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May 2nd, 2012 @ 9:02 am

Afghan War: What is the Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement? It’s a document with a pretty intimidating name, that’s for sure. Obama’s trip to Afghanistan early Wednesday local time seemed loaded with mystery — few knew he was there until he was actually there. He was there to sign a document that many watching the news had no idea existed until today. And the document itself is the definition of how a long-standing war will finally end, thirteen years after it started — at least as far as combat troops go. This document, just eight pages, was so important that the White House had to release a fact sheet to explain it to the average joe. What does it mean to you, anyway? Here are three things you should take from the Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement: one The U.S. government will continue to help the Afghan government train its security forces even after combat troops leave the country in 2014, with the goal of giving the entire region stability. two The U.S. will continue to fund security and development efforts in the country, but not by default — the president has to ask Congress for a new round of funding each year. three This effort goes both ways — Afghanistan is on the hook to improve the transparency and effectiveness of the government, while respecting the civil rights of its people. source » So what’s the end date? The end of the document says this clearly: “It shall remain in force until the end of 2024.” (It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time this end date has been bandied about.) Which means, at that rate, the events around the Afghan War will be completely said and done 23 years after it started, though combat troops should be long gone. Hopefully. Follow ShortFormBlog: Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook via shortformblog

Afghan War: What is the Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement?

It’s a document with a pretty intimidating name, that’s for sure. Obama’s trip to Afghanistan early Wednesday local time seemed loaded with mystery — few knew he was there until he was actually there. He was there to sign a document that many watching the news had no idea existed until today. And the document itself is the definition of how a long-standing war will finally end, thirteen years after it started — at least as far as combat troops go. This document, just eight pages, was so important that the White House had to release a fact sheet to explain it to the average joe. What does it mean to you, anyway? Here are three things you should take from the Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement:

» So what’s the end date? The end of the document says this clearly: “It shall remain in force until the end of 2024.” (It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time this end date has been bandied about.) Which means, at that rate, the events around the Afghan War will be completely said and done 23 years after it started, though combat troops should be long gone. Hopefully.

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Reblogged from ShortFormBlog.

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Apr 25th, 2012 @ 12:08 pm

Drones for “Urban Warfare”

Manufacturers are targeting U.S. police forces for sales, as drones move from the Middle East to Main Street

*This is all heading is a scary direction.

In November 2010, a police lieutenant from Parma, Ohio, asked Vanguard Defense Industries if the Texas-based drone manufacturer could mount a “grenade launcher and/or 12-gauge shotgun” on its ShadowHawk drone for U.S. law enforcement agencies. The answer was yes.

Last month, police officers from 10 public safety departments around the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area gathered at an airfield in southern Maryland to view a demonstration of a camera-equipped aerial drone — first developed for military use — that flies at speeds up to 20 knots or hovers for as long as an hour.

And in late March, South Korean police and military flew a Canadian-designed drone as part of “advance security preparations” for the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul where protesters clashed with police.

In short, the business of marketing drones to law enforcement is booming. Now that Congress has ordered the Federal Aviation Administration to open up U.S. airspace to unmanned vehicles, the aerial surveillance technology first developed in the battle space of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan is fueling a burgeoning market in North America. And even though they’re moving from war zones to American markets, the language of combat and conflict remains an important part of their sales pitch — a fact that ought to concern citizens worried about the privacy implications of domestic drones.

“As part of the push to increase uses of civilian drones,” the Wall Street Journal reported last week, nearly 50 companies are developing some 150 different systems, ranging from miniature models to those with wingspans comparable to airliners.” Law enforcement and public safety agencies are a prime target of this industry, which some predict will have $6 billion in U.S. sales by 2016.

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Apr 15th, 2012 @ 10:06 am

A Veteran’s Death, the Nation’s Shame

HERE’S a window into a tragedy within the American military: For every soldier killed on the battlefield this year, about 25 veterans are dying by their own hands.

An American soldier dies every day and a half, on average, in Iraq or Afghanistan. Veterans kill themselves at a rate of one every 80 minutes. More than 6,500 veteran suicides are logged every year — more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since those wars began.

*These are not just terrible statistics; these are people’s lives! Fuck, this is dark.

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Mar 19th, 2012 @ 7:17 pm

And You Wonder Why We’re Broke? Defense Spending Breakdown via ilovecharts

And You Wonder Why We’re Broke?

Defense Spending Breakdown

via ilovecharts

Reblogged from bender honey, we love you.

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Mar 13th, 2012 @ 9:33 am

IRAN WANTS WAR!!!

IRAN WANTS WAR!!!

Reblogged from words of love and despair.

