« Independence Day - 2012 | Main | Trucks roll through the passes. »

04 July 2012

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

ex-PFC Chuck

Col., didn't you get the memo that the law now applies only to the little people and those who cross the powers that be?

alnval

Col. Lang:

I've been wondering for a while whether someone would raise that question about Keane. Thank you for doing it.

Just to be clear Keane is stating that Pakistan has established two different Afghan sanctuaries in Pakistan to gather/exchange/receive military information for Pakistan about NATO and the United States?

Regardless, why am I not surprised?


lally

Not sure where to post this although it roughly fits as an "unauthorized release":

"In a parallel development, Army Radio reported Tuesday morning that in an
interview Monday with former Pensioners' Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan, who
was Mossad chief at the time of Pollard's arrest, Eitan dropped a bombshell.
In the interview, Eitan blithely announced that he had had 24 hours notice
before Pollard was arrested and promptly called then prime minister Peres
and updated him. When asked why officials didn't use the 24 hour window to
prevent the arrest, Eitan declined to respond.

The Army Radio interviewer attempted to persuade Eitan to repeat the same
comment on record Tuesday, but Eitan responded that, "a slip of the tongue
is not something one repeats a second time."

http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=57344

So, who IS the traitor who warned the Israelis that their spy was going to be arrested?

mbrenner

Didnt this hypocracy become transparently evident when the White House ochestrated the self congratulatory leaks on the 'kill list' and on drones?

The bigger issue is that Washington cannot define the national interest in Afghanistan, define what success is, define what failure is, or offer any logical line of reasoning as to the method for getting from here to there - wherever 'there' is located. This is probably the first war in American history, and one of the few in world history, where the main protagonist doesn't know why it is fighting.

One might expect our corps of ace journalists to pop this question to the President and his minions. They seem more interested, though, in celebrating Hillary's reaching the century mark in the number of countries she's hpnored with her official presence and the number of pounds she's added gained in the process.

John Bennett

From my 26 years in the Foreign Service, 8 of which were in or about Viet Nam during our war there, I conclude you can't win such efforts without the active cooperation from the host government. We don't have it in Pakistan and I question whether we have it in Afghanistan. You can drone-bomb them but you can't make them allow you to run supplies in--you have to bribe them to do that. Bribery is only a short-term solution.

VietnamVet

“Sanctuaries” again echoes in an America’s war; police actions to maintain the status quo. But, no Empire can afford endless religious wars on the other side of the world. What is strange is the Retired General getting his dander up at Pakistan. American troops will leave sooner or later (2014). It is in the lowlanders self interest to maintain influence and keep the mountain tribes fighting among themselves rather than uniting and plundering the civilization below.

Meanwhile the pillage of the Western Bourgeoisie continues unreported. Two Trillion Dollars lost in American home equity with no end in sight. The UK is in a double dip recession. Although there is money to be made from the forever wars; perhaps, the best interest of the Elite is served by bringing the troops closer to home.

bth

The two sources of Ammonium Nitrate has been public for several years. I don't know about the bomb production locations but I've previously read in open source material of at least one he refers to. I'm not convinced he declassified anything that wasn't already public.

turcopolier

bth

You think the part about Pakistan briefing the Taliban on our operations is unclassified? pl

bth

Good point. Your right.

HankP

FYI Ammonium Nitrate is a fertilizer and it can also be used to make bombs. Just like any chemical factory that can make drugs or pesticides can also makes chemical weapons. Scientific knowledge is amoral and can be used for good or evil depending on who's employing it.

bth

The two ammonium nitrate plants do account for most of the ANFO IEDs. US approached the owners about putting tracers in it, but for what purpose I don't know as we already know its origin. The problem is that it is used in fertilizer in both Pak and Afghanistan as well as most everywhere else. I seem to recall that a couple of years ago Afghanistan banned its import, but that doesn't seem to have made any difference. One wonders what roads and checkpoints the trucks carrying it are using to get in from Pakistan. A couple of semi-truck loads can make a lot of IEDs when they only require 5 gallons or so at a time.

jonst

It depends how you define "protagonist" Prof. If you mean this nation, then no, we don't know why we are there. If you mean the Admin, then I disagree. They know why they are there...because they will not allow themselves to be in a position where they 'get out' of Afghanistan..and three days, or three weeks, or three months, or three years, later someone launches some attack that is alleged to have been hatched in Afghanistan. That's why we're there. No one got the balls to get out. That, and its a good place to make money. In many different ways too.

Walrus

Does America employ anyone like the fictional George Smiley?

Walrus

Pakistan requires the Taliban to exist as a counter to Indian influence.

Charles I

Surely that'd be like classified daylight.

Hope all had as happy a 4th as possible.

ked

when I heard him (still in uniform) give one of his kick-ass speeches he impressed, but a bit too certain & a bit too sanctimonious.

The comments to this entry are closed.

My Photo

February 2021

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
  1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28            
Blog powered by Typepad