World-News

An overwhelming 84 per cent believe British troops are currently losing the war in Afghanistan, a Channel 4 News poll finds, as thousands prepare to march on London urging an end to the conflict.

http://snipurl.com/sq63a



UK: Protesters urge end to Afghan war

Soldiers and military families are among 5,000 protesters in London demonstrating against UK military operations in Afghanistan.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8323163.stm


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/10/23-14



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Institute+for+Public+Accuracy

Nick Mottern, Truthout: "When you lace up your boots and head for the plane that will carry you to Afghanistan, you will be joining Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, ExxonMobil chief Rex Tillerson and Gurbangulu Berdimuhamedov in what has been described in the US Congress as 'the new great game'."

http://www.truthout.org/10220910



The Washington Post Creates Its Own Facts to Support Afghan Nation-Building

Melvin A. Goodman, Truthout: "The Washington Post is creating its own facts in order to support its argument for US nation-building in Afghanistan. In its lead editorial on Saturday, the Post asserted that the United States is capable of building a strong government in Afghanistan at the national and local levels. The Post claimed that Afghanistan had had a 'working national government through most of the 1970s and 1980s.' This is simply not so."

http://www.truthout.org/1022097



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Hillary
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Exxon
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Nick+Mottern
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=+Melvin+A.+Goodman

GLENN LYONS

salon.com - The country poses no threat to the U.S., but the war costs lives, drains the treasury and makes.

http://www.ourfuture.org/progressive-opinion/2009104322/why-are-we-still-afghanistan

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The Three Fallacies that have Driven the War in Afghanistan

Case for escalating the war is based on premises that turn to dust on inspection

By Johann Hari

Obama has to decide now whether to side with the American people and the Afghan people calling for a rapid reduction in US force, or with a small military clique demanding a ramping-up of the conflict.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23791.htm



Cheney failed on Afghanistan

A day after former Vice President Dick Cheney charged the Obama administration with "dithering" over its strategy for the war in Afghanistan, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs returned fire with guns blazing.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20091022/pl_politico/28614


From Information Clearing House

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How to get out

The Nation
by Robert Dreyfuss

10/21/09

There is no likelihood that the current US war in Afghanistan can achieve its aims (a narrower goal, the elimination of Al Qaeda, has for the most part already been accomplished). … Accordingly, the first step for Washington must be to abandon the idea of a decades-long counterinsurgency, fire its advocates — including Gen. Stanley McChrystal and Gen. David Petraeus, architect of the Counterinsurgency Field Manual — and admit that the multiheaded insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan can’t be defeated by military means. At the same time, the Obama administration will have to give up its massive nation-building project, dismantling the empire of US departments, agencies, provincial reconstruction teams and the rest now overseen by Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy...

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091109/dreyfuss


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Cheney
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Richard+Holbrooke
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=McChrystal
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Petraeus
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=empire
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=nation-building
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=al-Qaeda
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=counterinsurgency
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Johann+Hari
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Dreyfuss

The smuggling of Afghan opiates is fueling addiction and drug use along trafficking routes from Iran to Central Asia as well as spreading diseases and funding insurgents, the U.N. warned Wednesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091021/ap_on_re_eu/un_un_afghan_opium


From Information Clearing House

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The CIA, Irving Brown, and Drug Smuggling as Political Warfare
http://www.lewrockwell.com/spl2/french-connection-revisited.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=war+on+drugs
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Central+Intelligence+Agency
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=insurgent
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Douglas+Valentine

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/21-8



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Norman+Solomon

Obama is Only Making It Worse

By TARIQ ALI

Karzai has been a total disaster but so has the occupation that implanted him in Kabul. Now with a war going badly wrong and the insurgents controlling large swathes of territory, Karzai is being scape-goated for sins for which he is not exclusively responsible.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23762.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Karzai
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Pakistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Tariq+Ali

http://www.lewrockwell.com/gaddy/gaddy70.1.html

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Does it really, really take 100,000 US troops to find Osama bin Laden?

