The Taliban are our enemy, regardless what Vice President Biden may think or say

“The Taliban per se is not our enemy,” Vice President Joe Biden

Really Mr. Vice President ?? Really ?? Then let's send you over to Pakistan without a security contingent and let you have a face-to-face discussion with our "non-enemy" Tailban. Let me know how that works out for you.

I would say that anyone who encounters the Taliban in person would have a different point-of-view. Let's ask the British Doctor they kidnapped this week who was working for the International Red Cross or the 59 year old British Nurse they grabbed in December. Bet they hold a different point-of-view.

The Taliban are NARCO TERRORISTS, plain & simple. They like to wrap themselves in a jihadist cover and claim they are fighting for Islam, but in reality, it is all about the drug trade that comes from the Afghanistan/Pakistan region.

The Taliban and their allies the Haquanni, are all about terrorizing the populace, money, weapons and drugs. Their goal is to control all the aforementioned items in the AF/PAK region. The political posturing is folly as they don't care about Western issues like " Afghanistan " or " Pakistan ". Our Western concepts of countries and such are not relevant as they are tribal and don't really care about where the border line is drawn.

One certainty is that our present administration acts foolish when they play politics with the lives of our soldiers and emboldens our enemies when they speak foolishly about who we are fighting.

The Taliban are our enemy. They will wait us out, and when we leave Afghanistan, the bloodshed that they will inflict upon the people there will be horrific.

Mr. Vice President, with all due respect, you haven't got a clue. The enclosed news story is a prima facie example of the Taliban's true message to us and those who would be our allies over there.

A few thousand US Soldiers wounded or killed by the Taliban were unavailable for comment.

15 Kidnapped Pakistani Soldiers Executed by the Taliban in a Retaliatory Gesture
By SALMAN MASOOD and ISMAIL KHAN
NY TIMES: January 5, 2012

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Taliban insurgents executed 15 security soldiers who had been recently kidnapped and dumped their bodies on a hilltop in northwestern Pakistan on Thursday, in retaliation for the killing of a militant commander by government forces, government and military officials said.

The soldiers were kidnapped Dec. 23 after dozens of Taliban insurgents overran a fort in one of the restive tribal regions straddling the border with Afghanistan. Officials said they had tried but failed to secure the captives’ release.

The executions followed the death of a high-ranking Taliban commander on Sunday and came just days after local news media reported that several factions of the Taliban had vowed not to attack the Pakistani military.

The bullet-ridden bodies of the soldiers, members of the Frontier Constabulary, were spotted by local tribesmen on Thursday morning after they were dumped in Mir Ali, a subdistrict in the North Waziristan tribal region. The Frontier Constabulary, run by the Pakistani police authorities, has about 70,000 paramilitary soldiers who operate checkpoints in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province and provide security at foreign embassies and consulates in major cities across Pakistan.

“From the look of it, it seems they had been shot dead early Thursday morning,” said a senior security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “We have been trying to get them freed,” the official said, “and we have had contact with their captors. And until last night the indications that we had were very, very positive. God knows what happened afterwards.”

Farther south, armed men in the city of Quetta kidnapped a British doctor who worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross on Thursday, said Sitara Jabeen, a spokeswoman for the aid group. She said she knew of no motive for the abduction, which took place near his home.

The executions in northwestern Pakistan were claimed by a Taliban spokesman, Ihsanullah Ihsan, who described them as an “act of revenge” for the killing of militants in the Khyber tribal region on Sunday. He said the group would release a video of the killings “soon” and threatened more attacks.

A dozen militants, including Qari Kamran, a local Taliban commander, were killed in the Khyber tribal region on Sunday after security forces attacked a militant hide-out. Mr. Kamran was considered a high-ranking Taliban commander who oversaw terrorist attacks and activities in Khyber and his native Nowshera district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Security officials said they had expected retaliatory attacks because Mr. Kamran’s killing was considered a major success.

Last week, reports emerged that Afghan Taliban and leaders of Al Qaeda had urged Pakistani Taliban militants to put aside their internal differences and focus on attacking the American-led forces inside Afghanistan.

There have also been reports of negotiations on ending violence between Pakistan’s government and some Taliban factions, although military officials deny the existence of such talks.

The executions show that, despite a recent decrease in militant-related violence and suicide attacks, some Taliban militants are unwilling to end their attacks, analysts here said. A report released recently by an Islamabad-based research organization, the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, stated that militant-related violence had decreased by 24 percent in the last two years.

“The Taliban are not to be believed because past deals have shown that they end up violating their own peace deals with the government and use them to regroup and regain strength,” said Omar R. Quraishi, an editor of The Express Tribune, a Karachi-based English-language newspaper. He said the executions also highlighted differences among Taliban factions, because some groups seemed to support ending the fighting against Pakistani security forces, while others continued with attacks.

Salman Masood reported from Islamabad, and Ismail Khan from Peshawar, Pakistan

General Stanley McChrystal's POV - The US began the war with a "frighteningly simplistic" view of Afghanistan

General Stanley McChrystal tells it like he sees it. His POV is that we are only 50% of the way to achieving what is needed for Afghanistan. We are at the 10 year mark and there is little support for additional troops or resources as there are more dire needs at home.

This is not where anyone would expect to be at 10 years into a conflict. I agree with the General but know that while he states " The US began the war with a "frighteningly simplistic" view of Afghanistan...", the solution will not be simple or easy.

The task of finalizing our involvement in Afghanistan will fall on the next President, as our present one will only be able to stand pat with what we are doing presently. Obama has benefited politically from the very military he criticized for most of his adult life. If it was up to him, we would have cut & run long ago. His concern was always with his political life, not what is best for the country or the world.

An excerpt from Bob Woodward's book " O'Bama's Wars " paints the picture of what the President's real concerns were:

The President lost his poise, according to the book. “I’m done doing this!” he erupted.

To ensure that the Pentagon did not reinterpret his decision, Mr. Obama dictated a six-page, single-space “terms sheet” explicitly laying out his troop order and its objectives, a document included in the book’s appendix.

Mr. Obama’s struggle with the decision comes through in a conversation with Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who asked if his deadline to begin withdrawal in July 2011 was firm. “I have to say that,” Mr. Obama replied. “I can’t let this be a war without end, and I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party.”

And there you have it. Not the loss of life, National Security or the fate of civilians...." I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party.”

No wonder we are only 50% of the way to achieving our goal.....Politics came first for the President, as it does in all things.

