Wounded Afghans say U.S. forces fired on civilians after suicide bomb

[BoarSpear]

Boar, the fact that basic reading comprehension is beyond you means ...



As Boar's continued mental impairment,

It's just a shame it's me saying it and not some dope-smoking white haired gong-fu master biker. Maybe then you wouldn't have so much trouble separating the person from the idea. Maybe then, you'd listen.

As it stands, I imagine you'll just try to pick and quote why this means I'm prejudiced against dope-smoking bikers.

I think your inability to post without attacking me directly shows your lack of anything but a preprogrammed response from your Psychological Operations Training and HANDBOOK. Psyops is his job for you civilians. Interesting since in the Military Tactics Forum in the thread asking who was in the service or a Vet, Mike Brewer replied thats he has been in the Army 1999-PRESENT.

Mike B - US Army, 1999-Present

http://www.defend.net/deluxeforums/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=226488

...seems to me he's still earning that paycheck...DENY, EVADE, COUNTER ACCUSE. outright lie, if all else fails blame someone else for your failings. Always attack the character of the enemy, dehumanize and belittle...yeah thats your style, alright.

So to sum it up, I live in America and as a Vet I damn sure have the right to express my opinions of Wars in places I served and have family and friends/students currently serving.


Don't like my post? I don't care, I don't like you...So you said you didn't want to talk to me, so don't. I don't intend to address you unless addressed BY you.

Sup to YOU how long the senseless attacks and arguments go on.

[BoarSpear]

And Boar, your attack on XF just proves how stubborn you are when it comes to admitting you're dead wrong.

You don't know anything about him or what he's done, who he's talked to, or where he's been. Last I checked, you didn't have to be in the military to have an opinion. If you did, all those journalists you're so fond of quoting are as full of it as anyone. Reporters are not soldiers, but you report their stories like gospel, and stand by them all as "informing the public." When's the last time you questioned them on where they served?

Besides, you don't have to go to war to see how people get treated here at home, and frankly, the soldiers aren't the ones mistreating vets. So XF has more right to speak as to the consequences of your irresponsible behavior than you or even I do. He wasn't talking about what happens at war, but what happens here at home because of the very kinds of things you are doing and posting. As a civilian and an American, I believe he has all the qualifications he needs to speak on that.

How does it feel to be a part of the problem?

XF attacked me AS a vet, so I just asked from what experience he spoke? Otherwise he cant comment on me as anyone with anything EXCEPT a perspective of an outsider when it comes to warfighting.

You know how you all preach on this site how people who havent had mma ring experience lack any knowledge of fighting? Well people who aint EVER even been in the Military might wanna consider that little thought before they question/attack people who have been in war zones personally. oh but wait combat zone experience isnt a fair analogy for reality I bet.

[Tom Yum]

Results.

Alright, this personal attack stuff across both lines isn't making any progress.

Let's focus on real results, people.

U.S. Soldiers and Marines are coming back home with mental if not physical damage. From what we read in press releases, see in television and hear in radio broadcasts - alot of their medical treatment is substandard. Working conditions in the VA sound substandard too.

They are welcomed back by their families, but received by an indifferent society after risking life and limb for the Commander in Chief.

In some cases, society is hostile toward these men and women. And this is very clear on other message boards or post-boards that are more anonymous than ours. When they try to share their experiences, they get blank stares or shrugged off indiference.

If anything, the soldiering profession needs a booster shot in the arm. Not only in terms of salary and benefits (like medical) but image too. WSJ writer for the military, Thomas Ricks points out the military is something that everyone else's kid does. He also points out that our country's psyche is growing farther and farther apart from the military, all while we get closer and closer to our next major global conflict.

I've heard this confirmed by several veterans now entering the civillian job market too. Most people don't have any idea of what our men and women in armed services may have to go through; I know I don't...

If the veterans and concerned members on defend.net are going to be part of the solution and not part of the problem, we're going to have to drop the personal attacks, come up with real solutions and send them rolling up to our state and national representatives.

I vote that we create two defend.net departments for doing such

Geopolitical planning, strategy and public affairs
Headed by none other than Mike Brewer.

Ground tactics, warriorhood and quality control
Boar's in charge here.

The two departments are to be brokered by Tim Mousel, assisted by Gregimotis (in other words, you guys break up the fights between both departments and come up with fair solutions for said disputes).

[Troll Virus]

lol, hadn't heard that one myself, but i can say with a fair degree of confidence that he's not talking about booze.

Oh for sure, booze plus any number of substances.

Not sure i follow the distinction you're making. Are you saying if a third party is making the judgement and they say you're not as bad as the worst, then you're ok? Still doesn't sound good to me.

