NATO kills Afghan farmers

This video from the USA is called Rick Rowley: Recent NATO Attacks on Afghan Civilians Show U.S. Military Surge Strategy Has Failed.

From PAN news agency in Afghanistan:

June 22, 2011

ISAF kills 2 farmers in Laghman

The forces killed two farmers, Mohammad Aziz and Abdul Qahir, sons of Sher Mohammad Sahibzada

By Obaidullah Baidar

International forces killed two civilians during an operation in the eastern province of Laghman, an official said on Wednesday.

Soldiers arrived by helicopter in Wat Jabarkhel village of Alingar district around 12 am and raided the house of a farmer in the village, Alingar District Chief Syed Mohammad Sharif, told Pajhwok Afghan News.

The forces killed two farmers, Mohammad Aziz and Abdul Qahir, sons of Sher Mohammad Sahibzada, he said.

It is rumored that a brother of the victims had links with militants, but that man was not killed in the raid, he said.

“I don’t know why the NATO-led troops killed these people,” he said.

According to a resident of the area, Abdullah, the two deceased men were irrigating their fields when foreign troops killed them and injured a child.

But a statement from [the] media office of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said that a combined Afghan and coalition security force killed two armed insurgents during a security search targeting a Taliban leader in Alingar district, Laghman province on Tuesday.

If NATO kills some Afghan, then that makes the person killed automatically posthumously an “armed insurgent” [sarcasm off].

USA: Ellen Brown, Truthout: “The military is the nation’s largest and most firmly entrenched entitlement program, one that takes half of every tax dollar. Even if ‘national security’ is considered our No. 1 priority (a dubious choice when the real unemployment rate is over 16 percent), estimates are that the military budget could be cut in half or more and we would still have the most powerful military machine in the world. Our enemies (if any) are now ‘terrorists,’ not countries; and what is needed to contain them (if anything) is local policing, not global warfare….. The military is not subject to ordinary market principles, but works on a ‘cost-plus’ basis, with producers reimbursed for whatever they have spent plus a guaranteed profit”: here.

The Miracle of Procurement Debunked Again: The Air Force Finally Got Tired of Getting Screwed (Literally). Dina Rasor, Truthout: “Boeing has just been caught spending $37 dollars for nut and bolt retainers for the Army’s CH-47 helicopter, but charging the Army an average of $381.78, according to a recent Department of Defense’s (DoD) inspector general’s (IG) report. The IG’s office won’t comment on the report because it is ‘For Official Use Only,’ but Bloomberg News got a hold of the report and wrote a story on May 24 about how the DoD IG recommends that Boeing refund the government at least $6 million…. This story could be just another illustration to show that the DoD has not gotten its act together on overpriced spare parts and many of you may be flashbacking to the overpriced toilet seats and coffee brewers of the 1980s and 1990s…. But this recent mess is because of a new experimental way of doing the logistics for weapons that was introduced during the Bush administration. It is called Performance Based Logistics (PBL) and it is just another scheme to push DoD money at contractors and then go hands off and let them make all the decisions”: here.

Cost of Wars a Rising Issue as Obama Weighs Troop Levels: here.

Obama’s Afghanistan speech: An exercise in political duplicity: here. And here.

Obama Leaves Door Open to Long-Term US Afghan Combat. Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service: “President Barack Obama’s speech announcing that the 33,000 ‘surge’ troops in Afghanistan will be withdrawn by ‘summer’ 2012 indicates that he has given priority to the interests of the military and the Pentagon over concerns by key officials in his administration over the impact of the war’s costs on domestic socioeconomic needs. And in a section of the speech that must be interpreted in the context of his past policy decisions on Iraq, Obama appeared to support the desire of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and General David Petraeus to keep a substantial number of combat troops in Afghanistan beyond the publicly announced ‘transition’ in 2014”: here.

Poll: Record Number of Americans Want Troops Out of Afghanistan: here.

IN the light of President Obama’s determination to quit Afghanistan, and his acknowledgement that the US has been talking to the Taleban, the UK’s Foreign Secretary, Hague, has had little alternative but to admit – while on an unannounced trip to Afghanistan – that Britain is also talking to the enemy: here.

By Tony Harris in Australia:

The Greens’ attempt to challenge Australia’s Afghan war policy in parliament last year has, by and large, sunk without trace.

In spite of recent polls showing overwhelming public opposition, Australia’s Afghan commitment rolls on, with the recent deaths of more Australian soldiers. And the war continues to claim the lives of Afghan civilians.

For the major “war” parties, and the military, political and media elites who support Australia’s war culture, it has been “as you were” since the parliamentary debate.

For the Greens, the debate reached an inevitable dead-end, based as it was around the limited argument that only parliament should approve foreign troop deployments.

With the major parties supporting the Afghan commitment such a vote would make no difference to the current situation.

While the recent military deaths have seen the Greens national parliamentary leadership renew calls for Australian troop withdrawals, a new, more assertive, strategy is called for.