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Mar 2nd, 2012 @ 12:59 pm

This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. The Free Syrian Army has cut a retreat from the strategic city of Homs, after 26 days of siege by Assad’s forces. The Red Cross will be allowed in today to the Baba Amro quarter. Thirteen Syrians died getting injured Sunday Times photographer Paul Conroy out of the country. His colleague, wounded Le Figaro journalist Edith Bouvier, is currently in Beirut and is expected to return home today. Rémi Ochlik and Marie Colvin have reportedly been buried in Syria.  Mother Jones obtained a 718-page Syrian government “hit list” containing thousands of names. The Pentagon revealed part of a deal struck with Guantanamo detainee Majid Khan, whose arraignment was Wednesday, to postpone his sentencing until 2016. Khan, a former Baltimore resident and alleged courier, pleaded guilty to five war crimes. He has promised cooperation and in exchange, his sentencing four years from now will be for no more than 19 years in prison. The deal he has struck requires him to reveal “complete and accurate information in interviews, depositions and testimony wherever and whenever requested by the prosecutors.” Nuclear talks in Pyongyang went surprisingly well, with North Korea engaging in what would appear to be a stark policy shift and agreeing to halt their nuclear program and allow IAEA inspection in exchange for food aid. A review of a new book: Warfare in Independent Africa. A poor, unfortunate man who shares a name with senior Al-Qaeda official Saif Al-Adel was detained at Cairo’s airport. There was a lot (a lot) of discussion about Obama and section 1022 of the NDAA. The White House on Tuesday in Presidential Policy Directive 14, created a set of rules that essentially waive much of that controversial section of the defense legislation involving military custody for terror suspects. Weighing in on this: Lawfare, Forbes, The Atlantic, Lawfare, Huffington Post. In related news, The Washington Post reports this morning that the military commissions system is now a place of relative leniency for detainees facing charges. How much does it cost the US to keep one soldier in Afghanistan for a year? $850,000. The remains of the last American servicemember to be MIA in Iraq, Staff Sgt. Ahmed Kousay al-Taie, have been identified. He was an Army interpreter and was kidnapped at gunpoint in Baghdad in 2006. The Taliban and NATO got into yet another snarky Twitter battle. Things got more heated between Sudan and South Sudan as Khartoum bombed two oil wells deep inside it’s southern counterpart’s territory and is massing troops at the border. The US detention center at Bagram Air Field has had a horrible and embarrassing history: from the beating deaths of two detainees and reports of secret torture chambers to the recent unrest-inducing Quran burnings. An excellent blog post up at SWAN about media narratives on female veterans. Panetta has asked for another review of Madigan Army Medical Center, whose behavioral program is under scrutiny for changing PTSD diagnoses. Photo: 10 Feb, 2012. Afghan border police and Marines board a CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter near Combat Outpost Torbert at the start of Operation Shahem Tohan (Eagle Storm), scouring highways for insurgents and smugglers. Cpl. Reece Lodder/USMC. via thepoliticalnotebook

This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism.

Photo: 10 Feb, 2012. Afghan border police and Marines board a CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter near Combat Outpost Torbert at the start of Operation Shahem Tohan (Eagle Storm), scouring highways for insurgents and smugglers. Cpl. Reece Lodder/USMC.

via thepoliticalnotebook

Reblogged from The Political Notebook.

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Feb 28th, 2012 @ 11:54 pm

Lies & Distortions From the Pentagon’s Afghanistan Press Conference

*Over a decade of war and so few Americans seem to care at all. When will people demand we leave Afghanistan? Or are we on our way to another war in the Middle East? Iran? Syria? 

George Little: …We’re making progress.  We have put the enemy on its heels in many parts of the country.  Doesn’t mean that there isn’t work to be done — there is — but let’s not let the events of the past week steer us away from the reality that we have made significant progress throughout the country.

I won’t run through the catalog of evidence plainly disproving these statements. I’ve done that sufficiently elsewhere. A short excerpt from Michael Hastings’s book The Operators gets the point across:

The United States regularly declares success in Afghanistan, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. A year doesn’t pass without public declarations of progress. In 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says, “It’s not a quagmire.” In 2003, the commanding general in Afghanistan says that U.S. forces should be down to 4,500 soldiers by the end of the following summer. After that summer, General John P. Abizaid says the Taliban “is increasingly ineffective.” In 2005, the Taliban is “collapsing,” says General Dave Barno. In 2007, we are “prevailing against the effects of prolonged war,” declares Major General Robert Durbin. In 2008, General Dan McNeill claims that “my successor will find an insurgency here, but it is not spreading.” That same year, Defese Secretary Robert Gates assures us we have a “very successful counterinsurgency,” and we won’t need a “larger western footprint” in the country.

This month, Lt. Col. Daniel Davis embarrassed the U.S. leadership in Afghanistan when he wrote a report arguing “Our current military leadership is so distorting the information it releases that the deterioration of the situation and the failing nature of our efforts is shielded from the American public (and Congress), and replaced instead with explicit statements that all is going according to plan.” I guess those criticisms didn’t stick.

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Feb 14th, 2012 @ 3:09 pm

“This is a war where traditional military jobs, from mess hall cooks to base guards and convoy drivers, have increasingly been shifted to the private sector. Many American generals and diplomats have private contractors for their personal bodyguards. And along with the risks have come the consequences: More civilian contractors working for American companies than American soldiers died in Afghanistan last year for the first time during the war.”

This morning you should read this story on the growing risks to contract workers in the Afghan war. The consequences to those hired to do work for the military is grave, and often unconsidered and undiscussed. To accompany this read, go look through the investigative work done at ProPublica a little while ago called the “Disposable Army.” (via thepoliticalnotebook)

Reblogged from The Political Notebook.

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Jan 31st, 2012 @ 9:56 am

The Department of Defense can't account for a crapload of Iraq War spending

» Audit time! With the Iraq War’s chapter effectively closed, now’s apparently a good time to look back at all the money we spent there. There’s a problem, however: Of the $3 billion the Iraqi government set aside for…

via shortformblog

(Source: shortformblog)

Reblogged from ShortFormBlog.

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Jan 14th, 2012 @ 5:12 am

Urination at War: Don’t Be Mad at the Peeing; Be Mad at the Killing What a world we live in, a world in which peeing on dead people yields more moral outrage than killing them in the first place. Read more on GOOD→ via good

Urination at War: Don’t Be Mad at the Peeing; Be Mad at the Killing

What a world we live in, a world in which peeing on dead people yields more moral outrage than killing them in the first place.

Read more on GOOD→

via good

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