´óÏó´«Ã½

first question is if as an 'embed' you cannot report fully due to USA and MoD restrictions , if so why do you not say it is the case?


"But he is attempting to copy his predecessor's strategy in having a "surge" that will bring matters to a head, then a positive outcome."

no he is not copying but continuing the same policy, though he provides a different narrative to create a different perception - though the end game is the same.

"It has been apparent for some time that Mr Obama would go for this strategy. Indeed back in mid-October I reported that he had resolved on a large increase in forces that could exceed 45,000."

it was his strategy for the last 3 years. nothing has changed, the number of troops have increased by 50 000 - that was always the intention for this year - just as the uk was supposed to - and has - increasd their numbers by 2000 .

"The other key issue that must be resolved in Afghanistan is whether the Afghan security forces can be increased fast enough to consolidate the gains made in clearing operations."

by all accounts this is not possible, even by best estimates those who supposedly account for the estimated 90 000 trained over the last 8 years barely a third are barely competent.

"This is the real risk of Mr Obama's approach - that it attempts to force the reality of Afghanistan's insurgency into an American narrative, with its own plotline and duration.

There is no doubting the determination of troops here though to try to curb this historically unruly place to their will."

well this is about securing afghansitan to have access to the $15 trillion worth of gas from turmenistan and region. its also about iran and pakistan - a narrative has already been promoted for our pretext to enter paksitan and take control of its nuclear assets and similarly iran . we are there to create the regional superpower of israel-india nexus.

the USA is in the process of continuing its first phase of major military infrastructure building which is to be completed by 2013 - clearly neither we nor the usa are going to leave afghanistan in a hurry - by all accounts the 30 to 40 year war is an underestimate of our imperialistic intent. there will not be a real draw down in the near future.

the strategy is to by-pass karzai at all levels and rule from washington, 'we' will maintain control of major assets and areas of major interest and the rest of afghanistan will be given to regional warlords as their fiefdoms with some central 'funding' to keep them on side whilst they subjugate the population on our behalf.

of course we will be aided by a significant indian contingency (it has been mooted that some 100 000 might be deployed) and that there is evidence of our pro active efforts to destabilise pakistan and iran.

since this is not actually in the main about so called islamists, but our economic and strategic needs as a near bankrupt economy wanting to maintain our supply of energy (since ours is near depletion) and the 'stealing' of assets and resources - shouldnt these be the issues being discussed?

the taliban are an instrument of pakistan foreign policy


so why are they still running them? because india is training afghan army officers? because india is spending 1 billion on afghan infrastructure?

so pakistan is paranoid about india dominating afghanistan which is why we get stuff like this

Pakistan has refused Afghanistan permission to import goods from India



Pakistan denies Afghanistan transit facilities to import oil from India

OBAMA'S DEFINING MOMENT DOUBLY CONFIRMED

Now we know: December 1st 2009, Obama declared that 'on 9/11' America was attacked 'from Afghanistan'.
This is LAWYER Barack Obama who has either paid no attention to the vast array of the public domain 'brief' to the effect that 9/11 had a very different point of origin, or it is lawyer Barack Obama blagging it, against all odds, in the realisation he has no alternative.
He has failed to acknowledge the dodgy dossier of 9/11 since his inauguration, and is now damned either way.

Obama's DEFINING MOMENT will go down in the annals of THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY as '1/12' 2009.

Pakistan, India, Israel all being nuke counties and as far as I'm aware not signed up to the non proliferation treaty/test ban, throw in North Korea and Iranian intentions - pretty much all hot head, paranoid situations. Could the Afghan play out tip this volatile cocktail of serious danger to us all over the top.

Yeah we need independent reporting to get at a truth, but then its a hell of a dangerous place. The Americans would be wise not to be too cocky and over excited/aggressive - they will just ware themselves down.

Interesting listening to Shahed Sadullah on The Daily Politics talking about the importance of the ethnic make up of Afghan police and army - that it needs to reflect the dominate Pashtun and Tajik, Farsiwan and Qezelbash. All well and good - it seems straightforward stuff that the Americans wont have a problem switching on to. But when we are lead to believe that there are very basic problems with literacy and basic abilities and therefore education is of up most importance, isn't that going to be far more difficult - to try and educate an adult with basic literacy and comprehension problems than say the teenagers and younger ? Its been eight years did anyone concentrate on the youngsters education ?

I don't know my own view is that none of this can really be sorted, only in the medium term of a limited number of years. Its just going to have to be that country that does it for themselves in the long run. We just HAVE to remove nukes from the reach of the extremists and take the hit that they give us along the way. Its too idealistic and unreal. That 'just HAVE to remove' may mean its an on going process for very many years and Europe will have to start hitting heaver on the score.

"so why are they still running them? because india is training afghan army officers? because india is spending 1 billion on afghan infrastructure?"

india was and has always supported the northern alliance over and above the taliban - dont forget that the northern alliance are as much a tool of the indians as they were being supported by the soviets .

reports from the region suggest that india is doing more than training afghan army officers , it would appear that they are training arming insurgents that are destabilising pakistan through their intel RAW.

the so called pakistan taliban are in fact uzbeks, tajeks etc (natural allies of the northern alliance and india). ammunition dumps and communications equipment discovered during pak army assault have been largely indian or american.

the usa are known to support the jondullah and the uk-usa are known to be supporting the bla (baluchistan liberation) maybe the latter will suggest to you as to why pakistan is nervous about the uk-usa deployment in the south which would target baluchistan. baluchistan as you must know has natural resources and a deep sea port and the exit point for the tapi project.

"We just HAVE to remove nukes from the reach of the extremists and take the hit that they give us along the way."

the threat posed by 'extremists' to nukes is over hyped and over played for the benefit of gullible opr those who need to justify their prejudices - who do not realise the extent of the security mechanism in place inside of paksitan.

if its about securing nuclear material then it would be wise to secure each and every hospital dentist,university etc . it is not possible for any attack on a nuclear facility to result in a stealing or firing of a missile. its all nonsensical lala land politics.

the fact is as it happens it is israel and france who have previously threatened to use their nukes against iran in a first strike option. it is we who hype up the threat for our pretext to war and occupation.

all we are interested in is denying any sense of a threat to our occupation of the mid east from israel to india, both paksitan and iran as sovereign states do not want to be part of our slave nations doing our bidding ..so its pretext pretext .. and regime change .. sound familiar?

Just as some don't get the fact that 9 11 changed everything - that the Americans were always going to lock and load and invade after that. The nukes had better be safe but just in case I'm with Uncle Sam on this one . If Israel strike Iran no bad thing if India and Pakistan go at it, yeah that's one hell of a worry in the near future. Bush was, well stupid. Obama isn't stupid but may be caught out looking weak.

Yes the outright selfishness of capitalism caused all this and now its all imploding but I'm still on Uncle Sam's side. I love the science research and women's right are worth a good scrap.

I’m not sure to what extent the Iraq experience can be grafted onto Afghanistan. The structure of society and politics is very different.

It worries me that that tribal nature of Afghanistan is not suited to rigid national democratic politics. I can see parallels with Africa where artificial borders and sham democracies have been a mask for the disruption of the delicate balance of tribal power that westerners seem not to comprehend.

Are we going to once again attempt to create a nation in our own image and create even more trouble?