[Peace-discuss] [FWD: [ronpaul-1813] FW: .S., NATO Poised For Most Massive War In Afghanistan's History]

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> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [ronpaul-1813] FW: .S., NATO Poised For Most Massive War In
> Afghanistan's History
> From: Janet Holmes <holmesc21 at earthlink.net>
> Date: Mon, September 28, 2009 12:27 pm
> To: ronpaul-1813 at meetup.com
> 
> 
>    Frontline: "Obama's War":
>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwSCYPEXZYY&feature=sub
> 
>    Sometimes I feel as though I'm living in a footnote to the 60s.
>      _________________________________________________________________
>    From: Global Research E-Newsletter
>    [mailto:michel at globalresearch.ccsend.com] On Behalf Of Global Research
>    E-Newsletter
>    Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2009 2:53 PM
>    To: holmesc21 at earthlink.net
>    Subject: .S., NATO Poised For Most Massive War In Afghanistan's
>    History
>    U.S., NATO Poised For Most Massive War In Afghanistan's History
>    By Rick Rozoff
>    URL of this article:
>    www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15364
>    Global Research, September 24, 2009
>    Stop NATO
>    Over the past week U.S. newspapers and television networks have been
>    abuzz with reports that Washington and its NATO allies are planning an
>    unprecedented increase of troops for the war in Afghanistan, even in
>    addition to the 17,000 new American and several thousand NATO forces
>    that have been committed to the war so far this year.
>    The number, based on as yet unsubstantiated reports of what U.S. and
>    NATO commander Stanley McChrystal and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs
>    of Staff Michael Mullen have demanded of the White House, range from
>    10,000 to 45,000.
>    Fox News has cited figures as high as 45,000 more American soldiers
>    and ABC News as many as 40,000. On September 15 the Christian Science
>    Monitor wrote of "perhaps as many as 45,000."
>    The similarity of the estimates indicate that a number has been agreed
>    upon and America's obedient media is preparing domestic audiences for
>    the possibility of the largest escalation of foreign armed forces in
>    Afghanistan's history. Only seven years ago the United States had
>    5,000 troops in the country, but was scheduled to have 68,000 by
>    December even before the reports of new deployments surfaced.
>    An additional 45,000 troops would bring the U.S. total to 113,000.
>    There are also 35,000 troops from some 50 other nations serving under
>    NATO's International Security Assistance Force in the nation, which
>    would raise combined troop strength under McChrystal's command to
>    148,000 if the larger number of rumored increases materializes.
>    As the former Soviet Union withdrew its soldiers from Afghanistan
>    twenty years ago the New York Times reported "At the height of the
>    Soviet commitment, according to Western intelligence estimates, there
>    were 115,000 troops deployed." [1]
>    Nearly 150,000 U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan would represent the
>    largest foreign military presence ever in the land.
>    Rather than addressing this historic watershed, the American media is
>    full of innuendos and "privileged" speculation on who has leaked the
>    information and why, as to commercial news operations the tawdry world
>    of Byzantine intrigues among and between American politicians,
>    generals and the Fourth Estate is of more importance that the
>    lengthiest and largest war in the world.
>    One that has been estimated by the chief of the British armed forces
>    and other leading Western officials to last decades and that has
>    already been extended into Pakistan, a nation with a population almost
>    six times that of Afghanistan and in possession of nuclear weapons.
>    Two weeks ago the Dutch media reported that during a visit to the
>    Netherlands "General Stanley McChrystal [said] he is considering the
>    possibility of merging...Operation Enduring Freedom with NATO's ISAF
>    force." [2] That is, not only would he continue to command all U.S.
>    and NATO troops, but the two commands would be melded into one.
>    The call for up to 45,000 more American troops was first adumbrated in
>    mid-September by U.S. armed forces chief Michael Mullen, with the
>    Associated Press stating "The top U.S. military officer says that
>    winning in Afghanistan will probably mean sending more troops." [3]
>    Four days later, September 19, Reuters reported that "The commander of
>    U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan has drawn up a long-awaited and
>    detailed request for additional troops but has not yet sent it to
>    Washington, a spokesman said on Saturday.
