AFGHANISTAN

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Are you one of those people with a short attention span who can only handle short sound-bites? 

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Jo Comerford — Afghan War Costs 101

posted December 17, 2009 | TomDispatch.com

Ashton Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, put the matter this way recently: “[N]ext to Antarctica, Afghanistan is probably the most incommodious place, from a logistics point of view, to be trying to fight a war... It's landlocked and rugged, and the road network is much, much thinner than in Iraq. Fewer airports, different geography.” In other words, we might as well be fighting on the moon. In translation, this means at least one thing: don’t believe any of the figures coming out of the White House or the Pentagon about what this war is going to cost.

As Jo Comerford, executive director of the National Priorities Project points out below, the president’s $30 billion figure for getting those 30,000-plus new surge troops into Afghanistan is going to prove a “through-the-basement estimate.” As for the dates for getting them in and beginning to get them out? Well, it’s grain-of-salt time there, too. According to Steven Mufson and Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, some of the fuel storage facilities being built to support the surge troops won’t even be completed by the time the first of them are scheduled to leave the country, 18 months from now.

And keep in mind the endless, and endlessly vulnerable, supply lines on which so much of that fuel — and almost everything else the U.S. military has to have to survive — travels. Along those mountainous roads, trucks are “lost,” or Taliban-commandeered, or bribes are paid for passage, or some are simply destroyed in what can only be thought of as an underreported supply-line war. All of this adds immeasurably to the staggering expense of the project. According to August Cole of the Wall Street Journal, in fuel terms alone, to support a single soldier in Afghanistan costs between $200,000 and $350,000 a year.

And while we’re at it: don’t expect all those surging troops to make it into Afghanistan any time soon. In the heroic tales of presidential surge deliberations (based on copious White House leaks) that appeared soon after the president’s West Point speech, much was made of how Obama himself had insisted on speeding up the plan to get the extra troops in place. All would arrive, the White House said, within six months. That was quickly changed to approximately eight months. Now, Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez, deputy commander of American and NATO forces there, has just announced that it will take nine to eleven months (or maybe even “up to a year”), and that’s if none of the factors that could go wrong do — something not worth putting your money on when it comes to the Afghan War.

If all this leaves you with lingering worries about the success of both the surge and the war, you can put them to rest, however. NBC’s Richard Engel found a “military schematic,” a single chart from the office of the Joint Chiefs, that offers a visual representation of the military’s full surge/counterinsurgency strategy. It has to be seen to be believed. (Just click here.) It lays out as a flow chart (or perhaps overflow chart would be the more accurate description) just how our war will achieve success. What could possibly go wrong with such a plan? It’s hard to imagine. In the meantime, let Comerford give you a little lesson in the economics of the Afghan War, and what we could have done with that low-ball figure of $30 billion, had we chosen not to fight a war on the moon.

— Tom Engelhardt

$57,077.60

Surging by the Minute

By Jo Comerford

$57,077.60. That’s what we’re paying per minute. Keep that in mind — just for a minute or so.

After all, the surge is already on. By the end of December, the first 1,500 U.S. troops will have landed in Afghanistan, a nation roughly the size of Texas, ranked by the United Nations as second worst in the world in terms of human development.

Women and men from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, will be among the first to head out. It takes an estimated $1 million to send each of them surging into Afghanistan for one year. So a 30,000-person surge will be at least $30 billion, which brings us to that $57,077.60. That’s how much it will cost you, the taxpayer, for one minute of that surge.

By the way, add up the yearly salary of a Marine from Camp Lejeune with four years of service, throw in his or her housing allowance, additional pay for dependents, and bonus pay for hazardous duty, imminent danger, and family separation, and you’ll still be many thousands of dollars short of that single minute’s sum.

But perhaps this isn’t a time to quibble. After all, a job is a job, especially in the United States, which has lost seven million jobs since December 2007, while reporting record-high numbers of people seeking assistance to feed themselves and/or their families. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 36 million Americans, including one out of every four children, are currently on food stamps.

On the other hand, given the woeful inadequacy of that “safety net,” we might have chosen to direct the $30 billion in surge expenditures toward raising the average individual monthly Food Stamp allotment by $70 for the next year; that's roughly an additional trip to the grocery store, every month, for 36 million people. Alternatively, we could have dedicated that $30 billion to job creation. According to a recent report issued by the Political Economy Research Institute, that sum could generate a whopping 537,810 construction jobs, 541,080 positions in healthcare, fund 742,740 teachers or employ 831,390 mass transit workers.

For purposes of comparison, $30 billion — remember, just the Pentagon-estimated cost of a 30,000-person troop surge — is equal to 80% of the total U.S. 2010 budget for international affairs, which includes monies for development and humanitarian assistance. On the domestic front, $30 billion could double the funding (at 2010 levels) for the Children's Health Insurance Program and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

Or think of the surge this way: if the United States decided to send just 29,900 extra soldiers to Afghanistan, 100 short of the present official total, it could double the amount of money — $100 million — it has allocated to assist refugees and returnees from Afghanistan through the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

Leaving aside the fact that the United States already accounts for 45% of total global military spending, the $30 billion surge cost alone would place us in the top-ten for global military spending, sandwiched between Italy and Saudi Arabia. Spent instead on “soft security” measures within Afghanistan, $30 billion could easily build, furnish and equip enough schools for the entire nation.

Continuing this nod to the absurd for just one more moment, if you received a silver dollar every second, it would take you 960 years to haul in that $30 billion. Not that anyone could hold so much money. Together, the coins would weigh nearly 120,000 tons, or more than the poundage of 21,000 Asian elephants, an aircraft carrier, or the Washington Monument. Converted to dollar bills and laid end-to-end, $30 billion would reach 2.9 million miles or 120 times around the Earth.

One more thing, that $30 billion isn’t even the real cost of Obama’s surge. It’s just a minimum, through-the-basement estimate. If you were to throw in all the bases being built, private contractors hired, extra civilians sent in, and the staggering costs of training a larger Afghan army and police force (a key goal of the surge), the figure would surely be startlingly higher. In fact, total Afghanistan War spending for 2010 is now expected to exceed $102.9 billion, doubling last year's Afghan spending. Thought of another way, it breaks down to $12 million per hour in taxpayer dollars for one year. That’s equal to total annual U.S. spending on all veteran's benefits, from hospital stays to education.

In Afghan terms, our upcoming single year of war costs represents nearly five times that country’s gross domestic product or $3,623.70 for every Afghan woman, man, and child. Given that the average annual salary for an Afghan soldier is $2,880 and many Afghans seek employment in the military purely out of economic desperation, this might be a wise investment — especially since the Taliban is able to pay considerably more for its new recruits. In fact, recent increases in much-needed Afghan recruits appear to correlate with the promise of a pay raise.

All of this is, of course, so much fantasy, since we know just where that $30-plus billion will be going. In 2010, total Afghanistan War spending since November 2001 will exceed $325 billion, which equals the combined annual military spending of Great Britain, China, France, Japan, Germany, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. If we had never launched an invasion of Afghanistan or stayed on fighting all these years, those war costs, evenly distributed in this country, would have meant a $2,298.80 dividend per U.S. taxpayer.

Even as we calculate the annual cost of war, the tens of thousands of Asian elephants in the room are all pointing to $1 trillion in total war costs for Iraq and Afghanistan. The current escalation in Afghanistan coincides with that rapidly-approaching milestone. In fact, thanks to Peter Baker’s recent New York Times report on the presidential deliberations that led to the surge announcement, we know that the trillion-dollar number for both wars may be a gross underestimate. The Office of Management and Budget sent President Obama a memo, Baker tells us, suggesting that adding General McChrystal’s surge to ongoing war costs, over the next 10 years, could mean — forget Iraq — a trillion dollar Afghan War.

