First Draft

Say What?

In a sign of how far right the GOP has moved, legendary fantasist, liar and douchebag, Oliver North is advising House Goopers on Afghanistan. I wonder if he'll suggest sending bibles to Karzai's brother instead of CIA lucre.

I've *never* understood, the Ollie North cult amongst the wingnuts; especially because the Reagans *both* repudiated everything he claimed about his relationship with Ronnie. I guess the Reagan cult is like everything else on the far right: they pick what they like and disregard the rest. Sheesh...

'I Urge Everyone Not to Judge'

This inspired me to go wandering around the wingersphere looking for what was being said about the captured soldier's statements on video.

Until the truth comes out, I urge everyone not to judge anything this Soldier says as anything other than coerced and/or under duress. There comes a point where you will verbally give away your first born child if it means extending your life by one more day in order to buy some time for those looking for you. Most troops will not be held accountable for the things they say or do in captivity. Naturally, those that faulted McCain for his words in captivity simply don’t understand this concept and will probably fault this guy in the future for everything he says. Liberals are like that. They’re all about…never mind. I can’t go there. Gotta watch my blood pressure.

Which led me to remember the crowning glory of many a wingnut welfare queen's career, and how willing they all were to give Jill Carroll the benefit of the doubt, for her statements in captivity. Assholes.

Would be nice if next time, they took their own advice. There's really nobody these people won't hate. The commenters at Blackfive are already all over this guy, ie what was he doing when he allegedly walked away from his post, is it stupid to rescue or not rescue him, etc, fuck him anyway, blah blah blah. I swear, they're throwing bodies over the side before they're even cold, so quick are they to cut loose anybody who strays from the Narcissistic Right Wing Manual of Proper Behavior in All Situations From Ordering an Omelette to Going to War. And they don't even know what this is yet.

Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, 23, was serving with an Alaska-based infantry regiment earlier this month when he vanished, just five months after arriving in Afghanistan. He was serving at a base near the border with Pakistan in an area known to be a Taliban stronghold.

Bergdahl is from Hailey, a town of about 7,000 people in central Idaho where he worked as a barista and was active in ballet. A sign that hangs in the window of Zaney's River Street Coffee House says "Get Bowe Back," and a message inside asks customers to "Join all of us at Zaney's holding light for our friend."

Sue Martin, owner of the coffee shop, said she knew Bergdahl as a free-spirited young man with blond hair who rode his bicycle everywhere in town and was keen to learn as much as he could about the world.

"He joined the ballet. Then he joined the Army," Martin said in an interview from a room at Zaney's, which has become an impromptu meeting place for friends, acquaintances and the media since the Taliban video was shown around the world. "People have been calling and asking what they could bring to show their support."

A.

Morning Links

• Stars and Stripes has a detailed account given by soldiers of the terrible battle in Afghanistan in which 9 soldiers were killed.

• "As wars lengthen, toll on families mounts" at the Navy Times

• Congressional Delegation struck by lingering recovery in New Orleans from the Times Picayune

Poll: Fading support for War in Afghanistan

From ABCNews:

The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll found that a startling 45 percent of Americans said they do not think the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting, despite the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which provoked the war in the first place.

SNIP

Fifty-one percent of Americans now say that the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan has been unsuccessful, up from 24 percent in fall 2002.

Only 44 percent of Americans consider the war in Afghanistan a success, down from 70 percent in 2002.

Attacks in Afghanistan up 40%

CNN reported today that "the number of foreign forces in Afghanistan killed in June has reached 39, the highest monthly toll of the war."

In a Wednesday article Stars and Stripes reported that tactics used by insurgents in Afghanistan are becoming more complex and it included this:

Compared to the same time period in 2007, there has been a 40 percent increase in attacks against coalition personnel in Afghanistan since he took his post in early April, Schloesser said. [Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, commander of Combined Joint Task Force-101]

Insurgents attacking coalition forces have increased their use of direct-fire attacks, indirect fire attacks which employ mortars and crude rockets, and improvised explosive devices such as roadside bombs, Schloesser said.

The enemy has decreased its number of suicide attacks, Schloesser said.

