The Clusterfuck In Afghanistan Continues

[unhappycamper]

unhappycamper note: Since the ‘Pentagon’ has ‘requested’ that I only post one paragraph from articles on Army Times, and Airforce Times, I’ve decided to give ya’ll an unhappycamper summary of the article and a link to the OP. To keep in that same (new) tradition, I will also do the same for for articles on Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, stripes.com and military.com.

To read the article in the military's own words, you will need to click the link.

(This space reserved for a legally correct snark dump.) It sure is beginning to smell like fascism.

unhappycamper summary of this article: It's been a hellofa week in Afghanistan. We find out that 25% of American translators can't translate, the Taliban are stronger than ever when in not Kabul, the Aghan security forces can't read manuals for the weapons they have, and now the United States/NATO has 'lost' a shitload of AK-47s, heavy machines guns and PRGs.

Heckofajob.




U.S. trying to track missing weapons issued to Afghan police
By Seth Robson
Stars and Stripes
Published: September 11, 2010

TIRIN KOT, Afghanistan — A massive hunt is on for tens of thousands of rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers that the U.S. government procured for the Afghan National Police but are unaccounted for, according to the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan.

[flyarm]

1. k&r

[n2doc]

2. And Burger King is back! n/t

[MH1]

3. For all the money we spend on the military, ya'd think we could train translators.

Shortage of translators in 2003? Okay, we were caught flat-footed and needed time to catch up. Still short in 2010? Fucking incompetent leadership.

[unhappycamper]

4. The 25% of translators I mentioned were trained by

"the company that holds contracts worth up to $1.4 billion to supply interpreters to the U.S. Army."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=9101500

[Angry Dragon]

5. I want my $1.4 billion back ........... with interest

[Bragi]

6. But we're poised for victory

I'm trying to think when I first hear that the Coalition forces are poised for victory in Afhanistan, just a bit of clean-up to do, the Talibs are on the run, this thing will soon be over.

I think it was nine years ago. I know I hear it coming from military PR types about once every month of so.

How stupid do they thing we are?

Bring the troops home while America still has money to do so.

[bvar22]

7. But we're turning the corner,

and there is a light at the end of the tunnel,
yadda


yadda


yadda


Meet Hamid Karzai
or as Obama calls him, "The Government of Afghanistan".

He was appointed by Bush the Lesser to run Afghanistan.
He is one of the most despicable criminals in The World,
But NOW we like him so much
that our children fighting and dying in the deserts of Afghanistan to keep him in power.


Out NOW!

[Panaconda]

8. How Much “Success” Can Afghans Stand?

How Much “Success” Can Afghans Stand?
The American War and Afghanistan’s Civilians
By Nick Turse

With the arrival of General David Petraeus as Afghan War commander, there has been ever more talk about the meaning of “success” in Afghanistan. At the end of July, USA Today ran an article titled, “In Afghanistan, Success Measured a Step at a Time.” Days later, Stephen Biddle, a Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, held a conference call with the media to speak about “Defining Success in Afghanistan.” A mid-August editorial in the Washington Post was titled: “Making the Case for Success in Afghanistan.” And earlier this month, an Associated Press article appeared under the headline, “Petraeus Talks Up Success in Afghan War.”

Unlike victory, success turns out to be a slippery term. As the United States approaches the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, pundits have been chewing over just what “success” in Afghanistan might mean for Washington. What success might mean for ordinary Afghans hasn’t, however, been a major topic of conversation, even though U.S. officials have regularly promised them far better lives and trumpeted American efforts to reconstruct that war-torn land.

Between 2001 and 2009, according to the Afghan government, the country has received $36 billion in grants and loans from donor nations, with the United States disbursing some $23 billion of it. U.S. taxpayers have anted up another $338 billion to fund the war and occupation. Yet from poverty indexes to risk-of-rape assessments, from childhood mortality figures to drug-use stats, just about every available measure of Afghan wellbeing paints a grim picture of a country in a persistent state of humanitarian crisis, often involving reconstruction and military failures on an epic scale. Pick a measurement affecting ordinary Afghans and the record since November 2001 when Kabul fell to Allied forces is likely to show stagnation or setbacks and, almost invariably, suffering.

Almost a decade after the U.S. invasion, life for Afghan civilians is not a subject Americans care much about and so, not surprisingly, it plays little role in Washington's discussions of “success.” Have a significant number of Afghans found the years of occupation and war “successful”? Has there been a payoff in everyday life for the indignities of the American years -- the cars stopped or sometimes shot up at road checkpoints, the American patrols trooping through fields and searching homes, the terrifying night raids, the imprisonments without trial, or the way so many Afghans continue to be treated like foreigners, if not criminal suspects, in their own country?

...

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175293/tomgram:_nick_turse,_afghanistan_on_life_support__/