U.S. soldier in Afghanistan uses Facebook to alert parents to alleged civilian murders by other soldiers; 5 charged, 7 accused

A dozen US soldiers are facing trail accused of being part of a 'kill team' that allegedly killed Afghan civilians in an arbitrary fashion - and they even collected their victims' fingers as trophies of war.

Five soldiers have been charged with the killing three Afghan men 'for sport'. And seven more are accused of covering up the murders.

In one of the most serious accusations of war crimes to come out of the Afghan war, the deaths are alleged to have been carried out by members of a Stryker infantry brigade based in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan.

But the father of one of the five accused of murder said today he tried to warn the Army that troops in his son's unit had killed civilians.

Accused: Emma and Christopher Winfield's son Adam, 22, tried to to tell the Army about the civilian killings

By the time suspects were arrested in May, two more Afghans were dead.

Christopher Winfield said his son Adam, 22, was so disgusted after the first killing that he sent Facebook messages home asking for help.

Winfield called the Army and a military hot line asking officials to investigate - to no avail.

His son's lawyer said he was ordered to shoot at the third victim but deliberately shot high.

An Army spokeswoman declined to comment about whether the base received any tips about the case.

The new details about Winfield's efforts to alert the Army and his son's pleas raised questions about the Army's handling of the case and its system for allowing soldiers to report misconduct by their colleagues.

The soldiers have been accused of conspiracy and premeditated murder.

The highest ranking of them is Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, who, with Cpl. Jeremy Morlock, are accused of taking part in all three killings.

Pte Andrew Holmes is charged with murder in the first killing, and Specialist Michael Wagnon is charged in another. Both deny the charges.

But Adam Winfield's words and fears fell on deaf ears, according to his parents

Winfield is charged with murder in the final killing, and his lawyer insists he was ordered to shoot after Gibbs hit the civilian with a grenade. Winfield deliberately shot high and missed, he said.

Gibbs has denied the charges. His lawyer said his client maintains that the shootings were 'appropriate engagements' and denies involvement in any conspiracy to kill civilians.

The soldiers, all assigned to the 5th Stryker Brigade, deployed in July 2009 and were stationed at a base in Kandahar Province.

Gibbs, 25, arrived in the unit late last year and soon began discussing how easy it would be to kill civilians, some in the platoon told Army investigators.

The first indication for Christopher Winfield and his wife, Emma, that something was amiss came on January 15, the day of the first killing.

'I'm not sure what to do about something that happened out here, but I need to be secretive about this,' their son wrote them in a Facebook message.

On February 14, he told his parents what happened in a lengthy internet chat: Members of his unit on patrol had killed 'some innocent guy about my age just farming.'

He said he did not witness the killing.

But, he wrote, those involved told him about it and urged him to 'get one of my own.'

He said that virtually everyone in the platoon was aware of what was going on, but no one seemed to object.

He added: 'If you talk to anyone on my behalf, I have proof that they are planning another one in the form of an AK-47 they want to drop on a guy.'

He continued that he didn't know who to trust and feared for his safety if his comrades learned he was talking to authorities.

'Should I do the right thing and put myself in danger for it. Or just shut up and deal with it,' he asked his parents.

'There are no more good men left here. It eats away at my conscience everyday.'

In statements to investigators, at least three platoon members said Gibbs directly threatened Winfield.

One soldier, Private first class Justin Stoner, who reported hashish smoking in the unit, said he was beaten by several platoon members.

Gibbs and Morlock then paid him a visit, with Gibbs rolling out on the floor a set of severed fingers, he told investigators.

Morlock told him that 'if I don't want to end up like that guy ... shut the hell up.'

The killings eventually came to light when the soldier who had reported the drug use told investigators that Morlock 'had three prior kills that none of which I believe were actually justified.'

Preliminary hearings in the case are expected to begin this autumn.

We're being played by the Afghans, who are looking for a bailout

KABUL, Afghanistan — In a bid to fend off the threat of a nationwide financial crisis, the Afghan government scrambled to come up with the funds to bail out Afghanistan’s largest bank on Saturday after lines of frantic depositors mobbed the bank for a third day.

Details of the deal were still being worked out on Saturday by the Central Bank of Afghanistan with technical assistance from the United States Treasury Department, Afghan and American officials said. But American officials said no United States funds were involved in the bailout.

The planned injection of cash into the beleaguered Kabul Bank is meant to slow the run on the bank by its customers, who have withdrawn more than $200 million in the past few days amid fears of a wider economic collapse.