Twelve percent of all attacks, Schloesser said, are cross-border forays from Pakistan’s frontier into Afghanistan by an increasingly diverse variety of groups that are using the no-man’s land as a safe haven.

Brethren, Again We Gather to Worship the Free Market. Join the Chant: "Business Is More Efficient than Government...."

We sacrifice this one to appease Freede-Munn, the god of deregulation.

Today, we have yet more evidence that the government under Bush has been converted into a giant patronage machine to reward incompetent businesspeople.

Turns out that we care so much about our Afghan allies in the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda that we ship them defective ammunition.  Who's responsible for this, shall we say, massive fuck up?

Why, a private business, of course!  Those entities run by Randian supermen who can do no wrong, the generators of wealth, the embodiments of the American spirit! 

Finished gagging yet?  Good.  We'll continue.

Yes, a small business in Florida obtained the contract to supply ammunition to Afghani security forces.  The ammunition they shipped was old and busted.  You wouldn't want to use this shit at all, not even for target shooting.  And some of it was manufactured in China, which makes its sale by a US company a violation of federal law.  The article informs us that the company contracted to supply the ammo, AEY Inc., is run by a 22-year-old.  This fact is not, in itself, an automatic disqualification.  However, the fact that the vice-president of the company, the person who should be there to back up and guide the young executive, is a licensed professional masseur.

Smell that?  It's incompetence.

Go read the article.  You will probably be shocked at just how fucked up the entire sordid affair is.  It's amazing just how much of our money has been handed out to irresponsible, incompetent, and just plain shady businesses.  Remember these days when people start telling you about how business always does things better than government. 

Justice,Chimpy-Style

Oy.  Can anyone think of a reason not to hold war crime trials in 2009?

KABUL, Afghanistan — Abdul Razzaq Hekmati was regarded here as a war hero, famous for his resistance to the Russian occupation in the 1980s and later for a daring prison break he organized for three opponents of the Taliban government in 1999.

But in 2003, Mr. Hekmati was arrested by American forces in southern Afghanistan when, senior Afghan officials here contend, he was falsely accused by his enemies of being a Taliban commander himself. For the next five years he was held at the American military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he died of cancer on Dec. 30.

The fate of Mr. Hekmati, the first detainee to die of natural causes at Guantánamo, who fruitlessly recounted his story several times to American officials, demonstrates the enduring problems of the tribunals at Guantánamo, say Afghan officials and others who knew him.

Afghan officials, and some Americans, complain that detainees are effectively thwarted from calling witnesses in their defense, and that the Afghan government is never consulted on the detention cases, even when it may be able to help. Mr. Hekmati’s case, officials who knew him said, shows that sometimes the Americans do not seem to know whom they are holding. Meanwhile, detainees wait for years with no resolution to their cases.

DoD pulls mention of friendly fire from posting on soldier's death

Stars and Stripes reports that DoD posted a press release to their website which stated an  investigation was under way into the possibility that a soldier killed recently in Afghanistan may have died as a result of friendly fire but later in the day DoD removed the posting  only to repost it without mention of friendly fire.

According to a DOD release, Kahler, 29, was killed by small-arms fire in the village of Waygul. The Army is investigating the incident, which it says might have been the result of friendly fire. An Afghan guard reportedly fired the fatal shots.

That release, however, was removed from the Web site later in the day.

Lt. Col. George Wright from the Army public affairs office said there were a “couple errors” in the original posting and that a new one should be posted soon. Asked if the information was incorrect or just posted prematurely, Wright replied: “The circumstances around his death are still being investigated.”

The Defense Department’s revised news release made no mention of a possible friendly-fire incident, but it did say the incident is under investigation.

Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington said the changes made to the news release made it consistent with all department news releases.

Asked why the reference to friendly fire was removed, Withington said: “We leave it to the investigation. We don’t speculate in our releases.”

Withington deferred comment to the Army as to why the possibility of friendly fire was mentioned in the original release.

Southern European Task Force officials sent a news release later in the day to identify Kahler as the deceased soldier. The release made no mention of his death possibly being the result of friendly fire.

