Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

The Independent
By David Usborne
August 31, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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The Telegraph
By Ben Farmer, Kabul
August 19, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Stars and Stripes
July 4, 2011

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

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

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

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

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The Seattle Times
June 1, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Associated Press
April 12, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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Reuters
By Jane Sutton
January 4, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Washington Post
By Walter Pincus
January 24, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Press TV
January 3, 2011

Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government has strongly rejected the notion of establishing permanent US military bases in Afghanistan.

Chief presidential spokesman Waheed Omar said during a press conference in Kabul on Monday that the issue has never been discussed in meetings between officials of the two countries.

“We have announced earlier that we are in touch with United States on the issue of long-term strategic partnership but not on the possible establishment of a permanent US base in Afghanistan,” he said.

The remarks come after a senior congressman called for permanent US military bases in the war-ravaged country.

Senator Lindsay Graham said on Sunday that American air bases in the war-torn country would benefit the US and its Western allies, if maintained by the US military.

“We have had air bases all over the world and a couple of air bases in Afghanistan would allow the Afghan security forces an edge against the Taliban in perpetuity,” Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.

“It would be a signal to Pakistan that the Taliban are never going to come back. In Afghanistan they could change their behavior. It would be a signal to the whole region that Afghanistan is going to be a different place.”

About 150,000 NATO troops are currently fighting in Afghanistan with plans to stay in the country beyond 2014.

This is while US President Barack Obama had pledged a major drawdown from Afghanistan by July 2011. Experts have described the new transition dates as a devastating truth for Americans. …

www.presstv.ir/detail/158511.html

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Associated Press
January 2, 2011

A leading GOP lawmaker on U.S. military policy says he wants American officials to consider establishing permanent military bases in Afghanistan.

Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina says that having a few U.S. air bases in Afghanistan would be a benefit to the region and would give Afghan security forces an edge against the Taliban.

Graham tells NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he wants to see the U.S. have “an enduring relationship” with Afghanistan to ensure that it never falls back into the hands of terrorists.

President Barack Obama plans to begin drawing down American forces in Afghanistan next year and hand over security to Afghan forces in 2014.

Obama has talked about an enduring presence in Afghanistan but not exactly what that would entail. …

www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iFZIGlR7kMiiDL7-4oUyJcofOoNg?docId=cea6b988bdbd46b9b0a7e03a8cc3d4a5

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ABC Online
November 7, 2010

Defence Minister Stephen Smith discusses Australia’s role in Afghanistan and the strengthening of military ties with the US.

STEPHEN SMITH: … the NATO ISAF summit in Lisbon later this month will be dealing very directly with the transition in Afghanistan.

So we’re obviously part of the 47 country international security assistance force. Everyone has agreed we have got to transition to Afghanistan security competence and responsibility. And so Lisbon is a very important both NATO and ISAF summit to start mapping out the transition to Afghan responsibility.

We continue to be of the view that we can do our bit, our job in Oruzgan on the next two to four years training the Afghan National Army and police in Oruzgan province. …

we’ll be saying to the rest of the international community that we are committed to transitioning to Afghan-led security in Afghanistan, that whilst we can’t leave tomorrow, we can’t be there forever.

So we have to train the Afghan National Army, the Afghan national police and the local police forces to be in a position to manage security arrangements themselves.

And this is the strategy and the approach that we have outlined.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Not there forever but you will be there for at least 10 years?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well our current training mission we see being done in two to four years which is consistent with the timetable set by the Afghanistan conference in Kabul earlier this year.

But after that we do envisage the capacity for us to be there in some oversight or embed capacity. Time will tell what the detail and circumstances of that are. …

the United States is conducting what’s called a force posture review, looking at how it positions its forces throughout the world.

It has bases in other countries – Japan for example. It has a presence in the Republic of Korea. And in Australia, of course, we have joint facilities.

So in the course of the United States considering its force posture review, the possibility arises that the United States could utilise more Australia. And that’s very high on the agenda for AUSMIN today. …

… the United States is a significant power. It conducts strategic reviews from time to time as we do. And so you look to the future.

But it’s also making changes to the disposition of its forces throughout the Asia-Pacific, reducing, for example, the number of forces it has in Japan. So it’s looking at those matters.

But we welcome it very much because we want to see the United States engaged in the Asia-Pacific. That’s very important to Australia. It’s very important to stability in our region. We’ve had that stability since the end of World War II, largely as a result of United States presence.

So an enhanced engagement is something we very strongly support, whether that’s, for example, through the United States joining an expanded East Asia Summit or the United States taking part, as Australia did, in the ASEAN Plus defence ministers’ meeting.

All of these things are unambiguously good things for our region and also for Australia.

It’s certainly in our national interest to be very positively disposed to enhancing our engagement in that military and defence cooperation sense.

View a video of this interview or read the transcript here:
www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/11/07/3059281.htm

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