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The Saker
A bird's eye view of the vineyard

offsite link Alternative Copy of thesaker.is site is available Thu May 25, 2023 14:38 | Ice-Saker-V6bKu3nz
Alternative site: https://thesaker.si/saker-a... Site was created using the downloads provided Regards Herb

offsite link The Saker blog is now frozen Tue Feb 28, 2023 23:55 | The Saker
Dear friends As I have previously announced, we are now “freezing” the blog.? We are also making archives of the blog available for free download in various formats (see below).?

offsite link What do you make of the Russia and China Partnership? Tue Feb 28, 2023 16:26 | The Saker
by Mr. Allen for the Saker blog Over the last few years, we hear leaders from both Russia and China pronouncing that they have formed a relationship where there are

offsite link Moveable Feast Cafe 2023/02/27 ? Open Thread Mon Feb 27, 2023 19:00 | cafe-uploader
2023/02/27 19:00:02Welcome to the ‘Moveable Feast Cafe’. The ‘Moveable Feast’ is an open thread where readers can post wide ranging observations, articles, rants, off topic and have animate discussions of

offsite link The stage is set for Hybrid World War III Mon Feb 27, 2023 15:50 | The Saker
Pepe Escobar for the Saker blog A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you?re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by

The Saker >>

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Human Rights in Ireland
Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Staff at ?100 Million Alan Turing Institute Attack ?Chaotic? Management Amid Diversity Row Sun Dec 22, 2024 19:00 | Richard Eldred
Staff at the ?100 million Alan Turing Institute have erupted in protest over a diversity row, accusing leadership of "tokenistic" hiring and sparking fears that the organisation's credibility is at risk.
The post Staff at ?100 Million Alan Turing Institute Attack ?Chaotic? Management Amid Diversity Row appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link ?Our Irish Leaders Have Contributed to Hatred Against Jews? Sun Dec 22, 2024 17:00 | Richard Eldred
Ireland's Chief Rabbi has blasted the country's leaders for fuelling antisemitism, leaving Jewish children hiding their identities and many others afraid to wear symbols of their faith.
The post ?Our Irish Leaders Have Contributed to Hatred Against Jews? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link ?Grocery Tax? to Hike Britons? Shopping Bills by ?56 in Labour Net Zero ?Inflation Boost? Sun Dec 22, 2024 15:00 | Richard Eldred
Labour's "grocery tax" is set to punish British families, slapping an extra ?56 onto their shopping bills and driving up inflation, all in the name of Net Zero.
The post ?Grocery Tax? to Hike Britons? Shopping Bills by ?56 in Labour Net Zero ?Inflation Boost? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Furious German Protesters Demand Mass Deportations Following Christmas Market Attack by Saudi Doctor... Sun Dec 22, 2024 13:00 | Richard Eldred
Over 1,000 protesters have flooded Magdeburg, demanding mass deportations after a Saudi psychiatrist killed five people and injured over 200 in a Christmas market attack.
The post Furious German Protesters Demand Mass Deportations Following Christmas Market Attack by Saudi Doctor, Leaving Five Dead Including a Nine Year-Old Boy appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link NHS Faces High Court Legal Fight Over Cross-Sex Hormones Prescribed to Boy Sun Dec 22, 2024 11:00 | Richard Eldred
A Brighton father is suing the NHS in a High Court showdown, claiming a GP's prescription of cross-sex hormones to his 16 year-old son defied Cass Review guidance and broke the rules.
The post NHS Faces High Court Legal Fight Over Cross-Sex Hormones Prescribed to Boy appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Afghanistan: Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace?

category international | anti-war / imperialism | feature author Wednesday December 02, 2009 23:02author by Gerard Horgan - Freelance writer Report this post to the editors

Obama's War

featured image
Bush First, Obama Second

After more than three months' deliberation, President Barack Obama has finally decided to commit more than 30,000 US troops to the Afghan war. The ‘Afghan surge’ is to be fast tracked over the next six months with a large bulk of the troops arriving before Christmas. The deployment will cost approximately $1 million dollars per soldier, per year, some $30 billion overall. This price tag is on top of the considerable costs (running into the hundreds of billions of dollars) of keeping over 100,000 US soldiers ‘in-country’, while maintaining other US global military operations as well as the on-going fiasco in Iraq. The combined deployment of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is close to 250,000 service personnel, which is augmented by the greatest number of private military contractors/mercenaries ever seen (some 100,000 in Iraq alone).

