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12/8/2009 - KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan (AFNS) -- Members of the 451st Air Expeditionary Wing Safety Office here work around the clock to keep safety hazards to a minimum. There are three disciplines: weapons, ground and flight safety, and members of each discipline conduct inspections, program evaluations and mishap investigations. They also recommend programs to leaders that can prevent certain types of mishaps from occurring in the future. As the weapons safety manager, Tech. Sgt. Anthony Moore ensures all personnel and equipment on and off the installation are located at safe distances in the event of a potential explosion. "There are...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8, 2009 – Combined Afghan and international forces killed seven militants and detained several suspected insurgents in operations today in Afghanistan. A combined force killed seven militants and detained four others in Laghman province while pursuing a Taliban bomb maker responsible for several suicide attacks in the region. "We are aware of civilian casualty allegations, however there are no operational reports to substantiate those claims of harming civilians, including women and children, during this operation," said Navy Capt. Jane Campbell, International Security Assistance Force Joint Command spokeswoman. The force targeted a compound near Armul village in the Mehtar...

HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan, Dec. 8, 2009 – A previous fear of the Taliban would have kept the people of Amir Agha hidden in their compounds as Marines patrolled through their fields and town, but their willingness to talk has increased with a growing sense of security. Marine Corps Sgt. Stephen G. Patten talks to a villager during a patrol through the fields and town of Amir Agha in Garmsir, Afghanistan, Dec. 2, 2009. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Dwight Henderson  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. "We want to help you. We need to talk to you. It...

President Obama's decision to name a pullout date from Afghanistan, and to state it publicly has angered anyone who thinks seriously about all aspects of waging war on a fearsome enemy, but Obama's timing decision was not the worst of it. I trust everyone has been noticing the recent news reports coming from Afghanistan of the increasing numbers of the deaths of American soldiers. Just about everyday we hear of four soldiers killed in ambush or fifteen Americans killed when a position has been overrun. So far, the number of military deaths has doubled this year over last year, and...

KABUL (AFP) – President Hamid Karzai told visiting US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday that Afghanistan would need aid to fund its security forces for up to 20 more years, calling for a long-term US commitment. The newly re-elected Karzai said his government would work to assume responsibility for Afghanistan's security within five years, but that the impoverished country lacked the funds to foot the entire bill. Gates, who held talks with Karzai on implementing a new war strategy that involves sending 30,000 extra US troops to fight the Taliban, reiterated that the United States intended to start withdrawing...

Remember when Liberals, backed by congressional Democrats, protested the Iraq War on a weekly basis; calling it George Bush's murderous and illegitimate war of aggression? For oil no less? And remember when the mainstream media barraged the public with an incessant wave of negative stories, including a daily body count? So what's changed? Nothing. Yet, Liberals scoff at the notion of being labeled hypocrites, biased, and unpatriotic. The truth of the matter is that the war was won in about a month, a tyrannical ruler removed, and basic liberties restored to a destitute and suffering people. Our victorious military has...

I received this e-mail today. Pray for our troops and our Marines who have been in the forefront of the assault since Monday. I hope you enjoy this wonderful read from a "so-called" can't do anything else John Kerry called him. He can write for me anytime. From a Recon Marine in Afghanistan. You got to read this!!! Scroll down. From the Sand Pit. It's freezing here. I'm sitting on hard, cold dirt between rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush Mountains , along the Dar 'yoi Pomir River, watching a hole that leads to a tunnel...

Speaking in Kabul alongside the US defence secretary Robert Gates, Mr Karzai said Afghan security forces would take the lead in securing the nation within five years, but that his country would need financial help to pay the salaries and equip the growing number of recruits. "Afghanistan is looking forward to taking on our responsibilities in terms of paying for its forces with its own resources, but that will not be for another 15 years," he said.

