SACRIFICED FOR EMPIRE

highway swallows car

2009-11-26T22:50:00.005-06:00

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Iran Begins War Games to Protect Nuclear Sites

2009-11-26T21:38:00.014-06:00

Iranian short-range missile is test-launched during war games in Qom, September 2009. A commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said that air defence forces would "annihilate" Israeli warplanes if they attacked the Islamic republic, as the forces began five days of war games.

(AFP/File/Shaigan)

Iran begins war games to protect nuclear sites

By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer Nasser Karimi, Associated Press Writer – Sun Nov 22, 5:32 pm ET

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran on Sunday began large-scale air defense war games aimed at protecting its nuclear facilities from attack, state TV reported, as an air force commander boasted the country could deter any military strike by Israel.

It said the five-day drill will cover an area a third of the size of Iran and spread across the central, western and southern parts of the country.

Gen. Ahmad Mighani, head of an air force unit in charge of responding to threats to Iran's air space, said Saturday the war games would cover regions where Iran's nuclear facilities are located.

The drill involves Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard, the paramilitary Basij forces affiliated with the Guard as well as army units.

The United States and its European allies accuse Iran of embarking on a nuclear weapons program. Iran denies the charge and insists the program is only for peaceful purposes.

Israel has not ruled out military action to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

The commander of the Guard's air force, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, meanwhile sought on Sunday to play down the significance of Israel's threats against his country, saying they amounted to psychological warfare.

"We are sure they are not able to do anything against us since they cannot predict our reaction," Hajizadeh was quoted as saying by the Guard's official Web site, Sephahnews.

"If their fighter planes could escape from Iran's air defense system, their bases will be hit by our devastating surface-to-surface missiles before they land," he said.

Also on Sunday, Iran's defense minister, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, said Iran planned to pursue designing and producing its own air defense missiles, according to the official IRNA news agency.

His comments were apparently in response to the delay in the delivery from Russia of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, meant to be a key component of Iran's air defense.

Iran complains that the delay is apparently the result of Israeli and U.S. pressure.

Israel and the United States have opposed the missile deal out of fear Iran could use the system to significantly boost air defenses at its nuclear sites — including its main uranium enrichment plant at Natanz.

Commenting on this week's war games, a senior Obama administration official urged Iran to engage with the international community.

"We would prefer that the Iranian regime follow through on their offer to engage," said Ellen Tauscher, the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.

"It is more important for them to build confidence with the international community," she said at a news conference Sunday at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia.

Associated Press Writer Rob Gillies contributed to this report from Halifax, Nova Scotia

British Leaked Documents - Iraq Chaos

2009-11-26T21:24:00.007-06:00

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair speaks after he addressing delegates attending the Sierra Leone Trade and Investment Forum on 'Why I am supporting Sierra Leone', in London Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009. Blair is believed to be one of the candidates for the position of the first full-time President of the European Union, whose appointment will be decided by EU leaders at a dinner in Brussels, Thursday Nov. 18, 2009.

(AP Photo/Sang Tan)

Report: Leaked UK documents detail Iraq war chaos

By DAVID STRINGER, Associated Press Writer David Stringer, Associated Press Writer – Sun Nov 22, 12:42 pm ET

LONDON – Leaked British government documents call into question ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair's public statements on the buildup to the Iraq war and show plans for the U.S.-led 2003 invasion were being made more than a year earlier, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Britain's Sunday Telegraph published details of private statements made by senior British military figures claiming plans were in place months before the March 2003 invasion, but were so badly drafted they left troops poorly equipped and ill-prepared for the conflict.

The documents — transcripts of interviews from an internal defense ministry review of the conflict — disclose that some planning for the Iraq war had begun in February 2002. Maj. Gen. Graeme Lamb, then head of Britain's special forces, was quoted as saying he had been "working the war up since early 2002," according to the newspaper.

In July 2002, Blair told lawmakers at a House of Commons committee session that there were no preparations to invade Iraq.

Critics of the war have long insisted that Blair offered then-President George W. Bush an assurance as early as mid-2002 — before British lawmakers voted in 2003 to approve U.K. involvement — that Britain would join the war.

The leaked documents are likely to be supplied to a public inquiry established by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to scrutinize prewar intelligence and postwar planning, and which will hold its first evidence sessions later this week.

Brown appointed ex-civil servant John Chilcot to lead the panel, which will call Blair and the current and former heads of Britain's MI6 intelligence agency — John Sawers and John Scarlett — to give testimony in person.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, military leaders used the defense ministry review to criticize government departments over their failure to plan for reconstruction work once Saddam Hussein had been deposed.

