Private military contractors outnumbered US troops on the ground during most of both conflicts. And defense industry stocks soared
While Washington bickers about what, if anything, has been achieved after 20 years and nearly $5tn spent on “forever wars”, there is one clear winner: the US defense industry.
Source: Where did the $5tn spent on Afghanistan and Iraq go? Here’s where | Linda J Bilmes | The Guardian
Overall, the U.S. facilitated evacuation of about 117,000 people who were not U.S. citizens from Afghanistan, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday, although that figure includes more than just SIV applicants. More than 20,000 Afghan refugees were being housed at military bases within the U.S. as of Wednesday, with another 40,000 awaiting processing at military bases abroad, CBS News reported. All refugees and SIV applicants are extensively vetted.
Source: U.S. Left Most Afghans Who Helped Americans Behind | HuffPost
A mere month after the conviction of whistleblower Daniel Hale, who did more than any other to reveal the grotesque illusion of reliability behind the US drone program, UAV warfare was again shown to be a butchering enterprise praised by the precisionists and found politically wanting. Those attending the funerals of the slain family members, an event taking place in the shadow of US power in retreat, needed little convincing who their enemy was.
Source: Droning Disasters: A US Strike on Kabul – » The Australian Independent Media Network
In a world where developed democracies such as Canada, the US and Europe are opening their arms and creating paths to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees (after all we all helped to create the current situation) – Australia says ‘not our problem’ apart from a token airlift. It beggars belief. We can and should be doing much better than this. What do you think?
Source: We should be better than this – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The current situation in Afghanistan is the result of decades of political interference by the United States Government with the support of other Western leaders, writes John Pilger.
Source: JOHN PILGER: How the U.S. ruined Afghanistan playing the ‘great game’
Mr. Prince, whose Blackwater guards were convicted of killing civilians in 2014 while providing security for Americans during the Iraq war, said he was charging each passenger $6,500 to get them safely into the airport and on a plane, and it would cost extra to get people who have been trapped in their homes to the airport. It remained unclear whether Mr. Prince had the wherewithal to carry out his plans.
To some Morrison is the virus
9 View all comments Advertisement Captain Jason Scanes is an Afghanistan veteran who since 2013 has been trying to get his own and other Afghan interpreters safely to Australia in return for the faithful service they rendered our Diggers while there. He ramped up those efforts earlier this year, when it was announced the Coalition was pulling out and their lives would be at risk from the Taliban. He got nowhere.
Source: Taliban Afghanistan: Why Australian soldiers feel let down by Scott Morrison
Today, Australia stands at another seminal moment. Will our leaders today have the courage and compassion shown by Malcolm Fraser and the LNP of yesteryear?
Morrison and Dutton have yesterday flown 26 out of Kabul, 2 Australians and those who currently have visas for Australia, All in a plane that’s purpose built for 128 but able to take hundreds more. It’s now been reported that only 600 will be flown from the area and with testing qualifications and “if possible”. Allowing Morrison so much breathing space for further excuses it’s unbelievable in this crisis.
Morrison’s preferred arm twisted intake it seems will be made up from the numbers already here but possible deportations will still remain hanging over their heads when it comes for the government to decide. Why does Morrison even claim to be a Christian?
Under Malcolm Fraser over 100,000 Vietnamese people came to Australia without the bureaucratic wall put in place as is by Morrison. Today they are vibrant communities in Cabramatta and Inala which are testaments to their integration into our multiculturalism.
Morrison Shames us and this Nation he’s been watching and doing nothing about this potential holocaust steamrolling forward since April. Now he stands before us talking, as if this was a surprise that he has no control of. Morrison was and has been an enabler of what we are now witnessing but even more he’s become an active participant in declaring people must form a queue and wait fill out forms which haven’t been sent and aren’t available and he won’t listen to anyway because those might likely be terrorists. Such a fucking hollow excuse simply make one puke.