In case you've been on another planet for the last ten months, you know that President Obama's standard answer for the economic meltdown, and his anemic prescription to fix it, has been that the blame rests wholly on his predecessor. "I inherited this" has been Obama's mantra from day one of his Presidency with regard to any problem he encounters. In a revealing testament to President Obama's true character, last week when he and his administration touted the success of the TARP program and how banks were paying back their bailout money -- with interest -- he never once gave...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived late Monday in Afghanistan with plans to assure officials and American troops there that the United States is committed to winning the war despite plans to begin pulling forces out in 2011. "We are in this thing to win," Gates told reporters while traveling to Kabul, where he plans to meet privately with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and later with troops bearing the brunt of combat. ...

FORT CAMPBELL, Kentucky — The highest-ranking military officer in the United States on Monday told soldiers, including many bound for Afghanistan, that he expects casualties to rise next year as additional U.S. troops pour into the war.

Rumsfeld sees and raises on Afghanistan by Moe Lane Monday, December 7th Walking through this one: Last week former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld reacted strongly to the White House’s allegation that military commanders in Afghanistan were denied troop requests under the previous administration.  Actually, that’s too weak a statement: Rumsfeld denied that anything of the sort had happened under his watch.Which, in point of fact, it did not: the administration was referring to events in 2008 - under Rumsfeld’s successor, Robert Gates (who is also the current SecDef, by the way) - and said events can be more accurately...

Barack Obama's outsized ambitions and his progressive politics have been on a crash course since that fateful day in October 2002 when the chosen one truly began his public life. The occasion was an anti-war rally in Chicago's Federal Plaza.  Although the Obama faithful would memorialize the day, and Obama operatives would use it to flank Hillary Clinton to the left, the event itself that had all the freshness of a Crosby, Stills & Nash reunion show on PBS. Among its highlights: 2,000 or so protestors dancing to the lively tunes of a kazoo band led by a marching skeleton...

KABUL -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived in this war-torn country Tuesday morning on an unannounced visit, prepared to offer U.S. troops a message from Washington after President Obama's decision to boost troop levels significantly: "We are in this thing to win." "A big piece of it, of my conversations especially with the soldiers, will be just to thank them for their service, for their sacrifice and to tell them we are in this thing to win," Gates, speaking to reporters traveling with him, said before his arrival here. Gates, the first senior U.S. official to travel to Afghanistan...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE HASSANABAD, Afghanistan -- In the middle of a foot patrol Saturday through what may be the most dangerous part of the most dangerous province in Afghanistan for U.S. troops, Staff Sgt. John Nickerson peered through the scope of his assault rifle at a group of Afghan men who were rolling a wheelbarrow toward him. Suddenly, he had to switch gears to the gentler form of counterinsurgency. "Hold," Nickerson said into his hand-held radio, lowering his gun. "We've got some men with a kid in a wheelbarrow trying to get our attention. Where's Doc at?" In the barrow...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 2009 – Afghan and international forces detained several suspected militants, including a bomb cell leader and Taliban commander, in operations in Afghanistan over the past three days, military officials reported. An international security force conducted an air strike today, destroying a known Taliban stronghold consisting of bunkers and enemy defensive positions in Kunar province. The force targeted the stronghold near Tsangar Darah village in the mountainous Watapur district after intelligence sources indicated militant activity there. Also today, an Afghan and international security force in Khost province detained a suspected Haqqani terrorist network bombing cell leader and several...

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Dec. 7, 2009 – Earlier this year, troops from the Maine National Guard’s 286th Combat Support Sustainment Battalion supported the first Afghan buildup by transporting equipment, supplies and building materials to numerous forward operating bases. They’re scheduled to return home by January, but they show no signs of stopping. A U.S. military cargo truck bypasses a charred vehicle destroyed by a roadside bomb while moving building materials to Forward Operating Base Leatherneck in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, Nov. 24, 2009. The Maine National Guard’s 286th Combat Support Sustainment Battalion runs regular convoys to supply bases across southern Afghanistan....