President Obama’s efforts to keep everyone on-side (with one eye on re-election in 2013) has had the effect of achieving the complete opposite. The US General in charge, Stanley McChrystal, will not get the 45,000 troops he requested but just enough troops to guarantee failure (it is doubtful that 300,000 additional US troops would make the slightest difference to the quagmire in Afghanistan). Republicans have accused Obama of dithering over the decision-making process and undermining the US military by indicating that US (and presumably NATO) forces will withdraw by 2011. Those on the left and in the peace movements will point to the troop escalation and ‘Obama’s War’ as an indication that he has failed those who believed in ‘change’. Meanwhile a recent poll indicates that 63% of Americans are against a further deployment, 51% say the war is "not worth fighting" and that ending the foreign occupation will "reduce terrorism".

Reports indicate that the Obama administration seems to think that it can recruit, train and deploy hundreds of thousands of Afghan soldiers and police who will eventually step-in as NATO forces ‘step down’. There is pressure on the bankrupt Karzai government (a president who can barely leave his Kabul compound for fear of losing his life), to achieve ‘mission impossible’. The Afghan government forces are regarded as ill-disciplined, corrupt and infiltrated by the Taleban. According to the Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill the “Afghan army has a loss rate of about 25% of its members, the bulk of whom just walk away”.

Obama is banking on his surge producing results, however, according to Robert Fisk, the Independent’s award winning Middle Eastern correspondent, instead of sending gun wielding soldiers he should have sent “doctors, teachers and engineers”. The Afghans have seen very little improvement in their day-to-day lives over the last eight years of perpetual war. NATO drone attacks, like the one that vaporised approximately 90 innocent civilians at a fuel tanker, are alienating the population. These are not isolated incidents. In September, The Guardian reported that an RAF C-130 Hercules dropped leaflets over an Afghan village; one box failed to disperse in mid-air and instead struck a young girl. An RAF spokesperson stated: “"It is a matter of deep regret that one of the boxes failed to fully open and on landing caused serious injuries to an Afghan child." The young girl later died in hospital. Johann Hari in the Independent reported that “Lt. Col. David Kilcullen, who was a counter-insurgency advisor in Iraq, commented that that US aerial attacks on the Afghan-Pakistan border have killed 14 al-Qa'ida leaders, at the expense of more than 700 civilian lives. He went onto to say: "That's a hit rate of 2 per cent on 98 per cent collateral. It's not moral."

The exact figure for the numbers of Afghan dead is not known (the US doesn’t do body-counts apparently) but it is sure to run to the many thousands. One US professor commented that prior to the outbreak of hostilities in the winter of 2001; millions of Afghans were in danger of starvation if the bombing interfered (as it did) with aid convoys from Pakistan. The killing of innocent civilians rubbishes the campaign to win the Orwellian phrased ‘battle for hearts of minds’ and instead drives hostile Afghans into the arms of the resistance, fuelling a war without end.

The wider instability the war is creating is of equal concern. Pakistan has seen a dramatic surge in violence, with suicide bombers penetrating to the heart of the government and military establishment. The immediate fear is for the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons sites. The country runs the real risk of descending into the kind of all out ‘Somali-style’ anarchy, associated with a failed state. The impact of Pakistan ceasing to function as a viable state on India, Iran and Kashmir is too enormous to contemplate.

As Obama travels to Oslo to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize, the long slow march to human destruction has been set firmly in train. Afghanistan, a mountainous and largely unforgiving land, is regarded as ‘the graveyard of empires’. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the British Empire (which is currently engaged in its fourth Afghan War) and the Soviet Union all suffered dramatic losses and were forced into humiliating retreats. It is unlikely that it will be any different this time round.

 #   Title   Author   Date 
   Lessons Learnt in Ireland, Applied in Afghanistan     irish lessons    Thu Dec 03, 2009 09:32 
   Not so Black and White     Michael Gallagher    Fri Dec 04, 2009 00:26 
   Irish involvment     Jim M    Tue Dec 08, 2009 17:27 
   Vid (1,28)-Iraq Veterans Against the War take it to the streets in Seattle     Iraq Vets    Wed Dec 09, 2009 09:30 
   Malalai Joya Among Warlords     An Afghan woman's voice....    Wed Dec 16, 2009 05:21 


 
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