But on Saturday, thousands of nervous Afghan depositors, unaware of the bailout and unconvinced of the bank’s solvency, stormed the bank’s central branch in Kabul to withdraw their savings.

Hundreds of men pushed and shoved their way to the front, while others waited behind them for hours in the saunalike atmosphere of the lobby, making it impossible to discern where the lines ended and began. Furious customers shouted angry complaints. An elderly woman in a black dress cried out in distress.

But the teller drawers were largely empty and most customers left empty-handed. “What should I give you when I have nothing to give?” a teller told one agitated customer.

Similar scenes were reported at branches in other cities.

The panic began last week when the Central Bank ousted the chairman and the chief executive officer of Kabul Bank, after discovering that the bank had acted recklessly, lending tens of millions of dollars to allies of President Hamid Karzai and pouring money into risky real estate investments in Dubai.

Can an obsequious U.S. military win in Afghanistan?

My take: Here's a superb look at the absurd, obsequious posture of the U.S. military in Afghanistan by Diana West. Pay attention to the comments, some written by veterans who are appalled by the scene.

Winning hearts and minds means losing your own. It involves teaching defenders of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to “respect” an Islamic tribal culture (as advocated by Admiral Mullen — below — and other leaders) that subjugates women, girls, boys and non-Muslims (assuming there are any of the last left in the country), while increasingly assuming its customs – from troops adopting native dress to a US admiral involving himself in the ritual slaughter of sheep, to redefining our very perceptions of reality.

Now, it’s part of basic training.

From the Des Moines Register staff blogs (thanks to a vigilant Marine mom):

Camp Shelby, Miss. – Sgt. Eric Campbell did almost everything right in his first try at greeting an Afghan community leader, but he forgot about the gloves.

The Iowa National Guard cavalry sergeant walked confidently into a mock-up of an Afghan police office, where he warmly greeted a commander in a blue uniform shirt and red head scarf. He asked permission to take off his body armor and helmet, and he politely set down his rifle. Then he sat cross-legged on the carpet with his counterpart and an interpreter.

May I be permitted to take off my body armor and helmet?

During a 15-minute conversation, he maintained proper eye contact with the commander, and he used an interpreter to ask appropriate questions about the man’s family and his police force’s needs.

Needs. The continuing theme. Strike that — the eternal theme — of the Great Society in A-Stan.

“We need a lot of training for these people,” the commander replied in Dari, one of Afghanistan’s main languages. “We want lots of soldiers, too.” The previous American unit in town sent over a junior officer who never could deliver on his promises, the commander complained.

At what point — who knows? — does the role-playing commander start to believe this?

Campbell listened patiently and promised to do all he could to help the local police. Then he added, “God willing.”

That would be, “Inshallah.” Allah willing. Redolent of Islamic concepts of pre-destination and all that. Why is an American non-Muslim being steeped in Islamic conventions even as he’s giving away the US store?

In the end, the commander seemed satisfied. “You need to come here often, often,” he said.

“And bring more stuff,” he should have added.

Campbell, 29, of Sioux City, had never done this sort of thing before. He was going through his first exercise in “key leader engagement” during a training session at Camp Shelby.

Engagement? The term implies a measure of equality that is absent in this demeaning training exercise.

Think of it: The young guardsman is trained to enter the Afghan police station, beg permission to doff his armor, ask all the right (read: obsequious) questions of the Afghan police officer, allow the Afghan police officer to run down the guardsman’s American predecessor as a liar, and then offer unconditional aide — that is, utterly fail to extract concessions of any kind, or make aid contingent on anything whatsoever. Who’s the supplicant here — the American benefactor and protector, or the Afghan drag and recipient?

And the critique is (below) that the American didn’t show more ritualistic deference.

One of his soldiers, Spec. Broderick Miller of Sioux City, took notes. Seven other squad members watched, then critiqued the session.

One of the soldiers pointed out that Campbell forgot to take off his gloves before shaking the Afghan commander’s hand, which could be seen as disrespectful. Campbell made a little grimace as he recalled the incident.

A camp instructor, Sgt. 1st Class Gregory Payne, agreed Campbell should have taken his gloves off. But he said overall, the session went well.

“It may not always be that easy,” he warned. “There may be some tension. Sometimes, there may be a lot of tension.” It could take months to build rapport with a community leader, he said. Sometimes, it could prove impossible….

Sometimes.

