Afghanistan 2011

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Dash-Ate
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

Post by Dash-Ate »

Thank god for our right to protest! We fight for it overseas, so we can protest without being arrested. Little girls going to school! We know he has WMD...



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/1 ... 38031.html


Hundreds of protesters attended the rally and marched around the White House, but the crowd – which included many military veterans – thinned considerably as the U.S. Park Police warned that they'd be arrested if they didn't move. As officers moved in with handcuffs, one protester who clutched the gates outside the White House shouted, "Don't arrest them! Arrest Obama!" and "You're arresting veterans, not war criminals!"

Authorities said 113 protesters were arrested, processed and given violation notices for disobeying an official order. They could pay a small fine and be released, or be freed with a future court date.

"The majority were cooperative," said U.S. Park Police spokesman David Schlosser. "A couple had to be carried, but altogether a polite and orderly crowd."

One military veteran who showed up for the rally was Paul Markin, a 64-year-old retired U.S. Army colonel from Lynn, Mass., who said he's frustrated by what he sees as the U.S. government's escalation of the wars. He said he's been against wars since coming home from Vietnam.

"Ever since that time, I've gone to the other side. Instead of a warrior, an anti-warrior," Markin said
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That'll buff right out :rolleyes:
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Dex
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

Post by Dex »

Expat wrote:Good Find!
Wasn't good enough when I posted it ?
:-P

viewtopic.php?f=49&t=23265&hilit=smedley
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

Post by Expat »

The new buzzword here...transition. You will hear a lot about this in the coming months...
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/201 ... istan.html


Let's see...
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

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We come as liberators? Little girls going to school soon???

: Following Australian media reports, the army is investigating Facebook posts by soldiers which disparage Afghans as, quote, "sand niggaz", quote-"dune coons" and quote-"smelly locals". On their profiles, some of the troops have listed as their employer Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, except they've called her a "ranga" - a derogatory term for someone with red hair.
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

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Soldiers aren't always the most brain-gifted... :shock:
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

Post by iflyforpie »

I wonder if your employer knows what you post on here Dash Ate...
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Geez did I say that....? Or just think it....?
bizjets101
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

Post by bizjets101 »

155th Canadian Soldier to die in Afghanistan . . .

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011 ... ml?ref=rss

Rolling Stones article on the 'Kill Zone' on US Soldiers in Afghanistan

http://www.rollingstone.com/kill-team
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

Post by 2R »

Did the tree survive the attack ?
There not many trees in that country. They should be careful not to harm the trees when they are killing bomb planters.
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

Post by Expat »

Tree planting season started here in Nawruz. I just bought a bunch of saplings to be planted at our house. Trees are scarce here, and are protected. :D
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

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Soft targets again...
Lost some friends today...

http://gulfnews.com/news/world/afghanis ... n-1.786307
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

Post by 2R »

UNBELIEVABLE
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... al+News%29

How rude can people get ?
Burning books is never a good idea,unless you are really cold.
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

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You, your friends and their families have my sincere sympathy, Xpat.
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

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For those who want details, the WSJ did a good piece on it:

Inside the Massacre at Afghan Compound
By DION NISSENBAUM And MARIA ABI-HABIB
Source: Wall Street Journal
APRIL 4, 2011
MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan—Officials are painting the weekend killings at the United Nations mission in northern Afghanistan's largest city—which sparked cascading violence across the nation—as the handiwork of a small band of insurgents that used a protest against a Quran-burning as cover for a murderous plot.
But a Wall Street Journal reconstruction of Friday's assault, based on unreleased videos, interviews with demonstrators and the U.N.'s own recounting of events, shows a more complex picture and indicates that ordinary Afghan demonstrators played a critical role in the attack.
Stirred to action by a Quran-burning at a Florida church, thousands of people swarmed past hapless Afghan police officers, heading toward a lightly protected U.N. compound. There, members of the tight-knit staff had been paying little attention to the angry protest unfolding at the city's central mosque.
Mazar-e-Sharif has long been considered one of the safest cities in Afghanistan. So the diverse U.N. staff—including a female Norwegian fighter pilot, a seasoned Russian diplomat and German woman who had been at the mission for only a week or so—took few precautions even when the mob converged on their compound, burned an American flag and threw stones at the blast walls.
By sunset, seven U.N. workers were dead. In the ensuing days, demonstrations cascaded across Afghanistan, claiming more lives Saturday and Sunday in Kandahar, far to the south.
Based on interviews with survivors, Staffan de Mistura, head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, concluded that a handful of insurgents—including Afghans with accents suggesting they came from other parts of the country—spearheaded Friday's attack on a safe room in the compound.
The rioting, which the Taliban say erupted spontaneously, adds a disturbing new threat in a country that is fighting a mostly rural insurgency. Foreign and local military forces alike are ill-prepared for riot control.
"Every security-force leader's worst nightmare is being confronted by essentially a mob," said Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of 150,000 U.S.-led coalition forces, in an interview Sunday, "especially [a mob] that can be influenced by individuals that want to incite violence, who want to try to hijack passions, in this case, perhaps understandable passions."
The Quran-burning, held March 20 at the Dove World Outreach Center by church leader Terry Jones in Gainesville, Fla., was "hateful, extremely disrespectful and enormously intolerant," Gen. Petraeus said.
Mr. Jones called Gen. Petraeus' remarks "unconstitutional" and disputed that his actions complicate U.S. efforts to fight the Taliban. "I do not necessarily think that our actions make his job more difficult," he said in an interview Sunday. "The Taliban or radical Islam will use any excuse to incite more violence. If they don't have one, they will make up an excuse."
Friday, thousands of people gathered in Mazar-e-Sharif's revered Blue Mosque. Speaker after speaker denounced the Quran-burning, which for Muslims is abhorrent because Islam teaches that the physical book is holy.
"Stand up against the enemies of the Quran with your pen," one of the men shouted from the podium, videos show. "Stand up against them with your voices. Stand up against them with weapons. It is everyone's right to stand up against them and make a jihad."
The protesters then surprised police by pouring into the street and marching toward the U.N. office, more than a mile away. At one point, according to videos reviewed by the Journal, the badly outnumbered police tried to use a six-foot wood beam to hold back the crowd. The protesters easily surged past.
Only about 60 police were deployed, and they appeared uncertain how to respond. Initial attempts to disperse the crowd by firing warning shots appeared only to inflame the demonstrators. The besieged U.N. staffers headed to two safe rooms intended to shield against intruders and bombs.
They phoned for help from the nearby military bases of German and Swedish forces, according to a person briefed on the situation. The U.S.-led military said the situation "escalated rapidly" and that a swift-reaction team didn't arrive until after rioters were gone.
Once demonstrators flooded the compound, a dozen Afghan police guards—the first line of defense—dropped their weapons, said Brig. Gen. Esmatullah Alizai, the provincial police chief. "They were surrounded and confused," he said.
Inside the compound, a small contingent of Nepalese Gurkha guards working for the U.N. faced a conundrum: They were under U.N. orders not to open fire on demonstrators. The videos show one guard feebly trying to wave an elderly demonstrator out of the compound.
Nearby, videos show, demonstrators used bent metal rods to smash a row of white U.N. SUVs.
Among those attacking the U.N. vehicles was a young religious student from a small village not far from the city. The student said in an interview that he and one of his friends found a propane tank that they shoved under one vehicle and set off an explosion.
Nearby, the student said, two Afghan policemen were hiding with a foreigner behind a tanker. When one of the officers shot and injured a young demonstrator, the student said he saw a chance to disarm him.
"Grab his weapon," the student said he shouted to his friend, who wrestled a Kalashnikov assault rifle and used it to shoot the unarmed foreigner.
Inside the building, other attackers targeted one of the safe rooms. The door proved little protection against the mob. As intruders penetrated the safe room, Pavel Ershov, a Russian diplomat who speaks fluent Dari sought to protect three staff members by distracting the assailants, the U.N.'s Mr. de Mistura said.
"Are you Muslim?" the assailants asked Mr. Ershov, according to one diplomat briefed on the attack. Mr. Ershov lied and said he was, the U.N. said. The assailants tested him by asking him to recite the traditional profession of belief in Islam, which begins, "There is no God but Allah."
When he successfully completed the test, his life was spared. Still, he was dragged into the street and beaten badly, according to a local shopkeeper who said he participated in the assault.
The attackers searched the darkened bunker with a lamp and discovered Lt. Col. Siri Skare, a 53-year-old Norwegian military attaché—the former fighter pilot—seconded to the U.N., along with Joakim Dungel, a 33-year-old Swede who had been working in the human-rights office for less than two months, and Filaret Motco, a 43-year-old Romanian who headed the mission's political section.
As Lt. Col. Skare attempted to flee the bunker, she was intercepted by the Afghan demonstrators who had set the car on fire. She was shot with the rifle commandeered from the police officer, one of the men said. Lt. Col. Skare died of her wounds. Messrs. Dungel and Motco were killed elsewhere.
Four Afghans—men also described as "insurgents" by Gen. Alizai, the police official—were also killed. Video footage of demonstrators leaving the U.N. compound shows two men carrying Kalashnikovs and one showing off a large, blood-spattered knife.
As the attackers focused on the four U.N. workers who had been hiding in the first safe room, diplomats said, three or four others, including the German newcomer, were sheltered in a safe room in another building. They survived.
—Yaroslav Trofimov, Zamir Saar, Michael Allen and Betsy McKay contributed to this article.
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