>    "He said General Stanley McChrystal completed the document this week,
>    setting out exactly how many U.S. and NATO troops, Afghan security
>    force members and civilians he thinks he needs." [4]
>    The Pentagon spokesman mentioned above, Lieutenant-Colonel Tadd
>    Sholtis, said, "We're working with Washington as well as the other
>    NATO participants about how it's best to submit this," refusing to
>    divulge any details. [5]
>    Two days later the Washington Post published a 66-page "redacted"
>    version of General McChrystal's Commander's Initial Assessment which
>    began with this background information:
>      "On 26 June, 2009, the United States Secretary of Defense directed
>      Commander, United States Central Command (CDRUSCENTCOM), to provide
>      a multidisciplinary assessment of the situation in Afghanistan. On
>      02 July, 2009, Commander, NATO International Security Assistance
>      Force (COMISAF) / U.S. Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A), received
>      direction from CDRUSCENTCOM to complete the overall review.
>      "On 01 July, 2009, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe and NATO
>      Secretary General also issued a similar directive.
>      "COMISAF [Commander, NATO International Security Assistance Force]
>      subsequently issued an order to the ISAF staff and component
>      commands to conduct a comprehensive review to assess the overall
>      situation, review plans and ongoing efforts, and identify revisions
>      to operational, tactical and strategic guidance."
>    The main focus of the report, not surprising given McChrystal's
>    previous role as head of the Joint Special Operations Command, the
>    Pentagon's preeminent special operations unit, in Iraq, is
>    concentrated and intensified counterinsurgency war.
>    It includes the demand that "NATO's International Security Assistance
>    Force (ISAF) requires a new strategy....This new strategy must also be
>    properly resourced and executed through an integrated
>    civilian-military counterinsurgency campaign....This is a different
>    kind of fight. We must conduct classic counterinsurgency operations in
>    an environment that is uniquely complex....Success demands a
>    comprehensive counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign."
>    McChrystal's evaluation also indicates that the war will not only
>    escalate within Afghanistan but will also be stepped up inside
>    Pakistan and may even target Iran.
>      "Afghanistan's insurgency is clearly supported from Pakistan.
>      Senior leaders of the major Afghan insurgent groups are based in
>      Pakistan, are linked with al Qaeda and other violent extremist
>      groups, and are reportedly aided by some elements of Pakistan's ISI
>      [Inter-Services Intelligence].
>      "Iranian Qods Force [part of the nation's army] is reportedly
>      training fighters for certain Taliban groups and providing other
>      forms of military assistance to insurgents. Iran's current policies
>      and actions do not pose a short-term threat to the mission, but
>      Iran has the capability to threaten the mission in the future."
>    That the ISI has had links to armed extremists is no revelation. The
>    Pentagon and the CIA worked hand-in-glove with it from 1979 onward to
>    subvert successive governments in Afghanistan. That Iran is "training
>    fighters for certain Taliban groups" is a provocational fabrication.
>    As to who is responsible for the thirty-year disaster that is
>    Afghanistan, McChrystal's assessment contains a sentence that may get
>    past most readers. It is this:
>      "The major insurgent groups in order of their threat to the mission
>      are: the Quetta Shura Taliban (05T), the Haqqani Network (HQN), and
>      the Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HiG)."
>    The last-named is the guerrilla force of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the
>    largest recipient of hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of U.S.
>    dollars provided by the CIA to the Peshawar Seven Mujahideen bloc
>    fighting the Soviet-backed government of Afghanistan from 1978-1992.
>    While hosting Hekmatyar and his allies at the White House in 1985 then
>    President Ronald Reagan referred to his guests as "the moral
>    equivalents of America's founding fathers."
>    Throughout the 1980s the CIA official in large part tasked to assist
>    the Mujahideen with funds, arms and training was Robert Gates, now
>    U.S. Secretary of Defense.
>    Last December BBC News reported:
>      "In his book, From the Shadows, published in 1996, Mr Gates
>      defended the role of the CIA in undertaking covert action which, he
>      argued, helped to win the Cold War.
>      "In a speech in 1999, Mr Gates said that its most important role
>      was in Afghanistan.
>      "'CIA had important successes in covert action. Perhaps the most
>      consequential of all was Afghanistan where CIA, with its
>      management, funnelled billions of dollars in supplies and weapons
>      to the mujahideen, and the resistance was thus able to fight the
>      vaunted Soviet army to a standoff and eventually force a political
>      decision to withdraw,' he said." [6]
>    Now according to McChrystal the same Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who was
>    cultivated and sponsored by McChrystal's current boss, Gates, is in
>    charge of one of the three groups the Pentagon and NATO are waging
>    ever-escalating counterinsurgency operations in South Asia against.