Some comments by commenters:

KristineFromNYC

Winning hearts and minds does not win wars. It did not work in Vietnam, Iraq, or any other war known to Mankind. Clauswitz had it right, you fight till your enemy has neither the means or the will to fight on. That means killing the enemy, destroy the warmaking capacity, and letting the enemy know that you are the victor. Our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are being used as community organizers and allowing another Shiara Muslim country to recover and continue the fight against the west. Instead of the above scenario, the Officer should have been trained to go into the Afghani Police office as a soldier to make sure the police officer is doing his job or suffer the consequence.
 
GayboDGaylord

Wow thats a lot different then I remember. We were trained to try and not offend them deliberately but if they made a threatening move to drop them where they stand.

Guess there was early evidence of this nonsense. The Marine sniper that was disciplined for shooting the koran. The Army Officer kissing a copy of it in apology. No wonder they think we are bullsht now, look at how we submit to them at every turn.

Here's an off topic question, where the hell are these northern warlords we had take out the Taliban in the beginning of the war? Why aren't they protecting their border from them anymore?

attila_the_pun

Somewhere, General Patton weeps.

The country is doomed if this kind of garbage continues.

In the wake of his mosque gaffes and the BP oil spill, "voters are gearing up to retaliate against the president's incompetence"

Conflicting messages on the “ground zero mosque” are just the latest signal that a clear presidential strategy is missing—and voters are gearing up to retaliate against the president’s incompetence, says Douglas E. Schoen.

Not only has President Obama systematically put forward unpopular policies and programs that are not producing real, long-lasting results that reflect the wishes of the American people, he has not generated a sense of competence in the electorate.

Indeed, Obama’s judgment and instincts have been called into question by a series of bad decisions since he has become president. Put simply, rather than emphasizing results and outcomes, he has opted for rhetorical parsing and political gamesmanship every time. Voters have grown disillusioned with the administration’s reactive and seemingly hypocritical governing style, in which the notion of unity of command and a cohesive strategy have proved alien.

Obama’s flip-flopping on the “ground zero mosque” issue was no different from his handling of the Gulf oil spill, when he sought both to blame BP and assert federal responsibility.

“The problem,” wrote Politico’s John Harris and Jim VandeHei this summer, “is that he and his West Wing turn out to be not especially good at politics or communications—in other words, largely ineffective at the very things on which their campaign reputation was built.”

Whenever the American people are looking for leadership from the president, Obama and his administration have systematically put forth conflicting and ambiguous messages. As Maureen Dowd recently noted in a recent column for The New York Times: “He’s with the banks, he’s against the banks. He’s leaving Afghanistan, he’s staying in Afghanistan. He strains at being a populist, but his head is in the clouds.”

Obama’s flip-flopping on the “ground zero mosque” issue was no different from his handling of the Gulf oil spill, when he sought both to blame BP and assert federal responsibility, all the while seeking to distance his presidency from the crisis. There, as with the administration’s publicized internal debate over Afghanistan, no clear policy has been articulated. The president supported a surge in troops while simultaneously pledging to withdraw by 2011. In internal documents published in September 2009, General Stanley McChrystal, then the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, warned of “mission failure” if U.S. forces did not increase their presence significantly in the country, while U.S Ambassador Karl Eikenberry warned that McChrystal’s request for new troops might be counterproductive. Meanwhile, Gen. David Petraeus has said that notwithstanding the set transition date of July 2011, we are “in this to win” and “it takes the accumulation of a lot of progress ultimately, needless to say, to win overall, and that’s going to be a long-term proposition, without question… I think that we will have an enduring commitment here in some fashion.”

By sending such distinctive and frequently incoherent messages, the administration appears adrift and divided. All the while, the public has no clear idea of the administration’s specific goals and intentions, our level of commitment, and the approach we will take on Afghanistan and on other issues.

These dual messages also ultimately reduce and minimize our country’s standing in the international community, delegitimizes our power, and reduces our influence in the eyes of our adversaries.

Looking at the president’s performance in recently published polling, there is a clear sense that voters' doubts whether Obama can solve our country’s problems are increasing.

Poll evidence shows that “the candidate who said he would ‘fundamentally change the way Washington works’ has seen public distrust of government grow to pre-French Revolutionary levels,” Michael Gerson noted this week in The Washington Post.

A Gallup poll last week found that more Americans disapprove than approve of Obama’s recent comments on the “ground zero mosque,” and twice as many strongly disapprove than strongly approve.