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 2009 – About 16,000 Marines and soldiers have been notified they will deploy to Afghanistan as part of President Barack Obama’s new strategy. Obama announced his decision to deploy 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan in the first half of 2010 on Dec. 1. The troops in today’s announcement primarily will come from Camp Lejeune, N.C.; Fort Drum, N.Y.; and Camp Pendleton, Calif., Pentagon officials said today. More notifications will be made in the weeks and months ahead, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. These initial deployments will join the 68,000 American troops already in the country. At the...

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Dec. 7, 2009 – A Task Force Protector soldier here is building unit pride and esprit de corps by using his artistic skills to decorate an office inside a refurbished shipping container. Army Sgt. Henry Harrell stands next to the artwork he painted on his brigade commander’s office door at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, Nov. 20, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Garett Hernandez   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The many talents of Army Sgt. Henry Harrell, a counterinsurgency noncommissioned officer with Headquarters, Headquarters Company, 16th Military Police Brigade, are evident on the office door of...

* Medvedev offers to help Afghan economy, military, police * Russia allows transit of military cargoes to Afghanistan (Adds quotes, background) ROME, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Russia is willing to do its part to help the United States and Europe achieve peace in Afghanistan, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday. "We are obliged to help in Afghanistan ... what the armies of the United States and Europe are doing (in Afghanistan) is peacekeeping. This is very important because a threat for all Europe came from Afghanistan," Medvedev said. Speaking at a news conference in Rome after meeting Italian Prime...

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, goes before Congress this week, and with him comes this question: Who’s really in charge here, the generals or President Barack Obama? The long-awaited hearings, beginning Tuesday before the House and Senate Armed Services committees, are a bookend of sorts to Obama’s address last Tuesday at West Point committing 30,000 more troops to the war effort in Afghanistan. Implicit in the president’s decision is an effective cap of about 100,000 for the American force, but top Democrats fear that unless Obama is more assertive, the military chain of command will undermine his...

[Note: This is the latest segment in an ongoing series about Code Pink and its co-founder Jodie Evans.  Click [1]here [1] to read earlier articles.]In a move by the Obama administration that is gallingly cynical and would be considered treasonous in a less progressive era, a message sent by Code Pink [2] and an article published [3] by the left wing online publication AlertNet indicates the White House is working with the left wing terrorist support group Code Pink to agitate the public and undermine President Barack Obama’s newly announced Afghanistan war policy. Top Obama funder, Code Pink co-founder and...

Only the Taliban and Al Queda loved it!I had this left over from last week and it's too precious not to share: In analyzing Obama's Afghanistan speech delivered at West Point on December 1, Rush Limbaugh found that it contained nearly the same language, word for word, as a speech on Afghanistan Obama delivered on March 27 this year. Rush asks " What took a hundred days to figure out strategy?" Obama's delay in responding to Gen. McChrystal's troop request, not to mention the idiotic announcement of a date to begin withdrawal, only gave hope to the Taliban and Al...

Here is video of Aghan President Hamid Karzai being interviewed by CNN's Christiane Amanpour. Karzai said he "welcomes" the new U.S. strategy, and said the Afghans would do all it can to be a good partner in the effort. Karzai said he would be willing to talk with Taliban Leader Mullah Omar, but it would have to be within the framework of the U.N. sanctions against him. Karzai said he cannot do it alone, it must be with the approval of Afghanistan's partners. Karzai said he does not set the dates for withdrawal of U.S. or Allied Forces from Afghanistan....

Given a chance to clear away some of the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of the world's most wanted terrorist, U.S. officials seemed to add to it with what appeared to be conflicting assessments. National Security Adviser James Jones said Sunday that Osama bin Laden, believed hiding mainly in a rugged area of western Pakistan, may be periodically slipping back into Afghanistan. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday the United States has lacked good intelligence on Mr. bin Laden for a long time — “I think it has been years.” When asked whether the United States planned a fresh attempt...