That's a matter of perspective.

Assuming that to be true for a moment's discussion, how do you feel about that? How would you feel if your home town was occupied by a force comprised of men no more intelligent, merciful, or morally upright than yourself?

That'd seem like any other wednesday afternoon to me.

On what authority would they hold the power to take your life? How could you relate to them if whenever there was a dispute they had the option of saying "Well this is getting boring, we don't want to debate with you over philosophy anymore, do as we say or we shoot"?

On WHAT authority indeed?

How is an invasion different from a mugging? Well, maybe i should amend the statement, because depending on which side you're on the two may appear highly analogous. The difference isn't so much in the scenarios as it is in which side are you on. Are you invading/attacking or being invaded/defending.

It's well known that the VICTOR writes the history.
Rights and wrongs are another matter entirely.
The question is; do you rely on someone elses morality, or your own?

[Troll Virus]

You think I'm backing you up? Or that your frickin opinion matters to me?

Neither

You had me in your sig as "Faggot"

Don't recall that I did, but everyone here remembers me being in your own sig, way before and long after whatever slight it is you deem to have imagined on your person.

...And YES my daughter was raped...Rape pisses me off, so do people who defend it and help hide it.

Which, instead of dealing with it rationally, you lash out at all and sundry, like you're the only person on the planet who's had a hard time.

As for Mike trying to help, you pmed him and begged him to plead your case because you were concerned I would turn the board against you

OK, now, you're desperate.
If Mike doesn't have copies of those PM's, then I give staff here full permission to access them and paste them onto the main board.
I simply tried to make peace with you, feeling missunderstood, but you were simply not big enough to do that.
I didn't realise at the time of asking that you and Mike had issues, but to be fair to Mike, from what I gather, he tried anyway.
Whoe the **** are you that I should Kow Tow to you anyway?

...Like people listen to me in the first place...you might notice at that time I didnt know Brewer And we got along, once I got to know him that changed, but that was after you were here with Andy Murray and Nutter in tow...

You were'nt paying attention, nor are you. I AM Andy Murray.
As stated recently, I joined this forum a long time before those trolls and probably before you.
How on earth do you get to know people on a forum though?
I've met over 50 people from MA forums, and they never resemble their online personas at first glance.

[7r14ngL3Ch0k3]

You were'nt paying attention, nor are you. I AM Andy Murray.
As stated recently, I joined this forum a long time before those trolls and probably before you.

Lmao, just because your join date says "2002" doesnt mean you didnt have gimmick accounts of "andy murray", "nutter", "jones", etc.

How on earth do you get to know people on a forum though?
I've met over 50 people from MA forums, and they never resemble their online personas at first glance.

[Blue Wave Gym]

oh and here's one more

every year 100,000 + people die in auto accidents in the U.S. this figure might even be the number of deaths due to d.w.i. anyway I heard this figure a while ago. So let's have some news coverage on that for once.

[Troll Virus]

While we're all firing out statistics on rape, murder & assault etc.
Can anyone tell me how many people die each year of Heroin overdose?
Can anyone tell me how much of the crimes, including rape, assault burglary and muggings are induced by Opiates.
It'd seem to me that there always were WOMD to be dealt with.
It seems to me that not enough is being done about them.
While China is guilty of production, Afghanistan is kind of handy, cos we're over there anyway.
If the token few troops, giving the rest a bad name have so much free time on their hands, then couldn't we appeal to them to divert their energies into burning every single Poppy field they see?

After the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, the new Iranian regime was much more tolerant of opium production. At the same time, the Soviet-Afghan war led to increased production in the Pakistani-Afghani border regions. Both events led to increased international production of heroin at lower prices in the 1980s.

Traffic is heavy worldwide, with the biggest producer being Afghanistan. According to U.N. sponsored survey, as of 2004, Afghanistan accounted for production of 87 percent of the world's heroin. Opium production in that country has increased rapidly since, reaching an all-time high in 2006. War once again appeared as a facilitator of the trade.

Monday, Aug. 02, 2004
Terrorism's Harvest
By Tim McGirk | Kabul
U.S. forces hot on the trail of Osama bin Laden and the leaders of the Taliban in late 2001 didn't worry much about elderly, pious-looking men like Haji Juma Khan. A towering tribesman from the Baluchistan desert near Pakistan, Khan was picked up that December near Kandahar and taken into U.S. custody. Though known to U.S. and Afghan officials as a drug trafficker, he seemed an insignificant catch. "At the time, the Americans were only interested in catching bin Laden and [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar," says a European counterterrorism expert in Kabul. "Juma Khan walked."

