Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

Xinhua
November 24, 2011

Pakistan has decided to take up the issue of strikes by the CIA-run unmanned aircraft in the country’s tribal regions, which the government, rights groups and tribesmen said killed innocent people, reported local TV channel Dawn on Thursday.

The U.S. drones routinely fire missiles into Pakistani tribal regions which the American officials have claimed to be bases for the militants who launch cross-border attacks into Afghanistan.

Pakistan repeatedly asks the Unites States to stop drone strikes but Americans have ruled out any change in the policy. The issue of drone attacks is one of the irritants in the bilateral relationship.

After the U.S. refusal to halt the strikes, Pakistan has decided to approach the UN to seek its help to stop these attacks, which Pakistan insists is counter-productive in the war on terror.

Dawn reported Pakistani government has started collecting data about the U.S. drone attacks and casualties.

The government has directed the administrative officials in the tribal regions to provide details about the strikes to vigorously pursue the case.

Pakistan is discussing its new strategy to be adopted in the UN, the report said.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-11/24/c_122332575.htm

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Florida Times-Union
October 28, 2011

Corruption is part of the culture in Afghanistan, and the United States has been the great enabler.

That is the only conclusion that can be reached by an impressive report from the Commission on Wartime Contracting, the result of three years of work.

A total of $12 million every day for 10 years has been lost in fraud and waste.

In an era when the United States is facing great financial challenges, this is an outrage.

At least $31 billion has been lost in waste and fraud, perhaps as much as $60 billion. Why the great disparity? Because the financial controls are basically nonexistent. And the actual documents of the investigation have been sealed for 20 years as if this is the investigation into the assassination of a president. …

This is like doing business with Tony Soprano.

For instance, the U.S. pays Afghan contractors to provide trucking services. Then they hire subcontractors. The subcontractors then pay insurgent groups for protection because insurgents either control the roads or have the ability to attack. …

http://jacksonville.com/opinion/editorials/2011-10-28/story/breathtaking-fraud-afghanistan

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ABC News
By The Associated Press
October 25, 2011

As of Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011, at least 1,700 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to an Associated Press count.

The AP count is six less than the Defense Department’s tally, last updated Tuesday at 10 a.m. EDT.

At least 1,425 military service members have died in Afghanistan as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.

Outside of Afghanistan, the department reports at least 102 more members of the U.S. military died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, 12 were the result of hostile action.

The AP count of total OEF casualties outside of Afghanistan is the same as the department’s tally.

The Defense Department also counts three military civilian deaths.

Since the start of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, 14,611 U.S. service members have been wounded in hostile action, according to the Defense Department.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-military-deaths-afghanistan-1700-14811327

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The Independent
By David Usborne
August 31, 2011

The US has lost 66 military personnel this month, including the 30 who were killed when a Chinook was shot down.

The cost of war is coming into painful focus for Americans as the month of August closes as the deadliest so far in the decade-long war in Afghanistan, and as a Congressional watchdog releases research showing that tens of billions of dollars meant for contractors in both the Afghan and Iraq conflicts have been squandered.

As of last night, the US military had lost 66 personnel in Afghanistan since the start of the month, topping by one the death toll for July 2010, which was previously the deadliest single month since the invasion was first ordered by President George W Bush in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

While a disturbing statistic by any measure, particularly at a time when President Barack Obama has ordered the withdrawal by September 2012 of all 33,000 of the extra troops he sent in as part of a surge strategy in Afghanistan, it was skewed by a single attack on a Chinook helicopter on 6 August which killed 30 US service personnel, including 17 Navy Seals. It marked the single-largest loss of life since the start of the war. …

Read on: www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/us-forces-suffer-their-deadliest-month-yet-in-afghan-campaign-2346562.html

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The Telegraph
By Ben Farmer, Kabul
August 19, 2011

America and Afghanistan are close to signing a strategic pact which would allow thousands of United States troops to remain in the country until at least 2024 …

The agreement would allow not only military trainers to stay to build up the Afghan army and police, but also American special forces soldiers and air power to remain.

The prospect of such a deal has already been met with anger among Afghanistan’s neighbours including, publicly, Iran and, privately, Pakistan.

It also risks being rejected by the Taliban and derailing any attempt to coax them to the negotiating table, according to one senior member of Hamid Karzai’s peace council. …

“In the Afghan proposal we are talking about 10 years from 2014, but this is under discussion.” America would not be granted its own bases, and would be a guest on Afghan bases …

Read in full: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8712701/US-troops-may-stay-in-Afghanistan-until-2024.html

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Stars and Stripes
July 4, 2011

U.S. military leaders are working to replace some of the exiting American conventional forces from Afghanistan with a “mini-surge” of U.S. Special Forces, a measure to soothe commanders’ fears that the withdrawal of troops might put at risk military gains, according to the Times out of Australia.