>    To make matters even more intriguing, former British foreign secretary
>    Robin Cook - as loyal a pro-American Atlanticist as exists - conceded
>    in the Guardian on July 8, 2005 that "Bin Laden was...a product of a
>    monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the
>    80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad
>    against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally
>    'the database', was originally the computer file of the thousands of
>    mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to
>    defeat the Russians."
>    Russian analyst and vice president of the Center for Political
>    Technologies Sergey Mikheev was quoted in early September as
>    contending that "Afghanistan is a stage in the division of the world
>    after the bipolar system failed. They [U.S. and NATO] wanted to
>    consolidate their grip on Eurasia...and deployed a lot of troops
>    there. The Taliban card was played, although nobody had been
>    interested in the Taliban before." [7]
>    Pentagon chief Gates' 27 years in the CIA, including his tenure as
>    director of the agency from 1991-1993, is being brought to bear on the
>    Afghan war according to the Los Angeles Times of September 19, 2009,
>    which revealed that "The CIA is deploying teams of spies, analysts and
>    paramilitary operatives to Afghanistan, part of a broad intelligence
>    'surge' that will make its station there among the largest in the
>    agency's history, U.S. officials say.
>      "When complete, the CIA's presence in the country is expected to
>      rival the size of its massive stations in Iraq and Vietnam at the
>      height of those wars. Precise numbers are classified, but one U.S.
>      official said the agency already has nearly 700 employees in
>      Afghanistan.
>      "The intelligence expansion goes beyond the CIA to involve every
>      major spy service, officials said, including the National Security
>      Agency, which intercepts calls and e-mails, as well as the Defense
>      Intelligence Agency, which tracks military threats."
>    U.S. and NATO Commander McChrystal will put the CIA to immediate use
>    in his plans for an all-out counterinsurgency campaign. The Los
>    Angeles Times article added:
>      "McChrystal is expected to expand the use of teams that combine CIA
>      operatives with special operations soldiers. In Iraq, where he
>      oversaw the special operations forces from 2003 to 2008, McChrystal
>      used such teams to speed up the cycle of gathering intelligence and
>      carrying out raids aimed at killing or capturing insurgents.
>      "The CIA is also carrying out an escalating campaign of unmanned
>      Predator missile strikes on Al Qaeda and insurgent strongholds in
>      Pakistan. The number of strikes so far this year, 37, already
>      exceeds the 2008 total, according to data compiled by the Long War
>      Journal website, which tracks Predator strikes in Pakistan."
>    Indeed, on September 13 it was reported that "Two NATO fighter jets
>    reportedly flew inside Pakistan's airspace for nearly two hours on
>    Saturday.
>      "The airspace violation took place in different parts of the Khyber
>      Agency bordering the Afghan border." [8]
>    Two days later "NATO fighter jets in Afghanistan...violated Pakistani
>    airspace and dropped bombs on the country's northwest region.
>      "NATO warplanes bombed the South Waziristan tribal
>      region....Moreover, CIA operated spy drone planes continued
>      low-altitude flights in several towns of the Waziristan region."
>      [9]
>    The dramatic upsurge in CIA deployments in South Asia won't be limited
>    to Afghanistan. Neighboring Pakistan will be further overrun by U.S.
>    intelligence operatives also.
>    On September 12 a petition was filed in the Supreme Court of Pakistan
>    contesting the announced expansion of the U.S. embassy in the nation's
>    capital.
>    "Pakistani media have been reporting that the United States plans to
>    deploy a large number of marines with the plan to expand its embassy
>    in Islamabad." [10]
>    The challenge was organized by Barrister Zafarullah Khan, who "said
>    that Saudi Arabia was also trying to get 700,000 acres (283,400
>    hectares) of land in the country."
>    He was quoted on the day of the presentation of the petition as
>    warning "Giving away Pakistani land to U.S. and Arab countries in this
>    fashion is a threat for the stability and sovereignty of the country"
>    and "further added that the purpose of giving the land to U.S. embassy
>    was to establish an American military base...there.
>    "He maintained that such a big land was enough even to construct a
>    military airport." [11]
>    Intelligence personnel and special forces are being matched by
>    military equipment in the intensification of the West's war in South
>    Asia.
