detained-Killed reports indicated Afghan/Coalition Forces never initiated hostilities. For example, “insurgents fired on the security force [and] the force returned fire.” Elsewhere, “insurgents engaged the security force with small-arms fire, [so] the force returned fire, killing the insurgents.” In other operations, a man “fired on security forces from behind the women and children, [then] two other insurgents fired at the security force.” These AFPS descriptions give one the impression that Afghan/Coalition Forces had no choice but to respond. Aside from one instance where Afghan/Coalition Forces ordered an airstrike against “insurgents [who] were planting two roadside bombs,” ACF never initiated combat during the month of March 2012, according to these Detained-Killed reports. These reports are also valuable for what they omit; they never mention statistics about individuals and civilians killed during night raids and bombing sorties.

The American Forces Press Service is a swamp of agitprop; it disseminates artful, literary propaganda, with no concern for truths. While analysis of March’s Detained-Killed reports has yielded some hard information about the Pentagon’s activities in Afghanistan, it also raises many questions about Washington’s longest war. The selective content of the Detained-Killed reports – including the Pentagon’s choice of vocabulary, its professed reasons for detaining and killing individuals, and large omissions about fighting in Kandahar and Helmand – is merely a crafty attempt to arrogate progress while the Pentagon solidifies its “enduring presence” in Central Asia.

Christian Sorensen for Media Roots.

Photo provided by Flickr user ISAFMedia

***

MEDIA ROOTS – At Ground Zero this past September 11, a more docile crowd congregated at the site for eternal mourning. The number of family members and protestors were generally smaller and most in the 9/11 Truth movement honored a four-hour silence out of respect for the victims and their families. What ensued was a gathering of people from across the 9/11 landscape with several constructive conversations and very few emotional diatribes.

The goal for this year’s annual gathering of 9/11 questioners was to capture activists’ collective experience. Several individuals from around the country were featured, some whom made the pilgrimage from as far as the state of Georgia. New York City is the de facto home of the 9/11 Truth movement where weekly street actions continue at Ground Zero every Saturday for several hours each afternoon.

Reflections from the 9/11 Truth movement after 11 years.

***

Oscar Mosko is a producer at truth-march and is managing editor at Media Roots.

MEDIA ROOTS – On this episode of Breaking the Set, Abby talks about yet another “apparent suicide” in Guantanamo prison, dryboarding, and how the only way to ever leave Gitmo is in a body-bag. She interviews former CIA Officer Ray McGovern about CIA intelligence failures leading up to 9/11, the presidential daily briefings, and the PNAC neo-con strategy for war. She also talks to Afghan journalist and author of Opium Wars, Fariba Nawa, about the opium trade, opium brides, and the US managing the $88 billion annual heroin trade on the black market. Finally, BTS breaks down the systematic erosion of our civil liberties through legislation passed in a post 9/11 America.

***

 Liberties Gone, Gitmo Dryboarding, Opium War in Afghanistan

***

Tune in from 6-6:30 EST M-F on your local cable station

OR watch live at http://www.RT.com/usa

OR SUBSCRIBE to the official YouTube channel @http://www.youtube.com/BreakingTheSet

LIKE Breaking The Set @ http://fb.me/BreakingTheSet

FOLLOW Abby Martin @ http://twitter.com/AbbyMartin

MEDIA ROOTS — Early last Sunday, an unhinged U.S. Army Sergeant walked more than a mile, from village to village in rural Afghanistan, broke down the doors of three homes, and methodically murdered at least 16 Afghani civilians—nine of them being children.

The U.S. Department of State issued an uncharacteristic apology, given how a formal apology was never issued, nor actions taken, to hold accountable the soldiers from the “Collateral Murder” video nor Iraqi Wedding Party massacre for their war crimes, to name a couple of examples.

When asked by a reporter if the Afghanistan massacre was comparable to the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, Obama stated:  “It appeared you had a lone gunman who acted on his own.  In no way is this representative of the enormous sacrifices that our men and women have made in Afghanistan.”

The fact that the Obama Administration would be so quick to demean the actions of one soldier and not condemn the other aforementioned detestable acts illustrates the fine line between what our leadership deems morally reprehensible versus what is simply dismissed as expected collateral damage when following the ‘rules of engagement.’

Other political players try to spin a more commonly heard epithet.  U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta responded to the recent tragedy by saying, “War is hell. These kinds of events and incidents are going to take place, they’ve taken place in any war. They’re terrible events. This is not the first of those events, and it probably won’t be the last.”  Panetta also didn’t hesitate to say that the death penalty could be used against the soldier who committed these atrocities.

Pushing the mentality that “war is hell” is a common way to dismiss endemic military acts, which government officials downplay as isolated events in a chaotic war time environment instead of addressing them in the larger framework of what war does to the psychology of human beings.  Unlike WWII and the U.S. invasion and occupation of Vietnam, U.S. military aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan are not ‘wars‘ in the conventional sense; they are militarized occupations of sovereign nations with mostly little to no army and barely any means to defend themselves.

