Posts Tagged ‘NATO’
Afghan soldiers signing ceasefire deals with Taliban who — let’s face it — will still be around when Uncle Sugar leaves!
Afghan military already selling heavy weapons to Taliban
Afghan soldiers are selling their weapons and vehicles to the Taliban, sharing intelligence and even signing covert ceasefire agreements with the insurgent group as they prepare for the withdrawal of Nato forces…
Despite Britain and its western allies having spent billions on training and equipping Afghanistan’s security forces, they are freely co-operating with the Taliban and in some cases, ceding territory without a fight or even joining forces with their opponents…
According to the Nato study, Taliban fighters believe they have overcome the American troop surge, that victory and their return to power is “inevitable” and that they can easily subdue President Hamid Karzai’s forces once they take charge of security in 2014.
It also says that after trying by turns to threaten or cajole Pakistan away from its covert support for the Taliban, the Pakistani government remains “intimately involved” with the insurgent group. Taliban prisoners also claim the country’s ISI intelligence agency is “thoroughly aware of Taliban activities and the whereabouts of all senior Taliban personnel”.
In a further setback yesterday, the Afghan Taliban said that no peace negotiation process had been agreed with the international community, “particularly the Americans”. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement that prior to any negotiations, confidence building measures must be completed…Har!
A bazaar in Miranshah, capital of North Waziristan in Pakistan’s tribal region, was “increasingly inundated with rifles, pistols and heavy weapons which have been sold by Afghan security forces.”
“The vehicles and weapons were once only acquired on the battlefield. They are now regularly sold or donated by the Afghan security forces,” the report concluded…
Yes, NATO officers, highly-placed Brits, American PR flacks all deny the likelihood of any of these really happening. Of course, all three categories of Blimp have only just progressed from trench warfare to helicopters in the past couple of decades.
Turkey condemns Rick Perry terrorist psycho-babble
Turkey condemned comments by US Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry as “unfounded and inappropriate” after he said the country is ruled by Islamic terrorists and questioning whether it should remain in the Nato alliance…
“Obviously when you have a country that is being ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists, when you start seeing that sort of activity against their own citizens, then yes – not only is it time for us to have a conversation about whether or not they belong in Nato, but it’s time for the United States, when we look at their foreign aid, to go to zero with it,” Mr Perry said…
Turkey noted that it had joined Nato when Mr Perry was just 2 years old, and cited its long history of fighting terrorism, including co-chairing the Global Counterterrorism Forum with the United States.
“We strongly condemn the unfounded and inappropriate allegations expressed yesterday evening about our country during a debate held in South Carolina by Texas Governor Rick Perry…Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal said in Ankara.
He noted that Mr Perry trailed in the race for the Republican nomination to oppose President Barack Obama’s re-election next year and said, “This reflects the commonsense of the US electorate.”
In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the Obama administration fundamentally disagreed with the assertion that Turkey was run by Islamic terrorists.
Pretty much anyone with an education above that of a Texas 6th-grader and the ability to read and comprehend words of three or more syllables would disagree with the crap that rolls off the tongue of one of Texas’ more prominent Republican ignoranuses.
Gaddafi dead of wounds suffered during capture
Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi died of wounds suffered on Thursday as fighters battling to complete an eight-month-old uprising against his rule overran his hometown Sirte, Libya’s interim rulers said.
His killing, which came swiftly after his capture near Sirte, is the most dramatic single development in the Arab Spring revolts that have unseated rulers in Egypt and Tunisia and threatened the grip on power of the leaders of Syria and Yemen.
“He (Gaddafi) was also hit in his head,” National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters. “There was a lot of firing against his group and he died.”
Mlegta told Reuters earlier that Gaddafi, who was in his late 60s, was captured and wounded in both legs at dawn on Thursday as he tried to flee in a convoy which NATO warplanes attacked. He said he had been taken away by an ambulance…
His capture followed within minutes of the fall of Sirte, a development that extinguished the last significant resistance by forces loyal to the deposed leader.
The capture of Sirte and the death of Gaddafi means Libya’s ruling NTC should now begin the task of forging a new democratic system which it had said it would get under way after the city, built as a showpiece for Gaddafi’s rule, had fallen.
