Another Afghan policeman open fires on NATO troops, kills 2, 3 more dead in bomb attack

[Danke]

i wonder what would happen if a group of people got together and publicly did that here....

Give it a shot, I'll be watching the newz for it.

[flightlesskiwi]

Give it a shot, I'll be watching the newz for it.

how's about i do a test run and burn an effigy of you first, m'kay??

[jmdrake]

Latest Afghan news today:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...81K09T20120223


Drudge headline claims that Afghan burnt effigy of "Black Dog Obama":

Someone is chanting in the background "This is what a Nobel peace laureate American president looks like!"

[jmdrake]

More than likely blow back from Koran desecration.

http://news.yahoo.com/afghans-protes...074108214.html

From the above:

A senior U.S. official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said staff at Bagram had decided to remove "extremist literature" and other materials left in a library in the base's detention block.

"They (the materials) were taken out of the library for good reason but they were being disposed of in a bad way," the official said.
"There was a breakdown in judgment in this matter but there was no breakdown in our respect for Islam," the official added.

So let me get this straight. In order to keep detainees from becoming more radicalized they burn the Koran? I'm guessing that these were books with passages from the Koran instead of the Koran itself. I've heard that some Muslims feel that books containing passages from the Koran themselves should be deemed holy and can't be burned. I guess books like The Satanic Verses create a conundrum in that regard. Anyway, burning books is always stupid. They should have just sent them back to Langley for analysis. One has to wonder if there was something else going on. A desire to provoke a response so we have an excuse to stay longer? Or a desire to provoke a response so that we have to leave? Not sure at this point.

[moderate libertarian]

i wonder what would happen if a group of people got together and publicly did that here....

and they hate us for our freedoms, right?

Similar or worst protests were made against Bush when Americans were being killed daily in Iraq, so I would think it would be also protected under freedom of speech if some Amiricans dcided to burn similar effigy as burnt by Afghan people?

Anyway, burning books is always stupid. They should have just sent them back to Langley for analysis. One has to wonder if there was something else going on. A desire to provoke a response so we have an excuse to stay longer? Or a desire to provoke a response so that we have to leave? Not sure at this point.

Probably the latter, although spineless Obama seems to be being plaued like a guitar by all sides.

We have good experience in creating radicalising books for Afghans, this like leaking video of some marines urinating on dead Afgan bodies could be a calculated move to end Afgahn war by some elements not in agreement with Obama's illogical policies to appease racial groups.

From U.S., the ABC's of Jihad
Violent Soviet-Era Textbooks Complicate Afghan Education Efforts

By Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 23, 2002; Page A01



In the twilight of the Cold War, the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.

The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code.

As Afghan schools reopen today, the United States is back in the business of providing schoolbooks. But now it is wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism. What seemed like a good idea in the context of the Cold War is being criticized by humanitarian workers as a crude tool that steeped a generation in violence.


President Bush and first lady Laura Bush have repeatedly spotlighted the Afghan textbooks in recent weeks. Last Saturday, Bush announced during his weekly radio address that the 10 million U.S.-supplied books being trucked to Afghan schools would teach "respect for human dignity, instead of indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry."

The first lady stood alongside Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai on Jan. 29 to announce that AID would give the University of Nebraska at Omaha $6.5 million to provide textbooks and teacher training kits.

AID officials said in interviews that they left the Islamic materials intact because they feared Afghan educators would reject books lacking a strong dose of Muslim thought. The agency removed its logo and any mention of the U.S. government from the religious texts, AID spokeswoman Kathryn Stratos said.

"It's not AID's policy to support religious instruction," Stratos said. "But we went ahead with this project because the primary purpose . . . is to educate children, which is predominantly a secular activity."

Some legal experts disagreed. A 1991 federal appeals court ruling against AID's former director established that taxpayers' funds may not pay for religious instruction overseas, said Herman Schwartz, a constitutional law expert at American University, who litigated the case for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Ayesha Khan, legal director of the nonprofit Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the White House has "not a legal leg to stand on" in distributing the books.

"Taxpayer dollars cannot be used to supply materials that are religious," she said.

Published in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtu, the textbooks were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to the University of Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies. The agency spent $51 million on the university's education programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994.

During that time of Soviet occupation, regional military leaders in Afghanistan helped the U.S. smuggle books into the country. They demanded that the primers contain anti-Soviet passages. Children were taught to count with illustrations showing tanks, missiles and land mines, agency officials said. They acknowledged that at the time it also suited U.S. interests to stoke hatred of foreign invaders.

"I think we were perfectly happy to see these books trashing the Soviet Union," said Chris Brown, head of book revision for AID's Central Asia Task Force.

AID dropped funding of Afghan programs in 1994. But the textbooks continued to circulate in various versions, even after the Taliban seized power in 1996.

Officials said private humanitarian groups paid for continued reprintings during the Taliban years. Today, the books remain widely available in schools and shops, to the chagrin of international aid workers.

"The pictures [in] the texts are horrendous to school students, but the texts are even much worse," said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, an Afghan educator who is a program coordinator for Cooperation for Peace and Unity, a Pakistan-based nonprofit.

