Letter Never Sent Tell me when to go.

Special forces who foiled assassination attempt [Actually, an Afghan youth foiled the attempt] on Afghan leader replaced by private security guards:

DynCorp has been involved in a series of recent high-profile scandals. A substantial financial backer of Bush’s election campaign, the company employs almost 25,000 staff, many of them former US military personnel, working in areas from security to aircraft maintenance.

While much of DynCorp’s work is of a non-controversial nature, it has become embroiled in a series of damaging allegations involving personnel in sensitive missions overseas.

DynCorp personnel contracted to the United Nations police service in Bosnia were implicated in buying and selling prostitutes, including a girl as young as 12. Several DynCorp employees were also accused of videotaping the rape of one of the women.

When a fellow DynCorp employee blew the whistle on the sex ring, she was dismissed by the company for drawing attention to their misbehaviour, according to the ruling of a British industrial tribunal earlier this year.

According to a recent article in New Republic magazine, DynCorp staff allegedly contracted to the CIA were involved in the accidental shooting down of a plane carrying US missionaries in Peru which had wrongly been identified as a drug smuggling aircraft. …

Defending the decision to remove Karzai’s special forces bodyguard, a spokesman for the Department of Defense said the decision to recall the US troops had been intended to take place around the time of the assassination attempt in September, but that the switchover had been put off because of the incident.

DynCorp refused to comment, telling The Observer it had been ‘gagged’ over talking about the Afghan deal.

It was left to the State Department to offer a rationale. ‘Responsibility for Mr Karzai’s security was handed over earlier this month to the Diplomatic Security Service,’ said an official, speaking anonymously. ‘DynCorp personnel are involved in the detail that is being managed by the Diplomatic Security Service officials who have long experience in providing this kind of protection.’

So, now American tax dollars are going to support the protection of a corrupt Afghan warlord, our friend Karzai, by a corrupt, Bush-election-supporting, murdering, child-raping corporation? I’m proud to be an American, how about you?

Every time I read an article about the resistance to American occupation or ‘nation-building’ in Afghanistan I always notice some line like this:

Afghan forces tightened security in Khost and were stopping cars and searching them. American attack helicopters were circling above the city, the official said.

U.S. forces based in eastern Afghanistan are hunting al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives near the Pakistan border. Unknown attackers sometimes fire rockets and other weapons at the troops or their bases, but they rarely hit their target.

Is it really necessary whenever describing new attacks against American Special Forces goons that Afghan rocket attacks rarely hit their targets? It makes me think the US is afraid people will get the idea that anyone can successfully oppose the American military. I hope the Afghans are successful in driving the US military out of their country. Let’s hope no one else has to dies because of this stupidity.

Al Quaeda meow meow. Has Al Quaeda just become some umbrella term for non-cooperative Arabs? Afghan War Faltering, Military Leader Says: Myers Cites Al Qaeda’s Ability to Adapt:

The U.S. military is losing momentum in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan because the remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban have proven more successful in adapting to U.S. tactics than the U.S. military has to theirs, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said this week.

Gen. Richard B. Myers also said there is a debate taking place within the Pentagon about whether the United States needs to change its priorities in Afghanistan and de-emphasize military operations in favor of more support for reconstruction efforts.

“I think in a sense we’ve lost a little momentum there, to be frank,” Myers said in after-dinner comments Monday night at the Brookings Institution. “They’ve made lots of adaptations to our tactics, and we’ve got to continue to think and try to out-think them and to be faster at it.” …

In his remarks at Brookings, Myers said al Qaeda has proven to be an agile adversary, adapting its electronic communications to prevent intercepts and securing the way it passes money. His comments, released by Brookings on Wednesday, reflect a concern that many senior U.S. officials have expressed privately in recent months that the military establishment has been too slow to adapt in its response to the al Qaeda threat, both in its special operations tactics and its weapons procurement.

One official close to Rumsfeld said this week that, in his view, the military still is largely geared to changing at the glacial pace of the Cold War, during which shifts in military doctrine and weaponry in the Soviet Union occurred generationally. Al Qaeda and its allies have shown “an ability to change by the month,” the official said.

A detailed analysis just released by the U.S. Army War College reported that al Qaeda fighters have been quick to adapt to the high-tech weaponry the United States used in its attack on the network. When the United States first began bombing in Afghanistan last October, the report said, Taliban and al Qaeda fighters made easy targets, even standing on ridges where they were visible to Special Operations spotters miles away.

Stephen Biddle, the report’s author, wrote that by March, during the last major U.S.-led offensive against al Qaeda in southeastern Afghanistan, “Al Qaeda forces were practicing systematic communications security, dispersal, camouflage discipline, use of cover and concealment, and exploitation of dummy fighting positions to draw fire and attention from their real positions.”