At just under one-third of the 2010 U.S. federal budget, $1 trillion essentially defies per-hour-per-soldier calculations. It dwarfs all other nations' military spending, let alone their spending on war. It makes a mockery of food stamps and schools. To make sense of this cost, we need to leave civilian life behind entirely and turn to another war. We have to reach back to the Vietnam War, which in today's dollars cost $709.9 billion — or $300 billion less than the total cost of the two wars we're still fighting, with no end in sight, or even $300 billion less than the long war we may yet fight in Afghanistan.

[Note:  Jo would like to acknowledge the analysis and numbers crunching of Chris Hellman and Mary Orisich, members of the National Priorities Project's research team, without whom this piece would not have been possible.]

• Jo Comerford is the executive director of the National Priorities Project. Previously, she served as director of programs at the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and directed the American Friends Service Committee's justice and peace-related community organizing efforts in western Massachusetts.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175179/tomgram%3A_jo_comerford%2C_afghan_war_costs_101

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Some links to Afghanistan-related threads posted to the General Forum messageboard @ XNC2....


• The message the Muslim world was waiting for

• Why are the US bombing Pakistan?

• Secrecy and denial as Pakistan lets CIA use airbase to strike militants

• Anfaol's looking at joining the Territorial's now known as the Army Resevres!

• NZ plugged into secret internet

• Pakistan police put down demonstrators

• Pope tells Muslims .............

• President Obama makes a direct appeal to Iran's leaders.

• The US's shift to common sense

• Thousands flee bomb attacks by US drones

• John Key gets inappropriate with Afghanistan

• 11 Year Old Suicide Bomber

• Man's marriage to eight-year-old girl ruled legal

• Obama phones Jonkey for a chat

• Travel Advisories

• Meanwhile, in Jesusland....

• Kiwis top of the sops in Global Peace Index

• Bin Laden scorns Obama charm offensive

• Barack Obama - Keynote Egypt Speech

• US admits to air strikes that killed dozens of civilians

• Mapp to weigh Nato need for SAS troops

• NZ troops fired on in Afghanistan

• When Saddam opened up to the FBI

• US spy chief's NZ secret blown

• Mark Morford — Notes & Errata

• AFGHANISTAN

• UK public: War is unwinnable

• SAS going back to war a line-ball call - PM

• British Army involed in a new battle

• British Army deserter charged

• Terror suspects arrested in Melbourne after bomb plot uncovered.

• Afghanistan Baitullah Mehsud Telly tubby Commander Dead

• SAS will face stronger Taleban

• Millions may be denied vote in poll lacking women's touch

• How many moslem male terrorists wear Moslem womens clothing?

• Key To Appear On Letterman

• Recon Marine In Afghanistan - From the Sand Pit a letter

• Soldiers' emailed photo drops a bomb

• SAS—Deployment in Afghanistan

• Warning for America in new bin Laden tape

• American Haters Time To Apologise

• Propaganda can be dangerous

• What has America done to democracy?

• Has American warmongering “all-but” destroyed NATO?

• War of the Worlds — London, 1898; Kabul, 2009

• Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

• America builds MOP ~ Massive Ordnance Penetrator

• US presidential power grows — will you love every future president?

• Lessons from America's “Long War” (and the probable blowbacks)

• Cashing in the US War Dividend — The Joys of Perpetual War

• Aussies using live ammunition in training exercises ` commando shot dead

• Obama's Choice — Failed War President or the Prince of Peace?

• UK Comedian upsets war amputees ~ say goodbye to comedy?

• Welcome to 2025 — American Preeminence Is Disappearing Fifteen Years Early

• Obama Biggest Drop In Popularity Of Any US President Ever

• Is Obama brainwashed by the phantom fear of the Taliban?

• Is this whats called 'friendly fire'?

• Shooting 12 dead at Fort Hood USA

• Obama Appeases Muslim Terrorist

• Aussie dog recovered in Afghanistan

• 911 Suspects to be tried in New York

• The Afghanistan speech Obama should give (but won't)

• Blackwater's in Pakistan

• Obama Morphs Into Bush

• World Laughs As Obama Picks Up Peace PPrize

• A report on the First Decade of the Twenty-First Century in ENZED

• “Wasted Troops” — grinding down the US Army

• Russia to be Involved in Afghan War -again?

• Why Warmongering Will Take No Holiday in 2010

• The Second Decade — The World in 2020

• Taliban make 'undetectable' bombs out of wood

• Invasion of Iraq, UK inquiry:

• More US soldiers commit suicide than killed in action

• US rifle sights inscribed with John 8:12

• Biblical citation deemed inappropriate

• NZ SAS Exposed in Afganistan

• The future of America?

• Spy base protesters 'Real Heroes'

• The BOGEYMAN says BOO!!! .... and 'merica messes its pants

• NZ wont pay into fund for Taleban weapons

• Trouble after capture of Taliban leader?

• NZ Death Clocks

• The future: “Earth's Last Stand!”

• Spy Base protestors in court

• Report on Iraq/Afghanistan

• Americans killing the wrong people wonder how many deaths like these ones ?

• How things have changed

• “Smile & Wave” goes on a secret junket to Afghanistan

• John Key Goes to Afghanistan and Meets Worlds Biggest Smack Dealers Brother

• US troops are executing prisoners in Afghanistan, journalist says

• The Afghanistan War

• Dog The Bin Laden hunter ??

• Wikileaks Opens Big Can Of Worms 1000's of New Secret Documents

• BREAKING NEWS New Zealand soldier killed in Afghanistan

• Afghanistan is an unwinnable war


There are possibly other threads posted to this group that have messages pertaining to Afghanistan. It is also possible that some of the threads that have links posted to this list shouldn't be here. However this list can be amended if required.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Afghanistan torture haunts next governor-general

By ANTHONY HUBBARD - Sunday Star-Times | 5:00AM - Sunday, 01 May, 2011


LEFT: Kiwi troops have been tarnished by the behaviour of Afghanistan's security agency.
RIGHT: Jerry Mateparae — Contradictory statements, and now saying nothing.


LEFT: Wayne Mapp — “We've not heard any complaints from the Red Cross.”
RIGHT: Willy Apiata — Was photographed at the scene of a firefight in Kabul where
SAS did “assist” the Afghan Crisis Response Unit to detain suspected insurgents.

JOHN KEY's government is in serious trouble over torture in Afghanistan. So is its choice as the next governor-general, former defence chief Jerry Mateparae.

The evidence suggests prisoners that New Zealand troops have helped catch have been tortured by the Afghans and Americans. Under international law, all torture is forbidden. So is handing over prisoners to someone else who then tortures them.

The government is in a dilemma. It is fighting alongside the Karzai government in Afghanistan. The Karzai government contains elements who are thugs and who routinely torture. But New Zealand accepts its duty under international law not to hand over prisoners to torturers. So the government has had to fudge.

The result is a filthy fog of official evasions, self-contradictions, dodges, delays, obfuscations, personal attacks, spurious appeals to authority and outright refusals to admit troublesome facts.

The facts have been set out by journalist Jon Stephenson in a long piece in the latest edition of Metro and in a series of articles before that in the Sunday Star-Times. Put the facts together with the fog and hard questions arise.

The government's main story is that the SAS don't take prisoners at all. Instead, it is the Afghan soldiers who operate with them, the Crisis Response Unit, who do that. Last year Mateparae, then chief of defence force, said the SAS "have been in the vicinity when members of the Afghan National Security Forces have arrested or detained Afghans". But the SAS "have not assisted in detaining persons or making those arrests".

But this contradicts what Mateparae had said a couple of months before, when Willie Apiata VC had been photographed at the scene of a firefight in Kabul. Mateparae said at that time the SAS did "assist" the Afghan Crisis Response Unit to detain suspected insurgents.

Mateparae's version was also contradicted by Colonel M, the CRU commander in Kabul. He told Stephenson that the SAS was "very, very involved" in detaining people. Speaking about another recent SAS-CRU mission that captured five would-be suicide bombers, he said: "I wouldn't say we do this by ourselves. It was a collaborative effort."