>    On September 10 Reuters revealed in an article titled "U.S. eyes
>    military equipment in Iraq for Pakistan" that "The Pentagon has
>    proposed transferring U.S. military equipment from Iraq to Pakistani
>    security forces to help Islamabad step up its offensive against the
>    Taliban...."
>    A U.S. armed forces publication a few days afterward wrote that "U.S.
>    hardware is moving out of Iraq by the ton, much of it going straight
>    to the overstretched forces in increasingly volatile Afghanistan" and
>    "The U.S. military has already started moving an estimated 1.5 million
>    pieces of equipment - everything from batteries to tanks - by ground,
>    rail and air either to Afghanistan for immediate use...." [12]
>    In the middle of this month "U.S. military leaders infused Gen.
>    Stanley McChrystal's ideas of how to win the war in Afghanistan" by
>    conducting a large-scale counterinsurgency exercise in Grafenwoehr,
>    Germany.
>    "Dozens of Pashtun speakers joined more than 6,500 U.S. troops and
>    civilians in an exercise for the Afghanistan-bound 173rd Airborne
>    Brigade and Iraq-bound 12th Combat Aviation Brigade. It was the
>    largest such exercise ever held by the U.S. military outside of the
>    United States...." [13]
>    The Pentagon and NATO have their work cut out for them.
>      "A security map by the London-based International Council on
>      Security and Development (ICOS) showed a deepening security crisis
>      with substantial Taliban activity in at least 97 percent of the
>      war-ravaged country.
>      "The Council added that the militants now have a permanent presence
>      in 80 percent of the country." [14]
>    The United States is not alone in sinking deeper into the Afghan
>    morass.
>    On September 14 U.S. ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder, in celebrating
>    the "resilience and deep-seated support from our allies for what is
>    happening in Afghanistan," was equally enthusiastic in proclaiming
>    "Over 40 percent of the body bags that leave Afghanistan do not go to
>    the U.S. They go to other countries...." [15]
>    Daalder also gave the lie to earlier claims that NATO troop increases
>    leading up to last month's presidential election were temporary in
>    nature by acknowledging that "Many of the extra troops that NATO
>    countries sent to Afghanistan for the August presidential elections
>    would stay on." [16]
>    Leading up to the Washington Post's publication of the McChrystal
>    assessment, NATO's Military Committee held a two-day conference in
>    Lisbon, Portugal which was attended by McChrystal and NATO's two
>    Strategic Commanders, Admiral Stavridis (Supreme Allied Commander,
>    Operations) and General Abrial (Supreme Allied Commander,
>    Transformation) which "focused mainly on the operation in Afghanistan
>    and on the New Strategic Concept." [17]
>    The 28 NATO defense chiefs present laid a wreath to the Alliance's
>    first war dead, those killed in Afghanistan.
>    Earlier this month the Washington Post reported that "The U.S.
>    military and NATO are launching a major overhaul of the way they
>    recruit, train and equip Afghanistan's security forces," an
>    announcement that came "in advance of expected recommendations by Gen.
>    Stanley A. McChrystal." [18]
>    The article quoted Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed
>    Services Committee:
>    "We're going to need many more trainers, hopefully including a much
>    larger number of NATO trainers. We're going to need a surge of
>    equipment that is coming out of Iraq and, instead of coming home, a
>    great deal of it should be going to Afghanistan instead." [19]
>    According to the same report, this month NATO will "will establish a
>    new command led by a three-star military officer to oversee recruiting
>    and generating Afghan forces.
>    "The goal is to 'bring more coherence' to uncoordinated efforts by
>    NATO contingents in Afghanistan while underscoring that the mission
>    'is not just America's challenge'..." [20]
>    Contributing to its quota of body bags, NATO has experienced losses in
>    Afghanistan that have reached record levels. "According to the
>    icasualties website, 363 foreign soldiers have died in Afghanistan so
>    far this year, compared to 294 for all of 2008." [21]
>    This month Britain lost its 216th soldier in the nearly eight-year
>    war. Canada lost its 131st. Denmark its 25th. Italy its 20th. Poland,
>    where a recent poll showed 81 percent support for immediate withdrawal
>    from Afghanistan, its 12th.
>    Russian ambassador to Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov, who had been in the
>    nation in the 1980s, was cited by Associated Press on September 12 as
>    reflecting that in 2002 the U.S. had 5,000 troops in the nation and
>    "Taliban controlled just a small corner of the country's southeast."
