Occupation/Preoccupation: Afghanistan

Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts

8.09.2011

Article: "Secret War in 120 Countries"

I recommend this Counterpunch article for some perspective on the relatively-hard-to-investigate side of American global militarism. Annoyingly formatted excerpts below:

Nick Turse: The Pentagon's New Power Elite
http://www.counterpunch.org/turse08042011.html

Last year, Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post reported that U.S. Special Operations forces were deployed in 75 countries, up from 60 at the end of the Bush presidency. By the end of this year, U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me, that number will likely reach 120. "We do a lot of traveling -- a lot more than Afghanistan or Iraq," he said recently. This global presence -- in about 60% of the world's nations and far larger than previously acknowledged -- provides striking new evidence of a rising clandestine Pentagon power elite waging a secret war in all corners of the world.

Special Operations Command (SOCOM)

SOCOM has grown into a combined force of startling proportions. Made up of units from all the service branches, including the Army's "Green Berets" and Rangers, Navy SEALs, Air Force Air Commandos, and Marine Corps Special Operations teams, in addition to specialized helicopter crews, boat teams, civil affairs personnel, para-rescuemen, and even battlefield air-traffic controllers and special operations weathermen, SOCOM carries out the United States' most specialized and secret missions. These include assassinations, counterterrorist raids, long-range reconnaissance, intelligence analysis, foreign troop training, and weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation operations.

on any given day, Special Operations forces are deployed in approximately 70 nations around the world.

According to testimony by Olson before the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year, approximately 85% of special operations troops deployed overseas are in 20 countries in the CENTCOM area of operations in the Greater Middle East: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. The others are scattered across the globe from South America to Southeast Asia, some in small numbers, others as larger contingents.

Last year, as an analysis of SOCOM documents, open-source Pentagon information, and a database of Special Operations missions compiled by investigative journalist Tara McKelvey (for the Medill School of Journalism's National Security Journalism Initiative) reveals, America's most elite troops carried out joint-training exercises in Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Germany, Indonesia, Mali, Norway, Panama, and Poland. So far in 2011, similar training missions have been conducted in the Dominican Republic, Jordan, Romania, Senegal, South Korea, and Thailand, among other nations. In reality, Nye told me, training actually went on in almost every nation where Special Operations forces are deployed. "Of the 120 countries we visit by the end of the year, I would say the vast majority are training exercises in one fashion or another. They would be classified as training exercises."

In 120 countries across the globe, troops from Special Operations Command carry out their secret war of high-profile assassinations, low-level targeted killings, capture/kidnap operations, kick-down-the-door night raids, joint operations with foreign forces, and training missions with indigenous partners as part of a shadowy conflict unknown to most Americans.

Recently at the Aspen Institute's Security Forum, Olson offered up similarly gilded comments and some misleading information, too, claiming that U.S. Special Operations forces were operating in just 65 countries and engaged in combat in only two of them. When asked about drone strikes in Pakistan, he reportedly replied, "Are you talking about unattributed explosions?"

8.01.2011

Wool Kilim rug from Afghanistan

Afghani Kilim rug

زنجير عشق

عشق او باز اندر آوردم به بند

کوشش بسيار نامد سودمند

توسنی کردم ندانستم همی

کز کشيدن سختتر گردد کمند

عشق دريايی کرانه ناپديد

کی توان کردن شنا ای مستمند

عاشقی خواهی که تا پايان بری

پس ببايد ساخت با هر ناپسند

زشت بايد ديد و انگاريد خوب

زهر بايد خورد و پنداريد قند

Love’s chain
by Rabeha Balkhi

I am caught in Love's web so deceitful
None of my endeavors turn fruitful.
I knew not when I rode the high-blooded stead
The harder I pulled its reins the less it would heed.
Love is an ocean with such a vast space
No wise man can swim it in any place.
A true lover should be faithful till the end
And face life's reprobated trend.
When you see things hideous, fancy them neat,
Eat poison, but taste sugar sweet.

Rabeha Balkhi was possibly the first poetess in the History of Persian Poetry. The exact dates of her birth and death are unknown, but it is reported that she was a native of Balkh in Khorasan (now in Afghanistan).

Said Anwar Azad Tribute

Hellloio All! ~~~~~

So hears my DAVID) muck up of this gorgeous Said Anwar Azad dambura ditty. The man is a bit of a mystery. I failed to find much legitimate bio info on him, but his music is well showcased on you tube and other afghan video sites. He is from Northern Afghanistan (sorry so vague) and sings Hazaragi, which is a dialect of the Persian language.

first the original:

And here is my "interpretation"... .. .

it is way rough, his voice is way too faint and it goes on why too long just like the war in Afghanistan: (Also try Playing Both original and remix simultaneously for full effect)

raW lasreveR (said anwar azad meshup)

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This is my favorite video of him. Such raw pwr and strange feelings mixed throughout:

As Above So Below is a Revolutionary Song I wish to translate the lyrics of ...??? :::

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7.07.2011

Democracy Now! | Headlines for July 07, 2011

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/7/headlines#1

At least 14 civilians have been killed in a US-led NATO bombing in Afghanistan. The dead included eight children. The attack in the eastern province of Khost is believed to the deadliest by the US-led occupation force against Afghan civilians this year.

The new killings come just one day after hundreds of people rallied in the Afghan province of Ghazni to protest a NATO bombing that killed two civilians earlier this week. Protesters carried their bodies to the provincial capital, shouting slogans denouncing foreign troops.

In Libya, rebels have seized a key town in the country’s northwestern mountains, moving them one step closer to securing a strategic road that would allow access to the capital city of Tripoli. The town of al-Qawalish was seized after a six-hour battle. Tens of thousands of opposition supporters filled the streets in the rebel-held city of Benghazi to celebrate the victory. Meanwhile NATO warplanes continue to pound Libya with airstrikes. Of 140 air sorties carried out on Wednesday, NATO says nearly half were strike missions.

6.29.2011

YouTube - Ustad Mohammad Omar plays the rubab

YouTube - Ustad Mohammad Omar plays the rubab: "

props to David for contributing this one!

Suggested Covers from Radiodiffusion Internasionaal

Great news!

Stuart from Radiodiffusion Internasionaal is helping us out with some good ideas for songs to cover from regions where there are U.S. bases. Here are a couple from Afghanistan & Kuwait.

Kuwaiti TV Band - "Al Ziman Dawar"

Ahmad Zahir - "Ashiq Royat Man"

Dozens slaughtered by US forces in Afghanistan-Pakistan air attacks - Occupation-Preoccupation (notes)

...

Dozens slaughtered by US forces in Afghanistan-Pakistan air attacks
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/afpa-f23.shtml
General David Petraeus, the commander of the US forces in Afghanistan, expressed the colonial-style hostility of the occupation force’s senior command toward the Afghan population, reportedly accusing local residents of burning their children to fake evidence of civilian casualties.

Petraeus’s comments on coalition attack reportedly offend Karzai government
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/21/AR2011022103256.html
Gen. David H. Petraeus suggested Sunday at the presidential palace that Afghans caught up in a coalition attack in northeastern Afghanistan might have burned their own children to exaggerate claims of civilian casualties, according to two participants at the meeting.