ONE THIRD of all the weapons procured for the Afghan security forces are missing and can be presumed sold onto the black market. Worth roughly $40 million at wholesale cost (and weighing in excess of 200 tons) to the Pentagon, would anyone like to guess at the black market value? The report has been compiled by congressional auditors, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).
It found that, in the four years up to June 2008, the US military failed to keep complete records on some 222,000 weapons entering the country.
The report will be discussed in the US House of Representatives on Thursday.
It states that weapons supplied by the US to the Afghan military "are at serious risk of theft or loss".
The report says:
US military officials failed to keep proper records on about 87,000 rifles, pistols, mortars and other weapons sent to Afghanistan between December 2004 and June 2008 - about a third of all the weapons sent
There was a similar lack of management of a further 135,000 light weapons donated to Afghan forces via the US military by 21 countries
The military failed even to record the serial numbers of some 46,000 weapons, making it impossible to confirm receipt of weapons or identify any which had fallen into the hands of militants
The serial numbers of 41,000 weapons were recorded, but US military officials still had no idea where they were
"Lapses in accountability occurred throughout the supply chain," concludes the report, which is due to be discussed on Thursday at a panel hearing of a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee.
In response, the Pentagon agreed that it needed more people to help train the Afghanistan government to track the weapons, the AP news agency reported.
Which is to say the Pentagon didn't figure that much out after the first time this happened.
That anonymous, secondhand, self-exoneration of the Bush administration is apparently good enough for the those who have always been glad to march in step with the Fourth Branch. Boston Herald editor and Pajamas media columnist Jules Crittenden believes it, for one, and launches into an apologia for the Bush administration involving a claim that any and all confusion is entirely due to intelligence agencies being unwilling to share with each other. But Hilzoy brings us an actual named eyewitness: LTC Darrel Vandeveld was lead prosecutor against a detainee, Mohammed Jawad, until he resigned last September. The following is from his statement in support of Jawad's habeas petition.
"7. It is important to understand that the "case files" compiled at OMC-P or developed by CITF are nothing like the investigation and case files assembled by civilian police agencies and prosecution offices, which typically follow a standardized format, include initial reports of investigation, subsequent reports compiled by investigators, and the like. Similarly, neither OMC-P nor CITF maintained any central repository for case files, any method for cataloguing and storing physical evidence, or any other system for assembling a potential case into a readily intelligible format that is the sine qua non of a successful prosecution. While no experienced prosecutor, much less one who had performed his or her duties in the fog of war, would expect that potential war crimes would be presented, at least initially, in "tidy little packages," at the time I inherited the Jawad case, Mr. Jawad had been in U.S. custody for approximately five years. It seemed reasonable to expect at the very least that after such a lengthy period of time, all available evidence would have been collected, catalogued, systemized, and evaluated thoroughly -- particularly since the suspect had been imprisoned throughout the entire time the case should have been undergoing preparation.
8. Instead, to the shock of my professional sensibilities, I discovered that the evidence, such as it was, remained scattered throughout an incomprehensible labyrinth of databases primarily under the control of CITF, or strewn throughout the prosecution offices in desk drawers, bookcases packed with vaguely-labeled plastic containers, or even simply piled on the tops of desks vacated by prosecutors who had departed the Commissions for other assignments. I further discovered that most physical evidence that had been collected had either disappeared or had been stored in locations that no one with any tenure at, or institutional knowledge of, the Commissions could identify with any degree of specificity or certainty. The state of disarray was so extensive that I later learned, as described below, that crucial physical evidence and other documents relevant to both the prosecution and the defense had been tossed into a locker located at Guantanamo and promptly forgotten. Although it took me a number of months -- so extensive was the lack of any discernable organization, and so difficult was it for me to accept that the US military could have failed so miserably in six years of effort -- I began to entertain my first, developing doubts about the propriety of attempting to prosecute Mr. Jawad without any assurance that through the exercise of due diligence I could collect and organize the evidence in a manner that would meet our common professional obligations."
It seems obvious that the Bush administration as a whole simply didn't care - it expected prosecutors in what it believed to be a tame tribunal process to hand down convictions anyway and was more than a little surprised when many military lawyers refused to be complicit in the scam.
