Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Wednesday 15 August 2012


6 New Messages

Digest #4462

Messages

Tue Aug 14, 2012 5:55 am (PDT) . Posted by:

"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_08_14/Afghan-syndrome-to-take-place-of-Vietnam-syndrome/

Voice of Russia
August 14, 2012

Afghan syndrome to take place of Vietnam syndrome
Boris Volkhonsky

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"Look at it this way: after eleven years, more than four-hundred billion dollars spent and two thousand Americans dead, this is what we’ve built: a deeply dysfunctional, predatory Afghan state that seems incapable of standing on its own — even when we’re there."

[Maybe] the only aim the West pursued in Afghanistan was exactly what we see in today's Afghanistan – a situation that will enable the US to continue fishing in troubled waters for times immeasurable? But that means that the whole ideological entourage – human rights, anti-terrorist war, bringing democracy to "half devil and half child", etc. – was nothing more than just a smokescreen.

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On Monday, The New Yorker published an article by Dexter Filkins, a journalist covering Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East, titled "Have Obama and Romney Forgotten Afghanistan?" The fact that attracts the author's attention is almost total silence both presidential candidates keep on the issue of Afghanistan.

"You can make your own guesses about why the candidates have said so little about Afghanistan — their positions are virtually identical, the economy is more important, etc." writes Dexter Filkins and goes on to say, "My own guess: neither of them knows what to do about the place. In a mere twenty-eight months, the United States is scheduled to stop fighting, and every day brings new evidence that the Afghan state that is supposed to take over is a failing, decrepit enterprise."

He further on looks into the recent developments in Afghanistan that have been intensively covered by the Voice of Russia, paying utmost attention to the recent corruption scandals involving three ministers in Hamid Karzai's government, especially the finance minister Omar Zakhilwal, who made a million-dollar fortune while being a public servant in a war-torn and badly impoverished country.

The particular details about Omar Zakhilwal may be interesting in themselves, but there is hardly any time or space to repeat Filkins' story. What really matters is the conclusion the author comes to.

"Why does all this matter to American voters?" asks Filkins. "Look at it this way: after eleven years, more than four-hundred billion dollars spent and two thousand Americans dead, this is what we’ve built: a deeply dysfunctional, predatory Afghan state that seems incapable of standing on its own — even when we’re there."

Again, this has been said repeatedly by the majority of the Russian media. The Afghan adventure initiated eleven years ago by George W. Bush was doomed from the very beginning. For centuries, no outside force has ever been able to impose its rule on Afghans, and the Soviets were the last to know that. Still, the US leadership had no intention to learn from other people's mistakes and preferred to commit their own. The result is there – total chaos in the country, the most incompetent and corrupt governance, second in corruption only to Somalia which has no governance at all, mass defections of US and NATO-trained soldiers and policemen who repeatedly turn their arms against their mentors, and the only force in Afghanistan seemingly capable of achieving at least relative stability is the one the West took all pains to fight against, the Taliban.

Now, the question is, is it something that happened in spite of the US-led operation or something that US strategists really had in mind when they started the war? If the former is true, then the only plausible way for both the incumbent president and the challenger is to acknowledge defeat. This is something no one in the American establishment is ready to do. But maybe the truth lies in the latter supposition, and the only aim the West pursued in Afghanistan was exactly what we see in today's Afghanistan – a situation that will enable the US to continue fishing in troubled waters for times immeasurable? But that means that the whole ideological entourage – human rights, anti-terrorist war, bringing democracy to "half devil and half child", etc. – was nothing more than just a smokescreen. Again, this is something no one would admit.

So, the silence surrounding the Afghan war seems quite natural. In fact, speaking up would be a lose-lose situation for either of the contenders.

Looking straight into the eyes of the reality in today's Afghanistan may be too painful an experience for the majority of the American public that has only recently gotten over (if it has) the "Vietnam syndrome". Well, maybe the number of American casualties in Afghanistan, due to the advance in the technology of warfare and the lack of aid from other superpowers (in fact, the lack of other superpowers), is less than it was in Vietnam. But that hardly diminishes the devastating effect of the war. And this is the true reason why neither of the major candidates is ready to open the floodgates for the truth to dawn on the American public.

