Report: Growing mental health problems in military

Mental problems send more men in the U.S. military to the hospital than any other cause, according to a new Pentagon report. And they are the second highest reason for hospitalization of women military personnel, behind conditions related to pregnancy. The Defense Department’s Medical Surveillance report from November examines “a large, widespread, and growing mental [...]

Religion as a Tool of Repression

Freedom of speech and dissent are always curtailed in times of war. Whenever soldiers occupy foreign nations, rational thinking is proscribed in favor of nationalistic hubris. Minority opinions, although grounded in ethics and reason, are repressed, often brutally. The majority becomes intolerant of dissenting views. Thoughtful dialog is suspended and irrational ideology gains ascendancy. Civil [...]

US contacts allies about WikiLeaks move

The United States has briefed its key allies, including Britain, France, Germany and Saudi Arabia ahead of the mass release of classified documents by WikiLeaks. Whistleblower website WikiLeaks plans to release around three million leaked documents, including cables sent to Washington from American embassies throughout the world. The website had previously posted online secret details [...]

Gun Running, Drugs and Flamenco: US Army Human Terrain System Has It All

See also:  Nature: Shut Down Army’s Human Terrain Program A member of the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command management team in Afghanistan, according to sources, is a “gun runner.” That individual is allegedly listed in an “Federal Bureau of Investigation database” and has “ties to Ahmad Wali Khan Karzai and the drug business.” Another [...]

Red Cross confirms ‘secret jail’ in Bagram, Afghanistan

The US airbase at Bagram in Afghanistan contains a facility for detainees that is distinct from its main prison, the Red Cross has confirmed to the BBC. Nine former prisoners have told the BBC that they were held in a separate building, and subjected to abuse. The US military says the main prison, now called [...]

Canada not to extend Afghan mission

Canada has rejected US calls for extending the presence of its troops in Afghanistan, standing opposed to Washington’s strategy in the war-torn country. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper reiterated that Canada would not keep the troops deployed in the country. During a Tuesday meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Ottawa, Harper stated [...]

War on drugs goes literal: biowarfare on poppies

US and British forces in Afghanistan have been accused of waging biological warfare on poppy fields to stymie opium crop production. Last week, the UK’s Daily Telegraph reported: Poppy plants have been suffering from a mysterious disease which leaves them yellow and withered and slashes the yield of opium resin which is sold on and [...]

US puts child soldier on trial

A new US law on military trials will be put to the test this week when a long-running case of the Canadian-born terrorist suspect Omar Ahmed Khadr, who was arrested in Afghanistan in 2002 aged just 15, resumes in Guantanamo. Khadr is accused of killing an American soldier during a gun battle, but his lawyers [...]

US confronts its reputation abroad

Memo to America: Stop murdering my people

Almost every day, the NATO occupation of our country continues to kill innocent people. Each time, it seems, military officials try to claim that only insurgents are killed, or they completely deny and cover up their crimes. The work of a few courageous journalists is the only thing that brings some of these atrocities to [...]

Pentagon investigating alleged spy operation

WASHINGTON — A Department of Defense official is under investigation for allegedly hiring private contractors to gather intelligence on suspected insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a U.S. official said Monday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case, told The Associated Press that Michael D. Furlong directed a defense contract to [...]

Let Dr. Aafia go home, Mr. President

Reading all those legal thrillers by John Grisham and watching Hollywood blockbusters that portray innocent individuals framed and ensnared by a powerful system, one always thought: Of course, these things do not happen in real life. I am not so sure anymore though. The abduction, persecution and now conviction of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Massachusetts [...]

Efforts to silence Aafia Siddiqui continue

Efforts to silence Pakistani citizen Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who is charged with attempted murder of US military and Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel, are continuing during her trial. In a letter to the New York Federal judge presiding over her trial, Siddiqui’s defense team said that she is not mentally fit to testify. In the [...]