Crittenden also mentions the "61 detainees who returned to terror" stuff which has been debunked too. It's twelve at most - all released by political decisions made by Bush appointees, quite possibly including the "senior former official" Crittenden trusts so much as to believe his second-hand excuses. Every single one was released because the Bush administration's malfeasance meant charges wouldn't stick, were entirely false or were undermined by illegal methods such as torture and false confessions. That will be true of any other detainees released too - which would be simply sad, if it weren't so very tragic that some will go on to kill innocents. If only the Bush administration's legal hacks had considered that earlier...or indeed at all.
An internal investigation has cleared the Pentagon of violating a ban on domestic propaganda by using retired military officers to comment positively about the war in Iraq in the US media.
In a report posted on its website Friday, the Pentagon's inspector general said "we found the evidence insufficient to conclude that RMA (retired military analysts) outreach activities were improper."
The report said the controversy, which erupted in April following an expose in the New York Times, warranted no further investigation.
The Times found that the Pentagon laid on special briefings and conference calls for the retired officers, many of whom then repeated the talking points as military experts on television news shows.
It also found that many of the media analysts also worked as consultants or served on the boards of defense contracting companies, but that those ties often went undisclosed to the public.
Are they freaking kidding? Of course, the slip-slide hinges on the definition of "propaganda"
US law bars government agencies from using funds for domestic propaganda, but the inspector general's report said the definition of propaganda is unclear.
The report said historically it has been interpreted to mean publicity for the sake of self aggrandizement, partisanship, or covert communications, and that by those standards the evidence did not show a violation of the ban.
"Further, we found insufficient basis to conclude that (the office of the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs) conceived of or undertook a disciplined effort to assemble a contingent of influential RMAs who could be depended on to comment favorably on DoD (Department of Defense) programs," it said. [Emphasis mine - C]
And on that strict interpretation the IG is correct. Because it isn't partisan to lie and use proxy puppets to boost bogus cheers for a war that the media were always gung-ho for and that even Dem leaders like the next Secretary of State voted to get into...just dishonest.
*Sigh.*
Here's Amy Goodman interviewing Col. Sam Gardiner and Peter Hart of FAIR about the Pentagon's tame mouthpiece program back in April.
Footage from Gaza, translation by the UK's Guardian newspaper.
I wrote about Israel's lack of strategic mission in Gaza, and its ignoring of all the wise heads on 4th generation warfare, the other day. Now Scott Lemiex expands upon that by way of Charles Krauthammer as spokesman for the entire "kill everyone, let God sort them out" mindset of the extreme right.
America's Worst Columnist says that "there are only two possible endgames: (A) a Lebanon-like cessation of hostilities to be supervised by international observers, or (B) the disintegration of Hamas rule in Gaza." It will not surprise you that he advocates for (B). Alas, it will also not surprise you to know that he doesn't seem to consider the question of what exactly Hamas would be replaced by should these aims be achieved. The assumption that a lengthy, destructive Israeli bombing campaign will produce a government more sympathetic to Israel and less sympathetic to Iran is so transparently idiotic that I think we can assume it's the one that Krauthammer is working with.
It's highly unlikely that Palestinians will be in any mood to forget the shelling of refugees in a UN school - something the Israeli Defense Force originally alleged was in response to militant activity "near to" the building (no-one said how near) and which had been met, confusingly by the IDF's own statements, by either return mortar fire or bombs or artillery shells depending upon which statement the pro-Israel lobby were taking as gospel at any time. Now, however, the UN says that senior IDF officials have admitted a mistake.
UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness told Haaretz yesterday that the army had conceded wrongdoing.
In briefings senior [Israel Defense Forces] officers conducted for foreign diplomats, they admitted the shelling to which IDF forces in Jabalya were responding did not originate from the school," Gunness said. "The IDF admitted in that briefing that the attack on the UN site was unintentional."
He noted that all the footage released by the IDF of militants firing from inside the school was from 2007 and not from the incident itself. "There are no up-to-date photos," Gunness said. "In 2007, we abandoned the site and only then did the militants take it over."
The UNRWA is now demanding an objective investigation into whether the school shelling constituted a violation of international humanitarian law, and if so, that those responsible stand trial.