A July Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that disapproval of Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil spill continued to rise in the months following the spill, with disapproval outpacing approval by nearly 3 to 1 in the most affected counties on the Gulf Coast. And an early August USA Today/Gallup survey found that support for Obama’s management of the war in Afghanistan has fallen to 36 percent, down from 48 percent in a February poll.

If Obama isn’t able to project competence, his hopes of winning reelection, as well as the success for the Democratic Party in this fall’s midterm elections, will continue to deteriorate.

How Iraq was pacified and what it means for Afghanistan

The author, David French, is a captain in the United States Army Reserve and a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom

The departure of the last “combat brigade” from Iraq (don’t be misled; thousands of combat troops remain) is a critical symbolic moment in the War on Terror. It’s a symbol not just of a battle won but also of the battles that remain.

When I flew into Forward Operating Base Caldwell with the 2d Squadron, 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment in November 2007, the surge was at its height, and the outcome in Iraq was very much in doubt. In fact, the outcome was in doubt in my own mind. Our Humvees were torn apart by powerful IEDs, the countryside was in al-Qaeda hands, and good men were dying.

Slowly but surely, however, the tide turned. In February of 2008, I could never have imagined a drawdown. The Iraqi Army in our area was passive, al-Qaeda was aggressive, and the citizens were intimidated. By August, villages were free of al-Qaeda, roads were patrolled by the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police, and the terrorists were demoralized, homeless, and exhausted.

Why the difference? To quote Oliver Hazard Perry: “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” Our Fox Troop, Grim Troop, Rattler Troop, and Lion Battery went into the enemy strongholds and set up camp. They didn’t raid and leave. They didn’t strike and move. They struck and stayed. Our soldiers won.

To me, that’s the lesson of Operation Iraqi Freedom. When you give them the tools and the right strategy, soldiers win.

This week’s news from Iraq gives me hope for Afghanistan. Once again, we’re facing a situation that to outside observers seems to be spiraling out of control. Once again, politicians and pundits who know nothing about war are proclaiming gloom and doom. Once again, we send our best out into dusty outposts and tiny villages and tell them to accomplish the seemingly impossible.

Nothing is certain in war, and the enemy always has a say in the outcome, but if I were the Taliban, I would look at this week’s news, examine the ruins of a once-mighty insurgency in Iraq, and worry that I was looking at my own future.

Have we learned anything from our Afghanistan venture?

Neocons cheered the Afghan strikes and the unforced Iraq project but now mainstream conservatives question both

As President Barack Obama assures the country that the war in Iraq is winding down, a sigh of relief is emanating from the unlikeliest corner: the conservatives who have for more than seven years been the war’s staunchest supporters.

It’s not exactly that conservatives have had second thoughts about Saddam Hussein, weapons of mass destruction, the “cut and run” Democrats, or the need to project military power after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. What they have come to doubt, however, is those aspects of the Bush Doctrine that come dressed in Wilsonian garb.

However reluctant conservatives may be to question retroactively the justice of our Bush-era wars, many are beginning to wonder if our prolonged occupations and nation-building exercises are worth American blood and treasure. Are our recently acquired colonies in Iraq and Afghanistan, they might ask, merely children who will never grow up?

Some of this is mere partisan opportunism, as when Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele advised candidates at a Connecticut GOP fundraiser that they should disown Afghanistan — initially invaded under George W. Bush with near unanimous Republican support — as “a war of Obama’s choosing.” Translation: Let whatever goes wrong in Afghanistan be the Democrats’ problem for a change.

When Ann Coulter defended Steele against criticism from, among others, Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, she took pains to distinguish Bush’s fine Republican war-making from Obama’s pusillanimous imperial time-wasting. This is unsurprising, as there is a long history of otherwise hawkish conservatives having distaste for what Bob Dole once described as “Democrat wars.”

Other mainstream conservatives are honestly starting to ask what we are accomplishing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is propping up Hamid Karzai or refereeing a political dispute between Nouri al-Maliki and Iyad Allawi really the great civilizational struggle between the West and radical Islam?

Many prominent conservative hawks are saying no.

War carnage erodes Obama's support, now down to 41 percent

WASHINGTON — Public support for President Obama's Afghanistan war policy has plummeted amid a rising U.S. death toll and the unauthorized release of classified military documents, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows.

Support for Obama's management of the war fell to 36%, down from 48% in a February poll. Now, a record 43% also say it was a mistake to go to war there after the terrorist attacks in 2001.

The decline in support contributed to the lowest approval ratings of Obama's presidency. Amid a lengthy recession, more Americans support his handling of the economy (39%) than the war.