Overdue.
CONFIRMED.
More dirt about Tony Blair’s ‘deal in the desert’ with Gaddafi
Tony Blair used his final foreign trip as prime minister to sign a confidential deal with Muammar Gaddafi to train Libyan special forces and supply him with Nato secrets.
A copy of the accord obtained by The Daily Telegraph shows that the two leaders agreed to co-operate on defence matters in a range of areas, including exchanging information about defence structures and technology.
It was signed during the former Labour prime minister’s “Blair-well” tour of Africa in May 2007, in Gaddafi’s tent in the Libyan desert.
Included in the document was an agreement on “co-operation in the training of specialised military units, special forces and border security units”. They also signed up to “exchanges of information on Nato and EU military and civil security organisations”. The document was personally signed by Mr Blair and Gaddafi…
The two countries also agreed to co-operate in “training in operational planning processes, staff training, and command and control; training of personnel in peace support operations; training co-operation relating to software, communications security, technology and the function of equipment and systems; exchanges of information and experience in the laws of armed conflict; and the acquisition of equipment and defence systems’’…
Yup. The context was different; but, oil was the predominant rationale for every aspect of treaty negotiations between Blair and Gaddafi. As it is for pretty much everything in the Middle East negotiated by western democracies.
With little or no concern for the last word in that sentence.
EU sits and waits for US military options for Libya
Yes, part of Libya’s army is called NARC
In the first indication the crisis with Libya could take on a military dimension, the Pentagon is looking at “all options” it can offer President Barack Obama in dealing with the Libyan crisis a senior U.S. military official tells CNN.
The official declined to be identified because of the extremely sensitive nature of the situation but he has direct knowledge of the current military planning effort…
The official said the “prudent planning” for military options centers around the president’s priorities of protecting U.S. citizens and interests and stopping the violence against Libyan civilians. He cautioned against thinking the U.S. military “was about to storm the beaches” but he also declined to specifically rule out the use of military force.
Let’s hope this is limited to the kind of Reaganesque sword-rattling that warms the hearts of fools and military arms vendors.
First off, the essential customers for oil – those who have left the nutter in charge for decades – are European. The oil and natural gas profiteers adding their percentage atop Libyan fees are almost exclusively European.
That means NATO gets to serve as the EU Rapid Reaction Force politicians in Brussels have blathered about for years.
Second, Libya doesn’t have anything resembling a state structure. It’s not Egypt or even Saudi Arabia. Since the overthrow of the Libyan royals, one or another Euro corporation took on infrastructure tasks and left law in the hands of the lawless.
None of this hands any responsibility to the United States other than the safe extraction of our citizens.
IBM creating cloud-computing system for NATO
IBM has been tapped by NATO to build a new cloud-based computing system designed to help the 28 member nations better use and share data.
Selected for the project by NATO’s Allied Command Transformation (ACT), Big Blue will be called upon to design and demonstrate a cloud-computing environment that would help the North Atlantic Treaty Organization plan and implement critical tasks, such as intelligence gathering, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
The goal is to see if NATO members can use a collaborative cloud to access data faster and make decisions more quickly…
The system will also need to be more secure, more scalable, and more cost-effective than the hodgepodge of systems used in the past…
That’s the bit that makes me chuckle over pundits who are heartsick and offended to death over cloud computing – because it may break down or be insecure. You mean like every other system already in use?
IBM will design and manage the system at NATO’s ACT command headquarters in Norfolk, Va. The project is part of NATO’s goal to modernize its technologies for the 21st century…
Milestone: Nato in Afghanistan as long as Soviet Army
Mujahedeen guerrillas on a captured Russian T-55 tank, 1987
The Soviet Union couldn’t win in Afghanistan, and now the United States has something in common with that futile campaign: nine years, 50 days.
On Friday, the U.S.-led coalition will have been fighting in this South Asian country for as long as the Soviets did in their humbling attempt to build up a socialist state. The two invasions had different goals — and dramatically different body counts — but whether they have significantly different outcomes remains to be seen.