That decision has come back to haunt the U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan. Western intelligence agencies believe that Khan has become the kingpin of a heroin-trafficking enterprise that is a principal source of funding for the Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists. According to a Western antinarcotics official, since slipping out of Afghanistan after U.S. forces released him, Khan has helped al-Qaeda establish a smuggling network that is peddling Afghan heroin to buyers across the Middle East, Asia and Europe, and in turn is using the drug revenues to purchase weapons and explosives. A Western law-enforcement official in Kabul who is tracking Khan says that after a tip-off in May, agents in Pakistan and Afghanistan turned up evidence that Khan is employing a fleet of cargo ships to move Afghan heroin out of the Pakistani port of Karachi. The official says that on return trips from the Middle East, at least three vessels brought back arms, such as plastic explosives and antitank mines, which were secretly unloaded in Karachi and shipped overland to al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Khan is now a marked man. "He's obviously very tightly tied to the Taliban," says Robert Charles, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement. Mirwais Yasini, head of the Afghan government's Counter-Narcotics Directorate, says, "There are central linkages among Khan, Mullah Omar and bin Laden."

The emergence of Khan's network reflects the challenges the U.S. still faces in Afghanistan. Since ousting the Taliban in December 2001, the U.S. has struggled to hunt down al-Qaeda's leaders, disarm Afghanistan's warlords and shore up President Hamid Karzai against a revived Taliban-led insurgency. The renewed trade in opium has worsened all those problems. A recent World Bank report calculates that more than half of the country's economy is tied up in drugs. The combined income of farmers and in-country traffickers reached $2.23 billion last year?up from $1.3 billion in 2002. Heroin trafficking has long been the main source of funds for many local warlords' private armies, which continue to thwart Karzai's attempts to expand his authority beyond Kabul. But the drug trade is becoming even more dangerous: U.S. and British counterterrorism experts say al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies are increasingly financing operations with opium sales. Antidrug officials in Afghanistan have no hard figures on how much al-Qaeda and the Taliban are earning from drugs, but conservative estimates run into tens of millions of dollars.

Al-Qaeda's foray into drugs dates from the days when the Taliban ruled the country. Though most devout Muslims consider narcotics taboo, bin Laden never directly condemned drug sales. A Western antinarcotics official says that in early 2001 al-Qaeda's financial experts joined forces with Khan and other alleged top Afghan drug traffickers to persuade Taliban leader Omar to ban opium cultivation. The ban was self-serving: it drove up opium prices from $30 per kilogram to nearly $650. That meant huge profits for the Taliban and their trafficker friends who were sitting on large stockpiles when prices soared.

Neither the Taliban nor al-Qaeda actually grows opium poppy. Their involvement is higher up the drug chain, where profits are fatter and so is their cut of the deal. Yasini, the Afghan antidrug czar, says the terrorists receive a share of profits from heroin sales by supplying gunmen to protect labs and convoys. Recent busts have revealed evidence of al-Qaeda's ties to the trade. On New Year's Eve, a U.S. Navy vessel in the Arabian Sea stopped a small fishing boat that was carrying no fish. After a search, says a Western antinarcotics official, "they found several al-Qaeda guys sitting on a bale of drugs." In January, U.S. and Afghan agents raided a drug runner's house in Kabul and found a dozen or so satellite phones. The phones were passed to the CIA station in Kabul, which found they had been used to call numbers linked to suspected terrorists in Turkey, the Balkans and Western Europe. "It was an incredibly sophisticated network," says the official. In March U.S. troops searching a suspected terrorist hideout in Oruzgan province after a firefight found opium with an estimated street value of $15 million.

Antidrug officials say the only way to cut off al-Qaeda's pipeline is to attack it at the source: by destroying the poppy farms themselves. This year, Afghanistan's opium harvest is expected to exceed 3,600 tons?making it the biggest crop since 1999 and enough to produce street heroin worth $36 billion.

For their part, U.S. military commanders have been reluctant to commit the nearly 20,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan to opium eradication, fearing that doing so would divert attention from the hunt for terrorists. Afghan officials say that several times last year U.S. special forces spotted suspicious convoys that appeared to be ferrying opium. Radioing in for orders, the special forces were told to leave the convoy alone and keep hunting for al-Qaeda, the Afghan officials say. A senior Afghan security official says the U.S. military doesn't want to jeopardize the help it receives from local commanders by seizing drug stashes or busting labs controlled by friendly warlords.

