dagblog - Comments for "Expert Backs NCD on Drone Strike, BBC"

By far the most unusual

artappraiser — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 20:53:14 +0000

By far the most unusual aspect of this horrific drone strike is the fact that we are acknowledging what we did. This kind of killing of innocent victims has been absolutely par for the course through the entirety of the drone war. The media just usually isn't paying attention. https://t.co/ixCAIPVnQ9
— Stephen Miles (@SPMiles42) September 17, 2021

"Our investigation now

artappraiser — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 19:12:39 +0000

In reply to Expert Backs NCD on Drone Strike, BBC

"Our investigation now concludes this strike was a tragic mistake," @CENTCOM Gen. McKenzie said #Kabul airport
— Tara Copp (@TaraCopp) September 17, 2021

McKenzie says the secondary explosion was likely caused by a propane tank near the struck vehicle
— Tara Copp (@TaraCopp) September 17, 2021

So it will have to be another story to make the suggestion stick that Biden is a craven political opportunist with our weapons of war.

What a surprise! NOT!

artappraiser — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 04:38:24 +0000

In reply to Expert Backs NCD on Drone Strike, BBC

What a surprise! NOT!

Pakistan's ISI Chief in Kabul for Bilateral Relations: Taliban

By Abdulhaq Omeri, TOLOnews Reporter, 05 SEPT

Taliban says Hamid is in Kabul to resolve the problems of Afghan travelers at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

A day after the arrival in Kabul of the head of the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lt Gen. Faiz Hamid, the Taliban on Sunday said that Hamid is in Afghanistan to improve bilateral relations between Kabul and Islamabad.

Earlier, Pakistani media reported that Hamid was in Kabul at the invitation of the Taliban, but the Taliban said that Pakistan had proposed his visit to Kabul.

Ahmadullah Wasiq, deputy head of the Taliban’s Cultural Commission, said the Taliban leaders talked with Hamid about bilateral relations and the problems of Afghan passengers at Torkham and Spin Boldak passes between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“This Pakistani official has come to solve Afghan passengers’ problems at the border areas, especially in Torkham and Spin Boldak. They wanted (his visit to Kabul) and we accepted,” Wasiq said.

When asked by a reporter about his visit to Kabul, Hamid said: “Don’t worry, everything will be okay.”

Hamid also said that his country will provide technical support for Afghanistan to restart operations at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.

Meanwhile, sources close to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of Hizb-e-Islami party, said that Hamid also met with Hekmatyar, and they discussed the current situation in the country.

“Although Hamid says his visit is for Afghanistan-Pakistan issues and for the Afghan passengers, I think his trip to Kabul has caused concerns among the Afghans and it means Pakistan will recognize the government that the Taliban will announce,” said Sami Yousufzai, a journalist.

Hamid arrived in Kabul on Saturday and is the only high-ranking foreign official to visit Kabul following the Taliban’s takeover of the city.

Taliban keeping pledge to let

artappraiser — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 04:22:04 +0000

In reply to Expert Backs NCD on Drone Strike, BBC

Taliban keeping pledge to let Afghans leave, says Blinken

AFP via Dawn.com, Published September 8, 2021 - Updated about 2 hours ago

DOHA: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that the Taliban were making good on promises to let out Afghans as he heard firsthand concerns on the country’s future during a trip to Qatar.

Blinken met Afghan evacuees and US teams processing them on a two-day visit to Qatar, the transit point for nearly half of the more than 120,000 people airlifted from Afghanistan since the Taliban’s lightning takeover on August 15.

President Joe Biden has faced mounting pressure from activists and Republican rivals who say the Taliban have been preventing several hundred people, including Americans, from flying out of the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on charter flights scheduled over the past week.

But Blinken said the United States had been in touch again on Tuesday with the Taliban who promised to let Afghans “freely depart” — a key test as the United States weighs whether to work with a future government in Afghanistan led by the Islamists.

“We are not aware of anyone being held on an aircraft or any hostage-like situation in Mazar-i-Sharif,” Blinken told a news conference in Doha where he and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin met their Qatari opposite numbers.

“We have been assured, again, that all American citizens and Afghan citizens with valid travel documents will be allowed to leave,” Blinken said.

“We intend to hold the Taliban to that.” He said the United States was seeking to resolve problems with charter flights including security screening and some passengers’ lack of identification.

He said the Taliban cooperated when a family of four US citizens left overland, the first such departure arranged by the US government after the chaotic end to the 20-year US war [....]