Stanley McChrystal said the US and Nato were only 50% of the way to achieving their goals in Afghanistan. UK Telegraph - 10/07/11

One of America's most celebrated generals has issued a harsh indictment of his country's campaign in Afghanistan on the 10th anniversary of the invasion to topple the Taliban.

The US began the war with a "frighteningly simplistic" view of Afghanistan, the retired general Stanley McChrystal said, and even now the military lacks sufficient local knowledge to bring the conflict to an end.

The US and Nato are only "50% of the way" towards achieving their goals in Afghanistan, he told the Council on Foreign Relations.

"We didn't know enough and we still don't know enough. Most of us, me included, had a very superficial understanding of the situation and history, and we had a frighteningly simplistic view of recent history, the last 50 years."

McChrystal led the Obama administration's "surge" strategy that started in 2009 and sent US troop levels in Afghanistan to more than 100,000. Widely acknowledged as a gifted military commander, he was forced to resign last year amid controversy over remarks he made to Rolling Stone magazine.

The 10th anniversary of the war, marked on Friday, has prompted sober reflection in the US about a conflict that has passed Vietnam as the military's longest war.

Just over 2,750 foreign troops have been killed – 28% of them in Helmand – while between 14,000 and 18,000 civilians have died as a result of fighting, according to various estimates.

Yet although the US entered Afghanistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden and topple the Taliban, its most prominent targets quickly slipped across the border into Pakistan.

The al-Qaida leader was discovered in Abbottabad, north of Islamabad, last May, while the Taliban have used remote border bases in Pakistan's tribal areas to launched a stiff resurgence.

In his comments on Thursday night, McChrystal also indirectly criticised the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, saying it made success in Afghanistan more difficult to achieve. The invasion "changed the Muslim world's view of America's effort", he said.

"When we went after the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, there was a certain understanding that we had the ability and the right to defend ourselves and the fact that al-Qaida had been harboured by the Taliban was legitimate. I think when we made the decision to go into Iraq that was less legitimate [in the eyes of the Muslim world]."

The 10th anniversary has also been marked in downbeat fashion in Afghanistan where talk of US-driven "nation building" has largely evaporated. Despite $57bn in international aid since 2001, aid agencies say most people remain mired in deep poverty.

"There has been some important progress, especially in urban areas," said Anne Garella of Acbar, an umbrella group of 111 foreign and local aid agencies. "But our research highlights the gap behind positive rhetoric and grim reality."

An Acbar study found that 80% of Afghans now have access to health services compared with 9% in 2001. The number of children in school has rocketed from barely one million a decade ago, 5,000 of them girls, to seven million today, one third of whom are girls.

But Afghanistan still has been some of the world's worst health indicators due to shoddy facilities, conflict and official corruption.

Afghans have grown highly sceptical of western aid over the years, with a widespread perception – partly well founded – that much of the money finds its way back to western countries through security costs and inflated expatriate wages.

But the greatest worry for most Afghans now is the consequence of the US drawdown planned for the end of 2014, which will see the vast majority of 150,000 foreign troops leave the country.

The American plan is to hand power to the shaky Karzai-led government, which is plagued by corruption and enjoys diminishing credibility. McChrystal said that building a legitimate government that ordinary Afghans believed in, and which could serve as a counterweight to the Taliban, was among the greatest challenges facing US forces.

Efforts are under way to bolster the government's authority. Nato says it will have trained 325,000 Afghan soldiers by January 2015, and the US is likely to continue financial support, although exact levels have yet to be decided.

But rising ethnic and political tensions could destabilise the country before then. And plans to bring the Taliban to peace talks were hit by the assassination of Karzai's main peace envoy, Burhanuddin Rabbani, last month

Pakistan - They've gone " a shade too far "

The " Whacky Pakis" have been playing a shell game/three-card-monty with us for years...It is only recently that we have decided to call them out in public. What happens when the day comes were the fools in charge in Pakistan can no longer control the "rabid dogs" they allow to live there and the terrorists get their hands on a few Nukes ? You want to talk about a real shite-storm.....

I have been and remain convinced that we need to keep up all due pressure on these feckless idjits as they are in league with terrorist and expose themselves and others to a large threat because of their stupidity...As long as they feel they can act out w/o consequence, we'll keep sending in the drones to eliminate the threats we can identify.


Pakistan Is the Enemy
We know that Pakistan's intelligence service is aiding terrorists. What are we going to do about it?
By Christopher Hitchens - Salon
Monday, Sept. 26, 2011


In Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Lt. Milo Minderbinder transforms the mess accounts of the American airbase under his care into a "syndicate" under whose terms all servicemen are potential stakeholders. But this prince of entrepreneurs and middlemen eventually becomes overexposed, especially after some incautious forays into Egyptian cotton futures, and is forced to resort to some amoral subterfuges. The climactic one of these is his plan to arrange for himself to bomb the American base at Pianosa (for cost plus 6 percent, if my memory serves) with the contract going to the highest bidder. It's only at this point that he is deemed to have gone a shade too far.

In his electrifying testimony before Congress last week, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has openly admitted to becoming the victim of a syndicate scheme that makes Minderbinder's betrayal look like the action of a small-time operative. In return for subventions of millions of American dollars, it now turns out, the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence agency (the ISI) can "outsource" the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, and several other NATO and Afghan targets, to a related crime family known as the Haqqani network. Coming, as it does, on the heels of the disclosure about the official hospitality afforded to Osama Bin Laden, this reveals the Pakistani military-intelligence elite as the most adroit double-dealing profiteer from terrorism in the entire region.

Annoyed even so by the loss of "deniability" that Mullen's testimony entails, the Pakistani officer class has resorted to pretending that its direct relationships with al-Qaida and the Haqqani syndicate do not exist, and that in any case any action or protest resulting would constitute a violation of its much-vaunted "sovereignty." Both of these claims are paper-thin, or worse. If we employ Bertrand Russell's argument of "evidence against interest," for example, we can find absolutely no motive for Mullen— flanked as he was by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta—to have been making such an allegation falsely. To the contrary, they had every reason to wish to avoid the conclusion they have been forced to draw. It makes utter and abject nonsense of the long-standing official claim that Washington's collusion with the ISI has been conducted in good faith and directed for a common cause. It shows American prestige and resources being used, not to diminish the power of "rogue" elements in the Pakistani system, but to enhance and empower them. It makes us look like fools and suckers, which is what we have become, unable to defend even our own troops, let alone civilian staff and facilities, from deadly assaults not just from the back but—flagrantly, unashamedly—from the front.

