NATO Unveils Draft of New Mission Statement

clipped from www.cnsnews.com Brussels (AP) - NATO must win the war in Afghanistan, expand ties with Russia, counter the threat posed by Iran's missiles, and assure the security of its 28 members, according to its new mission statement for the next decade. The draft document, released Monday, seeks to bridge a growing rift between the U.S., which favors a greater international role for NATO, and European nations that want it to retain its traditional defensive focus. The war is the largest mission ever attempted by the alliance. More than 100,000 NATO troops, about two-thirds of them Americans, are currently deployed there. Nearly 1,800 NATO soldiers have been killed in the escalating conflict. The new mission statement emphasized the threat posed by Iran's nascent ballistic missile capability.

Related articles by Zemanta

• NATO unveils draft of new mission statement (ctv.ca)
• NATO to unveil draft of new mission statement (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• New Nato strategy to be proposed (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Nato chief urges missile shield (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Biden: US committed to missile defense in Europe (sfgate.com)
• Biden: US committed to missile defense in Europe (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• East Europe Feels Ignored by NATO, Report Says (nytimes.com)
• NATO: Europe must upgrade defenses (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• The Truth About European Missile Defense (crooksandliars.com)

Farmers flee Marja months after NATO forces battled to expel insurgents

clipped from www.msnbc.msn.com LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan - Farmers from the district of Marja, which since February has been the focus of the largest American-led military operation in Afghanistan, are fleeing the area, saying that the Taliban are terrorizing the population and that American troops cannot protect the civilians. The departure of the farmers is one of the most telling indications that Taliban fighters have found a way to resume their insurgency, three months after thousands of troops invaded this Taliban stronghold in the opening foray of a campaign to take control of southern Afghanistan. Militants have been infiltrating back into the area and the prospect of months of more fighting is undermining public morale, residents and officials said. “People are leaving; you see 10 to 20 families each day on the road who are leaving Marja due to insecurity,” said a farmer, Abdul Rahman, 52, who was traveling on his own. “It is now hard to live there in this situation.”

Related articles by Zemanta

• Taliban Hold Sway in Marja Despite U.S. Offensive, Farmers Say (huffingtonpost.com)
• Farmers Flee Area Taken by U.S., Saying Taliban Still Hold Sway (nytimes.com)
• Farmers Flee Area Taken by U.S., Saying Taliban Still Hold Sway (nytimes.com)
• Kandahar and the President's Brother (laf.ee)
• Rethink Afghanistan: The McGovern Bill is Free (seminal.firedoglake.com)
• Afghans' Distrust of Officials Is Threat to Military Successes (nytimes.com)
• Distrust of Afghan Leaders Threatens U.S. War Strategy (nytimes.com)
• Why Afghans Didn't Leave Marja Before The Biggest Battle Of The War (trueslant.com)
• Marja Residents Report Taliban Intimidation (nytimes.com)
• Marja Battle Just a Confidence Booster - But Not for Afghan Civilians (firedoglake.com)

clipped from www.youtube.com Rockefeller Reveals 9/11 FRAUD to Aaron Russo America: Freedom to Fascism Filmmaker Aaron Russo has exposed first-hand knowledge of the elite global agenda during a video interview and live on Alex Jones' nationally-syndicated radio show. Nick Rockefeller told Russo about the plan to microchip the population, warned him about 'an event that would allow us to invade Afghanistan and Iraq' some eleven months before 9/11 and foretold the fact that the 'War on Terror' would be a hoax wherein soldiers would be looking in caves for non-existant enemies. Rockefeller also tried to recruit Aaron Russo to the Council on Foreign Relations during the tenure of their friendship. Now, a picture send by the Russo family verifies that friendship and strengthens evidence of the global agenda which Rockefeller related to the filmmaker so frankly during their private conversations.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Arw You Bringing Spychips Into Your Life???...hmmmm (projectworldawareness.com)
• A Defense of Drones (online.wsj.com)
• Strong winds cause Russo and Steele auction tents to collapse (w/video) (autoblog.com)
• Never Have So Many Done So Little (alan.com)

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk US soldier captured in Afghanistan pleads for freedom A video released by the Taliban shows Private Bowe Bergdahl, held captive since June, asking to be returned home to his family in Idaho Taliban release video of captured US soldier

Related articles by Zemanta

• US Soldier Begs to Be Free in Taliban Video (newser.com)
• New US soldier video is released (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Taliban release video of captured US soldier (guardian.co.uk)
• US soldier captured by Taliban pleas for freedom in video (telegraph.co.uk)
• NATO committed to find soldier held by insurgents (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• NATO condemns new Taliban video of U.S. hostage (calgaryherald.com)
• LiveLeak.com - Taliban Video of POW Bowe Bergdahl - Longer Version (atomiurl.com)
• Taliban releases video of captured US soldier (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

School bombing exposes Obama’s secret war inside Pakistan

clipped from www.timesonline.co.uk THE discovery of three American soldiers among the dead in a suicide bombing at the opening of a girls’ school in the northwestern Pakistan town of Dir last week reignited the fears of many Pakistanis that Washington was set on invading their country. US airstrikes in Pakistan, launched from unmanned drones, are now averaging three a week, triple the number last year. “We're quietly seeing a geographical shift,” an intelligence officer said. Barack Obama has banned the Bush-era term “war on terror” and dithered about sending extra troops to Afghanistan, but across the border in Pakistan, the US president has dramatically stepped up the covert war against Islamic extremists. The discovery of the dead US soldiers revealed that America’s shadowy war in Pakistan not only involves drones but also small cadres of special operations soldiers.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Bomber Rammed US Soldiers' Car, Pakistani Police Report (huffingtonpost.com)
• 3 US soldiers killed in Pakistan. Now can we consider it a "real war?" (boingboing.net)
• Three US soldiers killed in Pakistan bomb blast (telegraph.co.uk)
• Pakistani police: Bomber rammed U.S. soldiers' car (ctv.ca)

UN in secret peace talks with Taliban

Image via Wikipedia

It was the first such meeting between the UN and senior members of the Taliban. The fact that it took place suggests that peace talks have revived since exploratory contacts between emissaries of the Kabul government and the Taliban in Saudi Arabia last year broke down.