Stars & Stripes: New enemy in Afghanistan

On Monday WaPo reported Bush is facing pressure from the US military to shift focus from Iraq to Afghanistan including increasing force levels in the latter.  Interestingly Stars and Stripes reports today that US and Afghan forces are clashing with a new enemy  in Afghanistan....

ZABUL PROVINCE, Afghanistan — Foreign fighters with military uniforms are attacking U.S. and Afghan government forces in Zabul province using conventional infantry tactics, soldiers report. Intelligence suggests the foreign fighters are from Uzbekistan and the rebellious Russian territory of Chechnya, in central Asia, he said.

“The foreign fighters tend to be better trained and financed than the average Taliban. They have LBVs (load bearing vests) and canteens and sometimes black or green uniforms,” he said.

During firefights the foreigners use conventional infantry tactics like flanking, bounding and fixing targets, whereas attacks by local Pashtun Taliban are usually poorly executed, Piluek said.

SNIP

“You can tell if the enemy are well-trained,” he said. “If their attack is expertly executed, soldiers assume it is foreign fighters. When it is poorly executed, soldiers assume it is locals.”

Hearts and Minds

Splattered along a new road in Afghanistan.

KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 28 — A NATO airstrike killed 14 laborers working for an Afghan road construction company that had been contracted by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to build a road in the mountainous province of Nuristan in eastern Afghanistan, officials said.

The strike occurred late Monday night in the Norgram district of Nuristan when the Afghan workers of Amerifa Road Construction Company were sleeping in tents after a day’s work.

“Fourteen of our mechanics and laborers were killed as they were asleep in their tents,” said Nurullah Jalali, the executive director of the construction company. “We just collected pieces of flesh from our tired workers and put them in 14 coffins.”

The governor of Nuristan, Tamim Nuristani, said he could confirm that 13 workers had been “mistakenly” killed when NATO forces bombed the area based on what he said was an intelligence report that insurgents were infiltrating the area.

“All these victims are civilians, and they were from nearby provinces,” Mr. Nuristani said.

A NATO spokesman said its forces had struck the area in an attack on what it believed were Taliban insurgents but could not confirm that the road workers had been killed.

Mr. Jalali said that in the year his company had worked in the region, his workers had not come across any militants. “We have not seen any evidence of insurgency in that specific area, and we don’t know why and who attacked our laborers,” he said.

Fucking Up The "Good War"

War profiteering come first.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- U.S. spending on aid work in Afghanistan is only a fraction of what the American military spends, and too much of the aid money pays the high salaries of expatriate employees, an international aid agency said Tuesday.

[snip]

Though the government aid arm U.S. Agency for International Development has spent more than $4.4 billion in Afghanistan since 2002, the British-based aid agency Oxfam said that figure is dwarfed by U.S. military spending here -- some $35 billion in 2007 alone.

''As in Iraq, too much aid is absorbed by profits of companies and subcontractors, on non-Afghan resources and on high expatriate salaries and living costs,'' said the report, which was prepared for a British parliament committee. ''Each full-time expatriate consultant costs up to half a million dollars a year.''

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul said it couldn't immediately comment.

The report said ''urgent action'' is needed to avert humanitarian disaster and that millions of rural Afghans face ''severe hardship comparable with sub-Saharan Africa.''

[snip]

''Some two-thirds of U.S. foreign assistance bypasses the Afghan government that officials say they want to strengthen,'' Oxfam said.

What Coalition?

Odds are Chimpy will continue to repeat his "Koizumi an' I talk about the peace" story despite this development.

Japan’s Defense Ministry ordered home its naval ships from the Indian Ocean today, ending for now a six-year mission in support of the war in Afghanistan that raised the nation’s military presence overseas but has recently drawn increasing criticism domestically.

A destroyer and supply ship that had been refueling warships for the United States and other nations were recalled at 3 p.m. as a special law authorizing the mission was due to expire at midnight. The government of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda was unable to renew the law immediately because of opposition from the Democratic Party, which seized control of Parliament’s upper house in a landslide election victory during the summer.