Even Obama's handling of the war in Iraq received record-low approval, despite a drawdown of 90,000 troops and the planned, on-schedule end of U.S. combat operations there this month.

Only 41% of those surveyed Tuesday through Sunday approved of the way Obama is handling his job, his lowest rating in the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll since he took office in January 2009. In Gallup's separate daily tracking poll, his approval was at 45% Monday.

The waning support for the Afghanistan war coincides with the deaths of a record 66 U.S. servicemembers in July, up from 60 in June. As the last of 30,000 reinforcements ordered by Obama enter the country, the international military force is encountering heavy Taliban resistance in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand.

After 8 years of pursuit, Afghanistan remains an unbuilt nation

Announcing that Gen. David Petraeus would replace the defenestrated Gen. Stanley McChrystal as commander of the war in Afghanistan, President Obama was emphatic in saying that this was a change in people, not in policy.

That policy, which Obama described in a February 2009 interview with Jim Lehrer, was "that is that we make sure that [Afghanistan is] not a safe haven for al-Qaida, they are not able to launch attacks of the sort that happened on 9/11 against the American homeland or American interest." And that was George Bush's goal. The strategy Bush chose to accomplish it -- and the one Obama is continuing -- is nation-building, also known as "counterinsurgency" in military lingo.

By the end of August, over 100,000 U.S. troops will be engaged in the counterinsurgency campaign and in less than a year the final curtain will begin to fall on the greatest wartime mistake America has made since Lyndon Johnson put Robert McNamara in charge of the Vietnam War: the strategy of nation-building.

Though he campaigned against it, President Bush embraced nation-building in January 2003 when he chose a nation-building plan for post-war Iraq authored by Colin Powell and George Tenet over the plan for a brief invasion written by Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Myers. And, by default, nation-building was decided upon for Afghanistan as well.

We are now close to the end of the ninth year of our counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan and success -- as defined by Bush and Obama -- is nowhere in sight.

Ralph Peters: We're going to keep giving aid and benefits to Pakistanis who have helped the taliban kill U.S. soldiers?

The treasure trove of 91,000 classified AfPak documents posted by WikiLeaks suggests that our government's been deceiving us about Pakistan's murderous behavior.

But the situation's even worse than that: Our government's been lying to itself.

The documents in question aren't superclassified. They're largely low-level field reports at the "confidential" level, bottom-rung stuff, with some secret documents mixed in. Their value lies in their unfiltered quality. This is what the guys on the ground with the guns have been seeing, hearing and sensing.

It ain't good. Reports covering the five years from 2004 to 2009 cite routine Pakistani support for the Afghan Taliban -- as the terrorists kill our troops. Pakistan's infamous Inter Services Intelligence, or ISI, also has been working with al Qaeda, according to the reports.

That's no surprise to Post readers, but our government is "shocked, shocked!" by the revelations. And the excuses for Pakistan's lethal misconduct have already started flowing.

We're told that these reports are unverified, that some can be traced back to anti-Pakistani Afghan intelligence operatives, and that American eyewitness accounts are one-offs.

Folks, I've done plenty of intelligence analysis, and here's how it works: A single report of a supposed ally's wrongdoing gets your attention, but it's regarded as an outlier until another source confirms it. After that, you actively search for further corroboration -- before you get blindsided big time.

One report might be hearsay. But hundreds of reports of Pakistani collaboration with our Taliban and al Qaeda enemies amount to a pattern. And intelligence is about patterns.

Our government's response to Pakistani complicity in the death of hundreds of our troops and the wounding of thousands? Send additional aid -- on top of the $6 billion recently committed -- and bills in Congress to grant special trade privileges to Pakistanis in Taliban-infested territories.

It's like dating someone who's wildly, flagrantly promiscuous and hoping that patience will lead to his or her sudden reform. But tolerance only encourages more bad behavior.

Why is unstable, entangled Afghanistan still vital when jihadists can attack U.S. from Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan or New Jersey?

...no amount of rhetorical tap dancing will allow the White House to escape the fundamental contradictions that underlie U.S. policy toward Af-Pak. In the first contradiction, the administration claims it’s fighting in Afghanistan to prevent al Qaeda from returning, and once again using Afghan soil to attack America. But now that al Qaeda can attack the United States, its friends and allies from Yemen or Somalia or Pakistan or London or New Jersey, it’s hard to claim any uniqueness for Afghanistan. So, why does the United States have to fight the war there with 100,000 troops?