As for Pakistan's arrogant and insufferable riposte, to the effect that this is all part of its tender concept of its own "internal affairs," it barely adds insult to injury. On Sept. 12 , 2001, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1368, condemning the attacks on American soil and asserting the universal right of self-defense. The terms of the resolution explicitly state that those found to be "supporting or harboring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these acts will be held equally accountable." This unambiguous language, which secured the votes of Muslim countries like Bangladesh and Tunisia as well as those of the five permanent members of the Security Council and many other nations, deserves to get more repeated exposure than it has been receiving. Pakistan's provision of a military safe-house for the leader of al-Qaida is as comprehensive a breach of the spirit and letter of Resolution 1368 as could be imagined. Meanwhile the Haqqani gang, operating in open collaboration with the Taliban of Mullah Omar as well as other insanitary forces, easily meets the definition of an organization that helps sponsor and succor the original perpetrators.

Mullen's evidence, then, is one of those revelations that appears to necessitate action. Either the Pakistanis must permit an unobstructed run at the Haqqani bases that are used for the subversion of Pakistan as well as the re-Talibanization of Afghanistan, or they must at the very least lose their claim on the U.S. Treasury. At the most, they must take the risk of being identified as allies and patrons of those who deliberately murder coalition forces as well as Afghan and Pakistani civilians. This indictment would easily stretch to cover another gross violation of international law and diplomatic immunity, in that the ISI was also found culpable in the destruction of the Indian Embassy in Kabul in July 2008.

There was a time, when he was a presidential candidate, that Barack Obama was "clear" (as he so much likes to put it) about the way in which Pakistani actions might have real consequences for Pakistan. In early debates with Hillary Clinton and John McCain, he expressed a willingness to undertake some version of hot pursuit, if necessary into lawless regions of Pakistan, in order to deter and punish cross-border aggression. The raid on Bin Laden's home in Abbottabad, conducted in May under the radar of Bin Laden's overt protectors, gave expression to this determination. So what will President Obama do, now that the Pakistani political leadership has openly declared its whole state to be lawless, and outside the jurisdiction of U.N. resolutions, and available as a base for terrorist operations against our Afghan and Indian friends?

In this context, the murder last week of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the former Afghan warlord-president who headed the country's so-called "High Peace Council," may not necessarily be the "blow" to any "peace process" that truly merits the phrase. We allow ourselves to forget that many Afghans are deeply suspicious of a negotiation that refers to the Taliban—in President Hamid Karzai's euphemistic words—as lost or alienated "brothers." In this skeptical camp belong many of the Hazara and Tajik populations, many independent women's groups, and some unsuccessful contestants, such as Abdullah Abdullah, of the scandalously bought and rigged elections of a few months ago.

These people see no reason why Pakistan's vicious proxies should be allowed, by surreptitious back channels, to gain what they have so far failed to get on the battlefield. But they do not feel that the United States is sympathetic to them, and they naturally wince when they see our embrace of their enemies. That is why the overdue decision to call these enemies by their right names is so potentially significant, and will, one hopes, soon be followed by a complete breach with those we have been so humiliatingly subsidizing to sabotage us.

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the author, most recently, of Arguably, a collection of essays.

Taliban hang eight-year-old son of Afghanistan police chief

If the headline on this post doesn't cause you to be filled with an overwhelming feeling of horror, disgust and desire to stamp out these vile bastards, I am not sure what would.

The Taliban are Narco-Terrorists, plain & simple. They use the religious issue as a screen while they try to terrorize the populations of the AF/PAK region. Their main source of funding is Opium and they have no care for anything other than their own soulless & twisted version of reality.

I defer to USMC General James Mattis and his words on what we should do about this Godless Group of Murderers:

" You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. "

General James N. Mattis - Commander of the US Central Command (USCENTCOM).

ROGER THAT SIR. If they want to see their God, we'll be more than happy to arrange the meeting.

Taliban hang eight-year-old son of Afghanistan police chief
By Daily Mail Reporter
24th July 2011

Suspected members of the Taliban hung the eight-year-old son of a police commander after ordering his father to surrender, it was claimed today.

The Deutsche Presse-Agentur news agency reported that the young boy was kidnapped by militants in the Greshk district of Helmand province last Tuesday.

He was hanged on Friday after they demanded his father give himself up or else the boy would be executed.

'The militants had warned his father to surrender with his police vehicle and weapons, otherwise they would kill his son,' provincial governor spokesman Daud Ahmadi told the agency.

While child executions by the Taliban are not common, children often fall victim to Taliban militants when they carry out attacks.

Youngsters have also been used by the Taliban as suicide bombers.

Two months ago, four civilians were killed and 12 others were injured when a 12-year-old suicide bomber blew himself up at a crowded market in eastern Afghanistan.

The Taliban have always denied using children to carry out their attacks.

Whacki-Pakis find out about the " Golden Rule "

Looks like the Whacki-Pakis have found out about the old adage of the " Golden Rule " -

As in " HE who holds the GOLD makes the rules...."

About time we held the feckless idiots in Pakistan responsible for their collective stupidity in allowing the Taliban to have free rein along the AF/PAK border...They are lucky we don't send a lot more of our Predator Drones in there to level things that make us unhappy....

With the way they run things, it ought to be like shooting fish in a barrel.

US withholding millions in aid to Pakistan
By Eric Schmitt and Jane Perlez
New York Times / July 10, 2011

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is suspending and, in some cases, canceling hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to the Pakistani military, in a move to chasten Pakistan for expelling American military trainers and to press its army to fight militants more effectively.

Tweet Be the first to Tweet this!ShareThis Coupled with a statement from the top American military officer last week linking Pakistan’s military spy agency to the recent murder of a Pakistani journalist, the halting or withdrawal of military equipment and other aid to Pakistan illustrates the depth of the debate inside the Obama administration over how to change the behavior of one of its key counterterrorism partners.

About $800 million in military aid and equipment, or over one-third of the more than $2 billion in annual American security assistance to Pakistan, could be affected, three senior United States officials said.

This aid includes about $300 million to reimburse Pakistan for some of the costs of deploying more than 100,000 soldiers along the Afghan border to combat terrorism, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars in training assistance and military hardware, according to half a dozen congressional, Pentagon, and other administration officials who were granted anonymity to discuss the politically delicate matter.

“When it comes to our military aid,’’ Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told a Senate committee last month “we are not prepared to continue providing that at the pace we were providing it unless and until we see certain steps taken.’’

American officials say they would probably resume equipment deliveries and aid if relations improve and Pakistan pursues terrorists more aggressively. The cutoffs do not affect any immediate deliveries of military sales to Pakistan, like F-16 fighter jets, or nonmilitary aid, the officials said.