Taliban fire shots to disperse protests in Kabul

AFP via Dawn.com, Published September 8, 2021 - Updated about 2 hours ago

KABUL: The Taliban on Tuesday fired shots into the air to disperse hundreds of people who had gathered at several rallies in Kabul, the latest signs of defiance by Afghans against the hardline Islamist movement which swept to power last month.

At least three rallies were held across Kabul in a show of resistance that would have been unthinkable during the Taliban’s last stint in power — when people were publicly executed and thieves had their hands chopped off.

[....]

Scattered demonstrations have also been held in smaller cities in recent days, including in Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif where women have demanded to be part of a new government.

General Mobin, a Taliban official in charge of security in the capital, said he had been called to the scene by Taliban guards who said that “women were creating a disruption”.

“These protesters are gathered based only on the conspiracy of foreign intelligence,” he claimed.

An Afghan journalist covering the demonstration said his press ID and camera were confiscated by the Taliban. “I was kicked and told to go away,” he said.

Later, the Kabul-based Afghan Independent Journalists Association said 14 journalists — Afghan and foreign — were detained briefly during the protests before being released.

“The association strongly condemns the violent treatment of journalists in recent demonstrations and calls on the authorities of the Islamic Emirate to take appropriate measures to prevent violence and protect journalists,” it said in a statement.

Images shared online showed reporters with cuts and bruises to their hands and knees [....]

Put this old article together

artappraiser — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 18:32:38 +0000

In reply to An exceptional article -

Put this old article together with Gopal's and you get a picture of our military wrongly interpreting the culture of the frighening warlord bully types as the culture at large; beginning excerpt following tweet:

https://t.co/U0PcFSOsFF

Was this an institutional problem of the military
— TeenSorceror (@notyungsouichi) September 7, 2021

KABUL, Afghanistan — In his last phone call home, Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley Jr. told his father what was troubling him: From his bunk in southern Afghanistan, he could hear Afghan police officers sexually abusing boys they had brought to the base.

“At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it,” the Marine’s father, Gregory Buckley Sr., recalled his son telling him before he was shot to death at the base in 2012. He urged his son to tell his superiors. “My son said that his officers told him to look the other way because it’s their culture.”

Rampant sexual abuse of children has long been a problem in Afghanistan, particularly among armed commanders who dominate much of the rural landscape and can bully the population. The practice is called bacha bazi, literally “boy play,” and American soldiers and Marines have been instructed not to intervene — in some cases, not even when their Afghan allies have abused boys on military bases, according to interviews and court records.

The policy has endured as American forces have recruited and organized Afghan militias to help hold territory against the Taliban. But soldiers and Marines have been increasingly troubled that instead of weeding out pedophiles, the American military was arming them in some cases and placing them as the commanders of villages — and doing little when they began abusing children [....]

still going to work on

artappraiser — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 15:03:05 +0000

In reply to Expert Backs NCD on Drone Strike, BBC

still going to work on evacuations:

US State Secretary Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin opened talks on Tuesday in key diplomatic hub Qatar as they try to speed up evacuations from Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.https://t.co/jBM2nUOfLg
— Dawn.com (@dawn_com) September 7, 2021

also:

Taliban fire shots to disperse protests in Kabul https://t.co/5L66GV0TO6
— Dawn.com (@dawn_com) September 7, 2021

#BREAKING: Mohammad Hasan Akhund to lead new Taliban government: spokesman https://t.co/FJP2oI4GKP
— Dawn.com (@dawn_com) September 7, 2021

Ugh? Tamil Tigers waged war

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 06:31:03 +0000

In reply to I read the whole article,

Ugh? Tamil Tigers waged war for decades with basic technology. The 30 Years War and Hundred Years War (actually 130, but didn't fit on the t-shirt) had that endless war meme to it as well. Vietnam started a decade before we got involved with atrocities to civilians (including Ho Chi Minh's bloody civilian resettlement).

The obsession with 10 or 100 killed in a suicide attack while ignoring 2 decades of steady attrition with continuous civilian harassment and deaths is part of our political-medua terrain. Certainly the British terrorized Indians for a century without waging full war on them, and I'm sure there were resistance areas that bore the worst if it.