That's rather reminiscent of US military's "deny then apologise" course on airstrikes on civilians in Afghanistan and reminds me that Israel is also using the Bush administration's favorite set of justifications for the use of indiscriminate incendiary devices over urban populations too. And yes - Hamas is both an elected majority and a group with a terrorist wing and terrorist ideology. But that doesn't excuse "a hundred eyes for an eye". It doesn't excuse shutting out appointed UN envoys. It doesn't excuse this kind of mistake (if its a mistake):
At least 30 people were killed in the Zeitoun district of Gaza after Israeli troops repeatedly shelled a house to which more than 100 Palestinians had been evacuated by the Israeli military, the UN said today.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said in a report it was "one of the gravest incidents since the beginning of operations" against Hamas militants in Gaza by the Israeli military on 27 December.
OCHA said the incident took place on 4 January, a day after Israel began its ground offensive in Gaza. According to testimonies gathered by the UN, Israeli soldiers evacuated about 110 Palestinians to a single-storey house in Zeitoun, south-east Gaza. The evacuees were instructed to stay indoors for their safety but 24 hours later the Israeli army shelled the house. About half the Palestinians sheltering in the house were children, OCHA said. The report also complains that the Israeli Defence Force prevented medical teams from entering the area to evacuate the wounded.
The OCHA report does not accuse Israel of a deliberate act but calls for an investigation. Responding to the report, an Israeli military spokeswoman, Avital Leibovich, told AFP news agency: "From initial checking, we don't have knowledge of this incident. We started an inquiry but we still don't know about it."
It seems obvious that this war in a fishbowl, where civilians have nowhere to run to by Israeli design and so Israel can continue to allege that Hamas is using them as "human shields" instead of coming out into the field to fight fair and receive a proper ass-kicking, is entirely counterproductive to Israel's longterm aims if those aims are indeed to see an end to Palestinian extremism and terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. Gideon Lichfield wries for the International Herald Tribune (h/t War in Context):
What Israel should do now is work for a cease-fire on terms that allow both sides to save some face. It should then do something it has done far too little of in the past: improve Gazans’ living conditions significantly. The aim should be to construct a long-lived state of calm in which Hamas has more to lose by breaching the cease-fire than by sticking to it.
In the longer term Israel will have to accept that Hamas is no fringe movement that can be rooted out and destroyed, but a central part of Palestinian society. This will be the hard part, not least because of the opposition from Hamas’ secularist Palestinian rivals, Fatah.
But even though Hamas’s stated goal is Israel’s destruction, it has said many times that it would accept a truce extending decades. Some former Israeli security chiefs argue that such an accommodation - a peace treaty in all but name - would eventually oblige Hamas to accept Israel’s existence, or else lose its own base of support. It is a gamble, certainly. But the alternative is more innocent lives lost, more extremism and ultimately more trouble for Israel.
Winning hearts and minds with a good attitude - NOT! A soldier complains about begging Afghan kids and tells one "your country sucks ass."
From the Gulf Times, a little-noticed aspect of the Bush administration's epic fail in Afghanistan. While the Western media is preoccupied with war - violent deaths, the resurgent Taliban and plans for a military Surge - the other Horsemen are even busier.
MORE than 1.6mn children under the age of five and thousands of women could die in 2009 as a result of the lack of food and medical care, particularly in terms of proper services for women and children, according to the Afghan Ministry of Health.
These are troubling statistics not only because of the human suffering involved, but because they indicate that millions of dollars poured into the country have not been able to reach the most vulnerable communities in the country.
Food shortages and inclement weather could leave 8mn Afghans -30% of the population - on the brink of starvation, according to several aid agencies. This is happening despite the World Food Programme (WFP)’s warning last January for a sharp increase in food assistance to the country. Lack of food is an actual threat not just in the remote regions of this country but also in Afghanistan’s urban areas.
Recent price increases in basic foods, particularly wheat, have adversely affected millions of Afghans, particularly in rural areas where domestic production cannot satisfy people’s needs. While in 2005 an average household was spending 56% of their income on food, that figure now rose to 85%, according to Susannah Nicol, a spokeswoman for the WFP.