So, no wonder both keep mum and will continue to do so.
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Tue Aug 14, 2012 6:01 am (PDT) . Posted by:

"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-08/14/c_123578560.htm

Xinhua News Agency
August 14, 2012

U.S. would join Israeli strike on Iran: American officials

JERUSALEM: The United States would support Israel in the event that the latter decides to independently attack Iran's nuclear facilities, the Ma'ariv daily reported Monday, citing messages recently conveyed from top American officials.

A series of clandestine messages relayed by both Republican and Democratic officials suggest that U.S. President Barack Obama would be forced to join Israel if it were to launch a military operation against Iran prior to the U.S. presidential election in November, Ma'ariv said.

The unnamed officials behind the communique are said to include political advisers to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Obama associates, who opined that the president would not be able to ignore an Israeli attack, let alone a harsh Iranian reprisal against the Israeli home front.

Sitting on the sidelines while Israel is engaged in combat could see Obama losing the election. On the other hand, aiding Israel in countering an Iranian backlash would help him secure a second term in office, the U.S. officials estimated.

They said that the U.S. military would likely bolster an Israeli strike with its own aerial assets, munitions and personnel, and assist in defending the Israeli home front in the event of a missile strike by Iran and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah.

Israel's envoy to Washington Michael Oren has conveyed similar assessments to Jerusalem following discussions with diplomatic officials, as well as senior members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby in Washington, which maintains regular contact with top officials on Capitol Hill, according to Ma'ariv.

The report comes amid a growing debate in Israel for and against a strike, with local media outlets either siding with or slamming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak's saber-rattling on the Iranian issue.

A poll published Sunday by Channel 10 TV showed that a larger number of Israelis - 46 percent - oppose a unilateral strike on Iran, without U.S. backing, while 32 percent are in favor.

The survey's results are in line with recent reports that Israel's top military leadership is vehemently opposed to the idea of a unilateral strike on Iran, citing fears that such an attack would likely spark a regional conflict with harsh repercussions.

But both Netanyahu and Barak have recently said that time is running out for international sanctions and diplomacy to convince Tehran to halt its disputed nuclear program, which Israel and much of the West believe is geared towards producing an atomic bomb, emphasizing that Israel will ultimately decide how to best defend itself against what it perceives as an existential threat.

Military commentators have said that among Netanyahu and Barak' s biggest dilemmas is launching a pre-emptive strike without the United States, in which case Israel can expect to set back Iran's nuclear program by no more than a couple of years, at best.

"In this regard, the question of whether Obama would decide to join a military operation against Iran is critical. Intervention by the U.S. military can significantly delay (Iran's nuke program), " Eli Berdenstein, a veteran political commentator wrote Monday.

Netanyahu and Obama are due to meet at the United Nations in New York on Sept. 27, where both leaders are scheduled to address the General Assembly, and hold further discussions on the Iranian issue.

The meeting will take place as Iran's nuclear program fast approaches a critical threshold - attaining the necessary means to assemble a nuclear weapon.
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Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:08 pm (PDT) . Posted by:

"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2012-08/14/c_131784980.htm

Xinhua News Agency
August 14, 2012

Syrian crisis: clash between strategic interests of foreign powers

DAMASCUS: A Syrian parliamentarian said the 17-month-old crisis in Syria is not an internal conflict between the spectra of Syrian people, but a clash over the strategic interests between regional and international powers.

In a recent interview with Xinhua, Khaled Aboud said the war is between Syria, Russia, Iran and other allies on one side, and the United States, Europe, Israel and Arabs on another side.

Iran and Russia "don't play a role" in the Syrian crisis, but were dragged into the fighting over interests, "which happened to be in Syria's favor," according to Aboud.

Aboud charged that the United States has used several "tools" in its engagement with the Syrian side, including economic, political and diplomatic sanctions. He noted that the United States has now moved toward another tactic, which is "creating a group of tools on the ground to confront the state by violence."

In order to achieve the latest tactic, Aboud said, the United States needed to create another part in order to make the conflict seem realistic between the Syrian state and the opposition.

Aboud said the United States supports only the opposition that totally rejects the regime, while at the same time questions and regards as "not national" those opposition forces that went toward reconciliation with the regime and engaged with the regime in forming a new government.