The United States had urged Japan to extend the refueling mission which, while largely symbolic, provided important diplomatic support for Washington. The mission — based on a “special antiterrorism law” — constituted pacifist Japan’s main contribution to the Bush administration’s global campaign against terrorism.

Success, Rummy-Style

Hey, who kicked over the rock Don Rumsfeld has been hiding under?

NEW YORK (AP) — In an interview billed as his first since leaving the top Pentagon post, Donald Rumsfeld calls Afghanistan "a big success," but says U.S. efforts in Iraq are hampered by the failure of Iraq's government to establish a foundation for democracy.

"In Afghanistan, 28 million people are free. They have their own president, they have their own parliament. Improved a lot on the streets," Rumsfeld says in the October issue of GQ magazine.

Here's Rummy's definition of  "a big success".

Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president, has been forced to cut short a speech at a Kabul stadium after sounds that seemed liked gunshots were heard.

Witnesses said Karzai was hastily led away from the ceremony at the sports stadium by his US-trained bodyguards.

A government official urged the audience to be calm, saying that stones were thrown by people who could not get into the stadium.

[snip]

"Dear brothers and sisters, with respect to everybody, we are finishing our ceremony here," Karzai said as he left the stage.

An estimated 25,000 people, including cabinet members and foreign diplomats had gathered at the stadium which is located near the presidential palace.

The ceremony was held to mark the sixth anniversary of the death of Ahmad Shah Masood, a military leader of an anti-Taliban alliance, killed by a suspected al-Qaeda suicide bomber two days before the September 11 attacks in the United States.

Mushy Is No Poodle

Chimpy, two short days ago, during his presser with Hamid Karzai:

And finally, I do want to congratulate you on the joint jirga that's coming up. This is a meeting between President Karzai, President Musharraf and representative elements from parts of their respective countries, all coming together to talk about reconciliation and how we can work together -- how you can work together to achieve common solutions to problems. And the main problem is to fight extremism, to recognize that history has called us into action. And by fighting extremists and radicals, we help people realize dreams. And helping people realize dreams helps promote peace. That's what we want.

Ooops!  Spencer Ackerman tells us the ballyhooed jirga is a non-event.

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf pulled out Wednesday from a council of hundreds of Pakistani and Afghan tribal leaders aimed at reining in militant violence.

Pakistan's Foreign Office said Musharraf was canceling his trip to Kabul because of "engagements" in Islamabad. Pakistani political analyst Talat Masood said, however, that Musharraf probably was responding to recent U.S. criticism of Pakistan's counterterrorism efforts, which has included suggestions that the U.S. could carry out unilateral military strikes against al-Qaida in Pakistan.

"He is trying to convey a strong message to the United States. There have been a lot of statements coming out of Washington about violating Pakistan's sovereignty and so on," Masood said.

A U.S. State Department official said the Bush administration was surprised and dismayed by Musharraf's snub, particularly after Karzai repeatedly expressed satisfaction about the meeting during a joint appearance with President Bush on Monday.

State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said it was unclear if Musharraf could be persuaded to reconsider.

"We'll see if President Musharraf is able to attend any portion of the meeting," McCormack said.

The four-day "peace jirga," due to start Thursday, already is being boycotted by delegates from Pakistan's restive South and North Waziristan regions amid fear of Taliban reprisals.

The absence of Musharraf, Pakistan's army chief and most powerful figure, could further undermine its effectiveness.

[snip]

The idea of the jirga emerged from a September 2006 meeting in Washington of President Bush, Karzai and Musharraf that focused on ways to combat rising border violence.

[snip]

One Pakistani delegate, who will not be attending but requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about it to media, said that in all about 100 of Pakistan's 350 delegates are boycotting, including all of the more than 60 Waziristan representatives.

One elder from South Waziristan, who didn't want to be identified, said he and others would not attend because of threats from Taliban and because of the turmoil on their own doorstep.

"Pakistan government wants us to go to Kabul, but local Taliban don't want us to do it," he said. "We cannot offend these Taliban because they will kill us if we don't obey them."

Freedom Dressing?

Italy is the new France.