...Children are particularly vulnerable. They are not only affected by lack of food. Diarrhea, acute respiratory infections and vaccine-preventable diseases are important threats to children’s health. Diarrhea and acute respiratory infections account for about 41% of all child deaths in this desperately poor nation of 26mn people, while vaccine-preventable diseases –such as measles, polio and diphtheria- account for another 21%, according to Unicef. The tragedy is that 80 to 85 % of these diseases can be avoided by preventive measures and appropriate and timely health care.
Afghanistan rates low in practically all health indicators. As a result, it has one of the world’s highest infant and maternal mortality rates. Hospitals in most of the country are in deplorable conditions, and lack enough trained doctors or medical equipment for even the most basic surgeries. Life expectancy is 42 years, according to figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Do you think watching their babies die of famine and pestilence will help endear Afghans to the prospect of another 20-30,000 well-fed American soldiers in their country? Do you really think spending billions on those troops can possibly keep the lid on, given the statistics above? I know where I think the bulk of any surging should be going on.
"We were walking, I was holding my grandson's hand, then there was a loud noise and everything went white. When I opened my eyes, everybody was screaming. I was lying metres from where I had been, I was still holding my grandson's hand but the rest of him was gone. I looked around and saw pieces of bodies everywhere. I couldn't make out which part was which."
That's the testimony of one man caught up in the disastrous airstrike on a Afghan bridal party wrongfully identified as a Taliban force back in July. The carnage was so complete they had to bury the 47 victims in 28 graves. US and NATO troops have denied the attack, but say they are investigating. In another similiar attack back in August they denied involvement at first too. Then investigated and found themselves blameless, only to finally admit their culpability and apologise once independent footage of the destruction surfaced. In a third such incident, in November, footage surfaced before the kabuki dance could begin. So far this year, such mistakes have cost over 600 Afghans their lives.
The Guardian report from which the above quotation was taken also includes a video report which contains footage of Afghans mutilated and crippled by mistaken Western airstrikes.
Afghans understand what's going on here in a way that Western leaders don't seem to.
The Gitmo trails are beginning to assume the appearance of an Oscar Wilde farce.
Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, facing a possible life sentence, sat mutely at the defense table. His lawyer announced the prisoner was boycotting the trial because he did not want a military attorney and because the judge had denied his repeated requests to represent himself.
The appointed defense attorney, Air Force Maj. David Frakt, asked to be relieved in deference to his client's wishes, but the judge refused. Frakt then said he could not participate either.
"I will be joining Mr. Al-Bahlul's boycott, sitting silently at the table," said Frakt, who then refused to respond to several questions from the judge.
The judge, Air Force Col. Ronald Gregory, said Frakt was obligated to participate and that both the lawyer and defendant, despite their wishes, would be required to attend the hearings — even if they stay silent.
"The commission will not proceed with an empty defense table," Gregory said.
This is only the second tribunal to actually convene, out of around 80 trials of detainees expected (from 255 still held). What's it going to be like by the time the 20th, 40th rolls around? And what about the other 170+ detainees?
It's quite clear the process is deeply flawed - so flawed that in a real court some very bad people would walk free because their trials are contaminated by tortured evidence and official interference in due process that, in truth, are just as much war crimes as the offenses detainees are accused of. Despite the howlings of the rabid Right, though, that's the way the civilization cookie should crumble. If they wanted it otherwise, the Bush administration's actions were entirely the wrong way to go about it.
Amy Goodman talks to Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights about Gitmo
At the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. David Blumenthal reviews McCain's healthcare plans - and finds the same old Republican "I'm alright, Jack" philosphy. (h/t Avedon)
John McCain emerges not as a maverick or centrist but as a radical social conservative firmly in the grip of the ideology that animates the domestic policies of President George W. Bush. The central purpose of President Bush's health policy, and John McCain's, is to reduce the role of insurance and make Americans pay a larger part of their health care bills out of pocket. Their embrace of market forces, fierce antagonism toward government, and determination to force individuals to have more "skin in the game" are overriding — all other goals are subsidiary. Indeed, the Republican commitment to market-oriented reforms is so strong that, to attain their vision, Bush and McCain seem willing to take huge risks with the efficiency, equity, and stability of our health care system. Specifically, the McCain plan would profoundly threaten the current system of employer-sponsored insurance on which more than three fifths of Americans depend, increase reliance on unregulated individual insurance markets (which are notoriously inefficient), and leave the number of uninsured Americans virtually unchanged. A side effect of the McCain plan would be to threaten access to adequate insurance for millions of America's sickest citizens.