We have brought down all-out war - period. These other types of wars and conflicts have always existed. The UN will continue to proclaim human rights abuse, and war is hell, and yadda yadda - but the bigger issue to me is getting better data and understanding in what is actually happening - so that we're not bolstering local warlords while thinking we've found a real partner in peace. Our level of willing ignorance in Afghanistan was awful. We also have the problem of navigating regressive local values, but that's secondary to supplying the very abusive militias we think we're protecting from. A huge part is modesty in occupying - part is getting better in occupying or transitioning - better communication, better ways of assessing effectiveness... Modern language tools will help a bit so we can actually communicate. Drones used with more restraint and for more diverse functions *may* help. But since we've done so badly, we need to be very careful. We did the very nation building/culture changing mission we all agreed was impossible at the get-go - led by neocons and liberals both. A perverse form of Al Gore policing. But that doesn't mean we created this method - it's there since forever. But it can improve. Without bring back Total War.

I read the whole article,

artappraiser — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 05:09:34 +0000

In reply to An exceptional article -

I read the whole article, thank you for pointing it out. Then (as I am a subscriber) I went on to read this book review there which WHOA, gave me a whole different perspective immediately, (and you don't have to go back that long ago, it starts with a shocking WWII perspective.) No surprise the review is by good ol' Dexter Filkins:

Did Making the Rules of War Better Make the World Worse?

Why efforts to curb the cruelty of military force may have backfired.

As we fixate narrowly on abuses, critics say, wars have become easier to start and harder to stop

By Dexter Filkins September 6, 2021

On the evening of March 9, 1945, the United States sent an armada of B-29 Superfortresses toward Japan, which for months had resisted surrender, even as a naval blockade brought much of the population to the brink of starvation. The B-29s were headed for Tokyo, and carried napalm, chosen for the mission because so many of the city’s inhabitants lived in houses made of wood. The bombing ignited a firestorm that sent smoke miles into the sky; the glow was visible for a hundred and fifty miles. In six hours, as many as a hundred thousand civilians were killed, and a million others were left without homes. In the words of the raid’s architect, Major General Curtis LeMay, the Japanese were “scorched and boiled and baked to death.” Five months later, the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Japan surrendered.

If the U.S. undertook such a campaign these days, worldwide revulsion would be intense and long lasting. In the past half century, war waged by states has become more humane. Shifting international standards, codified in treaties like the Geneva Conventions, have mirrored a trend among military commanders to choose targets carefully, and to spare civilians whenever possible. Improvements in bomb accuracy have made it easier to focus on military targets.

Most people would consider this a positive development. Samuel Moyn, a professor of history and of jurisprudence at Yale, believes that we have less to celebrate than we might imagine. In his book “Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), he suggests that this new form of warfare is so civilized that it has reduced our incentive to stop fighting. “The American way of war is more and more defined by a near complete immunity from harm for one side and unprecedented care when it comes to killing people on the other,” he writes. “America’s military operations have become more expansive in scope and perpetual in time by virtue of these very facts.” Ours is an era of endless conflict, whose ideal symbol is the armed drone—occasionally firing a missile, which may kill the wrong people, but too far removed from everyday American life to rouse public objections.

The dilemma posed by Moyn belongs to the modern age. Killing is what armies do, and, in the usual course of things, the more they kill the sooner their wars end. In the first two Punic Wars, Rome and Carthage fought in battlegrounds outside their population centers; in the third, the Romans contrived an excuse to lay siege to Carthage, and slaughtered its inhabitants. There wasn’t a fourth. For Clausewitz, the Prussian military theorist, the whole point of fighting was not just to repel the enemy but to destroy it; theoretically, at least, war knows no limits.

In the United States, generals took a page from Clausewitz, applying maximum force to secure military objectives. During the Civil War, General William Tecumseh Sherman, who set fire to Atlanta, believed he was entitled to do anything in pursuit of victory, because he was fighting against an enemy that had begun an unjust war. He vowed to “make Georgia howl.” In the Second World War [....]

From the link: "(country)

NCD — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 03:45:52 +0000

In reply to An exceptional article -

From the link: "(country) Girls essentially disappear into their homes at puberty, emerging only as grandmothers, if ever. "

"When the city gets into the girls system, she loses her a hankering for the country."

"As chairman of the Senate

NCD — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 03:41:16 +0000

In reply to Biden voted for the US to

"As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when the authorization vote was cast, Biden was at the forefront of the debate about what course to pursue with Iraq.....Biden never outright opposed military action in Iraq in the immediate days after the start of the invasion, as he claimed."

Democrats controlled the Senate when the Use of Force Resoltion was passed. Biden was Chairman of tbe Committee that sent it to the floor. He could have killed the resolution. He didn't.