ROME - The United States should wind down military operations in Afghanistan in favour of the NATO-led ISAF force there, Italy's foreign minister said Wednesday, citing an "unacceptable" civilian death toll.

"It is clear that the superposition of the ISAF and Enduring Freedom missions ... very often creates conditions in which military operations are not coordinated effectively and become dangerous for the civilian population," Massimo D'Alema told a parliamentary comittee.

[snip]

"We think it would be advisable to end" Enduring Freedom, D'Alema said.

The UN mission in Kabul estimated in early July that some 600 civilians had been killed since the start of the year, more than half by Afghan and international forces.

"It is essential for military activities to be coordinated in such a way as to reduce this kind of occurrence," D'Alema said, quoted by the ANSA news agency.

"The civilian casualties resulting from recent operations against the Taliban are morally unacceptable. They are a real disaster politically and have created major tensions between the Afghan government and the international forces," he said.

And In America's Forgotten War...

Crap.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- A roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan killed four American soldiers Monday, while two NATO troops died elsewhere and a battle in the country's poppy-growing heartland killed more than 50 suspected militants, officials said.

Because We Can't Seize Our Own Assets

Jesus.

President Bush has signed an order that allows the U.S. government to block the assets of any person or group that threatens the stability of Iraq. 

The order exempts the United States.

Poppies, Poppies [waves wand menacingly]

Heckuva job, Chimpy!

Afghanistan produced dramatically more opium in 2006, increasing its yield by roughly 49 percent from a year earlier and pushing global opium production to a new record high, a U.N. report said Tuesday.

Opium production in Afghanistan increased from 4,100 metric tons in 2005 to 6,100 metric tons in 2006, according to the 2007 World Drug Report released by the Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Opium is the main ingredient for heroin.

In 2006, Afghanistan accounted for 92 percent of global illicit opium production, up from 70 percent in 2000 and 52 percent a decade earlier. The higher yields in Afghanistan have brought global opium production to a new record high of 6,610 metric tons in 2006, a 43 percent increase over 2005.

Poodle Explained

More from Dan Froomkin:

Bob Roberts and Ryan Parry write in Britain's Daily Mirror: "Tony Blair feared George Bush would 'nuke the s**t' out of Afghanistan in revenge for 9/11, a sensational documentary will claim this week.

"Giving the inside story on the war, former British ambassador to the US Chris Meyer reveals: 'Blair's real concern was that there would be quote unquote 'a kneejerk reaction' by the Americans. . . . they would go thundering off and nuke the s**t out of the place without thinking straight.' . . .

"In Channel 4's candid two-part documentary The Rise and Fall of Tony Blair, Mr Meyer claims the threat explains why the Prime Minister vowed to stand 'shoulder-to-shoulder' with Bush over the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan -- to thwart his allguns blazing battle plan."

Could be true.  But on the other hand, the fact that Bush may have wanted to nuke the shit out of Afghanistan (no ** for me!) has little to do with Tony Blair's self-serving political ambitions.

Out Partner In Democracy And Moderation

The lovely and talented Pervez Musharraf.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said he would not allow two former premiers who are also his main political rivals to return to Pakistan to take part in upcoming elections, according to a report Friday.

The announcement seems likely to deepen Pakistan's political crisis, in which the military leader faces accusations of authoritarianism as well as a growing challenge from Islamic extremists.

Musharraf was asked during an interview with the private Aaj television channel about the aspirations of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to return from exile to lead their parties in parliamentary elections, due at the end of the year.

''No, they will not be returning before elections,'' Musharraf said in an excerpt shown before the screening of the full interview later Friday.

Musharraf has said he will ask lawmakers in the outgoing parliament to elect him to another five-year term as president. He has also resisted calls to give up his post as army chief.

Spillover

One, maybe two US soldiers killed in Pakistan.

Militants opened fire Monday on a convoy carrying U.S. and Pakistani military officials near the Afghan frontier, killing one American and one Pakistani soldier, the Pakistani army spokesman said.

At least two Americans and two Pakistani soldiers and were wounded.

Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said ''miscreants'' -- usually a byword used by Pakistani officials to describe Islamic militants -- fired at the convoy carrying military officials who attended a meeting in the northwestern town of Teri Mangal.