UN removes Taliban officials from blacklist

The United Nations has removed five former Taliban officials from its blacklist as part of reconciliation efforts in war-weary Afghanistan. The de-listing, which came on Wednesday, was approved by a special Security Council committee. The UN said in a statement that the five Afghan nationals would no longer be subject to a freeze on their [...]

United Nations report blasts US over human rights abuses

A United Nations report says the US has been violating basic human rights by kidnapping and holding terrorism suspects in secret detention centers during the past nine years. The US is among dozens of countries that have kidnapped suspects, four independent UN rights investigators said in a year-long study based on flight data and interviews [...]

‘Bomb detector’ maker Jim McCormick arrested

The director of a company which sold a bomb-detecting device to 20 countries, including Iraq, has been arrested. ATSC‘s Jim McCormick, 53, was detained on Friday on suspicion of fraud by misrepresentation, Avon and Somerset police said. He has since been bailed. It comes after a BBC investigation alleged the ADE-651 did not work. Earlier, [...]

Psychiatric disorders spiral among US troops

A new study indicates US troops who were withdrawn from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for medical reasons were increasingly evacuated for psychiatric reasons. Psychiatric disorders rose from 2004 to 2007, despite an increased focus on treating mental health problems, the research study revealed on Friday. Only 14 percent of troops taken out of combat [...]

4 years in prison for ex-captain in theft case

HONOLULU — A former Army captain was sentenced Tuesday to four years and two months in federal prison for stealing $400,000 from the U.S. government while stationed at Kandahar Air Base in Afghanistan. U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor also ordered David Gilliam to pay about $450,000 in restitution to the government. Gilliam, 39, previously pleaded [...]

Are America’s Mercenary Armies Really Drug Cartels?

News out of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India reports massive corruption at the highest levels of government, corruption that could only be financed with drug money. In Afghanistan, the president’s brother is known to be one of the biggest drug runners in the world. In Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zardari is found with 60 million in [...]

Failure Admitted in Afghan Drug War

The US administration has admitted that Washington has failed to curb narcotics production and trafficking in Afghanistan. The US Department of State on Wednesday criticized Washington’s 2-billion-dollar plan to combat the drug trade in Afghanistan for poor oversight and lack of strategy. According to a report by the State Department’s Bureau for International Narcotics and [...]

Afghanistan another Vietnam, says captive US soldier

An American trooper in Taliban captivity says that the United States has lost its grip on the Afghan war, urging the American people to help stop the ‘nonsense.’ “I’m afraid to tell you that this war has slipped from our fingers and it’s just going to be our next Vietnam unless the American people stand [...]

Troops admit to abusing prescription drugs

About one in four soldiers admit to abusing prescription drugs, most of them pain relievers, in a one-year period, according to a Pentagon health survey released Wednesday. The study, which surveyed more than 28,500 U.S. troops last year, showed that about 20 percent of Marines had also abused prescription drugs, mostly painkillers, in that same [...]

Germany backs dialogue with ‘moderate Taliban’

Germany‘s defense minister says he supports talks with ‘moderate’ Taliban in war-torn Afghanistan, days after a committee was formed to probe a deadly German-ordered airstrike which resulted in heavy civilian casualties. In an interview with the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said on Sunday that he favored keeping open channels of [...]

Marine sergeant charged with sexual battery of a minor and indecent liberties with a child (3 yrs.) with the knowledge that the child was mentally disabled

A North Carolina-based noncommissioned officer faces charges for allegedly sexually abusing a 3-year-old. Sgt. Duane F. Bachesta, 26, of St. Clair, Illinois,, with 2nd Intelligence Battalion out of Camp Lejeune, was charged Monday with sexual battery of a minor and indecent liberties with a child with the knowledge that the child was mentally disabled, according [...]

US silent on Taliban’s al-Qaeda offer

WASHINGTON – The Barack Obama administration is refusing to acknowledge an offer by the leadership of the Taliban in early December to give “legal guarantees” that they will not allow Afghanistan to be used for attacks on other countries. The administration’s silence on the offer, despite a public statement by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [...]