The main purposes of Mccain's plan appears to be to dump more money into private health insurer's coffers and enable insurers to dump bad risks (those currently covered but paying high premiums) onto the State by making insurance unaffordable for them:
In the individual market, administrative costs consume 30 to 50% of premiums, as compared with 12 to 15% in the large-group, employer-sponsored insurance market. The McCain plan, therefore, could cause administrative waste to skyrocket. Because of these high administrative expenses, and because insurers want to avoid sick people, individual health insurance tends to be less generous than employer-sponsored plans, requiring higher deductibles and copayments and offering less coverage of preventive and catastrophic care. Perhaps most worrisome is that many chronically ill patients who lose employer-sponsored coverage will have trouble finding any insurance at all in the individual market. The McCain plan calls for deregulating private insurance markets — eliminating, for example, state requirements that insurers offer plans to persons with preexisting conditions.
Seven years ago the Bush administration brought neoconservatives into a position of power with a dream of everlasting American hegemony, a unipolar superpower who would dictate military, economic and cultural terms to the world. The end of history in many neocon minds came with a momentous date - 9/11.
Seven years later, the Bush administration's mismanagement of the nation has ensured that that the neoconservative dream is crushed.
"The solidarity of the international community fostered on the wave of struggle against terrorism turned out to be somehow `privatized'... It has become crystal clear that the solidarity expressed by all of us after 9/11 should be revived (without double standards) when we fight against any infringements upon the international law," [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov] said.
Lavrov called for a new "solidarity" of the international community and a strengthened United Nations, saying only in the post-Cold War world can the organization "fully realize its potential" as a global center "for open and frank debate and coordination of the world policies on a just and equitable basis free from double standards."
"This is an essential requirement, if the world is to regain its equilibrium," he said.
Russia hasn't exactly been guiltless about double standards - I'm thinking about Chechnya and internal dissent as well as an over-response to Georgian aggression in South Ossetia - but Lavrov has a point. After 9/11, even Iranian leaders were proclaiming solidarity with the US. What happened was that the outpouring of genuine concern that could have shaped a new co-operative world was harnessed to give the neocon adventure a temporary Coalition of the Willing instead. Their lust for Empire burned up all the political capital America had on the world stage - and now even if McCain was elected to continue the neoconservative fever he wouldn't be able to, the world is just too resistant to it.
Now, the US has dispatched a general to Afghanistan to look anew at the events surrounding the airstrike and re-appraise the military investigation's conclusion.
The US military said that its findings were corroborated by an independent journalist embedded with the US force. He was named as the Fox News correspondent Oliver North, who came to prominence in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair, when he was an army colonel.
Sources close to one of the investigations said that a video film was shot by Afghan officials the morning after the attack. It corroborates the doctor’s footage but has not been made public.
In a statement released on Saturday, the commander of Nato forces, General David McKiernan, appeared to back away from previous US accounts. He said: “Following the recent operation in Azizabad, Shindand district, we realise there is a large discrepancy between the number of civilian casualties reported by soldiers and local villagers. I remain responsible to continue to try and account for this disparity in numbers, but above all I want to express our heartfelt sorrow to all families that lost loved ones in this firefight.”
(Some of the mobile phone footage is at that Times link. It was shot by a doctor and the Times says "has been edited to remove the most graphic footage of dead children and adults". Even so, it's not for the faint of heart.)
It is entirely unclear just what North did to "corroborate" US military claims of Taliban deaths, but his efforts to bolster the military stance appear about to go down in the same flames that killed 90 Afghan civilians.
While doubtful, perhaps the US military should rethink their reliance on the fantastical stories of a known bullshit artist and pathological liar, someone who by all rights ought to be in prison.
I wonder if we'll see North answer questions about what he said and why he said it on FOX? Somehow, I doubt it.