Military sources told The Times that 16 special operations personnel are considered to be worth the equivalent of 100 conventional troops.

In June, President Obama announced plans to withdraw 10,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year. The remainder of the surge troops, about 23,000, would be withdrawn in 2012, leaving about 70,000 troops in Afghanistan until 2014. …

www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/afghanistan/mini-surge-of-u-s-special-forces-to-hit-afghanistan-1.148268

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The Seattle Times
June 1, 2011

Congress must point the way toward getting the United States out of a war in Afghanistan it cannot afford or define. Members of the Washington delegation are well positioned to hold President Obama accountable for a timely exit.

WASHINGTON’S well-placed, influential congressional delegation must help move the United States toward the exit in Afghanistan. Sooner than later.

Sen. Patty Murray, Reps. Norm Dicks, Adam Smith and Rick Larsen, among others, have key committee and party roles that should be invoked to speed an end to a war the U.S. flatly cannot afford, and can no longer define.

Even Afghan President Hamid Karzai has lost any reticence about bluntly criticizing NATO and American forces for airstrikes killing civilians. For Karzai, the allies are evolving into occupiers. He recently lamented his nation simultaneously suffering from terrorists and a war on terrorism.

U.S. budget numbers supporting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are simply stunning. By the end of fiscal year, the total for both conflicts will be $1.26 trillion — $797.3 billion in Iraq and $459.8 billion in Afghanistan, according to published accounts.

Giddy, brazen Republican deficit hawks somehow manage to avert their eyes from the cost of war, including the Afghan conflict running at $10 billion a month.

The Pentagon has spent $28 billion to build a national army in Afghanistan and wants $12 billion more. It would cost upward of $8 billion a year to maintain, The Washington Post reports. The nation’s annual budget is $1.5 billion. …

Read more: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorials/2015208432_edit02afghan.html

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Associated Press
April 12, 2011

The military is investigating what appears to be the first case of American troops killed by a missile fired from a U.S. drone.

The investigation is looking into the deaths of a Marine and a Navy medic killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator after they apparently were mistaken for insurgents in southern Afghanistan last week, two senior U.S. defense officials said Tuesday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Unmanned aircraft have proven to be powerful weapons in Afghanistan and Iraq and their use have expanded to new areas and operations each year of those conflicts. Some drones are used for surveillance and some, such as the drone in this case, are armed and have been used to hunt and kill militants.

Officials said this is the first case they know of in which a drone may have been involved in a friendly fire incident in which U.S. troops were killed, and they are trying to determine how it happened. …

Read on: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5guMfinZBAN37m9ioE9ubA4hlljqQ?docId=91916fa7c8ec4cbfb1177ab12856bc05

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Reuters
By Jane Sutton
January 4, 2011

The Afghan prisoner who died at the Guantanamo detention camp this week had quit the Taliban forces because he considered them corrupt, and he was never “in any way” an enemy of the United States, the man’s lawyer said on Friday.

Awal Malim Gul, 48, collapsed and died on Tuesday after using an exercise machine at the prison camp on the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba. The U.S. military said the death appeared to have been from natural causes but results from an autopsy would not be released at this time because they are part of an ongoing investigation.

Gul’s body was flown to a U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Friday and will be turned over to the Afghan government and then to his family, a military spokeswoman said.

In an announcement of the death, the U.S. military said Gul was a Taliban commander who operated an al Qaeda guest house and admitted providing operational aid to Osama bin Laden.

Gul’s lawyer, federal public defender Matthew Dodge, called those assertions “outrageous.”

“The government has never provided any evidence at all to support this slander. Neither Mr. Gul nor any credible witness has ever said such things,” said Dodge, who represented Gul in a U.S. district court case in Washington challenging his detention. …

www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/05/idINIndia-54671620110205

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Washington Post
By Walter Pincus
January 24, 2011

More than $11 billion in U.S. funding to construct and maintain bases for rapidly expanding Afghan security forces is at “risk of being wasted” because the military has no comprehensive plan for the program, according to government investigators.

Only about one-quarter of the nearly 900 construction projects scheduled for completion by the end of fiscal 2012 has even been started, Arnold Field, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, or SIGAR, said in testimony Monday.

The Obama administration’s strategy for the withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops by the end of 2014 depends on the development of Afghanistan’s own security forces. End-strength goals for the army and police have tripled from 132,000 in 2006 to a projected 400,000 over the next few years.

About $8 billion remains of the total $11.4 billion requested for the construction program. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, one of four Defense Department agencies who manage reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, has requested expedited funding for the security force projects.

The construction of bases, training camps and headquarters for the Afghan forces is a little-discussed part of the coalition’s plans to secure the country. …

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/24/AR2011012405784.html

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