Capturing Osama Bin Laden Is the Last Thing That Americans Want

Where is bad guy Osama bin Laden? This question still takes the minds of US political and military elite. US National Security Advisor James L. Jones believes that the prime suspect of 9/11 attacks is hiding in Pakistan. Defense Secretary Robert Michael Gates later said that the Pentagon did not have the information to confirm [...]

US exports ‘violence’ to Latin America, says Fidel

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro says the US has never ceased its “exceptional cynicism” towards the revolutionary nations in Latin America over the past 50 years. In an article titled “Is there any margin for hypocrisy and deceit?” Castro investigates Washington’s approach toward the Latin American nations especially those that opt to challenge its hegemony [...]

US let bin Laden escape after 9/11: Senate report

US military leaders allowed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden) to ‘walk unmolested out of Tora Bora‘ when he was within the reach of US troops, a Senate report reveals. Staff members for the Democratic majority of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations prepared the report at [...]

Afghan Villagers Take Revenge for Civilian Casualties – Soldier-Boys Cry

German army chief resigns over Afghan civilian deaths

The German army’s chief of staff has stepped down after reports of Afghan civilian deaths in a September air strike involving German troops. Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told parliament on Thursday Wolfgang Schneiderhan had submitted his resignation. Schneiderhan “has released himself from his duties at his own request,” zu Guttenberg said, thanking the former [...]

Let’s Eliminate Welfare for Terrorists

Of all the factors on the table in the current Afghan strategic review, the War on Drugs and its unintended consequences should be front and center. Our 95-year effort to create a Drug Free America by enforcing world-wide prohibition has twisted our foreign policy out of shape all over the globe and the nightmare in [...]

500 Million New Terrorists!

The world is becoming less safe by the day. Before the end of November, half a billion new terrorists will be added to the list kept by the US government. On November 30, one day before the Treaty of Lisbon is scheduled to take effect, the ministers of justice of the European Union‘s 27 member [...]

US lawmakers call for ending Cuba travel ban

Two key American lawmakers say that Washington should allow its citizens to travel to Cuba to help promote ‘democratic reforms’ in that country. Veteran Republican Senator Richard Lugar and Democratic Congressman Howard Berman insist that the Cuba travel ban has been obsolete and should be discarded as a foreign policy measure. Lugar, the top Republican [...]

America Owned by Its Army

Paris, November 3, 2009 – It is possible that the creation of an all-professional American army was the most dangerous decision ever taken by Congress. The nation now confronts a political crisis in which the issue has become an undeclared contest between Pentagon power and that of a newly elected president. Barack Obama has yet [...]

Occupiers involved in drug trade: Afghan minister

The Afghan minister of counter narcotics says foreign troops are earning money from drug production in Afghanistan. General Khodaidad Khodaidad said the majority of drugs are stockpiled in two provinces controlled by troops from the US, the UK, and Canada, Islamic Republic News Agency reported on Saturday. He went on to say that North Atlantic [...]

UN says US drone strikes may violate international law

US unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) strikes against suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan could be breaking international laws against summary executions, the United Nations top investigator of such crimes said. “The problem with the United States is that it is making an increased use of drones/Predators (which are) particularly prominently used now in relation to [...]

Karzai’s brother ‘on CIA payroll’

US involvement in Afghanistan has come into new question with the claim that President Hamid Karzai‘s brother has for years been on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency – even though he is suspected of being a major figure in the illicit opium trade that Washington and its allies are pledged to do everything [...]

Military Children in Crisis

A seven-year-old second-grader attempted suicide while his father was serving yet another tour in Iraq. Seven years old. Seven. His mother was one of half a dozen military spouses I have spoken with about soldiers’ kids who have attempted suicide during their fathers’ deployments. When I was seven, it was 1972, and there were 69,000 [...]