In the second contradiction, the administration says that, deep down, the reason we’re fighting in Afghanistan is to help prevent an extremist takeover of Pakistan, an unstable Muslim country with nuclear weapons. And administration officials point to the fact that Pakistani officials tell us publicly and privately that the U.S. must stay the course in Afghanistan and stabilize the situation there—otherwise its ill effects will spill over into Pakistan and strengthen extremism there. And yet—and here’s where the new trough of secret WikiLeaks comes in—Pakistani military intelligence, known as Inter-Services Intelligence, is indeed helping the Taliban against Americans in Afghanistan. To boot, the Pakistani government is providing safe haven to the Taliban in Northwest Pakistan, thus making it militarily impossible for U.S. forces to smash them.

To put the issue somewhat melodramatically: The United States is giving “moderate” Pakistanis and the Pakistani military billions of dollars yearly in military and economic aid, which allows Pakistani military intelligence to “secretly” help the Taliban kill Americans in Afghanistan, which will drive America out of Afghanistan and undermine U.S. help for Pakistan.

All this flies in the face of the administration’s new line about an improving Af-Pak relationship. Yes, indeed, we’ve worked out a new trade agreement between these traditional adversaries. Yes, indeed, the Pakistanis are giving us the secret wink for our drone attacks against Taliban safe havens (even as they publicly condemn us for these drone attacks). Yes, indeed, Pakistanis are helping President Hamid Karzai talk with his fellow Pashtun Taliban. (Heaven knows what will come of this).

But let’s face it: Pakistan’s overriding interests in Afghanistan don’t have much to do with the United States. Their fixation is India, plain and simple. They don’t want India to gain any sort of foothold in Afghanistan and somehow encircle them. They’re pressing Washington for sophisticated American arms to fight India, not the Taliban. Some Pakistani leaders even worry of secret plotting between India and the United States against them, especially in Afghanistan.

Pakistani interests are not the same as America’s in Afghanistan, far from it.

NYT: Leaked documents suggest agents of U.S. ally Pakistan collaborate with Afghan taliban against U.S. in Afghan war

Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistan’s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants, according to a trove of secret military field reports made public Sunday.

The documents, made available by an organization called WikiLeaks, suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.

Taken together, the reports indicate that American soldiers on the ground are inundated with accounts of a network of Pakistani assets and collaborators that runs from the Pakistani tribal belt along the Afghan border, through southern Afghanistan, and all the way to the capital, Kabul.

Much of the information — raw intelligence and threat assessments gathered from the field in Afghanistan— cannot be verified and likely comes from sources aligned with Afghan intelligence, which considers Pakistan an enemy, and paid informants. Some describe plots for attacks that do not appear to have taken place.

But many of the reports rely on sources that the military rated as reliable.

While current and former American officials interviewed could not corroborate individual reports, they said that the portrait of the spy agency’s collaboration with the Afghan insurgency was broadly consistent with other classified intelligence.

Some of the reports describe Pakistani intelligence working alongside Al Qaeda to plan attacks. Experts cautioned that although Pakistan’s militant groups and Al Qaeda work together, directly linking the Pakistani spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, with Al Qaeda is difficult.

The records also contain firsthand accounts of American anger at Pakistan’s unwillingness to confront insurgents who launched attacks near Pakistani border posts, moved openly by the truckload across the frontier, and retreated to Pakistani territory for safety.

The behind-the-scenes frustrations of soldiers on the ground and glimpses of what appear to be Pakistani skullduggery contrast sharply with the frequently rosy public pronouncements of Pakistan as an ally by American officials, looking to sustain a drone campaign over parts of Pakistani territory to strike at Qaeda havens. Administration officials also want to keep nuclear-armed Pakistan on their side to safeguard NATO supplies flowing on routes that cross Pakistan to Afghanistan.

This month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in one of the frequent visits by American officials to Islamabad, announced $500 million in assistance and called the United States and Pakistan “partners joined in common cause.”

McChrystal retires, escaping "an unsellable position" on war

WASHINGTON – After 34 years in the Army, Gen. Stanley McChrystal left behind legions of admirers and the prospect his reputation as a ferocious fighter would one day eclipse the costly comments that appeared in Rolling Stone.

"Over the past decade, arguably no single American has inflicted more fear, more loss of freedom and more loss of life on our country's most vicious and violent enemies than Stan McChrystal," U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during an emotional retirement ceremony Friday, marking the end of the general's career.

