Karzai has competition..and thats a good thing.

The corrupt bastard that runs Afghanistan is getting quite a bit of competition. From Ann Marlowe @ The Daily Beast:

Afghanistan’s democratic opposition—a loosely affiliated but increasingly unified group of former Northern alliance fighters and politicians, Western-educated technocrats, businesspeople and military men—is facing a stalemate in what looks more and more like the Afghan endgame.

Last week, I met with three of the key players: Ahmad Wali Masoud, the former Afghan Ambassador to Britain, and one of the six brothers of the slain Afghan legend Ahmad Shah Massoud; last year’s presidential challenger Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, and deposed internal security chief Amrullah Saleh.

Since then, there have been several significant events in Kabul—not only did we see the unraveling of the Kabul Bank but it was also “Martyr’s Week,” commemorating the dead among the Afghan armed forces, as well as the end to Ramadan.

And events are moving so quickly here—think of the dissolving dreamscapes of Inception—that while Masoud, Abdullah and Saleh were all maintaining some distance on August 31, four days later, I was told, Saleh pledged his loyalty to Abdullah, and the following day, the three made a joint appearance at Kabul Education University.

At a time when the relationship between Karzai and the U.S. administration appears to have strained to a near-breaking point, and words such as “revolution” are suddenly cropping up in conversation, we should pay attention.

Nothing would make me happier than to see Karzai drummed out of office..and then run out of town on a rail or jailed for his crimes against his own people. The bastard and his cabinet are so corrupt it’s obvious and pathetic..and it makes us look like fools since we support his regime and refuse to foster and support opposition parties that really want democracy in Afghanistan. Again from Marlowe’s writeup:

 While the men are very different—Masoud is genial and full of smiles, Abdullah has gravitas, and Saleh is all coruscating brilliance—the three spoke with surprising unanimity about the situation as they saw it, placing the lion’s share of blame for the deteriorating situation on the Americans and their focus on empowering one man, Hamid Karzai, rather than creating a sustainable, robust political system.

“They should have supported the political process and, if that process is legitimate, then the product of that process will be legitimate,” said Dr. Abdullah.

Or as Masoud put it: “The Americans imposed Karzai on Afghanistan, they know best how to change it.”

“Why did they pump billions of dollars into this country through one man, but do not promote political parties?” asked Masoud. “If they’d done that, by now we would have political parties to deal with, not one man.”

Bush knew what he was doing by putting Karzai in power, and I would hazard a guess that Obama is keenly aware of what a bag of batshit Karzai and his government are…so why support them? What is the upside of this fuckery for America and her money and soldiers?

WikiLeaks gives us the truth Obama’s administration won’t…

WikiLeaks has struck again!! The Obama administration responded with the following from the whores at Politico:

The White House responded swiftly and sharply to publication Sunday evening of more than 91,000 secret documents painting a bleak picture of the Afghanistan war, calling the leak “irresponsible” and saying that the source – the whistleblower website WikiLeaks — “opposes U.S. policy in Afghanistan.” WikiLeaks said its “Afghan War Diary” consists mostly of reports “written by soldiers and intelligence officers … describing lethal military actions involving the United States military.” WikiLeaks gave three news organizations – The New York Times, The (British) Guardian and Germany’s Der Spiegel – advance access to the “war logs” trove.

They oppose the Afghan War? Who the fuck doesn’t? Oh boo-fucking-hoo you lying, covering-up, war mongering bastards! Meanwhile…the NYT has run an article, entitled the War Log which they explain and validate here, based on Wikileak’s info. From the WikiLeak writeup:

25th July 2010 5:00 PM EST WikiLeaks has released a document set called the Afghan War Diary (AWD), an extraordinary compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.

The reports, while written by soldiers and intelligence officers mainly describing lethal military actions involving the United States military, also include intelligence information, reports of meetings with political figures, and related detail.

The document collection will shortly be available on a dedicated webpage. 

The reports cover most units from the US Army with the exception of most US Special Forces’ activities. The reports do not generally cover top-secret operations or European and other ISAF Forces operations.

We have delayed the release of some 15,000 reports from the total archive as part of a harm minimization process demanded by our source. After further review, these reports will be released, with occasional redactions, and eventually, in full, as the security situation in Afghanistan permits.

The data is provided in CSV and SQL formats, sorted by months, and also was rendered into KML mapping data.

It’s gonna be a doozie folks you can wade thorough it all HERE…fasten your friggin seatbelts, its gonna be a bumpy, horrendous ride. And Team Obama ain’t gonna like it and neither will the Bushies. Fuck em all I say..warmongering bags of shit.