Mateparae's version does not sit easily with two other episodes reported by Stephenson. He has reported that in a raid in Wardak province the SAS captured a fleeing Taliban fighter and handed him to the CRU, who then gave him to an Afghan National Army commander. It is alleged he ordered the prisoner to be dragged along the gravel road back to base, more than 100km away: a horrible lingering death. The SAS intervened and insisted the CRU take him instead. Back in Kabul, the CRU then handed him over to the Afghan National Directorate of Security. The NDS has such a bad reputation for torture that the High Court in London banned British forces from transferring prisoners to it in Kabul.

And there was another fight, on Christmas Eve last year, where the SAS clearly took prisoners. Troopers raided the Kabul offices of Tiger International, shot two guards dead and detained others in an upstairs room. They eventually handed them to NDS officers.

The point is that, as John Key once said, the SAS "aren't in Afghanistan to eat their lunch". They are involved in a vicious and brutal war. It is difficult to believe that they don't take prisoners but sort of stand aside while the bullets are flying and defer to the Afghans. They are often involved in firefights. Last year the defence force said the SAS had been "in the vicinity" on 22 occasions when suspects had been detained. In every case, Defence Minister Wayne Mapp said, the Afghan CRU was the "detaining authority". This sounds like weasel words, an official phrase that has nothing to do with the bloody mess of real war. "Whoever grabs the bad guys," you can hear the grunts saying, "remember it's the Afghans who are the ‘detaining authority’." Yeah, right.

And speaking of weasel words, consider Mapp's other statements. Stephenson asked him in August last year whether he knew that SAS-CRU detainees were handed over to the horrible NDS in Kabul. Mapp said he was "not specifically" aware of this, but called back soon after. "It's likely some are [handed to the NDS]," he said. So they were tortured then? "You can't rule that out," Mapp told Radio New Zealand the next day. Mapp also seems to be saying that New Zealand has a deal with the Red Cross to ensure prisoners aren't mistreated. He told a select committee last year that although the SAS were not the "detaining authority", it took the names of prisoners and these were handed on to the International Security Assistance Force, the American-led coalition in Afghanistan. ISAF then handed them to the Red Cross.

Mapp's words to the committee were carefully chosen. "We've not heard any complaints from the Red Cross." How would you know if they hadn't followed up, asked Green MP Keith Locke. "Because the Red Cross would have told us," said Mapp.

But the Red Cross told Stephenson it had no agreement with New Zealand over prisoners. In any case, it never gives information to any government except the one that detains them. And its written statement to Stephenson is the clincher. Where there is risk of mistreatment before the prisoners are handed over, it said, "the transfer must not take place. This is true whether the [Red Cross] subsequently visits the detainees". In other words, the government can't dodge its legal responsibilities over torture of detainees by appealing to non-existent "deals" with the Red Cross.



WHAT IS the upshot of all this? It's important to remember that the hard-hat argument is not available to the government. It can't say: "War is hell, our Afghan allies may be bad bastards but they're better than the Taliban, and torture in the war against terrorism is a price that democracies must pay." The New Zealand government, Labour-led as well as National-led, has said it opposes torture and recognises that under law it cannot hand prisoners over to people likely to torture them.

But the Afghan government tortures and will go on torturing. It is laughable to appeal, as Mapp does, to a supposed "agreement" with Afghanistan — an agreement he has refused to release. Afghanistan is also a signatory to the international conventions outlawing torture. That doesn't stop them doing it.

The New Zealand government knows this, and seems to be trying not to look too closely at the reality. It has also kept important information secret. Mateparae has refused to say how many insurgents have been arrested on joint SAS-Afghan operations, whether they were still held, and where. Providing these answers, he says, could endanger New Zealand's security, defence or international relations. How very convenient.

Mapp promised to release a defence report on what happened to the prisoners handed over to the NDS in Kabul. Nine months later, he hasn't done so.

Mateparae sits in the middle of the fog. Asked about the contradiction between the official story told by Mateparae and the evidence of many others, both Mapp and Key say they "believe Jerry Mateparae". Mateparae, however, now head of the Government Communications Security Bureau, the electronic spy agency, is saying nothing.

So our new governor-general will take up his post with a cloud hanging over him.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/news/4947005/Afghanistan-torture-haunts-next-governor-general

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

PM attacks journalist over SAS torture claims

By DEREK CHENG - The New Zealand Herald | 5:30AM - Tuesday, May 03, 2011



PRIME MINISTER John Key has attacked the credibility of the journalist who has raised questions about New Zealand's elite soldiers in Afghanistan and whether they were complicit in torture.

And the Defence Force has released unprecedented details about SAS operations in a bid to discredit an article in this month's Metro, written by journalist Jon Stephenson.

The article outlined two instances last year where SAS forces allegedly captured suspects and handed them to Afghanistan authorities, including the Afghan secret police, the National Directorate of Security, which has a reputation for torturing prisoners.

New Zealand has signed several international conventions outlawing the inhumane detention of prisoners, including torture.

Stephenson last night countered by challenging the Defence Force to face an independent inquiry. "I'm happy to put my information before an inquiry. Any fair or impartial inquiry will show that they are the ones misleading the public. Not me."

Mr Key said the assertions outlined in Metro did not stack up under the NZDF microscope.

"I've got no reason for NZDF to be lying, and I've found [Stephenson] myself personally not to be credible," Mr Key said.

"Jon Stephenson's a guy that texted me one night impersonating [TV3 political editor] Duncan Garner ... I hung up on him, because when people impersonate somebody else, I don't take them seriously."

Stephenson said he sent the text two years ago believing the recipient to be Garner. He was surprised when Mr Key called him, but he identified himself immediately and the two had a brief, friendly conversation.

Earlier, Defence Force chief Lieutenant General Rhys Jones said incidents outlined in Metro were either inaccurate or did not happen.

The SAS did not detain anyone in an operation last Christmas Eve, and had never intervened when Afghan authorities were about to tie a prisoner to a vehicle and drag him.

General Jones also said a commander at the Crisis Response Unit, quoted in Metro, told the NZDF that he had never spoken to Stephenson.

He said the SAS had a reputation in Afghanistan for their "assiduous attention" to human rights, and followed processes that were legally and morally sound.

Stephenson said General Jones was playing "legal gymnastics".

There were no detainees in the incident last Christmas Eve in the sense that no suspects were taken to prison, he said, but he reported that the SAS had detained people by holding them at gunpoint and forcing them to their knees as they searched the building.

Stephenson also said the source of his story about the SAS intervention was credible. His translator could confirm the interview took place, he said.

"I go to great lengths to ensure that my reporting is accurate, fair, and I regard [this] as an unjustifiable attack on my credibility."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10723016

[reality]

yeahhhhhh.....and....what

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

[reality]

Bush-Era Interrogations Provided Key Details on Bin Laden's Location
By Catherine Herridge

Published May 02, 2011
| FoxNews.com
  Print   Email   Share   Comments (3206)    Text Size  Years of intelligence gathering, including details gleaned from controversial interrogations of Al Qaeda members during the Bush administration, ultimately led the Navy SEALs who killed Usama bin Laden to his compound in Pakistan.

The initial threads of intelligence began surfacing in 2003 and came in the form of information about a trusted bin Laden courier, a senior U.S. official told Fox News on condition of anonymity. Bin Laden had cut off all traditional lines of communication with his network by this time because the Al Qaeda leader knew the U.S. intelligence community was monitoring him. It was said that he also didn’t even trust his most loyal men to know his whereabouts and instead communicated only through couriers.

But it was four years later, in 2007, that terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay military prison started giving up information about the key courier.

Around this time, the use of enhanced interrogation tactics, including waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, were being denounced as torture by critics of the Bush administration. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney came under intense pressure for supporting rough treatment of prisoners. Critics claimed that any information given under duress simply couldn’t be trusted.