"We got absolutely no advice whatsoever. The lack of involvement by the FCO (Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office), the Home Office and the Department for International Development was appalling," the newspaper quoted Brig. Bill Moore as saying in his statement.

It quoted Lt. Col. M. L. Dunn as reporting that his soldiers "only had five rounds of ammunition each" when the invasion began, and that troops lacked the correct armor and other equipment.

In another statement, Lt. Col. John Power said long-distance radios failed in Iraq's heat and claimed planning was so haphazard that military officials mistakenly sent a container of skis along with desert equipment.

The newspaper said the internal review concludes that a swift military victory was won only because Iraq's forces were so poor. "A more capable enemy would probably have punished (our) shortcomings severely," it quotes a document as saying.

Britain's role in the Iraq conflict — which triggered massive public protests at home — left 179 British soldiers dead.

"Tony Blair consistently denied to Parliament and public that the U.K. government was preparing for war in Iraq, yet these documents show that planning began as far back as 2002," Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party, said Sunday. The revelations prove Blair took Britain "an illegal and disastrous war on false pretences," Salmond said.

The defense ministry declined to comment Sunday on the leaked documents, but said it "recognizes the importance of identifying and learning lessons from operations."

Two previous British studies into the war have been carried out . One cleared the government of blame for the death of David Kelly, a government weapons scientist who killed himself in 2003 after he was exposed as the source of a British Broadcasting Corp. report that accused Blair's office of "sexing up" prewar intelligence.

A separate 2004 inquiry — which Chilcot took part in — into intelligence on Iraq also cleared Blair's government, but criticized spy agencies for relying on seriously flawed or unreliable sources.

Findings of the new inquiry will not be published before next summer, meaning the conclusions won't be known before Britain's next national election, which Brown must hold by June 2010.

___

On the Net::

http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/

Obama's Afghan Plan - Finally

2009-11-26T00:28:00.006-06:00

The Secret Details of Obama's Afghan Plan

by Leslie H. Gelb

Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Manpreet Romana, AFP / Getty Images Obama will give the military most of the troops it wanted, add more in a year if needed, push the Afghans to step up—and change the mission against al Qaeda. Leslie H. Gelb has the exclusive details.

President Barack Obama’s long-awaited Tuesday speech on Afghanistan offers lots more troops to the military and some promising rhetoric for war skeptics. He will authorize between 30,000 and 36,000 new U.S. troops, depending on prospective NATO contributions, and an additional 10,000 more in a year if necessary, according to administration sources. Obama will stress that these and other moves to strengthen the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda should be seen as a boost to friendly Afghans and not as an open-ended American commitment. The boost will provide the time and the incentives for America’s Afghan allies to prepare themselves to assume primary responsibility for continuing the battle.

I believe that the Obama approach is reasonable, and about the most that can be expected, given the powerful conflicting pressures. The plan deserves the support of the American people.

I would have preferred no more than about 15,000 troops, mainly trainers, a two- to three-year plan (not a fixed timetable) for Kabul to take the combat lead, and much more toughness toward our two-faced Pakistani “allies.” And the administration sources stress that the precise details and rhetoric of Obama’s plan won’t be set until the president gives his speech Tuesday night at West Point. But based on what they’ve told me, I believe that the Obama approach is reasonable, and about the most that can be expected, given the powerful conflicting pressures. The plan deserves the support of the American people.

The United States already deploys about 68,000 troops, and there are an additional 20,000 or so of various stripes from friendly countries. General Stanley McChrystal, NATO’s commander in Afghanistan, asked for about 44,000 additional American troops on the ground. The 30,000-plus that Mr. Obama will approve is about the maximum that could actually be deployed to Afghanistan in the next 12 months. And if the general can clearly demonstrate he still needs more in a year, the president will signal his willingness to consider an additional 10,000. But that would be the limit, the end of it.

The strategy to govern the employment of these forces, Mr. Obama is expected to say, will be much like the counterinsurgency approach he originally approved back in March—the approach McChrystal reaffirmed in his recent “secret” leaked report. That means clearing areas and holding them with military force, followed by civilian and economic programs. He will also underline the anti-terrorist component of this strategy—namely the focus on attacking al Qaeda itself, a point stressed relentlessly by Vice President Joe Biden during the nearly two-month policy review.

But there are two additional elements to the strategy. U.S. forces will expedite the long-neglected training of Afghan military and police forces. And the new 30,000-plus surge of U.S. troops will be used to beat up on the Taliban enough to make it easier for the Afghans themselves to manage down the road.