KO’s Special Comment: I agree!

I have spent most of this day reading and pondering Gen McChrystal’s thoughts about who he works with and for.

After watching Olbermann’s special comment tonight I must say I unequivocably agree with KO’s assessment. Keep McChrystal. If you did not see KO’s remarks…here it is.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640

Remember his team of rivals speech….if he means that…he will keep the General.

Todays number: One Trillion

On this memorial day, we stop to consider that huge, horrific number. That number is what the two wars have cost American’s. Raw Story calls it sad, to me it’s more than that. From the RS writeup:

The cost of the United States’ wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost taxpayers more than one trillion dollars, a Massachusetts nonprofit said Sunday, marking a grim milestone on the eve of the Memorial Day holiday.

According to the group, the threshold was crossed Sunday at 10:06 am ET, based on Congressional appropriations for the wars. To date, the group notes, $747.3 billion has been appropriated for the U.S. war in Iraq and $299 billion for the war in Afghanistan.

The group, National Priorities Project, conveyed the size of US war spending by highlighting other things that could have been bought with the money. For example, for the price of America’s two wars, the US could give $5,500 in Pell grants to all of America’s 19 million college students for the next nine years. One trillion would also pay the entire healthcare bill for 294 million people, or 440 million children, the group says.

A billing pending in Congress will add another $37 billion to this year’s spending.

In a press release posted Friday, the group gave a list of other considerations that could have been purchased for $1 trillion. Among them:

     What Can You Get For $1 Trillion?

    * Federal Funding For Higher Education — $1 trillion would give the maximum Pell Grant award ($5,500) to all 19 million U.S. college and university students for the next 9 years.

    * 294,734,961 people with health care for one year, or

    * 21,598,789 public safety officers for one year, or

    * 17,149,392 music and arts teachers for one year, or

    * 7,779,092 affordable housing units, or

    * 440,762,472 children with health care for one year, or

    * 137,233,969 head start places for children for one year, or

    * 16,427,497 elementary school teachers for one year, or

    * 1,035,282,468 homes with renewable electricity for one year

It physically makes me ill…sick to my stomach, to think what we could of done with all that fucking money. 

And these…cough, costs.. are just the tip of the iceberg. The cost in human lives and those lives that have been shattered forever just boggle the mind.

This is what nightmares are made of folks… Enjoy your memorial day, if you can. Or watch the video I created a few years back about the human cost of the Iraq and now..the Afghanistan Wars.

http://www.divshare.com/flash/video2?myId=11547112-11c&new_design=true

America’s secret prisoners in Afghanistan.

Bagram  Prison isn’t a secret, but evidently who is being held there IS a secret. There are, according to the article, secret prisons in Afghanistan. From The Nation:

One quiet, wintry night last year in the eastern Afghan town of Khost, a young government employee named Ismatullah simply vanished. He had last been seen in the town’s bazaar with a group of friends. Family members scoured Khost’s dusty streets for days. Village elders contacted Taliban commanders in the area who were wont to kidnap government workers, but they had never heard of the young man. Even the governor got involved, ordering his police to round up nettlesome criminal gangs that sometimes preyed on young bazaargoers for ransom.

But the hunt turned up nothing. Spring and summer came and went with no sign of Ismatullah. Then one day, long after the police and village elders had abandoned their search, a courier delivered a neat handwritten note on Red Cross stationery to the family. In it, Ismatullah informed them that he was in Bagram, an American prison more than 200 miles away. US forces had picked him up while he was on his way home from the bazaar, the terse letter stated, and he didn’t know when he would be freed.

In the past few years Pashtun villagers in Afghanistan’s rugged heartland have begun to lose faith in the American project. Many of them can point to the precise moment of this transformation, and it usually took place in the dead of night, when most of the country was fast asleep. In its attempt to stamp out the growing Taliban insurgency and Al Qaeda, the US military has been arresting suspects and sending them to one of a number of secret detention areas on military bases, often on the slightest suspicion and without the knowledge of their families. These night raids have become even more feared and hated in Afghanistan than coalition airstrikes. The raids and detentions, little known or understood outside the Pashtun villages, have been turning Afghans against the very forces many of them greeted as liberators just a few years ago.

The Big O™ appears to be continuing the BushCo bullshit once again. Makes me quite heartsick and very angry. The Nation article is very good, and I hope people read the entire piece as it shows us how Obama is keeping intact more of the status quo ideologies held by the last administration.

The more things change..the more they stay the same.

Crossposted at Sirens Chronicles.