Russia accuses the U.S. military of involvement in drug trafficking out of Afghanistan

The global proceeds of the Afghan drug trade is in excess of 150 billion dollars a year. There is mounting evidence that this illicit trade is protected by the US military.

Nice people are respectful of religion.

Occasionally, a journalist just doesn’t play nice enough:

KABUL, Afghanistan - Conservative clerics and elders demanded Thursday that the Afghan government not interfere with a controversial death sentence handed down to a young journalist convicted of insulting Islam for distributing a report questioning polygamy.

…clerics and elders worried that Kaambakhsh would be let off the hook like Abdul Rahman, a Christian convert imprisoned in 2006 on charges of apostasy who was whisked off to Italy, where he had been granted asylum.

I was in a tiny minority back in 2001, believing as I did then that a bombing and strafing campaign that sent Talib leaders running for the safety of the hills of Warzistan was not the right response to 9/11. And even if it was, there’s this thing called “follow through.” Something most Repubicans no nothing about. More proof that we really need some adults in charge soon, because the dead of 9/11 must be wondering when, if ever, they will be avenged:

MONTREAL, Jan. 17 /CNW/ - Reporters Without Borders is very worried about the pressure being placed on the authorities by conservative religious leaders in the case of Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, a young journalist in the northern province of Balkh who has been detained since late October on charges of blasphemy and defaming Islam. The Council of Mullahs says he should be
sentenced to death.

“The calls for the death penalty for Kambakhsh highlight the growing influence of fundamentalist groups on intellectual debate,” the organisation
said. “The blasphemy charges are an ill-disguised attempt to hide the desire of the local authorities to restrict press freedom.”

A reporter for the newspaper Jahan-e Naw (“The New World”) and ajournalism student at Balkh university, Kambakhsh, 23, was arrested on
27 October. Articles on the role of women in Muslim society were found at his
home. articles about women and Islam!!! the horror!  Read more 

Told you so. Keep this in mind anytime you try to understand why “we” do what we do in the Middle East, and why it often fails to work.

Ian does all the hard work, so just go read his excellent recap about drugs and why there is only one answer in the drug “war.” Legalization, in some form or another, is going to happen. It’s simply a matter of time. No matter how entrenched the Drug War MIC establishment, eventually it’s going to be so ugly, corrupt and not effectual that taxpayers around the world will say, “enough.” I think I’ll begin to see it in this country in my lifetime; kids today really don’t care about that Great Evil in the same way as folks my age and older have been brainwashed to be.

I just had a conversation with a friend, and I reminded him: it’s always a good time to advocate sensible drug policy/legalization. Always. That is, as far as that political battle goes, our side is always going to lose. Pushing for drug legalization is a guaranteed no-go, as far as causes are concerned. Until that day that it is not.  Read more 

So I know I promised you all some pr0n, and you’ll get it, but I am so angry right now I shouldn’t write it. Why? Because I finally had a chat with one of my more reclusive neighbors. She’s an American citizen now, but has deep roots in Afghanistan. She went back there this month, for the first time in 15 years. Everything she told me confirms my worst fears about what is happening there. And she also expressed why it is that she hardly ever comes out of her house. She’s afraid of what ’decent Americans’ will do to her if she does. And she has reason to be so.  Read more 

Here you find a 29 year old Afghani woman who is not long for this world. She says she does not foresee a long life. I believe her.

Malalai Joya  Read more 

So I was surfing around, and I came across this:

McCaffrey is calling for a $500 billion investment over the next 10 years to build the Afghan army and police force into “capable, dominant” institutions:

The Afghan economy is booming at 12% growth rate a year. $14 billion has been spent on aid since 2001. Six TV channels and a hundred free/uncensored publications are available to the people. Literacy is increasing rapidly. The ring road is now 2/3 complete. The 40,000 soldiers of the ANA are growing rapidly in numbers and capability. There are 45,000 NATO and US troops in-country. There is a functioning democracy with an elected Parliament —-and a serious, dedicated Afghan President in office.  Read more 

Orwell would be proud:

“When untrained people take photographs or video, there is a very real risk that the images or videography will capture visual details that are not as they originally were,” he said. “If such visual media are subsequently used as part of the public record to document an event like this, then public conclusions about such a serious event can be falsely made.”

I had no idea my cellphone camera was able to alter the fabric of reality like that. Or perhaps he means those “untrained” people who are paid to work for the organization known as the AP. Amateurs every one, who must often be fooled by their lyin’ eyes.  Read more 

Corrente reports, because somebody has to:

Informer Killings Show Growing Taleban Control
Islamic insurgents hold court and execute alleged informers as they extend their hold over parts of the southern province of Helmand.

By IWPR trainees in Lashkar Gah (ARR No. 243, 26-Feb-07)

The past two weeks have seen an unprecedented rash of killings in Helmand as the Taleban claim to be settling scores with informers who have helped foreign troops based in the province. Afghan government sources say that those executed were innocent civilians, but the insurgents insist they held trials according to the laws of Sharia or Islamic law.

In all, eight people have been killed in three separate districts of Helmand province within the last 15 days. Four were hanged and the rest beheaded.

Taleban commanders maintain that those “executed” had betrayed them by tipping off the whereabouts of insurgents to the International Security and Assistance Force, the foreign troops charged with establishing peace and security in Helmand.  Read more 

When it comes to “progress” in Afghanistan, Steve is an optimist, I am a pessimist. But I think we can better grasp the problem by comparing and contrasing those two pieces, while keeping in mind some others. From Steve’s piece:

With respect to the latter, the American University of Kabul has reopened and has provided a program for Afghan women to continue their education with emphasis on English and business/management studies — a major opportunity for these women in the wake of the Taliban regime’s restrictions. Likewise, I would estimate that some 50% of the women in Kabul have shed their burkhas from my travels throughout the city.