Mr. Obama will also announce a change in the American goal—without calling attention to the new objective. His goal up to now has been to “defeat” al Qaeda. The new mission: to “dismantle and degrade” the terrorists. It is a more modest and achievable goal, intended to weaken the terrorists’ ability to operate in the South Asia region. The United States will continue to take the lead over the next few years to achieve this goal in Afghanistan. But after that, the president is expected to say, the main burden will fall on Kabul—though with continuing American economic and military support. As of this point, it’s not clear whether Mr. Obama will condition his new strategy on President Hamid Karzai cleaning up the corrupt and ineffectual Afghan government. The words of caution and warning to Karzai will be in the Obama speech. But he likely won’t go so far as to say “shape up or else.”

Obama will also lay out a diplomatic track, aimed at building America’s ties to the countries of that region—from India, China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and maybe even to Iran. The idea is to establish a kind of cluster to contain terrorism. It’s a good idea. There will also be a diplomatic track within Afghanistan, whereby Washington will support efforts by Kabul to strike political deals with “moderate” Taliban and to offer money to Taliban fighters as incentive for them to switch sides.

It’s unclear at the moment just how tough Obama will be with Pakistan. In effect, Islamabad has provided a safe haven for Afghan Taliban for more than a decade as a hedge against Indian encroachments into Afghanistan. As a result, Pakistan urges the United States to stay and fight in Afghanistan to keep the Indians out, but provides succor to the Taliban to hedge against an American withdrawal. So, the Pakistanis want us to stay in Afghanistan and help the Taliban to kill our troops. It’s hard to see how Obama’s new strategy can work unless Pakistan’s leaders are brought to see for themselves the terrible consequences (the strengthening of the Pakistani Taliban extremists) of pursuing this duplicitous course.

All in all, and with its inevitable uncertainties, this new Obama strategy offers enough prospect of progress, if not success, for Americans to give it their support. As long as the president keeps his eye on the ball and transfers the main responsibility to friendly Afghans themselves—that is, making the war their war—he’s got my backing as well.

Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Bloody Iraq Violence - Hole Cheney and Bush Dug for Obama

2009-11-24T22:36:00.008-06:00

Remember our War Dogs

2009-11-24T22:34:00.006-06:00

Vets Lack of Health Care - a National Disgrace

2009-11-11T23:29:00.015-06:00

Lack of health care killed 2,266 US veterans last year: study

Wed Nov 11, 1:06 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The number of US veterans who died in 2008 because they lacked health insurance was 14 times higher than the US military death toll in Afghanistan that year, according to a new study.

The analysis produced by two Harvard medical researchers estimates that 2,266 US military veterans under the age of 65 died in 2008 because they lacked health coverage and had reduced access to medical care.

That figure is more than 14 times higher than the 155 US troop deaths in Afghanistan in 2008, the study says.

Released as the United States commemorates fallen soldiers on Veterans Day, the study warns that even health care provided by the Veterans Health Administration (VA) leaves many veterans without coverage.

The analysis uses census data to isolate the number of US veterans who lack both private health coverage and care offered by the VA.

"That's a group that's about 1.5 million people," said David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program who co-authored the study.

Himmelstein and co-author Stephanie Woolhandler, also a Harvard medical professor, overlaid that figure with another study examining the mortality rate associated with lack of health insurance.

"The uninsured have about a 40 percent higher risk of dying each year than otherwise comparable insured individuals," Himmelstein told AFP.

"Putting that all together you get an estimate of almost 2,300 -- 2,266 veterans who die each year from lack of health insurance."

Only some US veterans have access to medical care through the VA and coverage is apportioned on the basis of eight "priority groups."

"They range from things like people who were prisoners of war, who have coverage for life, or who have battle injuries and therefore have coverage for their injuries for life," said Himmelstein.

Veterans who fall below an income threshold that is determined on a county-by-county basis can qualify for care, but many veterans are "working poor" and fall just above the bracket.

"The priority eight group, the lowest priority, are veterans above the very poor group who have no other reason to be eligible and that group is essentially shut out of the VA," according to Himmelstein.

The study comes as the US Senate weighs health care reform legislation and whether to offer government health insurance.

Himmelstein warns that congressional proposals could still leave veterans uncovered and favors a national health care program similar to those in Britain and Canada.

Obama Meets, Honors Afghan War Dead

2009-11-02T23:37:00.002-06:00

President Barack Obama and Army Assistant Judge Advocate Maj. Gen. Daniel Wright salute as an Army carry team transports the case containing the remains of Sgt. Dale R. Griffin of Terre Haute, Ind., at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Del.

Editorial

The Commander's Duty Done

In his midnight mission to honor the returning war dead, President Obama did more than personally extend the nation’s condolences to grieving families gathered at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Without uttering a public word, Mr. Obama erased President George W. Bush’s shameful attempts to hide the pain of war from Americans and to shield himself from paying public tribute to the thousands who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The long-overdue display of national gratitude and regret by the commander in chief rekindled a note of most solemn ritual that the country owes sons and daughters in uniform sacrificed in war. The president was restoring a post-Vietnam tradition that included the graphic embraces and wrenching words personally extended by President Ronald Reagan to the families of the 241 soldiers, sailors and Marines who perished 26 years ago in the bombing of the Marines' camp in Lebanon.