Written by Abby and Robbie Martin

***

REUTERS — Sunday’s shootings triggered angry calls from Afghans for an immediate American exit. Obama said there should not be a “rush to the exits” for U.S. forces who have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001 and that the drawdown must be carried out in a responsible way.

The accused U.S. Army staff sergeant walked off his base in the southern province of Kandahar in the middle of night and gunned down at least 16 villagers, mostly women and children.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the death penalty could be sought in the U.S. military justice system against the soldier, whose name has not been publicly disclosed.

Referring to Sunday’s massacre, Obama said in an interview with KDKA, a CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh: “It makes me more determined to make sure we’re getting our troops home.”

Photo by Flickr user Sdasm Archives

MEDIA ROOTS – Upon returning home from his second tour in Afghanistan, Lt. Colonel Daniel L. Davis unloaded several truths that exposed continued deception by multiple senior military officials.  The 17-year Army veteran describes, in an 84-page “open-source” report, an increasingly bleak reality for soldiers while chronicling specific episodes of personal gain from top military leaders.

“No one expects our leaders to always have a successful plan,” he explains in a recent summary of the report in Armed Forces Journal.  “But we do expect – and the men who do the living, fighting, and dying deserve – to have our leaders tell the truth about what’s going on.”

Prior to informing his chain of command, Davis met with six members of Congress and a New York Times reporter, to submit two documents – one classified and one not – to the Pentagon for internal review.  However, upon learning that there would be a delay in the release of the unclassified report, Davis decided to go public last week in the nation’s premier independent military periodical.  “How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding?”

The next day, the Times covered the story, but only to appear backpaged on A13.  Then, last Friday, Rolling Stone released it in an article written by Michael Hastings, the journalist that wrote the bombshell article that lead to General McChrystal’s premature retirement in 2010.

With specific evidence of industry actually impeding military development, hundreds of billions of dollars being wasted, and virtually no accountability of top decision-makers, some generals continue to deceive Congress and the U.S. people.  But with the ongoing expenditure of “blood, limbs, and lives of tens of thousands” of service members and only small gains for the country, “deception reach[ed] an intolerable low,” Davis writes. “If the public had access to these classified reports they would see the dramatic gulf between what is often said in public by our senior leaders and what is actually true behind the scenes.”

While assigned to the Future Combat Systems (FCS) organization in Fort Bliss, Texas, Davis discovered that deception was not isolated to one base or division but had become Army-wide.  Starting in 1999 and lasting nearly a decade, the FCS organization cost nearly $20 billion dollars of taxpayer monies.  Despite the Government Accountability Office documenting consistently significant problems with the agency, senior leaders routinely downplayed failures and often gave the impression of success to Congress.  To date, none of these officials involved in these deceptions have been held accountable.  Instead, one proponent, Major General Charles Cartwright, was promoted Vice President of Advanced Programs at Raytheon upon retirement.  Raytheon was a primary supplier of the FCS blunder that was eventually canceled by the Defense Secretary.

The report also offers an extensive review of the 2007 Iraqi troop surge and the misplaced credit given to CIA Director General Patreaus.  Several perspectives of the surge are featured that mention how, prior to the surge, the Iraqi Sunni community had already decided to revolt against their Al-Qaeda allies.  This shifted momentum and left some Iraqi officials perplexed at why the U.S. was sending additional battalions after they had specifically requested that U.S. troops stay on the bases outside of conflict areas.

The allegations make a clear distinction between criticism for military officials and the presumed naivety of the President and Congress.  According to Obama’s Wars by Bob Woodward, the Commander-in-Chief asked many difficult questions prior to ordering the 30,000-troop surge in Afghanistan that ultimately failed.  Obama was still in his first year of the presidency, had no personal military history, and was outnumbered in opinion by senior security advisors.  Additionally, several misleading testimonies from top brass are provided, with context and factual disparity, that exemplify the rampant deceit offered to Congress and major media outlets.

The report goes on to suggest several areas where the U.S. has lost credibility.  Davis cites how many mid-grade officers are now retiring early within the Army, due to increased disenfranchisement, and warns of a future military with dwindling respect for the chains of command.  Also, as Congress continues to remain unaware of some classified intelligence, several defense contractors are able to study such material at their convenience.  Davis recommends a bipartisan Congressional investigation of all the leaders involved to respond to these allegations, under oath.

When questioned why he felt compelled to come out with these accusations despite the fact he was going to be flamed by Army brass, Davis replied, “I believe that with knowledge comes responsibility; I knew too much to remain silent.”

Oskar Mosquito is a veteran of the U.S. Army and a producer at truth-march.

Picture provided by Flickr user hectorir