Perpetual war is here — and Americans are getting used to it

A new poll shows a substantial majority of Americans have resigned themselves to the reality of our nation’s perpetual foreign wars. They don’t like it, but they see it happening and know there is nothing they can do about it. The poll, conducted by Clarus Research Group, showed that 68 percent of us agree with [...]

EU slams US-led Afghanistan bombing

European foreign ministers have criticized the ‘catastrophic’ Friday bombing of north Afghanistan, which left 90 people, including many civilians, killed. During an unofficial meeting in Sweden on Saturday, foreign ministers from different European Union nations censured NATO‘s lethal attack on two fuel tankers, believed to have taken over by Taliban militants in Qonduz province, in [...]

Canada rejects NATO call on Afghanistan

Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon has dismissed NATO calls for extending his country’s deployment in Afghanistan after 2011. “Our government is abiding by the motion passed in parliament in 2008 – that is that our combat forces will leave by 2011,” he told CBC on Thursday. Cannon’s remarks came after NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh [...]

Majority in US oppose both wars

July 24, 2009 — (AP)   -A majority of Americans oppose both the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq, though the war in Afghanistan is a little more popular. Here are details: OVERALL RESULTS: 34 percent favor the war in Iraq and 63 percent are opposed; 44 percent favor the war in Afghanistan and [...]

Drones Hardly Ever Kill Bad Guys

The foreign policy community’s favorite counterinsurgency adviser, or at least their favorite Australian one, David Kilcullen, told lawmakers last week that the drone strikes targeting Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Pakistan are creating enemies at a far faster rate than its killing them. According to statistics he provided, the success rate of the drone [...]

US says Afghan poppy eradication ‘failure’

The United States admits that its efforts in eradicating opium poppy production in Afghanistan have proven to be of no avail. Washington’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke said on Sunday that the current measures taken against poppy growers had been “a failure”. “The Western policies against the opium crop, the poppy crop, [...]

Some Reports from the Congressional Research Service

“Mexico’s Drug-Related Violence,” May 27, 2009. “The 2009 Influenza A(H1N1) ‘Swine Flu’ Outbreak: U.S. Responses to Global Human Cases,” May 26, 2009. “The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11,” updated May 15, 2009. “USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives After 15 Years: Issues for Congress,” May 27, 2009. “Airport [...]

U.S. holds journalist without charges in Iraq

Reuters cameraman Ibrahim Jassam has been held since September. The U.S. military rejected a court order to release him, saying he is a ‘high security threat.’ No evidence has been presented. Reporting from Baghdad — The soldiers came at 1:30 a.m, rousing family members who were sleeping on the roof to escape the late-summer heat. [...]

US suicidal veterans surpassing KIAs

At least 13 American soldiers have committed suicide in March as post traumatic syndrome is increasing suicide tendency among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. The latest figure has brought to 56 the number of US soldiers’ suicide cases in 2009, according to figures released by the US Army, a press TV correspond reported on Monday. [...]

US vying to ‘hand-pick’ Afghan president

Washington is using its political clout to influence the outcome of the upcoming presidential elections in Afghanistan, a report says. The US embassy in Kabul has urged Afghanistan’s leading presidential hopefuls to withdraw from the race in favor of Ali Ahmad Jalali — a candidate that is more preferred by Washington, reported Pakistan‘s Ummat daily. [...]

US military admits killing mother, children

A US soldier, stands guard in the Inzeri village of Tagab Valley, Afghanistan. The US military in Afghanistan has admitted that four of its troops killed non-combatants in a raid that included a mother and her children. Afghan officials and witnesses had earlier accused US forces of killing civilians in an overnight raid in the [...]

Major RAND study with 300 interviews: Intelligence Operations and Metrics in Iraq and Afghanistan, Nov 2008

This major November, 2008 RAND Corporation study on intelligence operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, conducted 300 interviews at all levels with US, UK and Dutch intelligence officers and diplomats. The 318 page document could be described as part of the “Pentagon Papers” for Iraq and Afghanistan. It was confidentially prepared for the Pentagon’s Joint Forces [...]