The Bush policy was to prohibit any news media coverage of the returning war dead and to never show the president within a camera-lens' length of the dolorous homecomings. Under Mr. Obama, the Pentagon reversed the no-coverage policy in February. On Thursday, the president himself took the necessary next step.

He silently saluted in the morning darkness as the remains of 18 Americans killed this week in Afghanistan were transferred from a military transport. He spent close to two hours talking in private with stricken families. One of them gave approval for the news media to show the nation its loved one's arrival before the president and assembled officers. Within minutes, of course, bloggers were reacting. Some were grateful. Others denounced Mr. Obama for photo-op exploitation even as they demanded he hurry up and decide whether to send tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan.

The true cost of war must never be denied by the nation or its leader. Mr. Obama's visit was entirely appropriate as he faces the decision of what comes next in Afghanistan. The pity is President Bush never dared as much.

More Articles in Opinion » A version of this article appeared in print on October 30, 2009, on page A30 of the New York edition.
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Obama calls Dover visit a 'sobering reminder' - White House ...

President Barack Obama says the sight of 18 cases holding the remains of Americans killed in Afghanistan can't help but influence his thinking about sending more ...

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33526742/ns/politics-white_house
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Think about it, Mr. President. Bring the rest home while alive and well and don't send any more over there.

What War??

2009-11-02T02:19:00.001-06:00

....................................................."WHAT WAR??"

from a comment:

Very good and to the point. Here is a basic reality of our understanding of th war in Afghanistan stated in a picture. Thanks.

Guantanamo Bay - Seven Years On

2009-10-30T23:36:00.002-05:00


NEWS	CELEBRITY	TRAVEL	ANIMALS	SPORTS

Guantanamo Bay: 10.28.2009

http://www.life.com/image/92477239/in-gallery/35732


	Guantanamo Bay: 10.28.2009


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Why are we still in Afghanistan?

2009-10-30T23:10:00.007-05:00

Wednesday, Oct 21, 2009 18:22 PDT

Why are we still in Afghanistan?

The country poses no threat to the U.S., but the war costs lives, drains the treasury and makes enemies

By Gene Lyons

Reuters/Asmaa Waguih

U.S. marines fire during a Taliban ambush as they carry out an operation to clear an area in Helmand province, October 9, 2009.

One of the enduring oddities of the American foreign policy debate is that asking the most obvious questions is all but forbidden. For example, how does Afghanistan pose a threat to the United States?

Certainly not in any military sense. The impoverished, largely illiterate Afghans have no army apart from the one U.S. and NATO forces, with very limited success, are trying to train. No air force, no navy, no offensive military capacity whatsoever.

From the U.S. perspective, Afghanistan is the absolute end of the earth. Indeed, it's not a nation at all. The idea that well-intentioned Westerners can create an efficient central government on, say, the Swiss model, where none has ever existed, much less one acceptable to Afghanistan's many warring tribes, sects and ethnic factions, is almost certainly a delusion.

Here's the reality, as explained by a theater manager in somewhat Westernized Kabul to the New York Times: "The Afghan people are not mentally united ... An Uzbek will never vote for a Tajik. A Tajik will never vote for a Pashtun." The prevailing view, reporter Sabrina Tavernise found, appears to be that President Hamid Karzai's recent election victory was both fraudulent and inevitable.

Almost nobody believes a recount would solve anything. "Even if every Afghan casts their vote for (runner-up) (Abdullah) Abdullah, he won't be president because the foreigners don't want him to be," another man told her. "Nobody respected the people's vote."

Afghans see the Karzai government as organized thievery with a Pashtun accent. Period. Thus while veteran Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland is likely correct that President Obama's seeming indecision about sending 40,000 more American soldiers there is actually a squeeze play to pressure "Karzai into sharing power with more honest, competent Afghans," it's also apt to show more illusory than real results.

Granted, Obama's current dilemma is yet another fine mess bequeathed to him by the epic incompetence of George W. Bush. But it's a political rather than a military threat Obama faces. Terrorists can't defeat the United States; they can only cause American politicians to self-destruct in fear of taking blame for future atrocities.

Had the United States and its allies not diverted manpower and resources from Afghanistan to a futile, unnecessary war in Iraq, the counterinsurgency techniques proposed by Gen. Stanley McChrystal to persuade Taliban fighters to put down their weapons might have worked.