It is an argument that Bush and Cheney strongly rejected then, and now.

“I would assume that the enhanced interrogation program that we put in place produced some of the results that led to bin Laden's ultimate capture,” Cheney told Fox News on Monday, a hint of vindication in his voice.

Information was given up by prisoners, including 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. U.S. officials described the courier as a talented protege and trusted associate of both Mohammed and Al Qaeda’s No. 3 leader at the time, Abu Faraj al Libi. Both men were held at Guantanamo Bay.

U.S. officials were told the courier’s name was known only to bin Laden’s innermost circle.

By 2009, the U.S. intelligence community had a rough idea of where the courier operated: a region north of Islamabad, Pakistan. It was another year before this compound was identified in August 2010 as a likely home for a senior Al Qaeda member.

The compound was eight times the size of other homes in the affluent neighborhood, and the impressive 18-foot-high walls with barbed wire drew scrutiny from intelligence analysts.

By early this year, information from multiple intelligence sources, including the now-shuttered harsh interrogation program, as well as CIA operatives and Special Operations Forces on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan, were building a clearer case that the compound might house bin Laden. Officials found out that there were three families living there. In addition, a significantly older man, who was shown deference by the group, was not required to work on the compound.

Critics of the Bush-era interrogation programs have suggested that the harsh interrogations were not essential to tracking bin Laden and that the information could have been obtained by more humane means. But for Cheney and other Bush administration alumni, Sunday’s raid stands as proof their system worked.

....Thanks George Bush and Guantanamo Bay ...the torture worked

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

Some Americans got jailed for following the orders of the Bush-Era Interrogation administration while George Bush laughs about it and makes book deals, He gets to walk away scot-free,If you try and drown someone twenty times a day for months on end and keep them awake with no sleep for days they will tell you anything that they think you might like to hear,false information, you can even reprogram them and then put them to work for you,its called brainwashing and they have people who are trained experts at it. 

[guest49]

Some Americans got jailed for following the orders of the Bush-Era Interrogation administration while George Bush laughs about it and makes book deals, He gets to walk away scot-free,If you try and drown someone twenty times a day for months on end and keep them awake with no sleep for days they will tell you anything that they think you might like to hear,false information, you can even reprogram them and then put them to work for you,its called brainwashing and they have people who are trained experts at it. 

You got to remember the golden rule - 'He who has the gold, makes the rules'

[reality]

sexty...

"If you try and drown someone twenty times a day for months on end and keep them awake with no sleep for days they will tell you anything that they think you might like to hear,false information, you can even reprogram them and then put them to work for you,its called brainwashing and they have people who are trained experts at it.  "

.....in this case it sounds like the information gathered from the "clients" at Guantanimo may have helped nail Osama...so it made all those character building water games and all night parties were very worthwhile...nah i think george bush did really well , he has scored a few points here...wonder if he might run for president again ...him and putin could remake history together

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Our troops have no place in this immoral war

By MATT McCARTEN - HERALD on SUNDAY | 5:30AM - Sunday, June 05, 2011


National and Labour insist our troops stay in Afghanistan. — Photo: NZ Herald.

SINCE the death of Osama Bin Laden, most Americans want out of Afghanistan. Their politicians are still lagging behind public opinion. However, late this week the US Congress managed an extraordinary vote in the lower house.

A resolution requiring their President to provide an end-date to transfer military operations to the Afghans; negotiations to reach a political settlement with all the players (including the Taleban); and assess if al-Qaeda was now even a threat in Afghanistan failed by just 11 votes — 204-215.

A similar resolution in the last term had just 138 votes in support. This time 26 Republicans voted for it. It's just a matter of time before the Afghan misadventure falls apart.

So why are National and Labour insisting our soldiers stay part of this failed war machine? This war is over. Everyone knows it. Many Afghans see themselves as part of a nationalistic movement fighting to rid their country of foreign occupiers — and they are winning.

Any pretence that we are involved in a moral war against terrorism fell apart after Jon Stevenson's explosive article in Metro magazine.

He did enough to convince me of our political and military leaders' complicity in handing over prisoners to shadowy Afghan units with a history of torture.

In a New Zealand-led raid on a village, our troops apparently killed innocent civilians then handed over the men and boys to US and Afghan soldiers who humiliated and terrorised them.

To their credit, our soldiers kicked up a stink and the villagers were released, although several detainees had mysteriously disappeared. Subsequent investigations showed the village had no link with either al-Qaeda or the Taleban. I bet they do now though.

The most chilling accusation was over our SAS troops attacking this village in the early hours of the morning — a 6-year-old girl panicked and ran. She fell into a well and broke her back. She died a lonely, long and painful death while her distraught parents were detained by our soldiers.

Ten years ago in my capacity as Alliance Party president, I was asked by our leader Jim Anderton why I was making my opposition to New Zealand's participation in the Afghanistan war a bottom line in our relationship.

I never bought into the propaganda that invading Afghanistan was necessary to capture Bin Laden and stop international terrorism. Funnily enough, the al-Qaeda leader was happily ensconced in Pakistan.

I remember US President George Bush announced within a year of the invasion that the hunt for Bin Laden wasn't his priority any more but he insisted we had to stay to keep the world safe from terrorism.

We conveniently forget that neither the Taleban nor any other Afghan has ever committed any terrorist or military action outside their own country's borders.

But even if we accept the West's rationale for us needing to be there, what's our new line now that Bin Laden is dead? Even the most optimistic reports are that there are only a few dozen members of al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan.

Of course the oppression of the Afghan people by fundamentalists is abhorrent. But so is our soldiers protecting a corrupt drug regime that we pretend has legitimacy to govern. The growth of the Taleban came about because the West armed them against the Soviet Union.

Everyone knows there is no end in sight and we will never conquer the country. The solution is that the Afghan people have to take responsibility for their destiny.

For those who still think we have some divine right to stay uninvited; for those with a sanitised view on reality - just imagine if it was your daughter who at 6 years old lay dying at the bottom of a well in the dark.

Moral war? Our Government has never apologised or offered compensation. We have the blood of a young girl dripping from our hands. The smell of her blood can't compete with the stench of hypocrisy from our politicians. Enough. Leave.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10730270

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

In other words....


Afghanistan is basically a big wank-fest which benefits the arms industry and men suffering from tiny-penis syndrome who feel the need to play war so they can feel like big men. Most of us grew out of war games as we matured unlike some childish idiots.

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NeBIJRNmf6c#at=360

[AnFaolchudubh]

nah i think george bush did really well , he has scored a few points here... wonder if he might run for president again ...him and putin could remake history together

As far I know he can't legally.

[reality]

the key words by that old communist/socialist/green/anti-everything Matt Mc Carten are

..."Ten years ago in my capacity as Alliance Party president, I was asked by our leader ..."

ok.. the best  he could do in NZ politics was get to..."Alliance Party president"...hmmm...yes I can see why he feels so sad

[reality]

AL...yes ..i know..i was having a dig about Putin doing his 2 terms ..(at which time they must stop,same as US) ..and then while he has been priminister ever since .. he has changed the rules that now allow him to be president in Russia again...yes ..thats how fuckin stupid the Ruskies are ...but not as stupid as kiwis allowing to be ripped off by their politicians with MMP

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

NZ crew tows US helicopter to safety

The Dominion Post | 5:38PM - Monday, 11 July 2011


NUMBER 8 WIRE INGENUITY: A New Zealand Army LAV is used to tow a disabled US Army Apache
helicopter inside the wire of Kiwi Base. — Photo: NZDF.

NEW ZEALAND SOLDIERS in Afghanistan have been praised for their quick thinking and ingenuity after towing a disabled US helicopter to safety with a light armoured vehicle.

The US army Apache helicopter had to land in an exposed position in Bamyan last month after its engines were damaged by debris.

The NZ Provincial Reconstruction Team manufactured a tow bar and towed the helicopter into the safety of the Kiwi base.