While some senior administration officials have concluded that Pakistan will never be the kind of partner the administration hoped for when President Obama entered office, others emphasize that the United States cannot risk a full break in relations or a complete cutoff of aid akin to what happened in the 1990s, when Pakistan was caught developing nuclear weapons.

But many of the recent aid curtailments are clearly intended to force the Pakistani military to make a difficult choice between backing the country that finances much of its operations and equipment, or continuing to provide secret support for the Taliban and other militants fighting American soldiers in Afghanistan.

“We have to continue to emphasize with the Pakistanis that in the end it’s in their interest to be able to go after these targets as well,’’ Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told reporters on Friday en route to Afghanistan.

In private briefings to senior congressional staff members last month, however, Pentagon officials made clear that the administration was taking a tougher line toward Pakistan and seriously reassessing whether it could still be an effective partner in fighting terrorists.

“They wanted to tell us, ‘Guys, we’re delivering the message that this is not business as usual and we’ve got this under control,’ ’’ one senior Senate aide said.

Comments last week by Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also reflected a potentially more confrontational approach to Pakistan. Mullen became the first US official to publicly accuse Pakistan of ordering the kidnapping, torture, and death of the journalist, Saleem Shahzad, whose mutilated body was found in early June.

Just for clarification.....The "reality" of who we are fighting here in the AF/PAK region

I want to clarify something to the pointy headed idjits in the press and those inside the Beltway in DC. This is a subject that the US Military is clear on but the rest of the talking heads within the halls of Government are still kinda clueless on.....Especially those who talk about the subject when their only goal is re-election, not doing what is needed.

YES, we are fighting Al Qeada but we are also fighting the TALIBAN, Haqqani, and a whole collection of unaligned narco-terrorists who are roaming around on either side of the AF/PAK border...These evil bastards don't care about what we do, they want to keep control and terrorize the populace in Afghanistan & Pakistan. They want to inflict as much damage as possible (For example, see the Intercontinental Hotel raid on Tuesday) and try to wear down the support of the homefront as in that fashion, they win. We go home, they take over all over again.

These are the same heartless and souless bastards who hung a 7 year old child in AFGHN as a spy last July. They will kill anyone, at any time to further there own vile cause.

I feel about the same way as USMC General James Mattis - " You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot." - Roger that sir.

Just for clarification, the enclosed illustration paints 1000 words. I'm sorry Mr. & Mrs. America. I know you are tired of us being here in Afghanistan but these souless bastards are the 21st century version of the Nazis. We must elminate them as they will not stop doing what they do. Their goal is to inflict their twisted version of "reality" upon the entire Western World.

PAKISTAN, a.k.a. Jihadistan - An overview of one of the most unstable countries in the world and our partner in the fight against Terror

Like many, I was not shocked when OBL, USA Enemy #1 was found in Pakistan. Even the most uninformed news hound would have deduced that he was hiding there. The US tracked his where abouts and then sent in the best, The US Navy SEALs.

Now, after killing the Leader of Al Qeada, what is the staus for Pakistan? The calls for reduction of military aid until we have a more creditable idea of what the situation is in Pakistan are gaining grip. The US taxpayer is getting very little our ROI if OBL could be on the ground in Pakistan without the ISI knowing. The excuses Pakistan provides are weak at best.

Foreignpolicy.com has provided a good overview on this unstable neighbor to Afghanistan. The world and the US may have larger issues unless we can solve not just what is occurring on the AFGHN side of the border but the PAK side of the border also. Things are not good in this area of the world.


Taliban Presence in Pakistan

Below is the best map we have found about the status of the Taliban presence today. It was based on a thorough and labor-intensive analysis by BBC's Urdu service.



Jihadistan
BY PETER BERGEN AND KATHERINE TIEDEMANN - Foreignpolicy.com

Introduction

Pakistan is the headquarters of both al Qaeda and the Taliban, while Pakistani nuclear scientists have met with Osama bin Laden and proliferated nuclear technology to rogues states such as North Korea. Few countries in the world worry the Obama administration more. In past months the Taliban have moved deep into Pakistan, at one point taking up positions just 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad. The Pakistani military is pushing back with aggressive military operations in the Swat Valley, which the government effectively ceded to Taliban control earlier this year. The fighting has displaced more than 2 million Pakistanis.

Just how stable is this nuclear-armed state? Where are Pakistan's nukes, and how large is the country's nuclear program? Just how strong are Pakistan's militants? And how has the United States or the Pakistani state dealt with them either through military action or peace agreements? These are some of the questions we hope to try to answer in these graphics.

Nuclear Weapons

As the violence rises in Pakistan, Americans are increasingly worried about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal; 87 percent in a poll this year said this issue concerned them. The locations of Pakistan's dozen or so nuclear facilities are largely a secret, but what is known is that one of the main nuclear research facilities is in Kahuta, outside Islamabad. This is where uranium is enriched via gas centrifuges. The district of Khushab, in Punjab province, is home to two plutonium production reactors, which may have eclipsed the uranium enrichment at Kahuta as Pakistan's primary source of fissile material.

One key fact: Pakistan has the fastest-growing nuclear weapons program in the world.

Jihadi Violence

Jihadi violence has grown exponentially in Pakistan over the last several years. Insurgent attacks have increased more than 700 percent since 2005, and suicide attacks have increased 20-fold. Suicide bombers managed, for instance, to strike in three places in Pakistan in just one 24-hour period in April.

The number of Pakistanis who say their country is heading in the wrong direction has tracked closely with the accelerating trend of jihadi violence.


Suicide Attack Locations

One way to map the spread of violence in Pakistan is by tracking the locations of suicide attacks. By analyzing reliable media reports and data from the Pak Institute for Peace Studies in Islamabad,

The trend is clear: From only six suicide attacks in Pakistan in 2004 to 63 in 2008, terrorist violence has risen exponentially. Click the highlighted areas for more details about each attack.
Predator Strikes and al Qaeda

Just three days into his presidency, Obama authorized a near-simultaneous pair of drone strikes against targets in North and South Waziristan. Between when he took office and August 7, there have been 28 strikes, roughly one per week. Our analysis shows that these attacks have killed some 350 people, with the August 5 attack killing Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. Only one other strike has killed another important al Qaeda or Taliban leader, presumably because many of them have decamped from the tribal areas following the 34 drone attacks there last year which killed at least 10 militant leaders. Today the drone program seems to have hit the point of diminishing returns.