Eight bloody years on, however, what motivates the insurgency has been captured in an extraordinary series by David Rohde, the New York Times reporter rescued after seven months as a Taliban prisoner.

While his "captors harbored many delusions about Westerners," Rohde writes, U.S. antiterrorist policies had galvanized them. "They said large numbers of civilians had been killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinian territories in aerial bombings. Muslim prisoners had been physically abused and sexually humiliated in Iraq. Scores of men had been detained in Cuba and Afghanistan for up to seven years without charges."

Rohde witnessed Taliban militants weeping over a NATO airstrike that killed scores of Afghan women and children. "To Americans," he writes "these episodes were aberrations. To my captors, they were proof that the United States was a hypocritical and duplicitous power that flouted international law.

"When I told them I was an innocent civilian who should be released, they responded that the United States had held and tortured Muslims in secret detention centers for years. Commanders said they themselves had been imprisoned, their families ignorant of their fate. Why, they asked, should they treat me differently?"

And yet they did. Because his kidnappers saw Rohde as a valuable commodity, he was housed comfortably, provided with toiletries, fresh food and water, newspapers and a short-wave radio. While often threatened, Rohde was never tortured; his captors even took him to a remote spot in the mountains to shoot a video making his plight appear worse than it was.

Although it infuriates some Americans to hear that "terrorists" have recognizable human motives, understanding them is also crucial to what Gen. McChrystal hopes to achieve there: separating ethnic Pashtun insurgents from al-Qaida fanatics by offering what his report calls "reasonable incentives to stop fighting and return to normalcy, possibly including the provision of employment and protection."

U.S. intelligence officers have told the Boston Globe that an estimated "Ninety percent (of Afghan fighters constitute) a tribal, localized insurgency ... Ten percent are hardcore ideologues fighting for the Taliban."

And what if a U.S. president recognized that destroying mud villages and killing children in distant Afghanistan isn't making America safer? That endless war creates endless enemies? What if he showed enough political courage to say that 100 percent security from terrorism isn't possible? That the mad, quixotic attempt to achieve it is sacrificing the lives of our best and bravest while it bankrupts the treasury?

Who in the world would be angry with him except the Washington war lobby and Osama bin Laden?

Flying Choppers in Afghanistan More Deadly

2009-10-30T22:33:00.009-05:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091027/us_time/08599193238600

Why Flying Helicopters in Afghanistan Is So Deadly

Reuters – U.S. military personnel watches as a U.S. helicopter flies over a military base in Ghazni province Ocotober …

By MARK THOMPSON / WASHINGTON Mark Thompson / Washington – Tue Oct 27, 11:05 am ET

The 14 Americans who died in Afghanistan on Monday were a reminder that U.S. troops who die in Afghanistan are twice as likely to be killed in helicopter crashes as are their counterparts in Iraq. And the reasons for that discrepancy are not to be found in the country's skies, but on the ground - the Taliban's growing footprint has forced the U.S. to be far more reliant on moving troops and supplies by air. And the rugged terrain often makes helicopters the only option, even as the altitudes involved greatly increase the risks.

Afghanistan's few roads are now increasingly monitored - and mined - by insurgents, meaning that many of the 180 U.S. outposts spread across the country can now only be reached by helicopters. "We don't have freedom of movement on the ground," a senior Army logistics officer says. "We're resupplying between 30% and 40% of our forward operating bases by air because we just can't get to them on the ground." (See pictures of a U.S. Marine offensive in Afghanistan.)

That forces the U.S. military to rely on helicopters, not only to reach remote outposts, but also to carry out dangerous combat missions that thinly spread troops couldn't do without the helicopter's ability to hopscotch hundreds of miles. It was precisely such an antidrug mission that a twin-rotor Army MH-47 Chinook was flying when it went down in western Afghanistan, killing 10 Americans including three civilians with the Drug Enforcement Administration. Earlier in the day, a Marine UH-1 Huey troop helicopter collided in midair with an A-1 Cobra helicopter gunship over southern Helmand province, killing four. U.S. officials said they don't believe hostile fire caused either crash. The death toll could rise because some of the 28 people left injured by the crashes are in critical condition.

"Helicopters are not shot down in battle very much in either place [Iraq or Afghanistan]," says Brookings Institution defense analyst Michael O'Hanlon. He and his colleagues are keeping running tallies of U.S. fatalities in both theaters. While 5% of U.S. deaths in Iraq have been caused by helicopter crashes - 216 out of 4,348 - the total is 12% in Afghanistan - 101 of 866 - even before Monday's losses. "The main issues [responsible for the higher rate of helicopter-crash casualties in Afghanistan] have to do with terrain, weather and of course frequency of use," O'Hanlon says. (See pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal Valley.)

