Cambodia bombing

John Pilger on bombing of Cambodia.

US/NATO allied with warlords and militias in Afghanistan

Gareth Porter summarizes some of the cases where US and NATO forces in Afghanistan pay millions of dollars to warlords and illegal militias to provide security for their troops and bases. He suggests that the U.S. and NATO contingents are spending hundreds of millions of dollars annually on contracts with Afghan security providers, most of which are local power brokers guilty of human rights abuses.

Two anonymous United Nations sources cited in the report [by Jake Sherman et al.] estimate that 1,000 to 1,500 unregistered armed security groups have been "employed, trained, and armed by ISAF" and "Coalition Forces" for security services. As many as 120,000 armed individuals are estimated by the U.N. sources to belong to about 5,000 private militias in Afghanistan.

Karzai and Diem

Justin Raimondo compares Karzai to Diem: both are not really liked by the US, which is trying to get rid of Karzai as it did for Diem in Vietnam in the 1960s. That's why there was a leak in the NYT outing Karzai's brother as a CIA asset in order to discredit him in the upcoming elections on November 7.

Another good article about the parallels says that:
"The New York Times article [on Ahmed Karzai], based on statements of "American officials" indicates only one thing: that the White House has clearly decided to confront the CIA, and Karzai, over Afghan policy, undermining both in one quick news attack."

Obama's new missile defense against Iran

An article here that explains the differences over Bush's plan. Both are obviously ridiculous.

Taliban take over Nuristan province

The Taliban have taken over Nuristan province in eastern Afghanistan, and NATO troops are departing. This is an important victory for the Taliban.

Karzai's brother on CIA payroll

Big news from the NYT: Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.
The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars in drug money are flowing through the southern region, and nothing happens in southern Afghanistan without the regional leadership knowing about it,” a senior American military officer in Kabul said.
Other Western officials pointed to evidence that Ahmed Wali Karzai orchestrated the manufacture of hundreds of thousands of phony ballots for his brother’s re-election effort in August. He is also believed to have been responsible for setting up dozens of so-called ghost polling stations — existing only on paper — that were used to manufacture tens of thousands of phony ballots.

A former C.I.A. officer with experience in Afghanistan said the agency relied heavily on Ahmed Wali Karzai, and often based covert operatives at compounds he owned. Any connections Mr. Karzai might have had to the drug trade mattered little to C.I.A. officers focused on counterterrorism missions, the officer said.

“Virtually every significant Afghan figure has had brushes with the drug trade,” he said. “If you are looking for Mother Teresa, she doesn’t live in Afghanistan.”

Some American counternarcotics officials have said they believe that Mr. Karzai has expanded his influence over the drug trade, thanks in part to American efforts to single out other drug lords.

In debriefing notes from Drug Enforcement Administration interviews in 2006 of Afghan informants obtained by The New York Times, one key informant said that Ahmed Wali Karzai had benefited from the American operation that lured Hajji Bashir Noorzai, a major Afghan drug lord during the time that the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, to New York in 2005. Mr. Noorzai was convicted on drug and conspiracy charges in New York in 2008, and was sentenced to life in prison this year.

Habibullah Jan, a local military commander and later a member of Parliament from Kandahar, told the D.E.A. in 2006 that Mr. Karzai had teamed with Haji Juma Khan to take over a portion of the Noorzai drug business after Mr. Noorzai’s arrest.

Amnesty new report on water in Palestine

The report says Israel prevents Palestinians from getting the amount of water they need while Israelis consume much more water.

The report is here.

Palestinians detained by Israel

Read the story of how Palestinians are being locked up by Israel.

Afghan elections

Eric Margolis on the US purpose behind holding elections in Afghanistan. Basically, he says that the US would have liked to remove its puppet Karzai, but then chose to hold elections in August to shore up its legitimacy. Then the electoral fraud backfired because of course this did not bring any legitimacy, on the contrary. So now the US is trying to salvage things by holding another election....

90% of Afghan women abused

According to NGOs, 90% of Afghan women are abused. Watch the video here.

US target list of drug traffickers in Afghanistan

The US has a list of 50 drug traffickers in Afghanistan that US and NATO forces are authorized to kill or capture.

As the WP reports, for years, the NATO-led military coalition in Afghanistan ignored the opium trade, saying their mission was to fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda, not drug dealers. Afghanistan's poppy fields supply about 90 percent of the world's opium.

At a meeting in Budapest last October, however, NATO defense ministers reversed their strategy and authorized their forces to confiscate narcotics and target drug labs as well as kingpins who provide monetary or other support to the Taliban.

It's important here to note that the drug traffickers that NATO are now authorized to kill, even in the face of Afghan opposition, are only those with "proven links" to the Taliban. So it doesn't mean that NATO or the US cares about eradicating drugs: they only care about fighting the Taliban.

Afghanistan

The UN envoy to Afghanistan, Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, endorsed McChrystal's call for more troops:
"I do believe, yes, that additional international troops are required," Eide said. "And I emphasize in particular the need that we have for such troops in order to partner better and mentor the Afghan national security forces as they grow."

The British military also agrees that more troops are needed.

NATO endorses McChrystal's plan

Summary here.

Iran nuclear

Gordon Prather on the developments in Iran's nuclear dossier, among other things, the possible agreement to ship nuclear fuel to Russia for enrichment to 20% and then return it to Iran to be used for medical purposes.

New military commissions

Joanne Mariner here.