US maintenance crew chief sergeant Judy Beltowski, from the army's 10th Mountain Division, praised the Kiwis' efforts, saying she had never seen that level of craftsmanship from a maintenance team before.

"Whatever we needed the NZPRT provided, and if they didn't have it, they made it," she said.

Sergeant George Alexander from the NZPRT guided the vehicle as it slowly pulled the eight tonne helicopter around a corner, across the ditch and up the hill into the New Zealand base.

The New Zealand crew led a team comprising of US Army air and maintenance crews, NZPRT and US personnel.

It took two days to fully repair the helicopter before it could return to its home base.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/world/5268312/NZ-crew-tows-US-helicopter-to-safety

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

From the Los Angeles Times....

SEAL Team 6 members among 38 killed in Afghanistan

The Navy SEALs were among 30 Americans, seven Afghans and
an interpreter killed in the deadliest incident for U.S. forces in
the Afghanistan war when their helicopter is shot down.

By Laura King, Ken Dilanian and David S. Cloud - Los Angeles Times | 6:57PM PDT - Saturday, August 06, 2011


A helicopter similar to this one pictured in Afghanistan in 2004 was shot down Saturday morning, killing
30 Americans, including 22 Navy SEALs, along with seven Afghan soldiers and an interpreter.
 — S. Sabawoon/European Pressphoto Agency.

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Washington — Their name conjures up the most celebrated moment of America's post-Sept. 11 military campaigns. Now the Navy SEALs belong to a grimmer chapter in history: the most deadly incident for U.S. forces in the 10-year Afghanistan war.

Three months after they killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in neighboring Pakistan and cemented their place in military legend, the SEALs suffered a devastating loss when nearly two dozen of the elite troops were among 30 Americans who died when their helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan early Saturday.

It was the largest number of American troops killed in a single day in the war. U.S. officials said the helicopter appeared to have been felled by enemy fire, and the Taliban quickly claimed responsibility. Seven Afghan commandos and a civilian interpreter also were killed, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said.

No member of the Bin Laden raid team was among the dead, said a Pentagon official briefed on the casualties who was not authorized to speak publicly while families still were being notified. But he said 22 of the 30 were Navy SEALs, and a significant number were members of SEAL Team 6, the unit that conducted the Bin Laden raid and is made up of just a few hundred of some of the best-trained fighters in the U.S. military.

The loss of so many represents a significant blow to a tightknit group that is involved in some of the most sensitive U.S. counter-terrorism operations around the world.

There was no indication that insurgents knew that many aboard the doomed Chinook were Team 6 members. But the Taliban and its allies are likely to reap an enormous propaganda boost from the deaths. The Taliban often seeks to appeal to the country's folkloric sensibilities by depicting battlefield exploits in florid fashion; videos and songs trumpet various successes against foreign "invaders," and any victory against NATO forces is held up as proof of divine inspiration and guidance.



The downing of the U.S. helicopter in mountainous Wardak province comes at a crucial juncture of the war, as the U.S. begins a drawdown in troops in a prelude to a full-fledged withdrawal.

The episode could embolden the insurgency at a time when Western and Afghan officials have been hoping a weakened Taliban movement can be lured to the bargaining table. Like the assassination last month of Karzai's powerful half brother, it will be viewed by many as a sign of the insurgents' reach and power.

A statement from Karzai's office offered condolences to President Obama and the families of the Afghan troops who died.

In the early hours Saturday, the SEALs joined other U.S. Special Operations forces on a raid in Wardak province, west of Kabul, the capital. Such is the clockwork regularity of these night-time raids that they have become almost routine.

But this one went horribly awry.

A Western military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the twin-rotor CH-47 helicopter had apparently been brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade moments after takeoff from the raid, when it was most vulnerable to attack.

White House national security advisor Tom Donilon notified Obama of the incident shortly after 8 p.m. Friday, said a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

"Their deaths are a reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices made by the men and women of our military and their families," Obama said in a statement Saturday. "We will draw inspiration from their lives, and continue the work of securing our country and standing up for the values that they embodied."

Marine Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of U.S. Central Command, said: "We grieve for our lost comrades and especially for their families, yet we also remember that the lads were doing what they wanted to be doing and they knew what they were about. This loss will only make the rest of us more determined, something that may be difficult for those who aren't in the military to understand."

The SEALs and their special operations counterparts "conduct these missions night after night knowing that every mission could be their last," said a Special Operations officer who asked not to be identified. "And despite this tragic loss for the units and our nation, tonight their brothers will board helicopters and go out and do the work our country has asked of them. And they will continue to do so without hesitation or mental reservation as they go after the enemies that would do us harm."

Team 6, known officially as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, is overseen by the Joint Special Operations Command, which also supervises the Army's Delta Force and other elite units.

Those commandos, working closely with the CIA and other intelligence agencies, have embarked on a significant increase in nighttime raids over the last year in Afghanistan, targeting Taliban leaders, bomb-makers and other key adversaries. It is one of the little-known stories of the Afghan war, because the raids are secret and the results are rarely announced.

Those strikes have been the single most successful tactic employed by the Western military over the last two years, U.S. officials say, significantly damaging the field-command structure of the Taliban and affiliated insurgent groups.

SEAL Team 6 is divided into numerous detachments that rotate into Afghanistan. The SEALs who killed Bin Laden were handpicked and considered the top members of the unit.

They rehearsed the Bin Laden raid for weeks, but many military officials said that operation was not much different from the lesser-known raids that happen every day.

In Saturday's attack, the helicopter went down shortly after midnight in the Sayedabad district, according to Shahidullah Shahid, a spokesman for the provincial governor. He and other provincial officials said the crash followed a firefight that had left eight insurgents dead.

Large and slow-moving, the Chinook is vulnerable as it flies through mountains and valleys that allow insurgents clear lines of fire. Even so, helicopter shoot-downs have been rare in the Afghan conflict.

But they have been deadly for U.S. troops. Before Saturday, the highest single-day loss for the U.S. military in Afghanistan came on June 28, 2005, when a Chinook carrying 16 Navy SEALs and Army special operations troops was shot down in Kunar province as it tried to rescue four SEALs in a firefight. All 16 were killed in the crash, and three SEALs died on the ground.

In a statement Saturday, the Taliban claimed its fighters had ambushed Western troops after being tipped off to an imminent night raid in the district. If true, that would amount to a devastating breach of U.S. operational security.

The Taliban statement, from spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, was unusually specific in some of its details, including the number of troops killed — even before Afghan officials released the number. The statement also confirmed the "martyrdom" of eight of its members in what was described as fierce combat before the helicopter was shot down.

The crash site is in Wardak's Tangi Valley, where the insurgents are active.

The Wardak police chief, Gen. Abdul Qayuum Baqizoi, said the American strike was aimed at a clandestine meeting of insurgent figures in the village Jaw-e-Mekh Zareen, which is considered a perilous locale. "This area isn't even safe for security forces to travel in," he said.