United States Senate
by US Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV)

10/14/09

General McChrystal, our current military commander in Afghanistan, has requested 30,000-40,000 additional American troops to bolster the more than 65,000 American troops already there. I am not clear as to his reasons and I have many, many questions. What does General McChrystal actually aim to achieve? So I am compelled to ask: does it really, really take 100,000 U.S. troops to find Osama bin Laden? If al Qaeda has moved to Pakistan what will these troops in Afghanistan add to the effort to ‘defeat’ al Qaeda?

http://byrd.senate.gov/mediacenter/view_article.cfm?ID=517


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+C.+Byrd
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=McChrystal
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Osama+bin+Laden
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=al-Qaeda
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=/gaddy

„Die Regionaldelegiertenkonfernz der DGB Region Oberpfalz Nord in Neustadt an der Waldnaab hat am 26.9.2009 folgenden Beschluß bei einigen Enthaltungen gefasst: "Die Regionaldelegiertenkonferenz der DGB Region Oberpfalz Nord fordert die Beendigung des Krieges in Afghanistan.Als deutscher Beitrag für den Frieden halten wir den umgehenden Abzug aller deutschen Truppen für erforderlich. Wir fordern alle Gewerkschafter auf, für die Beendigung des Mordens in Afghanistan zu kämpfen. Die Konferenz beschließt, diesen Beschluß auch an den DGB Landesbezirksvorstand und die DGB Landesbezirkskonferenz Bayern sowie die Beschlußgremien auf Bundesebene als Antrag weiterzuleiten…“ Der Beschluss auf der Hoemepage von verdi.de Sulzbach-Rosenberg http://sulzbach-rosenberg.verdi.de/


Fuldaer Erklärung: Truppenabzug jetzt! Frieden statt Krieg!

„Bundesweite Beachtung fand die Trauerfeier für den jungen Soldaten aus einem Fuldaer Stadtteil, der in Afghanstan schwer verwundet wurde. Auch die Mitglieder des DGB Kreisvorstandes berührte der Tod des jungen Fuldaers nach so vielen Monaten des Hoffen und Bangens, der Hoffnung und Zuversicht. Nun hat der DGB Kreis Fulda, sowie der Regionsvorsitzende Frank Herrmann eine politische Erklärung zur allgemeinen Unterzeichnung vorgestellt…“ Aus der Pressemitteilung des DGB Kreisverband Fulda. Siehe dazu: Die Erklärung (pdf) http://www.kreisverband-fulda.dgb.de/themen/fuldaer_erklaerung_es/frieden_statt_krieg.pdf

Die Online Unterzeichnung: https://www.frieden-mitmachen.de/29/truppenabzug_jetzt!_frieden_statt_krieg!


Klares Bekenntnis

„Den Abzug der Bundeswehr aus Afghanistan, das Verbot aller Waffenlieferungen und die Bereitstellung von zivilen Arbeitsplätzen für Bundeswehrangehörige sind die Kernforderungen eines Aufrufes, den der DGB-Fulda am vergangenen Mittwoch veröffentlicht hat. Den Text haben Gewerkschafter verfasst, die sich über das nationale Brimborium ärgerten, das die Beerdigung eines jungen Mannes aus Fulda begleitete, der in der letzten Woche an den Spätfolgen eines Selbstmordattentats in Afghanistan starb, wo er als Bundeswehrsoldat eingesetzt war. In den Reden und auf der Kondolenzseite war viel vom Sterben für das Vaterland schwadroniert worden…“ Artikel von Peter Nowak im ND vom 16.10.2009 http://www.neues-deutschland.de/artikel/157474.klares-bekenntnis.html


Aus: LabourNet, 19. Oktober 2009



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bundeswehr

White House officials have leaked word that McChrystal's maximum option calls for 60,000 to 80,000 or more troops, but that many aren't available in
the near future.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/77269.html



'Irresponsible' to Commit More Troops to Afghanistan: Kerry

"It would be entirely irresponsible for the president of the United States to commit more troops to this country (Afghanistan), when we don't even have an election finished and know who the president is and what kind of government we're working in, with," Democratic Senator John Kerry told CNN in an interview.

http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?667983


From Information Clearing House

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Escalation unopposed

CounterPunch
by Ron Jacobs

If the news reports are true and at least 45,000 soldiers are preparing for their assignment to Afghanistan, these displays designed to inspire more such deaths will increase in frequency. All the while families tell themselves their children died for something like freedom when most of us know deep inside that no one but those who send them over there really know why the US military is even over there. When we the people are honest with ourselves we know it has to do with empire and conceit, but those reasons do not make us feel good. And there’s barely a peep. Liberals and rightwingers in Congress line up behind the Obama who lines up behind the Pentagon and the industry of war. With the exception of a very few, the consensus is that the death and destruction must continue. The comfort of the empire’s citizens must not be disturbed...

http://counterpunch.org/jacobs10162009.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=empire
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=McChrystal
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=John+Kerry
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Ron+Jacobs