The U.S. has over the past year doubled its number of helicopters based in Afghanistan to about 225, but troop numbers have risen even faster, making for a more acute chopper shortage. Helicopters are swift but delicate machines. The physics of flight make them inherently unstable, and therefore less reliable, than fixed-wing aircraft which generate their lift from stationary wings instead of egg-beater-like rotor blades. More critically, chopper pilots are commonly expected to fly in hot weather at high altitudes, where less-dense air offers them less control over their aircraft.

Air Force Captain Matthew Miller wrote about the challenges of flying in Afghanistan after returning from a four-month deployment there in 2007. His medevac unit, from Georgia's Moody Air Force Base, had lost three helicopters and seven crew members in the two wars. Enemy fire had been a factor in none of the Afghan crashes. "In Iraq, helicopter pilots face a greater prospect of being shot at by ground fire," Miller wrote. "In Afghanistan, the greatest threat is the terrain." He described flying in Afghanistan as "'graduate level' piloting more challenging than cruising over the flatlands of Iraq. "It didn't take long to feel the perils of mountainous flying in Afghanistan," he added. "Between Iraq and Afghanistan, most helicopter pilots I've spoken to consider Afghanistan the more dangerous place to fly."

More...

Read "Moving Troops to Afghanistan Harder Than Getting Them."

See TIME's Pictures of the Week.

View this article on Time.com

Blood Platelets from Iraq to Afghanistan

2009-10-30T22:05:00.004-05:00

Also Moving From Iraq to Afghanistan: Blood Platelets

By Mark Thompson / Washington Friday, Oct. 30, 2009

A medevac crew cares for an injured soldier in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

Patrick Barth / Corbis

President Obama will meet with the Joint Chiefs of Staff Friday to debate the wisdom of sending up to 40,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. The meeting comes as the deadliest month for U.S. troops in eight years of war draws to a close — a spike in casualties that has already triggered a flow of precious reinforcements. The U.S. military has begun for the first time transferring from Iraq to Afghanistan pint-sized bags of platelets — the key blood component that encourages clotting and can prevent wounded soldiers from bleeding to death.

More Related

U.S. forces in Iraq needed the life-saving elixir far more than those in Afghanistan until fairly recently. Back in October 2006, 106 U.S. troops died there compared with 10 in Afghanistan. Three years later, those numbers have flipped: 56 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan so far this month, compared with six in Iraq. On Thursday, President Obama called his visit to Delaware's Dover Air Force Base in the wee hours to witness the return of 18 U.S. troops killed in the Afghan war "a sobering reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices that our young men and women in uniform are engaging in every single day." (See pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal Valley.)

But despite the grim tableau witnessed by Obama, it could have been worse. A 2008 Army book on combat surgery in Iraq and Afghanistan says the "recent (limited) theater availability of ... platelets" is a key reason for a significant reduction in fatal bleeding. Wounds that cause such hemorrhages are "the most preventable cause of death on the battlefield," it says, adding that pumping platelets into a wounded soldier is better than using whole blood. (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs.)

Platelets — the "body's own Band-Aid" — circulate along the smooth walls of blood vessels, seeking telltale signs of a leak. Once detected, the colorless, irregularly-shaped platelets stick to the rupture's edge and attract fellow platelets to join it in a clump and begin the process of sealing the wound. "We noticed an increase in the survival rate compared to when we were using whole blood," Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Jordan, who oversees platelet collection in Balad, Iraq, told a military interviewer in August. "They serve as the main factor in stopping bleeding and are used in any situation in which there is excessive blood loss."

Beginning in 2006, U.S. troops have been donating about 60 bags a week of platelets at the Air Force Theater Hospital in Balad, sitting back and watching a movie as an IV siphons the donor's blood through a centrifuge, where the platelets are separated out before the blood is returned to the donor. Soldiers can volunteer for the two-hour procedure twice a month. But platelets' life-saving properties don't last long — there is no way to preserve them, and the cloudy, yellow liquid containing them typically has to be discarded a week after it is drawn. Their short shelf-life outside the body means that the platelets have to be drawn close to the front lines.

As the Iraq war has wound down, a growing share of the platelet supply was going to waste, and on Oct. 14 the first batch was sent the more than 1,000 miles from Balad to a U.S. military hospital in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Pentagon officials say it makes more sense to tap into the existing setup in Iraq for platelets than to try to establish a similar pipeline in Afghanistan.

See pictures of the surge in Iraq.

Deadly Afghanistan

2009-10-30T21:33:00.010-05:00

deadly -afghanistan

Deadly days for US troops in Afghanistan

Shops burn following a deadly car bomb blast in Peshawar. A huge car bomb has ripped through a crowded market in Pakistan killing 92 people and underscoring the gravity of the extremist threat destabilising the nuclear-armed Muslim state.