But the U.S. is finally starting to pay attention. Its ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, has tapped top Drug Enforcement Administration official Harold D. ("Doug") Wankel to lead an intensified drive to nail kingpins, shut down heroin-production labs, eradicate poppy fields and persuade farmers to plant food crops. If the drug cartels aren't stopped, the U.S. fears, they could sow more chaos in Afghanistan, which al-Qaeda and the Taliban could exploit to wrest back power. "We need to make a difference in the next couple of years," says Wankel. Miwa Kato, a Kabul-based officer for the U.N.'s Office on Drugs and Crime, puts it this way: "The opium problem has the capacity to undo everything that's being done here to help the Afghans." Few outcomes would please America's enemies more.

[Troll Virus]

Recently..

Afghanistan: Kabul Conference Focuses On Increased Opium Farming
By Ron Synovitz

Despite Afghan government efforts, opium production has reportedly risen in the last year
(AFP)
PRAGUE, August 22, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- The Afghan government today is hosting its second counternarcotics conference in Kabul -- with plans to announce new details about its antidrug efforts.

The meeting comes amid warnings from Western and Afghan officials about record opium cultivation this year -- up by as much as 40 percent over 2005. Much of the increase appears to be in the southern provinces like Helmand, where fierce fighting has prevented the government's poppy eradication efforts from taking hold.

Afghan Counternarcotics Minister Habibullah Qadiri says opium cultivation has likely increased this year, even though three times more poppy fields have been eradicated than last year.

Speaking on the eve of today's antidrug conference in Kabul, Qadiri told reporters that a lack of security in Helmand Province has allowed as much as a threefold increase in poppy cultivation there.

"Narcotics has got to be eradicated from this country or there will never be the peace and stability in the long term." NATO commanderWestern officials and diplomats have told RFE/RL that a report to be published on September 12 by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime will show that more Afghan farmland is being used to grow opium poppies than ever before.

Offering Farmers Alternatives

Mohammad Mosa Hamid, an adviser to Afghanistan's Counternarcotics Ministry, told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that he initially was surprised to hear what Western officials are saying.

"We hear some information from here and there [about increased poppy cultivation this year], but we need to wait until we receive the evidence," he said. "And then we can judge whether poppy has been cultivated [at a record level] or not. I hope it hasn't...I do not think that poppy cultivation has increased because we have aid programs distributing seeds for alternative crops."

Hamid explained that the focus of the government's counternarcotics strategy has been to help wean farmers away from growing opium poppies and reiterates that far more poppy fields across Afghanistan have been destroyed this year compared to last year.

"We have been launching such programs this year -- successful programs like providing farmers with alternative livelihoods," he added. "And we have tried to explain to them through other legal ways that the poppy illness is a bad thing. It causes a lot of problems internally and internationally."

The Afghan government has not yet completed its own national survey of the areas being planted with poppies.
The British government, which has a lead role in supporting Afghan counternarcotics programs, also says it wants to wait until the new UN statistics are published before commenting on the report.

Southern Violence Hampers Efforts

But privately, British and U.S. officials in Kabul and London say there is no doubt that poppy cultivation has risen significantly since last year -- possibly by as much as 40 percent.

Notably, they say cultivation did not increase across all of Afghanistan's provinces. Eradication efforts have been successful in some parts of the country. But they say the resurgence of Taliban-related violence in southern Afghanistan this year has prevented eradication efforts from being effective in Helmand and other volatile provinces.

According to some officials, Helmand Province now accounts for more than 40 percent of opium poppy cultivation nationwide.

ISAF forces in the south have not dealt with narcotics for fear of provoking a backlash (epa)Tom Koenigs, the top UN official in Afghanistan, has said that fears of fanning the insurgency have constrained efforts to destroy the poppy crops of impoverished farmers in Helmand. Koenigs said that if foreign troops start destroying poppy fields, the effort will lead to a popular backlash that increases both the number of Taliban fighters and their attacks.

For that reason, officials say, little eradication work has been done by the Afghan government or British soldiers deployed to Helmand this year as part of the expanding NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

The ISAF commander, Lieutenant General David Richards, told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that bringing security to remote provincial areas has been a more immediate priority than opium eradication.

Counternarcotics "isn't my principal concern," Richards said. "If we are asked by the government to support an operation to do with narcotics in some way, we will positively look at it. And that is our obligation to them."

Indeed, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government faced a backlash from farmers in southern Afghanistan last year amid rumors that Western military aircraft were being used to spray poison chemicals on poppy fields.

Lieutenant General Richards said the rumors about foreign troops being deployed to destroy poppy fields are not true.