Before a crowd of a few hundred friends, family and colleagues on the Fort McNair parade grounds under an oppressively hot July sun, McChrystal said his service didn't end as he hoped. But he regretted few decisions he had made on the battlefield, cherished his life as a soldier and was optimistic about his future.

"There are misconceptions about the loyalty and service of some dedicated professionals that will likely take some time, but I believe will be corrected," he said.

McChrystal, the former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was fired last month after the magazine published an article titled "The Runaway General" that quoted scathing remarks he and his aides made about their civilian bosses.

McChrystal complained President Barack Obama had handed him "an unsellable position" on the war. The general's closest advisers mocked other government officials, including Vice President Joseph Biden, as fools who were ignorant of the complexities of war.

"Biden? Did you say, 'Bite me?'" one aide is quoted saying.

Soon after the article was published, McChrystal was sent packing.

By spinning the Afghan war for various constituencies, the White House scrambled the egg, an act not easily undone

The American public has become accustomed to discounting the spin of politicians -- even of presidents. The public views political spin the way it does professional wrestling: It's fun to cheer or boo, but don't take it seriously.

Unfortunately, what the president and his political operatives meant as a little useful spin for their domestic base was taken as formal policy by foreign players -- and they have acted accordingly. Our two allies in the Afghan War -- Pakistan and Afghanistan -- having heard the "spin" as policy have irrevocably taken the strategic action of discounting America as a reliable force in theater. And, as the president's strategy relied on gaining and keeping their trust and loyalty, his strategy has necessarily collapsed. In the coming months, we should expect many more words of explanation in Washington and many more failures in Afghanistan. Alea iacta est (the die is cast).

Even the greatest chef cannot unscramble an egg. Even the president of the United States cannot unspin his words.

Most casualties in Afghan war have occurred on Obama's watch

CNSNews.com) – A majority of all combat-related U.S. casualties in the nine-year-long war in Afghanistan have occurred since President Barack Obama was inaugurated a little more than 17 months ago.

Between Jan. 20, 2009 and July 2, 2010, according to CNSNews.com's database of Afghanistan war casualties, U.S. military personnel suffered 452 combat-related deaths in Afghanistan. That amounts to more than half of the total of 900 combat-related fatalities suffered by U.S. forces in Afghanistan during the entire nine years of the war.

To see a month-by-month chart of U.S. combat casualties in Afghanistan since October 2001 click here.

There have also been 40 non-combat related U.S. casualties in Afghanistan since Obama's inauguration, bringing the total U.S. casualties in the country to 492 during Obama's presidency. Non-combat fatalities include soldiers who have drowned or died from vehicle or other accidents.

Each of the top five deadliest months of the war, accounting for both combat and non-combat deaths, have taken place during Obama's term. Those five months were:

1. June 2010 (59 casualties).
2. October 2009 (58 casualties).
3. August 2009 (51 deaths)
4. July 2009 (43 deaths)
5. September 2009 (37 deaths)

Steyn: Why would Putin or the ChiComs take Obama seriously when even a client such as Karzai can flip him the finger?

Colonial administration was always a cynic’s field. In Lisbon last week, I was admiring the beauty of the jacarandas when David Pryce-Jones, the scholar and novelist, reminded me of the words of Lord Lloyd, British high commissioner in Egypt in the twenties: “The jacarandas are in bloom,” he observed. “We shall soon be sending for the gunboats.” When the weather heats up, so do the natives. In Lloyd’s day, we were cynical about the locals. Now we’re starry-eyed about the locals—marvellous chaps, few more trainers and they’ll do splendidly—while they’re utterly cynical about us. Hamid Karzai has just fired his two most pro-American cabinet ministers and is making more and more pro-Taliban noises. This is a man who for the last nine years has been kept alive only by U.S. military protection. A throne in Kabul may not be much, but, such as it is, he owes it entirely to his patrons in Washington. Why would Putin, Ahmadinejad or the ChiComs take Barack Obama seriously when even a footling client such as Hamid Karzai can flip him the finger?

On Afghanistan: "Why not just get out and start the argument?"

A recent Gallup survey found that 58 percent of those questioned support Obama's timetable, versus 38 percent who oppose. Of those opposed, 7 percent say they're against the timetable because withdrawal starts too late. Add them to the 58 percent who support withdrawal as scheduled, and you have 65 percent of Americans who want a withdrawal that begins no later than July of next year.

Given the dreary assessments we've heard from Petraeus and McChrystal, it's unlikely any great victories in Afghanistan will change those opinions.