The drone strikes have certainly put pressure on al Qaeda. In 2008, the terrorist group released less than half the number of audio- and videotapes that it did the year before. An organization which is concentrating on survival has little time to put out communiqués. This year al Qaeda is cranking out a relatively higher volume of tapes than it did last year, but still far less than it did at its peak in 2007.

Hearts and Minds

Since 2007, both Osama bin Laden and the Taliban have been losing some popularity in Pakistan, a drop that coincides with the dramatic increases in terrorist attacks there. But this has not translated into more support for the United States; fewer than one in four Pakistani respondents have a favorable view of America. And when asked to name the principal threat to their security, more than half chose the United States, while only 8 percent said al Qaeda.

Pakistani Efforts to Stop the Violence

Military: Examples of Fighting Between Militants and Pakistani Security Forces

March to April 2009. Taliban militants began to impose sharia law in the Swat Valley as part of the conditions of the Malakand Accord, but their incursion into Buner sparked a more robust Pakistani military response than in the past. The fighting continues today between some 4,000 militants and 15,000 soldiers.

November 2007. Extremists loyal to Maulana Fazlullah, Taliban leader in Swat, seized territory in the Swat Valley and attempted to impose sharia law over the region. The Pakistani Army responded by sending a force of 20,000 soldiers to counter the radical cleric, and several weeks of fighting followed. By early December, the military claimed to have driven all the militants out, killing nearly 300 and capturing 140. The rest of Fazlullah's estimated 5,000 fighters melt back into the population.

July 2007. The Red Mosque siege in Islamabad, a violent confrontation between militants campaigning for the imposition of sharia law and Pakistani security forces, left at least 87 people dead, including militant cleric leader Abdur Rashid Ghazi and 11 members of the Pakistani special forces. Although the Pakistani military pushed the militants out of the mosque after a week of fighting, suicide attacks drastically ratcheted up following the conflict; between January and June, there were 11, but between July and December there were 49.

March 2004. Heavy fighting between 500 Taliban militants and some 5,000 Pakistani soldiers broke out near Wana, South Waziristan. More than 100 militants and soldiers died in the conflict, which ended after nearly a week of back-and-forth hostilities. The next month, the Pakistani Army signed a peace agreement with the militants, viewed as a concession to the extremists.

Pakistan Army Deployments

2009
There are 555,000 military personnel, of whom 360,000 are near the border with India.
As of May 10, President Asif Ali Zardari said 125,000 troops are on the border with Afghanistan. In April, the Pakistani military moved 6,000 troops from the border with India (that were moved there after the 2008 Mumbai attacks perpetrated by Pakistani militants).

More than 1,500 Pakistani soldiers have been killed fighting the militants since 2001.
In the past several months, Pakistan has moved 15,000 soldiers into the area around Swat and Buner following the collapse of the February peace agreement with the Taliban.

2008
On Dec. 28, following the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, which heighted tensions between India and Pakistan, the Pakistan Army moved 20,000 troops from the Afghan border to the Indian border.

2006
Some 80,000 soldiers on the border with Afghanistan engaged with militants.

2003
Some 70,000 troops were in tribal regions along Afghan border.

December 2001
The Pakistani Army sent the first of 6,000 soldiers to the Afghan border, an area where it previously had no presence.

Diplomatic: 'Peace' Agreements

For the past five years, the Pakistani military and/or government has signed a number of "peace" deals with the Taliban. Generally these deals have been ratifications of military failure, and in any event, every deal has brought further Taliban advances, suggesting that appeasing the Taliban is invariably counterproductive.

--February 2009. Swat Valley truce, known as the Malakand Accord.
--September 2006. North Waziristan truce between Pakistani government and Taliban; after the truce, Pakistan's Army pulled back "tens of thousands of troops."
--February 2005. Sararogha peace agreement with the Pakistani Army and the Taliban and (Baitullah) Mehsud tribes.
--April 2004. Shakai peace agreement between South Waziristan militants and Pakistani Army.

Afghanistan, Pakistan and the complex issues that influence how long we will remain in Afghanistan

The author of this write up makes some very valid points....as I have stated before, we are not in Afghanistan fighting Al Qeada (although they do figure into the mix), we are here to maintain the ability of the Afghan people to defend themselves from the Taliban. The area where the Taliban (who are no more than well armed narco-terrorists) hide is in Pakistan.....

No easy answers to the questions but ones we need to review seriously....The cost of national blood and treasure dictates we come up with a reasonable solution sooner rather than later.....


Is U.S. role in Afghan war obsolete?
Washington (CNN) -- The killing of Osama bin Laden raises many haunting questions. Here's the most important:

Has our mission in Afghanistan become obsolete?

To think through that question, start with a prior question: Why did we remain in Afghanistan after the overthrow of the Taliban?

The usual answer to that question is: To prevent Afghanistan from re-emerging as a terrorist safe haven.

There have always been a lot of problems with that answer. (For example: Does it really take 100,000 U.S. troops, plus allies, to prevent a country from becoming a terrorist safe haven? We're doing a pretty good job in Yemen with a radically smaller presence.)

But this week, we have exposed to sight two huge problems with the usual answer.

1. The world's most important terrorist safe haven is visibly not Afghanistan, but instead next-door Pakistan.

2. Because the U.S. presence in Afghanistan requires cooperation from Pakistan, the Afghanistan mission perversely inhibits the United States from taking more decisive action against Pakistan's harboring of terrorism.

Here's a very concrete example. Through the 2008 presidential campaign, candidates John McCain and Barack Obama tussled over the issue of direct anti-terrorist action inside Pakistan. On February 20, 2008, McCain called Obama "naive" for suggesting that he might act inside Pakistan without Pakistani permission.

In retrospect, McCain's answer looks wrong. But think about why McCain said what he did. He knew that acting in a way that offended Pakistan would complicate the mission in Afghanistan. The United States looks to Pakistan to police the Pashtun country on the other side of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Guerrilla wars become much harder to win if the guerrillas are allowed sanctuary across an international border. So if the mission in Afghanistan is the supreme priority, then acting in ways that offend Pakistan must be avoided.

But this thinking leads to an upside-down result: In order to prevent Afghanistan from ever again harboring a potential future bin Laden, we have to indulge Pakistan as it harbors the actual bin Laden!

Some Democrats have retrospectively seized on McCain's upside-down logic as proof that candidate Obama was "right" in 2008....

But, of course, President Obama has made decisions that have aggravated the upside-down problem. By inserting so many additional U.S. forces into Afghanistan, he has made the United States more dependent than ever on Pakistan -- with the result that even after finding and killing Osama bin Laden in the heart of Pakistan's national security establishment, the Obama administration is reluctant to challenge Pakistan publicly or even privately.

