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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=tanstl@aol.com href="mailto:tanstl@aol.com">David Sladky</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=undisclosed-recipients:
href="mailto:undisclosed-recipients:">undisclosed-recipients:</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, March 11, 2010 11:08 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Congressional Democrats back expanded war in
Afghanistan</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT face=arial color=black size=2><FONT
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></FONT><BR><BR>
<DIV style="CLEAR: both">
<H4>As US death toll hits 1,000 in “Operation Enduring Freedom”</H4>
<H2>Congressional Democrats back expanded war in Afghanistan</H2>
<H5>By Patrick Martin <BR>11 March 2010</H5>The US House of Representatives
voted overwhelmingly Wednesday evening against a resolution to end the war in
Afghanistan and begin a withdrawal of US troops within 30 days. The roll call
vote, with only 65 in favor and 356 against, showed top-heavy majorities of both
Democrats and Republicans opposing an early end to the war.<BR><BR>House
Democrats voted against the resolution by 189 to 60, House Republicans voted
against by 167 to 5. The leaders of both parties lined up in unanimous
opposition to the resolution, which would have invoked the 1973 War Powers Act.
This provides that the president can send US armed forces into war abroad only
with the authorization of Congress or if the US is already under attack.<BR>The
measure, introduced by a handful of liberal Democrats led by Dennis Kucinich of
Ohio, would have had no effect even if it had passed, since the bill would still
require Senate passage and then face a certain presidential veto.<BR>Moreover,
the bill would have allowed President Obama to keep US troops in Afghanistan
through December 31 if he determined this was necessary for “national security.”
In other words, the deadline set by the “antiwar” resolution is only seven
months earlier than the nominal deadline announced by Obama in his speech last
December, when he claimed that some US troop withdrawals would begin by July
2011.<BR>The perfunctory debate and swift defeat of the resolution were a
demonstration of the enormous gulf between the great mass of American people and
the representatives of big business who comprise the congressional delegations
of both parties.<BR>A majority of the American population opposes the war in
Afghanistan and wants it to end as soon as possible. But even a symbolic gesture
in the direction of this mass antiwar sentiment finds little support in
Congress.<BR>Despite the toothless character of the congressional opposition,
there was an effective media blackout on even the most tepid criticism of the
escalating US military operations in Afghanistan. There was no reporting of the
debate or vote on the network newscasts, although the roll call ended just after
6 p.m.<BR>There were only two reporters sitting in the press gallery during the
debate, a fact taken note of and denounced by one congressman, Democrat Patrick
Kennedy of Rhode Island, who is retiring from Congress and may thus feel less
politically constrained.<BR>The House vote came two days after the Pentagon
reported that the death toll among US troops engaged in Operation Enduring
Freedom, the official title of the Bush-Obama “war on terror,” has passed the
1,000 mark. Of these, about 930 were killed in the course of operations in
Afghanistan, with the balance consisting of soldiers killed in a dozen other
countries, mainly in accidents, where they were deployed allegedly against Al
Qaeda—including Yemen, Somalia the Philippines, and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.<BR>Of
the 930 deaths in the Afghanistan theater, which includes Uzbekistan and
Pakistan, some 726 are classified as combat deaths, with the rest due to
helicopter and plane crashes, weapons malfunctions and disease. More than 5,000
US soldiers have been wounded, more than half of them severely enough to require
evacuation from the war zone.<BR>The US death toll in Afghanistan has risen
rapidly over the past year, and according to an analysis of the deaths over the
last three months, one third of those killed had previously been deployed in
Iraq. US troops are being killed this year at the rate of slightly more than one
per day.<BR>According to the tabulation by icasualties.org, the US death toll
rose from 117 in 2007 to 155 in 2008 and doubled to 316 in 2009. In the first
two months of 2010, another 70 US soldiers have been killed. The US-led NATO
forces have lost another 670 soldiers since the war began in November 2001,
including 272 from Britain and 140 from Canada.<BR>Casualties among the
occupying forces have been concentrated in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, with
671 deaths in those two provinces alone, the heartland of Taliban resistance,
nearly 40 percent of the combined US-NATO losses.<BR><BR>The death toll among
Afghan civilians and guerrilla fighters opposing the US occupation is far less
accurately tallied, but undoubtedly amounts to tens of thousands.<BR>The House
vote to uphold the Obama administration’s escalation of the war coincides with a
visit to Afghanistan by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who met with the puppet
president Hamid Karzai in Kabul, then toured Helmand and Kandahar provinces in
the south, the focus of the US escalation.<BR>Gates met with US troops at a base
just north of Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city, which is to be the
target of a major US offensive in the coming months. He told them they would
play a lead role in that offensive, declaring, “Once again you will be the tip
of the spear.”<BR>The 800 soldiers in the Stryker battalion have suffered 21
dead and 62 wounded, a casualty rate of 10 percent, in heavy fighting against
entrenched Taliban forces in the rural area outside the city.<BR>An equivalent
casualty rate for the 30,000 troops ordered into Afghanistan by Obama would mean
750 dead and 2,250 wounded just among the new forces, not counting the casualty
toll among the nearly 100,000 US and NATO troops already deployed.<BR>According
to press accounts, Gates and Karzai discussed the details of the coming
offensive into Kandahar with General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in
Afghanistan. McChrystal told reporters that the military operations in Kandahar
would be conducted differently than the recent offensive against Marjah, in
neighboring Helmand province.<BR>Unlike Marjah, a largely rural area, Kandahar
is a large city of an estimated 900,000 people, where Taliban forces operate
covertly rather than openly, at least in the daytime. McChrystal said that only
6,000 of the 30,000 troops ordered in by Obama have arrived and moved into
position. The Kandahar operation would require several more months of
preparation.<BR></DIV></FONT><br />--
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