What started out as a quick war on Oct. 7, 2001, by the U.S. and its allies to wipe out al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and the Taliban has instead turned into a long and slogging campaign. Now about 100,000 NATO troops are fighting a burgeoning insurgency while trying to support and cultivate a nascent democracy.
A Pentagon-led assessment released earlier this week described the progress made since the United States injected 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan earlier this year – as fragile.
RTFA for predictable statements from our generals. You know what you will hear from our politicians.
Generally, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, our elected officials can’t pass up a good war during their administration. Or a bad one. Or one that never should have been.
Commentary: Pakistan bombshell by Arnaud de Borchgrave
The prestigious Council on Foreign Relations’ 25 experts-strong, 71-page task force report on the [Afghan] crisis, says, given “the complex political currents of Pakistan and its border regions … it is not clear U.S. interests warrant” the costly war, “nor is it clear that the effort will succeed…”
The same week CFR published its gloomy assessment of the Afghan war, one of Pakistan’s most influential journalists, the editor of a major newspaper, made the “off the record” — which now means go ahead and use it but keep my name out of it — rounds in Washington to deliver a stunning indictment of all the players.
Samples:
– All four wars between India and Pakistan (1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999) were provoked by Pakistan.
– There is no Indian threat to Pakistan, except for what is manufactured by Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency…
– Pakistan has a big stake in Afghanistan. And America’s own exit strategy is entirely dependent on Pakistan. Our army has a chokehold on your supply lines through Pakistan. And Pakistan wants to be the U.S. proxy in Afghanistan. ISI wants to make sure Pakistan doesn’t become a liability in Afghanistan…
– There is no chance whatsoever for the United States and its NATO and other allies to prevail in Afghanistan. No big military successes are possible. All U.S. targets are unrealistic. You cannot prevail on the ground. ISI won’t abandon Taliban. And if Taliban doesn’t have a major stake in negotiations with the United States, these will be sabotaged by Pakistan…
Russia and Nato plan joint missions in Afghanistan
Traveling blind!
Russian forces could return to Afghanistan for the first time since they were forced out by mujahideen fighters in 1989, under a joint initiative with Nato.
A Nato summit next month will be attended by Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, to discuss the plans. Nato officials said Russia had agreed to sell helicopters to Afghanistan and provide training.
Moscow will allow Nato forces to withdraw equipment from Afghanistan overland for the first time, in proposals expected to be agreed in Lisbon.
“The summit can mark a new start in the relationship between Nato and Russia,” said Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Nato secretary-general…
Everyone can learn to be losers.
While his call has been embraced by Western leaders, including Prime Minister David Cameron who set a five-year deadline on the Army’s combat role, Mr Rasmussen said troops would not be withdrawn immediately.
Under a blueprint drawn up by Gen David Petraeus, Nato commander in Afghanistan, foreign troops would “thin out” but not leave disputed territory.
The blind leading the blind is now apparently part of Obama’s “new” strategy in Afghanistan?
Vote fraud in Afghanistan = 23% of the votes!
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission
Afghan electoral officials, releasing preliminary results of last month’s parliamentary election, said Wednesday that they had tossed out more than a million ballots because of proven or likely fraud.
The decision by Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission laid bare the enormous extent of malfeasance in the Sept. 18 vote, which initially was billed as a showpiece of the country’s nascent democracy.
But it also demonstrated the ability of formerly pliant electoral officials to disqualify ballots because of ballot box stuffing, wholesale vote buying or threats to voters from gunmen, among other offenses.
The large number of nullified ballots was an embarrassment to the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, which had pledged that all efforts would be made to ensure that the election would be free and fair…
In the tainted 2009 presidential vote, the disqualification procedure fell mainly to a United Nations-appointed oversight body, which also must give its blessing to the final results of last month’s election.
The Independent Election Commission, or IEC, like many Western officials, had painted a somewhat successful scenario in the wake of the balloting, simply because so many Afghans turned out to vote despite Taliban threats, and because the insurgents staged no successful large-scale attacks on voting day…
“We can state with pride that the turnout exceeded our expectations,” IEC Chairman Fazel Ahmad Manawi told reporters. “In the current situation in Afghanistan, this amounts to success.”
Yup. We’re really getting good at this here nation-building thing.