Think now: What would our policy in South Asia look like if we had a much smaller mission in Afghanistan? Perhaps 20,000 U.S. and allied troops on a security assistance mission rather than 100,000-plus on a combat mission?

By emancipating itself from dependence on Pakistan, the United States would gain scope to focus on the most vital questions in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, such as:

• How confident do we feel that the people who sheltered bin Laden do not also control Pakistan's nuclear force?

• If we do not have confidence in the people who control Pakistan's nuclear force, what plans do we have to disable that nuclear force?

• Why wasn't Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, the Johnny Appleseed of nuclear proliferation, delivered to U.S. custody?

• Pakistan has a long history of not only harboring anti-U.S. terrorism, but actively promoting and supporting terrorism against India. Why is Pakistan not listed alongside Iran as a state sponsor of terror?

• Why is Pakistan receiving U.S. military aid?

• Why does Pakistan have the benefit of a trade and investment agreement with the United States?

Instead, even now -- even now! -- we're told that Pakistan is just too important to permit the U.S. to act on its stated doctrine--articulated by George W. Bush's administration and not repudiated by Obama's: "Those who harbor terrorists will be treated as terrorists themselves." So long as we remain in Afghanistan, that statement remains true. The question is, shouldn't we be taking now the steps to render the statement less true?

The less committed we are to Afghanistan, the more independent we are of Pakistan. The more independent we are of Pakistan, the more leverage we have over Pakistan. The more leverage we have over Pakistan, the more clout we have to shut down Pakistan's long, vicious, and now not credibly deniable state support for terrorism.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Frum.

Whacky - Pakis slams ‘unauthorized’ US raid on bin Laden.....REALLY ?? REALLY PAKISTAN???

“From some quarters, there is anger at the United States conducting a mission inside Pakistan.”

REALLY ? Really Pakistan ?? You are lucky we just don’t decide to send MORE missions into your country......like what would you do to stop us ?? Have some more angry demonstrations in Islamabad ? It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Let's load up the drones and turn the Whacki-Pakis on to the REAL potential for what can happen when you piss us off. The bases in Afghanistan are starting to show their full potential to take on these idiots in Pakistan who were likely assisting in hiding OBL.

Get over yourself before we re-think the $4 Billion in aid we provide you and any other form of assistance.

BRAVO ZULU to the US NAVY SEALS - Beers on me next time I see any of my Navy Seal Brothers.


Pakistan slams ‘unauthorized’ US raid on bin Laden

By Associated Press Tuesday, May 3, 2011
http://www.bostonherald.com Asia Pacific

ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan criticized the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden as an "unauthorized unilateral action," laying bare the strains the operation has put on an already rocky alliance.

U.S. legislators along with the leaders of Britain and France questioned how the Pakistani government could not have known the al-Qaida leader was living in a garrison town less than a two-hour drive from the capital and had apparently lived there for years.

"I find it hard to believe that the presence of a person or individual such as bin Laden in a large compound in a relatively small town ... could go completely unnoticed," French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told reporters in Paris.

British Prime Minister David Cameron also demanded that Pakistani leaders explain how bin Laden had lived undetected in Abbottabad. But in a nod to the complexities of dealing with a nuclear-armed, unstable country that is crucial to success in the war in Afghanistan, Cameron said having "a massive row" with Islamabad over the issue would not be in Britain’s interest.

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Tuesday that the U.S. is committed to cooperating with Pakistan.

"We don’t know who if anybody in the government was aware that bin Laden or a high-value target was living in the compound. It’s logical to assume he had a supporting network. What constituted that network remains to be seen," Carney said.

"It’s a big country and a big government and we have to be very focused and careful about how we do this because it is an important relationship."

A day after U.S. commandos killed the al-Qaida leader following a 10-year manhunt, new details emerged today from Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency and bin Laden’s neighbors in Abbottabad.

Residents said they sensed something was odd about the walled three-story house, even though bin Laden and his family rarely ventured outside and most neighbors were not aware that foreigners were living there.

"That house was obviously a suspicious one," said Jahangir Khan, who was buying a newspaper in Abbottabad. "Either it was a complete failure of our intelligence agencies or they were involved in this affair."

Neighbors said two men would routinely emerge from the compound to run errands or occasionally attend a neighborhood gathering, such as a funeral. Both men were tall, fair skinned and bearded.

"People were skeptical in this neighborhood about this place and these guys," said Mashood Khan, a 45-year-old farmer. "They used to gossip, say they were smugglers or drug dealers. People would complain that even with such a big house they didn’t invite the poor or distribute charity."

U.S. officials have suggested Pakistani officials may have known where bin Laden was living and members of Congress have seized on those suspicions to call for the U.S. to consider cutting billions of aid to Pakistan if it turns out to be true.

Western officials have long regarded Pakistani security forces with suspicion, especially when it comes to links with militants fighting in Afghanistan. Last year, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton publicly said she suspected that some members of Pakistan’s government knew where bin Laden was hiding.

However, within Pakistan criticism has been focused on the U.S. breaching the country’s sovereignty. The Obama administration has said it did not inform the Pakistanis in advance of the operation against bin Laden, for fear they would tip off the targets.

A strongly worded Pakistani government statement warned the U.S. not to launch similar operations in the future. It rejected suggestions that officials knew where bin Laden was.

Still, there were other revelations that pointed to prior knowledge that the compound was linked to al-Qaida.

Pakistani intelligence agencies hunting for a top al-Qaida operative raided the house in 2003, according to a senior officer, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with the spy agency’s policy.

The house was just being built at the time of the raid by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, and Abu Faraj al-Libi, al-Qaida’s No. 3, was not there, said the officer.

U.S. officials have said al-Libi once lived in the house and that information from him played a role in tracking the al-Qaida chief down. Al-Libi was arrested by Pakistani police after a shootout in 2005 and he was later handed over to U.S. authorities.

The Pakistani officer said he didn’t know why bin Laden would choose a house that already had been compromised.

He also insisted the ISI would have captured bin Laden if it had known he was there, and pushed back at international criticism of the agency.

"Look at our track record given the issues we have faced, the lack of funds. We have killed or captured hundreds" of extremists), said the officer. "All of a sudden one failure makes us incompetent and 10 years of effort is overlooked."

Al-Qaida has been responsible for score of bloody attacks inside Pakistan, so on the face of it would seem strange for Islamabad to be sheltering bin Laden. Critics of Pakistan say that by keeping him on the run, Islamabad was ensuring that U.S. aid and weapons to the country kept flowing.