Washington (CNN) – A leading Republican strategist and one-time aide to former Vice President Cheney said Sunday that President Obama’s recently announced decision to send an additional 30, 000 troops to Afghanistan is “a reassertion of the Bush doctrine.” “The [Bush] doctrine is no safe havens [for terrorists intent on harming the United States] and we go after those that provide a harbor [for such terrorists]. That’s the doctrine,” Republican strategist Mary Matalin explained Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. Obama’s decision to surge additional troops into Afghanistan is “solid policy,’ in Matalin’s view and “a reassertion of the...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama's order to surge 30,000 troops into Afghanistan presents the US military with a giant logistical challenge as it faces some of the most forbidding terrain in the world. With few paved roads and a vast, rugged landscape, moving soldiers and equipment into Afghanistan "is a bigger challenge than certainly was the case in Iraq," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last month. Fulfilling Obama's vow to send troops at the "fastest pace possible," the first units of the buildup are due to arrive within two to three weeks, and the military plans to have all...

December 05, 2009, 7:00 a.m. The Unrealistic RealistLeader of the free world? Not Obama’s bag. By Mark Steyn If you happen to live in Kabul or Jalalabad, Ghurian or Kandahar, then a U.S. presidential speech about Afghanistan is, indeed, about Afghanistan. If you live anywhere else on the planet, a U.S. presidential speech about Afghanistan is really about America — about American will, American purpose, American energy. How quickly the bright new dawn fades to the gray morning after. In Europe, the long awaited unveiling of this most thoughtful of presidents’ deliberations got mixed reviews — some bad, some...

In an apparent set back for secret official efforts to announce the existence of extraterrestrial life, the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) has just closed its UFO desk. After 50 years of having an official reporting mechanism in place for public sightings of UFOs, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence stated that the funds could be better used for the Afghanistan war. What is the impact of the British MOD decision to close its UFO desk? Why was such an announcement made now given that only a trivial amount of public funds (44,000 pounds/US$73,000 a year) will be saved...

Franklin D. Roosevelt understood what it meant to be a core Democrat and maintaining his party’s ranks. He built winning coalitions around his policies by empowering previously suppressed groups, such as labor unions and urban ethnics. In the process, he created a 40-year dynasty for Democrats. Today’s bunch? Not so much. The problem for FDR’s party is that it hasn’t adapted swiftly enough to two realities – that jobs are the most important issue to the nation, and that the middle class (which Democrats claim to champion) is dissolving under its watch. It seemed that Democrats may be starting to...

Obama told us throughout the 2008 campaign that Afghanistan was the war we should be fighting. The conflict where we supposedly took our eyes off the ball (even though Bush handed control over to NATO long ago, as the left wanted) and the conflict where most of our resources should go to. So he becomes President and nominated McChrystal to head it up and sent over 21,000 more troops. He then told McChrystal that his mission was to destroy the Taliban. Then he forgot all about Afghanistan as he pursued his Socialist utopian dreams onto this country. Well, McChrystal took...

Gates, Clinton Say Obama Strategy Is to Convey Resolve and Urgency to Afghan Gov't, as U.S. Role Changes by July 2011 (CBS) President Obama's announced new strategy for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, which called for both an increase in troop strength and a July 2011 date for transferring forces out of the country, is the beginning of a process, not the end of it, according to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. When asked on CBS' "Face the Nation" whether the July 2011 date marks a deadline for U.S. involvement in the Afghan conflict, Gates said no.

President Barack Obama's attempt to clarify his July 2011 deadline for a US departure from Afghanistan has resulted in more confusion and will dilute Pakistan's commitment to fighting the Taliban, Senator John McCain has told The Daily Telegraph. Sen McCain, who has led criticism in Washington over the President's most controversial element said that senior administration officials had only contradicted each other when trying to explain how the timeline for the beginning of a US troop withdrawal would work in practice. "Since the President made his speech we have not had further clarification, in fact we have had further contradiction,"...