• King reported from Kabul and Dilanian and Cloud from Washington. Times staff writer Tony Perry in Redding and special correspondents Aimal Yaqubi and Hashmat Baktash in Kabul contributed to this report.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghanistan-chopper-20110807,0,5841993,full.story

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

Sealed Lies, Sealed Lips: SEAL Team 6 Dies, But Their Legend Survives

Saman Mohammadi
THE EXCAVATOR
Aug 7, 2011

As the bonfires of knowledge grow brighter, the more the darkness is revealed to our startled eyes.” – Terence McKenna
“History is past politics, and politics present history.” – John Robert Seeley
“Whose game was empires and whose stakes were thrones,
Whose table earth, whose dice were human bones.” – Lord Byron, Age of Bronze, Stanza 3
“History knows that it can wait for more evidence and review its older verdicts; it offers an endless series of courts of appeal, and is ever ready to reopen closed cases.” – William Stubbs
“Man is an historical animal, with a deep sense of his own past; and if he cannot integrate the past by a history explicit and true, he will integrate it by a history implicit and false.” – Geoffrey Barraclough
“We’re in an American theatre of the absurd.” – Dr. Steve Pieczenik

The fraudulent War on Terror is one long, mad nightmare that never ends. The monstrous traitors who have seized Washington from the American people create one big lie after another to try to cover up the big truth that the entire war on terrorism is a grand, historical hoax.
Psychological warfare makes up ninety nine percent of the war on terror. Most of the propaganda and psy-op operations by the CIA, Mossad, MI6 and the Pentagon are directed against the American people and people of other countries who mindlessly believe everything they’re told.
The Bin Laden myth was created to provide an ideological function in the war on terror, and to get people to believe in a big boogeyman.
Bin Laden did not do 9/11. And he was not assassinated by SEAL Team 6 (although, they are more than capable of killing any real enemy to America’s existence anywhere on earth).
Bin Laden died early in the war on terror. Dr. Steve Pieczenik, who served as a top counter-terrorist officer in the American government,told the Alex Jones show in May that Bin Laden died in late 2001/early 2002. Other government experts from around the world have confirmed this claim. It is not a conspiracy theory. It is the truth.
But Bin Laden’s real death couldn’t be publicly announced to the world by the traitors who control the U.S. government because the war on terror would lose popular legitimacy if that fact was common knowledge. So, the U.S. empire kept alive this mythic enemy in the collective global consciousness for a decade – a myth that the Bush administration/Israel/Neocons created out of whole cloth to satisfy the need for an enemy.
But, as new fronts in the war on terror began to open up (Syria, Libya, Iran) the CIA and Pentagon figured they could politically boost Obama’s abysmal poll numbers by saying he “ordered” a special NAVY seals team to kill Bin Laden and bring home the ultimate war trophy to the American people.
The staged announcement of Bin Laden’s fake death served two goals. 1) Turn Obama into a competent commander in chief to hide the fact that he is really a spineless slave and a traitor, and 2) Flip the script in the war on terror, where it is no longer about getting Al Qaeda but getting “state-sponsors” of terror like Syria, Iran, and Pakistan.
II. Closure of The Bin Laden Legend: When a Storybook Ending is Just Another Episode in The Ongoing Horror Show That is The War on Terror
I don’t know what to make of the news that members of SEAL Team 6 were killed in an attack on their helicopter in Afghanistan. It is either a totally fake story, or these soldiers were murdered by the shadow U.S. government because they knew too much like Pat Tillman (RIP).
I have read a lot of point of views on various comment sections on different sites, and one point that keeps coming up is that it is impossible for 20 highly-trained elite NAVY seals to be in the same helicopter at once. One NAVY Seals is like 10 regular soldiers, so it makes sense that they travel in smaller units.
We cannot take anything at face value because everything that the shadow government in Washington sells to the American people and the world is a lie. This whole war on terror is a war on reality and real history. The last ten years has been full of military legends and psy-op hoaxes.
There is the 9/11 legend, the Bin Laden legend, the Jessica Lynch legend, the Pat Tillman legend, the SEAL Team 6 legend, and on and on. The next thing they’ll say is Bin Laden rose from the grave like Jesus of Nazareth to attack America in a nuclear showdown.
This whole world is so crazy. All we know for certain is that: A) Bin Laden was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks, B) He died long before May 2011, and C) The war on terror was never about getting Al Qaeda, which is a non-existent terrorist organization.


III. The American Soldier: A Conned Pawn, A Loyal Patriot, A Noble Warrior

Paul Craig Roberts has written a very informative article on August 6 about Bin Laden’s fake assassination called, “Pakistan TV Report Contradicts US Claim of Bin Laden’s Death”:
In my recent article, “Creating Evidence Where There Is None,” about the alleged killing of Osama bin Laden by a commando team of US Seals in Abbottabad, Pakistan, I provided a link to a Pakistani National TV interview with Muhammad Bashir, who lives next door to the alleged “compound” of Osama bin Laden. I described the story that Bashir gave of the “attack” and its enormous difference from the one told by the US government.
In Bashair’s account, every member of the landing party and anyone brought from the house died when the helicopter exploded on lift-off.
Gordon Duff, senior editor of Veterans Today, also says that members of a US Seals team were killed in the covert operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Duff writes in his article, “Breaking News: “Bin Laden” Heroes Probably Murderered to Keep Them Quiet”:
What we can easily surmise is that some of the dead have been dead since their bodies were taken away from the helicopter crash site in Abbotabad.
Duff also writes:
Al Qaeda has never existed, there are no magic worldwide terror conspiracies other than those run by governments.
Aaron Dykes & Alex Jones write in their article, “Deaths of SEAL Team 6 Exposed”:
Whatever the true story, one thing is clear: dead men tell no tales. The inconvenient truth is that governments throughout history have disposed of heroes, covert troops and special forces to keep the real story from coming out. Helicopter and plane crashes have been one of the favorite methods for tying up these loose ends.
The so-called death of SEAL Team 6 reminds me of the film ‘Clear and Present Danger,’ with Harrison Ford playing CIA analyst Jack Ryan, a character who is based on a real American hero, Dr. Steve Pieczenik. In the film, a secret American military unit is sent to Colombia to fight drug cartels, but is then set up and left behind to die by the double-crossing White House.
The film is more true to life than anything that is put on mainstream television news. The fact that American soldiers are treated like dirt by the evil traitors who run the White House, CIA, Pentagon and the Council of Foreign Relations is a crime and a tragedy.
The political scum that has risen in Washington are abusing and exploiting the sacred spirit of the warrior. The victims of their false and evil wars are the sacrificial pawns in the American military and NATO, as well as the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, America, and other countries that are under attack.
Dr. Pieczenik addressed American soldiers and America’s military leaders on the Alex Jones in May, telling them that they should re-examine the orders that they get from Washington and reflect on what’s good for America, not what’s good for presidents and politicians. Pieczenik said:
“I have the greatest respect for our military men, and I’m saying this to you: the Generals, the Colonels, the Majors, and the Captains. I’ve been lecturing at the War College every year. Be careful of the orders you receive from civilian presidents.
I say it again, and listen to me. Beware of the orders that you receive from civilian presidents like Bush, Clinton, and Obama. Particularly, presidents who have never served in a war and do not know what the consequences of a war are, and the number of men and women who die bravely for our country and our cause because some civilian has to manipulate his political career at the expense of the American public and at the expense of the bodies, and the blood and guts of our warriors who are so important to us.”
IV. Rewind and Remind: How We Will Win The Battle For The Mind of The 21st Century
It is so important that we always go back to Ground Zero, the 9/11 site, and begin the truth-telling from there. We have to remind people again and again that the official story about 9/11 is a giant lie and that the real attackers struck America from inside the Mossad, CIA, Bush administration, and the U.S. shadow government.
The enemies of the truth, freedom and peace know the technique of repetition very well. They repeat lies until they sink in the public consciousness. They have no pity, no mercy, no remorse, no conscience. Barack Obama, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Bill Clinton, and George H. W. Bush represent the audacity of psychopaths. They are born liars.
But they are not good at lying. Guilty is written on their face. Evil drips down their necks.
And because of their evil and treason, American soldiers are being unjustly demonized for doing what they’re supposed to: kill the enemies of America (as they know them to be).
What American soldiers are not told in military boot camp, and what the American people are not told, is that the enemies of America today are the traitors and state terrorists in Washington and Israel, not the make-believe terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq.
An informed, aware and outspoken American soldier is the greatest enemy of the corrupt new world order, the fraudulent war on terror, and the traitors in Washington like Obama, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.
Those on the inside who know what is going on and step up to do something about it are targeted for assassination. As journalist Wayne Madsen writes on the Wayne Madsen Report:
Navy SEAL Team 6 members and others killed in Afghanistan chopper crash. “U.S. officials say they believe that none of those who died in the crash participated in the bin Laden raid but were from the same unit that carried out the bin Laden mission.” Either way, the SEALS would have known about the hoax Bin Laden assassination — another Hollywood drama brought to the world by Obama’s spinners of fiction. The SEALS were safer in Abbotabad on their staged mission than they are in fending off the CIA hit teams that will eliminate all of them until there are no more witnesses left.
The highest duty that we infosoldiers can perform is to destroy the false legends, bury the big lies, and raise the truths from obscurity and oblivion.
This is our duty. This is our mission.
Always remember this fact: innocent men, women and children are dying in this false and evil war on terror.
The American soldiers are victims. The NATO soldiers are victims. The people of Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan are victims. The American people are victims. The truth is a victim. Freedom is being crushed to dust. Humanity is being destroyed. And all because of the 9/11 attacks.
We are experiencing spiritual madness and undergoing mass cultural and political brainwashing. And it must be stopped.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/sealed-lies-sealed-lips-seal-team-6-dies-but-their-legend-survives.html

