US waves white flag in disastrous ‘war on drugs’

After 40 years, Washington is quietly giving up on a futile battle that has spread corruption and destroyed thousands of lives Read the full story

A senior Iranian anti-drug official has accused the US, Britain and Canada of playing a major role in Afghanistan’s lucrative drug trade.

On the sidelines of an anti-drug conference in Tehran, deputy head of Iran’s Drug Control Headquarters Taha Taheri said that Western powers are aiding the drug trade in Afghanistan.

“According to our indisputable information, the presence of the United States, Britain and Canada has not reduced the drug trade and the three countries have had major roles in the distribution of drugs,” IRIB quoted Taheri as saying on Thursday. Read the full story

I found this to be quite the interesting (and somewhat surprising) choice for 2009’s Person of the Year. What are your thoughts and opinions on TIME’s choice?

Ben Bernanke named Time Person of the Year Read the full story

Obama accepts Nobel prize with ‘difficult questions’ about war and peace

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In a spectacular snafu, the Transportation Security Administration stupidly posted an entire airport screening procedures manual on a government website. The 93-page document included details on special screening rules for diplomats, CIA and law enforcement officers; a list of items for which screening is not required (like wheelchairs, casts, orthopedic shoes); and the fun fact that during peak travel times, TSA screeners who check IDs only use black lights to authenticate 25% of documents. Some of these secrets were revealed because, apparently, somebody erroneously believed they were redacted. But The Wandering Aramean blog, which discovered the oopsy, explains why that didn’t work:

They apparently don’t understand how redaction works in the electronic document world. See, rather than actually removing the offending text from the document they just drew a black box on top of it. Turns out that PDF documents don’t really care about the black box like that and the actual content of the document is still in the file. Read the full story

The truth about Prince may be orders of magnitude stranger than fiction.

For the past six years, he appears to have led an astonishing double life. Publicly, he has served as Blackwater’s C.E.O. and chairman. Privately, and secretly, he has been helping [the C.I.A.] to craft, fund, and execute operations ranging from inserting personnel into “denied areas”—places U.S. intelligence has trouble penetrating—to assembling hit teams targeting al-Qaeda members. Read the full story

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHANK, Afghanistan – Veterans of Iraq recall rolling to war along asphalted highways, sweltering in flat scrublands and chatting with city-wise university graduates connected to the wider world.

Now fighting in Afghanistan, U.S. soldiers invariably encounter illiterate farmers who may never have talked to an American as they slog into remote villages on dirt tracks through bitterly cold, snow-streaked mountains.

“Before deploying here we were given training on language, culture, everything. I thought that since I was an Iraq combat veteran, I didn’t need any of that stuff. I was wrong. Both countries may be Muslim but this is a totally different place,” says Sgt. Michael McCann, returning from a patrol in the east-central province of Logar. Read the full story

Dear President Obama,

Do you really want to be the new “war president”? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do — destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they’ve always heard is true — that all politicians are alike. I simply can’t believe you’re about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn’t so. Read the full story

Support for the US mission in Afghanistan has slipped to a new low, with 44 percent of Americans now saying the war there has been worth the cost, according to a recently released poll.

Amid mounting divisiveness over what was once one of President Barack Obama’s top foreign policy issues, the poll by The Washington Post and ABC News also showed ratings for how he has handled the mission there eroding, to 45 percent approving of how he is dealing with Afghanistan and 47 disapproving, compared to 63 percent approval last year. Read the full story

When mainstream media began reporting on the shooting at Fort Hood, numerous reports surfaced stating multiple shooters were involved. Why haven’t we heard more information about these other shooters? Instead, allegations regarding Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s involvement have garnered the most attention from the mainstream media.

This video shows CNN interviewing Sgt. Maj. Jamie Poston. During this interview, Sgt. Maj. Jamie Poston confirms multiple times that more than one shooter was involved: Read the full story

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No easy options as Obama agonises over Afghan war

By Chris Otton (AFP)

KABUL — With Hamid Karzai confirmed as Afghan president for another five years, the pressure is on Barack Obama to declare his plans for winning a war which commanders say is in danger of being lost. Read the full story

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Located in Central Texas, Fort Hood is the Largest Active Duty Armored Post in the United States.

(CBS) Located just outside of Killen, Texas – about halfway between Austin and Waco – Fort Hood is the largest activity duty armored post in the United States. It is home to about 52,000 troops and according to Military.com, a military and veteran service organization, the total number of people working in the area for the armed services is about 300,000.