An aid worker in the region reviewed an unrevised 100-page book and counted 43 pages containing violent images or passages.

The military content was included to "stimulate resistance against invasion," explained Yaquib Roshan of Nebraska's Afghanistan center. "Even in January, the books were absolutely the same . . . pictures of bullets and Kalashnikovs and you name it."

During the Taliban era, censors purged human images from the books. One page from the texts of that period shows a resistance fighter with a bandolier and a Kalashnikov slung from his shoulder. The soldier's head is missing.Above the soldier is a verse from the Koran. Below is a Pashtu tribute to the mujaheddin, who are described as obedient to Allah. Such men will sacrifice their wealth and life itself to impose Islamic law on the government, the text says.

"We were quite shocked," said Doug Pritchard, who reviewed the primers in December while visiting Pakistan on behalf of a Canada-based Christian nonprofit group. "The constant image of Afghans being natural warriors is wrong. Warriors are created. If you want a different kind of society, you have to create it."

After the United States launched a military campaign last year, the United Nations' education agency, UNICEF, began preparing to reopen Afghanistan's schools, using new books developed with 70 Afghan educators and 24 private aid groups. In early January, UNICEF began printing new texts for many subjects but arranged to supply copies of the old, unrevised U.S. books for other subjects, including Islamic instruction.

Within days, the Afghan interim government announced that it would use the old AID-produced texts for its core school curriculum. UNICEF's new texts could be used only as supplements.

Earlier this year, the United States tapped into its $296 million aid package for rebuilding Afghanistan to reprint the old books, but decided to purge the violent references.

About 18 of the 200 titles the United States is republishing are primarily Islamic instructional books, which agency officials refer to as "civics" courses. Some books teach how to live according to the Koran, Brown said, and "how to be a good Muslim."

UNICEF is left with 500,000 copies of the old "militarized" books, a $200,000 investment that it has decided to destroy, according to U.N. officials.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer

[flightlesskiwi]

earlier in 2011, it was "military leaders say we will need to stay past 2014"... now it's closer to the general election so Obombya decides to declare "we will be leaving in 2013, 18 months ahead of schedule"...

so, yeah, i can see all this is leading to a "we have to stay!" scenario... for votes, ya know.

WARNING: vomit material found in this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/us...n-pullout.html
WASHINGTON — It did not take long for Mitt Romney to pounce on Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta’s statement Wednesday that American troops could end their combat role in Afghanistan by mid-2013, 18 months sooner than expected. Within hours, Mr. Romney lambasted it as “naïve” and “misguided.”

But President Obama, far from disavowing the Pentagon chief, seems eager to debate his Republican critics about a withdrawal timetable that his advisers contend is strategically sound, and which also happens to be politically popular. The White House said that Mr. Panetta’s remarks reflected the president’s resolve, supported by his experience in Iraq, not to wage a “war without end” in Afghanistan.

[moderate libertarian]

Another such incidence:

February 25, 2012 7:16 AM
2 U.S. officers dead in Afghan shooting

(CBS/AP) KABUL, Afghanistan - Two American military officers were killed inside the heavily-barricaded Interior Ministry in the center of Afghanistan's capital Saturday, CBS News reports.


Mandy Clark, reporting from Kabul, reports the government offices are under lockdown after a U.S. colonel and major were shot dead in the ministry.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-...ghan-shooting/

[flightlesskiwi]

update:

seems the book burning may have been part of the master plan. we're not ready for AFRICOM to explode on the public scene. yet.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States should resist any urge to pull troops out of Afghanistan ahead of schedule in response to the violence against Americans sparked by a burning of the Koran at a U.S. military base, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker said on Sunday.
.....

Crocker, in the CNN interview, said: "This is not the time to decide that we are done here. We have got to redouble our efforts. We've got to create a situation that al Qaeda is not coming back," Crocker said. http://news.yahoo.com/u-shouldnt-spe...004453782.html

earlier in 2011, it was "military leaders say we will need to stay past 2014"... now it's closer to the general election so Obombya decides to declare "we will be leaving in 2013, 18 months ahead of schedule"...

so, yeah, i can see all this is leading to a "we have to stay!" scenario... for votes, ya know.

WARNING: vomit material found in this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/us...n-pullout.html
WASHINGTON — It did not take long for Mitt Romney to pounce on Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta’s statement Wednesday that American troops could end their combat role in Afghanistan by mid-2013, 18 months sooner than expected. Within hours, Mr. Romney lambasted it as “naïve” and “misguided.”

But President Obama, far from disavowing the Pentagon chief, seems eager to debate his Republican critics about a withdrawal timetable that his advisers contend is strategically sound, and which also happens to be politically popular. The White House said that Mr. Panetta’s remarks reflected the president’s resolve, supported by his experience in Iraq, not to wage a “war without end” in Afghanistan.

[Johnny Appleseed]

I think if your gonna leave with your tail between your legs, what day it is doesn't matter

[Butchie]

But wait, I thought I we were "fixing" that country right? Well, just give us another 50yrs and we'll fix um, plus all the other Muslim nations, cuz we know best, after all, we're 16T in debt with record unemployment so other nations should listen to us and our blueprint for greatness.