>      "Now we have Taliban fighting in the peaceful Kunduz and Baghlan
>      (provinces) with your (NATO's) 100,000 troops. And if this trend is
>      the rule, if you bring 200,000 soldiers here, all of Afghanistan
>      will be under the Taliban."
>    Associated Press also cited Kabulov's concern that "the U.S. and its
>    allies are competing with Russia for influence in the energy-rich
>    region....Afghanistan remains a strategic prize because of its
>    location near the gas and oil fields of Iran, the Caspian Sea, Central
>    Asia and
>    the Persian Gulf."
>    He also said "Russia has questions about NATO's intentions in
>    Afghanistan, which...lies outside of the alliance's 'political
>    domain'" and "Moscow is concerned that NATO is building permanent
>    bases in the region."
>    The concerns are legitimate in light of this month's latest
>    quadrennial report by the Pentagon on security threats which "put
>    emerging superpower China and former Cold War foe Russia alongside
>    Iran and North Korea on a list of the four main nations challenging
>    American interests." [22]
>    At the same time a U.S. military newspaper reported on statements by
>    Pentagon chief Robert Gates:
>      "Gates said the roughly $6.5 billion he has proposed to upgrade the
>      [Air Force] fleet assures U.S. domination of the skies for decades.
>      "By the time China produces its first - 5th generation - fighter,
>      he said, the U.S. will have more than 1,000 F-22s and F-35s. And
>      while the U.S. conducted 35,000 refueling missions last year,
>      Russia performed about 30.
>      "The secretary also highlighted new efforts to support robust space
>      and cyber commands, as well as the new Global Strike Command that
>      oversees the nuclear arsenal." [23]
>    To add to Russian and Chinese apprehensions about NATO's role in South
>    and Central Asia, ten days ago the U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan,
>    which borders Russia and China, "offered to Kazakhstan to take part in
>    the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan."
>    At the opening ceremony of the NATO Steppe Eagle-2009 military
>    exercises in that nation envoy Richard Hoagland said "Kazakhstan may
>    again become part of the international NATO peacekeeping force in
>    Afghanistan." [24]
>    Radio Free Europe reported on September 16 that NATO was to sign new
>    agreements with Kyrgyzstan, which also borders China, for the use of
>    the Manas Air Base that as many as 200,000 U.S. and NATO troops have
>    passed through since the beginning of the Afghan war.
>    On the same day NATO' plans for expanding transit routes through the
>    South Caucasus and the Caspian Sea region were described. "[T]he air
>    corridor through Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan is the most feasible.
>      "This route will be best suited if ISAF transport planes fly
>      directly to Baku from Turkey or any other NATO member....Moreover,
>      it [Azerbaijan] is not a CSTO [Collective Security Treaty
>      Organization] member, which allows Azerbaijan more freedom for
>      maneuver in the region when dealing with NATO." [25]
>    Just as troops serving under NATO command in the war in Afghanistan
>    and Pakistan now include those from almost fifty countries on five
>    continents, so the broadening scope of the war is absorbing vaster
>    tracts of Eurasia and the Middle East.
>    America's longest armed conflict since that in Indochina and NATO's
>    first ground war threatens to not only remain the world's most
>    dangerous conflagration but also one that plunges the 21st Century
>    into a war without end.
>    Notes
>    1) New York Times, February 16, 1989
>    2) Radio Netherlands, September 12, 2009
>    3) Associated Press, September 15, 2009
>    4) Reuters, September 19, 2009
>    5) Ibid
>    6) BBC News, December 1, 2008
>    7) Russia Today, September 7, 2009
>    8) Asian News International, September 13, 2009
>    9) Press TV, September 15, 2009
>    10) Xinhua News, September 12, 2009
>    11) Ibid
>    12) Stars and Stripes, September 19, 2009
>    13) Stars and Stripes, September 13, 2009
>    14) Trend News Agency, September 11, 2009
>    15) Reuters, September 14, 2009
>    16) Ibid
>    17) NATO, September 20, 2009
>    18) Washington Post, September 12, 2009
>    19) Ibid
>    20) Ibid
>    21) Agence France-Presse, September 22, 2009
>    22) Agence France-Presse, September 15, 2009
>    23) Stars and Stripes, September 16, 2009
>    24) Interfax, September 14, 2009
>    25) Jamestown Foundation, Eurasia Daily Monitor, September 16, 2009
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>    © Copyright Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO, 2009
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