On the UN Supervision Mission in Syria, Aboud contended that the mission has been formed to create a political backdoor for the United States in case it failed to topple the regime using the tools that it has been using such as sanctions, and fanning the flames of fighting on ground.

On the future of the Syrian crisis, Aboud expressed optimism that "we are heading towards arranging the Syrian table and a settlement."

He made a connection between a possible settlement and the regional visit of Saeed Jalili, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, expecting that it would prepare the settlement table for the confronting parties in the Syrian issue.
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Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:08 pm (PDT) . Posted by:

"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff

http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/126090-taylor-no-surprise-afghan-soldiers-are-killing-their-allies

Chronicle Herald
August 13, 2012

No surprise Afghan soldiers are killing their ‘allies’
By Scott Taylor/On Target

Last week there were four separate incidents involving members of the Afghanistan National Army who turned their weapons on the NATO personnel deployed to assist in their training.

A total of seven American soldiers were killed in the attacks, and a number of other trainers were wounded.

This phenomenon of Afghan allies deliberately targeting NATO forces has become so frequent in the past few years that a new catchphrase has been implemented to describe these incidents.

In military parlance, the term “blue on blue” has long been used to describe friendly-fire incidents when forces mistakenly target and kill their own side in the fog of war.

The cases of our Afghan “allies” showing their true colours and deliberately killing NATO instructors doesn’t exactly fit that mould, hence the term “green on blue” has been coined.

The Taliban insurgents are considered “red” forces, as they are the clear-cut enemy. All NATO-friendly forces are labelled as “blue,” and now we have a “green” force on the battlefield consisting of Afghan army units of dubious loyalty.

If one were to look at this situation from a purely pious, imperialistic vantage point, it would seem that the Afghan army turncoats are an ungrateful lot of malcontents, murdering our brave soldiers who are attempting to help them.

However, those familiar with the responsibility incumbent upon military service and its inherent unlimited liability of service know that loyalty is a two-way affair.

In this regard, since the outset of the intervention in Afghanistan, the international community has in no way demonstrated the necessary commitment to truly developing a professional Afghan army cadre.

From the get-go, the emphasis on establishing a post-Taliban Afghan security force has been to do it as quick as possible at the lowest possible cost.

Given the nearly two-decade suspension of education services during the Soviet occupation and Taliban era, the vast majority of the early recruits into the army and police forces were illiterate.

As NATO instructors soon discovered, there is only so much training you can give an illiterate police recruit, so they were processed, badged and out patrolling the streets after just two weeks of instruction.

For the Afghan army, more rudimentary weapons training was required and thus the NATO schools were pushing out “trained” recruits into combat after just 10 weeks at the Kabul Military Training Centre.

Given that all instruction had to be given first in English and then translated into Dari and Pashtu (with these illiterate recruits whose first language was either Tajik, Uzbek or Turkmen dialects doing their best to understand) comprehension was never complete.

Although the Afghan army is a volunteer force, the emphasis in training was not to weed out the weak but rather to graduate quickly as many as possible. From the outset, it has always been about quantity rather than quality.

There was also the issue of uniforms and equipment. As the Afghan government has no real revenue stream, the cost for arming and equipping the Afghan forces has always fallen upon the international community.

While participating NATO nations had no problem ramping up their own purchase of high-tech military hardware in order to better fight the Taliban, Afghan army recruits were issued surplus U.S. military uniforms and worn-out weaponry confiscated from the warlords.

While the Afghan soldiers may be illiterate, they are not stupid, and they could easily recognize that they were regarded by their NATO allies as second-class cannon fodder.

Not surprisingly, the limited training, lack of security screening, poor discipline and lack of genuine motivation to fight for the corrupt and hated Karzai regime has led to widespread drug use, wholesale desertion among the ANA and now an increase in “green on blue” incidents.

Canada still has about 900 troops deployed to Afghanistan to assist in the training of the Afghan security forces until the projected pullout of U.S. combat troops at the end of 2014.

That is still plenty of time for us to commit to and produce the nucleus of a professional, literate, disciplined and motivated Afghan security force.

Or we could just continue to do the minimum and keep both eyes glued on our eventual exit some 30 months from now.