In contrast, the widespread presence of war widows and orphans offers a less positive aspect of the effects of 30 years of conflict, especially since these women and children occupy the lowest rung of the social order. In fact, there are an estimated 70,000+ war widows in Kabul alone.  Read more 

I get really, really angry when I read reports like this. This is the destruction of what is good and honorable in our military, all because the leadership is too ignorant and stupid to understand that pushing dolls around a map isn’t really “fighting.”

[T]he troops in Nuristan have also suffered from sheer isolation and the topography of the Hindu Kush. At Lybert (altitude 6,500 feet), the 3-71’s Charlie Company had gone 70 days without a hot shower or a hot meal. They have sustained deaths and injuries from hiking and falling. Soldiers who have served in both Iraq and Afghanistan before said their current living conditions are much worse. “Leadership doesn’t care about us,” said one officer, who requested that his name be withheld to avoid punishment for his comments.  Read more 

Or at least, I hope he did. Guess that pacemaker of his is more effective than we’d thought.

The important point here is that when the Emperor Vice-President travels to a Middle Eastern country at war, the level of security is almost beyond imagining. It should tell you a great deal about how much “control” we have that they got within the gates with this one.

We have lost this war, and as others have said repeatedly, events like this suggest that scenarios like an overrun Green Zone or the complete collapse of the Afghan government and a nuke-armed and resurgent Taliban are not in the realm of fantasy, but likely probability. Nice goin, Chimpy.  Read more 

Here is a good short discussion about our continuing failure in the “war on drugs.” The money quote:

The reporter places no emphasis on the most astonishing (if true) fact in the story: grams of highly pure Afghan heroin are now trading at $90 in LA. That’s about a dime per pure milligram, compared with $2.50 a pure milligram in New York during the “French Connection” days. For a naive user, 5mg of heroin is a hefty dose, so your first heroin experience is now available for less than the price of a candy bar.  Read more 

In Afghanistan, of course. Because the Taliban are killing the teachers and burning the schools:

The two sisters brought to 20 the number of teachers killed in Taliban attacks this year, said Education Ministry spokesman Zuhur Afghan. He said 198 schools have been burned down this year, up from about 150 last year.

Sounds like we need to put more troops in Afghanistan!  Read more 

More rapid fire posting and then I’m really outta here. But you’ve got to read this interview with a very savvy and organized seeming member of the Taliban. Registan has some good stuff too. Also, did you notice? US and Iran are going to talk about Iraq. You can hear the wingnut heads exploding a hundred miles away. Note too Baker is back in the mix, and working hard to clean up Junior’s little mess. How he must hate that.

Saddam is guilty. I guess he’s sorry now that all that chumminess with Rummy back in the day didn’t pay off. Or something. As most of the blogosphere has noted, ah, such timing. So….yawn inducing. Meanwhile, we’re still not winning in Iraq or Afghanistan, police forces in both countries are a joke, and military and political leadership continues to live upon the River in Egypt.

 Read more 

But the Opium production is up. Run tell that.

BBC: Pam O’Toole
An international women’s rights group says guarantees given to Afghan women after the fall of the Taliban in 2001 have not translated into real change. Womankind Worldwide says millions of Afghan women and girls continue to face systematic discrimination and violence in their households and communities. The report admits that there have been some legal, civil and constitutional gains for Afghan women. But serious challenges remain and need to be addressed urgently, it states. These include challenges to women’s safety, realization of civil and political rights and status. Womankind Worldwide sent a film crew to Afghanistan to investigate the situation of women there. They found a young Afghan woman crying in hospital who said she wanted to die. She was recovering after setting fire to herself. Womankind Worldwide says there has been a dramatic rise in cases of self-immolation by Afghan women since 2003.  Read more 

Read this excellent summation of the Clusterfuck that is Afghanistan. From Taliban approved disembowelment to Western troops killing 13 year olds to the Canadian government silencing its troops on the matter, it’s a great short resource the next time someone asks you “how things are going” over there or what kind of “victory” we can look forward to in Iraq.  Read more 

Ha ha. Quiddy:

Really pissed off conservatives:

In the wake of Frist’s remarks about making a deal to get the Taliban as part of the Afghan government (later retracted/corrected somewhat) some conservative bloggers have gone ballistic. Here is a sampling:  Read more 

Lifted from TLC’s soccerdad

Pakistan has reportedly released over 2500 foreigners many of who are member of Taliban or al-Qaeda.  Read more 

Bush, of course. AP:

aliban militants seized two towns in tumultuous southern Afghanistan, forcing police and government officials to flee, officials said Monday.  Read more 

And don’t call me “Shirley:”

James Rupert, Newsday
Wednesday, June 21, 2006

(06-21) 04:00 PDT Kabul, Afghanistan — The war against the Taliban has gone badly these last months, but Afghanistan’s national intelligence agency has devised a secret plan to reverse the tide of bad news.

In a coordinated action this week, the intelligence operatives drove up to TV stations and newspapers in muscular SUVs and dropped off an unsigned letter ordering journalists to report more favorable news about the government.

In particular, the letter said, they should avoid “materials which deteriorate people’s morale and cause disappointment to them.”

The men from the National Security Directorate would not give their names, and to better ensure secrecy, the letter instructed journalists that “publishing or copying this document is unauthorized.”  Read more 

So KBR is getting rich while we turn another six month corner. Guess who else is too:

British officials are bracing themselves for the result of an annual UN poppy survey due later this summer. Early indications show an increase on Helmand’s 1999 record of 45,000 hectares (112,500 acres) and a near-doubling of last year’s crop.

“It’s going to be massive,” said one British drugs official. “My guess is it’s going to be the biggest ever.” UN, American and Afghan officials agreed.  Read more