Tag: Al Qaeda

Last night after the Presidents speech at West Point, and since, everyone is attempting to break it down, praise it, or totally attack the policy of another escalation of troops into an already long running occupation of the country of Afghanistan. This occupation stopped being anything about the attacks on this country on Sept 11, 2001 as soon as the first drumbeat towards invasion and then long occupation of an innocent country and people Iraq. Afghanistan stagnated into an occupation and insurgent war of continuing death and destruction to all involved but especially to the greater innocent population of Afghanistan now into it’s ninth year!

I’ll start this out with a short clip of a speech Senator, and brother ‘Nam Veteran, Kerry gave on his return from a fact finding and diplomacy trip to Afghanistan. In this clip, in just a couple of sentences, he lays out the reality as to what one leading ‘chickenhawk’, and to many war criminal, has been blathering lately. Though Kerry doesn’t mention it also speaks as to what that chief ‘chickenhawk’s’ spokesperson, his daughter, fast becoming the leading ‘chickenhawkette’, has also been spreading around, allowed to and rarely, if ever, challenged.

Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis wrote that American troops are viewed by Afghanis as occupiers. Increasing troop levels, as proposed by General McChrystal would only increase resistance. He recommended cutting combat forces.

“Many experts in and from Afghanistan warn that our presence over the past eight years has already hardened a meaningful percentage of the population into viewing the United States as an army of occupation which should be opposed and resisted,” writes Davis.

Providing the additional 40,000 troops that Gen. McChrystal has reportedly requested “is almost certain to further exacerbate” that problem, he warns.

Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis wrote a 63 page report on his own time advising against the strategy proposed by General Stanley McChrystal.  Lt. Col. Davis is highly experienced in Afghanistan after serving as liaison officer between the Central Command and the Combined Forces Command – Afghanistan (CFC-A) in 2005. Moreover, in 2008 & 2009 he commanded a transition team on the border of Iraq and Iran.

Successful counter insurgencies require the support of the population. After 8 years we don’t have that support. Therefore, Lt. Col. Davis proposes a change in strategy to a “Go Deep” strategy.

The “Go Deep” strategy proposed by Davis would establish an 18-month time frame during which the bulk of U.S. and NATO combat forces would be withdrawn from the country. It would leave U.S. Special Forces and their supporting units, and enough conventional forces in Kabul to train Afghan troops and police and provide protection for U.S. personnel.

The Video below, not a trailer, is the first video of this series that aired the night of 10.11.09 in an hour special, MSNBC broke it up online into six parts, the rest are linked below the video.

One of many of the articles recently written as the focus, after seven years, once again turns to the Afghan occupation as does the debate on being there, occupied now going into the ninth year. It was not secured after ridding the Taliban government and al Qaeda was put on the run when we invaded, destroyed and occupied the innocent people of Iraq where we still have tens of thousands of soldiers and private contractors, some being of our now mercenary army.

Afghanistan stopped being anything about 9/11 when the talk and the beating of the war drums started and got louder for invading an absolutely innocent people and country, a country led by our once good friend, and brutal dictator, that some wanted silenced.

Now we enter the ninth year of occupying a country that if we had really kept our promises, as we didn’t once before, and helped them might look and be a completely different country, for the innocent Afghans.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

Obama CAN NOT lose something that is already lost.

   Short diary, but worth discussing.

I WANT TO KILL THIS MEME NOW!

    Meme: Obama might lose Afghanistan without surge

    NEW RULE: Idiots who were wrong about Iraq DON’T GET to give any more unvise about what the military should do.

    Bush and Republicans LOST AFGHANISTAN the Minute they moved the debate to Iraq, like idiots.

Unvice = crappy advise from people who are always WRONG

.

Republicans, Joe Lieberman and the MIC want more war, and they want it bad. No strategy, no exit plan, just give us more troops and money or the Country is DOOMED, I say, DOOMED. And then the terrorists will win, they’ll get WMD’s, the Taliban will get stronger and al Qaeda will attack us again.

     Blah, Blah, Blah, I’ve heard this bullshit before.

To which my answer to the Unxperts are: Didn’t you say that about Iraq?

     More Sunday ranting below the fold

     Which President was really palling around with terrorists?

Via Kos himself, from back in May 17, 2004

RIGGS BANK FINED FOR LAX OVERSIGHT OF SAUDI MONEY, WHICH MIGHT HAVE GONE TO TERRORISTS

According to the 5/14/04 New York Times, Federal regulators fined the Riggs National Corporation, the parent company of Riggs Bank, $25 million yesterday for “failing to report suspicious activity, the largest penalty ever assessed against a domestic bank in connection with money laundering. The fine stems from Riggs’s failure over at least the last two years to actively monitor suspect financial transfers through Saudi Arabian accounts held by the bank.” The 5/14/04 Wall Street Journal reported that of particular concern, Riggs failed to monitor “tens of millions of dollars in cash withdrawals from accounts related to the Saudi Arabian embassy,” including “suspicious incidents involving dozens of sequentially numbered cashier’s checks and international drafts written by Saudi officials, including Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan.” According to the 4/18/04 Washington Post, Saudi Prince Bandar’s wife, Princess Haifa al-Faisal, “may have used a Riggs account to donate money to a charity that then gave some of it to the Sept. 11 terrorists.” According to the Washington Post, federal regulators “called Riggs actions a “‘willful, systemic’ violation of anti-money-laundering law.” Riggs officials have “acknowledged years of deficiencies in reporting to law enforcement hundreds of millions of dollars in suspicious financial transactions by foreign customers, particularly those connected with the embassies of Saudi Arabia.”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

The Presumption of Innocence, and other Quaint Ideals

Presumption of Innocence

(Innocent until proven guilty)

A principle that requires the government to prove the guilt of a criminal defendant and relieves the defendant of any burden to prove his or her innocence.

The presumption of innocence, an ancient tenet of Criminal Law, is actually a misnomer. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, the presumption of the innocence of a criminal defendant is best described as an assumption of innocence that is indulged in the absence of contrary evidence

[…]

the presumption of innocence is essential to the criminal process. The mere mention of the phrase presumed innocent keeps judges and juries focused on the ultimate issue at hand in a criminal case: whether the prosecution has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the alleged acts. The people of the United States have rejected the alternative to a presumption of innocence-a presumption of guilt-as being inquisitorial and contrary to the principles of a free society.

http://legal-dictionary.thefre…