As uncertainty consumes Afghanistan, Donald Trump is blaming Joe Biden for doing what Trump said he did. “He ran out of Afghanistan instead of following the plan our Administration left for him,” the former president wrote in a statement Saturday. Then, barely 25 hours later, another statement from Trump: “Never would have happened if I were President!” While we’ll never know exactly what a Trump administration-led withdrawal from Afghanistan will look like, we can make some educated guesses based on his words from barely a month ago. “I started the process, all the troops are coming home,” he told supporters at a rally in Wellington, Ohio in late June. “What are we going to say? We’ll stay for another 21 years, then we’ll stay for another 50. The whole thing is ridiculous.” And few months before that, in April of this year, Trump was clear about where he stood: “We can and should get out earlier…Getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do. I planned to withdraw on May 1st.” Trump’s former National Security Advisor even agrees, saying the former president “would’ve done essentially the same thing” as Biden. So let me get this straight, the only president t
Source: Trump Slams Biden for Doing What Trump Bragged About – Mother Jones
“Freedom’s always worth it,” said Scott Morrison. “What a waste,” said the father who had lost his son in Afghanistan. Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam. Tasha May totes up the immense cost of futile wars and the immense profits.
Here’s a Boat you wouldn’t want to be in and it’s not even on the water. There’s an LNP wall of silence in their way.
When Australian soldiers withdrew from Uruzgan Province, local builder Hammedullah Hammedie knew he had to flee as well. Because of his work for Australia, Hammedie says he was a target of the surging Taliban.
Source: ‘My destiny to die’: Afghan who helped Australian soldiers pleads for visa
Afghanistan is teetering on the brink of an almost unimaginable disaster. The withdrawal of US and allied forces, scheduled by President Joe Biden to be completed by September 11, threatens to precipitate the unravelling of the most pro-Western government in Southwest Asia.
Source: On the brink of disaster: how decades of progress in Afghanistan could be wiped out in short order
If one were to get into the head of Australian government MP Andrew Hastie, a security tangle of woe would no doubt await. Having been a captain with the Special Air Services and having also served in Afghanistan, he has been none too thrilled by the publicity soldiers he served with have received. The report by New South Wales Court of Appeal Justice Paul Brereton has now been mandatory reading (or skimming) for political and military watchers. Known rather dully as the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force Afghanistan Inquiry Report, it makes the claim that 39 alleged murders were inflicted on non-combatants by Australian special service units when operating in Afghanistan.
Hastie’s speech has a throbbing subtext: containment. Despite professing a belief in the rule of law and transparency, the overwhelming sense from the politician who chairs the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security is that the Inquiry should have been kept indoors. Such bloodied laundry should never have been aired. That, at the very least, would have avoided public discussions about the egregious methods of Australia’s elite warriors, and the decisions behind deploying them in the first place.
Imperfect Releases: Andrew Hastie, War Crimes Reports and Australia in Afghanistan – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Murder and torture allegations against elite soldiers in Afghanistan have been described as more “evil” and “worse” than the atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison, prompting cries for urgent cultural change within the Australian army.
War crimes report details ‘evil’ acts by Australian soldiers
Four years into a constant stream of misconduct allegations, it’s hard to know how to process the latest revelations about the actions of Australia’s special forces in Afghanistan.
The reputation of Australia’s special forces is beyond repair — it’s time for them to be disbanded
A US marine says Australians were known to leave “fire and bodies” in their wake in Afghanistan Australian soldiers from 2nd Commando Regiment told the ABC the US Drug Enforcement Administration refused to work with the November platoon in Afghanistan It is unclear if the alleged killing is covered in the Inspector-General of the Australian Defense Force’s inquiry US marine says Australian special forces soldiers made ‘deliberate decision to break the rules of war’ – ABC News
Fake News Trump pulled out of Syria (ODT)
via U.S. Troops To Stay In Afghanistan Several More Years, Says General
America protects its drug business in Aghanistan which began in the 70s could one imagine the profits made over that period. budget The global monetary value of the heroin market is of the same order of magnitude as the defense budget of the USA $717 billion .