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http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fe0_1302043889 American's in firefight video leaves 6 US soldiers dead, 7 injured and 100 + combatants dead. April 5 2011 5 hour battle.
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

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The United States investigating the possible Predator fired Hellfire missile may have
killed two US medics in Afghanistan when they were mistaken for insurgents.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110412/ap_ ... endly_fire
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

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War: the best business in the world. Don't support it. It's a death cult. Now bend over at the gas pumps.



How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanishSpecial flights brought in tonnes of banknotes which disappeared into the war zone


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1

The US flew nearly $12bn in shrink-wrapped $100 bills into Iraq, then distributed the cash with no proper control over who was receiving it and how it was being spent.
The staggering scale of the biggest transfer of cash in the history of the Federal Reserve has been graphically laid bare by a US congressional committee.

In the year after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 nearly 281 million notes, weighing 363 tonnes, were sent from New York to Baghdad for disbursement to Iraqi ministries and US contractors. Using C-130 planes, the deliveries took place once or twice a month with the biggest of $2,401,600,000 on June 22 2004, six days before the handover.

Details of the shipments have emerged in a memorandum prepared for the meeting of the House committee on oversight and government reform which is examining Iraqi reconstruction. Its chairman, Henry Waxman, a fierce critic of the war, said the way the cash had been handled was mind-boggling. "The numbers are so large that it doesn't seem possible that they're true. Who in their right mind would send 363 tonnes of cash into a war zone?"
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

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What a great deal, they create all this cash out of thin air by passing a bill to borrow - then the Federal Reserve prints it - lends it to the American people - the Government then flies it half way around the world and gives it away.

Then the American public have to pay the full amount back - plus interest to the 'non' profit and 'never' audited or accountable Federal Reserve.

Nice . . . So the poor stay poor, the middle class pay it back out of fear of becoming poor, and the rich stay rich.

Well if your Rich - then America is the place to be!!!
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

Post by Beefitarian »

bizjets101 wrote:Well if your Rich - then America is the place to be!!!
No, it's the place to base your head quarters. You base your manufacturing in China and your family/mistresses somewhere like Burmuda or Monaco.
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

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Nearly 500 prisoners were spirited out of the main jail in Kandahar, Afghanistan, overnight, through a 320-metre tunnel that the Taliban claims it secretly created over a five-month period.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20 ... pe-110425/
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

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I was looking for the news article of the USAF crashing a C130 full of pallets of cash in Iraq
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

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Re: Afghanistan 2011

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KABUL, Afghanistan – Eight NATO troops and a contractor died Wednesday after an Afghan military pilot opened fire in a meeting — the deadliest episode to date of an Afghan turning against his own coalition partners, officials said.

Click Here
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

Post by azimuthaviation »

He brought down 8 soldiers before he was killed, only after running out of bullets. This after Taliban forces rescued 480 prisoners in a complex oertion right under the coalitions noses. Somehow I dont think we should be the ones to train them. And the fact that this was not a taliban but a colonel in the old air force brings one more question mark to the statement that the Afghans want nato there. Especially when you read what started the argument.
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Re: Afghanistan 2011

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Terror attack in Yemen.
Just imagine if this occured in your city and white people died! It would play on TV 24/7, "Canada's 9/11" we would be told. A month of mourning for those who fell at the hands of evil doers.
Schoolchildren would be taught to never forget. Our PM would thump his chest and vow to avenge, avenge!

ABYAN, Apr. 26th – US airstrikes in Abyan governorate are still threatening the lives of citizens. The Al-Ma’jala strike – which took place on 17 December 2009 and killed 55 people, including 14 women, 21 children and 14 alleged Al-Qaeda members – still looms large in the region’s collective memory.


http://www.yementimes.com/defaultdet.aspx?SUB_ID=35975
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Post by Beefitarian »

azimuthaviation wrote: Especially when you read what started the argument.
Someone touch his fries?
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