[snip]

Rahmatullah Rahmat, governor of the Afghan border province of Paktia, said that he, U.S. military advisors and Afghan army leaders traveled by helicopter to Pakistan for the meeting.

He said that after the meeting finished, gunmen opened fire on the group as they were heading toward their helicopters. Rahmat reported two American dead and two wounded.

Running Out Of Patience

I don't think our friends in Afghanistan will tolerate this kind of shit much longer.

Airstrikes called in by U.S. Special Forces soldiers fighting with insurgents in southern Afghanistan killed at least 21 civilians, officials said Wednesday. One coalition soldier was also killed.

Helmand provincial Gov. Assadullah Wafa said Taliban fighters sought shelter in villagers' homes during the fighting in the Sangin district Tuesday evening, and that subsequent airstrikes killed 21 civilians, including several women and children.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly said more must be done to prevent civilian casualties during military operations. He warned last week, after reports that 51 civilians were killed in the west, that Afghanistan ''can no longer accept civilian casualties they way they occur.''

[snip]

A resident of the area, Mohammad Asif, said five homes in the village of Soro were bombed during the battle, killing 38 people and wounding more than 20. He said Western troops and Afghan forces had blocked people from entering the area.

[snip]

The report of civilian casualties comes less than a week after Afghan officials said that 51 civilians were killed in the western province of Herat.

It also comes one day after the U.S. military apologized and paid compensation to the families of 19 people killed and 50 wounded by U.S. Marines Special Forces who fired indiscriminately on civilians after being hit by a suicide attack in eastern Afghanistan in March.

Afghanistan's upper house of parliament on Tuesday passed a bill calling for a halt to all international military operations unless coordinated with the Afghan government, action seen as a rebuke of the international mission here.

Trouble In The Client State

I don't think the Bush Assministration planned for this.

Afghanistan's government should hold direct talks with the resurgent Taliban and other opposition forces, the Afghan senate said in a formal vote on Tuesday, in a bid to end the rising bloodshed in the country.

The senate, the upper house of the Afghan parliament, also urged Western troops in the U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces to halt the hunt for Taliban fighters and other militants.

The motion comes at a time of rising public discontent with the government of President Hamid Karzai over civilian casualties at the hands of Western troops, corruption and the failure to turn billions of dollars in aid into better livelihoods.

Meanwhile, In America's Other Little War

Afghan soldiers are fragging our troops.

Two American soldiers working as mentors to Afghan troops have been shot dead and two others wounded. U-S officials say the gunman was an Afghan soldier.

Just what the hell were they doing there, anyway.

The shooter was posted outside a prison being revamped to house Afghans transferred from Guantanamo Bay.

[snip]

The revamp is supposed to improve security at the jail, which is infamous among Afghans for tales of torture and appalling conditions dating back to communist rule in the 1970s. Since the U-S-led invasion in 2001 that topped the Taliban, hundreds of al-Qaida and Taliban suspects have been incarcerated there.

Afghanistan is experiencing its own little surge.

Last year was the bloodiest in Afghanistan since U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001 and violence is increasing this year.

More than 4,000 people were killed in fighting in 2006, a quarter of them civilians and more than 170 of them foreign soldiers.

Hearts, Minds, Etc.

Why does this keep happening?

Regional officials said Wednesday that 51 villagers, some of them women and children, were killed in recent fighting in western Afghanistan. The U.S.-led coalition said it had no reports of civilian deaths.

[snip]

Afghan President Hamid Karzai repeated his demands that more be done to prevent civilian casualties during military operations, saying he has been meeting regularly with officials of coalition and NATO forces trying to solve the problem.

''The intention is very good in these operations to fight terrorism. Sometimes mistakes have been made as well, but five years on, it is very difficult for us to continue to accept civilian casualties,'' Karzai told reporters.

''We can no longer accept civilian casualties the way they occur,'' he added. ''It is not understandable anymore.''

The U.S.-led coalition said two military operations conducted between Friday and Sunday by U.S. and Afghan forces in western Herat province's Zerkoh Valley killed 136 suspected Taliban -- the deadliest fighting in Afghanistan since January.