Fort Hood plays a major role in Army training and testing as well as developing new equipment and tactics. After 2001, terrorism became a major focus there as the base transitioned from being open to closed (although visitors are allowed to visit museums and other non-restricted parts of the base). Many Fort Hood units have been sent to Iraq and Afghanistan – the 4th Infantry Division was able to capture Saddam Hussein in 2003. Read the full story

The brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who faces a runoff election next week, is on the payroll of the CIA, the New York Times reports, citing unnamed current and former American officials.

The Times reports that Ahmed Wali Karzai has provided a variety of services for the CIA for the past eight years, including finding recruits for Afghan paramilitary forces that operate under the direction of the CIA. Read the full story

Obama Congratulates Karzai on Agreeing to Run-off By Paula Wolfson

White House
20 October 2009

U.S. President Barack Obama has called Afghan President Hamid Karzai to personally congratulate him for agreeing to take part in a run-off election on November 7. Afghanistan’s election commission called for another round of voting after a U.N.-backed commission determined the original August balloting was rife with fraud. Read the full story

Iran’s military suffered a heavy blow today when a suicide bomber killed at least 29 people in the country’s volatile south-east, including several Revolutionary Guard commanders.

The victims included the guards’ commander, General Noor Ali Shooshtari, thought to be the most senior member killed in recent years.

Local media said at least 28 had been wounded in the bombing at a conference hall in Sarbaz in Sistan-Baluchistan, Iran’s poorest province, as Revolutionary Guard commanders met local tribal elders.

Conflicting reports said an undetermined number of commanders had died. Initial accounts put the number at six, but Hosein Ali Shahriari, MP for Zahedan, the provincial capital, told the semi-official news agency ILNA, that at least 20 commanders had died.

Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh, chief commander of Sistan-Baluchistan province, was also killed.It was Iran’s highest military death toll since the end of the 1980-1988 Iraq war, the conservative website Tabnak said.

Officials immediately blamed Britain and the US as rescue workers sifted through wreckage searching for survivors. “Surely foreign elements, particularly those linked to the global arrogance [regime code for America and Britain], were involved in this attack,” a guards statement read out on state TV said.

Suspicion also centred on Jundullah, a militant Sunni group that has claimed responsibility for previous bombings.

Official reports were confused. The official news agency, IRNA, reported that an attacker with explosives blew himself up. The English-language state satellite channel, Press TV, said there were two simultaneous explosions: one at the meeting and another targeting an additional convoy of guards en route to the gathering.

The blast appeared to be a direct challenge to the Revolutionary Guards.

The elite force – seen as the guardian of Iran’s Islamic revolution – took over direct responsibility for Sistan-Baluchistan’s security this year after a spate of attacks.

The province has been a centre of recent unrest after Jundallah took up arms on behalf of the local Baluchi Sunni population, which it claims suffers discrimination at the hands of Iran’s Shia rulers.

In May, the group, led by Abdulmalek Rigi, claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a Shia mosque in Zahedan, the provincial capital, that killed 25. Iran later executed 13 members that it claimed were involved in the bombing. Iran has previously linked Jundallah to al-Qaida and claimed it was receiving American backing, something the US denies. Other sources have linked the organisation to the Taliban in Pakistan.

The speaker of Iran’s parliament, Ali Larijani, condemned today’s attack, claiming it was aimed at disrupting security in south-east Iran.

“The intention of the terrorists was definitely to disrupt security in Sistan-Baluchistan province,” Larijani told an open session of parliament broadcast live on state radio.

Jundullah has carried out bombings, kidnappings and other attacks against Iranian soldiers and other forces in recent years, including a car bombing in February 2007 that killed 11 members of the Revolutionary Guard near Zahedan.

Jundullah also claimed responsibility for the December 2006 kidnapping of seven Iranian soldiers in the Zahedan area. It threatened to kill them unless members of the group in Iranian prisons were released. The soldiers were released a month later, apparently after talks through tribal mediators.

In March 2006, 22 provincial officials were shot in cold blood on an isolated road between Zabol and Zahedan after being ambushed by alleged Jundullah gunmen.

Sistan-Baluchistan, which is Iran’s most notoriously lawless province, lies on a major drug transit run from Afghanistan. Nearly 4,000 Iranian security officers are believed to have been killed in clashes with smugglers since 1979.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/