It also suggests that some Taliban members might be prepared for the first time to put faith in an international organisation to broker a deal to end the nine-year war.

News of the Dubai meeting surfaced at the end of a day-long conference in London intended to map out a transition over five years from a Nato-led military campaign to Afghan-led effort involving more political, social and economic measures to end the fighting.

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk Taliban commanders held secret exploratory talks with a United Nations special envoy this month to discuss peace terms, it emerged tonight. Regional commanders on the Taliban's leadership council, the Quetta Shura, sought a meeting with the UN special representative in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, and it took place in Dubai on 8 January. "They requested a meeting to talk about talks. They want protection, to be able to come out in public. They don't want to vanish into places like Bagram," the Reuters news agency quoted a UN official as saying, referring to the Bagram detention centre at a US military base outside Kabul. The western official said: "This 'new Taliban' is not that much more extreme than some of the people in government. They could be willing to compromise on some issues, like women's rights, girls education, even watching telly perhaps."

Related articles by Zemanta

• UN in secret peace talks with Taliban (guardian.co.uk)
• UN-Taliban peace talks spur Karzai to action (guardian.co.uk)
• Taliban Deny Meeting With a U.N. Envoy (nytimes.com)
• U.N. Official Seeks to Drop Some Taliban Leaders From Terrorist List (nytimes.com)

Robots Will Soon Do All Our Killing for Us | | AlterNet

Image via Wikipedia

• Robots Will Soon Do All Our Killing for Us | | AlterNet

  "January 25, 2010 | LIKE THIS ARTICLE ? Join our mailing list: Sign up to stay up to date on the latest headlines via email. Advertisement One moment there was the hum of a motor in the sky above. The next, on a recent morning in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, a missile blasted a home, killing 13 people. Days later, the same increasingly familiar mechanical whine preceded a two-missile salvo that slammed into a compound in Degan village in the tribal North Waziristan district of Pakistan, killing three. What were once unacknowledged, relatively infrequent targeted killings of suspected militants or terrorists in the Bush years have become commonplace under the Obama administration. And since a devastating December 30th suicide attack by a Jordanian double agent on a CIA forward operating base in Afghanistan, unmanned aerial drones have been hunting humans in the Af-Pak war zone at a record pace. In Pakistan, an “unprecedented number” of strikes -- which have killed armed guerrillas and civilians alike -- have led to more fear, anger, and outrage in the tribal areas, as the CIA, with help from the U.S. Air Force, wages the most public “secret” war of modern times. In neighboring Afghanistan, unmanned aircraft, for years in short supply and tasked primarily with surveillance missions, have increasingly been used to assassinate suspected militants as part of an aerial surge that has significantly outpaced the highly publicized “surge” of ground forces now underway. And yet, unprecedented as it may be in size and scope, the present ramping up of the drone war is only the opening salvo in a planned 40-year Pentagon surge to create fleets of ultra-advanced, heavily-armed, increasingly autonomous, all-seeing, hypersonic unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Today’s Surge Drones are the hot weapons of the moment and the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review -- a soon-to-be-released four-year outline of Department of Defense strategies, capabilities, and priorities to fight current wars and counter future

  tags: Robots, Drones, Military, Missile, Attacked, Unmanned, machines, Prophecy, News

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Nick Turse: The Drone Surge: Today, Tomorrow, and 2047 (huffingtonpost.com)
• Drone surge: Today, tomorrow and 2047 (thetruthwarblog.blogspot.com)
• New Drone Spies Combat Targets from the Stratosphere: Scientific American (angryindian.blogspot.com)

AP Exclusive: US to tighten Afghan raid rules - Yahoo! News

Image via Wikipedia

• AP Exclusive: US to tighten Afghan raid rules - Yahoo! News

  "KABUL – The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan plans to tighten the rules on night raids, The Associated Press has learned, in a new step to curb public anger over perceived violations against civilians. Such raids have emerged as the No. 1 complaint among Afghans after Gen. Stanley McChrystal curbed the use of airstrikes and other weaponry last year. NATO spokesman Rear Adm. Gregory Smith told the AP a new directive would be issued soon to set down new rules for night raids. "It addresses the issue that's probably the most socially irritating thing that we do and that is entering people's homes at night," he said Wednesday. He would not elaborate pending a formal announcement. The U.S.-led force has become increasingly sensitive to complaints by Afghan civilians as part of a renewed effort to win support among the public and lure people away from the Taliban. Last year McChrystal curbed the use of airpower and heavy weapons if civilians could be put at risk. Smith said complaints about civilian deaths from airstrikes had dropped sharply after McChrystal's order last year but Afghans are "not seeing enough difference in our nighttime operations." He acknowledged the possible tactical difficulties but said the problem needed to be addressed in the effort to win the confidence of Afghan civilians and keep them from supporting the Taliban."

  tags: Military, pakistan, tighten, afghan, US, Islam, Muslim, Global, War

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Taliban Overhaul Their Image in a Bid to Win Allies (nytimes.com)
• Afghanistan's holy violence | Nushin Arbabzadah (guardian.co.uk)
• The One About If The Taliban Claimed Credit For You Skinning Your Knee Would You Believe Them? (the-one-about.blogspot.com)
• 10 Killed in Rocket Attack Near Kabul (nytimes.com)