The bloodshed set off anti-U.S. protests by villagers, and Mohammad Homayoun Azizi, chief of the Herat provincial council, said two council members who visited the area reported to him that 51 civilians were killed.

The officials were part of a high-level delegation including lawmakers, police and intelligence officials who investigated the claim.

Azizi said the 51 bodies were buried in three different locations and included women and children. The dead included 12 relatives of a man named Jamal Mirzai, he said.

[snip]

University students burned a U.S. flag during a demonstration Wednesday in eastern Nangarhar province to protest the deaths of five people, including a woman and teenage girl, during a coalition-led raid over the weekend.

It was the fourth straight day of anti-America protests in the country.

A recent Human Rights Watch report said NATO and U.S. operations, including the use of airstrikes and heavy weapons, killed at least 230 civilians last year.

The War On Children

The United States of America becomes the first country in the history of the world to charge a child with war crimes.

The U.S. military has charged a 20-year-old Canadian held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a suspected terrorist with murder and other crimes, the Pentagon announced.

Omar Ahmed Khadr, captured by U.S. troops in Afghanistan when he was 15, was formally charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism and spying, according to the Pentagon's announcement on Tuesday.

The charge of murder stems from a gunfight during which he threw a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier, Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer, before being captured by U.S. troops.

Khadr received about a month of one-on-one training from an al Qaeda member on rocket-propelled grenades, rifles, pistols, hand grenades and explosives in June 2002, according to his charge sheet. It said he spied on the U.S. military, converted land mines to roadside bombs intended to target U.S. troops and engaged coalition troops in small arms fire.

In charging Khadr, the U.S. becomes the first country to try a war crimes suspect who was a child at the time of the alleged violations, The Associated Press cited his Pentagon-appointed defense attorney, Marine Lt. Col. Colby Volkey, as saying.

Opponents of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay criticized authorities for subjecting Khadr to the same military trial system as adult terror suspects, AP reported. In any other conflict, he would have been treated as a child soldier, AP quoted Jumana Musa, advocacy director of Amnesty International, as saying.

Cheney Shits A Brick

In Afghanistan...

Q What do you think the symbolism is there for the -- for whoever carried this out? They said publicly that this was aimed at you. What does that --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Who said that?

Q The Taliban --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I hadn't heard that.

Q It was a Taliban spokesman quoted, saying that the attack was trying to get you.

Q What we're quoting them as saying is that they took responsibility for it, and they said they were aware that you were there.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I hadn't heard that.

Poppies

I agree with Karzai's cabinet, spraying Afghanistan's poppy fields with herbicide is likely to poison the groundwater, kill wildlife, damage other crops, and sicken people.

But somehow I don't think that's why he made this decision.

Rebuffing months of U.S. pressure, Afghan President Hamid Karzai decided against a Colombia-style program to spray this country's heroin-producing poppies after the Cabinet worried herbicide would hurt legitimate crops, animals and humans, officials said Thursday.

The decision, reportedly made Sunday, dashes U.S. hopes for mounting a campaign using ground sprayers to poison poppy plants to help combat Afghanistan's opium trade after a record crop in 2006.

Karzai instead ''made a very strong commitment'' to lead other eradication efforts this year and said if that didn't cut production he would allow spraying in 2008, a Western official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

[snip]

Karzai's decision capped months of behind-the-scenes pressure to allow spraying like that already used in countries such as Colombia, where coca plants supply much of world's cocaine.

Just last month, John Walters, top U.S. anti-drug official, said Afgfhan poppies would be sprayed, although he did not say when. Walters, on a visit to Kabul, warned that Afghanistan could turn into a narco-state unless ''giant steps'' were made toward eliminating poppies.

However, no top Afghan officials had said publicly the government would carry out spraying.

-Holden

Miss Beazley Appointed Commander Of NATO Forces In Afghanistan

According to Yahoo news, Miss Beazley is now leading NATO forces in Afghanistan.

US President George W. Bush discussed efforts to crush Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan with the new commander of NATO's forces there, the White House said. Photo:/AFP

-Holden