Scott Taylor is an author and editor of Esprit de Corp magazine
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Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:08 pm (PDT) . Posted by:

"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff

http://rt.com/usa/news/waverider-pentagon-hypersonic-speed-667/


RT
August 14, 2012


Over Atlantic in an hour? Pentagon to test hypersonic X-51A WaveRider aircraft (PHOTOS)

X-51A WaveRider (AFP Photo / US Air Force / Mike Cassidy)




The Pentagon knows that, sometimes, time really is of the essence. That’s why they are throwing their weight behind a new aircraft — one capable of traveling five times the speed of sound for minutes on end — scheduled for testing this week.

The X-51A WaveRider, an unmanned experimental aircraft being financed by both the US Department of Defense and NASA, will be tested over the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday. If all goes as planned, a remote team of pilots will be able to send the space-age aircraft soaring through the sky at Mach 6 — or roughly 3,600 miles per hour—for just around five full minutes. The Los Angeles Times reports that such a speed for that amount of time would be twice as long as any other hypersonic aircraft has sustained before, though, and if all goes as planned the Pentagon might be able to soon usher supplies from coast-to-coast, all in under an hour.

"Attaining sustained hypersonic flight is like going from propeller-driven aircraft to jet aircraft," Robert A. Mercier, deputy for technology in the high speed systems division at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio, tells the Times. "Since the Wright brothers, we have examined how to make aircraft better and faster. Hypersonic flight is one of those areas that is a potential frontier for aeronautics. I believe we're standing in the door waiting to go into that arena."


Graphic shows the X-51A Waverider as it is set to demonstrate hypersonic flight (AFP Photo / US Air Force)

In addition to being able to fly from New York to London on roughly an hour, the WaveRider is reportedly being considered for an array of other options. According to the Times report, aerospace engineers predict that a successful test of the latest hypersonic project will pave the way to moving “missiles, military aircraft, spacecraft — and even passenger planes” at several times the speed of sound.

The Pentagon will push that envelop on Tuesday after it loads a WaveRide under the wing of a B-52 bomber, which it then will send 50,000 feet over the ocean near Point Mugu. Once they are ready to release the craft, the WaveRider will be released and will be,
hopefully, sent into the sky at around five times the speed of sound.

That is, of course, assuming that this test mission is a successful. The last time the WaveRider managed to make it in the air long enough to meet its researchers’ expectation, the craft only made it to 143 seconds before crashing into the ocean.


Graphic shows The X-51A Waverider, under the wing of a B-52 Stratobomber set to demonstrate hypersonic flight (AFP Photo / US Air Force)

Separately, the Pentagon’s state-of-the-art lab, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has recently announced plans to put another unmanned hypersonic vehicle into the sky at a speed of Mach 20 — or around 13,000 miles per hour (20,900 kph). Upon testing that craft out last year though, the so-called “X-plane” also ended up in the ocean, although that crash landing wasn’t what the DARPA team had hoped for.

Following that failed mission, DARPA director Regina Dugan issued a statement saying that data from that attempt will give the Pentagon “a better understanding of overall system capability and flight dynamics — how far it can fly with more accuracy."

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Tue Aug 14, 2012 8:08 pm (PDT) . Posted by:

"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90777/7909013.html

People's Daily
August 14, 2012

Do not reopen 'Pandora's box' in the Middle East

The United States invaded Iraq nine years ago, which induced sectarian and ethnic conflict in the state. Jacques René Chirac, president of France at the time, had accused the invasion of the U.S. army as opening a "Pandora's Box" in Iraq. Now, another evil box is about to be opened in Syria.

The Syrian crisis was quickly put to the geopolitical interests of the United States. The unshakeable goal of the United States is to change the Syrian regime, break up the Syria-Iran alliance and maintain its leading role in the Middle East.

Changing the regime of a sovereign country by external force has been the consistent foreign practice of the United States since the Cold War. The process will be cruel to the Syrian people and the consequences will be calamitous to the state and even world peace.

In the past weeks, Bashar al-Assad lost control of some important regions in Syria and Syrian reactionaries sympathized and supported by external forces gained the upper hand by murdering senior officials backing Bashar al-Assad.

The change of balance of power will trigger a time-consuming war between Syrian reactionaries and the pro-Bashar al-Assad group.