This is not a blame-Obama issue. The first seven years of the war were not his doing. But the decision to leave or stay in Afghanistan is his to make.

Near the end of the Rolling Stone article, one of McChrystal's top aides, Maj. Gen. Bill Mayville, gave a bleak forecast of the war's end. "It's not going to look like a win, smell like a win or taste like a win," Mayville said. "This is going to end in an argument."

If that's the case, why not just get out and start the argument now?

Did McChrystal choose an inelegant escape from his own trap?

One big question that hangs over the quick end of General Stanley McChrystal's mission in Afghanistan: Why would a West Point and Kennedy School of Government graduate who runs eight miles a day, sleeps four hours and is smart as a whip ever do something so dumb as to talk to a Rolling Stone reporter?

Well, maybe he wasn't so dumb after all. Reading the accounts of McChrystal's last months on the job, I think it is clear the general had become so conflicted about the rules of engagement he was imposing on his troops that he finally said "The hell with it. Let Rolling Stone run with this story and see what happens."

The clues are all in the Rolling Stone article (which the magazine -- sickeningly -- is billing on its website as "the article that changed history"). The key section deals with the new rules of engagement (ROE) that McChrystal had begun to impose on his troops. The average infantryman was reacting with a mounting sense of betrayal and anger. Some described the new regimen as "being handcuffed." Rolling Stone reporter Richard Hastings reports one GI writing McChrystal to ask, "Why are we not allowed to defend ourselves?"

Military is telling truth about Obama's "dysfunctional" team?

The military is finally telling the unvarnished truth about President Obama's dysfunctional national security team.

Oddly, Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his inner circle chose to dish dirt to a reporter for Rolling Stone, a decidedly left-wing publication that portrays the U.S. military negatively and knows as much about counter-insurgency as a 4th grader. The article that brought down the career special-operations soldier throws in the "F-word" several times, not as a quote, but to describe the author's own views.

Not included in the story is an ongoing dispute between the White House and its generals that shows why McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, had grown so frustrated.

The debate centers on when exactly troops will begin leaving Afghanistan. Every time a Pentagon figure, such as Gen. David Petraeus, the overall region commander, testified that Obama's July 2011 withdrawal date does not mean the U.S. is abandoning Afghanistan, there was a White House official saying nearly the opposite.

The result is a badly mangled message to Afghan troops and villagers who think America is going to leave them to the mercies of the Taliban, which shows no mercy. Thus, McChrystal's counter-insurgency strategy of winning over the population cannot possibly succeed as long as the White House undercuts it. This is an administration that eschews using the words war or victory or winning.

Oliver North corrects the record on America's longest war

The U.S. Army’s campaigns against Geronimo, Cochise and other Apache leaders in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas went on continuously for nearly 40 years. Though Afghanistan has surpassed Vietnam in duration, it isn’t even our longest foreign military engagement. That distinction belongs to U.S. military operations during the Philippine Insurrection that began concurrently with the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898 and lasted until 1913. Notably, the total U.S. casualties suffered in the Philippines – more than 7,100 – approximate U.S. casualties to date in Afghanistan.

All of this begs the question: why all the false comparisons between Vietnam and Afghanistan? The short answer – mainstream-media ignorance – is too easy. The stark differences between Afghanistan and Vietnam – how they started, the nature of our enemies, and how they were, and are, being fought ought to be obvious to anyone.

In Vietnam we went to war to support a beleaguered ally that was being over-run by a foreign-directed insurgency and an invading army that was directly supported by two super-powers, the Soviet Union and Communist China. The military force we sent to fight in Southeast Asia was largely conscripted and eventually disheartened by dissention at home. During the war more than 58,200 U.S. Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Guardsmen and Marines were killed and another 153,000 were wounded. Nearly 2,500 remain missing in action.

We went to war in Afghanistan because radical Islamic terrorists who launched from there killed 3,000 innocents on U.S. soil on 9-11-01. The enemy we face there today is an opium-financed insurgency that obtains support from elements in Pakistan and Iran – but nothing on the scale of what our enemies received in Vietnam. The all-volunteer U.S. military deployed in the shadows of the Hindu Kush is the best educated, most technologically advanced and now, the most combat-experienced fighting force the world has ever seen. To date over 1,080 Americans have been killed in action, more than 6,200 have been wounded and we have one MIA.

... there are few parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan. The only real similarity is in the possible outcome. We had better pray they are not the same – for the disaster wrought in Vietnam nearly wrecked our military.