Added one senior officer: “It’s the general consensus within the [special operations] community that al Qaeda is extremely adaptive and very cagey. These guys are not weekend terrorists.”

No, you guys are the well-fed, well-heeled weekend terrorists.

Now when an American soldier or government official gets assassinated how will the US decry the act? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander apparently. Assassination is alive and well in the current administration. Who will they put a hit on next? Hugo Chavez, Vincente Fox, Saddam Hussein? Outrageous and contemptible.

Russia Helicopter Downed in Chechnya, Nine Dead: It may be inconsistent for a pacifist to express this sentiment, but I can’t help but to root for the Chechens. They’ve been fighting the Russian absolutists in one guise or another for several hundred years. I admire their doggedness and determination.

And people around the world are getting sick of it. It is time to shrug off the parasites that attempt to propel us into war. These Russian kids have the right idea. Maybe it’s time to stop paying taxes that go towards murder.

Russian youth dodge conscript military:

While America fights a war on terror with overwhelming public approval, families here are scrambling to avoid sending their boys to Russia’s own war against an Islamist foe in Chechnya. And this czarist-era capital of Russia has become a hotbed of antiwar activism. So strong is the resistance to the draft in this city, the army is forcibly conscripting boys by dragging them from high school classes in handcuffs and arresting them on the streets, to be sent off to the army, lawyers and war resistance groups say.

Draft dodging is fueled reports of desertions and mistreatment of soldiers, and by widespread anger at government’s seeming indifference to the depravations that ordinary Russians face.

“Nobody I know is willing to go to the military,” said Artur Getrimas, an 18-year-old who has hired a lawyer in an attempt to get a deferral. “I don’t think my country deserves to be loved and respected because it doesn’t provide a good life for its people. Corruption is everywhere, and those people who have no money or connections are stuck on the lowest level, and everyone kicks them around.”

Remember, this kind of crap could and does happen here. When I was a senior in high school military recruiters would call and try to give me the hard sell because they needed warm bodies. There are bills in Congress which would require public schools to provide the personal information of graduating seniors to military recruiters for the purpose of seducing young people to join the mercenary army of the United States. There was also a bill which would have required all 18 year olds to serve the United States for a two-year stint.

And so the White House is trying to say something to the effect of, ‘We don’t want the oil. Honest.’ Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice..how does that go, George?

White House: U.S. Doesn’t Plan to Control Iraq’s Oil:

“The only interest the United States has in the region is furthering the cause of peace and stability … not his country’s ability to generate oil,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters.

Iraq has oil reserves of 112 billion barrels, second only to Saudi Arabia, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

When asked if the United States would take over Iraq’s oil fields if the U.S. attacked Iraq, Fleischer responded: “No. The purpose of any plan the United States has is to make certain that Saddam Hussein complies with all U.N. resolutions.” …

When asked, Fleischer refused to say whether the U.S. military might administer Iraq’s oil fields.

“I think that it’s impossible for anybody to speculate about anything and everything that could possibly happen under any military scenario. And I wouldn’t even try to start guessing what the military may or may not do,” he said.

And then there’s this, despite the White House’s outright lies and deceptions. US sets meeting on exploiting Iraqi oil after Hussein:

(10/30/2002 – OGI: Washington) The US State Department has pushed back its planned meeting with Iraqi opposition leaders on exploiting Iraq’s oil and gas reserves after a US military offensive removes Saddam Hussein from power to early December. According to a source at the State Department, all the desired participants are not yet available.

The Bush administration wants to have a working group of 12 to 20 people focused on Iraqi oil and gas to be able to recommend to an interim government ways of restoring the petroleum sector following a military attack in order to increase oil exports to partially pay for a possible US military occupation government – further fueling the view that controlling Iraqi oil is at the heart of the Bush campaign to replace Hussein with a more compliant regime.

As the current chestnut goes, regime change starts at home. Down with the Bush military junta.

And so it goes. Why don’t the Russians just leave Chechnya?

Daily Texan: SG adopts resolution opposing war

“This makes the statement that the student body of the nation’s largest university and in Bush’s hometown feels that an unprovoked war is wrong,” said SG two-year at-large Representative Jordan Buckley, author of the resolution and a key mediator in the evening’s debate.

The anti-war resolution, thought by most representatives to stand little chance of passing, condemns Saddam Hussein but opposes any pre-emptive attack against Iraq.

The bitter debate fought not only the resolution, but the assembly’s right to vote on a resolution at all.

“For those of you who feel it is inappropriate to debate foreign policy within the Student Government institution, please realize that it is more inappropriate that people die at the hands of the United States,” said Amber Novak, a journalism graduate student.