(AFP/A Majeed

I Want More Time

2009-10-27T23:27:00.004-05:00

This recording is a commercial but its message is apt for any loved one lost.

I Want More Time -(Saddest Commercial Ever)

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tributes

2009-10-27T22:53:00.043-05:00

by Charles M. Province:

It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.

It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.

It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.
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tribute to our vets from rev.war to present

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Like a Rock

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Obama Won't Rush Afghan Decision

2009-10-27T19:15:00.016-05:00

Obama says he will not rush Afghanistan decision

By CHARLES BABINGTON and ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writers Charles Babington And Anne Gearan, Associated Press Writers – Tue Oct 27, 2:33 pm ET

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Despite Republican pressure to act quickly, President Barack Obama says he won't rush his decision about whether to send more troops to Afghanistan where 14 Americans died in the deadliest day for U.S. forces in more than four years.

"While I will never hesitate to use force to protect the American people or our vital interests, I also promise you this — and this is very important as we consider our next steps in Afghanistan: I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way," Obama said Monday during a visit to Naval Air Station Jacksonville. "I won't risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary."

Obama spoke on a day when a U.S. military helicopter crashed while returning from the scene of a fire fight with suspected Taliban drug traffickers in western Afghanistan. Ten Americans, including three Drug Enforcement Administration agents, died in the crash. Four more troops were killed when two helicopters collided over southern Afghanistan.

It was the heaviest single-day loss of life since June 28, 2005, when 19 U.S. troops died, 16 of them aboard a Special Forces MH-47 Chinook helicopter that was shot down by insurgents.

Obama is nearing a decision on whether to commit large numbers of additional troops to the war next year. His top military commander in Afghanistan favors an increase of roughly 40,000, officials have told The Associated Press, which would allow the U.S. military to expand its reach in areas of the country's south and east now under Taliban sway.

Obama's visit to the naval air station came after he convened another in a series of White House war council sessions with about a half-dozen Cabinet officials and other top advisers earlier Monday in Washington amid Republican criticism that he is taking too long to choose his next move. The White House Situation Room session focused on the cooperation between U.S. military and civilian efforts in Afghanistan, White House officials said. Another session may be held later this week.

Obama did not tip his hand on how he might decide. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that a decision was still expected in the coming weeks.

A war plan that asks Obama to commit tens of thousands of additional U.S. forces to Afghanistan is too ambitious, a top Senate Democrat said in Washington on Monday.

Sen. John Kerry, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman who was the White House's point man during last week's tense talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, praised commanding Gen. Stanley McChrystal but said his plan for adding troops in Afghanistan "goes too far, too fast."

Kerry's stance would aim for a modest increase in American forces, treading middle ground between Republicans who have said Obama would put soldiers and the country at risk by rejecting McChrystal's larger request and anti-war Democrats who question whether the United States already has taken on too much in Afghanistan.

"Under the right circumstances, if we can be confident that military efforts can be sustained and built upon, then I would support the president should he decide to send some additional troops to regain the initiative," Kerry, D-Mass., said.

Fresh from several days of talks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, Kerry warned that the United States also cannot risk a drastic shift in strategy that would focus narrowly on hunting terrorists.

"We all see the appeal of a limited counterterrorism mission, and no doubt it is part of the endgame, but I don't think we're there yet," Kerry said during remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations. "A narrow mission that cedes half the country to the Taliban could lead to civil war" in Afghanistan and threaten the fragile civilian government in Pakistan, he said.

Last week, former Vice President Dick Cheney said Obama should stop "dithering while America's armed forces are in danger."

"It's time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity," Cheney said.

___

Gearan reported from Washington. AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven contributed to this report.

Afghanistan War - Update

2009-10-27T18:34:00.016-05:00

Video - Decorated marine, now diplomat, resigns in protest ot Afghani war. Says Americans are not being told truth.

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=16315060

VideoEx-Marine turned diplomat resigns in protest over Afghanistan war

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October deadliest month for US in Afghanistan

AP – Afghan National Army soldiers gather as they prepare to go on patrol in the Pech Valley of Afghanistan's …

By TODD PITMAN and HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press Writers Todd Pitman And Heidi Vogt, Associated Press Writers – 26 mins ago

KABUL – Roadside bombs — the biggest killer of U.S. soldiers — claimed eight more American lives Tuesday, driving the U.S. death toll to a record level for the third time in four months as President Barack Obama nears a decision on a new strategy for the troubled war.

The homemade bombs, also called improvised explosive devices or IEDs, are responsible for between 70 percent and 80 percent of the casualties among U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan and have become a weapon of "strategic influence," said Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz in Washington.