Confronting Narcotics

"NATO-ISAF is not targeting farmers," he said. "We understand exactly that there must be other ways for them to make a living before we stop them -- if we ever got involved with it -- growing their poppy, because they have to feed their families in some way.


"We also know that, at the end of the day, narcotics has got to be eradicated from this country or there will never be the peace and stability in the long term," Richards added. "So [counternarcotics efforts are] there. But it is not our immediate agenda. And we have other things that we'd like to do to help people out of their predicament."

Kabul's counternarcotics strategy received international backing in the spring at the London Conference on Afghanistan. That strategy envisions Afghan officials leading the effort with foreign troops providing support only when requested to do so by Kabul.

But the apparent increased cultivation in the south has raised fresh concerns about links between Taliban fighters and Afghan drug lords.

President Karzai also has said that corruption within provincial governments, as well as within the administration in Kabul, has contributed to the problem.

Positive Results, Too

The issues are expected to dominate today's conference in Kabul on Afghanistan's counternarcotics strategy.

New or amended drug laws are anticipated along with the construction of high-security prisons, the creation of special courts for drug barons, and a program to train judges and prosecutors about the narcotics trade.

Some success has resulted from the millions of dollars given by the United States and Britain to help combat Afghanistan's flourishing drug trade.

With the help of a strong governor and police chief, the eastern Nangarhar Province reduced opium output by 96 percent last year. Since March of this year, counternarcotics police have raided 10 opium laboratories throughout the country -- seizing 1,225 kilograms of heroin and nearly 800 kilograms of opium.

[gregimotis]

Lmao, just because your join date says "2002" doesnt mean you didnt have gimmick accounts of "andy murray", "nutter", "jones", etc.

This is not directed at you numbers, I just want to put it to bed -

Troll Virus showed up here a long time before the nutter events and trolled a couple other trolls who (appearantly) had come here from another forum he was involved in.

It's not just his word, I remember the event because I thought it was a pretty novel way to handle trolling.

[The_Judo_Jibboo]

This talk about all the other stuff that's wrong that Boar should be addressing is ridiculous. We all have causes that speak to us more urgently than to the average person. This is important because it keeps us alert, it helps to prevent things from slipping through the cracks. If you guys are really so concerned over drug abuse and the dangers of driving a car, fantastic. Tell us about it, inform us, fill in our blind spots.

Can we not address an issue if we don't at the same time address everything horrible in the world? Can we not point out problems if they are not the absolute biggest problem in existence?

The government (notice i'm not saying "Bush", as far as i'm concerned there's no one in government today any better than Bush) would love it if they could deflect our attention like that. Imagine how happy they would be if they could say "yeah things aren't perfect in Iraq, but more people die a year from slipping on icy pavement" and we all yelled "holy crap! forget about Iraq, i gotta go buy some salt!" We need eyes on every problem, that is the importance of people who feel called to illuminate a certain, specific cause.

[The_Judo_Jibboo]

I good soldier goes and does what he is told to do, nothing more.

your definition of a "good soldier" makes a piss-poor human being in my book.

[Uke]

This talk about all the other stuff that's wrong that Boar should be addressing is ridiculous. We all have causes that speak to us more urgently than to the average person. This is important because it keeps us alert, it helps to prevent things from slipping through the cracks. If you guys are really so concerned over drug abuse and the dangers of driving a car, fantastic. Tell us about it, inform us, fill in our blind spots.

Can we not address an issue if we don't at the same time address everything horrible in the world? Can we not point out problems if they are not the absolute biggest problem in existence?

The government (notice i'm not saying "Bush", as far as i'm concerned there's no one in government today any better than Bush) would love it if they could deflect our attention like that. Imagine how happy they would be if they could say "yeah things aren't perfect in Iraq, but more people die a year from slipping on icy pavement" and we all yelled "holy crap! forget about Iraq, i gotta go buy some salt!" We need eyes on every problem, that is the importance of people who feel called to illuminate a certain, specific cause.

Great post. However, I believe stating that Boarspear was somehow remiss for not taking on all the world's ills was just a childish remark made to add some momentum to a weak argument.

[The_Judo_Jibboo]

It's not my definition. It is what it is.

It what sense does doing what he is told make a soldier "good"? It might make him a good soldier from the point of view of the officers issuing orders because it makes him the ideal pawn, still makes him a poor excuse for an individual if he signs over his judgement entirely to another man.

[The_Judo_Jibboo]

you know what, on second thought i really don't want to get into another definition debate, you'd think a dictionary was something hard to come by judging by assertions made on this forum occasionally.
don't tell me "it is what it is" unless you've got a dictionary you want to cite. otherwise, you're talking in connotations, shades of meaning and interpretations.