The Pakistani government said that since 2009 the ISI has shared information about the compound with the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies, and that intelligence indicating foreigners were in the Abbottabad area continued until mid-April.

In an essay published Tuesday by The Washington Post, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari denied suggestions his country’s security forces may have sheltered bin Laden, and said their cooperation with the United States helped pinpoint him.

The raid followed months of deteriorating relations between the CIA and Pakistan’s intelligence service. Those strains came to a head in late January after a CIA contractor shot and killed two Pakistanis in what Washington said was self-defense.

In a statement, the Pakistani government said "this event of unauthorized unilateral action cannot be taken as a rule."

"The government of Pakistan further affirms that such an event shall not serve as a future precedent for any state, including the U.S.," it said, calling such actions a "threat to international peace and security."

The statement may be partly motivated by domestic concerns. The government and army has come under criticism following the raid by those who have accused the government of allowing Washington to violate the country’s sovereignty. Islamabad has also been angered at the suspicions it had been sheltering bin Laden.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/international/asia_pacific/view.bg?articleid=1335247

"Razzik can beat the Taliban." - A report regarding one of our "friends" at Spin Baldak on the AFPAK border

In the ultimate cinematic send up to the Vietnam War, Apocalypse Now, the writers captured the essence of the frustration that the military faced in trying to win a war in a country that had long since frustrated any outside army that stumbled in.... The futility of fighting in some places became apparent...it spawned statement such as this:

" They blow up the bridge every night and we rebuild it, so the Generals get to say that the road is open."

Things aren't quite that bad in AFGHN but we have come to the realization that not all the people we will work with operate with the same "westernized view" of the battle. That's why we have guys like Col. Abdul Razzik....

He has been assisting us with keeping things working at SPIN B (otherwise known as Spin Baldak) on the Pakistan border....one place I did not go when I was there and one I was not unhappy that I missed either.

In Afghanistan, U.S. Turns 'Malignant Actor' Into Ally .
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV in Spin Boldak, Afghanistan, and MATTHEW ROSENBERG in Kabul
WSJ

American officials in Afghanistan used to call Col. Abdul Razzik a "malignant actor" who must be sidelined. Now they hail the suspected drug lord as a hero of the new Kandahar offensive and a leader with national potential.

Once seen as a 'malignant actor,' he has turned ally in the U.S. bid to clear Taliban strongholds.

Col. Razzik—an illiterate 34-year-old Afghan Border Police officer who calls himself General, wears flashy Swiss watches and controls southern Afghanistan's lucrative border crossing with Pakistan—emerged over the past two months as the coalition's top choice for clearing Taliban strongholds in Kandahar province, the campaign's centerpiece and the insurgents' heartland.

His reversal of fortune reflects a departure from U.S. counterinsurgency efforts to better governance, marginalize crime-tainted power brokers and win civilians' trust. Since U.S. Gen. David Petraeus took command of coalition forces in July, the military has focused more on killing as many Taliban as possible with the help of whatever local allies can be found, including strongmen whose abuses had made the Taliban popular in the first place.

U.S. officials say they are still broadly committed to the counterinsurgency principles but that targeting Taliban commanders comes first in areas where escalating violence makes governance efforts impossible.

"Now, the first priority is to beat the Taliban. Once this is done, we can shift our attention to these illicit actors," said U.S. Special Forces Lt. Col. James Hayes, who teamed up with Col. Razzik during recent clearing operations in Kandahar. "Razzik can beat the Taliban."

Col. Razzik and his force of some 250 men have become invaluable to the U.S.-led operations to seize Taliban redoubts in Kandahar province, U.S. commanders say. Unlike other Afghan security forces—often ineffectual, reluctant to fight or simply unfamiliar with Kandahar's terrain—his men have wowed American commanders with their tactical skills and determination.

"I have a clear strategy: When the enemies are killing us, we shouldn't be giving them flowers," Col. Razzik said in an interview, as he awaited a visit by the American ambassador to his fort-like base in the border town of Spin Boldak. "But maybe that's what others have been doing until now."

Col. Razzik's ability to safeguard the strategic Spin Boldak crossing from the Taliban in recent years has allowed him to stay in office. That job security comes despite what officials in Kabul and Washington say are well-founded concerns that he has been enriching himself and his patron, President Hamid Karzai's brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, with revenue from heroin smuggling, customs-skimming and bribes.

Both men deny any wrongdoing. Col. Razzik, who has also been accused of running private jails and executing detainees, said he has challenged U.S. officials to find "at least one heroin lab" in his area.

The core of Col. Razzik's support comes from his Achakzai tribe, which has long controlled the drug trade in Spin Boldak and fielded a tribal militia to help the pro-Soviet regime in the 1980s. Col. Razzik, whose father served in that militia, says his current force is open to all tribes.

"His ideal candidate is a tough young kid with no family and no tribal ties," said Lt. Col. Hayes. "He brings them up and they're loyal to no one but him. It's kinda like the Foreign Legion."

Until recently, coalition officials cited tribal considerations, alongside with a desire to rein in Col. Razzik's power, as a reason why his force shouldn't be allowed to operate beyond Spin Boldak. A bloody operation by his men in Panjway district in 2006 had inflamed the rival Noorzai tribe, bolstering the Taliban's popularity there.

This past August, Kandahar governor Tooryalai Wesa and a gathering of top regional commanders turned to Col. Razzik when they decided to clear the city's Mahalajat suburb, a stronghold that the insurgents controlled for years, using its square to hang suspected collaborators.

Moving ahead of the American force a few days later, Col. Razzik sent scouts in civilian clothes to Mahalajat, seeking information about Taliban improvised-explosive device emplacements. "He's got a lot of money to throw around, and so he just hired local boys to mark these IEDs," says Lt. Col. Hayes, who participated in the operation.

Mahalajat fell with little combat. The most notorious engagement was when Col. Razzik's men fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a stolen and booby-trapped police vehicle. The RPG missed and hit a nearby tree— from which a Taliban suicide bomber fell, exploding in a fireball as he hit the ground. American officers say they aren't aware of any abuses or looting by Col. Razzik's force in Mahalajat and that all the prisoners he had taken were handed over to Afghan authorities.

In following weeks, Col. Razzik's new role was formally recognized by the U.S. military, and he has been partnered with the U.S. Special Operations Task Force-South for missions outside Spin Boldak. He has since led his men on clearing operations to seize Taliban redoubts in Arghandab, Panjway and Maaruf districts.

In some instances in Arghandab, witnesses and one American official say, his men forced—rather than hired—local villagers to walk ahead of them on booby-trapped roads, in hopes of avoiding Taliban IEDs. Col. Razzik denied this: "I have never used civilians. All my men are from local villages. People turn out to give me information about the Taliban."