The attacks Tuesday followed one of the deadliest days for the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan — grim milestones likely to fuel the debate in the United States over whether the conflict is worth the sacrifice.

Obama has nearly finished gathering information on whether to send tens of thousands more American forces to quell the deepening insurgency, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. A meeting Friday with the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be among the last events in the decision-making process, Gibbs said.

Both attacks Tuesday took place in the southern province of Kandahar, said Capt. Adam Weece, a spokesman for American forces in the south. The region bordering the Pakistan frontier has long been an insurgent stronghold and was the birthplace of the Taliban in the 1990s.

The Americans were patrolling in armored vehicles when a bomb ripped through one of them, killing seven service members and an Afghan civilian, U.S. forces spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Vician said.

The eighth American died in a separate bombing elsewhere in the south, also while patrolling in a military vehicle, Vician said.

The number of effective IED attacks in Afghanistan has grown from 19 in September 2007 to 106 last month.

"It's a weapon system that the enemy has figured out has strategic impact," said Metz, who leads the U.S. military organization tasked with defeating improvised explosive devices. "It really hampers our ability to execute a counterinsurgency doctrine. And it's a weapon system that has to be fought, and I don't think we can back off or shy away from fighting it."

Nine coalition forces were killed and 37 were wounded by IEDs in Afghanistan in September 2007. In September 2009, 37 coalition forces were killed and 285 were wounded by IEDs, according to the figures.

Several other Americans were wounded in the Tuesday blasts. The military said the deaths occurred during "multiple, complex" bomb strikes, but gave no details.

"Complex" attacks usually refer to simultaneous assaults from multiple sides with various weapons — including bombs, machine guns and grenades or rockets.

In Washington, a U.S. defense official said at least one of the attacks was followed by an intense firefight with insurgents after an initial bomb went off. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.

The casualties bring to 55 the total number of Americans killed in October in Afghanistan. The next highest toll was in August, when 51 U.S. soldiers died and the troubled nation held the first round of its presidential election amid a wave of violence.

By comparison, the deadliest month of the Iraq conflict for U.S. forces was November 2004, when 137 Americans died during a major assault to clear insurgents from the city of Fallujah.

"A loss like this is extremely difficult for the families as well as for those who served alongside these brave service members," said Navy Capt. Jane Campbell, a military spokeswoman. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends who mourn their loss."

The deaths came one day after 11 American soldiers were killed in separate helicopter crashes, marking the biggest loss of American life on a single day in four years.

One chopper went down in western Afghanistan as it left the scene of a gunbattle with insurgents. Seven soldiers were killed along with three Drug Enforcement Administration agents — the agency's first deaths since it began operations here in 2005. Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium and the trade is a major source of funding for insurgent groups.

Two other U.S. choppers collided while in flight in the south Monday, killing four Americans.

Casualties swelled at the start of the month when eight U.S. soldiers were killed Oct. 3. Several hundred militants had launched a coordinated attack on a pair of remote U.S. outposts in mountainous Nuristan province's Kamdesh district. U.S. troops pulled out days later as part a new strategy by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, to shut down difficult-to-defend posts and redirect forces toward larger population areas to protect more civilians.

Also Tuesday, NATO-led forces announced they had recovered the remains of three American military contractors from the wreckage of a U.S. Army reconnaissance plane that crashed two weeks ago in Nuristan.

The trio was employed under a Lockheed Martin contract for "counter-narcoterrorism" operations, said Thomas Casey, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin Corp. He said the pilot and co-pilot worked for a company called Avenge Inc., while the technician was employed by a contractor called Sierra Nevada Corp.

The Army C-12 Huron twin-engine turboprop went down Oct. 13 while on a routine mission. The military likely delayed announcing the crash site's location because it did not want to tip off insurgents. Nuristan is believed to be crawling with anti-American militants.

U.S. forces spokesman Col. Wayne Shanks said the crew were the only ones aboard when the craft went down without giving off any distress signal. "We just lost contact," Shanks told The Associated Press.

NATO it was investigating the crash and did not believe hostile fire was involved.

The military also said a UH-60 helicopter traveling to the crash site four days later "experienced a strong downdraft and performed a hard landing" nearby. The helicopter's crew members were rescued, and the chopper was stripped of sensitive and useable parts and destroyed to keep insurgents from salvaging anything in the wreckage.

___

Associated Press writers Heidi Vogt and Robert H. Reid in Kabul and Pauline Jelinek and Richard Lardner in Washington contributed to this report.

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Robert capa's iconic WWII Normandy Landing Pics

2009-10-27T05:52:00.009-05:00

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Honor Flight For WWII Vets;

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