In June, McChrystal noted, he had arrived in Afghanistan and set about fulfilling his assignment. His lean face, hovering on the screen at the end of the table, was replaced by a mission statement on a slide: "Defeat the Taliban. Secure the Population." "Is that really what you think your mission is?" one of those in the Situation Room asked. On the face of it, it was impossible -- the Taliban were part of the fabric of the Pashtun belt of southern Afghanistan, culturally if not ideologically supported by a significant part of the population. "We don't need to do...

President Barack Obama announced this week, in his latest glamour speech -- this one choreographed among cadets at West Point -- the substance of the new U.S. "Afghan strategy." I last wrote about this on Oct. 28, when we'd been waiting seven months for particulars to accompany the glamour-speech "comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan," that was delivered last March. I suggested that Obama had shown himself to be a president unable to make hard decisions. He makes speeches instead -- vacuous speeches that sound very grand to a poorly-informed mass audience, but on reading we find only posturing...

Last week, President Obama laid out his plan for prosecuting the 8-year-old war in Afghanistan. Thirty-thousand additional US troops will be headed to Afghanistan over the next several months, part of an intensified effort to regain territory from the Taliban and give the fledgling Afghan security forces a chance to take control of that nation. Regardless of what you think of the decision and the President’s announcement of it, here are some indisputable facts: Al Qaeda, the organization that actually attacked us on 9/11, retains almost no presence in Afghanistan. Its central leadership now operates primarily from an area across...

"As to the speech, much was made of the president's chosen audience, the cadets of West Point, who were appropriately and understandably restrained. Their faces communicated one thing: "Dude, I'm not here to be your backdrop." It is a great misunderstanding of the service academies, mostly held by liberals who lived through the '60s, that they are full of rabble-rousing blood-and-guts warriors who can't wait for a fight. This is a stereotype, and a stupid one. West Point is in fact populated by sober and sophisticated young men and women who've seen their colleagues, upperclassmen and instructors die or be...

Gordon Brown was snubbed by badly injured Afghan veterans when they closed curtains round their beds during a hospital visit and refused to speak to him. More than half the soldiers being treated at the Selly Oak hospital ward in Birmingham either asked for the curtains to be closed or deliberately avoided the prime minister, according to several of those present. The soldiers, who have sustained some of the worst injuries seen in Afghanistan, described his visit as “opportunistic” and a “waste of time”. Furious about equipment shortages and poor compensation for their injuries, one soldier said: “It is almost...

How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in AfghanistanBy PETER BAKER Published: December 5, 2009 WASHINGTON — On the afternoon he held the eighth meeting of his Afghanistan review, President Obama arrived in the White House Situation Room ruminating about war. He had come from Arlington National Cemetery, where he had wandered among the chalky white tombstones of those who had fallen in the rugged mountains of Central Asia. How much their sacrifice weighed on him that Veterans Day last month, he did not say. But his advisers say he was haunted by the human toll as he wrestled with...

A third-phase U.S. Navy student in Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training fires his rifle down range during a night live-fire exercise on San Clemente Island, Calif., Dec. 3, 2009. The third phase of the training focuses on land warfare and includes training in pistol, rifle, demolitions and tactical movement. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Blake R. Midnight. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ***** "What kind of a message are we sending to our troops in the field when they do their duty, risk their lives, capture a terrorist... one of the top ten terrorists - and we're going to court martial...

About 200 protesters, many of them disenchanted supporters of President Obama, demonstrated in south Minneapolis this afternoon against the escalating war in Afghanistan. "What do we want?" they chanted. "Troops out! When do we want it? NOW!" Among the signs they displayed was one declaring the war in "Barackastan" waged by "Obombya." Another declared him a "Wrong Way War President" on a sign that contained upside-down Obama campaign signs.

An excellent PhotoChop review of yet another bad week for Zero.