In Panjway, Col. Razzik's reputation for ruthlessness was so strong that both the Taliban and the local civilians fled ahead of his troops. "When we heard that Razzik is coming, everyone just escaped," says Tooryalai, a 39-year-old farmer in Zangabad village. "If he captures anyone, he says you're either Taliban or support the Taliban. Even members of his own tribe have fled."

American commanders compare Col. Razzik's recent successes to the Iraqi army's offensive in Basra in 2008—the turning point that for the first time gave fledgling Iraqi security forces the confidence that they can beat back the insurgents.

"He's become a folk hero," says U.S. Army Col. Jeffrey Martindale, commander of the 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, the American unit responsible for Kandahar city and Arghandab. "Afghans see him as the Afghan solution to their problems."

This reliance on local strongmen isn't limited to Kandahar. The U.S. military is now raising so-called local police forces, a network of anti-Taliban militias that are only loosely affiliated with the formal government structures and that have often been nurtured by Special Forces or the Central Intelligence Agency.

Col. Razzik, who says he has been working on some operations with the CIA but denies receiving the agency's money, is—alongside Ahmed Wali Karzai, the provincial council chief—a central actor in the crime-tainted political network that maintains a stranglehold over southern Afghanistan, allegedly rigging elections, collecting protection money and smuggling drugs.

Resentment over this network's behavior, U.S. officials have long said, is a key reason the Taliban have become so strong here. Yet, after a brief effort earlier this year to get President Karzai to remove his brother from Kandahar, and to curb Col. Razzik, coalition commanders say they have concluded that such men are their only significant allies in the south.

"What's the alternative?" wondered a senior military official in Kabul. "These powerbrokers will remain a fixture regardless of what we do. Whether they will modify their malignant activities over time remain to be seen—but you really have to work with them."

Lt. Col. Hayes, the Special Forces officer, says he has tried to make Col. Razzik change: "I told him—if you want to be on the national scene, you have to learn how to read and write, and you've got to cut all the bad things you've been doing in Spin Boldak."

In response, Lt. Col. Hayes recalls, Col. Razzik "kind of nodded, and didn't give an answer. "

Confirmation that the "GO HEAVY" approach is something General Petraeus & I agree on

There was a tell-tale indicator that something was going on over the last month as the press were all sent back to Kandahar and embeds were curtailed. That is the kind of thing that gets a Desert warrior's attention as it is not what usually passes for the rules out in the AFGHN.

Something I featured in the following post from October-

http://usnavyjeep.blogspot.com/2010/10/go-heavy-or-go-home.html

I agree with the approach as the terrain the Taliban are hiding on and we are hitting is NOT the kind of place where you can effectively patrol or expect to be able fight like you can in the open desert. The places we hit are where billygoats would be the ideal mode of transport if there were billygoats big enough to ride around on.

Glad to see that after a few months out of country my ability to sense when a SHITESTORM was due to hit the AOR has not dulled....Glad to see General Petreaus & I see things eye-to-eye on this approach as it is time to send the Taliban Cockroaches to their final resting place - post haste!

Bombs Away: Afghan Air War Peaks With 1,000 Strikes in October
By Noah Shachtman - Wired.com

November 10, 2010 12:25 pm Categories: Af/Pak

The U.S. and its allies have unleashed a massive air campaign in Afghanistan, launching missiles and bombs from the sky at a rate rarely seen since the war’s earliest days. In October alone, NATO planes fired their weapons on 1,000 separate missions, U.S. Air Force statistics provided to Danger Room show. Since Gen. David Petraeus took command of the war effort in late June, coalition aircraft have flown 2,600 attack sorties. That’s 50% more than they did during the same period in 2009. Not surprisingly, civilian casualties are on the rise, as well.

NATO officials say the increase in air attacks is simply a natural outgrowth of a more aggressive campaign to push militants out of their strongholds in southern Afghanistan. “Simply put, our air strikes have increased because our operations have increased. We’ve made a concentrated effort in the south to clear out the insurgency and therefore have increased our number of troops on the ground and aircraft to support them in this effort,” Lt. Nicole Schwegman, a NATO spokesperson, tells Danger Room.

On the other hand, some outside observers believe the strikes are part of an attempt to soften up the insurgency before negotiations with them begin in earnest. But one thing is clear: it’s a strategy Petraeus has used before. Once he took over the Iraq war effort, air strikes jumped nearly sevenfold.

Next month, the Obama administration is set to review the strategy for the Afghanistan campaign. Petraeus’ newly-aggressive approach will almost certainly part of that examination. It’s a dramatic reversal from Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s strategy, which drastically restricted the use of air power — even when troops came under fire.

But the new general is doing more than launching an expanded air war. He’s also unleashing special operations forces to go after militants on the ground. According to Petraeus’ team, those commandos conducted more than 1,500 operations in 90 days ending October 21. 339 insurgent leaders were killed or captured, as were 3,444 militant footsoldiers.

The ultimate goal of this aggression, ironically, may be a peace deal. The New York Times’ Dexter Filkins is one of several veteran observers of the war that sees the push as “a coordinated effort by American commanders to bleed the insurgency and pressure its leaders to negotiate an end to the war.”

But in the meantime, more innocents are getting caught in the cross-fire. Schwegman emails Danger Room that “while our air strikes have gone up, our incident rate of causing civilian casualties has actually decreased. As you know, our main principle in our counterinsurgency strategy is to protect the civilian population first and foremost.”

According to NATO statistics, however, 49 by-standers were killed or wounded by coalition forces last month, compared to 38 last October. It’s an increase of 30%. The militants’ civilian toll has gone up at a similar rate. But the insurgents have been far more ruthless, far more callous about innocent life. They killed or wounded 322 civilians last month — four times as many as the coalition.
NATO has escalated its air campaign in Afghanistan before — most notably in the early summer of 2008, when coalition aircraft went on 2,366 attack missions. But each rise has been followed by a dip, often because the civilian costs of the air operations grew too high. In 2004, for example, then-commander Gen. David Barno halted all pre-planned air operations after a number of the strikes went awry, slaying innocents. “I was very concerned that if killing local Taliban leaders with airstrikes produced civilian casualties, the tactical benefit would not offset the strategic damage it did to our cause,” Barno later said. After U.S. aircraft killed as many as 97 civilians in a single incident in May 2009, McChrystal imposed his tight guidelines on air power. Whether a similar constriction will happen after this current air campaign remains to be seen.