Needless to say, the Pentagon not to mention the CIA which launched the opium economy in Afghanistan in the late 1970s are intent upon protecting this multibillion dollar industry. The proceeds of the Afghan drug trade were initially used to finance the recruitment of Al Qaeda Mujahideen mercenaries to fight in the Soviet-Afghan war.
Trumps dream of a Nobel Prize blew up in his face again but in his eagerness to show what a failure he infact is he twittered the promise of a peace accord and it’s failure ought to be sufficient to gain him the recognition he craves. Promise of peace in Iran, Afghanistan Syria and Nth Korea along with their accompanying failures Trump believes should be enough to have him crowned and celebrated as a global Caesar rather than a screwed up Nero. Afterall the blame is not his. (ODT
But little was made of that at the time. The endgame of the talks seemed near, if not the timetable. Only then came Trump’s tweets on Saturday night disclosing that he had invited the Taliban and Ghani to Camp David — but called it off, citing the bombing.
The tweets took many in the administration by surprise; there was no reason for Trump to reveal what had happened, several officials said, especially since he has not given up on the idea of a negotiated settlement.
via How Donald Trump’s secret plan to meet the Taliban came together, and fell apart
It’s what the LNP did with the history of this nation they went to war the ALP took them out of Vietnam and the LNP kept helping in more Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, all losing ones. They needed a winning war and decided on calling Asylum seekers “illegals” saying ‘Nope to the Malaysian Solution and telling Australia that they were winning a just war against “deplorables”. A Democracy is diminished when it’s government has too many secrets and buys and lies their way into power without any reasoned policies just scare mongering on the undeclared donations of Palmer and Murdoch. (ODT)
I8 year loss language is being renegotiated to claim a 2019 WIN. After a loss on a wall language is being renegotiated to claim a 2019 WIN. The Art of the deal is changing the Language. POTUS no longer needs an Administration just a mega-media giant. News Corp and Sinclair have provided that.(ODT)
via After 18 Years of War, Taliban Has the Upper Hand in Afghanistan Peace Talks
Behind closed doors, the words “war crimes” are being used. Not only specific incidents, but the entire culture and command structure of Australia’s most renowned and trusted fighting force is now under scrutiny in a manner unprecedented in Australian military history.
via Abdul’s brother went out to buy flour. He never came home
The story didn’t say whether any of the reporters listening to General Dunford asked why it had taken more than 16 years for the world’s leading military power to come up with the “fundamentally different approach” that the general believes has put U.S. and Afghan forces on the path to success. (None of the changes he mentioned really sounded fundamental, either.) Still, it’s a question worth asking: If Americans are right in ceaselessly telling themselves that theirs is the most powerful country the world has ever seen and that their military is the “greatest fighting force ever,” as President Trump calls it, should it have been this hard and taken this long to find a way — if they really have — to defeat enemies whose war-making resources are a tiny fraction of ours?
via “Infinity War?” After 17 fruitless years in Afghanistan & elsewhere the US Military needs to Rethink
Sjursen says U.S. foreign policy “has been unmoored and drifting away from anything close to sober strategy for coming up on 17 years now. I think the post-9/11 wars have been an absolute tragedy, and probably the greatest foreign policy disaster since the Vietnam War. … I truly believe we are less safe because of American foreign policy and American militarism in the world since 9/11.”
via Maj. Danny Sjursen: U.S. Foreign Policy Doesn’t Make Us Safe (Audio)
Trump’s mercenary supporter Erik Prince has a self-serving proposal for Afghanistan. It must be condemned and rejected.
Women in Afghanistan now have their own television channel.Zan – or Women’s – TV began airing this month, with a staff of all female presenters and producers.
Source: First women’s TV channel launched in Afghanistan | Afghanistan News | Al Jazeera
Afghan officials receive 10,000 automatic rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition as a gift from Russia.
Defence department figures reveal ‘tactical payment scheme’ paid an average of $73 an incident for ‘collateral damage to property, injury or loss of life’
Source: Australia pays $207,000 compensation to 2,800 Afghans over six years | World news | The Guardian