President Obama’s speeches are a lot like a Chinese dinner -- Tuesday night's West Point speech on Afghanistan was no exception. They consist of heaping helpings of impressive-sounding but empty phrases (“we will go forward with the confidence that right makes might and with the commitment to forge … a future that represents not the deepest of fears but the highest of hopes”). And an hour later, you’re left wondering what, exactly, he said he would commit to (“The 30,000 additional troops that I'm announcing tonight will … help create the conditions for the United States to transfer responsibility to...

If you happen to live in Kabul or Jalalabad, Ghurian or Kandahar, then a U.S. presidential speech about Afghanistan is, indeed, about Afghanistan. If you live anywhere else on the planet, a U.S. presidential speech about Afghanistan is really about America – about American will, American purpose, American energy. How quickly the bright new dawn fades to the gray morning after. In Europe, the long-awaited unveiling of this most thoughtful of presidents' deliberations got mixed reviews – some bad, some brutal. Der Spiegel called it "half-hearted," The Guardian called it "desperate." And those are his friends. You could watch the...

I did not think he would lose me so soon — sooner than Bill Clinton did. Like many people, I was deeply invested in the success of our first African-American president. I had written op-ed pieces and articles to support him in The New York Times and The New York Review of Books. My wife and I had maxed out in donations for him. Our children had been ardent for his cause. Others I respect have given up on him before now. I can see why. His backtracking on the treatment of torture (and photographs of torture), his hesitations to...

You think Afghanistan is important? Think again.... The latest headlines speak for themselves... Der Spiegel: Iran One Year Away from Nuclear Bomb It's 1938 and Iran is Germany Will Iran Help or Hinder Obama in Afghanistan?I am going to remind the conservatives who think McChrystal's plan on "Nation Building" is a good plan. The focus is misplaced on Afghanistan when it should be placed on stopping Iran. When you look at the rhetoric and how nations are dealing with Iran, a similar pattern is setting up on how Germany was handled. If we adopt McChrystal's plan in Afghanistan, Iran will...

Tensions between Britain and America over the war in Afghanistan erupted into the open yesterday as the Defence Secretary questioned President Obama’s decision to put a date on the start of US troop withdrawals. In an interview with The Times, Bob Ainsworth said that the Government would not follow Washington’s promise to start pulling out in 2011. “You can’t put a time on it. You’ve got to look at conditions,” he said. He accepted that the public would not tolerate the war “going on for ever”, but insisted there was no deadline for withdrawal. “Nobody is talking about a drawdown,...

The U.S. Air Force has confirmed to Aviation Week the existence of the so-called "Beast of Kandahar" UAV, a stealth-like remotely piloted jet seen flying out of Afghanistan in late 2007. The RQ-170 Sentinel, believed to be a tailless flying wing design with sensor pods faired into the upper surface of each wing, was developed by Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs (ADP), better known as Skunk Works. An Air Force official revealed Dec. 4 that the service is "developing a stealthy unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to provide reconnaissance and surveillance support to forward deployed combat forces." The UAV had been...

NURISTAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan, Dec. 1, 2009 – Nuristan Provincial Reconstruction Team servicemembers recently took to the airwaves to combat misinformation about the spread of the H1N1 flu virus here. Navy Lt. Jennifer Dreiling, a senior medical officer for the Nuristan Provincial Reconstruction Team, records a radio message on Radio Kalagush, a U.S.-funded Afghan radio station that broadcasts from Forward Operating Base Kalagush in eastern Afghanistan’s Nuristan province, educating locals about the H1N1 flu virus, Nov. 19, 2009. U.S. Air Force photo by 2nd Lt. Natassia Cherne  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Navy Lt. Jennifer Dreiling, team senior medical officer...

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama's national security advisor said on Friday the United States hopes Canadian troops will "stay as long as they possibly can" in Afghanistan and encouraged NATO nations to avoid "summary announcements of total withdrawal" from the war zone. But retired General James Jones did not say if Washington had asked Ottawa to extend the Canadian combat mission past July 2011, the date on which the U.S. expects to start withdrawing its forces. "Canada has made such a huge contribution to the mission in Afghanistan for so long that it is a charter member of the effort. So...