World-News

Disapproval ratings for military efforts in Afghanistan are rapidly rising. In a March USA Today/Gallup poll, 42 percent of respondents said the United States made a mistake in sending military forces to Afghanistan, up from 30 percent in February.

http://snipurl.com/irklv


From Information Clearing House



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

Porter: The United States doesn't understand the forces it unleashed in Afghanistan.
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=74&jumival=383



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=McChrystal
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Gareth+Porter

Agence France-Presse

05/21/09

NATO has failed to stem the vast opium trade in Afghanistan that helps finance Taliban insurgents despite an eight-year effort, the top US military officer said on Thursday. Countering narcotics networks is crucial to weakening the Taliban and allied insurgent groups, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate hearing. ‘Strategically my view is it has to be eliminated,’ Mullen said. ‘We have had almost no success in the last seven or eight years doing that, including this year’s efforts,’ he said. Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world’s opium, the raw material for heroin across Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East while cash from the trade helps insurgents buy weapons, according to officials...

http://tinyurl.com/on9avn


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Mike+Mullen
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Taliban
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=opium

By Pepe Escobar

Happy Days are here again. It's as if the George W Bush years in Afghanistan had never left, with Washington still wallowing in an intelligence-free environment. A surge is coming to town - just like the one General David Petraeus engineered in Iraq.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22681.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Petraeus
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=surge