Keith Olbermann covered the airstrike massacre during his Bushed! segment, its disastrous diplomatic aftermath and North's involvement on Monday: "Realising that a) he's not a journalist b) he's not independent and c) his eye-witnessing includes seeing things that aren't really there, the US military has now reversed its stance..."
Afghan and Western officials say Afghanistan's intelligence agency and the U.N. both have video of the aftermath of the Aug. 22 U.S. airstrikes on the village of Azizabad showing dozens of dead women and children.
The Afghan government and the U.N. have said the raid killed 90 civilians, including 60 children.
The U.S. military said in a statement Sunday it will send a general officer to review the findings of the initial U.S. investigation that up to 35 militants and seven civilians died.
The BBC adds more about the nature of the new evidence.
Video footage from mobile phones showing dozens of dead bodies has given increasing credibility to claims by local residents that up to 90 civilians were killed in the attack.
The footage shows bodies - many of them women and children - lined up in a mosque in the village of Azizabad, which was the subject of a combined ground operation and airstrike by US forces.
Both the Afghan government and the United Nations have already carried out their own investigations into the attack.
They say the video evidence, and the presence of a large number of fresh graves in the village, confirm the accounts of local people.
Until now, the US military has insisted that far fewer civilians died in what it says was a successful operation against Taleban militants in the area.
On Sunday, however, the senior US commander in Afghanistan, David McKiernan, said that in light of new evidence, he had asked for the American investigation to be reopened.
You can watch some of the video as part of a BBC World news report on the incident here.
Violence is still rising in Afghanistan, with a higher rate of US troop deaths now than Iraq even at its worse. More than more than 2,500 people, including 1,000 civilians, have been killed in the last six months and, overall, coalition forces have killed almost as many civilians as militants have. Airstrikes have been blamed for many of the deaths.
Just after the airstrike in Herat district, Afghan president Hamid Karzai visited grieving relatives and told them "I have been working day and night over the past five years to prevent such incidents, but I haven't been successful in my efforts. If I had succeeded, the people of Azizabad wouldn't be bathed in blood."
Afghans prepare graves for people killed by a US airstrike on Azizabad village in Herat province. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) says it has has found "convincing evidence" that 90 civilians -- including 60 children -- were killed in US-led air strikes last week.(AFP/File/Reza Shirmohammadi)
Some of you might remember this story from last Sunday. The UN has backed Afghan claims that a recent airstrike in Afghanistan didn't kill Taliban militants as the US military claims but instead killed 90 civilians, about 60 of them children. Under pressure, the US has now agreed to a joint investigation.
Evidence from all sides regarding the raid has been scant, with no conclusive photos or video emerging to shed light on what happened in Azizabad. But the claim of high civilian casualties by the Afghan government, which is backed by the U.N., is causing new friction between the Afghan president and his Western backers.
... The U.S. military says civilians are never deliberately targeted and that forces go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.
... Three Afghan officials said Thursday that U.S. commanders were misled into striking some 15 houses in Azizabad.
They said U.S. special forces troops and Afghan commandos raided the village while hundreds of people were gathered in a large compound for a memorial service honoring a tribal leader, Timor Shah, who was killed eight months ago by a rival clan.
The officials said the raid was aimed at militants who were supposed to be in the village, but they said the operation was based on faulty information provided by Shah's rival, whom they identified as Nader Tawakal.
Afghans targeted in U.S. raids have complained for years of being pursued based solely on information given by other Afghans who sometimes are business rivals, neighbors with vendettas or who are simply interested in reward money for anti-government militants.
The local Afghan version of what happened is terribly reminiscent of the "bounties for terrorists" system that led to literally tens of thousands of Iraqis being arrested after being fingered by neighbours with grudges. The US military have released 11,000 Iraqi detainees this year and about 20,000 remain in US-run prison camps at Camp Cropper in Baghdad and Camp Bucca in southern Iraq. It's also reminsicent of the bounty system that led to them filling Gitmo with detainees, over 80% of whom were later released without charge.
You'd think by now they'd have worked out that the bounty system isn't working, it's just being used to settle local grudges. That's piss poor COIN doctrine - losing hearts and minds even among the fingerers, who surely see the US as just an unthinking oppressor of whom they can take temporary advantage.