SEAL Unit Supposedly Responsible for Osama Hit Killed in Copter Crash

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
August 7, 2011

Soon after it was announced – without evidence – that Navy SEALs had killed Osama bin Laden, the corporate media derisively coined a new term for skeptics – “deathers,” a word with about as much originality as “birthers” and “truthers.”



CNN said the “deathers” have replaced the “birthers” as the new conspiracy lunatics. It specifically singled out Alex Jones, who said the Osama assassination was a hoax. “My friends, this is a complete and total hoax,” Alex said, and then asked: “Where is the body?”
The corporate media said his body was deep-sixed at sea. Few if any corporate media “journalists” (script-readers) pointed out that this explanation was a totally absurd cover story. Few dared examine why the story changed several times.
Cindy Sheehan had a sharp retort to those who believe whatever the government – caught lying countless times – and its corporate media propaganda wing tell them.
“I am sorry, but if you believe the newest death of OBL, you’re stupid,” she said. “Just think to yourself — they paraded Saddam’s dead sons around to prove they were dead — why do you suppose they hastily buried this version of OBL at sea? This lying, murderous Empire can only exist with your brainwashed consent — just put your flags away and THINK!”
Many liberals along with dim-witted neocon lickspittles bought into the story without blinking an eye. Democrat warmongers working for the globalist George Soros at Think Progress – a propaganda spigot for pro-war establishment Democrats at the Center for American Progress – immediately seized upon skepticism of the fairy tale as evidence that “conservatives” who have questioned the official account are crazed conspiracy theorists (in much the same way political dissidents were considered insane by the Soviet state).
Soros’ minions singled out Andrew Breitbart and Emily Miller, a senior editor at the Washington Times, who made the unpardonable error of asking for evidence instead of accepting the fanciful story on blind faith (as both establishment Democrats and Republicans invariably do when the government offers some cockamamie “official” version of history).
Soros’ TP bloggeristas speculate that deatherism will soon replace birtherism because, after all, the birth certificate issue was settled with the latest forged document.
Recent developments will now likely make it more difficult to prove the Osama assassination is a fictional account in a long line of fictional accounts issued in the forever war against manufactured terror.
“Insurgents shot down a U.S. military helicopter during fighting in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least 30 Americans, most of them belonging to the same elite unit as the Navy SEALs who killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden,” the Associated Press reports today.


It is said none of the personnel killed in the crash were part of the team that supposedly killed Osama, who actually died in late 2001. Is it possible this is because the SEALs involved in the raid died in a crash near the house in Abboottabad’s Bilal Town where residents insist Osama did not live?
The AP reports that the Taliban took down the helicopter in Afghanistan that killed 22 SEALs. It is said to be the largest loss of life in the history of SEAL Team Six, officially called the Navy Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU.
Since we know virtually nothing about what happens in Afghanistan – independent journalists were targeted long ago in Iraq by the Pentagon (most notably at the Sheraton and Palestine hotels in Baghdad in 2005) and their survival rate is abysmally low in all “theaters” of U.S. military operation – we cannot be certain who took out the helicopter in Afghanistan. Our information arrives straight from the Ministry of Truth in the Pentagon.
Is it possible the Pentagon took out the helicopter to send a message to the SEALs, just in case some of them decide (like Pat Tillman did) to tell the truth?
This theory is as plausible as the current story, especially considering the lies and deception we were fed about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and Vietnam and Korea before that).
Minus un-”embedded” journalists (professional corporate media script readers) we will probably never know for sure.
We do know, however, that the Taliban were created by the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI with seed money from the Saudis.
We also know that you and I – taxpayers – continue to fund the Taliban so the globalists can continue their phony war, establish bases, and run their narco business.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/seal-unit-supposedly-responsible-for-osama-hit-killed-in-copter-crash.html


Deaths of SEAL Team 6 Exposed

Aaron Dykes & Alex Jones
Infowars.com
August 7, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-6ZS_RzEYY&feature=player_embedded

Associated Press sources are reporting a statistically impossible tragedy for U.S. forces in Afghanistan– that of the 38 NATO forces killed in a helicopter crash Friday night, “more than 20″ were members of SEAL Team 6, the covert unit that took credit for killing Osama bin Laden in May.
Mainstream sources are seizing upon claims that the Taliban took credit for downing the helicopter, but that means nothing. Media instantly ran reports that al Qaeda was responsiblefor the bombing & shootings in Norway; moreover, anyone on a message board can make such claims.
Instead, Alex Jones predicted shortly after the raid on bin Laden’s compound that SEALs would soon be reported dead in a helicopter crash or staged incident following multiple reports from military sources who’ve proved accurate in the past, including on-air callers, that SEALs did indeed die during the raid. Official stories admitted after-the-fact that a helicopter went down during the mission, but claimed there were no deaths of U.S. forces.
Below is Alex’s report on the breaking news of SEAL Team 6′s official demise:

Infowars is on the record reporting that members of Seal Team 6 died in the so called OBL raid. The government admits that a super secret helicopter did crash during the OBL raid but says no one died, our intel is different. We predicted that the spin doctors would stage a crash or when a real crash took place that they would say the SEALs died then. This is a old trick that governments all over the world have been caught pulling in the past. Some speculate that Obama had the team killed to cover up what really happened; however our intel does not point that way. The Pentagon may have blown the helicopter up on the ground on the night of the raid and we cover that in the above video. Lastly the globalist MSM is reporting that terrorist have taken credit but that is notoriously filled with disinfo, like in the Norway attack when a fake terrorist group took credit and the media ran with it.

According to the sources, military personnel internally admit to the SEAL deaths, however it was not clear whether it had been the result of an accidental crash, from a firefight with Pakistani military forces stationed only a short distance from the compound, or whether, as Pakistani eyewitnesses indicated (below), the helicopter exploded after covert forces entered.
Whatever the true story, one thing is clear: dead men tell no tales. The inconvenient truth is that governments throughout history have disposed of heroes, covert troops and special forces to keep the real story from coming out. Helicopter and plane crashes have been one of the favorite methods for tying up these loose ends.
Abbottabad residents told CCTV reporters they don’t believe Osama bin Laden was ever at this compund and that the operation was a ‘hoax’. Pakistan’s anti-terrorist squad also could not confirm the killing, according to reports.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0vo-L3VACs&feature=player_embedded

Uploaded by Mrhumtydumty on May 9, 2011
Mr Bashir, his home is in front of Osma's house and whe watched whole operation from the roof of his house and he said that out 3 only one helicopter landed and after 10-20 minutes when tried to lift up it crashed and two other helicopters run away and he rushed to house and he saw dead bodies of 10 or more people and within 20 mins Pak army came. he said that i am 100% sure that they did not take osama if he was there coz the crash of helicopter.......what you think??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MGT10B_Pks&playnext=1&list=PL9B0FD4537C8AFE20

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGv7lJDTIvg&feature=autoplay&list=PL04A38B02EA89C4CB&index=13&playnext=3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcZ1j5YhORw&feature=autoplay&list=PL04A38B02EA89C4CB&index=14&playnext=4

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

NATO, Afghan forces fight insurgents near crash

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Afghan and American forces battled insurgents Sunday in the region where the Taliban shot down a U.S. Army Chinook helicopter a day earlier, killing 30 U.S. troops and eight Afghans.
The fighting was taking place as NATO began an operation to recover the remains of the large transport helicopter that was shot down by insurgents early Saturday in the Tangi Joy Zarin area of Wardak province's Sayd Abad district, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southwest of Kabul. The clashes Sunday did not appear to involve the troops around the crash site.
"There have been a small number of limited engagements in the same district as yesterday's helicopter crash, however those clashes have not been in the direct vicinity of the crash site," NATO said in a statement. "As of now, we have no reporting to indicate any coalition casualties resulting from these engagements."
Wardak provincial spokesman Shahidullah Shahid confirmed the helicopter recovery mission was under way and said there were reports of Taliban casualties overnight.
"There is a joint operation going on by Afghan and NATO forces. A clearing operation is ongoing in the district and there are reports of casualties among insurgents," Shahid said. "The area is still surrounded by American forces."
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, NATO said insurgents killed four alliance service members in two separate attacks in the east and the south. It did not provide their nationalities or any other details.
The deaths bring to 369 the number of coalition troops killed this year in Afghanistan and 46 this month.
In an increasingly bloody conflict, the downing of the Chinook helicopter early Saturday marked the deadliest single loss for American forces in the decade-old war in Afghanistan.
Thirty American service members, an Afghan civilian interpreter and seven Afghan commandos were killed, the U.S.-led coalition said. A current U.S. official and a former U.S. official said the Americans included 22 Navy SEALs, three Air Force combat controllers and a dog handler, his dog and four crew members. The two spoke on condition of anonymity because military officials were still notifying the families of the dead.
Most of the SEALs belonged to the same elite unit that killed Osama bin Laden, although they were not the same people who participated in the May raid into Pakistan that killed the al-Qaida leader.
The downing was a stinging blow to the lauded, tight-knit SEAL Team 6, months after its crowning achievement. It was also a heavy setback for the U.S.-led coalition as it begins to draw down thousands of combat troops fighting what has become an increasingly costly and unpopular war.
Although there are thousands of special operations forces in Afghanistan, often taking part in dozens of night raids a month, their deployment in the raid in which the helicopter crashed would suggest that the target was a high-ranking insurgent figure. However, there has been no official word on the target of the raid.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110807/D9OV9GH00.html

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

Sources: Seal Team 6 Was Murdered

The Alex Jones Channel
August 8, 2011

The SEALs team has reportedly been extremely angry about the fabricated OBL raid and ready to talk. Alex Jones to bring sources on air tomorrow LIVE at 11 AM CST
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzZviW44E8U&feature=player_embedded

http://www.prisonplanet.com/sources-seal-team-6-was-murdered.html

[reality]

hahahaha...some people believe in  god, some father christmas ....and others..shit like that

...eh sexy ...how long will it be before the team that killed "seal team 6"...will need to be killed to shut them up....and then the team that kills them will ..of course need to be killed...and on it goes  ad infinitum...can you see where I'm going with this

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

New Zealand SAS soldier killed in Kabul

The Dominion Post and Reuters | 1:04AM - Saturday, 20 August 2011


GUN BATTLE IN KABUL: A British soldier walks in front of the site of attack on offices belonging to
the British Council in Kabul. — Photo: Reuters.

A NEW ZEALAND special forces soldier has been killed in a Taleban attack on British Council diplomatic offices in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

A Defence Force source confirmed late last night that a New Zealand SAS soldier was among at least nine people killed in the assault, which marked the 92nd anniversary of Afghanistan's independence from Britain.

The soldier's name would not be released until next of kin had been notified.

The source confirmed that SAS troops were engaged in last night's incident in a background support role.

The Afghan Crisis Response Unit, mentored by the SAS, was involved in repelling a five-hour firefight Taleban attack on the British diplomatic offices. "The SAS was there in a support role," the Defence source said.

The Guardian website reported that journalists were ordered to stop taking photos when what appeared to be a seriously hurt New Zealander was taken by stretcher from the building and loaded on to a medevac helicopter. Scores of Afghan and Nato troops surrounded a compound strewn with wooden and metal debris while two helicopters hovered above.

A Ministry of Interior spokesman said at least 12 people were wounded during the assault.

"Eight members of the Afghan national police and one foreign soldier were killed," Mohammad Zahir, head of criminal investigations for the Kabul police, told Reuters.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said he spoke with New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and thanked him for the troops' role in ending the raid, in which 10 people were thought to have been killed.

"It's obviously a tragic but cowardly act that has been undertaken but it won't succeed and it won't deflect us from the vital work we are doing in Afghanistan," Cameron said.

Key said the Government was saddened by the death of the soldier.

"I have limited details about the soldier’s death, but I am advised that he died during fighting that followed an attack by insurgents in Kabul in the last few hours."

"On behalf of the Government, I want to offer my condolences to the family of the soldier."

"His death is a reminder of the dangers our Defence Force personnel face while serving in Afghanistan," Key said.

Defence Minister Wayne Mapp also acknowledged the news, and offered his condolences to the family of the soldier. He said he mourned the loss.

A Reuters photograph taken at the scene showed what appeared to be a white male being lifted on to a stretcher with blood across his back and a wound to the back of his head.

Earlier, police believed there were foreign people trapped inside the building, and as many as three assailants were believed holed up there.

By afternoon, there was one left.

"There is one suicide bomber left alive in the bulletproof basement of the British Council," a ministry official said later.

Afghan and Nato troops were trying to kill him.

WARNING TO BRITAIN

A Reuters witness heard a large explosion shortly after 1pm local time, the seventh of the day, in what the Ministry of Interior source said could have been an attempt to kill the last attacker or him detonating an explosive.

The Taleban said they were sending two messages: One to the Afghan government and one to the British," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

"We are now reminding them that we will become independent again from all foreigners, especially from the British," Mujahid said, referring to Afghanistan's independence from British rule 92 years ago, which the country was marking on Friday.

The Nato-led force in Afghanistan also confirmed there had been two explosions near the British Council, which is a state-funded agency running mainly cultural programs. It is not part of the main British embassy in the diplomatic area of Kabul.

Security was beefed up across the capital ahead of the date.

After the United States, Britain has the second-largest force in the Nato-led war against the Taleban, with around 9,500 troops.

Mujahid declined to say how many bombers the Islamist group used for the attacks, which come a month after Nato handed over security responsibilities to the Afghans in several areas across the country, as part of a gradual transition process to be completed by the end of 2014.

Afghan forces have been given responsibility for the city of Kabul since 2008, when Nato handed over security control, but in reality Nato forces still police the area heavily.

There is growing unease in the United States and Europe about the costly and increasingly violent war that has dragged on for 10 years, causing US lawmakers to question whether bringing home all combat troops by 2014 is fast enough.

Nato and the United States earlier this year reluctantly backed Kabul's peace plan, which involves reconciliation with some members of the Taleban. The Taleban have repeatedly said they will not negotiate with the Afghan government until all foreign forces have stopped fighting in their country.

NEW ZEALAND DEATHS IN AFGHANISTAN

Two other New Zealanders were killed in Afghanistan last year.

They were Lieutenant Timothy O'Donnell, 28, from Feilding who died in August 2010 when his three-vehicle patrol was attacked with explosives, rocket propelled grenades and gunfire in north-east Bamiyan Province; and Private Jack Howard, 23, of Wellington who was killed in December 2010 while serving as a member of the 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, with the British Army in Afghanistan. He was killed by "friendly fire" on patrol in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/5478019/New-Zealand-SAS-soldier-killed-in-Kabul